Sunday, February 01, 2009

Many Things Done

Well, I just submitted a panel proposal for a conference that I thought wouldn't be funded but for which, it turns out, I will get some money, which is awesome, as I'd pretty much decided already that I would go to said conference even without funding, because I couldn't bear to disappoint my students to whom I'd mentioned putting together a panel for said conference. So anyway, that is done.

I also, today, faced head on my comments from the revise and resubmit (I'd been facing them sideways for the past few days) and the plan is that I'll work all day tomorrow on actually starting to knock that motherfucker out. Actually facing the comments and making notes was more than enough for today. (I did attempt on Friday to deal with them - and reread the paper, etc., but then phone-talking and wine intervened, and so today was a bit like starting from scratch, as I'd not done the notes in my own handwriting. Does anyone else find this with comments? That you can't deal with them in their original form, but rather must parse them for yourself in your own handwriting in order to actually address them? This is so my process for this sort of thing. Apparently if the horrifying changes that are suggested are in my own handwriting, I can pretend that it was all my idea all along.)

I read for theory, and did some online office hours for my online class.

I also went to the gym, and I did some shit around the homestead.

So you may be wondering about how the fitness is going? Well. I haven't lost as much weight as I'd wished, though given a) the start of the semester, b) the trip to visit HSBFF, and c) the Apocalyptic Weather of last week, which kept me from the gym, I'm pleased with the results. I went to the gym approximately 2/3 of January, I'm 6 lbs. lighter than I was at the start of the year, and I am fitting into jeans without sucking my gut in that I couldn't fit into without massive efforts (sucking in of the gut, laying down on the bed) that I wasn't able to previously. Or let's be honest: that I couldn't fit into at all. And my face looks less round, which is positive. So, my goal for this month is 8 lbs. Two pounds a week. I'm doing great with the eating (in terms of content - though probably I've eaten more than I should in the past two weeks) - it's just the working out consistently, I think, that is the key to getting there. And if I'm honest, I think I could have done 8 lbs. or even 10 this month had I just kept the food diary up. Everything sort of went to hell in a handbasket at the end of the month, and so I think I've learned my lesson that I can't slack off with the food diarizing and the recording of the working out.

In other news, I'm totally on track to be done with the credit card debt by the end of summer teaching. This is awesome. I think I've pretty much decided that I want to buy a house (in like 2 years) rather than a condo. I will have to watch HGTV religiously between now and then in order to really strap on that commitment. I also may need to watch a lot of the local access real estate channel. The idea of owning something is on the one hand horrifying to me (commitment!!!) but also I want to (I did my taxes, and dude, I'd get so much more money back if I owened rather than rented).

You know, I felt bad because I had this conversation with my mom this weekend in which she expressed that she felt bad that she and G. can't help with a down payment for a house. As I noted to her, they helped me throughout grad school, and I didn't expect that they would. Also, as I then figured it, the amount they subsidized me through grad school would about equal the amount I'll be saving up for a down payment on a house. Which means that they totally did help me with a down payment on a house, as if they'd not given me that cash where would I be right now? Maybe I'd own a house already, or whatever, but I wouldn't be nearly as happy with my life.

Though of course I'm not happy about having to deal with that revise and resubmit. In other research news, I'm also irritated by a recent research-related setback in the life of FB, for whom I've been doing some light editing, who's just had the research-related thing for which I'd been doing the free editing get totally fucked up. Note: I was doing the light editing because I like him and so I am now personally irritated by the setback which is not his fault. And so now I have to hate the person who is fucking him over because I feel personally fucked over. I also now apparently care about the thing he was writing about, even though it's boring, which is just adding insult to injury, I have to say. I would like to tell the person who fucked this thing up to fuck off personally from me. Because dude. It's so uncool for a person whom I do not know to a) facilitate my interest in a boring thing and then b) to pull the rug out from under a person I like, which also makes my editing work mean nothing. NOTHING! SO UNCOOL! I hate the stupid, stupid person who is the cause of this. HATE. And yet, tragically, I'm in this annoying position of being not in charge of the situation, because I've been rocking it out old school and editing stuff behind the scenes. Man, it must totally have sucked for all of those faculty wives in olden times who helped out their fancy husbands with editing and typing and things. Were I them, I'd totally be in a state of rage constantly. Even my own revise and resubmit is less annoying (and hate-inducing) than this. Oh, and this whole thing has made FB annoying, too, as his favorite way to cheer himself up is to be exasperating to me. Except he's actually darling. Which serves further to exasperate me, when he's being exasperating, because I know he is darling and yet he insists on exasperating me. But really, he's grand :) And I do believe we will be discussing making actual plans to see one another in the coming week. And I would really like to see him, though I feel too busy to entertain such notions. But see, here's the thing: just as there was no good time to go see HSBFF, there's no good time to go see him. So I'm making the plan even if it's inconvenient. For perhaps this is an unstated New Year's Resolution: to do those inconvenient things that I will like.

Hmmm.... What else? I think that's probably about it. Until tomorrow, blogfriends!

1 comment:

Bardiac said...

Wow, sounds like some things are coming together nicely! Congrats especially on working through the credit card debt!