05/07/09 Our computer needeth cleaning. It lacketh in speed...

So, anti-climatic as it is, it would seem like ALEKS is acting up again. But, this time it's not its fault. The computer has too much stuff on it, making it slow, making ALEKS unhappy. Not to mention it's starting to get on the old side. But anyway, things are going okay. Not the best, but manageable. Plus, I've very close to finishing the next few generations in a card game I'm working on. And that is good, because it's driving me insane.

I need to get information. A lot of it, actually. I have to look up some stuff for scouts, I have to gather info for another psychology essay, and I have to see if there's any hope of my curse being lifted. Although, by this time, I'm really not excited about the MTC night activity anymore. Now it's just this pressing thing in the back of my head of something that I /might/ have to worry about later. I like Pippin's (no idea if I spelled that right) quote: I don't want to be in a battle, but waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse.

You'd think I'd be used to it... I have to think about stuff. '09 is going by too fast. Almost half over and most of my big plans haven't moved yet. I guess I should go work on that... See ya.

05/01/09 Well, isn't this interesting?

'The Lord works in mysterious ways' is right. I just spent the last month getting more and more frustrated over this computer's bad habit of crashing while I worked on ALEKS, especially since it's been taking a turn for the worse. As you could imagine, frustration easily turns to anger, which is a bit of a pain. But now, after spending some time wiping the emotional slate of stress and anger, I find myself a little amused. I struggled, fought, and got angry about the problem for a month. And yet, today, not five minutes after I decided not to be angry, I felt the simple prompting to try running the online course on a different browser. And, of course, it turned out to be the one thing that fixed it. Now really, could the prompting have come a little sooner? Sure, probably. But it wouldn't have meant as much. It came only after I decided not to let emotions get in the way of the big picture. One of those patience things, you know?

So, the problem now is that for a month, I was unable to do the work I needed to. Twenty days of ALEKS, now that I only have a couple days left to work on them... It's still a pretty heavy chance that I'll pull it off, and yet, I feel pretty good about it. If nothing else, I'll have plenty of time to work on it next month, seeing as I have no more schoolwork to work on except ALEKS. I just hope things keep looking up.

Well, if nothing else, the fact that I posted twice in one day shows that I'm pretty happy about things. I think I'll take a break from ALEKS for a bit. For some reason, I have a great desire to work in the family room... See ya!

05/01/09 It's not supposed to be May yet...

Life is going by too quickly. I should shoot it.

I've got stuff to do, the stuff I do get around to is either taken for granted or disregarded altogether, and I feel like sticking my fist through a wall. I won't, because that would be bad. But I want to. I need to meditate. I haven't done it in weeks. And yet, the little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that the world doesn't deserve to see me happy. It should know that I don't like it. And then, right on cue, there's that happy, little, still-small voice that pops up and reminds me that I should always be happy and that all this is beneficial in the long run. Yeah, it's meaningless to have the ability to reign in your emotions if you don't choose to, but I've almost been enjoying being mad at life. There /are/ a couple valid reasons for me feeling a little irritated. Oh well, fine. I'll meditate, I'll probably even light the strawberry candle. I'll be... -disgusted tone- happy. But this had better mean something!

-comes back ten minutes later-

Dang, I've been putting that off too long. So yeah, things could be better, but I'll be fine. And hey, I'm done with all of my classes except for two, but one of them is having technical difficulties and the other is PE which is the easiest thing ever and you have to do everyday, anyway.

Man, I love strawberries. Well, I'd best get on. Maybe I'll write another letter to Andrew today. Oh yeah... Some things that are hecka old news but I may haven't mentioned. Like, at all. Um, I don't think I talked about getting a learner's permit. (It was all the way back in December, but I really do forget about these things.) I'm fairly certain I talked about Andrew entering the MTC. I should have, at least. The house has been so quiet, how could I forget?

Yeah, generic life changes. Ruth and Tom are moving. It's really sad, but their new house is really cool. (although I did mention that it might be a good thing that Andrew isn't here, because there are /many/ places that he would have liked to climb onto that might not be meant for climbing.)

Yep. Cheerio and all that. I'll go fry my brain with frustration at the computer's crashing tendency, probably have to meditate a couple more times, but for the moment, I feel an odd form of happiness, so we'll try to keep that around. ^^ See ya!