friday random 10: help!

this weekend, i plan on watching about seven movies at the theater, babysitting a professor's kid (why he would ask me of all people is beyond me), and welcoming an old college friend back to her alma mater. also, it seems i'm not alone in my difficult life decision ahead of me...both a happy cricket and bip are going through similar processes. hopefully this installment of the random 10 can shed some light on all of our paths, because, you know, i'm all about, like, encouraging people and stuff....

1. "Stars" -- David Crowder Band
2. "Paranoia" -- Sam Roberts
3. "What Do You Do?" -- Dogs Eye View
4. "Just" -- Radiohead
5. "Cling and Clatter" -- Lifehouse
6. "House Carpenter" -- Nickel Creek
7. "Where Do I Begin" -- The Chemical Brothers
8. "The Blower's Daughter" -- Damien Rice
9. "Sinking" -- Jars Of Clay
10. "End Of Our Days" -- Howie Day

well that seems to have failed miserably. these describe more the current situation than the future, unless it's telling us that we could end up in the roles mentioned in one and six. otherwise, i'd say that two, three, seven, nine, and ten all describe my present thoughts and feelings. sadly, i feel many of the same things about babysitting tomorrow. if anyone knows how to keep a four year old entertained for a couple of hours, let me know....

watch out for the mastodons....

can you believe that i'm posting on a day other than friday? i know, it's weird. let me tell you about two of the biggest things that have happened to me in the past couple of weeks. two thursdays ago, i had my second nondate of the year. thye're both "non"dates in that both times a girl asked me out, and both times they (allegedly) already had boyfriends. the first one was actually a former student of mine and, had we fallen passionately in love, would have made me feel like teaching college students was totally worth it. but we didn't, so i don't. the second date was a set up by #2, and this girl was supposed to be my soulmate. (mom was very excited.) but between the time she met #2 and the time she met me, she found herself a little boyfriend. which is fine. i tend to have low expectations about first meetings, because i'm generally either disappointed in the other person or myself. so we meet, have dinner, and depart an hour later. it was fine--not spectacular, not terrible. i may have come off a touch dark, but at least i didn't call her "haiti." and i made her laugh a few times...chicks dig that. i haven't talked to her since, but i'd guess we would have had there been no boyfriend involved.

the bigger news, in my opinion, is the news i alluded to in the previous post: i have a (somewhat formal) job offer on the table. (mom is very excited...sort of...i think. i'll let her comment on her joy in my finding a job versus her despair that any future grandkids could be all the way across the country.) a friend from graduate school who got a great job in atlanta, of all places, has offered me a great position at his research firm. i'd be doing good research, and i wouldn't even have to talk to any strangers! although eventually i would have to be a manager, which could be ruinous. so here i am, twenty-six years old, considering my first job not involving a restaurant or mall, my second move to the east coast, and my ensuing overhauled life. what to do? am i ready to grow up? to leave behind my friends? to put myself out there and try to make new ones? to have a career? to have real responsibilities with real rewards and consequences? will they be ok with me coming into work at 2 pm? can i handle wearing suits everyday? could a real job actually kill me? i have answers to three of these questions. if yall could answer the rest for me, that'd be great. thanks!

friday random 10: beware!

hey kids...sorry for the delay! i do have things to write about--i promise-- i've just gotten caught up doing other things. this weekend, my family and friends are holed up in houston avoiding some lady named rita. i on the other hand am heading to a wedding in dallas tomorrow and spent tonight trying to find the perfect wedding gift...that they registered for. what a hassle. we settled on a poker table and place settings. hopefully they won't read this before they open them....

1. "This Wreck of a Life" -- Sam Roberts
2. "Certain Tragedy" -- Saves The Day
3. "Rarefied" -- Sam Roberts
4. "Fine Line" -- Hootie & The Blowfish
5. "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)" -- Elton John
6. "Nothing to Write Home About" -- Soul Asylum
7. "Comfortable" -- John Mayer
8. "Just Looking" -- Stereophonics
9. "Fat Albert Theme" -- Dig
10. "Don't Hold Back (Full On)" -- The Normals

that's right, i own a cover of the fat albert theme. i don't care what you people think! anyway, this list does not bode well for anyone this weekend. check out one and two and do your best not to apply them to houston or the wedding. four, seven, and eight could apply to some news i got yesterday, which i'll write about soon. six could apply to the vince vaughn wild west comedy tour, which i actually had tickets to and decided not to go. i know, i suck.

friday random 10: homecoming

ok, there was a little confusion last week, so here's the deal. i'm only looking at the predictive powers of the songs' titles, unless otherwise noted. this weekend , i'm heading back home. the roommate and friend #2 are tagging along, so it should be an...interesting time. let's see what the songs tell us....

1. "Run" -- Snow Patrol
2. "I'll Do Anything" -- Jason Mraz
3. "Taj Mahal" -- Sam Roberts
4. "My Hope" -- David Crowder Band
5. "Nada" -- The Refreshments
6. "All I'm Losing Is Me" -- Saves The Day
7. "Love Song For No One" -- John Mayer
8. "3x5" -- John Mayer
9. "Try" -- Michael Penn
10. "I'm So Ronery" -- Team America

hmmm...number two (not #2) might describe my willingness to sleep on an air mattress while #2 gets the guestroom. this also indicates that number three definitely would not apply. numbers seven and ten apply to pretty much every weekend (day? hour? *tears hitting keyboard*). those could also apply to my nondate tonight, which i'll write about later. and is it bad that i desperately want to manipulate the the selection of the random 10? does this make me a bad survey researcher...that i want to adjust the methodolgy of this random sample? maybe i'd just rather have it weighted. or maybe a stratified sample....

don't wanna know why you like me, i don't care....

three things....

1. i don't f'ing believe it. i actually worked on the dissertation again today. that's right, i finally put pen to paper (fingers to keys?) and started writing. for those who don't know, dissertating has been a very long process for me. i've had my topic for over a year, but i seem to have some physiological aversion to working on it. any time i would plan on working on it, i literally felt sick. i'd never encountered a feeling like this, at least not toward schoolwork. so yesterday i sat down with my advisor and asked for some help. he told me just to start writing, and i reluctantly heeded his advice. two paragraphs into the introduction, though, i wanted to check some facts against one of the articles i'd read, only to find that my stack of literature was nowhere to be found. (the sick feeling returns.) i search throughout my desk and the rest of the office, but i find nothing. i guess it got thrown out when i switched offices. it is somewhat disheartening to know that even the little work you've done is all for naught. i couldn't handle it and had to go home. but i tell you what...those two paragraphs were quality. maybe i'll post them....

2. have you ever woken up from a nap to find yourself talking to someone on the phone? this afternoon, i awoke to the voice of my alaskan friend whom i hadn't talked to in a couple of months. i'd guess i'd been talking to her for five minutes before i realized that i was talking to someone on the phone in real life. this is the second time i remember something like this happening to me. during my junior year, i awoke to find myself applying for a new credit card. i can only hope that i haven't given out my social security number to too many strangers while asleep. i have a feeling that i'd be a great subject for hypnosis....

3. congratulations to my brother, the "nuttiest" fan of the longhorns' first game of the year.



for his victory, he received a football signed by mack brown and now has the chance to win tickets to a game next year. i think he would have done it for nothing though.... good job bro! and i've always known that you're the "nuttiest"....

friday random ten: the beginning

so i'm stealing someone's idea...again. in his martians attacking indianapolis (see left), josh presents ten random songs from his ipod hoping they will provide a bit of foreshadowing for the upcoming weekend. this weekend, i'm visiting friend #1 to explore group dynamics and talk demons, welcoming friend #2's triumphal return, and praying throughout the texas-ohio state game. let's see what we can find....

1. "1,000 Things" -- Jason Mraz
2. "Brother Down" -- Sam Roberts
3. "Breathe" -- Tribe America
4. "Get It Together" -- The Beastie Boys
5. "Sunburn" -- Fuel
6. "King of Wishful Thinking" -- Go West
7. "Take Me Out" -- Franz Ferdinand
8. "Screaming Infidelities" -- Dashboard Confessional
9. "He" -- Jars Of Clay
10. "Extreme Ways" -- Moby

these ten songs could be saying quite a bit, i think. numbers five and seven could spell great discomfort for tonight's activities. number four seems to be a theme with friend #2. and hopefully numbers two and six do not apply to the horns game saturday...for my brother's sake. anybody else have any ideas?

you should never let the sun set on tomorrow before the sun rises today....

my faith in humanity is being restored. this week, i've been trying to volunteer to help katrina victims, but have been unsuccessful. this is only about the third time in my life i've tried to volunteer, so this is somewhat disheartening. the good news, though, is that i was turned away due to excess help--there are actually too many people in this town trying to help. i hear the same is true in dallas. so, if so many people are willing to help that it actually prevents me from helping, i learn two things: 1) perhaps my time is better spent watching tv and figuring out the cheapest place (by volume) to eat for each day of the week, and 2) maybe there are still good people in the world.

(now, here i was going to go on about how people are inherently bad and how we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back for donating fifteen dollars to help a city that may never exist again. but that's really more a discussion topic than a soapbox for me, so i'll leave that for real-life conversation...if anyone's interested.)

in lieu of that topic, then, i choose to write about friend #2. she FINALLY moved yesterday, even though i bought her a fancy going away dinner about three weeks ago. and though she is only a hundred miles away, no move is easy. i personally suck at moving, but i suck more at other people moving. i've been at my university for eight years now, so each year i've had more friends leave to move on to bigger things. to tell the truth, i don't miss very many people. people leave, and i'm sad we won't be hanging out anymore, but i don't necessarily miss them. i can say with surety, though, that i will miss #2. i'm glad i could be there for her time (years?) of need, and i truly feel like she knows me better than just about anyone. i can't convey how important that is to me. so, #2, as you move on to bigger things, know that i will miss you, and that this definitely is not as good as it gets.