As mentioned at the end of my last post, I've only left the house twice since I've returned home; this has been intentional. I was really socially active while in Omaha, and since returning home, I have found much peace in being able to sleep in my own bed, comfortably, with the cats, and not having a set time to go to bed or to awaken -- much less having any true responsibilities and/or other things to take care of outside the relatively insular bubble of my home.
The reality that not only is the semester over, but that I've graduated and have a Master's degree now hasn't totally set in yet; rather, it's slowly seeping in bit by bit. I got my very last paycheck as a GTA last Friday, so I don't even feel unemployed yet (though I suppose, technically, I am). I can't pick up my diploma until mid-July anyhow, so it doesn't really matter at this point, and it hasn't fully registered. In the coming weeks, I'm sure it will.
In this past week, because I don't have to do that whole "needing to go to school and do work" thing anymore, it's been remarkably quiet. Well, for the most part. I've spent the majority of the past week cooking, cleaning, and doing other household chores (after my trip, and because of all of the clothing I got at Goodwill, I had four loads of laundry to do). I've tried to relax as much as possible, though, and because of this (and Daisy's work schedule) I've been mostly able to do so. Here's a few things I've done since I've gotten home:
- Mowed the jungle that I called a yard
- Washed/dried all of that aforementioned laundry
- Paid the rent and bills I had
- Scrubbed down the toilet and bathtub
- Cooked a fair amount of food (since, y'know, I have the time to do so now)
- Purchased new litter and food for the cats
- Cleaned the cat room twice
- Ordered ten more spider traps (I've been killing recluses like crazy)
- Rearranged the living room and installed the box fan in the window
- Brought a small end table downstairs and set up my PS1 on it/the TV
- Cleaned out the spare room, rearranged packed boxes along walls
In other news, I'm pretty sure my car is on its last legs. Or at least she's acting that way.
Let me explain.
As mentioned before, I have barely left the house this past week. When I have, it's been twice, to go to Walmart for quick trips (which I also already mentioned). While I was in Omaha, because I knew it was supposed to storm, I put the car in the garage. I did so again tonight for the same reason. When I pulled her out of the garage a few days ago, I noticed on the garage floor under her was some fluid. Some of it was coolant, some of it was oil. This was easy to see, and I can tell the difference between the two. It wasn't a lot, but enough to collect into small, easily-recognizable puddles -- both pooled a bit under the engine, and a few drops of oil back throughout where the undercarriage of the car was.
I've also mentioned before that my car doesn't necessarily like when it's warm and humid -- humidity tends to make her sluggish and creaky, makes her want to growl and cry at me that I'm driving her in such shitty climates. I can't really avoid that sometimes. It's been very warm and muggy here for this past week, but when I took her out tonight to Walmart, she was fine. When it's warm, she also tends to leak a little more coolant and/or oil, and burn a bit more of it off. I've gotten used to this in the two years now that I've owned the car. Add a little more coolant and oil in the summer when necessary, and she peps right up. Usually, problem solved. My car didn't used to leak oil at all until the techs flushed it at the last oil change, and put 5w30 in it over the winter months for better viscosity in cold weather. Well, now that it's nearing summer and I haven't gotten an oil change back to 10w30, when it's warm it leaks a little more because it's a lighter, thinner oil, but not by much -- the weights/viscosity difference is mostly negligible. Still, it never leaked more than a few drops before the oil change, and now (but usually only when it's really warm outside) it drops a small puddle almost every time I drive her someplace. I can't really avoid that. And, as you may recall, the coolant has almost always leaked a little bit. Again, it's an old car. To get the oil off of the pavement in front of my garage (and in my garage) I'll eventually have to dump a bag of kitty litter there to absorb it, more than likely.
Anyway.
I brought her back home from Walmart last night and parked her in the driveway to get out and open the garage door, so I could put her in to protect her from the coming storms (which, again, I'll get to). Almost as soon as I put her into "park," she stalled out on me and died -- the oil light came on, and the "volts" light came on.
This happens, roughly, about once a month or so. No, I'm not kidding.
The first time I ever took Daisy out in my car, she stalled out at the end of my driveway when I was shifting gears from reverse into drive. Usually I can start her back up and she'll be fine, and it's something that, again, I've always chalked up to old age and an engine that's been beat to hell for almost 230,000 miles.
Tonight I started her back up and she started fine, and I gave her a little gas to rev the engine a few times and get some fluids moving, before letting her settle into idle again. This usually appeases her. I got out of the car to go open the garage door. Two steps away from the car and she sputters down again...and then revs up on her own, hard, probably to 3k RPMs. On her own. For ten seconds or so. I thought the gas pedal was stuck, or something. Then she settled back down into idle normally as if nothing had happened.
....what the fuck, car?
I put her in the garage and turned her off, and when I went back outside to get the mail and close the garage door, found a small pool of oil in the driveway under where she'd been sitting that was easily the size of a silver dollar. Great, so you're now leaking oil even when the engine is running? I thought to myself. Perfect. Because this is really what I need right now when I'm on a fixed (read: nonexistent) income after graduation.
I mean, shit, I don't know what to think or do. The car does need its regular maintenance (at some point) of an oil/oil filter/air filter change and coolant flush/change, but as I no longer have income until I find another job, and won't be driving her nearly as much as I did every week until that happens, it's kind of a moot point when the only driving I'll be doing for the foreseeable future is to, say, Walmart and back -- a round trip of six miles -- once every week or so. I did put new oil and coolant in her about a week before graduation, and I've not driven her a lot since then (maybe 100 miles), so it's possible that she's leaking because I put a little too much in, but I don't know what the stalling/revving issue is. The car has always done that on occasion, as I mentioned, even before I got the spark plugs fixed. Could be a clog in the fuel line, or something like that. Could be anything. Who knows. Again, keep in mind that sometimes (very rarely, but sometimes) I've had trouble getting her started, too.
Regardless, she's in the garage now, locked up and protected from the elements until the next time I have to leave the house -- which shouldn't be for another week or so, roughly.
I say "protected from the elements" because, unless you've been living under a rock and haven't been watching any news whatsoever, the weather here in the midwest is supposed to get downright violent over the course of the next 48 hours. Tomorrow and Friday there is a 40-60% chance of tornadoes in the area. This is also part of the reason I went out to Walmart last night -- cat food and cigarettes. If it's going to be fucking crazy outside over the next few days, I want to be sure that not only will I be comfortable, but so will the cats -- and I'm not going out in that.
Yep.
Also keep in mind that Daisy is in the red part of that map as well...as is basically the entire state of Nebraska.
Three nights ago, while we were talking on Skype at 1:30 in the morning (she had the overnight of Sunday off after midnight because of Memorial Day), she suddenly looked up and said to the heavens, "Really?"
"What, baby?" I asked.
"The tornado siren is going off."
Different states/areas have different regulations for tornado sirens. Here in Newton, the tornado siren never goes off unless they're testing it or unless there is a tornado basically hitting a part of the town. I have had tornadoes 15 miles from me before (which is the closest they've ever gotten to my house) and the tornado sirens never went off. In other places/states, if there's a tornado in the county somewhere -- the siren goes off. Even if it's 50 miles away. It's in the county, so the siren goes off. Yeah, it's not like that here. In fact, even when they test the sirens (Mondays at noon, but only in the off-season), I've been at home 95% of the time and asleep, and it only very rarely ever woke me up. That's probably a bad sign, but I digress.
Daisy took the laptop with her and ran to wake up her parents and sister/brother-in-law, and all of them went down to the basement. Since we were on Skype, I watched this in real time, and felt like I was there. I monitored the storms for them and gave them updates, and a few minutes later the tornado warning was canceled, the sirens were turned off, and most of them went back upstairs (her sister/brother-in-law and their children elected to stay in the basement for the night). There had been a tornado 29 miles away, but it dissipated quickly.
Still, this had me a bit on-edge, so when the Weather Channel had their forecasters sharting their shorts over a predicted "tornado outbreak" between Tuesday and Friday, I paid attention (as you can see from the graphic above).
And nothing happened.
Well, nothing yet, anyway.
There was a tornado about 80 miles north of me here in Kansas on Tuesday night, but aside from that? Nothing. Barely even any rain or storms, really. It was just cloudy and dark all day yesterday. Last night, some storms moved in and knocked out my power for about five seconds, but after they blew over (quickly), they left barely any rain on the ground and no wind or damage or anything. I went downstairs to cool off and to shut down my computer to protect it from damage, and took a nap. When I woke up, there was a bit of thunder and a little pretty lightning, coupled with a bit steadier rain for a while, but that also quickly dissipated within an hour or so. More storms are supposed to move through later.
Everyone's on heightened alert after the Moore Tornado; this apparently causes weather forecasters to extremely exaggerate their claims. I'll be paying attention over the course of the next two days (the other half of their predicted "tornado outbreak" shit) but I'm also not really concerned, nor do I think anything's going to actually happen.
Anyway.
I mentioned earlier in the blog about how it would take up to sixteen weeks to get my Kansas tax return back. Apparently they're speedier than they have been in the past, because I got it in the mail on Tuesday. I also received a $50 Visa gift card for graduation from my aunt and uncle, which was very nice of them -- I'll be saving that for groceries later this summer. As for the tax refund, I'll be saving that check and mailing it to my parents with a few others so that my mother can deposit it in my bank account sometime soon. It'll be like getting another paycheck long after the ones from the university have stopped.
I was surprised with the graduation announcements; graduation was two weeks ago tomorrow, and I got surprisingly little response. A few family members and friends sent me congratulatory cards, letters, and small gifts -- which yes, I incredibly appreciated, but I was more surprised by the many people I did not hear from and/or who said nothing about my graduation. Again, it doesn't bother me in the least -- hey, everyone who goes to school eventually graduates with something, right? But it was still curious. There were at least five or six people on the list of people I sent announcements to who I was certain I would at least get a card from, as they always ask about me or try to see me when I come back home to visit, yet I heard nothing. These are people like my godparents and my former boss in Microbiology at WVU (all of whom we always try to have lunch/dinner with when I'm in town on a visit), and some extended family members and/or family friends who are intensely curious and wholly congratulatory when I do something commendable, yet they've all been silent this time around.
I will say, however, that I've gotten emails and messages of congratulations and encouragement from some friends and family, such as my brother and his wife and Wayne and Jane, both of whom I sent announcements to, so I'm not counting them in any of this -- it's the ones who seemed to ignore said announcements that are curious to me. I don't necessarily care, again; it's just surprising.
My parents are happy enough for me, I suppose; they really haven't said much to me about graduation either before or after it happened. My mother congratulated me in a message about two weeks ago, and I forwarded the email from the official photographers (the one containing my proofs) to her after returning from Omaha in case she wanted to order any of the photos, and she said that they were "too expensive" to order. A single 8x10 is $13, yes, but I thought I'd send her the email anyway. Daisy might order one of the 8x10s to be able to make lots of duplicates at Walmart or Walgreens, but with all of the good photos she took of me/us I don't even think that's incredibly necessary.
In addition to trying to do as little as possible and take care of the chores while I've been here and have been off, on Tuesday I also completely re-wrote and revamped my formal CV, which is tailored for teaching positions. In the coming days I will be completely overhauling and updating my Monster.com profile, and will be completing registration at several educational job search engines/companies, such as Interfolio, through which I can apply for teaching positions for the fall. I have to do this somewhat quickly; interviews for fall positions are already starting, and while many of the positions will remain open until filled, if I can find somewhere that needs an English instructor sooner rather than later, then all the better. Daisy's mother found a creative writing tenure track faculty position at a university in the town where Daisy's sister lives, but they must've filled it quickly because it was no longer listed on there when I looked.
I've been trying right now to focus on the Omaha area for teaching jobs, though I do have a saved search on a few websites for any English teaching jobs anywhere. There are several colleges/universities in the Omaha area (remember, Mama gave me a list), which is good because there aren't a whole lot of other places remotely in this area, in Omaha, or even back home in West Virginia (not that I want to go back there) looking for college-level instructors. There was one posting listed for the whole state of Nebraska and none for Kansas. It appears that if I'm going to find a teaching position somewhat quickly, I'll have to research individual universities and colleges and go through their individual employment listings -- which is not only a pain in the ass, but is incredibly time-consuming. Oh well.
Switching gears back to my own university (or, well, I should technically say former university, now), I am uncertain of my status there when it comes to adjuncting/employment for the fall. As I've mentioned before, I'm on the adjunct list for the fall semester to teach basically anything they need me to teach, though that is (generally) a last-ditch option for me; Daisy and I plan to marry next summer, and spending another semester here in Kansas only to end up where I am right now come December is possibly problematic, as you might have guessed, but it's something both of us have realized is indeed a possibility whether we like it or not. I can have all the credentials, references, and degrees I want, and I can apply for all the teaching positions I want, but it's not like I can put a gun to an administrator's head and force them to hire me -- let alone get an interview with half of these schools via Skype or otherwise. Similarly, there's no guarantee that I'll even have an adjuncting position this fall -- it's all about enrollment and how many sections they need instructors to teach.
There are some bright lights at the end of this tunnel, however, though it's a foggy tunnel. My boss, the chair of the department, forwarded me an email this past week that was written by one of my students this semester and sent to the department. In this email, he gave me high praise and begged the department to hire me on full-time to continue teaching my Engineering English 102 class, as he and many other engineering students he knows who have taken my class have gotten a lot more out of it than they could have from a normal 102 class. I was shocked, to say the least, but very proud overall -- this student went from a mediocre writer in the beginning of my class to getting a full A in it when the semester was over, and he was a good guy, albeit fairly quiet most of the time. My boss, the chair, was very impressed as well.
Here's the bad news, however.
I've mentioned here before, briefly, that the only reason I was the only instructor of the Engineering English 102 for the past two years is because they discontinued the program due to lack of cross-curriculum funding from the Engineering department. The director of the program in our department (the chair's wife), who designed the original version of the course, left her position as director of the program after its discontinuation. However, because I'd been trained in the course and had already taught it for a semester at that point (to great acclaim), the decision was made to keep it going under me as long as I was a student there. As I was the only one teaching it and designing/continually updating the coursework for it, I was -- as mentioned before -- my own boss for a year-and-a-half, and the de-facto director of that program within the department, even though I was just a grad student. While I could basically teach the course any way I wanted (within reason, anyway), I stuck fairly close to its original structure and, over the course of the latter three semesters I taught the class, I did little more than switch to the updated version of the textbook and streamlined the class's workshop days and lesson plans to work in some instructional days on MLA formatting and some Q&A days. I was also able to create my own exams for the class on two occasions, and I added a few supplemental readings to the course that the students would either find incredibly interesting or quite useable in their writing. Other than that, though, the structure of the course remained the same -- don't fix what ain't broke and all that.
It was around this time last year when I learned that the Engineering English program had been formally discontinued, and that after my grandfathered-in teaching of it ended upon my graduation, the class would not be taught again for the foreseeable future. Two of my colleagues -- one who is a close friend of mine, and a second who I haven't seen in over a year -- taught the 101 version of the class, and it was only fair to extend their students the ability to take the 102 version with me afterwards as well. The 101 version ended a year ago and hasn't been offered since. However, there has been a new development of sorts; this spring, we got a new university president. This university president is a large proponent of the cross-curriculum classes, especially in the college of arts and sciences. He is also a big fan of the English department, and with this summer comes new budget projections and allotments for all of the arts and sciences departments.
"Do we know anything about the future of the Engineering English program yet?" I asked the chair during graduation week, as I gave him a large binder full of example teaching materials for my class for anyone who came after me to use if said program was resurrected.
"Not yet," he said. "We won't know until July, after the new budget has been greenlighted."
The chair has always been our biggest ally in the department, which I've mentioned before. This was true even before he was the chair, when he was simply the coordinator of the writing program. He and I have always had a relatively close working relationship, and to a large extent I've always looked upon him as a father figure of sorts within my education there. Well, maybe a mentor would be more appropriate. Still, it applies. He also knows the class is "my baby," as he calls it, and is as big a proponent of it as I am, especially since it was his wife who originally designed it and taught it for a semester. I ask him to update me on it periodically because if the budget is cleared and the program is allowed to continue, there have been many talks already behind closed doors about me being hired on as its new director, since I now have the most experience teaching it and have essentially been its director for the past year anyhow. This isn't a joke. I could very easily train GTAs and adjuncts to teach this course, as well as continue teaching sections of it myself. I'd revel in the opportunity, especially because it would come with a very live-able paycheck.
As of right now, however, there won't be any word on that until July, and I can't rely on it as a given, obviously. There's a very, very large chance that it will not materialize even if all the chips fall in the right places. If it does happen, while Daisy is and will be happy for me, it's sort of bittersweet -- she'd obviously be moving to the Wichita area at some point to be here with me, and we'd be getting a different house (and quite probably a new car for me, eventually). This would sort of throw a wrench into our Omaha wedding plans, but the bigger issue here is that Daisy is concerned that wherever we end up, she wants to be able to find work as well, and Wichita isn't as large or as populated with high-paying jobs as Omaha is.
On the other hand, she fully supports me applying for numerous teaching positions in Florida, as do her friends and family, so go figure there.
As I've been typing this, a large line of heavy rain, hail, and storms has moved into the area. No tornadoes or anything, but finally we're getting some of the storms that the weather people have predicted since the weekend.
There have been other little things I've mentioned in the past few weeks which have resolved themselves one way or another as well. My student who kept sending me emails about my error in his grade finally had it processed and changed by the university, for example. Ironically, he's also moving to Florida (I'm guessing he's already there by this point). I've not had any more troubles with my drains backing up and overflowing, either, despite the large amount of laundry I've been doing as of late. I have been cautious, though, and have been watching the drains every time I run a load of laundry and/or take a shower. They've all remained dry and unclogged. This is good. I've also been heavily utilizing the dehydrator I got with my friend April's gift card; I've made a lot of jerky as well as a lot of dried fruits -- kiwi and mango, mostly. I have another pack of ground beef that I will soon mix with the jerky seasoning and cure to make some good, leathery jerky, though I don't know when I'll get to do that. There's a lot of other stuff more pressing than that, obviously, that I have to do over the course of the next few days/weeks.
I filled out five or six thank-you cards, finally, for those folks who did send me cards or gifts for graduation, yet I have not yet responded to. Those I have responded to and have previously graciously thanked, obviously, won't get a card. It's just something nice I wanted to do, even though it costs me stamps (which I do need to get more of soon). I also need to call my grandmother to thank her as well, but since most of my waking hours have been during the middle of the night, and because I was in Omaha for a week, I haven't had the chance yet (my phone also didn't have service through about 80% of the city of Omaha, either). I'm planning to call her today or tomorrow. I also need to see how many minutes I have on my phone, as well, and if necessary, purchase more. I'll need to do that anyhow for job interview calls, sad to say. Here's hoping most of my interviews take place over Skype, since, y'know, that's free.
Actually, I think I could call my grandmother through that Google Talk thing they have now. I put the app for that on my computer last summer, though I don't think I've ever used it. I'll have to look into that.
My allergies haven't been that nice to me since all these storms rolled in; every day or two I'll have to take more allergy/sinus pills, though they didn't bother me while we were in Omaha. Daisy, as you know, has been told she's allergic to Nebraska, and this pretty much has been proven at this point -- she doesn't generally seem to have terrible allergies when she comes to visit me, even though my house is dusty, smoky, and filled with cats. They do bother her on occasional visits, though. The summer heat and stuffiness on the top floor of my house gets to her more than anything else, though, which is also part of the reason I set up my TV, DVD player, and PS1 downstairs in the bedroom -- things to do when it's too hot to be upstairs, whether she's in town or not. Sometimes I just have to retreat to the basement and turn on the fan to cool down. I've done this several times this week, actually, as it's been really hot and muggy (as previously mentioned).
Daisy is planning, if possible, to come down here next week on her days off. Since my graduation, her shifts at work have been slightly rescheduled; she now works from Friday night to Monday night, when previously she worked Thursday to Sunday -- now giving her Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off. It's a horrible schedule still, to be sure (read: no weekends off, ever), but it no longer interferes with my own schedule, since I no longer work on her days off and vice versa. She doesn't know whether she'll be able to come down yet, but we both hope she's able to. We'd be able to get some time together that didn't involve constantly running around and being social, which would be a total plus. Maybe we could go back over to Hutchinson, though, and I could sell a good chunk of those old Xbox games I don't need and will never play. That would be a plus too. It depends on whether she wants to do anything, though.
So that's all that's going on right now, really. My next few days will be spent writing, sleeping, and continuing my job hunt. I need to clean out the cat room again too, and also need to wash the blankets/sheets on the bed.
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