Moving Right Along

I continue to press onwards toward my goals in life. I keep trying to decide if I want to stop blogging entirely or return to writing a couple times a week. I think I'd like to blog, I just run out of time. I am a thinker and an observer and don't always wish to tell the world what is on my mind. We'll see where that gets me.

I recently finished a couple classes to become a nurse's aide. I am looking for a job working with patients. It's an exciting time for me. I estimate that I have two more years before I can start medical school. Another two years of that and I'll have my career as a physician assistant.

I think I want to specialize in surgery once I get to med school. However, I might also emphasize cardiology. So far it is my strongest interest in medicine.

Life has been crazy busy for the past several months. I thought I'd have a nice summer break, but instead I've been busy most of the time. Next week I'll be starting my classes for the fall. I'm kind of shocked at how fast this year has flown by.

I've been reading a lot of blogs and ideas and stuff lately. I'll try to incorporate some of my thoughts into later posts. Frankly, it's difficult to write sometimes. I feel as if I know so little and so much at the same time. But I'll try. I think.

Good At Math

The color green is said to be soothing. It's true, it is. I always feel better after gazing at lush, green trees. What better color to use to write a rant then?

I suppose my faithful readers must be wondering if I still exist. Yes, I do. I have had very little time to write in the past few months. I am working part time and doing school part time. Which brings me to my subject.

My stupid trig teacher gave me a D-. This means I have to retake the class. I always thought I was good at math. Now I am not so sure. Of course, it is difficult to tell when the teacher can only speak (very) broken English and fails to teach anything about the subject. All he really said was "Is easy for you!" or "Need more practice" or "More practice, good for you!" None of these sentences helped me understand what the sine of 45 degrees is.

Other students told me that they had failed all the man's tests and not done all their homework yet they still got an A or B+. His curve was described as "wicked." I guess I was at the bottom of the curve then.

I am pretty much spitting mad now.

So, I'll write more later about what's going on in my life. Maybe.

To Whom It May Concern

I have never let my blog slide for this long before. The last month and a half was extremely busy and in some ways difficult for me.

I started working full time at an enormous company. It was a temp job though and they ran out of work for me. Now I am back to sitting on my bum, doing homework, and cleaning the house until they can find me some more work. Boredom is frustrating for me, so I hope I start working again soon. The job schedule I was working was about perfect for me. Hence, more frustration at losing it.

My grandmother passed away during my first two weeks of working full time and I was unable to attend the memorial service, it being in another state and me just starting my job and all. That was a bummer.

I had a wonderful vacation in Michigan for one week. It wasn't all fun and games since I was the matron of honor in a friend's wedding. Actually, it was all fun. For our anniversary Craig and I swore off doing wedding prep work and went to Lake Michigan for a day. It was great.

Now I am back home and working on a relatively huge decision. I am thinking that I might go back to school full time and work some sort of evening shift. I have put together a tentative class schedule. Of course, I take forever to make important decisions like this. So, that's where I am right now.

Days Of My Lives

1) I watched Wolverine about a week after it came into theaters. There is one good thing about this movie and it's really more for chicks than for guys. Hugh Jackman makes an awesome action hero. Too bad his lines and character totally sucked. Actually, most of the movie sucked. The storyline was roughly nonexistant, characters who should have died came back to life, Wolverine angsted his life away over mistakes he did not actually make, and a few random characters had a few lines each. Not to mention Wolverine was a complete moron. He seemed incapable of anticipating his brother (Victor). From the start Victor was insanely jealous, unstable, and ruthless. Wolverine persisted in believing he was a decent guy all the way to the end of the movie. It was dumb. I could not suspend my unbelief while watching the movie.

2) Star Trek was perfect. The cast did a wonderful job portraying the beloved characters from the original series. They had all the mannerisms and personalities down to a t. The plot was exciting and the action kept me on the very edge of my seat. I was happy to see that Hollywood can still make a good epic type action movie once in a while. I also enjoyed some of the additions to characters. For example, the relationship between Spock and Uhura was a great touch. I also enjoyed the fact that Chekov was more than just a side character. Dr. McCoy was great. He may in fact have been the most well cast character in the entire movie. I only wish he had been in a few more scenes. I definitely loved the part where he gets Kirk onto the Enterprise. It was classic. I cannot recommend this movie enough to fan and Star Trek ignoramous alike.

3) I did okay on my finals. I got an A in the class that I thought I would get an A in. In my other class I passed. I will need to take some more preliminary math courses before I go on to Calculus, but I got a higher grade then I expected. I would like to know for sure that I understand what's going on when I get to Calc, however.

4) I have an algebra course to take this summer and wedding to be a part of. It should be a good summer. I am planning to do a lot of work on my yard and garden areas. Landscaping, you know. It seems kind of mundane and domestic, but I am excited to have a pretty yard. I have never had a yard of my own before.

5) There are loud people in my house playing Risk right now. I wanted to hang out with a friend or two this evening, but everyone is busy. It is kind of impossible for me to see friends lately and it's getting totally frustrating. I suppose that's life, but I keep trying and trying and getting nos for answers. It's old. That's all I have to say. Maybe I should stop being so nice or something.

6) I am doing some writing in my spare time. It's okay. Not going along as well as I hoped, but any work is good.

Finding Myself

As usual I have many ideas to write about and no time to write them. In fact, right now I should be studying. My finals are next week. However, before finals I have a chapter exam in each class. That means I have four exams in the next two weeks, three of them are in one week. I remember a time when this would have seemed like a drop in the bucket to me. But things have changed. I have a life now. Going back to school is quite a challenge. Still, it's what I want and I want to excel. Or, at least, I want to get a C. My pre-calc course is tough, but I think I'm going to pass. As for my other class, it's kind of a breeze. I have hardly felt challenged at all by it and have spent most class periods enjoying the discussion among the other students. God bless them, but they are not like the kids I knew during my first undergrad. Community Colleges just don't bring in the super intellectuals. Which is okay. I should learn to co-exist with average, typical people.

I ramble.

As I was saying, I am here amid piles of homework and other nonsense. I have picked up an old hobby I used to enjoy. Namely, I find myself baking many, well, baked goods. I perfected a gluten free scones recipe. I have finally made a good gluten free pie crust. I made some cookies too. And yes, I have gained a few pounds. I am also a happier person. There are many reasons I dropped my baking hobby over the last ten years or so. One of them was the difficulty involved in gluten free cooking and baking. Lately my interest in making gluten free baked goods that taste good and have good texture has grown. If I did not want to be a Physician Assistant and if I was totally crazy I'd try selling bake goods to coffee shops. But, like, I'm afraid that people would like them too much and I wouldn't have time for anything else. I want to finish my education (again).

Let me just say that in two weeks I will have some breathing time. I hope to post on several subjects of interest. I knew school would interfere with my time and blogging desire. Bear with me. In the meantime, The House Between is a great independent web tv series I have enjoyed. You have to download Veoh tv to watch it, but it's worth the effort. I expect The House Between will find it's way into my links list on the sidebar (which needs updating) as soon as I get a chance to do some blog maintenance.

Spring Cleaning

I was planning to go to the gym this morning. Instead I got my workout doing spring cleaning. My muscles are much more sore than they usually are after a gym workout. I guess climbing on counters and step stools to dust cupboards and trim will do that to you. The amazing thing is I am nowhere near done with the cleaning. Although, I think I have cleaned the dirtiest spots in the house.

In my psychology class last week I was surprised by another student. We will call her K. K is about my age and bright. She is more of a follower than a leader type, but she's a regular girl. She's mildly earthy in that cocktail waitress sort of way. I met her in class my first day and so far I like her. She is definitely not generic. Last week I sat in my usual spot. I mean, I thought it was my usual spot. It turned out that someone had moved all the chairs around and I confused my usual spot with another spot. Consequently, I did not sit next to K like I ordinarily do. K sat in her usual spot. When our teacher, we'll call her Bobblehead, announced the beginning of class K raised her hand to ask a question. I should have mentioned that we received back some papers and a recent exam all graded.

K asked, "To get the full 10 points on my papers do I need to have no errors of grammatical?"

Bobblehead appeared not to comprehend the question. Understandably. After a moment Bobblehead told K that grammatical errors would reduce the grade.

I did not want to laugh at K. She's a nice girl and I like her. But I was rather shocked that any student would think she would not be downgraded for grammatical mistakes in a paper. In my college days I learned quickly not to split infinitives, splice commas, or dangle participles. Nobody got away with that kind of funny stuff at the 'Dale.

I know I am attending a community college now. I know the standards and requirements are less than the effort I accustomed myself to back in the day (I feel like a dinosaur). Still, I could not help but want to make this story into a funny anecdote to tell other intellectuals -- or to tell myself as the case may be.

Later in class we had to gather in groups and write a sentence to define something we were supposed to be learning that day. The sentence that my group constructed included a big fat dangling participle. I pointed this out and suggested we change it. I received blank stares from my classmates and some muttering about having no memory of such complex matters.

In conclusion, I think I will not make the "errors of grammatical" story into a funny anecdote to add to my repertoire. I think I will just let it slide. I am relieved that I can still get good grades if I keep to the established grammatical rules.

A Day In The Life . . .

Going back to school is hard work. I spend a lot of time studying although I am only taking two classes. That is partly because I want to get a good grade and partly because Precalculas is higher math and requires many hours of study to grasp. It would help if my algebra were not so rusty. Sometimes I will be doing a math problem and I will get to a point where I realize that I do not know what to do next. Not because I'm dumb, but because I forgot the next algebraic rule that I needed to remember to keep going. It is times like those that I am thankful for partial credit.

Other things that take up my time are work. I am working at a flower shop. You would not believe the amount of work that goes into getting people their pretty flowers. Those arrangements are worth the high prices, let me tell you. However, I do not intend to speak much of work because I am always cautious about that sort of thing. Suffice it to say I enjoy my job and no, I do not design flower arrangements.

Today I am supposed to do laundry. Actually, yesterday I was supposed to do laundry. Actually, actually, I was supposed to do laundry at the end of last week. Having a washer and dryer in my own home helps, but having to study for multiple tests and keep up with other house cleaning does not help.

I recently wrote the first draft of a short story. Do not ask me how I had time for that. I intend to revise it and get some second opinions. Then maybe I will send the story out to a magazine or something to see about publishing. A little supplemental income would be nice.

I have come up with dozens of rants to write. Taking an Intro to Psychology course with a whole lot of regular people gives me so much material. I simply have little time to write my rants. But as I am sure you are all anxious to hear them I will try to get some written. Also, my holiday monkey Neville seems to have gone missing. That's why I have not announced the Neville Chamberlain award for 2008. I have sent a sleuth known as Detective Scorch (he's a Ty Beanie Baby dragon and charges very high prices for his PI skills) in search of Neville and hope to post the award before the year is half over.

In other news the weather was getting nice and it turned nasty again. I wish spring would stop teasing us Iowans.

It's Never Easy

I have been working hard on my two classes worth of homework, my new job, and keeping my house in some semblence of order for the past month. Hence, I have not had much time to write. Do not worry, I am around and well. I will try to make updates as often as possible given my schedule. You will have to be patient with me. That is, if I have readers still. Comment if you're still here (seriously).

My Brains Are Smelly

Math stinks. My brain has been steeped in math for the past several days. Therefore, my brains are smelly.

Yes, I started classes. It's going good.

Aside Note: I'm working on my post for the Neville Chamberlain Award. Do not worry, I would not forget to give out my favorite (and only) award of the year.