I have so many things I want to do in the next year or so, and I feel stuck because I don't know what to focus on or what to pursue.

I'm sitting in the computer lab at school between classes, watching videos on Youtube. I was actually looking for the official music video, but stumbled across this. One of my favorite songs! Also, not like it's news, but goddamn Morten Harket is fine.

I'm officially a student! My appeal was approved, I got enough to cover everything, and the gave me an over-ride to register. Whoohoo!!! No second job, no falling behind by another six months!

I'll have to go through the appeal process again for next year--since it would take 90 credits to raise my percentage of classes completed back to 75%, stupid math--but that shouldn't be a problem. I have three semesters to go, and then I'm done! ... for now. I'll probably end up going back at some point for a teaching certificate or another degree. The real world sucks, after all, school is fun.

I've registered for classes, but hopefully I'll be able to get overrides in to some different ones that are full right now--I've been wanting to take that damn medieval Europe class since I started my first semester, I'd like to finally get in to it!

I had two finals Monday morning, and two yesterday. The first one, history to 1500, was at seven a.m.--and it went swimmingly. It was 25 multiple choice and then an essay on the Mongols, and I'm pretty confident that I did excellently on it. Even though my essay portion of the test didn't go so hot on the first two, I think this time it's in the bag--this time I actually had enough time to write a complete essay

The second was right after that at nine, and was history since 1500. That one was a freaking massacre. I felt like somebody hit the "blend" button on my brain. It was awful. I think some of the problem was that both classes had a lot of stuff about both Russia and China in these final units, and it all blended together. The test second had ten multiple choice, about twenty fill in the blank, and an essay. If the second test had been like the first, without all the fill-in-the-blank crap, I'd've had it made.

As it was, I looked at most of the questions and had a serious case of presque vu. I could remember reading the name I was looking for; I could see the page and what was around it .... and I couldn't find it. And then there were questions that weren't on the study guide, which is being fucking aggravating--why did the White force lose in the Russian civil war? Ummm .... errr .... I know this ... because .... FML.

So in short, I'll be lucky if I passed the damn test. I counted up all the questions I was positive of, and came up with 45/80 points. If I get half credit on my essay, which was very short and vague because of the blender syndrome again, that's 55/100. To get a C in the class, I needed a 68 on the final. It's pathetic that I may not have accomplished that--I spent almost the entire exam period beating my damn head against the wall, going over and over the questions, hoping to trigger my stupid tired half-cocked brain in to remembering something.

The next day I had my creative writing "final", which consisted of reading a piece of my work aloud--and listening to each of my classmates do the same, which had me about reading to tear my hair out sometimes. When it was my turn, I told a story I thought was hilarious. When my cousin was little, she us she wanted to name one of her pets "In-you-eee". She said she read it in a book, and it meant bored. As soon as I said that, the teacher laughed. Then I explained she'd meant ennui, and I wrote it on the board since I figured half of them wouldn't know the word. Nobody laughed except the teacher, which I guess just proves we're both nerds. (Same thing happened in my French class, I'd actually.)

Speaking of French, I had that final later in the afternoon. I felt utterly exhausted, but I'm pretty sure I freaking aced it. There was one oral comprehension question I know I got wrong, and one or two cultural things I wasn't sure of, but it's the final I'm least worried about. I wish I knew what I had in the class, though; my last grade report before Thanksgiving was an 89.7%, so hopefully it increased by .03% in the last few weeks!

After my exam, I went to the McDonald's RedBox and rented three movies. Then I spent the rest of my evening watching movies, playing on my computer, and feeling the tension of this semester dissipate. I really did not realize how freaked out I was--even when I thought I was relaxing, I really wasn't. I feel amazing now.

Of course, I'm sure the next five days at work will fix that!

I just got home from eight and a half hours at work, with a hell of a blitz at the end. When I first staggered out to my car in the snow, I thought I'd come home and just drop into bed like a giant sack of meat. But when I got home, I found I was less tired than I thought. It was still snowing, in sparse fluffy flakes. There were only a couple of inches on the ground, all fluffy and smooth and sparkly. It was almost one in the morning, so I let my dogs out front to run around a bit, and I stood out in the snow, letting flakes accumulate on my hair and my eyelashes, chasing my puppies around. They were so cute! The big dog was loping in circles, kicking up snow all over the place, and my little girl trotted around snuffling and snorting into the snow until her little paws got cold.

I planned to stay in then, but the big dog just looked so freaking happy that I took her back outside. She's at least eight years old, but she just wiggles and hops like a puppy when she's happy. So I grabbed my keys and walked with her to the grassy causeway between my neighborhood and the next. It's almost like a little park, with trees planted occasionally and fences on either side. I'd been wanting to take her over there, but there aren't any lights--but tonight was perfect because of the snow. All the light reflected off the snow; the air was gorgeous and clear, and it wasn't even that cold. My pup walked ahead of me, like she knew where we were going ...

And as soon as we got to the grass, she took off! It was hilarious. She just ran flat-out as fast as she could for about a hundred yards, then circled back and made figure-eights around me. She did that for about five minutes. Every one in a while she'd stop and sniff at something, or just look at me, until I called her--and then she'd sprint back to me, ears back, tongue lolling, barreling at me like she would knock me right over. I could practically feel the joy coming off her, and I wouldn't be surprised if my laughter woke up light sleepers in the nearby houses. It was just gorgeous.

After about ten minutes, though, she would stop and look at me and then back toward to house. So I started tromping back, and she ran ahead. When she ran through the gap in the fence I got a little worried, so I started running. When I got to the fence, though, I saw her trotting up the sidewalk to the front door. She waited on the step for me while I crossed the street and the yard, panting and wiggling and just so happy (I tried to take a picture with my phone, but as you can see I caught a snowflake instead of a dog!).

My hair was covered in snow, my pants were soaked, me and the dog were both wet and a little cold, and we were both happy anyway. It was a perfect ending to the night.

In eleven more days, I'll be done with school. Conveniently, my last final is on Tuesday, and I have Wednesdays and Thursdays off. So I'll conclude my semester with two glorious days all to myself. No work, no homework to worry about, nothing to do but ... whatever I want. I cannot WAIT. I don't know what I'm going to do--probably sleep, read, go have dinner at my dad's house ... anything but pick up a work shift! Except maybe on Thursday, since I have an evening exam Tuesday so I had to request that night off. But Wednesday is mine, dammit!

Of course, on Friday I'll have to start the quest for a second job, and let me tell you how thrilled I am about that.

I just went to put something in dumpster, and it's a gorgeous night out there. The sky is clear, the grass is frosted, and I could see my breath. Even with a big streetlamp right over my driveway, the sky is clear enough, and the air still enough, that I could see the different colors of some of the stars. The grass was sparkling, crunching beneath my dog's feet as she ran around like a lunatic; and even though I was cold I stayed out a couple of extra minutes, watching my breath mist in front of me, listening to the silence, and feeling like I was the only person in the world.

For the last year or so, I've felt rather down about myself. I'm a decent waitress; but my continual failures in school and suckitude at things like keeping my house clean made me feel rather crappy about myself. Not all the time; and it's not like I think I suck in general, just that I'm not good at anything in particular. Which isn't really true; I was just trying to do the wrong things.

I've made it through my first round of exams. I've yet to get grades back for the two history exams, but I'm sure I did well on them. I have gotten my French exam back, with a score of 89.5%. Would've been above ninety if I'd remembered how to spell paresseux. Anyway, the exact moment when I realized how much better this is happened in my French teacher's office (she's a resident instructor, so not a prof).

There were two other people there also looking at their tests; one is a girl I sort of feel sorry for, because she just can't seem to wrap her head around any of this stuff. She sits next to me most class periods, and I try to help her, but she just doesn't follow. Because of that, she was pretty much monopoloizing our teacher's time. The other guy, whose name I can't remember, was looking over his test. I don't know if he saw my grade, or if he just noticed how I rarely shut up in class, but he started asking me questions about the things he got wrong on his test. I knew the answers, and at one point our teacher looked over sort of smiled and winked at me.

I got the same feeling I get when I help someone at work with some random bit of knowledge, or when I got called at my retail job to run across the aisle to my other retail job to help them with their computer. It's not just about being needed; it's about feeling that I'm capable. Maybe being capable and knowledgable about history and/or French isn't the most practical, useful, concrete skill--but it's better than trying to do something I'm not capable or interested in.

I was telling this to my mom today, and she was as always happy and supportive. I still haven't told my dad about my change of major .... I'm just going to wait on that until the end of the semester. Then I'll show him my final grades, which I anticipate will be great, and hopefully seeing that end result will temper his immediate reaction of "well that's a useless degree!"

Originally, I was thinking I wouldn't tell him until I was nearly done, but that's not going to work. I'm going to slip and mention one of my classes at some point, and then have to explain; or he'll pick up on the fact that I'm being all vague and weird, and then I'll have to explain. Plus I don't really like keeping secrets.

I wandered a bit there, didn't I.

Got out of the shower about half an hour ago, and I'm currently sitting here with my hair wrapped up in a towel and nothing but shorts on. There are two fans going, so I keep getting nice cool drafts against my bare back, my skin is nice and cool, and I just feel utterly comfortable. Delaying getting dressed for work till the absolute last possible moment, because then I'll just be uncomfortably hot for the next eight hours.

So when I first found out on Wednesday that my financial aid appeal had been denied, I called them right away to find out how many semesters I had to pay out of pocket before I could go through the process again. The girl I talked to said two, which is why I started panicking, calculating a budget, etc. My original plan if I were denied was to continue with this semester anyway, and re-appeal in the spring (because then my excess loan money would cover part of fall too), so I was thrown into a bit of a tailspin.

After spending the last three days panicking, crying, freaking out, making plans, feeling sick to my stomach, and sleeping an unhealthy amount because of depression ... I got a call today from a supervisor from the financial aid office. Turns out, the girl I talked to was full of crap. My original plan can now be re-instated! It's not ideal; it could be a little tricky trying to pay enough of fall tuition to be able to register for spring. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it--right now, I'm just so thrilled that I can take the classes I've been looking forward to for months.

Mostly because of one part, from 1:37 to 1:50.

I'm all set for next semester. Done the paperwork to change my major; got registered for classes; decided not to take summer classes after all (despite my earlier sardonic assessment that I'd have to). But I'm excited and actually wish I didn't have to wait three months! I've actually put a lot of ancient history books in my Booksfree queue so that I'll have a bit more background when I go into my ancient history class in the fall. It's going to be interesting taking both world history to 1500 and world history since 1500 at the same time; but there are no other classes I can take without taking those.

The one and only thing that sucks is that I could be done in a year if I didn't have to do two years of foreign language. I tried to test out of first semester French, but was 25 points short of that--not surprising since I haven't taken a French class in ten years. I was surprised I did as well as I did. I'm looking forward to getting back in to languages again; that was something I had a knack for and shouldn't have turned my back on.

Since deciding to go this route, I've felt very ... calm. Well, calm and excited at the same time. Calm in that I feel I'm back in my comfort zone, and excited in that I'm going to enjoy it. After beating my head against a wall with biochemistry etc., trying to force myself through something my heart wasn't in, I'm ready to delve back in to something I'm good at.

In the meantime ... I need to get another job! If I want to go to London in November, and/or buy a car, I need to work more. I'm already working nearly 40 hours a week at the restaurant, so I can't get any more hours there. I don't really want to work more than full time ... but I've done it before, it won't kill me!

So on Monday, on the way to work, the muffler fell off my damn ghetto buggy car. Annoying, but not too critical, especially since my dad is a car guy and can fix it. I took my car (which is actually my dad's car I've been driving for three years) to my dad today for him to fix it, and he gave me a loaner.

But while I was there, I saw something wonderful. On blocks, in my dad's shop, was MY car. My classic red, white hard top, leather interior, more horsepower than a sixteen year old girl should've had, '66 Mustang. My sixteenth birthday present, taken away at 19 when I went to college, because my dad was afraid it would be stolen on campus. For eight years, my beautiful car has been sitting in storage. Every year or so my dad would make some mention of getting it ready for the summer, but it never moved from its place in my dad's storage shed.

But today, she's getting worked on! I might actually get my baby back! I'm so freaking excited! Except one thing. One rather embarrassing thing, that I noticed a couple of years ago when I went to sit in my car and be nostalgic. That one thing is this:

I don't know when I started saying things like that--I used to get so annoyed at acronyms and people who typed in caps. :)

ANYWAY!

This is the cutest thing I've seen all day!

Peace out, W. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. :)

Of course, I've only been awake for an hour, so there's time for that to change. Days I can sleep in make me happy. :) I also woke up surrounded by my pets, which made me smile. I usually have my dog and one cat snuggled up to me, but today I woke up with one cat on the spare pillow in front of me, one cat snuggled against the top of my head, my dog between my back and my other spare pillow, and my other cat stretched out along my legs. The cat at the top of my head was grooming me--and she's the least lovey of my kitties.

I love my furbabies. :)