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Sunday, February 19, 2012

When I get a real job...

The last day of class is April 20th. Graduation is May 3rd. My graduation trip to Europe from myself is from May 7th to the 27th. After that, it's time to (kind of) grow up and get a real job.

I'm actually looking forward to it. I have been for years. To have a salary, health insurance, to not have my parents claim me as a dependent... It's going to be great. Hard and probably really crappy financially, but I'm still excited nonetheless. So excited in fact, that I'm giving you a list of things I'm going to do once I get a real job.

1) I will live on my own. I don't know if this has always appealed to me, but it certainly does now. The older I get, the more I hate roommates. I could easily live with one or two friends, but I am SO over moving in with random people. I'm going to have my own place, with my own mess, my own food, and no one will ever annoy me with their country music or Biggest Loser marathons.

2) I will read like crazy. I technically have time to read while I'm in school, but I'm never motivated to do so. My life is so crazy that when I get home at 8 at night, I don't want to stimulate my brain any more than is absolutely necessary. That will be fixed once I have one job and work (hopefully) normal hours. I'll read the crazy number of books I've bought but never read and then I'll go out and buy more and actually read them when I buy them. That's a fantastic thought.

3) I will catch up on all the TV shows I've been meaning to watch. Treme, Breaking Bad, Torchwood, Being Human, Terriers, Boardwalk Empire, the original Doctor Who, The Sara Connor Chronicles, Louis, Twin Peaks, Nurse Jackie, and The United States of Tara, to name a few. I love television. I don't care if you judge me for loving TV so much because it's thoroughly entertaining.

4) I will buy a queen sized bed. I've been wanting to graduate from my twin for some time now, but I never wanted to until I was settled somewhere (in the past 7 years I've never lived anywhere for longer than a year) because moving a queen bed sucks a lot.

5) I will live in one place longer than a year. That's another fantastic thought.

6) I will buy real furniture. Right now most of my stuff is just a hodgepodge of things I've collected over the years. I think of all the furniture I have, I've actually bought just two pieces: a chaise and a desk chair. Unless you count a small lamp. That's not to say I don't have nice things. I have the coolest lamp in existence and an end table that just needs a coat of paint to bring it out of the 70s (thanks to my grandma for these items) in addition to a long, black dresser that I traded my sister for. Oh, and there's my TV too. Let's not forget that. If we're counting electronics, I've bought 3 pieces of furniture... and a PS3. But that shouldn't count. Neither should the TV - I don't know if that would be considered "furniture." Anyway, I'll buy nice things that match each other and decorate and make my living space look like a real person lives there.

7) I will start taking pictures again. I'll even save up for a digital SLR. I see some of my favorite photographs on my wall every day and it makes me sad I don't do that anymore. I wasn't great by any means, but I was always pretty proud of my close-up nature shots. There's also one of Arlington in the fog that I absolutely adore. It'll be fun to do that again.

8) I will start playing the clarinet (and maybe piano, saxophone, and flue) again. I miss playing more than any hobby I've all but given up since starting college (which is no small list). I never enjoyed playing solo as much as in an ensemble, but solo is absolutely better than nothing.

9) I'm going to (attempt to) build a DVD cabinet that looks like the TARDIS. Yes, I know how nerdy that sounds, but in reality it will be one of the coolest undertakings I will ever undertake.

Let's not think about how I'm going to pay for all of this. Or about the fact that I will have to start repaying my massive amounts of student loans. Please, let's not think about that.

I've always been in a hurry. My road instructor said I drove like I was in a hurry. I was in a hurry to get out of high school. I was in a hurry to finish college. I was in a hurry to get into grad school. Now I'm in a hurry to leave grad school. And I've always been in a hurry to grow up and move on. I think I'm perpetually trying to catch up with my siblings which will never happen since they're all so much older than me. At least I don't feel the need to catch up with them in terms of marriage and babies!

Ha. I just had a fun thought. On May 3rd I will have not only caught up with my siblings, but surpassed them all in terms of education :)

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Embarking on Publication

Getting published is on my bucket list. I have an actual list and some of them are pretty silly since it's been an ongoing list-making process. Things like "make out in a cave" or "buy a house with a yard" haven't had appeal to me for years (probably about a decade with the former) so I've scribbled them out. Others, like visit Puerto Rico or go to The Daily Show will stay there until I actually do them. But at the bottom of the list (indicating the newest addition) is getting published.

I added this one towards the end of college. I was looking back at the four years previous and I regretted not working with any professor on any research. I have since rectified that in grad school and I'm actually working on two research projects, both of which will hopefully end in publication. One might not, but the other probably will. And guess what? My name will be listed as an author. I will submit a manuscript to a peer reviewed journal. I will present my findings at a conference in Boston. Assuming all goes well, that is.

Before all that happens though, I have to write an annotated bibliography. This is my second and like a moron, I put it off until the last minute. To keep up with the timeline for this conference in July, this needs to be done by Monday, meaning I have tonight and tomorrow to write it. I have eleven articles at this point and that should be good. Although inevitably as I read through the articles themselves and not just the abstracts, I will be forced to drop a couple due to their lack of any number of long research terms that I don't want to try and remember at this point, which means I'll have to find a few more.

Blah. This better be worth it.