School's in session!

It's been an entire week since my last post! This time I can't use the excuse of having been away from home, because I wasn't. Aside from a short excursion last weekend, I've been in Murfreesboro the whole time. But life has kept me away from the blogging world. So this is my obligatory update.

A lot has happened in the past week. I started school on Monday. I am again taking a rather large load, and this semester I have not one, but two, English classes. That being my chosen field of study, it was bound to happen at some point. I actually anticipate taking even more than two simultaneously in the future. And what that basically means is that I have to write a lot. Good thing I like to write.

I mentioned in a recent blog that my brother was going to start classes this fall, too. And so has. And that has been consuming a lot of my time as well. I've been helping him try to figure out what's going on and make sure he has everything he needs. I am like a mother hen, so even if he had not asked, I would have tried to give him my help and advice anyway. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he has class before I do, and so I've been getting up extra early to ride to school with him. I would have taken my bike, and let him take the car on his own, but I had no way to lock it up. So I've been getting up at 6:00 (5:30 today) so that I had time to get ready. Thus I've been sleep deprived as well as uber busy.

If that's not enough school craziness, there's more. Apparently the education bug has been going around the Harmon house, because my dad decided to go back to school, too!! This is his third time in. It was a very last minute decision, so this week he's been trying to figure everything out, and he officially got registered yesterday. He's missed a few days of classes, but not too much. He went to his first couple of classes today. While I haven't been mothering him like I have my brother, I have been helping him with a few things. He went to MTSU when I was a kid, but a lot has changed since then, particularly with the advent of the Internet. I've been giving him tutorials on how everything works. I'm excited for him! Next year, he'll finally be graduating with his first undergraduate degree. With a double major. He's brilliant, and I'm glad he's getting back into this environment. Oh, and speaking of my dad relating to the Internet, he's on Facebook now! Which has meant more tutorial sessions. I was sitting beside him when he registered and I was shocked. He's never talked about getting a Facebook or anything else of the sort before. He probably just wants to check up on what I'm doing. ;-) So if you want to keep up with him, go be his friend.

I usually take everything in stride, but to be honest, all the stuff got to me this week. By Tuesday night, I about lost it. While so much of my life is disorganized and I don't give much thought to it, with school I need to be organized. At least a little bit. I try my best to be as organized as I can before school starts, but after the first couple of days, there's always more that needs to be done to get everything in order. And by Tuesday night, I had been able to do relatively nothing to get myself organized. And I had homework I had not yet done, that was due the next day. I felt so completely lost. And like I mentioned before, I've been sleep deprived. Over the summer, I had become accustomed to getting much more than an average of 5 hours of sleep on a regular basis. And those first couple of short nights really messed me up. I walked around for two or three days this week threatening to either cry, pull my hair out, or fall asleep at any given moment. Oh, and I've had these mosquito bites all over me. Usually I'm pretty good about not scratching too much, but when I'm stressed and so distracted that I can't focus on making myself resist the itch, it's pretty hopeless. So I've also been clawing myself on top of everything else. In situations like these, it's a good thing I have virtually no finger nails.

As you can see, this week has been crazy. But I'm happy to say I have survived. And now that I am in a much more stable frame of mind, I am grateful for all the things in my life that are contributing to the busyness. It has helped that I've gotten myself organized, and I have a way to lock up my bike now, so for the next little while at least, I'll be able to get some more sleep. And the fact that I have a three-day weekend helps, too. I'm praying that my next week of school, while still guaranteed to be busy, won't be quite as chaotic. And I'm thankful for the grace that has gotten me through this week.