The Man

I'v decided that from now on, instead of referring to The Man as The Man I will simply call him M. Possibly not so exciting as Sex in the City's Mr. Big or the infamous "Charlie" of Charlie's Angels. Still however, it's easy and less ostentatious than referring to him as The Man. After all, that would imply that there are no men before him as The implies the highest title applicable to any familial or clan line. And Man would apply to all male citizens of these United States. So to call him The Man is to imply that he is the foremost male of our population. WOW I really over thought that one did I not?

In any case, man starts with an m, so from now on he is M. Those of you out there who actually might read this (OK, the one person that I know who actually reads this!!) may find this somewhat amusing. I'm OK with that...

Partner is on his way

Partner left here @ 5:30pm on a Bob Hubbard truck. The driver and assistant seemed both nice and comfortingly competent. On the other hand, Partner would not load for them at all. I was happy though that rather than fight with him, they allowed me to try to load him and he went right in. Felt a bit guilty as I gave him a kiss and a hug then left him there. He is going from here to Lexington KY, he should arrive there @ 1am and will overnight at their facility before being loaded onto a West bound truck for the trip up to MN. His instructions to the shipping company call for him to face backward in a stall and a half, I was happy that he was actually able to leave VA in a box stall as the truck only had three other horses on it for this trip. It was very nicely bedded with at least eight inches of straw and I witnessed them fork over at least two very fluffy flakes of grass hay to keep him happy. Not that he was actually happy! The road at Walnut Cove Farm leads up beside the pasture he has been in for the last two and a half years, until he was out of sight I could hear him calling to his pasture mates. The geldings in his field called back to him as he left and if I had not already had to fight back tears at Partner's departure I would have had to start then.

whew, relationships are work!!

Sooooo
This last week I have been stressed over whats going on with The Man. My little brain had in fact jumped to what seemed the most obvious conclusion. It was hard, but I did not go nuts on him and let him open the door when he was ready to talk. It took hours and we communicated entirely by text which is OK. I know from experience that when you have hard things to say it can be easier to text than talk. So when he started sending me vague texts about being stressed out about me I simply listened and encouraged and kept an open mind. Like I said, took awhile, but in a nutshell it boils down to he's feeling a little overwhelmed by the fear of being restricted or confined. I was able to point out examples that show we have a partnership and giving a (limited) amount of control to another person in a relationship is a gift. You chose how much "control" to give up and therefore it is not a restriction. Relationships may be a "chain", but you can chose to take it off any time you want.

I think the reality of this is that The Man has had his mom with him for a couple of weeks now, and she requires allot of guidance and attention. She also, quite honestly, overwhelms him spatially. I mean, that girl can fill a space up!! I don't know where she gets all that clutter, but it was hard on me too. And when I arrive, it will overwhelm him even more until we can get mom her own place. Truthfully, it's not going to be easy for him to deal with. I will help as much as I can, but he will have to help himself.

But, hopefully, I've managed to calm him down.

committed

I'v committed to a course of action with this move to MN. All of my belongings save my pony and immediate necessities are already there. I'm not missing much of it, the awful truth of humanities unending want is you really don't need much. I am, however, sorely missing the company of my family. To take the awful truth to the next level, I am referring mostly to my non-human family. What can you say? /shrug

But committed I am. While The Man is once again giving me reason to pause in relation to our relationship (come'on, could you resist that?). What has not changed is my intense desire to bloody get up there! I have to trust in my heart that my brain is over reacting, while The Man has been really good during our enforced separation I should not therefore jump to conclusions that he is doing anything inherently wrong just because there is a part of me that is just waiting for him to do so. Also, I have the guidance of wiser minds helping me to see all the possibilities. Thankfully.

It's hard to get started...

...but I love how it feels when I'm done!

Running that is, or at least my attempts at it. I'v started the "Couch to 10 K" app on my IPod. I'm only a week in, but I feel such a sense of accomplishment at committing to something that will help my with my fitness goals! You are supposed to do it every other night, but as I rarely have any extra energy after work (I only work Sat-Mon, but they are 12 hour days) that instead I run all four days I am off. On Tuesday I repeat the run profile from the previous Friday, on Wednesday and Thursday I do the next profile, and Friday I start the third profile which I will repeat on Tuesday. Simple eh?

At this point there is very little running to be honest. Right now I am walking 4 1/2 minutes and then running for 30 seconds, repeat eight times. But gradual is OK with me. When I was fit I regularly ran five miles, 3-4 times a week. Thats my goal right now. At the end of this program (it's a 13 week plan) I should be able to run a continuous 6 and change miles. Of course that varies depending on the runners speed.

Anyway, it feels good to do. I usually have to drag myself out the door, and the first couple of cycles are a bit lumbering. After that though, it feels good!

I hate VA

OK so maybe I should not be blaming Virginia. In Vegas I would occasionally see road kill, but to no degree of what I see in VA. I suspect it is the same through out the more densely populated East Coast.

But I have tried so hard to drive slowly on the more "country" roads. The idea of being the cause of something which daily grinds against my emotional sanity has always lurked in the back of my mind.

Tonight I lost that battle when I killed a raccoon confused by the oncoming lights of my car. I tried to swerve behind him, but blinded by the headlights he made a last minute decision to retreat as opposed to continuing to the other side.

I am so so sorry little one, and I know that makes no difference.

All by myself

Your supposed to sing that by the way, as in the 80's super ballad.

So schools out. Six classes and five A's, sweet. I did get a B (mutter mutter grumble) but perhaps I should be less competitive? This is the first semester I've actually been glad the semester ended. Usually I'm happy in a sort of "I'm getting closer to my goal" sort of way, but this semester I was just thrilled to be DONE. I spread myself entirely to thin this time.

Now I need to plan my next move. I wanted to attend UM next semester in the teacher prep program, but the MN university system will not allow me in under resident tuition until I've been a physical resident of the state for a year. The difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition is @ 20.000 ofter the 3 1/2 years I would be attending. Sooooo need to get residency. However, I don't want to lose a year of schooling. At my age taking a year off is a little scary. Would I go back or lose momentum? I am allowed one class per semester in a MN college or university with out endangering my residency, so I will be continuing with ASL at North Hennepin CC. Nice as I don't think you can study ASL in an on-line course! But the four credits each from those classes will not keep my student loans in deference. So yet another reason to find an alternative course of schooling. I hope to keep my student loans in limbo until I get my teaching license. After which I will hopefully get a JOB teaching, and after three years of payments hopefully get the rest forgiven under one of the federal programs for teachers. After all, with out the kind of help most teacher grads would not be able to afford to teach.

This brings me to the next idea in my school career. On line universities. The two I am considering would be Phoenix and American. I get a 10% discount at UP and a 15% discount at APU. Both through my employer. Phoenix is the largest nationally accredited on-line university, but APU offers more degree options. So after I do a bit more research I'll have a decision. But it is all up in the air right now. My basic plan right now is to attend either for the next year before transferring into UM in 2011. Unless I can get my bachelors on-line, in which case I may spend the next two years on-line only transferring to UM for the 18 month licenser program.


And as to the "All by myself" reference? The Man's mom and our puppy Rikka left for MN a week ago last Monday. Now there is only Partner and I left in VA.

gah

Time is at a PREMIUM these days. I'm halfway through my practicum at Spotswood High School, and only five weeks left to the semester. I've gotten to that point where I'll actually be taking a day off from work to catch up on a major back-load of homework, mostly the journal for EDU involving the practicum.

Missing Frodo terribly, but The Man was correct in that I would have a great deal more time if I had a bit fewer responsibilities. So Frodo flew (haha funny /roll eyes) up to MN on Delta Pet First two weeks ago. I'm happy that apparently Frodo is settling right into The Man's house with nary a nip in sight, but I'm just a lee-tle bit offended! So much for Frodo missing me. Que pity music...

Partner leaves at the end of the month for South Dakota. My bright boy, I've not been a great horse mom these last few years. I think he's been fairly content, pasture is a lovely place to a horse that lived in a pipe corral for over a decade. But, I wonder if he would prefer going back to that if it would mean I was the regular (nearly daily) presence in his life I was then. I hope I can return to that part of my life in MN, I've been entirely to self absorbed in VA. I am going to miss him so.

/sigh

Just a bit of happy news (we need it now!!) I've discovered a new obsession!! The Canadian Tenors!!! Youtube their Hallelujah performance on Oprah's show. WOW.

Work V. School

I should be sleeping, not peeling my eyelids back up to stare at yet another question about what losses to society may have occurred when Persia lost to Alexander of Macedon, otherwise known as Alex the Great. Or something like that anyway. If I don't start getting more homework done during the week rather than at midnight Sunday with the alarm set for 4:15am, I am going to start bombing classes. Get your Head out of your ass trish...

Meet Frodo

Say hello to another of my little friends. Frodo was a rescue I brought home roughly three years ago. I traded a diamond ring for him, hence Frodo (He's my precious /snicker). And considering the rough road we had to travel with him due to the neglect he suffered his first five years, The Man once suggested that Gollum might have been a better name! But my baby boy has come along way in the last three years, he's learned that biting does not get him the attention he wants, he's slowly (oh so slowly) picking up a vocabulary, he has become allot more comfortable with people. His original owners didn't mean to screw Frodo up, they simply did not educate themselves about the pet they were bringing home. And while I understand they meant no harm, I still think it's criminal neglect.

I'm not a feminist, really I'm not!

I'm up at midnight doing an assignment for world civ. We were given a choice of six topics to write a short essay on, and one of them deals with women's role in historical China. It was tough not to go with that option, but I don't want my professor to think I'm a raging feminist and I've already written on women's roles in ancient civs. And I really, really am not a feminist! I'm just a woman. It's rather appalling to me that most young women today don't know womens history. Just as bad are the tremendous numbers of Black, Native, Asian, etc peoples who live in first world countries (ie North America, most of Western Europe and Australia, and highly developed Asian countries) and don't think about, or CARE about their historical background. I'm a woman, I'm Hawaiian, I'm Native American, and I'm Scotch-Irish. I know the historical stories of these people(s). I know what the people who came before me went through that I might have the life I have now, meaning my options and freedoms. And I am often drawn to their stories when I need to write about the past.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure most of my professors know I'm highly opinionated...

Same old story...

I did not exactly forget about this blog, it just didn't really catch my attention. But now that it's been brought back to my attention, I've enjoyed re-reading those few posts I did make. It was a nice to see where I was for that small window of time. I think I might give this "blogging thing" another try, though I don't know that it will work any better for me the second time around than it did the first. I'm not surprised that no one has read this yet, I'd be shocked if anyone ever did.

About The Ruins, yeah that really sucked! Did eventually see the movie and it was better than the book, which doesn't say a whole lot about the movie...

Yuki, I MISS Yuki!! He's up in MN now with The Man. We decided to move up there and when He got a good job offer it made sense to split our household up while I finish my associates, but it's been tough. Sometimes I miss Yuki more than his owner (omg really? yup!)

Still have the bike, and am much better on it now than I was the first year. I loff my little 250 ninja, but I would like to move up to a 500 when I get a chance.

The Man and I are still together, or maybe came back together is a better way to phrase it. I don't know if he cheated on me (which would be bad) or if he used me while he had a relationship with someone else (which is a whole lot worse), but it lasted nearly a year. We actually had a talk once and agreed that we just weren't going to "hang out" anymore, but he was back that night. I made him leave that night and the next and he got mad at ME?!? I don't understand at all. He did stop seeing her, I have friends who were friends of hers. From what I understand she got mad because he just completely stopped talking to her one day. Wouldn't return her calls or see her at all. I know it was right around the time I said I was done unless he made a decision to be with me. So I guess he made a decision. It is tough though, he has never admitted that he did anything wrong. The closest he'll come is admitting she was more than a friend. I still have a real problem with trust, but I do love the man (the heart wants what it wants I suppose, even when the brain is screaming!). I can't wait to get up to MN though. I really would love to make it work with The Man, but I also REALLY WANT TO LIVE IN MN!!! I can't even tell you why, I don't know myself...

So here we are again, lets see if we can make this work OK?