Tag Archives: school

Eventful.

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When I got up I thought today would be boring. I thought I would go to Whole Foods with my neighbor and maybe hit the nursery (for plant matter–not baby). Well, it was a starting plan.

I went to the nursery this morning and spent quite a while figuring out what sorts of veggies to put into the pots in my back yard. I selected two varieties of tomatoes (one is best for paste the other is best for being more solid like and mixes in well for sauce), squash, sweet basil, oregano, sweet peas, and a neato sounding pepper. I was planning to try and put them into pots basically immediately but when I got home I was derailed by a phone call from my mother.

It turns out that a family friend died this morning. She was 79 and in extremely poor health so I can’t really call it a shock. My mother and I had been planning to go out to Oklahoma to see them this summer at a big birthday party. It turns out that we will instead be flying out on Tuesday for a funeral. It took a while to find reasonable airfares for both of us.

Then I went to Whole Foods with my neighbor. We both had a lot of fun wandering around looking at the sheer variety of pretentious food. Of course we both spent too much money. Oy. That place is dangerous. While we were there we ran into one of my former students. It was quite lovely as she danced with joy and told her three friends extensively about how I was the best teacher ever. She was not one of my most dedicated students so we spent a lot of time together in 8th period social club getting to know one another. 🙂 It was great to see that she is trying to go to college. On the ride home my neighbor told me, essentially, that I make her feel kind of stupid because I know so many things and can answer in depth questions on such a wide variety of topics. I think that it was made even worse when she figured out that I am seven years younger than her. I don’t think she is stupid, I think she is simply asking questions about things that I have researched and she hasn’t. Oy. But I helped her realize a few things about her marriage and that’s to the good.

I came home and spent a while talking to Noah about how frustrated he is at work right now. I wish there was more I could do to help him. Then I made the rest of the arrangements for the trip to Oklahoma. Then I sat down for a few minutes to catch up on the internet and I received a phone call from Debbie! This is always exciting. She lives in Taiwan right now so I don’t get to talk to her much. I’m glad that she has been awesome about keeping in touch with me. 🙂

Noah decided that it would be a good plan for him to go to the gym for a while after dinner because it will be a break from thinking. As he was getting ready to run out the door he casually mentioned that his parents are trying really hard to come out here for Shanna’s birthday.

It’s been a day.

Good lines from student papers

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During one grading session we kept track of the best lines. I want to throw away the physical paper they were written on, so here they are preserved for posterity:

“It barley pierced me armor.”

“A tree is shedding it’s leaves above me like golden raindrops.”

“The warm sunrays relax me and they make me want to lay there and look at the beautiful colored sky as if I’m not going to see the sky for a long time.”

“Why he had to kill her is anybodies guess.”

“My wings are white and feathery and feel nothing like a bird’s wings.”

“All the excitement and the loss of blood would make any teenage girl nauseous.”

“My uncle is a chairman of one of the California Water Foul Association fund raisers and he knows all about the outdoors and hunting and fishing so…”

“The blackest black, like standing outside in the middle of the night and looking out in the open when there are absolutely no lights around.”

“You know the best thing to do when you want the time to just slow things down, is to watch the humans walk by.”

“Their dead bodies were conjoined by their hands.”

“Upon entering, I was greeted by dirty slums bugging for money. After fending them off and breaking the jaw of a more rowdy slum, I…”

“It’s like I just sat on a syringe loaded with some kind of venom. Well it’s not just any venom it’s a boring venom.”

“I eat the look on your face with great joy.”

“‘You know…,’ the man said as Mrs. Jones began to hide in the guest room downstairs. ‘You can run as much as you want–but you’ll run away from me.'”

“When she opened the door a young man with short brown hair, and blue/green/gray/brown eyes stood in front of her.”

Looking up

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This morning I had a couple of reasons to feel morose. One was the comp exam and the second was personal enough that I am not going to explicitly state it on livejournal. ooooh cryptic

I went and saw a prof at SJSU about the comp exam. He told me that I barely failed and it was because I was too general. He said it is pretty obvious that I know the material and what I should do to prep for the next time is do more practice runs of timed writing trials to push myself into better form for such excursions. I can do that. No more reading? No more reading!! (Although I will probably do some more reading.) And the poetry section was my strongest essay. How is that for funny?

The second thing that made me morose has been a bit of a roller coaster ride for the past couple of weeks. Things on that front are now to a level that I feel good about. *phew*

Oh, and I got a B+ on my last Spanish test and she gave us most of the questions for the final in class tonight and we did them as a group. Things are looking way the heck up tonight.

Hazy

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It’s amazing to me how this stay-at-home-mom gig works. Caring for Shanna requires continual physical effort (it’s not *hard* physical effort, but it is physical work) and almost no intellectual effort. Yet I don’t have the mental bandwidth to do much else at the same time. Studying Spanish is hard. I don’t retain the stuff I do while I’m playing with her. I have to be interruptable at all times (As I come back from a diaper change that had to happen mid-entry). I feel like my brain is not working the way it used to. I feel like I am less smart, like my brain is on hiatus.

This doesn’t make the prospect of studying for the comp exam any happier. My daughter is the whole scope of my world right now, or at least I wish she was. I’m so happy most days. I love seeing how she changes day by day. This is all I want to be doing right now. It’s interesting because I have always derived so much of my self-image from my intelligence and what I am doing right now has no part in that.

I want to be done with school so bad I could scream. I have missed four semesters of school entirely in the past 23 years. Otherwise I have been in school for at least some portion of every term. I am starting to hate school. I am starting to lose any desire to learn what can be taught in school. There are still many things I want to learn–don’t get me wrong. I just want to go out into the world, damnit.

But I have a Spanish presentation tonight. And finals next week. And I have many more months of studying ahead of me for the comp exam. And I have two more terms of Spanish if I pass the exam. I have decided that I am going to study like mad and take the test in April. If I fail I am not going to bother with finishing Spanish. I have too much resentment as it is. I hope I don’t fail. I am going to work pretty hard to ensure I don’t. *sigh*

Ooft

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Yesterday was mostly really great. ribbin and I were not as thoroughly focused on prep for my comp as maybe I should have made us be, but instead we did general lit geeking. That was really awesome so I can’t complain. 🙂 Shanna was thoroughly good for the vast majority of the day until she completely lost it to hysteria an hour and a half before the train. That was… hard. We got through it though. We came home and went to bed a bit late, 8:40ish. She slept straight through till 4 without waking for boobie. w00t! We woke up and ate for half an hour, then pottied and tried to get her back to sleep again. Unfortunately my pesty daughter (Mark, I love that word) refuses to go back to sleep. So now she is being uberexcited to have her toys back. 🙂

7 days till the comp exam.

Studying

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I’m feeling pretty solid on American history and literary periods. I’m ok on British literary periods (there aren’t many [for this test]: Romantic, Victorian, “Modern”) but I’m still a bit weak on their history. Luckily, I was sent a handy dandy cheat sheet by my advisor. I should do a bit more looking at the world lit stuff–what are the common threads. I should do a brief review of literary criticism, but that won’t be too hard. That was the class I got an A in last semester. Maybe briefly review a couple of critics. And decide on two or three poems from each time period to be rock solid on. I’m thinking I’m going to cheat and go with whatever the anthology says is the most significant one.

I was able to study a bunch today while Shanna slept. I’m feeling a little less scared. I probably need a good solid 18 more hours of studying. That’s actually not that bad.

Anxious and fussy

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I should so be asleep right now. I’m not. Here’s some of what I’m looking at right now.

The comp exam is in 11 days. I’m not fully prepared. On Thursday I head up to Davis to do some studying with a fellow English geek, and I’m not even really ready for that. Shanna had a really hard day today for no obvious reason and I got zero studying done. If I look at the calendar, what I really ought to do is bail on the two social things I was hoping to do this weekend and study pretty much straight through. I’m getting really scared. If I fail this test it is going to be a rather hardcore blow to my ego that I don’t need. On one hand I objectively think that I am pretty damn prepared, on the other hand I subjectively believe that my last failure on this exam (when I was completely unprepared) is an indication that I am stupid and deserve to fail. I know this isn’t reasonable. I know that they honestly won’t expect that amazing of essays given that we have three hours to write three essays.

I’m dropping weight like crazy with eating to my daily maximum of points and I think that as a result I am thinking less clearly. I am having more trouble than usual finding the words I want to use in casual conversation and that is scaring the shit out of me. Right now, judging by the scale in my bathroom, I am dropping 1/2 a pound per day. That’s uhm, noticeable. Noah pointed out that dropping weight quickly (No really–I am eating all that I am supposed to be eating and I’m eating a rather healthy variety) will cause blood sugar issues which make it harder to think. Maybe for the next 11 days I should start eating more food of higher fat/calorie level. [See–this entry so far I’ve had to stop and think for several minutes more than once to think about what words I should be using; that’s just not cool.]

I’m giving up my idea of making a costume for Shanna. 🙁 I’m sad and pissy and frustrated. I just ran out of time with studying and I feel upset and strangely cheated. Yes, I was given a costume I could put her in but frankly it’s not something I would have selected and as I result I just don’t want to. I’m feeling ridiculous and petulant on this topic for no good reason.

There are a variety of things on the sex/play front that are taking up a lot of space in my brain. I don’t have anything useful to say about any of them. It’s all….. AHHHHHHHHHH

And I have a god damn oral report for my Spanish class coming up. I need to do research tomorrow before class so that I can talk to my partner about it. Have I mentioned that I could give a flying fuck about it just now? Oh, I got a B on the last Spanish test. Not that bad.

Not sleeping isn’t going to help me think. But all I want to do is cry.

Oh, and my mom is arriving right after the comp exam for a visit. I think she is staying with us but that hasn’t been actually decided and as my family typically sucks ass at communicating I may not know until she calls me saying, “What’s your address again?” *sigh* So I feel rather shitty about the fact that my house is a huge mess. The clutter isn’t so bad, but it’s rather grossly dirty and frankly that’s low on my priority list to change. Noah will say, “We could pay someone to do it.” Yes, but then I would feel humiliated and pathetic that I can’t do something so simple as to clean my house when that’s a large portion of my job. And I would have to call and schedule it and blah and it’s more energy.

I think I’m going to cry now.

Progress and Balance

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I have six untouched books left. I am in progress on four three books. Of the four three I am reading, one Noah is reading to me, two are one is more than half gone (and they are short), and one I am slowly savoring because it’s neat. The two one that are is almost done I can easily finish in a few hours of reading. Of the six remaining, three are plays and the remaining three novels are fairly short. I could probably finish the entirety of my reading in about eight solid days of reading. It will only take me that long due to Shanna interruptions. I have four weeks and three days.

I am trying to maintain a reasonable awareness of politics seeing as I will be voting before the Comp Exam. It feels irritating and distracting though.

Spanish is plugging along. I would feel worse about my grasp of things only some of the people in the higher numbered course aren’t doing much better. I have a test in seven days. I have an oral presentation of some kind (it’s not announced yet) in three weeks.

The house has gone to crap and that’s just how it’s going to be for a month or so. I don’t have the bandwidth.

I’m trying to continue being a good friend. It’s kind of hard. I don’t have much extra energy.

I’m probably not doing enough for Noah. I’m trying though.

Shanna is still my primary focus. I’m telling you, being a stay at home parent is a full time job. This is pretty hard. Especially given all the other things pulling at me. Things will let up tremendously after the Comp Exam and the election. I’m looking forward to being able to coast for a while.

Although… after the Comp Exam comes the holidays. I’m still not entirely sure what all is happening there.

Edited to reflect today’s reading.

some of them don’t suck.

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So far I liked The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The English Patient; Midnight’s Children and Kim are both really interesting so far. Pretty much everything else has been obnoxious. I’m happy about four good ones. 🙂

I have eight books left that are not in progress. I have four weeks and four days left. Oof. Best get to hurrying!

w00t!!

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I am officially advanced to candidacy. I have to pass part two of the comp exams, and that is scheduled for the second Saturday in November. I also have to either pass the Spanish proficiency test or take the full year at De Anza. She said either is fine and I don’t have to worry about taking additional MA classes to maintain standing.

Have I mentioned that I have 19 books to go on reading? And six more weeks till the test? I’m becoming less and less fretful by the day.

Oh, and my Spanish class? It’s a cakewalk. I’m putting in more effort than anyone else in the class and she seems to grade mostly on pass/fail. Pshaw. Taking the whole year might actually be the least stressful way of accomplishing the task. 🙂 I’m going to try and take the exam at the end of the term just to see if I can get it done already.

Wow. I’m really close. This is so amazing. To be honest, there have been a few times lately when I’ve had thoughts about not finishing because it seemed like more stress than it was worth. But when I look at how little I have to do and how little stress is left I am really confident that I have to finish.

Wow. So, who is going to start calling me Master once I have the degree? I refuse to be a Mistress though. 🙂 Hey, doctorates give you the right to Doctor…