The Wicked Witch

I'm a jerk.

I made a student cry this afternoon! I'm not even a teacher...

I feel like a jerk. When I used to babysit eons ago, one of my kids called me the "wicked witch of the west." Today I feel like that title would apply again.

I don't think that I was overly harsh- merely realistic, and she deserved to hear what I told her, but at the same time... crying? really?

But then, I found out also that two of the kids that I used to coach have stuck with climbing and have made it to Nationals- that is awesome! One of them, in particular, was the reason that I loved coaching climbing, it allowed the inner-city kids that didn't have much else to look forward to a vision and a purpose and something to be truly good at. I am so happy for them. I obviously don't take any of the credit, I just taught them a very, very little- my colleague, ~M~, has apparently continued to carry the torch and do amazing work. That made me feel a little better, but I still feel like a jerk.

this and that

correction: *now* I am officially registered for my final classes on the Island. There was one class that I was waiting to see if I could take it as a distance study and I heard back from the prof yesterday that I can! It's a class that actually relates to my thesis, so I'm pretty excited about that. It's an amazing prof that I've had before- but even without the added work that comes with a distance study his class last spring was hands down the most intense and reading/writing heavy class I've taken as a grad student. And there will be more writing as I have to make up for not being in class for discussion, so it should be kind of crazy. I was hoping to get some work done on the thesis during Spring semester, but I'm not sure how feasible that is now. And I peeked at the syllabus for my winter class... bad idea. bad bad idea. lots and lots of reading about one topic all crammed into those four little weeks.

It hit me two days ago that, very soon, Ranger Man will be gone again and that means that everything that has been great about the last almost-five weeks will be gone again. He's not going to be gone gone yet- although that's certainly coming shortly- and although he'll be much closer physically than the times he's been at Super Secret Army Land etc, he'll have much less communication abilities. Hopefully he'll get to come home for Thanksgiving?

Sigh, Webster and I are about to be on our own again... At least I've got that cat!

not the end, not the beginning

I'm officially registered for my last two classes at my school on the Island- and one is the class that they make you register so you can actually PAY them for the pleasure of writing a master's thesis. Awesome. So technically, all that's left is one class over the short winter term and then my thesis. Of course I'm a glutton for punishment and I'm trying to work out a deal to also take a class in the spring, but that would just be icing on the cake and it would actually help with my thesis.

I feel like I should have had some sort of bittersweet moment when I hit the "Submit" button and actually registered for the last time at the school on the Island. Like there should have been some sort of relief, or apprehension, or some sort of feeling at all. But it's not really an end (and not just because there's still a thesis to write), because I'm not done with school, and it's not the beginning of something, because I'm most of the way done with my first Master's degree... it just feels like the middle.

Someone else's words

Scott Adams (the artist behind Dilbert) very nicely summed up the misgivings I have about the outcome of this election, through humor. You can read it here.

To clarify my position (and none of this is earth-shattering): While I'm not quite so doomsday-ist to suggest that the entire country will collapse (although I'm not saying it's absolutely not a possibility), the amount of hurt and disappointment across the country is going to be immense. And because of the record number of voters, I think that it will be even bigger than the 2000 election as far as dividing the country. As a political scientist (which I hate that I am that, I really do... but alas, an interdisciplinary MA will do that to you!) I am incredibly interested to see how (or not) a new administration can deal with the disappointment and mistrust.

Voting and such

Friday, obviously, not today... I spent almost two hours in line for early voting. I'm not sure what to make of all of these insanely high predictions for voter turn-out. I know that 80% voting shouldn't be insanely high, that people should want to have a say in the governance of their own lives, but it still seems pretty high. It also seems really high considering that it's mostly likely not going to be a landslide either way, which means that a lot of people are going to be disappointed with the results.

While you wait for tomorrow, check out Hulu's collection of Historic Campaign Ads.

Oh, and how cool is it that there's a peach on my sticker?

This might be a food blog now...

As promised, Monday night's dinner...



Fettuccine Alfredo with (my favorite) broccoli. He even warmed the plates with hot water before putting the food in them- he remembered to pour the water back out of mine, but kind of forgot for his, so he had soupy Alfredo.

So that's the reason that I didn't make it to knitting group on Monday- I had yummy food waiting for me. It's not like I'm going to have yummy food waiting for me for too much longer, so I'm taking advantage of it now, while I can!

I just realized that I thought I finally stopped trying to sleep this morning at 4:30, which would make it close to five now, which is almost time that I would wake up if it wasn't the weekend... but it's daylight savings time. It's not even four yet. I'm going to have to figure out how to get back to sleep. There wasn't any daylight savings on the Island, so I'm kind of out of practice with the whole screwing with the internal clock thing... darn.

I think we got pictures of last night's dinner also- a Pork Loin Roast that handily eclipsed the Kraft mac and cheese I poured out of a box for lunch... What am I going to do when he's gone again? I'll have to come up with my own stuff to blog about!

Halloween

I didn't exactly grow up in the boonies, but I didn't grow up in the middle of a city either. In order to go trick-or-treating we had to actually get in the car and go somewhere- the mall when I was little, or a friend's neighborhood once I started school. So I never, ever got to have the experience of trick-or-treaters coming to the door. I thought that last year, on the Island I would have some- there were approximately six. But I was nervous the whole time about being all alone in my house opening the door to strangers (thanks for leaving me all by myself, roomies!)

So this was my year- I was so excited! Ranger Man was going to be here and there are small children living nearby, so I started talking about the trick-or-treaters and getting candy for them months ago. We talked about getting a pumpkin (and roasting the seeds, I love roasted pumpkin seeds!), but in the long run, we still don't have a dining room table or any place really suitable for carving a pumpkin, nor are we really home and not racked out in bed because we're exhausted long enough to do the carving. So we gave up on the pumpkin idea. I thought.

I got home yesterday and Ranger Man was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor (which was covered in newspaper), carving a pumpkin! It's the cutest, most lopsided Charlie Brown Christmas Tree type of pumpkin I've ever seen, and I love it. Here are some pics:





Yay for pumpkins! what a fun surprise! And yes, our kitchen counter really is that messy. You can actually see knitting in one of those pictures- I've got a UFO stashed in the kitchen....

We had a few trick-or-treaters, and we have a ton of candy left over so it was a win-win night!

I hope everyone else had a great Halloween!