Spring break = no break

This could very well be the most unanticipated spring break ever. What I had planned last week consisted of sitting around my house for a few days, cleaning out my garage, then heading out to my mother's house (which is a constant and never-ending home improvement project) to work on her dining room. Once I arrived at my mother's, the game plan was to:

• replace plywood subfloor where needed
• replace sheetrock where needed
• tape and bed sheetrock joints
• replace all five windows in the room (these are all 6 ft windows, too, not the little ones)
• primer all of the walls
• blow texture on the ceiling and walls
• knock-down texture
• primer walls again
• paint walls and ceiling (my wife will do this part)
• replace electrical outlets and switches
• install new ceiling fan
• cut and router trim for molding
• install laminate flooring
  
• paint trim
• install trim

This would probably have taken almost the entire week. Unfortunately, my brother's wife is having surgery next week (Why is everyone having surgery now?), and he's generally my accomplice in these projects. Odds are that I won't be able to get his assistance. On top of that, I've got a 5-8 page paper due as a "mid-term" in Shakespeare as soon as I come back from spring break. My wife's had me hanging pictures and mirrors and all sorts of stuff all over the house today, so I really don't feel like doing anything right now, even though I may wind up straightening the garage.

I got a letter from financial aid yesterday offering a loan if I take summer courses. I'm all over that shit. But I'm not real sure if I want to take more than 6 hours. I guess I'm just not real sure when I need to take my comprehensive exams, or whether I'm going to do a thesis or whatever. I've been meaning to contact other grad programs in the South and Midwest to see whether they would prefer more coursework or a thesis. The message I've been receiving in my own department varies by instructor. Also, I've got to get an updated CV to a couple of professors who have agreed to write letters of recommendation for me. Plus, I need to do a little homework concerning the SCMLA conference (the deadline is looming); I need to get in that conference, but I don't have a pre-existing panel which would probably increase the likelihood I would be accepted. If anyone else out there has/will submit, please let me know how that's going for you.

The Goose left a comment on my blog the other day, and I was glad to know that he was still alive. Thanks again, A-train, for checking on The Professor's House for me. I must be in a pretty good mood today. I don't think I've used the F-word once in this entire post. That seems a bit out of character for someone generally defined as "bitter" by most of his friends. All in all, it's been a pretty good week, mainly because I was able to get a lot of things that had been bothering me out of the way.

On another note, I was once again disappointed by a recent publication. It seems that for the thirty-first year in a row, I have not made the Forbes billionaire list. I try not to get all worked up, but I start to feel like Susan Lucci after a while.