Ouch

I try not to be a complainer, but sometimes it just gets to be too much and I have to vent. The chairs at my work are wreaking havoc on my back/hips/neck. The pinched nerve between my shoulder blades has begun to ache. I've switched chairs, trying to find something that is more supportive, but it's just not humanly possible to be comfortable at work. The havoc has gotten to the point that it is affecting my sleeping hours too, and we all know how well I function without adequate sleep... It's almost noon--too late in the day for coffee? Oh, who am I kidding? It's almost never too late for coffee!

Anyhow. That's enough complaining for one day, I think (is it weird that even my own complaining bothers me?). Onto bigger and better things.

School starts again next Monday. I found out recently that I will probably be able to test out of the computer class. Basically it's $25 to take a test on the basics of Microsoft Word, Excel, Windows and PowerPoint. I have to get at least an 80% to pass and get credit for the course. If I don't pass a test on the basics of Windows and its programs, I would deserve to be fired from my job and chased through the streets by an angry mob of programmers. Seriously--if I don't know Microsoft's basic applications by now, there is something very, VERY wrong with me.

So that's the most near-future excitement. I'm always excited for school to start again, but that only lasts for about a month. Then I'm bored with it. I am slightly nervous about taking an actual class on campus this semester. Luckily for me, my work is pretty flexible and can allow me to do so. I haven't taken a real class in a while, though...since I was going to ISU, actually, and that was five years ago. Since I'll be testing out of the Computer Essentials class, I signed up instead to take a different course that satisfies my "diversity" GE requirements. It's a gender studies class. We'll see how that goes!

Next weekend is going to be fun and completely devastating all in one. We're headed up to good ol' Idaho Falls to attend the non-farewell (because the church no longer supports actual farewells...) Mission Farewell for my little brother, Geoff. While we're there, we're going to have family portraits taken for the first time in, oh, about 8 years (I think...). It's been quite a while. I've already gotten like four phone calls from my mom about what we're all going to wear (we finally decided on black) and how worried she is that we won't all coordinate. But, you know, you can't really go wrong with black, so I think we'll be fine.

Geoff goes into the MTC on Wednesday, January 21, 2009. I have a feeling that I will soon deteriorate into an emotional basket case over him leaving. I can barely even force myself to think about it most of the time. I am going to miss him so much! :( The non-farewell church meeting in which he will be speaking will probably make me cry, and then I won't be able to stop crying for days and days and days. I've never had a sibling leave on a mission before. Friends and cousins, but never a sibling. How do people handle it??