Wowzers!

Ahem. Ta-ta-ta-DAA! We just got a letter announcing that Napoleon's excellent work last semester earned him a place on the Dean's List of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. It's very well deserved, since he got a 4.0. What a smarty. I've never made the dean's list, so I'm wildly jealous. We're back in school now, and it looks like it's going to be a pretty busy semester for me. I'm taking 14 credits and working two TA jobs. Hopefully I won't be stressed out of my brain. This should be my last semester though, so if I get burnt out, who cares? ") Now I just need to figure out what I want to do after I graduate, which is a pretty big question. I'm thinking about grad school, but BYU just doesn't offer anything that I want to get a master's in. So it looks like if I do want to go, I'll have to wait until Napoleon graduates and figures out where he wants to go, and then see if there are any schools around that offer something I'm interested in. Till then, I guess I'll be doing lots of painting and reading and planting. I really need to find a more exciting hobby. ")

Blahness

I'm bored. When I'm bored, I start thinking "blah." And when I start thinking that, I start writing it and saying it. Which makes my husband nervous, as he's read somewhere that people who write and say "blah" a lot are suicidal. I'm not, but I suspect I may be depressed. He thinks it's because I don't have enough work to do, and the solution is for me to get another job. I am therefore encouraged daily to search out and apply for another job. Applying for jobs may be the most depressing thing I've ever done, especially because it frequently ends in being turned down by snooty people who write things like "Good luck in your search for employment." And yes, that is a direct quotation. Look, pal, I AM employed.
So I get bored and depressed, my husband tells me to get a job, and I get more depressed because I feel like he thinks I'm a lazy bum, so I try and fix it by applying for jobs, whereupon I'm turned down by obnoxious people and get more depressed. It's a vicious circle. I'm also encouraged to paint. This is not a good plan. I was taught to paint by a woman who apparently had little creative instinct, since she painted mostly from photographs and encouraged her students to paint from other paintings. Hence, unless I have something else to look at, I don't know what to paint. Or maybe I'm just blaming my own shortcomings on other people. At any rate, I haven't painted for over a year now, besides the walls of our apartment. I guess they turned out pretty good, but they're not exactly works of art.

Hrm

So, the guy that I sent off on his mission is back. I talked to him a little bit online today. It really seems incredible to me that he's still kinda bitter about the whole breaking up and me getting married to someone else. I mean, c'mon. It's been over a year now. But I guess he didn't have much normal social interaction in the interim. It really made me sad, because I've been feeling like I don't have any friends lately, and I really would like to have him as a friend, especially since we have several mutual friends. Oh well. Maybe he just needs time to find himself a charming wifey. Except then he'll disappear into the ranks of married males, who don't seem to need friends once they've found a woman. I know my darling hubby doesn't understand why I need someone besides him to talk to, bless his heart. I guess that being friends with a bachelor, as a married woman, is kind of frowned upon. Bummer.

Testing

Have you ever taken a big test and just felt like you did absolutely ROTTEN on it? On Wednesday, I went and took my last test of Logic in the testing center, which is so incredibly impersonal. I took like an hour and a half on it, because I could not for the life of me figure out what to do. I studied for about an hour and a half before I went, but I have the feeling it wasn't too effective because I was also trying to help my brother study for his test in the Logic class that is the pre-req to mine. But anyway, I opened up my test and just blinked. 5 problems, all of them yucky. I went through the first one, couldn't get it, went through the second one, couldn't get it, went to the third one, couldn't get it, fourth, had no idea how to get it, and the fifth, just about pooped my pants, it was so yucky. I ended up getting at least an answer for the first one, and was pretty sure I got the second and third ones right. The fourth one I tried something and it seemed to work, and the fifth I just wrote some remotely connected junk. I felt so crummy I wanted to swear.
So when we got our tests back yesterday, I was quite prepared to get a lousy grade. I actually prepped myself to accept a 60% or so. So I got it, opened it up, and . . . 95%! Holy Cow! I really couldn't believe it, but there it was. Great feeling. In a weird sort of way. Maybe I like school after all.

Utter Boredom

I am SOOO ready for this semester to be over. In fact, I'm pretty much done with being in college. I like learning, but I hate having to do it from teachers who don't want to be there and don't really feel like teaching what the students want to learn. Granted, that's not all of them, but I know of at least a couple. And I'd like to puke on them. Grrrr.
On a happier note, all my plants are doing well. Except for those sundews, that is . . . they just don't grow quite fast enough for me. And one of my orchid buds is blasted! I'm really quite unhappy about that. And ok, so a bunch of other kind of rotten things happened today too, but I didn't really remember them until I started trying to. Boo.

Livin'

My parents and my little sister came up from California this week and brought us a whole box of oranges! YUM. They're smaller than the ones we usually get, but very delicious. We average about 4 a day. If there's a way to overdose on vitamin C, this is it. My big sister is up here too, sleeping on our couch for the next week. I love my sister, and her fiance is great, but I HATE hanging around engaged people! Just the other day, I was sitting in the computer lab trying to do homework, and this disgusting couple sat in front of me and started searching for dish patterns online, by which I mean they were rubbing each other's legs and making out and whispering in each others' ears. Ewwwww. I could scarcely type because I was struggling to hold back bile. Don't get me wrong: I whole-heartedly approve of affection between couples. Just not as a frame for my computer screen. It was gross. So now I have an engaged couple coming to my apartment every night, where they engage in a yucky goodbye smooch before my future brother-in-law heads back home. I'm so glad to be married, and not engaged.

Philosophizing

So, the other day I was in one of my more slow-moving philosophy classes, and was kind of joking with the girl next to me about Hume and Kant. She asked, "so why are you majoring in philosophy anyway?" Sad, sad question. I have no idea.
Okay, that's not really true. I know why: I couldn't think of anything I'd like to major in, I'd done well in all my philosophy classes so far, and I'd taken several of them, so I already had a bunch of credit. And that's about it. I really like ethics, especially Kant's ethics, but I absolutely hate and despise my medieval philosophy class. We're reading Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. It wouldn't be bad, I think, if the teacher was someone who actually teaches. But Professor X, who is teaching it, is SOOO boring! He reads out of the book what we were supposed to read for class, and then tells us the Latin words for random sections (and we care because?). And this class lasts for AN HOUR AND A HALF! BLLLAAAAAAAH! Oh well. I'm off to self-defense: much more fun, and enormously useful. ")

This has got to be one of my favorite pictures of me and Napoleon. Our kids are going to be SOOO cute.

Baby Orchids

Recently, I've discovered the mania that is attached to orchids. Once I got one, I had to have another, and another, and another. I'll have to attach a few pictures of my new little seedlings--getting them here was a pain in the bum. There are some very dodgy companies out there. Sigh. But they're here, and looking like they might actually grow nicely, so I'm pleased. We are running out of room for houseplants now, though, and Napoleon is getting a little concerned about whether we're going to get a new one every month. I just broke the news to him yesterday that my Mom is bringing one that she's had for a while down to me: she has a notoriously black thumb for inside plants. Funnily enough, Mom's a terrific gardener. With her orchid, I'll be up to eight. Then there's the zebra plant, the corn plant, my lucky bamboo, two rosebushes, two peace lilies (which I split just the other day, and was so pleased with myself), a poinsettia (which has survived despite my best efforts, so I'm resigned to caring for it), an Asian pitcher plant, an aloe vera, a foliage plant (I call it "Gordy") and three compots, two of sundews and one of basil. So come Monday, I'll be up to 22 plants. Eeeeexcellent.

Blah blah blog

Alrighty then. How to begin this blog, knowing that it will be out there exposed for all to see? I'll start with dessert--that's always a good way to begin. I'm making candied acorn squash. I'm not sure if I'll be able to eat any, since Napoleon and I just pigged out on a bunch of mozzarella sticks and pasta. Okay, and we had a bunch of cookies dipped in milk, too. But it was all so yummy! And it's Friday, so that makes it all okay. I think that's one of the joys of being a student: on Friday, things suddenly don't matter as much, so you drop everything and go eat something fatty and delicious, and watch a movie. I think The Curse of the Wererabbit is tonight's showing. ")