Lindsay Loves

Today, I was up and dressed with 15 minutes to do anything I wanted. I chose to pray Lauds (Morning Prayer). Then I still got out the door two minutes late.

EDCI 416 (How to Be an English Teacher) went by quickly. We talked about language (read: grammar) and took a usage (read: grammar) test. We have to get at least 80% on it to pass the course. I hit some snags, but I was pretty much at home.

I went to daily Mass, then came home for lunch. ENGL 391 (Professional Writing, a.k.a. Junior English) is canceled this week for individual conferences. I scheduled mine for 1:30pm, just before I had to be at Anne Arundel for a Visit Maryland Day student panel. I took my time eating, which was good because Father What’s-His-Name gave a long homily, so daily Mass was over 20 minutes. I wouldn’t have been able to each much if I’d had to go to class. Despite the comfortable buffer, I only remembered my appointment at 1:25. I took off in a hurry, got halfway to Susquehanna, realized I’d forgotten the paper I needed to turn in, ran back for it, ran back to SQH, caught my breath in the stairwell, and finally made it to the office about three minutes late. The conference itself went fine; he approved my proposal on a system for stopping book banning.

After I got back from the Honors student panel, I checked the schedule, made some calls, and left to catch the shuttle to Beltway Plaza mall. Halfway there, I realized I’d forgotten the makeup I needed to return, ran back for it, dashed back up South and North Hills, and caught the bus about a minute later. (Thanks, St. Christopher, for helping me out with that uncomfortable déjà vu) I wasted very little time getting in and out of the beauty supply store (I use a specific type of hair grease), in and out of Target, and back to the bus stop. I was only there about five minutes before the bus returned. I got off at Regents Drive and walked halfway across campus to get home.

On the way, I saw two gray squirrels chasing each other around a tree trunk. I paused, transfixed and amused, as they paused, since one had lost sight of the other. Then the one moved farther up the tree, the other saw him, and they went back to it. Then I saw two black squirrels doing the same thing, sans tree.

Yesterday, I hit myself in the face with my bedroom door. Clearly, I am losing my mind.

I will update soon with more details about what’s been going on in my life since the end of August.

I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without blogging. (My 9/11 post was planned far in advance… back when I had much more time.) This semester is not going well. School is choking me to death. I have an awesome support system in my friends, though. And I am managing to make it from day to day, albeit rough around the edges. If you are so inclined, pray for me.

I wrote this in between classes; it is backdated and edited for content and clarity. After I finished, I felt bad for not having used the downtime to study.

I am going to have to make up for this by studying like a madwoman later, but I need this. This semester has been so unreal… and it’s barely underway.

I was doing some thinking during [EDCI] 416 this morning. Peggy [one of my teachers] and I are clearly on the same wavelength. We think alike about grammar, “language arts,” and some other teacher-talk terms. I am not sure whether this is good or bad. On the surface, Peggy represents my conservative, academic, white side. Who am I? I’m this walking anomaly, the black chick with the hair (my bangs so confuse people) who loves grammar and Harry Potter and Switchfoot and Jesus.

This semester, these past four or five weeks, have been so different in comparison to the rest of my life that I can sense my transformation. I am becoming a different person. [I did something wrong, realized my sin, and confessed it.] I manage to function on almost no sleep. My sense of family is so skewed. I’m back to spending my days holed up in my room alone, except when I blow off work to be social. Not only am I ignoring my work, but I’m ignoring my descent into slackerdom. Jim has taken on the role of my personal prayer warrior. I’m becoming one of those chatty people in class, the one who’s always raising her hand to volunteer an answer. I thought I was just in a voluntary mood, so I’d speak up now to buffer for quiet days later, but it seems to have stuck.

I wish I had more time. Time might let me find some answers.