I have just spent my entire day trying to connect to the internet from my laptop, to no avail.  Randy’s laptop is connecting without trouble, but I keep getting various errors and excuses from mine.  I’ve done a full scan, rebooted, restored. 

Nothing is working.

I think I’m about to wipe my hard drive and try starting over.  I have all of my files and photos saved.  The only snag is my Microsoft Office; I’ve run out of activation licenses.  I can try to call and get a new code but, if push comes to shove, I’ll use OpenOffice instead.  I think I’ll download it here onto Randy’s computer so at least I’ll have it for school while I try to get everything figured out.  I’m now way behind on my homework because today has been a complete wash.

Just another day in the life of…

We spent a little time last night discussing homosexuality, drag queens, transvestites, transsexuals, and society’s reaction to them.  “Dr. R” says that society’s hatred of these people is rooted in the primal imperative to be able to tell men from women.  When deceived, our sexual competence has been compromised in the eyes of society.  Think about it: in the movies and on t.v., how do friends react when some guy puts the moves on a woman only to find out that the woman is a man?  They laugh.  They harass him. His manhood (sexual competence as defined by society) is called into question.  What’s his reaction?  Anger.  A desire to lash out.  Sometimes he does.

That’s how it happens in real life, too.  It’s part of what drives the fear behind homophobia.

According to Dr. R, drag queens are the safest when it comes to hate crimes of this type because “they aren’t trying to fool anyone.”  Transvestites (who, btw, are usually heterosexual, not homosexual, not that it matters beyond breaking a stereotype) are more likely to be beaten up than killed; that’s an “honor” that falls to transsexuals.  It’s about degrees of perceived deception.  The greater the “lie,” the harsher the repercussion.  I’m not entirely convinced of this; I hear more about violence against transvestites.  Perhaps it’s due to larger visibility of transvestites?  I don’t know.

It’s frightening – not surprising, just frightening – to me that people are capable of such viciousness because they’re ashamed over being “tricked.”    Is that what it comes down to?  What is worse for the violent homophobe?  Feeling deceived (whether it was intentional or not) by the transvestite or transsexual?  Or the sense of being betrayed by one’s own body by feeling physically attracted to someone of the same sex?  It’s probably the latter, leading to the defensive anger of the  former, combining to form some of the ugliest human behavior.

Yes, my Human Sexuality class is going to prove very thought-provoking.

(This may be a difficult topic for some of my readers.  If you disagree with me, that’s absolutely fine.  I ask only that any comments you make are made respectfully not only to me, but to each other)

This semester I have 4 major papers to write (as well as several shorter ones), two 10-minute presentations to give, and have to help organize and run a Take Back the Night Event.  I don’t even know what I’m going to write about in a couple of classes, but I’m supposed to choose on Thursday.

Right now I’d rather be training for the Olympics.

Speaking of, are you looking forward to them?  What are your favorite sports?  Which athletes will you be cheering on?

I don’t see me competing unless they have a snow-cone eating contest.  How about you?

I took an anonymous “Sexual History and Orientation Survey” for my Human Sexuality class.  It got very personal and, in my case, is probably not very anonymous.  I’m twice as old as my classmates and as far as I know, the only married woman in the class; my experiences will set me apart.

Believe me.

But I went ahead and answered the questions honestly anyway.  Only the professor will see my responses, and the overall results are for the benefit of the class and our discussions.  My professor was taught by Wardell Pomeroy, a colleague of Kinsey’s who helped with the (in)famous study; he knows his stuff.

This is going to be a fascinating, intriguing, and I suspect frequently amusing course.

School makes up the majority of my life during a semester, but I realize that can be boring.  I’ll try to blog about a variety of things, or not to dedicate an entire post to school all the time.  Still, there are things that might be of real interest in one of my classes.  You’ll probably hear about that.

For example, that holiday I couldn’t remember while composing my Important Dates to Remember post?  National Pistachio Day.

Now you know.

I lay there on the couch, an exhausted ball of pain after my last- and longest – day of school this week.  Randy came home, settled in, took a look at me and grinned.

“So, how do you like getting up before me in the morning?”

How to truly express my state of being?  How to make him understand?

“It’s like this: It’s a disturbance in The Force.  It’s as though Darth Vader won.”

Wow.  Whoever used this computer last must have been a leprechaun; this chair is low.  And the mouse pad is elevated above the keyboard.  Interesting.

You know what’s really interesting?  I never told you about the little calendar of events the school posts in each bathroom stall.  It’s called The Tinkle Time News and, according to TTTN, today is Happy Hugging Day.  I don’t know if it is wishing me a joyful day of hugging, or if it is a day specifically set aside for Happy vs. Unhappy hugging.  What is unhappy hugging anyway?  Is it like a forced display affection to a malodorous relative?  And when is it celebrated?  Points to ponder.

In case you are reading this late (and why is that I ask you? Don’t you hang on my every word?) and miss out on Happy Hugging Day, you can certainly join us on January 30th when we celebrate National Bubble Wrap Day.  I’m afraid this excludes my international friends and I think I’m a bit offended by this.  I hereby declare January 30th to be International Bubble Wrap Day, because that’s the kind of woman I am.

Be on the lookout next month for Happy Umbrella Day (which begs the question “When is Unhappy Umbrella Day?” See Happy Hugging Day reference above) and something else I can’t recall right now.  I’ll have to let you know what that is the next time I have to pee.

Because, despite what you might think, I am not blogging from a toilet.

My car is fixed and fully operational.  Hurrah!  I do miss the heated seats of the loaner – it felt so good on my back! – but would much rather drive my car than an unfamiliar one.

I leave to begin Day 2 of school in about an hour and won’t get home until around 10:30 tonight.  On tap for this evening: Human Sexuality followed by Victomology.  I think the combination of the two courses back-to-back could get interesting at times.  At any rate both classes hold lots of promise.

Thanks to yesterday’s debacle I didn’t get as much of the readings for tomorrow’s classes done as I otherwise would have so I need to turn my attention to that now.  The more I read before this evening, the less I’ll have to read when I get home tonight.

As we all know, 5 AM comes awfully early if you haven’t stayed up all night to greet it.  And right now, I’d rather not stay up to greet it.

Ignoring the fact that I had to get up at an ungodly hour to go to school, let’s skip ahead to the drive:

My brakes haven’t been great for awhile but I don’t have the money to fix them.  It started a month or two ago with a squealing sound when I tapped on them gently.  They worked fine other than the noise, though, so I ignored it.  They were getting worse however so Randy had a local mechanic check them out; he said they looked fine other than a little rust on some rotary thingy (or whatever it was).    Within a couple of days, though, they began to make a grinding sound.  As bad as that seems it was very faint.  It’s been steadily getting worse, as one might expect, and I knew it was just a matter of time.

My car is a VW Jetta and it has “Tiptronic” transmission which means that it’s automatic but I can slide it over into manual.  This is a good thing.  Driving into school today I wound up having to switch to manual in order to get the car to slow down with minimum brake usage.  Of course it was rainy and there was a lot of traffic; the drive in was nerve-wracking to say the least.  Realizing that I now have no choice I called the garage when I arrived at school.  The garage is on the way home and I wanted to know if I could bring it in and perhaps get a loaner if my car wasn’t going to be ready today.  To that end I pulled out my cell and promptly dropped it in the school parking lot; the back broke off.

Hurray.

Luckily it still worked and I was able to get an appointment.  My car made it in.  Turns out the rear brakes were down to metal on metal and some “boot” or other is torn and also needs to be replaced lest it rip completely and cost me several hundred dollars more.  Total as of this writing is $630.

Ugh.

In addition to all of this I haven’t been able to access my school email today, at least not here at school (odd!) or through my cell.  It worked fine this morning from home. 

And one of my textbooks still hasn’t come in.

I can’t tell you how irritating this day has been so far.

But hey!  My hair still looks good.

…of my 30′s.

Hello 39.  I think we’ll get along just fine.

Randy had the day off so we went to SJC together to buy my textbooks.  He had never been on campus before so I gave him a quick tour; it was fun sharing that part of my life with him if only in this limited way.

I decided to set up my GPS unit and use it on the trip to see how well it works.  In some instances I knew better roads to take than those initially recommended and the oppositional personality in me took particular glee out of saying “No” to Her, making Her say “Recalculating.”  Much of the time we were in agreement, though, so no feathers were permanently ruffled.  I had Randy drive on the way home, however, and that’s when things got interesting.  He chose an alternative route and She recalculated, then made another suggestion which he subsequently ignored.  Repeat the process.  Now, I know that it’s all a recording, that there is no real inflection.  But I swear to you that a note of irritation crept into Her voice.  It did.  The third time She said “Turn right on High Street now Turn right on High Street now” back to back, just like that.  There was no pause.  She was insistent.

We got the distinct impression that if we failed to follow Her orders this time, There Would Be Consequences.

Happily for all involved Randy had, in fact, been planning to Turn right on High Street now.  Equilibrium had been restored and the rest of the drive went almost without incident.

After relaxing at home for a little while we went to my mother’s house for my birthday dinner.  See rumor has it that my mother was there on the day I was born.  Just on the off chance that it’s true I thought I should include her in commemorating it.

Now I’m kicking back, relaxing, and enjoying the last few minutes of the day.

How was yours?

I’m not mentally prepared to return to school next week, but that doesn’t really matter, eh?

My Victimology prof emailed the class to let us know that she’s posted the syllabus online.  She asked us to look at it ahead of time.  The class requires us to look at crimes through the eyes of the victims.  This means thinking about and discussing difficult topics and can become quite emotional.  She wanted us to let her know if we were going to have trouble with any of the subjects and she would try to make it a little easier.  But the class is Victimology, and we have to study and discuss these things.

Having been a “victim” (I don’t consider myself one, but legally I was) of some of the crimes we’ll be discussing, this class may at times be a little intense for me.  But I signed up for it.  I’m interested in forensic psychology and this is part of the deal.  I think that if students can’t handle the subject matter, they shouldn’t take the class.  It’s the real world, and we’re going to have to deal with it, pretty or not.

I’m still looking forward to the class, perhaps even more than before.  Remind me of this once the semester gets under way and I become an emotional mess, will ya?

Thanks!