In the Land of the Orange Construction Cone

Right behind the Random Condo, construction of some set of residential buildings is now underway.

The days that I am in class in the morning, I work from home in the afternoon. My new “den” is in the guest room, since Mr. Random has hogged both desks in our tiny den with his grad school work. I DO like my little office of sorts, I have this awesome dark wood, tall, expandable table with a faux leather pub chair that is very comfy to sit in for long periods – perfect for writing and studying . . .

Anyway, my new desk looks out of the guest room window, so I can see the men moving dirt back and forth all day long.

I have no idea what they are doing now, but whatever they are doing is making our entire building shake – and it is the most disconcerting feeling in the world to be sitting at your desk typing and feel this constant low tremor . . .

It IS fascinating to watch the plows and tractors and rollers go by . . . to watch the bricklayers and vinyl siding guys and roofers doing their work. I don’t get very distracted by their work – I’m pretty good at focusing on the screen before me – but occasionally I will look up and there is this wonderful ballet of sorts going on outside . . .

I have to take these odd moments as they come and appreciate them for what they are . . .

Now Accruing Diminishing Marginal Returns

Bummer, my post count is going to be terribly low this month, and I had just started churning them out on a regular basis before all of this school stuff started . . .

So much to do, much to think about.

I got a “B” on my first Econ paper, which I was very happy with considering I hadn’t written a true school paper in about 16 years. Yay! Have two exams next week though, one on Thursday night and one on Friday morning, which will not be fun at all . . .

I am still having a bit of trouble feeling like I fit in somehow in the whole school environment. It is a bit lonely when leaving class sometimes – I’m not a grad student or a teacher or even one of the young undergrads at this point – and sometimes I think, my, it would be nice to hang out with someone or a group to have lunch, rather than just grab my bags and make my way home. There really isn’t a “returning students’” club on campus either, which probably would be a great idea for me. But I don’t want to be the one to start one . . . I know too well how much work that takes, starting a group from scratch and trying to nurture it long enough so it will run on its own. I just don’t have the energy for that right now, even though I could desperately use it . . .

I am lucky to have Mr. Random and my friend J and you all to talk to, but I would like to expand my network of folks again, even though I have even less time to do so . . .

Life at the Random Non-profit continues to be not fun at all, but it gives me enough flexibility to go to class 2 days a week, so I must hold on for at least another year . . .

Just wanted to check in . . . I hope you all are doing well!

My Anniversary Bouquet

Mr. Random sent me some very lovely flowers for our anniversary on Wednesday. Thought I would share them with you all, since I haven't been posting as much this month.

We went out and had a nice dinner after work, and then straightaway came home to our respective desks and dug into our homework. Romantic, huh? . . .

Still Plugging Along

School week 4 – I have no idea what I am doing and I am super tired. I am really wishing I had had a proper vacation before all of this started . . .

On Saturday, my friend J and I walked a 5K. It was very much fun, but neither of us has done anything like that in a while and I am still very sore today. Instead of T-shirts, the 5K organizers gave out these awesome nalgene water bottles with the 5K logo on them. I’m now keeping it at my desk at work to remind me to drink at least one 32 ounce bottle or more a day.

Meanwhile, Mr. Random went to the anti-war protests downtown to record what was going on for grad school assignment. He taped a lot of interesting footage and got some interesting interviews with some of both the “pro-war” and the “anti-war” folks there.

The thing that annoys me about protest marches these days are . . . they are usually such an unfocused mess. I mean, there are always random people there with their “Drums for Peace” and the odd “puppets of elected figures walking on stilts” and the random people on the podium railing about things that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Mr. Random told me that the protest events started a half-hour late because the yoga guy who was going to offer the beginning “blessing” was late. First of all, a yoga guy? Secondly, are you trying NOT to have people take you seriously? I know the movement is all about inclusiveness and all, but please . . . can’t we introduce a little rigor and professionalism into the proceedings. Are puppets REALLY effective as a protest tool? There is so much unfocused dissatisfaction out there, why can’t we have a grassroots organization that actually harnesses all of that energy into something a bit more productive and that affects real change. I don’t know what that organization would look like, but it would help if it banned the stupid puppets and drums, and just focused on getting masses of people to speak with one voice . . .

Ok, that’s enough of my ranting . . . It’s also a bit disappointing that more people weren’t there, but I believe there is a bit of protest fatigue going on, and there are thoughts of whether anyone really pays attention to those things anymore anyway. All I want is for my little sister to come home, safe and sound . . .

Wednesday will mark the 9th wedding anniversary for Mr. Random and me. I think we are going out to dinner . . .

Did everyone have good weekends? The weather was so lovely here . . .

Random Wednesday Update

****My life has been pretty blah this week so far. I turned in my first paper for my economics class on Tuesday and I have no idea if it was any good or not. I’m leaning towards the not . . . I feel it in my gut. I had Mr. Random edit and proofread it the night before to make sure my statements sounded logical and that my paper answered all of the questions that were assigned. He seems to think it didn’t suck, but I do have my doubts.

****On the ESL front, it looks like I will end up being a substitute teacher at my old site for when one of the main teachers has to go out of town. This way I will still be able to teach once in a while, but won’t have to worry about lesson planning or anything and I can still be kept in the loop. Yay!

****On Saturday, I’m doing a 5K walk with my friend J. We both have determined that we really need to do start doing some sort of exercise regularly, and I thought that this would be a low pressure way to start. This way, if either of us gets tired it isn’t such a big deal, since we aren’t being timed. It’s also great to get the lovely free t-shirts!

I do miss running a little, but it was such a pain to find a running buddy. There have been too many incidents on the local trails for me to feel comfortable just tooling along by myself. Also, it usually happened that I felt most like running at the oddest hours of the day. Now that I am in class for two mornings a week, I think I should probably make it part of the routine to hit the gym before heading home. Even twice a week is better than no times a week. It will probably help my mood a bit too . . .

****Note about the comedy pictures for CS:

All of the comics were funny, but not all of the time. Some folks brought their “A” game and were pretty consistently good. Some of the guys brought to the stage some new material that they tried out towards the end of their set, which did not work out too well. But that’s the thing about comedy open mikes – you have to take the good comedy with the bad comedy. Some of the jokes that people try out are pretty good, others need a lot more work . . . or need to be dumped entirely. However, by working out jokes in front of people, you get instant feedback, which is great and doesn’t happen with a lot of other art forms. The whole thing is about being open to the process artistically, and you have to be aware of what you are getting yourself into when going to an open mike. It IS incredibly brave to go up there, I think, and I applaud them all for trying.

Now the fact that there wasn’t one FEMALE comic on the stage . . . well, I need to do some more investigating about that . . .

****You know, I haven’t posted a poem in a while. I really need to get back into that. I really liked this one that I saw today:

Auroras
By Joanna Klink

It began in a foyer of evenings
The evenings left traces of glass in the trees
A book and a footpath we followed

Under throat-pipes of birds
We moved through a room of leaves
Thin streams of silver buried under our eyes

A field of white clover buried under our eyes
Or a river we stopped at to watch
The wind cross it. Recross it

Room into room you paused
Where once on a stoop we leaned back
Talking late into daylight

The morning trees shook off twilight
Opening and closing our eyes auroras
Beyond groves and flora we followed a path

Dotted with polished brown bottles,
Scoured furrows, a wood emptied of trees
It was enough to hollow us out

The evenings left grasses half-wild at our feet
Branches with spaces for winds
The earth changes

The way we speak to each other has changed
As for a long while we stood in a hall full of exits
Listening for a landscape beyond us

Comedy . . . Last Monday! (Part 2)

More pictures from the open mike.

Comedy . . . Last Monday! (Part 1)

Here are the pictures I took at the open mike I went to on Monday night. It was the final night of comedy open mikes for this location, so I wanted to take pictures of the occasion - as practice, but also as a nice record of the evening.

OUR State Fair is the BEST State Fair . . .

Just a little change of pace . . .

Here are some pictures I took at this year's Arlington County Fair in Virginia. When I took these, I thought the bright light had washed out all of the subjects, but surprisingly they hold up rather well.

They could be composed a bit better, but I do like the amount of color in each one.

Where's John Houseman When You Need Him?

Yup, school has started and I am trying to get into the swing of things. I am still overwhelmed and freaked out, but at the moment it is the usual Random Kath level of overwhelmed and freaked out, so things are semi-normal.

There are two young women who sit next to me in my Econ class that I would really like to throttle. Despite sitting near the front, they manage to chit-chat at highly inappropriate times, usually to complain that a lot of the history chapters we are going over now they learned in AP European History and it is a huge waste of their time – this isn’t economics!

First off, shut up. Can you both be any ruder? The teacher's right in front of you. AND I’m trying to hear! Secondly, while the content may mirror that history class you took, you need to now look at it with an ear to how economic systems developed and why things are the way they are today. I find it rather fascinating, especially when reading about the conditions that led to the Great Depression and what happened in the 1970s and 1980s. How does that saying go? “Those who do not learn history are condemned to repeat it.” Or something like that? Anyway, just read the paper to see how much people have to keep learning the same lessons over and over again . . .

Anyway, even though I am the one who sat there first, I think for my sanity I'm going to have to change seats. The class has 300 people in it - the room is fairly full, though I'm sure that soon some of the students are going to drop off due to the dryness of the professor's delivery and the early-ish hour . . .

In other news, I am trying to decide whether I should give up teaching my ESL class one night a week. On one hand, it brings me great joy – I love my students and I love actually trying to impart knowledge! On the other hand, while it doesn’t take as much time as before, I still have to take time to work on lesson plans and make copies, and the class itself kills one night that could be used for studying. I also know how hard it is to find new volunteers to pick up the hole – when I was a sub, I could have been teaching every night. I also really believe in the organization I’m volunteering for, and I’d feel bad by not continuing to contribute.

This is a very hard decision for me – this would be on top of my having to give up choir practice. Mr. Random says I should just wait and see how it goes . . . I may be able to fit it in to my schedule without a problem. However, part of me thinks I have enough on my plate with work and school without trying to fit more stuff on . . . I am so conflicted, and it is making me very sad and anxious. If I am going to stop teaching, I should let the ESL folks know right away, so that they have enough time to find a sub . . .

Oy! Why is this all so hard? I thought this was supposed to be a good thing I’m doing in my life, but it just seems to add more problems . . .

On another, happier, front, I’m going to have more pictures to show you soon. I’ve actually used my camera recently. Woo hoo! On Monday night, I took pictures at another comedy open mike. It was a special occasion, so I documented the evening by taking over 500 pictures. Wow! I didn’t intend to, but it just turned out that way – you’ve got to love digital cameras in that aspect!

My brain is fried, I haven’t had that much sleep, and I have a long day and evening ahead of me. I send many happy vibes out to you all . . .