It’s one of those days where it seems everything that can go wrong, will. Due to the heat, my system has already reset itself to a purely night shift regime. I decided to try for a couple hours of sleep around 6:30am, but for some reason my room at Grandma’s refuses to get below 80 despite the brand new air conditioner that keeps the dining room and hallway at a crisp 72 or less. So when Grandma yelled for me at 8:30 (because she doesn’t know alarm clocks have been invented, apparently), I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

As usual, I was dressed and ready to go in 5 minutes. Grandma commented on it when she was also ready, a full hour before I actually needed to go. I mentioned to her that at home I used to get up only 5 minutes before I had to leave, and for some reason this made her say that she’ll try to get me up earlier next time. I don’t even know how that logic happened.

I arrived at Annie’s a half hour before our usual departure time, which meant I had to wait for her to get out of bed and ready to go. When we arrived at school, our lot was closed and they were detouring the shuttle buses. I managed to make it to class just in time, however.

It was clean-the-classroom day in class and we all had to “volunteer” for specific tasks. I chose the one she said was “probably nothing” and would need just one person. There was hidden work necessary and everyone else who teamed up on other tasks finished first, and then ignored me as I continued working while they went back to sit and chat and listen to music. The teacher had to instruct people to come help me after a while.

All of that took time out of my working on my final project, a detailed tapestry piece that is due Thursday and only 1/5 done at the moment.

After class, my sister and cousin were waiting for me outside (as they usually do). I hadn’t any money for lunch, and even though Mo offered to buy me lunch, my exhaustion and utter distaste for life at the moment has made any desire to eat vanish. I sat with them as they had lunch though. Mo bought me a drink and they listened to me vent about my life. Annie’s the best for complaining to. She’s a Cosper, yet somehow missed the gene that tells them that any complaints are blame pointing, fight picking.

We managed to just miss the bus getting back to the truck and had to wait in the sun for roughly 15 minutes. After some debate on whether I should attempt sneaking the cup onto the bus I ultimately made the stupid decision to discard my drink rather than refill.

We didn’t catch much traffic on the way back to Annie’s, but after I dropped her off it was nothing but traffic between her house and mine. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to Grandma’s just yet, so I decided to go home instead.

When I got home, my parents had already left for the chiropractor and my bed had been peed upon many times over by the cranky old cat. I haven’t slept in it in a month and a half, save for that one time I came home and passed out. We are out of appropriate blankets to remake my bed with.

As I was stretching the too small sheets onto my bed, I stepped on the bottom of my already-torn pants leg and shredded the leg even more. The tear is up to the knee and now starting to wrap around into a pair of cutoffs for a knock-off-punk Captain Ahab.

And when I sat here to type this, a good twenty minutes ago or so, my browser was frozen…
and my bandaged finger keeps getting stuck in the keyboard.

Sat down to do my homework at least 10 times today and got distracted with problems each time.

Had to argue to get Falyne for the weekend when I haven’t had her over in about 2 months. (She goes to one or the other of her grandparents each time and I only get Ethan… who I love, but still.)

Then she got here with a small fever which later became a big fever and is now evened out to a 102 fever.

Then I stepped in to see Ethan flogging her repeatedly in the back because she had the remote and he wanted it. So there was 2 hours of punishment enforcing.

Then we went to the play I had to see for class, but I had to step out 30 minutes in because Falyne’s fever had spiked extremely high. Thankfully Mo came to get her.

When I got back, just in time for intermission, Grandma tells me I missed them “fucking right there on the stage” and assured me they showed “all three positions!”

She was glad I took Falyne out before that. Ethan on the other hand, had strong opinions on the poor treatment of (and extreme violence towards) women in the play, and then threw in some helpful commentary when I was trying to figure out who/what the play was really about.

Afterward we discovered the Mac&Cheese we planned to make had sulfates on it. Curtis ordered a pizza instead.

Annie and Curtis helped me figure out my homework but I finished formatting it one minute too late and couldn’t turn it in.

Then when taking them home, the truck was out of gas. I only had enough in my account for a half tank and the pump cut me off. And then the truck wouldn’t start.

Called and couldn’t get ahold of my dad, bugged mom at work who called and left a message for him that I was broken down and to call her. Except the “machine” she left that with answered by saying “What?” and was in fact my dad.

I tried one last time for the hell of it and the damn thing started.

Now I’ve gotten Annie/Curtis home, grandma is in bed, kids are sleeping, one still with a fever, and I’m going to bed.

Ugh.

I should start off with a disclaimer that this is one of those ‘how bad things are’, ‘woe is me’ blog entries, and if you feel you’ve had enough of those lately, move along.

I’m not writing this for attention or pity. I’m writing this because I am disorganized and I’m testing out a theory that writing stuff down helps me become organized. Apparently writing things that need to be done in several “to do” lists isn’t enough. Even when two of those lists come equipped with mandatory deadlines that pop alarms up on my phone. One is right here on my right monitor —->. You can’t see that, but I can. Trust me, it’s there, with highlighted items that I’ve done and strike-through that I haven’t. That list is just school work though, and has due dates spanning January through May (yes, May, even with ASU claiming the semester ends before my birthday this year.)

Six classes. In the past few years I’ve learned to take three classes at a time, four if I’m feeling lucky. More than that and I inevitably fail at least two. I wanted to graduate and be done with school though, and I only needed six classes to do it this semester so I went with it. Guess what’s coming back to bite me in the ass? Everything, actually.

I can’t blame this on anyone or anything. No single event has caused me to fail, but failing is what has occurred. Out of my six classes, I seem to be certainly failing four, uncertainly failing one, and hanging on by a thread on the one I literally just started ten days ago. It is a week before Spring Break, there is time to fix things for some classes, if I can only figure out how.

I am a soccer mom without the kids or the van. Okay, yes, I have the kids.. two days a week, during which I have no school. And sure, they’re usually good enough kids that if I say I’m doing homework they will leave me alone… or help me with it, depending on the subject.

I also drive the carpool. Tuesdays and Thursdays, and when I’m sick I get grief for it… and then told that I’m making things all about me and the grief was not actually aimed at me but WHATEVER. When I get texts from two different people trying to guilt me into going to school when I don’t feel good, and when that doesn’t work I get texts like “So I guess I’m taking the bus then” I assume the complaining about “since I don’t have a ride today…” on social networking sites is, at least in part, about me.

Then there are my weekly scheduled events. Two scheduled TV nights with friends, because honestly if you can’t enjoy life what are you doing? I enjoy watching television and it is nice to have other people to discuss the developing plot lines with. There’s Thursday’s sister date night, which frequently involves dinner and TV. This scheduled night is important to keep up with because if I lose my scheduled weekly time with my sister, it’ll start off with “see you at school some time” and then “see you at our birthday party and other family gatherings” and then “when did you and BIL have kids?”

Saturday night is important for similar reasons. Saturday is Dominoes With Grandma night. I don’t think I have to explain the importance of having a weekly date with my Grandmother.

So there’s Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights all blocked out with Wednesday evening being a 3 hour class at school. Naturally, I’m the only one with a vehicle and constant (enough) clear head for driving and so I get to do all of the picking up people and shuffling to and from these places.

Soccer mom. Six classes.

While we’re assessing the level of failure in my life I guess I can complain about the lack of money and creative ways I have to come up with paying my debts. Besides, I have to fit in with the crowd and who isn’t complaining about their financial crisis these days?

I hated taking money from Judy. I started “working” for her as a dog sitter while she was in the hospital five years ago. When she got back, she asked if I would keep coming by to help her with some chores. She never really had me do much, I think she just wanted a friend. She was a great friend. I really didn’t mind going over, I hardly did anything for her I wouldn’t do, or hadn’t done, for my own family. It sucked having to take her money every week. But the money paid for the gas it took to get to her house, and for the gas it took for me to get to school, and what little was left over paid for some of the credit card payments I’d racked up by not having a job and trying not to ask my parents to pay for all of my expenses. On her last days alive Judy signed a check for me, demanding that Laura give it to me. It was a blank check with a heart-wrenching scribble across the middle. Laura gave me cash instead, but still showed me the check. I didn’t want to take it. I hadn’t done anything but stand there and talk to her in the last week. I took it because she knew I needed it, I knew I needed it, and she would not have it any other way.

In the month since Judy died I’ve managed to scrape by. My parents and Annie have been buying my gas, I’ve collected on some debts owed to me for some credit card payments. I’ve even had a few photography gigs that paid somewhat less than I needed. Shannon helped me out some on one card so I would have enough balance to put plane tickets on it for helping her move over spring break. This upcoming major credit payment should be covered thanks to some… less than honest work I’ve done for a friend generous enough to pay me slightly more than my average fee. I think with all of my odd jobs, I’m still averaging $15-17 an hour. Strange how that works out.

I like being a contractor type, not tied down to a tedious job doing the same thing all the time, but it’s hard when it comes to not knowing where the next payment is coming from. I don’t pay rent, I don’t pay for my vehicle (which, as luck would have it, had a dead battery again tonight.) I know I have it better off than a lot of people out there, like a few friends and neighbors who have lost their homes to foreclosure and had their cars repossessed Is that kind of thing that makes me really annoyed with myself for ever worrying about my own financial troubles. Yet, I know that my mom has collectors calling the house. It goes to the answering machine and they leave those “If you are not this person we are trying to call, don’t listen to this message…” messages. I can’t keep relying on her to bail me out when she can’t even bail herself out.

Putting the money issue aside again, it belongs over there in it’s dark corner of let’s-not-think-about-it.

You know what self employed students do not have? Health insurance. Do you know what they do have? Occasional health problems that prevent them from going to class. And what do teachers want when you miss class? A doctor’s note. Oh yes, I’ll get right on that.

I have a strict no lying rule. I do not like being lied to, I do not like lying. I will lie when I feel it is for someones own personal safety. Sure, I could take a doctor’s note from my mom who works at a hospital and pass it off to all of my teachers as “look who is in the hospital ALL THE TIME” but I do not want to.

When I am sick with the flu, I stay in bed until I am better. When I am sick with a horrible reaction to sulfur, I load up on Benedryl and stay in bed until I am better. When I have strange but intense new debilitating lower back pain which may be some horribly inconvenient and probably embarrassing bowel condition, or may be an even worse tumor of some kind (Web MD is always helpful with their “it’s probably this… or cancer” diagnosing)… I stay in bed and then get up and walk around, and then sit on my side for a while before returning to bed and then breaking out the heating pad (oh god why did I not think of the heating pad sooner), and then back to bed, for 40 hours, until I feel not completely better but okay enough to move around and get to important classes.

Of course I’m going to miss some school. I have no health insurance. My social anxiety is stronger when it comes to people asking me personal questions about my health, requesting that I wear just an open backed hospital gown, and coming at me with a gloved hand. No, I am not going to have a doctor’s note for my distrusting teachers. Grade me on my work, not my attendance.

Then again, my new Theatre History class is slipping because during that 40 hours of horrid pain I failed to notice an important due date for a unit review worth 60 points (a substantial enough portion of the grade). That is some grading on the work I just can’t argue with.

My Travel Writing grade is low (I know, Travel + Writing and I am failing it? Whaaaat?) because the instructor is having us turn in “assignments” (If you can call them that) as discussion board posts using the Blackboard system. Blackboard is notorious for it’s disorganization and unreliability. We are to check in every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday (or something like that) for new posts to reply to, but then we are also supposed to be active every day providing “feedback” for our peers. I really really hate providing feedback about other people’s writing. For starters, I am a terrible person who prescriptively judges others’ writing styles. I can’t help that I do it. I can help by not commenting on it. I am not good at giving unsolicited advice. While it is solicited by the instructor, it was not a direct “do you think this is better, or this?” question and so I am not going to say “Wow, it sound’s like you had a great trip to Sea World with your family when you were eight! Say, does that have any relevance as to why others might want to go or were you just post-blogging a somewhat uneventful day in a foreign place because that’s what the prompt asked for?”

I e-mailed that instructor early on in the class. I just told her that I was having trouble keeping organized and thus staying caught up in the class, and asked if there were any tips she could give me on how to make Blackboard work for me, and if there was an assignment due date schedule I could add to my organized list that I keep on my second monitor. Her response was to say “This is not an “easy” class.” and to tell me to check in every day. I did not know until that e-mail that she posts new prompts on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (she does not keep this as consistent as she claimed, for what it’s worth.)

I never responded to the e-mail, I didn’t know what to say.

It’s a slightly similar problem that I’m having with my Precolumbian Art class. That one is an in-person class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I’ve missed a few classes there as well, but I don’t think it would have done me much good to be there (aside from the fact that she also takes attendance and detracts from the grade that way as well). The instructor is obviously knowledgeable about her field, she knows enough to get carried away in tangents while I’m attempting to take notes, which always ends up with me lost on what she was trying to say and never getting a full sentence down. She rambles and mumbles and speeds through important names like “Chichén Itzá,” of course always pronouncing them perfectly for their native language but not for ours, and never writing it down. She breezes right by using her slides with pictures but sans any helpful information for my note taking and learning abilities.

Two tests we’ve had now, and I’ve failed both. The first time she put up one of those “!” symbols on my MyASU class list, which tells me and my advisor that I am failing the class. The second time after I spent three days studying and even skipped one of my Fibers classes to cram before the exam, she wrote on the front of the test in red ink “you have a 46 in this class.” Thanks. The automatic advising message I got suggested I talk to her about it. I would, except the only thing I could think to say is “I’ve tried to read the book but it is just as boring and hard to understand as your lecture.” I don’t think that’s as productive as either of us would like it to be.

Let’s talk about Fibers, shall we? For the first assignment, embroidery (which as I have discovered, I dislike greatly), I was told my original ideas were too literal and not interesting enough (that’s a typical response from an art teacher to me). So I made the assignment all about my social anxiety and how I hate presenting my projects in front of the class and then being forced to add opinion to everyone else’s projects, as I’ve had to do in every studio class I’ve ever taken. I had to present it. I had to stand against a wall while every single student responded. One of my tiny little embroidered patches said “me too,” a reference to when people tell me that every one has anxiety and it totally happens to them too. I mentioned what it meant. Some bitch still told me that everyone had anxiety. Someone else said “I have social anxiety too!” Were they not listening? No. They never are.

My second project did not go over as well. I didn’t realize we were still doing a big “turn everything in and critique it” day and so I only brought in the samples I thought we were required to turn in that day. I had a know it all day a few weeks back when we were weaving baskets out of newspaper. I grew up with crafty aunt Barbie and my mom was the girl scout troop leader, of course I could whip up a basket in mere minutes while everyone else took hours. She called me out as an exception to the rule when telling people that they would be in a bad position if they had missed that instructional day.  I missed the next class due to being sick, but it was coiled baskets… so I made one while watching a movie in my traditional sitting-on-the-couch-with-a-blanket feel better strategy. I brought it in the next day to show that I didn’t actually miss anything.

We learned to crochet. I had been attempting (and doing it wrong) to crochet for years, so when she explained it to me, I picked it up really quickly and kept going. I really just needed a nudge in the right direction.

Then the felting project started. I was there for the first class where we learned the technique and made some soft felt. I was there for the second where we perfected the technique, learned another, and dyed wool. I missed the next week (2 classes) due to a horrible cold/flu thing brought on by an allergic reaction to the volcano we spread Judy’s ashes on. I read the instructions for what I missed. I even went in to the teacher’s gallery exhibit and spent a half an hour examining her work with a tissue up my nose because I had to be there for my Precolumbian Art midterm anyway and that’s what I had missed that day. I turned in some pretty decent work for having to do it at home during the 40 hours of horrible back pain. I’ll admit, Gloria helped with it more than a lot while I sat here on my heating pad wincing and pointing.

I missed a fifth class period yesterday. A combination alarm-didn’t-go-off and lower back pain causing me to strongly desire not sitting or standing for prolonged periods of time.

I hate complaining about pain. I feel like such a whiner.

I hate complaining about anything. This is not a good blog entry for me. You’ve caught me at a low point where I’m even annoying myself. Don’t look. Go back and unread all of that. And then go forward and unread everything I’m about to say, because there’s more and I’ve gone this far already.

Anyhow, she e-mailed me today telling me that she can see that I have the skills and desire to do well in her class but with my absences I’m now failing. Because it totally matters whether I am there every day when I obviously make up the work and am doing well otherwise. The days I’ve missed have been mostly work days. I worked at home. This should not be a problem.

I’m failing World Music because I simply haven’t had the time to watch the lectures or read the book. That is a stupid reason to be failing a class but it’s the truth. I’ve read about a half a chapter during the first week or so of the class. I’ve been half-assing the tests and assignments by using Google or Shannon. I am failing for no reason other than my own personal failure. Good job, self.

I thought I was doing well in Castles and Crusades but during my illness last week I skipped some required reading and a boring documentary that I only watched half of and thus did not turn in a writing assignment worth large chunk of the grade. Then I got back half of my midterm (the multiple choice part) and had only 68%. If I get all of the points on the essay I will get a maximum of 78% on the midterm. My grade is currently (not counting the extra credit I just turned in) at just 70%. That’s on the fence as is. Follow it up with the fact that this class has a large 8-10 page paper due in a couple of weeks… and my topic is one I can’t find much info about (The Battle at Neville’s Cross). I admit, I chose it on the name, as I was too busy/lazy to take time and make sure I could find info on it.

So there are my six classes. Four failing, one on the fence, and one where the teacher is crazy and not posting grades or telling me anything other than her class is not “easy”.

I wonder if ASU will take the $50 I paid them for my graduation application and hold on to it long enough for me to actually graduate, or if I have to pay it again later when I have to retake some of these terrible classes.

Why is it that I can ramble on for five pages, single spaced, on personal blog issues and it only takes me 2 hours… but when it comes time to throw in a 20 page research paper on a topic I know relatively well, I take 17 and a half hours to stretch 13 double spaced pages?

I hope writing this all out will get it off my mind and clear some thinking space for actual homework. Or maybe for editing those pictures that are more than a week over due.

onehoney:

rocknrollercoaster:

(Source: anarchymydear, via nineteenand)

I know something you could make a spring break project out of. Oh! And I know someone whose birthday is just a month after that!

queenofzan:

but I  have NO IDEA how much work besides cleaning it needs

and I have NO IDEA how practical a machine from the 50s (with its original accessories and manuals and its own CABINET) would be for my everyday sewing.