eruditearmywife?

FB

2011-04-21T05:10:00.000-07:00

While most of the time I love FB since it provides me a convenient way to waste time I should be using to finish my dissertation. And there is a slight stalkerish element to FB and I love that too. I had this dilemma of who to befriend a couple of years ago when I got FB, but then decided to just befriend everyone since I did not have enough brain space to really think or care about it back then. The problem with that decision is that I am confronted with a lot of stuff (opinions, hatemongering, bad research, complaining, oversharing, etc.) that I do not like or agree with. I have discovered you can hide their posts and I do this, but some of this stuff keeps coming through. So I am left wondering if in my old age I am becoming even less tolerant of people different from me? This is not to say I was a particularly tolerant person to begin with, just that I am maybe forced to confront it now that FB provides me with daily opportunities. To take this step further, what do I do with this new knowledge that I am intolerant? See, it's just so hard. Maybe my little plan to befriend everyone was a bad idea since the pay later situation I'm in as a result really sucks.

doing nothing

2011-03-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

I am working on my dissertation. I do not have a job anymore; writing that beast is my job. I work on it a lot, but there are times when I don't. I take naps during the day sometimes, watch movies on-line, make dinner for my husband, read, think--pretty much do whatever I want to do for the very first time in my whole life.

This time and space are luxuries, permitted to me by undeserved good fortune, that I wish more people could enjoy. I feel guilty a lot about not producing more, not making money, not doing something observable. Lots of people, myself included, are overly concerned with being industrious and I think it's a sickness. I did not realize this until I went away for a really long time. So long that I had to readjust my ways of thinking and doing to accommodate a new people, language, culture. I have become aware of it and now I can see the sickness all around me in this country and in myself. Awareness does not equal cure.

My bouts of severe writers block or periods when I have to wait to take the next step because things are beyond my control have demonstrated to me that doing nothing is great. Not the kind of nothing you do when you have done so much that you do nothing as a result of pure exhaustion, choosing to do nothing. The trick is giving yourself permission to do nothing and then enjoying the nothing with out guilt. I'm still working on that, but I am getting a whole lot closer. Judge me if you want, think I'm lazy, pampered, losing my mind, it's ok. I probably am all of those things, but I'm also very happy that I am learning the art of doing nothing and learning to love it.

another use for the common hammer

2011-02-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

I discovered this morning after brushing a few inches of snow off the car, warming it up, and shoveling the walk and driveway that in fact that car was frozen in place. Odd indeed, but oh so true. A huge hunk of slush from yesterday had fallen off one of the front tires and frozen itself to the ground and tire thus freezing the tire to the ground. I have not dealt with this kind of nonsense in years, well never really because this is just kind of insane. I tried chipping at it with the end of the shovel but the angle was crap and I was dangerously close to scratching the Princess. So I did what anyone would do and I called my parents. They live in WI so they know about snow and ice situations. They said to let the car run for a while and surely the heat from the engine would melt the ice. They park their cars in a garage so you'll have to forgive their naivete. After applying salt and letting the car run for a long while, no change. Then I got an idea. I now keep a hammer in the car for situation like this.

I noted another Rochester oddity today that Ray told me about, but I had not seen. People shovel the snow from their driveway into the street. I don't understand why since the lady doing it across the street had to move the snow further than if she'd have made a pile at the edge of the driveway. Anybody understand why this is a good idea? Hardly anyone shovels their sidewalks here. When it snows enough, the city sends a small tractor to plow the sidewalks. If the tractor does not come, the snow stays. This is a big problem for all the dogs and dog walkers I mentioned in my last post (this includes me and Skippy Lynch).

BTW I turned in a chapter of my dissertation yesterday. I have no idea how it'll be received, but I feel a whole lot less guilty now.

observations

2011-01-13T05:16:00.000-08:00

As the savvy reader may suspect, I should currently be working on my dissertation, but am writing this post instead. I simply must take a break from reading because I keep falling asleep whilst doing it. As a new resident of Rochester, which I'm told is often referred to as Ra-cha-cha from some reason, I am observing several phenomena that I do not fully understand.

People from this fine city seem to be dedicated pet lovers. I know this because they walk their dogs in our neighborhood at all hours of the day or night in all types of weather. They don't even look miserable at 6 AM when the current temperature with windchill is 3, like this morning. I might be speculating a bit on this since their outerwear obscures their faces, but to go out in this weather at that hour is impressive and must mean you love your dog. I respect that. I guess they don't do what I do and demand in my best pack leader voice that my small dog, who does not wish to leave the warmth of the house, go out his pet door to relieve himself because there is no way I am walking him at that time of the day in winter (perhaps not in any season really). In my defense, I do put a jacket on him before I shove him out the pet door.

There are rules regarding proper wear of pj pants outside the house, but I do not know what they are. I see them a lot--with hearts all over them, cute little hunting dogs, stripes, plaid, balloons, french toile in soft pink. Sometimes I see them on the dog walkers at 6 AM, which come on if you are gonna walk your dog at 6AM on Sunday by all means wear your pjs to do it. What I do not understand is how they are not freezing to death if they are only wearing pj pants. I rarely leave this house without two layers on my bottom half so while the pj pants are convenient and certainly cozy in the house, they do not seem like they would be the best choice for winter walking. To complicate the issue I must add that I see pj pants all day long. I saw a lady getting out of a car across the street in the middle of the afternoon wearing them the other day. I see people at the supermarket with them on. The other thing is that those wearing pj pants are not young (teenager or college aged) they are full on adults. You must see why the rules are rather difficult for me to discern, but I really must figure out what they are before I can start wearing my pj pants in public.

i miss

2010-06-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

As many of you know Ray got out of the Army officially in February and took a job in Rochester, NY. Skippy and I just joined him two weeks ago. After a rough few days that included packing up his house, taking his first airplane trip and having boxes piled high all around a very tiny new house, Skippy is adjusted to his new place and thrilled with it. He has lots of squirrels in his yard and had a few rabbits that have decided they will find a new yard to play in after meeting him. He's got a great view of the street from the back of the couch and his mom works from home so he's got full time company. What more could a dog want?

People keep asking what I think of it and I keep saying it's ok, which it is. I've moved around a bit in my adult life and never stayed more than 5 years in a place. I have lots of nostalgia for Austin right now, but keep trying to remind myself that I had the same feeling 5 years ago for Quito so it must just be part of the process.

This nostalgia has been revved up by reading Texas monthly, which we still get in Rochester. Last month they did a series of articles about what it means to be a Texan. I have no idea what it means or if I'm one or not, but I miss it. I miss the normal things like my friends and my old routines. I desperately miss the bigness of Texas, the huge summer storms and the smell of your car when you get in it after it's been sitting in the Texas summer heat. Oddly enough though, I am also experiencing more than a little bit of culture shock up here. I may be having delayed culture shock from leaving my beloved Quito 5 years ago. I love Latin America, even the annoying and utterly ridiculous inexplicably stuff about it. Texas is Latin America in lots of ways, even though lots and lots of Texans do not want to acknowledge that and think building a huge fence along the border is a good idea, while I feel secure in saying that Rochester is not. I've seem a few Puerto Ricans at Walmart (I needed an air conditioner at 9:30 PM, we can discuss the fact I was shopping at Walmart later). There are no Spanish channels on T.V. or radio, no Mexican/Latin American supermarkets, very little Spanish spoken anywhere, hardly any brown people at all in fact (not met a single Mexicano yet), and no decent Tex-Mex or just plan Mex food. Seriously Rochester is whiter than rural Wisconsin where I grew up. White people own Mexican restaurants up here, thus the awful food situation. In lots of ways I fit in a whole lot better with brown people than white people so without any I don't know what to do.

Perhaps I should be grateful for Texas acting as a bridge between full Latin America and full white mainstream "American" society for me. For now, I just miss it terribly and all the things that make me feel normal.

consequences

2010-04-04T04:59:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this theme lately pretty much because I'm tired of living with the consequences of my decisions and those of others. I'll give a few examples to illustrate.

Ray interviewed for jobs in November since he was scheduled to get out of the Army in January. We were hoping he'd get a job somewhere in Texas, but he didn't. He got one in Rochester, NY so he moved there in January. The consequence of this decision is that I'm all alone here in our house. I miss Ray and I absolutely cannot handle any more of being a home owner by myself. We all have our limits and taking care of a house in the burbs by myself is a duty I can no longer perform. I used to do this stuff before when he was in Iraq, but I'm too exhausted to do it now. This is why friends if you drive by our house and think it's abandoned because the grass (weeds really) are knee high, it's not true. I just can't get the mower started even though I spent half a Saturday a couple of weeks ago when I should have been writing my proposal and grading changing the spark plug and cleaning the filter. These are the unintended/unforeseen consequence of Ray getting a job out of state.

Grad school occupies very much of my time and energy. I love the intellectual stimulation, but it drains my energy and acts like a memory eraser for a short and long term memory that were never great at any point in my life. I often forget birthdays, to answer e-mails, to call people back, or plans I've made with people I really, really like and appreciate. The consequence then of grad school is that I'm a pretty rotten friend and family member. I really don't mean to be this way.

I inherited Marina, a lovely sea blue colored Honda civic in January. I've noticed this really yucky looking stain on the back seat, but never thought much about it thinking it was something from the previous owner that very old and posed no immediate problem. I've also noticed ants in the car on more than one occasion since January. I've wiped things done with strong cleaner surely poisonous to ants because that situation is disgusting. Ray and I talked this morning while I had Skippy at the Bark Park and I mentioned this awful stain and the ants. He confesses that the stain is not old, it's pretty new and it's spilled lasagna. Guess how I'm spending my Easter morning? Scrubbing that horrid stain out to see if the ants that have taken up residence in my car will kindly go away.

See, it's hard. I know it's cliche, but I want a simpler life. I think life post-grad school will be simpler. I say this because I will not have to live in Austin while Ray lives in Rochester and that means he'll help me walk the dog, buy the groceries, mow the grass and weed whack (which by the way I have NEVER been able to do and we've had two of those beastly machines that simple do not work when I attempt to use them), figure out what to do about my demon students, and choose which Netflix movies to add to our cue. Oh, I'll also get my car back (Princess, I love and miss you!) and Ray can deal with the ant problem that is entirely his doing.

exams

2010-02-18T06:10:00.000-08:00

I have qualifying exams in 6 days. I have been holed up for weeks now preparing and stressing. This is why, my dear friends, I am acting like an even bigger freak about school than usual. I am about 3/4 of the way ready and am in serious need of distraction.

Just for fun we decided to sell our house during all of this. Ray lives in Rochester, NY and has actually been out of the country for work during much of the saga of selling the house. We accepted an offer, the people's brother-in-law was the inspector and said our 8 yr old house is falling down around our ears (but we never noticed this) so they decided not to buy our house after all. We got some $ from them backing out of the deal, which was enough to pay for repairs and now the house is back on the market except we think perhaps we should just keep the house as an investment property since we discovered can't afford to buy a house in Rochester due the the ridiculously high property taxes. Way more information than any of you wanted.

What next? Well, once I'm done with exams, I am going to spend my spring break in Ireland with Ray. He'll work and I'll be a tourist and write some fellowship proposals whilst drinking at the pub. The thought of this is what is getting me through this dark time. After summer school, during which time I'll finish writing my proposal, I'll head out to Rochester with Skippy Lynch to spend a few weeks with Ray before coming back here to collect some data for my dissertation.

Someday Ray, Skippy and I will all live together again. But for now, I think we are all glad that we don't because I'm not very nice right now and I don't have time to do anything except study, stress, keep my house in museum like condition and write blogs.

recent developments

2009-11-29T08:59:00.001-08:00

Ray took a new job in Rochester, NY and will start in early January once we get final word on when the Army will let him go. He's very excited about being out of the Army and his new job. I am less thrilled about it all, but doing my best to be supportive and positive-not things I would say I am naturally good at.

Ray and I celebrated our first major holiday together this week. We made a fantastic pecan pie, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy and green bean casserole. On the advice of my dear friend Ruth, who is skillful in many many areas and unexpectedly has turned out to be a fantastic makers of Thanksgiving foods, I made cranberry butter. Wow, that is a new family favorite! Our turkey and stuffing were good, but need some work.

All this talk about food brings reminds me of something else, my overeating. I actually cannot believe I am writing a blog about this since I have read several other blogs about eating habits and roll my eyes back and groan since there are some people out there who care much more deeply about this topic than others and feel the need to describe in detail their latest "eating healthy" plan with the world. I'll spare you all the details of what I am eating, how I feel about my overeating and my plan for how to stop it (since I actually do not have one just yet). I simply will say that I am committed to putting a stop to it so that I can wear non-yoga pants one day soon. Also to the inventor of hidden expandable waistband pants I send a message--Bless you friend! They are truly a wonder of the world.

I wish you all much luck with your overeating this holiday season. I know I need a lot of luck and maybe a mild stomach bug to help deter me from partaking in it this time of year.

Interviewing

2009-11-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy couple of weeks for us. Ray did an intensive first round of interviews last Monday and Tuesday with 10 companies. The interview prep started on Friday with Saturday and Sunday full of company briefings and one-on-one preparations with the folks from the recruiting firm followed by staying up half the night researching the companies and practicing in the room. I was exhausted and more stressed than I have been in a long time so one can only imagine how Ray was holding up. Ray is used to doing horrible, exhausting things for long periods of time without complaint, but I am not thus I just complain about it. In all truthfulness that was one of the very worst weekends of my life. Ray looked absolutely adorable in his fancy business suits and he wowed many a company in spite of his exhaustion and nervousness. Skippy and I are very proud of him, but not surprised since we already know how great Ray is.

It seems to have been worth it since Ray is currently in Rochester, NY at a follow-up interview with his top choice and has another follow-up interview in NYC with his third choice on Thursday. This kind of thing really ought to teach me to stop complaining.

Walburg

2009-10-27T09:59:00.001-07:00

I went to the German bar/restaurant in Walburg on Friday night for my dear friend Annie's birthday. It was a lovely crisp fall evening. We ate, we drank, we listened to German music and watched, but did not participate in dancing.

It was a great, great night, which has got me thinking about the last time I went to Walburg. On this visit, there was mercifully no drunkenness, no pole dancing and I did not have to prevent a member of my party from continually making out with and coming dangerously close to going home with a member of the band. One might think that I'm acting like and old lady by saying this since this sounds like a great night out in college, right? I'd absolutely agree since I did actually have my fair share of fun in college and see no problem with that and have been know to even instigate it. The difference here is that the member of my party referenced above was and is married. What makes it even more offensive is that she constantly gushes about how blissfully happily married she is ad nauseam and had a toddler at the time. No good folks, no good.

I've spent many a year trying to get my life together and have a long way to go. One of my latest goals has been to be work on being less judgmental. "The Walburg Event", as I like to call it, was not enough to get me to distance myself from that woman. Crazy, I know. There were actually three such incidents over the span of just shy of a year and that still was not enough to convince me that this person was toxic. I in the last month finally came to this conclusion. I took the do not judge people goal to an extreme. Thankfully I finally made a decision to cut out this person and a few other toxic people from my life. I myself and some non-optional people in my life have the ability to add toxins a plenty to my life that I don't need any additional help. This is my second cleanse of toxic people in the last several years and I have to say that even though I was slow to see the need to do it, I am happy I did. Next time let's hope it does not take me so damn long to get to this point. My sweet Raymond was fighting the global war on terror at the time so I was kind of a wreck- this might help explain a bit.

weekend accomplishments

2009-10-13T09:09:00.001-07:00

My sister ran a marathon this weekend. I truly cannot ever imagine doing something like this myself. Did I mention she works full time and raises two children almost by herself? What did I do this weekend? Not a whole hell of a lot, especially not when you must compare it to something like that.

Last night during my writing group, I found myself detailing the ways that I am currently not doing a good job of self care. Regular exercise is part of what I am not doing (I also spend most of my day seated at a computer ruining my eyes and hands; drink way too much coffee, beer and wine; eat junk food; do not get enough sleep; shower and wash my clothes with a shocking amount of irregularity; often am too exhausted to wash my face at night; and only floss an average of once a week, among many other poor health choices). It is easy to see I have a lot of room for improvement and pretty much the only way to go it up from here. While I ponder getting my act together, I am not sure however, that training for and running a marathon is good self care either. It is an accomplishment for sure, but the cost-benefit analysis makes the overall goodness of this in realation to self care less clear.

In any case, one ought to have respect for things one knows for certain she can never accomplish like running a marathon, driving a city bus, doing a pull up, singing without causing those around to have a pained expression on their faces, being the leader of a religious sect, etc. Well done, Kelsey, well done!

STOP

2009-10-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why it is that people that I would generally consider my friends and with whom I used to spend time without any hidden agenda, now seem to only invite me to spend time with them if they stand to profit from it. I honestly do not like being invited to "parties" of any kind under the veil of friendship when the real purpose is not really to spend time with me (this is just a side benefit at best or just savvy business practice at worst). The objective of such and invitation rather is for me to come, invite any and all of my other friends too, so that we can buy something. In the past, I have felt pressured to go and to buy just one little thing (that ends up costing much more than a comparable item in a shop) so I can leave without feeling guilty. Truthfully, I am done feeling obligated and guilty. I do support women making a career from themselves. I support women in general as a hard core third waver and feminist scholar. However, I am finished with this mixing of objectives. I don't invite people over to my house saying it's a party and then show them all my writing and then try to convince them to subscribe to the journals where I publish or to buy a book in which I have written a chapter.

This all may be a consequence of me being middle-aged and living in the burbs surrounded by a lot of stay-at-home moms. Or perhaps, this is a consequence of our capitalist patriarchal society and its power to convince people that unless you make money you are not worth much. Hard to say when I've only had one cup of coffee. The moral of this post is-if you really don't want to see my shining face and chat with me at your party, but hope that I will buy something and convince all my friends to follow suit, please do not invite me over.

ahh

2009-09-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes life is good to me. My husband is seriously the sweetest thing. I started back to classes last week and he had my dinner ready for me when I got home last. He said at the table that his new favorite sound is the sound of the garage door opening because it means I'm home. He's so adorable and I'm not really sure how I got so lucky.

The other good news is that I actually have a committee. AND it's full of famous fancy pants people just the way it should be. The amount of name dropping I had to do to get these uber famous people on my committee is rather absurd, but then again so has been much of my academic career. I can take exams this fall as well. It looks like all my permissions to collect data are approved so next week let the data collection begin.

I hope that by posting this I have not caused in irrecoverable change in my good fortune.

now what?

2009-07-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

I am living life husband free for a week. My sweet Raymond is off to CO for work for a week and Skippy and I are actually not sure what to do with ourselves. I have already cleaned up the mini-fridge in the garage and set up a beer fridge. This required moving a few things around since our garage is quite full of stuff (important tolls and lots of junk too), but was well worth the effort. I'm drinking one of the beers that didn't make the move to the new beer fridge as a reward for my hard work.

I am enjoying my summer vacation and am trying hard to not to think about how crazy things will be in August. I will be collecting data, studying for and passing qualifying exams and writing up my proposal. My sweet husband will be getting out of the Army (might have to rename my blog, huh?), searching for a new job and most likely moving. For today, all I need to do is feed my dog and grill some delicious herb butter filled sirloin burgers on the grill. See why it's so easy to ignore the fact that August right around the corner?

misnomers

2009-03-23T17:47:00.001-07:00

So much for "bean town" being an appropriate nickname for Boston. I see no correlation other than simple alliteration as I ate nary a Boston baked bean while I was there. I'd say a more apt nickname for that city is onion town, since they regularly put onions on everything yet do not ever mention this on the menu. The assumption that the whole world loves onions and would be thrilled by the pleasant surprise that they would come with every dish is a falsehood. I despise them.

I might also call Boston, beer town. I drank more beers than I have in years and acted like I was 18 (i.e. like a real fool). My pants barely zip and it took me several days to dry up and get rid of the aches in my thirty something muscles after my antics.

I am so glad to be back in Austin where nobody cares if you wear elastic waist pants and flip flops all year long and they thankfully list all ingredients on the menu. The only danger is of course the delicious Texas beers... Fancy Lawnmower from St. Arnold's Brewery being my current favorite.

parents beware

2009-03-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Please take a moment of your busy lives to watch this clip:

You gotta love Fox news for its dedication to keeping us safe. This lovely segment from Sean Hannity is focused on "dangerous" courses offered on college campuses across the nation. Courses lik this, in David Horowitz's opinion, are designed to indoctrinate our children and turn in them into leftist anti-capitalists, in other words make them "anti-American". Horowitz's argument is that such courses have conditioned a generation of people to not read the constitution, which has resulted in their belief that it is the responsiblity of society to provide us with everything we need for us.

One such course is offered here at UT in the history department: Che Guevarra's Latin America (gasp they are going to study Cuba). Parents beware, your children might learn about a historical figure who adhered to an economic philosophy that is different from the current one the world, lead by the U.S., uses. It's best we just do not expose them to such frightening nonesense like diference becasue we certainly do not want our children learning about or developing critical thinking skills that arise from being presenting with people, policies, religions, or systems, etc. different than the ones we know or that are are accepted by anyone outside of mainstream U.S. society. We do not want them to experience cognitive overload resulting from critical analysis now do we?

Allow me to bullet some of the other assertions made by Horowitz to support his claim that university campuses are dangerous for our children:
-any person enrolled in womens studies must believe that gender is socially constructed not biological--holy shit now this is RADICAL and SCARY--he said that if you go to the biology department they have proven that the male and female sex are different (Anissa's comment: DUH... thanks for helping demonstrate the very true fact that sex and gender are two distinct concepts. Too bad you did not know that your rant would prove that you do not understand this important point and help bolster the claim that gender is indeed not the same as sex thus not biologically determined or constructed.)
-Middle Eastern studies departments are supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas
-Muslim student associations/organization on university campuses are terrorist organizations
-all Obama activists, better known as ACORN activists, were trained in U.S. universities

My absolute FAVORITE part of of the interview though is that David Horowitz claims that its relatively easy to become a professor since we radicals recruit each other. AND the best part is that academics work about 6 hours a week, make 100G, and get 4 months off a year too. Woo hoo--I had no idea that I did not need this silly Ph.D that I am working on and that I was going to make so much money by hardly ever working--AWESOME!

corporate and government waste

2009-02-20T07:44:00.000-08:00

I have had a unique week in which I have been able to experience first hand rampant corporate and government waste. It stared when I had to put some packets together for a meeting at NABE. My boss asked if I could put the materials in a nice UT folder. I thought I had enough at home, but it turns out I didn't so I asked around at work to see if anyone had any. There was not a single UT folder in the entire department of Curriculum & Instruction so I was authorized to go and buy some at the campus copy center. I was shocked to find out that a crappy folder with the UT logo costs $1.15! Believe me these folder are no where near as nice as the Mead folders you can get at any store for approximately a quarter. I, I mean UT of course, spent $30 on 25 folders that people will most likely toss out before they get on the plane to go back home. It astounds me why we can't just get them for free since it's all UT, but it's even more appauling that it costs that much for low quality stuff. My boss says universities are all about robbing Peter to pay Paul, but somehow I'm not comforted by this fact no matter how true it is.

It gets way worse. So I also had to arrange for beverages at the room at the Hilton where we are having our meeting. I and about 17 others (5 of which work for the journal hosting the meeting) will have the pleasure of drinking bottles of Ozarka water at $4 a pop and some delicious hot water with Bigelow teabags for $65 a gallon-to be fair we get lemons, honey, cube sugar and cream to accompany our tea! The freshly brewed regular coffee is also bargain priced at $65 a gallon. Seriously? We are paying $65 dollars a gallon for water!!!!!! These prices do not include tax or 18% gratuity.

En fin, for a two hour meeting today UT and our publisher have spent approximately $1200. I'll have to get back to you all about how worthwhile this expenditure was.

the dark days

2009-01-31T10:03:00.001-08:00

I'm less than a week away from having my sweet husband back from the deserts of Iraq. This is fantastic and thankfully has helped me to not slip into a very deep depression over some recent developments in my academic life.

It went like this. I wrote up an IRB (application for UT's internal review board-the body that must approve all studies conducted by faculty and students) over winter break. I gave it to my boss, Maria, to take a look at. She promptly corrected it and sent it back with loads of helpful comments and advice. I meet with her on Tuesday (she was 1 h 5m late, but that is no problem, I'm a student I live to wait around for the people in charge of my entired future to show up and share their pearls of wisdome with me :) and we discussed my study, my participant and the timeline. I was very encouraged and excited. Toward the end of our meeting I asked where qualifying exams would fit into my timeline. She says in no uncertain terms that it will not. Possibly, not likely, I could attempt to take them in the summer, but really it would be best to wait until next Fall. I had hoped to take the exams last semester so that I could graduate in May 2010. If all goes well now I won't graudate until May 2011.

Any of you who know me understand that I am a total nerd so staying in school one more year for me would be a bit annoying, but would grant me one more year to read books and do nerdy stuff before I am forced to rejoin the real world. The problem is that sweet Raymond is scheduled to get out of the Army in June of 2010. This little development throws off our carefully crafted life plan. Ray hates the Army way more than I hate UT at the moment so this is going to present our family with some very touch choices in the next few months. I forgot to mention that I'm about to turn 33 and have been happily postponing reproducing for a while up until my older sister mentioned that she is going through early menopaus at age 36. AWESOME! We are not sure how this will fit into our new life plan.

Ray and I are busily working on whipping up brand new life plan we can both live with. This is the official end to my "poor me" week because this is the last opportunity I am giving myself to lament this situation.

"family" blogs

2009-01-10T20:24:00.000-08:00

Why are "family" blogs really just mom blogs? It annoys me, especially when some women I know and respect and who fit squarely within anyone's definition of a feminist fighting the good fight do this. It just does not make sense. Moms are busy. Why can't the dads be in charge of the family blog? I mean if you buy into society's demand that the mother be in charge of all home and childcare issues why would you not also buy into the assumption that men are better with technology thus would clearly be better at blogging? I think blogging moms and the rest of us ought to ponder this silliness.

I've been neglecting my blog mainly because I temporarily forgot my login and password. Luckily, I experienced a flash of brilliancy and remembered them so I'm back.

Ny number one man is home

2008-09-19T11:36:00.002-07:00

My boy is home! He's tired and clingy but doing well. I missed him so much and am thrilled to have my canine companion back. His daddy is on his way home from Iraq at the moment so soon I'll have a house full of all my favorite men.

Fancy Pants

2008-09-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

I am officially a published author as of Friday in the Journal of Language Policy (September 2008) 7, 217-235 . I realize that it is likely that not a single person not forced by me will actually read what I have written, but I don't care. I got a giddy feelings when I saw my name on the author line and I may have squealed, but only Skippy can confirm or deny that. I have walked around the planet feeling really special since then.

One might ask, how does a published author who lives alone in the burbs pass her leisure time? She eats bruschetta made with basil from her herb garden, fancy fresh mozzarella cheese from Whole Foods wrapped in prosciutto, and sips Pinot Noir a she listens to world music night on NPR. I would guess some of you think I'm completely obnoxious and maybe just a little snotty for telling you this. Don't judge me just yet. What you don't know is that the bread the bruschetta is on came from Sam's Club (I KNOW, I know the evils of Walmart, but I'm an Army wife and a grad student so back off), the Pinot Noir cost less than $9 a bottle, and my dog regularly pisses on the herbs in my herb garden. So as you can see I'm really not that fancy pants at all. I simply have a lot of time on my hands since my husband is off fighting the global war on terror and I'm procrastinating. I'm just trying demonstrate that in this post-modern society all is not what it seems.

general discontent

2008-09-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

I have not taken the time to blog in a very long time. My "animo" has been very low during this time and my tendency is to burrow and want everyone to leave me the hell alone when I feel this way.

After a lovely, lovely vacation abroad I sadly got walloped with real life in the form of summer school and very discouraging news about my proposed dissertation topic. I sulked for a long, long time over the criticisms I received about my topic and it was really not until yesterday evening that I did any work in earnest. I did make a list of reasons to stay in grad school vs. reasons to quit grad school the other day and have looked at it several times since its creation.

My poor sweet Skippy tore his ACL at the Bark Park on Friday chasing squirrels. He's having surgery on Monday and has to stay at the animal hospital for 3 days. I am already missing him. Ray thinks there is some significance in the fact that Skippy and the quarterback of the Patriots sustained the same injury. Who even knew football had started for another season? Plus we KNOW Skippy we do not actually personally know that man so focus, Ray, focus on the real issue here--our sweet dog is on addictive pain medication and is going to cost us a small fortune.

I'm also unsettled by the political situation in this country and the fact that I am surrounded by people altogether not like me. I read in the October issue of Glamour (do NOT even start, I know) a quote from Sen. John McCain that demonstrates what I mean. When asked about federally funded birth control programs he responded, "I would do everything I can to encourage abstinence among young women, and that we not have unwanted pregnancies." As a feminist there are so man places to begin my critique of this comment....how about with an obvious one, these young women do not impregnate themselves. I also just LOVE that somehow women and their bodies are once again the source of the "problem" at hand, unwanted pregnancies. Perhaps young boys might also benefit from such abstinence programs. Let's go back just one step, abstinence, abstinence, gosh WTF John McCain, are you really that old and out of touch! Those programs are sure working well when the teen pregnancy rate increased last year for the first time since the 1980s in the wake of increasingly more states adopting "conservative" sex education programs that only teach about and advocate for abstinence.

Before I go shower and head off to what else, my feminist theory class, I would like to just mention that Sarah Palin does NOT meet any criteria for a feminist that I have ever know (having a vagina is not required nor does it make a feminist by the way). Maybe I should be happy that at least the word feminist is spoken in the media these days, but I am not since the definition of the term and the varied aims of feminists all over the world are being distorted. I prefer to call her the anti-feminist. I guess she's the equivalent of the fat orange stripped cat to Skippy Lynch-my nemesis.

Egypt Blog

2008-05-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

Follow my adventures in Egypt, if you so desire, vicariously through this Egypt blog that Mitsi has set up.

Life in the burbs

2008-04-22T20:38:00.000-07:00

Some real asshole, one of my neighbors, is actually mowing the grass at 10:35 PM on a Tuesday evening.

This past weekend I was actually feeling like I had conquered the unmitigated disdain I have had for my new life in the suburbs after I took my precious dog for a walk on a lovely walking trail that could only exist in a paradise like suburbia. I had been thinking that now that the trees are in bloom all the houses in my subdivision look distinct and that all was right with the world here in WILCO. After all there are no armed robberies here in the burbs (leave me the hell alone UT armed robber! I'm a grad student, I'm poor AND I'm a bleeding heart liberal feminist teacher--my instinct would be to argue with you about the societal ills that have lead you to this desperate state rather than to just give you my money) and neighbors take pity on your when your husband is off fighting the GWOT and mow your grass for you, just not at 10:35 PM on a school night.

I'm so tired of life not being as perfect as I want it to be.

it's just so hard

2008-03-24T14:57:00.001-07:00

I know you'll all be shocked, but I've been thinking about the patriarchy again. I was out with several of my bestest girl friends last weekend and heard all about their new boys and all the sex that they were having. I have to admit I was jealous since I will never again have a new boy in my life (boring old husband for me) and since the aforementioned husband is currently fighting the GWOT in the desserts of Iraq consequently I am having absolutely no sex either. Fast forward less than one week and somehow three quarters of the new boys discussed in this conversation had acted like total bafoons.

This outlandishly bad behavior on the part of these boys makes one wonder why women have to put up with such nonsense. I love and respect all of the ladies that told me their boy stories and have no doubt that they are all far superior to the idiot assholes that have wronged them. Why do men feel like they can or should act so ridiculously? You guessed it, the patriarchy. I'm serious. We live in a world dominated by images. Women are either sexual objects (who like to be mistreated) or they are ugly asexual bitches. We convince ourselves that for men to like us we need to be objects, sexual objects. To "win" this game of love, women need to be pleasing and look beautiful and somehow accustom ourselves to intolerable male behavior. After all we have been told our whole lives that we need men to take care of us and protect us and above all desire us.

I'm so proud to say that not one of the ladies that has been recently mistreated by a bafoonish boy is putting up with it. They are demanding better treatment and wisely taking a look around at the other fish in the sea. They know their value and for this Rosie and I salute you. Watch out degenerate men and crusaders for the patriarchy.

Oh and I love my husband because he is mercifully not a boy, degenerate, bafoon, idiot, asshole or crusader for the patriarchy.

complaint-free world

2008-03-23T08:39:00.001-07:00

I just saw a segment on CBS News Sunday Morning about Rev. Will Bowen in Kansas City who has stated a campaign against complaining. This campaign is based on the idea that you can never complain your way to happiness. The challenge he presents to parishioners is to go 21 full days without complaining. Folks who participate wear a purple plastic bracelet to remind them that complaining only detracts from the pursuit of happiness. After this initial 21 days he believes a person will see that they are closer to accepting the world and people as they are and feel happier. His goal is to create a complaint-free society.

I have a friend who constantly raves about every aspect of her life. I find it somewhat creepy that she is the only person I have ever met who thinks everything and everyone is so wonderful. She feels compelled to talk about the constant joy she experiences with everyone she meets. I find myself not believing her, thinking she's delusional. I think I have heard her complain twice and both times she apologized for it and tried to rationalize her discontent to explain it away.

Rather than going to church today, Easter Sunday, I am contemplating what a complaint-free world would really look like. The Pollyanna side of my brain thinks what a great idea, but my skeptical side is all up in arms over this.

Pollyanna's arguments for:
We do spend a great deal of time and energy complaining, at least I do. I do not necessarily follow thru with all the threats to rectify the wrongs that I discuss during my rants. By complaining I am certainly not accepting people or situation for how they are. I grew up in a family where different always equated bad. By complaining am I just reifying negativity.

Skeptical side of my brain's arguments against:
Sometimes things just suck. It's true, they do. If we never allow ourselves to deconstruct our discontent, we will certainly never be able to work to ameliorate the situation that caused it or our feelings, right?

judgement call

2008-03-21T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have noticed a rapid decline in my ability to judge appropriate from inappropriate. When I was a teacher, this distinction was easier to make because I made this decision multiple times a day, but withing a confined context--school. (Pushing and using bad words ,that's easy- inappropriate. Touching other people's things without permission-totally inappropriate. Peeing on the wall of the stall not in the toilet in the boy's bathroom--definitely inappropriate and disgusting as well and to this day I cannot figure out why someone would want to do this, but believe me little boys do.) Now that I'm out in the "real" world, it's way harder to know. I'll give some examples and perhaps they'll clarify my point.

List of things that I do that I'm pretty sure are questionable if not down right inappropriate:

-I have been known on occasion to curse in front of my class.
-I find myself standing way too close to men on the escalator because they smell oh so good and I have not seen (or smelled) my sweet husband for several months now.
-Help myself (translation, use what I need at the moment and also store some in my purse for future use) to Splenda packets at restaurants/coffee shops.
-Let the grass and weeds my yard in suburbia grow so long that people are beginning to wish I'd put a junk car there so my home could officially be known as the junky house on the block.
-I return or re-gift almost every gift people give me.
-I park on the wrong side of the road while I retrieve my mail from the mailbox.
-I use the fact that I walk really fast to cut off old people at the door of the post office and super market so I can be in front of them in line.

See? This is grey area.

childhood obesity

2008-03-19T16:23:00.001-07:00

I now understand why there is an epidemic of childhood obesity in this country. It is literally the only time during daylight hours when kids shut their yaps (the caveat is that this quiet only occurs if you have been extremely crafty and found one of the five current foods they will eat without tears, complaints and perhaps thrown silver wear in protest).

Bottom line....kids, cute but a real pain in the ass.

gift giving moratorium

2008-02-27T10:52:00.001-08:00

Today, the day after I celebrated my 32nd year of life, I have discussed my annual plight in relation to gifts received in recognition of the aforementioned event with several tolerant individuals (many thanks, I KNOW that I'm annoying and self absorbed and need to figure that out--now that I think about it maybe my correct diagnosis would be simply "drama queen"). I feel comforted by the fact that every woman I have discussed this issue with has experienced issues related to gifts with their husbands/boyfriends. This has helped me feel like less of a heartless bitch.

I have the right to not like gifts and not feel wrought with gilt about it. I think I may be evaluating the issue of my guilt in response to my negative reaction to some poor gift choices in a superficial manner. I think the real problem here may not be limited to my very obvious perfectionism and pickiness. As with many issues, the deeper problem is the PATRIARCHY. I, like many women, got the message that I needed to be pleasing and to make everyone else happy and comfortable even to my own detriment. It is true that I need to work on communicating more clearly what my wants and needs are so that the chances of them being met are increased. At the same time I need to feel more justified in stating without guilt how I feel about things (including gifts). If I don't like something, I don't the end (absence of guilt, dilemma, worry, dismay). I seem to think that the other person's feelings are somehow more important than my own, which leads me down the dangerous (and not ultimately successful) path of deception (lying, practicing my fake "I love it!" smile, crafty evasion of conversations relating to the gift). When I as a gift giver give someone a gift I must ask, is it about me feeling good about myself or that person's happiness?---The obvious and logical answer is that the objective in this exchange is the receiver's happiness--- if they don't like my gift my desire would be for them to get something they DO want and NOT to lie to me and keep something that does not achieve the objective. So my guilt and anguish as a gift receiver is counter logic. Maybe this means that I have to enact a gift giving moratorium. I think I as a woman need to see that my guilt and anguish stem at least in part from my assumption that I need to make other people feel good and happy even if it costs me my own happiness. This lunacy must stop.

walking amongst the mortals

2008-02-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

I went to two showers yesterday. One baby shower and one wedding shower. The first shower was noteworthy for two reasons. One, NOTHING was homemade--not the food nor the gifts. No knit baby booties or blankets or cross stitches decorations for the baby's room. I thought this was strange, but then again what I do I know I have mercifully been spared from showers for most of my life. It was a couples shower and I was one of the few non-couples without children there. I wanted to drop off my thrifty yet thoughtful shower gift, which sadly was not homemade, but it was a high quality piece of children's literature so just about a good as homemade and eat some food before I dashed off to my next shower where there was the promise of no children and alcoholic beverages. I quickly became sick of all the toddlers ruining the shower for me and certainly their parents. I mean really, eat your pizza or don't (sit on the chair or don't, pet the doggie or don't... you get the idea) but realize that NOBODY cares either way so stop fussing about it 2 yr. old girl sitting behind me.

I do not like toddlers and neither does my friend Annie. I think she's very rationale and also very polite because she's from the South and they know about manners down here so I do not feel badly making this important declaration thanks to my dear friend. Anyway, I don't like toddlers and my fear of having them in my house and knowing I'm supposed to love them when all I want is for them to get the hell away from me is the main reason I resist engaging in serious discussions about family planning with my absentee husband.

Back to the showers. The second shower of the day was a Mardi Gras themed wedding shower in rural Texas. My other lovely friend Mitsi accompanied me to this shower and helped me immensely with navigation since at one point the road ended because in rural areas I guess this happens. I know it happens in rural WI so I have deduced it happens everywhere since it happened here too. We arrived at the shower about two hours after it began. We were greeted warmly and given a beer (thank you God) within seconds of our arrival. I enjoyed minor celebrity status simply by being "Ray Lynch's wife". Several folks were brought over to meet me a soon as I made my identity known. All seemed to agree that Ray is lots of fun and very nice. Even the sweet grandfather of the groom was roused from his dinner to walk over using his walker (he was wearing his West Point jacket since it was like a frozen rainy tundra yesterday) to tell me what a nice man my husband is. The drunken bride trapped my friend Mitsi (a former middle school Spanish teacher) with the intent to impress her with her well pronounced Spanish. It's her party and she can do what she wants, right? We ate many homemade treats and thoroughly enjoyed the Zydeco band. It was hard to not take note of the extremely handsome guitar player/singer whose name is either Dwayne or Leon depending on who you ask. I do hope they'll be free in May of 2010 for one large graduation party who's theme with be "Is there a doctor in the house?" One of the 63 hosts of the shower demonstrated his many talents by making the gumbo and playing his broom with the band as if it were a guitar for us all for nearly one hour. The groom's little brother informed Mitsi and I that he was a sophomore at one of my alma maters (Roll Tide Roll!), but promptly corrected himself and said actually that he will be a sophomore next year. He might have misspoke as a result of one of the five keg stand I observed him engaging in. Before I go I must mention the matron of honor. She informed us that she was married I believe three times during our brief (yet somehow it seemed far too long) conversation. She didn't want to be snotty or anything, but her husband is an engineer at NASA. The bride was so glad that the matron of honor could be there or she would not have been able to go through with the shower because she NEEDED the matron of honor's face to be the first face she saw when she walked into the party. Yet more indisputable evidence that what they teach you in Sunday school is TRUE... All God's creatures have a place in the choir.

food, sports and other thoughts

2008-02-03T20:39:00.001-08:00

I went to a Super Bowl party for the food and seriously, there is no shame in that. I did watch the game some since it was projected on the wall of a small living room (not at all sure how they pulled that off), however I had a few "technical" difficulties. I wore my two sizes too large Patriots t-shirt the my father-in-law proudly brought for me a few months ago and although I did not manage to squeeze in a shower, I did wash my face and put on sparkley eye shadow just to be festive because this event is worthy of a bit extra. I am officially a fan of all things Boston--the Red Sox, John Kerry, Patriots, Bruins, cream pie, the Kennedy's, baked beans, my sweet husband and his "special" family, lobsta rolls , random deletion and addition of the letter r, etc. However, as I mentioned I went to this party for the food not the sport and thus kept clapping for most of the first half for the team I thought was the Patriots only to find out that the Patriots were wearing blue uniforms, not white like I assumed, so I was intermittently cheering for the wrong team. In the end the Patriots (who indeed were wearing snappy blue uniforms) did not win, but I did get a great dinner of clam chowder, NY style pizza, several chips and dips, and King's Cake without the plastic baby Jesus (so glad to be off the hook for next year). I'm not as I mentioned a sports fan, but I am a fan of food so I do hope that next year's Super Bowl party can match if not exceed this one culinarily speaking. I almost forgot that I had a lovely discussion about gender inequality with a man from Georgia (the republic not the state) in which I was able to discuss the gender divide in embodiment vs. representations of the state and get some fascinating food for thought based on his distinct views and life experiences. Ah, being nerdy never felt so good.

painting S.O.S.

2008-01-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

It's official. I need help painting. In spite of the prettiness and lots of progress, I can't take it anymore. I think I must be much older than 31 and 11/12ths because I have constant aches and pains and headaches probably induced by the fumes.

agoraphobia

2008-01-08T08:31:00.000-08:00

I'm serious, I think I might have it. I currently have no desire to see anyone or leave the house at all really. I'm rather pissed off that I even have to during my vacation. Skip does not suffer from agoraphobia though so I'll fight my developing phobia and take him for a walk later. My mood is generally poor these days and for some reason the sound of my lovely husband's voice makes me crazy angry. I was in a particularly bad mood this morning after a poor nights sleep and had little desire to talk to him. I was crabby and rude and thankfully the connection cut off so he did not have to suffer through more of a crappy conversation with me. A while later a FedEx truck pulls up to leave me a package. He made me a calendar with our wedding pictures, sappy quotes for each month and our important dates marked on the calendar with personal messages from him. So I cried again (I have done this a couple of times in the last few days mostly induced by stress resulting from painting or shopping for home decor items) and felt like I was perhaps the meanest, rudest person on the planet. Wait, there's more. He just called me and will most likely have to come home in May not in September as planned. I had hoped to be cruising down the Nile river and sipping tea at the foot of the sphinx in May so again I feel like the most horrible person ever for still wanting to go on my trip to Egypt.

down time

2008-01-03T09:12:00.000-08:00

What does a neurotic workaholic do with down time when her new husband is in "the Iraq"?

-make lengthy "to-do" list for every day of vacation so as not to get overly restless or depressed
-scoop dog poop in the back yard for the first time in 9 months
-perform a "big clean" of the house that causes major arthritic pain in the hands
-annoy friends and family with endless redecorating ideas for house in the burbs
-forget to eat
-rack up $175.66 mobile phone bills

test

2006-07-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

test to see if this thing works