bizarroworld.

the third student in as many class meetings has not shown up to give a speech.  as in, let the group down, didn't contact them ahead of time, they didn't know where the person was though they all did have an inclination that said student was unreliable so, bless them, they had very little trouble moving on without that student.

this has never--EVER--happened before to me.

i just fundamentally don't get it.  how do you just not show up? i heard from two of the three. one of them had one of those life explosion moments that involves towing a vehicle and having to deal with that and realizing that it meant you missed your class.  when he offered to scan his workorder to show me, i was like "nah. i believe you." the other was just dumb, but that dumb came on from 2 1/2 weeks of illness.  i'm sympathetic to that, perhaps more now than i have been in previous semesters, because i understand that sometimes when you feel like the awful truck has backed up over you and then proceeded to do the same thing in 15 minute intervals for a week straight, you tend to lose track of things.

so, those guys i can understand.

the last i still haven't heard from and it's now been 12 hours. i'm waiting. i'm not going to chase him down.  if he doesn't contact me, that's 200 points off the top of the grade. gone.  because you spazzed out and never showed up.

while that has to suck, i just fear that it indicates something else about students. they just...don't have their junk together. they are either far too overstretched or far too underslept or far too overcaffeinated to deal well with life.  while i understand this, i am somewhat unsympathetic what with the eight classes and the trying to make life work for my husband, who has no time to do anything except eat, sleep, breathe, work, practice, go to class, perform at various events, and even then there are a few things in there that he doesn't do enough of (namely sleep and breathe), so i pick up the slack for most everything that makes our household run, and trying to grow another human.  in general, if i can show up and keep track of 160+ students with relatively degrees of success, you can handle your small little part of the world.

i just worry sometimes about people.  what's happening out there in the world?

--

cinnamon.  what is it about cinnamon that just makes me swoon? i've been buying apple pie yogurt as a special treat. it is probably the most delicious thing i've ever eaten. i also buy cinnamon roll yogurt, which is less calories (doesn't have the delicious apple pie fruit on the bottom) and is more protein and less sugar but really just a hair less delicious.  i am currently baking cinnamon bread, which if it tastes remotely like cinnamon rolls will send me into some sort of gastronomical ecstasy, because that's really all i want.

that and pumpkin stuff.  pumpkin bread gets baked tomorrow.  we'll see how delicious that is.

while i've always been a fan of cinnamon, never this much of pumpkin or cinnamon in these quantities.  it's somewhat weird.

--

we had this spurt of fall weather that was legitimately cold--i wore a sweater to school one day and kept it on the whole day long.  i got a bit warm, but it was okay because i knew the nights would be cold again and i would be out in it. 

then it was snapped away by this regular october weather, which is warm but not humid (which i'm grateful for, don't get me wrong), and nights that aren't really cool enough to throw open your windows and get a cool breeze. 

it's unkind, man. i want that weather back. i just looked. tomorrow night and saturday night look to be quite chilly, so the windows might come back open, but then it's back to the 80s. 

sometimes, when the weather gives me whiplash like this, i forget where i live and begin to resent the lack of fall. i wish it would just be constant, so that i wouldn't mourn the cold weather like i do.

but then i think about how very cold i will be when we're north-er for christmas, and i think maybe it's okay.  i really have no idea how i'll survive the freezing weather unless Baby becomes an internal furnace. in that case, i'd be okay with it.

please note that i just said i was okay with Baby cranking up its role as an internal furnace. never thought those words would ever cross my lips (keyboard?).

--

all i really want to do is clean my house. like, all of the time. all i want to do is domestic things. i'm sure it's some sort of avoidance technique, as i am quite good at those of late, but there you go. 

--

i just started reading the hunger games trilogy. it's violent in its subject matter, mainly (there's some description of violence, but it's not horrible.  it's mainly just sad.), but it's compelling and i paid far more than i should for the next two books (in HARDCOVER) just so that i could finish it. it's incredible to me, even now, how well-written books can just absolutely captivate me. 

i don't think that's bizarre, but i just wanted to tell you that if you haven't read these books, you should.

right now.