uh.... shits cute.

Oh, Brooklyn Brooklyn take me IN

Exciting new song from The Avett Brothers, heard it last night from NPR's live feed of SXSW. GREAT!

Completed MANDT training. I can officially restrain clients now, what was I supposed to do before? I guess take a hit.

59 days til' Australia then L.A., hells yeeah

oh why can't i be?

photo by Crackerfarm

oh why can't i be in austin?? I am listening to the Avett Brothers streaming live from SXSW in Austin. The festival starts this weekend and I am not there, wah womp.

There is always next year. I am making some pretty heavy plans for next year..... hmmmmmmm.

lately i have been listening to: The Black Keys, The Black Lips, Beck, The Elders, Kings of Leon, The National

BIKE RIDE IN THE MORNING

this week in review

I have never been challenged academically like I was this past week. Writing my midterm for Indigenous People was difficult but rewarding. I was able to make direct application of course content to the Inuit, galvanizing the information in my little noggin. The presentation on Melbourne for my business class was a joke. It didn't take me that long to do my portion, and I think we did pretty well. I took my world religions Midterm, I don't think I did very well since I was falling asleep due to the all night-er I pulled (how college of me). An article review for Ethnic Relations over Muslim Americans wearing hijab and its contribution to forming a contemporary blended identity. Art History... blah bla bla blaha blah.

I am ready for two days of relaxation and drinking, then hitting the HW again. Wicka wow.

booted.

Well, Erika kicked nearly everyone out of class today (Sarah didn't). No one had read the article she assigned, something like five days ago. I felt bad because my 'side' of the classroom are the ones that always read and are pretty engaged in discussion. This weekend just wasn't for me. I wasn't sitting around, I was genuinely doing homework- just didn't have to time to read the articles. But tonight is going pretty different so far. I am doing homework now (besides writing this). Good for me.

Sorry Erika!

pour mars

Well, March is here. It came in cold as fuck, hopefully I'll be in shorts and flip-flops by April.

New banner up today. This one, unfortunately, I did touch up- I couldn't resist. I don't like to manipulate pictures to much, but I decided to have some fun this time. You can find the original here.

This is the Mombasa skyline seen from the roof of my hotel, where Hallie and I stayed in our mold infested room. We woke up and our heads felt like balloons. Buuuut, damn did Mombasa have some good Chicken Tikka.

NIGELS,

for some good food and tea. Really I shouldn't go out tonight, I don't have my critique done for Research Design. Technically, just making it through the week I think I maybe deserve a reward.

We'll see.

Last night I finished America Anonymous, but now I cannot decide what to move onto next. I am wanting something light since I have a shit ton of reading for school. Hmmmmm.

Also... I think I might start posting some of the academic articles I have been reading lately. Instead of the random scattering of literature I have been accessing, I am coming to a sharper point in what I am interested in researching: Gender, Orientation, Ascribed Roles, etc.

CRITICAL POINT

Everything is coming to a head, right... now. 1K to the school tomorrow, then rent and utilities, then a passport that I should have applied for last month. fuck fuck fuck. Two papers and a presentation for tomorrow.

Either I need to get all sorts of fucked up Friday, or do the right thing and take care of all of this shit.

No Worries (I wish)

I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE

My days of procrastinating are over. This semester has been one of major change. I only drink once a week, I keep all of my work appointments, and I get my homework in on time. But there is a problem with that last one.

I am getting my homework in on time, but not at the quality I am wanting. I continue to wait until the night before to write a paper or get some reading done. That is no way to produce quality work, and I know that.

Here it is on paper (or screen?), I am renouncing my half-ass, night before, last minute bullshit. Papers are going to be at least two night projects so I can start producing work that I am satisfied with.

FUCK, I should have done this earlier.

I forgot...

how amazing this New Years was until Hal Sista posted the pics.

Currently Reading: Investigating the Social World by Russel K. Schutt (for RD&A, shit)

Currently Listening: Client at the house singing some song he made up.

A day in the life of Abbey Road

Fuck the Census

Appalachian Trail. Summer 2007

You think the government would develop a more user friendly interface for their 2000 Census data. Nope, too busy sending people into space.

Dragging on, dragging on. I almost finished my taxes today, but alas. My mother called just to let me know that she lost the W-2 Ottawa Uni. sent to the house. Fuck. So I owe the school 1K by Feb. 28th. I was counting on that cash, I guess it's back to turning tricks.

However........ I am all caught up on homework, and paperwork at the clinic. Maybe I can breathe for a few seconds.

Hey, I am needing some new music too. Anybody, throw me a bone.

Peace and No Worries

Addendum

For Tonia, Suzette, Kelly, Toni, Sarah, Taylor, and the rest of the social scientists (click).

30 MILES, not inches

Rumney, NH. 2007

Well I smoked last night, slept in this morning, then didn't go to any of my classes. To be fair my morning class was canceled, then I skipped my two afternoon classes. Of course the standard guilt crept in, but I made myself look from a different perspective.

I haven't missed a class yet, I do ALL of the assigned reading, and turn in all my work on time. If I keep this up, I am going to burn out... big time. So taking a mental health day once every two weeks isn't that big a deal, right? I tend to make things sound better than really are.

In other news Cassie is going to be in NY for a few days in September, every article of wearable clothing I own is dirty (including what I have on), I still don't know where I will live this summer, and I feel like I am losing control at work.

fuck

Currently Reading (still): The Anthropology of Religion Fiona Bowie
Currently Listening: Son The National

JR Yamanote Line

I got really fucked up last night, started wrestling with the roomie. There is a pretty big, Colt sized, whole in our wall now.

I was kind of in a bad mood starting around noon, so I went for a drive into the outlying areas of Ottawa, KS. Made it to some pretty awesome winding roads with bridges, creeks, and rocky bluff outcroppings. I brought the 35mm with me, but... NO FILM! Crap.

There was some great conversation going on last night at Rickner's about the oh-so debated gay marriage thing. The conversation ended with some salt, a shot, and a squeeze from a bottle of lemon juice (I guess we couldn't afford the real thing). I got to see Rusty and apparently tried to tackle Ryan, missed, and hit the door frame. Ouch.

WORK

So I got an email from the executive integration director today asking me "How exactly do you spend your time at the Elizabeth Layton Center?" What!? She then asked who my supervisors were. The clinic is having troubles and is making lots of little cuts here and there.

When I read the email I had a flash from Office Space where the efficiency expert comes in and weeds out people they don't need. "yeaaaah......."

Fuck this shit and fuck this day

It's so ridiculous, I had to post again.

Well.......... It all started when my World Religions class took a turn for the worst. Instead of our normal intelligent class discussions, we had three people present their own personal "Adventures in Faith." Listening to a sermon (because that is what it was) from an old wrinkly preacher is some janky shit. The doctor and social worker had some interesting insight into "compassion fatigue" since I see that at the clinic.

Then, the battery in my truck was dead so borrowed Ryan's car to go buy another. I purchased the battery ($77), then stood in the parking lot looking in the car window at the keys on the seat, desperately pulling on the door handle. Shit was locked. Called Keyman ($40), didn't have any cash so had to go into WalMart to pull money out of the ATM. No ATM. I HAD TO BUY A FUCKING PACK OF GUM, JUST TO GET CASH BACK.

Oh, and I keep getting these agency wide emails from work. Blah blah we are losing grants blah blah blah the economy is horrible, then WAM! So and So is no longer with the agency, this is not the beginning of a layoff (right).

Fuck that shit.

fated to pretend

Had an awesome night last night hot-tubbing (thanks Hahns and Nicki). I feel like things are going as they should now. The start of the semester was hard with the passing of my vehicle (RIP).

I didn't have any kind of attachment to the vehicle itself, only that it is extremely difficult to work without one. Borrowing cars to do med runs? No thanks.

In other news... THIS, and I am going to WEHO for a week after Oz to visit Kyler. Good bye Kansas, hello Barrier Reef and Santa Monica.

Currently Reading: The Anthropology of Religion Fiona Bowie

Listening to: Time to Pretend MGMT

not my image

new banner

Its a new month, and a new banner. I took this photo of some travel mate's shoes at the Lord Shiva Temple in Machakos, Kenya (2008). We had to take our shoes off to enter the inner sanctuary. People I was with were reacting very differently. Some were crying, some were taking pictures, others wanted to get the hell out of there.

I was excited to see the temple, but was unmoved. I am coming to discover that when I am traveling and happen upon a religiously significant site, I look at the monument with an anthropologists eye. I don't look back on it as terribly affecting, but educational and historical. A lot of that must have something to do with my serious beef with religion (not just Christianity).

Peace and No Worries.

"For groups, as well as for individuals, life itself means to separate and to be reunited, to change form and condition, to die and be reborn. It is to act and to cease, to wait and to rest, and then to begin acting again, but in a different way. And there are always new thresholds to cross: the thresholds of summer and winter, of a season or a year, of a month or a night; the thresholds of birth, adolescence, maturity, and old age; the thresholds of death and that of the afterlife - for those who believe in it.... Our interest lies not in the particular rites but in their essential significance and their relative positions within ceremonial wholes - that is, their order... The underlying arrangement is always the same. Beneath a multiplicity of forms, either consciously expressed or merely implied, a typical pattern always recurs; the pattern of the rites of passage."

Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage 1909