Level 43, 430 Lines

Today is the last day of my winter break, and I am proud to report that I have managed to do very little in the past three and a half weeks (which includes blogging, as many of you have pointed out). This break has been sort of a turning point for me. You see, usually I feel overwhelmingly guilty for all that I've neglected to do during my downtime. This time, however, I feel overwhelmingly grateful for the fact that for once in my life I simply
r e l a x e d, guilt-free. That's not so say that some things weren't accomplished. I did relearn how to knit, read an entire book for pleasure, earned the top score on Cassie's hand-held Tetris game, and watched The Office, Seasons 1, 2, and 3 (the internet has everything if you search hard enough, although perhaps I shouldn't be admitting that here).

So, I'm quite ready to get back on that horse tomorrow. May even be looking forward to it in some small way. In a small, small, small way, that is.

Passing Time on a Rainy Afternoon

“I’m going to count how many negative statements you make.”

“Fine, I’m going to count how many negative statements you make.”

“Alright, we can keep a tally. It’ll be fun. Don’t you think that will be fun?”

“No.”

“Okay. That’s one.”

Hosting

Anxiously awaiting the family's arrival. It'll be a cozy Christmas in my little house. Busting with love and laughter.

Cheesy. I know. It comes out this time of year.

Paper-o-meter

College roommate Angela and I used to argue about whether the paper-o-meter was pronounced paper-ah-meter or paper-oh-meter. I like paper-ah-meter, but you can call it whatever you want. The important thing is that it measures how many pages left to write at the end of each semester.

The count as of today? 17.

And blog entries don't count.

"That One Was Especially Dry."

Cassie is trying to pull her weight around here, but I'm going to have to draw the line at watering the fake plants. She's done it once so far, and really, she doesn't have to.

The Outburst

I wouldn't call myself a big talker in my classes, but every now and then I just can't shut up. Even worse, sometimes I find myself really worked up about what I'm saying. Last night, as I tried to ask a question, a classmate interrupted me to express his surprise about my thinking and I practically yelled at him, "Look! Just let me ask my question!" Red face and all. And my question wasn't even that interesting.

I don't really like myself in such situations even though I know they're partly constructed by the context, the atmosphere in the room, the professor's way of conducting discussions, and my own level of stress at this time in the semester. But that just doesn't seem like much of an excuse to yell at someone.

Poor fella.

Family Ties

Now that the little sister lives with me there will be many opportunities to use her words against her. Here's an example of how I did just that when she shared how she had gotten mad at our mother for cooking sausage and making her clothes smell like fried food.

Email to mom:

Hi Mom,

Cassie just informed me that you fried some sausage for her today and instead of thanking you for that, she complained about the smell. I just want you to know that you can fry food in my house whenever you want. Also, you should know that I am a better daughter than Cassie, but that's pretty obvious.

Love you more than Cassie does,
Jessie

Optimism

The cold is on its way out. Good news given the mountain of work ahead of me in the next three weeks. I'll have to put my nose to the grind, but at least I'll be able to breathe out of it.