New Start

Well, that's it. I took my test. I did poorly. My overall average is a B+ and i'm going to take it and shut the hell up. I'm not going back tonight for the damn optional final. I didn't go yesterday for review. I'm done and now i have until next Wednesday to take it easy for a little while. And then i start with Public Speaking.

At least i won't have homework every night for that.

Um, right?

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My mother retired last week. She is (well, was) an elementary school teacher and has been teaching for 30+ years in the same district that she started in when she graduated from college. Last Friday was her last day of school EVER and i don't think she's taking it well. See, she wanted to stay for another year and retire in 2007, but the district offered an 'incentive' to those considering retirement where if they retire now, they will get a spiffy pension bonus in 10 years time. The incentive will bring their income close to what they were making while they were actively working (the normal pension is a large percentage of their income, but not close enough to what she had been making). Since Mom has grown accustomed to her yearly salary, the incentive sounded really appealing. She plans to work a part time job to compensate for the percentage that she is losing in the meantime and then probably will stop working completely once it kicks in.

She is a little freaked out. I think she is really worried about what is going to happen now. I think she feels really OLD now. And the truth of it is, she really isn't. She's only 58 which is pretty young to be banging around the house for the rest of your life. She is concerned about what to do with her house since she is now alone in a 4 bedroom colonial on a 1/2 acre of property. It is expensive to maintain and is way more than one person needs. But she also has to do a lot of repair work to get it ready to sell. And does she want to sell? Where will she go? Coming to a cross-roads is not usually an easy time. I feel so badly for her. She is really trying to sound brave, but you can hear in her voice how scared she really is to start her life over again. Alone.

Math, hair and the universe.

Remember how i said that the class i was taking was supposed to be not-hard? No? Here, go look. I laughed in the face of my survey-math class and challenged its ability to make me stare slack-jawed at the blackboard. Ha! You got me, crap-math class! Score: 1 for you.

In fact, it has gotten so bad, that close to half the people that were there the first day, have not come back. My professor has been making sure we all know when the drop/withdraw deadline is and to make sure we all get our forms in on time. She is actively counseling students to drop. Nice, right? Luckily, i'm not one of them. I've been doing fairly well with two "A" tests and (ha, ha!) the last was a 72. There's only one more unit test tomorrow and then the final on Thursday. If i do well on tomorrow's test, i don't have to take the final (and i REALLY, REALLY don't want to have to take the final). But, see, i have to get an "A" in the class (because i'm Super-Dork) so that means i have to score a 97 or better on the test tomorrow to have an "A" average and then not take the cumulative final. But since we are doing linear algebra and matrix manipulations (what's that? oh, just the shit we were doing last semester that made me drop that other math class i was taking. you know, no biggy) i have very little chance of doing well on this test. And this is mostly because

I have totally stopped Giving A Shit.

Now, i don't know why, but i'm feeling like i'm sorta 'Done'. I haven't really done any of the homework (and you just HAVE to in order to understand what this woman is talking about) since the unit i got a 72 on. Which i'm sure is why i got a 72 (that and it was damn hard). I'm just so frustrated over the whole thing and i want it to be over. There's homework every night and it usually takes about 2 hours to do the whole damn thing; getting home at 8:30 every night, trying to eat something and doing homework for another 2 hours gets really old, really fast. i did it for the first 2 1/2 weeks and now i just can't. Whine.
Stupid Summer.

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Friday i went for a hair cut. I had to gear myself up for it because i really wanted to do something different. My hair has been down past the middle of my back for awhile, but not looking so healthy. I called a fancy-dancy hair salon that is right near my house (a neighborhood not really known for anything terribly fancy-dancy) and was given the choice to see "John-Paul" or "Christine". Now, i don't know about you, but i wasn't going to pass up the chance to have a "John-Paul" doing my hair.

He was marvy. Shiny, blue eye-liner and spiky hair. So nice and helpful and all "LOVE the curls!" and "what do you LIKE most about your hair" and "oh it's so LONG! what do you want to do? we can do anything!" and i was totally in shock. I don't think i've ever had a hairdresser fawn over my hair; it was so nice. Even the assistant who washed it was all "your hair is lovely, such a nice weight". Like, did you see me when i walked in? Are you guys kidding? My hair was long, yes, but like, gross and rat's nesty-long. The curliness has been all weighed down with the length and not exactly healthy looking. Thin is the best way to describe it. But i guess i was having a particularly good hair day -or- they were buttering me up so that i would buy the $18 tube of curling creme he used when he cut it. And uh, the $17 bottle of "curl re-energizer".

Whatever it was, it totally worked and i love him and will go back there until my hair completely falls out, because he is wonderful and i want him to do my hair every morning when i wake up. And it's SHORT. Like shoulder-length which is very new and weird. My hair is 'swingy'. Like, woosh.

Eeee!

This sounds more manic than I intended.

One night last week (I believe it was on Thursday, but i could be wrong) The Boy and I were watching The Tonight Show and Jay Leno had on George Carlin and Mother-Fucking Ann Coulter. (The two had to sit next to each other which was sort of ironic, but Carlin actually didn't say anything while she was speaking. That's classy. No one would be surprised if he stood up and bludgeoned her with a coffee cup.) It made me a little nauseous to listen to her. The woman has written another obnoxious book that says that Democrats play the victim and that women who have lost their husbands in combat or on 9/11 are assholes or something equally as un-called for and repulsive. Coulter is a very well-respected conservative beast who is quite unfortunately, very intelligent and well-spoken. It just makes my stomach churn. And also, she's not as hard to look at as some other TV pundits. Though she is starting to look a little like Skeletor as she gets older...*

Whatever. After the Coulter interview i went outside to wrangle some dogs and clean up the kitchen (because i needed to make it clean, clean after Coulter, must clean...) while The Boy stayed inside. As i came into the bedroom, he was all 'did you see the musical guest?' and i was, 'no, i had to make it clean again'.

I had missed a performance of Kt Tunstall.** She's some new singer/songwriter from Scotland who seems to be running the show circuits in New York because she's just released her first album. I have heard her name on the radio but never heard her stuff. Or if i had, i hadn't paid any attention. You know.

Boy was telling me how interesting her performance was and that she did this weird thing with the thing and it was all like, WOW. I had missed something, apparently, because the next day he went on the internets and found a video of the performance from Leno, as well as one on Letterman, Carson Daly (what a crock that show is, right?) and Regis & Whatshername. She really was very interesting to watch. On Leno's show, she came on right after the Evil Coulter and the opening shot was a close frame on her guitar, where Tunstall had taken some masking tape and written in black ink: "This Machine Kills Fascists". Awesome, i thought. More so, when i saw that the sign wasn't on her guitar in the other shows - she did it specifically for Ann.

Does Scotland know about Ann Coulter? Is she that universally Evil? More research may tell.

Tunstall's solo performance was just so interesting in the way that she basically built her song, "Black Horse and The Cherry Trees" for the show. She started out by banging a rhythm on her acoustic guitar with her fist (on the Fascist sign - haha) and recorded it so that it looped. And then she did a scratchy riff and looped it, banged a tambourine and looped it, sang a "woooh, ooh" and so on, so that she built the rhythm to play behind her while she played the tune on her guitar and sang the verses. It was really cool. I am finding it hard to explain, but it was really cool. Amazing what the technology can do, eh? All you need is a little pedal, and you can do anything.

So after watching all of those performances, we picked up the album. And you know, its not the same? I mean, it's still good, but not the same as live. It was really interesting to watch her put it all together. And then you think that she has to piece this thing together like that and what if she screws up something. She has to live with it for the rest of the song, because the recorded loops are all played back for the rest of the song. Layers, you know? I am so obviously not a musician.



If you get a chance to see her live somehow, i would really recommend it. That's all i'm trying to say...





*Funnily enough, i did a search on 'Ann Coulter, Skeletor' and got quite a few hits. I guess i'm not as original as i though. Hmmph.

**For some reason the application on her site is not working for me, but maybe you're better with technology. Here's the Amazon link for the rest of us.

Test #2 update.

I got a 95.

Happy now.

What's a Boston Roll, anyway?

Last Friday night, The Boy and i went out for sushi. I love going for sushi because you can pretty much stuff your face and not have to worry about it, you know? I mean, its raw fish and rice for chrissake - nature's perfect diet food.

We've been going to the same sushi place called Sesame, for close to two years now. A little hole in the wall kind of place that is actually really good. I'm kind of squemish about trying new sushi restaurants; i've only gotten sick once from bad sushi and its not the kind of experience i'm interested in repeating. I usually wait for someone else to tell me that a place is good before i try it. And i swear that i've passed a place called "Discount Sushi" or something. There is no F'ing way you could get me in a place like that.

'Sesame' is very nicely decorated, all blond woods and these neato birch branch decorations. They even have two booth things that are built up and enclosed so that you have to step-into the booth on to the platform seats with these little woven cushions to sit on. And to actually sit, you have to kneel down and swing your legs under the table. Very nice, pseudo-authentic Japanese. The chefs are very friendly and say hello and goodbye to everyone and chat with the people sitting at the bar and do their sushi chef thing.

But, there is a waitress there that is kind of stern and aloof. The Boy and I are convinced that she Hates Us. She seems very dismissive and uninterested in anything we say. When we first started going there, we were very friendly with her, but then when we realized that she Hates Us, we learned that you just go at it like a business transaction. "1 Tuna Roll, 1 Eel with Avacado. Thank you". No friendly banter, no conversation. No extra words. I have to say it used to make us a little uneasy, but the food is so damn good that we keep coming back.

Eventually, we realized that she Hates Everyone.
Now its fun.

Friday we were there, placed our orders and were given our soup. While enjoying the miso soup, the salad came by. Um, but there was only one. Soup and salad comes with everything, so its not like one of us should have gotten it but not the other one. We just kind of stared at it, 'does she want us to share the salad?' ' i don't know, but i'm not asking her for another one, are you?' 'no, lets just eat it and don't make eye-contact'...*snicker*

Meanwhile, there was a table of 3 people across from us trying to order. They were kind of waffling as they put in their orders, it sounded like they didn't know what they wanted. As the waitress was walking into the kitchen, one of them yelled at her, "WAIT! Can you make that a Volcano Roll?!"

The Boy and I just burst out laughing, because we know something they don't. "Now, she Hates You, Too." I said, ominously. Muahahahaha!!!


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Now, i should probably do some work, you know, just to keep them guessing...

I am SO lazy.

Not only have i not posted anything here in close to a week, but I actually have things to talk about. (Not for long though, i'm sure, as my ideas will just fall out of my head. I'm convinced that when i learn something new, it replaces something else that was already in my head and it gets completely deleted from my memory.) Because even though i have stuff i can post about, i don't have the energy to actually flesh out my ideas. Isn't that something?

LAZY.

In fact, i had a really busy morning here at work and i am getting ready to leave in about 20 minutes so that i can sit through a Geometry review for tomorrow's math test (test #2, woo-ha) and will have to stop for coffee so that i don't drool on my desk.

Fact #2? I have 7 voicemails since this morning and i haven't checked them ALL DAY. Totally sacrilegious in this place. I didn't even check them this morning when i got here. Know why? Because when people leave me messages, it means they want me to do something.
So I'm sorry, i just can't be bothered today.

Also? Fact #3 - Last weeks Probability test / Test #1?

I got a 96.

Because I rock hard-core.

You know it.

Sniffle... snork.

I think I smell today.

Now, I know that it's probably because I'm sick and everything smells really weird through my stuffed up nose. But whatever it is that I'm smelling, I think it's coming from me.

I realize that I showered just a little over 4 hours ago, so really how much stink can you build up in 4 hours.

Yeah, it must be the snuffly nose.

This sucks. I can't afford to be sick. Not with my school schedule. I have my first exam tonight (it's already Day 5, afterall) and I need to have my shit together so that I do well on the exam. I can't miss any classes or else I'll fall Way behind and not know what's going on. I can't afford to be sick. Not now. I don't even have time to go to the doctor until Friday, so I guess I'll live with whatever this is until then.

I can't believe its only the beginning of the summer and I'm already stressing out. I have 9 more weeks of this shit left and I'm already starting to lose it.

I always think that I prefer to be busy all the time. And maybe it is true. I like having something to do and somewhere to be, rather than sitting around at home, rotting on the couch.*

I just FEEL so much better when I'm going non-stop from one thing to the next. Maybe it makes me feel more productive, I don't know. For instance, I was trying to figure out when in the hell I would schedule exercise-time for this summer. My Caribbean trip is coming up and I'm supposed to be on The Diet, but I don't think that's working out so well for me. I've got 6 months to whip myself into shape - which was going to include walking and/or jogging - and I don't see when this is going to happen. I had purchased some work-out DVDs, but that didn't work out so well either.**

The only time I have to work out will be in the morning before work. This means getting up at 5:30 to go run around the block.

I close my eyes when I'm brushing my teeth in the morning so that I can sleep a little longer. I don't think that I can wake up earlier than I have to and propel my body under my own power. It just doesn't seem like it will happen.

I am useless. And sick.
I wanna go home...


*But when I do get to sit at home and rot on the couch, I love it ever so much and don't want anyone to make it stop. Example here: Last Saturday, there was a marathon of the first season of America's Next Top Model on the TeeVee. I'd never seen any of season 1, so had to watch it. The whole thing. 8 full hours of non-stop models. You betcha.

**Apparently The Boy's DVD/TV hook-up in the living room (only room there is floor space) is rigged so that only HE can put on the DVD player. Because every piece of AV/Stereo equipment is wired in such a way that nothing works as it may appear and has to be reconfigured every time you want to do something different. This is because he is a Geek and thinks this makes him cool. What I'm saying is it sucks and I can't use it, and neither can anyone else but him.

Sometimes i just want to shake him.

Just found this little gem in my email dated March 10th.

From the Boss:

Motivation !!!! Its what drives us to achieve our Goals

Sometimes you may need a little push to jump start your Motivation So remember:

The true source of Motivation is within YOU.

Right, then. Carry on.