Inane Chatter

I’ve read in lots of places (I can’t name a single one, but at this point, it’s probably in the public consciousness so I don’t have to) that to be successful at losing weight (or at anything), it helps to set up little rewards at certain milestones.  I found my first little reward.  But I can’t have it yet.  I had the afternoon off work today (left early to take my data modeling exam (got an A), and had a couple of hours left over), so what did I do?  I went to the mall.  Horror of horrors.  I wasn’t in a shopping mood, but John needs new brown work shoes and he has enormous feet so no one ever has his size in stock.  I went to Nordstrom because I know they’ll order or transfer shoes from other stores so he can try them on before buying.  Nice people there.  And while I was at the mall, I decided to shop for skinny jeans.  Not because I’m particularly skinny, but because it’s time.  Sadly, I’m between sizes.  So my reward for losing the next few pounds will be a pair of skinny jeans.  Mostly so I can wear my boots over them.  My shopping mood didn’t last long (it never does), and I escaped from the mall before it could ruin my day.  Malls have a way of doing that.

Stress.  Busy day.  Lots of work done, lots of work to do, not enough time to do it.  And then the realization that I have to take an exam for my data modeling class before Monday.  Almost didn’t go to classes tonight, but was sane enough to remember that one of the things that is stressing me out is my incapability (incapableness?  Lack of capability?  I don’t think any of those are words.) to eat right (I say as I take teeny bits from a piece of Dove chocolate), and I usually feel better after the gym.  So I went.  And I do feel  better.  A little.  But tomorrow is another crazy day (with a long commute with my boss) and it seems to have started already and – no.  Tomorrow is tomorrow.  Not here yet.  Even if I am mentally calculating how many hours of sleep I need before getting up early tomorrow.  (I’m coming up short.)

Yoga’s great for calming me down while I’m in class, but that feeling doesn’t last long enough.

Of course, I’m very rarely anywhere NEAR Kristen Bell’s meltdown level.  This is funny, kinda cute sometimes, and so very weird.

• John caught Riley drinking my coffee this morning.  Later, he (Riley, not John) knocked the trash can down the basement steps and possibly ate some of the coffee grounds that spilled out.  Is my dog a caffeine junkie?  How did this happen?  How did I not notice?  It would certainly explain the high-strung behavior…

• John made a pot roast (roast beef?  Is there a difference?  I don’t really care – delicious either way) for dinner tonight.  The house smells fantastic – like red wine and onions.  Warm red wine and onions.

• I got a 96% on my fourth homework assignment in my data modeling class.  I was debating whether or not to argue with the professor because I think (and John agrees) that she’s wrong about that one answer.  I decided not to.  I got a 96%.  Arguing for a 100% isn’t necessary.  I’m letting it go.

• I’m drinking white wine instead of red even though we’re having pot roast (or roast beef) for dinner tonight.  Ask me if I care.  (Hint: I don’t.)

I can’t even count the ways that I am sore.  Last  night was my first night back at my Muscle Blast and yoga classes since Thanksgiving.  I’m very happy to be back, I really like those classes, but oh my god I hurt so much now.  Every muscle we worked on is screaming at me.  The aches sorta crept in one by one throughout the day, but they’re all here now.  Hi everybody!  Now go away.

I spent the entire day in a tiny little room with my boss (plus an hour and a half each way in a car with her to get to that tiny little room).  I need some space.  I need some alone time.  And I need some sleep.

You know what’s awesome?  Tomorrow’s Friday and it’s the beginning of a three-day weekend!  You know what’s awesome-er than awesome?  The first season (well, the 2005 season) of Doctor Who arrived in the mail yesterday!  With extras and commentary and lots of hours of Doctor and Rose goodness.

Does anyone know where we can find the last season of Torchwood (the season set in the US) online?  It was on Netflix for a little while, but it’s gone now.

My plan for the weekend:

1. Do my homework (I have an assignment due for Data Modeling and Design)
2. Finish Faithful Place
3. Start The Hunger Games
4. Exercise
5. Grocery store
6. Blah blah other boring things
7. Oh, also SLEEP

These last two days have gotten completely away from me.  Too much work, not enough play.  Or homework.  And a cold.  Poor, poor me.  Let’s all be sad.

Actually, I felt much better today than yesterday.  I’m crossing my fingers that this trend continues.  Especially since I have to go downtown tomorrow and I REALLY don’t want to be miserable that far from home.

Of course, if I end up feeling miserable tomorrow, I can make myself feel much better by watching this video (via The Daily What) again.

That was hilariously adorable.  This one is just scary.

I registered for three classes today (two at a time – I certainly can’t handle three at a time).  I hope I won’t regret this.  Starting next Monday, I’m taking Statistics II (lasts the full semester) and Data Modeling and Design (just an 8-week course).  Once that 8-week course is over, I’ll start an 8-week SQL course.  I’m assuming (based on how Stat I went) that these classes won’t be as difficult as the calculus classes, so maybe juggling them and work won’t be so bad.

Who am I kidding?  Even if the classes are easy, the juggling will be hard.  I am an idiot.

It’s amazing how much better I feel, how much looser, more relaxed, now that my exam is over.  I didn’t know how much it was weighing on me until I was done.  (It went well, for the most part.  I think.  (Does a comma go in that sentence?  I can’t decide.))  I was telling Mom earlier that I think most of the stress comes from trying to balance school and work.  I don’t feel like I have enough time to devote to school because of work, and I don’t want it to take up all my free time because, you know, free time is necessary, but I can’t really relax in my free time because I know I have schoolwork to do.  I know – life is hard, and I’m only taking one class.  Boo hoo.  Now shut up.  I’m saying I personally don’t handle it very well.  But now, now that the test is over, now that all that’s left is work (which slows down during the holidays because everyone takes time off) and present shopping, I can maybe enjoy these here holidays.  Take some deep breaths.  Look at the pretty lights.  My neighbor at the bottom of the street has these icicle lights that actually look they’re dripping.  But she might think it’s weird if I go stand on her sidewalk and stare…

In between memorizing steps for how to solve different types and systems of equations and doing practice problems, I browsed my usual sites.  Just a little.  When I needed a break.  Since I still have some stuff to do, I’m going to bombard you with links.  Good ones, I promise.

From Catalog Living, this caption cracked me up.

From reddit, a letter from the Kentucky Commissioner of Education to a superintendent explaining why, yes, KY schools will continue to teach evolution as part of the biology curriculum.  Go Kentucky!

From a Nathan Fillion tweet, don’t get my hopes up about Firefly, man.  It’s not nice.  But could it come back?  Could it really?

Last, the funniest thing I read all day was from Corey’s blog.  The 2nd Harry Potter movie has been renamed permanently.

Why am I putting off studying for my DE final?  I’m sort of studying now (I’m listening/sometimes watching (because the professor is long-winded and inclined to digress) to a recording of the most recent e-meeting.), and I’m definitely absorbing information, but I’m not in the mood.  Not a good sign when you consider that I have to take this final this week.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting old(er).  Maybe it’s because I was never very good at multi-tasking.  I’m not handling doing lots of things at once very well.  Not at work, not at home, not combining work and home (where home = school and fitness and oh, right, grocery shopping and cleaning and playing with the dogs…).  Something is always getting neglected.  Which something changes day to day, except for grocery shopping.  That gets neglected every day.  Which means we’re eating SO much crap.  Pop tarts for breakfast today, guys.  I can’t remember the last time I even saw a pop tart.  I went to CVS this morning to get more allergy medicine, needed something for breakfast, and grabbed a box of strawberry pop tarts.  Yum, sure, but not good.  Yeah, I could have picked up a box of nutri-grain bars or granola bars.  Or those milk and cereal bars.  Frankly, the milk and cereal bars both fascinate me and gross me out.  They say they’re made with real milk, but who wants to eat cereal with solidified milk holding it together?  It’s probably more like frosting, and frosting for breakfast doesn’t sound all that appealing either.  Anyway, yes, I took the easy, junk-foody way out.  And that was dumb.  But it was quick.  This morning, I’m trying to learn how to solve higher order homogeneous linear differential equations with constant coefficients (before I have to go to Baltimore for work) so I can finish my quiz on time.

I’m doing homework tonight and my brain hurts.

This helps.

This, too. I’m still not interested in running a marathon, but I like watching runners, and that many in one place is hard to believe and fun to watch.

Both videos from The Daily What.

What I should do: study for my calculus midterm.  What I’m going to do: play on the internet and possibly watch TV.  Then?  Bed.  I have to go to Baltimore again for work tomorrow.  On the one hand, the work I’m doing in Baltimore is the best thing about my job.  On the other hand, I have to go to Baltimore.  It’s far.

I need more sleep.  Roxy was due for a seizure over the weekend, but she never had one.  This is good news (seizures are bad), but it means I’ve been watching her like a hawk when I’m home and I keep waking up at every random sound in the night, convinced it’s her.  I’m tired.  But she just licked my elbow and wagged her tail, so everything must be fine.

Update: I jinxed it.  She just had a seizure.  But at least it was before we went to bed.  (She’s fine.  Walking it off.)  I’ve been playing phone tag with the vet since yesterday.  She wants to talk about changing her medication.  (Roxy’s, not the vet’s, just so we’re clear.)  I’m all ears.

So…you know how the other week I was over the moon about running?  How I ran my race, and I ran faster than I expected, and I felt really good?  Well.  In the two weeks immediately following that race, I ran a total of 3 miles.  Weird schedule, too many crazy-early mornings – oh, I’ve got plenty of excuses.  But, as John so kindly reminded me this morning, you lose your conditioning a hell of a lot faster than you gained it.  So this morning I ran four miles.  I’ve still got it.  And I don’t want to lose it.  I don’t know if I could jump right in and run ten again, but I’m aiming for 7 or 8 this weekend.  That’s doable, right?

The Bloggess (who you should really be reading regularly because oh my god Snuffleupagus) pins some hilarious and beautiful things on her pinterest page.  You should check in on that every once in a while, too.

I just turned in my third calculus quiz of the semester and I have to take the midterm before next Wednesday.  So I’m going to watch some TV because the band is rehearsing in the basement and who can study through that?

Seriously, could today have been any better?  Only if it had unicorns and sparkles.  And it’s not over yet.  There’s hope.  Sure, we got up super early on a Saturday, but it was only so we could go to the giant used book sale that happens every six weeks in a warehouse in Annapolis.  Worth it.  AND I had a croissant and my favorite candy-coffee from Starbucks for breakfast on the way (tall, skim, no whip white mocha with two pumps of toffee nut – yes, I’m one of those now).  Extra worth the early wake-up.  AND we hung out with Jess while looking for books and then having bagels.  Better than extra worth it.  And THEN we went to IKEA and bought two more bookshelves, upper shelf extensions for those two plus the six at home that didn’t already have them, plus two wall shelves to go over the couch (and hold more books – maybe the graphic novels?).  We’ve spent the afternoon since then putting the shelves and the extension together while watching Law & Order: SVU, and now we’re going to pick up dinner from somewhere and settle in and watch a movie.

A day like today makes me so very happy.  Books, best friend, shelves, dinner, and a movie, a whole day hanging out with John, and sure, I didn’t do any calculus like originally planned, but John and I worked it out on the way home from IKEA.  Today we get the furniture part out of the way and relax a little.  Tomorrow, we’ll run, mow the lawn (it grew, like, two feet in 8 days), and do homework (my calculus, his thesis).  Sunday is the responsible day.

This week was a short week (thank you for Labor Day – I love three-day weekends) that still managed to feel like a regular week, but Friday is finally here.  Tomorrow I get to see Jess at a great big book used book sale and then I’ll spend the rest of the weekend immersed in calculus.  Except for Sunday morning when I have to run.  And except for later Sunday morning when I’ll help John with the lawn, assuming it dries out.  I’ll have to pretend the internet doesn’t exist, I think.  Give it the cold shoulder.  Hope it doesn’t take offense and will let me back in later.  How forgiving is the internet?  I know it never forgets, which is somewhat (a lot) scary.

Will I ever finally get rid of the first-grader who was convinced she couldn’t do math?  (I’m referring to the one in my head, not, like, a neighbor kid or anything.  That would be cruel.  And possibly illegal, depending on how I got rid of her.) I used to fake stomach-aches so I could skip that part of the day.  Obviously I got past a lot of that; I love math.  I like to do it and I’m fairly good at it, but last night I read the first chapter of my differential equations book and SO much of it went over my head.  I had the same oh-no-I don’t-understand-this-is-hard-what-if-I-can’t-do-it? feeling I used to get.  The biggest difference between me-then and me-now (in terms of math, I should say – there are other – way bigger – differences, like I’m no longer four feet tall and I have a job) is that I’m not afraid to ask my professor for help.  I’m able to work through the examples, but I don’t understand why.  (Why is that equation a solution of the other?  What’s the relationship exactly?  What makes that one linear and that one non-linear, and what does the order have to do with anything?)  I’m fairly certain my questions have short answers (I could be wrong), so I just need to send an email, but this is one of those times the online format is not an advantage.  I wouldn’t still have this question if I’d gone over that chapter in a classroom.  On the other hand, I can request an e-meeting and get one-0n-one time that’s almost face to face, and then I can ask questions ’til the cows come home (which is CRAZY late – cows are party animals).  One way or the other, I’ll ask the questions and hopefully understand the material.  Then I’ll go hang out with the cows.  We go way back.

I have been busy.  Good busy and bad busy.  The bad busy parts stress me out.  The good busy parts are things I could do all the time, every day.  And if I could get rid of the bad busy parts, I’d have time for things I like to do when I’m not doing the good busy parts, like playing on the internet.  Like READING.  John looked over at my book the other night, noticed I wasn’t even halfway through it, and told me it felt like I’d been reading that book forEVER.  I’m not sure in exactly what way how long I spend reading a particular book affects him, but if he noticed I haven’t been reading much, then I really haven’t been reading much.  Tragic.

I spent most of the last three days (all weekend and much of Monday) working on my statistics project.  (This is one of the good busy things.)  Nothing about it was hard, but there were a lot of pieces and the instructions were confusing.  I tried to get clarification from my professor, but since I never heard back, I made some decisions based on what the instructions would have said if I’d written them.  I hope they were the right decisions.  I turned it in late last night.  One big task done.  Yay!  Actually, that was the main good busy thing.  The one that took most of my time.  I talked to Corey finally (he’s going to disown me if I put him off any longer) – hooray for change!  Also, I, uh, bought more wine from my favorite local wineries and went to Borders.  Again.  These were very important errands.  Really.  Oh, and I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love Saturday night with a woman I know from the gym.  It was cute.  Ryan Gosling’s ears are too small to be believed.  Seriously tiny ears.

I did one other kinda major good busy thing this weekend.  Big accomplishment for me.  (Big.)  I ran 10 miles Sunday morning.  Ten whole miles.  I wasn’t very fast, and I walked a little bit, but I did it.  I am no longer afraid that I won’t be able to finish the race in October.  I did it.  The last mile was really hard (it wasn’t early morning anymore and the sun was high and the shade had disappeared and I’d been running for nearly two hours and it was my tenth mile), but I realized as I started it that I’d never run this far before (8 miles – two weeks ago – was my longest run until Sunday morning).  And with every step I took, I was running farther.  Each step was one more than I’d ever run before.  There aren’t very many times I’ll be able to say that.

So that was my weekend.  The good busy stuff is all cool and great (now that I’ve turned in my statistics project), but it doesn’t end there.  I have two more quizzes and a final to complete by next Thursday for statistics, and my next calculus class (differential equations this semester) started yesterday.  I’m so glad my classes only overlap by a week and a half.  Any more than that and I’d be seriously considering quitting my job.  I don’t know how people manage working full-time and going to school at the same time.  With just one class at a time and no extra-curricular work activities (don’t get me started), when I can leave work at work, I can manage.  Anything more and my head starts to spin, Exorcist-style.  (It’s not pretty.)  But yesterday, even though it was a Monday and I had work to do and a project to finish, was a really good day.  The weather was perfect, I had the windows open to catch the very breezy breeze, I got a lot done, my legs didn’t hurt from the run the day before, and my strength class that night was calming.  (I really like my gym.)

———Break for earthquake———

This post was going to have an ending, but then there was an earthquake.  Nothing else got done today.  The earthquake ate my ending.

…that so far, I’ve managed to keep only as drafts.  You don’t need that crap.  You need this, though.

I want to see this movie.  You do, too, admit it.  (Okay, Margaret might not, and Mom almost certainly doesn’t, but the rest of you do, I know it.) Found it following a link to a Scalzi article at www.filmcritic.com from his blog post from the other day. I mean today. What day is it?

This (from The Daily What) made me cry.  A little.  At the end.  Margaret and Mom (and the rest of you) will probably like it, too.

I have nothing else for you today. Worked from home (worked a LOT) and then studied. I’m getting tired of statistics being all I do. But I did get an A (100% ’cause I’m a nerd and it was absurdly easy. Did I mention it was 20 multiple choice questions? No? Well, it was.) on my midterm. So…there’s that.

One last thing. Cat as martini glass. I love her.

…starts now.  I’ve been eating and breathing statistics for over a week.  I took my midterm this afternoon,  I’m home now, John’s in charge of dinner (I think), and I don’t have to jump right into the next statistics chapter just yet.  I have a glass of wine, random French jazz in the CD player (CDs Mom burned and gave me – no idea what the specifics are, but I was in the mood for something unusual and mellow), and a new book.  And I’m going to slice some cantaloupe.  Cantaloupe will get me through this heat wave.

I feel like I’ve had a big test every week for the past month.  I’m not that far off, actually.  My statistics midterm is tomorrow, and now that I’ve finished the fourth quiz (and covered all of the material that will be on the midterm), I feel much better about it than I did about the calculus exams.  We’ll see how I feel when it’s over.  Speaking of things being over, I got a B in that calculus course.  I’ve never been so happy to see a B.  Maybe now I can find my routine again.

I got stood up yesterday by the loan officer from the bank that holds our mortgage.  I raced home so I could be there when he called (we want to refinance), sitting down (not in the car) and not distracted, and guess who never called?  I was a little annoyed.  A lot annoyed.  He called this morning to apologize and reschedule for this afternoon.  I’ve decided not to hold a grudge.  I’m carrying enough of those.  How many is enough?  Or too many?  I only have grudges against three people, and I think they’re justified.  I know Margaret agrees.  It might be a little immature, and maybe it would be healthier to forgive and forget, but since it doesn’t affect my day-to-day life, do I have to?