Growing up, I never had allergies. Sure, South Texas has its share of terrible histamine-tempting substances -- mold, dust, weeds -- and bats, as poor Owen will attest -- but none of them ever got to me. (There were the sinus infections every time we got a coldfront, but that's neither here nor there.) Cats, dogs, small critters, Easter lilies, all fine by me. I can't even recall a food allergy I've had ever since two-year-old me reconciled her differences with pineapples.
Four years in Massachusetts passed uneventufully as far as my respiratory system was concerned. The snow melted, everything burst into bloom, and my attention stayed focused largely on the wonder and glory of that phenomenon of seasons (there's four of 'em! who knew?). My first New Jersey spring, too, came and went merrily, if a bit earlier in the year.
The second spring here, however, I noticed that a cute little clover across the ground had pushed up white buds. I also noticed I was coming down with a cold -- only no cold ever came. For a week I was suspended, head muffled, throat itching, muscles aching, caught in some sort of grim pre-illness limbo, wondering what terrible sin(s) I had committed to land me here.
Gosh, said Ashlea, that sounds like you have allergies!
...Come again? said I.
After a couple weeks of misery, I got my reprieve, unexpectedly as the initial onslaught. I dodged all manner of infirmities last year right up until June, when I spent most of the first two weeks' worth of my job training sniffling and croaking and abusing my tissue privileges, fearing all the while I was getting sick right up until the symptoms disappeared on their own.
I mention all this because I am home sick from work today, partly because I took a friend of mine to the airport at 4:45 this morning (then came home and slept until noon), but partly because I feel like I'm getting a cold. Except I've felt like I've been getting a cold since Monday, with a perpetually stuffy head and sore body, which has neither gotten better nor necessarily gotten worse. I'm hoping against all hope that this is just a cold I've been successful in fighting, and not the first onset of allergies. I can't tell! I haven't had allergies for enough of my life to know reliably what they feel like! But I do know that spring's barely started up here -- there aren't even many green sprouts on the ground, to say nothing of buds on the trees -- and if this is the beginning of a trend that's going to continue for the next three-odd months, July can't get here fast enough.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Accoutrements of Modern Living
One of the things I'll miss when we move out of this lovely place that we're house-sitting is easy access to laundry. There are of course laundry facilities in the building we're looking to move into (nothing's definite yet, so I'm trying not to jinx it), an elevator's ride down into the basement, but I've grown fond of Jody's little space-saving washer/dryer -- the latter stacked atop the former. It requires less planning and gets me in less trouble on those oh-so-frequent occasions when I get distracted by something shiny and forget I've been doing laundry until two days later when I can't find the socks I want to wear.
What it does have, however, is a dishwasher, which is intensely nice. Living three years in dorm rooms without dishwashers but with reasonable-sized sinks was a thing that could be managed, but our Morristown apartment had a sink that was about the size of my laptop screen -- in other words, insufficient to the job. I now have a metric for calling a kitchen sink 'too small,' to be defined as when a standard dinner plate, lowered horizontally, will not fit in because it is wider across than the basin.
My point is: Dishwashers are nice! And I have it on good authority that they're more energy- and water-efficient in the long run than washing dishes by hand.
Fun fact: Once upon a time, Ashlea cooked and I did the dishes. Then she got really sick for a while and didn't have the energy to do it, and I owned up to my lifelong hatred of washing dishes (wet food! icky!), so we switched. ...I can't actually cook, of course, but that's why God gave us Trader Joe's.
Sunday night is a good time to do laundry.
What it does have, however, is a dishwasher, which is intensely nice. Living three years in dorm rooms without dishwashers but with reasonable-sized sinks was a thing that could be managed, but our Morristown apartment had a sink that was about the size of my laptop screen -- in other words, insufficient to the job. I now have a metric for calling a kitchen sink 'too small,' to be defined as when a standard dinner plate, lowered horizontally, will not fit in because it is wider across than the basin.
My point is: Dishwashers are nice! And I have it on good authority that they're more energy- and water-efficient in the long run than washing dishes by hand.
Fun fact: Once upon a time, Ashlea cooked and I did the dishes. Then she got really sick for a while and didn't have the energy to do it, and I owned up to my lifelong hatred of washing dishes (wet food! icky!), so we switched. ...I can't actually cook, of course, but that's why God gave us Trader Joe's.
Sunday night is a good time to do laundry.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Keep your fingers crossed...
...because the place we looked at (listing here, map here) looks awesome. We'll be sending off an application first thing tomorrow morning, since the very nice realtor told us she works on a first-come, first-serve basis. Insert cliche here about birds and worm-catching.
The Philadelphia Center is also very, very nice -- much bigger than where I am now -- and they seemed a very friendly sort! Here's hoping they have a place for Ashlea as well; I'd like to get it in writing that they've got a spot for me, but I've had solid assurances from people I trust, and that's more than enough to basis getting an awesome apartment on.
And we could get a puppy! Or, really, an adult dog, since puppies are a pain in the tuckus. But all dogs are puppies at heart.
The Philadelphia Center is also very, very nice -- much bigger than where I am now -- and they seemed a very friendly sort! Here's hoping they have a place for Ashlea as well; I'd like to get it in writing that they've got a spot for me, but I've had solid assurances from people I trust, and that's more than enough to basis getting an awesome apartment on.
And we could get a puppy! Or, really, an adult dog, since puppies are a pain in the tuckus. But all dogs are puppies at heart.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
As good of a place to start as any....
reposted from the contents of a recently sent-out email
Dear friends, family, advisors, caretakers, and the what-not:
Communication has admittedly been sparse (and frequently unreturned) lately from your (step-)daughter/(step-)sister/former student/friend/advisee/that girl you met once ( i.e., me), leaving what I'm certain is a nearly non-existent amount of gossip floating about concerning me. Even so, that's how rumours get started, so let's recap a little.
Applied to six graduate schools. Didn't get into any of them. No, you may not ask why; most of the time, I don't know, and in the one case where I do have an idea, I'm still not telling you about it.
For those of you playing along at home, that means I'm /not/ going back to school in September, but will be waiting another year for the application process to cycle back around and give me another chance. Now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing and what I'm up against, I'm hoping that in this coming year, I will have a better shot at it. Doing 40 hours a week of intensive tutoring of kids with learning disabilities (I've been working for Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes since the summer) is no longer a shock to the system that saps my will to live and leaves me a broken shell of a human being at the end of every weekday -- it's sort of like training for a marathon; with practice, even the impossible begins to seem easy -- and maybe this time I'll even manage to budget my schedule to go visit some of these places. There's a metaphor about horses kicking you off here, but I'm too tired to expand on it.
But what does this mean for the interim year? Well, Ashlea's still working on her Ph.D at Drew, hoping to finish up in May of 2008, but she's in the stage where she's mostly writing on her own and meeting occasionally with professor-type people, so she's pretty free to pick up and go. And I personally would like to get out of New Jersey, as everything here costs too much and is rather surly. I've done my four years here, and I think it's time to go see somewhere else.
Where else? Bryn Mawr. No, Texans, I'm not just making up words, it's a real place -- just west of Philadelphia, in a pretty part of Pennsylvania. There's another Lindamood-Bell office there, and my boss has already been on the phone with them, so there's definitely a job for me, and possibly a receptionist-type position for Ashlea (who could also find gainful employment in one of the many fine libraries in the area). Also, Ashlea spent a great deal of her growing-up years in that part of the country, which means that for her it'll be not unlike going back home (except that her parents have now moved away, so mine don't have to get jealous).
We're going in on tomorrow to look at one (and possibly two?) apartment(s) less than a mile away from the Lindamood-Bell center. Hopefully we will be cute and nonthreatening enough, and also that the place will be awesome enough. Assuming everything works out, we will leave here (the townhouse we are house-sitting for Ashlea's boss) and head to PA in mid- to late June.
We are looking specifically for places that will let us have dogs. Mallory, discharging faithfully her duties as my little sister, said, 'You know, I have to say I'd never imagined you'd be moving to Pennsylvania, buying a puppy, and teaching children.' Thank you for putting things into perspective, Woogs.
Anyway, that's about the state of the me. If you'd like to save face, family, please feel free to tell curious well-wishers that I did not get into the grad school I wanted, and that it's due to a whole confluence of factors, many of which I cannot control, and that I'm just taking another year off and earning money at a job I honestly like in the hopes that next year's effort will be moderately more successful. All of these statements are entirely truthful.
Many thanks and much love to all of you who have helped me in this process, as well as those of you who have convinced me to stop fretting over my internal academic clock that tells me I'm a complete failure if I don't have a Ph.D by the time I'm 30. (hey, some women want babies....) Seriously, I'm not only pretty much completely fine by now, I'm actually looking forward to the move and the change of pace.
And who knows where I'll go next year?
Dear friends, family, advisors, caretakers, and the what-not:
Communication has admittedly been sparse (and frequently unreturned) lately from your (step-)daughter/(step-)sister/former student/friend/advisee/that girl you met once ( i.e., me), leaving what I'm certain is a nearly non-existent amount of gossip floating about concerning me. Even so, that's how rumours get started, so let's recap a little.
Applied to six graduate schools. Didn't get into any of them. No, you may not ask why; most of the time, I don't know, and in the one case where I do have an idea, I'm still not telling you about it.
For those of you playing along at home, that means I'm /not/ going back to school in September, but will be waiting another year for the application process to cycle back around and give me another chance. Now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing and what I'm up against, I'm hoping that in this coming year, I will have a better shot at it. Doing 40 hours a week of intensive tutoring of kids with learning disabilities (I've been working for Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes since the summer) is no longer a shock to the system that saps my will to live and leaves me a broken shell of a human being at the end of every weekday -- it's sort of like training for a marathon; with practice, even the impossible begins to seem easy -- and maybe this time I'll even manage to budget my schedule to go visit some of these places. There's a metaphor about horses kicking you off here, but I'm too tired to expand on it.
But what does this mean for the interim year? Well, Ashlea's still working on her Ph.D at Drew, hoping to finish up in May of 2008, but she's in the stage where she's mostly writing on her own and meeting occasionally with professor-type people, so she's pretty free to pick up and go. And I personally would like to get out of New Jersey, as everything here costs too much and is rather surly. I've done my four years here, and I think it's time to go see somewhere else.
Where else? Bryn Mawr. No, Texans, I'm not just making up words, it's a real place -- just west of Philadelphia, in a pretty part of Pennsylvania. There's another Lindamood-Bell office there, and my boss has already been on the phone with them, so there's definitely a job for me, and possibly a receptionist-type position for Ashlea (who could also find gainful employment in one of the many fine libraries in the area). Also, Ashlea spent a great deal of her growing-up years in that part of the country, which means that for her it'll be not unlike going back home (except that her parents have now moved away, so mine don't have to get jealous).
We're going in on tomorrow to look at one (and possibly two?) apartment(s) less than a mile away from the Lindamood-Bell center. Hopefully we will be cute and nonthreatening enough, and also that the place will be awesome enough. Assuming everything works out, we will leave here (the townhouse we are house-sitting for Ashlea's boss) and head to PA in mid- to late June.
We are looking specifically for places that will let us have dogs. Mallory, discharging faithfully her duties as my little sister, said, 'You know, I have to say I'd never imagined you'd be moving to Pennsylvania, buying a puppy, and teaching children.' Thank you for putting things into perspective, Woogs.
Anyway, that's about the state of the me. If you'd like to save face, family, please feel free to tell curious well-wishers that I did not get into the grad school I wanted, and that it's due to a whole confluence of factors, many of which I cannot control, and that I'm just taking another year off and earning money at a job I honestly like in the hopes that next year's effort will be moderately more successful. All of these statements are entirely truthful.
Many thanks and much love to all of you who have helped me in this process, as well as those of you who have convinced me to stop fretting over my internal academic clock that tells me I'm a complete failure if I don't have a Ph.D by the time I'm 30. (hey, some women want babies....) Seriously, I'm not only pretty much completely fine by now, I'm actually looking forward to the move and the change of pace.
And who knows where I'll go next year?
FIRST POST!
I suppose this deserves something more auspicious, but this'll do for a placeholder.
Hello!
Hello!
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