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Forget the eco-thriller that just dropped on DVD, today, November 3, 2004 is the real Day After. Well I suppose that depends on who you voted for. With us I don't think there's any doubt which way we voted, so today we're in a bit of mourning, trying to understand what went wrong. C'est la guerre, I suppose. But there's more to life than elections, and it's been over two months since the last diary update. We've weathered a couple of little squalls up here so far this season. And while there were no stones from the heavens to smash windows, and no snow, we've already been able to glean a few things about how winter in Guerneville will be: 1) reports of coming precipitation are less meteorological predictions and more Biblical prophecy. It's easy to understand how and why this river is so prone to flooding; 2) If it's raining, get the candles. The power around here goes out seemingly at the drop of a hat. Usually it doesn't stay out too long, but resetting clocks gets old really quickly; 3) almost all of our trees are deciduous, so when it's not raining, it's raking time. Done raking? Great, in five minutes no one will know you raked at all. But perhaps the most important one is 4) this is truly a magical place. In the late evening, as the temperature has fallen (we're acclimated – night temperatures of 49 degrees constitute “cold” now), wood stoves fill the night air with that distinct aroma declaring that winter is near. We're no longer swimming in the river, but we're still loving the area. And, oh yeah, I turned 30 last week. Thanks to all the well-wishers. Thanks to my wonderful family for my fantastic gift that I'm still awed over. Thanks to Gary and Lana, as it's never too wet to barbeque (okay, that's a lie). Honestly, turning thirty didn't bother me. It came on like any other birthday. I actually welcomed the decade change in my life. It didn't blindside me like, say, a white Chevy stepside pickup in the crosswalk of Santa Rosa and Third. And recovering from getting smacked by a truck has taken a bit longer then getting rear-ended on my motorcycle in the wee hours of the morning. Let me say again, turning thirty is nothing like a car accident. It's far better so far! Stick around; we're working on more photos, stories and stuff! |
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September-eve and it's the first in a great while that neither Anna nor I have been preparing for one school or another. It's also the first in two years that we're not anticipating greeting two new classrooms of students as their teacher. Autumn is coming, bittersweet. Before we get too far, you might have seen the new link on the front page for “Memory Walk,” which takes you to our page for the Alzheimer's Association's San Francisco Memory Walk, which Anna and I are participating in. Our goal is to raise $500 before October 9 th . We are walking in honor and remembrance of Anna's grandparents, Oleg and Valentina Affanasiev, and for everyone who has had to watch a loved one slip slowly away. We thank you for any support you can give. Click on the link and check it out. Thank you again. We are so lucky to be living where we are, and we count our blessings every day: we have a wonderful place to live, we both (finally) have jobs, we're both healthy (still working on those health benefits – but I've been told (repeatedly) that the economy has turned the corner, so I'm looking forward to benefits anytime now), and our cats are annoying. No, that's not entirely true. Our cats are wonderful and loving their new home to roam, except at 3:30 in the morning when Shurik decides it is time to get up. He's worse than a damn rooster. Promptly at 3:30 in the morning, it's cock-a-doodle-Shurik. It's getting to be ritual now: Shurik announces the hour, I climb out of bed and take him to the bathroom, close the door, and enjoy the rest of the night. During this, Amaya's blissfully sleeping at our feet – make no mistake, she's no angel. Now that we live in a space slightly larger than your average walk-in closet, we can throw her little ball all the way across the house and she'll charge after it and bring it back to you with enthusiasm. Too much enthusiasm. You see, now that she knows we'll throw her ball she meows, or rather shrieks at us incessantly until we throw her ball. And when she's feeling lazy, she'll drop the ball just out of reach, continue on to your feet and meow loudly as if to say, “Well?! I brought it most of the way back, you can stretch a little bit.” Please, come visit, we'll let you throw the ball with Amaya all. day. long. Don't think we're coasting into Autumn, though. Just because we're not in school doesn't mean we don't have a lot planned. First, another camera is going in for development tomorrow. Second, new websites are taking shape. That is all I can say on that for now. And third….okay, third we're coasting into Autumn. We've never had an autumn up here so we're going to enjoy it! Check out our link and please keep in touch! |
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Here on the river we have ghosts. When my friend Rachel was last here, as we walked down the dirt road that breasts our house at twilight, she remarked “This is a place of secrets.” And she is right—secret lives, secret houses, secret gardens that bramble and ramble off towards the riverbank. At night there are no streetlights, and little noise except the redwoods creaking and the crickets and frogs. And ghosts. Not ghosts in the spooky haunted house category—white as sheets, peeking up from decrepit windowsills, or hiants in the cemetery. There are no “hot steams” to walk through at night on the way to the river. But there are memories. Since our neighborhood is predominantly Russian, and our house sits directly on the road down to the river, we hear them talking as they pass by, or from their yards. Every time, it makes me catch my breath. Yesterday, I heard the lady that lives behind us instructing her grandson to help her with the salad. Standing in the back yard, watering the ancient lilac bush, I felt tears rush to my face. Her inflection, her voice, so much like my own babushka's voice—before she lost her mind. It was like a gift from God. Everything came back in that moment—the smell of her housecoat, the rustle of swiss chard leaves, the feel of Misha's skin, the cut of his shorts, the wave of my grandmother's hair with its prickly crown of bobby pins. I moved closer, beneath their plum tree, praying I would hear more. But it was fleeting…a ghost. Yesterday, on hold at work, Jordy heard music. He writes of it: An old U2 song ends and a song comes on that I haven't heard since my dad sang along to an old cassette tape 15-odd years ago: “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” It was one of his favorite songs and he always insisted on singing poorly along to that cheesy song. Hearing it made me miss him so terribly…I don't think grief ever really goes and disappears, just the interval between the waves grows from minutes to hours to days, to weeks, to months, and even years. But even after almost thirteen years since I held my Dad's lifeless hand in El Camino hospital, you never know when a wave will crash over you. It can even happen when you're listening to hold music. It's funny—I never met Jordy's dad. But he inhabits our lives just as well. There are faint shadows of him in Jordy—his eyes the same limpid brown, the shape of his face. In an old photograph, I notice their hands are oddly similar. Ghosts in the flesh. In our yard, we have a large patio shaded by an ivy covered trellis. In this space, my mother's godmother, Mucya, and her husband George, would host large gatherings of Russians. The home we live in now was their beloved summer “dacha,” and I have photos of the parties they once held here. Huge tables groaning with food, warm 7-up in liter bottles, vodka. The Russians of that generation were stocky even when they were thin, short, and seemed to prefer loud dresses for the women and pale dress shirts with short sleeves for the men. They are still here. On Father's day, as my dad sat in our yard under the shade of an ancient persimmon tree, he heard George's laugh drift from the patio. Ghosts. In this, my most melancholy summer in a while, all I can do is listen to my ghosts. At sunset, Jordy and I go swimming in the river. We come down in our bathing suits and colorful towels, swathed in their garish, life-affirming shades of fuchsia and orange. There in the water, we swim or just lay on our backs staring at the sky. We often see egrets and blue herons and ducks of every color imaginable. The fog rolls in some nights, and as we float down the river, we disappear from view to those on the shore. But our life-affirming colors remain behind. And, down at summer crossing, the ghosts are talking behind the waterfalls that spill in front of the bridge. |
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We're behind here, I'll admit that. Too many changes, too fast, and we're just now trying to get caught up. I can see by the date of the below post that we're further behind on updating these than I thought.
But where to start? No place better than the present. Currently, it's a comfortable 66 degrees as I type this in Guerneville , California . This afternoon after leaving my job in Santa Rosa , I commuted through vineyards to get home to Anna who was waiting for me to go swimming in the Russian river. That's how much things have changed. We reached Utah escape velocity at the end of April. Momthra flew out to help us pack, clean, and move. The first day of loading the truck was warm and beautiful. The second day saw six inches of snow fall. I think it was Utah 's way of saying, “so you really think you'll miss this ?” I'd love to say the drive was uneventful, and nothing catastrophic occurred on our two-day drive, except 1) we lost a hub cap off the Corolla, 2) the much-maligned 4Runner took a rock to the windshield, 3) the evil UHaul blew a tire outside of Sparks before, 4) completely losing all rear lights in Reno. With our delays we didn't reach Sonoma county until well after dark. Momthra, driving the Corolla, decides highway 116 is faster than 101, which it is except when you're driving a 17 foot long, 11 foot high Uhaul. I violated all known performance envelopes as I slalomed that leviathan through pocket canyon in a desperate attempt to keep the taillights of the Corolla in sight. There are some pictures from moving that are on a cd that we're desperately trying to locate. On top of those we've got a disposable camera to develop, plus a known cd with pictures Anna took of her cousin Lisa's wedding, as well as a few shots of our new abode. As usual, Anna is planning on sending out a mass email once I get the pictures online. Until then, enjoy the new layout of the site, and we'll enjoy the river! |
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It’s 9 in the morning here in Utah as I sit writing this to try and avoid doing work on my thesis. I figure this is for a good cause, and so taking time away from school isn’t so bad. As Jordy wrote in the last post, we are moving back to California in April-and we are so stoked about it. It means the next three months here will be crazy as we try to wrap up our thesi, pack our house up and hide two cats from the Aggie Ghetto authorities. Yes, two cats. This past weekend we adopted our second kitty from 4 Paws Rescue after having her on hold for a week because of finances. Her name is Amaya, which means “night rain” in Japanese, and she is a Bombay, which means she is all black with copper eyes. We found out from the vet Saturday that she is about a year old and very recently gave birth to kittens, so we are speculating that she was a feral cat before coming to us. She was quite dirty and it looked as if her claws had never been trimmed in her life, but as soon as we got her out of her cage she was a big lovebug, though very skittish. We brought Shurik down to the shelter to meet her, in hopes of avoiding a fiasco like we had with the ill-fated Duscha, and they got along reasonably well. After waiting a week, we were finally able to pick her up on Friday night. She was terrified and spent most of that night being held by Jordy and I, and she finally relaxed and fell asleep in Jordy’s arms. The next day was quite a big adventure for our little ones. They were smuggled out of the apartment in laundry baskets and brought to the vet. Shurik got booster shots and Amaya got a thorough checkup. At first the vet though she might be pregnant (aaack!!!) but then realized that she had been spayed, which is how we found out how recently she had given birth. Her tummy is very distended, and we know this because her most favorite thing in the world is to have her belly rubbed. Otherwise, she is healthy (yea!). That afternoon, after we returned from a Red Iguana run to SLC, Amaya got her first bath. We filled the sink with water and shampooed tons of dead hair and dirt away. This is an experience we hope never to repeat for obvious reasons. She and Shurik are still adjusting to each other, but all the signs are pointing to them being good friends in the future. Other than the new kitty, life is routine. Classes are going remarkably smoothly, our kids are great, Utah is cold and the Mormons are annoying. We had 17 consecutive days in January where the daytime temperature never broke 10, so needless to say we are quite happy to see weather in the 20’s. New pictures should be up this weekend, including pictures of our new girl! Stay tuned for more adventures from Utahpia… |
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A new site is here at last! |
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Holy crap! Where did October go?! So we’re staring November in the face and we’ve got no new pictures to show for it. Well, that’s not entirely true. We do have pictures, we just haven’t a) gotten them up and b) gotten them developed. See we have a metric ton of pictures for you — wedding pictures (Owen and Sce), drive home through hellish storm pictures (August), Anna making cake pictures, even Misha cleaning out the truck pictures. Hell, we’ve even got pictures we don’t even remember taking. But we have them! And there not up yet. Why, you might ask, why? I’m glad you asked. See, this post is by, well, me, and the last post was by me, and that post behind it? Right, me again. Anna has disappeared. Well, not really. She’s here, but she’s stuck in a thesis proposal/conference paper/class presentation whirlpool of death. Okay, maybe not death, but certainly hell. You could call it lack of time. You could be right. You could be a Japanese woodcarver who specializes in giant reproductions of miniature bonsai trees made out of stumps. I’d wonder about you if you were that. But, alas, that’s only part of the reason. The other part is next week. Next week has expanded like something that expands and takes over time. Wednesday we’re flying to Houston where Anna will deliver a thoroughly stunning paper at the Western Literature Association’s annual conference. See, she’s even in the program. That kicks ass. But in order to go you have to use this thing called money to buy airline tickets, hotels, yada, yada, yada — and yadas aren’t cheap these days. We’re developing a fine affinity for Top Raman. And, really, if you dump a little Cholula hot sauce in it and pronounce it all French-like (Tope Rah’-min), it ain’t half bad. But we decisively haven’t had money for developing. And before anyone writes us saying, “You need a digital camera!!” I ask you digital-camera-owning folks: when was the last time you ate Top Raman? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Lack of cash and lack of Anna have stymied any hopes of getting pictures up until, likely, early November. Oh, but what pictures we’ll have for you! Hopefully I’ll get Anna to write a journal soon. Or, failing that, I’ll just steal an excerpt from her conference paper so you’ll know she’s around. |
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Well, somehow we managed to miss September altogether. I mean, we didn’t miss it, per se — we used all 30 days just like everyone else. But if you’re gauging our experience by what we post here then September has been a blur. And, rightfully so, it was a blur. I’ll see what I can do to catch you up. |
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We’ve logged our first week teaching this year and the most important news has absolutely nothing to do with school: the cat’s out of the bag — Shurik has been discovered. We’ve been debating the veracity of our RA’s tale (tail?) that she spotted him in the office window when she was putting up fliers (we theorize that one of our not-so-friendly neighbors ratted us out to her and she used the window story to avoid incriminating anyone), but regardless of how she came to know of him the fact is that she does, and now we’re painfully aware of just how draconian the housing department’s policy towards illicit pets is. Fortunately, when the RA called to inform us of that policy our friend Mary and her now fiancé were over asking if I wanted to perform their wedding. I quickly told the RA that Mary and Elis were Shurik’s owners and we were catsitting. She bought it, as far as I could tell, and after Mary and Elis left with cat in tow, she came over to inspect our apartment to make sure we weren’t pulling a feline Anne Frank. As if the search of our apartment weren’t enough, we may get fined $50 for her knowledge of Shurik, regardless of whether he is ours or not. Lovely. Mary secreted Shurik back later that night, and we’ve since lined up a foster home for him if need be, but at this point we’ve got three options: one, which isn’t an option, is to get rid of Shurik. So now we’re down to two options. Option one is to move. We’ve found out that breaking our contract isn’t nearly as difficult logistically or financially as we had expected, and it’s certainly a viable option. After the holiday tomorrow we’re going to look in earnest for cat-friendly apartments which, while somewhat hard to find, are around and give us better amenities for about the same price as Aggie Ghetto. The second option is a more interesting one. Prodding to see what was required to break our contract, I floated the balloon that Shurik was Anna’s “companion animal” to help her with her acute seasonal depression (which, though surfing the latest politically correct tide, isn’t entirely untrue). They responded that they’ve done that before and as long as we went to the Disabled Resources Center on campus to get it certified (the condition, not the cat) then we could keep Shurik here. Now, we don’t know what’s required to clear the DRC, but Tuesday we launch our two pronged attack: I call and set up appointments at prospective apartments, while Anna makes inquiries at the DRC. Wish us (and Shurik) luck! Oh, yeah, we had school, too! We’re finding that our students this semester bear almost no likeness to the naïve, short attention span students of last year. On the contrary our students thus far have seemed much more like intellectual sponges hanging on our every word. Okay, perhaps they weren’t exactly hanging on every word but both Anna and I witnessed numerous students taking notes, and we didn’t even tell them to take notes. We’re still in shock. They’re older (juniors and seniors) than the freshmen, sometimes many years older as most of the male freshmen go on their two year LDS missions after their freshman year and only come back to school after that. So we’re encouraged by the first week’s progress. Jill and Lenny stopped by yesterday, staying the night before driving home this morning. They came up through Las Vegas and hit just about every National Park between there and Montana. We quite enjoyed having them, as we took them out to Café Sabor, giving them the whirlwind tour of our little town, and then ending the evening with Aggie Ice Cream. We were sorry to see them leave, and we includes Shurik, but we do hope they come back soon. Tonight we’re enjoying our long weekend and trying to get prepared for our second week teaching and the rest of the semester. Stay tuned for more on the Shurik Saga… |
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We are back in Utah after a prolonged respite in California. Our trip was great-we went on the annual houseboat trip (Jordy kept a detailed diary, so I’ll let him speak to that later), took my sewing machine in for its yearly maintenance, saw Misha’s band play and hung out a great deal with both Jordy’s and my families. Shurik was adored by all who came across him and so returned home feeling himself and strutting about the apartment like the sovereign of a small, unimportant nation (Shurikstan?). We returned home battered by an epic series of thunderstorms (pictures to come) and laden with food leftover from the houseboat trip and from our run to Trader Joe’s, rocks for our fish tank and other assorted useless items that cut into our fuel efficiency. |
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Holy cow! Where did July go? It seems like just yesterday we were buying explosives for the Fourth of July and now, whoa, we’re staring August in the face! |
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One year ago today, Jordy and I had our wedding. It was hot, much like it is here in Logan now as I sit typing this. We were nervous and scared and excited to begin our lives together. What would the future bring? What would school be like? How would we deal with the Mormons…. Much has changed since that balmy, magical July night one year ago and the sweltering August night seven years ago when I asked Jordy for his phone number in the parking lot of the Orchard Supply Hardware where we both worked at the time. Seven is the number of completeness in the Bible, a good luck number, fortuitous and sacred. And while nothing may seem sacred when you are 19, like I was that August night, the religion of youth can render any moment weighty. The smell of motorcycle, the brown velvet eyes, the big hands, the man I thought was so brilliant and smart was my church in the beginning. And six years later we stood, exhilarated and sweaty in front of 150 of our closest peoples, and something else replaced physical attraction. Time. Everything seemed to go by in flash. The first time I met Jordy’s family, all 900 of them, and Jay told me there would be a name quiz at the end. The first time I covertly rode on Pumba, screaming and laughing and crying. Jumping around in the family room with Jordy and my mom after I was accepted to UCSC. Jordy on one knee proposing, Jordy in the hospital crying after his accident, the look of “I never doubted you” when I handed him my acceptance letter to USU. Our first apartment, horrid fights about money, or the lack of it, getting Shurik, passing the first year of teaching, the all night study sessions, the thesis comities, the student conferences, the Mormons. I am 26 now, and a long way away from the girl in the parking lot on an August night. I no longer think the world is my oyster, that red hot sex will last forever, that I can do no wrong. I no longer think my parents are the root of all evil in the world, my brother is annoying, I no longer think Jordy is the shining beacon on the hill waiting to rescue me and lead me home. Realism is stark, and bright and lets you see things clearly, and what I see is that I love the man I call my husband more with each passing day. Everything we are is because we had to make it happen together, because we have struggled alone, far away from friends and family, and we have made it here in Utah. And so when you see these pictures of this chubby couple, their cat, their fish, their kids, their snow, their small apartment, their pale western sky and their mountains, you see reality. And that, in the end, is worth seven years plus a lifetime. |
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One year ago today at this time we were enjoying our first dinner in Logan – a pizza from the Firehouse Grill which we ate in our motel room at the Baugh Best Western. Afterwards we did not wait the requisite 45 minutes before we went into the pool and marveled at how big the sky seemed. A lot changes in a year. We touched down in Logan a year ago – we weren’t yet married, we hadn’t yet seen our tiny apartment (and when we did two days later, Anna cried at the size of it!), we hadn’t figured out how we were going to teach or pay for school. Our wedding anniversary is coming up in two weeks and we’re certainly looking forward to that. |
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It has been a truly amazing and ridiculously busy week, and in some ways we knew that it would be. In other more serendipitous ways, we could never have anticipated it. The Fife folklore conference took place last week, so Anna was going to be out of the house for that. Overall, she seemed to enjoy the conference itself quite a bit, though she couldn’t say the same for many of the other audience members who comprised largely of undergrads, a handful of graduate students, and a scattering of older folks who were just there for the heck of it. Anna found the best and worst of Logan’s culture present, but she also met someone new. She carpooled with out friend Melissa who also attended the conference, and Melissa introduced Anna to a friend of hers, Robb, who Anna instantly became fast friends with. In fact, Wednesday night we went over to Robb and his partner Ken’s house for drinks. Yes, you read right – we were drinking in Utah. It was an absolutely wonderful night where I struggled to keep up with Robb drinking (though he’s half my size), and Anna traveled vicariously through Ken’s digital pictures of his recent trip to Greece. Neither of us had felt so relaxed since we’ve been here. The following night we were invited back and Robb had also invited on of the professors from the conference. We had another wonderful time, and I drank less yet still too much, and we left too late, and had too much fun. Though we haven’t known them very long, we are incredibly glad to have met Robb and Ken and all their friends, and hope to spend a lot more time with them. They are our new-found oasis in this Mormon land. Friday our friends Melissa and John were cleaning out the construction site that is rapidly becoming their first home and we offered to help them sweep it out. It’s a really cute place over in a town called Providence, about ten minutes away. The development is rather new with cute houses that don’t look exactly the same. At the moment the field behind them is empty and offers a gorgeous view of much of cache valley and Old Main’s big A (which you can see from the webcam). The field will eventually be new housing, but I offered to bury old human remains out there so that they could claim that it was an Indian burial ground so it’ll stay empty. They may yet take me up on this. Then it was back to their apartment where we had a barbecue and watched “The Singles Ward,” a Mormon movie poking (ever so gently) fun at various cultural touchstones of living in Zion as a Mormon. It was funny and, to us, disturbing in some fundamental propaganda-ist ways. But a good time was had. So today we’re trying to whip our house back into a livable state. We have tons of laundry, and it took me the better part of the morning to get a handle on our dirty dishes. Next Wednesday is Anna’s birthday and she’s quite looking forward to it. We’re going to go out to Café Sabor, which I think we mentioned before. It’s a wonderful Mexican restaurant here in Logan. That reminds me that Anna is now officially into scrapbooking. She decided she needed to in order to get a handle on the mountain of pictures we’ve been accumulating since the wedding. So she started with…. the wedding. And after a marathon week of scrapbooking, she has produced a beautiful book that even impresses our Mormon pro-scrapbooking friends. It’s very cool. Next, she has decided to start a book that chronicles our time in Utah. So that’s the short version of what we’ve been up to. This weekend, as mentioned, we’re cleaning and relaxing. Tomorrow we’re considering going with Ken to the gay pride parade in Salt Lake City, but we’re not committed to it yet – we may just want to rest a bit more before the start of next week, which if last week was any indication, could be a busy one! |
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We just got back from the airport where we dropped Momthra off after a wonderful week full of adventures, and we’re quite sad to see her go. On Monday we gassed up Azurita and headed north to Jackson, Wyoming and the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I’ve got a whole diary full of stuff to post about the trip, but haven’t transcribed my scribble yet. So here’s the 31-words-or-less-version:
After we got back on Thursday, Anna and Momthra cooked piroshki while I went back to work, and today we made our first trip to the farmer’s market which is more crafts than farm right now – but they’ve still got the bread we’ve been craving all winter. We got a loaf of asiago basil. Yum! On our way to the airport, we stopped at Costco in Salt Lake. I’m still trying to figure out how Momthra managed to fit all our stuff into the little blue car with all her luggage. I’m pretty sure she rearranged the laws of physics. My mind is still boggling. |
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Today is a beautiful day in Logan, a balmy (to us) 66 degrees with giant puffy clouds in the sky. And we were grateful for those clouds, as we put in our new garden this morning. Last night, in what proved to be one of the dumber moments of our grad school lives, we decided to go to Wal-Mart to buy plants. Well, we forgot that it was Mother’s Day Eve, an occasion that brings hordes of men shopping with young children, all of them competing for half dead roses, gaudy picture frames and weird polyester dresses with little flower prints. We had to park further out in the several acre parking lot than ever before. But we got to the garden section in due time, and we managed to buy:
And today, we managed to get it all in the ground in our community garden plot! We started at about 10 this morning-it was cool and the clouds were thick enough that the sun would not beat down on us. We started by weeding our 15 x15 plot, then spading and shoveling it into 4 wide rows. That took about an hour and a half. Then we laid out all of our plants, arranged our garden and began planning. I was so thrilled to be able to have an entire row of cutting flowers! We decided to go with more unusual tomatoes because of the proliferation of romas, beefstakes, early girls and better boys at the farmer’s market. You can literally buy 4-5 pounds of tomatoes at the height of the season for a $1.00. When we were done, we still had space, so we are going back to the store this week to get more marigolds (good pest control) and perhaps another tomato plant. I am going back mid-week to help my friend Melissa (her husband is Jordy’s boss) break her plot. |
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We’re back in Utah. Didn’t know we left? Well we did on quite short notice. Currently we’re at the tail end of finals and at the last minute decided to take up Momthra’s offer to split airfare out to California for Russian Easter. But in order to do that, hectic days were necessary. I had a final portfolio for my Teaching Tech Writing class that fell due yesterday (Monday), and I had to have that finished before we left. Many Diet Cokes died the Tuesday night before we left. Fortunately the class Anna and I are taking together, Women’s Western Memoir, we were able to beg an extension out of the professor, so that’s not due until tomorrow (which is why I’m procrastinating by writing this journal — makes sense, right?).
Well, that’s about it for now from Utah. As I mentioned, we’ll have pictures up. To the new visitors we invited at Easter, we hope you like the place (this website, that is. You don’t have to like Utah. Really.). |
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It would be April 15th, Tax Day! While I dislike paying taxes as much as the next person, we are getting a handsome refund this year, which is all going to pay for tuition over the summer and the fall semesters. Nonetheless, we are happy to have our money back! |
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Anna and I are doing our best to use this Saturday as a haven from the week we just came through and the week we’re about to enter — the former was far more tempestuous than we could have anticipated, and the latter already proves to be quite a work week. We’ve both got a five page paper due for the same class on Monday. In addition, I’ve got a major portion of my final project for my tech writing class due on Monday as well. That work, however, can wait until tonight and tomorrow as we enjoy the day. It’s Conference weekend this weekend, which occurs twice a year and Anna refers to as the “Superbowl of Mormonism” — the description is fairly apt, as a trillion Mormons descend on SLC at the conference center for a weekend of seminars and speeches. We look forward to it because it means peace and quiet – the laundry room was deserted on a Saturday morning which is unheard of. Friday, at the end of a really long day, we were greeted on our doorstep by a large Costco box containing pots and pans. Not just any pots and pans, but pots and pans heavy and durable enough to easily kill someone if wielded the right way. Thanks go out to Lana and Gary for this incredibly unexpected surprise! They have already gone to great use. While Fed Ex had no problem leaving this giant box, UPS apparently couldn’t leave an Amazon package containing just two books – one for Anna’s thesis, and my knitting book – without a signature. Quite annoying. Winter has been having its last stand here for the majority of the week. Monday and Tuesday were so nice that we had our sliding glass door and bedroom windows open for the first time since fall. Granted, temperatures only reached the mid-sixties, but that’s downright balmy. Then by Thursday the snow was falling in earnest. Snow’s melted now, but the weather reports indicate that there’s still more snow to fall this weekend – before the mercury climbs to the mid-sixties again by the middle of next week. We certainly hope everyone is enjoying and getting used to our new design here. A few words about the design: much more than even our previous design, this one was truly a collaborative effort between Anna and I. She had the look in her mind’s eye and it was up to me to try to turn her vision into html and gifs. The color scheme came from a postcard she received not too long ago, and were difficult to get to her exact preferences, but I managed. The weathervane slug on the front page came from here, and they really make these things, although we photo-shopped the image to turn the slug to face East. The font used throughout is called “Dragonfly” and was, again, chosen by Anna. I love it, as it has the relaxed lines of “Heather” our last dominant font, but gives the pages a more informal, (dare I say) hip look. This page, actually, gave us/me the most problems, as trying to find a feasible (and by feasible, I mean readable) color scheme for the posts was difficult, but we’re both happy with the result. We’ve worked out most of the kinks, but if you find some rough edges, or just feel like telling us what you think, feel free to email either Anna or myself. Well, that’s about it for now. Our chicken is about to come off the rotisserie, so I’d better wrap this one up. We just finished another roll of film (last half of Rachel’s visit and odds and ends (including a better photo of our living room)), and we’ll get that up soon |
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Spring has sprung and with it a new re-design of sluglife.net. We hope that all of you like our new format, and if you don’t, well, too bad. While we are still vehemently opposed to the war, we feel that we have made our point and we don’t need to deprive you of news of our lives anymore. Speaking of news, boy is there a lot if it. First – Jordy has learned to knit. Yes, yes, it’s true. He is currently knitting a beautiful green scarf, and often sits for hours in our family room, needles perched on his tummy. knitting away. All of the women in our office think that it’s great, but then, most of them think that Jordy is great to begin with. Students have had mixed reactions, ranging from horror to beaming approval. Secondly, as you can see from the pictures, our friend Rachel came and stayed with us for a week. She is the first person outside of my parents and uncle to come and visit our pimp abode. For those of you considering visits this summer, Rachel is happy to report that our spare bed is quite comfortable, which we were hoping it would be as it was a rather pricey investment. We did many things, including going to Salt Lake City for a day, where we demonstrated the flawless and scary integration of church and state with visits to the LDS Church headquarters. This is the tallest skyscraper in downtown, and directly faces the Temple, which is stunningly beautiful. From the 26th floor observation deck, you can take really great pictures of all of SLC and the Great Salt Lake. We visited the famed Red Iguana Mexican restaurant (Jordy died and went to heaven) and did some shopping in the Olympic plaza mall, which is housed in an old Union Pacific switching house. A good time was had by all. Everything is blooming and we have had two sunny days in a row. Now, you may not think this is a big deal, but it is. Sun is so rare here in the winter. Both Jordy and I think that the worst of winter is behind us. Today is 56 outside, and in a testament to how truly we have adapted, we have all of our windows open and are in short sleeves. I spent the morning planting flowers for our patio and cleaning all the dead leaves and dust off the floor. I am also pleased to report that the Christmas lights finally came down as well. We have our first meeting for our community garden plot this month as well. I have several slugshirts in the hopper and finals are rapidly approaching, so we will be plenty busy this month. Hope everyone is well, and welcome back to slug country. |
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We are back in Utah and trying to get ready for the remainder of the semester. Our vacation was exceptionally relaxing and seemed to go by in way too short a time. Our time at Christmas may have been a bit too long, but this was definitely too short. We’re looking for that proverbial “just right” length – we’re thinking 10 days. Who knows? I would like to thank everyone who helped make our vacation such a wonderful experience – both my and Anna’s families, and to all our friends. If you are curious about who’s who, we’ll have pictures up in a bit, but that’ll likely be the least change you notice. There are big changes afoot here at Sluglife.net. I was content with my little page and the slight change on the front page and navbar icons. Anna liked them, too, but I’m afraid that my little change started her on the path to “major redesign,” and once you’re on that path, buckle up. Thanks to Anna’s design ideas we put together a general theme for the site relatively quickly. I’m in the process of tightening all the nuts and bolts and making sure the content that’s here will be there just as soon as there becomes here and here becomes…somewhere else. But both the new site and the new pictures will make their debut in the near, indeterminable, future. You’ll wake up one day, decide to check this site and KABLAM, you’ll wish you’d eaten your Wheaties first. Since getting home yesterday we’ve picked things up around the house, unpacked, and tried to settle in again. For me it’s a very different feeling coming home. After the Christmas trip I was overjoyed to get back to our bed, our kitchen, etc. Now I’m glad to be home, but I’m not quite as overjoyed. As a result, that overjoy seemed to put off the onset of our day-to-day anxieties, and this time as we rolled down into Cache valley, they came on immediately. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be home. But we were so totally relaxed in California that our constant worrying about money, bills, student papers, et al. really feels overwhelming. C’est la vie. The semester’s nearing its end anyway. Tonight Anna cut out two shirts for me. While in CA we picked up new fabric and so Anna’s taking a break from her needlepoint long enough to make a few new shirts. Tomorrow it’s grading for me, and sewing for Anna. It is good to be home, but it’s also good to know we’ve got a lot of people who really take care of us in California. Thanks again. |
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As I write this it is hailing sideways, accompanied by lightening, thunder and pouring rain. Needless to say, it is miserable weather. Fortunately, except for intermittent runs to the laundry room, we are holed up in our cozy apartment. I am baking bread, a loaf of white sandwich and a loaf of cinnamon swirl. I have made it my New Year’s resolution to conquer yeast baking at high altitude and so far I think I am doing well. The bread doubled nicely and is now resting before being popped in the oven. The house smells soooo good! Yesterday we had a unseasonably warm day, in the 50’s and sunny! It was a rare event indeed. We went to Wal-Mart to grocery shop and then home again where we updated the website and did homework. It was a good continuation of Friday, Valentine’s day. Jordy brought me a rose and a balloon and I cooked him dinner. It was pretty low-key, we ate on the floor in the family room and listened to jazz. I haven’t been feeling well lately, so it was a nice break from hectic school life. One more day of vacation-Thank God! We plan on relaxing some-more today. Not much else to report, just school, work, and the usual. Hope everyone is well. We miss you all! |
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So we’re midweek and trying to decompress. It’s been a fairly stressful week so far because I didn’t realize a looming deadline until it was just about too late. Anna has been trying to track students down who need to make up tests, and the result is that we’ve been at campus far more than we’re happy with. Oh well, that’s life. We’re losing our snow. That post below? It actually dropped to -6 that night. Now, however, we’re supposed to have a high of 40 tomorrow with “rain” – they’re not even making a pretense of snow. One of the local weatherpeople said that this has been the most mild winter he can remember, a sentiment that is echoed by long-time residents we’ve spoken to. Oh well, can’t change the weather! Anna has found some spare time to just about finish her quilt! In fact she’s binding the thing as I type. She may even finish tonight. Never an idle slug, she has already picked up a new craft – needlepoint. Yesterday when we were picking up thread to finish the quilt at Joanne’s Anna found an inexpensive all-inclusive beginning needlepoint kit. She’s already started and declares that it’s her “at work” hobby. I’m certainly no expert, but I’m pretty excited about her start. It impresses me :). Valentine’s day lurks just two days off. While this isn’t a huge deal for most people, if you know Anna then you know it’s a big deal around here. The problem is that we’re really too broke to do anything! I told Anna I would make her a Valentine’s dinner, so now I have to add something to my cooking repertoire other than Mac and Cheese, pancakes, tortillas, and pot roast. This is going to be interesting! We’re nearly done with the latest roll of film and as soon as it’s done we’ll drop it off at Wal-Mart. No promises on when those might go up, but I think we’re hoping to get the stuff developed this weekend. But, then again, we’ve got a lot to do this weekend! Fortunately it’s a three day weekend! Whee! |
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We are hitherto experiencing a whole new level of cold, for tonight it reached 0 degrees outside. I cannot explain how cold this is. You go outside, and even breathing through a fleece scarf, you begin to cough. Your eyelashes feel like little daggers hitting your cheeks. Your feet feel numb 10 minutes after coming into the house and putting fleece socks on. And all we did was take out the trash and pose for a brief picture to commemorate the occasion. I think my face froze during the picture taking moment. So far this month things have been pretty good. We shipped my monitor off because it died, but really, I think it was homesick for Walnut, CA, from whence it came and has now returned to. Since it was under warranty, there was no cost except for the shipping. Yea! We found out on Wednesday that due to the English department wrangling, we will now be paid in two paychecks over the four month summer term instead of one in late August, welcome news indeed. Also, although the department is in a hiring freeze and has opted to put 1/5 of its classes online, our face to face jobs (which pay a lot more than online) are secure next year. Our department is in such dire financial straights right now that the department head sent out an amusing little email in which he begged all of the employees to donate money so we could cover next year’s payroll. Think about that next time you go to vote and are tempted to turn down school bond measures. You now know two people who teach kids just like yours while qualifying for food stamps, who are now being asked to give money in order to guarantee the same crappy paycheck next year. Not a soapbox, just something to think about… Back to the good stuff: Jordy successfully cooked his first ever pot roast in Utah! It was good, with rosemary and a whole head of garlic serving to enhance the flavors. We had Nina and Mary over for a pot roast feast. I made mashed potatoes and we were off! Everyone enjoyed slushy Cokes from the snowbank on our patio, and apple pie for desert. Jordy was the toast of the evening. This afternoon he was also able to find one small, ripe avocado for tomorrow’s chicken quesadillas, a minor triumph this time of year. I am ahead of homework for the week, so I am hoping to finish my quilt this weekend. God knows we need it because our house is cold. We have to run the heater at 72 to maintain a “livable” temp where only sweater and heavy socks are required in the house. The quilt will help for tv watching, especially since I was able to find a nice thick batting on sale at Joanne’s. Well, that’s all for now. Hope everyone is warm and well! Take care of each other… |
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It snowed last night, and it’s still snowing like hell this morning. You might not think that’s terribly news worthy, but seeing as yesterday afternoon it was 58 degrees (yes, 5-8 degrees), it’s quite newsworthy. We had one snow storm since we got back, and then the temperature warmed up. It has been in the mid to high 40s for the last couple weeks. There was a giant low pressure system sitting Jabba the Hut-like over northern Nevada and pushing any storm that was headed our way far to the north or south. Meanwhile we got 40s. There’s nothing wrong with 40s, except we came here expecting Weather and we end up with weather. People are blaming us for bringing the warm weather – not smart people, mind you, but people nonetheless. Someone was telling me that last week was the one year anniversary of last year’s coldest day on record here -- -30 degrees. This year, ironically enough, that same day had a record high. Go figure. But, according to the weather folks, yesterday Jabba headed south and let the jet stream slip. First we had a ton of rain starting early evening, and then as the mercury fell like a rock the snow started. It’s absolutely wonderful – except I have to do laundry today. But I’ll take the minor inconvenience. It has been sometime since our last post, and I’d like to say we’ve been ridiculously busy or that we’re tremendously lazy – both are true, mind you – but the real reason why we haven’t been posting is that Anna’s monitor died two weeks back. It’s under warranty, so we called and got an RMA number to ship it back to the monitor-folks. Trouble was, we didn’t have money until Friday to pay for the shipping. So Lana and Gary were generous enough to send us the old box for the monitor (we sent it home with them after we moved in because we were sure we wouldn’t have room for it – and we don’t), so that’ll go out likely Tuesday. However, the result of being down to one shared computer is that we end up doing, check this, work on this computer. All the time, too! If I’m not checking my student’s journals, then Anna’s updating her grade book spreadsheet. Pure madness. But she’ll be back in business in the not so distant future. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel which we can see, even with all this snow! I’m off to make breakfast (banana and walnut pancakes) and then it’s laundry (and snow) time. |
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More and more we are settling into the fact that living in Utah is like living in a foreign country. I have found the “Utards” as our friend Jenilyn calls Utahans, have been negatively affecting my fragile, California-saturated psyche. So be it–but I have resisted buying Wonder Bread so far. |
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It is hard to believe we’re already in the second week of the semester. Both our own classes as well as the classes we’re taking are starting to shape up. It’s interesting the difference in attitude that Anna and I, as well as almost all of the grad instructors, are going in with. Gone is the naïve optimism and idealism that I think we all felt going into last semester. We’re certainly not what you’d call “jaded,” but we’re also extremely cognizant that none of us are Robin Williams, and our classes ain’t no “Dead Poet’s Society,” dig? |
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Well, we are back in Logan after a wonderful vacation in California. Thanks to everyone who made our trip so special! We really appreciate it! Coming home was interesting. We stood outside Oakland airport waiting for the skycap for almost an hour, which allowed me plenty of time to befriend this cool old lady in line in front of us who was returning to Albuquerque. Turns out she was a teacher in Salinas for 30 years. On the plane, it was once again the BYU express, but what can you do. We were fortunate to get the exit row, so no one had to sit next to us and endure our hacking and sniffling. Our friend Mary picked us up from the airport and we went home to Logan. The drive through the canyon was beautiful, it was snowy and there was alpine glow on the mountains, and the horses and cows were in the fields, and you could see their breath. As much as I love California, I do have to admit that Utah in the winter has a kind of really stark beauty that is peaceful, and boy did I forget how quiet it is out here. We went to Angie’s for dinner. Overcooked carrots, a salad with iceberg lettuce and cheese on it, endless cups of hot coco…we knew we were home. Then on to the ubiquitous Wal-Mart to restock our fridge. I have to say it was wonderful to sleep in our own bed after two weeks! Everything looked great, none of the fish died, our plants were fine. It was nice to come home…. We started teaching yesterday and it was such a change from last semester. I felt the jaded mandarin, but my new class seems really nice, if tired. 3:30pm is a tough time to try to keep their attention for an hour. I got a good vibe from the class, and I think this semester will be easier than last, both academically and teaching-wise, but we’ll see. One good thing is that we both have Tuesdays and Thursdays off, which means we are on campus way less that last semester. We had our first grad class last night, Western Women’s Memoir, which looks really cool, and so we are going to head off to the bookstore to pick up the books for that in a little bit. All in all it is shaping up to look like a good, not so crazy semester. More news in a bit, but for now we are just settling back into out everyday life and enjoying it very much. We miss you and love you all. :) |
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To paraphrase the John Lennon song popular this time of year, “So this is Vacation…” Okay, that’s not what he sang, but it’s what I’m feeling. Papers are done, grades are in, and Anna and I are attempting to decompress before boarding the giant silver bird and soaring 850 miles west for the holidays. |
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I know we often write about Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart during the holidays is an almost religious experience. I say almost but for the amount of swearing involved in any given visit. Babies scream, people drive their carts like their cars, which in Utah means with a kind of blind faith in the divine right to make hard left turns without a blinker. Tonight was no exception. It is a Saturday night, and so we did battle with every Mexican family in Cache Valley. They, like us, try to beat the Mormon crush on Sundays. They, unlike us, like to meander slowly and methodically down every isle, often with two carts, often with 6-8 people. Argh! Things were so bad that Jordy almost ran over Santa with the cart trying to whip around to the fabric section. With the last few packets of fusible interfacing at stake, we don’t play games, even with the old guy in the Santa suit. Wal-Mart aside, it has been a mellow weekend so far. Our usual group of non-Mormon friends all took flights home today, and so tomorrow we have dinner with the Davises, our cool Mormon friends, and then they leave and we are alone for a week. Ahhhhh….Jordy is finishing up his grades tonight and I am bound and determined to clean off the sewing table to put the shirt production into high gear in the next week. I am going to bake cookies tomorrow, but today I slept until 4:30pm (this always happens at the end of the semester. Jordy slept until 2:30 and our friend Mary until late in the afternoon as well). I then achieved the highest state of relaxation by watching Home and Garden’s Crafting Marathon. Hello! Annatee heaven! Sewing projects, Kwanzaa dolls, Christmas villages, it was all about crafting, me and my diet vanilla coke. If this is the light at the end of the tunnel, it must come from a thousand sewing machines all stay-stitching in glorious harmony! In a fit of holiday crafting solidarity, I made a sour cream coffee cake. And so my friends, this tired graduate student has survived her first semester. Teaching two classes, taking three, working at WAL, it was all such a fast blur. And now I look forward to enjoying my home for the next week and then seeing all of you. Can’t wait! |
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As the semester winds down and the immediate needs of students and deadlines begins to subside, we’re slowly starting to hear the howl of pennilessness. It’s funny, in a way, that we just got paid a little over a week ago and already, because of bills, our checking account has dwindled down into double digits. How? Rent, largely, but also a conglomerate of other bills saps our meager income monthly: saving for tuition, natural gas, gasoline, food. We would have had enough to get by this month, but the Corolla had to be registered and I don’t need to explain the toll registration on a new car exacts. It’s a trying experience, to say the least. We have a bit of a net, but even that has dwindled into treacherous territory these days out of necessity – when it’s a question between “Do we dip into what’s left of our saving” or “Do we eat next week,” the answer becomes plaintively, and desperately, clear. And we’re not alone. Our friends are in the same leaky boat – some of them (those with children, for instance) are doing far worse. Many of them cling to their credit cards to keep them afloat, but that’s something we’ve done in the past and have realized the hard way the deceptive pain credit cards will eventually bring. Indeed, we’ve contemplated things that we never would have fathomed six months ago. It’s times like this that make one realize how plastic and tenuous certain principals can be. I abhor the fact that we grocery shop at Wal-Mart, but we have the choice of shopping for two weeks at Wal-Mart for the same amount that we would spend at Albertsons, Lee’s, Smiths, or Macey’s for just one week of groceries. Pride, too, has compelled me to put a pleasant face on our situation in spite of how things really are. But pride is a bauble that has gone to the pawn shop so that we can afford deal with reality. We don’t live extravagantly by any stretch of the imagination. I am absolutely blessed to be married to a woman who can turn the most meager of ingredients into the most delicious feast. Our friends come over to eat dinner, oftentimes bringing the raw ingredients which we cannot afford, merely for the pleasure of dining on that which Anna lovingly turns into fantastic cuisine. In the rush of deadlines and such, and in contrast to the dire tone above, I want to take a moment to be thankful for the things that we have: • I am thankful for my incredible, wonderful, brilliant, beautiful wife, Anna, for whom my love grows everyday. She is my inspiration, my strength, my salvation. I cannot possible put into words how much I am thankful for her. • I am thankful for our health. The importance of this has grown exponentially as we have been forced to join the 48 million Americans without health insurance. • I am thankful for our material possessions, many of which are directly related to how well we have weathered this financial storm thus far. I am equally thankful and would like to acknowledge everyone who contributed to our domicile through shower and wedding gifts – you cannot understand how much we appreciate and use everything we received. • I am thankful for our families, though they are eight hundred fifty miles away. We miss you all very much. • I am thankful for both Anna and my education thus far – both formally and informally. That we are here and thriving at this University can be attributed as much to what we learned inside classrooms as well as what we learned through other venues. Having documented just a few of the things we are thankful for serves as an affirmation that we are indeed still afloat. That said, in order to insure that we do not take any of the drastic steps which we have, sadly, considered I will begin looking for work on campus next week. Don’t misunderstand, please, I’m not leaving school but rather I’m going to try to add another source of income. I’m honestly wary of doing this, because as we saw this semester, the time required preparing, teaching, and supporting two English 1010 classes is easily five times the 20 hours a week the University says it takes. In addition, next semester our academic workload as students effectively doubles as well. I’m worried that the increased time spent at a separate job – on campus or not – may exert the negative kinds of effects on my studies that working full time did on my grades at SJSU. Nevertheless, without that second source of income trying to plan for our financial future is bleak to say the least, particularly when you add in items like PhD application fees, and unexpected expenses. It is particularly because of those PhD expenses that I am looking for work; as hyper-competitive as PhD programs have recently become Anna absolutely must focus all of her time and energy on pursuits that will make her a more attractive PhD candidate – her time spent at a separate job would have a very real and direct negative impact on her opportunities to get into a stellar PhD program. I realize that this may strike some as particularly desperate, and in ways it is and in ways it is not. In a very significant sense this is simply an unflinching documentation of our circumstances. Don’t assume, either, that we’re not happy – we take more pleasure in the tinniest things than many take from far grander things. Anna and I dance together in our apartment to CDs burned from downloaded music, we revel in the presence of each other, and we have realized how essential (and, unfortunately, lacking) our University and public libraries can be. We laugh, we love, we cry, we stress. And that’s what this is about – a more nuanced picture of our life in Utah. This is hard. Really hard. But we’re trying. Thanks. :) |
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I am in the process of converting my turkey carcass and leftovers into Emeril’s turkey and vegetable soup with homemade stock. Love the soup recipe…not so fond of Emeril, but homemade stock makes the house smell sooooooo good! Jordy's note: I just tried the soup and it is indeed fabulous! :) Ok, ok, so I know you are wondering well, how did it go and why don’t they have pictures up??? First things first, it (Thanksgiving) went fine, great, actually, and secondly, we do have pictures, except the stupid cd burning thing at Wal-Mart is broken and the manager does not know when it is going to be fixed, so as soon as they do have it fixed, we will have tons of pictures up from Thanksgiving. |
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Happy Early Thanksgiving! We have no water!! Anna’s Thanksgiving Poem If I were to spill my bounty of love for you There are mountains and sage and miles and miles Mine eyes have seen the glory May the peace of this place and this time |
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At the moment we are currently in the eye of a hurricane. Of course I’m speaking figuratively – Cache Valley is about as far from hurricane country as you can get and still be in the contiguous United States. In fact the weather here has been pathetically dull and boring – highs in the 40s, lows in the 20s; rinse, repeat for several weeks. Though we are adapting to the weather quite well, I’d say, judging by the following conversation as Anna and I left the house for school: |
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Well, another week has gone by and we are tired. Cache Valley is currently under a severe snow advisory for all of today, and it is snowing and cold. Jordy is off doing the laundry and I am reading for a 3000 word book review that I have due next Monday. We bought our supplies for Thanksgiving, and I am excited to be in charge of my first holiday dinner, We have a little 11 pound Butterball turkey, and my mom’s cranberry and gravy recipes. I am going to make mashed potatoes and stuffing (Stove Top of course) and a pumpkin pie. It should be grand. Our fellow citron Nina will be joining us, so it should be cozy. Everyone we have talked to says the snow really starts in earnest around Thanksgiving, so having a snowy holiday is going to be cool. I am making my mom’s lasagna tonight, so that should feed us for a good portion of the week. Last night at about 11:30 pm we realized that we had no red wine for tomato sauce, and so we tore off to Albertson’s in the middle of the night. Why? Because in stupid Utah, you can’t buy any kind of alcohol from midnight on Saturday until midnight on Sunday. Needless to say we got there in the nick of time, only to have to wait behind the entire New Mexico State football team who were laying in supplies for the bus ride back to New Mexico (we won-Go Aggies-it was like our third win of the entire, pathetic, season.). Other than that, no real news to report. School is hard, we have no money and we are glad that we get three days off at Thanksgiving! Woo-whoo. We are taking pictures and should have some up soon, most likely after Thanksgiving. Thanks to all of you who have been emailing and keeping us up to date-we really appreciate it. More news soon… |
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Happy November Everyone! Things here are as back to normal as they can be since we got paid…we went on an epic Wal-Mart shopping spree for thermal underwear, more wool socks, more gloves and hats and sweaters. I have found that there is a three-tiered system of cold here. There is light cold, requiring a hoodie sweatshirt and thin gloves ( about as much as we needed in Cali), then there is medium cold, such as that depicted in our latest round of slug pics, requiring fleece jackets, thin gloves and mittens, a scarf, a hat and snow boots. Then there is deep cold-which we have yet to experience, thank God! Getting dressed for medium cold is chore enough! |
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It’s been a fairly brief time since I’ve posted, just four days, but so much has happened in those four days. Let’s start with Halloween, the day after my birthday. Anna had mentioned that she was going to have everyone dress up in my shirts, but Halloween morning she didn’t mention anything so I assumed she forgot. At the office, Josh convinced me that we should pull a Halloween prank and sneak down to the classroom where our 6820 class meets and rearrange the desks – really this was just a ruse to get me out of the office, while Anna, who had packed all the shirts stealthily in her and Nina’s backpacks while I was out warming up the car, handed out the shirts to wear. So, down in room 114 Josh and I wait when the door opens and in marches a processional of my fellow graduate instructors in my shirts. Anna completely surprised me with this one. We’ve already got a group shot with everyone in my shirts up, so make sure to take a look. |
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As many of you know, my birthday started in a most surprising way: there was a minor blizzard outside. The forecasters called it “Minor Snow Flurries,” but let me tell you, there was nothing minor about it as I waited for the shuttle! I do have to say that Anna and I have just the right cold weather gear (thanks fam!). I determined that all I would need is some thermal underwear (Wal-Mart this weekend) and I’ll be set for our even colder temperatures. Standing at the shuttle stop I had my new Land’s End snow boots, my Land’s End Squall jacket (which I’m convinced is the greatest jacket made on this planet, ever), my Wal-Mart beanie (hey, it was cheap!) and my jacket’s hood tight around my face. There were people on the shuttle wearing far less, but once we hit the ground walking, they were huddled against themselves for warmth while I strolled in style! |
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Anna wanted me to preface her diary entry, but I don't see a whole lot to preface with. I was going to say something about how we realize that we have chosen this path.... but she already put that in there. Just about everything I was going to write, in fact, she put in. That's why she's going to get a PhD. We have chosen this path, but even the most steadfast person needs to vent. As my dad used to say, "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember you're there to drain the swamp," and that about sums it up. Right now, we're up to our asses in alligators. Ok-since this is my diary, I am going to vent, God damn it! |
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It’s a brisk 42 degrees out right now, and that’s falling. It was actually a very warm 65 today, but next weeks’ forecast drops a bit (and some rain, too). But tonight, as I took the trash out, I could feel the temperature, and smell the leaves on the ground. My family will no doubt recall evenings in Tahoe around Thanksgiving; that’s about what it feels like now. Coming back, I opened the door that Spooky Ghost was guarded and was greeted by a wonderful warm wave. The aroma of roasted chicken and garlic and parsley rushed over me as I closed the door behind me. I stood in the doorway and just smiled because these are the moments I’m most reminded that I am home – not necessarily in Logan, but, as I’m wont to say, Home is where the Slug is, and my Slug is right here. PS. |
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This is Anna's teaching journal for our 6820 class for this very difficult week. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! |
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Yesterday, driving to the farmer’s market I really got a chance to see the amazing fall colors. We haven’t yet had a chance to make it up the canyon, as this weekend was more than full. As I mentioned, I hit the farmer’s market to look for good apples, and I came away with some big beautiful granny smiths that Anna turned into her first Utah apple pie. We had some friends over (Mary, Melissa and her husband, John) and Anna really out did herself. |
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Reality check hardcore. A full 1/3 of my students failed the midterm. I am so furious with them I have no idea how I am going to handle giving them their tests back tomorrow. They simply did not give a damn in 90% of the cases, and while everyone advises you not to take your students' performance personally, I can not help but be distraught. I have worked so hard for these kids! Argh! |
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We’re back from California and trying to reorient ourselves with Utah life. Not too terribly hard, actually, as a) before we left we fell into a general groove, and b) we weren’t gone long. But let me go back to the beginning of last week. |
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Well, we have been slavishly working for the system and so have not had time to write. We are at about 100 hours a week now, between teaching and studying and departmental bullshit. Today we were finally able to do two weeks worth of laundry (eight huge loads) and give our little house a thorough scrubbing. Yea! I have devoted the rest of the morning to lesson planning and helping my kids with their narrative papers via email. Jordy is watching the Raiders game and reading theory. Someone in the office mentioned that you know you’re a grad student when your weekends consist only of Friday nights. I think we qualify by that standard. |
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Wow, what a week. What an unbelievably busy and emotional and fun and busy and crazy and busy week.
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Well, it is pouring rain here, complete with thunder and lightning. It has been raining steadily the last two days. Since we are in a valley between two huge pieces of the Rocky Mountains, the thunderheads become massive coming over the first ridge, then they get trapped by the second, bigger ridge (the one visible behind the school on the web-cam). The leaves are turning and it is getting colder, only 64 today. |
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Three day weekends are a glorious, glorious thing. Anna and I decided that Saturdays would be school work free – one day a week that we can just relax. Since it’s a three day weekend, that relax time gets stretched out to two days. While Anna posted about what a glorious day we had yesterday, today was another day of rest. We slept late and when we did get up I made blueberry-lemon pancakes. Nice way to start the day. On Sundays in this town they practically roll up the sidewalks, so there aren’t a lot of stores open anyway. I enjoyed Food Network’s Good Eats marathon while Anna baked cookies for her students (she’s way too good to them!). Selfless me, I volunteered to test the cookies. While they taste fantastic, they’re much flatter than Anna’s cookies used to be and we’re trying to figure out if that’s attributable to our cantankerous gas oven or the altitude, or both. Nonetheless, they are indeed divine. |
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Well, the end of a long week has come! Yea! We started teaching this week, and I am so excited about my kids. I have 44 of them and they are great. They are eager to learn, polite, and funny as only 18 year olds can be. I have been accepted by them right away, which is strange, but I think it is because I look really young for a teacher and I always wear jeans and t-shirts to class. I am hoping to take pictures of them and get them up on the site soon. |
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Interesting day today. Went on a driving tour of Logan courtesy of our friend Mary ( who mentioned we had one of the best looking grad-school apartments she had ever seen). The three of us piled into her brand-new, Pikachu yellow Bug and tooled around Logan for an hour and a half. We went to Hastings’s, an independent record and book store which reminds me a lot of how Tower Records Mountain View used to be. Huge selections, funky vibe and they have an x-rated section. It is just Playboy videos, but for Utah, that’s a big step. We went by the state-run liquor store, creatively titled “State Run Liquors” where they sell real alcohol every day except Sunday. We also went by the DMV, a whole bunch of cheap but good eats, and the place to buy fresh beef according to Mary (a native Utahan). We also figured out where the farmers market is. |
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Friday night is the friend of the grad student. Class is over, no pressing homework is due and since we get out at three right now on Fridays, life is better in this regard. The week-long teaching workshop has ended and by are we glad. We made a lot of new friends and learned a tremendous amount. I am, however, scared shitless to walk into my classroom come Monday morning. We got to see our rooms yesterday, and I have two. The first one on the third floor of the business building. It is rad! I have this huge console with stereo, dvd, vcr, laserdisc and screens that go up and down. Cool. The other classroom is on the third floor of Animal Science, which is this huge old building. It is really cool. It looks straight out of the South circa 1945. Beautiful molded ceilings, the original windows (bad in winter!) and an old map of the US above the chalkboard. Should be fun…I hope! |
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If you're reading this right now, I've got one question for you -- what are you doing in our apartment?! Yes, we are in Utah. Yes, we are completely unpacked. However, we have no internet capabilities. Part of our contract for teaching was that we get out of state fee waivers so we only have to pay the in-state tuition. Well, those haven't gone through yet and because we don't care to pay three times the proper amount, we're going to sit tight until those damn waivers go through. What do fee waivers have to do with internet, you ask? Well, you see we've got an ethernet jack in the apartment. However, USU only allows you to connect to the campus website until you register an IP address . However, to register an IP address, you have to open a campus email account which would be all fine and good except that in order to be able to open a campus email address and get this whole goddamn ball rolling, you have to have paid your fees. So, we're waiting. In the meantime we're getting ready to face our classes on Monday. There's an internal faculty web page where teachers can see the students' student card photo and, while not all students have their pictures up, it's going to be an interesting pair of classes. More on that later, though. Tonight we had the first party of the year -- it was an English Graduate Instructor potluck down at one of the parks nearby. It was quite fun and we stayed until the last people left and the mosquitos had sucked us all near dry. Anna made "Momthra's Potato Salad," which was devine and, I argue, as good as it's source (though she'll dispute this fact). The whole Graduate Instructor group of people are just great, and we look forward to getting to know then, and getting to know the town through them -- Mary, the assistant director of the english 1010 program (what Anna and I are teaching) has agreed to take us on a driving tour of Logan where she promises to point out such things as the one state run bar, as well as the White Owl, the pub (yes, there is such a thing) where all the English grad students hang out, and other key Logan survival points of interest. We will definately take her up on this. Soon. Well, I've written enough here for now. I'm off to sit in our pimp Cost Plus Royce chairs and chill. |
