Today is the 6th and this entry was written on the 7th, of December. Why is this important? It’s not, really. The date thing is just an excuse to choose something.
It’s long-ish, from 2013. Zach was still working at the Rec Center, but had decided that he was going to quit and get his Phd so he talks (among other things) about some of his efforts to choose a school. In the end, he stayed at LSU. Fateful decision . . .
Saturday, December 7, A day that will live in infamy…
Not really. But, I’m sitting here at my office, quite a bit of coffee down, and it’s 721a, having been here since about 615a.
I am, more than I’d like to admit, making really stupid decisions that feel insignificant at the time. A great example is this morning–the rest of my clan of friends is volunteering at Habitat for Humanity this morning and I chose not to go because this morning is really the only shot I’ll have this weekend to accomplish anything (since tomorrow is a planned hangover day). I feel kind of bad but I know that I would hate myself tomorrow night if the weekend were to pass without some more accomplishment. But anyways, the Habitat group was meeting here at work at 7a to go to their site and, as par for the course, I felt this deep compulsion to be there before all of them, I guess with the intention of wowing them with my slave-ish intensity and dedication. But what happens is a)when they do “marvel” at me, I just get annoyed for having to explain myself, and I don’t even think there is a small part of me that likes the attention, or b) they think I’m a kook for keeping the hours I do. And frankly, I can’t really blame them for that– last night we hung out, drank wine, and stayed up until about 1a, and my alarm went off a little before 6a. Which is nowhere near enough sleep, especially at the end of a week, and could potentially lead to me not feeling well later in the day/weekend, which would suck. So why did I get up early?
Well, from a pragmatic standpoint, there is much to be done, and once I get finished banging out some thoughts in here, I hope to have some accomplishments, in some form or fashion.
So, some thoughts…I guess in keeping with that faux-health theme, it’s been a weird/semitough week from a health perspective. It’s largely my fault. Last Sunday night I, of course, couldn’t sleep when I went to bed early and then ended up with wreckage of diet with late night snacking. It carried over into Monday and really throughout the week, as I had a litany of poor eating choices and really regressed as far as eating enough calories. I don’t know why but I’ve been doing a terrible job with eating enough food, at the right times, and as a result, I haven’t been feeling that amazing. Compounding that is the bursts of caffeine that I’ve been ingesting, including too much coffee–today has to be my last day of coffee until at least later next week, if not longer.
In relation to this, I’ve completely fallen on my face as far as making December my bitch and have had a troubling, overall, malaise with using my time. My weekly review will go into this further tomorrow but it hasn’t been pretty and that is extraordinarily frustrating. What’s interesting is that I don’t feel like I’ve really been wasting that much time, all things considered, but it has been a bit of unique week with my birthday and all that, so in some sense there are some confounding variables. I don’t know–I need to really rebound next week and today.
Speaking of the birthday, which was Thursday–I actually really enjoyed the experience, way more than can ever really recall before. There wasn’t anything at all special about the day other than the normal humdrum-ness but it was just a really positive and happy day for me. I think that is indicative of a larger phenomenon that I’ve touched on before about my experience here in Baton Rouge about how I really cherish a lot of my social life and times here. I don’t know if this is a function of a greater sense of individual maturity and I’m thus appreciating “life” more or if I’ve just lucked into a situation here where I’m surrounded (socially) by good people and I like the role I have within the relationships. I guess it’s probably a bit of both.
For example, the small clan (Micah, Julie, Melissa, Chris, and Jake) hung out last night and watched Love Actually and it was such a small event in the grand scheme but was so incredibly fun and comfortable for me. Chris and Jake came over and cooked a quick dinner and then Micah and the rest of them got home and we drank a bit, watched Love Actually, and then sat around bullshitting in the living room for probably another two hours after it finished. The movie, as always, was incredible–I sat there with a silly smile, I laughed at the hilariousness of it, and as dumb as this seems, it was really special for me to “share” that experience with those
people. Granted, I pined to actually have a girl there to cuddle with (really, mainly just Rachel, since that was the gateway) but even that was a secondary feeling to the giddy happiness I felt for most of the evening.One thing that I think really makes my relationships right now so fulfilling is the huge sense of open-ness that I feel like I have with everyone, and the fact that pretty much everything is on the table as far as what we talk about. It’s not like I have a great need to process a lot of stuff that happens in my life with a group (Chris and I are pretty mutually fulfilling in that sense) but it’s nice to have my life feel mostly like an open-book with the group, and that is a really relaxing feeling.
Chris and I also watched Animal House on Thursday night, for my birthday, after we got Whole Foods and it had been awhile since I watched it, and it’s as funny as ever. So, in recap, two great movies in two days!
I held what were hopefully the last two thesis interviews this week, and now just need to transcribe them before I can (hopefully) say that the data gathering process is complete. The coding/analysis process is about to fully commence, which is truly exciting, since I think this the peak of any project like this–the write-up will be more like the icing on the cake, as far as results go. I had a meeting with Garn yesterday where he talked me through what he wants to see as far as the coding and have some steps to work on in the next few weeks before meeting with
him again. I like Garn a lot–he seems to have a ton of trust in me and definitely strokes my ego but he’s also pretty realistic but our relationship is evolving to the point to where I’m looking forward to seeing him and we have a normal conversation about the real world.In relation, the ph.d application process is in progress. In fact, today I should finish enough stuff to consider being on the downslope of the whole process and although there is some trepidation still, I’m starting to feel cautiously optimistic about the whole goddamn endeavor. I was bitching about some aspects of it yesterday and Chris reminded me that the ph.d is just academic hazing and they want you to be pushed in the process and it was a good reminder for me–I need to not get caught up in the silliness or injustice or the process and just go out and make it my bitch, as blunt as that may seem. That may include dropping a lot of money to take visits in the early spring, which is lurking nastily in the back of my mind.
The process is also interesting because of the natural reduction of schools, which is a bit unnerving but I guess a natural aspect. I had originally had a list of 5-6 schools but some professors at some institutions have literally not responded to my requests, which I interpret as a sign that 1)I don’t want to work with someone like that anyways and 2)they probably don’t want ph.d students if they aren’t responding to those emails. So, the list, as of earlier this week, had dwindled to just FSU and UTK–in a random manner, however, KU reinserted themselves into the conversation mid-week, and quickly have risen to a dead heat with FSU, in terms of overall potential fit. I ended up having close to an hour long conversation with a prof at KU this week and most of it was just the two of us going back and forth about the pervasiveness of sports and how it’s a fascinating research topic. It was really fun. On the flip side, I had a conversation with a second professor at UTK and it was awful–the guy was nice enough but didn’t seem to really give a fuck, and the conversation lasted barely ten minutes. So, that helps crystallize the direction I want to go, as far as UTK is concerned.
It’s still frustrating and annoying because I have to present this air of compartmentalization with my process and I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is just to get into a program and if that means I have to get a little creative in my personal statement with regards to my research interests, I’m fine with that. I’m all over the map with that shit anyways. I think, in a traditional academic sense, I’m not really suited for a ph.d program–but, in a 2013-sense, I think I am.
There is a huge need for me to stay focused this month and start really thinking creatively about my back-up plans and my overall next steps. With the comfort of my life right now, it’s really easy to get complacent and not do things like save money. Ha!
Rae got engaged this week. I knew it was going to happen, or I feel like I’ve known it was going to happen for about a year, since she drunkenly called me last December and was clearly alluding to her fear that a proposal was coming. There’s a small sense of loss there, although I think I’m mature enough at this point to not be derailed by it. She still, to this day, I think is the only girl who knows most of my story and is also willing to stand up to me and call me on my shit. Good for her.