It’s coming on Finals Time again and the reason it seems like I was just saying that 10 weeks ago is because I was. I’m on a ten weeks on, three weeks off schedule at school and the three weeks off are loaded with several hours a day worth of assignments, if you insist on calling that time off. Right now I’m studying for the test before the finals, the pre-final if you will, the equivalent of drinking the gallon of chalk juice before the colonoscopy.
I was feeling like I haven’t seen Husband much lately since I’m either at school or doing schoolwork and he’s either at work or doing workwork so I sprawled out on our bed to study instead of going into my study room, previously Daughter’s bedroom, which I redecorated by bringing in a laser printer. Husband asked if the TV would bother me and I said no but that was before I remembered that the History Channel guy’s voice sounds like the films they used to torture us with in elementary school — “…the earthworm is nature’s most remarkable creature, let’s examine its digestive chambers one by one…” — until our brains explode with boredom and no one even notices we’re dying right here in this auditorium that smells like peanut butter and farts.
Husband is addicted to the Discovery Channel and all related programming and in fact one of our first evenings together was accompanied by The Search for the Woolly Mammoth, a legendary animal dating back to prehistoric times and now you can add the seven years we’ve been married because they still haven’t found him. This clever fellow could teach a trick or two to the stars over at Husband’s other TV destination, Forensic Files, featuring the guys who join search parties to look for the wives they murdered the day before. And I have to watch The Shield alone because it’s too violent, go figure. At least you know where you stand with Vic and the Strike Team. You don’t want to stand there too long but that’s your choice.
I brought my camera to school last week and took pictures of my classmates because it’s the end of the term and you should always have pictures, right? I made a collage of our faces and hung it in the doorway of our main room and it gave everyone a kick. Today we looked at it and reminisced about our first, disastrous semester, the one with Mr. Magoo, and how far we’ve all come and how we might not be together in the same group anymore when school starts up again in July.
For some of us, this is the second or third career path we’ve followed in our lives and we certainly could have chosen an easier road than this particular program. But we are a dedicated bunch and I know we’ll all finish, together or separately. I feel very lucky to have a supportive husband who thinks there’s nothing I can’t do. And maybe this time next year my family will watch me walk for my diploma, and like the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, they will look at my class and say, “and proud we are of all of them.”
This photo is from the Party Set in Daughter’s Featured Foto Gallery
chew (Orchard Street)