sheesh

I've been doing an awful job of keeping up with this blog. I'll try to start doing a better job with keeping this updated. If you're still reading...yay!

Things Going On

1. The apartment

We finished moving in to the apartment a few weeks ago, and so far I LOVE IT. I can't even tell you how great it is to have appliances again. Our place has a washer/dryer (!!), dishwasher, garbage disposal, and ice maker, and our building has an elevator and a parking garage. These amenities can be super tough to come by in this city, I've noticed (so annoying), unless you live in an expensive or brand new building. Our place is definitely a few years older, and I totally love it.

We've gotten all our furniture and big things unpacked and arranged, but we still need a few things (like a dining table and a few bookcases) that we're slowly working toward getting. Our place also has tons of light, lots of windows, and two decks that both lead to outdoors and are pretty quiet. Living close to the beach hasn't gotten old yet. Neither has being able to smell the salt water from our living room (when the windows are open and the wind is blowing). Pictures soon, I swear.

2. Work stuff

Work got crazy this month. After a long Labor Day holiday (during which I also caught a nasty cold), they finally moved us into the new library on campus. Our old library had been closed for the last year, and they moved all the books into storage, and set up an interim library -off-campus- (can't imagine how annoying that was for students to deal with). They spent a ton of money and renovated the library so that now it's bigger, has new computers, all-new furniture, and a few new offices. One of these new offices is the Learning Commons, which houses our tutoring services, writing center, math lab, and research facilities, which were all located in separate places around campus before.

I left my old position as office manager of one of the advising centers to be the sr. admin for the Learning Commons, which is a totally brand new position in a brand new very expensive building. It's all incredibly exciting, since they've been planning this thing for at least five years now, and definitely a lot since I've been working there. So far, things have been great. I've spent the last month working in the temporary library getting to know the research librarians and how the library in general works, and now, we left the old building, and I'm with the tutoring specialists and writing center staff in our new place. The building is still very much under construction; some of the offices don't have electricity, none of us have phones, the furniture still has plastic on it, and there are construction guys with power tools everywhere. It's been a little hectic, to say the least. It's a little weird because literally everything is brand new, and people keep asking me where things should go, and I have no clue. Thank god there aren't any students on campus yet; I need time to make my office cute.

Something like this, maybe? Please?

3. Changes

A bunch of my friends are going through *huge important life changes!* right now, which is kind of funny. Roxie and TIm got engaged (yay!!) and asked me to be in their wedding (awesome!). Jess R is having a baby (omg hooray!!!) and her sister found out she is too (aww!). Meghan and Alex are getting married in Maryland in exactly three weeks (wahoo!) and I forgot to RSVP because I'm a bad friend and am in denial about not being able to go (boo.). Both my parents got new jobs (sorta) this month when their company switched owners, and I think they were nervous about it but they both really like it so far (rad!!). There's probably more, but you get the idea. I guess my new job and new apartment are both big deals, but really only because they happened simultaneously. I also saw Lady Gaga in concert a few weeks ago, and that was pretty life changing. Kind of a spiritual awakening, really. And no, I'm not kidding (not really, anyway). (We had really good spots.)

4. Roger

On a much sadder note, I just found out that one of the advisors I worked with all year, Father Roger, is really sick and doesn't have much longer. He's one of the Jesuit priests who lives and works on campus, and he's been at our school for almost thirty years, and advising students for at least the last fifteen. He's older, probably late 60s or so, and is really funny in a dry, hilarious yet flamboyant way. It's hard to describe him, he's just really quirky and charming. Last year at orientation he dressed up as Michael Jackson and danced to "Bad" for the entire freshman class (wearing a red members only jacket, sunglasses, and one sequined glove). He also loves movies; he recently finished watching every film that's ever been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Then he watched every one nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Just because. No, I'm not kidding.

Anyway, earlier this year after we got back from the Christmas holidays, a few of us noticed that he wasn't looking well, in particular, he had lost a lot of hair since we'd last seen him (and he was wearing hats more and more). My friend Kim, who is the other advisor in the office, and Luke, who also works with us, asked him about it and he told them that he had gone to the doctor because he was having pains in his legs and trouble walking, and it turns out that he had probably had a stroke, and not known it. On top of that, he had a couple of brain tumors, so he had started radiation therapy. His prognosis seemed pretty good, though, and sure enough for the next quarter, he was doing better and better (although he still had bad days) as he finished up his radiation. He kept wearing really adorable hats that coordinated that he was careful to match his belt and shoes, even if it was only a baseball cap.

Anyway, this past spring, he missed a lot of work, and only recently we found out that he had tumors in his lungs as well, and one of the tumors in his brain wasn't affected by the radiation and was still there, refusing to shrink. This past week, he was hospitalized, and basically his doctors told him there wasn't much else they could do. If he gets well enough to leave the hospital, he's moving to a nursing facility, instead of getting to come back to his residence with the other Jesuits on campus. It was tough news for him to take, since he's lived on campus for the past twenty-five years or so. The whole thing has been pretty difficult to deal with, for a lot of us. I wasn't going to be seeing him at work anymore, but knowing he might not be okay is really pretty devastating. He was always so clever and funny, with really sharp, dry, sarcastic wit, loved working with clueless freshmen, and a love for pop culture, especially American Idol (he went to the live tour every year). Keep him in your thoughts for me, if you can.

5. Me

I'm doing really well, thanks. It's been kind of a big year for me, when I think about where I was this time last year: thrilled to be done with grad school, nervous but excited about my "real" job at a school that reminds me way too much of Centenary (in a great way), worried about money, and missing home a lot (but glad to have Seth here). I didn't realize it at the time, but I was making myself sick with anxiety trying to keep everything together. It took a while to figure it out, then work on undoing it, and then feeling like I've made any progress. I sort of feel like I've just woken up from a long, unsatisfying nap, and realizing what time it was ("Oh, I'm 26 now? It's September again? Well, hell. Guess I'll get up.")

It's hard to believe that it was only last summer, and it's really crazy to think about how much I feel like I've changed since then. I guess I haven't changed-changed, since I am still the same person, but I have a much clearer idea of who I want to be, and who I was, who I am, and where I want to go. I want to work with students, but I don't want to be a professor. I love learning, but I'm not ready to get another degree any time soon. I miss my friends and family but I can still make those relationships work, it just takes more work, and a different kind of effort than I'm used to giving. I can be a good friend, but I can also be a lousy one if I don't work at it. If I have help, I actually much prefer a clean house than to letting everything go. We're not ready to buy a house, get married, or have a baby, but we could be some day. Or not. I can save money, or lose weight, or finish a book, if I really apply myself, but delayed gratification is really tough for me. I feel smarter, calmer, and more confident when I keep a journal...and when I go running. I'm not the only one changing, everyone is around me is, too, all the time. You can't take things for granted, but things are always changing.

These aren't original thoughts...they just took a while to sink in.

6. Sookie

I'm in love with the Sookie Stackhouse books. I'm on Book Six. The fact that they're set in north Louisiana with lots of Shreveport references makes my world light up. Plus they're super fun reads, and not Twilight-y* (*Disclaimer: I haven't read any Twilight.)