Renewed!

Dream Academy has given me 3 MORE YEARS! Yeah baby!

Now...to tenure....get back to work...

Not Thankful...but kinda...

I'm so incredibly sick. I'm morally certain I have a sinus infection. It was a horrible cold last week that went away a little bit over the weekend (fortunately, I could attend and give a reading at the last of our Amazing Wedding Season weddings - that's all five finished!) - but then it reared its ugly head again over the last few days that I've been in Dutchmanlandia. I no longer have health insurance in this country (although I do have dental through TD's plan - got my crown replaced yesterday) - so we're going to go to a walk-in clinic and just pay out of pocket unless they'll take my health insurance for some reason. All I need is some Amoxicillin - that will set me to rights. A nice week-long course of Amoxicillin. Hmmmmm.....it's amazing how much I'd pay right now for some antibiotics - I fly home on Saturday and I can't fathom how much pain I'd be in if I had to fly feeling like I do right now.

So, I'm decidedly NOT thankful for feeling like hammered shit and for not getting ANY of the grading done that I'd planned this week (I've been sleeping a lot).

But, I'm thankful that we make enough money that I can go pay out of pocket for medical care and antibiotics if I absolutely have to - many people can't, and that's a sad fact. Opponents to Health Insurance reform can suck it.

More Fluff:

We will still have Thanksgiving dinner tonight - just the two of us. The menu is as follows:

1) Spiral-cut honey ham (I'm SO happy it's not turkey - I smell a tradition brewing)
2) Mashed potatoes (what else?)
3) Pan-sauteed brussel sprouts with caramelized shallots, bacon, and blue cheese (TD loves brussel sprouts, so I gave in rather than make the same green bean casserole).
4) Apple crumble pie
5) antibiotics and iced tea (for me), wine (for TD)

Tomorrow, we go to IKEA to get a Poang chair for TD.

Gobble, (*sniff!*), Gobble....

This makes my head hurt...

I'm only half way through a stack of 30 essays and I already have two cases of egregious, take it straight off the internet and change a few words plagiarism. And they will fail the class for this. What pisses me off the most is that it takes me an hour to determine that there's plagiarism and then find it online so I have the ammo I need when I confront them.

Sigh. Tired sigh.

Why do they do this?? It's SO obvious...

Random Bits of Sunday Fluff

Yawn.

I've had a fairly productive weekend, but there's still so. much. more. to. do.

Things I Have Done This Weekend:
- 3 loads of laundry
- made and ate dinner (burrito and steamed veggies)
- finished narratives for 3rd-year review
- made the majority of revisions to an article (do I have the stamina to do the last teensy few tonight?)
- renewed ALL my academic society memberships (this was satisfying)
- vacuumed the living room (including couch cushions - woo-hoo!)

Things I Have Left To Do (not necessarily tonight):
- finish the last bits of article revisions - the sooner they're done, the sooner I can send them back!
- fold laundry
- read for my grad class this week
- GRADE. Oh dear god, I have to GRADE 30 papers! Can I do this by Thursday? If I grade 10 a day. I can do that....shit.

I'm heading for the tub.

*swoon!*

I just had an hour-long hot stone massage.....

(*begins drooling again....*)

'nuff said....

Halloween Huh?

At what point did adult female costumes all become "Sexy [insert character here]"? You can't buy a pirate costume, it has to be a sexy pirate costume. You can't be a Devil, it must be the Sultry Slutty Devil. You can't even find a damn regular elf outfit for a woman without it being a "Ho-Ho-Whorish-Elf"! I can appreciate that there are some costumes that are sexy by nature - take a French maid outfit. Okay - garters and plunging neckline are prerequisites there. But (and now I'm sounding like your Grandma Betsy) why do many women have to dress up as sluts first and then the character du jour a distant (and incidental) second? A ghost with a push-up bra? What the hell?!

Thus ends this year's Halloween rant...