2:42 Mid Tuesday Afternoon (26 April 2011)

Life uses confusion! It's super effective! Teresa fainted!

I like my days better when I sprinkle them with Pokemon-related nonsense.

We got our third exam back yesterday in pharmacokinetics. Prior to handing them out, the professor told us that for the first time in his 15 years of teaching this course one of the students got 100%, and three others also did very well...and then the rest of the class didn't do as great. the mean was 89% but would have been 79% if he'd graded the homework the way he felt was the most fair. It was a very math-based exam, you see. I knew I wasn't the one with 100% but hoped I was up there with the other 3 high scores - I remembered struggling on a few of the questions that involved me trying to explain something that I didn't really know how to explain and knew that I'd have missed something or mis-explained something and gotten a few points docked off. Then he passed out the exam and there at the top of the paper, 100/100. I about died of excitement.

My excitement was shortlived, however, because I got my final research problems assignment back in biochemistry and got like, 72%. ughhh. Oh well. If I can get a B in Biochem and an A in Pharma, I can still stay in grad school. yay!

Other good news items include Caleb's aquisition of a $1000 scholarship, a $200 cash prize for the departmental award of best graduate teaching assistant of the year, and his agreement that we should have a 12-12-12 baby after all, and if the world really does end when the Mayans say it will, we can say that our baby is the harbinger of the apocolypse. Oh Caleb, I'm so glad we see eye-to-eye on the matter.

So on an unrelated note, sometimes I feel like my social life is so finite and constantly in flux. Like the more I hang out with one person the less I hang out with other people, etc etc. Like I haven't spent much time with my tea group this semester; but I have spent more time with a few other friends like Hellbell and Thena. In the last few weeks I've been talking to Natalie a lot. I feel bad because apparently everyone thought I hated them in high school, including Natalie...I didn't really hate them per se, just was antisocial and didn't really like anyone. It's nothing personal! I think I'm a lot friendlier now than I used to be, but of course I have never been very good at stepping back from my personality for an objective analysis so I could very well be wrong. ANYWAY, Natalie and I have some key characteristics in common, so of course I'm inclined to like her. I mean she beat the Elite Four in Pokemon Black, so that is something. That means she'll get some of my pokenonsense. Also it seems both of our husbands are nerds, albeit in somewhat different ways. I'm just thinking out loud here. I don't really know if I like her husband or not...he's nice enough but sometimes he's scary...though I can really tell that he puts a lot of effort into making sure that he stays in control of his emotions, and I find that admirable. My lord am I rambly today...

So this Easter weekend I went over to her house (her hubby was working, so it was just her and me and her little girl) and we baked a lemon cake together for Wednesday's birthday party the next day, and while we were waiting for it to bake her little girl and I danced and jumped around while we all watched a movie. I think it was the Princess and the Frog. And we played with homemade play-dough, always a good (if messy) time. I got to know Natalie a lot better while we chatted over the dough and I just think she's really awesome. The next day I went to Baby Animal days to meet up with Natalie, her husband, her kid, Wednesday, and Wednesday's new (ish) beau. Wednesdays boyfriend seems really nice. I like him from my first impression. I feel kind of bad though because he was pretty quiet (understandably, i mean, he doesn't know any of us) and I always tend to make up for quietness by excess noise and babbling. Oh who am I kidding? I make up for everything with excess noise and babbling regardless of the situation. Anyway I wore a white dress and cowboy boots...good thing I wore the cowboy boots because it was pretty muddy in the pens with the stinky goats and the sooooffft baby cows and the wee little lambies...I cuddled bunnies, baby chickens, ducklings, and Natalie's little girl. Except that Natalie's kid told me off for trying to pet the baby cows while they were sleeping. My bad! whoops!

After we left (following a meltdown involving ponies and biting episodes...not me this time I swear), I went out and about and did some errands, came home to find that Caleb had done laundry and let the cat outside to play. The cat never tries to escape when Caleb is with him! only when I am!!! ugh! What a lovely husband anyway. I wrapped Wednesday's presents and we went to Natalie's for Dinner/Wednesday's bday party. We went a little early so we could decorate the cake with white & pink frosting and strawberry + blueberry polka dots. Because strawberries are pinkish and Wednesday loves polkadots...and pink.

We had dinner, cake, opened pressies, and played games.. I could tell by the end of the night Caleb was getting annoyed so we left. Caleb was a little upsdet/annoyed because his friends went to Black Pearl for dinner, but he hadn't been to the office that day so he didn't learn about it until after we got home. He would rather have gone to Black Pearl with his friends because, of course, he only really enjoys spending time with HIS friends, in familiar places for HIM. but I do appreciate that he came to the couples dinner/Wednesday's birthday party with me...Anyway his annoyance is usually pretty short-lived so we were over it by the next morning. Well kind of. I annoyed him again when I made him go to church with me ...but whatever.

Ugh, about Caleb.... I wish that I was better at entertaining him in these social situations that he hates...so that maybe he would stop hating them so much. But I don't even know where to start. Usually I invite him but accept that he doesn't want to come, and sometimes I don't even invite him because I just know he won't want to go and don't want him to feel guilty or whatever. But I do wish he'd make more of an effort, sometimes, against all hope of wishes. I know he's introverted and I am generally pretty comfortable in most social situations, so it's really selfish of me to wish that. but wishing something never hurt anyone as long as I recognize reality, right?

And then his inability to enjoy social situations makes me worry about what kind of father he will be...I'm worried he won't even be able to socialise/be affectionate with our kids. Or I will always have to go to the parent-teacher conferences without him, or the PTA meetings, whatever. Of course my fears about him being a mediocre father probably stem from my own fears of being a bad mother. so. we'll cross these bridges if we ever reach them.

And now I should probably return to my pharmacokinetics paper/presentation due tomorrow.