I Turn My Head To The East

What's awesome? Oh, I have a list of things.

1. in 2 weeks I'll be done dressing up like a kindergarten teacher and driving all over the damn county.
this means i can...

2. change my desktop screensaver to something more fun than an orange fish with green seaweed
3. paint my fingernails dark, vaguely gothic colors
4. start using hand sanitizer only when i leave a thrift store
5. go to the gym in the afternoons like i like, instead of going to the gym...never
6. stop micromanaging undergrads who are nowhere near as reliable as raydee and i were when we did this shit
7. give away the excess batman pens, incredible hulk activity books, lisa frank stationery (expect some mail, ladies), stuffed monkeys, slinky jrs, jump ropes, hello kitty paint by number sets, soccer ball shaped playing cards, and flower photo frames that have literally filled my trunk for the last eight months

8. After this week, I'll be done with my responsibilities for the grad stats class i'm TAing, which means...

9. I AM DONE TAING FOREVER. Seriously, forever. Postdoc requires no teaching and next time I teach I'll be the instructor and hopefully will HAVE TAs to do all this bullshit
10. I don't have to attend lectures or teach labs next quarter
11. I don't have to put up with a group of students who are, sometimes, little assholes

12. We have decided not to have lab meetings every week next quarter, instead only meeting when someone has something to practice/present/solicit feedback on

13. delete the dozens of stickies on my desktop that relate to people's schedules/progress/misc bullshit for this quarter

14. I have done jack shit all weekend and I do not even feel bad about it. I've been eating candy and watching Judge Judy and I'm going to power yoga later and MY LIFE IS SUPER AWESOME. Love you guys.

It Must Be In The Air Here

January, huh? Weird, sure doesn't feel like a January. It's sunny and eighty degrees and stupid.

I got an email today telling me about all the paperwork that needs to be done to graduate. I have gotten this email six times now, but it actually applies to me and I clicked around to find all the forms I would need and got dizzy and had to look at celebrity gossip sites for awhile instead to calm down.

So I got a job last month and it starts in September. It's a research job in a lab and it's going to be fucking awesome. I had a bunch of phone interviews and then an in-person visit and then some more phone interviews and then I got it. I just accepted it officially this week. It's in Pennsylvania and I'm completely thrilled about the fit, the school, and the fact that I now know what's happening as the next step in my life. I can stop spending 30% of my time working on application packets for jobs now, and just kind of breathe easier in general. Oh, except for that pesky dissertation that now has a deadline.

We are figuring stuff out like where we can live (for ten seconds we debated buying a house....BUYING a HOUSE...because houses do not cost $700,000 there and we totally could. But then we remembered that I'll be there temporarily and we decided that would be dumb), and how we will move two cats ALL the way across the country. I have committed myself to becoming expert at online shopping from my favorite stores because there are no options in this town. It has a mall that is actually very similar to the one in Bloomington, which is to say that I hate everything about it. Anyway, we are getting to make really fun decisions about fall, and it's making me happy all the time.

Technically I suppose we'll be a lot closer to most of you, but it's probably still too far to drive to visit.

All that goodness means a lot of good things, obviously (I know when I have to be done, I know where I'm going, I know in a few months someone will pay me an actual salary, my advisor knows we have a deadline which means she has to relent on a few key points of contention concerning my project, etc.). We're also starting to miss this area and we still have eight months to enjoy all the vegan restaurants and the summery winter and my power yoga teacher and JD's martial arts classes. It's really weird to think how long we've been living here (6 years!) and how used to all this crap we've gotten. The best veg restaurant in socal opened across the street from my office last year. I am pretty sure there is nothing but the turf studies department and some cows across the street from my future office. But that's ok with me.

Anyway, in the meantime there's plenty to do. I was sick for about 4 weeks from my birthday until a couple days ago...I still cough and hack and snot everywhere but last night I finally went back to my yoga class and today I might go to the gym. Fuck yes, that yoga class is awesome.

We went to see Jenny and Mike over Xmas, and that was nice but everyone got sick at different times and we ended up stuck in the house, sick, and my mom was being kind of cranky most of the time. But Iowa is pretty cool and there are some really amazing restaurants for the size of the town. Thumbs up Iowa! They're in the midst of wedding planning so I am also excited about that coming up (at some point this or next year). Hopefully they call us from Vegas, we drive over and they elope. Kidding.

What else? Uh, my time this year is being gobbled by the teaching assignments I've been getting. Last quarter, this quarter and next I've been doing graduate stats courses, which is great by me and actually makes me feel like a badass, but is a lot of work. The best part is that, because I have made myself indispensable to the professor teaching all these courses, she requested me after fall so I know I have this course and the one that goes with it in the spring (otherwise I would have no idea whether there would be ANY funding for me...this is highly preferable). I am totally not complaining about the time it takes and am grateful for the work blah blah blah.

Wow this blog is really boring. That's why I don't update it, my life is all interviewing children and teaching stats and now, figuring out how to finish and planning a move and wrapping shit up. I'm in the same place as everyone here, which is comforting. I happened to get a job really fast (didn't fucking feel fast when I was prepping for the eleventh phone call, but it was literally the first domestic job I applied for and it happened extremely quickly) and most of my friends took a different approach this year, sending out normal professor job apps and now, because the economy is shit and no one is hiring, resigning themselves to looking for the kind of postdoc job I got. I am relieved that my shit is sorted, but I'll feel better when everyone figures theirs out too. Then it will feel like we all kicked graduate school's ass together and it didn't kill any of us. Ugh, it's bleak out there for job seekers, though.

Yah anyway. smooches

They Call Me Stacey, They Call Me Jane, That's Not My Name

It is really fun to be taken seriously. This past year has marked the first time I felt like I was definitely going to be able to wrangle a satisfying career out of this path, somehow, and for the past few months I have been smugly enjoying the Big Fish environment that sprang up all around me while I was busy chewing cuticles. Don't worry, there's still plenty of shit that goes wrong/sucks/makes me look retarded to keep my ego in check. But I like the shift toward treating me as an equal and I appreciate it and if I weren't getting that right now I would...barf...or something else bad. Anyway, all this confidence that other people have in me forces me to recognize the skills that I have developed in the last 5 years, which in turn makes me admit that I am getting really good at this and will be fucking great at it one day. In some capacity. We'll see.

Kyle, I'll email you the brief with the SC opinion. I'm on p.32.

I went on a comp cd binge last week and some of you should be reaping the benefits....nowish. Who knew how fun the scrapbooking aisle in target can be when you don't intend to scrapbook? It's like I found myself a whole new time suck with pretty paper and glue sticks. Oh and stickers that say, "MEMORIES!" in script. I have to say, this wave of comps is some of my best work. I have not yet gotten sick of ANY of them, and I made FIVE. Oh yes.

Summer is good. I'm getting more writing done than I ever dreamed possible, but that's kind of necessary at this point and it makes me feel like a badass.

I'm going to power yoga tonight. Sweet berry wine and sandwiches that is a good class. I am getting better at "not panicking" in poses in the class, which then translates to being able to "not panic" in reality. Plus, I am getting motherfucking strong. It's awesome.

What else? I love my husband. Our lives seem charmed these days. How fun is disposable income? I know, right? Cats are great. Friends are great. I feel grateful all the time

I keep missing things we did in New Zealand and as usual I have this itch to travel somewhere really far away. Next stop, Iowa City for Christmas! Teehee.

Anyone want to come here for Thanksgiving? We saw a giant tofurkey "roll" at the grocery the other night and I want to have you guys come over for a dinner party. Think it over. Who's it gonna hurt? Where're you going?