i'd also like you to know...

i have written some drafts that i don't wanna publish... i don't know really, sometimes i don't want people to see what i'm writing... whatever.

i gotta say, i really don't like this class i'm in right now. as much as i like narratives, detailed accounts, life stories, case studies... the structure of this class is not suiting my fancy.

today i was a bit drained. i haven't had a teacher like this since high school.

1. we do readings prior to class
2. we write a reflection or whatever
3. we get to class and discuss our reflections and the readings in small groups
4. we come together to discuss: the instructor leads us to answers she wants.... i've never agreed with her, she's never fully agreed with me. i like her as a person, she's sweet and pretty cool, but i haven't grasped anything correctly yet.
4a. two very snotty people run the conversation, and guess what? they're usually agreed with by the instructor. jeez. what a kick in the face.
5. then we shift gears and discuss something else until 4:15. then we leave, somewhere between a little more and a lot more frustrated than we were when we got there.

everything sucks

so busy

i am in class and only have time to write bullet points of what's going on!

• just finished one class
• started another class & doing work for a future class
• did some work with my dad & brother
• helped make a brochure for my school
• bike's in the shop, picking it up today
• went home last weekend
• went to a meeting today to learn about 'bullies' (brought back bad memories)
• watching dex's cats
• dogsat weekend before father's day
• reading a book (cider house rules)

so there, if you read this, you'll know why i haven't been writing or calling lately.

deletion

i deleted the prior post that included the stand up instructions for transferring to ipod because it was messing up my page... sorry... you'll hafta access the dmb webpage...

dmb-ipod

mission accomplished... and i have an extra copy of "Stand Up" now... although it's on a rewritable cd, so i didn't really waste a cd...

for anyone interested, i was watching the weather channel 5 minutes ago and they did a global weather forecast... it's 63 degrees & rainy in dublin... i don't know who'd be interested in that, but just in case, there it is... i'm sure it's only a short rain and it'll dry up soon...

as i sit here at panera

panera is cool, i admire their willingness to allow people like me access to the internet free of charge.

today i work on my strategy portfolio... something that i've been dreading, but which seems to be taking shape...

i think people must see me as a very efficient person, and they must know that i am being very productive here (as i blog to procrastinate).

i sit in the corner on the soft-chair with my belongings distributed across the floor and on the end-table next to me. there, at eye-level to me, sits my phone, some textbooks, carmex, my sunglasses, and a steaming cup of coffee. the steam from the coffee adds action to my scene, it demonstrates the multifaceted nature of my enterprise...

but what if they think it's hot chocolate... then they'd think i was just having fun, even though there is steam.

ooooh, there's some grannies over there talking... there's always grannies at panera. these particular grannies look like they've just come back from florida for the summer. one appears to be italian, and italian grannies are kind of intimidatind, so i'm going to stop looking at her now. they're talking intensely, i'm guessing it's about gardens or bingo or something like that... then there's two people with laptops (dorks) who've been becoming acquainted and more familiar in the last hour & a half... they seem a good match, and maybe they'll exchange email addresses. there's a mid-eastern family, parents & one toddler here, whom i've seen before. there's a hot chick who i can see between two panes of glass, she's licking cream cheese off her thumb. george bush, a local guy who shows off his name-tag, just said hi to me... he used to be a lawyer and now he does something for a nearby hospital... his health is not the best, i think... that's just what i heard about him when i used to work at barnes & noble.

retraction

okay, last night in class, with the aforementioned moody professor, things were a-okay, and we got through class without any criticism... i asked a few people if they thought he was seriously criticizing or if he was kidding and they said he was kidding, they thought. so i guess i was being sensitive... i don't know.

YESTERDAY: i was printing $10 worth of stuff at the isu library computer lab, when i apparently dropped $20 on the floor... i left after a while, went to the bookstore where i realized i must have dropped the money. i went back to the lab, asked the attendent if anyone had returned money, and someone had! i got my money back! i'll never do a dishonest thing again in my life!

darned if you do...

i've blogged about this bugger in the past, and at this point, i just feel like i have to vent:

i'm in this class at isu and the professor is the king of not committing to anything. he will not ever, ever give a straight answer to a question. and every speech he gives seems to be designed to leave listeners trying to guess what he meant. he says things like this:

dripping with sarcasm: strategies are very important, right, right, every teacher should know 1000 strategies... strategy, strategy, strategy (it seems here that he is dramatizing the over-emphasis on strategies, but then he turns and says) ... but strategies are very helpful. they do work, they are wonderful tools. then he inserts lotsa fillers like... but that goes back to our discussion, and we see that play out in our lives.... blah blah blah...

okay that was probably hard to read, but maybe you get the idea of how hard it is to listen to this guy. well, at this time, during this class, i feel that the guy is in a bad mood or he is being extra finicky.

last week, one of the presenters, a fellow classmate, droned on and on about her topic. we were all thoroughly drowsed by her conclusion, and the professor criticized us for being lifeless and he suggested caffeine. we all came to class in an effort to be more energetic last night. well, then my group got criticized, sarcastically, for laughing a lot. well, the activity we were doing was funny. he seems unpleased by any effort. okay, let's see if i can get back to working on my multiple projects now that i have vented.

a good rhyme

maple leaf

make-believe

i need to find a way to work these rhyming words into something.

i heard the words maple leaf on the radio and at first thought they had said make-believe... it's funny that they rhyme.

a reason to live till november

i thought the main thing i'd look forward to this year would be harry potter 6 coming out in july... but there is competition:

tonight i went and saw the sisterhood of the traveling pants or whatever, and a preview caught me off guard. harry potter 4 is coming out in november in a theater near me! i'm very, very excited...

harry potter 6, the book, will come at a critical time for me. i'll be bogged down with numbers in a statistics class that i am dreading... i just don't think i'll feel inspired by statistics... i really prefer classes that will make me feel interested or inspired or not bored! it doesn't take much, but it has to be more meaningful to me than a bunch of equations and numbers.... last summer i took writing for teachers... that was the most inspired i'd been in a long time by a class... i don't see a repeat performance from statistics this summer... maybe i'll hafta get a life and stop living through my classes... gotta go, battery's running low on the laptop & don't wanna plug it in right now... thank you jk rowling... thank you harry potter...

goals

in charlotte's web, e.b. white said life is never so rich and full as when you are waiting for something good to happen. that's at the part where wilbur is waiting all winter for the late charlotte's eggs to hatch. i thought that was so true. when kids wait for christmas, the thought of opening their presents is almost more exciting than when they actually get to experience opening presents.

stephen covey talks about the same thing. the excitement of things promised. people love to await positive things. they get giddy whenever they recall that they are still waiting for something positive in the future. i know i can't wait for the 6th harry potter book to come out, and when i get the book, each page turned is going to be one agonizing page closer to finishing and one less thing to look forward to. when book 5 came out, i had to restrain myself from reading too quickly.

when you are waiting for something bad to happen, there is a weight on you. personally, it weighs on me more than i realize it, and it wears me down. i know what's coming, i dread it, and then it happens. the dreaded experience is never as bad as i expected. then life after is so relaxed and carefree. what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger... with some obvious exceptions.

after awaited good things happen, i feel sometimes let-down, and i feel sometimes like there's nothing more to wait for.

so is it better to never await things... never to anticipate, whether for good or for bad? or is it better to anticipate, keeping in mind reality grounding thoughts... during summer, as a teacher, it's hard to be grounded in reality... anything is possible. next year, i'll do this and that, it'll be better than ever... it was the same way on the boat this past monday. out there so many things occurred to me as possibilities that i never think about 'on land'... i think some people call it 'being inspired'.

when i read a story, it's like a piece of string (bear with me here, this is a stupid analogy but i think of it a lot). the string is loose, unconnected and can possibly go anywhere. as i read the story, things happen to the exclusion of other possibilities. every time something happens, i tack down part of the string, so that there is less of it that is loose... as i read along, the direction of the story takes shape and i find it easier to eliminate possibilities before the author makes events explicitly happen. by the end of the story, i have the string, which was loose and flexible, all tied down and all possible outcomes from each action/event are gone except the ones the author chose to write. life is the same way, i think: as events happen, possibilities of each moment disappear as one possibility prevails as reality. i don't know how long the string is, it depends on how long i live... but the more choices i make consciously, the more i decide the direction... i now utter a short prayer: oh god, don't let me be a self-help author.