A list!!

I like lists. I think I like the sense of accomplishment when I can cross things off. This semester I accomplished: 1) A written prelim in the methods subfield where I was able to express my angst over the common research methods in our discipline so articulately that I passed/high passed it. (I made up the /high passed part because all the members of the subfield told I would have high passed it if it were not for the evil third question on it. But, to make myself feel better, I am going to consider it a pass/high pass. Thanks.) 2) An oral prelim where I DID NOT PUKE on my committee chair's shoes and where the committee chair said I had grown a tremendous amount since my first semester. 3) A class in which I obtained a grade of "A" from a man who doesn't give them out very often. That's right. It may very well be my first "A" of my grad school career. You, too, can get an "A" in a class that fills you with a certain amount of disgust and disdain. (As a side note, when I took a survey methods class, I had nightmares every night about errors in surveys. While I was taking this class on game theory, I had nightmares about the assumptions. No, I wish I were joking, but I am not. Nightmares. Waking up, writhing in agony, hearing myself muttering IN MY SLEEP about perfect information and strategy profiles. Yes, THIS IS WHAT GRAD SCHOOL DOES TO YOU.) 4) Went to the doctor eight million times for p-neumonia/asthma. Not bad. Here's my list for what I have to do this week. It's not interesting, but I want to write it out to make myself feel organized. Tuesday -Go hiking with a friend. -Go test ride some bikes. I have a bike on order, but it's going to take too long to get it and Biker Boy is not happy about that, so we're going to go try some other ones that will get here soon. Biker Boy really wants me to get it soon. So do I, come to think of it. -Wash Magenta. -Email my committee member to discuss a reading list for this summer. -Get quarters from the bank. Wednesday -Call for a doctor's appointment (OH MY GOD, do you know much money I've given to doctors in the last five months?!). -Do laundry with quarters. -Preorder the new Harry Potter book!!!!!!!! -Go to happy hour with folks from insignificant part-time job. -Work for insignificant part-time job. Thursday -Gotta go shopping for new clothes. For the next two weekends, I have to attend weddings with Biker Boy for his family. Biker Boy's family has already seen all my nice clothes, so I am forced to buy new stuff. It's hard, really, because heaven knows it's hard for a high maintenance girl like myself to get new clothes. Tough life. -Go to school, get readings for reading list, take books back to the library, send in paysheet for insignificant part-time job. -Pay bills, get money for rent from roommate. -Pack. Friday -Going to IOWA. -Meet friends from Michigan who live in Iowa now (Iowa? they couldn't do any better than that?). -Go to Biker Boy's parents' house. Saturday -Wedding Sunday -Avoid church. Avoid church. Please don't make me go to church, Catholic people.

Pony Up

While I was sick, I was on orders to cut back on my working out. The last time I went to the doctor, she gave me the go-ahead to proceed with my normal workout schedule. So, since school is out now, I have nothing but time to devote to losing the five pounds I gained during the last couple of months during the dark, evil times of p-neumonia.

The thing is that when you first work out after a while off, your body is stupid. It will do anything you tell it to. Okay, let's do one hour of aerobics and then we'll do lots of leg exercises. Fine, my body says. Then the NEXT day my body lets me know that maybe that wasn't the best of ideas. Hee. I can barely move my legs.

Let's discuss my aerobics tape. It's not clear why I love this tape so much. It's from the early nineties and has folks dressed in weird costumes with weird early nineties hair and it fucking rules. It's great. "Okay, everybody, pony up." "Push it, push it, push it. You know you can do it." Pony up? I have to pony up? Hop from side to side and pony up? Yep, you know it.

So I'm getting a bike soon. And I'm excited to go biking. I am hoping for great improvement in my quad definition due to bike riding. Biker Boy's influence is becoming more and more pronounced.

It's so nice not to be in school. It's times like these when I question everything about school. The best part of every year is summer when I don't have to even think about school. That's a problem, given that if I do get my degree and go on to teach, I'll never get to leave school. And is that the right decision? But for now, I'm pretty excited for the next few months, where I can separate myself entirely from school and just pretend that I'm a "lady of leisure."

Let's pony up for the summer.

Ever-Expanding Work

I thought that as soon as all the crap I had to do for school was finished, I would have all this leisure time to just hang out and do nothing. Alas, the trite saying that work expands to fill the time allotted is particularly true in my case.

There are THREE things to do on my list today. THREE. And somehow I find myself stressing out. How can I POSSIBLY get these things done? Hee.

Biker Boy's birthday is Saturday. I'm in a bit of a bind. He's not particularly helpful about what he 1) wants to do on his birthday and 2) wants as a gift for his birthday. I really pride myself on reading cues from people and getting them fairly decent gifts (which is to say, something they want and/or will use), but BB is so reticent to say anything, I sometimes just want to shake him and make him tell me something he's been wanting. I know I should have saved that damn Beach Boys CD for his birthday instead of giving to him as a "surprise" present. Way to not think ahead.

So I think I'm going to cook dinner for him on Saturday and maybe go to the movies with him. There are, however, a few considerations. I don't cook particularly well. However, he's pretty good about faking he likes the food I make, so I'll just dive in to that. Also, I don't do movies. I hate movies. They are long and I will inevitably fall asleep. BB has mentioned there are a couple of movies he wants to go see, however, so maybe I'll bite the bullet and go with him. I can always get a big bag of M&Ms as a reward for the sacrifice I will be making.

But for now I must continue crossing things off of my list, so I must get going to do so.

Note from Elsewhere

My bestest friend, who I love more than anything in the world and is married to the world's biggest loser, sent me this story today. Again, I didn't write this. She did.

"Once upon a time, there was a sweet young girl with a lot of potential. One day, she was walking past a quicksand pit in the forest. She looked down and saw a handsome man in the quicksand pit. He smiled at her nicely and said that he had been there his whole life. Without him even asking, she tied a rope around her middle and tied half to him, and she started to pull him out. As she pulled, she noticed that he had weights on his arms. They could be slipped off with some effort, but he wasn't slipping any of them off. Then she noticed that he didn't know how to swim. She tried to teach him, but he just got angry and wouldn't learn. After a while of trying to pull him, the sweet young girl realized that she was slipping backwards into the quicksand as well. She just couldn't pull him out.

She had a choice - cut the rope or get pulled into the quicksand forever."

I hate that she feels torn. It's especially hard for her because everyone told her that she was making a big mistake when she got married. So now she feels like she can't tell everyone that they were right. Even when she tells me her problems, she feels like she needs to send me the problems in little parables. I don't know what's sadder - that she feels like she's being dragged under by this man or that she can't even tell me what's going on without cloaking it in symbolism.

On her wedding day, as we were heading to her hair appointment, she said to me, "I know you think I'm beautiful and smart and funny, but most men don't think so. And sometimes he looks at me and tells me he loves me and thinks I'm funny and... and sometimes I believe him." And that was sad to me. Because I KNOW she's beautiful and smart and funny and worth about eight million of her husband.

One of my other really close friends from college just graduated with her master's degree last weekend. She's now in a state of transition and doesn't know what she's going to do with the rest of her life. She's in flux and really confused about what she should do. I guess life is never really easy, even when you're doing something you think is right.

So, for them, and for the other people I know who are in a state of transition right now, I say that the moral of my bestest friend's story is that we all need to learn how to cut the rope sometimes. It's sad, it's painful, but it isn't our responsibility to keep the boy out of the quicksand by ourselves, it's our responsibility to do what's right for us.

On Another Note

It's true that grad school sucks. It has destroyed my personal life and made it really, really, really difficult for people who aren't part of it to understand exactly why it's so awful. It's isolating, you can't be afraid for really smart people to read really shitty stuff you write, and the constant turnover of people in and out of your life is a constant struggle.

This last part is what I'm most concerned about. Our department is suffering from a mass exodus of students and faculty. The sad thing is that the grad students aren't leaving because they've graduated and gotten degrees. They are leaving because grad school sucks.

Relationships between grad students are tough sometimes. But our department has a sort of camaraderie that I gather is unusual. My fellow grad students are a huge part of the reason why I have stuck with this difficult lifestyle for so long now. And I am sad that this support system I count on is slowly disintegrating. I know this is selfish, but I can't help it.

I absolutely, positively acknowledge that grad school isn't for everyone. And I admire the courage and pluck it takes to leave it. I wish all the time that I had the guts to say, "hey, I'm done. I'm going to get my master's degree and leave." But what would I do? Where would I go? One of my really good friends in my cohort is leaving. I had dinner with her today and she's leaving. Another one of my friends, who shares somewhat similar research interests as I do, is also leaving. I admire these people tremendously. For realizing that their lives would be better off somewhere else and taking steps to be better off. I will miss both of them so so so so much. I know their lives will be better and happier, but, it's the selfishness inside of me that wants them to stay. I need familiar faces and familiar places and I feel like when all these people leave, I will be lacking these things. The department will become someplace I don't feel comfortable and the people will all be strangers.

Another grad student is leaving because her husband couldn't get a job here. He got a job elsewhere and they are moving away. And I'm sad. I love her, her husband, and her nice ass. But now she's leaving. Another is going to Italy with his wife. Another is going to be teaching in southern Minnesota. Another is graduating (ONE!! - props to him!) and teaching in Canada.

I know that seeing people move on is part of growing up. I know that, in my mind. But in my heart, I want to go back to being a naive first year student who thought everything was going to be okay and we'd all be friends after six years and have PhDs and we'd get jobs and the world would be happy. I don't want to go back to being as unhappy as I was then - just as naive as I was then. But I feel like next year might destroy my chances here. When people leave and the familiarity I am depending on leaves, I don't know if I'll make it through. I'm not good at adapting. It took me a year and half here to feel like I could take a different bus home. I want to get this damn degree and leave, but the constant turnover of academics might be too much for me.

I know that they will be happier. And I wish them well. I love them all. Good luck to them. I will miss them.

Oh, yeah, take that, grad school

Today I took my oral preliminary exam. This is another word for hell. I thought I was going to puke on the shoes of the chair of my oral committee, but I didn't (lucky for him and me) and I passed and that means I AM ABD.

Once in a while you forget

One semester I did this awful internship in DC. My history with new places is a bit of a joke to everyone I know. When I first went to college, I hated it. I thought I would leave after the first year and never go back. I ended up loving it, though. When I went to DC, I hated it the whole time. When I first came to grad school, I thought Minneapolis was the worst place in the world. I don't mind it so much now.

However, I didn' t have that much time to get to know DC. I had a semester. And I was miserable.

I met a really good friend there, though. We had our internships through this awful organization, but one of the things that this organization did was plan a bike trip through the city. I guess it was to orientate us to the city. Whatever. They said it was a ten-mile bike trip, but it was more like sixteen. I was sore for days.

Our semester was a waste. We did whatever we could to get out of work. I left in the middle of the day, regularly. We walked to the nearest 7-11 and I bought her beer so she could drink it illegally in our apartment and I drank more Slurpees in that four month period than the rest of my life combined. I loved the Metro, hated the noise. Loved the Washington Post, hated the people who all dressed and looked a like. Most of all, I was homesick for the familiar. Some people do well with new people constantly in their faces. I am not one of those people.

My mom's family lives in Pennsylvania. For Thanksgiving, we got someone to give us a ride halfway to their house and they came to pick up my friend and I.

I was sick. I was so stressed and hated so much the lifestyle I had been living, my body was revolting. As soon as I got to my aunt and uncle's house, I fell asleep on thier living room couch. I woke up, my throat was so sore I could barely speak, and my aunt took it upon herself to take me to the store to get some cough drops and medicine.

This is Pennsylvania in November. It was snowing like mad. So much snow I wouldn't have left the house at all. But she shrugged, packed me in the car, and drove me to the store. The whole time she talked to me, telling me how proud everyone was of me, and that they knew it would all be better and that the semester would be over soon enough and wasn't it GREAT that I could come visit them and they were so happy to see me and my friend and she was my own personal cheerleader. I've never forgotten how happy it was that my aunt took me to the store. We got some Sucrets, but it was her talking to me that made me feel better.

When we got back to her house, I fell asleep again. Meanwhile, what you should keep in your mind is that my friend has never met any of my family before and now I've completely zonked out.

I wake up and my family is with my friend in the next room playing Scrabble. We're a Scrabble family. Other families play Trivial Pursuit, but we play Scrabble. They are YELLING at my friend over the playing of "yeti," claiming it is proper noun. When looked up in the dictionary, it is found to be both. My friend claims triumphant victory. And that's why I love my family. They make everyone feel at home.

My aunt is really sick. And I want to be her cheerleader now, just like she was mine. In her time of need, I want to tell her that I love her and that it will be better soon and that everyone's so proud of her and that she's doing GREAT and that soon we'll see each other and we can go frolicking in the snow again. But I don't think that I'll get to do that soon. Because she's sick. So I send cards and I send my love, but I can't be there to cheerlead in person. And that's what makes grad school so difficult. It has destroyed my personal life and replaced it with jokes about Robert Putnam and b-hats.

So I can't foget the time my aunt spent with me and making me feel better. I need to remember. I need her to remember. And that's the hardest part. She gets my cards and letters and doesn't remember. But I remember. Because how do you forget such love?

USMA

How I laughed. There was a bumper sticker on a Volvo in the parking lot that said, "USMA: United States Metric Association."

Their website says:

The U.S. Metric Association (USMA), Inc., with headquarters in Northridge CA, is a national non-profit organization, founded in 1916. It advocates U.S. conversion to the International System of Units which is known by the abbreviation SI (ess-eye). SI is also called the modern metric system. The process of changing measurement units to the metric system (SI) is called metric transition or metrication.

This site contains information on the SI metric system and information on the status of metric transition (metrication) in the United States. Information is also available on USMA's accomplishments, activities, and resources, as well as links to non-commercial Websites with additional metric system information.

Conversions between unit systems are a poor way to learn the metric system, and conversion factors (or numbers converted with inappropriate precision) can make the metric system look complicated. Therefore we do not supply any unit conversion utilities. However a unit conversion utility/calculator is available in the external links section near the bottom of this page.


Hee. Nerds are great. I laughed.