wow. i feel like i need to sleep for a week. but, as my next trip leaves in five days (just got home last night around 1am), that won't be happening.

suffice it say, the trip was phenomenal. i will be posting pics on here shortly, but feel free to email me if you want to me send you a link to a larger set.

hope the summer is treating you all well and will try to write more on here soon.

however, for fun, here is a list of uses for men (now that scientists can "grow" synthetic sperm, we males still are good for a few things. 101 things perhaps).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article6669807.ece

these last few months have been flippin awesome, so it is sad that i have not written. i am contemplating getting internet at my house, so that may allow me to write more on here. or search for pointless information and watch old episodes of "mask" (a rockin cartoon from the 80's). by the way, if you have never seen these remakes of the gi joe public service announcements, good lord, check them out now. the consensus so far is that boys find them much funnier than girls, but i recommend them to both.

http://www.fenslerfilm.com/PSAS.htm

on other notes, i scored a job for the summer going on tours of europe. my first trip is about 12 days, and we hit london, paris, florence and rome. the second is about 21 days and covers a bunch of cities in france, switzerland, germany, austria and the czech republic. i am the "program director" in charge of academic stuff (there are 60 students on my first trip and 30 on the second). as i have never been to europe, i am incredibly stoked to have someone else pay my way and pay me on top of it. the work will be hard with long hours, but damn, i'll be in europe. rock and roll.

i also had two papers accepted to conferences for this fall, so after a full year in grad school without presenting a thing, i have two before the end of the year. pretty groovy.

also, i finally got funding! yay, no more paying for grad school. happy happy joy joy.

well, i am sure there will be tons of pics from europe (i think they are giving us two cameras to take with us for photos), so i will post them when i get back from each trip.

hope the rest of you are having a rockin summer.

this from a syllabus of a course i might take this fall:

AVOID NORMATIVE TALK; This is NOT a class where you are asked for your personal opinion, feelings or beliefs. It does not value confessional or normative discourse but analytical understanding and argumentation. For affirmation go to church or a political rally or tune into your favorite television pundit. There is no place for such discourse or political/religious/nationalist
dogma in a university graduate level social science course.

i love it

while looking for an itinerary template this morning (i realized my own attempt is woefully inadequate), i came across this template. that there is a template for this on the microsoft website was a bit odd. that over 22,000 people had looked for it, found it suited their needs, then downloaded it also seemed somewhat strange. way to go gates.

here is an overview of some of my current job duties. not exactly as advertised, but amusing nonetheless.

• Schedule international flights
• Negotiate with hotels and apartment complexes for short-stay housing (tons o fun)
• Campus tour guide
• Driver (pick up, shuttle)
• Liaison for foreign professors, visitors
• Make introductions (to people I have never met nor know anything about)
• Direct the conversation when necessary (especially when local representative is hostile to foreign ideas)
• Create, schedule, execute itineraries with department heads, local corporate executives
• Take blame for being late, unprepared when trouble arises
• Participate in meetings well above my pay grade (program directors, department heads) and contribute in (vaguely) meaningful way
• Help visitors decompress after 5 hours of meetings (see campus tour guide, walking through campus)
• Help foreign students prepare US tax returns
• Seek internships for summer positions for foreign students (only later to learn that this is not allowed through scholarship program and a week of phone calls, emails and job searching could have been avoided if only I had been informed of this)
• “Cold call” potential partners for future partnerships (multicultural projects with our exchange students, internship possibilities, setting up meetings between foreign visitors and local executives and academics bigwigs who often have no idea why they should actually meet each other)
• Navigate US State Dept. website (a task in itself), e-mail questions that never get answered
• Co-author a journal article in field only tangentially related to my own
• Research for said journal article
• Read numerous journal papers in related fields to prepare for writing an article I would be thoroughly unprepared to write (although I enjoy reading, the 600-800 pages a week for my ma program is more than enough that I do not relish the idea of reading another 100 or so a week in a field that, actually, proposes to measure learning (quantitatively and qualitatively) in a way that I specifically decry in my own philosophy papers)
• Write a conference proposal for above journal article (10 days notice before deadline)
• Listen to streaming, vague, disconnected ideas about upper management’s goals for current programs and then create coherent questions other than, “so what do you want me to do?”
• Find new, inoffensive ways to ask: “what am I supposed to do with this information?” or “so, could you repeat that in the form of a task or coherent sentence through which I can plan a course of action?”
• Help exchange students write résumés
• Help exchange students write cover letters
• Help students get notarized copies of all their documents
• Coordinate Visa information for teachers visiting university in one month with US State Dept (zero fun, in case you had any doubts)
• Learn to accept “attitude” from public servants whom I will never meet and, justifiably so, have little patience with someone learning the process

Endure occasional mocking when one of the above is not executed in manner desired by upper management

skip this post if you prefer not to read about gore and violence.

the glc. graduate life center. this is a building on campus that has conference rooms, a larger venue for big meetings, a coffee shop, a theater and stage, a tv room and adjacent study room, and then on the upper floors grad student dorm rooms. i study at this place sometimes 4 or 5 times a week. over breaks, when most students leave, the building is locked (access is gained only if you are a current grad student -key card access), but i always go there because it is quite and there are couches and comfortable places to read.

then a fellow grad student decapitated another grad student at the glc less than two days ago. with a kitchen knife.

i am not sure what to say about it. i did not know either person but the building itself is very familiar and i can easily visualize the exact location although imagining someone using a kitchen knife to cut off someone's head is horrifying.

according to an affidavit filed with police, the killer was easily identified- smeared with blood, he was holding her severed head by the hair when the police arrived. i mean, what the fuck? seriously?

i am not recounting these events to make anyone sick.

i have not gone back to the glc since (i skipped a student government meeting there last night).

i was not here on april 16th, 2007. almost everyone i know here has some link to that day however. for me, it was never quite real because i only read about it from another country. these two events are rather distinct and in no way am i tying them together. instead, i am shocked that this kind of thing would happen on a campus where i go to school. in a building where i spend a lot of time. at no time have i ever felt threatened living in blacksburg, whether from undergrad days or now. i still do not. yet, there is something chilling about this situation. not sure what to make of it.

stinky socks. sweat-stained sauna boards. foot fungus. rental lockers. mirrors on every wall. gang showers. ah the gym.

i must say that the gang showers is odd but makes sense as far as room goes. i wonder if the women's locker room is the same? i imagine so.

here is a question: what is the sanitary situation in a gym sauna? i think back to millberry and all the funky people not sitting on towels, laying down on the benches and showing way too much flesh for my liking. then i look at the tech gym and see the same thing - not enough towel coverage (if any), dilapidated and super-saturated wood, too much flesh. yet i still go in and still sit there for 15 minutes avoiding eye contact, fearful that simply turning my head or shifting my glance will afford an eyeful of undesirables. but of course my first day in the sauna i had a strange experience.

i had been in, alone, for about two minutes, slowly pouring water on the rocks to heat it up when the door flies open and a naked old dude literally jumps into the sauna and brushes against me as he enters (although i am not sure what a good floor plan might entail, having the heating system next to the door seems unwise). as surprised as me, he plops down (totally towel-less) and i go back to pouring water on the rocks. i sit down (towel still wrapped around my waist) and glance over to my neighbor a few feet away. he smiles and i turn back to stare at the wall in front of me.

and that is when the questions begin. am i a student? what do i study? not sure what compels me in these situations, but i started making up lies. undergraduate student in human nutrition foods and exercise i reply. 34 years of age. i took some time off from school to raise my two children while my ex-wife worked. we lived in colorado. never taking my eyes off the wall, i spout pure bullshit for about 5 minutes until the guy finally runs out of questions. he has asked me if i know x professor or y class and i tell him no, i am new. weird.

one thing i noticed when karla was in town is that you never really learn about your own country until you try taking a foreigner around. why is the white house called that? why does everyone drive new cars? how old is the highway system (i had a fairly good answer to that - built for military reasons, extensively expanded after wwii when the country was concerned with transporting troops and weapons across the country)? how many people live in dc? why was the mall in dc built? why are there so many traffic circles in dc? why doesn't the smithsonian run all of the museums on the mall? how much money do we spend on the space program? why do we have so many rockets? did i see that person on the roof of the white house with a rifle? why is the us modeled after italian and danish architecture and not spanish like the rest of the colonies on the this continent?

good citizen that i am, i made up a bunch of lies for half of the stuff. some of it looked up on the internet on my phone.

having the map and gps function on my phone is unbelievable. we never got really lost no matter where we were in dc or new york and were able to make our way to any landmark, restaurant, apartment with barely any mistakes. we located the closest metro stops and figured out the direction to go in in a matter of seconds. phenomenal. and it looks better than sitting there with a huge map unfolded in front of you and flapping in the arctic breeze of the northeast.

i am continuing to learn just how surly i am. while shopping with karla i made the startling discovery that people are always asking for area codes, phone numbers and zip codes when you make purchases. typical situation;

them: ok, sir, that will be 10 dollars. what is your zip code?
me: no
them: oh sorry, we just need your zip code.
me (still having a conversation in spanish with karla): you dont need my zip code.
them (awkward silence while looking at me): so....
me: what is your zip code?
them: what?
me: do i need to sign the receipt? no? thanks.

what kind of crap is that? you dont need my zip code. of course the first time i just asked why they wanted it. they told me. i then told them they did not need it. strange the look on people's faces when you deviate slightly from the "normal" order of things. it makes me think of why "abnormal" and "crazy" people receive such titles. they do not follow the social norms. of course those norms are not laws (always) but tacit agreements.

on that note, i was in a bowling tournament last night. it was lawyers, judges, cops and court employees mixed together in teams of four (i was an employee of jackson, jackson and jackson law associates for the evening- ok, so there is only one jackson, but i think adding the other two jacksons makes it sound more prestigious). anyway, it was lots of fun. each team of four had to reach 440 combined in the first game to move on to the second round. about 20 teams began; twenty minutes later only four teams remained. yes, we suck. i reached scored 111, one more than the minimum needed by each contestant to gain 440- i know you all needed that quick math- but none of my teammates did. we got a 416. busted. the cops, mainly state troopers, were cracking me up. crew cuts. they loved my long hair and beard - behind while i was bowling i often heard words like "artist" bandied about, but when i scored a strike or spare, they were all quite nice and congratulatory. true, i was the only guy there with long hair, but after they realized i was not a potential perp, we all got along swimmingly.

classes start next week. i am taking 15 graduate credits and a 3 credit french class. i have 3 grad classes on one day, tuesday, starting at 1230 and ending at 9pm with about 2 hours of breaks in between. that which does not kill me

well well well. peaches. i never would have guessed, simply because i never thought you might do something like that. definitely a shock. after all these years it was papa bear all along. and the peach for a christmas ornament certainly was fitting. good stuff dad.