Post-exam de-stress

So I think I already posted about taking the stats exam on Thursday a.m. after being fifteen minutes late because I had gotten stuck in the elevator trying to retrieve my calculator from my office. ::sigh:: Second time in seven days I'd been stuck in that same elevator, to be rescued by the same elevator repairman. Sarah said she's going to put up some posters in there so I have something to look at next time.

Thursday evening, after I had spent all afternoon blessedly doing absolutely not a damn thing, Sarah called and asked if I wanted to go with her, her bf, and a couple other folks to the casino Friday night to see Dat Phan perform at the New Orleans Harrah's Improv Theater. Why, that sounds like fun, I did reply, and I called Harrah's to reserve my ticket.

Friday a.m. I was up, had picked up some Interlibrary Loan material from the library, and was in the office by 8:30 a.m. I checked my email to see a message from my advisor (who happens to be the graduate coordinator for our department) to myself, Sarah, Tom, and the annoying officemate (henceforth to be designated AOM). The four of us are the current Board of Regents (BoR) scholars in the UNO bio department.

I must now momentarily digress to give you a bit of background so that you may understand the rant I am about to subject you to. Two profs in our department wrote grants to the state BoR in order to get money with which they hoped to entice students "of extraordinary intelligence and research ability" to the department. I may or may not have mentioned in the past that UNO's PhD program is quite young (only in existence about six or seven years) and has only graduated one or two PhDs. I won't lie -- the BoR is a sweet deal. We get a generous stipend (generous compared to the TAs we otherwise could have), our tuition is completely paid for (including out-of-state fees), we are only required to teach one semester in the four years we are funded, and we are to be available to help our advisors or others in the department as needed (proctor exams, help advisor with research, yada yada yada). We get this money so that we do not have to worry about teaching and can thus focus on our research.

Now I get to part A of my rant. AOM brags about how she's getting paid to go to class and "take care of horses" -- the latter either referring to her own personal horse or to a horse herd which will be the focus of her research in the Summer. She sleeps til noon, goes out to the stables to feed her horse, then comes in to the office and watches "The Daily Show" on her comp -- and has the nerve to talk about how busy and stressed she is. We haven't seen her do anything but write a grant for her research and take the GRE this semester. Not that either of those are easy things, but she's not doing any reading in the literature and had the nerve to mildly argue when it was suggested to her by two well-meaning officemates who are in her same situation and have been here longer and have a better idea about departmental expectations and university expectations that she might want to start now on her literature review while she's not doing anything with her research.

So Friday Barney sends out an email saying the department needs someone to cover a TA's courses for the first half of next semester while s/he is in Brazil doing research. We BoR fellows (fellows as in "fellowship") have a teaching requirement unless we already have equivalent teaching experience. I taught three years as a TA, two Summers for Upward Bound Math Science, and a year as an instructor at WSU. Sarah taught three years of high school and a bit as a TA. Tom, from the sounds of it, has taught as least as much or more than Sarah and me put together. AOM taught "a little bit" as an undergraduate.

So -- your vote for who should be covering those classes next semester?

Rant part deux -- Don't get me wrong. I am more than happy to teach. I love teaching. I'm planning on doing it the rest of my life. Of all of us, I am the likeliest candidate TO cover labs for the simple fact that I am the only one of the four of us who is planning on going into (staying in?) academia. However, I think Miss Priss needs to drag her narrow arse out of bed and do some actual academic work once in a while. And I promise you, my dear friends, if I am killing myself next semester teaching 1-3 courses a week and starting my research and taking stats (yes, another stats class) and she sleeps til noon and comes in talking about how stressed she is in her two seminar classes and her stats class (which she is constantly bragging is "fun and so easy" -- a second course of which she is only taking because she likes the psych grad students, not because it will actually aid her research or because she has a "gentleman's agreement" with her advisor to take -- like I do), I will snap her scrawny neck.

The part that pisses me off most about her is the fact that she's bragging to EVERYONE about how much money she makes and how little she has to do, even going as far as putting it on her Facebook page (so I'm told). She's making the BoR fellows look like a gaggle of prima donna slackers.

I talked to Sarah about it after seminar, and I think we're going to talk to B together on Monday and express our concerns. Despite all the aggravation she causes, I'm genuinely concerned that she hasn't a clue what is expected of her. The mean bitch that I keep buried most of the time wants me to stay quiet and let the bricks hit her between the eyes, but the other nicer part of me is actually worried about her not being able to handle the brick drop. I actually could see her breaking mentally. I couldn't live with myself if that happened and I could've done something to prevent it. A large part of me doesn't agree with her being here (no one in the department works with horses) and certainly doesn't agree with her having a BoR fellowship, but the teacher part of me doesn't want to see her fail. She's not a bad person overall (I mean, she loves CSI and Numb3rs -- COME ON!!!). She just has a LOT of growing up to do.

End rant.

Last night, a half dozen of us (including AOM) went to the casino to see the comedy show. After, we ditched AOM, and Sarah, her bf Greg, S's pal Christy from out of town, and I went to eat at Angeli's in the Quarter. Walking to the restaurant from our parking spot several blocks away, we strode past Cafe Brasil, one of THE dance clubs in the Marigny (the locals' Quarter). I just knew my pal Erika was there (she loves to salsa dance), but I didn't feel like braving the crowd to verify my hypothesis. We were half a building from the club when we heard someone yelling behind us. I turned to see Erika running after us. Seeing E made me so happy. She's one of my closest pals here (Sarah and Chad being the others), and I don't get to see her enough now that she lives in Uptown. I invited her to join us at Angeli, but she was with some folks. Sarah, Greg, and I are planning to go to the RenFaire in two weeks, so hopefully she can come with.

Angeli was delicious as usual. A cute guy sat at the table next to us, and he either was someone I knew or he reminded me of someone.

OH!! It FINALLY just hit me (almost 24 hours later). The guy reminded me of Rick Petko of American Chopper. Wasn't actually Rick because there was no dreamcatcher tattoo on his left arm that you would be able to see part of below the T-shirt sleeve.

::D blushes, realizing she's just accidentally revealed a secret crush::

Yes, I think Rick Petko on American Chopper is cute. What of it???

So ANYWAY . . . after Angeli we headed back toward the van, and we ran across Mr. Dat Phan, so recently of the casino comedy show, and his manager outside the Hookah Cafe. We talked with him for a few minutes, and Sarah tried to set him up with Christy. Funny times.

This afternoon I spent a grand total of $5 (plus whatever I owe AOM for picking me up a couple of tiles at Lowe's when she went to get herself some) to make some Christmas gifts using rubber stamps and ink and embossing powder and chalks and such. Pretty groovy. Came up with an idea to stamp myself some totem tiles -- I wonder how hard it will be to find rubber stamps of rhino, octopus, seahorse, hawk, bear, spider, whale, and buffalo? ::fiddles on Internet:: Apparently not too hard. Found some nice ones here, but there is no hawk. I'll keep looking. If any of you come across any, please let me know.

Love to all -- D