(no subject)
I love loan refund time at the beginning of the semester. This is when I feel like I could actually live on the money I have (and try not to think about the astronomical amount of debt I'm in for this fabulous Ph.D.). Makes me want to buy a new mp3 player or go to Paris. But I'll probably end up buying new car seats instead, as the car seat industry has decided that a kid needs at least three car seats by the time she's 6.
Went to the university bookstore today to make sure that all the books were in for my composition course, and the book I wanted to lead off with hasn't even been shipped yet! The woman at the bookstore said that Routledge is a bastard like that and never ships their books on time. So now I have to rearrange my syllabus (which, granted, wasn't very far along anyway) and deal with the book on sex, porn, etc., first, rather than the book on class. I thought it would be preferable to lead off with a discussion on class, get to know the kids first, before we go into Female Chauvinist Pigs, which is a good book, if not possibly off-putting to my mostly male class. Damn Routledge.
I'm in a rather sentimental mood right now. I downloaded Google Earth and have been marking all of the places I love in D.C. and reminiscing about how much I loved it there. I'm not sure I'll do the same for the midwest. Every street in D.C. has a memory. I don't even know most of the street names here, and I've been living here now for 2.5 years. I feel disconnected from memory out here, or even the ability to create memories that are tied specifically to place. Maybe cities are just better for that.
In other news, my sister-in-law is pregnant again, due in April. Honestly, I thought she would pop one out each year, but my niece is already 1 1/2, so they're falling behind schedule. My sister, annoyed that they gave our niece a name similar to her first name, is convinced they'll give this baby her middle name, then put her on a raft and send her out to sea. Instead, she's studying abroad in Israel for the semester, leaving in a few weeks. I really don't want her to go. Not that I see her very often, as she's back east, but half a continent feels more manageable than that plus an ocean.
Went to the university bookstore today to make sure that all the books were in for my composition course, and the book I wanted to lead off with hasn't even been shipped yet! The woman at the bookstore said that Routledge is a bastard like that and never ships their books on time. So now I have to rearrange my syllabus (which, granted, wasn't very far along anyway) and deal with the book on sex, porn, etc., first, rather than the book on class. I thought it would be preferable to lead off with a discussion on class, get to know the kids first, before we go into Female Chauvinist Pigs, which is a good book, if not possibly off-putting to my mostly male class. Damn Routledge.
I'm in a rather sentimental mood right now. I downloaded Google Earth and have been marking all of the places I love in D.C. and reminiscing about how much I loved it there. I'm not sure I'll do the same for the midwest. Every street in D.C. has a memory. I don't even know most of the street names here, and I've been living here now for 2.5 years. I feel disconnected from memory out here, or even the ability to create memories that are tied specifically to place. Maybe cities are just better for that.
In other news, my sister-in-law is pregnant again, due in April. Honestly, I thought she would pop one out each year, but my niece is already 1 1/2, so they're falling behind schedule. My sister, annoyed that they gave our niece a name similar to her first name, is convinced they'll give this baby her middle name, then put her on a raft and send her out to sea. Instead, she's studying abroad in Israel for the semester, leaving in a few weeks. I really don't want her to go. Not that I see her very often, as she's back east, but half a continent feels more manageable than that plus an ocean.