Random gurgles

I found a new Catbirds.

Lubbock doesn't have Vault.

My fridge is filled with cheap beer and no cheese pizza.

I bought spaghetti os today for 88 cents.

I am unbelievably toxic, and the cheap beer, pizza, and spaghetti os are not going to help.

I have to somehow muster the energy to run 13 miles tomorrow.

Frat boys annoy me more now than they did when I was in undergrad, and that is really saying something.

There are times this past week when I wondered WTF I am doing coming back to school full time.

Someone paid me $20 to smile. My smile is depreciating.

My bar arguments are getting better, though, with this newfound doctoral knowledge. I actually used the terms random sampling, population, and covariance in a debate with a frat boy on Friday about baseball. It was wasted on him, but I felt pretty proud.

I did not fall asleep in my shoes like Glinda does, but I did crash naked on the floor wrapped in a crocheted afghan. I woke up freezing with a neckache grasping onto a half drunk bottle of powerade. Gurgle.

So that was this week. I think I'm done with the self-destructive adjustment meltdown, so next week I should have happy posts to report. I mean, Lubbock is only temporary, and so what if I'm 10 years older than people in my cohort and 15 years older than the rest of the people on campus. So what if I'm surrounded by chain restaurants and dollar stores. So what if I can't even go to the football games because grad students have to pay full price. So what if I'm fucking broke with no income until October and maybe not even then bc I'm still not in the system. So what if I will spend Kimday and Turkeyday alone. So what.

Free stuff everywhere this next week. Wed is a new grad student recep with free hors d'oeuvres and wine. I'm taking a big purse. Thursday is free starbucks coffee seminar followed by star gazing at the planetarium. Friday I'll find something. It's all good.

And there are always marmots.

Home or Bus-t

Let me start by saying that Lubbock has a decent public transport system. It's remarkably on time, efficient, clean, and free for students. I pick up the bus about 2 blocks away from my house and arrive at Tech in minutes. the bus driver, the same one everyday, is friendly and happy and is always singing something from the sixties. Today, I even thought that if this whole PhD thing doesn't work out, I should just become a Lubbock bus driver.

Arrived at campus, did the work thing, then got caught up in a conversation. When I got to the bus stop, the bus was starting to pull away. I ran after it, flagged it down, and got on without thinking to look at the number. It pulled away as usual, and then suddenly I noticed that it wasn't going the direction it usually did. I tried to get people's attention, but everyone was listening to their iPods. So I made it up to the front and asked the driver what line I was on. Obviously, I took the wrong bus.

I got off on the next stop, which was at the med center, about 4 miles from campus. He stops, lets me out, and then I walk up to the next bus stop to check the schedule. I'm a little panicked at this point because the buses in Lubbock stop running at 6:30. Well, this one stopped at 5:10; I looked down at my watch. It was 5:15.

Nothing left to do but walk. And walk I did, which distancewise wasn't too terrible (about 6 miles), but I had to walk along a pretty busy highway with no crosswalks in sight. Finally, about 3 miles in, the traffic suddenly let up, and I sprinted across the 4 lanes in platform crocs, Hello Kitty backpack laden with sweat. Usually, if I walk to school, I'm conscious of shoes, fabric, and carry my REI backpack. Not today. Nope. Not today. Plus, the last meal I had was at 7pm yesterday and was only a cup of soup.

I made it to my favorite coffee shop but decided not to go in because I was soaked from my pits to my back. So I walked the last mile home and headed straight for the powerade.

So the moral of this story, kids, is to pay close attention to the bus number, and, like a good little scout, always be prepared.

Ok, I need food.

To You

You used to tell me that you didn't read my blog, but you did. And it made me so mad to know you were spying.

Now I don't think you read it anymore.

That saddens me.

The Crank Identity

I do not exist. Therefore I am? Or perhaps I am not? Regardless, until I do, I will not have a school ID card, a parking permit, nor benefit information entered (which doesn't matter bc I don't receive benefits until Dec 1 anyway).

The same snow pig bitch didn't feel like entering our names and info into the computer, so none of us in my cohort exist in Tech land. Apparently I am registered for classes but there is no person to associate with that name that is registered. It's like a dummy registration. It makes no sense, I know. Just chalk it up to the weirdness of Lubbock.

The skies here are blue. They're the sort of technicolor blue of Oz or Little House on the Prairie, which is kind of cool. I didn't realize the impact smog had on Houston skies. This is good since I am just floating around in the sky, not existing, invisible to all who matter and sadly visible to the squealing pigs in trucks.

Kimday Countdown

T minus 78 days. And just to kick off the countdown, I will remind you all of the Kimday #30. Remember this song?

ah. Too bad I didn't have my blog back then.

Down with LBB?

I guess I have to be.

So I moved to the thriving metropolis of Lubbock this weekend. I guess this post would work best if I put it into Eastwood format. So here goes.

The Good:
1. My house--it is bangin'!
2. My cats are happy. They have room to play.
3. The weather--it's cool and dry. [Today however had 62% humidity, so I reserve the right to withdraw this statement]
4. I have a backyard.
5. I have enough closet space to hang Paris Hilton's wardrobe.
6. I am 1.3 miles from campus and 2 miles from my building.
7. Running is awesome here. I can run at 10 am and not overheat, which is phenomenal since I hate getting up early.
8. There are more local channels, including 3 Jesus (well technically one is a Yahweh channel) channels, a weather channel, and the home shopping network. I also get 3 Spanish channels and a strange British channel which shows things like this late at night. Yeah, and I think that one deserves a you tube.
9. Prairie Dog Town
10. 7-11!
11. no traffic
12. everything is less than 15 min away
13. Local coffee house. Lots of granola people. Too many macs, tho.
14. My advisor. We click. She's brilliant. She's a presby PK. She's a runner training for a marathon. She's me, only she's already a doc.
15. My course load--uber challenging and interesting.

The Bad
1. Everyone in the town is 19 or 45 with no teeth.
2. Really young cohort. They are all fresh out of undergrad.
3. People lean out of the car and hoot, holler and even squeal like a pig when I walk to school. It's disturbing. I'm not sure if it's the redneck mating call or if they think I look like a pig. I guess if they yell, "Suey" I'll have my answer.
4. One of my assistantship supervisors. I'll leave it at that.
5. The local news. I don't normally watch the news, so this shouldn't be much of a problem. But it's like watching King of the Hill, which would be good if I weren't so damn disturbed that it's real. The weather people are all like Nancy Gribble. And the news people, well, I can't describe them.
6. The local weather. This gets it's own line item because it is brutal. Yesterday, I was all freaked out about a disastrous hail storm that was going to hit any minute. It interrupted the Olympics every minute for an HOUR with Severe Warning bulletins, urging us to take cover. And then I find out it's in freakin' New Mexico!
7. This is a good thing in Lubbock, but it doesn't bode well for me. Apparently, there was massive excitement in town because we broke records by receiving 2.5 inches of rain this month. We haven't done that since 1992.
8. The hard water. It actually stained my hair red. Apparently the iron is really bad here.
9. Dry, cracked skin anyone?
10. everything is slow. slow. slow. slow. And people are lacksidaisical (how do you spell that?) like Boobah. I tried to find a good Boobah video and came across this. It made me chuckle.

The Ugly
1. I don't get paid until Oct 1
2. The stupid ass snow pig of a bitch in the business office just felt overwhelmed this week from pounding root beer and fritos, and so she failed to process our scholarships. I had to put $3,000 on my credit card today or get dropped from classes. They swear they'll pay me back. Her exact words, matter of factly, "Well, I'm just overwhelmed and so it didn't get done this week, and it may not get done next week, and don't ask me about it neither." Her boss, present in this meeting, took her out in the hall and talked with her, and he came back in and swore we'd get our money.
3. The gas company guy. He came in and started probing me for info, as if I'd give it to him, and tried to freak me out. Seriously, we're talking creepazoid of the sexual assault type. [shiver] Then he came back, claiming that he forgot his tools! When he saw my male landlord, he ran away. Creepy.
4. No water for 2 days. Apparently, the water company here rips out the water meter bc there is a history of water meter theft on abandoned houses. So weird.
5. The smell from my sink. WTF is it? I can't kill it.


So that's it for my first 4 days in LBB. I'm sure there will be tales to tell. Yarns to spin. Fun to be had. Yessirree. Still no new Catbirds yet. I'll keep you posted.

The LBB

I'm here. I'm alive. More later. Finally just got internet up!

snippet

OMG this place that I work. They have no regard for people. Everything is a machine that they have to keep efficient. More later. I just had to snip.

Two by Two, Hands of Blue

Ok, really, I'm not getting this. No offense to our fine people in blue, but I'm just not getting something. There's an intersection in the neighborhood near my apartment where, daily, there are at least 2 officers standing in the middle of the street radaring people and pulling them over. Today there were 3 of them.

Seriously, why does there need to be 3 of them? There are commercials and PSAs on TV all the time about how the crime rate in Houston is up due to the lack of police on the force. Perhaps it is because they've got them in 3s standing in a suburban neighborhood, where apparently people aren't racing past since they feel comfortable standing in the middle of the street to pull people over.

This just irritates me!