penn

Things I wish I did better

* remember movie quotes

* ride a bicycle

* take the initiative when it comes to guys and relationships

* knitting

Voting

Unbeknownst to me, there was a vote today in Ann Arbor. Apparently, it was advertised this morning in the local paper, but I don't read that. I only happened to know there was a vote because I dropped by the library on my way home.

As a good citizen, I went by my local polling place to cast a vote. The votes were pretty much school levies and the school board, and almost every race was unopposed. As an extra good citizen, I didn't vote in the real races, as I don't want to be a random influence. I did vote in the unopposed races, as I'm unsure whether or not you need a minimum number of actual votes cast to validate an election.

Interestingly, I was voter #9 in my local polling place today. And I went by at 7 pm. Wow!

Total side note: I just saw an ad for visiting Puerto Rico, and it ended with "no passport needed for US citizens." Um, yes, of course. It's part of the US. I can't believe there is still a sizable population of people who don't realize that.

Happy earth day! and other random notes

So, apparently today is the day where we celebrate earth day. Yay for planet earth! I've given out lots of green tips in the recent past, so I'll spare you guys today, but know that you can always read up on past posts in my saving the world archives.

Today, I was sort of green. I took the bus to school in the morning. I'm at school now proctoring a test, and I'll be here later than the buses run, so I drove my car to my apartment and walked in to school for the evening. So, I did less driving than I could have done, but I did drive. I also noticed that the price of gas in town went from $3.59 in the morning to $3.69 by the afternoon! This is craziness. I'm glad I only fill up about once a month. My last fill up was actually at the very beginning of April as I was returning from Pittsburgh. I'm at a half tank left, so we'll see if I make it through the end of the month or not.

In a completely unrelated point, my roommate is actually moving out over this weekend, and I never really realized quite how much she had brought to our apartment. Once she's gone, we won't have a TV or a microwave (tho I bet I will save some on electric bills). There are also lots of little decor items that will no longer be here, and I never quite realized that.

In terms of Ann Arbor, spring has definitely sprung, and it's practically launched into summer already. Today was a hot and steamy day, and I worked up a sweat with lots of walking (went to and from school twice, and I also took the dogs for a half hour walk).

Not much more to report from here. My students took a test tonight, so I'll be a bit busy with grading for the next few days. I'll try and post something, but it might just be a few more pictures. I'm finally catching up on the backlog of things I've been meaning to post.

In a tall world

I'm housesitting for my friends Alex and Sus. They've got two great dogs and two crazy cats and a nice little house about two miles from campus. I enjoy staying here, as it gives me some peace and quiet, and the dogs give me an excuse to go for two or more walks a day. But the thing you must know is that Alex and Sus are definitely taller than me. I don't normally notice it day to day (it's not like they're giants or anything), but it is abundantly clear in their house.

As proof, I give you a picture I took in their bathroom. I'm standing at the counter, and my nose just barely peaks over the edge of the medicine cabinet. And, yes, that is a towel rack dead even with my head:

It seems like a pretty nice setup. I figure tall people often have to do annoying things like lean way over in order to use the bathroom sink; in fact, I even think some bathroom sinks are too short. And it must be nice to look in the mirror and not have to see the majority of your upper body. Oh, and the shower head is up high too, so there would never be a need to duck underneath a shower head to be in the spray (although that is slightly annoying, as I feel like I get a really broad spray from being a bit further away). And even the towels racks aren't that bad; I can definitely reach them. Really, I just find it mildly humorous each time I use their bathroom and notice that the bathroom was definitely not made for someone my height.

Time IV: Little Things

People often complain about not having enough time to get everything done. Certainly, I've seen this through years of living with various roommates. In my mind, it's not always about not having enough time; getting things done is more about how you schedule your time. I like to get things done in big chunks, so I find that I will put off doing something because I don't have an hour or more to allot to the task. However, by splitting up small tasks, or by realizing the true time value something takes, I've found that I can often get a lot more done. My favorite thing is to split cleaning tasks up into 5 minutes or less allotments. Then, I do this little allotments during the commercials for a show I'd already planned to watch. By the end of a one hour show, I can get the entire kitchen or living room cleaned up.

Below, I've compiled a list of 25 things you can do in 5 minutes or less. A lot of them are cleaning oriented, but there are also other small tasks that can easily fill up a 5 minute gap when you might otherwise be saying "okay, I'm ready to leave the house early, but I don't really need to leave quite yet." And these items are definitely better than checking your email every 10 minutes because you're bored. I've intentionally tried to include items that can make a difference in either your surroundings, your attitude, or both.

25 things you can do in 5 minutes or less:
1. vacuum the floor
2. wipe down the bathroom mirrors
3. load the dishwasher
4. unload the dish drainer
5. a set of crunches or pushups
6. take a series of photographs of something lovely
7. take a walk around the block
8. water your plants
9. dust one room
10. frame and hang a photograph
11. write a postcard to a friend
12. write a haiku
13. pick a new recipe to cook this week
14. take a moment to breathe
15. write a list of positive things that have happened in the last day/week/month
16. pick up all the dirty laundry in your room
17. take out the trash
18. plant a seed
19. make a donation to charity
20. do a little fix-it task, like re-nailing a falling apart drawer
21. change a lightbulb (especially to a compact fluorescent)
22. put reusable bags in your for the next trip to the grocery store (even if they’re just reusing the paper or plastic bags you got last time)
23. a set of bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, or other light weight exercises
24. make your bed
25. wipe down the top of your stove, refrigerator, or some other appliance that doesn’t get a lot of love

Time I

I always forget about daylight savings stuff. Always.

I woke up this morning at 9.30, and I thought it was strange that I slept all the way until my alarm went off. Most mornings, I wake up at 8, so I typically wake up at 8 on the weekends even though I set my alarm for later. I should note that my cell phone is my alarm clock, so they did the time switch for me.

I still didn't realize it was daylight savings until I was catching up on one of my topic blogs, and they had a strange post about how they RIAA was going to steal an hour of sleep from anyone who had ever illegally downloaded music. Uh, what? Oh, right! Daylight savings time.

I guess now I have one less hour to grade student essays today. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, since I will probably end up grading student essays all week long anyway.

Little Bits

On the reserve, there are occasional deep holes in the various ponds. They're referred to as "gator holes." Last week, I was joking around that there better not be actual gators in there, or else I won't be going in the ponds again. Strangely, a gator was actually found wandering around the streets about an hour away from where I work. Gulp. I sure hope no more gators are turned lose.

Richard Gere is in hot water for kissing a Bollywood star in public. And I thought US indecency laws were bad. There's even a warrant out for his arrest.

Some guys are advocating using wet wipes in lieu of toilet paper. Still not sure how I feel about that.

There's been yet another occurrence of parthenogensis. This time, a female shark (at Henry Doorly Zoo, which is in my old stomping grounds of Omaha) gave birth to a shark that contained no male genetic material. Pretty crazy. I'm just waiting for the day when they announce that mammals can undergo parthenogensis. I wonder if this is how the remaining humans might one day reproduce in the event of a massive war?

I went to high school with Blake Lewis, the runner-up for the American Idol contest. He was a beatboxer back then too, and he'd do freestyle raps with the other theater guys. My high school actually had quite a number of beatboxers. Anyway, it was nice to see Seattle so well-represented in this national contest.

Tooth brushing and more

I got my first cavity ever this year. I got it filled just fine. It's small and on my upper back tooth, so you can't even see it unless you're specifically looking for it.

When I got the cavity filled, the dentist warned me not to eat a lot of sugar. Apparently, bacteria can uptake enough sugar in a few minutes to provide for two hours with of growth. Amazing! The new rule, then, for sugar consumption is in moderation and only immediately after meals.

Of course, for the first month or so, I was super strict about sugar intake (helpfully, it was also Lent, and I had given up candy). Since, I've been a bit more lax, though I do consume less sugar than I did before. I have noticed one big thing since I started this new "watch the sugar" regimen: on days where I eat a bunch of sugar (mostly of the gummy variety), my gums bleed more. My gums used to bleed almost all the time, and I chalked it up to being a mouth breather at night. Now, I'm not so sure; it seems like gum bleeding is tightly associated with sugar consumption. Strangely, I am way more careful about my teeth and gums than I am about my body, so this new discovery has led to much more careful sugar consumption than ever before. Sugar is now an occasional treat, and I'm trying a lot harder to get all my sweets in the form of fruit instead of turning to processed sugar delights (don't get me wrong: there is still room for sugar delights in my diet, but they have become more of an occasional treat than anything else). It will be interesting to see how this changes my diet over time.

Over the weekend, I went to a cinco de mayo party at a friend's house. The highlight of the party was the Nintendo Wii that my friends own. A couple of us spent a good chunk of the party playing with the various games (mostly Wii sports, honestly). Great fun, and I am looking forward to getting my own wii sometime in the fall.

I ran into a guy from my high school today. I was walking home from hanging out with some friends, and I passed by him working on a car. Out of the blue, he asked whether or not I'd gone to Inglemoor. Turns out he recognized me! I'm impressed at his memory. He looked vaguely familiar, and I remembered his name. I'm sure I'd recognize him in the yearbook, and I think he was friends of a friend. Still, we didn't really hang out in high school, so I'm impressed and a little shocked that he would recognize me.

It's getting warm here in Michigan. It's 66F at 10pm, and I'm appreciating it. I'm still wary of how I will cope with the hot and humid summer, but I'm enjoying the weather thus far. The highlight of weather in Michigan is the frequent occurrence of thunder storms. I do not think I will ever get tired of hearing thunder.

A great thing about Michigan

It's 9 pm, and it is still 74 degrees out. I spent today in gauchos, a tshirt, and flip flops.

This almost makes up for the snowstorm we had a few weeks ago.

I think this Michigan summer will agree with me. For the first time in many, many, many years, I might go an entire week without wearing a hoody.

Purses

Carrying a purse is a trend (or life habit, some might say) that I've never really gotten into.

I don't know if it was the exclusive use of cargo pants for so many years that did me in on the purses. For about 6 or so years of my life, I only wore pants with good size pockets. I use to carry around my wallet, keys, folding scissors, a worry stone, and all sorts of other stuff in my pockets (well, actually, I don't think I carried around a wallet much. That was probably in my backpack most days, if at all. I wonder if I ever brought a wallet to junior high with me).

In any case, I rarely carry a purse. I've been known to use one on a first date, since the wallet (even a man wallet) in the pocket looks a bit bulky. Every rare once in awhile, I'll take one to church or a show if I'm wearing an outfit with no pockets. But for the most part, I just can't get into the purse habit.

In my defense, I normally carry my backpack around, and that has anything you might ever want in a purse. I've got oodles of stuff in my backpack (headphones, jump drive, pens, checkbook, wallet, phone, earplugs, deck of cards, lactose pills, etc). Sometimes I envy the purse carriers, since they can just grab this little bag and be out the door. If I don't want to take my backpack, I usually just put a few choice items into the inner pocket of my coat (choice items being wallet, a pen, and the cell phone). Now that it's not winter anymore, however, I can't get away with that trick. I suppose I can put stuff into my rain coat pocket, but I don't always carry my rain jacket around in nice weather.

So, my purse carrying blog readers, how do you do it? How do you justify carrying around another bag in addition to the backpack that I haul every M-F? And do you have one dedicated purse, or do you switch up purses? How do you possibly find one that works with most of your wardrobe choices? And how big is the purse you carry? I'm thinking that I might be tempted to carry around a paperback at all times if I had a decently big purse, and that seems like it would weigh me down.

Anyway, purse thoughts are appreciated. Maybe someday I'll cultivate a love of the purse, but I'm definitely not there yet.