Vapid post on my day of consumption

I don't want to jinx myself, but I do believe that I have emerged on the "well" side of this snotty funk that's been dragging me down since the fourth day of Christmas.

When we got back in townfrom our holiday in Atlanta, we went ahead and celebrated the New Year by going out, colds and all. (Actually, Simon wanted to stay in, but I pestered him into going out. then he got better quickly and I descended into sinusitis hell. I think that's what my mother would call Instant Karma!!!)

As it turns out, half the town had been sick over the holiday, and I am hoping that everyone, like me, will be well in time for next Monday's start of the spring semester.

I've been pretending to prepare for the semester by making a list of "things to do." On it:

1) Write a plagiarism contract

2) Compile handout on appropriate decorum for email

3) Compile handout on the purpose and practice of student-teacher conferences

4) Revise attendance policy and tardiness policy

5) Revise revisions policy

6) Clean office (bring in dustbuster and supplies)

7) File things

8) Get organized

9) Have margarita

I think the list is fairly doable, although it doesn't take into account any things-to-do related to my new responsibilities as an administrator, nor does it even touch the house-whatnot.

Oh, the house whatnot! The cabinet-choosing. The color-picking. The house-gutting. The mold-treating. The termite-killing. The landscaping. The tax-abatement-thingy-dealing. The lighting-plan making!

You get the idea...

Also on the roster of things to do: writing my paper for the 4Cs conference this April. Also: somehow getting up a website for the neighborhood association. And: I've gotten myself on another committee (which met last night) that's working on the Global Green Project, and I've promised to do some research on other environmentally-sustainable communities (kind of like co-ops or condo associations, but green.)

So since I have all of this to do, I figured today I'd go shopping!

The objective was to find some teacherly-clothing (meant to make me look as professorial as possible--p-shaw!), and to return our Bose iPod dock, which was a lovely gift we gave ourselves, but which was expensive and still sitting in a box.

Digression on the subject of iPods:
I have an iPod. When I got it, I was all "Yay! Now I can get rid of all of my CDs!" I have hundreds of CDs. I listen to maybe twenty of them. So I figured I'd download just the songs I like, and then get rid of the CDs, themselves. What I discovered was that it takes a long time to do that, and that it also requires additional organization (on iTunes), and that after all is said and done, you are still expected to save your files--on CDs. My attention-paying abilities don't allow me to listen to headphones as all of my students seem to do, and so essentially, I have this gizmo that has mabe three un-backed-up albums I've purchased on iTunes. These I listen to in my car. (Oh, and I do like some This American Life free podcasts.) What I'm getting at here is that this contraption seemed designed to streamline my music--and my life--and had I the time or the energy, I suppose it could. But, as with most things with a similar purpose and similar demands, my iPod has wound up feeling like another damn thing on my damned list. So I avoid it. (Interestingly, I don't buy much music anymore... I don't listen to as much, either. I hope this isn't a sign that I am becoming a stodgy ol' grownup.)

So, back to the shopping trip: I returned the docking station, and bought some made in China crapola shirts (because I was there and because I have a long list of things I have to do but will probably never do, and because I have no time to travel to some overpriced boutique on Magazine Street for American-made stuff where I can't also buy TP and Listerine in one fell swoop.)

Then, after my crap-buying, I had a lovely canteloupe and watermelon Bubble Tea from Frosty's Cafe. Next, I drove two strip malls down and bought a book at Barnes and Noble (rather than going to indie-bookstore for the same reason as crap-Chinese shirt-buying, see above.) Then, on the way home, I sang along to my thinly-populated iPod (if you can call my mucousy warble singing), thumbing my nose at the LSU SUV traffic crawling along on the outgoing side of the interstate.

Yes, it was a day.

Now, if only I could have managed to knock off something on my list.