...and I am officially dreadfully sorry about that title.

A Rare Moment of Peace
I've got about forty five minutes here until I have to head over to the gym. THEN, after I am good and aerobics-classed-out, I will do some more work. In the meantime though, I have bounced strangely back from that SINKHOLE that I had fallen into not four days ago. I have a moment of free time, and I am using it to do something I like - journaling - as opposed to freaking myself out over all the 139571309481 tasks that I COULD be doing, but that can also, mercifully, wait until tomorrow.

Bob the cat fell on the guinea pigs late last night. :( This did not result in anyone getting hurt, but it did result in a minor pig freak out, the breakage of those plastic grid connector jobbies, and me kicking Bob out of the house rather unceremoniously, as I didn't want him EATING the suddenly-vulnerable walking flesh-potatoes. Which is, really, what guinea pigs actually are to anything with pointy teeth. Poor things. They are so...prey-like. Annnnd that's enough hyphens for one post, kthx.

Classes are winding down. I am not entirely sure how I coped last semester with having two seminar papers due - actually, come to think of it, the only time I've really had TWO full-length seminar papers due at the end of the semester, I did poorly on one, and only did well on the other because the instructor sympathized that I came into the class with NO relevant knowledge and did a huge amount of work researching. Not because I produce a workable paper - because I didn't, really. I mean, maybe the *germ* of something that could be interesting about collaborative technologies and writing is in there somewhere, but I'll be damned if I know where it is.

In other words, the life of an MA student, which entails often having THREE seminar papers, all of which should *theoretically* look a little bit like articles, due at the same time? NOOOO THANKS. Which also makes me think - and here's reason #1985712309! - that I would not be a good doctoral candidate at this point in my life. I've got too much other shit to do.

Not the least of which, at the moment, is to get into digital photography and web design. These are two extremely minor, peripheral interests of mine that I haven't had the time or, frankly, the inclination to do ANYTHING with until sort of recently. Not that I have the time now. But I do have the inclination. Right now my Flickr page consists of pictures of my pigs. While cute, what I'd really like to do is actually use that account for post-processed work - after I learn how to post-process. This also will require me to get that Canon that I've been pining away after for months now. I can haz Christmas present?

SIGH. It's my interest-ADHD, at it again. For shame! For shame. This is why I am not good at anything. Because I have an interest in everything. Web design is SO FAR out of my realm of technical expertise that it's positively laughable. But I want to do it, and I want to understand it. This has given me many headaches, and will continue to give me headaches, as I intend to spend the inordinate amount of time over break doing website crap. I hope my mother didn't think she was actually going to get to USE her desktop, because she's not gonna.

The Break That Wasn't

I am actually going to be away from the proverbial desk for the vast majority of winter break this year. This is because, in a situation akin to the one where you're trying to turn left out of a side street and cars just keep coming at JUST THE RIGHT INTERVALS to keep you from going, I have all sorts of stuff scheduled back in the valley from the 17th to the 3rd.

This is okay, because being away from the office for a while means that I hate it less when I have to be there for 12 hours at a stretch, or whatever, but it also means that I am going to have to do some major battle choosing. I have 2 articles that are, respectively, patently terrible and sort of terrible, that need to be worked up into something-less-terrible. I have no idea when I am going to do this, and I thought break might be a good time to get a jump on that. But no can do, when I don't have access to several million books courtesy of Large University Library.

And you know what? I AM OKAY WITH THIS.

Instead, I will focus on my own website, the website I'm supposed to revamp for the department's community outreach program thing, photography/Photoshop, a loooooong poem (maybe; maybe just revisions of really early poems) and other things that I genuinely enjoy doing. And maybe I will do a little job hunting/resume-sending/connection-begging while I'm at it.

The articles can wait. At this point, in my life, they are not a priority. When I decide in a fit of last-minute panic that the economy sucks enough that my only option is to go back to school, THEN I'll rethink. But until then, I'm going to do stuff that I enjoy, and hopefully find a non-generic job that pays the bills, and that will be that. For now.

You know I'm saying this when in reality, Dreamweaver at 4AM makes me want to kill myself. BUT IN A GOOD WAY?

( A meme, because, uh, why not )
Okay, that's enough of that.

Cubicle Jobs Shown to Reduce Willingness to Live

At least, that's MY take on it. I'm sitting here at my Other Job, which is basically a vague list of tasks combined with babysitting a library full of composition textbooks and the like. It's not very exciting, but it's also not teaching, which, while much more stimulating, is also much more brain-intensive. The problem, then, becomes the fact that while I'm here, I just end up reading various Gawker blogs for four hours, instead of doing things that, yunno, could actually help me make PROGRESS towards the end of the semester.

ONE WEEK LATER

Boilin' some eggs. Actually, this is not a week later so much as it is the weekEND. I'm having some eggs for breakfast, and then I'm going to get the fuck out of my house to go do laundry and, hopefully, get some WORK done in a place where I have no access to the internet. You hear me, internets? I HATE YOU

Confession time. Get out your barf bags.

I am no so sure how I'm doing off the ol' meds. I've been off them for a week and change now (!!) and the physical side effects have all but gone away - no more dizziness or pervasive nausea or brain zaps or hot flashes (yeah, it was a good time). Problem is, now I just feel *crushed* all the time. Like, I survey the amount of crap I need to get done within the next, oh, couple of weeks or so, and I literally stop breathing for a little bit, and then I DO get nauseated and dizzy. And the hilarious thing is that, in reality, I have about one-third the amount of stuff to do at the end of this semester than I did at the end of, oh, ANY OTHER SEMESTER THAT I'VE EVER BEEN HERE EVER. No full-blown seminar papers, no huge stacks of cause-and-consequence essays to wade through. And yet, lately, I've just been completely frazzled, and paralyzed by some vague stress. To the point where I can't be bothered to do anything that's not sleeping, really.

This...is a problem!

I am constantly telling myself that I will somehow fall into a routine where I no longer have to be envious of everyone else's lives when they say that they cook for themselves on a regular basis, or wake up early and get x/y/z done, or have their things organized, or whatever. I have this incredible inferiority complex, and not only does it fuck up my interpersonal relationships, it fucks up my own sense of what I need to make myself healthy and happy and satisfyingly productive. Because I don't THINK I'm one of those people that's destined to be perpetually unhappy because I'm not ever doing enough. I mean, I know I"m KIND OF one of those people, but I"m not TOTALLY one of those people. Guh. I just want to be okay with the amount of stuff I'm doing/not doing.

On that note, I do actually have some homework I've gotta tackle. And away we go.

And Another *GhzzZZzzz* for Emphasis

Up there? That subject line? THAT WAS MY ENTIRE SUNDAY.
Not that I'd been any more useful to anyone or anything the rest of the weekend, but the amount of sleeping that I did between Saturday night and Monday morning was truly remarkable. Saturday night was a kind of September-baby-extravaganza, because apparently everyone on the whole planet (and by planet I mean English department, what, talk to some of the people around here and you will realize that THEY ARE THE SAME THING) has a birthday this week or last. Gp and I were only expecting to be at the party for a little bit, but then 3AM rolled around and we were still up, and I had a stomach ache from drinking beer, which for some reason I have STILL not taught myself not to do at gatherings. Pavlov would have a field day with me, for truly.

Anyways so I went to bed around 4:30 on Saturday, and woke up at 3 on Sunday, and then watched a little tv and did stuff until 9, at which point I fell asleep on the couch. I was awake for approximately 6 hours. SIX HOURS, people! That's pathetic. So pathetic that I am going to stop writing about it now. But seriously. Have I had fewer waking hours in a day? I don't think so. Hoo. Ray.

"A New Genre"

I guess that's what some critics are calling the "coming-of-middle-age" story, which sounds about as exciting as a Russet potato, but srsly guys, I saw "The Savages" the other day, which is supposed to be the flagship film of that particular genre, and it was damn good.

And it DID make me simultaneously laugh and cry, just like the back of the box told me it would. You go, critics from Time magazine.

Coming Up: More Boring

This weekend I have to drive my big stupid car all the way back to my parents' house, which I don't like doing because, yunno, GAS, and also because, yunno, DRIVING A BIG CAR BY MYSELF. Why the @#%!#! I let myself get talked into buying an SUV, I'll never know. Probably because I was hauling crap all over the place through three feet of snow when I lived in Colorado, all of which would have been much more difficult in, say, a Prius - but still. But I do get to see my mom n' dad. Which gives me the warm fuzzies. So you know. OKAY ENOUGH

Why am I doing this? Relatives from the Philippines! Woo! In classic Filipino fashion, I had no idea they were coming this week until my mom told me, uh, two days ago. And yes, I DID just see them IN the Philippines, but it's not often they get to come over here because, yunno, America hates foreigners unless they can supply us with shit for WalMart and/or underpriced labor! */patriotism*

Then, I have four days back here at university until I head to Chicago, at which point I will HOPEFULLY get to see suikavanishes and I will HOPEFULLY not make an ass out of myself at gp's high-school-friend's wedding. Oh, weddings. What the heck, people. STOP GETTING HITCHED. YOU'RE FUCKING UP MY SCHEDULE.

After Chicago, Reno. As in, Nevada - which is, for some unfathomable reason, where the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association has decided to host their annual conference, at which I am giving a talk about tropes and poststructuralism. I sincerely hope that no one that knows anything about either of those subjects shows up, because then they will ask me questions, and I will be forced to admit that I am a blowhard. And/or I'll stammer something about Nietzsche and then hide under the table. 

Now, to use a lot of paper clips. I use a lot of paper clips in my teaching these days. And then I lose them. The end!

</lj>

That's right, folks, I am panicking. It's awesome. And by awesome, I mean kind of awful.

But WHY? Your life! It is so boring and idyllic!

True, true. Except for the leeeeeetle nagging fact that my thesis is coming up and I'm not writing. I mean, I'm writing for workshop - my dutiful poem-a-week. But other than that, not much is coming out of me. And I don't want my manuscript looking like 50 unpublishable pages with a few signatures on it. I want it to be a BOOK - at the very least, a germ of a book. 60 poems or so. I have, like, 20 worth saving right now.

AGOIEHOQIEHOAFNALDS(Q#)TU)(#*#E@~%&

*cough*

Also, I'm tired of trying to convince myself that all this time in school will be "worth it." It already HAS been worth it - I've loved it, even with the stress and the agonizing readings and everything else. Even if I don't end up doing a single thing with these degrees, it will have been worth it. Because really, what else should I have been doing? Droning away in some godawful cube-job so that I could BUY THINGS and then HAVE STUFF and then LOOK AT MY STUFF? It's just stuff. I don't want stuff. I want to be able to travel, but that's about it. I'm trying to wean off of...stuff. If I can do that, I'll have plenty of money for travel! Har har.

I seem to have digressed. Where I was originally going with that was this idea that goes something like "omg I spent all this time convinced that I was going to BE a poet and it turns out that I don't write nearly enough or nearly well enough for that to be the case oh christ I HAVE WASTED MY PRECIOUS PRECIOUS YOUTH" is a load of hogwash, and I need to learn that. Because you know what? I still do love producing poetry, I might just not, you know, need to do it in a way that dictates that I sacrifice everything in order to make a living via writing. And I'm incredibly grateful that I've been able to spend all this time dicking around in this field that I just love.

...Does make me sort of smack myself upside the head for not, say, learning how to build web pages, though. I mean, that does earn one's keep. I'm still not sure how I'm going to manage putting food in my face after this. Wee! Uncertainty is fun! *gnashing of teeth*

Anyhoo, I'm just sayin'. No regrets. I am hereafter not allowed to have regrets about shit like this.

Where have I been?!
Where HAVEN'T I been, really.

Art! At Ten!

No, that's not really true - haven't had much to say because the past few days have been pretty uneventful, with the possible exception of our day in Andoro, which is a town on the very outskirts of the metro Manila area (in Rizal province, actually) that occasionally gets slapped with the title of "arts capital of Manila" - which is sort of a funny name for a town that has, like, three main streets. Regardless, that was a fun day. We toured a bunch of galleries, the absolute highlight of which was the Blanco Family Museum. I'll upload, later, some of the paintings done by the children in this family - stark realism at TWELVE? Gaaaaaah

Also, in that gallery, I saw a spider the size of my head. It could have eaten my face. I nearly died.

Miscellaneous Crap That Does Not Bear Reading

Rundown of this week (this is mostly for my own purposes, blah blah SKIP blah blah):
Mon: Nestle
Tues: Bayan USA (SONA prep), meeting with Evalina Galang (re: Comfort Women)
Wed: Andoro tour, trip to Team Manila at Rockwell Mall
Thurs: Day off, Theresa's bday party
Fri: Day off (today!), except for pasalubong shopping at 4

Anyway. I have been sleeping a lot lately, because our schedule this past week has been sort of borked and thus we have more time off than usual. This is good, because I'm pretty sure that I am reaching my limits as far as my ability to sustain this kind of schedule is concerned. We leave for Boracay in a week, and then I leave the country.

That, ladies and gentlemen, feels very weird to say.

I feel like my time in grad school has just dropped away and I'm going to have HELLA catching up to do when I get back; I have a paper to write for a conference in October that I'm halfway through but have no idea how to conclude, I have job in the comp office that I have to sort out, I have a new class I'm teaching that I haven't thought about in months (even though I actually wrote the syllabus already, go me), I have a schedule that's not finalized yet. AND, as if that's not enough, I have to think about whether or not I want to apply for PhD programs this fall or not. Theoretically, that was the plan all along - to go straight to a doctoral program and start thinking about the big D, as it were. Now I'm not so sure. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous English departments become - and the less I want to spend my life being mired in one. In an ideal world, of course, I'd just become a creative writing teacher that also published criticism - not a critic that is forced to publish every four weeks who has to find time when she's not flipping out about that to write creatively. Of course, I could also go for a job at like Podunk State U and get stuck with a 5-5 teaching load and fade into obscurity. GREAT. I want more for me than that - but I don't know if the "more" I want necessarily correlates to a better teaching job than said job at Podunk State. It might mean something else altogether?

I can haz IDENTITY CRISIS

Uh, Back to the Philippines?

So maybe after my MFA I'll come back here. That seems like a wacky idea, given the fact that right now I'd sort of give my left arm to go home (I has a bit of a homesick at the moment), but I know that there is a TON of stuff around here that I haven't seen yet, and that I want to. Desperately. Also gp says he wants to come here - I told him he'd love it, if he could tolerate getting stared at wherever he went.

It's funny; every time I see a white person here (HAHA, like I'm not white) I'm all "what are you DOING here?" as if no one had any reason to be here that wasn't Filipino or married to one or a missionary. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do that if I were in, say, Thailand, or Malaysia. The Philippines is just...NOT...a tourist destination. That's their own damn fault - they're bad at marketing. It's also not being helped along by the US flipping out about TERRORISM. I will say it now: this country, so far, has been RIDICULOUSLY safe. I have not once (not even in front of the police!) felt like I was in any physical danger. Mental danger, maybe. But that's a different story. So it's funny, and sad, that every time anyone sees a foreigner here they're all agog, and staring, and generally making said foreigner feel uncomfortable. There are so many things here that, if the infrastructure was even HALFWAY decent, would attract quadrillions of tourists - the entire island of Palawan, the Cordilleras, the beaches in the Visayas, the four zillion things to do in Manila. But no one comes here because everyone thinks it's "OMGZ DANGEROUS." It's just not true.

(Though I do sort of covet the stereotype; it makes me seem like I am a crazy person for travelling to SE Asia's final frontier. Which the Philippines, aside from maybe the jungles of New Guinea, is still considered to be. Countries like Thailand, on the other hand, who have gotten the whole tourism-biz DOWN, are not. So I'm intrepid! Don't bust the myth, Kim! They need to think that you are still cool!)

Wow, I digressed. I guess I don't have much more to say about my own completely-borked life itinerary, though. Other than I have no idea What's Ahead. Am I still young enough for that to be exhilarating and good? I HOPE SO

Okay. I should get going on a poem, or something, considering I'm not even halfway to my number-o-poems goal that I set when I got here. I have resigned myself to the fact that I am not going to actually PRODUCE that many poems by the end, but really, if I don't make it into double digits, I will be angry.

You know what else makes me angry? Heat rash. On my tattoo. Goddammit.

THE END

THIS, folks, is why I'm pretty sure I'm done with this whole English grad student BULLSHIT:



I mean, I lol'd. But really, it would be exponentially funnier if it weren't SO damned true. When you think about it, it's a really stupid field. I sort of can't believe I've been doing it for this long without realizing how dumb it really is.

I am now, however, going to have to make up some new lines for the whole "oh, you're a poet? WhatareyagonnaDOOOwiththatsweetie" thing that I have to endure every fucking day of my whole fucking life.

Anyway, tonight we saw a reggae band and it was awesome and reminded me of JBB shows, and then I got all nostalgic THE END.

(Mostly just wanted to say that line because they're making a moooovie out of it. Which I am hesitant to see. Because it might ruin my delightfully skewed perception of my childhood.)

So! Neglected blog remains neglected. I can haz entry?

Spring Break, or, A Lot of Unnecessary Driving

Two weeks ago I was on vacation. Supposedly. What it really was was a nailbitingly-close-to-deadline submission of an article, followed by the quickest turnaround response time ever (the response: yes! Woot.), bookended by trips back to my parents' house for tourism-grocery-shopping, a beer festival, and a bridal shower, in that order.
Phew.
The tourism grocery shopping kicked ass. Basically it was a giant bus tour into New York City (I know, so not chicly inconspicuous, but I guess I must have looked enough like an NYC student anyway that a few people asked me for directions to Washington Square) whereupon my father, sister, gp and I, along with about 40 drunk middle-aged women (yes!), descended upon gourmet locals such as the Fairway and Chelsea markets, Zabars, and Murray's cheese shop. I came away with a truckload of gourmet organic meats, real lard, a bunch of cheese, some pates, catnip tea (!), and some other stuff that has long since been digested. Ahhhhhhh, my palate. It was happy with me.
Now I'm back in Pseudonymous College Town, where the ingredients are heavenly but for some godforsaken reason NO ONE has figured out how to cook with them in a restaurant setting. I mean, this is one of the few places in the COUNTRY where you can get all your dairy unpasteurized, and yet 90% of the shit you find in town involves sandwiches made entirely out of breaded corn syrup. Ah well. If you open shop in a town full of drunks, I suppose you ought to cater to them. And their cravings for food that will help them vomit.

Aaaanyway. The next weekend (the week in between was spent writing the aforementioned article, which sucked, and continues to suck as I think it will probably require even more edits) was BEER FEST in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Tiny Microbreweries. Actually it was the very end of Beer Fest, which had been going on all week but alas, you know, school. I don't even really drink beer, but my car-wreck sensibilities and endless giving heart (har, har) found me trailing along after my father and my significant other as they drank a lot of suds. And you know what? It ALSO kicked ass, if only because I don't think my father has been to a real bar in over 20 years (this is what happens when you join a country club and become part of the upper class; you stop going to bars apparently, I don't know). He loved it, and so I loved it, and gp had a good time too, inasmuch as I can tell he's having a good time. They both got kind of tipsy, and that was hilarious, because gp had the audacity to tell bad off-color jokes to my father and dad lacked the wherewithal to find them in bad taste. Brilliant! There were keg races and yelling and ridiculous Philly accents and bar-jostling and beer spilling and beer-name-forgetting, and my dad was there through all of it, being 50-odd and awkward and the best person on the whole planet. I was so glad about it. In fact, I guess I didn't realize HOW glad I was about it until I wrote it down, now. Funny that. Also my dad drunk has the attention span of a gnat. It's great.

"What's this beer again?"
"Southampton Double White."
"Oh. It's good! We should get some. I wonder if they make it in six packs. *Looks around, sips beer*"
"What's this beer again?"
"Southampton Double White."
"Oh. Right. Good stuff! I'll have to remember that. We should put these beers in alphabetical order."
"Your'e the boss, dad."
"What's this other beer, again?"

I love, love, LOVE that man.

/sentimental

My Poetry Sucks

Actually, I think that that's all I've got for that subheader. I've hit a kind of wall. Not in small part, I think, due to the rather oppressive (nrrrrr) environment of this semester's workshop. And this guy is going to be my second reader? What was I thinking? I have to keep reminding myself that as long as I'm firm, he's a good reader. And that he WON'T force me to produce 100 pages of obvious little lyric poems that are just shiny blobs of metaphor. I am tired of shiny blobs of metaphor. They bore me and make me feel self-conscious and unimportant, somehow all at the same time. Don't force me to write that shit. I don't want to feel that way about my own work.

A Tisket, a Tasket. Here is my small animal in a basket.

In pig news, Astro's on antibiotics cuz somehow she managed to get a bit of a urinary tract infection. A colleague of mine asked me the other day how guinea pigs can even get UTIs. I surmised that it probably had something to do with their propensity to sleep in their own pee. This, of course, makes me sound like a wacko nut for loving on them and cuddling them and generally being obsessed over their little potato-shaped selves. But alas. I am. And no, they don't smell like pee. Somehow they remain remarkably clean. Not, however, clean enough to escape the occasional infection, however. Humans aren't either, so.
Anyways, she's on some abs twice daily and gp gives them to her, and he's so good about it. He gives her a treat afterwards and doesn't mind that the medicine goop gets all over his hands, and he wipes her mouth with a little napkin, and I think good Christ, THIS is the guy who gets wigged out by muddy pants. Astro, for her part, is (as much as one can tell about these things in a rodent) getting pretty attached to him. She comes up to him like a tiny, eggplant-shaped dog and burbles at him. And then she eats my checkbook. Go figure.

In Easter news, I got to spend it with my father's side of the family, minus, and this is a BIG minus, my father. So it was my uncle and his insipid wife and my crazy conservative cousin and my less crazy but goopily-in-love-with-a-frat-boy other cousin, and my uncle's wife's actually-pretty-interesting son, daughter, and daughter-in-law. And Gram, but she's awesome, so. Dinner was good and sugary and gave me heartburn for most of the day today. Hooray! I am over it now, and can stand up without feeling mildly nauseated.

And that's that. The end! More in, oh, a couple of weeks, because these take me forever to write 'cause I'm a douchebag.

No really. Today's expedition outside the house (the only one, seeing as it was raining, which, in late December, is depressing we are ALL GOING TO SLIDE INTO THE OCEAN AND DIE) involved a lot of horse poop, and a lot of reeeallllly tiiiiiiiny horses. My mother's friend has a small herd of miniature beasties, and we gave them many apples. They, in gratitude, slobbered on us. D'awwww.

(Honestly, though, I kind of missed horse slobber? Um. Anyways.)

Ur Holidayz, I Slept Thru Them

I swear, coming home is like being on a whopping dose of morphine for about four days. That is, I swear, how long it takes me to NOT go to bed at 10 and wake up at one. PEE EM. I feel like such a sack of shit, but I have to remind myself that it is probably a natural bodily reaction to being here. Home = sleep. Sleep = needed. Productivity = detrimental to my SANITY AS A PERSON.
Which, sometimes, makes me cranky about my chosen, uhhh, line of work. I mean, sure, it's necessary to do important work and have it published and contribute...thoughts....to the....thought-o-sphere....but mostly, being an academic goes something like this:  'start your dissertation now! work on chapters! FOCUS! If you do not publish YESTERDAY you have no career! And if you DID publish yesterday, or think you might have, or have conferred the admiration of some old fogey in the department, then you have some inalienable RIGHT to be a pompous ass about it! Go forth!'

>_____<

I dunno if I can keep that up for, like, the rest of my existence. Uggghhhhh. I enjoy writing poetry so much more than that false-hierarchical bullshit. Oh well! Can't make a living wearing a beret and being weird, so I guess I just have to play the game. The question remains, though, of whether or not I can stomach that game, or if I'll choose a less intellectual, but infinitely less irritating, game. Who knows.

Spoilage

The pigs are at my parents' house with me over the break. They have become very tiny, very scared celebrities around here. Well, less scared as of late - Muffin has figured out that if she shrieks, the short brown lady comes over with carrots. My mother is such a sucker. So they all make fun of me for keeping my little animals in such a spacious abode, and fixing them nice salads every day - but they're no better. It's kind of hilarious, actually, listening to my dad talk to two guinea pigs. Who knew?

OH I am so boring. I have shit to do today, too. Errand stuff. I am really glad that construction people woke me up at SEVEN by replacing a giant window in the hallway right outside my bedroom. Fantastic. On the plus side, I now get to start my day before three. Off I go.

Lawdy, there is some good shit floating around in the blagosphereotubes lately. Must be something in the water.

I have had, since high school I suppose, some pretty severe head issues regarding who I am on the outside versus who I am on the inside, and why they don't always connect. I have also, persistently, been totally unable to articulate these feelings in any way that DOESN'T make me sound like I've gone off the deep end. Believe me, I've articulated it plenty of times and come off as a total crazypants. Just ask that other kid. He gets the brunt of it, and I'll bet he loves it! Oh yes!

So anyway.
Leave it to a mathematician to say it all for me perfectly. Dammit. That post is a MUST READ, people.

That whole rant was picked up by Unfogged, where it garnered more comments than I have seen in any recent post on that site. Hell, I even jumped into the discussion, which was nervewracking at best (think nurse shark with a bachelor's hopping into a tank full of dissertation-ified great whites). They've been more than nice to me so far. Phew.

At any rate, I think I feel a little better knowing that it's not just me. Because boy do I loathe how much I am loathe to give up the privileges of 'being a body' - which is exactly what I did when I chose to lead an academic life. I know that 98% of me is what I have chosen to be. But the tastes of what Could Be and Somehow Isn't - well, that's enough to fuck you up for life. Ah heh.

    A persistent and miserable bout of nausea kept me from attending Dr. Nielsen's farewell party for one Cecil Giscombe, which sucks a bunch because I really did want to go do the bye-bye thing somewhere other than the meeting I have with him tomorrow morning at ten. Alas. At least now I'm not on the verge of upchucking anymore. Gorgeous, I know!
    On the upside (I suppose), I managed to put the finishing ink-blotches on my half-lit-review, half-article about the problems of practice and theory as it pertains to social constructivism and wikis. I am not at all sure how coherent it is, but for now, it will have to do - I need more minds than my own to figure out exactly where I want to go with all those thoughts I plopped down on about 24 pages. My writings are getting longer, which I suppose is also good, because usually I have to put in filler to GET it to the required word/page/syllable length, and now I find my thoughts spilling all over the place. Condensing is harder, but better, than expanding, so I guess this is a step in the right direction.
    Thinking about getting some sort of small fuzzy companion to keep around the house - a guinea pig, perhaps.

Commence Guest Blog by Hayden!

Papers kick ass.

End Guest Blog!

    Anyway. I also finished, for the time being, work on the Project News section of my wiki. Hooray for me.
    That's all for now. Am tired.