Into the wild country.

I'm up early today to go to the salon for a haircut. It would normally be a cut and color, but after the big allergic reaction/fiasco last year, I'm not getting my hair colored like I used to. I'm trying to learn to love my natural (grey) color!

I love my salon so much! I've been going there for about 10 years now, and they are like family - well, like good friends, anyway. I hadn't been there in a while, since I don't have to go so often now that I'm not coloring, and I really needed a haircut. Yesterday someone posted on the salon's facebook page that they had a couple of openings for Saturday morning, and I called and got an appointment!

I told Dawn, my stylist (and she owns the salon), that I called because I saw that on facebook, and she told me that Kimber, one of the other stylists, had said she was going to announce on fb that they had openings, and it was funny that someone else and I had called and taken the spots.

It's funny how much I learn from fb that I would be the last to know otherwise! I get a surprising amount of family news on fb, and I always know what's going on in RA's family too, so I tell her about what her daughters are saying, because she never checks her fb page. I always say I'm going to stop looking at fb, but then there I am, whenever I'm bored, checking my page to see if anyone is saying anything interesting.

This is my weekend off and I should be studying for a chemistry test next week, but I really don't feel like it.

Last night I went for a drive out in the country with Rachel and Maddy. Rachel was taking a casserole to someone who just had surgery, and I was just riding along. We had the GPS to help us find the place, but even with that, we still had to turn around a couple of times.

Ugh, the country is no place to be at night. There are wild animals running across the road, and there are no street lights! Also, no gas stations if you are low on gas or need a Diet Pepsi. We never did find the house, because they live in a gated community, with no one at the gate to let us in! Yeah, we just turned around and came home.

Maddy had a good nap in the car, so something good came of our trek out into the wilds. She fell asleep with her head on her monkey neck pillow, and we could hear her little snores. When we didn't hear snoring, I reached back to feel if she was breathing, because I am always checking kids to see if they are breathing, and I didn't feel her breath when I held my hand in front of her face, so I held one side of her nose closed and then when I let go, she snuffled so I knew she was okay. Whew!

In which I am still talking about chemistry.

Well, I'm talking about chemistry class, that is, not so much about chemistry. I'm pretty sure you are not interested in...loga...logo...hmm, okay, I was going to use a chemistry word, but I couldn't spell it.

So it was chem class night, and Diane and I spent a couple of hours at Rachel's, working on our homework. That's pretty much what I do every day now - get up, go to Rachel's, work on chemistry homework, and then go home to take a nap before work. We were running so late by the time we finished the last problem tonight that we didn't have time to stop and get a hamburger on the way to class like we usually do! Good thing Diane had a box of Hot Tamales in her purse to keep us going!

Class tonight was partly going over...uh, something, and then review of homework problems and talk about the upcoming Big Test. The second half of the class was all reviewing of homework problems, and Diane wanted to leave when other people started leaving, but I thought we should stay so we would look like we cared! I didn't want Dr. Chemnerd to be reminding himself later, when he looks at our terrible scores on the Big Test, "Uh huh, and those two skipped the review!"

So we stayed and didn't really get much out of it. Except that Dr. Chemnerd looked around at one point and mentioned that the people still in the classroom were his stalwarts, because so many people had left. See! He noticed!

Tonight he was talking about radiation (I just remembered!), and I asked if exposure to gamma rays is what turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk, and our professor? Didn't know the answer! Apparently he's not a real nerd, he's just a poser! I didn't bother asking about Tony Stark's chest appliance, since I didn't want to embarrass him further, I texted Rich about it, instead.

Just what is slow-jacking, anyway?

So it was chemistry class night. I went to Rachel's this afternoon to do the last few homework problems before class. I got them done in time to go to class, but Diane was feeling rebellious, so we stopped at McDonalds to get a soda on the way and went in late.

It was the same old thing, we tried to pay attention to Dr. Chemnerd reading his Powerpoint presentation, and look attentive. I spend a lot of time looking attentive in class, and sometimes I am thinking about adjusting my expression and miss what he's saying. Not that I am ever really able to focus on the lecture for very long.

There is a guy who sits directly behind me and bugs me by murmuring to himself during class, and by the tone I can tell that he is making smart-ass remarks, but I can't hear what they are. Tonight I talked to him during the break, and he seemed friendly, but yeah, he's a smartass, which is fine and can be amusing, but he also has a very high opinion of himself, and that? Makes him less appealing. After we talked to him during the break, he made his comments a little louder during the rest of the class for our benefit. Ugh.

One of the Frontrow Girls was taking the entrance exam when we did on Monday, and Diane told me afterward that she saw that girl getting answers from the girl sitting next to her during the test. So in class tonight, I told Diane I would give her a dollar if she struck up a conversation with Cheatergirl during the break and asked her what her test score was.

So while I was talking to the wiseguy, Diane was schmoozing the people in the front row. There was a guy who sits in the front row every week who was also at the test on Monday, and Diane says she knows him from Anatomy and Physiology last semester, and that he is weird. I told her there was another dollar in it for her if she could get him to tell her his test score, but although I saw her talking to him, she said she wasn't brave enough to ask. She did, however, ask him if she could borrow his test book so she can study it before she retakes that test!

Turns out that Cheaterchick didn't score high enough on the test, even with the cheating, and it was her second time taking it! Diane wouldn't take my dollar, so I'll have to buy her a soda next time we go out.

PS - Slowjacking is what Wiseguy said he was doing in reference to taking classes and applying to the nursing program. By which he meant that he is taking the pre-reqs slowly instead of cramming them all into a couple of semesters, which is what Diane, Laura and I are doing also, but we don't have a cool name for it. We call it taking our time so we don't get stressed. Also, he said he was planning to BS his way through the entrance test when he takes it, and good luck on that, pal. Since he is taking A&P for the second time, I think his BSing skills maybe aren't as stellar as he would wish.

It's been a day, I tell you what!

I took another night off so this was a four-day weekend for me, but I didn't do it to have fun. I needed to sleep on Sunday night so I could get up early to take a test.

There is a test you have to pass to get into nursing school, and it's really a test of basic skills, which is kind of insulting, because if you can manage to pass chemistry classes, and also Anatomy and Physiology, you have pretty much demonstrated that you have some basic skills in reading and math, but it's just another hoop to jump through. Scott says that college is an endurance test, and I think he's right.

So Diane and I registered for this test, knowing that you can take it three times if you need to, in order to get a grade good enough for acceptance. We didn't do a lot to prepare, but I did try a practice test, and scored okay on the math and science sections, so I thought I'd be able to pass this thing.

We got up early and met for breakfast, and then went to the college to take the test. There were 8 people there, including us, and one more was registered who didn't show up. More than half of them were taking it for the second time.

We sat at computers to take the timed test, and we had three hours to finish it. I flew through the reading section, got bogged down in math but finished right at the limit for time on that one, and guessed my way through the life science part, because I took Anatomy and Physiology about 12 years ago, and I didn't remember much!

Diane is the slowest, carefullest test-taker in the world, as some of you may remember from the final exam in Intro to Chem, where it took her 4 hours to finish the exam, and I mocked her pretty hard about it!

So I finished, and the system gives you your results immediately, only you know I have a problem with reading instructions - I only read my favorite words! So I skimmed the page, looking for my score and I was crushed to see that I had barely done above the average!

There were some other numbers further down the page, blah blah blah, and I could see my scores on the individual areas, like my amazing score on reading comprehension and on grammar and English, and then my laughably lower scores on math and science, but wow, I was pretty sad and embarrassed about my miserable average score!

So I went and sat outside the testing room to wait for Diane. One of the young girls came out and was so excited over her high score on the test and told me that she had bought a test prep book, and it had really helped her! So I was sadly thinking to myself that I would need that book before I took the test again.

While I was waiting for Diane, Laura showed up for chemistry tutoring, because people, chapter 7 is hard! Laura sat and waited with me and commiserated on my low score, and then she went off to tutoring and I kept waiting for Diane.

Since it was a timed test, Diane did not get to take four hours, so she did eventually come out, and showed me the paper she was carrying, that she had printed after the test, a paper that showed all of her scoring, and that paper made me realize that I had misread my results, and the number I thought I had gotten? Was wrong!

Diane had to head over to her math class, and I stopped in to see if I could get anything out of the tutoring group that Laura was in, but the whole time I was sitting there, all I could think of was that I wanted to go home and check the testing website to see what my score really was!

I slipped out of there and went home, printed my scores and oh my goodness! I had actually scored quite a bit better than I thought I had! Woot! I did not get a score as high as the girl who used the test prep book, but you know what? I'm happy with what I got, and it's good enough. Yay!

I went to Rachel's after that to get help finishing chapter 7, and while I was there, Laura texted to say that she wasn't done and still needed help, and then Diane texted to say she was having a meltdown after math, so they both came to Rachel's House of Baked Goods to eat muffins and cupcakes and do chemistry.

After all of that, I was sooo tired and Rich had gotten my favorite pizza for dinner because apparently it is some sort of holiday? Whatever. I ate pizza and went to bed to get a nap before work.

Endothermic, Exothermic, Entropy...

I am so tired of doing chemistry, I can't tell you. I've been working on the homework problems for chapter six for almost a week, and I am just done. I didn't get answers to a couple of the problems and I am not even going to try any more. I'm moving on!

Chapter 7 doesn't look too pretty, either. I looked over our teacher's Powerpoint slides that he always posts before class so we can print them and read along, and ugh. I made flashcards of the new terms, and then I made flashcards of the polyatomic ions we need to memorize (hah!), and now I'm taking a break.

*****

I wrote the above bit last night and then I stopped and saved it, because I just had nothing more to say. I'm going to look at the chapter 7 homework tonight and take a stab at it.

So I left work this morning and it was snowing lightly, but nothing like last week. It snowed all morning, and on and off all day. Just another layer of frosting on the existing snow. Everyone was talking about it in church, and relating their snow storm stories and the deep thoughts that went with them. Yawn. It's winter, people, it snows. Suck it up.

That being said, I will tell you that I got stuck in my own driveway when I left the house to drive to work tonight. Rich went outside with me so he could move his car into the driveway when I left, because we don't like leaving our helpless cars parked on the street when the plows are out.

Rich walked down the driveway as I got in and started my car, and I was looking over my shoulder as I backed out, so as not to run him down but because I was looking backward for him, I wasn't keeping my car straight, and oops, I drove off the edge of the driveway and got hung up on a big snow pile.

I tried rocking back and forth, but it didn't help. Rich saw what was happening and came back to push me off of the snow pile, and all was well. I drove to work feeling the weight of his scorn, but hey! By looking behind as I backed up, I saved his life and you'd think he'd be grateful!

In which there is some snow.

I went to Rachel's this afternoon to work on my chemistry homework, and it was just snowing lightly, but by the time I left, it was getting deep, and there weren't very many cars on the road.

We've been hearing warnings for two days about the big snow that was coming, and we had our doubts, because this happens every year, there are dire predictions of blizzards and then we get nothing, or hardly anything. People were getting more and more frantic about this, though, so it was beginning to seem like we were really going to get some snow this time.

So yeah, I got home from Rachel's and it was pretty thick in my driveway, but Rich had made a fire in the fireplace, and I curled up on the couch and we watched the Weather Channel with the dog, and it looked pretty frightful. Jim Cantore (yum!) was in Chicago, standing on a windy street corner, telling people to stay off the streets!

I went to bed to get my nap before work, because I only live a few blocks from the hospital, and I can get to work even if other people can't because they live out in the country where the wind blows across the fields and makes deep drifts on the roads, or so they tell me.

I left for work a few minutes early, and wow, the wind was really blowing! Rich and Sonny walked outside with me, so that Sonny could pee and Rich could help me get the car out of the driveway, and oh my goodness! I got stuck at the end of the driveway!

So with much irritation at my womanly snow-driving ways, Rich dug around the tires, and then backed the car out of the driveway himself, and I started down the road to work. There were no other car tracks on the road ahead of me, and the snow was at least six inches deep down the middle, which is mostly where I was driving!

When I got to work, I just gunned my engine and drove up over a mound of snow and into the Princess Parking lot, the one closest to the back entrance, where I always park. Mine is the only car in that lot, and there were no other tire tracks! It looks like no one has been out plowing for a few hours!

I've had a couple of calls since I got here from employees who can't get out of the parking lot. They want Maintenance to come and plow them out, but the Maintenance guys say they can't do it, and they are suggesting the employees should sleep here overnight.

This is all very exciting, and we'll just see how it unfolds. Rachel is working tonight, too, and we are wondering if we'll have to walk through the snow to get to our house in the morning! Walking in deep snow is not the worst part, the wind is what will make it unpleasant!