Chem2 is HISTORY

It’s been a difficult school year for me. I’ve only done seven hours for each semester, because Chemistry at UALR is very, very hard, apparently in order to discourage potential medical students. My advisor told me twice that most geology students take their chem classes at a nearby community college.

After the final, I went to Debbie Thompson’s house. We sat on her deck and watched the sun set and drank beer and burned all my chemistry notes.

I’m done. I ended up with high Cs in both chem 1 and chem 2. A year ago I’d never have believed I’d feel proud and relieved to see Cs on my transcript – I’m an A student! – but the fact is that these chemistry courses have bludgeoned my ego pretty thoroughly. Or maybe they’ve just taught me humility. I’m not good at everything. I’m learning to accept that.

I can go on to my other science courses now. I’ll never have to take another chemistry class again. This summer I’m taking an oceanography course, and next fall I’ll be doing physics and geology.

She’s Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas

Mandy tried out for a cute little part in the choir’s Christmas program: “My favorite things” from the sound of music, I think. You know, the “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” song. The teacher gave those parts to quiet, sweet girls with ribbons in their hair. She had our daughter sing “I broke my bat on Johnny’s head, somebody snitched on me.”

It’s almost as if the choir teacher knew about that incident in which the classroom bully-boy got a black eye. Which was of course an accident. Or the time when Mandy accidentally stepped on Hunter’s head. It was purely coincidence that he’d just said something mean to her.

The high school auditorium was packed; I’ll bet there were two thousand people there. Mandy wore a hat and sang on key. We enjoyed the program and were proud of her.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8432877&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

Here’s the solo part to Mandys Christmas concert/song… thank me later for just putting up the solo and not the whole two hour concert (complete with a song about Santa in camo… I hate Saline County sometimes).