It's weird that it's my last night here at home before I move and I'm not choked up. I'm not scared or sad or any other emotion. I think it's because I'm not really leaving home. Home is where the heart is, and for me, that's family, so because I'm staying with family, I'll be home. Simple! Dad and I went out to the Credit Union today so I could open up a checking account, and now I have several brand-new temporary checks. Pretty cool!

I'm driving down to Charleston tomorrow afternoon with most of my things. I alternate between feeling like I'm not taking anything and feeling like I'm taking too much. Plants, clothes, toiletries, computer, a few books, CDs, and movies, shoes...and that's it. Have I packed it yet? No, silly! That's for as soon as I get off the computer and convince Mom to let me out of going to the Tupperware party down the street.

Meanwhile, the yard has and is still undergoing some pretty extreme surgery. Dad works for an equipment rental company and was able to rent a Teramite (a mini-bulldozer), a ditch witch, and a bed edger, and the result is that many portions of the yard look like nothing more than big dirt beds. The front flower bed (the triangle in front of the garage) is completely gone. That area is now going to be part of the lawn. Quite a few large plants - camelias, gardenias, hydrangeas, and altheas - have been transplanted to other areas of the yard, and we're expecting about a 50% casualty rate. I'll have pictures sometime. For now, I have to pack.

Musing

"No one's gonna want to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free."

Hmmm. Really?

What does that really mean? Bluntly, it means that if a man gets sex from a woman, he won't marry her. Right? Correct me, please, if I'm wrong. So, if a woman - and it has to be a woman, I understand - it can't be the other way around with a woman refusing to marry a man because he had sex with her - but I'll get to that later - so if a woman sleeps with a man before they are married, then he won't marry her because he can get sex without marriage. Now, doesn't that seem to imply that the only reason men get married is so that they can have sex? Is that saying that marriage is all about sex? Interesting thought. Let's ask some married people. Mom and Dad....ummm, never mind. Anyway, I don't think sex is the main reason people get married, or should get married. I don't even think the (sometimes) unwanted results of sex are good reasons to get married, but that's not part of this discussion. What is part of this discussion is my curiosity as to why a man must do the buying, and why-oh-why is the woman a cow?!?

The buying is marriage, so does that suggest that a man buys a woman? Not necessarily. What then, is he buying? The milk, or, sex. So, when a man proposes, is he saying that if a woman agrees to marry him, she has to give him milk whenever he wants? Knowing what I know of marriage (not from practical experience, but from observation), that doesn't seem to be the case. And knowing what I know of sex, isn't it the woman who does the "milking" anyway? Nevermind. Why is it that a woman is considered "the goods" and the man is the one who decides if he wants to buy? Why can't a woman sample a man's "goods" and then decide if she wants to "buy"? I do believe that it's up to the guy to propose marriage, and not the woman, but at the same time, a proposal is something that can be rejected. Just because a man offers, a woman doesn't have to accept. I'm getting off topic.

My point is that giving out milk for free doesn't make sense, not in today's world. Both men and women have a need for milk, and both are equally at liberty to shop around. Why then, is it that women are castigated for shopping around and giving out "free samples" and not men? (On a related note, people talk about loose women all the time, but where are the loose men?) That smells like a dirty double standard to me.

A busy day, kinda

It's 2pm and I have no shame in admitting that I just woke up. Seriously. See, Grandma's flight was at 6:10 this morning, so in order to get her to the airport early, Rebecca, Grandma Betty, and I left the house at 4am.

At 11pm or so last night, I thought I'd read for a bit and then try to get 3 hours of sleep. At 1:30am, I decided that I could make it through the night awake, took a shower, and then began watching P.S. I love you. I cried like a baby for almost the entire movie. Trust me, I did. Two things in life are guaranteed to make me cry, and those are death, and other people crying, and there's a lot of that in P.S. I love you, not that it wasn't a great movie, because it was beyond great: it was perfect. Anyway, I got through 3/4 of it before it was time to leave, so we left for the airport in New Bern, got there at 4:35, checked Grandma in, and waited until she boarded her plane before we left, making it home around 6:15.

I then returned to my room to see the rest of the movie, and cried some more at the happy ending, and then was settling in to watching the deleted scenes somewhere around 7am when I heard a hen start squawking. There is a distinctive cry hens make, indeed all chickens make, when they are in distress and put in fear of their life, and this was that cry. I shot out of bed and out of the house to see what was attacking it, and found the dogs chasing it through the yard, trying to catch it with their mouths. They've already killed one chicken, about a month ago, and because no one was here at the time, they really couldn't be punished for it because they'd wouldn't have known you were punishing them for the chicken and not something else. But this time, I had to act quickly before they killed the chicken, and I wrestled it from them and was delighted to see that but for the loss of a lot of feathers, she was fine. I put her back in the cage and selected a large stick with which to beat the dogs. I feel like a monster, but that's the punishment I saw Dad use when Bonnie, Lou, and Scrappy tried to kill a rooster many years ago, and they never tried anything again after that. I whacked both Zeus and Zoey three times, and it really hurt to see them cower like that, but they have to know that chasing chickens is not allowed. Dad has told me that his family used to kill dogs for stealing eggs, so I can always make a case that they've been let off easy, and they seemed just fine by the time we got back to the house. I still feel incredibly guilty though, which I why I'm justifying myself, but let me continue.

I made it back inside at about 7:30, and then I was agitated and pissed, so falling asleep wasn't easy despite how tired I was. I did succumb to sleep, and have now just woken up. I've done a lot today for someone who's just woken up!

Hired!

If you're looking for me, say sometime in June, you'll have to look a little further south because I just got a job with GEL in Charleston!

Tag! You're it!

Oh, and I'm coming down to Charleston Saturday evening for an interview with GEL on Monday!

The Mint is In

Today we went up to Tryon Palace to tour the gardens once more. I admit my main objective was to surreptitiously procure more of their chocolate mint. I succeeded in my mission, and have four sprigs of the most chocaliscious chocolate mint plants cooling their heels in a glass of water in my room, along with sprigs of spearmint, peppermint, and apple mint. Most of them already have roots, so after a night in the water, I'm going to plant them in my window planter and hope for the best. I also bought some lavender, and I'll be repotting that soon. The summer gardens at Tryon Palace were almost fully in bloom, and I have over one-hundred pictures of photographic proof. It was quite beautiful, and the temperature was perfect. I'll get the pictures up soon.

The Fun Goals

Right now, my big goal is to find a job, and I'm getting around to it, but I'm a commitment-phobic and I don't want to make such a big decision. And I'm scared, but I will get over it and get on with it.

I'm looking forward to my other goals far more than I am to finding a job, and although I need to find the job and get settled before I can even think of achieving any of those goals, I thought I'd list some of them here just to help motivate me...

I want my own apartment, something I can paint any color I choose. My bedroom will be a deep burgundy wine color with white trim, and I'll have a room full of Navy and Gray-blues and bright white trim, and I'll have a tropical theme room with a limey green and aqua blue, and another room with a beautiful Italian Terra Cotta (Orange-ish) and other golden tones. I want color. I am sick and tired of neutral grays, whites, beiges, and pastels. Give me color, vibrancy, brilliancy, and life! I'll also have self-made artistic things around the apartment, whether they be things I've painted onto the wall, or artistic arrangements of photos I've taken or posters I've collected...I'm going to have an interesting, visually stimulating place!

And in that place, I'm going to have an animal. I think small dogs are cute, but I would never want one. I want a huge dog, like Zeus, or Zoey, and maybe I'd go as small as Scrappy was, but no smaller. But I couldn't live with myself if I cooped one up inside of an apartment all day, so I'll settle for a cat or two. I like cats too.

I want to live close to an ocean, preferably the Atlantic Ocean. I love the beach, the smell of the water, the sound of the surf, the feel of sand between my toes and the wind blowing through my hair with a bunch of beautiful sea shells in my pocket. And I love the south; I have to live in the south. I need the beauty of azaleas around me each spring; they're so beautiful!

And speaking of plants, I want a garden, of sorts. Maybe not a vegetable garden, but a nice front bed that I can grow some flowers and herbs in. I'm getting ready to re-plant my peppermint and spearmint plants up in Dad's garden. I think I have a knack for keeping plants alive, and I'd like to continue.

I want to go out at least once a week, to the movies, to dinner, shopping, museums, parks, nature trails...anything really to get me out of my apartment or I'll run the risk of being an apartment-potato recluse. I really don't care if I go with someone or alone; I'm not fussed either way because I happen to enjoy my own company and I can always meet someone along the way. I definitely want to go to the movies at least once a month, to see something in the theatres because very few things in life bring me so much excitement as the sight of a giant screen filled with crisp, clear images and sound so wonderful I can feel it!

I want to see my family often. I love my family, and I've never been the sort of person who goes out and makes a lot of friends, so family and friends who are like family has pretty much been it as far as my social life goes, and I'm quite happy to let it continue that way.

I want to tutor. Odd, I know, but I've been thinking that I really really enjoyed tutoring. It was the next best thing to teaching, but without the pressure of designing lesson plans. I like the one-on-one or one-on-group interaction that I had, and I want to continue tutoring Organic Chemistry because I still love the subject and don't want to give it up.

I want my own family. I want to find the guy who is right for me, marry him, and have at least two children, one of them a daughter whom I will name Anne Lee, and then a son who I'd like to name William, but Nathaniel is good, but I'm also very open to suggestions on that side, but my daughter's name is pretty much set in stone. I want a small wedding, family and close-friends only. What Aunt Jean said at Graduation is right. I am a very emotional person, and I'm sure to be a wreck on my own wedding day just like I was before lunch when I graduated, so I'd prefer as few people as possible to see me like that.

I want to be part of a church. I'm not sure what religion, but I'd like one that's open-minded and focuses on doing good for others rather than placing the focus on traditions and the appearance of piety. I want my children to believe in a higher power like I do, and to believe in an afterlife.

I want to write a book, and sell at least one hundred copies once it gets published. I'd really love it if it was adapted into a movie starring some of the most gorgeous and talented actors present in my column of fame!

Last Grade and News

I finally got my Creative Writing grade: A (higher than I expected, woohoo!)

And, one of the people I tutored got her grade as well. She needed to make and 85 in Organic Chemistry II in order to graduate Magna Cum Laude after the second summer session, and she wasn't sure she was going to make it. She was without a doubt the best tutee I have ever had, and I think it was because she was concerned that with the disabilities she had, she'd deter any person who tried to tutor her, so as a result she came to each session super-prepared and she was exceptionally quick on the uptake once a concept became clear. She even gave me a present to let me know how much she appreciated all my help - she bought me Don Quixote de la Manch by Miguel Cervantes!! She emailed me a few days ago to let me know how she did on her final, and she was so excited because she made her 85 in the course(higher, actually), and now she gets to graduate Magna Cum Laude! All email correspondence must be carbon copied to my supervisor, so my supervisor read the emails and the news, and then sent us both an email to let us know how proud she was of both of us and how glad she was that we could work together this semester. What a fitting end to my days as an NCSU tutor!

Graduation, in brief

It has been a whirlwind past few days, I tell you what. Right now, I can't walk straight, I'm so tired, but Mom and Dad could be home as early as 9am tomorrow, and I am NOT getting up that early, so I need to decorate and wrap presents for mother's day tonight.

Friday was the most out-of-body experience for me. I kept forgetting and then realizing that I was graduating the next day, today, and when I forgot it, it was comforting to think I had a day left before the big event. Alas, this was not the case.

I did all the driving until Dad arrived around 2pm Friday, so I drove to Raleigh, to the airport, to Cary, to Six Forks, and then down to the hotel off of Capitol Blvd, a trip that had my knuckles whiter than John McCain. Anyway, we got Aunt Jean all right, and Darren and Kim arrived on Friday night, and after a not-so-brief foray to Cookout for some shakes, we adjourned to my room, where Becca and I (mostly Becca) took down all of my posters. The four of us told the most kick-ass ghost story, passing it on between us, while it stormed that night, and then much later, I was finally ready for bed. Four or five hours later, I got up, took another cold shower (the hot water was shut off on Wednesday, thanks to the penny-pinching bastards that run my dorm) and then it was time to get ready.

Nervous, was I, so I said little, and made it on time to where I was supposed to be. The ceremony lasted 3 hours, and I'm sure I'll have pictures to show you soon. On the way to lunch, I finally broke down into tears, and then while we were waiting for our table, I really started crying, but everyone was sympathetic and understood the strange combination of nerves, stress, and miscellanea that had come over me.

Lunch at Red Robin was delicious. I have a new favorite sandwich. Then we made it back to campus for a pell-mell breakdown of all that was left in my room, which was more than I thought, and then we just made it to the departmental ceremony, I got my diploma, took a few pictures, and then we were out of there. I'm still waiting for school spirit to descend upon me, although mention Carolina or Duke and you just might get my dander up.

We did some other things after that, mostly hanging about, until it was time to go, and now here I am at home, graduated, exhausted, resigned, and ready to get to work on decorating.

Two muffins are baking in an oven. One muffin says to the other "Boy, is it hot in here!"
The other muffin turns to him and says, "Ahhhh! A talking muffin!"

That joke comes to you courtesy of Becca; I don't know what it is, but it sure is funny!

Let's see, I have new grades:
Human Anatomy: A
Graduate Transitions: A+
French: A+

Now all I have to wait on is my Creative Writing grade - I can't wait to see what that's going to be. Note the sarcasm. I'll probably get either an A- or a B+, but that's fine with me. I just want to be out of that class and away from the mambly-pambly nonsense it tried to teach me. Sorry, maybe I'm just a bitch, but if I don't like something (i.e. a story written by a classmate) I'm going to say so, and then I'm going to explain why and how to make it better. I can be tactful, but I'm not going to baby anyone. And I absolutely hated all of the depressing stories we had to read in class! They were all about death, dying, or about a great sadness. Excellent pick-me-up reading...not. There's more to life and creative writing than the bad and sad things in life. I think it takes much more effort to see the good in things than to see the bad. But what do I know.

Grandma Betty arrived last night. The airline misplaced half of her luggage, but they've since found it and are delivering it to the house momentarily. And speaking of deliveries, Mom and Dad ordered some new couches which are arriving today as well. The living room is now almost completely done. When the couches get here, all that remains will be the entertainment area shelves that Dad will be building as soon as he can.

Tonight, I'm heading back to Raleigh so that I can pick up my Aunt Jean from the Airport very early tomorrow morning. I think Mom is coming with me, which will be great because she's not seen her sister in a few years, but also will kinda blow because I need to exchange the Mother's day gift I got her, and because if she and I leave, then Dad will be left with both Grandma and Rob to deal with, and no one deserves to tackle that single-handedly. (I know that was mean, but oh so true). Of course, I don't have a tactful way of voicing my objections, which means that Mom and I will probably be heading to Raleigh tonight.

On Saturday, the first ceremony is at 9AM, and that's the entire University at the RBC center. Then all eleven of us (Mom, Dad, Rob, Becca, Grandma Betty, Darren, Kim, TJ, Susan, Aunt Jean, and Me) will meet somewhere for lunch, which is going to be difficult because I'm sure Raleigh is going to be packed, no pun intended. Then there's the departmental ceremony at 3pm in Reynold's Coliseum, which is on campus, so we won't have to worry about parking, I hope. Then I'm free, with my BS, to pursue a career, something I've been quite lax on of late. I do know, though, that I want to work with living tissues - DNA, bacteria, mammals, plants - and not just chemicals. That's a start, right?

Feliz Cinco De Mayo!

I'm writing to you from home because today, the day I thought I might head back up to school, is Cinco de Mayo, and Mom and Dad were looking forward to me cooking something good in celebration. I confess, that sounds lovely to me, so I'm staying. I'm going to make nachos, and then sliced steak in a verde sauce served with beans, rice, lettuce, sour cream, cheese, salsa, and flour tortillas, and for desert, I'm making sopapillas to go with our margaritas. Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

I've only gotten one grade so far, and oddly enough, the first grade I got was for the last exam I took: Manipulation of Recombinant DNA : A+