I'm beat!

Just had the Clemson orientation. It was full of information that was great for someone who had only been in college for maybe a year, and for someone who planned on staying on campus. :) But I did get some good info, although Eric attended the "Parents" portion (LOL) and it seems he learned things that would have been great for me to know (financial aid, co-op stuff, etc.)! Sigh.

I did find out one GREAT thing. There are two freshman classes that I haven't had yet, or at least the classes I've taken so far won't transfer directly, so because of that, my status is "freshman" AND I can't really declare a major. Apparently Clemson has a sort of weed-out process where they place all engineering students into a "general engineering" degree, and they won't change it (in my case, to environmental engineering) until you've proven yourself in the first year. Anyway, I learned today that because of the plethora of computer classes I've taken, they've found a way to consider those as transfer credits. SO, my status is now "sophomore" and I get to declare my major. WOOT! I'm thrilled. I'm so sick of taking intro classes!

So. Funny.

Maybe you have to be a horse person to see why this is so funny, but I laughed so hard at this, it brought tears to my eyes. I was reading a forum and came across this post:

"Saturday my horse was acting very fresh and naughty around the barn. Instinctively, as I left the cross ties to ride, I grabbed a dressage whip, which I rarely use. I led him into the arena and was turning to close the gate behind me when, out of the corner of my eye, I see him toss his head and begin to play up (which generally involves half-rearing at me, then dashing away as he aims a half hearted kick). I nonchalantly applied the whip across his chest to let him know he had pushed it far enough, and he was so suprised he let out a HUGE fart. Then put all his feet on the floor, and followed meekly to the mounting block."

Lightning!

I saw THE BIGGEST lightning strike ever! It couldn't have been more than 1/4 mile away, and I happened to be looking right at it out the window. It was a complete freak chance. You know how if you count "Mississippily" (a la Ross in Friends), you can supposedly count how close a storm is? Well, there was no counting. The lightning strike and thunderclap (and it was loud enough to make me jump and *gasp*) were instantaneous. I even saw width in the thing. Feeeerrrreaky!

I've been complaining for a while now how we don't seem to get storms down here much. Guess that was my payback.

Orientation on Wednesday!

I don't know why, but I'm excited for orientation. I'm dreading going to school with people that are 10+ years younger than me (that 10+ really makes me sad), but I'm happy to find out what my class schedule will be like, and thrilled that school is only 10 minutes away instead of 90. It's been nice working at home and all, but I'm really getting tired of it. The only person I talk to on a regular basis is my husband, and no offense Eric, but I'm kind of bored. :D

On a walk today, Jaiden and I ran into a loose Shih Tzu whose owner was close by. She came closer and barked. Closer again, bark bark. I sat Jaiden down, she crept closer, growl bark, tail wag, bark bark. Seemed like she wanted to say "hi" so I started walking toward her, and she took off the other way, whimpering frantically. It was kinda hilarious. I told the owner that my dog used to be friends with a Shih Tzu, and then realized how weird that probably sounded. Why didn't I just say "he used to play with a Shih Tzu"?

Inception dream

I was watching Inception for the second time, and it reminded me of a dream I had after the first time I watched it. There's a part in Inception where Leo's character is training someone about the dream stuff, and he says that in a dream, you won't be able to remember how you got there.

So anyway, in my dream I was in an orchard, doing some gardening (this was a few months ago, while I was deep into learning about gardening, so it was always on my mind), and I walked toward a table that had all my tools. For some reason or another, I wondered to myself, "How did I get here in this orchard?" And I had no idea how I got there, yet I refused to believe that it was a dream. It was very strange.

I also have dreams within dreams on a fairly regular basis. It's weird.

Small Jaiden update: I increased the glucosamine/chondroitin tablets he's been taking, and he seems to be doing much better. :)

Jaiden

I think my puppy is starting to show signs of arthritis! Dammit... he's still too young in my mind. Although I may not actually be correct in how old he is. I was looking through the records he came with, and they estimated that he was 2-3. When I got him, I was told he was about a year and a half! :(

Several months ago, I noticed he seemed to move around a bit stiffer in the mornings than usual, so I started giving him this stuff called hyaluronic acid. It's apparently very helpful for horses with arthritis. It didn't do anything for Jaiden, though, so I started him on glucosamine/chondroitin. Still nothing. :(

I'm going to have to take him to the vet. He MAY have a hairline fracture, but I kind of doubt it. They'll probably want to do X-rays and if they determine it's arthritis, I'll probably have to start him on pain meds. Sigh.

Gardening failure!

My garden has turned into almost a complete failure. Things are growing, but I'm getting no veggies! The broccoli sprouts start to form, but then they spread out and turn into flowers. Sigh. Turns out I planted way too late, so it's too hot now for the broccoli and cauliflower to produce anything. So, I'm going to have to wait until it cools off a bit and plant again... probably September. Oh well, it was my first try.

OH, speaking of gardening. I have a small trash can outside that I use for all the uneaten vegetable parts (old vegetables, leaves from the cauliflower, etc.) for composting. It's been breaking down really well. I've put a ton of stuff in it, and it's broken down to 4" of dirt-like compost. So a couple days ago, we had a fairly large rain storm and Eric and I went outside into the carport to watch. I looked over toward the compost bin and noticed a few worm-like bugs around it... and noticed more... and more... and more... They looked like leeches, and they were everywhere. There must have been 50 around the bin and on the patio. They were black and about an inch and a half long. I took a look inside the bin, and it was literally writhing with larvae, some that looked like the leeches and some that looked like maggots. Kind of like in "The Lost Boys" when the guy looked down into his Chinese container and saw nothing but squirming bugs. It was seriously creepy. There were/are probably around 500 larvae. I'm not exaggerating. (Eric took a look first and he goes, "There are millions. MILLIONS." And he was dead serious, lol.)

I had just bought a bug killer for all the spider eggs around the house (yet another shudder--WTF is with all the damn BUGS around here?!?!?!), so we started spraying the larvae. It didn't seem to be working, so I looked up what they could possibly be. It turns out they're black solder fly larvae, and that they're very beneficial for gardens, and people actually BUY these larvae from the internet! I checked the larvae out the next morning, and most of them are dead now. Sigh. I really should have checked this out rather than use the "kill first, ask questions later" method. Still, that many larvae means that many flies, and I'm not particularly thrilled about adding more flying pests around this house. I'm convinced we have so many bugs because of all the trees. Our property will have just enough trees to provide some shade. Screw this forest crap.

Weee!

I'm betting nobody checks this anymore since I write so irregularly, lol. Oh well, I'll just talk to myself.

I'm actually ready to enroll in classes at Clemson--I didn't procrastinate this time! Last year, I had to get a bunch of crap together to enroll at Drexel, including at least 4 vaccinations that I needed, which I finished about two days after classes started. For Clemson, I needed to get yet another vaccination, which I had done on Monday. Way ahead of schedule! I also had to take a math placement test (required for all students, no matter how much math you've had, even if you're transferring multiple classes--really stupid, but whatever), which I took Monday--I didn't procrastinate!--and received the highest score possible. *pats self on the back*

Speaking of being smart, I have to brag--and I can shamelessly brag because I'm only talking to myself, right...? So I had to take one of those personality tests for the contract job I'm working right now before they would interview me. A part of the test was identical to an IQ test that I've taken online before. Anyway, we were talking about the results today, just goofing around, and I asked what I got on the "intelligence" part. Apparently I scored the highest, at the top 5%. HA! (In the "sense of urgency" part of the personality test, I scored as low as possible. Hm.)

Sigh, yeah, but this isn't so smart: I just went through and calculated the number of credits that I'm transferring to Clemson: 140! That's an entire degree plus a semester's worth of credits!

:(

Damn me and my indecisiveness. Oh well, I'm sticking to it this time. No really, I AM.