On the come up...and other musings

Afterword

2010-11-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

So I got an exhortation to keep blogging. So here’s an update:

I defended in July, which was great, however, I was in this liminal state all summer because my grandmother died, I was at my parents’ house until my tenant got out, and I was not working so I was on a ridiculous budget. Not to mention a whole bunch of tomfoolery surrounding my limited job search (by this I mean two applications—my goals for this next couple of years were very specific) and the fact that committee was very dismayed by the fact that I was not going into academia this year. Or what appeared to be never. To the point where my defense went on an extra hour because we (read: they) got into this esoteric discussion about why I was not going to into academia.

It took all I had not to curse them out because them out because 1) it’s my life. And that really is all there is to it, but 2) given the tenor of my experiences at NU, I am not certain subjecting myself to arbitrary standards for the approval of a bunch of crazy people is very high on my list of things to do for the last year of my 20s. So out of academia I am. And contrary to popular belief, I believe I will be able to get an academic job for Fall 2011 or Fall 2012, but quite frankly, I need some me time. So I am actually working in pretty interesting job right now that is the perfect pace, has great people, and is close to my condo (well a 10 minute drive), so I am happy. Is it a long-term thing? Probably not, but it’s serving it’s purpose right now.

Anyhoo, so let’s rewind back. The months running up to my defenses (our program has an odd structure so I had one in May and one in July) were just complete f*ckery on many ends. One, I had this personal trainer I met with Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday at 6:00. Foolishness. Two, I was teaching assisting-ing, and three I was just a mess. Hilariously, when I once did this summer program at Michigan, I used to wonder why the economics TA wore the same skirt to every class. I now fully understand and have committed the same offense with this really comfortable pair of jeans. I simply stopped giving a f*ck. I also was like pigpen when I would go out with people. But seriously writing intensely for days on end and also trying to manage life is sh*tty. There is no other description of it. LOL.

Sometimes my officemate and I would go out on these random ass excursions—like write all afternoon, go get margaritas and buffalo wings, and then go watch our students play club soccer. Or write all day, and then go watch the blackhawks at a gay karaoke bar and dance until our knees hurt. Or write all day, then go to my neighborhood bar, drink enough to make her boyfriend mad, and meet random people. Are you seeing the pattern?

Anyway so my dad came up for the first defense. This was so great, except the Chi was being the Chi, and it rained like cats and dogs so we couldn’t do much but we had a good time. Then Dr. O got married in what has to be the funnest (*ding) wedding of ALL TIME. It was just SO AMAZING. A bunch of folks stayed at my house, and we had two nights of open bars, an amazing ceremony, and lots of our typical foolery. We have just simply given up on trying to figure out when our behavior will change. There is a video of me dancing to baby got back which hopefully will not make it on youtube. The highlight of the evening (well one highlight) was when they brought out the midnight snack of these ridiculous French fries. SO GOOD.

What else—after the funeral, which was 2 days after my defense (is that not insane—sometimes I look back and wonder how I got over lol), I proceeded to start celebrating the fact that I was Dr. C-Dot. I went out basically every single night for weeks on end until my mother (because remember I was still at my parents’ house) started sending me bible verses everyday and asking if I was an alcoholic. This included a random trip to charlotte and one to Durham. Unfortunately I did not get any beach time in after I left the Chi, which is warped. I did discover the phenomenon of North Ave Beach Sundays about 4 years too late lol. Interestingly enough, I do not miss the chi one iota. Like not at all. Like if I see it on TV, I’m like “blah”.

I started working near the end of October. It is still rather odd to have this thing called “free time”.

J now lives in a condo down the street from mine, lol but surprisingly we are both still employed. What else? I helped P get into graduate school so he is a first year doctoral student (just call me “Jesus”) right now, however we are definitely no more. In the next few weeks, I am filing a LLC for a business I am starting, and I am applying for academic-y type jobs for next year. So life is good. Not too many complaints.

I have some fun trips planned for 2011. A wedding in Ghana, a trip to Ibiza to celebrate our 30^th, back to Chi to participate in the grad ceremonies, of course CIAAs, another wedding at a club med resort in Florida. I’m also training for a race in April.

And there is your update. 29 is great so far. No, it does not feel much different to have a PhD. I do not make anyone call me doctor. It feels different to other people around me I suppose. On my end, it was just the natural completion to years of an oppressive grind—it does not feel glamorous or anything like that. If anyone asks me should they do one, I say—if you are past 25 you need think really hard about what you’re jumping into and whether you truly have the commitment to finish. Not finishing to me is a special type of failure that will loom over you psychologically for a long time. I mean I don’t know this for sure but this is what I’m guessing. LOL.

More later.

We Done Came Up

2010-07-19T13:36:00.003-04:00

Ok well. So I probably won't be posting that much anymore...because I'm officially Dr. C-Dot, and I'm headed into my like, adult life. This was a wild ass journey I must say...but I would not change one single solitary thing.

On the way to achieving something like this I was bound to lose some stuff in order to gain-- and I truly believe God wanted me to experience things exactly the way I did to develop some skills and characteristics in me that I will need in the future. I have lost a few friends who I don't know if I would consider them friends to start with at this point in my life...and gained some others. One of my grandmothers passed the Friday before my defense and my dog is gone.

However, I am 28 with my PhD, with people who love me, and I know who is really down for me. It is a wonderful feeling. I am looking forward to life, and living life to the fullest without some of the chaotic elements of my 20s. (although I must say I had an outing with J (yes, we're both back in DC-- the authorities are aware of this) that was very reminiscent of early 20s DC foolishness. This will probably not change, we just have money now LOL).

So I'm good. Yay.

Dr. C-dot

I'm Up

2010-05-06T12:51:00.002-04:00

Lease up, June 30th.

Final defense, July.

Most of my dissertation is written. I have a job. Moving back to DC into my condo.

Where did these past 5 years go?

I am proud of myself-- persevered despite lots of challenges. I would not change one single thing.

so yay.

phd hoods are 4 feet long, LOL

The Present Juncture

2010-03-20T21:24:00.002-04:00

so at this juncture i have a job offer that is contingent upon a completion date, which is not scheduled and the powers that be are dragging their asses because apparently when you are young with nothing tying you down you should be happy to keep making your fellowship stipend for the rest of your life. the job is f.a.b.u.l.o.u.s.

so yeah. It is one of those things where the end is very near and things get crazy simply because you are near the end. i am thinking by August I will be Dr. C-dot. honestly, I'm not terribly excited about it, I just want to be.done. and get the puff out the chi.

i should probably write more about this but this has been more of a spiritual journey with a degree on the side.

maybe more later.

Keeping at it

2010-02-08T15:56:00.001-05:00

I shouldn't be neglecting my poor blog but I am sooooo busy. I have lots of great things happening and I am happy to be finishing this thing out. I have one solid study done, a draft of another study, and a sketch of the final one. It's coming together slowly but surely.

Life is good, not too many complaints. Good things happening on other fronts as well.

Maybe more later?

c

Medium Update

2009-12-10T15:34:00.003-05:00

Sorry, not much posting as of late, but my life has been *really* busy. My main source of time and soul sapping activity is working on my dissertation. It goes in fits and starts, and my new thing is to have at least 2 hours dedicated to it per day, which is going to ramp up in January. This probably doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me, it's a lot. I also have to do research for my advisor, and I have a consulting project I am working on which takes up way to much time. This will be over after next week.

Not much else going on, Thanksgiving was massively fab (other than when we were outside the club and had to run from gunshots in downtown DC and the valet people tried to steal Ti's BMW which led to me getting home at 8:40am on Tgiving morning, but you know how my life is, lol). Other than that, I haven't been travelling or anything because I have been on the grind. I hate it when people say that because everyday you should be grinding something, and I ordinarily work pretty hard, but I have been exceeding the human bounds of productivity.

I have a new personal trainer that I go to 3 times a week at 5:30 am, which is kicking my ass, but I have to lose the weight I have gained during my PhD program.

But life is great. No complaints. Moving back east in June. I CAN NOT WAIT. South Africa over the summer. Woo hoo.

Lack o' Fun

2009-11-03T16:54:00.003-05:00

writing a dissertation sucks. 'tis all.

Eensy Weensy Update

2009-09-30T12:25:00.001-04:00

Not much to report. Happy and busy. Will try to post, but may not happen that often. I need to finish this thing out.

Smooches

Back from Miami, This Sh*t Must Stop (or not)

2009-09-03T17:46:00.001-04:00

Umm. Hmm. This behavior has got to stop.

Due to an anonymous donor, I had a plane ticket and a hotel in Miami for my birthday, so I brought along some friends. We had a blast. I have to say though I need to grow up some. Or maybe not. All I know is, Thursday I got intoxicated and won a dance battle. This will not be ok when I am professor dot, seriously. Although I do not remember said dance battle, I do know that I have been watching and learning the Jerk from the silly tight pants boys on YouTube, so it is likely that if the jerk song came on, I did challenge someone. LOL.

What else? Friday for dinner we were randomly sitting outside literally stuffing our faces with seafood. Like STUFFING. Anyway, this guy pulls up on a scooter, and says something unintelligible, and then we ask him to turn the scooter off, and he’s like “do you guys want to come hang out with Fabolous?” So we are all sitting there like “the rapper? Uh. Sure. Why not?”, with wrinkly faces. We give him our names, and he’s like please come by 8. So this seems weird because 8 is early, and we are tipsy and very confused. So anyhoo we all go get dressed and go (the donor did not come) and go over to the place, and it’s the Gansevoort, which is always on Miami Social. This is exciting. So anyway it is a listening party, the guy is his manager , and he lets us come behind the rope. Fab has swag and tons of hits. Who knew? LMAO

After that we went to Mansion for a bit and then went to put our toes in the Ocean. I did not lose my wallet, THANKYOUVERYMUCH. After that we came back and put our toes in the wading pool by the hotel.

Saturday was pretty much more of the same. Sunday we went to Nikki Beach, and the goal for 2010 is to be able to walk/dance in a thong. I’m saying, it can happen.

So life is good, I am just tired. I must work on my dissertation like a maniac now. MUST. It is already getting chilly and I am not happy about it. Hmph.

more later

c.

Feeling Good. Back to Miami, part 1 million.

2009-08-19T13:05:00.001-04:00

So things are going well to great. I am in the last registration status before graduation. I am excited about this, because I am a loser.

Not much to report, we have just been chilling on roofs, shooting the sh*t. Chicago got two hot roofs this summer, the Rooftop at the Wit, and the rooftop at Market Bar. I have hustled my way behind the red rope at both. Fun times.

When I am not doing research or writing, I have been going to the beach. It has not gotten terribly hot, so if you are by the lake it feels *amazing*.

I have also been feeding several television addictions. Between Big Brother, Obsessed/Hoarders, Ruby, Real Housewives of Atlanta, Hell’s Kitchen, and Bridezillas, I was turning down invitations to go out LOL. I moved past that, most things are shown 2 million times anyway.

I am going Miami for the b-day (again), so I have been working my ass off to at least *fit* my damn bikinis. These are not even the skin-ty bikinis, lol.

Other than that, life is good. No complaints, which as you all know is very rare. But, as you also know, I love summer so that could be it. He He.

Tootles

C Dot

Insanity

2009-07-28T01:15:00.002-04:00

So I had the most insane couple of weeks ever. A few points:

* If you hate Beyonce, you hate yourself. Her live show is the sh*t. No ifs, ands, or buts. We stood for the entire time. The next day my thighs were sore and my voice was gone.
* The week after the Bey concert, I was like totally busy. Between working and writing I have had zero time for myself. Every time I get one thing done, I just have more sh*t to do. I just have to keep saying to myself that I will be Dr. C dot soon, although soon is a relative term.
* Part of the reason why I was so busy last week is because some how I had been obligated to help all these people do all this stuff that I really shouldn't have been committed to. I helped soror mom pack to move back to NY for dissertation research and writing-- this ended up being SUCH an ordeal. I was caught up in a vortex. She had a going away party Saturday, and then had to have everything at the shipping place by Friday. ALL BAD. House not organized, total madness. Monday, I helped her pack. The lack of organization and a trip to Bar Louie for half off Monday meant I got to bed at 1. Tuesday, there was birthday party. Did not get home until 1, sleep until 2. (on T, W, and Th I have to be downtown in the AMs). Wednesday I had to go pick up her friend from the airport. Flight delayed, sleep at 2. Thursday, more packing, although I could only offer moral support at that point.
*Friday (this gets its own bullet) I did running of the bride's at filene's for soror friend. NEVER again. Nope, never. I don't care if I'm someone's maid of honor and they want to do it, I'M NOT DOING IT. I had a on yellow team t-shirt and a blue wig. It took her 7, count 'em, 7 hours to pick a dress. These biotches were not playing. There was a group of black chicks with pre-printed t-shirts that said "Bridal Thugs". Word? Friday (my writing day) was gone. Then when I finally get home, I get a call to pick up the other people from the U Haul place. Then I had squatters, one of which was the most high maintenance revolutionary I've ever met.
* Related to that, don't try to make a 7 foot black man watch Ruby and Bridezillas, even if it's at your house you LET him sleep at and your cable. And don't fix his stupid ass breakfast because he won't appreciate it.

So I'm not doing sh*t else for anyone for at least 6 months, whether it be showers, moving, etc. I have earned my place in Heaven. People don't appreciate sh*t anyway. I am so drained, and I simply don't have time to be drained.

On the grind, so you may not hear much from me.

Taste, part 2

2009-07-09T13:09:00.002-04:00

Let’s see where are we? Last weekend was the Taste. I had some visitors, and we had a good ass time. I have a new appreciation for the eL now that I live close to a stop. Except that it goes sooooo slowly. On the way back from the club is not the time for everyone to fall asleep and you miss your stop. Or on the way to club is not the time for your cousin and linesister to be acting out scenes from black movies. I was not allowed to watch rated R movies growing up, so there are so many movies I’ve only scene once or twice and thusly do not have them etched in my memory like most people do. "Clueless" or something like that, yes. The cousin that was here is the cousin whose house I would go to see rated R movies, LOL. I had not seen Coming to America until my freshman year at Duke.

YES I ADMIT IT.

So I could not participate in the acting. “What’s Love Got to do with it?” I have seen, so I could partially participate. I am surprised no one gave us any money for the performances.

We also played whirly ball, which is, by far, one of my favorite things to do in the chi. That, plus yoga has me a little beat up this week.

Anyhoo, nothing much else, prepping for C-Day (yall know I start early), and I have a few things I want to give to myself, and I am certain it will happen. I am working on a consulting project that has me downtown for part of the week, so this is nice. It gives me a non-Northside appreciation of the Chi, although I am literally around the corner from someone’s office. *spit*.

So happy, writing, etc.

NEXT WEEKEND I AM GOING TO SEE BEYONCE WITH DR. ONI. I AM GETTING A 5 FOOT LONG PONYTAIL. it's just going to have to drag on the ground :)

Unlocking Ankles

2009-06-25T12:50:00.003-04:00

So I’ve been busy traveling. And writing (for me writing entails statistical analysis and writing, but I just say writing to my friends and family because it’s easier to comprehend when I say “I’m locked away writing” rather than “I’m writing a .do file trying to figure out propensity score matching”. LOL.) Anyway, after my short “vacation” in DC, I went to Philly for a two day training to become a reviewer for this clearinghouse where they try to identify really good education studies and synthesize the information for practitioners. This was as tedious as it sounds.

I told y’all I’ve been becoming more fascinated with spiritual stuff. Well anyway, the last Friday I was in DC, I was, umm, reminded of some old not so positive memories. This is cryptic, sorry. Lol. I woke up on Saturday and I COULD NOT WALK. My left ankle was magically sprained. I had a climbed through a window earlier in the week—don’t ask, but other than that I have no idea how this happened. The night before, a couple of my prophytes and me had stayed up drinking wine with my parents. Ever since they turned that last tuition payment for the Diva, they have really been so much less stressed you can see it and feel it. Anyway, I was fine. But Saturday AM, I was HURTING. To the point where I basically was crawling. I looked into my Louise Hay book and she says that ankle injuries are the result of not being able to receive pleasure or not being able to move forward. Coincidence? I think not.

Somehow I managed to get on the plane to the Chi, and then to Philly the next day. Sunday night, I was chatting with J, N’s law school friend who is now pursuing a PhD in metaphysics, and she said “what time are you going to bed?” I said about an hour. She sent me an email about putting thoughts into actions. When I woke up, I had another email waiting entitled “feedback”. She had conducted a spiritual healing on me. You can find her here.

My ankle was healed. Sprains do not go away in two days. I had no pain in Philly. J is my guru. All of the stuff she said I had been carrying around was true. I view this is an aligning of events—I started thinking about energies and chakras last summer when I was hard core power yoga-ing in Santa Monica. I would not have been in Santa Monica had I chosen to stay home for my PhD, because I would have played it safe and if I had gone to RAND, would have gone to the DC office. And this new way of thinking works well with my Catholic beliefs which I take pretty seriously. Not the political oppressing women stuff lol, just the idea that you can always start fresh if you repent, and that love is the basis of everything.

I’m feeling good. I left the house after a two year stint—they wanted me to stay around another year, but I need to return to adult land. So I am back living by the beach in a lovely apartment I have deemed the “dissertation oasis”.

What else? The Hangover is massively, insanely, absurdly funny. SERIOUSLY.

Rneezi’s BFF got her hood, so she’s Dr. Rneezi’s BFF…and Rneezi is Dr. Rneezi and moved to DC for her residency. So we’ll be united this time next year.

A lot of my peeps are coming for the Taste next week, so I’m on punishment this week to pre-atone for my sins.

Yay

C.

Small update

2009-06-08T23:35:00.003-04:00

I’m in DC for a bit and I am having a blast. I came home for the Diva’s graduation party and then for the annual conference my fellowship sponsors. It’s going well so far. And it's my last (required) one.

First of all, the grad party was a blast. We had crabs, wine, cake, nummy. Some small but hilarious drama popped off at the end. The Diva’s BFF’s boyfriend took a champagne bottle outside and broke it, so we’re all like “HELL TO THE NO”. Then, because she said we were too stuck up to handle it, our neighbor’s relative was like outside going off but kept coming in the house telling us about her man in jail. LOL. It’s a long story which I don’t feel like telling but we all went to bed at like 4. After my mother told us if we didn’t settle down she was calling the police. Ha ha snort.

So on Sunday evening I had to present a poster at the conference. This went well, except I was standing on these insane shoes for two hours.

After that, Ti and I went to see a band on U Street, and then watched the game at Ben’s Next Door, and then went to Bar Louie.

I always said the only thing the Chi has that DC doesn’t have is Bar Louise and now we have one. Ahem.

Anyway, I’m here for a bit, then back to the chi and then off to Philly. Then I have to stay my ass in one place and write my ass off.

But life is good. Oh, and I'm not doing things for people that they wouldn't do for me. LIBERATING. Try it. ;)

Ta ta

c dizzle

Feeling GoooooOooOd

2009-05-25T17:04:00.002-04:00

I just got back from NY, and I have to say I had a blast. It was the Diva's *college* graduation. Yes we are old. The trip was exactly what I needed. Our hotel was in midtown, and my cousins were in town too. I got sleep, I partied, I spent time with family, I'm happy.

I am in a good place. I saw sometime that I hadn't seen in awhile, and it was, umm, on bad terms when I saw her last (lol) and I had zero emotional reaction. This was good. I had a feeling it would happen while I was NY because that is how my life operates. HA.

Anyway I have been pursuing spiritual pursuits via self help books for a few years now, and right now I'm reading "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise L Hay. I am working on my thoughts to attract some fresh energy in my life. I realize a great deal of the chaos I was experiencing was through people I had attracted into my life. And me putting up with it.

So I am yoga-ing and meditating. And dissertating. LOL

c dot

Vindication. (a little)

2009-05-04T23:24:00.002-04:00

So through an odd sequence of events, I am ta-ing intro to stats (the undergrads are animals), even though I a) swore I would never TA again, and b) do not have to TA because of my fellowship. Someone else was supposed to do it, and that person couldn't, and then someone else couldn't so they asked me. It's actually not half bad. I get a reminder of stuff I take for granted when I'm doing research, and I am fairly certain I could teach it myself should I choose to be a professor.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is one of the other TA's just had a run in with old crazy advisor. He was out of line about something that was just so ridiculous. Anyway, she was really upset so she pulls me to the side to talk about it. Apparently the rumor is that I told him to "f*ck off".

That's not true, LOL. It's hilarious that people think that, but that's not what happened. After a a school year of basically making my work environment and thus the rest of my life toxic, after I politely told him I would not be working for him anymore, he sent me *the* most insane email, to which I replied. While I did not say "f*ck off" , I did say, in so many words, I don't care if you have a nobel prize, you don't need to be popping off at the mouth like that. Anyhoo, it was this big dramatic thing that has really cast a shadow over my studies here. No one stood up for me, the then program chair was unhelpful, and anytime I have to interact with a faculty member, I have to wonder whether he got to them first. This is not something you need to be wondering about the faculty of your PhD program.

Anyway, all of this has been weighing on me, directly and indirectly since my first year. I have just been feeling like whether this has all been worth it (I am being dramatic, of course it is (RIGHT?? LOL)). On top of the fact that I am not a fan of the Chi, it has felt like a cloud is following me around.

Back to the story. So this woman comes and tells me her struggles with slim, and I am like-- of course. It happens every year with him, he makes people cry (not me-- to him anyway lol), he is unethical, just absurd... The twist is, now the dean wants people to come tell her their experiences. I kid you not, like 6 people came forward, not just from our program. Post docs, PhD students, undergrads, etc. She probably can't do anything, but it feels nice to be *heard*.

That is the one thing I have been missing. I just needed someone to *hear* me. I thought when they made him program chair it was a big f*ck you to the students, but I guess they had to do something with him.

So this has helped my meantime be a little more enjoyable. This, and the fact that I have detached myself from the outcome. I am going to finish. It is going to be ok. Struggling for no reason is not.

more later-- i have new york and dc coming up. need some summer trips out of ev-iL. No santa monica this year. maybe later for permanent. we'll see.

tootles

Busy.

2009-04-20T12:59:00.002-04:00

Let’s see. Where are we? I had thee longest week ever last week. Easter started off all wrong because I was homesick. Easter is like my favorite holiday. Anyway, because of my ban on African American young professional events, I have been spending a lot of time with myself. This has been fun, but at times, unless I am struck with the urge to dissertate, I am bored. So I was bored Saturday night, and was having a hilarious conversation with J over BBM, when I get the rudest, most absurd text message from someone. (lol)

Anyway, it’s just like Groundhog Day, when you keep reminding why you and a person just don’t get along. Except for the beginning I was really taking it personally, I was REALLY upset. For some dumb ass reason I had sort of worked it out in my head where I always forgive this person for the things he does. I don’t know, I think I was holding on to a friendship that was clearly not there. Just not seeing the person for who they are. I was shaking, I vomited I was not feeling well, I was late to church, homesick. When I told J about she then cursed me out and said “I’ve heard this from you before, so I need to know why he is in your life. He is a terrible human being”. LOL. And that pretty much sums it up. So then I was able to talk myself off the edge (it doesn’t take me much to get there…I am hoping post graduate school life will return me to some type of normalcy).

I did some ceiling staring in the afternoon and then took myself out to the movies later. I scared the piss out of myself watching A Haunting in Connecticut. Part of the issue here is that I get lots of corrective and or negative feedback at school. Well not negative, but that’s what research is, you have to keep doing sh*t over and over again until someone tells you it’s ok. And until you are a PhD you have this huge thing hanging over your head. You need some reassurance from somewhere else. You don’t want negative people in your life. There’s just no room for it.

Anyway, last week was just so busy because I had a few different things going on. I have my little side business happening, I am TA-ing again (this is the last time I swear—oh I have some money for next year, whoop), and there were two conferences, one for the policy institute here, and then the black grad student conference, where I presented some research,and also helped to plan. Anyway, so it was a long busy week, and I was not happy with the way it started.

In the middle of all this, on Tuesday, officemate and I had to go to something at 5:30, but we found ourselves worn out. We were lamenting about the state of our PhD student lives, the men in them, when we decided to get some margaritas. Here I should mention that it is still cold and gray. I am dark brown (milk chocolate, if you will) and I can see my veins--this should be cause for effing concern. PEOPLE NEED VITAMIN D (i.e. sun) TO BE HAPPY. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH SUN IN CHICAGO. So anyway, we got tipsy and then went to a talk on civic engagement. Hilarity ensued. There was this silly econ PhD there asking these crazy questions. Lots of giggling.

Also last week, Rneezi’s best friend defended her dissertation. I unlifted my ban to celebrate with her and ended up skinning my knee. The night before I had to present. Ugh.

So not much more to report. Posting will light. I have so much sh*t to get done. Nothing fun and social to share.

Ttfn

Post Carlotta

2009-03-19T11:21:00.000-04:00

Oh let’s see. Where are we? I am waiting for something to get approved so I can move forward with something else. Story of my life. My post CIAA life has been a little--well a lot --on the sucky side. I spent last weekend learning how to do this one statistical procedure in SAS, and then was advised to go in another direction. Ok. Well then.

I have however been sticking to my no African American young professional events in Chicago dictum. I’m NOT doing it. I had an exception on St. Patty’s day--but I wasn’t driving. I was also accidentally with someone who had on apple bottom jeans…so, umm, yeah. That was not a context I would have selected myself into, so it doesn’t count.

Last weekend I hung with Dr. O. I just adore her. This is the one doing the ob gyn residency here at NU. She keeps it real, at all costs. Anyhoo we went to eat on Old Town and failed miserably at making our own margaritas. Like we couldn’t work the blender. It was a extremely hilarious. Couldn’t figure out how much ice, how much mix, and then ended up with strawberry margarita mix all over the counter. So basically we had chilled margaritas. No matter, her apartment looks over Lake Michigan, so you can’t get too worked up about anything up there.

Anyway, we were lamenting about something I have been trying to figure out but I have not quite been able to put the words to--and it is the reason I cut a whole bunch of folks out of my life. She is getting married next summer (yay-- I think I’m about to be in wedding hell again, lol) and her brothers are acting like idiots about it. Well we basically came up with this theory about how when you are the smart or capable child no one wants to see your “humanness”, so to speak. The Diva and I are not getting along because a while ago--I think I wrote about it-- right in the middle of this HUGE family drama we were having-- called me to tell me she was mad that when I stayed at her house I wore one of her dresses and some other dumb, stupid, irrelevant sh*t. This was like literally, as I was being cursed at and called everything but a child of God by a VERY close relative who is known to have serious anger management problems. The conversation, as you can imagine, devolved from there into a three day long argument from which we have not fully recovered. You are my sister why are you not calling to see if I’m ok? I know it seems like I have it all together but damn, I’m a person. Although she is my sister, she is not the only person who claims to be love and care about me that has done this. When someone is stressed or down…that is not the appropriate time to tell them “about themselves”. Particularly right now for me anyway. I just don’t have the reservoir to deal. So you will get cut off. And I’m not playing about that either. If I say I’m not talking to you for 6 months to a year, then I’m not. In PhD time, that’s really nothing, so it’s not hard on my end. LOL. So yeah, that’s our theory. The Diva did get me a set of MAC brushes at Christmas, so…LOL. (The new Hello Kitty collection has hurt my pockets-- it’s ok though I zero balanced my credit cards--whoot)

She is graduating from college in two months, by the way. Yes, we are old-ish. My parents, who are very excited that they have no more college tuition to pay, are planning this like week long extravaganza in Manhattan. I know it’s going to be madness. The ghetto cousins are coming too. Sigh.

Nonetheless, I am good. I have decided to not give into my traveling urges for awhile because I need my proposal to be done.

What else? I need to stop hanging around black women that are older than me and that are single. I hate to say that, but it’s true. You get into the language and then you start feeling bad for something that is not even your own reality.

I have this new yoga-for-your-life plan that I’m starting today. I’ll keep you posted.

I <3 Carlotta

2009-03-10T10:11:00.000-04:00

I carried my ass to Charlotte last weekend and I still recovering.

I heart Charlotte. I double heart the CI-blasted AA’s. (Side note: ask me who won the tournament…I don’t even know who was playing. LOL) The entire trip was total madness. It was a smaller portion of the usual suspects—me, b-rocka, J13 and Dr. Dre. This really served to enhance the fun because it is much easier to have hi jinks when there is a smaller amount of people. Not to say that we didn’t miss everyone, but it was an enhanced level of fun. We always compare our weekends to this time in 04 (lol) when we went to Bahamas and had SO MUCH FUN. This Charlotte trip was Bahamas level fun.

There was no shoe throwing, or any other madness this year, which was great. I slept probably, oh, 8 hours the entire weekend. Highlights include the –day- party where we ended partying with the most fun guys on the planet. There was some couch dancing. I was sitting on the edge of the VIP, which was like overlooking the rest of the club—this is as close to nirvana as it gets for me. If there had been a closed caption TV with CNN I would have never left the club lol. A gentleman to my right was making it rain. (No one is acting like it’s a recession lol) These women were RUNNING to pick it up. Like diving. Later one of our new friends who is an ex NFL player described the efficient and effective way to make it rain so that your dollar bills float up into a little cloud and float down onto, umm, women. LOL. Mind you, this was at 5:00 pm. We still went out and partied later that night.

After the Charlotte fun, I went to Durham to visit Rneezi and others. Rneezi had just gotten back from Spain the previous day so she couldn’t join us. (She was there doing a rotation in emergency medicine—I don’t even have to talk about how effing fabulous that is). We had a nice time, except it was snowing in NC. WTF? I thought I had left that sh*t here in the hellhole.

What else. Making progress. It is mildly/extremely exciting that I getting closer to being Dr. C Dot. It doesn’t feel like I have been here that long. But I have. Weird.

I got some elucidation on the male thought process, although I must say I think men are extremely confusing, just from a right vs. wrong standpoint. If you are married why are you harassing me via Facebook (and why the f*ck is it so ghetto now)? And why are getting mad when I threaten to tell your wife? My guy friend was like you should take it as a compliment and not get so upset. Umm no. What the hell type backwards ass thinking is that? Le sigh.

Some other fun things. But I’ll keep them to myself for now.

Ta ta

Off!

2009-02-25T18:42:00.003-05:00

Hmmm. I'm off for a few days. So effing excited.

New focus: getting money and having fun.

Getting money can mean actually getting money but it can stand in for other things.

LOL

Only like-minded individuals need join me in this new phase.

Grassy Ass

Piss Poor Mood

2009-02-13T12:05:00.000-05:00

I am in a piss poor mood. These people are going to drive me insane.

No one ever tells you how long it takes to write (well really set up) a decent dissertation. When you are at a filthy ass top echelon school that expects you to get a filthy ass tenure track job at another top institution, it takes a lot of work to convince people that your topic is worth investigating and to produce some quality sh*t that probably I, my committee, and my mother will read. I know for a fact my dad is not reading my dissertation and he is ABD in soc.

I have rants about other things:

1) If you haven’t said sh*t to me in a long time why would the first thing you say to me about anything be asking for me to help you with something? Doesn’t that seem a hint on the selfish side?
2) Why would someone keep calling and not leave a message? And then, at the end of the day, after three calls, leave a message saying “hey. Call me back when you get this.” Why don’t you say the substantive thing about which you are calling? Good God. This is probably karma though. Because I don’t leave messages either, lol. Guess what the person was calling about? Some cups and plates for a dinner party I’m throwing tonight. YES I’M GOING TO HAVE SOME MOTHERHUMPING CUPS AND PLATES. DOES THIS LOOK LIKE NARNIA? SEND A TEXT. My phone is usually on quiet during the day. DAMN.
3) I had my blood pressure up because of the damn UNC-Duke game. Those motherf*ckers need to get it together, zort.
4) They are having admitted applicants day and if there isn’t a new black person—they haven’t had one since me, I’m going to have a one woman protest. I CAME HERE IN FALL OF 200 and GOT DAMN FIVE.

What else is going on? Nothing really. I’m swinging into travel season—I’ll be in Charlotte at the end of this month, then DC in March, San Diego in April, Hilton Head in May, and back to DC in June.

Perhaps more later.

Oh! I’m not going to any black clubs in Chicago until the Taste. This may be a lie—you know I like to party and I may need to scratch my itch, but I swear First Fridays last week brought it all in perspective about what a lame ass place this is.

I am re-friends with someone who I think at one point banned me from calling his blog name when we were fighting (LOL) but he also concurs.

Le sigh.

Maybe something more inspirational later.

Probably not.

C

Teensy Update

2009-01-25T22:29:00.001-05:00

So I don’t really have much to report. I was engaged in a standoff with myself about a paper I have been working on FOREVER and I need to finish it. Seriously. Other than that, I have been (surprise!) proposal writing. This sh*t is just dragging on. I AM SO OVER IT.

On Friday soror friend and I went out to eat in the South Loop and the valet man lost my house key which just happens to cost 200 dollars to replace. This, combined with the cold caused me to have a whole Saturday of “f*ck Chicago” feelings. I go through this periodically where I fantasize about the life I could have had with my nice government job (even though they treated me like sh*t) and my masters. These feelings have sort of passed today.

Except I accidentally went to the bilingual mass today. Not Latin, which I know, but Spanish. Just stab me. My late behind couldn’t even scooch out once I figured it out. Le sigh.

Hmmm, what else? I went from swearing I would never TA again to TA-ing one and a half classes. I have a fellowship, so it’s just extra money. But undergraduates are a special breed of human. Seriously. One of my residents has developed a crush on me which is TOTALLY out of control. Like, if I’m leaving, his 18 year old ass will be like, “where are you going?” TO MIND MY 27 YEAR OLD BUSINESS.

My mother was trying to help me get my last wind to finish this thing out the other day, although now she keeps talking about the tenure track. That woman is a trip.

Perhaps I will share my updated what I’m over list. I had a few revelations, maybe I’ll share later.

Although I am holding onto sanity by a shred, I can see why some old friends went crazy when they turned 26 and 27. It's hard out here for the sis-tahs. B rocka and I are going to start making youtubes around this concept. It probably won't happen but it would be hilarious if it did.

C-sha Fierce

LMAO

ta ta

Happy New Year, Whoop

2009-01-07T11:04:00.001-05:00

Hmmm. Long time no speak. I’ll probably not be posting as much anymore. That could be a lie. LOL.

Anyhoo. I am just trying to get my dissertation off the ground. This is taking longer than I would like. A sister is trying to get the eff out of dodge, but I have to exhibit some patience. It’s moving along though. I have to find a balance between doing the thing I am interested in--which doesn’t have that much data--and doing something relatively fast. Either way, it has to be thorough because this is what I have to take on the job market with me. This will be happening Fall 09. That is not that far away. It is very scary but exciting. All I know is, when I finally get out of here, no one will be able to say sh*t to me for at least two weeks. HA.

What else? December was kind of blur. Officemate and I had a difficult time staying motivated.

Plus, my sleep patterns have just been off since the election. Like one day we both were here on Saturday and we left to go eat pancakes. That is a new level of procrastination. Saturday tomfoolery. LOL.

My holidays were good too. Nothing terribly eventful. I had two family members go to the hospital back to back, but everyone is ok now. I also saw the usual suspects. As I’ve said before, DC is never going to change. Nope. I also kind of decided I want to come back to the area.

New Year’s was fab. We went to the T-boyband (now husband) household for drinks, Taboo and karaoke. (After a subset of us went to get some swirlies—it’s officially an addiction when I hit town). This may be a sign that I am growing up, but this is the first time since I was 22 that I was not standing in the middle of a party *screaming*, when the New Year arrived. LOL. It was nice to be lucid and actually kiss my linesisters on the cheek and not knock them over.

What else? I’m doing pretty well. Ti bought a cute little house in DC so I helped her decorate it. This was very fun. I am so happy for my friends because they are just so effing awesome. When I am thinking about public policy and my work I read a lot about disadvantaged black people and low income women, blah blah blah, but my friends are doing the damn thing. Like she’s 28 and owns a home on a block with families. That’s hot.

I am on a “get your mind right and your body tight” kick. It’s going well so far. I’m down about 2. I have a sh*t load to go though. I had kind of checked out on my health for a while. It’s just weird how I click on and off.

What’s on tap? Trips home, maybe another Charlotte trip, San Diego, and maybe a trip abroad.

Rneezi is doing a rotation in Spain (she’ll be done with med school this year) so we may try to capitalize.

‘Tis all for now.

Smooches

It's Snowing

2008-12-02T00:04:00.002-05:00

Let's see. Had a fun Thanksgiving. It was all the greatest hits...me, Ti, the rents, Dr. Faboo, the grams...

We went out Thursday night-- had bourgie night and ghetto night all in one. Will there ever be a point in my life where I will say no to leaving the club at 1:30 to go to another that lasts until 3:00? Hmmm. Why are DC clubs trying to act like NY/LA clubs? I found that hilarious.

Went out Friday too. Not Saturday. I got caught up in my second Lockup marathon of the holiday.

Being proposal-ing/dissertationing. I was down on myself because I am behind my schedule (remember the infamous matrix?), but I realized I've only been at this for 38 months. Not that long when you think about it. And I had an advisor leave, so I'm alright.

Not much else. Just on the grind.

Back to DC in a few. Still not sold on the Chi. *spit*

More later.

Update

2008-11-13T03:09:00.002-05:00

So, lots of fun things happening. First of all, of all the insane asylum things that have happened to me during these 3 years (well this is three months into my fourth year) that I've been here, I would not give anything back to not be in Chicago when Barack won the election. The whole day was kind of insane, and I had to turn in this dissertation proposal application thingy earlier that day. I watched the returns with the black phd to-be's and then went down to Grant Park. This was totally awesome. It was so cool to see all those people-- and they had not one arrest. Then I got to see the people who I know who worked on the campaign. Long story short I got home at 4:30 AM. For a variety of reasons I have been awake to ungodly hours several days in the past couple of weeks. It's getting out of control. Like right now lol.

The next day I went to LA for the annual public policy analysis conference (they alternate between random cities and DC). This was moderately fun. It just reminded me of how fun LA was this summer and the inherent suckiness of Chicago. I had some Roscoe's chicken and waffles, which was like totally great. We also hit the rooftop at the standard-- and got harassed by a 45 year old man, a white man who took my pinky ring off my hand and licked it (barf), and an architect posing as a photograper for the party. Quite odd. This trip was my last hurrah of eating like some kind of tazmanian devil. I had a good time, because I have got reign it in. I feel like sh*t most of the time and I'm sure it's because of my sleeping patterns and eating habits. I'm back on track as of this week.

So I got back here Saturday-- saw the dumb funny zack and miri make a porno-- it's really insane, and then I've been sort of hanging out. The proposal thingy sucked away like a month, and I have other sh*t I need to get done, but I had to use this week to recalibrate.

Old crazy advisor spoke to me the first time since summer '06. Usually I just smile and say hi and keep.it.moving, but he actually spoke back. This is a grown ass man, lol. I had to resist laughing in his face.

So ridiculous.

I AM OBSESSED WITH THAT NEW BEYONCE (she's cursing tho...tee hee) Check out that number 3, "diva". Just musical excellence. :)

C-Fierce

lol

tata

Defying Gravity in the A, among other things

2008-10-28T14:40:00.002-04:00

I had a busy ass week last week. First of all, I got to see Wicked for 5 dollars. This was a chaotic day, as it was Dr. O’s birthday, so I had to squeeze in dinner and drinks and then get over to the show. I have to say that I absolutely ADORED the musical. Like I have been singing the lyrics over and over again. Something in me really relates to Elphaba. The “defying gravity” almost had me in tears—she’s like if you want to see me get Wicked, here you go, look to Western sky (bitches) lol. But then she wasn’t really Wicked in the end—but it was a phase she had to go through. Sob. Lol.

Then on Thursday I went to this event I have been helping to plan with the black alum Dukies. This is was very neat, I got to meet Grant Hill’s mom and lots of other neat people. Although I have to stop being such an effing social butterfly, because while it was over at 8, I got home at 11 (wrinkle face) and I had to be at the airport 4:30 Friday AM to got Atlanta to celebrate B-rocka’s b-day.

Atlanta was a flipping blast. I always forget how fun it is until I get down there. First of all, on Friday we had wine and chicken wings (LMAO), Rneezi and J13 drove down from NC, Miss A, and some of B-rocka’s home friends came over, and we tore those things up. We then went to a party called Black Love at some warehouse. All I know is we managed to finagle our way into VIP, umm, procure some liquor from someone’s bottle, and I almost fell out of the VIP which was on this elevated thingie, which means I almost fell off VIP, but I didn’t. Thank goodness. While we were walking out, we saw one of the bruhs we used to know back in the day and I waved, looked away, and turned back and he had torn off his button down and was body rolling toward us. It was quite hilarious. He was not the only individual who was body rolling that evening. It was quite the experience.

Saturday, we went to Waffle House (how I do miss the South!) and then went to tailgate. I almost got mauled by the bruhs, and also got exhorted to put my ‘mammary glands’ on someone, and I’m just happy to be alive to report it back to you all.

After tailgating, we went to a party at Turner Field, where I randomly saw my prom date. He went to Morehouse. Oh did I mention it was Morehouse/Spelman homecoming? On Friday I got to see Rneezi’s best friend teach Audre Lorde to Spelman undergrads. That was rather moving, as I was definitely having a “what the eff am I doing this again for?” moment all last week. Anytime you are almost in tears behind watching a stupid musical, something has got to give.

Hmm, what else?

Almost done with the proposal thingy I’ve been working on. Really ready to get the f*ck out of the Midwest. It’s just not for me AT ALL. I need to be able to go to the club and hear “what’s up with that k k"? Really.

I’ve also been volunteering at Illinois Obama HQ. It’s been interesting—people are receptive when I call their house, which is odd to me, but hey it’s all good.

Tootles

taboo shenanigans

2008-10-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

Dude. A sister is tired. I think I need iron pills or something. I am trying to finish dissertation grant proposals, and it’s proving to be more difficult than I thought. Well not difficult per se, but it’s just a lot of going back and forth. Not to mention my hard drive crashed. That right there would be enough to send someone over the edge, but I am remaining calm about it. I have taken it to a ton of places to see if they could fix it, but no one has been able to do it. So I just carry my laptop around like it’s going to magically come back to life. It’s actually sick LOL.

Last weekend, I participated in a FIVE HOUR long game of Taboo with soror friend and her boo. It was 4 boys, and 6 girls, and we came in late, so her boo was like “C-DOT IS ON THE BOYS TEAM” I was like “damn don’t I get a choice?” So then we commenced to whoop some ass, so the girls started talking sh*t, to which the boys kicked me off their team (!) to prove that they could beat the girls, except when I switched teams, my new team started to win.

Common denominator? Moi. I am really a Taboo nazi. It’s pretty bad.

Anyway, so I didn’t get home until 5 effing am, and Sunday was a wrap. Behind Taboo—and margaritas. Ahem.

I have been doing a ton of volunteer work this year mainly to fill up time, partially because I was drafted for one thing, and the other thing is kind of cool.

I also started a business. Well I suppose I can’t officially call it that yet, but it’s something I have wanted to do for a while. I have one client so far and an email address.

I am also practicing being a bitch for a month, but I keep getting sidetracked. LMAO. I have say some more about that later.

more later

c-roc obama

change 08

Over It

2008-10-06T09:47:00.002-04:00

So nothing too much new here. N was here this week (she's on some type of world tour before she starts working) and I'm worn out.

On Thursday, we went to a very fun debate watching party. I got bangs and my hair is like kind of auburn with reddish highlights right now (I went on this crazy Change '08 kick two weeks ago, I have to write some more about it later) so I'm thinking I will be Sarah Palin for Halloween. I have a glue gun, so I'm going to bedazzle a flag pin. I am very excited about this. NO ONE STEAL IT.

I am so over a variety of people. Disappointment is probably one of the worst things to feel, and yet, here we are again.

The one thing I have been totally effective at is finding new ways to not write. LMAO. New advisor hasn't really started us on his projects, so my days are kind of wide open. I am working on my dissertation proposal, but I have to meet with people and discuss sh*t, which is proving to be difficult (side note: I can see how people end up in PhD school forever, you have to have the patience of Ghandi, and you damn near have to harass people to get anything done in a timely manner), because folks are busy. So I have been to the elderly matinee movies twice last week. LOL. And done a ton of yoga. Which isn't bad. But I'd like to get this thing moving. I want my life back from NU.

I also got an "I know I f*cked up. It will never happen again, how can I make it up to you" text. If I were to cut and paste the number of these that I recieved over the past year, well...let's just say it would be a lot. The thing is, I never want it made up. I want you to not do it. I just don't understand...I do lots of things for people that they would never do for me, and I'm simply tired of it. So my patience level for tomfoolery is at all time low. This latest f*ck up was completely unexpected, and more importantly, caused me to waste an eyelash application from the MAC lady. They only last one night, and if the night is ruined, well then that is a waste. UGH.

I missed the annual department party. This is nothing new, as I've never been. LOL. This is what was the beginning of all the dramatics with the old crazy advisor. (Because I wasn't there someone thought I wasn't having a good time here or something like that, and then it just morphed into a big snowball of madness which caused them to question my commitment to being here, among other things, which is patently absurd. I have no family here, the majority of my friends are not here, and no relationship here, so am I literally here for this program. But it occurred to me that even thought we have all these famous faculty, and people get good jobs, it's really a commuter program for white women that want to have babies while their husbands work. Ok, that's probably an exaggeration. LOL. ) But the first time, I went to visit P, then I went to homecoming. I was really minding my business. This year, I just didn't feel like going. I was organizing my clothes. HA.

Anyway, so posting will probably be light. The days are just dragging on.

And a shout out to my beloved Washington Redskins! You know I always cheer for y'all even when you aren't winning! So keep it up. Woo hoo

C-Roc Obama

lol

ta ta

Hmmmm

2008-09-21T23:31:00.002-04:00

Not much new to report.

I'm doing alright. Just majorly exhausted lately. I'm pretty caught up on everything, which is good. Been out a lot to wack Chicago clubs and parties. My cousin was here this week. I am such a good hostess she extended her trip a day, which was fine, but I was/am really tired from the whole visit.

I found a power yoga place here in Chicago which is great. I need to be consistent about it.

What else? I'm in candidacy as of tomorrow. Just have defend my prospectus which I'm hoping to do in November. So we'll see. I'm on my schedule give or take a quarter (lol). It's not my time-- I have to wait for people to read and approve stuff and you know folks take their sweet ass time. I am relaxing into things though-- by that I mean I am have ceased to be obsessed with when I'm finished. I have a date in my head, but if it doesn't happen I won't faint. I do want to do some good research and enjoy this last chunk. This is probably the last time in my life I will have this much freedom to explore my interests.

I found I have *another* hater in my life. But this takes a very subtle form. So I have to stay on guard.

I got an introduction to real Chicago house music the first time this Saturday. It was a bit much. People were dancing barefoot and what not. It was really wild.

I spent all day with my beloved residents. We had a project to do to get ready for the year. They are actually some people at Northwestern I can stand. LMAO.

Will write more later.

Back to the Chi, Part Infinity

2008-09-08T13:30:00.001-04:00

So I am back in the rainy Chi. I have a new advisor. He is very nice. Also an economist. He is going to allow me to pursue topic for my dissertation that I have been interested in for a very long time. I would tell you about it, but there are literally no quantitative studies on it, so I need to keep it under wraps until I apply for these dissertation fellowships. LOL.

But I am feeling very positive. The end is in sight but I am excited to get my own research underway. This is the part of the PhD that excites me. I'm a nerd.

Anyhoo, so I have to cut myself off, because I have really been celebrating my birthday for something like two weeks now. It’s totally getting out of hand. So I have to be on a no spending no alcohol diet for like a month.

We’ll see how long this lasts.

It JUST occurred to me that when people are unhappy with themselves they make terrible people to be in a relationship with—whether it’s an advisor, a boyfriend, a regular friend…whatever. I was taking things personally but in academia you have to have thick skin. I will write some more about this later. I just had a really negative conversation with the black guy on the faculty and during the convo I discovered he is thinking about leaving NU. This would be sad but he is unhappy here and so it just pervades the conversation. I think this has happened a lot in my personal life too.

What else? B went to VMA’s. I’m hating on that.

We went to watch the Bears last night down town. Chi men are so lame. No swagger. One should not wear summer suits in the Fall.

Hmmm.

My trackball on my blackberry needs to be massaged.

Fab C Day

2008-08-28T11:51:00.003-04:00

Not much time to write but my b day was effing fabulous:

-- J was here since last Thursday and we shopped our asses off.

--We saw Prince at a party Friday night.

--One of our prophytes who doubled as my best friend at Duke came up with her hubby on Saturday-- we went to the beach and forgot we were black women. LOL.

--My aunt made us some of the best soul food ever Saturday night.

--Chocolate Sundaes at the Laugh Factory was, again, mascara running funny.

--Had my end of summer presentation on Tuesday, it went very well. I will be telecommuting from the Chi. This is great.

--Went to a taping of the Dr. Phil show. I'll let you guys know when it's coming on. It was a black couple on the brink of divorce. Robin (Dr. Phil's wife) is that bitch. She looks AMAZING.

-- Went to an event with B later in the evening. Sanaa Lathan, Taraji Henson, Kim Kardashian, Bill Bellamy, Marcia Cross, and others were there. WE GOT A FREE BLACKBERRY.

So it was good. I am excellent. I'll write some more later.

MUAH

Womp

2008-08-18T18:25:00.001-04:00

Hmmm. Let’s see…I passed my requirement thingy. Excitement. I have to make some minor revisions and the program chair has to do one final read through and we’re good. Then it’s off to the dissertation proposal. This is good. However, I feel underwhelmed. I have to say I was waiting, like I always am, for them to email me like “you suck. Would you please just give it up and go home???!” But they didn’t. It was positive, constructive feedback. *Shock*.

Getting ready for the b-day. Can’t say I’m massively enthused. I am going to buy myself a nice purse, and J will be here, but I have a presentation the day before. I am torn being between buying the purse I really want, or buying a stand in (until I really have the money) that costs about half of the one I want. In actuality, I have no business buying the one I want…but I want it. And I deserve it. Especially with this new pass, being done with classes, and entering into candidacy. But I am feeling ‘responsible’. Blech.

I kind of have the blahs. This is patently absurd as I am in southern California and it is nice and I am making progress toward this blasted PhD. The end is at least within sight. But I have don’t have something that I really want.

I am going to do Power Yoga tonight and see if I can’t sweat out the answer for myself. Womp. Womp.

Batteries need to be fixed, chakras need to be aligned.

2008-08-04T13:14:00.002-04:00

I had another eventful weekend. I am starting to get sad because I have to go back to Chicago soon. Sisters are not enthused about that.

I have a draft of a paper I have been working on oh, for what?- about to be a year since like last September- I sent it in for someone to approve it so that I can move on to the next requirement, and before reading it, he wants me to change the whole format. Why can’t you just read it and then I’ll be formatting simultaneously? It’s almost like they want you to be in school forever. It is not the big things that are discouraging—it is stupid sh*t like this. Like little stuff is probably what makes people go “postal”. I was wallowing around yesterday wondering why I am not living up to my full potential LMAO when B-rocka showed up to pick me up to go to the Laugh Factory and gave me a pep talk. Oh I had a publication come out last week.

On Friday, after work, we did Power Yoga. I am a hot yoga enthusiast, but this is some of the realest yoga I have ever done. All I know is, I was sweating like a mad woman and at one point I distinctly heard B say “shit”. I am fairly certain you are not supposed to curse in yoga. LMAO. Anyhoo, I was already very sore because we ran the Santa Monica stairs on Monday and it literally took me all week to recover. That is a workout for your ASS. No one who lives in Santa Monica has any reason to be fat. That is a free gym right there. So we did this one pose that is supposed unleash your root chakra, which is like your center—and generally if is misaligned this is when you have all these problems of feeling not secure in life. After said pose I felt like I was going pass out. This was weird because I had a dream about the root chakra so now I am exploring how to get mine re-aligned LOL.

After yoga, we went out with B’s atl friends who happened to line brothers of one of my elementary school friends who were all in town for the same wedding. Small educated black people world. So we did the Hollywood thing for a second, saw J-Lo and Mark Anthony getting into their Bentley—and almost got cursed out by the paparazzi for being in the way, and then went to the rooftop at the Standard to jump around on the waterbeds. This was PURE tomfoolery. On the elevator up, we were with Audrina from the Hills and Mini-Me (so random), and while I have been trained by B not to act like a monkey when I see celebs, her friends were not. So the one guy is trying to take a picture with Mini-Me, who is in his scooter (side note: so he looks REALLY teeny and skinny in person, like I know he’s small, but he looks sickly—that doesn’t come across on tv), and he can’t get his camera to work, so Mini-Me says…get ready LOL:

“YOU NEED TO FIX YOUR BATTERY BITCH”

LOL. So this six foot plus Morehouse educated ATL bred black man got punked by mini-me. IT WAS SO FUNNY. I mean what are you going to do to Mini-Me? LOL. You can’t do anything, he’s teensy and on a scooter. Fun times.

Just madness.

Saturday, I went to the movies with my Aunt and just stayed in to meditate. Seriously. Sunday, more of the same. We went to Chocolate Sundaes again at the Laugh Factory and both Redd Grant and Earthquake were there so I got a little DC fix. Also in the house was Bishop Magic Don Juan. The pimp. Hmmmm. So my celeb sightings list since the beginning of the summer is:

Spencer and Heidi

Akon

Colby Convict (lol)

Francis Fukuyama (lmao)

Three Six Mafia

Tracy Morgan

Urkel

Some negro from Wu-Tang clan—I can’t figure out which one he was

Michael Strahan

Eddie Murphy’s ex wife

David Hasellhoff

Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly (shake and bake !!)

Bud from Married with Children

Angela Simmons

Punky Brewster

Ray Allen

Ray Lewis

Jerome Bettis

Audrina

The midget from Hell Date (lol—she has a HUGE ass and was shaking it like Beyonce)

Tyrese

Jason Bateman

Bishop Don Magic Juan

J-Lo & Mark Anthony

Mini-Me

And these are good quality I could reach out and hug sightings. My camera broke (well I broke it by accident in Vegas, sigh) so I have few pictures, which sucks. I’m fat anyway right now so I don’t even want pictures of myself. See what I’m saying? One or more of my chakras must be misaligned.

That’s all for now.

ttfn

Trip to DC, part infinity

2008-07-28T12:05:00.001-04:00

So hmm, where are we? Oh I went home to present at a conference at NIH. The presentation went well, which was good, because I was nervous. I usually spend time practicing before I go, but the day before, because it is me, was just a total zoo.

There is this big blue bus (that’s really what it’s called) that runs through Santa Monica and goes to LAX. I use it all the time here—it’s only .75. Well anyway, I left well in time for the plane, and wouldn’t you know, a race war broke out on my bus? As we were driving through Venice, a drunken white man tried to get on the bus, and the black bus driver told him to no, and to get off the bus. The white guy wouldn’t get off and the driver wouldn’t let him on, so the white guys says “F*ck you, N*gger”. And it was not like ‘my n*gga’ LMAO. So then the racist swings at the bus driver, and the bus driver who is like 6 foot, 200 something, proceeds to whoop his ass on the bus, and hold him down while people called the police. Total madness. The drunken guy was even bleeding. While I was somewhat shocked, I was more concerned about getting to airport, but they almost started fighting again. Long story short, I had to fill out an incident report. Then the next bus was so crowded the door broke. I got the airport with literally 3 minutes left to check in. A total zoo.

So anyway, I didn’t get to my parents until around 2 in the morning and I had to be up at 8. MADNESS. The presentation was good; I am starting feel positively about myself as an academic. I think third year is designed to break you down before they start building you back up, although I haven’t really had anyone build me up yet. The people here really like me though, so that’s good.

In addition to the fact that my daddy got some crabs for me, it was also nice to be home and be away from the nerve getter-onner. I had some swirlies, saw P, T, and wani-- fun times.

Last Friday, someone stole my mug so I was in a bad mood about that and having to listen to her incessant prattle had me ready to go off. There are 3 black summer associates—me, one in the New Orleans office who is very nice, they bring her out to SM when we do events because their office is small, and she is the only one down there, and the nerve getter-onner. (the New Orleans chick also just happened to be the conference I just went to—so we’ve bonded a bit) The NGO is a second year at Harvard and she says the word Harvard 5 maybe 10 times a day. Everyone here is pretty accomplished but she is the only one who acts like that. I really had to pray to Jesus that I would not be annoyed by her. (Oh there is a biracial guy here—not sure what he identifies as, but he is like intense. He has this crazy website and one day he was telling us all about the prior evening’s Golden Girls’ episode—JUST TOO MUCH).

She must have been getting on Jesus’ nerves too, because he did not help me to soften my heart toward her. LOL. I think she thinks I am her competition or something which is dumb. First of all, we do TOTALLY different things. Second of all, you are so dumb because as an academic you should always be looking for collaborators. Third of all, they don’t have a summer associate –to-hire quota, because we will all be on the market at different times. So then I started to pity her, because it’s insecurity. P says I tend to bring that out in people, but I really was sitting here minding my business. Then she put down our third officemate because he goes to UC Denver. Just tacky, gauche, classless, you name it. I think she is compensating for her lack of masters, cankles, and nameless undergrad. LOL. That was bitchy but she brings out the bitch in me. Like she asks me questions and then argues with me about the answer. WELL WHY THE F*CK DID YOU ASK ME THEN? Then we got into argument about getting our hair done at Vidal Sassoon and she was really trying to ‘carry’ me for lack of a better term. Well boo, keep letting Becky do your hair. That is why it is dry and at your ear.

So aggravating.

Other than that, I am sad the summer is winding down. In the works to have a super fun b-day party, with a quasi celebrity guest host (well if reality shows count LMAO). Will keep you posted).

Nerves

2008-07-17T18:23:00.001-04:00

Dude.

I used to never understand what my mother and grandmother meant when they would say someone is “getting on their nerves”. The older I get the more I begin to fully embrace what that concept means. Someone has been getting on my nerves for like the past 3 days. I am not sure what I can do to make it stop except to put cotton in my ears but that would be rude. Like the dumb-ass I can sometimes be I lost my effing Ipod so I don’t have headphones. But she has been seriously tapdancing on my nerves. Like RIVERDANCING.

We went to the step brothers premier and after party. Absolutely fabulous. Tyrese is really short, Eddie Murphy’s ex-wife is a stunner and I have all these crazy pictures of folks up close because we were on the red carpet. On Monday, we went to this place called One Sunset and it was so random. There were a grip of celebs and athletes but the highlight for me was seeing Urkel. We were also thisclose to being on TMZ’s camera. If you go to the website and search for Ray Allen we were literally right there when they weren’t letting him. Fun times.

But the nerve getter onner? I don’t know, I am going to have to find a way to politely ask her to shut her trap. A, I am trying to work, and B…well boo no one wants to hear what you are talking about. She asks me questions and then argues with me about the answer. WELL THEN DON’T ASK.

UGH

My chi is still good from my massage though. So it’s fine. But damn.

GTM '08 Continues

2008-07-14T11:24:00.000-04:00

So my 13 is here celebrating her birthday and I am tired. We have done an excessive amount of activity this weekend. We:

Took the bus into LA to see B rocka in play.
Left the play and had some amazing Jamaican food.
Drank some wine, ate some good ass cupcakes and went to bed.
Got up on Saturday, went and got mani/pedis, and
The best one hour massage I’ve ever had (well I’ve only had boyfriend provided massages LMAO)—but seriously I think I want to marry the masseuse—he can paint toes and he took the knots out of my neck. Not to mention he was doing some type of pressure point stuff. All in a bamboo hut in the ocean breeze. Holla.
Went to Malibu and laid on the beach, it was my first time driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. IT WAS AMAZING. I am now the color of a chocolate cupcake. My grandmother would be appalled. LOL.
Went to a BBQ with some people from the B School at UCLA
They went out and I stayed in and watched a documentary on Dick Cheney.
Oh I forgot to mention we had Pinkberry 3 times in 2 days. The original, with Captain Crunch? Will make you slap your mother. We went into a sneaker store while we were eating and we must have been making noises and faces because he was like “is that Captain Crunch on there? Is it good?” HA
Sunday, went to eat at Lobster on the Santa Monica pier.
That night, went to the Laugh Factory. I laughed so hard I cried my mascara off. Like B literally have to give me a napkin (she also cried hers off too). Highlight of the evening? One of the little people from Hell Date on BET (I don’t even watch BET anymore LOL) gave someone a lap dance. Just plain ABSURD.

Got in here at 7:30 today so I can leave early—today is her actual birthday

And if Michelle Obama is going to be an AKA I’m not voting. (well probably but that’s just absurd). There is more to life than coat drives and recipe sharing UGH.

Still can’t mess up my chi from the massage.

Tootles.

Eensy Update

2008-07-07T19:47:00.004-04:00

So B and I just said eff it and went to Vegas for the weekend. I have to say we had a ball. There was no traffic on the way-- although I have to say driving from Cali to Vegas is like the beginning of a Law & Order episode or an episode of X-Files. This I would definitely define as the "middle of nowhere". However, this did give us time to work on several theories including:

* 'That b*tch is not me'

* 'Hate is a real phenomenon'

I also introduced her to J and I's 'too fly for most' theory. I don't have time to expound on them right now, but at some point I will.

We also identified a theme for this summer-- '05 was the Ignorant Summer/Emancipation of Cici, '06 was Countdown to 25/25 and over get your hands in the air, '07 I didn't have a theme and that is why my summer and year both ate ass, and now for '08 we have:

Get this money '08

It's useful because while it can be about things financial, anything can fit under the GTM umbrella. Our goal is to pop a bottle at the end of the summer but it can only happen if certain other things are place. So we need to be on the grind, which coincidentally is the name of my black women's PhD lunch group. LOL.

Friday, we went to the 40/40 club. It was not so much fun--the crowd sucked and it was rather empty, so we went over to TAO which we should have done at first because it was in our hotel (the Venetian) and it was popping. Very fun. Folks really came to party-- I think I saw some things I would have rather *not* seen. If you are making out with your boo, hey get yours, but can you NOT knock me over the dance floor while doing so. I also danced with a British gentleman who was more excited about Danity Kane's 'damaged' than me. I find that to be problematic.

Saturday we gambled, ate, gambled some more-- I hit my condo address on the Roulette table. I won't tell you how many chips I had down, but that's 35-1 odds. I really wanted to kiss the dealer, LOL.

I am exceptionally happy right now. I was a little sad last week because P was supposed to come out but he had family problems so we had to postpone to August. However J13 is coming this weekend, and I am *terribly excited*. She herself is so excited she informed me that she almost pissed her pants today.

Fun times sure to be had.

I am starting boot camp today. Save me Tom Cruise.

Update: FamDoc is blogging about her residency here. Enjoy!!

Sightings

2008-06-27T13:32:00.001-04:00

So…maybe we should not party with young Hollywood because young Hollywood does not have to get up and do policy research the next day. LOL.

Last Friday, I met Francis Fukuyama, which was very exciting. Then later in the day, B and I went to a concert at the Universal Citywalk. She was covering the event, so we were backstage on the “red” carpet. I got close enough to Common to lick his cheek (LMAO) and Juicy J from Three Six Mafia gave me a hug. Fun times. I also took a picture with Spencer and Heidi but my camera ran out of batteries and erased it. I don’t think I’ve ever cursed so hard at an inanimate object.

Last night, we went to Goa, which was VERY fun. I have to learn how to play it cool because I am so lame that I get excited when we see famous folks. It’s really ridiculous. All I know is I have to step my game up. I think I get lazy at school, but these broads out here are SUPER thin and they can dress their hineys off. Like for real.

Other than that, I am thoroughly enjoying it here. I guess at the end of the summer you leave with an offer for when you finish and that would be hot. They have a DC office. I was also made aware that my biotch Condi was a summer associate here while she was working on her PhD. So was Paul Wolfowitz. HA HA. And some others.

This was exactly what I needed. I was telling my housemate (she is lovely by the way) about some of my experiences at NU and she was, like, shocked. I think I am desensitized, but it’s some wild shit. Anyways, I think I’ll be recharged to deal with those folks when I go back and do some good work. Well we hope.

Summer, finally :)

2008-06-18T18:51:00.001-04:00

So far so good. Not too much to report. I am having a great time in Santa Monica. This is good, because before I left Chicago, my nerves were shot. I got back from DC Thursday AM and then left to come here on Saturday. The other kids are nice. All super overachievers. I have a rocket scientist who is following me around. He came in the same day I came and thinks that we are friends because we did our orientations together. He literally works on some kind rocket fuel propulsion or something like that. He has now explained it to me, even though I have not asked him to, about ten times. I have to stop having an inviting face or something.

Let’s see? What else? I have been to the beach, but I was wholly unprepared. I can walk to the building from my house (which is a little bungalow I am sharing with this Industrial Engineering PhD—she is nice and normal though lol), so I came down on Sunday to time myself and on the way back, I walked along the beach. It was totally gorgeous, although my ass *literally* is shaped for Chicago and not any blasted Santa Monica.

So I’m working on my own stuff this week and then my mentor will be here next week and we start working on a research project which I found out I have to present at the end of the session. This made me a hint nervous.

I am already added as a plus one to an event with B rocka on Friday. I can’t remember what it is now, but I think it’s like some kind of concert or something.

I think I have place-based, graduate school depression in Evanston. I have only been her for three days and I feel like 200% more alive or something. We’ll see.

The Tube

2008-06-11T05:26:00.002-04:00

Dude. I have had the busiest two weeks. I am regular tired, tired of being a nomad, tired of people—you name it, I’m tired of it, LOL. Let’s see. Last weekend, I went out Friday with C Dubb and the dentist. He had his dental school friends in town. This was moderately fun, but I ended up spending a million dollars for parking because it was downtown. This made me angry.

Saturday, we went to Sex and the City. I absolutely adored it. I cried, which I almost never do in a movie (on the wedding part). I was there with this woman who is a film producer who is friends with soror mom and this other af am phd. They were giving all this crazy commentary throughout the movie, about how Jennifer Hudson may as well have been frying chicken, etc—while it was funny it was also annoying. But overall, I loved it.

After the movie, we sat in the bar in the Evanston movies and had cosmos (so lame lol) and had a “discussion” about relationships. Black women have issues. I am going to start a black women’s love movement or something. This lasted from like 2-6. Then we went over to Kellogg, where another one of my friends made pina coladas in preparation to see Common. So we sat around for a bit and then walked over to the concert, which was alright. I have now seen him perform I guess 4 times, and it is the same show each time, except this one had stuff from Finding Forever. It was nice because we were on Lake Michigan, but when the night wind started to blow at like 10:30, I thought I was going to freeze to death.

After that, my black women’s PhD lunch group was having a slumber party to see the graduates and the two people that are going to write from afar off, but I couldn’t go. I was sooooo sleepy and I needed to do some thinking about Sex and the City.

I was thinking so hard about it that I met up with the slumber party folks the next day to it again, LOL. Yes I did cry again. I am so lame. This time I didn’t have the commentary, but I just have to say that everyone is not Carrie. LOL.

I had a busy week—I have to say my nerves were literally shot. Like I was just so anxious. I had to get a poster together for the conference I’m attending right now, and I was just a mess. Tuesday I was busy all day. Wednesday I wanted to work all day but they had an end of the year ice cream party where we said good bye to my advisor so we had to plan some remarks, which I ended up reading. The party was outside, so something bit me and I broke out in hives. These hives would be the bane of my existence for the next x days. I was still stressed out Thursday—I went to pick up the poster and nearly got knocked over in the parking lot because the yahoos did not cut the poster to the right size so it was like carrying a sail. At one point it unrolled and nearly knocked my ass down. I was really ready to cry about it when some benevolent soul stopped her car and helped me roll it back up-- so pathetic.

Friday, I stopped to get a tube for the poster before I parked my car at my spot I am renting out. I was going to O’ Hare for, I don’t know, the 6^th or 7^th time this year. The tube was pissing me off because it was hard to keep track of with my other bags. Yet and still, I managed to keep the tube all the way from Evanston to LaGuardia, and then on the bus, and then on train, and then to hair salon to meet N. Mind you, my nerves were still shot and the hives were not doing well-- they were on my thigh and they hurt. I met up with N, we got our hair done, and then went to Saks to get our makeup done. N had a graduation/birthday party at a club in the meatpacking district—right near where Samantha celebrated her 50^th in the movie, LOL. This was fun, but we were staying at this guy’s house--he was such a jerk. He was like “I hope the place you're going is ok with all the black people you’re going to have”. So absurd. Anyway, the party was fun—we had a massive amount of champagne, grey goose, and these mini cupcakes. Too bad I never ate dinner so I was twisted. There was lots of couch dancing, etc, etc. One of my friends who I always see when I am in NY met me at like 2:30 or 3 or something (lol) outside, and I was talking to him when I realized everyone had left me. Thank goodness my friend was not in my state because I would have been wandering around Manhattan.

So we all go out to eat, and when we left the diner, it was sunlight. Like, not sunrise, but like day. I still do not understand how this happened. It was quite a bit much for me, because I was still drunk. Not tipsy, like, drunk. So we get back to the guy’s house (he left for the Hamptons) and N and them wanted to get a hotel because the guy has a nice house but was extra gross-- two of us were riding buses, so they put me in a cab to get to the bus to DC. At this point I still have on my club clothes, fake eyelashes, but I have the tube.

I get to Port Authority and had to wait like 45 minutes for my bus. I am surprised I did not get robbed because I just slept on my bags like a little homeless lady in a hot blue dress LOL. I managed to get everything on the bus BUT

THE TUBE.

I woke up half way through the bus ride and I WAS SO UPSET.

When my dad got to the bus to pick me up, I am sure he was wondering what the hell was going on. I still had on my club clothes, and I was very distraught over the loss of my poster.

Anyway, the rest of the day I slept. I saw P Saturday night. Sunday night, I stayed in because I had ZERO energy. I went out for dinner Monday night, and now I am conferencing. I had to re-print my poster at Kinko’s and I’m not happy about it.

So then it’s back to the Chi for two days then off to stay in one damn place for at least a month. I AM TIRED OF TRAVELING. I never thought I would say that but I am. At least for a bit. I just want to sit still. (well sit still and not be bored, that is my problem). I think I’ll be able to at least for a couple of weeks. Sigh.

ttyl

Boat rides, cold, etc

2008-05-29T05:59:00.003-04:00

Umm. Except for Sunday and Monday, it has been very cold here. I do not understand why. Thank goodness for the warm weather we did have on Sunday and Monday though. Sunday we had the Spring formal for the house on the boat. This was VERY fun. I think they entire city was at Navy Pier because it was actually nice, and we got to see the first fireworks of the season from the boat. We had a private dining area, dance floor and our own deck, which was super nice. Although some of the seniors were so drunk they could not move. As long as you are 21 I don’t give too much of a hoot. I was just concerned because someone’s date at my table *kept* knocking sh*t over. It was extremely aggravating, as you can imagine. All in all though, we had a good time. In addition to all of that, I was dancing with someone’s date, and this fool was like the Jabberwockies—it was a bit much. We are in cocktail attire. Just two step. Thanks.

Monday, I did work all day, and was quite salty to be in my office, but I was trying to figure this one thing out. After that, the kappa post doc had a bbq at his building—this was also very nice. We could see Navy Pier from the deck (I had a very Navy Pier-centric weekend). I took soror-mom as my guest, but it turns out she had met him at a talk. Anyway, it was fun and very eye opening. I learned a lot about my department, which was right on time, because I just haven’t been feeling these people. We are losing three faculty out of a not so huge faculty, and I heard there might be more. This is probably not good—but given the winter we had and some other factors, I am not surprised. It’s not a very student friendly place, in my opinion, so I would gather this is probably reflective of some other issues. Kappa post doc—who is getting a prof job at UPenn-- is worried for me because to him, looking from the outside, our program seems racist, elitist, and sexist. I was like “oh my”. I have definitely felt those things at times, and I really could tell you guys something the black man prof said to me that will have you down at the EEOC, but he is really one of the more friendly ones. Just a hint of a harasser. LOL. Not really. But it’s mainly other’s people’s problems and perceptions. I can’t do nothing about except finish. I made some holy water and I’m going to go sprinkle it around my office and the department. I am not playing.

Other than that, I’m alright. We are having Common for ‘Dillo Day which I guess is something similar to Last Day of Classes at Duke—except these kids don’t have warm weather like we did, so they get really crunk about this. Also it has been in the 50s for the most except for the two days this weekend, so I know it's going to be madness. Common starts at 8:30 at night, and these fools are starting drinking at 8:00am in the morning. So I have to be vigilant because I do not want anyone to get in trouble and lose their scholarship. I already two people voluntarily leave the house (one is having physical health problems, and he will come back to finish, and the other never really fit in socially with everyone else, which to me is dumb reason to turn down a full ride to NU, but hey) so I want everyone else to make it to next year. I know my senior year LDOC I was probably drunk from 12pm to 3am, so I get it, but I am still concerned.

So after a small break to go see the Sex and the City Movie, I will be on drunken resident watch. Keep me near the cross.

And then it’s off to a very busy two weeks of travel and location switching for the summer.

Happenings

2008-05-21T22:35:00.003-04:00

Let's see...advisor watch is over. He's going. Sucks.

I had fun this weekend though--NK was celebrating her birthday, and we had a blast. Some Dukies play for the Bulls, so they came out and brought some of the team. She is also really good friends with Quddus, the MTV vj (so freakin random), so it felt like we were in a video. LOL.

More stuff coming up: trip to NY for N's b-day ( she called me today to discuss whether she should rent a place with a 3,000 bar minimum and get 100 mini cupcakes or some other equally crazy option, I just need to expand my mind LOL), then down to DC because I'm presenting at a conference sponsored by the lovely people who pay my tuition and bills. After that it's back to the Chi for 2 days and then out to Santa Monica--I will only be there for like 2 weeks before I get my first visitor, P. It is going to be so flipping fun.

Turned in my qualifiers. Waiting for results. I am now a dissertation proposal away from candidacy, so I'll work on that over the summer. I am on my schedule. Hopefully I can stay on.

not much more. still in deep need of a Wii.

tootles

Tying the Knot

2008-05-13T22:34:00.002-04:00

Hmm. So in hindsight, perhaps it is not good to go the club for a birthday party on Saturday night in Chicago when you are supposed to be at the airport at 5:30 AM for a destination wedding in Florida on Sunday. Although I had fun the night prior, in the morning I was HURTING. Thank goodness I recognized my alarm and made it to the airport. Additionally my flight was not to full, and given my reduced height, I was able to get my sleep on.

Anyway, T and the boyband finally tied the knot. When I got the airport, I was waiting for tinyd, who of course had me rolling from *thee* moment she got off the plane. I was a little bit all over the place—all the traveling I have been doing has me beat. I didn’t have time to get a pedicure so I tried to do a French manicure myself (it is a total Monet—you just can’t get to close on it, lol). Last weekend when I went to DC, I for some reason forgot to pack any underwear. Very odd. HA! Then this weekend, I forgot to bring my good strapless bra, and every dress I brought with me was strapless, so I am sure at least one boob was in the wrong place the ENTIRE TIME I was in Florida. Oh well. Anyway, it was our usual hijinks—lots of laughter. It all started when we were waiting for J and K to get the hotel, and tinyd and I went to eat, and the server came up and said “the Cosmo-ritas are 3 dollars right now”. We were like ‘bet’. So of course it was madness—J came in from the airport, joined us, and then we were back to the hotel, about to die from dehydration and the heat, when K picked us up.

The actual ceremony was on the beach so we just had to go barefoot. It was very pretty. Ceremony was a good length. Although something bit me in multiple places. The reception was also nice—open bar. I must have had about 10 vodka gimlets, LOL. It was good party, the wedding wasn’t huge. I was perplexed though because the groom and the best man did not know how to do the electric slide. Are you black? I was like look—it is 1,2,3 TAP—turn. HILARIOUS. Then we had the after party—I almost made it out to the beach, but again, in hindsight it is probably good that I didn’t. I had a whole purse this time, and not a wristlet, so that would have been a dee-saster. Anyway, after we got back to the hotel, tinyd did something so funny which I can not write here—but I was eating something and I laughed so hard that I choked and almost died. Thank God K was there with her medical skills. I can’t wait ‘til she gets here (she’s the one that’s starting the residency at Northwestern in Ob/Gyn).

I had to stop in St. Louis, and it is way more Midwest than the Chi. On the way from Florida, I was squeezed in between two very obese people so like a third of my chair was gone on both sides. I wasn’t mad because they could not help how big they were and clearly the plane was made back when America did not have an obesity problem, but it was very awkward. The woman had on jean shorts and had her leg hiked up at one point so I had to will myself to sleep—not so hard given my hangover.

But all in all, fun times.

What else? Got a paper accepted into a refereed conference. Probably some other stuff but I can’t remember everything now.

ttfn

More stuff

2008-05-07T10:41:00.000-04:00

Oh I and forgot—N is graduating from H Law!! She’ll be in NY too…

Umm, the gas closest to where I live in Evanston is 4.09. I don’t drive that much because everything is in walking distance for me now, but ZORT. They are trying to put folks in the poor house. Goodness.

Oh AND I forgot to mention my old crazy ass advisor—the new program chair. It’s so ridiculous it’s comical. Not unexpected though. I had a premonition. He has exactly 1 student now, and he is, surprise, making her life heck—I guess they thought his absurdity should equally distributed among all of us. We are going to have a ‘regime change’ happy hour. LOL.

Lots of Stuff

2008-05-05T10:49:00.002-04:00

So I had another trip to the district. I must say I am little worn out from traveling. But the trip was good. The main purpose was for this training on this dataset and to learn approaches to causal modeling using propensity scores. It was about exciting as it sounds, lol. It started at 8:30 on Thursday morning, and people were so CHATTY when we were waiting to get started. So I knew it was going to be downhill because it was all these overachievers and they were already getting on my nerves. You have to play the “who do you know game”—additionally, it was mainly junior profs, and I have found many junior profs, definitely the ones here at NU to be damn near hostile toward graduate students. It is like they are trying to differentiate themselves from graduate students or something. So crazy LOL. Anyhoo, the training was good, but I always get mad when people come to stuff like this (or in this case apply to and get accepted) and then bitch and moan about how hard stuff is. If you don’t know SAS, and you knew we were going to be programming in SAS, why the f are you complaining? Expand your brain and get it together. But I learned a decent amount. It was free, so that was good.

On Friday night, Ti and I went to a party thrown by Arrogant Boy and then we went over to Ibiza. I think I may be getting old because I was so over the madness that was taking place outside of the club. My friend is a part owner of Ibiza but I didn’t even have the energy to text his ass because it was so.much.going.on. AND SOMEONE is now SUPER NEO, and I swore the last time I was going to be involved with that mess is when I had to put up with the ULTIMATE NEO LOL. So we ended not going in because it was 1:30 at that point. After having a discussion I did not get to bed until 4, and had to be up to start the training again at 8:30 so I was pushing it. I think when you are 26, you can not be trying to stay up all night in the hotel bath robe dancing around, lol.

So after the institute ended, J came and got me, and we hung out for the rest of day watching the Real Housewives of NYC. I recently came to grips that I am not an heiress, but I think I have a legitimate shot of being a countess, LOL. After that, B5 came down, and then we all went to dinner, and then just went to sleep after some more “discussion”. We engorged ourselves at dinner, and because J is in finals, she was tired, I was tired, and really the fellowship is the best part anyway—the night didn’t last that long.

Yesterday, the people from the foundation who sponsors my residents and pay for me to be there were at the house, but I was running late on the way back from the airport because my ride fell asleep. I am in my new zen place so I wasn’t even mad. Sh*t happens. But I did catch public transportation back, and I just can’t stand the damn El. The ride was so long, I had ample time for mind vomit. By the time I got back, it was time to meet with the blasted foundation people. They asked me to come back for a second year. This is wonderful. I really have enjoyed helping to develop young minds, LOL. I wrote recommendation letters for some of their study abroad applications, and they all got in. I was worried. But I actually do teach, I actually do know them, and I guess I have credentials. ISN’T THAT A TRIP?

So I’m good. I have been reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and it is has really helped to put a voice to some of my inner yearnings. Y’all know J and I’s pack up and leave theory—well it’s right there. I think the part about ego and insanity is also very salient for my life right now too. He talks about how we have 3 ways of being (acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm), and if at least one or two of those 3 ways aren’t being satisfied something has to change. That accurately sums up some recent experiences I have been having.

Anyway, life is good. However, advisor watch 2008 continues. He told me last week I need to be getting into candidacy as soon as possible. I don’t know if that means he is staying or going, but candidacy is the last hurdle toward graduation, so sheeeeit ( a la Clay Davis)—if that’s what he says I need to do, I will do it. I can not believe I am getting closer to be done. Even if I don’t officially finish by next year, for all intents and purposes I will be done for the most part. LOL. I am planning to move in June or Aug of 09—back into my condo, or I could end up somewhere else. We’ll see.

And we need to give graduation shout outs to

1) FamDoc who is like now Dr. FamDoc and has a residency at one of the best hospitals in North Carolina ( I could be exaggerating but I swear I heard that, lol). She is so flipping smart and she helps to lessen my hypochondria. Because Rneezi still won’t diagnose my ass. Straight face emoticon.

2) J, who is one final away from being a JD, and after she passes the bar, will be J., Esq, and moving to NY to work for a firm doing corporate law (can I borrow 5 dollars lol)

3) Our #8, who is finishing Columbia Med, and is moving here (!) for her residency at Northwestern (she’s a bad broad)

4) My back is finishing law school, also will be working for a firm in Philly. (let me hold 5 too lol)

5) Another one of my black women's PhD lunch group defended and has a professor job. She finished in four in Communications Studies and is 26. I KNOW THAT IS RIGHT.

AND

T and the boyband are getting married this weekend. Should be very fun. All I know is open bar, destination-- Woo hoo

random

2008-04-26T16:51:00.002-04:00

I went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall as my weekly movie trip. I thought it was hilarious. I was at the theater in downtown Evanston. For some reason they played the wrong movie at first, and so I was very confused. People were walking out too like they were confused until we figured out it was the wrong movie. Everyone was like “it’s ok guys, they’re fixing it.” Had it been the black people movies it would have been a damn riot. I was like wow, these people are so calm and carefree. LMAO.

Anyway, Thursday I went out with my Kellogg friend. What was supposed to be afternoon coffee turned into coffee then drinks, then a house party and then more drinks. This was very fun—I find the MBAs to be lighter and more carefree than others. They are a hoot. I am telling you I need a blasted Wii. Anyway, Friday I was totally out of it. I have to learn how to turn down free liquor.

I have a trip to DC this week. I am going to this data training thingy. This is cool because it’s all paid for. And, very exciting, Ti is now officially a Delta as of today. So officially about 92% of my best friends are Deltas. LOL.

Hmm what else? The water bandit is now in arrears since January. She thinks I don’t see her but I’m about to hit her with bill collection tactics. So absurd. Oh and two weeks ago she told me she had a black husband. I think we were supposed to be having a "hey girlfriend" moment. But then I was just looking at her. It was actually hilarious.

I want to know what happens after someone acts a pure fool toward you and then keeps apologizing? What if I just don’t feel like hearing it? Huh? What if I am tired of mostly everyone and everything? I was supposed to do two extra trips in April, which in hindsight would have made me crazy, and I got several calls from folks during both trips like "you're usually down for this sh*t! WHERE ARE YOU??!!" Tired. I can not be the life of the party all the damn time. Sheesh. LOL Let me get my cool back.

Because you know why? I may or may not decide to have ignorant summer. It all hinges on whether I think I can be done by next summer. In which case, that summer HAS to be ignorant. But I am going to be in Santa Monica, so the level of ignorance should be high, although I think it is going be intense in terms of getting publications, etc. I have been googling the other PhD students that are going to be there, and they are, well, LOL--from places like Harvard and Berkeley so they may not be so rowdy. But we'll see.

if you can not tell, I had a small burden lifted up off of me-- and it feels good.

~c

Watching and Waiting for Tom Cruise to Save Me

2008-04-22T16:21:00.001-04:00

Well Advisor Watch 2008 continues. We don’t know what he’s going to do, but hell if I don’t wish he would decide already.

Anyway, it’s been kind of half off half on. I am trying to keep a low profile for a like month, because after the middle of May things are going to be going kind of warp speed. This is has sort of worked. You would think at some damn point in my life I would own my busy bodyness. Last weekend, the parents of my residents came up for a luncheon. This was very interesting—when you have seen someone’s kids sh*t-faced and the family comes and is all wholesome and sweet, it causes some kind of cognitive dissonance. I actually have two faves—one is a 5^th year senior who mainly watches TV with me and is a flipping riot and the other is sophomore who the most hilarious knucklehead you have ever met—I have a third almost favorite who is friends with the knucklehead. Third favorite is straight out of South Side of Chicago, Irish, total White Sox fan, etc—and extremely rowdy and loud[1]. He also is the house bookie (which come to think, I don’t know if I should be gambling with them LOL). Well if you could picture this kid—he is like a total rabble-rouser. His parents, his little brother and sister are so freaking cute. I was like “[third favorite] are you SURE these are YOUR parents?” Anyway, most of the parents were looking at me like—“who put you in charge?” Usually I am angry at age bias, but I did look extra young that day because I had my hair in a bun, no makeup, and no heels. But it was a pretty fun day.

I had another conference to go to at the end of the week. Although I got a nice notebook, I am a little tired of conferences. I had to talk at this one. Just too much. I got to meet some really cool people but I am over it. No one cares about third years. LOL.

What else? Nothing much else. Just trying to stay productive. It is massively difficult to keep yourself on task. I think that is the true challenge of the PhD. Well, I suppose we could quibble about the coursework—but I presume if you get in, you’re already at a certain level of intelligence. But to really sit and direct your own self to get stuff, well that is hard than a motherf*cker. You have on days and off days, but to really keep going forward, even your off days have to have some portion of on. Even if you just type of bunch of nonsense that might get scrapped—or even if your personal life goes to sh*t, as mine does several times a quarter, mostly from my neglect of relationships because of my studies in the first place LOL, you have to get something done or a whole week or quarter or year, can go by and you will have nothing to show for it. I don’t condone it, but I can see how people sort of camp out in PhD school. It is not so hard to do. Then on top of that, you have engage in academic socialization—so that is where the conferences, professional meetings, etc come in. I am the only black person in my fellowship so every time we have a visitor they invite me to go out to lunch with the person (this is has been verified by an outside source). By the time I do all that, I could have wasted a whole day meeting and damn greeting. And time is of the blasted essence.

But so Rneezi gave me pep talk because I am just so tired. And it is not a sleep tired. It is like an internal tired. Like I do not know how I am going to get all this stuff done. I have a friend who is in my black women’s PhD to be lunch group who is finishing in four years, AND has a professor job. This is very good and amazing. She said she literally takes it one day a time. Very Negro spiritual-eqsue. Anyhoo. I have big plans for transformations this summer right on the beach, because I need a boost from somewhere.

Ttfn

Carb dot (I have just been one big carb for like 10 months, ugh)

[1] Sidenote: A lot of my residents are working class, white ethnics. I find this to be intriguing because it is totally different from the WASPy kids I went to high school with. Just an observation, lol.

Nothing Much, coolin.

2008-04-13T21:25:00.003-04:00

So. Umm yeah. Not such a great week last week but we’re over it. Our advisor is possibly being poached. He is a huge part of the reason I came to NU, but I suppose I’ll live if he leaves. It absolutely sucks though. Although, I was very proud of myself, because given all the crap that I’ve been through since I’ve been here, I was surprisingly calm upon learning the news. My officemate, on the other hand was ready to drop out of school. Everyone else was a little more panicky—but in the grand scheme of things to be flipping out about, it’s not huge. Maybe something like this is what God was preparing me for with some other challenges.

Anyway, I went out with soror friend to a birthday party for this U of C PhD student. I am SO over intellectuals and academics. I mean, I have not fully accepted my nerd-dom. Perhaps when I do, I will be able to stomach sitting around with a bunch of academics. First of all, why, if you are doing research all week, do you want to talk about that sh*t all night long, particularly when there are copious amounts of sangria available. Second, do we really have to talk about whether Jesus is a social construct? And finally, DOES THE BIRTHDAY CAKE HAVE TO BE VEGAN? Can’t you take your vegan fascist ass to CostCo? To top it off, none of the Hyde-Parkians have cars, so I ended having to drive this guy home. I was a little hesitant because I wasn’t sure if he was flirting—he kept following me around asking me random questions. He was a cursing, smoking reverend who is working a PhD in religion. Upon arrival at his house, he was like “do you want to come up for coffee? You’re welcome to spend the night”. As J would so eloquently say a reverend PhD negro is still a negro. Straight face emoticon. LOL.

Saturday I had to present at a conference. This went well—I got really good evaluations at the end. The day went on and on though, and then it had the nerve to snow during the banquet. Why the fork is it still snowing in April? I just can’t take it. UGH.

I have to get my ass in gear for the summer. I am finally getting back into a workout groove.

And congratulations to role model on her marriage. I think my invitation got lost in the mail. *sad face*

Boundaries, other random crap

2008-04-01T13:52:00.000-04:00

Ok so let’s see. I am back in Chicago and it is still cold. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even start the flip-flop jihad this year because I cannot get sick again. So I will go outside and do a sun dance—maybe some combo of “wipe me down” and the “chicken noodle soup”. The latter is made to clear out the rain. I will let you know if it works. I think it is especially cruel because it was ok in DC for a couple of days I was there. I went to coffee with a friend on Wednesday over by the Department of Hell and then out with Ti for swirly margaritas and sat outside in both cases. No one is sitting outside of anything here. I got some more swirlies Friday evening with some of my chapter sorors. We also did hookah. This was a riot, although I don’t really see the point of hookah. I suppose it looks cool, but now my hair smells like smoke.

I had massive family drama while I was home, and although it sucked, I have come to expect it. Folks in my family aren’t in to self-help as much I am, so I don’t expect change on their parts. I actually found these psychologists who write from a Christian perspective on a variety of topics. I read the one dealing with boundaries and I swear it has changed my life. It probably seems odd to the people around me, but if you think about it—every conflict you have is a problem of boundaries—either you did set any, someone overstepped the ones you set up, you stepped over theirs. My problem is that I have no boundaries, or I suppose I should say I am not a good enforcer of my boundaries. Anyway, when you don’t enforce the boundaries, people get all out of control. For instance, when someone does something wrong to you and tries to undermine your feelings by sending a card to your parents and an email to your mother belittling your stance on the situation. TRUE STORY, I know it sounds wild, LOL. If I said I am not dealing with you—then what do you think crossing that boundary is going to do? It’s not going to make me happy—particularly if my mother was not the one’s whose feelings got hurt. I think wack apologies are a sign of f-ed up boundaries also. Anyway, I am sure it will turn out alright but I am definitely establishing some boundaries after this latest dust-up. Remember how I said we have problems talking to each other in our family—well I am simply not putting up with that. There is no reason if you have a disagreement you have to be cursed out like someone in an insane asylum. I mean even if you don’t mean it, it still really hurts the other person’s feelings. Also, you should not be ready to put your relationship on the line over dumb stuff. I also saw P this weekend, which actually was ok.

Anyhoo, so I may not be blogging that much in the very near future because I am on the grind. I have declared April “On the Grind” month. I have to present at two conferences, get this other paper ready to be submitted for publication, and apply for a couple of small grants. Blech. I was supposed to take two trips but I just decided that I can’t—they both conflict with other things and I would have had to jump through hurdles to attend. So I can’t, which sucks, because y’all know how I like to travel.

Other random things

I am trying to help my officemate overcome her hatred of undergrads. I don’t hate them, just the ones that wear miniskirts and Uggs, or leggings and Uggs. I don’t want to know you in that way. LOL.
In New York, I re-bruised one of my Charlotte bruises because I was victim of wani and the bruhs “cranking dat” soldier boy right over top of me. STRAIGHT FACE.
I am a total pig, and it’s gross. I need to get it together. For real.
This woman at the research course had on plum, pink, and red. It made me giggle so hard because I was thinking about Katt Williams. Hehehehe
I am so happy for the Jabbawockeez. I wonder if one of them will marry me?

Ttfn

Home a lil' tipsy

2008-03-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

I am home for a bit. It is wonderful. I made a stop off in NY for a conference/ research course. I am contributing to a book volume, so it was like a workshop for that. Very enlightening and inspiring. I have to admit last week I was feeling “how the f am I going to get all this stuff done?” and was having a total meltdown. But it’s ok. It felt good to be intellectually validated. A whole gang of us were in NY, J, J13, wani, rneezi, a whole bunch of Duke deltas—it was also the student national medical association conference. So fun. We crashed at the Diva’s apartment. She was in Jamaica celebrating her 21^st. Must.be.nice.

I am in DC—Ti and I were celebrating something today with swirly margaritas. We have been friends for 20 blasted years. Is that not insane? But it was nice.

Other than that, I’m chillin’. I feel inspired to work hard to finish this thing out. Not that it’s my only motivator—but spite can really get your ass moving, LOL.

Umm, what else? I love my peeps. LOL.

Ok more when I am sober. Not so much right NOW. Had to get some swirly margaritas.

ehehehehe

Over it.

2008-03-20T11:07:00.003-04:00

Things I am over:

Evanston. I like it as a town, but I need to be out of this area (as an aside—if a certain person still reads this, no need to go announcing it to everyone—I am not leaving, nor am I in danger of leaving, I just can’t stand it, thanks). I was in Whole Foods buying some flowers (what the f is a free trade rose?—I have a hard time believing their flowers are that different from Giant or Kroger or whatever--they were so HIGH) and this white man came up with a snot nose tissue and asked me where the garbage was. I could have literally knocked his head off his shoulders. I was in the store across the street from my old apartment in Chicago (literally just over the border from Evanston, not the place I first lived when I got here) and the man asked me was I going to use my welfare card to pay for my Frosted Flakes. No you simple racist bastard. I study welfare policies. F*cktard.

My condo association. The old management company was apparently incompetent, now all the condo fees and everything are out of control. We hired a new company, and they are getting it together, but it is aggravating, nonetheless. Oh and my upstairs neighbor, the Amazon, is trying to prevent herself from being foreclosed. I am mad at the condo board for not taking things seriously when she flipped out on me. She then went on to terrorize a variety of people, but oh well. I am going to buy a second piece of property when I move back anyway.

Winter. Why the f is it still 33 degrees on the first day of Spring. This is not natural. I have been trying to ask Chicago natives if any of them knew what the original Native Americans or settlers did? Do I need to get a buffalo fur? I’ll do it. Seriously. There is no way humans could have survived. Maybe I’ll go to the library and look this up. They must have slept for the winter. This sh*t is not natural.

The people I know here. I miss my good friends and family. I think I hurt my officemate’s feelings because my prof that took me out to the vegan lunch asked did I have any friends in the program and I said no. She was like “I thought we were friends”. I wanted to laugh in her face, which would have been cruel. But now, to be a friend would mean I saw outside of program sponsored or associated events or I trusted in you enough to confide in you. We have neither, although we are officemates, so that is some level of friendship—like the time we went to into the secret wall in our attic office and found some surveys from the ‘50s. As social scientists, we found that exciting. LOL. NK is leaving to go to graduate school at Harvard (this is so out of control, she is going to do a masters—she quit her firm job, sold her condo—so I guess she’s not going to be using her UVA JD anymore. Straight face), soror friend is finishing her masters so she’s busy, and CDubb is busy being a corporate attorney and dating her dentist boo. What was the point? Oh I miss my friends. I learned a lot these past couple of years about who’s really there for you, so I miss them that much more. I also finally cut off someone who I should have never even had in my life in the first place. I have been shedding some people who weren’t that useful for my personal growth. I think everybody who is truly seeking to grow and take it to the next level goes through a similar process.

Complaining about how much work you have to do. I was doing a survey with what people actually do with their time. So I am done with classes. In addition to my own research, we are required to work 20 hours a week doing stuff for our advisor. I have been trying to figure how people shape their lives. The only conclusion I can come to is that people have families and that takes up time. Anyway, I go to lunch with a variety of black woman PhD to be’s around the department on a semi-regular basis (it is two policy PhD’s (including me), 2 chemical engineers, a historian, a communication studies person, and an English person). Tuesday, one of the chemical engineers defended her dissertation (this was very exciting because we were getting a BIG kick out of calling her doctor, lol so lame). On the way, another one was like “I may have to leave early because I have so much work”. And then she didn’t leave early—she has half her dissertation done and a prof job lined up (as does the girl who finished and another person in the group). This person is ALWAYS complaining about how much work she has to do. We went to Red Lobster, she stayed home and asked could we bring some carry out. NO. It just seems excessive. We are all ‘busy’. I personally don’t work that hard. I think people are lying when they are whiney baby about how much crap they have to do. You are a full time student. You could fit everything in from 9-5 if you wanted. Maybe it’s just me.

One thing I am not over is the newest members of LQ. After running the yard for a bit, soon enough they’ll be getting multiple advanced degrees, terrorizing a city near year you, and causing general madness. LOL.

Tootles.

Random Events

2008-03-16T15:45:00.002-04:00

Umm, so let’s see. I am totally over winter. Why in blast is 30 degrees here in March? WHY? Anyway, it got up to 50 two days last week, but I think that is even worse. It was good to have some sun on my skin though. I can see the veins in my hand, and I am dark brown, so this is a problem.

So on Thursday, soror friend’s boo’s advertising firm had an event with Bacardi. (they still do the other ones with Miller, too) It was very fun—although a Bacardi tasting is probably a little too much for most people. They have different rooms with different themes, and then a main room. You could a different flavor of Bacardi according to the room and then in the main room, anything you wanted. Although the main room had these yamps dancing on top of a crane. It was very odd. But fun. Soror friend brought one of her friends from school that I not met before and she was taxing my nerves. First of all, when we got there, she announced that she was “looking for a rich man” because she is refugee from Ecuador. WTF? Then, she wanted to drink every last drop of each drink which was aggravating because it is a tasting, and you are preventing the rest of us from moving. Then, she had on ear plugs, so you couldn’t communicate with her—just aggravating. So we were talking to the executive from Bacardi, and he went to go walk around, and she says to s-f’s boo—“don’t worry I got him”, and goes after the CLIENT, to which s-f’s boo is just shaking his head. We turn to look and the exec is waving his ring finger in her face. I just wanted to be like honey--get some class about yourself. I have some especially ignorant thoughts about what non black women are allowed to get away with and not be called names, but I’ll keep them too myself. LOL. I was totally through when we were in the Brazil room—the samba dancers came out, and here she goes to dance with them. EXCEPT SHE HAD THE EARPLUGS IN. It was just a mess. I was like totally annoyed. I need to tell s-f to miss me with the invite next time if she’s going to be attending. But it was fun.

Friday, I finished one of my two milestone thingies that I need to finish before I propose my dissertation. I just need to get it into my advisor. I had a reward waiting for myself though—since I am MAC addict (which is actually hilarious because I don’t wear any makeup during the week) they let me come in to get my face done and preview the new spring line. So I told myself I could only go if I got a certain amount of work done. I had a blast, although I need to stay out of the Nordstrom and the uppity mall in general. Later on, I went with NK and our other Dukie friend to see Day 26—the making the band 4 boys. This was pure, unadulterated ghetto hood rat madness. Thank goodness I wore jeans. Lord.

So this is the second and final quarter of me being the TA for Intro to Social Policy. I hate grade grubbers, and I have one this quarter. After a lot of going back and forth, I gave him an extra 1.5 points on the midterm. I’m not playing that. Don’t be a grade grubber. I decide the final grades and there is fuzziness in there, and I will be less generous if you are harassing me—especially when on the problem in question, several people got it perfect. It is not fair if at least one person got it all the way right, because you “meant” something other than what you wrote. Ugh. So glad that’s over—although I have to grade the finals. It will 31 seven essay question exams. No fun. If I become a professor, maybe I will just teach grad students because these guys are complete knuckleheads, LOL.

So I have slew of trips coming up—NY, DC1, DC2, DC3 (this trip involves something else, but I can’t disclose until after), LOL and then Florida. And then I get back and get ready to go to California. So blasted excited. If all goes well, which I’m certain it will, I will be in candidacy by the fall. I’m good. Not many complaints.

Mental Fog, Clarity

2008-03-10T06:08:00.003-04:00

Ok so it turns out the person who was rude to the valet man? A total jerk. I decided to hang out with said individual again, because I figured I shouldn’t judge. Well I should have judged. In addition to hearing the f bomb within the first 10 minutes of my arrival, this person also proclaimed “I love going off on people”. Get a clue.

I know it is time for me to get out here because I have now officially seen 3 Delta lines cross here. I needed to get out of my house though, because I was having severe mental fog since Thursday. Mental fog sets in on me about once a month—and I think because school never stops and life never begins. Of course life is going on, but PhD school has no finite accomplishments until you are done. So there is always something you *could* be doing—not to say that should be, or that even if you got everything done, your advisor would agree that you were ready to move on to the next thing. So it is an intimate dance of hurry up and wait. I have been making progress though, but with the progress comes more mental fog. I got invited to contribute to a book volume—the research course I’m going to in New York in a couple of weeks is a precursor to that. I got another grant to attend a training on this dataset—but I have to come up with an abstract prior to attending. And I am working on writing a proposal with the master’s narrative woman—we are girlfriends now, LOL. It is nice because I believe each of these papers will each be a chapter of my dissertation. But thinking about getting from here to proposal defense has caused a SIGNIFIGANT amount of anxiety. I am a naturally anxious person, so it is not helping.

I did not realize how much my pneumonia took my ass out of the game. I was really sick. I was honestly just barely making it. I am slightly annoyed because one of the reasons it took so long for me to get better was that a) I was slow to recognize how sick I was and b) it’s not like I have anyone here to rely on in terms of getting medicine, etc. It was super cold so I still had to go out at least once a day which totally would set me back. I still have to use nasal spray to really get my breathing right. I mean that is really another marker of my slow descent into full nerd-dom.

Do y’all remember the prof that was giving me the hard time fall quarter last year—not crazy ass advisor, his is still crazy, LOL—he took me out to lunch and tried to poach me from advisor. Often people think giving me a hard time is ingratiating them to me. Perhaps I am sending the wrong message. I politely declined though. We had a nice lunch; we went to a vegan restaurant. If I had someone to cook for me like that all the time, I could totally fulfill my eventual goal of being a vegetarian.

What else? So I now get what I was missing from some folks in my life that was making the relationships unfulfilling—understanding. I think I have written about this here before…but understanding is key. For a variety of reasons, I am a place right now where it really takes some work for people to understand what I’m going through and what I’m really about. For instance, making a snide remark about when I’m going to graduate is very fast way to get told off. Only calling me because I am very fun to hang out with at the club—not bringing much else to my life, but wanting to call me your friend is another don’t. Not taking the effort to ask what my research is on is another big one. This is what my life is going to be about for the next x years—and then if I got into academia, the start of my life’s work. Take a minute to ask. Dismissing the fact that a person needs a complete life—i.e. I can’t have a baby with my PhD, LOL . But also this is something I can help people with too. There are some people that get me off the break, or have been in my life so long they know how to ask the right questions. I generally don’t invest in lot in people who don’t get me—but for those where there is a lot of potential, I should work harder to help explain my various situations, and then I can make a better judgment about whether to include them in my life or not.

I continued my weekend date with myself—Semi Pro is hilarious. Not as funny as Talladega Nights, but funny nonetheless.

WHY THE EFF IS IT STILL SNOWING IN CHICAGO. FORK THIS. SAVE ME TOM CRUISE.

That touch my body remix is hot!

Celebrating 6 at the CIAAs

2008-03-05T12:37:00.001-05:00

Oh dear. Here I should say something like- we’re getting to old for this…but I don’t think it would be any good. We had a flipping blast in Charlotte. First of all, Charlotte is really nice. It’s a really pretty city. I had no idea. It doesn’t hurt that J13 lives in South Park, which is a SUPER NICE neighborhood. We decided to head down for a 6th line b-day.

Anyway, it was mostly our usual hi-jinks—with the usual suspects—me, tinyd, B-rocka, wani, T, Rneezi, J13 serving as the hostess, and Dr. Dre. Thursday night we just drank wine, played Wii and went to sleep. I NEED A Wii. My advisor tried to tell me how fun they were, but I wasn’t listening. Tinyd beat me in bowling, but I kicked much butt in both boxing and tennis. After watching a short marathon of America’s Best Dance Crew (who knew Lil Mama was so insightful?), we took it to bed. T and wani were the last to arrive and they just knew we would be in our club clothes, ready to go, LOL.

Friday we had wine on the patio (typing this is making me frown my face at the fact that I am back in Ev-IL, freezing my assinus off) and then went downtown for a day party. Now I have never heard of this, but apparently that’s what happens during the CIAAs. So we get downtown, not after screaming “N*ggas is out” the ENTIRE ride. This is hilarious—in our car was tinyd, the newly minted assistant district attorney, two soon to be doctors, and a soon to be PhD. This is why I love these people so much. We are elite by pretty much any definition of the phrase—and not just black elite, LOL, but we know how to have a damn good time and not take ourselves so seriously. Anyhoo, after a whole bunch of confusion and picture taking downtown, we ended up not at a day party, but at Bojangles.

I could not eat though, which made me sad, because I am still recovering from my pneumonia. I have not had Bojangles in like 2 years. Here I would like to insert that I found that one way to fully recover is to use Grey Goose to burn your lungs clean. LMAO.

So we went out later on to this party being thrown by a group of young men known as the Inner Circle. This was a damn zoo. Not be outdone—we had no presale tickets and did not want to wait in line—we cut the presale line and somehow managed to get everyone in right when they opened the door. This we later summarized as the phenomenon of being late mergers vs. early mergers—it’s really an approach to life. However we had gotten there early – so we left around 12. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much that went on; we had pregamed at the house (here I should insert that J13 is a damn good hostess—she was raised right lol—we had liquor literally for days) and I was totally in my own head. I don’t remember anything more than feeding one of the bruhs some liquor and walking around holding T’s hand. Apparently I hit wani with one of my shoes. (sounds crazy) So I left early with T and Rneezi and I was minding my business on the short couch when everyone else got home. Wani confronted me about the shoe but I was very confused so I thought she was attacking me, so I threatened to leave. The next hour or two was pure confusion. We had an intervention, tinyd hid my wallet from me, Rneezi had to play psychiatrist (that is what she is actually going to do, L O L) and then Dr. Dre and I sat on the patio on smoked cloves. CHAOS.

Needless to say, Saturday I had a headache, but we had to move for the greater good. We got ourselves together and went to what was supposed to be a cookout at the bruh’s house, but it was just some old bruhs (well 90s)—it was J13’s coworkers’ house (gorgeous by the way) and he gave us this wine that must have had drugs in it because we were toast. We took it over to the Red Lobster because that is where we fellowship at line reunions—I am glad this worked out, because had it not, someone would have gotten stabbed behind –not- getting cheddar biscuits. Tinyd and I were like guys we can get seafood somewhere else, LET THE CHEDDAR BISCUITS GO. But it ended up being ok.

Anyway, I managed myself a little better on Saturday night—we went to the same people’s party but it was like 3 separate venues and you could move between the 3. This was very fun. There was lots of couch dancing, and although B-rocka got into a small altercation with a man who was following us around and had vagina envy, LOL, we had a good time.

Sunday we went Durham to visit Duke. We got to see FamDoc, so this was nice. Rneezi made tinyd and me the bestest dinner. I heart those ladies. They get me, even when I get drunk and act like an animal.

So I am back here. I feel waaaay better. Things are progressing, I feel good. Lots of wonderful things have been happening. It feels like something clicked. Perhaps it is that 25+ wisdom, who knows…

Also, how do we feel about someone who is really mean to the Valet man? I may be being overly sensitive but I hate when people are rude to service people. It’s so unnecessary.

Tootles

c

Cough

2008-02-23T00:44:00.002-05:00

Here’s something to blow you mother-effing mind. For the past two weeks I have been insanely sick. But I keep saying it will pass, I will feel better—let me get this work done. Well said strategy did not work. On Tuesday I felt like my head was about to explode, but I still went about my activities. Wednesday and Thursday, same thing—until I got a humidifier, which at least allowed me to sleep. Well actually Wed & Thurs I went into the office and then promptly bought my ass home. I have been looking like a hag also.

So it turns out what I thought was (well I don’t know what I thought…) was pneumonia. I am ok now, but DAMMIT.

Ain’t this a bitch?

I wasn’t wearing my snow boots they are too cute for the actual snow, and though this is my third winter here, I just got some good rain boots, but by the time I did that, I was already sounding like I had the Ebola. I was in the library and people were looking at me like “bitch you bet’ not cough on me”. It felt awful.

What the f*ck? The title of the PhD section of my memoirs is going to be “Chicago: the black years”.

And y’all know I can’t stay in the house like this, it’s against my nature. I have overdosed on Madea plays and I don’t even want to read anything else. LOL.

Although, I got great news-- I am going to be spending the summer in Santa Monica, CA-- well it's like 92%. But I have the offer. The org also has a DC office, so this could potentially lead to a job offer after graduation. A summer on the beach with B-rocka? HOLLA.

THEN, I got accepted into this workshop on my research interest-- and my manuscript for the workshop is going to be a part of a book volume. HOLLA.

So happy. Counting down to Charlotte. Thank Jesus I can breathe again. Woo, and shall we append, HOO.

c merk

Dot, C (2008)

2008-02-15T03:00:00.002-05:00

This is the most I've posted since working for the Dept of Hell. But I realized I was just coming here to rant-- and that won't make for a good record of my life. And the majority of stuff that happens to me is good. Like today-- I realized I am listed as an author on a publication. I have one in a nonacademic quarterly, but this one would be put out by a reputable think tank, etc. I have been helping out with the work, like going blind putting teensy stars next to figures, etc. So I am reading it, and there on the first page is

My advisor's name

Officemate from last year (you know I love me some her, lol)

Old Lab mate

New office mom

The crazy homeless guy from outside Panera who asks for whole dollars, not change :|

Me!!

woo to the hizzoo

And B-rocka's on deck for Charlotte. Chaos. SO.EXCITED.

The Good Life, 1

2008-02-11T22:32:00.000-05:00

Upcoming trips---

Milwaukee for a day trip with someone (this doesn't really count it's 1.5 hour drive, but I have been meaning to do it)

Charlotte (6th line birthday, CIAAs, ignorance of course)

New York (free trip, got into a workshop on my research interests)

Home for a bit (may have to get another tooth out, I know, I know-- been avoiding it)

Home for another bit (10 year HS reunion)

Home for another bit (I got a grant to attend a data training—free trip, whoop)

Sanibel Island, Florida (for T’s wedding—so.much.fun, whoop whoop)

Home for another bit (conference by the people who sponsor my fellowship, presenting a paper or a poster—another free trip)

Summer on the beach in undisclosed (hoping this works out)

Fiji with J for a post-bar exam (her) pre-dissertation (me) jaunt-- you know how our adventures are, hope we make it back, LMAO

Something in September

Life is good.

Shazam.

Boundaries

2008-02-10T21:58:00.000-05:00

Virgo August 23 - September 22

For Sunday, February 10 -Keep your distance from needy people for now and avoid letting them use what's yours. It might make you feel a bit un-neighborly, but sharing resources with disorganized people could have a very stressful effect on the relationship you have with them. Too many variables are at play, and the chances that you will emerge from the arrangement without losses are very slim. Define your boundaries today, and you will be able to avoid making commitments that could come back to haunt you.

This was perfect for me today. I got an interesting email from someone injecting themselves into my business-- about why I have cut certain people out of my life. It's sounds more dramatic then what it is. You grow up, you move on. Bygeorge also asked me if someone was on my "bash" list, and I was like no. But I think that misses the point. It's not about bashing people; it's about personal uplift. I could really give a sh*t less about other people's feelings--I have to put myself first.

I went to see Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins and nearly peed my pants. OMG I thought it was hilarious. I thought it would be corny--but I was scheduled to go the movies with someone else, so I didn't want to have the make the case for it. I was pleasantly surprised. If I was a cultural studies PhD I would look into why movies about black families often villainize the sibling who has "made it"? Like in all the Tyler Perry movies (well in those it's usually an uppity man causing the problems), Soul Food, etc. What does that say about black people and success? I think it's an interesting question.

Also, I don't remember if I told y'all about the guy that Country gave my number to without my permission that time? Well slim is an effing clown. He has a girlfriend which he alleges he broke up with, he is somehow on my damn google chat, and he is always harassing me about Hillary Clinton. It is so very annoying. I tried to Facebook his girlfriend to tell him to leave me alone, but I couldn't find her. LOL. HE IS THAT ANNOYING. And he works for this corrupt politician here. Ugh. I wish he would leave me alone, but I think he thinks I am joking because I just say really outrageous things to him. I need to stop relying on texting and chatting as my main forms of communication. I think some messages are being interpreted incorrectly--the excuse me voice doesn't come through, and some people don't know how to interpret the straight face. LOL

When I think too hard about our Charlotte trip, my tummy hurts. LMAO

I am going to have an amazing summer. I may get to spend it at this awesome think tank on the beach. It's not final yet, so we'll see. I have to see how it fits into me finishing, which just has to be my primary goal right now before they come get me and put me in a room with padded walls.

u g h. Just ugh

2008-02-03T14:09:00.000-05:00

Friday, I was in a positively crappy mood. I am talking about if I had seen a bunch of puppies or kittens, I probably would have kicked them or something. LOL. It started Thursday night, when I got blown via text from two separate individuals. So then I couldn’t sleep right. It also snowed. Not that I am complaining about Chicago and snow—I actually pride myself on being able to get my car cleaned off and ready to go without a lot a fanfare now. But we have had freezing ass weather—i.e. the inside of your nose freezes—for like 2 weeks now. I mean give me a damn break. And then it gets to be a decent temp (30 degrees LOL) and it snows like snow is going out of style. These animals don’t stop for anything, so I still had all manner of things to do.

I had a meeting with my local mentor (I told y’all I have like 5—the original one from Duke, two from Georgetown, one from the Urban Institute, Dr. Faboo and Jesus—they are all going to have to work over time to get me out of here) and this was good because it allowed me to productively vent. I was already worn out from the beginning of the week, where had a Stata programming workshop. Except that people came who didn’t even know how start a damn do file. Aggravation. I did learn a lot though, and my advisor (this like genius woman comes to give us programming bootcamps) said the instructor told him I was the “star pupil.” Not so hard in that crowd.

So I think I told y’all about the reimbursement lady who is always playing games with my reimbursements. Well it turns out this is a fellowship wide problem. So I waited all summer for a 1500 check—damn Harvard and the orange juice, haha—and now I am waiting for one from November. This one isn’t a ton, but it’s the principal of the matter. Other people have had worse experiences, so hopefully there figure out the problem. I am TA-ing again this quarter. Our department is so small, that TA-ing isn’t really a main stay of either of the PhD programs, like you see in larger departments or places where funding is scarcer. Unless you don’t have a fellowship, it’s kind of like anybody can TA at any point. And we have to do it at least once to graduate. So I got that requirement over with last quarter. The prof liked me a lot, so he asked me to do the same course over again this quarter. I go to look at my paycheck, and the money from TA-ing not there. So I ask the pay lady, who makes up some rule about people having my fellowship not being allowed to TA. This made me hit the roof. First of all, I did it last quarter, got paid—so it’s clearly not true. Moreover, she was the same lady who worked it out last quarter. Did you go to dumb ho school over winter break? Then, here is what caused me to have to tap my inner Shequan: She says, “well can I just pay you when you are off your fellowship? I could not believe that she actually typed that for my eyes to read. I will be off my fellowship in August ’09. Are you kidding? And do you understand I am not going to be grading papers for 34 people (they added in all these kids over the limit), messing around with the blasted blackboard site, and sitting there listening to what are supposed to be the futures leaders of America use ‘like’ 50 g-damn times in a sentence and try to blind me with teeny font and blue ink because their printer ran out of black--for free? Bitch please. So I am now getting my money on the 15^th. There, that wasn’t so hard was it? Just do your job. U G H

Then we had another lunch with a visitor, who was asking us simple questions about our program. First of all, some of the first years were there, and I know it sounds bad, but they are irritating. Then, he asked for strengths and weaknesses, and everybody was acting like we are getting our PhD from Club Med. So I said something about lack of structure—which can be our greatest strength, but also our greatest weakness, and the first year who works for my old crazy ass advisor (do you know his ass has not spoken to me since ’06? LOL) kept cutting me off. It was really aggravating. Moreover, are we going to be honest, or are we going to sit here and B.S. this man? I mean really.

I did end up having fun Friday night. I went to dinner with my friend from Kellogg, who introduced me to Steak and Shake. I don’t eat beef, and I can’t have any shakes right now (down 7! Woo hoo), but we had a fun time. Later on, he and his boy got a table at First Fridays. This was fun. I was with the radical and endearing Af Am studies PhD’s—although on the way one asked me if I ever used a more colloquial voice. I.e., why do I talk like a white girl? Oh excuse me, am I back in DC public schools or what? I have spent a significant portion of my life being accused of ‘acting white’ or talking like a white girl of whatever. That pissed me off. My mother just didn’t play about grammar—so if you hear the Diva talk, she sounds like Quinn from the Daria cartoon. We don’t sound like we grew up in DC at all, LOL. I did have fun, except the boys let these girls wearing House of Dereon jeans all up in the table area and they were busy bodies.

So I had to get home and have therapeutic session with MH, who kept saying “why are you letting those African studies girls get you upset”. For some reason, the omission of the American part is really hilarious to me.

I am going to Charlotte in three weeks for the CIAA tourney. I get to see Rneezi, J13, and wani so I am excited. Like really excited. My tummy hurts if I think about it too hard.

I saw Cloverfield yesterday. That sh*t was scary. I wanted to cry and I got motion sickness. The Diva clearly lives in Manhattan, so I spent the first 3^rd of the movie trying to calm myself down—it is not good for a naturally anxious person to be watching some shit like that. Sheesh.

So today I am working my ass off. I need to funnel this energy somewhere.

It is COLD. Save me Tom Cruise!

2008-01-20T19:00:00.000-05:00

1) I can not stand people who DO NOT LISTEN.

Like you must listen to what I am telling you. For instance, my cousin, I swear to you, over the holidays, said to me: “C—I didn’t know you were working on your doctorate—I thought you were still at Duke”. To which I cursed his ass out. You know damn well your mother came to my graduation at Duke in 2002. Further, you were there at my graduation party from Georgetown. And triple further, we are Facebook friends. So you just don’t listen, nor do you PAY ATTENTION. I hope my kids have good paying attention genes, because I can see that driving me up the damn wall.

I have had instances of this, and it is really aggravating. Like people who are my good “friends” but don’t even know what my PhD is in. Not only do you not listen, you don’t care. Now granted, it could be hard to remember because it is interdisciplinary.

And my STUDENTS. Listen. Read instructions. Check the Blackboard site. Your asses were complaining about killing trees, but you don't READ unless you have it in your face.

2) IT IS COLD AS SH*T HERE.

I can not think of another way to say it. It’s just absurd. I can not tell if it is colder then during the Super Bowl last year when Pootie came, but it is damn cold. I got invited to a birthday party downtown at J Bar, and I just could not go. I did hang out with my residents last night, and I almost got forced to do a keg stand. A—I do not drink beer, B—I am supposed to be the *adult*, and C—I look lighter than I am, and I did not want anyone to break something lifting this ba-dunk-a-dunk. For real. We had all these activities for the Freshman this week and we definitely had a ball. If I decided to stay in academia, I think I will do student affairs later in life. They asked me to do the position again next year, if I’m here—this was surprising to me, because I didn’t know I was doing a good job. Apparently they love me. *wrinkly face* Just like I am TA-ing the same class over again this quarter—they prof asked me to do it again, I was a little flattered.

3) I STAY HAVING A VISITOR.

So I continued the residency visit hostel service. Which is fine. It was my number 8 again, who was doing a second look at NU’s ob/gyn program. Here I should mention that she will probably cure cancer or something because she’s tight—she was deciding between Columbia, here, Harvard, Penn, and UCSF. These residency visits are a little stressful for me, people have to be downtown at 7 am and what not. 8 is not so bad, but when my other friend came, she was SO neurotic for like 3 days straight, WE got no sleep because she was waking up like at 4 to make sure she got to the hospitals on time. Anyway, it is nice to have someone to eat my Friday dinner out with. I usually take myself out, although, whoops, I drank again.

4) BUT I AM FEELING GOOD.

I think I am in good place right now. 8 and I were talking about Oprah and what kind of person could hate on Oprah. Some who has self hate, we decided. And this led us onto the subject of subconscious hating, and how it’s bad to keep people around in your life just because they have been there. Or how people get mad at you for growing, when they also have the option to grow. I think this is key here. I really had a serious aha moment with a family member over the holiday break—my family has issues with how we talk to one another—and I was unwittingly letting this person basically bully me around, when I decided to put my foot down. And I realized I was really letting this seep into other areas of my life. The other realization was sometimes all you have with people is “all these years”. Like Ti and I have been friends since we were 7 & 8 and I have seen her change so much over that time and it’s fine, in fact I think it’s great—but I figured out some people in my life want me to be what they remember me as. Like I have this aunt who is really, literally, stuck in something that happened 20 years ago. And no one in my family helps her because they pretend like nothing is wrong like most black people do AND they relive the series of events every time they are together. That sh*t is not good. In the words of Soror Vashti, MOVE ON. So I find myself not even really wanting to be around or associate with people who want to put me in an “old” box. Like Ti and I had two other really good friends through high school, and the other two are not doing so much with themselves, but they always want to get together and talk about how much fun we used have in like 95. Make some new memories. I also was kind of mean to high school friend who I used to be close with, because she wanted to hang out over break and I just wasn’t really feeling it. We used to have a very mean girl-ish relationship—she’s somewhat of a bitch, LOL, and I’m past that.

I’m going to Charlotte for the CIAA’s. I need to get my ass out of Chicago. I haven’t been traveling that much (well to new places). That is a shame and travesty and needs to be rectified.

Post-crappy stuff Life, onto next phase :)

2008-01-14T15:13:00.000-05:00

Hmm. So week 1 of my post-coursework life went ok. I have to admit I was not very productive. Well I made some good, detailed to do lists. Someone told me to work backwards (I can’t remember if it was a person or a self help book, LOL) –i.e. figure out when I want to be finished by, think about what that would take, and then figure out each month what I need to do. So I did that. For the master’s narrative woman’s class, I ended writing so much throughout the class that for the final, I ended up writing the proposal for 3 studies, so I am going to build that into my dissertation proposal. So now that I have a rough idea of where I’m headed, taking the small steps should be easier. Either the Lord or my brain told me that the only thing standing in between me and the PhD is me. I was going through a very ‘woe is me’, ‘how am I ever going to finish all this stuff?’ phase. No one really was consoling or wanted to listen which led me to believe I was being stupid/lazy. LOL. My office mom described this phase as the “bad part” and it should pass soon.

Anyhoo, so I had a fun week—my soror friend from the Af Am studies department had a birthday, so I went out with the Af Am studies PhD to be’s to dinner. This was a riot. They are so radical and endearing. And we went to the Grand Luxe which is one of my favorite restaurants here. (well I like the food, but the first time I went to a Grand Luxe was LA, with B-rocka's old boo--and that night was the origin of the NIO moment. HA) Except that I drank too much—I am not supposed to be drinking at all as a part of my initial fitness push—I had two of these Grand Luxe margaritas. Very tasty, although not good for the waste line. My officemate and I have been working out together on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then I have been good about getting two more days in. And it’s working. I have a mind like a steel trap when I decide I want to do something. The want is the critical thing—because as people close to me know, if I don’t want to do something it is really not going down. Which is why I was having all these soul searching questions about being lazy (or not as productive as I would like to be). But the dinner was fun, they were all complaining about being over 30, although they are like 31/32 which is not bad, and it seems to be the norm for PhD programs. I mean there’s certainly a range from people fresh out of undergrad to those who are career changers. But if you already have a masters, 31/32 is not so bad. But I did keep my mouth shut, LOL.

Someone who I can’t figure out to save the life of me why he did this, invited me to go skiing in Wisconsin on Friday, but I declined. This would have been with some Kellogg folks. I keep saying I want to do a short trip to Milwaukee or something, but I haven’t done it. AND, the individual who invited me—well, let’s just say he had NO BUSINESS doing so. This person all informed me that even though he’s an Ivy League-er with a Kellogg MBA—that he is a “[n word] first”. This to explain his totally inappropriate behavior. I can’t even get into the story like how I want, but just take my word for it. Seriously.

Then Saturday we had our department potluck. This was nice. Again, I drank too much. But it was fun. The hostess’s kids were absolutely adorable. So you know I am interested in middle childhood-adolescence—and the daughter was a ‘tween—she was dressed like Hannah Montana. So precious. I used to hate kids until I got here. LOL.

Sunday was Founder’s Day, so the birthday girl and I headed down to Hyde Park for a gospel brunch with a whole gang of sorors (I have been leading a very Delta heavy life as of late, hmmm). This was good. I needed some actual food.

And then that’s it. I am half bored half busy. Excited. Happy. All that all that.

smooches

Back to Ev-iL

2008-01-02T19:35:00.000-05:00

I had a good break. I am going back to Chicago kicking and screaming. It is positively unnatural to hate a place that much. I don’t think I should hate it though because it is a nice city. LOL. I think I’m just spoiled in DC. And all the forces are in place for me to have a flipping blast. I think I underestimated the value of being around friends and family.

Anyhoo, what did I do? Well I spent some time with N, which was good, because we haven’t really been in the same city all year. We did a little bit of this and that, went shopping (well I watched her shop), and I also was involved in some tomfoolery with her new boy. LOL. Messing around with N, we tried on $600 dresses for the club, and I think I need to broaden my horizons, because I wanted to yell at the saleslady 2 things: “This sh*t is high” and “it looks exactly like the stuff I get for 1/6 of the price as the boutique I love in Evanston”. Ha Ha. Anyway, N was shopping like some sort of madwoman; she doesn’t care about spending money in advance of receiving it. Although she will be working at firm when she graduates (doesn’t time fly?).

I also went with Ti, who knows nothing about football, to watch the Redskins/Vikings game at this sports bar downtown. This was so flipping fun. Ladies, if you would like meet a man, go to a sports bar during big games. Anyway, this was a blast, and it made miss DC even *more*. Ugh. I lost my voice screaming “We want Dallas”.

Christmas was good. My parents made me go buy a suit as my present. They had it in their heads that I don’t dress scholarly enough, whatever the hell that means so this was an excruciating trip to Macy’s with my Dad. Anyway, I now have a really nice three piece suit—although I had to sneak and buy it in a smaller size because I can not remain at my current weight. I need to lose the love 10 pounds and then the breakup 10 pounds. LOL.

What else? New Year’s was good-- a good portion of my zany linesisters came into town. Since we are now all 25+, J suggested we make reservations like humans, *before* we got twisted and went out. So we went to Chef Geoff’s, and it was very nice. I had made Jello shots for us to have in between—which my mother was totally intrigued by. She kept saying “you guys don’t need all of that VOD kaaa”, lol. The party was ok, I thought some aspects were unprofessional, and the hype man wasn’t that great. The night before, a subset of us had watched the Cowboys game at T’s house and then gone to Lima, so honestly I was still hung over from Sunday. It was fun though. Tinyd brought her new boo, as did S-dot, so that was nice.

I have no classes so I don’t know how the bleep I am going to productively fill up my time. I am a pretty structure driven person, and I will have none so this will be a challenge. I do have lots of motivation to get things cracking, as it were, because I need to move away from EVIL, otherwise known as Evanston, IL.

LMAO

52 weeks of favor in ’08!!!

Woo hoo

Learned

2007-12-17T20:14:00.000-05:00

Hmmm. Lots to report. I am tired. I am home now, but I had a busy/not busy week before I left. That means that I had some stuff to do, but then I was generally very bored when I was not doing stuff. That is the story of my Chicago life. I had a visitor last weekend who wore my ass out—I don’t know if y’all remember my family friend who I do hot yoga with day after Thanksgiving every year—well, he was in Chicago and wanted to go to brunch, then see Northwestern, then get tea, then go to movies. Although he is hilarious and witty, etc, etc, I was really exhausted and I had to write one last paper for my last class ever. AND he is, umm, flamboyant so he kept calling everything “Ms.” Like “oh girl, look at this lake! Ms. Northwestern is not playing!” or “girl you know Ms. Harvard wasn’t even having that”. He did an education doctorate at Harvard so he gives me wonderful advice. But the day did go from like 10am to 8:30pm. After that, I went out with C Dubb to a crappy party downtown thrown by the son of the master’s narrative woman. This sucked, so we went to this spot called Climax, with R. Kelly’s business partner (or I guess one of them). I was really intrigued by this, so he must have thought I was crazy because I KEPT staring at him. People in Chicago will curse you out if you talk badly about R. Kelly. This was alright, although Chicago is so segregated so it is sometimes weird to be in majority white clubs. They did have this woman who was hanging from basically a ribbon and doing all the crazy ass tricks.

Sunday I went to mass, and then really didn’t do much. I was feeling very blah. I had one paper to write. The last paper I will ever have to write for a grade in my life. This was very exciting (I had one class left to take for my fellowship), except that when I turned it in, it was VERY anticlimactic. Then I wanted to get a drink to celebrate and there was no one to get a drink with, to which I complained to J about, and which she promptly yelled at me for undermining my accomplishment.

Tuesday during the day, we had lunch with this famous statistician. When people come to visit, they sometimes do student lunches. I’ve been to a few these last couple of weeks. Anyway, this guy is like the Michael Jordan of statistics, seriously. In our house office, it is our research lab, and then there is statistics research lab on the first floor. Well there is this one who is like a 5^th year, and something clearly got loose in his damn brain this year, because he has just turned into this crazy man. He does not shave and he is loud. So this guy was at the lunch and was acting like he has absolutely no couth. I really can’t stand people with no couth. At the lunch, in addition to talking while other people were talking, when we had to go around and introduce ourselves, he really took 20 minutes to talk about his dissertation work. I for one do not give a damn. He was totally out of control, like almost arguing with the guest (this would be like a high school player questioning Michael Jordan—that is the only way I can think of it), cutting people off, you name it. Here is the part that just had me looking at him with the wide eyes: if you are a grown man, there is no reason you should pour chips in your hand, shake them up like dice, and then throw them in your mouth. I mean, come on. I got a headache because I was sitting next to him, and I couldn’t even concentrate because I just can not stand people with no blasted couth. Seriously.

Anyway, so my dad came and helped me drive my car back, this was very sweet.

We also had a very terrible line tragedy. I feel so sad and also very helpless because it is random and I can not be there to help. Anyway, said tragedy made me feel terrible for being annoyed by the couth-less man, among other things. I am big worrier—it’s really terrible—but I think the lesson is to stop worrying about dumb sh*t (and the corollary to that is dumb people, well maybe petty stuff and petty people). I have had the parent of one of my other close friends pass, but he was older and it was natural, so it was different.

So that’s that. I was also thinking about the fact that I should know *something* about something, seeing as I’m done with my classes. However, I don’t feel very expert-y. I have been getting emails from people asking me my opinion on crap—like you can look at our website and see what my interests are. I think that is positively riotous. I am sure I learned something though.

I also got an email from a college asking me to apply for a professor job. That really freaked me out. I am not ready to be on anyone’s job market. LOL.

The CBLC wants to me to write a screenplay about my life and has asserted that Denzel will play him because “who else would play me” and that although he would not be a central character because “your crazy friends would”—his character would totally “steal the show”.

Figures.

Love your family, tomorrow is not a promise.

ttfn

Teeny Update

2007-12-04T11:19:00.000-05:00

My residents had their formal Friday. There was dancing on tables until I realized I was the "adult". I have not had that type of fun in a minute. Any night that starts out with Andre (the champagne--if you can call it that) and chocolate covered strawberries is a good night.

LOL

I can not believe it is December. I am making progress through. I must think positive thoughts.

Ohmmmmm

Madea goes to Jail is funny as all get out.

'Tis all.

I need a holiday from the holiday.

2007-11-27T00:01:00.000-05:00

So of course, what is a C Dot adventure without drama, intrigue, some violence, and fun? Nothing. First of all, I am sitting in the airport—and I am really tired of airports. Moreover, I need a holiday from the holiday. This was just too much. My soror-mom in the Af Am studies department didn’t go home this year for thanksgiving, and I see why. I had so much crap to do—for one, I am presenting a paper I have been working to my lab on Wednesday, and the convention is to send it out in enough time so that everyone can read the blasted thing, so that was hanging over my head (I got it out super early this morning (I was having some kind of issue about people thinking I was dumb or something, lol)). Other than that, this trip home has been pure madness.

So on Wednesday, people started calling me at like midnight (so like Tuesday night), like “are you here”, “let’s go out”, “I want to have fun”, etc. I was a little stressed because there was this insane fog in Chicago, and people were being pretty pessimistic about me getting out. On top of that, I waited late to get my flights, so I had to switch in Philly, which was also a source of concern. I usually stick with one airline to get my miles, but I had to use another one going out of O’Hare, which is generally a zoo. But it worked out. I even left in enough time to catch the eL, instead of paying for parking, which is what I usually do. Everything went off without a hitch, and even got to DC early. This was good.

At this point, my evening had already been laid out for me. I was to meet PhD at the bar, and then we would go to another bar to meet some of her people and I was to also meet this guy who drove from Richmond to hang out and the good old 100 pound crew. I haven’t seen N in a minute—maybe since before the SB died, so I was really excited to see her. Well I get to the bar, and it was fun until I realized that PhD was toasted—well it was still fun after that, but I had to reign myself in, because we clearly could not be two drunk fools in the street. At this point our other friend from Holding Hangs had just left in her the bar (I saw this girl on Saturday night and I said “why the hell did you leave her in the bar like that?” and she was “the spirit told me to move, so I had to go” The spirit should have sent a damn cc for me to take my black ass home) Anyhoo, I see a few people I know, and we head over to the second spot. At the second spot, we got in ok—but then we had to straight hustle Richmond boy in, and this is when madness ensued.

So I was talking to RB, when I realized that PhD, who had one more shot when we got to the new bar—was like, gone. I go to the bathroom to look for her, and she is on the floor looking absolutely crazy, and her little sister’s friends are just sitting there. So I’m like let me put her in the stall at least. I sent them to get her club soda. After about 20 minutes of vomit assistance, I left to go check on RB, who was now pissed at me and acting like a total baby because I left him by himself. This is frustrating, but I had to leave again to make sure my patient did not die. Meanwhile, other people are trying to get in, I am trying to judge whether P can recover and maybe we can salvage some of her birthday so I am making several trips back and forth. Maybe about 45 minutes into it, her sister comes and asks me if she can leave to go another club. So I’m like “you have a car?” Because I am constrained by the fact that I did not drive, nor can I lift a grown woman, and she looked at me like I had third head. I was extraordinarily perplexed by this, so I said “well if that’s what you want to do, then just go”. Then I realized there was to be no recovery, so I went back out to tell RB that it was going to be a wrap on the night.

I get back into the restroom, and all of the sister’s friends have their asses in the stall. Now mind you they have been out partying IT UP for the past hour, while I have been cleaning vomit, etc. And they start yelling at ME like “how the f*ck you gon’ have her on the toilet, what if she get staph”, etc. I am trying to approximate their ebonics. After about 10 minutes of getting screamed on I was like “Point A—you all need to calm down, because if security comes, they are going to manhandle P, and Point B—I’m a grown woman, so you don’t need to speak to me like that, and Point C—you all are acting like little ghetto bitches”. So this, of course, escalates the argument, which was really dumb in the first place—but I am HIGHLY irritated because the sister is being so rude, and I’m pretty sure I’ve known her since she was like 12 or something, and really didn’t even know she was old enough to come to the club, the friends are ignorant as F*CK, and FINALLY, I have been trying to get P together for a solid hour.

So of course security comes, snatches P, draws all out, and puts her on the curb. The friends are still talking all kinds of trash, so I am like please stop being talking to me like, seriously I was just trying to help. And the sister is getting more and more out of pocket. Anyway, the situation devolved, and one of the friends punched me. In front of the damn club. So I was through. During all this c-ker pops up, and puts P in the car, and makes no effort to help me. I am arguing with police trying to get them to file a report, and I am literally left downtown. At that point, I was flipping *disgusted* with the whole situation that I was like –you know what, I can’t deal with these people anymore. It is always some drama, various types of BS, and it’s not even fun to hang out anymore—if it’s not someone getting drunk of their ass and not being able function, you have to beg to hang out, and then let’s not even talk about past behaviors which yes, I have not gotten over. LOL.

And so it all became clear. The person who tries to help is the person who gets yelled at. THEN, no one called to see how I was. I had a knot on my forehead and bruise by my eye. Well P did call, but the tone in her voice indicated to me that she thought it was a joke that I had been assaulted, her sister was acting like a bitch, and when I called her mother’s house I got hung up on. These are people I have known a long time, so I’m not tolerating that shit. Then after I say I just can’t handle this type of madness anymore I get an email like “sometimes you have a smart mouth when you are upset. Maybe that is why you got hit” or dumb ass sh*t like that. No I got hit because you can take a girl out of the hood, but not the hood out of the girl, lol. And I was upset because I got accosted in the process of TAKING CARE OF YOU. This type of stuff does not happen on the Hills—only ghetto people resolve problems by fighting. (or people on drugs, like the Amazon, lol) And this is not the time to be telling about what you perceive to be as my character flaws when I was barefoot (I had to protect my latest mean shoe game shoes) in a bathroom holding your hair to vomit. You just, absolutely, positively, can not be serious.

Anyway, Ti came over, and she is pissed like “why didn’t you call me?”, lol, and she tells me that really, I have just got to at least take a break from these people for a good while. For a looong while. She is more incensed that I did not call her to come help and that I did not call her boo, who we all know, is, umm, intimately involved with street justice. LOL.

Friday, the Diva and I went shopping because we had a wedding to go Saturday. This was fun, although someone was trying to shoplift at the blasted store and caused a bunch a chaos.

The wedding was ok—VERY simple. No frills. I am actually tired of weddings too, which is saying a lot for me because I love weddings and black love. I also watched Hav Plenty this weekend.

Saturday, soror friend and her boo had a joint birthday part in DC. This guy took me out to eat at Oceanaire and then drove me to the party, bought me some drinks and left. That is what I am talking about. I just went by myself—and I had a flipping blast, which was good, because I was having a poor attitude about my thanksgiving, which is not good. The hype man was wonderful—I haven’t heard a good hype man in a minute. There is no such thing as a hype man in Chicago, which I find odd. The couple had a fun time—although she is having another party in the Chi on Friday. Totally out of control. I heart my Emory sorors, they make me miss my linesisters .

I am on my way back to the Chi, and I actually want to go back because I need the peace and quiet of my residents, LOL.

Wild Sh*t Sayer

2007-11-19T16:08:00.000-05:00

So I just had to put several people on pause for a while. C-dubb refers to this as the “one-sided” fight. LOL. Well I wouldn’t go that far, but you know. The pauses came after several infractions, including but not limited to:

1) Subconscious hating
2) Telling me to do things you wouldn’t do yourself
3) Regular hating
4) Selfishness
5) Jealousy

Some people have gotten themselves off punishment. Others are still on. The key here is that most don’t know it.

Yes I know I am going crazy. What’s new?

So we went out Thursday, and had an umm, interesting experience. I mean it was fun, but it’s starting to be like a family reunion. It’s like DC where the “young professional crowd” goes the same places on the same nights. Except here the crowd is smaller with fewer nights, so it’s 20 times worse. Here a gentleman who calls himself the “don dada” of Chicago harassed us. Dumb C dubb went on date with him and now he is like a gnat. Even when she is MEAN to him he will not leave, and he dances like a chicken. We have seen him a few times. I am not exactly sure what the don dada’s job is, but it is not, I repeat, not buying anyone a drop of champagne. If *I* was calling myself the “don dada” of Chicago, *I* would be buying young women champagne instead of talking their heads off. Sheesh.

At the end of the night, N’s other friend from H Law who is going to be working here’s boyfriend (did you get that) gave us a ride to my jeepy because (surprise) my feet hurt. He is an arrogant somebody. Anyway, I was trying to tell him where the car was while he was trying to make us come to J Bar for the after party (wrinkly face) when this fool runs his fingers through my hair, I guess to see if it was real.

Whoa, slim. CALM THAT DOWN. I am friends with your GIRLFRIEND.

It was awkward. Should I mention here that she has a weave?

I have a really funny life. I just stopped laughing for a while. LMAO.

Yeah.

A couple of weeks ago, soror friend and I went to a house warming on the West Side. The west side is worse than the South side. At one point I just had to say in my ‘excuse me’ voice: “ARE WE IN THE GHETTO??” Not like we didn’t know it was, but I just wanted to point it out.

I was walking somewhere with this guy and there were vacant lots, as there tend to be on the south and west sides. So I said, “Oh, see…this is how women turn up missing”, and he said, “No C-Dot [here I would like to input that he said my whole name, which people rarely do unless I am in trouble, lol]…women turn up missing for talking sh*t—much like you do all the time”.

Another, ahem, individual accused me of being a “wild sh*t sayer”. LOL. I just ask pertinent questions. Such as, “are you going to tell your fiancé you are my stalker?”

You know, pertinent questions.

My number 8 came to interview for a residency at Northwestern, so I continued my residency interview hostel service. We had a good time, although the trip was short. My favorite quote:

“You people are more interested in lies than you are the truth”.

You have to know her to get how blasted funny that is. Seriously.

In need of Thanksgiving.

tootles

Black profs, other stuff

2007-11-11T20:01:00.000-05:00

Just got back from DC (again). I have spent every other weekend of the past 4 or 5 weeks out of town. I am boosted about my miles. I *finally* have enough to take a trip somewhere. I need it, sh*t.

Anyway, I just got back from the annual public policy conference. This is my favorite conference, I go every year—although they don’t give a bag or even a pen. I am a conference bag/knick-knack whore. But the content makes up for it. You’ll remember last year, it was in Madison, Wisconsin. There is certain young black man economist who I am his personal groupie (who is the groupie of an economist? ME, I'm a loser hahahahaha) and he was on a panel. Well he walked right by me at one point and I thought I would pass out. It was all really silly. But he is so Hottt.

I sat in on some interesting panels…my mentor from Duke has encouraged so many folks to go to graduate school, and there was a panel filled with some of his former students. It was on black women, marriage and fertility. It wasn’t as depressing as you would think but one paper was making the claim that there is a premium to being light skinned in the black women’s marriage market. While this may be empirically true, I could not even focus because someone in the back was asking whether “light skinned-ded-ness” was endogenous. This made me giggle.

I am generally against code switching as a learning technique for black kids, and that right there is why. LOL.

The other day, the prof of my Af Am studies class let us go early because her “play sister” was coming and she needed to clean up. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

And the master’s narrative woman always lets her cell phone ring and acts like none of the 6 people in the room hear it.

Black academics.

In other news, I went out last night and I am such a stinking light weight. I need to get my weight up (well really down, but my tolerance up) before new years. Looks like we may go somewhere like Vegas, which I need. All I know is, I almost had a “outside of Zanzibar” incident on the way home (LOL) and I had stolen a teeny Indian corn from the centerpiece. I got up this morning and had to peace my life together one step at a time. My hair, which is back on track—it was not getting straight or something for a while, no more letting the students use me as a hair model, was in 600 directions, and only one eye was still smokey. I am assuming we had a fun time.

Ti and I are on a serious man/fat plan. The man plan is not really a plan, it just involves supporting one another in moving forward, and not falling prey to the 26 curse (although she will be 27 in a week, and got a 26 tattooed on her foot). The fat plan is just that. Y’all now I always have plan or countdown/up going. It’s good method for me, although I need to work on enjoying the journey some more.

My imaginary wedding party is now down to about 5. Well 10 if I am being nice. LOL.

Back from NY. Shin splints, haters, tired

2007-10-29T11:31:00.001-04:00

So the other day after I took myself out for margaritas, which is something I do when I am stressed, sad, or bored, which 85% of the time here I am one of those three things, I got a phone call from PhD. I was tipsy and this confined to my room, lest one of my residents see me (LMAO). Anyhoo, we had this absurd but deep conversation that I would characterize as being loosely organized around the them of “what do they really want from a sist-uh?” We were just basically talking about how in our respective programs, they are really tripping. I’ve written about my travails here, but PhD has a whole other set of issues, largely around her question, that is, they don’t think her question is “doable” or “valid”. And those might be vaild concerns. Not to give all her business away, but I think her question is very important, it is just focused on African women. I mean who wouldn’t care about African women’s politics? So idiotic.

Well anyhoo, so I am done with coursework officially, but I have to audit one last class for my fellowship. I am doing that with the soror (I am pretty sure I mentioned her before). I am also sitting in on Critical Race Theory with the Af-Am studies kids. I am thoroughly enjoying the CRT class, I kind of consider myself a “crit”, to the extent a quantitative person can be, and I heart the professor. She is riot. Although, since I am not a humanities person, sometimes I am utterly confused. I think some people in there are over the top—last week we critiquing time and space from a feminist perspective (I had a total wrinkly face, lol).

The other class, well, I was actually excited for this class. The one class I had left was on learning in the other department in our school, however, I wrote a little letter to take this one instead, because the soror is really famous and she is the only black women professor in our ENTIRE department. So it’s been good, except I am the only policy person in the class, and the other people are definitely not. Each week we have to bring an iteration of a proposal we are working on. I have been bringing parts of this paper I need to turn in ASAP because it, along with the lit review thingy we have to do serves as a qualifier, in that both those things have to be turned in and approved to be in candidacy.

You know I look the achievement gap. The other members of the class and I have been having problems communicating because they do not understand most concepts in the social sciences. Ok that sounds dramatic, but like basic sh*t they just do not know—like the concept of a variable or a control or sample selection. Anyway, they do not like that I am using black and socioeconomic status as variables in this analysis. AND, the professor tells me that by working on the achievement gap --brace yourself for this one—I am feeding into the “master’s narrative”. Now I understand what she is trying to do in a sense, but do we have to say that in front of the class? Do we have to say it at all? Does the achievement gap not exist? If I show it in my data, I am partaking in the master’s narrative? My advisor seems to think it’s ok, but he’s a white man. LOL. (and quietly he *is* the master, and if I don’t partake in his narrative I won’t graduate). I never said black was causal (i.e. that black kids test scores are low because they are black, clearly I don’t believe that—sh*t, I’m black), and moreover I am looking at highly educated black parents because I hate the way we talk about race here, so I am trying to find different ways to think about it. The whole “master’s narrative” thing took the wind out of my sails for a little bit. But if I got offended at the things people said to me here, I would have deployed that pack up your isht and leave theory like 2 years ago.

It was getting a little crazy because every week they are all in attack mode when it comes to my proposal, but the other people are doing crappy studies. Like “let me put ten people in a room and see what they do on computer for ten weeks”. Just dumb. I am mildly offended because I am pretty certain she is only saying that to me because I am black. I don’t like that. Plus, there is a whole legion of scholars who work on the achievement gap, and I have never really heard that critique before. So I have to put her in the “You are my friend/I respect you but I can’t even listen to everything you say, because you may be something like a hater, if not an actual one”. This includes people who say:

1) You don’t need to lose weight (while steadily getting skinny themselves)
2) You shouldn’t kill yourself to finish fast (oh you mad because you been here forever)
3) Anything negative regarding P (get a life, and some you know what so you can get the wrinkles out of your forehead LOL) (although I am at 14 days of the count up, however I may have sent some drunken texts, I don’t know-tee hee)

Anyway, this weekend I was at my prophyte’s wedding in NY. I had a blast, although for some reason, I had the genius idea to go dancing with PhD after the wedding, and now I literally have shin splints from my pumps. I was channeling Jackie O with these round toe pumps that were not made for hiking around NY, and then dancing until the wee hours in the morning. Further, I got exactly one hour of sleep Saturday night. AND I am so pissed at the blasted Redskins (although I HATE Bellicheck’s cheating ass, F Tom Brady, yeah I said it, MH (that is her team), that I didn’t sleep yesterday like I should have so I am worn out. I stayed with Little C who is such a cute little woman. I have to admit that I was afraid for her to be in New York, but she seems to be handling it well. Never mind the hot ass apartment she has in Harlem that my parents are paying for. (I need to step my game up, all of her stuff is so nice). So it was good to see her.

Count Up

2007-10-17T22:13:00.000-04:00

I was home for a bit, now I’m back.

Today I had a moment which could probably be very depressing if I wasn’t me. That is sort of cryptic, but I like being the underdog. We’ll just leave it at that.

I am done with P. At least for now. I need some clarity. So we are having a no-contact Count Up. (you like that, you know how I usually count donw, LMAO). So far we have had 4 days of no contact. This has been hard, particularly when I got 4 phone calls in row, and I wanted to answer so badly. I mean, what if it’s an emergency? LOL. What if he is out there with his puppy eyes on the mean streets and he needs my help? LMAO. But we need to be strong. Plus he made me SO MAD on Friday had we been in person I probably would have caught a case.

Totally not good.

I do a poor job at establishing boundaries, and currently we have none. So that is what we need to do. I am ok with this. I usually write here about my (not really) ghetto cousins, but I have another set of super uppity, sometimes pass for white cousins. Well the one that is two years older than me got married at 23, and is now divorced. They spent 200,000 on the wedding.

So yeah. P and I were talking about marriage, but I never saw myself getting married this young. I just need to be on the track.

I also heard of two broken engagements of 26 year olds. So I’m not so worried.

I am tired of being a limited income doctoral student. I mean I don’t pay rent now, but I am trying to save and sh*t so I don’t feel rich. And I just raised my tenants rent so I am little closer to making a profit on my condo. Aargh.

But other than that, I am feeling pretty good. I have been eating like a WILDEBEAST, but hopefully that will subside soon. It is either feast or famine with me, I swear.

My residents are well. Less hollering as the quarter goes on. I guess they are studying, well I hope.

More later

A Pack of Wolves

2007-10-09T05:10:00.001-04:00

So, someone has set up a drum set in the bottom of the house. Very perplexing. Not sure what to do about it.

I am teaching-assistanting this quarter. This is actually fun, the students are very engaged, etc. But if you see me, it is 15 minutes before class, and I am eating (our class is in the evening)--please do not ask me a question about the assignment you are about to turn in. Were you raised by a pack of wolves?

Speaking of a pack of wolves, we played a house game of football Saturday. Well I didn't play, but I made sure the upper classmen did not beat up too hard on the freshman. I returned back one punt, but some people did not get the message that they were not supposed to tackle me, so my Santana Moss moment was over pretty quickly.

And finally, I would like to end with this exchange:

A: I think you have an alcohol problem. Every time I see you, you are talking about getting a drink.
B: Let's unpack this. Have you ever heard of evocative effects?
A: (an MBA student, so not too swift, LMAO) No *confused*
B: You said-- "every time I see YOU". Perhaps I need a drink to tolerate your ass.
A: Oh. That was mean.
B: It is what it is.

~ciao

Hooting and Hollering

2007-09-28T12:54:00.001-04:00

So not much too report. I am super busy, but making steady progress so I am happy. I was in Hyde Park way late Tuesday night helping soror friend transport a dining room table in my truck that she had gotten on Craig’s List. Very emerging adulthood-esque. So I sent a text to a certain person asking the fastest way to get back home because he memorizes maps—and we hung out for a bit. So I guess we are friends again, ending about a two-year détente, LOL.

I adore my residents. They are hilarious, and although they STAY hollering and screaming about all manner of things, they are fun. Later in life, I think I would like to do University administration, like be a dean or something, so this is a good experience. Anyway, there have been three noteworthy events:

Event 1: Well this wasn’t really an event, but I heard some loud music and what sounded like a heard of elephants upstairs so I went to investigate because I thought they were playing Dance, Dance, Revolution, and if they were, I wanted to join in. But no, they were just dancing around, in a room, to that “Lean like a Cholo” song. I despise that song, and had no idea why they were dancing around in an empty room.

Event 2: Classes just started this past Tuesday, but they have been moved in for about 2 weeks. This was a recipe for disaster. So last week, they go out to party at another frat house, and come back and they are sloshed. There was a lot of screaming and hooting at about 2 am, so it woke me up. Then I heard a lot of “just make sure [x] is ok—just make sure [x] is ok.” I was going to intervene but it seemed like they were working it out, which I thought was developmentally appropriate (lmao) so I got back in the bed. Well it turns out one of the freshman had gotten pinned down by a member of the fraternity whose house they were at, and they poured Everclear (!) down his throat. So the little guy made it home, but fell asleep by the dumpster. Then two of my residents went to go “talk” to the president of the frat, next thing you know we get an apology letter.

Event 3: Last night, hooting and whooping once again awakened me, except this time it was in the house. They had gone out again—part of the problem is that they are foot, so they just go drink and walk home. They are actually not allowed to drink in the house but I think this rule may have unintended consequences because they go out and get hammered and are all over the place. Anyway, so there is screaming, and there is a girl yelling at the TOP of her lungs. I was getting ready to go investigate, when a police officer that happens to be strolling the quad hears the madness and is like “you all need to produce the young lady NOW”. He is waiting outside. I go to see what happened, and one of seniors and his girlfriend apparently had a drunken lover’s quarrel and then girl passed out, and is DONE. (side note: I thought only black people got drunk and started tussling with their significant other, LOL) So we have no young lady to produce—I was like y’all need to get this police officer to go away, so they had someone else’s girlfriend go outside and tell him she was ok. After all the fuss, they KEPT knocking on my door like, “sorry c-dot, sorry c-dot”, in their drunk voices, and kept trying to hug me. We are going to have a meeting this weekend about how to handle our liquor. I don’t want them to get in trouble and lose their scholarships. I also want to get some sleep.

J is London—she is blogging about the experience here. Let’s see if she keeps it updated, LOL.

Miffed, Unimpressed

2007-09-19T15:03:00.000-04:00

So I am smidge miffed today. Not like super fired up, but annoyed, for a variety of reasons. We had our new student orientation yesterday, and I found myself extremely annoyed by the whole thing. First of all, this is the third one I have sat through and it is like Groundhog Day. Second, for the second year in a row, we have not one black, Latino, or Asian student in the new cohort. I am sure it is something to do with the pool of people who apply, and PhD admissions are hard in general because interests have to be aligned, GRE scores need to be right, etc, etc.

But come on.

We are studying policy. Most social policy influences minorities disproportionately. They couldn’t find one person of color in two blasted years? I know someone who applied who really wanted to come here who did not get in and is going to UVA. Beyond that, the people they did accept are literally 5 clones of the same person. No diversity of social class, two went to the same undergrad, 3 are from the same place. Come ON. And I was not impressed by them.

A sister had to be published, degrees from Duke and Georgetown, a Presidential Management Fellow, but not so much these folks. I sent the bios to J like “what the hell is really going on here?” She replied, “wow, I’m not impressed”. LOL.

NU is on some serious b.s. There are two other black girls in my program—they are the same year. One I never see, and the other one I saw yesterday and she was like “I regret my decision to come here”. Now I’m sure no PhD is a piece of cake, but our program is really kind of a chronic stress environment for us. This is coming from someone who loves school and learning.

I think that we have a special obligation to pay attention to diversity in our field because of what we study. Minorities, poor people, immigrants are not lab rats. And that is how they think of them here.

And as I have chronicled here before, the experience with my old advisor put at horrible taste in my mouth—and he was at the orientation yesterday. Turns out someone else left him (this is the 5th consecutive year he lost a student, and this year was 2)—he also made inappropriate comments to this person. That wouldn’t be so bad, but I was really disappointed in the program chair’s response to me, and he is still holding a grudge (he told me I need to work on my grammar--so all these years of being called an Oreo, and gettin accused of talking like a white girl, being proper, all down the drain LOL). And yesterday just felt like a big fat F-you, because it all clicked. They don’t like me because they I am uppity. They don’t really care about what they are studying because don’t care about social justice.

Aaargh.

On top of all that, I am the only black graduate research assistant in the entire Institute for Policy Research, and every time I go in the main office/house, the secretary looks at me like I am about to steal something, does not remember my name, and asks me what I am doing there. Checking our lab’s mail you dumb ignorant bleep.

Then the department asked me to mentor a incoming black PhD student in the other program in our department, because they ran out of black people. Serious straight face emoticon. I do not mind, however, it is second year's job to mentor. I am third year. I have things to do. I don't get anything for it, but let me say no, and watch what happens.

Get me out of here, stat.

Happenings

2007-09-13T13:42:00.001-04:00

Not much to report. I’m feeling pretty good. My freshman residents arrive today, to kick off New Student Week. So I’m not there because I am not reliving move in day. I only lived in a dorm one year at Duke. I heard parents screaming at like 7 this morning. Usually I get up around 6 to have me time, so I did not appreciate that. Duke is playing Northwestern football on Saturday, so the house is tailgating. I think I will wear a Georgetown shirt with a Duke shirt under it, in case Duke starts to win. LOL.

Other than that, I had a bad day Friday, but it’s fine now. I got all these books to read for pleasure, which I rarely do. The problem is that I really can read like a non-academic book in few hours, so I spent $70 at Barnes and Noble(s) (the s is for you c-ker, LOL), and I have already finished 2 of my 4 books.

My residents are very nice kids. Soror-friend says they’re nerds, but I don’t think so. They are different than your average NU undergrad because they on are on a need-based scholarship. So they work part-time jobs, and they have a great perspective on stuff. To be frank, I have not really been around a whole bunch of working class white people. So this is an eye opening experience for me. Anyway, they force me to watch movies, and they are going to teach me how to play video games. The Diva and I never were allowed to play video games, and I don’t think we really cared. We were more concerned with painting our nails and things of that nature. (It’s mainly boys—last Sunday I made them watch Bridezillas, and I think they were traumatized).

This past weekend, I hung out with a whole bunch of Dukies—NK had an engagement party for one of our classmates that got engaged. It went nicely. I wish one of my rowdy ass friends could get engaged so I could throw a party for them. *wrinkly face*. When FamDoc and T got engaged, they didn’t have parties, perhaps because it was a foregone conclusion. NK got all these bottles of champagne, and struck a deal with this funky spot in the West Loop for us to have a private room, as long as we hit 1000 dollar tab, which was not hard, because she bought the champagne—and then people ate and stuff. It was very nice. Definitely “on the come up”-esque, the bride to be is a Dentist, so a lot of her dentist friends were there, etc. I had a blast.

Additionally, I just found out someone I can’t stand, but have forgiven for being a you-know-what, is named after a murderer in the bible. I don’t get that AT ALL. It seems like if you are going to name your child, you would look up what it means. This person knows it came from the bible. It explains a lot. LOL.

My officemate finished and left and I miss her. She was really wonderful to me. Anyway, another person in my lab is in her cohort and I am making her into my new Office Mom. She reads my work and yells at me for acting dumb about 26. In another life I would taken off like 10 years. Well probably not, but I appreciate the 30s perspective on stuff. Because the 20s, well. You know. LOL.

Undergrad Explosion

2007-09-02T22:14:00.001-04:00

I had the fun-est birthday ever. I am back in Chicago, unfortunately, but here’s the b-day run down:

I knew it was going to be a great day because I woke up to two great press conferences: Larry Craig & Michael Vick.

Oh wait the night before we went to Sequoia for dinner and drinks. Fun times, although I swear the humidity had me looking like a poof ball, but what’s new?

The rest of day Monday, my parents I got the house ready for my par-tay. We had a bushel of crabs and barbeque. I had a lot of my wonderful friends there. All I know is, there were about twelve bottles of wine (I asked for that in lieu of gifts, but I got gifts too, woo-hoo) and at the end of the night there were two left. There were about 10 people plus my parents in attendance. And two cases a beer were gone. More fun times. Pootie brought a couple of the bruhs and they brought out *something* in my father which caused him to act like some sort of animal –he was telling stories from high school, which everyone loved. He was like totally the center of attention. Anyway, he and Pootie had like a 45 minute conversation from which I was excluded although I will admit I was trying to lay on the floor above my Dad’s office to listen. I couldn’t though. LOL. Anyway, Pootie spent the night and I got to the airport exactly ONE HOUR before my flight. It could have been a disaster.

So I am back here, and once again I moved. I am now the graduate RA for a house full of boys (there are few girls—it’s a sports oriented scholarship program). I know you are like “C—are you sure want to do that”, and my answer is yes, obviously—but it is free rent, so I am going to feel rich. AND I actually have more space because I am in a graduate RA suite. This year should be interesting.

I have decided I need to get my ass in gear so I can spend my writing year home. Or at least away from here.

PhD came into town for the American Political Science Association conference. Political Scientists are stuffy. I totally ran into the Broad Who Wanted to Be Me. (she is now doing a PhD in Poli sci) But we had a good time Thursday night, and Saturday night we had a ball at a slightly (well more than slightly) ghetto club. So I am on punishment now. I have some residents to harass.

I am also teaching-assistant-ing. this quarter. F’s for everybody! Just playing. Not really.

hahahahaha

C-day! C-day! Woo hoo

2007-08-25T23:57:00.000-04:00

So of course we are excited for the C-day celebration. However, yesterday, I swear a whole bunch of folks were conspiring to undermine my day. I have developed some really sick relationships in my life. Like, to the point where I have friends who want me all to themselves, don’t want to see me grow, etc. It is not good. Plus I think I really do have some haters (yes I have had some Zinfandel,lol)—who masquerade as my friends. MH is always like “what do you expect you have a bunch of well-educated, snotty, self-absorbed individuals as friends”, and to an extent that’s true, but I think the problem is I just really have too many people that I consider and that think they are my close friends. And I think it puts everything out of wack. Long time blog readers know I have A LOT of friends, and I have been struggling with dealing with them all. So I am just going to let some go. Seriously, I joke about it, but if there are not like 20 people in my (imaginary) wedding party some people’s feelings are going to be really hurt. Oh well.

What the hell am I talking about? Not sure.

And these haters man. They don’t see I am highly favored and highly blessed. I am one accomplished, vicious bitch. It is a lot, I know. LOL.

You see what I'm saying? The Lord is good. My stuff is tight on a bad day. I ask for stuff, and I get it. I have been able to do more than most people do in a life time. So the devil can kiss my ass.

OK I’m just talking. I’m in the house, and my parents are on a date, LOL.

Later I will write about how precious my dad is.

Back to the Chi on Tuesday. Hope my crap isn't flooded out.

tootles

Busy. Happy.

2007-08-22T11:55:00.000-04:00

I am feeling pretty durn good. I am home right now, recovering from FamDoc's wedding. It was great. I was the day of coordinator, and I think it went well, for my first time. Anyway, last week I:

Presented to the other folks in my fellowship about a paper I am working on. This went well, although I was a little nervous. I am generally not nervous for public speaking, so this was weird. Maybe because I was talking about very preliminary ideas for the paper. I may have been sweating. Not classy.
Came home-- and who shows up at my door to take me to Lauriol? PhD. After the swirlies, we went to K street. Not sure what time we got home.
Thursday, I was in an undisclosed location. Ahem.
Friday, drove down to Durham/Mebane. This was madness. It took forever, and I missed the rehearsal, which I think caused both FamDoc and me to panic. By the time I got there, I got B-rocka from the airport, and she s-dot and I shared a room. Chaos. Ones, Twos, and Threes should be separated.
The wedding was beautiful. It went well. There were a few snafus, but overall I think it was nice. Que-Delta weddings are just too much though. TOO MUCH. My hostesses did a good job, however, they got a little too tipsy during the reception and forgot to hand out the favors.
After going to the bar for shots after the wedding, S-dot and I were acting like animals in the hotel room. This involved eating fried chicken in my thong, trying to wake B-rocka and Rneezi up to take part in the revelry, and buying 10 dollars worth of Doritos, Baked Lays, & Cheetos from the vending machine down the hall. When I got up, everyone was gone, but there Cheetos everywhere. LOL
Sunday, I went to Lucky Strike to say buy to PhD even though she's coming to Chicago next week. (I can't take us)
Monday early in the day, wrote a letter to get credit for my masters with the Graduate School, later in the day/night, hung out with Pootie.
Yesterday, slept.

Now I am preparing for the big 26, which is taking place Monday. Whoop.

life is good.

Off to the District, part 3000

2007-08-12T23:06:00.000-04:00

I am pretty happy right now. Although I am generally bored to tears here, I got some very good news this weekend. Very happy. Extremely happy.

My new favorite show is Kimora's reality show-- it certainly helps that my boy is on there.

Big Brother is great!

Woo hoo

Waiting for an NIO Moment

2007-08-09T13:34:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I am back to being my little jovial self. I just had to put a few folks on pause for a bit. I am also doing some reflection. I never got a chance to have an NIO moment when my coursework got finished, so I am going to work really hard until I go home next Wednesday, and then I am going to wreak havoc in the District. Do you realize that two years just flew right on by, and if all goes well, which I am pretty certain it will, in another 2 years, I should have my PhD? *Gasp*

Random things:

1) Puffy needs to stop playing with my emotions. If the Negro from DC does not make the band, I am officially done. My heart can’t take all this.
2) You’ll remember when everyone came out here for our line birthday, and we acting like animals at the reggae club—well the lead singer from the band recognized me, gulp, and we exchanged numbers just in case I was going to be at the Wild Hare (cue Love Jones, although I can’t find my DVD—this had me in tears last week at the discovery it was missing) or the other place where he sings. Although he has a great Jamaican accent, I think he misread the exchange, and is being a little overzealous.
3) I am a certified street runner. I just can’t stay in the house, and I get offended when people want to come hang at my house. For what? Let’s go DO SOMETHING.
4) B-rocka keeps sending me texts like—“folk do you think this ignorant if”. Well if you have to ask yes. YES IT IS IGNORANT. And what it this 'folk' business? I am not sure if that’s her Atlanta, or something she picked up on the streets of LA, while pursuing her quest to be famous. Sounds gang related.
5) FamDoc’s wedding is like 10 days. As the first wedding of our line, this should be a damn blast. If you hear of a group of Negro women getting arrested in Mebane, North Carolina, for public drunkenness and causing a disturbance, then you know who did it. Maybe tinyd can sit out and serve as the chapter attorney. Yeah right LOL. Might I add here that while our line has the reputation as the rowdy ones of the chapter, a lot of the chapter will be there, so much fun shall be had. Black Dukies can be so rowdy. Sheesh.
6) That reminds of the time about 6 of us went to the Bahamas for spring break, and we were acting positively ridiculous at Senor Frog’s, when this white guy says to us—“so wait—you guys are a black sorority? You act like a white fraternity.” LMAO.
7) Someone called me this morning to ask me something very trivial. I will just take it as a peace offering. *smile*
8) The other day, I happened upon an eyebrow threading lady (I will never get waxed again), a nail shop, and the boutique of all boutiques, all within a block of each other. We may as well just call it stipend street, because that's where I'll be spending all my time, thanks.
9) And finally, if someone says to you, I am upset at X, don't say "well...I apologize, *IF*". You may as well keep your nasty qualified apology.

tootles, snitches

Don't Ask Me for Sh*t

2007-07-31T00:09:00.000-04:00

Yeah so I am cutting everyone off until my birthday. Don't ask me to do anything for your ass, because I'm not.doing.it, unless we share DNA.

I just figured out I don't need to write a dissertation, here's the crux of the achievement gap RIGHT HERE:

I will admit I did crank dat soulja boy in the club this weekend. But really.

Watch me yuuule?

Negroes and flies.

You need your Spanish friends

2007-07-25T21:58:00.000-04:00

You know, I often have wild and crazy things happen to me that would not happen to the ordinary person. However, I would just like to say that since I been here to work in this blasted PhD has been close to the worst two years of my life. Ok that may be dramatic, but it’s been pretty bad. I think part of it is the developmental stage I am in (something about isolation vs. solidarity, I’m big Erik Erikson fan), and the other part is I just plain hate it here. Well anyway, I am really actually rather disgusted with pretty much everyone in my life except for my family and like a few select others. No on understands me, no one is really empathetic, blah, blah, blah. I realized I created a whole bunch of people who only take and don’t give and no sense of when they have hurt my feelings, so part of it is my fault. As I was telling c-ker, I had an imaginary wedding party of like 20 people, and really it’s down to like 3 now, LOL.

Last night, I had a problem with a stalker. Someone who came to my house and would not leave. Without my permission. And commenced to park himself under my patio and call and ask me “why do you have so many fans?, and other disconcerting things.

It is a long story.

Well anyway, this morning, I come outside to go to school, and low and behold, my tire is FLAT. There is a little slit in it. On top of that, someone has poked a hole in the spare. The spare sits on the back because I have a jeep. Sigh.

This brought about a whole bunch on nonsense. I was trying to get to school for a workshop on writing. It is a series, and they have been very good, and the highlight of my weeks. So I was pissed, because I would have to catch the el. I can NOT stand the el. Going to the stop near my house is like running the damn gauntlet, because many of the pathologies I study are standing right there on the street and they are trying to holla, LOL. So I call my dad who is being sympathetic, but he can’t do much because he is clearly in DC. Then I call my stalker to ask him if he did it. Of course he says no, but claims he will help if he can “take me out to dinner after”.

Right.

So then I just went to school, to the workshop, and then I sat at my desk with my head down. That’s what used to soothe me in the little bit of time I spent in kindergarten (those blasted nuns are what got me on this whole “smart” path, but I digress). Then I sent texts to some guys I know here. None of these blazer wearing negroes offered to help.

Sigh.

A certain individual and my father were giving me the same directions, so after I came home and sobbed a bit and then took a nap, I went to the gas station for some fix a flat.

This did not work.

Although I was in a dress, I was like f it I am just going to do it my damn self. Not one person here I know offered to help. I got out the manual and I managed to get the jack loose. Somewhere around the second lug nut, I couldn’t get anything else loose. Again, I just sat in the back of the car with my head against the passenger side head rest and closed my eyes.

I was going to give it one more heave ho, when magically, this nice man comes and takes the lug nut screwer and starts to undo everything. I was like “oh do you know how to change tires, I will pay you”. So he gets to work. Goes to get his own jack, patches up the tire that was recoverable, checks the pressure, all of that. At the end, I try to hand him 75 dollars. And he goes, “No, nothing”. And walked away.

In the immortal words of Katt Williams, “you need your Spanish friends.”

I think this is God’s way of making a truce. Now if He could work out one more thing, we might be on the upturn. I am actually looking forward to 26. This early 20’s melodrama has been a miasma of madness.

Tootles

Ramblings

2007-07-22T05:29:00.000-04:00

I think one of the more interesting things about being a social scientist is that people always swear they know what the f they are talking about when you are talking about things you have studied. Everything--most things--are/is not common sense. If it was, a whole lot of our problems would be solved.

I am just really disgusted right now at a conversation I had with someone, and not only was the person ignorant, they were cursing at me (!). In what is supposed to be an intellectual discussion, I don't think you should result to cursing. Especially if you look like the b*tch from Norbit. I think sometimes when I am engaged with people and I use big words, they mistake that as trying to insult their intelligence.

Well tough cookies.

As *someone* informed me the other day--it's lonely at the top.

LMAO

I'm a little drunk.

But I'll tell you one damn thing, I am supremely tired of the people in my life. Most of them don't get me and they are USERS. It's a lot.

I will be more cohesive at some point.

smooches

remind me to write about the coldstone curse out. turned my whole life around.

Fat Sympathizers

2007-07-16T11:55:00.000-04:00

So I am watching the View, unfortunately today—I usually get up super early to start reading and writing, and then get out of here hopefully before Oprah. Well that didn’t happen today. LOL. Anyhoo, so they keep inviting the lady back on the View, Sherri Shepard. I guess they just need a fat black lady to feel comfortable.

Speaking of which, I am feeling very cow-ish lately, however, a variety of people in my life have been telling me “you look fine, I don’t like you too skinny”. Well two points—what the hell type of friend wants to make you feel good about being fat, and secondly, if I want to lose weight, well that is what I am going to do.

I find the whole thing rather odd.

What also can not stand, which I have talked about on here before—is why do people, often the same fat sympathizers, feel the blasted need to ask me when I am going to finish this PhD. What a f-cking obnoxious question to ask? And the tone that comes along with it—it’s really disconcerting. I just finished my coursework. Then if I do give an approximate answer, people have had the nerve to say “why would it take so long?” Are you kidding me? I would like to see you write what is basically going to be the equivalent of book full of original research. And what is all the more absurd is that I finished college at 20—so maybe I want to take my blasted time doing something, JESUS. AND, if you are complaining that you haven’t seen me, want to come visit, or want me to help you organize/plan/decide, well that takes up my time. That is a moment I am not working. Aargh. Not that I mind, but here I would like to point out that those services are rarely returned.

So to all the people I know that read this—don’t ask me that simple shit anymore. It is really aggravating.

Speaking of Jesus, I finally went to Mass yesterday for the first time in a while. I had not been in a second, so that’s good.

I got the opportunity to hang out with my advisor—during the meetings we hosted, we did a dinner bbq on the lake. In addition to being INSANELY (you know I am obsessed with smarties) smart, he is actually rather hilarious. He has me sold on getting a Wii. He says the boxing is very fun.

Also, the program chair is still being a you know what toward me, but you know what Katt says about upping the haters. Word to the wise: keep your personal business to your self.

Ok I will be in a better mood soon I hope. I am reading all these crazy books, like the Isis Papers, and How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, so I have all this militant craziness going around in my head.

Checking In

2007-07-15T09:45:00.000-04:00

You know your behind is getting old when it takes this many damn days to recover from the 4th of July weekend. After the girls left, I went out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday. Just absurd. I ran out of dresses. It wasn't on purpose, people kept inviting me places.

Not really much else to report, other than the fact that I have been working my behind off on research, but that was the plan for the summer.

J and I went out last night, and she had me rolling to the point where I've lost my voice again. I just got it back from 4th of July. *Blast*.

The promoter asshole from two weeks ago, everytime I see him now, he looks at me longingly. His ass is on pause because he tried to play us. Although I vaguely remember he *may* have poured champagne in my mouth as a peace offering. Oh well.

Posting will be light, I am in a vacationey sort of mood. There is a beach by my house, well Lake Michigan, and it's absolutely gawj-us.

Tootles

My Meat. My Meat. My Meat's running down the street. (Bitch Please) Taste of Chicago, Part I

2007-07-03T12:18:00.000-04:00

Umm, ok. So we had a blast this weekend. I am slowly understanding that black Chicago lives for the Taste of Chicago, which I think is HILARIOUS. Anyhoo, last week I was large ball of worry, anticipating everyone’s arrival, and in general. The project I am working on my advisor is having the big annual meeting next week, and we are hosting it, so I have been working pretty hard on that.

And I never recovered from my trip home and conference whirlwind. So I was feeling kind of empty, because you know how you feel when you have so much to do, but no (I don’t want to say motivation)—maybe gumption, I don’t know. Well that’s how I was feeling. And then I was feeling some kind of way about Pootie. (Again, do not ask what is going on—it gives me a headache, lol).

Anyhoo, some of the girls got here on Thursday—this included some of our neos, FamDoc, and the old blog favorites, B-rocka, and Rneezi. Thursday evening we went to RedNo 5 and had a damn blast. First of all, I need for someone to get married like every few months. You would be so surprised what you can get for free if you say “HEY—MY LINESISTER IS GETTING MARRIED, CAN YOU GET HER A SHOT? OR A BOTTLE? IF YOU WANT YOU CAN BUY THE REST OF US DRINKS. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE”. We had two bottles of champagne and about 5 rounds of shots. We were literally holding poor FamDoc’s mouth open and pouring liquor in. It got to the point where guys (oh did I mentioned we de-bo’ed a table? LMAO) were showing up to the table with more liquor, better bottles, and competing to get us the next round drinks. Fun times, I tell you. B-rocka caught the el from the airport (LOL) and met us there. All I know is, during the part of ‘Get me Bodied’, where our patron saint Beyonce says Naomi Campbell walk—I think we all ran into each other, and I may have gotten knocked down.

The morning started with more arrivals. At this point, I was sending people over to J’s because my apartment was basically full. B-rocka woke up and announced that she “was never drinking again”. COMEDY. So we got our lives together at some point, and walked to the train with daiquiris in red cups. So classy, you know walking in the streets with liquor. We were going to take it to our line/chapter staple, Red Lobster, when we discovered that the downtown Chicago one was closed (!). So sad. With some last meeting negotiating, J and I got us reservations at 6 at this place called Big Bowl for 11. (See—something was working in our favor, LOL—I would say the Lord, but we were acting like animals, so maybe He just closed his eyes and took care of us. We are good people in regular life, hahahahahahahaha). Big Bowl was good, although we had some, umm, bill issues. Nevertheless, the fellowshipping was nice.

After Big Bowl, we were supposed to go mechanical bull riding. I have this Chicago Bridal Guide thingy, and I found this place where you can ride the bull and do a little drink package as long as you have for or more people. I had reserved it from 9-11. We should have known something was up because the door was not open at like 8:55 when we got there (you know I keeps the schedule rolling, LOL). Long story short, the guy at the door was an ass, so we decided not to patronize the place. I was just a little worried because we really didn’t have anywhere else to go, and the ladies were getting restless. So we cabbed it back downtown, and went to this white bar. (That sounds crazy, I know, but that is how Chicago is). This was interesting; these old white men who had just come from Cubs game were accosting us. They had a Polaroid camera, and took like 30 pictures of us, and got us a round of shots. Who even has a Polaroid camera anymore? Odd. So this was fun but not getting it, so we went over to Hotel Victor, which usually cracks on Fridays, but was also not getting it. So I was little frustrated—but hey even the best-laid plans can go awry. Also, people were complaining about paying for cabs, but the cabs were like 2 dollars apiece per person (that is what happens when 6-8 people squeeze into a cab). This was getting on my nerves. Anyway, B-rocka, wani, and I went to Krem, and everyone else went to Jessie’s to drink and fellowship. In hindsight this was good, because I needed a minute to have some worry free fun.

We had a damn blast at the club, soror friend and her boo-friend were there (side note: I love her boo-friend, he is the bestest, LOL) and then a whole gang of Spelman and Morehouse people. Again, we somehow got a table with these guys from St. Louis and B-rocka, of course, got a club boyfriend. So my dumb ass is all “you guys are going to get married—I CALLED IT”. Apparently he took it to heart, and proceeded to stalk her the rest of the weekend. LOL. We were calling him “Pale” because he was very fair, but had no brown at all. I don’t think he was an albino. Just pale. LOL. For some reason, I had the bachelorette games and toys in my purse, so B and I were going around asking guys, with a British accent—“Al-lo, Gub’na would you like a dicklick?”. A dicklick is a penis shaped chiclet.

The next morning B once again announced she was never drinking again. We eventually met up with everyone and headed down to the Taste. This was great. I got some really good stuff. J and I got this cheesecake that will make you slap someone. After that we headed home and got FamDoc all sexified. She wore a red dress and the rest of us wore black dresses. I also did her makeup. It is fun to put makeup on people who usually don’t wear it. She also had on 5-inch heels. Fabulous. We headed back to J’s to pregame. This was positively riotous. First of all, we took all these ridiculous butt pictures. Earlier in the day, a homeless man chased us—we were literally running from him—he was saying that my booty was a “fully cooked rump roast”. Not only was the “meat fully cooked”, but the “meat was running down the street” and there “was no need to go to the Taste, because the meat was running down street”. He also held up some taste tickets and said “I can’t use my meat card”. So we made up a song that goes

My meat

My meat

My meat’s running down the street

(bitch please)

My meat

My meat

My meat’s running down the street

(bitch please)

The hook is: I can’t use my meat card, my meat’s running down the street.

We even have a dance, which mimics me running from the man with in heels with my Louis.

B-rocka and I also made up a song entitled “Let me get that plum wine”. It goes:

That plum wine son

That plum wine

That plum wine son

That plum wine

Let me get some of that plum wine.

Can you tell we went to school in the south? Blasted Duke, lol. We are trying to get either of the songs on a soundtrack. I mean, they’re about the same quality as “two step” and “pop lock it drop it”.

Anyway, we went to the club, and the promoter, who I had talked to the day before and told me everything was going to be all good, was acting like an ass, so Rneezi, the ultimate hustler (side note: if you need a negotiator she is it), got all 12 of us in for 60 dollars. LOL. We also then used one wristband to get like 12 people in VIP. I don’t remember much, but I do know poor FamDoc got more liquor poured down her throat—I guess when there are 12 people all working to get free drinks, it may be a little much. I know when Walk it Out came on, there were about 5 lawyer to-be’s, 3 doctor to-be’s, a few MA’s, and one PhD to-be, WALKING IT OUT, complete with hiking our skirts up. Just ridiculous. We somehow took over another table. J was buying everybody shots and drinks (she has that firm job, son) and it was, in general, a flipping blast. Unfortunately, FamDoc got sick and threw up on the floor. I am perplexed about this because I specifically gave wani a champagne bucket to hold for the very purpose of catching the vomit, and she was sitting right there. Well nonetheless, we left shortly after that, although I believe the lights were on. Not to be outdone, B-rocka, two of our neos, and I went to eat with some Duke & UNC Kappas. This was fun, although when we waiting for them outside of the club, this man who had to be like 65 (well maybe 40) came up to my blasted neo (the youngest one that came) and said “you are making my dick hard”. So B yells “N*gga are you on social security”. LOL. And I (I have got to get this alcohol courage under control) went and chest bumped him. Well it was really like chest to stomach, as I am 4’11”. At this point one of the bruhs came over and told the guy to keep it moving. LOL.

Sunday, B and went to Red Lobster after dropping folks off at the airport. We went to Funky Buddha for spoken word in the evening, and, again, ended up with drinks in the VIP. Sigh.

All in all, I would say all had a good time. C-ker was here, but I didn’t even get to see her (sad face). I was under the impression she was coming the second part of the week. I think she would have been overwhelmed with the madness that was us. Oh well.

My next big planning tasks? My 26th. GASP—just freakin’ GASP, I am the day of coordinator for FamDoc’s wedding (I already have instructions to keep the ghetto cousins in line—no worry, I have personal experience with that, although FamDoc says I am ‘hoity-toity’, but in a good way, I guess, lol), and I have to think of a weekend trip for T’s bachelorette. Woo.

J and I are going out tonight. It should be fun, I'll keep you all posted.

Tootles

Back in the Chi, Press Play

2007-06-20T17:13:00.000-04:00

I am finally able to rest in my bed after being away for two weeks, getting my family and conference on.

I got back today, and turned in $1200 worth of travel receipts. My fellowship reimburses me for travel, but it’s like damn, can they give us a corporate card or something, LOL.

It appears as though a certain someone is still holding on to our little altercation at the beginning of the year. It really pisses me off, because had other things not taken place last year, the original person would not have pissed me off, and then I would not have had said altercation. But riddle me this: before said altercation (lol) the individual praised my writing, told me I was dynamic, motivated, etc, etc. THEN, after said altercation, in which this individual was acting as the hit man for my old advisor who everyone knows is a jerk, now says I need help with my writing. Ok, yeah, your mother needs help with her writing, buddy. So now I can’t even listen to anything he says, because his ass is biased. Like grow up. I just have to pray on it for real. But I’ll tell you what, when I am famous, they are all getting outed in my memoir for being jerks.

Before I left DC, we went to see EU (you know, the people that sing “Doin’ Da Butt” HAHAHA), and the Lissen Band. This was exactly was I needed in my life. I went with Ti and her Bennett friends. Earlier in the day Pootie and I went to Cheesecake. Anyway, the gogo was fun. I got to get my DC fix which should hold me for a bit until I go back in July for—another wedding. I always get a hole in my stomach when I come back to Chicago. It had gone away for a bit, but it came back today. Oh well.

Nonetheless, I would say I am doing alright. At then end of the conference, which was really good by the way—it was on the Achievement Gap, although I don’t care if we are at Harvard, orange juice should not be 4 m-f dollars, but I digress…I put together a line graph with two lines. A happiness line, and weight line. I discovered that they move in opposite directions. Not really a shock, but it’s dramatic. They cross in about March/May of ’06. You’ll remember that’s when I was in a serious funk. Blech. I also plotted major events like quitting the Department of Hell, moving, etc, etc. It turned out to be very interesting. I am going post it somewhere.

Countdown to when the whole world arrives for the Taste/FamDoc’s bachelorette. I hope they don’t wear me out…or maybe I do, LOL.

Conference-ing

2007-06-12T11:18:00.000-04:00

So I have had kind of whirlwind week/weekend. I presented a poster at conference in DC, and it went it well. My parents came to the poster session, and that was fun, except my mother was going around and harassing people like “I don’t agree with what you’re saying—that doesn’t work with my theory”. Several times I had to go and get her because she was being so outrageous. My dad was taking pictures, which was hilarious. I did get to hang out with my mentor (well I have like 5, but this is the one from Georgetown, she is young, also with a public policy PhD, trying to get tenure in this cold world, LOL), and that was good.

I was a big whirl of madness trying to get to DC though, because I had nothing done when I arrived, so I had to finish my poster, get it printed, hang out with my Grandma, and finish two finals. (Oh I am done with coursework. Shazam. It still has not set in). AND we left on Friday to go to Duke for Rneezi’s best friend’s wedding.

Well the wedding was absolutely gorgeous. We had a blast. It was in the Duke Chapel, there was an open bar, and then we all went out later (side note: I literally had been drinking since the reception, so I was ball of hair and destruction). I really enjoyed it—and the couple deserved it because they are both so nice. So it was J, Rneezi, wani, and B5—and totally got re-une, although our late night conversations caused us to get about 4 or 5 hours of sleep all weekend.

I feel badly for Paris Hilton. Clearly she is 26, I am about to be 26, and I just feel like her rowdy 20’s got blasted for everyone to see. She says she is reading self-help books, and you know I stay reading self-help books, like compulsively. I mean if your last name was Hilton, you would probably be living it up too. I know I would.

Pootie and I got some swirly margaritas on Thursday. This was nice.

After this I am off to Harvard for a conference, and then back to the Chi. I keep saying I am going to take a breather, but I just don’t have time right. I work better when I am swamped, so I should be working well, right?? RIGHT??

Lots more stuff, little time to write. Posting will probably be light—I’m running from here to there like an animal.

Off to the District

2007-06-06T11:56:00.000-04:00

Have you ever asked somebody “how’s it going?” and they commenced to telling you their whole life story. Well there is this economist in my fellowship who does just that—it would be aggravating but for the fact that he is one hilarious fellow. After our meeting yesterday, a group of us found, online, a place where we can buy titles, PhD’s and masters for under 100 dollars. They have a PhD in immortality, universal life, among other things. You can also get a certificate declaring yourself a “seer, guru, goddess, wizard” and a variety of other hilarious options. So we agreed to buy some PhD’s this summer and put them up on our office walls, and start an institute. I thought this was mind-shatteringly funny until I shared with J who replied “um. When are you going to graduate?”. LOL. I guess my slow descent into nerd-dom has increased.

I am still not done with all my work. It is primarily my fault. I have a conference to present at home this week, and I spent most of time preparing for that (it is the people who sponsor my fellowship), so then I am finishing everything at the last minute. I was discussing this with my other economist friend who is from DC and also in my fellowship, and he said he was experiencing the same thing because he is finishing classes, but was primarily working on his dissertation proposal. The difference between me and him? He was “ashamed” that he waited until the last minute, and was sad his last assignment could very well be his “worst paper ever”. LOL. I don’t care myself. It recently (well not recently, but I just started to take it to heart, waaay too late), that our grades don’t really mean anything besides making an impression on the person who is teaching the class. Your research matters the most. Not that I have been neglecting research for classes, but I was like worrying about my grades like a dumb ass. I think that after all these years of school, I wouldn’t be worried anymore, but I think it is ingrained.

Anyhoo, I am headed home this afternoon, so I will get to see a lot of the people I love. Folks already started calling me yesterday, like “are you here?” Wrinkly face. My life is already planned out before I get there. I have the conference, then driving down to Durham for Rneezi’s bff’s wedding, and then back to DC to spend some quality time with the ‘rents and my Grandmas. My ghetto cousins (the ones that were shooting at one another that time) have gotten into some more stuff, and everyone is appalled, but I am rather numb about. They are making poor choices in their youth, what can I say?

J and I are on a new fat plan. One that does not involve Johnny Rocket’s turkey burgers, onion rings, and fries in the middle of the damn night. I don't even like onion rings (straight face) And we have instituted “we are only drinking champagne when we go out” rule. LOL. We also met these cutie white boys last weekend, and I think one of them is going to be J’s husband. (Don’t tell her I said that LOL). They were calling her (her name)-Georgetown. It was really cute.

Ok, off to DC and finish work.

Smooches
c

Reading Week

2007-05-30T13:53:00.001-04:00

The Amazon that lives on top my condo in DC went crazy and the condo board made her put it up for sale. I think it’s hilarious, because everyone thought it was a big joke after she attacked me, and now that she has completely degenerated (ie. Giving men from the neighborhood keys, threatening others) it’s all serious. All I know is, as long as that broad does not mess up my property value, it’s all good. I have an extraordinarily sensitive b.s.-ometer, so I usually figure out things about people waaaay before others do. I could rattle of list of examples, but it would sound too “I told you so”, so I won’t.

I also possibly almost got arrested for disorderly conduct on Friday, but it all worked out. This behavior has got to stop, lol. I have two more classes left in life. I am excited, but I have a lot of work to do, and I presenting a poster at a conference next week, so I need to do that. We got our end of the year letter from the faculty, they think I am doing well, but they would like to see me engage more. I think that is a fair critique. I have really good grades, but there is more to a PhD than that—you actually have to show that you know stuff. Since I will be working more on my own stuff that I am passionate about, that should show some more engagement. At first, I had pulled out my inner Shaquan, and I was “engage this, you [expletives]” but then I realized they a) give everybody something to work on, b) of all the critiques that someone could get, I would say that is not bad. So I am optimistic. They are probably sensing my general tiredness with class though.

Anyway, J is here so we went out on Sunday, and it was fun. We met up with N’s friends from law school, and I (surprise, surprise) made a new friend. She bought us like 4 bottles of champagne. Granted, this girl is very good friends with N, but still, I don’t understand why I am always making friends, lol. I should embrace it. But she already has me scheduled to go to the outlets. Straight face emoticon.

Other than that, I spent all day Saturday and Sunday searching for a sense of purpose. This was unsuccessful, as I got caught up in a marathon on Lockup, on MSNBC.

So I ran out of classes to take, so I have a class with three undergrads. However, this week the undergrads have reading WEEK (why the f do they need a whole week???!! They had a dj and massages in the student center, spoileds) so it was just the Prof and I yesterday talking about eigenvectors and multistate life tables. Ridiculousity. The Prof asked the undergrads were they coming this week, and the one goes, “well it’s my birthday the day before, so I don’t think I’ll wake up on time.”

Calgon, take me away…

Oh and here's intriguant and bygeorge's new combined blog (with some of their other friends) -- juicenbootscubed.blogspot.com. It's cute.

I want to get my curse outs to this level.

2007-05-26T20:31:00.000-04:00

RIP Spunky, and other random crap

2007-05-22T14:18:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you just have to use the word the word motherf*cker. For real. Anyway, I am so tired of class. It is really rather absurd. It does not help that everytime we have a nice day I have developed the habit of taking my self to Chili’s to have margaritas. This is how I am coping with still being in school into June.

Anyhoo, I am just returning from a lovely weekend at home. Ti finished her MBA, so her family was going.to.town. I also stopped by c-ker’s birthday celebration, but I was so fatigued I couldn’t really hang out that long. BC, bygeorge, and Mrs. Initial Stealer were there. I am like tired to the bone, it is totally not good.

J is out here, and we went out Thursday before I left for DC, and of course it was chaos. I mean, why wouldn’t it be, we have that effect on each other when we go out. We have also decided that we must have been positively obnoxious when we were 21 because there were some 21 years olds there and they were outrageous with their behavior. You know that is saying something if *I* say it.

What else has been going on? Oh Rneezi’s b-ff left to go live in Atlanta with her fiancé. Before she left, we had a little packing party, at which I helped pack nothing, but I ended up getting pots, pans, and lots of school supplies. I have started jogging everyday to counteract the Chili’s. Wrinkly face. I got into an argument with Country because he gave my number to his roommate (not Thickums, the other one) without my permission, without even mentioning it, and the roommate has a girl friend. So then I got tipsy last week (from the margaritas, lol) and cursed him out via google chat. Well not a strong curse out—first of all it is common place to ask people when you give out their number, point A, and point B he is always doing some rude sh*t…In the middle of all this, he threatens me with “I’m from the Westside of Chicago—you shouldn’t come at people like that”, to which I said, “you’re an ass you went to prep school, just admit you were being inconsiderate when you put me in the midst of the drama”. So then I hit the red X on his ass, and he texted me later to apologize. Swear.

Oh!! And our dog died. He was a wonderful dog. He was very mischievous, which resulted in tons of stories I could tell you, like the time he was eating out of the spaghetti pan and we didn’t figure it out until after dinner. He was so big, he was like a little horse, and he would go sledding with the Diva and I (we had this big hill by our old house, and we would only go down once, because it was too much to walk back up to the top), and he would run and bark the whole way down. I thought we were going to have to sedate little C, because she was hysterical. He lived a long full live for a German Sheperd/Rottweiler mix (these assholes across the street from my grandmother bred him and his brothers and sisters, and didn’t want to take care of him, so we got him when he could fit in my hands—he grew literally exponentially in the first year we had him), so it is not too bad. We knew he had bad arthritis and was in pain. He liked fried chicken, and well seasoned veggies. Sometimes he ate corn bread, depending on who cooked it. He also once bit my ex-boyfriend, whom I know refer to as the antichrist, on the ankle. I should have listened.

RIP Spunky. (and yes he was a big ass dog named Spunky—he lived in a house with two girls—we named him after the dog on Rocko’s Modern Life, that old Nickelodeon cartoon. Sob)

Tootles