Saturday Blahs

Hmm, what do I have to talk about? Well, in rebellion against my students, I'm going to just blorp out all the random comments I have floating in my head without any organization, central point, or even bullets, despite having just lambasted them for their lack of organization or development in their writing.

Speaking of, I have half of one more section to go on the diagnostic essays. Sigh. I will do them later today. I was just about to go take a nap but had to go to the bathroom first, and now I have enough energy to do a blog post. So blog, then nap, then finish grading.

Unfortunately I have another assignment from them already. So behind already! Ah well. I think it went better that the other day that I was late getting back the diagnostics. We focused on a sample essay and grading criteria and now the next time we meet I will show them the diagnostics and we go over them. (I have to hold them to have a writing sample on hand, so I'll collect them back afterwards).

Usually I at least get a lot of cleaning done when I am procrastinating grading, but the tub has backed up and I had to go out and get draino. Now it has finally drained, but --- of course! --- it looks extremely nasty in there from the scummy water that was sitting. The whole bathroom looks bad. I will clean it soon, but I just draino'd and that kinda took away my entire cleaning/procrastinating urge. Meh.

It doesn't help that I have cramps.

The good news is that the other day I got home from teaching and was much more awake. I watched about an hour of bad television and then cooked! (Compare to me sitting there exhausted for the whole evening the time before.) I made soup for the first time --- lentil soup. It is good. I cooked up a whole buncha stuff and now I am set for the weekend. Which is good because it is raining like it's gonna go outta style. I already went out in it though --- first drove to the next town over for some *$ and graded about 10 diagnostics (yay me!) and then to the Target for draino and other random little crap.

Laundry was on my to-do list for the weekend but the rain is making that look pointless. The drying part of it, anyway. Luckily I have plenty of clothes and can just let the piles pile up more --- though I am running low on kitchen towels etc. after all that cooking.

I keep mentally blogging (talking to myself, basically) while driving around town but then being too tired/distracted/busy to actually write anything when I am back. I did the same thing in CA, but, as I may have said before, if I could have blogged while driving back then this blog would be nothing but bitching and complaining about the crappy drivers! And my near accidents. This time around it's more about thinking about how Postdoc City is different from GradSchoolLand; I'm sure it would be much more interesting for you to read. But, just like when I wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea for my research, it's gone before I actually get where I can write anything.

Back to my apartment --- I love a lot of things about it, particularly the layout, and how it's so big! so roomy for me! But having lived here for a month or so now I can say that I would never buy it if the condo was actually put on the market. They cheaped out with shoddy workmanship everywhere. Every baseboard is mismatched to the others or has a gap where it should line up with a doorway. There are gaps under all the doors and you can see how the front door has been hung crooked if you stare at where the light shines through the edges. I pulled on the toilet paper roll and the holder popped off the wall (which they have yet to come fix.) As I pointed out, the tub won't drain ---- and even before that I noticed that the tub slopes the wrong way for some reason. By that I mean when you turn on the shower, the water runs to the far end instead of the drain end, and it doesn't really want to drain up and out of the tub. There are just a hundred little things about the place that slightly annoy me, but not enough to fix anything as I'm a renter. I would never want to own this place, though. You'd basically have to re-do everything to make it look nice.

Having said that, it is big and spacious and new and I love the place. No leaks yet, though, and no big problems. I just have very picky high standards for my environment. The cats like it too, now. Except for the hiding all day thing. Loquito is laying here on my leg and cleaning his butt right now, so I guess he is glad I am spending the day at home. He was meowing at me in an annoying way earlier though. I never did figure out what he wanted. Maybe he was just chatting. No, he had the insistent, constant meow rather than the "I'm making random noises" meow.

Ok now I am tired again and going to nap. Perhaps I will post something that's actually interesting later.