Queen Bee

Who can turn the world on with a smile?

2009-03-27T15:38:00.003-04:00

Back in college, when I was depressed and took a semester off, I started watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show. This was the era of Ally McBeal, and I remember thinking "everyone praises this show for showing a single girl in a career... wasn't this basically Mary Tyler Moore?" To see if I was right, I needed to watch it.

We didn't have cable, so I got some of my sister's friends to record it for me off of Nick at Night (which now shows stuff like George Lopez and Roseanne!!! How old does that make me feel?), plus I bought the available box sets on VHS. I didn't see every episode, but I saw a lot of them. This was a show that I swear, helped me get through my depression. It was just one thing that helped, but it did help.

I recently got rid of my VHS box sets, because I hadn't watched them in a long time, and they were taking up space. I bought the first season on DVD, and then didn't really watch it. I had buyers' remorse.

Recently, I decided to watch it again, after probably not seeing it in about 8 or 9 years.

Damn, that show is funny!!! I was surprised at how funny it is, even though I watched it a lot 10 years ago. I had forgotten how snappy and hilarious the writing is, and how lovable the characters are. This show premiered in, what, 1970? And honestly, it doesn't seem dated at all. The basic premise of the show is one that still gets used today- single career girl tries to balance work with life- sounds like Ally McBeal and also 30 Rock, doesn't it? But the jokes are still hilarious- as much as I adore 30 Rock, I am not convinced that in 35 years, someone who wasn't even born when the show went off the air will watch it and think "Wow, this show is hysterical!" Very few of the jokes are topical- some are, like a reference to Eric Sevareid, or being able to give the plot of a John Wayne movie without having seen it ("Oh, you know... he won."), but not so many that you don't get it. Incidentally, 30 Rock did a great episode featuring Laugh-In as EXACTLY that kind of comedy- so topical that people can't get the jokes at all 30 years later.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was this gently feminist show, touching on everything from men getting promoted because they were men, anti-semitism, the drudgery of being a housewife when you have ambitions to go on and do other things, being single in your 30s when everyone else expected you to be married, having a job that you like, and the fact that even good girls like Mary Richard had premarital sex, and she could do that and still be considered a "good girl." It wasn't ahead of its time, exactly, but it was definitely au courant.

I watch it and I STILL think "Wow, who wouldn't want to be Mary Richards?"

The Elephant Who Cried Wolf

2009-02-07T21:42:00.005-05:00

We just got back from a big trip a few weeks ago, and one of the things we did was go to Nairobi. We had one reason, and one reason only, to go to Nairobi - the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which is an organization that raises orphaned baby elephants rescued from all over Kenya (among other conservation efforts, but they are best known for the baby elephant orphanage).

We foster two of the baby elephants there, and since we were going to be in the region (loosely), we decided to seize the opportunity to go to Nairobi and visit. This added a considerable expense onto our vacation, but it was now or never to see my elephant, Lempaute. The goal of DSWT is to take these orphaned babies, raise them, and repatriate them back into the wild. They have had 85 orphans come through and go back into the wild, and some of them have even had babies of their own, babies that are wild.

It was a real treat to see the elephants. My husband fostered Lempaute for me as a Christmas present 2 years ago, and I never, ever imagined that I would visit someday. Never. I feel so lucky.

Here is my elephant, Lempaute. Edwin, the head keeper at DSWT's Nairobi nursery, told us that Lempaute is the "cheekiest" elephant that they have. We saw this for ourselves; we saw her antics in action, such as fake-charging a group of school children to scare them, walking down the rope line at the midday mudbath and feeding and letting everyone pet her, and then, at the private viewing, scaring a couple of children who were looking at her in her nighttime enclosure by sticking her trunk out at them. She even startled me by grabbing my arm with her trunk and pulling. I think she likes the children's screams. We read in the keeper's diary entries that her new game is to pretend that there is something in the bush that is scary and run away, and get her elephant friends to stampede away too. Elephants develop at approximately the same rate as people, so you have to remember that Lempaute is only three, just a toddler, really.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust really does great work. They focus on conservation, but in ways that would be workable for Africans. They not only try to educate communities who share the land with the animals, but provide resources for economic development. They work to build relationships with the local communities, not just so people will know what to do if they find an orphaned baby elephant (as sometimes the babies will fall into wells; this is a common cause of being orphaned), but also to get information about poachers from the local communities. They provide jobs for Kenyans. You cannot volunteer there; that would take work away from locals; they would rather pay and create jobs and infuse money into the community than take work for free. It is one of the few non-profit organizations where the administrative costs actually serve as an important function of the organization. They also serve as a tourist draw; although we would love to go on safari, we didn't have time this visit. We went to Nairobi specifically to see the elephants, and while we were there, we patronized hotels and restaurants and hired a driver.

The website for the trust is really good; it has a lot of information about the work that the DSWT does, information about the orphaned animals they raise (mostly elephants, but they take other orphaned animals too, such as rhinos, zebras, and dikdiks.), keepers biographies, and other great information.

Staycation All I Ever Wanted

2008-08-29T16:56:00.002-04:00

I confess, I am somewhat amused by the advent of the "staycation," defined as basically, staying home during your time off from work or school. The New York Times even had a whole article about this supposedly new phenomenon.

Almost EVERY vacation I had when I was growing up was a staycation. You know why? Because we were too poor to go anywhere. Staycations are nothing new. Who the hell is so out of touch that they thought they needed to make up a word to describe what probably millions (at the very least, hundreds of thousands) of people have been doing for a long time? Because a lot of us are too poor to go anywhere. These are probably the same people who looked at me like an idiot when I asked if they went to Rome, New York or Rome, Italy on their vacation. Well, there IS a Rome, New York! So there.

Travel is great; don't get me wrong. I have done a reasonable amount of travelling since becoming an adult (a long-distance relationship that spanned the Atlantic Ocean helped a lot), although nothing that could be considered too exotic. Various places in England and Paris. I have been to Hong Kong and Phuket, Thailand. Phuket sounds like it's exotic, but really, it's Destin, FL with more Germans and less spoken English. This is interesting in and of itself. Back in the day, going to Europe was a big deal. Now, Europe isn't just for rich people anymore. Europe, big deal! Now, those people who complain about how air travel is like Greyhound now (you know what, it isn't- have these people actually ridden Greyhound?) need to find better, more exotic places to visit to show that they are better than all those people who go to London, because, hell, everyone goes to London!

This is why people that we know do things like go backpacking and mountain climbing in disputed territories like Kashmir. If I had to choose between this and going to England for the (counts on fingers...) well, I've been a number of times, England would win hands down!

Disclaimer: we are planning a trip to Egypt and Kenya in January, so I'm just as guilty of it as anyone.

Architecture School

2008-08-23T08:51:00.004-04:00

I discovered, via reading the boards on Television Without Pity, that there is a new show on Sundance called Architecture School. When I clicked on the forum to read about it, I discovered that Architecture School follows a group of undergraduates at Tulane's architecture school.

Oh God. Oh God. This was where my friend (the one who died) went to school. He was in this program. The show follows an aspect of the program that wasn't in existence during my friend's time there- the students design and build houses for low-income residents as part of the gradual rebuilding of New Orleans post-Katrina. My friend graduated and died in 2001, so well before the need for this program.

This brings up a question- do I watch this show? I don't have Sundance (or cable at all anymore, see my previous posts), so I would have to buy it on iTunes.

I am leaning towards not watching; I feel that it would be wallowing on purpose. Maybe people who have never grieved don't understand this impulse that draws you in to face that black hole of grief and jump in. When you are early in the grieving process, you fall in that hole all the time on accident. As time goes on, you learn to avoid that hole. It is still there, though. Maybe it is smaller, but make no mistake, it's still there. And sometimes, yes, you jump in on purpose, especially after you have learned how to avoid it. There is something about losing someone so close to you. It tears you apart, and even though you want to be better, you want to get back to normal, sometimes, when you are mostly back to normal, you miss that grief. Well, not the grief exactly. You miss the person, and the grief reminds you of them. The reverse is true as well- be reminded of the person, be reminded of the grief.

I don't really jump in any more. The desire to do so surprised me, a little. I might just watch some of the clips on Sundance's website. Probably that will give me my fill. To tell the truth, I think architecture is frightfully boring, so once the initial shock is over, I'm sure it will be just like every other reality TV show that I have abandoned.

Too Much TV

2008-07-25T17:40:00.003-04:00

We cancelled cable so my husband wouldn't watch so much TV, and now I am the one having the problem! Who knew that when you combine TiVo and Netflix, you end up watching TV for hours??? I think I am motivated in some way to get the biggest bang for my buck from Netflix (even though they slow down your service if you are too quick with the returning).

My sister did assure me that it's normal to binge on DVDs when you first get Netflix, but then you taper off to a normal level. I hope so.

Why I Hate Talking Shop with Non-Academics

2008-07-20T15:24:00.001-04:00

Actually, I hate talking shop period. I think this is another sign that academia is not for me- I find talking about it so boring. However boring it is talking about it with other academics, it is so much worse talking about it with non-academics who really don't understand the weirdness of academia or Ph.D. programs. Let me count the reasons why.

They just don't understand. Anything. They ask you innocuous questions that raise your blood pressure like "When are you going to be finished?" and "Are you finally graduating this year?"
They offer the DUMBEST ideas for your dissertation. Here is a tip for all of you who have never gotten to the point where you had to write a dissertation- if you came with an idea from reading The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, watching the local news, or corporate training, it has almost CERTAINLY been done before.
The question "So do you know what you're going to do when you're finished?
You have to try to explain your complicated, esoteric research idea to people who, even if they're smart, don't know the context. I'm not talking about general ideas, like "My dissertation is on 18th century American literature" or "paternalism in the Japan in the 1950s", but very specific details, because they are sure that they can understand the exact details and relationships of the variables.
Worst of all, I don't like talking about academia with non-academics because I find that I get annoyed and snappish. I'm a bad conversation partner on this topic.

Ugliest. Nursery. Ever.

2008-07-19T14:44:00.004-04:00

My sister just found out she is pregnant, so I sent her the link to Apartment Therapy's nursery/baby/parent site, ohdeedoh. Apartment Therapy's aesthetic is mostly too modern for my taste (I hate that "grandma's estate sale" look that is passing for the trendy "mid-century modern" these days), and ohdeedoh leans that way too, but there are a lot of cute ideas for people who don't want that ugly pale yellow/green ducks theme or overly cutesy nursery themes from Babies 'R' Us. But this nursery goes too far.

You know what, people? "Eastern Bloc" is a horrible nursery theme. And no, that is not a black and white picture.

The whole post has other rooms that use grey that aren't so bad, but grey is probably my second least-favorite color for a nursery, followed only by black.

Sexism in Academia

2008-07-18T18:47:00.003-04:00

Did you guys read this article in the NYT about applying Title IX to academics? Hoo boy.

I have to say, the tone of the article made a lot more sense when I found out that John Tierney used to be the conservative columnist for the NYT's op-ed page.

More later.

Back to the Dark Ages (of TV)

2008-07-18T15:12:00.005-04:00

We took the plunge. We cancelled cable. We didn't just switch from digital cable to regular, or from regular to the local-channel-reception-only package. We went cold turkey. The Comcast tech came today to take away our box. I made sure he took the remote too, since I bet they would charge us for it.

The seed for this drastic step was planted by the digital reception converter boxes that we got. Our TVs are old with cathode ray technology. No shiny new flat screen HDTVs for us, at least, not until the price for them plummets. While we had digital cable in our living room, the small TV/VCR (double whammy of obsolete technology) just had an antenna. I had been seeing the ads warning us that we will lose reception in February 2009 if we didn't get one of these boxes, so I signed up for the government-issued $40 coupon. I signed up for two of them, in fact, since we have two televisions. We have lived without cable in the past, it wasn't inconceivable that we would live without it in the future. I wanted the option, anyway.

Turns out that the reception is fabulous and crystal clear. Apparently with digital, you either get it clear and perfect, or you don't get it at all. When we saw how good the reception was, we thought, "Hmmm.... we could cancel cable and save a little money...."

A few weeks later, we had a very real discussion about the fact that my husband comes home from work and gets sucked into every episode of Law & Order and crappy movie that TNT/TBS/FX can put on. It doesn't matter how bad, if they blow crap up, he's there. This seems weird to me, because while I watch a lot of TV, I can't watch just anything, I have to watch things that I really enjoy, a category that does not include Lethal Weapon 3 or SVU. He felt that he should be doing work in the evenings instead, but just couldn't resist the siren call of Sam Waterston and former Senator Fred Thompson. As a good wife, I made the offer that we could get rid of cable, if he really thought this would help him do work at night. Plus, it would save us about $70 a month once our Triple Play deal expired.

We decided to do it. To make up for it, we signed up for Netflix, a decision I am not sure is terrific, given how long it is taking them to ship our initial movies out, plus we are getting TiVo, which was part of the deal I made with myself for passing my oral exams. I am not really sure how great TiVo is going to be with broadcast, but at least now I should be able to watch every single episode of Globe Trekker.

Our TiVo is supposed to arrive today. By UPS. This means that I will need to sign for it. However, since we don't have cable anymore, and our Netflix movies aren't supposed to get here until tomorrow (and I'm not even sure that I'm getting one that I want- I know that discs 1 and 2 of Season 2 of The Wire, another show that I hate but my husband loves, are supposed to arrive, but no word on my copy of The Holiday), I wanted to run to the library to get some DVDs to tide me over.

My local public library is a lot like TJ Maxx in a bad neighborhood. You walk in and it's dirty and unorganized with sketchy people in there (seriously- my library has homeless people looking at bikini pictures on the internet), and at on any one given visit, you can't find anything you want. However, when you start stopping in all the time, you find treasures. Masterpiece Theatre DVDs! That new non-fiction book you've been wanting to read! An audiobook of Terry Pratchett's YA novel The Wee Free Men!

Unfortunately, Friday is usually not the best day to find treasures, as everything tends to be picked over. However, I was desperate. I have one episode of the first season of Big Love left (and my liking for this show has gone downhill over the 11 episodes that I've seen so far), and beyond that, nada. And I was worried I would miss the delivery of our TiVo. I tried to make my library trip as brief as possible, and ended up with Masterpiece Theatre's Adam Bede (someone at the library must have ordered the George Eliot boxed DVD set because they have all these DVDs), the sequel to Before Sunrise called Before Sunset, and Supersize Me. Not my top selections, but they will do.

Meanwhile, at the library, I am shaking with fear that the TiVo is going to arrive while I am gone, and then we're not going to get it until Monday, because UPS doesn't deliver on Saturday. I quickly do my cursory browse of the new non-fiction, cookbooks, and craft books, pay my fine (because I always have fines on my account), and hightail it out of there in the hopes of catching Big Brown, should he happen to come by.

There's no yellow/brown post-it on the door of our apartment building. Phew! It ended up being anticlimactic, though, because the UPS guy didn't even need buzzing in. He just left the package, which was half my size, downstairs by the mailboxes.

So for this weekend, it's George Eliot, PBS, fast food, and me.

How to Pick a Ph.D. Program

2008-07-14T23:04:00.001-04:00

I have a number of friends who have come to me for advice on applying for a Ph.D. program. I have collected my "best of" advice from my emails, and I thought I would share it with my readers (all 4 of them). If any of you have advice you'd like to add, feel free.

So You're Thinking of Getting a Ph.D.

1. Don't. I can't say this strongly enough, and yet, I have never been able to convince anyone not to do it. The only reason you should be getting a Ph.D. is if you absolutely need one to pursue your chosen career. This means you want to be either an academic, or you want to work in a science lab. Bad reasons to get a Ph.D. include:

"I'm sick of my job. I'd like to take a break." Believe me, a Ph.D. is not a break.
"A Ph.D. is sooooooo much more impressive than a masters." This may be true, but even put together with the previous reason, it's not worth it.
"The economy is in the crapper." Don't worry, it will turn around well before you get out in 5-8 years.
"I'm great at classes." Ph.D. programs are not really about classes.

Basically, don't go unless you are 100% sure you want to do it, have really done your homework, and know that having those 3 letters after your name is essential to doing what you want to do and there is no way you can do it otherwise. So I haven't convinced you? All right, fine. Read on for advice on how to pick a program.

2. Talk to current students or recent Ph.Ds to find out who has the best programs in your desired area. You should find these people through your personal networks, not randomly email ones you found listed on the school website. My colleagues and I get emails all the time from people (usually from outside the U.S.) wanting information on how to get a Ph.D. in the U.S. We generally ignore these emails. It is nothing personal, but we just don't have time to email random people we don't know. Use your LinkedIn contacts, ask your friends and family, ask your undergrad advisor, etc. Academia is a pretty small world, and you might be surprised whom your friends know.

If you want to do academia, you will be better off going to the very best program that you can get into. You will have more options this way. Students are great for finding out this because really, they don't have anything invested in you coming to their school. Ask them "what are the best programs in this area?" It will be helpful if you have a narrower idea of what area within the field interests you. So if you want to get an English Ph.D., it will help you pick a program if you have a general idea of whether you are interested in Shakespeare or 20th century African-American literature. If you're interested in the latter, it's not smart to go to a program, no matter how great the overall reputation, if they don't have any scholars there currently doing anything with 20th century African-American literature. This won't be a problem with bigger programs, who tend have enough people to cover most areas, but even so, some programs are stronger in particular areas than others.

3. Realize that it is going to take you MINIMUM five years to finish. Some programs (like mine) like to sell their programs as four-year programs. The only people I have heard of who finished in four years came in on DAY ONE with their dissertation idea and dataset. If this isn't you, you're going to take five years. If you're lucky. Ask how long it has taken the most recent graduates to finish. If you can get the median time to graduation, this is helpful too. Ask about the requirements. I picked a program with an abnormally high number of requirements, and this means that students in my program take a long time to graduate.

4. Once you get in, do your homework to pick the right program. You will get the most honest information from current students (with the caveat coming later in the post), but be sure to talk to faculty as well. Best case scenario is that your school will fly you out so you can see the campus and talk to students and professors. I am assuming that if you got this far, you want to be a professor. If you don't, see #1. Seriously.

Here's the big caveat about talking to current students. They will be too scared to say anything bad about their program or the professors (especially the professors). Here's why. They don't know you. We don't know if we tell you "Oh, Professor X is horrible" or "in our program, the professors use the grad students as slave labor." that you're not going to go to the next school on your list and say "Yeah, I heard from students at PreviousUniversity that the professors there are a nightmare." And then it gets back to the faculty at our school! So we're not going to say a word that is directly negative about our program. Now, if I am talking to a close friend, I might be more candid (although, truthfully, most of the negatives in my program are administrative, and I feel fine about being candid about these) If you are clueless about how this works, you can miss some important information or be blindsided by some pretty nasty stuff when you arrive. So if you hear them avoid answering a question, or give neutral or noncommittal answers, feel free to interpret that as a negative. They will be positive about things that are positive.

5. With this in mind, here are some things you should ask about.

Ask where graduates from the last several years (I would say the last five years) have gotten jobs. Some departments have this information on their websites, but others will say that they've placed graduates at "a variety of universities including Flagship State University, University of SmallState, and FancyPants University." When the placement info is given so generally, it's a pretty safe assumption that the person who got a job at FancyPants University is probably the one superstar from 10 years ago, and this is not at all representative of where the average graduate from this program gets placed. All else being equal, you want to go to the school that has the best placement record. The caveat is that I think it is better to go to a school with a slightly worse placement records if the faculty is more supportive and helpful and nice.
Does this school function on a "star" system? I know of some programs where if you're a star student, you get a lot of attention, but if you're a middle-of-the-road student, you will have a hard time getting resources and attention.
Try to suss out the nature of the relationships between the faculty and students. If possible, you want to go a place where the faculty members treat the students with respect, support them in their learning, give them opportunities for coauthorships, and aren't abusive.
What is the funding like? Do you get grants or do you have to TA for most of your money? TAing is not as bad as you hear sometimes; it depends on the professor, but the less TAing, the better. How many years do you get guaranteed funding? Is it a problem to get funding after you're not guaranteed? For instance, in my program, you're only guaranteed funding for 4 years, but really, there are so many TA positions that it is easy to get funding as long as you need it (if you are in town and able to TA).
Do they kick people out a lot? This is a very important question to ask. Some programs that I know of get rid of 50% of their students within the first two years. This is crazy to me. You really don't want to go somewhere that kicks out a lot of their students. This is often a sign of department dysfunction. Sometimes kicking people out is a necessary evil- people don't progress, can't cut the work, etc., but this should be somewhat of a minimum.

6. This brings me to a very important point: Do NOT go anywhere that does not give you a masters if you either leave or get kicked out after a certain point (usually after the qualifying exams) If you fail your exams or if you pass them but decide to leave because academia isn't for you and you've realized that you've made a colossal mistake, you want to get something for your trouble without having to sit through 5-8 years of misery. Sometimes programs will say that this is so they don't reward people for dropping out or getting kicked out, but this is BS.

7. And finally, do not go to a program because there is one professor there for whom you would like to work. This is basically putting all your eggs in one basket. People go on sabbatical, they move to other universities, or worst of all, they could be abusive and horrible. There should be at least a few professors there who appeal to you.

Edited to add: One more thing-- ask current grad students at one university about other universities. Because while we won't talk smack about our own, we have no scruples about giving you the scoop on other places, if we know anything.

Recommendation for all the struggling academics

2008-07-10T22:43:00.002-04:00

Getting to ABD was a long time coming for two reasons. First, the way my program is structured means that I had a lot more hoops to jump through than any other program that I know. Second, I spent about a year making not much progress.

At one point, my advisor had the "Come to Jesus" talk with me that went something like "I'm concerned that you're not making progress; maybe you should talk to someone." I had been exploring the idea of a dissertation coach, but hadn't made that last step. I know from experience with therapists that it can be tough finding the right one, plus, it means that I would actually have to start doing, you know, work. At this point, a not-small part of me kind of hoped I would get kicked out of the program. But a Come to Jesus talk? Time to get real.

I contacted one prominent dissertation coach, and she didn't have room in her schedule for new clients. She referred me to Gina Hiatt, a colleague of hers who did have time to take on new clients. I had one session with Gina, who told me that she was about to start up a new pilot program for-- get this-- online coaching (which has now morphed into Academic Writing Club. It was going to be much, much cheaper than one-on-one sessions, so it sounded like a reasonable strategy to try.

This is, in all seriousness, the smartest thing that I have done since the colossal mistake of starting the damn Ph.D. program in the first place. I cannot emphasize enough how helpful this was in building writing discipline from the ground up AND, even more importantly, getting emotional and practical support from other academics in a way that is lacking in many programs. I think I have a pretty good program overall, but I still don't have this kind of support from my advisor or peers.

It's $50 a month (if you sign up before the deadline), and it is well worth the money. It's a very affordable way to get dissertation coaching to get you going. If you are struggling with your program, seriously, give this a try.

Certain Girls

2008-07-05T13:25:00.002-04:00

I just read Jennifer Weiner's sequel to her first book Good in Bed. This one is called Certain Girls. I didn't enjoy it as much as Good in Bed, but it was okay. I had to giggle to see the crazy sorority dealings at DePauw University in Indiana referenced in the book. Cannie (main character) is reading the news on line and mentions reading this story. They deserve all the shaming they can get.

ABD

2008-07-03T12:12:00.002-04:00

By the way, I finally took my oral exam (and passed), so now I am ABD! Thank you, Jesus! Incidentally, this was my reaction when they told me that I passed. It got a laugh. I was not being as ironic as they thought, though, considering I called my mom sobbing the hour before (I was really nervous) and had her pray with me. Good times.

Kate Shindle's Blog

2008-07-03T11:30:00.005-04:00

So my favorite Miss America, Kate Shindle, has a blog called Shindle's List. Reading it reminded me why she's my favorite, and also, why seeing her win made me think "Hey, I can do this too!" I found it by googling her after seeing her on a recent episode of Legally Blonde: The Search for Elle Woods on MTV.

Another pageant-related blog (the blog itself isn't about pageants, but it's written by a friend of mine that I know from pageants) is my friend Kim Jobe's new blog called The New Impatience of Jobe. Kim used to be a regular columnist and reporter for her local paper in Corinth, MS. She is now pursuing a different career path, but started a blog so she could keep writing her column. Kim is a genuinely good, warm-hearted person, and a great fan and supporter of all her friends.

The Queen of Femininity

2008-01-27T12:13:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched the Miss America pageant for the first time in three years. I am probably the only girl in America who did not dream of being Miss America, walking down that runway in Atlantic City, waving to the crowd. Nevertheless, I stunned all my friends and family by competing in, and getting 4th runner up, in a local pageant during college. I remember my mother's reaction when I finally confessed that I had decided to enter the local pageant in my hometown during a semester off from school, a self-imposed break to combat burnout and depression. When you are burned out, depressed, and have gained about 10 pounds, what is a more natural thing to do than enter a beauty pageant?

My mother just looked at me and said, "Are you crazy?" To her, beauty pageants were the domain of superficial, insecure women and girls. I could see my mom thinking "I did NOT raise you to be a grown-up JonBenet Ramsey!" Everyone has their role that they play from childhood, the familiar identity that you slip into despite yourself, and mine was not "the pretty one." That label was reserved for my younger sister, despite the fact that people would mistake us for identical twins when we were out and about. I was, wait for it, the "smart one." I am convinced that my sister got the "pretty one" label because she definitely wasn't the "smart one," so what else could she be? (N.B.- she was also the "crazy one"- crazy in a standup comedian kind of way- and the "creative one") Plus, her eyelashes are longer than mine. So what was the non-pretty one doing, thinking she should enter a beauty pageant? My parents raised me to be studious, to go to good schools, to make something of myself, not to walk across a stage in a swimsuit and high heels. Also, didn't I know that beauty pageants were trashy?

All my life, I have done things that people didn't expect me to do. I am not talking about coming behind to win a competition that no one thought I could, I am talking about taking up activities and pursuing goals that seem incongruous with who people think I am. Not like dealing drugs, but things like going to business school when everyone thought I would go to a liberal arts college and become a lawyer. Sorority rush (but not actually joining one; we all have our limits). A surefire way to get me to not want to do something is to tell me that I need to do it, or worse, that I have to do it. Telling me I can't do something doesn't really have that contrarian effect that spurs the instinct to fight and triumph, but I find that if I am going against the advice of everyone, usually, I am on the right track. (I should have paid attention to this when I decided to get a Ph.D, which everyone except my husband and therapist thought was a terrific idea.)

So competing in the Miss America system was the perfect thing for me to do. I didn't know ANYONE who competed in pageants. Not a SOUL. The germ of the idea was planted when I read about the local competition in my college newspaper. I am sure that they were trying to bring in smart girls from an untapped pool, and it sort of worked. I didn't do anything about it, but started paying attention to Miss America a little more. This was right before Kate Shindle won Miss America, and to me, she is still the ultimate modern Miss America. When Kate Shindle won, I thought, "hey, I could win Miss America too!" Kate was a student at Northwestern at the time, which was another prestigious college, her platform was AIDS prevention, which was pretty avant-guarde for the traditionally-conservative Miss America situation. She supported needle exchange AND she wore a two-piece swimsuit in the first year that they were allowed. All the other conservative girls were saying that they didn't want to wear one, it was too risque, but Kate not only wore a two-piece, she wore a boy-cut two-piece. Kate seems only marginally involved in Miss America now, but she remains my favorite all-time Miss America because she showed me what was possible.

So I entered the local pageant in my hometown. If there is anything I am good at, it is figuring out how to play the game (whatever the game is), and I threw myself into pageant prep. I didn't have the money to spend on real prep, but I borrowed pageant videos from the director- local, state, national, interview tapes, and I watched them over and over and over again. I picked out the rookie mistakes, learned what not to do. I went out, bought a two-piece swimsuit that didn't look TOO bad, neutral colored Nine West high heeled strappy sandals (that I still wear!) and a plain evening dress which I dressed up with a band of rhinestones around the empire waistline. I made a "question map" with every question I could think of from my info sheet (which, in my experience, is where 80% of my questions came from, in some way, shape, or form). I started hitting the gym. I practiced walking around my parents' formal living room, and was delighted when my sister told me that my back looked "hot" from all my weight-lifting at the gym (hopefully that meant people wouldn't notice my ass as much). I took advantage of the free session with the Beauti Control consultant that was available to all the contestants (this was actually very helpful). I brushed up on the one piano piece that I knew that I thought was sufficiently flashy to do okay in talent.

Despite all this prep work, I still had a ways to go. My evening gown shoes ended up being too big when I was wearing pantyhose, and I clomped around on stage. I still needed to lose weight. I didn't know how to walk on stage, or to stand properly (there is a "pageant stance" similar to how you see starlets pose on the red carpet). Still, I did well in interview, and held my own in talent against girls who couldn't sing, and baton twirlers who dropped batons right and left. I ended up with fourth runner up. The winner of that local pageant was Allison Alderson, who had won Miss Tennessee Teen USA and had placed in the top 6 there (if not top 3), and had a sister who was the reigning Miss DC USA (and had placed in the top 10 at Miss Tennessee numerous times). Allison went on to win Miss Tennessee AND Miss Tennessee USA, and is now married to one of the guys from Rascall Flatts. I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but in my first pageant, doing an awful lot of things wrong, I ended up getting fourth runner up. Very encouraging!

I decided that if I really wanted to go to Miss America, I needed to take this seriously. I started paying for walking lessons, which are much harder than you think. I naturally walk a little pigeon-toed, and I had to learn to walk with my feet pointing straight, one in front of the other. Suck in your stomach. Tuck in your butt. Stand up as straight as possible. Hold your hands just in the right way, so they look nice rather than awkward. My walking teacher also told me to get a new bathing suit. I got a one-piece this time that has a sheer panel over the stomach. I bought clear heels, which I could wear with swimsuit AND evening gown. I rented a blue spangled evening gown from a place about an hour and a half away.

At my next pageant five months later, I was feeling good. Then I flubbed my talent. One of my problems with talent is that I hate playing the piano in front of other people. Hate it. Ever since I screwed up at a recital in the sixth grade, I have had performance anxiety. Well, I did it again. Had to totally start over. I didn't place. Everyone was shocked- they thought I had it in the bag. Well, these things happen, and I had another pageant the next week. I won. It was great. Some girls compete in dozens of pageants and never even place, or keep placing but never win one. Maybe their talent is bad. Maybe their talent is bad plus their interview is bad. Maybe their interview is good, but their talent is bad and they need to drop a bunch of weight. In the Miss America system, if you have bad talent and bad interview, you will never win. If you have one of the two (and as long as your talent is mediocre and not truly awful, but this isn't that hard to do), you can win a local, although you may have to be lucky enough to enter a local that isn't that competitive.

The thing about winning a pageant, even if it wasn't for your beauty per se, is that you then have been officially certified as "beautiful." After all, you won a pageant, right? I went back to college in the fall, and instantly found that people treated me differently. This wasn't all bad. My close friends were more or less the same, but the guys.... oh, the guys. You have to understand that my guy friends were not the kind of guys who ever imagined that they would be on speaking terms with a beauty queen. And oh my gosh, I was their FRIEND. They loved it. They ate it up. I was mostly amused by the fact that all of a sudden, these guys thought I was attractive. Not necessarily in a "we want to date you" kind of way (well, not for all of them- it did get me some attention from guys who hadn't previously paid any attention to me), but in a "Hell yeah! You are hot! And you talk to us!" kind of way. The girls (the ones who weren't close friends) were more scornful about it, in a "What an unfeminist thing to do, enter a beauty pageant! You must be dumber and more superficial than we thought!" kind of way.

But the thing about Miss America, and the reason it will have my lifetime allegiance, is that it was the first place, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the first place where I felt appreciated for being both intelligent and attractive, but I was not forced to choose between one or the other, and in fact, was a stronger and more formidable competitor because I was both. I did not even have this in my own family, which felt the need to promote harmony by dividing up the labels between my sister and me. What is more feminist than saying that women can do it all? Isn't this the argument that feminists have been trying to make for years?

Miss America is the true renaissance woman. She is expected to be attractive (you don't have to be the prettiest to win- not by a long shot- but let's face it. As Suzanne Sugarbaker once said, "It's not a beauty pageant, but it ain't an ugly pageant either."), to be intelligent and well-informed, to have some kind of proficiency in the performing arts, to care about her community and the world around her. To me, this is the most modern thing of all, not to hold women to impossible standards but to say "Yes, we can do all this. Don't put us in a box."

lusting after yarn

2007-09-23T19:11:00.002-04:00

I am on the lookout for new yarn. Usually I only get yarn when I have something specific to make, but I haven't bought any in a while, and I'm kind of itching to get some. I went to a nearby LYS, and it is okay, but not awesome. Lots and lots of Cascade of all types. I had heard that this LYS carried Koigu, but no dice. Alas.

I keep checking out KnitPicks, but since I don't have any projects that I need to buy yarn to make, I can't really justify it. Also, damn, some of those KnitPicks colors are really unappealing. I have heard that Kelley (the owner) does all the colors, and she is a.... Summer? according to the Color Me Beautiful guide, so the colors are all those that appeal to Summers- greens, rusts, olives.... icky icky icky for me. Some lines are better than others, but if a line only has limited colors, there will most likely be only one or two that are appealing to me. There is usually a decent red, but other than that, not so good. Other than the colors, I love KnitPicks, though.

I live not too far from Webs now, so I am hoping to make a trip out there sometime. I don't know when- I have a decent enough stash, and it sounds like it's not worth it to make the trip out there unless you are serious about buying, so I might just stick to ordering online (although I've never ordered online from them).

New FO - baby booties

2007-08-14T13:27:00.000-04:00

Finally, a new finished object! It's another pair of the baby booties from Knitting For Baby. I love this pattern. It's really easy, and you can get two pairs out of a skein of Koigu. It is so easy that it is worth doing, even if you're not sure your effort will be appreciated. I've been burned before; can you tell? However, I have also had friends who were so grateful for what I made them that I would happily knit for their children any time.

I used the new Cherry Tree Hill dyed Louet Gems yarn for this (I can't remember the colorway), and I have to say.... I like using the Koigu better. The yarn is thinner, so the booties are floppier (I stuffed them with kleenex to get them to stand up for the pictures). I think I would knit on size 2s instead of size 3s like the pattern calls for. I knit the booties in size 3s, but did the i-cord in size 2. Also, the colors are pretty, but I really just like the Koigu colorways better for baby gear. I think the Louet Gems would be great for actual socks, though.

I have enough yarn to do another pair of booties, though, so the next time someone has a little girl, they're going to be getting a pair of booties. These are for a work colleague of my husband's- his wife just had a baby a few weeks ago. I am going to use them to decorate the wrapped package of books we're giving them.

Postsecret

2007-08-14T09:24:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite, must-check sites is Post Secret. In case you've been living under a rock, people create postcards with their secret written on it, send them to Frank (the Postsecret administrator), and he posts 20 of them every week. This week, instead of new secrets, Frank has posted a Postsecret movie.

I find this site very moving. The pain that some people are living with is just incredible, but many of them are living with love as well. Of course, some of them are just funny.

So to everyone who has ever shared a secret with Frank, thanks. We all have our secrets. Mine aren't especially salacious, but reading the secrets of others makes me feel less alone in the world.

Anniversary

2007-08-02T15:51:00.000-04:00

Today is the sixth anniversary of the death of my friend and his girlfriend. How can it have been so long? I didn't even realize it today until I saw the date.

For the first few years, maybe through the fourth anniversary, even, I was painfully aware of the anniversary coming up, and it brought everything back and made the grief seem fresh again. For the last couple of years, though, I was aware of the anniversary coming up, and sad about it, but the wound didn't reopen, and the actual day of, I didn't even realize it until late in the day.

My friend had just graduated from college with a degree in architecture a few months before he died. He worked for a local firm, and one of the last projects he worked on was featured in the AIA magazine, Architectural Record. It was a church called St. Peter's By The Sea in Gulfport, MS. I was going to link to their website, but discovered that the church was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. When I saw the pictures, I started sobbing, because the church looks exactly how I feel- still standing, but with the bottom knocked out completely. It makes me so sad to know that my friend's last project, that gave him professional recognition (he would have been so thrilled to see his name in Architectural Record), has been destroyed.

Here is the whole collection of pictures of the Katrina damage of St. Peter's By The Sea. They are rebuilding; the same firm is designing the new church; it is going to look very similar, but it won't be the church that my friend worked on.

To my friend, please know that I miss you, and I wish you were still here. Every day, I wish you were here.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - spoiler alert

2007-07-21T19:45:00.000-04:00

So, like most of the English-speaking world, I was inside today reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Wow.

Before I go any further, I want to warn anyone who hasn't read the book yet to really, truly, stay away from spoilers. I really think that with this book, more than the others, not knowing what is going to happen makes the book that much more powerful on the initial read. I am going to try not to talk specific plot points, but even so, if you haven't read it but plan to, skip this post.

Although Harry has had to deal with death in all the previous books (even if it is just the specter of his missing parents hanging over him at all times), the theme of this book is coming to terms with death and loss. Harry has to make his peace with death- not just the prospect of his own death, but with the deaths of the many, many people he has lost. His parents. Sirius. Dumbledore. Many people cried at Dumbledore's death at the end of Half-Blood Prince, but I didn't. I did weep like a little girl at this one. I should have known that I was in for it when I choked up at the quotation at the very beginning of the book, before the story even starts. This book was so clearly written by someone who has experienced grief (J.K. Rowling has said that the deaths of her parents were what inspired her to make Harry an orphan); certain passages of it just spoke to me.

The other recurring theme in this book is that everyone good has a dark side, things that they have done that they aren't proud of, and even the "bad" characters may have some redeeming motivation or good qualities, no matter how well-hidden.

It was a terrific book. It went very quickly (although I am a fast reader anyway). I want to re-read it already.

Missing You

2007-06-22T13:33:00.001-04:00

Last night I was really missing my friend who died. It will be SIX years in August.

When the accident happened, I really believed, for at least a second, that God had it in for me, because he took the person most dear to me in the whole world.

I knew intellectually that the world doesn't work like this, but really. It was tough.

I wish he was here. There have been times in the last few years when I have felt so alone in the world, in part because he is not here any more.

I still talk to him sometimes, when I need extra help. I consider him to be one of my angels who watches over me. He and my grandmother. I asked them both for help this week, to watch over me because I have been going through a tough time.

I still have not been to his grave. Part of this is because I never seem to get time, part of it is because I know it's just his body there, so so what?, and part of it is that I know I will break down in uncontrollable sobbing crying. I wish he was here so much. There are things I want to tell him that I know he would understand, and he would know how to make me feel better. We always felt better after talking to each other.

The first year was the toughest. I was like a crazy person. I thought I was totally sane, but I was making these insane rash decisions. One of those was good (getting engaged to DH), but the graduate school/quit job/move across the country was bad. Really bad. Worst. Decision. Ever. Less bad but still not good was the decision to move apartments. My therapist at the time, who had been through her own friend loss, was the only one to speak up against the graduate school decision as well as the inter-city move, but I didn't listen. Why didn't I listen? (because I wasn't thinking straight)

The second year was bad too, but that was because I had inflicted so much change upon myself. I quit my job, moved across the country, started a Ph.D. program. Incredible stress, and I didn't react well to it.

The third year I started feeling more like myself. I remember going to see the movie The Hours and being delighted that I enjoyed watching a depressing movie again. That was one of my favorite things to do, and something we would do together- go see a depressing art or foreign film together. I loved it.

So I am more or less, back to myself, existing in a new normal. But I still miss my old normal desperately at times.

knitting frantically

2007-05-07T21:29:00.000-04:00

I am working hard to finish the I Do shrug from Knitty before I leave for a family wedding in Europe on Thursday. Ordinarily, I would say, "hey, a multihour plane ride, I can just finish it them," but apparently knitting needles are not allowed on European flights, and I do NOT want to risk it. Too bad that they're not allowed; I could really get some good sock knitting done!

I am praying that I do not run out of yarn; if I do, I will have to rip back and make the sleeves a little shorter. That would be okay, except for the time thing. Eek. I will definitely have to knit on the plane then, at least on the way over, which I hear you can usually swing.

I am actually going to get elite status with United this year because I have done so much travelling. Totally ridiculous. I am not a business traveler, nor have I gone on a real vacation. It's all seeing family, my husband's job market, plus moving across the country. Wow.

Work, work, work

2007-05-04T17:37:00.000-04:00

I have been pretty busy lately, so haven't had time to update the blog. I am trying to finish up my interim papers so I can take my oral exams. UGH. I was hoping that I would be able to take them by the time we moved in early July, but that is not going to happen. I think I had a good shot at it, but then I didn't do any work for a month b/c we were so wrapped up in trying to decide where we wanted to go next year.

I am leaving this Thursday to go to Europe for almost a week, and won't have time to do any work then (I could take my laptop, but would also have to take the converter, etc. which is a huge huge pain). We are just so, so busy with things that are NOT school. My plan is now to take my orals by the end of the summer. I will probably have a big chunk of time then when I won't be able to work b/c of moving and getting settled, but really, I have to get going.

I mentioned several months ago that I've been using a dissertation coach, and I cannot say enough good things about it. I am using an online coaching message board, so it is affordable ($50/month) and it really helps me focus and work at least a little bit each day.

I am currently writing my third paper. I am chugging through. It is tough, but I know I can do it.

All Over But The Shoutin'

2007-03-21T16:59:00.000-04:00

So we have made a decision. All that is left is to tell the recruiting chair of our chosen university. For the last 2 weeks, we have been "swithering" (this is a real word- my FIL used it to describe us, and then I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary) back and forth between the elite, prestigious department at a university in a dumpy, somewhat-isolated college town and the small but good department at a university in a big, exciting city. We actually had 3 other options, but in the end it came down to these two. The decision ended up coming down to my job. Elite, prestigious university couldn't come up with anything for me to do. This is a serious issue because there isn't that much going on in town except for the university, so to have a real, decently-paying job, I was facing a 45 minute to 1 hour commute one way every day, at the minimum. I am not willing to do this, especially when we have other options where I wouldn't have to do that.

So we have chosen the big city! Very exciting. I am a city girl at heart. I love the shopping, culture, vibrancy, and public transportation. Really. I love public transportation. Also, my SIL lives there, and it's within a day's drive of my husband's parents, and there are direct flights back to my hometown. Yay!

Decisions, decisions

2007-03-15T02:20:00.000-04:00

DH and I are now in the final stages of making our decision. Wow, is it ever hard. We think we have it narrowed down to two choices, maybe. We go back and forth depending on what time of day it is.

It is incredibly stressful, and we should be thankful that he has 5 good offers, but instead feel really bratty because our decision is hard, and we're spending a lot of time trying to figure out where to go. Our two main contenders are a department that is top notch and high prestige but in a college town that won't be so great for my career, but has great housing costs. The other department is also very good, but risky (and somewhat lower prestige), is in a big city with lots of options for me, but expensive housing costs (somewhat subsidized by the university). Bad public schools in both places; excellent private schools that aren't so hard to get into in the college town. College town is 1+ hours away from major airports, the closest of which doesn't have a direct flight to my hometown. My sister-in-law lives in the big city, and we have another friend who will be moving there next year as well.

We don't know. We just don't know.

Coming out of the closet.... literally

2007-02-24T17:28:00.000-05:00

There is an article in today's New York Times about the chapter of Delta Zeta sorority at DePauw University. The article details how, in an attempt to turn the negative image of the chapter around, the national sorority kicked out almost 2/3 of the members, which included every overweight girl and every minority. The representatives from national headquarters interviewed each member about her level of "commitment." The girls were encouraged to "look their best" for these interviews.

After the interviews, the national representatives chose a few of the existing girls, along with several beautiful, thin girls from the nearby Indiana U. chapter, to conduct a rush event. The rest of the girls had to stay upstairs. One of the girls, Kate Holloway, (whom the national folks seemed to ask to stay, although she withdrew on principle) decided that this was rubbish, and she wasn't going to take it. The article states:

“They had these unassuming freshman girls downstairs with these plastic women from Indiana University, and 25 of my sisters hiding upstairs,” she said. “It was so fake, so completely dehumanized. I said, ‘This calls for a little joke.’ ”

Ms. Holloway put on a wig and some John Lennon rose-colored glasses, burst through the front door during the recruitment event, and skipped around singing “Ooooh! Delta Zeta!” and other chants.

The face of one of the national representatives, she recalled, “was like I’d run over her puppy with my car.”

I love it. LOVE IT. It reminds me of a story concerning my sister, but all the parties in the DZ story are more brazen.

When my sister started college, I pushed really hard for her to rush and join a sorority. Although I had heard tons of horror stories about sororities, they didn't seem so bad at the Northeastern Ivy League school that I attended. I rushed (but didn't join one), and the girls in most of them seemed nice, I had a few friends in sororities, and these friends were nice, sensible girls. It was common knowledge that during the pledge period, pledges' GPAs usually went UP because there were so many mandated study hall hours (I realize now that the Greek system is also usually a good source of old tests and exams, which can help you study as well! I think this was less of a factor at my university than at others, since we had so many group projects and essay tests). Since my sister was going to the local commuter state school, I thought that a sorority would be good for her- it would encourage academic achievement (something she sorely needed), give her structure, and help her make nice friends.

My sister is a very pretty girl. Very pretty. Thin, beautiful, everything a sorority would want. Her high school GPA, however, left a lot to be desired. She made the minimum GPA required to rush, but most sororities screen on GPA somewhat. Their standing with the administration is based, at least in part, on the academic records of the members, so they want to bring in girls who have high GPAs in the first place. All the "popular" sororities cut her right away, which we expected.

She ended up joining the least popular sorority, the sorority with the worst reputation. By "worst reputation," I mean not that they were the superficial bitches who did coke (I actually got to the second round with this type of sorority at my school. I really liked them, but wondered what the fact that I did so well with them said about me? I dropped out of rush. I couldn't handle the label of being a member), but the unattractive, overweight, unpopular girls who had to practically beg to get girls to accept bids. My sister decided that she liked them anyway.

My sister's pledge year ended up being a turning point for her sorority. Apparently my sister wasn't the only pretty, gregarious, skinny, well-dressed girl from a good school that they accepted, and that pledge class started turning the tide for them. However, whenever one sorority starts clawing their way up the ranks, they inevitably push another one out of the way, plus images are hard to change. It is always rough going. My sister recalled stories of going through slideshows of the rushees' pictures when trying to decide who to invite back for the next round. Inevitably, someone would say, "We CANNOT let in any more fat girls! The ones we have are about to graduate!"

The sorority started doing "better"- they started winning inter-sorority contests like who had the best homecoming float, who won the "Miss Greek Week" title, etc. They were able to pair with more prestigious fraternities than before for mixers, homecoming parties, and other contests. As their status improved, the leaders also became bigger sticklers for rule obedience. My sister had been complaining about her sorority activities for a while. They sucked up so much time, they were not sympathetic to the fact that she was working, they weren't fun any more, etc. I encouraged her to stick with it, just to get alumna status at the end of it (you can go alumna after a certain amount of time, even if you haven't graduated yet). I thought then she could use their alumni networks and be involved in social activities. Who doesn't want another social outlet?

The turning point came at a rush party. In most sororities, the girls have rules about what they can and cannot wear to official functions (monthly business meetings, recruitment events, etc.) My sister and another girl made the mistake of wearing open-toed shoes, which was not allowed. The leaders insisted that my sister and this other girl hide in the closet during the rush event, because G-d forbid that rushees see their toes; it might scare them off, or they might think that the sorority wasn't sufficiently ladylike. Who wants to be part of a group that goes flashing their toe cleavage all over town? Imagine the damage to your reputation.

The other girl was in the closet crying, and my sister just told her, "We are not staying in this closet. They cannot make us stay in this closet." The other girl was freaking out, and my sister said, "Come on. We're going out." My sister knew that this was the middle of the rush party. What were they going to do? Yell "YOU GIRLS BETTER GET BACK IN THE CLOSET RIGHT NOW!" That would be a good way to convince people to join! My sister went out, mingled with the rushees like nothing was wrong, left that party, and never went back.

The Final Offer

2007-02-22T20:32:00.000-05:00

The final job offer came through this week. This makes five total. So, here's the lowdown:

21 first round interviews
12 flyouts
5 offers

Of the 12 flyouts, he cancelled the final 2, which leaves 10. Of those 10, 1 told him that he was their first choice, but they knew that one of his other offers would win out (no contest), so they made an offer to another candidate. That leaves 9. 2 of those 9 made decided not to make any offers, one because of financial reasons, and one b/c they couldn't reach consensus. That leaves 7. Of those 7, 2 were flat out "no, we gave the offer to someone else who was in a different area."

5 out of 10 is a really great rate. Really, 5 out of 9, excluding the school that got its funding taken away. I don't think anyone else from his university has done as well. The other guy in his department who has four offers doesn't have quite as good of a spread, and he only got offers from places that hadn't seen DH. Anywhere that had to pick between him and DH at the flyout level picked DH. So there.

This 5th offer is from a department at a university that he has already gotten an offer from (another department), so it doesn't add a new geographic possibility. Good thing, too. It is getting too confusing!

A Not-As-Depressing Book on Working and Motherhood

2007-02-19T19:46:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading a fascinating book called Kidding Ourselves by Rhona Mahony. I am surprised that I hadn't heard of this book until recently, given the relatively large number of depressing feminist tomes on working and motherhood that sit on my bookshelves. As it turns out, many of these books (which include Flux and The Price of Motherhood, to name a couple) actually cite Kidding Ourselves, which made it doubly surprising that I hadn't heard of it before, although I think I have figured out why. It is a fairly academic book that might not appeal to the masses in the way that the anecdotal Flux or the "written by Wall Street Journal Economic Reporter" Price of Motherhood might. It also deals with a topic that I don't think many women want to face- the prospect of househusbands. Mahony argues that until men do as much childwork and housework as women do (which will end up decreasing the total amount that women do), women will have a hard time getting ahead professionally. Much of her book details how women can negotiate with their husbands to have them take on more of the household tasks, not just in approach, but also how to strengthen your own position.

Unfortunately, much of the strengthening goes on long before you have children. Mahony argues that one of the best ways to improve your outcome in a negotiation is to improve your BATNA. BATNA stands for "best alternative to a negotiated agreement." How do BATNAs work? Say you want to buy a new car. You go to the dealership, and try to negotiate the price on a car. Your BATNA is what happens if you and the dealership can't agree on a price, and you end up walking away. If you don't have a car, your BATNA might be "don't take that job across town, but find a job closer to home, and I can ride the bus." That is a pretty bad BATNA. Being able to take that job across town might be worth a lot to you- more than the blue book value of the car. When you have a bad BATNA, you are more likely to do worse in a negotiation, because your reservation price (the most you are willing to pay) is going to be pretty high.

But if you can convince your parents to lend you their car for a while to get you to and from work, your BATNA then becomes "borrow Mom and Dad's car." This is a pretty good BATNA. It doesn't cost you anything. Maybe it's a 1992 Buick, and maybe they will only lend it to you for a couple of weeks, but it means that your reservation price goes down. You can still take that job across town, and you don't have to pay anything extra in the immediate future. You are willing to walk away at a lower price.

This is a really simplistic example, but you get the idea.

So women need to improve their BATNAs. Part of this BATNA is your employability, your ability to earn money. In other words, how dependent are you on your husband? More dependent = worse BATNA. Less dependent = better BATNA. Your education and qualifications largely determine your employability, your ability to earn the big bucks. Mahony isn't saying that women should leave their husbands if they don't help out, but your ability to exist on your own factors into how you and your husband approach this negotiation. She also suggests that having a better BATNA can prevent physical abuse. I am not so convinced on this point- I think it probably helps women get out faster, as I know at least one well-educated career woman who stayed in an abusive relationship for a little too long, but as for preventing it... I am not so sure. Anyway....

What earns the big bucks? In short, math and science. The more math and science that you take, the more options that are open to you. My husband and I found this out when hearing about my dad's experience getting his plumber's license at the age of 59. My dad is a smart guy (and a licensed contractor for 25 years), and has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. He lacked confidence about his abilities to pass the test (supposedly it's hard) and get his plumber's license. He signed up for a prep class at the local community college halfway through the term. It turns out that he was outperforming the other guys in the class by leaps and bounds. Why? Because he knew geometry. He passed the test the first time. (go Dad!!!) My DH and I said that high schools should put up posters everywhere that says "If you don't take this math class, these careers will be cut off for you!" Who knew that if you didn't know geometry, you would have a hard time becoming a plumber???

So girls need to take more math and science in high school. Taking 4 years of math and at least 3 years of science in high school keeps potentially lucrative college majors open to you. This is the second part of increasing your BATNA- majoring in something that will help you get good-paying, gainful employment. Mahony is sympathetic to the liberal arts perspective (I get the feeling that this is her ideal, but she knows she lives in the real world), but one of the nicest things about this book, as compared to most of the other books on this topic that I have read, is that it is not just for upper-middle class women. This book is intended for women of all walks of life. It's not a pretty fact of life, but if you are scraping to put yourself through college, your time might be better spent majoring in economics, chemistry, or engineering, rather than something like English or philosophy. The first group of majors positions you for more lucrative employment than the second group. And more money = better BATNA.

Okay, check! I took 4 years of math in high school, 4 years of science, and majored in something eminently practical (and am pursuing a graduate degree that might be a waste of time in one sense, but will also make me more employable, at least in theory). Phew! At least that's one thing I didn't screw up.

To make that money, women also need to put themselves in positions where they keep making it, and not gear themselves for the flexible, part-time work that many women consider when picking a career (okay, I am at least a little guilty in this respect- most women I know are, even the well-educated ones).

Another part of the equation that is very, very important is picking the right person, a person who is willing to chip in and do his fair share, has a certain mindset about equality, etc. Mahony argues that women should be willing to marry down- marry men who make less, have flexible careers, men who will be in a position not to say no when you tell them that they need to do housework and help with the kids.

Here is where we part ways. I think that marrying down and having the flexible career matters less than marrying someone who is willing to help and is sympathetic to the values of equality. Mahony admits that she herself married laterally (she married a college professor), and she writes, which is a relatively flexible career, yet she has managed to work out a 50-50 agreement with her husband.

Everyone that I know who has married down has paid for it. Yeah, if your husband is in a law firm or a McKinsey consultant, he's not going to be doing the childcare, but I've seen too many guys in flexible, low-paying careers who don't pull their weight either. And then they get their egos all in a twist and pissed b/c the woman is the breadwinner. Guess what? Some of these guys are in these flexible, low-paying careers because they are lazy. A lazy guy is not going to do the work around the house no matter what. If I'm going to have to do all the housework on my own, I at least want to marry someone who brings in enough money to hire it out. I think the solution is to go for a happy medium- marry someone who is smart and ambitious but working in a maybe not-as-high-powered job as he could be (for instance, college professor instead of investment banker), but liberal-minded enough to not be squeamish about doing house and child work and nice enough to want to make his wife's life easier.

My parents are a good example of this. My mom stayed home until I was about 12. Since my dad was a licensed contractor who worked for himself starting when I was about 5, he had a relatively flexible schedule. Although I swear to you I can hardly remember my dad doing ANY housework (my mom is a perfectionist, so she just did it all), my perception is that he was quite involved with the day-to-day things that you have to do to raise kids. He insisted on helping bathe us as babies, would tell us bedtime stories, take us on outings so my mom could get a break (I remember one time, he took us fishing at a local pond, and I ended up catching a HUGE snapping turtle. Talk about freaky.), help us with science fair projects, etc. Probably my mom did do a lot more of the day-to-day nitty gritty, like making sure we ate, were dressed properly, did our hair, and did most of the laundry, but I really do remember my dad being very involved.

There is another twist to this story. My mom was agoraphobic, and didn't get treatment until I was about 12 (just before she started working part-time). This meant that my dad took care of lots of errands. He took us to school every morning (he was great, because he would drive fast and cut through parking lots on the corners, so we would get there quickly!), did a lot of the outside errands, and also he and I would go grocery shopping every Sunday morning. My mom would make the list, give us the coupons, and he and I would go. We would park our car in the middle of Kroger, split the list up, and divide and conquer. We were a very efficient team.

All of this happened, despite the fact that my mom had a pretty bad BATNA. She does have a college degree, but it was in French education, not something she really wanted to do. She was agoraphobic, and had stayed home for bunches of years. If she had asked my dad to do more (like make dinner once a week, etc.) he would have. The reasons why she didn't are mostly related to her own perfectionism (Mahony talks about this too- if you want your husbands to help you, you've got to lower your standards.).

So what did I take away from this reading? Most of all, marry a nice guy who wants to make you happy, and recognizes that this doesn't necessarily come in the form of jewelry (although I love bling, don't get me wrong), but often comes in the way of taking away the daily drudgery of dishes, cooking, and laundry.

Latest job market update

2007-02-19T01:38:00.000-05:00

Wow. The job market has gone really well for us. I say "us" because I view my husband's success as my own success. He has four offers, one from a top 5 department, and 3 from well-respected departments in other areas of the universities. We expect another offer from a top 10 department this week.

We will be taking a tour of the top 3 schools and their respective geographic areas, two of which we both are pretty unfamiliar with. There are so many things to think about. Do we go with the swanky, old-money town? Or the ghetto-but-regentrifying town? Or the big city, with tons of people of my ethnicity and career opportunities (both academic and industry) galore? Where can we buy a house? How much house can we afford? What about schools?

In reality, the geographic concerns are relatively unimportant. All of the top 3 are located in places that I think would be acceptable. Now, if we visit a place, and I hate it, that would mean something. But right now, the most important thing is the academic environment that is most conducive to my husband's success. His advisor even took us both out to lunch, ostensibly to "strategize," but in reality, we just ended up talking about my family, his wife and kids, and all his former roommates/grade school friends who are in positions such as Chairman of the Fed, dean of the nation's best law school, top professors in similar fields, etc. He has his own opinion about where my husband would be happiest, and we take this opinion very seriously. I think he and my husband are a lot alike, so his recommendation holds weight with me.

His advisor is now on my good side, after getting off to a rocky start. The first time I met him, he insulted me. It was the summer after our first year, and my husband had rocked his exams. I mean, completely blew everyone away. His exams were at the beginning of the summer, and mine were at the end. He mentioned this to his advisor upon introducing us, and his advisor replied, "Well, there's no way she can do better than you!" He was trying to compliment my husband, but instead, insulted me. He apologized to my husband later that day, but I was the one who was insulted! Wasn't I the one who should have received the apology? Harumph.

He completely redeemed himself this summer, though, after my car broke down 90 miles from home, four days before our anniversary, when driving to my husband's university, where he was (approximately 400 miles away). I couldn't just leave the car (I did rent a car and drive back home), the repair shop had a hard time finding the part (it was a part that was still under warranty and shouldn't have broken). Our second anniversary was just days away, and it wasn't immediately clear that I would be able to make it there. We didn't really have the money for a plane ticket, and we were stressing out that we wouldn't be together on our anniversary. We weren't together on our first anniversary (he had a really important conference, I had my sister's wedding), and we were really angry that we might be apart again!!

My husband happened to have a meeting with his advisor that day, and when his advisor asked "How are you?" my husband launched into the whole story, leaving out the plane ticket money part. His response was, "That is terrible! You definitely need to be together on your anniversary! There is no excuse for that! How much is a plane ticket?" My husband replied $120, and his advisor just pulled out his wallet, and pulled out 6 $20 bills, handed them to my husband, and said, "Happy anniversary!" Since that day, his advisor is now on my good side. He is also really good to my husband, and is a terrific advisor, so that helps him too!

People keep asking me, "Where do YOU want to go?" Truthfully, if I were single, and just looking to move to a new place, I would pick the big city. Obviously. One of the strange things about marriage, though, is that my interests become almost indistinguishable from his interests. Almost. Not entirely, but if he does poorly, I end up suffering as well. We will have to move (rather than deciding to move, and moving to a similar or better university with a pay increase), he will be more unhappy and less pleasant at home, and he will have to work harder to accomplish the same amount. We will ultimately go wherever we think he will be most successful.

In the meantime, we are imagining that things like grocery stores and housing prices matter. Ooh, which place has a Wegman's? Which place has Trader Joe's? What about Whole Foods? Where do we live? How far is the commute? It's fun to pretend that these things will actually impact our decision. In reality, we feel very fortunate that we have any choice at all. It is not the normal outcome.

Go Colts!

2007-02-05T02:33:00.000-05:00

I was delighted to watch Peyton Manning win his first Super Bowl today. I have 2-3 degrees of separation between the two of us (2 is possible, 3 is definite), not to mention the fact that we used the same cake lady for our wedding cakes, so I have been rooting for him since he was nominated for the Heisman Trophy (and lost... BOOOOO!). From all accounts, he is a decent, solid guy.

He has been ragged on a lot b/c he hasn't been able to get to the Super Bowl, but boy, did he do it this time. What a champ. And Phi Beta Kappa to boot.

Job market update

2007-01-11T01:56:00.000-05:00

My husband is kicking ass on the job market. It is a huge relief. He has 11 (count 'em! 11!) flyouts, 10 of which are for really good schools. The 11th is also to a good school, but a troubled department within that good school that doesn't seem like it would be the best fit. He wasn't sure whether or not to take it.... even though he has 10 other great flyouts, he didn't feel like he is in the position of turning down flyouts, which I guess means that he would take an offer from them over going into industry, which I had thought wasn't the case.

I went with him to his big conference, to provide moral and practical support while he did 21 interviews in 2.5 days. Wow, did he ever need it.

What we did not expect:

1) He would sweat through his shirts by lunch time. We had planned to have an extra shirt for each day in case he spilled something on himself, but hadn't planned on undershirts. I had to go to Marshalls to buy more. I also had to take shirts to the cleaners, because some of the "extra" shirts weren't that nice.

2) the fashionable but still nice looking blue striped tie was TOO fashionable. Go conservative. One of his interviewers, whom he had interacted with previously, saw him after lunch in the new shirt (white) and different tie (red with traditional looking stripes) and said, "Oh! I'm glad you changed your tie." It didn't really matter that much, but it freaked us out.

3) He would throw up at least one meal a day, out of sheer nervousness. Huge drag and very demoralizing. We should have expected this, and kind of did, but we didn't expect how annoying this really was. Also not great for energy levels. However, apple juice and fruit seemed to be relatively successful when it came to keeping food down and energy up, at least temporarily.

4) How bad we would sleep. Not hugely surprising, but I really thought we'd sleep better than we did.

5) How stressful and exhausting it would be for ME, the spouse. I was doing a lot of running around and errands, etc., plus his performance affects the rest of our lives. Talk about stress for both of us.

6) How fast the flyouts would come. He had 3 by Saturday night, and he hadn't even finished his interviews yet. We were expecting Monday at the earliest.

He is getting them all done by the first week of February. Maybe we will have an offer by Valentine's day!

New Finds

2006-12-11T18:38:00.000-05:00

I heard about this guy on NPR yesterday morning, and I'm hooked. Doesn't hurt that he used to be a Yale Whiffenpoof. I admit to falling prey to those Ivy League a capella guys once or twice in my time... although in general, I have had bad luck with Yalies. Well, one Yalie in particular. (ugh!) I think this guy isn't that good looking, though, although his music is hilariously captivating.

Jonathan Coulton

I highly recommend the songs "Code Monkey" and "Chiron Beta Prime," as well as his addictive cover of "Baby Got Back." You can get a lot of his songs free through his podcast on iTunes, but you can also stream everything free.

Speaking of falling prey, I saw the new James Bond movie Casino Royale. I am not crazy about action movies, although I will occasionally see one that looks okay just to be sweet to DH. When I first saw the pictures of Daniel Craig, I thought, "Ugh, HIM???? Bond? He is not attractive at all. And look at those ears!"

Then I saw the movie. Holy smokes. He is the hottest thing on screen that I think I have ever seen. I am usually indifferent to the attractiveness of male movie stars; sure, George Clooney is really good looking, and I was partial to Robert Sean Leonard in his Much Ado About Nothing days, but I have never seen anything like the raw sex appeal of Daniel Craig in this movie. I have seen him in a lot of other movies, but never noticed him (I did walk out of Road to Perdition, which I saw at a really bad time in my life, so I was preoccupied with other things) in particular. Oh my goodness. I would buy this movie on DVD JUST to watch him over and over again. Yes, he is that good looking.

Running

2006-12-11T18:36:00.000-05:00

In other news, DH and I ran an other 5K over Thanksgiving weekend. He won his age group (!!!!), and I shaved FOUR AND A HALF MINUTES off my time from early October, even this course was incredibly hilly, and I ran alone without even company from my iPod. We were pleased with our successful endeavor. DH now wants to get his 5K under 20 minutes. He was at 21:08 this time. I was at 33:08.

Busy

2006-12-11T18:25:00.000-05:00

Hey folks (if anyone still reads this anymore....)!

I haven't been updating lately because I have been busy with school. I have a big deadline in a few months; I basically have to pass to candidacy by then, and they sprung the new deadline on us a couple of months ago. Yark. I think I can do it, but by no means is it a sure thing, so I have been doing a lot of work lately. I got one paper off to my committee, and I'm working on the data analysis for my second.

My husband is also on the job market, so we have been really involved with that. It is going okay- we wish it were going better, though- he has a high number of interviews, but only a couple at top-notch departments. His committee has been assuring him all along that he will do well, etc., (by well, they mean "place at a top 30 department"), but the students that his advisor had kind of dismissed are getting few interviews, but the ones they are getting are the top places. So this is sort of nerve-wracking.

We are not worried that he will not get a job; he will, but we (well, really me.) are concerned that he will be at a crappy school or in a crappy location, or worse, both. The crappy location is not so bad if he is at a good place, because he can go on the market again in a few years, but the crappy school is worse, and crappy school/crappy location is a really bad combination. If he is at a crappy school/crappy location, we will probably have to go on the market again in a few years, and then again a few years after that to try to claw up a little bit. I have had to explain to my parents that, no, you can't really move up. The exceptional people can move up a little bit (my advisor had a student who moved from a second-tier no-name research university to an excellent state school after a couple of years. He had a major publication come out after getting his first job, and I think that helped him move up. People that I know who have moved up have gone on the market again practically immediately- maybe they waited two years.

He just has to get an academic job that is better than working in industry. He is not very inclined to work in industry. He would do just fine in industry, but is more suited for academia. If he wanted to go into industry, he would have done it already and skipped the academic path totally.

Why does my heart feel so bad?

2006-11-01T21:01:00.000-05:00

So after my advisor had the "come to Jesus" talk with me two weeks ago, she asked for a new draft of my paper with the expectation that it would be beefed up and filled out. She also suggested that I "talk to someone" to figure out why I am having trouble working.

So I did just that- I made an appointment with a dissertation coach, who was very helpful just in the fact that it's someone that I feel understands how I feel about the whole process, understands that I don't like it, yet isn't telling me to quit and is supportive of the idea that I just want to FINISH the darn program and GET OUT.

She suggested that I do this two-week teleclass for overcoming procrastination. Procrastination is a big problem of mine. I don't do work because I don't want to work.

So for the last 2 weeks, I have been doing a great job of working every day, and I've gotten myself up to 2-3 40 minute blocks of writing/working every day. This might not sound like a lot, but considering that many days I do nothing.... it makes a big difference. I have written 10 and a half pages in the last 2 weeks. That is a BIG deal.

And yet... I am still going to miss my deadline (today). How depressing. Instead of feeling good about working consistently and making decent progress, I feel upset and angry that I am missing this deadline. I think I can have it to her on Monday. I just need to not let this depression and upset-ness prevent me from working. All I want to do is crawl under a rock and hide.

Hysterical

2006-10-18T01:19:00.000-04:00

I found a great website today- Ivy Gate, a blog that discusses all things Ivy League. Hysterical. Being an alumni of said league, I find it especially hilarious. It hasn't been around that long- maybe since July? Anyway, I am definitely adding it to my links.

Errata

2006-10-11T22:58:00.000-04:00

I have been knitting very diligently on the Child's Placket-Neck Sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I get to the neck placket, follow directions, knit for 8 more rows, and realize that the placket is crazily off-center. I KNOW I counted right, because it didn't seem on center the first time, so I counted twice.

I check for errata, and of course, there it is. Instead of ending 18 st before the marker indicating the start of a new round, I am supposed to end 24 st. Duh! (insert eyeroll here). I had to rip back eight rows, and now knit them again. Grrrr.

Running and Reading

2006-10-08T00:36:00.000-04:00

I completed one of my New Year's Resolutions- I ran a 5K! The whole way! This was rather unexpected, as DH and I decided to run the 5K with two of our friends, knowing that I wasn't prepared enough and that I would probably walk part of the way. Hey, I know I would be able to finish, though, so why not? I told DH that we could always run another one in a couple of months, when I would feel more confident about being able to run all five kilometers.

As it turns out, I was able to do just that. Color me surprised.

I also mentioned a while ago that I wanted to start reading fun books more frequently. I mentioned Prep, and that is what I am reading now. It is pretty interesting. I am waiting to see what brings about Lee's downfall. You know it's coming.

Baby Knitting Update, Part Whatever

2006-10-06T01:12:00.000-04:00

I just started the first sleeve of the Placket-Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I've done two of the increases- the bar increases (kf&b) look pretty crappy in KnitPicks Shine- maybe it would look better if I did an m1 instead? I think I will try that on the next round, and if it does, I'll rip back (ugh ugh ugh) and redo. It can't look any worse, that is for sure. One of the nice things about knitting is that it encourages experimentation and just jumping in and trying new skills. If you suck at it, or it looks horrible, you can always frog and redo. My DH cursed me this last time when I was working on the baby booties. After I completed the first one, he commented that that was the first time he had seen me NOT frog the early part of a project. Of course, I started the next bootie, and had to frog b/c it looked bad, and all it was was 30 rows of garter stitch. Lame. I told him he cursed me.

I even frogged back the early part of a prayer shawl I started knitting for a friend of mine. I feel called to knit this person a prayer shawl, even though I could think of about 5 other people I know who might "deserve" one more, in the sense that knitting is a lot of work, and I have some mixed feelings about this friend and some of the actions that she has taken in the last couple of years. She is having a tough time, and has been having a tough time for the last several years. Some of the difficulties are due to her own actions, and some are out of her control. I just keep praying for strength, wisdom, clarity, and compassion for her, and maybe it will rub off on me too.

I am knitting the prayer shawl using the pattern from Shawl Ministry, which is put together by the same women who wrote Knitting Into the Mystery: A Guide to the Shawl-Knitting Ministry. I did throw in a few rows of popcorn/trinity stitch, but decided it required too much attention for something that should be meditative. I am knitting the shawl using Patons SWS. I was hoping it would be a softer, but it IS 70% wool, and most people on the KnittyBoard think it's plenty soft, so maybe it will be fine for her.

Sometimes when I knit, I pray while I'm knitting, and sometimes I listen to mp3 sermons from the former minister of the church that I attend, or read religious stuff online. The ideal (for me) is that I pray with every stitch, but I am cutting myself some slack on it. I am not letting myself knit on it while watching TV, though. I had to draw the line somewhere, and besides, I have other projects I can work on during TV time.

There is a new book out from Interweave called Knitting for Peace. I flipped through it in the bookstore, and it seems really nice. Not in the sense of amazing patterns, etc., but really telling you how you can knit to change the world, to make a concrete difference in people's lives.

Knitting for Baby

2006-09-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

Not my baby. My DH's cousin is having a baby. I knit a baby blanket for him/her (the parents aren't finding out whether it's a girl or a boy in advance), and my MIL convinced me to knit these booties. Super cute. The blanket is the Big Bad Baby Blanket from Stitch N Bitch by Debbie Stoller, and the booties are from Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and someone else. The blanket is in double-stranded KnitPicks Shine Sport, and the booties are in Koigu. I think I can squeeze another pair of modified booties out of the rest of the skein of Koigu. Not bad for a $12 skein.

The kleenex box is for scale. The double stranded Shine shrank up a good bit. I was expecting some shrinkage, but it did shrink up a lot. That's okay- it's a good size for a blanket, I think.

I have a bunch of baby knitting on the horizon- my friend is having a baby in November, and I'm knitting the little kid sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, plus maybe another pair of booties if I can manage it with the rest of the Koigu. Another friend is having her third baby in April- I knit Baby#2 a Big Bad Baby Blanket, so I don't want to knit the exact same blanket again- I will probably modify the inside bit to be more of a basket weave. I am going to measure the gauge of the washed/shrunk blanket to see what it is, and try to make it more square. I will wait until they know what the baby's gender is before picking the color. I am tired of yellow and red!

R&R

2006-09-22T15:18:00.000-04:00

My DH got a revise & resubmit from his field's top journal this week. We are VERY excited. This means that he is pretty much set for first-round university interviews. Yay!

Counting my blessings!

2006-09-14T20:48:00.000-04:00

I found a wedding picture of an ex-boyfriend of mine from high school. I looked at it, and thanked my lucky stars that it wasn't me in that picture! For more reasons than one. Dude, he's not even cute.

Memories of 9/11

2006-09-12T00:23:00.000-04:00

Five years ago, I was working in DC, at a government agency, just down the road from the Pentagon. I had driven to work that day instead of taking the metro, because I was going to go look at an apartment, since I was planning on moving at the end of the month.

We didn't have internet in my office, but I had on NPR, and they announced that a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York. My initial thought was that it was some drunk pilot in a Cessna. Then, not that long afterwards, they announced that a second plane hit the other tower. We still didn't know what was going on. A second plane was suspicious. Some people will say that they knew right away when they heard that a second plane hit that it was terrorism. I didn't know that at all. We were confused; we didn't know how serious it was. Then, the guy down the hall came out and said that his daughter had called him and said that a plane hit the Pentagon. We had no idea what to believe- at that point, it wasn't on NPR yet, and there were so many rumors and so much speculation. I thought about leaving work, just b/c it seemed like a good excuse, not because I thought I wasn't safe.

Then my mom called me at work, crying, because she had heard that the Pentagon had been hit, and begging me to go home. I distinctly remember saying "Will it make you feel better if I go home?" and she said yes, while sobbing. I told her that if it would make her feel better, I would go home.

I tried to call DH (who was just a boyfriend at the time), but he hadn't gotten to work downtown yet. At that point, we started realizing how serious it was, so I started getting scared. I couldn't get hold of DH, so I decided to just leave without getting hold of him. I was scared, because I was in a government building, and we had no idea what would happen next.

I refused to take the highway home; we seriously had no idea what would happen next. DH called me on my cell when I was in the car, so I drove to the closest metro station and waited for him until he got there.

Sept. 11, 2001 was about five weeks after my best friend died, and I was still really raw emotionally. My DH remembered reactions that I had to the attacks that I don't remember at all, that sound really crazy now, but were a result of just not thinking straight. The two events are always pretty closely associated in my mind, and it seemed unimaginable that my best friend wasn't around to see the world changed so much for the worse. In a way, I was glad that he didn't have to see it.

Sick again.

2006-08-28T16:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I got sick again. This time after my cross-country flight back home. It was rough, with the no-liquid ban. On my flight out, the attendants were great about going through plenty of times with water (3 times on a four hour flight), since we could bring none on ourselves. On my flight home, though, there was no beverage service at all on my first 45 minute flight (due to turbulance), but I chugged a 16 oz bottle of water during my layover (I did this in the airport before my first flight as well).

On my second flight, the 4+ hour one, the flight attendants went through once with the beverage cart, I got my 8 oz bottle of Dasani water, and then several hours later, went through again. NO WATER. They were completely out. I had assumed this was an airline issue, not a flight attendant issue, but I was wrong. I overheard the flight attendant saying that she forgot to check their supply of bottled water, and assumed that catering had left enough. WRONG. It was terrible.

I ended up coming down with a cold two days afterwards, I am sure it is from the plane- a combination of dirtiness plus the incredibly dry air plus dehydration. Nice, and oh-so-fun. I am finally on the mend, mostly, though.

My friend says I have "grad student syndrome." Meaning that I am so stressed out that my immune system is depressed and I keep catching these low-grade bugs. I totally agree.

Books

2006-07-18T18:28:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that grad students generally don't have much time to read, I say "Screw that!" and read for fun anyway.

In the last year or so, it seems like I've been reading A LOT of non-fiction, and I am kind of sick of it. I am slowly slogging my way through Collapse by Jared Diamond, which is good, but way too detailed, depressing, and pretty dry. (How can it be good, then? The information in it is really thought provoking.)

I am now in the market for some good fiction. I like to read relatively smart, yet accessible fiction (what some people call "middlebrow."). Possession, by A.S. Byatt is a great example of this. I tend to like books that have won the Booker Prize (now called the Man Booker Prize). Possession won, and so have The Remains of the Day and Life of Pi, both of which I enjoyed tremendously. I also read fun chick lit, when I am looking for something lighter. My all-time favorite in this category is the duet of Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, but other good ones are Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner, Diary of a Mad Bride by Laura Her-Name-Eludes-Me, and most recently, The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (no, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I want to because Meryl Streep is really good).

So far, on my list, I have Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, On Beauty by Zadie Smith (it's a retelling of Howards End by E.M. Forster, another book that I enjoyed), and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I am looking for more. Any suggestions?

Finally got my password back!

2006-07-17T18:25:00.000-04:00

I lost my Blogger password, and only got a new one a few days ago. So I'm back!

I'm trying to get back in a work groove lately. Working 20 hours a week on school sounds totally doable in theory, but in practice, it is hard for me.

It's been really hot where we live, and our AC is pretty crappy. No fun. This has made it even harder for me, because I will go somewhere else to do my work, only to find that I've left my power cord at home, or my data set is in my email account and I'm in a place where I don't have internet access, or I don't have a copy of the survey I gave to students, etc. So after at least three of these episodes, I have my act together, and I've done the tiniest bit of work, which is mostly cleaning up my data set and running a couple of little things. Hey, it's a start.

I had to have a short "Come to Jesus" talk with DH. I am going to try to go without anti-depressants. To do this, though, I told him that it would be a significantly more expensive proposition, because it means things like weekly therapy sessions, and a dissertation coach to get my ass into gear. These are not cheap propositions, especially compared to the $30 a month that anti-depressants would cost. I needed to make sure he was on board with all this money, because things are tight right now.

I currently have a prescription for a new brand of anti-depressant that I filled, but haven't taken yet. We will see how the drug-free, expensive route goes.

Big Decision

2006-06-22T12:55:00.000-04:00

I realized I haven't posted about this yet on my blog, but I made a big decision.

I'm not going into academia.

At least, not the research side. I would consider going to a teaching school. I just don't like the research process. I'm great at coming up with ideas, terrible with the followthrough, and I hate all the details you have to take care of to produce good research. I think my talents are better used elsewhere.

After the whole "certain professors don't want to work with you" fiasco, I did some thinking, and I realized that I didn't want to go into academia. Not just didn't want to go, but really felt that if I went into academia, I would be ignoring my own best counsel, much like I did when I decided to go into a Ph.D. program to begin with. I have always done best when I have listened to my inner voice and ignored what everyone else around me was saying (because usually my inner voice contradicts all the other advice that I get). I basically decided that just like I have resisted pressure to follow a more traditional path in the past (not that my life is so non-conformist, but I did take paths that my teachers, parents, etc. didn't always expect me to take), I need to do the same now. There is incredible pressure to go into research, but I have to stay strong and resist. My advisor and committee are not the people who are going to live my life, and I need to do what makes me happy.

I had decided this before my big retreat, and I had made a commitment to myself that I would talk to the professors at the retreat. They are both lecturers, but one (FormerAdvisor) was tenure track for six years, and decided not to go up for tenure because she didn't like research. The other lecturer is someone with 35 years of professional experience. After he retired, he went back for his Ph.D. I thought FormerAdvisor would be helpful in giving me the moral support that I knew I wouldn't get anywhere else (except for DH), and I thought that the other one would be able to help me see the professional benefits of a doctoral degree, which is something I am having a hard time seeing right now.

Turns out FormerAdvisor left academia for pretty much the same reasons that I don't want to go into it. We have pretty similar personalities, so this just confirmed my confidence in my decision. The other professor wasn't as helpful in terms of encouragement (I don't think I made my question clear enough), but he said that we should talk again, and he has lots of professional connections with whom he can connect me.

More later.

Highs and Lows

2006-06-13T01:44:00.000-04:00

I am currently assisting with this retreat-type, introspective, intensive exec ed type class. One of the exercises that the participants have to do is to create a timeline of significant events- both highs and lows. Then, you have to write a few notes on why each was a high or low point in your life, and see if there is a theme. So, here goes.

Highs

Get into prestigious college

triumphant
relief
pride
way out
moving to new phase
exceeded expectations of others
freedom

Get accepted into [student organization in undergrad]

relief
fun
belonging

Full-time job offer

relief
excitement
optimistic
exceeding my expectations
freedom/financial independence

Graduate from college

relief
excitement
looking forward to new phase of life
finally over

Living in (former city)

First city where I truly felt at home (belonging)
freedom/autonomy
likeminded people
self-discovery

Get married

happy
relief (that I wouldn't have to worry about getting married/having kids/etc.)
self-assured

Lows

Rejected from numerous orgs at college (and I mean numerous)

not belonging, feeling out of place
struggling
working hard, not acheiving desired results
alone
not appreciated for who I am

Depression

What's wrong w/me?
not fitting in
atypical experience than what everyone else has
tired of struggling and working hard to make it work
lonely
failure

Best friend died

total devestation
not thinking straight/made bad decisions that introduced chaos into my life
still feeling negative effects today
lonely
fundamentally changed who I am

Living in [current state]

feeling out of place
feeling isolated
angry at myself
homesick for old city

Struggling in grad school

feel stupid, talents unappreciated
not acheiving desired results
forcing myself to be something I'm not
feel like an outsider
at the mercy of others
keep everything bottled up
exhausting, stressful
poor

Do you see a pattern? I sure do. The common themes for the highs seem to be:

relief (getting out of a bad situation or avoiding a bad situation)
freedom/autonomy over own destiny
belonging

Common themes for the lows:

feeling alone
working w/o results (struggling, failure)
struggling
lack of control

So what do I want?? It seems obvious to me. I want:

Freedom/autonomy/control
Belonging
Feeling successful, living up to potential

It was an interesting exercise. I think I learned something about myself.

House, M.D.

2006-06-10T13:34:00.000-04:00

I have been a Hugh Laurie fan for ages now, since he and Stephen Fry were in Jeeves and Wooster on Masterpiece Theatre back in middle school.

I didn't just stumble on Jeeves and Wooster, though. Well, I didn't stumble on the TV show. I did stumble on the books back when I was in middle school. I was looking through the fiction section at the library, and picked up one or two of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves & Wooster novels. I read them, thought they were funny.

Sometime later, I found them on Masterpiece Theatre, and since I liked the books, I watched the TV adaptation. After that, I started following the careers of both Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

For a long time, there wasn't much to follow. I bought the VHS tape of sketches from their show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. I read Stephen Fry's first three novels. I watched Stephen Fry in the movie I.Q.. Noticed that Hugh Laurie was in movies like Stuart Little and 101 Dalmations. Watched them both in some of the Blackadder series. Watched Peter's Friends. Saw Hugh in Sense and Sensibility (with his college friend, Emma Thompson).

And now, Hugh Laurie is this huge drama star in House, M.D.! Crazy. For someone who has been SO well known for comedy to make this big switch to drama... it's really funny. And the show is this big hit now. I feel like the world has discovered my little secret- Hugh Laurie is really good!

(side note: he was also a rower back in college. A really good one. I have a thing for rowers. And he has blue eyes. Something else I have a thing for. And he's tall and thin. And British. Yet again... )

Happy Birthday, Itchy!

2006-06-10T13:25:00.000-04:00

Today is my baby sister's birthday. BabySister turns 26 today. She's spending all day taking PRAXIS exams for her teaching certification- great way to spend a birthday, huh?

My sister and I are only 20 months apart. I used to dote on her when we were really little; then she grew up and started borrowing my clothes and slacking off of housework and we didn't get along so well. Typical sibling fighting, etc. But now, we get along great.

Over the years, I have come up with a few nonsense/random pet names for her. One of those is "Itchy." For no particular reason. She's not a particularly itchy/scratchy person. One time, we were in one of those Asian imports stores, looking at all the sterling silver rings that they sold. I was trying to get her attention. I did the logical thing- calling her name. "[Name]!" No response. "[Name]!" No response. "[Name]!" No response. "Itchy!" She turns around and says, "What?" The Chinese lady behind the counter just cracked up. "Itchy! ha ha ha ha ha ha! Itchy!"

So, happy birthday, Itchy! Hope you pass your tests!

Self-sabotage, again

2006-06-01T00:39:00.000-04:00

Today was rough. I found out from my advisor that there are a couple of professors who don't want me to be their TAs b/c I've missed deadlines/had problems with followthrough.

There is at least one professor who has a legitimate beef based on a bad experience with me, when I flaked out on something I was supposed to do for research work. I don't have a defense for it- I just spaced out. I felt so bad about it, and was really, really angry at myself. Really angry. REALLY angry. It was a low point, for sure.

I have wracked my brain, and I can't think of anything else. My advisor thinks that it may be another professor who is pretty flaky and scatterbrained himself, and also very difficult to work with. If this is the case, it's not really a problem. I can't think of anything concrete that I would have done to anger this professor, but he tends to make lots of last minute demands, and you have to rush around doing the very best you can to appease him. So it's possible that I missed something among the many, many things, but if I did, it was very minor. And I really don't think I did, by the way!

Ugh- so bad for morale. I hate academia.

Get behind me, Satan!

2006-05-27T21:18:00.000-04:00

This week, I was doing SO well with working. I wasn't doing as much as I would like, but I was working every day, very consistently. I was so optimistic that I emailed my advisor on Tuesday morning to tell her that I would have her a draft in a couple of days.

Tuesday night, I had an allergic reaction to something (Wellbutrin? Funny vegetable at the Singaporean restaurant?) and broke out in a really bad case of hives. Really bad. So bad that I was also running a fever. It is now Saturday, and I still have the hives (although my condition has improved), and still have a fever. I even went to the doctor on Thursday, and she gave me a stronger antihistamine, b/c Benadryl wasn't cutting it. Not helping at all.

So I've pretty much been sleeping all the time, or watching TV, or playing Spider solitaire. I try to work on my paper, but I literally cannot concentrate.

How pissed am I? I think the universe is out to throw up roadblocks in my way of being a productive human being. Well, in the words of the White Stripes, get behind me, Satan!

I am presenting this paper on Thursday- eek! I am pretty nervous about this. I am usually not nervous about presenting, but I am envisioning all these questions that I won't be able to answer, and I'm afraid I will look stupid. Gah. Really, my department is pretty friendly and not antagonistic, so they probably won't be too mean to me, but still. No one likes to look dumb.

Back to The Simpsons

2006-05-16T18:33:00.000-04:00

My favorite show, The West Wing, concluded its seven-year run on Sunday night. The show hasn't been the same since maybe the middle of Season 4, but I just couldn't abandon it. It picked up this season, although I couldn't ever get on board with the campaign episodes, and was incredibly bored whenever C.J. (Allison Janney) wasn't featured in an episode.

I thought I would be more upset that the show was ending, but the final episode just showed me that I probably would have faded out if it had continued another season. I don't care that much about Josh and Donna (in fact, they should have never gotten together- Josh treated Donna so badly while they were working together; she could have found someone who didn't patronize her like he did), and did not find the candidates compelling, except for Alan Alda in The Last Hurrah. While many viewers hated this episode, and maybe I only liked it because I watched it a week after it aired, right before watching my tape of Institutional Memory, I thought watching Vinick moping around not knowing what to do with himself was fascinating and sad, especially in contrast with the hustle and bustle of the Santos transition. Alan Alda is really good. Never let it be said that The West Wing suffered from crappy acting.

I felt that watching the Bartlet administration wrap up (both literally and figuratively) was a fitting ending to seven years of the smartest show on TV, even in its dumbest years. (although in its dumbest years, "smart" did not necessarily equal "entertaining.")

And now, I look forward to the next projects of the cast, especially Allison Janney, and I am more than a little excited about Aaron Sorkin's new project Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which will have not only Bradley Whitford and Timothy Busfield from WW, but also Nate Corddry from The Daily Show! Sports Night and The West Wing were so good and so smart that I think lightning will strike a third time (never mind that Sorkin's movies are also really good. The man can write.). There's some concern that it's been overhyped, but I doubt it. I have high hopes.

And failing that, there are always my The West Wing DVD sets.

The Best Friend You'll Ever Have

2006-05-08T17:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, my husband and I met up with our college advisor b/c he came out to our area for an alumni party. He asked if we could meet up with him earlier, so we'd have plenty of time to talk before the hectic cocktail party in the evening.

I choke up just thinking about everything that man did for not just me, but for all his students. He founded the honors program at my school, and I remember when I was a freshman, the alumnus who hosted the party last night was a senior, and he told all of us freshman, "Doc (this is what all his students call him) is the best friend you will ever have" and that was so true. He was our strongest advocate, the one who would bend the rules for you- he would do administrative overrides for DH to take seven classes in a semester, some of which met at the same time, so he could complete his dual degree program in four years instead of five, he printed out my transcript for me, which I needed for one of my on-campus interviews, when my account was on hold b/c of my financial aid status (so I didn't have access to my transcript), he encouraged his students, who were the best and the brightest of the best and the brightest, to follow their own path, and not to worry what anyone else thought they "should" do.

College was not the happiest time for me. I loved my academic program, but socially, it was really tough for me. (incidentally, I found out yesterday that his own son, who is currently a junior at my alma mater, was having very similar issues) I was burnt out and depressed, and needed to take a semester off. I fought with my mom the whole semester about it (I had asked to take the semester off in the summer before my junior year, and even though my dad was on board, my mom said "Absolutely not!", so I decided to suck it up, and went back for the fall. It was absolutely terrible.). It was something I needed to do, and she wasn't budging b/c she was afraid I wouldn't go back. I went to talk to my advisor about it towards the end of the semester, to see what my options were, and I just remember being so unhappy. I can't remember if I cried in his office- I don't think so, but I definitely was miserable and it showed. He said, "Do you want me to talk to your mother?" In that moment, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, and I knew everything was going to be okay.

My advisor grew up in Iowa- he was an Iowa farm boy, and he has a special fondness for those kids from small towns, from the midwest, from families where going to prestigious schools was not the norm. He got his undergrad degree from Northwestern, and his Ph.D. from Harvard, and has been at an extremely prestigious school with many former students who are in the highest positions you can imagine, but when we met him at the Ritz-Carlton last night, he commented that the Ritz-Carlton was a nicer hotel than he was used to, and it made me realize that he is still, somewhere inside, after all that education and exposure, an Iowa farm boy at heart. I think that this attitude combining pursuing what you want to do with not forgetting where you came from, is what makes him special.

benign

2006-04-20T14:24:00.000-04:00

Biopsy was benign, by the way. No surprise, but good to hear. I have to go back in 6 months for another exam and ultrasound. Hey, as long as it's not a mammogram, I don't care!

Final secret pal package

2006-04-20T13:57:00.000-04:00

My secret pal, lspst8, sent me a super awesome final package! Lots of great yarn- 3 skeins of beautiful mercerized cotton in a gorgeous purple, 2 skeins of Shine from Knitpicks in Cherry (Shine is one of my favorite yarns- I love it!), AND some super awesome Blue Sky Alpaca/Silk yarn, which I will probably use to make Branching Out.

Also, a bar of jasmine soap, some cool funky buttons, and.... a KNITTING NEEDLE CASE! (fabric rollup thing? "Case" isn't necessarily the best descriptive term.). Did you make it yourself, lspst8?? It is PERFECT for me- I love, love, love tea (the pattern is all teapots and cute tea sayings), and I love the bright colors. It is perfect!

I was thrilled to get it- she was such a great secret pal! Thank you so much for all your work putting together great packages for me! You are so thoughtful.

Squish.

2006-04-11T19:54:00.000-04:00

I had my mammogram and biopsy today. Wow. The mammogram was the MOST PAINFUL medical procedure I have ever had. I started crying because I was in so much pain. It was horrible. I can see why women skip it. It's a truly hideous experience. I also believe that if men had to take a diagnostic test that required sticking their private parts between two plates and squooshing them as flat as possible, someone, somewhere, would have invented a special chamber just for this purpose, no squishing required.

Compared to the mammogram, the biopsy was a walk in the park, although I bruised really, really badly, and now my left breast is one big bruise. DH is so sad about that- he feels really badly for me and my poor left breast.

Results in three business days? I'm not worried about it, but I hope I don't have to repeat this experience any time soon.

Resolution update

2006-04-04T20:09:00.000-04:00

Sooooo.... The year is 1/4 over, and let's check in on how I'm doing on my resolutions.

1. Flylady
2. Run a 5K by June
3. Get my act together with regards to school
4. Spend less money on groceries

Flylady: Not bad, considering. I wash the dishes every night before going to bed, and will occasionally do 15 minute tidying sprees. I've also made the bed often enough that even DH will sometimes do it. We are also much better at meal planning, which is part of Flylady. I don't have a good morning/evening routine yet (except for dishes), but kind of feel like it's more under control right now. I still have a long way to go.

Running: Speaking of a long way to go... I am at least being consistent. I have worked up to doing 5 run/walk intervals of 4:30 run/2:45 walking. I'm running at a relatively consistent 10 minute/mile pace, which is darn fast for me. I may mix up some of my workouts to try for distance rather than time, and slow down my pace to an 11 minute/mile to see how far I can go. I would like to run a whole 5K. I could probably complete one doing a run/walk combination (not at the intervals that I'm doing now, though- I probably cover about 2.5 miles total in my workout), but I really want to run the whole way. In a similar, but not resolution-related, vein, I have really been watching my calories using Self Diet Club (free to subscribers, but sadly, not free to everyone else- I think you can only get it if you subscribe), and have lost 5 lbs in about 3.5 weeks. Pretty good!

Getting my act together regarding school: Wow! I am doing pretty decently on this front- I finally set a deadline with my advisor to get a draft of one of my papers to her, and it worked! It's a crappy, crappy draft, but hey, that's what editing is for! I'm supposed to get her another draft by tomorrow (ulp). I am great about working to deadline, and pretty bad about working when I don't have one. So I am going to keep setting them with my advisor, who totally kicks ass. Love her. Also, I found out that the symposium I put together for our national conference (sneakily including my paper, heh heh heh) has a GREAT time and location. I was afraid that we'd either be early in the morning, or worse, on the last day. Most people leave the morning of the last day of the conference. We're first day, afternoon, though. I also took the plunge and signed up to present my paper at our student colloquium series. It's all about deadlines, baby.

Spending less on groceries: I haven't been following this super closely, but it does look like we're spending less. Yay! This is b/c we're meal planning, and shopping less. This automatically reduces our bill. I tried following the grocery sales, but it just didn't seem to help too much, b/c we're so picky about what kind of meat we eat. We've been buying our meat from our local halal market, which is reasonably priced (maybe a little more than sale priced meat), and hormone/antibiotic free, which is so nice. The meat there just tastes really good. We've decided that paying a little more for higher quality meat is worth it. We've also barely eaten out in the last three months. We still occasionally get takeout Vietnamese, etc., but not so much. DH also, as part of the money saving plan, has implemented an "Eat What We Have" policy. This is what it sounds like. Eating leftovers, even if we're not excited about them. Digging through the fridge periodically to ensure that we don't forget about something tasty (or even just decent) before it goes moldy. It's a good policy.

So, all in all, I'm doing okay. I'm procrastinating on my schoolwork like crazy, but slowly chugging along.

Best. Advice. Ever.

2006-03-22T02:12:00.000-05:00

If you're an academic, that is.

Academic AWOL

Oy.

2006-03-21T19:58:00.000-05:00

I found out today that I have to have a needle biopsy of a tiny lump in one of my breasts. I am not excited about this news. About four months ago, when I was feeling myself up in the shower (the easiest place for me to give myself self-breast exams), I noticed this tiny lump. I figure, hey, I'm young (late 20s), this is almost certainly nothing, but it hasn't always been there. So, when I had my well-woman appointment a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned it to my doctor. You can barely feel the lump- it's hard for me to feel unless I have lotion, or gel, or something to make the skin slippery. She feels it, says she doesn't think it's anything serious, but will refer me for a breast ultrasound.

This brings us to today. I fully expected the doctor to look at the ultrasound pictures and say, "oh, this is just a cyst/dense breast tisue/etc. It's nothing; go home." Instead, she comes in, feels for the lump, and when she finally feels it, I can tell from her face that I'm not getting that response today.

So, I'm scheduled for a mammogram and a biopsy in a few weeks. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit scared.

Grad school has been really bad for my health. Since I've been here, I've gone on antidepressants twice, had physical therapy for knee pain, developed allergy-like symptoms (although I don't seem to actually have allergies- I had allergy tests and everything!), had whooping cough, shoulder pain, a pre-cancerous mole removed, and now I need to have a breast biopsy. I never used to have these kinds of health problems. This is ridiculous.

super lazy

2006-03-15T20:14:00.000-05:00

I have been super lazy about updating. So sorry! I have to take and post pics from another secret pal package. I will try to do this soon. Teaching has taken up so much of my time!

Valentine's Day!

2006-02-14T19:01:00.000-05:00

So my sweetie DH got me a whole slew of stuff for v-day! I got him a Coldplay CD (X&Y) and a leather valet tray for his pocket contents at the end of the day. Not that exciting,, but I was low on inspiration this year.

He gave me the DVD of Sense and Sensibility, a movie that I LOVE, plus Weekend Knitting (squeee!!), a pound of Mackinac Island fudge (yum yum!), and a bunch of stuff from GapBody. Unfortunately, none of it looked good on me! Let's just say that the "low rise teeny bikinis" are also made for teeny behinds. I'm not a big girl by any stretch of the imagination, but these must be intended for 12 year olds with no hips. So we have to return all of it. He felt bad that his present made me feel fat. I told him that sometimes even if stuff is the right size, that doesn't mean it will look good on me. Alas. I love GapBody, though, so I'm happy to get something else from there, and everything else is terrific.

He's making a big fancy dinner tonight- I gave him an out of the restaurant craziness that happens on Valentine's day. I'm teaching tonight anyway, so I'd be getting home kind of lateish for us to go out.

I promise I will post Knitting Olympic pictures soon. I have done so much tinking on this project (tinking= unknitting, stitch by stitch) it is ridiculous. I keep screwing up. And it's not a hard pattern, either.

Insomnia

2006-02-11T09:03:00.000-05:00

I got 3 hours of sleep last night. Why? Because I started taking Lexapro yesterday. I took it way too late in the day (around 4:30), and it kept me up all night. This happened when I started taking Celexa a few years ago. I'll start taking it in the morning, and the situation should resolve itself.

I finally decided to go back on antidepressants because I can't change anything that is bothering me about my life until either DH or I leaves grad school. I am not ready to quit (although I am always wishing that I had never started).

We will see how the meds go. Celexa worked great, except for gaining 10 lbs and losing my libido. Lexapro is just another form of Celexa, so I am wary of these side effects again, and will not hesitate to ask the psychiatrist to put me on something else if either of these side effects show up.

Started my project for the Knitting Olympics last night. I frogged it this morning, and I'm starting over, though. I'm doing the Midwest Moonlight scarf from Scarf Style in KnitPicks Elegance. I think the pattern as stated is too wide, given this yarn. So I'm making it narrower.

Thank you, Knittyboard Secret Pal!!!

2006-02-03T20:44:00.000-05:00

I got my first package from my Knittyboard Secret Pal today!!! Squeeee!!!! Check it out!

Man, is she ever fast! The round technically started on Wednesday, although we got our matches on Sunday.

My sweet SP sent me a huge load of goodies- lots of great, soft (non-itchy!) yarn, the Summer 2005 issue of Interweave (yay!), a beautiful desk set, peppermint lotion, and a thread cutter pendant! Love that retro girl tin and matching notecard, too!

Thank you so much, Knittyboard Secret Pal!! I am thrilled!

Busy Busy Busy

2006-02-02T16:06:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated in a few days, mostly b/c I've been so busy! Teaching an undergrad class sucks up more time than I ever imagined. More later. I don't even have time to read for fun! Or do much knitting!

Secret Pal!

2006-01-29T21:11:00.000-05:00

I got my Knittyboard Secret Pal today! I am really excited- we have a bunch of preferences in common. Our "dream occupations" are remarkably similar, even. I'm going to try hard to spoil her with things that she will like.

DH got home last night. I ended up being pretty excited about it, which was good. I knew I was excited when I found myself making a blackberry crumble, because I knew he would like it. :) It's good to have him home.

Five Days of Solitude

2006-01-28T02:42:00.000-05:00

I had the apartment to myself this week. DH went to his university on Sunday, so he could see all the job talks this week, meet with professors, etc. I admit, it's been nice to get a little "alone time" this week. I've always liked having alone time, and it is really hard when DH and I are both working in the same office at home all day, every day. If we're not together, it's because I'm out doing something like teaching class or going to knitting. It's been especially nice to get the break from cooking! He should be coming back today.

So I've tried to do things that are difficult for me to do when he's here, but are fun for me. I went to see Brokeback Mountain (GREAT movie, btw). I didn't cook AT ALL. Didn't worry about tidiness (got to make up for that today, though!).

Two more for the blogroll

2006-01-23T12:19:00.000-05:00

I'm adding two new blogs to my links on the right- the first one is PsycGirl, and the second is The PhD Explosion. Let me just say that I feel their pain.

Hey, Kool-Aid!

2006-01-21T22:25:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I am going to make my first foray into dying yarn with kool-aid. I spent $15 on Kool-aid at the store today- got WAY too much. WAY too much. I figure I can always send the extras to an international person from the knittyboard as a random act of kindness. I'm testing it out on some peach superwash merino DK weight yarn that I have left over from a scarf I made my mom a few years ago. I went to a couple of different craft stores looking for Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (to tide me over until I make a knitpicks order), but the Joann's and Michael's that are closest to me didn't have them. So I went to my LYS, but they were CLOSED today! The nerve! I was going to get some natural colored NatureSpun.

When I got home, I remembered that I had an orphan skein. Peach isn't really my color, and I only have one skein, so I didn't really know what I was going to do with it anyway. I think overdying is fine for my initial foray into kool-aid dying. I'm going to do a bunch of different reds/maroons with a touch of grape, and maybe, MAYBE a smidge of blue. maybe. The peach is pretty light, so I think it won't interfere with the colors too much.

One of my good friends got engaged a few days ago! Best wishes to her, and congrats to her fiance! I know she's excited about it. They're trying to figure out where to have their wedding. It could be anywhere! (seriously.)

Progress on Resolutions

2006-01-18T14:09:00.000-05:00

So in a recent post, I listed four goals I have for myself this year.

1. Flylady
2. Run a 5K by June
3. Get my act together with regards to school
4. Spend less money on groceries

So how am I doing?

Flylady: I just can't bring myself to subscribe to the emails! However, I am working through the babysteps to make a control journal. So far, I have a morning routine and an evening routine, which I am, more or less, sticking to. I think the morning routine may be a little extensive for me, but I think they're all things I need to do, so I don't know what to cut out. Evening routine is easy, although I am resistant, for some reason, to laying out my clothing in advance. So far, so good. Next step is to try to get some kind of afternoon/evening routine that involves doing Kelly's Missions and doing the 15 minutes of tidying/decluttering.

5K: Not going so well, because my knees have been killing me. I think I overdid it on the elliptical. I'm not due for new shoes yet, and have been running on incredibly soft surfaces (indoor track, athletic fields). I think it's been almost a week since I've done any running? I've run twice in the last week and a half. Not great, but I will just try to be nicer to myself in the future so I'm not laid up for so long!

School: Oy. Not so much. This is a huge source of anxiety. I was hoping that teaching this semester would help me with prioritizing, but that hasn't happened yet. I think I need to do what my advisor says and "ignore the cracks in the ceiling." This may mean ditching more of Flylady. We'll see. I also need to work more efficiently with regards to prepping for my class.

Groceries: No clue, although we have been doing decent meal planning. We spent a lot of money last week on eating out b/c of the flooding and general turmoil associated with pretty heavy duty maintenance. So obviously, we'll have spent less on groceries but a lot more on eating out. Not great, but a good effort so far.

In other news, I signed up for the knittyboard's Secret Pal 6 round. This is kind of exciting!

Greetings, gentle readers!

2006-01-14T00:33:00.000-05:00

I apologize for not updating in a while- I've been really busy recently. First, we arrived in our other apartment to find the carpet soaking wet, the result of a plumbing backup next door. Fun! We've spent the last week dealing with this. DH has been a total gem dealing with all the university housing folks, who have been resistant to doing pretty much anything related to fixing the situation. DH had to convince them that yes, they needed to replace the carpet pad that had been soaked with untreated waste water, and yes, they needed to clean the carpets. Our neighbors next door have had it much worse- the particleboard in their cabinets soaked up the waste water, so the stench has lingered in their apartment. The University refuses to replace all the cabinets, and the neighbors, who have two kids under the age of 3, are living in "emergency housing" right now, and trying to get the university to give them another apartment. Our oriental rug got wet too, so we had to send that out for cleaning, and DH also convinced the university to reimburse us for it. You can't use a rug doctor or regular carpet cleaner on an oriental rug; it will ruin it.

Second, I started teaching my class! I think this will be fun for me, although stressful and time-consuming. I think it will force me to be more efficient with my research time too. I FINALLY, finally, finally did the IRB revisions that I've been putting off for WAY too long. They actually sent me an email today saying that they hadn't heard from me, even though I sent my revisions off yesterday. I'll call them on Tuesday to try to clear it up.

I have a lot to learn with teaching, though- I went WAY too fast for my first lecture. WAY too fast. I finished what should have been an hour and a half lecture in one hour. Students came up to me afterwards to ask me to slow down! I am not used to talking slow enough to allow for note-taking, and I didn't have a whiteboard to slow me down (I was using powerpoint slides).

So goals for this weekend: do research work, plus my first lecture for next week. The other professor teaching this class has kindly allowed me to use her slides, so I don't have to develop major content, only filling in the (rather large) cracks.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T17:48:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year to everyone! We celebrated last night by making roast duck (using the recipe from Barefoot in Paris- Ina Garten, you haven't failed us yet!!) and drinking the delightfully declasse Sofia champagne from the cans. Well, we did pour them into our snooty Vera Wang flutes before drinking, but still. Today, following tradition, I made black eyed pea salsa and will be making greens to go with our pot roast tonight. All in all, 2005 was a pretty good year for us, and we did black eyed peas and greens last year, so who are we to mess with superstition?

DH and I are finally back from our trip back to my hometown for Christmas. The trip went fairly well- no screaming temper tantrums from my mom this year. There were a few major events, though.

First, my parents started demolition on part of their house as Phase I of their big remodeling project. A few years ago, they moved to a nice neighborhood in the city where the houses were old and tiny and the lots were huge (my parents have a 3/4 acre lot!). It's the kind of neighborhood where developers will buy the old, tiny houses, knock them down and put up McMansions.

My mom has always been scared of the stock market, although they do have a little money there, and she has felt most comfortable in real estate. This would explain why my parents have moved seven times in my lifetime! That doesn't even count a few more moves they made in the five years before I was born. Some of these places were temporary, while they were looking for a new place to live (stays might last anywhere from 2 weeks to a year and a half- there have been three places that I would consider temporary). They're not flippers, exactly, but they don't get sentimental about houses. When they think a neighborhood has peaked, they get out before the property values have a chance to deflate. They've done this twice now, successfully. This is really the fourth REAL house that they've had in my lifetime (I'm not counting a house they bought for my sister to live in, which was a HUGE debacle. That's another post for another time, but that is technically a fifth house). Contrast that with DH's parents, who have moved ONCE since they came to the US when he was 6 months old. He thinks the amount of times my parents have moved (twice since we've been together, which has been... 5.5 years!! Wow.) is ridiculous, and thinks that moving once is perfect.

The response in my head is, "Please." My thinking on this is that he will see once we actually start buying property that we will want to move after a few years, just because we'll want to move up. We won't be able to afford what we want right away, so we'll have to build up to it. He will learn this for himself, though, so I see no need to tell him at this point.

Anyway. With all the big house building in my parents' neighborhood, they want to keep up and increase their resale value. These renovations have been in the works since they bought the house 3.5 years ago, but with my wedding and my sister's wedding back-to-back, they've delayed starting construction. Until now. DH was so excited about it- my dad got a dirt guy to come in with his huge, industrial-strength backhoe to knock down the crappy addition the former owners put on the house, tear up the back patio, and grade the back yard. DH took movies with his digital camera. He was so excited. Even my brother-in-law was sad that we didn't call him to tell him to come over.

Second, my dad got a job! This was a huge shocker for all of us. This job just fell into his lap. The wife of a friend of his called my dad to tell him about it. They had closed the position, but couldn't find a qualified candidate (apparently it's hard to find someone who does construction who also has a college degree in engineering), so they opened it back up for my dad to apply. My mom is ecstatic, because it means my dad will have these awesome state benefits (it's a job at the local public university), and she isn't trapped at her job now. Plus, Dad will be bringing in a steady paycheck, which is something that he hasn't done in 25 years (he has been working for himself). Mom is also uber-excited about that. My dad is less excited about the job. He can see the logical reasons why it is good (benefits, retirement account, it's not hard physically like normal construction work, and considering my dad turned 59 last week, these are all big plusses), but he hasn't worked for someone else for 25 years. He likes the autonomy, the setting own hours, working at his own pace, setting his own rules. 2005 was a banner year for my dad professionally- he got his plumber's license (passing the test on the FIRST TRY), and now this new job. Crazy.

Now for the less than good.

My mom's best friend's daughter finally told her that she is a lesbian. This came as a surprise to nobody except her mother. Of course, this isn't bad news, but my mom's best friend is quite conservative, and disapproves of homosexuality. She's taking the news very, very hard. Friend's daughter just left her think-tank job in DC to take an assistant professorship at the local public university so she could be near her mom. They're close. She loves her daughter very much, and she's not going to disown her (thank goodness), so she has a big fat worldview adjustment ahead of her. She also blames herself, because she has made a lot of bad choices in men. She feels that she didn't set a good example for her daughter, and that's why she's a lesbian. Of course, this is totally ridiculous, but at least it means that she's not being as judgmental as she could be (if that makes sense). She'll get over it, but it's going to be tough for a little while. My mom is way more liberal than her friend when it comes to homosexuality, so she's going to be the voice of reason for a little while, as compassionately as she can.

Even worse was my dad's best friend having a stroke. Oy. His girlfriend called up my parents in the middle of the night so my dad could rush over there (the girlfriend lives 45 minutes out in the boonies; my parents live 15 minutes away) and wait for the ambulance... which didn't come! There are some serious city/county issues in my hometown. Lots of bickering. The girlfriend lives in the county, so when she called 911, she got the county dispatcher, who didn't send the ambulance because my dad's best friend lives in the city. Not too long ago, someone who lived on the border DIED because both the city and the county were claiming that his house was in the territory of the other. My dad had to call 911 again when he got to the house. His friend seemed okay then, but seemed to keep having these ministrokes after getting to the hospital. My dad went to see him the next day and said he was much worse. Poor guy. It was kind of nerve-wracking for all of us.

Today, I've been trying to get my teaching all straightened up. I've been trying to get access to do the course website, etc. First productive thing I've done since my symposium got accepted.

I have a few New Year's Resolutions. I am pretty much a "make a change if it needs to be changed, don't worry about the new year" kind of girl, but I think it's nice to have goals. My goals for this year are:

Get back on track with FlyLady, and really try to do it FOR REAL this time instead of half-a$$ed. I will never be a shined sink/ugly laceup shoes in the house kind of person, but I think her system should be flexible enough to include people like me, who aren't concerned with our dull sink as long as it's empty of dirty dishes and like to wear slippers around the house. I dread getting all those emails, but darn it if I'm not going to sign up for them again.
Run a 5K race by June. Run the WHOLE THING. All 3.1 miles of it. I've been pretty good about running kind of regularly (at least once a week- we ran three times while we were home, twice in the big park with nice trails and American bison!!), and I've been improving. Next semester, I'll be at my university full time with its nice gym, so I'll probably work out more often. This is usually what happens when I'm down there. In theory, I would like to have more fitness goals (eat less sugar, do more weight training, etc.), but I want to keep it realistic and make one change at a time.
Get my act together with regards to school. Seriously. I want to make it out in five years. I can still make this happen but I have to work hard, and I have to work fast.
Finally, I want to spend less money at the grocery store. We spend SO much on food. It's ridiculous. We're two people. I know my DH eats enough for three, but still.

I guess that's about it from the holiday front. I'll write about knitting tomorrow, I promise. Maybe my presents, too.

Feeling better

2005-12-17T19:51:00.000-05:00

All right, the pissiness in my last post has dissipated, mostly, although the underlying sentiment is still there. I was the bigger person and apologized to DH for being so difficult, esp. since I knew he was trying hard.

Did I mention I was on vicodin when I wrote that last post? I had a root canal on Wednesday, and ibuprofen just wasn't working on the pain yesterday. I called the endodontist, and he phoned in a prescription for vicodin. I was on vicodin all yesterday afternoon and last night. Good stuff. I can see why it's addictive. I'm making a point of not taking it today, since the ibuprofen actually is working on the pain now. The vicodin did mean that I had a hard time keeping my eyes open when DH and I went to see The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. I managed it, but it was tough.

That movie was pretty meh, though. I felt like the moviemakers had ripped so much of the battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, not to mention the White Witch's mutant/trollish army, which looked kind of like orcs, if you ask me. There also was no ambiguousness about good and evil in the story, and the feminist in me was asking, "Why is it that Peter, the oldest boy, is basically the top king/warrior/etc. of them all? And why is it that the bad character is female?" I haven't read the book in ages, but my friend mentioned that C.S. Lewis refers to the Queen as a "daughter of Lilith," which opens up a whole other feminist can of worms. Sigh. Since I haven't read the book in so long, it's hard for me to tell whether the flaws in the movie were actually from the movie, or if they were there in the book too. I suspect the latter, personally.

I also learned that my DH seriously, SERIOUSLY knows nothing about Christianity, despite whatever his mom did in taking him to church when he was little. I had to explain to him last night what Jesus's death and resurrection really meant, and how yes, in Christian tradition, this vanquished evil b/c Jesus conquered death. In a nutshell. Sigh. I seriously need to get him a "Christianity for Dummies" book that will spell everything out to him. I am far from a Bible scholar, but I could see how the story of Aslan had a few more parallels than just Aslan dying/coming back to life. Susan and Lucy, for instance, were the parallel of Mary and Martha.

I also thought there were some vague similarities between LW&W and Harry Potter, although I think that may be b/c LW&W, Harry Potter, and LOTR all have similar grounding in archetypal mythology (just like Star Wars, although from what I remember, Lucas was very, very specific in following Joseph Campbell's description of the typical hero story), so in that sense, the stories are going to be similar, at minimum.

Next on my list of movies to see is Memoirs of a Geisha. I hear it's also meh, but I liked the book a lot. We're going to see Walk the Line first, though. Tomorrow, in fact. I've heard so many people say how much they loved that movie... and then there was my mom, who said, "That story is just SO trashy!" LOL. My mom has no patience for drug abuse, violence, or infidelity, so it's no wonder she thinks that people like Johnny Cash and Elvis were trashy.

Also, on the subject of John Spencer's death, which I mentioned in my last post-

I've been reading a lot of Television Without Pity's West Wing boards today, just to see the reaction. There are a lot of really, really sad people out there today. John Spencer was only 58 years old- too young, in my opinion. (younger than my dad!) What I didn't know until I read the New York Times obituary was that John Spencer, like his character Leo, was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Sadly, alcohol and drug abuse really take a lasting toll on your system, and I'm sure that it contributed to his too-early demise. I'm not really shaken up by his death like some are, because I've experienced the death of a close loved one, so the death of a television actor that I didn't feel that passionately about doesn't affect me much. I was neutral on the character of Leo- I prefer C.J. and Toby, myself, but even I can see that if there was any question that this was the last season of West Wing, this has pretty much answered it. When The Powers That Be make the decision to put a major character in what I think is the extremely unrealistic position of vice presidential candidate, it's because they are saying "The future of this show lies with this character." And now he's gone. I think it's safe to say that the show will be too, after this season.

Husband vent

2005-12-16T19:07:00.000-05:00

[ super cranky post deleted ]

Great news!!!

2005-12-15T19:17:00.000-05:00

I found out last night that my symposium got accepted to the conference. This is so exciting for me. Really. I am thrilled beyond belief. I finally feel like I'm making good. What is extra exciting is that this acceptance was formal- the decision-makers aren't making me go through the rest of the process that I talked about in my last post. Yeah! No January deadline hanging over my head over the Christmas holiday!

Ordered DH's Christmas presents yesterday. I'm having them shipped to my parents' house. Some of it won't be a surprise, but others will be! Muahahahaha! I am getting a new purse for Christmas. I have mixed feelings about this. I would have liked DH to work a little harder coming up with something nice for me with less input from me. However, I loathe my current purse, which is a crappy Nine West hobo bag that started looking really ratty within a few months of purchase. The real kicker, though, is that it's hard to find anything in it b/c of the unstructured body style of the hobo.

Finding a purse has been tough, though. So many of the purses out there right now are so, so fugly and trendy. If I'm going to spend money on something that's going out of style in a couple of years, the amount had better be less than $50. We finally found a Furla purse at Nordstrom's that was simple and classic, but didn't look like something an old lady would carry around. I wanted it in black or dark brown, though! So DH called every Nordstrom's in a 50 mile radius to find a store that had it in one of those colors. He bought it over the phone, and they're shipping it to us. Yeah! I admit, I'm excited to get rid of the crappy hobo.

On the knitting front, I've been working on a pair of Fuzzy Feet (from Knitty) to take home and felt in my parents' washing machine when I'm home. I'll give one to my sister and maybe the other to my mom, if she wants it. She probably won't.

WIP ADD

2005-12-10T20:15:00.000-05:00

I think I have ADD. Well, not really. Sort of. I keep seeing knitting projects that I really want to do, and buying the yarn and needles for them. Meanwhile, I have three projects on the needles already. Scratch that. Four. Three scarves and a Christmas stocking.

And, Local Yarn Store, you are NOT HELPING by having a 20% off EVERYTHING sale this month. I bought 5 hanks of Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille in two shades of pink and size 6 16" Addi Turbos so I could do the flower washcloths from Weekend Knitting. Not with all 5 hanks- I'll probably do them with the 2 light pink skeins, and do another scarf (another??? I think I may be getting sick of scarves) with the 3 darker pink skeins. Not sure yet. Then, today, I went back to the LYS of Destruction (of my wallet) and bought 2 skeins of Brown Sheep Wildfoote sock yarn in periwinkle for the lacy petticoat socks from Weekend Knitting (I have that book out from the library- can you tell??? I might have to buy a copy of it!), plus DPNs in size 2 and size 3 (G-d help me when I start knitting with those tiny wee needles!). I also bought size 10.5 DPNs so I could do Fuzzy Feet for my sister. This will help me get rid of some of my scratchy Cascade 220 that I have in my stash. It was the first yarn I ever bought, but it is just so scratchy and itchy for me. Can't handle it.

To top it all off, there's a new Knitty this week, with a couple of intriguing patterns.

I really want to work on designing my own sweater. I want one that is knit mostly in the round, with minimal seaming. I figure I can handle sewing the shoulders up, and attaching the sleeves to the body if I have to (maybe I could pick up stitches and do it that way?), but there is just no reason to sew a rectangle into a tube if I don't have to. I would much rather knit on double pointed needles than sew something up. Come on. I am not going to let myself design my own sweater until I manage to finish all the projects I have in the pipeline. If I have the yarn for it, I'm going to do it before I work on any kind of sweater. So I'll probably be doing sweaters in August!

Speaking of knitting, one of my friends sent me a really sweet Christmas present- Melanie Falick had a book signing in her town recently, and my friend bought me the knitting journal that Melanie Falick put out, and had it autographed for me! It says my name and everything. So sweet of her. I love thoughtful presents. I just wrote a long rant about generic presents with almost no thought put into them, but thought it sounded ungracious and got rid of it. Anyway, I think the knitting journal will come in handy when I start working on designing the sweater. I was really touched that my friend thought of me- I love books that are autographed by the author. I like to give them as presents too, although I haven't done that in a while.

Sick

2005-11-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

I've caught DH's cold. Had a 99-100 degree fever all day, and now I am headachy. Ugh. Must sleep a lot, but I really want to work on my symposium proposal. It's hard to think about it, though.

I finished the scarf for my friend. I'll post pics of it later.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-27T00:48:00.000-05:00

DH and I had a successful Thanksgiving. We invited a foreign student friend of DH's who would otherwise be spending the holiday alone. All our food turned out well, although it took longer than expected to get everything ready- still, we ate only an hour late (7 PM instead of 6 PM). We made HUGE amounts of food. Yay! Love those leftovers.

DH and I spent a few minutes earlier in the day talking about what we were thankful for, and we were very conscious that we should be darn grateful for the sheer availability of food, as well as our ability to buy way more than enough for ourselves. As DH says, "We won the birth lottery just by being born in a highly developed country." So many people around the world (and in our own country) don't have what we have (meaning basic needs like food, clothing, basic human rights, etc. We are also thankful for each other. It's really nice to know that you married a nice person upon whom you can count when you are in need. DH has been sick for the last week or so, and I know he appreciates my efforts to take care of him.

On a knitting note, this weekend I frogged my Ugg scarf. I had doubled up the JoAnn's Beautiful (what is standing in for the shearling) on the first stripe of it, and I hated it. Rather than live with it, I decided to go back and start over. Good decision, I think. I'm also still working on my Agate & Lace scarf for my friend- it's coming along nicely. It's really long now, which I am particularly proud of!

And even though I have another Agate & Lace scarf in progress (using double-stranded Shimmer lace yarn from KnitPicks), and yarn for another TWO scarves, not to mention my Ugg scarf WIP, I keep looking for more yarn and projects! I checked out the book Weekend Knitting from the library, and there are several projects in there that look interesting. I'm also eyeing the recycled sari yarn on ebay... has anyone out there bought some? If so, how did you like it?

Good News, plus other updates

2005-11-18T14:16:00.000-05:00

I got a Revise & Resubmit on my symposium proposal. The organizers sent me this really long email, and I just kept scrolling and scrolling to get to the decision. It was one of those messages where they say stuff like, "We've gotten so many good proposals this year..." and go on and on about what purpose they want the symposia to serve. I'm scrolling/skimming thinking, "Oh crap!" but then they said that they wanted me to try to explain more about certain points that they were interested in and then resubmit it.

I'm thinking, "Well, that's good, I think. It's not a "no," anyway! I didn't know they'd let you revise and resubmit!"

So I told my advisor about it, and her reaction was almost exactly the same. "That's good- I guess. I didn't know they did that."

It adds another step to the process (I think they don't do R&Rs very often at this stage, which is basically a proposal to do a proposal!! I think they do usually give straight up yes, submit the full proposal or no, this isn't appropriate for the theme we're going for.), but that is fine with me. I'm just glad I didn't get rejected, and I'm sure that it is, in part, due to the Big Names who have agreed to participate. Next is to revise and resubmit by Dec. 10th. I will then get a yes/no decision about whether I can keep going forward with this. If it's a yes, then I submit the full proposal in the middle of January. I'm nervous! But it's a good nervous. I'm really glad I pushed myself to do this. I think it's really good for me to stretch like this. The easy thing would have been to chicken out and not do it. I thought this was the road that I would take, but then I changed my mind.

Thanksgiving

DH and I are planning Thanksgiving. We're doing it at our apartment- the two of us, plus DH's office mate, who is not from the US. We're making a ton of food! Yay! Last year, we spent T'giving with my in-laws, and they just didn't make enough food. It's sad when you think, "Gosh, I've already had 12 green beans... if I take any more, there won't be any left for the rest of the family!"

I don't like turkey, so we're having a standing rib roast. I figure since we don't have to pay $800+ for plane tickets home, we can splurge on our meat. MMM.

Knitting and Other Stuff

I'm working on my Christmas present for one of my friends. I'm doing the Agate and Lace scarf in Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille- a yarn I love! I am pretty sure I haven't posted a picture- it's a lot longer than this now (about double the length, maybe a little more), and I have one more ball to go.

I'm undecided about whether or not I'm going to do beads on the end of it. I've had a hard time finding beads that I like that aren't uber-expensive.

I'm also knitting an Ugg scarf, based on the one done by Kay. I'm only using one color of Lion Brand Suede, though, and my fleecy yarn is JoAnn's Sensations Beautiful in Off-White, which does a darn good impersonation of shearling, for yarn. The other change I'm going to make is to do the ends as a ruffle. I've never knit real ruffles (aside from the Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style, which is done with short rows instead of doing lots of increasing on each row), so this will be a first! I'm really liking my scarf break- they're pretty easy, and fun.

Yoga

Went to a kick-butt Iyengar Yoga class on Wednesday night. Wow. It was hard! It was only a level 1-2 class, which I should totally be able to do, but it was pretty strenuous. I like that, though. We did handstands and headstands (I can only do them with the instructor's help!), and I must have worked pretty hard, b/c I have these tiny red pinprick-looking things around my eyes. I think I was straining so hard that I broke some capillaries- this is what some of my online friends think, anyway. This past week, I've been alternating yoga with running, and I like that mix a lot. I need the cardio of running, but there's nothing like yoga.

I've been running using an interval method of alternating running and walking. I started out running 3 minutes, walking 4 minutes, and then upped my running time by 30 seconds and decreasing my walking time by 30 seconds, so I was doing a 3:30/3:30 split (split isn't the right term, I know, but it makes sense to me here). Then, yesterday, I cut my walking time by 30 seconds, but left the running time alone, so it's now 3:30/3:00. Next step is to increase my running time. I try to do 5 intervals (so 5 running segments), and I succeed most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. I want to run a 5K at some point in the near future, and it is really important to me that I actually run the whole way. I could almost certainly do one now doing my run/walk system, but I want to run it! Seriously!

My running pace is at about 10 min/mile, which is pretty good for me! I'm starting to try to push myself a tiny bit during the first interval by raising my knees a couple inches higher- this makes you go faster with less effort, says my husband (who ran cross country and track in high school and cross country). It does make it harder, though! I don't care what he says!

Positive thinking at work!

2005-11-14T20:26:00.000-05:00

I had a great experience today that really emphasized the learning that I've done with Your Best Life Now.

I have been working to organize a symposium for the annual conference for my field. I have to submit a brief application, due tomorrow. One of the keys to getting accepted is to have Big Names agree to participate. I had emailed three Big Names. One said he didn't think that he would be able to go to the conference, so he referred me to one of his former students who is just starting out. She's not well known (yet) but does interesting work. One Big Name accepted. The third Big Name expressed interest, but didn't commit. This whole time, I was thinking really positively, and making my declarations about the favor of G-d and my ability to succeed, a la YBLN.

BigName #3 didn't get back to me, despite a couple of emails. I had a mild freakout this weekend, and settled on a couple of backups. Both of them turned me down. Then, at the last minute, BigName #3 got in touch with me. He's going to do it! I am really excited. He does very interesting work, and is very well known. Yeah!

I really feel that I'm starting to reap the benefits of positive thinking, and believing that G-d will come through for me.

Your Best Life Now

2005-11-08T14:47:00.000-05:00

For the past several months, I have been working on the Your Best Life Now Journal by Joel Osteen. This is a companion book to his best-seller Your Best Life Now. I remember seeing YBLN in the bookstore and rolling my eyes at it. Oh, another Christian self-help book that pretends it can fix everything in our lives. Please.

Then, a bunch of my online friends started talking about doing the Journal, which is kind of a workbook. I read reviews of YBLN on amazon.com, thought about it, and decided to go for it.

I used to be a very positive person, always looking for the good in a situation. I eventually kind of had this beaten out of me (metaphorically). College was a really, really hard time for me socially. I felt like no matter what group I tried to join, no matter how many auditions I went on, it just wasn't working. I felt like I didn't have any friends, and if I only tried harder I could remedy this. I couldn't. To this day, I only have a couple of friends from college (well, I did meet my husband at college- I guess he counts too!), and aside from my husband, only one of them is really a close friend. Intellectually, I knew I could make and keep friends- I had a terrific group of friends in high school (most of them are still my friends!), so I didn't think it was all me. I don't know what it was, but it was just a very discouraging time in my life.

Things looked up after graduating from college, until my friend died, which was a huge, huge setback. Then I made the crazy decision of going to grad school and moving thousands of miles away, had a crazy horrible roommate with a cat that didn't like to use the litter box, and on top of all of that (not to mention being poor), I had this stressful incident where an epileptic with a suspended driver's license had a seizure and slammed into my parked car. Almost totalled it. Nice. (that situation worked out fine in the end, but was really stressful and awful).

So the combination of all these things over a 5 year period really got to me. I had been so disappointed on so many levels, that I just lowered my expectations to nothing, just to protect myself.

Recently, I have been feeling that I am ready to get back to who I used to be- the positive, upbeat QueenBee who was convinced that everything would work out in the end, and usually did.

Despite my initial skepticism of YBLN, it is really working! The journal is helping me look at the world in a more positive manner. It is helping me to expect positive outcomes from the world, and it is helping me to believe I can succeed. It's terrific!

I recently bought the book, as well as the YBLN devotional book. One of my complaints about the journal is that it seems so simplistic. The book really helps to clarify issues I was struggling with, and the devotional book is helping me understand the Biblical basis of what Joel Osteen is saying. I had originally thought that the book would be kind of "Name it and Claim it" (i.e. "prosperity gospel"), which I don't agree with, but it really isn't.

I highly recommend it. It's terrific.

F#CK!

2005-11-02T21:39:00.000-05:00

Or maybe "F##########ck!" would be better.

Due to an administrative error, I received half of my support this summer from a professor not in my area that I have never met. The same administrative office that made the error has informed me that I now have to pay back that money to this professor. The amount will be at least a few thousand dollars.

I wish I were kidding. What the hell? The office suggested to me that I ask my advisor to transfer the money from her research budget to him so I don't have to pay him back out of my own pocket. If my advisor had the money in the first place, all my support would have come from her! Geez!

I am not sure what I am going to do about this. I may talk to my advisor anyway, not to ask her for the money, but to see what my options really are. I could possibly see her going ballistic on the business office about this, but I could also see her asking me why I didn't say anything earlier. I have to sign this piece of paper, but honestly, I didn't pay much attention to it. I have to sign these pieces of paper all the time; the business office often sends me multiple copies in a semester, even if nothing has changed. And I have to sign them all. At the time, I assumed that it was just an administrative thing to get me full funding- this sort of thing has happened before, but with professors that I knew- their names just showed up on the sheet, and no one told me until after the fact what was going on.

Argh. Anyway, I don't have time to worry about it right now. I'm working to put together a description of the symposium I am developing for our big professional conference this year. That's priority number one right now. I had a "Big Name" respond to my invitation to participate with interest, which is very, very positive. This is going to work out, I know it.

Mr. Gracie

2005-10-30T16:33:00.000-05:00

My parents have a cat, at least temporarily. My sister has been feeding a feral cat that shows up in her yard, and this cat had a kitten. My mom and sister decided to take the kitten away from his mother as soon as he was old enough, in order to socialize him, get him his shots, neuter him, and try to get him adopted. My sister already has three cats, so she couldn't take on a fourth one. So my parents have him. I kind of wish they would keep him- I think a pet would do them good. The house has been kind of lonely for them since they had to put our beloved dog to sleep four years ago.

My mom was concerned about that Mr. Gracie (as the cat is named- originally, my mom named him Grace, but then she found out that Grace is a boy cat, so she calls him Mr. Grace or Mr. Gracie now) wasn't eating enough, so she spoon feeds him. She used to hand-feed our dog, so this isn't anything new, but it is still hysterical. Here are some pictures my sister sent me:

In other news, I bought the soundtrack to the musical Wicked. Man, is it ever good. Apparently it's become an obsessive-fan favorite with teenage girls, which I can totally see. My actress friend told me that she thinks that Wicked and Avenue Q are the best musicals to come out recently. I listened to Avenue Q on Yahoo Music Unlimited, and it is really, really funny, but it's not a classic like Wicked will be.

Apologies

2005-10-27T13:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I wrote an apology note to a friend of mine. This is a friend that I would classify as moderately close. I apologized for not inviting her to my wedding. It's been a year and a half now, but I still feel bad. It wasn't anything that she should take personally, it was just me trying to keep the guest list small, and going overboard. This friend is part of a larger group of friends, and I felt that I either needed to invite them all, or invite none of them, which was a bad call. She seemed to appreciate my note. Lord knows I have few enough female friends- I should try to keep the ones I have!

In other news, I came back home to find a large rock outside our front door. It's one of those landscape-type large rocks. I couldn't figure out why it was there at first, and then it occurred to me that it used to be outside our neighbor's door! I still wasn't sure why it was there, until I realized that while I was gone, the neighbors moved out. I guess they thought we'd want their rock? Not sure. I'm leaving it there for the time being. It's not a nuisance, it's just a rock.

I tried to go running yesterday around the neighborhood. It is not as flat as it might seem. It was HARD. I was out there for about 14 minutes, only half of which was actually running. Then I went to the gym and did the elliptical machine for 40 minutes. Today I'm going to go to the gym and run on the indoor track instead. Tomorrow I drive back up to our other apartment. DH is super excited- I'm getting back much earlier than he had anticipated. The tradeoff is that I have to come back here in a week and a half, but I think I'm going to try to fly, just for a quick pop-in-pop-out situation.

Knitting Update

2005-10-22T11:48:00.000-04:00

Here are some updated pictures of my recent knitting endeavors:

I knitted this Big Bad Baby Blanket (pattern from the original Stitch N Bitch by Debbie Stoller) for the anticipated new baby of two friends of mine. Baby is due any day.

And... this has been finished for ages, but I promised my knitting group I would take pictures of my finished Clapotis (pattern from Knitty

This picture shows how nicely it drapes:

This is a partial view of the finished product.

Close-up of the stitches:

I have some other projects I am working on, including a ruffles scarf from Scarf Style, and I just started an Agate and Lace scarf using two strands of KnitPicks Shimmer. I found using only one strand to be really, really horrible. Using two works much better. The Ruffles scarf is close to being done- only one more ball (out of 5) to go!

Today, DH and I are going to see his sister, who is in our area for the next month on business. We're going to the birthday party of a friend of mine, a friend whom I have not seen in about three years. Yay! I love this friend. I'm so excited to see her.

Mean people

2005-10-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

It is fun to watch mean people implode. I admit it. It is really, really fun to see people who are nasty and horrible have their nasty and horrible behavior come back to bite them in the butt. (rubs hands in glee)

When husbands behave like children

2005-10-17T01:35:00.000-04:00

We had an interesting episode tonight. After I was gone for about a week a few weeks ago, dragging my feet about coming back b/c I was enjoying the fact that I didn't have to worry about feeding DH for the first time in ages, DH made a huge effort to "get out the dinner." He planned and shopped for a week's worth of dinners, which stretched out to almost two weeks. Pretty good.

His plans and food ran out this weekend, so I mentioned that we needed to do it again. I asked him not to stay at work for too long, so we could go out shopping. I asked him to leave no later than 5. He got home at 6. We planned and shopped, at least part way. We got what we could at Trader Joe's, then we went to Safeway to get the rest for tonight's dinner. We'll hit our local vegetable stand tomorrow.

Dinner took about an hour and a half total to cook, which was half an hour longer than I thought it would take, since we doubled the recipe. It took longer to cook. By the time dinner was ready, it was 9 PM.

I should mention at this point that I am not a stickler for dinner, or for eating together, or having any kind of formality whatsoever surrounding dinner. DH does, though.

By the time we actually got everything ready to eat, things started going wrong for DH. First, our water filter came off the faucet- I'm sure because he was hungry and impatient and too rough with turning it from "filter" to "unfilter." He threw it on the counter, and haphazardly began washing his hands, splashing soap into his bowl of drained pasta and ruining it. At this point he is incredibly hungry, angry, and impatient, so he announces he's having cereal. He can't wait to open the cereal box like a normal person, so he rips it into shreds. He proceeds to eat two bowls of cereal and a container of Greek yogurt (i.e. full fat) within 5 minutes.

Okay. You're hungry. I get it.

I kind of can't help but laugh at the poor guy, though, because tearing a cereal box to shreds because you can't open it right now is such a 4 year old temper-tantrumy thing to do. He points out that I shouldn't laugh because I colored all over a wastepaper basket that I was given as a gift because I was angry that it didn't have the right Care Bear on it. I said, "Yes, but that was when I was four!"

He was not amused, so he went off and now he's sulking in the bedroom. I'm actually not mad at him, but I disapprove of a 27 year old man behaving like a four year old. So I'm letting him have his space, and ignoring him, kind of like I would a four year old.

Seriously, though. What is so hard about eating that cereal and yogurt while we were watching The West Wing? I am not concerned about him spoiling his appetite, and even if he did, I wouldn't care at all.

I think he doesn't understand that this is why I relish time away from him. It's nice to have a break from his seeming inability to take care of himself properly. He has a mother- I don't need to be one too.

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd!

2005-10-13T17:03:00.000-04:00

I checked out the DVD of a San Francisco concert performance of Sweeney Todd. I had forgotten how amazing that musical is. The summer after I graduated from high school, a local theatre put it on. My then-boyfriend worked the soundbooth, and I would go almost every night and watch it.

This was a phenomenal production. The cast was absolutely amazing, from top to bottom. I went in completely unfamiliar with the plot of Sweeney Todd, and I have to admit that the first time I saw it, my thought was, "This is the most f^&*ed-up musical ever!" Since I had a boyfriend in the crew, and saw it many times, it grew on me in a BIG way. The music and lyrics are incredible- very fast paced in places, and high energy.

I'm not crazy about the DVD production, in particular with Patti LuPone, who is just not as good as Angela Lansbury (or the Mrs. Lovett in the local production I saw so many times), but George Hearn as Sweeney.... man! Amazing. Blew me away. Neil Patrick Harris (one of the few boys who appeared on my bedroom wall when I was growing up!) was Tobias, and he was really, really good! I'm all "Doogie Howser!" the way I always am when I see him in anything (he was also in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle).

I saw on Amazon that the original Broadway production (with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou) is being re-released in a remastered version, so I'm going wait until it comes out in February to buy a soundtrack.

Preferring one child over another

2005-10-10T14:33:00.000-04:00

This weekend, I went out with one of my friends from home and her husband, who were visiting my town for business. While sitting in this really cool Sony concept store watching an HD special on the wildlife of Texas, we started talking a little about our dead friend. More specifically, his parents. For the sake of ease of discussion, let's call my alive friend from home "Caroline" and my dead friend from home "Jim."

Caroline's mother and Jim's mother used to be close, close friends. Jim's mom was always a little bit bizarre, but she was good-hearted and manageable. My mom was never buddy-buddy with her, but they were friendly enough. Jim's mom's bizarroness would usually manifest itself in work trouble. Despite being an RN, she has had a really hard time keeping and thriving in a job. Even before my friend died.

After Jim died, his mom went wacko, which is entirely understandable, but talking to her is very frustrating for me, for Caroline, and for our mothers. After about three years, we finally started to see some kind of outward improvement in his parents, but my mom got really frustrated with the endless wallowing in grief. Everyone processes differently, but she and I firmly believe that the best way to get through it is to at least make an attempt to lead a normal life, even if it's hard, even if it seems impossible. You will not lead a normal life ever again, but with practice, you can approximate something close. You really need that practice, though.

Caroline and I were telling each other during our visit that our moms don't like to return Jim's mother's calls. My mom has a low tolerance for annoying people, but Caroline's mom is not like that at all! The other thing that really bothers our mothers is how Jim's mom treats Jim's younger brother. She doesn't treat him very well at all. I am not sure how this manifests itself, and I suspect it doesn't manifest itself in the material things, but in emotional support and attitude. His younger brother ("Rick") is (was?) six years younger than Jim, so as a result, I didn't really get to know him that well. He was 12 when Jim and I went off to college. When Jim died, Caroline said, "You know, Jim really was their favorite. They love Rick and all, but Jim was the Golden Child." Rick has a lot of physical similarities to his older brother- tall, thin, same deep voice, same hand gestures. I still don't know Rick that well (he is now a senior in college), but he seems to be more grounded in reality than his older brother, who lived for art. Rick likes history, and was an athlete in high school (until he quit to do theatre b/c he hated the coach...).

Soon after Jim died, his mother was showing me a purple beaded dress she had gotten from a closeout sale of a local department store. She said that she had bought it thinking it would be a mother-of-the-bride dress, since she chose not to see that her son was nowhere near engagement with his girlfriend (who also died in the accident). She said to me sadly, "I guess I'll never wear it now" as if Rick did not even exist! I reminded her that she still had Rick, and that someday he would get married and have kids.

At the time, I had chalked it up to grief. She said a lot of strange things during that first week, including wishing that they had collected some sperm from Jim's testicles so they could have paid someone to have his child. (I'm sure she was hoping I would volunteer, but NO WAY. NO WAY!) I thought this was insane on a number of different levels- first, Jim would not have wanted that. Maybe if he had a wife who really wanted kids, he would have been cool with it, but he didn't. Second, Jim would not have wanted his parents to raise his child. They were good parents to him, but so weird.

So I thought that totally forgetting about the possibility that Rick would get married and have kids one day was just grief talking. I also thought that with Jim, he had just graduated from college, he was dating this really nice girl that he was crazy about, was starting his "adult" life, so the prospect of a daughter (finally!!) plus grandchildren (hopefully granddaughters!!) was so close in her mind that she could taste it, but the world stole it from her.

Meanwhile, Rick was just starting his senior year in high school. It would be another six or seven years, minimum, before he could conceivably get married, and add a few years onto that for grandchildren. I had assumed that his mother was thinking like a 4 year old in July. Christmas is so far away in July that the 4 year old thinks it will never get here.

I'm starting to think that that remark is part of a more of a pernicious pattern that may have unearthed with the burial of my friend. Jim's mom has always wanted a daughter, and you could tell that she just longed for one. Perhaps she has always nursed a small resentment towards Rick for not being the girl she so desperately wanted. When Jim died, perhaps that resentment grew even larger because Rick wasn't Jim, and Rick was the one that wasn't dead.

So here's a little note to Rick, who will probably never read this, since only a couple of my RL friends know about this blog.

Dear Rick:

I don't know you very well, and in some ways that is good. I am sure that, like so many other people, I would be hoping in some way that you would fill the void left by your older brother. When I see you, I can't help but be reminded of him. For me, it's actually kind of nice because it makes the world a little less empty for me, but it seems like it pains your parents. This is not your fault.

I do know that you are a bright young man striving to make his way in the world, a task made harder for you by your parents and grandparents. I think, in the long run, you are choosing wisely by spending as much time away from them as possible. You may also think that you are imagining any less-than-terrific attitude towards you, and you also may be trying to be charitable with your parents and grandparents. Believe me, if my mom and Caroline's mom says that your mom seems to be reflecting a bad attitude towards you, I'm sure that is the case. Since you were significantly younger than your brother, you may have never noticed any kind of sibling rivalry. I know that I hardly ever heard about you from your brother, which you should interpret as a good thing. As a fellow older sibling, I can tell you when we talk about our siblings, it is usually to complain about them. Your brother loved you, and never felt any need to compete with you, so you may be surprised to find that you are in competition with him now.

Unfortunately, this is not a competition that you can win. Since Jim was enamoured with architecture, he had more resonance with your mother and grandfather, who also love art and construction. This is also not your fault, and you should not worry about changing your interests to suit theirs. In addition, he has achieved the exalted status of the departed. Most people choose to forget the flaws of their loved ones, and instead focus on their own flaws which caused the relationship to be less than what they wanted, or on the abrupt end of the relationship.

I do not forget his flaws though, and I think that was because he was so dear to me, and I had no regrets about our relationship. It was ended too soon, but, as I told your grandfather in a flash of wisdom that I can't believe I had, "No matter how long we had him, it wouldn't have been enough." I am sure that you have flaws, but I also know that, like your brother, you have had some very close, dear friends in your life. One of them wrote me a lengthy letter after hearing my eulogy because it reminded her of how much she cared about you. The closest dearest friends will see your flaws and love you anyway, as I did with your brother. If your parents cannot do this, then you should seek that love elsewhere.

Try to stay on good terms with your parents and grandparents, since you are literally all they have left. Try to see their flaws and love them anyway, even though you should work to protect yourself first. This may mean living far away from them, limiting contact, sheltering your future wife from your mother (who, even on her best days prior to Jim's death, would have made a hideous controlling mother-in-law!). Your parents are not the most positive people. Try to surround yourself with people who are.

Most of all, don't feel badly about yourself. You are who you are, not your brother, and certainly not some poor imitation. I wish you all the best, and more.

Much Love,
Queen Bee

The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

2005-10-09T19:23:00.000-04:00

So I went to church today. Not just any church, but the local church of my cultural branch of Christianity. I was baptized into this Church (with a capital "C," meaning the whole organization-- not this particular building and congregation), but since we didn't have one in my hometown, I probably have been to 10 services in my entire life. Maybe 15, but I think that's being generous. Basically, my parents would take my sister and me whenever the priest came to visit our town, and then, I've been 4 times after that. So, maybe 15 isn't so far off.

Usually, when I go to one of these churches for service, people turn around and stare at me, but refuse to talk to me. These churches don't get a lot of new people. They really don't. They are not out there recruiting. They are not even speaking English during most of the service. Hell, any of the service! If you're lucky, the priest will repeat his community announcements in English. You are only going to go there if you're in the ethnic group. Even if you're a member of a related church that isn't represented in town, you would probably go to another branch of the related churches, because there are at least two related branches that are way bigger than we are. This is what my aunt and uncle do in my hometown, since we don't have a church there. They go to a bigger, more established church that is in the same vein.

This church was better. The lady who runs the church office (and directs the choir) was delighted to meet me, and wants to hook me up with whatever she can. I think I've even been roped into singing in the choir next week, even though I am totally unfamiliar with the service, and I don't speak the language.

So I'm going to go next week. I am somewhat ambivalent about it, though. Going to ethnic church means giving up a lot of the spiritual education and growth that I would get at a more traditional church. It's not like there's going to be a lot of intellectual curiosity there- they've done things the same way for over 1700 years. On the other hand, my cultural heritage and the church are inextricably intertwined, and there is something really, really powerful about knowing that my dead grandmother sat and listened to the same service, word for word.

Yarn, Yarn, and More Yarn

2005-10-09T12:49:00.000-04:00

I finally, finally, after much debating and changing of shopping cart, placed an order with KnitPicks this morning. I ordered a bunch of yarn to make a bunch of different scarves, plus tiny needles (size 2!). There's a sweater in this season's Knitty that I want to make, but I really hate finishing projects. By "finishing" I don't mean completing (although that is the end result), I mean weaving in ends and sewing pieces together. I hate the sewing part most of all.

After just finishing (completing) the Candy Striper messenger bag from Stitch N Bitch Nation (well, except for sewing the zipper in, and doing the strap), I think I need to take a break from high-risk projects. This bag is UG-LEE. It's cute in the book, and it's cute when other people make it, but I would not carry my own creation around. It looks that bad. Unfortunately, you can't rip (aka: frog) a felted piece, and it is too ugly to give away, so I am not sure what I will do with it. Throw it away, probably. I don't like clutter, mostly because I keep all my stuff out. Not nicely put in drawers or in closets, but on coffee tables, on the floor, on the counters, thrown on chairs. I think I like to see what I have!

Okay, I do have some stuff in closets, but it's stuff I never use, or use only rarely. I am apt to forget about it if it's in a closet.

So, while I'm still working on the ruffles scarf from Scarf Style, I will be doing the Agate and Lace scarf, the Branching Out scarf from Knitty (maybe- this is still in the air), a pretty scarf called Liesel (I heard about it on Craftster, and it looks really pretty!), and then I got some other yarn for as-yet-undetermined scarf. Scarves are good. I don't need to sew them up.

Allison Janney

2005-10-07T12:50:00.000-04:00

I have recently been watching movies with Allison Janney in them. I have already seen many of her movies, yet, when I first started watching The West Wing, I had no idea who she was. Never heard of her. Despite the fact that I gleefully watched Drop Dead Gorgeous, in which she has a large (and hysterical) part that is quite memorable. I remembered the character, but not the actress. The website Fametracker (the same people who bring you Television Without Pity) refers to this phenomenon as, "Hey! It's that guy!" except for me, I hadn't even gotten around to saying, "Hey! Isn't that the girl who was in the thing?"

In my defense, most of the parts in movies prior to Drop Dead Gorgeous are pretty small. I also think that she looks a lot different in The West Wing than she has in most of her older movies.

Anyway, Allison Janney is my current girl-crush. My whole life, when I have been seduced by the allure of celebrity, it has never been by the men. Or the traditionally beautiful women. The walls of my teenage bedroom were plastered with pictures of Debbie Gibson and, later, Emma Thompson. The walls of my friends' bedrooms were covered with New Kids on the Block, Bon Jovi, Skid Row. Mostly New Kids on the Block, though.

I secretly hated NKOTB. All my friends loved them, so I played along to a certain extent, even attending one of their concerts. Debbie Gibson had captured my heart. Rather than being a slick, manufactured product of the record labels (the boy bands of the late 90's would repeat this trend), Debbie (or Deborah, as she goes by now) wrote her own songs!!!! In my mind, this is what made her so much more awesome than New Kids on the Block, or Tiffany, or whatever else was on the radio then. I realize now that her music was cheesy and hokey, but, hey, she was fourteen! What else is a fourteen year old supposed to write about when she doesn't know about love or loss? So I'll give her a pass.

I really appreciated the fact that she wrote her own songs, because I knew it was something I could never do. I had also had many years of classical piano training (another thing I liked about Debbie is that the girl had been trained properly in voice and piano), enough to know my own limits, talent-wise. I could not ever imagine putting together a tune. Maybe lyrics, but I have never understood the creative process fusing lyrics with melody. For all the beautiful music out there, no tunes ever sprung into my head. Even when I tried, I couldn't produce anything. That particular talent isn't there. It's like I can read and understand a language, but not speak it. Anyone who could write their own songs was so far above what I could imagine. How could I help but be filled with admiration? This theme would play out again and again in my music preferences, in buying CDs of people like Tori Amos and Simon and Garfunkel and Dolly Parton.

So back to girl-crushes. After Debbie Gibson came Emma Thompson, my first girl-crush of substantive adult value. I think the first movie that I saw her in was The Remains of the Day. Emma was not especially attractive in either Howards End (indeed, her character in the book is described as not that attractive) or in The Remains of the Day. In fact, I think her movies don't do her justice. But there was something about her that you could see was pretty when you would see her in the media. Her incredibly high cheekbones. The fact that she was so smart (she went to Cambridge)...and funny! I remember watching her hold her own with David Letterman. I usually don't watch Letterman, because I think he's mean to his guests, but Emma handled him beautifully.

For a brief time, I had a girl-crush on Nigella Lawson, who is so good looking it is not even funny, but her beauty is not in the traditional way of the skinny starlet. I abandoned her soon, though, because I found her recipes don't work. Also, she married a big-time weirdo (art-collecting rich-man recluse Charles Saatchi, who has made some naughty comments about her in public that I feel are inappropriate for a husband to make in public about his wife). I have no patience for style without substance.

For some reason, I never developed a girl-crush on Tori Amos. You could say that she's my "type," enormously talented, not conventionally pretty, but pretty in her own way. I read interviews about her, I buy her CDs immediately when they come out, but she is definitely not a girl-crush. I think this situation may be more complicated than most others. I like having girl-crushes on people that others might not think of. While my friends were worshipping at the altar of NKOTB, I loved Debbie Gibson. My peers certainly weren't into Emma Thompson in high school- I don't even remember who the popular stars were at the time. But Tori? Tori has the market cornered on girl-crushes. Every alterna-chick feminist was in love with Tori Amos. Especially if they liked girls to begin with, but not necessarily. She was possibly the first mass girl-crush of my generation. One particular friend of mine, with whom I had a complicated relationship in high school, was really into Tori Amos. I like to stake out new territory, so Tori was less attractive to me just by virtue of my friend's adoration.

I still carry a flame for Emma Thompson, and I will go see anything, no matter how horrible (Junior, anyone?) if she is in it, even if it's an uncredited cameo (like My Father The Hero), but in recent years, she seems to be less active in movies now that she is a mother.

As a result, the void has been filled by Allison Janney. I think I really have the girl-crush on C.J., her character on the West Wing. Allison Janney is similar to Emma Thompson in many ways- both are tall, not conventionally pretty but with an alluring quality about them, both are incredibly talented and versatile. Emma and Allison both seem equally at home in serious drama and in slapstick comedy. (Emma was truly the only good thing about Junior.) Both of them can also take utter crap and spin it into gold, just on the virtue of their talent. In addition, I have it on good authority that Allison is very kind to the baristas at the Starbucks that she frequents. Nice people get points in their favor, whether crushes or not.

In short, both of them have substance along with their style. Major substance.

Comments

2005-10-05T10:58:00.000-04:00

I have had to turn on the word verification option for comments. I have gotten one too many spam type comments, and that is just not cool. I didn't want to, because I felt it would add another barrier to commenting (true), and genuine people might not feel like it. However, I am still allowing anonymous comments. Some of the spam comments have come from Blogger usernames anyway.

Party Crasher

2005-10-04T18:47:00.000-04:00

I was watching some of The West Wing on DVD, and I was suddenly reminded of the time I crashed a Hillary Rodham Clinton fundraiser with a friend of mine. I was in DC visiting him, and he was interning for a PR firm in DC that had put together this fundraiser at a swanky house in McLean, VA. This was before she had even announced that she was running for senate. She had already left by the time we got there, but my friend talked to his friend at the gate (he was allowed to go), and while he was doing so, pushed me in, and no one noticed.

It was pouring rain. I had some interesting conversations, and ate some soggy barbeque at a really nice house.

Okay, not as exciting as it could have been, but still.

no distractions, please!

2005-09-30T20:14:00.000-04:00

I got all my IRB (human subject approval) papers signed today, so all that's left is for me to actually submit it. Yay! I want them in the intermural mailbox THIS WEEKEND so first thing Monday they'll get picked up. Hell yeah!

My advisor, who is very much like a bossy mother bear (I mean this in the best of ways- she's the best!), emailed me to ask how work was coming along because she had heard nothing from me for a while. Of course, I've practically done nothing. It is starting to stress me out. I am not sure why, exactly, I have done nothing. Nothing is a little strong. I found an exemplar, made an outline, wrote three paragraphs of the introduction (I have since realized that I need to leave that for last), realized I need to read more, got several articles etc. to read, read a couple of them, and that's it.

I summed that up in a truthful way that didn't make it sound as bad as it just did. Basically, I said that I was working on writing X paper, but I got stuck, so I was reading more.

Now to actually FINISH that damn reading and start writing again. I'm convinced you can read forever, if you let yourself.

I also got a few really good tips on authors to look up from another smart, nice professor in another part of the University. My University is really good in that respect- almost all the professors I have run across are smart and nice. I know this isn't true, but it sure seems like the people who work in my field at my university, no matter what department they're in, are all not only incredibly brilliant, but also very generous with that knowledge.

I'm currently at my university now. DH is at his university, b/c he has obligations that will keep him there all semester. I was thinking about maybe going back up tomorrow, but I think I'll stick around for another several days. I think it will be really good for me not to have the distractions of DH around, which, not only include him, but also feeding him. It sounds like such a throwback 1950's kind of thing, but I am more or less the brains behind our meals. Yes, it gets tiring. No, if I leave him to his own devices it doesn't work- he either spends a ton of money on takeout (this is what's happening this week), or he doesn't feed himself properly. Honestly, I get so tired of it. He almost always helps with cooking, but if I'm doing any cooking at all, that's time I'm not spending working, and then there's planning and shopping too. He will sometimes do shopping- I have started asking him more and more to do this. But goodness gracious- the planning!! It's soooo nice to have a break from that for a while. I can eat string cheese and an avocado and be good to go for dinner.

Disaster preparedness

2005-09-19T03:09:00.000-04:00

My husband is obsessed with being prepared for a disaster. We have multiple stocked first aid kits now (one for our apartment, one for each car, etc.), and he spent hundreds of dollars on supplies to get our apartment earthquake ready. (Did you know that the midwest is also earthquake country?New Madrid fault, baby!)

I think it's good that he wants to keep us safe. It's a good instinct in a husband, I think. Marrying an Eagle Scout has its privileges!

I know I haven't updated in a while, so more later, but I need to do some work first.

Tag, I'm it!!

2005-09-08T14:22:00.000-04:00

CBear tagged me with a meme, so here's a chance for you guys to learn a little more about me.

Ten years ago I was just starting my senior year of high school. Satan had earmarked my house as a corner of hell, which is a special gift he gives to most first-born children heading off to college. This manifests itself in your mother going batsh*t crazy and making your life a living hell. This happened to several of my friends, so I know I'm not the only one. It is supposed to make the transition easier for both of you because you both want you to get the hell out of the house. I was also starting to prepare my early-decision application for my college of choice (which I got into, yay), and probably taking the SAT for the second time somewhere around this time as well.

Five years ago I had JUST moved to the DC area and was about to start my first "big girl" job. This was the beginning of the happiest year of my life!

One year ago Married for 3 months. Similar place to where I am now- doing school, hating it, constantly thinking about quitting. Still in the honeymoon phase with my advisor (i.e. before she discovered how lazy I am...).

Five Snacks

chocolate chip cookies (preferably homemade)
Tostidos Hint Of Lime Chips
Trader Joe's Roasted Tomatillo Salsa (but not with the hint of lime chips, with regular tortilla chips only
String cheese
Krispy Kreme donuts- chocolate iced glazed. MMMM.

Five Songs I know all the words to

Caught a Lite Sneeze- Tori Amos
Dancing Queen- ABBA
The Boxer-Simon & Garfunkel
867-5309-Tommy Tutone
Love Shack- The B-52's

There are more. But it only asked for five. If you asked my husband, he wouldn't be able to list a single one. He doesn't pay attention to the lyrics and is tone deaf. He's all about the beat. Sometimes he claps along with the music. Not necessarily with the beat, though. Poor soul, he isn't musically inclined.

Five Places to Run Away to

Washington DC. Haven't managed it yet, though.
A bookstore cafe
My parent's house, which is also sometimes a place tot run away from
Kauai
The movies, preferably foreign, preferably alone

Five things I would never wear

Pleated pants
Daisy Dukes
Pasties without wearing something over them
A muu muu

Five favorite TV shows

West Wing, even though it's sucked since Aaron Sorkin got sober and left.
The Daily Show. Jon Stewart, American Hero.
Barefoot Contessa
Clean Sweep
The Sopranos

Five biggest joys

Getting into college
Graduating from college
Getting married
Driving down the GW Parkway on the way back from Target during my first year in DC, feeling completely happy that I was totally in control of my fabulous life.
October 1997. It was a really good month.

Favorite toys

iPod
Sims2
DVD player

Five people to pass this onto
I'm not sure I have five people that I know well enough to pass this onto! Oh well. Hanni and Angela I would pass it on to my other friend Chris, but I'm not sure he would even do it.

Feel free to tag yourself, gentle readers! Leave a comment if you do it so I can read it, please!

Chicken Soup for the Soul

2005-09-06T15:56:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling like I need a little academic inspiration. Not for ideas, but I want good stories about academia. Positive, happy stories. Usually, all you hear about in academia is the bad- grad student suicides (this just happened in DH's department about a week or two ago), or worse, grad student homicides, professors who abuse their grad students or take advantage of them, the pressure to publish as an assistant professor, dealing with assholes on committees, crying at rejections from journals, grade grubbing students, burdensome service work, etc.

On a whim, I thought I would see if there was a Chicken Soup for the Academic's Soul. For those of you that aren't familiar with the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, each book has a whole bunch (101?) of short little vignettes, each only a few pages long. The stories are always extremely positive and happy, and sometimes (maybe always? It's been years and years and years since I looked at one) feature something that starts out depressing and ends up positive somehow, either b/c people see the positive in it, or something terrific happens. The Chicken Soup for the Soul book series is pretty schmalzty, with heavy Christian undertones, so I figured that the academic market for it is non-existent.

I was right. Despite the fact that there are Chicken Soup books for almost every other niche market (especially those that go for schmaltz with Christian undertones), such as Christians (duh), NASCAR fans, nurses, Latter-Day-Saints, mothers, sisters, fishermen, golfers, generic sports lovers, dog lovers, cat lovers, dog and cat lovers, teenagers, retirees, grieving people, people in recovery... the list goes on and on and on. Nothing for academics, though. There is a book for teachers, but I assume (almost certainly correctly) that it is geared towards secondary school teachers. Perhaps there are a few stories about teaching college classes, but we all know that teaching is not the difficult, frustrating part about academia (except for the fact that it makes doing your research more difficult and more frustrating).

The hard part is doing the research, coming up with the ideas, forcing yourself to do things, navigating the political landscape, protecting your reputation. I am struggling with all these things right now (except for the ideas, but DH is struggling with that), and it is so frustrating. I would love to hear terrifically positive stories about academia.

Does anyone have one?

Hurricanes, again

2005-09-01T00:39:00.000-04:00

I just can't get over the total destruction of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast. It just makes me so sad. My brother in law's grandfather lives in Ocean Springs (right next to Biloxi), and he refused to evacuate, although the rest of the family did. My sister has been trying to track him down, with no success. She tried calling the Red Cross- they're just swamped and can't tell her anything.

I was thinking about Lisa's parents again today. They live in Metairie. I hope their house isn't destroyed. I can't imagine losing your child, then, four years later, losing your house. Probably Lisa's alma mater, which is on St. Charles Street, is flooded pretty badly, though hopefully not destroyed.

Tulane, my friend's alma mater, is closed indefinitely at this point.

In a way, I'm glad my friend wasn't here to see it. He would just be devestated at all the destruction of his beloved city. He loved New Orleans so much.

Academic Blogs

2005-08-31T18:11:00.000-04:00

I found this great blog a few weeks ago: Academic Coach is a blog by a career coach for people in academia (you guessed it). She gives out great tips for free on her blog, and also has many links to blogs of other academics.

One of the blogs that she links to is a Ph.D. student who goes by the pseudonym Badger. I haven't been following the story for very long, but Badger's husband just died a couple of days ago following a long battle with cancer. Add grad student financial troubles caused by incredibly expensive and underfunded health care into the mix. Also, an eleven year old son. What a crappy, crappy situation to be in. I can't remember exactly who told me this, but this person (I think it was a former student of mine) said, "Sometimes life just hands you a plate of shit, and you have to eat it with a smile on your face."

Indeed.

Sometimes I wonder what I would do if something happened to DH. The thought is frightening. I'd quit grad school and go home, probably. If something happened to DH, I wouldn't want to stay in my neck of the woods- I don't like it here, and I can only stand it because it's temporary. DH has a small inheritance in the bank, earmarked for our future house downpayment that I could use to take care of any death related expenses. I wonder if he has life insurance through school? I do, which is somewhat of a relief, because I know that if something unexpected happens to me, he wouldn't be saddled with a huge, enormous financial debt for funeral expenses, or whatever.

I try not to wonder too often, in case imagining manifests reality.