I would rather...

• play on ah than work on the test I have to write for tomorrow
• watch the "Tower of London" documentary than finish cleaning up all the crêpe fallout in the kitchen
• knit than wade through the overflow of emails from today
• do almost anything than help at the crêpe stand Thursday
• think about how bad my attitude is than fix all the stuff on the French Club website that needs fixing
• go to bed than think about all the letters I'm behind on
• play with S&L than finish the oral presentation info
• read my current Val McDermid than finish the Auralog announcements for my classes
• do almost anything else than be here if I could make enough money for S&L&me to live on and somehow move and change jobs without any damage done to my already abysmal financial situation
• pet Griz than work on the Paris budget
• have gone to pottery tonight than make crêpes
• go to pottery on 10/25 than attend the FC mtg.
• clean my office than try to get thru my gmail backlog
• have someone here sometimes than not
• take a shower than finish the pkg for Andrew
• post pottery pics on here than get up and start any of the million productive things that need doing

downslide & clay play

Had been doing lots better - now it has slipped a bit. Of course I need not to dwell on that. ha! Completely overwhelmed with work, stupid class observation today of my worst section of course, exhausted, headache the last two days for some reason, and the household cat hair/general dirt situation has reached critical mass which always depresses/stresses me until I have time to do another big cleaning session (i.e. more than the tidying and spot-cleaning that is of course carried out regularly, mind you). Dropped the ball on a couple of crucial things today - for me mostly so at least not work-related but still. One would have afforded me $100.

DIHS going strong.

On the bright side I trimmed my teapot last night at pottery class. I'm not super happy with the pieces I've made in there but mostly it was just so I would be authorized to have access to the studio. (There are two Open Studio periods each week at The ARTS Cent*r but you have to have taken a pottery class there in order to be eligible.) It was good to have structure and someone overseeing/advising as I jumped back in anyway. I took the intermediate/advanced class and was pleasantly surprised at how little I seem to have forgot re throwing, etc. The first night there was some trouble centering my clay but after that way less - almost back to normal of 3.5 years ago. I still need lots of studio time in order to feel really comfortable again but lots of yays nonetheless.

The class was good also in forcing me to push the envelope a bit - we had required pieces to do, none of which would I probably have made on my own. As I said I'm not super happy with any of them but I'm really glad I had to do them - somehow having someone say it was required resulted in perseverance about the new/different formats. When you're on your own if you're trying to make something specific and it goes wonky you can just turn it into another bowl or something, but I didn't allow that tactic as an option in the class.

So some day soon you'll have pics of my:

• pitcher (requirement was to do something that would need a pulled handle)
• lidded pot (probably the most fun piece but I don't like the handle because it was slightly forced on me by the instructor and wasn't my own idea - quintessential Susanness raising its head there)
• teapot (all slab-built and kind of wacky and not, I don't feel, very Me, but good experience)
• closed form pot (with lid cut out - this one is not great but is probably my favorite - I loved doing a closed form - so fun! also easiest way to make a lidded pot)

I glazed the pitcher last night - nothing special, just a blue-green solid glaze, no stripes or overlaps, etc., as used to be my wont. I trimmed the teapot and the little lidded pot, and the big lidded pot went into the bisque firing, hopefully ready to glaze tomorrow night.

As of next week I can start attending Open Studio on Weds. nights. There's also one on Tuesdays but too early in the day. You buy your clay directly from the Center, and your glaze is provided out of your Studio fee: $12/wk for Center members like me. If that seems steep it actually is far less than a class, per week anyway. And at any rate it's the only option til I have money and space for my own equipment, etc. (More money and a different abode are the necessary steps FAR in the distant future for lots of things my imagination has decided will be necessary for me to really be happy here - if the money situation solidifies substantially before the contentment does, then new career path - almost certainly somewhere else - will move in as the next priority rather than permanent SC residence.)

Oh one other good thing I guess which I have actually been able to be happy about a lot but for some reason this morning slipped my mind: eating SUPER well now for 1.5 weeks straight and pretty good for a few weeks before that (lost another couple pounds altho - shockingly - I'm not dwelling on that part so it's just a nice fringe benefit, even tho *whispered with delight* 2.5 more pounds and I will be seeing a number on the scale [in the tens spot] which I have not seen since 2004 :)

Fringe benefit of the fringe benefit helps too: lots of "new" clothes I for some reason had saved but haven't fit into for, in some cases, as much as 4 years. It's nice to have more than 3 outfits to wear, especially when it's fun duds (and lots of old faves even) not Fat Clothes.

More on food later - that would take a mondo post.

Mitraillette des retrouvailles, aka most rambly post ever in which I dare you to keep track of the thought processes - I sure couldn't, obviously

I'm back... basically. For now. Hopefully for good but no promises yet.

"Retrouvailles" is one of my favorite French words (= reunion after a [long, generally] separation) and it's a good title for this mitraillette post which really should be called a "mitrailleuse" (= machine gun) post but I take liberties b/c I think "mitraillette" sounds better. I could call it a gauntlet post, after the idea of running the gauntlet, and/or after one of the blocking drills we used to do in karate at BG.

Again, "mitrailleuse" is much more perty.

• Firstly I must say I Truly Detest this new New Post interface on Blogger. I started to write details but my head is in that Rabbit Hole mode where it would take a 9 or 10-step outline or, better, a balloon graph to keep track of the digressions. Just trust me there are various reasons and, most important: I'm right, Blogger is wrong. :) Still, until I have time to figure out whether HOV and I are headed to another blog host, I can deal. But thanks to my own adaptability, not to Blogger.
• In general the technology gods are having a lot of fun with me lately (immediately in my head I hear the wondrous voice of Farah/Malick Bowens in Out of Africa after the lions attack the convoy, "God is happy, msabu! He plays with us.") And in general I've been dealing.
• Sometimes sanity, such as it is, is preserved because I usually refrain from panicking, like when I set up one of the tools on the New And Improved!!! Blackboard courseware and changing its default hotlinked label "Journals" to the French "Journaux" caused it to go, not to my students' Journaux assignments but, to someone else's 60 or so ASTRONOMY PowerPoints. I figured out a workaround even tho it's not as fun as the imagined version would have been. IT is still scratching their collective head on the problem (and yet, when I asked them if I would get a prize for most weird BB issue ever, they ignored me!) The MOST scary part of this issue is of course the fact that Blackboard, always deemed to be completely secure with whatever class- or student-specific details one wanted to post there, is apparently taking on a life of its own à la Dave from 2001 and soon will be growing lots and lots of new little viral links to everyone's shit from everyone else's BB courses. Fun!
• In the category of "It's not super urgent and I can just fend for myself in the meantime because I'm too fucking busy to walk to IT much less figure out what work to take for which I don't need the laptop so that they can investigate the problem and/or reload my operating system while I wait" we have the fact that the day after school started my emails to IT stopped being delivered. Honestly I don't write IT overmuch b/c well, I'M INCREDIBLY IMPATIENT, and I really can generally figure out whatever the problem is myself, 'cause I'm super smart and (OK fine) had lots of helpful workshops at Aub*rn which helped me learn to brainstorm mostly thanks to my tremendous training and the tremendous CLA IT team at Aub*rn. So the various fun things that have come up in the intervening weeks I've worked out or, on one occasion, broke down and called IT for voice to voice help. It was during that phone call that I mentioned my noticing that I hadn't gotten the auto reply IT normally sends out every time you write them. The guy on the phone suggested I send a test email and then confirmed that it indeed had not reached the IT email acct. They would need to see my computer to fix it; it was probably an OS issue and it would need to be reloaded probably. Joy.
• Other times I'm able to figure out fixes in certain cases (sometimes to my detriment and often much too complicated), my adaptability. Again good thing (in some cases) for my perhaps not Expert but certainly Knowledgeable and Innovative head where pedago-tech and/or Web2.0 stuff is concerned, my adaptability (in some other cases), my hard-won wisdom about not freaking out with GIGANTIC courseware site or webpage problems (in still other cases), and/or (in only a very few cases I swear) my ability to enter Total Denial Land and just ignore the issue until it's so urgent I have no choice but to either jump in and work it out, dammit, or (if it's really necessary) go to IT.
• Completely non-tech related - a student last week in the composition which was supposed to be a dialogue of two friends planning to go to the movies together, made the two people in her dialogue Me and George Clooney. Very fun.

Obviously some of you are not crossing your fingers very hard...

Here we go again. I guess it's going to be like this every year - crazy Russian French roulette of apartment hunting agencies. If last year's hadn't been a bit steep money-wise and a bit tight space-wise (when students came over anyway - our budget is such that we hold class in the director's apt. on occasion) I could just deal with the same people year in year out. The hope is that if this year's person (assuming a workable place finally works out) is cool, we can circumvent the agency garbage next year. The system is designed for inefficiency. Each agency has to contact the landlord every time you say you're interested in something, so far about 75% of the time the apt in question has already been rented for the times you need unbeknownst to the agency. When it has not, they give you 24 hours to turn in all the paperwork and payment stuff (which is not exactly efficient on my end either, especially given that my money lady at Study Abroad is a bit - um - special.

Anyway here - latest frontrunner due to unavailability of the previous faves (actually a better location than the next to last one and brighter than the last one altho a little smaller {shrug} - and seriously those fingers better be white-knuckled!

a woman's prerogative...

to change her mind, that is, at least according to my mother.

Here is the new apartment frontrunner... please cross fingers even harder than before. :)

Much brighter, and in my more well-known area of Paris (could even frequent the same xerox shop guy as last year :) plus the street for the other one seemed kind of sketch... On verra.

Paris apartment hunt, revisited

Cross your fingers again for me this year. Found an apartment yesterday, hopefully. Waiting for the contract and have to get all my payment info from my Study Abroad money lady, but hopefully all will be well.

Here it is if you want to see - especially if that will help you cross your fingers harder.

Mardi Mitrailleuse #711, or: space considerations, physical and mental

• OK my new toy has yet to arrive but I won't keep you in suspense any longer. I'm about to enter Apple-dom for more than just iTunes. I was saving to get a MacBook Pro at Christmas but found out the problem with my old Dell laptop is the hard drive was fried. Granted not much $ to replace but I had 3/4 of the $ set aside for the Mac so went ahead... with the added benefit that I'm going to use it as my school pooter, too, thereby freeing fully 50% of the top of my office desk that used to be taken up with a scary bohemoth monitor. (I have before and after shots for you - so you've got another post to look forward to one day before too long...)
• Besides that just hugely busy. These 5 sections this year feel like way more than last year - good thing really that it isn't the reverse or I _really_ would have lost it my first semester. So I'm just as crazy and scary busy as last year but without the Newbie Unknowns (who to go for for [the most accurate] info, how long various things will take or how many steps are necessary compared to how it was at Aub*rn, etc...) So I've got that going for me, current insanity notwithstanding :)
• 3 great sections, 1 undynamic but at least not hostile, 1 beurck. Not a bad ratio.
• As usual 400 things to do pretty much constantly. Officemate asked the other day -rather gently- "Um... What if you made a list?" Um... well I didn't show her but my list is currently two full computer screens long (with zoom-out engaged on my Mozilla settings) and thanks to the prioritizing capabilities on Remember The Milk, it is easy to see where the stress and lack of being able to figure out what to do next comes from: everything is red since everything is priority 1.
• So yes I do have trouble prioritizing accurately but even when I look at things objectively, they really do seem all equally important.
• Again the need for an office flask... at least short of the possibility of a clear-headed assistant.
• Again, too, the thought that in some ways it really is a miracle I've made it this far and have accomplished as much as I have.
• And the hope that more things will reach fruition, however incredibly, maybe even some of the things on the current To Do list!

sanity: priceless

En bref...
pondering Mac-dom for myself for Christmas several weeks now
+ saved up 3/4 of the $
+ official word on 5-yr-old Dell laptop problems last night: fried hard drive
+ more and more problems with school pooter, including only two working USB ports (so my mouse is now plugged into the front creating lots of cord fun in the leg well) and side panel that has to be propped closed with my extra plastic file drawer beneath the desk (but as usual the Bastion of Theoretical Tech Education and Progress otherwise known as Clems*n, or at least our college's IT budget, cannot afford to put money into the practical on-site side of technology - I am supposedly on a waiting list for a new-er hand-me-down CPU)
+ impossible work load this semester and physical quantity of materials fighting for desk/cubicle space with my leviathan 10 year old (I'm guessing) old-style 2.5'² monitor (I'm also on the hand-me-down flat monitor waiting list) making me literally lost as to what task is what
+ executive decision for Susanchristmas to be moved up 3 mos.
+ remaining Mac money transfer from checking to savings
____________________________________

= MacBook on its way as of last night


MacBook arrival
+ calling IT to 86 my school desktop
_________________________________
= potential upgrade in sanity and ergonomic happiness

Menu du jour

Oh, and of course, teach. :)
Nyernt nyernt.

Particularly Babbly Mitrailleuse #779

In no particular order, as usual, and not particularly interesting, so you've got that to look forward to...

• I have been craving raisin toast lately - thank goodness for Pepperidge Farms! Yum! It is helping with my new resolve to eat better. This week I had a banana and a slice of raisin toast with margarine and a 1/2 glass of tomato juice and my habitual coffee for breakfast each morning (plus my vitamin and calcium which I am so bad at remembering). I'm trying to jumpstart my metabolism by actually having breakfast (which I blew off most of this month er summer er most of my life except for times in France - because, let's face it, baguette and café au lait is enough to get the most breakfast-skippy of us to eat breakfast every single day, if not four or five times a day) - plus it helps with the new fitness strategy (I finally am back at the gym almost daily, too) since I've been taking lunch as well (which I also was blowing off all of July and August and caused me to binge eat upon getting home each eve, after which I was anything but wanting to go to the gym).
• I do find it frustrating that at my age I still have to reteach myself self-care every year or so. I'm running out of time for it to help in the long run if I am not able to make it a permanent trend one of these years soon.
• I wish Chris Noth hadn't gotten eye surgery. I know it's been years but I only just noticed since I'm watching old episodes of Criminal Intent online. Let's hope he stops there at least; it's not too noticeable probably to most people but I find him a good chunk less charming (which is fun to say really fast) that way. Actually I remember now I noticed it first when I saw him in the Sex & The City movie last year, but I had probably blocked it out as too painful to dwell on.
• Random inexplicable thought of this one tabac close to my apt in Paris where I went a couple of times the first few days in May. I got my phone recharge there one of the times; it was by one of my less-frequented cafés (due to their extremely slow waitstaff, which is why I normally went to Café Notre Dame where the guys were not only faster but more courteous). I made a mental note to keep going to that tabac because the Franco-Chinese guy who ran it was kind of goodnaturedly jokey with you as you paid. Anyway the third or fourth time I dropped by I found them not only boarded up but the victim of an apparent fire - smoky windows and a few melty bits of ware just visible through the stains. Plywood over the door and smoke streaks coming out above the door. Freaky. And sad since the owner was particularly nice.
• Two out of my three surface-mail book boxes arrived within two weeks of my return to SC (read: first couple weeks of July) and in pristine condition even tho surface mail can take anywhere from 4-16 or so weeks and usually looks like it's been through Armageddon by the time of arrival. Third one took 8 weeks and arrived having been repair-taped pretty extensively by some very very nice postal worker somewhere in the world, although not, apparently, before a few key items had fallen out. I admit it was my fault - I was worried about all of them in fact because I meant to double tape everything like usual but was so freaked out getting to the post office on time that day that I completely forgot. (I've always covered every single inch of surface France >> US pkgs with at least two swipes of packing tape in the past but this time I had just done the initial hold-the-box-closed swipes.) In my defense, it was almost time to come home and I had lots of fin-de-programme stuff in my head. Probably I had used up all remaining un-spoken-for brain cells that afternoon in my bright idea of using my rolly suitcase for the trip to La 14-minute-walk-away-from-my-flat Poste - particularly good call given that I mailed 3 book boxes each weighing just under 7 kilos (a little less than 40 lbs total).
• Saddest thing missing from third box: fun 1963 (i.e. same age as moi - kee) mini Larousse French-French dictionary, hardcover with cool orange and black glossy cover; best part - I had found it in the 1€ bin at Gibert Joseph, except it was only €0.80. :)
• Most inconvenient thing missing from third box: notes from my meetings with Study Abroad person last spring so I would know how to do the transfer credit forms for the Paris students when we got back; luckily I remembered I had email-scanned all but one page of them to myself just before leaving for France. Far more luckily, the part I hadn't scanned, the part that explained the conversion from European contact hours to Clems*n credit hours, I had explained to a colleague via email a few days after my meeting at Study Abroad. So I was able to look back in my mailbox and get those details, too.
• Finally have a new/second crêpe pan. It was on my Paris purchase list but I never got around to looking for one until the last week and by then I didn't feel like schlepping it home... so yay for Bed, Bath and Beyond, which had a very nice one 3 weeks ago on sale. Now when we do crêpes for French Club or just for the heck of it we can have more than one pan going at a time. Plus it's the slightly smaller one so if you ladle in the correct amount of batter it forms your perfectly circular and just-the-right-diameter crêpe with no pan-swishing to spread the batter around, or at least no crêpe spiders. Those of you who've had my crêpes know what I mean. Admittedly crêpe spiders are just as yummy as the standard form but still one likes not to have too many of them happen.
• So much to do I can't hardly see straight. As usual. :) So I'm blogging. Hmmm. Not even blogging anything necessarily interesting... Much more justifiable if I had something earth-shattering to talk about like French tractor-pulls or something. har.
• Or maybe my motivational energy just can't be aimed at two areas at once - it's all being used up with healthy eating habits and fitness trends right now so it can't be focused on work? It's a theory.
• The house is a Big Mess and I bet you a dollar Sam & Lucy didn't clean a single thing today.
• Yeah, watching DVDs on the laptop now. Susan the Somnambulist unplugged all the TV/VCR/DVD player connector cords and Susan the Conscious cannot figure out how to get them plugged back in to any functional success. It is pissing me off quite a bit actually. I go play with the cords occasionally for a few minutes until I get frustrated (it takes less time each time now of course to reach that point) and then I clench my fists and jaw as I physically remove myself from that part of the room or stomp outside to run an errand or something, fearful of succombing to the tingling urge in my fingers to launch a piece of A/V equipment out the window. It's utterly ridiculous; the moreso, undoubtedly, since I really very rarely come up against something I can't get the better of.
• Still no sign of that stupid Blockbuster DVD by the way. It was a virtual unknown (of course) Brit (of course again) flick called French Film. Yeah, I had never heard of it either. Plus it was one of those "featured Blockbuster exclusive rentals" or whatever, which are usually dreadful (two other such rentals come to mind: I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, and I Really Hate My Job, both abysmal - granted I should have figured as much by the crap titles but...) But the actors intrigued me so (I mean, come on! What self-respecting anglophile can resist Victoria Hamilton and Hugh Bonneville in something that is kind of Frenchified to boot!? Not me, at any rate)... Anyway I cannot of course tell you how it was since STS hid it before I had had a chance to watch it. I have searched in every drawer, cupboard, laundry basket, shelf, etc., and there is no sign of it. I looked in the trashcans as well... Just dawned on me I have yet to check the oven, the washer, the dryer or the piano bench... hmmm. It's due tomorrow so if no sign I guess I'll stop and pay for it Sunday. gah!
• Off to munch, canoe, and gab with a bunch of the UHOA gang tomorrow over at Bill & Marianna's on the Tugaloo. Yay on all counts.
• Three million things to grade and read and respond to and rework on the Paris budget excel and post on BB and otherwise Do! and it's already 4. I might actually have to break my non-work weekends resolve and come in on Sunday for a while. Especially as I am obviously NOT in the mood to be productive today.
• Chinese food night I think. I am SO craving fried rice. And I finally might dig into Harry Potter et le prince de sang-mêlé...
• And you know, it just dawned on me... the lack of excitement in my own life, or this post at least, aside - anyone still reading by now must need distraction even more than I!

I'm not supposed to do whiny, journally posts

but I'm pooped and mad at myself. Besides that tho, it's 5:48am and I'm leaving for school in a minute. When exactly will I have a break this summer? Hmmm. I know I should just focus on the fact that I did get to spend 6 weeks in Paris for crying out loud and just shut the hell up. That perspective is all well and good for my spiritual happiness and yadda yadda yadda, but my actual brain and body are getting really tired and really do need a solid block of nothing-to-do. Oh sure, most of that fatigue is self-inflicted due to the recent extreme upswing in procrastination (which was under control for about two weeks and then the briefly newfound work ethic went to shit), but poopedness that is one's own damned fault is still poopedness and still necessitates a hefty recovering-from.

If I make it to 1h30 today without conking out or having a crise (a) it will be a miracle, and (b) I really will be caught up and can take a few days... A few days in which to reflect, for example, on how the hell to change my wrongheadedness where work, taking care of myself... life, quoi, is concerned.

Where does the time go?

Reasons I haven't posted (being the quintessential self-indulgent blogpost)...

• spending most of my time on the couch vegging with Hulu or Netflix instant watching
• spending the rest of my time grading and fighting with Paris expense stuff
• hot
• spending a day's worth of time going to Charlotte to IKEA
• spending a little time putting new IKEA dressers together
• laptop that went to Paris is sick and refuses to go online at all, which dissolves the possibility of watching Hulu or Netflix instant watch on one pooter WHILE blogging/emailing on the other, as is my wont :(
• spending a fair amount of time trying to figure out what is wrong with the sick laptop
• doing lesson plans, grading leftover Paris stuff, writing tests (why do I always do new ones instead of just using the old stuff - especially at times like this when it would really be quite justifiable to save myself some effort?! gah! too late now - I not only revised my syllabi, I did it so that there is a different number of tests so at the very least I have to re-edit them to use any of the old exercises) - gah! as usual my perfectionist/overachiever side always tackles stuff first, just long enough and far enough to leave a big mess for the lazy/procrastinator side (and yet probably the more healthy of my psyches) to have to take care of
• spending a truly scary amount of time cleaning random things that turn up mysteriously completely icky, cruddy or otherwise soiled so much that task/interest at hand must be dropped right then to go clean
• spending a lot of time trying to figure out what outfits I can still fit into since I haven't been spending any time yet exercising to get rid of my Paris gut
• spending a little time mystified by the fact that I actually LOST 3 pounds in Paris and my butt is slightly smaller and more rounded (yay 4th floor apartment with no lift as well as running around Lutèce doing errands like a poule with my tête cut off) yet my stomach gained considerable surface area and I have to leave certain waistbands unsnapped in order to wear them (even on garments whose seat is now quite loose!) - honestly this is quite befuddling!
• spending huge amounts of time petting and hugging (to their displeasure but what of that?!) and playing with Sam & Lucy, who seem to me to be about 4 million times more beautiful and fun than they were before I left - I guess it speaks to how incredibly busy I was in Paris that I wasn't pining away for them - here in SC I couldn't stand their not being around, honestly
• spending a lot of time making and eating popcorn
• spending a lot of time being really distracted and having to do things over or check things to see if I did them yet or staring into space to figure out what to do next or having to scramble to get stuff done due to too much staring into space
• yesterday spending a lot of time scouring the popcorn pot since I got distracted and went outside to shake rugs while an entire batch of popcorn popped and subsequently burned to a crisp

Guess that covers it. As soon as I am all pooter-ready again I have loads of pix on the sick computer (which I'm too lazy to copy onto a usb to upload from the other computer of course - or, on days where I'm not lazy, too distracted) that I can put here and on FB, so you've got that to look forward to. :)

Coming clean, le 15.vii.09: yes I changed "3rd" to "4th" above, after the fact - I forgot I was thinking in French, where 3rd floor really means 3rd story not counting the ground floor :)

wish it were 10 hours from now

What I got done last night:

• cleaned out gmail (from 213 down to 12)
• cleaned up the kitchen
• organized Paris gdocs files and school email files with info and ideas for 2010
• sorted thru France gifts for people
• ran virus software thing on the slightly newer laptop
• figured out the slightly newer laptop is just plain sick and virus thing didn't help at all
• listened to "Un Dimanche à la campagne" about 5 times
• dug out all my Paris receipts
• changed the cat litter
• two letters
• sat on the floor petting Sam & Lucy for about an hour
• journaling
• figured out what to wear today (this took a really long time since I'm feeling fat - even tho numbers-wise I weigh 3 lbs less than before France, but all the walking over there made my legs and butt get smaller but let my gut get much bigger)

What I didn't get done:

• 202 test written for today
• Paris budget report done for today
• sleep

I actually had acquired a pretty dependable work ethic by the time I left Aub*rn. No idea where it went. If it doesn't come back I'm either going to waste away, have a coronary, or need to switch to a non-homework job (she said, for the millionth time).

Mayday Mayday Mayday

The title is pretty representative of how things feel right now work wise getting final course plans figured out for Pareeeeeeeee, but it's all the more timely thanks to Tracy's comment on the last post. Might as well come full circle and bring French into the mix even more. "Mayday" comes from "Venez m'aider," which I already knew, but is always said 3 times in a row, which I did not realize, to differentiate from those utterances (say, blogposts :) where people are simply talking about or wishing you a glorious May Day.

So there.

Now come help, anyone who wants huge Paris history reading fun.

Yeah, that's what I thought...

Well!

I'm not sure you guys deserve the credit since it happened so soon after my blogpost but if any of you saw the last entry and crossed your fingers about the apartment, IT WORKED!!! Just heard from the owner and we're GO. Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!!!!!!!!!!! Ou bien, oh là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là là!!!!!!! Also since we're dealing directly with the owner, we bypass the agency fee. This apt. was quite a bit of serendipity actually - found out about it via the daughter-in-law of the owner of the apartment K. stayed in last year. At first it looked like it was not available for the dates I needed and I had given up but Liz checked on it again anyway and somehow it is available earlier now.

It is a morning of accomplishment (finally) on Paris stuff. Still gobs to do but the apt was a biggie, and the other thing that is on the docket thanks to my Skyping the director of the Paris Opéra Comique is that we have reservations to see "Carmen" on June 22. Very very cool. The performance reservations have been weighing heavily on my mind and To Do list because what we see (we budgeted for two performing arts items) decides what Christina our Paris instructor (unofficial - an adjunct NYU person who lives there and does tours/presentations for our group each year in conjunction with various things we visit or see during the stay) will do as presentations for us. In turn, I need to work my courses around what Christina does to a certain extent, or rather, around her stuff and the performances if possible so that they have a historical and/or cultural context tying in with the Paris history course. So there. I am in the middle of mega reading for the courses, too, so they are not ready to be sketched out yet but this makes it easier.

Best thing about the To Do list right now: writing to the two not-super-efficient (ahem!) apartment companies I was dealing with to tell them Thanks but No, Thanks.

Paris McFlurry continues

• Struggling with the apt. people, but some other avenues opened up today (npi). Please cross your fingers.
• Sammers jumped a mile high yesterday at some weird noise. I thought I was going to pee my pants it was so funny.
• TC and his friend Tiger are both nursing various wounds and maladies. Wish I could catch them for vet visits, not that I have the extra money, but...
• Crazy International Week this week for which I inexplicably volunteered to help with a gazillion events.
• Which one of you fell asleep on the job of smacking me in the head when I make stress-increasing decisions? gah!
• No backpacking trip last weekend after all but we really needed the rain.
• I slept 16 hours Friday night and a full 8 Saturday night. Probably just as well, eh?
• Trying to get comfortable with this feeling of always having various tasks falling along the wayside no matter how much I'm getting done. There comes a time when there is so much to do that there is no prioritizing to be had. Seriously. And as you work on the seemingly most urgent of the urgent, other nearly just as urgent things are sitting by glancing at you questioningly as to when you'll turn to them. It's better than when I was completely stymied and couldn't jump in anywhere but no matter how much I get done the tasks still waiting call out too loudly for much self-satisfaction to be had.
• Thank goodness, then, that kind of a good confirmation of my job performance has come from another quarter. Barbara informed me that they are creating a lectureship that would be officially teaching 5 classes per semester but not at the same money like we had feared and not just for the piddly extra we normally get for overages which is taxed out the wahzoo and therefore is barely worth the exertion: the fifth class would get a full fifth more money (well you know what I mean, it would be worth as much as each of the original four classes' money). And they've chosen me to do it if I'm interested. And how. I did 5 last fall anyway and next spring (I am confident) Paris will be much easier since I'll know what to expect and have the big picture -at last- in my head. So yay.
• Of course in the same meeting she told me she had received complaints from three students trying to find me on SNOW DAY and were put out that I was not to be found during my office hours. Wtf? I guess I missed the part of the university announcement where it said, "All university classes canceled and offices closed, except for Susan's."

Oh. Là. Là. Là. Là... in a good way, and then a wee pity party, kinda :)

Freaking out de nouveau (of course - you knew it didn't you?!) after Tuesday night's sometime sanity but slight chance of eliminating a big stressor came to light today...

Have almost certainly finally found someone to stay with Sam & Lucy and keep my house homey.

This was becoming a bigger and bigger question mark as various avenues and ideas and email sendings continued to bear no fruit whatsoever... Doing orals a few weeks ago I decided to ask my 4 or 5 most responsible students (ultra super fantastically most responsible, not just standard responsibleness of course, we ARE talking about the kits after all) what they had planned for the summer. Today Tasha wrote that she is doing Summer I and Yes would love to take me up on my venture/offer. I'm still not completely heaving a sigh of relief til I see the eyes of the fat lady (not Tasha) and everything, but knowing her for two semesters now I recognize her as one of the top says-she'll-do-it-and-does-it students I have come across here, so I think we're around 85% ('cause, hello, pessimist...) home free on this dilemma. If it comes thru I can focus on using all my stress energy on things I actually have quasi-control over. Now to decide if that is good or not.

Grading and then doing the top 5 of the current 15 or so urgent Paris tasks then home...

in about 2 hours...

to grade some more...

(Cue sad Italian violin music.)

with a large glass of wine...

(Start calling everyone for an Upstate cabernet intervention.)

Nyernt nyernt.

Meow.

little task birds

I'm having that thing where all of my 50 million tasks seem of equal priority and no matter what I am in the process of accomplishing there are 49 million other things being neglected so when I finish or get a chunk of one thing done I actively feel guilty and wonder exactly how much time I should have allotted to that above the other little tasks with their mouths open waiting for my time. It'd be easier if one or two were clear runts of the litter (do you say "litter" for birds?) and I could just stop feeding them.

It'd be easier, too, without other people weirding me out on top of my own self-weirding-out, but that's a whole 'nother post (or 80).

I might have to try adopting a "So what?!" mantra. This won't work for Paris stuff, as certain things' not being accomplished or not being accomplished comme il faut (Just So) really will have a very palpable downside once we're in France. (Those crazy French sticklers!) But for the people part I really need to just start saying (in my head at least) "So what?!" to certain (perceived by me) disapproving, skeptical or merely questioning looks and remarks. Conversely I could try to take a page from Auden's book and remember they all have their things going on as well. The weird reaction I just got from one person could have been anything at all: indigestion, jobhunt fatigue, etc. And even if it was aimed at me or my Process, this concern should definitely go in the runt category.

Who says I can't prioritize? (Besides me that is.)

'cause I didn't already have enough little things to worry about self-consciousness-wise...

I happened upon this thing in an online self-proclaimed slang dictionary... The entry was "teacher breath." Supposedly this is the noxious exhalation of those in education who are nursing coffees all day long... So now every time a student comes to see me or I'm close to someone in class right after my coffee I'm all paranoid and keep turning my face slightly away from them as I talk. Further motivation to budget time for teeth brushing before class, altho that won't always help if I'm mid-coffee and they come to the office...

counterpoint

I think on my gcal I'm going to change all the Fridays where it says "PAYDAY" so that it says "CAR REPAIR DAY."

Not-so-bright side:

• It is something challenging to pay off debt when every time you get paid all of the extra non-bills money has to go to your friendly neighborhood mechanic.
• There's no other point here except that with every repair I get more worried in general about this car, which really isn't new or pertinent today, but I know when you start outline format you're not supposed only to have one item. :) Mrs. Dodd and Mr. Vicario from BHS would be proud.

Bright side:

• Hal decided to have a sick starter before My Garage closed.
• The MG folks very obligingly came to see me at Jittery Joe's to help me start Hal so I could get him to the garage rather than having to do a tow from somewhere which would have taken ages longer.
• Apparently I am one of very few people needing repairs today so MG could go ahead and work on Hal and get done before their early holiday closing time of 2pm this afternoon.
• Allison hasn't deposited my December rent check yet (that I sent her super early 2 weeks ago so - miracle) so I can pay the car repair from checking instead of credit card, which is always smarter, even tho either one will be reimbursed this Friday when we actually get paid.
• (This one is kind of bright side combined with rationalization but whatever.) I still have some orals to listen to as well as online grades to finish and have my laptop with me and MG has wifi so good chance to corner myself with work and nothing else to distract me (besides Facebook and Blogger that is).
• MG has their stereo set to 70's-80's rock, which is very fun as I wait for long student audios to download (only 2 more to do - someone smarter would have gone to the office this morning for this so that the downloads could happen faster but of course if I had done that I wouldn't have been very close to MG for them to come help me so I guess that's another mini bright side item).

Obviously there's more bright side items, yet the expenditure itself is considerably weighty compared to the other things. And the enhanced continuous worry factor of my little auto. Every 9-12 months there is a stint of repairs, tho, so hopefully after this there will be another dry spell. As long as it's no more often than that it's still far cheaper than car payments, and except for the AC issue when it's hot, I could continue this way fairly OK for years.

More rationalization.

And yes, my garage really is called "My Garage," which could offer limitless Who's-on-first-y possibilities, but when you're talking about your garage you're usually not in that great a mood so waxing Abbott-&-Costello isn't exactly a common tendency.