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.