twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift

I spent the morning working on one of my psychology term papers and it is basically finished. I still need to go back and reread and edit, and ensure I have cited all my sources properly. Then I just need to do the formatting junk to make sure it's all standard APA and I can put it in the mail. Last week I finished the second recorded assignment (the ones in which I have to interview Shawn and provide an analysis of my own counselling techniques) and just have to do the same things I need to do with my term paper for Abnormal Psychology.

This leaves me with one more term paper to write and a final exam. I want these courses finished ahead of time so I can make sure my transcripts are ready ahead of schedule. I get nervous when things come down to the wire.

I spent the afternoon at the pool with Little J who delighted in throwing a beach ball around in the water, practicing her dog paddle, and climbing in and out of a little rubber boat. I can't remember the last time I was in a pool before today - not one of my favourite things - but we had a nice time anyway and I'm glad we're finally getting some real use out of the YMCA memberships.

This weekend my parents will be here for a visit; they're relieved - as we are - that we have succeeded in getting custody of Little J for now. When I see my parents with her they are a much mellower, more rational version of themselves than in my own childhood. Because then they were in their thirties and they were working working working, raising two children, trying to stay afloat, trying to afford vacations and school clothes, and so on and so forth. Now they are retired and calm and serene. Wiser, even. It's an interesting transformation. And as I learn more about what was going on in their lives as parents, while they were also parenting me, I begin to understand a great deal more about why things were the way they were. Why it was so easy to be invisible so often and why there was that brittleness. I can do more than empathize.

I read An Unquiet Mind because I wanted to, and finished it in just a day. But now I'm reading High Noon for my book club and I hate the first chapter so much that I can foresee this book taking the rest of the summer. Or maybe I'll just defiantly refuse to finish it. Why should I waste time reading something I find uninteresting? (This afternoon Little J told Shawn and me that we have only lived half our lives...and therefore have much more to look forward to...)


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