Saturday, August 15, 2009

A Toast To Our Fallen Slugs


So, school finally starts in a few days. Well, technically, orientation starts in a few days. But I'm so desperate to be back in the academic setting that I'll count it just the same.

It's been a long summer since graduation. Here's what I've done:

1. Moved back to Illinois.
2. Taught Creative Non-Fiction for a week and a half at an academic enrichment camp for kids in Pennsylvania.
3. Stopped teaching halfway through the planned three week session because an epidemic of flu broke out at the camp and all the kids were sent home.
4. Got really bored in Pennsylvania and went to Philly with friends.
5. Danced in Philly with the whitest dude on earth. Don't judge me. He was hot.
6. Came back to my Illinois apartment and began unpacking.
7. Drank a $4 bottle of pink champagne.
8. Painted 3 bookcases and 3 wooden boxes (see pictures below).


9. Drank another $4 bottle of pink champagne while Skyping my besties, who are entirely too far away.
10. Stepped on a slug in my bare feet.
11. Watched another slug eat the slug corpse.
12. Watched a bird attack a squirrel. The squirrel survived.
13. Walked past a guy spot-welding a parking lot.
14. Drank another bottle of $4 pink champagne. Washed it down with a $4 bottle of extra dry champagne.
15. Rescued a slug from my bathtub.
16. Mourned the death of John Hughes by cutting my hair like Molly Ringwald's in Pretty in Pink (see picture below).

17. Freaked out about my declining brain and began reading Freud's Character and Culture.

But here's the good news: it can't get any worse, right? Sigh. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a slug convention going on outside, and I've been asked to take notes.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Maybe a tweed suit in my case....

Imagine a professor. What do you see?

Forget what you actually saw in college. Now really imagine a professor. He's wearing a tweed blazer with leather elbow patches, right? Probably carrying a stack of books. Maybe has an unfortunate comb-over. And he's totally got a PhD in something.

This is my journey into that stereotype. Over the next four years, I'll be working on a PhD in Mass Communications and Media Arts at Southern Illinois, and this is the log of my journey. When it's all said and done, I hope to have amazing hair, a fabulous leather (or faux leather, if you prefer) satchel to carry my books in, and a tweed blazer. Or maybe just a tweed power suit. I'm pretty sure the elbow patches don't arrive until tenure.