You know, I'd really like to tell you all to hurry up and stop using Internet Explorer. There are, after all, so many browsers that would suit you better. Besides, does I.E. have plushies? I think not.

Anyway, I am a lifelong FireFox convert, and nothing will ever be quite as grand in my eyes. Especially from a design standpoint. It really is frustrating that some (read "one") programs do not know how to translate pixels properly. I think I have it fixed now. Let me know if things still look wonky to you. Thank goodness that the latest offering from Microsoft now recognizes the 24 bit png—that, I must say was a pleasant surprise during my first foray into html in some two and a half years. I heart transparency! It's super spiffy!

I am writing an essay on an ethnic group to which I belong (can only think of one). I am writing roughly an essay-plus a week in my current block of classes. I am fortunate that word count poses little challenge for me, but it is rather exhausting and I beg you to forgive my sometimes-silence here. Once upon a time I had free time that I didn't spend on sleep! I am confident that I will have that once again . . . years down the road.

Besides, I find it difficult to be cute and clever when my brain is wrapped around credos and xenophobia!

Site Re-design is underway. This was a much more streamlined project when I was able to dedicate more time than five minutes here and five minutes there. I am having problem with IE. As always. Stupid Microsoft. I also haven't messed with the css overmuch, so this is far from polished. I would have preferred doing a private redesign and then unleashing it all at once, but I was having problems getting the databases pointed the right (or was it left?) direction. Then I got impatient.

I am in love with browns—from a creamy mocha to a rich mahogany, I find it a completely decadent color. I especially love it paired with blue tones.

I am in the middle of a re-design, but I am squeezing it in around school and work and Sophie, so it will be a slow process. As of now, in its incomplete glory, the new design needs the plugins will be on the right. Don't get freaked out! Everything is still there! I know change is hard, but we can weather it together!

Yesterday, I had to take an Implicit Association Test for my Ethics class. All my life, my mother was my idol, the person that I always hoped that I could be. From her, I have learned to champion for the underdog, to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. I will not abide a bully. This being stated, it should come as no surprise that prejudice makes me see red.

I took the Race IAT. After a series of questions, there is a sorting portion. The site instructs you to press the "E" key to sort to the group on the left and the "I" key to sort to the right. At first, one group was African American and one was European American, and the participant was to sort rapid fire pictures of people's faces into each group. Next, there was a good group and a bad group, and the participant was to sort rapid fire words into each group. Next, African American was combined with good and European American with bad, and the participant was to sort rapid fire pictures and words into the right groups—the the group pairings were reversed. The point was to go as fast as you possibly could. The test rated me as neutral. I found it disturbing that I part of just 17% of test participants that have received that rating.

My facilitator asked if we found our results accurate. My only reply could be, "I hope so." Can prejudice be measured? While feeling no personal preference for one race over another, I bit my tongue while I lived in the South. I was taught to keep quiet when a grandparent said something racist. Does this add to my prejudice, or my tolerance? I can only hope that as the generations pass, that 17% continues to grow—though less progress has been made in the past 40 years than in the 10 years before that. A subordinate group member will be the next Democratic Presidential Candidate. This is a thrilling time, and I can only hope that we succeed in our mission to love one another.

I consumed the better part of a 12-pack of Diet Pepsi Saturday evening as I completed my HIS course essay. For someone that usually hits the hay between 8:00 and 8:30, 1:30 was quite a feat. I got my second wind around 10:30 and was still wired when I traipsed to bed some three hours later—I threw back some Tylenol PM and slept until a shocking 7:30 the next morning!

This has been a particularly harrowing block of classes for me, as I am sure they will all be. It isn't that they were overly difficult or that I did not find them interesting, but that the perfectionist in me is not satisfied with anything but mastery. I know that I could easily spend a fraction of the time that I spend at school and get away with a C . . . BS is a family trait, after all . . . but there is a rush when I see that A and next to it, a 100%. And what's more, I know that I've internalized the information. I feel bigger to have learned (and for the first time in all my life, feeling bigger feels better!).

Today, I begin my next block of classes, and they will be core classes. I have a business course and an ethics course that I am eager to begin, but at the same time, all too exhausted from the wrap up of my previous block. I have scheduled a short break between classes at the end of this term . . . I know I will need it. Grades will be in within the week, though I already know I've received 100% in my biodiversity course . . . a quarter of my history grade rests with the evaluation of my essay. My stomach is in knots.

I often think what I did with all my free time before I began classes. I know I will miss it come summer when the bike trails and rivers beckon, but for right now, exhausting as this double-full-time status might be, it feels good to know that I spend my extra time bettering myself. I have about five chapters to read tonight, so I suppose this post is more to remind myself of that.

On a side note:
Sophie went to the groomer on Saturday to trim her butt hair. Surprisingly, she isn't the least bit upset with us. Small victories.