Mood: Almost finished with Spanish. Forcing self to post.
Music: Stuck in my head: Vanessa Carlton's 1000 Miles
Mind: Gotta post fast. Paul and Matthew want to play CS ... and I've gotta study.

I can't believe I have thrown so much time into this Spanish class. It's ... been a great help to me, language-wise, as I've become much more fluent in Spanish. But I still feel naked without my Spanish dictionary at my side at all times. I know that as soon as I get cocky enough to leave it behind, somebody will throw a word at me that I don't know. Meh.

I've got to get cracking on the content for this site. I can't even keep the blog maintained, for God's sake. I'm always in my car or in class when I think of a good idea. At times I approach this with Sark-esque inspiration -- random and colorful. But most of the time, I'm wishing I were more organized with it. That ideas remained ideas -- full-fledged and exciting -- until I had time to write about them.

Well, we are officially in the new apartment. Ha ... I already refer to it as "our" apartment, although I'm not living here yet. I do spend an awful lot of time here, from the time class gets out until 2 a.m. most nights. Paul doesn't get home from work until 10:30 p.m. I usually start studying between 11 p.m. and midnight. Last night, we started baking chocolate chip cookies at 1 a.m.

Our phones began working today -- after five days of living solely by cell phone. We've had Road Runner since Monday, and we're waffling about getting cable. None of us watch television too much, but after a while, network TV becomes dry and humorless.

Okay. Time to go. I've been feeling really under the weather, and think a migraine is coming on. And my ear is bleeding. Meh. Again.

By the way ... here are a few sites I've been meaning to promo. I don't feel like digging through the HTML right now to add them to my favorite places, but they're worth checking out all the same.

Sites Worth Checking Out (an addendum):
1. Lynne's Travelogue to Japan
2. Fight teh Terr0r -- buy NO YUO!
3. Neopets. I am uber-addicted. Meh.

Over and out. Pfbbbt.

Mood: Pretty good. Caught up on sleep again.
Music: My wedding dance mix: Smashing Pumpkins, Guns 'n' Roses, Cher, Wheatus, etc.
Mind: In a hurry. Gotta go to a retirement party for my 1st grade teacher.

I don't really have time for posting. Things are going to be kind of slow around here until I finish this intensive Spanish class and finish writing thank-you notes for wedding shower gifts.

At least my computer is working again. Finally turned in a claim with a $250 deductible.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you briefly about the worst marketing ploy I have ever seen.

On my refrigerator is a magnetic calendar from a real estate agent named ROSE PATTERSON in MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE. I am making this perfectly clear because I am secretly hoping Rose puts her name into Yahoo one day and gets a hit on this site so she can see just how stupid I think her magnetic calendar is.

It wouldn't be so bad, except this is her slogan:

Come out smelling like a ROSE when you buy, sell or relocate with Rose Patterson.

Ponder it, then ponder it again.

Most people expect large wads of cash when they sell their home. But with ROSE PATTERSON in MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, you get to smell like a rose.

Touche, Rose. Touche. I got to admit no other real estate agent has told me that I'd smell better if I bought or sold a home through him or her.

But what does it all mean?

Mood: Sleepy, grumpy, sneezy. Only three of the Seven Dwarfs.
Music: Computer is DOA, so no music. A funeral dirge would suffice.
Mind: Espanol es el diablo, verdad?

Last week, I was really feeling sorry for myself because I had to take this intensive 2-week Spanish course to graduate in August.

Well, Sunday morning, I quit feeling sorry for myself.

When I signed online about 9 a.m., I wasn't expecting another soul there. Not too long after, I received an Instant Message from a high school buddy named Jeremy Garver. Jeremy is in Charleston, S.C., now because he is studying to be a nuclear engineer on a nuke submarine.

(Mild digression: This is such a Jeremy-type job. The aesthetics have changed -- I hear he now hangs up his clothes instead of piling them into gopher-like mounds. However, he seems to have a bit of a masochistic streak, and this suits him just fine.)

Anyway, I started telling Jeremy about how sorry for myself I felt because I had to spend three hours a day in a classroom studying a semester's worth of Spanish in two weeks. And then Jeremy told me that the military makes you learn an entire year of material in two weeks. His class (singular) is nine hours a day, followed by five hours of study and about six hours of sleep.

So I quit feeling sorry for myself.

Briefly.

After two days of class, the only word describing my condition is exactly the same in Spanish and English: Miserable. Some of the people in my class are perfectioninsts. Some are real ... stupid, to put it bluntly. Three, including myself, will graduate in August. The rest have at least one semester left; a couple have at least two years left.

Which begs the question: Why sit in a classroom for three hours a day being made to feel stupid by an impatient, crusty, cursing, smoking professor from Spain? There's simply no good reason, short of prolonged assisted suicide at the hands of Dr. Antonio Something-Hyphenated.

Every event in my life has become a countdown. Seriously.

5 days until my 22nd birthday.
9 days until Paul's 22nd birthday.
11 more class periods of Spanish.
12 days until we sign on the apartment.
15 total days until the Spanish class is over.
61 days until the wedding.
62 days until the honeymoon.
84 days until I graduate from college.

And now that you're completely updated on the status of my state of mind (along with la cuenta de cuando todos sucedera), I'll give you one more stat.

25 minutes until I leave Paul's office. Then it's time to eat, drink and be merry. Or something like that.

Mood: Sleepy. Night people don't like waking up during sunlight hours.
Music: The Partridge Family, I Think I Love You
Mind: Am I really getting this old.

In eight hours, I will be sitting through Matthew's graduation. This is a rather tumultuous and mind-boggling event.

In short, I feel old.

I know that's crazy. I turn 22 years old in eight days. I am not, in a manner of speaking, getting up there in years. But I certainly feel like I'm passing my prime while I'm still in my prime.

I don't really think about my age until I'm around Matthew, who's only four years younger than me. The "great" television shows Paul and I grew up with mean nothing to him unless he's seen them in reruns. Video games have changed. He's of the Nintendo generation with thumbs of steel. He can type a kajillion words a minute because he's grown up on the Internet.

And now, his graduation.

When I met Paul, Matthew was 13 years old. I have known him since he was in eighth grade. He's been here through our college years and his crazy teen years. He's grown, he's matured (at least a little bit), and he's become a man in his own right.

On one hand, he's the cool guy we trust to be Paul's best man in the wedding. On the other hand, he's still the "kid brother."

I used to resent Matthew tagging along, because when I first started dating Paul, I wanted to just be left alone with him. Now, Paul and I are always calling up Matthew (and hoping he can fit us into his social schedule). :-D

But for all the ups and downs, we still think the world of him.

"Matthew and you are the two best friends I got," Paul told me in the car tonight.

I second that. If I had been blessed with a little brother, I hope he had turned out just like Matthew. (Well -- just like Matthew, but with the ability to put down the toilet seat and occasionally pick up his room.)

Matthew's moving in with Paul until the wedding, and the two will be going to school together this fall. I just hope it'll always be the way it is now -- where I feel I can call him up any time to bitch about Paul or get a second opinion on something. He's fast becoming one of my best friends too, and I hope we never lose that.

Happy graduation, Matthew. We're behind you all the way.

Mood: /me shrugs shoulders and says "Eh."
Music: Anything but gospel.
Mind: Would like to sleep for days. Depression is depressing, dangit.

Well, I'm stuck at Paul's work. Okay, I'm not really stuck, because I have my own car here and I can leave at anytime. But for real, where would I go. Apparently, tonight is a good night to drink a bit. I think it might calm me down. I'm a bundle of nerves.

I really thought that things would calm down once Mandi's wedding was over. No more luncheons, showers, etc. But now I have to contend with my own wedding. I've got to get a bridal book and some index cards ASAP. Also, I need to do laundry. And thank-you notes are piling up with another shower on Friday. Not to mention, I've got to pick up my dress at Low's (in Arkansas! An hour and a half from Memphis!) on Thursday at 3pm.

Dad said to take the week to relax. That's humorous, considering I start a short summer session of school next week. I have 101 tasks at hand without even worrying about seventeen days of el espanol. Me no divierten. I am not amused.

There are a few bright spots in the black hole of near-graduation. Among them: Destination Honeymoon.

Apparently, Walt Disney World is heaven on earth. That's at least what I keep telling myself.

For nearly $3,000, Paul and I will be wined and dined sans payment at the Port Orleans resort near Epcot and Downtown Disney. We get cool stuff like watches and pins and lanyards and a photo session in the park of our choice. We also get to eat anywhere we want (Read: Narcoosee's, Vicky 'n' Al's, Shula's, etc.) for free.

Well, it's not free. It cost $3,000. But we won't have to carry any cashola with us.

And we get lanyards. Yay.

Seriously, this is shaping up to be one helluva vacation. I've memorized the dates of each surprise morning (July 21, 2002: Disney-MGM Studios. July 22, 2002: Magic Kingdom. July 23, 2002: Epcot.). I've strategized how to get from hotel to boat to monorail to park to monorail to boat to hotel. And I've even called to make our reservations for July 21 at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue. All the vaudeville and cookin' you can handle for $46 a person.

But for us it's (kinda/sorta/not really) free!

And if that's not enough, our hotel, the Port Orleans-Riverside (formerly Dixie Landings, according to DisneyWorld.com) backs up to a three-acre island with "fully stocked fishing hole." We theorize that the hole is actually tests the aptitude of both fish and fisherman. (A) Fisherman must locate, cast and enter hole. (B) Fish must be smart enough to realize hole=death, and thus should be avoided at all cost, even if the rubbery red wormy-thing looks damn good.

Okay, so we knew what it meant, but it gave me a good laugh anyway, which made my jaw hurt because I had two fillings on the left side of my mouth this afternoon. Providence, indeed.

Speaking of the almighty hand of irony (Ironic, no?) ...

I lost my favorite doctor a few months ago. He disappeared, and I was sad. It wasn't as if I physically lost him, as he is a rather large man who rivals Paul in height. But he left the family practice I used. And that was a damn shame, yes. He was the only person who was accurate in diagnosing everything from a sinus infection to a broken foot. I know because he diagnosed me with both. He even caught a respiratory flu that was missed by two other doctors.

Anybody in Memphis who needs a doctor, look up Daniel J. Scott. But don't look for him at Family Physicians Group. Because he's gone. That should have been my indication to ditch the place also.

He listens to patients. I have since been to three (count 'em: One, Two Three) doctors who refuse to switch me from BuSpar to Effexor for anxiety relief. BuSpar makes me very nauseated. My heart rate goes up. I have to lie down. The room spins. And I'm supposed to be taking this twice a day! He would change it, because he has common sense. Apparently, this is why he is no longer with Family Physicians Group. NOBODY there has any common sense at all.

I remember one time seeing two doctors on different occasions who told me I was fine based on listening to my heartbeat and looking up my nose. After Dr. Scott ran tests, it was discovered I had a very bad strep infection in my throat that had been neglected so long it had spread to my mucus membranes, nose, eyes and ears. I also had two ear infection and a sinus infection that had spread into my chest. Needless to say, my new heroes were Dr. Scott and a week's worth of Zithromax. :)

Okay -- the point of me digressing was to tell what a great doc he was. So I had to deal with these dumb fillings at the dentist today. And when I left, I was feeling rather woozy because I hadn't eaten in 12 hours. So I knew I had to find an ATM and a place where I could buy a milkshake. (I couldn't yet swallow solid food because of my jaw.)

Now, normally, I take a right turn out of the dentist's office onto Navy Road in Millington, Tenn. (Yes, I drive half an hour to go to the dentist, because it's the same dentist my grandparents AND my parents have gone to since the '50s.) Instead of turning onto Navy Road, I turned onto Easley Street today to find a bank. And lo and behold! A mere 200 yards from my dentist's office, Dr. Scott has opened his own practice.

I bet my $15 co-pay that there are no stupid doctors there.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. Capiche? Capiche.

Stay good, drop me an e-mail, congratulate me on my good grades (see post below this). And most of all, make sure your ducks are in a row when you pick out your honeymoon and when you pick out your doctor. Those are two of the most random important decisions you'll ever face.

Peace out, kids.

Mood: OMG ... Extremely extremely extremely happy!
Music: None -- but it should be Pomp and Circumstance
Mind: Wowie Zowie.

Okay ... Kate's Grades:
1. Camping -- A+
2. Elementary Spanish 2 -- B
3. Intermediate Spanish 1 -- B
4. Marriage and Family -- A
5. Racial and Ethnic Minorities -- A-

And Paul's Grades:
1. Camping -- A
2. Elementary Spanish 1 -- D
3. Introduction to C++ Programming -- A
4. Introduction to Mass Media -- B
5. Racial and Ethnic Minorities -- B

In other words, neither of us failed anything. My GPA is now a 3.709 and his is a 3.091. I am thrilled.

I have a whole lot to post about. I want to talk about how it feels to no longer have my "home" and my job. I want to post the details of the wedding I was just in. I want to discuss all these emotional highs and lows. But now isn't the time. Paul and Matthew and I just celebrated over big Outback steaks (medium well, with potato soup and a baked potato). Now I think it's time for Jell-o shots and daiquiris.

Love and love and love and kisses.