Band

Yesterday I subbed for a band teacher.  I got to listen to decent band music for at least a couple hours. There was also a guitar class but they were all doing their own thing so it wasn't very entertaining.  Then during one of my prep periods, I was sitting in the teachers office reading my book and I realized there was a choir class right on the other side of the wall.  They were pretty good.  Except the first song they sang was "I dreamed a dream" from Les Mis. They did a good job but that's kind of a weird song to sing with a group of people.  It makes way more sense as a solo.  Its hard to inject the right emotion into a chorus. 

And now.... Here's a kitten.  Because I can. 

Discombobulated

Every once in a while I have a strange night of sleep filled with strange dreams that just completely messes with my sense of reality.  Is this a thing?  Like, a medical thing?  Is there actually a medical condition that someone can have where their dreams mess with their sense of reality even in waking?  If not, I think I should be getting some money for some kind of testing and maybe even a condition named after me.  Although, I suppose I should really turn to the internet to try to answer my question before I go off and run down a rabbit trail like this.

Either way, I am so confused this morning.  It took me nearly a full hour to sort out what was a dream and what wasn't.  That's just...not right.  Perhaps being sick has something to do with this as well.  I've already been having a hard time concentrating in the last few days.  What's made everything even more wacky is that I feel like I'm out of touch with time.  I thought for sure I had missed a blog.  I guess not.  Everything seems up to date, but it just feels like there was one more day in this week.  This week has grown an extra day, an 8th day, in my mind.

As I said, this isn't the first time such a condition has messed with my sanity.  I woke up convinced one of my parents was dead because of a realistically vivid dream.  It took a while for me to sort out events as reality actually occurred.  From a metaphysical standpoint, my brain is gold.  It begs questions like:  What is reality?  How do we know it to be real?  If dreams can affect our perception of reality, how do we know what we're perceiving is in fact reality?  Darn it...I think I'm finally starting to understand Berkeley better, even if I refuse to agree with him on principle!  I might pursue this line of reasoning if works like Inception among other things didn't exist.  For now, it's a venue I think I'll refrain from indulging in during writing other than to chronical the oddity of my mind, and in the meanwhile I must do some research on this.



What ever happened to my lent blog being about my religious journey?

New Kitten!

So we picked up the first of our new kittens today.  Her name is Etta.  She's already started helping her daddy play video games.  It didn't take her long to settle in.  Right now she's sitting on my arm watching me type.  Although to be fair, I think she's falling asleep. 

Etta is quite possibly the most affectionate kitten I've ever met.  She loves pets and butt scratches.  She even demands them.  Most kittens just want you to move your fingers around so they can pounce on them and then run away laughing. 

Oh hai!

We were planning on locking her in the bathroom with her food and liter box but I don't know if she'll let me.  She is definitely  not a loner. 

The Littlest One

I was upset yesterday because I didn't get to see my nephew.  I had to be sick and go to class and write a paper.  Today, I got to see my nephew anyway!  He's adorable and a little over a year and half old.  The crazy thing about my nephew is that he's already talking somewhat in sentences.  He's also absorbing words like a sponge absorbs water.

He's also insanely smart.

He's the kind of kid that only has to see things once to know how they work.  This makes it very difficult for us to keep him out of things he shouldn't be in.  Once he sees you doing something, he knows exactly how to replicate it.  He demonstrated this today by trying to "change my diaper".  Apparently, he has decided that this routine behavior has become a game.  I don't even know.

He just got up from his nap and is now tugging at my hand, so I am going to go play in his Fisher-Price tent with him because I'm cool enough to play in the tent!

House Hunting

Today John and I went and looked at the outside of a house we might want to rent.  There was a lemon tree in the backyard.  It was full of almost ripe lemons.  That means if the inside looks good and we end up renting this place, we could have a tree full of ripe lemons waiting for us when we move in.  There's also a spacious backyard where we could plant things.  And a cherry tree.  Cherry blossoms are my favorite flowers.  I just hope the inside doesn't look like complete shit because I love this place already.  I guess we'll find out Tuesday. 

I'm excited about moving but I'm not excited about packing.  I just hope we can find a place and get out before I get enormous.  I'm showing already but at least my belly isn't getting in my way... yet. 

I should look up some lemon recipes.  Maybe get some jars to store lemon juice.  Mmmm. 

The Book on Dating

Last night, despite feeling sick, I decided to go to church to hear a lecture:  "Love; baby don't hurt me".  How can anyone not go to something like that?  It just begs attendance, which certainly did not disappoint.  I think there were at least twenty or so of us there.

The lecture was on who not to date, or rather, what to look for in a relationship that will key you in that maybe the person you're with isn't exactly the one for you.  I hate to say I fit quite a few of these "warning signs" from people I have dated in the past.  Apparently, I have bad instincts when it comes to dating.  Why is this lecture not a dating handbook?  Then again, if it had been, would I even have bothered reading it/taking it seriously?  Hard to say now.  I've seen my share of successful relationships since then that I'd like to believe I know better what to look for, but who knows.  Love has a tendency to blind you.

I tried to look up the the particular article that was used, but I couldn't find it.  I'm not sure whether it's a specific lecture or if it can be found online, that's rather part of the problem.  With google's new tracking policies, I've found it to be a far less reliable tool for helping me find what I'm looking for, expecially when I click links to see if "this might be it" and it decides this must be what I'm looking for.  If I find it, I'll definitely link it to this page, because I think it was a good lecture and I think it would be useful to others.  I'm not sure how useful it was for me aside from pinpointing where I've gone wrong inthe past, but even that can be helpful for future relationships.

Driving

I spent pretty much all day with Kayla today.  Most of that time was spent in the car.  For about an hour that car wasn't even moving.  After going to the goodwill to pick out some dresses that would fit me, we came back to the apartment and neither of us had the energy to leave the vehicle.  After a little deliberation, we decided to just wait in the car until John got come from work which ended up taking twice as long as we had anticipated.  Then he jumped in the car and we drove off on another adventure.  My point is I spent way too much time in the car today.  I'll bet that car is glad to be rid of me. 

Also, I wish the natomas school district would stop using time cards.  About an hour of our time spent driving was to go to the district office to drop off my time card, which took 2 seconds, and then driving back.  There should be a better way to do that.  I'm not made of gas money. 

When it Rains...

I've been fighting various sicknesses for two weeks.  I think I'm finally failing, though.  Yesterday, I thought I had strained my voice, but after today, I'm worried I might be getting strep.  I sincerely hope not.  I have a couple papers due in the next two weeks among a variety of other homework, plus I need to be in the classroom full time not too long from now.  I know I promised not to complain about all the work I have to do, but...

I wish a side affect of getting sick wasn't tiredness.  I know it's your body's way of telling you that you need sleep to recover, but I have a lot of things going on.  Not just homework things.  I mean, things in a general sense.  I have people to spend time with and things I want to do, no just have to do.  It just seems that my refusal to get sick isn't helping any.  If Angela were to comment in this post she'd probably say:  "Kris would formulate an argument out of being sick if she could."  I think that's what I'm trying to do here more or less.  If I can make a case for why I can't or shouldn't be getting sick and it will cure me, consider it done!

That being said, I guess I'll contend myself with getting some sleep tonight and taking it easy for the next couple of days.  At the very least, I don't have to be in class all the time yet.  Starting March 11th, that all changes, so it's probably for the better I got sick now instead of later.

Sorry about the lame topic.

It's In My Nature

Being human is ridiculous sometimes.  I've been so frustrated today dealing with people.  I guess when it comes down to it, we're just really hard to work with.  We're such a bundle of messy psychology and subtlety, that often times miscommunication can create irritation or a barrier between people.  That's not to mention culture, gender, age, and philosophical differences as well.

Sometimes I think part of the reason I study psychology, theology, and philosophy so much as well as indulging in role playing and acting is all to help me understand people better.  I just...want so very much to understand people.  I don't get certain behaviors or personality types.  I try to.  I really do.  But some things are just beyond my grasp.  I can't help but feel like it's possible.  I know it's not.  There are too many diverging ideas and rationalities, explanations, evaluations, ideologies, etc.  No one has been able to nail down human behaviors or understanding in all the years that we've cognitively existed, and no one ever will.  I just can't help but think if there was an answer, maybe I could finally get people...but maybe it's not really that important in the long run either.

Less than exciting

Some days there just doesn't seem to be anything to write about.  It's like my whole world is just completely devoid of creativity or inspiration.  I just wanna curl up in bed and watch a movie. 

This always seems to happen when I allow plenty of time for blogging.  I opened blogger at least 2 hours ago and was distracting myself with various internet things while trying to think of a topic.  If I leave my blog until the end of the day or I only have a few minutes to write, it takes me like 30 seconds to think of a topic.  My brain must run on procrastination.  This is why I could never write a novel.  There is no book that can be written in 5 minutes.  Not one anybody in their right mind would publish anyway. 

On the plus side, I beat Kris today.  Unless she manages to post seconds before me...

Ashes

Today I killed about an hour by making a pile of ashes on the kitchen table.  The whole time John was watching me nervously and complaining that I would leave burn marks on "his" table.  I think he was just jealous because I was burning things and he wasn't.  I don't blame him.  It's a lot of fun.  Also the table survived with no permanent damage.  I guess its specially equipped to handle ashes made from paper.  In fact, I think most tables are designed to handle the equivalent of dust.  They even make these specialized tools called "dusters" to handle these types of messes.  We didn't have to resort to that though.  I was able to handle this disaster with a paper towel. 

John's gonna be so pissed when he reads this.  I'm even typing it on his computer so it's like double insult.  I'm in a weird mood today.  He did take me to get bundt cake and tea today so that was super awesome of him.  I thanked him with the giant pile of ashes.  He was not appreciative. 

I was just about to say something about posting before Kris and then I checked the blog and noticed that she posted just minutes ago... so close.  Maybe tomorrow. 

Realignment

I've heard people say before that when you start going to church regularly and really practicing your faith, you start seeing your life realigning to a more Godly one.  I never really took this seriously before.  I always thought I was living a pretty good life, and I really never saw any kind of changes taking place within me.  Lately, all of this has changed.

I find myself starting to feel differently about things I never really batted an eye at before.  It's little stuff, really.  Content on television, in songs, in movies.  Stories about people mistreating others.  Even disappointment in my own thoughts and actions, although it isn't nearly like the self-deprication that it was before.  Ultimately, I don't think these changes are bad, it's just...different.  Unexpected.  I have to wonder whether this is because I've just really started taking my faith more seriously or because I've been putting more things into practice since going through RCIA.

I have to say, I kind of like the "new me".  It's like a better version of the old me.