Alias

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Kate

I have gone by a lot of different names in life. For starters, I have a first name and a middle name that each have about a million possible nicknames. I could have grown up a Kathy, Katie, Kath, Betsy, Liz, Beth, Liza, or even Libby (no thanks to that one). As a kid, though, I didn’t think any of those were good enough for me, so my parents came up with a new nickname. Many of you who know me in person will be surprised to learn that until maybe kindergarten or first grade I went by the nickname Keli (K from my first name, -eli from my middle name). It’s funny how that doesn’t even sound like me now. It even felt weird to type it.

In French class I was a Katherine and in German class a Katrin; in Russian I was Yekaterina in formal situations and Katya otherwise. I’ve also gone by Kat among friends, Katra among certain friends and on the internet, and some people also call me Kathy — that last one is my least favorite nickname possibility, but at my current job I have a colleague who thinks it is my name. In her defense, she is Russian and nicknaming is a larger cultural issue there. She is probably trying to express familiarity and friendship by calling me Kathy instead of my full first name, which is how she knows me and which probably sounds overly formal to her ears. She’s too nice and adorable for me to bother correcting her.

You know what, though? Only on the internet do I go by Kate. Weird, right? No one calls me that in person at all. I chose it for the blog mainly because I didn’t want to put my full name here for googlers to find. I don’t mind if you all know my full name, but I don’t want people who don’t already read this blog finding it by chance (or by stalking). It’s not that I am embarrassed or secretive about anything I write here, but, you know. I would prefer for googlers to find my professional website and not a blog where I write about my cute dog and my race training and how much I love John Cusack and roasted vegetables.

At any rate, in person, I am most likely to be called my full first name (most common), or my initials (which are KO and are thus the baddest-ass initials a person can probably have, right? I sign emails this way and it has become a nickname from either that or my former carreer as a champion boxer), or Kat (mostly by a select few long-time friends — no one I have met in recent years has called me this). Then of course there is the professional name issue: I prefer to go by Dr. Lastname among students, but there will always be a wayward few who insist on calling me Ms. Lastname or — worst of all possibilities — Mrs. Lastname. Sigh.

Some of you may even have first known me by my original, completely anonymous blogging alias from back in the day when I was certain I wanted no one to find my blog or be able to identify me through what I wrote at all. I’m glad I have shifted over to a mostly non-anonymous way of writing, though — I like being able to write about my town and my school and such without having to worry about revealing too much. And I am free to tell you all of my many nicknames!

So is it weird that my blog name is a nickname I have never used? And do you go by a nickname? Care to share?

Have I Got Some Links for You!

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Kate

Ahh, let me tell you, the view right here is lovely. I am kicked back on my couch with a little dog beside me, watching me type on my pretty new laptop. I love this new machine.

I have gotten a bit behind in my blog reading and commenting lately, having spent the past week and weekend up to my eyebrows in grading and other projects. When that happens I often wind up reading blog posts via Google Reader on my phone at bedtime. What this means is that I am not able to comment as easily — the combination of being in a feed reader and on a phone makes it very unlikely that I’ll make the effort to post a comment. I don’t like this. As I’ve mentioned before, I really think blog comments are the best and I love chatting back and forth with people on the internets, both here and on their blogs.

So last night I wound up bookmarking a bunch of recent posts on the phone, then syncing it to my laptop so I could go back and comment on them when I was at my desk. But then, see, I had a better idea! I thought I would share the links here and send you guys over to read (and maybe you can leave a comment, if you are so inclined). I was even thinking maybe I could make this a regular feature and share interesting posts from my Google Reader every week or two, but then I realized that is actually already a function built into Google Reader. You can share posts with your Google Reader Friends. I don’t do that though. (Because honestly I have enough social media connections and I prefer to just have Google Reader be the place where I go read blogs and not another friend- and connection-making kind of place. It’s strictly a reading-based place in my mind.)

Which was all my long-winded explanation of this: I am not sharing these posts in Google Reader or on Facebook or on Twitter or on Tumblr. Oh no. I am sharing them here! So you’d better like it! And I won’t take any guff! (I don’t know why I am suddenly getting all defensive about this.)

Without further ado, then, here are some great blog posts from around the internet that I think you just might like. Stop by and check them out and say hello to these awesome bloggers:

Kath from KERF (one of my favorite food blogs) on her food philosophy. What she eats, doesn’t eat, and why. Enjoy the lovely food photos as well!

Chrissy from The New Me recently participated in an adventure race! If you don’t know what those are, I highly suggest reading her recap of the event. It sounds both slightly scary and super fun.

Holly from Holly Would if She Could recently posted about popular music and I was just giggling throughout the whole thing. I can tell you that I am right there with her when it comes to that new Rihanna song — yikes!

Matt from No Meat Athlete on his decision to go from vegetarian to vegan and on his first vegan grocery shopping trip. If you ever wonder what motivates us crazy vegans to do what we do, or wondered how exactly we do it, check out these two posts.

Speaking of vegan stuff, please read this really thoughtful post from Gena (of Choosing Raw, but guest blogging at JL Goes Vegan) on the ethics of veganism. She explains it all and doesn’t do so in a manipulative or overly preachy manner. I love this post.

Caitlin from Heathy Tipping Point blogged this week about the emotional side of sports injury. Let me just say that (with my nagging hip flexor keeping me from running yet again), I have been going through almost every one of these emotions lately, too.

SarahLena from The Anvil Tree wrote about the life and work lessons learned from working in restaurants and I think she is spot on. I worked in lots of restaurants back in the day and I think it really changed me for the better — I learned new skills, gained confidence, understood the idea of work better, and the list goes on. When I hear from my students that they don’t have jobs outside of school, I feel kind of sorry for them.

Ashley from Redonkulous Runner is on the topic of being gritty. Go read it and see! I am in complete agreement.

And lastly, Slynnro has got the perfect new idiomatic expression for you to use regarding bitchy coworkers, passive-aggressive Facebook friends, and drunks at the bar. You’ll have to read it to find out.

And now, have you read anything good on a blog this week? I’ll take links if you’ve got ‘em.

I Sat Down and I Typed Some Things

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Kate

Unlike Tuesday of this week, I managed to get a whole boatload of work done today. I am feeling mostly better and (not going to lie) a massive amount of coffee and Diet Coke got me rolling with good momentum today. This week entails not only normal teaching/grading/prep but also writing group meetings and gathering paperwork for my annual review, so believe me when I tell you that the extra caffeine was not optional.

I’ll have another long workday tomorrow but after it a big reward: hosting friends for another night of watching Twin Peaks! I just love David Lynch, and that show was what got me hooked on his creepy, surreal, noir sensibilities at the tender age of thirteen. When my mother caught me watching an episode one night, though, she declared it to be inappropriate material for my viewing (the phrase “of the devil” was invoked, so there’s that for amusement) and Twin Peaks became verboten and I never got to watch the second season. Now that I have finally bought the boxed set of DVDs I can complete the mission I started twenty years ago.

HOLY SHIT TWENTY YEARS.

Okay. I’m all right now. Just having a minor, age-related, sands-of-time kind of freak-out for a second. Gathering myself now. But seriously, folks: did you know that people born in 1990 can now buy beer? And liquor? LIQUOR?

Moving on. Isn’t Agent Cooper just dreamy?

"This is some DAMN fine coffee. And HOT."

I have a feeling Twin Peaks night is going to be the one and only fun night of my weekend: I left myself with a lot of grading to do and I’ll likely be gluing my rear to a wobbly coffee shop chair and hunching over a stack of essays for all of Saturday and Sunday so I can get things ready for the coming week. Something feels a little bit wrong about planning ahead for Monday when it’s only Thursday night, as if I have already erased the weekend before it has even happened. Hopefully I’ll find time to squeeze in a yoga class, a swim, or at least a nap or something.

Oh yeah: I’m not running this week because the hip whose flexors I strained last fall is acting up again. Lucky me! I am taking some time off until the twinging is totally gone (as opposed to just lightening up my runs, which I already tried and which did not turn out to work after all and which in fact just kept the twinging at a slow simmer until it finally erupted into a full-on rolling boil Monday night, which was delightful I assure you).

Well! This has been a largely rambling and pointless entry, hasn’t it? Work! Twin Peaks! Work! (Not) running! What can I say; this is my life lately. It marches relentlessly onward. At any rate, I should hopefully have my new computing machine in my hot little hands come Monday, which should make blogging more interesting. For me, anyway. Maybe not for you. Sorry, suckas!

Here and There

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Kate

I’ve got a bunch of scattered-here-and-there thoughts and updates, so here goes:

Me Weekend: It was quite lovely, as expected. It was most certainly not, as one friend termed it, a “Weekend of Loneliness.” (I don’t know either.) The first thing I did was clean up my house so that I had a nice relaxing environment to be in, and then I proceeded to do whatever I wanted. I don’t really need to fill you in on the details though because I am sure it would be boring as all hell. The important thing is that I managed to relax, finally, and it was grand.

Sick-ish Day: Yesterday was the first day back to work and by today I already am taking another “off day.” Not so great. I woke up this morning feeling mildly awful — I don’t think I’m sick-sick but I am definitely not running at 100% either — so I made the decision not to go into the office to grade or research today. It’s my “off” day, which simply means I work but don’t teach, so I was able to do this. I have napped all day. Unlike on Me Weekend, however, I feel guilty and that I should be grading essays instead. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.

Books: Over the weekend, I read two Margaret Atwood novels, Oryx & Crake and Year of the Flood (the latter of which is a prequel to the former). I really liked both of them, so much so that I was sad when I finished them and did a quick Twitter survey, asking what I should read next. The winner (out of a few books I listed that I had on hand) was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, which I started last night and finished today. I loved it. There is a little dachshund in it named Ivor (who is not the dog referenced in the title, but a nice supporting-character-type dog nonetheless). Next to be read will probably be Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake.

Money: One of my major goals right now is paying off my credit card debt and another one is saving money to supplement my (small) summer income and move into a new apartment this July. I signed up for a free account with mint.com to help manage my budget. It seems like it could be pretty helpful, but I’ll have to do some tweaking of the categories/budgets and so on to make it really work. Does anyone else use Mint? Have any tips?

Shopping Hiatus Fail: In other money news, I have had it in the back of my mind that I need to replace my aging MacBook (it is from 2006 and has had to have parts replaced twice already, is running out of space, making weird noises, giving me the Spinning Beach Ball of Death every 30 seconds, and so on and so forth). I was looking around at the Apple store online when I saw their interest-free financing offer and found that I qualified. The only problem? I had to use it within 30 days after I applied, meaning before the end of my Lenten shopping hiatus. Well, Scheisse. As if spending that much money wasn’t stressful enough, you know? After much dithering I talked myself into it because I decided it was a work-based necessity and not the type of shopping I was really trying to cut back on, e.g. pointless hundred-dollar trips to Target, incessant Amazon.com browsing and one-click buying, yet another blouse from Gap, etc. So, in order to get the interest-free deal, I went ahead and ordered. New MacBook Pro headed my way. EEEP!

There. Now what is new with you?

Savannah

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Kate

I am back from Spring Break Part I, in which I traveled to Savannah with some ladies for a bachelorette party. I hadn’t been to Savannah since I was a little kid, so I was unaware that is has a reputation for the following two things: being the most haunted city in America and being a hard-drinking city in which one can carry around one’s booze, in a plastic cup, in public.

It’s the kind of town I’m sure Phillip Marlowe would appreciate. We found his office, but he was out, so I didn’t get to ask any questions.

(Seriously, how cool is this for a hardboiled-detective-loving bookworm such as myself?!)

We did tour a haunted old mansion whose original owners were best of friends with Confederate General Robert E. Lee. There was also a long story about a curse on the family and several alleged encounters with ghosts in the house. Spooky.

We also wandered around the city’s historic district, enjoying all the beautifully manicured public green space, the postcard-perfect weather, and the lovely things to see. The town was all decked out in green (as you can see in the fountain photo above) for St. Patrick’s Day, which is Kind of a Big Deal in Savannah. We bachelorette party revelers blended right in with the be-shamrocked crowds. Plenty of delicious food was eaten, beverages consumed, and fun had.

One night out involved a haunted pub crawl, where we were led around town by our tour guide, who regaled us with stories of Savannah’s spookiest drinking spots. It seems the city does a few things really well: parks, ghosts, and drinks. I am in support of this.

At the moment I am dog sitting two friendly little chihuahuas, making this a three-dog household until tomorrow afternoon. At that point, I shall commence housecleaning in preparation for my glorious Me Weekend of relaxation. Good times over here. I think everyone should get a Spring Break, don’t you agree?

Effing the Ineffable

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Monthly Archives: March 2011

Alias

Have I Got Some Links for You!

I Sat Down and I Typed Some Things

Here and There

Savannah