Thursday

Today is my Friday. Today marks the end of one set of stress; it is the final day of the summer semester. In a few minutes I will go take my statistics final exam. I've studied, and I am about as ready as I'm going to be.

I studied for the stats test yesterday afternoon. I was tired, so sometime around 6:00 p.m. I lay down for a nap. I slept until after 11:00. I got up and studied for my economics final. I really wanted to have that test out of the way by now, so I spent about an hour studying for that, then took the test. It's an online class, so I take the tests online, too. I didn't put a terrific amount of effort into preparing for that test, because my grades going into it are pretty solid. In order to make an A in the class I only need to score somewhere around 75% on this test. I probably did better than that, but I won't know until tomorrow.

It's a similar situation in statistics. My grade going into the class is relatively high, so I can score in the high 70s on this exam and still squeeze by with a low A. Once it's on the transcript, an A is an A, no matter if it's 100% or 90%. I like A's. I may have mentioned that.

In other news, I see my therapist this afternoon. I need that! Diva sees her new therapist at the same time. Her new therapist works in the same office as my therapist. This should work out well. I made a couple of copies of Diva's psych evaluation results/summary, one for each therapist. My gal is very curious about Diva's evaluation.

I'm extremely tired. I got 5 hours of sleep early last night, was up for about 3 hours, then got another 3-4 hours of sleep. I'm having a difficult time keeping my eyes open this morning. I hope I have enough brain power to run my system while taking the statistics exam.

When Diva and I get home from our therapy sessions this afternoon, I'm finally going to take that chill-pill my shrink prescribed. He wanted me to take it Tuesday, but I just couldn't do it before exams. I'm afraid if I take it, I'll chill so much that I won't be able to study. I'll tell ya', though, I am very much looking forward to experiencing the chill this evening!

OK, time to attack the final stats exam. I'll try to post later if I'm not too loopy.

Next in line

I had to get that hairy-backed NASCAR fan off the top of my blog. I like this one much better. I have always liked glass blocks. Wouldn't it be nice to have a glass block shower like this?

I had an exam in statistics last week. We got the grades Monday. I got 100%! I'm thrilled. Then we started something new and I'm all kinds of confused. I can do the calculations, but the logic of it all has my brain in a strain. The answers sound something like "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Replace "reality" with "hypothesis" and that's what it is. The prof keeps saying that if the calculations indicate that what we've observed is very, very rare, then we need to reject that reality. It brings to mind the infinite improbability drive from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I think "of course this will happen!"

Interesting happenings with the in-laws: I mentioned recently that the sister-in-law (SIL) got married. She was in a loveless, lifeless marriage to The Lump for almost 20 years. Superman and I wondered, even before their wedding, why she chose to marry The Lump. I know why she stayed in the marriage, though. She, like the rest of Superman's family, is very religious. They don't "believe" in divorce. Well, SIL lived with The Lump for as long as she could stand it. Her mid-life review broke her out of that trap. I hope her new husband will be as wonderful as he seems. He really does seem like a super nice fella. And he's willing (yea, eager) to have sex with her. That's something The Lump didn't do. SIL is a very sexual woman. I don't know how she stuck it out in that dead marriage for so long.

The Brother-In-Law is eleven years younger than Superman. (SIL is my age, two years younger than Superman.) He went through a series of girlfriends over half a dozen years before settling down with his wife. They've been together for 5 or 6 years, married for 2.5 years (if I recall correctly). Well, this weekend Superman heard from his brother. BIL is leaving her. This is a shocker to me. I learned a lot about them that I didn't know. For the three or so years they lived together before the wedding, they never consummated the relationship. She's a "good Catholic girl" and wouldn't have sex before marriage. She promised it would be different after the wedding. You guessed it - there hasn't been any significant difference. Evidently they hadn't had much sex at all in the entire length of the relationship. I feel sorry for the BIL.

But wait, there's more. Turns out the wife was married previously. BIL knew about it, so no surprise there. What he didn't know until very recently is that she is still married to her first husband! She was going to get the marriage annulled, but never got around to it. When he found out she was still married, he told her, of course, to go ahead with the annulment and they'd get remarried. She has dragged her feet for I don't know how many months, so he finally gave up on her. When she told him this weekend that she will never sleep with him again, he decided that now is a good time to cut and run. At least he doesn't have to go through the expense and aggravation of a divorce. Their marriage is null and void anyway.

They have lived in the Raleigh, NC area. He's moving back to Chattanooga. SIL's new husband lives and works in Chattanooga, too, so she's there. The parents live just over the border in NW Georgia, so now two of their three children live close by. No, we aren't moving to Chattanooga. I've got nothing against the city itself (especially now that they've done so much civic improvement), but I have a LOT against living that close to Superman's familly. (I shouldn't say "never," because as soon as I do, I'll end up living in Chattanooga. Therefore, while the idea doesn't appeal to me, I won't reject the possibility of moving there.)

My dear Father-in-law is scheduled for surgery on August 3rd (I think) to have one of his kidneys removed. He is old, tired, not in good health, and is showing signs of preparing to die. He doesn't expect to survive the surgery. As far as I know, there is no compelling medical evidence to indicate that he won't survive. His spirit, however, is not willing. Superman is understandably concerned. I will keep you updated.

And that's all the gossip from the in-laws. Other than that, I don't have too much to say.

filler

I want to post. There are all manner of things going through my head these days. I'm quite busy with school. Statistics (or as my father says, "sadistics") is currently being very fun. It's like a big logic puzzle. I get stuff wrong sometimes, but that just adds to the challenge.

Economics, on the other hand, is a pain in the tokus. The book is horrid. Obscure. Here's an example from my reading tonight. The subject is market demand for labor.

In such a case, how is the demand for labor by one firm linked to the demand for labor by all firms? If your common sense suggests that all that must be done is to sum the individual firm demands, then you are right. The procedure is quite simple; for each wage, each individual firm's quantity demanded is added to the quantity demanded by all of the other firms to form the quantity demanded of labor by all firms. In this way, the demand for labor by all employers may be thought of as the summation of the individual demands for labor by the individual employers in the economy.* **

Are there any economic wizards out there? Does anyone reading this post have an easy working knowledge of basic economic principles? I ask because I'd like an informed opinion about this text. Is it really as muddled as it seems, or am I the only one having trouble deciphering it? Also, can anyone direct me to a source that explains this stuff in a way that human beings can easily understand?

Twitch goes off to college on Friday. I'm driving him to Charlotte, NC where he will move into an apartment near the campus. He will have three roommates in a two bedroom apartment, unless he is assigned to a three bedroom apartment, in which case there will be five other roommates. I hope he gets a two bedroom unit. He isn't the easiest guy to live with. "Quirky" doesn't come close to describing him. "Twitchy" does, though. He talks to himself very loudly, carrying on involved conversations with himself. He talks in his sleep, very loudly. And...

Well, this is all about him growing up and learning to survive in the real world. I'm not going to worry (much) about what he might encounter. It will be a powerful learning experience, I'm sure.

I am sleep-deprived. I could write a lot more, but I really need to shut this box down and go to sleep. I have lots of homework to do tomorrow, then a very long day Friday transporting the boy to his new digs. I have stuff to relate about Sproing and Diva, none of it especially surprising and all of it very consistent with the track they have been on now for a very long time. The cats continue to amuse us. Light is enlightening. She cleaned the living room, mopped the floor yesterday. It was very exciting. Right now my butt hurts from sitting here too long, and I'm soooo tired. I don't know when I'll post next; things are typically chaotic. Just know that I want to post more often than I do.

*If you are interested in the bibliographical information, send me an email and I'll be glad to tell you. I'm omitting it here to a) protect the identity of the guilty parties and b) attempt to stay under the search engine radar.

**This passage gets more confusing each time I read it.

AARRGGGHHHHH!!!

Summer B session started yesterday. I have statistics and economics. The statistics class meets daily Mon-Thurs for two hours. The economics class is an online class.

Statistics:

• The book is easy(ish) to read, well written, even humorous.
• The prof is a fairly young man, cute in a geekish way.
• The prof is friendly, but not overly outgoing.
• He speaks English; I understand the words.
• The concepts float around my head like mosquitoes. Sometimes they land and connect, sometimes they brush past momentarily, sometimes they miss altogether.
• It is an intensive presentation. The class only lasts 6 weeks, and we are supposed to get through an entire semester's work in that time.

I'm bobbing in the ocean on this one.

Economics:

• It's online, so I don't have personal contact with teacher or classmates.
• It's also fast-paced, with lots of assignments due one right after the other.
• The book is b-o-r-i-n-g. I know economics doesn't have to be this dull.
• I am supposed to have read the first two chapters already. I am on page 14, and I don't know what I've read so far. I fall asleep between the first sentence of the paragraph and the last. It's hard to keep track of the point when I keep nodding off.

I'm floating in the doldrums with this one.

This is one reason I haven't posted in a few days. Hopefully I'll get the hang of this school term and be able to balance my time better.