We began the final dissection in Bio Lab tonight - fetal pigs. Makes me feel sorry for the little thing, but unfortunately I have to just get through it. One of my lab partners (we are dissecting in teams of 3-4 due to a lack of pigs) works with laboratory animals and is quite good at cutting, so Anne and I mostly just held the poor thing's feet and watched. I just want this semester to be over. :/

Theseus has left for class, the baby is at day care, and I'm alone in the house in complete. silence.

Does that ever feel refreshing to you? Too often I have something on for background noise, whether it is the television or some music. Right now it is quiet enough in the house to hear a cat yawn in the other room and a car move across the bridge down the road. I can hear the wind and all the creaks our house makes. It's lovely, actually. I don't get to enjoy the silence very often (a consequence of having a 7 month old) so I try to savor it when I do.
    

I've been away - you probably noticed. A number of trains were rushing toward me and after the resulting, continuous, obvious train wreck, I mentally walked away. I had no other choice. I'd never felt so overwhelmed, so completely drained, so physically tired, so naggingly sick.
    

Some facts:
- Austin will be 6 months old next Friday
- My breastfeeding goal was 6 months
- The fall semester of school has started
- Theseus' school schedule requires Austin to be in day care twice a week (9 hours total)
    

I have a long post in my head, waiting patiently for my hands to type it out. The last few days Theseus' laptop cord was broken and I hate my own laptop, so I couldn't post anything. Tonight I finally turned on my laptop (we have a new cord for him, also) but my throat is KILLING me and I just want to go to sleep.

This 4-day weekend went by entirely too quickly and I am dreading going back to work tomorrow. Also tomorrow is the beginning of my school-week, so I'll leave at 8 a.m. for work and won't return home from school until 10:30 p.m. Then right to sleep, to go back to work fro 8 a.m. the next morning. I have school three days a week, and only Tuesday is that bad (home by 7:15 the other two days), but still - a long day for me, and a long day away from Austin.

Rushing through these classes while he's still young and won't remember - this is the right thing to do, isn't it?

:(
:(
:(

We had an exciting weekend! And it all involved food. Hmm, I'm sensing a trend...

Friday night Theseus returned from the grocery store with supplies to make our own ice cream. He bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday two years ago that we had never used, which we placed in the kitchen sink and put to work. Thirty minutes later: homemade vanilla ice cream! It was incredibly good. I say was, because it didn't last long enough to be photographed. He added it to peach flambé and whipped cream (also homemade). It was divine. Next time he wants to try a mocha chocolate chip, but I think the citrus orange recipe from our ice cream maker's website looks really yummy. And now you know we made 2 quarts of ice cream and ate it all in less than 3 days. Don't judge us!
    

I've been going to school almost solidly since last September.

Fall: Sept. 1 - Dec 21
Spring: Jan 4 - May 17
Summer: May 23 - Aug 9

I've just been running and running and running myself ragged. I can see the finish-line for this semester, but I'm limping toward it. One class I will finish up today (History), one tomorrow (Bio Lab), one Tuesday (Bio), and the final class will be over next Sunday (English 2).

14 classes since September, and now a little break until Aug 31, when the Fall semester begins. I will be taking 3 classes and 2 labs: Bio 2 and Bio 2 Lab, Chem 1 and Chem 1 Lab, and Precalculus.

I'm looking forward to the fall (it's my favorite season!) and am really looking forward to spring registration, which should start sometime in late October. I have a list on my computer with all the classes required for my Associate's degree, and it makes me so happy to cross off classes as I register for them. I'm pretty sure I'll have to take at least 2 classes next summer in order to complete the Associate of Science - Biology program, but I will still be able to participate in the graduation ceremony next spring.

Can you imagine it? Me, a two-time college drop-out, finally finishing something I started, and with honor society regalia. I'm going to be crying so hard (out of happiness!), I won't be able to make it on to the stage. And that's great. :)

School is killllllllllllllling me. It's 8 p.m. and I have a four-page paper to turn in by midnight. Haven't even started it. I can think of a billion things I'd rather do than work on the paper, but off I will go and write it. I hope all this is worth something, someday. :/

Theseus: "Imagine how much more interesting this English paper would be if I were drinking!"

I really should have taken the summer off. :(

I'm taking a biology class and the accompanying lab, a history (1600-present) and, beginning in July, English 102.

I don't care about any of these classes (and I'm a bio major! and I love history!). Maybe it's that my brain isn't capable of handling it in addition everything else - work, baby, adjusting to Theseus being home - especially considering how little sleep I get.

I shouldn't complain about the sleep, really, because it's certainly better than it was... still, I step into the shower exhausted every morning, fight the urge to take a nap after lunch, come home to a hungry baby and a mountain of school work and all I want to do is crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

A part of this is me punishing myself for not taking advantage of the two years on active duty at Fort Dix - I had AMPLE time to take classes. I could have finished my first two years of school, no problem. Now my workload is much heavier at this new job... and there's a baby...

Sorry to be so complain-y. I'm also feeling sad that T left this morning. Also it is suddenly a hundred degrees and I wasn't prepared for it. Also I'm hungry and nothing sounds good. This week has been terrible.