I've been Tagged!

I am. Yep. That sounds about right.

I want a life where I leave my work at work, and have evenings and/or weekends free and separate from whatever I do for a living. Yes, I want all those deep, meaningful things like an end to world hunger, war, violence, etc., but on a very basic and possibly very selfish level, I want to be happy and unstressed. Currently, the thought is that a career/personal binary in my life that had a very clear boundary would do the trick. We all know there's more to it than that, of course, but this is a blog, not a scholarly work.

I wish all the papers would be graded so I could give these kids their final grades and be done with them and their constant whining about grades they think they deserve but which they clearly (to everyone else) do not. I get about ten emails a day now, asking me to look at their assignments (essentially, to re-grade them) because they think the grader was "too hard" on them for things like not including their works cited page. Essentially, for plagiarism-by-default. Also, they email asking me when their grades are coming in (like I know), or how they can get an A in the class (something they should have been thinking of throughout the semester when they were turning in assignments late consistently), or even whether I will look at an ungraded assignment and tell them what I think (like it matters). Go away, children. Go away.

I hate it when characters refuse to go where I send them, do as I direct, or speak the words I lay out for them. I put up with this, however, and move on. They often know best.

I love hard, driving rain that you can feel from miles away. It starts with a dusky glow around the trees and a burnished salmon cloud cover, descending into a lead sky which, even with the increased darkness, still brings an eerie light to the props below on this earthly stage. The rain comes slowly, building, rolling, until it bursts out with its full power, washing away worries, cares of all kinds, the dirt on cars and in souls, and the terrible heaviness life can sometimes accumulate. Down it comes, driving everything in its path, until with feather softness, it dissipates, and drifts on its way to regain itself for another anointing.

I miss having time to read for pleasure. I was told by many that grad school in English would destroy my hobby of reading, but thankfully, those warnings haven't come to fruition. I still love to read the kinds of books I read before. I now love to read books I hated before. I still hate certain books, though. That's to be expected. The problem with my reading hobby is that if I spend any time doing it, I get behind in my "for school" reading. Or worse, the author's writing style starts to insinuate itself into my thesis, and I find myself writing comedy during a particularly gruesome death scene. Thank you, Terry Pratchet and Douglas Adams.

I fear being told I'm fat by my grandmother when I return home for a week. I enjoy being curvy, and have never wanted to be thin, or envied those who are thin. I would bodily harm anyone who tried to take my wide hips from me. They are a gift from my mother and her mother before her, and I do not want to lose them. I get self-conscious about my tummy on occasion, but am much more comfortable with my body than American women are in general. The last thing I need is someone who is supposed to love me trying to make me uncomfortable with my body by telling me to get a dog to eat my food for me "so I won't be so fat." And don't any of you go on about how unlikely this is. She's done it twice before, and I don't expect she's gotten better about this.

I hear Charlotte's collar bell jingling as she rolls on the floor for a belly rub. Please excuse me while I take a kitty break.

I wonder sometimes whether I'll ever finish with school. By this I mean that I'm not sure 100% that I want into academe when I get that extra set of letters. I started school a year early in Kindergarten, and have gone straight through the levels to here, without so much as a semester's break. Now I'm going to spend my summer finishing and defending a thesis before moving straight ahead into the next level. When I get that paper, I think a year or three flipping burgers might be a relief. This is, of course, an exaggeration, but the point is sound. I can't just closet myself away in the ivory tower forever. For one, that's no way to experience life, and for another, I might go crazy. It's been known to happen. I'm sure everyone has had one or two professors who clearly weren't in full possession of themselves.

I regret not spending as much time doing things that keep me sane. Examples would be sitting on my porch, playing with Charlotte, knitting, wandering around outside, and the like. And cooking. I love to cook. I make soups all the time, and I would bake every weekend if I didn't then face the prospect of eating whatever it was I made. A piece of pie or two is great. A whole pie is overkill.

I am not working on my thesis at the moment. I've started writing it by hand, and find that this works better until the typing process. While writing it, I can't exactly go back and edit every sentence to death. So things progress faster. When I go to type it up, however, I keep thinking of ways to improve things, and when I let that go too far, I end up in a completely different place, one that often doesn't fit in at all with the rest of what I have planned. It's far too late in the game to allow this kind of meandering. So typing out passages is a pain in the ass. Thus this break.

I dance like a white girl. It's beyond pathetic, and it only happens in the privacy of my own apartment. I can actually jitterbug and do some stupid thing called a Texas two step, but aside from these, it's either an incredibly slow slow dance or disco. Bad disco.

I sing hymns when I'm alone in the car. Which ones depends on the season, and I actually am more humming than singing. But the tunes are from the hymnal.

I cry about once a semester; I haven't cried yet this time around, though I came close when I decided to begin this latest rewrite. I'm getting to include a lot more backstory, but I fear it will become too fragmented. I can probably bullshit my way through a defense of this fragmentation as symbolic of the main character's fragmented sense of duty and place in life, but I'd rather have a straightforward answer (currently: because that's the way it's written, got it?).

I am not always disorganized. Ask me about any city on my maps, or any character in any of my storylines, and I can tell you anything you want to know about them. I can probably pull up the table where the city is located, or the page detailing the character's relationship to each other character s/he meets along the way. Ask me to find a particular office supply; if I have it, I'll know where it is. Including a tin of safety pins that came in handy Tuesday for dinner. I'm what I like to call "selectively disorganized".

I make with my hands a red scarf and a green blanket during my copious spare time. They are progressing slowly for just this reason. In fact, I've got a zillion other things on tap as well, but they are all in the yarn bin while these two projects are coming together. I can multi-task with these two. The red has only about 30 stitches on a row, the other is currently at about 130 and growing one stitch each row. I need bigger needles for it, but am going to find them at the Shaggy Sheep before going home so I can get bamboo circulars. Bamboo is damn strong, so I don't understand why it's allowed on a plane when the others aren't. You can still poke an eye out, gouge into someone's brain through nose, eye or ear, and pierce a jugular just fine. Sorry for the morbid note.

I write "Kickass Title Here" at the top of every paper I start, and it stays there until I find a perfect title with an academic colon and several clauses. Example: Candles in the New Age: The Inner Workings of the Pineapple Candy Wax Factory and Their Effects on the Presence of Ninjas in Modern American Subways--Watch Out!

I confuse goodwill and nosiness on occasion. Especially when it comes to the church folk at home (and here "abroad"). Other people (the gracious/nosy ones) can't figure out when touching is appropriate. I don't particularly care if they're German. That doesn't give them a right to lay so much as a finger on me. If I can swing my fist and hit you, you're probably too close. AMS has a saying that if you can touch her, you'll know. I find that this is good in theory, but an utter failure in practice. Often times, the people who are not on the short list of people-who-can-touch-me are too blind to my body language to know any better. Short of being rude, there's no reaching these people. Why can't we all start off at the hand-shaking level, and wait for a verbal invite to do more? Huh?

I need to do my laundry and dishes tomorrow. I've got plenty of clothes to wear, but I want to wear the ones that aren't clean. I've got plenty of bowls to eat from, but do not want to make/eat soup. Correction. I've done dishes throughout the day (one or two here, several there, etc.), and now only need to do laundry and a few dishes. By Sunday night, both tasks should be accomplished. I also need to get my hair cut again. I'll do it before I fly home, I think.

I should get back to work. No, really.

I start moving from this apartment to my new one in June!

I finish my master's degree this summer.

I tag Pandora.