kiwords

Math Class 

Hey, I don't think this will be too bad. I think I can do this! I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm excited about it, but this is math for...my people. 

Writing Class 

Love. Love this. Love love love. Can I just live here?

Biology 2

Oooh, we are not messing around here, are we? Okay, okay. I can do this. Some interesting stuff here. Wow, this lab is kinda intense. Okay. Let's do this thing. This biology thing. 

Human Anatomy and Physiology

Oh wow. There is a lot here. And this lab is...how can a lab manual be that thick? Okay, the professor is going to give us a starting list of terms to memorize.

That's a lot of terms.

She just keeps saying words.

Is she trying to say all the words? In the world?

I think you're done now! I think that's enough!

Sweet jeebus. More words.

So. many. terms.

I wonder if she'll stop if I pretend to die?

Mommy.

Did I say that in the outside the head voice?

Professor: Okay, I think since it's our first day, that's a good start, without getting too in-depth.

whimper.

Tomorrow I start classes again, and so today I had planned to get everything I need to accomplish out of the way for the next four months.

I didn't quite manage it. But Sophia's lunch is packed for tomorrow, and I cleaned off my desk, so let's call that a win. 

Last semester when classes started I felt like I just fell off a cliff. I watched helplessly as the tasks I'm so used to dispatching without even thinking about just whizzed past me. When I was home I was mostly parked on the couch, in a nest of papers and books, or sobbing into Clay's chest that I couldn't do it, it was just too hard and I was just too old.

There was one class last semester that I found so very intimidating that I spent a portion of the first two weeks of classes doodling in the margins of my notes,"Don't cry. Just don't cry. Don't cry." I'd write the letters one on top of the other so no one would know what I was saying to myself, because that was convincingly normal.

I was so overwhelmed by it all that I did things like get on the wrong train to come home. More than once. I forgot to eat, which is not a thing that I do. And one night I finished studying for a big biology test and tried on a shirt I'd just bought. This was the first time I'd put it on at home and two buttons just fell off, so irritating. But I knew the idea of getting it all the way back to the store to return it was absolutely laughable. ANOTHER TRIP! HA! So instead I sewed the buttons on myself. 

When I got up in the morning and put the shirt on, I found I'd sewed one button on right, and the other on the opposite side of the shirt. I...don't even know how I managed that. I just stood there for a moment, looking in disbelief at my buttons. And then I just wore the shirt that way because that's the level of my decision making skills at the time. 

I went to my biology test, and you know what? I completely DOMINATED that test. Not only did I get an A, I got the highest grade in the freaking CLASS. LIKE A BOSS. 

I promptly decided that the button thing was just evidence that I was one of those absentminded geniuses, like Einstein. I bet he never sewed anything anywhere, or he would have made hash of it all, right? And then I went and got on the wrong train to come home.

I'm not kidding about the train thing. 

This semester I'm not quite as terrified. I know it's going to be a tough semester, but I also know that it'll all be okay. It's hard to let things go around here, but I've found that when I do, sometimes magic occurs. I think before I went back to school Clay had done...maybe three loads of laundry in our entire marriage? That's not a complaint. That was just how we did things. In the fog of the new semester, one day I realized that I was discovering clean clothes in my closet and that I hadn't put them there. Without a single discussion Clay had quietly taken over laundry and it turns out that A) he is SO GOOD AT LAUNDRY and B) OH MY LORD I LOVE NOT DOING LAUNDRY. This whole school deal is worth it just for that.

I figure this semester will be more of the same: exhilarating, terrifying, exhausting, sometimes humiliating, but mostly just fine. Fairly okayish, even!

Let's play a game, shall we? I'll tell you a little something that is happening in my life, and you tell me if it's weird or not. Okay? Okay!

Sophia's first grade class has been talking about the idea of temptation (those crazy Catholics, amIright?). Sophia is very taken with the concept, and was delighted to discover that I had bought popcorn at Target this afternoon! Because I was tempted! This is awesome!

Tonight, as we all sat on the couch to say bedtime prayers, she knotted up her little cupid mouth like it was drawstringed, balled up one fist, grabbed that wrist with the other hand, and looked at me with crazy eyes. "Oooooo," she whispered, "I have SUCH a temptation to punch Max!" As soon as prayers were done, she ran over to the punching bag the boys got for Christmas, and gave it a great pitter pat of a pummeling with her tiny little fists. Then she scaled the big metal frame it hangs on, to slap it mightily from above. It was, she explained, the only way to keep others safe from her powerful temptation to punch. 

Little angel, my foot.

Max's favorite snack currently is Doritos and sour cream. Not a sour cream dip, just a bowl of sour cream, scooped up with Doritos. Makes me gag and gain weight, just looking at him. He says it's delicious. I say it's disgusting, and yet I have not felt the same temptation to punch him.

I'm not speaking to my dog. Because she ate my lip balm. A whole entire pot of lip balm that my niece made me, and half of the plastic container. I tell her every time I give her a treat that I'm not speaking to her. She is...remorseful? Okay sure, she's remorseful.

"GOT ANY LIP BALM? YUM."

Finally, how about me just jumping into blogging again, like there hasn't been a five month silence in this conversation and I haven't ignored some very lovely emails from wonderful people? Now THAT would be weird.