The Shannon River

New Life

2011-02-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in quite awhile... obviously.

Shortly after my last post my husband left me. And then I met a wonderful, incredible, amazing English man and I am currently working on my move to England!

Big news, short post. For now. :-)

This is really funny. (An email pertaining to golf.)

2010-06-21T14:10:00.002-06:00

Dear Friends,

Many of you may not realize that I've been very busy over the last seven years, putting my thoughts and ideas together in a book.

I believe my new book on GOLF gives the reader valuable playing tips and insider information I've gained through my years of lessons, struggle and experiment.

I am very proud of the results, and to assist with marketing, I am asking friends and family to help me out. I hope you find this a useful tool to help you enjoy your game much more while you enjoy the great outdoors.

The cost is only $9.95. Don't wait until they're all gone !!!!

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 - How to Properly Line Up Your Fourth Putt..
Chapter 2 - How to Hit a Nike from the Rough, when you Hit a Titleist from the Tee.
Chapter 3 - How to Avoid the Water When You Lie 8 in a Bunker.
Chapter 4 - How to Get More Distance off the Shank.
Chapter 5 - When to Give the Course Marshall the Finger.
Chapter 6 - Using Your Shadow on the Greens to Maximize Earnings.
Chapter 7 - When to Implement Handicap "Management".
Chapter 8 - Proper Excuses for Drinking Beer Before 9:00 AM.
Chapter 9 - How to Rationalize a 6-Hour Round.
Chapter 10 - When Does a Divot Become Classified as Sod..
Chapter 11 - How to Find That Ball That Everyone Else Saw Go in the Water.
Chapter 12 - Why Your Spouse Doesn't Care that You Birdied the 5th Hole.
Chapter 13 - Using Curse Words Creatively to Control Ball Flight.
Chapter 14 - When to Let a Foursome Play through Your Twosome.
Chapter 15 - How to Relax When You Are Hitting Five Off the Tee.
Chapter 16 - When to Suggest Major Swing Corrections to Your Opponents..
Chapter 17 - God and the Meaning of the Birdie-to-Bogey-Three-Putt..
Chapter 18 - When to Regrip Your Ball Retriever.
Chapter 19 - Throwing Your Clubs: An Effective Stress-Reduction Technique.
Chapter 20 - Can You Purchase a Better Golf Game?
Chapter 21 - Why Male Golfers Will Pay $6 a Beer From the Cart Girl and Give Her a $4 Tip, but will balk at $4 a Beer at the 19th Hole and then Stiff the Bartender.

Thanking you in advance for your order and Good Golfing!

Another blog recommendation

2010-06-07T18:11:00.002-06:00

I know, I hardly say anything at all... maybe I might remedy that someday. But for now I want to point out one particular entry from a doctor blog I highly enjoy. After reading this entry, make sure to put his blog in your RSS reader or at least bookmark it. He's the bees knees.

Doctor Grumpy on "Jobs".

Oh and I graduated. Magna Cum Laude. :-) It's been quite the lifestyle change and adjustment. I cannot believe I started in 2006, which now seems so long ago, yet here I am finally finished and it feels like it went by in the blink of a eye.

Freebird

2010-05-08T19:48:00.002-06:00

I am preparing to graduate this month. I am beyond thrilled and excited. I still have two finals to go--stats and geology--but I am fantasizing about the free time I will have when I graduate. (Um, especially considering today's economy, oui? Boooo.)

Nonetheless, I am looking forward to fun reading, golfing, finishing up projects, organizing and creating new projects. Like some quilts. I have to finish two and figure out some plans for other fabrics I have. But back to the whole economy thing... I also get to look forward to revising my resume 58 times a day and submitting it so I can be rejected. Oh well.

Even though I have to worry about gaining employment, I do look forward to living life without tests, papers or school-related shtuff hanging over my head. YAY!

What a long, strange journey it's been. KIT

Ha ha.

Very good point

2010-04-18T23:46:00.002-06:00

I love this post, from a fantastic blog. Please read, it's a little thought about blogging in general and how it's "evolved". (I'll leave it in bare bones link-style.)

(Oops, that didn't work. Take two. Hopefully this will work.)

http://mylifein-ablog.blogspot.com/2010/04/lets-be-honest.html

Long time, no see

2010-04-12T22:47:00.002-06:00

I know this is pathetic around here! It's like, why even bother posting anymore when I don't do it regularly. Oh well. It's my blog and I can do what I want.

What I want to do is tell a cute story from a geology field trip I went on this weekend. We went to a local mountain to look at all the glaciation related stuff and someone had brought their dog. A very cute, very energetic border collie.

My professor tried to climb up the side of the road to point out the "crescent pressures" on a big boulder, and the dog took that as a big green light to race right into him, nearly knocking him over and off the slope. Man, I wish I had a video camera going at that moment because it was just so cute.

The dog was all excited and jumping/climbing/digging in the snow as my professor continued to lecture and finally told the dog "It's okay, dog, it's only glaciation."

And I had to laugh because the doggie started to dig into the storm layers of the snow, thus undoing some time work for glaciation in that area.

Yeah, I know, you had to be there, but it still is cute.

In other news, I have found a camera for a Kiwi and man, they are so adorable! I love watching this little chickie do his thing.

I love animals.

I have 4 weeks of classes left, and 1 week for finals. I'm graduating this May and I cannot wait. Although, it's definitely a paradox because I want to be done with school so badly but I also don't want to be out there looking for a job right now. Yeee-ikes. :-(

Ugh and Grrrrr

2010-01-04T20:29:00.002-07:00

I usually have a hard time logging into my account, that's partially why I haven't updated in forever. But I managed to log in with relative ease tonight.

I do not have anything smashing to say. It's been the same old, same old around here. However 2010 looks like it should be a big year for me. I GRADUATE FINALLY IN MAY!
Man, 4 long years working towards this moment. Long hard years. Cannot believe it's been 4 years.

Oh and I earned straight A's this last semester! Hooray!

I'm doing an interim class, so I'm in school right now. For 7 long straight days. However the good news is that we only have to write some response papers. The real semester doesn't begin until January 18 and I didn't want to have to spend the week prior to that writing a long paper. So once this class is done, I'm done! I get to have a little mini-break before the semester fires up.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. 2010 will bring about my graduation, my hopefully successful job hunt... and even if I'm not successful I'll go back to bus driving because... I want to move out of my parents' house! Man, I'm so ready for independence. To move on. To start our life together. My husband and I have lived with my parents for our entire married time. Hell, we even had the "wedding" here in this house. (It was a quick elopement thing that has a long story attached. And it's actually an unusual story but I don't feel like even thinking about it right now. The circumstances were not really good.)

Well, I have 108 pages to read before my class tomorrow so I'll quit writing now.

Professor Funny

2009-11-11T11:10:00.002-07:00

I am really, really going to miss taking classes with this one professor. He's just great. He's so damn smart and he has a dry, unassuming, low-key wit.

Yesterday he talked about how he read something from someplace (I can't remember if it was a textbook or article) about how our magnetism comes from the solid core, not the liquid core of the Earth. He said he was surprised to read that and then said "But I read it over and over and the author kept saying the same thing."

Rollacoasta

2009-11-09T13:25:00.002-07:00

Life hasn't necessarily been dull lately. Sad that I only blog once during a blue moon these days. I actually have a really cool idea I wanted to do this month and then never got around to it. Well, maybe it's only cool to me actually. I was/am going to write letters to people. I won't name names but I'll get whatever I need to say out there. There's good and bad that I have to say.

However, I did wake up to one great piece of news... I won a bloggie contest! Finally! And it came at a great time because my life has been so stressful lately. I won a contest hosted by one of my favorite bloggers (no really, she is one of my favorites!) June Gardens at Bye Bye Pie.

My neck is doing better. I'd say, oh, approximately 58.64% better. (Funny story: when my ortho doc asked what time the car accident occurred I replied "About 11:09 AM.") I think in a few weeks I should be almost as good as new, maybe even better because I always carry a ton of stress in my neck anyways and I've learned some good stretches for the neck.

My car is doing well. It looks purty. I just wish there was more of the money from the insurance left over to do some mechanical work on it. It just needs some things worked on due to age and wear and tear. Like the struts, shocks... my rear window defroster broke 2 years ago... etc. Anyways. :-(

I will say this, however. I am kinda terrified of driving these days. Every time I see a car approaching from a side street my heart beats a little faster. :-( I have a lot of driving experience under my belt thanks to being a school bus driver for 3 years, which includes tons of field trips, including interstate trips. I have pretty much seen it all. I almost blame myself for the accident because my school bus driving taught me to never assume that a person driving up to a stop sign on a side street will stop. I watched her slow down and yeah, I guess I did then assume she would stop.

But I was also caught off guard because I didn't know she was going to make a left turn, she didn't have her signal on. Drawing a diagram of the accident would be so much easier but I'll try to make my points with words. There was a curve in the street coupled with the fact that she was making a left turn that made her trajectory instantly shoot into my trajectory without any time for me to react/disengage. (Look at that fancy-dancy word there. Captain's orders - evasive maneuvers!)

*sigh*

Traffic is only going to get worse for awhile thanks to the approaching holidays. I don't foresee myself going out more than I have to for awhile.

To sum up:
Winning a contest = very good.
Feeling better from injuries after the car accident = good.
Having my car back = good.
Suffering a little "PTSD", if you will, from the accident = not so good.
Expensive upcoming dental bills for hubby = very bad.
Lots of homework = very-sucky-bad. (Although I only have about 5 weeks left of the semester. And I just found out I earned a 97% on my oceanography test so that's good.)
Stress galore = bad.

Fixed the boo-boos

2009-10-22T23:36:00.003-06:00

I got my car back today. It took an extra few/several days because the wrong parts came in. So we had to wait for the right parts. But it looks bright and shiney. I have a 1/3 paint job done now. LOL. But I'm happy to have my car back. Poor thing.

As for my physical therapy, it's going nicely. My physical therapist is very into letting the body heal itself, working WITH the body, and taking it nice, slow and easy. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting with a neck and back injury but PT invoked thoughts of having to do millions of exercises, weight lifting and stretches and stuff... but really on a level of, like, Olympic training or something.

I've had PT before but only on my ankles and yeah, I had to do all kinds of things even when it was still hurting and swollen.

So I have to do heat, then stretching very lightly--if I feel any pain I am to stop the movement--and then ice. It does help me feel better, for a little while anyway.
Today in therapy he put this ultrasound heat on my neck and back, then electric stimulation with an ice pack. Verrrrrry weird stuff. I'm feeling pretty sore right now though.

This is a disjointed post. I've also gone through mid-terms during this BS so it's just been a real stressful situation all around. Hoo boy.

One of my poor ferrets got sick over the weekend too, warranting an emergency visit to a vet. He has a bladder infection and had developed crystals in his urine, blocking him from urinating. Poor sweet boy. We had been mixing in a quality cat food with their ferret food... just because that's what my ferret shelter friend does... but maybe that's not such a good idea anymore. ANYWHO, full ferret food diet from here on out. EVO is supposed to be really good, so is 8-in-1 Ultimate diet (specifically the Ultimate line) and Totally Ferret is okay. Oh and I've heard/read good things about Zupreem I think.

We bought some Totally Ferret that day at the store but they didn't have much of a choice, and then I bought some EVO and 8-in-1 Ultimate dry food online.

I'm just grateful he is okay now. Poor, poor sweet thing. But thank goodness he seems to be on the mend, and thank goodness it wasn't anything really serious and that he managed to pass the obstruction himself, albeit I'm sure it was beyond painful for him. It usually is super serious whenever any of my animals get sick and there's usually nothing I can do or anything that can be done. That's just been my rotten, horrible luck over the years.

I have two boy ferrets right now. Apollo is about 5.5 years old and Luke is 5 years old. Apollo is what's called "adrenal", which is a horrible thing that ferrets suffer from due to irresponsible, horrible breeding practices that mess with ferrets' hormones... but the use of melatonin has been found to help these ferrets. We've been giving Apollo melatonin orally but next vet visit we're going to get the melatonin chip put in him.

Messin' with the mind

2009-10-12T15:16:00.000-06:00

I went to my psychology class on Thursday. Trying to put my life back together after the car accident. What a stressful, horrible, painful mess. Anyways. :-(

So we're talking about development and Piaget and all that fun jazz. My professor puts up a video from You Tube:
(Just look up "conservation task" on You Tube and you should find it if the embedding doesn't work.)

She played it once, talked about it a little more... like the difference between the younger kids and the older child in the video and their cognitive development... Then she played the beginning one more time.

After she made her points about the video, my professor shut it off in the middle of the second playing and said "Okay. That's enough of screwing with little kids' minds."

Why bother anymore?

2009-10-10T22:57:00.001-06:00

The world is truly "guilty until proven innocent." And even then... you're still guilty.

Awful.

Continuing on...

2009-10-04T12:18:00.002-06:00

In my last post I forgot to mention one more "problem" with blogging... the juxtaposition, if you will, regarding anonymity.

On one hand it's nice to meet new people, make new friends... I've known some bloggers who've given out their URLs to just about everybody they meet, such as their dentists. And/or they would meet people through the blog and become "real life friends" with them. Later on they would lament the loss of being able to write freely because real-life people read the blog.

You see, my first blogging experience was with LiveJournal. I started on there in 2001. I would read about a lot of people's experiences with meeting other LJers offline and becoming fast friends. I was kinda jealous of that. I met with a few LJers offline myself but never more than once. I was crestfallen that I never developed any meaningful relationships offline.

But now... perhaps this is a good thing. One thing that was never taken away from me was my ability to write what I want, when I want, and write what I needed to write.

Let me further explain LiveJournal and why I think it's been advantageous to me... You can lock your journal however you want. And you have that choice for every entry you make. It can be fully public, fully private or only people on your Friends List can see your entries. You can even make filters so only certain people on your Friends List can see what you write!

I have friends on my LJ from all over the world. I think we are able to enjoy being open and honest without worry of "real life" implications. I'm still not fully open there... my friends know my first name and the state I live in and all, but I do keep other telltale details vague. Occasionally I wish I could say more about my life, for instance I keep quiet about the exact university I am attending. But it's better to err on the vague side.

Let me end by saying this... it bugs me there is no right answer for all of this! LOL
No black and white, no clear cut solutions.
This is one reason I enjoy math so much, there is pretty much only one right answer and there is really no debate about it. (For the most part.)
It's not like life, life is so damn complicated. And blogging has become complicated. One thing I do miss is people/bloggers being open and honest, reaching out for support... Blogging seems to have locked people up into a box whereupon they must put their best foot forward and keep problems to themselves. Problems that could be, used to be, helped just by blogging about it.

bloggy thoughts

2009-10-04T01:29:00.002-06:00

I realize that I am quite guarded when I write this blog. I actually have a personal journal where I spill more about my life... but this here blog is very... guarded and perhaps even bland. Not like I have a lot of readers anyways!

It's tough. In the day and age when you have to be careful about the information you put out there about yourself... how can you then reveal things in a blog? I used to average about 15 entries a month and it's really petered off since I shifted inward to being very cautious about what I say in this here public blog. Now there certainly are ways to still protect yourself while being able to reveal more about yourself. It's not like I have to post my SS number or anything.

Not to mention... in the day and age when there's a million, trillion blogs out there with talented people writing... and not only writing but earning lots of money for doing it... what am I?
I will say I'm a little tired of these "professional blogs" where people are doing it for the money. In my opinion ever since Dooce was able to support herself and her husband and family with just her blog... that was like a starting gun for the race to extreme blogging--blogging for lucrative reasons instead of the reasons blogging came about in the first place. For connections, thoughts, venting, a sense of virtual community, etc.

I don't know why I'm writing this other than I'd just like to get it out there.

And here's something about me... I was in a little car accident a few days ago. :-( Someone shot out of a side street right into me. My poor sweet car is banged up, I'm banged up... Ugh. Hopefully I'll be fine in the long run, i.e. no soft tissue/muscle damage. I'm extremely sore and today I overdid it so I just had to take a strong painkiller. Ergo... that would also explain the "floopy writing".

I am NOT looking forward to having to sit in a classroom for 3+ hours when I have to go back to school.

Okay, I'm really losing the possibility for coherent thoughts now so I'd better quit while I'm ahead. I think it's too late for that though.

I said CAW!

2009-09-26T12:07:00.002-06:00

Being out on a golf course here in this city I've seen a spectacle occur a few times... a hawk being chased in the air by crows. It's kinda amazing to see those fearless black birds chasing after a predator like that. Of course they are almost the same size and all, but still. Different birds of a flock and all... hawks have talons and beaks geared for meat-pecking. Crows just have "plain old bird toe nails" and beaks meant for acting like a pair of pliers.

Anyways, I hear the ruckus and look up and I always see 1-3 crows surrounding a soaring hawk. They're screaming at him and he's just trying to soar away out of their territory. Actually I've seen one of the crows even grab some of the hawk's feathers while in the air. It's really quite something to see.
My dad compares it to fighter jets chasing a bomber.

Reminds me of this other time when I was out taking a walk and there was a fox sitting under a tree about 40 feet away. There was a magpie squawking at him and bugging him. The bird even went so far as to grab the fox's tail by the fur and lift it up. The fox was watching me and only looked at the bird when he grabbed the tail... So, wonder what the reasons for that where? Did the fox grab something of the bird's? Was the bird just being a pest? LOL Crazy animals.

Speaking of golf courses... yesterday I also watched a huge flock of Canadian geese just mozey on out in the middle of the driving range. That's right, the driving range. Two of them plopped down, just as easy-breezy as could be. No worries. The other 2 dozen were happily pecking grass. Meanwhile about 10 people were spanking dimpled balls right at them.
Man. WTF? Silly birds.

This course is a haven for birds and animals. They even have a little "fox crossing" sign up on one of the golf cart paths. Yesterday Ryan and I were "chased" by a begging squirrel. What a cutie that squirrel was. There's tons of flickers out there as well. And a couple of weeks ago I was sitting by the water fountain waiting for my dad and Ryan when a little house finch landed on my lap. He just flew down from a tree and did his maneuvers so he could sit on my lap. It was incredible. He took off and started to come back a minute later but someone else was walking by just then and scared him off.

Professor's Poison

2009-09-24T20:35:00.002-06:00

Ah, professors. For awhile I used to write down funny things they would say and whatnot. I need to start doing that again so at least I write something in this bloggedy.

I am taking an oceanography class with a great professor, one I've had before. He is just really awesome. He says the funniest things and I'll have to pay more attention to writing them down.

This next bit isn't really prolific or anything but it was a little funny that has stayed in my mind since that class. First I have to say he's a very outdoorsy person. He was talking about ozone and how you can smell it on rivers in certain places...
He said with an appreciative air, "Ahhhhh, ozone. Smells good."

*pause*

"It's poisonous, but smells good."

Woefully underdone

2009-09-06T01:31:00.004-06:00

Well yeah. I know, I hate having one of those blogs that seems sort of abandoned... but it is what it is. Maybe one thing I can do to get things rolling better around here is to quote some of the random lines from TV shows and movies that I find hilarious.

TV: Because your life just ain't that exciting.

Anyhoo... so that's what I'll do. It'll be so much fun you'll wet yourself. Actually... that does remind me of one little sentence from Will & Grace when Jack was excited about decorating a Barney's window and he said "I'm so excited I could just pee!"

As for my life? Not much going on. I started my penultimate semester. It's kicking my butt. Technology is the undoing of good mental health and an inducer of heart attacks. (Just had to fight with computers all day. I'm taking a class in a software program called ArcMap and while I do enjoy it... ummm... well it's a computer program that can equal hours of frustration.)

I shall leave with the following exchange from a little known TV show called Seinfeld. This scene makes laugh every time.

Jerry, in the public phone: Hello, nine-one-one, how are you? Sorry, just a reflex. Yes I know this is an emergency line. Yes I do have an emergency. I have some very important information regarding the smog strangler. My friend has been accused and I know he didn't do it.

Jerry, to George: They're patching me through to the detectives. *Pause* Why don't you get a mint or something?

Jerry, back on the phone: Can I come in right now?
I suppose.
Where are you located?
Where's that?
I don't know where we are.
(To George) Where are we? George shrugs.

(Into the phone) We don't know.
(To George again) He says ask somebody.

George to a guy walking by: Excuse me, where are we?

Guy: Earth.

Suicidal Top Flite

2009-07-22T22:22:00.004-06:00

I was caddying once again for my dad at a golf course. His preferred golf ball is Top Flite. He took great pains to lay up on a couple of holes to make sure not to lose a ball to the creek. And he was successful, he did not lose one ball that he hit into the creek.

So that once again is... he did not lose one ball that he hit to the creek.

Meanwhile I was pulling the cart across a concrete bridge when the vibration of the uneven ground must've shook loose this ball that he had in the holder on the cart. Next thing I knew I heard that telltale "clank clank" of a ball on concrete. At first I was alarmed that someone had nearly missed me. Then I realized that the ball from the cart was missing and had made a jump for the creek.

Talk about inevitable.

what

2009-07-11T23:56:00.003-06:00

Yeah, I know. Whatever. LOL I just haven't felt up to writing.

I'll resort back to funny stories from the golf course. That seems to be a bulk of what I write about.

So I was playing with my dad and two of his friends/golfing buddies. My dad took his second shot after his tee shot and did a great job getting on the green. There was a crow on the ground nearby and after my dad swung, the crow said "Caw! Caw! Caw!"

His friends said "Great shot!" "Good job!" And then one of them said "Even the crow thought it was great. He said: Great! Shot! Dude!"

So we're joking around as always, being self deprecating as usual (it's all just for fun and we all have the same humor) and the next guy sets up for his shot. The crow is still in the same place and my dad says "Let's see what the crow will have to say when you're done."

The guy, about to swing, says "He'll probably just take a dump."

The 'rents

2009-06-02T23:46:00.003-06:00

My parents can be a comedy act. My dad is the wiseass and my mom is usually the straight man.

Mom: What other types of lettuce is there? I don't like this kind.

Dad: Lettuce?

Mom: Yeah. What other kinds of lettuce is there?

Dad: Well, there's "lettuce" eat, "lettuce" pray....

Mom: You're a big help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My parents are in total agreement that mustard has no place on a hamburger. "Mustard only goes on hot dogs. I don't know who decided that mustard can go on a hamburger. It's wrong."

Tee hee. I had no idea. It's fun dealing with another generation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dad: Does standing water ever get tired and sit down?

Mom: No.

Nudies!

2009-05-23T14:17:00.002-06:00

It's occurred to me that perhaps I didn't blog about a fascinating research project for one of my classes a few semesters ago. This class was a bit strange and I can't even explain the concept of the class to this day, but the professor was great so that's a plus.

My group decided to explore the tourism of hot springs. And the closest hot spring just so happens to also be clothing optional.

But it gets better. It was hot that day, I hadn't eaten all day long and I accidentally ingested some of the magnesium rich water. During the drive home I puked all over my classmate's car. (Because I had bought a bottle of water on my way out since I was feeling so ill. I thought I was dehydrated. Instead I spent the entire 60+ minute drive home trying to keep the water down until I couldn't no more.) Oh how embarrassing. I felt like crap in so many ways.

But in the end... I got to experience a research project in which I viewed nekkid people. Last day of class the professor asked if these projects were fun or not and I exclaimed "Yes! I got to see nekkid people!"

And now for something completely different

2009-05-17T01:32:00.003-06:00

As I was studying for my finals this week I remembered an incident, or rather 2 incidents, during my first year in college. Even I have a hard time believing this happened and I was there!

I was in math class taking a test. It was deathly quiet which made the next event seem that much more loud: a girl farted. Really. There was this woman in the first row who just kept passing gas. The first few times she said "Excuse me" but then she just kept going on and on with it.

Ok. So it was just an awful isolated event... or maybe not. It happened again during the next test too.

The thing was, each and every time it happened it would break your concentration. I had a hard time trying not to laugh as well. I was so shocked the first time I heard this happen. I went from shock, to holding in laughter, to being annoyed, to having to refocus each and every time it happened to anxiously and fearfully anticipating the next attack.

Anyhoozlebees. It's funny, and it's even funnier now looking back upon it, but it was annoying too.

I'm done with finals too, yippee! I hope to recover some of my brain which was pretty fried this week.

Lost world

2009-04-29T20:25:00.002-06:00

Yeah, I know. This poor neglected bloggity. There just hasn't been a lot of good or fun stuff to post. SOSDD... homework, tests, school, life. Been battling some medical billing nightmares to boot. Not fun.

I'm so ready for summer break. I'm taking the summer off from classes, but I will be self-teaching and studying for a math test and French test. I want to test out of certain requirements to save time and money. It'll be nice not to have class, but I am nervous about the French test. The math test will be no problem. (It's ridiculous, I used to be a math major but my new major doesn't think that I have a background in the right math. Ah, academia. Love it like a cold sore.)

Well, one cute story to share: my husband was out in the backyard hitting some practice golf balls. (Whiffle-type balls.) I hear him through the open window saying, "Well, hello! Hellllo! What's up? Hey! HEY!"

Turns out our neighbor's dog, an Australian shepherd, came over to greet him and then snitched one of the practice balls! LOL! Awwwwww.

TBI

2009-04-13T20:37:00.004-06:00

I don't speak often of my husband's condition here on the blawg. Sometimes I almost feel like I should, just in ways that he and I have encountered problems.

One piece of advice I can pass on is you have to have patience when talking to someone with a brain injury. It takes them a little longer to go through the thought processes at times. And if you don't have that patience you're just re-setting the clock every time you prod them.

Ergo there's a bit of a 10 second rule. 10 seconds can seem like an eternity to people, especially those without brain injuries. Some people with brain injuries may even need 15 or more seconds.

But people may get antsy waiting even those 10 seconds for any kind of response and whenever they speak they just interrupt the thought process and the clock has to be re-set. At times you can practically hear that clock ticking back to zero as their mind has to go back to the beginning again.

I see this happen with my husband. I'm guilty at times for re-setting the clock.

And in that same vein, any kind of interruption can lead to confusion and flusteration. My husband adds in a lot of words to a story while he's trying to form the sentence he wants in his mind. He's speaking, telling the story with extra unnecessary words and details, because his brain is inside trying to find the point he wants to make.
If you interrupt that process for whatever reason, such as asking for a clarification in the story... the clock may start over as well. My husband sometimes has to say the whole sentence again to get to where he was going.

People with TBI often suffer from anger or short-tempered issues as well, mostly due to these kinds of frustrations. They are frustrated with themselves for the extra steps they have to take to think, for not finding words or descriptions they want and they are frustrated with others for rushing them. I don't blame them one bit.
(Like I said this is part of the reason for anger issues, and I observe it very often with my husband. Other people with TBIs may be different and there can be different reasons for anger/temper issues.)

Consider any times when you were talking and couldn't think of the right words, or you could but they came out jumbled... and how frustrated you were at that moment. That's the kind of thing that people with TBI have to struggle with daily. They're annoyed and frustrated with themselves and they can become annoyed and frustrated at a world that values split-second decisions and replies.

If there's one thing I could change, well okay there are a million things I wish I could change, but one thing that I would love to see is a world that could slow down a bit and accept that many people think at their own paces. My husband was fired from jobs because he wasn't deemed "fast enough", though he's rather on the ball and lucid for someone who suffered such a massive open head TBI as he did. He was more than able to do the job, he just needed a few extra seconds for his thinking processes and the employers couldn't handle/didn't like that.

I miss my links!

2009-04-11T17:30:00.003-06:00

Guy #1: Why did they have to close the damn golf course for 5 whole days, just to aerate it?

Guy #2: Well, maybe it's because it just takes time.

Guy #1: It's just riding over the grass... really, how long can that take? I can understand a day, maybe two, but five days?

Guy #2: After they aerate it they would have to go back and mulch the grass that was taken out of the ground, and it depends on the size of their equipment, how many people are working it...

Guy #1: *laughs* Ok. So maybe they have one illegal out there with a pick ax then.

Edited to Add:
I should've pointed out at the very beginning that this wasn't meant as a punch line joke, it was something I actually overheard while at the golf course that day.

Water and ripples and whatnot

2009-04-03T22:46:00.003-06:00

It's really interesting to ponder how much affect your words may have and how far they will go, and you won't even know it.

Today I quoted something a professor told my mom while she was in college around 1998. He told her, in regards to graduates finding jobs, "There is a place for everybody."

I've never met the guy and yet now I'm quoting him and passing on his words to my fellow college students.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could see how your words may alter someone's life, or where they go, or how long they may live on?

I wish I had something...

2009-03-16T20:46:00.003-06:00

But I got nothing. I'm going through a lot of personal, emotional stuff and I feel kinda spacey right now. I wish I could even think of some kind of funny little ditty (story) to say, but I can't.

Next week is Spring Break. I'm really looking forward to it, although, I do have some homework that I need to do. I need to read my textbooks and try and start a paper. What's the good of Spring Break then? It's crap!

Ho-hum.

Parents just don't understand

2009-03-08T15:17:00.003-06:00

Mom: I want to go to the store and get some ______.

Dad: Are you going to take the truck or Shann's car?

Mom: Oh, I don't know. Shann's car may have too much junk to be able to fit ______.

Dad: Shann, do you have a lot of junk in your trunk?

Creepers

2009-03-03T22:00:00.001-07:00

WHAT is UP with the people who stop 15 feet away from the car in front of them at a red light, then proceed to slowly creep up throughout the duration of the light?

Why, why, why oh WHY do you people do that?

I'm back over here now

2009-03-01T00:00:00.002-07:00

I decided to change my blog back to this one. Just 'cause that's why.

NEW BLOOGER SPOT FOR ME!

2007-12-28T16:18:00.001-07:00

Well, it pains me to do this but I'm going to move blogs.
Silly me... I created a better gmail account after I made up this blog, I didn't think I would like blooger so much.

So I had to make a new blooger account to use a new gmail account. I just really like things tidy and in their places.

So please change your links and bookmarks to:
http://riverofshannon.blogspot.com

Working 9 to 5

2007-12-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

I am trying to figure something out. My school schedule will be a little nuts next semester. Mainly because I want to take a particular professor for one of my geography classes. But he's worth it. That class is on Saturdays.
Then I am required to take another geography class and that one is only offered once. At night.

And because of this I am trying to make a schedule that will be decent for me......... however I have to make a decision about my math tutoring job. I probably will need to quit. I hate that. I don't want to quit and we could use the money. But it's just not going to work with my schedule for this next year. Boy do I hate quitting the job!

I decided to take a particular history class that pretty much makes up my mind for me. Due to taking this class I won't have time to tutor. But I am totally dragging my heels about quitting. *sigh*

What to do, what to do. I would like to at least dash off an email to my supervisor telling her I have to quit, and I want to get that done by tomorrow. Though I could wait... but the sooner, the better. NUTS. I hate having to make decisions like this. I hate having to STICK with decisions!

Damn dental madness

2007-12-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

Well, day after Xmas one of my fillings had to fall out. It's not much of a surprise because I had a horrible dentist in July 2006. Been having trouble ever since.
It fell out before I could even eat anything yesterday and I went for 40 hours without food until today. (I waited for 3 more hours after my filling this morning before I ate.)

But now comes the fun of fixing the stupid problems, living through it and then paying for it with my wallet. Just how I want to spend my vacation days and my money!

Not to mention... it's hard to get into dentists to begin with, but add in holidays and you really have trouble. But I did manage to find one that got me in less than 24 hours after the filling fell out. So I went in this morning for some drilling fun.

I'll be going back tomorrow to fix another one of the problems and for a deep cleaning.

The only upside to this is the dentist is beyond cute. Wow.
Let's hope he knows what he's doing and my perma-problems will be fixed now! PLEASE!

Following the lead of everybody else...

2007-12-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS

It's actually snowing here right now. I had a very, very nice Christmas and I was very, very spoiled. VERY. :-)

We open our gifts on Christmas Eve, btw. It's our tradition to be like the Europeans.

Geez

2007-12-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

Every month I try to post just a little bit more than I did last month, but I keep failing at that! Oh well, it's not like I have anything super stellar to say.

And besides, we finally got our hands on a Wii so I'm busy! Busy, you hear?! Did I mention that we managed to finally score a Wii while we were in Wyoming? Yay! Right place, right time.

I had a craving for some Hawaiian Punch, thank goodness Hubby had some. This stuff is so bad for you but I had a craving. I keep getting cravings for bleu cheese dressing too.

Well, I'd better finish my mother's xmas present. I make her a calendar of snowshoe cats every year. I've only done January so far! Eeep!

Have we met?

2007-12-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

I find it odd/intriguing/annoying/frustrating/interesting/amusing/beguiling/weird when people mistake you for someone else. I seem to get that a lot at times. Who is walking around with my face?

That or people assume they "know my sister." I don't have a sister.

Ahhhh

2007-12-18T22:18:00.002-07:00

We just had a very nice relaxing vacation in Wyoming. We really like it there and I really think we might move there once I graduate. We'll see what happens.

Random: I have a friend who calls me Sunshine all the time. It does seem to be quite a suiting nickname for me. And I forgot how much I like it when I don't hear him call me that all the time.

I'm kinda achey right now. And there is nothing much else I have to say. Too much to do tomorrow that I'm not looking forward to doing. Oh well.

But I am enjoying my REAL break from college. Thank goodness. I'll have to go to work training for two days in January. Puke!! Those "training" days are bru-tal. Believe me. Time definitely goes backwards. I ain't joking one bit.
For starters... our "world class" bosses make Power Point presentations but they put all the words right there, not bullets, and then they proceed to read them to us. BRU-TAL!

It's beyond obnoxious when Power Point isn't used correctly. Well, at least we'll be getting paid.

Jupiter the Imposter Planet.

2007-12-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

You know it's interesting...

In order to be classified as a planet, there are basically 3 criteria. (I'm a little fuzzy right now on the exact details, Brain-Dead Shann, so I'll just post the general concepts below.)

1) The body must be mostly spherical.
2) It must follow an elliptical orbit around the sun.
3) It must clear its path of other objects.

Now then. There are these things we like to call asteroids. Ones that have a ~~diameter~~* semi-major axis greater than 1 AU and flirt with the Earth are called Apollo. Ones that flirt with Mars are called Amor.
Ones that are in front of and behind Jupiter on its elliptical orbit path around the sun are called Trojans.

Soooo... interesting huh? Technically Jupiter could/should be declassified as a planet according that the above stated criteria. I'd like to see them try. Ha ha.

I especially like the logic in science: Because we said so.

*See? Wow. Brain dead. That would be really something... an asteroid with a diameter bigger than 1 AU. Yeah. Like that's really out there. Hell-o.
I initially put diameter and I wish Blooger had a strike-thru option. Nuts.

ETA again: Aha, figured out how to do a strike-through. Take that, Blooger!

Finally my last final during this final week of crapfest.

2007-12-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

Hokay. So I took my astronomy final today. I am almost sad that class is over. That was the only bright spot in my semester and I'll miss it very much. I learned a lot from it.

So yay. I finally get to decompress, the best I can anyway what with all the recent crap I've found out about my schooling. *eyeroll*

The hubby and I are going on vacation for 5 days. We're running away to Wyoming on Thursday. This'll be interesting to see what we can do during all this weather. But that's okay. At this point I really do need to just collapse and if we're stuck in a hotel room all day with some pizza then that's just fiiiine. Pizza and nekked-ness. What more could you ask for?

Zeldaaaa

2007-12-08T23:08:00.000-07:00

I knew I was doing myself a disservice by buying Zelda for the DS before my finals. But oh well.

I ain't kidding when I say I have a severe case of "F. It. All" itis. Between all the crap that went down very recently in regards to my schooling... I just don't have the energy to care anymore. I should fight for my B in math, but I just can't bring myself to try, or even care very much, after that last test.

In other news... My coloring is annoying. I have blond hair and blue eyes. Kind of a ruddy complexion too thanks to a lot German in me. Anyways, with my blue eyes I've always wished that I could wear dark hair colors... but I do not look good. Nuts. So I'm really kind of stuck in the medium blonde to medium brown range. I could pull off light blondes too actually, but I feel like they clash with my red cheeks too much.

I can actually pull off red tones, too... for the most part. I got this odd craving to do a kind of burgandy color... I should have more fun. Well, what I'll do is just do highlights in fun colors. Temporary colors.

Anyways, mostly I just wish I could look good in a broader range of shades. Oh well. So let's have some fun with super color highlights, like the aforementioned burgandy, purples, reds, blues, etc.

Yeah I want some cheesy poofs

2007-12-06T19:36:00.001-07:00

I'm going to share a nice story and a random story.

Nice Story: I was just remembering the time when my first husband was leaving me for another woman in another state that he met online, and they were going to move-in together without ever having met one another in person. Yeah... I'm getting to the nice part. (Although getting rid of an abusive a-hole and sorry excuse of a husband is a bit of a nice thing.) Anyways, before all this came to fruitation, I had entered a raffle for a very large print of 16 ferrets. I think it's gotta be 24 x 10 or something. Maybe bigger. Fully framed and everything.

It was so lovely to remember, after all the terrible stuff that went down between me and my ex, to check the website and see who won the picture. I had! I was sooooo excited and so happy. I wrote "This is so wonderful! You don't know how much this means to me right now as I am going through a rough divorce."

Random Story: So my 2nd husband here and I were in Denver determining if he might be a candidate for a brain operation to alleviate his seizures. And I was going a bit nuts between all the emotional toil and the fact that his rotten parents were with us. (ugh)

Ok. So this isn't a really awesome-cool-far-out stunt... but it sure is something. After some appointment, Ryan and I both had to use the restroom. Well, just for "kicks" I decided to join him in the men's room. Yeah, I lead that kind of dangerous lifestyle. Outrageous!

So Ryan's at the urinal and I'm in the one stall. In comes someone, but they leave when they see the stall door closed as well. *whew*

Nope, not so fast... in comes another person and he just grabs the stall door and yanks it open. It, being a flimsy lock, of course gives way. I'm sitting there.... my pants around my ankles.... turning red.... gaping.... mind reeling, not sure what the hell to think or say...

This doctor, thankfully not one of Ryan's doctors, turns around and is startled by me. I can only mutter a sheepish "I'm sorry." He stares for a second more, shakes his head and leaves.

Oh and heck... Bonus Story that makes me giggle because I like potty humor:
Ryan came with me to school this week and told me the tale of using the restroom while I was in class. He wasn't... you know... feeling so well... and was in there for quite awhile. He reports that someone opened up the door (and this place does have more than one stall, and Ryan was the only one in there) and the dude exclaimed "Aw, man!" and promptly walked back out. LOL!

Wow. December already. I blinked.

2007-12-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

Good grief. Time is just flying, but that's always to be expected.

I'm still quite in a funk about school. Long story semi-short:

They (4 yr university) lost my application for a transfer scholarship. I'm out $850 now.
I found out too late about a foreign language requirement that nobody has mentioned to me before now.
But of course it is all my fault, and college advisors walk on water so there's no possible way they overlooked telling me about this foreign language credit.
Ergo, I'll be taking 2 geography classes, 1 history class, 1 French class and 1 ballroom dancing. For the fine arts credit. Yee Haw.
Math has been beyond a hose beast. The last test was terribly hard. 10 pages. ~45 questions. Only 2 hours to complete it. I didn't. I got a 67%.
The idiot math teacher can't even grade her own tests right, she marked everyone wrong because she got the problem wrong. Hell-o.
My GPA is tanking very quickly. This semester's GPA is bad, and it's going to pull my cumulative down into the mud. I'll probably get kicked out of my honor society.
And I don't even need this math anymore (of which I'll probably end up with a C in) due to my new major of geography. I'm so glad that it's just going to ruin my GPA for no good reason now!
Well, in other news, my astronomy grade is 105% right now. And we took a test this morning of which I got zero answers wrong. (107% overall because he loves extra credit.)
My literature paper tanked too. I don't know what this lady wants. I wrote my term paper just like I wrote my B+ and A- essay exams... and I got a C. I'm going to end up with a B in that class. I'm really frustrated because I don't know what she wants, and I asked for clarification after class... and I still don't understand.

Soooo. Yeah. That's pretty much the bad news for now. Actually I think I'm leaving something out.

My math final is next Monday and I just don't have the will to study for the damn thing. Not after this last test. I worked my fingers to the bone doing ~25 hours of homework and I still couldn't pull off the B I wanted. (of course the test was extremely hard and long and I couldn't finish.) At least my stupid teacher doesn't write the final... It's only 25 questions.

My astronomy test will be about 200 questions... but I should be okay in that of course.

Hubby and I will run to another state and stay in a cheap motel for a few days after all my finals next week.

My days of school look long for next semester. As it stands right now:
Monday:
7:00 to 8:50 pm - Ballroom Dancing. With the hubby. For that all important fine arts credit.

Tuesdays and Thursdays:
10:00 to 12:20 - French I
1:00 to 4:00 - hopefully I'll get a math class to tutor at these times.
6:00 to 7:15 pm- One of the required geography classes.

Saturday:
9:00 to 11:45 - Second required geography class.
12:00 to 2:45 - History.

Then I'll try to take French II at the 4 year university next summer. And maybe another class... we'll see... financial aid usually doesn't help you over the summers. It'd be nice if I could take it at the community college I'm at right now, but the 4 year will only take up to 72 credits of transfer. Though... you can sort of "pick and choose" which ones so conceivably I could drop some superfluous psych classes and use a 5 credit hour French II.

However, the 4 year college wants Mulah and so they'll try and dissuade me from doing this. Bastards.

Okay, well, is this a long and boring enough post for y'all? Enjoy!

We're being watched keenly and closely.

2007-11-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

So.

Y'all really don't want to hear how school is going, believe me. It's brutal. Lots of things have gone super wrong lately. So I shan't talk about that; let's pretend it doesn't exist, shall we? Excellent.

What else could I talk about? Well, here's another amusing anecdote from my astronomy class.
We were watching "War of the Worlds", the original one. (yay for fun lab time!)

When the bacteria finally affect the aliens and the first ship goes down in town, my professor says "It's a Kia and the warranty just expired."

Tee hee!

I've seen both now. Yes, I did see the Tommy Cruise one in theaters. I will say this, that awful noise that the aliens made before they shot their weapons... still creeps the bejezus out of me. It got me thinking about the how Tom Cruise thing... People seem to hate that movie, but really I think it's only because it coincides with him really going cuckoo. If it weren't for that, I wonder what people's opinions would be about his remake of "War of the Worlds."

Gosh

2007-11-24T01:10:00.000-07:00

I seriously do not know where the time has gone. It is just speeding by. More and more... I see that this is true:

Time is like a toilet paper roll. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.

Gee, I'm surprised that I'm not 65 years old all of the sudden. Anyways.

I have been busy with school. I'm all finished with Literature... let's hope to Giant Jellyfish that I earned an A in the class.
But I have been studying and working my ass off in math. I had planned all along to be doing my 12 sections of homework over this long weekend. I did that because if I had done it any earlier I would panic about forgetting how to do the early stuff. Despite reviewing it. Because that's how I roll - Worrywart Panic Extraordinaire.

Anywho... I've gotten 6 sections done. It's so hard to get up the will to do the last 6. Of which I'll have to do 3 on Sat and 3 on Sun. Phooey.

I'm trying my best. I'm really working hard to do the best I can. I just hope that I can get a strong B on this next test before the final. Man, this sucks. I went from a person who scored 100's on math tests, and always the highest grade in the class, to just praying to hold on to my B. :-( This 12 section test is going to be a gigantic pain in the tuckus. The final will be even worse!

Anyways, enough of that unpleasant subject. I'll say this... my astronomy teacher told me twice how impressed he is with my grade in the class. So there we go, good news. (my average is 104%.)

My thanksgiving was pretty decent. I'm addicted to pumpkin pi and now I don't know how to get off the stuff.

I think that's all, folks!

tidal stability

2007-11-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

Did I ever share this with you? I don't think I did. Hmmm.

In my astronomy class we learned about the Roche Limit. My professor said he'll never forget this one answer he received on a test about that... and let's just say it was at one of our more liberal, artsy-fartsy campuses...

"The roche limit is when it burns too low and you need a clip."

Getting the grades

2007-11-13T15:00:00.001-07:00

Well I'm going to brag because I'm happy. We had a very hard test in astronomy today and I earned a 101%. The thing that annoyed me though... I didn't study too terribly much last night because I was fixated on my literature paper, and on the astronomy test I got some things about Uranus and Neptune mixed up in my head. But that's ok, I made up for it with the extra credit. It was 3 questions I goofed on. And... well... I'm a major perfectionist and I hate making silly errors... but I shall have to get over it. I'm quite happy with my 101%.

One of my friends in the class can be a bit unbearable with his attitude. He thinks he knows it all and doesn't have to bother doing any studying like us mere mortals. Or even bother coming to class. So it was a little gratifying to see him get an 83% on the test.

Astronomy is pretty well wrapped up for me right now. I have a 104% average. Yay.
Literature........ dear sweet cow I hope I did well on this paper. I hope she'll think so and give me a good grade. I hope she'll have them graded by next week at least. The torture!!!
And in math... I have to work hard to keep my B, but I think I will be able to. Ugh. I hate getting a B. It's going to drag my GPA down dammit.

I know, I know. I apologize for being one of those kinds of students but it is who I am.

BTW - I am a very "comma" happy kind of person. I looked over my Lit paper just before I turned it in and decided to white-out about 6 commas. I hope I did this right. Stupid grammar.

PS I wish I could see a dentist, but we do not have the money for it. I have a concern about some fillings I got over a year ago... Phooey. This sucks.

boring

2007-11-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. Dangit. The days are just flying by and I really don't have much to say in the first place. The usual college BS.

I just got done writing my literature paper. Gotta say... it came rather easily and quickly. I sure hope I get a great grade on it. I really think I nailed down what my teacher is looking for........

Math is math. We're back on more algebra related ground, so hopefully things will be better for the this next test. We are doing 12 sections of homework and being tested on them. Kind of like a mini-final. Ugh.

Then a week after this doozy of a test, comes the real final. *groan*

Dude. What is WITH my stupid college???? They keep making us go longer and longer. We are one of the earliest back in school in the whole state. What the hell? I hate this! I'm glad I'm just about done with them. Only one more semester. Then I'm onto a 4 year university as a junior. Yeeee haaaaw.
(btw, we go back earlier, but it's not like we get more breaks. Oh no. We get hardly ANY days off during any of the semesters.)

Anywhooooo. That's pretty much my exciting life as of right now.

Tra la la la la la

I put a little too much salt on this popcorn, but wow it's hitting the spot right now. Yum.

Meme mememememememe and me!

2007-11-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

I was tagged! Makes me feel like Sally Field. You like me, you really like me! Or at least you read me every now and then at least. ;-) Jennifer tagged me to post 8 random facts about moi.
(One of these days I'll get my blog roll going. Maybe after I do this.)

I was even trying to figure out something kinda neat to write about, so this was a good thing to fall into my lap at the right time.

Now then. Obligatory disclaimer. I feel that perhaps these are silly and maybe stupid, but oh well. It's all I can come up with right now after being at school doing math for 8 hours straight.

1) I was a serious competing ice skater since I was about 5 years old until about 20. (and I actually have a move that I can do better than most all skating pros. It's called the spread eagle and I totally rock that move.)

2) I can play 4 instruments well, the piano, bass guitar, flute and saxophone.

3) Around 1986-87 ish, I was 9-10 years old and I got hit with Beatle Mania of all things. I listened to all their albums, on vinyl of course, watched most of their movies over and over, and I even wanted my hair to look like theirs. Wow. I need my head examined. (luckily, I never got that kind of hair cut.)

4) My main band that I love though is the Rolling Stones. My parents were hippies and I have a taste for all of that music as well which began when I was a little whippersnapper.

5) My mother has black hair and brown eyes, my dad has brunette hair and hazel eyes... and here I am with blond hair and blue eyes. Hello! (don't know where that came from at all. And my parents swear I'm not adopted.)

6) Ever since I was little I wanted a ferret. I love ferrets. And I collect just about everything ferret-y that I can. They are my animal. :-) Yes, I do have 3 ferrets right now. And 3 cockatiels, 3 cats, 2 gerbils and 1 husband.

7) I have a huge heart for all animals, and frankly, I even release bugs outside. Currently we have a huge spider in our garage who I've named Sally Elizabeth.

8) I cannot watch horror or gore movies because of my overactive, vivid imagination. I swear I might drive myself insane with it.

Piiiink eye

2007-11-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

Heh. People have been telling me all day long that I look tired and I really didn't understand why. I thought "Wow, I must be really tired for it to be read on my face."

Then I looked in the mirror and saw the pink eye.
Great.

Even better... I got an eye exam and new glasses on Friday night.

ICK.

Dear readers of this Blooger Bloog

2007-11-03T22:54:00.000-06:00

A newsflash that will change your life, end world hunger and fix USA's health care problems:

I have zero, zip, zilch, nada desire to do homework.

Thank you. That is all.

(and I haven't really done one lick of homework in about two days. Though I am trying to brainstorm for my lit paper.)

Randomness...

2007-10-30T22:29:00.000-06:00

I need to get fitted for a bra one of these days. I wish I could get up the nerve. And I've got to figure out where to go, what's reputable.

/end transmission

Eep

2007-10-29T21:50:00.000-06:00

So. Just how the heck am I going to pay for my second half of my two years of college tuition? Holy cow. I'm looking at two in-state colleges and I'm just overwhelmed by the prices. This sucks.

Well, here's hoping I might talk to both colleges and maybe there'll be some things that will help me out. I dunno.

I'm also trying to figure out what to do. I will just have to flat out admit this... I am not continuing in math. That's kinda sad on my part, but it's what has to be for now. I don't know what exactly happened, as I always had the highest grade in math. I was not prepared for this math course I'm taking right now and it's hurting me.
My plans are to perhaps come back to a math degree sometime in the future, when there's not so much pressure for me to finish college and get a job. (like I'll take one class per semester after work type deal.)

ANYWHO... It's looking like I probably will major in Geography (the physical/GIS aspect of it) once I become a junior.
I think I'll go ahead and finish my Associate's of Science degree... what I'll probably take for the spring semester is geography, history and physics.
Then when I transfer to a 4 year university, I'll switch to a BA.

Good times will be had by all.

Not.

It bugs me

2007-10-27T21:21:00.001-06:00

You know... thanks to a homestate team being in the World Series, the Rockies, everybody is suddenly all about baseball and the world series. It's a state fever thing. That's cool. But it's interesting these people wouldn't pay $8 to see them before but now they're willing to pay <$150.

What I really hate is the scalping and money grubbers. I had a girl in my astronomy class brag about how she got tickets and she only got 2, and then she whined about how upset she is she wasn't thinking clearly and didn't get 4 so she could sell the other 2 for a tidy profit.

That's what bugs the crap out of me. Call me a socialist... but I think it's just plain rude that she gets to buy the tickets for, say, $150 a piece, but now if someone else wants to go they have to pay whatever mark-up she desires on it.

It's a 2 way street though. Basically this kind of crap can only stop if people would stop buying the price-gouged tickets.

It's just a disgusting way of humankind.

status epilepticus

2007-10-25T22:06:00.000-06:00

That is just a weird term. My husband and I went to a doctor's appointment today and I just couldn't bring myself to say it. Because I always feel like I would be saying it wrong. (it's when a person goes into seizure after seizure and they don't stop.)

I also dicked it up in astronomy today. I swear. I could've gotten 10 extra credit points if I would've answered a question. Why didn't I? Stupid little anxiety attack. I just couldn't bring myself to say the answer for whatever reason. (I don't need the points, luckily. But it's the principle of the matter. Darn me to heck anyway.)

I had my drama exam in Lit. I just don't know... I really don't. I'm afraid I did very badly. This semester is just hell on me for some reason. Grrrrr.

Anyways, we're trying a new medicine on Ryan. He actually went into status epilepticus on this one medicine about 16 years ago, Te.gretol. Now we are trying a drug that is close to it, like a cousin, Tri.leptal. It'll be interesting (right) to see what happens. I hate it when we mess around with his medication, but we simply have to. I keep waiting for that one drug that will answer our prayers. (or cocktail of drugs, whatever.)

I asked Ryan when his status epilepticus happened when he was on that other medicine and he said he was about 4 days into the dose. He just took his first dose of this medicine tonight. Hopefully next week will pass by uneventfully.

Yay to Blooger for finally putting in an option to email, or subscribe, to comments!!!!

Feeds?

2007-10-23T21:01:00.000-06:00

Ummm... hmmm. I just tried to figure out how to have site feeds on This Old Blooger.

How the heck do I do this? I just spent a half hour trying to figure it out, and I can't. I enabled site feeds in my settings, but as for putting a link or whatever on my sidebar, I cannot get it to do that. I went to template tags here on Blooger, and the code they gave me doesn't work.

Nuts to this. >:-(

me and my imaginary friends

2007-10-23T20:11:00.000-06:00

Did I ever say the results of a math test? I think I did... but for our second big trig test I got a big fat D. I'm so excited. It's my first D ever. I should frame the damn thing.

However it must be noted that over half the class flat out failed the test. 8 F's. It was a very difficult and painful chapter and test.

This next chapter is going a bit better for me now. It's about the laws of sines and cosines... the dot product... imaginary numbers - trig functions or something or other with z... anyways. It's getting better. Although the word problems are a massive b*tch. I mean, wow, massive.

I am so counting down this semester. I kinda like being a math tutor, but at the same time I kinda hate it too. I hope that next semester I can manage to get away with only doing 6 hours a week of tutoring. I don't know. I'm not enjoying this semester very much. Some factors are a location I'm at, and the people with which I am surrounded. (very broad, general whine, huh?)

Switching gears - it's interesting. I had my hair cut about a week ago. It's a new change for me. One I never thought I would embrace. For most of my life I was all about the loooong hair. I loved long hair and couldn't imagine ever wanting short hair. But I have a bob-like cut in my hair, and it is well above my shoulders. I love it.

I like the change this brings about. Growth and evolution on my part. I know it's only hair, but still. It's nice to know you aren't stagnant. It's still kinda baffling to me that I could like short hair.

Hmmm, I just basically had a brain fart and can't remember anything else I was going to say. Guess it'll have to wait for another post!

Not necessarily life and death

2007-10-19T00:59:00.000-06:00

Odd. Out of boredom, I decided to look in on an old email account. This one has a little bit of reason for me looking... it was an account that I used to communicate with an ex-best friend. I hate that I still miss him from time to time, especially due to the way he's treated me. It was bad, and I'm better off without him. So why do I still miss him? Grrr.

I digress.

The point is, it's interesting to re-read old messages from your past and seeing your thoughts and feelings about things. I know these things were important to me at the time, but at the same time, who really cares??? I'm getting better about not being so... nitpicky about every minutae of my life.

It also sucks that the one message I really got into re-reading was so long that it got cut off with this: ===message truncated===
Ah phooey!

Patience is a... you know...

2007-10-16T22:28:00.000-06:00

I have a story. A real story I can share that is kinda neat.

Ok. So I stopped at the grocery store after school, on my way home. Then I got behind some ladies that were doing things with their method of payment that took a long time. I believe the cashier was relatively new too, but not a total newbie. Just doing a job that she probably saw once briefly in training and had to think how to process it since it doesn't come up often.

I don't even know what it was they were doing... I guessed some kind of government help or something.

So. For the first few moments I was kinda like "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. How long is this going to take?" In my head of course.

Then I told myself "Calm down. Patience. The world needs patience. These kind of things happen. People need for others not to be so damn rude and pushy all the time. And what is the rush we are always in? Good grief."

I will admit... about 5 minutes later I was still fighting with myself to be patient. I couldn't really go to another line because I had already unloaded my stuff. So I just stuck it out some more.

When it was all finally said and done, the cashier apologized to me. She looked like frazzled. I told her I completely understand, these things happen. I really am understanding about it.
Then.
One of the two ladies, the customers, came back and thanked me as well for my patience. Kinda dumbstricken by this, I said "It's ok, not a problem!!" I flashed through a couple of quick chit-chatty things I could say, but discarded them. Something like "The world needs more patience." or "We all have situations like this from time to time."

Only once I got into the parking lot did I think of the tired, but true "Patience is a virtue" thing.

Alas.

I felt kinda guilty though. Because, well... I was getting a little bit grumpy about how long it was taking. And I was fighting with myself to be patient. (how terrible is that? I hate that. This world needs patience and time! Man, where's the fire all the time?)

And just how sweet was it for these two ladies to thank me for my patience? I mean, wow. For the universe to reward a person, to show a good side, to prove itself unpredictable...

*sigh*

Quite a thought provoker.

I'm going to sound petty...

2007-10-14T22:17:00.000-06:00

But wow some people are so dense. Or they just don't bother to read. It's so aggravating.

In other "news",

I think... I need to really figure out... how to go away for college.
Here are my options.
1) Stay living with my parents and go to a local university. Of which I'm not exactly enamored with, and it's a little expensive.

2) Figure out how me, as a full time student, and my husband who is disabled and on disability which doesn't pay anything worthwhile, can live on our own. In another town.

I think, for our sanity, I need to find a way for us to be on our own. Somehow, someway.

I wanna bury my nut!

2007-10-11T21:42:00.000-06:00

This morning as I walked out to my car to go to school, I had to pause and watch something so darn cute and amusing.

I watched a squirrel trying to bury a nut in our neighbor's astro turf.

bah humbug

2007-10-10T19:44:00.000-06:00

I just don't know what to say. I'm really in over my head with this stupid math class. The college really did me a great disservice (whatever spelling) by having me go into this class. I was a straight A math student before now. This is completely ridiculous.

There's not much I can do but keep working hard. I'm so frustrated and upset though. I really think I failed my first math test. I mean really. I couldn't answer a lot of questions. Frankly, a lot of other students were struggling too.

Anyways. I'm really poking my nose into a major in geography. I feel like that actually may be right for me. After I have explored soooooo many other majors. I'm going to request a meeting with the head of geography at our school, and maybe I can get some really good insight.

I feel oddly quiet from journaling. I don't know why. Interesting. Oh well.

Anything fun I can tell you? Nope. Not really. SOSDD basically.
And I have been doing totally awful on my weight loss efforts. Stress is just killing me.

6 days ago

2007-10-06T22:14:00.000-06:00

You know, I never really did mention much about our day out last Sunday. Maybe I'll rehash a few fun details now.

I love the zoo, but hate seeing these poor animals in awful cages. They try to update some of them, and a few are better, but still. Poor darlings. Still, I had a great time. Weather was nice, even though the sun was shining brightly. I love spending a lot of time near the aquatic animals and such. We watched the sea lions for a long time, the river otters... so on.

Anyways, then we popped over to an old friend's house, Fred. I've known him for 15 years now. We're not super close or anything, but despite distance we seem to keep in touch with each other decently enough. We invited him to go to Casa Bonita's with us, but he had other plans with other friends. So we chatted for awhile and then Ryan and I had to get going to the restaurant.

Same as I remember! The food wasn't as terrible as it's made out to be. It's not great, but not the worst mexican food I've ever eaten either. After eating, we explored the restaurant. Ryan had a really, really good time, like I knew he would. They did have divers there, but sadly they were women. ;-) I was astonished, though, at how they have to climb up the waterfall. These poor people have to literally scale the walls. Scary! Goodness! And even after they dive into the pool, there's no ladder to get out, they have again climb up the walls and over a fence. It's soooo odd. The pool is so tiny. I wonder how many accidents there have been?

Ryan really didn't want to leave. I knew that would happen. ;-) Oh, and we went through Bart's Cave... the thing is they have it all "Halloween-ed". So that just makes it even scarier!!! I'm a huuuuge baby when it comes to things like this. The only reason I could go through Bart's Cave in the first place was because I ran through there countless times when I was little and finally got a little desensitized to the scariness of it. I do have to pat myself on the back, because I really am a scaredy cat, but yet I managed to go through. I saw lots of other people back out. They'd walk up to the entrance, turn around and walk right back out. LOL. I just about did that as well, but I pushed through.

urge to kill - rising

2007-10-04T23:40:00.000-06:00

Good grief. When will I learn? After a little hiatus, I peeked back into my old blog service... and here I am with sky high blood pressure. Man, there are times when I wish you could throw a website or something into the trash. Especially if you're weak like me and keep going back for more.

Sad thing is, I think the other service is a bit better than this one. More bells and whistles and interactions. It's like I have this choice of "Live in the mountains nary a soul within 300 miles" or "Live in the sewer of the Big Apple city."
I truly don't know what to do.

The internet on a whole can be a pain in the tuckus though. I see so many blogs where the author has to carefully craft their words so they don't incur wrath of maggots. LOL. Maggot wrath. How funny. Or they have to put in all these stipulations to try and qualm the onset of two-teethed people playing banjos with their feet.

I don't know. Why the heck am I even doing this? Well, the sad thing is... I do it for interaction. I have barely any real life friends. I do love to type and write out my words. Why don't I just keep it private then? I don't know. Part of me really likes the opinions of others, but only when they're said in a respectful, constructive manner.

I have joined my local chapter of meet up dot com. I have yet to attend something. I probably should. I have really tried to think of ways to gain new friends in my personal life, and it's not easy. Not easy at all. :-(

Life and the internet are kinda like getting shot in the butt from a doctor. It can be much easier to take with a lollipop. Right now I have no lollipops in my life.

I should become Shannon Unplugged. I know. But then I'd really feel lonely and isolated.

Clearly... I am quite conflicted about my feelings. Well, time to stop rambling.

Yup

2007-10-03T21:13:00.000-06:00

Well, we had fun on Sunday.
I got an 84% on my math test. So that's decent. Not my usual good work... but... I'm just happy I didn't get a D or F or even a C.

I'm finding out that I probably should have just taken the real trigonometry course. Then I could've gone into calculus with no problems. Instead of taking this stupid "hybrid" course that's supposed to help prepare me for calculus. It just sucks every trig function you can imagine. *sigh*
I hate this class.

In other news, I got a 106% on my astronomy test. And a "B++" on my lit test. I'm not too worried about that, she just wants to see us improve over the course, and so yeah... I can improve myself into an A.

Well anyways.
Basically SOSDD.

PS,
I had a crappy tutoring day today. I just couldn't help anybody. Gah. Although I did get 2 kids to learn how to program the quadratic formula into their calculators so there's that victory I suppose. But my stupid math class about killed my brain this morning. I'm so wigged out. More hard work ahead of me over the weekend.

Day of Fun Part II

2007-09-30T11:15:00.000-06:00

LOL, Ryan's practically dancing around here he's so happy to be going someplace. We tease him in a good way about being like a doggy... "Go outside? Outside??"
But seriously. I asked him to check the tires and the fluids in our awesome Toyota car, and he came racing back inside to get some grocery bags to clean out the trash as well. (I hate that we're those kind of people with our car.)
Ugh, I also just reminded myself about how we have a big job to do with our car... I want to detail the inside and wax the outside. Well, next weekend I suppose. Also, oil changes. Cripes, I just need to write it on the list and not bore you people.

ANYWAYS, I just wanted to share how excited he is about going someplace, but I was also just reminded that today is his mother's birthday. His estranged mother's birthday. Ughhhhhh. I truly don't know what to do about this situation. It is a complicated and sordid affair that involves both of us. (she's messed with Ryan all his life, and me too once she met me. Basically to boil it all down into one nutshell, she has a major narcissitic personality. A manipulative narcissitic personality.)

It's so messy and awful. Really. *sigh* She does some nasty stuff to us, and I have to admit that I don't rise above it at times. Like knowing her birthday was coming up and not sending out a card in a timely fashion. And the thought I had just now of "Well, so what? She forgot my birthday this year."

Day of Fun

2007-09-30T10:09:00.002-06:00

I'm a little excited... I have plans for me and my hubby. And I'm going to surprise him with them, because he loves surprises.

It's time to enjoy life for a little while. I actually have not touched my trig all weekend, but tonight I will look ahead. But enough about that.

First of all, just a note, we have to get back to the Denver Museum of Natural Science, or whatever they call it now, to see the Titanic exhibit. We went back in July and it was so crowded. I'm hoping we can pick a more mellow day to really enjoy the exhibit. But I don't think we'll do that today. Actually... we should go on a Friday or Saturday night because it's a little cheaper. But I wonder how crowded it would be?? Well, anyways. I just know that we'd like to go see that a couple more times at least before it sails out of Denver in January. (plus I have to add a few more things from the gift shop to my Titanic collections.)

Soooo, instead what we'll do today is go to the zoo and then go to Casa Bonita. I cannot believe Ryan has never been there. It's required of you when you're a CO resident. He's going to love it. That's one of the several things I love about him so much, his childlike wonderment and excitement.

I have so many memories of Casa Bonita. When I was an ice skater, my skating club would make a fun day of it and we would go to Elitches, at its old location, and then Casa Bonita. I loooooved doing that so much. It was so much fun, and I have good memories of that. The event usually happened in June, I believe. There was a time when it was the end of the day, and I could have a ride all to myself. I loved going on this particular ride because you start off looking like you'll run into a fence, then soon enough you're getting higher and higher and now you're over the fence.... ahhh. Memories.

(wow, I'm suddenly flooded by a lot of memories of events like this. Due to the ice skating and being in the band at school, I went a lot of places and did a lot of things. Also, I even miss my school bus driving job just a little bit because I drove a ton of field trips. I love traveling.)

After Old School Elitches we'd all go to Casa Bonita where of course the food doesn't matter. (and good thing too, it's kinda nasty actually.) My dad got pulled up on stage once for a magician's act. I also remember the waterfall and the cave thing.
In high school the band stopped there for dinner and me and one other guy were kinda left seatless. The waitress was so rude to us at first, then ignored us the rest of the time. And after waiting for a long time to be able to pay for our meals, we finally just upped and left. But she caught up to us. That annoyed me. I'm not one for skipping out, but frankly, I did hope we could that day because of how she behaved. We didn't even get the comp food, like chips and salsa and sopapillas.

So. Those are my plans for the day. Time to enjoy life for once. Instead of the usual towing of the line and drudgery.
(and I'm so antsy now to get back to Titanic! Darnit, oh well, another day. Definitely.)

Oh, and next Sunday? We get to see Bill Cosby!! He's my childhood hero. I love him to pieces. Love him. I'd better see if I could find a coupon so we could also have dinner out after the show.

yeah sure.

2007-09-29T00:02:00.000-06:00

So in a way I don't have homework this weekend, but yet I actually do. Ugh. I'm just ignoring it. I need to start reading "Midsummer's Night Dream" and I'd like to get a jump on my next chapter in math.

But moving on quickly away from that unpleasant topic... This morning I "treated" myself. I lazed around in bed, watching some TV dvd's. Then I painted my fingernails and toenails. And Ryan and I just got back from shopping until we were dropping.

Not really. Actually, we spent a lot of time in B&N while I tried to pick a trig book that would be helpful.

I've been doing a lot of thinking... I need to really write this stuff down while I'm in the moment and all. But anyways... I'm starting to realize and accept the fact that life is going to be hard and difficult no matter what. For some reason, I just have this feeling in the back of my mind "Once I turn ____ things will be easier. Once I get some high paying office job, things will be easier. Once I lose weight I'll magically gain self esteem." Etc.

I want to just accept things as they are and not try to force things. Life is what it is, and I'd like to just go with the flow more.

I have a lot of work to do in some positive thinking departments too... thought changes and all... I'll get there somehow.

AND. I'd like to focus on the good things in life. As I contemplated things while driving, I encountered two cars who were polite. Then I encountered the requisite assholes. Well, I'd like to stop focusing on the assholes and just focus on the good, polite people that are out there. The a-holes are never going to go away. Why do I have this odd expectation of them doing so?

Again. Just let them be. Go with the flow of it all. Don't focus on them.

I'm trying. I'm trying.

BTW, you know those cute little baby pumpkins? (I forget their names, gourds? I dunno.)
I so wanted to get a bunch for all our animals. I called them "ferret pumpkins" because they are perfectly ferret sized! Awww. Actually they are a good, cute size for all our animals.
We have 3 ferrets, 3 cockatiels and 2 gerbils. There are 3 cats in this house too, but they technically belong to my parents now.

I am sleepy.

how do you cure being a human?

2007-09-26T21:20:00.000-06:00

Let us enjoy Georgia. Georgia typeface that is. Ooooohhhh. Aaahhhhh.

I..... really don't know how I did on my test. It doesn't really look good, frankly. And my teacher is a strict grader. I mean strict. Let's say you forget a negative sign in your answer, but it the rest of it correct. She will only give you one point, instead of just taking one point off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure I could just hear about the real professors in the real world who'll chop your hands off for getting a problem wrong. But I don't care. I'm still going to complain about my teacher's grading policies. Because they do suck. She's just itching to dock you on all the points she can.

This will probably have to be the test score I have to drop. *sigh* I'm going to do some work over the weekend to get myself more solid in this #*!@#$%@ trigonometry.

Ok. All that being said, I actually have something else I'd like to muse about.

I admit. Nobody particularly wants to be around a person who whines or complains all the time. Even if they don't have a voice that goes along with the whining. (you know, a whiiiiiney voice.)

But, what can you do? What if there is stuff around you that annoys you? Why is it not allowable to complain about it? Even in a "nice" way? Basically, why is it not allowable to vent a frustration, nor matter how minor or major?

I'm just doing some introspection here. To me... I wonder if people don't like reading my stuff because I'm too whine-y or complain-y. However, what am I supposed to do? Hold it all inside until I explode from the frustration?

People will often say "It's your journal, use it as you need it, or as you see fit."
But I don't know. I don't really have that many people who like to be invested in me. (this is coming from my 6 years on another blog service.)

So what do you do?

I was just making some kind of comment to a college friend the other day and he goes "Complain, complain, complain." But I wasn't meaning to complain, sheesh! And really, he was mostly joking about it. Still.......

I am a hyper-sensitive person. And I just feel all this pressure to be perfect at any cost, so that I will be tolerable to people. But the thing is, and I know this full well, when you try to please everybody in the world, it gets you nowhere and you basically end up with nobody really liking you.

And what is perfect anyways? It's an empty, meaningless word universally.

I don't know. My thoughts are not really lined up about all this. It's an ongoing process. I'll admit, I am in therapy. There is a lot in my life and in my past that has beaten me down.
I just wonder one thing for now... when will I ever feel that it's acceptable to just be myself?

whine, whine, every where there's a whine

2007-09-25T15:38:00.000-06:00

Wow. Last night I started crying from frustration over trig. Basically they rationalized a square root in a denominator, but I couldn't figure that out for a long few minutes. And it just broke me. I'm so tired of being so damn confused in trig.
(It was supposed to simply be 1/sqrt3. But then not only did they rationalize the damn thing, they broke it apart as well, and wrote it as 1/3 times sqrt3.)

Frankly, a few people have had this class before and this is their second time taking it. So they have an edge over me. Others have simply had trig before sometime in their lives, so they also have an edge over me. And it's hard not to sit there and feel like a Yugo next to a bunch of Ferrari's in the class. They've all "caught on" so quickly.

One of my friends at school yelled at me today about how I need to ask questions. I know, I know. It's hard for me to do it though especially when the teacher goes so fast. Because I know the point is they have to cover what they have to cover in a certain amount of time.

It IS my own fault for not asking questions. So how can I change this? How can I make it so I feel more comfortable and "allowed" to ask questions? Grrrrr.

Why do I feel pressure to know everything in the world? Why is it when I observe other people I know they don't know everything in the world, but they sure know a ton more than I do, and they make me feel ashamed at my apparent lack of knowledge?

Why is it that it's "ok" for me to not know my major, not know where I'm going in life, but that's all everybody wants to know? "What's your major? What career do you want afterwards? Where are you going in life?"
Answer: I don't have a motherf*cking CLUE, ok?
(and I demand this of myself. It sure would be nice to know what I'm doing in life. Or at least have an idea of what I would like to do. But apparently that is one of my great life mysteries that remains to forever be unsolved.)

I just don't know. I kinda don't know what to do about myself anymore. I'm my own worst enemy at times. Totally.

shine on, sunshine

2007-09-22T21:00:00.000-06:00

So what words can I dazzle you with today? Dunno.

I miss my gerbie. I've been holding the boy gerbils a lot to help comfort me.

I did finally buckle down and do some math... but I had to rely way too heavily on my solutions manual. I'm "allowing" this right now simply because it is my first turn in trigonometry. I plan on making a study notebook later. It'll have all the stuff I need to know, to remember. I usually use notecards for flash cards, but this is too much stuff! So I have to make a FlashCard Notebook. Egads.

I have had a lot of neat stuff run through my mind today, but it's too much to write down. Heck, I can barely remember half of it right now. The computer is a mind eraser, donchaknow. Seriously.

Some was memories...I'd like to write more of my memories down so I can keep them forever.

And of course, the everpresent wondering what the hell I am doing with my life. I did peruse my elective list again, and now suddenly I'm interested in taking Physics (algebra based though, unfortunately) and Chemistry.
My astronomy professor will be teaching a meteorology course in the spring, and I hope I can take that. I might like to take a geography course too.

So we'll see. I think I might hold off on Calculus I for a couple of reasons. 1) I'd hate to start it at this school and have to switch to another school in the middle of it. 2) Typically for calc I, II, and III they use the same book all the way through. So I may as well wait until I switch to a four year university.

I've just kind of decided to try and taste new classes. Who knows? I could end up loving chemistry, or physics. The only downside is I only have so much time to cram stuff in. I'm even considering taking chemistry over the summer, but I'd have to pay out of pocket for it. Suddenly I have a million classes I'd like to dabble in, and no time to take them per se!
Granted, I could take chemistry at my 4 year university... but you have to get on a road and go for it, otherwise you waste time and money taking a superfluous class in regards to your new major.

ANYWAYS. I'm so sick of worrying and wondering about all this.

I am also trying to get down to what would make me happy. I truly don't know. When I was younger I wanted to get into the space program somehow. But I am no where brilliant enough for that. :-( I don't know if I'm brilliant enough to be a high paid white collar worker.
I am smart. Just not brilliant. :-(

Right now I feel like a multi-faceted crystal. So many different faces and planes in my world, in my life. Not sure what to do.

I do know I don't like "people" jobs. I went to beauty school after high school just to delay college because I had no idea what I wanted to study (hello, sound familiar?) and I hated it. I HATED having to work with the general public.
I have no desire to be a teacher. So hey, there's two jobs down and out. Gah. (and a field actually.)

Random: I had a dream I had my hair cut by a blind person last night. Oddness.

Why does it have to be so hard to not compare yourself to others?

How can I possibly drink as much water as I should, when I can't be leaving class every 15 minutes to hit the head?

I can honestly see how it's possible to leave college knowing less than you did when you went in. I feel that way everyday.

PS. Wanna know what I did? I erased all RAM from my graphing calculator. Good going, Shannon. Now I have to work on downloading stuff back onto it. Idjit.

Rest in peace darling

2007-09-21T13:22:00.000-06:00

Well, one of our gerbils, Molly, passed away. Thursday 9/20. Early in the morning, in my hands. I've been brokenhearted ever since of course. We buried her in the backyard next to her sisters and mother. It's a pretty nice resting place actually. I'm still so very sad.
Priscilla is the mommy gerbil. She had 5 babies. 3 girls and 2 boys. The girls: Leia, Holly and Molly. They were identical twins. Molly is the last girl we had. We still have the boys, Storm (for stormtrooper because he was Leia's fraternal twin) and Teddy because he has big teddy bear ears.

I just want to add something. I am currently trying to lose weight. I just started again last week. At the beginning of this year I tried to lose weight and I was starting to be successful. Then some other animal emergencies came up, with one of my ferrets, and all bets were off.
It's taken me until now when I could get my willpower back and get back on the horse, so to speak.
However, this recent death really got to me and so yesterday I didn't care about the diet again. But that's okay. I actually made decent choices about breaking my diet. Instead of going to a restaurant or fast food joint, we went to the grocery store and bought a few things. But I made better choices than I normally do.

Today/tomorrow I'll get back to it. I haven't added in exercise yet anyways, so that's my plan for next week. Anyhow, I say all this because basically, I want to lose weight. And I want to triumphantly announce my weight loss successes here. So now you know. And even though I kinda "messed up" yesterday and a little bit for today, I will not let this deter me. I even weighed myself this morning and I've lost two pounds so far. I will keep this up.

I checked out 3 books yesterday from the college library. My mind was still on my grieving about my gerbil, Molly, so I was startled when the librarian said "Going to have a fun weekend, huh?" Then I realized I'm checking out 3 books that deal with trigonometry. Yee Haw.

However, I'm still just... eh. I still have to find my motivation, especially after my recent loss of a sweet animal. But I'll make myself. I even skipped a class yesterday which is fairly unlike me. I'm a good studious student and I know how important it is to be there for class. But the human in me just couldn't take it. I was sad, depressed and I'm just tired of school in general anyways.

Next week is going to suck. I have a math test on Wednesday, an astronomy test on Thursday morning and an essay exam for literature Thursday afternoon. I suppose the upside to all this is a homework free weekend basically! Still.... grrrrrrr.

gimme strength

2007-09-19T21:16:00.000-06:00

Oh jeez. I just need the strength or... will... the determination... I know there's a word I'm looking for but it's not coming to me. Wednesdays are really hard for me anyways. First I have my 2.5 hour math class. Then I have 3 hours of math tutoring a specific class. THEN I have 2 hours in the math lab helping random boneheads. All in a row.

I do like all this, but it can be a bit rough. It's about 7 or 8 hours of straight math time.
Tonight wasn't that bad. There are quite a few people I actually enjoy being around, which is nice. But I'm still worn out mentally.

Maybe I might just keep my math major. I don't know. I'm sort of talking myself out of it before I even really try. :-( I'm just worried about calculus. And beyond. Oy. But I'm still rather enjoying math. I just have to take it one day at a time. And find good teachers, that can make a big difference. But it's hard to find good teachers sometimes. :-(

Well anywhoooo. I have a lot of work ahead of me this weekend. I simply MUST get my act together in studying for my math test that is in one week. I have 7 sections of homework, and I think I'll have to do it all twice for the practice. I just need to find my motivation.
My last test was regraded and now I have an 85%. That honestly is a lot better than I thought I would do. I was so worried about that test. So if I could just get my mind on it, I should shoot for an A on this next test. Don't give up, Shannon, don't give up.

try and go around the wall

2007-09-18T19:10:00.000-06:00

Well, now. I found out something interesting today. This trigonometry I'm having to take in my math class is actually a condensed, harder version than college trig. They took a 16 week course and crammed it into 4 weeks, and also made it a degree harder than the 16 week course.

No wonder! Sheesh. I may have to go out and buy "trig for dummies", which I hate to do but if it'll help... I'm just kind tired. I know this is college, but I am sick of having to pay these tuition prices only to teach myself math. :-(

I'm going to look into other fields of course. I asked about meteorology, and my professor said he'll try and find some information for me. He also mentioned that he thing Geography would be an exciting course to go into. Hmmmm! It sounded good the way he talked it up. This professor is a meteorologist who teaches a lot of science courses including, but not limited to, astronomy, geography, meteorology, physics... He knows his stuff, dangit. I'm intimidated by people like him!

A classmate mentioned actuary careers. I'm going to research that as soon as I'm done writing this.

I don't know.

I do know one thing. I am just dang tired of math right now. I'm burnt out. I'm totally ignoring my homework right now.

Let your geek hang out

2007-09-17T20:06:00.000-06:00

Ok. I'm tickled to have my first comment. Tee hee. I've got to get my name spread out on the people's blogs who I usually frequent, so they too can waste time reading my posts. It sure took me long enough to decide to have this kind of website, instead of the other service I was using.

(and uh, please forgive me while I have my learning curve of this site.)

Soooo, back to trig. I am starting to get it, and sadly, it is exciting to me. (though hard!) I had to use identities today and I was so happy and proud of myself when I got one right all by myself. It's just a lot of information to take in all at once when you've never had trig before. I'm slowly getting there. Although I did have a headache earlier today. Trig can = a headache for sure.

I talked at length to an old friend today about my future. She suggested architecture. I'm taking astronomy this semester as well, and my astronomy professor is also a meteorologist. I emailed him last night requesting a meeting with him, and I just got an email back saying that we should talk in class tomorrow to set up a time. Now I just have to figure out what to ask him about meteorology.

I have to admit something. I wonder if I have the brains for all of this kind of stuff*. For some reason I just worry that I don't have the gift of real brains for dealing with highly critical thinking professions. *sigh* That is also a problem for me... my self confidence. The problem is that I have none. Or next to none. I need to work on this as well, but dangit... the fear, it's scary.
(*um, by "this kind of stuff" I'm meaning the maths and sciences. AS and BS degrees.)

I went to college in 1998, and I just kinda randomly chose TV and Film Production. I did enjoy it, but then my advisor lead me astray with the advising, I got pissed off and fed up, and quit. Besides, I had my doubts I wanted to really be in that kind of field. Especially in my city.

When I made the decision to go back to college last year, I had only a few classes that would work for a new major. The TV major was only an Associate of Applied Science. Those don't transfer to 4 year universities. So I had to switch to either an AA or AS degree. First I randomly (again) decided psychology. Kinda the fall back major for a lot of people. I knew I really probably didn't want to pursue that any further. Meanwhile, in my math class, I kept earning 100% on tests and I had the highest grade in class. I did finally discover for myself that I enjoyed math.

Hence, my major in math right now. I just don't know if I really want to keep on that line though. It might be nice to actually go into a career field. I'm considering as many as I can, but yet I know there has to be more out there I'm not aware of. And how the heck do you choose these careers? Or at least get a major that is highly tolerable for you so college isn't worse than a rectal exam with sandpaper gloves.

A few hours later...

2007-09-16T21:24:00.001-06:00

Well, I just wanted to make a new post about how I worked for about 4 hours today on trig, and things are better. I believe I will start really liking it, but there is a lot to take in for your first time with it. Lots of things to memorize and try to get straight in your head. I'm not even there yet, but I've begun to climb the mountain.

I will be graduating from this crappy community college next spring. I'm trying to figure out what school I want to transfer to afterwards. I really don't know.

And what I really don't know is what my major or emphasis will be. Currently I am declared a math major. I do enjoy it, despite how rough it can be. I'm worried that soon it will become immensely difficult and scary. Who knows.

My main point is this. I don't know what I want to do. It's scary. How the hell do people figure out what they want to do? How do people manage to do only 4 years for a bachelor degree, when you hear all the time "It's common for people to not know what major they want to pick. And they change their major an average of 5 times."

I do not want to get into this right now, but I want to mention something. How do I become an adult? I feel like I never really got a normal teenage life and now I don't have a normal adult life. I know, I know, define normal. Well, normal is what it seems like the majority does. Go to school, get a degree, get a job/career. Get married. Have kids. Buy a house. Have random and fun life experiences in-between.

I feel like I haven't lived yet. I don't know how other people do "it".

Again, another day I'll talk more about this. Try to sort out my thoughts and feelings, as that's what journaling is supposed to do.

PS. The only solace about Sunday night, which begins another week of crappity crap, is that most everybody else is having to suffer too! Kinda like "A case of the Mondays" from Office Space, but for me it's more of "A case of the Sunday Night Blues."

PPS. I have to STOP comparing myself to others! This is something I've learned about in therapy, and it just has to stop. It's so hard to stop though. :-(

Boredom Come

2007-09-16T10:42:00.000-06:00

I really don't have anything to say right now... I'm just a little bored and procrastinating on doing my math homework. I'm dealing with trigonometry for the first time ever and it's a bit daunting. Doesn't help when there's a couple of people in your class who have taken the class before and therefore know all the answers. So then the teacher doesn't really slow down for the rest of us.
ETA: And it's just slightly annoying when certain people brag about their accomplishments in trig, meanwhile acting so bewildered at how you can possibly be standing upright and yet not have encountered trig before in life. It can happen. Stop being so judgmental and offensive about it. This is sadly from my other blog that I use all the time, and stuff like this has driven me to the need of change from it. I know I am being a bit over-sensitive about this, but it's rude to belittle others.

Irregardless... I still have to work hard on my own, and I'm trying. I'm really trying. But I'm not really getting it yet. Sucks.

I worry about one of my ferrets. There's a very long story behind this boy, but the problem right now is his ears. One vet diagnosed him having a yeast infection in his ears due to a food allergy. Or some other kind of allergy. We're trying hard to pin it down, but it's very hard to pin allergies down. *sigh* I just want to make it all better for him!!

Testing

2007-09-15T19:11:00.000-06:00

The very first oh-so-sexy post.
But I do have to figure out what I'm doing around here. Blogger is new to me.
BTW, I originally wrote Blooger. Let that be a new term!