A Heavy Poem
September 26, 2003 @ 09:28 AM
It's nine-thirty in the morning... do you know where your boss is? I can't seem to find mine. :) Ah well, I've always been good at amusing myself.
That poem I mentioned a couple of days ago came out alright. Not great, but alright. I spiced it up with a little clipart. No, really. I put a little clip-art picture of a bathroom scale at the bottom of the poem. We'll call this "Poetic Experimentation in Visual Rhetoric". See, people? That's how you can sound smart and say nothing of substance simultaneously. It's all in the vernacular. *g*
Wanna see the poem? I haven't decided yet (no one has, I think) whether the author posting their poem in a blog would constitute a first electronic publishing, thereby making any future sale a resell. That makes me a slight bit uneasy to post stuff up here. Not that I ~plan~ to try to sell this thing, but hey. Better to have the option and not use it, than to not have the option when you want it.
Ooh.. I think I've got it. Ladies and Gentlemen, I hereby present you with a ~draft~ of my latest poem. Keep in mind that this is only a draft, not a final document. Nothing wrong with sharing a draft, now, is there? (I mean it. Is there? I don't know.)
Weighing In
(with my bathroom scale)
So smug, you sit. You little shit.
Your little slut-red finger pointing out my every slip
and every chip I couldn't help but try.
And why? Do you derive some sick, satanic glee
from seeing me eat healthy greens
when all I want's a little Dairy Queen?
One eighty-five you say today,
as I come to pray and weigh my M&M sins
against your black & white face.
And so I know you saw my late-night trip
slipped past your crouching shape in search
of the dessert I skipped just yesterday.
Is there no food you cannot see?
Am I doomed to brood in work-out rooms
and nibble snacks of whey and celery?
Alright, you win. I'll try again.
I trudge away to dream of drudging weights,
flatter abs, and fewer calories.
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Comments are cool and all, but don't feel obligated. It's scheduled to be workshopped next Tuesday. Have a good day. :)
From Wit to Writ
September 24, 2003 @ 08:00 PM
A couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd be witty.
Okay, okay. I like to think I'm being witty 'round the clock, and realistically speaking, I'm probably way off. All beside the point. Go with the story. I need some suspension of disbelief here, kay?
See, we had a couple of prose paragraphs due in my Poetry class a couple of weeks ago. Yes, prose for poetry class. We were exploring the differences between the two. We had to write two descriptive paragraphs, one literal and one figurative, on the same physical object. The professor suggested using a room as our subject. I decided to be witty (and different, since I figured everyone would choose a room), and selected my bathroom scale as my object of choice.
Now, two weeks later, my professor has requested that we write a poem describing that same physical object. So I've gotta write a poem about my bathroom scale tonight. Everyone else gets to write a poem about their bedroom, or kitchen, or so on. I bet it'd be easier to write about those. More substance there. That's what I get for being witty, eh?
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cssZenGarden has a few new designs up since I was there last. I'm still jealous. Go check 'em out, and see what I ~would~ be doing with my time, if I could.
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I think my interview yesterday went well, but I probably won't hear anything back until next week sometime. The job description given me consists of repairing PC's, doing tech support over the phone, and developing instructional documentation. Heh. That sounds like a conglomeration of my last three job descriptions. :)
Oh, and check out the title I'd have: Help Desk Analyst. I've decided that the third word in any techie-title is completely superfluous. My current title is "Information Technology Assistant". Before that, I was a "Technical Support Specialist".
Hmm. Looking at these, I've decided the first two words are pretty interchangeable, too. I challenge some bored programmer out there to write a Geek Title Generator so I don't have to. You can even call it that. Hell, call it the TGTG, which of course would stand for the "TGTG Geek Title Generator." Yano, like how PHP stands for "PHP Hypertext Protocol." That, my friends, is the geeky power of a good reflexive acronym.
Little Bits
September 23, 2003 @ 04:27 PM
Whee! I have a job interview at Coach House Gifts (see the previous entry for a link) in an hour. I'll try and remember to update to let you all know how it goes, assuming I know anything when the interview is over. Otherwise, I might not bother, because I've got a lot of homework to do before Thursday and I neglected most of my homework last night.
Is it odd to include both work and personal references on a resumé? I decided that I didn't much care one way or another, and put two of each on mine. It may not be standard, but I think it looks nice and adds a personal touch. Plus, it might give the allusion (not illusion, mind you) that I both work hard ~and~ have a good personality. Can't go wrong there, right? We'll see, I guess. :)
Anyways, I need to wrap things up here at work if I want to get out of here early. I just wanted to twart you would-be site crashers a bit ahead of time. :)
GRE, PhD, JOB
September 21, 2003 @ 10:57 PM
M'ris was the lucky winner in this weeks "Bring Down the Blog" contest. Congratuations, M'ris. *g*
My problem is, I think, that I do so much writing elsewhere, that by the time I get done with all that, I don't have the patience to do any more here. Well, that and when I ~have~ to write for classes, it's difficult to ~want~ to write for leisure.
And for those who want bigger, better excuses, I've been very unproductive with my leisure time lately. Sometimes, I'm quite productive with my time off: I write stories, I create websites, I read new stuff. Recently, my weekends have been all about watching football games on television and playing Grand Theft Auto III on the computer. Mindless fun is great from time to time, but I've gotta break out of this cycle sometime soon.
[this break indicates a shift in focus. I've been distracted lately, and I can't stay on-topic for very long atall]
I had a meeting with my advisor last Thursday. We talked for a solid hour, and now, I'm feeling a lot more confident about going to grad school. I'm willing to bet a lot of you out there have strong thoughts (one way or the other) about this, and I'd love to hear 'em. This is what I'm thinking so far:
I stay here at ISU for my Master's. I like it here, I can afford it better here, and ISU's graduate-level English program is one of the best around, so there's no real reason to leave.
I major in Rhetoric. Possibly (probably, at this point, but we'll see), I co-major in Rhetoric and Creative Writing. The English department has an interesting co-major setup wherein I can get two degrees with a significant bit of class-overlap, reducing the overall time it'd take to get them. Instead of 30 credits for one degree, I could get two degrees for 42 credits. Sounds good to me. I would need to write a thesis that combines the two, and that sounds like it could be fun. Tough, but fun.
I don't worry about my Ph.D. (if I want one, where to get one, and so on) until later. Why worry about it now? I'll have a much better idea as to what I want after I've been in grad school for a while.
Sound good to anyone out there? It sounds pretty good to me. Particularly that co-major bit. Cause then, I can put off specializing in something even longer. *grin*
Of course, all this is going to take a lot of preparation. I need to get in gear. I need to plan to have taken my GRE by mid-late November, I think, so I know what my score is before it matters. And I need to figure out which three professors I'm going to bug for recommendations. And I bet there's a crap-load of paperwork to figure out. The deadline for all this stuff is sometime in January, so I'll have to start thinking soon.
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(That was another break. Aren't I creative?)
In other news, I'm hoping to have a job interview sometime this week, working for the same company that my buddy Mark works for. The company is Coach House Gifts, a gift-shop kinda thing with dozens of stores all over the country, a really ugly website, and a corporate office right here in Ames. I'd be a techie. I'm good at being a techie. Other than that, I know nothing about the job. Mark thinks I could do it, and I trust his opinion, and I need the moola, so I'm giving it a shot.
Okies, time for a bit more homework and then bed. Hopefully, I think to update again before I give someone else a shot to win my "Bring Down the Blog" contest.
Anyone Got a Spare Job?
September 15, 2003 @ 09:17 AM
For those curious, Eric was the meanie-headed individual what took down my site this time. And yah, he did it on purpose. Hoser. *g*
The last week has been a blur of homework, classes, work and stress. It hasn't been much fun, in other words. And I doubt this week will be much better. This week, I'm hoping to add a second job to my workload. I know, it sounds like a silly thing to do, given the introduction to this paragraph. But I realized something the other day. Specifically, I realized that, now that I only work 20 hours a week on campus, my total number of fixed monthly bills is greater than my income. And that's a scary thing to realize. So, I need a second job.
I've even thought about becoming a waiter, as much as I hate the idea. I've never been a waiter before, but I've heard enough horror stories from my friends that have to think twice about such a career move. Unfortunately, I could probably make more per hour as a waiter than just about anything else around here. Any other ideas, O dedicated reader?
Well, people, I've homework to do this morning, so I'll leave you with a sonnet I wrote last night for my poetry class:
Turquoise Terrors
By Rob L Glazebrook
At midnight when I stumble off to bed,
I hear them as they whisper and they creep,
and though I guess it's only in my head,
these fuzzy deep-blue monsters haunt my sleep.
In daylight hours, they're nowhere to be found
(they are so shrewd in everything they do).
Since, when they simply float off of the ground
they're lost against the glare of heaven's blue.
I don't remember when it was they came,
although it must have come as quite a fright.
Like sapphire demons born of Vulcan flame,
they screech and jabber blue-speak through the night.
A decent sleep is tough to get, it seems,
when furry turquoise terrors haunt your dreams.
Homework and Parties
September 07, 2003 @ 05:51 PM
I found out something interesting today: if someone leaves a comment on my blog, and I haven't updated in a week, all the entries disappear. I know the reason: my blog is set up to display the last week's worth of entries, and it doesn't bother to check the date until something happens to change the page. Like, you know, a comment or something. :) So if you stopped by in the last few hours to find a blank page, it was because my mom left me a comment. Ironically, her comment was just demanding an update. *g*
I've been busy this last week, primarily with school. It seems, professors aren't so concerned with starting out slow in 400-level classes. I guess they figure that if you've made it all the way to a 400-level class, you should be alright with whatever pace they decide to set. And I am, so far, but barely. Last Wednesday wasn't very much fun. I had my first seven-hour homework session of the semester.
I'm still finding a time for a social life, luckily. Friday night, Lorenzo, Megan and I headed over to Jordan's house for an impromptu party. The occasion being, Jordan's gotten himself engaged to a nice young woman named Lindsay. :) So what better way to celebrate than by inviting over fifty of your closest friends? We had a great time, and I'm sure it was a night that many of us present would look back upon fondly, if we could remember any of it.
Saturday night, Megan and I hosted a little get-together. The greatest part (in my opinion) of hosting a party at one's apartment is, it requires one to clean extensively. I'm pretty good about cleaning, but ~only~ when I have the proper motivation. When I have no motivation other than my own desire to live in a messless environment, I do things like leave hair in the bathroom sink, pop (or whatever) cans next to the computer, and dirty dishes in the kitchen sink (and on the coffee table (and by the computer))). When I have people coming over for a party, I do things like scrub the carpet with Resolve, suck trapped crumbs out of the trim of the coffee table with the 'cuum, and polish every window, mirror, and vaguely reflective surface until it's completely transparent, reflective, or shiny, whichever it was supposed to have been.
So, anyway. We had people come over Saturday night. Not as many as we had hoped, but a few. Lorenzo was there, and Justin and Mark (Jordan's roommates and my ex-roommates), and of course Megan. Four people from down the hall stopped by for a while, but they had an underwear party to go to (and yes, you're picturing it correctly). JJ, Amy, and Jenny were all supposed to have stopped by, but they forgot they had a friend turning 21 that evening, and were obligated to be elsewhere. My friend Riana stopped by and stayed for a while, and that was nice. All in all, it was a good night. There was music and movies and chips and beverages galore and all sorts of easy-going camaraderie. Good stuff. I had my webcam turned on to try and capture some of the evening, but we turned off the lights to watch the movie, so I mostly ended up with a whole lot of black nothingness.
Here's a shot of Megan (wearing my stuffed gorilla George's tiara), Mark, and the back of Justin's head right before we turned on the movie. Lorenzo is sitting just outside the frame on the other side of Megan, and I believe you can see me in the reflection of those exquisitely polished windows *g*:
Sept. 6 Gathering (click to enlarge)
Here's my attempt to prove Riana was at the party. She's the whitish blur in the right half of the image. Megan is the reddish blur close-up, and I think you can sorta see me in the background. It was taken during the movie by a webcam and illuminated only by a television screen, so excuse the horrific quality:
Sept. 6 Gathering II (click to enlarge)
So far today, I've cleaned, exercised, done homework, and eaten a huge, delicious salad created by my Megan. :) I'm off to do several more hours of homework. Yay, and stuff.