Funeral the Fourth

I went to my fourth funeral in four months tonight. Well...visitation, actually--but I sort of count them as the same thing. I actually think the wake is more important--sort of like the wedding reception being more important than the actual ceremony.

I haven't had that funeral to month ratio since my Montgomery days, and I forget sometimes how exhausting death is. This is something I need to think about as I embark on a career in mortuary science. I am still doing that, by the way! Death screws with my sleep, with my eating, with my everything. I've talked about it before, but it's how I deal with it--it's not something that is likely to change. So, when I think about making my career in the death industry, surrounding myself with grief and death and dying, I have to wonder--will I make it? Will I desensitize myself or find coping strategies that enable me to sleep at night? Or, will I NOT make it--simply drop from sheer exhaustion at some random funeral because I ignore my own physical reactions.

It's an interesting question.

Grandma, Mark, Pete, and Marissa. 93, 54, 19, 20. Grandmother, Husband, Son, Daughter.

Exhausting.

Where to go, what to do?

Could someone please tell me what I want to do when I grow up? Because clearly I don't know. I want to:

--teach yoga
--teach English
--teach at the new alternative school
--be a writer
--be a funeral director

I can't do them all. But, I can't figure out which one I want to do more than any of the others. I'm standing on a hub with five spokes around me and I can only do one, really. I mean, I can teach yoga and teach English, or teach yoga and be a writer, but I want to do them all full time.

I know I've been working toward goals, but I'm at that stage where I've got fifty irons in the fire and they're all burning crispy because I can't tend to them properly. I'm all over the place, and that's not a good place to be.

So, tell me. What do I do? Which path do I persue?

Stick a fork in me...

I'm done with summer classes.

I'm sitting here in the Great Red Chair of Sleep with the entire day spread out before me. Gatsby needs to go to the vet and I need to go to the chiropractor, but other than that, the day is mine. I do not need to go to chemistry, take a quiz online, study flashcards, go to lab, or think of Normandale in any way, shape or form.

Bliss.

Tomorrow night is the Social Reincarnation Soiree---about 20 people coming to my house to hang and celebrate my doneness. I guess maybe I should spend part of this day of doing nothing cleaning the house. Hmmm..... or maybe I'll just curl up with Leif Enger's amazing Peace Like a River. Decisions, decisions.

Paging Dr. Nash...

What have I done all weekend?

Math.

Literally, ONLY math. I ate a little, and by eating I mean I ingested and digested rational expressions, imaginary numbers, and the square of the hypotenuse. I did 54 pages of problems--front and back (54 of my pages, not the book. God only knows how many book pages I did). Oh, and I snuck in some yoga. Hey, I had to do *something* to clear my head of numbers, numbers, numbers.

The next time I decide to forgo math in place of going out and partying like it's my birthday, smack me. Seriously. As much fun as the week was, this weekend was sheer fucking hell. But I needed to do all eight sections in preparation for tomorrow morning's exam.

Okay, on to Biology. Quiz tomorrow on cell reproduction and then exam on Tuesday on photosynthesis, cell reproduction, and aerobic respiration. Funsies.

Is it Friday yet?

Today in biology I tried so damn hard to stay awake--I really did. And I was successful, but there was a small problem. I was concentrating so hard on staying awake that most of what my prof was saying missed me almost entirely. I got all the notes and I think I mostly get what's going on, but it was brutal. The most brutal part being, of course, that just making it through class isn't enough; I also had to make it through a three hour lab where we measured shit in milliliters. Oi.

Fridays have significant meaning to me these days, since they are the only day of the week I don't have class. Mondays are five hour bio class and math, Tuesdays are usually exam days and now fiction class, Wednesdays are five hour bio class and math, Thursdays are the beginning of the descent--two hour class, math, yoga (yay!)....and then blissful Friday. Those first three days of the week, though, man, Dude. TGIF.

Now, of course, I have to study for biology. The test tomorrow is on bacteria, intro to metabolism, and membranes. Oh, and archaea. Whatever those are. HA!

Which of the seven deadly sins is pride?

Not that it matters.

Let me sit down with you and have a chat. Seriously....come here, next to me, pull up a cushion. We need to talk about grades and about hard work because I learned a few things over the past five months and I want to share them with you.

Comfy? Excellent.

Okay, so as a teacher I know how arbitrary grades are. And they're biased as hell. I give kids breaks left and right, and, while I don't take points away from kids just because I don't like them, I don't do those kids any favors either. The whole grading system is flawed beyond measure......yet it is the only system that "matters" to success for eighteen years of a person's life. There were doors that opened and closed to me based on whether or not the professor a) had had their coffee; b) liked me; c) agreed with my opinion; d) actually graded the stuff or had a TA do it that may or may not have known more than I did. Or many other reasons. As a result, I tend to make sure the overall grade for the student reflects their effort and the work that they completed. I give extra credit. I'm more in favor of hard work than of knowledge. Maybe that makes me unfair, but that's how I am.

So, my point. I finished my last final test tonight, and went home praying I had done enough to not wreck my A. My arbitrary, biased, doesn't-matter A. And I got it. I earned 3 As. With teaching an overload, with a second job at a funeral home, with a dog, with having a life. I earned my first 4.0 ever in my life. And let me tell you---I have never, ever been more proud of myself than I am tonight. Not when I graduated from St. Olaf, not when I got accepted to the Zoetrope: All Story writing conference, not when I was honorable mention in the Mentor Series. This is pride that comes straight from hard work-your-ass-off work, which I've discovered I've done decidedly little of in my life.

I know it's only going to get harder from here. This is the tip of the iceberg, and the further I get into it, the more pressure I'll feel to maintain the 4.0. But I'm focused now in a way that I wish I could share with my students--I wish I could make them see the difference between a B that's handed to them (what I accepted my whole life) and an A that is well earned. The difference is immeasurable.

A secret for you---I wasn't a good student. I look like I would have been, acted like I would have been, but I worked far below my actual ability level. Because I'm lazy. And sloth, also one of those seven deadlys, was a huge downfall for me. I'm not a totally smart person--I'm not a natural A girl, I'm a girl that needs to work for her As. And I never did before this January.

So, I'm basking tonight in a feeling that I've honestly never felt before---total and complete pride in a job truly well done. I know I did my best, and I was rewarded for it. Am I placing too much emphasis on grades? Absolutely. But, well, sometimes it's okay to do that.

Huh...this pressure cooker thingy has a lid...

Last night I took my bio final. I won't speak of it beyond that I only needed seven points to hold an A in the class (50 point test) and I'm really hopeful (but not positive) that I got seven right. I have my accounting final on Tuesday and my Death and Dying final on Wednesday and then I'm done.

And a funny thing happened when I woke up this morning. At 1pm. The sac of stress I've been floating in since January broke open during the night and I felt a level of calm that I don't remember feeling in months. I definitely prefer to work harder during the term so that finals don't matter quite as much (opposed to the girl in my bio class who didn't even show up for the final because there's no way she can get a C in the class even with a perfect score so she has to retake the class anyway).

Today is my day to sit and enjoy. To read my book. Practice yoga. Play games on the computer. Yeah, I need to clean and do laundry too, but that's cool, I can do that. Later I'll go to the grocery store and get some beans, mushrooms, veggies, to match up with my new food plan. I'm excited for today.

In a tad more than three weeks I start the summer term: cellular biology and intermediate algebra. I have bio for 14 hours a week. Yeech. The learning for that class will be intense: both fast and hard. But, I can do it. In three weeks.

Meltdown #618

When I spoke of my meltdown last week, I didn't really imagine that I'd have another one quite so quickly. But, well, I guess my freaking out is an hourly occurrence these days. But, last night while I was sitting down doing my accounting and chatting with Jodi about various sundry items, I suddenly flipped out again.

Now when I say 'suddenly,' I mean just that. I mean that like a switch was flipped inside me, 'suddenly' everything was wrong and I was going to fail accounting (well, get a B, which is just as bad) and I couldn't get the problems or the exercises and blah blah blah.

Because Jodi is my friend and knows me well, she didn't bat an eye when I went from normal conversationalist to suicidal bitch. She switched right along with me, complaining about my professor and the stupid exercises and how could I be expected to do work when it's not explained? And that, folks, is a true friend. Sure, she threw Moist Frank in at the end, but it was a well deserved jab.

I've always, to some degree, had the freakout gene. Having classes, though, and being at the break point for stress 24/7 has only exacerbated an already unruly situation.

Yoga saves the day

I could try telling you about this week. I could attempt to explain the insane combination of events that sent me into the weekend begging for just a few hours to not have to think...Could try to explain in detail any one of the following events:

--> The adverse and somewhat numbing reaction to the death of an old friend's baby daughter

--> The irritation felt by finding out that I need to attend my 7th hour every day until the end of the year because my batch of 25 honors-level seniors cannot be trusted to behave themselves with a substitute teacher.

--> Completely wigging out in a somewhat overly-dramatic moment in which I announced that not only was I quitting teaching, I was quitting my at-risk program *today* and then there was some stalking off and some door slamming, followed by a lot of tip-toeing around by my coworkers and students out of straight up fear that I might lose my shit all over again.

--> Partner yoga, in which I became intimately involved with a stranger whom I know only as Moist Frank

--> Finding out that not only did my best friend's fiance quit his teaching job four months before his contact expired, but he lied about quitting for two months (yes, you read that correctly) and continued to get up every morning to "go to work" until he finally had to pony up the truth eight weeks after the fact

--> Forgetting the casket spray after taking the casket from the sanctuary, leading to a not-so-serious yet definitely present first mistake in the funeral biz


Yes, any of those could be expanded and expounded upon for some length, particularly Moist Frank and the lying-asshole-fucker-loser my best friend seems to still plan to marry, but I'll spare you.

Instead, today I went to yoga. Beautiful, fantastic, amazing, mind-sheltering yoga. Alicia and Molly are sharing the class, and today was Alicia's day. BFF Erica is taking the Sunday class with me, and it was a fine, fine way to finish out what may be the Shittiest Week In Which Nothing Actually Happened Directly to Me.

Mother Nature is a craaaaazy lady

I awoke this morning at 7am (I KNOW) to a white blanket of downy snow. And the wind, friends, is a force to be reckoned with. But, it's okay. I really don't mind. Frankly, I'm pretty happy it's crappy out because I'm heading into finals and if I had to balance Dexter (the rat formally known as Buddy George Van Gogh), finals, teaching, breathing, etc. with 80 degree weather and sunshine, I don't quite know what I would do. So, sorry people--the crappy weather is my fault.

In other news, Dexter and I have spent about 12 quality hours together this week, and I'll be showing his goods to my professor on Monday night in the form of my dissection card quiz. Thirty points, so I'll need to know 15 of Dexter's parts. Dexter has about a hundred parts, and I know them all like the back of my own hand. I also had to get to know Diane's rat's lady parts, because we're responsible for knowing both genders. I am still not eating meat, except for the pepperoni pizza I ate last night. Nothing in Dexter looks like pepperoni, so it's okay.

Buddy George (Or why I am now a vegetarian)

Today after biology I went to the lab to get my rat and begin dissecting him. I wasn't totally jazzed about it, of course, but I had no idea the number of times my stomach could turn without losing my lunch.

Buddy George (George because of 'Of Mice and Men', Buddy because I kept calling him Buddy...as in "I'm sorry, Buddy," when I cut off his ear. Yeah. I should name him Van Gogh.) is a good little rat. He's got all his parts in all the right places, and didn't gross me out with any irregularities.

However, once you've eviscerated a mammal (small or otherwise), chicken loses its appeal. I'm not sure about steak or hamburger, but I'm pretty sure I'll never eat chicken again. I could probably do fish. But it's going to have to be an un-chicken-like fish.

I'm really not sure what else I can say about it.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Well, not a lot to update except:

1. I've made myself far too busy than I can handle.

2. As a result of #1:

--> Insomnia has completely slowed me down. Like I think my heart is actually beating slower. I'm walking slower, talking slower, and, inevitably, thinking slower.

--> Nutrition and exercise have gone completely out of the picture.

--> Because of the insomnia, the nutrition, the exercise, my back and knees and neck have reached new levels of pain.

--> Because of the new levels of pain, my emotions are positively depressed (now there's an oxymoron for you). I'm like a vortex of depression--draining the energy of everyone around me. I got asked so many times today "what's wrong?" I think I may make a tshirt. Frankly, I'm too tired to explain it all.

3. This making myself more busy than I can handle is my own fault. And my attempt to keep adding fuel to the fire--adding more tasks--is only going to result in my shorting out and very possibly losing what I've been working really hard for.

4. Because I know myself, I know it's only a matter of time before my health is compromised. From the sounds of it, that's taking place as we speak.

5. I have a test in Death and Dying tomorrow. I'm really hoping that I don't fail it. Seriously. For the amount of time i spent studying for this test compared to the last one, failure is a very real possibility. Here's hoping the gods of test taking are with me tomorrow.

I think that's it. Oh, I referred to "12" and "midnight" as two separate hours today when telling someone that I'm awake into the night. As in, "I'm wide awake around 11, 12, midnight, 1, 2..." Yeah, I should take a test.

Taking a break

So I decided yesterday that I needed to take a break. No a five minute break or a half-hour hiatus, but a full-on real live break. No tests next week, the end of the trimester at work, so yesterday I put all obligations on hold and spent the day doing absolutely nothing. I played games on Facebook, I took a nap, I read my book, I watched movies and Seinfeld. In short, I went back to my old life. It was fabulous.

Today it's back to the grind--accounting and biology and planning out classes for next term and grading finals. But it's okay, I guess.

Undercover

I seem to have developed a disturbing habit: sleeping with my head under the covers. I carve out a small breathing hole but otherwise my head is completely wrapped up in blankets when I fall asleep. If my head is exposed to the world, I lay awake and feel, well, exposed.

I can't help but wonder how a bed companion (assuming I ever again in this lifetime manage to share my bed with another human being) might interpret this behavior. I wonder how I should interpret this behavior. I wonder if it's just a way I'm coping with the stress of Operation: DBH and it'll go away when the classes end? Or maybe I've just taken one step closer to walking off the deep end.

Either way, about a month ago when Jessie and her fiance Brian came to visit, she joked with me about it. "You were, like, totally burrowed in!" And I had to admit my new sleeping position. Hopefully I won't suffocate myself in my sleep. That would be unfortunate.

Coming to you live from 1954...

In Psych of Death and Dying tonight we did an ethics activity where one dialysis machine was available and five people needed it. I've done the activity before in other contexts so I knew what the basic idea was. In groups, we needed to decide on the best, most deserving person to use the machine knowing that the others would die as a result of not being chosen. We are given some information about each candidate, and then once we decide we are given more information about each candidate that is designed to call our original choice into question.

The point of the exercise is really no point at all: all lives are significant and there is no "right" answer. Done. I picked the 42 year old man who was on the brink of discovering the cure for cancer. To me, that seemed like a no-brainer.

What shocked the hell out of me was the way that the class eliminated the women from the group. There were three men and two women. The majority of the class chose Dave, a 19 year old male. Gone was Edna, a single 34 year old woman. Why? Because she didn't have kids. No one depended on her. Gone, also, was Coda, a 28 year old mother of four. Why? Trick question. Some people had originally chosen her, but with the additional information that it was actually her mother that did most of the caretaking for the children, off the list she went. Because the kids had someone that would raise them. Both women were young and firmly established either in a career or as a housewife. Yet they were not considered "worthy" of life as much as....

The 19 year old boy. Who is, I may add, childless, but apparently that's not a measure of value for men, only for women. Think of the potential this young man has! they proclaimed. As opposed to the 34 year old professional businesswoman who may as well drop dead for all she's contributing to society in the way of offspring.

I'm really surprised how much this is bothering me; it's a class exercise. It's a class exercise designed to show that no one's choice is correct. Done, end of story. But the people in my class were so dead set against these two women--saw no value in them whatsoever--and I kept sitting there thinking "This is me. I am Edna. And if these people are, God forbid, in charge of my life (which someday they may be--they're all younger than I am by about 10 years), I'll be shut down not because of something I've done, but because of what I *haven't* done." I haven't had children. I don't know that I ever will. I may never get married. And I left class tonight feeling like my worth as a person had been called into question. It was such a huge reminder that though I am surrounded by single women friends and married women friends who have decided not to have children and they love me and support me, the world is still uncomfortable with single, childless women.

I know, I'm going overboard with it. But, hey, as a single woman I guess I need to stick my voice out there and be heard. Who knows when someone will point the finger at me and decide that my value is less than--not equal too--that of a 19 year old boy.

Not going to waste today!

I have a lot of stuff that I need to get done this weekend. So much so that I think I need a schedule in order to accomplish it all, rather than realize at 10pm tomorrow night that I didn't really accomplish anything.

Here is a quick-and-dirty list of what needs to be done:

1. clean the house
2. walk the dog
3. study for histology lab test
4. finish death/dying project
5. take chapter 3-4 accounting test
6. do chapter 5 accounting work
7. grade CPC Poe essays
8. Run 4 miles
9. do laundry
10. go grocery shopping for next week
11. mail books for bookmooch
12. go to school and print histology slides

Dang. It's worse than I thought. And, I have the feeling I'm forgetting some things. I'm trying really hard to not feel guilty over not going to lab today, the last day the histology slides are available. I can do most of the work online and I know it'll be packed in there today. I've spent about 6 hours in there, I think, for this lab.

Okay, a schedule is definitely in order.

Captain Procrastination called---

He wants his title back.

I have the biggest test of my known life coming up this Wednesday. Have I studied? Not one single bit. I've got a study schedule, I've got all my materials, I've got everything I could ever need.

Except motivation.

I'm in the process, now, of cleaning the house. This is an age-old, tested and true procrastination technique of mine perfected in my college days. During finals, I had the cleanest dorm room on campus. All other times--it was a war zone.

I'm heading out to lunch in an hour and then after that I MUST study. No more messing around. No more cleaning, surfing channels, snuggling the dog, reading, or napping. From when I get home on through Monday morning, I will eat, drink, sleep, live and breathe Biology chapters 1, 3, 5 and 8.

Taking my nose out of my biology book to update y'all on my life

A huge biology test this upcoming Wednesday has forced me into a deep cavern of studying. This, following my first major psych-death-dying test. I've not really been home before nine pm any time this week, and the only thing I have to say is "Hey, I was studying."

But, people have been checking in to see if I'm alive, so I wanted to let the world know I still exist. And I'm getting smarter with all this studying. Yippee. This weekend I'm going to the lab (big surprise) and then out to lunch with a former student, then shopping with Erica. And studying. Lots and lots of studying.

Salvaging Sunday

So I sat in my crabby pants pretty much all day and then decided that the best way to salvage what should have been a perfectly wonderful Sunday (blasphemy to waste them, friends) would be to make myself crabcakes for dinner.

I'm not going to lie--I make the best damn crabcakes this side of Maine. Thought I guess they'd probably make lobstercakes. Whatever--you get my drift. And it seems to be working. Though I am still put out a bit by the overall structure of the class, I'm not so pissed off that I can't savor every bite of my yummy dinner. And, though it's 7:20 and I teach in 12 hours, I'm okay with that.
I do have a huge test on Wednesday, a quiz tomorrow, and another huge test a week from Wednesday, but I will survive all of them. I need a study schedule, but I'll survive them. You bet yer sweet crabcakes I will.

A sunday afternoon rant

I hate my accounting class more than I've ever hated anything in my life. And, as many of you know, I've hated some things pretty deeply from time to time.
I'll spare you the details and summarize my issue thusly:

I hate spending three hours on an accounting problem that's worth one point. I hate that while working the problem, I can only see half the screen at a time, even when it's in full screen mode and everything is pushed out as far as it can go. I hate that, while I get three chances to do a problem, the numbers change each time so it's really never the same problem. Finally, I hate that when all is said and done, and I've worked the problem four times over three hours, I end up with 0.99 out of 1 because the final number I entered was 5,500 instead of 5,550.

I am not a fan of online classes. I'm not enjoying the fact that my professor is getting paid when it's the computer assigns the problems, corrects them, and gives me a grade. I had no idea how important it was for me to connect an instructor's face with a class. I'm going to ignore the completely snippy email she sent out that she didn't even sign her name to or put any type of a salutation, even though that's how we in polite society work things. That won't be hard, considering that though there are opportunities for her to put comments in each of our assignments, she has written nothing for the 55 problems I've done. Not so much as a "good job" for the 54.99 points I've earned out of those 55 problems.

So, I'll keep working on this stuff, but I'm not going to like it, even though I've always loved accounting. I refuse to like it this time. So there.