Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?

Last time I blogged it was Christmas Eve and I said I'd "see you in a few days" which was obviously a LIE because here were are nearly at Valentine's Day and I am just finding time to blog again. I mean, unless your definition of "a few" equals "39," I am a LIAR and my pants are on FIRE.

I mean, COME ON, I don't even think people are on "Survivor" island for 39 whole days, not even if they win. (Although if anyone asks, go right on ahead and tell them that's where I've been, okay? I have a buff. It's a good cover story.)

By the way, I make no excuses for my disappearance. I've been busy, just like everyone else, and if I'd like to keep my head firmly affixed to my person and not all explodey like the Death Star, then I needed to prioritize stuff, and between school and work and child and husband and eating and breathing and occasionally sleeping, unfortunately blogging fell to the bottom of the list. I hope to rectify this situation, but I am taking nine credits this semester, so maybe don't hold your breath?

(Here's how bad it is right now: I originally wrote "I've been busty, just like everyone else" in the previous paragraph, and I ALMOST LEFT IT IN BECAUSE I'M NOT SURE I EVEN HAVE READERS ANY MORE, and I figured if I was going to keep getting weirdo spam comments in my inbox, it might as well be for an interesting reason.)

(Also, before you even ask, smoking falls under either "eating" or "breathing" and I DO NOT WISH TO ENTERTAIN YOUR COMPLAINTS.)

(Sorry about being all shouty already. Long week, and they're calling for another Snowpocalypse or whatever we're calling it this year, and I'm pretty sure I'm not prepared, although we do have a new next-door neighbor with a snowblower, so there's that, at least.)

ANYWAY. Even though I haven't been writing, I have been trying to take photos whenever I can. Mostly they've been cell phone shots (I got a fancy new camera bag for Christmas and I have maybe taken a dozen pictures since because BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSY!) but at least you can see what we've been up to.

It snowed a couple of times. Nothing major, but enough to at least attempt snow angels, anyway.

Andy Reid finally got fired, and so now at least we no longer have the #occupyfireandyreid movement taking up what little of my free time still exists. (I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the #occupyfirechipkelly movement begins.)

We lost some more teeth. And, I mean, this happened so long ago that the permanent are already almost in and knocking some OTHER teeth loose. The Tooth Fairy is going broke.

Swimming lessons started up again, with a new swimsuit to boot. (And we've grown so much ALREADY that this suit almost doesn't fit any more, so thank God for Costco.)

My kid proposed to a boy in her Kindergarten class via crayon drawing on the back of a receipt. He accepted, but they have since called off the engagement. (I think. I'm honestly not sure what's going on there. It's like "Dallas" or "Dynasty" in the classroom. KIDS!)

I discovered that my kid (1) knows what a glockenspiel is, and (2) can play it (sort of). Of course she was the best glockenspielier at the Kindergarten concert (and also the loudest). Apparently next year they learn to start reading music (something that I never really managed to do, even after all those years of chorus and musical theater), and the kids get to start thinking about whether they want to play an instrument.

(Is anyone surprised that my kid wants to learn to play the drums? I didn't think so.)

So It Goes

When I started grad school, I expected things to be different. I just didn't expect them to be, you know, THIS different.

I didn't expect to go almost an entire month without updating my blog.

I didn't expect that my kid's first day of kindergarten would pass with barely so much as a mention.

I didn't expect that my poor camera would sit in the bag, barely touched, for days, weeks, practically months at a time.

I didn't expect to miss my kid or my husband or my bed or my DVR or my free time quite so much.

I am not complaining here, or at least, not exactly. I am glad that I finally got my shit together for long enough to develop an "exit strategy" and stick with it. You know me: I have my moments when I'm not entirely sure that I am doing the "right thing" here, but by and large I am glad I made the move before I could talk myself out of it.

I expected to love being back in school, and I really, really do, but I didn't expect that I would have such trouble getting back into the "swing" of being a college student. I know my schedule, but I can't seem to set up a routine. I have class on Wednesday and Thursday nights this semester, plus an online class through the middle of October, and I know what I need to do, but I keep finding myself in the middle of a "crunch," and I'm still not sure how to work it all out, sometimes.

I expect that it will take me another two semesters to get myself all the way together, and by then it will be time to student teach, which is a whole 'nother can of worms.

I didn't expect that I would have so much to want to say, and so little time or authority to actually do it. I'd love to discuss my theories and plans and ideas with all of you, but I'm not sure what I'm actually allowed to talk about. At the end of all this, I would like to get employed, and I imagine that anything I say might be used against me.

I definitely didn't expect to feel so frustrated about so many things now. I want to be done with school and get on with "the rest of my life," but I still have a day job to do. If I rush through my classes I won't do as well as I'd like to, but if I slow down so I don't feel so much angst about it, I might end up convincing myself that I am frustrated because I'm doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

I expected the sheer panic I felt when I actually got into grad school to settle down some once I got started.

I didn't expect that there would be days when it would be worse.

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Here is a random picture of a BLT, because of reasons:

Right now, the reasons are that bacon is basically the only thing I still understand any more. As long as there is bacon at the end of the tunnel, I WILL BE OKAY. (Right? RIGHT?)

This Is Your Brain On Grad School

There is no reason for this picture to be here, but I am including it anyway, as a pre-emptive peace offering / distraction so nobody freaks out when I get all whiny afterwards.

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Getting an education is making me dumb, you guys.

I mean, you know what I mean? I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm still one of the smartest people I know, even if it's impolite of me to come right out and say so. I've worked really hard for a really long time to learn as much as I can about the things that interest me, and I am proud of the fact that I can walk into any room and jump right into pretty much any conversation and acquit myself well, provided my neuroses and social anxieties don't get in the way of me walking up to strangers and saying, "Hi!"

(SPOILER ALERT: Booze helps.)

But lately, I just don't know. Here are some actual, real-live stupid things that I have done in the past two weeks that are starting to make me reconsider the level of my own intelligence:

1. Packed a lunch for work that consisted entirely of a bottle of diet green tea and a spoon.
2. Got all the way dressed for work without putting on underpants. (Fortunately discovered before I left the house.)
3. Left the house in two different shoes AND unmatched socks.
4. Spent half an hour trying to remember where I parked before realizing I was looking for a car I hadn't had in seven years.
5. Drained the battery in my car by leaving the headlights on all day.
6. TWICE. In the span of FIVE DAYS.

So I am starting to get a little nervous that maybe I am developing early-onset senility, or perhaps I have a brain tumor, or something. I'd like to think there is a medical explanation for the sudden recurrence of the adolescent flakiness that I thought I had outgrown.

But unfortunately, I think it's stress, and for the time being, there isn't much I can do about it. I'm kind of booked solid for a little while. My classes started in January, and by the end of August I will have finished five grad-level and two undergrad courses. Twenty-one credits. All in the course of only eight months.

I'm tired, you guys. So tired. And I lost my keys again.

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Yeah, sweetheart, I'm a little worried too. But before you know it, this will all be behind us, and it will be worth it. Pinky swear.

Blur

You guys, I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

I'm really sorry about all the weird lapses in posting but I am not myself these days. I knew that grad school was going to be hard, but what I didn't realize what that it wasn't going to be the classes that would kill me, but the scheduling. At least so far -- I have one class at the moment, and I love it, and I think I'm doing well, so I can't really complain there (although check back with me next week, after my exam tonight).

It's the SCHEDULE, you guys. It's killing me. Two days a week, I have 16-hour days (to which my mother is already saying, "Yeah, AND?"). I am not used to 16-hour days, at not least like this. And yes, it's only two days a week, but by the time I get home I'm usually so hopped up on adrenaline and caffeine and this buzz from learning that I can't get to sleep right away, and then I have homework and whatever on the other nights, and I have these really strange fever dreams and whatnot, so I don't really sleep all that well as a general rule, and so by the time 3:00 rolls around on a Friday afternoon, I am lucky if I am not passed out face-down at my desk, drowning in a puddle of my own drool.

You think I am exaggerating, but I assure you, I am not. Sometime after lunch on Fridays, everything is absolutely HYSTERICAL, to the point where reading a cheese wrapper has me in such giggle fits that I start hyperventilating. You guys, I DON'T EVEN KNOW. My entire life is pretty much a blur, right now.

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Because I know what my audience wants, and it isn't a detailed re-telling of my first-world white-girl problems-of-the-week, here are some pictures of other things that have been going on. I'm sorry these are all Instagrammed cell phone photos, but you're lucky I even have time for this. I just want to spend my weekends either in my bed or eating pie -- or, ideally, both at the same time -- so that I even remember to take my phone with me is basically nothing short of a miracle, right now.

 

Swim lessons are still happening. Shae is doing great, although I think you can see in this picture that she is growing out of all her bathing suits right in front of us. STOP THAT, KID.

   

We found a nearly-13-year-old box of Cream of Wheat in the back of the cupboard. Sadly, this is probably not the oldest food item in my house. I'm pretty sure that I still have canned goods that were part of a gift basket from my bridal shower. Hey, you NEVER KNOW when you're going to need a 30-year-old can of clams to feed the zombies during the end times.

    

They did a chick-hatching project at school, and my husband just rolled his eyes at me when I said I wanted to raise chickens in the back yard. I mean, IT'S LIKE HE DOESN'T EVEN TAKE ME SERIOUSLY ANY MORE.

   

Chewbacca got a hair cut. Hipster child is unimpressed.

   

With under two months to go until Shae's big 0-5 birthday (!!!!!) (?????) (who the hell let THAT happen?!), we finally took the siderail off her bed ... the same day that we put these sort of super-smooth, "microfiber," kind of almost satiny sheets on her bed. It's like we WANTED her to slide right onto the floor or something. But so far she's managed to resist the law of gravity and stay put during the night. Tucking her sheets and comforter under the mattress like some kind of deranged ghetto sleeping bag is probably helping.

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So. There you go. BASICALLY NOTHING IS DIFFERENT, except I'm like 482% more tired, and about 926% more likely to start randomly quoting Jack London stories at you with only the slightest provocation. (Or, in other words: it's a Wednesday, isn't it?)

Convergence Point

It's weird walking around campus on my way to class, and not just because I'm an ancient, elderly, crotchety old crone surrounded by nubile little 20-year-olds in their Uggs and their AE hoodies and their bare midriffs even when it's like 9° and their skinny jeans that are so tight that I want to run up to them like some kind of religious evangelical with illustrated pamphlets about the dangers of yeast infections. Because seriously.

No, that's not why things are strange, although my puffy down coat and my sensible shoes and my tendency to dress like my own grandmother are certainly not helping things. Mostly I am finding myself slightly wigged out because I keep running into people I know, people I haven't seen in a long time, and I just don't know who I'm going to run into next.

I picked this particular college for graduate school largely because their M.Ed. program is well-regarded -- my aunt, herself a teacher, is the one who recommended it -- and also in part because it is significantly less expensive than other programs I looked into, and while I may be insane, I am not stupid. Since I had to take out student loans in order to pay for everything, I couldn't really justify the higher price tag for the big deal, big name, big ticket, big city school.

Also: that other program was entirely online, and let's face it, I simply cannot be trusted to maintain my focus for any length of time when I am in such close proximity to LOLcats.

So in addition to quality, cost, and actually being in a classroom, the one other thing that I considered was location. This school is about halfway between my house and my parents', and when I have classes at night, I can get there from work in just about an hour. This is wonderful, because it means that my days don't need to be any longer than they already are. (My night classes go from 6-9 twice a week, so those days are basically 16 hours long, but at least I have time in between work and driving and class to sit down somewhere and have dinner like a civilized person.)

But one of the things I never thought to consider is that going to a local college means that there would be the distinct possibility that other people might be choosing the college for the same reasons. It's close to where I grew up -- which means it's also close to where I used to be on the Y swim team ... which may explain how it turns out that my former swimming coach from 20-some odd years ago is now my academic advisor.

It also makes it close to where a lot of my family lived at one time, and still lives ... which may explain how it turns out that one of my cousins, who I last saw 13 years ago when my husband and I were in marriage preparation class, is also a student there.

Now, it's highly likely that these things are just coincidences. I mean, I didn't grow up in that big a town, or anything. But what are the odds that of all the gin joints in all the world, so to speak, that I would run into two people from past like that within just a few days of each other? Is this place some sort of a convergence point for all the "lost memories" of my past? Who else is there that I might run into?