M(answers)

There's not much on TV on Thanksgiving. Not that's worth watching, anyway. I surfed by a show called "M(answers)" (Warning...NSFW)and was shocked that there are people, presumably men, who find this show entertaining or useful. The two segments I watchers were "Prostitute or Cop?" and, I think, "How to get drunk quicker." (The answer to that is to put the alcohol up your rectum. Yeah, it evidently is dangerous, because of the quick absorption where you get so much alcohol directly into your blood stream. Blech. They repeatedly warned "DO NOT try this at home.")

None of the men in my life have need of these skills, that I am aware of, anyway. I rarely consider myself naive, given my line of work with college student and teens. But, seriously, are there enough men out there who want to know these things that such a show will succeed?

The Application that Could

I am applying to quite a number of internship sites, all of them selected because I was drawn to some aspect of their training. Some of them are enhanced by having several great experiences, a superb location, or some other aspect. I chose sites from all over, across 8 states and Canada.

One of the Canadian sites is a college counseling center, and I had my application done in plenty of time. I did express mail anyway, with it guaranteed to be there within five days. But, um, don't forget Veteran's Day. Regardless, the latest that my application was guaranteed to arrive was on its due date, which was yesterday.

But my tracking showed all day yesterday that my application packet had "Cleared Canadian Customs" sometime on Wednesday. So, I emailed the director my predicament, along with my tracking number and the progress of the packet, to demonstrate that lack of planning was not why my application had not arrived and asking him to still consider it.

But, I didn't hear back from the director, so I sent another email. Some sites make interview decisions on the day right after the due date, and this site was adamant in their materials that your application be received by November 15th. This time I attached my cover letter, vita, and application with a promise to fax my recommendations, transcripts, part 2 of my application, and any other documents required by this site.

But, I had mailed my recommendation letters to the site with my application, so I had to scramble to get together some letters addressed to this site. That was an ordeal. Then, I went to send the fax. Well, halfway through the fax failed.

I shoved the sheaf of 18 pages into the arms of my husband who I sent to his workplace to try to fax it again on his way to meet some friends for a weekly "The Office" party, while I compiled digital copies of the fax into a pdf file that I could email.

But, the pdf turned out to be 10.03 MB, and that's too big for most email systems. So I was going to upload the document to a storage place I use online that provides links where you can share documents with others, without that person needing to sign in. But, that service is only free for files up to, you guessed it...10MB. So I pulled out the credit card to pay the 3 bucks to host the document. But the first card I pulled out, the stupid CVV security code was rubbed off. I pulled out another card, put in the info, got the document uploaded, got the link, and sent another email with the link.

About that time, I get a phone call. Some employee at the site working late to catch up on some paperwork was getting a fax...well, two faxes, the one I sent and the one my husband was now sending. And they have a small fax machine, and well, it was overwhelming.

This sweet dear woman offered to trash the extra fax and let that be our secret. God bless her. She also informed me that while they are highly selective, they aren't inhuman, and that my application would likely be considered because they weren't on a strict time deadline or experiencing a heavy time crunch. Whew.

And, tonight at 10pm, I received an email from the US Postal Service. My mailed application arrived at 7:30 am this morning. Meaning that all of that was likely unnecessary. And I've managed to appear irresponsible and obsessive compulsive in the same day with 3 emails, 2 faxes, and one phone call.

I'm hoping they're intrigued by my obvious desire to be considered at their site, and invite me for an interview if only to meet the weird girl who did all of that.

Busy Bee

I've been busy writing internship applications, so I had to go into the archives for something. The archives being this folder from my undergrad years labeled "personal diatribes." The excerpt below is from a critical editorial I wrote of my undergrad experience, as if the president of our university had to live the life of one of the ugrad students.

After filling his tummy with yummy goo, our President could then make his way to class. If he’s lucky, he’ll have a professor that does his job extremely well and will leave feeling educated and fulfilled. Nevertheless, there is the likely possibility that the class will be taught by an inept grad student or disillusioned professor. In these classes one of three things happens:

1.) The professor has totally lost track of what it was like before he knew all the ins and outs of quantum mechanics. He’ll teach our fine President in incomprehensible terms at warp speed, never checking to see if the entire class is lost. The class average is a 60, but with the curve, everyone will leave with A’s and B’s. No one has learned anything in the course of a semester, but Professor X doesn’t care. He’s too busy working on that $500,000 grant application. (I had a professor tell me this once, in all seriousness.)

2.) This is a very common case. Professor X has tenure and a degree awarded decades ago, without any further education. He has no attendance policy, requires no homework, and gives tests as old and predictable as your grandmother’s 20-year-old cat. Everyone makes wonderful exam scores, but still leave without learning anything.

3.) In this scenario, President Gilley gets a graduate teaching assistant. This wonderful person either a.) knows nothing or b.) knows nothing and thinks that he knows everything. He uses the class as research subjects for his dissertation, cancels class once a week, and gives impossible exams on material never covered in class. In fact, he’s so busy that he doesn’t answer anyone’s emails nor is he ever in his office hours. Even if he were, his office is in South Stadium Hall and his hours are during the President’s classes.

Raise Your Hand If You're Sure...

In graduate school, there are many people, processes, and paperwork that are irritating and annoying. But few things raise my ire as much as the grad school hand raiser. The hand raiser is ALWAYS a woman. While everyone else seems to have learned that we're all adults, the hand raiser seems to need the validation of someone calling on her in order to deign to grace us with her thoughts. The hand raiser raises her hand as if she's holding her place in line to speak.

"What is so annoying?" you ask. "Is the hand raiser not simply being polite?"

No, the hand raiser is being a passive aggressive manipulator who wields power in the worst of ways. The hand raiser demands to be acknowledged by others, as if everyone else in the room isn't also holding in a thought that could be shared. The hand raiser is declaring to the whole class, "Instead of listening to whomever is speaking, I'm sitting here holding my thought and pondering it instead."

The hand raiser is waiting for everyone to pause and invite her to speak. Worse than the hand raiser, is the professor who calls on her. "Oh wait, Steve. Jenny has her hand raised." Nevermind that Steve is the introvert who speaks in class exactly twice a year, Jenny has her hand raised.

Being in psychology, I often wonder if the hand raiser raises her hand to speak at family functions. If in therapy sessions, she raises her hand while her clients pour out their pain, because she's waiting to be recognized. Hand raisers are at the same time arrogant and insecure. It's a passive power move hidden behind a demeanor of propriety that is actually an insidious form of obsequiousness. (Google it!)

I once was in an Advanced Psychodynamic Therapy class where we confronted the hand raiser. She didn't stop. When she raised her hand on the last day of class, during our termination session, I pointed it out. She didn't like that, and we all just talked over her until she gave in and said whatever the hell she had to say. I find that the greatest victory of my graduate career. Forget about the clients who have made great strides under my care, or my own personal journey of growth. An entire year later, I find so much more satisfaction in that moment where the hand raiser was conquered.

Well, except the hand raiser is in class with me once again, raising that damn hand. The hand raiser isn't so bad, but in class I just want to slowly break each of her fingers. But, if I did that people would probably feel more sorry for her deformed claw of a hand and professors would call on her more. Then it would be, "I'm sorry Steve, but Jenny has her misshapen handicapped claw raised." Grrr.

So, to the hand raisers of the world. Stop. It. We aren't five and neither are you. And if you start waving that thing in the air, I'm going to break it off.

Random Insanity

On one of the women's dorm windows near where I work on campus the residents have posted a sign that reads "Serenades Welcomed." I wish I had thought of such an awesome thing to do when I was an undergrad. Then again, in my all girls dorm,where my window faced what used to be a courtyard but now was the roof of the cafeteria, it just wouldn't have been the same.

Multiple wings had been built onto the building over the years so that it ended up shaped like an H. Our room looked right into the rooms on the other side of the H. Not that it wasn't interesting. We came to refer to my neighbors as naked dancing girl and naked foreign exchange student girl for their penchant for fully undressing and lowering the shade only to cover their faces and then dancing or being foreign. My brother and I ate dinner together once a week and then he'd come over "to use my computer," but I know it was for the regularity that he got to see those well-endowed women provide his own personal picture show from the vantage point of my desk chair more than it was for the high speed Internet.

In other news, my mother now has a "ring back tone." Her phone now not only assaults the people around her with uninvited music, but now when you call her an inviting woman's voice says, "Please enjoy the music while your party is reached." That's exactly right I'm trying to reach a party! It's kinda hard to dance to Cookie Monster singing "C is for Cookie" though. It's a play on my maiden name, and is a bit too cute...maybe just because my mom thought of it before I did.

My husband had a doctors appointment to day for his yearly physical. I called him out on our way to dinner. "I totally know that you wore special boxer shorts today." "Yeah, I didn't want the ones that incessantly ask "please?" all over them or the ones that have a big smiley face over my crotch. The doctor would think I was sending a message to her. So I wore the rubber ducks."

Add to my to do list: Buy my husband totally typical, non-weird underwear, especially since his mother bought him the please and smiley one's and my mother bought him the rubber ducks. What is up with the moms being all up in our boxer short issues?

Yesterday we put an new collar on our younger kitty, Zuzu. Before, she had always managed to turn each collar into a suicide mission or a torture device. There's nothing like the concurrent pity and hilarity of watching a cat tear ass through the apartment with a collar stuck in her mouth like a horse's bridle. Of course, the break-away type were always off in seconds.

But, on a random impulse, I came across one of our breakaway collars and slapped it on her. She has apparently forgotten how to get the collar off, but she spent the whole freaking day yesterday skulking around the house looking for the big animal with a bell that kept following her. Her eyes stayed in a permanently alert dilated state, while she looked at us like, "Dude, do you see the animal with the bell that WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE?" Every time we would pet her, the sound of her own bell would startle her. By this time, it appears she's accepted that ringing is just a part of who she is, and she's out cold next to me on the couch accepting the ringiness of her bellness.

Back to internship essays. :)

*The way I butchered and misuse commas throughout this post frustrates me, but, MEH deal with it. Internship sites are getting all my comma editing mojo right now.

Things I hate...

Party invitations that say, "Unless I hear from you, I expect you'll be there." What? The fancy way of saying that is "Regrets only."

Schwa? Don't be putting things on my calendar for me.

A Michael Scott Moment.

This has got to be the most inane, asinine example of a politician hiding I've seen in quite awhile. It's like watching an episode of The Office, only without the funny.

[h/t: blurbomat]

Can we up the value of X in a Y dominated market?

I don't really know what's typical for the post-college twenty-something versus what's typical for the graduate student when it comes to personal development, because these two periods of my life have been mostly concurrent. Beginning my fifth year of graduate school (Help me, God.), I am just now beginning to decide what pieces of my life are necessary to make me who I am. For my entire life through college, sports were how I spent a large part of my life. But with marriage followed swiftly by a long distance move and graduate school, I just did not know where athletics fit in.

I didn't really realize how much I had completely banished sports from my life until last summer. I attended a summer psychology week hosted by the grad department at the college's camp in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. In between classes there were lots of Ultimate Frisbee games, canoing, and wall climbing. My professors, who had known me for three years at that point said they saw a whole new side of me, the jock. Fiercely competitive, but having fun, and totally athletic. Not the assumption people make about me given my recent weight gain.

So, I have started to incorporate team sports back into my life. Having played somee form of base/soft ball since I was four years old and well until college, I can't believe that I have let this sport that I so love slip from my life. So, I joined a co-ed slow pitch team from my church.

Last night was our first game, and I learned that this isn't softball as I am used to it. See, it's a speed game. The count is already 1-1 when you step up to the plate. That's different, but okay, whatever.

But, then, I learned the hard way about another set of rules. These rules are to make it "fair" for the women who play on the team. First, there must be four women on the field at all times. Well, that rule I understand, because many men would lean toward playing more men and fewer women or play all men and no women, etc. So, okay, nearly half the team needs to be women, although I wish that I lived in a world where women were taught athletics more readily, held to the same high standards as their male counterparts, and were able to have circumstances support them in their continuation of playing sports into adulthood. I also wish that I lived in a world where I did not have to worry about a team not playing women based on an assumption that they were inherently less "good" at athletics simply because they have a uterus.

However, there are two sizes of balls. A smaller one used for women, a larger one for men. What the heck? I can accept that on average a woman has less upper body strength and might not be able to hit the homerun spans that the men can. However, that doesn't mean that we can't play the game. Our game looks different. We rely on strategy, base hits, great base running, and more than pure strength, a different set of skills rather than an inferior set. I played softball from the ages 9 through 12 with a regulation large slow-pitch softball. I did just fine then, and I can do just fine now. I just let it go, because, whatever.

But what upset me the most was when I was up to bat. I had gotten two solid hits at my two previous at-bats. There were two outs, and two on, because the guy in front of me had walked. Then the pitcher says, "You get to walk if you want to." I was confused..was he walking me because my hits were damaging before? Because I was batter 9 out of 10? what?

No, I quickly learned that if a male player walks (base on balls) with two outs, the batting team has the option of walking the female who bats after him. This is supposedly to "prevent" teams from walking male players to get to female players. Initially, I was insulted by the rules. Then I was insulted that the men on my team kept saying to take the walk. What?

I was upset by this rule, I verbally said that this was the most unacceptable rule that I had EVER heard of. Why? Because it inherently assumes that the male players are better than the female players at hitting. I was incredulous. I was even more incredulous that some of the guys on my team were placating me, saying things like, "It's not a big deal. Just let it go." I wasn't throwing a hissy fit or anything, I just kept muttering in incredulity and anger that this was the dumbest rule that I had ever heard of.

I finally told my third base coach, that sure, he could let it go because the rule didn't assume that he wasn't as good simply because he was who he was, and that he hadn't spent his whole life having every error he made on the field or every at bat that wasn't successful being judged as the result of his gender. I don't want special treatment, and I don't want the errors I make or the hits that I don't to be thought because I'm a woman.

Throughout our double header, everyone made errors, everyone had at bats that did not come to fruition. But when a man made a mistake, I never once heard that the team would be better off if they did not have to play at least 4 men, and never was it implied that the error was due to his being a man.

So often when I point things like this out, my male friends ask, "What the heck can I do?" How about supporting girls athletics? Enroll your daughters in the same sports that you enroll your sons in, even football, if that's what she wants. Attend as many women's professional sporting events as you do Cubs, White Sox, and Bears games. Go to a high school fast pitch softball game for every Friday night football game that you attend. Be just as concerned about your daughter's/sister's/mother's throwing form as your son's/brother's/dad's. Don't hold the women in your life to the standard of being "good enough for a girl," but to the standard of being good.

The same goes for the men in your life, expect them to be capable of cultivating expert seamstress skills,making an awesome casserole, or of manning the church nursery. Teach your daughters and sons about everything and anything, and then let their gifts and talents shine in whatever areas they appear. Your son may gravitate toward football, and your daughter toward cheerleading, or it may just happen the other way around. But either way, you need to be okay with it.

Oh, and don't make me stinking walk when I batted 3 out of 4 and had one walk, one of the best hitting performances on the team, male or female.

Random Insanity

I am about 250 pages into the last installment of the Harry Potter series. That's not so bad, considering I had a guest over the weekend, my comprehensive exams before that, and that I'm busy finishing up my (hopefully!) final draft of my dissertation proposal.

But, I've had several near misses.

WGN news on in the living room, while I am brushing teeth and what not. They started talking about the ending of the book. I stuck my fingers in my ears and sang out loud until the segment was over. The cats think I'm nuttier than they are.

Very annoying, self-entitled man having a loud cell phone conversation in Ogilvie Train Station in the city. We missed the train by 10 seconds, literally. Sigh. But, the man starts talking about the Malfoys and such and I about lose it. I ask him to please talk less loudly or to not talk about that. He acts all put out, so we leave the waiting area to find a safer place to wait.

Today, Panera Bread. Working on the dissertation, because I can't make myself work at home with the computer(s), the TV, the book in question, 2 cats, and free food to distract me. Two young women sit down and start discussing loudly the book. Loudly. Did I say loudly? I stick my fingers in my ears, afraid to move or to interrupt them because I might hear something other than random snatches of Harry, and something about someone getting married, and some celebrity gossip thrown in for good measure. Finally, someone interrupts to share their love of the book. I speak up and ask for agreed upon moratorium on discussing the novel. All agree. Probably because these teenagers see me as old. That, and I had 3 allies who supported my request...a very intimidating looking group of nurses.

Also, this guy is wearing a shirt that says in BIG BOLD LETTERS..."EFFORT UNDER GRACE." Because Tshirt theology is veracious and effective, I'm sure.

Important Skills to Learn Before Having Children

Can someone please explain children's shoe sizes to me? The hubs and I were buying shoes today for a thing at church, and we hemmed and hawed over shoe sizes, because between two college grads we couldn't figure much out. So we picked four pairs that "looked" like they would fit a kid in elementary school. Help me? Please?

Arm and a Leg

Kamikaze Kitty

Tonight there were ducks on the roof of the building next to ours. I wanted a picture of this odd occurence. I slid open the screen door to our balcony, blocking the way of Pippin, the prototype for the saying "curiosity killed the cat." Pippin slipped by, spotted the ducks, and started to crawl under the railing of the balcony (THIRD FLOOR!!).

It was clear that he already had his plan of attack, and wasn't attending to the fact that he was treacherously 3 stories above the ground. Pippin fancies himself a super kitty, and probably thought he could span the 30 or so feet between our building and the next. I know this to be true because this same cat once found a hole in the window screen and jumped and/or fell 3 stories, and spent the entire night meowing on the window sill of our first floor neighbors. We woke up to find our kitty mysteriously missing, taking a few hours before we figured out the puzzle.

Back to the balcony. I grabbed Pippin's collar, which promptly broke off in my hand. I scruffed him, but Pippin, with his head and shoulders under the railing, was firmly grasping the blacony edge with his little declawed paws. With some help from my partner, we finally got him back inside, to many loud meowing protests.

Crazy cat...

Open Letter to Public Library Patrons

Dear Fellow Public Library Patrons:

I have mistakenly assumed that we all have a shared cultural context for politeness and apporpriate behavior in a library. However, my experience today has demonstrated that some of you may need explicit instructions in regard to proper library conduct.

*Your "push to talk" phone is annoying while I'm grocery shopping. At library, it's downright abhorrent. Leave it in the car, please.

*You may only be 13 and half my age, but if you do the fake drop your pencil, turn in your seat to "pop your back" move to stare at me one more time, we're going to have a discussion that embarasses you more than it does me. I have no idea what insecurity of mine you're having a giggle about, but it's getting on my nerves.

*There's a setting on your cell phone. It's called "silent."

*In libraries we use our inside voice, even when it's to explain to our daughter how to use the computer in painstakingly simple but appropriate ways.

*Stop shaking your leg and shaking the table.

*When you talk with your I-pod earbuds in, you're probably being too loud.

That is all, for now.

Sincerely,

Me

This is a first...

A patient in the waiting room at my practicum site took out his guitar and started tuning it, and then he started playing some song, and then...then, he started singing. There is a guy playing guitar and signing in the waiting room. WTF? He's out of tune, too. I better see what's up.

WTF? Files

Is Desperate Houswives in Spanish on YOUR television? Hmm? Because IT IS ON MINE!! *Sigh* Somebody made a mistake!