odds and ends

1. i open my mail once a week. other than during very special seasons like christmas and my birthday, most of the mail is junk. when i am done opening, i end up with a large stack of paper to be recycled, a slightly smaller stack to be shredded, and occasionally, a couple of pieces of paper i need to do something with before i recycle or shred those too. it's such a waste of paper! and my time. i posted my problem on facebook and friends suggested i, a) live off the radar, address-free, and b) mail back all of the junk in the return envelopes that come with the junk mail. both valid ideas, obviously, but there has to be a better way.

2. i think there's a mouse in my office. i've been here for about an hour and i keep hearing a little squeak. it's freaking me out a little. i thought maybe it was my chair so i held still for several seconds but the squeak sounded again. then i thought maybe it was my keyboard but no. i don't really want to look around too much so i'll just keep working and hope it goes away. and that i don't hear it scurry around.

3. i have a headache and need to take ibuprofen but i have to eat something first or i'll get an upset tummy. i ate some sugar-free jello, i'm hoping that counts. i'm a risk taker, what can i say?

4. this coming week is the last of this semester. i have a project due tuesday by noon and a paper and presentation due wednesday morning. the project is about half-way done; the paper is not started; and the presentation is about three-quarters done. technically, the presentation is about the paper so i should have written the paper first, but it's a short presentation and it helped me outline the sections of the paper. oh! so let me re-phrase, the paper is outlined. very much looking forward to being done with this semester. not because it was difficult or a lot of work, mainly because i'm bored with it.

5. i officially started as a real employee of the population health institute on friday. no longer am i a graduate student (i mean, i am, but not in a work capacity) with a project assistantship. my official title is assistant researcher which doesn't really mean anything on the hierarchical ladder because pay is commensurate with experience. my responsibilities are remaining basically the same except that i'll be working on two grants instead of one. the only bummer with giving up my student assistantship is that my tuition was paid for by the institute and now i'll have to pay for it out of pocket. but i'll be earning a real salary again so it's worth it.

6. i just heard the squeak again.

clothing management issues*

so the great thing about losing weight is the knowledge that you're on your way to meeting your goal, not being fat anymore, being able to look in the mirror without cringing, etc. the not so great thing is, once you lose a certain amount of weight, your clothes start drooping and falling and looking ridiculous. belts and tape and safety pins will only do you so much good. to compound the problem, i wear loose clothing as a general rule because, really, who wants to see a fat person wearing tight clothes? gross. so now i've got loose clothing drooping and falling and looking ridiculous...more. and (we're switching back to the proverbial 'you'), you're not done losing weight so you're not going to buy new clothes right now because in a few weeks, those won't fit you either. but that's not really a problem because you've kept two large tubs of clothes from when you were a much smaller size (and every size in between) so you have clothes to wear, it's just a matter of figuring out what size you are now. ah, your bedroom. so organized and clean a few weeks ago. now a cacophony of pants, shirts, casuals, work wear - strewn haphazardly about in your attempt to find something that fits your shrinking body! oh, the chaos of it all!

and then, when it all seems to be too much, you remember. you are on your way to your goal. you are making evident progress - messy, but evident, progress. and you can look around your disaster of a bedroom and give it a serene smile because soon enough, it will be time to get rid of all of those drooping, falling, too-big clothes. you'll be taking them to st. vinnie's and telling them (the clothes, not st. vinnie's) to kiss your thin behind!


*title contribution by flavia gibson

sleep, thou doest elude me!

i've already written about how productive i've become as a result of my new 5am wake-up habit. what i haven't written about are the negative things about waking up at 5am. let's review, shall we?

1. f.i.v.e. a.m. do i really need to say anything else? oh, but i will. at least the birds are singing at that time so it's a little pleasant. dark, because it's still the middle of the night, but chirpy.

2. no one i want to talk to is awake at that hour. or for several hours after. not that i'm chatty first thing in the morning but if i'm awake and getting things done that means i'm going to have to talk to someone about something at some point and if that person is sleeping because they live in a different time zone, or the same one, for goodness sake, it's very inconvenient.

3. stores are not open at that hour. or for several hours after. oh wait, there's walmart, open 24 hours a day, my least favorite store. i did go there this morning because it was the only store open and i needed hangers but they didn't have the ones i wanted. then i went to hobby lobby but, you guessed it, they weren't open yet. i'd been up for hours, it didn't even occur to me that the store might not be open.

4. i want to eat lunch by 10 am.

that reminds me, what time is it? i'm starving!

the recipe for productivity

1. get really fat
2. go on a diet, say, the dean weight management, very low calorie diet.
3. about a month in to the diet, begin waking up at 5-5:30 am every morning, including on the weekends (a side effect of the diet). forget about naps, you will no longer be able to take them. this extended period of wakefulness will lead to many hours of productivity.

for example, yesterday, saturday, i got up, cleaned out half of my closet, drove over to my sister's house, helped get the kids out of the house, went to target to help my sister return a rug, picked up some things i needed, then went to walmart (gross), then to woodmans (black cherry diet rite, yay!), and then on to my office (was there by 9:30am) and worked for seven hours. came home, caught up on conan, picked up the apartment a bit, played on my computer a bit (a long bit), and finally went to bed. this morning, and please note, it's just now...now, 8:00am, i've finished cleaning my closet, made a list of things i need to get at another walmart (gross), looked up another walmart (gross)'s location and driving directions, caught up on facebook, organized my sock drawer, edited a previous blog post, and written a new blog post. this is ridiculous. i suppose i should point out that other than the seven hours of work yesterday, i haven't done anyting that really needs to get done, like deep cleaning my apartment or writing my dissertation. maybe in another month or two i won't be sleeping at all and i can clean while i write my dissertation.

until then, i'll just take advantage of shopping at walmart (gross) when it's not crowded and getting lots of other little things done.

my socks

the happy dance

what a day! i finally heard back from the graduate school - the administrative body on campus that is in charge of all graduate programs - that my proposal for a special degree program, a phd in public health evaluation, has been approved. i immediately ran down the hall of my office yelling (i'm not kidding, i yelled), 'i'm approved! i'm approved!' as if i wasn't happy enough about that, i've been on a diet for a few weeks so as i ran, my pants started falling down so then i had to be happy about the fact that my dieting is finally paying off!

emails, texts, calls, and facebook posts ensued, followed by returned emails, texts, calls, and facebook posts, making me feel very validated and loved. one man, whom i respect quite a bit, called me a 'pioneer'. for those of you who haven't looked up the definition of pioneer recently, a pioneer is 'one who is first or among the earliest in any field of inquiry, enterprise, or progress'. go penny, go penny, it's almost your birthday, shake your nay-nay.

in addition, for those of you who are too far away to see my happy dance in person, i've included this video clip for your viewing pleasure. enjoy.

laundry (literally and metaphorically)

if you have children, it is perfectly acceptable, in my opinion, and expected, one might think, to do laundry quite frequently. many moms i know do laundry every day just to stay on top of the soiled shirts, pants, socks, undies, bath towels, kitchen towels, sheets, and whatever else manages to get dirty thanks to those adorable little ragamuffins. in resource-limited settings, where people wear the same clothes everyday and use river water to wash their belongings, it also makes sense, in my opinion, to do laundry often as the more frequently one wears something, the sooner it gets dirty.

i do not, however, understand, why a couple of young, middle-class adults, both fully employed with no children or pets and living in middleton, wisconsin (and, as it happens, living in the apartment directly above me), need to do laundry every single night of the week. i know they do laundry every night of the week because i hear them open and close the door of their apartment, run down the stairs, slam the door of the basement/laundry room, which is adjacent to my apartment door, start the washing machine, slam the door of the basement/laundry room, run back up the stairs, and open and close the door of their apartment again. this happens at least twice every night, more if they are doing more than one load of laundry that evening. it's even noisier if they come down together 'cause then they chat it up while they load and/or unload their laundry.

just to be clear, i don't begrudge my neighbors clean laundry or conversation. but seriously, every night? do they each own one set of underpants? can they not go commando one day and give the laundry room and me a break? sheesh!

moving on. i got the cutest kitchen timer from avon!


and i have the cutest niece in the world. i also have the cutest nephew but i don't have a recent photo that expresses his cuteness while masks his identity.

dr. brilliant

tuesday night i escaped, uh, i mean, took a break, from class and as i walked through the atrium i saw a sign for an upcoming seminar. the name of the speaker caught my eye: murray brilliant, phd...dr. brilliant?! are you kidding me? how awesome is that name? and then i got to wondering, do you think, because of his name, murray felt obligated to get his doctorate? do you think, growing up, his teachers had higher expectations of him because of his name? do you think he spent his childhood hearing comments like, 'with a name like that, you'll do great things for sure!' that's a lot of pressure. maybe he really is brilliant. dr. brilliant.
brilliant.

lent

i had a meeting last week on the 14th floor of warf. as i got off the elevator i saw my friends nancy and john. john looked slightly out of breath. john is in great physical shape so i guessed the only thing i could think of that would cause him to breathe heavily. 'john,' i said, 'did you walk up the stairs?!' indeed, he had. 'wow!', i said, 'i'm impressed.' 'don't be,' he said, 'catholic guilt, i gave up the elevator for lent.' i was still impressed and made him give me a high five. quick-witted nancy piped up, 'i gave up sweating for lent.' she got a high five too.

and here's a little history of lent: lent in the christian tradition, is the period of the liturgical year from ash wednesday to easter. the traditional purpose of lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during holy week of the death and resurrection of jesus, which recalls the events linked to the passion of christ and culminates in easter, the celebration of the resurrection of jesus christ.

why i won't wear green today

st. patrick: st. patrick was not born in ireland, but in britain. irish brigands kidnapped st. patrick at 16 and brought him to ireland. he was sold as a slave in the county of antrim and served in bondage for six years until he escaped to gaul, in present-day france. he later returned to his parents' home in britain, where he had a vision that he would preach to the irish. after 14 years of study, patrick returned to ireland, where he built churches and spread the christian faith for some 30 years.

saint patrick’s day: saint patrick's day is a religious holiday celebrated internationally on 17 march. it commemorates saint patrick (c. ad 387–461), the most commonly recognized of the patron saints of ireland, and the arrival of christianity in ireland. it is observed by the catholic church, the anglican communion (especially the church of ireland), the eastern orthodox church and the lutheran church. saint patrick's day was made an official roman catholic feast day in the early 17th century, and has gradually become a celebration of irish culture in general.

catholics vs. protestants: the terrible combination of nationalism, politics and religion has had deadly consequences for the people living in northern ireland. catholics and protestants have been vilifying, attacking, torturing and killing each other in a seemingly endless cycle for decades. the origins of ireland's "troubles" lie in the distant past of english imperialism. the creation of an anglican protestant church also created a fundamental religious conflict with an irish population having little interest in converting with their neighbors. it wasn't until the reign of elizabeth i that ireland was finally "conquered," but she was never able to halt regular catholic uprisings. conflict has continued ever since, becoming ‘the norm’ for the irish.

...in 1985, a relatively quiet year, authorities recorded fifty-four assassinations, 148 bombings, 237 shootings, 916 woundings, 522 arrests on terrorism charges, 31 kneecappings (shooting out a person's kneecaps) and 3.3 tons of explosives and weapons seized. all this in a tiny country with a population of 1.5 million people.

the wearing of the green: the colors of the republic of ireland are a tricolor of green, white, and orange. the green represents the catholic population, the orange the protestant, and the white the peace between them. the clashes in ireland between the catholics and protestants are often clashes of the green and the orange. the traditional pinching of a person who wears orange (or doesn’t wear green) on st. patrick's day is a mild form of the violence that has so often occurred in the past.

although the united states has taken on the celebration of st. patrick’s day with parades and river dying, guiness drinking and corned-beef and cabbage eating, very few americans are aware of the true meaning of the wearing of the green. i know i have a tendency to make a big deal out of things no one else does, but i just can’t wear green on st. patrick’s day. to do so would show support of a long-standing political conflict masked by religious debate.

younger and hipper

today a co-worker approached me with a "very important question". as a "younger and hipper" representative of the world (her words, not mine), she needed me to interpret a phrase that had meant one thing when she was in college but now, she was pretty sure, meant something else entirely. she was correct that my hips are younger than hers, but just barely. and she was right that the phrase she was using has a new meaning. we discussed how "young and hip" was definitely relative since my sister considers me an old woman just because i keep foot cream on the table next to my bed. hey, my feet need moisturizing! she also says i'm old because i use words like 'gal' and 'okey-dokey'. i thought of another one the other day but haven't had a chance to use it yet: 'it's a gas!' isn't that cute? i think it's a gas! ha! i used it!

speaking of my sister, she'll be in madison in eleven days. yay!!!!

poetry by penny

friday morning i awoke with a sore throat. drat, i thought, i don't have time to be sick. a lack of time, notwithstanding, i proceeded to get sicker throughout the day and by friday night, i was in a bad way. coughdrops weren't cutting it, airborne wasn't doing a thing, orange juice, puh-leeze. i had to pull out the big guns. the nightime sniffling sneezing coughing aching stuffyhead fever so you can rest should be federally regulated medicine. as the nyquil suffused my body, i could feel myself laying heavier and heavier on the matress. turning my head took so much effort. strange, i thought slowly. and then the poetry began. i giggled as i drifted off to sleep. something about yoda? when the drugs wore off around four-thiry am, i struggled to remember my poem.

nyquil taken
heavy feeling
yoda talking
goodnight

i didn't say it was good poetry. ah, nyquil. not only do you help me sleep, you give me funny stories. my sister said nyquil should have a contest for craziest nyquil stories. i can only imagine.

can't think of a title

just sent my first e-mail to my committee. was going to post this on facebook, but thought it might be a little obnoxious since that's all i seem to post about lately. this, however, is my blog and i can post what i want to, post what i want to, post what i want to. you would post to if you had a committee.

it's a happy-dance day

what a great day. the sun is shining (somewhere); it's a brisk 33 degrees outside, which means snow is melting, birds are singing, i just caught a typo and avoided embarrassing myself, man! could it get better? hmmm, i suppose i could have a meeting this morning and secure my fifth and final committee member for my phd!!!!!! uh-huh. uh-huh. uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-huh. it's been a four-and-a-half month journey. meeting with people, pitching my ideas, getting names of more people to meet with, getting names of people i've already met with, revising my proposal twenty-seven times, on and on. but for now, it's done. sigh of relief. next step: polish up the proposal, send out to my committee (oh, does that feel good to say!) for final feedback, traipse all over campus for each of their signatures, and submit for approval from the grad school - basically, the administration and authority over special degrees like mine. here is my final cast of characters (and by final, i mean, for now; things can always change):

patrick remington, md, mph, has agreed to serve as the chair of my committee. thank you, thank you, thank you.







d. paul moberg, phd, my boss and the guy i met in washington dc at a conference before i came to wisconsin. great guy, super smart, and this is a terrible picture of him.






susan zahner, drph, teaches in the school of nursing, is super nice, and was my first non-pop health committee member to sign on. thank you susan!!








shep zeldin, phd, teaches in the school of human ecology. not much to say yet, don't know him well. but super greatful he agreed to be part of my committee!








gary green, phd, met him this morning, love him already. really nice, seems supportive of my ideas, does work internationally and domestically with community development and building assets in communities.






so yay! moving on. i'm also suddenly filled with a feeling of, oh my goodness, what have i done? these people now have expectations and i have a responsibility to deliver. i no longer belong to a department; i am an island...





i'm an island! i'm an island! hoorah, hooray! i'm an island! and i have a committee! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

new kicks

got me some new kicks. and what better way to break them in than to wear them out on a cold, icy wisconsin winter day? unfortunately, converse don't exactly have the greatest traction, so it may not have been the best shoe choice for today, but when you get new shoes, you have to wear them right away!i've been wanting brown all stars for a lloonngg time. i finally ordered them last week and they arrived yesterday. i haven't bought shoes in a couple of years so it's a pretty exciting day, wearing new shoes. there's a definite bounce in my step. people are saying, penny, something's different... and i point to my new kicks. ahhh, people say, nodding and smiling, must be the shoes.

i say hello and you say hello (and then i say hello again)

oh, the social conundrums we face. take telephone greetings for instance:

'hello?'
'hello. may i please speak to penny?'
'this is...i am...that is, her...i am she.'
'great, penny, this is so-and-so from somewhere.'

and while i am still trying to figure out the grammatical puzzle of my first response, i am hit with yet another issue. how do i respond to the caller's self introduction? possible responses:
'oh…' - natural but insufficient
'ok…' - see above and a little rude
'hello…' - redundant, that’s how i started the conversation
'what do you want?' - sincere, but rude, i've been told
‘mmm-hmmm?’ - non-committal, one of my favorites, but doesn't exactly ooze intelligence
'oh, hello, how are you?' - the combo approach, completely insincere 99.9% of the time

social etiquette dictates the redundancy option but i just feel like there has to be a better way.