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Monday, April 18, 2005

Catching Up

Can you tell my other class started? I don't have time for much of anything right now. Work is the busiest it has been in a long time, plus I'm trying to squeeze in the classwork for two three-credit classes. I'm so glad I chose the staggered Spring semester instead of starting both classes the same week in January. What a difference in the work load! The American Lit class will be over by May 10 at the latest (depending on when I turn in my term paper), leaving me with only the Grammar class, which started the Monday after Easter. The Grammar class is a lot of work - tons of exercises every week, online interaction, a weekly quiz and some group work, which isn't always easy online. Every week since the second class started, it's taken me the whole week to complete all the assignments for both classes and get them posted by midnight on Sundays. It seems like I'm spending more hours on the Grammar class, but that's probalby because I'm actually doing assignments instead fo spending a majority of my time reading, which I don't even really notice when I'm reading books for the Lit class.

I'm starting to get overwhelmed because looking ahead on the calendar, we have plans every weekend from now until Memorial Day. I'm supposed to have the Mother's Day cookout at my house, but I think I'll have to back out and let someone else host it this year. Or else I'll never get my term paper finished.

I need to start reading Toni Morrison's Paradise tonight, so the new Nevada Barr will have to wait. I read a little bit of it over the weekend, but I'm not really getting into it yet. I think I feel guilty whenever I spend time on "pleasure reading" instead of doing schoolwork right now.

Monday, April 04, 2005

The Poconos

M. and I ran away to The Poconos this past weekend. It was the first time we had been away just the two of us since May 2003, so it was long overdue! We were asleep by 10pm on Friday and Saturday and I got about nine hours of sleep both nights! Even though the weather didn't cooperate (inches and inches of rain all day and night on Saturday, then snow when we woke up Sunday morning), it was very relaxing. We went out for breakfast Saturday morning and didn't leave the condo again until dinnertime. I read all of George Pelecanos's Drama City, which was great, and started Kristen Gore's Sammy's Hill, which was so horrible that I stopped after thirty pages and read The Glass Menagerie for my American Lit class instead. We rented Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Ladder 49 to bring with us and watched both of those, so I feel like I actually accomplished a lot while we were away!

My parents came to our house to stay with H., since she never sleeps very well when she's at their house, and it worked out well. She was so happy to see us. "I missed you!" she said over and over again when we first got home.