What Happens When the Introverts Socialize Too Much

This is what I look like first thing in the morning when I have to feed Lucy hay that G and I are severely allergic to:

One of my eyes looks considerably smaller than the other one because I like never wash off my eye makeup and I so obviously sleep on one side of my face more than the other. But as long as I'm sleeping, I'm not complaining!

When, I'm awake, however, that's a whole other story. Let me just say that if you're getting sick of my whining about papers...buckle up, baby.

The whining is going on in earnest over here. I finished two last week and have been slaving over a long Austen research paper this weekend. I will seriously pay you $1,000 to come over and finish it.

And I chipped my Ireland coffee mug! Grrrrrrr. That just means I have to go back over there and get another one. Done and done.

As it happens, I ended up taking most of yesterday off (from writing). I had 95 errands to run, and finished the day at a BBQ at one of my fellow TA peep's house (<---- is that grammatically correct? Do you even understand what I'm trying to say? A fellow TA. Had a BBQ. At her house. I attended. Gawwwww my brain is deaddddddddd.)

But before that - I went to a student graduation! One of the students that I have been tutoring for over a year is now a program-certified personal trainer!

He knows everything there is to know about health and science and nutrition and exercise. He now says things like, "Make your sweat cry." I'm like, mmmm hmmmm, I'm going to Sonic and then I'll join you.

I'm so sick of writing papers.

I'm so sick of breaking from one paper to write another. Or to start yet another novel for class. When does the school year end? When is the magical "summer" season starting, in which I get to sleep and read books for fun without a pen in hand????

Here is what G did all day. Nerdy nerd.

OK, enough of a break. Back to academic purgatory.

Lucy's Boyfriend is Back!

You guys! Lucy's lil suitor is back.

He hangs around her window.

A view from inside Lucy's window:

He waits patiently for her. He's not diverted by the school bus. Or by everyone putting out their trash and recycling.

She's still giving him the cold bunny shoulder, but I think she'll come around...

A Dose of Ridiculous

Don't get your hopes up, I can't bring this back on a weekly basis. But every once in awhile I hear of something that just BEGS for me to write about.

Today: made-up dog breeds.

When I got home from work tonight, B asked me if I'd ever heard of a "puggle" (a word with which I just had to fight with my spellcheck to even allow in this post). I immediately started thinking about children's toys from the 1980s. But alas, I was way off base.

A puggle, apparently, is a dog that is part beagle and part pug. While I do admit that this sounds like a pretty cute dog (I've always thought beagles were cute), the "puggle" (c'mon spellcheck, work with me here) label just sounds...dumb.

What happened to the term "mutt"? That's what people used to call dogs like "puggles" or "labradoodles" (another word my spellcheck doesn't like). According to Dictionary.com, the term "mutt" is another word for "mongrel", which is "a dog of mixed or indeterminate breed". We had a dog when I was a kid who was part beagle and part German shepherd. We didn't call him a "beapherd" or a "sheple"---we called him a mutt. That's what he was.

We had another dog who was part chau and part German shepherd. We also called her a mutt, or a chau-shepherd mix. There was no inventing of dog breeds in our house.

I get the impression that people today are breeding dogs simply to come up with fancy-sounding (and to my ear, ridiculous-sounding) names for them. As in, "Oh that's Mitzy, isn't she like the cutest little labradoodle you've ever seen?"

When will it stop? What is acceptable and what isn't? Can we cross a St. Bernard and a husky and call it a brusky? Can we have a chihcsund? Or a dachseranian? 

Or how about a shitshepherd?

Seriously, people. Stop the insanity. Call them what they are--mutts.

Shut the Front Door

TWO papers down.

TWO to go.

Progress

One paper down.

Three to go.

Zero to Sixty

Yesterday was one of those days. We had planned to go to Cheyenne, and then realized that my grueling homework schedule does not allow for an entire day off right now. So, we looked around for other things to do and nothing sounded right. A museum? No. A hike? Too cold. A walk? Too wet. A movie? Nothing playing. We kicked ideas around for a while and then decided that we would just stay home.

So I finished my last Austen novel. (<-- Persuasion. It is FANTASTIC.)

And then...Lucyfer seemed to be getting sick. You know how I've mentioned before that when things happen with rabbits, they happen very quickly? Well, we fretted and watched her for a few hours and then she returned to normal.

Watching and fretting. Fretting and watching.

Heart attack averted. She's fine.

So after our day of doing nothing and then launching into overdrive about the pet, I'm exhausted. And I have 4 papers to write. Two due this week, two due next week.

This is how I feel about it.

Here are the books I've read so far this semester. I still have two more to go. And this doesn't include a number of articles that could wall paper the Taj Mahal.

BUT! Guess what finally started up last night? Season 3 of Orphan Black. Finally! I know how I'm going to spend all of my Saturday nights for the next 2 months.

Source

If you haven't watched this show, you need to. Go back and start at the beginning. It's a little saucy but so, so, so worth it. Best show ever. Besides Frasier.

I'll give you a choice: you can either come over and write about Austen or about Feminist Thought. $1,000 is all yours. See you soon.

TGIF, people!

It's Raining Snow (And I'm Opening Up)

As much as I heart Denver, there is just something weird about - as Nat King Cole puts it - Spring Snow. We're getting several inches here in the city. Not that it's sticking, but there's just a lot of snow falling.

The thing I have yet to get over since moving here is that when it snows, it means business. There are no lazy flakes cascading to the ground. It rains snow. It snows as fast as sleet and rain and...whatever else falls from the sky quickly. And, Lord help you if the wind is blowing. White outs, here we come.

That's totally not today but I wanted to use a picture to break up all this text

I want to write about how I've come to terms with being hated. Like, viciously hated.

How about that total lack of a segue?

I don't know what life is like for other people, but what I can see from TV shows and books and friends is that you go through life and some relationships are great and some aren't and some are fairly annoying. Life has its ups and downs and maybe you come across one or two bad apples.

Not me.

For some reason, I have rubbed some pretty mean people the really wrong way. Inadvertently. Accidentally. Unknowingly. And it has left me scarred. For a few years, the culmination of some experiences sent me into depression - which I'm on the other side of now.

I once had a lady whom I barely knew file an HR report against me for racism at work. I didn't even work with her. I didn't even know about it until my boss called me in and talked to me about it. I was floored. So was he. It wasn't anything that was taken seriously but because I worked for a very large and bureaucratic company, that report remained a part of my file. (I also received the highest evaluation possible - which was extremely rare at that company - but somehow I don't remember that as often.)

When I started this blog, and for the first couple of years I was posting, a coworker was actively, on a daily basis, trying to get me fired. She was one of those people I sort of half expected to slash my tires or hack into my email or set my office on fire. It got to the point that the CEO OF THE COMPANY used to tease me about it. As in, "Oh! You still work here? You're not fired yet?"

And in a few weeks I'll go to my brother's wedding and encounter a family member who hates me with a vengeance. I have no idea if I'll be ignored or if there will be some kind of fit thrown in the middle of the vows.

One of my students from last semester is contesting their grade and has confronted me on multiple occasions online and even at my writing consultant job.

I am not politically or religiously outspoken. I am not confrontational. I am not - on the other hand - passive aggressive or catty. And yet I am very, very hated.

But guess what? That's okay. It's something I've had to deal with in one way or another for the majority of my life and after a few years of what I will call Dealing With It on an Intense Level That I Hope Never to Do Again, I'm 100% okay with people (1) being mad at me, (2) just plain not liking me, and the doozie, (3) hating me.

I figure, if someone can try as hard at life and as relationships as I do, and still be hated? That just can't be my problem. It's just got to lie elsewhere. I can't carry that burden around so I let it go. I don't mean that it's something I continually remind myself to let go; I mean, it's gone.

I mean, I have become a different person. A more armored and offensive (as in warfare, not as in rudeness) version of myself. All those scars have now formed a very thick and protective skin. I don't need my coworkers or my bosses or my students to love me. Or like me. Or approve of me on a personal level. I don't need to please them or make them happy. I don't expect them to make me happy either. While I'm a fairly sensitive and vulnerable person, that soft part is protected by an armored shell that is not penetrable.

I have no idea why I decided to open up about that today of all days. I actually had a really good day - the kind of day that makes me feel like I just might be good at this teaching thing.

But I'm happy nobody knows what car I drive. Just sayin.

All The Time in the World

I would have blogged more last week, but this introvert used up all her words and had none left over. I finally, finally finished All The Grading. It was brutal. Now it's time to start on writing papers of my own. Which will also be brutal.

I'm on my last Jane Austen novel, Persuasion. Turns out Miss Austen was quite the writer. I've really enjoyed all of her books (in different ways). Please remind me of this in a week when I start writing the biggest research paper of all time.

What else? Life has been moving quickly. I've been assigned two classes to teach in the Fall (!!) and I've signed up to take two classes as well. Are you ready? Drum roll, please...........Virginia Woolf and The American Novel. Again with the reading non-stop but apparently I can't help myself.

Nat King Cole presented Digital Story Telling to my classes last week, to get them started on their last unit. The only way it would have been better is if we could have gone for drinks after.

But we will partake of this during Lit Society in a few days:

I've tapered almost all of my tutoring but occasionally I still have a few hours on the weekend. Not this weekend, though! So, it feels like I have all the time in the world. I spend all of that time reading, but whatever.

G nerded it up all day yesterday. He's actually to the point that he's leading entire days of nerd fests and such. He's about to hire a sherpa to schlep all his crap around.

Since he was going to be gone all day and I was going to frantically get my life in order for the rest of the semester, we had an early breakfast. When G took this pic, he goes, "You look really serious." I was like, it's Eggs Benedict. Of course I'm serious.

I was like, "I may look serious, but you look bored. This is a date. Perk up, dude."

I would just like to say that as I type this, plans are in place to book our next big vacay. It won't be for a thousand years, and also after our VA house sells, but just the fact that actual legit plans are in place makes my heart flutter. There's talk of locations. And food. And plane tickets. It's all happening.

While I Was Grading

Good Gifts

Thanks to our Heavenly Father, from whom all blessings flow. He is truly the giver of good gifts. And even bad gifts that are designed to turn out for good. Thanks to the Son for being our ultimate gift.

Happy Easter!!

I hope you're enjoying your God-given gifts as much as I'm enjoying mine!

Easter Eye Candy

In support of my ongoing goal not to become a grad school hermit, I stopped grading for a few hours today and we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens. Here's what I love about Denver; there's still snow on the ground in some places, yet it was a completely clear and sunny day, warm enough to wear shorts.

There were mostly outdoor "exhibits" (if you will). We walked through a succession of themed gardens: Japanese Bonsai, American Woodland, English Gardens, etc. The landscaping and showcasing of plants was well done, and every now and then we'd come across statues, columns, and sculptures.

The winding paths include hidden inlets with benches, as well as some cafes along the way. We only roamed around for a couple of hours, but if you're a plant or nature nerd, it would be easy to spend the entire day here.

Being contemplative

There were several indoor exhibits, too. There's apparently an entire child center on the periphery (we didn't come across it), a science center, a tropical greenhouse, a cactus building, and an enormous regular greenhouse where they nurse the plants as they grow.

A Hawaii shot! Just kidding - it's only the tropical greenhouse. Felt like home, though. :)

OMG the orchids were amazing. They are so colorful and intricate, I can't get over it. They reminded me of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, except the temperature here was/is about a thousand degrees cooler. I remember us dragging our guide into some kind of cool (temperature-wise) mushroom/fungal plant room over and over again. He thought we were overly interested in the plants; we really just needed to cool down. I'm starting to sweat just writing this.

OK, back to grading.

HAPPY EASTER TOMORROW, PEEPS!