man oh man

I am so damn tired. Time for a change. Luckily, many are around the corner.

We Hates the End of Winter Term

Ooooh, we hates it with a passion. We wants it dead, we would walk it through the fiery halls of Mordor to see it writhe and perish in agony. And we hates making the final exam with equal fury, because making the final exam is a torture for us that few understand.

Making final exams, making final weeks of notes, making students who are suddenly disgruntled, less so. And making it seem like it's easy, when it isn't. How do you test the knowledge you were supposedly imparting over the course of a term, in a 35-question multiple choice final? If you're a student, especially if you're among the conspiracy-theorists that have sprung up in this class, then you might think that the profs gather together at night, dressed in black cloaks, chanting around a fire over which the sacrificial (animal of choice) roasts. Then, if you have a particularly vivid imagination, the profs gather their most hated memories from when they were students, and inflict them upon you: we remember our own profs who laughed with derision over our failures to pick up on a simple concept, our mistaking Na for N when calculating a molecular weight, mixing up ethyl methyl propyl. So we inflict it on you. We think back, we consider the best methods to ask the most obscure questions that test none of your general chemical knowledge, and then we put it into an exam. Then we spread the dust from bones of former students who perished during the Great Exam Debacle of '53 over the final we have wrought, we all spit on it, we slit our palms open and press our hands into it, and declare it done. Done, and set forth to torture another semester of hapless students.

Right. Because we've got nothing better to fucking do.

Really. We're not that conniving. Or we really don't care that much. Take your pick.

Let me set it straight: if you've been a student or you are one, I can assure you that the conscientious profs spend many hours putting together the final exam, set so as to both test your knowledge as well as push you a bit. We're not interested in the obscure, for that you can always consult a book, and there's no point in testing it. We meet to discuss the final (because three of us currently teach this course, we all work to set the exam) but we definitely don't bother with the cackling and the robes. We do start to giggle sometimes, but only because we're exhausted too.

Obviously I'm working on the final exam this weekend--I'm making more than half of it. And I need notes for Monday, a tutorial for Sunday (tomorrow), we need to go to Ikea today to look at kitchen islands, and I need more wine, damnit. Where is my valet? Hmph. Seems to be off for the weekend, curse him. Just the children and Hub are here, and none of them seem bent on serving me.

...and it was good

Yea, verily, the pater and the step-mater were here for a week, and as it is written, all Lenten abstinence shall lift during the visit, to recommence upon their leave for warm ocean waters. From the book of Exodus, it has been pointed out to me, even though it's the Old Testament and therefore some doubt was cast in my heart in applying the written laws to the New Testament, nonetheless I shed my doubt and cast forth to the stores.

"There will come a time, and when it comes there will be no hesitation, you will venture forth among the heathen to pay in salt for your travels. Gold will pass hands, but greed will not be upon your countenance. When she of great shopping might is upon you bearing credit cards of gold and platinum, you will bend to her will and her coat of many precious metals. You will use the horseless carriage (really? in Exodus it says this?) to convey the stepmother to cute little rural villages laden with treasures, and you shall let her buy you a nice housewarming gift. I say to you, you must also take her to the shops of the downtown for other rites of commerce passage, where you will find a tiny jacket of turquoise and gold, and it will pass into your hands for 70% off the normal retail price. You will chat with the jewel merchant who has many baubles and bags for very reasonable prices, and you will do well to purchase a silver wire-wrapped ring. And you will praise the lord, and make many sacrifices in her name, and consume hot beverages and sweets to gather strength for the next onslaught. And you will not falter, for the lord smiles upon you and yields many sale items. And she will see what you have wrought, and smile, for it will be good."

They came. We ate, drank, we were merry. We lifted the Lenten penance and shopped and ate dessert after supper every night. They are off now on a cruise in the Carribbean.

I doubt that my dad will live another year.

Overcoming the boredom

I am trying really hard to be interesting, lighthearted and funny, and I don't mean just in this medium but also in my regular life. So far, it's not exactly working. Spring is springing, and I'm very excited about that, so much so that I would say I have a bit of spring fever; I've missed spring these last eight years of east coast living, where spring and summer sort of melt into fog and despair and then fall comes. Fall is lovely, but not to someone who loves the spring.

Despite this feeling of pending growth, greenery and change, I am cynical and nasty, judgemental and paranoid. So I have all the contradictory emotions going full strength in my life blender and it's not making for a yummy smoothie. In fact, it's more like nuts and gum ("Mmmmmm. Nuts and gum, togther at last." Homer Simpson. I don't hold with his world view on this one.) or fish heads and cinnamon, or any other incongruous mixture you can put together.

I suspect, it's the waiting for the stupid job. See, the job will either mean that I'm back in the proverbial academic saddle: applying for grant money, teaching, running committees....well, yes, running them. I'm not usually on a committee for very long before I end up running the thing. And the research, that too, and lots of it: grad students, undergrad students, Research City. It's a devil I know, and it's a devil that's a fuck of a lot of work, if you want to do a really good job. I am a bit torn, thinking that if I don't have it then I don't have that workload any more and that might not be so bad. At the same time, if I don't have it then I will not find another job with the same level of autonomy again. I need autonomy. I need to tell people what to do, and I need to be told what to do as little as possible. Less, even. I am not so good with being told what to do, I don't really play well with others and I don't like to share my toys. I was a good kindergarten student but only because I was trying to figure out how to beat the system from inside.

So the waiting, it's bugging me. I know that candidate number four is finally being interviewed this week, and then there's an ACS conference in Chicago that some people are going to so the committee won't be able to meet next week, so it'll be the week after before they'll meet, discuss.....agh. It takes forbloodyever and it should have taken 2.5 weeks total. This is a little thing that annoys me too: the waiting. Is everything this slow? Because I will kill people if things are slow. In addition to my other attractive traits (not playing well or sharing) I also have no patience, I respond emotionally before I respond analytically....oh, on the up side, you get both responses. First, I have a meltdown, and then I step back and analyze each step of the destructive process. You'd have noticed this if you'd read more than the last paragraph of this narrative blog thing I've been keeping.

There's the waiting contributing to my current mood, and there's the knowledge that there are 3.5 weeks of classes left, and a final exam not until April 20th. More waiting. But classes almost done, it's like hanging a pair of Manolo Blahniks in front of a socialite (the carrot/donkey analogy, it's not working for you either, is it? I'll think of something better) anyway, I look forward to the end of classes in April with the utmost anticipation. Will the day never come? and then it does. And in the meantime the three of us who teach the first year course are bickering about how to teach the organic chem part (and why they refer to it as orgo I do not know but it bugs the hell out of me and I never say it, but all the students do. Where does that terminology come from?) and what the book does and what we're going to do....ad infinitum. Thing is, I'm getting ahead of them in my lectures because I use powerpoint and they don't. It's not a big deal but it's adding to the stress right now and I'm pretty sure I don't need it. In the big scheme of things no, of course, it's nothing. The small scheme is the immediate scheme, as always.

My Drive to Work

In the mornings, if I take the 10-year old Corolla, I don't have a lot of choice as to what to listen to on the 45-minute drive to work: it's the radio. There are several stations I listen to, and none of them are the CBC because I just can't listen to people talking in the morning. In fact most of the time I can't listen to people talking because a) it's often boring and b) I don't hear so good anymore. Usually what I listen to falls under the genre of "new rock" or "alternative"....to me it's just normal music but it's not necessarily top-40.

So there's a station from a local community college that doesn't reach all the way to work, they talk the least and they play the best music. There are a couple of stations that are quite powerful that reach from home to work and into Toronto (seeing as one is based in Toronto, that's no stretch), and there's one station that's based in the city where I work. They all play similar music, except the others have much talking that's usually stupid stuff that I can't stand, so I am constantly pushing buttons and turning the radio up when I hear a good song.

On the way to work, I can count on hearing songs from three bands: The Hip, Billy Talent and Nickelback. In 45 minutes, sometimes I hear these bands more than once. (The guys--sorry, people--who run the radio stations are pretty predictable all around.) I like the Hip because they've been around a long time and they were the only good music going in the 90's.....no matter how you slice it, there were a lot of useless bands and concomitantly useless music in the 90's (Pearl Jam and Oasis notwithstanding, and I'm not a U2 fan. Shoot me.) Billy Talent takes some getting used to but once you get over the inital grating, they're quite good. I take comfort that my 4.5 year old son can sing and scream along with the entire second album. (and I don't know why I take comfort in this, although last night at dinner both Big One and Little One confirmed that they wanted to be rock 'n roll stars. Big One also said that being a vet would be good too.) As for Nickelback, my only fondness for them is that they sound like a small town bar band, which is in fact what they were before they turned into a small-town megaband, and I happen to be from a small town originally. So there you go.

Besides this, the current favourite among all the radio stations is a song called Paralyzer by Finger 11, and I can guarantee hearing that thing at least twice in 45 minutes. It is a song that makes me want to drive into oncoming traffic, although thus far instead of veering into the grill of an 18-wheeler I've just punched the radio buttons in a (sometimes) vain search for another song.

So the morning music leaves much to be desired, if you're looking for variety or entertainment.

On the drive, I can look out the window. I take some backroads through an area where there are gravel pits, so there's a lot of up and down hills and the like, past farms and farmhouses. There are a few spots where people or animals have been killed, and there are memorials to them, sometimes just wreaths, although the one huge bush covered with red ribbons is a bit distracting. A lot distracting actually, since in the winter it really stood out and scared the bejesus out of me a few times with its waving, erratic action.

Once on the highway I try to avoid the trucks, and mostly just drive along at about 20kph above the speed limit, same as everybody else. I pass the independent gas station with the aromatherapy spa above it...I'm not sure if the aromatherapy is real or not, or if the gas fumes are an asset. There are a couple of massage places too, so I'm pretty sure most of it is a cover for something other than a quick shiatsu. Otherwise, it's rural Ontario, there are lots of farms and farmhouses. On the highway I also pass a few shed places...yeah, people who make sheds, and there's one huge place that also has yard art, statues and the like. I suppose that if you want a 40-foot brontosaurus in the front yard, or a mastadon, this would be the place to go, because they also carry these items. I like the triceritops the best ("Threehorn" if you've ever watched the Land Before Time, which I have. Lots.). Sheds and antiques and massages and farms. Oh my.

When I turn onto one of the last roads before I get to work, the road sign that greets me says

London 78km
Paris 112km

(numbers may or may not be correct, I can't really remember)
and man, every morning that thing cracks me right up.

Happy Birthday

It's BF1's birthday today. We're the same age. We met when we were 12 and we'd just started grade seven at a new school in a small town in Manitoba. Her family built a house across the road from where our mother and the four of us moved in with mum's new husband. Her dad reminded me of my dad, who I wouldn't see for another 12 years.

We hit it off, in some respects by necessity (rural Manitoba, girl across the road the same age you are. Put it together.) although eventually we became two halves of the same person. Our homes were different; ours was early rural white trash, hers was dug out of poverty and into prosperity new and shiny. Our tastes were different: she dated bad boys, I dated all boys. All of them. Leave no stone unturned. I was very angry much of the time. She was anxious. You can see that this has the roots of a forever friendship.

I did things I wasn't proud of (see "...dated all boys" above) and when she got engaged I was jealous. I didn't know that I was jealous at first, but it was the beginning of learning to understand myself, something I'm remarkably good at now. I was the maid of honour at her wedding, and I love her husband (not in the "...dated all boys" sense) and always have. The jealousy didn't spring from the fact that she was getting married and I wasn't, but because he was getting her and I wasn't. (not in the "...dated all boys" sense of he was getting her and I wasn't.)

We didn't talk to each other for a long time (yeah, you know the drill, "...dated all boys" and we should add slept with some too) and then we did.

When people meet us now they cannot believe that we live across the country from each other because we are too similar for words. We don't look alike, we just think and talk and act alike. We have two children each, an elder girl child and a younger boy child. Hers are 10 years older than mine. The girls carry our respective names as their middle names.

I could describe everything about us and not capture the full essence of our friendship. I could sit here and write all night and not tell you what it means to have a friend like her. Maybe you know. If you do then you are as blessed as I am, and you should count yourself lucky to have so rare a gem in your life. Just as I do, every day.

Happy birthday my dear, and many more.

I don't hear so good anymore....

When I was in my late 20's, I started to notice that if I was under a lot of stress, the ringing in my ears would get loud. I noticed that if we went to a social or a bar, that I'd come home with ringing in my head that would last well into the next afternoon.

Obviously, I wasn't handling loud noises very well.

Other people pointed out that they had to repeat things too often, and they would get fed up with doing it. I didn't realize that I couldn't hear, I thought that they weren't speaking clearly. Not my fault. After a few more years, things got a little worse, although I still didn't know that I wasn't hearing well. One day at work the hearing people came around to check on the guys in the plant to make sure that their hearing wasn't deteriorating from the plant noises. I figured I should get my ears tested too, since people (especially ex-husband, although he'd complain about anything about me) were pointing out more and more often that they had to repeat in order for me to understand.

When the technician came around the corner and looked in my face and said, "Do you think you have a hearing problem?" "Yes!" I yelped.... and she gave me the names of a couple of ear, nose and throat specialists (why not audiologists, I don't know. I guess she figured I had a physical problem). I picked one and went to see him, and he was nice enough, said I had too much wax in my ears, cleaned them out and then did a test, and told me that no, I couldn't hear very well, but it wasn't too too bad. At the time, hearing aids were broad spectrum affairs that amplified all noises, unsuitable for me because what I was missing were the high-end sounds. While you might think that it's noise damage (too many rock concerts) that's not the problem, because noise damage usually results in the loss of a specific frequency, and my particular loss seemed to be high end, then trailing off so that I could hear lower frequencies perfectly.

Okay, no hearing aids. This was about 15 years ago, and of course my hearing didn't improve, and ex-husband didn't get any nicer about it, speaking to me like I was an idiot (and yes I'm bitter, very much so, thank you) and over-compensating to mouth words slowly and loudly. I didn't need that kind of attention, I only needed for people to look at me when they spoke so that the sound was directed toward me. Of course I was also learning to read lips, but this wasn't a conscious thing, I just realized I could do it after a while.

Eventually I got rid of ex-husband and eventually hearing aid technology caught up with my type of problem. Hearing aids are no longer broad spectrum amplifiers but can be built to be more frequency-specific. They have directional microphones. They are quite amazing little machines now...and they have a quite amazing little price tag associated with them also. Since I'm relatively young on the hearing loss scale......my ears maybe 90 years old but I'm not...... I get the very high-end devices. I have had a couple of pairs of the things and my current pair is getting on in age and probably need to be replaced. They wear out eventually, unlike eyeglasses. The batteries last 10 days usually, not much more, so I am constantly aware of when I change the batteries, and having some with me just in case.

When I'm at work I need to be able to hear, but I can't always. When I first start teaching a new class, I warn the students that if they have a question they really have to belt it out, because I can't understand them if they don't yell (and I can't see their mouths move, although I don't usually say that part). I work on a combo lip-reading/interpretation of what I hear, so sometimes even with close attention I can't understand what is said to me. This might be cured by getting a new pair of hearing aids; I don't really have $3K for a new set, although if things have deteriorated enough so that I'm labelled as "disabled" then I'll get a price break of 50%. And if you think that hoping for a disability is crass, then feel free to be on one side of the very thin line and pay full price. Being "almost disabled" isn't really my dream happy place.

People sometimes think that I'm much more interested in them than I actually am. In order for me to hear clearly, I need to be able to see the mouth move as well as hear the sounds it makes, and this means that I pay full attention to a face as it's speaking. So you can imagine that anyone would take this as interest. Much of the time it's not, much of the time people are relating a boring story with maybe one or two interesting elements. Sadly, they don't know this if they're relating the story to me.

(My friends should not become paranoid at this point. Trust me darlings, if you were boring I would tell you.)

What I hear is sort of like what you would hear with a good pair of headphones on your head, with no sound on. No high-pitched whining, no clink of glasses, no cell phones, no high pitched screeching by the darlings....well, actually, they've figured out a good way to screech so anyone can hear them, but I don't get the full force of it.

The first time I encountered someone who didn't hear well and who didn't have his hearing aids in, it took me a while to realize that he was staring at me while I talked because he couldn't hear me. After about 10 minutes into our conversation, I looked at him and I said, "You can't hear me, can you?" and he was a bit embarassed, having left his hearing aids at home and being at a bit of a loss. It's disconcerting to see someone stare at you like that when you're speaking, and I don't know what I look like to other people, but getting a taste of it was an odd experience. I can't stop my behaviour unless you want me to continue to mistake a simple statement like, "We really need to sweep the floor" with "Free me knees pee up the bore".

Sometimes what I hear is a hell of a lot funnier than what is said to me.

Often I don't hear what is said, and I will pause for an inordinate amount of time, if asked, for example, "Did you read this article about pork loin?" Since I hate pork loin and can't imagine someone asking me if I'd seen something about pork loin, and since that person is maybe munching on a piece of toast and not looking at me, I might sit there for a good half minute, considering. Did he just ask me about the article on ore coins? why would there be a recipe for that? Was there an article on ore in there? Maybe an article about snorkelling? Also another thing I don't do and have no plans to start.

So I'll sit there, deconvoluting what I hear with what could possibly have been said. Hub knows I do this and he will sometimes wait to see if I figure it out...and sometimes he'll ask what it is I've heard, obviously shooting for the possible humour factor.

As a last note about my hearing, I should point out that I don't usually wear my hearing aids at home. Many people, when they get home from work, kick off the high heels, (these people would mostly be women I assume) they pour a drink maybe, they get rid of the tight clothes and don the sweat pants etc. Me, the first thing I do when I'm through the door is pull the hearing aids out of my head. What relief! Hearing all the time is tiring; taking the hearing aids out is like snuggling under a fuzzy blanket. It's crap for watching tv, but then we caption most of the good shows anyway (Battlestar Galactica and Family Guy are absolute musts on the caption list. Don't believe me? Watch the shows with captioning, you'll never go back to trying to understand every word that Stewie says.). When people come to visit sometimes I'll put the hearing aids in, but once I'm used to the way my visitors talk, I take the aids out again.

The really really last thing is that if I tell you I'm deaf, and you're talking to me? I'll order you around so that I can hear you, or at least understand what you're saying to me. Lucky for me I'm pushy and demanding when I want to be. If you're mumbling, I will ask you once to look at me when you speak (I'll even say please). If you forget, I will remind you but I won't ask, and I will continue to remind you until you get used to looking at me when you talk. If you put your hands in front of your face I will stop you mid-word and make you start again. Yeah, okay, I'm a pain in the ass but it's only fair: if you're speaking to me, I should be able to understand what is being said, and if I can't then it's not really a fair conversation. I'm thinking back to interview day : First, he mumbled. Then he mumbled louder with his hand near his mouth. Then he looked away and pontificated. Eventually I got a straight question out of him.

Really. If you want to talk to me, it's on my terms.

It has come and gone

Time flies when you're having fun.

Yesterday was the academic job interview, and I didn't interview like crap like I usually do, I actually did okay for most of the day. Could be the cold drugs, that kept me happy and energized and ready to answer any and all questions....could be that I just loved the department and all the people in it that I'd do almost anything to work there. No, I wouldn't slide naked through the ice outside yelling "yeehaw!" but, well, almost anything. It's an excellent place, I'd love it.

I did do a few things that kept me awake all night thinking, "Why the hell did I say that?"....or maybe I was awake all night because my cold immediately tripled in intensity when I got home last night, so I nearly fell in the door in the evening.

Things started like this: I got up, and felt the full intensity of a headcold gone mad. Eyes gushing tears, head clogged up, disorientation. I don't do over the counter medication very well, but I gobbled down two Advil Cold & Sinus (lets you function without making you feel like you're wallowing in a drug-induced cloud) and hoped for the best. Tried vainly to apply makeup, gave that up completely and figured well, fuck it if they need me with makeup on, it's not happening today. Wore the prescribed black pants and turtleneck, and ended up with LaCanadienne ankle boots, because the weather forecast for yesterday said heavy snow, ice pellets, turning to freezing rain. Fantastic. Dropped off Big One at her friend's house so they could walk to school together, and indicating to the mum that if Hub couldn't get back in time, that she should bring Big One home with her. No problemo.

I made it to the U on time, and in fact got to to the Chair's Office with eight minutes to spare, which meant not going in of course, but going to find a washroom to hang around for five minutes (apply mascara? nah. by this point, I'd given up on that part of the day.) and then went back to the office. Quick chat with him, then with another faculty member who was so nice I just wanted to give him a warm hug (I didn't, come on now). Then gave my seminar, which went fine...I'm so used to talking in front of groups I don't get nervous about these things at all. Then a tour of the X-ray facilities in Physics, then lunch at the Faculty Club (not a pretentious place) then more visits, then the university closed for inclement weather.

Yeesh. We think. What the hell do we do now? So while they didn't have to, everyone on the selection committee stayed for the round-table discussion/grilling session.

I'd popped more advil after lunch, but was starting to show a little wear and tear around the edges by this point. My day was totally packed with visiting people, there was no break at all for me, and I'd been talking a lot all day. We started this round table thing at about 3:00, and by 3:30 my voice started to cut out. Not completely, I held on to the squeak until the end of that part, then went to talk to the grad studies advisor in the dept while they talked about me. Back for a last debriefing with the chair 30 minutes later, and after another 45 minutes with him, I was baked. It was 6:00p.m. and we weren't quite the only people on campus, but almost. He had cancelled dinner because I wasn't doing that well and because of the weather, so we walked out to the parking lot through the snow, both on the ground and the blowing icy/snow/crap that was blowing horizontally into our eyes. Luckily, I didn't quite have to dig out my car, just brush off a lot of the same crap (I told him as we were parting ways that this is east coast weather) then drive home through more of it, because the streets weren't plowed yet.

Got home, Hub took my coat, I tried to say hi to the darlings but all that came out was a squeak. Big One said, "Oh Mumma, you don't sound very good at all. You're very sick, you should go to bed." Which was true, but instead I put on my pajamas, tried to eat something and drank a nice big martini. At this point Hub told me that Big One got left at school until 3:45, and that the school had closed early. Turns out that they had tried to call me during the day but I didn't have my phone on during the interview so didn't know about that. Hub had called the mum (mentioned above) but she hadn't picked up her daughter, someone else had, and they didn't bring Big One. So the darling was left at the school with the principal until Hub got there, and he was late because it took two hours to drive the normal 45 minute route from work. I listened to this very carefully, and then I passed out on the couch.

I woke up at about 10:00 or so, emailed the chair to thank him for the interview and for the fact that the faculty stayed on to finish the interview even in the face of the university closure. I emailed another faculty member that I had called a pain in the ass during the round table (I do know him and he was being a pain, but generally, when trying to impress a group of people? you don't revert to swearing. In fact I'm pretty sure I swore four or five times during the course of the day, and let's blame it on the cold drugs, shall we? sure.) to apologize for my lack of grace under fire. He replied this morning with a don't worry about it, I figured you were just comfortable enough to say whatever you wanted. Whew. Did I mention loving this department?

Conversely, there is one guy who is a patented asshole, and while I'm pretty sure that I let on that he was putting me on edge (I don't cover up those feelings. I figure that people should get a good bead on the fact that they're dipshits, which he was. I don't think that he cared much though, he seemed pretty self-concerned.) I didn't call him anything other than his name. I did get to tell him that he couldn't mumble and that he had to speak directly to me to ask a question, however, and then I stopped him because while he was speaking more loudly, he put his hand in front of his mouth. You can't do that to a deaf person who relies heavily on lip-reading, and so I shook him up being very pointed in my directions. He needed the shaking. And his questions were bogus anyway.

Every single person that I met with separately said that they loved being in the department because everyone, without exception, is supportive of everyone else. It's like one big fuzzy group hug all the time. Quelle difference from my previous department, where all those big fish in small seas spent so much time trying to show up everyone else. This place has 19 (I'd be #20) independent faculty members, all of whom work on different areas of chemistry research, but all of whom rely on each other. They seem to get along remarkably well, better than any group I've seen.

I won't know anything until the beginning of April. I don't know what will happen with my NSERC grant in the meantime, because those results come out near the end of March. I'll hold tight, not worry about it because there's nothing I can do. I only fret about things that I could have done better, or about things I will do, but not about things where I have no control. They will interview three more people, and with any luck, the chair will reschedule dinner for us so I'll have another sort of "kick at the can" before the final decision is made.

And that's about it. I'm not teaching today because I can't talk. The kids did go to school, and Hub did drive down the road to work. Haven't heard from anyone so I assume all is well. It's 9:48 a.m. and I could go and lounge on the couch and watch tv, wait for the cold medication to start working, maybe clean myself up a bit. The other guys have to teach for me today because I'm sick......and at least I lasted the whole day yesterday. I couldn't have gone for dinner even if the weather had been good, but at least there was that excuse to cancel it. So now we wait.