Census fun.

I got home the other night and the letter from the census bureau was in the mail, so I went to go fill it out over dinner, only to find that it's for whoever's home April 1st, and by then I'll already be in my new apartment where I'm moving to.

So, I didn't fill it out, and am leaving it for the new tenant.

Now, it will be a game with me to see if the census takers can find me at my new place. I guess I'll get a sense of how efficient they are at tracking down stray people so everyone gets counted!

Tonight..

...is my final night in my Danish Haven!

Tomorrow I move.

Sneak.

I had 3 books out forever from different small seminary libraries in my neighborhood (some of them have titles in specialized areas that the main library on campus doesn't have!).

But, since they're small, their library catalogs are not computerized and so you have to come in in person or send them an email to renew, and the books are due every 2 weeks, so I had these books out since Dec. and never renewed them...

So, I ducked into each library, smiled at the librarians there, shoved the books in the return, and tried to walk confidently to the door like nothing was wrong.

I wonder if they'll come after me for the fines.

Lost my towel.

My gym bag is getting raggedy around the top - I've been meaning to get a new one, but I haven't had time - and then yesterday, walking around campus, somehow I noticed that my gym towel had fallen out, this bright orange-and-yellow beach towel that I use for the gym on campus so I don't have to pay their towel fees...

I retraced my steps some but didn't come across it. I wonder what the person who found it thinks!

Have been stressed.

At the end of last week I was feeling stressed, and I couldn't figure out why.

Then, I totalled up all the shit I have going on, and I figured out why - I have so much on my plate right now! - including -

- arranging shit for moving.
- getting boxes for moving (I have to start packing next week!).
- changing over my cell phone to a new number.
- finishing up TAing.
- finalizing a syllabus and readings for a class I'm going to be teaching at a friend's church (we got a grant).
- gathering my dissertation committee.
- revising my dissertation proposal.
- getting shit together for another paper I'm presenting on at the end of May.
- applying to teach a course for next year (the app requires a lot of thought, since I'd have a lot of input into the syllabus).

In reaction to all this stuff, like it usually happens, I end up going out too much to compensate for having long, intense days, and that starts a vicious circle of tiredness where the next day I work even harder and even longer and then meet friends to go out for even longer the next night, and so on.

A story from my neighbor back home.

My neighbor from back home the judge was a student radical at the flagship state university during the 70s, and one time she was in a meeting with a top administrator and she got pissed and shook her finger at him and was like, "You have to do this, and you have to that, and you have to do the other!".

At that, the guy kind of grimaced and folded his hands and was like, "[her name], let me tell you first that I like you because you're a very nice person, but you know, I really don't have to do any of those things, because all that I really have to do, is just wait 2 years."

She said that he said that very nicely, and that he really did like her, and that that was one of her first major life lessons.

Subway story.

The other day I was on the subway going for a job interview at a bar in my new neighborhood, when this little (black) girl with cornrows and short braids done up with bright colored beads got up to follow her mom to the door to get off at the next stop, but her backpack was a little open, and a couple papers fell out.

"Here," I was like, grabbing them and giving them back to her. "And I hope that's not homework, since it would be a pain to lose it and have to do it over."

"Thank you," she was like.

And then, after a pause, she was like, "Nice hairdo."