Having already mentioned wanting to read more books as opposed to fic this year, I thought it was time to list the others I've made.

1. Eat More Vegetables.
( But I don't like broccoli )

2. Get Better Sleep Habits
( I'm not tiiiired )

3. Weigh 145-150* pounds and keep it that way
( Weight Loss :p )

4. Read More Books
( A Good Book is a Good Friend )

5. Read My Textbooks!
( Studying? What? )

6. Cut Back On Computer Usage
( ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE )

7. Finish One Story Before My Grandmother Dies.

My grandmother was diagnosed with stage four bone cancer last summer and has been deteriorating ever since. She'll have good days where everything is almost normal, but we all know that isn't true. She hardly eats. She spends most of the day sleeping. When she's awake, she's frequently forgetting things and consequently gets angry about it.

My grandparents have always been the most supportive family members when it comes to my writing. Always. Even my worst poetry they put in frames and hung on their walls. My grandmother always told me she couldn't wait to see me published, even though I know I'm no where near proficient enough to hope for that. What always continues to confuse them, though, is why I start so many stories and never finish them.

This year I have to finish one. I have to. Not only for them, but for myself. I've been self-doubting my writing skills for years now. And that self-doubt makes me abandon 98% of everything I've ever written if someone isn't around prodding me in the back to finish.

Very well, this could be my biggest resolution this year. Or the most personal to myself.

Of the five original stories I've begun, there are only two I really think I could feasibly finish. One, I started in my senior year of high school, so I'm certain most of it is awful, but it's about 5,000 words from the end, and the other I started on the car trip home for spring break.

That last one is the one I've been focusing on. Here's the tentative word count widget:



Currently, the other story rests at 37,000 words.


So, there are my resolutions for 2010. I usually have 10, but I think these might be enough on their own.

One of my biggest resolutions for the upcoming year was to read more books and maybe less fic. Or, at the least, to find some kind of balance in what I'm reading.

Therefore, on the 2nd of January, the list begins!

Allons-y!

( New Year? New Resolution. )

♥



( Warning: Below this cut is Baby Crack and Dad in a silly hat! )

My toes are partially numb but I am in a ridiculously happy mood. Why? I went to see Poe Evermore at the PA Ren. Faire tonight.

I spent a half an hour silently shipping Irving/Longfellow. Longfellow blew a cork into Irving's ear. Mary Shelly had a mental fit. And Poe cracked jokes about his own stories, and then gave us the run down of Pit and the Pendulum and The Fall of the House of Usher in under a minute.

He also insisted The Stylus would only involve happy, smiley poems.

Yeah. Yeah, it just was that kind of show.

Remember that post I made last night? About getting more sleep? Day 1 = epic failure. /o\ Four hours of sleep to be had last night.

I spent the entire night making note cards for today's Sociology test that I hardly glanced at today. Which isn't to say I didn't look at them at all, I did, only to discover I didn't know half of the 80 terms I needed to know, not to mention the extra concepts on the backside of the study guide. I'm not at all anywhere near as certain about how I did on this test as I have been on others this semester.

Yeah.

You know something is wrong. Am I right?

I'm so physically drained and sore right now. The worst part is I'm not ill, only tired and burned out.

I spent Thursday night into Friday stressing about the PowerPoint presentation I had to cobble together for formal acceptance into the education program and the rest of the weekend just fell in line with that.

Friday:
&hearts turned in Powerpoint and all documents involved there.
&hearts forgot I had offered to sub a shift at the Blue Bean, wound up 30 mins late for a three hour shift. Discovered the dishwasher was busted.
&hearts had to individually hand wash everything, without gloves, missed dinner
&hearts still had to go in for night shift, dishwasher still busted, there a half-hour longer than normal

Saturday:
&hearts spent too many hours night before on phone with boy
&hearts woke up around 11, didn't eat breakfast before meeting carpool at 2 to go to Camp Curtin
&hearts six hours spent volunteering at Camp Curtin Light's on fair without any food! \o/
&hearts the school bought us Wendy's. I &hearts my school.
&hearts stayed up too late again texting boy, started NaNo novel, watched Merlin.

Sunday:
&hearts woke up in pain, muscles sore on both sides of my bum, stretched too much trying to collect pennies from the penny toss day before
&hearts arrived 5 mins too late at meeting point to go to the PSEA fall conference, ride had already left.
&hearts took a nap A+
&hearts procrastinated by listening to a lecture on procrastination
&hearts worked again at Blue Bean. Dishwasher? Still broken.

In conclusion?

merrier_blue needs to practice better bedtime skills or she will get ill.

My professor for Integrated Technology finally gave me the rubric/guidelines/instructions for our final project. Coincidentally it's worth 60% of our grade. Less coincidentally I now have to make up five lesson plans, incorporating the tech we've learned this semester, for a themed unit of our choice.

It has to be within our major.

Has no one ever told him SOCIAL STUDIES IS A WIDE AND VARIED SUBJECT?!?! THERE ARE SO MANY CHOICES. AND WE'RE NOT JUST TALKING ABOUT HISTORY.

Well, I kind of am, because that's my pet subject under it, but seriously? Pick just one theme!!!

Mental.

However, I need to pick this topic by Friday. I have narrowed down my options to three choices North American Geography, WWI, or the French Revolution. I just don't know which would be easier (yeah, I'm lazy, bite me) or I would enjoy more.

And so begins the week that is destined to emotionally and psychologically break me! \o/ I LOVE COLLEGE.

As my work/homework/whatever schedule stands tonight:


Tonight:
1. Write as much of fic as humanly possible. Preferably finish. Unlikely. Thus the lack of scheduled internet time this week makes sense. Internets revoked. Check.
2. Work @ Blue Bean Cafe from 10:00 - 12:10-ish
3. Shower and bed.

Monday:
1. Breakfast, I'm going before class. THIS WILL HAPPEN. BECAUSE I SAID SO.
2. Pre-Modern Asia from 9:30-10:45
3. Violating a norm (damn straight I'm plugging this into my schedule D:) 10:50 - 11:10. Time to make people feel awkward!
4. The Library, being scholarly, or something! 11:30 - 1:45
4a. While at the library find two scholarly articles on ESL as it pertains to social studies education.
4b. Write up a review of one article while thinking about it. (2 pages)
5. Email Co-op teacher and confirm that I'm still coming in tomorrow morning, double check the time I need to arrive.
5a. Email Kate with proposed announcement for College New to run in regards to Poe Night at the Ren. Faire in Nov.
6. Write essay portion of norm violation. Try to do this all before dinner, or else I'll be up at 5am writing another paper for Sociology. AND I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT AGAIN THIS SEMESTER.
7. Answer questions for Sociology on Amish film and Killing Us Softly 3
8. Read at least half of As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams. Attempt to retain more than the fact that 3/4 the narrative is poems about the moon and seasons.
9. Sleep? Dinner? Something else?

Tuesday:
1. BREAKFAST BEFORE WORK. NOTE THE NUMBER 1 ABOVE I HAVE ISSUES WITH THIS.
2. Work @ Jay's Nest from 9-11
3. Shower super fast get to the middle school by 11:30
4. Etown Middle from 11:30-1:30
5. LUNCH
6. Sociology from 2:00-3:20 (Turn in Norm Violation Paper)
7. Write reaction to time spent @ middle school
8. Dinner \o/
9. Finish reading As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams
10. Read chapter 8 in A History of Asia text & Chapter 4 of The Crosscultural, Language and Academic Development Handbook
11. Sleep? :D

Wednesday:
1. Breakfast
2. Pre-Modern Asia from 9:30 - 10:45 (Book Quiz on As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams)
3. Proof-read 2 page article review
4. Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in the Classroom from 12:30 - 1:45 (Turn in article review)
5. Make flashcards to study for Sociology Test
6. Dinner
7. Integrated Tech from 6:00 - 7:30
8. STUDY FOR SOCIOLOGY TEST
9. Read Chapter 8 of Exceptional Learners textbook
10. STUDY MORE D:
11. Sleep with textbook under pillow and pray for learnings to leak into head

Thursday:
1. Early wake up (7:00am) <-- This is so early for me right now, I can't even explain.
2. Shower and breakfast
3. Etown Middle from 8:30 - 10:30 (possibly later, dependent on what's discussed on Tues)
4. Write reflection in journal
5. Study more and panic. Panic hard.
6. Lunch with more studying
7. Sociology from 2:00 - 3:20 (TEST TIME)
8. Email Prof with list of three organizations potentially interested in
9. Grab a sandwich
10. Foundations of Inclusion from 5:00 - 7:30
11. Finish PowerPoint for formal acceptance and send it off. Take a moment to have a good cry over it. Panic that it won't be good enough and they won't accept me into the education program. Cry some more. Call my mom and whimper and cry at her as well.
12. Go and see if the internet outside of campus email and Blackboard has exploded.
13. Sleep!

Friday:
1. SLEEP IN
2. Do something unproductive and pointless for the remainder of the day
3. Work @ Jays Nest from 10:00pm - 12:30am

Saturday:
1. More sleep!
2. Potentially see if film for Pre-Modern Asia is in and go watch it there. WTF VHS?
3. Hope to not be the first person posting questions on Blackboard this time. xD
4. Light's out @ Camp Curtain from 4:30 - 7:00 pm.
5. NANOWRIMO @ MIDNIGHT

Sunday:
1. NaNo
2. PSEA event @ Millersville from 1:30 - 4:00
3. More NaNo
4. Work @ Blue Bean Cafe from 10:00 - Midnight.


This weekend was pretty ridiculous by itself. But that's a post for...possibly after work.

I don't even have an appropriate icon for the amount of nerves I'm feeling for this exam. And most of them come from the fact the test is timed and on Blackboard. I hate external pressure when taking tests, I make the stupidest mistakes, and since the first part is 15 minutes of multiple choice questions, I feel suitably ready to tear out my hair and maybe run around my room like my ass is on fire.

Trying to console myself that this shouldn't be one of those tests I worry about has not been helping. I don't know what kind of questions he'll be asking, I don't know if I'll need to know dates (if the answer to that is 'yes' HA! *whimpers*), I don't even have an accurate sense of how fast fifteen minutes can go when answering questions I may or may not know.

In case you were all wondering, the test is on the History of Pre-Modern Asia. My notebook is currently flipped open to Medieval India and Southeast Asia. I'm not even sure I know what's going on in these notes anymore.

This crisis calls for chocolate for breakfast.

You know it's going to be a different kind of day when ten or so male soccer players come jogging down the hall of your dorm chanting something that sounds like a drinking song loudly and indistinguishably. Keep in mind this is an all girls dorm.

I've got nothing.

Later I'll make a more substantial post about the state of merrier_blue and how constant drizzle does not deter too many people from showing up on campus for Homecoming weekend.