so this weekend did not turn out according to plan. i had very specific plans for this weekend, in fact, and they did not entail doing that much work, to be perfectly honest. i was planning to (a) sack out in front of the television, and (b) work on the four remaining squares for my ugly-afghan-in-progress, and possibly start assembling the beast. i did none of that. i did not turn on the television once (which i’m really going to have to do tonight, if for no other reason than to inform the tivo that for deletion purposes, all my xmas specials it snagged last week are totally off limits). i did no crocheting. the closest i came was finding a tapestry needle on my desk and putting it away where it belonged.

no, instead, i cleaned my desk — tedious but necessary — and sorted some paperwork and filled out my third annual credit report request for the year (for some reason, one of the credit reporting agencies makes me send in a request rather than doing the web site thing, so i put it off for the last one), and researching the programs of study UIS offers, and plotting out which classes to take at harold washington to finish the associate’s work. for a while toyed heavily with the idea of signing up for a third class for this semester — which would be MADNESS even if i didn’t hate school — so that i could possibly get it all done with in four semesters rather than five, since summer sessions are short and so part-time is one class, so two summer semesters = one regular semester, ergo, 5 semesters to go. and started looking at alternatives to UIS, who, upon greater reflection, go out on a limb to make their programs feel welcoming by stating up-front that only twenty students are admitted per annum to several of the programs, and only into fall semester, so that if i should happen to be so unlucky as to be #21, i would be delayed a whole year if i wanted to do that course of study. lame. i mean, really, … LAME. so i started exploring alternatives, like depaul, too. and immediately after looking at tuition for alternatives, i hyperventilated a whole lot and then spent some quality time over at my old colleague mark kantrowitz’ finaid site fretting and fretting and fretting. then i spent some quality time over at my former employer fastweb dismissing scholarships which don’t really seem a good fit — not that i wasn’t entertained by being solicited to apply for the Ronald Reagan Leadership scholarship, for peeps who embody american ideals, which are entirely unspecified, and are willing to go forth and be a leader about them (and, at any rate, i suppose that the nice people who name things after Ronald Reagan probably have a few different ideas than me about what american ideals might be, probably starting with how trickle-down theory makes me laugh and laugh and laugh).

oh, and then i spent two hours on a grocery shopping endeavour in which i gained enough food to feed me for like six weeks, which is great because i hate grocery stores around the holidays, chiefly because they are full of stressed out angry people, and i prefer not to be stressed out and angry myself wherever possible. so i did fill my time with useful tasks, it’s just, none of them were what i was actually planning (except possibly the grocery shopping because, as i mentioned previously, totally out of dishwasher detergent, although that could have been a short trip instead of an epic one, but if you’re going to do it, do it up in a big way, i guess).

but, all that practical bullshit aside, i did get to watch a peter davison doctor who adventure i hadn’t seen, courtesy of netflix, so that was pretty awesome. <3 5.

maybe next weekend i’ll get to work on my afghan….