Awkward and Awesomes!

So, you know.

It's kind of been one of those weeks. The ones where by Thursday you just want to lay down on the floor next to a used kleenex and have someone throw their dirty t-shirt on you.

Awkward
-Having to explain to people that the reason I am not on Spring Break is because I am in fact, not a student. Yes, I work at a university. Yes, full time. Yes, I graduated. Yes, I am older than 21. Again, not a student.

-I very rarely get up the courage to play my Glee Pandora station at work, as there seem to be pockets of quiet that extend all the way down the hallway into everyone else's office, and though I want Darren Criss's cover of 'Teenage Dream' to be a part of my work day, I'm not so sure they do. However, this past week my office has been a wasteland, so when I found myself alone at the front yesterday, I decided to go for it. I made it through one particularly long rendition of 'Defying Gravity' (Rachel & Kurt's version) before a professor walked in and started asking me a bunch of questions. He did his best to ignore the underscore of a 'A Whole New World', but did let me know that his toddler 'loves that movie' when he left. I am the most grown up of all the grown ups.

-The past two episodes of Once Upon a Time. Ok, all of Once Upon a Time. I love this show. I really do- and not just because I am its target audience so I have been culturally conditioned to love this show from a young age. But, the dialogue. THE DIALOGUE.

Teetering on the brink between Awkward and Awesome:
 -Craigslist, now and forever. I found a listing yesterday for a woman selling a "SASSY red table", which turned out to be a very broken picnic table she had spray painted red and wants you to put in your child's bedroom. Sassy!? Seriously? Broken shards of wood should never be used synonymously with sassy. Unless of course you are discussing Lolita, in which case-- sure.

Another favorite listing this week was for a "Beautiful Vintage 80's Chair", which was in fact an oversized pink floral patterned arm chair with lots of stains and tears, and a big cat plopped down in the middle of the seat. Ok, listen: I'm not sure anything from the 80's counts as vintage. Or beautiful for that matter. And of all the adjectives you could use to describe an oversized pink floral patterened arm chair, did 'comfy' or 'large' not enter your mind? Even 'sassy' would have worked better here.

Awesome
-Mexican Martini's from Trudy's. I am usually a wine and beer type girl, but goodness gracious those things are incredible. Word to the wise: Do not go to Mexico and order a Mexican Martini. They will just bring you a regular martini. Mexican Martini's are a Tex Mex Austin creation. Or at least, that what we claim... so it's probably true.

-The Walking Dead. I have not had mind blowing television in my life since Lost, and sometimes I think Lost just blew your mind by stockpiling secret mystery intrique plot lines and then revealing them so very very slowly that your mind had no choice to be blown. But slow moving farmer Zombies? Apocalyptic discourses on the nature of man? Unhinged regular joe's trying to kill other regular joe's in cold blood? I can't get enough of it.
 
-Speaking of Zombies (and I usually am), I need this t-shirt in my wardrobe. I am not generally an ironic T-shirt wearer, but I could change (change in this context meaning 'change my mind' and not 'change into a Zombie').

-I enjoyed a 13 minute commute to work this morning instead of a 35 minute one thanks to the grand departure of 50,000 students from the UT Campus. Thank you, Spring Break.

-The absolutely heavenly bouquet of lillies that has been sitting on my desk for over two weeks now. I can smell them the minute I walk in the building.

Thank Goodness It's Friday...

A subtotal poem for today:

Minutes spent in the car (so far): 40 (30 minutes to work, five to Thai Kitchen for lunch, five home)

Minutes spent in the car singing along to the same four songs on the Wicked soundtrack: 38 (I needed two minutes to warm my vocal cords)

Copies made: 210

Staples dispensed into said copies: 100 (some were single sheets)

Times said ‘hi there, how are ya?’: 5604  5605

Drinks drank containing caffeine: 5 (2 cups of coffee, 2 cups of tea, 1 diet coke)  

Drinks drank not containing caffeine: 0

Emails sent: 17

Texts sent: 6

Minutes spent thinking about that Kristen Bell clip from the Ellen Show where she cries when Dax Shepherd surprises her with a sloth for her birthday: 30 (at least)

Minutes of genuine productivity: 240 (my *morning* was at least very productive)

Times my Arcade Fire Pandora station has played Winter Winds by Mumford and Sons: 5 (really, Pandora?)

New things learned: 2 (1- Cornucopia delivers (does life get any better than specialty popcorn at your front door?); 2—something weird I heard on the audio book I’m listening to that was not appropriate for me to know, and definitely not appropriate for me to share, but it was new and vaguely educational all the same)).

Invoices checked over for food deliveries next week: 7 (v. v. excited for next week)

Today I also had perhaps the most delightful exchange with a professor I have ever had, which is really saying something considering that I once had a professor tell me in broken English in front of a room full of people that he would marry me if he were thirty years younger (and not already married).

Maybe I don’t have my PhD, but I can make a copy. Or ten copies. Or 175 double sided stapled copies from a packet of mixed single sided and double sided sheets. I can also load paper into the copier, clear a jam, insert a new toner cartridge, AND turn the power switch off… not to mention on. Now, this isn’t to say that I haven’t had my fair share of copier troubles in the past—I’ve wasted entire afternoons at the mercy of those wretched things, sorting out misplaced staples and errant print jobs and tricky full body paper jams.  But for some reason, the copy machine is the medium by which all academics can be broken. Sometimes the gap between administrator and innovator feels insurmountable… and then, I catch some TA trying to make a copy by sticking the paper in the output tray and pressing the start button over and over again. And seriously, THANK GOODNESS FOR THESE MOMENTS. I have very few opportunities to feel like a smarty pants working for a group of high powered intellectuals who get paid to act like high powered intellectuals.

Today, a very sweet tenured professor asked me to show him how to make a single copy. My brief lesson was peppered with “Now slow down! You are going too fast!” and “Brilliant! Brilliant!” and “Look at you go, aren‘t young people magnificent? Just look at you go!”

Who, me? Magnificent? Brilliant? Why, thank you!  

And just because it is too funny not to share:

Kristen Bell and I need to be friends.

Ok, Friday down: Bring on the weekend!

"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one." - Dr. Suess

Today, I wish I was wearing this:









 ... unless of course she's naked. She's not naked, right? I don't want that. It's the mask I like.

while doing this:

or this:

 or making this:

... instead of going to work and then to the dentist.

However, I did receive this message from Gmail after finally opening all of the mail that's been sitting in my inbox for well.. a long time:

"Woohoo! You've read all the messages in your inbox."

I'll take it!