Hesitant, Hopeful

It's been a hell of a long day.

I hate Mondays in a way I don't feel I can express.  It's nearly 11pm and I am so, so tired.  On a usual Monday, I have a history class at 11am, a geology at 1pm, a geology lab at 2:25, and a class at 6pm.  It's my absolute longest day.  Today, I had all of the above, but rather than just having a class at 1pm, I had a brutal geology test (no idea how I did, I'll let you know when I know), and rather than having a on-campus lab,we went on a field trip.  Yes, you heard (saw?) that right, a field trip.  We went to Glen Rose, TX to look at geologic formations.  This was the second of two field trips, but was much more fun than the first field trip.

Unlike last time, I got to sit in the front of the van.  I get really, really car sick and I have bad knees.  Neither of these things make climbing in and out of the back of a van easy.  I can't climb into the van very easily, it kills my knees, so I struggle which makes me look like an idiot.  Then, of course, there's the motion sickness from actually sitting back there.  Sitting in the front is much, much nicer.  My professor drove, it seems he's not terribly talkative while driving (though he can be at other times), so it was nice and peaceful.

The drive to, and around, Glen Rose was amazingly beautiful.  The leaves were turning yellow and orange and red.  The roads were narrow and winding, it was a lovely drive through the countryside between locations.  There were places where the road was covered by quickly running water, others where the creek went under the road, and the whole way was skirted by makeshift ranch fence, crafted of large branches of wood and barb wire.

There were 7 stops, in all, but the crown jewel of the field trip was definitely getting to see Dinosaur Valley.  I didn't get to actually see the tracks, as I would have had to cross a river on slimy rocks, wading ankle deep in icy water.  I decided to pass on that, given my terrible balance.  I really, really didn't want to end up in the Paluxy river.  So, half the class waded across, while the other half sat on seating built into the rock wall.  Half the people who elected not to go had phones out, just waiting to catch a snapshot of someone falling into the river.  It was really very nice, the weather was absolutely beautiful!  I wished Matt had been there, it was amazing.  So much so, in fact, I'm going to try to get Matt to go out there sometime, it's only a half an hour out from Stephenville.

The trip back to S'ville was really nice.  The sun started to go down and pink rose from the rims of the ridges all around us as the sun sank below the horizon.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky, it wasn't cold, nor was it hot, there was no wind.  It was perfect weather be out and about in Texas.  It was almost dark when we pulled back into Tarleton at 5 minutes to 6pm.  Rather than loitering around with some of my classmates, I was off and across campus for my 6pm class.  By the time I got to Humanities, all the way across campus, and used the restroom, it was 6:10pm.  I was only 10 minutes late for my grad class.

After class, I went to Wal-Mart to get cat food and dinner for myself and Matt.  I didn't get home until nearly 9 o'clock.  I'm exhausted.  The time change is making me feel really unsettled.  I feel like it's an hour later than it is.  Maybe I just need to go to bed and get a really good night's rest.  Of course, in all that time, with everything going on today, I've had zero time for NaNoWriMo.  Now, it's 11:15pm and I'm too tired to work on it, but if I don't, then I'm going to be behind.  Right now, I think being behind would be better than whatever might spill out of my brain in an attempt to write anything.  I don't have class until 1pm tomorrow afternoon, and it's the only class I have, so I have plenty of time to catch up tomorrow.  Wish me luck in keeping up, November is such a bad month for me.

For now, I'm off, knowing that even if I didn't get NaNoWriMo worked on, this post represents success with NaBloPoMo!  Two posts in two days, 28 more to go!  Good night.