I left town on Friday, a little after lunchtime, to go to Mom and Dad's. Dad was directing a play, a series of five short one-acts. I saw it Friday night and laughed and laughed. On Saturday, Mom and I got up early and picked up our friend Laura to go to Seagrove. It was a nice, relaxed trip because I didn't need to do any particular research or get any information--I just wanted to see the 200 Cups of Tea (a fundraiser for the Three Cups of Tea guy) and have fun. Laura and her daughter Molly had never been, and they liked it. It's always extra-special when you get to introduce someone to something you love and know they'll like.
Laura's husband had come home a few weeks ago with an English bulldog puppy with a hot-pink harness and leash, and said only, "Her name is Katherine, but she prefers Katie." I got to meet her on Saturday when we picked Laura up. She's three and a half months old and really, really cute in the way that only puppies are cute. If we hadn't been going to Seagrove, she'd have made my day.
Today I finally put together some syllabi. They're lookin' pretty good. It feels so weird to be going into my last year as a TA, as a student, as someone whose options are limited. I'm very curious about what's going to happen next. But also trying not to worry too much about it until there's actually action I can take.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Ohhhhhh, man.
This morning I couldn't find my favorite mug. The purple one Dr. Wills gave me for graduation. It was amazing and shameful how much I let that affect me. I used another mug for my coffee, of course, but it gnawed at me all day. I keep getting these probably-comical-from-the-outside tests, reminders that I'm not the queen anymore. The funny thing is, I think I only became the queen over the last two years while I lived alone. I don't remember being this way in college, or in any of the places I lived for the year afterward. But over the last two years, I just settled into being in charge, in control, just the way I like it. And it's not that way anymore. This morning with the mug was just such a wake-up call to how far I have to go until I am really free from the need for control and I can let God be in control. It feels like I have to run seventeen miles, but I don't have time to get my shoes, and there's no water to drink, and everyone else is going the other way watching me fall apart. And it's on that soft non-packed sand that doesn't let you go fast. And I guess whatever's at the end of the run is great, that's what everyone says, but so few people have been there, I'm not entirely sure it's going to be worth it. It's just scary. I will never understand why God doesn't make things easy. I can only hope to stop resenting it.
But I did make a more or less successful kettle corn today, after my other efforts had resulted in nasty burned sugar and even small instantaneous fires. And when I went for my bike ride and walk/run, all the emotional mess lifted from me for the whole time I was out. Like my mom says, "Endorphins are real!" So the day wasn't a total loss.
But I did make a more or less successful kettle corn today, after my other efforts had resulted in nasty burned sugar and even small instantaneous fires. And when I went for my bike ride and walk/run, all the emotional mess lifted from me for the whole time I was out. Like my mom says, "Endorphins are real!" So the day wasn't a total loss.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Procrastination
The new world order goes like this. The order of importance is
1. Eavesdropping on the people next to me here at Java Dog. Two of them are going to get married! Like, today or tomorrow! Probably not today, come to think of it, because they wouldn't be here, would they? And they seem pretty relaxed.
2. Putting off eating the rest of my farmers' market cinnamon bun, delayed gratification being key to maturity and self-control.
3. Alternating between anger, pity, and apathy about The Department's seemingly neverending issues. Sometimes I think we should just outsource everything to non-writers.
4. Wondering if that new show Community with Joel McHale and Chevy Chase is going to be any good.
5. Playing Text Twist 2 online. (Seven letters, not six! But some of the words are joke words, like jiveass and fatbird.)
6. Then and only then, writing syllabi and le thesis, which is what I came here for. Maybe we'll call today a practice run for the school-year-Saturday routine.
Last night a bunch of people went out for Brooks's birthday. I went a little reluctantly, having so enjoyed the hermit life lately, but as usual, it turned out fun and I was glad I went. Met three new students, caught up with a couple of people I hadn't seen literally all summer, practiced my yelled-conversation skills, and got smoked out of the Blue Post. It had a very first-party-of-the-school-year feeling. Made me one baby step more ready for the thing, hence my attempt at syllabus-writing today. While the transition can be a little eye-roll-inducing, I don't mind a routine once it starts. I even like it most of the time. So I think this year is going to be great. I'm going to write the best thesis ever and have lots of fun.
As for after graduation, it hit me hard the other day that it's well under a year until I'm no longer a student or a TA, and even less than that until I have to start looking in earnest, not in a lah-di-dah way, for a job. When I realized that, I had a brief moment of something like panic, but then I realized I actually trust God with this. Because He has a great track record with jobs and moves for me, always providing the right opening at the right time. It was nice, because I had been feeling antagonistic toward Him and anything but trusting, mostly because I've been majorly agitated over not having a boyfriend and thinking, "So are You going to leave me hanging another twenty-five years, Punk?" While I know it's not ideal to trust God only about things He's proven Himself "good at," and I shouldn't need a track record to trust Him with a certain thing, it was at least a step in the right direction and a reminder of His providence. I still have lots of my own ideas and criteria for the job I want next year: I really don't want to move, I don't want an internship-type thing where it has an endpoint, I'd like something career-oriented and not minimum-wage. But I'm also thinking, God knows how much I want to stay here, so if He does move me, it will probably be for something infinitely better than what I have here, to make it worth the uprooting. (Hard to imagine, friend-wise and house-wise and location-wise, but then many of His plans are hard to imagine.) I feel a little underqualified because I don't want to teach and that's what I've been doing (though not exclusively) for three years. I figure I'll just overapply, apply to everything I remotely want to do, and statistics dictate that I'll have to get a call-back from at least a couple. I think it will feel good to be able to act on my interest when I see a good opening--I often look online at jobs but can't really do anything about it, but come Spring, when The Change is actually impending, I'll be able to respond and not just speculate. That's exciting.
In summary, if anyone knows of a job opening in copyediting, proofreading, or indexing that I can do from home or in Wilmington, send the vitals my way. My dream is to rectify all comma splices and live in an error-free world, at least on paper and onscreen. Yes we can.
1. Eavesdropping on the people next to me here at Java Dog. Two of them are going to get married! Like, today or tomorrow! Probably not today, come to think of it, because they wouldn't be here, would they? And they seem pretty relaxed.
2. Putting off eating the rest of my farmers' market cinnamon bun, delayed gratification being key to maturity and self-control.
3. Alternating between anger, pity, and apathy about The Department's seemingly neverending issues. Sometimes I think we should just outsource everything to non-writers.
4. Wondering if that new show Community with Joel McHale and Chevy Chase is going to be any good.
5. Playing Text Twist 2 online. (Seven letters, not six! But some of the words are joke words, like jiveass and fatbird.)
6. Then and only then, writing syllabi and le thesis, which is what I came here for. Maybe we'll call today a practice run for the school-year-Saturday routine.
Last night a bunch of people went out for Brooks's birthday. I went a little reluctantly, having so enjoyed the hermit life lately, but as usual, it turned out fun and I was glad I went. Met three new students, caught up with a couple of people I hadn't seen literally all summer, practiced my yelled-conversation skills, and got smoked out of the Blue Post. It had a very first-party-of-the-school-year feeling. Made me one baby step more ready for the thing, hence my attempt at syllabus-writing today. While the transition can be a little eye-roll-inducing, I don't mind a routine once it starts. I even like it most of the time. So I think this year is going to be great. I'm going to write the best thesis ever and have lots of fun.
As for after graduation, it hit me hard the other day that it's well under a year until I'm no longer a student or a TA, and even less than that until I have to start looking in earnest, not in a lah-di-dah way, for a job. When I realized that, I had a brief moment of something like panic, but then I realized I actually trust God with this. Because He has a great track record with jobs and moves for me, always providing the right opening at the right time. It was nice, because I had been feeling antagonistic toward Him and anything but trusting, mostly because I've been majorly agitated over not having a boyfriend and thinking, "So are You going to leave me hanging another twenty-five years, Punk?" While I know it's not ideal to trust God only about things He's proven Himself "good at," and I shouldn't need a track record to trust Him with a certain thing, it was at least a step in the right direction and a reminder of His providence. I still have lots of my own ideas and criteria for the job I want next year: I really don't want to move, I don't want an internship-type thing where it has an endpoint, I'd like something career-oriented and not minimum-wage. But I'm also thinking, God knows how much I want to stay here, so if He does move me, it will probably be for something infinitely better than what I have here, to make it worth the uprooting. (Hard to imagine, friend-wise and house-wise and location-wise, but then many of His plans are hard to imagine.) I feel a little underqualified because I don't want to teach and that's what I've been doing (though not exclusively) for three years. I figure I'll just overapply, apply to everything I remotely want to do, and statistics dictate that I'll have to get a call-back from at least a couple. I think it will feel good to be able to act on my interest when I see a good opening--I often look online at jobs but can't really do anything about it, but come Spring, when The Change is actually impending, I'll be able to respond and not just speculate. That's exciting.
In summary, if anyone knows of a job opening in copyediting, proofreading, or indexing that I can do from home or in Wilmington, send the vitals my way. My dream is to rectify all comma splices and live in an error-free world, at least on paper and onscreen. Yes we can.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Health and Beauty
So I signed up for new health insurance, right? Because it had gone up every year and I thought I could do better, and I figured, new house, new school year, new insurance, clean slate. And I go online to the site recommended by Dave Ramsey, and enter some info and pick the one I like best, and it's, like, eighty dollars less than what I currently pay! Excellent! So I sign up for it officially and wait for them to approve it. A few days later, I get a call saying it's approved. Yay! But it's about fifty dollars more than what I'd been quoted online, after putting in all of my information. Wanna know why? My height and weight. Yeah. If you know me in person, I hope you, like me, will find this ridiculous. No, I'm not very tall or very thin. But I'm well within the range of healthy normalcy. To be fair, I do see why the insurance company does it, but a) they should have been able to show me the new quote online instanty--I know Blue Cross did when I signed up there. b) They never asked me, online or on the phone, about my lifestyle. I never got to tell them I'm training for a triathlon. They don't care how much meat or sugar or fat I eat, what my cholesterol is or my blood pressure. No, all they look at is height and weight. Which are just two coordinates in an intricate system that is health. The kicker is that I was only seven pounds "over," and I had just guessed at my weight, so I thought there was a good chance I was in their range of acceptability. I weighed at student health and was only three pounds over! So my plan now is to lose three pounds and then buy the new insurance. Not without anger and frustration over their methods, but as my mom pointed out, that's what health insurance companies do. And she said it wouldn't get better when I have a normal-people job with normal-people benefits, but I said, "But then I wouldn't be paying for it," and she said, "Oh, right." So I do think it'll be better, or at least different, or at the very least cheaper, in a year. Ish.
I am still, after a couple of months, suprised by how much I like to exercise. Today and yesterday I biked and then ran, to practice doing more than one thing in a day. It's a very accomplished feeling to come into the AC and pound a glass of water and have your clothes completely soaked. Completely. Soaked. And then maybe take a dip in the channel before your shower. I must say, it's the life.
You know how people you've met only once are the easiest ones to imagine dating and marrying? Because you know so little about them that you get to plug in only great things? Like, "I bet he loves ________ just like I do," or "Of course he has the most wicked sense of humor." And there's none of that pesky reality there to contradict you or make them go against your sovereign will. Well. Sometimes I google these types of guys. (Don't act like you don't.) I googled one of them last night. And I won't go into specifics, but I now know that he cares (at least almost) as much as I do about spelling, and that he's a good writer and that he's very very smart, though I pretty much knew that already. It was the final nail in the coffin of my rationality. We are now married in my mind, and if I do ever see him again, I'll probably just work so hard to seem like I don't know anything about him or think about our long-term future together that I'll forget the outside-my-head part and not make the best impression on him. But maybe not. Who knows. Whatever happens, I can always google someone else.
A few of my favorite things: noncompetitive soccer, New Yorker cryptics, A. J. Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically, the lavender honey ice cream that Chris made, my porch, this itinerant cat that I won't call "mine" or even "ours" because we're supposed to be looking for a home for her, roommates who spend a lot of time with their boyfriends (even though I like them and wouldn't mind if they were here a lot, I just prefer having the place to myself), and getting an email today asking if someone could audit my class. I've been struggling with a lot lately, and my enjoyment of things like these is what reminds me that I'm not sinking, that I'm not hopeless, that the good outweighs the bad even if it has to be a lot of little good things trumping a few big bad things.
I am still, after a couple of months, suprised by how much I like to exercise. Today and yesterday I biked and then ran, to practice doing more than one thing in a day. It's a very accomplished feeling to come into the AC and pound a glass of water and have your clothes completely soaked. Completely. Soaked. And then maybe take a dip in the channel before your shower. I must say, it's the life.
You know how people you've met only once are the easiest ones to imagine dating and marrying? Because you know so little about them that you get to plug in only great things? Like, "I bet he loves ________ just like I do," or "Of course he has the most wicked sense of humor." And there's none of that pesky reality there to contradict you or make them go against your sovereign will. Well. Sometimes I google these types of guys. (Don't act like you don't.) I googled one of them last night. And I won't go into specifics, but I now know that he cares (at least almost) as much as I do about spelling, and that he's a good writer and that he's very very smart, though I pretty much knew that already. It was the final nail in the coffin of my rationality. We are now married in my mind, and if I do ever see him again, I'll probably just work so hard to seem like I don't know anything about him or think about our long-term future together that I'll forget the outside-my-head part and not make the best impression on him. But maybe not. Who knows. Whatever happens, I can always google someone else.
A few of my favorite things: noncompetitive soccer, New Yorker cryptics, A. J. Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically, the lavender honey ice cream that Chris made, my porch, this itinerant cat that I won't call "mine" or even "ours" because we're supposed to be looking for a home for her, roommates who spend a lot of time with their boyfriends (even though I like them and wouldn't mind if they were here a lot, I just prefer having the place to myself), and getting an email today asking if someone could audit my class. I've been struggling with a lot lately, and my enjoyment of things like these is what reminds me that I'm not sinking, that I'm not hopeless, that the good outweighs the bad even if it has to be a lot of little good things trumping a few big bad things.
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