Dawn Olmo

I linked the title to something, but just in case none of you is savvy enough to realize it, here is the link as well.

Basically it’s a news story about Chinese Mother #1.

I think it’s awesome, personally.

I had to post on blackboard yesterday, and I forgot. I woke up early, went to the press office and worked my butt off, then I went to see Indiana Jones. Yay! I love Shia Lebouf, by the way. He’s awesome.

My friend is on a drawing kick and drew my Veronica for me.

Veronica by *WinterRose31 on deviantART

She is getting a lot better. See?

One of her first drawings of her daughter, Boogie:

Boogie Drawing by *WinterRose31 on deviantART

A recent drawing of Boogie:

Boogie Drawing 2 by *WinterRose31 on deviantART

I’m envious. I want nothing more than to be able to paint or draw or do something arty. I can’t though. The closest I can come is digital art, and that–not so good.

I’m pretty excited though, I’m going to be taking Digital Art in the fall.

Girl in Pony Tails by *damina on deviantART

Please? by *damina on deviantART

This is Veronica. She is very spoiled. Do you know why?

She’ll be four in June. It’s crazy. I’m tired, but hungry.

Here is the prize donation page so far: prizes

Notice that first one there? He’s sending them to me. I don’t know how I will part with them all. It will be difficult.

Anyone who donates (even if it’s a dollar) is entered into these drawings. So, yeah. Donate a dollar in June, guys. I know you are college students, and poor, but so am I! I can afford a dollar. I see you people with coffees that I know cost at least three or four dollars. What’s one more?

Just think, for the price of a coffee, you could be the lucky winner of an autographed copy of something.

I was reading Waterland by Graham Swift for ENGL 445. It was the fourth or fifth book we’d read, and I wondered why they all had British punctuation. You know, apostrophes instead of quotes and things like that. And the British spelling–colour and behaviour, things like that. I thought, “Does he have a hard on for British writers or what?”

Then I remembered it was British Literature and I was a spaz.

I can no longer retain information about books. I can no longer recall something I read a week ago in class. Something is broken up there. I hope it gets fixed this summer.

I am supposed to write a final paper in Brit Lit and I have no idea what it will be. I wish Dr. Flinn would just point at me and say, “Dawn, your topic is this…. discuss!” Then, maybe I’d have a chance. As it is, I just can’t think of anything. Critical analysis isn’t fun anyway, and it isn’t something I care about, at all. I just hope I pass.

The final will be a few questions chosen randomly out of the study questions. I never read those, because they are confusing, and make me feel stupid most of the time. Well, not never, but I don’t read them while I’m reading the book. I can’t remember so many things, I don’t know how I will do on this final. I am sad.

When I started college in 2004 (pregnant with number 3) I was excited. I wanted to do SO well. I wanted 4.0′s in everything. That first quarter, that’s what I got. I had the baby on June 19th, right after school was out and started summer quarter on the 21st. All of my classes were online. I received a 4.0 in English 201 and a bit lower in the other two, which I think were history and psychology 101. Still, I thought, this is good.

Then I had to take math. So, my gpa went down a bit, but I was still above a 3.7 cumulative gpa and I was happy with that. I joined Phi Theta Kappa mostly so I could get a scholarship to eastern. The first year I went here, I was in honors. My GPA dripped down to a 3.6 and I was booted from honors. No more scholarship.

I’ve decided I don’t care about GPA anyway. I mean, no one has ever interviewed me and asked, “What grade did you get in this class?” They’ve never asked to see my transcripts, and never have I been asked for proof that I graduated from High School. I’m almost sure that if I say I have a bachelor’s degree, they’ll ask to see it, but it doesn’t matter either. I mean, they hire people with degrees all the time, degrees that were bought on the internet and never do they check that school out, to see if it’s legit. Not until some poor kid is running around saying this like, “That’s unportant, and unnapropriate.”

Teachers make mistakes… but nearly every week I sent my daughter’s fifth grade word list back with corrections. Don’t test my kid on words and spell them wrong! Jeez. The next year she had the same teacher and she had her in a special group that was given greek roots and they had to do a bunch of stuff with them. I don’t remember what.

That’s why I hate Spokane schools. They are like, “it’s really important that our kids are coddled during Elementary School. Our classes should have less than 20 kids each. They should have the same teacher as often as possible. But after grade school, who gives a shit? Let’s throw them in these four middle schools full of thousands of kids, with teachers who say things like, ’265 kids come through my class every day, your daughter doesn’t look familiar, so I’m guessing she’s not failing’ when asked how a certain child is doing in their class.” He was wrong, by the way, she was failing.

“Then,” they say, “let’s just go ahead and toss who ever is left into these other four high schools. We have the poor high school (North Central), the rich high school (Ferris), the mix of both (Shadle), and that one downtown (LC). The last one is the best one. What a great location for a high school. Hey, there are hospitals nearby, and mcdonalds. The freeway. That really nice parking area under the freeway–it’s so safe. No one slings drugs there.”

Everyone called Jance, “Last Chance Jance” I don’t know if I’m spelling it right, and I don’t care. I think places like that are great. You have more one on one with teachers and students. You work at your own pace. Ect. My cousin went to a place like that, but she didn’t graduate. She just wasn’t the type.

I’m homeschooling my daughter next year. She’s insanely shy and starting new, large schools is extremely painful for her. But, mostly, it’s because I’m pretty sure I could teach her better.

I really went off in a different direction on this, didn’t I? I guess my point is that I hate Spokane schools and I no longer care about my GPA, only care if I pass. It’s a sickness. I’m done. I’m tired. I’m sick of it.

My title making skillz are top notch. I know. W00t!

So…. I play everquest 2 from time to time. My account is supposed to be free. I went to log in, and it isn’t free anymore. I could understand if they had a reason for it… or something, but I didn’t even get an email. Of course, that means they will lose the other two accounts this family pays for, plus any money we may have spent on adventure packs or expansion packs. Of course, it IS Sony, so it isn’t like that’s going to hurt them.

That’s ok though, I’m sick of SOE. I was going to rant about them, but I don’t feel like giving them that kind of energy.

I never have time to play, anyway.

A couple years ago or three, my second daughter, Cassandra, was hanging around my husband and me while we were playing WoW or EQ2, I don’t remember which. I said something snarky to him, and he said, “Listen, Lady!” In a bitchy, Jerry Lewis-voice.

I said, “Hey! Don’t you talk to me like that!”

And Cassandra said, “Yeah! Mommy’s not a lady!”

So, this person here will be donating a signed print of her work to our cause (strangehorizons) and I emailed Patrick Rothfuss, who will be sending me some books for the raffle, and I’m super excited.

If you don’t know who that is, run to the bookstore and buy, “The Name of the Wind,” because it is super awesome. If you don’t, I will shoot you in the leg.