Blessed

For those of you who don't know (of the whole 2-ish of you who read this), I'm in an auditioned choir that sings mostly sacred music.  I'm in both the big choir (90ish members) and also the chamber choir (30ish members).  We have both of those rehearsals on Sunday nights, and 2 other times a month I have women's sectionals.  I've caught myself complaining about it taking so much time, but this evening I came to realize that I need to quit complaining when I remembered about what happened my sophomore year of college.  

At that time I was in choir and started having significant problems singing.  It first just started to hurt when I would sing, and then later it got to the point that my voice would crack significantly when I would try (especially in my upper range).  It lasted somewhere between one and two months before I finally went to an ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat doctor).  They did a scope that they put through my nose and down my throat (yep, oww) in order to take pictures of what was going on.  When they took pictures, they found that my larynx was extremely inflamed.  They put me on steroids for a little while, and eventually I was able to sing again!  The point of this story is to remind myself that I should feel blessed that I can even sing at all.  Singing sacred music brings me a lot of joy, and I think I just need reminders every once in a while that I am blessed to be able to sing at all.

Random

Here's the thing.  I feel like I should blog since I haven't in over a week, but I just don't have much to say.  I'll just write some of my random thoughts that are going through my head right now.

The owner of our building is a very picky man.  We hardly ever see him since our main bosses are at the management company we work for.  Well, we just saw him as we were finishing our weekly cleaning and he is just so nit-picky about everything.  I kinda like it when we don't see him because then he doesn't give us more silly jobs to do.  Bah.

My fish must be pretty bored in his bowl.  I used to have a fake plant in there, but this last time is really started to fall apart and was making a mess out of the water, so I took it out.  Now he's just in a bowl with rocks.  Maybe I'll have to go get him something new to spice up his living pool.

I need to shower.  Neither Jake nor I have showered yet, and it's 4:30pm.  At least that means that we have been able to have a lazy Friday!  We have dinner guests in 2 hours though, so I should probably go do that.  Sorry I smell.

Freaks of nature

I have a major frustration that I want to vent about s'more. For one of my classes this semester, we have to take an online quiz every week over the chapters from the textbook that we have read. Now I have had to do something similar in another class, and it was not a very pleasant experience, mostly for the same reasons that I am going to vent about this class.

The quizes are open-book, so you'd think it would be easy to get all of the answers right. Well, you'd be wrong. On my first quiz, I missed one question, the second quiz- two, and the third quiz- three. THREE. Out of 20 questions. There is something wrong here. First of all, one of the questions that I "missed" actually was 100% correct. I found the answer verbatim in the text, which brings me to my first point. It seems silly to even have online quizes, because they are much more likely to have mechanical errors. When I miss a question on a quiz that was RIGHT (and this has happened on 2 of the 3 quizes thus far), I begin to question the accuracy of any of the quizes. It's pretty frustrating to even come into a quiz knowing that there is likely going to be an answer that I got right that is actually marked incorrectly.

My second problem revolves around a second question that I got wrong on the most recent quiz. Because the quizes are open-book, it is assumed that you will get many of the answers verbatim from the text. Wouldn't you think, however, that the point of a quiz is to test your knowledge? So, if I read a question and am sure I know the answer, even though I have not found it verbatim in the 50 pages of reading I was required, wouldn't you think that my answer would be correct? Well, again, you'd be wrong. There was a question that had 3 different answers that were all basically the same thing, and then there was a "none of the above" answer. As I thought through it, I decided that it wasn't worth looking more than the 8ish minutes I had already looked for the verbatim answer since they all were basically the same thing. Since I couldn't find any of them, I decided to go with D- "None of the above." Wrong. Too bad I didn't waste about 15 more minutes looking for the verbatim answer, maybe I could have found the right answer, even though it would not have at all proved my learning.  Instead, it would have proved that I wasted 15 minutes of my life to find an answer.  That's not really the goal of taking a class in my mind.

My final complaint: You can't argue a point about a quiz when it was proctored by a computer.   All of a sudden my learning has become machine-based instead of relationship-based.  Pity the person who actually wants to learn in the context of relationships.  I might as well take an online class.  But don't get me started on that... My final thought: Online quizes are freaks of nature.

Fridays

I feel like there are many things wrong with my Fridays this semester.  I am actually going to get to stay home on Fridays (which is by far the best part), but I want them to be days that I relax.  However, since it is the only day of the work week when I am home, apartment managing always arises.  It's really annoying.  I know that I should probably plan for these things to happen since we're gone so often, but I seem to come into Fridays thinking that I'm going to be able to relax, get a bunch of homework done, and just have a nice day.  Instead, it turns into LOTS of phone calls, me running around the complex giving people forms and telling them to stop doing stupid things, faxing things in to the office, and cleaning the buildings.  How rude.  I want a day where I stay at home in my PJs all day long drinking coffee, watching the Peoples Court, and doing only a little bit of homework.  I want people to stop calling us about the cobwebs outside their window, kids running in the sprinklers, inappropriate behavior in the laundry area, pot smoking, smoking in general, and other stupid things that people whine about and do.  There is going to come a day when Jake and I live in our own HOUSE where it is much more unlikely that we will be disrupted by neighbors and certainly won't be on-call for anyone.  And when we do...I want to have really ridiculously awesome Fridays.

Dogs

Dogs are great for the soul.  My husband and I frequently go to a pet store that has some puppies in these bins (for lack of a better word) that customers can pick up and play with.  I really enjoy these visitations and usually leave the pet store in a much better mood.  In fact, I usually request going to the pet store when I am upset about something because I know that it will cheer me up.  There's just something about a dog that lifts one's soul.  There is a depressing part though, and that's when you want to own one and for some reason you can't.  We never had a dog in my household growing up and I'm sure that I didn't know how much I was missing out.  Now that I know how much that is, it's heart-wrenching.  I know I sound dramatic, but I am SO excited about the day when Jake and I live in a place that allows dogs (and we have the money to afford one).  One day I'll come home to my beautiful golden lab and it will be just great.  Boo-ya.

Sharon the Great

I have a really great boss.  For real.  Below is a list of reasons why she is so great.

-At the end of my interview, she gave me a hug.

-She always asks me how I am and has prayed with me in the office multiple times.

-She asked ME to give HER my schedule for when I am going to work, which is basically a rough estimate.  If I come in earlier or later, no big deal.

-She has these gigantic mints that she loves to eat.  Once she puts one in her mouth, she continues to talk to me even though she sounds ridiculous.

-She makes me laugh a LOT.  In fact, some of the counseling professors have commented upon how often we laugh.

-Sometimes while I'm working she sends me to go see my husband in the bookstore.  I'm getting paid to see him.  How sweet is that?

-The other day we were both having a hard time concentrating, so we talked for most of the day.

-She tells really funny stories.

All of this after only 3 weeks of working with her.  Just imagine how many more funny quirks and stories and reasons why I like her will arise after working with her for a year.  Sharon, you're the best. 

Leaning Republican

Jake and I just watched Sarah Palin's speech and I thought it was fantastic.  In fact, right now I wish that I could vote for her for president!  It's beautiful to see a woman who is not a raging liberal be able to make it in politics.  She is feisty and likeable, and she has also been wildly successful in Alaska.  From what I hear about Alaskans, they are pretty hard to please.  She has some pretty good policies, and I'm with her for now.  I've still got a little bit of time to change my mind, but I think Sarah Palin was an excellent addition to the ticket.  After leaning "Democrat" for a while,  it looks like I may be leaning "Republican" yet again.