Patch-work

I wanted to post a photos of my various bruises and scrapes, but I can't figure out how to turn off the flash on my camera, so they all turn out pasty-white. So I'll just tell you (yeah, not quite as amusing). I have a one inch by two inch bruise on my upper right thigh. No, I don't know where it came from. I think I may have hit the bedframe one day while cleaning. I have a perfectly round bruise on the center of my left thigh. Again, no idea how I got it. I have three scrapes on my left knee. Got those cleaning last Friday. Both my knees are completely bruised. Got those at the park on Saturday night. My left elbow is scratched. Got that yesterday when I slipped on the stairs and fell down four of them on my butt. No bruises on my butt, but I also pulled my right shoulder while trying to regain my balance. It's a good thing I didn't bruise my butt, because right now, it's the only think that doesn't hurt.

On to the advisor. Ok, I was a bit frustrated when I posted. Yes, I was thinking about quitting but more because I have a family to think about than because I want to. I don't want to quit. I love what I do. My advisor is new and I'm her first student. She told me a while back that she will be very hard on me because the job market is so competative that I have to be in top form to get a job. Having said that, she could work on her people skills. She is one of the best lecturers I've ever seen and she knows her stuff. But, I can tell she is working on her skills because she sent me an encouraging e-mail and we are going to talk on the phone. I didn't expect this part to be easy and I know I am easily discouraged because of other things going on in my life. I feel isolated from the academic world and I miss my friends and the library. While there are a large number of things I can get on-line, that still doesn't replace an actual campus library. Therefore, this week, I will be visiting several local universities and their libraries. I'm also frustrated because of the Sean situation. He has a different advisor than me (one who is equally, if not more so, brilliant). But if you recall the prelim debacle, where he didn't start his answers until the night before they were due. And then, they gave him a week to rewrite one of his answers and he still passed. Yeah, that frustration. Well, Sean's advisor hasn't even seen his proposal but he already has a defense date. And, his advisor is chair of an endowment and Sean received funding for research next spring. So while he's on a fully paid research trip in Europe, I'll be scraping the change together from the bottom of my couch to get to the Hoover institute and then sleeping on friends' of a friends' couches while I do research there. Frustration.

Finally, I don't think I'm cut out for kids. I know that right now my depression is kind of bad, but still, they drive me crazy. I was already so pissed off by eight this morning that I thought I was going to lose it. They don't listen to anything you say, even if you're answering a question that they've already asked 5 times and you've already answered it 5 times. And all they do is pick at each other. I think next times one of them tattles, (and they will) I'm just going to encourage them to beat the crap out of each other and then ask them if that was fun. Last night (when daddy and I were trying to get some love) they knocked on the bedroom door twice. They had already gotten their bedtime stories and kisses. Once was because Allison rolled over and accidentally hit Victor in the stomach and the other time was because they missed mom. We can't do anything about that so why are you knocking on our door?!? Then, this morning, they were both up before seven. And you could tell they needed more sleep because they were fighting right away. I just shut my bedroom door. Then, when I did go in there, they were playing with a game that had been taken away from them last night and put up in the closet. Meaning, they climbed up the cheap Wal-mart shelves in their bedroom to get them. When I asked if they remembered that they were told last night that they couldn't play with that game, they said no. Until I suggested calling daddy to ask him if he remembered. Oh, yeah, I remember now. Um-hm. Not a good way to start a very long day. I can't believe I'm pissed off at two kids because they didn't let me get any sleep.

Finally, since I think we should end on a humorous note: Andrea was right. Wes does think about her during sex. How do I know this? Because he told me he thinks I'm so hot he has to think of ugly girls to last longer. Nope, no bitterness here. Also, a few weeks ago, as we were going to bed, Wes's nose itched and he commented that someone must be thinking about him. I responded that maybe Andrea and her husband were having sex. He laughed so hard he almost fell out of the bed.