I, Muehlenhaus. U, Riedermaus.

Stuck at Dunn Bros. during office hours. Should be updating the course blog, but I couldn't resist. I have absolutely nothing to say. Or wait...

I received a care package from Australia yesterday full of Mr. Happy t-shirts and stuffed animals. It was stellar!

And oh yeah, I went game binging yesterday too. As far as hobbies go, copying DVDs to build a private library seems so mundane these days. Especially with Netflix letting you rent whatever you want for a buck. So I've switched my extracurricular activity to something legal -- buying old boardgames at thrift stores. Needless to say, Birgit was not overly thrilled at first, but my goal is to have a closet like the one in the "Royal Tenenbaums" -- overflowing with boardgames! Yesterday I scoured two different Half Price bookstores and scored six new games. The best thing about buying used games is how cheap they are. I found a vintage, 1962 Risk game in mint condition. It has a whale wearing a sailor's hat on the board! Brilliant! I found a 1958 Stratego too! All of this during the day while others were working for a living...

Ha! Okay back to my course.


Oh yeah, I also found this odd one!

I passed my oral preliminary exam on September 14th. It was not nearly as excruciating as I had anticipated, thankfully. In fact, it was really quite enlightening and fun. My committee and I brainstormed most of the session and then I answered a few questions at the end. However, the stress going into it was draining, and the end result required that I redo my proposal almost completely.

Still, to be done and ABD, an official Ph.D. Candidate... it feels great! I've kind of been possessed since then, working non-stop on my dissertation and making myself put in at least four hours a day working on it. Weekends are no exception. Sure, I take a day off to play Madden football or Thurn and Taxis online, but then I end up working twelve hours on it the next day. It feels great to have one project to work on. No seminar papers. No preliminary tests to read for. Just my own little book to write.

Stellar!

Labels: ABD

The strike has ended after nearly three weeks, just as everyone knew it would. The pay raise likely doesn't offset the loss in income, but I really am glad the clerical staff is getting more money over the long haul. They are probably the only group on campus worth their money anyway. The rest of us are overpaid nerds and geeks. (I did say that.)

I still think hunger striking over something as ridiculous as a 1% pay raise is tantamount to having a Jesus complex, but nonetheless, I am happy none of my peers starved to death. Grad school life would be boring without their antics.

The weekend is here. Time to hit the proposal full force now. I am revamping it. It is becoming clear. I am becoming happy with it.

Labels: strike mental maps from years ago

I am not going to say anything about the strike, because if I say anything I will certainly tick off somebody, and I'm getting too old to collect new enemies. Hell, I'm still trying to shake all of the old ones I have accumulated, starting back in first grade when I switched from the Howard Gnesen club to the Marxhausen Club and was instantly ostracized by the kids that claimed Hartley Field as their stomping grounds. I still shudder whenever I drive by that patch of mosquito infested swamp back in hills of Greater Duluth.

So I am not going to say that the Hunger Strike is completely demeaning of hunger strikes. I am not going to say that I think the graduate students and others who are on Hunger Strike are a bunch of egotistical, self-righteous attention addicts. I am not going to say that several students in my department seem to have a Jesus complex, and that I wouldn't put it past them to light themselves on fire over something as mundane as the closing of their favorite Marxist bookstore, if they believed it would get them attention as completely selfless individuals, which of course they obviously are not. I am not going to say that I am extremely glad I stood my ground and was not for grad student unionization, or I am sure that we would have been on strike now for no reason other than the same grad students that are up in arms right now about another union's strike would love to strike themselves. And finally, I am not going to say that I find it really ridiculous that some of the most acerbic, condescending, and all around snobby, Gucci-Marxist professors and grad students that I have witnessed first-hand treating our clerical staff like undeserving serfs are the ones that are now on the front line of this injustice. If the Snobs for Striking contingent would just start interacting with our university staff in a humane and friendly manner on a regular basis, and stop hyperventilating about themselves like a troupe of narcissists, the staff wouldn't mind getting paid so little, because their jobs would be so much more pleasant. But I'm not going to say that. And I didn't.

Ugh.

I can't wait to graduate. I fear the Social Science Tower is actually bedlam. Someone should probably lock us all in there and throw away the key. Even though I don't see myself as half as bad as some of my grad school colleagues, I probably am and deserve to be locked up too!

But I didn't say that; so don't even try it.

Labels: university of minnesota afscme strike