Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry.
"A week from today we begin a brand new year
Let us all be hopeful, men & women of good cheer
And resolve to fight against stupidity and fear
It's Christmas morning
And as awful as the world can be we are still alive
And if we're very careful we might well survive
There are cures & solutions & there is compromise
Christmas morning "
(Loudon Wainwright III, "Christmas Morning")
Merry Christmas, Scott Adams. And Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Blessed Yule, Happy Festivus, and have an excellent Decemberween.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Year in Review Survey Tradition
Every year around Christmas, it is my tradition to post in my blog a recap to my year. This goes back to the days of my whiner Livejournal, and I compare them every year. This year, since I've jumped blogs, this be the place. So here we go:
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Things I Learned About Medicine From Watching House
- Medical conferences have '80s dance parties. All the doctors attend. All the doctors rent costumes.
- Many low-grade ailments can probably be cured with the judicious application of swishy blond hair, a dreamy Australian accent, and blue eyes that can melt butter at 50 paces.
- It is accepted practice to do the medical equivalent of throwing darts-- don't know what the hell he's got? Start him on Atropine, Prednisone, Ativan, Vioprin, dialysis, chemo, and abrade his marrow. Something's gotta work, right?
- Nobody ever has only one disease, injury, or rare genetic condition at once. There are always at least two and usually more. One of them is probably sarcoidosis.
- Order as many PET scans as you want. It's not like we pay for those things.
- There is actually such a thing as a "Department of Diagnostic Medicine." Because they don't diagnose people anywhere else in the hospital
- It is possible to be a world-famous diagnostician, famous enough that all your bad behavior gets swept under the rug, without giving a single TV interview, publishing a single paper, or writing a single book.
- Diagnostics-related breaking and entering is not only not criminal, it's virtually undetectable.
- The five million people worldwide who have lupus are all fucking liars.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Happy Avatarsery To Me!
Two years ago today, I handed Andy an envelope with
WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME? CIRCLE ONE:
YES NO ASTRONAUT
written on the front. Andy handed it back to me with both YES and ASTRONAUT circled. This was, obviously, the right answer. Happy anniversary, First Mate.
In celebration, he and I went to see Avatar. You, also, should put down your mouse and go to the nearest theater and go see Avatar because yea verily, it is fucking rad. The graphics are... unghhhhOHMYGOD. Scintillating. Exquisite. I'm having a nerdgasm right now just thinking about it. The plot has been characterized as Fern Gully with guns. Yeah, kind of. So? Fern Gully was a good movie, even with Robin Williams rapping in it. Guns just make it better. The point is that humans are dicks and THE GRAPHICS ARE AMAZING GO SEE IT RIGHT NOW GO GO GO GO GO!
...I will wait here for you.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Where Have All The Twentysomethings Gone?
Now that my Week from Hell is over, I can luxuriate in two weeks off of both of my jobs. Two weeks to be the person I really am-- not the exhausted, officious, sanitized, artificially perky version required at work. Two weeks to remember that I am, in fact, not as old as I always feel. (Between spending the majority of my time with people who consider Wayne's World "some really old movie" and being too tired to go out when I'm done with work, it gets easy to sink into the students' mindset that I am some ageless creature who disappears into a file cabinet when my supervising presence is not required.) Two weeks where people will address me by my real name. I didn't realize how big of a deal this was until I discovered upon reflection that I'd gone weeks without hearing my first name without "Miss" in front of it.
Naturally, I'm celebrating this by sleeping in and eating fudge. So much fudge that I have a headache now. Who knew fudge hangovers were possible?
On Wednesday, I began my celebrations a few days early by going to hang out with one of my friends who's still in undergrad. He's a lovely fellow who I hadn't seen in a while, and he was having a few people over, so I figured I'd drop by. This is when I realized that if you are heading into your mid-to-late twenties and looking to feel interesting and relevant, hanging out with undergrads is not going to help you much. As the evening began, my friend proposed that we go pick up some drinks to bring back to his place. Another of his guests asked "Am I the only one who's not underage?" I raised my hand. "Oh," she asked, "you're 21 too?" Sheepishly, I corrected her. Judging from the faces of my companions, it seems that "twenty-five" must be some newfangled college slang for "must have gotten lost on the way to Bingo Night at the VFW hall." Kids these days. (The evening's conversation generally revolved around finals, their diet's conspicuous lack of real food, and "that one time when I was so drunk." I mostly sat in the corner smiling indulgently, rather like a den mother. Then I ducked out early because I had work in the morning.)
The incident recalled my consternation a week before, when I was looking for something to wear to a wedding. Weddings are hard to dress for to begin with, especially winter weddings, but I didn't think my request was that unreasonable. I just wanted something warm and reasonably classy that wouldn't make me look like a slut or a Golden Girl. In the places I can afford to shop, collections are generally grouped into "Juniors," "Misses," and "Women's." I am not entirely sure where I am supposed to fall on that spectrum, so I started in the Juniors department.
It was immediately clear that I was looking in the wrong place. Anyone who is old enough, even barely old enough, to remember the '80s the first time around should know better than to wear any of the things I found in the Juniors department. Did we all forget that leggings, tapered acid-wash jeans, and puffy satin sleeves are, in fact, really hideous and unflattering? After a cursory browse revealed nothing that wouldn't make me look like an extra in Heathers, I moved on to Women's. I expected sweatshirts with teddy bears, pleated mom jeans, and necklines that revealed little or no neck from Women's, and that is exactly what I found.
Then I moved on to Misses, which I had figured would be my best bet-- not as ridiculous as Juniors, but more flattering and figure-conscious than Women's. What it turned out to be was... gray. Everything was gray. Gray button-down blouses, gray creased pants, voluminous gray turtleneck sweaters. Here and there would be a black or turquoise accent. What's more, everything seemed to be designed for Maria von Trapp-- expandable to fit several plump Austrian children inside with relative secrecy. Is this what women my age are supposed to wear? I couldn't even find a little black dress. (Although I did find a large gray one.) Most of Misses was exactly like Women's, except with fewer bright colors and fewer shoulderpads.
So it appears that I fall into a gap both in fashion and in function. I am too old to be fun, but not yet old enough to be consequential. I never meet anyone my own age. How long does this last? Because I kind of want to hurry up and turn thirty already.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
All Teenagers' Internal Monologue Is Written By John Hughes
I've been somewhat remiss in my blogging lately. I'm sorry- I've been having a really horrible week. And by "horrible," I mean "full of depressing reminders of how little I get paid and how much disrespect I put up with." Occasionally, I really love my job. I love explaining things, and I love the bright, hungry look on a student's face when he or she finally gets it. Lately, though, there's been less of that and more insulting sass from teenagers who think they're being clever. I know I shouldn't let it get to me, but sometimes it's hard to stomach.
The thing is, that is their job. It is all high school students' first task to be jerks while they're young and get it out of their system. This is the developmental stage where they are learning how to be in the world and function within a society, and they just haven't learned how to temper their self-centeredness with social responsibility. That's what this time is for. When I hear bright students complaining about how pointless high school is, how much busywork they have to do, I'm always a little frustrated because, truthfully, that's not the point. The most important thing you learn in high school is how to deal with people. Successful social interaction is like riding a bike-- you fall off a lot before you get it right. It's better to have those early awkward attempts be in a place where very little of what you do will follow you into later life. Hence high school. It seems like an unrealistic social setting while you're there, but the farther I get out of high school the more I realize that the rest of the world is still exactly like that. Well, except for college. College is like a greenhouse in Iceland-- a completely artificial environment that stimulates all sorts of growth and creative fruit, but which bears no relation to the world outside at all. Most of the stuff there can't even survive outside of it. Like, I know a student who spent weeks sitting in the middle of an amphitheater typing the same haiku on a typewriter while mandalas were projected around her. Genius? Possibly. Transferable skill? Hell no.
Next year, though, I'm going to stick with kindergartners. They're more mature and have more remorse when I catch them doing something wrong. And they let me finger-paint.
Scott Adams, what were you like in high school?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Twilight for Beginners
I have a student who's really into reading. He's one of those shy, quiet guys who always looks surly, and he scarcely said two words to me until I happened to ask what he liked to read. A huge smile lit up his face and he immediately wrote me four pages of book recommendations. Over the semester he blossomed into a sweet, talkative kid who's always discussing literature with me in the hallways. It's one of those teaching success stories that keeps me going-- but for one little detail. The book that got him out of his shell? Twilight.
This is all the proof I need that I am really good at my job: In order to have something to talk about with this guy, I actually forced myself to read the entire Twilight saga.
If you've never read the Twilight series, I envy you. Just in case you are ever in a similar situation, though, allow me to summarize it for you:
1. Glamorous, sparkly vampire with A Dark Past and A Monstrous Ego meets wholly uninteresting self-absorbed teenage girl. For some reason, Edward Cullen decides that Bella Swan is his Twu Wuv, despite the fact that her shining accomplishments to date are managing not to walk into traffic or swallow her own tongue.
2. Edward, who has decided that the best way to show his Twu Wuv is through psychological abuse, is alternately distant and smothering. Bella remains wholly uninteresting, but for some reason this nets her another superhuman suitor. (What, is white-bread teen wangst like Spanish Fly to these creatures?) Werewolf Jacob is as badass as Edward would be if he weren't busy being such a huge pussy all the time. The two of them snarl at each other and get all shirtless and pouty. Bella, meanwhile, realizes she's too boring to live and does things like piss off vampires and jump off cliffs and confront elite undead overlords.
3. A whole bunch of bullshit teen drama goes here which I totally didn't care about because I was hoping that the rest of the series would be about the elite clan of undead overlords who are way more noteworthy than any of the main characters.
4. Bella complains that for what she's putting up with she should at least be getting some hot vampire nookie. So there's a huge wedding and a vampire baby, because Stephenie Meyer is Mormon.
5. Bella becomes a vampire and is actually less interesting as a result, because she has twice as much time to spend fawning over her brooding hubby and blood-sucking offspring. Jacob the werewolf relinquishes all his badassery by falling in love with a three-day-old child. Yeah, really.
5. The undead overlords threaten war with the Cullen clan, because... oh, who cares? Finally, some kickass vampire battles! A whole bunch of previously unmentioned characters show up with a whole bunch of previously unmentioned powers. Tantalizing glimpses of action presage a cataclysmic vampire/werewolf apocalypse. It looks as though the series might actually become mildly diverting.
6. About a million billion supernatural creatures assemble on the field, poised to rip each other's lungs out. Immediately before widespread carnage is unleashed... the key players decide to resolve their differences with a pat on the back and a "Can't we all just get along?" and they go their separate ways, leaving me with a serious case of vampire/werewolf-apocalypse blue balls.
That's basically all you need to know, in 2,999.5 fewer pages than it took La Meyer to lay it out.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Saturday Culture Infusion: Translating Rimbaud for Emily
My littlest sister and I were talking about poetry, and I mentioned Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud is my favorite figure in French modernist poetry-- an enfant terrible of equal parts genius, badass, and douchebag. Some background: Rimbaud was a decadent, a libertine, a blazing talent who burned himself out and died young. Even at fifteen he was writing brilliant poetry. He ran away from home, drank like a fish, lived in a commune, and had a torrid relationship with Paul Verlaine, another poet. Rimbaud and Verlaine lived in poverty and fought like dogs, and the relationship ended when Verlaine, in a fit of suicidal despair, shot Rimbaud twice in the arm and was sent to prison.
He stopped writing at the height of his career, giving it up completely at twenty-one. He enlisted in the army, deserted, and wandered across Europe on foot. He lived in Java and in Africa, holding jobs here and there and taking mistresses, eventually ending up as a coffee and weapons merchant in Ethiopia. At thirty-six he developed an excruciatingly painful cancer and was carried back to France in a special wagon. He died at thirty-seven.
Here are two of my favorite poems of his, in my own translation (with some phrases cribbed from other translators):
Black A, white E, red I, green U, blue O: vowels,
I will tell one day of your secret births
A, black hairy corset of brilliant flies
Which buzz around cruel stenches,
Gulfs of shadow; E, blankness of vapors and of tents
Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cowslips;
I, crimsons, spit blood, laugh of beautiful lips
In anger or in ecstasies of penitence;
U, cycles, divine vibrations of viridian seas,
The peace of pastures scattered with animals, the peace of wrinkles
That alchemy imprints upon broad studious brows;
O, supreme Clarion full of strange stridencies,
Silences traversed by worlds and angels,
O, Omega! Violet ray of Her Eyes!
Infinity rolled white from the nape of your neck to the small of your back
The sea broke russet at your ruby nipples
And Man bled black at your sovereign side.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Breakfast Only Comes In EPIC
A brief glimpse of typical life chez Galasso-Seleen:
Andy suggested that we begin annotating our grocery lists to make them more amusing. Next time we go shopping, we are to acquire:
- Bisquick, the gift of the gods of Pancake and Biscuit
- Erdnussbutter, the spread of life
- COFFEE, upon which caffeinated river all commerce in the universe must depend
- Grape Jelly, the preserves of happiness
- Cold Cereal, DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM OF A THOUSAND WORLDS
- Parmesan Cheese (
w/cellulose), the once and future condiment.
I know Scott Adams does, anyhow. He probably cries himself to sleep at night in envy of our disgusting geek love.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
CUNT. James CUNT. or: Two Topics That Have Nothing To Do With Each Other
First, a trip report on my Vagina Monologues audition:
I got to yell "CUNT" at the top of my lungs in a library.
All right, the real trip report: And I had a great time doing it, too. I hate auditions normally, and so I expected to be entirely flummoxed to find that not only did I have to audition, I also had to fake an orgasm during an audition. I gave myself the little pep talk I usually do in such situations. All right, Susan. You can do this timidly and it will suck, or you could do this to the hilt. It may still suck, but at least it will suck enthusiastically. So I did it to the hilt, and you know, it didn't suck. At least, not in my opinion, and as I'm not particularly invested in this venture (as I said before) my opinion is the only one that counts.
And now to this installment of the Figure Five Home Game: Cast The Next Bond Girl.
This came about as a result of tomorrow's Date Night, which will include at least one Bond movie and possibly two (A View to a Kill and Quantum of Solace, the latter because Andy hasn't seen it and the former because Christopher Walken is the villain.) I haven't seen very many Bond movies (only the newer ones). Of the films I've seen, Eva Green as Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale is my favorite Bond girl-- smart, gorgeous, and (for a change) well-written. This is, of course, if you don't count Dame Judi Dench as M. Dame Judi Dench is my favorite everything, ever. It is my goal to lead such a life that she would be able to play me in the movie.
After discussing previous Bond girls, Andy and I got onto the topic of who our ideal future Bond girl would be. I suggested Rosario Dawson or Jennifer Connelly, and Andy mentioned Rachel Weisz. Some other contenders didn't quite make the cut. Cate Blanchett and Uma Thurman disqualify themselves by being more badass than Bond (in my opinion; there is some dissension in the ranks), and Catherine Zeta-Jones was already a fake Bond girl in Entrapment, so she doesn't count. I think that 007 should branch out into redheads more often, so I originally named Bryce Dallas Howard, but on second thought, she seems too fragile and pouty to pull off the Bond-girl mystique. Dita Von Teese is damn near my hero, and she's got the edge, but I don't know if she has ever acted with clothes on. Acting ability is not necessarily a high priority for Bond girls, but her public image is kind of one-dimensional. I pick her as the secondary love interest who has a brief fling with 007 early in the film, but then turns out to be a villainess and is dispatched in some suitably ironic way. (Like Rosamund Pike, who was stabbed through her copy of The Art of War in Die Another Day.)
What makes a Bond girl? Well, being ridiculously gorgeous, of course, but with that particular vaguely-exotic, so-effortless-it's-actually-kind-of-insulting glamour. She has to have spunk and smarts, but not enough that she's reluctant to sleep with a self-centered player who's always getting her shot or stabbed or kidnapped and who's probably had a go with every venereal disease in the British Isles. She's got to have grit and fortitude (cf. shot, stabbed, kidnapped) and she should probably have at least one dirty secret. Most of all, though, she's got to have the presence. Bond girls are intoxicating. Their attitude would seduce you even if they were wearing a giant paper bag on their head. So, Home Gamers, who do you think is Bond-girl material?
Wait. No. Tell the long line of hopefuls we're not auditioning anymore. Scott Adams is our new leading lady.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
A Whole Slew of Projects
I posted my project yesterday, and I'm still planning on following through. I'm excited. My usual performance anxiety is decreased by the fact that it doesn't really matter to me whether I get in or not. I haven't got my heart set on it, so it wouldn't bother me not to be cast. It's going to be fun to audition, and I'll meet some great people (by all accounts.) It's really refreshing to have a project on which I haven't pinned any crushable hope. Generally, I'm so emotionally invested in most of my ideas and plans that I shy away from following through on them, in the event that they fail and I get all sad and mopey.
I feel I should mention the rousing success of my last completed project (the duet.) I got rave reviews at both concerts this weekend, and our choir's researcher/orator, a former professional vocalist, encouraged me to look into a singing career. After I got done doing the giggly *squeee* dance, I reasoned that although I don't know if I want to try to break into such a competitive field, I really ought to be doing much more singing.
This segues nicely into a list of projects I want to undertake, possibly using this blog as a medium for accountability and trip reports.
- Put together a combo and do some jazz or lounge singing. Possibly in a jazz lounge.
- Explore Baroque and Renaissance repertoire, which fits beautifully with my voice. Possibly start lessons up again. Eventually look for some singing gigs.
- Get back into community theater, musical or otherwise.
- Volunteer at the Independent Media Center.
- Write a letter to the editor, because I've always wanted to.
- Find a professor who is doing research that inspires me and write to them. (This is also a crucial part of my grad school quest.)
- Refine the collaborative story that my friend Jessa and I wrote and assemble it into a chapbook. Possibly illustrate it.
- Draw more of the several comic strips I've worked on. (Ducks of War you all have seen. My other projects include House Quotes, which is a semi-autobiographical strip chronicling the stupid things we say at casa Galasso-Seleen, and another collaborative project with Jessa about her characters Hart and Mandy.)
- Relearn how to use the sewing machine I inherited from my mother.
Hey, Scott Adams! Feel like becoming a patron of the arts? I could knit you a pointy-haired hat or a binder cozy!
Monday, December 07, 2009
Monday is the New Tuesday
Remember how I said I was going to stop assigning myself projects until I could handle them? That's one of those things that I say knowing I don't mean it, kind of like "I'm going to be more productive this year" and "I swear to God I will never drink again." I got an e-mail about cold readings for the campus production of the Vagina Monologues today. I love the show, and although I haven't been onstage for years, I secretly miss it.
"Andy," I asked, "I'd be crazy to add another activity, right?" Knowing something was up, he asked what activity. "Talk me out of auditioning for the Vagina Monologues," I said.
"Actually, I think you should go for it," he replied.
One reason I love my first mate so much is that he realizes that half of the time I ask to be talked out of something, I'm really waiting for someone to talk me into it. He reserves the right to talk me back out if I can't handle the schedule, but as it stands, I have an audition on Wednesday or Thursday. Wish me luck and judgment, people. God knows I naturally lack both of them.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
CBP, continued.
I'm back, after two successful concerts and a headache, to finish what I started on Friday-- namely, talking about why the Conservative Bible Project makes my head explode. (Maybe that's where the headache came from.) In case you missed the first installment, I'm referring to Andy Schlafly of Conservapedia's plan to re-translate the Bible in the image of his conservative ideals. So what might a more conservative Bible look like? Its first stated goal is to remove the "liberal bias, which has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations." Their list of methods includes not emasculating the Bible (i.e. removing gender-inclusive terms and adding back in mentions of the unborn, which apparently has some relation to emasculation), combating addiction by using "gamble" rather than "cast lots", including "free market parables" (which ones?), and "accepting the logic of Hell"
The thing about this project that irks me the most, however, is their two examples of liberal fabrications--- the story of the adulteress Jesus saved from stoning and his words on the cross. According to the CBP, the adulteress story is a late addition to the Bible (as is most of the Bible, technically). You may remember this story from the line "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Apparently, this is a problem. "Why is the emphasis on this passage increasing? The answer lies in its liberal message: do not criticize or punish immoral conduct unless you are perfect yourself. Liberals cite this passage to oppose the death penalty, a misuse that has been criticized." Even then I can see where they may be coming from, but the last example takes the cake for me.
The Gospel of Luke states that as Jesus hung on the cross, he said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Bullshit, says the CBP. This contradicts the idea that there is no forgiveness without repentance, which is, they say, a basic tenet of Christianity. This passage is, as far as I am concerned, at the heart of the Christian mystery, partly because you don't need to believe the doctrine to appreciate it. That a man could have such love and mercy for his fellow men that even as they murder him, he intercedes for them-- whether he is the Son of God or not, that's behavior worth emulating. CBP, by removing these passages from the Bible, you remove the mercy, the compassion, the hope. Is that what Jesus would do?
Oh, and I don't know. SCOTT ADAMS, I guess.
Friday, December 04, 2009
It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Wednesdaaaay...
...Because everything makes me raaage!
From my landlord's bumper sticker that says "Limbaugh 2012!"
To the fact that no one pays a living waaaage!
It's beginning to look a lot like Wednesdaaaaaaay!
Soon, the rant will start
And the first thing I have to say
Is if you get in my way
I will eeeeat your heaaaaart!
Sorry, this blog is not called "Singalong with Silent Five*"; I promised myself I'd deliver some actual content tonight. (Un)luckily enough, every day is WTF Wednesday these days!
This week, my rage stems from the American Conservative movement (where else?) Now, conservative objections to popular media are nothing new. Neither are their attempts to create sanitized, "family friendly" versions for their own consumption (cf. Conservapedia, Clearplay, "alternative Halloween parties," and Branson, Missouri.) So a conservative edit of a piece of popular literature that's just chock-full of corruption, sex, murder, incest, sodomy, hippie radicals, disrespect for authority, and socialism shouldn't be a surprise.
Except it's the Bible.
Yeah. For real. A text which still includes lines like "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18) and "...women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says, If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church" (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) is not conservative enough for some people. Go figure.
I'll go more into this in the second half of my post tomorrow, but tonight I'm going to retire. I've drunk a delicious thing which I call an Eve's Temptation, and it's making me feel warm and sleepy.
Merry Wednesday to all** and to all** a good night!
*Although maybe it should be.
** By which I mean Scott Adams.
Labels: singalong, WTF Wednesday
Thursday, December 03, 2009
This Is Why This Entry Is So Short.
Toshi must not like having songs written about him, because now he's not working.
*facepalm*
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Two Little Songs About Toshi
Because I told you I'd occasionally write down my little songs. Didn't I? Didn't I tell you? Oh, I thought I told you.
(To "My Bologna Has A First Name")
My computer has a first name
It's T-O-S-H-I
We stay awake till midnight pwning n00bs and eating pie
I use my Toshi every day
And if you ask me why I'll say
"The intertubes all route my way
With T-O-S-H-I-B-A!"
And another, just because I love you all that much.
(To the "Flipper" theme)
We call him Toshi! Toshi!
Faster than liiiiiiiiiiiiightniiiing!
A silver and red
Extension of my head!
And we know Toshi, Toshi,
Opens a world full of won-DEEEEERRRRR!
Charging there un-DEEEERRRR!
Under my bed!
Labels: singalong
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Yes, Christina...
I will keep blogging! And I will begin by postponing Trip Report Tuesday indefinitely, or at least until my real life stops being so full that adding projects would make me go crazy. I will say that I did some more work on the Rasputin Sock, but like its evil Russian namesake, it just won't die. The four days I spent at my mother's were wonderful and rejuvenating, mostly because I allowed myself not to do anything, including work on that sock. It was bliss, and it makes this week seem even worse by comparison. I didn't update at my mother's because I didn't have access to a computer, and I feel too overwhelmed by the idea of playing catch-up to write the extra entries now, so I'll have to deal with an incomplete November. I've internalized the daily schedule to the point that it annoys me when I don't have time to blog, even if I don't have anything to say. I guess that's one thing this blog has already helped me clarify about my life-- I can't do ten-hour workdays without becoming frazzled and whiny and neglecting the things and people I care about. After this year, I quit.
I'm considering quitting at the semester, even. There's a lot of turnover in the after-school program that is my second job, and nobody would be all that surprised. The thing that keeps me there is the kids. I love my kindergartners, and I don't want to explain to them that I'm not coming back. Also, I'm good at my job. I have consistently garnered great performance reviews (they make you do performance reviews every two weeks there, another reason I'm so keen to leave) and all the kids are fond of me and love my fun and creative lessons. Then again, I do tend to talk myself into staying in situations I don't enjoy because I feel like I'm needed there. This is, among other things, pretty egotistical. I'm sure the program would not cease to function if I left.
Interwebs, I put it to you. If it were you, would you leave the job? The money is nice, but not absolutely vital to my lifestyle. How do you weigh quality of life against extra cash for the move this summer?
The extra cash was, at least nominally, to save up for the new laptop, which I have now actually acquired. In fact, as we speak it's upsetting my cat by usurping his place on my lap. It's shiny and new and I've named it Toshi. My previous round of electronics was named after Shakespeare characters, and so I shouldn't have been surprised when they all died tragic and dramatically appropriate deaths. This round is going to get Japanese names, which will hopefully lead to them being way more technologically sound than I am.
And that's all the blog that's fit to blog right now. The Silent Top Five and the Word of the Week are off this week, but I'm interested to know if people miss them. Should I continue?
Scott Adams, your vote counts double in both these informal polls.