It's been a while since I've posted, and it's mostly because my life has gotten pretty fucking weird lately.  Basically, I can categorize the past few weeks into good, bad and ugly.

The good is the shortest (in items), and perhaps most inconsequential list.  1) I'm finally writing again, which I attribute partially to point good thing number 2) Working with the Obama campaign has been a lot of fun.  For a couple of weeks now, we've been putting a good bit of effort into the Obama campaign.  We've called, we've canvassed, we've tabled... we've been involved with Akron for Obama and Kent State Students for Obama.  I met Ted Kennedy and talked to him about healthcare for ten minutes before a rally.  We volunteered at and attended two rallies featuring Barack Obama himself. It's been good to do this, because I feel involved, and because I got away from academic work for a little bit and involved my mind differently.  I've written some about these experiences (including pictures!) on my barackobama.com profile and blog.  Also, 3) We got our federal tax return, most of which we used to pay bills and save for a brief spring break trip we'll be taking with my parents.

The bad: 1) My teeth hurt.  Badly.  I need a fucking dentist.  Ted Kennedy said he'd be making some calls on my behalf to get my teeth worked on (which is what we talked about in our conversation, how they're interfering with my ability to focus on work), but it's only been a week.  I'm in constant pain from this, and I have to take tons of pain reliever for it each day.  I also go through at least a tube of Orajel each week.  I've been offered various leftover prescription narcotic pain killers by concerned friends, but I've thus far refused them because of my addictive personality.   2) The social and relationship problems of various friends have broken my heart by proxy the past couple weeks.  Not only am I exceptionally empathetic for my poor friends who are going through horrible times, but things like this (as most things do) open up a whole can of my own insecurities to boot.   3) We've let our house go the past couple weeks with all of our volunteering, and even though we improved it dramatically this weekend, it's still a mess.  I wish we were rich enough to hire someone to deal with shit like this, but pay him/her a living wage and provide benefits (we wouldn't hire someone any other way).  4) The fucking siding guys still haven't finished our house.  That's getting really really old.  Now, every time it rains, since there are no downspouts anymore, the water drains from the roof, beside the foundation and into the basement.

So, these things are bad enough, but what about the ugly?

Oh, yes.  The ugly: Apparently, I may have no source of funding for next year.  The department was expecting to put me on the university fellowship, which was a university-provided research line given to each department each year to cover one student for one semester, then the department would provide me with a teaching assistantship for the other.  Unfortunately for me and probably other people in my boat, the university decided to pull these lines and reallocate the money to some generic graduate student fund (which basically means the money will never be seen again).  The department's funding has already been budgeted and planned, which means there is no money left.  What does this mean for me?  The department is (possibly) working on something, but I've got a handful of possibilities (at least to remain in Kent) that range from having one part-time class at Kent (50-60% of my current, somewhat sad income), or four to five classes at various regional campuses (which each will pay 50% of the Kent campus class, meaning I'd need four of these to break even), or some other unknown option.  There is a possibility that nothing will work out right enough for us to stay around here, in which case I'm working on applications for lecturer, instructor and visiting assistant professor jobs at various schools thorughout the country (using these as a safety net in case nothing works out).  Jim says it's possible for me to finish my dissertation by August.  I think he's probably dreaming.  I also think I need more seasoning, but it does not look like I will necessarily have that luxury anymore.

This has totally messed with me.  I know the funding thing is not anyone's fault except for some faceless administrators somewhere.  I know it's ultimately my fault for not finishing a PhD in three years (even though, by everyone's admission, the standard is four years in every other geography department in the country).  Still, I'm so used to loving my job that this whole stress and no stability thing has completely thrown me for a loop.  After I found out on Thursday, I went to my class and stumbled around worse than I ever have in front of a class.  I spoke pretty much incoherently.  I forgot my lecture notes, so I forgot an entire part of what I wanted to cover.  I asked them to fill out a participation note card, but the prompt I gave them was so incoherent and pointless that they looked at me in complete confusion (this actually isn't normal).  The students were confused and concerned, a couple even wrote me an email to ask afterwards if everything was okay, apparently thinking that I was having a major meltdown.  After all of that, I felt like quitting and never looking back, just getting a cube job somewhere for some idiotic government bureaucracy.... those of you who've heard me ramble on about career goals know that this is not a normal thought for me!

I know I will be able to eventually channel these frustrations into angrily writing my dissertation.  Nothing works better for my motivation, though it's likely to make my writing more bitter, more Marxist, more revolutionary than I ever anticipated.  Stilll, if I can channel that, maybe I'll be done by August like Jim seems to think. 

So there it is.  In a lot of ways, it's been rough the past few weeks.  I can't complain now, really, because it's probably going to get much rougher as deadlines come up and so on.

Wish me luck... 

Posted by Andy at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm officially old. 

I've crossed a crucial threshold in that I now hate, and I mean haaaaate snow days.  Kent State cancelled school yesterday after 12:30 pm, anticipating a massive snowfall.  Three problems: one, they didn't decide to cancel until 10:30 am.  I appreciate the restraint for ensuring that the weather is actually going to be bad enough, but this led to a couple of other problems.  Two, because my class was to start AT 12:30 and because it was an exam day, I found out about the snow day from a barrage of 45 student emails that arrived between 10:30 and 10:45, asking whether or not class was being held.  The late announcement also meant that at least 25 of my students braved the "dangerous" elements, having not heard that class was cancelled, only to arrive on campus and find no one in the classroom.  And, perhaps worst of all, the weather conditions didn't deteriorate as expected, so we only got like three inches of snow.

Now, most people would be saying, "hey, shut up, you got a day off."  Well, not exactly.  True, I ended up not coming to campus yesterday because it was to be closed.  But, unfortunately, I also lost a day of work, and a day of lecture time in class.  Since I had already delayed the exam because of the funeral I attended a couple weeks ago, this meant that I now had to restructure the entirety of the semester schedule to make up for what is now two days of no class.  I also lost the constructive worktime in my office yesterday, and lost any semblence of working flow I had acquired. 

Long story short, now I'm in here on a Wednesday, with much more work stacked up for the week than I did when I left on Monday and with no mental flow to accomplish it.  Combine that with a newly arriving bout of depression (which, yes, I partially blame on being worthless during the snow day), and I feel like I may never dig out.

So, I hate snow days.  I suck, I know, but you can fucking deal with it.  And hand me a cane and a case of depends while you're up, would you?

Posted by Andy at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've had a really weird couple of weeks, to say the least.

We spent most of last week in Indiana for Amy's grandmother's funeral.  It was, indeed, one of the saddest things ever, as I've mentioned.  It was good to see family and such, albeit in horrible circumstances.

After the funeral and a couple of days to help Amy's dad recover, we made sure to stop in Muncie for a brief overnight stay right-quick.  We figured it'd be silly to be in the neighborhood and not see my parents at least for a little bit.  My parents were happy to see us.  They responded, very puzzlingly, by taking us on a shopping spree of sorts.  See, somewhere along the line, my mom had heard that my wardrobe was getting pretty crappy.  The reason that she heard this is because, well, it was getting awful.  I had a total of about three different non-tshirts that I could teach in on a regular basis.  I basically had no pants of any type besides jeans.

After a little looking in some stores, we happened into a massive sale at JC Penney's in Muncie, in which the entire Big and Tall was marked off 75% or more.  This sale, combined with the fact that my mom had just gotten paid and was anticipating a tax return in a matter of days, meant that a trip to get a couple shirts and a pair of pants quickly evolved into something almost unspeakable.  Yep, the four of us were grabbing clothing left and right, and the next thing I knew I was in a dressing room trying on more clothes than I could fathom.  I figured my objective, being the body, was to simply sort the clothes into "fits" and "don't fit" piles.

(See, the thing about being exhorbitantly large is that most times, there is no luxury of choice when it comes to clothing or shoes or even hats.  Typically, if a store has one pair of 14 4E shoes, I'm lucky, and they're the ones I purchase.  Same with clothes: 4XL and 3XLT are at a premium, which means normally I get a shirt because it's the only one that fits, not because it looks particularly good or anything.  This is my sad reality, and it's the reality of all non-"normal" people.)

Turns out, my mom, in a particularly manic moment, had the little sales weinies bagging up the entire "fits" pile before I had any idea what was happening.  Three hundred dollars worth of clothing made it into the bag, but since everything was on sale, the receipt said that we saved something like $650.... so almost an even grand worth of clothing at regular price.  Yes, it was a sale, but this kind of a purchase for me by someone else, even my parents, was a little embarrassing.

Of course, the next day, we went out again and hit up another JC Penney for some more pants, and then hit a Casual Male and walked out with a suit and a spare sports jacket.  Overall, due to the generosity of my parents, I ended up with eight nice shirt (most of them Izods), five sweaters, five pairs of slacks, a pair of jeans, 12 pairs of dress socks, a canvas belt, a suit and a sports jacket.  I figured up that if I worked my clothes right, did a minor rewear here and there, I could have enough clothes to teach for about six weeks (two meetings a week) without washing or repeating an outfit.  Plus, I now have interview clothes, which was something that was making me terrifically nervous, even though it's not happening for at least a year.

I feel more confident with decent clothes.  Combining these with the haircut I got for the funeral, and I sometimes approach a respectable appearance now.  It's weird.  I practically made a few people poop their pants when, on Tuesday, I showed up to work in a sports jacket.  I'm not sure that I like it yet, because I feel like such a fucking sellout.  The good news in all of this was that as I tried things on, I found out that my size is now a 3X instead of a 4X, so that working out is doing something even if it's not immediately reflected on the scale (though I'm down 11 pounds).

Oh, me with the new haircut (and one of my new sweaters):

This week has been a really weird week, as well.  Things just haven't fallen into place right for me to get much work accomplished at all.  It's frustrating.  I had finally gotten into a swing before we went to Indiana.  Now, I'm back into recovery mode again.  I also fell behind with my class this week, having to scramble to get lectures and such put together far more than I wanted to.  I don't like having to scramble for that.  I think my content suffers when that happens.  I'm hoping to do some things this weekend to get back ahead.

We've only managed to get to the gym once since returning from Indiana.  That's not good.  Usually we go Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  We went Tuesday and figured out that neither of us was as completely recovered from our colds as we thought.  When we woke up Thursday and were snotty, that ruled out Thursday.  Friday, it turns out, we were lazy and worthless and just didn't go.  We'll get this restarted again.  I hope.  I really enjoy it now.  So weird. 

Some good news.... we're taking Maya, a foster dog, to her new home in Pennsylvania, just over the border from Youngstown.  Since we're going over there, we're taking advantage of this as an opportunity to get away for a brief overnight.  We're going to a Steelhounds (minor league hockey) game, we're going to get a hotel room at a place with an indoor pool, we're going to visit the Flaming Icecube, which is apparently the premiere (and only) veggie/vegan restaurant in the Youngstown area, and we will probably visit the Museum of Industry and Labor to unleash our inner nerds.  I'm thinking that no one has ever looked forward to visiting Youngstown, Ohio as much as I am right now.  We need a little time away.   I know it's silly, and that it's Youngstown of all of the places in the world, but it's enough to give us something different to break the rut. 

I really need to reboot my brain.  I'm desperate enough to break the rut that I'm in that I might have a couple of beers at the hockey game.  I'm not really a drinker anymore, but having a couple wouldn't be a crime, and sometimes a simple push or an odd bit of difference is enough to restart a decent flow.   

I've also decided to endorse Barack Obama as my candidate for president.  Yes, I understand that he's not 100% eye-to-eye with my political beliefs because he's not far enough to the left.   I know, I should be working to get rid of the system instead of working within it and being the system's bitch.  Obama is, though, the best of what's left, bar none.  Maybe that's selling out my more radical beliefs, but sometimes I feel like I have to recognize that I am one person, and one person has much better luck working in the system than trying to abolish it. 

Obama's the first candidate, or at least the first candidate with any shot whatsoever, that I've actually actively supported.  The other presidential elections I've voted in have been "well, who do I want to vote against?" type situations.  This one isn't that way just yet.  True, Obama has not locked up the nomination and he may not. But for some reason, I actually trust the man.  I know, he may be a complete jerkoff when he gets into office (and that much power could corrupt anyone), but Obama is the best candidate (like I said, with any chance of getting elected) this country has had in a long time.

When I say that I endorse Obama, I actually mean something different than in years past as well.  In 2000, I voted Nader, mostly because I knew my vote would mean nothing in Indiana with its massive Republican majority, and I thought maybe Nader could get the 5% of the popular vote necessary to get federal funding.  My support of Nader was limited to a t-shirt, a bumper sticker and a write-in vote.  In 2004, I didn't really like John Kerry at all, but he wasn't Bush, which was important.  My support of Kerry was limited to a bumper-sticker and a hole-punch vote, but at least I did that much.

Like I said, this time means something different.  Since Amy's on board with this endorsement, I've ordered us Obama t-shirts.  I've sent out for buttons, a bumper sticker, and a yard sign.  I've signed up on Obama's official website as an Ohio volunteer.  I even made a profile on Obama's Facebook ripoff, and typed in a little blog entry explaining why I've joined up, hoping to attract some like-minded people who might want to be in contact for volunteering or something.  I might even hit up a "Ba-Rock (I know, boo, right?) the Youth Vote" volunteer organizational meeting that's coming this Monday... though, I don't know if I'm that socially bold just yet). 

When I say I'm behind this guy, I mean it.  I'm sick and tired of this country electing complete fucking idiots, and I'm willing to put my actions behind my words to facilitate a change.  I've been trying to back up my lofty ideas and such with more action these days.  This explains how I've gotten more involved in the animal rescuing, and how I've gotten more involved in the departmental stuff.  I can talk about how the world could be better until I'm blue in the face.  I'm nothing but an asshole until I work to make that change come true.

I only hope it works, and only time will tell.  Remember, if you're in Ohio, to go vote on March 4.

Posted by Andy at 01:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Andy at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're in Indiana right now for Amy's grandma's funeral.  This funeral has been just about the saddest thing ever.  Oddly, we're not sad for her, because she was 93 years old, totally at peace with death, and she lived a good full and Christian life.  She knew where she was going when she was done, and she welcomed it.  We are sad for ourselves, though, because we've lost the privilege of spending time with one of the nicest and genuinely caring ladies I've ever met.  We're sad for our family, too, because they miss her too.  And there's really nothing sadder than older ladies crying, and there were a lot of those at the funeral.

The whole funeral thing is odd to me, but that's a post for another year.  The weird thing though is that when people are made up in the caskets, I can never really connect them to who is now gone.  To me, people in caskets never look like their living selves.  Amy's grandma looked, to me, exactly like the other three grandmas I've lost.  Hearing the stories about her life, though.... that was heartbreaking, and Amy and I ended up blubbering messes.

I ended up getting my haircut a couple days ago, and it's quite a bit shorter than it's been for a while... probably since I moved to Ohio.  I did it for three reasons: one, because my hair was getting on my nerves.  I got it cut short for a couple other reasons, though... Amy likes my hair shorter, and Amy's dad REALLY likes my hair shorter.  I felt like it would be nice to let Amy's dad (a very conservative fellow) have a son-in-law that looked a little less like a hippie while he was introducing me to obscure family members at his mom's funeral.  I know that in a lot of ways, this goes against everything I'm about, not changing myself for anyone, etc.  But as Amy eloquently reminded me at one point this week, sometimes making a temporary alteration like this is fine if it has tremendous other benefits.  I think this is one of those cases.

Now, in order to make up for being gone from Akron for so long, I've gotta poop out a grant proposal that's due today.  Mary Lou said she'd print it and turn it in as long as I email it to her.  I really want to do nothing more than stare into space all day, but I need the money to visit New Orleans for my research.

I'm still physically sick.  I'm tired of being sick.  I'm tired of snot, and I'm tired of achyness.  I also hope this gets better.

We'll be back in Akron on Saturday night.  We might be getting together with various Indiana people while we're here today.  We'll see.

Posted by Andy at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)