The Rough Draft is Done!!

That's right folks, I finished a rough draft of my thesis. Of course I need to edit the crap out of it before I send it along to Brad, but I don't want to start that tonight because I don't want to leave it half done and then have to come in tomorrow and get back into the editing groove. I just want to come in tomorrow and work on it all day.

So yay! Maybe I really will finish my thesis and actually move forward with my life.

I'll also updating because this was an interesting week for socializing. Tuesday night we went to the last ladies' night at the martini bar upstairs from the Mews. It was an interesting night because 3 or 4 of the girls that are in our group of friends, but who rarely go out with us, came along. So we had like 8 girls, and everyone had just gotten back from spring break so everyone had fun stories. The best part about this particular ladies night? At one end of the bar (where we were sitting) there was a middle-aged ladies book club meeting. On the other end of the bar there was a sex toy sales representative who was plying her trade and holding some sort of raffle (I think one of the middle-aged women won a sample). And we were sort of in the middle. It was an odd combination.

Which leads me to Saturday night. I went to The Shorebreak because Nicole said there was some live music there. I had no idea what kind of live music, and really hadn't thought about it. I walk in and The Hellbent Heartbreakers, a country band, is warming up. Now, I'm not really a country fan. But it was fun just to see them play live and they had lots of fun instruments like steel guitar and mandolin, that you don't see everyday. Next up on the program? A burlesque show. Seriously. Two girls went up and danced for two songs in matching bras, panties, fishnet stockings and heels. They both did a great job. This probably sounds weird, but they kept it classy. None of us was uncomfortable during the dances, we cheered them on. The last act of the night was a rock group (apparently the group we went there for) called Signs of Life. They were pretty good, although the instruments were so loud I couldn't understand the words to most of the songs. But Amy's going to burn me a copy of their CD, and one or two of their songs may end up on the mixes I've been promising to make for people. Soon I promise! As soon as I send my revised thesis off to Brad I'm going to sit down and start planning out the mixes. Right now I know some of the songs I'm going to put on the mixes, but I need to re-listen to some of my older mixes from Whitney and Ames and plan the order of songs, etc. Whit, you can expect a random phone call where I sing you pieces of songs and expect you to immediately know the artist and song title. :)

Also, I saw the movie 21 yesterday and it was pretty good. Not hard to see the plot twists coming, but still enjoyable. And it's based on a true story, which is pretty cool, and always makes the movie more interesting, to me at least. So that's been my week. Got rejected from a couple of jobs, but I'm not worried yet. I'm used to rejection, and I expect to get rejected from most of the jobs I apply for anyways. My future is still up in the air, but I'll be sure to update if anything definate happens with jobs, like maybe an actual interview.

I Remember When "Spring Break" Meant Vacation....

On the plus side, nothing else in my life has fallen apart in the last week. Yay! Is it sad that I"m celebrating that? Also, I've talked to the union about the whole $1050.00 medical bill our health insurance is threatening to not cover, and they said it will be taken care of. So, either the health insurance company will cover it or the union will. That's a huge load off my mind, so I'm very grateful for that.

In thesis news, there is no way I'm going to officially finish this semester. I'd have to turn in a finished copy to the grad school next Friday. Meanwhile, Brad hasn't given me any comments back, and I'm still writing my discussion anyways. So technically, it'll be a summer graduation, and I won't officially get my master's til August. But I'm hoping I can turn in a finished copy in April and defend in May. That's the plan, anyways.

Technically it's Spring break, which is weird because, of course, I'm still working in my office everyday. So I keep forgetting that it really IS spring break. But it's nice to be able to drive to my building and not to have to deal with teaching or grading this week. And I haven't worked in the building the last couple of nights, and may not tonight. So that kind of makes it a vacation. And now that I've typed those words, I realize how pathetic my life is.

On a completely different note, I went shopping this weekend and got some dresses. I've had to buy new clothes recently because all my old college clothes are getting too small. So I bought 3 dresses, one that could be sort of dressy and two more casual dresses. And I am in love with one of the casual dresses. I call it my Grace Kelly dress, because the cut sort of reminds me of 1940s dresses, and because I feel like a million bucks when I wear it. It's green with cream polka dots all over it, sort of a V neck, comes down to halfway between my knees and ankles...Frankly a description doesn't do it justice. It just fits me perfectly, and flatteringly (is that a word?) all at the same time. Of course now I need an actual reason to wear it, but I think I'm going to a wedding in June, so that'll work.

Anyways, I need to sign off so I can do something productive on my thesis today. I have a schedule for each day worked out, and I"m hoping to get a finished draft to Brad by next Friday.....we'll see if that actually happens.....Oh, I forgot, Mike and Kodi might visit me in RI before I leave! I haven't had a chance to talk to them about it yet, and they should wait til May or June when it's actually sunny and warm (hello 30-something degree weather this morning). I really hope they can visit. I want to meet Kodi, I'd love for all my friends to meet Mike, and of course, I just miss Mike, so it'd be great to get to hang out with him for a day or two.

More Rhode Island Drama

So I'm pretty sure I've already vented about this to everyone who reads my blog, but just in case, I'll post about it. Remember my last post when I talked about how everything had failed in the same month? Things got worse a couple of days ago. Wednesday night I picked up my mail and discovered a delightful letter in which my health insurance company informed me that they would not be covering any of my physical therapy claims from the summer and fall. I called to ask why they wouldn't cover something so basic that was covered by our last insurance company. Their answer: "Your treatment did not require surgery or hospital confinement." Well no, the whole point of physical therapy is to get better without having to resort to another surgery! And do they seriously not cover any minor injuries? What the hell? I've emailed the union, they've emailed health services, etc. so I'm waiting to hear back from various people. If they don't cover it for whatever reason, I'll owe $1050.00 to my physical therapist. Yikes!

And the other reason I was very angry with URI on Friday: federal taxes weren't withheld from my income last year. Which means that instead of getting money back, I now owe Rhode Island and the IRS $430. And I live below the poverty line! Seriously, as grad students we qualify for food stamps. After asking around, trying to discover how the hell this happened, Denise finally told me to check my W-4 information on the online campus system. I checked it and sure enough, there was a little box checked off that said "Exempt me from withholding taxes." Now, I don't remember ever clicking that box, so Denise said it might have happened during the summer when we got the new online campus system, and that I should check my W-4 status online from time to time. Great, but that doesn't help me now, does it? So because of a computer glich, I have to pay hundreds of dollars.

Seriously, Rhode Island is just trying to drain my bank account so I can never leave and it can torture me forever! I feel like I'm in the aftermath of a bad friendship breakup with a bitchy girl who's decided to make my life as miserable as possible. I'm tired, so I'll end this post on an upper. Mike is now officially in NYC with Kodi! I'm excited for him, and I can't wait to meet her. Mike and Dave have already asked the folks when they're going to turn the water back on at the house in Cooperstown so they can visit. I'm hoping I can meet up with them some weekend after I get this freaking thesis written.

And Technology Continues to Hate Me

I'm slightly annoyed by a pattern I see developing in my life. In this pattern, everything around me falls apart at the same time, and always at the worst possible timing. Last time this happened someone I loved was raped while I was separated from them for summer classes, my car would literally break down almost every time I drove it, and my brother was shipped out for Iraq, all within a few months of each other. And, in the case of my brother, right before holidays, making that year the shittiest, most numbing yet horribly depressing Christmas of my life.

This time is not nearly as bad; not emotionally devastating at all. Just really freaking stressful and with crappy timing to boot. A couple of weeks ago my cell phone finally decided to die. Apparently 2 1/2 years is the average lifespan of cell phones now, which I find depressing. Shouldn't they last longer than that? Anyways, that was mechanical failure number one. Within two weeks, I drove my car to its final demise. After years of never having air conditioning (not in the last decade at least), a slowly deteriorating sound system, soft brakes and transmission that has been failing for the last year, my van overheated. I didn't even notice, but apparently it overheated so badly that antifreeze, which is very corrosive, went into the motor and was coming out with the oil. I don't know much about cars, but I know words like "corrosive" and "motor" should never go together. At the shop, I had to start my car 5 times before it would actually turn on, and then, thank God, it made it the half mile back to my apt. It's so old and beat up that there's nothing salvagable about it, so I"m going to donate it to charity so my dad can at least get a tax write off. That is, once I get the time to clean all my stuff out of it.

Of course, I saw the van coming. I was really just hoping it would last through grad school, and it couldn't quite make it. That's alright, the van's been good to us. I think everyone in my family has driven it at one point. It lasted 15 years and made many trips from Alabama to Nebraska or New York. It also helped most of us move at some point. I really only drove it so that I wouldn't have to buy my own car til I was out of grad school. Of course, now I am in love with my new car, because it is shiny and has air conditioning, and I can fill up the tank for $25!

But I digress. Here's the latest mechanical failure. I've been using a departmental laptop for the last year, since I don't own a laptop. When I got it, the screen would occasionally turn itself off, but it was never a problem. The last couple of weeks however, the screen will not turn on for hours at a time, or it will turn on, but then turn itself off after 15 seconds. After two weeks of phone calls I finally got an appt with the computer help people and apparently the connection to the screen is fine, so the laptop needs a physical part replaced. It's a dept. laptop, so I'm not even sure what to do with that, I"m gonna talk to people tomorrow. But it's just one more problem that will probably take longer than it should to fix.

And no, I cannot buy my own laptop. I live below the poverty line (apparently we actually qualify for food stamps), and I just bought a new cell phone and slightly used car and car insurance, which pretty much depleted half of my savings, and will double my monthly expenses from now on. Oh, and one of my roommates moved out last month, so I"m essentially paying double rent, too, since no one wants to move into a room for 2 or 3 months. And I'm trying to write the discussion for my thesis so I can finish up and be out of here. So I'm not actually freaking out (I think I've just gotten used to everything around me constantly going to shit, esp when we consider all the problems with my thesis), I'm more in a constant state of stress. It's been at least 2 weeks since I actually slept through the night, I mostly wake up every two hours or less.

So....yeah. I feel like I just vomited all my problems onto the computer screen, and now I don't know how to end this post. I also just noticed how long it is. Man, when I complain I go to town. Let's hope that in a couple of weeks I have a long post about how everything is coming together so nicely.......