Blah!

WHY is it only the end of April? HOW in the world is it already the end of April? Why can't the year end now, when I still love my kids? Why can't the weather get just a teensy bit warmer and then stay like that for the next four months instead of getting sticky and humid?

Why, why, why?

Things have been fairly busy and stressful around here lately; I have too many important things on my plate. (Just for the record, teaching is not one of those things.)

I told myself that I am moving this weekend. I want to get out of this place as soon as possible, my keys arrived late last week, I got the electric bill in my name and got an appointment for tv and internet. Oh, and I even officially put in my change-of-address online (you can do that now! cool!).

I was hoping to find boxes, just laying around or something. My stupid roommate wouldn't let me keep/store the boxes I used to move here, so I am starting completely from scratch. But after a day of even pretending to hope for boxes at school, I caved and bought a box kit online. It was $45 with one-day shipping, and with what should be plenty of boxes for all my shit. The December move was further lengthened by the fact that I used any box I could find, and a lot of them were little ones. So I'm hoping that by using bigger and uniform boxes, it will be easier and faster and smoother. Let's hope so.

I hate moving. Duh. We all do, I know. It just sucks. I don't want to pay for some guys to haul the things, though I wish I could. I don't really have enough stuff for that. I also don't want to load and unload my not-big car four times, struggling with stairs and uneven boxes. So far I have two people who have offered to help, which is fantastic and I love them.

So now I'm trying to figure out the logistics of all this, because I'll need to hire some kind of vehicle. I just now made a reservation for U-Haul, and I found a bed on craigslist but it's in Brooklyn fifteen miles away. I will have the van from 1pm to 7pm. I think that should be enough to get to Brooklyn, put in the bed, get back to my place, load it up, and unload at the new place. But damn, what a crazy day.

I will still need all the other furniture: tables, rugs, bookshelves, more kitchen stuff. My concern isn't getting or finding all those things, whether I get them new or used, it's the transportation. Argh! So stressful!

The other very stressful thing going on is my thesis. I did not do the literature review when we were supposed to. It took me the whole time just to do the 20-page annotated bibliography. So now I'm having to go back and work on the lit review just to catch up, plus keep up work on the methods/results section. I've got all my data, and at least twenty charts, and the first shortish draft of the write up. The slow-but-sure thing is working fairly well; I just need to push myself to work on it more often.

Did I mention packing? Yikes. I've done three boxes--two of books and one of clothes. The rest I need to do tonight.

In terms of teaching, for which I haven't been planning or grading at all, this has been a fun and pretty easy week of poetry. Today I took them outside to the tiny front yard of the school to observe and be inspired to write poems. I wrote some myself too. But before we did that, I 'primed' their other senses by playing classical music. They listened closely and reported what they saw in their minds as the music played. Shockingly enough, they enjoyed it.

I suppose more poetry next week, but like I said, that is nowhere near the top of my agenda. If it's on there at all. Too much other shit happening.