Monday, December 29, 2014

there are less than eleven weeks left until my estimated due date. eleven weeks. that's like... nothing. i haven't started to really freak out yet, though, mainly because there have been other things going on. i went up to CT with my husband and parents and then my grandma came down to see the rest of my siblings, and i have been trying to balance my time between my husband (who is on vacation through the end of this week), my brothers (who are on vacation through the end of this week), my grandma (who is staying for a few more days), my house (which is a never-ending to-do list goodness gracious. it's like a freaking hydra, every time we cross something off three more things appear), and myself (which at the moment is just crafting because there is no time for other stuff).

i got out of my ob appointment last week seriously depressed because, while i had figured that i had gotten my weight gain under control (because i had), she was very, very serious about the fact that i had already gained way too much weight and i needed to stop eating immediately. of course, she was counting from a weight that i'm pretty sure i haven't seen on the scale since early high school, but when told of this information, she informed me that that is my "ideal weight" and what i should be counting from. which added an extra ten pounds, at least, to my total weight gain. do you know what does not make a hormonal pregnant lady happy? being told that she's fat. and i have this really obsessive personality (in an extremely unhealthy way) which can be helpful because it is what allowed me to lose all the weight i lost last year and finish projects (mostly craft related) in no time at all and which will help me lose all the weight after cricket decides to join us, but that is seriously not healthy for me right now. i have, through an extreme feat of willpower, decided to ignore my ob. i am trying to incorporate more exercise into my routine and limit the snacks a bit, but other than that i am just going to not worry about it. que sera, sera. anyway, it's getting harder to see my bathroom scale around my stomach and it's only a matter of time before i won't be able to see any weight to worry about. (fun fact; i was doing a prenatal yoga dvd and the lady told us to do three squats. three. before i got pregnant and lazy i had a morning routine that included almost one hundred squats and could do it like a champ. i almost died after these three squats. it was pathetic.)

i now have que sera, sera stuck in my head. i will be singing this forever. and my husband just woke up so we are off to breakfast and watching the hobbit. i hope all of your winter holidays/vacations/boring ordinary days have been/are splendid. 

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

as your ship is going down, i'll stand by and watch you drown

UGH. so i'm gonna start this by saying that i realize that i am maybe overreacting a little bit because of hormones and stuff, but ugh.

if you have read my blog for any length of time, you probably know that i am a GTA for the computer forensics program at my school, a bittersweet job. while i have met some really great people through this job, there have also been times when i wanted to smash my fist through the computer screen just so that i could stop reading the crap i was forced to read. i love to help people, which i get to do with this, but on the flip side there are the students that just refuse to be helped. they are frustrating.

and then there are the jerks. (jerks is not the word that i have been complaining about to my husband for the last fifteen minutes, but i'm still unsure what my cussing policy is for this blog. i should probably figure it out.) (for some basic background information: this past semester, i graded the assignments for three different courses and then gave general advice and help for the rest of the program.)

so i just got an email a little bit ago from one of the professors that i TA for asking about clarification about points that i deducted from a student who was complaining about his final grade. so i read through the emails that the student sent and UGH.

the first email starts by insulting the person who graded the final exam. you could tell that he thought i graded the exams because he said that the grader was clearly "following a script," a description he used for me in later emails. he also mentioned that his "homework was graded wrong." then there were a couple of emails back and forth that showed the student to be passive-aggressive and condescending but are not worth quoting because they do not refer to me again. when other topics seem exhausted, though, he comes back to me and how i "unjustly deducted" points because i can't "think outside the script" and i count his right answers as wrong because i don't agree with them. he goes on to explain how he is an awesome professional that can do no wrong and it is frustrating to do all this work and have "an inexperience students [sic] grade [his] work poorly because he/she does not know the material." oh boo hoo.

firrrst of all, i deducted points (literally half a point two times) because your answers were wrong. the information in them was right, but as an answer to that specific question? wrong. second of all, i have had several students email me/come talk to me after i post grades to discuss their grades and question my decisions. i welcome these emails. i sometimes give points back. i am always fair. if you don't care enough to bring up your concerns until after you fail to get the grade you want, then you don't deserve the points in my opinion. and third of all, i know the effing material. jerk.

what i want to do is email the student, tell him he can take his GPA that "does not need padding" and all of his experience and shove it, let him know that i hope he fails and that trying to blame your grade on someone else (who literally deducted 3 points from you all semester) is kind of ridiculous. of course, i know that this is immature and unprofessional and just basically wrong, but uggghhh. i'm so annoyed.

(part of me is saying that posting this is unprofessional and wrong, too, but i read through it a zillion times and there is no way to tell which student out of the hundred some i am talking about and so that makes it okay, right? plus, i need to vent. and i think my husband is tired of listening to me repeat the same things four hundred times.)

*Ha Ha You're Dead - Greenday

Monday, December 15, 2014

i can't live without you tell me what am i supposed to do about it

this is a story of betrayal.

last week i went in for my routine glucose test to check if i had gestational diabetes. i had read so much about "the awful-disgusting-horrible-too-sweet-drink" that they give you an hour before drawing blood that i was bracing myself for the worst.

of course, i have always been an avid believer that there is no such thing as too sweet, that saying that something had too much sugar was like saying something was made by a unicorn-leprechaun hybrid - that is to say, ridiculous. i was the person that could eat an entire bag of candy corn (not something i am overly proud of) and still reach my hand in when it was finished looking for more, while people around me had made silly claims of sugar rushes and headaches and buzzing something or other caused by too much sugar less than halfway into the bag. i had a sweet tooth before i had milk teeth, and most of the things i hid from my parents during my childhood were directly related to stuffing sugar into my mouth. if my house was on fire, there are many things that i would let burn to save the candy. despite my general fear of commitment, i have remained committed and loyal to sugar my entire life. i thought that meant something.

so when i drank the orange drink they gave me, i was partly pleasantly surprised and partly not surprised at all that i didn't hate it. that, in fact, i thought it was pretty good. it tasted just like flat orange soda, something i have had many, many times in my life. i rolled my eyes at the drama queens that came before me, waited out my hour, let them pull out two vials of blood, and then went home. i figured that was that.

but it wasn't. the next morning i got a call from my doctor saying that i had failed the one-hour test and needed to go back in to take the three-hour test. (the cut-off was 135 and i was at 136, which is the worst kind of failing. like getting an 89 at school.) i would need to fast for this one, but they thought i should pass it easy. so the following day (friday) i went in to the lab, slightly nauseous from not eating, with a book and a readiness to pass. they took the first blood test to get my sugar levels fasting, and then gave me another drink. red, this time. it had double the amount of sugar as the orange drink, they told me, so i gulped it down. it tasted fine, even if it did drink more like maple syrup than fruit punch. and then i was told that i was not allowed to leave the waiting room for the next three hours, and i settled down with my book to wait.

about forty minutes into my wait, the blood-drawing lady (what are they called again?) came out to check on me "because that was a lot of sugar i just drank on an empty stomach." i assured her that i had a ridiculously high tolerance for sugar and that i was fine. she gave a look and told me to come get her when i wasn't feeling well. i just shook my head and went back to reading. for ten minutes. until out of nowhere i broke into a cold sweat, was suddenly tremendously nauseous and super dizzy and light-headed, and was hit with the dreaded knowledge that i was either going to faint or throw up all over the waiting room because there was no one at the front desk and i had no idea where the bathrooms were. there was one other guy there that kept giving me worried looks, but moved a few more seats away from me instead of asking if i was okay. thankfully, i did neither, and ended up being taken to lie down in a back room. a few minutes after that, they came to take the second blood test. and after sitting up for less than two minutes while they drew another vial of blood (side note: i do not understand why they had to draw vials of blood for this test. if you were just checking my sugar levels couldn't we have just finger pricked at the end of every hour?) my vision started to fade to black, and i was quickly told to lay down before i passed out and just wait for it to get through my system.

"i don't understand," i said. "i'm never like this."
"it's the sugar. that was a lot of sugar to drink on an empty stomach. it's normal," she said again.
and i was too dizzy to argue that it wasn't normal, not for me.

it took an hour of feeling like complete crap before it "got through my system." an hour when i thought multiple times that maybe going alone to this was stupid, and i should probably call someone to drive me home afterwards. an hour with no one to talk to and nothing to do but dwell on the fact that, after twenty-six years of love and loyalty, sugar had betrayed me. there was no way around it.

by the time i got the third blood test, i was starting to feel better. after that, i was able to pull out my book and read for the last hour. when they came in for the fourth and final blood test, i was back to normal, just starving and left haunted by the knowledge that there is such a thing as too much sugar and it is nowhere near as cool as a unicorn-leprechaun hybrid that bakes.

(alternate ending: i was looking forward to sitting in my car and eating the peanut butter crackers i had brought with me, but when i walked into the parking lot there was a lady freaking out because her car wouldn't start, and she had a one year old asleep in her car seat and a mother on crutches who didn't speak any english with her, and she couldn't reach anyone to come help her. i always have jumper cables in my car, but she had a weird car so we had to get two other people to come help us jump it. and it was a huge ordeal and i ended up leaving the parking lot over half an hour later still hungry.)

*Disease - Matchbox 20

Monday, December 8, 2014

[one] i went six months without a single unsolicited stomach touch, and it was great. this morning i went to my old high school to cheer on my brothers, and it was like stepping into the land of unwanted hands on my stomach. i do not get it. first of all, pregnant people deserve personal space, too. it's bad enough we have someone coming in and taking over on the inside, it would be great if people on the outside could respect boundaries. and second of all, what do you think you are touching exactly? yes, there is a baby in there, but it's under a whole lotta layers. aside from the usual clothes and skin and muscles and everything else, i also have an anterior placenta (not sure if this is considered tmi so um sorry?), so really, there is absolutely no point in you rubbing your hand on me. it gets even worse when your sister shows up and asks all of your old teachers that hadn't already felt that they were somehow allowed to just touch my stomach (which isn't even that big yet!) in the middle of a conversation that had nothing to do with babies or pregnancy at all, "do you want to touch her stomach?" and then i can't say, "please don't" because i am me and these are my old teachers and ugh. i feel like one of those statues that people rub shiny because they think it's good luck.

[two] i'm sitting at mason, and it's pretty empty because it's still a little early and finals are coming up (already here?) and so it's really hard to not hear everything people on this floor are saying. anyway, one guy says that he didn't like any of the harry potter movies except for the second one and i almost had to say something because, what? the second movie is probably the worst of all the movies. how is it not only your favorite, but the only one you liked? i mean, goodness. i still don't understand this.

[three] i am supposed to be working on dissertation stuff. i am not working on dissertation stuff. i cannot work on dissertation stuff. it is impossible. i do not think i can school anymore. my brain refuses to function. i will gladly sit and research things that have nothing to do with my dissertation, but that i find fascinating, but i just shut down when it comes to my actual work. ugh.

[four] my husband, siblings, mom, and i went to a craft show yesterday at the place where we do pottery, and i bought this jam (because i have a really hard time resisting homemade jams for some reason. they just really appeal to me.), and i suddenly really want to eat it right now. and i do not have it with me. lesson learned: always carry a jar of jam in my bag. also, there were a bunch of things that i either make/ could make being sold for anywhere between fifteen and sixty dollars, and whenever i go to these kinds of things i think, i could totally sell my stuff. and now i am in the mood to open an etsy store again. 

Sunday, December 7, 2014

i finally found what i've been looking for

[one] i'm at that point in pregnancy where it's close enough for the excitement to start surging and yet far enough away that the fears can't really gain much footing. it's a good place to be, but it means that most of the conversations i have with people are ingeniously turned into baby talks. i really have very little else on my brain. this is basically my thought process while i am having a conversation these days: yes, yes, something about work... oooh you know what would be good right now? a cheeseburger... with fries and a chocolate milkshake... mmm... actually no no no cheese enchiladas! yes!... hmm maybe we could stop by rio grande on our way home from dinner to pick up some cheese enchiladas... oh wait someone is talking to you, you idiot... what are they saying?... uhhh... something about work i think... wait, did they finish with work? are they even still talking? you know what is also work? babies... bring up the baby and let's talk about him instead. (exaggeration of course.)

[two] anyway, in case i come back to read this years from now, let me remind my future self of the human-shaped idiocy that is me every morning (and three times a night) that comes along with this excitement and fatty selfishness. i am the kind of person that pulls myself up into a sitting position using my stomach muscles (pretty much the only thing they can do) instead of pushing  myself up from laying down with my arms. which is fine when you don't have a kid hanging out inside of you and messing around with your muscles and organs for fun. but when you do, it leads to body protests, usually in the form of a really bad cramp. like, a really bad one. when i try to pull myself into a sitting position to get out of bed. every. single. morning.

you would think i'd learn, but you're better off thinking of cheese enchiladas to be honest. yum. but seriously every morning, when my bladder finally wins out over my reluctance to get out bed, starts like this:

  1. okay fine, i'll get out of bed.
  2. ouchhh. ow ow ow ow ow
  3. *collapses back onto bed and clutches stomach.* 
  4. god, you're pregnant, you idiot. how did you forget that again?
  5. *pushes myself up with arms and gets out of bed*
[three] do you remember years ago when  i was obsessed with candy cane oreos? well, every winter since then i have looked for them and found nothing. there are winter oreos that have red frosting that i am always tempted to buy in case they are mint, but they existed with the candy cane oreos and why would you have two mint oreos out at the same time? i don't want to buy them and be disappointed with a family pack of normal oreos with red frosting. but no candy canes. until now. sort of. i found a box of mini candy cane oreos in walmart, and despite the fact that them being mini makes me irrationally angry, they are still delicious and amazing and one of the greatest thing to happen to me this week. (and this was a pretty awesome week to be clear.) (full disclaimer: for some reason, i only remember to look for oreos at walmart. probably because they have an entire aisle dedicated pretty much entirely to oreos of different flavors. so for all i know, grocery stores have continued to sell the candy cane oreos for the past three years and i have just been missing out.)

*What I've Been Looking For - High School Musical

Thursday, December 4, 2014

i love you like the stars above, i'll love you till i die

draft last saved on november tenth, two thousand and fourteen.

i am sitting on the floor of my new, couchless living room, eating sour punch strawberry straws and thinking, as i often do when i consume complete crap, that i probably should have grown out of my fondness for weird, sour, chewy things at some point. most people seem to, at least. it's an important part of growing up that i have missed out on. there is light pouring in from all of the windows that we have yet to curtain, and a miniature human being is twisting around inside of me, and i am suddenly overcome with the greatest feeling of sappiness that i do not think i can contain it.

so prepare yourselves.

i've always been a little kid person. always. invite me anywhere and you'll likely find me hanging out with the under ten group. and toddlers? i think they are my all-time favorite people in the whole world. despite this, the idea of pregnancy has always kind of icked me out. it was creepy and gross and tiring and painful and just something that had to be endured to get to the kids. and by that i meant that it was something for other people to endure. pregnancy was not for me, of that i was certain.

i was soso wrong. i think a big part of it was that i was embarrassingly ignorant about a lot of things. i don't know if i was busy playing hangman in that lesson of bio, if i was just never taught it, or if i just didn't fully appreciate it until now, but guys, pregnancy is fascinating, and miraculous. and i obviously knew all the basics, but the small stuff, like when exactly they develop a four chamber heart and how the spleen makes the red blood cells until the bone marrow takes over and the way that they are their own little person with eye color and everything before they are actually even a person just fills me with this great sense of awe, and it is probably one of the coolest things that i've ever done/learned about. i mean, it is still super creepy to think that there is a whole person-parasite just baking inside of me waiting until it is strong enough to make it in the real world, but it is the most amazing kind of creepy. and yes, pregnancy is still tiring and kind of gross and painful, but it is so much more, too. it doesn't hurt that i was blessed with such an easy pregnancy, of course.

and this person squiggling around inside of me? i am already so much in love with him. every time he kicks or moves i am overwhelmed by this giddy feeling like we are the only two members in a super exclusive club. a really awesome club that no one else can get into. and we kind of feel sorry for you, but we're having too much fun with each other to actually let it get to us. and because i am perpetually a glass-half-empty kind of girl, i'm already lamenting the void that will no doubt consume me when our two-person club expands to include the rest of the world. but for now, it's just me and cricket, and it is wonderful.

everything about it feels very right. i've always been a bit mother hen-ish, and this just feels like everything is falling into place. or something. i know that in a few months i will be sitting on the floor crying because i am so tired and i have no idea what cricket wants, but until then, things are good.

*Romeo and Juliet - The Killers

Monday, December 1, 2014

they said, "i'll bet they never make it"

i don't know about you guys, but november was a weird month for me. like both, super busy and also super unproductive. i got a lot of stuff done, but at the same time it feels like my to-do list is just as long as it was before, if not longer. sure the contents of list went from major things like buy a house, etc to buy a storage ottoman, but still. so much to do.

my house, despite the fact that i now have a couch in the living room, a crib, rocking chair, and closet in the nursery, and curtains in most of the rooms that will be curtained, still feels like i'm in the process of moving in. a month later. there are boxes that are piled up because there is nowhere for me to put the junk inside of them yet (i still need more bookcases and a desk or something for everything that was in our built-in office at the apartment) and my momentum has completely flat-lined so i just stare at the boxes that i could probably unpack and think "meh."

but! i did manage to finish my nanonovel which absolutely no one thought i would be able to do so hah. the writing was sporadic, to say the least, but i passed the fifty thousand word mark yesterday morning, and that is really all that counts. i never did manage to get the word count up here on the blog. oops. so here's the breakdown of the writing:


i didn't start writing until day seven when i wrote 2587 words. then on day twelve i got to 4712 words. on day fourteen i made it to 11303, and stayed there until day twenty-two when i wrote up to 17530. that was when i thought i was going to start writing every day like i was supposed to, and on day twenty-three i went up to 19250 words. of course, i didn't actually start writing every day. on day twenty-six, i wrote up to 28525 words. and then i didn't touch it again for a couple of days. on the twenty-ninth, i wrote like crazy and made it all the way up to 46811. my fingers cramped up and my eyes felt like they were going to fall out of my head, but it was worth it. then on the thirtieth, i crossed the finish line and stopped at 50184. you can see from the chart above that literally the only day that i made it to where i was supposed to be (which is shown by the diagonal line) was on the last day. but i finished, and that is all that matters.

*You're Still the One - Shania Twain