Observations on DE

Lieutenant's Log (I am so not a Captain out here...), stardate: 2017.270 (year, and day of that year out of 365 by the way--yes I'm a great big nerd :-P)

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Delaware is a strange planet. I believe that the inhabitants may be resorting to cloning for their population. Evidence of this is prevalent in the classes I am teaching--one in particular. I have a good six or seven girls that I cannot tell apart or get my mind to stick name-to-face. They all have the same basic hair color (dirty blonde), the same basic facial structure (high cheekbones, dimples, light colored eyes), the same basic skin tone (what I am coming to label as "beach-tanned"), and the same basic fashion.

I am also noticing that they are supplementing the normal growth cycle of their male population to encourage height. I am regularly passed on the street or in the halls by people remarkably taller than I am. This is a strange feeling--having to look up at someone. It is... disconcerting.

Additionally, there is a strange social habit here of conducting pleasantries in the MOST inconvenient place to the flow of pedestrians (and vehicles) whenever humanly possible.

• Narrow staircase with people ascending and descending? Stand right at the top and block both. 
• How about a hallway that narrows down due to strange architectural choices? Stand in a small group right at the point it narrows down. 
• Tons of people walking quickly to try and get to a walkway at a traffic light? Suddenly stop and catch up with a friend from high school in the middle of the sidewalk. 
• Waiting at a traffic light at the head of the traffic? Great time to compose that lengthy email on your phone.

These are daily, not just every so often events. Perhaps there is some telepathic aspect to the population that allows them to know when such aspects transpire and adjust to them without inconvenience. More research is required.

Duckburg!

Greetings all,

So Disney is remaking DuckTales! (woohoo)

I watched the first few episodes today. It was pretty good. I like the updates that they've done (and come on, David Tennent as Scrooge McDuck!) Totally worth the watch.

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This week has been pretty busy with work. Grading proposals for students (and then meeting with the ones that were way out in left field) took a good chunk of time. It didn't help that the program that we use crashed Wednesday evening. I got it all sorted and worked out, even if a few of those students just emailed me today about some of their problems instead of coming to their appointments.

Silly freshmen.

I've been doing some character development with my main character in the new story. So far so good, and he's definitely getting more in-depth and unique.

No new revelations about Delaware and the surrounding areas.

Aaron and I finally finished watching Luke Cage, and we have moved on to Iron Fist so that we can check out Defenders, even though it is apparently not getting much in the way of ratings.

That's about it for now. I'll post something more exciting this week.

Glorious Mexican Food!

So, for one I am changing my "daily" tag to "general" since I am having trouble getting on here daily.

Okay, so the movie I went and saw, "Mother!"
Well...
I went into it woth absolutely no prior knowledge other than the trailer I linked in my last blog. Literally. A colleague texted and said Hey you want to go see this movie and I thought "What the hell is that?"
Trailer was watched.
Okay, looks creepy.

So 5 minutes into this movie, I'm hooked, because I am looking at it from the standpoint of What the hell is going on here?! because characters were not interacting correctly, and the setting was strange, and I had all kinds of theories running through my head. All of which were way wrong. I felt like there was one piece of super important information I was missing most of the way through the movie.

SPOILER ALERT (I don't know how to do the nifty covered text for spoilers, so I'll just do a text color and background match, so you can highlight it to see it if you want to read this part):

The missing piece was that the whole movie is a rather dark interpretation of judeo-christian mythology. Pretty much everything and everyone has some kind of parallel in either the christian bible, or to history and current issues with the condition of the planet and how we treat it. The metaphors were abundant and had me holding the sides of my head mouthing what the fuck is going on. I mean, from the moment that Jennifer Lawrence's character (Mother) wakes up after being recreated from the ashes (which is how the damned film starts) it is genesis and moves on until there is a whole baby eating cannibalism scene (Jesus) with masses of people and really bloody wars that are destroying the house (Earth). I could probably spend a large chunk of several pages analyzing, but you get the idea.

Aaron, my colleage, her two roommates and I spent a good hour or three interpreting and discussing afterward. The wine helped with this.

Ari, if you are reading, it's way super squiggy in several parts, just FYI.


And as for the title of the entry today, behold!

They didn't have any chile, of course. Instead, they had a strange (but spicy and yummy) green or red "sauce". So, we had to drive to Kennet Square, located in Pennsylvania, for decent Mexican. Now revel in that sentence for a moment.

Go ahead, I'll give you a minute to reread it.

So, Kennet Square apparently is home to a large Mexican migrant worker community, and thus, there are many mexican restaurants in the area. It's not NEW Mexican, but god, it was closer than I thought we'd ever find out here. The tacos were awesome, the tamales were good (if a little sweet), and you'll have to ask Aaron about the burrito smothered in the "green sauce" because I didn't get any of that.

Bonus, I made these for dessert:

So, I finally made it down to the Days of Knights (local gaming shop) "Game Room" for their casual Thursday Magic: the Gathering. Aaron was able to join me as well. We didn't stay too long, but we did play a round of commander with a young man we met there. He reminded me of Siin, but quieter. He also had a friend that showed up with a slight speech impediment on top of a New York accent (and a possibly unhealthy obsession with Rick and Morty).

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All in all, though, it was decent. It's a small play area, and had a good chunk of people (and it didn't smell bad; AND the bathroom, though a little questionable, had a large pale that was full of paper towels from people washing their hands--good sign!)

My working out is proceeding well. I am taking a break today and may go in tomorrow, but this week I have run a good 3 miles, worked out core and arms, and biked about 6 1/2 miles. Not too shabby.

We are going out with one of my colleagues tonight to catch the flick Mother! which I had not even heard of before; however, it looks creepy and interesting. Also, there will be wine and cheese afterward.

I have also started the arduous process of grad school applications again. I think the processes are purposefully made incredibly obtuse, complicated, and inane just to test applicants' wherewithal to complete the damned forms.

Hitting a Groove

I am hitting a nice groove at this point.

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My students are becoming more engaged as they figure out my particular cluster of crazy that I am expressing in class, and how I am doing it. Interestingly enough, the second class I have is more somnambulant appearing than the first one that meets at 8AM. I get to have several observations this semester, which is to be expected; after teaching for many years at UNM, this doesn't faze me in the least. Bring it on!

I worked for a little while on my werewolf idea. I like it. I only got 5 pages or so, then had Aaron read it for an honest reaction and if he thought it was interesting enough to want to see more. He liked it and gave me a bit of suggestions on the internal monologue that was happening that I like. After I finish up with this, I want to work on that a bit more.

P.S. I'm on Book 5 now of the Iron Druid Chronicles. I'm trying to take this one slower so I have reading to do on the treadmill; it makes a mile pass by insanely fast when I'm nice and distracted. Still riding the bike back home on work days, and I went running for about 1.5 miles yesterday at the gym (plus actual gymmy working out whatwith the weights and all). Yay me! I deserve pie!

Speaking of pie... Aaron made an apple pie this weekend. Luckily it was for a departmental picnic that we went to at White Clay Creek State Park (so I only got like, half a slice). It was a nice little gathering, and I met a few people that were quite nice. Still not what I would call friends, but definitely colleagues that are good to know with a possible PhD program here in the future.

The future is foggy...

So this was the drive into work on Thursday morning. The fog is really neat when it rolls in like this.

The temperature shifts can be upwards of 20 degrees between a rainy day and a sunny day, which is something I'm definitely not used to. We've gotten these accouterments called "rain jackets" to tote around and wear when the sky falls.

Still haven't made it to the gaming store for their casual Magic: The Gathering play night. Thursday is such an awkward day for it. By the time I go retrieve Aaron from the campus (after the 3 mile bike ride back) it just doesn't seem worth the excursion. Eventually it will totally be a thing, though.

I'm on book 4 of the Iron Druid Chronicles (and about 1/3 of the way through it). The characters have grown on me, as has the writing style. If Aaron and I ever get an Irish Wolfhound, I will convince him to name the puppers Oberon.

Not much on the plate for today. I am probably going to write some. On one of the stories rattling around my brain. It's getting jumbled and cluttered up there...

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I miss the dry...

It's raining again.

I do like the rain, don't get me wrong. It's great, and the gloomy gray days make me happy.

But...

Things just never dry out. Towels. Clothing. Those paper wet-wipes in the gym. (Okay, the last one is a bonus, it takes maybe 2 for a full workout instead of 2 per machine, but you get the idea.)


Aaron and I have worked out a routine for our days on campus for optimal not-paying-goddamned-parking-fees. So he drops me off in the morning and goes home. Then when he comes in he rides a bike. When I leave, I take said bike home, and then I swing by later to pick him up.

I'm still huffing-and-puffing my way home. Damn, but biking 3 ish miles with some inclines is rough when that's your starting ride. I am making it, though. I even went to the gym today and ran a mile and worked out arms.

I may be back in shape when I visit home!

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I have started reading a new series called "The Iron Druid Chronicles" by Kevin Hearne. Not bad at all. I'm well into book three and I started them on... Friday? Maybe Thursday. I mean, they aren't Dresden Files, but they are definitely worth the read in the meantime. (Damnit, Jim Butcher, write faster!)

And speaking of writing, I am trying to work more of that into my schedule so I can get back into the practice and finally get something finished. I keep bouncing back and forth between a few ideas and settings, but none of them are really working well for me yet. I just need to bear down (which I just had to look up the spelling for, heh) and write. I have new thoughts of an Urban Fantasy from a young werewolf's PoV. We'll see.

Until next time!

Stupid bikes...

Biked down to campus and back.
Augh.
Ugh.
Igh.
I remember when biking was fun. What the hell?
Granted, I haven't biked anywhere since I was like 12, but still...

Saturn's Day

So I have decided that Saturdays are the toughest for a new area. That tended to be the day that we hung out with people back home, or randomly had someone over to hang out, play cards, feed lots of yummy food to... and out here we still don't really have friends. Acquaintances, yes, potential friends, sure, but like "Hey, let's do a thing with little notice" not yet.

It's another drizzly day today, and looks like it will be for most of next week. Our bike ride yesterday didn't happen, but may happen later today if it clears up. We were told about this pretty cool App called Dark Sky that is pretty cool and fairly accurate at predicting rain start and stop times, as well as other info.

Our rent got pushed back a little, which is nice. I logged in to pay online yesterday and found contradictory information on what was due/owed/credited so we went in to the front desk to find out. Asked about a possible comp since we still have holes in our walls and no specific date to expect them to be fixed, etc, so when we get paid our first checks will be when we also pay rent, which is nice.

Other than that, things are starting to fall into a nice pattern. My students are funny little creatures that don't know quite what to make of me yet. I think next week will be good since that will be our first string of real discussions based on reading material.

I still didn't make it to the casual M:tG night. This last Thursday was a football game, and my colleague let me know that starting around 4PM I want to avoid areas near the school. Alumni. Parents. Drunk freshmen everywhere. I took the advice to heart and just headed home after work, so maybe next week. I stuck up a notice about a week or two ago at the gaming shop to see about some possible RPG groups. So far no hits.

I think today I will update my CV and possibly work on PhD Apps (as well as play video games, but duh).