Monday, October 16, 2017

One down, three to go

First final is taken and passed. I have 3 more to go.

I had intended to spend some time tonight studying and reviewing for my next final.

But work was so difficult today that instead, I'm throwing in the towel and I'm going to bed early (for me). I'm behind on most of my chores (and by most, I mean all) and right now, I want to go to bed and read my book. I'm cross about the things that were making work difficult and I just want to deal with nothing else today.

So studying will hopefully happen tomorrow. If I can do review for a few days, I can retake the pre-test and if I score well enough to make myself comfortable, I can schedule the final for early next week.

I'd really like to have 2 down before the end of the month. It should be doable. Out of the 4 finals, I passed 3 of the pre-tests already.

Featherhead is still growing and still learning.

Breakfast is now held outside the cage every day (unless I'm ill or miss my alarm.)

We watch some cartoon either on Netflix or Amazon Prime (Hulu has been having difficulties recently, so it's falling to the bottom of my play lists.) She gets about 45 minutes to eat her breakfast. Breakfast usually consists of a variety of vegetables including an assortment of sweet peppers, broccoli, sugar snap peas, corn, carrots, oatmeal, sprouts, spinach, kale, cabbage, and sometimes some small pieces of fruit. It's not all of those, but it is some number of them. She has finally started really liking her veggies in the morning and is very eager to come out and get the veggies out of the bowl (and often fling at least half of them to the floor. Just like most babies.) Harder veggies, like the broccoli and carrots are blanched for a minute in the microwave, then cooled under running water so they don't burn her mouth. Broccoli and Peas are her current favorites, but the sweet peppers are right up there on some days as are carrots.

After breakfast, she may get the leftovers in her cage for about an hour or so while I get ready for work. Before I leave for work, breakfast gets removed and a dish of dry "fresh" foods goes in. This is generally a very small amount of things like shredded wheat cereal, raw pumpkin seeds, yogurt dipped sunflower seeds, a couple of small pieces of cinnamon BelVita breakfast cookie, and maybe a small amount of homemade bread of one flavor or another. (Bread is a rarity, but she needs things that won't attract fruit flies and won't spoil. Stale bread isn't a problem. She can throw it on the floor if she doesn't like it. Oh, and she gets some Cheerios.)

She has already moved into the attitude of "NO!". She doesn't talk at this time, female cockatiels don't tend to talk as much, but she's fully capable of it. She whistles a lot, which is very common in cockatiels. But she doesn't need to speak, she is fully capable of communicating a NO! in other ways. Like picking up whatever veggie is on the NO list today, and flinging it across the room (she can get a couple of feet of fling if she tries.) Or turning around so she can't see me and then she pretends she can't hear me either so she can continue doing whatever it is that she wants to do.

Me sneezing is absolutely on the NO list. It scares the little featherbrain and she scrambles to get away from the head explosion.

The last few nights, going to bed has also been on the NO list. There have been terrible tantrums at bedtime. But generally it's because she is SO tired. She does the same "I'm not tired!" act that human children do, and then tantrums. But once put down, it's about 2 minutes before she's out like a light.

She's been down for about an hour tonight and nary a peep. She was so tired today that she was falling asleep on my shoulder during our evening movie.

She has some interesting taste in movies. Annie (the '80s version with Carol Burnett and Tim Curry) is her favorite movie so far. She loves it and will turn around in the cage to watch it as it plays. So that's the movie I put on when I go to take my tests in the bedroom. She can watch Annie, and it will keep her quiet while I work on my test.

Tonight we watched Little Shop of Horrors, also from the 80s, with Rick Moranis and Steve Martin. She thought the dentist was scary, but she enjoyed the rest of the film and chirped along with some of the songs.

Interestingly, she didn't care one way or the other for Nightmare before Christmas. But likes Moana. Doesn't mind the Fellowship of the Ring, but does NOT like Two Towers (she thinks it's scary.)

Tomorrow will probably be Lilo & Stitch. And I have the feeling we'll be watching more musicals in the future. :)

She definitely has a preference for the 1930s.

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