4 posts tagged “friend”

A came back into town for a couple of days this week.  Remember that she recently moved away?  Well, she came back for a brief visit and to work on our most recent paper together.  She arrived on Sunday evening and left Wednesday very early morning.  In the two days she was here we worked on the paper and created the presentation that I'm going to give at the national meetings this weekend in NYC.  It was good.  Our usually constructive co-authorship worked as usual: sitting next to each other in front of the computer, literally starting and finishing each other's sentences as we write.  Good.

It was nice to have her back for a little bit.  When she actually moved a month ago, I tried not to get all weird about it because I knew that she'd be back in a month.  Now, it's unclear when our next visit will be.  We're still working on that. 

I can't believe it.  My friend and colleague, Stephcha, actually hit the road for good today.  She's taken a job in her home state and her hometown. 

I feel like she just got here.  We've had some good times!

I'll miss her!

• I've got a ton of grading to do this week.  The kids in my two classes submitted their papers last night.  It's going to take me forever to grade 60 papers.  Also, I've got other weekly grades to compile for them.  And a ton of people didn't follow the basic directions and that makes things twice as hard for me.  I feel totally weighed down by it.
• I've also got to read a dissertation and have thoughts and comments on it for a student's defense this week.  Haven't started that yet.
  
• I still have no voice and can't take it anymore.  Going to the doctor today at 2.  I'm sure that antibiotics are in my future.  Not looking forward to that.  But something has to change.
  
• My good friend leaves tomorrow for good.  Going to try to have lunch with her today.  I feel very weird because I haven't seen her at all in the last week since she's been buying her new home in her new city.  Also, I don't think that we're doing anything "special" or whatever to send her off.  She's been my closest person here for the past 5 years.  I guess we're just pretending that nothing is changing.  I'll be okay with that.
• Monkey might be coming down with the sickness that I have.  Not sure yet.
• Talked with my mom this weekend.  She went to Mexico City last week for a religious tour (she's way Catholic).  It was a quick trip but it sounds like she learned a lot from it.  Very overwhelming poverty, chaos, smog and more on her short stay there.  She ate good though.  Said that the people were great and so was the food.  Still, it sounds like it was relatively eye-opening for her.  Since she's read
  

  People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)

  2 comments
  The People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, she seems to have a new perspective on these things (yes, my MOM read on her own just because she wanted to learn more about this country's history!  How awesome is that?!!).
  
• I think that you are now up to date on my life.
  

Well, my good friend is moving away to Iowa in a couple of weeks.  I'm thinking about it quite often but am not really dealing with whatever it means that very soon she is not going to be living here anymore.  I'm kind of waiting to be surprised that she has actually left, if that makes any sense.  And she and I are both so busy right now that it seems kind of hard to find time to do something (whatever that might be) together (outside of our usual work, that is) before she leaves.  I'm kind of waiting to be surprised by that as well I suppose. 

She moved here a year after I did in 2002 and the first summer she was here she left town for something like two months and went and stayed in a cabin on a lake in the midwest.  She was trying to get out of the Vegas heat and hadn't really sunk in here yet.  While she was gone I took care of a couple of her plants.  I don't know why but I have always assumed that she knows a lot about plants--even before I really knew that she knows a lot about plants.  The ones she left with me were a couple of really basic house plants and a couple of birds of paradise in pots that I left outside.  When she came back from her extended trip she took back all but one of the houseplants and left the birds of paradise. 

Now she's leaving again, this time for good, and she's given me some of her plants again.  This time it's for keeps.

house plant