The official wings of beginningtobird!

Here's how this birder's getting around during the autumn migration!

It's an awful lot of car, with bells and whistles all over the place. I'm still amazed by it all; I can press a button and see how much air is in each of my tires! Insanity. I'd never buy a car like this new, because it would cost too much and it would seem like I'd turned into a republican. But as a used car--I got a great deal, I got a warranty, and I got the freedom to go wherever I want whenever I want.

And I bought American, even!

Molting of old ideas

"What the heck is going on?"

Well, a lot of things changed over the weekend. The Corolla fell through (the credit union wouldn't loan me enough to pay what the dealer wanted, because their price was too far over NADA value). So the wings are still in a state of flux. However, I've got a line on some other cars at another dealer near here, so things are still moving in a forwardly direction (sorta).

Saturday and Sunday, I helped my friends Niki and Ian move from their apartment in Bellefonte into their new home in Tyrone, 45 minutes away from work. We were all exhausted, as the August heat has come back in full force. Still--we're moved in, and I have my own room and stuff. I get to hang out with them and their 10-month-old little girl baby, Sidney (aka Beanie), too:We're all riding into town together for work, so for the moment I have a nest to squat in (like a brown-headed cowbird egg), and I can get to work.

However, because the car fell through, and because I was freaked out of my gourd at the thought of having to figure out how to get to class AND how to learn all that crazy shite, I dropped my chem class. It was just too much. Next semester, I'll take the lower-level chemistry 108, in which I'll learn all the crazy shite I would need for Chem 110. Kinda disappointing, but it's also a RELIEF. It would've been too much to deal with this semester.

So I'm still looking at cars, and I'm supposed to go look at my new little nesting site tomorrow (I hope). Then (I hope) I'll move in there this weekend and finally get Niblet, and then set about preening my feathers and tidying my own little nest box.

Breeding, however, is OUT OF THE QUESTION.

A lot going on

As was not-so-subliminally communicated in my last post, life at beginningtobird is in a state a flux right now. Thankfully, I have wonderful friends both here and online who are making the transition a lot easier for me.

My new nesting site will be in the tiny burg of Bellefonte (pronounced Bell-Font, not like Harry Bellafonte). I'm in the process of securing a two-bedroom apartment about three miles from work, which I'm hoping will enable me to bike to work when the weather allows.

I'm also getting some new wheels--a Toyota Corolla (used), which is my favorite kind of car. I drove three of them before Kat and I bought the Saturn; it was wonderful to sit in it and feel like I knew where everything was. It's a luxe edition, with CD player and a zippy manual transmission, power everything. I'll miss having a moon roof like the Saturn did, but that moon roof always did threaten to make me have an accident, as I was constantly trying to check out birds overhead.

I start school on Monday, which is already making me nervous. It's a busy time for me, and school makes it even busier. I had to take a "pre-quiz" this morning to determine my fitness for this course (which is just the basic Chem 101, or so I thought!), and I scored a miserable 6 out of 20! Oh dear. Obviously, my days of non-stop studying are far from over, but at least it's not another math class! Still, here are some of the skills I'm expected to have already:
--Solve “word problems,” i.e., translate words into algebraic expressions
--Relate functions and graphs (rectangular coordinates)
--Manipulate logarithmic expressions and solve equations involving logarithms
--Manipulate algebraic fractions
--Manipulate algebraic expressions involving exponents and radicals
--Understand and use exponential notation
--Do numerical calculations involving these concepts with a calculator
--Understand and manipulate standard units of physics and chemistry, including unit conversions and dimensional analysis

Uh... I think I have the dumb again....

So it's going to be a long semester. However, fall migrants are already starting to fly through Pennsylvania, and I'm hoping to get around a little easier to see as many as I can. Just last night, Gretchen and I saw a flock of fifteen Canadas heading to the north. A bit early, isn't it? But maybe they're ... wait for it ... EARLY BIRDS!

Wow. Tough crowd.