Candy

I was just struck by the contrast between my youthful dreams and my current, middle-agey ones. I found myself wishing, with real fervency, that I could eat limitless numbers of Reese's cups without becoming ill or obese. I think if a genie came to me right now, I'd be torn between using my one wish for world peace and using it for a Reese's cup free-for-all.

It's been a weird, kind of awful week. Yesterday I ended up in an ambulance with girl twin after her croup caused respiratory distress. That was probably the single worst moment of my whole life. Tonight, I spent three hours at the doctor's office myself to find out I have pneumonia. No wonder I feel like death. At least now I have the justification I needed to sit on the couch and eat junk food for the next couple days. Mmmm, Reese's cups.

I may already be dead

It's funny that when my kids have runny noses, I get annoyed by the constant drip and ick and whine and think they should just suck it up it's just a damn cold get over it already, but when I have a cold, it really does seem like a fairly serious matter capable of moderate to severe life-disruption. I'm not sure if this is a cold or the flu, but the symptoms include severe headache, inability to breathe, joints hurting, feeling of extreme heat, and incessant bitching about the aforementioned everything.

Oh, and that feeling of extreme heat? My regular body temperature is pretty low (around 97), and I almost never get fevers, but I feel like such complete crap that I was sure THIS time I'd broken triple digits. Took my temp, and it's 96.6. If I were a cadaver, they'd estimate my time of death as hours ago.

Xenophobia

I almost never watch the news, because...well, partially because I almost never control the remote, and partially because my attention span is really short. Tonight was an exception, and two of the stories during the half hour broadcast were about people freaking about about the dilution of their culture by immigration and tourism. One story focused on Switzerland and one on Tibet. In both cases, the representative xenophobes waxed on, in English, about how all the foreigners were marginalizing their culture (which, if I am not mistaken, does not include English primarily in its purest form in either case), and worrying that their way of life would be lost forever.

It seems to me that a static culture is doomed as surely as a static language - if you don't want your country to be the national equivalent of Latin, you may want to start embracing change. What is the obsession with preserving the status quo? Is this time and place so complete and perfect that keeping it immutable is of more value than honoring the rights of others? Literacy seems to be the answer here - if you love the here and now, preserve its memory in writing and pictures, but don't try to fix it in time.

When I do watch the news, I frequently find myself saying what I all too often resort to saying the boys - "don't be a jerk." How many of the world's problems would be resolved if people could just pull the sticks from their asses and mind their own business?

They like me, they really like me

I have this vague feeling I've used this title before, but I'm always up for some positive reinforcement, so I'll let it stand. I'm halfway through my first semester teaching an Intro to Computing class at a local community college, and I feel like I've finally hit my stride. I really enjoy my students, and today one of them told me that mine is his favorite class. He said it in a very non-Eddie Haskell way, too. I'm pitifully easy to please - I've been replaying it all day. Yay me, I don't suck!

Should have known better

I've been doing well with my stupid organic chemistry class, but chapter 5 wasn't making any sense to me. Since I'm a logical person (ha!), I made the considered choice to just take the chapter quiz even though I had no idea what the fuck the insane incoherent asshole who wrote the textbook was even talking about. Because at least if the quiz was over, I could move on to something else, something that just could. not. suck as much as alkene/alkyne reactions and transition states and rate-determining bullshit. Predictably, I did not do very well on the quiz, and now my mood has shifted from post-good-weekend happy to maybe-I-can't-do-this-after-all despair. Lame, lame, lame.

It was a good weekend, though. When I'm over this bitterness, I'll tell you more about it.

Wow, time flies

I've been a little preoccupied lately. Boy twin had a double-ear infection followed by a new molar and girly got FOUR teeth and the number of pained bits mentioned there (um, 2+1+4?) is more than the hours of sleep I've had during the same time period. I actually dozed off a little during the masterful crafting of that gem of a sentence. What was I saying? Oh, right. My father-in-law sent me this email, which prompted me to realize that the date of my last post, 10/3, was 8 days ago and not, like, half an hour ago, like I thought it was:

When one begins a blog, doesn't that come with an implied contract that one will keep that blog (somewhat) up to date?

Twice daily is probably unrealistic to expect – but – daily updates are/or should be the norm.
Going three days without updating your personal blog is akin to a child not brushing his/her teeth for three days. Going a week without posting something is just beyond most people's ability to comprehend. What kind of example are you putting forth for your kids? Has anyone thought about contacting child protective services?

Is there a Blog Master to whom this complaint should be directed? Can one get their blogging privileges revoked? Is there a penalty associated with blog-lacking-updates? Does one hear from the Blog Master that they must go back and retroactively update all days for a rolling month period that were missed?

Things I wonder about when I am so busy at work that my head is spinning.

So, since my poor, clearly-overworked father-in-law has put so much thought into it, and since it's his birthday, I will try to step up my game. Step up to the plate. Step...oh, I don't know. Thought I had more stepping cliches in my bag o' tricks. Thought I had a bag o' tricks. May really need some sleep.

So, here's a super-fast, very tired, distracted-by-The-Office update. I should rename this blog "random disjointed updates on my exhausted life." That may be redundant, though, as if you looked into my head, that's about what you'd see. Me trying to even remember what has happened recently. Here it is:

-I love love love volunteering at the hospital. I think I may finally, at the age of 31, have figured out what I really want to do when I grow up.
-I really like teaching my computing class, too. I am a little concerned, though, that I'm either a really bad teacher or my students are really dumb, because I gave the midterm today and they did not do well. Hmm.
-I'm really loving my kids these days. Think there's some correlation between me spending less time at home and liking them more? Another hmm.
-Organic chemistry is hard. When the twins let me doze off for more than ten minutes, I dream of hydrocarbon stereoisomers. I suspect this is not the key to good mental health.
-I've seen two hilarious comedies this week. I almost never see a comedy I like, or any movie all the way through for that matter, so this is a high point for me. The first is Stuck on You, which looked absolutely awful (the premise is that Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear are conjoined twins), but turned out to be not only funny but really sweet. And the other was Knocked Up, which I think we were the last people in America to see but which lived up to its hype.

We've moved on to My Name is Earl now, so I'll end this travesty of a post. I should be studying chemistry, but all the carbons are starting to swim together in front of my eyes.

This war has been brought to you by...

I registered for an online organic chemistry class last week (from the University of New England, randomly enough, as they were the only ones I found who offered it online), and I got my materials in the mail today and can't wait to get started. My husband is being very supportive. He got the kids to bed and is watching a really boring Ken Burns show so I won't be distracted (sleepy, maybe, but not distracted). The show did catch my attention for a moment, though, when the intro began with this line:

"Corporate funding for The War..."

I seriously thought for a moment that it was a news story and that the Iraq debacle was now being sponsored by AT&T or something, like all of the stupid renamed baseball and football stadiums. I mean, in a world where Candlestick Park is replaced as a name by 3M field, what isn't possible?

Back to my studying. And beating the big boy into submission - he's back in school and resuming his nightly refusal to go. to. bed.