The day before yesterday, I spent my time planning conference proposals. There were two good ones I am preparing; one in Vancouver on diaspora cultures (pray I don’t run into the wrong junkie), and the other in Kingston-town, just down the highway, on the place of the ‘60s in global consciousness (very neat – hippies everywhere, I hope). Wish me luck in my continuing SSHRC-whoring struggle.
Article polishing cannot progress until I get feedback from my two profs. I am already behind on my comp reading, I have yet to have my committee meeting, and I still haven’t heard back from the Editor. Friday I must toddle over to hear the PhD 2’s dissertation proposal presentations. I am closer to a field comp reading list, but negotiations rage on. I still have not OK’d my preliminary dissertation proposal draft, as I am too lazy and scared to make a preliminary bibliography… I am unexcited about winning myself yet another reading list for the summer. Another list I can’t afford to satisfy, financially or temporally.
However, all progresses fairly well, and the people who have seen my pre-prop say it looks interesting. That is a fine start.
I just have to remember that, a year from next week, I will be ABD! That must keep me going.
Yesterday, I spent helping John job hunt and make it to his THREE job interviews, all over Kitchener. At least the weather was kind to us and the evil yellow face was nowhere in sight… And, best of all, John got me EXACTLY what I wanted for my birthday: A JOB! We are saved! Fritz is safe from being made into emergency jerky rations, once more.
I was very happy when we got back… Until I got my first hate email, ever, over my Swank article, which I guess was not tongue-in-cheek enough. Actually the guy never specified the Swank article, but I assume that is the one he felt was full of “faggotry,” and the reason I should get off the “interweb.” At first I thought the email was about my Jack Benny piece, and I had been rejected by the meanest book editor in the world.
That took the pink tinge off the day. Just a tad.
And now it is today. May 17th.
My 28th birthday.
Whoop-ity-crap.
I have never liked birthdays, frankly. When I was a kid, we didn’t have birthday parties for non-family, because that would mean I would have to shell-out for gifts on reciprocal invitations, and we didn’t exactly live a Dallas lifestyle, if you get my drift. And spending your birthday with parents and siblings lacks a certain something, to put it mildly.
Then, at 16, I started to realize that each year brought me closer to old age and obscurity, since I was no where near a child prodigy in anything, so birthdays from then on only signaled another year in average-ville.
Now I am 28. I have no real accomplishments to speak of, except for the apparent ability to inspire outrage from some crappy net reader who read my article for free, anyway, so really shouldn’t have anything to complain about (at least I gave him something to do with his useless hours since his porn-site account seems to have been cancelled).
That 16-year-old me would still have been mighty disappointed in this me.
So, at 9 tonight thereabouts, I will turn 28 for real.
However, we did splurge on a $7 previously-viewed copy of Broken Flowers (2005), so that is something to brighten my week this year. (Bill Murray always makes things better.) And I picked up a hard-cover book on Israel Lipski, a famed Jewish murderer in Whitechapel, for only a buck at the library sale. And, as we have at least a glimpse of financial security, we ordered a pizza. And I got a $12 cheque from a little old lady back home.
All in all, one of the best birthdays yet, actually.
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