The Last Education Weekend - For now.

Mental Rehab Post #40
As the first semester of my return to the collegiate experience comes to a close, I know that one day I'll look back upon this time and laugh in wonder, and think of how grand and special these times were. At least I freaking hope so. 'Cause right now, you don't even want to know...

Part 1 THE EDUCATION

So, Friday night, after a 24 hour or so break, I get after the next final. I have a loose outline of the class and what we've gone over, so what I decide to do to get my mind focused is transcribe my class notes. This will re-familiarize me with the material and get me in the proper frame of thinking, right?

You know, my handwriting really is small.

Everyone who I write out notes to at work always so two things. One, that my handwrting is so neat. That comes from having a schoolteacher for a mother, a woman who stressed education. Okay, this woman also tended to get upset when i bought "new" books as opposed to re-reading one of the several hundred I already had. Okay, they were comic books...but they were still books. And two, that my handwriting is ridiculously small. I prefer to think of it as compact and neat.

But after page thirty five, I was trying to figure out why this asshole couldn't have written larger, then remember I had wrote it, then had the same thought. So Friday is spent typing. And typing. And slowly going blind.

Saturday morning is spent frustrated.

Because I had typed everything on the laptop, because I'll take this final, like the last final on the laptop and I'm trying to stay used to typing on it's keyboard. But my laser printer is connected to house computer. The house computer as opposed to the Win98 computer, which I have because sometimes the old programs work better, you know what I mean.

But anyway what I had done was type it up on the laptop, save it to my jump drive and then transfer it to the house computer so that I can print it out to take to the review session Saturday afternoon. Only, at that moment, inexplicably, the hub won't read my jump drive. My USB hub appears to have gone kaput. No big, I got a reserve and a just for emergency hub. Switch out to the reserve, reboot, and nothing. All the ports on hub are stone dead. Repeat the process with my emergency hub, same answer. Plug the jump directly into the port because I'm running out of time, and nothing. Did all my USB ports on the main board just go kablooey?

At one point I'm using my BBerry as a line tester and considering breaking out the computer repair tools, but I need my review. So I saddle up and ride.

We go through the review, I realize that I might have had my eye on the wrong dog. Whereas the other professor liked loose knowledge (just throw it on in, if was something he'd taught he'd give you points for it), this prof ain't like that. He's looking for A and B, there will be no extra points for C, D, or even K. So that goes well. Four questions, three hours. What do you think?

And the girls I will refer to as the Sisters still aren't talking to me. But that's a whole other story.

So then it's back to the house and more computer repair. Well, once I realize that device manager won't even start, which if you don't know is a fairly bad sign, I know I got problems. I think something has corrupted itself and I might be done, since I can't tell what broke so I can fix it. Then after one more reboot it appears to fix itself. I think. Only now I got no audio.

You try watching a dumb ass YouTube video with no audio. See where I'm going with that?

By the close of business Saturday I've done no studying, but I have re-familiarized myself with the inner workings of my computer and general computer repair, and everything is working. I think. Maybe.


Part 2 THE NON-EDUCATION

So Sunday, after I left Ray's on the River (see other post), instead of toddling back to the house like a good little boy and doing what good little boys should, crack open, i.e., crack open them books and get at it, I rode out to my RP's house. He had the game on and some food made and it was just a lazy ass Sunday afternoon.

I haven't had one of those in ages.

Spanky showed up and we had a TV moment, BBerry chatting across the room while everyone else watched the game. Then Shade called and we set up a phone hang out, a first for me. Shade specializes in long distance relationships, so she phone dates quite a bit to get by, but this was her first phone hang out and I honest found the whole thing silly, but we agreed. Ah, the digital age.

Back inside Spanky and I continued, with her at some turning off her brain as the conversation veered into an instance proposition that had me invent the hood hero Captain Savahoe's new social issue fighting partner, Princess Savabusta. It would have been Mistress, but princess sounded better. That's a whole story in and of itself I must relate someday, but not now.

As I'm getting ready to leave, and as most functions always do, our conversation (me, my RP, my RP's sister, Spanky and one other guy) turned to as they always do when you have more than one sex, relationships and state thereof. Which was another 35 minutes of standing in the kitchen metaphorically finger pointing and blaming, which is never productive. Or used to not be productive, but we guys are getting better. Touche, pussycat!

Then it was off to the homestead. I've printed out my study materials and started with a basic review just going over the stuff in my head again and again. Monday I look over the practice problems the prof gave us. Tuesday I'm going to do two. Wednesday I'm taking off from work and going to four or five, and Thursday I'm taking off as well, going to three more leading up to the test. It's a plan and it's workable, I know most of the stuff it's just a matter or refreshing my memory and getting up to speed.

But then Shade calls at the appointed hour, I'd forgotten, and we have our phone hang out. She's just broken up with the man she wasn't going out with and she's feeling lonely in DC. Yes, I wrote that correctly. She's feeling lonely in DC although the man she wasn't going out with whom she just broke up with lives in Atlanta. I don't ask too many questions, I just let her talk. She's a young resident and still working on her specialty, so her time is very very limited, and since the capitol in the winter is like, um, really really cold, she's not being very social right now. So this breakup with this guy she wasn't going out with is really getting to her. Yep, that statement still reads just like I wrote it. It's a hour of me telling jokes so she can laugh and put that behind her.

I do manage squeeze in a bit more reading before I call it. So the day wasn't a total bust.

Next weekend I'll be free for a minute. No test looming, no cases to read...just a few functions to fall through.

Yeah. Cool.

Barkeep...gimme my usual. What do you mean you forgot what that is?