What's Goin On

 A photo from Christmas of SG1 and my mother, who visited from Portugal for holidays.

One of the last photos I had an opportunity to take of SG1 at the Mount Holyoke campus, before she graduated last year.

Some time constraints have eased for me and I am able to blog with a frenzy this coming week. If you see a new post, please scroll down for what will probably be others that have been posted in close succession. They're mostly art posts, though I've been finding it fun to engage with my blog pals a bit by asking for requests such as a favorite nude for The Friday Evening Nudes and more recently, asking folks to tell me what famous artist they would want to paint their portrait. For me this is entertaining and lots of fun. I think I've lost some readers who may not really like art all that much but I guess that's the way things go as a blog evolves and eventually knows what it wants to be.

Just a note to my blog pals about what's goin' on in the life of Pagan Sphinx. Not much, really. My class ended two weeks ago and I'm awaiting my grade a bit anxiously, as the class was a ball of confusion due to an unprepared, inadequate and ambiguous instructor. There was one component of my final project that was missing due to how convoluted the last minute revisions the instructor imposed on the final assignment were. I'll try to be gracious about my final grade, if I feel it is fair but if I feel it isn't, I will certainly contest it. I palled up with three other women in the class and all three of us had the same impressions. Including that if you were a woman over 40 in that class, you remained invisible even if you stood on your head on your chair and did the splits. Oh, well.

Otherwise, I work. I come home and talk on the phone with my girls for as long as it takes for them to tell me what's on their minds. Sometimes, it is a long time before I'm done with my phoning. I'm glad they keep in touch so much.

SG1 is busy prepping for the GRE (graduate admissions exam) so that she can begin to narrow down what graduate programs she'd like to enroll in. If she is accepted to one far from Santa Barbara, it will mean a separation for her and her wife. I find it amazing that they're willing to be apart so they can both fulfill their goals. SG1 is way too goal-oriented and very clear about what she wants to accomplish to take a back seat to a partner. They both understand that and wish to help the other. Although, it won't be easy, I see this couple as being very supportive of each other and I don't doubt their ability to make things work. SG1 is interviewing for a summer position as a research assistant for a professor at UC Santa Barbara who is doing some huge study or textbook writing, I'm not sure, on constitutional law, which is one of SG1's areas of expertise. Americorps continuous to drain her with its 12 hour days and endless demands for community activities on weekends. It is a means to an end, as after two years with them, they will give her 10 grand, which will wipe out her own student loans. I wish they would give me some money to pay off my portion of her student loans. All in all, it is not much, considering that it costs around $50,000 per year to send a student through a private U.S. college or university. You either have to be rich or smart. And I'm sure you can imagine which category we fit into.

SG2 is not taking classes this semester at BU. She applied for a paid internship at the Boston Globe and got it. She's not thrilled about working the 5:30 to 1:30 am shift but she says she's learned more in a month of the internship than she has over the course of the five semesters of journalism classes she's taken. I worry about her ability to find work in print media, as newspapers are folding and cutting back jobs like crazy these days.

I am otherwise healthy and fortunate to be 83% Happy. You, my blog pals, are responsible for more than just a few percentage points of that!

This song is for my beloved family and for all of you who care enough to come here often or even every once in a while.