Well, I've snatched a moment or three to try and catch up on some of the things online I haven't had either the time or the energy or the motivation to complete of late, for myriad reasons. And there's more than a few things I should probably mention.

The main one is that I've gone back to school, something I've wanted to do but haven't for one reason or another. And really, I'd forgotten just how much work was involved. Can't say I missed the interminable homework and such, but really, I'm only taking eight units, (3 classes) so I suppose I can't complain much. Only two have homework and while one has a crapload, the other doesn't really go past reason. I'm taking ENG 33 (Creative Writing), Drawing (in the hopes of improving my skill - or at least learning some shading, for Pete's sake), and AHT 101 (or, Introduction to Animal Health Technology). Yeah, that last one if the first requirement of the path to becoming a registered Vet Tech.

The Drawing class is coming along well, I think. It's basics and foundations, but hell, I didn't know how to do perspective or start to figure out shading, so even if I don't improve very much, I consider it worth it already. Having a method that one can trust instead of 'eyeballing it' like I've been doing is a good thing. Maybe I'll actually start being a little consistent. But, a step at a time. I'm happy I'm in the class, even if all I'm drawing are still lifes of varied objects.

The Animal Tech course is a step - and I'm not sorry I'm in it at all, but I'll be honest, it's taken mostly to placate my mother. I don't want to be here long enough to get a degree. She's pushing me to do so though, so I can get a better job. I'll admit, I could use a better job. Definitely could use the money to get out on my own again without help. She keeps prodding me to apply at vet hospitals, but my ankle won't allow for that, and I don't think she gets that sometimes. Working at a hospital takes a lot of physical activity, lots of up and down and side to side and being on your feet, able to kneel and get back up without the use of a crutch.

Yep, still got the tendonitis, though it gets better the longer I'm not on it, only to be agonizingly painful whenever I have an 8 hour shift. Two 8 hour shifts in a row? I won't be walking at all the third day. And yet, if I manage to stay off my leg all that third day, I won't even need a crutch on the fourth, I'll just be limping slightly again. It's frustrating. I really miss being able to even -walk- at full speed. I was a slow person to begin with, but now... mrrrrf. I swear, snails move faster. And the stairs at school aren't helping. I always feel like I'm in the way because I have to take stairs slow and always lead with the same foot. People bunch up behind me like salmon behind a rock barrier until they get too impatient or crowded and cross over the invisible midline of the stairs into the 'oncoming traffic' portion of the stairwell.

The Creative Writing class is a huge disappointment. I had hoped that my old teacher would still be there, Dr. Mooney, but now there's a Mrs. Maria Tabor teaching the class, and she does it quite differently. Exactly the way I hate it. We read short stories and talk about them (except when it's discussion time, we get to make one remark, then she spends the rest of the time talking about what she thinks), none of them are any good or enjoyable (I take that back, I really liked the one I had to read Tuesday. It was the only good one I've read out of that entire effin' collection), we're assigned exercises from another book that we have to do (which are a waste of my time), we have to keep a journal where we write about something she puts on the board, and to top it all off, Mrs. Tabor is a... to put it bluntly, a ditz. A flighty, (hate to say it, but the blond stereotype fits her), fluttery, ditz. This is not to say she's unintelligent - it's obvious enough she is, and I haven't read any of her work, so who the hell knows, she might actually be deep - but I haven't seen it. Now, I -know- not everyone can be up on the greek myths. I'm not an authority on many of them by any means. But during one of her little exercises, we had to write a title on a slip of paper, and she took it, handed it out, and we had to start a short story with that title. My mind went blank, so I fell back on my own preferences. I didn't know when I was writing it what was going to be done with it, after all. I wrote "Minotaur's Choice". Now, I felt sorry for whoever got it when I found out what we were doing with it. Even apologized when it came up. (As appalling as it is, not everyone knows what a minotaur is. *chuckles and shrugs*) But then Tabor started to explain by telling the myth to the class, abbreviated, of course. These are some of the things she got wrong:

Said Zeus was the god involved. That Zeus got pissed off because Theseus, who she said was the king, didn't sacrifice his best bull, but a lesser one. Said that Icarus was the inventor who built the cow mock-up for the queen, and then the maze. That Achilles was the one who killed the Minotaur.

There were some other things too, but I've forgotten the entire list by now. Needless to say, I'd raised my hand at the beginning to offer the correct version, but was ignored. This isn't the only reason I don't have much respect for her, but I won't go into everything here. I'll just take a moment to complain about the exercises in the book. Now, I know a lot of them are designed for writers so they can generate ideas and stories and such. But that's not my problem. I have no dearth of ideas. I need to work on how to finish and polish the ones I've already got started or brewing. That's what I'd hoped to accomplish by taking the class. That it would make me work on the ones I have, maybe finish them. In my old class, we had several projects - stuff we wanted to write - and that's what we all edited and critiqued. It had to be a certain word count that steadily rose, but it was what -we- wanted to write. I hate being told what to write. It makes me lose interest immediately. I've managed to twist certain things into being what I want them to be about, but all I'm going to get critiqued is one short story. That's it. The grade is all on the homework, which, frankly, I don't do a lot of. I'll probably stick around the class to get what I want - the editing and critique - then drop it. *sighs*

And now, I think I'm catching a cold. I'm getting a sore throat and my nose is getting sniffly. Greeeeeat.