Big news: After mucking about in WordPress PluginLand and playing with code a bit, I think I’ve got it right–OpenID users (including LiveJournal bloggers) can now use that identity here.

Fair warning, some of the implementing technology is still in its infancy, so hiccups may occur. Let me know and I’ll hit it with a rock if possible.

So, this is a couple days late, because I spent the rest of that day hitting the books hard and letting my parental units buy me dinner, and the next day sleeping late, hanging out with the cats and somewhat with the humans at my parents’ place, then driving from Portland to Salem for girls’ night.  So I haven’t had time to write this up.

I have, officially, for real, paperwork signed, presented and defended my MAT portfolio…and it was approved, no dissenting votes!  IT’S DONE!!!!  I only have to get at least a C in everything and a B or better in, I think, either one or two classes, and I’ll have all my school stuff taken care of.  And two of them have sort of similar assignments so I think I’ll be able to double-dip a little and save myself some time.  Paperwork is still ongoing, moving arrangements are still ongoing (and extremely freaking me out because it’s getting down to crunchtime)…but…the school stuff, I think, is clear.

It has a cardstock front and back cover, it’s bound with 3-hole punching and brads, the front cover’s got clipart and a picture of the school I’ll be teaching at and floating text and stuff.  And I have a box of artifacts and a big folder of paper printout type stuff.

I did it.  I did it.  I did it.

not enough sleep. class, caffeine, more class, working on stuff, “what’s due tomorrow?”, sandwich. graduate office then library to get more caffeine and printouts and work on stuff more to wait for timing then get stuff signed then leave stuff to be signed then run stuff that doesn’t need signed back to graduate office and grovel about stuff I don’t have until they say everything’ll be ok sometime. race clock to memorial union to get more caffeine and two-for-a-buck best-before-yesterday protein bars. comfortable chair because legs hurt. more stuff to do. head may explode

Are university administrative offices inherently evil, or is it specific to all the ones I’ve ever interacted with? Two weeks ago, the stupid fracking Graduate Office told me that it wasn’t absolutely necessary for my degree plan change form to be turned in before they did the transcript audit associated with scheduling my portfolio presentation, because according to them the list of what courses I still need is a convenience for me, not anything they superdoublecheck. Today, after I e-mailed in my portfolio (dear lord I’m glad that thing’s done, I feel more clear-headed already, though that reflects on the baseline more than anything else), my program coordinator wrote back to say that the scheduling had never gone through…we compared notes, and the fact that the remaining paperwork wasn’t Priority 1 may’ve been the problem. I was flat out on other things and THEY TOLD ME THEY DIDN’T NEED IT THAT BAD, what do they expect?

My advisor lost one of my forms that I turned in to her back at the end of fall. I KNOW I turned it in–I specifically had my cooperating teacher fill it out at the end of fall term because I knew they were going to be asked for at the end-of-fall meeting. Naturally, though, none of this is my advisor’s fault…so as soon as I’m not flat out on other things, I’m supposed to hunt my cooperating teacher down and get her to fill it out again. This is holding up my licensure. I need my Oregon license in hand in order to apply for the Arizona license, which I need in order to get the job that I’ll have in a month…I’m gonna end up getting a sub license to cover the processing time, I think. Speaking of which, I need to sign and return the contract, maybe even pay extra for faster mailing; I haven’t had time to sit down and word-for-word read it but it’s got a deadline inside of a week so I think I need to just take the chance on signing away my soul.

And I’m behind in one class already because of spending almost all of yesterday on the portfolio. At least I don’t care if I end up with a B in pretty much everything. And at least Tech Foundations for Math Ed and Tech for Teachers are similar enough that I may be able to double-dip assignments with minor modifications.

And, a month from now this won’t be the last thing, it’ll be the first. I’ve given notice on my apartment and don’t have anywhere to move to. I called for an application a few weeks ago at my first-choice apartment but they never got back to me, so I may have to start over on trying to find a place with air conditioning that’ll take me and my three cats.

It’s my last term as a full-time student.  My last month as a full-time student, in fact.  Barely over a month from now, assuming nothing blows up between now and then (yeah, I’ve got a few hoops left to jump through), I’ll have students.  That’s what I’ve been working toward all along…the carrot I’ve been dangling in front of myself to make it all tolerable…the chance I thought I’d lost, two years ago.

I’m excited…and terrified…and on some level, I still don’t believe it, even though I’m making arrangements like giving notice on my apartment and trying to find a new one and paperwork paperwork paperwork.  It just hasn’t sunk in yet.  Part of it is I’ve been in college too long; it’s hard for me to imagine not being in college, even though I’m burned out on it.  Which is, I know, weird.  Crazy to think that one month from now I’ll be so done that I’ll never have to write a term paper again, after living from term paper to term paper.

First day back.  But I think it’s finally starting to hit me, that it’s almost over, because mentally I’m gearing down instead of gearing up.  Maybe three weeks from now I’ll really believe it.

If so, I want a refund. I’m still approximately as tired and stressed out as I was at the beginning, and I spent most of it watching a cursor flash, trying to write this portfolio thing. Which still isn’t done. It’s getting closer by tiny steps, but…it should already technically be done a while ago by now…I keep telling myself that the portfolio isn’t worth stressing over, because it doesn’t even really matter if I don’t get my master’s right away since I can always come back next year. But I don’t want to be a failure…

I just need a nice easy summer term. I may get it as far as school goes, since the classes don’t look that hard and I can take them for a B if it comes down to that, but I’ve got license stuff and moving stuff and just a million things to do and no time and I feel like my head’s going to explode. Makes me wonder whether “year semi-off to sub” would’ve been the right decision after all since it’d be easier. But I’m so close, I’ve got the contract even, and I want to make it work.

I need a break. And I technically just had my only break until October. I know that I technically can, but, I can’t do this!

I know my hair is generally not all that interesting.  However…when I find two separate hairs that end in basically an inch-long strong of about ten tiny splits, to the point where it curves in the opposite direction because of it…and I find another single split that works its way about an inch up…well, that’s kind of dramatic, I think.  Anyway, it’s definitely time for a trim.

Akismet caught these since the last time I cleaned it out:

Perfection is a road, not a destination. Every time I live, I get an education…

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones…

AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit…

They have nothing to do with the entry they’re commenting on, and they’re all of a minute apart, so yeah, they’re spam. But philosophical spam is a new one on me.

I find myself feeling as if I’m going into another depressive phase.  Definitely not the worst one ever, that’d be the one that I had to be medicated out of, but it’s interfering a bit.  So much to do and no energy.

I know it’s the all-nighter.  For one thing, that’s something sleep deprivation does in the first place, and for another there’s no other reason why it should be happening.  I’m almost out of school (a year late but hey), it’s summer so it’s not seasonal-affective stuff, I’m excited about the new life I’ll start in about a month, money’s not great but what’s new about that, I think I’m going to like my summer classes…in short, I’ve got some situational stress, of kinds that didn’t send me into a depression back, say, at Chemeketa.  Now, I know some of the difference is pathways in the brain that got laid down and reinforced during the big one, but this particular time–when there’s not even that much situational stress now, but there was an all-nighter a few days ago–sleep deprivation has to be a factor.

So I’ll deal for a few weeks, and get plenty of sun, and it’ll go away.