I am teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 a.m. -- and I am so excited! I've only taught MWF because they were only 50 minute sessions, and I thought, since I didn't really know what I was doing, that it'd be easier to fill 50 minutes than to fill an hour and 15 minutes. While I usually ran out of time on MWFs, yesterday's class felt so... roomy. It was awesome. Even more awesome? My students are actually awake and engaged at 8 a.m. I was duly impressed. I love them already. They have good sense of humors and were quick to giggle. Always a good sign.

But I lost a button on my new dress yesterday--and I asked the class to quickly look for it on the ground (it wasn't there)! I went to a sample sale on December 23rd with my mom, and I bought a couple dresses there (plus three shirts I had seen at Hot Topic 6 months ago and desperately wanted, but for which I wasn't willing to pay $22--$10 is so much better than $22). I am bummed because the dress (the one that lost the button) is a cool '60s Britain mod style that looks awesome with my new pirate boots and my new haircut.

Oh yeah, I chopped off my hair. (I had a picture up here, but I decided to take it down--in order to keep the mystique, but mostly to keep the weirdo stalkers at bay--because I have no idea if that weird "psychiatrist" is obsessed with my blog to the point of coming to L.A. to kill me. Can't be too careful. Too paranoid, yes. Too careful, nah.)

I love my haircut. When the hair stylist went to make the first cut she said, "I'm cutting off like 6-8 inches here." And I said, "Don't worry. I'm not gonna cry. There will be no tears here." I've been wanting to cut my hair short for about ten years, but my mom convinced me that I wouldn't look good with short hair. But there was a point when I had hair past my butt, and when any person's hair starts getting stuck in car doors when they go to sit down and close the door--their hair is too long, 'mkay?

I'm thinking that if I finally had the courage to chop off my hair, and I ended up insanely happy with the product, then maybe it's time for the tattoo that I've been wanting for the last 8 years...

In other academic news, I sent in an abstract to a CFP (call for papers) and I am presenting my paper on women and manga (more specifically on Blue by Kiriko Nananan) at the AEGS Text/ure conference. I have never gone to a conference before, let alone presented. So I'm really nervous, but in a good way.

And I'm actually excited about my literature class this semester (Japanese literature)--because it's something I want to learn about, as opposed to selecting the lesser of all evils in terms of literature courses, which is usually how I feel about classes (which is a shame because when I was an undergrad, I couldn't get enough literature classes--I loved them all, but the undergrad courses were content/lecture based and I felt like I was learning, the graduate lit courses are more discussion based, and I don't feel like I learn as much). But then again, I was excited about my Women & Popular Culture class last term, too, and that turned out to be a bust. The only good thing that came out of that class was meeting cool people in the English department. Well, and I guess I did write the first draft of the paper that got accepted for the AEGS conference in that class, which is a subject I probably wouldn't have explored otherwise... so maybe two good things.

Anyway, the semester is off to a good start. Here's hoping.

Labels: aegs, conference, schedule, teaching

( 2comments )

at January 10, 2007 9:36 PM  Anonymous said...

Well, I hope this semester goes better for you!

.... and for those of you reading this comment, her hair ROCKS!

 

at January 14, 2007 9:47 AM  Anonymous said...

I agree! Her hair rocks!

(My hair rocks too. We had a girl date and got our hair cut on the same day.)