Good News, Bad News: Sock Monster

At our house, socks (usually Rob's) sometimes disappear. So we end up with a bunch of single socks, and every once in awhile we give up hope that their partners will ever turn up. We donate most clothes we can't use to Goodwill, but even they probably don't have much use for single socks, so they usually end up in the trash.
Now, if you know me, you probably are familiar with my intense dislike of throwing away potentially useful things, and you may also be familiar with the hoarding problem I have. There are shoeboxes I've had for at least 5 years, some of them full of fabric scraps, lace, buttons, and other "potentially useful" things that I've had since junior high. I don't have any use for them, but someday I might get a sewing machine and start making my own throw pillows. Or something. This might sound ridiculous, but after those rare occasions when I do get rid of things, I often regret it. Deeply. (I'm still mourning the loss of one fantastic pair of black pants, lost in the purge of 2005. And a wonderful, one-of-a-kind sweater that I gave up in 1999. )
So last week, when Rob was going to throw away a bunch of ostensibly useless single socks, I stopped him. Surely those socks could be put to good use! Rob probably suffers most from my pack rat tendencies, so I can't really hold it against him that he snorted and rolled his eyes. But instead of squirreling the socks away in another shoebox, I sat down right there, stuffed some of them into others, tied some knots in them, and ended up with some new dog toys: the sock monsters!
Good News: The dogs love them. This isn't suprising, since Nick has always enjoyed curling up with Rob's dirty socks, and Cricket licks Rob's bare feet whenever she gets the chance.
Bad News: They're definitely less sturdy than some dog toys we've owned. It's been about a week, and there are sock bits all over the house now.
Good News: They're more sturdy than some other dog toys we've owned, and the sock monsters only cost ten minutes of my time.
Bad News: Rob reports that now, Cricket snaps at his socks when he puts them on in the morning.....

Good News, Bad News

Good News: it's Valentine's Day (love, candy).
Bad News: it's Thursday (classes, general malaise).
Good News: Cricket likes her bone.
Bad News: she also likes whatever Nick is chewing on, flip flops, pb & j, steak knives and ibuprofen.
Good News: I'm posting dog pictures.
Bad News: that's because there's nothing else really positive/ interesting/funny enough to report.
Good News: this week is almost over.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

It's been a rough week at school. I feel judgy and stabby and disappointed, and I'm more likely to be gracious and kind to my colleagues here if I have an outlet for snark/frustration. But even here, I'm trying to be balanced and not just see the worst in everything (which you probably realize is my first instinct). So:
Good idea: puppies.
Bad idea: wearing all beige, all the time.
Good idea: coffee breaks.
Bad idea: the philosopher haircut. It's kind of like Fabio's hair in the 80s, but because someone is too busy thinking big thoughts to find a brush or get a haircut, it's scruffier. It may substitute for philosopher's stubble, if said philosopher lacks facial hair, but will not prevent the philosopher in question from thoughtfully stroking his chin as if this were not the case.
Good idea: Turkish idioms (you can't fit two watermelons in one armpit).
Bad idea: interrupting.
Good idea: using precise language.
Bad idea: using academic buzzwords (intertextuality), filler phrases (if you will, as such), and icky words (moist, virile). Minus ten extra points if you use all three in one sentence.
Good idea: being flexible with a syllabus so as to take students interests into account.
Bad idea: being flexible with a syllabus because you are a) lazy, b) disorganized, or c) so you can waste half an hour showing the class YouTube videos irrelevant to the reading I worked so hard to do.
Good idea: putting a new, innovative spin on a standard, frequently taught class.
Bad idea: turning a standard, frequently taught class into a venue for you to reminisce about the good old days/confuse your opinion with fact/bond with students about how much you like the same band.
Good idea: taking a critical look at common attitudes and popular opinion.
Bad idea: failing to take a critical look at your own attitudes and opinions.
Good idea: recognizing that you are here to learn (humility).
Bad idea: believing that you are here to pontificate (arrogance).
Good idea: learning about marginalized groups.
Bad idea: learning about marginalized groups, only to decide that you too are marginalized, then repeatedly beating me over the head with how marginalized you are.
Good idea: rising above.
Bad idea: taking the bait.
Good idea: puppies.

Me & My Dayquil

Me & my Dayquil are best friends. It's like the ads for My Buddy dolls in the late 80s, where the kid takes the doll everywhere with him - to build a secret clubhouse, on a trike ride, climbing trees. Remember those? Only instead of a doll, I have a huge bottle of bright orange cough syrup. And instead of laughing with joy while I riding my trike through a meadow, I'm coughing and hacking while I trudge through the icy cold campus to my office. Ok, actually not very much like the ad at all, except my drugs go everywhere with me.
The good news is that I went to the doctor, and I don't have SARS. I do have an upper respiratory infection (lungs, throat, and sinuses...which makes me wonder what constitutes lower), which they think is viral, so there wasn't much they could do for me except make jokes about what a nice baritone I have. Seriously, I sound like a lounge singer who smokes 5 packs a day (until my voice cracks like a 13-year-old boy's). Not quite how I envisioned the beginning of the semester....

Good News, Bad News: the Triumphant Return

Good News: this (sort of) weekly post is back. Admit it, your life just wasn't as balanced without it.
Bad News: I missed something like 5 weeks. Woops.
Good News: Sarah is doing well (probably also good) in Guatemala.
Bad News: I am not in Guatemala. I'm in MN (significantly colder).
Good News: That's because I've been going to class.
Bad News: By going to class, I exposed myself to lots of new sick people and germs. Now I have a really bad cold. Or SARS.
Good News: I have that daytime medicine, so I can stay awake while I do my homework.
Bad News: I'm still falling asleep every three pages - I don't think anything short of meth could keep me awake through Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.
Good News: I started saving for retirement, in an IRA that I can invest in various things (I'm learning about the things. And that I should have taken a class on econ or something finance-related in college.).
Bad News: The market isn't being very helpful.

Welcome back!

I know it's been ages, and I wish I could claim to have been way too busy to post, but that's not really the case. Since my last post, I got my grades (I'm keeping my fellowship), went to Wyoming for Chirstmas (an intense bonding experience with NWA flight #417), went to Boston (an intense bonding experience with cannoli in Little Italy), read lots of books, started to write one, cooked, ate, drank, relaxed, and generally enjoyed myself while avoiding the frigid cold (-20 makes for pretty days, but only if you're bundled up inside). I spent approximately 15 hours finding a good planner for the year. I learned to make really good pork roast. Also, the other day, Rob and I adopted Cricket, a one-year-old lab mix. She and Nick are getting along well, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that her favorite game is to try to fit Nick's face and her bone in her mouth at the same time.
Meanwhile, the new semester has begun. It's off to a good start, with a better schedule than last semester and classes I think I'll enjoy. But I've only been to a couple of them, and haven't done any homework so far, so things could always change....

Good News, Bad News

Disclaimer: this is not me. This is how I feel, only the pile of books is bigger, and I'm crawling out.
Good news: A very smart, interesting professor accepted our invitation to be the keynote speaker at our conference.
Bad news: So did this other smart, interesting professor. And our faculty advisor hasn't gotten back to us about that problem....
Good news: Finals are over! Tra la, tra la! Or, as Walther von der Vogelweide (an author of Middle High German poetry, and former bane of my existence) would say, tandaradei!
Bad news: I realized I made at least one big mistake on my Middle High German final, right after I turned it in. I might fail, which is to say get a GPA below 3.5, which would cause me to lose my fellowship.
Good news: If I fail, I'll open a bakery/write a novel/get another dog, and all of these projects could benefit from my background in German and/or be named Tandaradei.
Bad news: I sort of lack the start up capital for any of those projects. And I don't know if anyone outside of German studies can pronounce Tandaradei.
Good news: I don't need a root canal!
Bad news: I finally have no excuse to avoid those bills and applications and administrative things and laundry that have not taken care of themselves or disappeared, despite the fact that I have firmly ignored them for the last three weeks.
Lessons learned: dead languages are a pain, my dentist is great, clean clothes can be more important than clean dishes, I'm more organized than many forty-something academics, and there will always be something else to worry about.