(no subject)

I haven't had much of a chance to post all week, so be prepared for a glut of sudden entries. This one involves my Tuesday English Composition class.

English Comp apparently involves a lot of essay writing. The professor had decided we were going to skip over descriptive and narrative essay, and plunge straight into example essays. Pah, says I. I love descriptive and narrative. However, no choice and onward, I went.

We're allowed to choose our topics, which is a relief. I don't really relish the idea of writing in-depth essays about "WHAT I THINK THE PROBLEMS ON CAMPUS ARE" or "HOW I FEEL ABOUT CARROTS". I also expect that the professor is quite tired of reading the most boring shit ever every year, so I made the decision to try and pick interesting topics to write about. My first essay, after much wembling over the subject, was going to be written on why I've made the decision to never have children. Not a hate-fueled diatribe against children, but the actual and logical facts about why I don't think it's the best idea for me to spawn. Fairly interesting, but not overpowering. I put a lot into the essay, things that I hadn't ever really considered before. It turned out to be an emotional experience for me, which surprised me. I generally liked the end result, despite waffling over sentence structure and maximum overall impact (I am, after all, a complete tool over writing).

It was handed back to me during class this past Tuesday with only two small corrections. One was a comma that I had dropped from a sentence and the other was a slight rewording of a phrase. All in all, I received an A on the essay and that made me very happy. At the end, he'd included a note (in almost indecipherable handwriting, may I add) which read: Very good work, Tara. Maybe you'll change your mind someday!

...

Suddenly, I felt a lot like Ralphie in A Christmas Story after he'd turned in his theme on how much he wanted a Red Rider BB gun. You'll shoot your eye out!

What the blithering fuck? Sure I got an A on the essay and I'm a lot more amused by the comment then I'm coming off like, but did he actually read the reasons I gave for not wanting to have children? They're not really the type that people change their minds over. For starters, my biggest reason is the fact that I have incredibly faulty DNA and I really don't think it's wise to pass these genes on. I'm schizoaffective, I have an impulse control disorder (trichotillomania), and I come from a long line of drug addicts and alcoholics. I really don't think that's something I'm going to just change my mind about. All of my other reasons pale before that one; I even stated in the essay that if none of the other reasons existed, I still wouldn't want to have kids because of the bad DNA.

gah.

Our next assigned essay is supposed to be written as process analysis.
I'm contemplating writing mine about how to give an abortion.

(no subject)

Yesterday pretty much sucked, all the way around and back again.

I knew it was going to be bad because it was 09-27, which is my mother's birthday. This is her second birthday since she died and this year, I seem to be handling it a little worse than usual. Originally, I was going to take the day off from work and go to Cape May to visit where I scattered some of her ashes, but I had class that evening and I really didn't want to have to rush back to this part of the state. Especially through rush hour traffic. It would have been a little slice of deep-fried Hell and not something that I wanted to even attempt. Therefore, I found myself going to work.

On the drive in, I noticed a dead cat in the middle of the road. I think that it had been hit by a car fairly recently because I saw another small cat running away, already across the street. Maybe two of them had been running together or chasing each other, I don't know. But, dead cat in the road. Not something that puts a smile on my face during the best days, so it put me further into an already black mood.

Throughout the day, the mood grew steadily worse. I had to deal with one of our office employees lying straight to my face and trying to change her story several times. I got quite severe with her on the phone, which brought out the crocodile tears and attempts to manipulate me. This never works. I spent about an hour on the phone with her in the CFO's office and by the end of it, I was quite exhausted.

Leaving work, on my way to class, I had to drive down the dead cat road again. It's really the only way to get where I'm going without using the highway and since I was leaving at five o'clock in the evening, I didn't relish the idea of travelling by highway. Too much traffic. I was prepared for the cat carcass and as I drew nearer to it, I practiced steadily staring ahead of me. Out of sight, out of mind. Right?

Wrong.

Traffic backs up to a scary degree on that road and at that time, one could sit there for quite some time before being able to move up and go through the light. Where did I get stuck? Right next to the dead cat. Fucking hell. Not only that, but cars were driving up the center of the road to get to the turning lane and every single one of them ran over it. Every. Single. One. I couldn't get the wet slurping-thunk sound out of my head the entire night for love or money. Not exactly the best way to spend my Algebra class.

And this morning? A second dead cat, this one on the side of the road and not stuck in the middle. It looks exactly like the one I saw yesterday, running away. This does not make me happy, to say the least.