24 May 2004.101am last week when i was trying to get my finals done [this last week was Finals Week, which sounds terribly intimidating unless you know that i attend 2 classes at a community college. so much of the past week has been spent whining about my finals but not doing them until the last minute - not necessarily because i am a procrastinator [which i am, but still] but because the final projects both required roughly 90 minutes apiece. the film paper did keep me up all night, but only because i kept stopping to watch reruns of "cheers" and "roseanne," and then at 3am your brain goes out and you think its a really good idea to watch "wings," which is why its the only time nick at night airs reruns of it. i would like to go on record saying that "wings" is a horrible show, but i have also been known to seek out "the nanny." my television choices are that of an old foreign person. anyway] i brought my film textbooks to my nannying job, because i figured that while the kids were beating each other up, i could read about the hollywood renaissance era [1964-1976]. when the mother spotted my textbooks, she launched into a lecture about how she needed someone who would pay complete and total attention to her children and enforce the rules she lays down for them [her rules include no "electronic devices" including television, no junk food, nothing to drink besides milk or water, don't have any fun, pretend you enjoy parochial school, etc, etc], and while she's on the topic i am not being authoritative enough with them. the whole time i am thinking how ridiculous this conversation is, because if she was really worried about her kids she wouldnt be going out. i keep my anger in check and disregard everything she says, and after she leaves i read, while the children [who are, for being raised on no tv and only organic healthy food, some of the most violent kids ive ever worked with] play some game that involves screaming "I HATE YOU AND I'M GONNA CUT YOUR HEAD OFF!!!" after about 20 minutes of this i get up and have to physically restrain the youngest boy, who pretty much started everything, when his father comes homes early. he welcomes his father by throwing alphabet blocks at him, and then after daddy carries him up to his room for a time out, comes back downstairs to ride his bicycle in the living room. and i'm the one who isnt taking care of them. p.s. if my employers get to read this, please take your kids out for donuts i'm sick of them asking me to, and for god's sake let them watch tv, they'd shut up more often. my other final is, as many of you may remember, a reversible vest for my sewing class. that's correct, not only am i required to make a vest, the garment of the damned, but it has to be fully reversible. what a life.