in light of my pending move (although not sure where that will be just yet), i found a highly amusing Mcsweeney's post. the link is here http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/27AlisonRosen.html

or, for the click-challenged, here is, in all their glory, ¨pick up lines to use while moving¨

"Nice shoes. Wanna put them in that box over there?"

"Is that a mirror in your pocket? Because the movers are going to be here soon, so we should put it in bubble wrap."

"Your father must have been a thief, because I can't find the duct tape."

"The word of the day is 'tarp.' What do you say we go back to my place and spread the word?"

"Mind if I put my junk in your box?"

"If this bed's a-rockin' ... maybe it's not worth taking to the new place?"

i think this guy is my new hero. out of the 34 possibles, i have had only about 10. but, every winter is like a test track. on a side note, i have started a summer beard. never done it before, so not sure if it will last (we are at 2weeks now). will keep you updated.

http://www.dyers.org/blog/beards/beard-types/

jim and timmay you will definitely enjoy this page.

oh jaim (like the mix of jim and jam?), there are many stories explaining why i should not have children. i think put together they also explain why one should never let me even hold a child. that said, if the baby were to stay in a crib and not need to be moved or anything for feeding or cleaning (this is getting less and less likely the more caveats i write), then i am definitely the babysitter of your dreams.

as far as holding children, i have avoided it for most of my life. not that i dislike children, but that i feel that if something is ever going to go horribly wrong, it will be while the child is in my care. fear is the mindkiller (weak dune reference there). i think i have pretty much convinced myself that even holding a child is bad news. what if i drop it? not likely, but what is likely is that the child might start to squirm or move around- what then? do you squeeze? that seems like a very bad idea give how small they are (not that i am competing in any strongman competitions. this year.) i mean, what if the kid kind of, you know, slips out? then you are stuck grasping at (straws) limbs. say you snag the leg, then the upper body flops down and the head jerks- all sorts of bad images conjured up on that one. or if you grab the arm you might break it (although i hear tell baby limbs are might springy, like a sapling).

to be honest, i am not sure how people hold children. it seems like a dangerous game (great short story) or a tender situation (killer ween lick). i think to avoid the stress, i best stay out of it.

that said, i have not decided where i will be this fall. i know i will be coming back to va this summer for a minimum of a few weeks. i would love to get back into kayaking, canoeing, hiking, camping, fishing, etc. va tech would not be a bad choice, but i have to say that scotland is without question my first choice. i think i am done with mexico, but i am not sure i am ready to go back to the states yet.

with that in mind i have a phone interview with a school in panama city. panama, not florida. then maybe one next week with colombia.

timmay, if you still get on this blog, when are you gettin hitched? will it be in steelcountry? hope so. if you can't marry a coal miner's daughter the very least you can do is score a pittsburgian.

germany versus turkey at 145 today. should be a killer game. of course tomorrow's will be better, russia (who stunned holland) versus spain (who finally beat the damn italians after 88 years of trying), but i have a stupid meeting i probably should not skip. i am rooting for turkey today because germany beat portugal who was my favorite of the groups. i am assuming that eurocup 2008 is big in the usa? maybe not a good assumption.

vive la turquie!

i received an e-mail this morning from va tech.
here it is:

Hi Will,
I'm so sorry for the delay.  Dr. Fuhrman returned your file to me this
morning and has marked it "admit".  Congratulations!  I will send word
to the graduate school so that they can send  you official notification.


Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks!
Crystal

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Crystal Harrell, Graduate Coordinator
Virginia Tech
Science and Technology Studies
122 Lane Hall, Mail Code 0247
Blacksburg, VA  24061
(540) 231-7615/(540) 231-7013 (fax)

no news about grad schools.

but, i think i have made a decision. i was planning on applying to school here where i currently work. there are lots of advantages: free school, get paid while going to school, i know a few of the profs. however, i think i have decided that the negatives are too great: the school is very new and at least two of their teachers just graduated from the same program; they have no international connections (no one outside of mexico is really aware that the program exists); the program is in disarray after almost being dismantled a year ago.

of course the main reason i am thinking of nixing the whole plan is that i am no longer happy where i work. i bitch about it all the time so i wont waste space here doing so, but i am ready to just say fuck it and move on. right now i am looking at some places in south america, but at this point i am open for just about anything. hopefully i will be accepted into one of the programs i applied to, but if not, i will simply wait another year and apply to more schools in the fall.

this is rather a difficult decision for me. one of my best friends here is going to be teaching in the phd program, and he and i were both excited about working together. but, the more i think about it, i dont like all the incest: you cannot simply graduate a bunch of students from a phd program and then give them jobs in the same school. the point, as far as i know, is to get outsiders, fresh blood, into the program. otherwise, you are propagating a system of education that is stagnant because though the students will naturally have tendencies somewhat different than their teachers, their perspective is limited because the program studied and the program to be taught is the same.

at least, this is what i am telling myself. nevertheless, i am nearly positive that universities in the usa do not hire from their phd programs, and this is why there is often great diversity and new ideas. there are probably negatives as well, but today i am seeing the positives.

in general, i feel like i am done with the school where i currently teach. my new boss is absolutely horrible and the new head of the high school is so bad that directors of programs in the high school (humanities, language, etc) are applying for part time teaching jobs in the university and other schools just to get away from her.

sinking ship. and i will be damned if i am the captain.

started french class today. je ne comprends pas. no entiendo. pero ninguno de los otros tampoco entonces todo bien, ¿no?

right.

my class is full of high school and university kids. actually, 4 of the 10 were once my students in english class. i was a little embarrassed at first because i was going to be in class with former students. if you have not been a teacher, i think you can still imagine how this feels. although you realize that you do not know everything (indeed you know next to nothing in the large scheme of things), they do not know this. students see you and their estimation, at first, goes down. good or bad, this is how it is much of the time.

i must say that taking a foreign language with a base of another language is interesting. i am learning french, but with spanish speakers. the two languages are similar, not in any way the same, but it is interesting to hear explanations about the french in spanish. kind of like two classes at once. i highly recommend the experience if any of you have the chance. learning a third language (or fourth or fifth or sixth) through a language that is not your own is interesting. i am not sure if i am explaining this phenomenon very well, but there it is.

on another note, i am trying to catch up on books i somehow never read. last saturday i read ¨the picture of dorian gray¨ by oscar wilde. how did i never read that? it is an unbelievable book (although after the first 70 pages or so it drags for another 30) with all sorts of famous phrases and witticisms. i highly recommend it.

my next project is tolstoy's ¨war and peace¨. again, how did i never read this book? i started it yesterday and have only read 150 pages or so, of the 1500 in the version i have, but it is unbelievable. brilliant writing (the translation by ann dunnigan is superb), great characters, excellent description. i love dostoevsky, and have read five or six of his books, but somehow i overlooked this one. i read anna karenina about 7 years when i first arrived in california and had no job but lived in the house a former relative. i went to the library (internet for jobs) every day during those two months in vallejo, and read numerous books including the aforementioned and ¨the brothers karamazov¨ which i also read again this spring when my sister sent me the book in a package. russian authors are amazing. too bad i do not read russian (and probably never will).

my next project is ¨les miserables¨. again, how have i never read it or even seen the play? my education is wanting. either way, it will be at least 2 weeks, maybe 3 before i finish war and peace, so i have time to find a good english translation. and no smartasses, my french will not be good enough by then to read it is french.

i, like most people, have always been adept at complaining. bitching. whatever name you want to give it. technology has not made bitching any easier, but it has made broadened the audience, which allows a single person to complain to thousands of people without having to spend hours on the phone, in someone else's office, or in other parts of the country.

that said, i emailed vtech again this morning explaining that i had a received an email about financial documents that sounded strange as i had heard no decision regarding my application. well, sure enough, the lady emailed me back within 15 minutes and gave me the news.

i have not been accepted to vtech. of course, i have not been denied admission either. it seems the head of the dept went out of town two weeks ago. and is not expected back for two or three more. right. which would mean that since i applied in april, i would be waiting until the end of june or possibly july to find out. sweet. consider this: i sent an application to scotland yesterday. i am guessing they will be able to give a yes or no before the month is out.

fucked? i think so. the system where you go on vacation for a month without deciding on the status of an application seems more than a little ridiculous. especially if you are the main person deciding whether to accept the candidate or not. if you accept late applications, then accept them and decide on them (i doubt the decision process takes more than a day). if not, then tell people before they throw down 150 bucks getting their scores, transcripts, et al sent in to you.

the secretary claims to be ¨tracking him down¨ in order to find out what the director's thoughts were before he left on his 6 week siesta.

what. the. fuck.

or maybe i am overreacting.

happy happy. joy joy.

graduation was last week. i was invited by two programs to attend their graduation party, but as they were the same night, i could only go to one. i chose the smaller group, the international baccalaureate group, and it was probably smart.

first they send out these formal invitations to us. the hotel where the party will take place is in the swankiest part of the city (far from where i live obviously), called el camino real. no reference to the sweet 70's and 80's car/trucks.

i arrive around 20 minutes late and was more than a little surprised. the male students wore suits, not a shock, but the girls were wearing prom dresses. one of them had what looked to be a wedding dress. no joke. i hung out with them, spoke spanish to them (which freaked them out as they had never heard me speak their language before) and met their parents.

yes, parents. this graduation party was paid for by the parents, and attended by parents and other family members. along with the salsa band, this was more of a wedding than a grad party. the teachers had to share two tables (this was actually great as i was not wanting to talk to parents all night), but after i sat down, a professor arrived who i cannot stand. truly dislike her and everything about her. she sat next to me, ignoring the six other open seats. sweet. i spent the next hour and half trying to concentrate on the best food i have eaten in at least 6 months (4 or 5 star hotel and restaurant, so 6 months is really not true at all), while doing all in my power to make some bullshit conversation with this prof. not fun. the band was pretty loud, so not only did i have to speak, but had to pretty much yell. boo.

finally, she left. this was around 1230am. that is when the party truly began. there were bottles of wine, tequila and rum on every table (everything was free, for me at least), but the very few students were drinking. why not? well, they are mostly 18, which is the minimum age here, but they were still accompanied by parents, siblings, at times grandparents. i ended up dancing with a few profs before some of the female students grabbed me and wanted to dance. as you probably know i am a bad dancer, but at the very least it was amusing (i am talking about people forming circles on the dance floor and random students grabbing profs and pulling them to the center to dance with them). i had a great time, but was sweating profusely. reminded me in some ways of oaxaca (except that i was a wearing a jacket, there was air conditioning, and the place was super formal, along with all the attendees).

i wont bore you with the details of the whole night except that i line danced. no joke. guess the song- achy brakey heart. translated into spanish. worse, i was joined by about 45 people, all of whom new all of the steps (admittedly it was basic line dancing, although how i know what more complex line dancing looks like i will never tell). i was the only one uncoordinated to do it correctly (or it seemed like i was anyway). hilarious.

around 4am, when i found a prof with a car to give me a ride home, most of the profs had left, but 3/4 of the students, and their families were still there. no joke. the parents stayed all night. i can not imagine this ever happening in the states. can you?



still no word on tech. jackasses. i am questioning whether i would even go there if i get in now. i applied to scotland, which has a much better school. also, the program at the school where i work now opened. i also was offered a full time job teaching university (which is more prestige, but also a few thousand more dollars a year) and i could be a full time student and still make money. this is definitely tempting. however, i think if scotland offers me a place, and i can get the student loans, i am definitely going there. so many more opportunities over there. also, there is something about going to tech again that seems wrong. not sure how to put my finger on it, but it almost feels like going back. i have never lived in a place again after i left it. of course there are many great things about tech, but today at least, something is telling me it might not be a good idea for me to go back there.

as usual, any comments are appreciated. let me know what you think about it all.