2008 is just around the corner

i'm back in my apartment after a great time at my parent's house for christmas. it was really nice to catch up with family and to indulge in a lot of really delicious food. won't be waiting for new year's resolutions to get back to the gym. :) i'm also happy that i was able to celebrate a few of my favorite holiday traditions: eating at red lobster with dennis, watching a christmas story with my parents and aunt deb and uncle jon (after going to mass and being grateful for not being in the "party room"), and eating a fantastic cheese ball and singing along to Holiday Inn with dennis and my parents. after a lot of fun, it is nice to be back home. i'm wrapping up my time at the retail gig which is wonderful and will have plenty of time to plan for next semester, pack my apartment again, and just be.

i'm going to be moving during the month of january into new digs that are closer to work and less expensive. and i predict many good times will be had with my new roommates. i'm excited to make them dinner and see how the dynamic is tomorrow night. i have to admit that many nights when going to bed at mom and dad's my thoughts were on moving out of my current apartment, and the thought of it made me a bit sad. granted, i won't miss the stupid mouse infestation that seems to be never-ended or the HUGE utility bill that i have for the month. but this place is really my dream apartment. i know i'm making a great decision about moving and i'm excited about it, but it will be sad to leave at the same time. i think for the first time in a long time, i lived in a place that really felt like home...my home. so part of me really doesn't want to go. but the rest of me is anxious to pack up and get rid of stuff again (anyone want to buy a couch?) and try something new.

hopefully there will be much clarity in the new year about a few things. :) i can't believe how fast 2007 went. seriously...it's almost over! how did that happen?

oh yeah...it's snowing again. :P

found!!

so last march-ish, i lost my aggie ring. i wasn't even sure when i lost it, in terms of the exact moment it was missing, though i did have a time frame. i was hopeful that when i packed up all my worldly possessions to move to iowa it would be discovered, but no such luck. it's been in the back of my mind since it went missing and i've remained ever hopeful that i would just come across it in some random box or something. (or that mike would find it at his house if/when he moves.) i even made one last ditch search for it before graduation last weekend (which i still have to blog about.)

earlier this week one of my pilot pens fell between my car seat and the console. it was bugging me that it was down there, because i was worried the cold temps would make it crack open and spill black ink everywhere. so after picking up some stuff from wal-greens on the way out of town on thursday, i made it my mission to get that pen out of there. it was nicely wedged between wacky seat parts and i ended up getting out of my seat and moving it forward in an attempt to free it from tangles of spiraled wire and just...stuff. at some point in the battle i looked down in to the seat crevasse and saw a gold crest shining back up at me. i instantly knew what it was, but that did not stop me from literally shrieking with joy! i've probably looked in my car 50 times for it, and then, 9 months later, there it is. maybe it was waiting for me to finally finish my degree to reveal itself.

that was a great way to start my christmas holiday. it feels great to have it back on my finger where it belongs! :)

liquid streets

tonight has been a fun night despite the very cold and snowy/icy/sleety whether that preceded it. i met my friend brad at his office which is about two blocks from my house so we could go have a few beers and a little food. you'd think that in two blocks i could manage to keep myself warm and not covered in snow and, well, dampness. (i hate the word damp...sorry for that.) that was not the case. after going down my front steps which were mysteriously shoveled off (thanks for that!) i saw some footsteps in the snowbank next to the street. "walk in the footsteps and you'll be fine" i thought to myself. and fine i was...until that last step which was unexpectedly deep. up to my knee deep. not a good start. already wish my new boots were here. i slip and slide across the slushy street and have quite a big slip on the sidewalk once i get to it, but manage to not fall down. just a little snow to brush off my jeans...nothing to worry about. then...it happened. liquid street. i see a slushy puddle and decide to just lightly leap through it. it was not a puddle. it was more like a small slushy lake. and the more i leaped (leapt?) the more icy slush went in my shoes and up my pant legs. after traversing slushy lake, i get across the street and seriously wonder if i should wring out my socks before going into brad's office. i decided against it though i did take one shoe off to see if water would flow out of it. (it didn't...it was thoroughly soaked into the shoe. lucky for me and my feet, brad drove us to the restaurant and we had a really fun time chatting and drinking beer. so fun i didn't even think about my frozen feet until i got back home. first thing on my agenda was taking off those shoes and changing my socks. all is good now. :D

actually...might need my slippers too. "D

snow

it's snowing more. booo!!

i get to graduate in a week where it's warm. sa-weet!

i discovered that delicious sushi exists in dubuque, iowa tonight. i got to enjoy it with a new friend and great conversation. just what i needed.

now, hopefully the snow will stop.

hooray!

some of you are getting this in the mail, but due to limited resources i couldn't send them out to everyone. :) i'm excited to be participating in the ceremony next weekend. it will be nice to commemorate my work as a graduate student by walking across that stage and getting hooded. :) and i get to see friends and family and enjoy warm texas weather!

gifts of cash and beer will be accepted (especially cash...hee hee!) i thought about registering for this event, but decided against it. :D

thanks friends for all of your support and guidance through this process. very much appreciated!!

hugs,
dr. kate

crabby day

do you ever have a crabby day for no specific reason? nothing really happened today to make me crabby. in fact, it was a pretty laid-back day in general. it mostly involved cleaning, grading, and watching tv. nothing to complain about. and yet, i'm in a mood. maybe it's a sign that i have too much on my mind. or that i'm worried about money, as seems to be a constant. or could be just missing people. hard to tell. whatever the deal is, i think i'm going to eat a snack, finish my graduation announcements, and go to bed.

oh the weather outside is friggin' frightful

today iowa was graced with snow, ice, sleet, and rain. in fact, it was precipitating from 10:00 a.m. until right now. this has caused big trouble for some in the midwest. fortunately, dubuque was not hit as hard as other communities. the roads were a mess i headed to work and were somewhat better by the time i left. if it gets colder though, i am guessing it will get very, very icy. lucky for me i don't have to go anywhere tomorrow. the plan is a lot of grading and cleaning. (gotta say i'd rather be where mike is about now.)

surprisingly, there were a lot of people out and about tonight. maybe i was in the south and southwest too long, but had i not been scheduled to work, i would have stayed on the couch. (i don't know if i mentioned it before, but i'm working part-time in retail again.) the store i'm at (subtle hint...the same one i was working at in the summer>) is certainly not one that i would consider an essential destination on a day like today. and yet, we actually did have customers. the road are shitty, the parking lot is worse, it was raining and cold, but still people needed to buy air freshner and christmas ornaments?! it baffles me. there is nothing...seriously nothing, that people would need to buy today. people are weird.

my real job is also going pretty well. we have two weeks left for the semester, which is great. i'm looking forward to some down town. feel like i need a break and have a lot to figure out as of late.

i meant to write after thanksgiving, but got too busy. it was good to see my family, if not a bit stressful. hopefully christmas will be less tense. :D

okay, more later.

so i finally got around to...

watching the movie crash. all of america has seen it except for me. honestly, i was avoiding it, because america was so enamored with a movie that had race and racism as a major plot point. as a race scholar, this was and is concerning.

to my surprise, it didn't make me as angry as i expected it would. it played up some stereotpes and in the end, every character is kind of an a-hole and kind of an okay person at the same time. i suppose that is what people liked about the flick. and they way the various stories intertwined was interesting enough that i want to watch it again just to see what i missed.

predictably though, the movie focused almost entirely on individual level racism and did not really address more institutional or systemic issues. there was a bit of discussion about it from a few of the people of color in the movie, but in the end, the moral seemed to be that fixing the problem one jerky individual at a time will do the trick. even reviewers on IMDB make this conclusion. there wasn't much discussion about the history of racism in our country or how that history has privileged whites above others.

i'm left wondering a bit what all the hype was about.

congratualations

Kathrin,

All of your manuscript corrections are done and forms received. You are cleared by the Thesis Office. Congratulations and our best to you.

Thesis Office


:)

Woo hoo!

submitted again...

today i submitted my dissertation to the thesis office hopefully for the last time. i finished the corrections they asked me to do and now in 3-6 days i'll find out if i'm really done. then all i have to do is pay my bill to the university and i'll be able to get my diploma in december. (so if you wanted to give me a gift for graduation [no obligation of course] i would gladly accept cash to put towards that bill. *grin*)

unbelievably it's also the middle of november. that means that thanksgiving is next week. i'm excited about it, though it seems impossible that it's already next week. this semester has flown by! before i know it, i'll be giving finals! better get back to work on the grading then. :)

pooped

after a great weekend, i'm sitting here on my couch feeling very tired. mike was here in iowa since thursday night and we packed a lot of fun into a short amount of time. he got to meet a bunch of my friends, we ate a lot of good food, i showed him more of the sites in dubuque, we had some adult beverages (including cave-ins at the mining company) and spent some time in the car going back and forth from milwaukee. all-in-all it was a fantastic weekend (though i realize my description of it is not all that enthralling...need sleep.) gotta say that having him here makes life so much more fun. here's hoping some job options come together, so we can be together again soon. cross your fingers for us.

it's already november

this semester has flown by and even though there aren't that many weeks of classes left before the end of the semester, there is still SO much to do. i'm perpetually trying to catch up on grading and haven't even started planning classes for next semester yet. luckily, i don't have to worry about too much dissertation stuff. i got my corrections and have a few weeks to get those finished. none of it is too scary though i have a feeling formatting figures is going to piss me right off. anyway, i'm a little stressed...not overly so, but enough that i've been kind of tired and cranky this week. i also started working a second job this week. back in retail for 10 hours a week. i didn't expect to need to do that, but it's become a necessity and i figured it would be a good way to meet more people and get out of my apartment, while earning some extra cash.

it's been a weird week in terms of my job satisfaction as a faculty member. maybe it's the stress of grading and stuff, or the lack of enthusiasm from my intro class lately, or my paycheck, or the feeling of "been there, done that" i have at times on campus. maybe it's that i miss mike. i don't know. i guess i thought i'd be happier in this role than i am finding myself. maybe once i get a semester under my belt i'll feel more settled in. but this week has been very blah and makes me wonder if this is my calling. i love teaching and look forward to advising sometime soon. but the tedium that i have to deal with at times in terms of planning courses and strategic plans for the college or figuring out a course rotation is frustrating at times. all part of the gig i know, but geez. i'm guessing my attitude about it all would be better if i got more sleep. so i'm going to work on that now and stop complaining...because there are PLENTY of good things about my job too and things i like a lot. patience is what i need i think. if you have any to spare, send some my way. :)

pretty sunshine time

when i was in college, one of my favorite things was watching the golden-pinkish glow that would settle around campus around 6 p.m. in the fall. today took me back to that. as i left my office, the sun was sinking in the sky, casting a beautiful light over campus. i knew if i had left maybe 10 minutes earlier, the cross on top of hoffman hall would be glimmering against the sky. i made my turn away from campus in time to see a full moon hanging over the mississippi river and the changing trees. this is probably a bit schmaltzy, but it really is a wonderful sight. and it brings a sense of peace somehow. come see it tomorrow. okay. :D

similutaneous relief and annoyance

today was a great day. it was the day that i converted my dissertation from a word document to a PDF file and submitted it to the thesis office. fortunately my committee did not want me to make any major changes to the beast before i submitted it, so all i had to do was proofread and format. that process is WAY more complicated than it needs to be, especially when Word inexplicably decides to change the formatting of your page numbers and you have to swear and yell at it and pound the keys before figuring out how to fix it. regardless, after working hard this week i finally got all my i's dotted and t's crossed. my hope is that once the incredibly anal-retentive thesis people nitpick the crap out of it that there won't be much more to do (though i realize that this is extremely naive of me.) in any case, it feels more official now that it has been submitted to the thesis office. like i really am almost done.

so why would i be annoyed? because as soon as i submitted the diss, i got an email from the thesis office saying that they received it (woo hoo!), that i'm number 236 on their list (okay...whatever), and that i will be billed a ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY-FIVE-DOLLAR processing fee. okay, okay...i should have known this was coming since i did have to turn in my thesis to them 4 years ago or whatever, but it still came as a shock. sure, peoples' salaries probably get paid from that money, which is a good thing, but damn! just when i thought i was done giving my money to the university they find one more way to nickel and dime me. for those keeping track at home, that means just to graduate i had to pay tuition this semester, pay a graduation fee, pay for regalia rental, and pay this stupid ass processing fee. AND i also have the option of paying $95.00 so that my copyrighted dissertation would be widely available for people's use. (if i don't pay that then people would have to pay to use it, which is weird...) so anyway, it caught me off guard a bit.

on a happier note, i'm finding myself feeling randomly nostalgic and just kind of satisfied. though i didn't write extensive acknowledgments in the dissertation (because let's face it, i just wanted to be done writing...not because i don't appreciate all ya'll) i have been feeling very grateful for the many wonderful friends in my life and for my great family. and now that i can put my mind on something else for a while, it goes to you. :) thanks friends for all that you've done to support and encourage me. i truly could not have gotten this far without you.

now to get to a GIANT stack of grading that i've been putting off. no rest for the weary.

two big weekends

a little over a week ago, i successfully defended my dissertation. the process was a bit grueling emotionally, but all in all went really well. it involved about an hour and 45 minutes of questions, which were mostly humane. :) at the end though, i was called dr. by my chair, so it was official. :) the rest of the weekend was great! i finally got to see mike for the first time since i moved, i got to have dinner with friends, plenty of drinks and fun, saw part of an aggie game, ate way too much, and just had a really fantastic celebration! now i'm in the process of correcting formatting and typos. have to finish that by friday so i can graduate in december. :) then i think it will feel official, even though i'm basically done now.

this weekend i spent time with some of my closest friends. it was homecoming at our alma mater, so we all got together for the first time since i've moved back. we had a lot of fun and it was great to share my new life at our school with them. it was a bit overwhelming seeing so many people that we knew from our college days though. i had fun catching up with people, but there were a lot of people that i recognized but couldn't place a name with their faces. it was a little crazy after a while and having one brief conversation after another was more draining than i expected. the weekend was a good combination of getting to relax and just chill and being active and doing stuff. now that all the guests are gone and i'm done cleaning up, i feel like i should go to bed. :)

so, i know i was overdue for an update on the defense and this post is not very profound and deep. but, that's the basic scoop. it's all good.

on the verge...

tomorrow i defend my dissertation, which will hopefully result in only a few minor steps for me to complete so that i can finally be finished with my Ph.D. i'm a little nervous about it, but feeling confident. mostly i just want to get it over with. rip the band-aid off and be done.

having said that, it is a bit surreal that this is already happening. i've been working on this for what seems like forever, and now i'm almost done. i know i'll be able to fill the time and mental space with something else, but it's almost incomprehensible that i won't have this on my plate anymore. i just can't imagine the relief, though i'm anxious to feel it. :)

i know that i won't be done even if the defense goes well tomorrow. i have to format the beast for the thesis office and do a real proofread since i haven't yet. but hopefully that will be all. maybe other corrections can wait until i try to publish it. so i'll still have some work to do, but will also have a tremendous weight off my shoulders. this could the first time in a long time when my shoulders actually have reason to relax. as my closest friends (and my yoga instructors) will tell you, that's where i keep all my stress. so relaxed shoulders...that could be the real mark that i'm done. :)

anywho, much excitement is in the air right now. once this is done, it also opens up a world of fun. i get to have a great time in texas and FINALLY get to see mike after two very long months AND i get to catch up with the aggie friends that are still around. then next weekend is homecoming and i get to catch up with friends from undergrad. and the next weekend i have yet another trip! so lots of fun coming after what feels like many months of stress.

here's hoping that when i next post, i am just a few grammatical errors away from being dr. parks.

welcome fall!

my favorite season has officially started and the weather is actually cooperating. the temperature variations has been a little wacky in the last few weeks. it was pretty cold for this time a year a few weeks ago and then before we knew it, it was like summer again. now, happily, it is staying in the high 60s/low 70s, which i think is perfect. (especially when teaching in rooms without air conditioning.) a few of the trees have more colorful leaves and i can't wait until the reds, golds, and oranges of autumn are in full force. i really love everything about this time of year. the clothes, the weather, the sights, the flavors (like pumpkin spiced things and caramel apple creations), and the events (like college football.) and it means that it's almost thanksgiving. though i do not buy into the mythical beginnings of this holiday, it is my favorite. excellent food, fun memories, and was the beginning of a very important relationship for me. :) i'm happy that fall is here, and that i get to enjoy it in the midwest, where (and i might be a bit biased) it is the most beautiful place to experience it.)

in other news, i have turned in version of two of my dissertation, which will hopefully be very close to the final draft. all the committee members have it in hand (or in email as the case may be) and the defense is next friday. i know there will be things i have to change after that...because i haven't done a great job with proofreading yet. i tend to be somewhat meticulous as i write, but i'm sure there are errors to fix and i just have to muster up the will to read the whole thing again. AND i have to get the formatting and stuff correct for the thesis office. but, i'm really hoping that for the most part, i will be done soon. maybe i can actually get caught up on grading and be an organized teacher who is not constantly flying by the seat of her pants?!

tomorrow i'm riding with my parents to st. louis to meet my new niece. can't wait to meet her and see the family for the weekend. wooo!

"We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to." -- W. Somerset Maugham

i found this quote a while ago and tucked it away in my gmail for a future post. and though the author of the quote probably meant it in a different way that i'm interpreting it, still it could not be more relevant to my life at the moment. i find myself fantasizing about the day when i can write because i want to. but for now, my existence revolves around writing because i have to. it has been extremely difficult to find motivation to get all my dissertation corrections done. i am grateful that my chair got feedback to me at the speed of light and that i gave myself a few extra days to finish before sending it to my committee (the original goal was today, but it's going to be more like sunday morning.) that will give them a little under two weeks to read it before the defense. in the mean time though, i've been trying to write. forcing myself to write. and i have to say...it's difficult. first because i should have been writing every day just to stay in the practice of being able to articulate my thoughts. i feel like i'm at a 3rd grade level right now. "racism is bad." secondly, i'm just not sure how to incorporate some of the things i've been asked to do. in an attempt to accomplish some of them, i'm re-writing my introduction. but that is a formidable task because of the aforementioned lack of writing skills. and apparently i have no attention span right now, so that also doesn't help. regardless, i have to get this done. mostly because i think the relief that i will feel once i've jumped through all necessary hoops is going to be tremendous. i'm not even thinking about how cool it will be to have accomplished this. i'm mostly just thinking about how i want to get this over with! so, i'm going to hope that i can finish this up soon and overcome the mental blocks i seem to be having.

in other news, i'm happy to report that the newest member of my family is going to be arriving from Russia next weekend. i'm very excited that i'll be able to meet my niece Cami in a week. i'll post a picture of her because she's so dang cute. :) it has been a long process for my brother and sister-in-law, so i have no doubt that they are thrilled to have their daughter at last!

lots of fun and trips coming up which is great. really looking forward to seeing mike in october, both because i miss him AND because that will mean that i have hopefully successfully defended my dissertation AND i haven't seen him since i moved here. that has not been easy. so can't wait for that weekend!

anyway, i should get back to work. laters!

a good dissertation is a done dissertation

in college, i was known by my friends as being amazing at pulling quality papers out of my ass at the last minute. you see dear friends...i am a procrastinator. apparently it's how i function. it certainly was in college and continues to be now.

case in point is that i managed to put together my dissertation in about 5 days of writing. of course, that is only partly true, since i spent the last 6 months transcribing interviews, which was a big part of the process. and i wrote a proposal about a year and a half ago or something. so, i did not write it from scratch in a short time, but i did put together a decent first draft of the beast over the last week or so.

i turned it in today via email and our WONDERFUL department assistant, meeting my deadline line and knowing that i will have more work to do. (my conclusion is only 5 pages right now which is not cool.) but i did turn in something like 220 pages (give-take) of a product that i think is pretty dang good. hopefully it will be good enough that i won't have to make too many changes before and after the defense (october 5th!!!) i would even like it if it was good enough to become a book relatively soon.

so, thanks for all your thoughts and encouragement and prayers. i pulled it off...at least the first draft. now i have to get used to having some time off from it for a few days. gotta get my teach on.

but first...kate needs sleep.

:D

brains...hurt

i woke up today both feeling well rested and having a nasty headache. luckily it's finally going away now, but that was a bit odd. i'm chalking it up to stress. i have about a week to get my dissertation draft put together and i'm a bit freaked out. the good news is that my classes should be pretty low key for the rest of the week and a colleague might be able to cover my class on monday so that can be a work day. so i'm confident that i can get a lot done in a short amount of time. it's one of those crazy special skills that i have. in college i was the master at whipping together papers at the last minute. so here's hoping that panic does not cripple that special ability. :)

in other news, i REALLY REALLY need to start going to the gym again. it's hard to make time for it right now when i have this huge hurdle to overcome, but i'm feeling kind of gross and flabby. i'm hopeful that i can get back on track and actually lose some weight! damn those pants that i keep moving. here they are in iowa and not fitting me yet. :P so, though i feel like i can't spare a half hour to go jogging, i should anyway. i'm betting it would be a good stress reliever and boost my body image, which can't hurt.

alright...back to it.

one week down

i've finished my first week of teaching as a real instructor (not quite a professor yet...) so far, so good. the students are very nice, though started out a bit quiet. but towards the end of the week they were opening up more. i had a fun "i just blew their minds" moment today in intro. :) that's one of those great teacher moments when you know that you've opened up the students to something new. so the week ended on a high note. let's hope the momentum keeps up....especially because i have a serious deadline looming.

in about two weeks, i have to have a copy of the dissertation sent off to my committee chair. i have to say that i'm not sure that it's going to happen. but, crazier things have happened. i've managed to sort through all the data twice and it's now at the point where i just need to write about it. for some reason that's easier said than done. BUT, i have no choice. i gotta do it and do it quick. here's hoping everything i had before is good enough for the committee and the defense that's coming up in october. yeah...it's safe to say that i'm getting nervous, while being so, so ready to get this part over with.

cross your fingers kids that i can pull this off.

moving beyond katie

for a lot of my life, i was known as katie, a fact that mike loves to revisit whenever he's trying to get me fired up. then, sometime in college, i became kate. however, not everyone in my life got the memo about that. my family, of course, is allowed to call me katie, and i'll even cut my high school friends some slack. beyond that though, it's just plain weird when i'm called something other than kate. i bring this up because today as i was going to convocation with my fellow faculty members to welcome the new students, a professor from my glory days called me katie. it's possible that he missed the memo my junior year that i had self-imposed a different moniker, but it made me wonder if he still saw me as i used to be.

that's been on my mind a lot this week as i re-enter this college. last time i was here, i had just graduated and was scared to leave the place that had been like home for four years. i was, i'm sure, worried about what the future held once i moved beyond this place. and now, i'm back in a completely new role. as i sat in my master's degree garb (cap, gown, fancy hood, the whole deal) during convocation, i realized that i'm not katie anymore. but instead, i'm kate...new faculty member, grown-up, adult, professor (well almost.) it's a little weird, but every exciting at the same time. and i hope this community will accept me as this new person. i know, i'm not completely different than when i was an undergrad, but much has changed at the same time. i hope there will be space for who i have become in the last 9 years (the new kate) and for what i will become in my time here. i've moved beyond katie. :) if that makes any kind of sense.

"you must be an iowan if...you drink 'pop'...

my good friend monica sent me a forward today to commemorate my move back to the hawkeye state. it was a collection of wisdom about how you know you're an iowan, many of which were quite funny. i know i'm an iowan because mike and i drove about 1300 miles to move me here. all in all, the move was the most seamless one that i've ever encountered. i was packed by the time my friends (to whom i am very grateful) arrived to move my stuff into the truck. the truck i got was brand new, which never happens. everything fit, everyone was fed enough pizza and beer, and i had enough time to clean my apartment for my inspection (thanks kirk.) mike and i managed to get to OK City the first night which was our goal and then had a long haul the next day. once we got to town we checked out the apartment with dennis and then hit the wal-mart to get an air mattress and then headed to fat tuesday's (a favorite hang out of the duhawk crowd). mike had his first ever old style, which he seemed to enjoy and probably cost like a dollar or something. the move in the next day also went well and i got a lot of stuff unpacked. there is still random crap all over the place, but the essentials are just about all done. mike had to leave on monday night which sucked, but i'm glad he was able to stay a few days and hang out with me. :) this place seems really empty without his company. but i will say that i do like my apartment. it is really big, especially compared to where i was living, and in some ways is already starting to feel a bit like home. it will be nice to have everything put away, but that might take some time as i'm in full swing with the dissertation and getting ready for classes which start on the 27th. mike has vowed that he won't come visit until i get my first draft done, so that's a lot of motivation to crank it out. :)

i figured that moving back to iowa would be difficult in some ways. leaving behind the life in ABQ was/is not easy and it's especially hard to be so far away from the boy. at the same time, it's nice to be closer to friends (who better friggin' visit) and my family (who i already get to see this weekend.) it's nice to be starting my first job at a familiar place, though i do feel a bit of pressure that i will need to kick even more butts since i'm their former student. luckily it will keep me way busy.

i could continue to ramble on but instead i'm going to share a few things about living in iowa that i forgot about. that's what i get for being gone for like 9 years and only back in the winter usually.

-we do drink pop. and when you buy cans or bottles of it, you have to pay a deposit and then return the cans to get your money back. it's wacky.
-critters around here are furry and not lizards. didn't see a lot of furry creatures in TX and NM. but in iowa, i have already met a furry creature that lives under my back porch sometimes. i have named him chewbaca.
-there are bugs. NM spoiled me.
-sweet corn here is way better than the sweet corn you get anywhere else. come over and i'll make you some.
-people are nice. they say hi to you when you're just walking into the grocery store and are really helpful when coming to help you get your internet set up.
-parts of iowa are really smelly thanks to pig farms. mike's comment was "iowa smells like ass....i want to fart to cover up the smell." luckily it's not all over the place.
-stuff closes on sunday, like most of downtown dubuque.

i'm sure there will be more to add to the list, like the quirkiness of my old house, but for now i should probably go to bed.

over and out!

my eyes hurt

its true. all day today my eyes were hurty...or at least for most of the afternoon. i was thinking about it in a bit of delerium between interviews i was transcribing and wondered briefly if the pain was a result of my denial about leaving albuquerque. don't get me wrong, i know that i'm leaving...but the fact that its happening rather soon is still not quite on my radar. its there when i realize that i have only a few days to finish transcribing interviews (i finished 3 today) and packing all my worldy possessions, but then that panick quickly subsides into my current state....total denial. so maybe my eyes hurt from the tears that i'm forcing back. or maybe i was looking at a computer screen for too long today. regardless, i need to write a bit about my denial. this is mostly to assure my wonderful friends here that i'm not a total robot. don't let my ...hmmm...what's the word...stony, icy, no...um, ambivalent (?) tone and/or facial expressions fool you. ignore the fact that i don't quite choke up at the thought of missing life here. i fully assure you that its not because i don't have emotions about it. i do. i have a lot. i've met some freakin' fantastic people here and albuquerque has become home. it is not easy to leave. i know that. it makes my heart do crazy things at times and prevents sleep at night on more occassions than i will admit (but to which mike could probably attest since it sometimes results with my knee in the middle of his back.) the deal is...i can't think about it yet, because its gonna hurt too much. so instead, i focus on getting items on my big ass list completed and flit about in a haze about the fact that i leave this home in a little over a week. what i'm banking on is that my new path in iowa is going to be really great...and that i can come visit a lot. :)

so, please know dear friends that my exterior will probably not convey what i'm thinking and feeling right now. i've wanted to sit down and write cards to people and let them know how much they've meant to me over the past 20 months or so, but doing that now would make it all too real. its more likely that will happen when things slow down and i'm back in iowa. (just ask my texas friends how this went....it was a freakin' whirlwind when i left there which probably didn't hit me until after the truck was unloaded in ABQ.) i'll try not to be a total robot, but i can't guarantee that i won't be able to express how much you all have meant to me. i am blessed in so many ways to have the chance to move around, because i get the great gift of friends in varied places. it's crazy awesome. :) for reals.

okay, just wanted to clear that up real quick. :D i managed to cross three things off the list of fun stuff to do over the past 4 days and did a few things that weren't on the list but that i was hoping to do (see the simpsons movie, eat a breakfast burrito, obtain the 206 balloon fiesta postcard, etc.) the next few days will be busy and i hope very productive. (oh, i tried to go to juan's broken tacos but they didn't have any broken tacos...figure that one out. and i spilled a metric assload of wine in my car through no fault of my own, so now the saturn smells a lot like a vineyard. its been a busy week already!)

time for some sleep...i hope.

updating the list

i was talking to mike about how i move in like 3 weeks and he pointed out that its more like 2 weeks. what's up with this summer going so fast? fortunately, i'm done working the retail gig (pier 1 in case you were wondering) so i have some time to get a lot of things done. in fact, tonight i'm going to make a big list of things i need to get done before i move so i can sleep better at night. in the meantime though, i thought i should update the list of things i wanted to do in ABQ before i moved to see where things stood. so, here goes:

• breakfast at gold st. cafe (must eat that red chili bacon again before i go) -haven't done this one yet, though mike and i went for lunch a while ago and we had BLTs. maybe i can still get this one done since i love a good breakfast
• a trip up to the peak -went with father dennis
  
• drinks and merriment at the restaurant at the base of the mountain at twilight time -went with mike and father dennis. it was great!
  
• maybe a trip to the zoo -thank goodness father dennis visited. we did this too.
  
• isotopes game -didn't get this done.
  
• bowling at isleta casino (its way fun) -there was speculation about going this weekend
  
• a day trip to santa fe and/or taos -went to santa fe with father dennis and to see bob schneider there with kirk
  
• winery trip (at least to st. clair for the wine flight) -monday night
  
• feast at tucanos -mike and i went a while ago, so that can count. not sure we'll get back before i move.
  
• lots of pie shack - done and will likely do again
  
• cocktail party at kate's -vetoed due to cardboard boxes everywhere. :)
  
• grill outs - done
  
• lots of fun times with friends for sure in varied forms- done and will do more of i hope
  
• beer afternoon at kelly's -its planned
  
• lunch at juan's broken taco -any takers?
  
• a trip to dagmar's german food sometime- haven't done this either. maybe lunch one day.
  

i keep remembering the obvious, which is that i will be back to visit, so its not completely imperative that i complete the list in the next two weeks. god knows i have enough to do, but i hope to fit some of these fun things in too.

lots of fun so far in july. mike and i went to galveston to hang out with his family at the beach. it was a great time. i read a book (love walked in...its really good and it amazed me that i can read a 300 page book in 3 days. if only academic books went that fast), got a little sunburned, and had a great time just relaxing. :)

i've sure there's more to update but i'm distracted by packing that i need to do, so i'm off. i'll write more soon.

the thin horizon of a plan is almost clear

i'm sure it's no surprise that the title of this blog comes from a song i love. that seems to be my thing. :) this is actually the first line of the wood song by the indigo girls, which is one of my favorite songs of all time and resonates with me a lot at the moment. there was a time during my freshman year when i would listen to this CD non-stop and since i'm preparing to move back to my alma mater, it is even more appropriate.

for me this song is about life, especially in the sense that we don't always know what is coming next or what will happen with the various decisions we make. and that if we did know, we would be missing out on the good part of living. the uncertainty teaches us and helps us grow as people. it makes things exciting. keeps us on our toes.

for whatever reason, though this message is one that i try to keep in mind, it is not always easy to do so. especially now that i'm less than a month away from another transition in my life. and its slowly hitting me how much things are going to change soon. mike will attest that though i had a GREAT time at my going away party this weekend, i did lose it a bit after the guests had left or passed out. i'm sure many tasty drinks didn't help much, but it was one of those moments when i realized how lucky i am to have great friends here and how hard its going to be to leave and start over.

this also brings me to realizations that haven't quite sunk in yet.

• i will only (knock on wood) have to have one job starting soon
• summers off
• though i'm moving to iowa, i can still come visit my peeps in ABQ
• i get to hang out with friends that i haven't seen in so long which is going to be great
• i can go visit my family more than once or twice a year

maybe this should all be a no-brainer, but it just isn't quite real yet. i'm not sure if that makes sense, but the reality of leaving ABQ is getting realer. and the cool things about IA are in my head, but don't seem real yet. i'm excited about those things, but also aware that it's going to be tough to leave a place where i've made so many awesome connections. ultimately, i know it will be okay. i've been fortunate in a way to get to live in a bunch of places since i've graduated from college, which means that i have a bunch of friends everywhere. i need to think of this as a "see ya later" and not a good-bye. because i will be back. (whoa...arnold schwartzenegger moment.)

so, as i get closer to the move date and the new start, i will try to keep in mind the message of this song. i'm looking forward to the new fun in IA for sure, because there will be lots of cool things about this move. even if it isn't all together easy.

(only one more week at the retail job! woo!)

viva las vegas!

mike and i went to vegas over the weekend and we had a great time. we planned the trip a while ago so we could see richard cheese in concert. i thought vegas would be super busy that weekend since saturday was 7.7.7 day, but it didn't seem any more crowded than when i've been there in the past. it was really, really, really hot though. i made the comment once that it felt like we were in a windy oven, since even the breeze was hot. saturday we visited a bunch of casinos so i could check them out after eating lunch at p.f. changs. (our hotel was great and within close walking distance to p.f. changs and the hard rock hotel where we saw the concert.) we gambled a bit hoping to win a bunch of money on the luckiest day of the century, but keno was not kind to us. :D mike did win some cash on a wheel of fortune slot machine, so that was good! that night we went to the venetian and checked out the shops. mike ended up getting a great deal on a watch he wanted, so that was rad! on past trips to vegas we'd end up going to sleep around 5 a.m. or something wacky like that. i think vegas usually makes you lose all sense of time. this time around though, mike and i were both sleepies at about 11:30, so it was an early night. the next day we ate yummy breakfast at terrible's casino across the street from our digs. it was yummy and came with lots and lots of champagne. after that we eventually went back to the strip to go to the bellagio so that mike could get me my going away present. i love it!! and we took these pictures (solo me and me and mike) in the botanical garden. we hung out at our hotel after that and then took a taxi to get in-n-out burger, which was actually the most expensive meal we had the whole weekend. :D luckily we had a crazy cab driver who kept us entertained the entire time with tails of eating monkey (which apparently tastes like frog legs.) we ate back in the room, relaxed, and then got ready to go get in line for richard cheese. it was a bit of a cluster f#ck once we got to the hard rock. we waited in a long line for longer than expected to get in and then waited longer than expected for the show to start (and probably spent more than expected on drinks.)
the show was great though and i actually talked to richard cheese during it. or i suppose he talked to me first. i won't get into the details but i'll just say that he was singing a lords of acid song at this point. we had a really fun time overall and i'm even looking forward to going back in august. here's hoping that it isn't as hot!!

in other news, i'll be giving my notice this week at the retail place and the big going away party is this weekend. i anticipate that it will be off the f---in chain.

better get busy packing. or sleeping.

on second thought...

one of the things on my list of stuff to do before i move was to have another cocktail party at my apartment. it occurs to me though that the days of my apartment looking cute are over. i've spent the past two evenings going through stuff and packing boxes. the going-through-stuff part was LONG overdue and i'm happy to say that i don't have too much more to do there. hopefully i got enough out of my system so that i can get back to dissertation work tomorrow. what this means though is that my apartment is in a bit of disarray and probably will be until august. or at the very least will be littered with u-haul boxes and less occupied by the little things that make my place...well, mine. its fun in a way. i've had the opportunity to look through tons of fun college pictures, sort through cards and letters, and located lost items. for example, probably at least 3 years ago i misplaced my drink coupons for free adult beverages on southwest. tonight...i found them. i'm hoping that my aggie ring will be the next lost item found. (*crosses all crossable parts*)

friends who have helped me move in the past (to whom i will be forever grateful) will appreciate that i'm getting rid of stuff (shut up dennis and mike) and i'm happy that this looks to be a more organized process than ever before. i've managed to throw some stuff away with every move, but i think this one will be the most successful.

now it's time or bed.

one more concert faux pas

it's really not necessary to yell "freebird" more than one time during a show. maybe its not even necessary to yell it once. not sure, but this lends some insight: http://ask.yahoo.com/20070607.html

some jackass kept yelling it last night at bob. good lord dude. give it up. it's just not funny.

"its not the end of everything, its just the end of everything you know"

i love using song titles as blog titles. this title comes from a freakin' great song i heard at a bob schneider concert last night. if you don't know bob, then you're truly missing out. (www.bobschneidermusic.com) my friend kirk asked me how many times i've seen bob perform and i guessed 11, which may or may not be correct. i know i've seen him in college station a few times, austin a few times, milwaukee, houston, and now santa fe. kirk enjoyed it, as did i, and it was a good time at the santa fe brewing company. my only complaint has to do with what i will call people behaving poorly. i'm sure this theme has come up in the past, but in this context my gripe is people who go to a concert and then talk loudly with their friends the whole time. what is the point of paying $15 to see someone perform and then chatter through all the songs. at one point people were shushing others, since many of us wanted to actually listen to bob's quieter songs and not hear conversations about random crap. there was plenty of space in the venue for chatty-kathys to relocate, thus having a quieter space to talk while not disturbing others who actually came to hear the performance. end rant.

in other news, i had an AWESOME time with my best friend dennis. he came to visit for about a week. we did a lot, including many items on my list of things to do before i leave. monday we ran some errands (including mailing my lease and deposit making the move almost official) and we went to what we thought was going to be a beautiful cathedral. turns out holy spirit cathedral is not so much a cathedral as a nondescript building. i took a picture of it with my phone, but you can't really see it. we soothed our disappointment by driving around campus and then having a few beers at kelly's. tuesday we took the tram up the peak and looked around, had a glass of wine at the top, got annoyed at the parents of twin boys who were kind of out of control...or at least more out of control than they should have been at the top of a mountain (at least they were named pascal and johnny...wtf?!), and then enjoyed the ride down the mountain. that night we made mike cook us his famous ribs and drank more beer (that was a trend for the week...we averaged a 6-pack per day per person for dennis and i). wednesday morning we went to see the petroglyphs and then went to the zoo in the afternoon. dennis got to meet some of my friends at pie shack that night and we ate pizza and...drank beer. thursday we went to santa fe and wandered around the plaza. we got to see two beautiful churches, a few neat shops, and lots of snooty people. we stayed at a wonderful hotel (st. francis hotel) near the plaza which was great. after daily mass, we had a yummy dinner at blue corn cafe and then proceeded to drink WAY too much. yikes. friday we eventually got out of santa fe to see bandelier national park. it was incredible!! i'll try to post some pictures after this very long post. when we got back to ABQ, we met up with mike and went to santiago's to have dinner and a drink on the mountain and watch the sunset. it was a great night! saturday we sent dennis off after a meal at owl cafe. it was truly wonderful having him out here. makes me look forward to living closer to one of my closest friends in the world. love ya dennis!

sunday i ran in a 5k. by run, i mean jog/almost die/walk/run/walk/jog/walk/jog/walk/jog/woo finish line! i didn't really have a time goal, mostly a just finish the race goal, which i did. it was harder than i expected, especially the uphill part at the beginning, but it was fulfilling to finish it. now i know its something i can do, and i can just continually improve my time. (and not train for future runs by drinking lots of beer and not exercising really for a week). it also kicked off getting back on track with the fitness and healthy eating after too long of a hiatus. so hear's hoping i can get the gym more and cheat on the diet less. :) off to a good start so far!

one more thing...the move has become official and is happening in less than two months. the apartment is set, the u-haul is reserved, mike's return ticket is purchases, and more boxes are getting packed. buck wild.

very slowly sinking in...

last night i did something proactive. i packed two small boxes of stuff in my apartment. sure, there's A LOT more to do, but i'm two boxes closer to moving to iowa. i also spent some time making a calendar today (i bought one of those blank ones you create yourself since its practically june, thus there aren't 2007 calendars for sale really...and its a waste of money to buy one now). the next few months are going to be really busy. i have two trips io texas, two trips to vegas, a visit from my best friend which starts this weekend, and lots of stuff on the list of things to do before i leave. somehow i only have about 2 1/2 months left in albuquerque. the official load the truck day is wednesday, august 8th..probably in the evening and i'll buy pizza and beer if anyone is free to help out. then i clean on thursday morning (again, if anyone wants to help i'll buy coffee and doughnuts or something) and then mike and i go part of the way that day. i think move-in day will be august 11th. i got the lease to the new apartment today and got to see some more photos. it looks great and i'll have plenty of room for visitors. (so come visit punks!)

still working at the retail place and liking it. i've even thought about working like one day a week at the same store in iowa just to get the discount and meet some new people. we'll see. also trying to get more transcribing done which is a challenge. my goal was to finish them all before dennis gets here on sunday but i'm not sure that will happen since i'm scheduled to work a bunch. :P new goal is finishing them before i go to texas.

okay, enough rambling. guess i should get a few more boxes and pack a few every night. crazy shit, yo!

p.s.--had a busy and fun memorial weekend. hope you did too.

"no, this is how it works, you peer inside yourself, you take the things you like, and try to love the things you took..."

if you haven't heard regina spektor yet, you need to check her out. i was fortunate to get her newest CD as a b'day gift from my awesome friend haley. get it and the lyrics will inspire you to blog.

this particular song is one of my favorites and though its titled "on the radio" its more about life and the way things seem to march forward. it speaks to me about how one thing lead to another "you laugh until you cry...you cry until you laugh." and that wherever we are led, all will pretty much be okay. we keep going on.

that sentiment resonates with me as may comes to an end. somehow its already memorial day weekend, which means june is just around the corner. i have a lot to look forward to, including a visit from my best friend dennis and a trip to texas, so that is all very exciting. at the same time though, time is flying by, which means that my tenure in albuquerque is too quickly coming to a close (about 80 days away!) i'm not going to write about how sad that will be, mostly because i'm in denial right now about leaving, but also because i don't want to sound like a broken record. suffice it to say though that i did have a bit of a freak out when i realized yesterday that its the end of may.

at the same time, i'm really excited because i got my dream apartment in dubuque. it seems to be exactly what i was looking for and though i haven't seen it in person yet, it looks to be a great place to call home. its a two-story duplex and the building was erected in 1906. the outside is brick and the inside has been completely renovated. i'll have my very own washer/dryer, three bedrooms (so come visit), lots of space, and a great view from my patio. i can't wait to see it. which is weird, because when i see it that will mean i have moved from ABQ. so confusing.

cross your fingers i can get 16 interviews transcribed by june 3rd. that is the goal. laters.

mini-rants and some raves too

just a few rants...

first up, when you're at the movies do me two favors. 1. don't friggin' text people during the show. you paid money to go watch the movie...so friggin' watch it. 2. speaking for all movie-goers, we could live without you making out with your boyfriend after the flick to the point that i'm pretty sure he is leaving with a half-stack. just don't do it. go home. home is for that kind of making out.

second, please ABQers...please....learn to drive. when a light is green, you can wait a second before going...but almost two minutes is ridiculous. pay attention to the task at hand, which is operating a motor vehicle. also, don't be a dick when its raining. the roads are wet, so that's not the best time for the usual antics like cutting people off, changing lanes without signals, and not stopping for emergency vehicles.

third, why has it been such a wet year in the desert? does that make anyone else wonder?

finally, please keep your kids under control. just do it. if your kid is trying to steal someone's tickets at a fun park while standing on said persons foot, you should probably get your ass over there to do something about it. and the reason your kids is so "unexplainably crabby" is because he is in a wet diaper. so wet that the stranger with the smashed foot can clearly smell it.

okay...that's all the rants for today. now a few raves.

i had a great weekend full of catching up with mike's family, watching lots of rugby, drinking beer, and eating good food. and i also finally got a bit of a tan. sure, its splotchy due to uneven sunscreen application, but its there none-the-less.

also, i'm really liking the one and only retail job that i have now. every one is nice and its just a positive place to work. even at 6 a.m. thank god for starbucks opening at the ass-crack of dawn.

cross your fingers that i will be an aunt again soon and that my niece will be coming over from russia soon to join our family.

also, cross your fingers that the kick-ass apartment i found online (gotta love craigslist) is as kick-ass as it seems. i should know more soon in a few days and maybe will have my housing figured out this week. how rad.

love my friends and family. just had to be said. okay...even ramblings for now.

hot!

today was a beautiful day to watch a bunch of rugby and drink fat tire. BUT, now its like 82 degrees in my apartment. its the annual "my air conditioner crapped itself" time of year so it's quite sultry in here. thank goodness i'm going to mike's soon and then will be partying for the rest of the night. so hopefully one of two things will happen by the time i'm back: 1. it will cool off and it won't be so warm in here and 2. i will have consumed enough "chardonnays" that i won't care.

also, go brujos and especially the rhino squad!!

:D

yeah...i'm tired

i started working at a cool retail place last week and i must say that i really really like it. i like it much more than my other retail job which i'm probably going to quit this week, despite the good discount. i am however, really tired. my day started at about 5:20 a.m. so that i could be at work at 6 to unload "the truck." though that sounds like it would suck ass, it really didn't. once i got out of bed, it was all good. i found out starbucks is open before 6 a.m. (thank god) and got to do some physical exercise in the wee hours. apparently earning money while working out is the only way i can drag myself out of the covers before 8 a.m. maybe that will change though, since i'll be a regular truck person. it will be nice to just be working at one store. i almost feel bad about quitting with no notice. but i don't. i'm also thinking about doing some house cleaning (for money) for people in ABQ. not glamorous work, but i don't hate cleaning and i could make some decent money doing it. woo!

i had some rants and raves but i'm not sure i remember all of them. so far only one comes to mind, which was a recent dining experience at one of my favorite pizza places last week. they have an awesome deal on wednesday nights and its arguably the best pizza in town. its a small place, so its always a crapshoot as to whether or not it will be insanely crowded or not very busy. for whatever reason, last wednesday night was unofficial kids night. i have nothing against kids. i like them in fact. but this was a crazy number of kids in a very small restaurant. for a brief period, we thought we were at Chuck E. Cheese, but no matter how much we looked around, there was no animatronic giant rat thing. so, the restauarant was LOUD. it was one of those situations where it just kept getting louder and louder. and the parents of the 1000s of kids did not seem to notice. one of the dad's commented on how the pizzeria was losing money because they don't have enough seating. this comment was especially irritating to me as one of the few childless people in the establishment. i guess it was because their party literally took up half of the seating, which meant there weren't chairs available for adults who would eat more than two bites of pizza. instead, most of the chairs were full of this guy's kids and his friend's kids who were not going to be consuming much, thus also costing the restaurant money. fortunately the food and the beer and the company at our table was great, and eventually it was bed time for the under 5 crowd.

weekend was good. i didn't have to work on saturday or sunday which was AWESOME! i did help mike clean his house and do yardwork though. kinda fun. i think his house is officially cleaner than mine now. next weekend should be a fun time too. looking forward to it. :D

this week i give the final for my class and then turn in grades. this was a fun group of students, but i'm glad that the semester is over. and i'm glad that i get paid until the end of june. money is tight hence all the jobs. gotta get the move figured out and all the interviews transcribed. the goal is to get the interviews done by june. i feel like that will be 80% of the work for the dissertation. i could be wrong though. :)

okay, enough sleepy rambling. hugs to my friends who kick asses.

holy poop its the end of april

mike called this a long month on his blog, but for me i think it went really fast. in fact, i fear that the next three months are going to whiz by and it will be august before know it.

in the meantime, i find myself working at two, count 'um, two retail stores. hopefully once i get the scheduling figured out it won't be more than 30 hours a week combined. it will be fun for the time being and i get good discounts at both places.

lots of stuff coming up in the next few months. classes are ending in a few weeks. mike's parents and sister will be coming to visit which should be fun. hopefully i won't have to work the whole time. :P dennis is coming to visit in early june and then i'm probably heading to iowa in mid-june for the house/apartment search. hopefully going to vegas in july and i REALLY want to go to texas one time before i move. so...should be a busy next couple of months.

oh, and i need to crank out more transcriptions for my dissertation (anyone want to help?) and probably start packing stuff. crazy! so i'm hoping the new jobs will still allow me to do everything i want to do before i leave. if not, then i guess i'll quit. :) that's the nice thing about having a job that you don't necessarily have to rely on.

okay...back to work.

something i didn't think i would say or do

an abq friend asked me on saturday if i'd like to participate in a 5K run in two weeks. i thought she was crazy when she asked me....the kid who has been riding the fitness struggle bus for a while. but after thinking about it, i think i might try to do it. and i might as well track my progress here. the even is called "run for the zoo" and i suppose if anyone wants to make some pledges you could. it will help animals and stuff. :) and if you donate money then i will feel obligated to actually follow through. :)

the race in on may 6th and i'll be working on getting ready for it for the next two weeks. regardless, it will feel good to have accomplished this and maybe it will help me stay motivated to keep on truckin'...i mean runnin'.

so as of today, i ran 3.1 miles (or 5k) in 42.5 minutes. hopefully i did the math right. the gym will only let me put in 30 minutes at a time and i knew i needed at least 45. :) maybe i should try to run outside?

anyways, if you want to pledge, send me an email or something. hope everyone had a great weekend.

taking in the view

i'm sitting here on my couch looking out the patio door at the beautiful sandia mountains. they were especially beautiful this weekend when they were covered with snow (which fortunately mostly stayed in the mountains!). the view makes me both happy and hopeful that when i leave here i won't feel like i took albuquerque for granted. that always seems to be the case though. once you live in a place, you do your normal day-to-day stuff, and you don't always take notice of the beauty around you. at least that's the situation for me. so i've been trying to make more of an effort to drink in this place while i'm here. the problem is that i'm not totally sure how to do that. my approach so far is to make a list of stuff i want i want to do before i move in august. here are some of the things i have so far:

-breakfast at gold st. cafe (must eat that red chili bacon again before i go)
-a trip up to the peak
-drinks and merriment at the restaurant at the base of the mountain at twilight time
-maybe a trip to the zoo
-isotopes game
-bowling at isleta casino (its way fun)
-a day trip to santa fe and/or taos
-winery trip (at least to st. clair for the wine flight)
-feast at tucanos
-lots of pie shack
-cocktail party at kate's
-grill outs
-lots of fun times with friends for sure in varied forms
-beer afternoon at kelly's
-lunch at juan's broken taco
-a trip to dagmar's german food sometime

and i'm sure there's lots and lots of other places i will end up adding (and unfortunately a lot of them are food related! better amp up the workouts). and i'm also pretty sure that i won't get everything on the list accomplished. i guess that means i'll have to come visit a bunch. :)

anyway, my hope is that i won't leave albuquerque regretting not appreciating it more. i think the best way to accomplish that is it spend time with my kick ass friends out here.

okay, enough rambling and staring at the mountain. back to work.

p.s.- the going to bed early plan is not going well for me.

early to bed

mike and i are trying a new experiment this week, which has to do with going to bed earlier. earlier means 10:30. i'm betting that's pretty close to mike's usual bed time, but for me, the night owl, that's really early!!! the idea is that more sleep helps you lose weight, so we'll see how it works. also, getting to bed earlier means getting up earlier, which means getting more accomplished towards the lofty goals i set in my last post. PLUS, i should get on a normal schedule since i'll be in a real job before i know it.

so wish me luck. i'm wondering if i'll need a nightcap to actually feel tired at 10:30 tonight. :D

a few hopefully non-lofty goals

its almost the end of march. which means its almost april. which means august is in 5 months or something. so i have set some lofty goals for myself.

1. fit into pants that i have moved all over the country more than one time. it would be great to be wearing those pants on this trip across the country. that will require me to drop 1 and 1/2 sizes. not sure if that's realistic in the time i have, but i'm going to try. guess that means no more skipping the gym. :)

2. finish the dissertation. i at least have to have a complete first draft of the whole damn thing before i move. that way i can send it to my committee and they can tell me what to correct and we can figure out a defense date so i can graduate in december.

3. figure out my syllabi. it would be nice to plan ahead for the courses that i'm teaching in the fall. i feel like i've been a "by-the-seat-of-my-pants" instructor so far in my career as adjunct and i would like to approach these courses with more intentionality. (is that a word?)

4. have some kind of fun-ass blow out with my ABQ friends. when i left TX to move here, it was very, very quick. i finished a stressful semester, went to iowa for two weeks, and then came back in a mad dash to pack my stuff and get to NM. so though i did have a few nights of fun with people at Northgate before i ventured off, the whole experience was so rushed that i barely processed that i was leaving. so i hope to catch up with everyone out here before i go and not in a "holy shit i'm leaving tomorrow and we must ingest coffee as fast as possible so i can see another person" way.

5. figure out boys. ha ha...that one is lofty. :D

6. sort through my stuff. i'll admit it, i have too much stuff. and i always say i'll go through it before i move again, and i end up going through some of it before i move, but there's still boxes of just...crap..that i need to sort through. this time i hope to really do it. maybe if i tackle a box a week. that's realistic right?

7. find a great apartment in dubuque. i'm looking for an inexpensive place in the downtown area with character. (not to be read as a total piece of shit...but rather one of those neat, older apartments instead the uniform, cookie-cutter variety).

i think that's enough goals for now. here's hoping i can get them finished. it will require me to get off of my current spring break schedule and to get up earlier and get to bed earlier as well. maybe tonight will be the first night. :D

"i'm waiting for my real life to begin"

the title for this blog comes from a really cool song by colin hay (who often has songs the show scrubs which automatically means they are good). it's a song that i find myself connecting to a lot lately. for more lyrics go here.

i suppose this song resonates because of some recent life changes that are on the horizon. as you know faithful readers, i've been on many interview trips including an impromtu trip on monday. the process culuminated yesterday with a decision. before said decision and after 9 days in texas, i was pretty gung ho about wanting the job in austin. but circumstances and choices have lead me on a new path...well, sort of new.

i'm excited to announce that i accepted my first full-time faculty position at my undergraduate alma mater. this school is near and dear to my heart since its where i spent my college days (well the first four years of them anyway). i made life-long friends there, became catholic there, learned a whole lot, and in so many ways my time there shaped where i'm at right now. it will be wonderful to be back and i know it will be a great fit...again. " i'm walking in my old footsteps, once again."

now, i'll be honest...i've loved living in new mexico and i have a great thing going here (aside from not having a job at the moment.) i've gotten accustomed to living in a larger city and i enjoy my mountain view. i also really like living near my favorite boy. so it will be hard to leave. luckily i have five months to hang out and have fun.

i also found out that my committee chair is going to be gone all summer, so i'm going to be graduating in december. still going to kick ass to get the dissertation written before i move. it will be hard to write and prep courses and adjust to a new life. its going to be fun to be closer to old friends and my family of course. it will be awesome to have a real job finally and be able to pay off debts and maybe by a house at some point. :)

anywho...that's the news.

"any minute now, my ship is coming in." or maybe it has? for now? :)

march madness and job madness

i've been spending the weekend with my friend brett which means that i've watch a lot more basketball that i normally do. the events of the weekend led me to actually make a few brackets for the ESPN tourney thing. maybe i'll win $10,000 with my very uneducated guesses.

if i don't, the chances of me getting a job are looking bright. i actually got an offer last week. because of that offer and the timing of it, i turned down an on campus interview for another school, and then traveled to texas to interview here on friday. i think the day went really well and i'm trying not to be overly optimistic that i'll get an offer hear. the kicker is that i won't find out until the 27th and i'm supposed to tell the first offer by the 19th. i called them today though and left a message about getting an extension (cross your fingers!). i had a call from faculty from the school i declined to call them to talk about the situation. i called them after the interview on friday and they REALLY REALLY want me to come to campus. so i'll be leaving from here on monday to go there and interview on tuesday. its all very crazy. i'm feeling like i'm suddenly in high demand after getting two rejections initially. i gotta say, its pretty cool. i'm hoping to get another offer, especially from the friday school.

i will of course keep you posted. gearing up now for SXSW music festival. woo to the hoo!!

over 12 hours in o'hare...yes, its as fun as it sounds

so after a great interview experience with the interview in iowa....i had the pleasure of spending WAY too much time in the chicago o'hare airport. i arrived at about 6:30 a.m. hoping to get on an earlier flight to ABQ. the new plan was to leave at 8:55 a.m. instead of 3:00 p.m. with the hope of getting home sooner so that i could have some hang out time with friends in NM for the weekend. (and i was looking forward to sleeping on the plane since i hadn't gotten much sleep the three nights prior.) little did i know that i wouldn't be leaving the airport until 11:00 p.m.-ish that night. here's the deal.

all the flights going to DWF were closed on saturday because of a nasty wind storm. BUT this didn't happen all at once. instead i waited until almost noon to find out that i wasn't going to be on the 8:55 a.m. flight (the joys of stand-by). i was told that i'd get priority for other flights since i was number 7 on the stand by list for that first flight. that was a flaming lie. instead i was always 17 or so on the list and it didn't even matter since flights were being cancelled left and right. i finally gave up on leaving early and went to the gate for my original 3:00 p.m. flight to later find out that it was also cancelled. trying to be strategic, i decided to try to get on the direct flight to ABQ that was leaving around 7 that night. so i got on the stand-by list and was pessimisticly told that it wasn't likely i was going to go anywhere. at this point, i'm exhausted and frustrated and not sure what else to do. so i got in a decent sized line for "customer assistance." it was impossible to talk to a real human once you're in the secure area of the airport. gate agents were too busy with their incoming/outgoing flights to help...though there were three friendly people who actually did help me. in the meantime though...i was in this line. to talk on a red phone to a human about rebooking the flight. others in line were also on their cell phones waiting to talk to humans as well. i was running out of battery life so i couldn't wait for 48 minutes to get to talk to someone. AND half the time it didn't work...it would go to a busy signal or just disconnect. fortunately, people in line started working together...so when they did finally get to talk to someone on the red phone, they wouldn't hang up. instead they would keep the call connected so the next person could talk to someone. this was the only realistic solution considering the impossibility of talking with someone directly. i got lucky because i made a friend in line (he must have felt sorry for me since i was all weepy and frustrated by then) and when he got in touch with someone on his cell he kept them on the line so i could rebook my flight. i ended up getting an actual seat on the direct ABQ flight that night. and hope was restored.

i got a very unhealthy dinner and a few beers while i waited a few hours for my flight to board. and board it finally did...but late. late enough that by the time we were all on there, the weather in chicago got bad. this was inevitable since i left DBQ early to avoid bad weather and weather moves eastward usually (or so i'm told.) so we waited on the plane for over an hour with the idea that eventually we would take off. i got a nap and then awoke to the news that we could get off the plane to get some food. everyone was still hopeful that we'd be taking off that night. instead, the flight got cancelled.

in my frustration, i hustled to the ticket line outside of the secure area so i could rebook something. it was about 1o at night at this point. i called my good friends jed and jen to let them know that i might be stuck in chicago for a while. the new plan was that i would try to catch an 11:00 train to their town so i could stay with them. the next train wasn't until 1 a.m. i stand in a long ass line for american airlines. i thought about leaving at one point and just getting to jen and jed's but i was worried about actually getting out of chicago. so i endured the freakin' line for over an hour. when i got to the ticket agent, they actually were really helpful and got me on a flight out of chicago on monday night. by the time that was achieved, i had missed the 11 p.m. train. so i jumped on the el to a metra station so i could get to jen and jed's. (oh..additional craziness...o'hare was setting up cots for people who couldn't get a hotel room and didn't have awesome friends in the area...but they were in the area past security...and you couldn't get there unless you had a new boarding pass for a new flight AND it was closing at 11:30 AND the ticket counter was closing at midnight. i have no idea what the people in line behind me ended up doing since they were totally screwed. it didn't help that at some points there would be 13 agents to help people and at other points only 6. total cluster f#ck!)

i managed to successfully navigate the el and waste about $8.00 (though i gave my el pass to some chicago boys hoping for good travel karma after that). when i got to the stop i needed, i made my way up to the metra connection part. i asked a normal looking guy if i was in the right place and when the train was coming. that opened pandora's box for crazy talk. all of a sudden this person (anthony) was telling me his life story which was rife with problems. apparently he was an evangelical catholic who hated jews and was in trouble with chicago mafia figures. the positive is that talking to him did two things...it passed the 48 minutes that i had to wait for the train and it took my mind off of how cold it was in that waiting area (no heat.) at the same time though, there was more than one moment when i thought to myself "this is a bad idea. he's crazy. i should get out of here." but i was really worried about missing the training and having to wait another hour to get to jed and jen's. fortunately some other guy showed up (with two six-packs of old style) and he seemed much more normal than the crazy guy.

finally the train came and i was so very relieved. jen picked me up at the station and i ended up getting to bed around 2 a.m. so that was a very freakin' long day. it was great to hang out with my friends...and fortunately my flight on monday night was only delayed by an hour. it was a long ass trip and i was very happy to get back home.

luckily my next trip is to austin. here's hoping it is very uneventful! here's hoping it is since the last two trips have been full of delays and craziness. makes me wonder about moving to the midwest a little bit...but no decisions are made so far. should here about the most recent interview soon.

later gators!

its less cold in iowa this time

so i was back in iowa for the past 24 hours or so for yet another on-campus interview...this time at my alma mater. temps were in the double digits this time...actually in the 30s, which isn't too bad considering my last trip which featured below zero temperatures that literally took my breath away and froze it which made me cough. :)

this interview experience was really great..the most comfortable one so far. likely its because i already know this school and saw plenty of familiar faces, but also i think the environment was just more open and friendly. i rarely felt like i was on the spot being bombared with questions. instead it was much more conversational and i felt like people really wanted to get to know me and what i'm about. i think if i got an offer, that it would be a fantastic opportunity for me. i'm still anxious to see what the last interview holds, but it is comforting to know that this is an excellent choice for me as well. in some ways i think it would be weird to be back in the place where i tromped around as an undergrad...but it would also be fulfilling to know that i'm in a position to make the school that meant so much to me a better place. and the people were all AWESOME! the biggest challenge in some ways would be moving back to iowa after being away so long and living in larger places. AND being so far away from ABQ and TX friends..though much closer to family and college friends which would be great.

SO...time will tell. i'll keep you posted. in the meantime, i'm grateful to have gotten out of the tiny regional airport before a big ass storm with freezing FOG hit (wtf?!). now i'm in chicago and should have gone to bed by now so i can catch an earlier flight back to ABQ.

peace out kids. more to come!

it's fuggin' cold in iowa. damn!

so i'm in iowa right now. its the quickest trip to iowa ever. i got here around 7:00 tonight and i leave by 7:00 tomorrow. i'm here to interview for a faculty position at a small liberal arts college here. i'm much more relaxed this time around, since i've got one interview under my belt and though this position would be cool, its not my first choice. that takes the pressure off a little bit, but i still want to do a good job. that's not to say that i don't have some things on my mind.

in fact, i've wigged out a couple times. i've been doing good at not wigging out in the new year, but lately...there's been a few wiggies. i think its because i'm pretty sure what i want to happen with this job search stuff and i'm worried that it won't. and not to be a bragger, but in the past i've usually not had a lot of problems getting jobs i want (with the exception of UNM since its virtually impossible to break into that system). and though i'm pretty good at this interviewing stuff, i still feel like i'm in new territory and that i'm really winging it on some level. (though i did get some good reviews about how i did at my first interview though i didn't get the position so i can't be all that bad.) still, i'm really hoping for an offer from my first choice. because if i have to move away from people i care about in albuquerque, then i should at least get to go to my first choice.

the other options would be good too i think, but they also worry me. i worry about what will happen with my dating life if i move, but i'm especially worried about the other options. i will elaborate this more when i get done interviewing. i don't know who's reading this and i don't want to totally sabotage myself just yet. :)

basically, there' s some unknowns in my life, as per usual, and some alternatives look better than others. and i have to wait to find out what will happen, also as per usual. :D so...i will try not to stress and just go with it.

okay...sleepy me.

p.s.- i had a great v'day with the boy...despite my stupid moment (sorry again boy). we had a very unhealthy but very yummy meal at my house, watch a great movie, and i got an AWESOME new bag that i'm sure i'll get a lot of use out of. thanks dude!! hugs

do i miss the cubicle?

no...i don't. :) i will miss my cubie friends for sure, but so far i am thoroughly enjoying my freedom from full-time work. i've had a chance to start some major apartment cleaning (including going through stuff to throw away), work out during the day (still have to figure out a good time...it was busy with old-timers when i went this morning), and catch up on some sleep which will hopefully make my cold go away. i'm excited that i'll actually be able to do the little things i haven't had time to do since july. and best of all, i get to work on the dissertation and class preparation without feeling like i have to sacrifice all the fun in my life. :) i can get used to this...at least until i get a real job someday. its also nice that i can pick up and fly to on-campus interviews basically whenever since i don't have many obligations now. don't have to worry about making up hours or taking vacation or whatever. just have to be concerned about finding affordable tickets and gearing up for more interviews.

speaking of which, i now have three on-campus interviews coming up. very exciting stuff!

had a really fun weekend which involved drinking too much beer probably. monday morning brought sleepy friends, as well as concern about break-ins. one of my friends has now had his house and car broken into within the last 2 weeks. :(

oh...i also have an interview on thursday for a part-time advising position. it would be great in the interim until i do get a real job and hopefully won't a) take up too much of my time or b) start anytime soon. i would love it if i could start after SXSW but that might be pushing it.

that's all my news...better get to teachin'!

back from the edge of my seat

so last time i posted about my on-campus interview and today is the day that i heard one way or another. unfortunately, i didn't get the position and they decided to go with another candidate. there are a number of possibilities for why that is, so i'm not beating myself up. it is disappointing though because in a lot of ways i thought that would be a perfect position for me. but as a wise sage told me this afternoon, who knows what doors are still opened up now. :) i still have a few irons in the fire in terms of on-campus interviews and stuff like that. and so i pull keep my chin up and find some wine this evening.

on a brighter note, today is my last day in the stupid job that has been driving me crazy since july. yay for some time to work on my dissertation and get my shit together.

everyone have a good weekend!!

back from the lou!

great weekend in st. louis! mike and i went on friday and hung out with my family for the weekend. the weekend consisted of lots of good food (including toasted ravioli-a local st. louis delicassy), a visit to the busch brewery, a trip up the arch, and just an all-around good time. the whole famn damily was there, so it was really fun to see my nieces and just to hang out out with everyone.

i followed up the weekend by preparing for my very first on-campus interview for a faculty position. i think that over all i did a good job. i was really worried about my research presentation which went so much better than the run through i had last week. and i think that the class i taught went well too. i met lots of people and answered lots of questions! all-in-all i really enjoyed it (though it was stressful) and i think the position would be a perfect fit. i have no read on it really and they are bringing the last candidate today or tomorrow. so the good news is that i will know something by the end of the week. another on-campus interview coming up next month, as well as a phone interview tomorrow.

cross your fingers that i get a job and get rid of this cold. i'll keep you posted faithful readers! :D

relief...i hope

today has been an interesting day. i got very little sleep last night and really the night before too, which i'm attributing to stress. so when i came in today i felt like i had a "case of the mondays"
that didn't last too long though, since i did some checking on a loan that i applied for and found out that i got it. though the money is not in hand, its just a matter of it being processed, which gave me the motivation to put in my two weeks notice. my big boss was very supportive about it and totally understood. i really didn't have a lot of options since i asked for reduced hours and was told no. i guess its better for the program i worked with to lose two full-time employees in 6 months than to let me work 30 hours a week. dumbasses. so, starting february 2nd, i'll be able to focus most of my time and energy into finishing my dissertation. i'm thinking about getting a part-time job as well, but luckily i don't have to stress too much about that right this second.

what i do need to stress about right this second is the on-campus interview that i have in a week! still have some things to put together for that which i hope to wrap up in the next few days.

so, what started out as a case of the mondays ended with plans to say good-bye to life in the cubicle. maybe i'll bring a screwdriver on my last day and push my wall down. :)

horoscope

so i've been making steps toward quitting my full-time job so i can focus on my dissertation. i think i will be able to do that this week. and it looks like the stars are in agreement with my plan. check out today's horoscope:

You are being lured into a new set of circumstances, even if you prefer to stay safe and sound in your old familiar life. You mistakenly believe that the status quo offers you more stability, but this is just an illusion. The bottom line is that you don't have the luxury to continue unproductive routines, even if they feel more comfortable. Make room for the future, for the excitement can revitalize you in ways you cannot yet imagine. Monday, January 15, 2007

now cross your fingers that everything falls into place. ;)

cross all your crossable parts

okay kids...so i've had a great start to the new year. have felt generally pretty optimistic about things and hopeful about the future. might be because i have had a few faculty phone interviews and at least one of them went well. i'll be traveling to an on-campus interview in a few weeks. however...this process is once again bringing some stress in the form of needing to get my dissertation written and having very little time. the time crunch could be because i'm working full-time, teaching a new class (yikes), and by the time that's all done i'm ready for some fun and not for buckling down with transcribing and writing. luckily two things have happened. one is that i got WONDERFUL advise from my guru friend karen about how to prepare for the interview. her tips have result in a bit less work than i was creating for myself. the other thing is that i have literally nothing to do at work right now, so since i'm not allowed to reduce my hours, i'll just work on stuff here. boo-ya! (or dousch! as a friend of a friend used to say...he got that confused, but i think its hilarious and we should start saying it!). HOWEVER, it is still my greatest hope that one of three things will happen: 1. someone i know wins the lottery and shares, 2. i find a sugar daddy (any takers? its just until august!) or 3. i get one of the part-time jobs i applied for and can quit this full-time crap. its kind of risky, but at the same time, i feel like i have to do whatever it takes to get done with this dissertation, because if i don't the greater risk is that i won't get one of these faculty jobs after all.

in terms of that...i'm still excited and weirded out about the thought of getting one of the jobs. the one i'm interview for in a few weeks seems like it would be a great fit for me. and i like the idea of only having ONE job for the first time in at least 3 years. i find my mind drifting to things like getting a house and a dog and being able to pay stuff off and getting to teach in a setting that really values good teachers. all of that would be great. the leaving friends behind in albuquerque part is hard to think about at the moment. so i won't think about that until i have to.

in the meantime, cross your fingers, toes, eyes, buttcheeks, whatever you can that i get to quit my stupid full-time job soon. :)

p.s.- i turned old last saturday but it was a raucous good time! 2007 is starting out pretty dang well!

oh the weather outside is...friggin nuts!

i had a wonderful holiday and find myself starting 2007 feeling much more optimistic and just good about things. it was very nice to have some time to relax at home and i must confess that i'm NOT ready to go back to work tomorrow.

my vacation started a day earlier due to all the crazy snow we've been getting around here. that allowed me some time to get packed and slide around town in my car on trips to target with mike. also got a long lunch with some friends, which was great.

my flight to dallas went off without a hitch. however, when i got to the gate to go to des moines, there was talk of the plane being overweight and people not going to get to fly for 72 hours. i, of course, was on their list of 13 people who would be stuck in dallas but while i was making plans for alternate routes, i got really lucky and was called back to board the plane. five of the original rejected got to go to beautiful iowa! totally felt like i won the lottery. :D

my time in iowa was pretty great. lots of quality time with family and friends and down time which i really needed. even managed to go to the gym a few times while i was home, though the diet pretty much went to the wayside. i'll try to write more about awesome home time soon.

my trip back to ABQ was also not without drama. i realized after leaving marshalltown that i had too much stuff and would have to pay extra to check three bags. so i repacked stuff and made sneaky plans to gate check one of my suitcases. this was not an issue at all from des moines to dallas, and i assumed that it wouldn't be one from dallas to albuquerque either. i was sort of wrong. as we were making our descent into the international sunport in ABQ, we were diverted to el paso. turns out a bunch of fog came to visit the airport and we couldn't land and didn't have fuel to circle. after refueling in el paso and waiting for over an hour, we were informed that we couldn't land in ABQ and that the flight would be going back to dallas. the problem with that was the fact that there were 72 people flying stand-by for our flight when we left dallas, which meant that the chances of leaving on the next available flight were slim and none. AND since it was weather related, they would not pay for our hotel and we wouldn't get our luggage. i decided to deplane and get a rental car and drive the 4 hours to ABQ so i could ring in the new year with friends instead of alone somewhere in texas. lucky for me a lot of other people had that plan and i ended up sharing a dodge caravan with 4 other people. the only problem was no luggage...including my gate checked bag...which had all my dissertation tapes and various other things that i didn't want to be lost in an airport. however, the focus became getting home while contending with fog and dreaded black ice. i got to mike's at about 12:10 and drank some champagne with friends.

the next day we went to the airport and found two of my bags...but not the one i really wanted...the gate checked one with all my dissertation work! LUCKILY it came today and that's a huge weight off my mind. now, i will hope my luck continues in the new year. i have an on-campus interview for a faculty position in st. louis that would start in august and if i get it then i must have my dissertation finished. if they make me an offer then i will do some serious rethinking about my current job situation. i also have a phone interview for a school in austin coming up as well.

so...that's all my news in a quick nut shell. now i should probably get some sleep for work tomorrow.

happy 2007 friends and family! :D