And Open Letter to SRG

Dear Stupid Red Headed Girl Who Sits in the Back of the Class,

Last Thursday, as I was leaving class, I overheard a remark by the professor, that at the time brought me a little comfort. I heard him tell you that you needed an 80 or better on last night's Organic Chemistry test to qualify for the opportunity to take the exam. I figured that you were simply playing dumb, and that surely you would come home from class armed with that information and study your amply proportioned booty off.

Clearly, by the size of your booty last night, and by your comment in the 2 minutes before the test started "OMG, I need to study a little before this starts!" that didn't happen. I occurs to me that maybe you just don't know how to pass a class with difficult subject matter, and I thought I could help.

The first step to passing a class, any class, is to attend class with respect to its start and finish times. When you are ten minutes late and sit in the BACK of the class, you jostle and annoy the other students as you make your way through the room. Additionally, in the same category with tardiness is your habit of dismissing yourself at 8pm for a smoke break. The class runs from 7pm - 840pm. We were fortunate that only on very rare occasions did Dr Forest decide to lecture that late. Usually he wrapped up by 8:20 or so. I find it extraordinary that your nasty stinky smoking habit could not wait an additional twenty minutes for him to finish. When you leave the class twenty minutes early for a smoke break and you sit in the BACK of the class, you jostle and annoy the other students as you make your way through the room.

The second step to passing any class, is to read the material. SRG, I know I cannot be the only person in your life who has indicated this to you, but Chemistry is a hard enough class when you have a clue as to what is happening. Trying to do it without reading the chapters would be a little like attending only 50 minutes of a 1 hour and 20 minute class. Reading is important. If you are confused by how to read, take the College Success Class offered at the Western Campus by Professor Berry. He can give you some tips, and the class, for most students, is an easy A, so you could probably scrape a C out if it at least.

The third and final step to passing a class in college is to respect your professors and other students. Since you needed a relatively high grade on the last test to pass, and it might come down to whether or not he rounds your grade UP, it is important that he think Highly Of You. This would be a stretch, but here are a few pointers that might help in that regard. This sounds crazy, I know, but when you start talking in the middle of a test on Organic Chemistry, you're not making life long friends with your classmates, and I can assure you that you're definitely pissing off the professor. I would also suggest that you NOT SNAP YOUR GUM throughout the testing period. You annoy the students in the class & the professor. If the professor chooses to leave the room to use the restroom, it's not license to cheat. And, since you've now alienated yourself from the class, you should probably consider that the answers your fellow students share might be wrong. I however, will never even pretend to share answers with you, even wrong ones, because I respect myself more than that. Do not bother to stage whisper loudly, "hey, marathon girl! Hey! Virginia, what is the answer to #G?" because #G is not an #, and I am deaf during tests. Stone Deaf. You know why I'm deaf right? Because I have a JOB and a LIFE, and neither one includes getting expelled from school or even disrespecting myself because you were too stupid to study.

Good Luck to you in your endeavor to join the MEDICAL Field. I get a little shaking in my boots when I consider that you might one day be a Radiology Tech. I truly hope that school either gives you the courage to behave in an adult and respectful way, OR that when it weeds you out you are able to find employment in the food service industry, where I understand there are many benefits to be had such as health insurance, free MilkShakes, and little reading is required.

Regards,

The Exempt Brown Haired Student Who Sits in the Front of the Class

IT's the Guitar!

Hey Kitten what'chya doin?

Wanna plaaaaaaay the guitar?

You say whats that sound,

Coming out of the hole in the wood?

...it's the guitar.

(seriously, you better know that's The DeadMilkmen)

Today my son sat down to play his guitar. He's had 2 months of lessons, and I think he's starting to have a real grip on the basics for a 7 year old. (i.e. - produce a clean note when you strike a string and practice makes perfect). However, the lessons are not running during the month of December, and his guitar hasn't been tuned since the Monday before Thanksgiving. It sounded, uh, interesting today. Interesting in a painful "please stop playing that instrument" kind of way.

I couldn't say that though. He's a 7 year old, and there's his self esteem to consider. I had to suck it up and listen. And that's what I did. For 5 minutes until I felt compelled to remind G that he wasn't allowed to practice his guitar until all his chores were done. THEY ARE? Crud. OH, I mean, "can you double check the chore list?"

Seeing as pain in my knee is already chronic, I decided that pain in my ears was optional and I was going to have to fix this somehow. My choices were limited - hunt up a musician to tune the guitar, take it to Guitar Works and beg, or do it myself.

Before my voice changed I could sing quite well. Unfortunately, once my voice changed and I developed the range of a middle aged man, I was uninterested in pursuing any kind of musical career, and so, despite the fact that my father is one of the most talented musicians I know (and I know a lot because he is a talented musician), I have no instrumental ability.

Did I mention that Dad plays guitar? And Banjo? And pretty much if it has strings he can make it happen... but never once in the 900 times that he offered to teach me to tune one of these instruments did I listen? Nope. Not ONCE. AND now my son owns 3 guitars, 1 banjo, 1 base ukulele.... all which need tuning.

Today I was inspired by my recent foray into the world of "tallness" via basketball, to try a bit in the world of "music-ness" via guitar tuning. I now own a tuner *see above note about son owning 5 stringed instruments. And I knew, in general, how a guitar should sound and, in general, how a tuner should work. So the instructions on the tuner were clear, strum the guitar, tune the string - the tuner will tell you what note you're closest too. I foolishly assumed that if the note was an off key F, that the string should have been an F.

Ha. HAAHAHAHAHA. GUESS WHAT? Those suckers can be off by as many as 2 whole notes! So after I tuned it, I gave it a strum, and when my ears stopped bleeding I thought, "I'm going to need to do something a little more precise". Enter into the equation "GOOGLE". Seriously, did you know you can learn ANYTHING on google? ANYTHING AT ALL? EVEN - "How To Tune A Guitar"?

3 minutes later, armed with this new knowledge, I tuned that baby right up. And set my son loose with the 5 songs he knows. They're the 5 songs he's going to know until he spends a little time with D-Dad or Lessons resume (in January), so if I have to hear them over and over (and over), at least now I can hear them over and over in tune.

Super Bad

C started basket ball today through our county. I had to spend a few minutes trying to figure the game out so I could try to share what I'd gleaned with C. My knowledge was "sparse" to say the worst.

It is a small, yet well organized league. Our coach and assistant were awesome. Both College players, one on scholarship at UCLA until she was sidelined with an injury & now plays for VCU.

They didn't waste anytime lining the girls up to warm up, stretch and do some drill looking thingys where they practiced laying down... up? Layup? ANYWAY - drills with balls and shooting at the basket. C has never been on a court before and with 3 words from the coach she made a basket. Yes, seriously! C had a super time. Then, after 1 hour of practice where they did no running/dribbling work, concentrating on layups (seriously, did I make that up?) and defense (a word I know), the coaches distributed the uniforms and the game started. The uniforms were all one size. This is a league of girls from 9 - 11. So. C's uniform is an adult small. I will be washing it in HOT. Very very HOT, and drying on High. For an hour.

Let me explain a few things about how it went today. The first is that we're a team of 9, but there's supposed to be 10. Each team must play a line of 5 players for 5 minutes, the clock is paused, the lines switch. This means that on our team one girl would stay out for 10. C will never be asked to play for more than 5 minutes at a time. The "line" that C is on with 2 other non-players and 1 really decent player. And the "line" which came to be identified as the "ringer line" because it's 4 really REALLY good players and 1 really decent player. The Ringer Line rotated through C's line, so there was always one really savvy ball player on the court to help "direct" the dazed and confused. I'm not going to lie- those girls were fierce. Our coach had to start directing them to play it down because she didn't want to run up the score!

C did get her time on the court regardless of how much ball time she had. She did some defense, consisting of me & the coaches yelling "HANDS UP!" (I learned that today) And, she spent a lot of her time talking to coaches & refs about "fouls". Her fouls were "double dribble" and "traveling". 'sall Good though, because she was having a great time.

At one point during the game, she and the "non-ringer" line were out playing, and Colleen throws her hands up in front of her screaming "DON'T PASS IT HERE!!! NO!" As a girl sends her the ball. C's a smart girl. She looked at the pack of opposition players converging on her and she threw the ball as fast as she could in the "general direction" of a teammate.... right into the waiting hands of the opposite team. But hey, her coaches all yelled, "IT'S OK! It's OK C. NOW GO PLAY DEFENSE!" So funny. The moms and I were rolling on the floor laughing as one player on our team caught the ball and, holding it like a football, sprinted down the court. So. Let's just say that Colleen was not traveling alone today.

C's team won, and despite that she handled the ball exactly 5 times in the game without a foul (one of those was an assist on a rebound - those are hockey terms, but I bet they could apply), she got an immense satisfaction out of the fact that her team won 32 to 6.

Oh, and the other good news is that on the back of her cool lime green t-shirt is the number 3! (G's Hockey number!, My Lucky number!) So, that's always good.

>Tallness

I am "not" a Tall Mom. It would seem that I have surrounded myself with Tall Moms though, both in the real world, and now even in the bloggy world. I married a Tall Husband and in doing such have produced Tall Children (except B). I also have Tall Parents and Tall Siblings, and in general, spent a lot of my life feeling a little like the ugly duckling, only instead of being "the ugly one" I was just "the short one". By inches. When I say inches I think it's important to mention that my "little" sister is a 6ft tall model. I am nearly 5'3.

Nearly.

So this week my Tall Daughter is starting basketball! Yes, on Saturday, assuming that G's surgery goes well, we will be stepping onto the basketball court. For the first time in... no, g, that's got to read "for the first time"(period). I have never played basketball. Not even recreationally. Not even in my friends driveway growing up. Or as a grown up. Never. In High School during the "basketball" session of 10th grade PE, you know, where you learn a new sport?, my short friend and I were excused to walk on the track for 30 minutes of "cardiovascular activity", or a few laps of gossip, which ever came first.

We will be forging into uncharted waters. Boldly going where I have never been. And of course I expected my daughter to be nervous or excited, or both, in anticipation of her new sport. Do you know, she only had ONE question for me in regards to Basket Ball. One.

"Mom, do I get a new basket ball outfit?"

surgery Friday

I had such high hopes for this weekend.

On Friday night while H worked late I was going to bake cookies with my children, on Saturday I was going to wake up and take some motrin before sneaking out on a "long run", then in the afternoon my youngest has a ballet recital at a retirement home, It's also the first day of basketball for C - and we don't even know what time that's supposed to start, and finally on Sunday we were going to church for pageant rehearsals, and then the kids & I would come home, put up outside lights until it was time for H to take G to hockey.

Yea. About that.

G's surgery is Friday. Fun times.

Routine Visit, or Not.

I took my son to the ENT today for a routine check up following his disastrous October ear drum rupture. This was a routine follow up visit. Routine suggests that everything would be fine, we were just checking to see that it was all healed up nice and pretty. It went a little like this:

Friendly banter with really cool Dr. Really Cool Dr looks into G's right ear, give G the thumbs up and more banter. RCDr looks in G's left ear. RCDr purses his lips.

RCDr sits back on his rolling stool, repositions his otoscope, repositions G's ear and looks again. And sits back again.

And then he calmly turns to me, and says, "After 60 days, a child this age has less than a 5% chance of recovery without surgery. So, here's my surgical scheduler's phone number."

Me, a little blown back, "What? You mean, after you look at him again in 30 days, right?"

RCDr, "Well, we could wait. Since it's been only about 45 days since the known on set, but, just so you know, he can't hear right now. So...." awkward pause while he watches me get up to speed. "I don't think we should wait. Unless he's doing 'just great' in school. Is he???... doing great???... in... school?" This is all sort of drawn out, in a very amusing and comic way, and I then realized, wait, he's being serious and wants to know.

"Um. Not 'great', but... well. No, not the best, but it could be that he's just being a boy."

RCDr., "Or, we could just fix his hearing."

Me, "or that. SO."

RCDr. "Yup. Call my scheduler. And you need to call her tomorrow. Morning. Because, did I mention, he can't hear?"

Here we were, one minute having an amusing kid centered conversation about 3 year olds, bubbles, bad jokes, and 2nd grade, and then the next, we were calmly discussing the anesthesia risks for 7 year olds, surgery, and recovery time.

So, on this blog page we have established that my Husband freaks out over a piece of microscopic pencil lead in the skin. I'll give you two guesses as to how He took the news. What? You don't need "two" guesses?

Holiday Hype- er...

Today I woke up and said, "This is it. This is the year that I am going to have a good pre-Christmas spirit. I am not going to get sucked into debt. I am going to pay in cash. I am going to decorate early, in little bursts, instead of waiting until Dec 18th and making myself crazy and exhausted. Tis the season and damn-it, this year I am going to stop stressing about what I didn't get done in 2009 (2008, 2007, 2006...)."

And so I decided that today I would put up the tree. This involves rearranging the furniture. no, wait, that's skipping the step of deciding where to put the tree this year. So C & I decided where everything would go, and that we could do the furniture arranging while B was watching TV. Before we could move the furniture we had to take all the photo albums off the shelves of the book case.

There are a lot of them. And don't you know that only 2 or 3 of them are actually finished. I started "scrapbooking" in 2000. I even went back and scrapped 1998. Essentially I have 10 years of unfinished business. And ZERO motivation to get it done. I am not going to lie. I have a hope chest filled with photos, and no interest in dragging it all out and and putting it away. I'm off track. Which is what happens to me often.

So now H is at his 2nd job, and C,G,B & I have dragged down the Christmas decorations and started to try to put them up, only I'm not into it. Every time I take something out of the box and un-wrap it, I cringe as the kids go wild and crazy screaming with joy. Joy. You know what? I think I need to take my children, who are DRUNK on Christmas Spirits someplace where this joy will be appreciated. The mall? The play area at McD's? The possibilities are endless.