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I dropped my pre-cal class today. For those of you going “pre-cal?” I signed up for a pre-cal class at a local community college. Stats and college-level math are prereqs I have to fulfill before I can begin the Berkeley part-time MBA program in the fall. The catch is this: even if you don’t know if you’re accepted to the program, you have to have completed the prereqs before beginning classes in the fall.

While my hopes were high for Berkeley, I haven’t been invited to interview there and time is running out. I will say this though. I’ve already been accepted to a fine MBA program so I’m not too upset. Hence, this is the main reason I’m dropping the pre-cal class. I would love to be accepted to Berkeley, but it’s time to face facts. Plus, pre-cal is exhausting. It’s a five hour course that runs from 7-9:50 on Mondays and Thursday. Guess what? By 8pm, I’m brain dead. Not good when the teacher asks you to graph a function. Plus, the class is filled with HS students who flirt and twitter during the lesson. HATE! I wish the teacher would throw them out.

Was I looking for an excuse to drop the class? Maybe. The main reason I quit was because I knew that I would never have the energy required to get a good grade in that class. Yes, I understood the material, but at the end of the day, my brain goes in slow mo. Sometimes, I would be so tired after work that I wouldn’t remember the drive home. Yeah, not good.

On a lighter note, Laura and Rodney stopped by on their way to Oregon. Even though they were pooped, they stayed up talking to us and then crashed on the futon around midnight. They left around noon and made it to Portland before too late. They’re moving up there and staying with friends until they get a place of their own. It’s a big change moving from Texas and I’m proud of them.

Manly tips!

…brought to you by a website covered in pink flowers and girly crap.

The food and wine were excellent. The wine was almost too excellent: I drank too much of it.

Work today wasn’t bad but it was long. My head is sore and I think I’ll take out my contacts and lie down for a while. Poor me….

The perfect I’m-too-lazy-even-to-drive-to-Wendy’s and I-have-cool-snacks-in-the-fridge-for-once dinner.

sliced asian pears
sliced hachiya persimmon
double gloucester-with-stilton cheese
mixed grain crackers
a bottle of David Bruce 2002 Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir

Mmmm…yummy.

I am so tense. I think there are a lot of little things that have been piling up lately and I’m just pushing them to the side. Now, they are coming back. Arghh… I have a ten item list of stuff to do and I just keep adding to it. It seems that as soon as I mark something off, I add two more things.

I can’t complain. I’m healthy and nothing is wrong with my life. In fact, in general things are very good. It’s just all of the little in-between crap that is getting to me. I’ve tried to deal with it in a healthy manner: getting more sleep, eating less junk, exercising more. But every morning when I wake up and stretch, my neck is so stiff. I carry tension in my shoulders and when I get really really stressed, I get headaches.

Last weekend was nice because I only had one major obligation and the rest was just free time. This weekend should be like that. I think instead of desperately trying to take care of everything on my list I’m going to pick out the three most important things, do them, and then go for a walk, go swimming, or just veg out at home with Danny.

Maybe I should just have some wine. Yes….yes, wine…..

First of all, I finally made it to my math class on the scary, hard-to-find campus. It turns out that the campus is neither truly scary nor hard to find, so I will blame my inability to navigate on late-week exhaustion (yeah, that’s it).

I made it to my class and realized that I was back in high school. I was one of three people over the age of 22. I have a bad feeling that the HSers are going to get a crash course in college, be it community college. The teacher is Russian and, although I’m sure he’s a kind man, he doesn’t take crap. He was patient with the HS giggling and chatting, but he kept saying things like “and if THIS is hard for you, then you should go back to introductory algebra.”

The material we cover will be challenging for me but not impossible. I did make good grades in calculus and pre-cal once upon a time. I’m taking this class as a prerequisite for one of the MBA programs to which I applied. Plus, if I don’t get into the MBA program (I’ll be notified in eight weeks), then I can drop the class. Or that’s my plan so far…

We watched Serenity the movie last night. It was good. I thought it would be good and it was pretty much what I expected. It was a little bit dark but the story was interesting. Still, it doesn’t make me want to go back and watch the short-lived TV series.

I had a really nice day on Saturday. We slept late, did some shopping, went to the beach and walked around for 45 minutes. Despite it being January, this was one of the nicest trips I’ve had to any local beach. The weather was perfect: cool but not too windy. We stayed until the sun set and then we drove home.

We got home at 7pm, so I gathered up my stuff and went to the gym to swim in the pool. The gym wasn’t crowded at all, so I had a light workout and then sweated with the old men in the sauna. Mmmm….it wasn’t packed in the sauna - no sweat was swapped.

After that, I went home, showered up and then had a very nice Italian food dinner with Danny. Although we both agreed that what I ordered (spaghetti stuffed eggplant) looked disgusting, it tasted great and the waiters were not shy about filling my wine glass.

Here are some pics from the beach. We look happy because we’re not freezing (for once).

Here is a pic of what was hiding under the fridge. I got all of the “toys” out when boomer and boris immediately slid their new catnip mice up under the fridge.

While checking out at cockblister (aka Bbuster) tonight, Danny and I asked the person behind the counter if any of our first-choice dvds were in. We were about to take home two of our third-choice picks because we were getting movies at 10:30 on Saturday night. It so happened that they had three movies we’d been waiting for. We grabbed them all and rejoiced that we didn’t have to check the shelves lamely week after week.

One of our first-choice picks was “The Brother’s Grimm”, a terry gilliam film starring matt damon and heath ledger. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger = grin. Movie overall = frown. It pretty much sucked. I’m not familiar with other terry gilliam movies but I hope this was not representative of his style. The story was bad bad bad and how, tell me HOW, can you have Heath Ledger and Matt Damon in a movie and not make either one of them the least bit sexy? Come on! They weren’t covered in prosthetic makeup or playing mentally challenged characters. Seriously, I was disappointed….

….and it wasn’t even funny.

Coming up: Serenity, Mean Girls, and Robots.

Last night, I felt like a dumbass. I was geared up (translation: dreading) to start my pre-cal class at a local community college about 10 miles from my house. I printed the map, checked my building location and room number, gathered up my materials and headed out 50 minutes before class was to start. It was rush hour, so I knew it would take me longer than usual.

I made it to the intersection and then I remembered, “oh shit. I forgot my map.” I knew where the school was in general, but I had no idea where the turn off was. I turned left and ended up in a residential area. I turned around and ended up getting on the highway. Shit! I called danny who found the map I printed and told me how to get to school. By now, class had started. I got to campus but had to find somewhere to park. I parked without a student permit and began wandering campus. It was cold. It was dark and the campus was not well-lit. By now, I was 30 min late.

Instead of leaving my car in the wrong lot, roaming campus (there were no maps to be found), and waltzing into class 40 min late I skipped. I figure that it’s not that unusual to come to class on the second day. I felt like a dumbass but I was so relieved to just turn around and head home. Danny was surprised to see me but understood why I left.

Our plan is to go back to the school on Saturday, scope out the parking and building layout, get my parking permit and just start fresh on Monday. I know it’s not a big deal but it was annoying.

…but I’m getting better!

I’m still congested but I don’t have as much sinus pressure. Whoohoo! Now, my coworkers get to listen to me violently blow my nose every 30 min. I try to walk away so they don’t have to listen to it all, but I start to worry about it less and less as the day goes on.

Now, on to something more interesting. The company party was fine. It was still a company party so I didn’t go wild, but we had a good time. Danny and I sat with some of my cool coworkers. Plus, they had an open bar. And I mean OPEN. Danny had some crown and coke and was feeling pretty good by the time we got to dessert. I stuck with wine. After the party, we were supposed to meet some friends at a nearby bar, but I guess we took too long bc we missed them. Not to let the night end early, we went to one of my favorite swanky restaurants for second dessert and coffee. We had a very nice dress-up date and got to bed without feeling too hammered.

The next morning was sunny and gorgeous. We ended up with a balcony room at the hyatt which faced the bay. After checking out, we walked up to North Beach for brunch and then over to the Union Square area to hit the newbalance store. New shoes for everyone! Whee.. Then, we drove back to the burbs and bought cat food and litter on the way home. Now, everyone in our household is happy.

This week has gone well so far. Even though it was raining when I left work, I was in a good mood. It was barely sprinkling so I skipped the umbrella and let the mist hit my face. I put on my mega-headphones, jacked up the volume and speed-walked to the train station. I got there right as my train was pulling out. Damn. I called Danny and he agreed to come get me at a different train station. This way, I could take the next train which happened to skip my normal stop. Despite the rain and missing the train this has been an okay day.

Addendum: In response to Matt’s kitten blog, I present you with the latest pictures of my demon kittens. Don’t they look deliciously wicked? Notice how they’ve almost pushed Danny all the way off the bed. Devilish!

Not again. I was just sick! Why do I have to be sick again?

Danny started feeling sick on Monday: sneezing, coughing, congested, and just feeling yucky in general. Plus, he was very busy at work (and still is) so no sick days for him.

I started sneezing a lot yesterday and noticed that my sinuses were bothering me even more than usual. Today, I’m full-blown sick. Normally, I would totally go home except for a couple of things. First of all, I used up nearly all of my sick time last year, and most of it was during the last three months. I was sick, but it didn’t look good. Maybe my office doesn’t care, but I think they might. Second, tomorrow night is my company party. It’s a formal dinner and I’ve been looking forward to it for two months. Unless I’m puking up a lung, I’m going.

Why do I care so much about a company party? Well, for one I haven’t been to a formal company dinner since my former office threw one in the winter of 2000, before the bubble burst. It’s kind of symbolic. It means things are better. We can have a fancy party and not stress about it.

I also plan to enjoy staying in SF for the night. Depending on how we feel, I want to get up on Sunday morning and go out for a really nice brunch, do some leisurely shopping, and head home when we feel like it.

later….

Okay, I took a nice long nap when I got home, took a shower, expelled a lot of snot and now I feel better. Plus, Danny got home early, so we went to the grocery store and then picked up a pizza on the way home. We’re watching a recorded Smallville episode which will be followed by Battlestar Galactica - SUCH a good show.

Maybe this weekend will be okay after all.