To Whom It May Concern

I have never let my blog slide for this long before. The last month and a half was extremely busy and in some ways difficult for me.

I started working full time at an enormous company. It was a temp job though and they ran out of work for me. Now I am back to sitting on my bum, doing homework, and cleaning the house until they can find me some more work. Boredom is frustrating for me, so I hope I start working again soon. The job schedule I was working was about perfect for me. Hence, more frustration at losing it.

My grandmother passed away during my first two weeks of working full time and I was unable to attend the memorial service, it being in another state and me just starting my job and all. That was a bummer.

I had a wonderful vacation in Michigan for one week. It wasn't all fun and games since I was the matron of honor in a friend's wedding. Actually, it was all fun. For our anniversary Craig and I swore off doing wedding prep work and went to Lake Michigan for a day. It was great.

Now I am back home and working on a relatively huge decision. I am thinking that I might go back to school full time and work some sort of evening shift. I have put together a tentative class schedule. Of course, I take forever to make important decisions like this. So, that's where I am right now.

New Perspective

This article on race relations in today's America intrigued me. The author has taken a courageous stand in pointing out how the legislative attitude toward civil rights is no longer beneficial. His work could be easily missunderstood -- which acounts for the length and apologetic tone of the article. But he says what needs to be said. Looking for places of hidden racism is not going to find jobs, education, and opportunity for those in impoverished neighborhoods. We need to focus on community solutions to the persistent problems of inequality and stop overemphasizing overt racists. It's time to give our attention to positive efforts.

Days Of My Lives

1) I watched Wolverine about a week after it came into theaters. There is one good thing about this movie and it's really more for chicks than for guys. Hugh Jackman makes an awesome action hero. Too bad his lines and character totally sucked. Actually, most of the movie sucked. The storyline was roughly nonexistant, characters who should have died came back to life, Wolverine angsted his life away over mistakes he did not actually make, and a few random characters had a few lines each. Not to mention Wolverine was a complete moron. He seemed incapable of anticipating his brother (Victor). From the start Victor was insanely jealous, unstable, and ruthless. Wolverine persisted in believing he was a decent guy all the way to the end of the movie. It was dumb. I could not suspend my unbelief while watching the movie.

2) Star Trek was perfect. The cast did a wonderful job portraying the beloved characters from the original series. They had all the mannerisms and personalities down to a t. The plot was exciting and the action kept me on the very edge of my seat. I was happy to see that Hollywood can still make a good epic type action movie once in a while. I also enjoyed some of the additions to characters. For example, the relationship between Spock and Uhura was a great touch. I also enjoyed the fact that Chekov was more than just a side character. Dr. McCoy was great. He may in fact have been the most well cast character in the entire movie. I only wish he had been in a few more scenes. I definitely loved the part where he gets Kirk onto the Enterprise. It was classic. I cannot recommend this movie enough to fan and Star Trek ignoramous alike.

3) I did okay on my finals. I got an A in the class that I thought I would get an A in. In my other class I passed. I will need to take some more preliminary math courses before I go on to Calculus, but I got a higher grade then I expected. I would like to know for sure that I understand what's going on when I get to Calc, however.

4) I have an algebra course to take this summer and wedding to be a part of. It should be a good summer. I am planning to do a lot of work on my yard and garden areas. Landscaping, you know. It seems kind of mundane and domestic, but I am excited to have a pretty yard. I have never had a yard of my own before.

5) There are loud people in my house playing Risk right now. I wanted to hang out with a friend or two this evening, but everyone is busy. It is kind of impossible for me to see friends lately and it's getting totally frustrating. I suppose that's life, but I keep trying and trying and getting nos for answers. It's old. That's all I have to say. Maybe I should stop being so nice or something.

6) I am doing some writing in my spare time. It's okay. Not going along as well as I hoped, but any work is good.

Finding Myself

As usual I have many ideas to write about and no time to write them. In fact, right now I should be studying. My finals are next week. However, before finals I have a chapter exam in each class. That means I have four exams in the next two weeks, three of them are in one week. I remember a time when this would have seemed like a drop in the bucket to me. But things have changed. I have a life now. Going back to school is quite a challenge. Still, it's what I want and I want to excel. Or, at least, I want to get a C. My pre-calc course is tough, but I think I'm going to pass. As for my other class, it's kind of a breeze. I have hardly felt challenged at all by it and have spent most class periods enjoying the discussion among the other students. God bless them, but they are not like the kids I knew during my first undergrad. Community Colleges just don't bring in the super intellectuals. Which is okay. I should learn to co-exist with average, typical people.

I ramble.

As I was saying, I am here amid piles of homework and other nonsense. I have picked up an old hobby I used to enjoy. Namely, I find myself baking many, well, baked goods. I perfected a gluten free scones recipe. I have finally made a good gluten free pie crust. I made some cookies too. And yes, I have gained a few pounds. I am also a happier person. There are many reasons I dropped my baking hobby over the last ten years or so. One of them was the difficulty involved in gluten free cooking and baking. Lately my interest in making gluten free baked goods that taste good and have good texture has grown. If I did not want to be a Physician Assistant and if I was totally crazy I'd try selling bake goods to coffee shops. But, like, I'm afraid that people would like them too much and I wouldn't have time for anything else. I want to finish my education (again).

Let me just say that in two weeks I will have some breathing time. I hope to post on several subjects of interest. I knew school would interfere with my time and blogging desire. Bear with me. In the meantime, The House Between is a great independent web tv series I have enjoyed. You have to download Veoh tv to watch it, but it's worth the effort. I expect The House Between will find it's way into my links list on the sidebar (which needs updating) as soon as I get a chance to do some blog maintenance.

Spring Cleaning

I was planning to go to the gym this morning. Instead I got my workout doing spring cleaning. My muscles are much more sore than they usually are after a gym workout. I guess climbing on counters and step stools to dust cupboards and trim will do that to you. The amazing thing is I am nowhere near done with the cleaning. Although, I think I have cleaned the dirtiest spots in the house.

In my psychology class last week I was surprised by another student. We will call her K. K is about my age and bright. She is more of a follower than a leader type, but she's a regular girl. She's mildly earthy in that cocktail waitress sort of way. I met her in class my first day and so far I like her. She is definitely not generic. Last week I sat in my usual spot. I mean, I thought it was my usual spot. It turned out that someone had moved all the chairs around and I confused my usual spot with another spot. Consequently, I did not sit next to K like I ordinarily do. K sat in her usual spot. When our teacher, we'll call her Bobblehead, announced the beginning of class K raised her hand to ask a question. I should have mentioned that we received back some papers and a recent exam all graded.

K asked, "To get the full 10 points on my papers do I need to have no errors of grammatical?"

Bobblehead appeared not to comprehend the question. Understandably. After a moment Bobblehead told K that grammatical errors would reduce the grade.

I did not want to laugh at K. She's a nice girl and I like her. But I was rather shocked that any student would think she would not be downgraded for grammatical mistakes in a paper. In my college days I learned quickly not to split infinitives, splice commas, or dangle participles. Nobody got away with that kind of funny stuff at the 'Dale.

I know I am attending a community college now. I know the standards and requirements are less than the effort I accustomed myself to back in the day (I feel like a dinosaur). Still, I could not help but want to make this story into a funny anecdote to tell other intellectuals -- or to tell myself as the case may be.

Later in class we had to gather in groups and write a sentence to define something we were supposed to be learning that day. The sentence that my group constructed included a big fat dangling participle. I pointed this out and suggested we change it. I received blank stares from my classmates and some muttering about having no memory of such complex matters.

In conclusion, I think I will not make the "errors of grammatical" story into a funny anecdote to add to my repertoire. I think I will just let it slide. I am relieved that I can still get good grades if I keep to the established grammatical rules.

A Day In The Life . . .

Going back to school is hard work. I spend a lot of time studying although I am only taking two classes. That is partly because I want to get a good grade and partly because Precalculas is higher math and requires many hours of study to grasp. It would help if my algebra were not so rusty. Sometimes I will be doing a math problem and I will get to a point where I realize that I do not know what to do next. Not because I'm dumb, but because I forgot the next algebraic rule that I needed to remember to keep going. It is times like those that I am thankful for partial credit.

Other things that take up my time are work. I am working at a flower shop. You would not believe the amount of work that goes into getting people their pretty flowers. Those arrangements are worth the high prices, let me tell you. However, I do not intend to speak much of work because I am always cautious about that sort of thing. Suffice it to say I enjoy my job and no, I do not design flower arrangements.

Today I am supposed to do laundry. Actually, yesterday I was supposed to do laundry. Actually, actually, I was supposed to do laundry at the end of last week. Having a washer and dryer in my own home helps, but having to study for multiple tests and keep up with other house cleaning does not help.

I recently wrote the first draft of a short story. Do not ask me how I had time for that. I intend to revise it and get some second opinions. Then maybe I will send the story out to a magazine or something to see about publishing. A little supplemental income would be nice.

I have come up with dozens of rants to write. Taking an Intro to Psychology course with a whole lot of regular people gives me so much material. I simply have little time to write my rants. But as I am sure you are all anxious to hear them I will try to get some written. Also, my holiday monkey Neville seems to have gone missing. That's why I have not announced the Neville Chamberlain award for 2008. I have sent a sleuth known as Detective Scorch (he's a Ty Beanie Baby dragon and charges very high prices for his PI skills) in search of Neville and hope to post the award before the year is half over.

In other news the weather was getting nice and it turned nasty again. I wish spring would stop teasing us Iowans.

A Perfect Analogy

If you're feeling outraged about the stupid government giving money to people who have totally screwed up I recommend you read this (it's a short analogy, so it won't take up much time). It will make you laugh for a while. Then you can get back to crying when you realize how true the analogy is.

What Heros Are Not Made Of

Lights, camera, action. An explosion like a blossom opens into the sky showering the world with debris. There is fire and noise and smoke. The heat of the explosion, you can almost feel it. Except, you're sitting in a cozy, butt-forming chair with your head leaning against the head rest of luxury cinema seating. So, you cannot actually feel the warmth. In fact, it's quite cold around you. That's why you brought your sweater. It is always cold at the theater.

I am as much an action movie fan as the next person. Believe me. I like the spectacular explosions because they are not real so nobody got hurt. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is not real either. Or should I say fortunately? I have come to a few conclusions about society and movies which I would like to share. Since this is where I spout off, well, just hear me out.

The word hero immediately conjures the image of the current version of a hero. Some total bada$$ with a need to save hundreds of people from certain death. Just because. Well, because he's damn cool and kinda ruthless and a badguy and women like him. Oddly enough, he has not noticed the fact that he has no life and no friends and no reason to want to save people and he's a stereotype. I think if you were to ask most people who their hero was they would not mention someone they know who blows things up and always has a snappy comeback before leaving to let others bag the bodies. No, they would probably mention a friend or relative who helped them through a tough time. I would talk about my husband because he has supported me through all of the changes I've made over the past year and a half -- despite the fact that some of those changes were inconvenient to him. An abused child might bring up the teacher or friend who gave him the courage to go to the authorities. An alcoholic might remember the friends or relatives who pushed her into rehab even after she messed up their lives.

What am I talking about? Am I seriously saying that heros are everyday people? That's so cliche. Isn't it? I do not think so. Because for every one of those small time heros there's a person who would not have done the same. Let me compare two fictional people who wanted to achieve greatness. Perhaps you can judge which of them was more of a hero.

Person No. 1 is Batman, portrayed so brilliantly in the recent flicks. He's obviously a special guy given everything from day one, but deciding to learn what he can despite his privilege. We see him use his money and power for good although it would be so easy to do otherwise (right?). He goes out at night and rescuses people from common criminals. He makes the world a better place and by the way he has a really cool car. No one quite notices the fact that his life is empty with no family or close friends. I mean, he's out doing cool things all the time, why should we care that he's all alone? Surely, the cool things must be more fulfilling than human interaction. Surely, depriving himself of human brotherhood must be working for him.

Person No. 2 is George Bailey from the Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life. He's just an ordinary guy with dreams who grew up in a loving, supportive family. We watch George as he is trapped doing a job he hates in a town he wants to leave, surrounded by his friends and family whom he kinda takes for granted. At the same time he's all about doing good things for the people around him. George does not allow his complaints about the life he's had change the fact that he's a caring, compassionate person willing to sacrifice for others -- even to the detriment of his own reputation. It is not until the end of the film that life's frustrations build to a head and George finds himself angry at everything he loves. He is about to be ruined as far as he can tell. Despite the fact that he has given his all no one seems to have come through for him. And then it happens. They all show up at his house and promise to help him no matter what the cost. Heavenly intervention aside, a person cannot help but tear up at that ending. Or at least, I can't and I've seen that movie almost once a year since I was a young child.

It's clear to you that I think George Bailey is the true hero between the two characters. Perhaps it is because I too have delusions of grandeur. I would like to be a cool, loner like Batman. But I don't want to miss out on the greatest part of life. I don't want to miss out on companionship, family, and the connection that comes when an ordinary person helps another ordinary person in need. A cool car and an explosion are unneccessary for courage. Courage is just the simple will to live in the moment showing compassion to everyone you meet. George Bailey will always be a greater symbol of heroism to me than Batman. Not because he destroys evil, but because he nurtures goodness.

It's Never Easy

I have been working hard on my two classes worth of homework, my new job, and keeping my house in some semblence of order for the past month. Hence, I have not had much time to write. Do not worry, I am around and well. I will try to make updates as often as possible given my schedule. You will have to be patient with me. That is, if I have readers still. Comment if you're still here (seriously).