It's that time again...

...Time for schoolwork to be due! And that means it's time for me to procrastinate by blogging. I have a short paper (very short - 2 pages) due on Monday. It's for my ethics class, which means it will require a lot of Deep Thought in order to come up with the finished two pages, and I don't feel very capable of Deep Thought right now. I also have a pile of reading to do...which I may work on a bit after I finish this. I have started approaching reading totally the wrong way: I do it when I don't want to do the work I actually have to complete for class. So I still feel like I'm accomplishing something, but I don't have to really do anything. The problem there is that nobody is grading me on my reading. But I'll get it done, because I always get everything done.

My ethics class is kind of crazy. I really like it because it's philosophical and interesting and there are a lot of gray areas to debate. Also, it seems nobody thinks marketers have any ethics at all, so it's nice to examine issues as a framework for convincing people that ethical marketing is actually possible. But we spend like the first hour to 90 minutes of each class discussing ethics-related stuff we've seen in the news, which is also interesting but can kind of drag when you've already worked a full day and eaten dinner in your car so you wouldn't be late for class. And the bookstore ordered a newer version of the textbook than the professor had, so our book doesn't match her syllabus at all. (She said all the info is the same, it's just in a different order, but it's confusing.) We never talk about the book in class, so I'm not entirely sure why I'm reading it. My research class is with the same professor and the lectures are heavily based on the book...so I don't think she's like anti-textbook or something. I do really like the professor, so that's good. But I'm having a hard time wrenching my brain between Deep Thought ethics and Grounded in Reality research. It requires two completely different thought processes. Also, neither one is as practical or immediately relevant to my job as my classes last semester, so it's hard to get as excited about them.

The last couple of weeks have been wacky. Hannah's birthday party was a week and a half ago, which was way fun but meant that I was getting ready to party and host 20 people at my house rather than do any work for school. And I took a day off work to get the house cleaned, so that meant I wasn't getting all my work done, either. It was worth it because Hannah had the best time, but it meant that the week after that was pretty...cranky.

Brock has had to work a lot of late hours lately because of the project he's on, which has been a little frustrating for all of us. And work sort of exploded for me, but I couldn't stay late because I either had class or Brock was working - and his working late was dictated by client deadlines, which sort of trumped me just needing to get things off my to-do list. Also, our plumbing got screwed up and it took more than a week to get it fixed because a) we were both super-busy and b) the plumbers didn't do a thorough job the first time they came. (Short version of the story: Plumbers came. Didn't find a blockage and told us to call the Village to check out the main line. Called the Village. Village was very attentive, came out right away, couldn't find a problem but flushed the line anyway. We still had a problem. Village checked the main line again. Couldn't find anything. Plumbers came out again yesterday. Turns out they hadn't checked our ENTIRE sewer line the last time, and - aha! - the blockage was in the part they hadn't checked. This cost a few hundred bucks, a great deal of stress and disgust. Good news is that it's fixed now, and after one more night of mopping with bleach, our basement should be okay. And we can freely run water again, which is good because the laundry was really getting out of control.)

This past weekend was one of my crankiest weekends in recent memory. I was just feeling overwhelmed and helpless to do anything about it. My funk lasted through about Monday afternoon...and was completely gone yesterday when the plumbing was officially fixed. I'm still feeling overwhelmed, but not as grumbly about it.

Oh...and here's another thing. I've been asking for a laptop at work for a couple of years, and they finally approved the request. So I get my new laptop next week, which is cool - but they won't let me have iTunes because it "isn't allowed because it's not work-related." (I have it on my computer now, but I think because my computer is so old, nobody realized I had the permissions to install anything myself.) I know I'm not an IT person and I couldn't possibly understand all the issues they face...but it's not like I'm asking for a stupid game or something. I just want to plug in my iPod and listen to music without running down my battery. I don't even want to put music on the computer! They did, at least, agree to install the software that lets me sync up my calendar with my phone, even though my phone isn't theirs. So I guess that's a small victory. Meh.