I like the days when I feel like this more than the ones when I feel like this. Thankfully, today has been one of the former. (there are several more phd comics that fill in the gap between those two; read and be entertained) Anyway, I may be singing a different tune next week when I get my test back and face the distinct possibility that I didn't do very well. But grades aside, I feel good because this morning was another one of those moments when I actually felt like a statistician. Lance (one of the profs in the dept) says the "imposter syndrome" doesn't really ever go away, but it's nice to discover that there are moments when it fades a little. I guess I'm just feeling particularly lucky that despite how hard this all is, I want to be here, I want to do this, and I'm proving to myself that, from time to time, I can do this.

It's also just nice that I've been in a good mood lately. As Sid points out, these are stressful, frustrating times. One needs a positive distraction from the carnival sideshow politics have become. My distraction is the 8:30 am lab that I teach. I haven't talked about it much here, but I'm really, really enjoying teaching this semester. What do you know? That declaration I made in third grade about wanting to be a teacher when I grow up might not have been totally off base. One day soon I may have to stop insisting that I have no plans to go into academia. Of course, at the moment, it's just one class, and a really good class, which spoils me because the students are so smart and great. But I look forward to teaching (even at the crack of dawn) and like my students, and some (most?) seem to genuinely like me. On Wednesday one of them brought me (and the rest of the class) chocolate chip cookies. This was also the morning we did evaluations, and one student said I was "wonderful." *warm fuzzies*

All right. Enough of the love-fest. If I'm going to be lame and stay in tonight I may as well get some much-needed cleaning done.

YAY! WA-HOO!!!! (and other shouts of jubilation)

I just finished my theory midterm and am experiencing the sort of extreme relief, happiness, and exhaustion that is usually reserved for the end of the semester. I don't know if it's because my classes are getting harder/more important or I'm getting older or what, but I've noticed this semester that I experience more stress and anxiety over everyday deadlines (assignments, papers, midterms, etc.) than I used to. So I was (evidently) wound pretty tight over this one. But it's over, and I don't feel like I failed, and so I'm happy and today is Friday and it's a good day. Time to go home and sack out on the couch for a bit before my 2:00 class.

I enjoy how well my friends know me (Thanks Sid!)

JesusComplex: i saw a shirt today that made me think of you
JesusComplex: dunno why...
JesusComplex: it said "Just because I liked to be spanked and called a bitch doesn mean I'm a bad feminist"
JesusComplex: as far as I know, you dont particularly care for either, but i still laughed and thought of you.

Amazing

Somehow I have ended up on a Republican mailing list. If this is a joke from one of my friends, I salute you, because I laughed pretty damn hard when the request from a Republican pac landed in my inbox to send money to help create ads to counteract "Democratic double-speak." And if it isn't a joke from one of my friends, well, whatever research department decided I was their target audience should really be fired.

So I'm watching American Dreams (my parents' viewing tastes have a tendency to rub off on me) and one of the characters is currently a soldier in Vietnam and they just did a story line about him going into Cambodia and his leader said if you don't come back, no one will even acknowledge that you were ever there. Isn't that a somewhat controversial topic for the "family network" that ABC purports to be? I mean, I know American soldiers going into Cambodia is a moderately well-documented fact of the Vietnam War, but still, I thought certain groups were still pretending that we don't talk about that. So it sort of caught me by surprise that ABC was so up front about it.

My horoscope in this week's Creative Loafing:

Yellow jacket wasps have never been known to journey north of the Arctic Circle. They prefer warmer climates. But recently they began buzzing around a village in the northern part of Baffin Island, surprising the local residents, who have no word for the insects in their native Inuktitut language. I predict there'll soon be a comparable event in your life, Sagittarius. You will need new terms as well as fresh concepts to understand the appearance of an unprecedented phenomenon.

I'm choosing to believe this means I'll finally get laid soon.