Sleepy time…

…seems to be all the time some days.  The hazards of everyone attempting to cram way more things than they probably should into a given day, that energy-destroying sin nearly everyone is guilty of.   But it does lead to amusing mornings.

M really needed to get up at 5:00 today, the byproduct of an over-busy week.  I’ve become sort of the backup alarm clock lately, although I’m no where near as reliable as a $3 piece of plastic.  Normally I just roll away while subtly stealing all the blankets and occasionally using cold feet as the brutally effective weapon they are.  This morning I was feeling more creative, so on her second whacking of the snooze alarm, I started “singing” a well known motivational ditty:

Softly, but with increasing enthusiasm: “duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh”

Louder, and quite off key: ““da da DAAAAA da da DAAAAA da da DAAAA da da DAAA da da da da da da da da DAAAAA!”

Nothing like the Rocky theme to get someone up and moving in the morning. Makes you want to run up a flight of stairs, if only to get away from my singing.  Recordings are available, $5.99 plus S&H.

******

M gets her revenge when I go to bed, since I typically do so a good while after she does.  I have to unwind after my late classes, or I just lie there thinking about….trigger strategies under oligopolistic competition with multimarket contacts.  Its about as confusing as it sounds.  This means I have to find myself a) space to sleep and b) blankets to sleep under.

M likes to sleep in a particular fashion, known geometrically as “diagonally”.  This is usually fairly easy to solve, by way of nudging, lifting, shoving, etc.  The blanket situation is more complicated.  The American Medical Association classifies M’s sleeping style as “the blanket burrito”.   Those familiar with attempting to unwind the burrito sleeper will recognize the inherent problem here: the tradeoff between blanket and space.  Because if you pull on the end of the blanket in hopes for some coverage, Newton tells us that the equal and opposite reaction will be the dreaded body roll.  So now you have some nice pre-heated blanket and eight inches of bedspace on one side, and 5 open feet with no blanket on the other.  I tend to go with the blankets.

***********

All of this is, of course, in jest and with substantial exaggeration.  Except the Rocky music.   And I really can’t complain, because anyone that watches someone wash down two bowls of chili with a couple of beers at 10 p.m. and doesn’t force them to sleep in the garage is clearly making a few sacrifices.

Office? What office?

As of last Thursday, I am done working for the next several months.  I’m looking forward to the opportunity to concentrate on finishing up my econ degree, and dreading the coming internal struggle between the sudden distractions of free time and the need to put time into research papers.  Because when you get down to it, econometric analysis is much less fun than learning how to get really good at Jenga.

As I was cutting out on my last day, I said goodbye to my former boss and walked across the hall to meet with my new (future) one to try to work out a start date.  He dangerously offered to let me start as late as June 15, which is a full month after I finish finals.   Although I’m still burnt out, I dare say that a month of nothing whatsoever to do would be both wonderful and terrible.  I’m torn at this point.  On one hand, there are so few opportunities in adult life to voluntarily take such an extended vacation (I’m hoping to avoid involuntary long vacations, unless they come with a big severance check).  On the other foot, doing so also means not getting paid for that month.  My new salary will be MUCH more than I was making in the past, so its kind of hard to throw away that much money so I can sit around in my underwear and attempt to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Extended Edition) and eat an entire box of cereal in one sitting.

It amuses me how much your concept of money changes as you get older.  M and I were driving past a Mongolian BBQ in one of my old college stomping grounds and talking about how we need some special occasion to go there.  I’ve never gone in there without it being for a celebration or a work function.   I felt kind of silly realizing that, as an adult, I no longer need a special occasion to spend $14 on dinner, and can actually go to that restaurant whenever I want.

Ah, adult money.  I’m reaching the point where I no longer feel I have to justify spending $8 on going to see a movie or buying the cheaper beer.  At the same time, I feel insecure about money to a degree that I never did in college.  In part its because the economy is, for lack of a better term, tanking, and will probably continue to do so for some time.  (did you know that the average US family makes less now, after inflation, than they did 5 years ago?  Even scarier,  some measures have that total being lower than 30 years ago)  But moreso its the cumulative effects of 6 years, going on 8, of higher education.  I may be renting an apartment, but I’ve already got a pretty good sized mortgage out on my head.

*****

I’m quite excited to have a new nephew, as of this week.  Especially because when it comes to teaching kids things their parents don’t want them to know, there are so many more options with boys.

“Look Mommy!  Worms!!!!

Spring Break!

Its Tuesday of spring break week, and I thought I’d post a little update.  Its 10:45 at night, and I’m (obviously) at my computer taking a little break from the work I started at 8:30 this morning.  Bleah.  Typing for 14 hours, minus a break to wash, but not dry my laundry, seems to be missing something from what MTV says spring break should look like.  I keep looking, but I don’t see any fruity drinks with umbrellas or bikini girls.

I got offered another contract to do some econ work today.  I’m still debating taking it.  I’d hoped for a needed break to focus just on school for two months, but given financial circumstances, its hard to turn down a big chunk of money.  I feel like Sisyphus, only my rock is student loans and my mountain is…still a mountain I guess.  Its not a perfect metaphor.

I think I’m going to go make myself a drink…if I’m going to be working past midnight again, I might as well do it spring break style.  I think there is some orange-peach-mango* juice in the fridge that would work well with vodka.

*Ever read the ingredients on all of the 100% juice blends at the grocery store?  No matter what the box says, they are all mostly apple and white grape juice.  I guess apple-grape-orange-peach mango, or apple-grape-strawberry-kiwi just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Lately…

I’m tired. Since August, I’ve been doing grad school full time and working nearly full time. I get up, I got to work at 8:30, I go to class, I sneak off to a computer lab on campus to do work, I got to class, I get home at 8:30 or 10:30. Weekends are for catching up on work and school, and occasionally doing those basic human things we all need to do, like laundry and sleeping. I’m tired. I’m tired of juggling mutually exclusive deadlines, not enjoying any downtime I take because I’m behind in everything, and putting off responsibilities of all kinds.

But enough bitching…Courtesy of a the new digital camera M and I bought after our apartment got robbed of $7 grand of stuff a few days before Christmas, here is life in our apartment.

Bah. Ok, pictures will have to wait until I can figure out how to make them smaller in wordpress. But they will come…

backpacks and stuff

I started school again this week, this time on kind of a down note.  One of my two planned classes was a statistics class for economists.  Which covered material I’ve already had three separate times in college.  Going over it a fourth time did not seem like a worthy use of tuition.

This led me to spent the better part of the week changing up my schedule, petitioning various people more important than me and generally pondering, completing with looming deadline, how I want to spend the next few years of my life.  Verdict was that I would get transfer credit for the stats class and completely revamp my schedule, with the aim of finishing up my econ masters this coming summer, a year and a half earlier than planned.  This will enable me to either be much better at my current job (being technically self employed, this is important) or to get a job I really want.  I hope.  Then after next summer, I ‘ll only have two more years of night classes  until I get my environmental degree.  Whee!

The last part, the two years of a few night classes a week, isn’t really a problem.  What concerns me is the next 9 months, taking 7 graduate level econ course while working 30 hours a week and dong an increasingly time consuming volunteer job, and attempting to spend some level of time with the girlfriend, and the family, and showering once and a while.  I’m being whiny because its 7 am on a saturday and I’m writing this to wake up before getting some work done.

Oh yeah – $420 for books this semester.  The best thing about econ students is that they always resell their books, making textbook shopping a bit easier on the wallet.

Alright then

Been awhile, much craziness has been keeping me from doing…much of anything lately.  So….

Car is finally fixed, after 35 days of sitting at a garage in New York.  The joy of getting into my car was somewhat overshadowed by the realization that after driving a new car for a month, my 7 year old Saturn does indeed suck.

Em and I are moving into our apartment in four days.  The degree to which I am not yet ready to move is a bit staggering.  I never realized I had so many books, but the really amazing thing is the sheer volume of random crap I’ve managed to accumulate over the years.

Speaking of books, I have seven of them sitting on my nightstand, in my car and on my bookshelf that I have started recently but not finished.  I haven’t had the attention span to read anything require thought lately.  Its probably a combination of the usual summer brain rebellion, a lack of time, and the seductive calling of my super nintendo.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, which means lots of fireworks.  I appreciate the well-done show, but not so much when the pryotechnicians attempt to stretch it out beyond the limits of their fireworks.  A well orchestrated combination of colors is enjoyable.  40 minutes of individual fireworks being lobbed up repeatedly, less so.

Through the looking glass…

And I’m back, after a reader request.  The last few weeks have been crazy, and in a few more weeks, my life will be very little like it was this spring.  There is no time to explain, let me sum up.

I finished school, and got healthy again.  I managed to pull off straight A’s, keeping the grad school streak alive.  I had to pull out of presenting a project for an urban conference as asked though, due to time issues.  I was also asked to be in an environmental documentary as part of Earth Aid, but that fell through, in part because of a lack of enthusiasm on my part to play someone’s monkey.

Three weeks ago, a fraternity at a local college I’ve been helping advise with for three years officially became a fraternity, built from scratch into a group of 40 great guys.  Big ceremony, I looked dashing in my tuxedo, they gave me a nice watch and I got to stay in a very nice hotel.   It took unending meetings, trips to St. Louis, Columbus, and Indianapolis, countless phone calls and some very late nights, but it was all pulled off successfully.  And chicks flip for guys in tuxes.

I started working again a week ago, as an outside consultant/contract worker for my old company.  I’m in the office a lot now, literally, as I’ve been upgraded from my previous cubicle dwelling.  Also, I no longer have to show up at any particular time or work any set number of hours.  Its weird though, going from being the youngest/newest person in the company a year ago to being almost a veteran.  Some things are still the same – my work hasn’t changed much, they still give us lots of free food and I am still completely clueless as to how to work the phone system.

This past Saturday I put down a security deposit on an apartment, which will be mine if the background check shows that I didn’t kill Jimmy Hoffa.  The new bachelor pad is in a great area, 200 yards from a train to downtown Cleveland, a grocery store, a movie theater, a half dozen restaurants, art galleries, a weekly market and a beer store.  Its also somewhat between work and school.  Added bonuses to the location include the girlfriend moving a block away later this summer, and me being too lazy to cook.  The actual apartment is the top floor of the highest building on the roundabout plaza with all of the aforementioned establishments.  Its got six closets, windows along all three sides, high ceilings, a view of downtown and, I’m hoping on a clear day, Lake Erie.

Living Room  

Not sure if the picture uploads are working…if they aren’t I doubt I’ll care enough to go back and fix it.

Also this week, I have the two nieces keeping me company.  Frequent choruses of “Again!” follow every exhausting game we play, but at least I’m getting in some workouts.  I’m having a great deal of fun spoiling them for their mother.  My favorite was letting the older niece eat ranch dressing with a fork.  Who needs the vegetables when you can just eat the dip?

Hi-ho, Hi-ho…

This coming May, almost a year to the day after I cleaned out my desk at my first real job, I’m going to be re-entering the world of cubicle dwelling amidst the smell of inkjet toner and stale coffee.  When I quit my job, with the intention of knocking out a pair of masters degrees as quickly as possible, I failed to consider a few crucial details:

-Colleges don’t seem to make sure that people majoring in both tree hugging and capitalistic exploitation aren’t faced with conflicting course times.

-You can’t buy things if you don’t have money, and you can’t get money if you don’t have a job.

-I am completely incapable of focusing on any one thing for a significant length of time.

These hiccups have forced me to sketch out a plan for the next three years, namely going to grad school close to full time, working close to full time, and occasionally watching cartoons in my pajamas while eating Cheetos for breakfast.   While on paper said plan should be solid, it does leave me feeling rather uncertain.  Part of this strategery includes getting an apartment (Thanks for not charging rent Mom!), attempting to pay tuition without loans, having things like insurance and food, and keeping myself well supplied with beers.  I’m going to be working at my old job, albeit on a contract basis.  This gives me not only wonderful flexibility in terms of my work schedule, weekly hours and location, but also a big honkin’ raise.  In theory.  I’m a little concerned about my ability to put in enough productive hours to make ends meet, although I will still have the ability to lean on Uncle Sam a bit for student loans.  I’m also a little worried about being able to manage knowing that my job work, along with my school work, is always incomplete at the end of the day, and making sure I can walk that line between relaxing enough to stay sane and working enough to remain employed and enrolled.

At least I can now right off printer paper as a tax deduction.  I have a feeling I am going to become quite proficient at making paper airplanes and those little origami cranes that never come out looking like birds.