Up to the Date
SO.
Life update (kinda).
I just got off a Zoom meeting with our department head and it sounds like the best course of action for me this year is to apply for tenure renewal. I AM eligible to apply for tenure (though I’d be doing it a year early), but tenure renewal was suggested instead because:
a) if approved, it would add an extra three (?) years on my tenure track timeline, which means that if anything were to happen that would prevent me from applying for tenure next year (the last year I’m allowed to do so), I’d have an extra three years to apply without any sort of penalty.
b) I MAY be doing a brand new class next year, and it would be a class that would look really good on my application due to its uniqueness
c) the application for tenure renewal is exactly the same for tenure – cover letter, CV, and teaching dossier (the only difference is that when applying for tenure you have to also provide referees) – so it’s kind of like a “practice run” for the actual tenure application.
So yeah. I think I’m going to do that.
iPhone Needed
So yeah, I definitely need a new phone soon. Apart from the screen issues, I’ve murdered my current phone’s battery by taking it out on walks in the negative Fahrenheits so frequently.
It sounds like I can just get any phone I want and replace the SIM card in it to keep my current plan. So the phone I’m looking at is the iPhone 12 mini in that awesome lavender color. Here:
I love that color! The only downside is that I’d have to get a clear case for it in order to show off its color (instead of some ostentatious case instead).
Sane Clown Book Club
HOLY FREAKING CRAP SPACKLE IT’S A SURVEY OMFG I NEVER DO SURVEYS
(Let’s go)
📱 Show your phone lock screen and/or home screen
My lock screen. It’s Leibniz. It’s. Always. Leibniz.
💕 Your two top fave fictional characters
OH GOD THIS IS HARD um…let’s stick with characters from books because I don’t know if I could mix book and movie favs.
So…um…(this is still hard)…uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…Captain Queeg, and…um…GOD I DON’T KNOW IT’S EITHER PHILEAS FOGG OR JAY GATSBY OR CAPTAIN W. F. CALL I DON’T FREAKING KNOW THESE SURVEYS AREN’T SUPPOSED TO CAUSE MENTAL ANGUISH GODDAMMIT
🕹 Video game you are currently playing
I am perpetually playing Quake. Because I love it and have loved it since first grade.
🌡 Fave season
Technically it’s summer, but thanks to climate change I now live in fear of summers (especially due to last year). So I dunno anymore.
🏫 Are you in school, what grade
NOPE
🎒 Are you in college, major area of study
NOPE (but I studied psychology, philosophy, statistics, and math)
🏢 Your job (You don’t have to be specific) or dream job if you don’t work
I teach math and stats at a university. It’s the best damn job ever.
📷 Post the 12th photo from your phone’s gallery
Bro I have like 4,000 pictures on my phone and you want me to go find the twelfth one? Ugh. Fine.
It’s a support of the Stoney Trail Bridge above Bowness Park. It’s super cool.
📅 Your birthday
Groundhog Day
🎂 How old are you
AN OLD FART
📏 How tall are you
A SHORT FART
🔑 Key to your heartFARTS
Don’t be a tool. Like cats. Be okay with me obsessing over stupid stuff. Obsess over your own stupid stuff.
📖 Fave book
The Caine Mutiny. I absolutely love that book. More people need to read it.
📝 Fave quote
Don’t know if I have one.
🌐 Languages you can speak and/or are learning. Which are you fluent in
I’m fluent in ‘Murica and I’m trying to learn French.
💻 Desktop/Laptop/iPad/other
Like…what I own? A desktop, a laptop, and a super old iPad from 2012.
📔 Do you keep a traditional diary
I keep a blog like an adult, thank you very much.
☠ Something that angers you
OH MY GOD SO MANY THINGS
🐷 Junk food you can never get enough of
I love those little mini Reese’s peanut butter cups.
🌼 Fave flower
Don’t have one. Sunflowers?
📺 Fave anime
Don’t have one.
🎥 Fave film
Sunshine.
📻 Fave song currently
Blinding Lights has been my jam for like three years now, but I always love Sleepyhead.
🎙 Can you sing
HA
🎁 Best gift you ever received and why
Probably Rock Band 2 for my 21st birthday. It was completely unexpected and it was gifted during the year that my roomies and I were OBSESSED with Rock Band.
👾 Do you believe in aliens
Sure.
👻 Do you believe in ghosts
Maybe?
⛪ What is your religion
No religion.
🌎 What country do you live in
CANADIA!
📸 Post a selfie
No.
GeoJuggernauts
So I think Nate and I managed to get the worst Geoguessr score without actually trying to do so. Check it:
Like, it’s really hard to do this badly on purpose. But to be fair, we do not allow ourselves to move when playing (just to look around and zoom from whatever location we’re dropped at), the locations we were dropped at were vague as hell, and the Geoguessr website was glitching out on us.
Still, though. Ouch.
So RANDOM THOUGHT:
Gravity Falls. I’ve never watched it (apart from like little clips), but two things that bug me about it:
ONE: Why does Dipper sound like he’s 40 years old? Like, the two girls in the below clip sound appropriately aged. Why does Dipper sound like he’s about to take out a second mortgage on his condo?
TWO: Why doesn’t Bill Cipher sound like Plankton from Spongebob? He should sound like Plankton from Spongebob.
Am I judging a cartoon on very superficial components without ever watching it? Yes.
Fight me.
(This blog is brought to you by 1.5 hours of sleep and a REALLY weird bag of cheese.)
WHAT
I’m sorry, his actual name was Clippit?
I had no idea. I always thought he was just officially “Clippy” and I called him Clippit back when I was obsessed with him because I thought it would be cute for “Clippy” to be like a nickname or something.
The Office Assistant lore is deep, yo.
Migraine time!!!
Ugh, I had a migraine today.
I really shouldn’t complain about them; as far as migraine sufferers go, my migraines are quite few and far between. And when I do get them, I luckily don’t get the classic hypersensitivity to sound or light.
The migraines have changed since I first started having them, though. At least the non-headache stuff has. When I was younger, the tips of my fingers always used to tingle before the migraine itself started. That doesn’t happen anymore. And I’ve always had some post-migraine “brain fog” that lasted for a little while, but that seems to have gotten worse over the past few years. It lasts longer and is more intense. It used to seem to last a few hours, but now it lasts for a day or so. Which sucks.
Anyway. Could be worse, so I’ll shut up.
Collect n’ Display
My dad collects stuff.
He always has.
Christmas ornaments, VHS tapes, DVD sets, Happy Meal toys, you name it.
So it’s no surprise that when seasons of The Simpsons started to come out on DVD way back in *looks up release date of the first season and gets lost on Wikipedia for two hours* 2001, he started to collect them season by season. Then we got to Season 6 and the DVD box looked like this:
Yes, that is a 3D plastic Homer head. I think it had a super flimsy clear sleeve to make it more DVD-box-shaped, but I don’t remember what happened to that.
Anyway, I remember thinking that people might be upset at the sudden structural change to the DVD box. When I read the little insert inside that had a blurb from Matt Groening, he actually mentioned that they sold “regular” versions of the case (where it was just your traditional DVD box shape and material) for people who were “obsessive about that sort of thing” (not a direct quote, but it was something like that). Which is hilarious.
Anyway, here’s a whole video on the controversy surrounding this unique box.
Fun times.
Timeline
Want to plan for the next quadrillion+ years?
Here ya go!
The fact that Chernobyl won’t be safe for another 20,000 years is wild.
Hey Moscow Nerds:
Do y’all remember Hastings? The store that sold books, games, movies, and miscellaneous other stuff and was in that weird little back building of the mall behind Macy’s?
I miss Hastings.
Back when I would go to the mall every Saturday with my dad, he’d give me $20 and set me free for an hour or so to get whatever I wanted to get. I’d usually end up at Hastings at some point during the hour, and while I rarely bought anything apart from used books (CDs were like $16.99 and that was a huge chunk of the $20), I always loved to look around at everything.
It’s too bad they died. Hastings was fun.
Palouse Mall needs more fun shops.
So, uh…
Alberta’s Premier resigned.
Because that’s apparently a thing they can do.
I’m fine with it. Was not a Jason Kenney fan, especially when it came to his handling of COVID. But now I guess the conservatives have to elect a new top dude, and there’s every chance he’ll be even more wacko than Kenney.
‘Berta: Canada’s Texas.
YEEEEEEEHAWWWWWWWW!
Want to pretend COVID is gone? Come to Moscow!
Nobody masks here. NOBODY. It’s actually wild. It almost seems like COVID doesn’t exist here…
…Except it does. The lack of masking is quite distressing, honestly.
Anyway.
Très bien!
Holy freaking crap, Duolingo is addictive. I wasn’t sure if I’d get into it, but I’m super invested, haha.
I know it’s not exactly the same as a language class, but it’s the best I can do right now. Maybe I’ll see if there are any free university-offered intro French classes anywhere.
WOO!
Dave Stieb
So remember the guys that did that fantastic Seattle Mariners set of videos?
Here’s a set of videos on Dave Stieb and his wild pitching career. We watched it a while ago, but here it is for all you nerds.
I love their way of telling a story. It’s so engaging. I had no idea who Stieb was before watching this but was super invested while watching Part 1.
Also, I looked it up and it sounds like he uses Google Earth for all his zooming in and out of graphs/pictures. I thought the motion of the “camera” looked familiar.
All of Part 3 is fantastic, by the way.
Elementary, my dear?
So my mom and I stopped by St. Mary’s, my old elementary school, and got a tour of it from my old principal, Sister Margaret.
I went to St. Mary’s Catholic School for six years (1st through 6th grade; seven years if you count going to St. Rose’s for kindergarten) and I remember some things about it very well. Since my going there, though, the building has undergone quite a few renovations and changes, including a huge gym add-on and the addition of a few more grades.
But MAN, some of the things we saw on our tour are things I remember very well.
The library. We just did a brief walk-through, but I remember checking out many of the books in there.
The classrooms. They’re so small! So are the desks! But I remember them very clearly.
The multi-purpose room. This lived up to its name back when I went there. We had band, choir, lunch, gym, plays, and concert rehearsals in there.
The bathrooms on the main floor. I don’t know why I have such a strong memory of freaking bathrooms, but I do.
It’s also wild that a few of my classmates from St. Mary’s are now teachers there.
Anyway, it was an odd trip down memory lane, but very cool to see what’s stayed the same and what has changed.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
It’s my mom’s birthday today! We went on a tiny little hike (5 miles) and it murdered my knees, haha. I am built for flat, paved surfaces and I’m not ashamed of it.
Pics!
Catter Scatter
CHECK IT OUT THERE IS A CAT IN MY MOM’S BACKYARD:
My mom said she’s never seen her before but there she sits. She’s acting like she wants to come into the house.
I’ve named her Petal. I love her.
Edit: she chomped some mice my mom had in the backyard and we haven’t seen her since, haha. Must have just wanted the mice.
Reconciliation
So it’s been about a year since this Mets madness:
I’m glad they’ve seemed to work things out this year. The whole team seems to have a lot more chemistry this year. Maybe this will be their year?
Baseball drama, man.
(Edit from end of season: LOL NOPE)
Take it to the Rax
Okay, so I’m pretty sure Rax wasn’t ever in the Pacific Northwest, but GOD these commercials look familiar. Anyone else?
I know we had a Hardee’s in Moscow when I was younger. I think.
As a lot of the comments say, Mr. Delicious would be the height of humor today.
Also, “Rax. You can eat here.” is 100% late Millennial/early Gen Z garbage humor.
Party time.
Ultimate Canadian Coins
I don’t care how exceedingly extravagant this is, these coins are beautiful.
My dad used to collect coins. He obviously couldn’t afford these, haha, but I wonder if he still pays attention to this kind of thing.
END!
CHIP
So the Bill Chipman Palouse Trail (the part of the pathway that connects Moscow and Pullman) is super boring to walk on. Whenever I come back to Moscow and need to get my walking miles, walking on the trail gets old pretty fast.
However, I am now back in Moscow for the first time since picking up running, and running on the trail is SO MUCH BETTER.
It’s flat, it’s smooth, and there are like five people on it at a time, which makes it way less busy than any trail up here. My current running distance doesn’t quite get me to Pullman from my mom’s house, but pretty close.
WOO!
METS!
This was fantastic. The Mets are special this season.
Home!
ZOMG I’M IN MOSCOW
IT’S THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2019
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I Took a Thing
What types of dudely dudes am I attracted to?
Almost right in the middle, of course, haha.
(Attracted to women? Here.)
Eigenblogger 