altarflame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
altarflame) wrote2015-12-31 11:09 am
altarflame) wrote2015-12-31 11:09 am
Oh good grief, I just realized I never posted this stored entry...
It's nearly a month old, now!
Ah well, here we go, circa early December:
.
The good parts of the trip:
-While my kids stayed with my mother in law in Lake City, Grant and I drove over and attended my friend Jess's BEAUTIFUL wedding on a lake under live oaks, in a park in Tallahassee. It was followed by a long dinner at a hibachi place where the wedding party had it's own room and there were many many courses of delicious food and free flowing alcohol. I gave one of the speech toasts. I also sat close to her and her family and really enjoyed talking with everyone. Then, we all moved it over to the bar where her and her new husband (who is truly amazing) initially met. It was a great night, I took a million pictures, just fun and casual and perfect.
-There were a lot of selfish good parts of this business. I loved the dress I ordered and wore for the wedding, and the sweater dress I changed into afterwards. New clothes that fit and are flattering can be great sometimes. Grant and I stayed in this gimmicky and almost silly hipster hotel in downtown Tally, which involved ordering pizza and salad and cheesecake from their downstairs restaurant at 1am, drunk, and sitting up in bed eating and watching SNL, and having some seriously amazing sex. We took ubers for the first time. My suitcase was kind of a riot at the end of it all, it was basically filled with sex toys and wine.
-My little kids LOVE being at Oma's (my mother in law), and A&A had a good time exploring the neighborhood with Nadia (their cousin). We took the the two of them back to Tallahassee with us one evening and had dinner with the newlyweds and played cards at their place for hours. I love Jess.
-I was able to get a ton of the schoolwork weighing in the back of my mind done one day that was basically wholly devoted to school. I texted a ton with my group, and then edited and presented our Power Point via Adobe Connect, with my BioPsych teacher - all out on a deck by some woods. I did many hours of Stats studying and note taking at a kitchen island, and even got a discussion board post done on my laptop in the van with a wi-fi hot spot. Done though I sometimes feel with this semester, it's nice that school can be so portable.
-It was a relief that our van had no troubles (we decided not to rent a van as planned at the last minute because we had some mega plumbing expenses before we left town, and if worst came to worst we do have AAA...), and that we returned home to happy healthy cats and plants and an undisturbed home. That is always the case, but I still worry sometimes.
Disappointing parts of our trip:
-My mother in law's house appears spotless, and so I do not mean to disparage her here - it's one of those showy grandparent houses with china cabinets and floor to ceiling walls of framed pictures and knick knacks. Impeccable, spotless kitchen and bathrooms the likes of which I don't even aspire to. Buuuut they 1.) have thick carpet throughout, and 2.) smoke. They "don't smoke in the house," except that means everyone sneaks cigarettes pretty regularly in their various bedrooms and bathrooms, aside from reeking of smoke personally from smoking outside/in cars all the time. For years. Basically, Grant and Aaron disliked it and felt bad at times, Ananda and I had a hard time and felt pretty crappy the whole time we were there, and Isaac and Jake were sick by the time we left :/ This is rough - we didn't anticipate it and it's clear she has no idea there's a problem. But it's really prohibitive, like we would probably never stay there again because it's truly hard to breathe in her house after awhile. Nights and mornings were horrible. Happy though my younger kids were, and as much time as they spent outside during the days, I felt guilty about how they were doing by the time we left. When we got home the inside of all our bags seemed unbearable. I actually took some stuff out to the deck to air out because I didn't want it in our house. Too many of us have too many allergies/asthma issues for that business... the room Grant and I were staying in, the 3 nights we stayed there, had thick rugs on top of the wall to wall carpet, and curtains, and fabric hung on the wall as well. They don't even own a real vacuum, they just have one of those roll-y broom things that gets pieces in a tiny compartment? I don't know how to explain it, but I was coughing and sneezing the whole nights away, and using an inhaler I just happen to have not cleaned out of my purse from months ago when I was really sick. But like...it's really clear my mother in law went way out of her way for us, with piles of clean towels for showers, and breakfasts ready when we woke, and a big spaghetti and salad dinner one night. She brought extended relatives in and she'd bought outside toys for the kids to play with during the days. She was also just sweetly thrilled. We're trying to decide whether there's any point in ever telling her, as she is clearly oblivious to there even being an issue... it's many hours away and this is only the second time we've been there in 5 years. I'm not even sure there's anything she could necessarily do - it's not like she can afford to put in tile or they should have to change their habits on our behalf, so. It seems pointlessly hurtful to even bring up. Except that she's saying things like, "the kids should come stay with me for a couple of weeks in the summer!"
-Since I was using the inhaler, I was suffering the terrible mood side effects I always do from albuterol. Soooo like when we were running late on our way to the wedding (we ended up getting there 20 minutes before the bride did, but it looked bad for a bit), it seemed like a BIG HUGE TERRIBLE DEAL that was making me snap at Grant, and almost cry over nothing. Same on the day I was finishing up schoolwork before we headed back to Tallahassee for the evening. It just sets me on edge and makes me shaky and angry and irrational. I can't do steroids, except when I can't make my lungs work without them and thus have to.
The times I really enjoyed, while we were out of town, were the times when we were away from that house for long enough that many hours passed since I'd needed an inhaler, and I was myself.
But people who smoke and are used to smoke just don't get this stuff. Like, my mother in law's best friend was just widowed when her husband died of lung cancer, and Robby (nephew) had to use a nebulizer regularly as a young child, but those things don't prompt change. Robby smokes, now, for god's sake. And I almost don't even feel like I can judge, since I'm way overweight and my family is full of diabetes and I keep eating, you know? It's their shit, whatever, but the point is that for us it's A Thing.
It's wild how clean and fresh our far-messier-looking house seemed to us, once we were home.
Aside from that, well, a million things.
I watched Transcendence with Grant on Saturday night, and then we had a long talk about the transference of memories and cloning, in the Dune series, and the nature of consciousness, and the meaning of life, until he was sleeping and I was up weeping and crushed under the weight of death coming for us all.
I watched The Interview with Grant on Sunday afternoon, and then went down a rabbit hole of research about North Korea and Kim Jong-Un. I didn't know and couldn't believe that he actually had private meetings with Dennis Rodman, and is obsessed with basketball in general. It's really interesting to me that he attended international schools in Switzerland for much of his youth (since there's so much of a censoring-regime-bubble around everyone in North Korea). Some of what I found seemed to indicate he is a nicer guy than his dad and grandfather were, his wife is alright, and that maybe they're making some very gradual positive changes within the strict, terrible system they inherited. He's fired a particularly hardline general, and has been quoted as making at least one statement about how the common peoples' standard of living is sad? She traveled to South Korea on a trip about "unity," when she was younger, and she does wild (by their standards) things like appear publicly in a pantsuit and carry western-style designer bags. Ooooor maybe I'm grasping at straws.
I'm somewhat ashamed of how, when reading about his human rights violations and seeing his absurd propaganda photoshoots, I can't help but think of how great it would be to see Vladimir Putin just beat the shit out of him. Putin could take him; he'd ride in shirtless on a horse, as he does, and it would be one false image vs another.
I almost never watch movies, two in a single weekend is basically unheard of, and perhaps this is part of why; I don't know how to let things go. I keep thinking about things for days (at least). We were driving home from grocery shopping yesterday and I was blurting out a steady stream of questions they never answered, in Transcendence. It is, btw, the most unfinished and underdeveloped film EVER and should have been at least a trilogy if not a cable series.
Today I went and interviewed for a job and got hired. It's a parttime, $10/hr thing that doesn't start until January, but it's assisting professors, and it will provide a good note on my CV, connections, and recommendation letters - all of which I need for grad school. I feel really good about it so far. Grant's work from home days allow for Jake and Elise continuing to be homeschooled (which would be a dealbreaker, otherwise...)
It was a group interview - a dozen women sitting around a big board room style table, with two professors (a man and a woman) asking all of us questions we'd go around and answer. I was one of only two women at the table without intentionally sculpted eyebrows, a salon hairstyle, or a manicure. I was definitely the oldest and heaviest woman in the room - both by wide margins - and even though I arrived 5 minutes early, everyone else was already sitting down quietly when I walked in.
I also seemed to be the only person who had been personally invited to be there, though, and the only one who wasn't dying of nerves. At the end of an hour of turn taking everyone was dismissed but one of the professors said, "Tina, you stay." The conversation we had afterward was pretty great and incredibly validating.
It's really interesting how honest I've been and how much that seems to be working out. They knew before I was invited to interview about my intense book, and my intense blog, and my teenage children that clearly indicate I was a teen mom. I was candid in my course evaluation about what I thought was tedious about my Research Methods course and times I was lazy because the material seemed like a chore. It's pretty obvious from the transcripts I sent in with my application that I am taking Stats II for the millionth time.
But somebody apparently waited each week for my discussion board posts, specifically, and said they "made teaching worthwhile" and were "the best part of his job." My (prompted and assigned) discussion board posts, that mentioned everything from my personal religious confusion to my forays into polyamory. And more. One of them was a long defense of why obese people shouldn't be judged as people on the basis of their obesity. A couple heavily quoted and referenced Carl Sagan. I've also linked (and APA cited) clips from Jenna Marbles, Hank Green, and Louis CK (along with many articles from Psych journals from the proxy research library).
And this has actually amounted to something. Something that could be a huge stepping stone, for me.
That's pretty fucking awesome.
Ah well, here we go, circa early December:
.
The good parts of the trip:
-While my kids stayed with my mother in law in Lake City, Grant and I drove over and attended my friend Jess's BEAUTIFUL wedding on a lake under live oaks, in a park in Tallahassee. It was followed by a long dinner at a hibachi place where the wedding party had it's own room and there were many many courses of delicious food and free flowing alcohol. I gave one of the speech toasts. I also sat close to her and her family and really enjoyed talking with everyone. Then, we all moved it over to the bar where her and her new husband (who is truly amazing) initially met. It was a great night, I took a million pictures, just fun and casual and perfect.
-There were a lot of selfish good parts of this business. I loved the dress I ordered and wore for the wedding, and the sweater dress I changed into afterwards. New clothes that fit and are flattering can be great sometimes. Grant and I stayed in this gimmicky and almost silly hipster hotel in downtown Tally, which involved ordering pizza and salad and cheesecake from their downstairs restaurant at 1am, drunk, and sitting up in bed eating and watching SNL, and having some seriously amazing sex. We took ubers for the first time. My suitcase was kind of a riot at the end of it all, it was basically filled with sex toys and wine.
-My little kids LOVE being at Oma's (my mother in law), and A&A had a good time exploring the neighborhood with Nadia (their cousin). We took the the two of them back to Tallahassee with us one evening and had dinner with the newlyweds and played cards at their place for hours. I love Jess.
-I was able to get a ton of the schoolwork weighing in the back of my mind done one day that was basically wholly devoted to school. I texted a ton with my group, and then edited and presented our Power Point via Adobe Connect, with my BioPsych teacher - all out on a deck by some woods. I did many hours of Stats studying and note taking at a kitchen island, and even got a discussion board post done on my laptop in the van with a wi-fi hot spot. Done though I sometimes feel with this semester, it's nice that school can be so portable.
-It was a relief that our van had no troubles (we decided not to rent a van as planned at the last minute because we had some mega plumbing expenses before we left town, and if worst came to worst we do have AAA...), and that we returned home to happy healthy cats and plants and an undisturbed home. That is always the case, but I still worry sometimes.
Disappointing parts of our trip:
-My mother in law's house appears spotless, and so I do not mean to disparage her here - it's one of those showy grandparent houses with china cabinets and floor to ceiling walls of framed pictures and knick knacks. Impeccable, spotless kitchen and bathrooms the likes of which I don't even aspire to. Buuuut they 1.) have thick carpet throughout, and 2.) smoke. They "don't smoke in the house," except that means everyone sneaks cigarettes pretty regularly in their various bedrooms and bathrooms, aside from reeking of smoke personally from smoking outside/in cars all the time. For years. Basically, Grant and Aaron disliked it and felt bad at times, Ananda and I had a hard time and felt pretty crappy the whole time we were there, and Isaac and Jake were sick by the time we left :/ This is rough - we didn't anticipate it and it's clear she has no idea there's a problem. But it's really prohibitive, like we would probably never stay there again because it's truly hard to breathe in her house after awhile. Nights and mornings were horrible. Happy though my younger kids were, and as much time as they spent outside during the days, I felt guilty about how they were doing by the time we left. When we got home the inside of all our bags seemed unbearable. I actually took some stuff out to the deck to air out because I didn't want it in our house. Too many of us have too many allergies/asthma issues for that business... the room Grant and I were staying in, the 3 nights we stayed there, had thick rugs on top of the wall to wall carpet, and curtains, and fabric hung on the wall as well. They don't even own a real vacuum, they just have one of those roll-y broom things that gets pieces in a tiny compartment? I don't know how to explain it, but I was coughing and sneezing the whole nights away, and using an inhaler I just happen to have not cleaned out of my purse from months ago when I was really sick. But like...it's really clear my mother in law went way out of her way for us, with piles of clean towels for showers, and breakfasts ready when we woke, and a big spaghetti and salad dinner one night. She brought extended relatives in and she'd bought outside toys for the kids to play with during the days. She was also just sweetly thrilled. We're trying to decide whether there's any point in ever telling her, as she is clearly oblivious to there even being an issue... it's many hours away and this is only the second time we've been there in 5 years. I'm not even sure there's anything she could necessarily do - it's not like she can afford to put in tile or they should have to change their habits on our behalf, so. It seems pointlessly hurtful to even bring up. Except that she's saying things like, "the kids should come stay with me for a couple of weeks in the summer!"
-Since I was using the inhaler, I was suffering the terrible mood side effects I always do from albuterol. Soooo like when we were running late on our way to the wedding (we ended up getting there 20 minutes before the bride did, but it looked bad for a bit), it seemed like a BIG HUGE TERRIBLE DEAL that was making me snap at Grant, and almost cry over nothing. Same on the day I was finishing up schoolwork before we headed back to Tallahassee for the evening. It just sets me on edge and makes me shaky and angry and irrational. I can't do steroids, except when I can't make my lungs work without them and thus have to.
The times I really enjoyed, while we were out of town, were the times when we were away from that house for long enough that many hours passed since I'd needed an inhaler, and I was myself.
But people who smoke and are used to smoke just don't get this stuff. Like, my mother in law's best friend was just widowed when her husband died of lung cancer, and Robby (nephew) had to use a nebulizer regularly as a young child, but those things don't prompt change. Robby smokes, now, for god's sake. And I almost don't even feel like I can judge, since I'm way overweight and my family is full of diabetes and I keep eating, you know? It's their shit, whatever, but the point is that for us it's A Thing.
It's wild how clean and fresh our far-messier-looking house seemed to us, once we were home.
Aside from that, well, a million things.
I watched Transcendence with Grant on Saturday night, and then we had a long talk about the transference of memories and cloning, in the Dune series, and the nature of consciousness, and the meaning of life, until he was sleeping and I was up weeping and crushed under the weight of death coming for us all.
I watched The Interview with Grant on Sunday afternoon, and then went down a rabbit hole of research about North Korea and Kim Jong-Un. I didn't know and couldn't believe that he actually had private meetings with Dennis Rodman, and is obsessed with basketball in general. It's really interesting to me that he attended international schools in Switzerland for much of his youth (since there's so much of a censoring-regime-bubble around everyone in North Korea). Some of what I found seemed to indicate he is a nicer guy than his dad and grandfather were, his wife is alright, and that maybe they're making some very gradual positive changes within the strict, terrible system they inherited. He's fired a particularly hardline general, and has been quoted as making at least one statement about how the common peoples' standard of living is sad? She traveled to South Korea on a trip about "unity," when she was younger, and she does wild (by their standards) things like appear publicly in a pantsuit and carry western-style designer bags. Ooooor maybe I'm grasping at straws.
I'm somewhat ashamed of how, when reading about his human rights violations and seeing his absurd propaganda photoshoots, I can't help but think of how great it would be to see Vladimir Putin just beat the shit out of him. Putin could take him; he'd ride in shirtless on a horse, as he does, and it would be one false image vs another.
I almost never watch movies, two in a single weekend is basically unheard of, and perhaps this is part of why; I don't know how to let things go. I keep thinking about things for days (at least). We were driving home from grocery shopping yesterday and I was blurting out a steady stream of questions they never answered, in Transcendence. It is, btw, the most unfinished and underdeveloped film EVER and should have been at least a trilogy if not a cable series.
Today I went and interviewed for a job and got hired. It's a parttime, $10/hr thing that doesn't start until January, but it's assisting professors, and it will provide a good note on my CV, connections, and recommendation letters - all of which I need for grad school. I feel really good about it so far. Grant's work from home days allow for Jake and Elise continuing to be homeschooled (which would be a dealbreaker, otherwise...)
It was a group interview - a dozen women sitting around a big board room style table, with two professors (a man and a woman) asking all of us questions we'd go around and answer. I was one of only two women at the table without intentionally sculpted eyebrows, a salon hairstyle, or a manicure. I was definitely the oldest and heaviest woman in the room - both by wide margins - and even though I arrived 5 minutes early, everyone else was already sitting down quietly when I walked in.
I also seemed to be the only person who had been personally invited to be there, though, and the only one who wasn't dying of nerves. At the end of an hour of turn taking everyone was dismissed but one of the professors said, "Tina, you stay." The conversation we had afterward was pretty great and incredibly validating.
It's really interesting how honest I've been and how much that seems to be working out. They knew before I was invited to interview about my intense book, and my intense blog, and my teenage children that clearly indicate I was a teen mom. I was candid in my course evaluation about what I thought was tedious about my Research Methods course and times I was lazy because the material seemed like a chore. It's pretty obvious from the transcripts I sent in with my application that I am taking Stats II for the millionth time.
But somebody apparently waited each week for my discussion board posts, specifically, and said they "made teaching worthwhile" and were "the best part of his job." My (prompted and assigned) discussion board posts, that mentioned everything from my personal religious confusion to my forays into polyamory. And more. One of them was a long defense of why obese people shouldn't be judged as people on the basis of their obesity. A couple heavily quoted and referenced Carl Sagan. I've also linked (and APA cited) clips from Jenna Marbles, Hank Green, and Louis CK (along with many articles from Psych journals from the proxy research library).
And this has actually amounted to something. Something that could be a huge stepping stone, for me.
That's pretty fucking awesome.
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Honestly I still feel very surreal about completing my bachelors, considering grad schools to apply to, and this job. It's wonderful but so far from the context of everything I was ever raised around!
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