Hiddie Ho There Neighbor!

Yeah, I don't know if my title is spelled right but that's about how I am feeling lately. I'm posting again because, well, I don't want to work. I was here for about 7 hours yesterday (Sunday) and now feel drained. Blah. Also, I am going to play in a 9 ball tournament tonight which means I am staying late. Not good for the motivation.

Anyway, the hide-e-ho? neighbor thing is because everyone in the boonies waves at you! It's weird. I come from a place where you are not suppose to make eye contact let alone greet a stranger. I needed to thaw out a stand-alone freezer that is kept outside on the porch. Yeah, the porch. Stop laughing. Well, while I was chipping away at the ice and trying to remove frozen stuff, people would pass by on the road. They all would wave. Why? I don't know them. They don't know me. It is just weird. I understand it is a country/boonies/southern thing but it still creeps me out.

Country life continues to plague me with personal and property issues. This month is property issues. We got a bad left-over storm from Ike and it brought some serious winds. After the storm had seemed to pass, I decided to drive into town to check on my house (it's had some tree falling on it issues as well as leaky roof issues). Well, not 200 feet from the trailer, a big gust of wind knocks a branch in a tree loose and it flies into my car. Yeah, into my car. I yelled like a little girl, cut my wheel, and slammed on the brakes. I managed to stall out my car and turn it enough to have the branch plow into the passenger side of the car's windshield (instead of my side where it was headed). The windshield was pretty much shattered on the passenger side but only three main cracks came over on the driver side. The window was flaking into the foot well area and the branch left some organic material in the glass so it had to be replaced. The windshield ran just under $200 and I'm just going to leave the dent in my roof. I hope that means I am in the clear for another 9 days... when it turns into October.

The painting is still not progressing at any high speed. The bf did come out to help me ONE day over Labor Day weekend (he had promised two) and then tried to get the paint off with a power washer even though I told him I tried that last year and it didn't work. Yeah, surprise, surprise, it didn't work again. Sigh. So then the wood was soaked and the scrapers didn't work because they cut into the now soft wood. Basically, after about two hours, he started drinking and throwing paint chips at me. It was not a good time. I won't ask for his help again. I guess the old adage continues to hold true... if you want something done and want it done right, do it yourself.

Even though his help was worthless, I have been sucked into helping him with a home project of his. Actually, two. I helped him put up lattice around his deck and now he wants to frame it and the driveway area with railroad ties. And, oh how lucky can we get, he knows a guy who has ties for $1 a piece. There is, of course, a catch. These ties have seen better days. We will have to pick through piles of ties that are possibly infected with snakes. This little all-day project was suppose to happen on Saturday. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you like to procrastinate), it was pouring rain all day. Then, on Sunday, he was enlisted to help a friend on a local farm with some relocation of equipment. I had to work anyway. This job, however, needs to take place this next weekend! Why the urgency you ask? Because, otherwise it will be October and I will be due for a personal injury out in the country! I don't want to be bit by a fucking snake! They aren't natural. Everything should need legs to move on land. Ugh.

Classes are fine but a little overwhelming. I haven't been this busy since my first semester. I'm not entirely sure the sociology class is worth the pay. The only upside is the class is online so once I have all of the tests written, the articles posted, and the links set up, it should be much less time consuming. I'll still have a ton of grading but that will be almost all of the work. Right now the test and make-up tests have each taken about 15 hours. Mostly this is because I want to do this right and so I am writing nearly 100 questions for a 25 question test. This way, the questions are random and not the same for all the students. I am trying to eliminate the most straightforward or easiest way to cheat. Sigh. I hate that I care.

Our school is in the middle of a presidential search. We have one applicant from within the ranks. I asked him some tough questions during the open forums. Word on the street is that the board is planning to hire him. I'm not tenured. I'm actually a little fearful about losing my job. I just didn't want to be like so many people around here - afraid to speak up because they were afraid for their jobs. Now I've spoken up and now I am worried about my job. I want to leave this place but I want it to be on my own terms. Oh, and he will suck as a president for other reasons too. That is part of the reason I asked the "tough" questions. I wanted to confirm he was a useless as I suspected. Sadly, he is.

I'm playing on a pool league this fall. So far, so good. I have lost every match. I win a couple of games but overall lose the match. This is actually good because right now I am unranked. I will be ranked after this week. I want to be ranked low. That way, I will have a bigger handicap than better players. This will result in a lower number of games to win to win the match. Ultimately, this will hopefully parlay into more match wins for me. And I like to win...

Not much else is new. I teach a class at 9 so I need to sign off on this blog post.

PS: My spider bite turned out to be not brown recluse but some other creepy crawly. My arm no longer has a hole in it - just scar tissue and a 'dent'. I guess even when I eventually get myself out of this hellhole, I will have a permanent souvenir. At least it won't cost extra to move it. Baahahahaha.