focus

Time.  That’s what I wish I had more of.  Unfortunately, as we all know, we can’t add to the number of minutes that there are in a day, so there is nothing that I can add.  I was slightly dazed yesterday (Monday?) when I blogged about being unbalanced – and so soon after feeling (and blogging) about being balanced.  Most of you know that I used to work for Trinity, doing various odd jobs for both Admissions offices, the Records office and Financial Aid.  One of my jobs was to write reports for the Financial Aid office – of which there are many.  Some of them Federally mandated, some of them State mandated and some of them simply obligatory as an institution of Higher Ed.  I left Trinity nearly 2 years ago and the Financial Aid office has yet to figure out how to run the reports themselves.  To be completely fair, the reports can be quite complex, and I had developed a system of queries and such to be able to pull the data that I needed.  Knowing how to write SQL queries is not common knowledge and most people’s eyes glaze over when I simply mention the word “database…”, so I completely understand that no one would be capable of just stepping in an writing these reports.

So, me being of the helpful nature and not wanting to leave people hanging, have gone back to work on the reports – on a contractual basis.  It is a relationship that has mutual benefits and I’m not knocking the relationship at all.  But this semester, only 2 weeks into the semester, is starting to look, well, shall I say, busy?  The good news is that one of the reports will be “handed off” today and the second one should be done by next weekend.  The second one is the one of greater importance, that being if it does not get filed by October 1 (September 30 to be safe), then Trinity could lose their Title IV funding – something that could – literally – criple the institution.  No Pell grant, no work study, and more importantly, no loans.  It is a report of great importance and great pressure to pull data accurately and timely.  No pressure or anything….I can do this.

I keep telling myself to invest the time now and just get it done, then I won’t have to worry about it at all.  Then a little voice in the back of my head says, no, moron, there will always be something else to do.  Finishing the reports won’t be the end of it.  Arg.  I hate the deamons in my head.

I have a quiz in Carson’s class on September 29 and a mid-term in Vanhoozer’s class on the 30th.  La – ti – da…..I have no small amount of work to accomplish….la – ti- da.  Don’t you feel like singing?

Okay, focus.  I’ve mentioned the Trinity work….the quiz and the mid-term…oh yes.  Knitting.  Going well.  I knit 4 whole rows on the SSMO yesterday and I might even get to work on it some tonight.  It is getting to be just shy of half way done.  Yipee!

Oh, I need to talk about my BIG purchase on Saturday.  Kate and I went to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.  I did NOT purchase any yarn, thank you very much.  But I did purchase a swift.  Tutorial.  Yarn is sold in two ways.  You can purchase a skein, which comes pre-wound and can be knitted/croched with immediately.  No additional winding into a ball is necessary.  Or you can purchase yarn in a hank, in which case you must wind it into a ball.  This is more of what you remember when someone holds the yarn on their arms and a second person actually winds it into a ball.  The first person is necessary otherwise the yarn would become tangled – and let’s face it – who would want to untangle 500 yards of yarn?  Enter the swift.  It is a contraption upon which you stretch out the yarn and the thing rotates as you are winding.  It totally keeps the yarn from tangling up.  Case in point.  The first hank of yarn for the SSMO took me the better part of an hour and a half (while watching a movie) to wind into a ball.  I had to splay the yarn out on the floor and then pay very close attention to keep it from gathering and subsequently knotting.  1.5 hours.  I just did hank number 2 for the SSMO and I did it in 8 minutes flat.  8.  90 minutes vs. 8.  Which would you choose?  Yeah, me too.  Well worth the money.  Guar-un-teed.  🙂

Edited to add:
I found this profile of Dr. Carson online.  I am truly humbled and honored to be able to sit in this man’s class, even if it is a basic, fundamental, beginner’s level theology class.  The man is truly amazing and surprisingly enough, humorous.  Clicking this link will open a new window.  I actually can’t wait until that first quiz – it is always good to be challenged.