So I got a call this afternoon from my mother. . . .

"Hey! I googled you last night!"
". . . . And?"

And the fact of the matter is, my manifesto shows up on Google Books, and one of my blank journals is at the top of the English Dept. blog for a binding show.

If you will excuse my bragging, I would just like to savor this moment: if you type in my name followed by the word "books," things pop up. And I love that.
I hope the trend continues.

Have you ever "googled yourself?" On one hand, it's an entirely vain enterprise, but on the other, it's a way to see yourself through the eyes of the world at large. Case in point, I usually don't think about the fact that I technically still have a Myspace (and only remembered it because it came up on Google a few minutes ago), but I remember a few years ago I went back and figured out how to log in again, and what came up was infinitely nostalgic. Sophomore me? I think it was.
It still says I'm in a relationship with oh God why, but she loved him, because he made her laugh. There's still a dressing-room photo of her in a prom dress, which Hannah must have taken, and can I have her waistline back please? And those tennis arms? She still gets creepy messages from the cart boy at Meijer, the one with the giant mole on his face. She still hasn't written back. The friends on her top 8? Some she couldn't live without, some she doesn't speak to.

This led me to two questions:
1) God, how did I get so OLD?
2) Am I still who I was?

I couldn't bring myself to delete it. I suppose I will have to, some day, but I kind of like the idea of a static, timeless self floating out in the world somewhere.
I'm not sure that I want that timeless self to be me at sixteen, but. . . .

Some things have gone really well since then. I'm not sure Iowa even registered in my consciousness then, but I am precisely where I wanted to be at 22. Professionally, at least.

So, professionally, I issue this challenge:

Doppelganger of the Duke swim team? You're going down.
Married lady with a baby? You're going down.
Famous flutist? Homeowner? Dead lady? You can all suck it.

One day, I will be on the first page of the google search results.
Twice.

Only part of me is kidding.

In the meantime, I will use my anonymity to... get back to work.

more complaining

Midterm midterm midterm.

Last night, I dedicated a solid four hours to working on it... while I read and understood things, I wrote nothing.

Today, I dedicated.... ten hours now, and I have a grand total of three pages.

Tomorrow, I need to come up with at least 12 more.

FML. Something about a "you have three days to do this midterm, here's the prompt, GO" reminds me of the papers I had roughly three months to complete during my undergrad. I still probably did them in three days, but still, it's the premise.

I WANT TO GO TO BED DAMNIT WHY CAN'T I THINK FASTER

back to school....

It's funny how the older I get, the younger I feel.
Tonight, I'm six years old again, with my crayons all packed, too excited to sleep before the first day of school.

Of course, I'm not actually taking crayons, I'm taking departmental forms to work on during my office hours, probably more pens than I really need, notebooks, a grade book....

Still. I'm going to get on the (oh God) 7:14 bus, oddly the same way that I got on the 7:14 bus of my childhood, except I'll (hopefully) look less like a poodle since I've grown my hair out a lot since then, and the other boys and girls will be, well, old.

Tomorrow's mostly a teaching day, between the chair's lecture bright and early, office hours, TA conference... but I do have my first class in the evening-- Sci Fi; I am SO STOKED.

What's more, I met a few people who are TA-ing with me, and a few people who are in my classes.... I went to get Mexican food with a few of them tonight. They're so nice! Second years; they've quite adopted me. Despite my proclivity to say stupid things, I think we'll be good friends. 

I have a second-year mentor, and we're going to go have a beer this week, and a faculty mentor I'm meeting for coffee too! The vast loneliness and boredom of the past two weeks are suddenly... well, quite through.

That is not to say that I don't miss, well, virtually everyone I know and love back in Indiana. If I stop and think about it, I'll cry, so I've been trying not to think about it. You know, like I've been doing all summer. One day, I might spontaneously explode, but on the plus side, I think my health insurance might cover part of that.

Oh, and I'm starting to get a cold... my first few days teaching and I have to sound like a man. While I get a couple of sick days, this is going to go away on its own or else. I downed eight fucking cups of tea today, and tomorrow, I'm hitting the Claritin.

My apartment is a mess, and a few things are very very jank, but I'm still alive.

I can't sleep, but in four hours, I've got to look professional, so maybe it's time to hit the hay.

You know, this is going to be A LOT of work, and while I may very well faint after I get a load of a few of my grad syllabi, I'm not getting the same "oh my gosh this is going to suck" feeling that I used to get on nights like these. Maybe it's because my classes actually sound like fun, maybe it's because I'm going to be just like a real professor, maybe it's because I've lost my mind... but I think tomorrow is the start of something great.

This one's for Ms. Franklin

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

I'm going to step up on my soap box for a minute to say that what the world really needs is a little more respect.

I heard once that the true measure of success was not in being promoted to the top or having money flying out of your ass, but in being able to shake the hand and know the name of everyone in your building, from the receptionists to the janitors.

Once, after a series of rather nasty text messages, my brother once said, "the very next text message I get had better be 'I love you and respect you' or I'm going to be really upset." I will never forget that-- we tell the people that we love that we love them fairly often (I hope), but how often do you tell someone that you respect them?

We don't think about it much, but it's really important. I forget who said it, but someone once said that you should never take away another person's dignity, because it means everything to them and nothing to you.

There are certainly several people that I have a hard time respecting, and I absolutely have a hard time respecting some of the things that go on in this world, but it is an important thing to take into consideration. My mom always says that the important thing to find in a man is not love, but respect. I used to think, "Sure! No problem; I respect everybody, right? Doesn't everybody respect me too?" Well, not exactly, but pretty much that's how it was. In the words of Cathy Guisewite, now that I have finally developed a critical eye, it needs a bifocal.

All I'm saying is, nothing puts the ice between two people quite like an insult. Yesterday, someone insulted me for my personality. It was not meant to be a joke, and it was at a comparatively inappropriate time, if there's ever an appropriate time for an insult. Yes, sometimes I am quiet, and that is usually because I am thinking. I think quite a lot, actually. It's kind of my thing. Go fuck yourself.
Today, someone I love who really pours her heart into things that she cares about was thrown about like a minion. I am convinced that she is worth ten of the people who are above her, if not more, but she felt the sting of having her dignity cracked open anyway. Who runs an organization that way? Fuck them too.

It's not quite compassion, but I would say that respect is the virtue of getting your head out of your own ass. We are all the same. We are all going to wake up tomorrow, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep (excepting where all-nighters are pulled). We are all going to do that hopefully a good number of times, and then we are all going to die. At that point, all that matters is what sort of person you were, what you did with your life, and what sort of memory you leave behind.

Make it good.

Can I be frank with you, internet?

I have some serious problems. Particularly, I'm having problems with reincarnation. It's not that I wish I could relive my days as an exorcist or a farm wench, but rather, I seem to keep meeting the exact same people over and over again.

Every person comes complete with a few idiosyncrasies, but for the most part, I've got deja vu with a bad case of losing hope. And I do mean losing hope fast. It was one thing to have an old enemy, but it's another to have them in stereo. If I fucked it up the first time, yet still I've learned nothing and can think of nothing to do better, isn't it time to throw in the cards?

Better yet, could I call for a wash?

Please?