5 posts tagged “school”
I've gotten up at 5am two days in a row, and it feels incredible to have so much done before I even eat lunch! Seriously, my mom and the pope could invite themselves over for afternoon tea, and I wouldn't panic a bit. The apartment is the cleanest it's been in months, and I walked to the store this morning to stock up on all the items I need for this week's meals.
I'm back to doing a weekly meal plan, and it's kind of crazy how happy that makes me even when we don't stick to it 100%. Structure is such a good thing for me. I know it suffocates some people, but having structure gives me a nice solid base from which I can do the things I want to do without so much worrying. Knowing that the basic things are definitely taken care of is such a nice feeling, and it keeps my afternoons free for all my other projects like organizing all my domains, putting together a portfolio for my grad program, and adding the rest of our books to LibraryThing.
We're also planning a couple of trips in the next month or so. One is just a short trip to hang out with my grandmother and give my mom and dad a chance to take a breather from spending so much time at her house. Her health is actually fairly good, but she gets a little nervous when she's by herself, so she likes having company. She likes card games, so I'm taking my Star Trek Uno and Fluxx to try those out with her, and we'll definitely be playing a lot of rummy because that's her favorite. Then next month, we're going somewhere for our anniversary. We're trying to decide between somewhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Charleston, SC.
And I'm also finishing up my second summer session course and looking forward to my fall schedule. I'm signed up for courses in human-computer interface design, multimedia instructional development, and a seminar on virtual reality and education right now. I might add a media literacy class in there too, but that depends on if my advisor can get it added to the schedule this week. Lots of good stuff going on!
I don't mention it that often, but I'm in grad school again. I guess I just like collecting pieces of paper that have no discernible impact on my life. Anyway, the plan was to happily work my full-time job and sneak in a class or two each semester until I'm done. Then my advisor encouraged me to take 3 classes this semester, which actually wasn't that bad until the last couple of weeks where all my final papers were assigned and due the same day.
And of course, that covered Matt's birthday last week, which we celebrated with a weekend trip out of town, so that meant a few days that were spent trying to ignore the big pile of stuff that needed to get done. That's all behind me now though as I just finished my last final exam of the semester, and I was even two days early. I'm so insanely pleased with myself. And I get to breathe again! And I have two whole weeks without papers! There really aren't enough exclamation points for that!
Plus, I get to catch up with everyone on Vox! Yay!
Today I'm grateful for getting 100/100 on a paper just when I'd convinced myself that my brain had left the building.
Note to self: You're not stupid, but it's stupid to work yourself into a tizzy over these kinds of things.
I should be working on a paper about types of learning for one of my classes, but the professor annoys me, so I keep putting off the paper. I read a few articles, make a few notes, think about how irritating the professor is, and then run away. The one bright spot is that it's an online class, so I don't have to hear him lecture three hours a week. That would be torture. Working on the paper might be easier if I had any clue what he wanted other than a paper about types of learning because that's kind of a big topic for a "brief paper".
While I'm taking a little break from class stuff, I thought I'd share my musical horoscope (the last 10 songs heard while shuffling through all my songs):
- Work - Jars of Clay (Hey, is that a sign?)
- In Thee - Blue Öyster Cult
- People are People - Depeche Mode
- Strange Magic - Darren Hayes
- Landslide - Neal Morse
- Hold It Up to the Light - Small Town Poets
- Serious Dreamers - The Flower Kings
- Strange Magic - Electric Light Orchestra (Cool - the original and a cover within 10 random songs.)
- Stay Tonight - Impellitteri
- Let My Love Open the Door - Pete Townshend
OK, back to that lovely paper now.
What was your most memorable or favorite school field trip?
The 1982 World’s Fair was held in my hometown, and for
some crazy reason, my kindergarten class went on a field trip there. It was a
bit overwhelming for kids that age, and I don’t remember much of anything about
the fair itself. We had enough parent chaperones that each group only had two
kids in it, and I was very excited because both my parents were going with me.
The other girl assigned to my parents had major issues going on
at home (not that I knew that then) and was an extremely anxious child. Looking back, I’m sure my parents were selected as
her chaperones because they volunteered in my classroom a lot and weren’t
complete strangers to her and because they were known to be generous and
patient. They treated Mary just like one of their own kids and bought her
treats and souvenirs just like they did with me. Unfortunately, the fair was
really too much for Mary to handle, and she was sick to her stomach the entire
day. She threw up in some very creative places when the bathroom lines were too
long, and if she wasn’t puking, she needed to pee. I definitely wouldn't call that my favorite field trip, but it was memorable.
My favorite field trip was our 8th grade trip to Williamsburg, VA. Our class spent spring break there, and we split our time between Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens. I have some wonderful memories from that week.
