The Frank Funny Farm

slanket!

i got a slanket! it is decidedly yay. after much mocking (by ben), begging and pitiful faces (by me), i can now be warm and have the use of my arms. that picture up there was taken just now with the photo booth, right now i'm typing - all with warm arms! and for the record, it's a SLANKET,  not one of those crappy, feels like sandpaper felt snuggies. my warm fuzzy slanket can kick your snuggie's ass. and it's also good to have so that we can turn the heat down a little more, what with having to pay exhorbitant amounts of money to clean up the TVA's messes. way to go schmucks.

if only i and my warm arms cared even a little about this dumb literacy / identity w-ever-tf it is class. gah. i have to make myself do the reading, and have just realized that i don't even really read it apparently, as i was going back over the essays to write my stupid notes or thoughts or whatever paper for tonight and stumbled upon several parts unfamiliar. good thing it all says basically the same thing. the same thing that the ones last week said. plbt! however, i must finish it so i can get to reading m' fairy tales (yay!) because i need to get those mostly done tonight. the french exam finally showedup yesterday afternoon, so i'm going to take it tomorrow at the much more reasonable hour of two. however, that means those three hours are no longer available for reading before class tomorrow night. so really, i should finish that stupid paper for tonight and get to it. too bad my inner monologue sounds like a 4 year old. and i feel blech, the aftermath of a weekend of unholy assault on my digestive tract and lack of sleep-catch-up-oning. i was awakened at about 4 yesterday morning with horrible-food-and-too-much-alcohol's revenge. today i felt fine when i woke up, but now i seem to have a general feeling of blech. bah.

ok. enough whining. maybe.

Tags: man i'm whiny, school is ruining my life, slanket kicks snuggie's ass, slanket!, TVA blows

argh. the stupid exam has not yet shown up at belmont. apparently those friggin snails are having trouble with the getting here and since i forgot to email the prof who's babysitting me yesterday to see if he had it, my only option was to show up at 8:15 in case it was there and he'd forgotten to tell me (he'd said he let me know when he got it). i figured it would be better to show up and have no exam than not to show up and have him sitting at his desk, clutching the test and muttering hatreds and curses for this person he didn't even know and for whom he was doing a favor. so anyway, i dragged myself back home and got to say "bye, have a nice day" to ben for the second time this morning. the extra kiss was nice though.

anyhoo, i read some stuff in english and vacuumed the house, because a few people are coming over tonight to watch special dead. which i hope is as wrongly hilarious as my friend tricia (who gave it to me) claims. i'm pretty freaking excited. and before that we shall have the lovely margaritas and diablo sauce smothered yums at la terrazza. if you live in nashville, it's the best mexican in town, fo' reals. they have an actual grill in the back, non of that griddle-top crap. it's not the one on nolensville; it's in nashboro village actually, but so worth the trip from wherever you are. YUM. and on that note, i should probably fold that pile of laundry over there what with the peoples coming over and all. plus that's a good excuse to not read ANOTHER boring bloody essay about literacy. UG. that stupid class better get better. or at least the crap we have to read better get better. or at least more diverse! bah. anyway, laundry...

Tags: argh on snails!, boo boring essays!, la terrazza rules!, yay bad horror movies!, yay margaritas!, zombies

i'm taking my french midterm on friday, after much searching for the proper hoops to jump through, then jumping through said hoops. it's an online class, so they mail the exam to a suitable proctor, who then babysits me for three hours (hopefully less) and makes sure i don't cheat or something, then mails it back to them. sound simple, right? apparently the people in charge thought so too, so they added in some absurd difficulties for fun. the first is that i should be taking it at some sort of 'testing center' which belmont of course lacks. so that means i should find someone else who proctors, but it shouldn't be a professor - because they're busy and also might help me (WHAT?), but it must be someone wearing official pants or something. anyway, there's a language learning center that offers tutoring and help with, well, language learning, and the head of the dept., who's also an english professor, told me to contact the director of the center. i did, and after a few emailings and stuff he said he could do it, even though it wasn't exactly something they do there (don't tell the people at the university of kansas). so once all this is ironed out, i must go online and request the exam, giving them all the info about where, when and whom. i'm supposed to pick a date at least 10 DAYS after submitting the request so that the snails bringing it here will have plenty of time to get here. because simply emailing the bloody thing would put it on the internets where all those wily thieves hiding in the dark corners of the tubes can snatch it. ARGH. so anyway, they will send it faster as long as i pay for the extra shipping, which i did, partly because i want to take the thing and finish the course already and partly because dr. babysitter-man has graciously agreed to do it on friday. i, thinking i was being thoughtful and considerate in an effort to repay his kindness, told him any time on friday was fine with me. i get an email that says, well, just plan on showing up at 8:15 then. IN THE MORNING! i'm fairly certain i won't even be able to read english at 8:15 in the morning. this, my friends, cannot be good. ug. and on that note, i should probably move on to some other form of procrastination study some more. or go to kroger to get the things i lack to make the chili i want to eat when i get home from class. that's productive, and therefore not procrastination! ha!

Tags: 8:15 is too early for anything, french, procrastination, ridiculous red tape

twas not a good weekend for my sports teams of choice. at least the steelers remembered how to play football. i'm actually thinking of cheering against them from here on out, so as not to curse them in any way. i don't want them to suddenly forget how to play football like the stupid titans did. then caronlina's basketball team had to look like a bunch of 17 year old kids who'd never seen each other before, nevermind a basketball or that nifty thing hanging from the ceiling with that crazy hoop with the net dangling from it. all this and i was sickly too! me was very woe.

the whole sickly thing ruined my weekend, the two days preceding it, and parts of this week as well. i was completely useless thursday and friday, which was truly unfornate as those days were scheduled for house-cleaning (it's so gross!), cavity-filling, bang trimming and even some french studying. so i had to push the dentist till this thursday, my long-overdue bang trim was rescheduled for this friday at 7:45. (i'm gonna have a raucous friday night, i can tell). at this point, i really should just wait until next week and get a haircut, but those is expensive and time-consuming. no houses were cleaned, no frenches were translated. saturday i was slightly less useless, but didn't do anything, including go over to keith & larry's to watch the titans debacle and then have game night. i missed game night! wah! ben went and reported that it was fun (stupid football aside) and that the new cranium games have new, um, tasks? challenges? activities? you know what i mean. apparently there's a puppet one, where one person is the puppet, and a person stands behind them and sort of forces them to charade something. the marionet doesn't even know the answer, so everyone's confused. wanna play! if ben ever remembered that this is his blog too and that he could sometimes post here, he might tell you about it. i wouldn't hold my breath it i were you. unless something smells bad in your particular vicinity, then it might be a good idea.

yesterday i determined to be better and we went to church and kept our monthly meal/bonding time with cara & dave (yay!). today i'm pretty ok except for the larger-and-stuffier-than-normal head and the occasional hacking sound. i'm trying to be a hands-off nanny today, we'll see how that works out.

in other news, it's freaking COLD and only getting colder this week. i'd like to move now. there was a really think layer of frost on everything this morning - my contactless eyeballs had me wondering if it wasn't snow. i even had to dig out the ice scraper for the car. horrors. and poor lil hayley dog outside all day. at least she has her nifty jacket and can get in her house.

hilarious side note: the wee one has the hiccups and is laughing whilst walking herself around the baby cage holding on to the sides to come n get me. laughing hiccups are awesome.

hmm. what else can i regale you with? ooh! we got our new bed thursday, in time for some nice sickly late sleeping. i can't really overstate the wonderfulnessosity of a really supportive comfy bed after you've been sleeping on one that was neither of those. also, our new bed is flat. flat! whoda thunk? the middle and the sides, all the same height! as much as i enjoy snuggling with the ben, i gotta say that whole sleeping in a pile at some weird angle was really unpleasant.  my 100-year-old spine didn't like it either.

i suppose i should get back to that french book for a bit. i'm taking the class, and so far it's been pretty easy, for two reasons. one, it starts with the assumption that one knows no french, and as it turns out, i actually know quite a bit (who knew?). two, it's designed for non-french majors to learn to READ french, so it's not as bogged down with those endless pesky articles. it just wants me to be able to read french and understand it, not translate english in to french, which is much more of a problem pour moi.

as for my english learnings, well, classes belmont-wide start on wednesday. when they start for me, i don't yet know, which i must admit is making me a lil nervous. hopefully i'll know something today, as all the professors are back, including dr. c, who will hopefully still be down with the idea and stuff. nothing was nailed down before the break because it took so bloody long for dr. dept chair to just meet with me. ug! anyway, i'm trying to maintian that whole, no worries, God's got it under control thing i am sometimes good at, but dagnabit i'm slightly worried. *breathing breathing breathing* zen face. k. so anyway, i am going to end my rambles and read some frenches before the hour of baby food arrives. i don't want her getting all giant and turning green on me. she's much too cute for that.

Tags: have patience!, man i'm whiny, school, sick is suck, stupid carolina, stupid titans, yay steelers!

dr. dept. chair: so get me up to speed here, and well, uh, what's the goal of our meeting today?

me: graduation

dr. dc: haha, yes we-

me: and i need to understand what happened with the independent study thing, because i can't. i don't feel like i'm getting any help. quite the opposite, in fact.

dr. dc: right well, how far along in the program are you?

me: i need two more classes

dr. dc: ok, so 24 hours, what have you taken?

me: the required ones: practical literary criticism, brit lit 1 & 2, the 20th century readings class now. and um, nature writing, writing & social issues, creative writing, the life writing now... is that it? yeah.

dr. dc: ok. so you are willing to take the writing class next semester?

me: i'm willing if that's not the only thing i'm taking. reading the description doesnt' enthrall me, and as it is writing and identity and there's bound to be overlap with the life writing class i'm in now. i dont really want to come take just that.

dr. dc: (frowning in that thinking sort of way) the idea of the non-thesis track was to present a broader education for someone who either has no interest in writing a thesis at all or is more interested on doing that kind of writing on the doctoral level. we've never had anyone come in and take all writing classes. I'm really interested to see how your Graduate Exam* turns out.

me: yeah, i wanted to study writing. i'm non-thesis is partly because i went here for undergrad and was in the honors program, so i have written one - it was terrible, but still - but mostly because i wasn't an english major in undergrad, so i wanted to take the two extra classes. gotta love irony.

dr. dc: right. so would it be horrible to take writing class in the spring and then take the creative writing dr. hutchins in the summer? you can take up to six hours of that.

me: (interior monologue: ug! ug ug. ug. why is this so hard? you all have doctorates for crying out loud!) ok. i'm not crazy about the idea of dragging out graduation for months to have my last two classes be one i've taken and one that is eh. especially when i was pretty excited about the prospect of that independent study class. the three of us came up with a class, and had a professor willing to teach it as long as she got paid.

dr. dc: well, there are two reasons we really don't like those and why i usually deny them. one, the teachers don't really get paid, it's not much at all, and a few years ago they had really gotten out of hand, almost every professor had two or three. plus we like to fill classes, and we like to think students learn better from a class environment. basically, there are reasons from a long time ago that have nothing to do with you.

me: exactly. and i'm a nerd, i like going to class, but with the three of us doing it together, we can still have that a little.

dr. dc: (frowning thoughtfully again) what was the class going to be?

me: i'm not 100% sure what dr.c was going to make it, other than something to do with children's lit, folktales and fairy tales, which are things i'm really interested in. when i was first thinking about coming here, i was really excited to learn that there was a graduate class in that kind of stuff, but apparently it's on quite a long cycle and i've missed it. so i was really excited and hopeful about the possibility of still getting to take it. you took my carrot.

dr. dc: well, that does make some difference. i think there are more than enough extenuating circumstances, and you've taken away every good reason i have to say no

me: do you have any mediocre ones, i'll fix those too

dr. dc: (laughing) no, those usually come later. ok, well, really thank you for um, not going away on this, because this is something we were obviously not prepared for with the non-thesis track and certainly need to do some thinking about. i'll need to work this out with dr. head-of-grad-english and decide whether it will be just the three of you or if we'll make it a class open to more students. we'll have to look at dr. c's schedule. but there's no reason something can't work out.

me: really? thank you so much. i guess someone will let me know in time to register?

dr. dc: yeah, there's always registration in january. is there any reason you need to pre-register?

me: well, you have to be pre-registered to apply for the department scholarships, but the deadline's passed, so not really.

dr. dc: well, go ahead and apply, i'll let them know. it's certainly not your fault that you weren't pre-registered.

me: thanks! and thanks again. happy holidays!

dr. dc: thank you. and you, too.

* instead of a thesis, the non-thesis track requires two extra classes and a graduate exam, composed by a commmittee based on everything i've written/the classes i've taken in grad school.

Tags: grad school, logic prevails, play-by-play, victory