Spring semester: day four
As hinted at previously, I discovered at least two important things during the first week of classes that I wasn't expecting:
1.) I will have considerably more work in my classes this semester than I thought I would, and
2.) After being at school all day/afternoon/evening -- whether I'm teaching, writing, in class, or what-have-you -- I can come home and have no desire whatsoever to use the internet for anything, or even touch my computer (unless I absolutely have to).
The increased workload isn't exactly a problem, really -- it's all stuff I can easily do, but it will take more time to do it (obviously). For example, I'm doing a little more research and writing for my poetry workshop than I did before, and the editing class requires a lot of memorization and will involve a 15-page retrospective paper at the end of the semester. I am lucky I have the free time to take care of the work, of course, but I can see some of it getting fairly hectic near the end of the semester when I'm reading/grading a lot of student papers as well. Still, it's a lot better than the workload I had last semester, so that's a plus.
This weekend will be spent starting a lot of that work; I already have some grading to do, and I've gotten more students than I had before, so I need to update my rosters and the like. I also need to prepare the first unit's timeline and revise the dates to make up for the one-day-later start because of the MLK holiday. On the plus side, while I have responsibilities again, at least I'm doing something productive with my time.
To "center myself," as they say, I have taken to making a few tie-dyes here and there again. Most of them are being made for gifts to friends and family, but I'll wear a few of them. I'm using new techniques/patterns and a new type of (much less expensive) dye, so I'll see what happens. The new dye is a little more messy if I'm not careful, but it also doesn't tend to fade or bleed as easily as the old stuff, either. I see this as a good thing.
It has been insanely cold this week, as I mentioned before. It's not unusual for Kansas in January, of course, to be cold. But when we were having temperatures nearing 70 in December, and in the 50s/flirting with 60 last week? Yeah, this cold snap is no fun. The temperature virtually hasn't changed all day/night today; it's been around 25-27 since I woke up this morning, and it's supposed to be really cold tonight, down around 10-15 or so. I'm not looking forward to that...but at least it's better than all of the snow my friends and family back home are getting. Andrea described Morgantown as a war zone, or something akin to that, because of the snow. Yeah, apparently they got a snowstorm. I didn't know much about it, to be honest -- It's rare that I check the weather back home. My mother told me there was a bunch of snow at the house, but then again, the house is on top of a mountain, so that's nothing new for them.
There are a lot of extracurricular engagements going on in Wichita this weekend; tonight, our poetry professor released a new book (actually, it's been available since Tuesday, and I bought my copy on Wednesday) and did a reading at one of the city's most popular indie bookstores. I could have gone to the reading/release party, but knew if I had, I wouldn't have been able to find parking, it was cold, I already owned the book, etc etc. The event wasn't publicized very much around the department except for a flyer that was placed in our mailboxes announcing the book's release/reading date long before the end of last semester -- and our professor certainly wasn't going to talk about it. Self-promotion, especially when it involves readings or book releases, seems to be two of the few things he's very humble about, and things he never mentions.
There's also supposed to be some sort of release party for our department/school literary journal as well, which releases its new e-issue sometime this week. I don't know exactly when; I've heard conflicting dates, as well as conflicting dates for the "party." Some people have said tomorrow, others have said Monday night, etc etc. I checked my email, but I must have deleted the one about the party. Oh well. Even though I'm one of the editors, I do have a fair amount of work to do this weekend anyway.
Yesterday's classes were entertaining and easy, at least. I'm not getting into the real discussions and/or assignments until next week -- their first reading assignment will be given to them on Tuesday, and their first "paper" (I use the term loosely, as it's only worth 20 points) will be assigned on Thursday. At least that's what I'm planning, anyhow. I'd like to get the little stuff out of the way so we can get into class discussion and the readings ASAP, so they can begin writing and taking care of the work in the actual course. The students seem interested enough to be there, at least, though I can tell they're bored by the administrative "let's go over the syllabus," "don't plagiarize or you'll fail," and "these are my office hours/this is what and where the Writing Center is" bullshit that I'm sure they've all heard before from countless other professors.
Still, my students look promising. I've got a lot more international and/or ESL students this semester than I had before, spread between both classes, and they're usually some of my best writers -- if quietly so. The exact opposite would normally be true for a standard English 101/102 class, but since I teach the Science/Engineering writing version, well...there's a reason they're enrolled in my class instead of a normal composition class, generally speaking.
I've been asked to attend the normal 102 practicum, which everyone else who teaches 102 (any type of 102) will attend. My arm wasn't twisted or anything like that, but I was sort of coerced/volunteered to attend it by the director of the 102 program as well as by the office's administrators. I certainly don't mind it, really; I'm on campus on the scheduled day (Wednesday) and doing nothing during the time it's going on (2-3, I believe), so it's not a problem. It'll give me something interesting to do for an hour before I go to my mid-afternoon/evening class, so that's a plus. I'm always up for learning new techniques and the like. I've been told that we'll be watching a (really expensive) series of video lectures on teaching composition for at least part of the semester, which I'm sure none of us will be too thrilled with in the long run, but still, again, it's something new.
I've said before that I love teaching, and it's true -- it's the best part about being a graduate student, and an opportunity that I find extremely valuable and rewarding. Teaching and writing (or, conversely, teaching writing) may be my ultimate calling in life, and if it is, that's okay with me. It's more than okay, really. In conversation with one of my friends this week (one who reads the blog, actually), we discussed how teaching a multitude of different classes will better our chances after graduation of being able to get a gig at a community college, small independent college, or a private high school.
My love of teaching only goes so far, however -- unless I were down to my last fifty cents in my bank account and had been living out of my car for several weeks, I never want to have to teach public high school. Ever. Everever.
Anyway.
In other news, I haven't even thought about any sort of romantic interludes yet this spring -- it has been, until I realized Valentine's Day (or, as I'll call it, Black Tuesday) is in about three weeks -- the very last thing on my mind. I'm more concerned about paying my bills and taking care of my schoolwork. Will it suck being single on Valentine's Day for the first time since 2005? Sure. Does it really bother me, since it's basically a bullshit forced-love sort of holiday that I've always despised anyway? Nope.
Yes, it'll still suck, despite the fact that I hate it. Figure out the logic on that one, folks. I'll wait.
I'm also the guy who just ordered a single, solitary pizza from Papa John's at 11:10PM. This is my Friday night, folks. Yep.
The rest of my weekend will be spent running errands (shopping, gas in the car, etc) and finishing up the homework/housework I have left to do. I'd also like to finish the second season of Community if possible as well -- I'm about 1/3 of the way through it now. Other than that, it's business as usual, folks.
Only fifteen more weeks of "business as usual" to go....
Friday, January 20, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The Countdown Begins
Spring semester: day two
Due to my cunning and quick mind, I am actually home at 11:30AM when realistically, I shouldn't be and never will be again on a Wednesday during the semester unless something catastrophic happens.
Y'see, I'm supposed to have office hours from 9 to 11 on Wednesday mornings, and then work in the campus Writing Center from 12-1. As the Writing Center doesn't open until Monday, and it's the second day of classes, I told my students yesterday morning that office hours won't officially start until next week -- therefore giving me a ton of free time today, and I'll only have to be on campus for my 4:30-6:50 Editing class. Tomorrow I teach and then immediately come home to start my weekend.
Pretty sweet, right? It'll be a short, relatively painless first week.
My classes are full of lively characters; again, this time around they're mostly guys (though I do have about three or four women in each class, which is different from last semester) and they seem to be fairly interested in the subject matter or at least enthused enough by it to remain in the class. As my copies of their syllabus and diagnostic exams weren't finished before class started, the first session of each class was spent giving a course overview, talking about the books they'll need, the papers they'll write, and how the class itself will operate and flow. I had several students absent from each class (according to my roster, anyway) and I'm not sure if those folks will ever show up, but at least with the students who were there, I seem to have a good rapport with them. I hope that continues once they get into the real work of the course.
In other news, I mentioned before that Suri had gotten me a Christmas/birthday present, but it hadn't arrived before the semester ended and she flew back home to Virginia for the holidays. Well, yesterday I got it, and it's a very cute Threadless t-shirt with silhouettes of birds on power lines and a cat trying to climb the lines to reach them. Very classy. I plan to wear it sometime next week, as I already have this week's outfits laid out. I thanked her graciously for it; she's a very good friend.
The rest of the day went fairly smoothly; the afternoon poetry workshop only has about ten of us in it this semester, as everyone else in the department has taken their required number of semesters of it already (and we didn't get any new students for the spring). Instead of the really obnoxious, awful classroom we were supposed to have it in, we relocated to a smaller, more intimate conference room for class discussion, and it is immensely better than even the normal room we've always used for the workshop (as well as most other classes the department offers). There's a little more work we'll be doing every week for the class this time around, but it's fun work, challenging work. I'm looking forward to it, especially because this is my fourth (and last) workshop class I'll have to take, and it is once more with one of the most esteemed and awarded living American poets. Yeah, I've been quite lucky in my education.
Most everyone is back on campus or at least back in town now; I've seen or talked to most of them in and around the department, as anyone who had to be there braved the extremely cold weather yesterday (temperatures in the teens, wind chills around zero) to come in and do their work as per the usual. I can't tell you how nice it was to get some face-to-face social interaction with people who, as I told several friends -- were not Walmart cashiers or my cats.
For those of you who arched an eyebrow upon inferring that my cats were people, well, screw off. They're the closest thing I've got most of the time.
After I was done for the day, I drove home in the dark and cold, picked up the second season of Community off my doorstep where it had been delivered, and watched the first three episodes of it after cooking dinner...after which I could no longer keep my eyes open and summarily passed out. I awoke at 12:30 or so, turned off the TV and got a blanket, and as that was the extent of the physical activity my body wanted to allow me, I curled up in the fetal position on the tiny couch and slept until 7:30 this morning. I must've slept about ten or eleven hours -- I wasn't keeping track. I somehow knew that if I'd been awake enough to go downstairs and try to sleep, I would've ended up wide-awake again, and would've been unable to sleep more. So there on the couch I stayed.
Today, as mentioned before, I have my afternoon/evening Editing class, and then I'll be coming back home to go to bed at a fairly reasonable hour after cooking dinner and watching more Community, more than likely. While I'll have some homework and the like to take care of, I'll worry about it over the weekend when I can focus on all of it at once -- and hopefully work on my taxes as well.
Also of note -- the visiting writer this semester (my third "class," which won't start meeting until he arrives) is coming earlier than usual...as in, two weeks from now earlier. Usually the visiting writer comes in for the month of April, but his coming in February means that those of us in the program who are meeting with him for class will be able to do it now and get it out of the way. Our poetry professor told us in class last night that this is more than likely the writer's own choice and that he probably has another engagement during the normal month we'd have him here. Anyway, all of us have our first meeting with him during the first week of February sometime. I can't remember the exact date right now, but I've written it down on my calendar at work.
So, that's really all that's going on right now. The semester has begun, and with it responsibility has returned to all of our lives. I'm looking forward to it; I'm hoping it's a great one filled with mystery and excitement, or some other BS like that.
Due to my cunning and quick mind, I am actually home at 11:30AM when realistically, I shouldn't be and never will be again on a Wednesday during the semester unless something catastrophic happens.
Y'see, I'm supposed to have office hours from 9 to 11 on Wednesday mornings, and then work in the campus Writing Center from 12-1. As the Writing Center doesn't open until Monday, and it's the second day of classes, I told my students yesterday morning that office hours won't officially start until next week -- therefore giving me a ton of free time today, and I'll only have to be on campus for my 4:30-6:50 Editing class. Tomorrow I teach and then immediately come home to start my weekend.
Pretty sweet, right? It'll be a short, relatively painless first week.
My classes are full of lively characters; again, this time around they're mostly guys (though I do have about three or four women in each class, which is different from last semester) and they seem to be fairly interested in the subject matter or at least enthused enough by it to remain in the class. As my copies of their syllabus and diagnostic exams weren't finished before class started, the first session of each class was spent giving a course overview, talking about the books they'll need, the papers they'll write, and how the class itself will operate and flow. I had several students absent from each class (according to my roster, anyway) and I'm not sure if those folks will ever show up, but at least with the students who were there, I seem to have a good rapport with them. I hope that continues once they get into the real work of the course.
In other news, I mentioned before that Suri had gotten me a Christmas/birthday present, but it hadn't arrived before the semester ended and she flew back home to Virginia for the holidays. Well, yesterday I got it, and it's a very cute Threadless t-shirt with silhouettes of birds on power lines and a cat trying to climb the lines to reach them. Very classy. I plan to wear it sometime next week, as I already have this week's outfits laid out. I thanked her graciously for it; she's a very good friend.
The rest of the day went fairly smoothly; the afternoon poetry workshop only has about ten of us in it this semester, as everyone else in the department has taken their required number of semesters of it already (and we didn't get any new students for the spring). Instead of the really obnoxious, awful classroom we were supposed to have it in, we relocated to a smaller, more intimate conference room for class discussion, and it is immensely better than even the normal room we've always used for the workshop (as well as most other classes the department offers). There's a little more work we'll be doing every week for the class this time around, but it's fun work, challenging work. I'm looking forward to it, especially because this is my fourth (and last) workshop class I'll have to take, and it is once more with one of the most esteemed and awarded living American poets. Yeah, I've been quite lucky in my education.
Most everyone is back on campus or at least back in town now; I've seen or talked to most of them in and around the department, as anyone who had to be there braved the extremely cold weather yesterday (temperatures in the teens, wind chills around zero) to come in and do their work as per the usual. I can't tell you how nice it was to get some face-to-face social interaction with people who, as I told several friends -- were not Walmart cashiers or my cats.
For those of you who arched an eyebrow upon inferring that my cats were people, well, screw off. They're the closest thing I've got most of the time.
After I was done for the day, I drove home in the dark and cold, picked up the second season of Community off my doorstep where it had been delivered, and watched the first three episodes of it after cooking dinner...after which I could no longer keep my eyes open and summarily passed out. I awoke at 12:30 or so, turned off the TV and got a blanket, and as that was the extent of the physical activity my body wanted to allow me, I curled up in the fetal position on the tiny couch and slept until 7:30 this morning. I must've slept about ten or eleven hours -- I wasn't keeping track. I somehow knew that if I'd been awake enough to go downstairs and try to sleep, I would've ended up wide-awake again, and would've been unable to sleep more. So there on the couch I stayed.
Today, as mentioned before, I have my afternoon/evening Editing class, and then I'll be coming back home to go to bed at a fairly reasonable hour after cooking dinner and watching more Community, more than likely. While I'll have some homework and the like to take care of, I'll worry about it over the weekend when I can focus on all of it at once -- and hopefully work on my taxes as well.
Also of note -- the visiting writer this semester (my third "class," which won't start meeting until he arrives) is coming earlier than usual...as in, two weeks from now earlier. Usually the visiting writer comes in for the month of April, but his coming in February means that those of us in the program who are meeting with him for class will be able to do it now and get it out of the way. Our poetry professor told us in class last night that this is more than likely the writer's own choice and that he probably has another engagement during the normal month we'd have him here. Anyway, all of us have our first meeting with him during the first week of February sometime. I can't remember the exact date right now, but I've written it down on my calendar at work.
So, that's really all that's going on right now. The semester has begun, and with it responsibility has returned to all of our lives. I'm looking forward to it; I'm hoping it's a great one filled with mystery and excitement, or some other BS like that.
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Final Day
Today is the final day of winter break.
I say this with a bit of regret, of course. There are a lot of things I wanted to get done over this break that I never had the chance to do, forgot about completely, or was otherwise too lazy to become motivated enough to do them. This is a little disheartening to be sure, but in the end I got exactly what I wanted out of break -- a month with as little responsibility as possible. And oh, it was very nice.
The first few weeks of the semester usually aren't that bad, and during that time I can catch up on some of those things I neglected over break. I really need to get back into the swing of my writing -- usually I can produce the best stuff during the winter and spring because the competition levels are still high, but my workload is usually fairly low.
When I say "competition levels," I mean that being around my friends and colleagues once more makes me strive to do my absolute best in my writing, to step up my game. It's not exactly a competition in the sense that I must do better than anyone else, because I know that's not going to happen, and that's not what the program is about anyhow. It's more about keeping me on my toes and forcing me to continually produce good work. This is a challenge, and I see it as such. I enjoy it.
I've (now completely) finalized my schedule, and it is as such:
MON: Off
TUE: Teaching 9:30/11, office hours 12:30-3:30, Poetry Workshop 4:30-6:50
WED: Office hours 9-11, Writing Center 12-1, Editing 4:30-6:50
THUR: Teaching 9:30/11
FRI: Off
In the gaps between teaching, classes, and office hours, I'll have to find an hour per week in April to visit with the visiting poet for the semester, but other than that, there's my schedule for you. As I mentioned before, my Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester have been flipped compared to last semester. In the fall, on Tuesday I used to be able to teach and go home. Now it's like that on Thursday, which makes me able to start my weekend that much sooner. Also note that, as I said before, I have no night classes this semester. I'll be off campus by 7PM every night. This is good on many levels; the most important is that I'll be able to get more sleep.
As you can see, however, I start my semester tomorrow morning, teaching two classes right off the bat. I think I've done this every semester I've been in the program thus far, and don't really mind it that much. So, starting tomorrow morning and every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning until mid-May, I'll be getting up at 5AM, taking a shower, making coffee and drinking it as quickly as possible, and then driving in to campus to spend my day there. The pattern seems oddly familiar to me...perhaps it's because even though I have a different, lighter semester this spring, my actual in-and-out of the day tends to stay about the same.
As for the schedules of my friends and colleagues, I haven't a clue what they are. The vast majority of my friends in the department are in the same two actual classes with me -- the poetry workshop and the editing course -- but outside of that? Jay's been teaching online courses, so he's never around anymore, and a fair amount of the other guys and gals...well, they have lives outside of the department. Getting any friend time with Suri may be difficult as well, as she's in her last semester and technically doesn't have to be on campus except to teach and for office hours -- and she's teaching Monday/Wednesday this semester. I may suddenly find myself with a lot more free time and alone time in the department than I've ever had before.
In other news, I have been unable, despite my tries, to get my sleep schedule back to normal for the spring semester. I woke up yesterday at 5:10 PM. Yes, PM. In a last-ditch effort to right myself and reset my body clock, my goal is to stay up as long as possible today into the evening without sleeping, and then crash sometime after dark. If I can do this, I will sleep all night and awaken in the morning when my alarm goes off -- refreshed and (hopefully) with a reset circadian rhythm. While it's easy to throw off my sleep patterns, when I worked night shift in a grocery store for three years I also trained my body to be able to reset them just as easily most of the time. Especially when I have to, when responsibility is involved.
In the overnight hours, I did productive things. Or, at least, interesting things. To stave off boredom (and because I'd been putting it off for a few days), at 3AM I finally made my big shopping trip to Walmart before the semester starts. My receipt is a full eighteen inches long, and the trip cost me almost as much as my six months' worth of car insurance did last month. However, I came home with a LOT of stuff I needed but had been putting off buying, such as shampoo and body wash, meat, cleaning supplies, new underwear, vegetables and other ingredients for healthy cooking, some long-sleeved thermal shirts for when it gets really cold over the winter, cat food/litter, and assorted other essentials. This means I shouldn't have to return to Walmart for anything but incidentals for the next few weeks, which is good -- the weather's bound to get bad soon enough, and I'm bound to get fairly busy in schoolwork as the weeks progress as well. It's nice to have a somewhat decent stockpile of some food and other necessities around the house in case I get snowed in or something along those lines, too.
No worries about that today, though -- right now it's 55 outside. It's barely supposed to be above freezing tomorrow, though. As I told Andrea this morning, of course it would wait until I have to go back out in it every day before the temperature drops like crazy and stays there. Typical, really.
Yes, I know, first world problems.
I have loaded my messenger bag with most of the things I'll need for this week; the rest will have to be brought in on Wednesday/Thursday. At the Dollar Tree I picked up a new calendar -- no, it's not Van Gogh art, as I had for 2011...I had to go back to my old standby of muscle cars, because it was either that, kittens, horses, or lighthouses. At least muscle cars won't necessarily have people in the department questioning my sexual orientation when they see them hanging on the wall above my desk. It's already questionable enough that I wear lots of tie-dye, live alone and own three cats, and meticulously style/condition my hair. No reason to give them any more rumor fodder.
The one thing that I really, really regret that I didn't do over break is my taxes. I have all the info for them, even -- I just haven't sat down with them to do the actual calculations and dry runs to make sure everything will even out and give me a good refund. That may be a Thursday afternoon thing once I get home from class. I want to get them done ASAP so that I can get my refund processed ASAP, as you probably already gathered.
In an hour or two I shall go to bed. I think I have everything taken care of for tomorrow. What isn't is beyond my control or otherwise out of my scope of thought. I've racked my brain trying to get every little thing finished and ready, but I'm sure there's something I'll forget as I am sleep-deprived right now and/or have been otherwise mentally scattered. So, here's to the new semester -- may it be less painful than the last.
I say this with a bit of regret, of course. There are a lot of things I wanted to get done over this break that I never had the chance to do, forgot about completely, or was otherwise too lazy to become motivated enough to do them. This is a little disheartening to be sure, but in the end I got exactly what I wanted out of break -- a month with as little responsibility as possible. And oh, it was very nice.
The first few weeks of the semester usually aren't that bad, and during that time I can catch up on some of those things I neglected over break. I really need to get back into the swing of my writing -- usually I can produce the best stuff during the winter and spring because the competition levels are still high, but my workload is usually fairly low.
When I say "competition levels," I mean that being around my friends and colleagues once more makes me strive to do my absolute best in my writing, to step up my game. It's not exactly a competition in the sense that I must do better than anyone else, because I know that's not going to happen, and that's not what the program is about anyhow. It's more about keeping me on my toes and forcing me to continually produce good work. This is a challenge, and I see it as such. I enjoy it.
I've (now completely) finalized my schedule, and it is as such:
MON: Off
TUE: Teaching 9:30/11, office hours 12:30-3:30, Poetry Workshop 4:30-6:50
WED: Office hours 9-11, Writing Center 12-1, Editing 4:30-6:50
THUR: Teaching 9:30/11
FRI: Off
In the gaps between teaching, classes, and office hours, I'll have to find an hour per week in April to visit with the visiting poet for the semester, but other than that, there's my schedule for you. As I mentioned before, my Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester have been flipped compared to last semester. In the fall, on Tuesday I used to be able to teach and go home. Now it's like that on Thursday, which makes me able to start my weekend that much sooner. Also note that, as I said before, I have no night classes this semester. I'll be off campus by 7PM every night. This is good on many levels; the most important is that I'll be able to get more sleep.
As you can see, however, I start my semester tomorrow morning, teaching two classes right off the bat. I think I've done this every semester I've been in the program thus far, and don't really mind it that much. So, starting tomorrow morning and every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning until mid-May, I'll be getting up at 5AM, taking a shower, making coffee and drinking it as quickly as possible, and then driving in to campus to spend my day there. The pattern seems oddly familiar to me...perhaps it's because even though I have a different, lighter semester this spring, my actual in-and-out of the day tends to stay about the same.
As for the schedules of my friends and colleagues, I haven't a clue what they are. The vast majority of my friends in the department are in the same two actual classes with me -- the poetry workshop and the editing course -- but outside of that? Jay's been teaching online courses, so he's never around anymore, and a fair amount of the other guys and gals...well, they have lives outside of the department. Getting any friend time with Suri may be difficult as well, as she's in her last semester and technically doesn't have to be on campus except to teach and for office hours -- and she's teaching Monday/Wednesday this semester. I may suddenly find myself with a lot more free time and alone time in the department than I've ever had before.
In other news, I have been unable, despite my tries, to get my sleep schedule back to normal for the spring semester. I woke up yesterday at 5:10 PM. Yes, PM. In a last-ditch effort to right myself and reset my body clock, my goal is to stay up as long as possible today into the evening without sleeping, and then crash sometime after dark. If I can do this, I will sleep all night and awaken in the morning when my alarm goes off -- refreshed and (hopefully) with a reset circadian rhythm. While it's easy to throw off my sleep patterns, when I worked night shift in a grocery store for three years I also trained my body to be able to reset them just as easily most of the time. Especially when I have to, when responsibility is involved.
In the overnight hours, I did productive things. Or, at least, interesting things. To stave off boredom (and because I'd been putting it off for a few days), at 3AM I finally made my big shopping trip to Walmart before the semester starts. My receipt is a full eighteen inches long, and the trip cost me almost as much as my six months' worth of car insurance did last month. However, I came home with a LOT of stuff I needed but had been putting off buying, such as shampoo and body wash, meat, cleaning supplies, new underwear, vegetables and other ingredients for healthy cooking, some long-sleeved thermal shirts for when it gets really cold over the winter, cat food/litter, and assorted other essentials. This means I shouldn't have to return to Walmart for anything but incidentals for the next few weeks, which is good -- the weather's bound to get bad soon enough, and I'm bound to get fairly busy in schoolwork as the weeks progress as well. It's nice to have a somewhat decent stockpile of some food and other necessities around the house in case I get snowed in or something along those lines, too.
No worries about that today, though -- right now it's 55 outside. It's barely supposed to be above freezing tomorrow, though. As I told Andrea this morning, of course it would wait until I have to go back out in it every day before the temperature drops like crazy and stays there. Typical, really.
Yes, I know, first world problems.
I have loaded my messenger bag with most of the things I'll need for this week; the rest will have to be brought in on Wednesday/Thursday. At the Dollar Tree I picked up a new calendar -- no, it's not Van Gogh art, as I had for 2011...I had to go back to my old standby of muscle cars, because it was either that, kittens, horses, or lighthouses. At least muscle cars won't necessarily have people in the department questioning my sexual orientation when they see them hanging on the wall above my desk. It's already questionable enough that I wear lots of tie-dye, live alone and own three cats, and meticulously style/condition my hair. No reason to give them any more rumor fodder.
The one thing that I really, really regret that I didn't do over break is my taxes. I have all the info for them, even -- I just haven't sat down with them to do the actual calculations and dry runs to make sure everything will even out and give me a good refund. That may be a Thursday afternoon thing once I get home from class. I want to get them done ASAP so that I can get my refund processed ASAP, as you probably already gathered.
In an hour or two I shall go to bed. I think I have everything taken care of for tomorrow. What isn't is beyond my control or otherwise out of my scope of thought. I've racked my brain trying to get every little thing finished and ready, but I'm sure there's something I'll forget as I am sleep-deprived right now and/or have been otherwise mentally scattered. So, here's to the new semester -- may it be less painful than the last.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
The Hermit
Days of break remaining: two
Not that I'm exactly a social butterfly anyhow -- especially over the winter break -- but social interactions for me even online have hit an all time low these last four or five days as I try to get everything done both for my classes and around the house. I'm even letting some things I wanted to do for fun fall to the wayside -- for example, I have the newest volume of The Walking Dead, which is the only comic series I've followed religiously for the past two years or so, and I haven't even read it yet...even though I know it will take less than an hour to read through. I have two new issues of Playboy, and several other new issues of other magazines I subscribe to (Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated) which I haven't touched yet either.
However, I did make homemade Chinese for dinner tonight, all of the laundry is done, the cat room is clean, I finished the first season of Community (and ordered season two immediately thereafter -- yes, it's that good), washed all the dishes, packed up all of my books and papers for next week, readied a week's worth of half-dressy outfits with which to impress my students until I can dress normally again, took a shower, fed the cats, washed the dishes, set up my new Blu-ray player, and sent messages/the course syllabus to all of my new students.
...amongst other things I'm probably forgetting, I'm sure.
Oh, I did get to laugh at Tim Tebow losing his game tonight. That made me happy. Though I will admit that it was a bittersweet happy, as the Broncos were beaten by the Patriots, who I also can't stand.
I have been awake all day/night since last night's police incident across the street at 2AM. It's almost 1AM now. I think I've had a productive day. I'm trying to right my sleep schedule again, at least somewhat, by sleeping at night tonight and getting up in the morning hours. If I can do that, I can get on a pattern, and even though I may be worn out after a few short nights of sleep for the first week of classes or so, my body will once more regulate itself and learn how to survive on four-to-six hours a night and copious amounts of coffee in the mornings. To prepare for this certainty, I have a fresh can of coffee chambered and ready to go when I get back to work on Tuesday morning, as I really can't remember how much (if any) I have in the office.
In other news, as mentioned before, my Blu-ray player arrived and I set it up with ease, testing it out with the free copy of Watchmen I got over break. It's really nice. I boxed up my old, normal DVD player and put it in the closet, as I have a feeling it won't be used again until I get another TV at some point to put downstairs in the bedroom.
Incidentally, there are only a few films I would ever want on Blu-ray instead of normal DVD, the new Star Wars collection being a few of them, but as Blu-ray seems to be the wave of the future, it looks like I might as well jump on the bandwagon now. It's not like I'm going to upgrade my collection to Blu-ray or anything. Since I bought that LCD HDTV last year when the former girlfriend and I broke up, everything I watch on it is gorgeous, even the news. So really I don't notice much of a difference. Sound is better, details are a little sharper, but that's about it.
Winding down the last two days of break, I do still have a few things left on my "to do list." I have to finish two different letters, revise a poem I've been working on (yes, I've actually been writing again), and make sure there's nothing I've completely forgotten to do that would be rather important before the semester starts. Other than that? As mentioned before, I'm not planning to do much else for the rest of the weekend.
Not that I'm exactly a social butterfly anyhow -- especially over the winter break -- but social interactions for me even online have hit an all time low these last four or five days as I try to get everything done both for my classes and around the house. I'm even letting some things I wanted to do for fun fall to the wayside -- for example, I have the newest volume of The Walking Dead, which is the only comic series I've followed religiously for the past two years or so, and I haven't even read it yet...even though I know it will take less than an hour to read through. I have two new issues of Playboy, and several other new issues of other magazines I subscribe to (Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated) which I haven't touched yet either.
However, I did make homemade Chinese for dinner tonight, all of the laundry is done, the cat room is clean, I finished the first season of Community (and ordered season two immediately thereafter -- yes, it's that good), washed all the dishes, packed up all of my books and papers for next week, readied a week's worth of half-dressy outfits with which to impress my students until I can dress normally again, took a shower, fed the cats, washed the dishes, set up my new Blu-ray player, and sent messages/the course syllabus to all of my new students.
...amongst other things I'm probably forgetting, I'm sure.
Oh, I did get to laugh at Tim Tebow losing his game tonight. That made me happy. Though I will admit that it was a bittersweet happy, as the Broncos were beaten by the Patriots, who I also can't stand.
I have been awake all day/night since last night's police incident across the street at 2AM. It's almost 1AM now. I think I've had a productive day. I'm trying to right my sleep schedule again, at least somewhat, by sleeping at night tonight and getting up in the morning hours. If I can do that, I can get on a pattern, and even though I may be worn out after a few short nights of sleep for the first week of classes or so, my body will once more regulate itself and learn how to survive on four-to-six hours a night and copious amounts of coffee in the mornings. To prepare for this certainty, I have a fresh can of coffee chambered and ready to go when I get back to work on Tuesday morning, as I really can't remember how much (if any) I have in the office.
In other news, as mentioned before, my Blu-ray player arrived and I set it up with ease, testing it out with the free copy of Watchmen I got over break. It's really nice. I boxed up my old, normal DVD player and put it in the closet, as I have a feeling it won't be used again until I get another TV at some point to put downstairs in the bedroom.
Incidentally, there are only a few films I would ever want on Blu-ray instead of normal DVD, the new Star Wars collection being a few of them, but as Blu-ray seems to be the wave of the future, it looks like I might as well jump on the bandwagon now. It's not like I'm going to upgrade my collection to Blu-ray or anything. Since I bought that LCD HDTV last year when the former girlfriend and I broke up, everything I watch on it is gorgeous, even the news. So really I don't notice much of a difference. Sound is better, details are a little sharper, but that's about it.
Winding down the last two days of break, I do still have a few things left on my "to do list." I have to finish two different letters, revise a poem I've been working on (yes, I've actually been writing again), and make sure there's nothing I've completely forgotten to do that would be rather important before the semester starts. Other than that? As mentioned before, I'm not planning to do much else for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The Last Days of Relative Freedom
Days of break remaining: three
After going to bed early last night, I was awakened at 1:54 AM by my cats growling.
Yes, my cats growl, but only when something bad is happening and/or going on. Along with the growling, I heard the distinct barks of what could only be several German Shepherds, and very close to the house. As in, in my driveway close. There was also some very loud yelling in the street.
Yes, at 1:54AM.
The fact that I didn't wake up to the sounds of yelling or dogs barking, but instead to the cats growling, doesn't surprise me at all. I grew up in a house with dogs who barked or howled at everything that moved, and the house behind mine has several Jack Russell terriers who never shut the fuck up when they're outside. The yelling's about the same -- my neighbors up the street are really white-trash folk who tend to have screaming matches and fights a lot, though usually in the summer months, and the cops have been at their home more times than I can count.
This noise, however, did not sound like it was coming from their house. It sounded like it was coming from right outside mine. And it was.
I looked out the downstairs window to see not one, but three police vehicles -- two squad cars and one of their big SUVs -- parked right in front of my home. As in, in front of my mailbox. And saw what can only be described as a "violent altercation" taking place in the driveway of the house across the street.
The dogs' barking was coming from inside the SUV, by the way it sounded, and it was the closest vehicle to my window -- no wonder the cats were scared and growling. While they scattered to hide, I threw on my clothes and ran upstairs to get a better view of what was going on -- not once turning on any lights or doing anything that would let anyone outside know I was a spectator to the debacle.
By the time I got upstairs, I saw several cops -- weapons drawn, mind you -- throwing the guy who lives across the street to the ground on his driveway and restraining him, while he screamed obscenities and other things I couldn't make out the entire time. They held their lights on him, he was fighting with them, etc. I was hoping to see video cameras rolling for his appearance on COPS, but was disappointed. They basically threw him into the back of the squad car, did an outdoor sweep of the property with their flashlights, said a few words to his wife/live-in-lover/what-have-you, and then all of them left.
In retrospect, he may have been screaming because they'd tased him. Which, if they had, I wish I could have seen.
I will take an aside for a moment and say that I live in a very nice small town with some very nice, down-to-earth people. We don't really have crime here. I think there have been less than ten murders or violent crimes in Newton, or within the entire county, in the past twenty years. Part of that's just the area of the country I live in, and part of that is because Newton has a very strong, very vigilant police force who will pull you over for questioning if you even sneeze in their direction while driving, and who actively pursue criminals. Cops get a lot of flak, but the cops I've talked to in this town over the years, mostly when I was working at/for the newspaper, have been pretty cool.
That being said, the neighbor in question was a relatively new one -- he and his woman, along with one kid, have only been living there since October or so. I remember this because I remember when they moved in, with their big truck and all sorts of redneck friends there. I've never heard any yelling or fighting coming from that house, and they seemed to be pretty happy most of the time, if loud and redneck-y (they let the kid run around the street and scream in his Power Wheels truck, etc etc). They both drive cars older than and in poorer shape than my Monte Carlo, for example, and that's hard to do. Both of them work low-wage jobs in the service industry or retail; I know this because I see them coming and going in their "work uniforms" all the time, at all hours of the day and night.
I don't get out much. Therefore I tend to look out the window a lot.
Anyway.
The police there was amusing, but not extremely surprising. A few weeks ago the cops were there as well, questioning the guy in his driveway. Then they quietly left. Not tonight. Hoo boy, not tonight. I really wish I could've seen the whole thing go down, to be honest. That's not something that happens every day.
So, I thought I'd share that interesting tale with you.
Yesterday was fairly productive; I am in the last stretch now, the last few days of break, and the last weekend of it. Because of this, I've found that there are a lot of things I have left to do before classes start back up again on Tuesday, and I am once more a slave to academia for the better part of the next four months. Therefore, I finished my work on everything for my students, and moved to focus on getting the house in order (figuratively, of course). I put new gas in the car and filled the tires up with new air, after which she handled remarkably well and purred like a kitten. I also mailed out all of my packages to my friends, so they should be receiving them Tuesday or Wednesday.
One of the last things I did, however, was visit the local discount grocery store here in town. I used to go to this place a lot, but I'm not sure I've been there since the former girlfriend and I broke up. I go there primarily because they sell Powerbars and other energy/meal/granola bars for five for a dollar. Sometimes their selection is better than others, but most of the time I can spend a few bucks there and have myself some meals/snacks to put in my desk at work for a few weeks.
Yesterday, their selection was extravagant. I ended up getting sixty of the bars (grand total: $12). There are so many that they will fill my desk drawer at work and will give me meals and snacks from them for the entire semester, if not longer. I plan to go back next weekend and get more, just so that I can have some in the house as well.
I did get a few other things, but not much. I got some snack-packs of Corn Nuts (25 cents each), some flavors of Kool-Aid I'd run out of (10 cents each), cooking oil, noodle soup packets (for my chicken noodle soup, 60 cents each), etc. I forgot to go through their rack of bread, which they get from really good local bakeries -- it's about the closest thing I can get to the D'Annunzio's bread I like from West Virginia. I also got some good frozen food -- probably the best deals they have on anything in the store aside from the Powerbars.
Upon returning home, I took care of some internet stuff, made some food, and started the fourth disc of Community, and went to bed early around 6 or 7 (since I was tired).
Community is, by the way, one of the funniest television shows I've ever seen -- and this is coming from a guy who just watched all three seasons of Arrested Development and the second season of Archer over the course of the past few weeks. If you haven't seen it yet, I really, really recommend it. I can't get enough of it, and it's one of those shows where I see the DVD sets and I'm like "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY," etc etc. It very well may be the funniest show currently on television, as many have said.
I'll finish the first season today, with just enough time to receive my Blu-ray player in the mail.
Yes. In an uncharacteristic stroke of "let's spend money on something that doesn't involve keeping food in my stomach or the lights on," I went to Amazon and purchased a Blu-ray player for $55 or so. Something like that. Aside from the few items of clothing I've bought over the past several days, it's the only "splurge a little, just for me" sort of item I've purchased in many months, and the only such item I plan to purchase for the foreseeable future. This one's supposed to be a "quick loading" model. I didn't realize Blu-ray discs took forever to load, but okay. It was one of the less-expensive ones on Amazon, at least. For $55, it can work for a while and then blow up if it wants to.
Anyway, that'll arrive today via UPS. Hopefully.
Aside from taking care of around-the-house stuff and doing school prep stuff, not a whole lot is going on. The police incident across the street was about the most exciting thing that's happened in a while. I've enjoyed my break, and lived it to the fullest by sleeping a lot, watching a lot of TV and movies, and living frugally. The rest of my weekend will be spent cooking, cleaning and doing laundry, watching football, and having some responsibility-free video game and internet time. I have but three days before everything flips back around to academic mode, and to center myself this is what I do.
After going to bed early last night, I was awakened at 1:54 AM by my cats growling.
Yes, my cats growl, but only when something bad is happening and/or going on. Along with the growling, I heard the distinct barks of what could only be several German Shepherds, and very close to the house. As in, in my driveway close. There was also some very loud yelling in the street.
Yes, at 1:54AM.
The fact that I didn't wake up to the sounds of yelling or dogs barking, but instead to the cats growling, doesn't surprise me at all. I grew up in a house with dogs who barked or howled at everything that moved, and the house behind mine has several Jack Russell terriers who never shut the fuck up when they're outside. The yelling's about the same -- my neighbors up the street are really white-trash folk who tend to have screaming matches and fights a lot, though usually in the summer months, and the cops have been at their home more times than I can count.
This noise, however, did not sound like it was coming from their house. It sounded like it was coming from right outside mine. And it was.
I looked out the downstairs window to see not one, but three police vehicles -- two squad cars and one of their big SUVs -- parked right in front of my home. As in, in front of my mailbox. And saw what can only be described as a "violent altercation" taking place in the driveway of the house across the street.
The dogs' barking was coming from inside the SUV, by the way it sounded, and it was the closest vehicle to my window -- no wonder the cats were scared and growling. While they scattered to hide, I threw on my clothes and ran upstairs to get a better view of what was going on -- not once turning on any lights or doing anything that would let anyone outside know I was a spectator to the debacle.
By the time I got upstairs, I saw several cops -- weapons drawn, mind you -- throwing the guy who lives across the street to the ground on his driveway and restraining him, while he screamed obscenities and other things I couldn't make out the entire time. They held their lights on him, he was fighting with them, etc. I was hoping to see video cameras rolling for his appearance on COPS, but was disappointed. They basically threw him into the back of the squad car, did an outdoor sweep of the property with their flashlights, said a few words to his wife/live-in-lover/what-have-you, and then all of them left.
In retrospect, he may have been screaming because they'd tased him. Which, if they had, I wish I could have seen.
I will take an aside for a moment and say that I live in a very nice small town with some very nice, down-to-earth people. We don't really have crime here. I think there have been less than ten murders or violent crimes in Newton, or within the entire county, in the past twenty years. Part of that's just the area of the country I live in, and part of that is because Newton has a very strong, very vigilant police force who will pull you over for questioning if you even sneeze in their direction while driving, and who actively pursue criminals. Cops get a lot of flak, but the cops I've talked to in this town over the years, mostly when I was working at/for the newspaper, have been pretty cool.
That being said, the neighbor in question was a relatively new one -- he and his woman, along with one kid, have only been living there since October or so. I remember this because I remember when they moved in, with their big truck and all sorts of redneck friends there. I've never heard any yelling or fighting coming from that house, and they seemed to be pretty happy most of the time, if loud and redneck-y (they let the kid run around the street and scream in his Power Wheels truck, etc etc). They both drive cars older than and in poorer shape than my Monte Carlo, for example, and that's hard to do. Both of them work low-wage jobs in the service industry or retail; I know this because I see them coming and going in their "work uniforms" all the time, at all hours of the day and night.
I don't get out much. Therefore I tend to look out the window a lot.
Anyway.
The police there was amusing, but not extremely surprising. A few weeks ago the cops were there as well, questioning the guy in his driveway. Then they quietly left. Not tonight. Hoo boy, not tonight. I really wish I could've seen the whole thing go down, to be honest. That's not something that happens every day.
So, I thought I'd share that interesting tale with you.
Yesterday was fairly productive; I am in the last stretch now, the last few days of break, and the last weekend of it. Because of this, I've found that there are a lot of things I have left to do before classes start back up again on Tuesday, and I am once more a slave to academia for the better part of the next four months. Therefore, I finished my work on everything for my students, and moved to focus on getting the house in order (figuratively, of course). I put new gas in the car and filled the tires up with new air, after which she handled remarkably well and purred like a kitten. I also mailed out all of my packages to my friends, so they should be receiving them Tuesday or Wednesday.
One of the last things I did, however, was visit the local discount grocery store here in town. I used to go to this place a lot, but I'm not sure I've been there since the former girlfriend and I broke up. I go there primarily because they sell Powerbars and other energy/meal/granola bars for five for a dollar. Sometimes their selection is better than others, but most of the time I can spend a few bucks there and have myself some meals/snacks to put in my desk at work for a few weeks.
Yesterday, their selection was extravagant. I ended up getting sixty of the bars (grand total: $12). There are so many that they will fill my desk drawer at work and will give me meals and snacks from them for the entire semester, if not longer. I plan to go back next weekend and get more, just so that I can have some in the house as well.
I did get a few other things, but not much. I got some snack-packs of Corn Nuts (25 cents each), some flavors of Kool-Aid I'd run out of (10 cents each), cooking oil, noodle soup packets (for my chicken noodle soup, 60 cents each), etc. I forgot to go through their rack of bread, which they get from really good local bakeries -- it's about the closest thing I can get to the D'Annunzio's bread I like from West Virginia. I also got some good frozen food -- probably the best deals they have on anything in the store aside from the Powerbars.
Upon returning home, I took care of some internet stuff, made some food, and started the fourth disc of Community, and went to bed early around 6 or 7 (since I was tired).
Community is, by the way, one of the funniest television shows I've ever seen -- and this is coming from a guy who just watched all three seasons of Arrested Development and the second season of Archer over the course of the past few weeks. If you haven't seen it yet, I really, really recommend it. I can't get enough of it, and it's one of those shows where I see the DVD sets and I'm like "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY," etc etc. It very well may be the funniest show currently on television, as many have said.
I'll finish the first season today, with just enough time to receive my Blu-ray player in the mail.
Yes. In an uncharacteristic stroke of "let's spend money on something that doesn't involve keeping food in my stomach or the lights on," I went to Amazon and purchased a Blu-ray player for $55 or so. Something like that. Aside from the few items of clothing I've bought over the past several days, it's the only "splurge a little, just for me" sort of item I've purchased in many months, and the only such item I plan to purchase for the foreseeable future. This one's supposed to be a "quick loading" model. I didn't realize Blu-ray discs took forever to load, but okay. It was one of the less-expensive ones on Amazon, at least. For $55, it can work for a while and then blow up if it wants to.
Anyway, that'll arrive today via UPS. Hopefully.
Aside from taking care of around-the-house stuff and doing school prep stuff, not a whole lot is going on. The police incident across the street was about the most exciting thing that's happened in a while. I've enjoyed my break, and lived it to the fullest by sleeping a lot, watching a lot of TV and movies, and living frugally. The rest of my weekend will be spent cooking, cleaning and doing laundry, watching football, and having some responsibility-free video game and internet time. I have but three days before everything flips back around to academic mode, and to center myself this is what I do.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
No More Poor Brandon
Days of break remaining: five
I have received my student loan money, deposited and fully paid into my bank account. This means many things, of course. First and foremost, it means I no longer have to worry about paying my bills, buying groceries, or putting gas in the car. It also means that I can enjoy the rest of my break, what little of it is left, by not constantly having to worry about money problems, and can go out and do something (weather permitting, of course). As I predicted back when the days were beautiful and 55 degrees or warmer, I knew that when I got my money the weather would turn nasty when I actually had the ability to leave the house and use some of it -- well, I was correct. We're under a wind advisory today, the temperatures are supposed to drop drastically, and we're supposed to get snow flurries and snow showers for the next two days.
Because of this (and a few other reasons, i.e. I don't want to), I've decided to forgo the whole "going into campus this week" thing. There's no reason for it, really; I can post my students' syllabus on Blackboard, and tell them if they have a chance over the weekend they can download and print their own. Otherwise, they're not going to get a paper copy until Thursday. Same goes for the diagnostic essays -- I'll do them Thursday as well. Tuesday will be an introductory day where I tell them what the class is like and what books they'll need, and we'll all introduce ourselves. Etc. There's just no reason to waste my own time and gas money going to campus when I can just wait and do everything next week when I actually have to be there. It'll be a little different than the beginning of last semester, but now that I know what to do and how/when to do it for my course, everything can be streamlined a little more.
I have 17 students in my first class, and 23 in the second. That's a little more than last semester, but not by much. I'm guessing my rosters won't be "finalized" for the next two weeks or so anyway -- people will add and drop, etc. They always do. However, that's probably pretty close to the total number of students I'll have overall for the semester. I'm looking forward to teaching the class again. It's fun, it's interesting, and I tend to have good students in it.
Other than some preparations for class and receiving my money (it was deposited on Sunday and cleared completely last night), not a whole lot is going on here. I've been sleeping a lot, for roughly 12-hour stretches at a time regardless of the time of day or night. As I knew I could afford it, I went out and did some shopping for essentials at Walmart late Monday night, getting some of the stuff I knew I'd need for the next week or so. I also, for the first time in a very, very long time, got myself a burger and fries in the Walmart's interior McDonald's. It's been well over a year since I last had McDonald's food. It's also the first time I've gone out to get anything, fast food or otherwise, since the former girlfriend and I split up. Some of my reasoning has been that I was busy and cash-strapped most of the semester, but the other part of it is that I really don't get out much, and that I've been trying to watch what I eat anyhow.
Of course, another big part of it is that I'd like to be able to get a Big Mac and fries at 6AM sometimes, but noooo, all they sell is breakfast stuff then. About the only time I would want an egg McMuffin is when I'm drunk, because that's the only time it would seem appetizing. I do, however, want a breakfast of burgers and fries. Because I'm that sort of guy.
Also, fast food places don't deliver. Which is another big reason I rarely get any.
Anyway.
With the last few days of break winding down and no more money troubles weighing heavily on my mind, I'm going to enjoy said days to the fullest as much as I can. This means I may go to the movies (alone, which is depressing, at least I'm getting out of the house), catch up on the TV series and movies I have on DVD (I started the first season of Community last night), and generally laze about. Today, if I can get motivated and/or caffeinated enough to do so within the next hour or two, I may go out to Alco for a little mini-retail-therapy trip before the weather gets really cold and nasty this afternoon. They have a lot of small items on sale this week, like tissues, soap, and shampoo. This morning, I also ordered a few books on Amazon (one of them for class) and a shirt.
This shirt. Which should be amusing for those of you who have seen Arrested Development. For the rest of you it probably means little to nothing. One of the funniest things I'll read all day was in the reviews for the shirt. It read "Never wear with cut off jean shorts." Which, again, is hilarious if you've seen the show.
Anyway. That's about all that's going on right now. I will update you, of course, when anything else happens. Fare thee well, my friends.
I have received my student loan money, deposited and fully paid into my bank account. This means many things, of course. First and foremost, it means I no longer have to worry about paying my bills, buying groceries, or putting gas in the car. It also means that I can enjoy the rest of my break, what little of it is left, by not constantly having to worry about money problems, and can go out and do something (weather permitting, of course). As I predicted back when the days were beautiful and 55 degrees or warmer, I knew that when I got my money the weather would turn nasty when I actually had the ability to leave the house and use some of it -- well, I was correct. We're under a wind advisory today, the temperatures are supposed to drop drastically, and we're supposed to get snow flurries and snow showers for the next two days.
Because of this (and a few other reasons, i.e. I don't want to), I've decided to forgo the whole "going into campus this week" thing. There's no reason for it, really; I can post my students' syllabus on Blackboard, and tell them if they have a chance over the weekend they can download and print their own. Otherwise, they're not going to get a paper copy until Thursday. Same goes for the diagnostic essays -- I'll do them Thursday as well. Tuesday will be an introductory day where I tell them what the class is like and what books they'll need, and we'll all introduce ourselves. Etc. There's just no reason to waste my own time and gas money going to campus when I can just wait and do everything next week when I actually have to be there. It'll be a little different than the beginning of last semester, but now that I know what to do and how/when to do it for my course, everything can be streamlined a little more.
I have 17 students in my first class, and 23 in the second. That's a little more than last semester, but not by much. I'm guessing my rosters won't be "finalized" for the next two weeks or so anyway -- people will add and drop, etc. They always do. However, that's probably pretty close to the total number of students I'll have overall for the semester. I'm looking forward to teaching the class again. It's fun, it's interesting, and I tend to have good students in it.
Other than some preparations for class and receiving my money (it was deposited on Sunday and cleared completely last night), not a whole lot is going on here. I've been sleeping a lot, for roughly 12-hour stretches at a time regardless of the time of day or night. As I knew I could afford it, I went out and did some shopping for essentials at Walmart late Monday night, getting some of the stuff I knew I'd need for the next week or so. I also, for the first time in a very, very long time, got myself a burger and fries in the Walmart's interior McDonald's. It's been well over a year since I last had McDonald's food. It's also the first time I've gone out to get anything, fast food or otherwise, since the former girlfriend and I split up. Some of my reasoning has been that I was busy and cash-strapped most of the semester, but the other part of it is that I really don't get out much, and that I've been trying to watch what I eat anyhow.
Of course, another big part of it is that I'd like to be able to get a Big Mac and fries at 6AM sometimes, but noooo, all they sell is breakfast stuff then. About the only time I would want an egg McMuffin is when I'm drunk, because that's the only time it would seem appetizing. I do, however, want a breakfast of burgers and fries. Because I'm that sort of guy.
Also, fast food places don't deliver. Which is another big reason I rarely get any.
Anyway.
With the last few days of break winding down and no more money troubles weighing heavily on my mind, I'm going to enjoy said days to the fullest as much as I can. This means I may go to the movies (alone, which is depressing, at least I'm getting out of the house), catch up on the TV series and movies I have on DVD (I started the first season of Community last night), and generally laze about. Today, if I can get motivated and/or caffeinated enough to do so within the next hour or two, I may go out to Alco for a little mini-retail-therapy trip before the weather gets really cold and nasty this afternoon. They have a lot of small items on sale this week, like tissues, soap, and shampoo. This morning, I also ordered a few books on Amazon (one of them for class) and a shirt.
This shirt. Which should be amusing for those of you who have seen Arrested Development. For the rest of you it probably means little to nothing. One of the funniest things I'll read all day was in the reviews for the shirt. It read "Never wear with cut off jean shorts." Which, again, is hilarious if you've seen the show.
Anyway. That's about all that's going on right now. I will update you, of course, when anything else happens. Fare thee well, my friends.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Work, Sleep, and Taxes
Days of break remaining: seven
So, folks, over the past two or three days I haven't done a whole hell of a lot.
This is probably not surprising to you in the least at this point.
Actually, I've done quite a bit, but nothing that really matters. For example, I went shopping (finally), and purchased some groceries. I went to the Dollar Tree, and purchased some essentials (mostly deodorant, razors, shaving cream, etc). I did all the laundry and dishes, washed my sheets and blankets, and cleaned the cat room. I took out the garbage and recycling. I paid all of my bills, including making the minimum payment of $25 on my first credit card bill (the rest of it I'll pay off once my student loan drops, don't worry). Everything is, as they say, in order. For now, anyhow.
It's been a really quiet weekend, despite my errands and little household tasks. This is the last week before classes start up again -- in fact, on Friday I'll more than likely have to go to campus and make copies of my students' syllabi and put my office in order again before I go back in to teach next Tuesday. I'd do it Monday, but, well, it's MLK day and I'm pretty sure the offices will be closed and everyone will be off.
In the meantime I have a lot to do in order to prep for the coming semester; it indeed will be a rather busy week for me. Not only do I have to finish my paperwork-like stuff for my students, but I also need to be watching for my aforementioned student loan money to clear, I have to air up my tires (again), check my oil, and put gas in the car, and I need to mail my friends' packages at the post office (because, after all, who knows when I'll get the chance to do so after the semester starts). Depending on when and how that money drops, I'd also like to make a trip to Hutchinson to the Target and Kmart there for winter clearance stuff, as well as some underwear and socks -- both stores are where I get the majority of both items. However, that may not happen for a few weeks, or if at all.
That's just the short list of stuff I need to do, of course. There's always more. Always.
Most of my friends and colleagues will be filtering back into Wichita, and into the department, this week. As I've said before, I'm really about ready for the break to end. It's a break that's been filled with a lack of things to do because I've been so strapped for cash, and a break that has seen me sit in front of my computer or TV much more than would be considered healthy for a man of my age. It makes me wonder if every "vacation" I have while working in academia will be so, well, boring and poor. It's ironic, of course, that I'm poor while I'm forced to sit at home and do nothing but think about it, instead of be at work/school, which would soak up all my time and would make the days between paychecks pass a lot faster.
That, I think, should be employed as some sort of first-world torture: take away someone's money and/or all of their access to it, and lock them in a house for six weeks with nothing but the bare minimum to survive on. Shit, that almost sounds like a reality show.
In other news, I did receive my W-2 forms in the mail yesterday, joining the Kansas state tax forms I received last week. This means that I now can do all of my taxes, both state and federal, and get them mailed out ASAP. I did one of them online last year, but I can't remember which one. I just remember that it was fast. I should have a nice refund again this year, which will really be nice. That's money that will go into groceries and getting the car fixed up, especially because I've got this sinking feeling that the weather's going to get bad pretty quickly over these next few weeks or so. It's also money I can use when I visit West Virginia over spring break.
My mother has not ordered the plane tickets yet; she still has to talk with her travel agent (no, she doesn't do anything online, at all, despite my pleas for her to leap into the 21st century). If all goes smoothly she should have them ordered this week. At least I would imagine, anyway.
Yesterday was really weird. I laid down for a nap around 5PM or so...and then finally got up around 8 this morning. For those of you counting, that's fifteen hours pretty much straight (I did get up once in the middle of the night to pee). I'm guessing I really needed the sleep. Couldn't tell you what made me sleep so long, to be honest. It's not like I do anything particularly strenuous, you know. I'm guessing Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds doesn't count as "strenuous." Neither does revising my lesson plans and syllabus for my Science/Engineering writing courses. I wish I could say that I tuckered myself out from writing new poetry, but that wasn't the case either. Apparently my body was just tired, and needed to shut down for a while. Okay, fair enough, I suppose. Sometimes it scares me how long I can sleep if I have nothing else to do. I really can't do that during the semester.
My schedule in the spring, however, will be light -- so I can at least get a little more sleep than I did last semester. At least some of the time, anyway.
On that note, it's probably time for me to cook something remotely resembling dinner and go to bed soon afterwards. I have a long week of takin' care of stuff ahead of me, and the countdown is on.
So, folks, over the past two or three days I haven't done a whole hell of a lot.
This is probably not surprising to you in the least at this point.
Actually, I've done quite a bit, but nothing that really matters. For example, I went shopping (finally), and purchased some groceries. I went to the Dollar Tree, and purchased some essentials (mostly deodorant, razors, shaving cream, etc). I did all the laundry and dishes, washed my sheets and blankets, and cleaned the cat room. I took out the garbage and recycling. I paid all of my bills, including making the minimum payment of $25 on my first credit card bill (the rest of it I'll pay off once my student loan drops, don't worry). Everything is, as they say, in order. For now, anyhow.
It's been a really quiet weekend, despite my errands and little household tasks. This is the last week before classes start up again -- in fact, on Friday I'll more than likely have to go to campus and make copies of my students' syllabi and put my office in order again before I go back in to teach next Tuesday. I'd do it Monday, but, well, it's MLK day and I'm pretty sure the offices will be closed and everyone will be off.
In the meantime I have a lot to do in order to prep for the coming semester; it indeed will be a rather busy week for me. Not only do I have to finish my paperwork-like stuff for my students, but I also need to be watching for my aforementioned student loan money to clear, I have to air up my tires (again), check my oil, and put gas in the car, and I need to mail my friends' packages at the post office (because, after all, who knows when I'll get the chance to do so after the semester starts). Depending on when and how that money drops, I'd also like to make a trip to Hutchinson to the Target and Kmart there for winter clearance stuff, as well as some underwear and socks -- both stores are where I get the majority of both items. However, that may not happen for a few weeks, or if at all.
That's just the short list of stuff I need to do, of course. There's always more. Always.
Most of my friends and colleagues will be filtering back into Wichita, and into the department, this week. As I've said before, I'm really about ready for the break to end. It's a break that's been filled with a lack of things to do because I've been so strapped for cash, and a break that has seen me sit in front of my computer or TV much more than would be considered healthy for a man of my age. It makes me wonder if every "vacation" I have while working in academia will be so, well, boring and poor. It's ironic, of course, that I'm poor while I'm forced to sit at home and do nothing but think about it, instead of be at work/school, which would soak up all my time and would make the days between paychecks pass a lot faster.
That, I think, should be employed as some sort of first-world torture: take away someone's money and/or all of their access to it, and lock them in a house for six weeks with nothing but the bare minimum to survive on. Shit, that almost sounds like a reality show.
In other news, I did receive my W-2 forms in the mail yesterday, joining the Kansas state tax forms I received last week. This means that I now can do all of my taxes, both state and federal, and get them mailed out ASAP. I did one of them online last year, but I can't remember which one. I just remember that it was fast. I should have a nice refund again this year, which will really be nice. That's money that will go into groceries and getting the car fixed up, especially because I've got this sinking feeling that the weather's going to get bad pretty quickly over these next few weeks or so. It's also money I can use when I visit West Virginia over spring break.
My mother has not ordered the plane tickets yet; she still has to talk with her travel agent (no, she doesn't do anything online, at all, despite my pleas for her to leap into the 21st century). If all goes smoothly she should have them ordered this week. At least I would imagine, anyway.
Yesterday was really weird. I laid down for a nap around 5PM or so...and then finally got up around 8 this morning. For those of you counting, that's fifteen hours pretty much straight (I did get up once in the middle of the night to pee). I'm guessing I really needed the sleep. Couldn't tell you what made me sleep so long, to be honest. It's not like I do anything particularly strenuous, you know. I'm guessing Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds doesn't count as "strenuous." Neither does revising my lesson plans and syllabus for my Science/Engineering writing courses. I wish I could say that I tuckered myself out from writing new poetry, but that wasn't the case either. Apparently my body was just tired, and needed to shut down for a while. Okay, fair enough, I suppose. Sometimes it scares me how long I can sleep if I have nothing else to do. I really can't do that during the semester.
My schedule in the spring, however, will be light -- so I can at least get a little more sleep than I did last semester. At least some of the time, anyway.
On that note, it's probably time for me to cook something remotely resembling dinner and go to bed soon afterwards. I have a long week of takin' care of stuff ahead of me, and the countdown is on.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Sixty-seven Cents
Days of break remaining: ten
Today (well, shortly after midnight) I finally received my first paycheck of the year, which is really the last paycheck of fall semester. It was for $379.54, which is sixty-seven cents higher than what it was last year. As I mentioned before, we get taxed like crazy for our pay here in Kansas. This year, apparently, our taxes are sixty-seven cents less per paycheck. Fair enough. I was fully expecting to be taxed more, to be honest with you.
This now means that I am no longer ungodly, horrifically poor, and that those few weeks of being destitute are finally at an end. I can now pay at least some of my bills and get some groceries while I wait for my student loan to drop into my account. It's no winning the lottery, of course, not by a long shot, but it does mean I can survive a bit more easily -- and I no longer have to worry (for the moment) about the cats not having enough litter in their box, or whether I'll have enough around the house to eat.
Through the miracle of an emulator program called Wine, which allows me to run almost any Windows program or game on Linux, I retrieved and installed one of my favorite games of all time -- Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds -- and spent almost all night playing it. It's the first time I've been able to play the game in about eight years, as even when I was running Windows on my old PC, it used to occasionally make the machine freeze. For those of you who have never played it, imagine it as a Star Wars-themed version of something like Starcraft or Warcraft. Something akin to that, anyway. You build up your army and then attack other armies on the map. It's fun, trust me. This is how I spent my night -- the first campaign lasted three hours (yeah, it takes a while) and even now, at 7AM, I have not gone to bed. You know me and my sleeping schedules -- they get skewed like crazy when I don't have to worry about teaching and classes.
I'm actually looking forward to teaching and classes again, to be honest with you. It'll provide me with some excitement, a little break from the monotony, and some desperately-needed social interaction with friends I haven't seen in a month. While I've talked to a few friends online, via email, or via text, I haven't seen a single one of my grad-school compadres since finals week last month -- and I do have to admit that I miss them. Since my semester is rather light in the spring, I'll get to spend more time in and around them in the department than I normally would.
Of course, spring also means some other things; it means that the race for the department fellowship will heat up again, and quickly, and it means that several friends will graduate -- some of whom will more than likely never be seen again after they do so.
Suri is one of those friends.
I've mentioned here before that Suri is probably the closest friend I have at the university, if not in the entire state of Kansas. I've also mentioned that she is an MA student, not an MFA like all of us poets and fiction students are. This means that her own course of study is a year shorter than the rest of us, and there are a fair number of MAs in the department. Most of them teach as GTAs, yes, but they're a different breed than us MFA students -- a lot of them are quiet, keep to themselves, and are rarely seen on campus unless they have to be there. Suri is one of those people, as are her officemates. Really, the only people Suri likes to call friends in the program are those aforementioned officemates and me.
I once asked her about this, and she said something to the effect of, "Eh, who needs friends?"
This statement may sound rather depressing to most people, but to me it elicits a wry smile. Suri has a lot on her proverbial plate; as an MA student she's constantly reading books and studying for things, as she has to take a different set of courses than the MFAs do -- harder, more lit-intensive ones. MFAs take those courses too, but usually to fulfill some sort of graduation requirement. We have options in which ones we take and when, as well. For MAs? Not so much. They basically have to take them all. She also juggles this with teaching, never getting any real quality sleep, and spending time with her boyfriend of five years and his kids. The fact that Suri has any time for friends like me boggles the mind, yet she still does.
And I really, really don't want her to graduate.
No, don't get me wrong here, I do want her to graduate. She's brilliant. It's just that once she does, she'll find a job somewhere, or go back home, and she'll be gone. Leaving me, hypothetically, all alone without a really close friend here anymore.
Yes, I realize this is selfish of me. It's just that good friends are hard to come by, especially ones that I could trust with my life and/or all of my secrets. I could count on one hand how many of those I have, and the rest of them are in West Virginia. So yeah, she's kind of important to me.
Still, she and several other friends in the department -- including the former girlfriend -- will graduate in May, as their graduate school educations come to a close. It's going to be a weird feeling seeing a lot of these people that -- in some sense -- I "grew up" with over the past two years, leave the department and move on with their lives. Yet I'm already halfway through my own graduate school education. I've seen a new class come in already and fill the spots of those who graduated last spring, bringing their own personalities and sensibilities with them. In the fall, it'll happen again.
Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic and lonely; maybe I'm feeling left out of the loop, etc. Who knows. The spring semester is like the changing of the guard. Out with the old, in with the new. That's how it always goes. It just seems different this year than it did last year.
In other news, I haven't yet heard from my mother about the plane tickets for my trip back home over spring break; therefore, I assume she hasn't booked them yet. I sent her an email this morning to check in, and asked her if she'd booked them, but haven't yet received a reply. I more than likely won't hear back from her until I wake up this afternoon/evening.
On the plus side, when I wasn't playing video games in the overnight hours, I did make two more large batches of my homemade laundry detergent. I now have enough detergent to last me about two years, no kidding, for the overall cost of about $10. I only wish there was a way to make homemade dryer sheets, because until I do my shopping, dryer sheets are just one more item that I'm out of.
Nothing else is really going on. I'm just glad I have money again. I'm also getting deliriously tired, so I think it's probably a good idea to go to bed.
Today (well, shortly after midnight) I finally received my first paycheck of the year, which is really the last paycheck of fall semester. It was for $379.54, which is sixty-seven cents higher than what it was last year. As I mentioned before, we get taxed like crazy for our pay here in Kansas. This year, apparently, our taxes are sixty-seven cents less per paycheck. Fair enough. I was fully expecting to be taxed more, to be honest with you.
This now means that I am no longer ungodly, horrifically poor, and that those few weeks of being destitute are finally at an end. I can now pay at least some of my bills and get some groceries while I wait for my student loan to drop into my account. It's no winning the lottery, of course, not by a long shot, but it does mean I can survive a bit more easily -- and I no longer have to worry (for the moment) about the cats not having enough litter in their box, or whether I'll have enough around the house to eat.
Through the miracle of an emulator program called Wine, which allows me to run almost any Windows program or game on Linux, I retrieved and installed one of my favorite games of all time -- Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds -- and spent almost all night playing it. It's the first time I've been able to play the game in about eight years, as even when I was running Windows on my old PC, it used to occasionally make the machine freeze. For those of you who have never played it, imagine it as a Star Wars-themed version of something like Starcraft or Warcraft. Something akin to that, anyway. You build up your army and then attack other armies on the map. It's fun, trust me. This is how I spent my night -- the first campaign lasted three hours (yeah, it takes a while) and even now, at 7AM, I have not gone to bed. You know me and my sleeping schedules -- they get skewed like crazy when I don't have to worry about teaching and classes.
I'm actually looking forward to teaching and classes again, to be honest with you. It'll provide me with some excitement, a little break from the monotony, and some desperately-needed social interaction with friends I haven't seen in a month. While I've talked to a few friends online, via email, or via text, I haven't seen a single one of my grad-school compadres since finals week last month -- and I do have to admit that I miss them. Since my semester is rather light in the spring, I'll get to spend more time in and around them in the department than I normally would.
Of course, spring also means some other things; it means that the race for the department fellowship will heat up again, and quickly, and it means that several friends will graduate -- some of whom will more than likely never be seen again after they do so.
Suri is one of those friends.
I've mentioned here before that Suri is probably the closest friend I have at the university, if not in the entire state of Kansas. I've also mentioned that she is an MA student, not an MFA like all of us poets and fiction students are. This means that her own course of study is a year shorter than the rest of us, and there are a fair number of MAs in the department. Most of them teach as GTAs, yes, but they're a different breed than us MFA students -- a lot of them are quiet, keep to themselves, and are rarely seen on campus unless they have to be there. Suri is one of those people, as are her officemates. Really, the only people Suri likes to call friends in the program are those aforementioned officemates and me.
I once asked her about this, and she said something to the effect of, "Eh, who needs friends?"
This statement may sound rather depressing to most people, but to me it elicits a wry smile. Suri has a lot on her proverbial plate; as an MA student she's constantly reading books and studying for things, as she has to take a different set of courses than the MFAs do -- harder, more lit-intensive ones. MFAs take those courses too, but usually to fulfill some sort of graduation requirement. We have options in which ones we take and when, as well. For MAs? Not so much. They basically have to take them all. She also juggles this with teaching, never getting any real quality sleep, and spending time with her boyfriend of five years and his kids. The fact that Suri has any time for friends like me boggles the mind, yet she still does.
And I really, really don't want her to graduate.
No, don't get me wrong here, I do want her to graduate. She's brilliant. It's just that once she does, she'll find a job somewhere, or go back home, and she'll be gone. Leaving me, hypothetically, all alone without a really close friend here anymore.
Yes, I realize this is selfish of me. It's just that good friends are hard to come by, especially ones that I could trust with my life and/or all of my secrets. I could count on one hand how many of those I have, and the rest of them are in West Virginia. So yeah, she's kind of important to me.
Still, she and several other friends in the department -- including the former girlfriend -- will graduate in May, as their graduate school educations come to a close. It's going to be a weird feeling seeing a lot of these people that -- in some sense -- I "grew up" with over the past two years, leave the department and move on with their lives. Yet I'm already halfway through my own graduate school education. I've seen a new class come in already and fill the spots of those who graduated last spring, bringing their own personalities and sensibilities with them. In the fall, it'll happen again.
Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic and lonely; maybe I'm feeling left out of the loop, etc. Who knows. The spring semester is like the changing of the guard. Out with the old, in with the new. That's how it always goes. It just seems different this year than it did last year.
In other news, I haven't yet heard from my mother about the plane tickets for my trip back home over spring break; therefore, I assume she hasn't booked them yet. I sent her an email this morning to check in, and asked her if she'd booked them, but haven't yet received a reply. I more than likely won't hear back from her until I wake up this afternoon/evening.
On the plus side, when I wasn't playing video games in the overnight hours, I did make two more large batches of my homemade laundry detergent. I now have enough detergent to last me about two years, no kidding, for the overall cost of about $10. I only wish there was a way to make homemade dryer sheets, because until I do my shopping, dryer sheets are just one more item that I'm out of.
Nothing else is really going on. I'm just glad I have money again. I'm also getting deliriously tired, so I think it's probably a good idea to go to bed.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
One Day's Worth of Lifelong Happiness
Days until my next paycheck: 1
(actually about seven hours)
I saw this photo last night on a website I visit often, and thought that I'd share it with you folks, because it poses a very interesting (if self-serving) question that a lot of you -- if you've got a mind like I do, anyway -- could ponder on.
My answer?
For the purposes of my answer, I'm going to assume that this would be a sort of "Groundhog Day" scenario that lasts for only one day. Because really, that's the explanation that makes the most sense in reference to the question -- as doing whatever one wants for one day and then erasing it and going back to normal makes no real sense if there's nothing to be gained from it. If there's nothing to be gained from it and you just get a "do over," it's akin to an extra life in a video game; you die and start over from your last save point, erasing all of your hard work, with no progress. Also, if you "erased" the day and started over, you wouldn't remember anything you did. Therefore, in my eyes there would be no point in doing anything if that's what the question's intention is.
So, like I said, for the purposes of my answer to it, we're all going to assume that this poorly-worded question implies a one-day "Groundhog Day" scenario, meaning that no matter what you do on the day before it's erased at the end of the 24 hours, you still retain the knowledge of what you did and you're the only one who knows what has happened during said day when you "reboot" it the next day.
This means that during those 24 hours, just like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, you're basically a god. Or at least you're psychic, because you know exactly how that day is going to play out when it cycles around again. What can be accomplished in but one day? Well, here's what I would do:
1. Get up early, go to the nearest expensive restaurant, and have a huge meal of real food. Since the day is going to be erased anyhow, it's not like I'd have to pay for it, really.
2. Talk to several friends, get the rundown of everything that is going on in their lives, down to the exact details -- good and bad. This will be important later.
3. Check the newspaper and the prices on all of the stocks I've been interested in, as well as research the terms "blind trust" and "interest bearing account." Again, this will be important later.
4. Be on the lookout and keep an eye on the news for anything big or important that happens during that day, especially preventable occurrences like car accidents, shootings, terrorist attacks, or other acts of violence that may or may not incur a loss of life. Make notes on exact places/times/people involved in them.
5. Rent a really fast, dangerous-to-drive-at-high-speeds car, and take the time (an hour or two at most) getting used to how it handles and drives on the Kansas roads here, making sure it's something I'd like to drive on a regular basis -- meaning it's practical as well as fun. I'm thinking something along the lines of a new Camaro or Challenger. Memorize all of the little details and nuances about the car. Again, this will be important later. Return it to the rental place.
6. Go to a different high-end restaurant, order a large and extravagant meal. Again, it's not like I'll have to pay for it.
7. Return home, talk to several women I would normally never dream of asking out, about the prospects of a romantic/sexual relationship with me. Be as up-front and blunt about it as possible. Ask questions. Gauge reactions. Make mental notes. Depending on each woman, tact and/or being a gentleman about it is optional -- as, after all, what's important is how they react and whether they've been secretly interested in me, or whether they'd be DTF. No, I'm not going to explain what DTF means, as most of you reading this are intelligent people and should already know.
8. Once I've thoroughly alienated and/or disgusted most of the women I know with my up-front advances and blunt questions, taking notes on the ones who were receptive to them and disregarding the others, I'd then watch the news and make note of any happenings/crimes I've missed, along with their times and the names of the people involved.
9. Now, at 11PM, the most important step of all: make note of the lottery drawings for Mega Millions and Powerball for that day. Memorize these numbers until I can recite them in my sleep, running them through my head over and over until I could remember them twenty years from now. This will take a little time, but memorization is important because I'm not sure if I'd be able to keep any of the notes I've written down over the course of the day once said day gets erased.
10. Once those numbers are fully memorized with no danger of forgetting them, go to bed. The day is over. It will be erased and will restart in the morning.
Day two: the redo!
1. Get up early, again. Go somewhere that sells lottery tickets, and buy one Mega Millions ticket and one Powerball ticket, using the winning numbers I've memorized to fill it out by hand. Keep these tickets on my person at all times throughout the rest of the day, secure and waiting. In doing this, I now know that I am financially set for life once the numbers are drawn that night. Return home, make coffee and smoke, and have a normal morning breakfast. Play with the cats, etc, live life as normal.
2. Go through the mental (or, if possible, physical) list of events I saw happen on the news the day before, as I know exactly what's going to happen. Any violence-or-death-related events, as I know the names of the people involved and when/where said things will happen, I plug into the white pages, find the phone numbers of the people who will be hurt or killed in car accidents, shootings, etc -- and call them. Tell them that (in the case of a car accident) that they should wait five to ten extra minutes before leaving for work that morning. I also call the ones who, in the case of a shooting, should should stay home or not visit the location of said shooting today. I do this for everyone I can remember from the newspaper and on the news, so that lives are saved. In the case of a big crime, such as a bank robbery or a hostage situation, I call in anonymous tips to the police so that said events can be stopped before they start.
3. Talk to the same friends I talked to on the previous morning, and tell them that I'm psychic -- something which they'll laugh off until I tell them the minute details of what's going on in their lives, down to what they're wearing. This will completely freak them out and make them think that I've somehow installed a camera in their home or workplace, even though most of my friends live 1,000 miles away in West Virginia. Bonus points if I can remember their exact thoughts and phrasing the way they said things the previous morning. This is, of course, a truly self-serving and pranksterish thing to do, but remember, I did gather all information on their lives that I could, good and bad. The bad things that can be fixed with money? Well, remember that I have not one, but two winning lottery tickets in my pocket.
4. Max out my credit cards online, purchasing everything I've wanted/needed over the course of the past six to eight months but could never afford due to being a poor graduate student. Use any remaining money I can to buy stock in the companies I researched the day prior.
5. Call one of the ladies who was receptive to my advances the night before -- the one who, in my research, would probably be the "best fit" for me, and tell her that I'd like to take her out for dinner and drinks that night. Do not let her know what I know. If first choice refuses for one reason or another, move to second choice. Disregard all women who weren't receptive to me, but make a mental note of how all of them treated me so that I can brutally crush them later if they attempt to hook up with me once the lottery numbers are drawn.
6. Take said lady out to dinner and drinks with the last of the money in my bank account, bring her home to my place for, well, you know. Tell her nothing of the riches that I will soon acquire, so that the experience isn't tainted by dollar signs in her eyes.
7. Once she has passed out from alcohol and exhaustion (giggity), turn on the news and smile smugly about how all of the stories are different, chuckling about all of the "anonymous tipster" calls that have come in and prevented what would have been a lot of violence and death. Feel glad that I made all of these calls anonymously from a prepaid phone, from a number that had never been used before (as I have several extra SIM cards laying around). This prevents me from being traced or becoming a "suspect" in any of the crimes that would've taken place.
8. Finally, watch the lottery drawing live, confirming my numbers on the tickets, and becoming financially set for life as a multimillionaire not from just one jackpot, but two. Put the tickets somewhere safe (which is anywhere, really, as nobody knows I have them) and go to bed. Day ends. Lives have been saved and/or altered for the better. I've not only solved all of my money problems, but freaked out some of my friends for fun, wined/dined/bedded a woman I never would've had the confidence to ask out without foreknowledge, purchased stock in companies that have a strong track record of rising stock prices, and have already done all the research I need to be able to manage my money quietly without any outside interference.
The aftermath!
1. Get up in the morning, take woman home and be a complete gentleman about everything; this starts the relationship off on an awesome note. Make future plans.
2. Go to a high-priced, respected attorney, explain situation, and set up a "blind trust" with the knowledge I researched two days before. This assures that any money that goes into said trust will be accessible only to me and will be kept silent from the media.
3. Take the first ticket to the lottery office, elect to remain completely anonymous, and cash it in. Explain the blind trust and attorney situation, and do anything and everything I need to do to ensure that my newfound wealth stays quiet and out of the media and/or public eye. Tell no one, and on this first ticket, take the cash option.
4. Go home, live life as normal for a few days (as it takes a while for lottery winnings to be processed and bequeathed to the winner). Watch my stocks. When they've risen enough in value to not only make my money back but provide enough for me to live on in the interim until I get my winnings, sell them and use the cash to live on. This is the only really risky part of the plan, as some of these stocks may decrease in price unexpectedly.
5. Call the university and tell them something along the lines of "my financial circumstances have forced me to, regrettably, leave the program -- effective immediately." They would, of course, assume that I'd meant I'd run out of money, not the opposite. This is all the information they'd need to know. After all, who needs an MFA program when you're financially set for life and can open your own publishing house to publish your works (and many others' works)?
6. Begin playing with all of the delightful new items and toys I've received in the mail because I'd maxed out my credit cards a few days prior. One of those new toys would be a new MacBook Pro.
7. Continue research into high-end, interest-bearing bank accounts, and pick a bank that is very, very unlikely to ever fail or default. Make a note of it.
8. Take out woman again for more food and drink. Attempt to make it official.
9. Finally, the first lottery winnings clear, and I receive them. As I took the cash option, I get it all at once. Keep a million or so in cash -- yes, in bills -- and put most of the rest into the blind trust, saving enough for the interest-bearing bank account to be able to live off of said interest very, very comfortably. Again, tell no one -- not even the woman or my family, about anything that has transpired, including leaving school.
10. Go to the car dealership which sells the car I'd rented from the car rental company a few days prior. As I now know how to drive it and how it handles, purchase said car, with all the options. Pay in cash. Park it in the garage. Celebrate by going out for dinner and drinks with the woman again, taking the Monte Carlo.
11. Remember my friends who were having problems that money could fix? Slowly begin fixing those problems a little at a time, one by one, telling them I'd come into inheritance money from a relative I barely knew (or something).
12. Pay off all student loan and credit card debt in one fell swoop.
13. Take Monte Carlo to a high-end repairer/restorer, and tell them to fully restore it to showroom condition -- money is not an option -- and to add several enhancements like a nitrous system, new wheels/tires, and a new paint job. Drop $10k in cash on the table, if not more, and tell them that this will entail basically gutting the car and replacing every mechanical part down to the engine, transmission, drivetrain, wiring and electronics, interior, stereo, etc. As I adore the Monte Carlo and she's gotten me through a lot, I would of course keep her and drive her -- probably more than the new car.
14. Finally, when things start to settle down (so, say a month or so)....cash in the second winning ticket, this time not really giving a shit about the media or who knows I won, as I'm already financially set and have a lot more than anyone knows about. On this one, do the "annuity" option, so that I get a regular "paycheck" every year for thirty years. This money will go towards my friends and family to put them in nice homes, nice cars, extravagant lifestyles, and to solve all of their problems that can be solved by my money. It will also go towards creating and incorporating my own publishing company, with which I will publish my own works and the works of my friends who are struggling in the writing world, with almost all profits going back to them. And yes, I will of course donate a shitload of money to charity, including no-kill humane societies and the DAV.
Oh yeah, folks. I've meticulously thought this stuff through. That's a writer's mind for you, I suppose. It's almost like I concocted an evil-genius-like master plan, isn't it? Well, that's the sort of thing one can do if you get a "do over" sort of day.
What would you do?
(actually about seven hours)
I saw this photo last night on a website I visit often, and thought that I'd share it with you folks, because it poses a very interesting (if self-serving) question that a lot of you -- if you've got a mind like I do, anyway -- could ponder on.
My answer?
For the purposes of my answer, I'm going to assume that this would be a sort of "Groundhog Day" scenario that lasts for only one day. Because really, that's the explanation that makes the most sense in reference to the question -- as doing whatever one wants for one day and then erasing it and going back to normal makes no real sense if there's nothing to be gained from it. If there's nothing to be gained from it and you just get a "do over," it's akin to an extra life in a video game; you die and start over from your last save point, erasing all of your hard work, with no progress. Also, if you "erased" the day and started over, you wouldn't remember anything you did. Therefore, in my eyes there would be no point in doing anything if that's what the question's intention is.
So, like I said, for the purposes of my answer to it, we're all going to assume that this poorly-worded question implies a one-day "Groundhog Day" scenario, meaning that no matter what you do on the day before it's erased at the end of the 24 hours, you still retain the knowledge of what you did and you're the only one who knows what has happened during said day when you "reboot" it the next day.
This means that during those 24 hours, just like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, you're basically a god. Or at least you're psychic, because you know exactly how that day is going to play out when it cycles around again. What can be accomplished in but one day? Well, here's what I would do:
1. Get up early, go to the nearest expensive restaurant, and have a huge meal of real food. Since the day is going to be erased anyhow, it's not like I'd have to pay for it, really.
2. Talk to several friends, get the rundown of everything that is going on in their lives, down to the exact details -- good and bad. This will be important later.
3. Check the newspaper and the prices on all of the stocks I've been interested in, as well as research the terms "blind trust" and "interest bearing account." Again, this will be important later.
4. Be on the lookout and keep an eye on the news for anything big or important that happens during that day, especially preventable occurrences like car accidents, shootings, terrorist attacks, or other acts of violence that may or may not incur a loss of life. Make notes on exact places/times/people involved in them.
5. Rent a really fast, dangerous-to-drive-at-high-speeds car, and take the time (an hour or two at most) getting used to how it handles and drives on the Kansas roads here, making sure it's something I'd like to drive on a regular basis -- meaning it's practical as well as fun. I'm thinking something along the lines of a new Camaro or Challenger. Memorize all of the little details and nuances about the car. Again, this will be important later. Return it to the rental place.
6. Go to a different high-end restaurant, order a large and extravagant meal. Again, it's not like I'll have to pay for it.
7. Return home, talk to several women I would normally never dream of asking out, about the prospects of a romantic/sexual relationship with me. Be as up-front and blunt about it as possible. Ask questions. Gauge reactions. Make mental notes. Depending on each woman, tact and/or being a gentleman about it is optional -- as, after all, what's important is how they react and whether they've been secretly interested in me, or whether they'd be DTF. No, I'm not going to explain what DTF means, as most of you reading this are intelligent people and should already know.
8. Once I've thoroughly alienated and/or disgusted most of the women I know with my up-front advances and blunt questions, taking notes on the ones who were receptive to them and disregarding the others, I'd then watch the news and make note of any happenings/crimes I've missed, along with their times and the names of the people involved.
9. Now, at 11PM, the most important step of all: make note of the lottery drawings for Mega Millions and Powerball for that day. Memorize these numbers until I can recite them in my sleep, running them through my head over and over until I could remember them twenty years from now. This will take a little time, but memorization is important because I'm not sure if I'd be able to keep any of the notes I've written down over the course of the day once said day gets erased.
10. Once those numbers are fully memorized with no danger of forgetting them, go to bed. The day is over. It will be erased and will restart in the morning.
Day two: the redo!
1. Get up early, again. Go somewhere that sells lottery tickets, and buy one Mega Millions ticket and one Powerball ticket, using the winning numbers I've memorized to fill it out by hand. Keep these tickets on my person at all times throughout the rest of the day, secure and waiting. In doing this, I now know that I am financially set for life once the numbers are drawn that night. Return home, make coffee and smoke, and have a normal morning breakfast. Play with the cats, etc, live life as normal.
2. Go through the mental (or, if possible, physical) list of events I saw happen on the news the day before, as I know exactly what's going to happen. Any violence-or-death-related events, as I know the names of the people involved and when/where said things will happen, I plug into the white pages, find the phone numbers of the people who will be hurt or killed in car accidents, shootings, etc -- and call them. Tell them that (in the case of a car accident) that they should wait five to ten extra minutes before leaving for work that morning. I also call the ones who, in the case of a shooting, should should stay home or not visit the location of said shooting today. I do this for everyone I can remember from the newspaper and on the news, so that lives are saved. In the case of a big crime, such as a bank robbery or a hostage situation, I call in anonymous tips to the police so that said events can be stopped before they start.
3. Talk to the same friends I talked to on the previous morning, and tell them that I'm psychic -- something which they'll laugh off until I tell them the minute details of what's going on in their lives, down to what they're wearing. This will completely freak them out and make them think that I've somehow installed a camera in their home or workplace, even though most of my friends live 1,000 miles away in West Virginia. Bonus points if I can remember their exact thoughts and phrasing the way they said things the previous morning. This is, of course, a truly self-serving and pranksterish thing to do, but remember, I did gather all information on their lives that I could, good and bad. The bad things that can be fixed with money? Well, remember that I have not one, but two winning lottery tickets in my pocket.
4. Max out my credit cards online, purchasing everything I've wanted/needed over the course of the past six to eight months but could never afford due to being a poor graduate student. Use any remaining money I can to buy stock in the companies I researched the day prior.
5. Call one of the ladies who was receptive to my advances the night before -- the one who, in my research, would probably be the "best fit" for me, and tell her that I'd like to take her out for dinner and drinks that night. Do not let her know what I know. If first choice refuses for one reason or another, move to second choice. Disregard all women who weren't receptive to me, but make a mental note of how all of them treated me so that I can brutally crush them later if they attempt to hook up with me once the lottery numbers are drawn.
6. Take said lady out to dinner and drinks with the last of the money in my bank account, bring her home to my place for, well, you know. Tell her nothing of the riches that I will soon acquire, so that the experience isn't tainted by dollar signs in her eyes.
7. Once she has passed out from alcohol and exhaustion (giggity), turn on the news and smile smugly about how all of the stories are different, chuckling about all of the "anonymous tipster" calls that have come in and prevented what would have been a lot of violence and death. Feel glad that I made all of these calls anonymously from a prepaid phone, from a number that had never been used before (as I have several extra SIM cards laying around). This prevents me from being traced or becoming a "suspect" in any of the crimes that would've taken place.
8. Finally, watch the lottery drawing live, confirming my numbers on the tickets, and becoming financially set for life as a multimillionaire not from just one jackpot, but two. Put the tickets somewhere safe (which is anywhere, really, as nobody knows I have them) and go to bed. Day ends. Lives have been saved and/or altered for the better. I've not only solved all of my money problems, but freaked out some of my friends for fun, wined/dined/bedded a woman I never would've had the confidence to ask out without foreknowledge, purchased stock in companies that have a strong track record of rising stock prices, and have already done all the research I need to be able to manage my money quietly without any outside interference.
The aftermath!
1. Get up in the morning, take woman home and be a complete gentleman about everything; this starts the relationship off on an awesome note. Make future plans.
2. Go to a high-priced, respected attorney, explain situation, and set up a "blind trust" with the knowledge I researched two days before. This assures that any money that goes into said trust will be accessible only to me and will be kept silent from the media.
3. Take the first ticket to the lottery office, elect to remain completely anonymous, and cash it in. Explain the blind trust and attorney situation, and do anything and everything I need to do to ensure that my newfound wealth stays quiet and out of the media and/or public eye. Tell no one, and on this first ticket, take the cash option.
4. Go home, live life as normal for a few days (as it takes a while for lottery winnings to be processed and bequeathed to the winner). Watch my stocks. When they've risen enough in value to not only make my money back but provide enough for me to live on in the interim until I get my winnings, sell them and use the cash to live on. This is the only really risky part of the plan, as some of these stocks may decrease in price unexpectedly.
5. Call the university and tell them something along the lines of "my financial circumstances have forced me to, regrettably, leave the program -- effective immediately." They would, of course, assume that I'd meant I'd run out of money, not the opposite. This is all the information they'd need to know. After all, who needs an MFA program when you're financially set for life and can open your own publishing house to publish your works (and many others' works)?
6. Begin playing with all of the delightful new items and toys I've received in the mail because I'd maxed out my credit cards a few days prior. One of those new toys would be a new MacBook Pro.
7. Continue research into high-end, interest-bearing bank accounts, and pick a bank that is very, very unlikely to ever fail or default. Make a note of it.
8. Take out woman again for more food and drink. Attempt to make it official.
9. Finally, the first lottery winnings clear, and I receive them. As I took the cash option, I get it all at once. Keep a million or so in cash -- yes, in bills -- and put most of the rest into the blind trust, saving enough for the interest-bearing bank account to be able to live off of said interest very, very comfortably. Again, tell no one -- not even the woman or my family, about anything that has transpired, including leaving school.
10. Go to the car dealership which sells the car I'd rented from the car rental company a few days prior. As I now know how to drive it and how it handles, purchase said car, with all the options. Pay in cash. Park it in the garage. Celebrate by going out for dinner and drinks with the woman again, taking the Monte Carlo.
11. Remember my friends who were having problems that money could fix? Slowly begin fixing those problems a little at a time, one by one, telling them I'd come into inheritance money from a relative I barely knew (or something).
12. Pay off all student loan and credit card debt in one fell swoop.
13. Take Monte Carlo to a high-end repairer/restorer, and tell them to fully restore it to showroom condition -- money is not an option -- and to add several enhancements like a nitrous system, new wheels/tires, and a new paint job. Drop $10k in cash on the table, if not more, and tell them that this will entail basically gutting the car and replacing every mechanical part down to the engine, transmission, drivetrain, wiring and electronics, interior, stereo, etc. As I adore the Monte Carlo and she's gotten me through a lot, I would of course keep her and drive her -- probably more than the new car.
14. Finally, when things start to settle down (so, say a month or so)....cash in the second winning ticket, this time not really giving a shit about the media or who knows I won, as I'm already financially set and have a lot more than anyone knows about. On this one, do the "annuity" option, so that I get a regular "paycheck" every year for thirty years. This money will go towards my friends and family to put them in nice homes, nice cars, extravagant lifestyles, and to solve all of their problems that can be solved by my money. It will also go towards creating and incorporating my own publishing company, with which I will publish my own works and the works of my friends who are struggling in the writing world, with almost all profits going back to them. And yes, I will of course donate a shitload of money to charity, including no-kill humane societies and the DAV.
Oh yeah, folks. I've meticulously thought this stuff through. That's a writer's mind for you, I suppose. It's almost like I concocted an evil-genius-like master plan, isn't it? Well, that's the sort of thing one can do if you get a "do over" sort of day.
What would you do?
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Travelogues
Days until my next paycheck: 2
I received an email from my mother today with plane ticket details for my trip to West Virginia over spring break -- flying out of Wichita at 6AM into Minneapolis, then flying out of there to Pittsburgh, getting on the ground a little after 1PM. The flight home would be shorter; I'd be flying out of Pittsburgh around noon and getting back on the ground in Wichita a little less than four hours later. I told her to book the tickets if those were the best deals/times she could find, because that's pretty good time for each trip, especially the trip home.
If she does book those tickets, Minneapolis will be a new airport I've never been in before. In fact, I've never been in Minnesota before. Taking a look at the airport on Wikipedia, it looks like an interesting place to experience. I'm game. Whatever works, after all, especially since those are fairly short flights. I'd spend more time on the ground than I would in the air on the flights out there. So, sure. I can do that. Like I said, as far as I know she hasn't booked the tickets yet, but she probably will within the next day or so just so that they can be done and taken care of. Should be fun. Add that to the list of stuff I can look forward to over the course of the next few months or so.
Yesterday was another fairly quiet day. I didn't wake up until mid-afternoon -- wait, no, that's not exactly accurate. I woke up at 9AM to pee, and then went back to bed until around 2:30. Upon returning to bed, Pete crawled under the blankets with me to be my warm teddy-bear-kitty, which (obviously) helped me pass right back out. The mail came and went, the garbage men came and went, and I didn't do a whole lot. I spent the evening cooking (soup, again) and watched the Captain America DVD Wayne and Jane sent me for Christmas. It was a fantastic film. I highly recommend it.
But other than that? Yeah, I didn't do much. These few days this week are an exercise in killing time, again, until I get paid and/or get my student loan money. I can't go anywhere or do anything, really, until that happens. My entire paycheck will go towards my water and electric bills as well as some groceries. Whatever's left will probably be put into a tank of gas for the car to prepare for a possible trip to Hutchinson -- if, and only if, I get my student loan money soon. The weather's been really nice, so it sucks that I don't have any money to go out and do anything in it, and a road trip to the next town over for a little light retail therapy at the mall and Target will do me good if I get the chance to do it before classes start again. I need to get out of the house and do something just for myself, something fun that doesn't involve me worrying about stuff to take care of for school or about money.
Now you watch, the day I get my loan money to drop into my account, there'll be a horrific Kansas snowstorm or something just to spite me. You just watch.
I've become stifled in my writing. Not my writing here, of course, because as you know, I've been blogging quite a bit. No, I'm talking about my real writing, my professional stuff like my book(s) and my poetry. I've tried to write new poetry several times over break, and I just can't get back into my groove again. At least not just yet, anyhow. I usually need some sort of pressure to produce anything somewhat decent -- or, barring that, high spirits and social interaction with people. Over the past few weeks, high spirits and social interaction has been hard to come by, for obvious reasons. I've been preoccupied with being alone here with the cats -- especially over all of the holidays -- and, of course, I've been worried about money, trying to make ends meet, etc. So there's really not been a whole lot of high spirits to speak of. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've not been depressed or anything, but it's not like I've been ecstatic to be alone either.
Yes, believe me, if I were depressed, I'd tell you. My mental state is actually pretty awesome. I've just got a general "eh" sort of feeling cocooning me right now. It'll pass once I can take care of most of the money problems. Everyone says money doesn't buy happiness, but in my case, having access to it and not having to worry about it does wonders to lift my spirits, and ends up drastically changing my mood and life outlook for the better. I was never more content with my life than in my first fall of graduate school (August through December 2010), when I had gotten the first student loans of my life, and suddenly no longer had to really worry about being able to pay bills for more than a year. Though, admittedly, the fact that I'd just started a new education and career greatly helped as well.
I mentioned in my last post that there was a Colorado ski trip with friends that I was invited on, but had to decline, and said that I would write about it if I felt like it. I suppose I can tell that story, but there's not much to tell. One of my friends and colleagues within the department -- the older sister of the 19-year-old I've been passively courting over the past month or so -- wanted to know whether I'd be interested in going on a ski trip with her, her husband, a few friends, and her aforementioned sister sometime in January.
"But I don't ski," I told her. "I don't own any skis, my car surely wouldn't make it up and down the Colorado mountains and back, and I hate the cold. You know these things."
"You don't have to ski," she said. "It's a huge cabin, and there will be plenty of food and drinks, things to do, etc. Plus, it would give you some quality time with my sister."
She thinks my crush on her sister is very sweet, despite the age difference between us. She's also said on more than one occasion that she thinks the two of us are a perfect match, but I digress.
"So...what's the catch?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
"No catch, just figured you might be interested. I'd need about $100 or so for your share of the house for the week, and we'll deal with the driving; I know your car has enough problems already."
The car's actually running really well and has been for a while, but she knows about all its problems because it was her husband who has offered to fix it up for me as a favor in the past with no expense to me except for the parts and my gratitude. I also told them they could take the stereo/speakers out of it if they wanted to as well, because I've never been able to get them to work anyhow.
"Besides, I know you want more time with my sister," she added. "It's not a family thing, it's just us and our friends. A lot of really cool people. And a hot tub."
Oh hell, a hot tub. Good lord, a hot tub. I wanted to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
However, she told me this in late November, around or shortly after Thanksgiving, and even then I knew of course that by this time, I'd be really, really short on money. I told her I'd definitely consider it, but money would certainly be incredibly tight during the time of the scheduled trip.
As you know, money not only became tight, but has become virtually nonexistent for me, so the window to give her the $100 or so she needed came and went, and I had to pass on the trip -- which I told her sister. They're leaving next week, and her sister certainly understands why I can't go. She told me something to the effect of "Well, being able to eat is more important than going on a vacation," which I was inclined to agree with.
As much as it sucks that I'm unable to go, I certainly would have loved it. It would've been one of those trips that I sorely need in order to get out of this house and actually spend time around life forms that aren't my cats. It would've given me the social interaction I so desperately need, and probably would've produced at least a poem or two.
Plus, y'know, it would've earned me some brownie points with the kid. Without the trip, getting to know her better and continuing to passively court her will take much longer.
...okay, I can't call her "the kid" because that just sounds really creepy and makes me feel like a dirty old man.
Anyway, so I'm not going on the trip, which was sort of the point in telling you the story. Could've been fun, though.
As for the rest of my week, like I said, I'm killing time until I get paid, so I'm sleeping really strange hours again and have been relatively bored. Tonight's the Orange Bowl, in which WVU (my alma mater) plays Clemson, so I'll watch that streaming online. I've even decked out my Facebook's "cover photo" for the occasion. Aside from that I don't really have any plans. My internet's also been working just fine, so I've not had to worry about that either. As usual, I'll keep you updated on anything else that happens. For now, though, bed.
I received an email from my mother today with plane ticket details for my trip to West Virginia over spring break -- flying out of Wichita at 6AM into Minneapolis, then flying out of there to Pittsburgh, getting on the ground a little after 1PM. The flight home would be shorter; I'd be flying out of Pittsburgh around noon and getting back on the ground in Wichita a little less than four hours later. I told her to book the tickets if those were the best deals/times she could find, because that's pretty good time for each trip, especially the trip home.
If she does book those tickets, Minneapolis will be a new airport I've never been in before. In fact, I've never been in Minnesota before. Taking a look at the airport on Wikipedia, it looks like an interesting place to experience. I'm game. Whatever works, after all, especially since those are fairly short flights. I'd spend more time on the ground than I would in the air on the flights out there. So, sure. I can do that. Like I said, as far as I know she hasn't booked the tickets yet, but she probably will within the next day or so just so that they can be done and taken care of. Should be fun. Add that to the list of stuff I can look forward to over the course of the next few months or so.
Yesterday was another fairly quiet day. I didn't wake up until mid-afternoon -- wait, no, that's not exactly accurate. I woke up at 9AM to pee, and then went back to bed until around 2:30. Upon returning to bed, Pete crawled under the blankets with me to be my warm teddy-bear-kitty, which (obviously) helped me pass right back out. The mail came and went, the garbage men came and went, and I didn't do a whole lot. I spent the evening cooking (soup, again) and watched the Captain America DVD Wayne and Jane sent me for Christmas. It was a fantastic film. I highly recommend it.
But other than that? Yeah, I didn't do much. These few days this week are an exercise in killing time, again, until I get paid and/or get my student loan money. I can't go anywhere or do anything, really, until that happens. My entire paycheck will go towards my water and electric bills as well as some groceries. Whatever's left will probably be put into a tank of gas for the car to prepare for a possible trip to Hutchinson -- if, and only if, I get my student loan money soon. The weather's been really nice, so it sucks that I don't have any money to go out and do anything in it, and a road trip to the next town over for a little light retail therapy at the mall and Target will do me good if I get the chance to do it before classes start again. I need to get out of the house and do something just for myself, something fun that doesn't involve me worrying about stuff to take care of for school or about money.
Now you watch, the day I get my loan money to drop into my account, there'll be a horrific Kansas snowstorm or something just to spite me. You just watch.
I've become stifled in my writing. Not my writing here, of course, because as you know, I've been blogging quite a bit. No, I'm talking about my real writing, my professional stuff like my book(s) and my poetry. I've tried to write new poetry several times over break, and I just can't get back into my groove again. At least not just yet, anyhow. I usually need some sort of pressure to produce anything somewhat decent -- or, barring that, high spirits and social interaction with people. Over the past few weeks, high spirits and social interaction has been hard to come by, for obvious reasons. I've been preoccupied with being alone here with the cats -- especially over all of the holidays -- and, of course, I've been worried about money, trying to make ends meet, etc. So there's really not been a whole lot of high spirits to speak of. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've not been depressed or anything, but it's not like I've been ecstatic to be alone either.
Yes, believe me, if I were depressed, I'd tell you. My mental state is actually pretty awesome. I've just got a general "eh" sort of feeling cocooning me right now. It'll pass once I can take care of most of the money problems. Everyone says money doesn't buy happiness, but in my case, having access to it and not having to worry about it does wonders to lift my spirits, and ends up drastically changing my mood and life outlook for the better. I was never more content with my life than in my first fall of graduate school (August through December 2010), when I had gotten the first student loans of my life, and suddenly no longer had to really worry about being able to pay bills for more than a year. Though, admittedly, the fact that I'd just started a new education and career greatly helped as well.
I mentioned in my last post that there was a Colorado ski trip with friends that I was invited on, but had to decline, and said that I would write about it if I felt like it. I suppose I can tell that story, but there's not much to tell. One of my friends and colleagues within the department -- the older sister of the 19-year-old I've been passively courting over the past month or so -- wanted to know whether I'd be interested in going on a ski trip with her, her husband, a few friends, and her aforementioned sister sometime in January.
"But I don't ski," I told her. "I don't own any skis, my car surely wouldn't make it up and down the Colorado mountains and back, and I hate the cold. You know these things."
"You don't have to ski," she said. "It's a huge cabin, and there will be plenty of food and drinks, things to do, etc. Plus, it would give you some quality time with my sister."
She thinks my crush on her sister is very sweet, despite the age difference between us. She's also said on more than one occasion that she thinks the two of us are a perfect match, but I digress.
"So...what's the catch?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
"No catch, just figured you might be interested. I'd need about $100 or so for your share of the house for the week, and we'll deal with the driving; I know your car has enough problems already."
The car's actually running really well and has been for a while, but she knows about all its problems because it was her husband who has offered to fix it up for me as a favor in the past with no expense to me except for the parts and my gratitude. I also told them they could take the stereo/speakers out of it if they wanted to as well, because I've never been able to get them to work anyhow.
"Besides, I know you want more time with my sister," she added. "It's not a family thing, it's just us and our friends. A lot of really cool people. And a hot tub."
Oh hell, a hot tub. Good lord, a hot tub. I wanted to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
However, she told me this in late November, around or shortly after Thanksgiving, and even then I knew of course that by this time, I'd be really, really short on money. I told her I'd definitely consider it, but money would certainly be incredibly tight during the time of the scheduled trip.
As you know, money not only became tight, but has become virtually nonexistent for me, so the window to give her the $100 or so she needed came and went, and I had to pass on the trip -- which I told her sister. They're leaving next week, and her sister certainly understands why I can't go. She told me something to the effect of "Well, being able to eat is more important than going on a vacation," which I was inclined to agree with.
As much as it sucks that I'm unable to go, I certainly would have loved it. It would've been one of those trips that I sorely need in order to get out of this house and actually spend time around life forms that aren't my cats. It would've given me the social interaction I so desperately need, and probably would've produced at least a poem or two.
Plus, y'know, it would've earned me some brownie points with the kid. Without the trip, getting to know her better and continuing to passively court her will take much longer.
...okay, I can't call her "the kid" because that just sounds really creepy and makes me feel like a dirty old man.
Anyway, so I'm not going on the trip, which was sort of the point in telling you the story. Could've been fun, though.
As for the rest of my week, like I said, I'm killing time until I get paid, so I'm sleeping really strange hours again and have been relatively bored. Tonight's the Orange Bowl, in which WVU (my alma mater) plays Clemson, so I'll watch that streaming online. I've even decked out my Facebook's "cover photo" for the occasion. Aside from that I don't really have any plans. My internet's also been working just fine, so I've not had to worry about that either. As usual, I'll keep you updated on anything else that happens. For now, though, bed.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Betterment
Days until my next paycheck: 3
It's been fairly quiet here in Kansas, with no real news to report.
Thrilling, no?
If the cable company worked on the "main line" yesterday, I didn't notice it; I've had normal, regular and uninterrupted internet service all day and night to the best of my knowledge, with no issues. I also didn't receive any follow-up service calls yesterday on my phone, so I can only assume that everything is working fine or that they're fixing it. Whatever works.
I haven't been feeling that great for the past day or so. My stomach's been bothering me off and on, and the fluctuations in weather have been messing with my allergies and the like. Therefore, most of the time I'm either congested so badly that I can't breathe without blowing my nose thirty times a day and taking decongestants, or I'm otherwise feeling queasy and under-the-weather. I'm pretty sure I'm not actually getting sick, though, which is a plus.
I forgot to mention before that Andrea helped me out of a bind by putting some minutes on my phone for me. Not a lot, but I told her I didn't need or want a lot. Just enough to get me through this nightmare of being poor and unable to get new minutes (or anything else, really). I thanked her profusely, something I've been doing a lot lately not only for her, but for anyone else who helps me in any way. Andrea has, admittedly, helped me out a lot when I've needed it over the past few years. She's saved my ass on more than one occasion. Hell, she told me that if I'd needed one, she was going to buy me a new modem for this computer (this was, of course, before the tech guy figured out what the problem was), despite the fact that she has less money to spare than I do -- which is hard to do, by the way. The girl is like my sister, and there are few things (if any) I wouldn't do for her if I could. Our friendship is one of the things that keeps me going through all the bad and/or potentially depressing times.
I've been trying desperately to look at the positive side of life over break -- and that positive side consists of (right now, anyway)...well, at least I have another two weeks off school. That's right, folks. Classes resume two weeks from today. I am right now a little more than halfway through break. Some days it seems like the time is going very quickly, but others slowly. What I do know is that I still have two weeks of sweet freedom left, and only a few more days of being super-incredibly-poor. Trying to remain positive is good. It means that I don't spiral down into loneliness or (too much) boredom. At least the weather's been mostly nice; my parents and friends back home in West Virginia got a minor snowstorm over the course of the past day or two.
I'm also going to try to change my life around in the spring for the better. As much as I can, anyway. I have, as you know if you've been a longtime reader, a lot more free time in the spring. It is my first lit-course-free semester of graduate school (and actually, I think the only lit-course-free semester I've ever had of my entire college education), and because of that, time spent focusing on my own coursework will be likewise greatly reduced. Yes, I'll still be teaching and taking care of all of my students' papers and the like, but for the most part I'll actually have time to sleep again, time to spend with friends in Wichita, and time for a significant other if one happens to come along (read: probably not, but I wouldn't complain). 2012 is like a reboot of my entire life, and will let me scatter the metaphorical ashes of 2011 in my wake.
2011, as you know, was one of the worst years of my life, for a multitude of reasons -- the full list of which it would be redundant to get into, obviously, but remember that even though I bought a car which I love, I still had my girlfriend of almost seven years leave me, saw myself go into pretty blatant financial ruin, and dealt with the most difficult and work-intensive semester of college I've ever been through, amongst so many other little will-shattering things. 2011 was awful. It was a year I wish I could completely strike from the record.
"It's a new year," I told Andrea. "Who knows what the new year will hold. Hell, if I get laid within the next three months at some point, I could have a son or daughter by the end of the year."
She found this amusing.
"...of course," I added, "that wouldn't be good if I weren't married to the mother..."
Y'know, how about I just completely scrap that idea?
Still, my point remains. There's no telling what could happen in this new year. There never is. Did I think, last January 3rd, that I would be single and lonely for 1/3 of 2011? Did I think I'd spend an October weeknight on Rt. 50 at 11PM, going 103mph in a car that I actually, completely owned outright? Did I think I would edit together a 400-page book and sell it (at least to some people)? Did I think anything at all? The answer to all of these questions, of course, is a resounding no. I never really planned anything before, because I really couldn't. My life was so hectic with school, and so entwined around the former girlfriend that I was in a bit of a bubble -- insulated, unable to see outside my sphere of doing my coursework in grad school, paying the bills, and keeping her happy.
Now that almost all of those things have gone to the wayside, that metaphorical bubble has been broken, and I can move around outside of it. As mentioned here before, I can now focus on myself, and focus on making myself happy. And that's something that I haven't done for a very, very long time. For the first time, I'm starting a year fully independent, living alone and dealing with my own problems more than I'm dealing with someone else's, and I want to be successful at that. I think it's doable. I think 2012 will be better than 2011. And I have to believe that in order to keep going.
My mother emailed me this morning to tell me that she's been looking at flights for over spring break, and though I may have to fly in a day later than I originally expected, it looks like everything's going to be feasible for me to visit home during that time. Even though I may have a light semester, it's still the only time during the next five or six months that I absolutely know that I am available and shouldn't have any major work to do for my students or for my own classes. Yeah, that's right, a one-week window in March, a week during which I can only spend about four full days in West Virginia before I'll have to fly back home (remember, I have cats). She's going to do more research on the tickets and let me know. I've already told Andrea about the probable trip, and she's excited.
Also, if I have enough money during that time I may rent a car during the trip so that I can get around Morgantown and the surrounding area, unless one of my parents lets me use one of their vehicles while I'm there (something I doubt will happen, as even though she barely drives her truck, I know my mother). I do have some stuff to do and places to go -- alone -- while I'm in town, though. Important things and important places that can't be avoided.
As for the next few days, there's not a whole lot I plan to do. I do, at some point, need to get out and run errands (the post office and Newton's discount grocery store being two of the big ones) but they can be put off for a few days if needed. I'd rather do those things when it's a little warmer outside, and it's supposed to be in the 60s again later this week -- incredibly warm for January in Kansas. I don't have anywhere else to go or anything to do, though. Very, very few of my friends are back in town already, and those friends are all dealing with their own stuff, so it's not like I would bother them. Most of my close friends don't get back to Kansas until shortly before the semester starts up again -- Suri, for example, doesn't fly back in until the 14th. I was hoping she'd be back earlier than that so I could take her to the aforementioned discount grocery store (which she's expressed an interest in going to in the past) and so she could meet/play with the cats, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. The 19-year-old I've been passively courting is going on a ski trip to Colorado next week with her sister and brother-in-law (read: friends of mine), which I was invited to go on as well, but couldn't afford (more on this later if I have the desire to write about it), so asking her out to do something is pretty much out as well.
That leaves me and my various projects I'll be working on over what remains of break -- several letters, revising lesson plans, revising my book(s), and creating new poetry -- the latter of which I haven't been working on as much as I would have liked to over the holidays. Looks like I get to delve into all of that stuff in my last two weeks I'm home and off. As well as wait on my money and pay the bills, of course.
Still. Things are looking up. They're looking up because I'm viewing everything in a positive light. It's all about betterment, folks; even when I'm off I can't slouch as much as I'd like -- I must keep myself busy, keep myself moving toward my goals.
You may be asking, "What goals?"
My goals for 2012, in case you were curious, aren't completely set in stone yet. I refuse to call them "resolutions" just because it's the new year, and they're varied in importance, from little things to big ones. Here's the "short list" of things I'd like to accomplish, off the top of my head:
1. Get the Monte Carlo serviced and completely fixed up -- new hoses/belts/tires, an oil change, the new spark plugs it needs, and see if I can do something about the doors/windows problem I have with it.
2. Do my taxes as soon as possible once I have my W-2 forms so that I have the money to pay for those aforementioned services and repairs.
3. Visit my parents, friends, and family in West Virginia not only over Spring Break, but in the summer or for the holidays if possible as well.
4. Get another two semesters of straight-As.
5. Do my best in my attempt to win the department fellowship for my third year (more on this will be written as the months progress).
6. Get the cats to the vet for vaccinations and check-ups, even though they're healthy.
7. Work over the summer -- either teaching or in some other capacity within the university -- so that I don't starve due to lack of paychecks.
8. Do more research on PhD programs and jobs around the country for when I graduate.
9. Attempt to keep the house filled with food of all sorts, so that I can cook whenever I want.
10. Finish revising my first book for print, release it in print, and re-release the eBook (in a version that can't be corrupted by Amazon's Kindle formatting processes).
11. Finish writing my second book, the poetry book, and do the same with it.
12. Submit a lot more of my work for publication. I slacked on that quite a bit during the fall because I was so swamped and sleep-deprived.
13. Keep trying to eat at least somewhat healthily and stay on my vitamin regimen.
14. Similarly, if I can do this, try to keep dropping weight like I have been.
15. Continue donating what money and items I can to the DAV, as I have tried to do whenever possible.
16. Survive until thirty. Yeah, I know. But the world is also supposed to end the day after I turn thirty, if the Mayan calendar is to be believed.
17. And, finally, find a woman who will willingly and happily sleep in my arms at night, even if just one singular time -- if only to help ease the crushing loneliness I feel going to bed alone every night. Not surprisingly, this is probably the most depressing-sounding (as well as one of my most important) goals for this next year. Keep in mind that sexual relations don't even enter the equation here; that I'm not concerned about in the least. I just want someone to hold, to reassure me that yes, I am indeed a lovable, worthwhile human being.
When I told Andrea about that last one, she said it was one of the sweetest -- if really sad and depressing -- things she'd ever heard. Of course, I really didn't mean it to sound as sad as it really does, obviously.
You may note that things like "get laid again" and "find a new girlfriend" aren't on the list, because those aren't necessarily attainable goals. They're also fairly shallow, and I have no reason to waste energy in pursuit of those goals. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, oh well, I've got more important things to worry about in my life. I've reached the age and maturity level to where I don't need someone by my side all the time to feel complete or to be happy -- that's a bonus and a luxury. And as you know, I can't afford luxuries as a poor grad student.
I mean that last part in more ways than one, obviously. There are at least three ways it can be interpreted, all of them valid in their own right.
I also wanted to add "procure a Fleshlight" to my list of goals, but again, shallow.
Anyway. It's late, and I'm off to bed now. Just when I got my sleep schedule turned around to that of a normal human, I switched back and have been spending my late nights writing here, playing my DS, and watching TV again. I really need to get some sleep and attempt to be awake during daylight hours.
I will, of course, update you over the next few days with whatever happens in my life, but for now...goodnight, folks.
It's been fairly quiet here in Kansas, with no real news to report.
Thrilling, no?
If the cable company worked on the "main line" yesterday, I didn't notice it; I've had normal, regular and uninterrupted internet service all day and night to the best of my knowledge, with no issues. I also didn't receive any follow-up service calls yesterday on my phone, so I can only assume that everything is working fine or that they're fixing it. Whatever works.
I haven't been feeling that great for the past day or so. My stomach's been bothering me off and on, and the fluctuations in weather have been messing with my allergies and the like. Therefore, most of the time I'm either congested so badly that I can't breathe without blowing my nose thirty times a day and taking decongestants, or I'm otherwise feeling queasy and under-the-weather. I'm pretty sure I'm not actually getting sick, though, which is a plus.
I forgot to mention before that Andrea helped me out of a bind by putting some minutes on my phone for me. Not a lot, but I told her I didn't need or want a lot. Just enough to get me through this nightmare of being poor and unable to get new minutes (or anything else, really). I thanked her profusely, something I've been doing a lot lately not only for her, but for anyone else who helps me in any way. Andrea has, admittedly, helped me out a lot when I've needed it over the past few years. She's saved my ass on more than one occasion. Hell, she told me that if I'd needed one, she was going to buy me a new modem for this computer (this was, of course, before the tech guy figured out what the problem was), despite the fact that she has less money to spare than I do -- which is hard to do, by the way. The girl is like my sister, and there are few things (if any) I wouldn't do for her if I could. Our friendship is one of the things that keeps me going through all the bad and/or potentially depressing times.
I've been trying desperately to look at the positive side of life over break -- and that positive side consists of (right now, anyway)...well, at least I have another two weeks off school. That's right, folks. Classes resume two weeks from today. I am right now a little more than halfway through break. Some days it seems like the time is going very quickly, but others slowly. What I do know is that I still have two weeks of sweet freedom left, and only a few more days of being super-incredibly-poor. Trying to remain positive is good. It means that I don't spiral down into loneliness or (too much) boredom. At least the weather's been mostly nice; my parents and friends back home in West Virginia got a minor snowstorm over the course of the past day or two.
I'm also going to try to change my life around in the spring for the better. As much as I can, anyway. I have, as you know if you've been a longtime reader, a lot more free time in the spring. It is my first lit-course-free semester of graduate school (and actually, I think the only lit-course-free semester I've ever had of my entire college education), and because of that, time spent focusing on my own coursework will be likewise greatly reduced. Yes, I'll still be teaching and taking care of all of my students' papers and the like, but for the most part I'll actually have time to sleep again, time to spend with friends in Wichita, and time for a significant other if one happens to come along (read: probably not, but I wouldn't complain). 2012 is like a reboot of my entire life, and will let me scatter the metaphorical ashes of 2011 in my wake.
2011, as you know, was one of the worst years of my life, for a multitude of reasons -- the full list of which it would be redundant to get into, obviously, but remember that even though I bought a car which I love, I still had my girlfriend of almost seven years leave me, saw myself go into pretty blatant financial ruin, and dealt with the most difficult and work-intensive semester of college I've ever been through, amongst so many other little will-shattering things. 2011 was awful. It was a year I wish I could completely strike from the record.
"It's a new year," I told Andrea. "Who knows what the new year will hold. Hell, if I get laid within the next three months at some point, I could have a son or daughter by the end of the year."
She found this amusing.
"...of course," I added, "that wouldn't be good if I weren't married to the mother..."
Y'know, how about I just completely scrap that idea?
Still, my point remains. There's no telling what could happen in this new year. There never is. Did I think, last January 3rd, that I would be single and lonely for 1/3 of 2011? Did I think I'd spend an October weeknight on Rt. 50 at 11PM, going 103mph in a car that I actually, completely owned outright? Did I think I would edit together a 400-page book and sell it (at least to some people)? Did I think anything at all? The answer to all of these questions, of course, is a resounding no. I never really planned anything before, because I really couldn't. My life was so hectic with school, and so entwined around the former girlfriend that I was in a bit of a bubble -- insulated, unable to see outside my sphere of doing my coursework in grad school, paying the bills, and keeping her happy.
Now that almost all of those things have gone to the wayside, that metaphorical bubble has been broken, and I can move around outside of it. As mentioned here before, I can now focus on myself, and focus on making myself happy. And that's something that I haven't done for a very, very long time. For the first time, I'm starting a year fully independent, living alone and dealing with my own problems more than I'm dealing with someone else's, and I want to be successful at that. I think it's doable. I think 2012 will be better than 2011. And I have to believe that in order to keep going.
My mother emailed me this morning to tell me that she's been looking at flights for over spring break, and though I may have to fly in a day later than I originally expected, it looks like everything's going to be feasible for me to visit home during that time. Even though I may have a light semester, it's still the only time during the next five or six months that I absolutely know that I am available and shouldn't have any major work to do for my students or for my own classes. Yeah, that's right, a one-week window in March, a week during which I can only spend about four full days in West Virginia before I'll have to fly back home (remember, I have cats). She's going to do more research on the tickets and let me know. I've already told Andrea about the probable trip, and she's excited.
Also, if I have enough money during that time I may rent a car during the trip so that I can get around Morgantown and the surrounding area, unless one of my parents lets me use one of their vehicles while I'm there (something I doubt will happen, as even though she barely drives her truck, I know my mother). I do have some stuff to do and places to go -- alone -- while I'm in town, though. Important things and important places that can't be avoided.
As for the next few days, there's not a whole lot I plan to do. I do, at some point, need to get out and run errands (the post office and Newton's discount grocery store being two of the big ones) but they can be put off for a few days if needed. I'd rather do those things when it's a little warmer outside, and it's supposed to be in the 60s again later this week -- incredibly warm for January in Kansas. I don't have anywhere else to go or anything to do, though. Very, very few of my friends are back in town already, and those friends are all dealing with their own stuff, so it's not like I would bother them. Most of my close friends don't get back to Kansas until shortly before the semester starts up again -- Suri, for example, doesn't fly back in until the 14th. I was hoping she'd be back earlier than that so I could take her to the aforementioned discount grocery store (which she's expressed an interest in going to in the past) and so she could meet/play with the cats, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. The 19-year-old I've been passively courting is going on a ski trip to Colorado next week with her sister and brother-in-law (read: friends of mine), which I was invited to go on as well, but couldn't afford (more on this later if I have the desire to write about it), so asking her out to do something is pretty much out as well.
That leaves me and my various projects I'll be working on over what remains of break -- several letters, revising lesson plans, revising my book(s), and creating new poetry -- the latter of which I haven't been working on as much as I would have liked to over the holidays. Looks like I get to delve into all of that stuff in my last two weeks I'm home and off. As well as wait on my money and pay the bills, of course.
Still. Things are looking up. They're looking up because I'm viewing everything in a positive light. It's all about betterment, folks; even when I'm off I can't slouch as much as I'd like -- I must keep myself busy, keep myself moving toward my goals.
You may be asking, "What goals?"
My goals for 2012, in case you were curious, aren't completely set in stone yet. I refuse to call them "resolutions" just because it's the new year, and they're varied in importance, from little things to big ones. Here's the "short list" of things I'd like to accomplish, off the top of my head:
1. Get the Monte Carlo serviced and completely fixed up -- new hoses/belts/tires, an oil change, the new spark plugs it needs, and see if I can do something about the doors/windows problem I have with it.
2. Do my taxes as soon as possible once I have my W-2 forms so that I have the money to pay for those aforementioned services and repairs.
3. Visit my parents, friends, and family in West Virginia not only over Spring Break, but in the summer or for the holidays if possible as well.
4. Get another two semesters of straight-As.
5. Do my best in my attempt to win the department fellowship for my third year (more on this will be written as the months progress).
6. Get the cats to the vet for vaccinations and check-ups, even though they're healthy.
7. Work over the summer -- either teaching or in some other capacity within the university -- so that I don't starve due to lack of paychecks.
8. Do more research on PhD programs and jobs around the country for when I graduate.
9. Attempt to keep the house filled with food of all sorts, so that I can cook whenever I want.
10. Finish revising my first book for print, release it in print, and re-release the eBook (in a version that can't be corrupted by Amazon's Kindle formatting processes).
11. Finish writing my second book, the poetry book, and do the same with it.
12. Submit a lot more of my work for publication. I slacked on that quite a bit during the fall because I was so swamped and sleep-deprived.
13. Keep trying to eat at least somewhat healthily and stay on my vitamin regimen.
14. Similarly, if I can do this, try to keep dropping weight like I have been.
15. Continue donating what money and items I can to the DAV, as I have tried to do whenever possible.
16. Survive until thirty. Yeah, I know. But the world is also supposed to end the day after I turn thirty, if the Mayan calendar is to be believed.
17. And, finally, find a woman who will willingly and happily sleep in my arms at night, even if just one singular time -- if only to help ease the crushing loneliness I feel going to bed alone every night. Not surprisingly, this is probably the most depressing-sounding (as well as one of my most important) goals for this next year. Keep in mind that sexual relations don't even enter the equation here; that I'm not concerned about in the least. I just want someone to hold, to reassure me that yes, I am indeed a lovable, worthwhile human being.
When I told Andrea about that last one, she said it was one of the sweetest -- if really sad and depressing -- things she'd ever heard. Of course, I really didn't mean it to sound as sad as it really does, obviously.
You may note that things like "get laid again" and "find a new girlfriend" aren't on the list, because those aren't necessarily attainable goals. They're also fairly shallow, and I have no reason to waste energy in pursuit of those goals. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, oh well, I've got more important things to worry about in my life. I've reached the age and maturity level to where I don't need someone by my side all the time to feel complete or to be happy -- that's a bonus and a luxury. And as you know, I can't afford luxuries as a poor grad student.
I mean that last part in more ways than one, obviously. There are at least three ways it can be interpreted, all of them valid in their own right.
I also wanted to add "procure a Fleshlight" to my list of goals, but again, shallow.
Anyway. It's late, and I'm off to bed now. Just when I got my sleep schedule turned around to that of a normal human, I switched back and have been spending my late nights writing here, playing my DS, and watching TV again. I really need to get some sleep and attempt to be awake during daylight hours.
I will, of course, update you over the next few days with whatever happens in my life, but for now...goodnight, folks.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Offline, Part III: Main-Line Issues
So, it looks like I may have spoken too soon.
About an hour or so after the tech guy left, I glanced down at my modem to see it doing the same weird connection stuff that it had been doing all week.
Oh come on, I thought. Really? And immediately my fears that my modem might be dying resurfaced again.
And then, I remembered what the tech guy told me: that if I had any other issues, he'd be right up the street, so I should call him. So I did.
"Hey, this is Brandon at [address], you worked on my stuff this morning...well, it must be related to the other problems in the neighborhood, because it's gone offline again and has been doing the same stuff it was doing earlier this week."
He told me that he would be working with the other people in my neighborhood in about an hour or so from that point (it was around noon then) so he'd check it out, since it was more than likely, in his own words, a "main line issue" and that if I was picking it up -- meaning, if I was still having problems -- the other people in the neighborhood would be too, and once he figured out what was going on, he would call me back and let me know. I thanked him profusely, again, and hung up. A few minutes later, the internet kicked back on, and has been working fine ever since.
Note: the "main line" he refers to is just that: the main cable line, and amplifier, that distributes cable everything, not just internet but TV and phone service, to the entire neighborhood -- a radius of what I'm guessing is a few blocks.
Fast forward four hours -- nearing 4PM, I heard a knock on my door. It was the tech guy. Making sure Pete didn't run out when he saw his new friend again, I shut the door behind me and talked to him on my balcony.
"Well, it's obviously a main line issue," he reiterated. "When I opened it up and checked the readings, it seemed to be reading normally -- but I knew that couldn't be right, not with all the problems everyone around here's been having. So I whacked it."
You...whacked it? Okay. Whatever works. Go with it.
"When I whacked it," he continued, "all of the readings went unstable and crazy, just like you said your internet was doing, and that shouldn't happen."
As an aside, perhaps whacked it is cable-industry lingo for testing it with something; who knows.
"So," he asked, "is it working for you now?"
"Yeah, it's been working just fine since a few minutes after I called you," I replied. "Let's hope it stays that way for the moment."
"Well, what I've done is call in for a repair. Should take another day or so for them to work on it and get everything done, get it all fixed. I included your name on there as well so that they can get in contact with you again if they need to."
I'm guessing what he meant when he said call in for a repair really means I've called in the big guns, the guys with the bucket trucks and wire-stripping kits, the ones who can replace entire sections of the grid if needed. Y'see, Cox has contractors doing most of their repair work; all of the work I've had done, including my original installation of cable internet, as well as today's work and any other minor house-call-like stuff has been done by contracted employees of Mill-Tel -- all of whom are awesome people. However, a lot of the bigger stuff, such as the stuff I imagine they'll be doing tomorrow with the "main line," is usually done by the Cox crews themselves, as evidenced by the numerous times I've seen them and their trucks around town.
I once again thanked him profusely for everything he did for me today, and told him to go home and get some rest -- since he's been working his ass off on this stuff since 8AM, and has probably been awake since long before. Hopefully his day's almost over, and there's not a whole lot else the guy could do tonight, really.
So, it looks like I could have at least one more day of fluctuating internet issues, but at least now they've narrowed it down to something on the main line, and something that the main crews can (hopefully) fix. And, as a plus, I got a new cable and new, enhanced-speed splitter out of the deal, which does seem to be helping -- after all, it's only screwed up once in the past twenty hours or so. That's pretty damn reliable compared to the past four days or so, when it was down for hours at a time, only to let me on for a few minutes to an hour or so before going down again.
Huh huh...I said "going down."
Anyway. At least this is progress. I'm even more relaxed now that I know it is indeed a company issue, and because of that probably won't be charged extra for the service call. And, of course, I'm more at ease now that it's actually working the vast majority of the time and should be completely fixed tomorrow. If other developments take place, I assure you I will let you know.
About an hour or so after the tech guy left, I glanced down at my modem to see it doing the same weird connection stuff that it had been doing all week.
Oh come on, I thought. Really? And immediately my fears that my modem might be dying resurfaced again.
And then, I remembered what the tech guy told me: that if I had any other issues, he'd be right up the street, so I should call him. So I did.
"Hey, this is Brandon at [address], you worked on my stuff this morning...well, it must be related to the other problems in the neighborhood, because it's gone offline again and has been doing the same stuff it was doing earlier this week."
He told me that he would be working with the other people in my neighborhood in about an hour or so from that point (it was around noon then) so he'd check it out, since it was more than likely, in his own words, a "main line issue" and that if I was picking it up -- meaning, if I was still having problems -- the other people in the neighborhood would be too, and once he figured out what was going on, he would call me back and let me know. I thanked him profusely, again, and hung up. A few minutes later, the internet kicked back on, and has been working fine ever since.
Note: the "main line" he refers to is just that: the main cable line, and amplifier, that distributes cable everything, not just internet but TV and phone service, to the entire neighborhood -- a radius of what I'm guessing is a few blocks.
Fast forward four hours -- nearing 4PM, I heard a knock on my door. It was the tech guy. Making sure Pete didn't run out when he saw his new friend again, I shut the door behind me and talked to him on my balcony.
"Well, it's obviously a main line issue," he reiterated. "When I opened it up and checked the readings, it seemed to be reading normally -- but I knew that couldn't be right, not with all the problems everyone around here's been having. So I whacked it."
You...whacked it? Okay. Whatever works. Go with it.
"When I whacked it," he continued, "all of the readings went unstable and crazy, just like you said your internet was doing, and that shouldn't happen."
As an aside, perhaps whacked it is cable-industry lingo for testing it with something; who knows.
"So," he asked, "is it working for you now?"
"Yeah, it's been working just fine since a few minutes after I called you," I replied. "Let's hope it stays that way for the moment."
"Well, what I've done is call in for a repair. Should take another day or so for them to work on it and get everything done, get it all fixed. I included your name on there as well so that they can get in contact with you again if they need to."
I'm guessing what he meant when he said call in for a repair really means I've called in the big guns, the guys with the bucket trucks and wire-stripping kits, the ones who can replace entire sections of the grid if needed. Y'see, Cox has contractors doing most of their repair work; all of the work I've had done, including my original installation of cable internet, as well as today's work and any other minor house-call-like stuff has been done by contracted employees of Mill-Tel -- all of whom are awesome people. However, a lot of the bigger stuff, such as the stuff I imagine they'll be doing tomorrow with the "main line," is usually done by the Cox crews themselves, as evidenced by the numerous times I've seen them and their trucks around town.
I once again thanked him profusely for everything he did for me today, and told him to go home and get some rest -- since he's been working his ass off on this stuff since 8AM, and has probably been awake since long before. Hopefully his day's almost over, and there's not a whole lot else the guy could do tonight, really.
So, it looks like I could have at least one more day of fluctuating internet issues, but at least now they've narrowed it down to something on the main line, and something that the main crews can (hopefully) fix. And, as a plus, I got a new cable and new, enhanced-speed splitter out of the deal, which does seem to be helping -- after all, it's only screwed up once in the past twenty hours or so. That's pretty damn reliable compared to the past four days or so, when it was down for hours at a time, only to let me on for a few minutes to an hour or so before going down again.
Huh huh...I said "going down."
Anyway. At least this is progress. I'm even more relaxed now that I know it is indeed a company issue, and because of that probably won't be charged extra for the service call. And, of course, I'm more at ease now that it's actually working the vast majority of the time and should be completely fixed tomorrow. If other developments take place, I assure you I will let you know.
Offline, Part II
Days until my next paycheck: 5
Well, everyone, happy new year. Or something along those lines. As you can see, I'm still here and still online. But there's a story behind that.
Last night, as my internet had continued working, I stayed awake and kept using it for a few hours longer than I'd planned. When the ball dropped in New York, last night was one of the very few New Year's Eves that I didn't watch it live on television. Instead, at midnight EST I was in the kitchen making several batches of the homemade laundry detergent I mentioned in my last post here and listening to podcasts.
I did not, in fact, have the TV on at all yesterday aside from the hour or two I spent watching the rest of Archer season 2 during and after dinner.
When the clock struck midnight here in the midwest, I was downstairs folding laundry, and had just cleaned the cat room. I wouldn't have known it was midnight if it weren't for the flurry of gunfire and fireworks here in the redneck-filled town of Newton, Kansas -- fireworks and gunfire that greatly scared the cats enough for the girls to hide downstairs under the bed and/or in the stairwell for the better part of an hour. Because, of course, that's how long they went on...for the better part of an hour.
I've probably mentioned here before that there are few things I hate more than rednecks and fireworks. I thought I would escape both of those things upon moving away from West Virginia. I was wrong.
Anyway.
I went to bed around 2, in a positively freezing house. I left the furnace off, as yesterday it was 64 degrees here. Yes, sixty-four. It was gorgeous. But when the sun went down, it started getting progressively colder in the house. Still, as my electric bill last month was $189, which is $40 more than I have in my bank account right now, even, I figured that blankets would keep me warm enough. Until I got up at 7AM for the cable guy, of course, and found that it was in the mid-50s here in the house, if not colder.
The internet was still working just fine when I came upstairs, and I figured I'd might as well call to see if I could cancel the appointment. No reason to have the guy come out here and waste his time if everything's working correctly, right?
I found out when I tried to call that, of course, since it's Sunday morning, there was nobody in their offices, and therefore could not cancel the appointment. The guy was going to come regardless, and I would just have to tell him something along the lines of hey, it's working fine now; I tried to call to cancel the appointment but the automated phone system wouldn't let me, etc. So, I booted up the PC, made a fresh pot of coffee, and waited on him to show up.
I didn't have to wait long; at around 8:10 my phone rang, and it was him.
"I was actually going to cancel the appointment," I told him, "as it's been working fine with no issues since about an hour after I confirmed the service call last night."
My ISP is Cox Communications, one of the big cable companies here in the midwest. Any time I've ever needed service or tech support from them, they've been awesome and incredibly helpful, and have been able to solve any problems I've had in a matter of minutes. Not that I've really had a lot of problems with my internet service through them anyhow -- well, not until this past week, anyway.
"Well, I'm on my way over there now," he told me. "I actually have a service call for the same problem at [address three houses down from me]. They're having trouble too, so it might be the pole or lines in the area."
Hm, I thought. This is information I was not privy to before. It was also information that let me know that no, my modem wasn't the problem, which was very good indeed.
"Oh," I said. "Well, by all means then, if you've already gotta come out here, sure."
He arrived in my driveway no more than five minutes later. After discussing a few things with him from my balcony, he went out back to the pole (which is conveniently located right outside the window to my Man Cave) and put the ladder up. He looked around for a little while before going back to the truck, getting a huge length of cable, cutting it, and bringing it back to the pole.
Over the course of the next 45 minutes, he completely replaced the cable line from the pole to my house, replaced at least one splitter on the pole, attached a single splitter to the house (which boosted my signal to incredible speeds), and I rebooted my modem -- everything worked perfectly again.
"Not exactly sure what was wrong," he said. "Cable signal at the pole checks out fine, but it's possible that the cable or splitters were going bad -- those were particularly old splitters; we haven't even used them in about four years, so they're older than that. It's also possible that some water had gotten into them or into the cable line somewhere, which could explain why it was working intermittently. The wind last night could've sloshed it around, or it could've frozen where it was, and it let you use it. Regardless, I replaced the lines and the splitters, and gave you a new one on the house that should let you get a much stronger signal, which means faster internet speeds. For some reason there was a 4-way splitter on the house, which wasn't needed and doesn't make sense since you don't have the TV or phone package with us."
He was right. My speed improved by leaps and bounds, and it wasn't exactly slow before.
His work done, I offered him a cup of coffee (he politely declined), introduced him to Pete (who had been attacking the bathroom door from the inside, trying to get out and see the visitor), and shook his hand on his way out. Great guy. Really nice, really helpful. But then again, all of these guys always have been. He was here for maybe 75 minutes total, and told me that not only did he have the other service call down the street from me, but there was another person on the next street over having the exact same problems.
"So, apparently something's up somewhere," he said with a grin.
"I really hope they pay you guys extra for coming out and working this morning, on a Sunday, on New Year's Day of all days," I told him.
"I do too," he said, laughing.
And then he left, my internet was fixed and faster than ever, and I'm guessing I don't have to worry about any sort of service charge since it was the cable company's hardware/cables that were causing my problems (and apparently the problems of a few other people in the neighborhood). He didn't mention anything about a service charge, anyway. To me it doesn't really matter; at least things are working now, and the cable bill won't be due until long after I actually have money again.
So, there you have it. Everything is as it should be. 2012 is looking good so far.
Well, everyone, happy new year. Or something along those lines. As you can see, I'm still here and still online. But there's a story behind that.
Last night, as my internet had continued working, I stayed awake and kept using it for a few hours longer than I'd planned. When the ball dropped in New York, last night was one of the very few New Year's Eves that I didn't watch it live on television. Instead, at midnight EST I was in the kitchen making several batches of the homemade laundry detergent I mentioned in my last post here and listening to podcasts.
I did not, in fact, have the TV on at all yesterday aside from the hour or two I spent watching the rest of Archer season 2 during and after dinner.
When the clock struck midnight here in the midwest, I was downstairs folding laundry, and had just cleaned the cat room. I wouldn't have known it was midnight if it weren't for the flurry of gunfire and fireworks here in the redneck-filled town of Newton, Kansas -- fireworks and gunfire that greatly scared the cats enough for the girls to hide downstairs under the bed and/or in the stairwell for the better part of an hour. Because, of course, that's how long they went on...for the better part of an hour.
I've probably mentioned here before that there are few things I hate more than rednecks and fireworks. I thought I would escape both of those things upon moving away from West Virginia. I was wrong.
Anyway.
I went to bed around 2, in a positively freezing house. I left the furnace off, as yesterday it was 64 degrees here. Yes, sixty-four. It was gorgeous. But when the sun went down, it started getting progressively colder in the house. Still, as my electric bill last month was $189, which is $40 more than I have in my bank account right now, even, I figured that blankets would keep me warm enough. Until I got up at 7AM for the cable guy, of course, and found that it was in the mid-50s here in the house, if not colder.
The internet was still working just fine when I came upstairs, and I figured I'd might as well call to see if I could cancel the appointment. No reason to have the guy come out here and waste his time if everything's working correctly, right?
I found out when I tried to call that, of course, since it's Sunday morning, there was nobody in their offices, and therefore could not cancel the appointment. The guy was going to come regardless, and I would just have to tell him something along the lines of hey, it's working fine now; I tried to call to cancel the appointment but the automated phone system wouldn't let me, etc. So, I booted up the PC, made a fresh pot of coffee, and waited on him to show up.
I didn't have to wait long; at around 8:10 my phone rang, and it was him.
"I was actually going to cancel the appointment," I told him, "as it's been working fine with no issues since about an hour after I confirmed the service call last night."
My ISP is Cox Communications, one of the big cable companies here in the midwest. Any time I've ever needed service or tech support from them, they've been awesome and incredibly helpful, and have been able to solve any problems I've had in a matter of minutes. Not that I've really had a lot of problems with my internet service through them anyhow -- well, not until this past week, anyway.
"Well, I'm on my way over there now," he told me. "I actually have a service call for the same problem at [address three houses down from me]. They're having trouble too, so it might be the pole or lines in the area."
Hm, I thought. This is information I was not privy to before. It was also information that let me know that no, my modem wasn't the problem, which was very good indeed.
"Oh," I said. "Well, by all means then, if you've already gotta come out here, sure."
He arrived in my driveway no more than five minutes later. After discussing a few things with him from my balcony, he went out back to the pole (which is conveniently located right outside the window to my Man Cave) and put the ladder up. He looked around for a little while before going back to the truck, getting a huge length of cable, cutting it, and bringing it back to the pole.
Over the course of the next 45 minutes, he completely replaced the cable line from the pole to my house, replaced at least one splitter on the pole, attached a single splitter to the house (which boosted my signal to incredible speeds), and I rebooted my modem -- everything worked perfectly again.
"Not exactly sure what was wrong," he said. "Cable signal at the pole checks out fine, but it's possible that the cable or splitters were going bad -- those were particularly old splitters; we haven't even used them in about four years, so they're older than that. It's also possible that some water had gotten into them or into the cable line somewhere, which could explain why it was working intermittently. The wind last night could've sloshed it around, or it could've frozen where it was, and it let you use it. Regardless, I replaced the lines and the splitters, and gave you a new one on the house that should let you get a much stronger signal, which means faster internet speeds. For some reason there was a 4-way splitter on the house, which wasn't needed and doesn't make sense since you don't have the TV or phone package with us."
He was right. My speed improved by leaps and bounds, and it wasn't exactly slow before.
His work done, I offered him a cup of coffee (he politely declined), introduced him to Pete (who had been attacking the bathroom door from the inside, trying to get out and see the visitor), and shook his hand on his way out. Great guy. Really nice, really helpful. But then again, all of these guys always have been. He was here for maybe 75 minutes total, and told me that not only did he have the other service call down the street from me, but there was another person on the next street over having the exact same problems.
"So, apparently something's up somewhere," he said with a grin.
"I really hope they pay you guys extra for coming out and working this morning, on a Sunday, on New Year's Day of all days," I told him.
"I do too," he said, laughing.
And then he left, my internet was fixed and faster than ever, and I'm guessing I don't have to worry about any sort of service charge since it was the cable company's hardware/cables that were causing my problems (and apparently the problems of a few other people in the neighborhood). He didn't mention anything about a service charge, anyway. To me it doesn't really matter; at least things are working now, and the cable bill won't be due until long after I actually have money again.
So, there you have it. Everything is as it should be. 2012 is looking good so far.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)