Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Whatever Makes You Happy

Sooooo, I'm well into the fall semester now, and I've learned a few things....not necessarily part of the curriculum. I have learned that the dark, disturbing and salacious not only sell books on the Oprah's Book Club, but also in academia. My motherhood in literature class has moved beyond "ick" to down right nasty and disturbing. I completely quit reading one book in the middle because it was so vile. I actually turned to an online "cliff notes" to get my assignment done, and even that was too much information. To add to my affection for this class, I got a C on my first paper. Son of a *!?%$!

Another thing I have learned is that it is really hard to find a pair of shoes that are cute and at the same time, not crippling. Like any goofy freshman wearing headgear and braces, I made the rookie mistake of wearing some cutsie Mary Janes to my first day of class. Half way to my class (which is quite a jaunt) I was walking like the hunchback of Notre Dame. I was seconds away from just taking them off and walking barefoot, but really, ugh. Of course, I paid a whopping $9 at Wal-Mart for those shoes. Upon further research, and one last step in faith, I found and wore some oh-so-cute shoes that didn't make me cuss. True, I did pay a little more (don't tell Darling Man, quite a lot more), but don't you like? I am beginning to appreciate the female fetish with shoes.
After the soul-sucking experience in the above mentioned literature class, it's amazing how looking at these shoes cheered me up.

Let me tell you, schlepping a book bag is much more burdensome than a fully loaded diaper bag. I think there's something cosmic about that.

Any-hoo. I just finished another paper for the motherhood class. I hope I do better. When I got that C, I had a mini nervous breakdown on the ride home with Darling Man.

Don't forget to register to vote!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Eeeeppp!!!!

Well kids, I'm into my third week of classes. To put it bluntly, I think I'm getting ready to have my butt handed to me on a silver platter. I'm feeling like the cat in this picture.

The class I'm taking in "special topics, in Motherhood" is just such a disappointment. My idealistic hopes of beautifully literary examples of motherhood have been dashed on the feminist alter of cynicism. We are reading Franco-Caribbean and Afro-American authors' examples of "the bad mother." Holy cow...could it be any more dreary? Of course, it took mere minutes for me to be pinned as a right-wing-intolerant-prejudiced-patriarchal-ruled-woman. It's going to take a miracle, literally, to get out of this class with a decent paper. The excitement has been squished out of me like a two-day-old-dried-road-kill-frog.

My second class, which is a broad survey, looks like it'll be more interesting, but after getting the voluminous book list, today the prof told us that the list was the "launching point." What the *$#%???? We're supposed to research more books that we want to analyze and present to the class. Launching point? Is he high? Maybe I should be high.

Miracle-of-miracles, homeschooling has been going well. Little Man started his preschool and is just flourishing. Fourth Darling is having mild issues with not calling the shots. Overall though, that part of our life is going well. The First and Second Darlings are cooperating, thank GOD! If they ever figure out that they can mutiny, it's totally over.