new years eve

in a completely lame move, i have decided to stay home for new years eve. my nephew's coming to chill at my parents' place so that his parents can party a little for a change. it feels ironic, because i'm always the one out partying and now i'm going to be the lame one at home. ah, well, there are worse ways to spend your new year's eve, such as, um...well...it could be worse, i'm sure.

so if you have any suggestions of how i could spend this lovely tradition, i'd appreciate it. last year was as good as it gets for me. pjs, pancakes, movies (or bad tv) and drinking, which sounds like a horrible combination but it was a lot of fun. especially when i had to pretend i wasn't drunk, haha. hahahahahahaha. i'm sure we can all guess how well that went....

in other news. i went to tour of a "new apartment building" near wilmington (www.theresidences.net - their sister company is the Residences at Rodney Square if this is any indication of the style of apts.), because my dad is working there. well, i wanted the blue collar tour, but apparently, the little concierge said no that the leasing agent would have to do it. so i went on the tour. fabulous apartments. absolutely beautiful and COMPLETELY out of my price range. the kicker was that she keep harking on the view. the view of the Christina river. if anyone's ever been to DE, they can attest to the fact that the christina river is the nastiest river in the state. it's so gross. there's stuff floating in it and oil/pollution on the surface. it's gross. not to mention that if you drive HALF A BLOCK, you are in DE premier redlight district. FABULOUS. other than that, the apartments are great.

lazy, lazy.

so i'm still at home(DE) because i would be horribly bored going home(MA). it's been nice being with my parents. i miss them a lot when i'm at school. vacation has been enjoyable. not doing work is so frickin' nice after such a crazy semester. although, i have to say, i did not really appreciate the reminder that i'm going to have to do more stats in the spring :-p. in case you were wondering, dan. ;-) (haha, thanks for the update on which version we need).

so today my mom and i journeyed to the mall, which wasn't as crazy as i expected. i took back a few shirts because they would have made me look about 40ish and instead got some much needed, uh, attire and some earrings. i also got my mom's bday present, my dad's bday present and a xmas present for a friend (haha, it's nice that i could have all this time to figure it out...). overall, a productive day. and by productive, i mean that i didn't spend it sitting in front of my tv playing N64. while saving the princess is important, it is not the most productive thing i can do with my life.

my mom got me moisturizer with anti-wrinkle stuff in it. my parents of course laughed at the idea that i have wrinkles. but i do. and they look worse when my face is dry.

anyway, tomorrow will be busy: meeting maggie for coffee and then off to see my dad's work and then off to meet some drc-ers. good times.

newark, new york!

due to a transit strike in the city of new york, my dear friends manuel and lauren and i had to cancel our plans to visit the "big tree." what did we do instead, you ask? we drank from 1pm until 6pm in the fine metropolis that is newark, del! :-) we went to 5/6 bars on main street, drinking at 3/6. and then we went bowling (i bowled a 100 -- and two strikes in the last frame!) good times!!! we took pics at all of the bars, although you probably can't tell which one is which :-)

early

i surprised my parents today by coming home two days early. it was fabulous. my mom literally ran out to my car. and then she ran inside and told me dad that he "had to come outside quick to see this." he got two steps out the door and was like, "what vicki, what?" and then he saw me standing a foot in front of him. hehe. it was cute. he was like, "you surprised the hell out of me!" super cute.

so i survived my first semester of grad school. i think it ended well. or at least, it ended much better than it started. i made some awesome friends and i hope that next semester I can get to know people better. overall, i think everyone has contributed in some small way to making it a lot easier. i especially don't think i would have made it without Lost nights with mj and starbucks/stats with courtney.

i have to go to sleep soon because after driving 4.5 hours from MA i'm worn out. i'm not sure if it's the drive or where i'm driving (MA, CT, NY, NJ...). my jaw began to set around hartford and the vein popped out around the tappen zee. by the time i got to the turnpike, i wanted to give everyone the "driving finger." being as its the holiday season and all, i didn't. you never know when "santa" is watching, after all. that and in a fight with a jersey person, my $$ would go on the jersey person.

anyway, i'll update this later. not that i have anything exciting to say. but it makes me feel happy to update and hope that someone somewhere is actually caring what's going on in this pathetic life :-).

drinking? dancing? sounds like a fabulous dept. holiday party...

this past wednesday was the dept holiday party. we had enough liquor to kill a cow, which served it's life-long purpose well. anyway, here are some pictures from the event (some of which i don't remember):

open mouth...

...insert foot.

yeah, done that a couple times in the last 6 days. it's been fabulous. at this rate, i might start pooping socks.

correction...

in accordance to a complaint i received via a phone call yesterday evening, i am ammending my last post. it's not that my brothers didn't help at all. it's just that i helped more. :-p sorry guys, that's as good as it's going to get. ;-)

speaking of snow...

my parents apparently (haha) bought a snow blower the other day (they went to get my mom a ring and came back with a snow blower - that's SO my parents...). why did they buy one after 21+ years without, you ask? because the kid that did most of the shoveling moved out. AND THAT CHILD WASN'T EITHER OF MY BROTHERS. ;-) take that gender roles! ;-)

welcome to new england's winter

we have a grand total of 10 inches according to my scientific method of measuring snowing via dropping my yellow ruler (which i've had since fourth grade...) into the snow. our first real snowstorm of the season! i think the weathers websites (both weather.com and accuweather.com) are out to get america by producing bad predictions. this was supposed to be a mild 5 incher. what the heck? dudes, you were wrong by 5 inches. if we were wrong like this all the time, we'd be at war with a country and have no way to get out of it. oh wait...my bad... ;-)

anyway, here's a collection of pictures from today: the first couple are from when i first woke up around 8am; one's from when accuweather.com said it was going to start flurry (that would be the pic in which it was snowing super hard); and the others are me goofing off for your entertainment ;-)

can i make it?

a big 12 days left in my semester. i am so exhausted i can't wait for it to be over. i have a lot to get through before i can declare myself free from the evilness that is grad school, but the misery will be over soon enough.

there's a department "holiday" party next week. i'm still debating whether to go or not. the idea of seeing faculty drinking might be rewarding after this semester. sociologists (in fact, most academics) are the most dysfunctional (mainly alcoholic) group of the bunch. it's hilarious.

so, we were supposed to get about 5" of snow. yeah, not a flake to be found in noho/amherst this morning. none. i was all prepared and woke up extra early to ensure that i could clean off my car and make it to school in one piece. yearh. apparently my parents' got about 4" in DE (because apparently it snows in DE when i move out of the stupid state...). for a storm that would monopolize the tv for about 2 days, up here, it gets no attention. craziness! :-) they also suck at plowing. in case you were caring about that. or maybe they're saving their precious resources.

so that's that. i'm too exhausted to write an intelligent post today. be thankful i've given you a two-second distraction. i know i appreciate them.

as one of my students ended his FORMAL ACADEMIC paper, "I can't do this anymore. I'm done"

the snow has arrived!

um, so apparently i pissed off mr. winter because he brought snow today. there's a hefty (by DE standards) bit on the ground. i'm excited :-) Everyone else is probably grumbling.

pictures to follow.

mr. winter, you're late

the forecast today: snow. oh wait - it's still to warm for that. i have to say that i am sorely disappointed about this new england fall. it's actually resembled a DE fall but a lot - crappy "warm" (for the season) weather and the leaves weren't so great. and the squirrels (which i notice because i'm obsessed) must be sweating their little, uh, "nuts" off (haha). they've been chubbin' out for the last few weeks, without it really being cold out. anyway, i'm sure old man winter will still have it in for us in the north come january.

only 17 more days in my semester (including the beloved weekends) -- unless it snows. i have two papers and a presentation to get through, 75 papers to grade, two exams to proctor, and two stats assignments to complete. it will probably be the most miserable 17 days of my life.

i'm keeping my mind on the goal: sleep and several weeks off.

it's a charlie brown christmas

here are the results from my decorating spurt. this is about all the christmas i'm going to have up here. apparently i had much more room to decorate last year. the tree doesn't look so bad in person. of course, it's starting to get a little old and wasn't exactly the best little tree out there (it rotates...), but it works. if only i had an ugly garland to drape down my banister...

just kidding, just kidding

so yeah, still haven't figured out how to do the snazzy features on blogger i once did. just click the title :-P

Christmas, Christmas time is near...

i've spent the morning being ultra-unproductive. after unpacking from my much needed trip home, i imported a bunch of xmas music for my ipod. i need some new holiday-centered tunes, so i added about six songs from the music store (that site is making a f-ing fortune off of me...) including THE CHIPMUNKS CHRISTMAS SONG :-). when i get back from office hours later today, i'm planning to decorate my apartment (oh, and you'll see pics :-)).

bring it Christmas: i'm ready! :-)

yay for buffer zones

made it home in one piece. it's really late and i'm super exhausted from driving (no traffic though!) so i'm ending this one without too many gory details. let's just say it was good to see family, better to see a good friend, and best to be asleep right now.

update to follow.

night!

GUESS WHO'S GOING HOME!!!!

i'm a little excited, if you couldn't tell...

it's a little lame - i'll admit...

i've been a lame-ass the last couple days. working really hard until my brain turns to pudding and then watching tv or a movie. i have to say that i was disappointed that TBS didn't do their usual friday night friends bonanza. i was really looking forward to watching it last night. :-P whatever. instead i watched mona lisa smile. not nearly as good as some crazy antic between those crazy friends in new york.

so i have a lot of crap due this coming week. and by this week, i mean monday because i'm leaving tuesday. to prepare, i bs-ed two papers, finished my stats hw (i typed it this time! it looks all swanky!), and i need to work on my presentation for monday. i'm also critiquing a paper that - i promise you - reads like your worse GRE nightmare. oh yes. GRE NIGHTMARE. it's horrible. i guess it's not really suitable for the GRE's because the sentence structure is so terrible that even the evil minds behind that exam wouldn't be so cruel. i somehow need to decode and figure out somethign nice to say. "dear friend, you should hold off on that idea about coming to grad school. it's not personal. but you can't write your way home. try getting your point across. it's helpful. signed, your friend."

sleep deprivation makes me crazy...

so i went on a little caffiene ride. on wednesday, i couldn't stay awake for anything, so after my quick nap, i decided i needed to punch it up a notch and drank a cup of coffee. after drinking that cup of coffee (which was yummy), i stupidly decided to have another. it helped me stay up through lost, and get some work done. but yeah, sleep wasn't so fun that night. and of course i had to get up at 5:45am to TA so by the time i got to the good sleep, my f-ing alarm went off. so what do you do when you need to stay awake throughout the day? oh, you get starbucks as soon as you can (9:30am) because their coffee is 97% rocket full, 7% sugar, and 9% coffee flavor (i know that doesn't add up - it's for illustration purposes only...). that finally kicked in...when i had to attend stats at 3pm. i wanted to go running i was so hyped up. and then i crashed when i got home.

i'd like to send out an apologies to you-know-who-you -are. i get a little crazy and slightly, um, let's say paranoid because it's probably nicer than a lot of other words you can use.

i'm now convinced that Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto while drinking a primitive version of a Starbucks latte and having no sleep. makes complete sense to me...

"elect rat romney 2008"

i participated in my first union rally. gov. romney won't sign our contracts (it wouldn't look so hot for him as a member of the republican party - which leads me to question how in the world MA got a conservative governor...) and this leaves us with few options. we've already agreed with the administration at umass that the contracts are fair therefore renegotiation is not an option (contrary romney's suggestion).

so what are we to do? dress a humble grad student as a rat (impersonating romney fairly well...) to give a mock speech and then march to the mullins center to deliver our petition to president wilson. it ended with cake.

props to the sociology dept. we made up the majority of individuals at the rally. even people who i'd never met before were there. it's because we study depressing things like employment and wage inquality.

so yeah. collectively bargaining is good times.

filthy rich at the top?

damn doberstein and roselle. i hope some of this trickles down to the grad students.

(yeah, i was procrastinating again...)

notes and more notes

okay. i'm procrastinating from long "to do" list, but i need a break. i have writer's block.

1. this weekend was "wicked" fun (i mean that as a MA wicked, not that we were flying around on broomsticks or completely misbehaving). we went to funky monkey. they had a rock band on the first floor and a hip hop dj in the basement. the dj actually sucked. he played a lot of hispanic reggae (which apparently exists?). i could have done a better job. anyway, i had a good time overall, but something was missing :-(

2. i had a really bad hangover on sunday. hangovers suck when you're driving through the hellhole they call new jersey and the spoiled brat area called connecticut. i had a lexus suv up my ass for about 30 mins on I84. thanks.

3. only 7 days until i get to go home. and i just got really great news about going home. i've been smiling since yesterday afternoon. and it wasn't from the happy meal i got to get rid of my hangover (per lauren's chicken nuggets cure hangovers rule).

4. procrastination is fun, but i should probably go play more with my papers and stats hw. hopefully i really do understand stats like i think i do. we don't get to play with stata this time. it's sad, but i'm not going to cry. no worries.

5. i'm still trying to figure out why i can't really do anything exciting with my posts. the only options on my tool bar are spelling and insert pics. :-p rest assured. i will figure this out. it may involved downloading firefox. we shall see.

dude, it's called grad school

seriously... (click title)

2059

so i wasn't planning on blogging today. i procrastinate a lot using this thing, but today i saw an exhibit on campus that has made me cry.

nearly 2000 boots of soldiers who have died in combat were on display on the library lawn. it's so breath-taking to see so many boots lined up in rows. 2000 suddenly seems like an incredible number. seems like too many.

if the exhibit comes to your town, i highly encourage you to go see it.

http://www.afsc.org/eyes/about-the-exhibit.htm

exciting news!

i saw a BLACK squirrel when i was driving to school today (this is a picture in case you doubt their existence). i didn't know such a creature exists. hypothetically speaking, if reincarnation is indeed true, i wish to now return as a BLACK squirrel, but that seems so much cooler than just a regular squirrel.

no, i haven't lost my mind.

guess who's taking a weekend off?

oh, that's right. i, madame grad student workaholic because there is no other alternative to this lifestyle, am going to see my dear friend aileen this weekend. it's totally impractial and ridiculous, but i'm going nonetheless. i actually do need the break and to get away for a bit, so it's good :-). i promise to be good...mostly O:-). no, really, i'll behave. it can't be too crazy because i can't afford it and i don't want to be insanely pissed off because i am behind in work.

in other news, another member of the cohort began to actually discuss how much she was unhappy today. (this sounds so wrong, but) it made me feel like things aren't so bad and i'm not the only one going crazy. we chatted and she felt better. ah, i'm glad we're not faking happy anymore. it's exhausting having to pretend that we're happy all the time, when in fact, we all think this sucks ass and that someone is going to see what we're faking it all.

speaking of sucking ass, i had a student come up and demand to take a make-up. nevermind that the exam was last week and this is the first time she's saying anything (and the last make-up was yesterday) and the fact that she thinks we OWE her a make-up. unfortunately for her, she came up to the most uncaring TAs of the bunch. catherine told her "tough crap - should have told us sooner..." and i wanted to tell her where to go (a little further south than MA...) but the prof was nice enough to let her retake the make-up. oh yes, and during my office hours :-P.

one final note, regressions are going well. we've moved from the "primitive" simple linear to multiple regression. good times! and i'm actually still with them. some of the abbreviations are confusing (TSS, SSM, SSE, MSS, MSM, MSE...:-P) but overall, it's sinking in. plus, my good friend stata is there to do the actual work ;-) when it comes to running the equation. yay for statistical packages! :-)

Saturday, in review

1. It was unseasonably (and disgustingly) warm yesterday for November: 72 was our high. it's throwing my internal thermastat off and it's screwing with the southern contingency of the cohort.

2. i was super trendy, with my mac at an internet cafe yesterday. however, the cafe played not so great music (a totally screwed up combo of obscure indie and BOB DYLAN - oh yes, BOB DYLAN).

3. MA drivers are the worst ever. i hope i don't assimilate. because that would suck. i feel like i should take out more life insurance, just in case.

4. hung out with courtney yesterday (she's the only black woman in the cohort -- this should preface the next comment). her response for me being freaked out in grad school, "GIRL, don't let them crazy white folk bother you." hahahahahaha. i wonder if i'm include in the "crazy white folk" category.

5. i can't concentrate to save my life today. :-P

yesterday was a shit day

in case you're keeping up with my frequent mood swings about grad school, yesterday was a shit day. it started off really well (a prof from UD told me that our chapter is definitely going to be published in a public sociology reader next year), and then subsequently sucked after that. i'll spare you the horribly whiney/boring details about the events. suffice it to say that it was just overwhelming. i haven't started packing my bags for home yet...but it was definitely a consideration when i got back to my apt. i should probably throw away my little stash of boxes in case i have a super bad day...

so i got lectured by my pc-only uncle (he's going for his ms-certs in january...) about my newly acquired piece of technology: "there's a reason [mac] only has 5% of the market." it was good times. :-P

okay, thats all. i'm going to write a CAM reading memo regarding hegemony, the emergence/existence of race relations, and then go play with regressions. and by "play" i mean sit dumbfounded in class while sanjiv talks about regression analysis, and the mathematical background thereof.

i <3 apples...

um, i'm beginning to really like the fruit, but actually talking about my new powerbook g4. it's fabulous, although taking a bit to get used to the apple-way rather than the ms-way. i feel so like an academic.

pictures to follow ;-)

all i have to say is...

yay for costume parties, rum and coke and g'night

thank you.

thanks to everyone for their suggestions about my hair (including evan's grad student friend allison!). i'm going to stop and shop today to get a) a multi-vitamin, b) tons of veggies (which i decided to do because my TA class keeps talking about the crappy food we eat and i'm beginning to feel bad about liking/consuming cheezits and wheat thins for dinner :-( stupid american food industry...) and c) my other food items.

hopefully, i'll have a good hair report soon.

speaking of hair-loss (which is somehow related to stress....), it is a full weekend of work work work. i might take a break to go to a party tomorrow night. but we shall see.

my hair

the wrong part of me is thinning. not my ass, nor my tummy, or my thighs. my hair is thinning significantly. i've lost almost half of my volume and this is very upsettting, as i'm sure you might guess.

i went to the doctor about it. he said it's not anything medical, as far as he can currently tell. i am trying to eat more veggies. i've also changed my shampoo/conditioner and am planning to take cooler showers (much to the rest of my body's objections). i am currently on shampoo/conditioner #3. if it isn't a shampoo thing, i will have enough shampoo/conditioners to last the rest of the year. oh, how i wish that were humorous hyperbole.

currently, the theory is that it's stress. i'm trying to relax more (not working...) and i may join a gym or start trying to find ways of exercising because if my hair is going to be thin, the rest of me should be too.

your prayers and any other suggestions are welcome.

ocean's 11 (um, well, umass' 11)

here's my cohort (the pic's a little fuzzy :-( ). aren't we cute? ;-)

back (l-r): irene, courtney, marianne, carla, ayse, shawn
front (l-r): kathryn, dustin, dan, laura, ozlem

in case you needed a mid-morning update...

it's pouring and windy. my umbrella was ineffective. i am, thus, soaked and fairly cold.

thank you.

a fairly cold autumn day

i spent the morning at starbucks and have to say: it feels like autumn. an overcast day and chilly!
with the weather like this, i get to start wearing hats, scarves and gloves again and this makes me very happy. and look so very cute ;-)

"you've got mail"

it's one of my favorite movies. i've seen probably 20 or so times. i love the dialogue. i think it's cute and clever. the ending always make me tear up (but not cry) and feel so happy.

that's about all i wanted to say tonight.

in case you want to know how cool i am...(apparently i wanted to play with the links today)

the author of questionable content lives in the five college area, which is where i also live (granted it's a large general vicinity, but whatever. oh and thanks to evan for getting me into qc!). how cool is that? he's actually going to the broken social scene concert in Noho this weekend to which laura and sommer are going. i was debating going, but i'm not sure. feist (a new fave of mine) will be there also and she's totally kick-ass. but i don't have the "look" for indy, i think. i would stick out like a sore freakin thumb and that's just not cool. so we'll see. (but if myrah comes to town, i'm totally there. oh, and manuel keeps emailing me with shows i should go to. dude. like i party all the time...)

anyway, today is work and lots of it. totally lots of it: readings for CAM, response for CAM, readings for labor market this week, readings for labor market next week AND discussion summaries for next week (so i chat with michelle about not sucking), and a paper outline for labor market, and i'm sure sanjiv will post the homework for stats, in which case, i'll get to do that too. no fun tonight. :-P

hayride tomorrow.

nothing new

i have nothing new to report. i've had ADGSD (attention deficit graduate student disorder) today and thus chatted with nearly everyone in my cohort AND priced out my new piece of techie gear. i have to say that the loss of my techie bf is a considerable one. i need to outsource this work again because it takes entirely too much work on my part and i don't like it. therefore, i'd like to advertise that i will be accepting applications for this position in january (in case anyone local is interested...the job doesn't pay, but it's just fab to be my bf...;-) kidding! um, not about the fab part...yeah about the application part...). i also would like to interview anyone with car-fixing skills. and possibly someone to keep me warm at night because frankly i'm freezing off my ass. having all three qualities is a HUGE plus. oh, and should be taller than me, cute, and a good kisser. (haha, that sounds like a bit more than just outsourcing on my part...)

send your applications to: carla@haslostherfreakinmindandisoutsourcing.net

good times, people. good times.

(this is a joke and that's not a real address, in case anyone isn't so bright).

didn't believe me?

in case you didn't believe my previous post, here's a picture of (most of) the women in my cohort:

look! i do have friends!

so we got together to play games last night and just not do work for more than 12 minutes. it was actually just what i needed because i was beginning to hate the thought of continuing grad school for another 5.5 years, let alone 2.5 months. we actually had more than the "party crowd": ayse, courtney, and kathryn came. we spent some time talking about grad school (haha, like we can avoid it!) and then played cranium, which was a lot of fun. marianne and i got behind after the first turn (like way way way behind) but we caught up quickly and, as it turns out, tied laura and shawn for the win ;-).

and i learned some great little tidbits about my friends: courtney's dog apparently has "race" issues, kathryn said her dogs were "genetically abnormal" hand-me-overs, irene left her soul at the library, ayse can do a shot of straigh rum, marianne tries (succesfully!) to hide her new england accent, and i don't think i learned anything new about shawn or laura, except that laura likes some groovy 80s tunes.

oh, and the pic is of our food. we brought whatever was in our fridge and could be parted with (although some of us actually stopped at the store to bring something that wasn't a leftover): spice cookies, apple cider, crackers, chips, cheetos, hummus, carrots, cucumbers, vegan brownies, bagel slices, lettuce (not pictured), brie, nuts and seeds, and assorted liquor. it was good times. and laura now has food. and beer.

no worries

to those who read yesterday's blog, good news: i think i have figured out my thermastat and have adjusted it to a mild 65 degrees right now. enough to keep me awake but not freezing my non-existent cojones off.

today is "lots of work" day: CAM, labor market paper/readings, and stats if i can get to it. it'll be fun times. tomorrow will be better. we were going to go on a hayride, but thanks to the torrential downpouring rain that was supposed to continue today (officially making it a rainy week), we figured it would be more fun to send out (literally) 20 emails collectively last night to discuss other options (stupid grad students being so democratic and "everyone has a voice"...j/k, i actually started it; there were two people who didn't check their emails all night and hence didn't join in the conversation. all i gotta say is "i apologize for your 20 new emails just from your overly loquacious cohort") um, so yeah, 20 emails later, we've decided to hang at laura's with the potential plan of:

a) playing some kick-ass games (some suggested scrabble, but honestly i've been playing several games of scrabble for the last six months and it would be the end of me; i've suggested my favorite group games: cranium and/or balderdash);

b) crash a local undergrads' loud and obnoxious kegger (ah, fond memories, matt);

or c) out-do their loud and obnoxious kegger with our own kick ass party.

i think it'll be a combination of (a) and (c)

oh! oh! i almost forgot. shawn's comment in stats yesterday about dan having to know why and courtney and i just "having faith" that it'll all work: "sanjiv [the prof] is like God and the central limits theorem [what inferential stats is built on] is like the Bible - just go with it." apparently there's a religious theme to this class i wasn't aware of.

um, i guess i'm not that smart

so i slept last night with three blankets (one being my down comforter) because i can't figure out how to work my thermastat. how sad for me.

scribbles

1. most of us were horribly lost on our stats data analysis. sanjiv probably got 12 answers for the same problem and only one or two that are right (prob not mine - don't get your hopes up people).

2. i've manage to not cry for about 45 minutes today. it's been a big accomplishment and i'd like to thank all the little people. shawn had to be my therapist today (best i've ever had, actually). thankfully, i've got healthcare coverage ;-) (j/k - it was a freebie).

3. apparently when there's a holiday, the days of the week get shifted in UMassworld. therefore, i didn't have CAM (=the class that would be the bane of my existence this semester except that i have stats...) and won't have pro-sem or labor market inequality tomorrow. go team go. (translation: i get to wear my pjs before 1pm)

4. i really don't have anything to say here, but i wanted to get to five points and so i needed a number 4.

5. a friend sent me the pic. i'm sorry if it offends anyone. living in the liberal north though, it's kinda funny (and i thought my dad would like it ;-))

people hate driving behind me...

it's mostly because i am still new to the area so i try to look around when i'm going to/from school. it's especially bad going over the CT River -- today it was overflowing -- the view is amazing and i can't help myself. the other place is the new route i'm taking to get to school. it's a little two-lane road with farms and trees and it's pretty. well, anyway. poor people. just don't get impatient. eventually the area won't have so much charm. it's really pretty right now and it's not about social inequality so it has my attention. it's not like it makes me as bad a driver as the native MA's ;-)

you hate taking the exam?

try grading the damn thing.

i have a pile of about 80 "in-class writing assignments" to grade by next thursday. at this point, i just want to randomly assign numbers to the front page because i feel like that would be a better use of my time. i've already gone through my only thing of bubblewrap (it's soothing to pop the bubbles and pretend they are the little students stupid little heads...). not that i'm resentful and bitter or anything. just most of my friday afternoon/evening was sucked away grading only forty exams. and i'm sure on tuesday, i'll get a lot of students asking if we've graded them yet. because i'm supposed to sell my life to grade these things. (i guess it's not that far from the truth...)

besides that, what else has been going on? um, not much. i got passed around deerpark (via the phone -- no worries mom and dad) yesterday because lauren went drinking there for her (our) bday and so everyone at the drc wanted to talk to me. fun times. i miss them. i wanted to be there so badly. although the last time i drank at the deerpark (for st. patty's day) i woke up still drunk and had to fudge my way through work. it was, shall we say, painful. [mom and dad & any other relatives: pretend that you didn't just read that...]

oh and stata. the bane of graduate existence in the social sciences. we have homework with running regressions or something and, well, i don't understand it at all. if it were in spss (another statistical package) i could probably run the damn regression, but it's not. i have to work with syntax ("because we are going to get you all in the good habit of it" - sanjiv) which i hate. and the program seems equally disdainful of me. whatever. i just want to get my grade, get the hell out of quantitative methodologies and play in qualitative crap. who cares about stats when you can manipulate the hell out of them and make them whatever you want them to be. seriously. let's really think about this. what are we tell ourselves about anything?

can you tell that i'm not all lovey-dovey with grad school right now? yeah.

a few notes

- i wish to return to having lost/wine night with my three comrads

- the drive home was beautiful tonight (new route = lots of farms/fog/sunset)

- i didn't sound like a dumbass in labor market inequality (some things are huge accomplishments)

- tomorrow's my bday and i'm feeling old. love and consolation requested.

the potty-mouth member of the cohort

okay, so talking with shawn and laura on the way back from the airport, i mentioned that i felt like i was the potty-mouth of the cohort because of my tendency to curse more often than the rest of them (which isn't saying a lot because they don't curse hardly at all). to this, laura replied, "what the f**k is going on carla? -- does that make you feel better?" :-)

visiting home was great. a much needed break. shawn said i looked/sounded much better :-) (of course, this is compared to the "death on a cracker" look of wednesday/thursday). it was so nice to see my family - i missed them sooo much. and of course, it's complete craziness there, which always manages to drive me insane and make me so happy at the same time. but overall, an amazing time home.

PS - the eagles started winning when i stopped watching the game :-\ how awful and great all at the same time.

umbrellas are apparently useless.

after getting soaked getting lunch in amherst (it was good pizza), i am now in the grad computer lab and notice a "noiseless" chalkboard eraser.

my question: since when do erasers need to be "noiseless"???

to the student who gave me this awful cold/flu...

...if i find out who you are, i may fail you :-P

i'm not serious, but i want to be.

1/2 a box of tissues down and 1/2 to go. this will make the plane ride interesting tomorrow.

odds and ends...

1. i saw a rainbow today. it's kind of dumb, but i needed to see a rainbow today -- or something beautiful. i had a rough night. it was a good start to the day (especially given how freakin' early i got up after not sleeping)

2. i didn't fail my stats hw. i did well. better than i thought. of course, with my usual "dumb" mistakes for a big -0.5 off. :-P

3. my stats prof made the following statement regarding whether the central limits theorem of statistics is ever violated: "this is safer to believe than anything in the Bible...uh, or any religious texts...i'm not trying to single out Christianity...." i thought it was funny. a lot of things are funny right. like the fact that i have no life. it's hilarious.

el fin.

Perhaps someone else has felt this way...

Prayer for Courage

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
but for the heat to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life's battle-field,
but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant that I may not be a coward,
feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me
find the grasp of your hand in my failure.

-Rabindranath Tagore

my friends (aka "the party crowd")

so of the cohort, there are about four people i hang out with regularly. three of them are pictured above (from left, me, laura, shawn, marianne; irene couldn't make it because she was burried somewhere under a pile of CAM). we are the cool people who take a break and enjoy life for more than 12 minutes. because otherwise, we'd go crazy (and aren't we crazy enough selling our souls to be in grad school?)

I swiped these from Shawn's website. :-) (I really haven't lost as much weight as it looks like -- promise Mom!)Mount Sugarloaf

Hiking Mount Holyoke!

whole new spin on why they all drink...

after this week, i can understand why the grad lounge starts serving alcohol at 11am.

that is all.

new england living :-)

(the pics doesn't match the texts, but i thought you might want to see my cute little town of northampton) so i've been talking so much about school that i've forgotten to write about how much i love living here. the area is beautiful. living in western mass, as i do, rural (a helluva lot of farms - which means fresh fresh produce!). um, just in case you didn't know, amherst/northampton is in a valley. i have several sizable mountains viewable when i'm scooting around. the coolest thing in the early AM (about the only good thing about driving so early to my [bleeping] 8am TA...) is seeing the clouds/fog floating just starting to lift. so beautiful. the trees are just starting to change colors. only a few leaves on each tree, showing signs of autumn. it's cool to see little splashes of yellows or oranges in an otherwise green tree. i can't wait for the colors to really come out. i have my camera ready to take pics. it's exciting.

so the rural thing. it's taken a little bit to get used to. it's not like delaware was this major metropolis, but it was keeping with the times and there were strip malls and shopping centers in abundance. i now have to drive about 20 minutes to find something like that (oddly, in a slightly poorer town :-\ weirdness). i guess it's nice. it's not like i have any $$ to spend on that sort of thing, but it's definitely weird to consolidate trips because the store isn't really right around the corner.

oh, just to throw in a complete non-sequitur (because i'm so good at that!), in my stats class, we ran a regression on earnings and age to examine the relationship between getting older and one's earnings (oooh! i sound smart...). anyway, the regression equation showed that at zero years, you should make $16k and you would experience an increase of $506 per year. granted, it's only a linear regression and in context, that makes little sense to earn $16k as an infant. i just thought it was funny that my one year-old nephew could potentially (according to my regression) make more money than me. gotta love stats...

over 900 eyes all lookin' at me!

i apologize for the delay in blogging. i haven't had a coherent thought in my head lately (grad school is supposed to make you smarter, but i'm beginning to feel like a half-baked carrot. not that i've ever actually been half-baked, and we won't talk about being a carrot...;-)).

So the second week of grad school: i've managed to avert a complete breakdown. it was a super close call. i wanted to call bob (the grad director) and explain to him that i just don't have what it takes. apparently that feeling was remedied with 6 hours of sleep. good to know.

other than that, reading is kicking my butt. i've never read this much in my life. it's incredible. and obscure sometimes too. there were a few moment when i was reading an article i thought, "what?!" (with a slightly confused look - you'll have to imagine it...). yeah, it was great. i had to re-read the same paragraph 15x (ok, a little hyperbole my friends, but not much) to understand what the heck the author was saying. seriously, if you can't write clearly, don't write. just give presentations at conferences and use lots of pictures. some people are meant to write, some people are meant to read. it's your lot in life and there's nothing wrong with that...

so janice (the prof i TA for) allowed me to speak to our class (of 450+ students!) on my research on hurricanes andrew and mitch and relate that to katrina. it didn't go perfectly, but it went well enough. janice was very kind about it too. in fact, she offered that if i want to do something else during the semester, she would allow me to do so! exciting huh? yeah, especially as a first-year. it was a lot of work to pull together (even for only 20 minutes...) but being up there really reminded me why i'm here. i love to teach. and that's what will help me get through those miserable, i want to quit moments. ;-)

until next week, friends....:-)

"oh s**t!"

(the title will make sense in a moment, so please bear with me...) i went to a new church today in deerfield. i liked it a lot. it's definitely #1 on the list of likely "home" churches. next week, i'm still planning to check out a church in wilibram. not that i'm trying to be extremely picky, but i do want to keep my options open and see what else is out there. pretty soon, though, i'll end up in boston or hartford looking for a church and i don't want to do that...

okay, so the title. i decided that i want to make cookies this afternoon and had to stop at the stop&shop for ingredients. i park my car and approach the store only to see a relatively large crowd out front staring to my right. i turn my attention to where they were looking and - prepare yourself - there was a car on top of a car. oh yes. that's right. a ford crown vic had manage to ramp up this little sedan so it's wheels - it's wheels - were on the other car's windshield. how the heck do you manage to do that??? honestly. so, of course, this is the talk of the store. everyone from the dairy guy to the cashier was talking about it. anyway, i get my groceries and head out of the store. as i'm walking to my car, this guy is walking in saying, "don't forget we need to get...oh shit!" cause seriously, how often do you see that???

and it begins

so i've had two classes and my TA class. our proseminar (prosem) was cancelled yesterday because the department i/t guy wasn't able to make it. my first class was in labor market inequality. it's right up my alley ;-). it'll be a lot of work (not that it's a surprise...), but ifif i can work a required comp paper out of the class, it'll be worth it. of course, i'm getting ahead of myself. i've just made it through my first week...

i had my 8am TA today. holy cow it's early. so frickin early. but i like the class and the prof is amazing. i'm excited about working with her. i'll actually get to speak a bit about my thesis/research on vulnerability next week. oh, the worst thing today: one of the students spilled my coffee during CAS so i had to function all day without caffiene, but i managed (no worries) to make it through stats at 3pm. i think i'll do okay in it. the class should be similar to my undergrad class. we'll learn stats up to multivariate regression and that's what we got to in soc301. granted that was two years ago.

new england demographic trends

i meant to post this a while ago. i received this in my UMail account when i first moved to MA :-):

"A record number of babies recently arrived at our Maternity Center on the Memorial Campus. From July 31 to August 8, a total of 96 babies were delivered, including 48 newborns arriving during a 72-hour period from August 5 - 8. When asked what contributed to this unusually high number, Kathy Teeple, director of Women and Infant Services, said that upon consulting the pregnancy wheel, it was determined that many of these babies were conceived in the spirit of celebration at the end of the World Series last October! One family even named its son Fenway, in honor of the Red Sox's triumphant victory."


...i'm so glad i like Eagles football. ;-)

4-18 years? holy cow

so i found out today that the range is between 4 and 18 years for the grad program. no typo - that's eighteen, as in the age that you're allowed to vote. 18 freaking, flipping, forever long years. i'm aiming for 6 years. i think it's doable if i stay focused. my idea is to stay on top of things and get my coursework done. i'd like to be "abd" within 4 years. we'll see how that goes.

classes start tomorrow. it's the end of life as i know it ;-).

"...and they ran into a frog..."

today was hiking part ii. again, it was laura, summer, shawn and me going up mount holyoke. shawn fixed his hiking boots so they didn't bother his heel this time, but the laces were apparently digging into his toes so summer gave him a - are you ready - sanitary napkin to help "pad" it. oh, and it worked ;-). so we decided on our trail and, after the girls doused ourselves in bug spray (lest to get eaten alive by insects), we started on our hike to the top of the mountain. this trail kept screwing with us because we'd walk up the trail and just when we (in our out of breath state) thought that we were up as far as we could go, the trail would dip down and then go back up more steeply than before. jerk. we'll have fabulous butts if we keep this up and i think that we'll try to. anyway, we got to the top of the mountain (a 1000 feet hike, btw) and what a view. i was still stunned. beautiful. i can't wait to go up again in the fall. the leaves are going to be awesome (and i mean the real definition of awesome, not "awesome like a hotdog, sir?" -- okay, sorry, bad reference to eddy izzard...)

we decided to go back another way via the horse caves. not at all what we were expecting - we climbed down and were all like, "um are we there? i guess we're there" but they were really cool anyway (turns out they were stone overhangings where "they" would take horses). we sat in the cave and had lunch. i found out that there is (or was?) a handkerchief code for gay men. yeah, i'll skip that discussion except to say that, hey at least they all can communicate exactly (i mean exactly) what they're looking for. maybe it has to be through color pieces of cloth - but who's to judge, really? i never know what straight men are thinking...

but i digress. we weren't able to figure out a punchline to our joke. we got a middle part though. "so the group comes across a frog who says, "i am an enchanted frog. if the right person kisses me, i will be restored to my original self." so the straight woman (thinking of the story of the frog prince) leans down and gives the little amphebian a kiss. to her dismay, nothing happens. the gay man thinks, why not and kisses the frog. nothing happens. so the lesbians pick up the frog and kiss him and he turns into...." and we couldn't figure it out! how lame, huh? we had tons of inside jokes but no one would get them because, gasp, they're inside. oh well. summer will return in october and maybe then we'll figure out our punchline. stay tuned. ;-)

strike two?

i went to another new church in agawam today. it was...okay. i think i'll try a new one next week. sigh. i'm not a fan of this process at all.

the biggest feat of the day: i conquered a massachusettean roundabout. go me :-)

mount sugarloaf

we went for a hike today up mount sugarloaf (isn't that so cute?). it was just four of us: shawn, laura, summer and me. we had a fun time. i forgot how much i like to hike. and it was the perfect day for a hike - clear, sunny but not hot. aside from my personal troubles getting to the trail, (i kept driving past the road onto which i was supposed to turn right -- and, in my defense, i'm normally a great navigator :-P) it was a great time. it wasn't a big mountain (shawn and i thought it would be best to avoid a complicated trail for our first time hiking in MA), but we took the long way up the trail so it took an hour. there were a few sections (toward the top) when we all decided that if we kept this up, we'd have the finest asses in the cohort...


the best part was getting to the summit. holy cow. you could see the whole valley. the mountain was in deerfield (north of us) and we were still able to see amherst and hadley (if you look really closely at the first pic, you can see du bois library in the background). and, of course, you have the connecticut river which meanders through the valley. amazing.

we had lunch on top and after shawn and summer made fun of a motorcycle gang (quietly of course, lest they get their butts handed to them), we decided to head back down. here's the fun part - we finally figured out the map and decided to go down a different way than we came up. the trail back down zig-zagged steeply down the front slide of the mountain and had a cable fence around it (we figured out that this was to prevent cars from driving off not to keep hikers off). anyway, so we begin our descent and shawn remarks, "this seems like the beginning to a joke: 'two lesbians, a gay man and a straight woman go down a mountain...'" but we never decided on a punchline. we thought the beginning part was too funny.


in the end, we had such a great time that we're going to mount holyoke to hike monday. :-)

orientation part ii - TAing

today was the TA orientation. it was...an orientation. not much to say there. i was slightly annoyed that the sessions didn't start/end on time. but that's me just being my type-a, organized, "particular" (as my cohort says, as opposed to "anal") self. there were some useful tidbits in the sessions too, so it's not a total loss. just annoying.

the fun thing about today was meeting the rest of my cohort (save one). of course, i've already met shawn, laura, marianne, dan, and courtney (the last of whom was lucky enough to skip out on today...). today, i met irene, kathryn, dustin and ayse. fun times. we all had lunch together with bob (the grad director) and sandy (grad secretary and savior of our lives at school...). it was nice. and free. gotta love free lunch.

i'm really excited about the semester now that i'm making friends and beginning to form an identity here. a lot of us are in the same classes together (well, obviously, there's the prereq courses). we'll get to know each other really well :-). AND i found out today that i'm not the only student living in my town. dustin and his wife live here too. of course, bob mentioned that most of the first years live in amherst. everyone else eventually moves to northampton ;-). woo-hoo.

'twill be a lazy labor day weekend (haha, ironic). shawn and i (plus laura/summer?) are going hiking tomorrow and sunday i try out a *new* church. monday i will sleep my lazy butt away for tuesday is the departmental orientation and wednesday is the first day of classes. anymore of these orientation things and i may begin to quote bureaucratic mumbo jumbo in my sleep...

almost two weeks

so i've lived in MA for two weeks tomorrow. so far so good. i like my little town (and the surrounding towns). except for the punks on their skateboards, it would feel like this cutesy 1950s little place in MA. yeah. i'll post pics when i get up to town (i thought about walking the mile or so to town today, but katrina decided that rain, wind, and clouds were the order of the day).

it's still a little challenging to getting used to not seeing my family at a moment's notice. i didn't realize how much i enjoyed such a luxury. i miss everyone soo much. i hope to see them at the end of september, although with transportation prices being what they are who knows. i'm definitely going home for the holidays. Christmas break is about 5 weeks long, so i can spend a lot of catch-up time with my family :-).

besides that, i've just been trying to stay busy and hang out with my cohort when i can. i know i'll regret this later, but i'm looking forward to having a routine with classes and such. it's going to be sooo much work (i have one syllabus already and i can't imagine how much coffee i'll drink over the next four months) but at least it'll keep me busy. classes start next wednesday. i can't believe it...

getting to know the group...

so a lot's happened since i've last blogged. salsa night was fun and a flop. it was fun getting to hang out with marianne, laura (and summer) and shawn, but the salsa wasn't nearly hot enough. in fact, it was downright mild and more like chopped tomatoes with some peppers somewhere in the bowl. we decided against putting in the seeds. and i think that was our fatal mistake. but we had fun anyway.

on sunday, i tried out a new church. it's a bit too small for my tastes, but the congregation was so nice. everyone (i mean, everyone) greeted me and the pastor's heart for the community was amazing. i may come back, but i think i'll look around and see what i find.

and that brings us up to today. i took the bus to campus (so i wouldn't have to leave my right arm as payment for parking). we had a grad employee orientation where we had to fill out lovely hr paperwork. i think all that paperwork serves to keep you at your current job. goodness knows i'll need another five or so years before i would consider filling that out again. i feel stupid every time. oh well. shawn, courtney (and her friend matthew - another grad student in the social psyc dept), and i met to go together. we ran into laura and dan (another member of the cohort) as we were in line to turn in our esteemed masterpieces (aka the hr paperwork). fun times. shawn and i wandered around campus, got books, and checked out our offices again.

but the best part of my day was coming home. i got a package from my parents :-) and flowers from evan :-). my parents sent the following: a bear dressed as a clown named juggles (because"i'm juggling my life"), "when harry met sally" (because i "have good friendships always"), a shot glass (because "sometimes a good shot helps" -- thanks dad!) and a little frame picture that says "someone in DE is thinking of you" (because they're always thinking/loving/missing their "sweet pea"). and the flowers (as pictured) are just beautiful :-).

so, as overwhelming as things are, it's good.

everyone loves a little salsa

so shawn and i picked tomatoes today. a lot of tomatoes actually. and i don't even like the fruit/veggie. and we had no idea what to do with all those tomatoes. so we made salsa (which i do like). it was quite the fiasco. but fun in the end. we talked the whole time. it was nice to get to know someone i'll be spending a huge amount of time with (we're TAing and in four classes together). i'm glad to have a friend up here, especially now that i'm starting to feel a bit lonely.

anyway, back to the salsa. so being inexperienced, we sort of just threw in tomatoes, peppers, onion and cilantro. we made enough salsa to feed the whole sociology department. i wish i were kidding. there's about a gallon of salsa sitting in his fridge as we speak. needless to say, we might be hosting a dinner for the new people in town to get rid of some of this salsa. cause seriously, a gallon of salsa is frickin' ridiculous.

the to do list...

get ID - check!
meet with grad secretary - check!
sign contract (aka officially selling your soul) - check!
sign union thing - check!
find mailbox - check!
find office - check!
get keys - (tomorrow)
get books - (undone)

holy cow: this is really happening.......

is there ever a good ID photo?

so i got my school ID today. fun times. it's a bad picture. i wasn't really planning on getting it done today, but my new cohort buddies (shawn and courtney) and i decided to go after lunch. we met in town and grabbed some sandwiches and talked. apparently, the ucard place was hidden in one of the dining halls and nearly impossible to find so we all went together (shawn and courtney had been there before, although courtney hadn't gotten hers yet). after getting my horrible picture, we walked around campus and found where different places are.

it's nice to have met some people. we'll be spending a lot of time together. shawn and i are ta-ing for the same class and taking the same four courses and courtney also is in three of them. so i guess it's good that we got along today.

overall, it's been a really great day. i'm excited about my new friends and i think this is going to work out. i still wonder if i should be somewhere else, but this is where i am and i'm trying to not second guess this.

not in delaware anymore toto...

so it's been officially three days in MA. i'm surviving. it helps that i've kept myself insanely busy moving in and unpacking. part of me doesn't really want to unpack my boxes because that means i'm definitely staying here for a year and while a year isn't normally a long time, right now it feels like ages and ages long.

i don't miss delaware. not at all. but i fear i will miss some of the people there (or not there, but from there...).

so in less depressing news, i'm supposed to meet a member of my cohort for coffee tomorrow :-) and tuesday i'll probably run school errands (parking permits and the like) and wednesday i'll sign my contract (again making a year feel much longer than it needs to be). i hope this is where i'm supposed to be because right now it's not completely where i want to be...


oh - PS - while it was hot today, it's supposed to be in the mid-70s on monday and tuesday. in AUGUST. i <3 MA weather already ;-). not that i'm rubbing it in to anyone, say south of GA ;-)

what began as a fluke...

drc has been my home for just about three years. i was a little quiet sophomore when i started. i was afraid of everyone and everything. it's been a challenge, but drc has become my home. and today was my last day with the center.

i applied to the job on a fluke. i had some free time and it seemed like a good opportunity. little did i know what it would turn into! i've had the best experiences and met some of the greatest people there. from working on transcriptions to data entry/clean-up, to coordinating an international conference to working with undergraduate students to create and continue research projects, i've had so many things to do. and some of the grad students turned out to be some of nicest friends a girl could ask for. i can't remember how many times i got encouragement, advice, or grad student wisdom. they are some great people. i will miss them very much.

so, i guess it goes to show you: life might give you a fluke and it will turn out to be one of the best experiences of your life. you never know where the road will take you. you can just hope that works out for the best

DRC friends, please don't forget me! <3>

impatiance

why can't i just be there now?

lost like a little freshman...

...and i haven't even left delaware! what the heck?! i was just reading the umass website and it says that i need to get a meningitis vaccination at a cost of (drum roll, please!) $118 from my family doc. and i have only 10 days (minus the weekend) to do this. exciting. and my dad's still trying to figure out how to get new tires on my little car. and i need a new coat (because with the one i have now, i might freeze my butt off and that would be unfortunate because my butt might be big, but i sorta like it). and i need to get a kitchen table and chairs. why can't things just be free? redistributing wealth sounds so good when you're a starving student.

i'm all registered for my classes and now i'm just hoping that the tuition bill will go away quickly. it grew $100 since the last time i checked it :-\. i'm not sure how it did that. goodness knows my money doesn't grow that quickly.

11 days....

So I begin the adventure on the 19th. I'll drive up to sign the lease for my apartment and officially be part of the Massachusetts community. It's exciting. There's just so much to do and so many people to see before I leave. I can't wait to go though. I was so nervous about everything in the beginning of the summer, but now I'm excited. So much has changed since June. I'm more focused on my work, on getting my degree, on my career. I guess this is what I'm supposed to do. And I've made peace with this. I know I'll be successful in this. I have so many people supporting me and wishing me well. I'll make it.