SJSU just sent out an email about a "Graduation Tour of Europe". Sorry, as much as I would love to tour Europe, I just don't have $4,000 lying around - I've been spending it all on tuition. :P

Yeesh.

... 230 words of fiction today.

Which was pretty damn good, considering I spent most of the day futzing around with the e-portfolio and wondering where my old assignments went. I didn't consciously delete anything - and yet I seem to be missing papers from my first semester.

I'm also irritated at my past self and her it-made-sense-at-the-time organization :P.

I also forgot to go get cat food today, so our cat with the skin allergy is eating the non-hypoallergenic food, which isn't great.

Bed. Tomorrow, dentist, vet, and more e-portfolio.

My attention span has been shot to hell all day. I wish I knew why; it's really annoying. I'm supposed to write a paper that compares and contrasts the opposing issues presented in two different articles - only, I've just read through the articles and have no idea what the issues are! At least the paper isn't due until next week.

Paintings are framed and mounted. Except for the two on paper. I still need to decide what to do about those. The problem is I should frame them larger than the paper, and it doesn't look like I'll be able to get a good standard size for that, and custom frames = expensive. I've already spent well over $100 for frames as it is.

Lesson learned: as much of a pain painting around the edges of a canvas can be, it is a whole lot less of a hassle - and much less expensive! - then framing. This doesn't help with the works on paper, though. I'm kinda stuck with framing those.

I've still got to price the damn things. And make title cards. And get S-hooks. And, y'know, do my schoolwork somewhere in there. That's a whole 'nother rant I really don't feel like getting into right now.

I'm having to face the fact - not for the first time - that I pretty much slept through most of my undergrad. Not literally (I don't have shawk's talent), but I may as well have for all I paid attention. I daydreamed through most of my classes, neglected my readings (I sometimes wondered why I bothered to buy the books), did most of my essays and papers at the last minute, and somehow still managed to graduate cum laud(? which I never did learn to spell). Whatever I did learn was mostly through osmosis. Oh, I didn't breeze through any of my classes (except for maybe stats and math 100), I sleepwalked through them, which meant I had an overload of "OMG I don't remember any of this I'll never pass the final!!" stress at the end of each semester.

The thing is, this just doesn't work in grad school. At least not in these classes. Osmosis learning especially doesn't work in online classes. Oh, I miss, I miss, I miss attending lectures. But I don't want to relocated to San Jose and driving down every week is simply not an option. Not to mention that many of the classes are only offered online or hybrid.

If I don't do the readings I'm fucked. I can't make up for it by paying attention (hah) to the class discussion, because there isn't one. But most of the assigned readings make my head spin. I read through it and have no clue by the end what the author was talking about. And then I'm supposed to "critically review" said readings on the discussion board. For credit. So even if I do the readings, I'm fucked.

Even if I do have something akin to a clue after I'm through with the readings, when I sit down to write the review the words just swirl up there and won't come down into any sort of discernible pattern. And they're words like "findability" and "aboutness" and "subjective relevance" and "arithmatic relevance" which you just don't find out in the real world. They're pretty words (I particularly like "aboutness"), but that doesn't mean they swirl any less. They swirl and float and when I try to grab at them they just part and lose whatever protopattern they might have started to make. It's like trying to grab water.

Add to this the fact that online classes means a whole heck of a lot of scheduling and self motivation, both of which I *cough* suck at mightily. ADDers have a notoriously poor sense of time. Everything either must be done NOWRIGHTNOW!! or eh, later (when I get to it). Concepts such as "next week" "next three days" and sometimes "tomorrow" may as well be meaningless, and anything later than "next month" pretty much means "never". That is, until it becomes NOWRIGHTNOW!! and we have a stress attack because we didn't plan ahead. (Plan? What? -Oh, pretty leaves...)

I didn't sleep though my undergrad because I necessarily wanted to. That's just what I always fell into. I'm still tripping and falling into it. But I can't. Which pretty much means I'm fucked.

((Y'know I never used to swear this much before I started writing certain characters. No, not just Ed, he's just the latest.))

Turned in my last major assignment on Saturday. Sunday I excavated the far side of my closet (it's like the far side of the moon; mankind can't see it without special equipment and a lot of determination). Yesterday I finished up a sewing project and started another one, and made two appointments that have been on my list of things to do for ... I won't say how long :P. Point is they're made now and later today I see my new psychiatrist (they keep changing on me - gotta love Kaiser) to talk about possibly changing my meds. Because, y'know, being able to concentrate would be nice. Friday I see about getting new glasses and I hate hate the optometry department's automated phone system. It makes you say your choice. You can't push buttons. You have to say "first one," "second one," or "neither," or whatever their options are. And then the nice recorded lady comes back with "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Please say 'first one,' 'second one,' or 'neither'." And then a cheerful "Got it!" which really grated on me for some reason.

Anyway, as you can see, I've got this pent up "gotta get things done!!" energy right now. I haven't been able to relax enough to catch up on LJ. Soon, I hope. And I haven't even gotten started with Christmas shopping and cleaning house for that yet.

I'm going to be semi-exiled from LJ for a while (until the end of the semester, probably). I'll be checking in two, maybe three times a week, as opposed to several times a day like I usually do. See, time management and I are on nodding terms only, and when I allow myself onto something like LJ, or message boards, I don't leave. Which eats up the time I should be doing my school work. This semester I have the added joy of a part time job, too. Anyway, I've been doing fairly well this semester, and I'd like to keep it that way - so, LJ banishment. The only thing I'm going to be keeping up with is e-mail.

If my room had better lighting I'd consider closing my shade. I'm really getting distracted by looking out the window (yeah yeah, what else is new). It's so wonderfully grey and windy. I love it when the sky is all textured like this.

But I really need to be working on my schoolwork; and aside from that, I need to go out and do some job hunting. Staring out the window is getting neither of these done.

It's so pretty, though...