You know, I'd really like to tell you all to hurry up and stop using Internet Explorer. There are, after all, so many browsers that would suit you better. Besides, does I.E. have plushies? I think not.

Anyway, I am a lifelong FireFox convert, and nothing will ever be quite as grand in my eyes. Especially from a design standpoint. It really is frustrating that some (read "one") programs do not know how to translate pixels properly. I think I have it fixed now. Let me know if things still look wonky to you. Thank goodness that the latest offering from Microsoft now recognizes the 24 bit png—that, I must say was a pleasant surprise during my first foray into html in some two and a half years. I heart transparency! It's super spiffy!

I am writing an essay on an ethnic group to which I belong (can only think of one). I am writing roughly an essay-plus a week in my current block of classes. I am fortunate that word count poses little challenge for me, but it is rather exhausting and I beg you to forgive my sometimes-silence here. Once upon a time I had free time that I didn't spend on sleep! I am confident that I will have that once again . . . years down the road.

Besides, I find it difficult to be cute and clever when my brain is wrapped around credos and xenophobia!

I consumed the better part of a 12-pack of Diet Pepsi Saturday evening as I completed my HIS course essay. For someone that usually hits the hay between 8:00 and 8:30, 1:30 was quite a feat. I got my second wind around 10:30 and was still wired when I traipsed to bed some three hours later—I threw back some Tylenol PM and slept until a shocking 7:30 the next morning!

This has been a particularly harrowing block of classes for me, as I am sure they will all be. It isn't that they were overly difficult or that I did not find them interesting, but that the perfectionist in me is not satisfied with anything but mastery. I know that I could easily spend a fraction of the time that I spend at school and get away with a C . . . BS is a family trait, after all . . . but there is a rush when I see that A and next to it, a 100%. And what's more, I know that I've internalized the information. I feel bigger to have learned (and for the first time in all my life, feeling bigger feels better!).

Today, I begin my next block of classes, and they will be core classes. I have a business course and an ethics course that I am eager to begin, but at the same time, all too exhausted from the wrap up of my previous block. I have scheduled a short break between classes at the end of this term . . . I know I will need it. Grades will be in within the week, though I already know I've received 100% in my biodiversity course . . . a quarter of my history grade rests with the evaluation of my essay. My stomach is in knots.

I often think what I did with all my free time before I began classes. I know I will miss it come summer when the bike trails and rivers beckon, but for right now, exhausting as this double-full-time status might be, it feels good to know that I spend my extra time bettering myself. I have about five chapters to read tonight, so I suppose this post is more to remind myself of that.

On a side note:
Sophie went to the groomer on Saturday to trim her butt hair. Surprisingly, she isn't the least bit upset with us. Small victories.