Special post: 100th entry!!!

Clearly if I had my own TV show this would be a big deal: the 100th episode!  But, alas, Bravo hasn't gotten it together enough to offer me a show, so for now, the blog will have to do.

Here I am, sitting in the common area of an Italian office building trying to pretend like I belong and writing a blog.  So, here's the topic: You know you're in Italy when.  Obviously if you've ever been here there's no doubting that you're in Italy, but if you were from another planet and didn't really know, here are some definite signs that yes, friends, you are in Italy.

1.  There are no lines, only giant clumps of people pushing and shoving to get into whatever door first.

2.  When a cell phone rings, the responder screams, and yes I do mean screams, PRONTO!!!!!! into the receiver.

3.  Popped collars abound.

4.  There is an overwhelming amount of fanny packs.  Worn by men.  As if they are cross body bags.  Not a great look if you ask me, but whatever.

5.  There is always a mad older lady yelling in the background.

6.  People are standing in front of a no smoking sign, chain smoking.

7.  Sunglasses are worn at all hours of the day.  Even rainy days.  And even at night.

8.  It's 11 am and people are already ordering cocktails at the local bar.

9.  You're walking down the street and the woman in front of you has a "bring it on bitch" look on her face and refuses to step out of your way even though you're rolling a 50 lb suitcase, carrying a 40 lb backpack, talking on your cell phone and trying not to drop your purse.

10.  You order a cappuccino after lunch (don't worry, I only fell into this trap once 7 years ago) and there is a collective gasp by all present patrons in the bar.

Confessions from a conspiracy theorist

So 24 hours from now I'll be traveling in a giant metal tube across the giant ocean over to Italy.  Luckily my first flight is the long one, 9 hours over to Amsterdam, but I just think it's ridiculous that in 2011 we still have to fly for 12 hours to get to Italy.  Hello!  Does anyone else think that maybe the government is hiding technology from us?  Is it really possible that they cannot yet beam us (luggage and all - and just think how much MORE  you could bring if you didn't have to lug it around yourself!) wherever we want to go?  No. Clearly, the airline bigwigs and the scientists are in cahoots.  I'm not sure why yet, but I'm still working on it.

Anyway, I hate the travel to Europe because you get screwed up on your nighttime.  You leave the US in the early afternoon and fly east, so before you know it, it's nighttime.  And then two hours later the sun is coming up.  Well, I get so excited that I usually end up seeing how many movies I can watch in Italian on my way over.  That probably won't happen this time since I'm on KLM, but you never know, the Dutch are pretty high tech, maybe they have a bunch of languages on their flights.

I'm hoping I don't die on my way to Italy, but there will certainly be some sort of near death experience - there always is.  Once is was a nasty case of food poisoning (thanks Chicago O'Hare for serving bad chicken), another time we had to abort a landing and then almost slid off the end of the runway when we did land in Paris during a really bad snow storm.  I'm sure this death defying journey will be no less traumatic.  And who wants to bet I'll either a)have a middle seat or b)get a window seat but next to one of those people who doesn't respect personal space.  There it is, right there.  I bet the reason they haven't released the beam-me-up-Scotty technology yet is because the government is playing big brother and gets a kick out of watching people squirm in airplanes for hours on end.  Maybe they even try to match the naked scanner photos from security to the unhappy squished people in the planes.  I'm pretty sure that's it.

Anyway, Italy here I come.  Prepare yourself, Sicily, it's going to be a good summer.

Clearly I should be queen of the world.....still.....in case there was ever any doubt

Yes, I know this is probably my most recurrent post, but for whatever reason, the world hasn't yet gotten on board.  I'm going to blame it on lack of advertising.  It's not that I think I'm better than anyone else, I just think I'm willing to do it - and do away with the stupidity and ridiculousness that seems to dominate right now.

Today was one of those days that I hate.  First of all, the Texas sky though it was ok to open up and just pee all over me.  Annoying.  Has it not realized this is Texas?  It's supposed to be oppressively hot, not thundery and rainy.  Then I had to wait forever for my lunch.  I am pretty darn serious about food, and I think it's completely unacceptable that I had to wait more than 30 minutes.  Then I had to finish my dissertation revisions, which was fine, but then it was on to formatting.  Listen.  It should be someone's job to just sit around and format dissertations.  For free.  Or maybe graduate schools should come up with a formatting guide that is less than 16 pages.  I'm just saying.

Then I went to copy the dissertation and I got the world's slowest copy machine.  It took 11 minutes per copy.....again, what happened to natural selection?!  And the stupid kinkos people just looked at me like I was crazy.  Uh, maybe you should invest in efficient machines?!  Therefore, I will boycott kinkos of Denton and I encourage you all to join me.  I hate them now.

Now I'm home and nothing good is on TV.  Again, annoying.  Why do we have 500 channels and nothing to watch?  How is that even possible?  And I'd read a book, but I've somehow managed to read three complete books in the last three days and I have that summertime headache you get when your brain realizes you're reading for fun and makes you read super fast and your eyes start spinning and looking like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory treats.  Soon it will pass, but I'm thinking my summertime brain needs to ease into the book a day thing.

So, ladies and gents, vote for me!  Queen of the world!

Hello. My names is Dr. Jessica. You can call me DOCTOR!

It's official I passed!  And I don't even have the 40 million revisions I thought I would.  In fact one committee member didn't actually request any revisions but just gave me some suggestions in case I wanted to move forward with working the dissertation into a book.  I know, I'm awesome.  And really, the other revisions weren't that bad at all.....I can even finish everything before I leave for Italy in two weeks.  

My mother accused me of being "histrionic" the last few days.  Obviously that's not true at all.  If you know me, you know I'm the epitome of cool, calm, and collected.  I don't freak out over anything.  Or maybe I do, but I think this situation warranted a bit of emotion.  Besides, if I'd gone into it thinking I was fine, I probably wouldn't have passed, right?  

I will say though, that the three hours I spent plastering post-it notes all over my dissertation, books, and ntotes to tag every picture and line and quote and sentence that I wanted to highlight might have been a bit much.  (Not to mention hysterical when professor Cervigni handed me his corrections and there were post-its sticking out from every angle.  I thought I just sort of developed that habit, but it turns out I inherited it from him!  I also realized that many of my books are held closed with rubber bands because I've either broken the binding or there are too many post-its to close the book.  That comes from him too!  I'm not sure how he would feel about that but I think he would think it was funny.)  

I didn't even open the Macchiaioli picture book or the primary text at all.  That was a little disappointing but more relieving than anything I think.  I sort of felt bad after, since I had to sweet talk the art librarian into letting me check out a non-circulating/library use only book and then never even used it, but oh well.

So now I can take my first deep breath in about three years and can finally sit and do nothing without feeling guilty or lazy or that annoying little voice in the back of my head saying "Finish your dissertation, finish your dissertation, finish your dissertation!"  And exhale.

A dissertation defense is worse than childbirth

No.....it's not extreme or a dramatic statement.  It's the truth and here's why.

1.  Everyone else is excited except the person who has to do it......but there's not epidural for a dissertation defense!

2.  When you get into trouble, there's always the risk of death, but none of the world's foremost obstetricians are on hand to save the poor PhD student.

3.  While scheduling the defense is a lot like scheduling induction, there's no "oops, you failed, come back in two days and try again."  If I fail, my life is over and I will have to slit my own throat in a display of humiliation on the quad in front of Dey Hall.  And then the Pit Preacher will probably come stand over me and yell at everyone, thumping his bible, and explaining how my sins will never be absolved and obviously I was struck down as an example of the world's gravest sins.  I'm not kidding, that's seriously how that would play out.

4.  When it's over I don't get to take an adorable baby home and play with it and get lots of cute presents and visitors and people bringing food and hand me down clothes.  I get three letters, a ton of revisions, and probably a to do list of about ten things I need to finish by May 15.

5.  I think there's Post Defense Depression.....but no one really knows what to do about it.

Now, I've never actually had a baby, so perhaps I've missed a few things on the whole childbirth thing, but I don't think so.  I'm pretty sure that's how it goes and that my Tuesday defense will be worse that childbirth.  So, please forward all of your positive energy to me in Chapel Hill on Tuesday May 3 at 1pm.  Lord knows I'll need it!

Top 5 most underrated films of my generation

1.  Mannequin - My favorite scene is the one where they're trying on all the different outfits.  My favorites are the piano playing tux and the eighties hair band getup in the stock elevator.

2.  Flashdance - Can we really fault Jennifer Beal for not doing any of her own dancing?  I think not.  I watched this movie so much as a kid that my father mysteriously disposed of the tape so I'd have to find a new movie to obsess about.

3.  The Emperor's New Groove - David Spade, John Goodman, Wendy Malick.  Need I say more?

4.  The Cutting Edge - It's awesome.  That's all.

5.  Daddy Day Care - If you don't like it I think it means you're unamerican.

Some days are super off days in teaching.

And today was one of them.  In my morning classes I was administering a writing workshop and had two separate incidents, both ridiculous.

Incident one included several students walking in up to fifteen minutes late and then being peeved when I cut them off at the same time as the rest of the class.  One student argued parking.  Not my problem.  There are about half as many parking spots as there are people that need them and I always manage to get to class on time to please do me the same courtesy.  The other incident included a student who flat out lied to my face.  I'm not sure if he thinks I'm stupid or that he's more convincing than he actually is.  In any case, don't lie to me.  I almost always know when you are and just because I don't always call you on it doesn't mean I don't see it.  Sometimes I just don't have the energy to point it out to you.

Then in my afternoon class, there was just a whole lot of obviousness that people were not prepared for class.  I actually stopped the class for about twenty minutes, made them leave my room and read.  I know it's the end of the semester and people have a lot going on, but come on.....is it possible that everyone read some things but magically everyone didn't read the same thing?  Don't think I'm so out of touch with reality to think that everyone reads everything I assign before coming to class.  I know that never happens, but it's never happened that every single person neglected to prepare.  With only one week to go, there's a lot of ground to make up next week.

I am going to blame it all on the weather.  Yesterday was 92 with a hail storm in the afternoon and today is cloudy and a high of 66.  So, dearest weather gods, could you please bring back the sun so my students will find their motivation, stop lying to me, and prepare for class.  Thank you.