The Daily Grind

Yep, it's back to the everyday crap again after my brief, albeit warm hiatus in AZ. Got in late last night, it was an interesting flight but all worked out ok in the end. Let's see, the highlight of my trip was the fact that my parents did not get too in depth with the financial talk, so even though I'm back to square one with things, I was spared that very unpleasant talk. Oh, they touched on a few things...those things that they've been telling me for close to 20 years now that just haven't quite stuck yet. So anyway...I'll probably still be facing bankruptcy soon, but at least I can say I took care of things myself. Which is probably better anyway.

I also got my two teeth fixed in Mexico while I was vacationing, not the best part of the vacation, but nice to have it done anyway. Plus I was able to brush up on my Spanish while there. Now it is back to the daily grind and although I do have today scheduled as vacation, it will be spent studying for my midterm tonight and preparing a draft for a paper which is due tomorrow night. Yeeha, I've already decided that next year I will be heading to AZ when I have a school break and don't need to worry about how much studying and homework I am not getting done. I guess I won't be as worried about that when I'm on my Nolo (New Orleans) in September...that will be a first and while it's much too early to be posting about it...I'm excited as all get out! Well, guess that's about it for now...must hit the books!

I Give Up Already!

I am feeling woefully underprepared for my World Englishes exam tonight. I am sick and tired (literally, sinus infection and 4 hrs sleep). I just completely stopped even trying to study last night and went to bed because there was nothing getting through to my brain. Part of my test tonight is on phonetics (gross) and phonetic symbols (grosser). Our professor told us she wasn't going to get into phonetics too heavily, so it will be interesting to see what her equivalent of 'too heavy' is. I'm just not looking forward to it at all. In my angst to start school off with a bang, I think I may have just taken on more than I am able to handle with these two classes. I am completely drained, wiped out, shot, done for, kaput! And how fabulous it is that in tandem with not having exercised in over a month, I'm also now smoking again. Thankfully, I'm still losing weight on the diet portion of things (although with my schedule, I'm eating much fewer calories than the diet even allows). Not the healthy way to go about things at all, oh well, right now I say what the hell ever.

I am SO beyond ready for AZ next week. If only it were going to be more than just 5 measly days. I guess it's better than nothing, which may very well be what I get on my test tonight.

Thanks Big Bro!

What a day. I haven't really been looking forward to this weekend too much since I knew it was going to be basically filled with studying for my two upcoming tests this week. However, it is now 5:19pm and I have managed to read a whopping 3 pages of the 90 required reading for my Tuesday test. Yay...just 87 to go, and while some of it is maybe not 'put you to sleep boring', to say it's scintillating is a stretch beyond even the wildest imagination. It's been an interesting day, an eventful day with some fun, heartwarming surprises.

My morning started out per usual by way of Saturday mornings, that is. I got up, watched a bit of tele and had my coffee and breakfast. Mom called (our Saturday morning thing) and suddenly I was just hit with this dismal, dark mood...and not in the mood to talk whatsoever. I feel kind of bad about that, because I can't remember really ever being more short on words with her...even while in the midst of my depression. Then, things took quite an ironic turn when my brother called. He had actually called me while I was 'not talking' with mom and so I called him back. I still owe him two months worth of phone bills which I had told him I would try to get to him somewhere around the 1st of this month. He e-mailed me a reminder and I had
e-mailed him back saying it would have to wait until the 15th, that things were 'not good' right now. So, I ended up totally fessing up everything to him on the phone, told him how much trouble I'm really in and that I was seriously considering bankruptcy...told him about the loan garnishment and all the juicy details. He told me several times that I needed to talk with mom and dad and I eschewed him in equal measure and told him he was sworn to secrecy and that I needed to take care of this myself. He is genuinely worried for me and told me that repeatedly. I guess we've both done a lot of growing up over the years and have become closer, though certainly not as close as many siblings must be. We are both adopted and while that can't count as a reason for us being so different, we really are very different people, in many ways. However, today I realize that I am very fortunate to have him for a brother. He just called me again about an hour ago to check up, he's worried about me being sad and depressed and not having any money to do fun stuff. He said he isn't made of millions but would help me out as much as he can. Said that I could call him anytime and that he was there for me. I'm getting a little teary right now just thinking about it. It was pretty cool. That's all.

What the huh?

Holy crap! I knew my blogging was going to take a hit once school started, but I'm really pushing it here. So, I've decided that Thursdays are my new favorite day of the week...well, they will be after this one anyway. Tonight, I have to retake my first test before class since I failed to achieve the required 80% the first time. This prof has a seriously screwed up testing policy for these though. He calls them Mastery Tests and we take them every week on Tuesday, the tests are based on a couple of chapters from the book, and are a combination of vocabulary/essay questions. I will admit, I was not even close to prepared for the first one, since it was on the Tuesday following a weekend where I was tied up and away from home without access to my syllabus (not literally tied up). Basically, I didn't know the test was occurring until Monday morning when I looked at the syllabus. I got 13 out of 16 points, 16 needed to achieve the 80%. Now, this is where it begins to get cloudy and make, well really, no sense at all. If you do not achieve 80%, you must retake the test during office hours within a week, and you only get to retake it once. The glitch is that you are not retaking this test to try to improve upon your original score, that's not possible. The 2nd go round, you HAVE to achieve 80% (or 16 pts), just to keep your original test score, otherwise your score turns to '0'. So, in other words, if I do pass tonight, I will get my 13 points, even if I score, say a 20 tonight. Meanwhile, this also inhibits a student's ability to study for the next test so they don't fall into the same ol' trap again! Today, I am awaiting the results of my test from this past Tuesday, which I feel I did a much better job on and am confident I will receive at least the 16 pts needed, but I guess we'll see what kind of a grader he is. In a way...I don't even care if I have to take this first test in the shorts, I'm tired of studying and have a weekend full of it in front of me.

So, after tonight...Thursday will be my new favorite day of the week because the Thursday night session of this class is much more laid back...with students doing presentations, much like debates. And then, I have 4 days off from school! It's a beauteous thing really.