I’m being taunted by my homework

7 December 2006, 1:30 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Health

I believe one sign of being stressed about homework is when the homework starts to taunt you in your dreams. This is now the second time in my life that I distinctly remember this happening.

The first instance was during my last semester of my undergraduate degree. I was taking a computer science class, my first one in three years, my first one in C++, and my first one in a Linux environment, and I was getting my butt kicked by it. The last month or so of the semester I would go to class during the morning and early afternoon and then go to the computer lab till it closed at midnight. From there I would go home and do the homework for the rest of my classes before getting up to do it all over again. It was killing me, but I needed to get that web crawler to work.

The last week of class I had dreams where my alarm clock going off turned into the computer taunting me by repeating, “I don’t work! I don’t work! I don’t work!” I also woke myself up one morning when I started “reading” my programming code out loud. That was a bit of stress.

I am now at the end of my second semester of my Masters program. Within ten days (I’m on day 6 right now) I will have written 7 papers, for a total of close to 90 pages. Tuesday morning I dreamed I was surrounded by the citation pages of all those papers and they were rearranging themselves so they weren’t in proper APA format any more.

I think I need to relax.

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No more words

6 December 2006, 12:56 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education

There are no more words left in my head. They are all gone. I’m out of words. I have spent the last two days holed up in my apartment writing final papers for all of my classes this semester. Tomorrow is the end of the semester, and of course every class assigned an approximate 10 page paper to be turned in this week. One class assigned two ten page papers. That is a lot of writing. When I woke up this morning I was having dreams about reference pages.

Monday morning I turned on my computer so I could email one of my finished papers to my professor, only to discover that the last few hours of work I’d done on it hadn’t saved. That’s a good way to kill morale and interrupt a good writing streak. I was able to recreate what I’d done, but I would’ve rather spent that time working on a different paper rather than rewriting one I thought I had already finished.

I’m doing pretty well at it though. I’m getting through it. And in the state of mental haze I’m finding myself, I’m actually pretty pleased with the papers I’m turning out. It will be nice when they are all done though.

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Warm?

3 December 2006, 10:36 pm by Giggles
Categories: Life

The other night I was watching the evening news, as I love to do, and the weather report just made me laugh. There is something wrong with where you live if the phrase, “We should be pretty warm tomorrow, reaching a high of 27,” is something you can hear on the news. Twenty-seven degrees is not warm. Yes, it is warmer than the 11 degrees it was when I drove to work Thursday morning, after a morning low of 9 according to the themometer outside my kitchen window. But that still does not make 27 degrees warm. 🙂

By the end of the week we should get above the freezing point again. This is crazy. Luckily, I have plenty of blankets to wrap up in. I even took one to church today. Why should mom’s with babies get to take blankets and use their baby as an excuse and I can’t? I just need something small to wrap around my legs.

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Cheapens the experience

2 December 2006, 10:11 pm by Giggles
Categories: Random, Venting

I attended a theatrical production of sorts last night. It was a musical/comedy type thing that was pretty good in most places. I laughed at some parts. I thought some of their songs were really well done. I could’ve done without a few of the numbers, but they weren’t too bad. The last number they did ended up being patriotic in nature, a montage of patriotic songs. And they brought out two big American flags, which of course got everyone in the audience to stand up. I don’t mind standing for the flag. But while we were still standing, they finished their show, ensuring they got a standing ovation, kind of. It was normal sit-down clapping, but we just happened to be standing. There is a difference between the polite clapping people do at the end of just about any show, and the enthusiastic clapping that accompanies a genuine standing ovation. For me, it shows a lack of confidence in their show if they have to manipulate the audience into giving them a standing ovation. I wish I could go back and sit down before I started clapping. I’ll have to remember that the next time someone tries to manipulate me into giving them a standing ovation. It just cheapened the whole show in my view.

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Cccccoold!

29 November 2006, 11:13 pm by Giggles
Categories: Life

The high today in Pleasant Grove, Utah, was 23. That’s 8 degrees below freezing. That’s cold. Tomorrow morning when I wake up the temperature is supposed to be 5! 5! It’s tempting to call in cold at work tomorrow and stay inside with my down comforter and my hot chocolate all day.

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First graders

29 November 2006, 1:39 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Random, Work

Yesterday I looked up from my desk and was amazed at how many first graders were all cleaning their noses at the same time. It made me wonder what the largest percentage of first graders that would be doing that at the same time would be.

Today’s first grade class was a bit different. This class instead decided hugging was more fun. And I discovered that 17 first graders can hug me all at the same time.

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Music Box decisions

28 November 2006, 11:35 pm by Giggles
Categories: Life

I’ve narrowed it down to two music boxes I would like to buy this year. I need to make the final decision soon so I can have it here in time for my Christmas party.

The first one is called the Holy Family Figurine. It plays “Silent Night” and costs $30. I like the style of it. It’s a little different. I like the curves on it.

The second one is called a Nativity Figurine. It plays “O Holy Night,” one of my favorite Christmas songs, and costs $40. I like the folk art old feel to it.

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