the world is your acorn

“I’m just like, tired of being preppy all of a sudden,…”

Don’t have a wii yet? Amazon seems to have gotten a bunch. The nice thing about it is you can get free shipping and you don’t have to deal with our ridiculous sales tax. Go get yourself one!

Nintendo Wii available at Amazon!

Tomorrow we give our second year presentations. That means we stand up and talk about some research that we did during our second year of school for 15 minutes, conference style. Yeah, that is all I know about it. There are no guidelines other than that. I don’t know if it’d be ok to present something that’s essentially incomplete, or if people will complain that my talk doesn’t have a point or real findings. I’m fairly certain there will be no real evaluation (or feedback even), because that is how first year poster presentations were last year. You’d think that at a school of education they’d try and do a little better than just throw something like this at us. The irritating part of it is that I’m losing sleep over this thing even though there are no academic stakes. I guess it’s a pride thing, because I’ll be publicly representing a year of work and I want people here to think that I’m worth their time and their funding and that maybe I’ll become something someday. Even if deep down inside I think it might be a sham and I might not really.

Mrs. Superhero and I are hosting a cook out for the doc students in our department today. Really the purpose is to welcome the new students and make them feel like they have some allies before classes start. Apparently I worry about things like that. Anyway, the party is at my house, which is fine, because I love to throw parties. Somehow the rsvp list has reached 62 people. Yeah, 62. 13 was just too many when we had Passover Seder this past spring. So yeah, people will have to stay outside, weather be damned.

Anyway, I’m excited for it. Mrs. Superhero and I have been planning for a few weeks now. She had the presence of mind to ask the department for money, which means that the bulk of our groceries were paid for. She is also in charge of name tags and family photos, the latter of which we are going to use for an academic family tree. Right now I should be cleaning the house, but after getting up early to do yardwork before the heat hit I am feeling lazy. And a little overwhelmed. What does a party of 62 people look like? Especially in my little house and yard? Will we have enough food, and beer? Will people mingle?

Parties are weird because I always really want to throw them, but when they are over I can never really remember what happened. I could never really tell you if I had fun, because it always seems like such a whirlwind of doing hostessy things. Maybe I like to throw them because then I don’t have to do awkward small talk as much, I can always run off to the next thing or task. Who knows. This party isn’t for me though, it’s really for the new students. I remember how miserable it was my first year, moving into a new place, not really knowing anyone, having so many doubts and fears about school and research and what I was supposed to be doing. I am just hoping to alleviate that for some of these folks, at least a little bit.

We have just returned from a 5 day trip to Chicago. I had a conference there, and The Little Red Haired Girl came along to see the city. It was a fabulous time, and we love it there. Enough that I might convince The Little Red Haired Girl to live there someday, despite to crappy weather.

Anyway, today it’s back to the grindstone. Lots of work to do before our post-passover seder on Sunday, not to mention class on Tuesday. I don’t know why, but I’ve had a hard time getting focused ever since spring break. It could be the constant travel that has made me feel temporary, or the knowledge that the semester is almost over. It could be the erratic weather or just plain feeling overwhelmed by the end-of-semester crush. Whatever it is, I’ve been feeling like a bit of a fuckup in terms of school lately. I guess I’d better get it together if I’m planning on any kind of successful end to the term.

This is the weekend where some candidates for admission to the doc program get wined and dined by the college. I wrote about this when I was a prospective student, then again last year when I participated as a current graduate student. Today my new little buddy asked me how I am feeling about it this year, but I have to say now I just feel like it’s a responsibility. I care about who will come here and be part of the department next year, so I want to meet the prospective students and get to know them and help them make the right choice. But I don’t have the same weird feeling of nostalgia as last year. I guess that means something about where I’m at these days or something.

I just went to observe a high school math class for a course that I’m taking. This happened to me last spring too, but jeeze, I really do miss being in the classroom.

Just installed Parallels RC1 build 3120 and Windows XP on my li’l ol’ MacBook. It’s kinda magical. Not that there are really any Windows apps I want. I’m going to use OneNote for a while to take notes to see if I like it better than VoodooPad. Other than that, I’ve installed Lemonade Tycoon 2 for my time wasting pleasure. Not sure what else I’ll do with it.

I just discovered Afloat recently, although lifehacker blogged it in November. What I like most about it is the ability to keep windows on top. Sometimes I read pdfs or websites and want to take notes in another app, but I want to keep the text visible and my own notes underneath. Afloat also allows you to change the transparency of the window, and some other neat stuff. It only works with certain programs, but it’s perfect for Preview, Quicktime, and Safari (not Firefox, unfortunately). I’m sure it’s good for other uses, but this is just what I’ve been looking for to help me with research for school.

Today is the first day of the new semester, although I don’t have class until tomorrow, so I’m really just on borrowed time here. I’d like to do something last day of vacation-ish, but I’m out of ideas. I’ve already spent too much money on a new hard drive, so shopping is out of the question. I have some pleasure reading that I could get into, but I don’t want to start something that I won’t be able to finish once everything gets crazy. I’d take Oliver for a nice long walk, but he’s out getting his hairs cut. Even dogsitting is over. So I guess today will be like any other, making lists of chores that I may or may not do, checking my rss feeds, and fiddling with new productivity software. Still not a terrible way to spend the day, I think.