this is my blog

i just added two albums. one is from some birthday pumpkin carving activity for gal pal skippy’s b-day. the other is some fall foliage.

more to come.

i may not know much but something i do know well, oddly so, is american college towns. so far, at various ages, i have lived/schooled in 6 college towns. in order they are: college station, tx; huntsville, tx; austin, tx; madison, wi; ann arbor, mi; and bloomington, in. in addition i spent two years of my life traveling throughout the usa and eastern canada visiting college folks and their towns. you could say i’m bordering on a being a professional college student myself.

something i have noticed in a lot of the smaller college towns is that halloween is a big deal. bloomington only has 70,000 people and, in addition, the iu campus is host about 35,000 students. every now and again you catch wind of the perfect party weekend. this weekend, the storm is so intense the townies are sure to stay indoors.

this weekend marks the end of midterms, homecoming football game (there is a parade and everything), falling back an hour for daylight savings time; miss gay bloomington show (apparently a big deal), it’s saturday, and it’s halloween weekend.

i have thought seriously about getting on my bike, armed with a camera, just to see what i will find. but it’s 10 pm already and i find myself writing instead.

when i leave my house tomorrow i fully expect to have to step over drunken bodies that are littering the street. it will be a successful night’s sleep if i’m not woken up by the sound of a neighbor vomiting on the side of my house.

so me recent test grades have fueled a lot of inner thought lately. the b and c do not bother me…it’s the f. the f is in ecology and is followed by a 68 (which i only got because of a 10 point curve) on my first test. this is pretty common for me. i do great in classes that use more parts of my body then my brain and suck at “real” classes. i call it the regurgitation factor. i ain’t made for reading and then puking up information. learning for me needs to be an experience, not a process.

people assume i do not study much and that is the reason i do poorly. we all can stand to study more but i do indeed go to class, study my notes, and read the book. ‘just study harder’ people will tell me. the thing is i can sit and discuss many facets of ecology that i’ve learned this semester but for some reason i can not provide the precise information needed in the form of a test. i’m not sure if my brain shuts off or what but it’s really frustrating and it’s a problem i’ve had for as long as i can remember. i even recall in even pre-jr. high classes doing homework for several hours each night.

gee tyra, you might have what they call a learning disability. yeah well i have been bonified dyslexic since at least age 8. i have been tested at various times throughout my life and the results are all the same. i was always one bad test grade away from special ed classes. i am thankful i was never put in a class because i would not have been able to struggle my way to were i’m at today. i would have been labeled and forgot about. there ain’t nothing special about special ed other than it’s a guarantee shutdown of your brain and make dumber as the days go on…not to mention the social stigma. my older brother was put into special ed when we were kids. and that stigma was cast onto me at school. i am not sure how it affected him because he was in a boys home for awhile soon after and then went to live with our biological mother.

after this week i feel lead to “out” some of my academic challenges/failures:

1. i have never passed a math class more advanced than high school algebra (math was my friend until the mixed the alphabet into it). i have taken and failed college level algebra 3 times.
2. i failed typing (yes, that’s right, the class were you learn to type) in high school
3. i had to move my senior year in high school and somewhere along the way i lost my ability to act. i was a dedicated theatre student from about 3rd grade through senior year…until my dream died that is.
4. i scored a 740 on my sat.
5. i have been in college off and on since 1992 and i do not have a degree. i have never earned a gpa higher than a 2.5.
6. i graduated in the lower 75 percentile of my high school class of 54 students.

when i talk to most people about the things above, i get pretty typical responses that indicate people think i’m just being down on myself or not trying hard enough.

i guess my struggle with these failures is that i do not know what they signify. i know that i am an intelligent, extremely observant person. i have achieved many of the same marked successes that people with degrees have. i make about the same salary as my friends with bachelors degrees. some days i step outside of myself and see with better perspective but working at a university and still struggling to get a degree weighs heavily on me.

this has been the week of weeks. it is the week in the semester when everyones tensions, frustrations, and stresses crash into each others life. it’s a knock down drag out my-life-is-more-important-than-yours-drop-everything-our-doing-to-serve-me-or-i-just-might-kill-you kind of thing.

irony has been especially apparent in my life this week. i bend over backwards to provide the best service possible in my lab and with the help of my awesome staff, i am certain we run one of the best labs on campus. this week, in my regular efforts to serve, it seemed nothing was good enough for anyone. if i said no to something, somebody took it as a yes or a maybe. students were suddenly allowed to not have personal responsibility and blame the equipment for everything that went wrong. computers suddenly came alive, working for evil, to destroy their assignments.

what is my point you ask? i spend so much time serving people who do not have any sense of personal responsibility while my own academic career is going into the toilet. myself and several of my coworkers/staff went above and beyond to provide tutelage to idiots while and i managed to bring in the following midterm scores: 88, 74, and 54. yes, you are right, i do rule. i am not blaming work for my bad grades because i have a sense of personal responsibility. i just marvel because i wouldn’t doubt that a majority of people i serve each day are more successful in an academic environment than i am but they cannot preform the simplest tasks or know the difference between a “Save” and a “Save As” or how to connect to the internet.

i am pained that my job (IT jobs in the academic environment) is considered blue collar jobs. and faculty jobs are considered to be white collar jobs. the lowest paid faculty member probably makes 10-20k than our highest ranked tech staff member (up to triple his salary) to know and research an area of what-ever-the-hell you can imagine. i realize research is very important not only to the university but also to to our world. but if he/the it staff wasn’t there for a week the place would implode…not because our systems are aren’t superior but because they are used by people who begrudge/resist technology. my experience working at the universities that i have is that the pecking order is: faculty, students, staff.

i’m not trying to sound all norma rae and shit but if staff members walk out…the university shuts down.

me and my work crew have been hanging on friday nights. we get to together at someone’s house, have some food and drink and usually watch an episode of family guy, simpsons, south park, and dave chapelle. it pretty fun times. i was key in postponing the show tonight because i just wanted social interaction. it’s cool to watch the shows because i laugh my ass off but it’s not interacting with others which i enjoy. i really wanted to go to the video saloon tonight (a.k.a. the vid) with a coworker who was heading over there but i am not the type to invite myself along. it’s been a really long week but i had some beers and hung out with some fun people tonight so looking back at the week it doesn’t look so bad. this will be the first weekend in awhile that i do not have to work any part of the weekend. i look forward to some domestic duties and studying for an ecology test that is on monday

so it’s 11 pm and i have a meeting at 5:30 am. it’s really breakfast before a meeting. i do really like early morning breakfasts.

back in austin i used to have early breakfasts with my friend linc. it was sort of our “thing”. get up at the crack of dawn, usually on a work day, and have us some breakfast. these were quality times. i miss linc and i miss early breakfast with linc. he’s a big part of what i miss about austin.

tomorrow i will be having breakfast with two coworkers, ryan the sys admin, and jeff the web dev. i know ryan fairly well and definitely more than i know jeff, he’s only been on board for a month. they certainly score points for agreeing to this early breakfast idea but, let’s face facts, it’ll be no breakfast with linc.

as we are all on the it staff at the j-school we are at the mercy of everyone else’s needs/wants/emergencies/panic attacks/forgetfulness/stupitidy. now that jeff is on board a critical function is that we cross train on the critical functions of each others job. the only way to get time to ourselves at the school is to be there when there are no classes going on. and the best time is pre-8 am because at the end of most days we do not have the energy god gave a dust-bunny. so in efforts to recreate my fond early breakfast memories i suggested we eat breakfast prior to our 6:30 meeting.

after the premiere is over i finally get to head home. before i make it home my back tire is completely flat. being completely numb to any emotion, i dismount and roll my bike the remaining 5 blocks home.

i have the next day off because the entire afternoon will be spent diving. so first thing in the morning i need to figure out how i’m going to get my bike to the bike shop for yet another tire. i have zero energy left to wheel barrel limp it the 1.5 plus miles to the shop. i contemplate removing my tire and just walking it in to be repaired and then reattaching it myself. but knowing i’ve got about 4-6 miles to ride that day i do not want to trust myself to preform those duties safely.

i go for a long shot and call the bike shop to convince them to provide some sort of wrecker service. to my surprise they comply with my request. within about 20 minutes me, my bike, and my now sort of blackish fourth toe are on our way for repair…once again. i haven’t been awake for more than 45 minutes so knowing there will be coffee waiting (’cause my bike shop recently opened a coffee bar inside the shop) is keeping my eyes open and my hope for a good day afloat.

a giant coffee, a re-taping of my rim, and a thorn proof tube later my hair is once again blowing in the wind.

no issues since thursday so we will see what the future holds.

i’ve had an album titled ‘bosco and pixie’ up for sometime. this album has only had picture’s of bosco in it. i’ve finally added two of pixie today. they are the last two photos in that album.

I’ve had some pretty freaking long days lately. the work keeps piling up. every project multiplies in to ten.

today i woke up, late as usual because npr is just too soothing, got dressed, plugged in my ipod, headed out of the door, and hit the breaks. i had a flat on my bike. i take a lot of pride being car-less but my frustration is building. this is the 4th flat in about 6 weeks and i’m freaking pissed.

since my bike shop is on the other side of campus i might as well get my bike as close to campus as possible. i air up the tire, put the pump in my basket and burn rubber. about 1/3 of the way i need to air up again…not a good sign that my tire will make it all of the way. i notice air pouring out of the valve/stem so i decide to ride a bit further.

the tire is too flat to ride so i start walking the bike. as i’m awkwardly guiding my bike and i suddenly cry out in pain…i have just rammed my forth toe into the left pedal. i do not know how it happened just that it did. i can now look forward to limping my bike the rest of the way. about 3/4 of the way to work my back wheel is just not spinning at all. at this point i have to pick up the back end of my bike and muster this sort of wheel barrel limp thing.

needless to by the time i make it to school i am tired, pissed off, and wishing someone would tip me over the edge so i can beat some ass. but instead i am incredibly late for the mornings tasks (which include skipping class because i have to do a demo). did i mention my toe is throbbing and i want punch some wall? yeah, it’s awesome to be me.

my morning sucks because i want to put all of my energy into solving my problems. but my job dictates that i serve others and that’s what i did…all…day…long.

at the end of the day it’s time to get back to my life. i muster the wheel barrel limp down to the bike shop which is about 6-10 blocks from work. i am swimming in my own misery and almost to the bike shop when this dude comes off of his porch and asks me if everything is ok. i explain my situation and he offers to back up his truck and drive me, my throbbing toe, and my bike to the bike shop. this makes me feel pretty good.

the nice, and cute, guys at the bike shop are perplexed by my many flats and encourage me to try one more tube before we change what we do. i smile and pay.

i’m now off to the south of town to get fitted for a wet suit for tomorrows open dive. a pretty descent hike to spend about 30 minutes wrestling my way in to a a body size glove that is a quarter inch thick.

i do not have any time to get home and hang with the doggies and let’s face it i need a drink. so i stop off for a key lime martini, a greek salad, and a falafel.

i’m now at work because in about 30 minutes my staff and i will watch the premiere of “Lost” for a fun team building activity.

i’m thinking by the time i get home it will be 10:30-11:00ish

what a long day.