Ridiculous.

I'm done ahead of schedule.  I wrote the damn paper AND finished my homework and was putting it all together for the portfolio and thought, "What is missing?  I'm pretty sure there were four components to this: revised paper, artifact, draft with teacher remarks... what else?OH GOD.  The cover letter."

I have to write a one page cover letter explaining my reasons for writing the paper, what I changed from the draft and whatever other questions are listed in the syllabus.  ARGGGGHHH.

Herd those cats!

My homework is finished and I'm near the end of revising my paper- only to find that I have taken too much out.  My paper is now at least a page short.  Gaarrrgghhh!  What sucks is that it really is better like this.  I'm going to take the girls out but then I'll go back through my draft and add a lot of that caca back in. When my teacher gave us back our first paper (92/100) she went over some of the problems she saw.  She said there were a lot of good points and good quotes but a lack of support.  She emphasized that we have to constantly connect back to our thesis and used the metaphor of herding cats.  I think that image will stay with me forever, but in a good way.  I see all my crazy random thoughts slipping out to the sides and me trying to go back and forth herding them all through a doorway.  Not only is that a fun image but as Tracy will tell you, it is one that fits my papers well.

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

I have been busy with this horrible class and trying to start preparing for the fall semester.  I'm trying to organize my office and this whole week it's been just me and Solo- everybody else was in Topaz.  There has been NO time for cleaning up this week, just school, work, come home and crank out some homework, eat, pass out.  It's making me extremely frustrated to live in such ridiculousness.  If Chris ever has a spare moment he's going to clean out the back room and try to turn it into something other than a complete nightmare.  I really do want to move somewhere that has a washer and dryer and a yard for my girls but if for some reason I got a job somewhere else we wouldn't want to be stuck in a lease.  Sigh.  For now I'll just have to schedule in lots of walks with my ladies.

They came home yesterday while I was at work.  Ant is still in Topaz and the plan is for him to ride with Chris's brother back to L.A. and go visit the family.  He hasn't really been home all summer.  I have tentatively moved the nice hand towels back into the linen closet.  I bought him a bunch of books recently and he took several with him but I kept back the Uncle John's audiobook.  I told him we'd keep that on reserve for our next drive to or from Topaz.  I don't see that happening anytime soon.  :(  I said it might be really late in the summer, but we'd listen to it together.

Chris texted me at work yesterday:

I'm home come home

All three of them were napping when I got there.  It was just as quiet as it had been all week.  Riley wandered out into the hallway to look but never barked- she just wiggled her way over to see me.  Jasmine never left her bed.  Later on I coaxed her outside to potty and she went straight to bed.  Maybe an hour after that I was folding laundry and she got right up and came to sit in front of me, head down.  Uh-oh.  Her collar disappeared at the lake so I put my hands on either side of her jaws and walked her into the hall (where there's no carpet).  Sure enough, she started urking and barfed up something I can't begin to identify.  Somebody's learned the warning signs, huh?  I'm always so grateful when I can get her to the bare floor.  Dogs find the carpet such a comfortable place to vomit.

They were both exhausted after spending the whole week playing at Topaz.  Jasmine gets worn out after one afternoon- and she never spends more than a weekend there.  Riley does, but she's also 11 this year. ELEVEN.  She was trying to jump onto the bed to give me kisses and started yelping.  Chris said she got hurt being a vulture- she was stepped on a couple times because she was underfoot hoping for food.  Apparently those injuries are still tender.  I'm going to have to do walks at the park where she can wander or not, depending on how she feels.

Chris spent his mini vacation sleeping on the futon mattress inside his van.  I know he's extra exhausted from staying up late and not being able to sleep in.  Our bedroom is dark as a cave- it must have been super awesome to be woken up by the sun.  He's out cold now and I'm going to let him stay that way for as long as possible.  He worked last night despite his exhaustion and he's working all weekend.

This is how things go- I'm stressed and busy all week, he works all weekend.  :(

I'm going to force myself to knock out some homework during the silence.

Hep

It's official, I'm a whiner.  I don't know what kind of classes the other girls are taking, but no one thought this class was an excessive amount of work.  One girl said she had a class that required 120 pages of reading a night.  That's a lot, but this class isn't far behind, plus there's the writing.  Whatever.  I'd like to check out my teachers for the fall and make sure none of them are grad students.

Speaking of which, a fellow work study found a class that could seriously be a lot of fun.  It consists of reading, one month of weekend classes, and a trip to San Francisco.  It's upper division, which is what I need, but it's only 2 credits.  In order to take that, I'd need to find a 1 credit, upper division class.  Even if I found one, I wouldn't fit.  They're all serious science labs and such.  My coworker suggested asking someone in the English Department if they would let me do an independent study for one credit.  If that actually got approved I could possibly still work this fall, but more importantly, seriously decrease my workload and free up my schedule.  I'm also not entirely sure this is a good idea.  Should I even give this a shot?

Your feedback is requested.

By the way, I finally checked online- I got an A in Ceramics.  Whew.