Yawn: or how i stopped procrastinating and just study already.

i can't think. blah.

i am really tired of being a student. i want it to end. and it will only get worse right before the end.

the end is near. i graduate this may. yay, may.

i don't know why i do this to myself. procrastinate. i could have been outside enjoying this glorious day. nope. i was inside staring at my text book. picking up my text book. sighing. reviewing the study guide with vocabulary words i need to know for a mid-term tomorrow. i fell asleep. woke up. drank a soda. defined more words. words. words. words.

now. now i type here. i get distracted easily. i need some lotion on my hands. i need to wash clothes and while i am at it, the dishes need to be loaded into the dishwasher. maybe someone commented on my myspace page, my facebook page, my blog, my student email, my personal email. i need to text someone. let her know about tuesday (this one can wait until later).

sigh. yawn. bathroom break.

type. type. type. spencer is at the store, "girls, don't bother your mom. she is trying to study."

trying.

i wonder if i always react...?? do i ever just act?? whoa. that's deep. that will be my next blog.

i must do now. must studying. must go on. tomorrow will reward me with the completion of this midterm. and i can relax. until...the next assignment is due.

We Were at Ease

i was driving the other day and i was hit with a really profound reality: "this is history." not my driving. the current economic situation. i am going to get old and tell my grandchildren how hard this time in our lives (our U.S.A. collective lives) was (is). i cannot get away from the message "it's all going to shit." it is in every commercial, news show, talk show, billboard and casual conversation. we are tanking, baby!!

spencer is in sales. this last month was really his first selling month outside of training and it has been hard. even those people who want to buy from him who have money are holding off because it looks bad. it will now become bad form to have money.

we have failed ourselves and we have failed as a democracy. you see, a democracy can only survive on the premise that its citizens are aware and informed. a huge part of our democratic fabric is the public domain and libraries. now, the PATRIOT ACT took some of that away. the other part, we just decided that people owed us information. we wanted to hear that an adjustable rate mortgage would save us on our monthly payments, and we chose to ignore that the long run would see us screwed. because we have forgotten how to seek information, to ask questions and to take personal responsibility.

we also forgot honor. we forgot to help inform our clients. we forgot that a handshake is a binding agreement. that contracts were an exchange between people who are our neighbors. maybe we didn't lie, but we didn't reveal the whole truth.

we forgot to see into the future.

what really sucks (not to be self righteous) is that many of us remembered and we are still being screwed.

as a nation, we became at ease. we became Job in our fortress. we only saw the world within our own walls and forgot about our neighbors outside. and now, well now, we owe and the devil has come to collect.

i guess it is only fair to be constantly reminded, so we don't forget...again.

Riding, Writing and Stopping Time

i think one of the reasons i discovered that i enjoy riding horses is because it forces my brain to slow down...or as a friend of mine put it, "to restart." i think. a lot. sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night, following a thought from a dream. i can solve all the problems of the world in the middle of the night...only to forget what brought me to such thinking the next morning.

when i am working on a project or find time alone, interruption is my arch nemesis. sometimes it is little voices that want. sometimes it is a husband who wants to know. and in that moment, i just want to stay behind the curtain. my mom was once the same way. when she wrote. interruption was her worst enemy too.

i do write a lot. and i wish that my writing was what i enjoyed, but the truth is i mainly write for classes. always working on a paper. it is one of the few activities where i enjoy the outcome more than the process. i was particularly proud of this paper i wrote last semester--it is about bibliographic control in relationship to the book GLUT. i know. yawn, right. to me, it was widely interesting. it took a huge amount of energy to put together that paper. and nobody will ever read it with the exception of my professor and me. but all that energy zaps me of motivation to write. anything.

back to riding. not writing.

i rode with my husband and father-in-law yesterday. it was cold and wet. we had to keep the horses from a fast pace so they would not slide on the wet ground. that would suck. for the first time riding, i felt the fear of almost having a horse "go out from under me." we were riding near some cattle and a cow snorted. it scared my horse and she jumped. i almost felt her want to bolt but i yelled, "WHOA!!" and pulled her reigns. she stopped. she really jumped. she still seemed spooked from that point on and a little resistant to my cues. a little while later i started riding her down a slope to a pond. we were riding past the house and my kids saw us through the window. they decided to yell, "hello" over and over again. my horse was not sure what was causing that racket as their yells were muffled and she could not see them. she stopped and started to fight me. she wanted to take off and i pulled her reigns. apparently i pulled up so much she started to walk backwards down the slope. i thought she might start slipping and sliding. i released the reigns and she took off toward the barn, but i was able to at least get her back to a walk. we were mad at each other. i dismounted and she bumped me with her nose and i lightly smacked her on the nose.

but in all this, i don't think. i just react.

when i am not about to be thrown from a horse, usually the ride is relaxing. if i can let go and just breathe my mind stops. i don't have to talk. i don't have to think. i communicate with the horse through movement and body language. just the occasional clicking of the cheek to go, and a "whoa" to stop.

i feel, when i am up on that horse, that my whole life is suspended. nothing matters. everything is so beautiful. majestic. even a very cloudy, wet and windy day.