ok, so...

I start work on Monday. This is excellent for a few reasons:
a) I'm broke
b) I'm broke
c) I'm bored
d) I'm really unproductive when I have nowhere to be

And I think I'm really going to like my office and it'll be a good position for a couple of years. I figure I'll have to stay in some capacity at Penn for 5 yrs or so if I opt to go for it and pursue an Ed.D. starting this spring (and figure if I should take out more loans to cover the taxes on that or what....)....but that's ok. I think I like Philadelphia. I've seen more of it the last few weeks since school ended, and its pretty cool. Its amazing how much time school takes up (which makes me not terribly excited to do a doctorate part time but I'll cross that bridge when the time comes).

I'm also kind of hoping going back to the working world gives me more time for my extracurricular life, er, rugby. This year I missed two games and probably half a dozen practices, which is about what I missed in the last 6 years. I may not be a super-star (or even a plain star) but at least I'm reliable (that count for something, right?). While I have a horrid guilt complex, the priority shifting that paying massive tuition (read: over a year's salary) brings also inadvertently helped me realize its ok to not make rugby tops all the time. Given the time of year, I haven't seen any rugby people in weeks (which is true, though I doubt it was noticed since I didn't really have the opportunity to hang out this season anyway)...and there were actually events the last two weekends, but I missed them for long-standing plans with family. That priority shift probably is a good thing, seeing as I hardly ever see the family and noones getting any younger...

I have a question

What do (chronically) unemployed people do all day?

On the one hand, having lots of time on my hands is nice. My apartment is pretty clean. I've started cooking again. I've opened books with titles other than "Declining by Degrees" and "Higher Education Finance" recently. I bought a couple of trashy magazines (eg. Glamour, such guilty pleasures). I've not only been sleeping more than 6 hours a night, but I've been sleeping well past 7 am!! And I think I'm finally going to wash my car and clean the rugby dirt out of my drivers seat today...

But on the other hand....daytime tv is is awful (not that nighttime tv is much better!). I find it really easy to spend hours doing nothing, and then wonder how its 7 pm and I haven't been to the gym yet. And while its been nice this last couple of weeks, I know I'm going to need more in my life soon....

And that's a real possibility!! A job I'm interested in checked my references...and I had another good interview....so...we'll see....with some luck, things will be more in line in the next couple of weeks!! YES. I hate having life "pending". Organization is so important to me.

checklist

• papers: check
• comprehensive exam: check
• degree: check (though the diploma proof is pending in the mail!)
• job: hmm, working on that one.
  

3 out of 4 isn't bad, right?

Tear

I'm an emotional basketcase this week anyway, but Matt's final GSE-Admissions Blog brought a tear to my eye. Seriously.

One week. 16 pages.

Happy hour.

(I heart Tequila.)

feeling very

One week to write a cohesive legal research paper. Did you know these things are generally about 1/2 footnotes?

I feel like this wouldn't be a big issue if I had, oh, any legal background.

If I do well on this paper, I should be offered immediate admission to any law school of my choice for being simply amazing.

heh.

weeeee!!

I just finished writing 11 pages about rugby, specifically the "movement" to make women's rugby varsity on the collegiate level. While its in case study format (and I don't completely consider case studies academic work), I'm pretty excited about it...mostly because I get to monopolize 15 minutes of the class' time tomorrow talking about rugby.

teehee.

feelin' green

Last weekend I went to a conference for school/work/interviewing. The keynote speaker was Al Gore (who is surprisingly funny). He also had a 95% or so liberal audience of student affairs professionals, so the cracks about the election and current politics were well received. This 2 hours was by far the highlight of the conference (especially considering I spent 2/3 of it in the dungeon of placement interviewing, which may or may not pan out...). For the first time in my life, I'm motivated to recycle...and glad I have a gas efficient car for reasons other than my own wallet!!

Due to the T-4 weeks countdown to the end of the semester, and accompanying T-(2 case studies, 2 short-ish papers, and 2 long papers (one of which I haven't even done a lit review for)) countdown, I am going to refrain from detailing all the best parts, but I did find his website:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

I am also planning on going to Alaska sometime in the next couple of years now, because I want to see the glaciers before they're tiny or gone...

Free

from comps!!! (At least for the next 4-6 weeks, until I find out if I passed, or just didn't fail and have to re-do a portion)

By 1:30 pm on Friday, I was drunk off $16 worth of Mad4Mex's best. Excellent. We do have the best cohort ever. Seriously. I need to make time to hang out with these folks more before we scatter back around the country. (On the downside, the end of comps signals its time to REALLY get moving looking for jobs!!)

when opportunity knocks...

make it lemonade!

Normally fairly frugal and practical to a fault, I signed a check this morning to put a deposit on a study-abroad excursion (a 10ish - ish due to the lengthy flights-- day trip led by my history professor) to South Africa for this summer. Now, one may ask, how does a graduate student living on loans pay for a trip like this? Answer: another loan! My insides drop and twist at this, but lets be realistic -- when am I ever going to go to Africa? I'm way too practical. And travelling to countries/continents of this sort really require organized tours. Its not the sort of thing one books on the spur of the moment via Orbitz. And besides, its an education expense and I have the next, oh, 10 to 15 years to pay off the massive amount of debt I'm accruing this year, right?

I keep spinning around in my chair with excitement. Good thing I have the office to myself today.

and this week

My neighbors seem to be having a party right now, rather than a screaming match. Its definately the one above me. Its 11 pm on a Tuesday night. I have a 50% completed (just 4 page) paper due tomorrow. And have to be at work by 9. I haven't finished the reading for any of tomorrow's 3 classes. Oops. I really shouldn't have gone to rugby tonight, or played on the internet for 2 hours today, or spent 2 hours at the gym (between cardio and lifting for the first time in ages and the walk to and fro) yesterday. This staying up late thing is become a theme for me, a theme I need to end ASAP. Oh well. Tomorrow, we shall end it. Tomorrow we shall begin being ahead of schedule. I'm even going to bring stuff with me to Nationals to read this weekend. Somehow I feel like I'll have a little time, as the people who are playing will be wrapped up in their rugby thoughts. Actually, I am not sure about this since I haven't traveled with this team. If I were playing (this is the realist in me writing here) this weekend, I'd be on a serious tightrope in my mind, and would likely be blasting angry music via headphones to myself. I used to do this back when I was in shape and (somewhat) confident and all that, but there was more on that last week and I'm sure will be more on that in the future. But right now, I need to finish that paper....


update: we're currently listening to "Can't Touch This". Normally, I wouldn't care but its really distracting right now. And annoying. sigh.

in the spirit of overheardinny

I've decided to create an occassional feature called (ever so creatively) Overheard At Penn.

Today's edition: Elitism at the Ivies

Guy: Are you kidding? I DID NOT sleep with her!
Girl: Why should I believe that?
Guy: Because she goes to BARNARD! I only have sex with PENN girls!
~Locust Walk

(question: Would anyone at A&M would ever have this conversation, replacing Barnard with, say, Texas?)

rolling, rolling, rolling..

So I've moved to Philly officially. Two+ weeks ago. I've started my assistantship, and started class yesterday. I have a paper due next Wednesday....that requires 6 chapters of reading prior to writing. I'm a little stressed already (in some part because I haven't written a paper since, oh, 1998, at least not one that wasn't scientific/lab-ish).
Anyway. There's lots and lots I've been wanting to write about, but alas, I don't have internet at home...and I've been busy during the day...but I'm settled in at work now and I think I can catch up in some downtime (on the job, heh).

: )

Speaking of downtime, I had some at work this morning and took the time to catch up on the Eagle's World Cup blogs (fabulous, I'm totally living out my dream being an international athlete via the internet) and via the great women's rugby blog, found a blog of a new teammate that I also greatly enjoyed reading!

World Cup!

The women's rugby world cup kicks off this week with the US playing England (actually, I don't know if this is the first game, but its the first one that matters, right?)
I haven't been online much as of late, so I was excited to see all the updates to the Women Eagles page (which is, of course, more current than USA Rugby's page, which hasn't gotten around to posting the roster for the first game yet). I was also pleased to see daily training updates by the scrumhalves on their personal blogs (Lee and Claudia)-- bringing us all a part of the action! Just reading these things makes me excited -- I canNOT imagine what it must me like to be a part of it!! I'm so excited to see the US v England game via webstream...now to decide to cheat and check the score/recaps/etc on Friday or wait and watch it Friday evening! (I have to admit, I'm pretty jealous of all those -- including some current and former teammates -- who are making the trip to Canada to see things live!)