Wow. I was very productive today. AND I even got up before Sheila this morning :) I beat her by about 20 minutes and was already eating my cereal by the time she came out of her room at 9. Hehe.

So, I stayed at Angell Hall for 8 hours today working on and FINISHING my formal lab report that's due on Monday, which is a pretty big accomplishment, if I do say so myself. However, even though I woke up at 9, I didn't get started until a little after noon because of a pretty embarassing health emergency I had this morning. Basically, I'm addicted to cleaning out my ears with Q-tips - I know, I know...you're not supposed to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear - it's just that I clean my ears out with soap and water every day in the shower and then have to stick Q-tips in my ears to dry them out. Not to mention I like the weird little tickle you get when cleaning out your ear canal deeply, which I know is very dangerous and another no-no. BUT, anyone else who is an ear-cleaner will tell you that once you start doing it, you can NOT stop. I've been cleaning out my ears for years now and have never considered quitting. Anyway, this morning after my shower, I stuck the Q-tip in, twirled it around a little and pulled it out, but not without noticing that a significant amount of the cotton was gone. I mean anywhere between 65 and 80% of the Q-tip had vanished. Of course I panicked and spent about 5 minutes trying to see inside my own ear in the mirror (impossible, by the way). Okay...I'll be the first to admit that I was using cheap Q-tips that I got at the dollar store, which is also a no-no, but I've never had a problem with them! Anyways, I searched the ground for the missing cotton and finally decided it had to be in my ear canal - and I mean DEEP within my ear canal. Neither of my roommates were home, so I called Josh to come over and look in my ear with a flash light. He took his sweet time coming over; meanwhile, I'm imagining a dozen painful scenarios including rupturing my eardrum and/or a painful cotton-extraction ear canal surgery (I made that one up to scare myself). So...Josh finally looks in my ear, doesn't see anything, then wants to poke a pair of tweezers around. Absolutely not. Anyway, after much whining, deliberation, and calling my mom, I decided to go to UHS and let them have a look-see. By this point, I'd convinced myself that I could indeed feel increased pressure on the right side of my head. Of course this is all to my pure embarassment and I knew I'd get lectures from both the check-in person and the nurse at UHS. Anyhow, I told the woman at the front desk that I had "reason to believe there was the greater portion of a Q-tip in my ear canal", she sent me directly to the nurse's station (not without a lecture first). The nurse then preceded to look in to my ear, told me there was nothing there, reprimanded me as well, and made it very clear by the tone of her voice that I had wasted her time. I guess in itself, it wasn't thaaaat bad, but what makes the entire situation worse is that the same, exact thing happened to my sister 3 years ago! Even though her situation was worse because she actually HAD the cotton in her ear and had to have it extracted at the ER and missed a flight out of town because of it, Josh was shocked and dismayed that this could happen TWICE in one family. Oops. Hehe.

Anyhow, besides that drama this morning, I got a lot of work done this afternoon. After that, Josh and I stopped by the U of M Astrological Society's Observatory Open House on the top of Angell Hall. Unfortunately, it was really cloudy tonight so they didn't open up the observatory, but we got to go up on the roof and see the telescope and hear a little about the sky-mapping computer software they use to direct it into the night sky. *sigh* More than anything I want to be an astronaut. Hopefully the sky will clear up soon so we can go and actually see the stars and planets (and nebulae, too!). Luckily, they have this open house every few weeks, so I'll drop a note before the next time so you all can join me :) Right now, I'm going to go watch the rest of the Piston's game vs. New Orleans and then do some reading. Tomorrow is the Michigan Caucus, in which I'll be voting, so I'm excited. :D Have a good night!