Back to School

It is 11:55, Monday night and tomorrow morning I am going back to school. For anyone who didn't hear my screams of excitement, I did get into the design program. I keep meaning to take pictures of the pieces I used, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I will soon, I promise! The problem is the light is crap in my house, so I have to take them elsewhere for the shoot or they turn out all pixelated. But, just so you know, I did some work on the hand one and the leafy still life and used those for the drawing choices. I also made some changes to the collage and used it, but I did not use the black with white spots. I got to looking through my grade sheets and realized that I had a black and white piece that was better, so I did a little work on it and used it. I'll show you next time.

Sadly, I didn't respond to the email telling me that I had gotten in quickly enough, so I got stuck in the 8 am class! This sucks partly because I am not a morning person, and they are going to expect me to be awake for a class called "Design Thinking" at time of day when I generally don't do any thinking. It also sucks because my son doesn't have to be at school until 8:15 and there is no bus service to our house. So my dad, who is also not a morning person will have to take him to school three days a week. Which he will probably lord over my head anytime he wants me to do anything. lol.

Since I am now a comm design major AND an English major, I am taking two art classes and two English classes. I think my brain will probably explode.

Also, Ethan had a cold last week, which he generously shared with me, so I get to start school with an annoying head cold. Thankfully his didn't last too long.

Avoidance and procrastination

You'd think that I would have learned by now. I mean, I am a full-on grown up. Meaning in age of course, not lifestyle, heaven forbid. :) So I am up to my old habits. They got me through high school, so apparently I've decided to stick with them. I'm referring to my study habits.

You see, I fully believe in putting off till tomorrow what I should be doing today. As a result of this, I am sitting here at 12:46 in the morning, blogging about how I'm probably going to fail my anthropology lab final tomorrow. I knew it was coming for half the semester. I went to a review on Friday. Then...I waited until almost 9 tonight to start studying. And this is some hard crap, too, not stuff you can fit in your head at the last minute. I have to learn all the primate taxonomy and the evolutionary steps of primates from the Miocene down to yours truly. I also have to be able to identify and justify my ID of skulls of various evolutionary stepping stones. Yeah. I am so screwed. This stuff is hard. *pout* And boring. And the book doesn't explain it very well. *pout pout* I hates it.

But, in other news, my mom's kidney doctor told her that if she didn't start eating a diabetes friendly diet she would be on dialysis within 2 years. So, she's quit sugar cold turkey, and man is she going through some major detox. Yesterday she had a massive headache that she couldn't get rid of. But, I for one am glad, because dad has vowed to support her in this and has stopped bringing home goodies every other day. Seriously, he would make special trips to the store every two days for cookies or donuts. So now maybe Ethan and I can benefit from the ebb of the sugar tide. I have noticed our families' orange consumption has increased dramatically. :D

I wonder if I should keep studying or call it a lost cause?

Jury-time

In order to get into the communication design program, I have to be accepted by a jury one month from now. What this means is I have to jump through their hoops or drop out of school and turn to prostitution for my career. They only do the jury once a year, so if I don't get in I have to wait another year or change my major. According to my professor, about 200 people will be applying and about 40-60 will get in. Yikes! So I want some help picking my pictures. I can only submit two design oriented pictures and two drawing oriented pictures. Below I will tell you the requirements and present you with my options.

Design:

2 examples of 2-D design that demonstrates the following compositional skills: (one must be in black and white or grey scale, the other must be in color.)

a. Submit work that demonstrates your understanding of figure/ground;

b. Submit work that demonstrates your understanding of the principles of visual gestalt (repetition, similarity, proximity, closure, and continuity);

c. Submit work that demonstrates your understanding of asymmetrical compositional structure (this must be demonstrated in at least one of the two pieces);

d. Submit work that demonstrates a knowledge of color manipulation as it applies to a pattern-effectively apply two or more of the following formal attributes of color:
1. value (how light or dark a specific area of color or gray appears);
2. amount (the areas within a given compositional space occupied by a specific color);
3. saturation (how pure or grayed-down a specific area of color appears);
4. complementary contrast (the relationship between colors opposite each other on the color wheel).


For the black and white one, I'm choosing a piece that the head of the design department was ga-ga over. She even showed it to the class in lecture and asked me questions about it. I know, right!
Obviously, this one will cover the need for an asymmetrical design as well.

In my class, we really didn't do many color pieces, and several of them were 3-D, so I can't use them. I figure my only choice is this one:

It's a collage, and it's not really my favorite piece of all time, but it's color, so what can ya do? My teacher didn't like the tile pieces at the bottom, so I'm going to pull them off and replace them with broken brown root beer bottles. It's either that or make something new. So yeah. Drawing is where I'm having the hard time, so here we go.

Drawing

2 examples of drawing that demonstrate skills chosen from the following list: (these pieces must not be renderings based on photography, nor can they be products of your imagination--they must be depictions of real-life situations)

a. Submit work that demonstrates your understanding and ability to render perspective: one-point perspective, atmospheric perspective, or two-point perspective are all acceptable.

b. Submit work that demonstrates your understanding of value through your rendering of still-life.

c. Submit work that demonstrates your abilities to render the human figure--nude figures are preferred as subject matter but not required.

So, I think that for the figure drawing one I'll use this picture of my mom's hand:

I'm not sure if they consider this figure drawing, but the hand IS the hardest part of the body to draw, so it should count, right?

Another option is this one for value:

OR, if we can count a drapery as a still life, I could use this one:

Is a drapery a still life? I just don't know!

And I could use this one for atmospheric perspective:

For that last one, I feel like I need to sharpen up the lines, cause I think they got smudged in storage. It's more confusing on the computer than in real life. And, I got a 98 on this one, so apparently it's pretty dang good, so I think I might go with this one and the hand one. What's your opinion?

Dilemmons

(I was making a pun about dilemmas combined with lemons in case you didn't get it.)

This week I was thrown a major curve in my educational expectations. I was expecting to get into the Comm Design program and then take the classes as fast as I can to graduate in 2012. Then my comm design professor was talking about registration and told us that we can only take the classes in the order they allow us to take them. Meaning next semester I can only take one comm design class, the semester after that I can only take two, etc, etc. There are several problems with this. I have already taken all of my core classes and am nearing the hours cap at which you lose financial aid. So my choices seemed to be either take one or two classes a semester and not get financial aid anyway, change to an interdisciplinary degree which would let me graduate sooner but not teach me the things I want to learn, or switch to a double major and the hour cap requirements magically disappear.

So I went to talk to the technical writing advisor about getting a degree in technical writing. I found out that they only have a minor in technical writing which doesn't get rid of the hour cap. They have applied for a degree in technical writing, but it won't be in place until 2012 which doesn't help me at all. So I had to make an appointment with the English advisor.

I went to see the English advisor and told her my problem. She told me what classes I would need to be an English major specializing in technical writing, and it seems alright. I'll have to take 24 hours of English classes, which I don't think is that bad, considering that some of them I've already taken. The problem is that the core requirements for an English major are more rigorous than for an art major, and I'll need to take 6 hours of an intermediate foreign language.

I have taken 6 hours of beginning Japanese, and 3 hours of beginning Spanish. The problem is I took them over a decade ago. Now I love Japanese, but I have known Japanese people who were forgetting it because it's such a freaking hard language. There is no way I remember enough to jump into intermediate Japanese. The problem with Spanish is...I hate Spanish. I don't know why. I know that it's super useful in this area and it would be a really good idea to know it, but I took it in junior high and I took it in college and my mind rebels because I simply don't give a crap.

So it seems like my choices are: 1) Tell my brain to suck it up and take Spanish. 2) Try to get some at home remembering on my Japanese skills and jump into the deep end. 3) Start over with beginning Japanese and just retake those two classes. 4) Say screw it, if I'm gonna have to take two beginning classes, I might as well learn a new one. I've always wanted to learn French, so maybe I could learn to be a cheese eating surrender monkey.

*sigh* I keep vacillating. See, now that I'm an English major I have to remember to use big words. :) What to do, what to do.

*cough cough cough*

That's the noise that has been pervading my house for almost two months, now. About 7 or 8 weeks ago, Ethan got a really really bad cough. His fever never went over 100, and it was very short lived, but he was waking up in the middle of the night coughing so hard that he wouldn't be able to breath, and sometimes threw up. He gave himself a really bad nose bleed a few times, too. So I took him to the doctor and she gave him an inhaler, which I still say was bollocks. (I've been watching British TV again.) Needless to say, he really didn't get any better, but I figured it was allergies. About a week after, I started. I never threw up or got a nose bleed, but I did feel sick to my stomach and got really achy and had a really hard time getting air after I coughed. A few days later, Josh set in, then Mom and Dad. We all fell like dominoes.

Time passed, an we didn't get any better. Dad got so bad that his doctor thought he had pneumonia and did an x-ray. (I know that it's supposed to be A x-ray, but it doesn't sound right!) He did not have pneumonia, but the doctor gave him antibiotics and sent home samples for me. The antibiotics helped me to not feel like dying, but not by much. I still was coughing up a lung every time I moved, talked, laughed, or took a breath, except now I was in school doing it. I skipped nursery once when I was at the peak, but I couldn't miss school, so I sucked Fisherman's Friends cough drops, which have so much menthol that they might have stripped my nasal passages but were the only thing that helped. I also stayed dosed on rotating over the counter drugs which did little, but made it so I could stay awake for the most part. Assuming that all this was horrible, horrible allergies since it just wasn't going away, we all went on with our lives and tried to make the best of it.

So one day this week, mom was at one of her doctor's (she has so many I can't possibly be expected to keep track), and he said it sounds like she has Pertussis, better known as whooping cough. She went home and looked it up, and sure enough, it sounds like that's EXACTLY what we all have! Whooping cough! Who woulda thought?!? You see, whooping cough last 6+weeks, plus some time before the symptoms actually start which is when you are contagious. Sadly, that's the only time treatment works. Isn't that lame? You have to take a really strong antibiotic, like Z-Pac, before you even know you have it or you are completely screwed. Also, that's the only time they can do tests to prove it's whooping cough. After that, you just have to make an educated guess. So, after the few weeks of being contagious, and 6+ weeks of actively feeling like you might lose a lung at any moment, you have several more weeks of convalescence, where you aren't coughing quite so bad, but you still have something of a cough. That's where Ethan, Josh and I are right now. Dad might be too, and mom might have just barely finally broken the barrier. It seems the name doesn't come from the sound of the cough like I thought, but rather the voracious sucking sound you make after you cough cause it's hard to get air back into your lungs. Weird, huh?

So, Margie, whooping cough? Really? Isn't that wiped out like polio? Didn't you get vaccinated, they seemed to say. That's exactly what my reaction was! Here's the dealio, the Pertussis vaccine isn't one of those that you get and you're set for life like the Polio vaccine, it's one that you have to keep getting, like the tetanus vaccine. And they really only give it to babies cause they invariably die if they get whooping cough, which is generally considered a bad outcome. So. Who knew?!?

In other news, my life has pretty much returned to normal on the romance front. No more singing Lotharios, no more guys wanting to get to know me, and my lab teacher used the 'my girlfriend' phrase. :( Today in class when he was talking I was mentally going, "How YOU doing?" And then I realized it was because he was wearing a sweater. Any men that might read this in hopes of winning me, just put on a sweater. It works every time for some reason. I guess it's good that I don't live someplace cold, I'd probably be a major slut. My classmates are still friendly, though, so that's something. Today when I was talking to a guy in my technical writing class, I laughed so hard I snorted, and he was like, "did you just snort?" I said, "Yeah, I do that, it's embarrassing." He said, "I think it's cute!" He later also used the girlfriend word, so don't get excited or anything. Strangely, they only people that I don't seem to hit it off with are the people in my art classes. It might be because, in my experience, artist are assholes. And the ones in my intro to comm design class all seem so young and ego centric, I just find them terribly annoying. Hopefully that won't be a problem as time goes on.

Well, I have tons of homework, so I better blow this Popsicle stand. Laters!

Alternate Dimension, maybe?

Something very weird is going on in my life. All of the sudden people like me. I have no idea what's going on and I'm not sure that I like it. In all my classes, people have been striking up conversations with me left and right. I've been thinking that it might be my new haircut, which I don't have a picture of, but I'll take one and post it asap. It's curlier and every single person that I've known for more than a few weeks has commented on how much they like it.

Also, as far as men are concerned, I am on fire. I have truly not been thinking about dating because I've figured that that men don't like me when I'm fat, so why bother. So I've been concentrating on school and figured that my love life would work it's way out somewhere down the line. Then I started school, and developed a tiny crush on my anthropology lab instructor. He's shorter than me by about an inch, and he's pretty heavy, and he only wears shorts, button up shirts and flip flops as far as I can tell (he actually said in class he doesn't own any pants!), but he's kinda cute and very funny. Plus since he's an anthropology grad student, he's smart. And he has cute dimples. So the other day in class, I was working in a group (yeah, some more of those people that have taken to me, inexplicably) and I told this story: I said, "I was watching Bones the other day, and they said the girl had a cut below her mental foramens, and I was like, I know where that is!" Cause that's the stuff we learned in the first lab. Now I was just telling my group, but I noticed that the instructor, who was all the way across the room was looking at me and started laughing. Then, when I went for him to check my work, after he signed off, he kinda looked at me out of the side of his eyes, smiled a cute little smile and said, "Don't believe ANYTHING you hear on bones." I said, "Oh, I don't!" And we both laughed. It seemed very flirty to me. So all day I was mulling that over, and at the end of the day when I was walking to my car, a guy with ear buds in his ears came up next to me, tapped on the arm, and when I looked at him, he started singing about how he wanted my body! I actually laughed out loud I was so surprised. He went on for several verses, looking right at me and doing little hand motions that matched the words. Eventually of course, we went our separate ways, but I was smiling ear to ear all the way home!

Now, I would say I was just having a good day that day or something, but there's more. Back in July, I was bored and saw a commercial for eHarmony saying that you could try it for free for the week and I signed up. Half way through signing up, I got annoyed with myself cause I really don't care to meet anyone on eHarmony, but I had already started, so ya know. Also, online dating stuff makes me into a crazy person. But, I figured, might as well leave it for the free week. By the next day, a guy was wanting to communicate with me, but I had to subscribe to do that, so I figured I would subscribe for the shortest commitment and then cancel before the renewal. That guy mentioned 5 times in his profile how important a woman's physical appearance is, so I said hasta, dude. After I uploaded my photo, nobody wanted to communicate with me, so I've been pretty much ignoring the matches they sent me. Then out of the blue, yesterday and today I got emails that TWO guys wanted to get to know me! I was astonished! *sigh* Now I'll get all excited about guys liking me and they'll stop again. That's always the way it works. :)

Unbelievable

All the anguish was for nothing, NOTHING, I tell you! I went to the church with Ethan, and it turns out that I was LITERALLY the only parent there. Not only that, but most of the kids were in jeans and some even wore shorts. So I was in there for opening exercises feeling very out of place, not to mention the splitting migraine I had which my drugs weren't working on yet, and I decided that after opening exercises I would split and go to the foyer and read my book. Then, they counted off for groups to go to the different activities in different rooms, and they put me and Ethan into different groups. Okay, how retarded is that? Parents, come with your kids so that you can do activities with other people's kids. I don't think so. I beat it, post haste. In conclusion, youth activities a dumb. :)

Standards

I am most grievous troubled by a dilemma that has been placed before me. Sunday the scout master and assistant scout master came up and told me that this Wednesday is Standard's night and parents are invited to attend. For anyone who doesn't know what that means who might happen across my blog, once a year for the Wednesday night youth activity, they get to listen to talks all night about standards and how to uphold them. I had to sit through this once a year every year from the age of 12 to the age of 18. Now that my son is 13 (cause I didn't hear about the one when he was 12), they want me to come sit through this snooze fest again, only now that I'm the parent, I'm supposed to act all enthusiastic and supportive to be a good example to my son. I seriously do not want to go. Add to the boring factor the fact that I work from 9-3:45 on Wednesday, then have class till 5:30 and get home basically in time to fix dinner, scarf dinner, change clothes and get up there, and this is not high on my list of fun things to do. (Now I know that since neither one of my parents work and they are at home all day doing nothing except reading, watching TV, or playing video games, it would seem like they could make dinner. In my experience, this seldom happens. Mostly because they stay up all night then don't get up till 12-3 pm. They then eat, and don't get hungry again until around 8 or 9.)

So here's the big dilemma: They aren't requiring church dress for this, just no shorts. Ethan only has church clothes and shorts. Seriously, he has no pants other than his suit pants. I can't afford to run out and buy him clothes. Mom suggested he wear his church pants and a polo shirt. Which is another thing he doesn't have. Now if it were me and Ethan living by ourselves, I would just skip the whole thing and be done with it, but I know my parents are going to give me crap if I do. Like, I'm supposed to "teach Ethan what's important" and crap like that. *sigh* I dunno.

Cinnamon day!

Lately my friend has been posting about yummy food everyday as she quests to avoid eating chocolate, which has been hilarious, but has also been giving me the munchies real bad. Add to that the fact that I'm re-reading the book Sunshine by Robin McKinley, in which the heroine is a baker whose speciality is "cinnamon rolls the size of your head" and I've been getting a serious jones on. So, after passing by multiple stores and knowing that their cinnamon rolls would be inferior to anything I'm imagining, I went in search of a recipe worthy of me actually heating up the oven. (We don't have central air, and our kitchen doesn't have a window unit, so it can get pretty warm in there.)



My search sent me here. I picked the recipe that won the Iowa State Fair, cause I bet in Iowa they know cinnamon rolls. I mean, what else is there to do there but bake? Just kidding, I figured if it won a contest, it must be good. I was a bit thrown off because it called for mashed potatoes and mashed potato water, but whatev. When all was said and done, they were FAN-FREAKIN-Tastic. My dad, who doesn't really care for sweets all that much, had five. Seriously. I had three, and I only stopped for fear of the integrity of my stomach if I stuffed any more in. So this is how the remaining pan looks:

Josh has requested Asian Meat Buns for dinner tomorrow, so we'll be having this. Wish me luck!

Some people annoy me

Ok, many, MANY people annoy me, but in this case I am specifically referring to authors. And more specifically than that, I am referring to authors that leave a story wide open and then refuse to write a sequel. I think when you choose to entertain the public, you have responsibilty and it's just wrong to shirk. There are 4 cases that really flip my pancakes.

Number 4 is Jean M. Auel of Clan of the Cave Bear fame. She starts the series with a girl that is born homo erectus, but whose parents die tragically in an earthquake when she is a toddler. She is found and raised by the shamen and the medicine woman of a neanderthal tribe, where her life is hellish and she can't live to her full potential. Eventually she is forced to leave. In the next book, she goes to a nearby valley where she tames a horse and makes a lovely life alone until one day she rescues an injured and handsome homo erectus hottie. Throughout the course of the next gazillion or so books, she and he make their was across the continent to join his family. At the end of one of the books, they see his family in the distance! Hooray! The next book didn't come out for over TEN FRICKIN YEARS. But eventually it did. Some of us read the book, glad that the story would finally be wrapped up before the aging Auel kicked it. I eagerly plodded through the book, (because I don't enjoy these books nearly as well as I did when I was a teenager, and a book that's 2 inches thick is quite a bit of plodding when you're not having fun.) And then, after all the anticipation...the book ends. No really, it just ends, right in the middle of the story. No effort at wrap up of any kind. It's like she was writing a 4 inch book and the publisher were like, just give us the first two inches dammit, we'll publish the rest when you finish! That book came out in paperback in 2004. The next book is supposed to be released in the spring of next year. And if it's not the end of the damn series, I'm gonna write the ending myself.

Number 3: Witch and Wombat by Carolyn Cushman. Ok, this book isn't a magnificent feat of literature. But still, it's clearly supposed to be the beginning of a series. But Ms Cushman only wrote one book. Ever. In 1994. WTF? Surely it wasn't that bad! Did she get hit by a bus? Did she lose her typewriter? Nobody knows, because despite internet searches, I can find no information on dear Carolyn, other than the fact that she was a sci fi/fantasy book critic for a magazine. Maybe she decided that she should just write one book to show she could do it, I dunno.

Number 2: Robert Asprin. The Myth Series and the Phule Series are great punny fun. With interesting plots and light hearted goodness. Until...they aren't anymore. The dear sweet kid hero in the Myth Series turns into an alcoholic and becomes abusive to his friends. Phule turns from a light hearted but surprisingly adept and intelligent leader into an idiot who only scrapes by because his butler bails him out. Turns out that Mr Asprin hates writing. Like, seriously HATES it. It's like doing homework while getting a root canal as far as he's concerned. As soon as he got enough popularity and money, presumably, his books started being ghost written or "co-written," which seems to be code for "he gave someone permission to write it." And the people who are writing his books now really REALLY didn't get it. At all.

And Numero Uno, drum roll, please: Robin McKinley. As far as anyone I've ever talked to is concerned, some of her books are left wide open for a sequel. Sunshine being the most obvious example. Sunshine was written in 2003, and is really really not finished, but according to Madame McKinley's blog, she DOES NOT write sequels! And she likes the ending just fine, thank you very much. Hmph. She says if she ever is gifted with a sequel story springing from her head, so be it, but don't hold your breath. grumble grumble.

Of course, this list wouldn't be complete without The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and several other books by Heinlein, but he's dead, so I'm not really expecting much there.

And I would be derilict in my duties if I didn't mention some people who can't stop writing but really should: Orson Scott Card after writing Ender's Game, Frank Herbert after Dune, and of course, Terry Goodkind and Eric Van Lustbader before they even started.

And the cat came back...

Today has been a big day at our house. This morning, my dad had knee replacement, which went very well. He should be the in the hospital for two days and then he'll be transferred to rehab for who knows how long.

I know it seems like a change of subject, but my cat's been missing for over a week. We walked around the neighborhood, the yard, I called the pound, and I put up signs.

Have you seen me?

I had pretty much given up hope, but today when I went home to pick up Ethan and take him to his piano lesson, I heard a loud meowing coming from our shed. Yep, apparently he got locked in there last weekend when Dad mowed the lawn. He's fine, although all the extra flab he had packed on is gone. He is rather verbal if I'm not in his immediate eye line, and is currently resting on his rightful place between me and my computer, purring like a motorboat. I seriously can't believe he survived, cause it gets really stinking hot in there.

So, despite the fact that I'm having allergies from hell, I'm a happy camper.

Birthday Blog

The time has come for my annual birthday wish list. Yay me!

XBox 360, or money towards one
Buffy Season 7
Xena Season 3 (I can't remember if I have 2, so I'll say 3 for now)
Uh...I can't think of anything else. So, there you go!

Travel Time

I'm am writing this post from beautiful Texarcana, Texas! Dad, Ethan, and myself have traveled to North-East Texas because my Great-Aunt is not long for this world. About a month ago, she had a stroke, so we figured we should come visit her soon. Then, last night we got a call that she had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and they expected her to live 2 months without treatments, and 4 months with. Of course, they strongly recommended the no treatment route. So we started making plans to come up here this weekend. This morning we got a call that her kidneys had shut down. I immediately went home from work, we packed, and here we are, probably until Sunday. Her children have already signed the no heroic measures paperwork, which was an uncomfortable conversation that took place while I was standing there. To me, that's a no brainer. But one of her daughters had a 10-year-old that she made that decision for when he was dying of leukemia, and she basically freaked out and kept saying, "I CAN'T MAKE THAT DECISION AGAIN!" I wish that I had been in the waiting room for that portion. So, Memaw (which is what we call her) is wired up to all these tubes and wires and stuff and when I was in there, I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or just making random noise. It's sad, but I always have a hard time being very sad when an elderly person dies of illness or other natural causes.

So, that all explains why I'm here in Texarcana where everyone sounds like an extra from the set of King of the Hill (my relations included) and already ready to kill Ethan in a most horrifyingly graphic manner. :) At least I have the interweb!

just fyi

So I know the only person that reads my blog already knows this, but just for historical accuracy I have to tell you that a little over a week ago, my boyfriend of fours years dumped me. There, I'm glad we got that out of the way. So that said, I've obviously been doing some soul searching lately, and I had an interesting realization this morning. There's back story here.

When I was 14, they redivided the wards, and I was sent to Denton 2nd ward. In my Sunday school class, there were 4 people. One was Mike, who was my best friend for many years. As of now, he is 36, spent some time inactive from the church but is back now, and is unmarried with no prospects. Next we have Becky (who also happens to be my son's aunt). She is 35, spent some time inactive but now is back, and is unmarried with no prospects. Next I'll list myself, I am...you guessed it; 35, spent some time inactive but now am back, and am unmarried with no prospects. Lastly, we have other Mike. He hated us and we hated him and we all sat as far away from him as possible and argued with him at every turn. He served a mission, got married and has kids.

I'm really not sure what to make of this. Mike, Becky and I were the bane of Sunday school. We regularly went through 3 teachers a year and would walk out en masse if the teacher was not someone we liked. Other Mike's mom got called once, and boy did that fly like a lead duck. Finally, Brother Porter got called, and he knew just how to deal with us. We were sick of the pat lessons that we got every year and wanted answers to deep theological questions that people always blew off, so the first Sunday when Brother Porter pulled out the manual, we raised a ruckus and told him how we felt about the manual. He asked us what we wanted to know, so we fired questions at him while he made a list. Every Sunday after that, he would answer one of our questions and incorporate the lesson from the manual, or vice versa. He was excellent, and we spent far less time at Whataburger during Sunday School as a result.

My question is, what's the link? Are we all like we are because of when we were born? Did we just happen to be people who were a lot alike that ended up together? Or did we mold each other into what we are now? We've each gone different ways in life, and we're not still friends, although I could reach either Mike or Becky if I wanted to. Just something I was thinking about, so there you go.

procrastinator me

Yeah, so I have a huge project due on Monday that I've barely made a dent in. And another huge project due on Tuesday that I've barely made a dent in. And another huge project due on Tuesday that I haven't started yet. I'm sitting here updating my blog instead. I am dumb. But dammit, I don't wanna draw a dragonfly! We had to do studies of dead things and then do a large project based on the studies that we drew. But, believe it or not, dead things give me the major willies. I was sick to my stomach the entire time we were in that room of dead things. I also can't touch dead things with my bare hands, which makes it hard to move said dead things to a position to draw them. So I decided to draw dragonflies because dead bugs look and feel just like live bugs and bugs don't creep me out at all. So drew a billion dragonflies (and a luna moth and a giant cicada when I got bored) and now it's time for me to do the big project, which is due Monday. Man, am I so not into it. Seriously. I've drawn one wing. Just three more, the body and the background left! Woohoo! For Design I've got to finish a large collage, which I'd much rather be working on but since it's due Tuesday I feel obligated to do the dragonfly first...you see my conundrum. I also need to do a project for art appreciation where I pretend to be the curator of a museum, pick 4 works that we've learned about in class, write a 500 word description which would go on the wall, 100 word description that would go by each piece and draw up a floor plan as to how I would do the layout. I have no interest in museum curation, so I don't want to do the project. Museum layouts just happen, I shouldn't have to think about it! Oh yeah, I also have to get together my process notebook for Tuesday. *sigh* And I'm having allergies. Oh well. :) I got a haircut, so at least my neck isn't hot anymore!

Message from the terminally busy

Oh man. My life is craziness. All week I have classes and work and homework and all weekend I have church and scheduled activities and homework. It's enough to make a girl go crazy. Normally at this time I would be asleep in my car, but instead I am at the Union eating sushi and having my eardrums bursted by the extremely talented but loud one o'clock lab band. And they started at 12:20. I think that's weird. So here's the dealio: I never ever get enough sleep at night. I usually end up going to bed around 12ish and then spend an hour trying to fall asleep over the noise my parents are making. They are night owls and now that dad's retired, they have no reason to keep a regular schedule, so they usually go to sleep around 2:30 or 3 in the morning. And people wonder why I'm not a morning person. I have to get up at 6:30 cause that's when Ethan likes to get up. I wake him up then go back to bed for about an hour (or more, which is why Ethan's usually late for school.) I drop him off at school at 8:15, more of less, and I head to my school. I start work at 9 every morning, and then I go to class. If it's Monday or Wednesday I have classes from 10:30-2, then I eat lunch and return to work until 6. On Tuesday and Thursday, though, I have an hour and a half between my classes, so I grab a sandwich or sumtin, head to my car, eat and then nap till my 2 o'clock class. Whee! Today is different because Ethan in sick. I checked his temp and went back to bed intending to get up in time to go to work, but I decided that wasn't happening and emailed work to say I was skipping, so I got to sleep in until 10:00!! So I decided to use my lunch 1 1/2 to study for my Art Appreciation quiz. Which you can see I'm right on top of. I still have an hour and 15 minutes, get off my back!

This weekend is going to be INSANE. There's a single adult conference which Lawrence is in on the planning of, so I feel like I should attend. Unfortunately, I also have 50+ drawings due Monday, of which I don't think I should say how much I have done. Like 5. Yeah. I also have to revisit some of my other artwork and correct or redo them so I can turn them in for a better grade. Yay! Kill me please. Last night I was up till 12:30 getting my design homework done. I tell you, if they are seeking to improve the quality of work by sheer quantity, it's gonna work. Sadly, I seem to be getting mostly B's, which I am not used to getting in art classes. It's starting to piss me off. I've been sneaking looks at other people's grade sheets, and it seems like my grades are actually pretty good, but still. At least I don't have to take any more math classes!

Why do people like Jazz? I just don't get it. Sorry, one o'clock lab band again.

At least my history midterm is AFTER spring break so I can use that time to catch up on the readings. I appreciate my history teacher cause she doesn't give homework. Unfortunately, we're having two required tests and one optional test, each having 1-2 essays. That doesn't leave much room for mistakes, grade wise. But I like her lecture style and she's all about the why of history rather than memorizing dates, so I think I'll be fine.

Ouch. I just adjusted in my seat and hit the giant bruise on my butt. :) I slipped on our ramp the other day and landed right on the edge and flipped off. It was frosty at the bottom. I'll be fine. I think. :)

There's going to be a PostSecret book signing at UNT in April and Lawrence, his sister, and I are going. It's free for me, but they each cost $20! Yikes. I hope it's not super crowded.

Uh...I guess I should study now. *sigh* I'll try to update more often, but my desktop for some reason won't let me sign in to blogger. *shrug* I think the security settings are set too high. Lawrence is sick and tired of cleaning killer viruses off our machines because Ethan plays all these little flash games that aren't safe. I think I might have accidentally gotten a virus on my work machine through the free tv website that Kiera sent me to. Shh! Don't tell them it was my fault!

Math is lame

I am currently sitting in my math class not paying attention as you can clearly see. My teacher is completely useless, so I pretty much ignore him and then get Josh to explain it all to me. I am glad I came to class today, though, cause I didn't realize there's a test on Thursday, so I woulda gotten a nasty surprise if I hadn't been here! The other bonus of being here is that I've gotten a lot of my technical writing homework done, so that's nice.

Mom's finally come home. We busted her out last Saturday. She threw a kickin' old folks home party before she left, cause she's like that. I got the cake for her. It was delicious. Mmmmm. Cake. She's really whipping Ethan and Dad into shape now that she's home! She made Ethan clean his room and bought groceries and everything! What a good mommy! It's actually really nice that I know some one is home with Ethan that won't let him eat everything in the house.

Speaking of Ethan, it turns out his puberty and testosterone are lagging behind, but it's not terribly bad. The doctor said that it could be because Ethan's fat and fat prohibits testosterone. So he wants Ethan to change some of his eating habits and come back in March. Ethan told him straight to his face that he wasn't going to change his eating habits, and I don't know how to force him since dad takes him out to eat all the time. *sigh* I've put on a lot of weight too, but I'm gonna start going to the gym again. The doctor straight out said that exercise wouldn't make that much difference for Ethan, that his eating is the problem, so I'm trying to have healthier foods at home, too.

The job at the library is good, but a little boring. I started out scanning in old yearbooks, then I scanned in a book called "The History of Lubbock." Now I'm scanning in the Henderson County court records from the 1800's. Man, I woulda hated to live back then when they had to write all that crap by hand! I'm glad I don't have to transcribe the things cause I have a hard time reading all that loopy cursive handwriting. I've watched several t.v. shows and quite a few movies while I was working. I hope I don't finish the internets!

Rene has gotten a little busier, so he asked me to come back in and work for him here and there. I worked Friday and Saturday of the Thanksgiving holiday, which sucks, but I seriously need the money. I was afraid I would have forgotten how to do everything, but I guess doing something for 5 years straight really imprints it in your memory!

Uhhh...I can't think of anything else, but I still have 20 minutes of class left. Hmm. Maybe I'll just leave early. Normally there's only 2 people left in class by the end and today there's 13 people here still! Maybe they're worried about their grade. One day I left and there was actually only one guy left behind. Poor guy and poor teacher. But it's his own fault, if he wouldn't suck so much we would stay! There's over 25 people in the class, so I'm not the only one that thinks he sucks!

OH! I know! I'll talk about the dream I had the other night. I had a dream that I was pregnant, and Joe walked up to me and asked what I was going to name her. I said, "Josephine Evangeline," and he just smiled. Even in the dream I was like, "Josephine Evangaline? That's a HORRIBLE name!" And I started trying to think of alternatives. The high point here is that all the dreams I've had with Joe have always featured gross Joe. All grey and bloated, bald with the droopy face like in the hospital. In this dream, he looked really good. He was thin like he was back when we were exercising all the time. His hair was a little longer on top than he usually kept it and was parted on the side and looking very shiny and professional. I can't remember if he had his beard or not, but he was wearing a polo shirt (tucked in) and jeans. I think he was even wearing the belt and shoes that he was buried with, which makes sense cause he wore them all the damn time in life. :) It's nice to have that image in my head rather than the creepy one!

Ten more minutes. hmph.

New horizons

You are reading the blog of the newest member of the UNT library's Digital Projects Unit! Soon I'll never have to clean any one's toilets but my own! YAY!

I'm also seriously thinking about changing my major. Mostly because programming makes me want to die. I'm thinking of going into communication design and minoring in technical writing. Then I could become a technical writer, or a graphic designer, or a web designer, or go into advertising, or a number of other things. It's good. I likes it. Plus, I wouldn't have to take nearly so much math and science, which makes me happy beyond all reason.

Ethan had a blood test the other day and is being referred to an endocrinologist for low testosterone levels. He said, "I don't want shots in my balls everyday!" I assured him that is not the probable outcome (after I told him to not be crass), and boy will my face be red if that's what they do! :) Mom's still in the nursing home, but she's making good progress. Dad can't seem to beat the flu.

hard day

Yesterday I had a hard day. I woke up with a horrible horrible case of pink eye, which was incredibly painful. My office said to go to work anyway, and I had to work at the house of the lady that chain smokes the entire time I'm there and it gives me a headache and a runny nose. And on top of that, it was the anniversary of Joe's death. The whole day everytime I looked at the clock I would think, "Last year at this time I was writing his obituary," or whatever I was doing. So, that's a fun way to spend your day. I skipped my computer lab cause my eye just hurt too much, and today I'm skipping my other classes to go to the doctor.

But on an up note, I got an email from the library wanting me to interview for the digital projects job! Huzzah!

I'm probably going to cut my hair off cause I'm sick of it making me hot all the time. My hairdresser has an idea, and I trust her completely. This is what I think she wants to do, only shorter:

By the way, you can't really click to enlarge. Sorry. I think she wants to cut it a little more in line with the chin, but I could be wrong. We'll see won't we? It'll be an adventure!

Ka-razy

My life is crazy busy these days. I only have time to blog because I'm ignoring the lecture in my pre-calculus class. Don't worry, Josh explains all this crap FAR better than my lame ass teacher. Here's what my life is like: I have class literally all day on Tuesday and Thursday. My first class is at 11, and my last one ends at 8:20pm. I had to place them far apart because the middle one is across town at the Engineering campus, and parking's a lot cheaper out there, so I have to park there and take the shuttle to my other classes, which adds a good hour to my class block for each class. Before my last class, I have a 3 hour break, which I have to use to try to do any errands I have and on Thursdays I have to drive to Lewisville to turn in paperwork for work. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I work 8-5. I'm exhausted when I'm done, and can barely move, plus I have to go home and shower before doing anything else. Monday nights I have my computer lab from 7-8:50, and Ethan is joining Civil Air Patrol, which goes from 6:30-9. Of course, Ethan has scouts Wednesday night, and I usually go to Josh's for help on my math homework during that time. I usually have to call Dad to see if he'll pick Ethan up, cause 1 1/2 hour is no where NEAR enough time for Josh to pound all that math into my head. As a matter of fact, Ethan spends most of his time with my dad these days. I try to take him to Lawrence's to practice piano, but most days I just don't have time. Between all of this, and other homework as my teacher's see fit, I have to eat, and as a consequence, my no fast food efforts have gone right out the window. *sigh* I also have to schedule time with my cat everyday, because if I don't pet him for long enough each and every day, he poops on the living room floor. Stupid cat. Of course on the weekend, I have church and anything else that I need to do. Mom is still in the hospital, so I have to try to get up there just about everyday or she poops on the floor, too. Just kidding, she gets mopey. Some days I literally go up there for 15 minutes. It doesn't help that traffic in Denton and Corinth has suddenly become a crazy traffic jam just about any hour of the daylight hours. What the heck is up with that?!? Anyhoo, mom is doing pretty well, and may be released next week, unless of course she has further complications, which knowing her is highly likely. :) But the good news is that Barbara's planning on moving out soon! Huzzah!