I think I spent the better part of the day on the phone. I’m so tired of the phone. After the two long weekends of Landmark, I am not finished. There’s a seminar class that lasts 10 sessions after the first seminar. Silly me. I once again volunteered to be a group leader. Now I want to strangle the group members. Can they show up on time? No. Can they make meetings? No. Can they do the assignments? No. Although I can’t say that I’ve seriously done the assignment this week, even though I’ve been on the phone constantly. I suppose I can count the conversation I had today with those of the group who chose to show up. Now I need several more to complete the assignment. I’m dealing with everyone else’s stuff but my own. And since I am dealing with others’ stuff, I talk with other friends about how I’m dealing with this stuff. Make any sense? Probably not, but it makes some sense to me. Often, I’m lost. I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Oh, and I have one nasty sinus infection to go along with all this. It began on Monday. Now, I’m barely able to breathe. I’m now a literal mouth-breather. No, that is not some comment on my mental capacity, although it too has diminished due to the killer headache that accompanies these infections. If this infection doesn’t get me, the people around me will.

This Friday and weekend I attended the Landmark Forum seminar. Mr. O gave me a little push to go. Ultimately, it was my choice to go. I became curious after lengthy conversations. So what did I get out it? A lot. I am finding more and more that I got out of it. The most important things to me were re-connecting with my sister after 20 years of avoiding each other and talking with my son’s father about our son.

There is no way to fully thank the person who introduced me to this class. I had never heard about it before. Now, my mother and sister are both asking me about the seminar. I sincerely hope that they are both able to attend. It made such a huge difference for me that I want to see that happen for everyone I know.

I got my voice back. I notice that I’m talking to people in a very different way. I am actually asking for what I want instead of expecting people to know or guess. I don’t know exactly how that happened. It wasn’t something I “worked” on.

I will be at the advanced course this weekend. More stuff…more long days.

Today is my last free day for the next few days. I signed up for a three day seminar because a friend kept bugging me about it. I don’t know what to expect, but the days leading up to it haven’t been any fun. Some of the posts on this blog are the result of things that have been going through my mind since I first signed up. I’ll have to write about it afterwards. I suppose I’m anxious because I don’t know what will happen. I’m not very happy about the long hours or the three days because I’m missing relaxing, fun and dance class. Missing dance class on Saturday is a big deal because I’m practicing for our mock competition. I need all the help I can get, and I just don’t practice hard enough at home.  But really, who pushes themselves as hard as any instructor?

Then again, I will spend part of my day preparing for the next three. I have to have meals.  With my diet restrictions, I can’t just go anywhere to eat. I certainly can’t go anywhere that’s fast food. All fast food seems to contain bread. The last thing I need over the weekend is to get “glutened.” I already had a run-in with the bathroom on Monday morning.

The class has a meeting on Tuesday evening as well.  That should be interesting, but probably not in a good way. After three days, they expect you to bring people on Tuesday. Well, I can’t see forcing something on someone when you’ve hardly had time to process what went on. Also apparently you’re supposed to work things out with people you know by calling them. Oh fun. There are people who for various reasons I do not speak to–ever. There’s nothing to work out. There is just no relationship. Oh, and then there are all the people I know scattered elsewhere–different time zones. No way am I calling anyone after 10 pm. There are very few people I know who I can call after that hour without it being some dire emergency.

Anyway, when I get back, I will write about the weekend. Hopefully, all goes well.

A little illness has kept me from posting much today. I don’t know what it was, but I was very sick for just under 24 hours. I’ll be eating again soon.

I also had to clear up a bit of a mess with a friend. I always think of him having such a thick skin because he teases me so mercilessly. I’m finding out that he doesn’t–not really.  So it seems I said something in jest, which wasn’t taken that way at all. I feel a bit like an idiot. However this all could have been cleared up the day it was said if he had asked rather than assuming. It pains me to hurt someone of whom I think so highly.

While a friend thinks I’m nuts, this quiz suggests otherwise. True, I don’t have the tendencies they are looking for. I have my own particular brand of nuttiness. But don’t we all?

You Are 20% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at low risk for having a social phobia. It is unlikely that you feel most comfortable in your mom’s basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

So what’s with the SciFi channel shows? Are they completely stupid only to me? A friend of mine finds watching the shows relaxing. I don’t. Why? Because the science is wrong. The statements they make are often silly. No scientist would say that. I know more science than the writers, which is probably expected with a Ph.D. in chemistry, but sad if they are trying to be believable. Typically only other geeks watch and enjoy science fiction, so the least they could do is get it right for the audience.

If the shows aren’t about the science (I think the channel should be called the Psychic Fiction channel), then the shows are so new-agey that it’s ridiculous. Frankly, I know more about the stuff than the writers on the show. Most of the psychic stuff is pretty trite. Some of it is recycled Catholic learning–the stuff on demons and possession. Boring and silly.

Also what is with the magical animals on SciFi? I think they’ve covered every animal I have ever read about either in the King Arthur stories or Harry Potter. What do these animals and the magic have to do with science fiction? Where’s the science?

The shows are incredibly predictable. Somewhat predictable is okay, but predictable and ridiculous is not. I can’t watch the shows without criticizing or laughing about how wrong they have it. Now, I often enjoy science fiction movies. They at least have scientists as consultants to get it mostly right. Star Trek tried to get it right. Even if you had to suspend belief or adjust to new laws of physics, the stuff made sense, but then they had scientists on board to help the writers. I think I could write better than the writers for SciFi. Now, I know getting into screenwriting is difficult and while they have the connections or they wouldn’t be selling their screenplays, their writing sucks.

As I mentioned before, there was a group of chemistry grad students who regularly went out to the bars on Thursday nights. Sometimes we went Fridays and Saturdays. Going out on Thursday meant very little work got done on Friday. We were lucky to straggle in by noon in time for lunch. Maybe do a few hours of work in the afternoon before going to the chemistry seminar, which I regularly skipped. It was just too boring to sit there in the dark while some visiting professor droned on about slide after slide of research. Most of these professors were used to the old way of doing things, which means you might get a chalkboard talk. Horrors! PowerpointPowerpoint and similar programs brought an interesting element since animation was possible. At least it was different. Kept the eyes busy.

So we went to the same bar on Thursday nights to drink and listen to music. They had a “band.” The “band” was two guys playing covers–one played piano or guitar, the other played the drums. They weren’t bad, but I can’t really call them a band. So the whole room drinks and sings along to songs they know. I’m sorry to say that I know the woDC’sto AC/DC’s “Big Balls” thanks to these Thursday nights. For some reason, every time we went someone wanted to hear this song. There were other regular songs as well, but this one sticks out in my mind. They played quite a bit of rock and some country. Even a little country was too much for me. Other songs we heard nearly every week: Piano Man, Brown-Eyed Girl and Ring of Fire.

There was this horrible little bar off the beaten path that we would go to because one of the group knew the bartender. This place was a real dive. Cider block walls. One night we were there, two men got into a fight. There was hair everywhere! They started howling and pulling each other’s hair. I don’t even know what it was about.

The best part of going there was the bartender’s own concoction. she made up this drink she called the seven-toed toad. Well it was green (Midori). It had seven different alcohols. She never told us what was in it. It could knock you over though. Tasted great! You couldn’t taste the alcohol at all. But after two (I don’t care how much you weighed), you were very, very drunk. I’ve never drank any mixed drink that has gotten me drunk faster. It knocked the guys a good one too.

Of course, we went there at the end of the night. So that would have been after 6-7 amaretto sours, perhaps a few shots for me, and at least a pitcher of beer for each guy. I never payed much attention to what the other gals drank (there was always a couple others, but they didn’t usually go to the dive bar with the guys). Why did I go? Seems out of place for me. One of the guys was always my ride home. I was stuck going wherever they went.

I have to say that even though all those late nights and hangovers probably increased my time in graduate school, I had a lot of fun.

I met an honest to goodness flibbertigibbet. I’ve always liked this word for it’s oddity and odd sound as it rolls off your tongue. It’s nearly a one-word tongue twister. I’ve never–until last night–met someone for whom it is the perfect description. For the first time in my life, I met someone who I wished would just shut up, stop jumping around and relax. Even better, this flibbertigibbet has no clue! I have to give Mr. O some credit for having an unusual array of friends and acquaintances. However, few are quite like this. We spent just over an hour at her house. Fifteen minutes was probably too much for me. I don’t think she ever stopped talking. I suppose there were a couple of breaths and a few pauses to let one of us speak for a few seconds. And then she was “off to the races” so to speak. She talks that fast too–more like the greyhound chasing after that mechanical rabbit. I got tired just watching her move about. I started to zone out while she was talking. I found myself getting very sleepy. All that chattering is hypnotic…trance inducing.
According to Mr. O, she’s much more tolerable (calmer) after a little cannabis. Since I don’t know what she’s like without it, I had to ask if he thought she had had any that evening. He thought probably some. She needed far more.

The night began with general greetings. She had wanted him to watch an old program she taped off of HBO. I had seen it. One of those “Real Sex” series. this one was the amateur porn festival in Boston. Frankly, the films were crap. Why she wanted him to watch this show? I don’t know. She thought parts were funny and good. There’s no accounting for taste. And everyone thinks they have “good taste” (including me), but few do. One person’s good taste is another’s poor taste. So be it. I watched her jump every time her cell phone went off with the energy of a puppy who greets his owner after a long absence. She even took a phone call for about 20 minutes. We never really got to watch any part of the program without her interrupting with some unrelated rambling. Every thought was preceded with a jerk in movement…and often an “oh, did I tell you?”
Oh, did I mention that she’s from Texas? I have never in my life met a “normal” person from Texas. They have all been seriously weird…strange…bizarre. Add this one to the list of proof. I’m a Midwesterner. We like our people to be steady, predictable, not too quirky. This gal is beyond quirky. Sometimes quirky can be fun and even interesting.

I think I should thank Mr. O for introducing me to such characters who may latter be fodder for novels. I can’t think of a better place for this gal. No one would believe that she’s real! How about that? A caricature in real life!

I came across this website of cartoons about getting a Ph.D. If you want to see the cartoons large enough to really read, please click on them. It brought back memories. Very funny now, but not so funny then. The first is about how after getting through comprehensive exams you’re just dog-tired. For me, I completed the exams by the end of my second year. Classes were through too. then there was teh independent research proposal. Now our rules were that it couldn’t have anything to do with your current research, but still had to be in your major–in my case taht was analytical chemistry. I think I completed that in the third year. I had to get through classes and exams first. I was happy that I passed all the exams I needed to go onto the Ph.D. program, but that made it more real. The “oh shit” factor comes in. Suddenly it’s not play-time anymore. Now that you have more time, your advisor is on your case to complete research. You’re given a couple of years of slack because of commitments to classes, exams and teaching.

So I became an expert at procrastination. I did do research and repeated it many times. Funny how long it takes before you actually get “good” data. All the while, you wish you were somewhere else besides the cold, dark lab. I sat in the dark because of the fluorescence work I did with lasers. Darkness helps make the laser beam easier to see and keeps out extraneous light.

This next cartoon is just so me. I really hate to admit it, but I was exactly like this through undergraduate.

Graduate school causes a few changes. While I didn’t drink in college, but the time I was near the last few years of grad school I became quite the drinker. Gained weight too. That part sucked. Teaching was so stressful that Thursday nights we all went out. I probably delayed graduation even more with my added social life. More on that later…

On to graduate school… I took a great leap, packed up all my stuff and my son’s stuff into a U-haul with my car in tow and drove to my new place. Excited and scared. I still had worries about my grades. In undergraduate, I could worry myself sick and get so nervous before a test that I would forget my name. I didn’t always do my best. Graduate school had the added pressure of requiring a B-average. I truly came into my own in graduate school. I met some great people. Finally, people more like myself…although I was older than they were by a few years. Most of my fellow graduate students were there directly from undergrad. They were young and a bit silly. I hardly had time for silly with the responsibilities that I had.

This is the the campus…not all of it, but most. I think I cut off part of the campus to the north. I didn’t go to football games here either, but I did see a few basketball games. I spent most of grad school years in three buildings. I did research, taught and took classes beginning in the first year. I met the guy who would become my best friend that summer. We didn’t speak to each other then. It wasn’t until we had a couple of classes together that we began to be friends. We were lab partners in one class with another student who later left graduate school to go to pharmacy school.

It’s hard to tell in this photo, but the old union is about in the center. It has old architecture like you might see at Princeton. It has spires and gargoyles. The second brown roofed building from the bottom right is the chemistry building and it’s new addition. The other brown roof belongs to the physics building. We referred to different parts of campus as “white” campus and “red” campus. It’s really clear here because you can see the red brick plaza. The “red” campus begins there and all the buildings are in red brick. “White” campus has all white or cream brick buildings.

We used to have lunch on occasion at the union. I don’t think there was a single day that went by that I didn’t see my best friend. We either had class together, taught at the same time or went to lunch. Sometimes we had all three in a day. We spent so much time together that students and even the professors thought we were an “item.” He thought it was funny. I didn’t. He was married after the first year of graduate school and had been living with his fiancee before then. I suppose I was concerned that rumors might get back to her, but I don’t think they ever did.