My Exam

I Passed!!!

I'm Going to be Sick

I was at the library all day today. Cat was going out there and I hitched a ride. I worked on my e-portfolio, I sorted through all of my students' papers, I did my MLA assignment for Dr. Gomez-Vega, and I pissed around a little. If, before Cat and I left for lunch at 4:15, I had checked my e-mail, I would have known that my comps results were in my mailbox.

Now, I have to go out early, tomorrow, to check them.

I am going to be sick.

On Thursday, I am meeting Bob at Denny's at 11:00 a.m. to start work on my exam for Dr. Giles. It is due Monday. I have to finish raking the back deck and then pick up Lia's messes from the back yard. Oh, fun, fun, on Friday.

Have I mentioned that I am going to be sick?

Buyer's Remorse

I know it's not a huge purchase or anything, but I am trying to save up $2,000 to get through the summer without working (that is, if I don't get that WCC position). So, I spent almost $60.00 on Amazon, today. I got some old favorite movies on DVD -- Beautiful Girls (duh), Sixteen Candles (I've caught a bit here and there on television this week), Better Off Dead (while I was thinking of it), and Say Anything (the other movie I was thinking of for my students' critical analysis).

I also ordered a replacement copy of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant which Ophelia ate (she hates it when I read and chews up any book that I've been reading if I leave it out). The book is for my mom. I maintain that Pearl, the "matriarch" of the family IS my grandmother--right down to the whole "checker-at-a-grocery-store" thing -- oh yeah, and let's not forget the blind thing.

On that note, Nana says she needs a room that is at least 12 x 12 when she move in. Um hm. I don't think so. The average ranch house has a room about that size for a master, not a second bedroom. I have a great idea. Why don't we move her into a nursing home where she can't take any of her own stuff and has to share a room that is 10x10 with another wheasing, hacking, lugieing, (did I spell that right?), smelly, bitchy, cranky, selfish, and procrastinating old woman. Venting. I will get over this, I swear. I hope so, anyway, because if she decides to die any time soon, I'm going to feel like shit. Oh being Catholic really sucks sometimes!

Typical Spring Break for Me

I've been on Spring Break for 3 days, now. I spent all day yesterday job hunting. Yes, that's right. I sat on my ass and "clicked" for about 5 hours yesterday. As it turns out, almost every school for which I was applying (high school, that is) has an online application program that applicants must complete before even submitting resumes, cover letters, etc. Most of the schools are working from the same program, so I usually just had to "import" my existing application from another school and update the information for each specific school. This means that in about 5 hours I complete, give or take, 10 applications.

I hate this. Why can't it be like in the "real world" where an applicant signs up with an agency, gets a phone call or two a day, gets set up with two or three appointments a week, walks in, sits down, hands the resume to the interviewer, smiles for a few minutes, and walks out with a job? I really do hate this.

So Waubonsee Community College is looking for someone to teach summer school to high school students -- and they are paying a little more than $1500 for each class -- each 8 hour / week class for 8 weeks. With grading time built in, I figure that's about $12.00 / hour for 15 hours a week. I can handle this. They need people with my specific qualifications. Let's see if this will work.

I have a lot of cleaning to do this week and I MUST get through all of my mail, my doctor bills, my claim forms, etc. Gotta, gotta, gotta. I have no grading to, I have to start a paper for Dr. Gomez-Vega, and I have two books to read -- just read. Of course, I only have a month to wrap up this paper, but oh hell. It's a 20 page RESEARCH paper (and if a little argument creeps in, that's fine, too). I think I am definitely going to write on Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, by Anne Tyler -- mostly because Pearl is so much like my grandmother it's scary.

I'm going to start my laundry and, maybe, work a little on the kitchen (that's a 3 day -- maybe 4 day job).

Nothing to do with Foreigner

I have had pretty serious double vision for about 2 weeks. This started about the time that the dizzy thing stopped. I have the strangest experiences with MS! In my limited experiences thus far, most of the little episodes I have had have lasted about 3-6 weeks (except for the whole face tingling thing -- I think that's probably dental, actually).

Anyway, I noticed the double vision about a day or two before I showed my students Beautiful Girls -- about 10 days ago. Yesterday, I noticed that it was still pretty bad while I was driving to school to wrap up my student conferences. On my way home, though, not even 3 hours later, I noticed that it was totally gone. I can watch television again! Just in time for Spring Break! Yeah!

Of course, I will have to spend a good part of my break cleaning the damned house, reading for the following week, updating student grades, and starting my paper for AmLit 1960-Present. I think I'm going to write on Ann Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. That book was good! I swear, absolutely swear, that the main character, Pearl, lived my Grandmother's life -- the grocery store, the vision problems, the way she completed her obligations, but never really seemed to really and truly "love" anybody. Ann Tyler, by the way, won a Pulitzer in the late 80's, I think, for Breathing Lessons (and I'm pretty sure this was made into a movie).

On a last little note, I swear I'm the easiest teacher ever. How is it that over half of my students are not currently passing my class?? (Must get a C or better or they have to retake it).

Okay, that's all my whining for today. I'm really tired and it's time to go to bed.

Just Don't Know

I feel okay about the comps, generally. I slept for total shit last night (anxiety, I'm sure) so I am going to try to convey the story quickly.

I got home about 9:30 last night to find Amber here for the night. Dammit. Didn't have energy for that! I took a 45 minute bath. Andy called to wish me good luck. We talked for a little, but we both needed rest.

I closed Amber up in Mom's room about 10:45. I crawled into bed and by 11:30, I was out (I time my sleep with the ending/beginning of the 1/2 sitcom on television -- the one I was watching hadn't ended last I remember). Around midnight, Lia went bezerk, as did Amber. Apparently, Doug came in the house and freaked them both out. Amber went home ... I thought I would sleep. At 3:00, I was still awake and had been listening to Joe snore on the couch for some time. I fell asleep eventually, but my sleep was disturbed by anxiety dreams -- nothing "naked," but I was late and panicked. I hate those dreams.

I met Bob at The Junction for breakfast. We went over the Old English poems and Everyman, again. I'm glad we did.

We both got over to Reavis. Andy was unpacking the bar ... he brought libations for after the exam. 22 of us crammed into NWR, received brief instructions and then were told to open our envelopes and get started.

I wanted to jump for joy! The exam was divided into 3 parts: 1) British Lit pre 1600; 2) British Lit post 1600; 3) American Lit. There were two questions to chose from in each part. I answered the first question I read in the first section0--it asked about the idea of exile and the importance of companionship in the poems and Everyman. YEAH! I didn't even look at the other question, but was the first to start typing and that was within about 2 minutes of the start of the exam. I finished the first question in about 40 (give or take 5 double-spaced pages) minutes and took a cigarette break.

I came back; settled in; looked at the first question in part two--it asked about the narrative structure in Frankenstein and Nights at the Circus. Again -- YEAH! This was the hardest question for me -- I knew the material. I was ready for that specific question. Dr. Swanson asked for a discussion of whether the word (as handed through multiple narrative levels) had meaning in constructing the world for these characters and for the reader. This was a tack-on at the end of the main part of the question which asked us to discuss the effect of the narrative structure on the reader with regard to his/her considering the narrator to be believable. Yeah, I had that part -- it was just the rest of it I'm not thrilled with. I only got about 4 pages here and I really don't know if I truly answered the question. I finished this one up at about 3:30 or so (around 1 1/2 hours).

Again, I took a cigarette break and came back ready to tackle the third part. I still had 1 1/2 hours -- but I finished in about 40 minutes, again -- 5 pages, again. This time, Dr. Layson wanted to know how the idea of parenthood affected the stories of Sutpen (Absalom, Absalom!) and Sethe (Beloved). PERFECT. Bob and I had talked about it a lot.

So, I finished up, e-mailed myself a copy of my answers, took my packet to the Department Chair (Dr. Eubanks) and went to Andy's office for a tall cup of Parrot Bay and Diet Pepsi -- really heavy on the Parrot Bay. I had to beg off after that knowing I had to drive and my eyesight (the double vision) really doesn't cooperate in evening light with headlights from oncoming cars.

I was going to go out with Stephanie tonight, but she's sick. Instead, I watched Proof with my mother and then ended the evening with a shouting match as to whether or not I deserved to have a $200.00 massage and parafin wax body treatment on Thursday. Fuck it. I needed it and it felt damned good.

Okay. That's it. I will advise in a month or so as to whether or not I passed. In the meantime, I'll just stew in my anxiety and wait it out.

Why Nana is Alone

Nana is an old, selfish, manipulative, mean, bitch. I will say it without pulling any punches because she's gone too damned far this time.

I am going to try to get this story into the most condensed version possible. I don't have the next three hours to write it up.

Yesterday was Lia and Janelle's birthday (and John's birthday, too, but I don't know how to get ahold of him right now -- he's had some issues with that moron roommate of his). Lia and I got up early and went out to Janelle's store for a grooming appointment. Since I was leaving her there, I went to go get some coffee and a sandwich for breakfast at McDonald's . I parked, then, in the parking lot at the detail car wash in front of Janelle's store. I finished up my sandwich and was cleaning up some garbage out of the front seat in preparation for the much-needed detailing, when my phone rang.

We, in the Peters family, don't ever get directly to the point. We're storytellers. This phone call proved no exception to this rule. After about three minutes of narrative (including my mother demonstrating an answering machine indicator with long "beep" noises three different times), I had to tell her to get to the damned point. She said that nobody had been able to get ahold of my grandmother since last Thursday or so inspite of phone calls at various times and an answering machine whose message wait time was getting longer and longer (duh, meaning that she hadn't picked up her messages -- and she always picks up her messages). I cut my mother off short and asked her if she wanted me to go down to Joliet. Yes, I was to go with my sister (because everyone was convinced we were going to find her dead).

Janelle was not even a little happy about this (Mom was on the phone with her at the store while I pulled my car around). I'm sure I've mentioned that Janelle drives like a maniac. She lost me on the way down there. I should have blown her off and taken the back roads. We pounded on the front and side doors at my grandmother's shit-box, hell-hole, piece-of-shit house in the slum part of Joliet. I also knocked at the bedroom and den windows. When we didn't get a response and couldn't find the hidden key, we went ahead and called 911. Whomever my sister explained the situation to knew immediately that Nana had been taken via ambulance to St. Joe's in Joliet ON SUNDAY NIGHT!!! This was Tuesday.

We hopped in our respective cars on the way over there and Janelle called the hospital -- to find out that the old witch has bronchitis (again -- and if she'd move out of that damned mildew and mold-ridden crap hole she lives in, she wouldn't keep getting this -- oh, and maybe if she didn't spend her life hanging out at the casino, she wouldn't catch this kind of bug -- I mean, people down there don't wash their hands, don't cover their mouths, don't blow their noses... they are all walking germ farms). Janelle was told that my grandmother couldn't get any calls and couldn't get any visitors. Sorry, but that's just all kinds of bullshit.

Janelle was pissed so she went on back to her shop. I finally had to use valet parking. I got up to my grandmother's room (where she was on the phone with Doug after I had told him what was up while on my way to the hospital), and shortly thereafter, it came out that Nana didn't want us to know she was in the hospital. When I got there, she was lying in a puddle of coffee and refusing to let the nurse change the bedding. In the meantime, her guest chair was tiled with four squares of lying carefully flat pieces of toilet tissue that I can only guess were each stained with some bodily excrement (and Nana wanted only to point it out to anyone who came in from me, to nurses, to the girl with the lunch tray, that she was saving these samples for the doctor). I was pretty grossed out, personally.

I had to hold my tongue instead of telling her exactly what I thought -- that this was a bullshit game on her part -- a manipulative ploy. See, if we never had found out that she was in the hospital, it would have been "and they never even bothered to find out where I was." If we did find out, she could pit the doctor (Dr. Mother-fucking-Stapleton-whose-license-should-
be-pulled) against us. And she got this option in full glory -- Dr. Stapleton had Nana's "friend" Lois (who has bugged Nana for some 20 years) call us and tell us 1) that Nana had blocked all incoming calls to her hospital room (duh -- I did that for her with the nurse while I was there); 2) that Nana was doind just fine; and 3) that we are not allowed to call the doctor and that it was none of our business.

I'm not sure who I "hate" more -- the doctor or my grandmother. If my grandmother thinks that she is going to "win" this little battle, she's dead wrong. After a long-winded argument between my grandmother and Janelle (just before I blocked the calls), Janelle has made it absolutely clear that she wants nothing else to do with my grandmother. Cat is so angry that she says she's never going down there again (and Cat and I both agree that during the 1/2 hour we didn't really know what was going on -- we both hoped that she was dead because it would just be easier -- and we both were more concerned with our classes -- and in my case, the comps -- than we were with whether or not Nana was dead). Joe never did give a shit and Michael doesn't pay any attention (besides, he was at Dr. Stefoski's office getting the news that he doesn't have MS -- yet -- and maybe never will). I'm stomping pissed (and am contemplating writing her a letter -- and typing it in increased size font so she can read it -- but I probably won't bother). This leaves Doug -- my mother told him absolutely yesterday that she no longer wants to hold the power of attorney or the will executorship. She wants to give it to Doug.

My mother has, over the last few weeks, had long conversations with some of my grandmother's sisters: Cecilia, Eleanor, Julia, and Betty are all still alive and well. My mother has absolutely spilled this whole story to Eleanor, specifically. Enough is enough and the selfish, manipulative, miserable old woman is just not going to be able to control her family with her damned money any more. We don't want it. She can piss it away at the riveboat; she can give it all to those "great" kids in Vancouver (because they've taken such good care of her); she can flush it down her damned toilet (except that she has a crappy sewer system that can't even handle toilet paper -- and that Doug has to "fix" once a month). Come to think of it, I like the toilet idea the best because Doug just about deserves that.

Doug did call to apoloize for saying "good" about what Nana has done, but Mom is pretty fucking pissed at him.

I am still hopping mad. I think we all would have been happier if she had first, given all her money to the assheads in Canada, and second, died quietly leaving us nothing. I'M GOING TO HELL, BUT I AM NOT SORRY FOR RESENTING THE PUPPET SHOW THAT SHE HAS BEEN PUTTING US ALL THROUGH FOR ALL OF THESE YEARS. My mother had a rotten childhood and has never wanted anything but her own mother's love. She wants so badly to take care of her and just treat her well -- my grandmother worked so hard for so long! Of course, this meant that with all her "frugal" behavior and work ethic, my mother never really had a mother of her own. How did my mother become a good mom?? And who I think was the best mother anyone could have ever had (in spite of the fights and arguments, I still love her for everything she sacrificed for all of us). But my grandmother doesn't know how to just be loved and let people "in". She has effectively pushed all of us away and I don't know if anyone is going to rebound from this.