tight pants

hi kids,

so...it took a few drinks for me to feel that the test was actually over. thanks to everyone who came to play on tuesday night. i have wonderful friends...so amazing. :)

i had a great weekend. definitely needed a break and really didn't get ANYTHING done for classes. so..this week will be a bit busy. i finish one class this week and have to write a short paper (which does not seem like a big deal after the prelim ordeal) and my other class meets a few times and i have to write a research paper for that one. tricky, but doable.

i'm also heading to ABQ this weekend to find an apartment. still not feeling like anything is official, but hopefully more clarity will come this week.

as far as thanksgiving, ate a lot of great food (thanks 2nd family!), had a lot of fun with friends (thanks people!!), watched some great football (thanks ags!), and got to relax and laugh and just take it easy (thanks mike!) it was all much needed.

so now friends, we enter this countdown to the end of the semester and possibly of my time in texas. totally wacky stuff.

love you friends and fam! love love love love love!

(and hugs to sara especially)

and the verdict is...

I PASSED!!!! WOO HOO!!! :)

knot in my back

um...oral exam is tomorrow. no, not an oral exam at the dentist..though i would prefer it at this point and i HATE the dentist.

talked to my good friend karen who took hers today and she said it was quite mellow. so, hopefully it will be okay and all my nervous energy will be for nothing.

luckily nervous energy helped me get more done in a half hour than i accomplished all day saturday.

better go put my sheets in the dryer, make nachos, read stuff, drink more wine, and hopefully get some sleep.

make my money

what's the deal with adsense? does anyone know? i contemplate how cool it would be to get paid to write my silly blog...so is this the way to do it. or will it just annoy and alienate my readers? thoughts?

it occurs to me..

it occurs to me that there was talk of having a big birthday bash for my crazy 30th birthday party and that i have no idea where i'm going to be living at that point. the way it looks, i might be in ABQ. so texans....can you come to ABQ to play? it'll be fun....swear. :)

it also occurs to me that there is no way in hell i did enough studying this week. in fact, i know i haven't. after writing for 6 days straight, i found myself unmotivated and exhausted last week. this weekend, i did a little bit, but i'm not sure if it was enough. i ended up cleaning and eating with friends and taking it easy and sleeping. so, i have a feeling that i'll be stressed out the next two days until i get this crazy oral exam done. not sure how i should have studied...but pretty sure i didn't do enough. what the damn shit fuck!?

"i feel the seasons changing....and my life is never gonna be the same..."

gotta love hurricane jane lyrics. if you don't know..they were this great band from ok city, though i'm not sure they exist anymore. i've been rocking out to their cd in my car all week and those lyrics seemed especially appropriate.

why? because things are changing. in a few months, i will likely be moving to albuquerque. i was offered the opportunity to teach 4 courses at UNM and i've been itching to get out of texas for a while. it's really exciting, though in my head its still not official. :) but dennis is coming here to help me move and i'm probably going to look for apartments soon. hopefully by then it will have hit me that, yes, in fact, things are changing. i've never been really good at change but this is one that i'm looking forward to. however, days like today reminded me that i'm going to miss college station a lot too. not such much college station itself...but the little life i have carved out for myself here and my awesome, incredible, kick ass friends.

i went to a soc. department picnic today and i was talking with a bunch of my colleagues. it was good to be there because they reminded me of how far i have come in the past 5 years, and how much i've accomplished. and they were all so encouraging about the next part of the exam. it is still odd to think of myself as one of those ABD people. i know i'm not officially ABD, but even that i'm close is weird. i remember when i first started graduate school and looking up to those students who finished or were close to finishing. and now, i'm one of those people...and its just weird. i know i've changed in 5 years, but i still feel like a novice in some ways. here's hoping i won't feel like one on tuesday.

anyway, there's a lot of big stuff coming up and this semester that i never thought i'd make it through is quickly coming to an end. thanks to all of you guys for your constant support and friendship and love and funnies and hugs and stuff. i never would have made it this far without ya.

okay..gotta go start studying. still a saturday afternoon slacker after all these years. ;) i guess something things never change.

quick question

so..brad pitt is attractive and stuff...but he's not really that great of an actor. i'm watching seven on tnt and i love this movie but there are some times when pitt just isn't that great. anyone agree..disagree? he's not as bad as keanu reeves ("whoa...excellent!") but still.

this is a test

mike can figure out what people used as search terms to stumble across his blog. and people search for such hilarity like "wild humpers" and stuff to find his.

so this is my experiment...ready?

ninja turkey fuck!

any new readers?

how about:

ass monkey clown

OR

rabid cheeto fetish

OR

foot to face! (which is on a wristband i own...don't ask)

now i fear who will start reading this. *grin*

some news?

i might have some news. i was offered four courses at university of new mexico in the spring. though i would not get benefits, it would be a really good opportunity i think. i've been hoping to move and i would get to teach some rad classes i think. SO...i may have accepted it, but i'm still waiting for a little bit of information. i'll keep ya posted. :)

insomniac

how come i can't sleep? it's like 2:15 in the morning. shit fuck! :( stupid brains thinking and stuff. you'd think they'd need a breather after last week.

oh yeah..

it's possible that in 10 days i will be ABD!

let's check my to do list. this color font means this wasn't done in march but is now.

Things to Do: Dissertation/Graduation


Spring 2005

- Assemble Committee (complete)
- Thesis Publication (complete)
- Southwest meeting (complete)
- Dissertation proposal (complete)
- 2 courses (complete)
- File Degree Plan (complete)


Summer 2005

- Defend proposal (complete)
- Put together prelims list (complete)
- IRB (submitted but bureaucracy is being a rat bastard)
- Research design for NM project
- Lit review chapter (Joe says this is done, but i don't think it really is)
- Pre-interviews


Fall 2005
- Last two courses (just about done!)
- Austin interviews (gotta wait..stupid IRB)
- Write introduction and methods chapters (um...not really)
- Do some kind of OGS paperwork that I'm sure is required at this point? (exam request or something like that?)
- Take preliminary exams (just about done!!!!)
- Publication? (this was lofty...instead i got teaching experience though)
- Move? (still kind of iffy but its starting to look promising. cross your fingers!)

woo! more on the move news when i know more. :)

day..none more days

so...i have officially turned in the written part of my exam. it is off in cyberspace somewhere on its way to my advisors PC. i'm not sure if it's done well..but the operative word is that its done. now i just have to sweat bullets until the oral part on the 22nd.

i have to say that i am very very relieved to have the written part done. for the record, i wrote about 75-80 pages in 6 days. just so you know, that is a virtual fuck ton of writing. actually, scratch that..its an actual fuck ton. you'd think after doing all of that i'd feel pretty comfortable predicting whether i passed or not...but i really don't know. you can't know what this process is like until you go through it and then once you do go through it, you find yourself wondering what the point of it all was. more than anything, i proved to myself that i could do it. it would be an unstatement to say that i have had a lot on my plate this semester. so it feels good to know that despite everything else, i was able to do this. i only hope my efforts pay off.

thanks to everyone for your awesome support. i have awesome friends and family. it rocks.

now its time to enjoy some serious tv time and wine and to get some freakin' sleep. :)

HUGS!

day five

um...day five is over. i'm not sure i got enough done today, but i'm happy that i still pretty much have two days left. i estimate that i have one and a half questions left. so, i hope i can get a bunch done tomorrow so that saturday won't be a full day. i have until 5:00 p.m. to turn my answers in, but it would be really really nice to get it in early. we shall see.

gotta sleep so i can get up early. i couldn't get to sleep last night at all. stupid brains keeping me up. :)

day four...i think

first half of the exam is done. not sure if its done well..but it's definitely finished. part two starts at 5:00 tonight and i have until 5:00 on saturday. i took a break this afternoon and mostly just vegged out and did nothing. probably should have taken a nap since i'm feeling a bit tired now. i did get to bed at 5:00 a.m. after all. but i can say that i wrote something like 40 pages in 3 days. not an easy task.

i've heard from karen that the race and ethnicity part is less scary. :) yay for that!

i'll update again later. :)

half done!

day three

this day has not gone as well as the others. one reason is because i'm really tired. this process is exhausting and stressful, so even when i do finally get to go home and go to bed, i haven't slept well because my mind is going crazy thinking of all the things i should have included or that i still need to do in general (like get a damn job if i'm going to move, etc etc).

also, i had to spend part of the day getting grades figured out for the students i teach. they complained to my supervisor that they haven't gotten their last exam back (which they just took on the 27th!), so i had to bust ass and get all of that updated. their complaints and my lack of time meant that i didn't curve the exam like i was thinking about doing.

i still have some work to do on question three and some editing to do on the other two questions, so it is likely that i will be here late tonight. luckily food is on the way. my next exam questions arrive bright and early at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow and are due on saturday at 8:00 a.m. i'm increasingly nervous that i'm not going to pass the oral part of this exam, since a lot of this stuff so far hasn't been on the instant recall. but, i'll jump off that bridge when i get to it.

back to work..

day two

hi friends,

i am taking a much needed break. i have been working on question two since 10:30 this morning and it's now 6:30. i did take a quick lunch break to warm up some yummy soup i made last week, but otherwise i've been trapped in my little blue office all day. luckily, i think i'm a few hours from finishing this question. i have the problem of trying to incorporate WAY too much literature because i'm worried about the higher expectations of me since my test is open book. i was also optimistic that i could have all three questions wrapped up by tomorrow at 5 (thus cutting my 72 hours short), but i'm not sure that's going to happen, so hopefully my chair will give me the entire allotted time. *crossing fingers*

my friend karen is on day three of her exam right now. she said the first day was awful (as was mine), the second day was a bit better (i see a trend), and on the third day, she rose again. whoops...i mean on the third day she felt pretty happy. so, i'm hoping for a happy tuesday as well. i strategically saved the question i felt the most comfortable with for the last day. strategery at its finest.

so far i've learned that it's dark and creepy in this building at 1:30 in the morning, that you should not forget to take your heart medicine when you have anxiety issues (thanks for bringing those tim), and after staring at books and articles and computer screens for so long my eyes have spells when they no longer want to function.

what's keeping me afloat at this point is an assload of diet cokes in my tiny new office frig, encouragement from you guys (THANKS!) and the knowledge that in a few short days i will be done. now that i've started this written part the oral part is even scarier for some reason!

well, i think my break needs to officially end now so that i can get home at a reasonable hour tonight. i know its sick, but i really want to get home in time to watch laguna beach on mtv. don't judge me too much for that one.

:)
love you guys!

day one

so i thought i'd use this medium to update you guys on how things are going this week since i probably will be relatively incommunicato. plus, it gives me a bit of a break from time to time which is a good thing.

yesterday tim helped me get my books and articles and shit up to my office and i unpacked it all last night which was a good plan. even if i somehow don't pass the test, i now have a very organized office. :)

i got here at about 10 and downloaded the questions for the first part of the exam. i choose three of the five questions and then write 10-12 pages for each answer in three days. then i do it again on wednesday with a new set of questions to choose from. the questions i'm starting with are for my minor area, which is demography. they are hard and involved, but doable i think (hope). i'm happy to be using my own computer to answer them since my office computer was being a rat bastard this morning. it's always making noise like it's thinking about stuff, so i find that i have turn it all the way off while i'm working. (can't stand the constant noises while i'm trying to concentrate..yay for quiet blue laptop of wonderfulness.)

i'm about 7 pages into the first answer and have a lot more to do. i'm thinking about staying here late tonight and getting a lot done, so that i'm not under too much pressure once the building is full of people again. still waivering between confidence and fear. :)

i just took a quick break and went to go get some lunch (yes..at 3:30) and i stopped at old navy. why did i stop at old navy you ask? well, because it's hard to dress for the freakin' weather lately in texas and becaused it's ninety-fuckin'-two degrees today, so i needed to get a t-shirt and some flip-flops. sure i could have gone home to do that, but there are too many distractions there and those items are on sale since apparently in some parts of the world it is less than ninety-fuckin-two. *bitter midwesterner* not that i want snow..but damn...i'm sick of summer. i can't even remember what my winter clothes look like at this point. *stupid global warming*

so, that's the scoop. i have a cute new t-shirt (unfortunately the only one i liked and that was cheap was a white one and..well...i have a blue bra on today...but since no one will likely see me, i should be safe) and i think i'm doing well so far on the test. i hope so anyway.

take care kids. catch ya on the flipside!

it's november so...

so WHY is it supposed to be 87 degrees on sunday?! what the hell texas?! i want to get out my cute sweaters already!!! sheesh!!?

post-prelims fun

so..i haven't taken the exams but i already have some ideas about what i want to do afterwards. specifically there are two movies i want to see. one is rent because it looks pretty good in film version and i LOVED the show when i saw it in milwaukee. the other is that movie with sarah jessica parker in it. i think it's called..uh...i have no damn idea. maybe the family stone?

i also want to get a rec massage after i get done with the written part...hell, maybe even the oral part too?

there might be other festivities too. first i gotta pass that shit though. :)