I'm Not Dead, Yet!

I'm sorry for the awful inconsistency of my blogs, I've been very busy with life and school. So, with the apology out of the way, here's a list of things that have happened since I last wrote on this thing... a year ago. In chronological order:

1) Amanda and I got two dogs. Bogie and Lulu Burns. After looking at the picture for a second, Lulu is the one laying her head on Bogie. So tiny and cute right? Oh how quickly things change. A year later and this is the demon dogs that they've become.

I find the picture on the left to be a fair and balanced representation of them now.

2) Amanda and I were married on December 18, 2010 at our house in an intimate ceremony with only one friend, our parents, siblings and Amanda's niece and nephew present. After that, family members (both blood and not) showed up at our house for the reception and cocktail party. When all was said and done, it was a perfect night.

3) I successfully defended my thesis March 25, 2011; one of the worst experiences of my life. Now looking back, I feel I wasn't prepared enough by my thesis director, didn't have a good enough grasp on the history of postmodernity, and could have used about two more weeks to try and get it 'right.' To be honest though, I don't think one of my thesis chairs would ever have been happy with it. The biggest injury was the fact that my thesis director thought it went well. Earlier, I had asked what a good defense would be like, and she said that a good defense was nothing more than a really engaging conversation, where people are jumping in and interrupting each other to talk about different topics. However, she failed to mention to me that those conversations would not include me, and that those topics would be about how I should have done things differently. Longest hour I ever experienced, but I learned a lot in that hour and it was helpful for the final revised product.

4) While I now had a defended thesis, that did not mean that I was done. I rewrote my thesis and turned in the revised copy in mid-April (I don't remember the date). Because I didn't meet the April 1st deadline for turning in my completed thesis, I do not get to graduate until August, even though I am 'officially' done with school. I consider myself a graduate at this point, and am just waiting for the paper conferring upon me my Master's of English Literature.

5) This is the best news: Amanda's got a bun in the oven! As of Sunday she's 10 weeks. At the moment we're throwing around Alice for a girls name (or whatever other name strikes Amanda's fancy at any given hormonal moment) and if it's a boy we're going to name it Atticus (if you do not know where that literary name comes from, go read a book). The due date was initially on our wedding anniversary, but as of right now, the doctor says December 23.

While life has been stressful this last year, I wouldn't have changed anything I've done, and am very happy. I'm going to try to be better about updating this thingamajig, but until then, hope that this meets everyone well.

Flames

I often wonder what happened to the old me, the one who was willing to burn bridges with no gumption - I would say something without blinking an eye, not caring that I offended or irrevocably ended a blossoming relationship (I'm using that term in the loosest of terms, by the way). However, now I wonder and contemplate my statements - usually though my girl friend my contest that very statement.

Regardless, I usually try to placate a person's feelings before I puncture their balloon.

I don't know why this particular point has come up, but I was thinking about this today, and I can remember a time when I was talking to Nick, and I was telling him about how I realized I was about to burn a bridge with someone - I can't for the life of me remember who that was at the moment, but I want to say it was a co-worker - thought, what the hell can this chick for/to me, and then burned that bridge without a second thought as to what repercussions could possibly happen to me.

Now that my mind is moving, I think this happened right before I left the previous job, and the co-worker was one who annoyed everyone there. That's right! i am thinking correctly now. This female worker was continually trying - and sometimes succeeding - to get me in trouble, for things i legitimately didn't do. For example, while talking to her about a project we were working on, she, after the conversation was over with, went into her boss' office and told her I was rude. Thank goodness a co-worker saw the entire conversation and backed me up against the claims of this other person.

So, eventually I started to detest this particular person, and decided Fuck It. So, instead of going after her in such a way that I might get into trouble, I decided to be a little more original about it, and went for public ridicule. And how did I do this? I took pictures of her from her Facebook account, photoshop'd them, and then put those said pictures on a poster by her cubicle. And to top this off I then went to the head boss, asked her to come look at something funny, and pointed out what I had done. Sadly, I got the response I was looking for, the head boss laughed, quite a bit actually, which only encouraged me further to do this.

Here's my handiwork:

As you can see, I put a lot of detail into the work.

To be honest with you, I don't know when she found out about this particular piece of work, but it stayed up there for about a day, and then was removed. By whom... I'm not sure, but that information was never got by me.

An Afternoon

I look at you, me talking too much while you stare off into space, us sitting on the porch in the back yard after you've come home from work. There you are, sunglasses on so I can't tell if you're looking at me, or if your head is just tilted to the sounds coming out of my mouth. And I keep talking, talking to the silence that surrounds us, while trying to make you laugh and failing miserably. I can see that you're so tired from the daily boredom of your job, and I can do nothing but talk about my day, you all the while probably wanting me to shut up, so you can relax for five minutes after the storm of the work week, and the daily commute. But I can do nothing but talk, trying to encapsulate to you my experiences; trying to share with you everything that I have done for the day, so that maybe, for a moment, instead of being two people in a relationship we can be one. One person who have shared the same experiences, and are so close together that the silence is no longer deafening.

But all you can do is look into space. And i cannot articulate to you why I try to fill the silence, creating a schism separating me from you when we should be binded comfortably together. Yet for you, you do not seem to mind the silence. Maybe it's at those moments that you feel us truly as one, or maybe those are moments of peace, where you do not have to engage with me and the world, instead letting it take you, like a pliable lover, as it will. Looking at you, while you possibly listen to me, I question what a person like you can find so beautiful and charming in a person like me. And in these moments, I doubt my self.

Maybe one day I will be comfortable with the silence that sometimes surrounds us... but until then, I'm sorry for stealing those moments from you.

Yowls of my Plight

My girlfriend's cat is named Dirty Harriet, and she has been yowling at a stray cat late at night recently. Now, some might say, that sucks, and that person would be right. However it is worse than just suckage, she has been yowling on the windowsill behind our headboard, thus waking us up in the middle of the night. Now one might saw, that is horrible, but one does not have the entire story yet. This cat has been causing much ridicule to be directed my way via the GF, because she seems to think that I scream like a little girl when I deal with the situations the cat creates. So, this is my rebuttal to the GF's statements that I am a wimp.

To begin with, the first time it happened, I had never heard a cat yowl before; I've never owned a cat before living with the GF. So, needless to say, it was quite a shock when I was awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of something that sounded like a combination between a screaming child and a bat from the depths of hell yelling curses into my ear. And then what happened once I was violently awoken? The GF grabbed a hold of my knee, and started to squeeze. Why? She said she was just making sure I was okay. But I know the real reason, to scare the holy hell out of me! And then her response to my screaming? She calls me a wimp, when i thought that someone was trying to get me! What was the appropriate response, I ask you? I'm not sure, but I shot out of the bed like a rocket when she grabbed and squeezed my leg. And thus the ridicules started...

So to not repeat myself, let's just say this type of thing happened a few times, and move on to the next post-able story dealing with a Yowling Cat, an Easily Startled Male and a GF who finds the two interacting to be extremely amusing.

About a week ago, the yowling cat was again in a windowsill in our bedroom. However, this time instead of being behind the headboard, it was in the other window - which happens to be on my side of the bed. So, it's about 5 o'clock in the morning and I hear this damn hellion noise coming from somewhere. First, I tapped the curtain behind my head, because I wasn't able to be cognitively aware as to where the cat was stationed. So, after tapping the curtain, and not getting the desired result, silence, I figured Harriet was on at the other window. I then got up to do the same thing, tap the curtain and tell her to shut the hell up. However, that particular plan did not work as planned.

Here's what happened:

I got out of bed, and went to the window that the cat was on. I did what I planned, I tapped the curtains, hoping to shut the cat up. Didn't expect this though, the cat was quite startled when I tapped the curtains; she hissed at me then proceeded to fall into the close basket pulling the curtains with her and making the curtains land on top of me. At this point, I screamed... the GF says like a little girl. Now granted, I guess I should have acted manly at this point, and been a stoic dude who didn't react at all, however that was not the case with me. So what? I screamed, but do I have to be characterized like that of a pre-pubescent female?

Now granted, maybe not the manliest response in the world. I'll give her that. But I had a curtain fall on me, along with a hissing cat! How should I have reacted? I'm human, I screamed! Possibly quite loudly. And then I had to put the damn curtain back up, which just added insult to injury. But it was not until everything was finished, the cat taken out of the hamper, the curtain rod put back in it's place, and my head laying on the pillow that the girl turns over from her side, looks at me and told me thus: that I'm a wuss.

retractions and reformations

So, i was wrong in thinking that I could actually post another blog after getting back from the job fair (I knew it wasn't going to happen, yet thought what the hell, maybe?). Anyways, let's update the world about the job situation a little more fully, and maybe give you, the reader, a little inside look as to why I think I'm a big deal.

About a month ago, I received an email from the Graduate Chair's receptionist asking me to make an appointment with Dr. Upchurch regarding when I was planning on graduating. Now, I have never met Dr. Upchurch, and am the type of person who always goes to the worst possible scenarios when confronted with a scenario like this, so I initially thought a huge multi-syllabled expletive and then started asking myself what the hell I could have done to warrant a verbal lashing from the chair.

I quickly sent an email saying I could meet with him later that day, and then actually went down to the receptionist's office to see what the hell I did to get into trouble. She said I had done nothing, and that he really did just want to talk to me about when I planned on graduating. Now for the regular joe, this might have ended the worry, but for me, i just thought that she didn't want to be the messenger of bad news, and continued to fret about it for the next 5 hours.

So, it finally gets close to the time when my appointment should be taking place, and I head over to Dr. Upchurch's office. However, there was someone already there, so I decided to wait outside in the hallway on the comfy couch until the guy leaves. While waiting, I actually see Upchurch leave his office, run to the English Dept. Main Office, make a copy and start on his way back when he is stopped by the Director of the English Department. They start to talk about money and funding, and I - this entire time - am looking inconspicuous by pretending to read a book, all the while listening to their conversation and trying to figure out how this might relate to me and why I am being called into the so-called principles office.

So, eventually both go their separate ways, Upchurch goes back into his office, and I followed him in about a minute later. Eventually the guy who was in the previous meeting left (I happen to know this guy, he's a fellow TF and he didn't look happy) and I enter the Seventh layer of Hell that I perceive to be Upchurch's office. Once the introductions were over with, I was asked by Upchurch when I planned to graduate, and I told him that my game plan was Fall '10. He then stated that the university was cutting funding for Master Student Teaching Fellows (TFs), and that next semester, there was to be no MA TFs in the English program.

Now obviously, this should have been devastating news, and for me, my legs started to go out from under me - at least they would have if I wasn't already sitting. I actually wanted to stand up, just so I could fall defeated back into the chair in which I had previously been sitting. However, the next line made me... well, this is mixed company so I won't finish that line. He told me that he had the funds to keep three Masters' students on, and asked me to push back my graduation date until spring '11 and to teach there for another year. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. So, there will be three of us next semester teaching at UNT who are Masters' students, and the rest will be PhD students.

Now, to be perfectly honest with you, I have absolutely no idea how I got tagged for this. Someone somewhere must have been looking, and somehow I got on someone's radar. Upchurch even went on to say that the school thinks I'm doing a great job teaching up here... who know's, maybe I got good reviews from student evaluations last semester (I never got my hands on them) and I'm sure that all those A's last semester didn't hurt me either. However, this is a new feeling for me, I'm not too used to getting great unexpected responses like this. So, I've been very gracious lately for all that I have, and humble for the opportunity that UNT's giving me. However, I have been keeping this news close to the vest, and have only told a few people what it was that Upchurch wanted to talk to me about, because I didn't want to rub it in anyone's face, 'cause that's not very cool if you don't know them... THAT"S WHAT SHE SAID!

the long moans of anxiety

So, here's the deal:

I've got a job for the fall and spring, but not for the summer at UNT. So I've been looking for a summer job, hoping to teach at a junior college around here, because I don't want to work retail, and I enjoy my cush lifestyle that I have now become accustomed to since entering academia. Thusly, I'm now waiting a short time, before going to a job fair for adjunct positions at TCC. And while yesterday I was not nervous, as of getting my shit prepared for it, I cannot say that I feel the same way as I did yesterday.

But that's life, I guess.

Anyways, I'm going to post another blog once I get home - hopefully - but until then, that is all!

little moments...

While talking to my students today, we discussed (it was really me talking to one particular student, while the rest listened about a prompt for a scholarship essay) about defining moments in a person's life, and how it's really the little moments in one's life that characterize a person. And while I was saying this, I found what I was saying to be quite enlightening - that usually how my moments of enlightenment come about, because while talking I am able to associate things more easily than I do while thinking to myself, and I then realize that whatever I was discussing/lecturing upon is an interesting idea that I hadn't really though long upon before.

So, thinking out loud while talking to the class, I was discussing about how it's small moments that define a character. I mean, think about it, how often is our character challenged and we are forced to confront drastic disastrous events? Instead, it's the small decision that really affect who we are as a person, and how we perceive ourselves and others. Instead of looking at the moments of trauma that are supposedly defining our person, we should instead look at how we interact with others, and what we do to define ourselves. In these small moments, where we make decisions upon things that are usually more subconscious than conscious, we are living the moments that define us. Because it is in these moments that we are guided by our rules of life that have been instilled in us by figures of influence and power.

However, despite being aware of these figures of influence pressed upon my life, I am still constrained by their desires and restrictions upon me. In consequence, many might feel that they need to rebel against these very limits that have been forced upon them. Yet, I do not feel that these very things that have been placed upon me have hurt me in any way. In fact, I think many times, by being aware of the desire for not being punished, I have followed the correct paths, and those paths have led me to where I am today. So, regardless of the fact that I have been placed in these shackles by others, these very confinements have set me free - at least to a certain extent - and allowed me to follow a path that none have been able to manipulate or coerce away from me.