Still alive, made it through the performances, finished up the newsletter, and am now in the midst of grading and lesson plan prep as well as thesis.

Will post an update.

I didn't think it was going to be something that small that set me off. I usually have a decent size fuse - no, really. You can stop laughing now. However, when something finally really and truly gets under my skin, it tends to linger and that is the situation I now find myself in with my director.

I'm involved in what is likely to be my last performance of the Vagina Monologues - at least at this institution. I was unable to participate last year as the auditions and even the performances were not well advertised, but this year I made an effort to stay informed about the goings on. I auditioned in September, was cast in October, and we've had rehearsals every Wednesday until this week, when the practices have run every evening in advance of opening night. While I've enjoyed the process and all of that to this point, things kind of took a left turn at Albuquerque this week and not in a good way.

Our director does not have any theater experience. She has plenty of leadership experience under her belt, if her e-mail sig line is anything to go by, but her decisions and recommendations have become increasingly erratic as we get closer to our run. It's almost as if she's suddenly afraid that the performance just isn't "enough", so she's veered away from the traditional staging and even the characters of some of the monologues. Michael's observation is that she appears to have seen the show so many times that she, as a viewer, is now bored with it and is trying to "spice things up". This has led to mass discontent among the cast and the general feeling that the work we've done to this point has been a little pointless. While I'm not a theater person, I've been in enough productions to know that when the theater folks start rumbling, there's a problem. The unfortunate part is that the director either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

Furthermore, what's with the idea of no dress rehearsal? I can't imagine why that's a good idea.

We open on Friday, have three performances, and then this time on Sunday it will all be over. What I'm really hoping for is that the cast and staff will be able to put this aside and do it right, but I am concerned.

Oh, as for what set me off? The director telling me that my glasses weren't sexy enough and that I needed to either not wear them or find something else that was "sexy". I informed her that sexy people wear glasses and this person is going to keep her glasses just the way they are.

Otherwise I might fall off the back of the stage while trying to navigate blind and that might border on tragic. This is NOT how I want to "break a leg".

The last application is now officially in and the supporting documents have been filed. The monster chapter is in, the Disney chapter is still in process, and the thesis proposal evolved from just the proposal into the introduction of my thesis. My thesis chair seemed pleasantly surprised, but told me to take a little more time with it. Kind of a take your time, but hurry, kind of feel to it. So I'm taking my time but I'm hurrying up.

I'm in the waiting phase of the application process and I'm trying not to think too hard about it. It's difficult because I've been told that school 1 will start to contact their first round picks for further discussion this week. I'm not sure what that means for me - my application is one of many - but I hope that I'll stand out enough to grab their interest. It's no different than what any other applicant wants.

I think I remember this feeling. It's the "okay, now what?" feeling. It's also a little of the post-writing project/post-big important project letdown. I can't afford to linger here, though. I still have too much to do.

Here's hoping it turns out. All it takes is one yes.

The class this term is much, much larger than last term's class. There are now thirty students as opposed to the seven students from last term (there were eight, but one stopped attending after the midterm). It's at a different time of day and is a 75 minute class as opposed to a 50 minute class. There's the usual suspects: the loudmouth in the corner (who might actually have something to contribute), the girl who sleeps right in the middle of class who I wake up at every opportunity, the sorority girls who sit toward the back and giggle until I call on them by name and expect them to respond, the handful of guys who seem to do the readings and the other handful who don't, the athletes that need a little extra time off for games, and the smart kid who seems to know every answer to every question because she's read everything and isn't afraid to say so.

I'm also finding that the room is full of those students who are largely religious and conservative. I'm thinking I just haven't found the issue to fire them up yet, but I learned today that discussions on marriage, heterosexual or same-sex, was not going to be that issue. The answers were fairly simple: either there was a declaration that they had been raised to believe that same-sex marriage was unacceptable or they had been raised to believe that and yet they were happy to let couples make their own decisions. I suppose, in retrospect, that that's the best I could have hoped for in this situation and so I'm glad that that came out. However, there was no one who was willing to be an advocate or an activist. The conversation stayed quiet and polite with only a few reminders needed regarding respecting those who were in the room.

One persistent issue was the question of having both parents in the home and whether lacking parents of either gender was damaging to children. I argued that each person's experiences are different and some students chimed in on that point, making mention of the idea of "father figures" or "mother figures" in substitution for those parents who were missing. However, there were also several comments that came down squarely in the camp of gender and hetero-normativity and I did make certain to call those statements what they were. I can tell that the gender chapter is going to make for an interesting time.

I'm sitting in my classroom and I've just realised as I look at the board that my lessons from past days are still ghosting. I can see the words "resist inequality", "domestic authority of women", and "nuclear family" in faint purple ink and I wonder if anything I teach will leave a mark on any of my students.

I'm thinking that for today, probably not.

Today is Thing Two's second day of being home sick and, as he sat in the office and worked on homework, he asked "Mom, what does the f-word mean?"

So I explained that it was about reproduction and then gave a little background as to how it may have come into the English language. We then talked about the meaning of flipping people off and wrapped up the conversation with a brief discussion on how most profanity has reference to religion or the human body.

He nodded, taking all this in, and then declared that profanity just wasn't for him.

Well, okay then. That works, too.

Two more applications are in and filed and now there is one more ahead of me. This one might be considered the "sure thing" but until I have a contract in hand, there is no such thing. With that in mind, I'll be filing it immediately after I've wrapped the thesis proposal and the department newsletter, both of which remain on my conscience.

The department chair announced his retirement yesterday and I'm not exactly pleased about that. I get the feeling that this was not entirely voluntary, as the university has been buying people out in an effort to cut costs, but at least the chair has put in his thirty years (or more). He'll be out as of the end of the term.

I heard a lot of discontent roiling through the room after the announcement and I must admit that it makes me consider an ongoing relationship with this school very closely, but I'm also trying to stay positive about things. After all, what's in front of me is my thesis. Everything else will work itself out.

Graduation in August will likely come all too soon and yet not soon enough.

I wasn't expecting much of anything when it came to putting the piano up on wheels as opposed to allowing it to continue glowering over the dining room, an immovable hulk that dominated the space and threatened hernia to anyone foolish enough to try to move it. I certainly wasn't expecting the piano to be opened up as if going in for open-heart surgery and laid out on a piano dolly that was roughly the size and shape of a small boat while the installation of the casters commenced. I was, however, delighted to discover that three of the four caster cups were in good order and that the fourth could be rebuilt with the liberal application of an epoxy putty and several very long screws.

I learned how to reattach ivories to piano keys. John, the piano repairman with whom we are likely to be doing a lot of business over the next few years, took the time to teach me some of the ins and outs of applying the glue, filing the back of the ivory to assure a good fit and a secure attachment, and most importantly, how to get the keys out of the piano so I could work on them one at a time. I'm almost looking forward to the first time that I need to pull the keys.....I'm sure I'll have Thing Two right at my side, eager to participate.

The piano now has a few new dampers, which helps with the singing key phenomenon that I was experiencing and it's been tuned, although I'm noticing that some of the notes seem a little more muffled than they were before. It's like the work may have affected the action slightly, as the keys don't strike as true as they did when we first brought it home. Also, that might be a matter of the dessicated hammers, which all need to be replaced as the piano could be featured on Willard Scott's Happy Birthday announcements. The hammers need to be redone, the hammer pins replaced, the bass nut (which I may be trading a website for - we'll see) has aged and some of the pins have shifted, the sostenuto pedal is shot and needs work, and the whole thing needs to be refinished. We're likely going to put another $4000 into this piano before all is said and done.

And why are we doing it? Because the thing is, essentially, an upright concert grand. The soundboard is in great shape, the harp and strings are in beautiful condition, and when I pop the lid and start ripping through Beethoven or Debussy, you can feel it all through the house. It's not a matter of loud - it's a matter of rich, gorgeous sound that goes straight for the spine or can be a lullabye as I help the kids wind down for bed. It's not rented or borrowed and you just can't get a piano like this new anymore unless you're willing to pay several thousand dollars for it.

We simply have the benefit of paying out that money slowly. Right now I've got a piano that sounds beautiful (so long as I'm willing to overlook the newly developed click in the sustain pedal) and it's good enough for the kids to learn on.

I still think it ranks right up there as a great use for $100.

I ended up with a full house yesterday and by full house I mean a topped out enrollment in my class. I've gone from dealing with eight students to dealing with thirty, which isn't such a bad thing. The introduction yesterday also appears to have gone fairly well, but we'll see how the enrollment numbers shift after the syllabus and ACS field intro sink in.

The only caveats to yesterday's ease were the lack of cooperation from the tech box and the lack of a chair for me in the room. I figured out the tech box issue, but the chair will require a little bit of extra footwork.

I have, for the first time, made a pre-emptive move to nip any laptop issues in the bud. I have done so through the purchase of another laptop that is likely to be a lot more reliable than the beast which I have, according to my sister, "been cussing for three years now". She's right. I have been. The CD drive is now, and has been for the majority of the time I've owned it, faulty. It's prone to overheating. The heatsink has already failed and been replaced once. Or is it twice?

Whatever the case, the new computer is here, but that couldn't be accomplished without a little drama. Let me introduce you to Best Buy and their rather pricey "pre-optimized" computer racket.

I started looking into this computer last week. Michael has been gently suggesting that a replacement might be wise, particularly given that I'm working on my thesis and absolutely cannot afford to lose that. However, I also have what must surely be a Depression-era tendency to replace things when they are broken or can no longer be fixed as opposed to purchasing something like a new laptop while the old one has even the smallest spark of life left. While I was resistant to the idea of a new laptop, I couldn't argue the fact that it seemed a good idea. The computer I was looking at could essentially stand in for my current desktop, having most of the same specs and capabilities, and had the advantage of being about a pound lighter than my current laptop, which is appealing given the back issues. Sure, I'd need to get a ten dollar adapter so I could plug in a VGA monitor for projector use, but that didn't seem like too much of an obstacle. All in all, it looked like a good deal.

And was....until the "pre-optimization" issue reared its ugly head.

Best Buy opens computers, sets them to what they believe is the best possible configuration, deleting or leaving files as they deem necessary, accepting all EULAs without the client's consent, and mucking about in the registry. They also supposedly create the System Recovery disks, which any semi-competent computer owner can do on their own; they do not, however, include any sort of instructions on how to use them. For all this meddling the client is charged $70, which is tacked on to the base price of the computer.

When I went in last week, I stated specifically that I did not want a pre-optimized computer. The sales monkey confirmed that he had at least two of those mint in package laptops in stock and suggested that I check back between then and the day I could actually pick it up to confirm that they still had an unmolested computer available. This I did, calling every other day to check on the inventory. I was told time and again that they had an untouched computer and was even told this up to yesterday morning. I asked them to reserve it for me and was told that they did.

This turned out to not be the case when I went in to pick it up yesterday afternoon. I was told that my only option was the laptop that had been tampered with. As the item was discontinued and difficult to find at any other location, I was left with little other option. Regardless of what had been promised, I left with a computer that needed an immediate reformat.

I started researching into this practice and found that that store's customer service stance was not one that was condoned by corporate....at least, not from what I could see from the outside. I put in a call to the main office and the customer relations line and, after about twenty five minutes, was refunded "pre-optimization" fee.

While I normally derive little satisfaction from conflicts like this, I'm glad that I was able to get the point across and get the situation resolved. Now the biggest issue is the naming of the computer. I keep leaning toward Little Shiva (as it is a Toshiba and I appreciate a good rhyme), but I'm thinking I might just rename the current laptop Ace and transfer the name to the new computer. Either way, I'm just glad that the only optimization that the new laptop will receive will be coming from me.

Can you guess what woke me up this morning at 5:34?

The realisation that I need to send my supporting documents out today, not tomorrow.

I'm glad I've been working on this gradually for the last several days, otherwise it really would be an utter panic instead of a little one.

I finally caught up on the pictures for Flickr as well as wrapping up the Scotty hat. I'd feel a lot more accomplished had I done something school-related, but family-related needs to happen as well. I'm also trying to get our bedding in order, which means loading up the new linen cabinet (wardrobe trunk!) and getting the quilts relegated to the other trunk as opposed to taking up a corner at the end of upstairs hall.

It's starting to feel tidy in here, which means I can stop nesting and start back to working. Or so I like to think.

We didn't intend, at first, to take the trunk home. We debated back and forth on our two criteria for bringing anything home: 1) coolness factor and 2) practicality. We don't bring home museum pieces unless they can be of use as we have a long-standing agreement that we will not raise the kids in a museum.

And so we debated. We looked the trunk over thoroughly, pulling the drawers and checking the locks and discussing where it would fit and with what it would be filled. We even walked away from it so we could discuss without seeing others circling it.

And in the end we paid the $45 for it and brought it home.

It's completely intact from what we can see, right down to the drawer-holding mechanism behind the drawers to keep them from shifting about during travel. We even have the key for it and that works, too, as we were relieved to discover when we closed the big padlock on the front.

So what is it doing now? It's taken up the position of linen closet. It's a position that needed to be filled for over a year now and I'm glad that we stuck it out and waiting until we found the right thing.