Christmas Cards

This year, as particularly Alert readers may have noticed, I didn't post my customary Christmas card notice. Then again, since I abruptly stopped posting anything three weeks into NaBloPoMo, it might not have been particularly surprising.

In any case, I did send out cards this year, but they went to people whose addresses I already had. I ended up having my cards professionally printed this year, and although I got a steal of a deal on them, I didn't think I could afford to expand my list much this year.* As it was, I had to have an extra one printed for me at Kinko's. Oh, but, yeah! I totally recommend Picaboo for card printing. Envelopes are even included, so with the deal I got, it was actually cheaper to have Picaboo print my cards than to do the photo-printing, card stock-buying, and envelope-procuring on my own (let alone much easier than the cutting and glue-sticking).

Ordinarily, of course, I show the previous year's card when I solicit this year's requests. Since I didn't get that done this year, though, I'll just show you last year's and tell you now that if you send me your address (disasterkitchen ((at)) gmail.com) now, I'll send you next year's:

As you may have noticed (with cards from 2009, 2008, and 2007 for reference), the cards have just gotten more elaborate and generally weirder. This year's is the weirdest yet, but I won't post it here until next year.

Meanwhile, several of you Alert Readers also sent fantastically creative cards this year! I do admit to loving the ones with adorable children/babies, and even the ones with cute couples, but quite possibly my favorite was Bog Lemming Superstar's. It took the non-traditional Christmas card to truly new heights, which I'll let her share if she so desires. Well done, I say.

So. I'm still sort of pretending it's the holidays--partly because about 3am yesterday I woke up with my every-two-to-three-years stomach bug** and spent nearly all day in bed, and have today been similarly low on productivity (and eating). The thought of gearing up for a semester that will include TA-ing (and teaching sections) for one class, teaching another two online, and, ideally, finishing my dissertation, is tiring even at full-strength. So, for at least one more day, happy holidays!

*See also: not blogging.
**Vegetarians are thankfully not very food poisoning prone

Applying

I hate pretty much all applications, but I think fellowship applications top the list--partly because at this point in my educational career, the people against whom I am competing for these fellowships are Very Impressive Indeed, and although I don't want to compete against the alarmingly qualified and terrifying Them, I do want money to finish my dissertation and be done with that business. The other reason fellowship applications are awful is that one is forced to sound as Very Impressive as possible, whilst one is increasingly convinced of one's inadequacy generally (and especially against the imagined competition).

The fellowship application that I hope is that last I submit as a doctoral candidate* is due tomorrow. It has been especially fussy, with seven online pages of details, asking for things like a description of my commitment to women's activities and organizations and of awards I've won. This one is also unique in that it charges a $40 submission fee, which is particularly ironic, I think, given that one must also provide a "clear statement of financial need." I've already spent close to $30 on postage and transcripts from all my graduate work.

Siiiiiiigh.

*Assuming I can actually finish the degree, I am sure that this will not be my last fellowship application, because it just doesn't stop. I've somehow selected a career path that seems to involve asking for money, and other things, all the time, because there is no money in the field. There was some, and still is for those who got in about 40 years ago, but the rest is gone.

Procrastiblog

I'm trying to finish the first chapter of my dissertation, which is kind of an exciting thing to write, since being able to finish a chapter does bode well for being able to finish the dissertation.

It's writing here that I'm "finishing the chapter," though, that's exciting; the writing of the chapter itself is not so great. I'm trying to get as much done as possible so I can give it to my workshop group tomorrow, for discussion on Wednesday. I don't technically have to give them the entire chapter or anything, but, as I mentioned before, having a chapter done--or done enough to give to my adviser, anyway--is a pretty thrilling prospect (as is getting to on new material! Woo!).

Anyway, I never shared pictures from my birthday, which I celebrated in Florence with Italian friends the Cocos. It was marvelous! More procrastiblogging opportunities will almost certainly arise soon, in which case maybe I'll try to catch you up on the last part of that trip.

Friday

So here's a question: if it's Friday afternoon and I'm sitting in my office, unsuccessfully trying to write (and have been doing so [unsuccessfully trying to write] for the past... oh... seven hours, aside from nap and lunch breaks and maybe the Thursday LA Times Crossword), waiting for a ride home that may not come for one, two, or three hours,* is writing words on my blog preferable to not writing words on my dissertation?

Clearly I have decided it is--and hope it prompts some inspiration on the latter.

In any case, I am looking forward to the weekend. Tonight David and I are attending an "On A Boat"-themed birthday party, and though, sadly, no actual boats will be involved, I think it will be fun.

Tomorrow night we're seeing Band of Horses at the State Theater downtown. (Last weekend we were watching this video, which features the band's song "The Funeral." David mentioned that he'd like to see them live sometime, and I wondered out loud if they were coming to town soon. We googled it, and not only were they on tour, they were coming to Mpls in seven days, tickets were still available, and the box office [thank goodness there are still occasionally ways around Ticketmaster's extortion] opened in 15 minutes. Win!)

I'm also supposed to do a long run with a friend tomorrow morning--12 miles. I'm slightly less enthused about this, mostly as it's supposed to hit 90° tomorrow. We'll head out early to avoid as much heat as possible, but that will also mean leaving the (non-) boating party early to head to bed (and throwing off my usual pre-run blueberry pancakes ritual).

Then Sunday we're heading to Inception with friends. I'll also probably do hot yoga, which I'm realizing I haven't mentioned here, but have found sufficiently wonderful to pull me out of bed and into the studio before 8 a.m. most Sunday mornings, and will describe at some point.

I remember an item on a personality inventory I saw years ago having to do with whether one preferred to have one's weekend scheduled or open. I like flexibility, but I also like looking forward to a string of fun things.

My office window overlooks a sort of quadrangle on campus, flanked by ivy-covered buildings and intersected by sidewalks. This week I have seen it overrun by elementary school kids from the natural history museum's summer camp program; filled with maintenance vehicles from all over campus (apparently for some facilities meeting?); and at the moment, a first, hosting a swimsuit-clad couple tanning on beach towels. They seem either unaware or unconcerned about their very public display, but then, who would be working on a Friday afternoon this gorgeous, anyway?

Who indeed.

*I'm not a good wait-er in general, but indefinite waits slay me.

Fall(s)

The past several days have been on the cool and wet side, so when the sun came out today, I decided to play hooky after my dissertation workshop and enjoy the glorious fall afternoon. I persuaded David that we should go to Minnehaha Falls, which neither of us had seen in its unfrozen form (which, needless to say, is a far sadder reflection on me than on him) to take full advantage of it.

It was almost 50 degrees warmer than the last time we'd been there, although still crisp enough to make our noses run. The trees have just begun changing, and the colors were beautiful; these are for those of you in more seasonless climes:

Lest you find yourself jealous, however, I remind you that this is coming (and the radio says we may have snow--accumulating--this weekend).

Gymnast Squirrel

Especially on the days I'm trying hardest to write, I find myself doing a lot of staring out the window. Here's what I saw today:


Gymnast Squirrel from Disaster Kitchen on Vimeo.

Lanes

Because I am supposed to be re-writing the paper I gave a Dry Run for on Wednesday (which I had already re-written, you may recall, following dissertation workshop the preceding Friday), in anticipation of my New Orleans conference presentation this coming Friday (for which I fly out on Thursday); and because the Wednesday after that my students hand in their final papers (which I will have just two weeks to grade [before the final exam], in the middle of which fall my two-hour lecture for that class and my last submission to the dissertation workshop), I am, instead, distracting myself online.

I was looking up a flight to Portland for a May conference to which I was just accepted, and from there was looking at my options for getting from the airport to the conference site and the friend's house where I'll be staying. As I was looking at the map, I recognized the highway we used to take to get to school, and from there, it was the shortest of jumps to look at my childhood home on Street View. Although I've looked up my current residence, my parents' house in DHS, and countless commercial sites, it had never occurred to me to look up the house where I spent ages seven through eleven, and which frequently shows up in my dreams (including this recent one).

I haven't been back in person since we left, and at first I didn't even recognize my old house. In the 17 (yikes!) years since I lived there, the occupants have redone much of the front yard and have put up a strange wooden screen around the front door. Still, as I studied the image, I recognized the huge maple, unmistakable in the middle of the yard and looking like an old friend. As I clicked up and down the street, I remembered the neighbors who had lived in the houses around us, and the big pines where the street dead-ended at the railroad tracks, where we'd had little picnics and run around. Much of it was very familiar, and highly evocative of childhood memories and sensations.

Looking at my old neighborhood as a grown-up, though, I also found myself a bit depressed. The fact that the photos were captured on an (uncharacteristically!) gray day can't have helped. Things probably did look better two decades ago, before the Northwest weather wreaked its usual trick of turning everything mossy, damp, and droopy (if still impressively lush and green). And the neighborhood, which was always an interesting mix, in hindsight, of quite stately homes and smaller, less-kempt ones, may not have aged all that well. My idyllic childhood home, although plenty respectable, was rather generic, a bit dishevelled, and certainly aging.

The strangest sensation was the concurrent distanced objectivity and opacity lent by, in addition to the computer screen, decades of life and experience, and the surprisingy visceral intimacy prompted by a location I loved so much and filled with the memories only a child of that age can.

Many of my friends grew up in a single house, in which their parents may still live. I was always rather jealous of this. When I went to my neighbor's parents' house for Thanksgiving a few years ago, I got to see her still-intact childhood bedroom. I don't know if those people have more, or fewer, dreams about the homes they lived in with their parents.

I feel plenty fortunate that my parents left the cold Northwest for sunny southern California several years ago, and that I get to visit them there. Now that I'm older, I can even appreciate our multiple moves and the fact that I got to live in many parts of the country.

In a few days I'll be visiting New Orleans for the first time since we moved to the house I just visited virtually. I remember very little of it, though I can still conjur the scent and flavor of a French Quarter beignet and fully intend to test those memories against the real item.

I had always wanted to return to the city as an adult; after Katrina, I figured I'd never be able to return to the same city. Then again... you never really can, anyway.

Wrong

Today I came across, for the first time, in an e-mail from the University president about our fairly dire funding situation, a word that made my skin crawl: planful. As in,

While it is clear that we will need to reduce the size of our workforce over the next two years, it is our goal to limit layoffs by continuing to take advantage of attrition, by reexamining the ways we work and being planful about filling vacant positions, by exploring other options including voluntary reduced-time appointments, and by improving service and efficiency.

Ewwwww.

Other things I am over:

• Winter (snow this morning)
• Staring at my computer, unable to write
• Finally writing something, only to end up
  
• Workshopping said paper and being told that I need to do a lot of
• Revising it before
• Giving a Dry Run presentation on it tomorrow

I'm also over grading essay exams, and submitting fellowship and grant proposals--but at least temporarily, I'm actually done with those! Woo! More time for "revising," which at the moment means staring at my computer and procrastiblogging. Sigh.

Done

Yesterday I reviewed a bunch of my December and January reading over at the book blog; check it out if you feel so inclined!

Today, I accomplished two things that had been plaguing me, and which I had been consistently putting off, one because I am not looking forward to the actual event, and one because the options were overwhelming me. They were, respectively, booking and organizing my Dry Run presentation for my upcoming Milwaukee conference, and buying a new laptop. I am relieved that both are done, and although I'm still not at all looking forward to the former (to be held Friday the 13th), I'm definitely looking forward to the latter, which should be here this Friday. I guess I'll blog about it when it arrives!

Now, I just need to finalize my travel plans to Milwaukee, and finish the paper for it...

Done

I somehow didn't realize until after I posted yesterday that it was my last post of NaBloPoMo! It's true. I successfully accomplished my first ever November of daily posting. It's a bit anticlimactic, but the wonderful thing is that now that it's December, there are only three weeks before I fly to California.

So, even though I'm no longer obligated to post daily, here I am again. I don't have that much to say, except that I did accomplish two more of the four things I listed yesterday; I'm going to write that abstract tomorrow and submit it then, even though it was due today. I applied for money to go to that conference, so my adviser knows about it. If I submit an abstract, even if it's late, I'll feel better telling her that I was rejected than if I didn't submit anything at all. I suppose there's a chance they'd let me in, too, even if I'm late. I think it's worth trying; I've never been to Boston, and I'd like to go.

Travelin'

Last night was very festive indeed, and this morning very early: I had a 7:15 Greyhound to catch. It was also very snowy; Champaign must have gotten about three inches of snow overnight. I got into Chicago mostly without incident, although our bus driver, upon learning from his dispatcher that he couldn't transport just the eight of us, drove us around the block and back to the station, where we had to get on a far more crowded (but thankfully also Chicago-bound) bus. I didn't have a window seat to myself with room for my backpack, but I did manage to sleep despite my gently snoring neighbor and what seemed like an extra-lurchy trip through snowy fields.

I had hoped to visit the Art Institute, but my friends wanted to outrun the impending snowstorm and thus picked me up early. The roads weren't too bad on the way home, but traffic was some of the worst we'd seen, even--and especially--in the seemingly empty stretches of Wisconsin around the Dells. It ended up taking us around eight and a half hours to get home to (also snowy) Minneapolis.

But now here I am. I ate an entire pizza and a tangerine, and still feel slightly hungry but entirely uninspired to do the things that need doing, which include completing my work for the online course, writing an abstract for a conference paper, drafting another conference paper to submit to my writing group, and getting rid of the occupied mousetrap I discovered under my sink upon returning (I caught my first last Saturday: sigh). The deadline for the first three things is tomorrow. I would far rather curl up in bed and sleep.

Unproductive

As I mentioned, I am loving Love in the Time of Cholera. Yesterday, this passage made me laugh out loud:

Dr. Urbino was reluctant to confess his hatred of animals, which he disguised with all kinds of scientific inventions and philosophical pretexts that convinced many, but not his wife. He said that people who loved them to excess were capable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws were simply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ." (Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera, p. 21)

Today, another passage made me cry.

So far today, I've done very little other than sleeping way too late; making C's apple pancake with a bag of inherited Granny Smith apples*; eating the pancake; baking bread; running four miles (in the cold--by the end, it was starting to snow); and a tiny bit of reading. I've been in my pajamas since the long, hot shower I took after running and eating, and now all three things--plus the fact that I should be writing a biographical statement, and putting the finishing touches on the project proposal, for a grant--are just making me sleepy and uninspired. Maybe I'll study some French, since I also need to finally take that exam. (I searched my blog just now for "French," so that I could provide a link that mentioned this correspondence French class I've been enrolled in since October of 2007, though I finished the coursework while I was in California this summer, and discovered a passel of procrastiblogs. I am SO PREDICTABLE.)

Okay. French studying it is, then. I think I'll schedule the exam for... next Friday. Yes. Hopefully having a firm deadline will improve my productivity.

*Which did, actually take me quite a bit of time, as I peeled, cored, and sliced all the apples (smaller than baseballs) by hand. I missed Teri's peeler-corer-slicer!

Accounting

Internets, I haven't forgotten you. I've just had a hard time trying to figure out how to post about everything that's happened in the past two weeks. I got behind, and now it's a bit overwhelming.

Last Friday, I drove to Lincoln for the weekend (I couldn't blog about it beforehand because we were surprising Teri!). I came back on Wednesday, just hours before Heather (and V.) flew out from Walla Walla to visit me here. She flew home on Monday, after many adventures.

Since, I've been doing more running and biking and having a few more adventures, although, for better or worse, that still hasn't included much actual work. Last night I went to hear a friend of a friend's band play, and another friend asked, "Aren't you supposed to be staying home and writing your dissertation--?"

Probably.

Right now I need to grade some papers before tomorrow's class. But you can expect more stories (and pictures!) soon.

Anniversary

One year ago today, I was pedaling to a Fringe show when I experienced an unexpected change of plans. The short version of the story is that I crashed my borrowed bike (it was fine!), split open my chin and broke a tooth (I was lucky!), and got my first stitches (seven!).

Today, in honor of that anniversary, I've posted a gallery of the pictures I took in the following few days, as well as a few of my chin today. You do not have to look at those pictures! Most of them aren't bad... but I was kind of fascinated by the stitches in my chin, so consider yourselves warned.

So far, this year's Fringe Festival has been far superior. Despite the fact that I'm taking my exams, a friend and I have made it to four shows so far, and plan to see another one or two on Sunday. Given last year's experience (I didn't even make it to the show, but it was apparently so awful that the friends who did claim they would rather have been in the ER...), I might not even have gone this year, had I not met one of the actresses on my way home from the airport last week.

We were attempting to buy light rail tickets from the kiosks as the airport, and sort of chatting as we tried different things. When I had my ticket, I finally actually looked up at her, and realized we had the same hair. "We have the same hair!" I said. She laughed and agreed, and we chatted as we took the elevator down to the platform (both of us rolling massive suitcases); as we stood waiting for the train; and on the train until my stop. It was kind of a surreal experience, actually: not only did we have the same hair, we were almost exactly the same age, had traveled widely, were in graduate school (she was just about to start), were physically active and quite slim, and were adventurers. Talking to her, with her big blue eyes and beautiful skin, was like talking to a prettier, alternate-universe me.

Anyway, she was doing a one-woman show at Fringe, and she gave me a few of her cards, which I offered to put up in the art history department. A friend and I went Saturday night, and loved it! It was funny and engaging and not nearly as weird as some of the one-woman shows I've attended (at the last one I went to, the performer [a classmate, though not in my department!] got naked). My friend and I liked "Leaving Normal" so much that we were inspired to go to a dance show* Sunday (fantastic) and two shows yesterday, one a non-stop laugh fest performed by grown men dressed as squirrels, and one a brilliantly awkward and exquisitely strange show by a guy we'd met at the festival.

Fringe is just one more reason to love Minneapolis.

*There's a video on this page; if you're pressed for time, start at 1:44. I watched it again just now, and I totally want to go see the show again. Last night as I was entering the building to see "An Inconvenient Squirrel," I saw the male performer behind me. "You're the dancer!" I exclaimed, shaking his hand. "We loved your show!" He graciously thanked me, and I said, "Thank you!" That's how much I liked it! Enough to go inappropriately friendly on a complete stranger! Oh, wait...

Day twenty

Breakfast: Oatmeal with frozen blueberries and soy milk; gluten-free toast with sugar-free raspberry spread
Snack: Apple with peanut butter
Lunch: Mujadara; crudites with hummus; cherries
Dinner: Brown rice spaghetti with marinara; steamed broccoli; popsicle
Later: Another popsicle

People! Did you see that? Day twenty. Finally. Tomorrow this cleanse business ends. It's a bit ironic, because I've finally been feeling really good--lots of energy Sunday, yesterday, and today. However, there's no way I'm sticking with all of my current restrictions forever. It's just too hard to get enough calories!

Reason #57 why I may fail my exams

So I'm reading Anna Karenina, and loving it. I don't know if it's just the Wuthering Heights Effect* or not, but I'm always excited to crack it open when I'm eating or before bed, and would certainly much prefer to read it to whatever is on the exam bibliography for the day. I did not expect to like it this much; although several of you have recommended it, I've had some experience with Tolstoy, and happen to know he's crazy. I've read other Russians, too (including Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life, Chekhov's Three Sisters, Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, Gogol's Dead Souls, and Nabokov's Pale Fire and Lolita) and figured that the best way to get through a substantial (800 page!) novel like this one would be to contrast it with something I'd rather avoid, like the readings for my exams. I ended up really liking The Brothers Karamazov, but that occurred only after a painful slog through the first THREE QUARTERS OF IT. Anyway, 'turns out that Anna isn't a slog at all. I'm totally digging it and will write more about it later.

So this morning at breakfast, I finished my oatmeal, and wanted to both eat some more and keep reading, so I decided to make toast. When I pulled out the sugar-free blueberry jam from the fridge, I dropped it onto the tile floor and it shattered.

So I cleaned it up, and then, because jam is sticky and there were still glass particles on the floor, I swept and mopped not just the kitchen, but the entire floor, from the entry way and hallway through the living room, dining room, and kitchen.

And then, even though it was getting later and later, but because I still had toast in the toaster, I got out the sugar-free raspberry jam and ate that on my toast while I continued reading.

Then I turned on my computer because I needed to order postage for a book that was due at the Minneapolis Public Library today. After an hour of looking at blogs and news and e-mailing (which is the reason I've been trying not even to turn my laptop on until I've gotten some productive reading in), I ordered the postage.

By the time I got around to finally reading, I kind of wanted a snack. And a nap.

Today wasn't so productive. This is why I'm in trouble. I think there may be people in the world who would overcome and triumph by locking themselves in a bare room and simply forcing themselves to read, but I am not one of them. With some of the books, I've been making good, speedy, progress. With others, I feel like I'm dragging myself across the pages. Then I berate myself because time is flying and I haven't read everything.

Except Anna Karenina, that is. Unfortunately, I'll pretty sure she won't be showing up on my exams.

*I read Wuthering Heights the summer I was in Florence, between sessions, when I should have been fully immersed in Italian. Instead, I sneaked chapters of Wuthering Heights, which an American friend had left behind, and I LOVED it. I haven't revisited the book, but based on others' overwhelming impressions of it, I'm thinking my enjoyment may have had primarily to do with the context of it being my guilty pleasure.

Day seven

The end of Week One! 'Just two more to go...

Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins; almonds
Lunch: Brown rice and garbanzo soup with avocado; avocado wrap in brown rice tortilla; cantaloupe
Snack: Almonds and dates
Dinner: Vegetable curry over brown rice; soy mango smoothie*

Today my brain wasn't really functioning; I had a terrible time concentrating on How we Became Posthuman. Instead, I cooked and cleaned, which at least I could be good at.

The trouble is that books keep arriving--two more came today. I know at least one more is on its way. I feel rather overwhelmed and a bit despondent about finishing them all.

At least I get to be out here in the desert!

*I was thinking at dinner that I could call the smoothie I made a "quasi-lassi," and that got me to thinking of a particular night in Hawaii, the first time we tried to make piña coladas. We used coconut milk instead of coconut cream, and had them over the rocks since we didn't have a blender. As piña coladas, they were dreadful--too tart, and kind of clumpy--but I thought they'd taste better with a different name. I submitted the "Not-a Colada." April liked the "Maui Wowie," and Chris liked the "Honolulu Hammer." By the time April came up with the "Waikiki Why Me?" they were definitely tasting better and better.

Hawa(II)

I'm finally feeling guiltier about not blogging than about not reading for my exams, so here are the camera phone pictures from Hawaii:

The full album is here (you can leave comments on pictures!), and a few pictures from the real camera will follow; unfortunately, I left that cord in Honolulu, and don't have it yet. I also thought I had packed batteries, but didn't find them, so I used only the camera phone for the last few days we were there.

It was really a magnificent trip, and I could feel all sorts of toxins draining out of me (though it wouldn't really have been a vacation if I hadn't replaced some of them with a different sort, would it have?). As you can see from the pictures, we did a lot of lying on the beach and a lot of eating.

I tried to be a good sun-citizen, wearing my sunglasses and big hat and taking down an entire 16 ounce bottle of SPF 45 nearly single-handedly, but still managed to catch some tan (and burned a little bit snorkeling the first Saturday, though I wore a shirt and shorts out the next week). I like looking a little sun-kissed, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's just damage, and that I have too much of that as it is. Sigh.

In addition to beach-lying and eating, we did some other vacation-y stuff. We snorkeled twice at Hanauma Bay, where we saw lots of fish, including the state fish of Hawaii (the humuhumunukunukuapua'a, which April likes to call either a "statie" or "the humma humma fish"), a huge rainbow fish I could hear gnawing on the reef, and an eel. April took some underwater pictures, but I haven't seen those yet. We hiked Diamond Head, which had some fantastic views (pictures to come), but was frustratingly glutted with people. April and I had facials and massages at a tiny spa close to the apartment, where Fuki, a large Japanese man, was so focused on his work that he breathed heavily through his mouth pretty much the whole time, including when he was on top of the table ("Excuse me, excuse me") and pulled me into some of the best stretches I've ever had (one of which he enacted by slinging a towel under my jaw and rotating my head from side to side). When he first started working, he asked if I had been in an accident. I mentioned last summer's crash, but said it was probably mostly just tension. When he found out I was a PhD student, he said, "Lucky for you that I am good therapist!" Was he ever.

We did the Pearl Harbor monument and the Dole Plantation in the same day. If you go to Oahu, I think you're pretty much culturally obligated to do the former (I was there with my senior class 10 years ago, and that would have held me for life, probably), but Dole is pretty much straight-up commercial tourism. We paid to tour the garden and take the little train ride around the plantation, and then had pineapple softserve (for Chris and me) and a pineapple float (for April).

On Monday, April and I took the bus to Pearl Harbor, where we met Chris to drive farther north to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was the first time for all of us; it had been an optional activity on my class trip, but being poor and more interested in beaching, I had visited Waimanalo with friends instead. This time we got the package that included entry to the villages, an IMAX film, a luau, and the evening show. Even with Chris's substantial military-connection-discount, it was pretty expensive, and if I were to do it again, as a childless vegetarian, I would probably opt just for the evening show. It was fun seeing the demos and playing the games in the villages, and I liked the orchid leis at the luau, but the food (at least the veggie options available) wasn't very good, and I got plenty of singing and dancing at the evening show. Still, the admission goes to help support education, so I can't complain.

The next day, April and I took the bus to Kailua beach, which was quieter and cleaner than Waikiki and had better waves. The bus doesn't go quite there, and although the guidebook mentions a shuttle, I never actually saw one. We had to wander through a few residential streets to get to the park, which led to one of my favorite moments of the trip; after asking directions of a couple of guys working on a house and chatting with them momentarily, one called after us, as we turned to leave, "You guys are beautiful!" His Montreal accent, and the somewhat baffled inflection on his last word, left me giggling all day.

So, Wednesday we flew out and now I'm in the desert. My Thursday travel ended up being rather a nightmare, despite the cavalier tone of my last post; I got an e-mail a bit before I was to catch my bus that my flight to LA had been delayed, meaning I would miss my connection to Palm Springs. I called United, and they assured me that they had put me on a flight to San Francisco, that would make it to LA in time for me to make my connection to Palm Springs. However, the SFO flight was to leave 70 minutes before my LAX flight, so I grabbed my things, literally ran to the bus station, and just caught the bus. At the counter, they were very nice to me, apologized for the long trip I was about to have ('turns out, of course, it ended up being much longer than it looked at that point...), and escorted me to the front of the security line. When I arrived, panting, at my gate, I discovered that the SFO flight had been delayed 20 minutes... and, long story short, as you may have guessed, I ended up missing my connection to LAX and had to be put on a later flight. I'll spare you the weeping and gnashing of teeth, but will just say that although they did finally get me to LAX, the soonest they could book me to PSP was the next evening (sans vouchers/options for car, hotel, food, or even apologies); that my parents drove the entire way to LAX to rescue me; that my luggage didn't arrive until the next afternoon; and that I WILL NEVER FLY UNITED AIRLINES AGAIN IF I CAN HELP IT.

Anyway, now I'm in the desert. Yesterday there was a coyote in the backyard. This is the picture I got of him after I went back inside to retrieve my camera phone; he's on the other side of the fence here. I put a circle around him in case you can't see him--he's so well camouflaged that I had to study the picture at full size to find him, even though I'd taken it!

Stateside

I write from the Seattle Central Library, where rain is running down the fancy diamond-paned high-tech glass above and around me here on the 10th floor. I've read about this library, watched the excellent Ted presentation by one of its designers, looked at lots and lots of photos, and even written a short paper on it (as metaphor), but it's very exciting to actually be here in person--precipitation and all. Our brother picked my sister and me up last night after our flight back from Honolulu, and I crashed on his floor. We rode the bus into downtown together this morning, and in an hour I'll meet my aunt for lunch before catching another bus to the airport (where I was able to leave my suitcases last night).

In the meantime, I've been frantically reading blogs in an effort to avoid thinking about the reading lists for my exams. My advisor needs them, and I know I'll feel much better once I've actually submitted them, but in the meantime the task feels so daunting that I can't really face it. I'll face it soon, though, and it will be okay.

I have lots to say, though I'll have to save it for procrastination posts later. Remind me to write about...

• Hawaii! (Diamond Head, Hanauma Bay, Dole Plantation, Polynesian Cultural Center, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Kailua Beach, and more...)
• Indiana Jones and Sex and the City
  
• Television and pop culture
• Barack Obama!
• Anxiety dreams and the causes thereof

I also have lots of pictures to post, so get ready!

'Splainin'

So Alert Readers have raised some good questions recently, and since I should be working on my last paper of the semester (I have two pages!), I thought I'd go ahead and respond here.

1. What does marathon running have to do with toenail loss?
I probably blog more about my toenails than I ought to, but I guess I've never exactly explained what happens. So if you run long distances, one of the potential side effects is what they call black toenails, or runner's toenails. Well-fitting shoes can help prevent this (make sure you have a thumb-width of room in the toe box!), but some people just seem to be prone to subungual hematomas, which is the technical term for what happens when you develop a bruise under a nail. The swelling causes pressure, and sometimes the nail loosens and comes off. It's a bummer... but they do grow back.

2. What is a facial like?
I've had two now, with the same girl at the beauty college, so I can only speak from very limited experience. Mine were quite long--about an hour and 15 minutes--and I lay on my back the whole time, wrapped up in sheets and a blanket. Basically, it felt like a series of substances being applied to and then removed from my face, with a close inspection under a bright light after the initial cleansing. At one point, she applied a masque and put me under a steamer while she massaged my arms and hands. After that, the masque came off and she used an electrotherapy wand to dilate my pores before performing extractions. That hurt a LOT! Then there was another substance and more electrotherapy to re-constrict the pores and kill bacteria. She applied more substances, and finished up with some sort of pressure point massage. Other than the extractions, it was really quite pleasant; as with the massage, I felt very cared for. I did break out a little bit in the next day or two, but the spots seemed to dry up and heal very quickly. I would do these weekly if I could afford the time and money.

3. What is an iron pour?
Remember when I did this at Bowling Green? This was pretty much the same thing, only inside instead of outside, and thus much smokier! Students make molds they want to cast, and then they're all lined up and filled with molten iron (the molds, not the students...). It's very exciting; there's just something about glowing liquid metal, and the accidental sparks and spills, that I find completely irresistible.

I think that's it for the questions, but please remind me if I've missed anything. Or, you know, submit more questions. For a year in college, I actually wrote an advice column for the school paper. I like answering other people's questions.

Here are my post-pedicure toes, which are pretty happy. She seems to have rounded the corners of the nails, though, which seems like trouble. I hope it doesn't prove to be so.

Balancing

Bad: I had to give two back-to-back seminar presentations Monday afternoon.
Good: They're over! And my apartment is still clean from this weekend's stress-induced cleaning rampage.

Bad: Last night I was up late grading papers and reading/prepping for teaching today; I left the house without breakfast and ended up teaching fortified by neither food nor caffeine.
Good: I had two of the most truly enjoyable sections I can remember. We did group work, and even some role playing, but the students totally got into it and I laughed (with, not at, them) more than I may have all semester. It was fabulous.

Bad: I have to have a conference paper written by next Friday, and so far don't really have anything.
Good: I have all day tomorrow and Friday to work on it! Two whole days!

Bad: For the class I TA, students turn in 10 (ten!) papers and two take-home essay exams over the course of the semester. That's roughly 600 (six HUNDRED!) 2-3 page papers.
Good: The professor has offered to take one week of grading for both of us TAs, and this week she's taking mine!

Bad: Another snowstorm is predicted for this weekend.
Good: I'll be in L.A. this weekend!