One equal temper of heroic hearts

Good news! Life-changing news! Well, potentially-postal-code-altering news, anyway. My boss poked his head into my office at the end of the day to ask if I was still interested in pursuing further graduate work in TESOL. I said yes, I absolutely was, and he told me to check out this program in Vermont, and that there could be an opportunity for me to do a summer internship that would be partially, if not fully, paid for by INTERLINK! So I might be spending the summer on the East Coast! 'Anyone living out there want to take me to a clam bake? I've always wanted to go to a clam bake. Essentially, since I already have my TESOL certification, I'd be eligible for an accelerated program of study. If things work out, I'll have another Master's degree in as little as two summers!

I'm going to do some digging into the program before I decide for sure and, of course, I have to consider my financial situation before I make any big decisions. But I'm really excited about this. I think it would be quite the adventure, and if the opportunity is there, why shouldn't I take advantage of it?

I also had way too much fun today plotting RP fodder with nerdish. It feels so good to be creative again!

Posting this here because, while it's unlikely I'll spring for the non-watermarked versions, this is the only visual evidence I have that I actually got across the stage on Sunday. I'm wearing Sigma Tau Delta honor cords and my hood (which will be draped over my shoulders five seconds after this shot is taken) is draped over my left arm. I don't remember the guy whose hand I'm shaking. Apparently he's a part of the English Department, but I've never seen him before. I'm not going to lie and tell you that the hats and fancy robes aren't part of the reason I want to go on to get my doctorate.

I have my Japanese final at 10:30 tomorrow morning. After that, I'm officially done with graduate school. I'm going round to my graduate project supervisor's office to say goodbye and I'll be back after the first of the year to pick up my diploma, but that's pretty much it. I feel more "grown up" now than I ever have before.

I should see a doctor about that.

So tired. Todd and I were up until about six this morning drinking wine and watching S2 episodes of House. We both caved and gave each other one part of the other's Christmas present. Todd got me Michael Moorcock's The Coming of the Terraphiles and I got him a Bender keychain. (I will save the rest of his presents for Christmas, I will.) At one point I remember the conversation getting very existential -- the meaning of life, thoughts about heaven and what happens to us after we die -- but one of us made a poop joke and we were back on track. Nights like that are awesome. :)

Weekend To-Do List:

SATURDAY:
- Clean apartment before parents arrive on Sunday
- Call parents to confirm arrival/departure plans
- Do a load of laundry
- Buy soda and scotch tape
- Wrap Christmas presents
- Finish That One Part of another_myself's Birthristmas box
- Make a final exam study plan for Japanese
- E-mail mailing address to BBF / Follow up with Andrew, re: the VIC

SUNDAY:
- Graduation!
- Begin studying for Japanese final

So, we start every Japanese class by saying the month, date, and day of the week out loud. I still haven't gotten the hang of Japanese numbers yet (yes, I know I have a final next week, shut up), so I have this handy little chart of Japanese numbers from the book store, which I refer to a couple of minutes before each class begins. Today I was all set to answer that it was the 4th of December when I looked at my phone and was surprised to discover that it was actually the 7th. I guess I've been living under the assumption that the last three days were a consecutive string of December 4ths.

I really need to get out of here.

In other news, last night's episode of Castle was wonderful and I had fun texting austen throughout. An OOM will surely follow. :D

Now I'm off to my final ESL class for the semester, where I will eat free cupcakes and try to forget that my Japanese final is cumulative. D:

I cannot get over Slings & Arrows and how amazingly relevant to my life it is right now.

So, wrapping up the final semester, the last stand, the end product. After a week of break I convinced myself that it would be a good idea to get ahead of the curve where final papers were concerned and that a simple 3-4 pager would be a nice way to ease back into the swing of things. I don't know if it was the break, that I'm rusty writing papers, or the fact that I really don't have anything to say about how Hippies changed the face of postwar America, but no matter how hard I tried, I had absolutely no intellectual drive to write this paper today. I went through several drafts (one of which tried to connect Hippies to the fall of the Soviet Union through the music of the Beatles) before ending up with three full pages and a squeaker of a fourth. All absolute rubbish. The paper's due on Thursday, which gives me a couple of days to revise and edit, but I hate revising and editing. I don't like to dick around with a paper after the fact; I like to get it all done at once with minimal or no changes. (This is why I will probably never finish writing a novel. I'd have to work for two years straight.) Okay, so it's not total rubbish. Most of it is good, and I more or less stuck to the prompt. But, as a writer, turning in something that I don't feel completely great about is very disquieting.

FACT: I wear a special hat when I take Calloway outside. It's big, fluffy, and has those faux-fur-lined earflaps ("It's Holden Caulfield's 'killin' hat'," Todd says) and it keeps me warm when I have to stand there waiting for Calloway to do his business. So, it's like, 6:45 this morning and I've only just stumbled out of bed and into a pair of shoes. I've got Calloway on the leash and the hat lopsided on my head and I'm really feeling the whole 'it's 6:45 in the morning' thing and this guy comes out of the apartment building behind me on his way to work. 'Sees me standing there in my pajamas, a squatting dog at my feet and a killin' hat on my head and says, pleasant as you please, "Like the hat." I did not know then what I know now: that that compliment was going to be the obscure highlight of my entire day. (And I will forever associate it with my dog having a bowel movement.)

Okay. Homework's done. Gonna' read a little more of The Hot Zone before bed.

So, Tumblr has practically exploded the last couple of days with leaks from the Doctor Who Series 5 "Meanwhile, Inside the TARDIS..." bits and I have had to practically bite both of my thumbs off to keep from watching them, as my DVDs arrive on Tuesday and I am a big proponent of delaying any kind of personal pleasure for as long as possible. Or, at least until Tuesday. At the same time, I'm just like, "AUUGH, MATT SMITH, YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT YOUR CHARMINGLY IRREGULAR FACE DOES TO ME."

Galloping toward the end of the year, and there's still so much to do. Next Thursday we can order our graduation/commencement gear, which for Masters degree students includes a cap, gown, tassel, and hood. Commencement for December graduates will take place here, and I've been told that it will be all done up for Christmas which, honestly, is almost as exciting as getting the degree itself. It's been a rough semester. Well, not rough, but busy, and I've finally reached the point where I'm all, "Yeah, yeah, I've had just about enough of this school thing, let's get this over with." I still have no idea what I'm going to do after graduation. And I'm starting to be okay with that. I'll have a little money left over after graduation to pay rent and bills, so if I don't fall right into a job on January 1st, it's no real worry. I'll just get out there, network, glad-hand, and do my best. Besides, anything that I get is likely to be temporary anyway: Todd has another year of school left and after that, I'd really like to go overseas to teach. If not overseas, then definitely somewhere "new" in the continental United States. I am twenty-seven, have great ambition and relatively few things tying me down to one spot. Why not go out and see a bit of the world while I still have the energy?

I just finished watching Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story and he had this great line about having to believe that you can do something before you can actually do it -- "you have to believe that you can be a comedian before you can be a comedian, you have to believe you can be an astronaut before you can be an astronaut" -- and I was sitting there, thinking, "at this point, I really want to believe that I can pay my bills after I graduate." And then I thought, "well, that's a terrifically idiotic thing to believe in." And I started thinking that maybe I've got it all backwards: I can't keep thinking about life in terms of what it takes to survive life. Sure, making sure that you have food and shelter and clothes is very important, but if you're only worried about how you're going to get a job to make your next car payment, well, what kind of a life is that? I want to write. I want to teach. I want to travel and learn more about other cultures, and meet people, and help people. I've got to start believing in my ability to do those things, rather than all the stupid, myopic details that clutter up the rest of life.

But, just to be reasonable: paying the rent and being able to buy groceries are also important objectives. I slept with a beanie on my head last night because I'm a stickler about not turning on the heat until the middle of November. Frugality and self-esteem. These are a couple of the things I'm currently working on.

Today I had one of those rare moments when I was able to articulate everything that I needed to say, the moment I needed to say it. This is unique for me. While I like words and have a general idea about the order in which they should go, I am sometimes flustered by one-on-one conversations that require me to think quickly about how my answers will affect the immediate future. And my sanity. But today, in my meeting with the director of the VIC, I was able to answer quickly and decisively. Anyway, long story short: from now until the end of the year, I will be acting in an advisory capacity for the International Center. With my schedule, I cannot commit to a full-time position; or even part-time. However, I can certainly be available to the folks at the International Center and put them in contact with other VU students who will be able to conduct ESL classes. After graduation, the field is wide open. If the International Center is able to offer a full-time director position, then I'll gladly accept. But right now my involvement must be limited. So, yeah, the meeting went well. I'm happy with my role.

Thanks for all of the positive thoughts and support, you guys. I really appreciate it.

Student teaching starts tomorrow! I'm so excited!

I was pretty tired for most of yesterday afternoon and wanted to take a nap, but at some point I'd crossed over that cusp in the middle of the day when taking a nap is appropriate and when it pretty much makes you look like a manic depressive. So I ran some menial errands and came home with a pair of knitting needles and a skein of pretty green yarn. I was a knitter in college (unsuccessful), and I remember it being kind of therapeutic. When I'm under stress, my OCD tends to spike, and I end up losing sleep because I can't stop thinking about the direction of the pile on the living room carpet, or whether or not every bag of chips in the pantry has a clawclip to keep it from going stale. Knitting is something that's repetitive enough to assuage that part of my brain. Plus, I can listen to my Preston-Child audiobooks while I knit. I am entirely self-contained. It's nice.

There is still a great sense of ambiguity concerning my place at the International Center. I sent an e-mail earlier this week, asking for clarification of the position (as well as whether or not I would be compensated for my work in the pre-planning stages), and got a very vague "that's what we're going to discuss at the Sept. 22 meeting" answer in return. At this point, it seems like they are looking for someone willing to be paid part-time wages for a full time commitment. That is not going to work for me. I will remain open to the meeting, and will be happy to make suggestions about the direction of future ESL programs but, right now, I simply cannot balance a full-time commitment to school and to a job for which there seems to be very little structure. There's a job fair at the university tomorrow. In preparation, I printed off about twenty copies of my résumé. I'm going to go, gladhand, and give my résumé to as many prospective employers as possible. I would really like to target academic positions in and around the Valparaiso area, but my degree is flexible enough as to allow me to work in a number of different areas without too much difficulty. I'm actually pretty optimistic about the job fair. Even if the job at the International Center does not work out, at least I know that I am out there, trying.

iTunes is spinning some really great seasonally-appropriate stuff for me today.

I got the job!

Well, I think I did; the fellow I interviewed with could not have been any older than me (he looked like a bunch of peachfuzz with a face) and while he did not come right out and say "Miss Wilkening, we're going to give you the job," he did pretty much imply I was the only person he was considering for the position. We also set another meeting for later on in the month, at which time I will lay out my vision for the ESL program: you know, how I plan on strengthening community ties, how I will organize classes, with whom I will collaborate. It could be a test, but it's one I plan on passing. Also, bit of disappointing news: it is not, as I had thought, a full-time, salaried position. I will be working as an independent contractor (read: "we don't have enough funding to pay you a salary or provide health benefits"), 10-12 hours a week. But you know what? That's fine. At this point, I could not possibly hold down a full-time job and complete my degree. This part-time position will provide me with ample experience, and will add quite a nice line to my résumé when I do begin the hunt for a full-time job.

I feel sort of silly now, getting all worked up over something that turned out all right in the end. Thank you, again, for all of your support. It really helped get me through this week.

Now that that's all over, I can get on with things.

Oh, konban wa, Japanese. I believe you and I will be spending the evening together.

People. Ugh. The university just launched a new branding campaign and people are already backseat-designing: "I don't like the new logo; it doesn't fit a 150-year-old university;" "I hate the drop-down menu, it sucks;" "the non-serif font looks cheap;" "So now we're a community college? Cheap." All right, fine. I get it. You don't like the new look. I'm not completely convinced of it, either, but that's the reason I'm going to the brand identity launch presentation tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure that they spent a lot of money to research new brand standards (I would know; I used to work for the company that outlined the university's brand standards) and that they have a legitimate reason for making these changes. But for you to sit there and just offhandedly snark that the whole university is going down the tubes -- because of a logo -- is out of line. If you're so bent out of shape about the whole thing, why don't you go to the Convocation presentation? And don't tell me that you won't go because you're "no longer a student." By saying that, I assume you think that, because you've graduated, you don't have to give a damn anymore. So why complain?

Here was my response to the criticism (which got a little longer than I had intended):

I'm sure they didn't just hire some yokel off the street to do their brand identity. Speaking as someone who used to work for an advertising/design agency (and whose client actually used to BE Valparaiso University), I can confidently say that the higher-ups likely laid down a lot of cash to research new brand standards.

And, while you may not agree with the decisions that were made, I think that the new brand standards DO show some consistency. I was speaking to a faculty member about the new brand standards the other day. She told me that, before the change, the university did not put a limit on how individual departments could use the university logo. That meant that the English Department could do whatever they wanted with the brand standard, while the Physics Department could do something completely different. There were, she told me, approximately 70 different logos floating around campus. That is not staying consistent with brand standards. At maximum, there are now three new logos for use by the university. The Crusader has also been modified, to be "less cartoonish."

I think this is a giant step forward for Valparaiso, and for the image they want to present to the public and to potential students. I plan on attending the Convocation presentation tomorrow. I think it's too soon to say that the entire design sucks, before we've actually had a chance to hear the university's rationale for changing it.

I'm sorry. I know I'm not working in advertising anymore, but FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU