Sunday, August 29, 2010

totally unsatisfying update.

the semester began this week and proceeded to smack both musicboy and i around like we were the nerdy freshmen and it was the obnoxious, somewhat sociopathic senior bully.  so far i'm keeping up, but keeping up is all i'm doing.  right now, i am content with that, as sometimes that's the definition of success.

i have a cold and my head is foggy and i know i haven't updated in a while but there comes a point where there's so much to say and nothing to say at the same time that writing seems more difficult than ignoring it altogether. 

i'll try to do less of that last one.

in the meantime, all is well here and i'm watching "signs," which means that my foggy head might actually fall asleep sometime soon. this would be the definition of bliss, i think, so i'll go pursue that particular activity.

ps.  college football starts this week.  hallelujah. 

Sunday, August 22, 2010

"he makes $87,456 an hour."*

according to my reputable sources**,  brett favre will be paid something like $25 million for one season if the vikings win the superbowl.

if they don't, which they won't, let's assume that he won't get a $5 or 7 million bonus.

that means that guy gets paid $18 million dollars, approximately, for 4 months worth of work.

(the parallels to my adjunct life is not escaping me, fyi.)

the standard NFL team plays 16 games a season. add one or two preseason exhibition games in there, and for every game he's making a million dollars.

so...what does that break down to? he practices every day, right? what, for like, four or six hours a day? he's brett favre, so he didn't even go to training camp. he had to be dragged back like an errant child by three of his linemen on a private jet. 

so let's say he practices four or six hours a day for five days of every week that he plays a game plus an additional two or three weeks.  that's approximately 108 hours.  let's round it up to 120, just to be generous.

the average nfl game lasts 4 hours.  so that's approximately 72 hours. let's round it up to 80 for overtime potential.

for 200 hours of work, the man is being paid 18 million dollars.  that's 90,000 an hour.

and in tonight's preseason exhibition, he got sacked like a little girl and then trotted himself off the field and stood on the sidelines. he was in the game for 4 plays.

sign me up for a job where i can be a big girl and get worshiped and paid way more than i'm worth. i'll take that job. 

pansy.  PLAY THE GAME. you're getting paid enough for it.

--
*i was just guessing and being an exaggerating hyperbolic complainer. then i found out i was RIGHT.  i should do this for a living.


**my source is sports radio. i am pretty sure pat o'brien said it.  i don't know the name of the show, because it's new. 

Friday, August 20, 2010

an open letter to myself.

dear youmeself,

listen.

you really have to cut it with the facebook stalking.

yes, it's totally understandable that you have lots to do that's not facebook stalking and that you feel like dookie and so don't want to do any of it, and that mustering the will to engage your brain is, at times, difficult, but really.

what can you possibly gain from constant facebook gazing?

yes, it's fairly [insert appropriate adjective here that is neither judgmental nor supersupportive but is rather fairly neutral since that's how you feel] that they only dated for a week before they got engaged, but there's nothing more to see there.  move along.

and, yes, it's possible that something amazing will happen on there, but probably not in the 30 minutes since the last time you logged on.  it's doubtful that a baby has been born, or an interesting set of news feed items have cropped up.

read a book. do a puzzle.  watch a movie. take a nap, for crying out loud. 

step away from the stalkbook. 

sincerely,

the better part of you that's currently being drowned by the boredom of yuck-feeling and the absence of real cable.

ps--why do your abs hurt? have you been working out secretly in your sleep?  creeper.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

what happens when i read cnn online.

i can totally picture what happened before this.

"dude. i bet i can straddle this pole thing. dude. even better. i bet i can climb over this and spin around it like my sister did when she was in elementary school."

it's all fun and games until an idiot falls on his head. also, the subtitle of this article? most obvious statement ever.

on the opposite end of the spectrum, i am so impressed by this.  i don't care who you are or what you believe--that's integrity, right there, and that's impressive.

that is all.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

shamelessly stolen from saf.

if you don't read her blog, you're nuts. you should. it's beautiful.

her latest post features a series of somewhat vague but insightful numbered points. i loved it.  and i decided that, perhaps, i will do that too.  i doubt mine will be quite as good, but imitation is the highest form of flattery (right?).

1. in the long line of things i've tried to do and have, for the most part, been good at, i think this particular challenge might be the hardest.  it's just...different.

2. for the first time in a long time, i am pleasantly surprised by that number i see there in the glaring green light of scale reality.

3.  the loopholes in this whole system make me nuts.  if you haven't already done something, you can't do something until you jump through a series of fiery hoops.  it's really quite annoying and, at times, demonstrates a distinct lack of compassion that rankles me on multiple levels.

4.  things like this elicit two responses from me.  the first is a searing kind of horror and rage. the second is a great deal of peace from my knowledge of the plan of salvation.  the second doesn't negate or really alleviate the first--it just makes me know that there were concourses of angels surrounding those babies and that those sweet children are with those who love them most right now.

5.  wheat bagels. yes. 

6. band camp schedule is insane. it's literally 8am to 10pm. i am just...not sure how we're going to do this semester.  i know we will, because we always do, but crazy busy schedules feel like shoes that have gotten wet and now shrunk and when you put them on you have to stretch them out again. they fit once--you know they'll fit again--but good heavens, there may be some adjustment periods.

7.  i think i've decided on real cable. being awake at 6 am with nothing but infomercials on may have tipped the scales this morning.

8.  my mom is in india and has an iphone.  sometimes i'm like...when did my mom become a jetsetter? i doubt, however, that she's having an eat/pray/love experience.  there was some discussion of malaria pills and duct taping your mouth in the shower, none of which sound like an enlightening experience in the same manner that julia is peddling.

9. when it's this hot, drinking water becomes a job.  if i accomplish nothing else (which, really, who has time for that?), but end up drinking the appropriate amount of water, i feel like i have won in some way.

10.  prayers are power.  this much i know is true.

11. the streak of gray in my hair makes me sad.  i've had it since my early 20s, but still, it makes me feel like the inevitable freight train of age is coming for me.

12. i hate loathe and abominate boring orientations. i don't mind trainings, if they are actually trainings. what i do mind is sitting like a lump in a room with a bunch of other people who probably also know what they're doing and being told a bunch of stuff that i don't care about.  tell me what i, individually, need to know.  give me my keys and my room assignments and the information i need to get into my email and my class rolls and then LEAVE ME ALONE.  when you hire me full-time, then i'll come to your little shindig. until then...let me be a loner freelancer.  i really do have enough to keep me busy...i promise. in fact, i have no idea if everything can possibly get done in time.

that's all for now. 

Monday, August 16, 2010

bieber, cable, and pickles.

i hate justin bieber.

yes, i broke my blog silence to tell you that. i think the kid needs a haircut, and if i have to hear one more thing about "bieber fever" i might want to throw something large and sharp at the media person who uses the term.

(hi, lurking government officials. no real threat intended.  HYPERBOLE. thank you. you may move on.)

i just don't get it. i grew up with real idols. i grew up with the true teen angst and fever. i grew up with...

...new kids on the block.

i saved up my money to buy a poster. i didn't buy a poster of jordan (gag) or joe (hi, i'm a cradle robber, but really? the kid was not even post-pubescent).  no, my crush was on the quiet, shy, and it turned out deeply anxious jonathan.

he was my teen dream.

but at least nkotb had a media machine behind them. tours. real singles. no manufactured interactions with hip-hop sort-of stars.  huge sales of albums. DOLLS. LUNCHBOXES. CARTOONS. 

they knew how to do teen stardom back in the day, let me tell you.

they weren't discovered on youtube. nope. they were found on the mean streets of boston and then manufactured into a supergroup by someone who knew what they were doing and knew not to be indicted for sketchy behavior later (i'm looking at you, o-town guy).

those were the days, man. those were the days.

--

i have five syllabi and a whole teaching organizational structure to figure out this week. i plan to do it all from my couch.  musicboy starts band camp on wednesday. i plan to not see him again for many many moons.  sad.  i like him. i will miss him.  i want to be able to take care of him the way he needs to be taken care of when he's doing all of this hard work in the sun to become the most awesome college marching band guy ever, but for various and sundry reasons that's proving difficult for me right now.

i think it's going to be interesting, to say the least.

--

i can't decide if we should spend extra money to have real cable or if we should just suck it up and not.  it's football season, though...and oh how i miss espn.  maybe we can do it.  maybe i can justify it. maybe...

speaking of football season, i will be going to collegetown games by myself, since musicboy will be in the band. that means, more than likely, that i will be sitting in the midst of drunk people.  i don't like drunk people. no offense, but they're obnoxious and the smell of them makes me want to vomit on regular days.  give me massive amounts of sun and some degree of dehydration and that vomit quotient is amped significantly.

i have received advice to scalp my student tickets and buy alumni tickets, where people actually sit down and it's in the shade. 

i can't decide if i want to do that or not.  either way, i'm just not so sure it's the most fun idea ever to go to football game by myself.  but...i wouldn't miss musicboy's performances for the world.

it's a pickle, i tell you. it's a pickle.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

wing to wing.

Two such as you with such a master speed, cannot be parted nor be swept away, from one another once you are agreed, that life is only life forevermore, together wing to wing and oar to oar.--Robert Frost

when you get married, you know that you're in it for the good stuff and the easy stuff and the tough stuff and the hard stuff.  you know that, intellectually, and perhaps by the time you say your vows, you've already been down a road that took you over bumpy, jagged patches that taught you that your partner is the person who can pull you through unscathed.

for me, though we certainly faced opposition, i don't think i really knew that. i knew it intellectually, but i don't know that there was a time when i felt so completely vulnerable and scared and musicboy was my physical, emotional, and spiritual rock.

today, then, was an eye-opening experience for me.

nothing hugely dramatic happened, other than a pretty big scare that took the wind right out of me. i don't want to talk about details for many reasons, but i was at one of the lowest points i've been in the time we've been together.  

and he? he just stepped in, found his own peace, and literally held me up and buoyed me up when i needed it. he stayed with me, letting me know that all was well.  only when i found my own footing, metaphorically, did he for a moment express any doubt or fear himself.  

all is well, for now, and i think all will be well.  and though i wish that no such scare had happened, it has been an incredibly valuable day for me.  there are moments when you take the measure of the man you married, and that measure is far beyond what you had ever expected.

today was one of those days for me, and in looking for a way to express it, i happened upon the quote above.  i never want any day to go by when we are not oar to oar, and after today, i know that such a day cannot come.

we are, in the somewhat immortal words of jack johnson, better together.

though i knew it before, i'm glad to know it even more now.  

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

rights, privileges, and responsibilities.

graduation was fun.  and boring. mainly boring.  and i don't feel any different, really, but there were some pretty cool highlights.

one of them was when we all stood up and had our degrees conferred upon us.  the board of trustees guy said that we now had all of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities associated with the doctor of philosophy degree. funny. until then, i hadn't really thought of a degree as having any responsibilities whatsoever, but it does, i suppose.

when we all stood up and did that, i might have gotten a rush of "wow. i did it."

but then i had to wait to get hooded for one hundred and fifty years, and that was boring.

and when i got hooded, it was so fast and i was so worried about hitting my mark that i barely heard it when they announced "DOCTOR teachergirl maidenname marriedlastname" but that was pretty cool.

but the part that got me the most fired up (other than desperately wanting the dang thing to be over already--it's much more boring when you are the one sitting on the floor than when you're up in the audience with other people...) was at the end.  we were asked to stand and sing the alma mater.

well, i go to football games, and we sing that there, and i know it, and i feel a lot of pride for collegetown U.  so i sang.

no one around me sang.  the whole stuffy phd section didn't sing at all, and they all looked back at me when i got loud at the part about our school being glorious (that's when we get really loud at football games) and i just started to get mad.

don't you dare look down at me, stuffy doctorate guy. i have spirit. i have a life outside of my dissertation. i, surprisingly, don't always have my nose in a book.  don't you dare look down at me for having spirit and for showing it.  i decorated my hat. i sang the alma mater.  i did both with pizazz.

don't you dare judge me for being cooler than you. 

academics really bug me sometimes.  they really, really do.  not everything is quite as serious as you think it is, buddy, just so you know.  it's really not.

anyway. 

it was fun, and now i'm a doctor, and i don't feel one little bit different about that. 

that's weird.  maybe it'll begin to sink in when i see my diploma, or when i write "dr. teachergirl" on the eight syllabi that i have to prepare next week. 

until then, though, it's just...sort of odd. 

but i'll be a collegetown u mascot for life.  and i'm proud of that.  and of my accomplishments, of course. i made it. i finished, and right when i wanted to.  i sucked it up, i dug deep, i figured it out, and i finished with honor.

not much more you can ask of life than that, you know?

Thursday, August 5, 2010

still here.

i'm still here.

it feels like it's been ages since i posted, but it really hasn't, but that nagging feeling makes me need to come on here and apologize for silence.  lots going on right now--graduation in two days, grades due around then as well, boxes and assorted things that need to be sorted through before teachermom comes and stays in our office for the week (yay!), etc. 

you know the drill.

but i'm still around. 

Sunday, August 1, 2010

sunlight through the window.

every morning, i wake up at around the same time.  i'm not sure if it's because of the new sunlight pouring through the windows near where i sleep, or if it's because i am on some sort of new schedule, but it leaves me time in the morning to do things.

it has become a rhythm that i am just accustomed to. i am grateful that getting up earlier hasn't been too much of a struggle, and i hope that will be true when i keep pushing it back in anticipation of fall.

--

last week was the final inspection on the old apartment.  we spent probably a total of 2.5 hours cleaning, but of course there were some "minor cleaning things" that still needed to be done. i don't care. i didn't really clean the baseboards and i didn't really scrub the walls and i really don't care much. if we get anything back, i will be happy.

as i was driving away, no longer the holder of two almost identical house keys, i felt an inexplicable pang of sadness. i wasn't expecting it, honestly.  i was a bit taken aback by why i would feel sad to be closing that door.  but i did, and the only way i can really explain it is this:

no matter how ready i am for good change, i almost always feel keenly the ending of the last chapter.

it's part of my nature, i'm beginning to realize. as long as i don't spend too long looking back (and i didn't), then i'm usually fine.

i am glad the move is finally over. that house, with all of its idiosyncratic oddities, was quite good to us. in some ways, i will miss it.

in other ways, not so much.

--

as i drove past a big chain pharmacy not far from our new place, i saw a sign advertising a FT pharmacy tech position.  i immediately, and for no clear reason, thought of younger ex who just returned from a mission.  i thought i should let him know about this job, because it was something that he did before he left.

when i thought this, i was surprised. out of the blue much? i don't speak to him, purposely, because we're not friends and really never will be.  maybe that's immature, but that's just me.

but as i drove by it again, i felt the same thing.  i sort of dismissed it, with a sort of curious wonder.  why did i keep thinking this?

shortly after i got home, i checked my email and got a message from my old roommate that younger ex is now engaged.

and suddenly it all fit.

so i messaged him, told him the whole random story, and wished him much joy and happiness. i feel oddly grateful that he has found someone so quickly. i feel like he is one of those people who needs to be married, who needs that support system to keep himself grounded. i sincerely hope it all works out for him. 

i have not heard back, other than from my subconscious, which then filled in all of the questioning blanks of my mind with a long-winded and seriously complicated dream about how and why they met. here's a little tidbit: it was china, there was something about paris hilton being accidentally topless in the dairy aisle of a supermarket, and the letter was written on a plastic tablecloth.

my life is so surreal sometimes. my dreams just make it apparent.

--


9pm feels like 1am now.  it's the oddest thing i've ever felt, especially as a night owl.



--

i have one more week of classes, and then several weeks of vacation.  i am beginning to crave the vacation.  in the meantime, we have pictures to hang and an office to organize and school supplies to buy and a cap and gown to pick up and a cap to decorate and a cake to bake for my graduation/anniversary and plans to make for when my mom comes to visit.

it's going to be fun.