Recent News Around Here

SInce I skipped out on my blog for a while, I'm sure you're all dying to know the latest gossip from my crazy life. 

First of all... Oscar. The cone is gone and his eye has healed, although that hasn't stopped us from calling him "Cone." After all the drama with his previous vet, we decided to try someone new before we made the almost comical decision to take him to an ophthalmologist. We chose the closest vet, one we could walk to so that we wouldn't have to spend more money getting a Zipcar for a couple hours. We went in completely embarrassed because his cone was filthy and his head smelled like something had died. The vet came in, and she was more wonderful than we could have imagined. She spent almost an hour with us, all the while petting Oscar and telling him how handsome he was. Even if her prescribed treatment didn't work, we were confident that we had finally found a vet we felt comfortable taking all our animals to. Luckily something worked and thanks to the lack of the cone, now our kitty's head no longer smells like death. 

In other news, Mark is working a contract job that just bumped up his hours to 70/ week. It's crazy, but at least it beats the stress of being unemployed and worrying about money. I'm back to being a work widow now, though at least it gives me time to work on my end of the term stuff. Which by the way, has me freaked out beyond belief. It's so difficult to get everything done in just a few weeks. I'm trying my hardest to avoid procrastinating this semester, even going so far as to get a research paper done two weeks before it's due. Impressive, right?

And if all that schoolwork weren't enough, my mom is flying in this weekend so that we can see the Cherry Blossoms, which will be awesome. I can't wait to see her and show her how amazing the Cherry Blossoms are. Then the next weekend, Mark's parents are coming to visit, hoping to catch the tail end of the blossoms. After that, it's pretty much the end of semester and I'll be one summer away from starting my final semester of college. 

If only I can make it til then without losing my sanity... 

Post-Snow Commute

Since the snow has drama has been over for almost a week now, it only makes sense that everything is still slow, right? I mean, how much can we expect from a city that can’t function at the slightest mention of flurries?

Right here is where I have to remind you that my commute is not easy. In order to get to or from school, I have to take a bus, a train, AND a shuttle. When I have night classes it can be more difficult to get home since the city seems to think that the trains should run every 10-15 minutes after 7:00pm and as for the buses… well, they’ll run whenever the hell they feel like it. Combine that with the snow-as-a-snail metro and you can see that we’re all headed for disaster.

So there I am at school, patiently waiting for my SECOND shuttle because the first one had too many people for me to squeeze on. I kid you not; it took an hour from the time that class got out until I was at the metro station, a mere two miles away. And yes, I’m aware that I could have walked. But it was dark and all the sidewalks were covered with snow. Not to mention that DC drivers are some of the worst I’ve seen in my entire life. Enough said.

Due to wanting to stay alive, I was at the metro at a time that I should have been on the bus to get home. I had to wait ten minutes for the next train, then about another twenty minutes for it to get to my stop. By this time, it’s 8:00pm and I’m getting cranky. And because the night wasn’t quite crappy enough, the Transportation Gods chose to slow down the bus, leaving me to stand outside in the freezing cold for a half hour.

It took another half hour to get home and by the time I walked in my front door, I was in tears. Mark had dinner for me and being the awesome boyfriend he is, greeted me with a hug a warm dinner. It was just what I needed to make me forget about my metro woes…

Until tonight. 

Sick of Snow Days

I never thought it would happen. All I wanted was ONE snow day. Ok, maybe I really wanted TWO snow days. Just something to give me a little break from school and work. In no way, shape, or form was I prepared to have almost an entire WEEK off school! I was able to make it to work on Monday but even that was dangerous so I’ve been home for the remainder of the week.

There’s now a bit of cabin fever going around in our apartment. Mark and I are driving each other crazy and Jade is thrilled because she thinks that mommy and daddy are home all day just to play with her. And to be honest, all the snow days are giving me anxiety. You see, so far, my university hasn’t extended our semester. There was an emergency preparedness plan in place so that if H1N1 hit the campus, classes could continue over the internet. During our unforeseen snow break, professors have been encouraged to keep the students up to date on assignments and scheduling. Way to ruin my snow break, school! Anxiety-ridden, I keep thinking about all the work I’m going to have upon returning to classes.

And you’d think that with all this time, my apartment would be spotless. Not so much. I’ve been on the couch for the last three days, watching every bit of crappy programming that television offers. It’s not just about procrastination; it’s a serious lack of capability when it comes to getting my shit together. I know the reasons for this and I’m working on correcting them, but in the meantime I let my apartment slide. My cleaners come tomorrow (hopefully!) and I always feel less stressed when everything is in its place. It’s just easier to get work done and not be a slacker when your belongings are clean and organized.

The one productive thing that I managed to begin is a recipe binder. I’m always hanging on to old magazines and some of them have some recipes that I’d like to try. I was able to go through a good amount of the magazines and tear out all the recipes that look good and categorize them in a binder. Plus, I found some awesome baked goods recipes that look easy enough for me to attempt. One of these next few days, I’ll start posting recipes again.

Lesson that was learned from snow days: be productive everyday. It lessons my anxiety. 

Snow Day

It's snowing right now and I can't wait to see if I have a snow day tomorrow. I'm actually pretty pumped because I was supposed to have a feature assignment due tomorrow afternoon but the professor pushed it back because people were having problems with their sources. Do you know what this means?! It means that I'm going to bed EARLY and that I get to sleep a little bit. And if the snow plays out just right, I might even get an afternoon off. I'm crossing my fingers extra hard for lots of snow!

On another note, I'm starting to get sick. Well, I kind of am sick. Sore throat, runny nose, etc. I hope that I feel better tomorrow because I have lots of blogging to catch up on!

Three Weeks In

Three weeks in to my new semester and I had a breakdown that pretty much consumed my entire Sunday. Mark dealt with my massive meltdown like a trooper since he’s had plenty of experience in this department. He made me get into bed, got me tea, and then made me take a nap. I still have anxiety, but at least I didn’t cry for the rest of the day.  

I basically realized that I have mass amounts of reading that I can’t keep up with. Having to go to school as well as work when you’re taking five classes is harder this semester than it’s ever been before. I know that there are multiple reasons for this, but I can’t get over how much work I’m being given for an undergraduate degree. Right now I’d guess that I’m somewhere around 700 pages a week and that doesn’t even include all the written assignments that I have to complete. I was overcome with panic when I realized that I had to read one book by Tuesday and another by Friday. For different courses. And that’s only for TWO of my FIVE courses. Plus I still have to go to work and school every day this week.

I’m now taking strategies for how to pick the winning lottery numbers. 

Finally... Productivity!

I’m going to take a minute here to tell you that I’m overcome with joy about getting crap done today. I think did more homework today than I did all of last semester. I was even surprised to learn that the readings are interesting! My normal weekends are spent zoned out in front of out big-screen, but not today! Today I got up (mind you, it was at 11:30, but I still got up!) and bulldozed through my week’s work. I got through a good amount of the readings, a journal entry, part of a book, and even part of a questionnaire that needs to be completed for Thursday. Did you see that?! THURSDAY, people. Today is SUNDAY and I’m preparing for things that aren’t even happening until the end of the week! I even got some non-school stuff done, which is even more incredible. I’m praying that today wasn’t some weird fluke, that someone didn’t slip me an Adderall as a cruel joke and that by tomorrow I’ll be back to my procrastinator ways. Please let this be some inspiration to get me on a roll for the rest of this semester… It felt so good to be productive! 

OMG, Graduate Programs

Just out of plain curiosity, this evening I went to my university’s webpage to look at graduate programs. I had a few ideas in mind, and at the top of the list was creative writing. My undergrad degree will be in journalism, but I’m not sure it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. I’m actually not even sure I’m all that interested in the discipline at all. I like the writing aspect of it so I thought that maybe creative writing was a possibility. Not only do you need 48 credit hours to get your MFA (you’ll see why this is such a large number in a minute), you need to take an entire course on POETRY. I don’t mind poetry when it’s just a tiny section out of a semester-long course, but when it’s an ENTIRE course, I get a little nervous.

I decided to look into an MA in journalism, and get this: you only need 30 hours worth of credits to graduate from that program! I mean, hell, why waste another 18 hours and thousands of dollars of my precious money?! Oh, but wait… I’m not that fond of journalism in the first place. So now I’m back where I started. I decided to look at one final topic, public communication. To be quite honest, I don’t even know what it’s about but it’s also 30 credit hours for an MA, which seems a whole lot better than the 48 for creative writing that I had looked at earlier.

I think that creative writing is still what I’d most like to study. I mean, you get to turn in a manuscript of a BOOK as your thesis! But the prospect of being done in one year or less is extremely appealing. The less time the better, in my opinion. Except that I want to end up doing something I love, which might not happen if I end up in the journalism or public communications program. I think I’m actually more confused than when I started out…

In any event, I’m entirely freaked out by this whole experience. Just the thought of the GRE, applications, recommendation letters, and poetry is enough to make me reach for the Tums.