Hey folks, guess what? I'm still here! Sorry it's been like 6 months.

Anyway. I started graduate school a couple weeks back (yay!). I'm getting a Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership (a what?.. it's kind of like an MBA, except I'm concentrating on managing nonprofits) from Quinnipiac University.

Currently I'm having some issues. Mainly that I'm supposed to be writing a journal entry and I'm stuck. I hope just writing a bunch of crap here may help me work through it. See, at the end of each chapter in my text book, there are these things called Self-Assessments. Basically, you're meant to take these little quizzes (scientifically tested quizzes, I assume. It's not like Sporcle (unfortunately)) and then writing a blog, basically, about the results. So that's fine. Yesterday I finished reading the chapter and took the quizzes, which depressed the crap out of me because it required me to think back on past work experiences, some of which are not so pleasant to remember. One of them involved rating personality traits of "a co-worker that you've had difficulty working with." I'm not touching that, publicly, but maybe you can guess.

Another involved recalling a leadership situation from my past and answering questions about it. Fine, that at least made me less angsty because it reminded me of fun times and pleasant people (I really want to say what I thought of, but I'm concerned that it will make other things I want to say a little too personal and identifiable, so I'll just throw out the codename "B-Team" here and hope you get it). But the thing is, the scores from that quiz and the scores from the first are supposed to line up to say something about your productivity and your leadership/working style, and mine really don't. (I know, who's shocked?)

How exactly am I supposed to explain this? I mean eventually I will work through the cobwebs in my brain to write up something coherent, I imagine, but really I'm more worried about not coming across as negative and totally whiny about past work experience, which they know about because I had to submit a resume with my application.

Really the difference comes down to the degree of control I had in this position. The real answer is "too much, and not enough" and that's hard to explain in a 2 paragraph post on a class homework blog. I know that in some situations I had responsibilities that were unfair pushed on me, and that in others I didn't have the control that I should have. I know that when I was allowed to make a decision it was usually questioned, and usually not in a polite professional discreet manner. I know that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and the best thing I can say for this particular experience is that now? Now I am really hard to scare off. And I realize how huge that is. I very much doubt that that was somebody's goal, but that's how it worked out. Sort of like in the most (distantly) recent Hyperbole and a Half post, "I had spent my last feeling being disappointed that I couldn't rent Jumanji." Melodramatic? Perhaps. But I totally get what Allie is saying here.

Ok. This has been helpful, actually. I'm going to try to do this more regularly. I feel like it's good for me, both to get my thoughts in order before/during school work, and also to sort of, I dunno, get outside of my own head for a little while.

Hiya folks!

So after 2 long years, I'm pleased to report that all our stuff is once again in the same state. I've spent the last 2 days going through boxes, and I've come to a few realizations.

Number one, Man, we have a lot of crap, and every last bit of it has now had a nice ride across the country in a Uhaul with my in-laws. Seriously y'all, I actually packed a bag of dried beans. Like, a ziploc baggie. I'm assuming I used to use them for baking pie crust (you know, as a weight). I do actually have an excuse for this one... when we left Macon, we didn't have all that much time to pack and sort and throw stuff away. Pete found out that he got in to Georgetown in late May 2009 and we moved in early August. Yes, that is a good amount of time, except that one of us was working more than full time, and the other was studying for the bar exam, so it's not like we had gobs of time to prepare. Furthermore, DC was such a drastic downsizing from even our smallest apartment in Georgia, that we probably only took 1/3 of our stuff. The rest was shoved into boxes with pretty much no thought or organization and put into storage.

Number two, our apartment in Macon was disgusting. Again, not really my fault. Specifically, all of my kitchen stuff is absolutely filthy. (Ok, it's not as bad as it sounds. The part of the kitchen where I made food was always clean. It was a very big room with lots of stuff stored around the edges, if that makes sense. That's the stuff that's dirty.) See, our washer and dryer were shoved over in a kind of alcove around the corner from the kitchen, which was fine except that the dryer didn't have a hose that went through the wall to outside like a normal dryer. We had to get one of those lint trapper things for people who live in crappy apartments (yo.), and we still ended up getting dust and dryer lint all over the place constantly. Add to that the fact that this contraption made the place outrageously humid, and the fact that we lived in Macon, Georgia (aka, one of the most hot and humid places I've ever been, and y'all, I'm from Alabama), and... yeah. I did what I could. It was liveable, but looking back I'm kind of appalled.

Taking all this stuff out again is really interesting though. Not to be overly dramatic, but when I packed these boxes I was a completely different person. It's amazing what living in 538 square feet with another person for 2 years (and through the 2 worst blizzards in 40 years or something) will do to your sense of space. With that little room, you either trip over stuff constantly (which gets old really fast, trust me), or you wean yourself off of the pack-rat hoarder mentality that so much of American culture beats into our heads. I've reverted to a few of my old suburban habits-- buying toilet paper and paper towels in bulk, for example, because now I have room to store it, and it's easier and cheaper. But so much of this other stuff-- I can't help but wonder why I ever thought I needed two egg separaters (or one, for that matter. Such a uni-tasker! Thanks AB) or two can openers or 2 sets of sheets for a mattress I don't have anymore. (Actually, I'm not sure about that one. Add to to-do list: check to see if sheets fit on any of our beds.) Or why I needed to keep a baggie full of used dried beans. This whole experience has made both of us very minimalist, as well as just a smidgen OCD.

Man, am I excited to put all this crap in a yard sale.

I am the world's worst blogger

Seriously, if there's an award for that, I would win. Or maybe lose, as the case may be.

Anyway, I'm thinking that blogging more would be good for me, so I'm going to get back in to this song challenge deal for a while.

Whatever number day it is that we're up to, today's theme is "a song no one would expect you to love."

This is mine:



There are probably other songs I love that would surprise you more, but mainly I think it's surprising that I love this song because of it's inclusion at the end of "Fight Club." "Fight Club," it may surprise you to know, is one of my most favorite movies. This surprises the heck out of me anyway.

I first saw this movie during my freshman year at Sewanee, when I had to write a paper for Dr. Peterman's Philosophy 101 class comparing it to Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil." I don't remember what I thought of it, honestly. But it's grown on me significantly over the years, which I find pretty weird. I'm not overly sensitive to blood or violence (in movie form), but generally I don't enjoy watching people get beat to a pulp. Normally, I tend to hate movies that other people think are "like, so incredible and deep, man." Normally, I find Brad Pitt incredibly irritating and don't like watching him. Normally, I hate movies that are... I don't know the word... have kind of a defeatist attitude? I don't know... movies like this one. But "Fight Club," I love. And considering the other things on my list of favorite movies are "Love Actually," "Dead Poets Society," and "The Muppet Christmas Carol".... yeah. I'm gonna go with this being at least a little surprising.

(A warning-- this is not the original video for this song. It's sort of a "Fight Club" montage, complete with... well... if you've seen "Fight Club" you know what Tyler liked to splice in to children's movies. If you're some place where that would be inappropriate, or you don't want to see some guy's junk, turn it off before the last 5 seconds. You're welcome.)

Helplessness is...

Taking a (rather lengthy, obviously) break from the song challenge game. I do actually have the next day's post written, just haven't gotten around to posting it yet.

Today, there's something more important.

As of right now (1:39 p.m., EST) CNN.com is reporting that 247 people died yesterday in storms across the Southeast. 162 of those were in my beloved home state of Alabama. I'm sure the number will grow, unfortunately. The videos and photos I'm seeing, particularly from Tuscaloosa, have left me absolutely stunned and speechless.

Tornadoes in Alabama are nothing new. I can't think of a spring or summer from my childhood that didn't have at least one big one. There was even a bad one right before Christmas when I was in high school. When I was about 7, I remember driving to school with my dad and seeing the top of a funnel cloud in our rearview mirror. I reached a point where I could look at the color of the sky over downtown-- even at night-- and tell if we needed to worry when the sirens went off. (Sirens go off if there's a tornado spotted anywhere in the county, but it's a big county and storms rarely come that close to where my parents live.)

In short, we think we know what to expect. But... wow.

I realize I'm like 1000 miles away, and there's nothing I can do if it gets bad, but I like to keep tabs on it when I hear there's going to be bad weather in Alabama. I pulled up the live stream on Abc3340.com as I was about to leave for the park to run with Pete. As I was about to walk out the door, I heard James Spann say there was a massive tornado in Tuscaloosa County. My brother lives in Tuscaloosa, at the University of Alabama. (He's fine, thank the good Lord.) I texted him quickly to say I was sure he already knew to get underground, but to be careful, and went on my merry way.

After my run, I got back in the car and almost immediately my phone rang. It was my Mother-in-Law's best friend, who hysterically told me to call my parents-- she was watching the news in Atlanta and they had a live picture of a giant tornado coming at Birmingham. I drove home as fast as was (mostly) legal and called my dad's cell phone. Nothing. Mom's cell phone. Nothing. Brother's cell phone. Nothing. House. No answer. I am about to throw up. Meanwhile I'm watching James Spann again, who's citing some tornado damage index I've never heard of and saying although they didn't think this number could get higher than 10, this storm is a 13.4. Just as I was about to call a friend whose parents live around the corner from mine, my mom called back to say everyone was fine.

While I am so incredibly thankful that my family and friends are alright and without any notable damage, I realize that there are far too many people out there who weren't so fortunate. What I've always found so terrible about weather is the randomness of it. You can work for years to build a house and life and it's gone in a matter of seconds. You can do everything right and go to the innermost room on the bottom floor and still get blown to the next county. And it's so frustrating to sit here warm and dry in my house on the other end of the country, enjoying the rain as the last little bit of this storm blows through my neighborhood. All I can do from here is donate money to the relief efforts, and I don't even have much of that. I can't help move tree limbs or hand out clothing or offer a couch to displaced friends. (I mean, obviously if any of you are ever displaced by a natural disaster or anything else you're welcome to stay on my couch. I'm just saying, Connecticut is a bit of a haul.) I know I'm rambling. I just hate being so far away and so helpless.

If you're in the Southeast, please take care and be safe. Let me know if there's anything I can do from here. Please, I mean it.

Next day!

Whatever day this is, the theme is "a song that's a guilty pleasure."

Here's the deal: I hate the phrase "guilty pleasure." I recognize that I really enjoy a lot of crappy music, but I refuse to feel guilty about what I enjoy. (Actually, I kind of hate the word "guilty." As a feeling, I mean. It seems to always mean "I enjoy this but society-or whoever- says I shouldn't, so I'm going to feel bad about myself for it." I don't like that.)

Let's revise the title to something that irritates me a little less-- "a song that is pure brain candy."

Back up a little-- it is a little shocking to most people that I have only recently started watching the TV show "Glee." For pretty much as long as possible, I was that kid in school who was in every choir possible. Not half as annoying as, say, Rachel Berry (I hope), but you'd better believe that if my high school had had a show choir, I'd have been all up in there. I'm that adult that has a showtunes station on Pandora, and likes to occasionally play it loudly when cleaning the house. (When nobody else is home.)

However, the first few episodes I saw of "Glee," I didn't enjoy it that much for a simple reason-- I didn't know the songs. I've never really listened to pop music, and when I heard it on the radio (like at work) I didn't typically enjoy it that much.

Then this episode aired, and in the roughly 2 and a half minutes it took the Warblers to sing this song, I became a fan of both "Glee" and Katy Perry.



Since that point, I've seen a lot more of "Glee." More often than not, the songs they sing are things I didn't particularly enjoy on the radio, but now love because of the "Glee" version. It's possible that I cried like a girl when the kids sang Bruno Mars' "Just the Way You Are" to Kurt at his dad's wedding (and during the Christmas special when they sang that song from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"). It's possible that I have danced around the house like a nut during more than one performance. It's possible that I want to go buy all their albums.

So I guess it's less that this is a guilty pleasure, and more that somewhere in the past, 17-year-old me is judging. Hard. Oh well.

Hullo there!

I'm finally settled in Connecticut, with the internet up and running, and whatnot. On to the next day... I think we're on 12?

Day whatever-it-is is "a song from a band you hate."

Here's the thing. I hate very few bands, and really I can't think of one that I dislike so much that I would never listen to anything by them. People evolve, and whatnot. However, I am totally unimpressed by this one. I don't know when they first appeared, but this is the first of their songs that I ever became aware of. This was popular during my freshman year at Sewanee, when I didn't have a tv and didn't own a radio, and I was still sick of it after a few weeks because it was played so much. That should tell you a thing or two.



Also, everything of theirs that I've ever heard kind of sounds the same. Lame and whiney. Not awesome.

Actually, I just like the video

Sorry for the absence... I've been making the rounds in Georgia. I visited Pete's family, saw some dear friends who are expecting a sweet baby girl any day now, drank margaritas on Katie's porch, and had a flashback afternoon in Macon. However, I did not take the laptop with me, which means we are only now reaching Day 11.

Day 11! A song from your favorite band!

This is actually not my favorite band. They're up there, but not #1. My actual favorite band is Cast Iron Filter, who are apparently not "big time" enough to be on YouTube. (There are a few crappy live performances and covers but I don't really think that counts.) You've probably guessed that my favorite... music performer, I guess, is Bob Dylan, but he isn't really a band, and also he's already shown up like 3 times in the last 11 days. ("days.")

So, without further ado-- Internet, I give you Weezer.



Isn't this video cute? I think my favorite part is when the dude is drumming with the little orange tabby kitties. They look like Hank, if he were very small, and also a drummer.