Daily Newsie

The day has finally arrived: I’m moving out of 11A. I figured I’d take a moment to savor my nutritious McDonald’s breakfast sammich and reflect on my two-and-a-half years in this place. It’s seen dinner parties on the living room floor, a three-week roommate who slept on the futon, visits from old friends, visits from new friends and a smattering of boyfriends that finally culminated with the one who’s sitting back-to-back with me now, tapping on his keyboard as I tap on mine. We’ve outgrown our little one-bedroom nest, and now it’s time to move into a bigger one with a dishwasher and a balcony. But I’ll miss 11A, my safe haven after the dissolution of my last cohabiting relationship. I moved in with my meager items and — helped along by friends — have turned these three rooms into a home.

So goodbye, 11A. If your walls could speak, I’d be in a whole lot of trouble.

I just tried to write my married name at the top of my homework paper to see what it felt like. This has been a hot issue in the months leading up to the wedding — I’m just not sure how I feel about abandoning the last name I’ve had for 26 years. I like it. It’s my name, and it’s how everyone knows me. I refuse to hyphenate, nor do I want to make my initials R.A.W. by using my maiden name as my middle name. Besides, I like my existing middle name, and four initials is just too much.

So what to do? I want to take The Fiance’s last name because I love him and I want us to share a name, but I have always liked my name the way it is (good job, Daddy). I think I may use my middle name and his last name in every situation except in school, because I would really like to be recognized as “DailyNewsie MaidenName MarriedName” at my graduation next year. The Fiance’ says people will know me regardless of the name I use, which is true, but it’s more a matter of letting go of the rest of my family, almost. As my father’s only daughter, I’ll be the only one in my family without our last name. How will people know I belong to them?

I have a bit more than five months to decide. Thoughts?

For those of you not “in the know,” The Fiance’ and I are mulling a transatlantic move possibly as soon as next year, when my master’s degree is safe in my grubby little hand. He has always wanted to live in London, and I can’t say I hate the idea of living in a rowhouse with windowboxes in some quaint village called Richmond-Upon-Thames with a British dog who barks with an accent and is named Sir Reginald Twaddingsley Featherbotham the Third. However, upon closer inspection of the websites of a handful of London universities (one of which has a residence hall named Batavia Mews, which I love), there is nary a PhD in communication in sight. In fact, there is hardly a PhD at all, unless you want to study something scientific and therefore horridly boring and difficult. I may be looking in the wrong place — thank heavens these pages are in English — so I’m not panicking yet, but there may be full-blown panic later if I can’t figure out a way to somehow continue my education. As frustrating as graduate school is, I’m not done learning and I have the feeling I won’t be for quite some time.

Speaking of graduate school, I’ve been eating a lot of junk food to make up for the fact that I got a bad grade on my family communication midterm. I was just starting to enjoy that class, too. OK, so the grade isn’t horrible, but it isn’t an A and it dragged the class average down and I’m just going to go out back and die. The receipt of that grade sufficiently knocked down my ego after I received a fabulous grade on my liveblogged literature review — from my favorite professor, no less! — and her unsolicited assurances that I did a bang-up job. Maybe I should have knocked out my midterm in eight hours rather than spending several nights poring over my textbooks — or maybe I should have liveblogged it. I bet you’re all upset you missed that one.

I do enjoy being a graduate student, if only for the fact that now I have a reason to stay in on Saturday night rather than pure laziness. Seriously — if I wasn’t studying, The Fiance’ and I would be sitting here back-to-back at our respective computers, him blowing up aliens or some such and me blogging or ordering around my Sims. As soon as the semester is over, I’m instituting a one-day-a-week ban on video games so we can actually go out and do something, like use the custom bowling balls we bought ourselves as a Christmas present and which are currently gathering dust in the living room because then the semester started. We’re moving sort-of downtown to a new apartment complex (two bedrooms, a dishwasher and a private balcony!) next weekend and I can’t wait to be able to walk to places like the grocery store, downtown, and the ice cream parlor.

Especially the ice cream parlor. You never know when a bad grade will pop up next.

Last night, I was fretting because being married forever and ever means you’re eventually going to have to see the other person throw up, and I really don’t think I could handle that sort of thing.

I had to laugh bitterly to myself this afternoon as I slumped miserably on the bathroom floor, hoping my stomach’s spectacular fireworks show (sponsored by Rafferty’s nachos, apparently) would cease before The Fiance’ came home. I haven’t thrown up in more than three years, and it figures it would happen the day after I informed The Fiance’ I wouldn’t kiss him again if he ever threw up, unless maybe a year or so had elapsed. Wouldn’t you know, he not only stopped at Kroger for stomach-friendly beverages and made me chicken-corn soup from scratch, he also kissed me mere hours after everything calmed down.

He may be too good for me. I won’t tell if you won’t.

In honor of the fact that a very fat robin was hopping around in the grass as I came down the sidewalk this afternoon, I present to you “Robin in the Rain,” a Raffi song that my mother would sing when springtime came around. It should also be noted that Raffi’s “Singable Songs for the Very Young” also included the DailyNewsie family favorites “Spider on the Floor” and “Bumping Up and Down (in my Little Red Wagon).”

Between that cassette and our Disney record, it’s a wonder my parents didn’t go absolutely insane.

Happy Spring!

Today I was thinking about whether I should have a will. I thought about my car, my computer, my television — the three most expensive things I own — and couldn’t imagine anyone fighting over my banged-up Saturn. My bank account more often than not has less than $100 in it, and the only thing anyone stands to inherit, really, is a whole lot of debt.

But then I thought about Bearby, who’s been my nearly-constant companion for 23 or so years. Legend has it he came from the Green Stamp Store, although I’m not really sure because his tag has long since faded, frayed and fallen off. When I was little he tagged along with me everywhere. I can still remember moments of great distress when we were separated, like when my aunt used him as a pillow or one of my many baby cousins chewed on his nose. Our longest separation was four months: I left him with an ex-boyfriend in the States while I spent my semester abroad in Germany, a generous gesture that was basically the stupidest decision I ever made. (I thought Bearby would like to see Korea, which is where the ex was headed that summer. The ex almost lost him, a thought that still, six years later, makes me sick to my stomach.)

This raggedy old brown bear has been all over Europe with his head and arms poking out of my bag so he could see the sights; he sat in my lap during my senior pictures; he’s traveled to New York City and beyond in my arms; and he once played the Baby Jesus in a homemade nativity play staged by my older brother and me. Ever since I was small, I’ve believed he was alive. Even now, I make sure he’s placed comfortably on a pillow when I leave for work, the comforter tucked to his chin if it’s cold outside. When I die, I don’t want him in my coffin with me — I want him somewhere bright, surrounded by love and happiness.

It may seem silly or stupid for a 26-year-old to carry around a stuffed bear (who received a thorough cleaning and re-stuffing from The Fiance’ last year), but I don’t care. I can’t sleep without him. He’s a bit of familiarity no matter where I am; he’s a friend who’s absorbed my tears and listened to my rants. I collected teddy bears for many years, but he was always my number one.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this entry except to say that thinking about my last will and testament got me thinking about my bear and all the things he’s seen with those unblinking brown eyes. Whomever gets him after I die better take good care of him, because I’m not opposed to pulling some sort of Poltergeist voodoo in the afterlife.

To keep myself from going insane, I have decided to liveblog my Organizational Rhetoric literature review this afternoon. It’s due at noon tomorrow, and while I have the critical problem statement (read: what the whole thing is about) down pat, I have yet to delve into the actual literature review part of it. I’m writing about my alma mater’s decision to cut the football program for budgetary reasons, and analyzing the university president’s rhetoric using my professor’s reconceptualization of organizational apologia. Basically, it means I’m barfing up 25 pages on whether the president’s speeches were effective in restoring the university’s image following this mini-crisis.

I only need 8-10 pages for the lit review. So far, not counting my eighty bajillion references, I have three. Here goes:

3:06 p.m.: My critical problem statement just spilled over onto the third page. I made sure to write up my references first, so the paper always looks two pages longer than it really is. I may write everything in single-space format as well so that I’ll be pleasantly surprised when I change it to double-spaced. Enlarging the font is not allowed here: it’s 11-point Arial or bust. Sorry, Courier New. You’re not needed here.

I’m going to make some coffee.

3:29 p.m.: The coffee is perking, tonight’s dinner is defrosting on the stovetop, and The Fiance’ has agreed to do the dishes in exchange for BBQ chicken, rice and green beans. My classmates and I are commiserating about the assignment on Facebook, and I am content in the knowledge that at least one of them hasn’t even started it yet. See, I’m light years ahead of everyone!

4:21 p.m.: I am stuck. After the critical problem statement, I have exactly one line under the heading of “image restoration and organizational apologia,” and even that one line sucks bad. I don’t know why this is so hard — I know Benoit’s five image restoration strategies inside and out, and I still can’t form a coherent sentence. Do I need a change of venue? A study break? Some BBQ chicken? A lobotomy?

Graduate school is hard, y’all.

6:01 p.m.: Yes. I am about to crack page five, and things are breezing along like no one’s business. I keep telling myself that we’re handing in the literature review midway through the semester so Dr. J. can give us suggestions to improve the final version, so of course no one expects it to be perfect. It is, however, one-eighth of our final score, and so far the only class in which I’ve received a B is Dr. J.’s Comm Theory, so it’s not like I can slack off. Ugh. My coffee is cold and I still have a lot of work to do.

7:05 p.m.: Holding steady at five-and-a-half pages, but I still have two or three more articles to discuss and I just had a major breakthrough regarding my critical problem statement and why this research is going to fill a void in the communication world. Dinner time!

9:01 p.m.: Time for the third Diet Pepsi of the day and a final push to get this sucker to the eight-page mark. I would love to finish it tonight and then spend tomorrow working on my Family Communication midterm, but we’ll see how that goes …

10:25 p.m.: Success! (Kind of.) All my lit review needs now is a snappy intro to Ware and Linkugel’s (1973) treatise on organizational apologia and I am set! Since my brain has ceased to function correctly after seven hours on the job, I’m going to call it a night and just make sure I’m up early enough to make corrections and polish the whole thing in the morning.  Goodnight!

I’m sitting here in the university library, taking a quick mental health break from writing a literature review for my favorite class. The topic is image repair; more specifically, the image repair of the president of my alma mater after she cut the university’s football program to save money. It’s not nearly as salacious as I hoped, but it’s a topic that’s interesting to me and shouldn’t be too much of a burden to turn into a 25-page paper.

I just e-mailed the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, a publication that’s little more than a PR rag for the university (my alma mater’s journalism program was pathetic, to say the least), and asked for back issues of the paper dealing with this issue, and it got me waxing nostalgic about my days as EIC. I’ve already decided to throw in an extra $30 or so when I send him a check for shipping (if he agrees to send along the copies) so the reporting and editing staff can have a pizza party on me — it’s the least I can do for how much fun that place was. Looking back, I cringe at what passed for “journalism,” but we really did have a great time.

Sitting at my elbow are a stack of documents about the football program, about the university, about the reactions of students when they heard the team was no more. It’s got me thinking about my undergraduate days, when eating entire pints of Ben & Jerry’s at 3 a.m. in the newspaper office was perfectly acceptable, when “studying” meant my best friend and I made up subject-appropriate lyrics to her 80’s mix CD, when returning home after a night out involved practically crawling up the hill that separated campus from the only bar in town. Everything was so much less complicated then — and I know everyone always says that, but it really was.

Now I don’t have anyone knocking on my door at midnight to drag me out to a party. My best friend lives 12 hours away, and I can’t drive home on the weekends anymore. I can’t blow off studying because I want to graduate with honors, and I can’t absorb communication theory by singing along with Devo. In some ways, I wish I was still the carefree girl who called her boss “dude” and thought life revolved around Instant Messenger, but I know those days are gone forever. Life’s pretty good the way it is now, but every now and then I think … I wish I were 21 again.