Why I am so happy.

There, a little fun from Sara Silverman.

Also, things are good here. I'm caught up with stats. Michael got a new job at the Center on Disabilities Studies where I work. Very good wine was on a very good sale at the grocery store. My practice presentation at the Brislin seminar went well. And tomorrow I get to go home. Two days in Memphis. Get to meet the nephew. Get to see the family. Get to meet Kate. Get to eat Thai. Get to talk to high schoolers and Dorothy Day House people. Get to play with doggies. Then I get to go to Asheville to a groovy conference. Get to present at the groovy conference. Get to eat pizza and drink beer with a bunch of social science people before groovy conference. Get to spend over twenty hours in a small metal tube hurtling through the sky to the east, to the west.

Things are lookin' quite good for this coming week.

Except that I lied about the stats part... I have to do homework tonight, and then I'll be caught up. Damn stats.

But that'll all be done soon enough. Then nothin' but the fun times. Until next week...

Semester punch

My semester is kicking my ass, charbroiling it, and handing it back to me on a platter. I am being served. Every week I go through a roller-coaster on the confidence-incompetence scale in which just before stats class (say, on Sunday and Monday) I feel royally incompetent. I feel dim-witted, thick-headed, and lost in translation. About mid-way through class on Monday, we have a break, and I go out in the hallway and have a "WTF was that all about" conversation with twelve or so other people and realize that I am not falling behind, I am on par with the rest of the class. I feel better. We can't all be in the bottom one percent of the class. I think, so long as I'm level, I'll be okay. This must just be the learning process for this class.

By the time Sunday comes around again, and I've been working it on my own for awhile, I'm back to the belief that I need to drop the class before I fail it and get kicked out of school because they didn't realize how stupid I was when they first accepted me.

Have I ever mentioned how confident I am in my ability to figure things out? I learned at some point that me not having done something before is not indication at all as to whether or not I can do that thing. If I want to figure something out, I generally can. And if I feel like doing it well, I can generally do that too. And I did well in undergrad statistics even though I had feared it and put if off until the last possible moment. I even enjoyed it. I'm not enjoying this. I'm not handling this feeling of mortal incompetence very well at all. Lucky for me, I know I'll be feeling much better tonight.

Even still, I haven't entirely convinced myself that I'll be able to stay in this class until the end. You really can't fail in grad school. I may have to a) take another class first to build up my stats foundation, or b) find another class to fill this requirement. Blech. I hate the idea of dropping. I want to figure it out, damn it.

Besides stats, I have Qualitative Methods, which is an awesome class actually. I am highly enjoying it, it is highly relevant to my field of work, and I have already learned a lot. I have already applied a lot of this knowledge toward my thesis work. The downside of this class is that it is a lot of work. Five or six books, plus articles, PLUS two research projects. Cool research projects though. Our job is to go out into the field and data gather like we were doing real-live research. One observation study. One interview study. Up to 25 page papers for each.

I can't help it. As overwhelmed as I am by the sheer amount of time and energy necessary for this class, I'm so excited by the idea of doing this stuff. I came up with a really cool theme for my observation study. I worked hard putting it together. I even worked hard to get it through IRB so that I could publish and people wouldn't have to worry about me having experimented improperly on human people. But then it collapsed.

I was going to do an observation study on customer and employee rudeness at fast food restaurants. I have this whole theory in my head-- "the Fast Food Model of How and Why the World Works the Way it Does", involving power imbalances, responsibility without control, and the ability for some people (customers) to carry on like assholes while other people "cashiers" cannot fight back because they'll get fired. I was going to observe and record actual interaction and maybe develop my Model into something workable and researchable. But then I went to pick up Michael from work. And...

It's too friggin noisy in fast food restaurants to observe and record quiet or nuanced interaction without basically invading people's personal space. And if I'm standing three feet away from you (the asshole), and I'm scribbling furiously in a notebook while staring at you, I will be influencing the way people behave with my oddity. I'll probably become the focus of interaction, so that people will not behave normally. I toured 12 fast food restaurants and a mall food court looking for a good place to observe. It apparently doesn't exist.

I'm so bummed.

I had so much energy around that study.

Ah well, Michael and I thought up something fun, that's not as interesting, but is kind of interesting, and is low-key, low-stress, and possibly entertaining. I'm going to observe tourists/vacationers in their natural habitat. That is to say, I'm going to observe people who are out of their normal home context to see if they really do seem to suspend their regular rules for operation. There are so many stories of tourists running into people, ignoring traffic laws, etc., because they are in an oblivious state of vacation bliss. They don't behave like regular people. My idea is that it is because they are outside of their day-to-day, so they stop applying day-to-day standards to their daily function. So they don't look for other people on a crowded sidewalk, or wait for the white person to replace the red hand. So I'll go watch this down in Waikiki to see what I can see.

Fun, yeah? But not exciting, and certainly not publish worthy. But that's cool. One less pressure, I guess.

My job is cool, but it's a lot of work. And on the one hand, it doesn't matter that it's a lot of work because it's really cool. I have a lot of interaction with very smart people who really care about what they are doing. I get to do and to learn really neat how-to-do-research things in an applied setting. This is learning on my feet, and I really, really, really love learning on my feet. The "lot of work" part only bothers me on the other hand, when I have homework and especially statistics. It's a lot to put into a day, and it makes me tired. Still, I don't think I would trade it. No, definitely not. I would totally trade statistics. In a heartbeat. I really like my job.

My thesis is coming along. I have to crunch a bit this week in order to maintain my relaxed schedule. That does make sense, trust me. It's actually not that much crunching, too, because I've gotten a lot of it done already. I need to sit down for... I think in four hours I could be done if they were four straight hours. When do I have four straight hours this week? Hmmmmm... I'll find it.

And of course, right now, I have a conference to prepare for. I'm in this inter-cultural seminar that meets on Mondays. Topics vary, presenters vary, it's really cool. I enjoyed it all last year and so far, I'm enjoying it again this year. I've been told it's a good place to practice things for conferences or for thesis defense, etc. It's a bunch of people from a bunch of disciplines who are knowledgeable about cultural topics and interested in learning from each other so as to understand different perspectives. I'm going to "pilot" my conference talk to them on Monday next week, and hopefully get some really good feedback so that I can give the best talk ever next weekend. Wow, that's really soon.

I've nearly finished putting my presentation together. Then I have to practice it a lot to make sure I can do it in the allotted time. I think it's a really good presentation, actually. I'd listen through it.

So, that's all the stuff that's going on with me right now. And that is why this semester is beating me to a bloody pulp. Well, for today. Just wait until after Statistics class. I'll be feeling much more positive and confident about everything then. :)

It is exciting times, these. And you know how I hate being bored.

One more thing...

Waffle House love

Oh yes. The most important news of my life right now is that I'm going to get to eat at Waffle House in a couple of weeks. Real, honest-to-goodness Waffle House! It's going to be so awesome. My life will be complete again. All of my Waffle House dreams will come true. I will feel the Waffle House love.

Also, on a side note, I get to go home. I'll get to meet my nephew and see my parents and siblings in person. I'll get to sleep in my childhood bedroom. I get to go home. I get to see Memphis again. I haven't been home in over a year. I haven't left the islands since we got here in July 2007. I haven't seen my family. I missed my sister's pregnancy. But now I get to see them all again.

Also, on another side note, I get to present at the Southeastern Ecological Community Conference in Asheville. I'll be presenting about challenges that mainstream researchers face when working with marginalized populations. I'm very excited. I've been to Asheville once before. I went to see the Vagina Monologues (featuring my friend Dustin's sister Jill). Christi and I drove like seven hours. I was like eight months pregnant. A bunch of us stayed with Dustin's family and it was a great trip. Asheville is a groovy little city.

Did I mention that I get to eat at Waffle House? Because really, that was a total red herring. I can't believe you fell for it. The important stuff came later.

Anyway, anyone who is either a fan of Isabella Rossellini, or bugs, or porn, or any combination of the aforementioned should go here. Just... trust me.

6 months shampoo free

So, Separatrix (ahem, I'm not sure who you are-- do I know you?) commented just now on a 6-month-old blog I posted about my week-long and possibly longer experiment in dropping shampoo and conditioner out of my daily routine.

*flashback*

PastKati says: Yo, this shampoo/conditioner routine is whack, yo! So much plastic! I know, I'll start washing my hair with a baking soda solution and conditioning it with a vinegar solution and see how that works. I'll try it this week since it's Spring Break, so that if it doesn't work I won't become known as Bad Hygiene Girl.

PastKati says: (insert devilishly clever remark about how Bad Hygiene Girl would be an awesome supervillain).

PastMichael says: Your hair smells like mayonnaise when I stick my face in it and breathe real deep.

PastKati says: Maybe so, but so far, my hair has been completely tangle free.

PastJeremie says: Tangle FREE?! For the love of god, I don't know you anymore, person-formally-known-as-tangledhair.

PastJohn M says: Plastic is GOD!!!

PastAnna says: Doesn't vinegar come in plastic jugs?

*end flashback*

PresentSeparatrix says: Tell me more about this vinegar thing.

PresentKati thinks: Tangle free? Oh yeah! I forgot that this was not always my standard state of being! I must spread the word.

PresentKati then goes on to take another slug out of the wine bottle.

First things first, though. Yes, as it turns out, I truly am drinking wine straight from the bottle. I realized I had never before drank wine straight from the bottle. And I happened to have a bottle of wine with only one glass' worth left. It seemed like a good idea to see what all the fuss is about. You know, all the fuss we're always constantly overwhelmingly inundated by from major media sources who just won't stop going on and on about how great it is to drink straight from the bottle. Turns out, it's pretty awesome. Surely it's a psychosomatic effect, but three slugs over ten minutes have left me feeling Pretty Good.

PresentMichael: Yup, you're a wino now.

On to other topics.

I've been six months without shampooing or conditioning my hair. The absolute truth is that I think I've used shampoo twice during those six months... mmm... we don't have conditioner currently, so it seems less likely that I've used that at all. But for all intents and purposes, I've gotten off the sauce. Here are a few things I've learned regarding the baking soda and vinegar hair treatment:

1) My hair is just fine. Better, actually, than it was before. I noticed early on that I have fewer flyaways than in my shampoo days. It's perfectly clean. It's still soft and curly. I mostly wear it in a pony tail because it's hot here, but I think the switch has caused a general improvement in the state of my hair.

2) I prefer to use white vinegar. I get Heinz brand, but that's really only because at my grocery store, that's the only brand that comes in a glass jar. But then, there's not much of a selection there. I do not scent the vinegar solution any longer with herbs or tea. I did for about a month, but it never seemed to have much affect on the scent, so I stopped bothering. I also tried apple cider vinegar, based on the assumption that it would cause my hair to smell faintly of apples, but actually, it caused my hair to smell more like vinegar. White vinegar rinses out, and so long as no one places their face inside my hair and breathes deeply, there is no mayonnaise smell.

PresentKati: Michael, you've been married to me for slightly longer than six months now [editor's note: Kati and Michael have been married for six and a half years longer than six months] and I've been using vinegar these last six months... does my hair still smell like mayonnaise?

PresentMichael: (sticking face inside PresentKati's hair and breathing deeply) Neh, uh-uh. [editor's note: English translation is "No, your hair does not smell like mayonnaise and also you're the love of my life, perfect in all ways, and even better looking than Angelina Jolie.]

3) Going back and reading the original post, I was surprised to note that PastKati was pleasantly surprised that her hair was tangle-free. I was surprised to note this because it has been six months since I've had tangles. I had completely forgotten about the previous twenty-five years of hair-brushing turmoil [editor's note: PresentKati is 26, but PastKati was 28, so she more rightly should have talked about the previous twenty-seven years of hair-brushing turmoil, but she didn't want anyone to know how old she was back then. Can you believe she's turning 40 in just eight months?! She won't look a day over 30.] The point is... vinegar is apparently a much better conditioner than conditioner.

4) I discovered just this past week that the baking soda still washes my hair clean even if I have gel in it. This was the first time I've felt the need to put styling products in my hair since I made the switch. I used to put gel in in order to tame the flyaways and make the locks hold togetherish. But my hair has been remarkably well-behaved, or remarkably ponytailed. This past week, I started a new job and (perhaps on a related note) noticed how big my hair is when I leave it unponytailed. So I put gel in it to try to get it to stay put. It stayed put. The baking soda washed it out with no gel-residue.

5) Michael is still using the same bottle of shampoo that I had used six months ago. He has much less hair than me. I would have gone through that and probably five other plastic shampoo bottles, plus six conditioner bottles, during this time. Instead I've used I think three boxes of baking soda and three glass bottles of vinegar.

Total plastic consumption reduction: some hypothetical amount.

PastKati and PresentKati: Good job, us.

Mmmm... I think that's all I have to say. For those of you that think WinoKati is a fun edition to this blog, I would just like to say, "Listen to the media hype. Drinking straight from the bottle really IS all it's cracked up to be."

Sports coverage I like to see

Herstory

I don't know what to say.

Gina's birthday is the same as Joel's. We had a picnic on the beach to celebrate. She told me when I arrived that they had tried to make a "don't talk about school" pact, but that that seal had been broken long before I arrived. Immediately, I could think of nothing but school. Which made me realize that I can think of nothing but school.

School is actually a very diverse topic in my head, but out loud, I guess it's all just "school talk". In my head, Stats class is the least interesting to think about. After that, the second least interesting thing is the current state of my new job. On the other hand, the future state of my new job is very interesting. Most interesting, of course, is my thesis. Unfortunately, broad steps forward in that regard including spending days on end glued to my computer as I write up my lit review and proposal. Very exciting things for me... not so interesting for small talk. In my qualitative research class, I got to spend like 20 minutes talking about my thesis as an example of a case study. I was so excited to explain it all and get feedback. Even that story, though, is not a very good story. There's no meat to it.

I meet with my advisor on Thursdays, right along with the other advisees Andrew, Izaac, and Keiko. Yesterday, Keiko was talking about her job and saying how nice it is to have so much trust put into her abilities and efforts. In previous GAships, she was used as 'two hands'. Two Hands, I thought. I like that. It's a particularly meaningful idea to me because currently with my job, I am Two Hands. I make copies and scan books into this text-to-speech software. I'm doing this because the grant I was hired to work under has not yet started, and there is this other grant that just lost two GAs that needs some tying up of loose ends. It'll be no more than two weeks, I'm assured. Two weeks of mind-numbingly dull work.

Except. Except, first of all, I have a lot of things to think about right now-- and that sort of work is conducive to getting some thinking done. So I think about my thesis while I scan books, page by page. New theoretical and formatting breakthroughs abound. But that is still not an interesting story to tell.

Next week, too, I'm going to start working on a third grant that I was also not hired under. This is a short-term project as well. Disability Mentoring Day. I'll help recruit mentors and mentees, and organize things so that something happens. Also, I might be a mentor myself that day, seeing as how I have a job, and seeing as how my job is putting me through college. That's kind of an interesting story.

And then after that? After that, I'll get to work on the big stuff. I will definitely not be Two Hands for the grant I was hired to work under. I'll actually get to help develop and implement classroom intervention strategies. I'll get to help shape policy, and work face-to-face, one-on-one with actual real-life people. That may or may not make a good story, but I'll sure love it.

I have this other thing that's in the works too. It'll make a pretty good story, but it's not yet ready to be told. Well, damn. I hope it makes a pretty good story, at least. Right now it's all conjecture.

The main problem is that I find myself wondering, Is this what gradschool is? A time period in which paperwork and theory fill up my time until I have no stories to tell? Is this why all those old white guys in suits are so boring to listen to? Am I really going to turn into an old white guy in a suit, even if my research is on discrimination and community activism?

I'm going to have to get dreadlocks to stop this from happening, aren't I?

Ah well, that's another story for another day. peace, y'all.