swamped.

i feel like i am getting pummeled by school. i dropped my biology of women class, but i'm still enrolled in sociology, math, and a&p. i'm constantly doing homework or meeting a due date. so tired.

my coworker came to work three hours late and hammered on saturday. i contacted my boss, she showed up at work, and sent him home. they talked on monday and my coworker decided to give his two weeks. he thinks that working in the bakery is what is causing him to be such an alcoholic. truth is, he has always been an alcoholic since he started the job three years ago. it is just getting worse because his disease is progressing. i'm bummed that he's leaving, disappointed at his lack of insight, but mostly i'm annoyed that he keeps showing up to work roughly an hour late everyday.

well. i just thought i'd pop in. i'm pretty tired. the cats kept me up last night and this morning so i'm probably going to snuggle into my blankets with a natgeo magazine and fall asleep.

on success.

my group didn't actually have any questions completed on friday for our a&p case study. it took us about four and a half hours to answer nine questions. SO glad that is over. we have three more case studies throughout the rest of the semester. we vowed to not wait two days before it is due to start the next one.

last night i actually went to bed a little before midnight. i woke up and i felt "eh." i wasn't tired. i wasn't full of energy. just, you know, eh. i worked for ten hours, which didn't feel like ten hours.

on my drive home, my car started to overheat. in a panic, i called my mom. she said she'd come down to my apartment tomorrow with antifreeze to see if that'll do the trick.

i basically started my day with a feeling of defeat. i'm ending it the same. i ordered too much chinese food, i'm getting frustrated with homework, my cats are being loud and running around frantically, and both neighbors have their tvs on loud enough to irritate me through the walls.

my apartment is a mess. any suggestions on how to tackle large messes? i mean, i'm to the point where i might just throw everything away. i'm definitely reaching that point with my kitchen. because my kitchen sink has been messed up since october and they haven't fixed it, i end up washing dishes in my bathtub. because of that, i let the dishes pile up. so i'm contemplating just throwing away everything and buying new pots and pans, dishes, and flatware. so, like i said, suggestions? and spare the "one room at a time" thing. this is a studio. it's all one room and every part of it flows into the next.

maybe tomorrow will be better. or, at the very least, more motivating.

a&p requires too much time.

i have a case study do for my a&p class today.

last night i met holly at the library and we hammered through the three gateway quizzes we had to take in order to get more information. we still have to write a paper. she and i will be meeting later today with another person to collectively pool and write our paper.

i left the library a little after 10pm last night. i spent an hour trying to relax and not stress out. it didn't work. around midnight i must have fallen asleep... with all my lights on, backpack and laptop right next to me. i woke up a little after 4am. it's 545am right now. i have one question out of nine done because i just can't focus. i am so tired.

there is so much work to be done this weekend. i just want to sleep all weekend. a 200 level class should not be this hard and should not consume this much of someone's time.

i have to get ready and leave for work within the next hour. i big ol' apology to my group for not getting more than half the questions done.

why must it be so hard to go to school and work at the same time?!

when it's quite.

i'm currently at my mom's house. i have studying to do and some quizzes to take. in the past, my apartment building neighbor has cheered during football games to the point where it sounded like he was almost in my studio. and today is the super bowl. so, i decided to come to my mom's.

this is my view right now:

i came here for quiet. when i first hiked up the steps to the second floor of my mom's house, she didn't quite understand that i had come for silence. i heard her bustling around the kitchen, making much more noise than i'm accustomed to outside of work. i shut the door that connects the kitchen to the upstairs hallway steps. she asked what i was doing; i responded with "too loud." i think she understood. she quickly finished whatever it was she was doing and has been napping in her chair ever since.

i sit in the quiet often. i hear the way the radiators whistle and sizzle in my apartment, the occasional car move through the street. i can almost always pinpoint what exactly my cats are doing to create the noise they're making. and i can hear myself think. it isn't until i realize that i've been sitting in silence for five hours that it becomes strange to me. who sits alone, quietly, for that long? i do.

i don't think i really ever sat quietly when i was in oshkosh. the second i came home from class or work, i would turn on my music. i slept with music on. i had to have my iPod with me on the way to and from class. when i started working at MCC and moved in with my old boyfriend mark and his friend blake, that's when i started to get quiet. but i think i solidified my enjoyment for the lulling sounds of buildings settling, quiet people living quiet lives, and my own thoughts when i moved into my studio.

and it's nice.

oh hell.

my classes are just dropping like flies. tonight i decided it would be best if i dropped my nursing research class. "why would you do that," you may ask. i'll tell ya! it involves a ton of reading. i'm already highly devoted to passing my math class (i received another email saying how i failed the first quiz... which i didn't even know was a quiz, so that's great). i have to take a&p in order to take other nursing classes, plus holly is in my lab and lecture, which means i have a built-in study buddy to brave this academic shitshow with. those two classes along are consuming my evenings. i have a sociology class that is "u-paced," meaning i can do it when i want, but i haven't been able to start it yet. i just got my textbook in the mail last night. and while my biology of women class isn't needed for nursing, i just really wanted to take it. you need at least one fun class to keep you going, right?

i'm constantly tired. even when i'm sleeping i'm still exhausted. i've been staying up past midnight since classes began. i wake up at 630 every morning to go to work. we're looking at less than 6 hours of sleep each night. i really wanted to power-through this degree and get out into the real world, but i just can't. maybe if i didn't have bills and rent, or a full-time job, i could manage. but i'm not 21 anymore. i can't devote my entire existence to college, studying, and having fun like i did then... but i have thought about it. giving my 60 day notice to my leasing company and moving back home, quitting my job (which is another thing!), taking out more student loans, and just devote myself to school for the next two years. surely i could finish in two years if i didn't have to worry about working. 

AND WORK. fuck that place. i'm so annoyed with everything there. my bosses have been trying to save money (my main boss more than the other), so we're getting these janky products to replace our food service provider products. example: powdered sugar. my boss bought 200 pounds of powdered sugar from the depot. i made five butter creams with said powdered sugar (not all 200 pounds). i didn't taste the butter creams until i made the last one and licked some frosting off my arm after i put it away. it tasted GRITTY. i tried to fix it yesterday with some suggestions my boss made. it didn't work. today i was trying to go half and half with the old powsug and the new powsug, still awful. even using 4 pounds in a 12 pound batch of something tastes bad. so the quality is shitty and so is our product. AND my other boss was getting on my ass today about how i decorate. her decorating is awful and everyone knows it, but is afraid to tell her. oh. and a coworker is pregnant, but it's a little annoying right now with all her huffing, puffing, sighs, and "i'm so useless" comments. yeah, you are. so fucking do something and work for your paycheck like the rest of us. i'm also annoyed that i haven't gotten a raise in over six months. i'm quickly approaching my three year anniversary at MCC and my one year anniversary of working alone. i deserve a raise.

enough bitching. it's past midnight and i still need to get myself ready for bed. sweet dreams are made of grand ideas. 

on math. and how i hate it.

oh man. in true lizzie school fashion, i enrolled in more classes than i can handle. i've dropped health care policy and health care documentation. i still have five classes and i'm still full time. someone help me!

i've never been very successful at math. i remember being in 1st or 2nd grade and crying in class because i couldn't understand whatever concept we were learning (it was probably 1st grade, and it was probably subtraction). i've always known that math was a bitch for me. i'm taking a math class now. i took a pre-assessment. out of 100 things i should have known, i knew 33. my professor emailed me and said that math 95 might be too advanced for me, as i'm struggling with concepts and much more behind than my classmates. she also noted that i will have to spend more time studying and working on problems than suggested in the syllabus, that she will be contacting me every week, and that i should meet with a tutor.

i've spent ALL weekend working on math. if i wasn't eating or sleeping, i was most likely doing math problems. danny has been helping me. since saturday night i've gone from 33/100 to 99/100 (currently waiting for danny to help me with the very last section). i have to take another pre-assessment tonight before midnight. and i'm not allowed to use a calculator. might i add my multiplication is a little awful, as well.

but i'll be damned if i don't prove that i can catch up. part of me feels like i'm only this far behind because i haven't had a real math class in over five years. the last time i took "real" math was when i was a sophomore in college. that would have been 2007.

anyway. i'm going to do as well as i can. i'll be happy with a B-. i'll be a little upset with a C+. i'll be devastated with anything below a C.

draining finances and overwhelming panics.

my spring semester started yesterday. i dragged danny along with me to get my books. i ended up buying just two and it cost me close to $400. i tried to register my online code for my math class and the website told me that my instructor's page doesn't accept the code sequence i have. ughhh. i emailed her and she sent me a temporary code so i don't fall behind, but i will be extremely upset if i spent $100 on a code i cannot use and cannot return.

in the spirit of draining my bank account some more, today i went to the bank to get my rent check (see ya, $600!). i also did some price checking and it is cheaper to rent two of my books, so i also put in an order for that (another $130). i'll have to stop by the bookstore tomorrow to purchase the last two books i need. i would rent them, but it's questionable if i need the online access codes and i'd rather just be safe than sorry.

i went to my first anatomy and physiology class. my friend holly is in the class, so she saved me a seat. our professor seems eccentric in a good way. i do not like feeling rushed when i leave work. i get worried that i won't find a parking spot within four blocks of campus and make it to class on time. today i was also worrying about where the building was located. but everything worked out. i was able to leave work on time, i found a spot three blocks away, i found holly in our ginormous lecture pit, and i was able to get back to work by 130.

i spent tonight feeling tremendously overwhelmed though. i registered for my math class and did the assessment. i also did the first (and stupid) assignment for my biology of women class (a D2L scavenger hunt). and everything else is causing me to just scream and cry on the inside while keeping a perpetual "what have i done" look on my face.

with seven classes to try to keep straight, i think i might need to invest in a giant white board to keep my assignments all straight. or, you know, i could just learn how to use "the cloud" and put everything in my ical on my laptop or iPad.

it's almost 10pm. my apartment is nice and warm. i've had my oven on for about three hours trying to help heat up my apartment. but i have realized that i forgot to do laundry. it's too late now. i'll just have to wear real jeans tomorrow instead of leggings... maybe.