Holy crap am I tired. But today was an awesome day. My friend Jon and I went to see the Bears play at Soldier Field. Sure, it was wet, cold, expensive, and the Bears played like crap, but I still had a totally awesome time. Our seats were pretty decent–the players actually looked like players and not just like little ants. We got some great souveniers, free and purchased. My little zippo handwarmer was fantastically warm the whole time, which was much appreciated as the temperatures started to plummet by the end of the game. And Jon and I just had a generally good time watching the Bears carry out their long-standing tradition of blowing the game for no obvious reason. Good times!

They had so much potential at this point…

Despite wearing my ironic souvenier Grossman jersey today (or perhaps because I was wearing a Grossman jersey) I’m just not feeling like a superstar right now. Of course, that could be because I’m an underpaid graduate student at a soul-sucking university and not an NFL player, but at least my line of work involves fewer concussions, right? And yet, revising my dissertation proposal has felt about as pleasant as a concussion, especially since I’m rushing to pack in revisions now if I want to do a defense in December.

I know writing is an inherently challenging process that often requires revision after revision after revision in order to make your ideas clear and concise. Hell, even these blog entries usually require rewriting before I dare to put them up for the world to see (although maybe I shouldn’t be admitting that these crappy posts have actually been revised). But there’s something about academic writing that’s just so much more frustrating than other kinds of writing. Part of the problem is that the finished product is never entirely under your control. You aren’t writing to please yourself or strictly to convey information, you’re writing to satisfy some overseer who has to give your project the Seal of Approval before you can move on. So no matter how well you think you’ve done, there’s always the chance that you’ll have to go back and do it all over again. And then even when you’ve done it all over again, you just have to sit and wait and hope for someone to tell you that you are at least moving in the right direction instead of taking a step backwards. But I think the best part is knowing that you’re writing for an audience of about two people, because chances are no one else is ever going to bother to read what you wrote. Probably not at all, but certainly not from start to finish. So if you’re lucky, you spend about ten years of your life masochistically working on a project that you’re not sure you even care about anymore for an audience of no one. Something makes me think that building mansions out of matchsticks would be a more satisfying project right now.

Any questions?

One good thing has come out of being in dissertation proposal limbo: I have discovered Old Grandma Hardcore. Not dirty (ew!) if that’s what you’re thinking, but also not for the easily offended. Go Grandma!

The videos are amusing, but the blog is hilarious. What are you waiting for? Go!

My roommate gave me my x-mas present yesterday…

So of course, I figured I’d wear it around today. And it just so happened that I went to the grocery store up north to buy groceries today. As I was checking out from the grocery store, the cashier asked me if I had my Jewel card and then he said something that I took to be kind of half to himself. It was only about a minute later when I finally realized what he said was “fullmetal.” And then it was another thirty seconds or so before I realized he was talking about my shirt. Of course by then he had just kind of acted like he hadn’t said anything and I decided it was best not to reveal my stupidity by blurting out “Ooooh! You meant my shirt!! You know, when you said ‘Fullmetal’ about two minutes ago and I just kinda ignored you since I had no idea what you were talking about, even though I’m the one wearing the shirt, so you would think I would have picked up on that a little faster than I did. Yeah, FMA rocks. Thanks man. Don’t mind me just being a tool over here.” So there you have it. Not even a full 24 hours that I’ve had this thing and I’ve already managed to make myself look either like a total idiot or like a total bitch to some poor cashier at Jewel. Doh!

Things have been pretty mundane around here of late and tomorrow morning I head off to stay with my folks for the holidays. I’ll see if I can find some time in my busy schedule of lazing about to post occasionally, but chances are the posts will be few and far between. Happy Holidays!

Nothing like the holidays and being away from home to really kill a blog.  But the time away from the computer has been a good thing.  I’ve been eating a lot of good food and seeing good friends and generally having a good time, even if it’s all a bit exhausting.  Sadly, after a little over a week of just relaxing, I’m starting to feel anxious about the things I’ve been neglecting, like schoolwork and the blog.  Okay, the schoolwork is really the thing making me feel anxious, but the blog is something I can easily do something about.  Hopefully, my posting now will help me allay those feelings of guilt for a few more days so I can enjoy the rest of my vacation.  I hope everyone else out there has been enjoying themselves as much as I have.   Once I actually get back in town, perhaps I will regale you all with the tales of my exploits (ie. produce some pithy reviews of movies and video games).