Just one of those bizarre days....

I received a knock on my door this morning from a neighbor in my apartment complex. He was holding a package that had been delivered, or rather left in front of his door, last night. Again, our elusive blind mailman struck again. He has a 50 percent rate of success in getting the right letter to the right apartment, and this shouldn't have bothered me but it was a book I had to special order for my Rhetorical Criticism class, AND it was marked delivery confirmation, meaning there was neither confirmation nor successful delivery.

So, I went to the post office to complain, indicating that I'm expecting a lot of packages, and I'd like the lottery chance odds of actually being able to see them sometime in the future. Well, I discovered that even though my zip code's post office delivers mail to us, they don't have supervisors. Which kind of begs a question of who is really watching the people in this post office. So, I had to go to another post office, which I should have suspected was in the middle of Gangland, USA. Several knife fights, a raging gun battle and several drive bys later, I was able to speak to the MOST BEAUTIFUL ASIAN WOMAN IN ALL STOCKTON, who was the supervisor to whom I was privileged to complain. Almost kind of forgot I was supposed to complain when I got to speak to her at her window. Anyway, made my complaint and came home.

Then, got a knock on the door, and my NEW FUTON had just arrived by UPS. Yes, if your name is Melanie, and you're from Germany, I'm sure you recognize Version 2.0 of the "futon". This one is multi-colored, but it's the one from before, the one I had to give up when moving across the country. But now, I have it again!

My current half-sofa that is provided in my apartment is about as comfortable as one of those nail beds that the great masters use to prove how...okay, I'm not sure what they're trying to prove other than there might be a shortage of Seely mattresses in India. I am so glad I don't have to use that sofa anymore as my main one.

Anyway, not much more to add. There is a tournament this weekend, which means I'll be on the road again. Same is going to happen next weekend as well.

Lots of work for school. Lots of work for writing. Lots of work for pretty much everything else. I thought over the weekend I would try to do some relaxing and find a massage therapist for a stress reducing massage, but all I seemed to be locating were the people who used "massage" as a pseudonym for something a lot more intimate, and that most definitely is not what I was looking for. Finally, I gave up. I'm pretty sure Kaiser has some kind of service that I could use with my medical plan, but their web site was designed by Van Gogh or H. Bosch, so every time I access it, I can't tell if I've scheduled an appointment with my doctor who doesn't speak English, or if I've scheduled to have a guitar inserted into my stomach in a way that it appears the stomach might also be inserted into the guitar.

Stumble It!

Just plugging along....

An agent wants me to send my novel The Teddy Bear Conspiracy to her. Now, if I can only find the time to type up the synopsis and then mail it....

Stumble It!

The quantitative approach is affecting my ability to study

This is honestly something I never realized would come up as a problem, but for so long now I have been focusing on the study of all things science using a quantitative or direct scientific approach. I see a lot of things in statistics, indicating why I think things happen based on the understanding of how numbers affect things.

Last semester was no different. My two classes were Introduction to Graduate Studies, which was much more about studying the scientific manner of quantified studies, while just touching on qualification studies. My other class was Interpersonal Communication, which was pretty much nothing but a quantitative approach.

This semester is really hitting me hard because my two classes are Rhetorical Criticism and a graduate level class on teaching communication in an educational setting. My readings for Rhet Crit are extensive, but they are very qualitative in nature, and I'm having a lot of trouble just reading the information because I keep looking for a solid, physical aspect that is being studied, but it never appears. I find my mind wandering while reading, and it is really hard to keep in touch with what the authors are saying.

It is turning this semester into a difficult one so far, and I'm not really sure how to combat this difficulty.

Stumble It!

The lost art of just taking it easy

Today, I was feeling kind of wound up and felt I needed to just do something other than something that was a requirement. With school, I'm required to do certain things at certain times, with relationships, it is necessary to do certain things at certain times as part of the relationship (not a negative thing, but it adds onto the things one has to do). With my writing, there is both the writing and the business of writing. Over the last few days, I've been feeling overstretched and just needed time to do something other than something constructive. I discovered recently that even my play time activities, like playing a computer game, are work as well, even if done under the concept of "having fun".

So, I was driving towards Lodi today, thinking I might hit Wal-Mart and get some "needed" stuff, but instead of stopping, I just kept driving. And driving.

I ended up finding myself on a road towards San Andreas. I thought, "maybe I'll see the San Andreas Fault, stand on it, and call someone on my cell phone from there to tell them where I was." So I drove for another forty minutes until I reached San Andreas. There are caves and mines there, but nothing that indicated the "fault". So I just kind of drove through it, turned around and headed back.

But I can't tell you how refreshing the drive was. There is some beautiful unseen land on that trip down a side road that really doesn't lead anywhere in general. We rarely see these places. We take the main highways, and we stick to the solid roads, afraid to steer from the safety of having a huge gas station every 22.7 miles.

I drove through some old gold mining town, and it looked like it was an old western town trying to maintain its westerness while fighting off the growth of the occasional Starbucks and McDonalds. Some of the buildings looked like old saloons, while others looked like they were 1930s era and run down with age and disuse. One has to sometimes wonder who lives in these types of towns, and what do they do to survive.

A few hours later, I made it home. It wasn't a horribly eventful day, but sometimes you need to take the time to do absolutely nothing because if you don't, the world will refuse to do it for you.

Stumble It!

Another conference paper has been accepted

Another conference paper on emotional intelligence has been accepted, but this time for a much more prestigious conference that will be taking place in San Francisco. Quickly, my schedule has become quite filled these days, but it sure is nice dedicating a good chunk of my time to someone special, rather than just to myself these days.

Stumble It!

Found someone at the completion of the full circle

It's funny how these things happen. All this time I kept looking for someone in bizarre places, and then I found someone who I discover has been friends with all of my friends I've known from the Bay Area. We were both looking for exactly what each of us are. So, my last weekend was spent in a much happier place; I just returned home this evening. Even though she and I are now becoming involved, she also put me in touch with another woman from my past, someone I cared about a lot and has been out of touch with me for almost the entire time I was in Michigan. As things kind of resonate in my strange life, the woman from my past vouched for me with the new woman with whom I am now spending more of my free time.

Stumble It!

Paper for conference has been accepted

The paper, "The Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Self-concepts on romantic communication over Myspace" has been accepted by the AEJMC Conference in Reno, February 22-24. This is a paper co-written with Mark U. and Dr. Wong.

As for other things, well, nothing much to add. I got a chance to visit my sister down south in Southern California; her daughters, my nieces, are growing into adults very fast.

School starts next week. I expect to be busy as usual.

The novel is going through the usual channels for publication. It should be interesting to present this one under my pen name, instead of my own. The publishing company has announced the publication of the book, but it hasn't been listed on Amazon or anything like that yet.

Stumble It!