Such a Sap...

The end of the semester always makes me tear up a little. It is tough to let some of these kids go out into the big world without my sage guidance. Heh. Okay, the real truth is that I will miss some of the little shits. There. I said it. Happy now?

Do you hear what I hear?

I heard the Indigo Girls playing in the supermarket on Sunday.
It must be true... the gays really are trying to push their agenda on unsuspecting shoppers.
Either that or I am finally old enough for some of my favorite music to be classified as "muzak."

Hey, hey we're the freegans...

This morning found me minding my own business, walking to Starbucks for a latte. A tbt* girl handed me a paper with the headline "NO (Freegan) WAY." Huh. I ordered my coffee and sat down for a gander at the article.

Ready? A freegan lives almost entirely off of discarded goods. That includes food. Yup, these folks dumpster dive for their dinner. Now, as you are carefully monitoring your gag reflex, let's be clear that freegans are not eating half of your leftover veggie sub that you tossed. Instead, they are hitting up the dumpsters behind supermarkets, bagel stores and the like looking for packaged food that has been discarded (mainly because it was past the expiration date). Apparently there is a veritable cornicopia of food to be had for the taking. If you can make it past dealing with the stench of a dumpster to retrieve it.

Whoa. This is heavy information to digest over my latte. I mean, these cats are so against consumer culture that they won't even buy food. And while I don't think I am extremely materialistic, I do definitely partake in the consumeristic culture. And, although I find what these guys do to be a bit gross, I admire their ethical standpoint. This is something that they actively choose to do each day. I assume it is much easier to stroll into Publix and buy a bag of spinach than it is to traverse the wasteland of a Publix dumpster for said spinach. But, on principle, they refuse to partake in the convenience obsession of our society. I find that honorable.

So, as I sipped my latte, I began to think about the ways I could participate less in the consumer culture. But don't worry, the next time you eat at my house, you can be assured that all of the food was purchased first-hand.

Conflict

I am not into conflict. Truly, I am a conflict avoider. When I am forced into a conflict, I get all shaky and flustered. Then I spend an obsessive amount of time post-conflict second guessing myself, wondering if maybe my perspective was off, maybe I was at fault.

So, yesterday, when the Composition Director from UT called, I immediately was thrown into a tizzy. She insisted I come in to teach on Thursday, saying I needed to honor my contract. The problem with that, you see, is that I had set up conferences with my USF kids on Thursday. The teacher I had replaced at UT had come back from medical leave, said thank-you-much-I-will-take-my-class-back-now, and so I scheduled other things for Thursday. And then said teacher had an allergic reaction to medication which required hospitalization.

So then there I was, facing this conflict with a woman who had already been ugly to me on Tuesday about not being able to come in because I had a doctor appointment to have skin cancer removed. And now she was insisting I come in on Thursday, which meant I would have to cancel my conferences at USF.

And, as I was wracking my brain for how I was going to handle this, the most amazing thing happened: I had a moment of clarity. I knew, in no uncertain terms, what the right thing to do was. So I told her that, while this situation was unfortunate, I would not disappoint and/or let down my students at USF. I had made a commitment to them and the need to have me come in to UT to teach did not supersede that commitment.

And I did NOT spontaneously combust upon standing up for myself. In fact, I had her calmed down by the end of the conversation. Eating right out of my hand, she was.

Yeah, I am a rock star. You know it, babeeee.

Summer Is Approaching...

I know it seems odd to be thinking about summer when we just eased into Spring. But summer starts for me the first week in May. And along with summer comes... unemployment. And I mean unemployment in the bad, "holy shit, what am I going to do???" sort of way, not a cool summer break.

So that leads me to ponder what I want to do this summer. At this stage in my life, I think I would really like to look after someone's child for the summer. Unfortunately, I don't think most folks could pay what I need to make money wise. I would love to do some writing work. I enjoy writing on the church blog (http://imagineaplace.wordpress.com), which is part of the reason you never see me here. But I don't know that I can find employment that is writing based. There is a phone survey job at Moffitt, which would be great because I could work from home and I like to talk to people (I would be finding out if they are eligible for a cancer study), but the hours are wonky (4pm to 8pm)...

So, while the possibilities are endless, there is also a lot of trepidation about where I will land for the summer. If anyone remembers the Temping Incident of '07, you will know that we do NOT want to live that again. Apparently I am a bit surly when stuck at a desk in a 9-5 data entry job. Who knew??

Anyone have a job they want to throw my way?