Week Three of Ten

I'm slowly closing in on this semester- thank God. It'll be over before I know it. I keep telling myself that as I wait for videos to download for my chemistry class- since I have a test tomorrow. I've done all the book work, I've done a lot of one video already, and I just need to go through and tie up loose ends.
Then...there's speech class. My nemesis. One wouldn't think I have a problem with speech- I talk to much as it is- but when I get up in front of a (quite frankly) hostile crowd, I get nervous. My last speech required me to tell about myself- and I don't want anyone in that class to know anything about me. To quote one bitch in my class: "I'm not here to make friends." While I agree with the sentiment, I'm still cordial to everyone there. She isn't- believe me.
I have two more chapters in history to do, and I have to read the Old Testament by (gasp!) Wednesday for- get this- literature class. You know you're in the South when....

I've written countless letters to Washington D.C. I'm pretty sure eventually the Secret Service will call on me to tell me to shut the hell up. Lately, I've been on their asses about the Gulf Oil Crisis. This bullshit hmmming-and-hawing has to stop. There's entirely too much talking going on, quite frankly, and no enough doing, so I'm not going to say more- there's plenty of diatribe out there. As soon as I finish my 10th week of school, I'm going down there to help the clean up in the wetlands. If I could, I'd go right now....but alas, there's far too much riding on this semester to drop it.
My father informed me last night that, as soon as I'm done with college, he's quitting work. I kinda giggled when he said that- my father tried to retire last year, and it lasted for 3 months because he can't stand not working. But...my dad's getting old. He's nearly 70. He can't possibly pull wrenches on helicopters forever. I'm pretty sure, though, he could never be a greeter at Wal-Mart- he'd get into a lot of trouble telling people to pull their damn pants up, to not talk to their children that way, to get their hands off their girlfriend's ass, etc. My father has a word-puke problem that rivals none- he's King of Word Puke. And he can't whisper, either. It's terribly embarrassing when he comments on someone's clothes or the fact that they're horribly obese or smells bad, etc, because I know they can hear him...even if they're across the room. On the bright side of that, at least he's honest...brutally honest.
My mom still isn't home. The nursing home has put my grandmother on hold...so my mother has to stay. I can't go up there this semester AT ALL- I wouldn't even have time to drive up there, spend a few hours, and come back before I'd have something major to do (work, school). I try to alleviate her bad days by calling her everyday with a good story to tell her, preferably one that'll make her laugh. It's not much, but it's something. I miss my mom terribly, even though she's just a phone call and/or five hours away. I have a hard time remembering how I made it so well without her when she was 1200 miles/18 hours away.
Things will always be better, though. I keep telling myself that. If there's hope, then there's something to hold onto.