Monday Minute

 My blogging sucks lately. Oh well. Every post would have been about work anyway, and you should thank me that I haven't exposed you to that. But I saw this link-up and figured, hey, I can do that! So I am.

1 - Think back as far as you can, what's the first tape, record, etc you remember listening to?
Eddy Grant, Electric Avenue. I know I listened to the requisite children's music before this, but this is the first piece of pop music that I remember listening to over and over and over. My older sister used to play it LOUDLY every Saturday morning

2 - What's the first concert you've ever been to, the year and who performed?
It may have been New Kids on the Block in 1989. Is it wrong that I still want to see them in concert in 2011?

NKOTB circa 2008

3 - Ever bleed from your ass?
No, thank goodness.

4 - If you went to your Senior Prom and had a date, do you still speak to said person?
Definitely not, though I occasionally hear about him from friends from high school because I'm apparently supposed to care. I don't.

5 - Name the one television show that's no longer on the air that could have gone on forever. 
Gilmore Girls. So many unresolved issues - did Luke and Lorelai get married? Did they have kids? What's Rory doing now? What kind of reporter is she? How long was she with the Obama campaign? Is she married? Is Zach a famous rock musician? Did Lane ever play drums again? What's up with their kids? Did Paris marry Doyle? The characters on that show had so much room to grow and I wanted to see them do it!!!

Dear Milwaukee

Dear Milwaukee,

It's a good thing you are the home to so many people and places I love because your weather sucks. It's the middle of May for goodness sakes. I shouldn't have to wear my sweaters anymore. I'm not asking for a lot, just some extended 60+ degree weather.

Love,
RHoM

Fan of the section

A few weeks ago, we went to the Brewers game for my niece's 4th birthday. My niece is quite the Brewers fan and knows most of the players. In fact, she refers to left-fielder Ryan Braun as her boyfriend - much to her mom's dismay. However, I remember being my niece's age and having quite the affinity for a first baseman named Cecil Cooper, including a t-shirt that said I {heart} Cooper, so I get it.

COOOOOOOOOP!!!

We had a fun group sitting behind us - they were probably in their twenties, and although a few of them were a little intoxicated, they were generally fine and clearly having a good time. They thought my niece and nephew were pretty darn cute and had a lot of fun joking around with them. One guy in particular repeatedly asked my nephew for a spoonful of his Dippin' Dots, which my nephew thought was weird at first but then thought was pretty funny. They declared my niece "The best fan in this section. We can't say the whole stadium because we haven't checked out all the fans in all the sections, but she's clearly the best in this section." 

I think the best fan of the section may have been a reaction to the following conversation: During right-fielder Mark Kotsay's first at-bat, my niece recognized the name and repeated it in her four year old-speak: "Kot-saaaaaay." This caught the attention of one of her Grandmas, and they proceeded to have this conversation:

Grandma: Grandpa doesn't like Kotsay.
Niece: Why not?
Grandma: Why don't you ask him?
Niece: Grandpa, why you don't like Kotsay?
Grandpa: Because he doesn't hit very much.
Niece: (Pause) He hits on my tv!

Yeah, my niece is pretty cute.

And for the record, Kotsay had a couple of hits that game, including a hit immediately following this conversation. Clearly my niece knows her Brewers baseball.

Congratulations, LoRa!

My youngest sister, LoRa (not her her real name), graduates with her Master's Degree today. For most people, graduation signals an end to college life, but for people like LoRa and myself, graduation is the beginning of a new chapter of college life - life as a professional in higher education.

My sister is entering the profession of Student Affairs, a little known profession that is essential to college life. Student Affairs folks are essentially in charge of everything that happens at college outside of the classroom, though some people (like me) are involved in the classroom as well. Student Affairs professional can be like my sister and run the residence halls, the campus activities, the career services, and the leadership programs. They can be like me and be academic advisors and academic support services for special populations, like student-athletes or first-generation college students. They can be like my co-workers and be admissions and financial aid counselors. And, for those times when college students like to pretend they can do anything and not have consequences, student affairs professionals are the conduct administrators that help students (hopefully) learn from their mistakes. It's a challenging but incredibly rewarding profession.

Congratulations LoRa! I'm proud to have you as a sister and a colleague.

Cool kids' table

I have survived almost three weeks at my new job! Woohoo!

Starting this job hasn't kicked my butt nearly as much starting my job in North Carolina. I don't know if I'm just used to the early hours, or if I don't have to lie as much so I'm not as tired (I have a desk and a computer and an office with a door and everything!!!). Personally, I think being on Central time has a lot to do with it because all my favorite shows are on at nine instead of ten, and I can still watch them and get to bed at a decent time.

I sound like an old lady.

Anyway, my job is going pretty well so far, but one thing I've noticed is that I'm definitely not one of "them." I'm not officially part of the department that my physical office is in; I partner with them, but I don't work with them and definitely not for them. Because of this, everybody is really friendly and nice, but it feels like I'm more tolerated than included.

I'm okay with this arrangement. I like doing my own thing, and I like that I'm not part of their drama. Not that they have drama drama, but they are a fairly large office and they have a lot of relationships and dynamics to manage that I don't really have to deal with as an outsider. They're also very high energy and always on the move, and I'm much more mellow at work. I still do fifteen things at once like they do, I just am more... contained is the word that's coming to mind.

Plus, they're mostly younger than me - by quite a bit actually - and while this shouldn't matter, I sometimes feel like I can't relate to them.Sometimes I sit in our meetings and think, "Wow, you have no idea." A few of them have been in the workforce for less than a year, and just don't have the years of experience I'm used to in my colleagues. I use these opportunities to teach and I try hard not to preach, but the looks I get often seem like, "Who let the old fart in?"

I think the biggest thing I've noticed, though, is I'm not part of their social interaction. They hang out after work, they joke around during the day, and they stop by each others' offices all day long. This doesn't happen with me. Part of it is that I don't share their work so they don't need to ask me questions or share their experiences, but part of it is that I just don't relate to them. I've joked to my friends that it feels like high school and they're the cool kids and I'm the nerd (again), but it's not like that. Because I work at a university, I think it's more appropriate to describe them as members of a fraternity, while I'm GDI (that's g**damn independent, or non-Greek, for you non-higher educators). They share a common experience and have bonded around that shared experience, and I'm on the outside doing my own thing. We work at the same place, and often attend the same meetings, but what we take away from our jobs and our meetings are very different. While I'm not envious of their jobs at all, nor do I really want to be part of their fraternity, I do envy the collegial nature of their work.

And you know, every now and then, it's nice to be invited to the cool kids' table.

GO LUCY!!! AGAIN!!!

Remember when my crazy sister Lucy was running in her second half-marathon? Well, tomorrow she is running in her first FULL MARATHON! Go Lucy!

Never ever ever in a million years would I be able to do that, and I admire her for her dedication and persistence. And also for her craziness, because she has to be a little insane to want to voluntarily run for four hours, but it's the good kind of insane and I respect that kind of insanity.

GO LUCY!!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Coffee talk

I am not a morning person. I hate mornings. I have no use for mornings.

In other words, mornings suck.

Unfortunately for me, most jobs cater to morning people so I have had to adapt my natural sleeping patterns and lifestyle to fit into the world of morning people. I have to get up earlier than my body wants to and go to bed at a "reasonable time." I have to be productive at a time when my brain hasn't even turned on yet. I have to commute when it's still dark outside. And I have to go to the gym at 5:30 in the morning.

After a day of work, I have no motivation to go to the gym so I've decided to go before work. Unlike my gym in Charlotte, however, my gym is not around the corner from my house so I can't go back home to get ready for work. Instead, I schlep a bag of clothes to the gym and get ready there. Side note: Somehow I never feel as clean when showering at the gym as I do at home, but I'll live. And my office has a door for the really bad days :)

What I don't like is that I don't have my morning get-ready time with my husband. Because I'm not a morning person, I don't generally like to talk to anyone in the morning. However, after a couple of car rides and some gym time, I usually wake up enough to have a conversation - nothing deep of course, but more than the conversations when I first wake up, which consist mostly of grunts and whining, with an occassional, "Shhh. No talking." Getting-ready conversations were basically check-ins. My husband and I would talk about our plans for the upcoming day, what to have for dinner, thoughts about the upcoming weekend, reminders to set the DVR, etc.

With my job, we drive separately to the gym, do our separate workouts, and go our separate ways when we finish. I head to the women's locker room to shower and get ready for work, and he drives home to get ready. We don't talk much, if at all, and I miss it. We've tried to adapt to our new schedule; he calls me while he's driving to work and we usually arrive at our respective offices around the same time (because his commute is 5 minutes and mine is 55 minutes). But it's not the same as having that in-person conversation.

I never thought much of those conversations before, but now that we don't have them, I recognize how important they were in our daily lives. Those morning check-ins ensured we were connected daily, and ensured our lines of communication were always open. More importantly, however, our get-ready time was an opportunity for intimacy, because we were physically present with each other. It wasn't intimacy in a sexual way - get your mind out of the gutter! - but because we shared a bedroom and a bathroom, we were constantly in each other's personal space. While that can be annoying at times, I generally enjoyed being close to my husband. I show and feel affection through physical touch, and so does my husband. Sharing our space while we were getting ready was another way for me to feel connected to my husband, just as our morning talks helped me feel connected to him.