Let's Talk About Nouns, Baby

Think back to grade school; you know, back in the days when you learned about addition and subtraction, that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, and parts of speech - among many other things. Oh, how life was so simple back then. Everything made sense, and if it didn't, there was a rhyme or a song to help you remember it. Allow me to take one of those elementary school concepts and use it to help you (and myself) make sense of your complicated, crazy, stressful life: let's talk about nouns.

Okay, so nouns are people, places, or things, right? I'm going to make a big, old, logical leap here and assert that people are the most important nouns of them all. And people are the most important part of your life.

I found myself thinking this morning (on the shuttle, by the way. And we've been riding on a substitute shuttle the last few days, which my driver calls "the short bus," and told me we're still riding on it because we've been bad). Wow, that sidenote was really long; let's go back to what I was thinking this morning. So this morning, I found myself thinking, "Without the people in my program, I don't know what I'd do," and then I laughed at myself because I'm pretty sure I've said this at every juncture of my life. 

"I couldn't have done this without you guys."

"I would be miserable if it weren't for my friends."

"Without my coworkers, work wouldn't be as much fun."

"This would totally suck without you guys by my side."

From there, I decided that people are more important than places and things. Who cares about the job, the title, the degree, the apartment, the city - any place or thing - none of that can make me as happy as the people around me, the people I come home to, the people I miss, the people that miss me, the people I'll go visit, the people who will visit me, the people I have yet to meet but I know they'll make those future situations easier.

Life is all about people, people. So to all my people out there - thanks for being awesome. And for those of you who know my gestures that correspond with the word "people," you can picture me doing them now, but you can stop laughing and making fun of me about it (Andy Buehler). Wait, I think I have a picture of it; let's add it for the people who feel left out of this inside joke.


Peace, love, and PEOPLE--

Emily

Long Live the Ice Queen!

So I'm one of the teaching assistants for relational communication. People always ask me what that means - relational communication - it's basically studying the communication behavior/processes of people in close relationships: romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships. As a TA, I sit in on lectures Monday and Wednesday, and then I teach two small discussion labs on Fridays.

My classes are full of wonderful students from all over the country and the world - South Africa, Abu Dhabi, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland - you name it, I got it (except Ohio - womp womp). There are some really interesting names... Blakeney, Renier, Parke, Grayson... They're all years (freshmen through seniors), they encompass all sorts of majors, and all sorts of interests. I even have a few of the guards and the center (he's 6'10"!) from the basketball team, one of the pitchers from the baseball team, one of the QBs, the libero from the volleyball team, and a few tennis players. And don't you worry, I've already been instructed not to treat the athletes any different, not to take bribes from them, and not even to accept tickets from them to their games.

Now there's one student in particular that I'd like to focus on today. He hasn't shown up to discussion lab since the first week of class; back then, it was August. He shows up to lecture, I know that. How do I know? Well, I grade their pop quizzes, and I definitely graded his from this week. I'm pretty sure I know which of the 45 students in the 9 am lab he is, but, you know, I only met him in person once, so who can be sure? And I think I know why he isn't coming to discussion labs. It has something to do with the ice queen emerging from her frozen lair after more than five years of frosty obscurity.

Before I tell you the story about him, let me remind you of the ice queen story. Back in the day when I was student teaching, I had five periods of students. Everybody LOVED me. I still talk to some of my students - that's how much they loved me! Everybody leved me except third period. One day, my cooperating teacher said, "You know third period calls you the ice queen? They told me not to tell you, but I just had to." HA! Me?! Ice queen?! Clearly their perceptions of me were a reflection of the way they treated me - if you want to be disrespectful, I'll be an ice queen. You want to be normal, I'll be the dancing queen - take your pick.

Anyway... back to 2012...

The second week of lecture, I caught the student in question watching pitches in slow motion on his laptop and checking baseball scores on ESPN.com during class. I called him out for it (discretely and nonthreateningly), encouraging him to read the prof's laptop policy in the syllabus. He promised he was taking notes. "I saw some notes," I said, "and I saw a bunch of other stuff too." I smiled all the while. Didn't want him to think he was in major trouble, but wanted to give him a warning. I was pretty sure he was in my lab section, and I thought, "he might be annoyed with me now, but I'll win him over again in lab. I'm such a delight in lab, he won't be able to stay mad at me for long."

Welp, I can't win him over if he never comes back to class.
Later that week, he missed discussion lab. Dang! There goes my first chance to win him back. I didn't think much of it until just a little while later. Walking up to the shuttle stop RIGHT AFTER class I saw - oh wait, who is that? - THE KID THAT SKIPPED MY CLASS! (or so I think; it was the laptop student, either way) Insert awkward eye contact and smile, which would have been really great subject matter for discussion in lab today as the topic was nonverbal cues, but since he didn't show up for the THIRD WEEK IN A ROW, we didn't have a chance to talk about it - OR active listening OR interpersonal needs and compatibility. Good luck with all of that material on the exam next week, Mr. Baseball.

I have concluded that he thinks I'm the ice queen. He's just like that third period class - everyone else loooooooves me, and he thinks I'm an ice queen. And if he keeps this up, the ice queen will have to give him a zero for participation and attendance in labs, and there goes 10% of his grade, all because I made him stop watching baseball in class, which made him never want to see me again.

You can't win 'em all.

Peace, love, and hope (that he'll show up next week!)--

Emily

Not like Oriental Trading or 50 Shades of Grey

I've been pretty frazzled for about the last week or so. As a result, I had a little conversation with myself (and "hit on a wall," as you read about in my last post). The discussion with myself went a little something like this (cue intro to Funky Cold Medina)...

ME: Self, you need to get out of this funk.
SELF: I know. What will people think? I can't just talk about sleep deprivation and stress all the time, they'll worry about me.
ME: Yeah, so... Tell me something good!
SELF: Ok, ummm... well, the novelty of living in a new place hasn't worn off yet.
ME: Good! Let's tell the people about that.
SELF: Yeah, because they don't get to see this stuff everyday, and as NBC would say, "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you!"

My mornings have started off the same way for the last three weeks, yet the landmarks and people that are part of that routine are still quite novel to me. I take the early bird shuttle to campus every morning, and I wish I had a video of my driver because he is absolutely delightful. When he drops off his little troop of early birds, he always says, "Y'all get to wakin' up now!" among various other -isms he regularly uses. I also wish I had a video of the guy that bee-bops down the median of University Parkway, selling newspapers in the morning. He sort of conducts to the music that plays over his headphones while nodding in rhythm with his conducting and bee-bopping as he points to the drivers of the cars that pass by. My shuttle driver gets a special point - the bee-bopping newspaper salesman prolongs his point at my shuttle driver with two hands in a Usain Bolt sort of pose. I wonder if he knows how cool my shuttle driver is, too? Is that why he gets a special point and nod?

Now, to put my morning ride into context, you must know that I park in the boonies, aka the lot by the football stadium. Because people tailgate in this lot, it is complete with port-a-potties and tailgate vehicles that haven't moved yet this fall, AND I get a great view of the stadium EVERY DAY. The port-a-potties are significant because yesterday, as I arrived at about 7:10 am for the early bird shuttle, I watched in horror as a fellow early bird entered the port-a-potty pictured to the right, did her business, returned to her car to grab her bookbag, and boarded the shuttle with me. Seriously?! It takes all types to make this world go 'round, I suppose.

This morning provided a much nicer view: I think they were testing the jumbo-tron at the stadium, so it was all lit up, bright and early, with no one to see but me and the guy walking laps in the parking lot. Apparently the jumbo-tron knew it was early because it demanded QUIET.

If we're Facebook friends (and who am I NOT Facebook friends with? Besides my grandma and grandpa who read the print version of my blog. Yes, the print version - the one that my mom prints for them. Hi Grandma and Grandpa!), you are already aware that going to a small, D-I school is like the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana concert tour: the best of both worlds. I relish the view of BB&T Field that is a part of my morning routine. From Deacon Tailgate Town tucked away in a little wooded area to the bronze statue of the Demon Deacon to the perfect lines that the grounds workers mowed into the grass this morning - it's such a great part of my morning view.

And once I get to campus, I take my little walk to Carswell Hall in the silent, morning air. After mounting the stairs to the second floor, I open the oddly asymmetrical double-doors to greet IDF and Minor League. Why all the doors in Carswell are like this, I don't know. I bet my dad has an answer for that. I think about the rationale for those asymmetrical doors every time I walk through them.

Yesterday, I found myself missing the "familiarity" and "predictability" of the last five years of my life - work, friends, family, Ada. I think I just had a revelation about my newfound familiarity and predictability, which I really didn't originally intend to include in this post, but that's where my thoughts have led me. Welcome to the new normal, people (to steal from NBC once again).

Peace, love, and my awesome shuttle driver--

Emily

How NOT to Hit on a Wall

I hit a wall on Thursday. Some of you can bear witness to the wall-hitting, and it wasn't pretty (sorry Mom). And the first time I typed that sentence, it read, "I hit on a wall on Thursday," and that made me laugh, so at least there's some comic relief to the situation. And then I changed the title of this post to reflect that hilarious error in typing, and hopefully that will entice more people to read this post. Ha! Gotcha!

When one hits a wall, though, they re-evaluate the way they've been doing things and come up with a new system in an attempt to not hit the wall again (or, at least, not to hit the wall in the same way again). My system (or "routine" as the original title of this post signified) can be divided into five major areas of interest:

• reading strategies
• physical location of laptop
• caffeine supplies and caffeination methods
• bony butt remedies
• avoiding the devil, aka Thursdays

When it comes to reading strategies, skimming is a necessity not a suggestion. If you are an example in a textbook, you will be skipped over, but thanks for playing. I appreciated you in weeks one and two, and in week three, you've simply lost your luster. Another strategy will also be discussed in the fifth major area - avoiding the devil, aka Thursdays - if you have class only one day a week, don't wait until the night before to read everything.

Today, I moved my laptop to the bathroom. And today, I've been tweeting and Facebook posting, and I'm currently writing this post, perched on my toilet (lid down, don't worry - no funny business, or business at all! ha!). Okay, so physical location of laptop has proven a problem. Sitting it next to me in my fallout shelter under the guise that "I'll only use it to listen to music" was a joke. So here we are. In the bathroom.

From the bathroom to the kitchen, I've amassed quite an arsenal of coffee stuffs. What better to aid the doomsday prepper in her fallout shelter? From Starbucks Via to Maxwell House iced latte packets, International Delights cartons of whatever in the refrigerator to the Dunkin Donuts coupons that came in the mail today - I'm equipped to caffeinate an army. For those of you who know my caffeine consumption habits and the effects of caffeine on my naturally-energized body, you may be shocked by the sudden spike in caffeination. Perhaps it explains my crash on Thursday that caused me to hit on a wall, er, hit a wall. I probably WOULD hit on a wall, you know. I AM suffering from caffeine-induced delusions.




I have also transformed one of my standard, wooden, kitchen chairs into a La-Z-Boy of sorts using pillows and a blanket. I'd attach that pic, but it's far less glamorous than those that I've posted from my bathroom, pantry, refrigerator, and kitchen counter #1. Nothing screams glamour like wire racks, a tiny bathroom, and Dunkin Donuts coupons. There are certain standards of decorum that I must uphold, you know.

Last but not least, let's talk about the devil: Thursdays. If you encounter me on a Thursday: beware. I am likely possessed by the devil, which is the day itself. I apologize for my behavior on those days of the week, which may include but is not limited to:

• crying at the shuttle stop in front of strangers
• crying ON the shuttle
• crying over things like, oh, I don't know, whether my stipend direct-deposits or not
• crying while driving while on the phone while not knowing if NC is a state where you can drive and talk on the phone while a cop follows me
• crying while recounting the moments I cried that day
• crying because I'm wasting time crying that I could be using on other, more important things

Thursdays... grrr...

Nonetheless, I've turned a new leaf, and I'm back in the saddle! Back in the saddle of hitting on walls, that is. Who knows, when I come home for Thanksgiving break, I may well be engaged to some handsome, non-load-bearing partition wall. Just don't ask him if he's reinforced. And don't try to add him on Facebook until you meet him in person, either (Mom).

Peace, love, and study breaks--

Emily

Plato, Crazy Straws, and Caffeine

After my first late night of studying in graduate school, I determined that my "late nights" will be classified using a three-level system:

1. Level 1 Late Night: up until 2 am, characterized by a pretty good night's sleep and little need for caffeine.
2. Level 2 Late Night: up after 2 am but asleep before 4 am, characterized by moderate consumption of caffeine and other tactics (i.e. turning air conditioning colder) used to keep subject awake and alert.
3. Level 3 Late Night: also known as "the all-nighter," awake after 4 am, characterized by complete lack of sleep, copious amounts of caffeine, and probably some sort of sacrificial offering to the gods of grad students (which may include ritual dance or song in living room while scantily clad).

Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I experienced a Level 2, and there were no casualties (although my half gallon of International Delight mocha iced coffee MAY beg to differ). The product of my immersion in Level 2 Late Night was the construction of my own fallout shelter of sorts, where I had everything I needed to survive the onslaught of Plato readings, outlining, and total confusion produced by terms such as "operational linkage," "univariate and bivariate analyses," and "construct validation." The fallout shelter has become my home within my home - my little slice of paradise.

As you can see, I have everything I need:

• green bookbag
• pencil case full of favorite pen (yes, one single favorite pen; I bought him some companions last night) and colored pens for outlining
• textbooks and two editions of The Bedford Handbook (just in case the transition from MLA to APA proves to be insurmountable)
• water bottle
• iced coffee in Kentucky Derby loser's cup with Jimmy Buffett flip-flop crazy straw
• cell phone (only to keep time and remind me every hour to close my eyes for five minutes to avoid eyestrain)
• my dinner, which I ate at about 11 pm
• laptop, which I kept closed as much as possible to avoid distractions
• manila folders containing syllabi and other documents for each class
• notebook
• ample lighting (you see, you must choose your fallout shelter based on appropriate lighting - again, to avoid eyestrain - and although the couch would be a comfortable fallout shelter, there are no overhead lights there)

There you have it, folks: Emily's fallout shelter. You're welcome to visit any time, and I'll give you the full tour, complete with plaques marking significant events in the history of Emily's 1 1/2 weeks of graduate school.

Peace, love, and a complete set of my favorite pens--

Emily

Welcome to My 'Hood

I've lived in my apartment complex long enough to pay rent twice, so I feel qualified to make broad generalizations about the other tenants that live here. In my mind, my residency at this complex is likely to turn into a scene of Cocoon at any given moment. I mean, most of the components of the movie are already in place: pool, warm climate, a number of senior citizens - who knows, Steve Gutenberg could even live here! Does anyone really know what he's doing these days?

Before I go any further, I need to check for understanding; do my readers understand the 1985 movie reference I just made? To really envision the community in which I'm describing to you, let's take a gander at the trailer for Cocoon, complete with appearances from Wilford Brimley, Jessica Tandy, that goofy-acting old guy who is in lots of movies but no one knows his name, and Steve Gutenberg.

Let's get back to business and focus on the task at hand: the majority of my fellow tenants appear to be senior citizens. How do I know? Well. I haven't actually counted all the handicap parking spots and the percentage that are used every day, but I assume the answers are: a lot and a lot. Most of the people I see out and about are over the age of 65.

And then there's Exhibit A, found outside the apartment across from mine on Sunday afternoon...

I predict that a television set of this maturity is not owned by someone under the age of 25. And probably not someone under the age of 35. Dare I go as high as 45 or 55? Yes, I dare. In fact, I speculate that this piece of furniture/electronics is owned by someone over the age of 65. And I believe that this individual has owned this piece of furnitronics for several decades. And I also believe that the owner of this piece of electroniture was probably quite distraught when it stopped working on Sunday afternoon. I wonder if his/her Atari still works, though?

Age of tenants and furnitronics aside, the benefit of living here is that it's pretty darn quiet. The other residents here are very respectful, and I don't hear much out of them. It's a good environment in which to study. Although, if you follow me on Twitter, you DO know that there was some hooligan revving his engine for a good 12 minutes in the parking lot the other night. Kids these days and their confounded loud engines. In my day, engines didn't make a sound. Those little whipper-snappers better stay off my lawn!

Peace, love, and septuagenarians--

Emily

Good News: I'm NOT the Old Lady

In the last week, I've been told "oh geez... you're old" and that graduating from college in 2007 would make a person "really old," which is a real blow to the ego of a young woman who was told she was "middle-aged" just a few years ago (am I over the hill now? at 27 years old?). I had developed a bit of a complex after the middle-aged comment, which carried through to my enrollment in graduate school. One of my biggest fears was being the old lady. As a matter of fact, every program I visited, I asked about the demographics of the grad students.

Fast-forward.

When first meeting my classmates, I thought that my five years of work experience made me unique, and I actually publicized my fear of being the old lady. Oh my friends, I had no idea the company I was keeping. It turns out that there are two major factions in my cohort: the '84s and the '90s. Nearly one-third of my classmates were born in '84 and another third were born in '90 (and one-third we don't really know about because they're debaters). The first time I heard one of the '90s announce the year he was born, I shrieked in horror. They're so young! My peer group has always been comprised of people born in the 1980s - sometimes even late '70s. All of a sudden, the '90s have infiltrated my peer group... and I'm okay with it.

So we have the '84s, the '90s, The Professional (who's right in the middle), and Bulgarian Radio, who is simply timeless (I owe him that compliment after calling him Bulgarian Boy Band last night). Timeless as he is, one would probably guess he's an '84, so we'll make him an honorary member.

Numbers game aside, my fellow '84s have assuaged my fear of being the old lady, and they bring valuable and interesting experience to the table. I'm not the only one who stepped away from a career, from coworkers, from familiarity with the fear of being the old lady/man. I'm not the only one who hasn't been in a classroom for half a decade. I'm not the only one who will turn 30 the year we receive our MAs from Wake Forest. I see some MAJOR 30th birthday celebrations in the future... stay tuned.

And last night, the '84s, the '90s, The Professional, Bulgarian Radio, The Married One's husband (whom I think we'll call Beer Snob) and a fantastic second-year (yet to be nicknamed) hit the streets of downtown Winston. Good times.

YOUR treat for making it this far is a glimpse of the girls from my cohort: me, The Married One, R&B, and App Ad.

Peace, love, and 1984--

Emily

My Brain is a Ticking Time Bomb

Before sitting down to tackle this post, I had some "ants on a log." For those of you who aren't familiar with this childhood delicacy, ants on a log IS edible, and the culinary creation is made up of celery (sometimes carrots, sometimes both) smeared with peanut butter and topped with raisins. This return to my childhood was necessary before expounding the mind-numbing subject matter in which I've been immersed this week. The juxtaposition of ants on a log and "Empirical Research and Theory" and/or "Rhetorical Theory" creates a nice balance. If you get scared or overwhelmed by the content of this blog post, revert to the simpler times of your childhood, grab some ants on a log, and keep reading.

If you talked to me on Wednesday evening, I was on top of the world! I had floated through my first graduate class, and I LOVED it! "Personal Relationships and Health" is the only class I chose for myself this semester, and it is taught by the professor for whom I'm TAing. We're reading about physiological effects of social networks, social support, and close personal relationships on mortality, the immune system, health behavior, etc. How cool! I was walking on sunshine after that day.

And then Thursday came.

The first indication that I was in over my head was all the terms I wrote in the margins that I needed to Google later in order to understand the lecture. Let me give you some examples straight from my five-subject, college-ruled notebook: empirical, rhetorical, empirical v. rhetorical, prospectus, rhetoric. It turns out that the definitions of these words and/or the differences/similarities/overlapping of these words is blurry for many people. That makes me feel better. It still makes my brain feel like a ball of tangled yarn.

And then I entered hostile territory - territory on which I have stepped once before, and the results were not good. Talk of the Fertile Crescent, the Sumerians, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, ancient Romans and Greeks... it took me back to Western Civ... and that was a very dark time in my life. As a matter of fact, it was the worst grade I received in college. Nay! The worst grade I received in my LIFE! I left class that evening in a fog. So much reading. So much jargon. So much writing (okay, let's be honest, I'm excited about the writing).

Oh, and I wrote something else in the margins of my notebook as I was reading for class this afternoon. This is a direct quote from one of the sixty million books I had to buy for "Empirical Research and Theory":

"About the only solace we can give those about to embark on theory building is that it probably won't kill you and that if it doesn't kill you it probably will make you stronger."

I like this author's sense of humor, and I suppose this will be my mantra for the first year of grad school: it PROBABLY won't kill you.

Alright, readers: I promise more delightful and visually stimulating posts in the very near future. I can promise this because I'm headed out on the town with my cohort this evening. Hopefully I'll have some tales of The 1984 Club, a subgroup of my cohort that you're sure to hear more about soon.

Peace, love, and rhetoric (whatever the crap THAT is)--

Emily