I was a
weird baby. That was my version of a smile. And check out the fluff-hair! I was pretty much bald until I was two years old. My nickname was "Baby Kojak" and my mom thought I was never going to grow a full head of hair.
In my last appointment, the woman I was helping admitted that she had made up one of the studies she cited in her review of literature. Sometimes, I don't believe some of the people I deal with in this place.
Maybe I should be living in Philly. (via Kerplink--I'm glad you're updating again!)
Here's a funny story: Colin and Matty have taken to posting fake class notes for each other in the university alumni magazine. In the last issue, Colin sent in a note saying that Matty was a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Apparently, the school ate it up, and they wanted to interview Matty for an in-depth feature. Now Colin has gone to the trouble of creating a photo of Matty in the hot seat with Regis. Good fun.
Amusingly, our university was so small that pretty much everyone knew everyone else's business. It was like a high school with dorms. There was a woman who was profiled in the same alumni magazine who I knew as "the girl who had genital warts and a high-maintenance cat." Seriously. The guy I lived with cat-sat for her, and she had this fluffy little grey kitten that was super-high-maintenance. I remember that she asked him to clean the eye gunk out of its eyes twice a day. Apparently, angora cats have some sort of an eye-guck problem. He was also responsible for combing the cat regularly and cleaning its litter.
I leave for vacation in a couple of hours. Rock. I suspect it's going to storm like crazy just in time for me to walk from Tim's apartment to the El station.
Oh, I finally thought up my gimmick for the 24-hour Blogathon. If you sponsor me, I'll dedicate a special post to you, and you can dictate the subject matter (within reason). So if you've always wanted to hear my opinions on flower arrangements or current events or basketweaving or men's butts, now's your chance. You have to sponsor for $5 or more, and this offer is retoractive. Also, I might have some special guests paying me a visit. If you're in the Chicago area and you'd like to be a special guest, email me and I'll give you more information. When I'm not updating Amplified or entertaining guests, I'll be working on my thesis and hopefully getting it done. I will leave the webcam on during most of the Blogathon (until I get sick of having it on), and I might have some special guests paying me a visit. Since I'll be working on my thesis, I won't be on AIM too much, but I promise I'll spend some time chatting in the evening and late at night. I'll probably come up with some sort of schedule so you'll be able to chat with me if you want.
I just managed to get myself out of having to tutor Stinky Woman. Stinky Woman is this old (probably late 60s) woman who, well, stinks. Bad. And not just that "old person rotting flesh*" stink. She smells like old, decaying food, particularly garlic. It's a weird smell, and it gives me a headache. Plus, I think she's a little absent-minded in her old age, and she has an awfully hard time thinking things through. I've worked with her twice: once I was helping her with a scholarship application, and the other time, I was helping her try to figure out a topic for her term paper. I must have told her fifteen times that it is next to impossible to write a five-page essay about ADHD treatments, and that she should narrow her focus to one or two treatments. It was frustrating, and the frustration combined with her stench was deadly.
Oh, and she wants to be a teacher. That's one of the problems with this school: they let people dream these impossible dreams. No school district is going to hire a first-year teacher who is well above retirement age, not to mention stinky and slightly absent-minded. Now, if she had already been teaching for 40 years, they'd keep her on--heaven knows, I had my share of stinky, absent-minded teachers when I was a child. Someone needs to pull this woman aside and explain these things to her, because she seriously lacks a clue.
* I know, not all old people stink, and some of them can't help it. I'm just not the world's biggest fan of senior citizens. I am sure that I will be appropriately punished for my dislike of old people when I am an old person. I'll walk extremely slow, I'll be hard-of-hearing, I'll stink, I'll be intolerably crabby, and I'll develop that annoying old person habit of thinking that anyone younger than myself automatically knows less than I do. Actually, God willing, I'll be just like my maternal grandmother, who is 76 and still active, able, and free of old-person stench.
I didn't mean to take such a long time off from updating. I just did. Now I'm going to make excuses for not updating, sort of like
Us Against Them. Y'know, I miss those guys. At this time last summer, they were policing the scene with
Indieshite, offering up some interesting critiques of webzines and music. Now they're not doing anything! Those stinkers.
On Friday night, I went out with Tim's co-workers to celebrate a birthday. I've never worked at a place where I felt compelled to hang out with my co-workers outside of work. I worked with some fun people at my old shitty job, and I liked talking to them during breaks and lunch, but we had nothing in common outside of work. My co-workers here hang out together outside of work, but I don't pal around with them, so I'm not included in their plans. Shit, there's a couple of people here who won't even respond to "good morning," let alone invite me to accompany them to whatever cheesy local bar they hang out at.
Anyhow, Chris's birthday party was at this cheesy North Carolina-themed barbecue place. You know, the sort of place I would generally not be caught dead at. The sort of place where there's a cover band playing some sort of unidentifiable 70s-derived jam band songs, where the decor consists of old license plates and university memorabilia (in this case, UNC and Duke, who I always thought were rivals). Oh, and lots of pigs. Stuffed pigs, pictures of pigs, signs for "pig powder"--that kind of stuff. The place got points for not being overly crowded or meat-markety, and Tim's co-workers got points for being fun and friendly. Being in a situation where everyone knows everyone else and you're the outsider can be uncomfortable. Granted, I've hung out with a few of Tim's co-workers in the past, and I've always had a good time, but I tend to be a little awkward around large groups of people I don't really know. That wasn't the case. I hit it off with several people, and I had a good time.
I went to see the Breeders at the Congress Theatre on Saturday night. Low opened, and they were great. I've never seen Low before, so it was a nice treat. They covered "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" by the Smiths and I clapped and squealed with joy. The Breeders were good as well--they played a combination of Amps songs, Pod songs, Last Splash songs, and new songs, which is what Kim promised at the beginning of the show. It's hard to believe that it's been seven years since Last Splash came out. It has been seven years, hasn't it? I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think it came out in 1994. I know I was in college.
I had to be sitting behind the most annoying guy in the whole place. Not only was he slouched just low enough so his head was blocking my view, but he also kept moving his head, so every time I found a place where my line of sight wasn't obstructed by his (rather large, bald) head, he squirmed again and I'd have to relocate. Jerkenheimer. Tim ended up switching seats with me, so I got to sit behind the enormous bald man who looked like his nickname should have been Beef. The third guy in this unholy trinity was a bleached-orange (I think he was probably shooting for blond) hipster who was pretending to smoke. I kid you not. He was most definitely not inhaling. He would take this little shallow drags on his cigarette and then exhale immediately. What a tool. If he was, say, fourteen, I wouldn't have called him a tool. But anyone over the age of 18 who pretends to smoke in order to "look cool" is just beyond comprehension.
I think the most amusing guy was the burly biker sitting at the end of my row. He had this huge tub of popcorn, and his hands were so filthy they left stains on the outside of the tub. He spent most of the Breeders set smoking some really stinky pot. There's always a person at every show who's got to get stoned, and he's almost always standing right next to me. I don't care if people get stoned, but the stench reminds me of a number of annoying college experiences that I'd rather not revisit.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered should be fully functional by late tomorrow night. I've been writing the letters, and I mailed a bunch out tonight, but I haven't figured out how I'm going to set up the navigation between the letters. I've been keeping the recipients list updated, though. If you emailed me for a letter, check the list--you should see your name. I've decided to implement a one-week delay on posting new letters--that way, the people will have received the letters before they get posted on the page. I don't want to spoil anyone's surprise.
I'm off to Phoenix on Wednesday. Yay for that. And I move one month from tomorrow. That, my friends, is nine months to the day from the day I got fired from my old soul-sucking shitty job. I doubt that I'll be even remotely close to ready. I spent a bunch of time yesterday going through some containers full of my stuff--everything from photos and old notes and manuscripts to bed linens and towels and a kitchen knife set. I shouldn't have to buy anything major, though I'll probably want to take a trip to Ikea to get some cheap-ass furniture once I figure out how I'm going to set up the apartment. Of course, I still don't have any classes--when I went down to Champaign a couple of weeks back to try to register, I found that everything I wanted to take was either full or unavailable due to registration priority restrictions. Of course, this sent me into a panic, and my advisor had to calm me down. I also don't have an assistantship at this point. I'm not sure if I should be worried yet--those of you who attend U of I, could you help me out here? I emailed the person I'm supposed to email about assistantship questions, and he hasn't emailed me back yet. Is it normal to not have an assistantship by now? (I feel like I'm asking some sort of "is this weird discharge normal?" question here.) I really need the tuition waiver and income from the assistantship, not to mention the dental and vision insurance. (I need new contact lenses.) For all I know, they don't set people up with library assistantships until August or something, but I'm such a plan-ahead type that I would have been happier if I had known, say, two months ago.
Lastly, for Amanda (though I'm sure the rest of you would enjoy it as well): a story by request. Don't read it at work.
