Saturday, March 20, 2010

everybody loves an underdog.

march madness is nuts. i don't even like basketball much, but oh how i love the cinderella stories. my bracket has died an ignominious death, but if it means that someone i've never heard of (st. mary's, anybody?) gets to the final four, i will be so pleased.

i worry about our future children sometimes.  musicboy gets more riled up about ncaa football 2010 for the playstation than one should really ever be (it's because he likes to be good at everything he does and he's frustrated by stupidity on any level, even if electronic...sound like anyone else you know?) and i will take someone's face off in a game of bananagrams.  i hope they like sports or they are going to be a frustrated bunch of children.

i have a stack of essays to read but i didn't read them tonight.  i didn't want to. i still don't want to. this, of course, will result in much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth later this upcoming week, when the avalanche of student writing descends upon me, but tonight felt more like enchiladas, oatmeal raisin cookies, and basketball. 

that could be because i did couch to 5k this morning and then went to body combat.  my lower extremeties would like to rise up in rebellion and kill me, but they're too tired and sore.  so they just mumble and complain and say unladylike things under their breath whenever they are called upon to do anything at all.

my body combat instructor said today that this brutal choreography we're doing now (which is good--it burns a wicked amount of calories which facilitates the enchilada-cookie combo i alluded to earlier) would firm up your midsection. in the room full of mirrors, i could still see my roly stomach and thought "really? WHEN?" but then when i got home i realized that you can actually begin to achieve ab definition AROUND your fat rolls.  this is a strange realization that i have had before, but honestly? i'd prefer that the rolls just exit the building.

i got my new shoes!  but they gave me a murderously large blister on my heel.  sigh.  they always do that to it. i have to suffer for my art.

i was talking to a friend of mine who meets me once a week to work on dissertations together, and she was asking me if i was planning to publish my chapters as articles. my immediate response was "no way" and i followed that up with the idea that if i were to try to run that particular gauntlet, i would more than likely take a sizeable chunk of time off before doing so.  and then i said that i don't really like academic writing.

and that's true. i don't like the whole book-length chapter writing process. i like the seminar paper process. it's 15-20 pages, which is long enough to flesh out an idea and develop it but not long enough to have to really examine it in nauseatingly fine detail. you can go out on a limb if you'd like and then you can crawl back to your tree of safety and move on with your life. and you never have to commit another thought or resource to that idea if you don't want to.

that's the kind of writing i can get behind.  i told her that i have a blog, and it got me wondering--will my writing improve after the dissertation and phd is over? or will it decline? i feel certain that i will begin to branch out, but i'm not sure what i'll do. i know what i WON'T do. i won't try to turn my little blogging deal into a business.  no way. 

i blog because i need to, because it's my outlet.  not because i think i have a future in electronic publishing.  no way.

i do i hope i have a future in summer teaching, though. i am beginning to worry that i will have no income at all.  i should trust that all will work out, as it always does, but good grief, does it always have to come down to the wire?

of course it does. where's the fun and faith in anything else?

speaking of, basketball's on.  i hope there's another buzzer beater. i do love to be on the edge of my seat.

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