It’s not that my time at college has sapped me of my love for history, or that I don’t think I could do the work to get the other degrees. I still love the subject, and, not to pat my own back, but I think I would excel in graduate school. Rather, it’s that I’m afraid that there’s a very good possibility that I could spend 5-7 more years in school and end up not being able to find a tenure track position – and quite frankly, I don’t really have any great desire to join the droves of unemployed PhD holders.

Then again, it’s what I really want to do, or at least think I want to do. I’ve enjoyed the academic setting, the learning, the sharing of ideas. I’m worried about jobs later on down the road, yes, but I’m also fairly positive that if I don’t at least have a go at “The Plan,” twenty years from now, I’m going to be kicking myself.

I suppose I’m basically just waffling here. I know what I want to do, and I’ve known it since basically day one of college. But now that push is coming to shove, I’m (naturally?) having doubts. Friends and family that I’ve spoken to have all urged me to go for it; now if I could just convince myself that it’s what I should do.

I watched Farscape years ago when it was first aired, but I’m fairly positive I didn’t see all of the episodes. What I did see, I’ve completely forgotten, so I’m looking forward to watching it again. It should be interesting for another reason: I’m about halfway through season 8 of Stargate SG-1. Assuming I start Farscape shortly after I get it, I’ll soon be watching Ben Browder and Claudia Black switch back and forth between their Farscape and SG-1 roles. Whether mass confusion will ensue, we’ll see.

It’s been a rough one. While I’ve always been busy to some degree during college, this semester had me swamped all the time. Through a weird bit of Unglück (bad luck), I ended up in classes which all had heavy writing workloads. It’s truly been a case of finish one paper, start two more. The papers are thankfully done, though, so I can breathe a sigh of relief about that.

I’m looking forward to being able to, you know, do things other than read, write, and study. I’ll be reading some more books, certainly, but books that weren’t assigned to me. And I’ll be watching Stargate. And doing other things that are relatively mindless in comparison to what I’ve been doing lately.

(Oh, and yes, I’m aware of the irony of celebrating being done with writing papers by writing a blog post. I’m a strange creature.)

The tracking information shows that it was delivered yesterday morning, but I was gone until around 3PM. I got the regular mail, and figured that the package just hadn’t arrived yet – it wasn’t even supposed to be here until the 27th. It was only later in the evening that I checked out the tracking, and was informed that the item I hadn’t found on my porch had been delivered. Oops.

I called the post office, and they weren’t a great deal of help. Essentially: “It was delivered. Sorry for your luck.” I didn’t expect much more than that (they did do their part, after all), but the lady I spoke to could have been a little sympathetic, no? Amazon, as usual, seems to be willing to bend over backwards to achieve customer satisfaction. They told me that if the post office doesn’t come up with the package, they’ll send me another one with overnight shipping. While I do want my backpack, I’m going to feel pretty weird / bad about accepting the replacement. Amazon did their part – they shipped the item to me, and it even arrived ahead of time. Why should they eat the cost of another one because some asshat stole the box from my porch?

Update: I assumed right away that the box was delivered to my house and then stolen from my porch, but after thinking on it some more, I’m not sure that’s the case. It may have actually been delivered somewhere else. The tracking shows that it was delivered at 9:11AM, but our mail never runs that early. Usually it’s in the early to mid-afternoon when stuff shows up. That, and I was still home at 9:11 – not for long, as I had class at 10, but I was in the house, and I heard no knocking, etc.

It drives me nuts when I see graffiti and I can’t even decipher the letters.

Comic is by The Rut.

The single double edge blades are a fraction of the price, and do a fine job. As there’s only one blade, there’s really nowhere for hair to get stuck constantly, and anyone who’s ever used a razor with multiple blades knows that they love to become jam-packed with little hairs. Oh, and did I mention that the blades are ultra-cheap? Well, it’s worth mentioning twice.

When I first started using the safety razor, I was worried I was going to butcher myself. I was surprised to find that the only nicks I got during the first shave were, ironically, on razor burn spots from previous shaves. I’m still occasionally cutting myself with the safety razor, but certainly no more than I did with the “superior” razors, and razor burn has mostly disappeared.

In short: All of us have been had. We don’t need some aerodynamic, 23-bladed razor from the future to get a decent shave. Just get a safety razor and learn how to use it, which shouldn’t take more than 5 or 10 minutes (there are plenty of guides online).

But no, I’m not quite ready to get a straight razor just yet…

Jokes aside, I hate it that I’ve not posted anything in such a long time. Life has been a cruel mistress to me as of late – very cruel. I’m not going to go into details right here, right now – maybe never, really – but suffice to say, I’ve had enough real life issues on my mind that blogging didn’t even register as a single blip on my radar.

As of right now, I’m not sure if I’m going to keep this blog running or not. Time will tell one way or another. Whatever I decide, it won’t be another month and a half until my next post…

The pain during the day isn’t too bad at all, unless I do something stupid (like sit in front of the computer for too long).

I don’t really recall how I “fixed” this problem when I had it last August. I know I used ice packs on my wrist, and was regularly taking anti-inflammatory medicine. But if I recall correctly, it mostly just sorted itself out once I backed off the computer usage. So, that’s more or less what I’m doing now: less computer time,� ice, Advil. I did find one new trick at this page on RSI treatment: hot / cold baths on my wrist, alternating between the two temperatures every 1 minute for 10 minutes. I’m also trying to correct how I hold my wrists while sleeping (palms against my sides instead of my thumbs), but I’m not entirely sure how to do this successfully. I can be in whatever position I want while still awake, but I tend to move around a bit once I fall asleep.

Oh, and one other thing. Cas, I know you’ll leap into the comments demanding to know why, if I’m having trouble with RSI, I’m writing this blog post. And to that I say: I’m using my little Acer Aspire One, which, due to how sensitive the keyboard is, doesn’t seem to bother my wrists much. It’s the desktop keyboards that tend to make my left hand numb within 20 minutes. So nyah!

So what is my deal? Meh; I don’t know. I’ve been busy doing other things lately, and my blog has been pushed into a dusty corner. I’ve been busy with language learning, where my list of target languages has grown rather large – perhaps unbearably large. As of right now, I’m actively studying German, Russian, French, and Spanish. Oh, and I have materials on the way for Dutch, as it seems like a pretty easy target knowing English and German.

I’ve been gardening a bit (gardening, great gods), and quite enjoying it. Not only is it relaxing, the fruits of it shall be wonderful on homemade club sandwiches (we’re growing tomatoes, among other things). The one thing I’m not so fond of: the bits of dirt that I can’t get out from my hands. Scrub as I might, I can’t get it out.

I’m still chugging along with No-S and shovelglove. I had to climb back onto the No-S wagon after falling off of it during holidays, but I’m back on now and holding on for dear life. Shovelglove never fell off my radar, and I’m actually considering upgrading my sledgehammer to a slightly heavier version. While I still break a sweat, my arms are no longer burning by the time I’m done; I daresay swinging the hammer around has become routine. That’s a Good Thing (TM), but I think I need to kick it up a notch (two T.V. star phrases in one sentence, that must be worth a gold star or something).

While shovelgloving, I generally watch a bit of a Stargate SG-1 episode; sometimes only 15 minutes, but sometimes I go ahead and finish the episode when I’m done exercising. With such a steady rate, I’m now up to episode 4 of Season 6. Just over halfway to the end; when I’m done with it, I’m going to be rather sad. Shovelgloving and SG-1 are like peanut butter and jelly for me at this point…

I guess all of that was a roundabout way of saying: I have plenty to blog about, I’m just not doing it. I’ve been too busy doing the whole, um, life thing to blog about it. But I do miss doing so. I may try a post schedule, say 3 posts a week, or something like that. Cas went for a daily post, Monday through Friday, but I know I wouldn’t stick to such a thing, so I won’t even bother attempting it. Maybe I’ll even take a look at some memes; I used to do Friday’s Feast (which is either dead or just not working right now).

Quick, someone motivate me!