January 31, 2006

Today was my day to really get on things and catch up w/ my work, since I didn’t go teach today. I got to campus around 11 and didn’t leave until nearly 3, and it really felt like a long day (even if it was only 4 hours). I think it felt so long because the printer in my office is a big piece and it took three times as long to print up the really long articles for my supervisor. I also took the opportunity to print up articles for my BER 641 class rather than waste my ink here at home. (And let me just add that a really HAWT guy just walked by my window…whoa. Back to your regularly scheduled LJ entry.)

I think I’m going to give Brubeck a bath in a while and go pick up assworm pills for Applejack, since he once again has them. I may pick up some flea stuff while I’m at it to just end this mess once and for all. I know Brubeck doesn’t have fleas, but I haven’t really seen any on the cats in a while, either, so I’m wondering how kitty got tapeworms. So freakin’ gross!

Bellydance lessons tomorrow! Yay!

January 29, 2006

I just realized it’s been nearly 2 weeks since my last gym visit. Argh…I’m hoping my bellydance classes will be not only good exercise, but motivation to get back on it. I console myself by remembering that I do walk a lot more now than I used to, since my classes are sort of far from any sort of parking. I just can’t let myself slip into bad habits (eating fried stuff, drinking sodas, etc.) because it seems like just now everyone’s noticed a change in my body. This is the first time in ages that I’ve felt perfectly content in my body and I’m not critical at all of my size (I think I was 12 the lasttime I felt like this). It’s a rare and beautiful moment, and I hope it lasts. I recently figured that I lost somewhere between 9 and 12 lbs since becoming a vegetarian and straightening out my diet. That being said, I wouldn’t consider myself to be on a diet, because I’m not depriving myself of anything I really want. After a few weeks meat just doesn’t sound good anymore, and there’s so much else out there that’s good. I put butter on rolls (hell, I eat rolls!), I use real sugar and I don’t eat low-carb/low-fat/faux anything. And I’m happy.

I’m going to need some cheese… January 24, 2006

…to counteract all this whine I’ve had today. My day sucked. Yet again, because of work, I might add. I’m getting to the point where I’m seriously going to look for another job or just forego working altogether. Unless I can rake in at least twice what I’m making now, it doesn’t seem worth it. I could devote soooooo much more time to my studies and I’d be happier, albeit a bit broker. I think if it came down to it Scott would be cool w/ me just splitting utilities and not paying so much in the way of “rent.” It’s not something I really want to bring up, but it’s nice to know it’s an option. Try negotiating w/ a landlord. Ha! I think my main gripe with work is unreasonable expectations and a lot of clueless coworkers. Other than that, it’s not too bad. I just feel like others’ incompetence ends up unfairly affecting me and I’m sofreakingsickandtiredofit. Mental health is worth any price.

I’m going to Atlanta next weekend for the SEPES (Southeastern Philosophy of Education Society) Conference. It should be a hellz of a lot of fun. And the weekend after that Scott and I are going to NOLA for Valentine’s. We already have reservations at a B&B (that allows dogs!) and we have plans for what we’re going to see and do. It will be nice to get away, especially to New Orleans. I’m really curious to know what it looks like now. It may be difficult to see.

I am becoming my weather pixie! January 19, 2006

My hair definitely resembles my WeatherPixie much more so now than it
did way back when I first put it on my user info page. Scary.

Last night I did the first two of eight forms for my advisor. I am
about to start on the other six, which I will hopefully knock out in an
hour or two. For some reason I anticipated them being more involved
than they actually are. Considering this is my first assignment, I feel
like I should be uber-perfectionist and prompt, otherwise my
end-of-year evaluations won’t be too good and I may not have funding
when it’s all said and done. Can’t let that happen…

Scott and I went to the UA vs. Arkansas game last night. It was such an
intense game that was tied at the final buzzer, and we went into
overtime. I don’t know what happened, but we suddenly just kicked into
overdrive and won. The whole Coliseum was just wild. And loud. The last
few games I’ve been to have been pretty boring and disappointing, so it
was nice to see a game that was exciting. The whole night the refs kept
making some questionable calls (or not making calls that should have
been made) and apparently a lot of people weren’t too happy. The guys
behind us were obnoxious rednecks. And loud. Oh, so loud. And they
wouldn’t stop talking the whole time, which I find annoying. I know
it’s not like you’re supposed to be totally quiet, or even quiet at
all, but they were just talking to hear themselves talk, and 90% of
what they said was so idiotic. Not to mention sort of crude.When I
found out that one of them was dipping, I said to Scott, “We’re
leaving. Now.” That’s the one
thing that makes me incredibly sick, and I wasn’t about to sit there
around it. We moved a few sections over instead, which ended up being a
good thing, what with the overtime and all. Even though it sucks about
Chuck Davis (knee injury), I think we’ll get along just fine.

If I have time today, I may go ahead and make the cake portions of the
cakes I’m making for this weekend. The frosting will have to wait until
the day of, but I think it will really make things easier if I can sort
of break the task up into parts. That being said, this cake isn’t too
hard to bake, compared to what else I was looking at (chocolate cake
with a layer of raspberry creme in between and frosted with chocolate
ganache icing dotted with raspberries). With the cost of raspberries
this time of year, it would have been ridiculously expensive, and the
quality of the berries wouldn’t have been up to my standards. I may
also make this strawberry mousse that I found a recipe for in my Larousse Gastronomique,
which was one of my presents from Scott. It calls for whipped cream (as
in cream that you have whipped yourself), and I know it’ll be good. I’m
so tired of eating desserts that are completely made of faux and
processed things. The other night we made pesto vegetables with
spaghetti squash and marinara. That was one of the most amazing things
I’ve had in a long time. Spaghetti squash is quite the interesting
food. I may try to make something today so that when I get home tonight
(after 9) I will have something to eat ready-made.

OK, work now, play later.

January 18, 2006

Yesterday, to say the least, was NOT my day. I
started off the day (rainy and dreary) in line at the post office to
mail off some stuff I sold on eBay (my old router and wireless
adapter). The line was insane because Monday was a holiday. I hate the
post office. Hate. The lines are always long, no matter what time of
day, and I feel that the people who work there are all a few bricks
short of a load. And rude. So after that lovely experience I went to my
office to sit around and wait for my advisor to get in at 11 so we
could talk about my responsibilities for this semester. While the
meeting went generally very well, she gave me a lot of work to do. And
I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to be able to do it the way (I
think) it should be done. She’s having me go through this book about
grant-writing and scanning in copies of forms in the book for her
current and future use. The problem is, I feel like the forms are too
small and I’d like to blow them up to full page size, but I can’t for
the life of me figure out how to do it. I’m basically scanning them in
as .pdf files and then putting them in Word documents. I’ve done two
already and I sent them for her approval before I get ass-deep into
them and she decides they aren’t right. I also have a crap load of
articles to copy, meaning tomorrow I’ll be in the library for quite a
long time. And I also teach and have class that night. Shit.

After my meeting I took a friend out to lunch as
promised and then battled traffic to get to work to pick up the
equipment to go teach. I don’t know what the hell happened but I got
there about 15 minutes later than I had planned. And it was raining.
And I had nowhere to park. Then I get there and find out I have three
more students that no one told
me about. Fuck. This really sucks because I had rescheduled one of my
private students for Tuesdays at 4:45, but no way in hell will I be
able to pack up and get there, considering I’m not done until 4:30. So
now I have to deal with her mom and explain that I’m going to have to
hand her off to another teacher, which I’m sure won’t be easy. I wish I
could just fucking give up the school I teach at because the students
in general are kind of annoying and their parents are unreliable.One my
new students kept bothering me and finally I just had to say, “Look,
I’m teaching other people right now and you’re going to have to go sit
down and read or something until it’s time for your lesson.” Do people
not teach their kids to sit down and shut up anymore? I am very
seriously considering quitting after this year. I told her I’d be
around next year, but I can’t deal with this, and I feel like it’s
cutting in to my academic work, and that’s just not gonna happen.
Money’s nice, but I’m not making a whole hell of a lot and it’s not
worth this much stress.

I didn’t get out of there until nearly 5 (mind you I
hadn’t been home since around 9:30 or so) and then Scott called up
wanting to know what I wanted for dinner. At that point I was just, “I
don ‘t give a flying fuck,” so we agreed to go out. When we finally got
in around 6:30, we discovered that Brubeck had crapped all over his
crate (since he’d been alone for so long, that’s hardly surprising), so
then we had that to deal with. Ughhhh. To make matters even better, I
didn’t really sleep again last night because my stomach is still just
burning. It’s been like this for a few nights now. I think I may switch
to a bland diet until things calm down. I don’t think it’s stress
because it does this even when I’m not stressed out, although I’m
guessing stress isn’t helping too much.

I really freaking hope that today is better because otherwise I’m going crazy.

urgh…. January 16, 2006

So I had plans tonight with two different groups of friends. And they
both didn’t pan out. So I’m stuck. At home. Bored. I even called a few
of my other friends and no one was around. I. Am. Going. Nuts. I did
manage to print out the 27 page article (with my own printer, since my
building is locked and I can’t access my office) so I guess I could
draw a nice hot bath and read through that. Sigh.

I am that bored. I even balanced my checkbook. After looking through my
schedule, however, I think there’s a crazy week on tap for me. The next
few weeks look to be a bit crazy. I think it’s just a matter of
settling in. I have a meeting tomorrow at 11, then I’m taking a friend
out to lunch, then I go teach. I will be totally done by 4:30. That
will be niiiiiiiiiice. It’s great not to have classes on Tuesday night.
Basically the only night class I have is on Thursdays, because my
Monday class lets out at 8, which isn’t too late to do something
social, if I so choose, and it’s not too late for dinner. My Thursday
class sort of f*cks things up because it starts at 6, and I get done
teaching at 5:30, so I have little time to go pick up anything
dinner-wise. But not getting out until 9 means I’ll be starving after
class. I may see if I can convince my students’ mom to let them start
15 minutes earlier so that I have a prayer of being able to get food
and get to class on time. Nevermind that the traffic situation sucks. I
wish I could just teach everyone on a single day. So much easier, but
sadly, not feasible.

January 16, 2006

As much as I’m liking the day off, I almost wish that we got it a
little later in the semester, when we really need it. I don’t feel a
whole lot pressing on me, therefore I feel soooo lazy, even if there is
stuff to be done. I’m just not going nuts over papers, projects, etc. I
have some reading to do, but it’ll take less than an hour total, and
I’d like to print it up elsewhere so I don’t waste my ink on a 27 page
article. I think if I do get bored later I’ll put my bookcase in here,
because I was pricing them yesterday at Target and they were either not
what I wanted or really pricey. I have a bookcase that, in my opinion,
isn’t being used very well, so I can re-organize and use it for all my
academic books to be in here. It’s a pain to have to go from the office
to the living room and back just for a book. All my current books are
stacked on the coffee table and they’ll either get torn up by the
animals or have stuff spilled on them. That and they’re just cluttering
up space. I’m making a valiant effort to reduce shit/clutter in my
life. It makes going shopping so much easier and cheaper. I went to the
mall today because everyone seemed to be having sales. I ended up with
a nice pair of pinstripe pants (finally!), a cute black bolero sweater,
a Henri Bendel candle (fig, in case you care), and bubble bath, all for
less than $50. Score! The pinstripe pants were so hard to find. I went
to Parisian because they were having a huge clearance, but there was
nothing in my size (the smallest they had was a 6, and they were way
too long). Then I went to Express and found a bunch of pairs I
looooved, but they were either too much (like $70…why?!) or they were
too long. In desperation I went to New York & Co. Not to be a snob,
but I’ve never shopped there. I was always under the impression their
clothes weren’t very well made, and I’m a stickler for quality when it
comes to clothes. Nothing pisses me off more than loose seams or
buttons that come off. Wandering around, I found that most of the stuff
looked ok. Their big selling point was that they offered all their
pants in petite length. I did, finally, find a nice pair of black
pinstripe pants in size 4 petite that were not cotton, not lined, and
they were flare leg. And they were $22.50. I left the mall a happy
girl.

My aunt e-mailed me last week asking me if I wanted to join her in Bham
when she does an overnight (she goes about once a month for work and
stays at least one night so that she gets more work done). She was even
willing to move the date around for me, so I wonder what’s up. I’m not
sure what she wants-if anything- from me. Maybe it’s just simply a case
of trying to re-establish our relationship. Before my mom moved in with
her, I’d say we were really close, but after awhile we were really not
close at all, at times adversarial. I’m hoping that changes.

OK, I need to be a productive human or the rest of this week will suck.

January 15, 2006

Here’s a bit of advice: if you’re planning on having a party in
mid-January, having an outdoor barbeque is probably not a good idea.
Odds are against the weather being nice and warm, unless you’re in
Arizona or south Florida. Even then, you just never know. I went to a
cookout yesterday afternoon, and while I had a good time, I froze me
arse off. I should have brought a hat or some gloves, but I honestly
didn’t think it would be that bad. Boy was I wrong! I was invited to
another shindig today (also outdoors) and not surprisingly, I declined.
I did, however, take my lovely dog and boyfriend to the Quad for some
much needed exploring and running around. Everyone walking their dogs
seemed to have these yappy little dogs that, well, weren’t too cute. My
little boy stole the show with his good behavior and stunning good
looks. Hee hee…I think I should make an effort to take him out for an
extended time at least once a week or so. He gets sooo crazy if he’s
cooped up in the house for a day or so. He likes to bark and bite, and
that’s a habit we need to break.

Yesterday Scott and I decided to scour through the thrift stores (after
my disastrously cold party) and I ended up with some steals. A dress, a
sort of suit, a skirt and a pair of pants for $9.95. The suit is
actually a dress with a jacket over it, and it’s pink silk with pretty
embroidery on the jacket, sort of Indian-inspired. I may have the
jacket taken in because it seems just a bit big and doesn’t make me
look very trim. If it works out OK, it’s definitely something I could
wear to, say, an awards dinner or a luncheon or something. I still
haven’t found a pair of pinstripe pants that I really like. My
standards are sort of weird…they need to be petite length (or easily
hemmed), not cotton and not tapered leg. I don’t care if they’re lined
or not, although I think unlined would be more versatile. I may browse
online soon to see what I can find, because my old pinstripe pants not
only were too big (they were a 6) they also had some bleach stain on
them that wasn’t obvious, but always bothered me. So they got donated,
meaning I don’t have a pair now.

I have laundry to finish up (yay!) and I need to type a 1 page reaction
paper to the film I watched in class on Friday. Because of the holiday
it isn’t due until Tuesday but since I have the time I should go ahead
and do it now. It’s a bit early to be procrastinating already.

January 13, 2006

Ahhh, happy Friday the 13th. Today should be good since 1) I’m
scheduled for a massage sometime today (I think 10 am) 2) I don’t teach
today and 3) I have my French film class later on this afternoon. I
lost my appointment card for my massage, but I remember it being on the
13th because we joked about it. However I haven’t the faintest idea
what time it is. Ooops. I guess it’s what I get for overzealously
cleaning out my car at the end of last semester. I would have washed it
today, but the rain took care of that. I’m not going to bother
vacuuming until the weather clears up because no doubt I’ll track in a
bunch of wet leaves and pine needles. I think I may wear my striped
Wellies knockoffs today, just because I really haven’t worn them much,
except to take the puppy out in the morning.

Last night Scott and I had a “talk” about what I mentioned a couple
entries back. At first I wasn’t going to talk because I didn’t feel
like getting into it and I didn’t want to talk when I was mad because I
would say something rash. I held myself together very, very well and
told him (without making accusations or blanket generalizations) that
he was not doing a good job of making me a priority in his life and
that he needed to take more responsibility in general. He was at the
office literally from 8 yesterday morning until around 9:30/10 last
night, with a brief break to meet me for Lai Lai. I know he had a lot
to do, but some of it (I felt) was a bit superfluous because he’s still
caught in the paranoia of contract renewal. He feels like he has to
devote an inordinate amount of time to his class prep and will spend
hours working on a simple PowerPoint presentation (which I could do in
like 20 minutes). It’s not like I think he shouldn’t devote time and
effort to his job. Far from it. I just feel like he’s being too
obsessive in all the wrong places and it will only serve to drive him
crazy. Another thing I noted, along the lines of responsibility, is
that when he’s inordinately busy and I’m not, I try to do a bit more
around the house, since it only makes sense. He, however, does not do
the same when the situation reverses. I said, perhaps a bit snidely,
that I was not working on a Ph.D. simply to end up someone’s little
“housewife.” He tends to get tunnel vision when he gets busy and I’m
not the kind of person who’s going to just leave something for someone
else to do out of principle. However, this also means I take on a lot
more than is fair. Another thing I mentioned is that he will talk at
great lengths about what goes on at work with little regard for what
goes on with me at school and at work, and it made me feel like he
didn’t find my work to be very important.  I really, really hope
he makes an effort, and I hope I can not think about it too much.

January 12, 2006

Question: If it’s 55 degrees outside, why am I so damn cold???! I
actually turned the heat on (a big deal since last month’s gas bill was
astronomical) when I got home from class because it was bad cold. I
almost dread getting in bed since it will likely be very cold for the
first 10-15 minutes. Don’t get it!

I had class tonight and I think overall it went ok. My Schezuan
broccoli decided to pay me a visit halfway through class, but other
than that things were great. I found out today I’m working with the
professor for this class, so now I have her for a class and I’m working
for her. We’re supposed to meet on Tuesday to discuss what I’m going to
do. I hope she’s doing something fun. Her past research has been kind
of interesting and I hope she’s still working along those lines. She
seems like one of those “up-and-coming” types and I think I’d be smart
to align with her and get on her good side.

Tomorrow is my francophone cinema class. It better be fun. And
hopefully not too much work. If nothing else it gets me out of my
teaching Friday afternoon lessons to a student who does NOT want to
play. I’m hoping my language skills aren’t too rusty, but if they are I
can buy a Berlitz course or something to sharpen up. I’m thinking of
taking some French classes over my next few semesters, just to keep up
and hopefully learn some more.

This weekend, hopefully, will be rather low-key so I can get organized
for the semester. It certainly won’t be lazy because I have plenty to
do.