moussu.net Blog

today i must:
- wake up–that’ll actually be the hardest part
- take a shower
- get my nails done
- go to the bank to cash my tax returns
- call judith to tell her i won’t stay at her house first
- call the limo to make a reservation for the airport tomorrow
- print the 140 page i must read before 6pm
- READ the 140 pages
- write/send questions to margie
- ask for an incomplet in engl. 631 or i won’t finish the semester alive
- write a note to the mailwoman so she keeps my mail for a week
- go to 2 meetings
- teach
- register for classes next fall
- write a letter of recommendation for a one of my students
- pack my suitcases for tomorrow
- clean the house
- go to class between 6 and 10pm
- call molli to make sure i can go to her place
- write to tony to accept the teaching assignment for next fall
- collect and try to grade 15 papers
- tell my landlord i’m leaving for a week
- chat with a few people
- catch a cold, which is the first thing i do when i’m on vacation
- i don’t know what else but i’m sure i’m forgetting something!

And I cite, from LuLu’s website and about my own blog: « lulu: une homonyme version jonquille et crocus, en V.0. sans sous-titre. » I guess that describes me quite well Merci!!

Feeling down these days? I guess it’s the winter or something, because many of my students are not feeling too good and I feel like I’m a « born-again shrink » or the « designated replacement mother » these days… Not that I don’t appreciate their trust and all… but I wish I could do more for these kids, I really love them and know they’re going through tough times (and the assignments I give them don’t really help). Actually, it’s interesting, because I feel quite a the end of my rope too, now, but I must « look and act » as if I was the strong one here, give advice, help, listen, care… and in the end, it’s just amazing how helping others gives me energy. If I can make one person smile, I haven’t wasted my day!

Music is helping me a lot too these days. I am currently listening to the Brahms’ violin concerto (in D, op. 77) and can feel each one of my cells go all happy inside and vibrate in unison with the music. The violin sonata No. 3, in D too, is also something that represent such perfection and beauty, especially the third movement, that I can’t resist and must feel better, at peace with the world and myself. I lie down on my bed, look at the sky and the fast-moving clouds or the stars on my ceiling, and just listen to the music, let it fill me with energy, and i forget about life for a moment.

I am trying to write a paper today, a case study about ethics and academic papers published by faculty members who are « forced » to publish as much as possible if they want tenure and respect. I find this highly depressing, and for two reasons: 1) This is what I’m getting into, right now, and honestly, I hate this and know I will always hate this. I know I swore I’d never write a master’s thesis and ended up writing a nice one too, but this « publish or perish » obsession is already ruining my life and I’m not yet even close to getting my doctorate!! 2) What is the point of all this? I mean, I am at home and I write one paper after another, and I worry so much about those papers and the exams this summer and my presentations at TESOL and all the things I should be doing to « look good » for my teachers and the « field » of linguistics which really couldn’t care less about me (and it’s reciprocal, thank you!)… while hundreds of people have no water to drink, no house to sleep in, no food, no cars, no jobs, no health, and lose their loved ones to war and torture and famine and despair… When this world is crying for help, here I am, writing papers! Great! I always said I’d do something meaningful with my life!! Maybe instead of worrying about the ethics of faculty publications we should worry about the ethics of bombing Iraq, for example!?

Happy b-day Eva… once every four years… « leap » year, the guy said yesterday, is really a dumb expression, because it really is an extra day between you and spring, so it should be called « restrain » year! Well, spring sure seems to be here so I’m not complaining about the extra day especially since I am a bit overwhelmed with my work. Yesterday evening, I ate dinner outside for the first time this year, with a good friend, and it was wonderful!! I still had my coat on, and as soon as the sun went down it became a bit chilly again, but oh, how good it was to feel warmth and light on me again!!! I also saw a few people on a canoe going down the Wabash, for the first time ever! It was so cute I almost had an accident watching them! It’s hard to believe that Europe is currently experiencing an unusually bad winter! That’s only fair, though, because a few weeks ago we were under the snow up to our chin and my family was telling me about the warm weather and the flowers that were already coming out in France and Switzerland… hehe… now it’s our turn!

I just talked to the man of my life, the big love of my heart… he makes me laugh… I don’t miss him anymore the way I did when we separated, but every time we chat on MSN I feel my heart go all happy again

That’s it, I’m submitting my « article » for publication to TESOL Quarterly! Wow, that’s a BIG step and if I am published there, well, let’s just say that my self-esteem might just go up a few inches… or miles…

UTAH!!! MY FRIENDS!!!! i got a great phone call tonight from a great friend, and it makes me sooooooo excited to see her again soon

OK so i’m not feeling so good these days, but thinking that in 12 days i’ll be in utah does make me feel much better!!!

i’m excited about:
- my friends
- my ex-teachers
- the elc
- the mountains
- sushi
- the landing over the lake
- seeing the I-15 sign
- the rocks, the colors, the desert
- seeing PROVO
- byu
- MY FRIENDS MY FRIENDS MY FRIENDS
- orem and spanish fork, who would have thought i’d be excited to hear those names?
- slc and the temple and the mormons (yes, i’m excited to see them too)
- the byu sign on the mountain
- the sunsets
- center street where i lived many a happy years
- good-looking people
- churches everywhere
- MY FRIENDS
- movies 8 where i saw so many $1.5-movies
- MY FRIENDS MY FRIENDS
- sundance
- mount nebo, where i went for long drives whenever i needed to think
- and so many other things!!!

great. first time a student makes me cry (last week), and now first time a teacher makes me cry (tonight). 15 years of teaching and 25 years of school! this semester’s going just peachy.

the only thing i’m happy about is that there’s no longer any life on mars. it sounds dumb, but trust me, it makes a big difference in my life!

come, spring, come!

Absolutely hilarious… and scary!!! Go see Bush’s foreign friends and read CAREFULLY!

These are the states I’ve visited/gone through/slept in/spent some time in/lived in (and not just gone through an airport there). Actually, there’s one that I’m lying about, but since I don’t know which one it is, I can’t remove it… it’s the one north east of Idaho, north of Wyoming I think… if you tell me its name and its code (like IN for Indiana) I’ll remove it from this map. Create your own visited states or visited countries maps.

A VERY interesting thing to do, about this map and other similar maps is to read the comments made on this page. Scroll down a little… It is amazing to realize how « unclear » the borders of this world are and how strongly people feel about their « country. » Anyone interested in history, geography, politics, ethnography, and such, should read these comments.

the wind is going to blow away the roof above my head

there is a little bird coming at my window from time to time not today it’s too windy and cold

do people who know they will die soon always wish they could live longer or do they sometimes also want to die

don’t try to enter purdue’s campus at 5pm the traffic is insane

yesterday i wanted to start a list of all the people i have met during my life but then i realized that in the last almost two years i’ve spent here i have met so many people i could fill five notebooks with all their names

i hate to have to admit that but i am feeling crappy these days physically and mentally

as my father would say il y a un bon dieu pour les crapules because i am doing a lot of stupid things these days and among others forgot my credit card in the atm but no one used it before i was able to block it for free too

i eat chocolate all the time and have zits all the time but there might not be any correlation between the two since i also drink water and sleep and read and worry and breathe indiana’s air and teach all the time so any of these things could cause the zits

i wrote a little website accessibility survey today for margie so she can decide what changes she wants me to make on the iawe website when she becomes the president and it almost felt like i was the website expert for a minute

the snow has melted and it feels like fall a bad fall really but not like february

i listen to paolo conte and love it especially sotto le stelle del jazz le donne odiavano il jazz non si capisce il motivo

the wind the wind the wind and the rain

my favorite flower is the daffodil ou la jonquille i used to have a whole wild garden of them in yverdon and the man who wants my heart will get it in exchange for daffodils

I wander’d lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch’d in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed – and gazed – but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

last night i dreamed, woke up, dreamed, woke up… and here are three of my dreams:
- i went to teach my class one day and when i was in front of my students, i realized i had no clothes and no skin on me, you could see all the muscles and all… it was disgusting and very bloody and scary…
- i was talking with friends and laughing… but i was made out of concrete, at at one point, my whole body exploded… and i saw my arm (still made out of dark grey concrete) laying on the ground, my hand still holding someone else by the shoulder…
- i was in a huge store where there were aisles and aisles of small babies in shoe boxes…
i have to stop here or else you’ll think i’m really crazy… which i am anyway, i mean, who on earth has such disturbing dreams? if you know anything about dream interpretation, please let me know what all this means!

i had my b-day on a friday the 13th in 1995, i will have one of friday the 13th in 2006, and another one in 2026… 2012… (darn, not 2013!) … 2017 (yuck!)… 2023 (HAHA, 50th b-day!)… 2034… and in 2040… but i hope i won’t be there to see the last ones! this is WAY too scary!!!

1. Because of the number of spam messages I was getting, I started blocking domains… and blocked purdue.edu by mistake, which means that I could never get messages from my students, except from the ones that were using a yahoo or hotmail account… yeah… took me three weeks to realize it…
2. The weather is maaaaarverlous except that it’s f’ing cold, -14C today and I don’t want to know how much it is tonight!
3. I ate some delicious chinese food tonight with a great friend who managed to get me out of my house on a weekend, miracles do happen!
4. I am thinking of dropping a class, the easiest one I have, because the other two are so horribly tough and I can’t drop them… but it feels really dumb to drop the easiest one…
5. My students are great… becoming lazy, but I told them that I expected « perfection » on the last paper and hopefully, they’ll try…
6. Third language acquisition is interesting: do you think that, if you learn a third language, the second language you learned will help you or be a confusion? If I learned German, will it help me or not, if I want to learn Danish? And if I learned German, and I want to learn Chinese, will it help me or not? If you acquire certain « metalinguistic awareness » and better processing skills while you learn a language, but then forget the language because you don’t ever you use it, do you keep the « learning skills » alive, even though the « content » is gone?
7. Learning about Human Resources Management scares me to death because we are supposed to learn how to DO things (advertise, hire, manage, fire, etc.) but really, for me, it is learning about all the things I will have to GO THROUGH first. Plus I’m already freaking out about the prelims in August… I might try to get a post-doc after all…
9. There is no 8.
10. WRITE COMMENTS on this thing!! IT WORKS NOW!!! Click on « comment » and write your name if you want or whatever, and then write a comment and click on OK… it’s that easy and it works now!!!! Oh, and GO SEE MY NEW HOMEPAGE!!! I reward myself with that (if you read for 5 hours, you can spend one hour working on a webpage), and I always try new things for my homepage, which are never what I want, really, but still pretty nice. This time, I think I really like it. Go see it and tell me what you think!!!!

I am extremely sad for three reasons tonight. One of them is that other people’s sadness saddens me too… The other two reasons I can’t explain here, and not being able to talk about it makes me even more sad! I wish I could write something beautiful to illustrate my feelings tonight but I am no writer and can find no word to express it all.
Here’s one of my favorite paintings by Van Gogh. I love his tormented landscapes, they express exactly how I usually feel, but tonight I want to show this one: white almond flowers for those I love, for all my friends, for those who hurt, for those I miss, and for the friends I still wish to make in the future.

WRITE COMMENTS about my entries!!! J’aurais du faire ca depuis longtemps mais je croyais que c’était cher ou compliqué… mais c’était gratuit et facile! Hah, first time I « switch codes » here, as we say in linguistics… Anyway, please write comments (long, short, dumb, funny, smart…) if you want to!) (I don’t know if you noticed but I’ve been trying to use accents on French words lately (well I got the é and the è but not yet the accents on other letters), and it’s making a mess on my Safari (darn Macs!) but I hope it’s working on your computers. Click on « comments » and let me know).

Words of the night, as I am waiting for my darling sister to come and visit me from Michigan (a five-hour drive, poor thing)–good thing it’s not snowing tonight! I got this new CD (from France, imagine the price!) with Les Poemes mis en musique et interpretes par George Brassens, and it’s just a delight to listen to it! My favorite song ever, on a poem from Alphonse de Lama, is Pensees des morts (French poetry is so much better when Brassens sings it!):

Voila les feuilles sans seve
Qui tombent sur le gazon,
Voila le vent qui s’eleve
Et gemit dans le vallon,
Voila l’errante hirondelle
Qui rase du bout de l’aile
L’eau dormante des marais,
Voila l’enfant des chaumieres
Qui glane sur les bruyeres
Le bois tombe des forets.

You know what I miss the most in my life? These guys! OK, that’s a VERY old picture, but we all look about the same today… kinda… Nils must have been 13 on this picture… he’s turning 20 in a few days!! Joyeux anniversaire mon frère bien-aimé, préféré, adoré!!

Questions:
I am confused and annoyed and I can’t sleep tonight. I talked with this student (not one of mine!) from India this evening about our « philosophies » regarding money and the life we want. He said he loved and wanted comfort, money, luxury, lavishness, the limo, the castle, the tennis court, and all of that stuff (which he obviously has had until now). I said that I didn’t care much about money, that it was not what made me happy, and that simple things made me happier. I also said that I believed money was the cause of all the problems in this world. The question is: aren’t I a snob for saying that? Isn’t saying such things a privilege of the West? Isn’t it true that I am allowed to think and to say such things because I actually have the chance to live in a comfortable middle-class society and not in a society where you are either very rich or very poor? Don’t I say those things just because I know that I’ll never really have to give up much of the comfort in which I live? Or is it because I also know that I’ll probably never reach true opulence and great fortune, so I try to convince myself that this « simple » life is what makes me the happiest? Haven’t I been raised in a « world » in which we were always told to care for the poor and be happy with what we had (meaning: we don’t have much but it could be worse) but really, we never cared much for the poor and we had in fact a lot? And because of this education, I have the right and the insolence to think that being extremely wealthy is bad? Agh, those questions don’t reflect well the confusion taking place in my poor (or rich?) little brain tonight (or maybe they do too well). I just want to understand this world, but the more I try, the more confused I become (and that’s just about India. Try reading Mariane Pearl’s book about how her husband was killed in Pakistan or Jean-Christophe Rufin’s descriptions of civil war, famine, dictatorship, and deportation in Ethiopia, and you’ll understand my incomprehension and puzzlement even better). I feel even dumber because I know that these questions are nothing new so there, I DO feel like a hypocrite tonight, and I DO feel like an arrogant brainless privileged white capitalist who has no idea what she’s talking about! Despise me, I probably deserve it!

I am VERY proud and happy to tell the world that I have seen a real life and whole game of cricket (5, even, not just one) before I ever saw a game of baseball or even more than 15 minutes of a game of (american) football (that was a BYU game, and Guillermo and I left after 15 minutes because it was too cold and boring). I did go to a whole game of basketball, though, last year, with the Boilermakers, and that was a lot of fun! Cricket was very interesting… haven’t yet understood all the rules of the game, but it was really cool to be there, in the armory building, filled with men from India and military people, and to watch three of my ex-students play a few games. I am glad I survived because a few cricket balls came really close to me and they don’t look too nice, and those soldiers sure tried to march on me a few times too! On the picture, left to right, are Nishit, Rohit, and Arjun. Fun times! Thanks for inviting me!

google this: « languages army logos alcohol NDE msn students sports firefighters jihad taiwan korea costa rica india aids asthma culture shock » and guess where you are isn’t there are website where you can advertise a search that gives only one result? well i guess that’ll be two, now, with this one…

view from my window this morning. it’s -21C/-6F (-27C/-14F with windchill) here right now. maroon car to the right is mine.

a few thoughts:
- under the laws of this country, i am part of two « protected classes » (minority groups): disabled people and women. almost makes me wish i’d stay in this country after school is over, that’d give me a lot of reasons to sue people! no seriously, this type of protection is the one thing i’ll miss the most when i leave this country!
- equal employment or affirmative action? do i want to be hired for a job because i am the most qualified person or because i belong to those protected classes and should consequently be given priority? self-esteem vs. need to get a job vs. retaliation for so many years of unfair treatment…
- title VII gives equal opportunity rights and protects people against discrimination including sex, age, etc. my question though is this: it also includes « color, race, religion, and national origin » so aren’t those four last criteria currently being « redefined » by new laws regarding « national security » and such?? under the law, no one can ask a prospective employee about his age, religion, race, etc. but aren’t we going to see more and more of these « except in the case of… » clauses appear in our law books? i mean, human rights in general (the geneva convention resolutions, right to legal counsel, right to remain silent, right to offer a defense, right to remain innocent until proven guilty, right to decent treatment, right to due process, etc.) are already being « challenged » and « revisited » in the name of « democracy, freedom, and national security, » so where is this going to end?
- did you know that indiana is an « at will » state? this means that any employer can fire any employee at will and without having to provide any reason for it, if, of course, it doesn’t violate title VII. it goes both ways, so anyone can leave a job for no reason and at any time! crazy place!!
- i’ve never understood the hoosiers’ obsession for going to florida… but after just a few days of this weather, i understand better! makes you doubt that spring really exists…

MAKE A SNOWFLAKE HERE!!! Here’s mine

An ICE HOTEL?? Brrr…. just what I need now that we’re in a big blizzard! You have to check this out right here!!! I’d love to go but the rooms are expensive! It was my b-day very recently though… did anyone forget to give me a nice present?

Here’s a really cool picture stolen from this cool website (cool because of the excellent French spoken there, among other things, and it’s not yet another « blog » but a « cybercarnet »). It seems that when it’s really cold, the St. Laurent River smokes, and this is a nice view of the Chateau Frontenac (in which I slept once!!) in Quebec! I really MUST go live there one of these days!!!

a cool page here. who could have said that i was born in 1392??? makes me feel a LOT younger, yeah!

ice storm watch for this weekend: stay in bed and keep warm!!! it was 4F (-15.5C) this afternoon when i went to work! i loooooooooove this place!!!

hey i got $150 from delta because of the miserable connection i had in JFK a few weeks ago! so, trip to utah (spring break) on my skymiles, and trip to california (tesol convention, long beach) with a 1/2 price ticket! ain’t life maaaarvelous?

i am 31 today, and not in the best mood. the question is: what have i done with my life so far???? if anyone has an idea, please let me know!!! also, other question: should i keep or drop economics of education? if i drop it, i’ll have to take it some other time, probably in the summer, right before my august prelims!!! if i keep it, i will only have 2 more classes to take to complete my coursework… that’s not so bad, only 60 pages of research paper to write… but taking this plus human resources plus world englishes just seems too much for me. i am so lazy!!! ok people, you need to write to cheer me up!!! final question of the evening: does life get better with time??? please tell me that it does because i had this dream last night where i was watching a movie of my life and ended up asking me dad « so it just gets worse and worse and worse? » and he said YES. and i woke up crying. so… i seriously need some cheering up here!!! i had sushi tonight, by myself, and for the first time in a long time, wished i had a b-friend… well, someone to spend the evening with, really. the good things about today are: i got long and fake nails, and they are just gorgeous! and i like my new students so far. and some really cool people called me today for my b-day!! and there is no snow here yet!!

Thought of the day: « If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. »
John Stuart Mill, English philosopher (1806-1873).

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do. –Samuel P. Huntington

The people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. It’s easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. –Herman Georing, Nazi High Command.

That is it good people, I am leaving in a few hours, and I shall miss you! Please do send me emails, I would like that! I will remember you while I eat patisseries and cheese and visit Paris and my gorgeous Switzerland, my darling family and my dear friends… and I hope you all have a merry Christmas (if you have one; if not, I still accept presents, even from people of other religions!) and a wonderful, enriching, marvelous, interesting, successful, admirable, loving, exciting, merry, joyfull, lucrative, productive, invigorating, fabulous, remarkable, tremendous, pleasing, extraordinary, amazing, gentle, thrilling, pleasurable, gratifying, delightful, lovely, agreeable, rewarding, inspiring, stimulating, satisfying, pleasant, constructive, exhilarating, creative, dynamic, and very good new year!!

Last day of class!! So sad and so happy at the same time! I have one exam this morning and one paper due… a few papers to grade… my grades to turn in, and then i’m done, bye bye Indiana!! I will miss my students A LOT and i also liked what i learned in my sociolinguistics, research in L2 writing, and space management classes… it’s getting cold here, so it’s a good time to leave this place… and hope that after the hottest summer in europe i won’t spend the coldest winter in europe…
i haven’t eaten anything, almost, in a week, because my kitchen is clean and i don’t want to mess it up before i go so i’m kinda starving and feeling dizzy… sleeping a lot when i should be writing and grading papers and getting ready for this exam that i have in 8 hours…
i don’t really want to fligh to Paris in 3 days… it’s so boring! Mark is driving me to the airport and that’s very kind of him!! The biggest problem is when i come back and have to go through the JFK airport!!! And this December, the major airports are starting the new « biotics » program, where they’ll take pictures and FINGERPRINTS of everyone who enters the US!!! It’s going to be hell and I bet I’ll miss my connection. I don’t want to be photographed!!! I don’t want to give my fingerprints, i’ll feel like a criminal!!! Chris told me that she had to give her fingerprints and have her picture taken when she went to Japan, and had to carry her « ID card » at all time… so that makes me feel better, it’s not just this country… but still, i’ll have to graduate ASAP and leave this place, I don’t feel welcome and I’m treated like a criminal so goodbye, I’ll have had a good time for 10 years (TEN YEARS IN THIS COUNTRY??!!!!???), and it will be good to move on to greener pastures (if they exist). I think I’ll go live in New Zealand, how about that?

The Last Samurai = The Last of the Mohicans meets Braveheart and Seven Years in Tibet. Nice propaganda in these times of war: find yourself, die for what you know is right, forgive thy ennemies, blah blah… Well done though, except for a quite unrealistic story and a very sappy end.

Watch American History X over and over and over. This movie is amazing! It’s exactly what I was talking about on nov. 10: hate is baggage… you just can’t go on being pissed off at everything all your life… I don’t know exactly how to express this and I guess I am too far from understanding it well to say it well, but I wish I could learn about people better by just sitting in the sun with them, face to face, and just look at them and smile… and say nothing… just look and feel and learn. I wish I loved better.

Those pinks I’m choosing are really ugly. What can I say tonight? I am not writing in my own journal so I’m feeling guilty… did anyone notice that I have been writing on this thing for more than a year already!!?? Wow… It was supposed to be snowing TONS tonight but I don’t see a flake yet, keep my fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all the other ones too!! Now that I won’t have a covered parking space I think I can say that my winter will be one long hell… haha… that’s funny… hell’s supposed to be hot… BUT NOT INDIANA!!!! In Indiana, hell is FREEZING! In fact, it might even be here that the beautiful saying « when hell freezes over » was coined!
Tonight, I tried to write my paper, and can I just say I honestly thought of dropping out of school and go work at the next door gas station for the rest of my life? I felt so dumb and unninterested in this stupid thing that I didn’t even know how to feel, and that’s pretty scary. I thought ok, if you write 3 pages, then you can go get something really good to eat! This kind of rewarding system usually works with me, especially when I haven’t eaten out in 2 months because of car problems… but tonight, I couldn’t even find an ounce of enthusiasm about eating a good dinner… so I tried the second trick: if you write 2 pages (uh ho, lowering my expectations already!), you can go to Border’s and spend $30 on books about web page design. Now THAT one works really well, usually, even though I have tons of books that I still haven’t read/learned yet… but I LOVE to buy a book, learn one thing from it, and then feel discouraged because the rest is too tough… and go buy another book! (Although I hate to have to admit that recently, I have had to go back to books I bought a while ago and actually LEARN the tough stuff, and more than once, darnit!) So anyway, even that trick didn’t work. The last thing I could try was this: if you don’t write SOMETHING tonight, you’re going to have to clean your room!!! OK, ok, guess what?? I DID clean my room! Ashley cleaned the rest of the house for the $30 I made by selling my notes to Steve, but I did clean my room… The argument that made me write something, in the end (well, a couple of pages at least) was that it was too cold to go shopping, too late by then to go eat out, too annoying to write in my journal, and… last but not least… I remembered my poor students who have to write a paper for ME… and I felt so guilty! I am a PhD student for goodness’ sake, and I can’t make myself write 20 pages!!!??? And I’m asking my poor, sick of engineering exams, homesick, overwhelmed international students to actually write a paper too??? How cruel of me!!!! I remembered the great drafts I read today… the enthusiasm these kids show… the hard life of freshmen… the difficulties of being an international student… and I thought: if these guys can do it, so can I! Shame on me! –the music on Purdue’s radio really sucks this fall! It’s either some ugly flute concerto or some nasty modernistic so-called music… So anyway, I DID write a few pages… so now I have 6 pages… and need 20 total… I don’t know what argument I can use next time. And I only have 10 days to write the damn thing!!!! OK, enough complaining for tonight! No snow, halleluia! In France in 10 days!!! AMEN!

note to the evil people who are trying to make my life miserable: i turned my AirPort connection off, i cleaned my whole computer, i got a new operating system, i changed every single one of my passwords (and that’s about 30!!) and i encrypted everything that’s on my computer! HA! TEN days of worries… Advice of the day to good and stupid people like me: BE CAREFUL!! Technology is not always your best friend!!
Something else: i managed to get my old computer to work and installed the brand new « Panther » operating system on it, and erased EVERYTHING that used to be on it, so it really looks like a new computer!! Who wants it??? I’ll sell it for $900 OBO.
What else? At this exact time the Monday after next Monday i’ll be ON THE PLANE HOME! Ha! Nice!!! Yes, I envy myself too But before I can leave, i have to finish writing this #@*$#(@!# paper…

… and i cite from one student, about two texts she was supposed to compare, one arguing FOR the legalization of drugs and one AGAINST: « I think they (the two authors) wrote the articles different because not all people like to read the same thing. »

… and from someone else: « I think these articles were intended for an audience other than myself because i found them very hard to comprehend and to pay attention to. »

« Throughout the article, different studies from different periods are used as sources to cite statistics that if you think about them and why they are used help you come to the conclution that they put them in there to help prove a point. When all it does in reality is take up space on the paper and makes it look pretty. »

I LOVE MY STUDENTS!

Life is okay again. Well, I have recommendations, at least. How many? I’ve sort of lost track. I panicked and contacted every professor I’ve taken a class from. I should end up with somewhere from 3 to 6 recommendations. I hope they put the extras in my file.