Killing Trees and Cooking Chickens and Listening to Mr. President
For one of my classes, I have to print out a lot of articles in PDF format. I tried to condense two pages into one by adjusting page setup, but I could hardly read. Therefore, I – oh goody goody gumdrops – printer low on ink again! Yippee Skippy!
I have a cannon pixma ip 1500. It is an INK GUZZLER.
So, I have become customer of the year at a west suburban Target and select locations in the downtown Chicago area. The ink is a decent price and I get my cleaning products from Target too.
I should look for an apartment that is right across the street e so I can just dash across the street if my printer says,”Feed me.”
I have chicken breasts in the oven. I wonder if they are being overcooked.
*briskly walk to kitchen*
Most lunch meats make me feel a little nauseas if eaten on a regular basis. I think it has something to do with the salt. So, I go to Trader Joe’s every week and buy a package of all natural chicken breasts and bake a few so I have some sandwich meat during the week.
This morning, I heard Mr. President Himself speak. I will withhold my opinions.
I did it
I stayed up a read the two articles last night. I am glad I did it, even though I was dead tired. I am making note of it here because that behavior was NOT characteristic of me during the last two years in graduate schools.
But for now, Emily needs to eat breakfast and drink coffee. Emily is hungry. Emily likes to speak in third person.
The world of linguistics and language teaching has turned Emily into a grammar fan. Scary.
change of heart
nah…..I decided to stay up and finish reading the articles. I will feel better and be able to sleep after I read. The articles are not incredibly long. I just like to outline them so I can remember what the h-e double hockey sticks I have been reading about.
tired
I am very tired. I woke up at around seven, studied, worked out, ran errands, went to class, drove to parents’ home, did homework and I still have two articles to read. Honestly, I would rather just go to bed and read the articles tomorrow morning. I have to read them by about nine tomorrow. It is better to read when I am alert than to read while trying to keep my head up.
I think I will do that. I don’t want to make it a habit because I would finish things the night before they are due, but I am beat and incredibly thirsty from the MSG I consumed via Popeye’s Chicken.
But as a result of being so tired, I am so wired because I still have to read two articles. I am also wired because there are some things going on at school and they have been distracting me.
A poem “pawed” by my late cat
The curtain has closed, for the show must end.
I came from humble beginnings and moved to a palace in a Southwest Suburb.
While, I enjoyed fighting with the “anti-cat” and playing vigorous games of “golf”, I also had my trepidations.
Outsiders were mere annoyances. Going outside and having Father close the door behind me shed me of all of my dignity, as the hairs on my entire body literally went up.
Goodbye mother, father, sister and brother.
Good riddance to that canine ninny with four legs.
For the curtain has closed and the show has come to an end.
Honk Honk
I am going to Goose Island Brewpub in the famous Wrigleyville neighborhood on Saturday night. I coordinate a Christian social club for people in their 20s and 30s. I don’t advertise it because I want to see who is interested and then with the people who become active participants, I believe that we can construct the tone and the mission for our group. There are no gimmicks, denominational affiliations or hoops of politics to jump through. The social events are not there to entice people into a false sense of community. I started this meetup because it can be kind of boring for me when I go to the same church and see the same people. I tend to burnout if my only source of fellowship is through an institutional church. And to be quite honest – I am still trying to get to know people at Grace and I am not in any hurry to get initiated into a subgroup within Grace. I feel as if I can be myself in this social group because the politics and other baggage that comes with institutional churches are not present.
Anywhoo, back to Saturday’s venue – I am not a big fan of Goose Island, but the beer is pretty good and so is the food. Goose Island was a runner up to UnCommon Ground because of Goose Island’s location. It is so hard to miss Goose Island Brewpub because it is spitting distance from Wrigley Field.
I like church and I believe in the mission God has for my church. Politics exist in any sort of institution and I have accepted that. I am surrounded by all sorts of stimuli from academia, Gold Coast, family, Sparky (family dog), God, traffic, etc. After I deal with the stimuli, at the end of the day, I want to allow myself refreshing fellowship experiences. Personally, I need to experience fellowship from different angles so I can decompress.
Country music, drafts, and reservations
Yippy Kye Ay!
I am listening to Dwight Yoakam as I wrap things up.
Strange. I didn’t listen to a lot of country music for a long time and I became interested in it again after listening to music by a local Chicago country band, Fulton County Line.
I feel better about my take home exam, since I have worked on all three questions. I discovered that I tend to do well when I start long term assignments with an early draft. Usually, anything goes when I type stuff in. Later, I continue to edit and edit until something is “turn-in-able”. There are too few hours in a day, so I don’t feel as if I can do as well as I would like to. But I need to exercise, pay bills, shower, eat and handle other business.
This morning, I felt very ignorant. I called UnCommon Ground to make a reservation for a group of fifteen and they said,”Nope, sorry. Can’t seat fifteen.” Er, well, I changed the location to Goose Island Brewpub, which is about two blocks south. So I had my crash course in event planning – case the venue before deciding that the venue will be the venue for whatever date you decide.
God has a sense of humour.
I felt anxious throughout most of today. I think it had a lot to do with waiting in a smelly subway station for a sluggish Blue line train on my way to class and then waiting in the cold air for a smelly subway train on my way back to class. After I returned back to my neck of the concrete (ha!), I went to Grossinger Toyota to pick up my car. My car has become a regular “patient” at Grossinger.
I have a take home examination due on Tuesday. I started working on it a little on Monday and then today. Somehow, I feel better psychologically when I work at something a little at a time. I like to complete a rough draft and then edit it so I don’t feel rushed.
I don’t know how I made it through the last two years. I forgot due dates and often fell behind on a lot of the reading. I definitely attribute my improvement to changing my social environment. I never realized how much of a social and emotional drain I was in until I looked back and thought about how miserable I was. At that time, I felt as if I had to have a drink (or two, three, four…) to feel socially alive and I felt as if I were crazy for being miserable.
Well, I guess the moral of the story is that you can still be a Christian and maintain boundaries.
My Valentine’s Day
I had dinner at the Flat Top Grill with my dear friend, Dalila. We ate a lot and then we had dessert. I ate so much, I had a stomachache at night and in the morning. I ate so much, I had a hard time sleeping. I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol that night, but I think I had a “food hangover”. HA!
I would like to chat more, but I have to get ready to leave. I have to go pack up and leave my parents’ house and go buy a bottle of wine for my friend’s party.
Have a good weekend!
Let’s Talk Shop
I have started the job searching process already. School lets out in May 2008, but like a squirrel, I am keeping my eyes peeled for the choicest acorns. I am pretty flexible about where I will work and the kind of job responsibilities I have. When I started school, I was very interested in staying employed within the field of teaching. But, my internship experience provided opportunities for me to complete program projects in the office in addition to teaching a course and I discovered that I like the office setting.
If you feel led, please pray for me during this process. In my opinion, there is no such thing as “the perfect job”. A great job cannot replace my relationship with God and others. So, pray for me to be grounded in that philosophy and to trust that as I am engaged in the job search, God is ultimately in charge of where I will be employed. If you can’t align with what I am saying about God being in charge (there are differing ideals about God’s will in our world), that is okay 8-)
I appreciate your attentiveness and thoughts.
