Dog Day

If I hadn't lived it myself, I'd say that yesterday was too full to have fit into 24 hours. I got up at 6 with a raw sore throat and throbbing eyeballs, drove to downtown Spokane, caught the bus there at 7:25, and arrived in Cheney in time for my 8:00 class. After sitting through a nearly insufferable lecture, I was given the exam I took last week. I got an 83% on it. Not bad considering that I was really not prepared when I took the test. So, I was disappointed but resigned to it. Then I got the "first draft" of my research paper back. Again, and 83%. This time I was irate. 83%? I did everything she asked, made a couple of minor errors in my works cited page... she just didn't like my introduction. She crossed out all the interesting parts, marked me down for including the perspectives and experiences of anglers and ecologists in understanding trout behavior (the topic is the feeding behaviors of trout). She claimed that I didn't state specifically what I was going to address in the paper. What did she want me to do, say "In this paper I will address...."??? Because I write with a little more sophistication than that, and instead wrote a full sentence for each aspect of trout behavior I intended to develop in the body of the paper, she marked me down. Next time, I'll write "This paper will cover how trout smell, see, and eat."

So. I went to the computer lab and determined that I don't actually HAVE to take this class. And since I have hated this class from day one, think the science is shoddy and the teaching unorganized, can't develop any repoire with the professor, and the specimens are all falling apart because they're 8 decades old (a ringneck pheasant hen is not that hard to come by!), I've decided to withdraw and take a W on my transcript. Because of all that and because yesterday was all about real vertebrates, not about the made-up ones they draw pictures of in the text when they can't find intermediate forms in the fossil record.

But before we get to the real vertebrates, let me tell you that when I went to Organic Chem I was given the exam that I took last week, and my score, after an across-the-board adjustment of 10%, was 42%. Normally I'd be devastated, but apparently I was right with everyone else. Still, it was a momentous occasion, getting a 38% raw score.

So then the vertebrate activities began. I got back on the bus at 1:05, rode back to my car, drove back to Chattaroy, ate, picked up my dog, and drove all the way back to the south side of town for a veterinary opthamologist appointment. While we discussed ways to spend money and maybe incidentally fix Carter's eyelid, my grandparents' dog was trying to head off the UPS truck, and he failed. I rushed Carter home and rushed to the farm. When I got there a bull and a few cows were in the haystacks. Chased them around for a while and got them put away. Went up to the house where I found Jake with one leg clearly broken and the other one tender. Put him on a bed of hay with his leg wrapped, covered him with a blanket, and went home to study. Ate dinner, started studying, the phone rang. Gra