Tuesday Again

I'm tired today. Wah. It's 8:00 a.m. and I've been on campus for an hour, in the lab studying. Now I'm in the library. I wanted to get out of the lab before anyone else arrived and I had to act chirpy and cheery and tell some lie about why I didn't go to one of my labmate's Christmas party on Saturday. (I'm going with Car Was In The Shop unless you can suggest something better.)

I should be studying right now for a final that starts in about two hours, but it's hard for me to get too worked up about studying for finals. My strategy is to go into it with my grade so high that I can fail the final and still get an A in the class. I'm close to that now, hence the lack of studying. (I actually came onto campus early not to study but because it's finals week and I needed to get a parking space. By 8:30, it'll be a zoo and the parking nonexistant.)

So I'm sitting here in the libary, at one of the library computers. I have a cup of coffee. I went over a few study cards this morning in the lab. I should go over them again, but YAWN. Here's the plan, drink my coffee and dick around for another 45 minutes or so, then go get breakfast #2 (maybe a burrito!), then go over my study cards again and take my final.

It's a beautiful day outside, by the way. It's cold this morning, but its supposed to get up to about 60 degrees today.

On Saturday, instead of goingt to the coworker's party, I spent the morning making tamales at my Aunt Char's house. We made a lot!

(I have to interject some tamale math here: One is that when you report your total count, you have to either A) overstate it by at least 5 dozen (if the person you're talking to is receiving any of the tamales) or B) understate by at least 6 or more dozen (if the person you're talking to is receiving none of the tamales). Since I don't know which of you is getting tamales, and which of you isn't, I can only say that we made between maybe 16 and, oh, say 30 dozen.)

I must have, in the three days since, eaten about two dozen of them. (No, seriously, maybe a dozen and a half, because two tamales = a meal, one tamale = a snack) They're traditional, of course (read: made with lard), but some are made with ojas (corn husks) and some with aluminum foil (space age tamales!) and some have a pork and red chile filling and some have a calabacita with green chile and cheese filling. We made a few for Dave with red chile in the masa and only cheese filling, and we made a few for my Aunt's grandson (E.L. Kiddo, who I haven't written about in a long time) without chile of any kind. Man, you know you're getting some special treatment when you get custom tamales! 

I wanted to get some pictures, but my phone battery died!

So instead, here's a picture of...hmmm...let me see what's in my flickr acount that I haven't shown you.



Those are luminarias. I took that picture on campus on the 1st of December, which is when white people put up their luminarias. We brown folks wait until Christmas eve, which is the right time to put them up. But when it comes to cultural appropriation, there is no right or wrong. (See what I did there?)

Oh, let me put a few random catch-up bits of info here:

One--The presentation in botany was a hundred years ago, it seems like. (It was last week.) We haven't gotten our grades yet, but it went about as well as could be expected. Two of my group members are ADHD--one diagnosed/documented, one not--which meant that what they talked about had little or nothing to do with the experiment or its results. The other group member, the one who did nothing all semester, merely read from about three pages of text until she hit the 3 minute mark, then she stopped talking. I think I did okay, but I felt the weight of trying to keep the sarcastic, angry face from happening. I'll let you know my grade later.

Two--I've decided against applying for grad school this year, or with this professor. I'll explain--or not--my reasons in another post. I am going to take a few more classes next semester, probably in the English department, just to test the waters over there.

Three--I did not turn in the young woman who stole my results tables and put them in her class paper. I decided, angry as I was, to not care in the end. Why add delivery of an injury to insult?

Four--After the final today, I'm going to go home and take a nap. Then I'm going to the studio, where I haven't been in about a week and a half. I basically pay studio rent to have a place to store my tools and half-finished projects. I've been reading a pottery blogger who follows a 12 X 12 rule, which is: Produce 12 things by 12 noon. I'm going to try that during the break.

And with that, it is 8:34 a.m. and I'm going to go get breakfast #2!

Have a great day!