Well, I have my MA now, and that means it's time to move on to my new identity.
The new blog is all spruced up and ready for business with three whole entries waiting for you at:
http://psychelogical.blogspot.com
Hope you all move with me and start reading over there!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
I Did It!
Today was my graduation day! [I had a friend in high school who spent the entire week prior to the big day referring to it as "gradu-madu-ficuation" and now every single time I think of the word "graduation" I think of his dumb word. It kind of drives me crazy, but I cannot get my brain to stop making that association no matter what I do.]
I'm glad I decided to walk and attend the ceremony even though my family couldn't be here to see me do it. I'm glad I did it for myself and to be with my other friends who were graduating. Being at the ceremony helped me to acknowledge that it IS a big deal to get your masters degree. This whole graduation has been feeling sort of like just one more step to me, one of the many things I have to do on the path to the Ph.D. As a result of the fact that half of my mind is already on the east coast and I'm already feeling so focused on the work I'm going to have to do in the future, I keep sort of forgetting that becoming an MA is a big deal in and of itself. Not a whole lof of people in the world get a masters degree, and of course I'm scared that I never will get the Ph.D., and if that's the case this degree will become even more important to me than it already is. So I needed the chance to slow down for a second and go, "Wow, I did two years of work to earn this", and today helped me to do that.
I'm also glad that I went to the ceremony because they recognized several of my achievements. I think when I graduated at TCU they just had everyone that was graduating with honors stand up and be recognized, but I don't think you weren't recognized individually other than having some sort of mark by your name in the program. Well, they do it differently here and they announce "summa cum laude, magna cum laude", etc. after the name of every undergrad earning honors. They also announce the recipients of the most prestigious school-wide scholarships. So when I picked up my name/number card this morning, my name had this LIST after it. The guy next to me in line was like, "Wow, are you going to read something?" and I laughed and said, "I'm not, but I guess somebody is!" And sure enough, when it was my turn to get my hood and walk across the stage to get my diploma, they said my name and then followed it up with, "Ms. D is an X Classic Scholar, an X Foundation Scholar, and the recipient of the 2007 award for Outstanding Graduate Student in the Department of Fine Arts." It was quite the little spiel. The dean hooded me, I got my diploma from the president, I walked across the stage and shook hands with everyone on the other side, and they were STILL rambling on about me. I'm proud of myself, sure, but I was also thinking to myself, "Oh my lord, how pretentious do I sound right now?" Especially when absolutely nobody else had more than two item mentioned after his/her name. Nobody else had a freakin' list. You'd think that SOMEBODY would be as big a nerd as me but no, apparently not. Apparently I win.
The most fun thing about graduation was that I got a front row seat since they graduate all the masters students first and my name is at the beginning of the alphabet. I was the seventh person to graduate today, which was nice because everyone was still really excited then and no one was bored yet. (The thing is, they got through this graduation ceremony extremely quickly. I remember my last graduation just drug on and on and on and by the end I was overheated and had a terrible headache and couldn't wait to get out of there. This morning, right about the time I thought to myself, "Okay, this is boring", it was over! Sweet.) The other benefit of the front row was that I got to critique everyone's shoes as they walked across the stage. The guy next to me was taking bets on whether or not each girl would fall in her heels. And I have to say, there are some really terrible shoes out there right now. When did Lucite become an acceptable material for Saturday morning shoes? Because I don't care what Marie Claire is telling me, Lucite still screams "stripper stacks" to me and always will.
So yes. It was a big day for me. I'm a master! Now it's onward and upward to the Ph.D.!
I'm glad I decided to walk and attend the ceremony even though my family couldn't be here to see me do it. I'm glad I did it for myself and to be with my other friends who were graduating. Being at the ceremony helped me to acknowledge that it IS a big deal to get your masters degree. This whole graduation has been feeling sort of like just one more step to me, one of the many things I have to do on the path to the Ph.D. As a result of the fact that half of my mind is already on the east coast and I'm already feeling so focused on the work I'm going to have to do in the future, I keep sort of forgetting that becoming an MA is a big deal in and of itself. Not a whole lof of people in the world get a masters degree, and of course I'm scared that I never will get the Ph.D., and if that's the case this degree will become even more important to me than it already is. So I needed the chance to slow down for a second and go, "Wow, I did two years of work to earn this", and today helped me to do that.
I'm also glad that I went to the ceremony because they recognized several of my achievements. I think when I graduated at TCU they just had everyone that was graduating with honors stand up and be recognized, but I don't think you weren't recognized individually other than having some sort of mark by your name in the program. Well, they do it differently here and they announce "summa cum laude, magna cum laude", etc. after the name of every undergrad earning honors. They also announce the recipients of the most prestigious school-wide scholarships. So when I picked up my name/number card this morning, my name had this LIST after it. The guy next to me in line was like, "Wow, are you going to read something?" and I laughed and said, "I'm not, but I guess somebody is!" And sure enough, when it was my turn to get my hood and walk across the stage to get my diploma, they said my name and then followed it up with, "Ms. D is an X Classic Scholar, an X Foundation Scholar, and the recipient of the 2007 award for Outstanding Graduate Student in the Department of Fine Arts." It was quite the little spiel. The dean hooded me, I got my diploma from the president, I walked across the stage and shook hands with everyone on the other side, and they were STILL rambling on about me. I'm proud of myself, sure, but I was also thinking to myself, "Oh my lord, how pretentious do I sound right now?" Especially when absolutely nobody else had more than two item mentioned after his/her name. Nobody else had a freakin' list. You'd think that SOMEBODY would be as big a nerd as me but no, apparently not. Apparently I win.
The most fun thing about graduation was that I got a front row seat since they graduate all the masters students first and my name is at the beginning of the alphabet. I was the seventh person to graduate today, which was nice because everyone was still really excited then and no one was bored yet. (The thing is, they got through this graduation ceremony extremely quickly. I remember my last graduation just drug on and on and on and by the end I was overheated and had a terrible headache and couldn't wait to get out of there. This morning, right about the time I thought to myself, "Okay, this is boring", it was over! Sweet.) The other benefit of the front row was that I got to critique everyone's shoes as they walked across the stage. The guy next to me was taking bets on whether or not each girl would fall in her heels. And I have to say, there are some really terrible shoes out there right now. When did Lucite become an acceptable material for Saturday morning shoes? Because I don't care what Marie Claire is telling me, Lucite still screams "stripper stacks" to me and always will.
So yes. It was a big day for me. I'm a master! Now it's onward and upward to the Ph.D.!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The Final Countdown
I'm graduating in three days! And I found out today that I got my 4.0! Like I said, nobody will really ever know that since I can't imagine it coming up much in casual conversation, ("So, what was YOUR GPA in your masters program? Oh, really? That's so interesting!") but it makes me feel proud.
Life has been fantastic lately, which is why I haven't posted in a whole week. I get pretty neglectful of the blog when I'm busy having fun. Thursday night was grad student dinner #1, where we invited some of our profs to have dinner and drinks with us at the local Irish pub. The other grad students gave little going away presents to the graduates. Kelly got a ponytail holder with our mascot on it, Amanda got earrings featuring our mascot (called "spirit ears", humorously enough) and I got a shot glass with the school name on the front and lines on the back labeled Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, and Grad. Richie helpfully pointed out that there's not a line for Ph.D. and therefore I'll have to fill the shot glass to the very brim. Let's not think too much about what the fact that the other girls got accessories and I got a SHOT GLASS says about me. Hahaha.
On Friday Mandi, Richie, Debbie and I took off for the weekend and spent a couple of days in Galveston. It was basically the most perfect weekend ever. I laughed from the car ride on Friday afternoon (where I literally cried with laughter--real tears, running down my face!) until 9:30 on Sunday night when we were fifteen miles from home playing MASH in the car and I determined that Debbbie's future pet is going to be a hammerhead shark. I think Galveston is more than worthy of its own entry, so as soon as I get a good stretch of free time I'll tell you all about it, although frankly I think only about 1/10th of the fun of the weekend is actually going to come across in writing.
Last night we had grad student dinner #2, where we all went up to Austin and had dinner at a nice Vietnamese/Indian restaurant and then we came back down here and hung out at John's house for a few hours. I had to say goodbye to the guys that live in Austin since I doubt I'll see them again before I move.
Tonight I'm going out for dinner and drinks with Debbie, Richie, and hopefully some of the rest of the group since Richie is leaving tomorrow to go home to Canada for the summer. I'm going to miss him so much. Luckily he and his fiancee are supposed to be in New York at the beginning of August for a concert, and since I'll (hopefully) have moved by then I'm hoping that I'll be able to make a trip to the city and see him then and meet his boyfriend for the first time.
I know I'm going to cross paths again with all of my grad school friends, hopefully many times. The world of academic theatre is pretty small. Still, I'm going to miss us all being in the same place. I'm going to miss it a lot.
There are still a few more fun things planned. Friday I think I'm going to throw some sort of graduation party/sleepover (since we graduate at 9:30 AM, ugh!), and tomorrow Chelsea, her boyfriend, and me and a few of my friends are supposed to go tubing on the river if it doesn't rain.
I'm technically supposed to work tomorrow, but I'm so fed up with Applebees right now that I'm going to call in sick and they can just deal with it since I've had to deal with way too much of their stupid mis-scheduling shit lately. I'm always having to fix their problems and I'm tired of it. I've never missed a shift in ten months and I'm a good employee so I am hoping that will work in my favor. And I figure if they want to fire me tomorrow it's really no big deal. I don't honestly think they will fire me since we're horribly understaffed right now and I know they really need me to work my shift on Sunday for Mother's Day. So I'm kind of gambling that they need me badly enough that they'll put up with me calling in sick tomorrow because they really need me for the weekend. But like I said, if they do decide to fire me it really makes no difference to me at all. They're just screwing themselves. I'm only supposed to be working until next Friday anyway, so I'd really only be missing out on four or five shifts at the very most. I don't need the money right now since I just got paid from my real job last week and I have another big paycheck coming June 1st, plus I'm about to go home and not have to pay rent or nearly as much for food/going out for a couple of months. And lord knows I don't need my dumbass managers to ever give me a good reference since I don't even list my Applebees job on my resume and I have enough good references elsewhere to get any restaurant or bar job I'll need in the future (P.S.-I really don't want to need another restaurant or bar job in the future...) So yeah. I'm not going to work tomorrow. I've never skipped out on a job before ever in my whole life, but I don't even feel all that guilty about doing it this time, that's how annoyed I am with the restaurant at this point. I guess I do feel sort of bad for the two waiters that will have to go it alone tomorrow morning, but I've had to do that plenty of times myself and they'll make more money that way anyway. So yeah.
Anyway, I need to go meet everyone for dinner. In short, I'm good. Excited. Happy.
Life has been fantastic lately, which is why I haven't posted in a whole week. I get pretty neglectful of the blog when I'm busy having fun. Thursday night was grad student dinner #1, where we invited some of our profs to have dinner and drinks with us at the local Irish pub. The other grad students gave little going away presents to the graduates. Kelly got a ponytail holder with our mascot on it, Amanda got earrings featuring our mascot (called "spirit ears", humorously enough) and I got a shot glass with the school name on the front and lines on the back labeled Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, and Grad. Richie helpfully pointed out that there's not a line for Ph.D. and therefore I'll have to fill the shot glass to the very brim. Let's not think too much about what the fact that the other girls got accessories and I got a SHOT GLASS says about me. Hahaha.
On Friday Mandi, Richie, Debbie and I took off for the weekend and spent a couple of days in Galveston. It was basically the most perfect weekend ever. I laughed from the car ride on Friday afternoon (where I literally cried with laughter--real tears, running down my face!) until 9:30 on Sunday night when we were fifteen miles from home playing MASH in the car and I determined that Debbbie's future pet is going to be a hammerhead shark. I think Galveston is more than worthy of its own entry, so as soon as I get a good stretch of free time I'll tell you all about it, although frankly I think only about 1/10th of the fun of the weekend is actually going to come across in writing.
Last night we had grad student dinner #2, where we all went up to Austin and had dinner at a nice Vietnamese/Indian restaurant and then we came back down here and hung out at John's house for a few hours. I had to say goodbye to the guys that live in Austin since I doubt I'll see them again before I move.
Tonight I'm going out for dinner and drinks with Debbie, Richie, and hopefully some of the rest of the group since Richie is leaving tomorrow to go home to Canada for the summer. I'm going to miss him so much. Luckily he and his fiancee are supposed to be in New York at the beginning of August for a concert, and since I'll (hopefully) have moved by then I'm hoping that I'll be able to make a trip to the city and see him then and meet his boyfriend for the first time.
I know I'm going to cross paths again with all of my grad school friends, hopefully many times. The world of academic theatre is pretty small. Still, I'm going to miss us all being in the same place. I'm going to miss it a lot.
There are still a few more fun things planned. Friday I think I'm going to throw some sort of graduation party/sleepover (since we graduate at 9:30 AM, ugh!), and tomorrow Chelsea, her boyfriend, and me and a few of my friends are supposed to go tubing on the river if it doesn't rain.
I'm technically supposed to work tomorrow, but I'm so fed up with Applebees right now that I'm going to call in sick and they can just deal with it since I've had to deal with way too much of their stupid mis-scheduling shit lately. I'm always having to fix their problems and I'm tired of it. I've never missed a shift in ten months and I'm a good employee so I am hoping that will work in my favor. And I figure if they want to fire me tomorrow it's really no big deal. I don't honestly think they will fire me since we're horribly understaffed right now and I know they really need me to work my shift on Sunday for Mother's Day. So I'm kind of gambling that they need me badly enough that they'll put up with me calling in sick tomorrow because they really need me for the weekend. But like I said, if they do decide to fire me it really makes no difference to me at all. They're just screwing themselves. I'm only supposed to be working until next Friday anyway, so I'd really only be missing out on four or five shifts at the very most. I don't need the money right now since I just got paid from my real job last week and I have another big paycheck coming June 1st, plus I'm about to go home and not have to pay rent or nearly as much for food/going out for a couple of months. And lord knows I don't need my dumbass managers to ever give me a good reference since I don't even list my Applebees job on my resume and I have enough good references elsewhere to get any restaurant or bar job I'll need in the future (P.S.-I really don't want to need another restaurant or bar job in the future...) So yeah. I'm not going to work tomorrow. I've never skipped out on a job before ever in my whole life, but I don't even feel all that guilty about doing it this time, that's how annoyed I am with the restaurant at this point. I guess I do feel sort of bad for the two waiters that will have to go it alone tomorrow morning, but I've had to do that plenty of times myself and they'll make more money that way anyway. So yeah.
Anyway, I need to go meet everyone for dinner. In short, I'm good. Excited. Happy.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
I'll Post a Real Entry Again Someday
...but in the meantime, here's the results of my Personal DNA quiz
Isn't it pretty? I found the results pretty accurate, too. The only thing that sort of bugged me is that the results describe me as "highly earthy" when what I think they really mean is "down-to-earth and/or grounded" since they have set earthy up as the opposite of imaginative/daydream-y. Earthy and down-to-earth are not the same thing. Or at least I've never considered them synonymous terms before.
Oh, and I also got a kick over how many times the results state that I am "not the least bit impulsive," which is completely and utterly true. I'm pretty much the least impulsive person I know, and the only time I impulsively do anything at all is when someone else is basically forcing me to do it. Ha.
I reserved my move today. A company is going to deliver two storage cubes to my apartment on May 30th and then on the 31st they're going to move my stuff in the cubes to D.C., where they'll wait for me for a couple of months. This is nice because it means when I have to drive 3-5 days in July/early August I won't be doing it in a U-Haul. I can't believe it is already less than a month until my move. I think I'm kind of in denial about the fact that this is actually happening, and soon.
Isn't it pretty? I found the results pretty accurate, too. The only thing that sort of bugged me is that the results describe me as "highly earthy" when what I think they really mean is "down-to-earth and/or grounded" since they have set earthy up as the opposite of imaginative/daydream-y. Earthy and down-to-earth are not the same thing. Or at least I've never considered them synonymous terms before.
Oh, and I also got a kick over how many times the results state that I am "not the least bit impulsive," which is completely and utterly true. I'm pretty much the least impulsive person I know, and the only time I impulsively do anything at all is when someone else is basically forcing me to do it. Ha.
I reserved my move today. A company is going to deliver two storage cubes to my apartment on May 30th and then on the 31st they're going to move my stuff in the cubes to D.C., where they'll wait for me for a couple of months. This is nice because it means when I have to drive 3-5 days in July/early August I won't be doing it in a U-Haul. I can't believe it is already less than a month until my move. I think I'm kind of in denial about the fact that this is actually happening, and soon.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Ten Days Until Graduation!
I took my last test as an MA student tonight! Frankly, the test kind of sucked and I feel like my professor will read two out of my four essays and shake her head and sigh in disappointment at the fact that I really phoned it in the last half of this semester. Hopefully she'll like the other two essays, though, and since I calculated my average and realized last night that I only need to get a 55 on the test to get my "A" in the class, I'm pretty positive I'm going to get that "A". Because I may not have written nicely flowing, detailed essays, but I certainly did enough to get a passing grade on the test. So I'm finished!
You would think I would have something profound to say about the end of my time here, but I don't. Not yet, at least. It was kind of weird saying goodbye to my professor tonight since I don't think I'll see her again any time soon. She does winter graduation, not spring graduation, and she can't make it to our dinner party on Thursday night. I'm going to miss her. She was my mentor and main advisor here, she is the one that convinced me to apply to Ph.D. programs even though I wasn't sure I would be able to get in, she was the one that made me feel confident about my scholarship while also pushing me to take it further. Tonight I hugged her goodbye after the test and promised her that I would do my best to keep in touch even though I'm terrible at it, and she told me, "Well, I'll still be seeing you at conferences." Conferences! I'm going to have to start going to a lot more conferences! If I stick this out and get through, she and I are eventually going to be colleagues. Wow. I don't know why, at the age of 24, I'm still constantly surprised to discover that I am in fact an adult, but it still catches me off guard every single time.
And now to change the subject entirely...There's a lot I could write about this. At the same time, I don't feel like I can properly articulate everything I want to say right now. Other people have already done it much better than I have anyway. All I can say is that fortunately, I have yet to be in a position where I needed to have this option. But if you need to be convinced that there are HUGE problems in this latest Supreme Court decision, I can point you to plenty of extremely compelling stories. Most importantly, I am afraid that this is the first step down a slippery slope that will ultimately lead to abortions once again becoming illegal in this country. And that scares me. It scares me for myself, it scares me for my future daughters/nieces.
I realize that some of you may be adamantly pro-life. I realize that this is an extremely polarizing topic, and it is not my job to convince you to see my pro-choice point of view right now. With that said, I'm also not going to apologize for being pro-choice. It is a decision I have put a lot of thought into, a decision I am proud of, and a decision I feel comfortable discussing, if you would like to do so one of these days. Or we can just agree to disagree. I realize pro-lifers aren't necessarily crazy religious freaks with no sense of perspective or compassion for womens' lives, just like I hope they realize pro-choicers aren't necessarily callous sluts with no regard for babies' lives. Like I said, I'm not here to try to change anyone's mind tonight (not tonight anyway).
But if you are pro-choice, if you're concerned like I am, I'm going to suggest you sign the Planned Parenthood petition. I'm also going to suggest you pass it along to your mothers, sisters, and friends who will sign it. Hell, I even made two of my guy friends sign it just now. It's important. Clearly, we have all gotten too complacent about our rights.
You would think I would have something profound to say about the end of my time here, but I don't. Not yet, at least. It was kind of weird saying goodbye to my professor tonight since I don't think I'll see her again any time soon. She does winter graduation, not spring graduation, and she can't make it to our dinner party on Thursday night. I'm going to miss her. She was my mentor and main advisor here, she is the one that convinced me to apply to Ph.D. programs even though I wasn't sure I would be able to get in, she was the one that made me feel confident about my scholarship while also pushing me to take it further. Tonight I hugged her goodbye after the test and promised her that I would do my best to keep in touch even though I'm terrible at it, and she told me, "Well, I'll still be seeing you at conferences." Conferences! I'm going to have to start going to a lot more conferences! If I stick this out and get through, she and I are eventually going to be colleagues. Wow. I don't know why, at the age of 24, I'm still constantly surprised to discover that I am in fact an adult, but it still catches me off guard every single time.
And now to change the subject entirely...There's a lot I could write about this. At the same time, I don't feel like I can properly articulate everything I want to say right now. Other people have already done it much better than I have anyway. All I can say is that fortunately, I have yet to be in a position where I needed to have this option. But if you need to be convinced that there are HUGE problems in this latest Supreme Court decision, I can point you to plenty of extremely compelling stories. Most importantly, I am afraid that this is the first step down a slippery slope that will ultimately lead to abortions once again becoming illegal in this country. And that scares me. It scares me for myself, it scares me for my future daughters/nieces.
I realize that some of you may be adamantly pro-life. I realize that this is an extremely polarizing topic, and it is not my job to convince you to see my pro-choice point of view right now. With that said, I'm also not going to apologize for being pro-choice. It is a decision I have put a lot of thought into, a decision I am proud of, and a decision I feel comfortable discussing, if you would like to do so one of these days. Or we can just agree to disagree. I realize pro-lifers aren't necessarily crazy religious freaks with no sense of perspective or compassion for womens' lives, just like I hope they realize pro-choicers aren't necessarily callous sluts with no regard for babies' lives. Like I said, I'm not here to try to change anyone's mind tonight (not tonight anyway).
But if you are pro-choice, if you're concerned like I am, I'm going to suggest you sign the Planned Parenthood petition. I'm also going to suggest you pass it along to your mothers, sisters, and friends who will sign it. Hell, I even made two of my guy friends sign it just now. It's important. Clearly, we have all gotten too complacent about our rights.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Working Diligently
On my coffee table at this moment:
The Riverside Shakespeare
An anthology of English Renaissance Drama
My class notebook
Us Weekly
A peanut butter cookie
This laptop with the screen open to Myspace and now Blogger
I wouldn't say the title of this post is entirely a lie, would you?
So, I've been thinking lately about maybe making my blog a bit more pseudonymous. At this point, it would be pretty easy to find me on the internet if you only knew the basics like my name and my field. The only thing I even remotely try to obscure is my location, but even that would be pretty easy to figure out if a reader really wanted to try. And the further I get down this whole "career path" thing, the more I feel like maybe I need to be a bit more cautious about allowing people to find this blog, particularly considering the fact that I'll probably be teaching students next year. I'd like to be big enough to not worry about it, I'd like to be able to just say, "Fuck 'em if they find this and can't handle what they read here, I don't write anything that I'm ashamed to admit in real life." And technically that's true. But I also write a lot about friends, using their real names, and I imagine eventually I'm going to want to write about colleagues and it would just be easier if I felt like I was doing it at least somewhat secretly.
I know it's the internet and by its very nature this blog is never going to be a "secret". That's why I have a personal journal, so that I can keep the truly private stuff private.
But I like keeping a blot, and I'd like to continue to do it. And at this point, I feel like I can either write openly about my studies, my location, my new university, my friends, and my family and start being a bit more careful and cautious about what I'm saying, or I can take on some sort of pseudonym and make up names for people I want to write about a lot and for locations I mention often, and I can stop talking about what exactly it is I do---I can just be a Ph.D. candidate in an unknown field at an unknown university and leave it at that--and then I can write a lot more openly without worrying about the sticky situation of a student or mentor finding my blog.
I already went "undercover" on myspace and facebook for just that reason--I don't want students stumbling upon my profile online. It makes me a little bummed out to think that people that may be looking for me can't find me, but then again, I can find them if I really feel like I need them in my life, you know?
The other benefit to starting a new, more pseudonymous blog, would be that I could give the link to all the friends I'm leaving behind here and then they could stay in touch with me this way, as I already stay in touch with some of you, knowing that they wouldn't come across an entry I'd written about them on this blog that might make them upset (given, off the top of my head I can't think of a single mean thing I've written on this blog about anyone I know, but you never know what some people might interpret as mean or inappropriate).
And since I would have to start a whole new blog if I choose the option of going more under the radar (since this one has far too many identifying details at this point to go back and change them all) I could have a new layout. That's fun.
The cons to starting a new blog? Well, I'd hate abandoning this blog. This would be the second old blog of mine drifting around on the internet. The first one wasn't pseudonymous AT ALL, which is why I finally had to switch over to this one. I felt like I couldn't share that old link with anyone, and what's the point of keeping a journal on the internet if you honestly don't want anyone to read it but you and maybe your best friend (who already knows everything going on in your life anyway)? So I'd hate to have another dead blog out there, 'cause the internet has enough junk on it as it is. I also know, as an avid blog reader (seriously, it's something of an addiction), that I hate when I start reading through someone's archives and find out that their blog has actually existed for a very long time but I can't access any of the old posts anymore because they're at another now defunct site. And truthfully, I kind of hate pseudonyms, too. I admire bloggers who are out there writing under their professional names and not worrying about who might be reading them. Then again, I don't know a single person in academia who is blogging under their real name. The two academic blogs I read whose writers are "out of the closet", so to speak, use their blogs in a purely professional way to post show reviews, book reviews, or other academically-oriented things, and they write little if at all about their real lives. That's not what I want my blog to be.
The other thing about pseudonyms, though, is that I sometimes get frustrated reading those blogs because I spend every day waiting for them to drop a big hint so that I can figure out where they might live or what their job really is or whatever. Seriously, I get far too excited in a completely nerdy way when one of my favorite bloggers slips up and uses a real name instead of a nickname.
And see, I think that would be a problem for me. I think I could keep my identity under wraps for a while, but eventually I'd slip and use a real name. Plus theatre by its nature is so different from most other academic fields that it's going to be hard to keep my studies a secret unless I don't write about them at all, and that's just not going to happen. I'm going to want to write about shows I see, I'm going to want to write about any future productions I get involved with, and that's going to mean that people will know I study theatre. There's not really a way to hide my job, even if I want to.
But I suppose I can at least do a better job of hiding where I am and, more importantly, WHO I am. I think even if readers know what I study, as long as I don't get into my specific specialties too much it should be possible to still retain a pretty good degree of anonymity. I guess I don't mind people suspecting that they know whose blog this is, I just don't want it to be blatantly obvious.
Oh, and by the way, I do realize that a lot of my paranoia about people finding me online is ridiculous. I keep track of my hits (I'm watching you!) and have a pretty good idea of who is reading my nonsense at any given time. I know exactly who 80% of my readers are based on their location, and I have my assumptions about who the lurkers are 'cause at least I know where they're getting here from. So I know I'm mostly worrying about nothing since it's not like this site is even remotely high profile, and it never will be. Heck, it's not even low profile! I write this for my friends and family to be able to keep up with what I'm doing, and I intend for this blog to always have that function.
Still, I guess I'm leaning towards being safe rather than sorry, and I guess this is a roundabout way of saying I'll probably be "moving" again in a few weeks. I'll let this blog take me through the end of the MA, I think, and then I'll start up somewhere new with less identifying details. I'll probably even make up a dumb name for myself. I hate to do that, but even though I have a very common and hard to google name, I still think it's a pretty good bet that I'm one of the only people with my name working on a Ph.D. in theatre.
So yeah. Consider this a warning of changes to come. And yes, I'll post the new link when I move. Obviously I want you to move with me, if you have actually been bothering to read my rants and raves so far.
The Riverside Shakespeare
An anthology of English Renaissance Drama
My class notebook
Us Weekly
A peanut butter cookie
This laptop with the screen open to Myspace and now Blogger
I wouldn't say the title of this post is entirely a lie, would you?
So, I've been thinking lately about maybe making my blog a bit more pseudonymous. At this point, it would be pretty easy to find me on the internet if you only knew the basics like my name and my field. The only thing I even remotely try to obscure is my location, but even that would be pretty easy to figure out if a reader really wanted to try. And the further I get down this whole "career path" thing, the more I feel like maybe I need to be a bit more cautious about allowing people to find this blog, particularly considering the fact that I'll probably be teaching students next year. I'd like to be big enough to not worry about it, I'd like to be able to just say, "Fuck 'em if they find this and can't handle what they read here, I don't write anything that I'm ashamed to admit in real life." And technically that's true. But I also write a lot about friends, using their real names, and I imagine eventually I'm going to want to write about colleagues and it would just be easier if I felt like I was doing it at least somewhat secretly.
I know it's the internet and by its very nature this blog is never going to be a "secret". That's why I have a personal journal, so that I can keep the truly private stuff private.
But I like keeping a blot, and I'd like to continue to do it. And at this point, I feel like I can either write openly about my studies, my location, my new university, my friends, and my family and start being a bit more careful and cautious about what I'm saying, or I can take on some sort of pseudonym and make up names for people I want to write about a lot and for locations I mention often, and I can stop talking about what exactly it is I do---I can just be a Ph.D. candidate in an unknown field at an unknown university and leave it at that--and then I can write a lot more openly without worrying about the sticky situation of a student or mentor finding my blog.
I already went "undercover" on myspace and facebook for just that reason--I don't want students stumbling upon my profile online. It makes me a little bummed out to think that people that may be looking for me can't find me, but then again, I can find them if I really feel like I need them in my life, you know?
The other benefit to starting a new, more pseudonymous blog, would be that I could give the link to all the friends I'm leaving behind here and then they could stay in touch with me this way, as I already stay in touch with some of you, knowing that they wouldn't come across an entry I'd written about them on this blog that might make them upset (given, off the top of my head I can't think of a single mean thing I've written on this blog about anyone I know, but you never know what some people might interpret as mean or inappropriate).
And since I would have to start a whole new blog if I choose the option of going more under the radar (since this one has far too many identifying details at this point to go back and change them all) I could have a new layout. That's fun.
The cons to starting a new blog? Well, I'd hate abandoning this blog. This would be the second old blog of mine drifting around on the internet. The first one wasn't pseudonymous AT ALL, which is why I finally had to switch over to this one. I felt like I couldn't share that old link with anyone, and what's the point of keeping a journal on the internet if you honestly don't want anyone to read it but you and maybe your best friend (who already knows everything going on in your life anyway)? So I'd hate to have another dead blog out there, 'cause the internet has enough junk on it as it is. I also know, as an avid blog reader (seriously, it's something of an addiction), that I hate when I start reading through someone's archives and find out that their blog has actually existed for a very long time but I can't access any of the old posts anymore because they're at another now defunct site. And truthfully, I kind of hate pseudonyms, too. I admire bloggers who are out there writing under their professional names and not worrying about who might be reading them. Then again, I don't know a single person in academia who is blogging under their real name. The two academic blogs I read whose writers are "out of the closet", so to speak, use their blogs in a purely professional way to post show reviews, book reviews, or other academically-oriented things, and they write little if at all about their real lives. That's not what I want my blog to be.
The other thing about pseudonyms, though, is that I sometimes get frustrated reading those blogs because I spend every day waiting for them to drop a big hint so that I can figure out where they might live or what their job really is or whatever. Seriously, I get far too excited in a completely nerdy way when one of my favorite bloggers slips up and uses a real name instead of a nickname.
And see, I think that would be a problem for me. I think I could keep my identity under wraps for a while, but eventually I'd slip and use a real name. Plus theatre by its nature is so different from most other academic fields that it's going to be hard to keep my studies a secret unless I don't write about them at all, and that's just not going to happen. I'm going to want to write about shows I see, I'm going to want to write about any future productions I get involved with, and that's going to mean that people will know I study theatre. There's not really a way to hide my job, even if I want to.
But I suppose I can at least do a better job of hiding where I am and, more importantly, WHO I am. I think even if readers know what I study, as long as I don't get into my specific specialties too much it should be possible to still retain a pretty good degree of anonymity. I guess I don't mind people suspecting that they know whose blog this is, I just don't want it to be blatantly obvious.
Oh, and by the way, I do realize that a lot of my paranoia about people finding me online is ridiculous. I keep track of my hits (I'm watching you!) and have a pretty good idea of who is reading my nonsense at any given time. I know exactly who 80% of my readers are based on their location, and I have my assumptions about who the lurkers are 'cause at least I know where they're getting here from. So I know I'm mostly worrying about nothing since it's not like this site is even remotely high profile, and it never will be. Heck, it's not even low profile! I write this for my friends and family to be able to keep up with what I'm doing, and I intend for this blog to always have that function.
Still, I guess I'm leaning towards being safe rather than sorry, and I guess this is a roundabout way of saying I'll probably be "moving" again in a few weeks. I'll let this blog take me through the end of the MA, I think, and then I'll start up somewhere new with less identifying details. I'll probably even make up a dumb name for myself. I hate to do that, but even though I have a very common and hard to google name, I still think it's a pretty good bet that I'm one of the only people with my name working on a Ph.D. in theatre.
So yeah. Consider this a warning of changes to come. And yes, I'll post the new link when I move. Obviously I want you to move with me, if you have actually been bothering to read my rants and raves so far.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Cohen Likes Mike and Ikes
What am I doing right now, you ask?
Well, I'm not reading the four (count 'em, four!) plays I need to read between now and Tuesday night's final exam. I don't know how I got so far behind on my reading the second half of the semester. I guess I really have been pretty slacktastic for the past three weeks. I managed to get through class discussions just by skimming online plot summaries, but now I feel like I actually need to read the plays I just read summaries of before. The thing is, I think I can skip this test entirely and still pass the class. And technically that's all I need to do at this point, just pass so I can graduate. I already got accepted into a Ph.D. program, and I can't imagine my GPA in my MA program is going to be a huge deciding factor in any future job applications I may fill out years from now when I'm on the market for a teaching job (assuming I make it to that point) so I can take a "C" in this class and it really doesn't matter. The thing is, it matters to my pride. If I can get an "A" in this class, then that means my GPA here will have been a perfect 4.0 and that would be sort of cool, even though I'm the only one that would know about it (Well, and whoever is reading this. You would know about it, too, since I told you just now). I'm just having a hard time forcing myself to make the effort to study, though. This is the very last thing I will ever have to do for my MA, and I just can't manage to get excited about it. I guess I'm not really a sprint-for-the finish sort of person.
I'm also not vaccuuming my apartment right now, even though I need to do that. I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom last night and told myself I could quit if I would vacuum and dust the bedroom and living room today, but now I'm not in a cleaning mood. Part of my uncharacteristic lax attitude about cleaning is that I'm getting ready to move. A month from tomorrow I'll be moving out of this apartment. Yikes! About two weeks from now I'll start packing. And I have to do intense cleaning when I move out anyway so I don't get charged for anything, so part of me is thinking, "Why clean now?" I mean, my apartment isn't actually dirty by any means, and it's still neat and organized and looks clean to the naked eye, so why bother? I'm just proud of myself for continuing to do my weekly housekeeping for this long, honestly. When I lived with Katy, we both stopped doing weekly cleaning around, oh, say, March, and we didn't actually move out of that apartment until AUGUST. I guess maybe I should vaccuum this week, though, since I won't be here to clean next weekend and by the weekend after that it will be getting too close to packing and chaos time to bother cleaning.
Speaking of moving, know what else I'm not doing right now? I'm not looking at apartments online, and I'm not comparing the cost of moving companies to figure out which one I should use. Looking at apartments online was just stressing me out, and I decided there's no point in looking online again until right before I go to [insert still undecided nickname for soon-to-be-hometown here] and attempt to find a place to lease. Stuff I like right now might not be available next month anyway, and I don't think there's a need to call an apartment locator to book an appointment this far in advance when most of the time you can just walk in and say, "I want to see some apartments". At least, that's how it works in Texas. As for moving companies, I think I have pretty much convinced my dad that using one of those storage pod companies is worth the extra cost because it will be so much more convenient. (Yes, my dad is paying my moving fees. I'm lucky.) So I may actually get to pack and unpack only once!
I'm not thinking too much about packing yet, but when I do think about it I just confuse myself. I went home to El Paso for my first two summers of college, so twice I packed pretty much everything I owned into a storage unit for the summer and took home only what I needed for three months. I'm doing the exact same thing this time (minus one month, plus one cross-country move, but whatever, close enough). The thing is, the last time I did that was four years ago and I no longer remember how I did it. I felt like I always had tons of clothes at home for the summer, but surely I must have just taken what fit in my two suitcases, right? Did I take home all of my jewelry? Is it worth taking home some of my books or am I fooling myself when I say I'm going to spend the summer brushing up on my theory so I'm ready for the Ph.D. classes (answer: probably)? Did I put all of my shower gel and lotion and stuff into storage for the summer and just borrow my mom's stuff? How did I decide what shoes to bring home and what shoes to say goodbye to for an entire summer? What if I get home and realize the one thing I really, really need is locked in a storage unit 2,000 miles across the country? I hate moving and packing, have I mentioned that? Really? Oh, okay.
Anyway, that's all the stuff I'm not doing. What I have been doing lately is mostly fun, and fun things are happening in the very near future. I spent Friday lying out by the dam with Mandi and Debbie all afternoon and it was a wonderfully lazy day. On Friday night Mandi, Debbie, Richie and I went to our favorite restaurant in the next town over, a kind of touristy restaurant right on the river that has delicious food and great atmosphere. I've been watching my friends' directing scenes and going out for drinks with various friends a lot more often than usual lately (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday night this week, and I would have gone out last night, too, except that the restaurant had been insanely busy all day and I got too worn out from working). This Thursday the core group of grad students and I are going to go out to dinner with two of our favorite profs (we decided to invite our three favorite professors out to dinner as sort of an end of the year celebration; two of them happily accepted our invitation but the third probably won't since she's the type that is extremely conscious-almost paranoid, in my opinion-about student/teacher boundaries, which is smart I guess). That should be fun. Then Mandi, Richie, Debbie and I are going to spend the weekend in Galveston. I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm hoping it won't rain this time so we can actually go to the beach. I didn't even SEE the beach when Mandi and I went a few weeks ago since it was so cold and rainy. They are my three favorite people in this program (and three of my favorite people ever, really) and it's going to be great to just relax together all weekend. It will be bittersweet too, though, since this will basically be our last big hurrah before Debbie goes to Stratford and then goes home to stay with her boyfriend for the summer and Richie goes to Canada until August and I go home to El Paso and then never come back. Sigh. Why do you always fall most deeply in love with a place right before it's time to leave it?
Anyway. I guess I should do that cleaning.
Well, I'm not reading the four (count 'em, four!) plays I need to read between now and Tuesday night's final exam. I don't know how I got so far behind on my reading the second half of the semester. I guess I really have been pretty slacktastic for the past three weeks. I managed to get through class discussions just by skimming online plot summaries, but now I feel like I actually need to read the plays I just read summaries of before. The thing is, I think I can skip this test entirely and still pass the class. And technically that's all I need to do at this point, just pass so I can graduate. I already got accepted into a Ph.D. program, and I can't imagine my GPA in my MA program is going to be a huge deciding factor in any future job applications I may fill out years from now when I'm on the market for a teaching job (assuming I make it to that point) so I can take a "C" in this class and it really doesn't matter. The thing is, it matters to my pride. If I can get an "A" in this class, then that means my GPA here will have been a perfect 4.0 and that would be sort of cool, even though I'm the only one that would know about it (Well, and whoever is reading this. You would know about it, too, since I told you just now). I'm just having a hard time forcing myself to make the effort to study, though. This is the very last thing I will ever have to do for my MA, and I just can't manage to get excited about it. I guess I'm not really a sprint-for-the finish sort of person.
I'm also not vaccuuming my apartment right now, even though I need to do that. I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom last night and told myself I could quit if I would vacuum and dust the bedroom and living room today, but now I'm not in a cleaning mood. Part of my uncharacteristic lax attitude about cleaning is that I'm getting ready to move. A month from tomorrow I'll be moving out of this apartment. Yikes! About two weeks from now I'll start packing. And I have to do intense cleaning when I move out anyway so I don't get charged for anything, so part of me is thinking, "Why clean now?" I mean, my apartment isn't actually dirty by any means, and it's still neat and organized and looks clean to the naked eye, so why bother? I'm just proud of myself for continuing to do my weekly housekeeping for this long, honestly. When I lived with Katy, we both stopped doing weekly cleaning around, oh, say, March, and we didn't actually move out of that apartment until AUGUST. I guess maybe I should vaccuum this week, though, since I won't be here to clean next weekend and by the weekend after that it will be getting too close to packing and chaos time to bother cleaning.
Speaking of moving, know what else I'm not doing right now? I'm not looking at apartments online, and I'm not comparing the cost of moving companies to figure out which one I should use. Looking at apartments online was just stressing me out, and I decided there's no point in looking online again until right before I go to [insert still undecided nickname for soon-to-be-hometown here] and attempt to find a place to lease. Stuff I like right now might not be available next month anyway, and I don't think there's a need to call an apartment locator to book an appointment this far in advance when most of the time you can just walk in and say, "I want to see some apartments". At least, that's how it works in Texas. As for moving companies, I think I have pretty much convinced my dad that using one of those storage pod companies is worth the extra cost because it will be so much more convenient. (Yes, my dad is paying my moving fees. I'm lucky.) So I may actually get to pack and unpack only once!
I'm not thinking too much about packing yet, but when I do think about it I just confuse myself. I went home to El Paso for my first two summers of college, so twice I packed pretty much everything I owned into a storage unit for the summer and took home only what I needed for three months. I'm doing the exact same thing this time (minus one month, plus one cross-country move, but whatever, close enough). The thing is, the last time I did that was four years ago and I no longer remember how I did it. I felt like I always had tons of clothes at home for the summer, but surely I must have just taken what fit in my two suitcases, right? Did I take home all of my jewelry? Is it worth taking home some of my books or am I fooling myself when I say I'm going to spend the summer brushing up on my theory so I'm ready for the Ph.D. classes (answer: probably)? Did I put all of my shower gel and lotion and stuff into storage for the summer and just borrow my mom's stuff? How did I decide what shoes to bring home and what shoes to say goodbye to for an entire summer? What if I get home and realize the one thing I really, really need is locked in a storage unit 2,000 miles across the country? I hate moving and packing, have I mentioned that? Really? Oh, okay.
Anyway, that's all the stuff I'm not doing. What I have been doing lately is mostly fun, and fun things are happening in the very near future. I spent Friday lying out by the dam with Mandi and Debbie all afternoon and it was a wonderfully lazy day. On Friday night Mandi, Debbie, Richie and I went to our favorite restaurant in the next town over, a kind of touristy restaurant right on the river that has delicious food and great atmosphere. I've been watching my friends' directing scenes and going out for drinks with various friends a lot more often than usual lately (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday night this week, and I would have gone out last night, too, except that the restaurant had been insanely busy all day and I got too worn out from working). This Thursday the core group of grad students and I are going to go out to dinner with two of our favorite profs (we decided to invite our three favorite professors out to dinner as sort of an end of the year celebration; two of them happily accepted our invitation but the third probably won't since she's the type that is extremely conscious-almost paranoid, in my opinion-about student/teacher boundaries, which is smart I guess). That should be fun. Then Mandi, Richie, Debbie and I are going to spend the weekend in Galveston. I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm hoping it won't rain this time so we can actually go to the beach. I didn't even SEE the beach when Mandi and I went a few weeks ago since it was so cold and rainy. They are my three favorite people in this program (and three of my favorite people ever, really) and it's going to be great to just relax together all weekend. It will be bittersweet too, though, since this will basically be our last big hurrah before Debbie goes to Stratford and then goes home to stay with her boyfriend for the summer and Richie goes to Canada until August and I go home to El Paso and then never come back. Sigh. Why do you always fall most deeply in love with a place right before it's time to leave it?
Anyway. I guess I should do that cleaning.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Top 100 of 2001
Sorry for doing two memes in a row, but I don't have anything better to do and this one looks like it will be entertaining for me. (Maybe not for you, though. Sorry, you don't have to read it.)
Anyway, the point of this one is that you find the top 100 songs the year you graduated from high school and then you mark the ones you liked and the ones you didn't like.
I put the songs I like in bold and the songs I didn't like in italics. The ones that were "eh, take it or leave it" I left alone. And I wrote in brackets if I don't think I ever knew the song (or at least can't remember it anymore off the top of my head).
Incidentally, as I initially looked over this list I realized that a lot of these songs remind me more of my first semester of college than they do of my last semester of high school, but I guess that's the point since it was the year I graduated and I graduated in May...
1. Lady Marmalade Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & Pink
2. Fallin', Alicia Keys
3. I'm Real, Jennifer Lopez
4. Family Affair, Mary J. Blige
5. Butterfly, Crazy Town [Chelsea HATED this song and we used to fight over whether or not to listen to it every time it came on the radio. It's a really, really stupid song, and I realize that. But, uh, it's catchy. It's in my mp3 player nowadays, in fact]
6. Thank You, Dido [Although this song was a major victim of radio over-play]
7. Don't Tell Me, Madonna [Ah yes, the cowgirl phase, my least favorite Madonna moment, actually. But I did like this song]
8. He Loves U Not, Dream [Don't remember this group at all]
9. Gone, 'N Sync
10. Love Don't Cost A Thing, Jennifer Lopez
11. Hero, Enrique Iglesias [I could not possibly hate this song more]
12. Hanging By A Moment, Lifehouse [I saw them in concert in April of 2001. I guess they were one hit wonders, huh?]
13. Drops Of Jupiter, Train [My mom really liked this song]
14. Jaded, Aerosmith
15. U Remind Me, Usher
16. Hit 'Em Up Style, Blu Cantrell [This song reminds me of the first road trip I ever took with my college roommate, Katy. We drove to Abilene to visit her family for Labor Day and I remember us singing to this in the car. We barely knew each other then!]
17. Survivor, Destiny's Child
18. It Wasn't Me. Shaggy featuring Ricardo "Rikrok" Ducent [This was a take-it-or-leave it song for me, but I'm pretty positive this actually came out in 2000, 'cause I remember laughing about it with my family when we went to New Jersey for Thanksgiving that year]
19. All For You, Janet Jackson
20. Angel, Shaggy featuring Rayvon
21. Turn Off The Light, Nelly Furtado
22. All Or Nothing, O-Town [I don't remember this song, I think I actively avoided O-Town as much as possible]
23. How You Remind Me, Nickelback [And then after this, Nickelback began sucking and hasn't stopped sucking since]
24. Someone To Call My Lover, Janet Jackson [Don't remember this one]
25. Fill Me In, Craig David [Don't remember this one, either]
26. It's Been Awhile, Staind [The summer between high school and college, Mike and I would hang out at my house a lot late at night and we watched a lot of late night MTV. This video was always on. It's a little bittersweet to think about it now.]
27. I'm Like A Bird, Nelly Furtado
28. Bootylicious, Destiny's Child [This would come on at Cowboys, this really ghetto club in Arlington that the girls on my dorm wing and I would hang out at sometimes. Everyone would flock to the dance floor]
29. Again, Lenny Kravitz
30. Let Me Blow Ya Mind, Eve featuring Gwen Stefani
31. Everywhere, Michelle Branch [To this day I can't listen to this song without feeling like I'm about to cry. It just reminds me too much of my first semester of college when I was so homesick from missing Mike. I listened to it all the time then, so I can't listen to it now]
32. Stutter, Joe featuring Mystikal [Don't remember this one]
33. Irresistable , Jessica Simpson
34. I Hope You Dance, Lee Ann Womack [HATE IT. And of course our class valedictorian quoted it in her commencement speech, as did probably every other sappy valedictorian of the class of 2001. So cliche.]
35. Nobody Wants To Be Lonely, Ricky Martin & Christina Aguilera [I don't remember this song, either, but considering it has Ricky Martin involved I probably wouldn't have liked it]
36. Here's To The Night, Eve 6
37. Beautiful Day, U2 [This was my class song. But I actually didn't vote for it]
38. Emotion, Destiny's Child
39. Superman (It's Not Easy), Five For Fighting
40. Southside, Moby with Gwen Stefani [Although I liked this song a lot more before it featured Gwen Stefani]
41. The Space Between, Dave Matthews Band [I also get too sad when I listen to this song now. Again with the Mike thing. I think even once I've been married to another guy for years, these songs will still make me sad, just because I associate them so strongly with that bummed out, homesick feeling]
42. Play, Jennifer Lopez [2001 was a very big year for J. Lo, obviously]
43. When It's Over, Sugar Ray
44. Drive, Incubus [This was the song I wanted to be our class song. I considered it sort of my "going out on my own into the big unknown world" anthem. In retrospect, I'm kinda glad it didn't win because apparently lots of classes used this song that year, and I have yet to come across someone else whose class song was Beautiful Day. And don't ask me why high school class song has even come up in conversations I have been in before, but it has. Ha.]
45. More Than That, Backstreet Boys
46. What Would You, Do City High [Don't remember this one]
47. Be Like That, 3 Doors Down
48. I Wanna Be Bad ,Willa Ford [Don't remember this one, either]
49. Peaches & Cream , 112 [Chelsea loved this song. I hated it. It was exactly like Butterfly for us, but vice versa]
50. Ride Wit Me, Nelly
51. Only Time, Enya
52. Where The Party At, Jagged Edge with Nelly
53. Standing Still, Jewel
54. Pop, 'N Sync
55. This Is Me , Dream [Who the hell was Dream?]
56. Never Had A Dream Come True, S Club 7 [Chelsea liked S Club 7. Wasn't there a TV show featuring them or something? I don't actually remember this song]
57. Crazy, K-Ci & JoJo
58. You Make Me Sick, Pink
59. What It Feels Like For A Girl, Madonna
60. E.I., Nelly [I guess I used to like Nelly]
61. Dig In, Lenny Kravitz
62. Get Ur Freak On, Missy Elliott [Still on my mp3 player, still played often]
63. Breathless, The Corrs
64. Every Other Time, LFO
65. Yellow, Coldplay
66. Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning), Vertical Horizon
67. One Minute Man, Missy Elliott
68. I Do, Toya [Wow, I don't remember a lot of these songs]
69. Fly Away From Here, Aerosmith
70. I'm A Slave 4 U, Britney Spears
71. Smooth Criminal, Alien Ant Farm [This one reminds me of late night MTV-watching with Mike, too]
72. Still On Your Side, BBMak [Haha, BBMak! Whatever happened to those guys?!]
73. No More (Baby I'ma Do Right), 3LW [Don't remember this one]
74. My Everything, 98 Degrees [Weren't boy bands kinda on the way out by 2001, thank god?]
75. Ms. Jackson, Outkast
76. Start The Commotion, The Wiseguys
77. Free, Mya [Yet another song I don't remember...I bet I'd recall some of these if I heard them, though]
78. Baby, Come On Over (This Is Our Night), Samantha Mumba
79. Hemmorhage (In My Hands), Fuel [This one definitely first got popular in 2000 because it reminds me of the summer I spent dating Eric]
80. Drowning, Backstreet Boys
81. Around The World (La La La…), ATC
82. Thank You For Loving Me, Bon Jovi
83. AM To PM, Christina Milian [Don't remember this one, either!]
84. Izzo (H.O.V.A.), Jay-Z
85. Flavor Of The Week, American Hi-Fi
86. What's Going On, All Star Tribute
87. Stronger, Britney Spears
88. One More Time, Daft Punk
89. I'm A Believer, Smash Mouth
90. We Fit Together, O-Town
91. Differences, Ginuwine
92. Follow Me, Uncle Kracker
93. There You'll Be, Faith Hill
94. So In Love With Two, Mikaila [Don't remember this one]
95. In My Pocket, Mandy Moore [There was something extremely stupid about this song. I can't remember what made it so stupid, but maybe that's a good thing. I just know I didn't like it.]
96. Mad Season, Matchbox 20 [Saw them in the same concert where I saw Lifehouse]
97. Bad Day, Fuel
98. What's Your Fantasy Ludacris [This song then went on to be played at every single party I ever attended in college]
99. Liquid Dreams, O-Town [Technically I don't recall this song, either, but since it's O Town I probably hated it]
100. Babylon, David Gray
P.S.-I kind of can't believe I have already been out of high school for almost six years. Only four more years until we have to have a reunion and brag to each other about how much we have accomplished in ten years while pretending we're not actually bragging and comparing achievements. Ha. Actually, do high schools even do reunions anymore?
Anyway, the point of this one is that you find the top 100 songs the year you graduated from high school and then you mark the ones you liked and the ones you didn't like.
I put the songs I like in bold and the songs I didn't like in italics. The ones that were "eh, take it or leave it" I left alone. And I wrote in brackets if I don't think I ever knew the song (or at least can't remember it anymore off the top of my head).
Incidentally, as I initially looked over this list I realized that a lot of these songs remind me more of my first semester of college than they do of my last semester of high school, but I guess that's the point since it was the year I graduated and I graduated in May...
1. Lady Marmalade Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & Pink
2. Fallin', Alicia Keys
3. I'm Real, Jennifer Lopez
4. Family Affair, Mary J. Blige
5. Butterfly, Crazy Town [Chelsea HATED this song and we used to fight over whether or not to listen to it every time it came on the radio. It's a really, really stupid song, and I realize that. But, uh, it's catchy. It's in my mp3 player nowadays, in fact]
6. Thank You, Dido [Although this song was a major victim of radio over-play]
7. Don't Tell Me, Madonna [Ah yes, the cowgirl phase, my least favorite Madonna moment, actually. But I did like this song]
8. He Loves U Not, Dream [Don't remember this group at all]
9. Gone, 'N Sync
10. Love Don't Cost A Thing, Jennifer Lopez
11. Hero, Enrique Iglesias [I could not possibly hate this song more]
12. Hanging By A Moment, Lifehouse [I saw them in concert in April of 2001. I guess they were one hit wonders, huh?]
13. Drops Of Jupiter, Train [My mom really liked this song]
14. Jaded, Aerosmith
15. U Remind Me, Usher
16. Hit 'Em Up Style, Blu Cantrell [This song reminds me of the first road trip I ever took with my college roommate, Katy. We drove to Abilene to visit her family for Labor Day and I remember us singing to this in the car. We barely knew each other then!]
17. Survivor, Destiny's Child
18. It Wasn't Me. Shaggy featuring Ricardo "Rikrok" Ducent [This was a take-it-or-leave it song for me, but I'm pretty positive this actually came out in 2000, 'cause I remember laughing about it with my family when we went to New Jersey for Thanksgiving that year]
19. All For You, Janet Jackson
20. Angel, Shaggy featuring Rayvon
21. Turn Off The Light, Nelly Furtado
22. All Or Nothing, O-Town [I don't remember this song, I think I actively avoided O-Town as much as possible]
23. How You Remind Me, Nickelback [And then after this, Nickelback began sucking and hasn't stopped sucking since]
24. Someone To Call My Lover, Janet Jackson [Don't remember this one]
25. Fill Me In, Craig David [Don't remember this one, either]
26. It's Been Awhile, Staind [The summer between high school and college, Mike and I would hang out at my house a lot late at night and we watched a lot of late night MTV. This video was always on. It's a little bittersweet to think about it now.]
27. I'm Like A Bird, Nelly Furtado
28. Bootylicious, Destiny's Child [This would come on at Cowboys, this really ghetto club in Arlington that the girls on my dorm wing and I would hang out at sometimes. Everyone would flock to the dance floor]
29. Again, Lenny Kravitz
30. Let Me Blow Ya Mind, Eve featuring Gwen Stefani
31. Everywhere, Michelle Branch [To this day I can't listen to this song without feeling like I'm about to cry. It just reminds me too much of my first semester of college when I was so homesick from missing Mike. I listened to it all the time then, so I can't listen to it now]
32. Stutter, Joe featuring Mystikal [Don't remember this one]
33. Irresistable , Jessica Simpson
34. I Hope You Dance, Lee Ann Womack [HATE IT. And of course our class valedictorian quoted it in her commencement speech, as did probably every other sappy valedictorian of the class of 2001. So cliche.]
35. Nobody Wants To Be Lonely, Ricky Martin & Christina Aguilera [I don't remember this song, either, but considering it has Ricky Martin involved I probably wouldn't have liked it]
36. Here's To The Night, Eve 6
37. Beautiful Day, U2 [This was my class song. But I actually didn't vote for it]
38. Emotion, Destiny's Child
39. Superman (It's Not Easy), Five For Fighting
40. Southside, Moby with Gwen Stefani [Although I liked this song a lot more before it featured Gwen Stefani]
41. The Space Between, Dave Matthews Band [I also get too sad when I listen to this song now. Again with the Mike thing. I think even once I've been married to another guy for years, these songs will still make me sad, just because I associate them so strongly with that bummed out, homesick feeling]
42. Play, Jennifer Lopez [2001 was a very big year for J. Lo, obviously]
43. When It's Over, Sugar Ray
44. Drive, Incubus [This was the song I wanted to be our class song. I considered it sort of my "going out on my own into the big unknown world" anthem. In retrospect, I'm kinda glad it didn't win because apparently lots of classes used this song that year, and I have yet to come across someone else whose class song was Beautiful Day. And don't ask me why high school class song has even come up in conversations I have been in before, but it has. Ha.]
45. More Than That, Backstreet Boys
46. What Would You, Do City High [Don't remember this one]
47. Be Like That, 3 Doors Down
48. I Wanna Be Bad ,Willa Ford [Don't remember this one, either]
49. Peaches & Cream , 112 [Chelsea loved this song. I hated it. It was exactly like Butterfly for us, but vice versa]
50. Ride Wit Me, Nelly
51. Only Time, Enya
52. Where The Party At, Jagged Edge with Nelly
53. Standing Still, Jewel
54. Pop, 'N Sync
55. This Is Me , Dream [Who the hell was Dream?]
56. Never Had A Dream Come True, S Club 7 [Chelsea liked S Club 7. Wasn't there a TV show featuring them or something? I don't actually remember this song]
57. Crazy, K-Ci & JoJo
58. You Make Me Sick, Pink
59. What It Feels Like For A Girl, Madonna
60. E.I., Nelly [I guess I used to like Nelly]
61. Dig In, Lenny Kravitz
62. Get Ur Freak On, Missy Elliott [Still on my mp3 player, still played often]
63. Breathless, The Corrs
64. Every Other Time, LFO
65. Yellow, Coldplay
66. Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning), Vertical Horizon
67. One Minute Man, Missy Elliott
68. I Do, Toya [Wow, I don't remember a lot of these songs]
69. Fly Away From Here, Aerosmith
70. I'm A Slave 4 U, Britney Spears
71. Smooth Criminal, Alien Ant Farm [This one reminds me of late night MTV-watching with Mike, too]
72. Still On Your Side, BBMak [Haha, BBMak! Whatever happened to those guys?!]
73. No More (Baby I'ma Do Right), 3LW [Don't remember this one]
74. My Everything, 98 Degrees [Weren't boy bands kinda on the way out by 2001, thank god?]
75. Ms. Jackson, Outkast
76. Start The Commotion, The Wiseguys
77. Free, Mya [Yet another song I don't remember...I bet I'd recall some of these if I heard them, though]
78. Baby, Come On Over (This Is Our Night), Samantha Mumba
79. Hemmorhage (In My Hands), Fuel [This one definitely first got popular in 2000 because it reminds me of the summer I spent dating Eric]
80. Drowning, Backstreet Boys
81. Around The World (La La La…), ATC
82. Thank You For Loving Me, Bon Jovi
83. AM To PM, Christina Milian [Don't remember this one, either!]
84. Izzo (H.O.V.A.), Jay-Z
85. Flavor Of The Week, American Hi-Fi
86. What's Going On, All Star Tribute
87. Stronger, Britney Spears
88. One More Time, Daft Punk
89. I'm A Believer, Smash Mouth
90. We Fit Together, O-Town
91. Differences, Ginuwine
92. Follow Me, Uncle Kracker
93. There You'll Be, Faith Hill
94. So In Love With Two, Mikaila [Don't remember this one]
95. In My Pocket, Mandy Moore [There was something extremely stupid about this song. I can't remember what made it so stupid, but maybe that's a good thing. I just know I didn't like it.]
96. Mad Season, Matchbox 20 [Saw them in the same concert where I saw Lifehouse]
97. Bad Day, Fuel
98. What's Your Fantasy Ludacris [This song then went on to be played at every single party I ever attended in college]
99. Liquid Dreams, O-Town [Technically I don't recall this song, either, but since it's O Town I probably hated it]
100. Babylon, David Gray
P.S.-I kind of can't believe I have already been out of high school for almost six years. Only four more years until we have to have a reunion and brag to each other about how much we have accomplished in ten years while pretending we're not actually bragging and comparing achievements. Ha. Actually, do high schools even do reunions anymore?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Children's Book Meme
This meme went around months ago but I never did it. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic tonight, though, and thought it would be fun to do this. These are the National Education Association's top 100 Books. I've bolded the ones I remember reading when I was growing up, and added comments where I felt like it.
1. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White [I also watched the animated video of this story about a million times when I was a kid]
2. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg [I still read this one every Christmas]
3. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
4. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
5. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak [When Shane was a baby and Mom was busy with him, Dad got into the habit of getting me and Chelsea ready for bed every night and reading our bedtime story (every night he wasn't closing the restaurant, anyway). Then once Shane was older, Dad still kept his role as Bedtime Story Reader. We'd all pile into one of our beds, alternating rooms every night, and Dad would sit in the middle and read. This was one of our favorites 'cause Dad would do funny voices during the whole "and they gnashed their terrible teeth" part]
6. Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch [My third grade class read this story aloud at a Mother's Day Tea]
7. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
8. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
9. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls [We had to read this in 5th grade, and I remember everyone cried, even some of the boys, which was a big deal in 5th grade]
10. The Mitten by Jan Brett
11. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown [My favorite when I was really little]
12. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
13. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis [I kind of can't believe I have never read this]
14. Where the Sidewalk Ends: the Poems and Drawing of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
15. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson [I was sure I read this book in 4th or 5th grade, but then the film version came out a few months ago and nothing in those previews triggered any memories of what I thought this book was actually about. So they either changed the story entirely for the purposes of the movie, or I'm remembering another book and thinking it's this one]
16. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
17. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss [I was actually pretty much an adult when I read this book for the first time since it was a high school graduation gift from my student council sponsors]
18. Strega Nona by Tomie De Paola
19. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
20. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin, Jr.
21. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
22. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
23. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle [I did a book report on this in 6th grade. I remember I made a poster with all the imaginary planets on it, but now I can't actually remember the story, or if I even liked it]
24. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [I had this book but never read it]
25. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss [I don't think I've ever actually read the book, just seen the animated version, but I think that's the entire book so I'll count it]
26. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
27. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by John Archambault
28. Little House on the Prarie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
29. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
30. The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
31. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner [Shane went through a Boxcar Children phase]
32. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan [I still love this book, it's beautifully written]
33. Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
34. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [Another one we had to read in 5th grade]
35. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
36. The BFG by Roald Dahl
37. The Giver by Lois Lowry [I know I read this to get Accelerated Reader points in 7th grade (did everyone do AR, or was that just an El Paso thing? Or even just something at my particular middle school?) and I know that this book really freaked me out for some reason, but now I can't remember it well enough to recall why it scared me]
38. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
39. James and the Giant Peach: A Children's Story by Roald Dahl [All Roald Dahl books freak me out. I couldn't even finish reading The Witches when I was a kid because it terrified me. As for all of his other books, my feelings about Roald Dahl books are the same as my feelings about Tim Burton movies: I appreciate them and think that they're good art/literature, and I even kind of like them, but I can't fully enjoy them because they just make me feel weird. It's a primal feeling I can't even articulate, but they bother me somehow]
40. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
41. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
42. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien [This gets halfway highlighted because I started this but never finished it. I've never made it through an entire Tolkien book, I lose patience with his stuff for some reason...and it's not that his books are too detailed, because normally I love the unnecessary details]
43. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss [I was really crazy about the Lorax for a while. I thought he was cute. I even had a Lorax t-shirt, 'cause I was just that nerdy]
44. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
45. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry [I still have this book in my bedroom at my parents' house, and I re-read it almost every time I go home to visit]
46. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien
47. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott [I love this one as well. I have my mom's old copy, and it is falling to pieces and I've taped the cover back onto it a dozen times. I really should find myself a less battered copy, because I'll probably keep re-reading it forever, too]
48. The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
49. Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
50. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
51. Corduroy by Don Freeman
52. Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg [The movie version of this book really sucked, by the way. The entire mood of the book was lost]
53. Math Curse by Jon Scieszka
54. Matilda by Roald Dahl
55. Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls
56. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume [I love Judy Blume, both for young adult and adult fiction]
57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary [I had all of Beverly Cleary's books when I was little]
58. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White [Yet another book we read for class in the 5th grade]
59. Are You My Mother? by Philip D. Eastman
60. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis [Yup, haven't read this one, either]
61. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey [One of my very favorites]
62. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
63. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
64. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
65. The Napping House by Audrey Wood
66. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
67. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter [Although I preferred The Tale of Benjamin Bunny]
68. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt [Whaddaya know, another book that scared me! I didn't like this one because there was too much talk about living forever, and the whole concept of "forever" has never sat well with me]
69. The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum [I kind of can't believe I've never read this one, either]
70. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
71. Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
72. Basil of Baker Street, by Eve Titus
73. The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
74. The Cay by Theodore Taylor [Another one I had but never read. I think at one point I got a boxed set of children's classics for my birthday and was only interested in about half of them. Shiloh came in that same set, I think. Ha.]
75. Curious George by Hans Augusto Rey [I used to make Mom read this one to me a lot, I was really fascinated by the part where Curious George was in the hospital bed with his leg in a cast. And also the part where he washed windows]
76. Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
77. Arthur series by Marc Tolon Brown [This is another series my little brother liked a lot, so I'd read them for him]
78. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
79. Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes
80. Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
81. The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
82. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
83. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar [I remember everyone used to fight over who could check this one out on library day at school]
84. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
85. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
86. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
87. Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
88. My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
89. Stuart Little by E. B. White
90. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
91. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare [I've been having a strange craving to re-read this book lately, don't ask me why]
92. The Art Lesson by Tomie De Paola
93. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina [Yet another Shane favorite. Considering how much it seems like he liked to read when we were little, it's kind of a shame that now he only reads the sports page]
94. Clifford, the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell
95. Heidi by Johanna Spyri [Yet another book I had but never read]
96. Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
97. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
98. The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
99. Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
100. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Munsch
1. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White [I also watched the animated video of this story about a million times when I was a kid]
2. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg [I still read this one every Christmas]
3. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
4. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
5. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak [When Shane was a baby and Mom was busy with him, Dad got into the habit of getting me and Chelsea ready for bed every night and reading our bedtime story (every night he wasn't closing the restaurant, anyway). Then once Shane was older, Dad still kept his role as Bedtime Story Reader. We'd all pile into one of our beds, alternating rooms every night, and Dad would sit in the middle and read. This was one of our favorites 'cause Dad would do funny voices during the whole "and they gnashed their terrible teeth" part]
6. Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch [My third grade class read this story aloud at a Mother's Day Tea]
7. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
8. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
9. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls [We had to read this in 5th grade, and I remember everyone cried, even some of the boys, which was a big deal in 5th grade]
10. The Mitten by Jan Brett
11. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown [My favorite when I was really little]
12. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
13. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis [I kind of can't believe I have never read this]
14. Where the Sidewalk Ends: the Poems and Drawing of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
15. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson [I was sure I read this book in 4th or 5th grade, but then the film version came out a few months ago and nothing in those previews triggered any memories of what I thought this book was actually about. So they either changed the story entirely for the purposes of the movie, or I'm remembering another book and thinking it's this one]
16. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
17. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss [I was actually pretty much an adult when I read this book for the first time since it was a high school graduation gift from my student council sponsors]
18. Strega Nona by Tomie De Paola
19. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
20. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin, Jr.
21. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
22. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
23. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle [I did a book report on this in 6th grade. I remember I made a poster with all the imaginary planets on it, but now I can't actually remember the story, or if I even liked it]
24. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [I had this book but never read it]
25. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss [I don't think I've ever actually read the book, just seen the animated version, but I think that's the entire book so I'll count it]
26. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
27. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by John Archambault
28. Little House on the Prarie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
29. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
30. The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
31. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner [Shane went through a Boxcar Children phase]
32. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan [I still love this book, it's beautifully written]
33. Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
34. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [Another one we had to read in 5th grade]
35. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
36. The BFG by Roald Dahl
37. The Giver by Lois Lowry [I know I read this to get Accelerated Reader points in 7th grade (did everyone do AR, or was that just an El Paso thing? Or even just something at my particular middle school?) and I know that this book really freaked me out for some reason, but now I can't remember it well enough to recall why it scared me]
38. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
39. James and the Giant Peach: A Children's Story by Roald Dahl [All Roald Dahl books freak me out. I couldn't even finish reading The Witches when I was a kid because it terrified me. As for all of his other books, my feelings about Roald Dahl books are the same as my feelings about Tim Burton movies: I appreciate them and think that they're good art/literature, and I even kind of like them, but I can't fully enjoy them because they just make me feel weird. It's a primal feeling I can't even articulate, but they bother me somehow]
40. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
41. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
42. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien [This gets halfway highlighted because I started this but never finished it. I've never made it through an entire Tolkien book, I lose patience with his stuff for some reason...and it's not that his books are too detailed, because normally I love the unnecessary details]
43. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss [I was really crazy about the Lorax for a while. I thought he was cute. I even had a Lorax t-shirt, 'cause I was just that nerdy]
44. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
45. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry [I still have this book in my bedroom at my parents' house, and I re-read it almost every time I go home to visit]
46. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien
47. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott [I love this one as well. I have my mom's old copy, and it is falling to pieces and I've taped the cover back onto it a dozen times. I really should find myself a less battered copy, because I'll probably keep re-reading it forever, too]
48. The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
49. Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
50. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
51. Corduroy by Don Freeman
52. Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg [The movie version of this book really sucked, by the way. The entire mood of the book was lost]
53. Math Curse by Jon Scieszka
54. Matilda by Roald Dahl
55. Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls
56. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume [I love Judy Blume, both for young adult and adult fiction]
57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary [I had all of Beverly Cleary's books when I was little]
58. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White [Yet another book we read for class in the 5th grade]
59. Are You My Mother? by Philip D. Eastman
60. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis [Yup, haven't read this one, either]
61. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey [One of my very favorites]
62. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
63. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
64. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
65. The Napping House by Audrey Wood
66. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
67. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter [Although I preferred The Tale of Benjamin Bunny]
68. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt [Whaddaya know, another book that scared me! I didn't like this one because there was too much talk about living forever, and the whole concept of "forever" has never sat well with me]
69. The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum [I kind of can't believe I've never read this one, either]
70. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
71. Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
72. Basil of Baker Street, by Eve Titus
73. The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
74. The Cay by Theodore Taylor [Another one I had but never read. I think at one point I got a boxed set of children's classics for my birthday and was only interested in about half of them. Shiloh came in that same set, I think. Ha.]
75. Curious George by Hans Augusto Rey [I used to make Mom read this one to me a lot, I was really fascinated by the part where Curious George was in the hospital bed with his leg in a cast. And also the part where he washed windows]
76. Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
77. Arthur series by Marc Tolon Brown [This is another series my little brother liked a lot, so I'd read them for him]
78. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
79. Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes
80. Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
81. The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
82. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
83. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar [I remember everyone used to fight over who could check this one out on library day at school]
84. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
85. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
86. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
87. Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
88. My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
89. Stuart Little by E. B. White
90. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
91. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare [I've been having a strange craving to re-read this book lately, don't ask me why]
92. The Art Lesson by Tomie De Paola
93. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina [Yet another Shane favorite. Considering how much it seems like he liked to read when we were little, it's kind of a shame that now he only reads the sports page]
94. Clifford, the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell
95. Heidi by Johanna Spyri [Yet another book I had but never read]
96. Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
97. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
98. The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
99. Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
100. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Munsch
Monday, April 23, 2007
86 Box Office
My last night of managing the box office was Saturday night.
In general, I didn't mind managing the box office for the past two years. Out of all the TA jobs, I think mine was by far the easiest. Funnily enough, no one else seems to agree with me on this and apparently no one but me has ever volunteered to take on the job for a second year. But there were a lot of things I liked about working the box office. For one thing, I had no papers to grade. I also never had to attend any classes other than my own (and believe me, I love that I never had to get up to go to a 9:30 class that I was TA-ing like most of my friends). There were sometimes three weeks at a time where there was no show going on and the box office was closed and I didn't have a job to do. Did I feel a little guilty collecting my $1000 stipend during the months I didn't work more than twenty hours total? I probably should have, but honestly, no. When there was a job to do, I did it well. I literally wrote the manual for my job. And when there wasn't a job to do, I was just grateful that I had the easiest teaching assistantship. The fact that I could do 80% of my job over the phone (Call the box office, make sure someone is actually there working, and my job is done for the afternoon!) made me very happy.
That's not to say that the job was without it's frustrations, though. Who could forget Handjob Guy, for example? Or the student who called the box office last week asking if we still had tickets available for "Mucho Aw-doe"...instead of Much Ado About Nothing, the show we were actually selling tickets for. And then there were the students that worked for me. While most of them were great, and it was a very good way for me to get to know the undergrads, a few of them were irresponsible or just plain stupid. For instance, we have a policy that a certain amount of ushers can watch the show on the night they work, and last week one of the ushers asked, "Can I watch the show tonight?" I said, "Sure," and he said, "When?" It took all my willpower not to roll my eyes at him as I answered, "When it STARTS." There were definitely people I would have fired if I could have done so.
I think Saturday night was the icing on the cake, though, the epitome of the ridiculous part of my job. All of the Intro to Fine Arts students--and I think every student in the university has to take Intro to Fine Arts--have to write at least one critique of a play each semester, and they need to prove that they actually saw the play by attaching a show program to their critique. Needless to say, we get a lot of students showing up to try to get programs without actually seeing the show, so the house manager and I have a policy about not giving out programs except to people actually entering the theater with a ticket.
So Saturday night just after the show had started a guy walked up to the box office and told us he'd seen the show the night before but he didn't get a program, and could we please give him one? Amanda explained our policy of not giving out programs and the pointed out to him that if he had been at the show the night before he would have been given a program for sure. So then he quickly switched his story to, "Well, I had one, but I left it here at the theater." But we told him sorry, there was nothing we could do for him unless he came back with his ticket stub proving he had been there. And incidentally, I am positive that he hadn't been there the night before. That's what happens when you're a freakishly muscular yet somehow still attractive 6'4" black guy with lots of tattoos. Sorry buddy, but you're very noticeable and I would have remembered you.
Anyway, he started whining about having to come back with a ticket stub, so to be nice Amanda suggested, "Well, maybe if you could tell us something about the plot, to prove that you saw it...?" He stood there for a moment and finally said, "Well, I know it's by, uh, Shakespeare, and..." Realizing that a plot synopsis was going to be too much for him, I said, "What about the set? Could you tell us what the set looked like?" And let me just point out that the set for this show had a lot of very memorable elements: trees made out of gigantic grapes, a ten foot tall wine glass, paintings that flew in and out, etc. If he had actually seen the show he would have been able to come up with SOMETHING. Instead he just stood there for a full minute, even making a big show of closing his eyes like he was trying oh-so-hard to remember. Finally he sighed and said, "I was as throwed when I saw it as I am right now, so I don't really remember." So Amanda and I told him sorry and he groaned and said, "Alright, I'll get a ticket. I think it's in my notebook where I wrote down the plot and all that shit." So not only did he admit that he was "throwed" when he supposedly saw the show, but also that if he did see the show he was taking notes during it, which is another thing we really frown upon. God.
Maybe he came back the next morning with a ticket stub that he'd borrowed from a friend who actually saw the show. I don't know. If he actually made the effort to find a ticket, Amanda told me she would give him a program. But when I told her the story, Debbie realized that he is her student and she'll be reading his critique carefully and I'm fairly certain he won't be getting credit anyway. Ha. What an asshat.
So yeah. It was a good job, but I can't say I'm really going to miss it.
In general, I didn't mind managing the box office for the past two years. Out of all the TA jobs, I think mine was by far the easiest. Funnily enough, no one else seems to agree with me on this and apparently no one but me has ever volunteered to take on the job for a second year. But there were a lot of things I liked about working the box office. For one thing, I had no papers to grade. I also never had to attend any classes other than my own (and believe me, I love that I never had to get up to go to a 9:30 class that I was TA-ing like most of my friends). There were sometimes three weeks at a time where there was no show going on and the box office was closed and I didn't have a job to do. Did I feel a little guilty collecting my $1000 stipend during the months I didn't work more than twenty hours total? I probably should have, but honestly, no. When there was a job to do, I did it well. I literally wrote the manual for my job. And when there wasn't a job to do, I was just grateful that I had the easiest teaching assistantship. The fact that I could do 80% of my job over the phone (Call the box office, make sure someone is actually there working, and my job is done for the afternoon!) made me very happy.
That's not to say that the job was without it's frustrations, though. Who could forget Handjob Guy, for example? Or the student who called the box office last week asking if we still had tickets available for "Mucho Aw-doe"...instead of Much Ado About Nothing, the show we were actually selling tickets for. And then there were the students that worked for me. While most of them were great, and it was a very good way for me to get to know the undergrads, a few of them were irresponsible or just plain stupid. For instance, we have a policy that a certain amount of ushers can watch the show on the night they work, and last week one of the ushers asked, "Can I watch the show tonight?" I said, "Sure," and he said, "When?" It took all my willpower not to roll my eyes at him as I answered, "When it STARTS." There were definitely people I would have fired if I could have done so.
I think Saturday night was the icing on the cake, though, the epitome of the ridiculous part of my job. All of the Intro to Fine Arts students--and I think every student in the university has to take Intro to Fine Arts--have to write at least one critique of a play each semester, and they need to prove that they actually saw the play by attaching a show program to their critique. Needless to say, we get a lot of students showing up to try to get programs without actually seeing the show, so the house manager and I have a policy about not giving out programs except to people actually entering the theater with a ticket.
So Saturday night just after the show had started a guy walked up to the box office and told us he'd seen the show the night before but he didn't get a program, and could we please give him one? Amanda explained our policy of not giving out programs and the pointed out to him that if he had been at the show the night before he would have been given a program for sure. So then he quickly switched his story to, "Well, I had one, but I left it here at the theater." But we told him sorry, there was nothing we could do for him unless he came back with his ticket stub proving he had been there. And incidentally, I am positive that he hadn't been there the night before. That's what happens when you're a freakishly muscular yet somehow still attractive 6'4" black guy with lots of tattoos. Sorry buddy, but you're very noticeable and I would have remembered you.
Anyway, he started whining about having to come back with a ticket stub, so to be nice Amanda suggested, "Well, maybe if you could tell us something about the plot, to prove that you saw it...?" He stood there for a moment and finally said, "Well, I know it's by, uh, Shakespeare, and..." Realizing that a plot synopsis was going to be too much for him, I said, "What about the set? Could you tell us what the set looked like?" And let me just point out that the set for this show had a lot of very memorable elements: trees made out of gigantic grapes, a ten foot tall wine glass, paintings that flew in and out, etc. If he had actually seen the show he would have been able to come up with SOMETHING. Instead he just stood there for a full minute, even making a big show of closing his eyes like he was trying oh-so-hard to remember. Finally he sighed and said, "I was as throwed when I saw it as I am right now, so I don't really remember." So Amanda and I told him sorry and he groaned and said, "Alright, I'll get a ticket. I think it's in my notebook where I wrote down the plot and all that shit." So not only did he admit that he was "throwed" when he supposedly saw the show, but also that if he did see the show he was taking notes during it, which is another thing we really frown upon. God.
Maybe he came back the next morning with a ticket stub that he'd borrowed from a friend who actually saw the show. I don't know. If he actually made the effort to find a ticket, Amanda told me she would give him a program. But when I told her the story, Debbie realized that he is her student and she'll be reading his critique carefully and I'm fairly certain he won't be getting credit anyway. Ha. What an asshat.
So yeah. It was a good job, but I can't say I'm really going to miss it.
Thought Process
I've been having anxiety dreams lately, almost every night this week. I don't always remember them when I wake up. The bits I remember usually have to do with screwing things up at the restaurant (forgetting about a table completely, moving like I'm stuck in molasses even when I know I need to be moving quickly) or my usual variety of anxiety dream where I'm packing frantically then end up missing my plane anyway or, if I do manage to make the plane, the plane crashes. I wake up feeling uneasy and sometimes I can't shake the feeling for an hour or more, and I hate it.
You'd think that I'd be really relaxed right now. My thesis is up at the library being bound, so it's finally completely and utterly finished. My box office job is finished forever as well. I have nothing important to do until next month. And maybe that's part of my problem. With nothing concrete to focus on, my brain goes into overdrive. I realize that in a lot of ways I am suited to life as an academic because I spend so much time Figuring Things Out. My mind just never relaxes and turns off, even when I really need it to. This is both a blessing and a curse, but after almost 25 years I know that this is just the way I'm wired, and so I deal with myself and most of the time I focus on the blessing part of it much more than the curse part.
I spend a very large portion of my life trying to figure out why I feel the way I do about things, and how other people are feeling and why. Apparently I have always been like this. My mom said when I was a toddler I used to follow her around the house asking incessantly, "Are you happy or sad? Are you mad or glad?" I'm pretty certain I was just practicing my Sesame Street feelings words, but at the same time those were probably legitimate questions since I do the exact same thing now. Given, now that I'm an adult I mostly keep these thoughts to myself. I'm constantly gauging people's emotions, trying to figure out if they're happy or sad, mad or glad, and why I think they might be feeling that way. The upside to this is that I feel like I'm pretty good at figuring out why people are behaving in a particular way (assuming their behavior is at least in some way based on logic, which in the case of people with some mental disorders is obviously not the case). The other good thing about this is that some people seem to really need me to give them blunt assessments of their behavior sometimes, and I like that I feel comfortable being that honest sounding board for certain friends. The bad thing about this is that I make a lot of assumptions about other people based on the constant analysis I'm doing on them in my head. Often I just let these assumptions stand, particularly if I don't know a person well enough to ask them whether or not I'm correct, and that's not a good thing. I think I AM right about people, a lot of the time. But I know my analysis is not correct all the time, and my assumptions can be unfair. The thing is, I don't think most people would react well to my declarations of, "You're behaving this way right now, and I think this is why." This is why I only make statements like that to a few choice people. Because if I'm wrong in my assumptions, that pisses people off. And if I'm right about them, that pisses them off even more because there is nothing more annoying than other people recognizing your flaws, patterns, or emotions before you fully recognize them yourself. Sometimes I like the puzzle of figuring people out. Other times, like tonight, I just wish people would make it easy for me and say, "I'm acting like this, and this is why, and this is how I think it is going to affect you." Wouldn't that be nice?
I should add here that I'm not talking about a particular person or event right now. I just re-read that last paragraph and realized that it sounds like I'm writing a cryptic entry about a specific person and trying to keep it anonymous, but no, I'm not. This is just something I'm thinking about.
The other thing my mind tends to go into overdrive about is my future. You all know that by now, I talk about it a lot. I'm looking forward to my future, and I'm excited about it, but I hate all of the unknowns. I realize that life is full of the unknowns and that is never going to change, and I do the best I can to deal with it and try not to worry too much about things I can't control. But I still think about it all a lot anyway. I realize that most of my anxiety dreams right now are about my upcoming move. I like new things to a certain extent, but I am very much a creature of habit and having everything disorganized and feeling unsettled makes me crazy.* I'm not looking foward to packing up this apartment and leaving here at all, and my mind is already dwelling on that inevitability when I'm asleep at night.
I'm looking forward to being in my new home, don't get me wrong, but I'm not looking forward to the couple of months of transition in between. Although I think I'll be reasonably happy in El Paso for the summer, because I'll be able to make my own temporary routine there.
And frankly, even though I'm looking forward to moving to the D.C. area, I'm also extremely nervous. I think I'll feel better once I get there in May and see where I'm going to live and get a vibe on the place because, again, it's the unknown that is worrying me more than anything. Of course, the known is scaring me, too. I read a lot of blogs of Ph.D. candidates and the overall theme seems to be, "This is so hard, and overall job prospects suck." Which of course makes me go, "Why do I want to do this again?" I do realize that people mostly use their blogs as an outlet to bitch about things that are going wrong in their lives, so I know there is a lot of good that I'm just not reading about. I also know that I would never forgive myself if I didn't at least try for the Ph.D. at this point. I may not get there, or I may get there but then realize I hate it. And I know that. But right now I honestly can't envision myself doing anything else. And THAT scares me, because if this next step doesn't work out for me, what else am I going to do with my life?
But then I remind myself that I haven't always been like this. I remember a time when I honestly thought I'd be a high school teacher and I thought I'd be content doing that for life. I also remember a time, not even that long ago, where I thought--and realize that I am cringing as I'm writing this and I can barely admit it, even to myself--that since I liked school so much I might as well keep going to get my MA, and that probably by the time I was done with my MA I'd be in a serious relationship and ready to get married and then have a baby or two so I wouldn't really use my degree and I'd just adjunct teach or do something like that for a while before taking years off to take care of my kids. Yes! At 20 I really thought I was going to be able to plan my life neatly like that! And I thought that was what I wanted!
And now my mindset has changed drastically. For one thing, I didn't end up with that serious relationship I thought I'd find for sure (FOR SURE!) by the time I was 22. Ha. Hahahahahahaha. I also realized that I really do like research, I really do love what I'm studying, and that there is at least a small possibility that I might actually have some talent at what I do. Over the past two years, the idea of going on to the Ph.D. has become very important to me. The idea of getting my name and my research out there and adding my voice to the body of work has become an important dream that I am not about to give up on yet. I was positive that I would want to be a stay-at-home mother one of these days, but now I feel like if I ever actually get to the point where I have a Ph.D. and a teaching job I am not going to want to give that up. And I never thought I would choose a job over a family, but suddenly that choice is much, much harder to make, whereas before I would have gone, "Family!" in an instant.
I still think that if and when I do have the opportunity to make my own family one of these days, I'm probably going to choose to embrace that opportunity fully. But in the absence of a concrete way to attempt to achieve that dream, I have really latched onto this dream of the Ph.D. and a tenure-track job since at least this is a dream that I can actually work toward.
Still, when I think too much about it, it scares me. I'm afraid that I'll become so solitary doing my Ph.D. work that I'll emerge from it 30 years old and still as single as I am right now. And how much does any of what I'm doing right now even matter if I'm only doing it for myself? I can tell myself day in and day out that it's okay to want to do it just for me, that it's wonderful to have the opportunity to be as selfish as I want and work towards my goals without having to worry about other people, but even though a serious relationship would add so many more things to worry about, I also know that I want those worries eventually. I do want a partner in this life one of these days. The flip side of that coin is that I worry that I'll meet someone I love, give up the dream I'm chasing right now to be with that person, and then regret it later. Everyone seems to think that it's great that I can start a Ph.D. program while I'm free and single with all the time in the world to devote to my research, and to a certain extent I agree. But at least the people that start a Ph.D. program with a husband and family already know what their future holds, more or less. They know the hurdles they have to jump to get to that degree. I have no idea what my hurdles are going to be: who I'm going to fall for at an inappropriate moment, what choice I might end up having to make between a career and a person I care about, and hey, there we go again with the unknowns!
Sometimes I drive myself crazy with this circular, damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't thought process. But I guess the main thing I keep trying to remind myself of right now is this:
You didn't always want to do this. You used to have other dreams. And even though you think those dreams are silly now, they were important to you then and they might become important to you again. Or maybe something else will become important to you. So if this doesn't work out for you, you are a smart girl and there are other things you can do. Also, the odds of you being single forever are pretty slim, and even though it's going to be hard to handle the challenges of being in a relationship when you're so used to being single, you're going to be fine and you're going to work it all out, so chill the fuck out.
On that note, I'm going to bed and hoping that there are no nightmares tonight. Sorry for rambling. Thanks for reading, if you did.
*Footnote: Incidentally, I don't know why I love having a set, known routine and an organized personal space and yet can also love traveling so much since travel is generally nothing but unknowns and shared space (and often messy shared space at that). Maybe it's that I know when I'm traveling to expect those things, and that I still have a home somewhere on the planet where everything is organized just the way I like it? I don't know...
You'd think that I'd be really relaxed right now. My thesis is up at the library being bound, so it's finally completely and utterly finished. My box office job is finished forever as well. I have nothing important to do until next month. And maybe that's part of my problem. With nothing concrete to focus on, my brain goes into overdrive. I realize that in a lot of ways I am suited to life as an academic because I spend so much time Figuring Things Out. My mind just never relaxes and turns off, even when I really need it to. This is both a blessing and a curse, but after almost 25 years I know that this is just the way I'm wired, and so I deal with myself and most of the time I focus on the blessing part of it much more than the curse part.
I spend a very large portion of my life trying to figure out why I feel the way I do about things, and how other people are feeling and why. Apparently I have always been like this. My mom said when I was a toddler I used to follow her around the house asking incessantly, "Are you happy or sad? Are you mad or glad?" I'm pretty certain I was just practicing my Sesame Street feelings words, but at the same time those were probably legitimate questions since I do the exact same thing now. Given, now that I'm an adult I mostly keep these thoughts to myself. I'm constantly gauging people's emotions, trying to figure out if they're happy or sad, mad or glad, and why I think they might be feeling that way. The upside to this is that I feel like I'm pretty good at figuring out why people are behaving in a particular way (assuming their behavior is at least in some way based on logic, which in the case of people with some mental disorders is obviously not the case). The other good thing about this is that some people seem to really need me to give them blunt assessments of their behavior sometimes, and I like that I feel comfortable being that honest sounding board for certain friends. The bad thing about this is that I make a lot of assumptions about other people based on the constant analysis I'm doing on them in my head. Often I just let these assumptions stand, particularly if I don't know a person well enough to ask them whether or not I'm correct, and that's not a good thing. I think I AM right about people, a lot of the time. But I know my analysis is not correct all the time, and my assumptions can be unfair. The thing is, I don't think most people would react well to my declarations of, "You're behaving this way right now, and I think this is why." This is why I only make statements like that to a few choice people. Because if I'm wrong in my assumptions, that pisses people off. And if I'm right about them, that pisses them off even more because there is nothing more annoying than other people recognizing your flaws, patterns, or emotions before you fully recognize them yourself. Sometimes I like the puzzle of figuring people out. Other times, like tonight, I just wish people would make it easy for me and say, "I'm acting like this, and this is why, and this is how I think it is going to affect you." Wouldn't that be nice?
I should add here that I'm not talking about a particular person or event right now. I just re-read that last paragraph and realized that it sounds like I'm writing a cryptic entry about a specific person and trying to keep it anonymous, but no, I'm not. This is just something I'm thinking about.
The other thing my mind tends to go into overdrive about is my future. You all know that by now, I talk about it a lot. I'm looking forward to my future, and I'm excited about it, but I hate all of the unknowns. I realize that life is full of the unknowns and that is never going to change, and I do the best I can to deal with it and try not to worry too much about things I can't control. But I still think about it all a lot anyway. I realize that most of my anxiety dreams right now are about my upcoming move. I like new things to a certain extent, but I am very much a creature of habit and having everything disorganized and feeling unsettled makes me crazy.* I'm not looking foward to packing up this apartment and leaving here at all, and my mind is already dwelling on that inevitability when I'm asleep at night.
I'm looking forward to being in my new home, don't get me wrong, but I'm not looking forward to the couple of months of transition in between. Although I think I'll be reasonably happy in El Paso for the summer, because I'll be able to make my own temporary routine there.
And frankly, even though I'm looking forward to moving to the D.C. area, I'm also extremely nervous. I think I'll feel better once I get there in May and see where I'm going to live and get a vibe on the place because, again, it's the unknown that is worrying me more than anything. Of course, the known is scaring me, too. I read a lot of blogs of Ph.D. candidates and the overall theme seems to be, "This is so hard, and overall job prospects suck." Which of course makes me go, "Why do I want to do this again?" I do realize that people mostly use their blogs as an outlet to bitch about things that are going wrong in their lives, so I know there is a lot of good that I'm just not reading about. I also know that I would never forgive myself if I didn't at least try for the Ph.D. at this point. I may not get there, or I may get there but then realize I hate it. And I know that. But right now I honestly can't envision myself doing anything else. And THAT scares me, because if this next step doesn't work out for me, what else am I going to do with my life?
But then I remind myself that I haven't always been like this. I remember a time when I honestly thought I'd be a high school teacher and I thought I'd be content doing that for life. I also remember a time, not even that long ago, where I thought--and realize that I am cringing as I'm writing this and I can barely admit it, even to myself--that since I liked school so much I might as well keep going to get my MA, and that probably by the time I was done with my MA I'd be in a serious relationship and ready to get married and then have a baby or two so I wouldn't really use my degree and I'd just adjunct teach or do something like that for a while before taking years off to take care of my kids. Yes! At 20 I really thought I was going to be able to plan my life neatly like that! And I thought that was what I wanted!
And now my mindset has changed drastically. For one thing, I didn't end up with that serious relationship I thought I'd find for sure (FOR SURE!) by the time I was 22. Ha. Hahahahahahaha. I also realized that I really do like research, I really do love what I'm studying, and that there is at least a small possibility that I might actually have some talent at what I do. Over the past two years, the idea of going on to the Ph.D. has become very important to me. The idea of getting my name and my research out there and adding my voice to the body of work has become an important dream that I am not about to give up on yet. I was positive that I would want to be a stay-at-home mother one of these days, but now I feel like if I ever actually get to the point where I have a Ph.D. and a teaching job I am not going to want to give that up. And I never thought I would choose a job over a family, but suddenly that choice is much, much harder to make, whereas before I would have gone, "Family!" in an instant.
I still think that if and when I do have the opportunity to make my own family one of these days, I'm probably going to choose to embrace that opportunity fully. But in the absence of a concrete way to attempt to achieve that dream, I have really latched onto this dream of the Ph.D. and a tenure-track job since at least this is a dream that I can actually work toward.
Still, when I think too much about it, it scares me. I'm afraid that I'll become so solitary doing my Ph.D. work that I'll emerge from it 30 years old and still as single as I am right now. And how much does any of what I'm doing right now even matter if I'm only doing it for myself? I can tell myself day in and day out that it's okay to want to do it just for me, that it's wonderful to have the opportunity to be as selfish as I want and work towards my goals without having to worry about other people, but even though a serious relationship would add so many more things to worry about, I also know that I want those worries eventually. I do want a partner in this life one of these days. The flip side of that coin is that I worry that I'll meet someone I love, give up the dream I'm chasing right now to be with that person, and then regret it later. Everyone seems to think that it's great that I can start a Ph.D. program while I'm free and single with all the time in the world to devote to my research, and to a certain extent I agree. But at least the people that start a Ph.D. program with a husband and family already know what their future holds, more or less. They know the hurdles they have to jump to get to that degree. I have no idea what my hurdles are going to be: who I'm going to fall for at an inappropriate moment, what choice I might end up having to make between a career and a person I care about, and hey, there we go again with the unknowns!
Sometimes I drive myself crazy with this circular, damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't thought process. But I guess the main thing I keep trying to remind myself of right now is this:
You didn't always want to do this. You used to have other dreams. And even though you think those dreams are silly now, they were important to you then and they might become important to you again. Or maybe something else will become important to you. So if this doesn't work out for you, you are a smart girl and there are other things you can do. Also, the odds of you being single forever are pretty slim, and even though it's going to be hard to handle the challenges of being in a relationship when you're so used to being single, you're going to be fine and you're going to work it all out, so chill the fuck out.
On that note, I'm going to bed and hoping that there are no nightmares tonight. Sorry for rambling. Thanks for reading, if you did.
*Footnote: Incidentally, I don't know why I love having a set, known routine and an organized personal space and yet can also love traveling so much since travel is generally nothing but unknowns and shared space (and often messy shared space at that). Maybe it's that I know when I'm traveling to expect those things, and that I still have a home somewhere on the planet where everything is organized just the way I like it? I don't know...
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