Tuesday, October 12, 2004
 

Let the Griping Begin!

. . . for it is time for me to post.

Major gripe: I had to get my pic taken for the department website today. This, needless to say, was much against my will. I really would rather not have my ugly mug on the internet. I'd prefer to submit a picture of Alice as a proxy; after all, she's much cuter.

See? Wookit da pwecious bay-bee!


Under her tissue paper, cuddling her favorite toy. Who could resist?

c. elvisettey

Moving on. A fellow student's husband took the pics in black and white, which I'm hoping is more forgiving than color. I generally snarl when a camera gets near me, so being under bright lights was more than a little uncomfortable. In retrospect, I should have taken a little placard with my name on it and done a line-up pose. That's what it felt like, anyway.

Actually, anything this department makes you do generally feels like punishment.

Not that I'm saying that sharing one windowless basement office, with four chairs, with 20 other grad students and the janitorial staff (and roaches and those icky black crickets) makes me feel punished.

It's actually the janitors / maintenance people I feel most sorry for: their breakroom has been taken over. It's not fair to us, but it's less fair to them, because no one gave them an alternative space.

In other news, Alice has been acting like a wild woman these past few days, running around and yowling insanely. She hasn't been like this since before I got her fixed [note: when I found her, her previous owner hadn't bothered to have her spayed, and she went through one phase of heat before I got her to the vet for shots and her "lady surgery"]. I guess it's the change in weather or something, but she's really acting nuts. She runs all over the place, yowling, crashing into furniture, etc. Clearly, she feels fine, because she's a little ball of energy. She also acts like her usual self when I wake up, jumping on me and wanting to be petted, etc. And she did settle down enough to let me hold her a bit early. Crashing noises and random yowling (fortunately, she has a soft voice) are becoming the soundtrack around here, though.

Wrapping up: Read this. It's pretty creative, you have to admit.

Reading: Classic Essays on Photography, Techniques of the Observer, The Reconfigured Eye
Listening: eerie silence from Alice's direction
Current Obsession: must . . . do . . . research project
Alice: needs mental medication more than I do. Which is saying something.

Elvisette philosophized at 10:21 PM