Scary

Dan and I moved into our very first apartment together yesterday. (Photos to come, I promise!) The cats are traumatized to the extreme and probably won't forgive us for a few days.

In other news, I have a problem student in the class that I am teaching. He is extremely disruptive in class and basically acts like a high schooler.

A few weeks ago he got really upset at me for asking him what his paper topic was and I got so alarmed by his violence that I contacted the Dean of Student Affairs, in case anything further happened.

Well it did. Today I kept him after class because he was screwing around, as usual, and he went off on me. To the point that another student actually stayed in the hallway when she heard, to make sure that I was ok. I contacted the Dean again for help and he's being charged with two counts of student misconduct and has to have a meeting before he's allowed back in my class.

Oh yes, and there will be a plain clothes police officer in the hall outside of my class on Monday. Just in case.

God it's horrible that these are the plans that we have to make. Apparently the police officer is standard in these situations, to make sure that the student doesn't come and do anything stupid. At first I just thought they were being over dramatic, but when you think about the different things that have happened recently...

I'm just glad that I have such great support from the other departments. And a house full of boxes to unpack and distract me.

Wow...

I GOT THE GRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll be teaching three courses over the next year. One in the fall and two in the spring. My tuition will be paid for by the department and I will also be receiving a monthly stipend from them. I am SO excited!!

I GOT IN!!!!!

I GOT IN TO GRADUATE SCHOOL!!!!

Time to party!!!

Still waiting to hear back about the graduate assistantship.

Alive, But Just Barely

I can't believe it has been nearly a month since I updated! I hang my head in bloggish shame.

However the time in between posts had not gone idly by. Dan and I got married.

Just kidding. :)

I submitted my grad school application. And my application for a Graduate Assistantship. And submitted one of my papers for a scholarship award that's being given out later in the semester.

Not kidding.

Now the waiting begins. Waiting to find out if I was accepted into the grad school. Waiting to find out if I will be getting my tuition waived, teaching a course
(!!!!!) and helping students out in the writing center on campus. Keep your stitches crossed for me!

It's highly stressful. I keep suddenly realizing that all this stressful life changing stuff is out there, waiting in the ether, waiting to be judged, waiting until I hear back about whether or not my life will continue on the path that I'm hoping it will, and then my heart stops, my stomach twists and I have to try not to cry.

I have two FOs that I need to photograph and post, but my knitting time has been drastically reduced by the amount of homework that I have from day to day. Spring break is next week and I'm not going to have any time then either, as I'm scheduled to work 37 hours, have 3 books to read and two research projects to get started on. But I do have a few projects that I'm hoping to work on during the break.

How have you been?

New Year

My year, thus far:

I've had a raging sinus infection for nearly two weeks
Due to this, I haven't been able to taste food for the same amount of time
I had a killer migraine a few days ago
The thermostat housing unit on my car broke and I lost my heating system
My account at school wasn't cleared so I was freaking out about deadlines for graduation.

BUT

I'm now on antibiotics and I'm sure it'll clear up in no time
The problems with my car were fixed for free!
I called this morning, my account is cleared and all is well
I'm back at the apartment and there is no one else here with me. All is quiet and calm
AND!!!!!

While at home I found a bag of clothes and brought them back to school with me. Sadly I realized they were a size smaller than what I'm wearing and started to put them away, then decided, what the hell, and tried them on.

THEY FIT! I've gone down an entire size while at school.

Classes start next Monday, I have today off of work. I'm planning on running a few simple errands and then knitting my little heart out.

Strange Week

This past Monday was my birthday. As per usual, the week either before or after my birthday is always.... interesting.

Take this week for example. Monday one of my professors had an emotional breakdown in the middle of class. I had left class after she announced there wasn't going to be a quiz, so I missed the show, but apparently she cried. I feel bad cause she cried. But she is a flake.

Wednesday another one of my professors had a breakdown in the middle of class. Only this time I had no sympathy and was about ready to stand up a slap her because she asked us to tell her why we weren't doing well in the class, inviting the criticism, and then got all uppity with us. At one point she responded to one of my comments, asking her to post class notes earlier than 15 minutes before class, by informing me that I'm lazy. Yeah. Then she announced that from that point forward she was dealing with adults. I wanted SOOOO badly to ask if that meant she was going to start acting like one too. I refrained. With difficulty.

Thursday I found out that I still haven't been paid by the second job I've been working at for nearly two months now. In fact, there's not even any paperwork in process.

Friday I was working and totally fried a powerstrip, losing all of the work that I had done during the morning. Obviously I had to switch projects while it was fixed, so I went to work on a different project and was reinforced in my opinion that people I work with, student workers at least, absolutely HATE me and cannot stand being near me.

Thankfully Friday ended with Dan meeting me at my place, us going bowling and then me spending the night at his place and us lounging together all day Saturday.

The semester is reaching critical mass and I'm looking forward to next week, when Dan and I will be spending Thanksgiving break with my family, lounging, relaxing and otherwise wasting time. It's just a matter of getting through this last week.

At the moment there is a teenybopper relationship support group going on in the living room and I keep catching little snippets of the conversation during quiet moments of my music. Allow me to share:

"We didn't even have sex this weekend. We didn't have it except for once!"
"I'm not ready to seriously date someone. That's why I want to just be dating him!"

Oy.

Anyways, to celebrate my birthday Dan's sisters made me two of the coolest cakes ever. And these ladies have never had a single class on this sort of stuff. Just made it up on their own:


Speaking of his sisters, I'm knitting them each gifts for the holidays and I finished one of them. It's the Spiral Scarf from Scarf Style, but I prefer to call it the Soul Sucking Scarf From Hell.


Just a few more holiday gifts to knit up, I'm keeping the list short this year due to time and money constraints.

Time to return to homework...

Midterm Slump

I really want to be excited and eager in regards to school and life in general. But I am exhausted.

The semester is moving along and projects are looming in the near future. Over the next few weeks I have 7 papers to write and two presentations to prepare for. I'm not enjoying 3 out of 5 classes, which makes things interesting.

I keep trying to bolster myself up. Fall is here, it's my favorite season. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to enjoy it. I know a big part of my problem is that I'm not managing my time wisely. I seem to make schedules for the sheer joy of ignoring them. I don't knit. I don't read. I don't write. I just... sit and stare and worry about classes and money and homework.

The thing that's bothering me is that life is not bad.

My roommates and I have reached an agreement, wherein we are all polite and they leave me the hell alone. It's not a cozy place, but the horribly unwelcome feeling is gone.

Last week I went to a Graduate School seminar and was thrilled to hear that all applications submitted that day would have the $35 application fee waived. So I am officially an applicant for the SIUE Graduate Program.

Last Thursday my dad was in town, so Dan, he and I all went out for dinner at a local casino. This was not the first time he'd met Dan, but it was the first time we'd been in an intimate atmosphere. I think that things went well and Dad seemed to like Dan, which is always good. Highlights of the evening include Dan sitting down at his very first slot machine and bidding 1 cent at a time until we showed him how the machine worked.

Dan and I are both insanely busy, but we're finding time to be together, even if it's just a few hours here or there. Next semester, when he's student teaching, will be much harder, but we're committed to making it work.

Class registration was last week and I got into the senior seminar that I wanted, which was essential to me graduating in May.

My yarn sale was very successful and I want to thank everyone who purchased something.

I found out that I've been on the Dean's List due to my good grades since last year, which will look GREAT on that Graduate application.

Dan and I are spending Thanksgiving with my family, including a hockey game and lots of leisure time.

I've been going to knitting night at a local yarn shop and I really enjoy spending time with the ladies there, they're all great. And they've made me feel very welcome into their group.

Things are good, I'm just... tired. I'm thinking I'll double up on my vitamins, add extra veggies and the occasional cookie.

*Insert Happy Dance*

Got all A's for the summer semester.

And my Chaucer professor thinks I should submit my final paper for the English Department's Undergraduate essay contest for this year.

The summer semester was a real challenge for me. Having classes crammed into 5 week packages, teachers who were fairly unsympathetic about that same fact, papers were due one on top of the other and I really had to buckle down and push myself, hard.

I am very proud of myself. Now if I can only keep the A's coming.

Imagine If You Will

Me doing the Happy Kelly Dance all over my apartment.

Got an A on the paper I handed in last week.

Got 100% on my presentation I gave Tuesday.

And there's only 2 more days of summer school left.

WOOOOOT!!!!!!

This. Sucks.

So at 1 o'clock yesterday afternoon the power transformer for my apartments blew. Caught fire and went kaplooey. Now there is no power. No power for to run the air conditioning in the 90 degree heat and 100% humidity. And they don't expect it to be fixed until Tuesday at the soonest. I crashed with D last night and he keeps assuring me that I can stay here as long as I like, unfortunately I'm positive that his parents will thing otherwise about having a random house crasher.

The school's solution is to stick us all in the freshman dorms, where there are no kitchens, no fridges and there will be overcrowding and chaos.

I'm debating just camping out in the apartment and trying to survive for a few days in the good old fashioned amish way. Knitting by firelight does have a certain charm to it. Except that it's already so damn hot that fire seems counter productive.

Probably my biggest annoyances are;

1. All the food I'm going to lose
2. All the money I'm going to end up spending having to eat out for the next 4 days.
3. The fact that my choices are cold showers, no showers or showering at the gym every morning before class.

Thus endeth the pouty rant.

I'm DONE!!!!!

I am finally finished! I just e-mailed my research paper to my professor and I am DONE!!!

Out of 20 required pages I ended up writing:

27

I am really proud of all of my papers, to be completely honest.

7 page research paper regarding Victorian divorce policies in relation to Hard Times by Charles Dickens

6 page satirical creative paper which I've already gotten back. A. Woot!!

11 page research paper regarding the role of women in Gothic literature, focusing on The Castle of Otranto and Dracula

and my 3 page contribution to a group research project.

On top of that, I absolutely love my job and stuff with the family has been taken care of. This is the way to end a semester.

Wow, Wah and Weird

Wow: My teacher used my mid-term essay exam to teach the class today. Read my intro paragraph to start discussion, read a few bits through the class. I was stunned. And I got a perfect score on it.

Wah: I had all my classes set up and then it all went to poop. So everything changed, it all fell apart and it turns out that I have to take 4 summer courses instead of 3, which is just more debt I'm wracking up in my name.

Weird: The owner of the company I work for just called me and asked me to check my bank. My last paycheck bounced and I was charged a fairly large fee, but he's promised to mail a new check and that he will cover the fees.

But I just happened to look out my bedroom window, where two does are nibbling on the fresh grass that's been growing. It's all good.

An Education of Intolerance and Sexism

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was having a few issues with my Brit Lit professor and his tendency to force the subject of religion in class when there's no reason, in context to the text itself. But he just keeps getting worse!!

We had a paper due last week, so he brought in an old paper to share with the class. He had us read it and then started the conversation with "There's a reason that I chose this paper. You'll notice that it's written about a female character. Now I want you all to avoid following the fad of writing this way, of falling into the trap of feminist criticism." Yup... feminism is just a wacky fad right now. Or for the last, oh, 100 years. I'm sure it'll fade any day now.

But today... oh wow.

We were discussing some of Shakespeare's sonnets. Including 20 which was written for a man and 144 which was written to discuss his pain in being torn between the man he loves and the woman he's having an affair with (never mind his poor wife and children!).

So he reads 20 aloud and then looks around the room and opens the floor for discussion with "As disturbing as it may be to even consider... could Shakespeare have been gay?" Well the woman in front of me immediately had her hand in the air and asked why in the world would it be disturbing to consider that anyone is gay? And he responded with "Well I think that most anyone would agree that it's a very odd concept to grasp about anyone." Oh yeah, the woman? Lesbian. I thought she was going to throw her book at him, she was so pissed. And I don't blame her a bit. Oh and he closed discussion by declaring "He wasn't gay. He was paid to write the sonnet for someone to convince him to get married." (BTW - There's a fairly large percentage of academic agreement that he was at least bi-sexual.)

So eventually we moved on and got to 144. In it the "dark lady" is not spoken about at all nicely. So he opens the discussion with "So, obviously we see again this expression of women being poor companions for anyone. What with mood swings and the usual female trickery, their constant lusting, and these are the Bard's words, not mine. But you know... stereotypes exist because what they say is true."

I actually went to another professor today to ask if there was another section of the class that I could transfer into and when she questioned me about why I told her freely and her response was "Sadly you're not the first student I've heard this from. Every year several students approach me about this problem." In the end she advised me to tough it out so that I don't lose the money I paid for the class and if things get really bad, talk to the department chair. So I'm trapped in this hell of intolerance.

Safety at School

A student was arrested Friday morning on campus. Someone had tipped off the school about an "indirect threat" made on his myspace page. In his car were 2 BB guns, a 4 inch knife and a taser gun.

How was I alerted to this? By the school, dutifully alerting students to the potential danger? Sending warnings via e-mail, advising us all to stay away from campus, to keep indoors, to stay safe?

No. I was alerted to this today. When my father called me to ask if I knew the kid who had been arrested. My response was "Huh? The Northwestern guy? Didn't he die?"

There was a gun wielding potential shooter on campus and they decided not to alert students because, and I quote, "the university community was not alerted to the incident "because there was no direct threat to the campus.""

I feel betrayed by my school. I was on campus Friday morning. I was there. So were countless other students. When does it become a direct threat? Is it when the shooter is in the building and the bullets are already flying? Is it when innocent people are injured or dead?

I feel betrayed. But worse than that... I don't feel safe.

Deep Tissue

When all is said and done, I've had a pretty shitty 4 weeks. Every Monday it's a new adventure.

First it was Ly and that whole upset, the aftershocks of which left my other two roommates a little afraid to do anything to piss me off after seeing the full extent of my temper.

Then it was a family upset, with people who should learn to keep their mouth shut making trouble and mountains out of anthills. Oh yeah, that was fun.

Last week I was sick. To the point that I missed 4 classes and had myself banished to my bedroom to keep the germs from spreading all over the apartment.

Today my wireless router quit on me. Just randomly quit. So now I have to drop $$$$ to get another one. Good thing I'm rich. Oh wait...

Needless to say, all of this crap, on top of the regular stresses of school and work and life, I have been a wreck. Prone to tears, tense, poor D has been so patient with my perpetual PMS. Seriously, that guy deserves a gold medal or something.

So I scheduled a massage at the student fitness center. I did a little juggling with the budget and found the $20 it costs for a half an hour. And let me tell you, that was money VERY well spent. It wasn't a soft, lazy, relaxing massage like I'd expected. No, she went for the deep knots and worked those little bastards out. It was almost, and this is going to sound nasty, like she was popping zits. She'd work the knots up to my shoulders and then pinch them until they melted away. I kept imagining little knots of yarn popping out of my skin and accumulating on the floor.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. But it was a good hurt. A healing hurt. I'm positive I'm going to be a little bruised around my shoulder and neck area, but the knots are gone and I'm chugging water like I was told, to keep them from coming back.

Bestest part is... all I have for homework tonight is to review Frankenstein. And we're supposed to get wicked thunder storms tonight.

Settling Down

After a rather dramatic start of the semester things have settled down.

Ly officially moved out on Tuesday, turned in her key and everything. But beyond that, she apparently quit school entirely. She was having issues far beyond what I could have imagined and I hope that she works her way through them.

But I am so glad she's gone. The entire atmosphere in the apartment is changed. No doors are shut, we all goof around with each other, go to the gym to work out together. It's comfortable here now. In fact Monday I'm making a big spaghetti dinner.

My classes are great. I love all of them except one, and even that one isn't horrible. It's just that the teacher is a little too religiously focused for my tastes, especially about a British Literature class. But I've got soooo much homework to do every day. Reading and papers and presentations. My time is scheduled down to the second. As it is I've a 4-5 page paper and presentation to prepare for the 31st on Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

But it gets better. Amid my classes and papers and other things, I'm also working crazy hours. Tomorrow I have class from 10 until 10:50. Then I work from 11 until 10. Saturday 10 til 10. Sunday 10 til 6. Then home from work to do laundry, read more and start researching critical essays for my presentation.

But there's still time for fun. It's just... compacted fun. Fun in convenient bite-sized packages.

Seeking: Extra Eyes

Thank you to everyone who commented and e-mailed. I get overwhelmed at times, but I've started journaling every night and it really seems to purge my mind so that I can sleep easier. I'm also debating some anti-anxiety medication. We'll see how things go once my bank account isn't quite so empty, cause I know that's causing a huge amount of stress.

In other news, I picked up my books today.

Jane Eyre - DONE!!
Mill on the Floss - Halfway and hating every second
Hard Times
Crawford
The Picture of Dorian Gray
She
The Song of Roland
The Anglo-Saxon World
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
The Haunting of Hill House
Dracula
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories
The Castle of Otranto
Vathek
The Vampyre
The Norton Anthology of English Literature
The Sense of Music
Critical Theory Today
The Tragedy of King Lear - After Frankie
Frankenstein - Up next
The Critical Tradition

If anyone has an extra set of eyes, or isn't using their own, please send them down to Edwardsville. I could use them.

The Price of Living A Dream

D and I were having a rather serious conversation the other day. Usually our phone calls consist of describing to the other what we’re watching, playful name-calling, discussing my annoying roommates (who shall forever forward be referred to as the Dorm Trolls), and bemoaning our financial woes. But we were discussing serious things this night, talking about our dreams and the what-if’s of life.

He’d confessed his great regret of life to me and how he wished that he could be out there, living his dream. And I told him that I was living my dream. If I had all the money in the world, all the opportunities and every single door was open to me, I’d still be here, getting educated, working towards my PhD. I just wouldn’t be living with the Dorm Trolls.

But living my dream isn’t as sweet as I might have imagined a year ago. I’m happy, don’t get me wrong. Aside from returning to school to get my degree I’ve met a wonderful man who I feel completely safe with. There’s no face of mine that he hasn’t seen. I honestly don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve this happiness I have right now. Education. Loving family. And a boyfriend I can easily imagine spending the rest of my life with.

Unfortunately with the happiness comes fear. Cold. Constant. Unrelenting. I’m afraid of failure. Afraid of financial issues ruining my education. Afraid I’ve made the wrong decision in returning to school. Afraid that even if I do get my PhD I’ll end up never using it. Afraid that I’m not smart enough to make it all the way. Afraid of losing D and spending another 5 or 6 years alone. Afraid. Afraid. Afraid.

It eats away at me, mostly at night when everything is quiet and still. When I’m supposed to be sleeping I’m lying awake in bed, chewing on Tums, often crying, sometimes offering up panicked prayers to the cosmos to please not take this away from me. Don’t strip me of what I’ve wanted for so long, what I’ve worked so hard for.

I know it’s silly. It’s stupid and pointless to be so worried because right now everything is in my power. The financial issues... so long as I take the steps necessary for the loans I’ll be fine. Having made the wrong decision… I know in my heart that this is where I’m supposed to be. But I can’t stop the worry from coming. I wish I could.

But it’s a small price to pay for the happiness that I’ve found.

One Down

Just finished up with reading Jane Eyre. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed that book the first time I read it. It's like a soap opera, it really is. All the usual twists and turns, the only thing it was lacking was an evil twin. It took me 3 days to finish up, which isn't bad all things considered.

I'm taking the rest of today for myself. The winds are so harsh here, so I want to finish knitting a scarf I started on Christmas. Tomorrow I'll start reading Mill on the Floss. Monday will begin Frankenstein and King Lear. Wednesday I have a training session at work (thank GOD it's starting up again. I need income.) and the following Monday classes begin.

People keep asking me if I'm having a good break. HA! What break?

2nd Semester

To graduate on time I'll have to take an extra class for the remaining 3 semesters. It's cheaper than taking a summer semester because of lab fees and all that good stuff.

Anyways, my classes for next semester are:

British Literature - The Beginnings to 1789
Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism
Popular Lit - The Gothic Tradition
The Victorian Novel
Lord of the Rings and the Medieval Heroic Myth
Music and Literature

The Victorian Novel class has 7 books. The Gothic lit class has, I believe, 6. Lit theory has 4 or 5. Lord of the Rings, obviously, has 3 books and many many poems.

I'm heading back to school on Monday so that I can get a head start on all of the reading. For the first week of school I need to read Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, King Lear and 3 critical essays.

So in order to keep track of all my reading and classes and stuff I invested some of my meager savings in this:


It's the Palm Z22 - specifically advertised as a great palm pilot for college students, it's got the basics that I need. Calendar, contacts and a place to make to-do lists. Doesn't hold music, doesn't connect to the internet, doesn't have a lot of extra crap I'll never use, and there's only one game that might distract me during boring classes.