Game plan

I am really happy with what I accomplished all weekend. I forgot to mention I also got rid of some nice trojan viruses on my computer Friday night around midnight. The exciting life of me.

I have spent all afternoon doing a handful of things for my scholarships but none are at completion yet. I thought writing my tasks down and posting them online would help nag me. What the main trouble is, is that we are supposed to have horrible weather all night and no school for tomorrow (which is also the day I work 5 hours in IT) so I am really amp'd about maybe having a free day off.

However. Departmental scholarships are due tomorrrow. I needed to get the application in by today at noon (ya it is now 5PM) because it never fails to have the website get all backed up when people are trying to work on their 14-screen application last minute. God. So that is my next task.

Unrelated, I applied for a graduate student research poster competition and found inspiration for my scholarship applications through a conference that is offered in August. So I guess I have been "working" on my application, just not writing it all down like need be.

I also nagged someone to finish a survey I had sent them, got a contact name, and will email another survey-taker tomorrow. Here's hoping! I will update the rest of my list later because now I am getting paranoid about being locked out of the departmental scholarship website due to high traffic. HOPE for the day off tomorrow!!! ee!! I would love it!

Accomplishments!

I have done a TON this week!

I had a million things to do before I could turn in my conference slides for a 75 minute talk. Those were due Friday. I had drafted a version earlier this month and had run all my stats. Did that help?? You would think! I worked all day Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday night, and Friday night to get those things done. I felt I couldn't present a summary of my work until I had written the article. So 5,000 words later, I was finally done. It was actually harder to cut down the words from 8,000 or however many I had in the original draft study. Either way, I am really close to submitting that first study for publication! One more look-through and it will be ready!

I finished all my slides by Friday morning at 5AM. Slept until 10:30 for a noon meeting, and had to confront someone I won't mention about an email I sent two weeks ago regarding a letter I had requested for Tuesday. Got my vague answer. Shopped at Target a bit. Came home and more WORK! I don't know why I am on such a roll this week! I do have a bit of insomnia though left over from my 3am nights (almost every day this week, and Tues/Thurs I have to be up at 630 for work and teaching. Since I couldn't sleep on Friday, I went ahead and burned through the assignments in my queue to grade and emailed them back. After this Tuesday, I will get a break for 2 full weeks on grading! Yea for starting Unit 2!

I took yesterday (Saturday) off and lounged around playing video games on my DS and reading Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson. M's parents gave me a copy for Christmas! Loved it. It was on par with Life Among the Savages which I loved! Around 6pm or so I got an email from my adviser asking about departmental scholarships (due Tues), so I wrote back and said yes I am planning on applying! and wrote up my plans upon graduation. I sent those off to my two people and used part of the draft for one of my scholarship applications. I also updated my Teaching Philosophy and used THAT as part of my scholarships too! So I am about 80% done with both. I need to finish the departmental one tonight (other isn't due til the 16th). Smug! :)

I still have a big list of things I need to do (work on article #2 and some applications for summer fellowships) but I feel really good about what all I got done this week! I was completely evil by Thursday though, with combined lack of sleep and no real end in sight. I am so glad I got everything submitted on time!

It has been a good weekend. I am glad I took ALL of yesterday off (except for that little bit of work) and I feel relaxed once again. And how is it almost February? M will be here in 1 month and I take my exams in 3 months. Positively insane! I am moving at a really good pace though! Interviews start tomorrow for my study.

Academics and chaff

Urg. Two tart emails from people I don't really respect anyway. Why do the emails still put a damper on my afternoon? One about replies to a thread someone started about lesson planning and one from a teacher who didn't realize I was asking for a letter of recommendation (due Tues) in the email I sent three full weeks ago. Thanks. Flake.

I should not really care; but it just reinforces that I really am not sure about the whole professor profession once I am finished graduating. So many (definitely not ALL but a good deal) tend to be so flaky. Not in an endearing, "nutty genius" sort of way, either. Usually in a smug, jerk sort of way that makes you feel dumb for asking them to do something for you, when it is really actually their job to conduct a teaching evaluation on you. 

Anyway, there are a lot of tactful reminder emails that I have to send around, constantly, and for some reason I feel like the dolt instead of the person who flaked on actually answering the initial questions (responding to an email is a nice thing to do). I wonder why that is. Why do I let the chaff bother me?


Either way, I don't want to be like that once I am done with school. I would love to keep teaching; I absolutely love the students, but it is like I want to do it in an isolated bubble of my students, myself, and my community (not university) and not deal with all the waste. I just don't want to be a part of that group I find to be so....unlikeable. Just read one page of comments on the Chronicle of Higher Education if you want an example. It is so high school.

I read an article today about parenting and the changes that take place in your personality (I was curious!), and one of the items that struck me was that you no longer cared about stupid stuff like my above irritation. You just let it roll off you. You have other things to think about, I guess. Well, I have other things to think about, too! Like scholarship applications that are due on Tuesday. A fellowship application. An article draft. A second article draft. Lesson planning for Tuesdsay. My teaching observation this week!

I guess what I am saying is I wish I could just fast forward to that part in life where you don't care so much about terse/ignorant emails or little things that really don't mean anything. I wish I could do it now, without the child part. Lol. Is there some hormonal concentrate I can take for this? Give it to me! I want to stop caring about the things that don't matter.

I guess realizing they don't matter is the first step. Long journey though. It's already been 32 years!

Curbing habits/perfect person

I have been window-shopping online all morning :(  wasting time, but at least not wasting $$.

I need something like MakeupAlley to keep me from buying clothes--I can get online and read reviews of every magical product that sounds good to me and then be grounded in reality when I read that the item does/does not deliver, or better yet, something I already own works better. My little makeup trunk/tackle box I bought at Academy is also a big influence. I can see everything I own and use it up before buying more stuff.

The most perfect person thing I have done all year that I am MOST proud of is breaking my habit of stockpiling. I get paranoid that "they" will stop making what I like, so I would stock up on stuff whenever it was on sale and then have 10 bottles of shampoo or whatever in the cabinet. Spending $ on stuff I don't even need yet. It obviously adds up! I have been really good about using up all my supplies that I have saved up over the years, and my absolute favorite thing is to throw away an empty bottle. That is my new high, and I get mad if I hear M throw it away before I do. Lol.

Bangs

Five minutes ago, as I cut my bangs over the sink and trim my hair, I think, "I am not going to trim my own hair anymore: it is weird and always looks a bit off." snip snip snip

Whenever I get my hair cut by a professional, they basically just trim up what I already have going on. No new lengths or anything crazy, even if I let them do what they want. And I don't think my cut is particularly very attractive for my face shape & body. I have really weird hair though. 70% of the strands are fine, while the other 30% are these weird coarse hairs that bend and shape to their own liking. I have to be fast on the draw with the blowdryer or I am in deep trouble. If I am in a climate with high humidity? Forget it.

When I loop my damp hair in a bun, I do not get "soft waves" or anything that looks remotely sane in the morning (or PM). I get weird, bendy kinks that looks like a square. The fine hair flattens out and goes straight, while the coarse hair does what it wants (curls more). I don't get it. But I think that is why hairdressers are afraid of my hair.

"Oh, you have a lot of natural curl!" they squeal, thinking I am a scrunch-and-go type of client. But it only scrunches well from my ears and below.  The top of my head stays as straight as an arrow, and if I am lucky, curls underneath at the ends.

snip, snip





 

Organizing

Things I am proud of:

• Eating/using all the fruit and vegetables I bought last week {perfect person}
• Eating 3 soups that had been in my cabinet the better part of a year {pp}
• Not leaving red cups (half filled with coffee) around my apartment {pp}
• Running on Monday like I planned
• Lifting weights on Tuesday like I planned
• Paying off my credit card this morning and still having $ left over
• Not being a brat for 10 whole days (so far) after leaving M to come back to school 
• I thought I was quite charming when meeting his parents and family over the holidays!
• Making a grocery list and planning out some meals, and sticking to it for a whole week
• Keeping my friends from my old job after not being in contact with them for 2.5 years
• Going to bed rather early last night (11pm)
• Choosing my committee by my own deadline (11/30/10)
• Getting my reading list approved & scheduling my exam in May '11

Things I am not

• Waking up later than I wanted (9:30am)
• Letting the bulbs in my bathroom burn out one by one instead of replacing (now at 2 of 4)
• Starting 2 blogs today instead of working on IRB stuff
• Not feeling like running (like I planned) [but it is windy]
• Spending the first six hours of today reading blogs and spacing out instead of finishing something that was due Monday

Over her

I think I have moved on from my old darling, Spokane. I notice my speech is not littered with, "ya, my friend in Spokane..." or "when I was in Washington there was this...." as much. I feel like I have fully committed to my new town and accepted it for who she is. I have now lived here 2.5 years and plan to move in another 1.5. Is that how long it takes to get over your ex-town?

It still feels nice, though.

The name

330 miles from the husband (school). Fruit pies (and gasoline) live at the halfway point of the drive.