My Shit

I just finished my Stats II final. The data, calculations, and analysis printed out on 61 pages!

I wanted to go to sleep last night at midnight. I went to bed and realized it wasn’t going to happen. I got up, worked on my first year paper a little more, then tried again at 1:00am. It worked this time. But then at 5:30am I wake up to my dog puking on his bed, which is right next to my side of the bed. I had a hard time falling back to sleep after that. Every noise I heard woke me up because I thought it might be Angus throwing up some more. Then my girlfriend’s alarm started going off at 6 o’early. She takes dance classes in the morning, but sometimes, like today, she hits snooze for an hour and doesn’t go to class. So, from 5:30 to 7:30 I didn’t sleep much. Then my alarm started going off at 8:30, I bumped it up to 9:30, then hit snooze until quarter after 10. I don’t know how much sleep that works out to, but it doesn’t feel like much.

Maybe what I feel like today is partially driven by a lack of sleep. But I’ve got a confession. I’ve got doubts.

This grad school stuff, at least in a college of management, is high stakes and high pressure. It’s more than just grades. It’s produce or go home. I’m doing really well too. But I think I need to back off some. I am having fun, but I don’t think I am enjoying myself. I don’t know if I know how to back off though. I need to figure it out, and I need to figure out how to do it without felling like I’m dropping the ball. If I feel like I’m dropping the ball, all it will do is stress me out, and I’ll go back to working my ass off like I do right now. You might be asking, “well, if you’re doing good, why do you need to back off at all?” It’s a good question.

• I like my girlfriend and it is unfair that the only time I spend with her is from 10:00pm to bed time watching TV.


• You can’t be creative by trying harder. I’m a creativity researcher, so I know this is true. When your busting ass at 120mph you’re simply going to fast to notice the little issues that end up being big indicators to problems that block your path around the next corner. You have to take some time to incubate ideas. Yeah, the time pressure is good, but if you’re sitting on top of the problem all the time, you can’t back out to see another path, a path that may be shorter and better.


• I need more experience than what I’m getting from the chair at my desk in my bedroom and the chair at my desk in my office at school. What exactly, I don’t know. I don’t have money, so it isn’t like I can have big money fun. The general “attractions” are generally uninteresting anyway. And I certainly don’t have the time or space to work on the Superbee.


• I’m terribly out of shape. I haven’t weighed this much since I was in my undergrad. I don’t like a thing about it. I don’t like the way I look and I don’t like the way I feel. Running around this goddamn apartment complex sucks ass. The hills sap your energy before you can go a mile. The stupid ass Atlanta drivers scare the shit out of me. They drive around like retarded kids without helmets. And there aren’t many roads around here with sidewalks. And sidewalks suck for your knees.

This whole grad school thing is supposed to be an experience and I think I’m missing at least part of it. But, the best way to change your life is to first change your mind. Today may be the day, or I may just be tired. Guess we’ll see.

While trying to post my latest post I ended up messing up some stuff. Blogger was acting like a complete ass and wouldn't post stuff. I ended up posting the post about 5th 3rd bank about 5 times, saving it as a draft once, and deleting a post that had nothing to do with 5th 3rd bank.

So...

TKH's sister L ... The post I deleted was actually to you. If you are the one that is reading my blog from DAL, I was trying to leave a post to say HI!!! I haven't heard much from you all in a long while. I hope things are going well. In the first post where I tried to place a message to you I talked about DMB. I know how much your sister loved DMB. Alex and I thought about getting tickets, but by the time we remebered to try to get tickets (a few hours [not days, hours] after they went on sale) there was nothing but lawn seats left. Considering the seat TKH gave me, I don't think I could see DMB again from anywhere but there or closer. I hope you got good seats.

Anyway, L, if you get this. Feel free to send me an e-mail. An address where you can reach me is:
chilort1(at)aol(dot)com. I hope to hear from you. It would be great to hang out some time in the ATL. I really miss your sister and I hope you all are doing well.

I had my car loan with Fifth Third Bank. I think I hated them from the start, but it has been a few years now and I don't remember why.

When I moved from Indiana to Georgia I had to pay a $40 fee to Fifth Third Bank so they would transfer the title to Georgia. A "transfer" may not be exactly what it was called, but it, more or less, breaks down to two things.

1. Georgia needed to see the title of my car to make sure it really is my car, but the financing company owns the title
2. The financing company (aka. sucker of donkey balls, aka. Fifth Third Bank) had to make a photocopy of the title and fax it to Georgia.

How this costs $40 I will never know. Of course, Fifth Third Bank also had to have my new address to make sure all of this happens.

About a month and a half ago I decided to pay off my car loan. I sent in the check, plus the extra dollar or so a day for mailing and processing time that would make up for the accrued interest. They cashed it in mid March. Here I sit at the end of April with no car title. I finally called. They tried to send it back to my Indiana address. I have to admit, I was really nice to the lady I was talking to. I didn't even ask "What the fuck is wrong with you people and your stupid fucking system that you make me pay money so that you can fuck up and not know what the fuck is going on?"

My title should be here by the end of the week. And I will NEVER use Fifth Third Bank ever again. This is just the closing chapter in the long saga of this car loan.

So in the past two weeks I've busted some ass.

I've finished one of my papers.

A second one is out for final review. I got it out real early and I won't have to present it for another month.

The third paper is my problem child. The professor I am working for totally de-motivated me when he said, "once this class is over I'll be taking this paper over and totally re-write it; it should only take me 2 hours to write this up." He has managed to push out all of my ideas. But ... I've finished my other two papers, at least for the most part, and now plan on putting up a fight. I will have my ideas in the article and in the study. I don't want to be relegated to 2nd or 3rd author on something I feel I've worked hard on. If he could have written the paper in 2 hours, well, he should have done it: first come first serve.

So, I guess I'd better get to working on that final paper.

I'm in the last four weeks of the 2nd semester of my first year as a Ph.D. Things are about to get crazy.

I've been working on my 1st year paper like it is the only thing I have to work on. Now I am nearly complete with the 2nd written draft (it will be turned in again by Monday).

I still have two other papers to work on. One is about 1/2 finished and the other has a complete introduction section. Lot's of writing in my future I see.

I will also have a final in my stats class, then about two days before I have to take that final is when all the professors I work for will hand me stacks of grading and want it all done yesterday.

I think I'm going to file an extension for my taxes. There is just no way I can manage all this and worry about the mess of my taxes.