"When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Interesting quote, isn't it? I heard it during an episode of Criminal Minds last night.

Gemstone thesis defense/presentation is OVER! I wish this meant the project and I could part ways forever, but sadly, this is not the case. At least we have four weeks to run more experiments and come up with meaningful results, instead of 1.5 weeks (and it came down to us getting results for our presentation two hours before we had to give it =O). I'll think about that after Monday.

Oh, yeah, Biochem exam on Monday that I haven't started studying for. AHH. And every time I think about my work, and cracking down and doing it, I feel paralyzed. That's either strange or extreme senioritis. Kind of both. It's like I'm actively incapable of studying, even when I vaguely feel inclined to study and am full of semi-good intentions.

Tuquynh thinks I'm addicted to being addicted to TV shows. I think she might be right. My addictions used to be minor, and restricted to catching reruns on channels like ABC Family, TNT, Spike (Gilmore Girls, Charmed, Law and Order, CSI, CSI:NY), and not necessarily catching up on all the previous episodes in precise order. I still like catching occasional reruns of some shows, like Law and Order: SVU and Law and Order: Criminal Intent (though only with Goren and Eames).

Now, it's escalated somewhat. I caught up on six seasons of NCIS in pretty much the last couple of weeks of spring semester junior year and the first couple weeks of the summer. SIX SEASONS. I started watching it regular season in the fall. I started watching Burn Notice from when the third season began last summer, and caught most of the old episodes through reruns on USA. CBS piloted a new spin-off, NCIS:LA, last fall, which I also follow now, along with 24 (the 8th and last season, FINALLY the last, started this winter), Bones, and White Collar, which ended a couple of weeks ago.

I caught up on 4.5 seasons of Bones this past winter, then started watching regular season every Thursday. White Collar was a new show introduced last fall and is awesome. Matt Bomer is part of the reason. *grin* I haven't actually watched all the old seasons of 24; that's the only show my family also keeps up with, so we watched seasons 1 and 2 at some point a couple of years ago, and my sister and I caught almost all of season 4 on A&E back when it used to play 24 reruns. But there are only so many ways the writers can write 24 hours full of terrorists, nuclear bombs, and moles in CTU/the White House, before they just run out of ideas. No, seriously, thank goodness it's almost over.

What brought this on? Well, Katie convinced me to check out Criminal Minds, and I finally did. It's SO GOOD. It's a different brand of crime procedural that's more psychological in nature(though every time I start watching it, I inevitably hear Brennan scoffing at psychology and Booth insisting it works...). I like most of the characters thus far, but my favorites are probably Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, and Penelope Garcia. Morgan's kinda bad-ass and uber-confident, and probably closest to the big brother figure on the team (also has amazing phone calls with Garcia, and is officially a contributor to The List). Reid is crazy intelligent (3 PhD's by the time he was 24, along with a couple of bachelor's degrees, I think), a bit nerdy, and hilarious. And Garcia is just out there -- she's the team's tech analyst, so almost never in the field, but has so much spunk and personality. Hotchner's cool, but a little too serious, and Gideon and Rossi are brilliant, but still. Also, every time I see Gideon, I can't help hearing him say, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" Elle gets on my nerves, for some reason, though I like Emily well enough. JJ's great, too, but yea, three top favorites.

Um.. this might give off the wrong impression. I don't actually watch television all the time. But I do enjoy it. I think even more so because we weren't allowed to watch TV series growing up, aside from kids shows and the news -- no sitcoms, no procedurals, no soap operas (though I wouldn't have liked those much anyway), etc. Also, watching TV is a great way to avoid studying for exams. I'm basically trying to explain away my addiction... *sheepish grin* Yeahh.

I'm just rambling now to avoid studying, which I really should get back to. I wish summer vacation were here already, except it would mean graduation, too, and I don't know if I'm ready to leave college just yet. On many levels I am, but on many levels... well, that's a topic for another day.