I feel so bad...but what can I do?

...hi.

This is getting to be a very bad habit. Unfortunately, the demands of graduate school and motherhood have kept me away (that, and since my photos of Devi are on my PC and not my laptop, I refuse to post entries unless I can post something of her). Here's a brief 411 of what has been going on, so that I can close this entry out and get to bed.

- My husband lost his health insurance with his job because his average hours last year were too low. He needed to average 32 hours and he only averaged 31.5. This means the only person with any kind of health coverage left is...me. I had to carry insurance in school and I'm relying on it for me, and we hope to get her on the government aid soon.

- School is kicking my ass. I'm freaking out that my work isn't good enough, and I'm trying to stave off burn-out as I gear up for the end of the quarter, the beginning of summer classes (eep) and the start of my research for my master's thesis. Oh, and did I mention that I will be teaching undergraduates in the fall? Yep. Anxiety overload.

- I got to perform with The Singing Angels for Mother's Day as part of the alumni chorus, which was fun. However, my father-in-law decided to tell me on that day that he no longer wants to represent my mom and uncle in court (which I can understand) but seemed to think my aunt was some sort of victim in all of this (which pissed me off). After visiting my mom and uncle and bringing them groceries, since my uncle is all skin and bones, my husband is finally in agreement with me on sending them support. I also have some library friends looking into possible tax help to help them keep the house, so fingers crossed on that one.

- We went to Marcon this year and we all had a good time. Devi hung out with the gamers and I got some studying done. I even got to see one of my cohorts who was party crashing the room parties. Unfortunately for Devi, she has been suffering from a cold, and she ended up waking up at 2am in the hotel room where the only comfort that put her back to sleep was...me. It seems that my 40% in our 60/40 workload means that I can still be a comfort to my child.

- Last, and certainly not least, my mother-in-law had a minor heart attack on Tuesday. It was 1 a.m. when Life Alert called my husband and let him know that his mother had been transported to the hospital [It may be corny, but "Thank goodness for Life Alert" indeed]. She seems to be doing well, and a camera used to examine her heart showed that it was clear, but we still don't know what brought it on. We hope she'll be home soon.

I am going to try and put myself on a weekly schedule for posting, because I'm already feeling isolated in the live-world (I refuse to say the "real" world because a) online communities are just as real as interactions in the flesh and b) I've been reading too much Lacan and any mention of the real troubles the water) and I hate not posting and getting visitors.

Since I have to hurry up and finish before Devi wakes up, here are some of the Easter photos, as promised (but long overdue). I only had time to crop three of them, so I may end up posting more as time goes on. I love you all and I have missed you, but I won't promise that I have returned since I never know when my next post will come in. Peace out!

Happy Easter

Hi everyone!

It's been a month since my last confess... wait, post. I don't even do confession. Anyway...

The conference went well, I had a good spring break of doing nothing but entertain my family, and then I ran into problems with my courses for Spring quarter. The problem? Not enough classes that apply to my studies.

Since I don't have a lot of time to post right now (someone needs to go to bed very soon), I will say a couple of things and hope to post again later in the week.

Thank you, Uncle David, for the pin that you sent me! I want to get a picture of Devi wearing it up on the site, but we're in the middle of changing computers (we bought a new one two weeks ago but I'm so paranoid of losing my pictures and academic files that I've been trying to back everything up while under an ass-ton of schoolwork) so that picture will come eventually. Also, we did Easter photos and, once again, Devi was phenomenal. We did the photos with his parents (which was...interesting since they wouldn't do a photo together) and so, for the next time, we're going to bring down my family. I haven't spoken to any of my Cleveland connections (except my brother) in months, but I put money on my uncle's phone and he thanked me via text message yesterday, so I at least know they're doing alright.

I wish I could write more, but Devi is ready for bed. An update on Devi Darling; she can sit unsupported! She's not crawling yet, and she still has no teeth, but I can sit her on the floor with some toys (her favorite being a small shipping box) and not worry about her for a little while as I study nearby.

I'll end this with Devi photos that I did not take; these were taken at one of my husband's friend's homes was while I was in Florida (their daughter is in the 2nd photo). Later, gators!

To the Author of The American Otaku Master's Thesis

Hello.

You do not know me, but I found a copy of your thesis, The American Otaku: An Ethnographic Study of Anime Fans in the U.S. online, and I wanted to let you know that there is no name attached to this work. If there was a coverpage, it is no longer there, and there is no name even in the margins. The website that I retrieved it from gave no indication as to the origins of this document, and I wanted to warn you that your copyrighted work is floating around on the internet, nameless, and it would be easy for anyone to steal your hard work. I am also hoping to locate you because I would like to cite this piece, but without a name it is impossible. If you are the proper owner of this thesis, please let me know and I can track down the web address and give it to you. I just wanted you to be aware of your work being available without proper credit.

~ SailorAlphaCentauri

And for the rest of my readers:

This is finals week for me, and I am trying to put together a project, a class paper, and my conference presentation between now and Friday, so I'm of course very busy. I've hit a snag with the airline ticket situation because my credit card's limit was reduced unexpectedly, making it almost impossible to pay for my flight to Florida, but I figured that we could finagle some things and make it work. Since I only got 3 hours of sleep due to staying up all night working on my Japanese Philosophy exam, I'm very tired. But before bed, a Devi moment:



...oh, okay. Two Devi moments (these will have to get you all through until I get back from my conference):



Photo one was when I was failing to get her to go to sleep (she was more intent on grabbing the camera), and photo two was the end of her first day of eating squash.

Later, gators.

Two Weeks to Go

I'm feeling the pressure now.

I have two weeks before the quarter ends, and I still have a paper due on Wednesday, two projects due at the end of the quarter, and a paper due for my conference in Florida. How is my progress going? Not too well. I want to e-mail the professors I have the projects for to let them know what it is I am going to do. I was supposed to do it this past week, but life got in the way (Devi decided to try this new 3a.m. wake-up call) so I have to do it today. To say I'm feeling a bit stressed just doesn't quite cut it. I don't know how I'm going to get it all done, and do a good job of it to boot, but I have to try.

Anyway, since I have so much to do, I'm sticking to the spartan posting schedule, at least until I get back on March 23rd. I'll be back in town by then and on Spring Break. This is going to be the first time I'm going to be apart from Devi for this length of time (the longest to date: 12 hours), so that's going to hurt. But now that I'm pressed for time, hopefully my focus will return because it's been shot lately. At least I don't have choir rehearsal this week, so that's more time for my projects as well.

Well, until next time...











Oh, did you think I forgot something?


Nope.

Hammer's got nothing on her!



Stop! Devi time!

...Better late than never

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day, everyone. I hope it was spent well.

Oooh, who's that!?!



She's not this small anymore :-( but it's okay :-)

I'm already a superhero...but this second identity works, too

I stumbled upon this little gem at Uncle David's blog, got really, really giddy, and gave it a shot. Other than being a Sailor Scout, here is my new, North American, superhero identity:


You know, I think this could work. Yes, I objectified myself, but if I had a body like that, I would dress like that every day. *Giggle* This was exactly what I needed to get me in the mood for my Comic Arts Conference in Florida. Now if only I would write that paper...

Stop! Devi time!

Crap!

Sorry, everyone. I didn't realize a month had gone by since my last post. But since I have a crapload of homework to do, I'll give you the highlights.

- An esteemed member of my church passed away on January 21st. He was a social worker who was highly involved in a number of church councils and interfaith fellowship organizations. His obituary was almost an entire newspaper column long and there were some things left off of it. I was glad to know that he lived long enough to see Obama inaugurated as our first African American president. The man was the closest thing to a grandfather I had, so I was sad to see him go & I was glad to have the chance to sing with my choir for his service [out of respect for his family, I'm not using his name]. A.H. will be missed.

- A woman in my church gave birth to a baby girl that Saturday before A.H.'s death, and while I can't remember the child's name, I know that it means "moon" and it's an African name, but I'm unsure of the country of origin. I'm really bad at these things, but it's because I've been busy...

-...getting accepted to present at my first academic conference! I got the e-mail telling me the good news a couple of weeks ago, so now I have to write the paper that went with my (apparently) good abstract; except for the fact that I'm freaking out because I can't even remember what I wrote in that thing (see the New Year's eve post for details), I'm very happy to have my first chance at interacting with colleagues. Now how I'm going to get to Florida is another story.

- My new friend is a keeper. She's a really nice girl who is studying Japanese as a graduate student and we have a lot in common. We're interested in Japanese culture and just have so many things that we talk about after school that I'm glad that the fortuitous circumstance under which we met happened (we were sitting next to each other in class and she took notice of me when we did our introductions on our particular areas of interest). She's currently at New York Comiccon and I hope she was able to find a lot of good stuff (I'd be more jealous of her if I weren't so slogged in work).

Other than that, I've been very busy trying not to let school get the best of me. Sometimes I feel like I'm never going to get this stuff, but I just have to keep plugging away and hope for the best. This week is going to be murder because not only do I have two papers and an exam due this week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, respectively), but I also have a ton of reading, two projects that I have to get started on as well as the paper for the conference (and what I'm trying to do is find ways to incorporate the conference paper into both projects) and pick out classes for spring quarter. To top this whole fantabulous mountain off, my husband is going to be working from Sunday through Thursday because he's being trained for a position which should enable him to get the promotion he's been seeking but hasn't gotten because his attention to detail needs a lot of work. And while I'm happy for this opportunity for him, it came at a piss-poor time for me because now I have to get my work done in a time crunch since he won't be home to help with her at night and he'll be too tired during the day to take care of her in the morning. Greeeeaaaaaat.

Oh well. I've just got to do it and not lose what's left of my mind in the process.

And we just started feeding Devi rice cereal two days ago and while she spat out a great deal of it, we think she actually swallowed half of what she was given. I'll have to post those pictures once they're available. But until then, this one will have to do. My hope is that I'll get to post again next Sunday. A beintot, everyone.



P.S. I forgot to mention that my church finally has a new pastor after nearly two years of searching. He seems like a great guy who is non-judgmental, open-minded, and willing to work with the University instead of bellowing about how much we suck as a church (true story: one of the pastors that the committee looked at blamed the church's problems on the fact that our last two pastors had been women(!) and felt that we were bringing sin into the church because we wanted to work with the students instead of telling them (especially the gay ones) that they were all going to hell. I only know this because my husband was on the search committee and was the only one who disliked Mr. Usuck until he opened his mouth for the phone interview). He was voted in unanimously(!) and he's having to leave his wife behind in Indiana until their youngest child finishes college (2-3 years) to start his career with us. And he's going to be Pastor Tommy, which I think is rather cute for someone with kids in their 20s. Let's hope he'll work out ;-)