Friday, August 29, 2008

Back, back to school again.

This week, I returned to graduate school. I take two classes a semester, both at night, immediately after my full time job. Needless to say, I'm pretty tired, a state that is not helped by the fact that we are not going home early today (which we do almost every Friday before a 3-day weekend). I was hoping for some nap time, but oh well. I am even going to the gym after work because it has been tough for me to go this week with classes starting.

Speaking of classes, I have found that there are a few different "types" who emerge in every grad class I have been in so far. This might vary across disciplines; I've only taken English grad classes, so I wouldn't know. But in these classes, where the majority of the students are also working full time, some characters emerge:

1. The too-enthusiastic girl: You know the type--she claps her hands when assignments are given out, "whispers" how she's "so excited" about this class, and hits the poor girl sitting next to her when making a particularly dramatic point. Oh, and she seems to forget that the first class is the only class from which you have a good shot of being let go early. Yet she keeps talking, and talking...

2. The cool, quiet guy: He sits in the back, staring into space, pondering deep, brilliant thoughts. He'll occasionally speak, but when he does, he speaks with the expectation of a few seconds of silence following his every utterance, and rolls his eyes if it does not happen.

3. The overprepared, arrogant student: She's read all of the books already. He wants to know if he can hand in the assignments in early. She had already read some of the books, so she read all the books that author ever wrote to "be fair." He really wants to start talking about his research paper ideas--so what if it is the first day of class! And, of course, these students inform all of the other students, and the teacher, of these facts as often as possible.

4. The writer dude: Hemingway and Dreiser tried to write the great American novel, but he's about to blow them out of the water. Just you wait.

5. The overly angry girl: she's a minority. She's a lesbian. Therefore, anything that does not have to do with both of these things is ridiculous, discriminatory, and a waste of time.

Luckily, I have all of these characters, and more, in my classes this year, so you can hear all about them as we discover the joys of 20th century United States literature.

There are two new students, hopefully unique to my Tuesday class, that I recently encountered as well: Big-head girl, who waved her head back and forth the entire 2 and a half hour class, just enough so I could never see the board or the teacher; and Blabbermouth girl, who had to tell the uninterested (to her story--attracted to her body) guy all about how she just knew she was going to get an A in the class. Also, she seemed to think everything the teacher said was outrageously funny. So I could not see or hear during my first class. Bodes well for the semester, doesn't it...

As I only have two semesters left, I suppose I should try to appreciate these unique characters. I plan to try, but I can think of a few jokes that start: so I was in a room with a bunch of English grad students...

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Drive Me Crazy


I am a bad driver. I have been hit by a truck that was backing up, slipped off the Belt Parkway and drove up a guardrail, and, to avoid being hit by a crazy driver, drove off the road on the New Jersey Turnpike and blew two tires. Then there are a million almost-moments, like when I almost hit the person in front of me when he slammed on his breaks, or when I lost control of the car in the snow and was barely able to regain it in time to stop. Maybe these all weren’t my fault, but a better driver would have been able to avoid at least one of these incidents.

I am also a reluctant driver. I don’t like driving. I don’t like how you can’t relax for one moment. I don’t like how easy it is to get angry at the other drivers. And I don’t like how driving is so dependent on the fallible human temperament. No wonder it is so unsafe to drive. Personally, I feel much safer in a plane.

Max and I had a fairly terrifying experience a few weeks ago. We were making the long trek to upstate New York to see his parents. When I say long, I mean over 3 and a half hours, easily, with no traffic. And we go every few weeks (another issue for another day). Max usually drives, as I am a bad driver (see above) and I dislike it. So we were driving along what is the longest portion of our journey (50 miles on this one highway). We were chatting; it was a Friday night and we were just catching up on our increasingly busy weeks. We’ve both been given more responsibility at work lately, and it had been an exhausting week.

As one of our headlights was out (the light just stopped working) and one of our brake lights was also out (my fault—maybe I’ll tell you that embarrassing story later) so Max was trying to go close to the speed limit. With the house looming in the near future, we did not need to get a ticket. So Max had the cruise control set. It is one of those roads that changes from a 55 speed limit to a 65 one and back again, seemingly without any reason behind it. So while Max was fairly certain it was a 55 limit, he wasn’t positive. We were in the middle lane, moving with traffic, at about 62 miles an hour.

Anyway, we see headlights approaching us, fast, in the distance. We weren’t worried, but we did keep an eye on it. It was a truck. As it approached us, it flashed its brights at us a few times, and then left them on for 30 seconds or so, indicating that we should move out of the way. Max was very comfortable staying behind the guy in front of us, and the truck had plenty of room to move, so we didn’t. Apparently, this infuriated the truck driver. He screeched into the right lane and hurtled in front of our car, almost hitting the car we had been driving behind and forcing Max to slam his brakes as to not hit the truck. Now in front of us, we could see the truck was transporting large, metal tubes, all strapped onto his flatbed by chains. While this was annoying, things like that happen all the time, and we were not too concerned.

Eventually, the truck moved over to the right lane. Max, keeping the same speed (he was on cruise control) eventually began passing the truck. Well, the truck driver must have seen us starting to pass him, for he once again threw his truck into the middle lane in front of us, again almost hitting another car and forcing us to slam the brakes. He repeated this right lane/middle lane move 4 times in the next 20 minutes. I called information to report him, but the girl was a bit of an idiot and couldn’t help me so I gave up. Nonetheless, I was starting to get really nervous, and I asked Max to get around this lunatic.

So Max (who is an excellent if fast driver) decided to do so. The truck was in front of us in the middle lane again at this point, fresh from almost hitting yet another car. Max waited until a large SUV passed us in the left lane, got over right behind him, and drove fairly close to him, betting that the truck driver would not want to kill this innocent person. He was wrong.

As soon as the truck driver saw we were about to pass him, he threw his truck into the left lane forcing both us and the poor SUV guy to drive on the cement divider to avoid being hit. As we passed him, he honked and yelled at us. Luckily, we were able to get far ahead of him and didn’t see him again.

I have the greatest sympathy for truck drivers. I’m sure they have a hard time of it on the road. I have personally witnessed idiots cut them off, forcing them to brake harder than they should, and I know they have to deal with that kind of thing every day. Still, was it really necessary for this driver to wage a kind of psychological warfare on us? Because we didn’t get out of his way? If Max wasn’t such a good driver, we would have gotten into a very serious accident. He was also endangering other people on the road. It’s terrifying to think that there are people out there with access to such a dangerous weapon who have no problem hurting other people.

Maybe he saw our Darwin fish….

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Close Encounters with the (Un)Evolved


Max and I are originally from Long Island (I lived closer to Queens, he lived further out on the Island). Constant trips to NYC, very diverse schools, and an eclectic mix of people helped both of us from an early age be very tolerant of others, and, on the whole, were accepted in return. As anywhere, there were of course quite a few intolerant jerks, but, overall, it was pretty great in that regard (not so great about traffic…) When we went to college, we realized it isn’t like that everywhere. I worried about it a little bit when moving to Pennsylvania, but after a few years here, and over a year of the Darwin fish planted firmly on both of our cars, I just forgot about it.

So imagine my surprise when, a few weeks ago, Max and I were driving home from my parents. We were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, and we were just chatting about what we would do when we got home from our busy weekend (me: nap and read; him: Guitar Hero and practice tae kwon do). We were just sitting there, and we heard a few repetitive beeps. I looked out the window and saw a gray-bearded man in a large truck gesturing for us to roll down the window. So I did so, thinking that I knew what it was; one of our headlights was out, which we knew about but had scheduled an appointment to get it fixed the next day. So as I smiled uncertainly at this stranger, I was not prepared to hear what he would say.

“You know, evolution isn’t true. Have you read your Bible lately?” he shouted out, in a fairly jovial but firm tone. I looked at Max, looked back at him, waved, and rolled my window back up.

As I did so, he leaned further out his window and said. “He recanted on his deathbed. Google it!”

Luckily, just then the traffic moved and we merged right in front of him, giving him plenty of time to contemplate our Darwin fish in all its glory.

In a way, although it was certainly a strange encounter, the man was fairly polite. He didn’t rant at us or call us names. It actually seemed like he genuinely wanted to inform us of something we might not know about.

On the other hand, can you imagine what would happen if we, as either atheist, secular humanist, a non-religious person, or any such ilk, made a similar statement to a car with a Jesus fish on it? I wouldn’t be surprised if we were sued.

Our would-be teacher might be interested to know that Max and I, unlike many people on both sides, have read The Origin of Species. There is really nothing Darwin needed to recant. He didn’t, by the way. I think some people equate a lack of religious fervor to something like the Goth, or gangster, or whatever trend is currently popular amongst teenagers—which can sometimes be temporary, immature, rebellious, and superficial. It is just a phase that we, as young people, are going through. So although I appreciate the restraint this man showed, it did seem a bit patronizing, like we would “grow out of it.”

So, on the off chance this man is reading a blog written by the wife of an atheist, let me clarify something: The large majority of people my age that I know are either not religious, religious only for convenience, or atheists. Most of us have chosen this direction based on a lack of satisfaction for the “answers” religion provides. Perhaps as we age, we will change our minds; anything is possible. But we have made this decision rationally, not out of rebellion or pique or on a whim. And we are very happy, and we still have the potential to be good.

Defining Your Own Attraction


It is rare to find any person who is 100% satisfied with how they look. In our own eyes, we can always be thinner, have nicer/longer/richer hair, have better skin, and a myriad of other problems that only we are aware of. Unfortunately, I am included in this number.

Since my wedding, I have relaxed a bit. Last semester was a particularly difficult one for me, and I skipped the gym to keep up and ordered Dominos and the like to save time. Once summer came, I was so burned out that I didn’t step it up at the gym, as I usually do, which didn’t help. And I lived on soda—for some reason, I was craving it all summer. So the natural result of all this (I suppose), is that I’ve gained some weight. I don’t know how much in pounds (I don’t weigh myself; I find it depressing) but there is a definite girth to my stomach that wasn’t there before. I am still considered “thin;” I still fit into all my clothes (although they are slightly tighter) and you can’t notice it if I’m wearing clothes, but it still really bothers me. So last week, I went to the gym every day except for the day we had to meet with our mortgage guy, and this week I plan to do the same. I haven’t felt any thinner because of last week, but hopefully with this week I will start to lose some weight.

The husband, Max, is quite supportive and complimentary, and it helps so much. He is always encouraging me to go to the gym, but he never, ever comments on what I’m eating (I usually manage to talk myself out of my midnight Wawa ice cream runs). That support is invaluable.

He does have this theory, however, that I’m not sure that I believe in. Actually, it’s more of a belief (for a man without a faith, Max has lots of beliefs). He believes that if you believe something, it will happen. Now, he does not mean that if I believe that the skies will open and shower me with gold, it will actually happen. He thinks instead that by believing something, you kind of set your mind on that course, and it will eventually happen. So, if I believe I am on my way to looking good, other people will notice that and agree with me. I will appreciate this feedback, which will in turn inspire me to stay with the exercise and diet plan.

The aspect that I both appreciate and dislike of this idea is one and the same: it puts the responsibility on me, which is where it should be. I am ultimately responsible for my weight (barring a medical condition, of course). I do have control, but I have to put in the effort. Therein lays the tradeoff.

Well, I am off to my lunch of pizza bagels (only a little over 200 calories!) and grapes (barely a 100 calories!).