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This is a short week of school and I’m beat. I think it has more to do with hauling lots of books around campus than actually being beaten down by the work.

School is going well so far. My classmates are smart AND nice. I have lots of reading but that isn’t really an issue yet. Most of it interests me. I might not feel that way by the end of the quarter, but for now I’m excited.

This weekend will involve studying, but also some well-deserved down time.

Danny is doing well but is coping with me being away all day. At least I’m nearby (at school).

I met someone today who reminded me of this guy….not the gay son but the Delete key guy.

Ahhh…Mr. Show memories.

Tomorrow morning I start my MBA orientation. Since I see this as the beginning of the end of my free time, I used this weekend to relax and catch up on chores. I know that sounds boring, but it can be therapeutic when done at leisure.

Danny and I did laundry, bought groceries, tried a new restaurant for dinner, came home, put away our laundry and then I cleaned and vacuumed. I keep vacuuming in a separate category because even though cleaning the bathroom is not fun, you can tell it is cleaner. Vacuuming and mopping are my least favorite chores so I do them only when I feel like it’s absolutely necessary.

On second thought, I take that back. Since we got a new vacuum, I think vacuuming actually DOES something after all. Our old vacuum was kind of crummy, and I felt like I was just pushing the crud around the apartment.

I like to clean right before I go out of town or on vacation. That way I know I’ll come home to a clean house. Even though I’m not going anywhere this week, I feel like I need to be prepared because I certainly won’t want to vacuum after a full day at school. I’ve been cooking a lot lately, but I think that will cease once I get into the throes of the MBA program.

Even though I don’t enjoy cleaning, when I do clean I like to have music going. I love having the news or some radio station playing when I’m cooking supper. It’s just pleasant. I usually put on my Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday albums. Tonight, I fired up the David Garza CD and scrubbed to my heart’s content. I need some new music but sometimes the old standbys are just so relaxing.

Anyone got any cheer-me-up or calm-me-down favorites?

Six months ago today, Danny smoked his last cigarette and I’m SO freakin’ proud of him. I can hardly imagine how hard that must be. Let’s give him a round of applause for quitting when he wanted AND on his first try.

Check out his quit meter to see how many butts he hasn’t touched.

I just found out that Ann Richards has died. This makes me really sad. She always seemed to have so much life in her, so “in the moment.”

I don’t know what else to say.

My MBA blog is up. I don’t know how much time I’ll have to put into it, but I hope it will give you some insight into my adventures as a full-time grad student. As for content, my pics, family stuff, and Danny updates will go here. My gory school stories and project updates will go there.

Danny is helping me set up another blog, one in which I will detail my MBA experiences. It is in the works, but it should be set up by this weekend. I’ll probably start devoting most of my time to it but I’ll still post pics and personal updates here.

I went back to school today. I’m an official full-time MBA candidate.

My orientation doesn’t start until next week, but I signed up for an optional “accounting bootcamp” course. In my opinion, this is the best way to ease back into the student life - one class a day for 1.75 hours. Let me rephrase that: the grad student life, as in “working your ass off and praying for an extra hour of sleep over the weekend.” It might not be that bad but I expect high levels of stress and low levels of rest. I think it will be good though. It will be hard, but I’ll be there with a bunch of other folks working their butts off along with me.

Anyway….

Class was completely full. I was not the only one who thought they could use an accounting overview. The teacher seems nice, normal, competent, and eager to get us up to speed. We have a test on Friday, but it is open-note and we can’t fail it. The other thing we have is a three minute speech based on a business article they gave us. This stresses me out a little bit, but not too much. I was in Toastmasters for a couple of years and I was amazed how quickly a five-minute speech flew by. I think this one will be harder because I have to act like I know what I’m talking about, but I should be able to fake it for the time being. The content isn’t hard, just something I’ve never discussed before. I do this on Friday immediately following my accounting test. Easy, right?

Everyone I’ve met in class so far has been super friendly. No one has asked any annoying questions or tried to be the teacher’s pet. In the stats class I took last fall, I truly loathed some of my classmates. They weren’t bad people, they were just little overachievers who kept us late so the teacher could answer all of the bonus questions that had not been assigned. I was irritated at them because A: they were annoying and somewhat pretentious, and B: I was tired as fuck given that it was 9:30 at night and I wanted to go home after my 3.5 hour class.

The point is, I think I’ll like this class and so far my classmates are cool.

There were a few very positive things that happened this weekend. First of all, I checked out a couple of introductory accounting books from the library. After reading the first few chapters, I realized that I did actually learn something in the accounting class I took 7 years ago. Even though I still have a lot to learn, I’m not worried about being hopelessly lost in my accounting review class next week.

Second of all, Danny and I have an idea of where to go for our honeymoon that is A) beautiful B) someplace neither of us have visited and C) somewhat affordable. More details to come…

Finally, we went to one of my favorite stores today, Cost Plus World Market. I had a gift card there and I wanted to look for pretty, inexpensive dishes. We got rid of a bunch of our cheap, mismatched dishes when we moved and I’ve been looking forward to replacing them. Since new dishes weren’t a top priority, we burned through most of our wedding gift cards before I decided which matching dinner and salad plate set I wanted.

The dishes I got aren’t fine china, but they are very elegant and they were on sale. Plus, they will complement the dishes we still have. The best part? I now have more than four bowls and four plates, so I can use the dishwasher. Yay!

Oh yeah, I want to wish Daniel a happy happy birthday! It was yesterday, but I’m sure he’s still up partying with the best of them.

Last night, I was feeling quite industrious. I decided to vacuum at 11pm. I know that that’s late, but since I’d stayed up until 4am the night before and had subsequently slept in that morning, it was only about 6pm my time.

Anyway, I was vacuuming and feeling pretty good about how well my new little canister vacuum could suck when I heard two loud knocks at the door. I went and peeked out the peephole and saw nothing. Danny came downstairs to ask what it was, and I told him I didn’t know. We left our porch light on and hung out for a few more hours before going to bed.

When we woke up today, I opened the door to find eggshells and runny egg yolks running down our door and onto the doormat. Shit. That sucks. At least they weren’t rotten eggs, but it really pissed me off. Who could I have angered in the short time we’ve been here? There are tons of crappy little unsupervised kids running around our parking lot, so it could have been anyone of them. On our way out today, we looked around to see if any other doors had been defiled, but we didn’t notice anything out of the peeling-paint, shitty facade ordinary we’re used to seeing.

When we got home tonight, we got a bowl of soapy water and some sponges and cleaned off the egg. It wasn’t too gross but it was annoying. We can’t wait to move out of our complex. At least we got a six month lease. Even if we have to move out in the freezing, wet-cold of January, I think it will be worth it. This place sucks.

So how do I know I’m back in school? Crappy neighbors: check. Cheap apartments: check. Little kids shrieking and screaming from sunup to sundown: check. I guess at UT, Danny had more drunken frat dudes to listen to late at night, but I’d almost prefer them over the crappy kids in our complex. Yes, I hate children. It’s that simple. Wait. I actually hate the no good, worthless, crappy, preoccupied parents who let their little brats run around the parking lot at all hours of the day.

I feel old. Get off my lawn or I’ll take a switch to yer hide!