Lazy Sunday.

It really should not be a lazy Sunday, but I'm wiped out. Neall's company party was last night. I won an iPod Shuffle. Whoop! I really like it, even thought it's entirely unnecessary because I own an iPhone, lol. I'm going to get an adapter that will allow me to play it in the car. Using the iPhone in the car is a pain for a number of reasons. Music sucks battery, so you have to have it plugged in to multiple wires, making it cumbersome and annoying, lol. Also, if the phone rings you have to disconnect said wires to answer it. Also annoying. With the shuffle I can play music in the car without having to navigate the horror of having a multi-function device :P. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Sometime in the last week the dog got brain damage. He's all of the sudden obsessed with the ottoman in the living room. He will sit for hours staring at it, or trying to dig under it. :sigh:. I don't know what to do about it. I looked up info on the internet. I know it's an obsessive/compulsive disorder(COCD)but the treatments are things I may not be able to accomplish. Primarily, doggy prozac. I can't imagine that is cheap. The bigger problem is that these things usually happen when a dog is not having his needs met. Unfortunately, I don't know how to meet those needs. Prozac is a bandaid on the bigger picture. My goal is to try the "lots of exercise" approach. I am hoping maybe he is just bored and needs more opportunity to expend energy. This will be as good for me as it is for him. I'm glad he waited until spring to decide a compulsion was a good idea, lol. I plan on doing long walks with him. I need roller blades since I don't think my speed will be able to wear him out sufficiently. His stride is longer than mine. He's a big dog. If I had space for a treadmill I'd consider that option. His health is important to me. If that doesn't work I don't know what we'll do. I'm also trying to budget Doggy Daycare into the expenses. He is totally exhausted and worn out when we bring him home from that, so maybe that will be good. Also getting a fence up is even more of a priority. If he could go out and sniff and just be a dog I think that would help him a ton. As it stands all of his exercise is on-leash. I think he needs to run!

In other news, school is going well. I like my criminology class a lot and have an awesome grade in that class. My Psych of Victims class is also awesome. Most of my classmates don't seem to share my sentiment but I like the teacher and I see the benefit of covering the material. It is a bit psycho-babble-ish but it IS a psych class. Most of my classmates "just want to help people", which I understand. I think they just misunderstood the point of this course. I also am finding this course to be challenging, which is a happy thing. So many of my courses are yawn-snooze. Not necessarily uninteresting, but not challenging at all. This course is keeping me on my toes.

My communications courses are ho-hum. One class, communication in the organization is horrid. I hate it. By "organization" they really mean "corporation", and the book is totally PRO corporation. There was a whole section about how wonderfuly WalMart is. Um, no. They lost me then and there. I'm muddling through at this point, but sadly I'm not learning anything useful. Intercultural Comm is just boring and sort of DUH. Not a lot of real knowledge, but not too much trouble to navigate either.

I've decided on a fall schedule, assuming I get into them all. 3 online classes, 1 M,W class. I think it'll work. Especially if Neall goes back to school. We shall see.

Speaking of Neall going back to school, I think he is. He's really pretty much decided on Library Science. I think this is brilliant. Right up Neall's alley. Not too much in the way of student loan investment. Not something we have to move for. Not even something he has to quit working for. Not something he has to spend the next 6 years in school for. All around good. Plus, there are LS jobs with the govt, which would give him a leg up with his military service, and apply to his retirement. I think he'd make a great archivist. Instead of the country we'd be looking at living in areas with colleges, or large libraries probably, but you never know, could be a small town library in need of a librarian. I feel very good about this option. Now if only UMSL had a russian language program. SLU has one but it is very expensive to go there. Columbia has one but that would mean a move. Webster has one but again, $$$.