The 8th Nerve

Steve and I got up around 5:30 this morning. Steve made a pancake breakfast and Jen came over to eat with us. Then the three of us headed over to the college. I felt surprisingly calm altogether. My committee arrived, along with Josh, Billie, Jim, Barb, Melissa, and three students. We had to change rooms because the tech people didn’t have the projector in the room, but other than that, things went off without a hitch.

I presented and it went quite well; I felt very comfortable. I was surprised at the emotion on various people’s faces when I was done. The feedback was tremendous. One of the committee members gave me a card with an incredibly kind note.

I was done, I had the rest of the day free, and it was 70 degrees out. Doesn’t get better than that.

Happy 3 year anniversary, blog.

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Mar 31st 2006Everyday life & Family & Friends

Steve: I’m going to go find Casper.

Me: You want cash back?

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Mar 29th 2006I Misheard When

When I left my last class of my graduate career (at least for the time being!) on Monday evening, the glow of the sunset diffused across the campus. I got on I89 off exit 16, and had an amazing view up close. The sky was a shocking brilliant pink-orange billowing over the Adirondacks and the lake to the west.

The drive down 104 and 128 through Fairfax and Westford to Essex yesterday was indescribably peaceful; along the farms in the warm sun and expanding sky and purple snow capped Mansfield rising unexpectedly close and tall.

This is Vermont. I can�t imagine living anywhere else.

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Mar 29th 2006Vermont

Me: How do you pronounce this word? (point to “assuage” on my powerpoint slide)

Steve: Ass…wadge?

Me: Definitely can’t use that word in my presentation.

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Mar 29th 2006I Laughed When

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Mar 26th 2006Friends & Pictures

I think this whole crazy week caught up with me today while driving home from work. First I began to feel incredibly spacey, my attention wandering and I had to tighten my grip on the steering wheel and remind myself that I was operating a motor vehicle traveling approximately 70 miles an hour. Then I began to feel shakey and trembley. Then incredibly hot, feverish, inducing me to turn off the heater and roll down the windows.

There was only one thing to do. Stop at the store and buy an enormous chocolate chip ice cream sandwich.

Oh thank god, back to 100% after polishing that baby off.

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Mar 23rd 2006Everyday life

This is a godsend. I can comfortably talk on cell phones for the first time in my life, which will be crucial to my job. Typically the t coil in the hearing aid and the tech in the cell phone create a great deal of buzzing so it is too difficult to hear. The Hatis director completely eliminates that noise (but you have to be sure to keep the phone away from the ear and let the headset do the job), plus it amplifies the caller’s voice so it is clear as a bell. It’s going to take some practice before I can get all the hooks and wires on right before the call goes to voicemail! I found it on sale at www.deafpagers.com for $174- fantastic deal. If you need something like this, first see if your workplace will purchase it for you.

Sometimes I am amazed all over again how I live in an age where one of my senses can run on batteries. If I had been born earlier, I would have lived a much different life. So despite my worries about the consequences of this age on the environment, I am also grateful for the developments that do make these important things easier.

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Mar 22nd 2006Hearing loss

my hair is now long enough to get trapped in the door whenever I get in the car and shut the door. Of course I don’t realize it until I try to turn my head.

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Mar 22nd 2006I Peeved When

Today is like being dragged through thick, cloying mud by an elephant taking slow measured steps. Today is draggin’ hard.

I finished I and Thou last week. I’ve never had a book hit me so hard. Buber has taken everything I’ve dimly sensed all my life and he made it real. I and Thou is a book I will be reading again and again- it was in big part what I was trying to say in my paper. The reason I understand his book as well as I do is because of the months of thinking and researching and writing that went into my paper. And of course, every sentence he wrote is rife with new learning and understanding each time it is read.

His writings not only have fundamental truths about relating and presence, but it also brings to new life crucial messages that, for me, organized religion has ritualized and killed. Not only was his use of language and concepts so eye opening, but he also used three images in particular, the same ones that I have been grappling with the last several months. When I read those particular lines, I simply couldn’t believe it.

I wrote this so that I don’t forget.

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Mar 20th 2006Books & Introspection

This has to be an absolute record for number of consecutive entries.

I dreamed last night that I was about ready to present and turn in my paper. I brought it to a professor and he took one look at the first page and circled the first line in the second paragraph in red ink. “Is your paper about the care and upkeep of parrots?” he asked. This is his way to point out that I had not followed a very basic rule: apparently the first line in the second paragraph always contains the main idea for the WHOLE PAPER. And I was talking irrelevantly about parrots in my second paragraph, for shame! I am embarassed and realize I must change and rewrite everything.

Ah, anxiety dreams.

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Mar 16th 2006Everyday life