Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

OK, this is so cool. There’s a woman who sits at the counter of the Square Foods deli every day during the lunch hour. I’ve been going there a lot lately since I’m working so close by. Her name is Sheri, and she has Huntington’s Disease. Because I’m a psychologist, I thought she had Tourette’s. I guess you see what you know. Anyway, and I always sit and talk to her while I’m waiting for my order. She’s a real sweetheart. Every day, she eats half a pint of either soy or rice "ice cream." It’s her little thing she does! Since we talk a fair amount, I know her name is Sheri. I know everyone likes her. And I guess it was last week when I finally asked her about her med-alert necklace and what it meant. We ended up having this really interesting conversation about Mohammed Ali. I got to see him when I sang for the Olympics. Man, that was cool. We didn’t know who would light the flame until that night, and even though I was on the other side of the stadium from him, I could tell who he was because of his Parkinson’s shake. And seeing him gave me this amazing chill. I mean, my hair stood on end! Anyway, I was in Square Foods a little late today just to get some of my Organic Lactose-Free Milk (hey, we all have our quirks), and I saw a sign on the front door:

Sheri’s Soycream Dream Benefit
Saturday, August 20, 2005 (Damn, I have to be in Nashville)
9pm at the Hi-Tone, $7

The Antique Curtains, Issen, Esque and DJ Scowl (aka Angry Bob).

Square Foods Benefit to raise money for a soy cream machine for Square Foods on Madison. A portion of the All profits raised through soy cream sales over the next year will be donated to the Huntington’s Disease Foundation.

What a brilliant idea! I wonder if Sheri was the one who thought of it.

There is nothing I love more than those kind of relationships… the people you meet at the bus stop, or at the cehckout counter, or the UPS man. Makes life so much better. I always feel kind of sorry for people who don’t "see" all those great people in the world. I will miss some of the colorful folks I’ve met here. Don the mailman. Sheri at Square Foods. And the security guard at UT who wears a regular security uniform but puts on her sunhat when she checks the parking lot.

Yesterday, I got this e-mail:

Hi Abby,

Congratulations.

Your submission has cleared all of the necessary checks and will be delivered to UMI. If you have questions in the future about the status of any orders for printed copies or the publication status of your manuscript, please contact ProQuest/UMI Customer Service.

Your official graduation date is August 31, 2005 and your degree will be posted to your university records on this day.

The Graduate Recorder

Today was the final luncheon honoring all the interns in my program. We were warned that we were going to be "roasted," but it wasn’t too harsh. I was given several gag gifts, including Boston Baked Beans, Grits to remember the South, a little ribbon for participation, since I lived in Midtown and actually saw the city while I was here, a picture of a slum since Boston is so expensive, and some crime tape to remember the little incident that happened across the street. Kinda cute. I also got my certificate of completion. It’s really big! I know this is dumb, but I wish it were smaller, so I could just stick it in a file. I’m not hanging this massive thing on the wall! I’m still proud I got it though.

I have two more days of work, which will mostly be finishing up paperwork and logs. Then I have four days here hanging out with kind of nothing to do except pack. Then Aaron gets here, and we can play a little for about five days before we head out.

I got my Oberlin Alumni Magazine today. I’m in the alumni update section, picture and all. What’s also weird is that there is this article about how for years, Oberlin has graduated more future PhD’s than any other college in the country. It’s funny because I’m not even getting my PhD in an area I studied there. It was just a really good place to become a curious, life-long learner. I think they also recruit that type to begin with. I was lucky to go there. My mother was the one who insisted I visit, and after seeing the hippies chopping broccoli in the co-op and the hundreds of Steinways in the practice room building, I was in like Flynn. I’m glad she dragged my ass up there. At the time, I was like, "I am NOT going to the middle of Ohio for college." But in the end, that’s what happened. I’m so glad it did. Not only that, but my parents paid for it. (No, none of those insane loans have anything to do with undergrad!) Not only was it a great place to learn, it was groovy as hell (see Fury and the Sound for more on that).

Maybe it’s nerdy to be so into where I went to school. I don’t care. Many Obies are too cynical to be boosters like me, but that’s just my way. Doesn’t mean I’m giving them any money or signing up for the freakin’ planning committee or anything. I just liked it. It was a good place to be. Lots of grads end up in NYC, Boston, Chicago, Portland, and SF. I’ll be around a ton of them in my new neighborhood. I’m pretty excited about that.

And I’m VERY excited about being done with this PhD thing. It’s been hard as hell!

My Supervisors

Just looking at my blog stats. Here is how people view my page: 

Crawler/Search Engine, Indeterminable – 51%
Firefox 1.0.4 – 8%
Internet Explorer 6.0 – 7%
Crawler/Search Engine 6.0 – 6%
Safari – 1%
Older Versions of Firefox – 5%

I had the unfortunate experience of viewing my blog on Internet Explorer today. Man, if you’re using IE, what you see here is at your own peril. If you’re not using Firefox, I don’t know what to say to you, man! It’s your loss. Not only here, but all over the Internet. My site in particular looks like crap on IE. Please consider downloading Firefox:

I know it’s Elvis’ Death Day and all, but I think the much more interesting historical musical event is the 1995 showdown between Blur and Oasis. I was in England at the time, and it was INSANE! You couldn’t turn on the radio or walk past a newspaper stand without hearing about the competing releases.

It’s fascinating to me that the Elvis article I linked to was on BBC News (indicating that the world obviously still cares), yet when Aaron and I went to the P&H on Saturday in hopes of a fine tamale and maybe a little AC, I ended up at the Dead Elvis Ball. Now, aren’t balls supposed to have dancing and costumes? And at this one, I would have expected an Elvis theme of sorts. The only Elvis things I saw were the picture behind the band and a woman wearing sunglasses with face sideburns attached.

Maybe the interesting thing is that a CD of Clinton’s favorite music is being released. Naw. That can’t possibly be interesting.

Lots of new pictures uploaded on my Flickr page.