Poetry Monday

Concerning that Prayer I Cannot Make
by Jane Mead

Jesus, I am cruelly lonely
and I do not know what I have done
nor do I suspect that you will answer me.

And, what is more, I have spent
these bare months bargaining
with my soul as if I could make her
promise to love me when now it seems
that what I meant when I said "soul"
was that the river reflects
the railway bridge just as the sky
says it should -- it speaks that language.

I do not know who you are.

I come here every day
to be beneath this bridge,
to sit beside this river,
so I must have seen the way
the clouds just slide
under the rusty arch --
without snagging on the bolts,
how they are borne along on the dark water --
I must have noticed their fluent speed
and also how that tattered blue T-shirt
remains snagged on the crown
of the mostly sunk dead tree
despite the current's constant pulling.
Yes, somewhere in my mind there must
be the image of a sky blue T-shirt, caught,
and the white islands of ice flying by
and the light clouds flying slowly
under the bridge, though today the river's
fully melted. I must have seen.

But I did not see.

I am not equal to my longing.
Somewhere there should be a place
the exact shape of my emptiness --
there should be a place
responsible for taking one back.
The river, of course, has no mercy --
it just lifts the dead fish
toward the sea.

Of course, of course.

What I meant when I said "soul"
was that there should be a place.

On the far bank the warehouse lights
blink red, then green, and all the yellow
machines with their rusted scoops and lifts
sit under a thin layer of sunny frost.

And look--
my own palm --
there, slowly rocking.
It is my pale palm --
palm where a black pebble
is turning and turning.

Listen --
all you bare trees
burrs
brambles
pile of twigs
red and green lights flashing
muddy bottle shards
shoe half buried -- listen

listen, I am holy.

Spring break

Yesterday R and I took spring break. As grad students, we get a fabulous one day spring break as there is no rest for us! Anyway, we had a super good time. We went to the UN in the morning and got to see where they do all their UN stuff. Then, because it was near 70 degrees we walked to Central Park and walked through it for awhile until our feet started to hurt. Then we came home and hung out before heading to a neighborhood north of us for some tapas. The restaurant was overpriced and not super good, but we're glad we ventured out into the world more. Later we came home and listened to a This American Life podcast before going to sleep. It was an excellent spring break.

Today I have been all hard core getting stuff done. We went to Target to get cat food and some other stuff, and I have been working on data for my dissertation. I HATE arranging data into an analyzable form. I think it is really not my strength, so it is often frustrating. I kept losing monkeys today. I was supposed to have 95 and at first had only 93 so I had to spend a few hours finding those lost two. But they appeared, never fear! If I am serious about ever graduating I need to spend more time on the data analysis. I forgot how slow it goes.

Books!

11. The Color of Magic
12. The Light Fantastic
13. Equal Rites all by Terry Pratchett
3 more enjoyable Discworld novels. Pratchett just has a great imagination and sense of humor. I've been really enjoying my break into totally fun reading, but I also have a pile of nonfiction on my shelves so I will be diving back into that soon.

14. All That Remains by Patricia Cornwell
These are books I am a little embarrassed about reading, but I got into Patricia Cornwell when I was in Suriname and we had a lot of her books on the shelf. I really like the main character in this series, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. I think she is really interesting. And my association with forensic anthropologists has made me enjoy these medical examiner books more. The writing can be really uneven, but they are pretty enjoyable if you like the crime books.

Poetry Monday (a day late)

May 1968
by Sharon Olds

When the Dean said we could not cross campus
until the students gave up the buildings,
we lay down, in the street,
we said the cops will enter this gate
over us. Lying back on the cobbles,
I saw the buildings of New York City
from dirt level, they soared up
and stopped, chopped off -- above them, the sky,
the night air over the island.
The mounted police moved, near us,
while we sang, and then I began to count,
12, 13, 14, 15,
I counted again, 15, 16 one
month since the day on that deserted beach,
17, 18, my mouth fell open,
my hair on the street,
if my period did not come tonight
I was pregnant. I could see the sole of a cop's
shoe, the gelding's belly, its genitals --
if they took me to Women's Detention and did
the exam on me, the speculum,
the fingers -- I gazed into the horse's tail
like a comet-train. All week, I had
thought about getting arrested, half-longed
to give myself away. On the tar --
on brain in my head, another,
in the making, near the base of my tail --
I looked at the steel arc of the horse's
shoe, the curve of its belly, the cop's
nightstick, the buildings screaming up
away from the earth. I knew I should get up
and leave, but I lay there looking at the space
above us, until it turned deep blue and then
ashy, colorless, Give me this one
night, I thought, and I'll give this child
the rest of my life, the horses' heads,
this time, drooping, dipping, until
they slept in a circle around my body and my daughter.

productive

Just now I managed to read a bunch of articles and take notes on them. wooo! I am proud I could work after 7 hours of working at my other job. I think they way to stave off the exhaustion is too keep going. I have to save my after work naps for after my PhD work as well. Now I think I can have a little nap, then do some dishes, then go hang with some peeps.

A second ago I caught Henrietta chewing my MP3 player which is very very evil of her so I squirted her a lot with the water bottle. Poor Pass got caught in the crossfire and seemed very alarmed. I tried to tell him it was not his fault, but I don't think those are English words he understands. It is sad when he has to suffer for Henrietta's naughty ways.

Sleeping

I skipped the talk. I think it was for the best as I am not sure I would have wowed anyone into throwing jobs and $$ my way in the state I was in. I am sad about it, though, it would have been fun. I need to make sure and see these people at the conference I am going to at the end of the month.

Now it is 9:30 and I am going to get into bed. I am really sad I got no work done today. Sometimes I don't really see how the dissertation is going to be written. Every time I think I am on a roll, something comes up.

Hey! This is apparently my 102nd post.

Aargh

So I am supposed to go to this talk tonight, which will be a good networking/social opportunity, and I will just enjoy it. However, I have had a raging headache all day and thus have gotten very very little done. Blah. I really feel like I need to go to this talk, but right now I just want to lie on the couch. Any pep talk to get me out of the house, or confirmation that I will be doing the right thing by staying home?

I have a troublesome relationship with sickness. Right now, I feel like part of this is my fault because today is my day off, yet the talk is by where I work and I really don't want to go down there. I have been having a hard time integrating my school work with my work work, so I have not made much PhD progress this last week. I keep telling myself that it is only my second week with the job and I am still adjusting and I will figure it out soon, but maybe I am just fooling myself, you know? Anyway, the point is that I can never just be, "ok, I'm not feeling well, I'll stay home". I always suspect the sickness comes from my inner laziness and is my fault. I also have a deep seated belief that I just need to suck it up and go about my business, although in nearly 30 years of life that has never ever worked out well. Also, I have been getting up at 5:30 all week yet staying up to 12:00 and I am soooo tired. I need to just go to bed early, although that means less time hanging with R. My life is so hard.

I need to decide in the next hour or so, so that I can email and give my space at dinner away if I need to. I think I'll go lay on the couch and try to read some articles and see how it goes.

Poetry Monday

Heather recently posted that she wanted to read more poetry, which reminded me how much I love poetry but I have not spent a lot of time reading it lately. So here is the first of a hopefully ongoing series of Poetry Mondays. For now, they'll all be stuff from books I own.

Birth
by Rita Dove

(So there you are at last --
a pip, a button in the grass.
The world's begun
without you.

And no reception but
accumulated time.
Your face hidden but your name
shuddering on air!)

Week Update

Let me update you on the last week with subheadings!

Bread
Awhile ago Christopher gave me some sourdough starter who I named Alberto and put in the fridge. Since I finally have a day off I got Alberto out this morning and fed him and now he is getting revved up to be in some sourdough wheat bread. Yum yum. Also, sometime in the recent past I made my first successful loaf of wheat bread! yay! It was very good, with the most beautiful crumb ever. The problem is I don't really know how I did it. When I first put it in the bread machine it was too wet (I over-corrected for the previous too dry bread) so I just threw in bunched of both bread flour and whole wheat flour. I really thought it was going to be terrible, but it was very good. Hopefully I can recreate it sometime, and write down what amounts I use.

NYC
Because my job is down in the Village and I live way way uptown, I get to ride the subway all the time now. I bought an unlimited Metro card which is very freeing. I just subway all over the place, because the more I ride the better of a deal it is! One day this week I went down to work, then way up to the Bronx, then back down to Lincoln Center. Good times.

Saturday it was so nice out so R and I went to a near by Farmer's Market. As it is winter in New York, there was not much to buy -- mostly apples and baked goods. We did get some tasty apple cider and I think I will go back for apples and some cage free eggs. We walked home via two huge parks. One of them was so big, you really didn't know you were in Manhattan when you were inside it. We hope to walk more in the spring.

Job
My job is good, although a little crazy. After one week of work I am apparently fully trained and can open and close the store. It is cool, though, it is the kind of job I thrive in, where you are given no direction so you just do stuff. I worked the last 6 days though, including 9.5 hours on Friday and I was tiiiiiired. I stand the whole time and my entire body was sore on Friday night. I finally have a day off today, so I slept in until 10:30 and am going to get all kinds of errands and stuff done.

School
I did some work on my dissertation -- mostly arranging data. I have a lot more of that to do. This is the pre-analysis stage. I have an organized method, though. I am going chapter by chapter and working on that data only, it really helps to keep me focused. I am supposed to have a really detailed outline in the next few weeks. I don't really work in outlines, but I'll put what I have in that format I guess.

Social
Part of why I was so exhausted this week was that I was out late so many nights! On Sunday I had to go watch the Oscars, of course. I predicted 19 categories correctly! Go me! Monday night R and I went to see This American Life Live, which was super good. They are making a TV show out of the radio show and it will be on Showtime. The clips of the TV show looked good. Too bad I have no fancy cable. And then on Tuesday Maggie and I went to see the Vagina Monologues with Alix Olson. They were very good, although the venue was beset by logistical problems, so the show started an hour late, we were packed in like sardines, and I didn't get home until very late at night.

So that is what was up with me lately. I have some pictures I need to get off the camera and then I will put them on Flickr soon. There are some of bread! So click the Flickr badge in the next few days.

Returned

I am returned from my media fast! It did not go super well, to be honest. I did pretty well for about 2 days with the no TV watching and I did really well with the no blog reading, but the not reading books killed me. Killed me, I tell you. Also, I was felled by a near cold in the middle of the week and really just wanted to rest and watch tv, so I let myself do that some.

Did I learn anything from it? I learned I really like reading, but I also learned it is not terrible to sometimes eat lunch alone and without a book. It was good to watch less tv, but I am usually pretty good about turning it off when I don't enjoy what I am watching. The point of the exercise was partially to close out other people's thoughts and ideas, so I could have all of my own. However, I think I always have plenty of my own thoughts and need to shut them off once and awhile. I had a lot of nights during the past week when I couldn't sleep -- because my mind was just running and running.

It is interesting doing The Artist's Way at Work, as one of its points is to convince people they are creative. I am not someone who has ever struggled with that. I know lots of people who say they aren't creative, but that is one thing about myself I am secure in. I am creative and always have been. So the book doesn't always help me on those points, and I may not need media fasts to give me time with my own thoughts.

It was good to stay off the internet though as that is by far my biggest time suck. I'm going to see how it goes with writing the dissertation and working, but I might impose some internet free days each week if I fall into the internet procrastination trap again.

Me lately

Today I got a job! Woo! It is at a bakery/coffee shop and I will serve up the food to the customers and make their tasty coffee drinks. Finally, my dream came true and I was offered the job at the interview. We were chatting and then the manager said, "I'd like you to start training next week." I am sure I did a double take as I didn't believe I heard him right, but it was true! I am scared to cancel my other job interviews, though, as what if something happens to this one? It is a big relief to have some employment, even though it is only $8.25/hr. At least I have an idea of what I will have to work with. If my financial aid ever comes through I might be all set.

Tonight I am going to watch the Oscars at a friend's. I've got my and Melinda's predictions all printed out and ready to go, so we can see who rules the Oscars this year. She always sneaks up on me by predicting the best short animated film and such.

Also, dude, what rock am I living under that I didn't know The Amazing Race started? I am so sad! I missed the first episode, and tonight I must watch the Oscars. What I am I going to do about the conflict between it and Grease: You're the One that I Want? My life is so complex and I own no VCR.

Ooops. I forgot to post that I am going on a "media fast" starting Monday. No TV, movies, books, internets or podcasts for me during the week. It will be interesting. Anyway, I am not sure I post enough any way that you will notice, but I won't be reading and commenting on blogs either. I'll let you know how it went next weekend!

Books

10. Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver
This is a book of essays that was partially inspired by 9/11. A lot of them deal with how to live peacefully and lightly in the world and there are a few good nature ones as well. This was my second time reading this book. I really enjoy it, although not as much as Kingsolver's other book of essays, High Tide in Tucson. One of the essays inspired me to eat more local food, although perhaps February in New York was not the best time to start that experiment. Anyway, this is a great book and everyone should read it. There is an essay about evolution and the importance of genetic diversity, "A Fist in the Eye of God", which I would like to give to my biology students to read. Another essay that really stood out was "And Our Flag Was Still There"* which really powerfully speaks about how those of us Americans who want peaceful solutions to conflicts need to reclaim the flag as our own, realize we are in the majority in the world, and not let the anti-patriotic discourse get us down. Both of these essays exemplify why I like Kingsolver's writings. I feel like she speaks what I am thinking, but way more eloquently than I ever could.

*this version is shorter than the one in the book

my brain

Your Brain is Green

Of all the brain types, yours has the most balance. You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver. You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).

What Color Is Your Brain?

I actually think this is not very true. I am good at solving problems, and I often need time to work out my thoughts but I don't think much about relationships or philosophy, or even the future.

This is me procrastinating

I am sooooo tired of applying for jobs. I have a goal of applying for 5 every weekday. I got behind the last few days so now I need to do 11 today. But it is so boring. My friend Maggie says I am riding myself too hard, so maybe I don't need to do 5 a day? But who will pay the rent if I don't get a job? Ah well. Anyway, I have had two interviews recently. One is for like a real professional job in event planning. It would be cool as I would make $18/hr. yippee! I felt like I was disappointing the interviewer with all my answers though. I also had an interview at a cafe in Chelsea which I think would be cool to work at, even though it only pays $8/hr plus tips. We will see. I am happy I am getting more interviews, as that means perhaps I will get a job one day.

Maggie and I saw Music and Lyrics yesterday. It was fun and about what I expected. But it was nice to have a movie deliver what it advertised. So it is recommended if you want a regular cute chick flick. After it we had coffee and split a cupcake with sooooo much frosting. It was out of control with the frosting. I think there was more frosting than cupcake.

Yesterday I also mystery shopped for the first time! Someone recommended it to me as a way to make money in grad school, so I signed up with the only non scam site I found. It was pretty cool. I went to a store, bought something and returned it, and then filled out a questionnaire about it. I should get $40 for it. It would be better if the store were closer to me, but I got to hang out around 5th Ave all day so it was cool. It got me out of the apartment. My dream is to mystery shop some restaurants and get the meal paid for.

Books!

6. Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl
This is a memoir about the first 30 or so years of the author's life. She later becomes food critic of the New York Times, and the editor of Gourmet. In this book, she learns to cook as a child and then grows up through hippie times in the 60's and 70's and continues her love of food. I really liked this book, the author's voice is really engaging and her story is very interesting. I'm looking forward to the other memoirs she wrote about her later years (although I think Laura didn't like some of the others as much?).

7. Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
Funny funny Discworld book about a woman who disguises herself as a boy to join the army and look for her brother. Many surprises and hi jinks ensue. Very entertaining. You basically can never go wrong with Terry Pratchett.

8. Writing Your Doctoral Dissertation: Invisible Rules for Success by Rita S. Brause
This book was not so good. I think it was too clinical and removed for me. Also, I am so cynical about grad school now that it was also too optimistic. She had way too much about how writing your dissertation is a fabulous experience and you should take time and enjoy it. Blah, I say! Anyway, this might be useful for someone just starting grad school, to get an idea of what a PhD program is like, but it had little to offer someone like me who needs motivation and tips on the actual dissertation writing.

9. La Villa by Francine Pascal
OK, I got this book from the library solely because the name Francine Pascal, creator of the lovely Sweet Valley High series, leaped out at me. Francine, Francine, you let me down so. The book is not even fun trashy, it is just bad. A woman is sad because her husband died, she moves to France, blah blah blah. I don't recommend this, unless you just really want to read something by Francine Pascal. Actually, if that is the case I recommend you re-read the Sweet Valley High books.

Help!

Help me out, people I went to college with.

What was the actual name of "vegan crack"? Remember, the chocolate-mint frozen vegan shake thing in the foil pouch? It is driving me crazy.

Books!

3. The Old Comtemptibles by Martha Grimes
This is part of a mystery series all set in England. What can I say, I love books about the English police. This series is neat too, as each book is named after an actual pub. This one was pretty good, although the main character of the series was not in it too much, the secondary characters are really engaging so it was all ok.

4. Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes A Day by Joan Bolker
I love this book, and have become somewhat obsessed with it. It really spoke to me and gave me a lot of hope that I can finish my dissertation one day. I think the best thing about it is that the author thinks of writing as part of the thinking process, and says it is supposed to be messy. She tries to help the reader embrace that early messiness so one can come up with a really powerful end product. I haven't stuck with all her techniques so far, but I find them really valuable and will most likely buy this book so I can keep referring to it as I write.

5. A Primate's Memoir by Robert Sapolsky
This book is so so so good! This was my 2nd reading of it. The book is the story of Sapolsky as he lives with and studies baboons over 20 years. He has amazing description of Africa and he really captures what it is like to do field research with primates. So many times during the book I was nodding in agreement. He also has a great sense of humor. Be warned, there is some very sad stuff at the end, but it makes the book that much more powerful.

God wouldn't let us destroy the earth

Via Pharyngula I read this post about how a weatherman is saying there can't be global warming because God just wouldn't allow it. Yikes! Luckily, he's just a weatherman in Kentucky, so I'm not too worried it is a super widespread belief....

New York weekend

Laura asked to hear more about living in New York, so here is some. Don't worry, Shannon! I will write about bread making soon as well!

Anyway, this weekend R and I went to see Bodies: The Exhbition. This is one of those exhibitions where actual human bodies are dissected in interesting ways and we can see how all the muscles and organs work. It was pretty cool, but R and I were a little underwhelmed as it wasn't totally amazing, as we had heard. We decided you can only look at so many muscles. There was a cool part that just showed the circulatory system. They injected a polymer into the system, it hardened into plastic, and then they dissolved the rest of the body away. It left behind these really beautiful and feathery structures. We also really liked the embryo/fetus room. Especially the embryos. I find it amazing to think about how we were all little single celled things once, and now look at us! R wanted to see more diseases, and I would have liked more organs systems. Organs are cooler to me than muscles.

So that was fun, although it took us a million years to get there. It was located on the A train, which we also live on. So at first you think, hey! No prob! The prob is we are impatient and the museum is pretty much on the exact opposite end of Manhattan from us. Usually the A runs express for quite a bit, so it is fast, but it has not been doing so lately due to construction on the C. Anyway, we get on the A, then remember we have to switch anyway to another A, because of other construction. We decide to outsmart the system and instead switch to the 1, which we will then take to the 2 or the 3 as one of them is allegedly express (isn't this fun to talk about?). We attempt this, get off the 1 to go to the 2 or 3 and find a sign that says no! The 2 and 3 are not running where we want to go. Then there is a very confusing sign saying something about the 5 running on the 2 but only as far as blah-de blah, but then we can take the 6 to the P to the Q or something ridiculous. We finally ascertained that the only train going to our destination was the A, so we got back on the 1, then back on the A, and finally arrived. Whew. On the way back we learned our lesson and just sat on the A the whole way. No problemo.

This discussion of subways is what, to me, makes NYC so unique. People like to talk about New York being special in lots of ways, but to me it is mostly just big. I am not enthralled by its 'specialness'. But the subway conversations are awesome! Nearly every time I am out the evening ends with "OK, I'll see you later, is the 2 near here?" "You can get the 2 at 32nd Street, but why don't you take the 9 to the 2?" "I don't like the 9, but can't I get the G at 30th and take that to the P to the 2?" "No, the P is not running this week, but you could take the J to the L." I love it! It is hilarious! I also overhear conversations like that all the time, and I think in depth discussions of the merits of different subway lines will always be New York to me.

Map

my accent

I think this is correct. Impressive for such a short little quiz.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The Inland North
Boston
North Central
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

hmmm... some little red bars are not showing up, but I don't know why.

Garlic-Potato Soup

Here is the recipe for super tasty Garlic-Potato Soup, from the March/April 2007 Cook's Illustrated.

Garlic-Potato Soup
(Serves 6 as a main course) -- R and I ate leftovers for days.
3 tbs unsalted butter
1 medium leek, white and light green parts, chopped small (about 1 cup)
3 medium garlic cloves, minced. Plus 2 whole heads garlic, rinsed, outer papery skins removed and top 1/3rd of heads cut off and discarded.
6 cups chicken or veggie broth plus 1 cup to thin soup, if needed
2 bay leaves
salt
1.5 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 pound Red Bliss potatoes (unpeeled) cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup heavy cream
1.5 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves
black pepper
1/4 c minced fresh chives
Garlic chips (recipe follows)

1. Melt butter in Dutch oven over medium high heat. When foaming subsides, add leeks and cook until soft (do not brown), 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add garlic heads, broth, bay leaves, and 3/4 tsp salt; partially cover pot and bring to simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until garlic is very tender when pierced with tip of knife, 30to 40 minutes. Add potatoes and continue to simmer, partially covered, until potatoes are tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
2. Discard bay leaves. Remove garlic heads; using tongs or paper towels, squeeze garlic heads at root end until cloves slip out of their skins. Using a fork, mash the garlic to a smooth paste in a bowl.
3. Stir cream, thyme, and half of mashed garlic into soup; heat soup until hot about two minutes. Taste soup; add remaining garlic paste if desired. Using immersion blender, process soup until creamy, with some potato chunks remaining. Alternatively, transfer 1 1/2 cups potatoes and one cup broth to blender or food processor and process until smooth. (Process more potatoes for thicker consistency) Return puree to pot and stir to combine, adjusting consistency with more broth if necessary. Season with salt and pepper and serve, sprinkling each portion with chives and garlic chips.

Garlic Chips
3 tbs olive oil
6 medium garlic cloves, sliced thin lengthwise
salt

Heat oil and garlic in 10 inch skillet over medium-high heat. Cook, turning frequently until light golden brown, about 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer garlic to plate lined with paper towels; discard oil. Sprinkle lightly with salt.

Yum yum! R and I made the soup pretty thick and we didn't use all the garlic head paste. The leftovers were really good, and did not get more garlicky. We feared the garlic would be overpowering after sitting in the fridge, but it was not at all.

Tidbits

I just spent all day sending CVs to EVERYWHERE in NYC. Everywhere that may even briefly think about hiring adjunct professors for the summer, that is. Whew. It tired me out and now I want to rest, but I still have many other things to do today. I may need a little break, though, or my brain might fall out.

My Office Supply Store is refusing to call me back. R thinks they are either so disorganized that they can't manage to call, or they don't want to hire me and are too scared to say so. It will be a sad day when I am rejected as a cashier at the Office Supply Store. Oh well. I had my teaching audition for the Test Prep Place. It went really well and improved my spirits greatly! It was so nice to be doing something I am good at. I am good at talking in front of people and teaching them things. I really hope they accept me and move me on to the next step which may be re-taking many standardized tests. Or I might get lucky and go right to the training because of my faboo teaching skills and good GRE scores. We will see. Anyway, my success with my 5 minute audition has reminded me that I am not a total failure. So that is good.

I think that is all for now. Next post will be the Garlic-Potato soup, just because I love Melinda so much.

Stagnant Drink

Someone found my blog by searching for the words in the title of this post. How interesting!

I need some motivation. I had my THIRD interview at Office Supply Store today. They are kinda out of control. They are supposed to let me know if I am hired by the end of the day, so that will be good to know. But I don't want to do any work as I am sad about money. Tomorrow night I have a teaching "audition" at one of those standardized test prep places, so I should get to work on that now.

Stuff

I might try to start posting every Sunday, so at least I'll write something once a week. I have still not gotten back the blogging habit.

So here's what's been going on in Monkeygirl land. Right now I am beset by money troubles. My university screwed me over, as is its wont. Basically, they said I could have this loan and now all of a sudden they said I cannot, leaving me missing a large part of my expected income. I can't get another loan to replace the missing one, as I am not a half time student and I do not have a job. I decided to drop down to part time to save tuition money, but it has brought so many problems that from now on I think it is worth it for me to be half time for the rest of the time I am in school.

Which may not be as long as I had feared. I'm going to send some stuff to my committee mid-March and go visit them in the beginning of April. I plan to have a ton written by then, but not to be emotionally attached to it as it will most likely be ripped apart. So we will see how that all goes.

However I still need a part-time job. It is so hard to find one! The closest I am getting now is as a cashier at a Large Office Supply Store. But it pays nearly minimum wage which is sad. I registered with a new temp agency -- we'll see if they call me more than the other one I have been registered with.

I have been having a lovely time listening to podcasts on the subway. I went to Brooklyn a zillion times this week and it was great to listen to Science Friday, NPR:Food and MuggleCast as I rode the trains.

R and I have been doing pretty well with cooking. We made Garlic-Potato soup with a beer-cheese bread on Friday and it was all very tasty. Tonight we are having a butternut squash mac and cheese.

I have some more books to post about, and pictures of food but now I think I should nap.

Project Spectrum

So I'm doing Project Spectrum again this year. As there are now three colors for every month, I'm going to try and really craft something in those colors, instead of just taking pictures like I did last year. My mom gave me this white yarn for Christmas, so my plan is to make a hat out of it for February. I hear eyelash yarn will be a pain to work with, but I will soldier on. I want a feathery white hat! Maybe I should buy some regular yarn and double strand it?

I haven't planned further than February, but I need to get back into my crocheting, so hopefully this will help.

Now I need to get back to work. I am making myself work 40 hours a week and recording how many hours I work each day. So far I am at 10 minutes for today, and that was all reading at line in the post office. I was on the phone with my school for a long time, as they are screwing me over with my loans. Should I count that as work?

Books! 2007

OK, I'm getting myself organized. I think I really need to get a schedule in order to get all my dissertation writing, crocheting, reading and blog posting done. My getting back in the saddle with Book Challenge posting with totally make me post more. I know you all love my book reviews.

For 2006 I read at least 90 books. I was not quite as meticulous. This large amount of books can be attributed to being in the jungle where there is no TV or restaurants, or too many cool people to talk to, combined with the fact that my research involved long stretched of sitting around. So don't feel bad. I am not going to post a list of all the books I read because it would be way too much typing -- they are mostly all written in my journal though.

This will be the inaugural post of the book challenge for 2007! This is the third year for me, and I think that for me, the point is not to read 50 books, but to post about every book I read. I am a super fast reader, but that can sometimes translate into inattentive reading. I find that even posting a few sentences about each book helps me remember them more, and I think I get more out of them that way.

That said, I am starting out slow! It is already January 28 and I've only finished two books this year! I do have a third I am almost finished and a 4th I took a break from and will get back into. I have high hopes for the subway reading though.

1. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
I loved this book, as I love all Murakami. His books are often weird, and there is something about his voice, even in translation, that is really unique. So this is the story of a runaway teenager, some talking cats, and some other stuff. It is hard to describe. The weirdness in this book was a little more disturbing than in his other books, so it was not my favorite because of that, but still an excellent read.

2. Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson
I discovered this mystery series the first time I was in Suriname, in 2000. They are all about a caterer in Colorado who solves mysteries, and they include recipes! I really enjoy the combo of mysteries and food, so they are a good fluffy read for me.

sniffy sniffy

R and I have both had colds. It is sad around here, and we are going through Kleenex like crazy. I took a sick day yesterday which means I just sent resumes to 3 places and did nothing else. It also means I am not allowed to feel guilty for not doing anything else. I really couldn't leave the couch though.

Today I had to trek all the way downtown to see my advisor who is visiting on unrelated to me matters. We finished up earlier than I expected so then I trekked all the way back here so I could grab a nap, and then I am heading out again later for a talk. whew. OK, I am off to nap now.

Sapphire Bullets of Pure Random

As you can probably see, I am having a hard time getting back into the blogging habit. I am going to try to find at least one day I week where I always post. So here are some bullet points for you:

• I had a meeting today at a local college and I'm going to teach there in the fall!! I get to totally make my own class up. It is going to be cool. Well, I get to teach there as long as the course gets approval and we can get at least 10 students to sign up. I am excited, though! I have to think of a catchy title for it and write a blurb.
• We made minestrone soup last night and it was taaasty.
• I also made wheat bread in the new breadmaker, but it is not that good. The wheat bread is giving me problems. It was too wet the first time, and this loaf is too dry, although edible.
• I feel like I got nothing done today and I am tired so I don't want to work more. But I guess getting a class for the fall was something so I should be proud.
• R made white chocolate dessert souffles last weekend. They were tasty and beautiful. I will post pics soon I hope.
• It has finally become winter. I enjoy it greatly.
• One of the best things about NYC, especially for a fast-metabolism girl like me, is that you are almost always near somewhere that sells food!
• I hate health care in the US for many many reasons, some of which I plan to write about some day.
  
• I want to make Parker House Rolls tonight, but it is looking doubtful that I will want to leave the house to get more flour. Hmmmm....

The Champion

Yes! My strange ability to predict winners in TV categories has made me the winner of the beautiful Goose. I am so happy to not have to send her away.

Tonight!

Tonight is the Golden Globes, one of the best nights of the year. Melinda and I have had a long running competition over who can pick the most winners. This year, Laura will be joining us. Here is the coveted Golden Globes Goose, for whom we compete. I love the goose so much that I am sure I will overcome my handicap of spending the last 6 months in the jungle with no TV or movies and emerge the victor!

Organized paradise

Our Ikea trip was so successful! It was a convoluted journey, as we took a bus to the Ikea which is in New Jersey. Then we shopped shopped shopped and got the bookcase, a full length mirror, a stool for the kitchen, and various little kitchen things. Then we rented a cargo van from Enterprise, drove to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought my bread machine! woo! Then we drove back to Manhattan and to Target where we got various other things and finally drove back home where we unloaded everything then got back in the van, drove back to Ikea, and took the bus back home. whew. Once we were home I ran out for bread making ingredients while R started furniture assembly. The furniture assembly went smoothly and the bread came out good. So all is going swimmingly in the monkeygirl world. Yay.

Now that we have the second big bookshelf I will be transforming a corner of the bedroom into an organized dissertation writing paradise. I also got a little document holder, a pink desk lamp, a white board and a stability ball to help me to this goal. The stability ball is to sit on instead of a chair. I find it way more comfortable, and it builds my core strength.

Also today I am finally getting a hair cut and doing laundry. The hair is just way too long.

Resolutions

I told some friends a few days ago that I had no New Year's resolutions, but then I realized I had lied. I did make one -- to call my brothers more (or at all).

I have two younger brothers who are 2 and 4 years younger than me. As small kids we were really close, playing together all the time. We made villages with our stuffed animals and arranged them all over the house in little family groups. We also loved playing store and hauled out all the canned goods, wrote prices on them, and arranged them around the house. My mom loved having 3 kids so close in age and talks about how she would take us all on errands when we were 6 and under, and how all the cashiers would be amazed we were all hers. As we got older, my brothers came to annoy me more and more, and I am sure they would say the same about me. I got to like them more when they hit high school, then I went to college as did they and we drifted apart more. Now my brothers both live kinda near each other, and kinda near my parents in the Midwest while I am over here on the east coast. I talk to my parents often and they fill me in on my brothers' lives, but I rarely talk to them myself, unless we all happen to be in the same place for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Anyway, I realized it is important to me to have relationships with my brothers as adults, so I'm going to try and call them each 2x a month. I think that should be good and hopefully we'll have stuff to talk about.

Random updates

We have returned to NYC from our tour of the Midwest. Much fun was had and many friends and family were seen. Highlights were my parents at the airport with Santa hats, Vietnamese food with a bunch of friends, driving to Iowa, Dairy Queen in Minnesota, New Year's Eve trivial pursuit, a pug dog and a baby in a Surinamese costume. Awesome.

R got money for an Ikea bookshelf for Christmas, so we have a journey to New Jersey planned for Wednesday. Billy bookcase here we come! When we moved to New York we went from a 1200 square foot apartment to a 600 square foot one. We are having some serious organizational problems to say the least and this bookshelf will save our lives. We're also going to look for some cheap housewares. Love the Ikea kitchen section!

The other good Christmas gift was money for a bread machine from R's entire family. I am so excited! We are going to eat tasty fresh bread ALL THE TIME. So I am now searching for the perfect machine. What bread machines do you guys have, and how do you like them? Any recommendations?

This upcoming week is going to be some recovery from the trip, plus shopping. I also need to write a new proposal for my dissertation as my methods changed, but that is mostly done so it shouldn't be a problem. I also might work a few days for the temp agency, get a hair cut and organize the rest of my life. I have been on the go so much since I got back, and have not had much time to explore New York, so that will be good to do this week.

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas and Happy Happy New Year to all! R and I are off for our annual tour of the Midwest -- 4 states in 2 weeks. It will be great. We're going to see my parents and brothers, R's parents and grandparents and many friends including Melinda, Laura, and many others who do not have blogs but are still fabulous people. :)

Today I had a long but good day. I woke up early and went and had an interview at a temp agency. They loved me and my mad Excel skillz so I should be able to make the rent each month. woo! Afterwards R and I met a friend for lunch and then did some Christmas shopping. We spent way too much time in Kmart and then nearly got trapped in Macy's, land of the never-ending escalators. After all that we walked around looking at window displays and finally saw the tree and Rockefeller Center. It was a great time and now I'm ready to head off for the Christmas celebratin'.

oooh! Also, there's a building near Rockefeller Center where there are big Christmas light snowflakes and they blink in time to Mannheim Steamroller Christmas songs. Awesome!

random chit chat

R finished his last paper! Now he can frolic with me. Fun fun. Saturday we are heading out for our 3rd annual Christmas tour of the Midwest. Listen to radio stations near you for concert dates.
In the meantime, I have been super productive. I applied for a loan to pay the rent while I write the dissertation. I've also applied for a bunch of part time jobs and have an interview with a temp agency tomorrow, so we should not starve. We did have a brief freak out the other day about why *exactly* we decided to move to New York as two grad students with no income. But now I'm feeling optimistic again. I also got most of my health insurance application filled out and am now about to organize pictures to bring with us on the road. I'll have some pictures up for you blog readers before long as well.

So that's all my excitement. Oh, there are no stories from the DMV. It was very efficient and quick, except I don't get the actual license for three weeks. Until then I have a temporary one. Both Florida and Missouri can give out real licenses immediately. What's up with that, New York?

more NYC and maintenance

Today my big project is to go to the DMV and get a new driver's license. I am having some serious health insurance getting issues and am going to apply for Healthy New York which needs a driver's license from me. I am not 100% sure I am eligible, but it is worth a try. Health insurance SUCKS. Maybe I'll have some good DMV stories for you later.

I also moved to Blogger beta, so if you are reading on bloglines you might need to update the feed.

NYC

Howdy ho all!

I am trying hard toget my stuff together to post a lovely summary of what all happened to me in Suriname, but it is hard. Right now I am pretty overwhelmed with figuring out my life and how I am going to make my half of the rent plus tuition.

Also I am all getting used to New York, so I have that whole adventure to process. I love it here so far and I can even travel around on the subways by myself as well as someone tells me which trains to take! We live on the far north end of Manhattan and to our east is a very Latino neighborhood. I walked around exploring it yesterday, and bought some $2 jeans. Also in our 'hood we have several Dunkin' Donuts, grocery stores, and lots of restaurants. There is so much going on.

Last night I saw Stranger Than Fiction with some friends. I really liked the movie, and on the way home I learned an important subway lesson. The lesson is: if there is a full car next to an empty car on the train, there is probably a reason that one car is empty. I hopped on to this empty car, proud of my cleverness, until I noticed the horrendous stench. Indeed, some poor man was ejecting some sort of bodily fluids and smelled sooooo bad. About 8 of us had gotten in this car and we all kind of huddled in a corner until we finally got to the next stop and could flee. So that was my first important subway lesson. It also reminded me of how fun it is to live in a big city and bond with strangers over incidents like this. All of us in the car were brought closer together. It was really beautiful, except that it was disgusting.

Returned!

Hey everyone!

Here I am back in the US and in my New York apartment! Things are good, I got a ton of data, I love my new apartment, the cats don't hate me. Watch this space for some photos and more stories of Suriname. As a quick preview: I changed my methods at the last minute, saw a jaguar, and got a botfly. Also I lost about 20 pounds. Good times!

Hello from Suriname!

Blog post from Suriname!

So here is my first post from Suriname! I had a long, tiring journey here and have had a long, productive, and now boring time in the city. I can’t get out to my site until Tuesday, as this has been one of the wettest rainy seasons ever, and the airstrip out in the interior was too wet to go last week. I really hope the trip won’t get pushed back more, as the city is getting expensive and boring.

My journey here began when R and I left the house at 5am last Sunday. We drove to the airport where I paid $50 for one of my bags being overweight. Then I got on the plane and flew to Miami where I had to get my heavy bags and drag them to the BWIA desk, which was not open yet. So I hung around reading, then was able to get my bags checked for the next flight. I had a lot of time in the Miami airport so I had lunch, read and puttered around. Finally we boarded the plane. I was a little worried, as no other flights were boarding due to weather conditions, but we all hopped on, and then sat on the runway for 2 hours as we waited for the rain to stop. Finally we headed to Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. There I had to stand in a line to transfer to the next plane. Once I was at that gate, the flight kept getting later and later due to “mechanical issues”. I was so tired by now, I tried to sleep a little on the airport chairs, but they were too far apart to really stretch out on. Finally we took off, and got to Paramaribo at about 4 am.

I got through all the immigration, and went out to the bunch of taxi drivers. I expected to have someone there to pick me up, but it became obvious no one was around. Luckily I had the person’s cell phone number so I borrowed a phone and called. It turns out she never got my email saying I was coming! It was ok, though, and she told me what bus to take and what hotel would take me at 4 am. So I got on the bus, and waited a really long time more as the driver tried to get as many people as he could to take the ride. Finally we left and I got to my guesthouse at 5:30 am. It was run by an older lady, who was very nice and told me to go right to sleep and we would do business in the morning.

So that was my exciting arrival on Monday morning. Since then I have been running around doing errands – I had some meetings with local agencies who are collaborating on my project, and those were really good and made me happy I chose this project. Having meetings like these, and working with the local organizations in order to do research that can be applied for management plans and conservation is exactly why I went to grad school. So after years of classes and sometimes doing stuff I wasn’t really invested in, this taste of actually doing what I want was great, and made me excited to do my research. It was like everything I didn’t like about being in school for the last 4 years was worth it to get to here. Hopefully I’ll keep feeling this way for awhile.

In the midst of all my errands I got sunburned from walking around here, 3 degrees above the equator. I think it was Tuesday that I really got overheated, so since then I have been being extra careful with the sunscreen, and trying to stay in my air conditioned room as much as possible and go out later in the day and walk less. I never got any grants, so I am concerned about cash flow but I decided not dying of heat stroke was better than saving a few dollars, so I also took some cabs on sunny days.

It has been interesting how much I am remembering from when I was here before, more than 5 years ago. Almost everything is the same, except there is way more traffic. The gridlock is terrible. I took a cab to a place that would take me about 20 minutes to walk to, and the cab ride took longer than that because we sat still for so long. But when I start to walk around, I find my feet remember how to get to the Post Office, the Bank, the Chinese Restaurant, etc. It is pretty cool.

As the week has gone on the errands and appointments tapered off, so now I am getting a little bored, and a little lonely. When I was here before I was never in the city alone, and the people I do know here now are out of town. I go to the internet café quite a bit (an hour for about $1.50 US!) and I think they recognize me now. As today is Saturday, there were a lot of people out in the morning shopping, and I joined them for awhile, doing some window shopping and walking around enjoying the overcast sky (it has rained a ton the last two nights). I am being productive and working on fleshing out my methods, I think I will even make a little data entry test file on excel, but I can’t wait until Tuesday when I can finally get to the forest!

That is my first dispatch, blogging from Suriname. There is some bad news, that the future of the internet connection at my site is uncertain, so you may not get any more of these until December. We will see, though, often things work out at the last minute.

Blogging for LGBT families day

Today is blogging for LGBT families day. I had scattered thoughts, but couldn't get them together to post. However, Shannon at Peter's Cross Station wrote the post I wish I could have.... go read it!

Leaving on a jet plane + geography lesson

Hey! I'm leaving Sunday for my field research! yay! So excited. I got the tickets changed Tuesday, and it only cost me $165. I was soooo scared it was going to cost more. So, soon I hope to post tales of adventure from yon jungle.

Also, because of the upcoming trip and my love of edumacation, I have decided to not be coy about where I do research, even though it will chip away at my anonymity a little.

I'll be in Suriname which is in northeastern South America and used to be called Dutch Guiana. It is a small country, about the size of Georgia, and with a population of about 300,000 people. We study monkeys in the little-populated interior, and where we are they are actually very few people at all. Thus, we can do thinks like drink straight out of the river (as long as it is running! Never drink stagnant water!). Suriname is a very interesting country. It is in South America, but the official language is Dutch, and it is less like a Latin American country than a mix of Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. A large portion of the population are descendents of escaped slaves, who ran off from the Dutch and lived in the interior for many years, living similarly to how they lived in Africa. When I was there before I worked with a woman who had been in West Africa for a few years, and the houses and customs of parts of the interior really reminded her of Africa. Religion-wise, it is 1/3 Christian, 1/3 Muslim and 1/3 Hindu, and I think there is a spot with a mosque next to a church next to a Hindu temple. It is really a fascinating mix of those colonized by the Dutch, with a few people of Dutch extraction thrown in.

Anyway, I was there for a year, 6 years ago, and I am interested to see how it is the same and what has changed. I have been trying to freshen up my Sranan Tongo which is the local language and is a Creole. I think I can get around pretty well, although most people speak English. Suriname is so unique in a lot of ways, that I felt my descriptions of it would lose a lot if I tried to be circumspect. So read the Wikipedia article and get some edumacation! Then, you won't ask if it is in Africa, or near Vietnam, which is what most people think. It can also help you in trivia games!

Books

36. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
37. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
38. Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
A big run of Barbara Kingsolver books! I love her writing, and I love all these books. They were re-reads for me. The Poisonwood Bible is my favorite. It is just an amazing book. It is one of those books for which a simple description of what it is about, doesn't really capture what it is 'about', you know? Prodigal Summer is the same way and is my second favorite of Kingsolver's books. Pigs in Heaven is the final book in a a series, and I love the whole series and the characters, but they seem lighter to me in a way, and don't knock me on my ass like the first two books.

Anyway, Barbara Kingsolver is great and you should read all her books all the time.

39. Local Girls by Alice Hoffman
So I'm basically re-reading books I love, and then going through our pile of books to give away and reading some of those. This one is to give away and still is, because I didn't really like it. This is kind of a collection of short stories, all dealing with a girl growing up on Long Island. Her parents get divorced, her mom gets sick, her brother becomes a drug addict. At first I thought it would be ok, but I found the reading of a bunch of disconnected stories that moved chronologically through one character's life kind of disconcerting. The stories were not really connected, in that each could stand alone, but they also changed person which was hard for me to adjust to. Anyway, this was an ok book, but not my favorite.

40. Notes From a Big Country by Bill Bryson
This is a book it may be hard for Americans to get, as it did not pop up from my Librarything search in US Amazon/libraries. I think R bought it in Heathrow years ago. Anyway, it is a collection of columns Bryson wrote for an English paper. He lived in England for twenty years, basically his whole adult life, and then moved back to the US with his family. In these columns he writes humorously about American life, and how it has changed since he was growing up in Des Moines. Parts of it are really amusing but parts of it were kind of stupid, and it is a little dated in some ways with discussions of technology, but it was overall a pretty amusing book. Bryson has much better books, though, so I would stick to those.

"I" meme

I saw this at Marigoldie. While I should be cleaning the dining room, I am instead going to write this, as the meme really spoke to me for some reason.

I AM: happy
I WANT: to finish my dissertation
I WISH: I could always be near all my friends and family
I HATE: waiting
I MISS: snow
I HEAR: embarrassingly, Days of Our Lives, which more embarrassingly, I DVR-ed (now there are no secrets between you and I, blog readers).
I WONDER: how it is all going to work out. How cool will R and I be in 10 years? In 20? How much will I have taken the world by storm?
I REGRET: very little
I AM NOT: boring
I DANCE: at 80's night once in a blue moon, and merengue with R at weddings
I SING: Alone, in the car, to women folk singers
I CRY: more than you would think
I AM NOT ALWAYS: cheery
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: I recently realized this is really important to me. When I don't do it, I get all out of whack. I make crocheted things, beaded things, decorated t-shirts and pipe cleaner flowers for my mom on Mother's Day.
I WRITE: on the internets. I should write more for school, but I am having some self-doubt issues with that right now.
I CONFUSE: The letters g and j. Sometimes my family.
I NEED: people! and a little money would be nice
I SHOULD: clean the dining room
I START: lots of things
I FINISH: a small proportion of the above

Pie!

would you like some pie? This is a slice of the apple pie R and I made a few weekends ago. yum yum.

Cured!

Just a quick post to say -- I am cured! I saw the doctor today, he ripped off my bandage in one fell swoop revealing the tiniest little incision ever. It should really barely scar, and it was cleverly made in one of my neck wrinkles, so as to be unnoticeable. It is still a little swollen and red, and R says in a way it is more noticeable now, as people can clearly see I had something done to my neck, but that is fine.

The doctor said I should never have to think about my thyroid again, or have any troubles from it. He also said it was normal to be tired as "surgery takes the wind out of your sails". So. I am going to keep resting until Tuesday, and then call the travel agent and get me some new tickets! woot!

Thanks for your comments, calls, and emails when I was feeling down. I have been feeling really good today; I think the doctor visit was a big morale booster.

one step forward, two steps back

I was getting better so steadily! The first few days after the surgery I was tired and out of it, but everything was improvement. Sunday I became tired of being weak. It is not my normal state. I don't lay around the house all day in pajamas. Ok, sometimes I do, but it is not because that is all I have energy for, it is a choice. I am still tired, and on Sunday developed a rash on my neck, and reached my 4th day of not pooping (Here, I must thank Dooce for giving me the courage to post about pooping for all the internets). Suckage! Yesterday I went to lunch with an old grad student in my lab, and a future one who is fresh from the jungle. It was very fun, but I was sad as I was really not totally myself -- I was tired, and I know I was quieter than usual. After that I took a 2.5 hour nap, and then went to dinner at my advisor's with R and the two aforementioned students. It was very fun, but I only lasted a little over an hour, then came home, managed to watch the Apprentice and then passed out at 10. Today I have been totally exhausted and while I showered, I did not get out of my pjs. I think my two outings of yesterday did me in. And I am pooping again, but medically induced pooping is not fun, not like regular pooping.

Anyway, just wanted to whine. I am not a good patient, I am not very good at waiting to get better. I have to keep reminding myself I had freaking surgery, and shouldn't be ready to run a marathon after a few days. On the bright side, my invalid state is allowing me to site here on the couch and watch a fine Lifetime movie: Moment of Truth: A Child Too Many. Movies about surrogate mothers rule!

Recovery

The recovery continues! I am taking the pain meds less, and getting up and about more. Today I put on real clothes and my contacts. R and I also went out to Radio Shack and the grocery store. Excitement! After all that I needed an hour nap to recover, though. I am eating regular food now, so that is good. I think I will be back to my old self in no time.

Still kickin'

So I had my surgery on Wednesday and lost half the thyroid. Now I am home, enjoying the painkillers and certified to have no cancer! It was just a crazy growth. I see the doctor again Wednesday, and he will let me know when I will be ready to go to the field. Yay! So happy.

This post is dedicated to Melinda, who wanted me to post while drugged, but I am afraid I don't feel like my true incoherency is coming through. I have composed a bunch of posts in my head in my half drowsy state though, I had some good ones about marriage, health care and probably others. I am brilliant to myself when drugged!

Thyroid and crochet

Hey! My thyroid surgery is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. yay! I am very excited it is so soon. Also, it is outpatient surgery, I will be home that night, and after my follow up exam a week later, I should be cleared for travel! So this could put my research back only a month. I am so relieved that this is getting done so quickly. Of course, the small chance that the growth will be found to malignant is lurking, but it is only a 10% chance, so I will not worry myself about it for now.

Now you can admire the shawl!

Tidbits

I just got Henrietta microchipped. Now she cannot escape us! It reminded me I need to find the paperwork for Pass's microchip as well, since I do not know how to change our address with that company. Henrietta yowled a lot in the car to the Humane Society, but was good once we got there. I think she enjoyed all the smells. On the way home I opened the window of the car and she sat there in the carrier with her eyes all big and her nose all twitchy.

I have decided to use upcoming doctor waiting time to finish the second crochet sock. I am hoping it will go fast. I finally finished the shawl I was working on, and I was really pleased with it. I'll post pictures soon.

I cleaned my closet yesterday and am about to take 4 garbage bags of clothes and a box of shoes to Goodwill. Wow. I was ruthless. It looks like a different closet in their now.

R let me have his car today so it is errands errands errands. I also might buy some bulky weight yarn because I want to make my mom some quick pillows. I am trying to get rid of stuff before we move, but if I have a lot of down time with the surgery and doctor's and stuff, maybe I can get the pillows done? I'll have to see what Jo Ann's has in the way of big yarn, and then I will decide.

Oh yeah, I also updated the blog links in the side bar, so if you read and I skipped you, or if you are up there and you want to remain unknown, let me know and I will fix it.

oh where oh where has the diss research gone?

This is for the two of my readers who I do not know in real life, or who I do not communicate with through other internet means. You may have noticed that I was talking about heading imminently to the jungle for my doctoral research, and then all of a sudden I was posting book lists and cat pictures. Well, I was on the verge of getting on that plane for South America, when it was found I have a growth on my thyroid. Yes, my thyroid is misbehaving and growing extra parts it does not need. In the week and a half since this was found, I have had an ultrasound, appointments with two different doctors and a biopsy, all of which have now led me to the point of needing surgery to get that sucker out. It is probably not thyroid cancer, but so far no one can tell that for sure so they are going to yank it out and give a look. I have an appointment with the surgeon on Monday, and hopefully can get into the operating room pretty quickly after that.

I am not too worried about my health, as I feel better than ever. I have been eating right and exercising and haven't had a cold in forever. And even if I am unlucky, and it is thyroid cancer, I have been told numerous times that is the cancer to get, if one is going to get a cancer. I am hoping to avoid that, as 97-99% of these growths are not cancer and any cancer, even the best one, would not be fun. However, I am worried about my dissertation. I told my endocrinologist that every day I am here is a day I am not collecting data. He was impressed that I am so "hardcore", but I just want to graduate!

Anyway, that is why I am not regaling you with monkey stories right now. It seems like I will be at least a month late getting to the jungle. I am aiming for early June as my new departure date, but it will all depend on the surgery scheduling and what the little thyroid looks like when they can see it. I was pretty depressed for a few days, but some mac and cheese, Hershey's Special Dark and bocce with my friend Anna have really helped and I am in a much better place about it all now. I am trying to take advantage of this extra time with R and my Florida friends, and deciding if I should finish the second crochet sock, or make pillows for my mom's couch in her new house. Or maybe even finish cleaning up the master's for publication? Lots of people have been telling me to take this like a vacation, so that is what I am going to do until after the doctor on Monday, at least. R and I may even attempt both a watermelon AND a zucchini festival on Saturday...woo! We are party animals.

ABC Meme

ABC Meme, from many before me....

Accent: Maybe midwestern? I actually was once in an argument with someone who was sure I was Canadian because of my accent. They even accused me of lying about it.

Booze: Whiskey! I have a special love of Maker's Mark lately. Mmmmm... mint juleps.

Chore I Hate: There are so many! Mopping. I really hate that. And cleaning the toilet and tub.

Dogs/Cats: Two cats: Pass who is about 6 and Henrietta who is just over one. Both psycho and sometimes evil in their own ways....

Essential electronics: computer

Favorite perfume/cologne: None. No smelliness for me.

Gold/Silver: I like silver more.

Hometown: St. Louis, MO

Insomnia: rarely

Job Title: student

Kids: NOOOOO!!!

Living Arrangements: Fantabulous palatial apartment in low-cost-of-living, Florida with the boyfriend and the two cats. We also have a pool, a dishwasher, a garbage disposal and a balcony. I am trying to appreciate these things since soon me, the boyfriend and the cats will be in a 200 sq foot hovel in NYC.

Most Admired Trait: Many admire my self-confidence. Some think it verges on arrogance, but those people clearly suck. :)

Number of Sexual Partners: More than some, less than many.

Overnight Hospital Stays: none so far. Not even when I was born, as I was home when I was like 2 hours old. My parents were apparently hippies back then.

Phobias: Fish, although not sharks, which R thinks is weird. Sharks are misunderstood.

Quote: It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself.

Religion: none for me, thanks.

Siblings: Two younger brothers. One of whom is married and both of whom own houses!

Time I usually wake up: 8:30 when I have stuff to do, 10 when I let myself sleep with no alarm.

Unusual talent: I have the longest tongue in the world. Also I can say "Shit! It bit me!" in 6 languages.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: okra. It is so sliiiiimy.

Worst habit: Laziness, procrastination, bottling up my feelings inside.

X-rays: Teeth, and chest. The chest xray was to make sure I did not have TB, but found a cracked rib from coughing instead!

Yummy foods I make: Many! R and I are culinary geniuses. My fried rice with seitan is very tasty, and I bake many yummy varieties of cookies, muffins, biscuits and pies.

Zodiac Sign: Aries

Books

I haven't posted any books in a while so here is a catch-up.

32. Best American Short Stories 1994, edited by Tobias Wolf
I love these! R has a bunch and they never disappoint.

33. Best American Short Stories 2002, edited by Sue Miller

34. Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts
This is a very thoroughly researched and compelling book about the racism underlying the child welfare system in the US. Basically, Roberts discusses how black children are way more likely to be removed from their homes, and have their ties with their parents legally severed, than white children. She convincingly proves that this is because of racism, and not poverty or SES factors. I think this was a really important book to read, although I would have liked to see more from her about how to fix the problem.

35. The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate by Marjorie Williams
This book is a collection of essays by Marjorie Williams, a Vanity Fair and Washington Post write who covered Washington DC for many years, until her death from liver cancer. Many of the essays in the latter part of the book were totally amazing, and really stuck with me and I want to buy the book to read them again and again.

After dinner

Here was Henrietta after dinner tonight.

cat!

Okay, one more that I forgot in the last post. Here is Pass being super cute as he slept a few nights ago.

Pictures!

Here is some yellow and orange from my kitchen for Project Spectrum. fun fun! This month made me realize I have little yellow or orange in my life, but what I have is in the kitchen.



Here is the wrap I have been crocheting for three weeks. This was a while ago so it is wider now, although I am supposed to have it done tomorrow. I am not sure how that is going to work, especially as R and I decided it was somehow wrong for me to crochet during my students' exam on Monday.



Finally, here is a necklace I made as well, in a crafty fit. It was actually not that hard to make as I bought the pendant and then put it on some cord. whew. I love the pendant though. It is a leaf made of mother of pearl, I believe. I made two other necklaces which were presents. I gave one away but cannot post it as the other has not been sent to its new owner yet.

Otherwise, things are going. I am making daily lists now and crossing things off of them. Today I am cleaning out the dining room and buying some folders and stuff I will need to control my papers in the jungle. Last night my friend Anna had an awesome going away party for me with most of my favorite peeps and a cheesecake! And beer! It is getting more real that I am going and I am getting excited.

Diseased and end-of-semestered

I've got some pictures coming, I do I do. I had two appointments for tomorrow canceled, and my car seems to be selling, so I am using this kinda free moment for a blog update.

I got two shots today in preparation for my travels. Yellow fever vaccine went in the upper left arm, and typhoid went towards the back of the same arm. I am sore, and for awhile I was EXHAUSTED. I had to nap before the Amazing Race. It was only a 45 minute nap, but I slept hard. I was totally out. As the night want on, I recovered from both the yellow fever and typhoid, and now my arm is sore but I am good as new. It was cool to think about how my body thought it was defeating diseases, and hopefully making little memory cells which will protect me from yellow fever and typhoid in the future.

I taught my last class today. We still have class on Friday, but the students have a test so there is little work for me. I handed out the students' grades so far, so they can decide if they want to take an optional final. So many of them came up to ask how many points they needed for this or that grade, and I had the calculator out helping them do the math. It does help to be a little concerned about your grade BEFORE the last day of class, though. Some have grades they aren't happy with, and there is not much to be done about it now.

I could also tell it was the end of the semester as my little office pod which is normally like a ghost town was filled with students talking to the various professors, all figuring out how they could try to get a few more points right at the end.

Books

31. Me and Emma by Elizabeth Flock
This book is about a girl growing up abused in the south. Now, I don't want to sound rude, but I am very tired of books about girls growing up abused in the south. Amazon compares this book to Ellen Foster, which I know I read, but I can't remember if I liked it or not. I think I liked it more than this book, which was just boring to me. Also, there is a sort of 'twist' in this book that I figured out right away, and I NEVER figure out twists in books or movies. I'm always the surprised one. This book was not good.

Movin' right along

foot loose and fancy free.

That's right! R and I have decided we are moving to NYC! Even after watching me suffer through 4 years of grad school, he has decided to start his own adventure with post-graduate education. So he will move up there in August, wrangling the two cats and dealing with the moving and the apartment hunting. I'll go right there from the field in December, and hopefully commence part-time teaching to pay the rent while I write the dissertation. woo! It is all so exciting.

In other news, I have got my to-do list to a somewhat manageable size now. I finished two projects that were taking a lot of my time (contributions to a book, and a journal article) and now am down to having to pack, send out CVs for teaching jobs, finish two more weeks of teaching and grading, and maybe get one more paper cleaned up for submission. A lot of the to-do list reduction was helped by my parents sending me so many field supplies for my birthday, and my brothers sent me some binoculars which are fog-proof and awesome.

We also watched Wallace and Grommit and the Cure of the Were-Rabbit last night. That movie rules! It was sooooo funny.

Hopefully soon to come posts will include some more books, Project Spectrum, and something else I totally forgot just now.

Happy Easter!

Sea World

R and I went to Sea World on Saturday. It was R's Christmas present, as he loves the fishies. At first, as we were walking around, we thought it was mostly an overpriced zoo, and not that good of one as I have seen better animal exhbits at free zoos. But then we went to see the Shamu show and it was soooo awesome. It was really just a twenty minute chunk of a rehearsal for a new show, but is was still so cool. In parts, the smaller killer whale pushes the trainer around in the water, and jumps out with her kind of standing on the whale's nose and then the whale floats on her back and the trainer lays full length on top of her. It was pretty cool. And the whales are so big! We also saw the sea lion show which was funny and involved an otter with a sword, and the dolphin show where we finally got splashed.

Generally I disapprove of the animals in captivity, and the large sea mammals are especially bad because they travel such large distances in in the wild. When they are in captivity though, I think it is good to have them do shows or performances, as long as they are trained without harmful techniques, or made to do things that could hurt them. I think it can be a very good enrichment. I also got the feeling that the killer whales were big hams. They kept coming up to the underwater viewing window and looking at all the people.

The pictures are of one of the coolest animals we saw -- a sea dragon, which is closely related to the sea horse. The other is of the shark tunnel which was one of my favorite things. I love sharks!

Dugong!

Enjoy this song!

Although the biology teacher in me must add the disclaimer that dugongs are NOT manatees. They are in the same Order, but not the same Family.

Books

29. Love my Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the US Army by Kayla Williams
I first read about this book here. The link goes to an excellent blog, BTW, so check it out.

Like the subtitle says, this book is by a female soldier in the army, who serves in the most recent Iraq war. More than anything I have read, this book really made me understand why a young, educated woman might join the army, and how screwed up the military is. It seems obvious now, but before reading this book I really didn't think about how the army was organization like any other, and there would obviously be bad bosses in it, just like anywhere else. One of the anecdotes in the book really brought to me that while my bad boss in my job might piss me off, or cause something small to not happen, a bad boss in the army could cost you your life. Anyway, I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I felt like Williams's writing style really made me feel like she was just talking to friends about her experience, and really let me feel it with her. It was also very thought-provoking.

30. Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer
The third book of the Neanderthal parallax. I really liked some of the ways in which the characters developed in this one, and liked that the author put in a less-than rosy response to the finding of the Neanderthal world. Like the other books, this explores lots of interesting ideas about what it is to be human and I was sad it is the end of the series. I would like him to write more.

colors and catch up

Here's the last red and pink for Project Spectrum! I know it is April now and I should be on to yellow and orange, but too bad. These are red/pinks I found in the parking lot of my apartment complex. One is of the stylish red interior of my lovely Ford Tempo. It is looking like I am going to have to sell the Tempo soon -- I will miss its red interior.

As many of you may know, I am leaving in about a month for the lovely jungles of South America, where I will collect my dissertation data. I will be gone from May 5-December 11. What does this mean for you, my blog readers? I am going to try to keep updating once and awhile. Although we are in the jungle where no roads go, and can only be reached by a boat or airplane, we do have some access to the internets. I hope to be able to update from time to time and post pictures of the jungle excitement.

Because of the upcoming trip I have been soooo stressed. I have a ginormous list of things to do, vaccines to get, money to spend. I also need to pack up my stuff as it looks like R will move while I am gone, so to make it easy on him I need to pack up my clothes and books and craft stuff -- basically anything he won't use. I need to get organized and think harder about how I am going to collect my data, I have to finish up teaching my class, including grading a zillion more assignments AND I really want to get two papers submitted before I go. One I am only 4th author on, so the pressure is off me, but I am first author on the 2nd so it is all up to me to push that through. Whew. The amount of stuff I have to do mostly leaves me paralyzed, but I am determined to get a good start at crossing things off the list this week, except for the exhaustion caused by the stress.

With that, I will leave you with my new favorite infomercial product -- The Flavor Wave Deluxe!. If you see this infomercial -- stop! It is so worth it. You can cook frozen food RIGHT FROM THE FREEZER! Who has time to defrost? They even cook solid, cryogenically frozen food! It is amazing. The time lapse video of the food cooking really adds a lot to the experience as well.