Moving On

Well folks, the day has finally come.  The new blog design is finally here.

What? You don’t notice anything different?

That’s because the new design is so much more than a new design.  It’s a new title.  And a new look.  And a new ideology.

Oh, and a new blog altogether.

You can now find me here: happyintheinbetween.blogspot.com.

Click on over there to find out way I felt like I needed a fresh start at blogging.

And be sure to check out the new site again tomorrow to see what Valentine’s surprise made Dave quote Joe Pesci to me.

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For the record, this will be the last post at Turning Pages.  I’ll leave the site up for a while to redirect visitors, but all my blogging will be done over at Happy in the in Between from here on out.  I’m excited about that; I hope you are, too.

Is That James Lipton Calling?

Beth at So the Fish Said decided to interview some of her readers à la Inside the Actor’s Studio, so I took her up on the offer.  Here it goes:

1.  Remember the movie Brewster’s Millions? That happens to you, except on a smaller scale.  You receive a million dollars that you must spend in 30 days.  However, you cannot have any assets to show for the money at the end of the month (and you can’t buy something and then destroy it), you cannot waste the money, you cannot give it away, and you cannot tell anyone what you are doing.  How do you ditch the dough in a month or less?

This one is easy (and oh so idyllic).  I would start by paying off all of my dreaded student loans, making me a much more happy, carefree Catherine.  

After that, The Hubs and I would travel until we ran out of dough.  We’d start in the UK, so I could introduce Hubs to Nancy & Arthur (my English mom & dad) and show him my favorite haunts.  We’d explore all of Cambridge (and maybe give a nod to Oxford), go to New Lanark for some family history, the lake district to relax, Edinburgh for the ghost tours, and Bath for one of my favorite restaurants.  We’d stay in London for a while to see the shows, take our time with the museums, and whatever else we felt like doing.

When we’re satisfied with Great Britain, we’d take turns choosing the destination – The Hubs would send us to the Pyrenees Mountains, I’d ship us to Paris (for a redo, quite frankly).  We’d both agree on Italy and Greece.  I would want to see India, Morocco, and Madrid.  Hubs would want to explore Africa more thoroughly and return to Spain.

We’d end back in the States and try to see all 50.

I am practically salivating just thinking about it.

2.  You are locked in a toy store overnight, with no way out until it reopens in the morning.  What do you play with all night?

I would alternate between Legos and Barbies.  Maybe I’d build a rockin’ Barbie’s Dream House with Legos.  And then I would play all of the Wii games I have wanted to play but refuse to the spend the money on.

Oh, and I hope they would have one of the keyboards on the floor like in Big.  I’d play on that, too.

3.  If you could have a dinner party with any three famous people, living or dead, you would be wasting your supernatural powers on hosting dinner parties.  What would you do instead?

I have to say, I think I’d stick with the dinner party thing (if it has to involve meeting with famous people).  I just want to hear Hemingway and Fitzgerald have a conversation, listen to Billie Holiday sing live, introduce Barack Obama to JFK, convince J.K. Rowling to write me into Harry Potter, things like that.  But it wouldn’t be a drab dinner party.  Oh no no no.  That would not do.

If my supernatural powers do not have to be used to meet famous folks, I would totally magic myself a PhD. Oh, and maybe a published book, too; plus a tenured job at the school of my choice.

Can you tell I’m growing weary of studying for comps?

4.  What’s the best thing since sliced bread?  Now, sliced bread ain’t all that impressive, so what’s the best mediocre, hum-drum improvement or advancement that has made modern life just ever so slightly more convenient for humanity, along the lines of saving yourself five seconds every time you want a piece of bread.

Practically, I’m going to say the refrigerator.  The Hubs and I are horrible at cooking for two people and always have lots of food leftover.  I can’t imagine having to throw all of that away every time we ate.  Plus, it grossed me out that my English host-parents didn’t keep their eggs in the fridge.  Yuck.

More frivolously, I love that I can hook  my iPod directly into my car.  No more shuffling through cds.  Heck, no more need to burn cds when I buy music on iTunes.  Love it.

5.  What’s your best quality?  The response to this question must be a simple declarative statement.  You may elaborate on that statement, provided that your elaboration does not include the words “but,” “however,” or “although,” or any other hedging, equivocating, back-sliding, gerrymandering (which is not at all appropriate in this context, but I think it should be, don’t you?) or any other type of backing down from the simple declarative statement with which you began your response.

I am surprisingly perceptive.  Though it has taken The Hubs nine years to admit the truth of this statement, he will now back me up.  I am just enough of a realist that I can look at a situation and recognize what will probably happen versus what should happen.  

For instance, two of my friends that are also studying for comps keep telling me that they can’t believe how calm I am.  And though I have my own little freak outs, for the most part they’re right.  It’s not because I’m that confident in my intellect (ha!).  It’s that I know that freaking out does me no good.  I’m going to have to take the exam one way or the other, so I might as well deal with it.  I also know that, though the idea of comps is scary, my committee is supportive and wants me to succeed, so I’m not panicking over the sneak attacks some students have to watch out for.

My perceptivity also includes the ability to be a fairly decent judge of character.  Or so I am told.

Unfortunately, this attribute is not always appreciated by others.  But it’s served me well, so I’m stickin’ with it.

The end.

Would you like to be interviewed? (Think of the blog fodder!)  If so, here’s the rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I’ll email you five questions of my choosing.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. They will answer these questions. If they don’t, you can post embarrassing information or humiliating photos of them on the internet.

Or, if you want, you can just answer Beth’s questions, but do tell me you’re doing so in the comments so I can steal your ideas for the next time.

So, who’s next?

Prettying Up

I’m in the process of giving my blog a makeover, both in terms of focus and aesthetics.  I’ll explain the new direction/purpose of my blog when everything is ready to be “unveiled.”  In the meantime, Erin of Designer Blogs is going to be in charge of making my blog as spunky and colorful of I am.

I can’t wait to show it to you!

In the meantime, sit tight.  It’ll be worth the wait!

All’s Quiet on the Home Front

Here’s the deal: 90% of the time, the times when I have nothing to blog about/no time to blog are the times when I’m being most productive.  When I’m procrastinating and finding wonderfully fun things to do, I always find a way to blog about it.  But when I’m getting a lot of studying done, I don’t think about blogging.  My mind becomes so wrapped-up in the lives of Billy Pilgrim and Isabel Archer and the theories of Adorno and Bhabha that “real life” takes a back seat.

Such was the case this weekend.  I was, shockingly, productive over the weekend.  Sure, there were some breaks here in there: to a friend’s to watch part of the FSU game, to watch a movie with Dave, and to take Potter to our favorite park-under-the-bridge, but I actually get to go to sleep tonight feeling like this was a productive week.

Shew.

So if I’ve been silent lately, give me a round of applause, because it means I’m getting stuff done.  And the more stuff I get done, the faster I can finish this crazy degree and get back to having a life worth blogging about.

Blech.

I feel utterly exhausted and worn out, depressingly deprived of strength.  I’ve not been sleeping, which is unusual for me.  Typically I go to bed, read for an hour or so, turn out the light, and then my head hits the pillow and I am completely out. Not so lately.  Instead I go to bed feeling as though there is not even an ounce of energy left in my body; I read for only 15 minutes or so before I can no longer hold my eyelids up.  Then I lay my head on the pillow only to instantly feel wide awake.  I toss and turn, hear every noise, and notice every ray of light.  My mind recalls everything that I have done that day and that I still need to do.  Last night I rolled around until after 1:30, leaving me only 5 hours of sleep.

But I think the lack of sleep is more of a symptom than the problem. I have a tendency to avoid talking about the strenuousness of my job because I am aware that it’s something you can only understand by experiencing.  For Pete’s sake, I only have to be at the physical location of my job for  8 or 9 hours a week.  I know that seems like “the dream.” That’s the good part.  Here’s the problem: there is no way for me to ever complete my to-do list.  And because there are no set hours for my job, I feel like I should be doing work 24 hours a day.  I can’t help but feel guilty when I choose to do something other than read, research, or plan.  And eventually that guilt becomes unbearable and I have a mild freak out; I’m averaging about 3 or 4 a semester (ask Dave; he’ll verify).

Last night (3 weeks into the semester mind you) I had mild freak out #1.  I went from feeling productive and on top of things (and, in fact, enjoying my research) on Wednesday afternoon to feeling behind, frustrated, hopeless, and angry last night. I was grumpy and snappy.  Then this morning, still feeling doubtful and pissy, I taught my Contemporary Lit class and left, once again, feeling confident.  Seriously, I think my PhD is giving me manic depression.

So today I’m complaining…to you, because poor Dave had to deal with enough of my complaints last night.  But here’s the good news: the Pumpkin Spice Latte is back at Starbucks.  Yay!  That sort of makes up for my favorite Panera salad being (apparently) taken off the menu permanently.  Too bad it doesn’t get me out of going to class tonight; at least it will keep me caffeinated throughout it.

Let the Season Begin!

Taking a note from one of my favorite blogs, I’m here to remind you that this week begins the premiere of Fall TV.  Of course, in my house, we don’t really get excited until the end of September/beginning of October when shows like Heroes, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, and The Office (oh I’ve missed you Michael Scott) begin.  And then blessed January when Lost returns to fill an island-sized hole in my life (where did that crazy island go?).  But it’s nice to be reminded of the impending start of our favorite shows by the less-anticipated premiers while we, instead, watch the last episodes of our summer favorites like The Closer and Psych and spend the next couple of weeks catching up on last season’s favorites that have just come out on DVD.

And, to make your life easier, let me direct your attention to this: that’s right, folks.  Someone has taken even less work out of your TV watching exercise.  TV Addict has generously supplied a calendar of all of this season’s premiers.  It kind of reminds me of the schedule of aerobics classes from my gym: I’ll only consider going to one, maybe two of those classes, but daggum it that whole calendar will be tacked to my refrigerator and contemplated as though I really would do Zumba (ha!). 

So, set your DVRs, prepare the popcorn and chips, and prepare to lose yourself in the world of heroes who actually never do fight crime, doctors who actually don’t spend that much time doctoring, and an office where the boss does the least amount of work possible.  Oh, and as a personal recommendation, don’t forget to watch (or at least DVR and watch at a more reasonable hour) this week’s Saturday Night Live season premier, hosted by Michael Phelps.  I cannot wait to see who plays Sarah Palin!

Oh how I’ve missed you, fall TV.