You're reading the blog of the newest adjunct faculty member at PU! Assuming they didn't hire someone today that is. Then of course, today, I get an email from another University about a job interview. Huh.

I think the power button on our dishwasher is busted.

Reading Adrian Mole diaries.

Just spent the morning doing research for my JOB INTERVIEW tomorrow. Not to put any pressure on myself but this is the first interview I've ever had for a job I really, really wanted. Like, to start a real, actual career. So, yeah. That and I'm fairly underqualified for the position. It's an adjunct teaching job at a local university and would be a perfect situation - plenty of time to be home with TR, bring in enough money so that we're not spending through our savings, and potential for me to pick up more teaching work in my life.

So I'm trying to be as prepared as possible. Seeing as I'm not sure exactly which class they're looking for me to teach, it's a little difficult. I haven't taught my own class since 2002, seven whole years ago. It's true that I've been in the classroom since then - as a student. But still. I'm nervous.

was nice and quiet. Friday we ordered from Tiffin....delish. I got malai kofta, they make these amazing little veggie dumplings and smother them in a creamy cashew sauce. So good. Saturday basically all I did was go grocery shopping and prepare for my interview on Wednesday. Yesterday we went to visit E's grandparents and his pop.

In other news, TR is feeling much better. She doesn't have that pale face, pink eyes look when she wakes up anymore. She's still stuffy in the nose but that's ok. She's trying to crawl like a maniac.

The baby has a cold, poor little nubbins. Nasty cough, runny nose like better go catch it runny, watery eyes. The doc said it's just a summer cold that has to run its course, but it's tough to watch the little one struggle with it. Though I won't be giving her anything other than saline drops.

Ever since we got back from Floridia she's been sleeping like a champ. I wonder if the travels reset her clock...

In other news, I've got a job interview for an adjunct teaching position next week. I was realizing that this is the first job interview I've ever gone on that was for something I really wanted to do with my life. Not that I want to add any more pressure on top of the already stressful interview situation, but this would be an AWESOME job to get.

The first annual Rainbow Lakes Bass Tournament was held at AuntD & UncleR's lakeside retreat. Everyone was rushing in to get the best seats...

One of the competitors. Maybe next year he'll get a little more serious.

It was a brilliant Floridian day, a day when you have to hunt and stalk your fish-mouth prey...


Taylor hung out with Papa Grande while cheering on her mother...


Behold your new champion! Notice the admiring crowd behind me as I hold up my trophy. UncleR confirmed that the winner of the championship gets a free trip to next year's tourney. See ya then!

Some friends call me a recovering hippie, but I think I'm mostly pretty mainstream when it comes to my health care: "western medicine" has never been a pejorative term for me. But when I got pregnant, and it wasn't just my own body that would be affected by whatever I ingested, I definitely was more apt to explore alternative remedies before popping those pills for a cold or flu or whatever.

One resource that has been very helpful for me is this health forum I found while searching for a headache remedy. I think it's worth sharing here because it's got a lot of good discussions about all sorts of different things - from light topics like making your own herbal remedies to more serious talk about vaccinations, cancer treatments, and medical research.

So, check it out if you like.

Check out lavadavenport.blogspot.com for all of your Lava pics and updates!

Thanks.

Man that paper really took a lot out of me. For some reason it keeps getting harder and harder to produce the number of pages that I need. That blank page stares back at me, and even when I finish one page, the next blank one starts taunting all over again.

Well, I should be writing my paper on One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I got a reprieve from last weekend when I got the Sunday-afternoon email that Monday's class was canceled. I immediately jumped away from the computer and told myself I'd work on the paper all week; that promise manifested into about twelve minutes of surface-level thought about comparisons between the Universal Baseball Association and OYoS.

I don't know why even a two-page paper gives me such agiada, especially considering that I am in a creative writing program. It's deadlines that do it, completely undermining all will and ability to pump out a crappy little paper that my teacher barely cares about.

Also on my to-do list: start the cinnamon ice cream for tonight's dessert: apple crisp and ice cream. Yum. Usually I leave the ice cream to Eric to make when we have friends for dinner, but he's actually busy doing his homework, so I guess I'll handle this one. It will let me procrastinate and get points from my husband. Awesome.

I keep hearing/reading from writers that they have these disturbing schedules. The playwright who came to talk to our class on Saturday gets up at 4:30 every morning; Mary Oliver gets up and goes hiking and then writes all before she has to get ready to go to work.

Yesterday I set my alarm for 5:30, but as usual I didn't have the willpower to obey it. This morning Eric was getting up early to go in to work, so I did actually get up at 5:15; amazing to me but probably to no one else.

It was productive, I guess. I collected a bunch of rough drafts with potential to revise for submission, and I wrote another 1.5 pages of my short story, also extremely rough. But even though that might not be much progress, the best part is my feeling of accomplishment. Even if I didn't accomplish anything. I still got out of my comfy bed at quarter after five. I probably only got one line that I'll actually use, though.

And it really is peaceful and beautiful that early. The sun is just now climbing over the rowhomes across the street, but the sky has been steadily lightening for the past hour.

The crappy part: now I have to go get ready for work, then work all day.

the wedding went well, but I have to say: anxiety dreams are there for a reason.

I just sit down and look at this big white box with a thin-line of black squaring it off, and then I realize, wtf I've got nothing of interest to write anyway.

I have to write an article about communication & training in the corporate world and I could just about give a fuck about it. Fuck. This semester is totally destroying me, what with planning a wedding and working full time and doing community service as well. I'm exhausted and my brain doesn't care anymore. Anyone want to write me an article?

I'm going to play Sims for awhile.

tired. so tired.......

sometimes, don't you wish you were a mutant, like an x-man? also, in the movie, why doesn't wolverine have that awesome yellow suit?

I should be writing my story for class, but I'm uncompelled. I mean, I'm compelled by the story, but it's so hard to make yourself sit down to write.

hello...hello...is this thing on...?

it's been some big number of days since I've updated. I think I'm done with journaling in general. I never write in my (totally awesome) paper journal anymore, and I barely read anyone else's journals. The rush of year-end recapping and new-year projecting was underwhelming, not because I think I'm the coolest and everyone else a booger-eating jerk, but because I've been too busy doing stuff. Last year and this year seem, gasp, like one and the same - time. I still go to work, I'm still stacked with tasks there. I still have writing to do. My family was all over the place like a bug ingestation (that's right) for the holidays; a tree even popped up in my living room to completely bewilder my poor cat. Horrible but true story: I was cooking with my mom in the kitchen (duh), and I opened the silverware drawer and saw a roach in the spoon-part of the tray. I quickly got what I needed and closed the drawer with a bang in the hopes that the critter would skitter away. A moment later my mom was like, "oh, I need a fork" or something and reached for the drawer. It took all I had not to yelp, "I'll get that!" and push her out of the way but instead I acted nonchalant but totally stared at the drawer as it slowly opened....and she reached her hand in...and nothing was there. Phew. Close one. My mom would have canceled Christmas eve dinner, seriously, if some roach had jumped on her hand while she was reaching for a utensil. We would have gone to the pizza place on the corner. Where they probably have more roaches than anyone else in the world. Plus rats.

I made a resolution for 2006, which I'm not sharing with anyone for fear that I will fail. I did a bunch of stuff last year. 2005 seems like it was a pretty difficult year world-wide; struggles abounded. All told the year put me in the positive, though for me new year's eve was glum and new year's day quiet and even glummer. It's one of those days where you just look at yourself, and your life, and there's nothing anyone else can do about it. But - and I hate to tempt fates here - I'm happy. I'm working at an ok job, I'm in school, I'm writing. I'm gonna get married this year, to a boy I have loved since 1995. Still, in 2005 my brother went to war, and that's no joke. It's not like 1984 anymore, where Eurasia is always warring with Oceania in some far-off, never-seen land; he went there, he is connected to me, he could have died. Many people already have.

i'm going now to finish cooking some shrimps and rice for dinner.

I never update anymore. Life is so tiring that it scares me. Walking to work, working all day, and elbowing my way onto the bus in the evening takes all of my energy, so when I get home it's the best I can do to cook dinner for us, turn on the TV, and then read for a little while before bed. I'm getting old, of course, and it's not always like this: Thursdays are especially nice, with the French Me happy hour at a nearby bar. My friend Beth rode the bus home with me, like you used to when you were in elementary school and your mom would write a note for the bus driver and principal so they knew you were accounted for and not being abducted by your friend's family. Ridiculous paranoia, and yet, I made sure Beth had her permission slip.

My cat sees or hears a ghost in the hallway. She always freaks out around this time and squawks and arches her back at nothing; if I open the door, sometimes I hear a rustling approaching from below even if no one is there. Poor esp kitty.

I'm going to Mexico early style on Saturday morning, my sister and parents will be there to greet me and it's going to be four days of south of the border fun. I'll take pictures. I'm sure youll all want to see.

Beer's kicking in, time to watch taped Veronica Mars and pass out.

LJ Interests meme results

1. being forgetful:
   when I realize that I've forgotten something, it makes this fluttery scared feeling in my stomach and I have to almost physically take control of myself.
2. cooking:
   Today I'm going to make eggplant parmesan for today and ropa vieja for the football game tomorrow! with yellow rice!
3. fiction:
   isn't everyone in love with this?
4. giving:
   I'd like to move my career in the direction of philanthropy, but I feel like the world of non-profit organizations is anything but organized. It seems like people have the best of intentions to go into non-profits, but somehow the beauracracy there has warped everything. I'm starting my own way, learning from the outside in.
5. kirosawa:
   awesome.
6. monty python:
   I've been watching Monty Python on my digital cable lately, and sadly I think I found this show funnier when I was in high school. It just doesn't make me laugh as much anymore.
7. piero della francesca:
   Used to be my favorite painter; his fresco cycle of the Legend of the True Cross rivals the Sistine Chapel, but doesn't conquer. After Piero it was Jacopo Tintoretto, who totally cheated his way into winning a competition to decorate La Scuola di San Rocco in Venice. The School turned out to be a masterpiece, Tintoretto was way ahead of his time even though he left Venice like one time in his whole life. Now I don't know if I have a favorite painter. I'm more into contemporary art now - sculpture, installation art.
8. sewing:
   I need to do more of this, though happily I'm knitting again and getting to the end of a five-year project. I need to start back on Missy's quilt, if I'm going to be done by her wedding.
9. the rainbow connection:
   Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
10. words:
    

Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.

Last night saw the remarkable start to my creative poetry workshop. For the past few weeks I've been a little worried about the trip home from my new school, which is out in the dark, quiet suburbs. I have to walk down a very sparsely populated, residential street with only a few streetlamps to get to the train station. I've been building scenarios in my head where some murderer/mugger/rapist is running down the street towards me and there are only darkened houses on either side of me and no one to hear me yelling. This street is seriously something out of the Berenstein Bears Haunted Treehouse book, with big twisting elms and spiders skittering all over the place. The lights and busy-ness of the city has seemed so much safer and I've been psyching myself out a little bit.

Well. First, I took the train out to school and the twenty-minute trip took an hour and ten minutes. SEPTA sucks. A disabled train chugged along ever so slowly ahead of us, delaying us and making me late for class. One good thing: a security van from the college seems to make rounds to the train station and the driver picked me up and delivered me to Lawrence, so I was only 1/2 hour late to class. Another thing: it was the first class, and no one really cared. So class got over early, and I and another girl who had been on my train stayed to talk to the teacher, and we walked back to the station together. It's nice to have someone else in class who will be commuting with me, and walking down the creepy street with me. She's a quiet New England girl; she likes the fucking Patriots.

I feel good getting off the train, and I decided to take the bus home - there were people all around me, I have nothing more to worry about after getting past the scary street. I get off the bus and start walking home, and notice three teenage boys riding their bikes around. A few minutes after I turn the corner onto my street I see them ride across the street again. I'm walking on the dark side of the street, next to an old penitentiary that is now empty and across from a row of homes. Suddenly there's a tall black kid walking right towards me on the sidewalk, from where the kids had just passed. I'm all the way over on the right side of the sidewalk and he's right on top of me. It really freaks me out and as he passes, I feel infintely relieved. Then I hear a lady on the other side of the street calling out, and I turn to see that the guy has turned back and is coming towards me again, so I cross over the street to the woman and she tells me that the boys on the bikes stopped and were obviously waiting for me, or holding the bike for their friend to to do whatever and get back to them. She and her husband and son walked me home and I was seriously freaked out for the rest of the evening. Who would have thought that north Philly is more dangerous than the goddamn suburbs?

well, it's been two months. that's a long time, and though I've been reading other people's journals, I haven't felt like clicking on that little "Update" button - not that a lot hasn't been happening around here. So since I'm just getting back in the swing of this, I'll make a list:

1. I started my new job. I have terribly mixed feelings about this. I love working downtown, my fifteen minute commute which I walk half of; all the people at my (small) office are very nice, and I work with my friend Beth; I'm rarely on the phone, which is wonderful compared to my last job. But this past week I've been slacking a little bit, and it's way too early to start slacking. I discovered TWoP, and have been catching up on my new favorite show Veronica Mars. And one of the guys I work with came over and was peering at my screen and I didn't feel like clicking guiltily away, so he saw what I was reading; not that everyone else doesn't surf around on the internet, and no one expects me to work 100% of every day, but still - that's not what I want my boss to see me doing. Also, I accidentally transfered millions of dollars to the wrong bank account for a client. Seriously. Millions. On the other hand, same boss-man who saw me slacking also paid me a very nice compliment about my work a couple of weeks ago. So I just need to pull myself together and buckle down from now on, and everything will be fine. No more cute little Veronica Mars updates at work!

2. I registered for a graduate class: Creative Poetry Workshop! I am so fucking excited about this. The director of the (small) program requested a writing sample before I could register, since I'm not matriculated in any program yet. When I went out to an information session at the school, she pulled me aside and told me how excited she and the faculty were about the sample I sent in. Subsequently, I applied to their MFA program in creative writing and have secured all three letters of reference with little to know difficulty. Now, a couple of years ago, when I was really frustrated with how little my college degree had prepared me to do anything more than think about stuff, I told myself that my graduate degree was going to be something practical. So, is creative writing practical? Of course not. But it's also what I love to do. So what if I never actually get a job doing it.

3. I might have a chance to write some Philadelphia articles for a tourist guide.

4. I've been one cranky bitch to Eric lately; it all has to do with how messy the house is and it has made me feel just like my Mom. It's so disturbing when these indicators of your genetics rear up and remind you that you're not as different from those crazy people who raised you as you think you are, not that I don't love and respect my mother but she's insane. Again, it's something that I just have to move forward, away from, and try to keep under check from now on. I've talked to my sister about this and am relieved to hear that it's normal, she does it too; this doesn't make it any more acceptable that the things I always swore I'd never say or do are spewing out of my mouth uncontrollably.

5. It's my birthday next week; 29 years.