The light at the end of the tunnel

I can see it! There's hope :)

Things are settling down a bit, thankfully. I think that February 2008 will go down as one of the most stressful months ever in my life. My friend, Tania, had a similar month so I'm wondering if February represents some sort of collective chaotic stress.

One more week to go and I'm done with school for a couple of weeks. I'm finishing up my big monster paper today and then I start studying for two finals next week. Both are take-homes so that helps keep my studying to a minimum.

Tomorrow is March 1st and I am so ready for spring. It's been in the upper 50s all week around here. I've got some spring flowers popping up in the yard, and my allergies are also popping up with things in bloom. I've decided that since tulips make me smile that every week I will buy a few bunches for the house. It's cheaper than anti-depressants and "greener" as well.

What makes you smile?

Bizzy bizzy

So these next few weeks are going to be hellish. Supremely hellish. Why, you may ask... well, let me spell it all out for you.

1. My 76 year old dad is having a double knee replacement tomorrow. If that's not bad enough, my mom is a brittle diabetic and can't be on her own so I'll be staying down at their place for the next few nights plus driving her back and forth to the hospital. They live 3o minutes away so I'll be getting lots of quality car time.

2. I've got 2 papers and 2 finals in the next 2 weeks. Joy. These two classes have been some of the hardest I've ever had so it's been lots and lots of work.

3. Lots of family coming in to help with my parents = good. Driving all of them back and forth to the airport = bad.

Luckily, Chris has been super supportive and a good shoulder to cry on when things have just gotten to be too much (that's happened a lot these past few months).

Only 3 more weeks and I'm on spring break! I just hope I can make it :)

A head for trivia...

I love that line from "Working Girl" where Melanie Griffith says she has a head for business and a body for sin. These days, I have more of a body for weight watchers but I still have the trivia head :)

I have always remembered useless stuff. No idea why. Want to know the unit of measurement used to build Noah's ark - ask me! It's a cubit! That's a real question in Trivial Pursuit by the way. Chris has a super smarty friend named Jeremy who is a TOTAL trivia geek. We played Trivial Pursuit one night and I gave him a strong run for his money. He was shocked and somewhat humbled that I came close to beating him. 

Last night, Tania and C brought over two trivia type games: Scene It for the 360 and Smarty Pants for the wii. Tania is a trivia head like me so we duked it out back and forth. She cleaned up though, especially on Scene It at the end when you get massive points. 

So today we are going to buy both of those games. Watch out, Tania!

Hearts and minds

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Hope you're all going to have some romance for the day. Even though it's Thursday :)

I have class on Thursday nights so Chris and I celebrated last night. He got me this really cute handbag/tote from a designer in Portland (I also have this really cute bag from her as well), and some memory for my laptop. I got him Obama's book and a game for the 360 (thanks, tania)!

We had a tres french dinner of crepes at 611 Supreme, which I coughed and hacked my way through - very romantic! I'm hoping to be done with this cough by the weekend! I'll tell you what though - cough medicine with codeine has been a Godsend for sleeping! Knocks me right out!

Wishing you a day of romance and lurve :)

It was bound to happen sometime

I knew it was coming. The odds were stacked against me and it was inevitable.

What is "it?" you are probably wondering?

It is a "B-" - my first one ever on a test since I've been back in school. Ok to be fair, I did get a C+ on a test once but that was because I didn't see a question on the back of the test so I don't really count it against me. This one, however, was fully earned by yours truly, and it's not a proud moment.

I've been struggling in general with my soc class as I blogged about a few days ago. I guess I just don't do well with theory these days. My test was a take home 10 question essay exam and I was asked to "discuss" and critique certain theories from our book. Well, I did a really good job of listing the theories and explaining them, but apparently, not so much in "discussing" them - hence the B-. When something looks too easy, it probably is - and it was.

I'm sure that most of you reading this probably think I'm crazy. A "B" isn't a bad grade in and of itself, but I've been a 4.0 student for 4 years and other than the flukey C+, I've always gotten A's. I live for the A's and I work extremely hard for them.

So today, I'm licking my wounds and also feeling a bit sorry for myself. In a fit of irrationality and low self-esteem, I was ready to chuck it all last night. Just give up school and move on. Today, however, I'm a bit more rational (and rested), and so I am just choosing to move onward and upward. Challenge is good right?

Oh, I guarantee I'll get an A on the next test :)

Obamarama 08 - my first caucus experience

Despite still feeling pretty sickly from my bronchitis, I decided that after almost 24 hours on antibiotics that I wasn't contagious so I went with Chris to our local democratic caucus. Neither of us had caucused before, but were anxious to see what the scoop was. Chris has been pretty firmly Obama since day 1. I've been leaning more toward Clinton, but I wasn't 100% firm.

Actually getting to the caucusing site was a nightmare. Somehow, we ended up with the wrong directions and we went to the wrong caucus site in Kent at an elementary school. We walked in and it was total pandemonium. I don't think that anyone had any idea just how many people were going to turn out. After we checked the map to try and find our precinct, we realized that this wasn't the right place. Luckily, Chris pulled up the address of the correct caucus site and we hauled ass to try and make the 1:30 deadline.

Our correct caucus site was at a union hall, and we got there just as the main group was getting ready to split up into precincts. so we found the room that held our precinct and filed in with a few other neighbors. We signed in and wrote down who we were voting for on a registration sheet. Up until the time I wrote "Obama" I was still unsure. After everyone registered, they divided up the delegates based upon the vote split. Our precinct was pretty apathetic and a couple of people said they wanted to be delegates and no one seemed to have any problems with that. I think we all just wanted to leave and get on with our day.

The interesting part is that after you split into your candidate group, you basically send emissaries to the other groups to convince them to vote for your candidate. After a set amount of time, the numbers are calculated again. In the end, our precinct had 5 delegates and they went 3 to Obama, 1 to Clinton, and 1 undecided.

The whole process seems extremely antiquated and it's really easy to see how fraud and miscounts can happen at election time. I've heard that the turnout was expected to be about 200,000 which is about 100,000 more than 2004. Like I said earlier, it was total pandemonium and confusion, but I'm glad we took part in the process.

Makes me wish we could just vote democrat in the primary from the comfort of my living room.

it's official - cabin fever has set in

After 3 1/2 days indoors fighting this godawful virus, I officially have cabin fever. I'm too sick to even think of venturing out, but I have reached the end of trying to entertain myself. I read a little bit but got bored. Then I tried to play Super Mario Galaxy, but ended up in a sweaty coughing fit because I got so frustrated!

You know things are bad when you watch two consecutive episodes of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. Yeah, two. I'm so ashamed. I spent the afternoon working on a take-home test, but this congestion makes my head feel pretty cloudy. I can't wait to look at my assignment tomorrow to try and make sense of it before turning it in.

I had planned to caucus for the first time tomorrow afternoon, but even that is looking doubtful. Every time I cough, it sounds and feels like a lung is working it's way out of my body. Chris will be happy that I probably won't go and cancel out his vote since he plans to caucus for Obama and I was planning on caucusing for Clinton (although I'm still pretty undecided).

I may have to try and venture out a bit tomorrow so I keep my sanity. At this point, I'd just be happy to drive around the block a few times.

Sniff sniff cough cough

Been battling a nasty virus for the past few days. Had a fever of 101 - yuck!

On the mend thankfully!

Catching up on lots of daytime tv.

Theoretically speaking...

I've realized that I'm not much of a theorist anymore. Back when I was attending college for the first time, I loved learning new theories and different ways of approaching problems and issues. These college days, however... not so much.

I've got two classes the quarter: Research Methods in Psychology and a soc class, Criminology. The first class is a prereq for my Psych major. The latter class will apply to my minor of Sociology.

When I signed up for classes this quarter, I was super excited about the Criminology class. I have a paralegal certificate and my community college classes were all geared toward Law so I thought that Criminology would be a good fit. The thing is, it's so theoretical! I mean... it's all theories of why people commit crimes which is interesting to a certain degree, but I find myself saying, "would this fall under Rational Choice or Latent Trait theory."

The class that I thought would be a snooze-fest - Research Methods - is actually quite interesting! I guess as I've aged, I've discovered that stats ain't so bad. The class and material is very methodical which really works for me. I like that A + B = C. I get that. It's just very interesting to me that not too long ago I was all about the theories. Now I'm all about the numbers and the method.

Maybe I'll skip psychology and become a physicist or engineer :)

I lurve monkeys...

... but not this much.