Two Weeks, No Waiting

Well, it's now been almost two weeks since my last post. Not because nothing has been going on; neither has it been because too much has been going on. I've simply been too lazy to write lately. I know, "Bad Deema!"

But really, it's not like I have anything interesting to report on. Just life stuff. But since most of it has been in my head, I suppose I could share:

Math class: I had my first math test in over a decade last week. I was a little nervous, but not too much. I  usually do well on tests and I've understood everything up to that point. The test was pretty easy. It took me all of about twenty minutes and that was only because I fully checked every answer and then reread through it just to make sure. When I got the test back, mine was one of the five perfect scores! I love math. :)

As geeky as it sounds, I really take a lot of pleasure in working on the homework. I'm usually a section or two ahead of the lectures. I like working throught them on my own and then checking how well I understand when the instructor covers it in class. We're starting to learn stuff that isn't readily accessable in my memory, which is fun. This week we started radical expressions (the math kind where you solve for the square root of x, not things like "Awesome, Dude!") Last night I was introduced to imaginary numbers, which comes in handy when practicing Creative Accounting (I'm only kidding, IRS!)

Superbowl Sunday: Ah, the ultimate man's holiday. Actually, I've rather enjoyed the last few. Usually I get together with friends, watch the game, eat, and generally have a good tme socializing. This year was no different, except that it was all different. Instead of going out to some party, Barb and I got together to make cards. We had the game on, but since neither of us gave a hoot about either team, it was mostly for the commercials. As usual, the beer commercials reigned supreme (especially the way cute Clydesdale and Steer playments), but I have to say Betty White getting tackled in the football game was my favorite commercial moment. I also really enjoyed the halftime show. It was fun hearing all three CSI themes in their original glory.

One football game, one TV show premere, one Disney channel movie, and two Jonas episodes later, I went home with a large stack of cards, all hand made by yours truly: 5 valentines (one for each of Steph's kids), one babyshower card, and one birthday card. I was pretty happy with myself.

Travel: I realized with the upcoming government holiday, my government job allows me an extra day to this weekend, so I contacted Steh and we started making plans for me to head up to see her and the kids (hence the V-day cards). Unfortunately, a few days after starting our planning, I got an email from Steph titled "Houston, we have a problem". Of course, no good news can follow that. It turns out that her in-laws decided to visit that same weekend. Aw! My plans got hi-jacked by the grandparents! No fair! Oh well, what can you do? I rescheduled for the end of the month instead.

Out and About: the groundhog may have decided to settle in for six more weeks of solitude, but I'm finding myself drawn out more often lately. Consider: card making with Barb, plans to head north to Steph and the kids, a babyshower for a friend, and Barb's birthday dinner last weekend.

I'm not sure how or when it started becoming tradition, but whenever one of us have a birthday, Barb, Christy, Kristina and me go out for dinner. It seems to be the only time the four of us see each other anymore. Barb chose Mexican food for dinner, which I was more than happy to comply with. We didn't make the staff sing to her because girlfriends have to take care of one another. And I deviated from my usual cheese enchalladas and went for a yummy, sizzling, meaty fajita plate. Can we say "Yum"? YUM!!!

On Monday I was over at Terry's and I started looking around and thinking about when I first started going over there (and consequently connected with Barb, Christy, and Kristina) and I realized that I miss those days. The community group, the friends, the fun. . . I've been toying all week with the idea of trying the singles group at church again. I think I'm finally enough over Terry that I could be there with him without becoming Psycho DramaQueen of the Waterworks. I don't think I can jump back into his community group, but baby steps. The more I think about going to the group again, the more hopeful and excited I become. Maybe now it's finally time to return to the fold.

Car Update: have you ever known that one person who would make your life absolutely miserable whenever it was just the two of you, but when you tried to get sympathy from others, they couldn't identify because they thought she was the sweetest person ever? Yeah, well lately my car has been that car. Not that I'm having major problems with it, but the check engine light keeps coming on. Usually when it does, it's followed by some weird sputtering that feels like no gas is getting through. But whenever I take it to someone to look at, it runs perfectly and the light turns off. No one, not one passenger or helpful friend has seen this. Case in point: I asked Terry if he could look at it on Saturday. All the way over to his house it was sputter, sutter, sputter (even a little worse than usual). I got there, handed him the keys and jumped in the passenger seat so he could feel the problem. He started the car and the check engine light was gone. We drove around to see if it would come back on; it didn't. Then we went back to his place to check if there was anything obviously out of place. The only thing I discovered was that I'm absolutely terrified of being under the car. Blame it on claustrophobia or the Final Destination movies, but you will never get me back under that thing. I even started to freak a little watching Terry be under it.

Anyway, after seeing nothing we could fix, I took my misbehaving car home. It drove perfectly all the way there. The light remained off when I drove over to meet the girls at Barb's. And it was positively angelic as I carted the four of us to and from the restaurant. Then I dropped everyone off and turned towards home. I made it about 15 feet when *DING* Sputter, Sputter. I guess it's one of those times when all I can do is find the humor in the situation and keep going. Maybe it's my car's way of encouraging me to start doing that carpooling thing.

So, there you have it; two weeks, no waiting. Well, okay, you had to wait for the post, but once you got it, everything was there. So maybe I should say "two weeks with no interruptions". I wish I had more interesting things to share. Maybe, if I'm very lucky, the coming spring will bring about new and exciting adventures for this weary old soul to enjoy.

And until then, I always have my imagination. . .

The Prodical Car

My car has returned home to me! I'm so happy. There are no words to describe the stress I was feeling while I waited to find out what was going to happen next.

Two weeks I waited. Two weeks of wondering. Two weeks of worrying. Two weeks of driving Derrick's crappy hunk of junk, never sure if the next time it died I'd be able to get it started again.

When I got the call that I could rescue my car and bring it back home, I was so relieved and happy. I picked it up, filled it with the expensive Chevron high-quality gas, and brought it home to it's waiting parking spot. I tucked it in and kissed it good night.

Just kidding.

Or am I?

A few hours later, the stress that I had been holding in check for two weeks finally caught up with me and my poor body gave up. Migraine, body aches, tight muscles all came crashing down upon me in one swoop.

But it doesn't matter. I'm relieved. Something finally went right for me.

Life, or Something Like It

There are a few things that I really hate doing. Things such as:

• washing the dishes
• putting gas in the car
• waiting for just about anything
• being even remotely involved in any discussion that touches politics
• admitting to anyone when I'm drowning financially

 I tell you this because I want you to understand how hard it is to write this now and to hopefully explain why it's taken so long to do so.

Life finally caught up with me last week and it came at me hard. I'm talking WWE champion punishing me for stealing his title belt hard. It beat me into an emotional heap of bloody hamburger. And now I'm sitting here waiting to hear if, and hopefully when, I'll be able to reclaim my missing car and wondering what else can be snatched out from under me before it's all finished.

Why can't life just be as simple as (b+2)/(b+3) + 1 = -7/(b-5) ? That I can figure out. When  did my life become more complicated than a college math class? It's just not right.

Geek Alert

Another quarter of classes started last week. Once again, I am endeavoring to exercise my mind by taking on another class. This time, I leave the subjective interpretations of the English department and return to my roots in square roots.

To those of you who have only known me as Creative Deema, the writer, the scrapbooker, or the budding photographer, this may come as a slight surprise to you, but when I first started college, my major was. . . MATH.

I was always really good in math. While I was never the genius math whiz that TV shows like Numbers are based around, I never really struggled with the subject while in high school. In fact (here's my first geeky admission of the night) I used to race one of my other semi-geeky classmates in finishing our geometry assignments before even leaving the class. Why? Well, because it was FUN, of course.

When I started college, I had no doubt in my mind about what field of study I wanted to go into. I sat down with my first ever college adviser and we discussed what classes I should get started with. She looked at my ever-impressive ACT scores and decided that I would do well to start my math career in Pre-Calculus. While I was rather impressed that my score put me at that level, I felt hesitant because I was pretty sure that Trigonometry was a foundational building block for Calculus and I hadn't yet been through that. I told her that I didn't think that was the right place for me, that in reality, I just test REALLY well when it comes to multiple choice and I really wasn't ready for Pre-Cal yet. But she said I would do fine, so I signed up and started the class.

For the first time ever, I struggled in my math class. The teacher kept talking about stuff I had no idea about and seemed frustrated to have to explain things to me. It turned out that (as I had suspected) I really was missing a very fundamental piece of information. But I continued trying. I managed to get a C out of the class. It was the first ever C that I received in math that was not due to a lack of trying.

A C qualified me to move on into Calculus, but I wound up with the same instructor and still missing the same foundation. I was drowning in Calculus and knew it was only going to get harder. So that was when I made the first of several switches to a new major, turning almost full-circle and winding up in the English major.

I was always just a little sad about that decision. Ultimately I did get my math fix by minoring in Accounting and that made me feel a little better, but it's always haunted me that I let Calculus beat me like that.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I felt so good after completing my Creative Writing and Literature classes that I decided it was time to conquer that math dragon. I knew just signing up for a Calculus class would be stupid, seeing as I couldn't do it before and it's been over 10 years since I've taken a math class now. I contacted the Head of the Math Department on campus and discussed with him where the best place to start would be. We looked over some of the finals for different classes that he had on file and we decided on Intermediate Algebra for me.

Tuesday was the first class. The instructor went over the usual beginning-of-the-quarter stuff, then dove right in. She started talking about stuff that sounded completely foreign to me. "Poly-somethings" and "trinomials" and some method she called FOIL. I had no clue what she was saying. But when she turned around and started writing on the board, it all started coming back and I realized that the language of math might have changed, but the numbers never do.

By the end of class, I knew that I was in the right place. As much as I enjoyed my English classes, they always took a little warming up to for me. There was always that doubt in the back of my mind that I might not be able to do it. But with math, I felt like I had returned home. It was familiar and comforting. And as if I needed more proof, I found myself working not only on the assigned homework all week, but also the extra practice worksheets she gave us and even glancing through the problems we weren't assigned to do. Why? Because it's FUN, of course.

So there you have it: I'm a math geek and proud of it. And totally looking forward to the journey that will lead me to taking on the Calculus dragon.

2009 in a Nutshell

Steph and I were discussing our year and she was talking about doing a recap of the year on her blog. I thought it was a good idea, but really, didn't feel it would be necessary for my blog since my year was not that exciting or interesting. But looking back over my past entries, I realized that while the year was nothing compared to the year I was 30 (commonly referred to as "My Best Year Ever"), it was full. So, I decided that I would put a little recap of the year, so that any new readers could have a quick catch-up and all my old readers could have a refresher. I've included links to past entries in case anyone desires to read the full story on some of the activities.

2009
That was the year that:

The canine population of our family increased by one

Derrick and Jade moved in

Our family lost Grandpa, Bill, and Troy

I was able to mark West Virgina off the list of states I haven't yet visited (and add it to the list of states I feel no need to visit again)

Several road trips were made to visit Steph and the kids

I reconnected with old friends, old classmates, and a couple of old flames via Facebook

I finally got over Terry

I realized I really am a dog person

Mom, Don, and I saw Wicked

I found out what happens after margarita #4

I experienced my first drag show

I attended my first stripper-included bachelorette party

I almost lived a romantic fairy tale

I kept my job despite the hard economic year and continuous budget cuts in the job markets

I became "old" . . . and wasn't the only one to notice

I got my first digital SLR camera!

It was also the year of:

• LOTS of photography practice
• English classes
• beginner dog training
• self-taught Finnish lessons
• a new cell phone and near non-stop texting
• house, baby, and dog-sitting
• two break-ups (a record for one year)
• Wellbutrin