Monsterquest!

My buddy has been gracious enough to let me live with him for free this summer. He has cable, which means I have access to my two favorite shows: Monsterquest and Knife Show.

Monsterquest, a program, oddly enough, of the history channel, features teams of crack scientists, intrepid adventurers, and crytpozoological enthusiasts bravely fighting the so-called consensus of the "scientific community" that monsters do not exist. Monsters is a facetious term here. We are of course referring to cryptids...not magical or supernatural creatures, but rather heretofore undocumented animals whose existence has been reported by eye witnesses, both ancient and modern. Sadly, the impressive expertise assembled on these teams has yet...YET...to capture so-called "proof" that these creatures exist. Nevertheless, clearly, undocumented bi-pedal primates have a long history of stinking and walking across roads in North America, and there to deny their reality is as foolish as denying the existence of Jesus. Hello! Eye witnesses?!?! Who would you believe...some machine that "tests" "DNA," or a person, just like you or me, who is dedicated to spending their unemployment checks on camo and internet-purchased Sasquatch musk? I just hope they don't give up. Maybe one more night with the night-vision camera will finally provide the cynical world with the proof it's sad, wonderless minds require.

(the current offer on Knife show is a sword-cane with a fake gun for a handle...cost: $22.50. I'm not sure I understand this product conceptually).

resume

This blog has been on life-support for the past year. Doing a PhD is hard, and I ran out of stuff to say, and really nothing very interesting was happening in my life. I'll try to start posting more frequently now that i'm totally unemployed.

So, i'm about to move to Chicago to live off my friend's largesse for the summer. I'm at a serious crossroads...keep doing this PhD, or find a job. If I come back for another year of the phd, i'll probably end up finishing it. It would be very hard to turn away after putting two years into it. If I take a job now, I probably won't ever come back to academia.

I thought i had decided to go the job route, but now that I can take a breath, I'm not so sure. The overarching plan for the summer has been to look for real jobs. I've turned down a paid internship in Louisville at a cool organization to have more time to job hunt, so I've sort of committed to it.

I am very bad at making life decisions. On the one hand, I want a job, because I want a stable life. I'm almost 30, and most of my peers are becoming bona fide grownups, with houses, live-in significant others or marriages, six-figure jobs, stock portfolios, etc. I'm sure that babies are just around the corner. I, however, am penniless, landless, and single. I enjoy none of the trappings of a grownup, save for the MPA after my name.

Maybe it's stupid to want to keep up with the Joneses, but part of me is feeling fairly left behind (not in the Rapture kind of way). I want to have a salary and a community and a life and (hopefully) find some cool gal who wants to hang out with me without clothes on. On the other hand, I like freedom. With school, nobody ever tells me what to do. Nobody tells me I can't go to the dentist at 3 on a wednesday. Nobody tells me to wake up before 9:00 am. Nobody tells me to tuck-in my shirt or comb my hair or put on a tie. That's nice. I worked moderately hard this past semester and did ok, gradewise. I worked hard for about 2 months out of the 4. Granted, during those two months, i had no life whatsoever. I've put in a year, and I'm pretty sure I can just barely make out a path to finishing it. I don't know...

Having a PhD would be something I did...I could look at my life and say, hey, I did that. I may be in debt, and I may be poor, and I may be single, but damnit, not many people do that, and I did that. Of course, not many people do it because it's sort of insane to work hard for no money for 5 years so you can have an unstable middle-class job.

Well, that's what's up with me. Time to escape with my homemade drug...making fart noises and laughing like a retard!

Joe's Latest "Stop your bitchin!" moment

Sometimes you one of those moments where you stop and realize that all your whining and bitching and self-obsession are just pornographically obscene. I was just wasting time on facebook while I listened to the radio in my underpants, when I got an instant message from an acquaintance of mine. We worked together years ago and were friendly, but definitely not good buddies. Anyway...this is the transcript of that conversation (I'll use an alias for his name).

John: ahhh, the undies and the porch, i love america

Joe: absolutely!

John:hahaha

Joe: We do have our moments.

John:the one thing they have down here that i may embrace is the man skirt

Joe: oh yeah. great idea. stupid gender roles keeping us uncomfortable. where are you?

John: iraq yay!

Joe: haha

John: you?

Joe: bloomington. very dangerous place

John: so i've heard. hows things?

Joe: not bad, not bad. I'm doing a phd at iu.

so, I'm doing that end of the semester crunch.

John: in what?

Joe: public policy. i'm half in the poli sci department and half in the public affairs school.

John: sweet. i wanna go back to school in a few years, but have no idea for what

Joe: well, it would be your first go at college?

John: second, haha

Joe: well, my general advice to undergrads is that it doesn't matter what you major it...
(sorry, it keeps kicking you off)...

John: yeah, its ok, bag of dad isn't known for its internet

Joe:

anyway, major in anything you want, but use your minor and your other classes to pick up skills (computer/math/language)

cause those things are supposedly handy in getting a job. not that i would know.

how much longer do you have over there?

John:

ummm, hard telling but i get out of the army in like 3 years

so i have time, i just am fucking clueless about a major

i'm thinking spanish b/c i want to do contracting after this, or an african language

Joe:

seriously, it doesn't matter what you major in...

just do something you find interesting...

John:

thats what i was sorta leaning toward

Joe:

a language is fine, but you can pick up the languages with your minor and electives.

John:

i just wanna chill for 3 years after this

Joe

I don't blame you.

John:

yeah, i heard there is like a camping degree of some sort

Joe

yeah, outdoor recreation.

John:

hmmm, that sounds like my kind of college

Joe:

yeah, it's through iu's HPER program...

health, physical education, recreation.

well, i'll keep my fingers crossed that obama pulls you guys out sooner than later.

John:

eh, its good for me and iraq, so i have no prob being here. i actually enjoy it.

Joe:

the news has sorta quit covering it, so i really have no idea what's going on there.

has it chilled out quite a bit?

John:

well yes and no

the press is bored of it, and so are the american people, and i think once obama got in the white house, it was sorta like, ok moving on, it will end when it ends

coverage wise there is plenty of story, but its kinda old hat

Joe:

yeah, the news has to be new. but there's definitely a perception over here that everything there is hunky dory.

so, if that's BS, that kinda pisses me off that they quit covering it.

John:

nah, have u looked at my link? that shit was a mess

Joe:

no, i'll check it out.

John:

yeah, i got snapped on cnn during a post blast

Joe

your profile pic?

John:

yeah

Joe:

gotcha. shit, i just thought the streets were messy.

John:

haha

nah, the link goes into more depth, that was a 70 plus day but it doesn't stir any american emoton because its all local nationals

Joe:

yeah. we tend to not consider people with brown skin from other countries to be human.

John:

well they cry and bleed the same

haha

Joe:

fuckin A

John:

that was a mess, and it makes sense why it doesn't get coverage

or well, that much

Joe

yeah. we can be real assholes sometimes.

John:

oh well, thats how it goes. hey, i gg, good talking to u man, thanks for the advice, it made me feel a little less on edge about college

Joe:

yeah, college is definitely a chill time. don't get stressed about it!

watch your ass.

John:

will do

see yah!

Joe:

later