Tuesday's Daily Dilly Dally...and Maalox

First of all, thank you for the "Compose" button clue. Really, I swear I'm not an eeeediot. I created an intranet site for a company I worked for, but that was all raw HTML code and I feel useless if I just have to click the mouse.

• Something I did last night: Managed to somehow get my 100 pages read, two 1-page papers written for class, and even participated in the class discussions on the Holocaust. Wonderful Andy doesn't think I participate in class (because he swears I hate people) but I really did last night. I talked like I knew what I was talking about... nevermind the odd glances in my direction or the "what planet is she from" stares.

• Something I learned today: The kids showed up this morning with less butt issues and I learned a neat trick. Maalox (check out my new use of colors!) cuts the acid in pee-pee, so it makes it less painful to change the diaper of a kid with super-red-butt. However, there are no handy tricks to make sure the Maalox doesn't get all over the couch when you try to pour it on the butt-paste... but I guess I'd rather have a mint flavored couch than a screaming kid and end up elbow deep in butt-paste again.

(check out my use of bullets! YAY, go winda-licker! Ok, I'm over it.)

Something that pissed me off so far today:
I get an email from my boss. Yeah, that's right... I work at home and I have a boss. Apparently, in my bliss of thinking I don't really have a job (outside the home of course) I've been slacking on my actual check-I-get-every-two-weeks job and decided blogging was much more fun. I mean really, how boring is it to type about snotty nosed kids going to the ER b/c their parents don't have a PCP or insurance for that matter. Or typing about every chest pain in the State of Oklahoma that turns out to be the japaleno peppers wrapped in bacon and filled with cream cheese from the BBQ the day before. Or typing about the dummies who saw half of their hands off while reaching for that wire they ran over moments before under the RUNNING lawnmower. And I can't leave out the cat fights at the bar where one broad gets pissed off because her "honey" is buying shots for some tootsie roll in a too tight mini skirt and tank top that's trying to disguise her "muffin top" (yanno, that fat roll the bulges out of the top of jeans... looks like a muffin top dontcha think?)

Anywayyyy... jeeze I can't stay on target for the life of me!

So I get this email telling me I better shape up and do at least my daily requirements or they want their "equipment back"... and by "equipment" I mean the computer that I'm typing on right this second. Pfffffft! I'm not giving up my computer. Nevermind the fact that I have another desktop and a laptop in the house, and my school will be issuing me another laptop (included in my tuition) in the next few months. No way... no how.... am I giving up this PC.

Who does she think she is? Telling me I need to actually "work" in order to claim having a job! I have worked for this company for 15 years and my boss is like a surrogate mom to me. I've worked in the office, I've worked at home. Sometimes I'm a super-producer and bringing in the big bucks, and sometimes I like to take it easy and pretend like I don't have a job. I like the option of not working when I don't want to. Some days the blogs I read can keep me busy (between chasing the two kids around during the day yanno... I don't just ignore them... all of the time) for at most of the day. And if they are particularly funny or hit home for me, I can be knee deep in blogs by 10am. Then there are the blog rolls that I must check out, especially if they have catchy titles! I've got to at least just glance at the blog, only then will I know if I really want to stalk them. Not to mention, I've got to take a peek at my MySpace and see if my brother put anymore pics up and stalk my local friends, friends from high school, bar friends, and check up on my kid's MySpace(it's the right thing to do... snoop on your kids). THEN... I have to check my daily gardening blogs and forums for any new growth, take pictures of my garden-in-the-kitchen-that-has-started-blooming-and-can't-wait-to-be-move-outside so I can post them for the world to see. And FINALLY, I have to check my school website to see if my instructor graded my last paper yet, if my "Discrete Math" grade is posted yet... etc.

I have a LOT to do before I can work ya'll!

So this morning, while I'm preparing for work, I'm thinking of all the other things I need to get done around here and somehow end up on damn blogpost again. How.Does.That.Happen!

In my defense, I do have until the 10th to reply to her email.

And finally, something I'm going to gloat about: I missed class last week because I was totally unprepared for class and lost my book my kid was sick so I emailed my 5-page paper on The Night. I was very anxious about this paper because not only did I write it an hour before it was due, I was submitting to my instructor who is also a published author and screenplay writer. Sooo, for a week I was waiting and waiting, checking my email 2398407234 times a day for a response. Finally, yesterday I checked before I went to class and he responded:

I have graded your paper and I will not be submitting a printed copy with corrections... because there was absolutely nothing wrong with your paper. You are a tallented writer. A+!

Woo hoo! Go Okie girl! (Did you also notice my use of "block quote" feature? Huh? Huh? Did ya? I'm gonna be an expertive blogger before long I tell ya!)

Intro to The Holocaust

So last night was the first session of five for Intro to the Holocaust. Traditionally, I hate history. I have traumatic memories from high school trying to memorize dates and details of historical events that seemed too trivial for my party mindset. Perhaps it was my teachers that didn't engage my mind, perhaps it was me being lazy, knowing exactly what I had to score on a particular assignment to nail a good grade in that class... and that instructor wasn't getting anything more than my minimum.

At SNU, I've been enrolled in "bridge classes". This is an adult study program where I can go to school one night a week (4 hours) and in five weeks, I've finished a class that would have taken me an entire semester. It's wonderful for those who are working and just can't devote 4 to 5 nights a week to class. I take five classes a semester, but I take them one at a time. It works for me! Granted, it's a private university, so the cost is a little high, but it's worth it to me.

Anyway, some of my classes are kinda odd. And truth be known, you really don't get a lot of say-so in what you are enrolled in. The object is to get you to the credit requirement so you can start your degree program requirements. Basically, whatever you need is compared to whatever is available at that time, and that's what will end up on your schedule.

For the Spring semester I ended up with Juvenile Delinquency, Earth's Natural Disasters, Discrete Math, Intro to the Holocaust and Intro to Art. All of them were a piece of cake as far as I could tell, except for the Holocaust class. I already had anxiety about that one, and this was at the beginning of the semester lol. The syllabus even had me more anxious. I glanced over it in January to find that I would be writing two 5-7 page papers, three 1-page video response papers, 10 1-page conversation starters and have a final exam. I about crapped my pants. FIVE WEEKS MAN! This class is only five weeks! Oh... and I had to read "Night" by Elie Wiesel prior to class and have one of the 5-7 page papers done, and then another paper was to be on an assigned book we would get the first night of class. Oh! And there was a Genocide project that was also due by the 5th week consisting of ANOTHER 5-7 page paper and a 1-page oral presentation. WTF!

Not only do I not like history, I don't like reading about history, I don't like history videos, and I certainly don't like writing papers on historical events. I love to write. But I love to write about things I'm comfortable with. Things I know about. This... the Holocaust... was definitely unfamiliar territory and I hadn't the faintest clue how I was to bullshit my way through this class.

So I get to class and thank God I was 4 minutes early. My instructor, a lean, tall man looking to be in his 50s... bald head, pressed jeans, cowboy boots and a gray blazer over a Harley Davidson t-shirt... looked intimidating. I immediately thought of Bull from Night Court when I saw him, but only in a scary kind of way. Then precisely at 6 this man tells us, "Thank you all for being here on time. I start promptly at 6, but tonight I will give 5 more minutes because this classroom is difficult to find."

Then again, promptly at 6:05, he started class. Not only was I scared to death of this class, my face was beet red after climbing three flights of stairs and running through every hall imaginable in this building to find my classroom. I'm fat. Fat girls don't run down halls and willingly climb stairs when there are elevators available.

So he starts rambling on about his own personal history. I could feel my insides twisting and turning, thinking this class couldn't possibly get worse. He tells us he joined the military at 17 and retired after 32 years service. He has also worked for SWAT and other special forces in the Oklahoma City Police Department. He described himself as a "crotchety old bastard" and told us that if his occasional cursing offended us, to report him. He further explained, we wouldn't be the first to report him and he's certain we wouldn't be the last.

Gulp...

After the first 15 minutes or so of class I caught my breath and was able to relax a bit. This professor, even with his background, seemed very personable, joking with us and all that, so I didn't fear him nearly as much as I did 15 minutes prior.

The lecture started and I can honestly say, this man put this whole time in history into perspective for me. I didn't even have to ask any questions because he had already answered them. He put things into terms where even a 5th grader could understand, and if there was something that was unclear, he was pretty good at reading faces and tried to invoke conversation within the students. And to top it all off... not only did I understand what the heck he was saying, I was excited to learn more. It was really refreshing.

Oh! And not only was he able to get through my mental block for history, he cut down our workload as well. He completely wiped out one of the papers we had to write... the one on Genocide. Instead, he told us to find any case of genocide in history and answer these questions: Who? When? Why? What? and of course... How? He said to make an oral presentation of no more than 5 minutes to answer those questions. Easy enough. Then he cut out the final exam. WOO HOO! He said our video response papers are due at the beginning of the last class. We still have to write two 5-7 page papers, but I can certainly deal with that! Oh - and because he cut out the final exam, which was worth 20% of our final grade, he decided to put that 20% toward, punctuality, preparedness for class and participation. Nice!

I am honestly looking forward to next weeks class!