Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005

I swear, this is such a stupid waste of my money

And to think, I could have bought that First Season DVD set of One Day at a Time. So, I didn't go to class yesterday (for the second time), and somehow, i always seem to know when good ol' Pat is gonna have one of her moments. This time she ripped ont he class for not shutting up on time after break. Instead of comencing to talk and grabbing everyone's attention or just kinda waiting patiently like almost every other prof, she tells the class that she doesn't like having to yell over people. From what I hear it was quite the bitchfest.

To make matters worse, we have a class of 28 stuck in a teeny tiny classroom with an airconditioner that barely lets out any cool breeze. Every day we have to turn that sucker on just so the two people sitting near it can have a decent time. Pat also has her fan going on up there so that she can stay cool. Obviously, people complain about the heat non-stop in that class, but for some reason, I'd never really let it get to me. Like, yeah it was a bit uncomfortable but it was never anything that kept me from learning. So, today we had part one (of two) of our presentations. Our group goes tomorrow. Do you know what good ol' Pat does? Well, because we can't hear over people due to the completely unnecessary whirs of the a/c and fan, the only solution is to turn them off, of course! Heaven forbid actually talking in a higher voice- that's only reserved for Pat during one of her temper tantrums. So yeah, today, I was feeling it. ANd I mean, I was close to death. I swear I started becoming delusional and laughing for no particular reason. My skin felt like it was going to melt off, my brain wanted to leave my body, but we couldn't just stare and daydream about being somewhere a lot cooler (like outside!) because she had these ridiculous student evaluation sheets to fill out for every group. So, of course we have to try to do the best job we could to pay attention so we can write something for everyone. But let me tell you, when Pat shut the door on account of some people (who were probably just going to class, mind you), that was it! I couldn't think anymore. I kept fidgetting and shaking out of sheer madness. You have 28 people crowded in a small room, with no a/c, no fan, where it's well over 95 degrees, AND THE DOOR IS SHUT! I'm pretty sure some law is being broken here.  And if I thought I was having a hard time dealing with this reality, ANnie, who is normally one of the sweetest girls on the planet, kept saying that she was this close to going up to her and trying to restrain her anger as she "politely" asked Pat to open the door again. Don't mess with ANnie, bro's. SHe's a hockey palyer.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, I noted a few things in class today which made me laugh and I couldn't get myself together for a while. Firstly, someone called me on my cell at around 9:20. Now, this probably wouldn't be that funny. It happens all the time. In fact, im pretty sure it's a bastard telemarketing company from Iowa that keeps calling during class time. What's funny about that? Besides, I have my phone set to vibrate so no one ever noticed right?

Here's the scoop. It must have been about the 4rth day of class when Pat's cellphone starts ringing. Again, not a big deal, it happens to everyone. Professors usually just shut it off. But not good ol' Pat, no sir. She picks up the phone and answers it, saying, "Hello it's Pat and I'm in class." She proceeds to have a nice little chat with her niece for the next minute and a half. This moment is not discussed again until last week, when I made Annie remember, and at that point, setting it in the context of what we have all experienced as a class just made the moment all the more hillarious. So, Melanie and I devised a plan that I would go out of class, and call her cell number, so that she would pick up and have another conversation. I mimiced the way it would probably go for Annie: "Hello, it' Pat and I'm class." That alone was enough to make her start cracking up to the point where her back would arch and he face would turn red. However, due to a lot of small details, the plan was scrapped. But when Pat got on another one of her tangeants and started talking in class (right after our break where I'd made annie laugh till she cried, no less) about how obtrusive it is when people's cell phones go off in class, I could not help but smirk and hold back my chuckle. I looked over at annie, and her mouth was being forced shut by every muscle available. She confessed later on that she couldn't even dare to look at Melanie or me for fear of just bursting out loud. THen Pat proceeded to talk about Hush Puppies, the brand of shoes, and again, Annie worked with all her might to keep it all bottled up.

But anyway, you can imagine, how hillarious it was when I saw that my cellphone was vibrating right in the middle of class, and had anyone heard it, since it was all impromptu, i would have answered it, and said, "Hello, this is Fernando and I'm class." But the new plan is to set my phone to ring and then have Araceli or Melanie call me since they always show up late. I'm not sure if I will actually answer it since it seems like it's all planned and the original call today was so spontaneous. Oh well.

So, a second hillarious thing that made me chuckle is the fact that today I realized that our TA, Alexis doesn't even show up to class anymore. Even she realizes that there's no point to it, as she's missed more days than even I have. She was supposed to give a presentation on Monday which got pushed back to Tuesday, and then Wednesday, finally on Monday, she gets a chance to pass out her handouts and gets a whole 3 minutes to talk about all the research and information that she has... before Pat tells her to sit down and begins to talk about how things were back in the good old days. You know, she gets on all these weird tangeants that it's hard for me not to think back to that Simpsons episode where Homer is head of the Union and compare her to Abraham Simpson. Observe:

Abraham: "We can?t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don?t go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah...the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn?t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...."

This totally sounds like something Pat would say, and keep going on about until she distracted herself with another pointless story.  Melanie said, "promise me that in 30 years, when youre a professor you won't be anything like that."
I go, "thirty years? I got one coming right up next semester. 'It's a funny thing class. In Mexico, the locals are cosmopolitans'." Im not sure if i ever covered this but we spent a good amount of time in class going over what the difference between a local and a cosmopolitan are. And in case your perverse mind finds pleasure in knowing absolutely useless bits of trivia from 19dickety3, it's that locals are tied to the system, where cosmopolitans are just there for the benefits. So like, at UW, those people that show their Badger Pride and want to make the University a better place to welcome everyone, why those would be locals. THose interested in just getting in and getting out with a diploma are cosmopolitans. So for the second edition of Melanie's newsletter, I came up with a great quiz. "Are you a local or a cosmopolitan? take our quiz and find out!"

Regardless, tomorrow is the last day, where we get to present our amazing video for everyone (meaning we can set the volume as loud as we want hopefully, without fearing the A/C's wrath. Boy let me tell you, there are gonna be a lot of drunken counselors-in-training at noon tomorrow.

In other news, I was almost on the...news. I was walkig over the little alcove where people wait for the bus and there was this crew from channel 27 setting up for the perfect shot. I was wondering what they were trying to film , until the No 2 bus came and they got to work, making sure every person that was boarding the bus was in the shot. I guess that since today is an Ozone Awareness date and it's encouraged that everyone take the bus to get to where they're going (busses are free on these kinds of days) they wanted to get a story out of it. Yeah, news here is THAT slow. Today, busses were free!! Anyway, since I take the 60 (which was right behind the 2), Im not sure if I got in the shot. Oh well, some things man was never meant to know. Like what the hell this stupid Consultation class was supposed to teach me besides the fact that playing with Muppets is actually a lot harder than it looks.

All right, as I am suffering from sever heat exhaustion, I'm gonna bounce and hope that I wake up tomorrow. Take care.

Saturday, August 6th, 2005

WEEEEEEE

Hello, there, everyone. This week actually was filled with a bunch of stuff going down around town, which prevented me from getting to my beloved website. First, I bet you're all dying to know how my last day of Consultation went. Despite being trapped, yet again, in a furnace, the end came sooner than expected. The day began with a treat for everyone - BAGELS. I rarely indulge in the pleasure of Bagel-eating, mostly because the cost of bagels plus the cream cheese would be a bit pricey to enjoy on a daily basis, and even if it weren't, I'm not sure that it would be very healthy. So, what the hey, I decided to have one before class and then I took another one to eat during class. However, seeing as how I'm a novice in this art, I hadn't realized that one alone would be enough to put my stomach at ease for the next three hours.  Then, our group presented, and I must say that everyone was quite thrilled with the Kermit D. Frog School Therapist.  At first I was dead opposed against the idea of having sock puppets, but i guess I was wrong. Oh well.  We heard nothing but praise from everyone during and afterwards and they all said I did a mean Kermit to boot! Yeah boy. Then, we had to sit through the mundanity of two other presentations, which were good, but once youve seen 5 role plays, you've seen them all.

It's required that the instructor and TA hand out evaluation sheets, which we can then anonymously fill out.  Melanie took out her sharpie and wrote a lot of things in big black letters for Pat to look through.  THe whole class was pretty annoying I mean, it's annoying that we have to take aclass in consulting. Moreover, it's annoying that they bring in Pat to teach it every summer  since she's technically been retired for the last 5 years. And what takes the cake is that Deb, a lady in our cohort who used to be a lawyer and actually CONSULT for a living, was pretty much forced to take it. THe alternative involved writing a long paper and having it scrutinized by her advior, who is a bit of a hard-ass.  THat was money well spent.

Then, Melanie came over and I taught her how to play worms. She seemed to get into it  lot more the second time around, and we stayed up until like 2 in the morning kicking worm tail. It reminded me of those days back at Wabash, when I would play whith my schoolyard chums, romping through the hills... er flat grassy fields.  So, an awesome time was had by both of us the eve that she was to leave for California for a family get together. I think her grandmother is getting remarried or something like that. THe next day , she made it a point to call me from the Minneapolis airport during her stopover.  I think it's unfair that she had to spend her time stuck in an airport when she was in the happiest, most fun city on the planet, but I guess there's nothing you can do about that. The funny thing was that if I had left for Minneapolis at the exact time that she had left for the Madison airport, we would have arrived relatively at the same time.

On Thursday, I also had the time of my life when I went Canoeing with Betsy! Yeah boy, it kept getting pushed back and back until I finally get what I wanted. Never having gone conoeing before, I didn't know what to expect, and overall, I think I would qualify it as an enjoyable experience.  Of course, this comes from having gon with someone who knew what she was doing. Apparently there's a special way you have to paddle in order to turn the boat when the waves and wind are pushing it off. I'd want to do it again, most definitely. I'll have to convince Melanie to go with me, even though I have no idea how to spin the boat properly. Hey, if we fall, that'll make it all the more intersting, right? Right? Well, at least I gave my guns a nice work out. Oomph.

Then Betsy and I went to this really nice Italian restaurant to have a quick bite to eat. It was intersting talking to her as she is actually from Madison. I've met a few people who have lived in Madson for a while or who are from Wisconsin, but very few are actually from the city, so with Betsy, I had to watch what I said about her hometown. I don't think she would have responded as cherrfully to my Anti-Madison remarks as Melanie does.

Yesterday, Friday, I spent the day just chillin inside my pad as I furiously tried to finish off the last packet of vignettes I have to rate for that phD student's dissertation. I'm happy to report that I have those squared away. all i have to do now is insert them on a word document and go over the first 10 again to make sure I haven't changed my scale. I'm pretty good at being consistent, I found out. When I rate something a  6, it stays a 6. It's been the case that only a couple of them undergo a grade change, but even then, the margin is within one point, so it's not that big a deal.  Maybe now, I can actually get paid! Geeze.

I also did a bit of cleaning yesterday, as I am heading out to Chicago for a week starting this coming Monday evening. I've already started to get in touch with Bex and Chuthor to see when we can chill, so all signs point to a fun filled week of not worrying about anything at all! Well, I plan to work on a lot of stuff while at home, too, I guess, but that's no big deal. After all, it's ather enjoyable to continue slaving over PhD applications, wondering where I'll end up next. I'm a nomad. A romer. As James Bond once said in a very thick Russian accent, "I go where the work takes me." What else? Well, besides playing worms intermitantly yesterday and today, I've also been reading stuff for fun. I plan on unveiling my short critiques of the 55 out of 100 greatest novels of the 20th century according to Radcliffe College soon. I'm still working on a few reviews. Maybe I should get back to those. All right, hopefully I'll write tomorrow, but failing that, have a great week, everyone.

Off to enjoy life.

Monday, August 15th, 2005

Needing a break during Vacation

I just got back from Chicago last night and, actually look forward to the 1- 2 weeks I have left of break. Nothing much happened while I visited my parents. I pretty much just spent the first two nights doing nothing and then on Thursday I hung out with the BeckMister. It was rather humorous in that he didn't know what to do, and neither did I, so when we were talking over AIM, our conversation was pretty much "What do you want to do," "I don't know, what do you want to do" and so forth. All the while I was reading an article that Funk sent me written by Bill Simmons who usually writes really funny stuff during the NBA season. THis one was yet another one of his lists, only that since he had just finished seeing ANchorman for the umpteenth time, he decided to write down the top 35 quotes from the movie and write about how they applied to the NBA.  THis reminded me of the time I saw the movie with Tone the Bone. I thought it was pretty funny, but reading the article made me want to see it again. I asked becker if he had chanced to see the film, to which he responded in the negative. So, we went off to Blockbuster, where he works and we got a free rental. DO you know that he gets 5 free rentals a week? That's nuts! Anyway, we went to baker's square afterwards and I got me a Fajita Pita filled with all sorts of goodness. I keep forgetting just how expensive it is to eat out, though.  Or maybe it's not so expensive, but I'm just really, really poor. Either way, it was a good meal. But I digress, we went back to Becker's place to watch the movie (a sidenote: I was surprised that he hadn't seen it yet, but he said he was a huge fan of will Ferrel's but just never got aroun to seeing it) and he really liked it. A good time was had by all.

The next day I went to chill with chua, who spends the majority of his free time sleeping now on account of his warehouse working. I coaxed him into coming to Yorktown with me just for old time's sake. We got a quick meal at arby's and just walked around for the rest of the time. When we went to Barnes and Noble, I found this really awesome book called the Action Hero's Handbook or something like that and it told you how to do a variety of things from securing a room, to telling if someone was really dead, from conducting an interrogation to turning a heated moment into a passionate sexual episode. THen it got a little wackier informing you how to catch a Shark and how to avoid a MiG (yes, you have to be in an aircraft for this one).  And the reason I didnt buy it despite the low price was 1) How to do the Vulcan nerve pinch and 2) How to do the Jedi Mind trick. Maybe it wasn't so quality after all. Regardless, Chua got it for Jovanovich (friend from high school). 

You know, it hadn't rained for like a good three weeks or so and the one day when I wanted to wax the friggin car, it poured. So I pushed it back to another day, and again, it poured. Finally, I got the chance to work on the car on Sunday Morning, when it was a bit gloomy, but thankfully, no rain dropped. As you can imagine, my right arm hurt like the dickens, even a good 16 hours after the fact - hell it still hurts now. But thankfully that's over and done with. I would have stayed home longer, but unfortunately I wanted to get something involving my car's electrical wiring done, and nobody my parents knew could do it. As this is a rather sensitive issue, I don't want to entrust it to just any old stranger, so I just decided to take it to the dealer, which I never do since they charge so  damn much . but at least I'll rest easier. It's not too major of a problem, I'm just sick of hearing my Service Vehicle Soon light every time I start the car.  My options were to take it there in the city or to do it up here. As people are real jerkwads in Chicago, I decided to just do it here - besides, I'd end up paying less in tax.

Oh yeah... and I finally - FINALLY got a damn hair cut. That mane had been growing for a good three months and I simply couldn't do a thing with my hair. Hopefully I won't wait till i go home to do this again. Other than that, that's about it. I've been somewhat productive in the few hours I've been awake today. I scheduled my car appointment for tomorrow and a doctor's appointment for Wednesday (coincidentally at the same time!). I want to see if there's anything the doc can do for me and my insomnia, cuz I really won't be able to survive on the pattern I have going on right now. Now, I have to go buy some milk and an inflation needle. Ive been meaning to pump my basketball, but I didn't know how, so while I was at Target last week I found a basketball pump, so I bought it, but I'm thinking someone swiped the Inflation needle, and as I didn't know what all one needed for the job, I went and purchased it unawares. Many thanks to Bex for letting me know what I needed and how to proceed.

Can you believe this? 6 weeks and I still don't know my damned grade in that Research Class. bah. I called the secretary and she said she would give the graduate school a ring and then let me know what she found out... i think it'll be a while before she gets back to me.  And on that note, I must be off to work on some 'fun' stuff (ie- not related to UW-Madison) like work on my phd apps or something. Later.

Tuesday, August 16th, 2005

It boggles my mind how some people can be utterly, truly retarded.

I was way too tired to scribble down my thoughts today as it has been a pretty long Wednesday, but luckily, Yahoo provided me the appropriate sources to wake me up and do a spit take. Check out this response to Cindy Sheehan's Peace Vigil in Crawford Texas (she wants to meet with Bush to ask what her son died for)

FreeRepublic.com, which holds rallies to support troops and to counter anti-war demonstrations, planned to hold a pro-Bush rally Wednesday night at the same time and same Washington, D.C., park as a candlelight vigil there.

"For us the organizers of the vigil are phony-baloney, betraying the sacrifices that those, men and women make in Iraq, by demanding that we pull our troops out now and leave Iraq to go to hell," said Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the group's Washington, D.C., chapter. "This is a publicity stunt."

A Publicity stunt? What?

Yes, I'm sure that this is he preamble to get folks to check out Cindy Sheehan's new comedy series, "Vigil-antes" premiering on the WB this fall!

I know, I usually try not to comment on this kinda stuff anymore, but sometimes you read something and it makes you say that magical phrase out loud: "Give me a break!" (editted for language). And you know, you have to pen it down.

So an an anti-anti-war organization, which works to counter peace demonstrations is calling Cindy Sheehan's peace vigil 'phoney baloney.' Of course, staging 'pro-bush' gatherings- that's very legitimate. I mean, if the president didn't know that people were behind him and supporting him through this war, why he might do something completely incompetent like pull our troops out of there! Good thing there are people still around that aren't afraid to tell President Bush what they really think - that everything is just super. Hmm... what's this? more articles on iraq? 'No constitution past the deadline', 'another car bomb claims over 30 lives,' man, if only people stopped protesting, and hating our troops with as much passion as I have against that bastard Chris Andersen, none of this would bad stuff would be happening. Oh yea, and Ms. Taylor... I think we've done a terrific job in taking Iraq to hell on our own, regardless of how long we stay anymore.

I got it! I'll make my own organization. And it will be an anti-anti-anti-war program and we'll target orgs that seek to stage phoney baloney pro-Bush rallies and... eh screw it, this is pretty ridiculous on its own without my commentary.

On to my day.

8:00 a.m. - woke up, checked my email. And my grade for Research has finally - FINALLY- been posted. I got a B. Yeah, it was just as anti-climactic as that.

10:00 a.m. - took the bus to someplace other than Campus for the very first time! I took my car in yesterday to get her fixed, and at first, the repair guys were thrown for a loop when they recieved like 8 different codes from the machine and they thought they were gonna have to take apart the alarm and all sorts of crap. I really thought it was gonna take 600 bucks to get this thing taken care of. Fortunately, the problem was much simpler. The lightbulb we had replaed in the headlights was of the wrong kind at it was causing all sorts of disaster. So, Yesterday, when I dropped my car off, Melanie was in town and she picked me up from there and let me hang out with her until 4:00, then she drove me home, because my car was still at the shop. I meant to go yesterday, as soon as I got the phone call but i was too tired so I waited to go this morning. ANd this place is pretty far from here, so I was stunned when I learned that the bus that drops me off from Campus is the same one that passes by the dealership! How crazy is that!?

So, having gotten Betsy back, I came back to my apt. for a nice sandwhich, which was delicious. Ive been eating them with tomato slices that my father grew himself in our back yard. Outrageous. THen I had to hop back in my car at

12:00 pm - Drove down south to my Dr.'s apt. I've seen the guy once. This time I went in because I needed some  help with my sleep. He prescribed something for me, but recommended that I not fight the feeling of sleeplessness, but instead work on something kind of mundane until i felt the urge to turn in. I'm not sure if that's gonna do it, but whatever.

I had an hour to myself so I played some Worms. Then at

2:00 p.m.- I hopped back on the Bus and went to Campus to hang out with Elizabeth (not to be confused with 'Betsy' the car). She gave me a nice tour of the Madison downtown area, as I don't really have much reason for going any further east of Campus.

I didn't get back until 6:20 -ish. I played some more worms and relaxed at the idea of not having to leave my place for anything (with the possible exception of food)for a whole week.

Dear lord, and speaking of incoherrent nonesense, can anyone translate this to English for me:

It's the era of Diddy."

So proclaimed the hip-hop impresario formerly known as Sean Combs, Puffy, Puff Daddy and now P. Diddy on Tuesday's Today Show, as he explained that he was changing his name once again.

The rap mogul last switched it up--from Puff Daddy to P. Diddy--in 2001, while seeking a "fresh start" after being acquitted on gun charges.

As for what brought about the latest change in moniker, the entertainer admitted that his previous name change left his fans uncertain of how to address him.

"I felt like the 'P' was getting between me and my fans and now we're closer," Diddy said.

"During concerts, half the crowd is saying 'P. Diddy'--half the crowd is chanting 'Diddy'--now everybody can just chant 'Diddy.' "

He confessed that his unwieldy name was even starting to befuddle him.

"I even started to get confused myself--and when I'd called someone on the telephone it took me a long time to explain who I was. Too long," Diddy told the New York Post.

"One word. Five letters. Period," he added.

Of course, just talking about his new name isn't enough for the scene-making mogul, who's planning to throw his latest title a coming-out party of sorts when he hosts the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 28.

"To be honest, the unveiling of Diddy, you gonna see that at the [Video Music Awards]," he told MTV News. "You gonna see that in the entrance. You gonna see that swagger. You gonna see how I'm gonna navigate you through the journey. I'm gonna play my position, my role. The artists are gonna play their role. We're gonna have an incredible, incredible party."

My head's gonna melt, so i better take it a bit easier. Take care, fools!

Sunday, August 21st, 2005

We're sorry. Nandose Can't be reached right now...

I tell ya, these last few days is just what I've needed since the end of April. I've been inside my apartment, without a care in the world. I can't even do any of the work I could be doing (cept my Thesis, but i got a while to worry about that). I'm speaking of my PhD applications, which are on the backburner for now. I mean, there's really nothing I could do for them since I haven't started at my jobs yet and don't know who my supervisor is gonna be.  I suppose I could email my prac site and find out. I think tomorrow I'll hop on the bus and drop off my transcript request forms. It's been a while since I've seen the sun.

Although, most of that isn't really my doing, as there was a huge tornado that hit this part of Wisconosin a few nights ago, leaving much devestation to the not so far SouthEast of Madison. Crazy. let me tell ya.

These days, I just sta up really late watching whatever is on local television, and since Madison has no money to run any reruns of the Golden Girls or any of those classic sitcoms, the best we can manage is infomercials- as I have explained in the past- although, they're on pretty much throughout the day on one station or another. But 2:00 am, that's when they start to shine. Having a loptop near my television has also really paid off. I was watching one of those scam infomercials on how to become rich RICH beyond your wildest dreams- here, these people did it, and so can YOU- and I started wondering what the deal was behind the dude running the whole thing. But, I didn't really care all that much, so I let that one go. However, at 2:30, I found a real gem. It was this mock interview segment with Kenvin Trudeau - a guy who's hocking his book on Health. Natural Cures that "they" don't want you to know about. He comes on the show and has this really scary, conspiracy theory message on how the pharmaceutical companies put out all these medicines that don't cure anything, and that there are natural things out there that can cure virtually anything, but he's been censored from revealing them because the FTC in conjunction with the pharmaceutical companies are dead set on keeping people sick.

I've never been a huge fan of Conspiracy Theories, particularly because they eventually succumb to the same problem that they decry- an airtight, convinient explanation for the truth. So this got me a little bit curious. Let's see if I can point out all the ridiculous things that angry loaners who are still up at 2:30 in the morning were subjected to and probably bought.

Firstly, Kevin Trudeau claimed that if you called within the next ten minutes you could get a great deal on his book -$29.95!, which normally costs 39.95. A little search on Amazon revealed that the regular price, is in fact, 29.95.

Secondly, you'd think he would know that since no one would ever bother printing anything of his so he had to make his own publishing company to get it out there.

I read the reviews for his book on Amazon before passing any further judgement, and lo-and behold, the other shoe dropped. Apparently, people who bought it (for amazon's cheaper $17.00 price tag) were FURIOUS that they shelled out their money because the book does absolutely nothing to let people know about any natural cures. Apparently it repeats itself on the little information it does provide (which hillariously enough, is stuff that everyone already commonly knows) and he states that he can't reveal all the REAL secrets because the government will come after him, but that for 400 bucks, you can gain access to his web site to find out all the stuff that they don't want you to know.

A little investigation into his past revealed that he has quite a past. He's been accused of selling ridiculous products (like videotapes that will help you to cure cancer -or something equally moronic) and (here's the kicker) was even incarcerated for taking his customer's credit card numbers and buying stuff with them.

I got sick after I read all of this. The man has a friggin book out and he's a parasite! Meanwhile, all the great stories yet to be told that will never see the light of day must remain suffocated underground because Mary Hypochondriac and Steve "If someone says the government is bad, i have to agree with them" smith deem Mr. Trudeau's words worthy of being placed on a dead tree and purchased. Bah. The show's "host" was this braindead lady with a British accent who was either really well paid to act like an ignorant fool, or... well, an ignorant fool. "I don't ever want to let you leave, because you know so much" she said.

My favorite part though, were the genuine 'callers' to the show, particularly the last one, who came from this elderly woman, who you could tell really did not want to be a part f this.

Kevin: "What did you think of the book?"
Gasbag: "Oh... it was good."
"Yeah?"
"Yes...yes."
"Are you glad you bought it?"
"Oh yes, it's been real helpful."
"So what would you tell someone who wanted to know if the should buy the book?"
"Oh, I would tell them that ... that it's a good book to buy if they wanted (pause, almost as if she's trying to remember what she's supposed to say, or trying to relocate her place on the script) to have be healthy with natural cures."

And after she hangs up, the British chick goes, "oh, those calls are probably what make it all worth it- so touching and heartwarming."

But anyway, that's what I do at night... cept on the weekends when I watch West Wing and ER reruns.

Yesterday, I spent the entire night cleaning up my email account. It took me over four hours to get everything squared away. You see, yahoo's account is so vast, that I never delete any mail that comes in anymore. Usually I just say "oh, I'll jst look at that a little later" and I never do. So, it had been building and building up since December. Luckily, I managed to find a place for all of the 1,234 messages I had since December, most of which ended up in the trash (sorry, people from my cohort who love to send out random hellos to the entire class). However, before I threw everything away, I thought I would share with you a few of the responses I recieved to my site. I can't tell if they're fake or not, but they each make me smile for different reasons.

First up, we have a note from THE legitimate businessman.

Monday, August 24rth, 2005

Last Day of Vacay

Man this last week of sittin on my butt just flew away. And I guess I kinda did enjoy it to some degree. Not too much, though since it ended up being really short. I suppose it's more than most people got. Oh wait, they still have another week. Bastards.

Anyway, Sunday night, I watched ER again, and it sucks that it's on so friggin late on Sat and Sun because once school starts, I won't be able to watch it anymore. I've grown fond of that show. And the interesting thing is that theyre currently showing the episodes that 'true' ER fans find uninteresting - you know, once almost every original cast member left. I think that not being connected to any baggage like that has helped me to appreciate the show for what it is (or at least was since these episodes are about 2 or 3 years old) and not disparage it for what it's not.  There's no Eriq La Salle, no George Clooney, not even Juliana Margulies, but it's still pretty good. I would say that I'd start watching the new episodes this coming season, but most of the characters have changed in the last two or three years, so the show probably isn't as good with them gone.

Here now, I give you Things I've learned from watching a couple of 'ER' episodes

Thursday, August, 25th, 2005

nando's TA Orientation Day 1

You know, the Spanish Department must have sent us our schedules detailing the activities being held for TA's in general and for Spanish specific TA stuff going on these next few days at least 3 times.  And they listed the wrong start time for today's All-TA Conference.  It listed the activities to commence at 10 and run till 6. I show up at 10 till 10 and the ladies at the front table are panicking telling us that someone gave us the wrong start time and that we're already half an hour late.  Dudes, chill. It's not the end of the world if we stumble in a few minutes late.  ALso, the conference only ran till 3... not 6, which gave me enough time to sit in on 2 different workshops.

The first one dealt with learning to instruct a class for non-majors in a foreign language. As soon as I saw that on the itinerary, i knew that that would be a good one for me to attend.  I won't bore you with the details I learned, but it was pretty useful.  I just hope I remember it all.  Then, we had lunch and this chick starts talking to me. My immediate reaction was to flee, but I was captivated by her words. Mostly because they were funny little spurts that I half understood. "HOla, Fernando blah blah bla il Espagnol. blah blah?"

"Uh... what?" As it turns out, Maria was a Spanish TA who was asking me if I also was in the Spanish Department as a TA (oh i forgot to mention we all had nametags with our area of TA-ing).  Anyway, it was pretty funny that I could understand her broken English a lot better than her authentic spanish. She is originally from Argentina and has only been in the US for a few years to study Econ.  So, yeah, I never knew that they spoke Spanish so amazingly different down there. I mean, it's not just faster, it's like a whole new dialect. At one point she asked me if I didn't know spanish that well because she kept going on and on and I would squint and wonder "why is she speaking to me in Portuguese?" She refers to normal spanish as "neutral spanish" which i guess is kinda like how most people refer to the midwestern accent - the neutral accent (i learned that in my Multicultural dialects class I took with Dr. Campbell my freshman year!).  She's teaching spanish 102 or 201 or whatever comes after 101, and I kinda feel bad for those students who probably barely know the basic of spanish that they learned from some TA and now theyre gonna be thrown for a loop by Maria who is gonna drop the Argentinian stuff on them without even knowing how completely different it sounds.

Then I attended another workshop that went over how to prepare for the first day (and subsequent days) of teaching a foreign language. It was kinda scary because the TA (these workshops were all conducted by TA's) just closed the door and started speaking gibberish, which I later identified as Russian thanks to Funk who taught me that "atlichna" is Russian for good or great or something. She instructed us introduce ourselves in Russian, by which i mean that her instructions were in Russian and that we had to do it in russian as well, after she went over and over the phrase zda...zdra something. I forget.  It speaks to how much you can accomplish in communication by simply acting like a circus clown to get people to see what you actually mean.  It's gonna be a long first week in Spanish class.

So, there you have it. That's my first day in a nutshell. I also realized that even though I've become a huge clown with my fellow cohort members, that I still hate large groups. When we had to get some lunch, there were so many people out in the coutyard, that I just couldn't hang around and mingle. Despite all my progress in being comfortable around others, large groups still play a number on me. The only thing on my mind was 'get out now!' Meh.

Tomorrow I have a whole day with Spanish-TA program related activities. Odds are 10 to 1 that I am going to have to mingle with everyone. Ugh.

Later.

Fridy, August, 26th, 2005

The many moods of Nando: TA Orientation Day 2

Embarrassed: I had to wake up at 7:30 to make sure I was able to get up to catch the 8:30 bus for campus. It would drop me there at around 9, which would give me a good hour to just relax and read some stuff or do some writing. As soon as I got to the library, I looked over my schedule for the day, 'just cuz' and was shocked to read that my orientation started at 9:00! I raced over to the Spanish Department and got there by 9:20, in the middle of introductions. Man, This past year has really done a number on my great memory. I used to be so skilled at remembering requirements, and now, I don't even remember how many classes i need to take to graduate properly!  It wasn't too big a deal though because by 11:00, we had to introduce ourselves yet again. 

Overwhelmed: We got so much information before noon today that I felt like i could explode. I'm so glad I'm not just starting out here at UW as a TA like the majority of the students there. I don't think I could handle the influx of information... especially since I felt likeI could explode knowing what I already do. Since I was a Fellow last year, I don't have to worry about refilling paperwork for this next year for my insurance, which is really helpful. I hated doing that last year.  And I kinda already know how stuff works and where stuff is around campus. But on top of that, we got all our Teaching Supplies- 7 friggin books. They didn't even tell us that we should bring a huge bag today. Lord those things were heavy. BUt it wasn't the books that got to me. It was the instruction- so many rules on what to do.  I felt that there was no way I could come up with a lesson plan for 50 minutes for five days a week!  What the hell am I doing???

Hungry: At this point we were let go, which peeved me off since I thought this thing was going to be catered, like the ALl-TA event yesterday. Why are spanish departments always so focussed on squeezing the life out of you? I went to the Counseling Psychology Lounge about 10 minutes away and just sat on a couch and relaxed as I ate a Granola Bar I found in my backpack. Side note: I got the keyes to the building so now I can party down at the tall Van Hise building any time I want! Woo WOOO. cept sundays. The TA office is located ominously enough, in room 911.

Amused: Afterwards, I had to go back to the Languages Building and learn how to speak French and Japanese, which was pretty fun, since I wasn't going to be graded on it.  I think languages like Spanish, Italian, etc are really much easier to learn than the rest, at least when it comes to pronunciation, just because when you see a letter you say it, and when you hear a letter, you write it down. Possible miscalculations can arise between a b and a v. and an S and a C. Anyway, I got to chat with this one girl, who seems pretty cool, cept for the fact that I could not for the love of me remember her name.  It's okay. I don't think she remembered mine either.

Stressed: After it was all over, I realized one thing: there's no way I could conduct a lesson plan of the caliber we got today EVERY SINGLE time. I mean, they want us to use transperancies, and worksheets and allthis other stuff that I have to prepare ahead of time. How the heck am I going to have time to do that when I have to catch my last bus to come home by 9:15? And that's after a class or conducting therapy. And then there are THOSE responsibilities.  I mean... I can't even plan on knowing WHAT to plan.  I started shaking immediately.

Calm: God sent me a message today. When I got home, I started looking though al the materials in my backpack, furiously trying to figure out how to do what and when and why and so forth, and the television was turned on to 60 Minutes II, which I never EVER watch. But whatever. Their first story: How stress kills immune cells. That's why people get sicker when they are under a lot of pressure or why people seem to age so quickly if they have a lot of stress in their lives. It was really quite fascinating seeing how they combined the psychology of stress with the biology of cell retardation.  They used the analogy of a shoelace and how the ends are protected with this plastic... but if the plastic is worn down (by stress) the cell unravels and falls apart.  Then I thought back to Kuldhir, my supervisor when I was still barely practicing to be a therapist last semester in the Spring. He was always so calm and philosphical about everything. He's been a huge influence in my life, suffice it to say, so I thought about how he would probably handle it. He'd probably be grateful that he had gotten an assistantship. But definitely not gotten all flustered about it. So, I am back to just going with the flow.  THe spanish department doesnt care about their 101 students... why else would they have law students teaching them? So, they will forgive me if I refuse to go out of my way to juggle apples while counting to 30, and asking asking studens to name all the colors in the rainbow.  I will be happy if they are able to learn the three pages assigned the night before.  It sucks that I can't let them early though, cuz then they'll start getting ued to it. And I also can't speak any english. (though I've decided to speak to them in english only when I need to give them instructions).  It's gonna be  looooong50 minutes. I'd gladly appreciate any of your ideas for teaching spanish to new students that involve chalk, a blackboard, and maybe some sheets of paper.

I just really hope I don't get fired 2 weeks into this trainwreck. 

Monday, August 29th, 2005

"All together now": Orientation Day 3

When Day 2 ended we were told that we would be placed into small groups composed of TAs from different languages and we would give them a lesson and we would all teach each other how to speak our respective languages. When I got home, I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the handout as I raced out to catch the bus. But did I panic? Why, most certianly not, (see previous entry). All weekend I kept putting off my contingency lesson on hold. I mean, was there anything in particular that I had to teach my group? How long did this have to be? I had no clue. I finally decided to just go in cold turkey and see what I could pull out of my hat, of course this was supposed to go on after I took some spanish exam. Or so I was told. See, the Spanish Department doesn't discriminate in the schedule they gave us for orientation week. Some activities are for new Spanish Department students, some are for new TA's (which may or may not be new Spanish Department students), or for old TA's and new Spanish Department students or for everyone. So, yeah, I found out I didn't have to take that stupid thing, and it makes me wonder why anyone would have to take an exam in Spanish Proficiency since they were already admitted into the program. Whatever, I left and pondered what I was going to do for my section of time which could be 30 minutes of 5 or who knows?

I chilled. I walked into the classroom at 10 and let the first person go up there. He was french.  He gave us a few words, all loosely connected, we repeated. His lesson was ten minutes. No frills, just pretty clear and straight forward. But he had pictures with a flap that told you what the words were. Bah! I had no pictures. I looked through my book really quickly to see if I could find a chapter I could use without any pictures. I could draw on the board, but that would be too time consuming if I had to draw and erase every thing. I wanted to do animals, but that would have been impossible. I next thought of articles of clothing. While the next presenter went up and displayed her pictures of buildings (like banks, stadiums, etc) I tried to come up with a good list  of clothes, but much to my dismay, the trouble came when I tried drawing the pieces - kinda like filling in a doll as we progressed. If i had that much trouble using a pen, God only knew how messed up my figure would look if I drew it with chalk. ANd then I found my inspiration - the FACE! er.. the head. Or something. I would probably cover more than the facial features, so I couldn't say face, but I wasn't going to cover the body... the italian girl was done and we clapped for her. When everyone went around giving feedback, I had another brilliant idea... TWO of them! I would use the Spiral Method to get people to learn my stuff, which so far had not been done. Quickly, the Spiral Method is when you review old material before introducing new stuff, and then review all that you have introduced before presenting new material again, and so forth and so on. Brilliant! Oh and then I had the marvelous notion of using the sheet with everyone's name on it so that I could call on people individually. Thus far, all anyone had done was either elicited a choral response or pointed to people.

I looked around and saw that there were two other people yet to go besides me...a nd one of them had actual props. I needed to go then and there, lest my lesson look horribly simplistic in comparison.  I got up there and said something about how i would be talking about the body,  specifically the head. I went through the eyes, the nose, the mouth, hair, the ears, and included the neck as a bonus. And you know what? I think people actually learned stuff, dag nabbit. The spiral method is amazing!  However, in my nervous state, I had to end the lesson after 8 minutes, otherwise, I would go into hands, feet, legs, and so forth. The feedback I got was really good. They liked how I called on people by name and liked that I reviewed stuff. However, one thing that they said, which was really helpful, was that I should repeat stuff three times before eliciting a response from the class, and particularly an individual.  I guess I was just rarin' to use my name list that I forgot to repeat each word three times. BUT, they did like how whenever someone had a problem saying a word, that I would go back to asking the whole class to repeat it. I sat down with a huge smile on my face.

Truth is that I was the least prepared, and even though I'm sure that much was evident, I really doubt any one could have suspected that I had made up the lesson plan just 5 minutes before I went.  Rock on, Nando. Rock on. And boy, was I right about my timing. THe next girl taught us russian and she had yogurt, juice, and tea and she gave half of us a bag with items in it, and the other half of us had to go around to these "cafes" and ask them if they had any of the aforementioned items. Man, that was a pretty good presentation. I would have surely died had I gone after her.

Finally there was a japanese TA who taught us how to say what country we were from. Even though the lesson itself wasn't that great (mostly because she was very shy and soft-spoken), she put a heck of a lot of time into it because she made these sheets as a tally to go around the room and mark where people said they were from.

I survived.  But I was hungry, So I decided to cancel the rest of the day's events and come home for a nice, warm meal. And if there was any doubt that the semester is about to commence in full forcethis friday, one only needs to head down to campus, those empty, calm streets are now filled with the stench of undergrads.  Ugh. And I have to teach 24 of them how to speak Spanish.  I get to wear a suit and be a real dick the first week of class though. THey stress that a lot -that no matter how strict or carefree you are, always - ALWAYS be a hell of a lot stricter the first few weeks because it's always easier to loosen up than to tighten down, and from the way they present these spanish students, you would think that Freud wrote the manual for teaching them.  They will try to manipulate me constantly, from what I hear, so its up to me to treat them like children.

You know, I'm feeling pretty good about things at this second. Mostly because the huge undertaking i have this semester - that of submitting my phD applications, is looking more and more feesible.  Dr. Castro said she would mail me my letters on tuesday ( i really hope she labled them). The one snag is that Dr. Q, whom I had do my other set, somehow thought that when I said back in June that I would give him the materials to do over the summer so that I could collect them before the new semester began, that I was really saying "here, keep these until the semester starts and THEN work on them". whatever. At least I still won't have to worry about them because he is now instructed to mail them in directly.  So, really, all i have to do is work on all 13 institutions' application materials, modify the statement of purpose I already made up per school, and get a third person to submit letters of rec. I really think I'll be done with my part of the process by September 30th. That's my hope anyway. Then I can start the IRB process to get approval for conducting my thesis so i can start that in january, since it usually takes about 6 weeks to hear back.

All right, i better get going. 

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

"You may be sexually harrassed on the job." Orientation Day 4

We went over the minor details of the job. Grading, assignings, and handling interpersonal problems that arise in class.  I got scolded for missing the second interlanguage activity in the morning. This was because my allergies were really bad last night and I had to take medication, which left me extremely groggy in the morning. Regardless, we covered a lot of topics in the afternoon session. Why do I always come out of these things feeling so stressed? I don't wanna talk about it anymore.

Later.