Moving Right Along...

It's Sunday, the day before Memorial Day. Thank gawd we have tomorrow off from classes. This gives me a chance to take a breath and get some other things done whilst simultaneously staying on top of skool work. Yesterday I did some house kleenin' and some skook work, but was wiped out by 10:00. Of course, Bizarro wanted to go out but I was in no shape to do so. I've been fighting the cold-thing that he has, and I appear to feel worse at night and first thing in the morning. So last night I was all about drinking tea and hanging out. Thankfully, Bizarro stayed home with me. He's such a doll! Then he woke up coughing at 6 a.m. and took some NyQuil pills (NyQuil NyQuil NyQuil, we love you, you giant fucking "Q"). Needless to say he's a zombie at work today. Poor guy.

I went to the gym today! There were like 20 people in the whole building, it was great. Did some speed walkin' and some stationary cyclin' and even found the remnants of the MMAClub standing around the Combative Arts Room, so I punched the bag and did some T'ai Chi. Say, Mr. Club, why weren't YOU there?? HHmmmmm??? Steven was there with three other women from the club whose names I've either never learned or forgotten.

Oh, and one more testament to O.U.'s cheap-ass incompetence: the Ping center (campus gym) is not available for summer use to students registered for Fall quarter. Fuckers. I can't help but keep comparing this place to R.I.T. where I did my MFA. The athletic facilities were decent (and the women's locker room had all kinds of accoutrements, including a sauna!) and we paid LESS in fees. *sigh*

My grand plan for tonight - kleen out the fridge and defrost the freezer (which is currently frozen shut - it's one o' those tiny freezers in a tiny fridge. Not the "cube" fridge but the midget fridge). Then I'm gonna make some melon salad and fix me up some Udon noodles for din din, and watch one of the Korean movies I rented today. Then later tonight maybe I'll get some more work done.

Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!!

11 Days and Counting...

I haven't had any time for blogging. Too much to do. It's been a stressful week and promises to continue in the same way for the next two weeks.

Bizarro promises I'll have my ring "very very soon". This means days, I think. Could it be???

Both Bizarro and I have been feeling ill lately. I can't allow myself to get sick, too much to do. I'm sure that means I'll fall over half dead in 11 days. Oy.

So tired....

gotta go write a paper

Are we there, yet?

So I went to Columbus yesterday for the Wuhan program training/orientation/let's make a deal session. It was great to meet everyone, but man, oh, man. Wuhan has us doing this crazy-ass pedagogically unsound schedule that mimicks my experience in Korea: they don't realize that just spending time with a native speaker of English isn't enough to promote real language learning. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Essentially, the Wuhan people wanted 400 students to rotate through 20 teachers in 20 days. If you're any good at math you will realize that this means with a class size of about 20, each teacher will see each class only ONCE in the entire 20 days. What's even more screwed up is the first speaker we had yesterday was this earnest teacher who'd spent a lot of time in China, and who had wonderful and sound advice for all of us -- which has to be tossed right out the window in light of the fact that we will be teaching random shit to random classes with no continuity, no valid form of assessment, no personal relationships, etc.

I call it a "let's make a deal" session because nearly everything we as teachers wanted to do was in conflict with the mandate from the Wuhan people. Essentially, our point person here (who is Chinese) has to go to Wuhan and try to negotiate the entire structure of the program. We proposed that at the veryleast, each teacher should have one class for one full day, and cover all the topics and skills needed. This means that each teacher would be teaching the SAME LESSON for 20 DAYS to 20 classes. Still not very good, but a bit better than Wuhan's stupid-ass idea.

Anyway, so we'll see how it all irons out. We've another meeting on June 19th in Columbus, and by that time school will be done so I should be able to focus more on preparing.

I am still excited about going to China, but I'm starting to get nervous about the actual teaching part of it. I'm just going to go with the intention of doing my best and not worrying about shit I can't change. What I'm really worried about is how freaking hot it's going to be, and whether or not I'll be able to handle it. Thankfully there's air con in the living quarters and classroom building, but any time spent outside on the weekends might be tough. I'm going to invest in a good water bottle to bring with me.

Well, now it's time to get some work done. I am going to a friend's house to watch the season finale of Alias tonight, so I best get something done before then.

Is you is, or is you ain't?

Dig this: I tried to back out of going to that training/ orientation session tomorrow, but I was "highly encouraged" by the director of this program to attend. The way he worded the email, it sounded as if he thinks I need a 5 hour teacher-training workshop! Dude, I'm in a highly respected M.A. program in Linguistics and TESOL! I guess, according to one of my profs here, OSU Foreign Languages etc. people don't recognize that we have classes in pedagogy, etc. to offer the TESOL certificate. Because it's not run through the Education department, and because we aren't qualified to teach in public schools, apparently they don't think much of us.

Fie on them! I'll show 'em what for! So I'm going tomorrow, and so is the other MA student who's been hired. We agreed that it's better to go, and I got an extension on one of my papers so I can squeeze this in. Phew!!

It also sounded like they want us to actually help design the course content, which I didn't realize, since they listed a bunch of text books to be used. I figured they'd worked it all out, but apparently not. Freaks. So really they want us there to work, not to be trained or oriented! Interesting, since the stipend is so small...

Well, no offense meant to anyone, but this is consistent with my experiences working in East Asia (at least with language education). Someone is always trying to get something for nothing...really it's about work ethic, and the differences in expectations that cultures have. I'm just surprised that this is happening with someone who's been in the U.S. for years and works in an American university culture. Ah well.. I better get used to it if I want to do a Fulbright in Korea! :D

So it's off to Columbus with me tomorrow. Right now I'm meeting a friend out for a drink. She lives across the street from me but I never see her. Bizarro sees her more often when she comes into the store than I do!

TGIF (again)

Back in Black

It's been a few days. All week, to be exact. A very busy week, being Week 8 and having loads of work to do. But now I seem to have everything under control, and have decided not to go to Columbus for that Wuhan orientation meeting.

Last night talked to mom, and she is still very sick with a horrible chest cold. The docs put her on med for the congestion but it didn't help after a couple days, so they did a chest x-ray yesterday. I'm waiting to find out what's going on with that today. I expect the x-ray will be clear, that she just has a really bad cold that will take another week to clear up. Poor thing, she can't sleep because of the coughing, and as of last night she didn't have food left for dinner. Today she'll have a friend help her get groceries, I hope. This is exactly why I want to move back to NY, and why I'm still not sure if I'll go overseas even if I do get a Fulbright scholarship.

Bizarro promises me that I'll be getting my ring "very very soon". :D

It's sad but that's all I have to say even after a week of silence. TGIF, that's all.

Something witty this way comes

Well, not really, but it sounded cool for a title... It's Sunday late afternoon, and I'm here on campus trying to get some work done. I managed to get quite a bit of work accomplished at home today, which was amazing considering that I was tired and a teensy weensy bit hung over from going out with Bizarro last night. I was inside ALL freaking day yesterday, and got most of nothing done anyway, and was bummed that I missed the International Street Fair (in the rain). Bizarro came home from work around 9:15, and since Mr. and Mrs. Club weren't up for doing anything, I talked Bizarro into going out for a drink. As usual, he changed outfits three more times than I did in preparation for going out. Heh. As usual, I moaned about not having jeans that really fit me since I put on so much weight after coming home from Korea last summer.

Anyway, we went uptown and had a couple drinks at what has become our favorite place (the only non-frat boy obnoxious college binge establishment that actually looks and feels like a pub). Bizarro had his requisite hot dog from O'Betty's (well, two of them, actually) and I found out to my delight that they also sell tofu meatless dogs. I don't eat beef, see, and usually I avoid the "lips and assholes" of hotdog meat. Unfortunately I didn't have enough cashwad to buy one, so that'll have to wait for next time.

So today is a working hard day, with only three weeks left of the quarter I have a shitload of work to do, and next Sat I'll be in Columbus for the Wuhan training session (I'm repeating myself, aren't I?)

All is well ~ can't complain. Well, except for Iraq. And Afghanistan. And a bunch of other places.
Om mani padme hum.

This is Cooling

The above is a lyric from Tori Amos. I'm listening to her live CD from the to venus and back set. At one time in my life I was a huge Tori fanatic. I've lost the fanaticism, but I definitely still enjoy her mysterious, emotional sounds. Haven't bought an album in a couple years and it's been since 1999 since I last saw her on tour, I think. I first saw her on the Dew Drop Inn tour for Boys for Pele album, back when it was her, the piano, a harpsichord and the mic. These days she does her thing with a band behind her, which is okay, but I still like the old days. Even though she usually does a set without "the boys" it's just not the same. I met her on three occasions, at the pre-show Meet n Greets. These days she's mobbed with tons of teenagers with their bad red hair dye jobs and angstfilled poetry, or dressed as fairies. Hmph.

Anyway, it's Friday evening, just after 6:30. Just finished writing the article review I'd forgotten about until the last minute. Oops. I have 5 big projects due in the next three weeks. Two of them are for my Indoctrination Class (colonialism is bad, white people are bad...) so those will be mostly B.S. But the other three are linguistic masterpieces waiting to happen.

Not sure what the rest of the evening will bring. Bizarro works until 9 p.m. and then I have a feeling we'll sit around drinking and watching a movie. who knows, maybe Mr. Club will call... but I have T'ai Chi at 8 a.m. so I can't get all crazy. Tomorrow is the International Street Fair, which closes International Week here at O.U. I'm sure I'll have to check out the parade. But then I have to get some work done. Blech.

Guess I'll meander on home and feed my fishies.

Lovely day

It's Thursday around 1:00. Classes are done for the week, now I can get some work done for the next couple days.

The Wuhan Univ. job is starting to take form. I received a schedule and materials list, and I've requested to be assigned to the "Film/Video Club." The schedule is reasonable and looks like it is very pedagogically sound, as far as the skills, topics, and club sessions.

We have a training/orientation session on the 22nd up in Columbus. This means, unfortunately, that I can't go to my friends' wedding on that same day, but it was doubtful whether I could have afforded the gas or time to drive up to Cleveland (4 hours away), anyway. I'll see my friends next month, at least.

I'm also working on an idea for the Fulbright program - to produce that training video. When I thought about it, teaching elementary school kids in Taiwan really isn't in line with my career goals. I want to work with university students or adults, and I definitely want to see my video production background used in developing materials for teaching. SO I'm starting to research possibilities for going to KOREA, which is really where I want to be, more than Taiwan. Wish me luck!

I have an hour to kill before my Chinese lesson. Guess I'll do some reading.

What's the Buzz?

I'm happy to report that mom is doing fine. It appears that her heart and arteries are doing great. THey don't know why she was having the symptoms from last week, but they changed her medication. She has Lupus, so it's always having weird effects on the umpteen medications she has to take for all the other stuff (thyroid, hypertension, pain meds, etc.).

Turns out that my sister-in-law is now in the hospital with congestive heart failure, due to her diabetes situation. I think they have to adjust her insulin...over all she's healthy and young, so she should be okay.

Well that's all I have time for now. I'm just so relieved about mom...
Now I can focus on finishing the quarter.

Blogger changed all the formatting but on a Mac I can't use the buttons for formatting. Rats. Why'd they have to go and change stuff. I HATE CHANGE.

Mom's in the hospital and might need major surgery. She's been in all weekend and I've been a nervous wreck, especially with the Sprint network problem all weekend. Anyway, we're waiting for the results of a test on her carotid arteries. If they are seriously occluded (blocked) then the docs want to do surgery, in which case I will be putting everything on hold here and shuffling off to Elmira NY.

I'm frustrated with my bro. He didn't bother to tell my nephew anything about mom being in the hospital, so when he found out by a comment I made in an email, he had no idea what was going on. Sheesh. When will my 52 year old brother ever grow the fuck UP?

Anyway, I need to get home now and make sure my little fishies haven't boiled alive in their tank. I'll call mom tonight and see if she's heard anything more, then call my nephew and try to keep him up to date.

It never ends...

Is that somebody there?

Bizarro and I rented movies last night, and drank rum n' cokes (with my adorable tiki swizzle sticks) to escape from life's miseries. We watched a fantastic remake of the Bruce Lee classic Fist of Legend (aw shucks, I can't ever remember Fists of Legend from Fist of Legend - it's the one where he gets revenge on the Japanese samauri who kills his master). Anyway, the remake is with Jet Li and it's an excellent revisioning of the story, with a few little twists. I can see why some people call it sacriligious - the Japanese general gets some of Bruce's little "-isms" in the fight.

Then we watched Communion, based on a book about the events that allegedly "took place in real time" to Whitley Streiber and friends in a cabin in upstate NY. (Streiber wrote The Wolfen and The Hunger, among other horror novels.) In the story, little alien beings abducted him, gave him anal probes, and in subsequent "real time" events detailed in his other books (Transformation, Confirmation, etc.) eventually started indicating how and why we humans are on the path to self-destruction.

Now I, myself, am a person with an open mind. I had some very very peculiar and quite honestly fucked up dreams when I was 5 or 6 years old. These dreams suddenly stopped and since then I have never had another. Was it "masked memories" from alien abductions? Maybe. Was it the over-active imagination of a highly intelligent child? Quite possibly. Who knows... all I know is that there is a LOT we don't understand about ourselves and the universe, yet.

However, to Whitley Streiber's neo-Nostrodamus' routine (see Whitley Streiber's Website) http://www.unknowncountry.com , I don't think it takes some freaky looking aliens to tell us we're fucking up our planet and our race. If they spent years abducting me to tell me that, my response would be "Well...Duh."

If you're into UFO's, here's another site that doesn't have Streiber's apocalyptic theme... just good ole' fashioned grainy videos of UFOs. Enjoy! http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/videoclips/index.htm

P.S. Sorry no time to figure the code for hyper-links. I gotta go to "Korean Night" and I'm running late. I'll fix it later!

Is it over, yet?

As if the lock fiasco wasn't enough this week...Sprint shut off my phone because I was 3 fucking days late with my payment this month. I've been late with payment before, but usually no more than a week (and only because I simply forgot, not because I was trying to get out of paying my bill). Anyway, I made the payment and they turned it back on in an hour.

And then I find out that my minutes are terribly horribly over the limit... and I remembered that I kept getting wrong numbers last month. Apparently a new Sprint customer had been given MY phone number as their own number, so all those calls I'm charged for aren't mine. Which means I gotta go to the Sprint store and straighten that out.

I think the key here is to just remember all the good stuff in my life and not let all this menial crap gain so much momentum. With all the horrible shit in the world these days, sometimes it's all I can do to keep charging ahead, hoping that somehow my efforts are worth while. Being a Buddhist is often the only thing that holds me together.

Anyway, tonight Bizarro and I are gonna just watch a movie and maybe drink some wine. Tomorrow I'll deal with stupid cars and phones. At least I get to go to T'ai Chi in the morning.

Mercury in retrograde?

Yesterday was a fine day. All was going well, and I'd even begun the process of applying for the Fulbright. I was gabbing with one of my co-workers downstairs and thought I'd snag a ride home, since Bizarro had the car for the day. At this point it was around 6:30 - 7:00. As we were leaving the building I noticed I had messages, so I checked and they were both from Bizarro - telling me he'd locked the keys in the car and wasn't sure what to do, but that we'd deal with it later. I wasn't sure where the car was at that point - so my kind co-worker drove me around the parking lot but it wasn't there, so then we headed to the store where Bizarro works.

Sure enough, there was my car, so I hopped out, and thanked my co-worker. As I was unlocking the door, he said "It IS your car, right?" "Oh yeah, it's mine!" I responded. Then he zoomed off in his freakish-but-still-very-cool-jalopy-like ex-army jeep-thing.

Yes, it was my car, but for some reason my key wasn't unlocking the door. I went to the driver-side door. Same thing. In fact, it felt and sounded like the lock was moving, but the doors wouldn't open. I tried a half dozen times, then realized that something was indeed very wrong. I could see Bizarro's keys in the ignition, and wondered if maybe something was left on and the battery was dead, thereby making the power locks inoperable. But that didn't make sense. I was keying it from the outside.

So I went into the store and had them page Bizarro. I wasn't in a particularly good mood at this point, as you might imagine. Bizarro was as perplexed as I was... then he informed me that he had tried to jimmy the locks earlier. Hmm...he'd tried to jimmy the electronic locks.

We went back out to the car and soon we had a bunch of folks, including his manager, a coworker, and an off-duty cop out in the parking lot trying to get my car open. We tried going through the trunk, but the back seat latch has to be operated from the inside (thanks to Nissan who built a break-in-proof car). The cop tried jimmying the locks again, to no avail. The manager fashioned this hook thing and squeezed it in through the door frame to try to open the lock mechanism from inside. Nothing worked.

Finally I called a lock smith who told me that what probably happened was that when they tried to jimmy the locks the first time they must have busted the "link" (whatever that is) thereby making the locks inoperative. A special tool is needed to jimmy electronic locks, apparently. Great.

Bizarro finally wormed his arm up through the back seat and pulled the latch (my back seat is now mangled) so we could get in and unlock the damn thing. But the locks are busted and apparently it's rather pricey to have the doors taken apart to fix the damned things.

So, to sum up, I will quote Worf from Next Generation :
"I am NOT a merry man." Or woman, in this case.

Cinco de Maio

Just a few minutes before I have to go to TESTING class. Yes, it's a class where we learn how to make tests. Believe me, it's far more complicated than you'll ever want to know. At least the teacher is cool. That's Dr.J. Everyone loves him, which is prolly why he will become the Chair of the Department next year - at the tender age of 37. Dude, he's only a year older than I am!

Anyway, so yesterday my ESL class was horrible. Everyone was in a crabby mood (myself included). Today was much better, and I addressed the overarching problem of class communication. I insisted that they have to respond when I ask questions - even a simple nod yes or no when I ask "Do you understand?" Japanese classroom culture is vastly different from American, so they are used to the teacher-centered class where they just doze off or do whatever they please. They seemed really interested in what I was saying, so I think I got 'em. We'll see if there's any difference.

Gotta run. More later.

Maybe it's the full moon, but I just feel really crappy today. Not like, sick-crappy, but mood-crappy. My students were the same way this morning. No one had any energy and there was nothing happening. My brain feels like mush and I have no desire to do much of anything. I've been just pushing myself along like an automaton today.

Blech.

Maybe what I need is....coffeeee.....

To merge, or not to merge?

I'm SO confused! I thought I understood this vowel merger business but not I'm not so sure. I thought the/aw/ and /ah/ sound were merging into
/ah/ but in fact it looks like they merge into this other damned vowel somewhere inbetween (which is represented phonetically as a symbol I can't create on this computer).

ANYWAY...I wrote a desparate email to Dr. F, my prof., asking to please clarify this /aw/ ~ /ah/ merger thing. I'm almost finished... if I could clear this up I could print and do all the final touches. Arrrrgghh!!

What's the buzz? Tell me what's a'happenin'!

I discovered a wonderful thing today while looking for a parking spot. There's a Faculty/Staff lot at the bottom of the hill, and on weekends and weekdays after 5:00 it is open to anyone. I still have to walk up the atrocious "gordy hill" but it's much shorter than walking in from that commuter lot out in east butt wad, which is especially nice on a cold, rainy day such as this.

I'm ready to finish up my socioling paper, thank gawd. Bizarro's dialect has a strange back vowel that isn't consistent with the Northern Dialect found in Cleveland. It would appear that our friend Mr. Club might have a similar situation, but further testing is needed to learn anything more. Wow, I'm turning into a dialectologist before my very eyes!

I've thought about a pro-sem idea: comparing dialects of the WWII generation and my generation (Gen X? what are we, again?) in Elmira, NY. That area is interesting because there's a mix of Northern Dialect coming down from Rochester and Syracuse, but there's also the Midland dialect that moves up and over from PA, since Elmira is right on the PA border. That would be a very personal and interesting project that would incidentally require me to spend time amongst my family and friends in Elmira for a couple of weeks. :) I will think about applying for one of the Graduate Student Senate travel grants to be able to spend some time there over winter break, since I'll have teaching responsibilities in the Fall. This should work out very well.

Thoughts of the friend in Boston, I'll call her JEB from here on out, keep pestering me. Yesterday I dipped a toe into stalker-waters by searching for her on one of the people finder search engines. I'd written her address and phone number down a couple years ago (which was the last time I tried contacting her) but had tossed it out. So I have her address and phone number, again. I've been thinking about writing a letter, but what good would it do?

If she's not "softened up" it'll be like casting seed upon stones, to paraphrase the great J.C. Most of me realizes that she really and truly never wants to speak to me again, and that she is steadfast in her ways. But the other part of me, the idealist, the part that prefers dialogue over dissent, keeps insisting that one day she'll be ready to re-open the friendship and start over. It's that Idealist voice that keeps nagging at me all the time not to give up on her.

There's that, and there's the fact that I don't like loose ends, and to me that relationship still feels like a loose end. I've done my best both literally and figuratively to close my end of things, to let it go, etc. But obviously I can't, not entirely.

Anyway, I need to get my head back into paper-writing space. More later, perhaps.

Happy Beltane!

I'm on a break from the socioling paper. It's going well. I should be able to finish up tomorrow no problem. My topic is analyzing Bizarro's Cleveland dialect for the presence or absence of what we call the "aw/ah" merger (using layperson's spelling since there is no IPA on this thing). Here, you can do a little test yourself, to see if you have merged these two vowel sounds or not. Read the following pairs of words out loud. Do they sound the same or different?

dawn/Don
sob/Saab
taught/tot
wrought/rot
hawk/hock

If they sound different, then you haven't merged those vowels. If you pronounce them exactly the same, then you have merged. Of course, there are points on a continuum of this phenomenon, so not all folks are 100% one way or the other.

Hint: if you're from Cleveland (or any northern city like Chicago, Buffalo, Rochester or Syracuse) you most likely have not merged. If you're from Columbus on south in Ohio, you probably have.

Have fun! Gotta get back to the grind.

Parking angst

Today I came to campus with a list of things to do. Usually on a Saturday afternoon, especially one as beautiful as this, it is easy to find a parking spot in the huge commuter lot down the hill. But this weekend is "Mom's Weekend" and apparently the university thought it would be a good idea to issue temporary parking permits for all of the out of town moms to park in the commuter lots.

So here I am, a grad student on campus to actually do some work and I had to park way the fuck down in the corner of the Ping parking lot to then trudge up to Gordy Hall. I am irritated. I am vexed, even.

I ask myself on a daily basis WHY this stupid university doesn't build a freaking parking garage where that commuter lot is. It would solve a lot of the general parking problems on this campus, as well as the special weekends where tons of people descend on campus and end up taking the commuting students' parking spaces.

This university really chaps my ass, sometimes. Bizarro calls me "his little crusader" because I'm always up in arms about something or other. There's just so much to pissed off about here! Case in point: yesterday was supposed to be pay day for those of us TAs and GAs with direct deposit. But the payroll office fucked up and direct deposit didn't happen. Now, for me, personally, it wasn't such a big deal if the money went into my account a day or two later (I have a student loan buffer). But to a lot of students it WAS a big deal, and anyway it shouldn't have happened at all.

I can enumerate a plethora of administrative fuck-ups I've been subjected to upon entering this university and it ain't a pretty picture. Yet tuition continues to go up, fees continue to be added, and the level of incompetence seems to get more and more dire.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE MORONS????

As our friend Carl would say, "I put two and two together and decided you're pissin' me off!

In other news...
Last night I got an email from the dude who is hiring and coordinating the English teachers going to China this summer. It's the visa application with all the directions of what to do, and he says he needs it by registered mail on his desk by MAY 5. Um... nothing like last minute timing. Based upon my experience in Korea, and the way things are working with this guy, I'm going to assume that China operates similar to Korea: things are often done quickly and last minute. It means keeping on one's toes. And often it means doing more work than is necessary because a rush-job usually sucks. Just my opinion.

So I had my passport-sized photos taken at the EVIL EMPIRE Wal-Mart (cause I don't know of any place else to do that in this frickin' pint-sized town) and will get the rest of the crap ready to go.

Despite my negativity, I'm really in a good mood. This is just my venting mechanism. Yeah... that's it.

Yesterday I got tons of stuff done, including opening a savings account and refinancing my car. Yay! I'm still a little worried about money this summer, going to China and whatnot. I'm just gonna trust that everything will fall into place.

And on that note, I have to work on my Socioling project. yay.

Oh, one more thing... I've been dreaming of that friend from Boston that I wrote about a few days ago. She's really on my mind lately. I wonder if there's something going on there (my Atheist friends would say it's just my conscience and that I miss her, nothing more). But I wonder....