I think I finally did it. I think that today I was successful in feeding myself in a manner that would make people proud. I had breakfast (cereal with strawberries and a glass of orange juice), I made myself lunch (grilled cheese on wheat bread-- I was going to add tomato soup, but wound up not being hungry enough), and dinner (quesadilla). To top it off, I'm done with my homework for the night, which means that I can turn in at a decent hour and get a good night's sleep. It's enough to make the fat lady sing. Voltaire said, "we are rarely proud when we are alone." I would have to respectfully disagree, in this case.

It was a day of firsts for me. Well, really just one first: I rode the bus today for the very first time. I had an afternoon seminar and by that time in the day parking in the pay-to-park lots near campus would have been nearly impossible. Since that wasn't an option, I drove to the mall, picked up the bus, and it took me right up to the history building. It was the coolest thing ever. Here's to public transportation!

Oh, and I had a banana for dinner. A step up from cereal, I'd say, but not quite up to the level of "feeding myself" that John had in mind when he made me promise I would.

It's strange how a queen-sized bed can seem like so much vast, empty space when one occupies it by oneself. (Lydia does not take up enough space to qualify to be counted, try as she might.) John left on business today and I promised that I would feed myself adequately and try to sleep while he was gone. I really meant it when I promised it, too. But then 8:30 came around and I hadn't eaten dinner yet, nor had I done my grocery shopping. So I did what any college student would do: I ate cereal. Score: Emily 0, refrigerator 1. And so far (if you note the timestamp on this blog), the sleeping is a bit touch and go as well. Determined as I am to live up to my promise, I'll try to do better tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day. Cue music...

A couple months ago, John and I decided to join Netflix. For those of you who don't know how it works, you set up an account and begin adding DVD titles to your queue. The DVDs are then shipped directly to your mailbox, and you send them back at your leisure. For John and me, this is a good thing because 1) we can never manage to turn in movie rentals on time and 2) the rental places never seem to have what we want anyway. Plus, you can add really cheesy movies without running the risk of belittlement at the hands of rental place employees. Tonight, John and I are going to get take-out Chinese and watch Kung Fu Hustle. It promises to be an excellent night.

Every year, Beloit College releases a list intended to help professors relate to the incoming class of students. The Beloit College Mindset List for the class of 2009 was released today, and I thought I'd send along some of the more disturbing facts.

1) Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead.

5) Boston has been working on the "The Big Dig" all their lives.

7) Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.

16) Voice mail has always been available.

18) The federal budget has always been more than a trillion dollars.

19) Condoms have always been advertised on television.

22) Starbucks has always been on every corner.

26) Dirty dancing has always been acceptable.

30) Pixar has always existed.

37) They have grown up in a single superpower world.

44) RU486, the "morning after pill," has always been on the market.

54) They never saw the shuttle Challenger fly.

58) They never saw Pat Sajak or Arsenio Hall host a late night television show.

61) Digital cameras have always existed.

64) CNBC has always been on the air.

70) Jimmy Carter has always been an elder statesman.

Every day, twice a day, John and I take Luke to the dog park down the road from our house. Not only is it a great place for Luke to run and play, it's also a great spot to people-watch. In the early mornings, there are the regulars: hardened, salt of the earth individuals who live and die by their dogs. These people understand that when you come to the dog park, you're going to get dirty; they wear old clothes, accordingly. They know the names and stories of the other dogs in the park, and they chat easily with other owners. In the late morning, you start to see people who seem to resent coming to the dog park. The clothes they wear are far from old; some even wear suits. Some bring books, hopeful that their dogs can entertain themselves and not bother them. They avoid any contact with other dogs or other owners, and chatting is out of the question. In the late afternoons and evenings, you see the college students: dude, where's my dog? They come with their goatees and tattoos, their halter tops and their short shorts. For the men it's a chance to look cool, for the women it's a chance to display their tans. They talk on their cell phones for ages, occasionally tossing a tennis ball or a frisbee for their expectant dogs. In the mornings, the regulars return, eager to take back their dog park for another day.

Oh, and then there are the people who drop their dogs off at doggie day care. We won't even talk about them.

While printing off some articles this morning for the first day of skul skoole school (yes, I have homework and classes haven't even started yet!), I came to the sad realization that summer is officially over. No longer can I immerse myself in research, reading children's books like Dotty Dimple, Cousin Lucy at Study, or Hampster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie.* Nope. Now, sitting in front of me, are "Deconstructing Equality-versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism," "Feminist History after the Linguistic Turn: Historicizing Discourse and Experience," and "Dissolving the Sameness/Difference Debate: A Post-Modern Path beyond Essentialism in Feminist and Critical Race Theory." Undoubtedly these articles are full of wonderful insight, but I doubt that I'll come across such scintillating dialogue as "I didn't hurt me velly bad. I'm weller now!", uttered by little Dotty Dimple. But maybe I'll get a chance to go back and visit the archives in between classes. I think I'd like that.

*Note: One of these things is not like the other. Can you tell before I finish this blog?

Since it looks like the price of gas won't be going down anytime soon, I thought I'd pass along a link to GasBuddy.com, where you can enter your zip code and get real time gas prices across your city. With gas in some areas (Gainesville, for example) expected to top $3 a gallon any day now, it might come in handy. Happy pumping!

Driving home this morning from an errand, I noticed that the lady behind me was following me really closely. I mentioned something to John and he turned around to look, at which point she backed off and fell way back. I assumed that she hadn't noticed how close she was to my bumper. A few minutes later, she was up on my ass again and as I looked at her in my rearview mirror, I saw not only that she was about 85 years old, but also that she was shaking her head at me. I was going at least 5 over the speed limit, and here was this blue hair crawling up my tailpipe and heckling me! I tapped my brakes, the universal sign for 'get off my ass,' and she honked her horn at me! I think she may have even given me the finger. At any rate, shortly thereafter I pulled into our neighborhood and she sped off. She must have had a bingo match to get to or something...

Setting office hours for the upcoming semester is always a difficult task plagued by a number of questions. How early is too early? Can your average undergrad make it to a 9:30 office hour? Or will you be stuck setting up innumerable meetings at 4pm? Are ten other teaching assistants and associates holding their office hours at the same time? How many hours do I have to be available? I teach three classes-- does that mean I have to be available for three hours? And if so, will I die of boredom?

I have notes from my first day of TA orientation, two years ago. Another graduate student, much further along than myself, was speaking to us and giving advice. Two key pieces of advice still stick out: 1) bring something to work on during office hours (because rare is the student who shows up); 2) don't take apathy personally. All good advice.

After days of negotiations, I finally have my fall class schedule settled. When I set out, months ago, to determine my final semester of graduate seminars, I had no idea how involved it would get. Here are the stats:

• 6 professors and 3 administrative assistants from 4 departments
• 33 emails and 2 phone calls (plus 1 question via email to 2 fellow grad students)
• 3 potential classes, but room for only 1 on my schedule
• countless rules and regulations governing what class I could take (which ultimately narrowed it down to 1)
• 2 key questions at hand.... asked over and over and over again, without any satisfactory resolution

And all that just to get me enrolled in one course. Fall classes start in two short weeks and already it's looking to be an interesting ride!

Lately I've noticed a lot of people smoking and driving, and I'm not talking cigarettes. There seems to be an abundance of weed-enthusiasts enjoying their habit whilst behind the wheel here in Gainesville. This is a phenomenon I've not seen anywhere else, and I lived in *Lawrence*, where certain KU professors have been known to make their own bongs, so mesmerized are they about that intoxicating plant. And it's not that I mind what these Gainesville-ians are doing; surely they should be able to do what they want. It's just that... they drive so SLOWLY! I honestly want to buy them a pizza somewhere so they'll stay off the road and out of my way. Driving around here is bad enough, after all!

I find that email is a bit like Whac-A-Mole. I open my email program in the morning, respond to any messages, and then begin the waiting, Whac-A-Mole game. Some emails come back immediately, their senders sitting at their computers typing furiously to respond to whatever I said and then hitting the send button as fast as they can. Others bide their time, waiting and watching until I least expect it. Then they strike, whereupon I have to whack them back down again. At a certain point in the day, when everyone has gone to bed, the game ends, only to begin again the next morning.

I think I've pretty much run the 'email as Whac-A-Mole' analogy to its end. Maybe email is more like baseball...

Anyone who runs Windows knows about the game Freecell. It's a devilishly tricky, horribly addictive card game that comes standard on Windows. I became mesmerized with it before I owned a Mac. I remember, while I was applying for graduate schools and studying for the GRE, I played Freecell A LOT. I distinctly remember John saying, "If you don't get into graduate school, it'll be your own fault!". So I stopped playing. For awhile. Then, when I got my Mac and ditched my PC, I no longer had Freecell on my computer. I was rid, it seemed, of the Freecell addiction. Recently, though, John found a Mac version of it and installed it on my laptop. And so the addiction is reborn. I'll just say this: it's not just that I'm good at it, it's that I'm damn good at it. If there were a Freecell championship, I'd be there. If they had Freecell games in the casinos, I'd be raking in the money. Since they don't have either, I'll have to be satisfied with the little victories I have when I win a game on my laptop. And I'll be limiting myself to one (okay, maybe two) games a day. Otherwise I'll never get anything done!