Sweet Jesus in a jumpsuit, what was I doing?

Well, it took a comment to remind me that I started this blog and have excelled at neglecting this project for over two months now.

I'm in the homestretch of this semester.  It's a good feeling.

I also feel like I'm not only looking at the barrel of shotgun, but kissing the gunmetal.

Here's my problem.  Okay, one of many of my problems.  I'm so damn distractible.  I just had to look up if I really meant gunmetal.  Are guns still made of gunmetal?  Maybe it's steel.  Aren't most made with steel now?  I don't know.  For all intents and purposes, I’m smooching a vintage gun.  It may or may not be a double barrel.  I don't know. It could be a rifle.  Where was I?

Anyway, in the next three weeks, I have three papers due.  One of them isn't so much a paper as it's a portfolio project that I should have been working on all semester for Health Psychology.  Have I?  Of course not.  I was probably too busy Googling something that has likely not enriched my life.  It could have.  I did Google scoliosis and that was informative.

Naturally, there was a reason for that, even though I tend to look up some pretty random crap.  My youngest son apparently has a slight curvature to his spine that we've been unaware of for the past almost 19 years.  Sweet Jesus in a jumpsuit, I don't know how this is possible.  I'm ready to put him in a home for the invalid.  That kid has more wrong with him than my 90ish year old grandma.  And no, I'm not going to stop and do the math to report exactly how old she is.  Okay, I lied.  She turned 89 in June.

One paper is a relationship analysis paper for Love, Romance, and Relationships.  I need to pick a person and put our relationship through the wringer, detailing such riveting topics as "Assess the Relational Sexuality aspects of this relationship using the abbreviated form of the Sexual Attitudes Scale and Bern Sex-Role Inventory.”  I have a perfect score in that class.  A 100%.  I'll be honest and say I don't have the first flippin' clue what that even means.  If that class has taught me anything, it's that you can indeed look too closely at things like friendships and other relationships.  I've also reached the conclusion it's a wonder that more people don't end up in an asylum, drooling, babbling, and chewing on electrical cords.

Another paper is for Critical Thinking.  And no, I'm not going to go look up the details for the sake of this blog.  Not going to do it.  I will say it has something to do with my personal feelings on what Critical Thinking entails, and will require a fair amount of surmising how my thinking probably should have changed over the course of a semester.

It's not been a bad semester.  It's been one of the easiest ones yet.  There has been so much writing, though.  Every week, there's been something that has required talent beyond simple memorization skills.  One instructor suggested that I might consider writing because my papers were that easy to read and enjoyable.  I got 200/200 on a research paper about positioning a booty call on the relationship spectrum between long-term relationships and one-nightstands, and what experts say about this.  Yes, it even strikes me as oddly absurd.

(I just spent ten minutes looking up a Sesame Street clip where the song to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" that goes, "Whistle, whistle, little bird.  Eating crumbs is quite absurd.  Have a ham and cheese on rye or a piece of cherry pie.  Then if crumbs you only want, then don't come in my restaurant.”  I couldn't find the clip, but for whatever reason, I know the words to it.)

I think what has happened over these semesters is much like what happened when I wrote the column.  At first, it was difficult to get everything down that I wanted to say in 700 words.  Then after a while, I could whip out the first draft, and I'd be within 20 words of the count.  That was a transformation from whittling down 1,000 words when I first wrote the column.  The only difference now is I'm not going to get excited about writing a ten-page paper on a relationship.

I've been on the fence about taking off a semester and waiting to go back next fall.  I can do that before Sallie Mae starts wanting payment for student loans.  However, I'm not entirely convinced I wouldn't find something else to take up my time.  Say, for example, Googling Shaun Cassidy or the history of Spandex.

Or Shaun Cassidy wearing Spandex.