Emotionally drained.

My "workout" today was physically draining. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am an out of shape fat ass who watches television; thus, trying to get back in shape is a physical challenge.

But as mentioned, I've accepted the physical challenge.

This new plan of mine is also emotionally draining because I suck. I am so out of shape, it's actually embarrassing to admit to a public audience. But, I think this public declaration of embarrassment will help keep me committed to getting back in shape.

In any case, as if my workout today wasn't emotionally draining enough, I just suffered through every pitch of the Phillies 14 inning ridiculousness of a ball game. I am so emotionally distraught over baseball, it's not even comprehendible in a logical world.

I can't even begin to describe the purely shameful display the Phillies put on. Don't get the wrong impression here; the Phillies actually won tonight's game by some purely magical stroke of luck. But it was absolutely brutal to sit through for 5 full hours. Not once did I change the channel in 5 hours. For 5 hours I suffered through error after error, bad pitch after bad pitch, stupid play after stupid play. Like I said, emotionally distraught.

I mean, watching this makes you wonder if the Phillies are trying to blow the Wild Card race. I just hope to God they get their multi-million dollar heads out of their butts and get their crap together to make a good go of it over the next 4 days. Then again, I'm not sure I can handle the roller coaster ride that is every pitch of every inning.

Who am I kidding? I'll watch. I'll say things like, "Find the plate, you whore" in regards to our multiple pitchers who blow multiple saves in one game. I'll scream my head off in agony. I'll pull at my hair. I'll throw the pillows. I'll jump up and down when we score. I'll scream my head off in glory. I'll carry on like a nutso lunatic. My emotions will carry me through.

Hey, no one says it needs to be pretty. It just needs to be.

Ah, comfy clothes.

I'm trying to get back in shape, which is quite the arduous task for my fat, lazy, tv-watching ass. Said effort began this past Monday. While I will not recount my absolute disgrace of attempting to work out, I will say that my shins have been sore since Monday. I did battle through the pain to work out again today, but it will take some time to adjust.

I woke up this morning tired and sore. This is when the shins started to hurt the most.

In my previous life as a student, this was a day I'd throw on my favorite red sweats, a hoodie and a hat and roll out to class. In my life as a "real person"/"professional", however, it would be inappropriate to show up to work in sweats and a hat.

So I opted for my favorite pair of linen pants - they're slightly larger than they need to be, but that's why I like them. They are comfy. And on a day like today, I needed comfy. I needed to pretend I was wearing sweats so I could take off my shoes and sit Indian style at my desk. It helped me battle through what has become my typical work day of listening to students whine and ask me stupid questions. Thank God for the comfy clothes.

Responsibility? What is that?

I have excellent parents. I realize this more and more every day, not only because I know they have supported me through everything I've done in my life, but really because I believe they are the main reason I am who I am today.

I know that if asked, my friends would describe me as someone who is funny, sarcastic and a good time to be around. But in all seriousness, I know they would describe me as a hardworker who's level-headed, dedicated, and determined. I attribute this to my parents.

My mom and dad raised me to learn how to think for myself and to be responsible - to try first to come up with a workable solution to a problem before I ask for help - to use my common sense and logical thought process to work out a problem, to be dedicated to solving it, and to be determind to work it out and learn from the process.

I find that as I work with the late adolescent/early adult population, being able to think for oneself and taking responsibility for oneself seems to be less of the norm nowadays. I'm starting to believe this is part of a larger American cultural issue where many a parent resort to "doing for" their children instead of helping their children "do for themselves". So when these children get to be college age and are on their own, they're so used to having things done for them that they can't do things for themselves and they don't want to take responsibility for their actions.

It's apparently too much work to think for yourself in 2006.

Now I know I am generalizing to a significantly large population, and I know that not every 19 year old can't think/do for oneself, but I have been overwhelmed with how many students I work with who fall into this less responsible category.

As I said to my brother earlier, I sometimes find myself thinking: "If I asked my parents that question, Dad would have kicked me swiftly in the ass." Now not literally, as my parents didn't resort to violence in parenting, but you get the point - he would have looked at me with the look of "Well, what do you think you should do?"

As a simple example, I remember once saying, "Dad, how do you spell ____?" and insert some word I couldn't spell. He'd say, "Carol, what does the dictionary say?" In other words, "Carol, get the dictionary and figure it out." I got the point. I never asked my dad how to spell another word. I had the knowledge and resources to do it on my own, and that's what he pushed me to do. I mean, it wasn't rocket science - I could handle it on my own.

When I told my brother earlier that I think Dad would have kicked me if I asked him some of the questions I get asked on a daily basis, he asked me "What questions?" so I gave him a few examples:

"Carol, can you cite this for me?"
"Carol, can you find my professor's website for me?"
"Carol, can you talk to my professor for me?"
"Carol, can you wipe my ass?"

I mean, seriously, that's how ridiculous some of the questions are.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but the frustration I feel lately with my students is driving me nuts. It makes me wonder how long I can keep fighting the good fight of trying to push these students to develop responsibility for themselvevs when I know I will be faced with utter ridiculousness on most days. Some people tell me I should lower my expectations, but I don't think asking less of people will serve them or me for that matter better in the long run.

I can't help but feel morally depleted in my endeavor as an educator. And that's really, really depressing...

It's a wild ride.

Ah! There's only one week left in the MLB regular season and my beloved Phillies are tied atop the NL Wild Card Race with the Dodgers. I can't take the suspense! I hope to God we can pull it out and make the playoffs - this will ensure October is much more interesting than it usually is regarding my sports teams and my viewing preferences in the sports world. Fingers are crossed, toes are crossed, and the rosaries are out - here we go, Phillies, here we go!

She's funny and she's hott.

I'm talking about my roommate, Jessie.

On Friday, she had me in complete hysterics. Granted, I was laughing at her at her own expense, but she's just so funny sometimes. She was telling a friend of mine and I about her youth struggles with speech. She said, "When I was younger, I couldn't pronounce r's in the middle of words and I had to go to speech therapy." This happened to her in grades 7 through 9, not grades 2 through 5 like we originally thought. So we had a nice chuckle that she went to special classes to learn how to say words with r's in them, at the ripe age of 13 entering high school.

Later she told us that her best friend at the time had the name Laurel. Jessie couldn't pronounce Laurel so she called her "Lowell". Ha. Funny.

She also said her favorite game growing up was "Red Rover."

"Wed wover, wed wover, call Lowell right over."

HAHAHAHAHA. Funny times ten.

We keep giving her a hard time about this, not because we want to make fun of her, but because the irony is purely hysterical. I felt it necessary to share.


Last night, Jessie helped me witness a situation I've only previously seen on television and movies. We were at one of our favorite bars in Memphis with some of our favorite Memphis friends. Jessie had a rough night as MSU blew the game against Notre Dame and she's an MSU fan. In any case, Jessie was drinking more than she normally might. Now, Jessie is attractive. I know this because I live with her. I also know this because students at work repeatedly ask me, "Do you live with the hot counselor that works with basketball?"

Yes, yes I do.

Well, last night at the bar, Jessie got hit on.

Not just by a man. Not just by two men. But by two men and their girlfriends.

That's right. Two couples hit on Jessie. One of the men actually said, "My girlfriend wants to meet you. Please give me your number."

The look on Jessie's face was a priceless look - the "Oh my God, someone help me" look. But none of us did. We just watched, observed and laughed hysterically.

At the end of the night, my friend asked her, "Jessie, did you give him your number?"

Jessie said, "I gave him a number, but I can't say it's mine."

Ah, priceless.

Thanks for the memories and good times, roomie.

Double bag it...

and I'm not talking about groceries.


I pride myself on being an observant individual. I often find myself fascinated with the behaviors of people around me or random things I notice on a daily basis. I am intrigued by what may seem to be typical behavior to the common eye. My intuitive nature forces me to ask often the question, "Why?" or even, "Good Lord, WHY?"

I've worked at the University of Memphis for a little over a year now. Sometime over the past year, I noticed that many female students carry both a purse and a bookbag/messenger bag. I recently noticed this again, and still now, months after my first observation of this behavior, I am intrigued.

When I was in college, most females carried one bag to class.
~If you were of the higher society variety, you carried one of your many Vera Bradley bags.
~If you were of the lower level higher society variety, you carried a messenger bag.
~If you were of the "I don't really fit in socioeconomically at Bucknell but I get a scholarship and have some student loans" society variety, like myself, you rocked a book bag.

Regardless of what class you belonged to (or pretended to belong to), you rocked one bag.

That's right, uno.

So, I find myself curious as to why the female students at Memphis rock the bag and the purse at the same time? I wonder, what is so important in the purse that it cannot go directly into a Vera Bradley or a messenger bag or a bookbag? To my recollection, each of these types of bags have multiple compartments where one could easily fit those special items that go in a purse - wallet, cell phone, chapstick, tampon, keys.

So, I am perplexed. Why the separation? Can't we all just get along?

It's Been A While.

It's been quite a while since my last post, which is unforunate because a lot of interesting things have gone on in my life over the last few weeks. There's no theme to this post - just an assortment of observations regarding my life during this lovely month of September.

Let's see. For starters, the weather has been excellent as of late. It rarely rains here in the Memphis, but the hot box that is the south has decided to give our sweat glands a break. It's been quite nice to not break out into an intense sweat every time I walk outside. In fact, most mornings and evenings have been cool - those types of cool where you can rock jeans and a t-shirt and be comfortable sitting on your porch, drinking a captain and coke.

I can't say I've actually done that, but that's what I would have done had I not spent so much time at work the past few weeks.

Work has been pretty insane. I've been working a ton of long ass days, trying to help my students be better people. It's quite an intense job at times, I must say. At times over the past two weeks especially I've been pretty convinced I lead the weirdest professional life ever. I mean, I do some strange things in my job, like create a litany of methods for my students to be better students. It appears the big challenge in my job is figuring out how to uses as many spreadsheets and forms as possible to organize each student's academic life. It seems like most of this stuff they should figure out on their own, like the rest of us had to, but then again, I am an "easy button" according to my friends and I make their lives not only better, but easier, and who doesn't want that? Anyway, I digress.

I've been kinda bummed out about working so much. I have to work late two nights a week, Thursdays included, which means I will miss weekly episodes of Survivor. This depresses me, as it is my favorite show and I usually enjoy becoming obsessed with it.

Speaking of Survivor, on Wednesday, I went to a local watering hole, Alfred's on Beale St, and was interviewed for a casting call for reality tv. I told this very nice woman all about myself in 10 minutes. We had an excellent conversation about my job, my life, my love of Survivor, and, of course, why I'd be excellent for the show. We also talked about my episode of sleeping in a crime scene - infusing this into the discussion was clutch. I am currently working on my application for the casting agency and I hope to make a video to submit as well. This all fits into my recent desire to live life to the fullest, take some positive risks, and try things once, particularly to maximize my experiences here in Memphis but really, to maximize my life in general.

Speaking of firsts, there have been two other firsts in my life recetly. One of these first was that last week I took a sick day from work. I can't recall taking a sick day since summer 2001 at Cesari's Pizza when I literally couldn't get out of bed. It cost me my summer bonus, I recall, but sick days aren't typically things I participate in. I was battling a pretty nasty head cold, so I decided it best to spend the day on the couch, watching the Food Network and 6 episodes of SportsCenter.

The other first is my participation in Fantasy Football. A friend of mine put together a league online and I must say, I dominate. I crushed my opponent in week one and I led the league in total points, breaking 100 for the week. This week, I picked up T.O. in a trade - I despise him, but he fits nicely into my plan of eternal domination of the league. I can't take all the credit, as brother Joe has been quite the help.

Despite being sick for a week and battling madness at work, I've had some good time to read some interesting new books, watch college football, and support my students - things that are important to me in my daily existence. I've been attending a bunch of soccer games and I must say, I am really starting to enjoy soccer. It helps that I love working with the team and now I'm learning about this excellent sport. I keep wondering why I didn't do this sooner.

Today was an especially good day. I had a productive Friday at work. After work, I ate at Corky's with some friends - always a worthwhile dining experience. I als0 bought three new pairs of Reefs on sale - I am extremely pumped about this as I've wanted some new flip flops for quite some time. And tomorrow has a whole day in store for great weather, the pool and some football... what more could I want?

Sports, food, sleep - seems like the perfect weekend is in store.

I guess I must say, overal, life is good.

Road Rage

I have come to discover that the recurring "thing" that has most recently pissed me off more than anything is the utter disregard for driving regulations as practiced by Memphis drivers.

Memphis drivers, you are complete idiots.

I can often overlook the constant disregard for the use of turn signals, even though I value their use.

I can often overlook the awful bumper stickers I see that say "Follow Me To Wal-Mart", even though they make me want to bash the behind of cars who display them.

What I cannot overlook is the overwhelming number of drivers who make LEFT TURNS ON RED at some of the busiest intersections in the city. I am pretty sure someone is going to die because this keeps happening. People are idiots. I hate you, Memphis drivers. You are scum on the road.