the screaming pages

One of the downsides of working in a college are semester start dates. Depending on the program the dates change. One of the degrees starts on Monday which means I’m working on final touchups and mini-emergency solving over the weekend. I’m exhausted and have to do it all again as the next program launches in 2 weeks. We’re all beginning to suffer a bit of chicken little syndrome. I am planning a HUGE vacation once the courses are finished and students are back in school. I’m pretty sure I need to sleep for a week.

Spent the day at a trade show.  I’ve learned a few things during my wanders through the aisles of displays.

• I’m not a big fan of aimless shopping. I prefer the figure out what you want, go in and get it method of shopping.
• There’s never enough places to sit in a trade show but A and Loxley can find all of them.
• After 5 hours of aimless wandering through aisles ankles and feet begin to hurt.
• If you stop walking or slow down after walking for many hours, you really begin to notice that your feet have started to hurt.
• There’s never enough bathrooms in the trade show venues.

Thank goodness we had wonderful people to spend the day with.

Exams are finally over for another semester. I’m glad I spent all that time playing around with online practice tests yesterday since 25% of the exam questions were taken directly from the quizzes.  The other 75% was mostly stuff that we had covered off in past papers and such.  Despite writing like there was no tomorrow and suffering claw inducing hand cramps I managed to finish my exam in just over 2 hours.  *woot*  Of course, the other guy writing with me finished his 2 hour exam in less than an hour and a half AND got to bring his textbooks and notes to his exam *sigh*  I just don’t get why instructors insist on closed book exams.  It’s not like we’re always going to remember everything we’ve crammed into our heads in a mass panic to regurgitate it all out for an exam.  I’ve always thought it best to teach people where to find information rather than forcing them to memorize.  Information and knowledge is fluid.  What I memorize today could be outdated within months.  Far better to learn where to always find the updated information than to wander around spewing out incorrect information as gospel.

In a few hours the hoards will decend and there will be people all over my backyard – well, neighbours mostly – and Drew will be BBQ’ing up a storm. We’re pretending to celebrate my birthday.  It’s not until next week but no one wants a mid-week party.  Saturday night wasn’t available as it’s our favourite bar wench, A’s, last night at the Fort.  Much celebrating and bad singing is planned for tomorrow evening.  I think we’ll have to find a new karaoke spot once A is gone.  There’s one within stumbling distance of the house that has a full restaurant kitchen open until 10pm.  Very good idea to feed the boys when you’re dragging them to karaoke.

The garage door finally arrived (after 3 this afternoon) and everyone of the male persuasion is frantacally trying to get it installed before the few non-neighbourhood based guests arrive.  I’m betting that they’ll gerry-rig something together and skip the actual installation until tomorrow.

I’ll need to take lots of pictures tonight in case we don’t manage to move all the stuff stored on our deck out into the new garage.  It could be mighty interesting if the guys decide to try (again) to lift weights after a few wobbly pops.

Speaking of pictures, Joy has a great picture of Drew posted on her site in her Blogger’s Supper post.  Just don’t look at the ones she has in her photo album.  Very scary!

I also promise to finally post the pictures of the garage construction this weekend.  I’ve had them on my computer for a few weeks now and just need time to get them online (with witty commentary of course).  What do you mean I’m not supposed to cross my fingers and toes when I promise something?

Have a great weekend all.

The garage door is supposed to be arriving this morning and will be installed this afternoon.  Of course, it’s a few minutes shy of noon and it hasn’t been delivered yet, so we’re starting to get a little anxious.  Drew is working nights and has to leave in a few hours.   Looks like I might be signing for the delivery if it’s late.

One exam down and one left to complete.  I’m a little disappointed in my Enviro Chem exam.  I knew the answers and was fairly confident in what I was doing – I just ran out of time at the end and only completed about 50% of the final question (worth 20%).  Keep your fingers crossed.  I have to pass the exam in order to pass the course.  If I squeak past the exam, I’ll have a B (or something like it) for a final grade.  Not great, but certainly could be worse.  I could fail and need to re-take the course *shudder*

I’m off to study and complete practice quizzes for my Psych exam now…

Despite doing absolutely nothing of interest, the weekend flew by.  The garage door still hasn’t been delivered to the company that puts garage packages together.  This translates to no door for us to install over the weekend.  Drew puttered around installing switches, plugs, and all other electrical sundries that a garage might need.  I did my best to study – although I’m the last one who can claim to have stayed focused this weekend.

R, our neighbour, took some awesome black and white photos of the demolition phase of our garage build and I’ve got concrete finishing and building pics to add.  I know, I’ve been promising them for weeks.  Since I’m writing exams this week and will likely need a break or twelve in my study periods, I’ll likely get those photos up soon.

We are apparently throwing a potluck backyard BBQ on Friday.  We supply the meat; everyone else brings something yummy to share.  Drew has promised to complete many more manual labour activities as my birthday present – gets him out of having to shop and guarantees I’ll be happy with the results (if the promised work actually materializes).  Since his promotion he’s changed crews and no longer holds a day job.  He’s back on working shift work and is on nights this week (except for Friday, then he’s on a dayshift).  This theoretically means that he’s home during the day to finish digging out the hedge, clean up the backyard so we can find the deck again, make my home sparkle, etc.

It’s 11am and he’s just crawling out of bed.  I’ve been up for hours and have been practicing not being an annoying wife.  I’m letting him sleep in and all that jazz.

I have a feeling my backyard will still look like a tornado went through it when the BBQ is scheduled to go off.  I don’t suppose I can call off the whole thing on a moment’s notice if Drew doesn’t come through with his “present”?  Perhaps the BBQ will go off and I’ll just go for a drive out to the mountains while Drew entertains.  Groups of people are draining.

We’ll figure something out.  For now, I’m doing my best not to nag.  Terribly hard thing to do.  Instead, I’m studying.  Can you tell.  See, this is me soaking in masses of knowledge to spew out on paper in 3 hour doses on Wednesday and Friday.  *poof*