Random Rants

Well, today I'm still sick, and that may explain why I've been in a more bitchy mood than normal. The first thing today that got me started was the whole Terry Schiavo drama that's going on. The thing that really gets me about the whole thing is that Congress and President Bush had to stick their noses into this business. What right do they have to determine if her feeding tube should be reinserted or not? This is such a personal decision, and to have it politicized like this is just wrong. It should be the decision of the family. First and foremost, her husband. He is the one that knows her best and knows that she wouldn't want to live like this.

Sure, she didn't have a living will, and that's why her family is so set against her feeding tube being removed. But, she's been in what they call a "persistent vegetative state" for 15 years. Do they really think that something is going to change in the near future? I can't see their reasoning. I mean, it's true she's not suffering, but it's still not much of a life.

And the fact that the president decided to try to get the decision of several courts reversed is beyond me. I thought he would have enough to think about with the war in Iraq, and other national and international concerns. But, hey, who am I to judge?

I have another random rant. (I told you I was quite bitchy lately.) I'm getting really sick of the gay.com community. At least the one in State College. Most of the people I talk to are so focused on looks. I know I'm not much to look at really, but at least I have a personality, unlike many of the people I've talked to on there. These people have to realize that if they're looking for something more long-term, personality is what counts. Looks will fade, but a personality will last the rest of your life. I realize I'm generalizing a bit. There are a couple of people I've talked with on there that have become friends, even after seeing what I look like, but those have been few and far between. I'm just sick of people judging me solely based on what I look like.

It doesn't help that I'm depressed, too. So, it tends to hurt me more than it probably would other people. The least I ask from people is a little common courtesy. And that's not just from people on gay.com, but people in general.

Well, I guess I'm done ranting for the day. I'm actually really exhausted, so I think I'm taking the night off from doing any sort of work. So, tonight is relax night for me. Hopefully I'll feel better both physically and emotionally tomorrow.

First entry in quite a while

It's been such a long time since I've posted something on here. I guess I've been really busy. Well, not completely. A couple weeks ago was spring break. That was nice. For the first weekend of it, I went to Uniontown to visit my friend Ingrid. We went to the Pittsburgh zoo. It was a nice zoo, but by no means the best zoo I've ever seen. I will say I was impressed by the aquarium there. It's the first zoo I've been to that had an aquarium. But as for the other animal exhibits, I've definitely seen better. The Milwaukee zoo has many more. Even the Green Bay (technically Suamico) N.E.W. zoo is better, in my opinion. But it was nice to go somewhere new. After that, we were quite hungry. We were going to go the Cheesecake Factory, but they had a 15-30 minute wait. I've heard that's not bad for one of those places, but we were too hungry to wait that long. So, we went to the Irish pub across the street from it. They had good food there. We ended up having cheesecake for dessert. They made it with Bailey's Irish Cream. It was pretty strong. I was getting a little buzz from it.

After that, I drove home to Wisconsin. It was nice to be home. I've really been missing it lately. I think it's partly because it's relaxing at home. I don't get much down time while I'm here. I'm always busy grading papers, working on problem sets for the class I'm grading for, working on research, or something else related to school. So my down time is limited at best. It was nice to not have anything to worry about for an entire week. During that week, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Great book! It sets a high standard for the Half Blood Prince. I think every book in the series gets better and better. They also get longer and longer, which means that by the end of the series, the book will be over 1000 pages long.

On the way back from home, I stopped overnight in Cleveland. I always like being able to take my time on the drive back. I was a little pissed off, though. I went to bed at around 2am (because I had to finish Harry Potter) and some idiot that had the hotel room before I did set the alarm for 3:30am. I was NOT pleased. So, I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked. But then I made the rest of the drive back to my apartment and unpacked.

Last week was the first week back after spring break. And I had to hit the ground running. I had lots of papers to grade yet, a presentation to give on Friday, and other things I needed to get done. Add on top of that fighting off an illness, and it seemed like I was drowning in stuff I needed to get done. Needless to say, with all that stress, the illness had an advantage over me.

So, now I'm sick. It's not my typical sick, though. I just have this sort of dizzy feeling. And I'm run down, but that's not an incredibly new feeling to me. I always feel run down. I never feel like I can get enough sleep, even when I do. It always seems like I'm running on empty. The dizziness is something new though. That's the only reason I know I'm sick. Hopefully it will get better soon. Of course, it would definitely get better if I would just slow down, but that's not going to happen. I don't have the time the just rest.

Well, I guess I don't have too much more to say. I should really go to bed relatively soon. I need to get the rest while I can get it. And maybe tomorrow I'll be in a better mood, both physically and mentally.

It's March

It's been a very long day for me. I started off by waking up a bit earlier than I would have liked because I wasn't sure how bad the roads were going to be here or how long it would take to clean off my car. And of course, Penn State doesn't cancel or have a two-hour delay, while every school within a 100-mile radius (OK, I may be exaggerating a little here) was either closed or delayed. It's not like I'm not used to it, though. My high school and the neighboring town's high school were notorious for never closing. It took a lot to actually shut the school down. And then there was Roncalli, which would close if they saw that there was going to be a chance of flurries. Again, I exaggerate, but not by a whole lot.

Then today I was kept busy with reading a paper that I have to present on Thursday, studying for the candidacy exam, and having students come in to office hours. Then there was lab, in which a surprising number of people stuck around for, considering we were done with official business by about 4:10. A good number actually stayed the entire time, until 5:30. After that I went to get my car from the BJC to move it to Walker's parking lot, went to grab some food, and then went to the last home men's gymnastics meet of the season. It was actually a very exciting meet, because it was international. We hosted the men's team from Japan. Quite impressive, I must say. And I got a free t-shirt. After going to all the gymnastics meets and numerous women's basketball games, I finally came away with a free shirt!

Well, spring break is in a few days for me. I'm really looking forward to getting the hell out of State College for a while. It's a nice town, but it can be a bit stifling. The first part of spring break I'm going to visit Ingrid in Uniontown. We'll probably go to Pittsburgh on Saturday and either go to the zoo or to a museum. Then on Sunday I'm traveling back to good ol' Wisconsin. Not your typical spring break destination, but there you go. I want to go visit my family again before summer. I'll be spending about a week back home, which will be incredibly nice. I also look forward to relaxing a good bit. I seem to be running dangerously low on energy lately. It's hard work to keep going because I always have stuff to do. And then there's the very good chance that I will catch whatever bug is going around the meteo department lately. I'm very tempted to go buy a can of Lysol and fumigate my apartment, since both my roomies have been sick relatively recently. As long as I am healthy enough to drive home and get back here I don't really care if I get sick. Hopefully, my body will listen to me. I don't want to have to spend spring break like I did last year, feeling horribly sick the entire week I had off.

I was just thinking recently about a previous entry I had made. It concerned seeing a robin near the end of January or the beginning of February. I think it must have been extremely confused. Either that, or spring may just have been making a cameo appearance, or winter was taking a brief holiday. Who knows?

Well, on that note, I think I'm off to bed. Tomorrow's an ungodly early day. And I'm exhausted.