Daydream Believer

Here’s the thing.  When the new American Gladiators aired a few months ago for its first season, I was seriously so freaking excited.  Anyone who watched it with me saw it, and anyone who knows me probably heard about it.  I was really into it, in part because of nostalgia, obviously; my sister and I would watch the original show all the time when we were kids, and it was fun to have something familiar but still new on the air.  But I also really liked the gladiators themselves and the showman-like quality of many of them.  And I liked the Hulk and his funny hand gestures and most likely fake hair peeking out from under his head scarf thing.  I’d get all excited and squealy during the episodes - me and American Gladiators was like other people and sports.  At least kind of.

But this season, I feel less into it.  I’m not sure why, even.  I like some of the new gladiators and some of the new challenges.  I like the new eliminator.  The Hulk is still hilariously awesome-ish.  What could possibly have changed?  Really I think it’s the novelty of it all.  I was thinking about all of this this morning and I realized that there is one big difference between how I watched AG when I was a kid and how I watch it now.  When I was a kid, we just put it on if we came across it while flipping channels.  Now, we make it an event to sit down and watch American Gladiators.  That’s the key.  At heart, AG is a silly show that you can have on while you fold laundry or something.  And its something that will definitely fill the needs of a 7-year-old on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  But is it straight-through watchable for an adult audience who is accustomed to complex plots or, at the very least, clever humor?  Probably not for more than a season or two.

So, it’s a little sad.   But, also, I watch so much freaking TV that it would not be a bad thing to become less committed to a few of them.  But, as the current season continues on, will I still watch every week?  Of course.   I’m not totally over it just yet.

Or, as Jessi would put it, “Not Dead.”

We’re going to give this whole update-your-blog thing a try once more.  It was all well and good when I was living alone in Virginia with no social life and a powerful desire/need to procrastinate on my research, but then I came home and had real people to spend time with, who I could just TELL things to instead of typing them into the great void that is the Internets.  But, after some consideration, and an impassioned plea from Rich, I decided to try this out again.  It might not work.  I might poop out on it, but for now, we’ll see how it goes.

The newest thing to happen in my life of course is that I just spilled coffee down the front of my shirt.  Thank goodness I’m still in PJ’s.  The next newest thing to happen to me is that Grant and I found an apartment in Oak Park, so we’ll be moving in together sometime around July.  This is very exciting, but also kind of strange, because I’ve never lived with someone in the romantic sense.  Also, I have no idea how living in Oak Park will affect the frequency with which we see friends, and the relationships we have with our parents.  I predict former remains fairly steady while the latter will improve with distance.  Plus, I think I’m secretly hoping that others who would like Oak Park might also move.  Hint.

Slightly less newer is the fact that Grant has a job downtown, which means that the tables have turned.  Whereas he would always be the one who could hang out earlier than me, who had to wait for me to get out of work (and sometimes didn’t wait), now I am the one who gets home before him.  I wish our schedules were more in sync, but I figure once the speech season starts at the high school, I’ll be getting home much later, so what does it really matter?

Even more slightly older than that is the news that my computer is possessed.  Well, ok, that’s not true.  But what is happening is that something is wrong with the power source - like, the little jack that my power cord plugs into.  I think.  I don’t know.  My screen flickers pretty frequently and pretty drastically.  It always does a major flicker when you move from being plugged in to running on batteries, but it does that like all the time now.  And my little Battery Widget will indicate power/no power/power/no power…../ok, power agai/NOPE NO POWER!!! over and over like the jack isn’t connecting correctly to the cord.  I tried substituting the power cord from my work computer, which lessened the issue but did not completely eradicate it.  I should call Dell, but I’m lazy and unsure of when/where I should have them come out to fix the thing.  So right now I’m just putting up with it, but I am a bit concerned that it will eventually give me seizures.  Hmm.

I think that’s the majority of the news in my personal life right now.  I’m debating the merits of talking about work here, and I think in general I’ll have to avoid it, because any of the really good stories or whatever that I could tell would make it pretty easy for some random reader to find out where i work, and that’s something that I’m not sure would be a good idea.  Not that I write about anything scandalous or anything.  But still.  Peace out!

So, back when I was in VA I submitted a quote to Overheard in the Office, and I just got an e-mail saying that it was published today.

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/004711.html

Yay! 10 out of 10 people so far have voted this quote “alsome.” w00t! 

To take a cue from one JessiPepsi, I am not dead.  Apologies for going away for so long.  But this happens every time I come home for long breaks, so no one should really be surprised, right? 

Things have been busy as heck.  I work 2 part time jobs these days - one as an educator for a prestigious non-profit organization, and the other as a waitress.  Ugh.  Juggling 2 jobs is not what I would call fun.  In fact, its freakishly harder than i thought it would be.  If you work long hours at one job, the other job could care less, and they’re not going  to be at all flexible or sympathetic to your plight. :)   So, its a real battle to make sure I can get everything done without killing myself.  So far, I have had moderate success.  Though not dead, I have a killer shoulder ache, and possible carpel tunnel developing, I am unsure.  It is a little depressing to have a Master’s Degree and be going through this kind of crap.  I ran into an old friend yesterday, and he asked, “So how does it feel to have your Masters?”  I thought for a minute, and replied, “Well, considering it took two years and a lot of debt to get it, and I’m making less money than I did before i went to grad school, it feels not so great!”  But that’s the glib answer.  In reality, I know that it will pay off in the long run, and I’m glad I got the degree because I got it for me, and not for any kind of career/salary agenda. So it feels good.  But at the same time, it kind of sucks.

Anyway, life is good otherwise.  Lots of weddings this summer!  I’ve already saved almost all the money i need for me and grant’s trip to Seattle, and I am SO pumped that I will finally get to see that city!!  We have planned our itinerary and everything - it’ll be great!

So that’s it for now.  More details to come.  But for now, NotDead.

So, some of you might be aware of LOLCats or Cat Micros, which are funny pictures of cats with bad grammar phrases. They’re freaking hilarious. Even more hilarious is the site somebody made of a Star Trek Tribble episode in LOLCat format. This is pure gold.

EDIT:  Did you guys catch the Settlers of Catan joke in there?!?  I just caught it now, my 3rd time reading the thing.  Go check it out!

Anyone who enjoys hilarity needs to check out my friend Jason’s blog, Super Awesome Carnival Bears.  I’m giving him a personal blog shout-out because it is that good.  My recommendations:  read his blog and the tab “Jason VS.”  Classic laugh-out-loud kind of stuff.  Best part is, the stories are all true.  Amazingly, sadly, true.

Good Job, Jason!

So, Wednesday is my thesis defense. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it, but this is, essentially, the most important day of my graduate career. So, you know, it’s a little thing. I am putting together some notes for tomorrow, but in the meantime, here is what the day, in its entirety, will consist of:

7 a.m. EDT: Wake up; shower and put on nice clothes.

9 a.m.: Leave the apartment, buy snacks at grocery store for committee members.

10 a.m.: Begin defense, which will last roughly an hour and a half.

12 noon: Defense definitely done by now - several options exist and are equally plausible:

- leave the building elated and feeling super good; call Grant and parents.

- leave the building stressed and “over it” but thankful it’s done; call Grant.

- leave the building ready to cry and feeling more stressed out than ever; go to car and sulk.

- do not leave the building at all, instead run to nearest bathroom and cry and debate entire decision to go to grad school in the first place.

12:15 p.m.: Buy lunch, most likely unhealthy; if feeling happy, tell self I earned this indulgence; if feeling miserable, tell self I deserve this indulgence, those bastards.

1 p.m.: Get Manicure and Pedicure at local spa; listen to iPod playlist “Sad” or playlist “Road Trip!” depending on above variables.

3 p.m.: If sad or stressed, buy wine. Or tequila. Or both. If happy, buy scratch-off lotto ticket.

4 p.m.: Watch 2 hours of Star Trek Voyager on Spike TV, most likely followed by several reruns of CSI. Continue to debate self about whether CSI is actually a good show or not, then remember that I already watch a ton of TV that is not by any means “good” (see, for example, The Bachelor) and thus shouldn’t care about one more stupid show.

? p.m: Fall asleep with TV on.

9 p.m.: Scold self for being that lame (again) and make dinner.

10 p.m.: Realize I haven’t packed to go home yet; curse self for not making a To-Pack list like usual.

12 midnight: Watch Fraiser.

1 a.m.: Watch The Golden Girls. Hope to not have another dream where Dorothy and I go shopping together.

? a.m.: Bedtime.

1. I think my roommate ate the last of my Strawberry Jelly.  Which means instead of a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich like I was PLANNING to have - which was to be my reward for finishing my paper early this morning - I had to have a toasted peanut butter and blackberry preserves sandwhich.  Homemade preserves, so not as sweet.  Plus, lots of hard little seeds.  Dammit.

2. Guys doing some cable repairs outside my window laughing and talking so loud I seriously thought they were inside my apartment.

3.  I was late to class today.  I walked to campus today and apparently,  I do not walk as fast in flip flops as I do in tennis shoes.

4. Media are still around campus, here and there.  I only saw one crew though.

5. People in class who just sit there and offer no topics of discussion in a discussion-based seminar.  Do Darren, Joan, Marcy and I have to carry the whole class?

6. Apparently the dress I’m wearing today makes me look “like I just got back from Malibu.”  I don’t know if this comment so much irked me as made me think to myself, “huh?”

7. My roommate just keeps singing and singing.  Loudly.

But the good news is that I taped two episodes of Star Trek Voyager, and I am about to watch them.  HIMYM is a repeat again, but Heroes is new.  I plan to tape it and watch it later tonight, though, after the Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman.  It has to be the most ridiculous show on television, and the girls are so crazy and the guy is so sappy that it’s like a train wreck every week that I can’t turn away from.  So awesome.  It’s Heroes’ hiatus’ fault that I started watching this crap, but its soooo fun to laugh at these people that I figure I’ll just go with it.  So the moral of the story: yay TV tonight.  (I also have 2 Planet Earths to watch.  Guess that will be tomorrow…)