I’ve had a bunch of things happen to me lately that made me think “I should post this in MPSIMS” but then, as a lurker at heart, I kept reconsidering and just kept them to myself. Tonight, however, I decided that collectively they are enough to start a thread for. So here it goes.
Good: On Friday, I found out that I passed both the comprehensive exams that I took the previous week. My PhD program does things oddly and makes you start taking exams before you’re done with coursework (they claim it gets us out sooner; all we grad students know is that it makes studying a bitch), so now I’m halfway done with my exams even though I still have a year of classes left. I’m also now eligible to apply for an MA, and the department has stopped toying with me and agreed that since I passed my Latin exams, I can teach Beginning Latin next year. Yay!
Weird: Yesterday I found a large chunk of acrylic nail in a piece of candy I unwrapped. I contacted the company via e-mail but still haven’t heard from them. I’ll let you guys know if I get any goodies. I still have the nail, too, if I get really bored I’ll borrow my boyfriend’s digital camera and post a pic.
Sad: On Friday my aunt, who was taking care of our 16-year-old family cat while my parents are living in the UK, had to have her put to sleep. She had just had a couple teeth out and she wasn’t eating, it turned out she had a stomach growth the size of a fist. Since she was pretty darn old, my mom made the call that rather than lots of surgery and possible recovery, my aunt should have her put to sleep. I hadn’t actually lived in the same house with Peggy Sue (the cat’s name) in a long time, so I’m not as sad as I might have been, but I did see her just last Sunday and I wish I had known it would be the last time. 
She was never the friendliest cat (we traumatized her too much when we were kids and she was a kitten), but she was a good cat for a calm, grown-up person such as I am slowly turning into. She came to us with a sister (Megan Ann) but Meg got feline leukemia when she was only 4 or so, so we’ve had just Peg alone for a long time. She lived in three different houses in three different states with us.
I’ve mentioned on this board before that shortly after we moved from Maine to Iowa she was lost for six months but was found and returned to us. After that she had to be an indoor-only cat because she got too used to eating what she caught and had worms almost all the time.
Just a few years ago we bought her a neat toy at Walmart, a wire-bristle archway to rub against. We christened it “The Doorway of Fun.” “Go through the Doorway of Fun, Peggy Sue” we would say, but she almost never did.
Once we gave her to my aunt she developed kitty Alzheimer’s or something and totally failed to remember us as the people who had previously fed her, but it was still nice to see her when I visited my aunt. I knew she was old, but I guess I always assumed my parents would get her back when they returned in a couple years, but I guess she just didn’t have it in her.
Ok, I guess this turned out to be mostly about 1 thing instead of a collective thread, but I just found out about Peggy Sue today and this has been cathartic (no pun intended). I didn’t cry before, but I’m crying now.