Ok, Little Breather Here

Good morning. I thought that I should let someone know that I am doing much better over the last few days than I was doing earlier last week. No more smut stuff. YAYYY! I’ve got just a little bit of time before I take my shower and head out to Dr. M’s and a little bit of work. We have a staffing tomorrow and am hoping to get a chance to talk to the DSP. I don’t know ... this one makes herself absent on staffings quite a bit ... hoping to get some information from her though. Not sure ... she likes to take the day off after being on vacation too. We’ll have to see.

I slept in this morning ... not sure why. I had gotten up around 2 am. Ate breakfast and then felt very tired. I had gone to bed at 7:30 pm, so hadn’t expected it. I have gotten about half way through the paper I started last night. This one is about people in their middle ages. It was kinda of a downer in that we had to explain how we change physically and cognitively. I think I lost it on the reminders of how much we start to wrinkle and sag. Ugh.

Enough of that!

There is good news in that V. Is getting strong enough to go to work. YAYY! And our other friend might stop by on his way home. He’s only working one day, because he plans to head out for a very long 5-day fishing weekend. I know he really likes to do that sort of thing. So we’re thinking good for him. Of course, that leaves us a little more lonely for him. But, it’s very nice to welcome him home again!

I’m not so happy about going into work, but I am thinking it is going to be a pretty short day.

We’re a little nervous about going into Dr. M.’s though traditionally seeing him is one of the week’s high points. Think we have some psychological clean-up work to be doing. Think especially Saturday had some set-backs. For now, it’s kind of hard to think about all that.

Mostly, we’re tuned to the school work. Over the weekend, we had caught-up on the Writing course and had made a little advancement in writing and reading in the Lifespan course. Another thing that had happened though is that we’d gotten our check for the books we need to order for next semester. From that point, we went into Amazon a little too heavily. Books were ordered beyond what the courses or check would cover. This morning, I looked at my check book and wanted to cry. I don’t know what gets into us. It’s like having those extra books is a matter of life and death. I know we are going off the ledge, because realistically, we do not have the time to be reading everything that is ordered. Just the feeling of having the books to resource at our fingertips is an overwhelming feeling of security.

Just thinking now ... this has been a long-standing problem. It started in elementary school with book ordering. We weren’t satisfied until we got about a dozen books. What was the company ... maybe Scholastic Book Club? It seems whenever there is money that becomes our top priority. Somehow it seems the books become part of our identity and contribution to the future. I have to be careful with my thoughts there, because I see the boys as most likely throwing a good majority away. That thought breaks my heart, because in the action, I feel as if they would be throwing me and my life away. But, they would be in the right. To them the books would be unnecessary clutter, where for me, I look at each title and it brings memories to life. It reflects where I’ve been and the changing interests I have had.

Ok, ok ... you get my drift here? Still down that nostalgic path... It seems as if I have collected nothing else in life, except my direct furnishings and books. No candles, dolls, videos, CDs, or funny glass figurines. Just books.

Hmm, maybe it is time I take my shower. It’s a little bit early yet, but I’m within minutes of the time I usually take the medicine, and maybe then, I will have a half hour to look up the next question the paper requires. I have to answer a broad question on social changes that occur in mid-life. We are into the home stretch. This is week ten and we end on Saturday of week 11. Need to get a move on things. It seemed strange, but after I finished this last chapter, I looked ahead and there was only one more left. It has to do with people in their older years. It seems to have taken a long time to get to the middle years and in one chapter it is done and we’re looking at retirement and death. Somehow this doesn’t seem quite fair.

I will miss this course immensely. It has been a lot of work, but I remained tied into the lessons very closely. V. Said something about being glad when I don’t associate so personally with the material. I have mixed feelings about this. It would seem more professional to be looking at it with arms length, but I’m not sure that alone would have made the course worth while. I thought about it a lot yesterday while reading over the sections on leaving a legacy. I should be 50 by the time we end, IFI can stay on course. Realistically, that is 10-15 years left to work and leave my mark. Because the future is so unsure, it is hard to tell where all this will end. It seems though the day to day value of knowing more and more ... justifies the end so far down the path. It’s hard to believe, but by the end of next week and the beginning of the next semester come October 3rd, I will have completed 20% of my masters work. That’s definitely on the trail of where I want to be. We’re now into it almost 5 months and still looking forward.

Hmm, one more set of thoughts. I looked into the next courses. They are going to be on multi-cultural and Cognitive/affective behavior. I sorted through a good amount of material on what all that will be covering. I appreciate the hell out of Amazon for allowing people to read into the books a bit. And, I read the long version of what will be required In the courses. Some pretty big writing projects ahead. I think each course ends with a 25-30 page paper. I like to think I am getting better at this. I hope with the paper I am on and the next one to be including a little more analysis and synthesis. Though so far, I am writing as per standard quoting and paraphrasing each sentence by sentence. I guess one of the things I have in mind and part of what keeps me honest, is that I really do want a good solid reference to go back to when I get to the end point and am required to look back in a collective spirit. I feel proud of the papers’ accuracy by having kept so close to its basis. It really excites me to thinking of being able to pull together in my mind big elements of knowledge. Oh yeah ... I stopped by at a sight yesterday too where I found a fairly simple explanation on how memory works. I added the whole thing to my Masters’ journal. I can’t help to think that my memory would be assisted by thinking of the processes more systematically. Pretty gosh darn cool stuff!