My life is set for approximately the next two years. Hopefully, with little to no deviation. I'm almost done with my first semester of graduate school. I just have about 14 pages to complete before the end of the semester next week.
I'm slated to graduate with my Master of Arts in English Language and Literature in May 2013. I've been offered (and I accepted) a position to teach two sections of English 101: Freshman Composition as a Graduate Assistant. I even got hired by the University and all. I get a small (small) stipend, and a tuition waver for up to 20 credits per year.
I really want to teach when I graduate. I know that I will probably teach composition (hopefully at a community college) for a few years, and then I'll think about a PhD program. I'll see when I get there. I'll also be able to get a job as a grant writer for an organization, as I will be trained in that by the time I graduate.
Things are going. Things are happening. Good things.
normally i prefer sad songs. i just think they sound prettier. but every time i hear this song, it's inexplicably difficult for me to suppress my shit-eating grin.
first of all, if you don't want me to get sick of your songs, don't play them fucking 24/7. secondly, this is not my least favorite band. there are some really terrible musicians out there, and these guys are not it. but for whatever reason, i fucking HATE this song. even the live version pisses me off. if you're gonna sing a song, don't tell the crowd to sing it for you. everything about this song is mediocre and generic. i still like a lot of their catalog, though. this was just a very low point in it.
Day 1 - i'm copping out for the next 30 entries. sorry.
Day 01 - Your favorite song
Day 02 - Your least favorite song
Day 03 - A song that makes you happy
Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - A song that reminds you of somewhere
Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 - A song that you can dance to
Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 - A song from your favorite band
Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 - A song that describes you
Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 - A song from your favorite album
Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you're angry
Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you're happy
Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you're sad
Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year
Favorite Song:
this was not easy, by any stretch of the imagination. which is why you get two.
Graduate school is easy. I started in January. So much less crap than undergrad ever was. With that being said, it's getting to the crunch time of the semester that I haven't quite prepared for because I've been busy doing stuff such as:
1. Working at the Writing Center 15 hours/week
2. Organizing a huge fundraiser for the Theodore Roethke House in Saginaw
3. Presenting at the Eastern Central Writing Centers Association Conference
4. Presenting at the Michigan Women's Studies Association Conference
5. Founding and hosting meetings of Anarchists without Adjectives
6. Applying for Teach for America
7. Applying for a graduate assistantship position to teach English 101 next year
8. Sleeping
9. Planning
10. Blogging
Between now and April 9th, I have a presentation and a 15-20 page paper to write for one class. Between now and May 1, I have a 12 page paper, a presentation, and several smaller assignments to complete. Oh, and probably about 2,000 pages of reading. Eh.
life is making me not happy.
and yes, i have friends that are getting just as much crap life and more than me, but i feel like I am at the breaking point.
Maybe I've never been that strong... or maybe it just isn't worth it anymore.
::
2011 19 March :: 12.27am
:: Mood: party-mode
:: Music: bob marley - all in one
at least it was the 18th when i started writing....
So, I'm deeming the first fire of the year a success. I mean, it was on fire, but the rest of the neighborhood didn't catch. I typically consider that a success.
I'd rather brush the fact that it was just me by myself out there under the rug. But even still, it was nice. The moon was big and bright, which made it fun.
I got to work outside today, which was nice. Nothing like swingin' a hammer in the fresh air.
That's about it. I've been pretty lame lately.
Be safe, and stay classy, kiddos.
p.s. I made a fried egg sandwich. It was delicious.
i'm making 'omnanimously' a word, and that's the end of it.
So, i'm on vacation with my family. We go to the k-mart in Petoskey. Not my decision, but in the interest of caving to the more forceful individuals involved, that's where I wound up.
My dad gives me spending money (it would've been much better spent on the slopes, but that wasn't in the cards, apparently. So, I still haven't spent it.), which in and of itself is both sad and cool. With what money I brought up with me, I buy a soda. A 20-ounce bottle of pop. The lady at the register asks me if I have a k-mart rewards card. I have to sound all stupid, and ask her to repeat herself because she's one of those soft talkers. You know the ones. I'm half deaf, because i'm getting over a sinus infection, and i've spent several sessions in the last 24 hours submerged in either a hot tub or a pool. Since I can't fucking be skiing. would you like to sign up for a rewards card? I'm sorry, what was that? Do you want to sign up for one? No, thanks. And in my head, there's a battle raging between the logical part of me that's thinking 'she doesn't know that I never go to k-mart, probably won't again for a long long time, and the only reason i'm here in the first place is because i'm from out of town,' and the other part that's saying 'lady, I don't have one already, and i'm just buying a fucking soda!'. Alright, that'll be a dollar sixty-nine. I didn't actually hear what she said, but I knew it was more than a dollar, but less than two, and deduced the rest from the change.
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Just a fun fact (or an FF. See what I did there? I shortened it. Which is automatically more cool. Or cooler. See? Shortened again! Damn, i'm cool), this stems from a game of phone tag that i'm currently in.
I am fascinated, at least for the moment, with the phenomenon of being 'it'. Like, how would you describe being it? (again, short=cool) Defining 'it' is easy, but describing it is nigh on impossible. You're in a position of some singular importance, but at the same time it's something you try to avoid. I guess it all stems from the simplicity of the game. It is competition in its most sublime, simplified form. Still, the human mind needs some context; some rules. Granted, they're basic: if the person who's it touches you, you become the person who's it - The game begins with whoever initiates contact and calls someone else it - Anyone who chooses to join in is potentially it. Them's the rules. Then why is that sensation so difficult to pin down? We all know it (at least, anyone who has ever played tag. Which I omnanimously declare to be everyone), and yet it remains so difficult to put to words. You're either chasing, or being chased, and taking it in turns. And the game is pretty much over when the person who's it gives up, and nobody else in the game decides to take up the mantle.
In some ways, I wish phone tag were more like the game of my youth. Regardless, I still hate being 'it'.
::
2011 8 February :: 10.58am
:: Music: Presidents of the USA- lump
I am starting to think in a year from now I might not have any option but divorce.
I won't go into right now, because I have too much to do, but I sincerely am starting to just not give a damn about him.
Maybe I should have had the song as Elton John The Bitch is Back.
Also, I am seriously thinking about only writing my statuses as lines from songs from here on out. I feel like my emotions are starting to refreeze. Lord save us If I am returning to be the bitch I was in HS.
I feel lost like theres no real fit for me completely. My whole plan I've had my entire life may never pan out and so I'm just living day by day wondering if my life plan will ever come true.
I was so sure my whole life that I never once questioned it. Now who knows.
I also feel taken advantage of and under appreciated.
And maybe related, maybe not, I've been so paranoid lately it's unbearable. Especially when driving,i feel like I'm going to get in an accident at least once a minute. If someones following too close or hits the brakes too suddenly my whole body tenses up. Car wrecks play in my head the whole drive and I pull on my seat belt to tighten it throughout the drive. At night i feel like someone is in my back seat, which I've always checked for but usually just once, at the beginning of the drive, not 4 times throughout, turning on the light to check and even feeling like I feel someone breathing on my neck from the back seat.
I'm having a harder and harder time getting up during the night to pee or let the dogs out without being power petrified that my nightmare about the man behind my shower curtain trying to kill me isn't real. I can't open the curtain to check bc I'm so sure hes there.
These new developments on top of the always present anxiety and stomach upset every morning before work thats been going on for 8 months makes my life a lotta fun right now.
i have zero motivation for life. my plants are all dying because there is no sun, my husband has no problem acting like i am being neurotic because he isn't returning my calls and I really could care less about school right now.
I am so sick of having to just drop money that isn't here and buy totally random shit for class that I will never use again.
I ought to get a job, but right now I am feeling so down on myself that it is pretty much impossible to "sell" myself to even get an f-ing job. I feel like my whole life I have just slipped between the cracks because I was never worth noticing and what the hell can i even do to change it? It all seems pretty lame if you ask me. I need motivation... something. give me one damn thing to look forward to please. I can't even turn up the music and rock out because I can't get new music. everything is just dumbed down, built up crap anymore. ugh.
wish i could go by some damn motivation... or something of the like.
I keep getting asked what married life is like or how married life is going as if I underwent some magical transformation at 5pm on October 23 and I woke up as a new species, a new life form, on October 24: Wife.
My response is always: it's exactly the same, nothing has changed.
And in a way, that's true. But really I only respond that way because I don't know how else to answer and I don't think people are really expecting an answer beyond "fantastic" or "wonderful." So I answer the same way every time I'm asked.
It's exactly the same. Nothing's changed.
And really, the day to day stuff has not changed at all. That comes with territory though and has nothing to do with marriage or our marriage. When you date someone for 6.5 years and live with them for 3.5, there's not much that changes once you put a title on the relationship.
However I'm still lying when I say nothing has changed. I have changed. Nick has changed. My name has changed.
My name has changed. I didn't think this would be such a big deal to me and I still don't feel it is that much of a big to-do but I do feel the change intimately. I never was really in the feminist/non-name changing camp as I always felt that changing your name was a part of the marriage just like middle school follows elementary school. It is what you do. So I did it because that's what you do. And despite changing my name on Facebook almost immediately (peer pressure is a thing, children) I procrastinated and didn't process the legal name change until January. And now this is who I am. I am not a Greggs, I am a Hazen. My voicemail still says Greggs, at work I am still Greggs but in the eyes of the government of the United States of America and the state of Michigan, I am a Hazen. Who I am as a person and who I identify myself as has changed.
I always thought names were strange. Nick's name isn't Nick, it's Nicholas but to everyone and to himself, he is Nick. Oliver and I were talking about this the other day in relation to celebrities. He was wondering if celebrities' spouses call them their birth name or their stage name. He used Fergie as an example. Is she Fergie at home? To her husband? To her friends? Is she Fergie to her parents?
Now I'm not the person I was for 23 years of my life. I'm someone new, someone different, someone married. I have to learn to respond to a new name, a new title. I'm a wife, I'm married, I'm a Hazen, I'm a Mrs. It's all so very strange that I don't know how I'll get used to it. I'm sure that 23 years from now, I won't be able to imagine it being any different.
I always knew that Nick and I were together for the long haul and we were in this forever, even before we got married. We were good kids and we talked about marriage for quite some time. We talked about getting married like it was some great accomplishment far off and far away from us. Being married was something that happened to other people. We would get there someday but it wasn't today and it wasn't tomorrow. Then suddenly it was tomorrow and then just as suddenly it was today. And then just as quickly it was yesterday and a month ago and two months ago and yesterday it was three months ago and I didn't even notice. We passed this great threshold, this life defining moment, this milestone, this sacrament and it was just a day. Now we're here and it's exactly the same.
But it's not.
I don't know how to describe this feeling to people who aren't married and that's why I haven't been trying. I'm married. I have someone who will always have my back. I have someone who is always on my mind, who is the most important person in my life and someone who is my best friend. All these things were true even before we signed a piece of paper and said those vows but now it's different. Now I have someone with me for the rest of my life. I have someone who will always be there and someone I know I can always turn to for help. I have someone who I can call my husband. I have someone I'm legally bound to and who is bound to me. I have someone who loved me enough to spend all that money on one day to celebrate being us. Together. Finally.
I am married to a wonderful man and someday I will be married to and will have been with Nick for longer than I've been without him (June 13, 2021 to be exact). We will be with each other for the rest of our lives. It's an amazing feeling that didn't really hit me until our "staycation" honeymoon when I cried that afternoon in our hotel room, holding on to my new life. I was a wife celebrating her marriage to her husband and the overwhelming non-change change just threw me. It still hits me hard sometimes and it always surprises me the most when people ask me how married life is. It's not exactly the same but I can't very well tell this story can I?
I also am now deeply affected by any sad/happy stories about married couples. Whether reading a story about the death of a spouse or a child or just thinking about how hard it must have been for immigrants to leave their families behind, I get upset. Thinking about how my great-great great granduncle (or whatever he was) left his wife and traveled on the world's largest unsinkable ship to America, I get teary. I know how Fahim Leeni must have felt when he left his wife of four month for something better. I know how people feel when they are separated from their spouses. I know this because I know this feeling, I know how people feel when they are together.
::
2011 18 January :: 2.08am
:: Music: SuperLibrary - it continues to grow
so.... you hit it and then it works?
yes. yes it does.
so, i live on a cul-de-sac (which is a word i despise, but there really is no other word for it...). at the very end is a path that leads to the school behind the house. by the path are a fire hydrant and a streetlamp. now, for the past year or so, the light wouldn't always turn on automatically. sometimes you'd have to kick it, nudge it, whatever you felt like doing in order to jostle the thing to life. now, at first it was just every once in awhile. then it got to be once a month. still a novelty at this point, as i spend a lot of time visiting with the neighbors across the path, and he would usually beat me to it. but eventually it got to be once a week.... then every fucking day. that got old for him (i was excited to have a fighting chance to be the first one to kick it), so he called up the township or whoever is in charge of maintaining the lights (yay 'burb life) and asked them to come fix it. they say yeah, sure, first thing.
about a month later he calls them back, reminding them of their promise to fix the damn thing... he even has the file number they gave him from the first call he made so she could look it up. she said the number didn't really matter. okay, whatever. "but yeah, someone needs to get out here to fix this soon. i'm getting sick of kicking it."
"i'm sorry? what seems to be the problem with it?"
"well, it doesn't turn on when it gets dark, so you have to hit the pole so it turns on."
"so, you hit it, and it comes on."
"yes ma'am, i'm not pulling your leg. it really turns on when i kick it."
"huh. you sure?"
"yup."
"alrighty, well i'll send someone out within the week. your file number is 1928340987-"
"-i thought you said the number didn't matter."
"oh. well, yeah, right. you have a good day then."
"thanks, you too."
i'm only semi-bullshitting the conversation there. it's not verbatim but that's the gist of what he described to me.
i just didn't realize that hitting things to make them work could be so foreign to somebody. it's like, the first thing i do. not violently. just to see if there's a bad connection or something. i guess maybe she was just surprised that hitting it actually worked. she must have a bad track record of hitting things and having them remain woefully unmended or something. guess i've got the magic touch.
all i know is, about a month ago they finally fixed the blasted thing, and now it's brighter than blazes all effing night long out there. it seriously hurts my eyes to look out the window. and it's got this weird pinkish hue to it. i almost liked the broken one better.
see what i mean? bright.
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in other news, i'm still a sagittarius, pluto's still a fucking planet, and triceratops is still the most badass herbivore this side of the big bang. the bce/ce from bc/ad didn't bother me as much. i mean, change typically comes slowly for me, if at all, so i still use the old ones, but i don't mind seeing the new ones because of the unholy ruckus the bible-bangers made about it. if you're too shortsighted to see that changing the name of something doesn't change the thing itself, then i really don't care about whatever got your panties in a bunch. we need some way to measure time. the modern world is too fast paced for people to say "year of our lord twenty-hundred and eleven." and the documentation on christ's life and when exactly that was is a little ... spotty. science demanded a more precise measurement, for whatever sciency things it is there doing in there. as long as they don't burn the place down i guess i'll let them stay. until i get pissed about whatever they pry from my unwilling fingers next week. fuckers.
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so i've been tutoring this kid for the past couple of months. he's mildly autistic, which means he's in normal classes, and social enough, but it makes my job difficult. it's not that he can't focus. he can focus plenty, if it's something that interests him. it's that he can't focus on algebra 2 when he doesn't feel like it. which is most of the time. so, instead he's always telling me about all this different stuff that does interest him. like some cartoon he was watching with his brother, or this video game he's designing. tonight he was regaling me with how there are different types of fruit. shit you not. he's got this bowl of fruit, and he comments on how the strawberries are making him pucker. i sample one and concede that it's a little tart, for a strawberry, at which point he launches into this thing about how there are different types of fruits within the same species. well, not species, but that's the word he'll use (i'm not entirely convinced he was wrong on that count). "like, apples. there are all sorts of different kinds of apples. macintosh. jonathan. that one's named after me."
"alright, so, the opposite of b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac, all over 2a." he stops to pet the dog. and play with the 2 remaining chunks of strawberry.
"but it's all food, i guess. i mean, it's not alive, like animals, but it still provides sustenance." i kindly explain that fruit is indeed a living organism until we kill it, much the same as animals, though admittedly less mobile.
"well, it's still food."
"okay, so in this function b is 4, a is negative one, and c is 8, so...."
and that's pretty much how it goes. he talks about his girlfriend a lot too. apparently she wasn't at school today because her mother felt she needed to be home to celebrate martin luther king day (she's black, after all). seemed justifiable to me. i'm just trying to figure out how she can do that, when it's exam week. whatever. you know, i want a white person holiday. you know, one where we celebrate how our ancestors took advantage of all the minorities to their own personal gain. and all of them (our ancestors) are dead now! one ethnic dead person holiday deserves another!
oh, god, when the shit happened with the birds and fish in arkansas, he was telling me about how she thought there was a volcano in arkansas that was going to erupt and destroy the world. her particular brand of autism apparently has a penchant for the doom and gloom, so it doesn't take much to get her going. but this was a very real concern in her mind, and so it becomes that much more real for those in her life. the unerring font of knowledge i doubtless am in his mind, i felt obligated to elucidate. and honestly, i tend to figure i might as well, since i'm not convinced i've actually taught him anything about math at all. i know his folks are paying me to help with school, but i figure any seed i can get to germinate, whatever the topic, is a mini-success and makes my time worthwhile. so i told him about how there was some speculation that yellowstone - decidedly not arkansas - may erupt "soon". in geologic terms, soon is probably not in our lifetime. but it's a possibility. even if that does happen, it's not going to be the apocalypse. it'll do a dandy number on most of the US, michigan included, but i doubt it would completely kill off all the humans on the planet. he seemed reassured by that; mission accomplished.
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so this book i'm reading right now is basically robin hood, as this guy thinks it should be, or might have been. he's based it in the 11th century in what is modern day wales. he's changed things completely, but it's well written and actually seems far more realistic than most of the romanticized robin hood crap we're used to seeing at the movies. if you're genuinely interested, you should start with the first book in the trilogy, though. anyway, the language tends to have this overly formal archaic type of style to it. most of the books i've read by him are that way, at least at times. but once i start to get into the swing of it, i think i could really run rampant and emulate that voice fairly well. i think it would be a fun experiment to try. maybe not as accessible to readers, but fun. and i could be verbose without it seeming like as much of a stretch. condescension and overly flowery language are pretty much expected from that dialect. i couple probably pull it off. i'm halfway there already, right?
::
2011 15 January :: 10.14am
:: Music: The Hamster Dance
Wow, I have seriously tried to give my hair volume for like half an hour and the only difference is the way my hair is laying... no height at all.
Interestingly enough I forgot some of the wacky music I have. Thank God for sounds to jam with.
In other news, I am in Green Bay this weekend. I forgot how much I love staying in Hotels. Going to hang out with my old roomie today, maybe tour Lambeau field... Adventures ahead!
If I could wish any wish, it would be that my "friends" appreciated me more. I put that in quotes because there are people that I have deemed to be my friends and over the past few years it becomes more and more evident that maybe what I feel and how I see in the 'friendly' relationship isn't the same both ways.
I try to do anything and I am blown off. Idk, maybe we are just on totally different wavelengths or something. I am just sick of this dull ache that I feel because maybe I care more, or I just keep lying to myself that there was ever any relationship there what-so-ever.
I know this is my safe place, and I want to hash this all out in words, but Idk if I have it in me right now. Mike is def. right though... too much heart. I feel bad for the grinch, I was shut off like him too once... and then your heart grows and re-opens and you get hurt all over again, and that pain is even worse. idk anymore. none of it fits together or makes sense, except that is the explanation for the worst.
