For a long time now I’ve been uncomfortable out in the yard after dark.  Even with the porch lights on I am antsy and eager to get back inside to light and safety.  I’ve been thinking maybe it’s just that I’m nervous about Katie being so young, that if she slips her leash she’ll be off into the dark, but as I think back on it, I was nervous taking old Bonnie, the previous sheltie, out at night too, and she wasn’t on a leash and wasn’t likely to run off anywhere.  

I seem to have this vague dread that sits right behind my eyes, that something or someone is going to suddenly rush out of the dark and I won’t be able to do anything to save me or the dog.  So this early morning around 4, as Katie and I wandered the yard looking for the perfect place, I thought about this, peering into the dark, listening to the trees blow in the wind, jumping at the occasional oak leaf skidding across the asphalt.  I closed my eyes and tried to think about what exactly I was afraid of.  What did I think was going to come sweeping out of the darkness to overtake Katie and me?

And what I saw, what came instantly into my minds eye, what I’ve been blocking for oh so long now was a vision of something large, so large it blocks out sight, and it comes with a huge roar, bright light that blinds ahead of a large black nothingness.  That’s what I’m afraid is going to come out of the night.  Loud noise, blindingly bright light and then nothing.

So clear, what I am afraid of, and what I must be carrying around inside me.  It is the vision of what it must have felt like, sounded like, that dark December morning when Dad couldn’t save himself.  

This is Katie, posing for the camera. She doesn’t usually do this. More often she looks like this:

Which is why I’m always happy when she looks like this:

But she doesn’t seem to need very much sleep.  That’s OK, I’m learning to get along on less sleep myself!

My husband’s aunt and I didn’t end up going down to Ann Arbor for the garden show.  8 inches of snow in Ann Arbor upended our plans.  Which in the long run was just as well, as I finished the paper that is due Monday.  And you’d think I’d be well on my way into the paper that is due a week from Thursday as well, given I’ve had this whole day to myself.  But no.  I did complete the research and all I really have to do is sit down and sort out the articles I found about my topic and then just write.  You know I like to write.  But I just can’t seem to get going.

I am also anxious about assignment 8 of the complex web design.  I can’t find the assignment.  Really.  Usually the prof posts it to our shared site, but it’s not there, nor have I received an email about it being somewhere else.  I sent a message to the class to see if anyone else knows where it is, and one student responded that he couldn’t find it either, but the prof didn’t respond, even though I eventually sent him a message directly.  So, whenever that shows up I know I have a lot of work to do.  You’d think I’d be getting other stuff done to clear my plate in readiness for the web assignment.  You’d think.

Today turned into a pretty day, sun on the snow, and if it weren’t mid-March I’d have enjoyed it more.  As it is I find all the snow, even if it IS melting pretty fast, slightly irritating.  I’m sure if I had had to drive to Ann Arbor in it yesterday or today I’d have been more frustrated.  

I just really want this month to end so that we can move into April and I can get myself graduated.  I think.  There’s still that pesky problem of finding work after graduation, but I’m ignoring that issue for now.

On to paper writing… 

As I was walking the four blocks from class to job yesterday afternoon I saw the following:

Two, then suddenly three, squirrels chasing each other around in circles, up and down trees and across brown lawns.

A flock of cedar wax-wings, passing through on their yearly migration, tittering in a maple tree whose buds were growing larger.

A guy walking toward me in shorts playing a harmonica.

Daffodil and tulip foliage pushing up from the soil near a church wall.

Does this mean it is spring?

This morning as I settle in to get some homework done I saw the following:

First one, then nine more deer emerging from the woods behind my house, running and prancing, chasing each other around and around my yard. The dog quivered in my arms as we watched till they crossed the road and moved on.

Our neighborhood blue heron, standing beside the frozen pond across the street, neck curled, head tucked into his shoulders, wondering why he left his vacation home so soon to come back to the frozen north.

Goldfinches at my feeder sporting tiny squares of bright gold feathers on their heads and necks.

A red and black ladybug wandering across my floor.

Does this mean it is spring?

Today I heard on the radio:

2 to 8 inches of snow predicted today.

NOW I know it’s spring in Michigan!

I’m spending this morning pulling out more information from an assortment of articles in preparation for the writing of a paper due Monday.  In my mind it’s already written, but I need to clarify positions in the articles to make sure I’m headed in the right direction.

Meanwhile I’ve made plans to take husband’s aunt who is 93 to Ann Arbor on Saturday for lunch with my aunt and uncle, after which we are going to the Matthaei Botanical garden’s spring flower show where I hope we all get uplifted by looking at (and smelling) fresh spring flowers in bloom.  I really can’t afford to give up a weekend day of studying so late in the semester, and I’ve waffled about making these arrangements all week.  But this morning I just decided to do what my heart says is right and figure out how to get everything else done later.

In the end, it’s my belief that doing what feels right will turn out fine.  And even if it means that I don’t get a perfectly wonderful paper written, and instead turn in a somewhat fine paper, well, that’s OK, because in the long run it’s not the paper that is important.  Family is overarchingly important.  A spring afternoon in a beautiful garden is important.  Watching someone you love enjoy themselves is important.  Taking time to smile is very important.

This morning I’m sitting near a floor to ceiling window in the UGLI (undergraduate library) looking out on the damp and dreary street and watching students scurry by under their umbrellas. I’m early for my 9:00 class even though I drove into AA from home this morning. I should use this time to get started on my last individual paper for my collection development course, but no. I’m so tired my neck and legs ache. I think it has to do with too many late nights at work and too many very early mornings. Could also have to do with hauling a (very) heavy backpack around everywhere I go these past couple of weeks. I need to remember to weigh that thing tonight. I hope it’s the pack and not my increasing weight that is causing my knees to ache!

Today I have class from 9-12 and then a meeting with my work mentor at 12:30. Then I’m free to work on a project at work and/or the paper due Monday and/or the paper due the next week and/or the group project that I don’t want to talk about. Or maybe take a nap. Eating something would also be a good thing. I’ll see if I can fit any or all of it in. I work tonight from 6-9 p.m. So it’s another twelve hour plus day in Ann Arbor. Not so many of these left I guess. But at the moment there seems no end in sight as I pack up and head toward lecture, knees aching, stomach rumbling, head hurting, eyes tired. School in middle age sometimes feels like this I guess. Heck it probably feels like this even for the youngsters on occassion!

New York, New York, it’s a ….of a town. My two brothers and I are going to visit my siter who lives just outside Manhatten in New Jersey in early May, shortly after I finish with school. It’s something to look forward to, a sort of gift to myself for getting through this semester.

I was in New York last year, as several students and I worked in various libraries. It was such a fun experience that I’m looking forward to being there when I don’t have to work! I loved riding the subway, and wandering around looking at the buildings. I even loved the food, most of which I couldn’t identify! I also loved the vitality and the sense of excitement that was everywhere we went. It’s a great city…but I wouldn’t want to live there!

Two or three days of temperatures in the 40’s and those of us here in Michigan think that winter is over.  Even those of us that have lived here our whole (lengthy) lives think that we are out of the woods.  People were walking around campus yesterday without coats, some in shorts, a few even in flip flops.  Really.  You’d think we were all headed to the beach.

Katie the dog and I made our first around the yard inspection today, poking into gardens long asleep, checking under rotting leaves for any signs of new life.  Mostly it seems that the weeds are doing really well.  I did see a tiny tip of one daffodil, the only one of a few hundred that I’ve planted over the years, breaking through the soil.  The pussy-willow bush has begun to open its buds, way up at the top of the shrub-grown-tree, too high for me to clip a few for inside.  It’s evident that the deer have been using my back yard for a lunch salad bar throughout the winter.  Later on we’ll see what has survived them.

I challenged my sister in New Jersey to a forsythia race last week.   We were both supposed to cut some forsythia branches and bring them inside to bloom.  Of course I forgot I had challenged her.  So today I need to go out and cut some, I’m already about a week behind, and she’s living in a zone warmer than me!  I hope I have highly motivated forsythia that can make up for lost time.

So there’s the news from here for today.  I have a paper to write, and of course that blasted web class homework to do.  But there’s a red winged blackbird on my feeder (another sign that spring is really here) and the sun is out and I just want to enjoy the spring.  Because I know that there just may be one more snowstorm waiting in the wings for those of us that are silly enough to think we are out of the woods here in Michigan!

Spring sure seems to be on the way. But I’ve been wrong before, especially this winter. I am optimistically looking at my garden as I walk the dog, hoping to find little green shoots of anything popping up among the debris of winter. So far <nil/>. But a friend of mine, who keeps a small garden near an elementary school says she has green nubs showing up there against the sun heated school wall, so there is hope!

Spring this year means more to me than some other years, as it marks the end of this academic adventure. Thirty-four more days to worry about papers and presentations and of course the web design class. Today as I ate some supper at an AA restaurant I reflected on why I feel so nostalgic at the realization that it’s all going to come to an end. For one, I had a really good time being a student, and I learned some interesting stuff to boot. And for sure I feel somewhat sad at leaving because I have made some good friends here. But one thing I know is that good friends stay good friends even when school ends. Some of my very best friends are from my undergraduate days more than 30 years ago.

Probably more than a touch of the nostalgia comes from a perception that I will lose another connection with my parents who both went to school here. It’s not as if I can picture them here, as a typical kid I can only imagine them as my parents and never as young single students; but I do see buildings and think that they walked by the same places I walk, climbed the same stairs, looked across the same Diag. It’s been a comforting connection during these past two years, a way to think about them every day, and I will miss that nudge from them daily as I ride past the house dad grew up in on my bus trip in, walk past the bell tower that Mom had classes in, climb the stairs of West Hall where dad studied engineering. But I think it’s a good time to let that go now, another way to move on. They would be happy that I was here, finally a MICHIGAN student, and they would be just as happy to see me move on and start my second career. The connection doesn’t really end, it just adjusts. Being the parents that they were, they’re nudging me out the door now, on to whatever comes next.

So.  I had my infamous practical midterm Tuesday night.  I hate tests that are late in the day, especially after a day where I worked from 9-1, did my internship from 1-3:30, then jogged over to campus (with heavy backpack) to make it for the 4:00 test.

The good news is that I knew exactly what he wanted us to do.  The bad news is I couldn’t get it all to work.  Some of the time I had to stop and make myself breathe.  I turned in a pretty awful looking webpage, but at least I got a webpage to exist!  OK, so it didn’t link to the response page like it was supposed to.  And it was really ugly (I decided to make it blue and yellow because, well you know, this is the University of MICHIGAN!) and it didn’t look just like it was supposed to.  But he knows how hard this is for me, and frankly I’m glad to have ANYTHING to turn in.

I was nervous, hands shaking sometimes, telling myself to calm down, got about 2/3 of it in some sort of sorry shape and feel OK.  He says he’ll have our grades back to us by noon tomorrow, and that it will likely either be 100 if it’s all there or 50 or 30 points.  I don’t really care, 30 points is fine by me!  We shall see. 

I’m just glad it’s over.  But today’s lecture, about “object oriented” code and methods and instances and such made my head swim.   And of course he says this week’s homework is easy.  But he’s said that every week, even the weeks I spend over 12 hours on it.  I reminded him of that in class today and he laughed, and said that for MOST people this week’s homework would be easy.  I told him he’d probably be hearing from me over the weekend.

Sigh.