IMAGINARY HOUSEMATE: Hello. How was your day?
ME: This is how it was:
“La de da…. what a nice day. A bit busy, but not bad. I don’t really want to go to this translation meeting, but since it’s Thursday I guess I’d better. 1:15… I’ll just walk on over to the SBS building and get set up early. Okay. here I am. Get this computer cranked up, figure out how to make the computer display on the big screen…. all right, it’s 1:30, time for the research assistants to show up…. let’s just check the time here on the ol’ computer… it’s um, 1:32… Wednesday… AAAAAA! It’s not Thursday! It’s WEDNESDAY! Class started 20 minutes ago! AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH! @#$%! $#@#! #$@*!
And that’s how my day was. Bless their poor little hearts, the students were all still there. And now, in the interests of mental escape from my apparently buffoonish life, here are some comics from Toothpaste for Dinner.
and there’s this one…
also this next one…
and this is cute…
who could deny the humorousness of the following?
your mom thinks this is cute…
oh, the joy…
and finally…
I am highly tired, now. Almost zombie tired, but not quite. I stayed up half the night writing a $15,000 grant proposal for sex offender research (In the world of funding, this is considered a “small grant,” or “chump change”). It was last-minute1, but it is closely related to some of my other projects, so the text is probably not embarrassingly bad. I really have no idea how much chance I have of getting funded with this one. I couldn’t find data online about that.
The proposal is to the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. Hogg as in Ima. Yes, her name was Ima Hogg, and she was apparently pretty cool. If you read her Wikipedia entry, I’m sure you’ll agree. I had heard her sister’s name was Ura, but Wikipedia says she didn’t even have a sister.
Who knows if I will get the research funds, but either way, I applied for funds from an institution established by someone named Ima Hogg. Pretty cool.
I think I’ve made one of the mental shifts people talk about in academia: redefining success. Sure, big-time success is getting funding. However, the rejection rates (or maybe just my rejection rates) are high enough that it’s useful2 to consider completion of the proposal as a lesser form of success. It’s approximately as satisfying as soy milk and NutraSweet with Cheerios.
hence the many hours of proposal writing, versus many days or weeks [↩]
What did I do today, you ask? I’ll tell you. I drove ten or twelve hours and took an exam that was kind of stressful. It really was. Now I feel tired and happy to be done, and fairly worried that I may have to do this again in six months.
I studied like mad yesterday (and like, um, frustrated? the day before), went to bed late, and got up this morning at 5. By 6, I was on the road with a full tank of gas and my tires properly inflated. With the glaring omission of healthy food, I packed everything I could possibly have needed. That glaring omission led to waaaaay too much snacking on junky stuff from convenience stores. Way too much. But look at it this way: Michael Phelps, you know how many calories he ate during the Olympics, right? Well, he only traveled, what, a few hundred meters? Me, I ate less than he did (somewhat), and I traveled hundreds of miles. Continue reading →
So tomorrow I get up crazy early, drive to Austin (about 5 1/2 hours), take my oral exam to be a licensed psychologist in Texas, drive back home. Long day. Today I’m trying to make up for weeks of procrastination in studying. My friend Philip (who is on the licensing board) says most people pass. Thanks. This will make me feel much better if I’m one of the few, the proud, the morons who manage to fail.
I really have been mostly dedicated in my studying, though I don’t know how effective. But I stop every so often and browse random websites. And here is some internet stuff:
>:\ Yet another move by a police agencyaway from transparency and accountability.
XD Star torpedoes! Massive, galaxy-sized clusters of stars (whirling, I hope) that rip through space and wreak havoc when they encounter galaxies, etc. So cool! Hubble, you are my homeslice.
:D you know I’m a sucker for a cleverly vandalized sign. Also I like pie.
:/ Five economists who accurately predicted the current crisis (allegedly) have offered their views on the near future. I haven’t read through all the essays, but it seems they do not see a particularly rosy picture.
!!! In the LJ “found objects” community, a Super Lucky User called bo_bailey posted scans of a 1965 book titled (warning: not safe for children.): “The Recently Deflowered Girl.” It is some weird mix between bizarre and hilarious and depressing. It also seems to include some snarky commentary on the sexual culture wars of the 60s, just barely under the surface. Delightful illustrations (these ARE safe for children… more or less), and an approximate PG or PG-13 level of content scariness. A most entertaining read.
Crazy day. Going to Mexico Tomorrow day. At School from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 pm day. Haven’t Even Looked at my Presentation for Thursday (in Mexico) day.
But Election Day! The site to watch (well, one of them at least) is fivethirtyeight.com. One recent comment there summed up my feelings about this day, for reasons the commenter couldn’t possibly have known:
Sadly, I will not be going to church with Alex for… let’s see… about six or seven more weeks. Sigh. To assuage my sadness, please indulge my recounting of three fun things from church today.
A South American man we know told us about how confusing it was, as a child, to spend half his day in a Catholic school and the other half in a school run by communists. I can only imagine.
While the Primary children were on the stand (yes, today was that day), Alex leaned over and whispered, “I am a child of God… and so can you!” Okay, I thought it was funny.
One of the children said, very loudly into the microphone, something about the Holy Goats. Boy does that have implications for my religious worldview ;)
Somehow I horribly mismanaged my schedule today. I hustled Alex out the door, and dropped her off at the airport two freaking hours early (instead of spending those hours together, um, at home). I zoomed to school, ran to the lecture & workshop I was late for, and… nobody was there. It took me the next half hour to figure out that somehow I had put this lecture & workshop in my planner for today, when actually it will be Friday (and that will cause other problems). By the time I realized this, it was too late to go back to the airport and spend time with Alex (except maybe another 20 minutes or so, for an hour of driving). I really want t0 cry. Or vomit.
I decided to make something nummy. I have recipe book. I have ingredients. Let’s go! Somehow, the “cake brownie batter” looks like chocolate milk with flecks of pepper in it or something. I really don’t know what went wrong, except maybe the butter/margarine was too watery & runny? I should use real butter. So, to make the unholy concoction more cake-batter-like, I… well… I did things to it. Things I’m not proud of. It’s in the oven right now. I expect horrible results in 18 to 20 minutes.
In other news, you know how google’s newsfeed pairs hopefully-related photos with the summaries of news stories, sometimes with cute results? Well, here’s my giggle from yesterday. I suspect Alex may enjoy it.
Hey! Is that me, as a missionary in Mexico? No, wait. I wore white shirts.
Teh Kat with his new owner. Both seem very happy. Also, new owner isn’t going to declaw him, so that’s good. I miss the little guy already, but I’m also hugely relieved. Very very relieved. Also the cat was fluffy and cute. Did I mention that?
This might (cross fingers) be my last day with little cat. His name might be Euphrates, because that’s what his new owner is calling him (so far). At some places in the video, you can see (a) the healing wound around his gumline, and (b) the one under his chin where he was (apparently ill-advisedly) sewn up the first time.
It is SO VERY HARD to feel any pity whatsoever for Bill O’Reilly (or his loyal website subscribers). The man practically makes a career of loudly and sanctimoniously blaming others for their misfortunes.
I guess the moral of the story is something like this:
A. IF you’re going to base your identity and lifestyle on delivering vicious weekly public diatribes against those who are
different from you
less fortunate than you, and/or
hold diverging political opinions
B. AND IF the groups against whom you rant happen to contain large numbers of people with mad computer hacking skillz
C. AND IF you’re going to make a website for increased efficiency of delivery of said diatribes
D. AND IF you’re going to charge select visitors $49.95 a month to have special privileges on said website…
E. MAYBE you should invest a few bucks in some basic website security.
Passwords stored in plaintext? Srsly? The hacker(s) should be caught and prosecuted, of course; but, Bill, what were ya thinkin’?
This cat (we can call him NyC for short, but Euphrates, Oogie, and Lippy have also been suggested) had a rough weekend, though he didn’t seem to notice. Last week my regualr vet stitched through the underside of his jaw, up through the floor of his mouth, with stainless steel wire (and anesthesia, to answer Alex’s question). It seemed to work for a few days, as seen in picture, above, which was taken later that evening; note that his face doesn’t look horrible.
By Saturday, I noticed that maybe his face wasn’t healing as well as it should. By that night (no vets open), the skin and fur had peeled down and back, and were hanging from the raw open flesh of his distinctly un-skin-covered lowere jaw like a flip-flop on a beach bum’s foot. Only the sutures seemed to be holding things together, and they were turning black and, um, oogie. Plus, the raw, nasty flesh that had been de-skinned was turning dry and black in some spots. BAD! So I freaked out a lot, worried a lot (I’m discovering that I’m a bit of a worrywart), tried to keep him isolated in the back room (except for mandatory snuggling) to keep him from further irritating his evil wound, and ultimately waited until this morning to do anything, except applying peroxide and antibiotic ointment, which NyC didn’t even seem to notice. On his raw, open wound. ::shudder:: Nerve damage, maybe.
This morning, I went to see Dr. Cerelli, who specializes in animal oral/maxillofacial surgery or something. I heard he was expensive, which was why I didn’t go in the first place (in retrospect, this may have been a been a bad choice). Four Paws is a swanky place. It smells clean and perfumed and new and expensive. They have sparkling consultation rooms with scrubs-clad technicians. They have lots of forms to sign. It feels (I’m sure intentionally) like an MD’s office.
NyC had a great fun time. He was angry from no breakfast, but he explored and meowed and played and came back to snuggle in my lap every few minutes. Normal cat stuff. Dr. Cerelli didn’t seem overly worried about his chances for survival, but he did express wonder and disbelief that my other vets had chosen to suture his mouth the way they did. Cerelli will remove the wire sutures, then cut along the gum line and re-attach the mouth in sort of a u-shape all along the lower jaw, with dissolvable sutures. It will cost much more than the first procedure.
One vet I talked to last week said something I already knew: for the price of making this kitten healthy, I could have several spayed or neutered. The implication (not very subtle) was that it would be more responsible to let this cat go (or having him put down) and then donate the vet money to other causes.
I can’t fault the guy’s logic. It’s logic I use all the time. But now I have a personal relationship with this cat. It’s not that I have to keep him; it’s just that I can’t stand to think of him suffering. Nonrational but very compelling.
This graphic from chartjunk.karmanaut.com puts the McCain vs. Obama tax plans in perspective. Don’t believe me? Use teh google and look it up, yo. It’s legit. This is what it looks like when their words get put into pretty colors.
If the above YouTube link doesn’t work, you can try clicking here to download the 50MB (or so) wmv file. I don’t know why you’d want to, but… OK, 1/3 of this blog’s regular viewing audience would probably want to. She is mildly obsessed with kitties. So I put myself into videos with kitties. Sneaky, eh?
The cat, not the update, is the unexpected part. He’s at the vet now, until tomorrow. He is a he. His face is indeed messed up. The tissue covering his lower jaw was almost completely torn away. One vet guy said it might have been an old wound, while another said it could have just gotten infected very quickly (it’s pus-infested and reeks to high heaven). He is only running a slight fever (as assessed by the usual uncomfortable method), and one vet said this is a fairly common kind of wound. I note he didn’t say it’s easy to fix.
The vet (Dr. Garza, in Edinburg; I’ve visited him before, and he seems to do a fine job) said that they would probably use something like stainless-steel wire to sew the flesh that used to cover his chin back where it should be, anchored in place by wrapping it around his lower fangs. Weird, and Franken-cool. I’m massively relieved that something is being done by someone who knows what to do. I guess he’s my cat for about 2 weeks, while his face attempts to heal (no word on how likely that is). I’m actively seeking another owner. He’s not my cat. I keep repeating that, like a mantra.
September 2006: Dexter. Backyard. Persistent. Adopted.
September 2007: Moses. Weeds at reservoir. Loud and fearless.
September 2008: Unnamed cat from campus. Grotesquely wounded.
He’s in the cat carrier, now. I’m off to the vet in a few minutes. My friend was showing me the cute, sociable kitten on campus, when he decided to do a Superman-type thing and landed face-first on concrete. He tore open his lower lip/face. It stopped bleeding soon, and he’s behaved pretty normally since then. No vets were open last night (except the $150-for-the-consultation-fee emergency service), but one told me on the phone he’d probably be all right. And sure enough he slept pretty much 13 solid hours, then at 7:00 began to destroy my bathroom.
No pictures, because his face looks… kinda horrific. But he is one of the yellow/orange stripey type cats. Maybe 8 to 12 weeks old? Young.
Hm. He’s stopped meowing. That won’t last once we get into the car.
I seriously do not go looking for these beasts, and stuff like this hasn’t happened between the Septembers. Sadly, I will not be keeping this little monster, either, even if (as I hope) he turns out healthy and not very seriously hurt. Two cats is enough.
Down here in the McAllen, TX stake, we just got split (now there’s a McAllen West stake, too). So we got Dallin H. Oaks, and Apostle of the Church, to visit and give a talk (brief one, as it turns out). It was very spiritual and highly enjoyable. Here are my personal highlights:
1. “Many of you suffer significant disadvantages because of your immigrant status. The Leaders of the Church are aware of this, and pray for you…” It was nice to hear the leaders of a church whose members are sometimes-just-a-bit-uncomfortably-conservative acknowledge a very non-Republican sentiment: the fact that illegal immigrants are humans. Elder Oaks went on to quote a story from the Book of Mormon in which an oppressed group of people prayed really hard, but were not (immediately) rescued from their oppression; instead, they were given the strength to bear their burdens. He also talked a little about his forbears and the general legacy of this church as a church largely of immigrants. He reminded people here that others have gone through similar difficulties, but that their children would benefit from their sacrifices.
2. He jokingly noted the visibly cheerful faces of the just-released former Stake Presidency and said that the Gospel was obviously working. Men are that they might have joy, and these guys obviously looked joyful. Heh heh. Is the subtext here, “Church service: Because it feels so good when you stop”?
3. The best part was when he said, “Young men and young women, you are the future of the Church. Don’t be stupid.” :D He then clarified some details of this admonition, like choosing friends wisely, avoiding physically and spiritually dangerous habits, and (interestingly) not getting tattoos.
It was a fun meeting. Sadly, it didn’t result in me going back to the Edinburg chapel, which is a brief walk from my house. Sigh. 15-minute drive, or 35-minute bike ride.
