"Once Upon A Time You Dressed So Fine"

I've been awake for the past 20 hours, with the exception of a 20 minute power nap on the way back to Shawnee from Stillwater after taking the Praxis II. A lot's happened in those 20 hours. For instance, I took the Praxis II, an exam that was scheduled for two hours and which I completed in one. I ended up going back over my answers twice in the next half hour after that, correcting a couple I'd been uncertain about, and spent the last half hour either staring off into space or doodling on the inside cover of the test booklet (too bad they wouldn't let me keep that--I actually had a neat character design there). It stormed on mom and I the whole way up to Stillwater. We watched the squall line move over us as we drove out towards Highway 177, and the sky opened up about the time we got to said highway. It never stopped between Shawnee and Stillwater. By the time I got out of the test, though, it had stopped raining, and by the time we left Stillwater, the sun had come out as though the storm of the morning had never occurred.

Drove back to Norman right after I got home so I could meet Ev's family (his mother, sister, and his sister's five kids). The children were about how I expected--the eldest, a 14 year old, was petulant and affected an "I'm too cool to really be here" attitude that all 14 year olds affect, the other two boys (aged somewhere between 9 and 12, I think) behaved like pre-pubescents, and the twin girls (aged 5) behaved like typical five year olds (which is to say they ran around alot and demanded plenty of attention). His sister and mother were not at all as I'd expected them, either in terms of personality or appearance. This is neither here nor there--they were very pleasant individuals, and you could tell they were very proud of who Ev was and is, and that's what's really important. He (and they, and even I, if you get right down to it) may not be happy with the situation Ev currently finds himself in appropos jobs and finances, but that's of minor consequence.

After the two hour visit with his family, I retired to my apartment, where I showered and proceeded to laze around for the rest of the evening. I have to be at work at 2.00 pm tomorrow/today, so I'm getting ready to turn in and get a full night's sleep...I hope. I dunno, I didn't get a single hour of consecutive sleep Thursday night, and Friday night was much too short (what with waking up at 5.30 in the morning Saturday). I've had a spot of insomnia all week, really, probably in part a reaction to the Praxis II. With that out of the way, perhaps I can finally relax a bit. I do know the notion of moving to Virginia in a little over a month seems much more real now than it did even a week or two ago. Every step I take along the path to getting a teaching job makes it a little more real.

Anyway, there's plenty of other stuff I want to talk about, but that can wait until after I've got more sleep. Gotta figure, I've only had about 6 hours of sleep in the past three days, which begs the question--why am I still awake now?

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Samurai Champloo Soundtrack, "Vagrancy"