I think I am going crazy. I’m starting to feel sorry for the letters that I delete from my papers. I try and save as many as I can which creates a much-lenghthened editing session. Periods especially get me… like they finally found a home and I tore them away. Also, when I edit the middle of a sentence, and I end up with two “the”s, I always try and pick the one that has been there the longest. After all, it’s probably set up a house and had a family by now. I can’t just ignore that.
There’s nothing like slipping on my favorite pair of newly-washed blue jeans and heading up to the coffee house for breakfast on a wet and cloudy day to have a cup of dark roast and a plump blueberry muffin.
My flight is confirmed and now my place is confirmed for my trip to Edinburgh this summer. Hmmmm…if only my thesis proposal were confirmed, I’d be set to go! I’m a little stressed about what I’m actually going to be doing over there. I have visions of hunting down lost notes from secret meetings in the archives, Indiana Jones style, but in all actuality, I’m wondering if I will find anything at all or get myself lost in the archives, never to be found until the next grad student goes into the archives for their thesis work, and sees my skeleton propped up against a desk with an old, dusty book underneath. Actually, that might be cool b/c then maybe they’d do their thesis on me. I did find out this morning that Athens is home to a former geography grad who basically went insane and never left this town. It can happen.
I’m still looking for some travel compadres for my last week over there…any takers yet?
Geographical fiction…a new genre?
Okay - I can tell that the previous entry was slightly of the low-brow variety of humor. I guess you had to be there. So, to make it up and keep this blog to its high standards of intellectualizm, I will post something v.c. (that’s ‘very cool’ in e-speak). Billy Collins (yes - the same who was writing poems for America while his pres was reciting them to Lewinski) is coming to OU this week. He will give a lecture one night and then recite poetry the next. I’m a very stoked and my best grad friend and I are currently plotting ways to change our geography thesis to include fiction writing. Of course, we will still be accepting the grants for our pending trips this summer… but if this guy can combine people and a pool full of goo for research, then what’s wrong with bringing a little fiction into the realm of geography, eh?
On another note - finally watched Brokeback Mountain after reading and sighing through all of the reviews of it. I loved it - I’m still thinking about it and read the short story today. I feel like Ennis and Jack are characters that will stay with me - I actually felt a loss when the movie was over. The film itself was beautiful.
Also watched Shopgirl last night - the book based on Steve Martin’s book. Very funny.
So I was ranting at my first lab today because they didn’t read the book before class, didn’t know that rise over run was the formula for slope (didn’t even know which was which), and kept asking me questions from 4 and 5 labs ago. So I was angrily doing one of the problems on the board, when all of the sudden I heard somebody fart - really loudly. I was so startled I stopped talking and looked out to the class, at which one guy smiled, raised his hand and said “Sorry”. Everyone started to laugh, including me. I had a hard time getting through the rest of the problem after that…
Thank god for life’s little mood lifters 
Carmen Sandiego will never be found again…
What have I been complaining about all along???? THIS!! On the bright side, maybe I can get a job with the Wonderful World campaign after I graduate. Hmmmm…to think I could be going around to colleges and showing them where China is located. God Bless America…wherever it is.