A for Anticipation

Do you ever have those moments where life just feels completely out of control, lovely reader? That is what last week was like for me. Just a quick summary: Monday I worked and had class; Tuesday I worked, had a haircut appointment, then a doctor’s appointment; Wednesday I worked, had a dentist appointment, then the visitation for Music Man’s grandma, followed by a family dinner at a local restaurant; and Thursday was the funeral, followed by dinner at my in-laws’ house that evening.

By Thursday afternoon, I was exhausted! I felt as though I’d barely been home all week, which I really hadn’t considering that 9:30 was the earliest I'd gotten home all week, and all I wanted to do was sleep. I passed out on the couch ‘til around 5:30 when Music Man and I had to get ready to go to his parent’s house for dinner. It was nice to get to spend a little bit of time with my sister-in-law who was in town for the funeral. She and her husband are stationed in Hawaii (he’s Navy), so we don’t get to see them very often.

Most of the weekend was spent catching up on homework, since I’d gotten no time to do it during the week. Music Man and I did have a lovely little date on Saturday. We went out to dinner at a great local pizza place called Pizza Luce. They have the best pizza in the entire world, and the atmosphere is fun and laid-back. When we got home, we watched some "Six Feet Under" (we love NetFlix for watching season after season of TV shows we didn't watch the first time around) and ate the wonderful carrot cake we’d brought home from “Luce” for a late dessert.

I started feeling rundown on Sunday, but I pushed past it and went to work and class on Monday. This second Geology quiz was ridiculous! I really really really can’t stand how arbitrary this professor is with his directions on prepping for quizzes. Though I studied my ass off, there were many things on this quiz that I wasn’t expecting to see; things that weren’t mentioned at all in class and were barely mentioned in the assigned reading. It was frustrating to say the least!

I ended up getting 43 out of 50, which isn’t so bad. The professor was baffled that scores didn’t improve very much on this quiz. He’d thought this was an “easy” one and that everyone would do better since we should’ve known what to expect. The trouble was that we didn’t know what to expect! I studied all of the diagrams he wanted us to memorize and my class notes from his “lectures.” (I use the term very loosely.) I also studied my notes from the textbook chapters we'd been assigned to read. Still, a lot of the exam was foreign material. It has become quite clear that the professor has checked out. Once or twice every single class he’s mentioned something about retirement, making it clear where his focus lies and it’s not with educating us on the wonders of Geology.

We tried to get the professor to explain what our scores meant in terms of letter grades, but he told us he’d have to go home and figure it out based on grade distributions from quiz one and two combined. He said, “You’re all doing probably about 10% better than you think you are.” Based on that, and knowing I got the second highest grade in class on both quizzes, I can assume I’m managing to pull an A for the class. At least I hope so. I’m gonna be really pissed if my 4.0 GPA is ruined by a class I didn’t even want to take!

The only reason I took this class was that my degree plan advisor insisted it was the best option to get the required science lab out of the way. I still have to take some biology classes, and was set on taking one of those with a lab, but she’d insisted that Geology was the quickest and easiest way. It might be the quickest, but it certainly hasn’t been the easiest. I'm thankful that there are only two more classes and one more quiz left!!!

I spent yesterday and Tuesday sleeping the days away; finally too overcome by allergies and exhaustion to do much of anything else. It’s times like those that I’m thankful for paid time off of work and FMLA paperwork that protects me from losing my job because of “unplanned absences.” I was able to catch up on my blog reading a little bit yesterday. I didn’t leave very many comments, because I didn’t have much to say, but I am happy to be mostly caught up with reading the blogs that I follow. I hope to be back to commenting soon!

Music Man has a gig in our favorite North Shore city this weekend, so we’ll be spending Saturday in Duluth. We are both sooooooo excited! Not only does this mini-getaway provide a much needed break, but it’s also one of our most favorite places in the whole entire state. (It was the first stop on our North Shore honeymoon back in 2008.) We splurged a little bit and reserved a large suite in a hotel in Duluth’s Canal Park, which is one of our favorite locations in all of Duluth.

Depending on the weather, we’ll probably walk the boardwalk along Lake Superior Saturday afternoon, maybe grabbing a few sandwiches from one of our favorite cafes to eat as a picnic lunch along the way. We’ll do a little shopping at some of our favorite places in Canal Park, and then we’ll probably retire to the hotel for a nap before the gig. Right now, rain is in the forecast, so we might just end up doing a little shopping and retiring to our suite. We have a lakeside view, so we’ll watch the rain on the lake and will chat about life and everything under the sun; just enjoying each other’s company.

I love that, though we’ve been married for almost two years (and together for four years), we never seem to run out of things to talk about. I suppose it helps that our families seem to provide an endless supply of crazy drama (unfortunately). But, we also truly enjoy spending time together, just us. No matter what—rain or shine—it’s going to be an incredible weekend!!!

We’ll have dinner at Fitger’s Brewhouse, which is the location of the gig. Fitger’s is Duluth’s local (only) brewpub, and their beer and food are fantastic; the historic building lends a unique atmosphere as well. I might end up heading back to the hotel to do homework instead of watching the gig, but we’ll see. Music Man is, of course, fine with that; I’ve seen the band perform countless times, and homework needs to come first.

(I have two chapters of the textbook to read and about a dozen labs to work on. The labs aren’t due for another week, but I’d like to at least attempt them; that way, should any questions arise as I work on them, I can get the questions answered in class on Monday.)

Sunday morning we’ll find somewhere fun to have brunch before making the three hour drive home. I can’t wait! I am so excited to spend part of the weekend in my favorite city with my most favorite person! The excitement and anticipation will get me through these next couple days of work, and hopefully over the lingering exhaustion that seems to cling to me as a result of the nasty allergy season we are having.