Sleep Fails and Sweet Treats

Fall semester: day twenty-seven

I really did want to stay awake this afternoon when I got home from work/school, really I did. I tried hard to do so. I drank coffee. I ate. I did some things around the house. Still, by 4PM or so, I was falling asleep at my desk. Because of this, I went to the trusty air mattress I have in the spare room (a mattress I've been napping/sleeping on more and more often during the week, now that I've gotten used to it and can be comfortable on it) and summarily passed out.

I slept my fill, as they say. When I awoke, it was very dark. This was a good thing. I was no longer tired at all, so I'd assumed that it was around midnight, 1, 2, something around there. So, after laying there for a little while to see if I was able to go back to sleep (I wasn't), I got up and went out into the kitchen.

...where I learned that it wasn't the middle of the night, it was 9:30PM. I had slept for a little more than five hours. Total. Sleep fail.

Mind you, this is about the amount of sleep I get any other given school night, so I guess it balances out. I just got it at a different time tonight. It'll probably mess with me in a minor way, as I have a different school schedule tomorrow and probably won't get to go back to bed until I get home tomorrow night -- roughly 23 hours from now.

My Wednesdays are weird, folks. I don't have my first class until 1:30, then have office hours, then have my second class from 7:05-9:45PM. Normally, this means I don't have to get up early or leave the house early if I don't want to, and I've been arriving on campus between 10 and 11:30 on most Wednesdays. The only problem with that is the fact that it's nigh-impossible to find a parking spot when I get there at those times, and I'll often drive around the lots for 20 minutes or more, wasting gas while doing so, before I can find one to slip into -- at which point my car has been creeping slowly around the parking lot for so long that the engine tries to stall out on me (because of the spark plugs) as I pull into a spot. No fun.

Because of this, I've decided that most of the time now I'm just going to get up at 5 on Wednesdays as well and go in at my "normal time," even though I don't teach and don't have class until 1:30, to not only get in there and get a parking spot early, but to get stuff done around the office that I normally would be unable to do at home (making copies, reading without being distracted by the TV or computer, etc). It'll also help me branch out a bit in the "socialization" department, as I don't really get to see a lot of my friends when I'm just on campus for class. The only exception to this will be those Wednesday mornings when I really do need that extra few hours of sleep I'd get by sleeping in until 8 or 9, but as I barely sleep as it is, I don't necessarily see this as a cause for concern. It's worth it to me to go in early to get a prime parking spot and to get stuff done around the office; a little more sleep deprivation I can deal with. After all, I do have coffee, and I really only work a three-day week.

Today in my classes was interesting; I detailed the new workshop overhaul that I'll have to do in there, as the original plan my supervisor and I had isn't really feasible for classes of my size (15 and 18, respectively, when the original workshop plans were for 8-12 students per class, max). The kids seemed to respond well to it; almost all of them got a free pass of points for this past week's workshop as well (barring those who didn't give me a draft and/or were absent, of course). My classes are becoming more cohesive, more organized, and have been pretty on-the-ball with most things. I'm proud of that, seeing as I've never taught the Science/Engineering 102 class before and am basically winging it as I go along based on lesson plans, readings, and notes that my supervisor used last semester when she herself taught the class (for the first, and only other, time it's been offered). I collect their first big papers of the semester on Thursday, and start Unit 2 that day as well. It moves fast; I've got a little more than two months to teach and assign them two more papers, collect and grade them, and prepare them for the final exam. There's a lot of work to do in those two months, but thankfully it's all pretty well-structured with some wiggle room for extraneous stuff like a library instruction day, a conference week, etc. I'm having fun, too -- it's classes like these which remind me why I love teaching.

The rest of my day was interesting enough, as well -- I worked the EGSA book sale tables in the student union after I finished teaching my classes this afternoon. I was originally only supposed to work from 12-1, but for the 1PM hour the only person who was there was Rae, and I didn't want to leave her there all alone, so I stayed an extra hour until 2PM to help and to offer some companionship. It wasn't as if I had anything else to do (well, I did, but nothing pressing that couldn't wait an hour, of course). As Rae is one of my friends in the department I am quite grateful to have in my life on a daily basis -- and one of a small number, to be sure -- I also would have felt extremely guilty had I not stayed to help. I'm glad I did. I always have the most engrossing, amusing conversations with her.

After our relief arrived at 2PM, I hopped into the Monte Carlo and rocketed back to Newton, stopping at Walmart on the way home to pick up "treats" for our Poetry Workshop class.

I'm not sure I've ever explained the concept of "treats" in that class fully here in this blog. It was a weekly tradition started by our esteemed former professor (a professor who now has a very tastefully-rendered title of "Professor Poet Extraordinaire" engraved under his nametag on his office door) for our workshop classes, which were customarily held during the evening hours. Since classes would run from 7:05-9:45, none of us would usually be home for "dinner" with our respective "families" (and for some/most of us, of course, I use both of those terms loosely), he started the tradition of, every week, someone volunteering to bring in food/dinner/treats for everyone to eat. Everyone in class did it at least once, including him, and the food would range from home-cooked meals to chips and salsa, delivered pizzas or subs, or cookies/baked goods. It always varied week to week.

Now that we have a new poetry professor, yet still have the same class time, our new professor decided we should continue that tradition, and throughout the semester we've all been bringing foods/treats as per the usual -- though this time around we have a schedule to follow, and we picked our "date" for treats on the first day of class by signing a sheet and making a note of it in our individual day planners. This week it's my turn, so I needed to stop on the way home this afternoon to pick something up.

Truthfully, I had no clue what I was going to bring. I don't generally plan this stuff out ahead of time, and all the other times I was responsible for treats in the past, I had the former girlfriend around to offer suggestions and ideas. Now, barring that, I was left on my own to figure something out. So, when I walked into Walmart this afternoon, I had but three possible ideas of things to bring/do:


1. Get a simple veggie or cheese/crackers tray and call it done, despite the fact that I eat like a rabbit already when I'm at home, so a veggie tray would be somewhat unappetizing to me, and Rae brought a cheese/crackers tray in a few weeks ago.

2. Buy a cake mix for a buck and bake a cake.

3. Get a few packages of cookies/crackers and some sodas for everyone.


I was almost sold on the cake idea until I realized that would entail purchasing eggs and/or milk and oil as well, none of which I keep on hand in the house. I keep cooking oil in the house, but it's usually corn or peanut oil to fry things in, I never eat eggs (so I never have any), and I usually have only a 1/2 or 1/4 gallon of milk in the house if any at all. I also didn't want to mess with baking a cake, to be honest, because if something went wrong, well, I'd have to go back out and get a replacement set of treats.

I dismissed the veggie tray/crackers and cheese tray idea outright when I saw that Walmart wanted $10 for a cheese and crackers tray, and $12 for a veggie tray big enough to feed the entire class.

So, I was left with the cookies/crackers/soda idea, and was pretty much settled on that, when I noticed something that was altogether unexpected...it's fall now. What does Walmart put on sale very early every fall? Halloween candy. A ton of it. I walked into a huuuuge display of massive bags of Halloween candy, some of them $6-8 each just because they were so large.

And so, it was settled. I got two big bags of Halloween candy -- one containing three bags' worth of fun-size 3 Musketeers, Snickers, and Milky Way bars, and the other containing a huge mix of things from Sugar Daddy pops to Blow Pops and everything in between. Each bag was $6, but I didn't care because the leftovers will go into my snack drawer in the office, and will last forever. To top it off, in case some people didn't want candy, I also bought two big bags of pretzels, and two 2L bottles of soda -- Coke and Mountain Dew. I figured that would cover everyone. Nobody else ever brings any sort of drinks, and drinks are sort of needed if pretzels are involved.

So, satisfied, I purchased these things and came home.

When it comes to the Monte Carlo, it's strange; now I couldn't tell that there's anything wrong with it at all. I filled it with gas this morning at 6:30ish, dumping my last bottle of fuel injector/carb cleaner into it (as I hadn't given it any in a month or more), and as always, it drove admirably to school and back today. I checked the coolant tank when I got home, and it hadn't used any more/burned any off. I've put 75 miles on it since I last filled the coolant tank, and it hasn't burned anything off since, so now I don't know if it's actually got any major problems or not. It's left me scratching my head, frankly. Obviously, I'm still going to get it looked at/worked on, especially for the spark plugs, but as it hasn't burned off any more coolant for the past several trips to Wichita and back, my mind is at least a little more at ease about it. After all, it does run and drive quite normally, so...I'm not sure there's much else I can do for the moment. Maybe it's just really happy when it has a full tank of gas, I don't know.

The next 48 hours will be long ones for me, obviously; I have three classes to attend and one more to teach, as well as collect those aforementioned student papers, hold office hours, and do a lot of reading -- some of which I will accomplish this morning in my office when I go in there early. My weekend is shaping up to be another long one filled with work as well, as I've mentioned here numerous times. Sleep deprivation and no real free time is a bitch, folks. I'd be reading now if I knew that it wouldn't put me back to sleep -- sleep which I could use, but isn't really important in the grand scheme of things. The rest of the night will probably be spent doing laundry, taking a shower, and drinking coffee while I take care of odds-and-ends around the house before I get dressed and return to Wichita for the day. Unless I fall asleep in the office for a power nap, I don't expect to get any more rest until I return home tomorrow night, and even then I'll only be able to sleep for a short six hours at most before I have to be up and at it again for Thursday.

I'm fairly sure most of you don't envy my life, or my sleep schedule, but it's what I have to endure in order to continue and complete my education. At least during the fall and spring semesters, anyway.

I've given a fair amount of thought to what I'm going to do next summer for money; yes, I know, it's nine months or so away, but I still have to plan for things. Paychecks only last until the end of May, and by then I'm likely to be running out of cash again, just like I was this past summer. I'm more than likely going to volunteer to teach summer sessions, as the former girlfriend did last summer, as I may have no other real options for work unless I want to work in retail again (which, of course, I don't). Summer sessions, at least, pay rather well. It's an opportunity to make about $2k over the summer. There's also a much stronger possibility that this summer I will be working with my supervisor/the Director/another fellow student to construct a Science/Engineering 102 workbook, which should pay well, but as always that depends on the funding the department is able to allot to us for that sort of thing. No funding equals no pay/no job doing that, something I realized the hard way this past summer.

If I don't end up doing either one of those things, I could probably survive on what I will have made/saved, but that is something I'd rather not think about or do if I could avoid it, as it would mean that I'd probably run myself down to the last bit of money I have to my name. Keep in mind that if I don't work a summer job of some sort, I wouldn't be spending the gas money to drive the car a lot, though, and all I would really need would be enough money to pay for rent, food, and bills. Those are considerable expenses, but nothing totally insurmountable if I am unable to find work or work with the school in some capacity. Regardless of what else I do over the summer, I will be at least prepping one or two more books to publish and sell, and readying for my third, final year of graduate school (which means reading/studying for comps and working on my thesis as much as possible).

I also fully expect to still be single, so that doesn't even enter into the equation.

Anyway, on that note, I'm off to take care of the rest of the stuff I need to do in the middle of the night before returning to campus in the morning. Yaaaaay.

The Gods of Creation and Destruction, Part II

Fall semester: day twenty-six

It's hard to believe that barely a month of this never-ending semester has passed, for it seems like much more of it should have gone by at this point.

As I told Andrea earlier tonight, it's gotten to that point already where I'm like BLAAAAAAAHHHH FUCK IT and just want to curl up under a rock and hide, and occasionally have a girl to come by to nail every few days.

"I am a horrible person," I added.

Mind you, this isn't actually my mindset, but when I get as fatigued as I am now, my reptile brain takes over.

I spent eight hours today reading Midnight's Children, and most of it came back to me as I read through it. Still, I'm only 200 pages into it again, and it's a 530-ish page book. It's long. I'm also pretty sure that Crime and Punishment is next up in my Grad Studies in Fiction class as well (though I could be wrong), but if so it means I'll be reading two huge books back to back at the same time I should be writing papers and/or grading my students' own papers. This means I will have no sleep, no free time, no blogging time, and most importantly, no actual relaxation time for the better part of the next month, if not longer. Can't really do much about it; things must be done.

And then, of course, there's the car.

My friend Shanna asked me last night how the car was doing. I replied that I hadn't driven it since I got home from class on Thursday night (which I haven't; remember when I said I never leave the house unless I have to? I wasn't lying). In the morning I have to leave the house early, as I didn't get gas over the weekend, and I sort of need that if I'm going to get to Wichita and back tomorrow.

Tomorrow's a bit longer for me than I originally anticipated; not only am I working the EGSA book sale after class until 1PM, I also have to stop at Walmart on the way home (again) to pick up food for our Poetry Workshop class, lest I forget to do so. It's my turn to bring in something, and as of yet I have no clue what that something will be. I may pick up a few boxes of cookies/crackers and just call it done, or get a veggie tray or something. Who knows. It depends on how creative I am tomorrow afternoon, and how much money of my (rapidly dwindling) bank account I can justify spending.

Of course, I also have to get home and continue reading Midnight's Children, otherwise I'll never finish the book. Yes, I realize I have another ten days to finish reading it, but there are many, many more things I have to do in those ten days.

As for getting the car looked at and/or worked on, I don't know when that will happen, so I just have to hope my luck holds out. My colleague and her husband had a death in the family over the weekend, so that is obviously much more important than worrying about something as trivial as my car. Hopefully we can set something up soon, but like I said -- as long as it's running and driving as per the usual, I just have to hope it'll keep doing so, even if that means I have to dump coolant into it every 200 miles or so. Yes, I'm paranoid that there will come a time that it'll just stop running, but I can't obsess over it; I depend on it, and I have way too many other things to worry about and take care of on a daily basis.

Payday is coming on Friday. I paid the rent and mailed it out over the weekend, meaning I'll be short on cash until I get paid, and even then it won't make up for the rent check I just sent out. Adding insult to injury is the fact that on the same day I mailed out the rent, I received the electric bill in the mail, for another $76 I'll have to pay. Mind you, this is half of what it was over each of the summer months, but I'm on a bit more of a budget now that I'm single. However, I should be receiving my first royalty check for my book sales at some point soon (not much, but something) and I should also be receiving another check eventually for the sales I've made from my other online businesses, which I've never promoted here. These will help some, but not a whole lot. Until I can save the vast majority of my paychecks for a month or two, my bank account will slowly dwindle down again unless I take another student loan, which is something that I really, really don't want to do unless there is really no other option whatsoever.

As I mentioned before, I don't have a safety net, folks; I'm out there on my own, and there's nobody to save me but myself anymore. I have to do what I can to survive. It's not like I have any "emergency money" or anything like that. While I can live comfortably enough on what I do have and do get from my paychecks, I'm back to living much like I did in those five years when I was not in school -- paycheck to paycheck, taking care of what I can when I can. Except now, the paychecks are much smaller and no longer weekly. As a result, I may have to start selling a lot of stuff on sites like eBay and Amazon. After all, I have a ton of books I'll never read, and a ton of DVDs I'll never watch again.

On that note, I must go to bed. I'll be getting up at 5AM all three days this week, as I have a lot to get done.

The Gods of Creation and Destruction (or, why I'm writing another book, amongst other things)

As I previously posted on my Twitter and Facebook earlier, I should be reading Jane Austen's Persuasion tonight for my Graduate Studies in Fiction class, so that I can get it out of the way, write a response paper on it, and be done with my work for that class for another week. But I'm not. What am I doing instead?

Oh, writing another book. Nothing too unusual.

*record scratch*

Yes, you read that right. I am writing/compiling another book to sell on Amazon. There's more writing involved than compiling this time. Though, admittedly, this won't be another 500-pager. More like fifty-to-sixty pages or so, like a chapbook. It's a book of my poetry. Not all of my poetry, obviously, and not even all of my best poetry at the moment -- some of that's still out for submissions right now, and may be accepted at some point soon to a literary journal. If it gets rejected, well, I'll add it to the book, because goddammit it will be published someplace.

I will say that a good 80% or so of the book's contents will be poems that nobody's ever seen before, in workshop or otherwise. New stuff, but meticulously-revised-and-finished new stuff. Frankly, there's a ton of work that I've not shown in workshop simply because I don't want feedback on it; I want to finish it and publish/sell it. A large chunk of my poems never see the light of day in workshop; they're quietly finished, revised, and submitted to literary journals instead. I have five submissions out right now, with only two of them containing poems anyone has seen before.

Now, however, I'm shifting my focus to publishing my own stuff, and not worrying about rejections by literary journals as much. Yes, I will still be submitting a lot of my stuff to different places, of course, but I'll have a separate section of my work cordoned off for the book only.

As you may have guessed, just like my other book, this will be a fairly-long process. I'm not going to have this book ready in a few weeks, oh no. I'll probably be writing/compiling/editing this book for a while, possibly through the winter. Do I expect it to sell more copies than my first book? Probably not, at least not immediately. But I will say that it'll be much cheaper. And it will probably have a print version available faster than that book, as well. However, it is by no means a quick process. I expect to be working on it probably through Christmas.

Why did I start this tonight? Well, really, it was because I came up with a brilliant title for the book, something incredibly simple, but something oh-so-succinct that captures everything about my poetry and writing style that I couldn't help but use it. When I come up with a good title for something, whether it be a story, blog post, poem, or (in this case) a book, I must immediately start writing. It's a compulsion of mine; it's something I can't stop myself from doing. Some of my best poems have come to me in the middle of a class or while taking a shower/cleaning the house/doing something equally mundane.

No, I'm not telling you the title. Not until the book is done and ready to publish, at least.

In other news, I haven't driven the car any more and really don't want to, but apparently on the trip back home from Wichita on Thursday night, it didn't burn off any more coolant (or at least not a noticeable amount, anyhow), which is a plus. I have the feeling that I'm going to have to keep checking it every day or almost every day I drive it now, so that I can keep track of things and estimate just how much it's going through -- and possibly when/how. At least until I can get it worked on and/or fixed, anyhow. As I said, it's not like I can avoid driving it -- I must be able to get to school and back, my entire life and income depends on it. I now have two full gallon jugs of new coolant in the backseat in case it starts to run dry again. I just wish I knew what the fuck was wrong with it. I'm pretty sure that just the spark plugs needing replaced isn't going to make the thing burn coolant. I'm wondering if it's just a cracked hose or broken seal somewhere that only really opens when the engine is running/driving on the interstate, because that would explain a lot of things. Really, it could be anything little like that instead of a major problem like a head/intake manifold gasket (or worse, the cracked block), because, really, it's running and driving just fine as per the usual. That doesn't mean I'm not going to be careful or make any extra trips in it until I can figure it out, obviously.

Because of my worries about the car, I had to skip the birthday party of a friend this weekend -- which sucks, because ironically, it was one of the few events this semester that I was totally gung-ho to attend, and planning to (was going to pick up food/beer on the way there and everything) before all of this car shit started happening. Despite my dwindling amount of free time, this was something I'd planned for and had sectioned off time from my schedule for.

I will once again stress that there are few things I love more than that car; it's one of the few physical items that I own outright, and the one I depend on the most. Plus, and don't try to deny it, it's a sexy car.


I rest my case.

Anyway.

Instead, today (as well as the rest of my weekend) was filled with work; I did everything I possibly had to do but all of the reading I have to take care of for my two lit courses. That reading, of course, will be taken care of for the most part tomorrow and Monday. I mentioned at the beginning of the post that I'm reading Jane Austen's Persuasion, which is a really short book (less than 200 pages), but for my Middle Eastern/Asian lit course, I'm reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

Here's the problem. I've read Midnight's Children before, but it was many, many years ago. Like, ten or twelve years ago. I remember almost nothing about it, other than the fact that I had to read it for a class, and that it was an incredibly good book that centered around India's independence and kids with telepathy or something like that. Seriously, it's been that long, and I've read a ton of different books over that time. I'm sure it was a book for a lit course I took that was read long enough to memorize something important to mention in a paper, and then quickly emptied from the recycle bin of my brain. I may not have even finished it, who knows.

That's a problem, as the book is 500 pages or longer, and I need to read it again, remember things from it, and be able to discuss those things critically and intelligently in class -- as well as possibly in a paper and certainly on a midterm exam that is rapidly approaching in said class. I love that professor -- he's one of the most intelligent men I've met in my entire life, an excellent lecturer, and if he wrote a memoir I'd be the first to buy a copy and read it -- but the midterm and final exams he gives are totally mentally draining. Luckily, his exams are the only ones I have to take this semester, and they help prepare us for comps.

The fact that the book is 500 pages or longer doesn't bode well for the rest of my workload, either. We're covering the book during two weeks of class, but this week I'm collecting my students' first papers to grade as well, and that means I'll be hunkered down in my living room at the coffee table for several more days reading through them, marking them up, and calculating grades. This is in addition to the fact that we're only covering Persuasion in my Graduate Studies in Fiction course for one week -- Wednesday's class -- before quickly moving on to the next novel on the list, so I'll have that book to start/read as well. That's one of the reasons I need to whip through Persuasion so quickly.

Not to mention my own papers to begin researching and working on, some of which are coming due soon as well (October 20 is when the first big one is due). I'm also sticking around on campus on Tuesday a little later than usual so that I can work the EGSA book sale booth in the student union, and that's just one of many little things I do on a regular basis that I tack onto my normal schedule of stuff.

Yes, I know, by entering graduate school as well as deciding to take two lit courses this semester, I sort of brought this on myself. I'm in an English program, yes, and I should have expected this. Well, I did expect it, but I didn't expect it to be as work-intensive as it is. I seriously have to manage my time now in ways I never thought I'd have to. Hence why I barely get quality sleep but one or two nights a week anymore, and why there's a stack of DVDs I've bought over the course of the past six months or so that are sitting on the rack in the living room, untouched, despite the fact that I now have a shiny new widescreen HDTV to watch them on.

Said TV is usually used to watch football and not much else. Sad, but true. At least the colors, picture, and sound are pretty. Oh, how I long for the semester to be over so that I have some true free time. I don't even really care at this point if I get B's in all my classes, I just want to be able to sleep like a normal person, watch TV, and read things for pleasure, not because I'm forced to. I've really got nothing else going for me.

Despite that, I've still been in a great mood, even when buried in my work. Last night I ordered Pizza Hut, because fuck it, I'm sick of consuming nothing but The Five C's (which, if you remember my last post, are chicken, carrots, celery, coffee, and cigarettes). Pizza Hut may not be the greatest for my budget or my waistline, but I needed something different. Pepperoni-and-onions-different.

I later found out that the Pizza Hut was a mistake, as my bowels still have not yet forgiven me for my betrayal.

It's not just the Five C's, really. I also take vitamins, and always have ramen noodles in the house, as well as the basic materials to make sandwiches. I've not been eating a lot of snacky things, though, since my friend Brittany sent me a hot-air popcorn popper when I was still trying to shakily get back on my newly-single feet. Bags of corn for the popper are very cheap and last forever. However, the vast majority of my diet does consist of those Five C's.

I'm letting my beard and hair grow back out. Since I clipped both, it's been in the high 40s to mid-50s at night and in the mornings, when I'm outside the most (back and forth to school, remember?), and I'm prepping my face and head for the winter months, during which I will need both my hair and beard in order to stay warm. I was originally planning to trim the hair once a month or so, seeing as I have the clippers now and can do so, but I'm getting the impression that after the hell-like, 110-degree-plus days with no rain we had all summer, it's going to be just the opposite this fall and winter, and we'll end up getting smacked with -20 temperatures and three-foot snowstorms. Let's just say I'm follicly-preparing.

Besides, as I recently realized that there's not a soul I encounter on a daily basis that I'm even remotely romantically attracted to (at least none I'd ever have a chance in hell with, anyway), there's no reason to "keep up appearances," as they say. I don't mean that to sound as bad as it probably comes off, as it sounds like I mean fuck it, I'm gonna let myself go, but it means I can gradually let myself become The Wolfman again (or, if you prefer, my other nickname -- "English Jesus"). It means I really have no one to impress, and for the moment that feels really good.

Also, the kind of woman I'd be interested in is the kind who would appreciate the extra hair anyway.

Not that I've really been looking (or even really have time for it right now), but as previously implied, it's not like I have a whole lot of luck with the ladies anyhow. The only woman in my life who truly loves me unconditionally lives 1,000 miles away. I call her "Mom." Are there others, or will there be again? Who knows. I've completely settled into the single life at this point and have gotten used to it. It took me a little under two months. Like I said before, I have a network of friends who care and who keep me afloat, keep me on the straight and narrow. I may not see them a lot, but they're still there when I need them, and likewise, I'm there for them when they need me. Or, at least, I try to be as much as I can.

On that note, it's after 3AM. I need to go to bed. I have two more days of weekend, and therefore, two more days of work ahead of me.

A Series of WTF Bad Events

Fall semester: day twenty-five

I have not written a real blog post here in a week, and there are myriad reasons for that -- mostly bad.

For one, the Monte Carlo is probably fucked, or is in the process of fucking. Yes, it's always had its problems, mostly minor ones, but it is now burning through an entire tank of antifreeze/coolant every 200 miles or so. As in, literally burning it off. No smoke, no overheating or anything like that, but it's almost going through coolant faster than gasoline. After consulting with not one, but two mechanics (one of them a very experienced aircraft mechanic who works on a ton of cars as well), we've come to several possible conclusions:

1. The car could have a blown head gasket -- which is, of course, a major problem, but luckily an easily-fixable one as long as nothing else is wrong or has been damaged by it (such as warped heads). As the car is running and driving fine with no noticeable recent loss/gain of power or gas mileage, this is possibly somewhat unlikely, so I can take a bit of solace in that at least. Maybe.

2. The car could have a blown or otherwise worn-out intake manifold gasket, which would also contribute to the variations in gas mileage I've gotten in it over the past few months (anywhere between 18-25mpg) that's letting extra air or water into the coolant system and/or possibly letting coolant burn off in at least one piston of the engine, if not others. I don't know too much about this sort of problem or what it takes to fix, but I've been told to check the oil to see if it looks "milky," as that would let me know that water was getting into the system somehow. I checked the oil and it looks...well, oily. And clean at that -- light tan, and no milky residue I can see. The car's oil was changed about 1,000 miles ago; it's not due for another oil change until it hits 219,500 or so, and right now it's around 217,600 (give or take).

3. Finally, the worst of all three scenarios -- the engine block may be cracked, letting coolant into the pistons to be burned off. I was asked if I'd seen any white smoke coming out of the exhaust when driving, as that's apparently a telltale sign. I have not, seen this, however -- I've seen no smoke come from the car anywhere, exhaust or otherwise, while idling or driving. Yet, somehow, my coolant keeps disappearing, emptying itself, and I have no clue how or why. Logic would dictate that if I had a cracked block the car would, y'know, tell me in some way, whether by not running at all, or by lots of telltale smoke or other problems.


I also would like to add this -- the low coolant light has been on in the Monte Carlo pretty much since I bought it, which for the most part I attribute to a burned out sensor, as it will always be on regardless of how much coolant is in the system. Same thing with the "service engine soon" light flashing at me because of the bad spark plugs it still needs to have replaced. The car doesn't leak, it doesn't smoke, it doesn't run hot, and for all intents and purposes it runs and drives as perfectly fine as it did the day I purchased it. If I hadn't done a routine check under the hood a few weeks ago to see that the coolant reserve tank was almost completely empty, I wouldn't know anything was wrong. I want to stress this. Yes, the car's old. Yes, it has an engine misfire because of the bad spark plugs and it runs a little rough and loud because of that. But it always has. It has no problem going 90 or faster on the interstate (believe me), and all controls/gears/gauges are incredibly responsive and have been working normally.

So, truthfully, I don't know what the fuck's wrong with it. I just know that I'm so not driving it any more than I have to or making any extraneous trips until I can get it looked at and/or worked on. I, of course, cannot avoid driving it to school and back three days a week regardless of what's wrong with it. I have no choice there, especially if I want to keep my job as a GTA and pass my classes. I am forced to take the chance that it may blow up while doing this, especially if it's a major problem, but I really have no choice in the matter.

Anyway, one of the two aforementioned mechanics is the husband of one of my colleagues within the department, and is more than willing to work with his friend, the aircraft mechanic, together on my car to see what's wrong with it to see if they can fix it as cheaply as possible. I mentioned this briefly here in the blog a month or so ago, back when the car's biggest "problems" were the spark plugs and a burned-out high beam headlight he was willing to fix for me. Unfortunately, I have had neither the time nor the money to order the replacement spark plugs or any other small parts the car may need (I do already have the high beam bulb, though). I have to report back to him with what I know, and we'll all have to set up a time that the car can be examined -- and soon. As soon as possible, hopefully. Until then, I'll not be driving anywhere that I don't absolutely have to, and will be attempting to baby the car as much as possible until it can be worked on and/or completely fixed. It could be something simple, or it could be something incredibly awful. Until I know for sure, I'm not taking any unnecessary risks.

Some of you are probably asking, "Why don't you just take it to a shop, Brandon?" The answer to that question should be fairly obvious -- I have no spare money. We only get paid every two weeks, and as we are at the end of the month, I have a ton of monetary responsibilities to take care of like rent and bills, and this month I had the added bonus of (quite ironically) needing to renew the Monte Carlo's registration/pay taxes on it for another year, which was about $70 extra that I normally wouldn't spend simply to get a little green sticker for my license plate. Needless to say, my finances are in the shitter right now, until I can build up a few more paychecks and actually save some of the money from them. I've had a lot of monetary obligations this past month, from rent, gas, and food, to bills and the $750 check I had to write the former girlfriend for repayment of the deposit she signed over to my name -- a check I desperately need her to deposit or cash soon so that my bank account can balance itself and be an accurate representation of how much money I have at my disposal. If I didn't keep my own accurate bank ledger, I'd have no clue what I have. With October's rent due in another week, let's just say I'm glad I subsist these days mostly on chicken, carrots, celery, cigarettes, and coffee. I call it The Five C's. It seems to work well enough for me. I've been visibly losing weight.

My finances are so destitute that I can't afford minutes for my phone, either, which is awful as I'm down to about ten minutes remaining on my account. As most of you know, for five years now I've not had a landline phone, but I've had a prepaid cell phone through T-Mobile, and everything I do on it costs money -- calls, outgoing or incoming, are ten cents a minute. Texts, both outgoing or incoming, cost about the same amount. $50 will put 500 minutes on my phone, give or take after taxes and the like (yes, there are taxes involved now, it's a mess). Do I have $50 to put on my phone? Hell no. $50 is 2-3 weeks' worth of groceries/food for me and the cats, extraneous stuff (like dishsoap, antifreeze, laundry detergent and cigarettes) excluded, of course. One of my closest, longtime friends called me a few days ago out of the blue, and because I have virtually no minutes left, I've been unable to call her back.

I received a letter in the mail a few days ago from Capital One, who I'd applied for a credit card through a few weeks ago. Despite being told I had been pre-approved and cleared for their cards on my original application information, the letter said that while I had a decent credit score (674, apparently...yay?), I do not have enough of an income per year for them to issue me a card, and that my application for one had been denied.

My reaction, obviously? Well yeah, if I had money, I wouldn't *need* a credit card. The whole point of having a credit card is to have the ability to buy things that you can't afford all at once and pay them off in installments.

Such as an engine for a 1996 Monte Carlo Z34, for example.

Or another car altogether.

As I've said before, sometimes you have to laugh if only to keep from crying.

This week has been incredibly busy for me, more than any other week this semester thus far. Yesterday, for example, I was wall-to-wall busy from the moment I started teaching to the moment I finally left campus. Teaching, practicum meeting, an hour in the campus Writing Center, a meeting of the head editorial staff for the school's literary journal, office hours (during which I worked with a student for at least an hour), reading, creating two handouts for class, more reading, then my 7:05PM class. Thankfully, that class let out an hour or so early, which was a welcome reprieve. I then had to deal with the car more, putting more coolant into it and checking the oil for that milky residue, before driving back to Newton, getting essential groceries at Walmart on the way home (so that I didn't have to make an extraneous trip in it this weekend) before finally, finally coming back to my empty house and waiting kitties.

Yeah, that was just one day. One. Day. The other days weren't much better or easier. Most of them were spent critiquing papers or poems, and reading lots and lots of text both on paper and online, and the next three weeks look to be much of the same -- I have at least two big papers coming up to write, and several long novels to read for my classes. I'm also collecting my students' first big papers next week, so I will have those to grade through as well when I have the time, I have to work an hour at the EGSA book sale on Tuesday afternoon, I have to take care of a lot of stuff as an editor for the school's literary journal, and of course there's the looming issues with my car I must still deal with. This sort of workload every week looks to be what the rest of my semester will consist of through December. Today is the first day of actual relaxation I've had in the past week -- and it's more forced relaxation than anything else, as it's not like I don't have a very long list of things to do over the weekend. I'm forcing myself to take a break, to not do anything relating to work or school, and forcing myself not to worry about the car right now (as at least it's running/driving as per the usual, and for the moment still gets me from A to B).

There are some good things going on, however -- very few, but some. I've been in a great mood over the past several days, I've been getting to know the new recruits a bit better (during what little time I have to do so, of course) and my students are not only enjoying my class, but most of them are excelling in it. I have friends who genuinely care about me and love me, and my cats are some of the best companions in the world; they're so vocal, so social, so animated. I have to be able to realize that there are good things in my life, and be able to be thankful and grateful for those good things, to balance out the bad or depressing stuff. Yes, I still have my lonely and/or depressing days, but things could definitely be much, much worse. It's all about having a little bit of perspective and clarity.

If you throw in...

..Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, this is an accurate representation of my life most of the time.

What Rock Should Be, Forever and Always

Tell me this isn't one of the best rock songs you've heard in years.

Buy the album on Amazon here. These guys are awesome.

Questionnaired!

Fall semester: day twenty

One of my students sent me an email this morning containing a questionnaire.

Note: this in itself isn't particularly unusual (at least not for me, anyway), especially coming from my students who are athletes for the school, or, occasionally, communications majors; many of them have assignments for their various classes that ask them to interview one of their professors, and as I'm generally the most, well, interesting professor they'll have during any given semester, I'm interviewed or questioned for these students' classes at least once or twice a semester. I really don't mind it at all; to the contrary, I think it's fun. If I'm not interviewed or questioned, I usually have to fill out a form or two (especially if I have a lot of student athletes) that say how the student is doing in my class, good or bad. The athletics department keeps their kids on task with these progress reports, and keeps them performing well both in academics as well as within the athletics program, something that I think is nothing short of revolutionary.

Keep in mind that when I was a student at WVU, the football/basketball players for the school were consistently looked upon as some of the less intelligent/capable students at the university. I had the pleasure of, while an undergraduate student there, taking a sociology class with a rather famous football player who has since gone on to play in the NFL for several teams (so, of course, he will remain nameless here), and he was dumb as a rock. Here at Flat State University, it's almost the exact opposite -- the student athletes I've had in my time as an English instructor, for the most part, have been some of the most intelligent students in my classes, with very few (if any) exceptions.

So, when I got the emailed questionnaire this morning from one of my student athletes, I wasn't exactly surprised. But the questions were shockingly (pun intended, if you know where I attend school) intimate, especially for one of these assignments. When I read through them, I thought to myself that this will so make an awesome blog post. At the very least, I hope it will be interesting for you to read. Below, as you will see, is the questionnaire I was given, with my honest responses. These are the same responses I have emailed to my student, so it's not like I could be racy or anything along those lines in them. So, let's get down to it:

1. What is your full name and title? Where are you from originally? How long have you been teaching at [school]?
Three questions in one, hm? Okay. My name is Brandon [last name redacted, of course, for the purposes of this blog]; I don't have any sort of honorary title (that I know of, anyhow) aside from Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA). I'm originally from Morgantown, West Virginia, and I have been teaching at [school] since fall semester 2010, making this my third semester as an English instructor.

2. What is your educational/professional background?
I received my Bachelor's of Arts in English and Creative Writing from West Virginia University in 2005. Amongst other professional endeavors, I was a laboratory technician/assistant in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cell Biology at WVU throughout my entire college career and for some time after graduation, paid the bills for three years afterwards by working in grocery retail, and eventually got to fulfill one of my lifelong goals of becoming a newspaper reporter/journalist for The Newton Kansan for over a year as well. I joined [school's] MFA program in 2010 as a way not only to finally get my Master's degree, but to further my writing skills and give me a source of steady employment/paychecks for three years (yes, we do get paid for teaching you folks).

3. At what age did you first become interested in your field/occupation and why?
If you choose to call my field "writing," then I've been interested in it my entire life, because I've been writing since an early age. It just came naturally to me, and still does. If you choose to call my field "teaching," then I've become progressively more interested in it throughout my graduate school career, simply because I can do it well (or, at least, I'd like to think I can). I've always considered myself a natural showman, a leader, etc. If I weren't teaching, I probably would have gone into stand-up comedy.

4. What were you like as a college student? What were your expectations about college? How did they differ from reality?
In my undergraduate career (over ten years ago now), I was probably a lot like most of you folks for the most part -- new to the entire system, new to this whole thing called "real life," and was trying to work through it the best way I knew how, making mistakes and (sometimes) learning from them, etc. As for my expectations about college itself, I didn't really have any aside from the fact that I assumed that getting a degree would immediately make me hire-able and desired in the job market after graduation -- especially in West Virginia, where a large percentage of the general population in most towns and cities have never gone to college and hold no certification or degree past a high school diploma. I had my expectations dashed upon graduation, however, when I found that I was either vastly overqualified for most places who were hiring, or vastly underqualified for any sort of job that would actually pay a wage one could fully live on. I found that the educational system, at least there, gave me false hopes in the sense that there's no true middle ground for employment after you exit it -- one would either end up working in retail or other unskilled labor, or one would need a more advanced degree than a simple Bachelor's in order to survive in a much more complex job market than I, as a man freshly graduated from college, was led to believe while an undergraduate student.

5. Was there a particular professor or instructor who was instrumental in your development? Describe what was special or interesting about this person or persons.
I had several excellent professors in my undergraduate career, most of whom are now retired or have gone on to larger schools/more important callings in life. My British/American lit professors taught me the value of classic literature, my creative writing professors taught me how to refine my skills and craft, and my sociology and religious studies professors taught me to question everything in life down to the smallest detail. When combined, I think all of these professors have helped to shape the way I think and look at the world. I'm not sure this completely answers your question, but it's the closest thing to an answer I can give.

6. What has been different since you graduated from college from what you imagined while you were in school?
See question 4.

7. Why did you choose to teach at [school]?
Truthfully? Because it means I don't have to pay graduate student tuition for my MFA education here (when we choose to teach, we get a waiver for that), and because it gives me a paycheck. It's not a big paycheck by any means, but it's a paycheck. I was surprised, however, to find out how much I would love (and revel in) teaching, and it's become one of the most gratifying, fulfilling experiences of my adult life.

8. What does your position at [school] include?
Basically, what you've already seen or have been shown by being one of my students. I teach two sections of English every semester, whether those sections are 101, 102, or a specialized class (like the Science/Engineering 102 class you're in). Obviously, that includes all the work that teaching entails, from creating lesson plans, handouts, and timelines, to lecturing and grading, keeping office hours, and everything in-between. As GTAs we have very little administrative power, so we do have "bosses" of sorts that we report to as well. Other than that? We do get a pretty good health insurance plan we can opt to take part in on a semester-by-semester basis, but no real other benefits. Of course, my position here also entails being a student myself, so as a graduate student I take at least nine hours of high-level classes per semester (usually 700-level or higher), for which I must write very large, intricate papers and/or read many, many texts -- I sometimes read 800 pages a week just for my own classes, and no, that's not an exaggeration by any means. It's a busy life; there's always something to be done, trust me.

9. What are your research interests?
I'm a graduate student getting my Creative Writing MFA in Poetry. I don't research anything that I'm not absolutely forced to; I simply write. I don't even like *reading* poetry, I just write it.

10. What are your interests and hobbies?
Many, many nerdy things. I collect comic books and comic-related things. I still purchase and play through every new Pokemon game, despite the fact that I'm nearly thirty. I own and play an electric guitar, and appreciate a wide variety of music. I spend a lot of my free time writing, whether professionally or for fun, and I have three cats who are, effectively, my children. I probably love those cats (as well as my speedy, but beat-up car) more than any girlfriend or wife I would ever hope to acquire. Yep, that's me in a nutshell.

11. What is your philosophy of teaching?
Hoo boy, that's a loaded question. My main philosophy has always been something I could sum up in a simple sentence, though: I want my students to enjoy class and have fun within it, but to leave it having learned at least something, if not a lot of things that will help them throughout the rest of their undergraduate career, if not life in general. I keep my classes rather laid-back, because most of the time I think that is the best sort of learning environment for most students -- especially freshmen -- who are brought down and/or depressed by the wholly serious or otherwise impersonal classroom environments (such as those huge lecture hall classes) they'll experience during their collective college careers. Most of my students are not English majors, or have a distaste for English courses after the ones they were forced to sit through in high school, so I take this into account and try to give my students not only a class they will enjoy, but the most important things they'll need to learn with the subject matter involved. If I can do that, I can sleep better at night knowing that I've accomplished something.

12. What is the most important advice you can give an incoming freshman?
Oh, dear sir, I have a list:
a.) It gets better, trust me. Freshman year at any university is rough, I won't lie, but don't quit. Do your best. Getting a "C" in a class is a mark of honor for some of those classes you'll take, so hang in there. Believe me, the real world is much worse in comparison.
b.) Get out of your house/dorm room, have some fun, make friends, and start relationships with the opposite sex. In essence, live the college life. Experience a party. Eat some really bad-for-you food on a frequent basis. Drive around town, explore. Wichita is a vibrant city, full of interesting people/places/entertainment venues if you know where to look. When you've heard people say that your college years are the most formative years of your life, they weren't kidding.
c.) Despite that, don't shirk your responsibilities. Do your work, turn it in on time, and always do it to the best of your ability. Don't rush things; take the time you need to get your work done, even if it means you have to skip that party I mentioned previously. Remember above all that you are here for an education first and foremost, and that you are entitled to nothing -- you must work for all you will accomplish in life, and that includes college. We are encouraged to remind students that we as instructors and professors don't fail students for poor performance, they fail themselves.
d.) There will always be someone who is smarter than you are; this is something everyone should and generally does learn quickly as a college student -- no longer will you be the most intelligent, charming, or witty person around, possibly not even in your circle of new friends. This may sound disheartening, but it's true. Roll with it; spend time focusing on your strengths, as doing so will only benefit you in the future.
e.) Protect yourself and be careful, and I mean that in more ways than the most obvious one; let's just say that getting stabbed, raped, or robbed aren't fun, and having children tends to complicate things. Refer once more to point C.
f.) If you must work during college to pay the bills and not starve, again, refer to point C. Remember, you more than likely don't want to work that sort of job for the rest of your life, and if you do, why are you in college in the first place?
g.) Respect your fellow students, as well as your instructors. Do not allow yourself to become bitter, condescending, or arrogant, as doing so only breeds more negativity in the world. Similarly, do not allow yourself to fall into despair or depression. If you find yourself doing so, refer to point B.


So there you have it, folks, my entire graduate school career (as well as some incredibly important, pertinent advice) laid out for you. Interesting, no?

The Square-one Approach

Fall semester: day eighteen

I think I'm on some sort of self-destructive, self-sabotage streak. Why? Couldn't tell you. How? Couldn't really tell you that, either. It's just some things I've noticed myself doing and/or saying that I step back from and think to myself -- as if it's some sort of out-of-body experience -- seriously? you just said that?

Case in point: were I of a more rational mind, I probably wouldn't have mentioned the thing about the Sailor Mercury costume in my mock dating profile blog post last week. But it's out there now, everyone knows it, and it's not like I can take it back and have everyone not remember it. Still, it's that looking back that sort of, to an extent, mortifies me that I would be that open with myself and the readers of this blog. What's even scarier is that most of my friends didn't even bat an eyelash at that statement or comment to me about it, as if they were all silently thinking yep, that's Brandon for you.

Perhaps my ability to be direct, blunt, and have my life read like an open book will eventually be my downfall.

It's not just been here on the blog, though; I've noticed that in my conversations with friends and other people that I'm becoming increasingly more caustic or self-incriminating. I will say these words, I will hear them leaving my body through my mouth, and suddenly I become of two minds: one is the normal me, the one speaking, and the other is holy shit what is wrong with you me, the part of me that usually dials it back a notch for respectability's sake.

I've been told before (most famously by the former girlfriend, but by others as well) that I don't have a filter and frequently need one. What is meant by this, obviously, is a mental filter that stops me from saying these sorts of things as soon as they come into my head. As a respected writer and member of our GTA community (and I use the terms "respected," "writer," and "community" very loosely here), I obviously have a filter for most social and/or formal situations, such as when I'm dealing with the administration or when I'm teaching/attending my classes. When I'm around friends, though, that filter is mostly removed. Now, it seems, that filter has almost been fully removed, and the things I say are careless and rash -- though not in the hurt feelings way, but the why are you telling people this sort of way.

I'd like to think that it's because I'm becoming bolder as a person, that my confidence levels are slowly rising again to the point where I want people to have -- pardon the pun -- an unfiltered opinion of me, if they have one at all. Frequently, however, I don't think that's truly been the case. What I really think is going on is that I actually want to be noticed, if subconsciously. It's not exactly the desperate, hey everyone, pay attention to me gene I exhibited in high school and in my early undergrad years at WVU, when I had no friends and desperately wanted someone to actually acknowledge my existence, but it's like a more evolved version of that, a more subtle one that I notice is rising in my personality right now.

To be frank, I'm on campus about thirty hours per week, roughly. Give or take, anyway. Six hours of that, I spend teaching. Nine more hours I spend actually in my own classes. That leaves fifteen hours a week that I'm just there, whether in my office, office hours, or just around the department. Of those fifteen hours, maybe a third of them -- at most -- are actually spent around other people, with my colleagues and friends in the program. The rest of my week aside from those thirty hours on campus is spent at home living a solitary lifestyle, working on school-related tasks, driving to and from school, or running errands. Those five hours per week, however, that I interact with other people outside of a classroom environment seem to be key to keeping my sanity.

Brandon, some of my friends will say when they read this, this is why you need to get out more and do stuff with us.

Permit me to be a bit blunt yet again, but that's not really the point. It's about effort -- it takes no effort for someone to say "Hey Brandon, come down to Wichita this weekend and hang out with us," but not once has someone said anything along the lines of "Hey, I realize you have a shitty car that gets horrible gas mileage, you're pretty much broke, and you have a ton of work to do; want me to come up to Newton this weekend and do something up there with you to get your mind off things?" No, that doesn't happen. I'm not placing blame or trying to single anyone out, of course, because I'm not that kind of person. I'm just sayin'.

The point I'm trying to make is that I'm in a weird place right now; not weird bad, just in a place I haven't been personality-wise in many years: I'm single, I'm in college, and I live a rather isolated life -- so, really, it's like the same life I had as an undergraduate student at WVU ten years ago. I never thought I'd be living this lifestyle again, and if you would've told me upon my move to the midwest five years ago that I eventually would be, I would have laughed at you. In essence, I'm really starting my life again from a square-one approach, as I did those ten years ago when I was thrust into a new situation with new friends, and subconsciously, at least, I think my mental state is somewhat compensating for that by reverting back to its former self then -- albeit a more mature, cynical, hardened version. Does any of that make sense?

Here's the kicker, however, and this is what scares me: contrary to what you people may think you know about me, in my undergrad years when I previously lived in this sort of lifestyle, I was -- for lack of a better term -- not a good guy. In fact, I was a pretty horrible person. I did and said many things that I now feel deeply sorry and shameful for, such as seducing women away from their fiances, for one good example amongst many, only to toss them aside when I was "done with them." Yeah, that happened. More than once. I'm not proud of it -- in fact, more than anything else, I'm stunned, because frankly I wasn't as attractive then as I am now (I was about 60 pounds fatter, for one) and I had no clue how I did it, especially with the low self-esteem I had then. With the confidence (and, well, arrogance) I have now, if I were to become that sort of person again it would be catastrophic.

That is, by the way, something I've never told anyone before publicly. I've mentioned it in passing to several friends, giving a few of them details if asked, and I've mentioned it here as well in passing over the past several years, but I never gave the full details to anyone -- not even the former girlfriend, as it (obviously) happened before she and I were together, and once we were, she didn't want to know anything about my past -- not to mention I wanted to forget it myself.

In the years since, I've atoned for my sins; I've matured, I've changed in the ways that count, and I am no longer that person I once was, and never want to be him again. Being that guy made me a lot of enemies; some of them I've made peace with over the years, and others still hate me to this day, for good reason. I've recently been in contact with several old friends from that time period of my life, and I've had to reassure them -- sounding like an old man the entire time, I'm sure -- that I'm no longer the guy I was back then. It took some time and convincing to get them to believe me.

My point is, I am not going to be that person again, despite any of my out-of-body experiences I have when I think just what in the hell is wrong with you or why are you telling people these fucking things? I have a chance now to basically redo my life from the ground up, from square one. That, I think more than anything else, is the purpose of this blog. It lets all of you in on the evolution of my character, my thoughts and emotions, in a barebones he's rebuilding himself sort of way. I'm not there yet, obviously; it takes a lot more time and effort than I currently have the ability to put in.

Still, those fifteen hours per week that I spend in and around the department, whether I'm talking to or hanging out with anyone or not, is slowly helping. Truthfully, most of the friends I've made in the department have become ghosts up there, as mentioned here once or twice before -- meaning they're only there when they have to be, and they don't seem to have the time or desire to actually hang out anymore. Most of the ones who do stick around all day seem to be busy or act like I'm bothering them if I stop by their offices to chat, so I've cut back on that a lot as well. Most of the free time I have now is spent talking to Suri, as I'm not sure I could ever "bother" her, and Rae & Kay, who at times I know I must be grating on, so if I get that feeling I tend to take my leave. Ironically, the three of these ladies together are the ones to which I say most of these what the hell is wrong with you sort of sentences.

So yeah. Step by step, day by day, here I am in evolution. I'm trying to rebuild myself with the metaphorical knowledge and tools I have access to -- hitting a few snags here and there, but still moving forward and upward.

Or, at least I'd like to think so. You be the judge.

Requiem for an Insomniac

It's Monday night again, and of course, I can't sleep.

This week, at least, it was not due to a nightmare or anything of that sort. I don't know why I can't sleep, to be perfectly honest with you. When I went to bed a little before 9PM, I was indeed tired and ready to get some rest. And then I simply laid there for two hours, not even dozing, before giving up and coming back upstairs.

It's 11:30 PM. I know, and my body knows, that I must be awake to get ready, and go to school to teach, when the alarm goes off at 5AM. That's my wake-up time. It's when I shower, drink lots of coffee, and get dressed for the day, before leaving the house around 7. There's no getting around it; I have a job, and that job is being a responsible GTA who teaches two sections of English twice a week.

Yeah, well, tell that to my sleep cycles, will you?

I've had friends ask me if I ever took anything to make myself sleep better. As in, sleeping pills or the like. The answer is not usually, no. Most of the time, my career as a graduate student keeps me so sleep-deprived that I don't need such things -- when I get the opportunity to sleep, I readily do so. While I do have some melatonin tablets I can take (an entire bottle of them, actually), I've found that they either don't work, or they work too well, and I'll end up sleeping ten hours or more. Too risky to trust on a school night. I believe I have some sample packs of Lunesta somewhere around the house as well, but they will definitely make me sleep around ten hours or more, a luxury I don't have but on the weekends...when sleep doesn't matter anyhow.

Most of you would attribute my lack of sleep, or inability to do so, to stress. Either that or residual effects of no longer having a girlfriend to sleep with. I don't think it's either one, really. I'm not particularly stressed out; I'm busy, yes, but I get all of my work done without problems and still have some relaxation time thrown in, and it doesn't stress me out. At least not now -- believe me, when Thanksgiving rolls around and papers start coming due, it will. The last three or four weeks of the fall semester is hell.

As for not having anyone to physically sleep with...eh. I think, for the most part, I got used to that a while back. I've been single for six weeks now ("But," as Suri said a few days ago, "Who's counting?"), and the vast, vast majority of those nights I've slept just fine. The cats -- all three of them -- have learned to curl up with me in a big furry pile when I go to bed, so it's not like I'm sleeping alone. Pete will even sleep on the pillow with me, or under my arm like a teddy bear (a habit he's had since he was just a tiny kitten). So really, I don't think it's that either. Though I would probably sleep better with a companion every once in a while, it's not like it's required. I've always been a rather solitary person.

As you know if you read my last post, I offered my parents the option of coming out here to visit over Christmas break for a few days in an email to my mother. She replied telling me the drive would be too long and hard on the dog, and that they'd have to board the cats (they also have three), which would be expensive for such a long time -- plus my dad always spends Christmas at his parents', which I of course knew -- and told me that it would be much easier if I were to just come out there.

The reply perplexed me on multiple levels -- the first being that she couldn't bring the dog anyhow; it's forbidden in my lease to have dogs in the house even for a visit, after the last tenant had a lab that tore up the place. It's why the former girlfriend couldn't bring her Australian Shepherd here to live with us when we moved here. Her mother brought the dog by once for a visit, and the entire time I was paranoid someone would see her and report us to the landlord for it.

The second perplexing point is why she/they would even fathom driving out here instead of simply flying (y'know, like I've always flown out there to visit) and saving a shitload of time/gas money/wear-and-tear on a vehicle in the process.

I sent another email telling her that while it would be preferable to see them both, of course, I realize that Dad has his own family plans for around the holidays, but that shouldn't immediately stop her from coming alone if she wants to -- flying, of course -- because I am perfectly capable of picking her up from and taking her back to the airport in Wichita. The same goes for anyone who wants (or is able) to come visit me, obviously. This would also prevent her from needing to board the animals, as well, since my dad would be at home. While it would be regrettable that I wouldn't get to see him, it would be very nice to see my mother.

I also added, very nicely, at the end of the email that though it may be easier for them for me to fly out there to visit, for me it's anything but -- especially now that I'm living single and not only have to worry about all of my school stuff, but about household stuff, the cats, the car, and paying all of the bills, amongst all other things entailed in living alone and on a budget. I just wanted to offer an option that may actually allow me to see my mother, at least, at some point this year -- and during the holidays, at that. Truthfully, I have no idea what's going to happen between now and Christmas, or between now and next semester for that matter. I've never been able to plan anything ahead with absolute certainty, and while both of my parents have an abundance of vacation days they can take at any time from their jobs, I do not. With my current financial state and the lack of any sort of real "safety net" to catch me and save my ass if something goes wrong -- as well as a lack of anyone else here to watch over the cats or house now -- everything's a risk.

Yes, that is part of the reason I don't like to leave the house much except when I have to; for example, if the car blows up and strands me somewhere, I don't have anyone to rescue me anymore, or anyone to tell me that it'll be fixed, everything will be okay, etc. -- because, more than likely, it won't be okay, and will more than likely will be a horrific pain in the ass and emptier of my bank account. If for some reason I got stranded in West Virginia during a visit (due to winter weather or other factors), it would be that much worse.

Remember a few days back when I said I had a strong cynical streak, despite my outward optimism? Yep, here it is.

I somehow doubt my mother will want to fly out here to visit me, and by herself at that; the woman's not been on an airplane in almost 25 years, and I'm not sure she'd want to fly even to see me. I don't necessarily blame her, of course, but I wanted to offer it as an option. Of all people who might want to visit me here in Kansas, I figure she'd be at the very top of the list for those who would jump at the chance first. Especially since, well, nobody else has. I'll have to wait to see what she says.

Anyway.

After reading Burney's Evelina for most of Saturday and Sunday, and becoming thoroughly disgusted with the pace of the novel and the fact that nothing important happens in it until the very last page, I was hesitant to pick up the book I had to read for my Asian/Middle Eastern Lit course, Pramoedya Ananta Toer's This Earth of Mankind. I was afraid I'd be burned again, stuck reading another novel I had no interest in whatsoever, and another novel where nothing of consequence happened.

I was wrong. The book is fantastic. That's high praise coming from a guy who reads 700-800 pages during any given week (and no, that's not an exaggeration) for his classes. Most texts are just that, texts. This is one of the best novels I've read in years. I love the narration, I think the characters are extremely interesting, and the novel's use of foreshadowing is awesome. Maybe it's just my excessive boredom talking, but I had a hard time putting the book down tonight when I tried to go to bed earlier. After I finish this post, I plan to continue reading it until I may (or may not) fall asleep again.

In the morning, as you probably know, I teach, but can come home again directly afterwards. If I don't get any real quality sleep tonight, I can at least sleep then. I'm lucky that my three-day work week, despite the fact that two of those days are very long ones, seems to go a lot faster than my "weekends."

I don't know if I mentioned it here before except in passing, but I wrote the $750 deposit repayment check to the former girlfriend last week. She sent me a message tonight telling me that she'll more than likely be going to her parents' this coming weekend, which means she'll be able to deposit it (her bank has no branches here in Wichita or the surrounding area, much like my own). As I've been expecting the hit to my bank account and indeed have been bracing for it, I am even more grateful that we get paid again on Friday. My paycheck should stifle the brunt of it, which is good -- I still have to renew my car's registration this month, as well as pay all of the normal bills and rent. My budget is going to be operating lightly for the next several weeks, as I have no other real choice in the matter, to be honest. I must allow a few paychecks to accumulate before I buy anything extraneous like a new lawnmower or vacuum, especially since I don't really need either one right this moment. Even with the student loan I received a month ago, it's not like I have a ton of money to work with, and the vast, vast majority of all of my money goes into gas for the car as well as bills/rent. Sometimes it sucks living alone and being poor, as you could probably imagine.

On that note, I'm going to continue trying to read my book and eventually fall back asleep. I've set the alarm on my phone, so if I do fall asleep, I'll still get up on time.

Like a Burning Torch

Fall semester: day sixteen

Last week, I received this email from Suri during our normal correspondences back and forth when we're not on campus. I asked her permission to post it here, because I think it's not only interesting, but true -- and bears repeating.

"P.S. I'M not worried about you. Not a bit. I don't think declining to participate in grad-planned activities is a worrisome thing at all. (This is in response to your blog post about people getting worried about you now that you're all isolated and not social). Of course, this comes from someone who glories in isolation and avoids all social activities unless there is something free that she wants, but heh. There's at least one person who knows you and isn't concerned that you're going to douse yourself and your kitties in gasoline and go out like a burning torch one night.

So yeah. Comforting, I'm sure."

My response, was, of course, "Go out like a burning torch one night? Seriously?"

Suri gets it. She understands, even if her situation is a bit different from mine (she, for one, has a boyfriend in town who she's been with for five years). She also lives almost as far away from campus -- at least in terms of travel-time spent driving -- as I do.

She's also right in the fact that she knows me. As I've mentioned before, Suri is one of the very few people I've been comfortable enough to be free and open with while living here in Kansas. The only other two people I can think of offhand who know me as well are the former girlfriend and one other person who, for all intents and purposes, no longer really associates with me and really has no interest in doing so anymore -- which I'm fine with. Of those three, obviously, Suri is the one constant -- the one person I have to talk to who understands me and doesn't judge me, and who I have no prior (or blemished) history with to atone for.

There are others, of course, such as Rae, Jay, and Kay -- all of whom read this blog -- who I've "let in" to a certain extent just by letting them know this blog exists and by their reading of it, but would I sit down with them and tell them in detail about my extensive tie-dye underwear collection? Well, probably not, if they didn't already know about it. It's things like that which are the difference.

In other news, my mother sent me an email this morning asking if I'd like to come out and visit over Thanksgiving or Christmas this year.

"Thanksgiving's out," I told her. "I may have friends visiting from out of town, and/or I may be cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for those of us GTAs who stick around in town during that week."

All of this is true; I'm trying to work out a visit with one or more people over that week, and I'd like to cook a dinner for my friends who are still around -- it may be the only time I'll coerce any of them to actually drive up here to Newton to visit me. I'll create an event for it on Facebook within the next few days or so to gauge interest.

Thanksgiving week is also the only week I have to begin/continue writing the several large papers I'll have due by the end of the semester, much like last year. If you're a longtime reader, you'll remember that last year I skipped Thanksgiving with the former girlfriend's family so that I could write two 20-page papers and a third that was about 10-11 pages. Ah, the joys of being an English major in graduate school, right? I've got a similar workload this semester, and Thanksgiving week is about the only time I have to take care of all of it yet again. After this fall, though, I will have taken care of most of my required courses for graduation, so I will theoretically be taking a lot of electives, more fun courses, and will hopefully be able to sort of coast through the rest of my graduate school career, focusing a lot more (read: desperately needed) time on my writing and studying for comps.

"As for Christmas," I added, "If nothing's going on, I was going to ask you guys to come out here. This place is huge, and it's just me and the cats. More than enough room. I've been out there twice since moving out -- it's about time you two saw where I live and what I do in my day-to-day life."

This is also true; I have flown back to West Virginia twice since I moved to the midwest in 2006. My parents have never visited me out here, mainly due to time and space constraints in whatever places we (because it was me and the former girlfriend, then) lived. Now that I'm single, I have a full, large house to myself with a lot of extra space, and as far as I know, neither of my parents have been to Kansas. Well, maybe my dad has in his band-touring travels in the '70s and '80s, but I'm sure my mother hasn't. I'm sure there's a lot here both of them would enjoy, even in the winter, including two great Mexican restaurants and several nice shopping venues.

Anyway.

The rest of today will be spent writing/revising poetry, reading a large chunk of "This Earth of Mankind," the next novel I need to read for my Asian/Middle Eastern lit class, and taking care of a few things around the house, such as folding leftover laundry and finding something to cook for dinner. I need to chop up more carrots and celery for snacks/lunches this week, too.

To My Credit

I did not, after all my waffling, end up attending the grad student mixer yesterday afternoon. I didn't actually leave the house at all, despite my best intentions to do so.

Once I'd made my decision, I didn't tell anyone that I wouldn't be going, though I didn't deliberately plan it that way or anything -- I was still burnt-out after my exceedingly long Thursday of classes and teaching, and didn't even wake up until around 1PM or so. In the afternoon, before the storms rolled in, I got dressed enough to mow the grass one final time this summer, which also had the added benefit of allowing me to completely run the last of the gas out of the mower, as the former girlfriend requested I do before she picks it up sometime within the next few weeks.

I do, of course, eventually have to purchase a new lawnmower. Believe me, it's on my list of "big things I need to buy," which also still includes a decent vacuum and a proper block of steak/prep knives, amongst other things.

I also have to renew my Playboy subscription, as that is even more important now that I'm a single man, but that's beside the point.

I later received a text message from Rae telling me that the grad student mixer had now limited alcohol consumption to but two beers per person, so I was glad I hadn't gone and wasted time/gas money to get but two free beers. That, I think, will be the death rattle for any future mixers or other festivities held at the museum if they decide to keep that new policy -- nobody's going to waste their time for two beers; they'll just not show up. I know graduate students; I am one. I don't know who actually ended up going, but Rae and her officemate-in-poetry, Kay (because that's just the easiest codename for her I can think of) were the only ones who asked where I was, so I apparently wasn't missed that much -- either that, or no one else bothered to show up.

The rest of last night I spent working on various tasks around the house, as is customary for me to do on any weekend, really; I cooked up some steaks for dinner, did the dishes for the week, did all of the laundry that had slowly piled up to overflowing in my large hamper, and ended the night by talking with an old, dear friend back home for a few hours until we both needed sleep. So yeah, that was my Friday. I didn't get much accomplished in the way of schoolwork, I was incredibly fatigued for most of it, and I basically blew off even the concept of leaving the house.

This morning, to my credit, I awoke with vigor and a game plan in place. So that I could devote all of the rest of my weekend to schoolwork, starting this afternoon, the morning hours would be spent running the errands I would normally otherwise run on Monday. This included going to the post office -- where I finally mailed out the volley of four thank-you packages that I'd been meaning to mail out for a good week or so now -- as well as putting gas in the car, air in my sagging tire, and making a trip to Walmart to pick up the essentials.

This week, one of the "essentials" was the X-Men: First Class special edition DVD. As I said on Facebook earlier today, one at a time, ladies. One at a time.

That's becoming one of my new favorite phrases, by the way, simply for the irony involved when I say it.

This afternoon, over the span of about two hours, I vaulted through all of my students' rough drafts of their first papers that they'd provided me on Thursday, giving all of them constructive and helpful criticism individually via email. I did it quickly (but thoroughly), as I knew if I didn't, they wouldn't receive my feedback with enough time to properly rewrite/revise their papers, and because I wanted to get it taken care of -- usually reviewing rough drafts takes a long, long time. However, today I was smart -- I created a numbered list in a simple text document that served as a form letter of sorts, which covered the most important and/or pressing issues I knew I'd see in these rough drafts -- namely formatting/citation errors, as well as typos. After this was done, once I read through a student's paper, I was able to cut-and-paste parts of, or the entirety of, that list into my email reply to them, thus saving me hours of typing time.

All of you who collect rough drafts from your students and email them your comments? I highly recommend creating some sort of form letter like this. It was a brief stroke of genius on my part.

Normally I don't collect rough drafts, and if I do it's on a purely voluntary basis, usually because the student wants me to look it over and offer pointers on his/her paper over the weekend before it's due. However, in the Science Writing class, time for it was written into the schedule by my supervisor, and as we have vigorous class discussions anyhow, it can only serve to help them outside of class -- so I kept it on there. For the most part, I have some truly remarkable writers in my classes, but that's to be expected as they're all generally Engineering scholarship students. I can't wait to see the interesting topics they'll be writing about later in the semester. They fill me with hope.

I'm not sure I mentioned it here, though I did mention it on Twitter a few days ago, that I ordered a $30 twin-size airbed from Amazon for "guest use," as well as for a place to stretch out and read, or nap, that's upstairs -- taking a nap on the couch is just cramped and painful for my joints, and I'd rather be able to lay flat on something up here than go downstairs, make the huge bed, and more than likely end up sleeping a lot longer than originally planned due to my near-constant fatigue. I figured an airbed would serve the dual purpose of creating a napping spot as well as giving any visitors (or me) a place to sleep. When it arrived on Thursday, before I went to bed Thursday night, I placed it in the former girlfriend's old office (now the spare room/extra storage room), inflated it, and put a set of sheets on it.

After I finished my critiques, I went in there this afternoon with Evelina, the next book I have to read for my Graduate Studies in Fiction course, laid down on the airbed, and read about 40 pages of it before completely passing out, again. That should give you some indication of how boring that book can be to a contemporary reader such as myself, because the airbed certainly isn't that comfortable to sleep on.

I was awakened three hours later by screaming children chasing a dog around the neighborhood. Apparently the dog's name was Lola, and even more apparently it was being a pain in the ass to all involved. No wonder it was trying to get away; I'd be running from a bunch of fucking annoying, screaming kids too.

It was only at that point, however, that I looked at the wall clock I'd put on the wall in that room specifically for that purpose, and saw that three hours had passed. I looked at the book again. I looked at the clock again. I realized that I had basically wasted three hours of the day that I needed to get work done because I'd been so fatigued that I couldn't stay awake. In three hours I could've read through the vast majority of that book, more than likely. It's not a hard read, it's just ponderous and large; very wordy, needs to get to the point, etc. This is, of course, typical of most 18th century "literature." Oh, how I long to read an actual novel that's been written in the past 50 years or so, one that is interesting and doesn't move at the pace of a snail's orgasm.

I plan to finish the book tonight and tomorrow, as I sort of have to -- I need to start another book for my Asian/Middle Eastern Lit class, and must still do my reading/critiques for poetry workshop as well as create a lesson plan for next week's classes I'll be teaching...amongst numerous other little school-related things that, when combined, suck away almost all of my free time. And people wonder why I rarely leave the house.

In other news, I filled out an application for a Capital One card and mailed it off. I don't really want a credit card (I've never owned one, even now, and I'll be 29 this year), but in the case that something major happens to the car and I have to get it fixed immediately, such as a blown tire or radiator, transmission, starter/alternator, etc. -- being able to put it on a credit card means I won't have to bankrupt my bank account to get it fixed. Same goes for any other emergency as well, or something that I may need to pay off in installments, such as if my computer blows up. In the meantime (if they accept my application, that is) I'll be able to use it every other week or so to get gas or small foodstuffs with, pay it off every month, and slowly build a credit report -- because I have zero credit history on record. Believe me, I checked.

I also found that's part of the reason that my car insurance is so high on the Monte Carlo -- because I didn't have a credit history they could check it against, or any previous insurance record fully in my name. They basically gave me the sports car rate, the new driver rate, and the no credit rate all bundled into one. This is why it costs me more per year to insure that car than it did to purchase, title, license, and register it. I wish I were making that up, by the way. I think they should wrap them all together and call it the bullshit rate, but that's just me. Maybe it'll eventually go down in cost, but I doubt that'll happen for a while.

The rest of my weekend, as per the usual, will be spent doing my normal weekend work for my classes (as mentioned previously), with the added bonus of not needing to leave the house again until I teach class on Tuesday morning. In that time I should be able to get most, if not all, of my tasks completed. Yes, as I've said before, it's a lonely, boring life, but I get shit done.