Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Goodbye, New Orleans
Originally uploaded by dannyman.
Such a beautiful and fascinating city, and now it’s become this. I have spent a lot of time in New Orleans over the years — my college boyfriend and my aunt and uncle are from Baton Rouge. If I hadn’t gotten my placement in Memphis, Orleans Parrish was my next choice for internship sites. My ex-husband was bringing his cats to reside with his current S.O. because he’s heading off to Dublin, Ireland for a one-year position. He and his cats were evacuated. His S.O. had just moved all of her stuff to the city to begin a tenure-track position at the University of New Orleans. Now she is homeless, and academics are the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. The current anarchic situation is breaking my heart. Many of the people living in the city were already living in generational poverty, much like many of the people of Memphis with whom I worked this year. It was already a desperate place, and without the basic necessities of shelter, food, water, and sanitation, aggression and paranoia were sure to set in. The responses of people looking in from the outside will no doubt be disgust at the behavior of these people, but many had been given up on long ago. If only Bush hadn’t already spent all the money elsewhere.

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

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.

Zach is skirting the territory of accepting an invitation to go crazy, but he’s still doing pretty well considering. He’s online now, responding to the 500 comments he’s gotten on his first blog post since returning from LIA/R. I couldn’t even read it all. However he is feeling now will change, so I’m not one of the poeople who needs to hear him say LIA was bad or that he’s gay or whatever. I’m just glad that he sounds as feisty as ever and that he’s survived… alive and kicking. He will be just fine, I think.

This is exactly what Aaron and I did, and it worked beautifully! The only hitch is that sometimes, Bloglines doesn’t update quickly enough. Some mornings, I just went straight to CL. Speaking of hitches, that movie Hitch wasn’t half bad. I don’t see a lot of movies these days, and I was so pleased to not have wasted my time. Thanks, Will Smith. 😛

My parents and Aaron were here this weekend. After Friday’s bash, we spent all day Saturday and half of Sunday packing the place up. They were enormously helpful, although packing is never free of stress. Now the move feels almost manageable, although there is still loads of paperwork to do. Hey, at least I got me some Dish, Blue Plate, and Automatic Slim’s cuisine. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Sorry for the ramble. So tired. So very, very tired!