Time flies…
It's been more than a month since I last blogged. I had been good about blogging regularly, but I needed to take a bit of a step back, I guess. I have been taking a bit of a social media hiatus, light on the blogging, light on the Facebook. I have been kind of anti-social lately. I think the hate, both pre- and post-election shook my faith in humanity. That is something that has been a bit tenuous at best over the last several years. So I took a bit of a break, limiting my time on FB, many days playing games but talking to no one. It was necessary, and it has hellped. I also stopped having a complex about deleting people. I hate the idea of hurting ayone's feelings but sometimes it is just a matter of self-preservation.
Teaching an old dog new tricks…
The other thing that got me was a not-so-fabby grade in one of my classes. I am not going to lie… I've been pretty proud of my grades thus far, especially since there have been literally decades since I have been in school full-time. But I blew my midterm in my Romance Novel class. I didn't get a horrible grade, a B+, but I totally know I could have done better. I deserved the damn grade, and I know it and it sucks. I am hoping it doesn't blow my GPA because I have had a 4.0 every semester running.
On the flip side, I am a bit disappointed with both of my writing classes this semester. I thought that both of them would involve creative writing, MY creative writing. Nope. Not at all. The Romance Novel class has been about reading and analyzing the romance genre, interesting, but not what I was expecting. We have a huge reading list, half of which haven't been discussed or really used. We have had two homework assignments that were kind of on the early high school level. We had one paper which was pretty simplistic, our midterm, and a final paper. That's it. It was an independent study class but I guess I expected some more input and in-depth study and writing. My other writing class has involved non-fiction. Each module consists of an article that we have to read and journal about. It's another independent study and there is only one other person in the class. We are supposed to discuss the pieces with each other but she never posts unntil AFTER the due date. So I end up talking with the prof or not at all. The final consists of a research paper. I like the professor but I have gotten nothing out of the class. I hoping next semester is different.
The other three classes have been fabulous. I love my women's criminology class and my forensic psych class, neither of which pertain to my major but taken just because I wanted to. They have been fascinating! The other class was a literature class, focused on Hamlet and Child of God. My mom was an English teached in my high school and she taught Hamlet but, because I was her daughter, I had the other teacher who didn't teach it so I never read it. The teacher was actually a friend of mine from high school, which was different. But she is pretty fabulous and I LOVED that class. It was a fantastic mix of students, some of which I got into some great discussions with.
Settling in…
Even though it is temporary, our house is starting to look like a home. We haven't unpacked everything because it is temporary, but at some point, you just have to make it a home regardless. On Black Friday, Corey and I braved the outside world long enough to go to the furniture and buy a new set of cocktail tables and matching coffee table, along with a spiffy media cabinet. All of which I love and on which we got a rockin' discount. We ended up paying just over $600 for about $1100 worth of stuff and they delivered it an hour later! For the first month we were here, we having been lamp shopping for the living room and just couldn't agree on bases and shades. I look color and pattern, he eschews it. Not easy! We finally found a pair of brownish-black, distressed wood bases that we both liked and I compromised on the shades. They are gray silk, crinkle-pleated shades that are beautiful when the lights are on. Yesterday we bought curtains and a rod for the living room, too, and they are gorgeous. We had Venetian blinds but there was still a glare on Corey's laptop. So we went curtain shopping, which I anticipated would be as easy as the lamp shopping. It took us only a record 30 minutes to compromise and buy. Amazing. We got a gorgeous rod with brownish-black marble-look finials and fabulous dusty teal curtains. I wanted a set of blue and white, almost Morrocan-inspired patterned ones, but the hubs hated them. Since he wanted some lovely (NOT) dark, poop-brown ones, I feel lucky that I got the ones I did, a dusty teal set of faux-silk panels with a tone-on-tone zebra pattern. They sound, admittedly, hideous, but the pattern is subtle and they look beautiful balanced against all the dark furniture and black couches. They only had two panels left, but I want four so I will have to keep watching for more to come in.
I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling the hermit-y anti-social vibe, I'm trying to push past it but have reverted to lots of WoW and Sims3, it's helped a lot and I can feel myself slowly sinking back into where I need/want to be.
Wishing you luck settling in and don't be too hard on yourself about the B+, you still rock hardcore!