pedablogical

Another weekend passes. I’ve done some more reading of Norma Fox Mazer’s What I Believe; but I still haven’t quite finished it yet. I actually started it weeks ago, but put it down because it was depressing. It still is, so I’m not sure why I chose past tense there. It has no connection to what I normally read. No computer or technology connection. I had Lisa get it from the library for me because it looked like it might help with the “This I believe” sort of lesson plan that we need for the site. I knew back then that it didn’t fit; but I hate to not finish a book unless there’s a really very good reason.

Maybe it was the style that kept me reading the book. The School Library Journal review on Amazon does compare it Sonya Sones’s What My Mother Doesn’t Know (2001) and Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey (1996), both of which I have read; so maybe it’s not that strange that I’m reading it. But I wonder how much of it was the content and emotion. The protagonist, Vicki, struggles to deal with the fallout of her father’s lost job and his depression, the family’s related move into a small apartment, and their ongoing financial issues.

I’m not sure why I’ve given to read of folks with depression and other woes. Misery loves company I guess. Sometimes I wonder if there are any truly real books though. There must always be some knowledge born of the woe, some lesson learned in the process of facing so many challenges. Reality, however, can often be cruel and mean for no reason whatsoever and with no related lessons other than that the world is a harsh place. So I’m sure that no matter what the many challenges that the protagonist faces in What I Believe, things will turn out. They always turn out it seems, even when real life rarely does.

This morning felt like a summer morning in Houghton. Almost chilly, but clearly going to get warmer. Things chirping and blooming. Lawn mowers whirring.

Can you be homesick for some place you didn’t live?

So I realized that there were several things that I left out. For Lubbock, I need to know distances as well, walking distances. My messy body complicates everything.

And I’m supposed to be writing up all the blog drafts that I’ve saved over the last ten days or so. Lots of clippings and whatnot that I need to comment on, or have written partial comments on. I really need to get that finished before they’re all irrelevant.

There’s a ton of reading that I need to do as well.

Maybe that’s it. It takes care of the things that I knew were missing anyway.

I continued work on a blogging overview that I’m doing for a couple of lesson plans.

My eating is all mixed up. I can’t seem to find the right combination of things to eat. That pizza last night tore through my system, and then today, I stupidly ate lettuce. I seem to eat far too much of just about everything that I can eat, perhaps because at least it doesn’t make me sick. My system is just a mess, and I’m puzzled. Maybe it’s the soda. I have slid back into the habit of drinking soda. Maybe that’s the beginning of the problem. I’m a little lost to be honest. I half think I’m going to have to reset by eating cheerios again, and then slowly add things. And the other half of me says to just eat everything and deal with the consequences when they come. Not really the best way to deal with reality. I’m just too disorganized it seems.

There comes a point where doing everything is just too blooming overwhelming. There’s so much that you should be doing that you can’t even figure out what all it is that you are so anxious about not getting done. So in this confused mood, I decided to go about making a list of it all. Not the work minutia. That stuff has its own special list in a circa notebook. Just some of the rest of it.

• figure out Lubbock
  • research the details on the dorm—there seems to be no Internet access. Presumably there is a phone; so in theory there would be dial-up. Can I survive dial-up? Is there A/C? You don’t want to see me w/o A/C. Is there an elevator? With my back and knees, there’s no way I can drag things up the stairs. What would I do about cold water/soda? Is an ice chest a realistic option? Any details on the, um, facilities? I have privacy issues.
  • research the details on the hotel(s), which generally amounts to many of the same questions, highlighted by the key question: Can I possibly afford this? Is all the fun stuff going to happen in the dorm, like ISU? Thus is the hotel going to be the unhip place to be?
  • research the driving details—how long does this drive take again? Can I manage the vast emptiness by myself?
  • work magic with my check books to try to figure out money issues.
  • figure out when exactly I am going to create my presentation. And can I possibily sound intelligent? I haven’t written anything but lesson plans in a very long time.
  • work on my little mac (and pray) so that I can write during sessions if I do end up in Lubbock.
• write that book manuscript before I am beaten and fired.
• clean the filth that is my kitchen.
• clean up the basement.
• create two Flash interactives.
• deal with the mounds of laundry that need to be put away.
• bury the mounds of clothes that don’t fit.
• figure out my eating, because right now I am a whale.
• find some way to make this burping, acid, bloaty horror stop.
• make a sign that says, ‘no matter how tempting, never eat pizza or tomato sauce of any kind again.’ I don’t know what I was thinking, but the horror of the pizza I ate tonight wasn’t worth it. Why couldn’t I be ill when I eat all the wrong things so that I could turn into a Barbie?
• schedule a hair cut.
• write some EconEdLink lesson plans to pay for all this nonsense.
• get some lawn work taken care of, because it’s an unpolished jungle out there.
• clean out the garage, which is also an unpolished disaster. Be sure to put new plastic on those windows too.
• figure out how to pay to get the stuff that needs painted on this house all painted.
• figure out why I’m not getting any of this stuff done.

:( One day maybe I’ll have my act together. Instead, I can’t seem to do anything but be overwhelmed by it all. I’m sure that i’ve left out dozens of things too :( I’m such a nonsensical disaster.

Download of the Day: iAlertU – Lifehacker—for that one day when I finally manage to purchase a new Mac.

It has been another exciting day of laziness and inactivity. I fiddled about online, but haven’t really accomplished anything. I didn’t even get the dishwasher loaded. I have watched a number of TiVoed movies, but nothing remarkable.

There is so much that I should be doing, but I’m not moving it appears. Partially, I just don’t seem able to concentrate enough. My brain is just mushy. You’d think that I oculd wander beyond the main rooms, but I don’t. I didn’t even gather up the energy to go out on the front porch for the mail. I should start the laundry or do the dishes or something worthwhile. I can’t even figure out what to write anymore.