My car is a Yankee

I finally got around to registering the Civic in Wisconsin. Now, I have stupid Wisconsin plates instead of my awesome Texas plates. Hopefully people don't think that I'm a Yankee. My hope is that the Texas Exes sticker on the back along with the sensible driving will signal to the locals that I'm not from around here.

Boring

Not going to school is getting really boring. I don't have a job right now and that's really boring too. I'm trying to get Carolyn Heinrich to use Underground Textbooks to make her course packets. If I am successful, the owner will buy Meredith and me some beer. Meredith works there and she seems to like it. I got an email from some lady recruiting me to apply for a summer job that would pay up to $2500 a month, so I think that I'll apply for that. The work doesn't sound interesting, but it sounds like something to do. I still haven't gotten my car registered in Wisconsin. I have until next Tuesday to get that done before my current Texas registration expires. I guess I could cheat and register my car in Texas again. What would be the point in that though? Whatever happens, I'll just have to register my car in another state in a year or so. That's the nomadic life of a graduate student and his spouse. Poor thing, she just seems to be forced to go where my whims lead me. I'm told that I will be in Orange, TX, in Septemeber for my Aunt Virginia and Uncle Sandy's 50th anniversary party. We'll see if Meredith can get the time off to go down there. I'll be in San Antonio on Friday. Any Austin people want to come down and visit me? I'm trying to get out of going to Hamilton Pool with my inlaws on Memorial Day. People who know me understand that I don't like crowds and that I don't like being stuck without an escape route. So, let me know. My sisters-in-law seem to think that Meredith and I are going to visit with the intent of being mean to them. What the hell kind of person travels across the country simply to be mean to somebody? I think that those two are more than a bit odd, but I like them just fine. I wouldn't dream of trying to make little Annie's graduation weekend anything more than magical. This is what I wasn't warned about before getting married. It's not the parents to worry about, it's the siblings. They can be possessive and incredibly sensitive. Those are the difficult ones. Never forget that, single people.

Damn it

I'm just going to stop talking to Melanie Manion. Every time I talk to her, I get some sort of crappy news. The most recent is that the College of Letters and Sciences is no longer going to subsidize professional project assistantships. Basically this means that if somebody were to hire me, they would have to pay about $30,000 to get 15 hours of work a week for nine months. I don't see a lot of people willing to do that. I'm trying to get the Bursar's Office to deem me an in-state student because Meredith works full-time, but I'm not confident that this will work. I'm still going to interview with the sentencing commission. Hopefully an extremely low-budget government agency will value my quantitative skills that much. They really want someone with econometric skills and I'm the only applicant who has taken the econometrics class.

I've found it

I've spent a lot of my first year of graduate school in search of a nemesis and now I think I've found one. Karyn, you're the one. I admit that this is a pretty weak excuse for a nemesis. I like her a lot. I respect her. I think she's a good person. But damn it, I've lost out on two jobs to her in the past week. I think that means I can make her my nemesis. Maybe I'll get revenge by beating her man out for an project assistantship. Probably not.

So close

I've got one more paper left. It's due by midnight tomorrow. I have an interview in the morning so I'd kind of like to get it all done today. It shouldn't be the hardest thing in the world. I've done almost all of the work. I've lost two of my articles which makes my literature review a bit harder than it needs to be. Good thing they were only the basis for a third of the project. No big deal.

UPDATE: I got an AB on this paper. I somehow managed to write a sixteen page paper without interpreting any of my results. I don't know how I can get away with that. I told the professor that she was entirely too generous with my grade.

Coming and going

My self-imposed deadline for getting my social welfare policy paper done is now nine minutes away. I've got 15 pages give or take a chart, but I still have no literature review. I'm also lacking an introduction. I think this paper will turn out to be okay if not eerily similar in parts to my policy analysis paper. I think that's okay. I wonder if I should cite my old paper, in addition to the actual source material. Who knows?

UPDATE: I got an A on this paper, so it has clearly worked out for me.

What a night

No, not a whole lot has happened tonight. I'm working on my social welfare policy paper and drinking what I think is decaf coffee. I hope it's decaf. All Texas readers should know that my paper is very hard on your fair state. Unfortunately my policy recommendations have absolutely no chance of ever getting passed. It's a damn shame. I've got some nice ideas for Texas. I assume that most policymakers in Texas would stop listening as soon as I get to recommendation two which is to implement a very small state income tax. I think that would be the kiss of death.

Soon

My powerbook will be here soon. I checked the tracking status and it has left China and is now in Alaska. It should be here by Wednesday morning...just in time for me to be all done with school.

I love you, China

My powerbook is currently in China. Someday it will be in my possession.

Oh that strange magic

I can't explain how happy it makes me every single time strange magic comes on my itunes party shuffle. It is so nice.

What a waste

I've been sitting at my computer for the past five hours trying to get some sort of work done. I have two papers and a final due very soon. I've accomplished nothing. Partly this is because they are doing construction on my building and I am periodically distracted. Partly this is because I got a new wireless printer that doesn't seem to want to work. I'm not used to getting absolutely nothing done. I even skipped work today. To be fair, I skip work just about everyday. There's not much for me to do there. whatever the reason, I am a waste of space today.

Update: May 5, 2005

Well, today has been an interesting day.

I went to my last class of my first year of grad school. It was pointless. The final for my rural sociology class is to basically write a short policy analysis about some poverty reduction program of my choice. I'm supposed to use the model that David Weimar wrote about it. Good thing I just wrote a gigantic policy analysis for him.

I have an interview next Wednesday with the state budget director and the assistant secretary of the department of administration. That should be exciting. Maybe Maureen and Karyn will decide that they don't want free school and health care, leaving me with a straight shot. That's not going to happen.

The big news of the day is my sister asked Meredith and I to be the guarandians of our niece and nephew should anything happen to my sister and brother-in-law. It makes me feel like I'm truly grown up. They're really good kids. As they say, it's an honor to be nominated.

My unimportant news is that my airport base station and my printer are going to get here tomorrow. That means I don't have to buy more ink for my current, crappy printer.

I think the term is frivolous

Dear readers, you may remember that just over a week ago I purchased a brand new Imac. Well, I've just finished purchasing an airport extreme base station, a new printer, and a 12-inch powerbook. What's a couple grand in the grand scheme of things? Not a whole hell of a lot.

Meredith has now worked two days at her new job. Needless to say, she is enjoying it much more than Pop Deluxe! The exclamation is part of the store's name. I'm not trying to imply some great excitement. I am very happy for her though.

I'm almost done with school. I have a lot of shit due starting Sunday at noon and ending Wednesday at some point in time. I'm really thrilled about it. What kind of professor makes a take-home final due at noon on a Sunday? A shitty professor, that's what kind.

I'm writing a memo about this girl's policy analysis paper. She's really smart and it's mostly good. How am I to offer much in the way of constructive criticism? I don't know either.

I had to give two presentations this week. If you know me, then you know that I'm an attention whore that needs to define the terms of my attention showers. I don't like being forced to give presentations. They make me nervous. People laughed during both presentations. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Emily says that it's because I'm funny. Hopefully that's the reason.

I talked to Melanie Manion about a project assistantship for next year. It seems that having taken 819 (econometrics) was a good move. Those of us who have taken it are in demand for professional PA-ships as well as PA-ships with professors. Yea us.

Ta Da!

Thank God

No, this is not a response to Kevin's recent post. I'm merely overjoyed by this weekend's forecast. It is supposed to get up near 80 on both Saturday and Sunday. This may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but it was snowing on my head this morning. It is May, right?

On another note, Central Texas friends, Meredith and I will be in San Antonio for Anne's graduation from May 27th until May 31st. We won't have any way to get up to Austin, but if it's possible to work out something in SA, then get in touch. Tell Ryan that I'm offering him a very good price on a decent laptop. Anyone else, if Ryan doesn't want it then it's fair game. It's going cheap.