Personal

I am so low-energy lately. I partied waaaaaaaay too much when I went home--barely got any sleep. It was FUN though. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to finish everything, gah. I have a paper due this week, another next week, and then a final exam (that's not counting the two remaining weekly response papers for my Women's Studies class). Sigh. Time to snuggle under blankets with herbal tea and wage war on viruses and/or bacteria with herbs and vitamins.

Love those simple pleasures...here are two in particular that have happened to me recently:

1. Several of the students who are taking my first-year composition class this semester want to take my speech class next semester. I'm honored. :-)

2. I just weighed myself, and I lost four pounds, probably from my recent trips to the gym. Excellent. That makes a total of eleven pounds lost since I started this weight-loss plan in early October. I'm telling you, cutting out caloric beverages and not eating late at night, combined with a little exercise, WORKS.

I've had a splitting headache for several days that won't go away. It's terrible, to the point that it's making me feel disoriented and tired.

I'm so hot that the small of my back is sweating all the time, practically, and it's November in Minnesota.

My hair is driving me nuts, and I want to shave it all off. I am thisclose to doing it!

I wish I could afford to get acupuncture. :-(

The other day, I posted about my love of 80s TV theme songs. In fact, that was exactly one week ago, and I was experiencing some Monday gloom. It's Monday again, and I'm slightly less gloomy, but I find myself thinking again of an 80s TV theme song I love, this time the one from "The Fall Guy":

The Fall Guy



Well, I'm not the kind to kiss and tell,

But I've been seen with Farrah.

I'm never seen with anything less than a nine, so fine.

 

I've been on fire with Sally Field,

Gone fast with a girl named Bo,

But somehow they just don't end up as mine.

 

It's a death defyin' life I lead,

I take my chances.

I die for a livin' in the movies and TV.

But the hardest thing I ever do

Is watch my leadin' ladies

Kiss some other guy while I'm bandagin' my knee.

 

I might fall from a tall building,

I might roll a brand new car.

'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that made Redford such a star.

 

I never spend much time in school

But I taught ladies plenty.

It's true I hire my body out for pay, Hey Hey.

 

I've gotten burned over Cheryl Tiegs,

Blown up for Raquel Welch.

But when I end up in the hay it's only hay, Hey Hey.

 

I might jump an open drawbridge,

Or Tarzan from a vine.

'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine.

I can blast that song in the car, sing along, and just generally rock out to it! What's the matter with me?

I am looking forward to the three Fs--friends, food, and family. I just reserved a flight home for the Christmas holiday, too--December 21-January 3. Last year I stayed until, I don't know, January 11 or something like that, and started to get depressed when I'd go out with my friends who live in Florence, AL. During the holidays, I'd see people I went to high school and undergrad with, and it was fun, but then afterward, I had this sinking "left behind" feeling as I started seeing the current UNA students doing their back-to-school partying. I vowed not to stay that long again. January 3, I think, will be a fitting time to leave. In the spring, I'm teaching a class I've never taught before, Rhetoric 1223: Oral Presentations in Professional Settings, and I need lots of time for syllabus composing.



As for today, I am going to do laundry, read copious amounts of feminist theory and genre theory, and go to the gym.

When am I going to start being realistic about what I can get done in a day?! Note: I'm striking through items not because I've gotten them done, but because I'm cutting corners.

I know I'm kind of late to this party, but what the heck:

1. Every time I see a bottle of calamine lotion, the song "Poison Ivy" gets stuck in my mind.
2. Every time I fly, during takeoff the song "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" gets stuck in my mind. (In the video, they steal a plane.)
3. I love the show Everybody Loves Raymond.
4. I am the biggest misocapnist you know. I guarantee it.
5. Sometimes, when my feet feel really good and I feel good all over (my feet have to feel good in order for this to happen), I think that if other people could experience how good it feels to be me, they'd never want to be themselves again.
6. I drive a 1998 Honda Civic with the following stickers: Keep Abortion Legal, a Lucinda Williams World Without Tears sticker, and a Kasey Chambers The Captain sticker.
7. I lived with my parents until I was 24 years old.
8. The biggest regret of my life is caving in to family pressure and going to college in my hometown rather than going away.

I just re-took the Myers-Briggs (with a twist of Jung) Personality Inventory after taking it a few years ago and
found out that my personality has changed! I used to be an ENFP (Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving), which is also called a "idealist/champion" in this test's terms. Now I am an ESFJ (Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging), also called "guardian/provider." Here's another description of ESFJ.

The test said that I am a:

* distinctively expressed extrovert
* slightly expressed sensing personality
* moderately expressed feeling personality
* slightly expressed judging personality

If you'd like to take the test, here it is.

I just finished watching Strictly Ballroom. I had never seen it before, but I had heard for years how great it is. And it is great, absolutely wonderful. After seeing it, though, and being so moved by it, I thought about how much I also loved Dirty Dancing and even Dancer in the Dark. And, I recently had a conversation with a colleague in which she told me she regularly takes classes in the dance department, just because she loves dancing. I've been doing a little reading about Martha Graham, too. There are probably some new-agey self-help books that say I'm experiencing synchronicity. Maybe. I do think the art of dance is a latent interest I haven't explored yet, which could probably enhance my life in any number of ways. Anyone have any suggestions of dances I should learn, or other good dance movies?