I'm Not Gonna Lie, I Think I Already Have a Repetitive Motion Injury

About a month ago I was walking across campus to get myself something for lunch when the sky opened up and started dumping water on me. I had my little pocket umbrella with me, but by the time I got back to the office, my feet were sliding around in my sandals and my skirt was soaked through.

A few days later, my cell phone suddenly realized it had been exposed to a great deal of moisture, and started turning itself off and on, over and over. And over. This unexpected new feature made it so that I couldn't actually place any calls, but the worst part was the fact that it vibrated at length every time it turned on and off. So I took the battery out, which solved the problem of the irritating vibrating, but didn't make it any easier to, you know, actually use the thing.

My uncle was kind enough to let me borrow his old phone for a few weeks while I worked on securing a new one of my own, but it's weird using someone else's phone. There were phone numbers and photos and things on there that I had to just... work around. It was kind of like carrying someone else's old wallet and having to keep all of their old cards and receipts, mixed in with your precious possessions.

Anyway, I spent several weeks debating about what kind of phone I wanted next. How much was I willing to pay? Was I ready to make the jump to a smartphone? Could I afford a monthly data plan? I'm hugely indecisive so I spent a lot of time reading reviews and comparing phones, but finally I made a decision: I found a well-reviewed Android-based smartphone that was on sale for $50 (with a 2-year contract, of course). I walked authoritatively in the store, I told the sales guy which phone I wanted and asked if they had the same deal in the store that I had seen on the internet. He said yes, and took me to the display phone. Just as I was getting used to the feel of it in my hand and familiarizing myself with the menus, he says, "You know, the iphone 3GS is also on sale for $50."

Well, shit.

So, even though I did research for 2 and a half weeks in order to avoid this very scenario, I spent the next hour or two trying to decide between the two phones. It literally hadn't even occurred to me to buy an iphone, because I don't really think of myself as one of the Apple Faithful. As a result, I had to ask a million questions about it and spend lots of time starting at it. It was a trying time for everyone involved, I'm sure. At long last, I made decision, paid, and left feeling much older in years but much richer in phone. So here I am tonight, hanging out with my new phone:


Really, the worst part about the whole experience was having to sign that paper promising to act like I'm better than everyone else from now on.


You win this one, Apple. But my laptop is still an HP.

Brushing Past the Tumbleweeds, Ignoring the Sounds of Crickets

Oh, dear readers. I have wanted for DAYS to write something, but there is nothing interesting going on in my life. Well, that's not entirely true. I've been really busy at work, busy enough that I feel guilty trying to write a blog post, but now I'm doing it anyway because I LOVE YOU. (All 3 of you.) (You know, it occurs to me that my blog will never have the worldwide following it deserves if I only post once a month. Perhaps I'll think about that some more later.)

Part of what's keeping me so busy at work is trying to write a paper for a journal, and a proposal to talk about said paper at a conference in the fall. If I get accepted to go to the conference (it's the same one I went to in November), then I get a free trip to San Francisco! So, cross your fingers. I have to submit this proposal by the end of the day on Friday, which, if you're keeping track, is tomorrow. This suddenly occurred to me around 4pm yesterday when I realized that I had just wasted half my day... um, looking up apartments near my new grad school. (I could argue that this was important business, but since I'm not moving for another 5 months and I've already read every rental property listing for the area 9 separate times, I have no justification for my behavior.) So then I resolved to get at least a rough draft of the thing done before I left last night, which ended up being at 8pm. Behold, the power of procrastination!

This episode raises some interesting issues, I feel. On the one hand, once I finally made myself work on it, I felt pretty exhilerated. I actually enjoy the process of writing and all that nonsense, which I think bodes well for my grad school experience. On the other hand, my senseless time-wasting turned a normal day at work into a 10-HOUR DAY. So, I dunno. Either I'm perfectly suited for grad school, or I'm DOOOOOOOOMED.

This is a good segue into something else I've been thinking about over the past couple of days. It should surprise no one that it only took about 4 hours for the excitement of being accepted into grad school to wear off and for panic to set in. (Lee refers to this as my very special ability to turn all good things - compliments, good news, candy, ponies - into bad things.) (What the hell does he know, anyway?) The point is: What if this was a terrible mistake? What if I do not have what it takes to be a PhD student? These people are obviously unaware of my Olympic-level procrastination skills. What if I get there and everyone is way smarter and more grown-up than me and I'm in statistics class and they ask me a question and I'm like, "Um... ketchup??" I checked the list of current PhD students, and there are several Asian* names, and I'm pretty sure you know what that means: no one is going to want to copy my homework anymore.

The silver lining to all this is that later, when I was googling "grad school success tips please don't let me fail oh god" I ran across an article about 'imposter syndrome', or the feeling that you're "fooling the world" about your abilities. This is apparently a condition that affects all graduate students and academics at some point or another. The way I see it, this is great news, because if my imposter syndrome is setting in so early on, then I must be way ahead of my peers. At this rate, I'll be writing books and coming up with new ground-breaking theories of social work by my second year of grad school. Take that, Asians!**

*I'm sorry, Asians, I mean no harm. I know that plenty of Asians don't know shit about math.
**But I'm sure the ones at this particular grad school are much, much smarter than me.

Oh, by the way, I started a twitter account, because it seemed like a fun thing to do at the time. If you like, you can check it out here.

I'm a Model, You Know What I Mean

The problem with owning your own digital camera (or camera phone, for that matter) is that one day you're sitting around the house when you happen to catch a glimpse of your reflection and you think, my, I'm looking fancy today, aren't I? And the next thing you know you wake up on your bathroom floor with your hair tousled and your camera is all jammed up with 126 pictures of you making idiot faces in your bathroom mirror.

Don't feel bad, it could happen to the best of us. The true measure of a person, however, is how he or she handles the situation. A sensible person will delete all but the 5 or 6 best pictures. A closet narcissist will upload them all onto her computer into a special folder entitled 'Pictures of Me In My Bathroom,' because, hey, you never know when you're going to need 126 pictures of you looking cute in your bathroom. And of course, a shameless narcissist will just go ahead and upload the whole shebang onto facebook.

Miscellany

Since I've been MIA (3rd world democracy) for the past couple of days, here are some thoughts to bring you up to speed:

1) Apparently December 08 is officially the Month of Fog in North Carolina. If you squint, it's kind of like snow, except it never actually hits the ground. Also, snow fills me with wonder, and this fog fills me with rage.

2) The first thought I had this morning was something to the effect of: "My cell phone is probably run by microscopic birds. Nanochickens. And everytime I call someone they peck out the number onto tiny tiny levers with their tiny tiny beaks." .... Your guess is as good as mine.

3) Last night I decided that if/when I have children, I'm sending them to boarding school between the ages of 6 and 8. Some people hate children in general, but I hate children between 6 and 8. Younger than that, they're still filled with wonder and excitement and admiration for people that are older than them. And by middle school, they're almost like real people. High school doesn't count, because no one likes high schoolers, not even other high schoolers. But around age 6, kids start getting good at all kinds of infuriating things like whining, compulsive lying, being bossy, tattling on other children, and pretending to know everything. Oh man, I'm getting all irritated just thinking about 7-year-olds right now.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me. Carry on.

Microsoft Office is a Paradox, Wrapped in ARGH

Funny story:

On my computer at work, I have yet to figure out how to get Excel to STOP POPPING UP WITH THE DAMN CLIPBOARD EVERY TIME I COPY AND PASTE SOMETHING. I know what I just copied, ok Excel? I would like to now paste the thing that I just copied. I do not need to choose from the clipboard, I do not need to be reminded of everything I have ever copied, I do not need you to take up half my screen showing me this, I need you to GET OUT OF MY FACE I'M TRYING TO WORK.

Here at home, on my laptop, I have just spent 10 minutes trying to get Word to SHOW ME THE DAMN CLIPBOARD because I just realized that about 17 cuts ago, I cut something from my grad school essay that I kind of actually want to keep in there.

Why is one application trying to shove the clipboard down my throat, while the other application is holding the clipboard for ransom? I do not know. If I were smart enough to know the answer that question, I'd already be working for Microsoft.

Writing to You From Another Dimension!

I know you're all sick of my excuses, but I've been very busy today, working on grad school applications and volunteering, and before that, sleeping til noon. Anyway, now I'm at my parents' house, where I had planned to write you a beautiful, eloquent post, a treatise on the inherent goodness of man and how we can nurture it in order to achieve world peace. Unfortunately, all the computers in this place are down with some kind of cyber-flu, so I'm reduced to typing this out ONE LETTER AT A TIME on my brother's iphone. Do I sound more sophisticated than usual? Because it has taken me 9 decadent hours to type this all out. This is what luxury feels like, people. Like a thumb cramp.