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Everybody:
I hate my job
I really do
It’s a stinky job
And I say P.U.!
It’s 1:50 AM. I’m not as tired as last year, but it is waaaay past my bedtime. I hope my honey is snuggly in bed with at least one of the cats. Sigh. Wish I was there, too.
I sing this every morning before going in to work:
I hate my job,
I really do,
It’s a stinky job,
I hate my job.
Not exactly catchy, and I think I need to work on the chorus, but it gets my feeling across.
Today I accidentally sang it while I was in my office. And my office-mate was there. Sigh. I’ll be singing it a lot tomorrow — there’s a proposal due, and I’m likely to be in the office for at least 24 hours. Straight.
This is the 1000th post on My Silly Life. I tried to think of something clever to do to celebrate, but couldn’t come up with anything better than just listing some of my favorites from the last 999 posts. Here they are:
Enjoy! Posting will be light/non-existent here for a couple of weeks while I go on vacation. Play nice while I’m out.
I posted last week that a paper in Duluth, MN wanted to publish a picture of mine, but I wasn’t sure if they had published it. Well, yesterday I recieved an envelop containing a copy of the Duluth News Tribune from March 8, and my picture was there! Yay.
Here’s a scan of the article, written by Robin Washington, with my picture:
I suppose I shouldn’t write a post eluding to “bad news at work” without expanding on it a little bit. This has to do with the Joys of Contracting post I made a couple weeks ago. I think I mentioned that in the propsed NASA budget my project got hit pretty hard – the budget dessimated the NASA science programs, and the project I work with was no exception. Basically my project is now in a holding pattern.
I had been hoping to drop to 50% time on this project, and had already made up my mind to quit the other contracting task that I’m on. The purpose would be to have more time to work on my thesis while not cutting my income to that of a poor grad student. In addition, if I could keep my contracting position at at least 50% time, I keep my benefits.
Yesterday I heard that I’ve been cut to 30% time on my project. It’s certainly not as bad as it could be – Andrew and I had been prepared for either the 50%-time or a 0%-time contingency. It’s just that I’d been hopeful about staying at 50% time (as had my project). Andrew and I have decided that I’ll contract at just 30% time, and work on finishing my thesis that much faster. We’ll be fine financially – we’ll just need to stop eating out quite as much. The part I really hate is feeling like I’m not pulling my weight in the household. I know that Andrew feels like I am pulling my weight, especially since I’m working on the PhD, but I just feel like I could be doing more.
My plan last night was to go to a movie with Andrew, then go home and drink a pitcher of margaritas (due to a stressful day at work). Instead, I went to a movie with Andrew, and then went home to bed with a migraine. I’d rather have had the margaritas.
Normally I don’t remember dreams during a migraine sleep, but last night I remembered a few. Yikes.
The first dream I had, during the worst part of my migraine started with Andrew and I underwater. We had a clear bubble-thing over our heads so that we could breath, but our legs were in the water and we walked along a reef. We were following a tiger shark to find where it hibernated (yes I know that sharks don’t hibernate, but this is a dream, so anything can happen). On the way we saw a “coral snake” in the muck. When we found the hibernating tiger sharks, we switched to an opaque breathing bubble so that we could hide if the sharks woke up.
Eventually Andrew left the bubble to check out some things, and shortly after that the room we were in (the ocean changed from an ocean to a flooded-out room, but with really high ceilings and mushy-ocean-like floors) started getting more air in it. Rather than the air rising to the surface, an odd layer of air formed so that there was a few inches of water on the floor and then the water picked up again near the celing of the room. I took a shower in this odd underwater room, but kept feeling like there was less and less oxygen available. After my shower, I saw an alligator chase one of the tiger sharks in the layer of water above me.
Eventually Andrew came back and we left the room, being careful not to upset the coral snake. Shortly after that I woke up.
So, a dream featuring a snake, sharks, and an alligator, all underwater. According to Dream Moods, these all indicate being wrapped up in emotions. Hmmm…maybe because of bad news at work?
A couple nights ago I got an e-mail from a journalist, Robin Washington, from the Duluth News Tribune asking if they could use one of my photos of Rio the dolphin from the Minnesota Zoo. Turns out that Rio died this week at 35 years old, and this journalist was writing a short piece on Rio and an encounter he’d had with the MN Zoo dolphins years ago. I agreed, as long as I got a copy of the paper.
Robin also left a message for me at work, which I listened to yesterday – he admitted that it sounded like a weird request, apologized for stalking me, and promised that it wasn’t a crank call.
I looked for the article on-line yesterday, and it was there in an article titled “…as another Minnesota ballplaying great passes on.” Unfortunately, my picture is not on the on-line version…not sure if they used it in the paper or not, but if they did, Robin promised to send me a copy.
So, now I have a photo published in a Russian magazine, and maybe one published in a mid-size town newspaper. Maybe I should add these to my resume!
Last weekend, Andrew and I stopped in at Build-a-Bear Workshop, and I had an inspiration. I’ve been thinking about having a birthday party this year (okay, so it’s months away at this point, but I can plan early, right?). I turn 35 – I didn’t do anything special for my 30th birthday, and I don’t want to wait another 5 years for my big four-oh to celebrate, so why not have a party this year?
So, the inspiration was to have a party at Build-a-Bear. I love their bears, and I love picking out outfits for them. A party there would entail all of the guests building their own bear, and picking out an outfit and accessories (all on us). Andrew thought it was a weird idea – that none of my friends would have fun building a bear and dressing them. I think he’s crazy. Can any of my “girls” correct Andrew? Or am I just high?
Andrew and I wanted to do as much of nothing this weekend as possible, so we rented a couple Playstation 2 games, bought bad-for-us food, and played video games for much of Saturday and Sunday.
We rented Ribbit King, a silly game where you play rounds of frolf (frog golf) on different courses on different worlds. The game can be played either in “story mode” where you’re trying to get ribbinite by playing rounds of frolf against various computer-players. The game can also be played with two players playing rounds of frolf against each other; however, unless you also play in story mode, the number of worlds/courses are limited. Andrew and I both had fun playing, which is difficult given that I’ve played a lot more video games that him, and am generally better at the games, and look for more challenging games.
We also rented Tak 3: The Great Juju Challenge (warning: the web page has music, but it can be turned off), which promised 2-player simlutaneous mode. Unfortuantely, we were unable to figure out how to invoke the 2-player mode until late yesterday. By then, we were mostly gamed out (and Andrew wasn’t feeling particularly well), and the Oscars were close to starting (which I always watch). It’s too bad we didn’t get to play much, because the little bit we did play was pretty fun. It feels a lot like Sypro, my favorite series of games, so the fact that Andrew and I could play Tak 3 together could make it a good game for us to own.
In between playing games, we also did a bit of shopping. The cruise is coming up quickly (two weeks from today we leave for Italy!!!), so we went out to get a few things for that: new walking shoes (which we both found at Timberland – they have an awesome shoe with soles that feel really, really comfy right out of the box – I highly recommend these for anyone looking for good walking shoes), money belts for each of us, a document wallet, a watch for me, and a new memory card for my camera. We also looked for jeans for me, but the only thing I could find were “stretch, flared” jeans – ick – so I made a quick Eddie Bauer order.
We’ve consulted a few web pages on what to pack for a cruise, like this one; but, if there’s anyone out there with some suggestions that either might not be on the list or that you can’t understress the importance of, please leave those in the comments.
So, a productive and relaxing weekend. (Not a usual combination!).
I’ve got it bad already. 17 days to the Mediterranean — Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and a total solar eclipse to top it off. Eeeeeeeee!
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