In which all my well laid plans go to poop...

I was going to be organized. Honest I was. I had lists, beautiful lists. I forgot the lists at work. I was going to have a spotless house to return to after our mini vacation. My house is anything but spotless. All of the clothes we will be wearing are now either in a laundry basket waiting to be washed or in the washer currently. My name is Bee, and I'm a procrastinator.

I actually bought a book called Procrastination For Dummies. I've never finished it. For some reason my mother finds this highly amusing. I'm afraid I may have done something that will peeve my mom. My mom is the queen of e-mail forwards. If she gets a forward, no matter how insipid, inane, stupid, she will forward it on. Most of the time they are cute little jokes. Well Thursday she send me a forward about the Iraqi conflict. Something about how it's not as bad as the 'liberal media' has made it out to be. It stated that during the course of the 'official' war, there were only 35 deaths. I couldn't help myself. I sat down last night and found three different websites, with some very different statistics. I sent them back to her and explained that while I support the troops, I don't support killing them for someone else's political agenda. Hindsight is telling me that I should have applied the old adage of not discussing religion and politics. I should have deleted the e-mail and just forgotten about it. The thing is, she was off work today so she won't see it until Tuesday. She may just brush it off and ignore it, like she does most of my opinions. Ah well I guess it's too late to worry about it now.

I finished Inkheart. It was good, though surprisingly dark for a children's book. I had a hard time losing myself in the story, but that might be due to some of the language idiosyncrasies. Maybe some of the translations aren't as flowing as in the native German. It had a preview of the next in the series, Inkspell, and I am really looking forward to getting that. In the meantime I've started the second book in the Bartimaus trilogy. I'm only 5 or 6 chapters in, and it seems better than the first one so far. Although Nathaniel still seems to be lacking in any sympathetic qualities. I kinda want him to be squished like the little pompous bug he's been acting like. I'm going to take my Villa Mirabilia with me this weekend, maybe I'll be able to get some good time in on it.

And to end on a happy note: my boss is on vacation all next week. Yay!! It's been a while since either one of us has been on vacation, and it will be nice to have a break. Ever since she looked at me and asked, "Are you pregnant again?" I've been looking forward to some time without pointed references to my reproductive system.

This is the first day...

of the rest of your life. Ahem. Well anyway. I had my meeting with the grad student. It wasn't at all what I expected. I'm quickly learning that the world of academia is nothing more than a long series of networking. From this meeting, the grad student will e-mail the lab group asking if they would like to make use of a slave (err... umm... assistant, yea that's it) for a while. From there I will be put to work doing large amounts of data entry and journal research. Good news is that this can be done at any time, so it will fit into my very bizarre schedule. Bad news is that it is extremely boring. I assured her that I can handle boring. I do boring for a living. Oh geez, I meant I do data entry for a living. Technically I am order entry/customer service. They throw the /customer service in so I feel like part of the team without actually costing them the money of a customer service specialist. It isn't working.

I'm pretty excited. We are going on our first actual 'vacation' this weekend. Well sort of a mini vacation. We rented a cabin in some state park for a couple of days this weekend. While the part of me that is my father's daughter scoffs at staying in a cabin (That's not real camping!), the other, older, achier part of me is glad of my husband's foresight in getting up something with a bed. The park has a lake, so my one concession to physical fitness can be enjoyed if the weather allows :) It should be really nice, the great and glorious weather people are predicting temps around 80, and we all know they are *never* wrong.

I'm reading a book called Inkheart, it is really good so far! For some reason I have been on a children's book kick. Anne of Green Gables, Inkheart, Harry Potter, Little House On The prairie. They are all like dear old friends, that I only get to see every once in a while. Trapped in their pages are the tatters of my innocence. Times when life was safe, and held all the possibilities I could dream up. Even the books that weren't around when I was a child seem to sweep me back to being curled up on my twin bed in my parent's house. Sometimes I think I smell the lilacs from the bush that was outside my bedroom window. Enough waxing poetic. Off to begin the first of many lists of what to pack for two days away from home with the two monkeys that masquerade as my children.

adrift

Church was a disappointment today. I'm beginning to think it is impossible to find a place to worship that is hippocrite free. Not even hippocrite free... I'm not sure of how to say it. I don't want to go into painful detail and background information. We stopped going years ago because of the political B.S. that was all over. We went back because we both agreed it was important for the kids to have a religous education. A background they could use to make their own decisions from. Now I just want to leave again. I don't feel uplifted, or inspired. Oh well.

I've registered for my classes next semester. I'll be taking French, Law and Society, Interpersonal Family Relations, and Music As A World Phenomenon. No Psych classes, but after this semester I will be done with all of my required electives! Well except for language. I have at least 3 more semesters of that. Yipee.

The last time I met with my advisor he suggested I bulk up on stats and biology. (Possibly because he is a biologic research psychologist who minored in bio himself...) He said that in a field where GPA and GRE are equal, stats and science wins. I hate math. I nearly set my calculator on fire in celebration when I finished my required elective. I thought I could honestly say I am done with math for life. Looks like that plan is shot to hell :)

I really, really don't understand the uproar over the Davinci Code. It's a book. A work of fiction. Pretend, imaginary, not real. I don't know how to put it more plainly. It is a good story. I read Harry Potter, and I'm not walking around debating whether there is or isn't a school of magic hidden in the English countryside. I read a book called the Barbed Coil, but I'm not waiting around for a magic ring to transport me to an alternate universe. Novels are meant for entertainment. I'd like to see what the people who are taking these books literally, word for word, make of abstract art. But I guess I shouldn't be so flippant. I've had people tell me fantasy books are evil. Humph.