Prepoceros

You know what’s way more delicious than anything with 11 grams of fat has a right to be? The new Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino at Starbucks. I’d been eyeing the huge ads plastered across their menu every time I stopped by for a cookie fix. Until last night, that is, when I finally gave in to temptation and bought a tall pumpkin frap with-whip to go with my SAT writing assignment and China vocab.

It was everything I’d expected, and more. Think pumpkin pie, but sweeter and colder and straw-accessible. My mouth is watering from the memory alone. I’m pretty sure it was the nutmeg that made it taste EXACTLY like liquid pumpkin pie. Maybe cloves or something like that, too—I don’t know what else is in their “proprietary blend of holiday spices.” What I DO know is that they’d better keep on making those things straight through Christmas, or I might have to go throw stuff.

I know I mentioned 11 grams of fat earlier, but to be fair, 8.5 of those grams came from the whipped cream, which I don’t really NEED, since the drink is plenty sweet on its own. I wish they made a light version.

Two classes and five jobs make for a rather hectic schedule. I usually compose blog posts in my head while I’m doing something else (driving, pooting around on the interweb, staring at the ceiling), then spill it all out when I get back to the computer. Today, though, I only had about twenty minutes of free time, most of which I spent making lunch and packing a dinner to eat on the road, so I’m just making this one up as I go along. Sorry if it doesn’t flow well or even make sense—or maybe you can’t tell the difference. I can, and it bugs me, but not enough to lose sleep over—I’ve got class at 8:00 tomorrow, so I’m calling this one done.

I want this.

And this.

And this.

But not this.

P.S. Sorry. I heard it on the radio the other day, so I googled it for you.

P.P.S. The first person to comment that they’re little snits in real life gets a punch in the nose. I know.

Gurgle grumple moofenblump. *drool*

It’s funny how quickly nine months without homework can make one forget the pain of sleep deprivation. This morning I went to bed at 5:00 and woke up at 7:15. I’m surprised I can still spell. Maybe I can’t, and I just haven’t noticed.

I got home from teaching at 9:30 last night and spent the next long while (okay, after a wee break) doing homework for my China class: reading three chapters in the book (out loud, because I’m weird like that), taking notes (lots of notes, pretty notes, color-coded notes), finding a current event (the Chinese announcement of their next manned space mission) to share with the class, and studying for a vocab quiz.

I don’t usually study for things, but I dug into that vocab. There were maybe thirty things on the list, most of them names. Chinese names. They were transliterated, of course, but the words still run together in a jumbled mess in your head when you don’t speak a shred of the language.

When I got to class, though, we spent the first half hour going over the reading and all of the vocab, in very specific terms: “This word will not be on the quiz, so don’t worry about it. This one will; the important thing about him is… .” Okay. Oh, and the quiz was a ten-question matching quiz. Which we took in groups. And if you missed one (there were more words than blanks), you still got a 100. And by the way, the first quiz is just for practice.

So I worked waaaaaay too hard. (This is without a doubt the first time I’ve typed that sentence.) I suspected as much while I was studying, but I kept on keepin’ on for several reasons, of varying significance:

1. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, and I figured it was better to be over- than underprepared.
2. I am a perfectionist.
3. I like to write things out by hand and make them pretty.
4. The material is fascinating and something I want to learn more about.
5. “New beginnings” boost my work ethic and focus about 500%.
6. As a physics major in a history class, I feel I have something to prove.
7. Martyrdom is fun and easy.

My enthusiasm will wear off, I’m sure, as the semester wears me down, but hopefully I can hold out for longer than I’ve done before. I know I shouldn’t set perfection as my goal—it fosters an all-or-nothing mentality which is never healthy and which will only help me talk myself out of putting in my best effort. I’m going to try to be more actively aware of that this time around.

But for now, if you’re looking for someone to enthrall and delight you with a retelling of the dramatic hundred-year story of the fall of the Ming dynasty and the establishment of the Qing, I’m your girl.

Ah, it feels wonderful to be back in school again. I haven’t been a student for almost nine months, which is just enough of a break that I’m itching to stretch my note-taking and attention-paying muscles a bit without worrying that they’ve atrophied beyond recovery.

It’s also a nice change to be in a classroom setting and NOT be responsible for the entire direction and progress of the class. Discussion wanders off topic? Not my problem. Lose my train of thought? It’ll come back to me. Rather be grumpy than peppy? Not gonna ruin anyone’s day but my own.

Don’t get me wrong: I love teaching*. But I also love learning. I don’t know which I like better, and I’m glad I don’t have to decide right now. (Or ever?)

In other news, I have YET ANOTHER part-time job, bringing my total number of simultaneous part-time positions with one company to FIVE. This new job, which as far as I know didn’t exist until today (it used to be part of a full-time position), involves me driving around to all the major schools in the Houston area and dropping off information with their college counselors. Three-ish mornings a week, five or six schools at a time. Not bad, not bad at all.

In short, I AM CRAZY BUSY. I’m feeling good right now, I think because I like beginnings. I’m good at beginnings. I think I would be okay at endings, too, if I could ever get to them. It’s the middles that always trip me up.

(Oh, and I think I’m getting sick—awful timing. In my first lesson this evening my throat started tickling, and now I’ve got a headache and a runny nose. Even half a pint of Cherry Garcia (the frozen yogurt kind) didn’t make it better. Blah.)

* Confidential to those-in-the-know: Gah! Bobinga flashback. (Btw, did anyone notice they edited ‘poet-cum-gardener’ out of the new edition? Makes me sad—that one was always good for a laugh.)

For the past five or six days I’ve been in a “slump” again. The difference this time is that for the first time since I started Wellbutrin, and maybe even for the first time since I was at school, I’ve been tired all. the. damn. time.

At night, I’m tired. When I wake up, I’m tired, so I go back to sleep. Then again, and again, and again. When I finally roll out of bed, I’m tired. Whenever I sit still anywhere, I feel like I’m about to nod off.

Yesterday I woke up at 9:30 for a lesson (I’d gone to sleep around 1:30). I got back at noon and napped until four. I was still sleepy when I woke up. Ugh.

It’s especially annoying that I’m reverting back to not being able to wake up in the mornings after consistently waking up at 7 or 8 every morning with no alarm clock for at least a month. I’m going back to see my shrink next week, so maybe she’ll put me on a higher dose. Sigh.

BUT today I feel like I’m on the upswing. I woke up on my own at 10 (which isn’t 7, but it’s better than noon), and I’ve been able to get a few things done. Good timing, too—my first class starts at 8 tomorrow, and then I’ve got two lessons and a therapy appointment and work sometime in the middle of all that. It would be nice if I weren’t ready to stab myself in the eye at the end of tomorrow from sheer tiredness.

Just now I’ve actually been going a wee bit crazy with the clutter-busting. There are so many things I want to do—redo my file system, clean up the living room, do laundry, return a bunch of emails, work on my writing assignment, read two different books—and I’m *upset* that I can’t do them all at once. The fact that I’m sitting still to type this is actually kinda bugging me, as I can see at least five things from here that I could be doing instead. So I’m done.

So I was wondering why there weren’t any comments. But a minute ago I realized (with a hint from Jay) that really I’m just stupid and set it up wrong. Apparently the default setting is to hide all the comments until they’re moderated, and I didn’t notice. Apologies. Thank you for all the lovin’.

I registered for classes today at HBU. The entire process was relatively painless, as all the returning students and freshmen registered weeks ago, and it’s a small school to begin with.

After looking through the Course Bulletin, I’d decided I would like to enroll in Web Design and Intro to Philosophy. When I got there, however, they told me that all the Philosophy classes were full, and that the Web Design class had a prerequisite that was only offered at HBU. I told my advisor that I’d taken CS classes before, but she said, “No, those are all programming classes. The prereq is an applications class, you know, like Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer.”
“Can I test out of it? Because I know how to use Word.”
“No. Have you taken a class in computer applications before?”
“Um, does middle school count?”
*advisor is not amused*

So those were out. Most of the other classes I’d picked out as backups were either full or in conflict with an SAT class I’ll be teaching on weekday afternoons.

…and I’ll have to finish this later, as I suddenly find myself feeling incredibly, terribly nauseous. I’m a big worrier, especially about my health, and after chest pain, nausea is the most frightening, awful feeling there is. I think it’s because I hate throwing up so, so much–I’m almost crying just writing about it. Ugh. I think I’ll go sleep on the bathroom floor.

the next day…

ANYWAY. I don’t know where that came from, but eventually I fell asleep (in my bed), and now I feel better.

What I was going to say last night is that we (my advisor and I) searched and searched for morning and evening classes that were still open, and after ten or fifteen minutes we found two that looked reasonable: a History class on Modern China 8–10 T-Th, and an English “Special Topics” class on The Chronicles of Narnia 4–5:55 M-W. I registered for those, jumped through various other administrative hoops, and got out of there in just over an hour and a half.

I’m very pleased with the courses I ended up with—much more so, actually, than I was with the ones I’d chosen on my own. The Narnia class wasn’t even in the catalog, but my advisor said that the prof was an expert on C. S. Lewis, yada yada yada…so that’s all very exciting.

BUT, as I realized this morning when I tried to put my new classes into my planner, for the next several weeks I’ll be teaching a class over an hour away from HBU on most Mondays and Wednesdays that starts at 6. FRUSTRATION. I really really really want to take this class (my other options are World Civilization 1600–present and US History to 1865—ick), so I’m going to see if I can massage it a little and work out a combination of occasional subs for my SAT class and ditching my HBU class early a few times. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

P.S. I switched to open commenting for a reason. Show me some love, people!

I had a much grander plan for getting Prepoceros off the ground, really I did. I was going to learn about WordPress and all that CSS stuff, set up the structural backbone of the site the way I wanted it, draft a design, attempt to implement it, and tweak everything until it was juuuuuust right. But I recognize that I’m a rabid perfectionist–if I waited until the design and functionality were exactly the way I wanted them, I’d have nothing but that “hello world” post up for all eternity.

As I was blog-browsing today, I realized that what keeps me coming back to the same websites day after day is mostly their superior content. The design of a particular site has very little to do with whether I’ll stick with it or not. Since the content of my blog isn’t going to change much in the move, I might as well make the switch now and not worry so much about how it looks. I’ll get it running, and if it’s broken/ugly, I’ll fix it. After all, a blog is not a piece of art, over which you slave for days or weeks or months, then hang in a gallery to be admired. It’s a process, a journey. A static blog is a dead blog. Thus, content first; pretty-fying later.

The main reasons I’m moving to my own space are open commenting, google-ability, and the freedom to create as many pages as I like. Xanga only allows comments from other xangans, which, frankly, is complete and utter poop. Now everyone can join the party–huzzah! Also, I’ve always had a hankering for an “About” page, a “100 things” page, and various other random things, but xanga only lets you have the one page. One silly little page is not nearly enough to contain the wonderfulness that is my online self. I am vastly more important than that. Clearly.

One of the things that has kept me from making the move before now is that I felt like I had a few crucial decisions to make at this turning point in my blog’s life. I started the original one on a whim, with no idea what I was doing. Two and half years later, I’ve learned a few things about blogging, and I want to take full advantage of this opportunity to start fresh and undo any blunders I might have made in the first edition.

The most important decision, I think, is where to draw the line on what I do and don’t discuss here. I started out very guarded in my writing, not revealing much about myself, and I’ve gradually opened up over time. On my “official” site, however, I think it’s time to draw the curtains slightly. And I do mean slightly–I’ll still be spilling my guts on a regular basis, but I will make more of an effort to protect myself from anything that might be used against me in the future. Information is a powerful thing, and even though I have no plans to EVER run for public office, I’ve got a lot of life ahead of me, and I don’t want to say anything that will come back to haunt me.

I will tell you where I live and where I go to school, but I will not tell you where I work, or even talk about work much at all. (Not that I talked about it much before, but no need to put myself in danger of getting dooced.) I’ll probably even put pictures up at some point. There’s really no use trying to stay anonymous–the people you try to hide your blog from are inevitably the first to find it. If I had children, I’d be more careful*, for their sakes, but since I’ve only got myself to look after, I’ll say this: “Hey. Stalkers. Don’t stalk me. I’m not all that interesting in real life, I promise. Thanks.” Also, I will remember not to accept rides from strangers, unless they have candy and/or know the supersecret password**.

So, welcome to my new digs. There’s not much here yet, but I’m planning to spiff it up as I go along. If the site looks broken to you, please leave a comment or email me at natalie[at]prepoceros[dot]com.

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* I’m curious to see what will happen to the new generation of children-of-bloggers being spawned today. Will they revel in their online fame, or will they hold grudges against their parents for sharing with the world their every giggle, doctor’s visit, and poopy diaper?

This might be wishful thinking, but I think bloggers (and internet personalities in general) will be the “movie stars” of the future. I’m personally looking forward to seeing a teenaged Leta Armstrong on the front cover of People magazine.

** creamsicle