Low Patience Alert

CJ, our records indicate that your patience with others is in the caution zone. Please bring your brain in for maintenance at the earliest opportunity. Thank you.

Normally I just sort of let things roll by, maybe muttering to myself, but mostly not getting my dander up. Over the last couple of days I've noticed I'm much more snippy. Some guy tries to turn right from the left lane (a very common rudeness at one De Anza intersection) and I honk at him, causing him to break off the stupidity and drive straight ahead. A creepy guy in bio class stands an inch from my left shoulder while I'm counting bacteria on a plate and I say "What?" at him repeatedly until he gives me some room. The same creepy guy comes over to our lab bench and starts comparing his gel photo with ours, without asking or indeed interacting with us at all, and I say "Hey, can I have that?" and take ours back from him. A classmate starts asking me something while I'm frantically taking lecture notes, and I don't interrupt myself to reply, but finish my notes instead. My lab partner shows up the minute the report is due with "just one more correction" and while unstapling the report we had all agreed was done, to replace her page, I say "Last one; any more updates I'm throwing out."

I have low tolerance for little annoyances, these last few days. It's not like these things are major (although I would cheerfully point a cop at that one intersection; that can get dangerous). It's not that people are any more thoughtful and considerate the rest of the time. Really, it's me.

This is what I'm like when my pain levels go up. This time, though, they haven't; it's steady. Whatever is going on, may it be over soon.

Productivity

Spoke with chem prof. My chem final will be on the last day of class, in the evening. One down!

It always feels good to get some minor thing done. Cancel all the auto-refill Lyme-related prescriptions: done. Call the vet to order more diabetes-cat food: done. Schedule chem final: done. Call consulting-client to make sure my invoice was okayed: done. Notify vet clinic schedule person of travel dates coming up: done.

Now it's time to move on to getting some less-minor things done. That's uncomfortably like work. :-)

( The list )

And eat lunch, too. Yeah, that'd be a good idea.

Can't have everything, Part II

Another thing I won't be doing because of classes is watching a shuttle launch.

OK, it's not 100% clear that there would have been a guest pass for me. One was offered to Rob; there may or may not have been another available. But we could have asked. So I thought about it. If I could get on a redeye, I'd miss only bio lecture and Spanish class. Sadly, the redeyes to Orlando from here tend to land a couple of hours after the scheduled launch time. Well, what if there were a flight departing in the afternoon? I'd have to miss bio lab as well, which is starting to get really shaky; total hours spent in lab are part of an inter-school curriculum agreement, so missing those is a real problem. But I could ask my bio professor... if there were afternoon flights! There aren't! So I'd have to take a morning flight, and the chemistry prof made his lab policy clear on day one: if I miss even one chemistry lab during the quarter, I flunk the class. OK. No shuttle launch.

This is something I kind of had in the back of my head as "one of the gazillion things I want to do before I die": watch a launch, shuttle or otherwise. And I don't know how much longer shuttles are going to be launching. But this time won't be the one.

If I'm honest, I can't truly blame this one entirely on school. This has been a theme in my life for decades. I've always had this job thing. I've always needed this job thing in order to eat and pay rent. The number of fun trips Rob has been on without me is painful to contemplate. Some day, I swear, I will be the kind of person who can GO DO STUFF. It may take time; it may not happen until well after graduation; but some day, some day, I'll go.

Some days get under my skin

Lab report = far more work than expected. Had to send apology e-mail to lab partners; won't have a draft by tonight as I said I would.

Not that anybody has responded to mail all day. Professors, lab partners, friends, family -- I might as well be yelling into the void. Couldn't even reach my sister on the phone to wish her happy birthday.

Chem homework = far more work than expected. Instead of being done long ago, I'm maybe two thirds of the way through.

Rob is out flying this evening, so except for an IM earlier today, I'm not at all certain that some terrible disaster hasn't happened, leaving me the only remaining human on the planet.

Litterbox area = far more work than expected. I've cleaned about half, and it took way too long to get even that far.

And now Duchess is throwing up on the carpet.