a short list of random

We're supposed to fill out online course evaluations for school, and the last question in the section that asks you to click strongly agree, agree, don't agree, etc. is: "Overall, this course was excellent." Um, isn't' this called leading the witness, or something?

Today I told my professor I didn't think I was smart enough to be a professor because I still can't figure out what postmodernism is, and then a really smart man walked by so she called him in to explain it, and after many minutes packed with big words and concepts like metanarrative, subjectivity, cultural history, and more I can't think of, my head sort of wanted to explode.

So far two students have complained to me about how I graded their papers, and that makes me want to crawl under my bed and never read my emails again.

Tomorrow is the deadline for submitting a proposal for presenting a paper at our graduate student conference in February, and while I'm helping to run the thing I didn't think I wanted to submit a paper. Then I got an email from a fellow student who claims to have read part of my draft for my environmental history paper/thesis and thinks I should submit, and even though I think he's just sayin' that to get more proposals it sort of makes me think I should, because it would be good experience and it looks good on your CV. Apparently the academic life is all about enhancing the ol' CV. So now I have to decide if I want to spend lots of time tomorrow writing a short proposal and, well, writing a CV, which sounds like zero fun.

Walking to the parking deck tonight I heard a girl say her friend got her toe stepped on at a club and the toenail fell off. That's gross. I had a toenail fall off once, while slip n' slidin at my cousins' house in Texas, back in the day. It only fell off on the slip n' slide, that's not where I hurt it. I hurt it when I tried to break a huge rock open on the cement to find gold. Instead of gold I got a jelly shoe and frilly sock full of blood.

At least your beer stays cold.

Tonight I had beer, a hot dog, and popcorn while sitting down on row K at a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game with four guys who range in age from 8 to 32. The Canes lost, but it was still good times.

a big bowl of deliciousness

Tonight I made my delicious butternut squash soup. I like it, so I'm going to share it with you in case you want to make it and like it, too. If you don't like it, don't tell me, because I will be sad.

Now, I'm no cook, but this is pretty easy. Take a butternut squash and cook it. I have done this in two ways: you can halve and seed the squash, then place it face down on a baking sheet and put it in the oven until it's scoopable; or you can peel, seed, and cut the squash up into little pieces and boil it (boil it in 1/2 cup of water and two cans of vegetable broth, or if you bake it in the oven add it to the water and broth after it's cooked).

I also like to add a cooked apple, some cooked onion, and garlic.
You're supposed to put the cooked squash in a food processor or blender to puree it, but I don't have those fancy contraptions so I use a slotted spoon and smash it all by hand.

Cook it all up. I added some chili pepper tonight too, with salt and pepper, and a tablespoon of butter.

That's pretty much it. I also like to cook rotini pasta and pour the soup over that. It's good.

It's groups like this that make me thankful.

things I've done the last few days, in no particular order:

read about white southern women during the Civil War

made my mom's rolls

went to the bus station on Boulevard in Richmond at midnight

pet Danny

graded papers

ate a lot of food

played with an iPhone

hung out with the Mayor of Taylortopia

finally started writing my paper

learned to C-walk like the gangster kids of NYC

watched guys chase a dog with flashlights

tried on sunglasses with Sunni

met and hung out with a distant cousin I never knew I had

procrastinated on paper writing

played Wii

watched two guys and a ten-year-old girl chug hot pho

took a couple naps

went on a group Thanksgiving Day walk

ate at Nacho Mama's for Mexican Saturday

listened to Bishop Allen for a billion hours

drank a lot of hot tea with milk

Black Friday

That's what I like to call this day of paper writing. What a sorry excuse for a holiday break.

Weekend Review

Friday: Can't really remember what I did during the day...I'm sure it was supposed to be homework but was infused with procrastination. Went to school in the afternoon to pick up my students' papers, then went with the girls to see Love in the Time of Cholera (which I didn't like) and out to dinner.

Saturday: Talked to Jennifer for an hour, work and procrastination mixed together, mapped the Overland Trail on the floor, went for an extra long run because I got lost (should have made up a story...), met Erin and Brook at the huge library book sale and got The Year of Decision: 1846 and a book on the Donner Party, went with them to Target, went back to Erin's house and ended up staying to talk and watch fighting on TV.

Sunday: Went to church, then home to procrastinate and finally work more on my research and paper. No writing ever happened, but it will eventually.

A thesis in the making.

Yesterday I was going through my research on the Overland Trail and having trouble visualizing where my quotes and evidence fit into their proper geographic locations. Pretty much all of my primary source research is hand-written on index cards, which helps me physically manipulate their order when organizing my papers (which will eventually combine into my master's thesis). So I started putting the cards into piles for areas like the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevadas, and Oregon. But those are way too broad. What about things that took place at the South Pass, Fort Hall, or on the Umatilla River? It was all too confusing for me to keep in my head.

Then I was a genius. Using string and even more index cards with color coded markers, I mapped out the second half of the Overland Trail on my living room floor. It's awesome.


I started the map at the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains, and I have the Oregon Trail going to the Willamette Vally and the California Trail cutting off and going to the Sacramento Valley.

Now I'm going to go add my research cards to the map and decide how best to write this section of my paper. But first I will make coffee.

*************
Later...

See? Only now I still have to figure out how to get all this across in narrative form...

squishin' in the halls

I just got home and took my damp shoes and socks off. It was 6:30pm. They got wet when I walked across campus this morning in a hurricane at 8:30am. That's gross.

You know you're a bad granddaughter when...

When you're talking on the phone to your granddad on his 85th (!) birthday and after he asks excitedly "are you going to sing to me?" you follow the ensuing long pause with "uhhh..."

iknewit

According to the Associated Press Virginia has one tenth of all the vanity license plates in the country. If you're thinking "wow, that's a lot of vanity plates," boy are you correct.

I have this pet peeve when people think their city or state or whatever is really unique about something that, turns out, is common in lots of places. For example, if you ever say "Nothing in [insert town/city here] ever starts on time," or "The weather in [insert town/city here] is so crazy- just wait an hour and it will change," then you should stop saying those things right now. Everyone says those things. I've lived in four states in three different regions, so I will go ahead and claim authority on this one.

However, when it comes to vanity plates, Virginia really does take the cake. It also has way too many inflatable outdoor Christmas decorations.

weekend review

Friday: Slept in, read a little, took a nap, read some more, and went to an archives meeting at school. Stopped by the video store to rent a free movie from Ryan, but instead stayed for lots of hours chatting and ended up going out with him and his friends after work. After hanging out at the hipster dive bar with the bad dj I played and watched a little Guitar Hero, then finally got home really late (or really early, depending on how you look at it). I also met my key chain twin. We both have this key chain:

Saturday: Thought I slept in, but turns out I didn't at all. Read, emailed, read a little more, watched Everything is Illuminated, discovered I was in a time warp, took a nap, read more, watched True Romance, and read more.

Sunday: Slept a little later than I meant to, almost made it to morning church but didn't, somehow found myself in Garner desperately looking for gas, went to my favorite coffee shop downtown to work on my thesis/environmental history paper, ate a shawarma sandwich for dinner, went to church, stopped by the grocery store, and now home to do a little more work.

call me a detective

I'm still thinking about my time warp. I checked some emails I sent out this afternoon, but turns out I really sent them around 10:30 in the morning. Let me just say, 10:30am is the time I set my alarm to wake me up today, and I never got on the computer until (what I thought was) around 1. So I think when I set my alarm last night I accidentally set the clock time ahead three hours before I realized it was on the wrong setting, and without fixing the time I just went ahead and set the alarm time. I think this also means I only got about 3-4 hours of sleep last night. This has never happened to me. And now it's only about 4, so maybe I should go take a nap...

I have just been through a time warp.

Seriously. I'm very confused about what time it is. I honestly thought it was 6:45. I slept in late and am still in my pajamas and have done some reading and I even just finished watching a movie, and here it is, not even 4 in the afternoon. My clock mysteriously jumped three hours ahead. I'm not even sure what time I woke up now. It's like I passed out and now that I'm awake I have this little present in my lap of three extra hours for my day. Now I think I'm going crazy.

Weekend Review: Fort Worth

Friday: Flew out for a mini family vacation in Fort Worth, Texas. Drank coffee so I could read on the plane. Dad and Ryan picked me up at the airport, we picked Mom up at the hotel, and went out to dinner. Back at the hotel to get in the hot tub.

Saturday: Breakfast at the hotel, then off to see exciting art at the Amon Carter Museum. Lunch, then wandered around Texas Christian University for a couple hours before the football game against the University of New Mexico. Took a nap on the grass during a pre-game pep rally. Watched the game and got bored when I couldn't cheer anymore after the first quarter because UNM was terrible and lost 37-0. Left early and took a nap in the car on the way back to the hotel. Hung out in my parents' room looking stuff up on the internet for the next day.

Sunday: Dropped Dad and Ryan off at a shuttle stop so they could go to the Nascar race. Went with Mom to a French restaurant downtown for breakfast and to work a crossword puzzle. Went to the Modern Art Museum where we made fun of crazy art and wore blue booties to go into a white installation. Went to the Botanic Gardens and walked through the conservatory and gardens, then went to the Japanese Gardens, which are always my favorite. Went back downtown and had smoothies, then saw the movie The Darjeeling Limited. Read for a while in the Starbucks at Barnes and Noble, then went to pick up Dad and Ryan. Ate steak and fried pickles. Back to the hotel for a swim and hot tubbing.

Monday: Breakfast in the hotel. Toured the Dallas Cowboys' stadium and threw a football around on the field. Went to the touristy Historic Stockyards but missed seeing the longhorns walk down the street. Got lost in a cow pen maze with Ryan and watched him ride a mechanical bull. Ate a barbecue sandwich. Went to the Bass Pro Outdoor store and saw lots of dead stuffed animals and some live animals, too. Parents dropped Ryan and I off, and we each flew back to New Mexico and North Carolina, respectively. Drank more coffee so I could read and not sleep, and finally got home by 11:45.

Hope I didn't drop a sock in the parking lot.

I just scrounged up sixteen quarters and did laundry here at my apartment complex. In Raleigh. I don't remember the last time I didn't do laundry in Richmond. It had to be some time in the spring. Anyway, I'm leaving on a jet plane tomorrow and desperate times call for desperate measures.

**Update: shortly after I posted I left to go watch The Office at a friend's house, and I saw a sock near my neighbor's door. "That's weird," I thought, "why is there a sock on the ground?" That's right folks, I really did drop a sock.