No lab for us. Golden Gate Labrador Retriever Rescue won't process any adoptions until after December 25th and is sending our check back because they have too many prospective adopters (74) and too few dogs (6). Guess maybe we'll have to take that drive to Tracy or Sacramento after all if we're going to find ourselves a dog. It's a real let-down.
And I was in such a good mood, too. I had my hair colored Saturday so I gave Masako and her employees their Christmas presents, and received a handmade ... well, I'm not really sure what it is, but it's pretty. It's a small, rose-like pinecone on a stick with a spritz of gold paint on it and a tiny origami crane glued to the top made out of gold foil. Masako made them. Hair status: I'm well out of the Emo stage, moving through the Shirley Partridge look, and about to enter Jane Fonda Klute territory. Also, I am now quite definitely blonde on top with lots of browns and dark blond streaks. I asked Masako to punch up the color for the holidays. I look rather like my ornament, except for the origami crane.
In the afternoon I went shopping at the mall and found presents for all six people in my office, a not inconsiderable triumph. I stared longingly at the breathtakingly beautiful art glass at the Museum Company but I couldn't think of anyone who would like a hand blown glass vase besides me. I got Michael's housewarming gift, I found some fun presents for my folks which is handy since I'm going to see them next weekend, and I indulged myself with three extremely pretty sparkly tree-shaped candles for the mantlepiece. I'm half done shopping, and it only took two hours. I didn't have any trouble finding parking, either. The mall was fairly unpopulated because it was raining quite hard. The storm moved in last night around midnight and it hasn't let up yet.
Remember when I said I could handle Venn diagrams? I was wrong. I've just spent 20 minutes crying my heart out over my inability to understand validity based on diagrams I filled in myself after translating statements. I've been doing my homework in LogicWorks, the ever more putrid software that hates me. I get 100 percent on the first two things, and then I look at the resulting diagrams and I always get validity wrong, 100 percent. It's horrible. It's math. It makes me feel so painfully stupid to keep failing at this.
My problem, of course, is that I was actually trying to understand it. I am going to give up on that. I am going to find examples of every kind of statement, and then I'll just plug in the right answer based on my examples, and goodbye to any actual learning process. Because my grades depend on how many things I get right on my tests and quizzes, not on whether I understand why they're right. I'm sure my professor doesn't want that, but a test doesn't care if I tried my best and worked real hard at it.
I never thought I'd say this, but all I want to do is pass. I want this class to be over.
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