Ouch...

I guess institute graduation is not as important as college graduation, as no one showed up sunday until 9.  Granted they were a large group, and one that I'm good friends with, but I felt bad given that my mom had sent invites out a week earlier, it was a open house deal, and she'd made a special cake for it.  My sister forgot, along with my cousin.  I don't think anyone else even noticed the invite.
But it was fun to talk with the 'quality' group that came.  And the cake did get eaten.
Kinda showed a bad example to a coworker yesterday, so I've got to fix that today.  Wanted to smack myself yesterday.
My oldest younger brother had his birthday party celebrated yesterday too-his actual birthday was saturday.  He likes the same kind of cake that I do: lemon cake with chocolate frosting.  We watched Red with him as he hasn't seen it.
Got to help spring clean sprinklers yesterday, and mark the ones that are still plugged despite cleaning.  Also learned how to manually turn them on and off without getting too wet.  One of the control boxes got flooded though, and we're not sure why...

Why?

Why do college professors feel the need to take an extra week after the end of semester to give you the final grades? Not all do, but so far only one teacher has given me my grade from this last semester, and my math teacher said they won't get them in until tuesday! Sigh.
Dinner was a little chaotic, as my sister and my cousin had trouble getting there.  Then we went to an ice cream parlor that didn't have a bathroom.  I wound up walking to the nearest gas station-in a rather scary part of town-in order to find one.  Then a man tried to give me a ride so I got really nervous.

Finally!!!

Graduation is over, and while it does get rather tedious having the former governor of your state speak at the commencement ceremony might be a big deal.  The additional walking ceremony was fun, as my cousin came for that part and cheered when my name came up.  Plus my English professor from this last semester was there as well.
My brother and I are waiting for my parents at the moment-they had to run an errand.  We played bowling for a while, now trying to get in touch with them.  Feels weird not being at work right now... 

Yes!!

Finals are over!  I sold back my textbooks today because they clutter up my room, and I got over a hundred dollars for them.  I guess the day before graduation wouldn't be that crowded around campus...
We're probably going to be rushing through the last landscape prep today, as we still have flowers to plant I think.  But that's not too hard to do.
Got a treat for turning in my institute parking pass.  Given they don't cost anything, I don't get more than that.  Ran into a fellow student who has a final today and a formal presentation.  How'd you like to do that on the last day of school for the semester?
I'm really looking forward to a break.  Took tomorrow off for graduation-hopefully they won't have much to do as all the rush should be today.  At least we shouldn't get bored.

Brain Dead during Finals...

St least it feels that way.  Kept forgetting things and having to run back to get them.  Then yesterday I spent a half hour doing the wrong math problems and having to start over.  I didn't get it all done before today as a result. Argh.  Still turned it in, but I hate doing that.
I have one more to go, and I'm taking that today-unless the testing centers are so crowded I won't have time before work.  That would really stink...
Got my last art project in late last night-which only adds to the brain dead feeling.  But this last test is all I have to do for this semester now, and then I get at least a week's break.  And summer is always a lighter load. 
Still cold, despite the sun shinning brightly for the past few days.  The wind still has teeth too.  We planted flowers and dug tree rings yesterday.  Our department wants to have a extra arbor day this after noon, so we prepped the area yesterday-the holes still need to be dug deeper, but we got an outline ready.

Finals Week

Why my English teacher decided to set our final on a day where class was not scheduled is beyond me.  We have classes on Monday Wednesday Friday but they set the final for Tuesday, as in tomorrow. Sigh.  Math final we get to take in our regular classroom-the teacher figures all the testing centers will be packed during finals week.  Have one final I need to go to the center for, so that's planned for Wednesday after math.
The clouds have moved on, but are quite capable of coming back.  It might have rained last night, but I don't know.  Warmer today though.
Why girls like to wear pants with pre-made holes is beyond me.  I bought a pair without realizing how big those holes are and it's very uncomfortable.  Plus the pants need a long shirt if I don't want to show my underwear...

More Rain

Yep, we were working in a drizzle yesterday.  Got to mix paint (in five gallon buckets-the stuff separated then froze during the winter so we're trying to salvage it) sponge water off the softball field (there was a series of games and the ground got rather sloppy-we use a piece of equipment called dolphins to get the rain water, and special rakes to smooth the ground) weed-when the rain took a break for a few hours, then clear out a borrowed truck-they use it during the winter before cleaning and returning it to the summer users.
Still kind of a drizzle today, but it started hailing first-my poor parents were out walking our dogs when the hail started, so I ran over with a truck to pick them up.
Only three more days left of this semester!  Then I get my associates, and at least a week off from school-summer starts sometime in May.  But I only have three finals-computer science was a final presentation, not a test, and art doesn't do tests like that.  I just have one last assignment.

Cloudy

Okay, getting a little tired of the cold weather thing here.  Wouldn't be so bad if the wind didn't have teeth.  There are clouds today, but not enough for any kind of precipitation.  Slowly warming up for spring.  A friend said that the weather acts like a battle between winter and summer without a glimpse of spring.  Eventually summer wins and things start heating up fast, but its kind of random until that point.
Another for the not cool but funny later list: rolling you ankle while raking leaves out of an island flower bed in a parking lot.  Thankfully no big injury, but you tend to limp for a while after that.  And the funny part was you fell down to your knees before collapsing on your back.  The slow fall deterred injuries in that department (I hope).
Tasted a lot of dirt this week.  We had to rip out some bushes along a road and plan to put them somewhere else, but for now they are partially replanted in one of those parking lot island flowers beds I mentioned.  We had to blow the dirt back off the pavement and the wind was not helping. Sigh...

Gratitude

There are times were good people aren't the ones you see every day.  But there are a lot of times where those you work with are good people.  Like my current set of coworkers who respect my values enough to watch their language.  Or my supervisor who knows the closest I can park in the morning to work is a ten minute walk, so they not only suggest moving the car during my second break (often right before)they will drive me down there so I don't have to walk ten minutes in the dark later.
My coworkers have their little quirks, but that makes work interesting even when what we are doing gets really boring.  We can still talk and work with reducing the output-sometimes we get things done sooner when we talk while doing.
I like that part about work, though running out of things to do means finding more...

Survey's

As the semester comes to a close it seems my email in box get flooded with people wanting me to take an online survey for just about everything.  I just got one for global warming.
Plus we have the teacher/class evaluations that are due as well.
Impressed a coworker with something I tried yesterday.  We were putting tools away at the end of our shift and both of our hands were full.  Rather than put down something to enter the combination that would open the shed door, I used the push broom handle I was holding to enter the numbers.  I didn't think it would work, but it did.  Granted, they had to help hold open the door so we could put a jam in to avoid repeating that little experiment...

Little Miracles

Thank heavens for those.  The supervisor who saw me whack my head took it easy on me yesterday so I didn't have further trouble doing my job.  Granted, it was still a long day.  We cleaned out the drains at the base of the bleachers on the east side.  The problem with those is the sand that runs out from under them, and gathers in the drains.  Forms a very effective barrier.  Then leaves and such get stuck under there (we found an old water bottle in there!).  Took us over three hours to get it clear enough for the water to flow, but it's still got stuff in there.
Then we got to run around the track with a hose to clean off the gunk that landed there while cleaning.  Nobody wanted to get wet, though it was a very nice day.
Have two assignments for today.  The first is creating a game flyer for my computer class (that's not too hard) then redo my report so I can actually get credit for it.
That and try not to go insane, which my mom thinks I will if I take summer classes with my current job.

Ow...

Yesterday we painted the fields for the hammer throw and javelin events in a track meet tomorrow.  While getting something for a supervisor I whacked my head on the underside of the bleachers where the paint supplies are kept.  Not too bad, but it gave me a headache for a while.
No rain today, and rather nice in temperature.  I can redo a rather poorly done assignment, and so my save my grade for that class. Yes!

Argh...

The only downside to having a full time job (only counts as part time due to it being seasonal) is there is never time for school work.  This is the first time since I started school where I've had to stay up late to get things done.  I hate that.  It makes for sloppy work and I'm trying to get good grades this semester!
Thankfully my strong start has kept my grades from going down the toilet, but they are slipping and I'm having to work really hard to stop them.
We got to clean the stadium the past two days.  Only problems were the wind being fickle and changing directions as we nearly completed one side.  All of us got dust in our eyes from that.  We also got to rake the sand pits for the track team, though they told us not to worry too much about it as they weren't a urgent concern.
Rained this morning, and it's warming up a bit.  The wind has finally died off-after we finished blowing off the bleachers of course.
One thing I can be thankful for: 'crazy' coworkers.  They keep life interesting at work, even if they try to make you snort water up your nose on break(yes they tried that yesterday-I choked instead).

Electronics

My supervisor told us in a meeting last week that texting, cell phones, and ipods are becoming the new smoking.  You see people walk out of class or work and pull out their phones.  I've seen coworkers stop work and spend several minutes texting before getting back to work.
It's kinda sad that these modern conveniences are turning into something much darker because people begin to abuse them.  Given my work hours and my personal decision not to text or listen to my ipod at work I can't do that.  Plus I don't want those new smart phones with the touch screens.  Touch screens of any kind don't like mew very much anyway.
We had a nasty wind storm last night and into this morning.  Snowed too, and got rather cold in the process.  Ironically, the snow stuck only in the areas where my job would be working: i.e. the grass and flowerbeds. Sigh.
On a brighter note, my personal trainer/cousin told me that I need to eat more.  Shocker, given how most of the time they want you to eat less, but in my case I'm maintaining, not trying to lose weight or anything.

Fertilizer

Those spreaders aren't very heavy by themselves, but you add the fertilizer pellets (grass seed doesn't weigh enough to bother about) and your arm starts dragging really fast.  We were laying that down on thursday because a storm was coming and it would help set the seed and fertilizer in the ground.  Then in rained all morning friday but stopped before I went to work.  Got attacked by one of those bushes with rather long thorns-those feel like a doctors needle.

Oh the Irony

Two of my coworkers and I were driving a truck to a work site yesterday and on the radio a 70's song was playing.  The ending line includes the words 'I Love You'.  That line played right as we parked the truck across the parking lot from a car which had the phrase I (heart symbol) You written on the rear window.  We spotted it at the same time it was spoken on the radio and burst out laughing from the irony.  Granted, just before that one of my coworkers teased the other that this was 'their song'.  So that added to the humor.  It was a complete joke, but the timing was funny.

Okay

When you tell your coworkers that you don't like swearing that can have different effects.  In my case they tried to censor themselves by changing the word or just not using it.  If you've watched Bill Cosby:Himself he states that trying that makes you sound like an idiot.  Given that they are making this effort for my sake, I can't find any of that.  I'm just grateful they  are willing to try.
Had a few accidents over the past week though.  First with a coworker holding open a bag and getting hit rather hard.  Then my dad was trying to hit moths and got my brother in a painful area.  Then yesterday a coworker got their fingers smashed while moving heavy picnic tables to be disassembled and refinished.  They got to go home early to ice said fingers.
I also got attacked by the lawnmowers on friday.  Bruised my arm and scratched my thumb trying to start one (this was a second use as the first went just fine) then scratched the back of my hand while trying to put the mower away.
It rained most of yesterday so we cleaned paint machines after cleaning out all the drains-so they wouldn't flood the road when clogged.