The obligatory Finals Week to-do list.

( And here we go a listing... )

It's short. It's strange.

I think the results from my Teach for America application (i.e. if I get the full-day interview) come out at 10 am-ish today. Certainly weren't up at 8:30am EDT. (When does Daylight savings time end?) (Answer, provided by www.timeanddate.com, which is a surprisingly fabulous website: November 4th.)

I'm nervous.

Also, my throat is killing me! I can't decide if it's allergies or a cold, but considering Bridget-roommate is completely devoid of voice leads me to believe it's a cold and that I will be losing my voice in a couple of days. Ugh. I don't want to be sick.

Goal for the week: Finish my Feild Experience paper! It's actually the best week to attempt this. Next week I'll do my Global Governance paper, the week after my Australia paper, and then dead sprint to my senior seminar paper. If only I only had to do papers and there weren't midterms in there. Those muck everything up.

Teach for America interview yesterday. It lasted about a half hour, and I think it went okay. It's really hard to tell with phone interviews, because people don't give anything away with smiles and nods of encouragement. Though there were a couple of "Greats" as my interviewer typed. I have a feeling that the interview was entirely scripted -- or really well practiced. As I was halfway through the second day of interviews, I'm guessing that it was scripted.

She asked me about another project that I worked on for weeks and weeks and how I dealt with it. She asked me how I dealt with a difficult person. She asked me if I had ever missed any deadlines. She asked me how I keep track of things, because teachers have to keep track of things (On this point, I think I impressed her). She asked me if it was the parent's fault that kids didn't succeed, she asked me if I thought the parents didn't care if their kids didn't succeed, she asked me how I would get parents involved. She asked me what kind of things I would do to inspire my kids.

I'm nervous. I very much want to do this. I want to be in a classroom and inspire kids about government and history, while expanding their literacy. (I'm guessing that these are the subjects I am most qualified for.) I find out a week from today if I get the full-day interview.

The State of Michigan shut down last night for five hours, but apparently they finished an emergency budget this morning. They're taxing services, they've upped the income tax.

I finished my research proposal for my Senior Seminar class. The topic is The Satanic Verses controversy in the United Kingdom. I'm not entirely happy with the research proposal, but I find research proposals to be very weird things. I did a lot of research for it, but not quite enough -- I was having a very hard time finding anything in the Muslim voice. I think I've finally got a line on a couple of people to read/reference, but it's a matter of finding the material. And searching through British newspapers from August 1988 to about January 1990. The dates I'm not completely sure of, actually, but that's not a bad range.

I have to get moving on my two other papers, while at the same time continuing to work on my Senior Seminar paper. Draft is due the 22 for my Paul G. Hoffman paper, outline is due the 23 for my contemporary societal issue in Australia paper. I'm kinda tempted to take like, 8 hours and finish the Australia paper. It probably won't take longer than that.

I also have to finish my FE paper. I finally got a hold of Connie Hunt, and she gave me good direction on where to go to finish the research for it. I'll have to work on that too, I have to finish that before the end of the semester.

The last couple of days I have been feeling really out of control. The papers are piling up and it's only the third week of the semester, the reality of having to start planning for postgrad options is hitting hard, and I'm not exercising or eating right like I want to. So, last night, I sat down and wrote out a Problem/Solution list. The problems go: Teach for America, Global Governance, State and Society, Senior Sem, Money, 5k, Graduation, and Job search. And then I listed things underneath the problems that I could do to solve them. After I wrote the list, I called Tim to cry about it. (Is it so bad that crying is part of my process of accepting the challenges ahead of me? Maybe I'll grow out of it someday.)

I also talked with Caitlyn last night too. In the dark, from our beds. Like old times. Between running back and forth to campus, making food, doing homework... we hadn't talked much. I think I fell asleep on her, I hope she'll forgive me.

So... I have a list of problems, and I have a list of solutions. As "Energy and Persistance Conquer all Things" (Ben Franklin), this means that I'll have to make a concerted effort to do a little bit of each thing every night. Read a little bit of my research books, go over my notes, do my homework, and generally make use of my energy.

I went and talked with Chris Foley yesterday about Job Searches and how to go about it. He talked to me about making contact with companies so as to open up a dialogue, and to use them to find contacts about jobs. He also says that if I find a company I really like, that I should talk to him to see if there's an alum there.

He also said that if I really want to teach, I should look into the other teaching fellowships.

I also chose the topic for my Senior Seminar paper -- The Satanic Verses Fatwa Affair as a Cultural Conflict in the United Kingdom. I have to have an annotated bibliography by next Tuesday.

I decided that I can't go to the football game. However, Laura's Roommate Sam's parents always always tailgate. So, I think I'm going to tailgate this weekend. I'm really excited about that. Tim's coming, yay!

So, this week has been interesting.

Despite the the renewal of Easter and being home with my family, I couldn't be as intense about my researching this week for my Social Policy draft as I was last week for my Women and Power in Comparative Perspectives presenation. So, now I have to write an 8-10 page intense draft by Monday when after reading my sources I'm not completely sure what I'm supposed to write about anymore. I can do it, it's just annoying.

My research paper for Social Policy is on the ballot proposal in Washington State that, if passed, would require heterosexual couples to procreate within three years of their marriage or have their marriage annulled. The reasoning behind this is that the State Supreme Court held up procreation and reasonable expectation of paternity as the primary function of marriage -- and so there's a group trying to point out the supreme idiocy of this. So I read the two Superior Court decisions that affirmed the right of gay marriage, and the Plurality decision against gay marriage and the dissenting opinion. Nearly 200 double spaced pages of court mumbo jumbo and legal logic. I think I understand all of the arguments, but it still leaves me confuddled as to how I write a paper on Social Policy when I've mired myself into judicial review.

And once I'm done with that draft, I have to write a draft of my 7-10 page literary analysis for my Culture, Politics, and Postcolonialism class for next week. I should also draft my Women and Power paper... but I kinda want the feedback from my presentation before doing that. I don't even know if I have enough research material for that paper -- it's supposed to be 25 pages. I had enough material for a 5 minute presentation, probably too much information for it, and people were impressed with it... but I don't know. I at least have an argument for it.

Oh, god. Was my presentation this week?!

My presentation went really well. I got some good questions that pointed out things I couldn't take for granted in the understanding -- like the solidarity of the coalition of Black as a political category in Britain, as well as the fact that black men cannot oppress the same way that white men can. I think I have sources that address the former, and I think I have some theory that addresses the latter.

I went shopping on Wednesday, just to get out of the dorm. I bought Serena a book on the etiquette of note writing that she was lusting over for her graduation present. She seems really really pleased with it, so it pleases me.

Thursday we got into a very intense discussion in Culture and Politics regarding the purpose of the course. Some people don't think that culture is important, I told them that IR is not a science, and all of the theories in IR fail because of the variable of culture. Then one of the girls, who was a PTCD major, and claimed that this was her fifth cultural studies class goes, "I'm going to come across as a bitch, but when will you ever use this again? You're never going to think, 'Yeah, so that's like being the colonizer!' You're never going to use it!"

I was equally pissed that she had to preface her strong opinion by excusing herself as being a bitch -- my feminist self -- and that she was discounting culture so severely. When I gathered my thoughts later, I drew attention to the fact that she had preface her opinion (probably not in the most positive way, I said, "If you were a bitch, then I'm going to have to be one too...") and said that if you didn't take anything from this class, you weren't getting an education.

Grr. Why can't women have strong opinions without being labeled bitches?

I hate training. Today I had to rain for six solid hours. I like my solitary job. I like that, for the most part, it leaves me to concentrate on my homework. But not when I have to train ducklings. And then I lose track of what I've told them. Luckily, I have a 5 hour shift tomorrow that I picked up, and it will be trainee free. I will work on my draft there.

Today I got my hairs cut. I'm going to wait to take pictures until after I wash it and let it dry and see how it's going to look on a daily basis. I also have this very strange, shallow cough. When I cough I hear like, crackles in my lungs of stuff that needs to be broken up, but nothing beyond that.

I am starting (Heh, starting).... I am continuing to be really stressed by this semester. Like, to the point where I selectively forget classes that I am taking so I don't have to deal with them. Alas.

ETA: Literary Villain Survival. Go vote.