Interview went ok. Now I just have to sit tight and see if there are enough enrollments for them to justify hiring me.

In other news, I'm slogging through the last circle of grading hell... after I'm done, I'm taking the world's longest shower and assessing the Fiber Arts Situation I've got going on around here.

Oh, so you think my ramblings about Fiber Arts would be more "interesting" if I posted pictures, too, do you?

I can't decide if I should flip you the bird or just start laughing maniacally. I am, after all, working on about 3.5 hours of sleep here.

Pictures! hah! Oh the technology! oh the humanity! the horror! the horror!

The digi cam and I, we are not such great friends, to say nothing of that creepy little digi cam cord that transfers the pixely pictures to the 'puter...

... but maybe after the World's Longest Shower, and the Fiber Arts Situation Assessment, I'll see what I can do.

until then, slog through the blue books I shall.

what do you think the strong verb declension for "to slog" should be? Let's have a contest! The winner will not receive a used blue book.

Second Thoughts...

In less than 5 hours I will be interviewing for a job in which I will use my finely honed bullshitting skillz to cater to the egos and college-application-resumes of extremely entitled, privileged teenagers. I will be expected to lead "seminar-style" classes, but am dubious about the whole "ability to assign homework and hold students accountable for doing it" thing.

Remind me again: why I am *voluntarily* exposing myself to judgement, eye-rolling, pubescent hormones and youthful self-importance?

16 bucks an hour, baby. Mama ain't got no standards, and apparently no pride, neither.

I will let you know how it goes. If I get the job (which I actually do kind of want) I promise not to whine about my every day material reality of pandering in this space.

As a woman much more famous, witty, educated and self-confident than I am recently wrote: rich kids need teachers who are interested in social justice, too.

Blathering

It's the first day in I-don't-know-how-many that I have the WHOLE day to myself. The sheer decadence of it is so, so very tasty after this hectic week. Just knowing that this is MY day, a day for ME is so mentally liberating and rejunvenating, that it almost doesn't matter that I'm feeling so physically gross that I probably won't get to do half of the things I wanted to to (woodworking project, bike ride, thoroughly clean kitchen...).

We put our TV in the basement, did you know that? We were spending too much time watching law & order re-runs, and then the stereo broke. We're not ready yet to invest in a good sound system, and it seemed silly to spend money on another cheap-o stereo only to have it break in a few years when our computer has a really nice set of speakers. So we set the desktop up in the living room as a combined stereo/dvd watching device, and since hulu doesn't carry law and order, we watch a LOT less TV now. J has been playing the guitar more, and I've been reading more, being more innovtive with my knitting obsession, and my brain has just been feeling like more of a creative place in general. So, yeay.

We're not getting a CSA share this year. My employment situation is what one could call "piecemeal" and "not stable," so I was just not comfortable putting down a huge chunk of change up front, especially as we did not find another couple to split a full share with, and the price of a half-share is considerably more than the price of half of a full share.

I'm a little sad about not getting the CSA. I am excited about sharing a garden plot with another couple this summer, though. I have really been wanting to learn how to grow my own vegetables, and my friend S said she'd teach me how.

It's been about 6 weeks, so time for a new post, no?

Today while walking down Bascom Hill, I overheard one dude say to another dude: "...and then someone drank my pee as a chaser, and that just made my weekend awesome."

Well.
Hearing that story did not make my Monday awesome.

But that is kind of ok, because I am so distracted by all the crazy ideas and schemes in my brain that I keep forgetting that it is Monday, and ask people if it is a Friday. I suppose, in a way, the end of the semester is like The World's Biggest Friday, with a 3-month-long weekend coming at the tail end of it.

I've been busy knitting. And playing with yarn that I re-claim from sweaters purchased at the Goodwill. And by "playing" I mean "I am completely obsessed" and by "yarn" I mean "fiber arts in general."

This is how crazy it has gotten: there are specialized wooden tools that help you do things in fiber arts: a niddy-noddy winds yarn into a skein for dying and soaking; a swift helps you wind a tidy ball from a skein; a lazy kate holds multiple balls of fiber that you intend to ply together to create a thicker yarn. Not only have a researched these tools and their uses (and crazy cool names!) I have found instructions for making them on the Internet, and I am going to build them for myself. I already have the niddy-noddy built, and I am currently tweaking the design slightly. Oh yes, I am a nerd. A fiber-arts nerd of the first degree. I won't tell you how many Goodwill sweaters made out of luxury fibers are sitting at home waiting for me to deconstruct. If I did, you might laugh too hard and die of an aneurism or something tragic like that.

Don't die. If you do, who will wear all the crazy stuff I knit with all the yarn I re-claim from those sweaters?

Tidbits

An older gentleman informed me the other day at St. Vinnie's that a lot of people like to collect old pencils, and that people on the internet pay a lot of money for them.

***

When I was a child, I took great pleasure in a new box of crayons or colored pencils- each piece of uniform length and pointiness, the colors arranged in that highly-pleasing just-from-the-factory order. As an adult, I find the same kind of pleasure in simple luxuries: a fresh card of bobby pins or hair clips; a new package of purse-tissues; an unopened pack of gum.

***

I always want to know the strangest things about people: are you finicky about your Grilled Cheese Sandwich, and if so, how do you like it? When you walk into a bay of empty bathroom stalls, do you have a preference for which stall you'd like to use? (ie, one closest to the wall, the one on the far end...) What kinds of systems do you have for organizing things or making choices? Do you feel strongly about chewy cookies, squeezing toothpaste, and the direction from which the toilet paper falls? What foods do you absolutely hate? Do details like these provide any information about a person's character or personality? Does knowing these little factoids help a person "know" an other person?

***

Today I planned to buy a paper from the homeless guy on the corner. I had some cash in small bills, I made sure to put it in my pocket ('cause I'm paranoid about whipping out my wallet in public - as a child it was drilled into me that this is a good way to get your whole wallet stolen when you are intending to only give a modest donation), and then when I exited Walgreens after purchasing a new deoderant and some cotton balls, the usually Street News vendor spot was vacant, and there was an eerie sense of emptiness on the uncrowded sidewalks.

***

There have been signs of spring. I've seen the pussy willow budding, and the house finches are returning. We put the winter coats and scarves/hats/gloves collection back into basement storage. In every other season except for winter, I know and feel that the other seasons exist and will come around. I can remember what it feels like to be in a different season. In winter, I only know, feel, and experience winter.

Notes from the depths of my couch...

... and lo, there is phlegm, and I like it not. There is much, much phlegm and I loathe it.

But before there was phlegm, there was Puerto Rico. And Puerto Rico, my friends, was 80 degrees, and sunny, and full of wide sandy beaches and frosty blended beverages. Just like in all the movies about Tropical Paradise(s). We swam, we hiked, we biked, we indulged ourselves with plates of french fries. We dreamed about becoming expats. We went on a tour of the world's most sparkliest bay of biolumenescent plankton. As in, it was dark, we went swimming in a bay, and where the water came into contact with something solid, it lit up and sparkled. Ok, not the water itself, per say, but rather, the teeny tiny little dinoflagellites that live in the water. It was amazing. It was more wonderous than watching the light play off the facets of a well-cut gemstone or than stirring a jar of glitter with a popsicle stick.

school has started, and i have been too sick to go. i am on the mend, for sure (praises be to Antibiotics When You Actually Need Them!) and am getting to that point where i am antsy and cranky and lonely. however, my prolonged isolation makes me trepiditious and aprehensive about all the responsibilities that await me in The Real World. Maybe if I wrap up some of the many projects I've got laying around here, I'll feel more confident about that tomorrow? meh.

accomplishments and creativity

ok, now that I've performed some Internet Magic and gotten my standard blog-writing window back, I have some Very Important News to share with all of you.

...wait for it...

(1) I taught myself how to splice a rope (line in the parlance of People Who Like Boats) this weekend.

(2) Also, I aced the Online Census Taker Qualification Practice Test.

Since I do not live in an 18th century fishing village and my parents no longer own a sailboat, I don't think item 1 will significantly affect my life in any way. However, in view of my current badnewsbears employment situation for next term, item 2 could prove to be a potent catalyst of change. And by change, I mean both the kind you put in your pocket and the kind that makes a difference.... awww....

But basically, adding 1 + 2 in this case makes me reconsider my self-conception. Both accomplishments involved skills, logical thinking, and puzzle solving. Both were somehow immensely satisfying. But even though item 1 resulted in the creation of something that did not exist before, it is not really a creative act, the splicing of lines. Neither is needlepoint- something I've been spending a lot of time on lately and finding (oddly) satisfying. My hands like to be busy. I like to make new things out of other things. The sense of satisfaction is higher when the original things are things that might otherwise be thrown away, like concocting a yummy dinner out of odds and ends, or re-purposing the material in old clothes to make new clothes, but even the basically skill-less process of needle-pointing a (kind of stupid and pointless) needlepoint thingy which will eventually be turned into a throw pillow (which is kind of a stupid and pointless item of home furnishing in and of itself) has been pleasurable, soothing and rewarding of late.

While I'm proud of myself for taking the initiative and attempting the Census Exam, the skills that the exam is designed to test are very basic. So it really is ridiculous to have this sense of accomplishment for totally owning that sucka'. But I do. I feel proud of myself. My brain liked the exercize of being faced with those 28 tiny challenges and solving those problems. None of which required ANY creative or truly critical thinking at all.

Basically, I guess I'm saying that I used to always think of myself as a creative person, but it turns out that I just really like busy work.