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.

TGIF

Well, tonight I had a good night. I went to see Closer with Andrew this evening. They were showing it for free at the HUB. It was a pretty good movie. All about relationships and how they go wrong. There were some pretty powerful performances by Clive Owen and Natalie Portman, too. I'm not surprised that they got nominated for some Oscars.

Then after that, we went down to get some cheap pizza in the HUB, and then were kind of sidetracked by a magic show. Pretty cool stuff.

All in all, it was a very nice night. Especially nice was having pleasant conversation with Andrew. I always enjoy having conversations with people. They don't have to be really personal conversations, just about general stuff that comes to mind.

And now I'm slipping back into a depressed state. Or maybe it's just exhaustion. I'm not sure which. They both are kind of similar. Of course, it's good that I'm tired now. I have to get up kind of early tomorrow to go get an oil change, and do other odds and ends. Then Sunday will probably be work day for me. But we'll see how it goes. For now, I'm off to bed.

I can't think of a title today....

Today started off being not the greatest but is starting to look up. Getting up this morning was no small feat for me. I couldn't get to sleep last night, until at least midnight. Then 6am come really quickly after that. So, I wasn't really in a pleasant mood this morning. But I went to class, and was fairly productive while I was in the office, which is always a good feeling.

Then I went to therapy, which went pretty well. It was actually nice today to leave therapy without feeling like drowning myself in ice cream. I'm slowly starting to work some stuff out in regards to my personal life and everything else going on my life. I'm glad I finally got myself to go to therapy. It's definitely helpful, especially in realizing what I need to do to keep myself from going completely psychotic.

After therapy, I headed to Irving's to meet a guy I had chatted with online recently. He's a very nice fellow: a grad student in geology. Quite nice, a little softspoken, but very friendly. We only got to chat for a half hour, though, which was kind of sad, because the time just flew by while we chatted. I think at the very least, I've made a new friend, which is something I could use a lot more of. It's good to get together with new people and discover common interests. What's also nice about him is that he's Irish. I don't know what it is about Irish and British accents, but they're so pleasant on the ears. I'm very glad I struck up a conversation with him online, especially since he seems rather normal, unlike a good percentage of the crowd that's online.

So, today is definitely looking up. An added bonus is that Wednesdays are my days to cut out of the office early. I still have some work to do here, though, but not as much as I had originally thought I would have to do.

Later tonight I may go back to campus for a bit. There is a talk being presented on the recent tsunami that sounds interesting. It can't hurt to go and listen in, just for the extra added knowledge. Plus I've always been interested in earthquakes, so it should hopefully be worth my while. I'm always a little leery, though, sometimes titles of talks sound interesting, but end up being incredibly boring.

Well, with that, I'm off to finish up a little work, then maybe eat something, and see what goes on for the rest of the night.

Another Monday

Well, you'd think I'd have enough time on the weekends to actually post something, but apparently I don't. This weekend actually did get busy very quickly. First of all, my advisor decided to remind me about a summer research program where I could get some extra funds for summer on Friday. That's all well and good, but not incredibly helpful when the application was due today. So, that took up a good chunk of my weekend.

I also was at the BJC both days this weekend for different events. There was a dual mens/womens gymnastics meet on Saturday there, because Rec Hall was taken up by the Thon dancers. That was a good time, and not only because there was some nice eye candy out performing. I've always enjoyed watching gymnastics, probably because I wanted to be a gymnast when I was growing up. Unfortunately in small town Wisconsin, gymnastics wasn't really an option, especially for a young boy. Heaven forbid a boy wanted to do something that wasn't all that masculine, like football or baseball. Anyway, both teams won the meet, and some members of both teams gave some really spectacular performances.

Then on Sunday was the last home Lady Lions basketball game. That was also a very good game. The women looked very good, as they usually do at home. If they could only look that good on the road.... And of course, when the student section doesn't have Jen Harris to root for, she has a stellar day, scoring loads of points. But it was definitely a great game. Great crowd, too. And someone on Northwestern's team got fouled out. I always enjoy it when someone on the other team fouls out.

Today was a long day, as usual for Mondays. I'm telling you, this getting up early stuff is for the birds. Plus I was busy trying to get my application for this grant ready, and reading the articles I needed to for class. And with the snow and the ice last night, cleaning off my car was loads of fun. The brush part didn't do a damn thing, so I ended up using the scraper to make a hole and then pushing off the snow with my arms. It must have been quite the sight.

Surprisingly today, I'm not feeling as down as I usually do. I'm not sure why that is, but I'll take it. I am, however, extremely tired, so I'm off to bed. At least I don't have to get up as early tomorrow morning.

Another long day

Well, today was quite the day. I was on campus from about 9am to 9pm. Granted, the last three hours or so were spent at the women's basketball game. Other than that, I was busy for the most part, when I could focus. Lately I've just had a lot of trouble staying focused on anything I have to do. Maybe it's because I haven't been getting enough sleep. Well, actually I get enough sleep, but it really hasn't been restful. I wake up feeling more tired than when I went to bed.

Of course, a big part of it is that I haven't been in the best frame of mind, as has been evidenced by my previous few entries. This month is just bad in terms of things I don't really want to remember or be a part of. There really isn't anything I can do about that, though, except live through it. And that's what is hard.

Because I've been in this bad frame of mind lately, I've been either incredibly sad, or incredibly pissy. Sometimes it's both at the same time, which I realize is an odd combination. Most of the time it's really for no apparent reason, just a general sadness. I'm really getting sick of this feeling, and that's why I'm going to therapy. I just wish I could get through the pain quicker. I know that's very unrealistic, but it would still be nice.

Oh, well. What can I do? I try to take it one day at a time, which is such a cliche, but in my case, it's also very true. But for right now, I'm pretty tired, and I have to get up pretty early tomorrow, so I should at least attempt to get ready for bed. Maybe I'll actually sleep well too.

Discoveries

In the past couple days, I've discovered some stuff. First of all, yesterday, the 422 kids had an exam during the lab period. During the exam, I discovered that I really like being on the giving side of an exam, than on the taking side. It's so much less stressful, plus, I like being able to help people while they are taking the exam. This makes me want to be a teacher even more.

Also, since I've started therapy, I've discovered a lot of things about me. I've discovered that I have a very acute, and maybe too sensitive, radar directed toward things that hurt me. Any little thing, even things that other people think wouldn't hurt me, usually do. It gets really annoying sometimes, and the only reason I pick up on these things more than other people do is because I've been put through so much pain in my life. Not physical pain, mind you, but emotional. It's like this big gaping fresh wound. And no matter how hard I try to keep it covered, people tend to find a way to, to keep this analogy going, rip off the bandage, and tear into the wound, pour salt in the wound, or anything else that can happen to a wound.

At least in therapy, I'm working through things. Today was quite painful, which is not entirely surprising. I even started to break down a bit. But then the session was over. Then afterwards I had a little help feeling better from a couple of guys named Ben & Jerry. Granted, it was only a temporary upper, but the sugar rush was nice. Then I rode the bus to my car, came home, and laid down for a little while around 3:30 because I had a headache. The next thing I knew, it was 5:00. Amazing how one can just fall asleep so quickly. I wish I could do that at night.

And now, just to prove that this blog isn't going to be only about depressing things in my life, I'm leaving on this note. On my bus ride to the car, some guy sat next to me for a few stops. When his stop came up, he asked me if I could pull the thing. I knew he meant to pull the cord to signal a stop, but my mind went straight to the gutter. :) And with that, I'm off to watch the rest of Alias and find something else to do before I go to bed.

Bah Humbug!

Yeah, it's Valentine's Day, and I'm being incredibly anti-Valentine today. I don't know why exactly. I've been in a bad frame of mind all month so far. But today is especially bad. First of all, I didn't get much sleep last night. And the sleep I did get wasn't exactly restful. But I don't think that's part of it at all. I just think this holiday is one of those Hallmark holidays where people spend loads of money on their significant other just to show them that they love them. Why is it only one day a year that people think they should do something special for the ones they love? I think it would be more special to do something like that on any random day.

Maybe I'm just so bitter because I don't really have any prospects of a romantic life. It seems like every time I meet someone, one of two things happen. One, if I'm chatting online and getting to know the person, they ask for my picture, I send it, and then they stop talking to me. Talk about a major blow to the ego. The second thing is that if I get around to meeting anyone I've met online, they almost always end up having the hots for someone else. I don't know what it is, but anyone who meets me only wants friendship with me. Granted, friends are nice, but at some point, I'd like something more. I have all these nice, little romantic thoughts in my head, but no one to share them with. Oh, well. Maybe I'll find that special someone one of these days. It's just so hard in this town to find anyone worthwhile.

Ah, well, that's enough ranting from me. I'm gonna spend the rest of the night working on 422 stuff and keeping funny stuff on TV to keep my mind off today.

Random rant about pre-emptions

OK, today I just have a random rant about one thing in particular. Pre-emptions. I know most people do not have to deal pre-emptions of their favorite shows, but they are on during prime time. However, those of us that watch soaps are constantly interrupted by them. See, I tape my soap every week and then catch up on it on the weekend. However, every once in a while my soap is interrupted by some sort of "breaking news." However, this breaking news is rarely something I'd call important. For example, this week, there was an interruption showing the pope being loaded into his "pope-mobile." They were telling us how he was let out of the hospital this week. That's nice. Yet, I don't think this news would have been worthy enough to jump into prime time programming to tell people. Granted, soaps don't get the ratings that things like Survivor, Desperate Housewives, and Will & Grace get. But still, if I were a network executive, and thought about pre-empting a show to feature news, it would have to be some pretty spectacular newsworthy event. So, that's my random rant for the day.

Long Time Coming

My, it's been a while since I've been able to write something in this. I've been incredibly busy with grading stuff for the class I TA for. So this weekend is actually free for me. It's a nice feeling, although I've forgotten what it's like to be bored. I'm glad I know how to keep myself occupied. Lately it's been a necessity to keep my mind occupied. It's just been quite the week for me. Actually it's been quite the past couple of weeks.

But I'd rather not get into that now, because that would just open a can of worms that I've been struggling to keep closed lately. It has caused me to think a lot lately. Especially now that I'm going to therapy. Some breakthroughs have been made, but not nearly enough. I know it's going to be a long time before I actually feel like a happy, mentally healthy human being. I wish it would come a lot faster, but I can't really do anything about that, now can I?

At least lately I've come to a conclusion about the future that I think will help a lot. No matter what happens with the candidacy exam, things are going to change with me. Things have to change, otherwise I may go completely insane. Not that I'm not already, but I'm more of a nice insane. Who knows what will happen otherwise?

I'm also getting really tired of helping people out and getting nothing from them in return. I've given advice, talked people through things, and other various things, but never does anyone ask me if I need to talk. And every time I try to talk to most people about anything other than small talk, anything personal about me, the conversation gets tweaked just enough so that I'm not as big a part of the conversation anymore. I mean, I'm not the kind of person to go out seeking someone to talk to, but once in a while it would be nice if someone would just let me talk about myself and things that are troubling me and just listen. But I think that may just be asking for too much. I just realized how sad it is that I feel it's too much to ask for friends to listen to me.

Well, enough of me rambling on and sounding like a pity party. I think I'm off to start reading the Order of the Phoenix, since I lent the Goblet of Fire to Terry so he has something to do at work. Maybe I'll write more tonight, and hopefully I won't be such a sad sack anymore.

Kind of just some linear stream of consciousness stuff

This week has been less than spectacular for me. All week long I've felt like I've been dragging, or more accurately, I've felt like I was on autopilot, just kind of watching as I went through life. It's a very weird feeling, almost like an out-of-body experience.

I've been thinking a lot recently, which is almost never a good thing. I guess that tends to happen when one is in therapy. I almost always end up leaving my therapist's office with more things to consider about my own life, which, I suppose, isn't terribly unusual. There are lots of things in my past that have to worked out, and I think I've only just barely scratched the surface. And then there are things on TV that I watch that make me think as well.

This brings me to a certain topic I've been thinking quite a bit about. On the soap I watch, they have a storyline about someone being in an physically abusive relationship. Now, in my opinion, if I were in an abusive relationship, not that I'd want to be, but if I were, I'd almost rather be in a physically abusive relationship because then some sort of mark is left. In a verbally or mentally abusive relationship, one has no proof that any abuse has occurred. Then once someone realizes what is going on, it's a matter of who believes either person. Some might wonder why I would be thinking about something like this, but trust me, there's a reason. There I go being cryptic.

Another thought stemming from a TV show. I was watching a repeat of Desperate Housewives and at the very end, there was a voiceover of Mary Alice (if you don't watch the show, you'll probably have no idea what I'm talking about) talking about trust, and how when someone has it, it's great, but once trust is lost, it's nearly impossible to regain. That is very, very true. Believe me, there has been some instances in my life where I had lost all trust in someone, and to this day, I still have no trust in them. And that in itself is very sad, but there's nothing I can do about it.

You can really tell what kind of mood I'm in each day when I write in this blog. Sometimes I think that I'm bipolar or something. Just looking at the various entries, it often seems like some days I'm up, and other I'm down. Unfortunately, it seems biased toward being down, but again, there's nothing I can do about that.

Well, I suppose that is about enough for tonight. I haven't decided what I'm going to do for the rest of the night. I'll either watch a movie, or do a little light reading. Or perhaps I'll just surf the net until I go to bed. So, with that, I'm off for the night.

Groundhog Day

Well, today was Groundhog Day and Phil saw his shadow, so there are going to be six more weeks of winter. What I don't get is why this is so important. It seems like all frivolous stuff to me. I mean, technically, no matter what, according to the calendar there are going to be six more weeks of winter anyway. That's just a random rant for today.

Other than that, today was a really good day. It was a short day on campus, which is always nice. After therapy, I went to Altoona to see my very best friend Ingrid. It's always fun when we get together. We've been close since our undergrad days, being two of the three total real math majors in our graduating class. It also helps that we watch similar TV shows and have very similar senses of humor.

All we really did today was stroll around the mall. In fact our first lap around the first floor, we just kind of chatted and walked not really paying attention to what stores we want to go in. We did eventually do a little window shopping, and then went to eat at Applebee's. All the while, we talked about nothing in particular and everything in general. It was nice, since I don't really get to do that all that often anymore. Most conversations I have with people are very short, so to just have a long conversation was really great.

My drive back from Altoona was less than eventful. I swear from the time I got off I99 until I got to my parking lot, I was consistently stuck behind people who refused to go more than five miles under the speed limit. It was very annoying, but there was really nothing I could do about it. Just another random rant, I guess.

Well, I suppose I don't have too much more to say, so I'll sign off for now. I may even go to bed kind of early. We'll see what happens.

First Day of Spring?!

Well, I have lots of thoughts that would probably take up many, many entries, but at the moment, I saw something rather surprising today. As I was walking to the bus stop from the pool, I saw a robin! I couldn't believe it. I realize that it's pretty warm out today, but I thought it was way to early for the robins to start showing themselves. I think they'll be in for a rude awakening. Unless our winter was just that short this year.

Today was a rather long day. Getting up for an 8am class, then running around most of the day trying to get a hold of Dr. Shirer to go over the grades I gave on the homeworks, reading for my oceans seminar, and going to the lecture one of the candidates for the professor opening gave. Then I went swimming and had to finish up some stuff. So, this is the first time today that I've had a bit of time, and it's 10:30. So, after all that, I'm exhausted, so I'm off to bed. Night!

Sunrise, Swimming, and other things

Well, today was another day where I had to get up before the crack of dawn. It gets really sickening after a while. I'm so not a morning person. And then there's the fact that I never really see sunrise. This is State College after all. Half the time, the only way to tell the difference between day and night is to see if the sky is black or gray.

This afternoon I had a therapy session, which continues to seem really helpful. I get to talk about my feelings to someone in State College that will actually listen to what I have to say. Plus, I have so much stuff that I need to work through that it will probably take many years to work through and heal. I always knew that by the time I was 25 that I'd need to see a therapist. I didn't think I'd have had as many different therapists as I have had. It doesn't help that I keep moving. But all in all, it's very good for me. I really need to start healing.

After therapy I went swimming, which is always nice. Today is the first day this week where the pool wasn't busy and no one decided to just hop in my lane without warning me first. I even swam an extra hundred yards today because I had some extra time. So, that brings today's total to 1000 yards, and this week I've swum 2800 yards. Not bad if you ask me. Although in high school I used to swim 3500 yards a night. I don't think I'll do that anytime soon, but at least I'm working my way up.

Tonight I've just been kinda lounging around, maybe I'll do some work eventually. I'm not sure if I'll grade or read some stuff for my oceans seminar. We'll see. Hopefully I can cool my room down a bit before bed, though. I got back this afternoon and it was 80F, so I opened my window, and somehow it rose to be 84F. I'm not quite sure how that can possible happen, especially with the window open. Now I have my fan blowing near the window, so hopefully that will help to cool things off.

Anyway, I should really attempt to work up some motivation to do something. And then, of course, I'll be watching Alias. :) So, here goes nothing!

Hurdles

I've been thinking lately while sort of preparing for the candidacy exam that it just seems like one big unnecessary hurdle. I mean, I realize that there needs to be something for people to do to show that they are qualified to continue on to get a PhD, but it seems like a test isn't necessarily the best way to do it. I've often heard in science that a lot of it is collaboration, but yet, we have to take this test ourselves. I know that some things need to be memorized, but when did it become necessary for us to work problems all by ourselves in order to continue on? We're even encouraged to work with people on homework assignments and in our research, but not on the candidacy exam. It just seems odd.

I also realize that there are some things we learn that we should memorize, but do we really need to be tested on them? I like the idea that some other departments have. Some give people a recent topic that has been researched and have them do a presentation on it. It seems like more of a reasonable thing to do. But, what do I know about what the meteo department feels is necessary for a PhD student to know?

That's just what I've been thinking recently. Only because during the reviews sessions, sometimes I feel very confident about the test, and others I REALLY don't. But, I'll stick it through and hopefully pass. If not, I do have a backup plan.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm getting sleepy and may go to bed even earlier than I have in probably years.

Digging out

Well, I guess technically I won't be digging out until tomorrow morning when I drive to campus. But most people here are digging out from a moderate (but much less than what was forecasted) snowstorm. I'd love to be in Massachusetts right now, where the forecast is for up to three feet of snow. I've never seen that much snow from one storm. I've seen that much from several snowstorms because previous snow wouldn't melt, but never from one storm.

Unfortunately, today I couldn't sleep past 8:30. Normally, I wouldn't have that problem on a Sunday, but today was a bit different. I woke up and my room was 84F. I don't care who you are, but there is no excuse for a building in winter to be that warm. Of course, this is because I'm used to chillier homes in winter. Chilly meaning below 70F, which I think is much more reasonable. I'm still trying to figure out why all the heat comes in my room. So, now I have my window open, and it's only about 10F outside. So, hopefully my room will cool off at some point before I go to bed tonight.

The confrontation that I've been bracing myself for for the past couple days finally happened last night. All I'll say is this: I'm not sure things will be exactly the same between me and my friends, but at least things have been talked out, and some understanding has come from it. And while I'm not thrilled with how things were handled, both by me and by many of the others involved in this drama, there is nothing anyone can really do about it besides work things through and keep on going through it. Besides, life is full of struggles, and how you get through them builds character and says a lot about who you are. Wow, that was a very philosophical statement, wasn't it? :) Here's another one to describe drama in all forms. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Unfortunately, Hitler was the one to first say that, as I've just recently learned, but it's still a good thing to think about.

I've also finally started grading papers for the class I'm teaching. And I must say, I'm impressed with about half the students' papers so far. A lot of these students put a lot of time into making sure things are understandable for the person grading them. Most of the time, I can't find anything wrong with the problems these students did, which is not a bad thing by any means.

Today is football day here in Pennsylvania. It's not often that all the teams located within a state are in the playoffs. I think it would be really cool to have a completely PA Super Bowl. Alas, the team I really like (Green Bay) got knocked out of the playoffs a couple weeks ago. And since I live with Steeler fans, I will root for them. I think they deserve a chance at the Super Bowl, since it has been so long since they won one. I may even root for the Eagles (gasp!) just to see a PA Super Bowl. We'll see how I feel when that game comes on.

Well, I suppose I should stop writing for a bit and finish up my grading. I'd end of with a quote like my sister does, but nothing comes to mind at the moment. So, I'll just say goodbye and be done with it. :)

What a long day....

As my title suggests, today was a very long day. I left for campus around 9am, and I didn't get back until a little after 10pm. Lots of things went on today. I spent some time preparing for the candidacy exam with the group of people taking it in May. Then I did some reading for class tomorrow, finished grading quizzes for the class I TA, and went to colloquium. The speaker today was interesting enough, but the topic he spoke on was way over my head. After that, I spoke with Dr. Shirer about grading the quizzes, and then went for a nice relaxing swim. Then after I finished my swim, I went to the Lady Lions basketball game, which was so much fun. We beat Purdue by a very healthy margin. The women looked impressive.

So, now I'm back at my apartment, finally. Other than that, not much else is new. Hopefully I will be on campus for less time tomorrow, or at least get a break to come home for a bit. I think I will probably be going to the men's gymnastics meet, which I'm sure will be a lot of fun. But for now, I must stop typing and go to sleep. Tomorrow's another early day for me.

Welcome to my blog!

Well, I've decided to try out this blogging thing since a lot of my friends and family have it. It seems like a good way to vent my feelings or just let the world in general know what is going on in my life.

Anyway today was an interesting day. I think I may have started a ball rolling that I didn't want to be a part of at first. I don't really know what to do about it, nor is there anything I really can do about it. All I know is that this has been festering, at least in my mind, for quite some time, and I, frankly, am glad it's finally coming out in the open. Granted, life may get more complex and difficult before all is said and done, but who ever said life was easy? Lord knows my life hasn't exactly been a big bowl of cherries. Anyone who really knows me can attest to that.

Well, now I'm just sitting here, relaxing, and waiting to see the fallout of this drama. But, Alias is on soon, so I'm off for a bit. I know this isn't the most exciting news in the world, but hey, it's my blog, if you don't want to read it, you don't have to. Anyway, time to get settled in for Alias.