earthquake weather

I got my dissertation chapter draft back with comments in the mail. The envelope came on Friday, and I took my time getting the mail. I knew it had come in the late morning, but I didn't bring it up until late evening. Right when I opened the mail box I could see the big envelope. No escaping now, it is here. But wait, just because it is here doesn't mean I have to open the envelope....

I put it at the bottom of my pile of mail and didn't open it until today. I was afraid to open it. Even though my committee chair sent me a very nice e-mail telling me it was an excellent start. She also mentioned that she was quite hard on it, so there are quite a few comments. I got scared when it actually came. I got anxious. What if it says "this entire argument is based on flawed logic?"

And you know what? I opened it. I survived. The comments were great, exactly what I needed in order to move forward. I used to wish for responses like "this is perfect, no need to change a thing." but those comments aren't really helpful if you ever plan to present or publish your work. Someone is going to pose hard questions and I'd much rather it be someone editing my draft than a trustafarian asshole in mandals and a scarf at a conference.

So now I gotta move forward. I think I'm off to a great start. I'm feeling so well-adjusted today, which is odd. I hope I don't have a nervous breakdown or something. Maybe it's like "earthquake weather." There's no way to tell an earthquake is coming, but people like to believe that a weird weather shift (like dry heat after a cool, windy week) is an indicator that an earthquake is on the horizon. It's kind of paranoid, really. Like believing that things are going well, so some kind of horrible thing is bound to happen any minute now. Well, that's how well I received the comments. I was like, "oh good, I was wondering if I was making sense. I should totally revise that paragraph." I hope I can ride this wave. Or if I can't, I hope I take it out on slacker students and not my family.

Slacker students beware!

Everything Went Shaky Shaky

Today was the first day this summer that I felt inclined to go to campus and collect the stuff that had accumulated in my part-time faculty office cubicle (see my mess above). The department admin. asst. sent us all an email telling us to clean it out before the end of the week because we are all going to be shuttled over to some other office. It happens every semester. I am a gal without a permanent office. It is the major complaint of part-time (or as I like to think of it, adjunct) faculty. One day in all of the summer that I trek out to campus and what happens? Oh yeah, an earthquake! Centered like 10 miles away. I was in an elevator when it happened, holding a big box of papers for shredding. I thought we were plummeting, but when I got out of the elevator, which opened its doors mid-quake, it looked like everyone on the floor had experienced something as well. The building was retrofitted, so it continued to sway for a minute or so. Yikes! People filed out of buildings, alarms went off, it was a big mess.

The phone lines were jammed, but when I found out it was centered in Chino, I called my family anyway. I know that Corona is very close to Chino and I had to make sure my stepdad was ok. He's wheelchair bound, so I hoped all was well. Once I found out he was ok, I could breathe easier. In my haste to get home and check on my puppy, I locked my keys in my trunk. God, I'm such a spaz. Luckily, AAA came quickly and I hurried my ass home. My pup was frightened, as I had expected.
Only one casualty in my apartment, a beautiful glass polka dot vase that we got as a wedding gift. Smashed to pieces. I loved that vase. Damn. By the time I got home and called everyone I know, I got a text message from my university telling me that classes were canceled, which generally means there was some damage somewhere. I'm glad I walked away unscathed.

When I knew everyone was ok, my thoughts turned to Dr. Kate Hutton, the earthquake lady. She's a CalTech seismologist that is on the news whenever there's anl earthquake. For as long as I can remember, she's been on my television right after a quake. My friend Brande and I had discussed this a little over a month ago. We looked up her Wikipedia entry and saw that she was described as a "lesbian icon" who has been out since 1984. Both of us were very impressed with her "icon" status. I wish I were an icon of something. Anyway, since we just talked about her not long ago, we sent dueling text messages to each other, not saying "Hey are you OK?" or "did you feel that?" but "I bet Kate Hutton's on tv right now!" Hope everyone reading this is doing well and didn't lose anything important in the quake.

Dr. Kate Hutton, Cal Tech Seismologist