i should be working

my brain has gone on a second lunch break, so i'm going to blog for a few minutes and wait for it to return. today i'm trying to nail-down my research area. obviously it's going to be work and family...um, but that's just a bit broad. i initially started with multiple-job holders and family, but it's shifted. i think i'm going to look at how mothers and fathers experience the intersection of work and family differently. this has been done to death, but we'll see what i can add to that area...idk. maybe how the strategies of negotiating the intersection differs according to sex? i'd love to compare heterosexual couples to homosexual couples, but (surprisingly) there aren't a lot of the latter in our sample.

i've actually been wracking my brain since thursday to come up with something. i need to relax and just write and then look for the holes in the literature. it hasn't helped that i've lost my motivation since coming back from home. on top of all this, i haven't been as successful scheduling spousal interviews which leaves me with half of a family's story. sigh.

i guess this is all to say that i am feeling a little discouraged by research right now.

in other news, i went to a club in springfield this weekend. okay, guys: why do you feel the need to rub against girls while they're dancing, PARTICULARLY when they are giving you the "i don't want you all over me" cues? are you just dense or is another anatomical part in control? either way, take the cues or i might start taking kick-boxing lessons to ensure you get the cues. i'm all for dirty-dancing - it's whatever - but not with someone i have no interest in whatsoever. i also got "goosed" as some asshole was walking outside the club. loser.

church was good sunday. in conjunction with going through the sermon on the mount every week (a different guy has taught each week), they've been doing communion every week. at first i thought i'd just get used to it and it would lose its significance, but it's really been helping me to examine where i am that week and where i need to be. it's been amazing.

i'm planning to work a lot this week in the office because the pioneer valley is supposed to experience a heat wave for the next few days, with a heat index of 100+. as previously mentioned (twice actually) , i do not have a/c. therefore, i will live in my office, starbucks, woodstar, and anywhere else where there is good a/c and/or food.

okay, back to work for me.

oh, they'll have stuff to talk about...

so my brother's wedding was last weekend. i officially have a sister :-). the wedding was beautiful and everyone had such a great time. and apparently there was no need to ask if i had a good time ("someone enjoyed herself...."). i did because after not really drinking for 4 months, i let loose and drank rum and cokes all night. it was awesome. i danced with everyone who would dance with me and even a few that wouldn't. afterward, i somehow managed to change from the pink dress (i have no idea how - i do remember tripping and falling into a lot of furniture)and find my way to a club in philly. awesome.

if you want pictures, check out my flickr page (you'll need an account to see some of them) or email me and i'll send the album from kodak.

my trip home was too short. i ended up not being able to hang out with a bunch of people that i wanted to see (including mr. "dude i'm smiling" t. i need to set up a rotation for visitations. of course there'd be some people who are permanently there (no worries, mom and dad and the DRCers) but everyone else is going to get a number and have to wait their turn.

next trip back: the b-day weekend i think. entirely too far away. or perhaps just enough time for the family to stop talking about my drunkeness at the wedding...

oh man...hahaha

as someone who was once cheated on, i find this slightly enjoyable, if not slightly psychotic. it's like first wives club, but better.

nothing like a woman scorned.

it's me...

...in animated form :-)

here's the scoop

life's been a little out of balance this summer. more work than fun, but i guess it's been okay. but there will be fun in the next few weeks....

the countdown:
*6 days until i drive home with zoe in tow.
*7 days until i get a manicure/pedicure
*9 days until my brother's wedding
*10 days until i get to go to the beach with ms. b (both probably thoroughly hungover - she's also in a wedding that saturday)
*28 days until vacation
*43 days until i move
*56 days until the semester starts

have i mentioned i'm moving? i'm rooming with a girl from the dept (and her cat mufassa) in a three bedroom apt. it's almost across the street, which is sad because i don't want to move all my crap like 300 feet. they should just remodel my apt around my stuff so i don't have actually move it. especially my ikea desk that's about 8 years old now. it took me (no lie, folks) 6 hours to put together because the bolts are rusty and the desk actually weighs about half of me. and i don't want to move my bed. it's huge and will be a complete pain in the ass to move. ugh.

i am looking forward to it. the reason we picked the apt was because it was already painted. yellow downstairs in the living room and dining room, a dark seafoam green in our office, bright green in anna's room, and dark tan in my room (i like it because it's soothing).

anyway, back to work for me.

office 666

why didn't i think of this when all the snotty nosed seniors were coming to complain about their grades?

have you heard of "you shut"?.

seriously?

does suri cruise exist? possibly and dad and mom might be making her into a hobbit ...or is that a hermit. whatever. this proves that t.cruise is out of his beloved mind. what a freak show.

people i know are famous...

...well, they made ryan cormier's news journal online blog. not fame by any standard, but cool nonetheless.

here's jeff/drew's picture and here's the post (they're at the bottom). craziness.

quotes from hanging out with EmJay

in keeping with a tradition started by a former roommate of mine, i present some of the stupid things someone's said in a conversation from this summer:


"I was like, Everything is personal - I hate people!" - EmJay

"...Yeah and the years seem to go by quicklier...hahaha....'quicklier..." - me

slacking on the updates...

sorry.

i've been going to this church for a few weeks (i tried it out in the fall, but thought i'd search around a bit more). the church is composed of 99% college students/20-somethings seems to be geared to making church less intimidating. there's no visitor hand-raising, no tithe sermon (just a basket by the door), no ties/suits. it's very casual. i love it.

other than that, i've been hanging out with mj a lot. we played tennis saturday and watched movies. we saw nacho libre on friday. it's cheesy-cute. i mean, if you're expecting to see a high quality film, um, you shouldn't see this movie. but it was clean and funny, which i appreciated.

work has been...low key. i interrupted a meeting last week because of a low sodium level (i passed out). in my defense, we did have like 3 meetings planned for that week, which was a bit much. it was fabulous. i was trying to avoid the attention and kept saying "i'm okay, i'm okay" but no one believed me and one prof made me go to the health services. in retrospect, it was so good that she did, because i really needed to find out what caused me to faint, but it was so embarrassing.

16 days until i come home (yay!) and then 19 days until my brother ties the knot.

oh, and here's a picture of how not-fluffy zoe can be: