So, I'm the dork with the rocks.

First of all, I think my cat might be trying to bump off my teddy bear. My teddy bear, Hugs by name, has a few times in the past ended up moving from the bed to face-first on the floor. Yesterday I set a stack of hangers on top of a box. Hugs happened to be next to the box on the floor. When I returned later that day, the stack of hangers had plastered my bear. I've also noted that Miles is extra cautious around the white fluffy toy and that he'll actually spy on it at times. I'll keep you all in the loop if anything else happens in future.
On to other news. We're moved in but it'll be a while before we're unpacked. I'm sick of moving.
I made a rock collection when I was in 5th grade. It expanded to quite a large amount over the years and I couldn't let go of my big bag of rocks. The "collection" had been mounted on a board and labeled and such to make it look really official. I took it and the big bag in to show my Geology 101 teacher when I was thinking of changing my major from English over to Geology. I learned, to my dismay, that most of them were labeled far and away incorrectly and that most of them were quartzite. (Pretty much any rock in Utah you find is quartzite.) So, as I was packing a couple of weeks ago, it was just bugging me. Lugging that stupid board around with incorrect labels. So, I grabbed a flathead screwdriver out of the toolbox and had at it. I pried them all off the board and threw it away. And now I feel better. I realize that's what I've done to my life. I was an English major, even though I didn't want to teach, edit, or become a technical writer. Also, frankly, it was beginning to annoy me to no end. It's an entire major based on opinion. I like a certain word choice in a poem I've written, but if my professor doesn't and I don't change it... you know the grisly truth of it. Science is in my bones (no, really). The more I look over my childhood, the more I should have realized it. I got better grades in science than I did in English all through school. (That and the fact that I have an emotional attachment to a bag of rocks.) It all came down to one science class I took in high school. We basically were told to read the book and the teacher went in his office and sat there. I didn't understand the class very well. So, I decided I wasn't smart when it came to science and that was that. I drew myself into a little box and stayed there. I'm so glad universities require general education classes. That Geology 101 class made me remember my passion for those things. I was imagining myself on digs, in labs wearing the ever-coveted white lab coat, finding a geode bigger than me... I ripped that box apart. Now I'm working toward a new goal. Taking calculus and chemistry and physics -- classes I'm still not sure I am smart enough for. But, I don't care. I will try as hard as I can because I want to understand. I'm not the jackass in the back of the room asking when I'll ever use this. I know when I'll use it and that my career will depend on how well I can use it. It's so invigorating! Some people around me liked the other me better. But it wasn't really me. It was me-playing-it-safe. Now I'm who I didn't dare to be before. And I'm on the edge of my seat.