bawr rawr rawr rawr

So all the tiled floors and many of the counters in this apartment now have spots on them that don't come off just via sweeping/mopping/dusting/light-scrubbing. I don't know, some of them are shoe-scuff marks, the kind that'll come off if you scratch them (but how do you scratch so many of them, and when they're so big?), some of them are stains of some kind, whatever. They're going to take, at the least, some heavy-duty scrubbing, the kind I don't have time for now or probably ever. If it were all my own apartment, it would be less messy and what mess there was would be no one's fault but mine, but instead I wish my apartmentmates would help me clean, which is a stupid wish because I'm too intimidated to ask them, which itself is stupid because I'm a grad student and they're undergrads and at least two out of the three of them like me.

The bottom dropped out of the whole time-management thing towards the middle of this week, assuming there was ever any skill there to begin with, as opposed to a simple lessening of work assigned and due. For one thing, there is just too much going on right now between my lone 111 class and the weekly PDG meetings, the two classes I take, Four C's, church, family, and IV. For another, I don't know, it's just hopeless. I need a lot of structure if I want to get anything done, so you can guess how college has gone pretty much from the beginning. Basically, all my efforts not to procrastinate meet with eventual, inevitable, total failure. I try to schedule things out, but let's face it, there is just not enough incentive for me to keep that schedule because, like, what am I going to do to myself if I don't? Deny myself social activity of some sort? But if I were better at that, wouldn't I, you know, not have a procrastination problem in the first place?


I reread my entries from the secret teaching blog tonight, which died faster than any other blog I've ever been part of, and found that someone I don't even know, from some website called Power Up Love that I guess is Christian, left me this:

I really like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 because it reminds us of just how loving our Heavenly Father is with us.

You could be the only example of a Christian that some of your students will ever see. Asks for His strength and remember your never alone in anything you do.

Blessings...and smiles:-)

This would have felt really nice except that my teaching blog is private, and none of you are even supposed to know where it is, let alone people from places I've never seen, so how did he/she get there? Again, not that it wasn't a really nice thing to do, 'cause it was, and I appreciate it. I guess I just would rather have seen it from people I was ready to be vulnerable with, since it came at the end of something I wrote out of frustration.

The other problem is that I don't recall ever pointing out on that blog that I'm Christian.

Oh, and I've discovered that there's a real live Laurel Christensen, like my pseudonym. She writes books. For Mormon girls.

In Very Brief

Time management and productivity for this week so far: improved. Not perfect, but improved. I'm a little more rested (though getting up for tomorrow's Ash Wednesday service should fix that), I'm not stressing much, and I even got to fit in trivia on Monday night.

You think it's just a scheduling quirk, or because I'm not pouring spare minutes into Facebook?

Another Funny Thing

As seen on "Ask Sister Mary Martha," arm slings that pictorially explain the accident.

Such fantasticness.

Update: This is also kind of funny, though mainly kind of weird. Plus, how is William Shatner 77 years old? He doesn't look it.

Best Of

A few of the many online musings/random comments from the past weeks (none of them, needless to say, directed solely to me) that've amused me (even if they don't do the same for you):

Evelyn:

Am I a bad person if "Under the Sea" just made me crave seafood?


Reverend Anne:

G.[the youngest of her children] has a horrible cold and fever. I've been holding her all day. The brief moment I put her down, R. [who's about two and a half and in the midst of a knighthood phase] grabbed her hand, thrust his plastic sword into the air and said 'MY G.' Later he pointed his sword at A. [his brother] and said, 'MY MOMMY.' Even later he shouted at his own father and said 'MY WOMAN.' Arguments ensued each time.


XKCD:

The dilemma posed here (for which I myself have wanted an answer for, like, several years)


Gabe:

1% inspiration
64% perspiration
7% insanity
7% repression of insanity
5% appearing likable so people will want to be your friend
16% punctuality.


One of my students [quoting someone else]:

Life vests protect you from drowning, bulletproof vests protect you from getting shot, and sweater vests protect you from pretty girls.

Dude.

This site is way cool..and simultaneously a little creepy. Privacy truly is dead, isn't it?

Speaking of which (dead privacy, I mean), I've temporarily deactivated my Facebook account. It's been taking way too much of my time, and right now it really hinders, more than helps, my being a better (and more punctual) person. I definitely do not need help in being nosy. Plus, for a long time now the relationship has been kind of love-hate anyway. So I don't know when I'll be back. When I can't stand the lack of communication, I guess, with people who only ever communicate with me via Facebook. You'd be surprised by some of the people in my life who make that list.

So, considering that I now have no FB, I've never been with Twitter (though ignoring that siren song has not always been easy--not having a texting feature on my phone helps), and my blog isn't public, people're just going to have to interact with me over Web 1.0 (i.e. e-mail/AIM) or over the phone or in person. I know, I'm sorry about that. I'll try to put up some fascinating away messages again, like things were when we were all freshmen and stuff.

That Thing You See in My Foot is a Bullet: Productivity, Monday/Tuesday

So yesterday I got all my reading for Dr. Strehle's class done.

I did not do anything for the WRIT 111 associateship application.

So I was stuck writing my cover letter, rewriting my teaching statement (since I couldn't exactly turn in the one I'd written for ENG 593, could I, particularly since I'd had no teaching experience back then?), and adding the FYE experience to my resume over the course of four-and-a-half hours today. I thought that that would be enough time, especially as I'd already done some notes and brainstorming. I was wrong. I still hadn't gotten it done to my satisfaction (some of the bullet points on my resume didn't quite line up; my teaching philosophy statement might be okay, or it might have been kind of awful, I still can't tell) by the time I had to print it off and catch the 1:35 bus. This, by all rights, should have ruined me completely for the 1:45 meeting with Wendy (remember her? The one I've already made a fool of myself in front of this semester?) because I was supposed to have read my teaching evaluations from last semester (the ones my students wrote) and I had not. Yet somehow, against all odds, things had conspired against Wendy, such that she hadn't read them either. So we read them together and it was okay.

So, in sum, impolitely and with italics, I am freaking juvenile, to a degree that should not even be possible out of a graduate student with a three-nine-something, and it is so ridiculous that, after this many weeks and public statements on what I do every day, I have improved not one bit. I have screwed up over and ruddy over, and the only thing that makes it okay is that somehow, every time, it ends up being okay.

Sooner or later it won't. And I will have exactly no one else to blame.

Another Boring Productivity Note

There are more types of productivity than academic. It was a high spiritual-productivity day, so to speak. It was a low academic-productivity day.

That's okay. I did get a little work done yesterday, and as for the rest, that's what tomorrow's for.

A Few Selected Shots: DC, October 9, 2008(Plus Narrative of the 8th)

October 8: After not getting much sleep the previous night and forcing my independent-study group to meet at 9 AM instead of 10 so that I could leave campus by 10 (Yom Kippur break technically didn't start until 1 PM, so we still had class), I drove up to Syracuse to catch my flight. (This flight was at twelve-something, which was cutting it pretty close, but there was very little I could do.) After taking the airport at a run because parking issues put me a little behind schedule, and after dropping my boarding pass in the gift shop (no, I wasn't shopping during all that time I didn't have; I'd asked the girl behind the counter a question) and panicking and having to come back for it, and after almost leaving my shoes with security by mistake, I finally got to the JetBlue terminal, where I soon found--as pretty much anyone flying JetBlue out of Syracuse seems to find, as far as I'm concerned (this is not a comment against the airline, but against Syracuse, as Rochester tended not to have this problem)--that there was a major delay.

Let me mention, by way of establishing one of the major themes of the day, that there is no real food at the Syracuse JetBlue terminal. They do have two vending machines. I think I remember that I didn't have much in the way of singles and coins, but I did have enough to buy some Oreos.

I wasn't irate, though, as many of the people on that flight were at the delay--mostly I was just glad that there were many other flights to DC that day and Kristin and I had nothing planned. I made the conversational acquaintance of another college student on fall break (she was irate about the whole thing; I think she ended up switching airlines because she was meeting her boyfriend and they had plans or something) and, much to Kristin's horror as I talked to her on my cell, mulled over the idea of getting the girl to watch my luggage in case I could find some real food outside the terminal, since it was, you know, past lunchtime. ("You're gonna trust her with your luggage?!" "Kristin, I'm watching hers right now 'cause she's getting her ticket switched. She's fine." "Oh, that's right, you grew up in the sticks; you do that kind of stuff." "Kristin, I grew up in Rochester!" ...She knew. To Kristin, a Long Islander, all non-NYC places are the sticks.)

So after a long (and lunchless) wait and a hurried connection with a later NYC-DC flight (as in, we had to take a shuttle to the terminal, and the flight was boarding when I got there), which deprived me of both bathroom-using capability (after having to wait on the runway before takeoff, we hit a bunch of turbulence or something, so we were supposed to stay pretty much seated for the whole probably-nigh-on-two-hours...Dulles airport was very welcome thereafter) and dinner beyond a packet of pretzel mix, I was deposited in Dulles sometime around...seven? Nah, six-something, I think. Kristin and I met up in the airport and took a pair of public-transportation rides (bus, then metro) from Virginia to DC proper. I gave her her Christmas present (even though it was closer to the following Christmas). We chatted and ate tortilla chips and salsa (which tasted amazing, as you may well imagine) while we decided what to do about dinner. We finally decided on pizza, ordered it, walked down to pick it up, walked back, and finally, sometime past nine PM, ate dinner. It was very good.

And then, after some conversation, including a game plan for the next day, we went to bed. We planned to get up early.

October 9: We got up late. Ate breakfast. I think I decided that my contacts were bothering me enough that glasses were really the best option. Anyway, by the time we got to the subway, site of the first photo I took of DC, it was, what, eleven-something?

By the time we got here...


...we just barely beat a huge crowd at the entrance. As it was, we were still waiting for at least half an hour to get in. I remember talking about Kristin trying to get tickets to the upcoming inauguration. I remember it being really nice weather outside. I remember a huge crowd of people behind us who were apparently doing a scavenger hunt in the National Archives--mostly college kids, maybe?

Then we got into the Archives, where we'd decided to start because I hadn't been there when my family went to DC in '05. This isn't from a national document, thank goodness, but read the words below and see what looks wrong to you. You'll get it. It's not that hard.


Seeing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (I was, understandably, not allowed to take pictures, or I would have put them here) and the rest of the Archives was probably the coolest part of the day, but we also (after grabbing a late lunch off a hot dog cart) went to the National Museum of the American Indian, which was nice, though also not something I took pictures of.

As we wandered around DC later, killing time before dinner (and were we also looking for something? I think we'd already found the Holocaust Museum, which we would go see the next day), a nifty-looking butterfly (in October! This was DC!) landed in front of us in a bush, and we spent several minutes following it around from plant to plant as I tried to take a couple of decent pictures of it.


And then we came out of the Metro into Chinatown and met Evelyn and ate egg-drop soup and deep-fried chickeny things. Or at least I think mine was chickeny.


(Note: the restaurant pictured is not the one we ate at.)

And then we went to Bed Bath & Beyond (how I wish that company would punctuate!) so that Kristin could buy a candle and Evelyn could buy something else, and then we got Häagen-Dazs, pretty much because we could. (Three words about the ice cream: oh, heck yeah.)

Was that also the night, Kristin, that we looked at all the AU-years photos on your computer? I think it was, because I think that by the end of that night I'd gotten a fatigue-meets-weird-mealtimes-meets-eyeglasses headache and was going to go to bed early, but then we ended up looking at photos as my ibuprofen kicked in and ended up staying up kind of late anyway.

And that was pretty much our day and night. More from the 10th to follow.

Friday Productivity Update

Today was another Day of Way Too Little Productivity, though most of this was because last night was, too. Last night, I should have gotten my act together for the WRIT 111 permanent-position application--you know, that job I want more than pretty much any other job?--but instead, because I am used to assuming that Thursday night after teaching is the end of my week, I proceeded to lay claim on time that was, as they say, never mine to begin with. So I read and I did some cleaning, and it was all very nice and everything.

Except that that meant that this morning I was stuck trying to finalize a resume, cover letter, and teaching philosophy statement for a department that a) isn't offering me a chance at teaching literature, just composition, which means I'm going to have to change what I wrote for other schools; and b) KNOWS AND EMPLOYS ME ALREADY, which, funny how this works, kind of changes the details you give about the course you teach. Plus, I wanted to expand my resume anyway, now that I know from Dr. Strehle (and am grateful for her comments; she looked over all the resumes/CVs of us her graduate students last weekend, just so she could give us comments as we start to apply for jobs) that the rule where your resume is supposed to only be one page is really a rule for undergrads, not people looking for full-time permanent employment. Very good to know; glad I've only applied to two places with the one-pager.

Changing such things takes more, it turns out, than a couple of hours. Plus I had to go out and buy resume paper this morning, since the other two schools to which I've applied have online submission set up, whereas Binghamton does not. It took so long in line at the Pack & Mail (some people ahead of me were sending a big parcel to another country) that I almost literally could have gone to Target for resume paper in the time it took me to get it without leaving the plaza. That's what I get for not going earlier.

So, after a productiveish-but-not-productive-enough morning, I got to my 12:30 Writing Center shift exactly on time, but with nothing but the resume updated, since I'd also had to shower and eat and such things. I was worried because the early deadline (the "if you want to interview before April"--which I most certainly do--"apply by this date" deadline) is supposedly Monday. Except that the Writing Initiative office will be closed on Monday in honor of our having classes off in honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday, so I figured I was going to have to get the rest of my act together by 5 PM today (the office closes after that)...despite having to do Writing Center work from 12:30-3.

Hint: this would never have happened, especially since I blanked out after my 2:30 appointment and stayed an extra 15 minutes before I was told that my shift had ended at 3. If the deadline had been this afternoon, I would have missed the early deadline, period. Instead, Barb, the secretary, who last year always intimidated the living crud out of me (no, seriously, try coming in as a clueless first-semester MA and asking her a question!), but who suddenly became really nice to all us grad students this year, told me that she's the one who collects the applications, and really the deadline isn't until Tuesday, so I should give it to her then.

So I've got all weekend to look everything over and tinker to my heart's content. In fact, I've got the Monday off to do that, too, though goodness knows I have other work to do this weekend, despite the overwhelming laziness I am already battling at the prospect of three whole days without anything immediately demanded of me. This is yet another saving of my butt, which always feels divine when it happens despite the fact that sooner or later it's just as likely that God will decide that the best way to teach me responsibility is to let my irresponsibility deliver unto me a solid blow upside the head, so maybe I'd better be careful about the way I think about these things.

But things are good. And I've finally installed my camera software onto this new computer, so in a minute or two I shall post some pictures.

Nunnery Funnery

For you lit-nerdy Facebookers out there, assuming you didn't see this pretty much forever ago:

http://www.siriusgraphics.com/uploaded_images/HamletFacebook-790245.JPG

I was going to post this on time, but then I put it off...

Productivity for Wednesday: essentially nil. And I was late, though insignificantly so, to the Writing Center.

Brief Evening Report

I'd write more for the productivity update (eventually, when you all get tired of reading these, I'll have to write them somewhere else), but it's late and I'm tired, so here's this:

I wasted some time today and I still have to read the Four C's article. And I was exactly on time, by which I mean almost late, for my Writing Center shift (though I did leave the apartment four or five minutes earlier this time, so no paid parking necessary, not that I'd have gone there this time anyway). And I never did do any laundry.

But I applied for two jobs, which took me nigh on five hours because I ended up rewriting most of my teaching philosophy statement (the one from ENG 589 was written before I'd ever stepped into a classroom, so it was a little too general) and then wrote two cover letters, put in references, fiddled a tiny bit with my resume, etc.

I did, eventually, eat all my meals. Not necessarily on time (read: dinner), but all consumed, and none of them particularly ridiculous nutritionally.

So I think that all that's probably enough productivity for one day.

Winter in Binghamton

There has been so much road salt around that, as far as I can tell, it's literally scoured (or else bleached--maybe that's the "chloride" in with the sodium?) the dye out of the cuffs of my jeans. I've ended up wetting them in the snow as I walk around, so when I found white streaks, I figured it was just more salt left after the melted snow dried. But then I washed them and nothing happened--the whiteness was still there.

But the snow is melting, and we'll probably get some rain this week.

Now, if I want breakfast and to put a load of laundry in before the legit Monday activities, I'd better get off this blog.

Saturday Productivity Update (Late)

Saturday: did neither of the things I mentioned below. Did e-mail a few people to ask whether they'd be my references. Other than that, I finished reading Poisonwood Bible and decided that, because my Tuesday class (the one I take, not the one I teach) got cancelled, I had a little slacking time, so I made lots of chicken and lentils and then went to a game night at Joe and Andrea's.

I didn't apply for the MCC job yet, even though that was also on my list for Saturday, 'cause I'm still waiting on Jillian to get back to me about being a reference (my fault for not asking sooner). If she hasn't given permission by tomorrow, I'm gonna have to apply without her (I have other, if less ideal, people I could use), 'cause tomorrow's their deadline. Way to look like I'm applying last-minute out of potential apathy, but there's not a whole lot I can do.

Note to self: DO NOT FORGET TO DO THE WORK FOR TUESDAY'S PDG MEETING.

"You're still an undergrad at heart."-Sunroot, watching me move junk out of my car's front passenger seat

Brief productivity report: today I tore through about another 200 pages of The Poisonwood Bible (so I have fewer than 100 to go; the whole book has to be read by the 12th). That's probably plenty of productivity, for a Friday. I also had a briefish Writing Center appointment (my first of the year), "cleaned" my room and part of the sink (read: a lot of things didn't get cleaned up so much as simply moved out of sight), ran the dishwasher, and had Joe move most of the important stuff from my old computer to my new one. Went to InterVarsity. Ran downtown to finally see one of Ryan's photo shows (this time it was Matt B.'s as well), but they were gone by the time I got there and the photos were on a restaurant wall and so I could only look for like 25 seconds. Came back to campus for the game night and played round after round of Bananagrams.

I'm going to bed now. Tomorrow: must revise teaching statement and finish reading over the article for Four C's.

Note I Should Have Made Before

The Writing Initiative, which's pretty much the new composition department, houses the Writing Center, so I tutor students alongside the new comp faculty going in and out.

On Wednesday Wendy, walking by, told me not to worry about Tuesday. I told her I was sorry and that I hadn't meant it. She said she knew.

Aforementioned Update

You know what I'm really tempted to do right now? Use up more of my drying-out mini marshmallows and a few more chocolate chips and make microwave s'mores while I still have graham crackers. I was experimenting with them on...Saturday? Sunday, maybe? Anyway, I shouldn't, 'cause I just had a late dinner. This is only the second week of the semester, remember, but since this's the third meal problem in as many days, I think I'm going to have to give up and file it under "new minor life issue."

Today was, in defiance of my expectations, as productive as it needed to be. Writing my poem for workshop took much less time than I expected because I've had the image for it rattling around in my head lately. It turned out that I was going to have to write another poem on top of that, because the second one (we were told we could bring in old poems we wanted to rework, so I'd had plans to grab one of a possible few from Dr. Gray's class) is currently, shall we say, inaccessible (shall we also say, I BETTER NOT HAVE LOST MY FORM CLASS POEMS WHEN THAT CIRCUIT CITY GUY DELETED THE MEMENTO FOLDER FROM MY OLD COMPUTER). Happily, however, I ended up taking up my office-hour time to draft another one (I ran into one of my sort-of-favorite students from last semester, who ended up inspiring me to keep writing), which was very rough when I turned it in but might never be workshopped anyway. So I had two poems after all.

So my day from eleven AM on (when I stopped blogging, whining, trying to go back to bed, and day-prepping...come to think of it, my breakfast was a little on-the-go, too, though I did get one) was basically Writing Center, WC staff meeting, quickish lunch, back to the WC, office hour, home, scramble to get stuff together for poetry workshop because everything had to be typed up (and because of another part of our assignment, I had to hook my old computer back up), leave late for class, try to find a copier because of something that'd gone wrong in printing, fail because the copier's broken, arrive late to class (Professor Weil didn't mind the copying issue), class.

I did have some down time, since I didn't have any Writing Center sessions today and my poems got done, so I read poetry as well. Weil said that sometimes he'd ask us what we were reading, which I took to mean that we were expected to read but could read any poetry we wanted (that seems to be correct so far). So, naturally, I went for Juliana Gray and Carol Burdick, since both have taught me but I knew only a few poems each of theirs. I really like Juliana's especially...if I can figure out how she crafts those amazing more-casual-than-normal-sonnets-but-clearly-sonnety-anyway things, I am stealing from her technique.

Tomorrow before my 2:40 class: compile my resume (a worthy endeavor anyway, these days), prep for teaching. Not bad for what could be, if I do it right, a good four-or-so hours' work.

I am gall, I am heartburn

Despite my not being required to post on my Tuesday/Thursday productivity, let me describe the hardcore fail that happened yesterday: I totally forgot about an assignment. I'd had five or six days of warning about the essays that we had to review and grade for the PDG (that's the real name for the weekly WRIT 111 teacher-team meetings; it stands for "professional development group," a term I dislike), but somehow in the craziness that is this week (which is, yes, indirectly caused by poor time management), I totally forgot.

So, directly because of poor time management, I showed up to the meeting five minutes late, carrying a bottle of chocolate milk because, well, I hadn't had lunch yet. Whereupon (the actual time management problem stopped here and general stupidity took over) I quickly grasped my rapidly-approaching doom. So, instead of doing the honorable thing and saying up front that I'd totally forgotten, I asked for permission to go print them out. Which was denied. And then I was asked whether I at least had my notes on them with me. Which I said I didn't, hoping that Wendy (my PDG leader this semester; the leaders and members get shuffled between semesters) wouldn't ask the follow-up question, which ultimately she did: had I read them at all? At which point I had to groan out that I hadn't, at which point I had to be the target of a professional but hurt two-to-five-second lecture about how this process works much better when people invest themselves in it.

Despite having come in late, attempted deception, and made myself more prone to the whole problem in the first place by screwing up my week's schedule with my procrastination, I find that I still have the audacity to be bitter about her assumption that I flouted her authority on purpose, as though there's no chance that this is only our second meeting ever, Jillian never had us review essays until the end of the unit when she was my PDG leader, and so between the two I maybe just forgot.

Though I really was going to apologize at the end of the meeting, except that Wendy left right away, and I don't have the guts to e-mail now.

In review, therefore: five minutes late, no lunch, irresponsibility, and attempted deception (and an obnoxious statement later in the meeting that drew disagreement from every other instructor in the room...I really should have known better, but you know, why settle for an above-average level of error when you've got a shot at straight-up excellence?), in the service of a job for which I'm trying to apply (long-term WRIT 111 instructor positions are opening for next year), on which point I was already going to start out on thin ice because I'm only an MA and they'd really prefer PhD/ABDs.

Remarkably, it could have been worse: some of the other PDG leaders are connected with my upcoming WRIT 111 job interview.

Anyway, I need to be at the Writing Center in, like, an hour. And I still have to shower and make myself some lunch to take. And I really have to write a poem sometime before 6ish PM tonight.

Oh. And post here tonight about whether I was productive or not (hint: get your insults and threats ready). I remember that now.

I'm Sort of Embarrassed, Sort of Not

So every class I've taught or currently teach (out of only three spread over two semesters, I admit) is made up of freshmen with no idea that one of their instructors might actually be on Facebook and able to find them. This comes in very handy because, before they realize it, I've already accessed their profiles to match faces to names and learn who they are faster (I am also guilty of looking at the profiles themselves, but I'm trying not to do that because I don't to stereotype them based on what I find--let them decide who they want to be in my class; they don't need me lowering my mental expectations because they write in all caps with a zillion exclamation points, or raising them because we like the same books, or whatever).

I'm doing that now, trying to learn names, and I find this on one girl's status: "[Name] needs something to write for her English essay..."

So, unless she's taking another English class in addition to mine, there it is: I'm indirectly causing anxious Facebook updates. I imagine it's only a matter of time before someone puts something I've said in class on their quote page or away message, the way I did to all my professors.

I totally have it coming, I'm sure.

Oh, I was supposed to make resolutions a month ago, wasn't I?

I need to not procrastinate anymore.

No, seriously. I can't do this anymore, this thing where I spend entire weekends not doing work. This could be an excellent semester if I get even a modicum of time management working, and it could be an awful one if I don't.

So you know what? Until further notice, four days a week (MWF + Saturday), I am going to post to this blog about what I have done and/or not done that day (T/TR usually do not have big stretches of zero productivity because I have an afternoon class to take and a late-afternoon one to teach; Sunday is my full-on rest day, so I can slack fairly legitimately then). And if I haven't done crap, then not only will you know about it, you will have full license to ridicule or nonviolently threaten me in pretty much any way you please. In the words of BU professor Ryan Vaughan, whose idea I am blatantly stealing and tweaking in doing this, "That's a promise from me to you."

I will start with today, which was both better and worse than most days, seeing as it was very productive when it was productive, but very troublesome when it was not:

The good:

-I e-mailed McDonough to apologize for not getting a hold of him sooner about the job he's offering me (since my job-app savvy is pretty much nil, I had no idea that one touches base before one intends to apply, in situations such as these; I found out last night from Mom via Jo via McDonough himself).

-Also e-mailed my former 111 students to give them info about picking up the final portfolios they handed in this past December.

-Did some legit stuff I do every Monday but don't feel like detailing.

-Got through all of "The Idea of a Writing Center" (assigned for Wednesday's WC staff meeting) and "L2 Writers in the Writing Center" (an article for my Four C's project, which I probably should have read a month ago) during my writing-center shift, since nobody came thereto.

-Successfully ran two errands.


The bad:

-I did Monday's legit activities without having had breakfast (or did I at least have, like, a couple of graham crackers? I don't remember). That pretty much never happens, but I threw my schedule off this morning with that 111 e-mail. Plus I think I did something else, a gratuitous e-mail check or something, 'cause I was late getting in the shower, which's sort of part of the reason I didn't get breakfast.

-Took a brief nap before my Writing Center shift at 1. I woke up at 12:30 with the intent to be out of my apartment at 12:45, but maybe there was another gratuitous e-mail check, because by the time I also got "L2 Writers in the Writing Center" printed out, it was 12:50. Luckily, my drive to campus is short. I still ended up parking in the overflow lot, investing $2 in the cause of not compounding the mistake of procrastination with the mistake of lateness to my first Writing Center shift of the academic year.

-It's 5:42 and I haven't started cooking dinner because of this blog entry. According to the schedule I mapped out for today, dinner was supposed to be done at 6 so that I could do job-app stuff until 7:30 before either trivia (8:00) or Ninth Hour (9:00). Now probably neither of my potential extracurricular activities will happen. Plus, I keep eating things to stave off how very hungry I'm getting, which is probably not a good idea.


So that's that. More Wednesday. Don't you wish my accountability log was as funny as Ryan Vaughan's? Aren't you excited? Yeah. Me, too.