Genuinely LOL

Today I had to perform my French skit... it went okay.
Then I had to sit through history class.
Then I had to study for my geography final.
Ensuite, I had to take the geography final.

Our teacher brought cookies and brownies to our class. She said "Please, enjoy these cookies and these brownies with marijuana."

Sweet! If only.

I just have my history final on Thursday. Maybe sometime after that I'll exhale or something.

Still alive anyway

Well, that's a cheery title, eh?

I hate stress. Who doesn't? But I have to put on a skit tomorrow in French class, which I am highly NOT looking forward to doing. Then I have a final in a geography class where the test is always oddly hard. I just did 6 hours of writing different papers that were due for that class tomorrow as well.
I have my history class final on Thursday. Then I can enjoy myself for one day before I graduate.
But now I have to start working on a resume. I haven't done a resume since 2003. I had my job from 2003-2006 then I went back to school. I did earn a work study at my current college as a math tutor, but I only had to fill out a basic application. It was fairly informal.

I'm not even sure I can find a work study position. My new college has all these crazy jobs listed such as being a Mommy's Helper. (Mother's Little Helper comes to mind from the Stones.) Anywho, there isn't much I'm interested in or possibly qualified for. :-(
I only get $1300 for work study and my tuition for the summer is $1700. It looks like I should take out a $4000 subsidized loan and just put the money away to use as needed during my school years.

I'm just freaking out. It's been such a long time since I've had to be "polished and professional." I'm so nervous and scared. I just want a decent admin job at the college, not some crazy job off campus. As I said, I don't even have an up-to-date resume. I can't even remember exactly what I was earning at certain positions. And I've got to figure out how to have 3 professional references. I don't know anybody! I don't know what to do. And I don't have the clothes for professional jobs either.

Ok. I'm going to cut myself off here. You get the idea of it all. Stress and freaking out. I could save a lot of space if I just put that.

Ryan is doing very well after his surgery. Let's hope he continues to heal wonderfully and that ultimately this surgery will change his life.

Harrowing week

I'm in the mood to keep this mostly short and sweet. Wow, better mark this day on the calendar.

First the very sad news. We lost Storm, our gerbil, on Saturday. He passed away. Probably from some kind of upper respiratory infection. We just didn't catch it in time. I don't know. I don't want to talk about it too much, I'm still very sad. We love you Storm and we miss you! You will forever be in our hearts.

Then Ryan had surgery yesterday. There are some tales to tell but I'm not really in the mood. So I'll just say that he's fine, thank goodness. He had to spend the night in the hospital because there was so much work to be done for his sinuses and nose, plus he's a medical basket case.

Anyway, maybe I'll rehash a few details from the past few days later at some point. Ryan is doing very well now, which I am thankful for.

OH. And I might get an A in French after all! My average is 89.2%. We have one final thing, we have to put on a skit in French. Yikes.

There is one sucky thing though. I was in college before and I went for this Applied Science degree in Radio and Television. I never finished for a few reasons, but I won't go into that right now. Anyways, the only thing those credits are good for is dragging down my GPA. I had a few B's and one C from those days. They don't count for anything except dragging down my GPA.

I sort of resigned myself to getting a B in French at best. But now with this A (hopefully) it's going to bring my GPA back up to 3.73. Which means........ I just missed graduating magna cum laude. I'm only going to graduate cum laude.

It just really stinks. All the "real" credit hours I have a GPA of 3.9. But those stupid Radio and Television grades are dragging me down. I really hate this. It's so completely unfair. >:-(

the title

I'm feeling depressed. And I really would rather not get into it much, who needs a lot of whining? Yeah.

So I will say I got a 91% on my history paper. Yay, good.

I sure wish I had some extra money. Though I would be torn about spending it on our credit card debt, or actually doing something. And the thing I would really like to do right now is go to Glenwood Springs. I would love to be able to do that on my break between semesters.

Ryan and I took a trip up there when I was a bus driver. I drove a group of high schoolers up there for some business thing... shoot, the name escapes me. Anywho... Not 30 minutes after we arrived there Ryan had a grand mal seizure. While we were out eating. A kind man asked me if I needed any help, but I had it pretty well covered. Too bad this same man got to see Ryan throw up all his food he had just eaten.

Then we had to hobble back to the hotel room. Where Ryan puked some more. *sigh* And I wasn't feeling well myself, which is typical back in those days. I was nearly always sick but especially when I was supposed to be on a fun trip.

Ryan slept all day and I rode the shuttle bus nearly in tears because what was supposed to be a fun trip was turning out utterly miserable.

I ended up driving myself to the ER in the BUS later that night because I was having difficulties breathing and at my parents urging. "You don't want to be too sick to drive them home." This is very true but then I got to spend 4 hours in the ER where there were only 3 other people waiting. It was ridiculous. EXTREMELY ridiculous. Then I had to pay the $400 bill out of pocket.

(BTW, my last chest X-ray showed that I had some scarring on my lungs. Gee, I wonder why when it seems like every time I turned around I was sick, especially with breathing issues.)

Just miserable all around. I hate how things have to work against me at times. This was supposed to be a fun, free, great trip and look at all the stuff that went wrong!

But anywho. I would just really like to sit in some hot springs. I love hot springs. I wish I lived a little closer to some, there are some in Idaho Springs I think... but I've heard you don't want to go there.

Ryan and I honeymooned in Pagosa Springs. :-)

Same old, same old

Really, just school work, school work and more school work. Feeling stressed. What else could be new? Ugh! And I have 2 more years of this. Oh well.

So I will share this joyful piece. My French teacher played this for us in class. Without subtitles and without the ending at first.

J'Attendrai Le Suivant.

Ferrety Fun

Ok, I'll post a few pictures of one of my ferrets. I just happen to have these handy.
Ferrets. They can get into a "dead sleep" that will scare the hell out of you. One of my boys did that to me today.

I think, since I'm about to post a few of his pictures, I'll finally try to tell the story about Mordecai.

My Mordecai is a privately bred ferret. I adopted him and his brother because it would be nice to have a pair who don't come from Marshall Farms. I have lost more ferrets to adrenal disease and other problems... it's just outright sad.

But all wasn't exactly smooth sailing. First I lost Mordecai's brother, Zeek. Turns out he was born with a heart defect. :-( Rest in peace, darling Zeeky boy. We love you and we miss you!
Then I had to get Mordecai neutered. I took him to a vet that my ferret shelter friend recommended.

First they kinda did the surgery wrong. They neutered him like a dog when they should've done it like a cat. So this caused swelling and scar tissue inside my boy. We had to deal with massive bleeding and an infection too. The poor sweetheart.

So we get him on a road to recovery from that eventually, but then he starts having another problem. Turns out he had a hair ball in his tummy. That had to be surgically removed, only 3 weeks after his first surgery. (Ferrets cannot throw up their hair balls like cats can.)

Then more complications arise from his neutering. Now the scar tissue has cut off his urethra. The doc had to cut out a part of it, insert a catheter and we just had to wait for the urethra to regenerate over the catheter. Meanwhile have you ever met a ferret? Just how do you keep them from chewing on things??

The poor boy had to have a party cup attached to a harness to work like an Elizabethan collar. Ooooh, he hated that of course. I did too. But it was necessary. I had to make some adjustments to it and we had to hand feed him pieces of food.

It was a round-the-clock operation. I was up all night with him, worrying about him and attending to him. Because of the permanent catheter, I would have to clean him frequently to try and prevent urine scald.

Even though all this was the vet's "fault" to begin with, I will admit they did right by us. They didn't charge for the third surgery because it was a complication from the first surgery. (remember: 1st neutering, 2nd stomach hair ball removal, 3rd urethra surgery.)

And they were willing to babysit him all day long for 2.5 weeks while we waited for his urethra to heal. I would drop him off before school and pick him up before they closed. (one time I had to take a math test on NO sleep because I was up with him the entire night before.)
Everybody fell in love with him at this point. When he's not fussy from being uncomfortable (understandable!), he's a lovey dovey boy who demands and soaks up attention. One day he was being really pesty about being in a cage in the back at the vet's, so a receptionist said she just held him in her arms all day long while she answered phones. Attention sponge!

So that is the story of Mordecai, in a nutshell. I tried to sum it up fairly simply. It was quite the ordeal. And it was just worse that we had lost Zeek only 3 months earlier.
But my Mordecai is doing very well now which I am extremely happy and thankful everyday for. He's such a momma's boy. :-)

See? Momma's Boy! :-)


Silly boy, sleeping with his head out of the hammock, tongue out of the mouth.


This is actually the paw of another ferret of ours, Luke. But how cute!!


ETA: I forgot to add in the story about the bathtub.
Mordecai had to live in a small cage up in our bedroom so I could tend to him all night long, plus we had to limit his movement. So here is the poor boy in his cage in our room:
(He was really lanky at this point due to all that he's been through.)


And then The Bathtub. He would be so antsy about being cooped up that I put some towels in the bathtub with some toys and let him "play". It was better than nothing.

Shaaaa, you know what?

I have Spring Fever, big time. I just have to admit it. With a bad case of school-itis. Bad combo.

I refuse to go to bed until I do my annotated bibliography. But like a kid who is ordered to stay at the table until she finishes her brussel sprouts (one veggie I hate, along with okra), and consequently the child would rather sit at the table all night to avoid the disgusting, vile food... I think I'll probably just stay up for the next 100 years just to avoid the homework.

OK. Focus Funnel. Get to it.

ETA: Holy Noodle. 2.3 hours later... and I'm finally basically done with that damn annotated bibliography. No wonder I didn't want to do it, it was horrible!! How many times can you say "This source was information for our project." (basically.) I think I did an okay job, but we'll see. Whatever. At least I did it and there's something I can actually turn in now and call it an annotated bibliography. *sigh*

Lookee over there... to the right of the screen

After being blase (you know, with the accent grave or whichever accent it is) I finally succumbed to Twitter. I decided it just might be kinda nice to state short sentences here and there, because there are times I want to but it seems silly to make a whole post for it.

I'm stuck here at school of course. I should be doing an annotated bibliography, but I'm choosing to ignore that right now. I have more pressing matters at hand, like choosing an icon for Twitter.

I got a 95% on my history test. Yay! However, I have done the unthinkable, I put off the term paper until the very last minute. Oy. So I get to write that this weekend.
I also had to go to a friend/classmate's house last night to work on our group presentation which is this Saturday. Boooooooo. I hate presentations. And we had to work on our project for 7 hours. I didn't get home until almost 2 in the morning.

I guess that's about all in my life right now. My husband will be having surgery for his nose/sinuses on the 30th.

Man, school is almost out for the semester and I am having a really hard time staying focused. All these remaining papers and tests.... they all can just bite me.

What's worse though... is that I'll have one month off before my summer semester. That's kinda bad because then you get out of homework/study mode. But at least when I go back for the summer, for the first half I'll only have one class to deal with. That will be nice.
Now let's just hope I can get the financial aid for the summer semester.

PS
One final thought. I do have Irish in my background. My dad has an Irish name and I was indeed named after the Shannon River in Ireland.
My husband happens to have a really great Irish name in his family, McCaffrey. It was his mother's maiden name. I wish so much that it were his actual surname. How perfect a name would that be? Shannon McCaffrey. Not to mention his fine Irish name, Ryan. We should just change it. :p

double edged sword

You know... I am aware that what makes a blog, or a person, interesting is what they write or share. Sometimes I wish I could share much more of my life, but I also am petrified of giving too much information away.

Maybe I could start taking some pictures or something, to at least make this blog a little more interesting. I can certainly show off all my cute critters, at the very least! So maybe I'll work on that.

But here's something... I am actually concerned and a little scared about something. I'm not usually a person who is an extreme alarmist but I am a tiny bit worried. When the VA Tech shootings happened, I had to go to college the next day. As I drove onto campus I actually thought to myself "I hope I don't get shot today."

My school is holding our graduation ceremony at New Life Church of all places. If you recall, there was a shooting at that place as well, in which 2 young girls died. As I drove onto my campus last week, I looked over at the church and... you know... it's just when you know something horrible took place at a certain location, you can never really look at that location the same again.

I'm not super worried or anything, but it is a rising concern in the back of my mind. I asked if we will have campus security at our graduation. I sure hope so.

Ok - Here are some photos. I should play around with Photobucket's new editing feature more, that could be fun. I thought I would kinda start things off by showing my gerbils.

This is Storm. He was the poor wittle one who had surgery back in January or February. This is the only picture I took of that. What a big scar for a little critter! His skin tumor was pretty large. :-(


He's doing great. Here he is with his fur grown back now.
Mr. Cutie McCute


This is Teddy, his brother.


Teddy is a bit harder to get photos of because he's mostly black and he's a little stubborn. Stormie at least has a sense of humor and likes to be a camera ham.


I don't have any great photos of me just yet, but I took some photos to ask opinions about my glasses somewhere else... so I'll post one of those.