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I just realized that I received an omen an hour or so ago. At least, it would have been interpreted as an omen or a sign or possibly even a what-have-you a few thousand years ago. And, considering the world is still around and no worse for the wear after a few thousand years of omen-interpreting, I figure, why not me too?

The biggest challenge is going to be figuring out what it’s an omen for. I wasn’t exactly looking for one. It landed on my shoes. Literally.

Story:
I was walking to my office in the Landscape Architecture building from a meeting with the guy I’m replacing in the Graduate College, a nice human named Jonathan Compton. I was almost to LA when I saw something flopping in the grass next to the sidewalk. It looked like an injured bird or something, so I stopped walking to take a closer look. It turned out not to be an injured bird, but two small birds fighting. Both were flapping their wings angrily, but neither could gain an advantage over the other, as each had the other’s foot in its beak. They were so engaged in their fight that they flopped onto the sidewalk and eventually onto my shoes. I stood there watching them for a good thirty seconds before one finally broke free and took off flying, with the other in close pursuit.

So… what the hell does that mean? Were the gods trying to tell me something about my mental struggle deciding between teaching and working this next year? Does it instead suggest a resolution, a stalemate broken? Was I simply witnessing the harsh reality of Darwinism in action? I don’t know, but it’s going to keep me up tonight.

Okay, I lied about that last part.

—–

I have turned in my last assignment of this year. The next week will be devoted to getting my students’ assignments graded and their final grades submitted. But not tonight, my little chipmunks, not tonight. I’ll be spending this evening at a potluck dinner party at Dr. Sauer’s place with a dozen of my best friends. It should be a good time.

To that end, I’m going to go make vegetarian stuffed mushrooms. Wish me lots and lots of luck. Not only have I never made this recipe before, but I’m actually combining three recipes into one. Worse still, I’ve never made a single stuffed mushroom before in my entire life. Worst of all, I’ve never had one, either. I have no idea if I’ll even like my creation. :)

I don’t have a lot of time to write tonight, so I’ll try to be brief. Rather, I’ve been writing pretty much continuously for the last three days… just not here. However, a lot’s gone down in Robbyville, so I thought I might take a moment or two to catch everyone up.

I spent last weekend in Mankato, Minnesota with a few of my peers (namely Quinn, Anya, Lavinia, Matt, Karen, Geoff, and Barb) at the Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing conference. I attended a couple of interesting presentations, and hopefully even gave one myself. That is, I ~know~ I gave a 15-20 minute presentation entitled “Facilitating Conversations: Interface Design and Electronic Discourse,” and I ~hope~ it was interesting. I thought it was, but I wasn’t the one having to listen to me. Mostly I tune myself out whenever I start talking.

—–
Intermission (random bits):

Sam just asked me for some white-out. I told him I didn’t have any, but I did have a black permanent marker. I meant it seriously, and didn’t catch on to my own joke until he responded with “actually, that’s the exact opposite of what I need. But thanks.” Eliminating text is eliminating text, no?

Earlier I spent two frustrating minutes trying to find the word “survey” in a book’s index. After two minutes, I realized it was probably silly to look for “survey” under “P”. Course, it wasn’t under “S” either.

I’ve decided tonight that I need to write a fast-paced violin piece entitled either “Vio-lence” or “Violinse”. And then I can write a slower piece called “Violins is Not the Answer”.

Now, back to the show.
—–

I had a job interview this last Monday in the Graduate College (which is the college that oversees all the graduates and degrees in the various departments) for an assistantship. The cool part of the job is I’d spend my time designing and updating documents, working on the website, and so on. The less cool part of the job is I wouldn’t be teaching anymore. I realized a few weeks ago that I honestly, legitimately enjoy teaching. It was an epiphany of sorts for me. Sure, grading isn’t the coolest way to spend a weekend, but I truly like the classroom part of the teaching gig. I look forward to it. I’ve never really had a job I’ve looked forward to before (no offense or anything, Dwight).

And so now I’m contemplating leaving that job. In fact, I’m more than contemplating it. My interviewer suggested on Monday that the job was mine for the taking, barring the unexpected. I sent her an email requesting the position tonight, and tomorrow I plan to decline my teaching assistantships for this summer and next year. Perhaps it’s a stupid move to give up something I know I like to try something I think I might like, but stupid or no, I think I’ve made my decision.

The decision was based in large part on another decision I made earlier this year. Following my Master’s degree, I plan to work for a couple of years before deciding whether to pursue a Ph.D. I’ll be 24 years old when I get my M.A., and I will have never held what I would consider to be a “real” job. I’ve noticed that I have a lot of respect for the people in my program which have worked for a few years in the field before deciding to get higher degrees. Better yet, they’ve focus and determination I lack. I’ve been here six years now. I’m getting tired. I think I need a few years in the real world to help me prioritize and determine what’s right for me.

How does this new assistantship figure in? Excellent question. It will give me a year of experience doing many of the things an employer in the real world would ask me to do. It will make me employable somewhere other than a university. And, if I decide after a year or so in the real world that I really miss teaching, but don’t feel like going for a Ph.D. just yet, I can always teach as a lecturer or adjunct, seeing as how I’ll have a degree and a year of experience teaching.

To make a very long story much shorter, I’m giving up what I know I love (short term loss) to see what else about my discipline I love (long term gain). Of course, there are other things I’ll miss. The camaraderie amongst TAs, for example. I’m going to have to walk across campus just to see any of my friends (or they to see me), and if this last year is any indication, we rarely have the time to make such trips. In the end, I’m hoping this decision will teach me something valuable about myself, one way or another.

According to my archives, tonight is the one year anniversary of the first night I ever had to sleep alone following the Breakup of Aught-Four. I’d forgotten what a newsworthy month last April was (relationships and ceilings collapsing, riots in the streets, something about a new hat)… if you have as well, I encourage you to check out that month’s archives. Fascinating reading, that. And I’m again annoyed to discover (as always) that I was funnier ~then~ than I am ~now~. It never matters when the then was or the now is (though the latter is far less (or more?) variable)… I’m invariably funnier in the past tense.

It’s amazing how many things I’ve been able to forget over the last year. I’d entirely forgotten what a Knidian Lesche was, for example. And I rarely have Monty Python stuck in my head these days (although admittedly, just a couple days ago, I thought to myself “No one is to stone anyone… until I blow this whistle!”). More interestingly, I’d forgotten that in April of 2004 I was still writing as though Megan and I had a shred of hope of staying together after what our relationship had endured. Hindsight being what it is, I can see now that our relationship had about as much chance of surviving as Frosty surviving a cruise down the river Styx. And I maintain that position today, after a year filled mainly with lonely nights and mornings and ~much~ more than my fair share of regret.

It’s been a year of transitions and learning new things. Megan and I spent too much time trying to breathe life into our dead relationship (this also qualifies as the understatement of the year), but finally broke things off entirely around June. In August, I left my friends in the Sociology department to start grad school. Grad school taught me the true meaning of the word homework (wherein home = work). Teaching first-year composition taught me my own best and worst traits.

It’s also been a year of emotional highs and lows. I’m proud of myself for being who I am today, of being able to relinquish my grip on the past enough to move on with my life. That isn’t to say it has been easy. I’ve spent more than one night in tears, wishing for what I cannot have, though the frequency of such nights has dropped with time. I’ve messed up more than one potential relationship through a nasty combination of a lack of experience, a fear of success, and a memory that kicks in at the most inopportune moments. I still can’t sleep on the other side of the bed.

Reading through my archives for last April, I was also quite surprised to realize I’ve never once explained the story behind my breakup with Megan. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me too much, considering I couldn’t even relay the particulars to my best friend until several months after the fact. Regardless, tonight isn’t the night for such stories. I’ve a 20 page paper to work on, a PowerPoint to create, and a class to plan for. It’s looking like I won’t be getting much sleep on this April 12th, either.

Happy one year antiversary, all. Thanks for sticking with me. :)

I apologize for the long dry spell, folks, but I ought to warn you I don’t see it abating anytime soon. Remember how I mentioned having so much to do that I couldn’t really fit it all into a mental framework? Well, framework or no, all that stuff is about to collapse on my head.

For example, I’ll be giving my first conference presentation this Saturday (I’ll be leaving for the conference early Friday) in Mankato, Minnesota. You’d think I would be prepared this late in the game, yeah? Well, you’d think wrong! Ha! I was still gathering sources and clarifying my idea this afternoon (rough claim: supposedly mundane interface choices have a strong effect on the sort of conversation a website facilitates). I plan to spend the rest of the evening reading through my sources, developing an outline of my presentation, and perhaps starting to put the paper together. I’ll spend all Wednesday, after teaching, working on the paper and putting together the PowerPoint. Then I’ll spend Thursday running my draft past a couple people in class, whimpering, drinking Maalox straight from the bottle, and revising. Well, all except that Maalox part. I don’t even exactly know what it does. :)

Then, after my presentation, I’ve got to start focusing on both of the 20 page papers due April 28ish, cause, you know, twelve days isn’t a whole lot of time to generate 40 good (publishable, in theory) pages on two separate topics. While grading 50 documented essays.

Suddenly, I remember what this time of the semester was like last December. Yup, this feels about right. Good to know I’m on track. :)