Time to assess my final semester of college thus far.

Most of school isn't not good. And yes, that really is the best way to put it. I have very little desire to go to classes, and this probably is exacerbated by the fact that only one of my professors takes attendance, and it's the class I probably would have gone to anyway. The most surprising things this semester are 1) How much I hate my biology course. I really thought I was going to like it and do well. I hate it, and am doing... mediocre, shall we say. 2) How much I do like Physics. I don't know if the 3 year break from any and all math courses has anything to do with it, but I'm totally diggin' this class. I should have taken it in high school. Never saw that one coming. And finally 3) How much I love being a peer tutor/assisting a Psych professor teach an Intro to Psych lab.

Now to elaborate.

Biology is the bane of my existence. (Which, as my father pointed out the other morning at 4:30 when I was up studying for my exam, is a pretty stupid bane, and my life is pretty easy if that's honestly true). The professor drives me up the wall. Four things in particular really bother me, and they continue to grow worse throughout the course of the semester.

First, during our labs, there sits a trash can at the back of the classroom. As the professor runs around the class demonstrating the procedures, he inevitably backs up into the trash can, knocking into it so hard that it bangs against the wall. This happens at least twice during labs, maybe more, and yet he seems surprised every time it happens.

Secondly, if he's not walking into the trashcan, he's so squished up against the chalkboard that when he turns around it appears he's been making chalk-angels. His coat and the board are completely smeared with chalk. Probably not a big deal, but it grates on me.

Third is a legitimate issue. He cannot spell. Not for the life of him. There are several times I've let it go, but when I was mentally correcting the spelling of words like instantaneous and aqueous to him, a biology teacher, I start to question everything he's saying to me. Is that REALLY how the Kreb cycle happens? How does he know! He spelled telophase wrong! What collegiate level biology professor doesn't know how to spell telophase?! I don't even know what it is and I can spell it! Just sound it out man!

Fourth, and this is probably me being half righteously indignant and half naive, but he constantly makes references to alcoholic drinks, such as Jack Daniels, always half implying that us college kids are a bunch of constantly drunk hooligans, or looking surprised when no one volunteers what proof Jack Daniels is. One comment had something to do with us drinking and losing brain cells because of it. Now, to be sure, it usually applies to what we're learning, like fermentation (I think anyway. It's an 8 a.m.), and I'm sure that what he says is absolutely true. I bet lots of Jack Daniels does indeed make one lose brain cells. But still.

I'll digress here, b/c I realize that that last one is kind of silly the more I think about it. Oh, he does talk about poop a lot. He likes saying poop. I'm fine with poop, don't get me wrong, I've done like 7 rounds of Handycamp and changing diapers is part of my job description, but still, him commenting on things like "Yes! This is it! This is what you, EACH OF YOU! YOU poop out EVERYDAY!" kind of grosses me out.

Physics is awesome, but I'm preeettty sure that the professor hates me because he thinks I'm trashy. I walked in late one day to class, and everyone was looking over their exams he handed back. After being in there for a few minutes, he still hadn't given me mine, despite the fact that it was obviously down time in the period. Then I looked down, realized my shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a black lacy bra underneath (Naturally, as I'm so behind of laundry, it's all I had left, the dregs of my unmentionable drawer). I think maybe when I was holding the baby at work that day, she grabbed my shirt, it unbuttoned, and I didn't noticed because I put my jacket on and headed out. I gasped probably too loudly, and buttoned it up as fast as I could. I was mortified, but not a minute later, my professor shuffled over to me, and, with eyes averted, handed me my test.

I couldn't even be excited that I did well.

I'm tired of writing now, so I think that's all. Although later, I want to write about how awesome being peer tutor is (the freshman intro students make me feel utterly brilliant), and the crazy realization that I had the other day in sociology- how the obese in this country are killing themselves with too much food, and how the wealthy are literally starving themselves to death with eating disorders and bizzaro diets. Does this seem weird to anyone else? It's a nutso, backwards notion that I find incredibly interesting.

OH! I also have a delightful roommate for May, MaryAnn, who is awesome. She and I signed a lease in the same complex as Jessica and Dane. I couldn't be happier!

The GRE, a New Type of Torture

The Graduate Record Examination was officially terrible. Literally painful.

Upon entering the test building, you must rewrite their entire confidentiality statement in cursive. Twice verbally, they made sure that I knew the difference between cursive and print, and it was additionally written in bold on my form. Yes sir, I'm taking this test to gain admission to graduate school, but I'll be honest, I'm rather unsure of how to connect all 'them letters to one another, you know, squiggly & fancy-like. But while I'm thinking of it, I would like you to tell me where my cubby is located and most importantly, what time do we get snacks?

After completing the confidentiality agreement, you are told to wait by the door, where they snap your picture when you enter and leave (Sidenote! Just like they do in prison! Coincidence?) then you are led to a small booth, a few feet wide, with a computer. A camera is posited directly above your head, like that creepy eye in Lord of the Rings. Then you sit at that computer for three to four hours, and every time you look away because your eyes hurt terribly from staring at the computer, the proctor comes shuffling over to you, having seen you look away on his creeper monitor. I can tell that this man dreams nightly of catching a real, live cheater just by looking at him, with his definitely too-small sickly pink shirt, buttoned to the tip-top, sans tie, his unpressed khaki pants, and his white sneakers. His job isn't real exciting, I'll give him that, but c'mon man, pull yourself together.

Over the course of the exam, I tried looking to the side, up, down, and behind me but to no relief. The computer was still there out of the corner of my eye, burning holes in my retinas. You know when you're little, and you're told not to look directly at the solar eclipse? I bet it feels something like this computer screen did.

I finished an hour early, guessed on a great deal of it, and quite honestly, have no idea how I managed to get a decent score. It's high enough for the school I'm going into, so today? Today I'm going to sit here in bed, in Eric's old pajamas, with a large Earl Grey latte, watch the foot of snow we're expecting to accumulate, and allow my brain to turn to mush.

I think that I owe it that much.

20010

I've seen quite a few people write 20010 in the past two weeks, and I like that kind of forward thinking, so that's the name of my first blog this year.

About a week ago, I had the overwhelming desire to blog again. This coincided with my final semester of college starting and an overwhelming desire to sleep too, so I'm just getting around to it today. I'm graduating from college in exactly 116 days, at which point I will work for a summer and then begin graduate school in a Marriage and Family counseling program at one of two schools here in Nashville.

All of this is terrifying to me.

As ignorant as it sounds, I guess it has only hit me in the past say, 4 months or so that when I move out, I am on my own. On. My. Own. For so long, Eric and I had a plan (truly laughable how rarely those work out) that we'd be engaged Fall 2009, married late Fall 2010, and I'd only have to figure out how to make it by myself for a few months, and then I'd happily settle into domestic bliss, baking a lot, working on my graduate degree and working to somewhat support the gross income of the household, while Eric did a great majority of the bringin' of the bacon.

Alas, a epiphany sometime in early fall of last year made me rethink The Plan. Not so much if I should be with Eric but rather if I need to have this time on my own, to be sure that I'm not marrying Eric too soon just for security and, well, for the assured fruition of my goals. (I have no issues saying I can't wait to be a wife and a mom. I want at least four kids. The fifth is negotiable but preferred.)

I came to the conclusion that its amazing how completely and totally devoted one can be to the idea of something, and even without any massive events occurring, those thoughts are also simultaneously, so incredibly transient.

That didn't make sense. Allow me to try again. Eric and I have more or less been together since I was fifteen. If, from the approximate age of 18 through 20, he asked me to run away with him to Vegas' Say-I-Do Drive-Thru, it probably would have taken about 11 minutes of solid convincing, and possibly a pro/con list, the cons technically outweighing the pro side, which would have consisted of the single phrase TRUE LOVE!! written with lots of loopy letters and hearts dotting the exclamation marks, and then we'd be off. There was absolutely NO DOUBT in my mind that he was the perfect one, that he was it and nothing could change my mind. Strangely though, the only things that have changed my mind from that rather utopian ideal are not giant cataclysmic events, but rather just 1) Me. and 2) Time.

Now, while I suppose the overarching theme of Melissa-and-Eric-Together-Forever hasn't changed, I'm totally okay with it slowing. I think that as hard as it is not to have that safety net of having another to go out and battle the big scary world with, I need this time, I need the availability of flexibility to go back to New Zealand for a year if I so desire. (rather specific, yes, I'm aware). Also, my time abroad showed me that the world isn't so scary. I think I can handle it, at least for a little while. Again, nothing huge happened but time, and my thoughts are so radically different on the subject than they were 2 years ago. To me, this screams, wait 2 MORE years, and just see where you'll be!!

I am a strange blend of competitive ("She 's got a ring Eric. She's got a 2.3 carat Tacori ring from their 2009 Dantela Collection. Why does everyone ELSE get to have rings!!?") and so people-pleasing that I regularly have near panic attacks when I realize that I've done something wrong at work, at school, or at home ("Oh my goodness, I just realized I showed up a FULL HOUR late to work because I'm 21 years old and can't figure out how to read a friggin' calendar properly!")

As a side note, events (yes, plural) like these make me think the people I work for simply MUST think I'm a complete idiot. They've got to. I feel an overwhelming urge when I say or do something stupid like this to shout out, "BUT I'M ON THE DEAN'S LIST AT SCHOOL!!" I'll be telling a story or saying something completely irrelevant to the conversation, and as I'm saying it I know that I should stop because it won't make sense out loud, and yet here comes the crazy part, I SAY IT ANYWAY.

I digress.

Long story short, I'm a different person than I was before Australia. I'm capable and I'm still scared witless about life after May 15th, 2010, but I think I'll be better off forcing this independence now than in 30 years. After all, I've learned that plans quite often don't come anywhere close to completion so... they can't be trusted.

This turned out to be so much longer than I wanted it to be, but I'm making up for a full year of not writing, and thus far, its been quite therapeutic.