Friday, April 27, 2007

That's right. I'm brilliant.

Hah. (Thanks to Sue for the procrastination tool. Just 12 more research essays to go!)

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant.

Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men
You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.
Just one thing missing

Woo hoo! Finally heard back from my London contacts and we are good.to.go! So we've got two nights in London, three in Salisbury (near Stonehenge, for you non-anglophiles), three in Derby, three in Keswick, one in York, and the last night back in London again. I also have our rental car reserved - can't wait to watch Jay drive stick backwards. Heh.

Just one thing needed though. My passport.

I sent in the renewal forms the last week of February. The forms said standard processing time is 6-8 weeks. Other people I've talked to have said that they received theirs in 7-8 weeks. Eight weeks would be today at the latest. And the passport could conceivably be in our rinky dinky post office right this very minute. However - and there's always a "however" - when I signed on to their website to check the status of my application, they are now claiming 10 weeks to be the norm. TEN. We leave in a little over 2 weeks. If it takes the full ten weeks, I won't get it until practically the day we leave. So if it doesn't show by Monday, I need to call and beg.

*imagine profanity of choice here*

I knew I should have forked over the extra $70-80 for expedited service.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Our Viewing Pleasure

Or displeasure, as the case may be.

Recently, Jay insisted that he, too, would like the responsibility of choosing movies via Netflix, so I set up a queue for him and allotted him one of our 3 at a time movie selections. So far... kind of hit or miss. He's done well with documentary selections, though they've centered around sex and profanity. (I'm a fan of both, of course, so that's fine.)

On the non-documentary front, he's not done as well. First there was Transformers: The Movie. Note that the remake, live-action version of this film is not yet released. That's what he though he was ordering. Nope. Instead, we received the 1986 cartoon version. Which I did enjoy... when I was TEN. We returned that one unwatched.

Last night we had Superman Returns. I think Jay summed it up well when he said, "It's like someone forgot to edit that movie."

Really, how does one make a dull movie about a comic book character? The only character worth watching was the little kid, and even he annoyed me at times. Gah.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

gah

Jay got me sick, the meanie. Sinus something. I can hear the snot forming in my sinuses and my face feels like it's going to splinter off from my skull.

Guess what I'm supposed to be doing this weekend? Yes. I'm supposed to be grading research essays. Guess what I won't be doing this weekend. That's right: grading.

Which means that next week is going to suck as I try to get everything done during the week, but so it goes.

Friday, April 20, 2007

I find this appalling

News story about women as second class citizens

Actually, it's an article about the Supreme Court ruling on partial birth abortions which does not have an amendment allowing for abortion to preserve the health of the mother. Women as incubators.

This kind of legislation seems to be pushed through by holier-than-thou patriarchal nimrods who believe that pregnant women and their fetuses need to be protected from bizarre non-maternal instincts. Because, truly, there can never be a legitimate reason to kill babies, can there?

Do they really believe that women who have been carrying a child for six months or more are going to take the decision to terminate that life so lightly? I can't imagine the pain that has to go into that choice.

(Sorry if this seems stilted... what I really want to be writing involves a lot of profanity, and that would probably just detract from the message.)

Why do women lose rights to make decisions about their lives when they become pregnant? Why do other people think that they have the right to decide ANYTHING in a stranger's life?

Would these same people welcome a stranger who told them that they were not allowed to go to church anymore because some religions caused people to be violent in the name of their god? (Of course not, because those other religions are false, and theirs is true and good.)

Or is this all part of the War on Terror? Thems hates us for our freedomses... so we'll take away those freedoms (especially from the womenfolk) to solve the problem.

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Happier Days

Work is still making me sick, but I'm ignoring that for now in favor of making reservations for our upcoming trip to England in May. (Last minute? Who, me?)

So far I have 4 of the 13 nights covered... still need to confirm Salisbury, Keswick, and London. (Derby and York are all set). London might be set, but my former French host brother who was living in London (and with whom I intended to stay) informs me that he's now living in Tokyo. Tokyo! Crazy kid. But he thinks he can hook us up with one of his London friends (who we've actually met before).

But anyway... enough fun. Back to grading. Gag.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Definitely not worth it

The trip to visit the folks was very nice - that's not what I'm referring to, never fear.

No, it's the job that's killing me. I haven't written anything except this blog (other than grading comments) since January. Sunday nights, I get so upset at the thought of going to work the next day that I feel like screaming. (Sometimes I do scream.) I'm having trouble sleeping. I'm gaining back weight that I lost.

I spent hours this last weekend looking at job listings in the area. I am either over qualified (cashier/deli worker/etc) or underqualified (surgeon/dean/sales exec/etc) for every single one of them.

Something needs to change.

In the meantime, I need to survive the last 4 weeks of the term. Not as easy as one might suppose.