Time Since Mid January

So it seems that I haven't posted anything since January 13th. I apologize for my extended absence and will do my best to fill you in on the important things that have happened since then without writing a post that will take several days to read.

I've been inspired by my brother's blog. Both because he called me out and told me to post more, but also how he started his last post talking about the narrative voice in his head. I could not agree more that extended reading will alter the voice with which I hear my thoughts. I think that is why my thoughts have been so all over the place lately. I've been reading a crapload of stuff, but none of it by one single writer. I also liked his take on current television and will do one of my own in my next post (before Sunday I promise). I will say this though, An Idiot Abroad is one of my favorite new shows. It chronicles the travels of Karl Pilkington around the world but is nothing even remotely like any travel show you've ever seen.

So now to the latest and greatest in my life. I survived the snowpocolypse only to be greeted by a chorus of "We have a lot of catching up to do!" from all of my professors. So we have been moving at a breakneck pace thus far. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't in collusion to make me have a nervous breakdown. I had 2 quizzes and 3 tests this past Tuesday. Yes, all of them were on Tuesday.  I had intended to write a post that night, but my brain was too far gone to put words together in any coherent manner. Aside from the large workload school has been going nicely. It's hard to tell you exactly which class is my favorite right now because I am enjoying so many of them. The biggest surprise of the bunch has to be Linguistics.  I had fully prepared myself to be completely bored by this class but so far it has been incredibly fascinating. I've never been so aware of both how I speak and the manner in which I produce sounds before and I love it. It's easy, however to list my worst class-American Lit II. The class is a wierd freeform, open discussion, broad topic format where there are no real conclusions reached about the works we are reading.  This would be fine if the teacher evaluated us in a similar manner, but instead we get tests with fill in the blank sections, quote identification, and definitions. I've been told by my education studying wife that they are two totally different teaching methods...I assume that's why I'm going crazy in there. My plan is to see what grade I got on the most recent test and go from there...although if the professor doesn't start doing some sort of critical analysis in class I might just drop it for fear of my sanity.

Things in my personal life have changed as well.  My sister had her baby, Chadwick Scott Brooks, Jr. on Monday, January 24th at 8:00 am. He was 8lbs 1oz and 19" at birth with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He is beautiful! My sister and I have an interesting relationship and for some reason my working in the medical field has opened the floodgates with regard to medical questions. I've never even thought about breastfeeding as much as I have in the last few weeks.

Shortly after that, on Sunday, January 30th at 7:32 pm my sister in law Michelle had her daughter Elianna Violet Gillespie.  She was 7lbs 6oz with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes (can't remember length). She is beautiful! I'm amazed that they both managed to have such beautiful babies and thrilled to have two new infants in my life. Michelle is understandably more reserved with me so I thankfully have been spared all the nipples and breastfeeding talk. I am extremely excited that Meg and I will be going down to Michelle's on Fridays to help her take care of Elianna and will be spending the occaisional Friday in Fayetteville taking care of CJ.

The day after Elianna was born Meg's grandmother died, but that'll have to be a story for next time, I gotta get to class.

Random Thoughts: My biology lab starts in 7 mins...we're looking at plant reproductive organs today (yay plant sperm!), I'm hungry, tonight is pizza night and that makes me happy, walmart has really good chocolate frozen yogurt, if my jeans get any tighter you'll be able to count my pubes, gotta lose some weight, I'm desparate to get back up to PA and see my brother and everyone else up there.

Thanks to anyone who bothered reading this. I love you all!