here i am. relaxing with a glass of wine and trying to wind down after my longest day of the week. i am more than halfway through my 10 page paper, but after attending class tonight i have quite a laundry list of things i'm going to have to change. much of the class tonight was devoted to 5 minute presentations. the presentation was a summary of the paper, in oral format. we were to cover the five points in the paper: (1) why i want to be a counselor, (2) what are the traits of a good counselor, (3) what are my personality traits, (4) what are my skills that transfer from my present career to counseling, and (5) what position will i be in when i graduate from this program? You guessed it, my biggest difficulty was staying inside the five minutes. i have no problem with public speaking, i have no problem talking about myself. i have no problem writing a 10 page research paper- taken apart, these things are peanuts. i don't understand why this class is causing me so much anxiety. but that's the point, isn't it? taken apart, none of these things affect me. but put them all together, factor in a videotaped "mock counseling session," add working full time in an environment or mutiny (i will get to that later), oh don't forget that the university of phoenix courses are accelerated which means that a 6 week course is the same as a 15 week semester course at a normal university... i do wonder how i have time to clean the house, make dinner, go shopping, take care of the kids (animals and husband) carry on with my social life (sorority and vigilettes), oh and when do i sleep? definelty not on thursdays. i'm too high when i get home. to amped. but i am that overachiever that i always was. i'm not happy unless i'm multitasking to the extreme- miss s, i know you empathize.

i must also give kudos to that husband of mine, who was not only instrumental in talking me into this venture- but he is also supportive of me all the way. he is picking up after himself, doing the dishes, washing the laundry (that includes bedclothes once a week), making the bed, feeding and caring for the animals, making me dinner, yes even riding the horses with me so they both can get excercise. not to mention dealing very well with my wild mood swings (he is the master of ignoring me when i'm mental). in the midst of all this excitement, he is still taking care of his business, he bought and repaired a backhoe, which he will soon be using to dig little holes all over the yard with, and eventually he will use it to build our very first home here.

so... back to mutiny on the bounty. the last post was of a special little card i received from a colleague of mine after a particulary stressful meeting. she had gone to the drug store after work and bought us all little pick-me-up presents (post-its, pens and the like). i posted the card because it really described what i felt at the moment, not only my frustration with my current job position. y'all know the stories about my direct supervisor- a trained monkey could take his position and noone would even notice. this little man is so limited, he forwards emails to us that we have already received from other people. is it so hard to check the address line in an email and notice the announement was made to THE WHOLE SCHOOL? he also has the irritating habit of forwarding us all the same email, calling a meeting, and then proceeding to READ US THE EMAIL (i wish i were exaggerating).

i had a meeing with him tuesday which lasted about an hour. most of the meeting was me turing his own words against him. he would give me a definition to contradict what i was tryng to tell him, and i would use his same definition in another situation to make another of my points. he would retort by telling me that is not what he meant, and i would corner him by asking if the definition of which he was speaking had different meanings in different settings. this infuriated him so much that he resorted to shuffling papers on his desk and changing the subject. the high point of the meeting, and when i decided it was time for me to leave, was when he told me it was a "perennial" problem of which he had heard teachers complain for the last 27 years. to which i replied, "what does that word mean, perennial?" he sputtered, "always, it's always been a problem." I heard later that he was asking around for the meaning of the word and looking it up in the dictionary. i am even more satisfied to know that he cannot fire me.

"she who laghs, lasts"

I have to admit, i have no patience for stupid people in positions of power.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia defines a perennial plant or perennial (Latin per, "through", annum, "year") is a plant that lives for more than two years.