![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sleep Now....
Dec. 13th, 2015 02:53 amI really wanted to get to 5000 words tonight. But I'm stopping at 4509, which includes my random notes at the bottom of the document, so really it's more like 3600. This thing is due Monday at 5, but I also have to get a 10 minute presentation done which I'm giving on Monday during my 3 o' clock class, so I really need to get this thing done tomorrow.
I'm still going to go out for Chinese with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
restoman, but other than that, it's going to be another day of school stuff. Hopefully with more solid concentration than I've had the last couple of days. Though I have to admit, taking a little bit of a break in general has been good for me.
I'm still going to go out for Chinese with
restoman, but other than that, it's going to be another day of school stuff. Hopefully with more solid concentration than I've had the last couple of days. Though I have to admit, taking a little bit of a break in general has been good for me.
Birthday Dinner was Awesome!
Nov. 14th, 2015 08:13 pmI had a great dinner with restoman at Firudo. I thought for a minute I'd over-ordered sushi and was going to have to pay extra, but I managed. I like the restaurant a lot, and their wasabi was really good. I may take Danae there rather than to Sakanaya (the conveyor belt place), which is fun, but possibly not quite as good, more dinery, less relaxing and low-key, and in fact, more expensive. They have deserts to please a variety of people, too; from green-tea ice cream to tempura bananas (and even tempura oreos). It was a good birthday dinner with good company. I may make a sushi person out of Glen yet!
While I was out, my dad posted this picture of he and my brothers on our way to New York City for the week in August of 2009. If I remember correctly, they picked me up as I was getting out of work in downtown Chicago and we left from there. I'm not sure why else I'd be all dressed up. That's my brother James in the back left, and Timothy who's in the front row looking like he's ready to throw down. I miss them, and I hope we get to another trip like that sometime, hopefully with my mother. I certainly do look different these days!
restoman at Firudo. I thought for a minute I'd over-ordered sushi and was going to have to pay extra, but I managed. I like the restaurant a lot, and their wasabi was really good. I may take Danae there rather than to Sakanaya (the conveyor belt place), which is fun, but possibly not quite as good, more dinery, less relaxing and low-key, and in fact, more expensive. They have deserts to please a variety of people, too; from green-tea ice cream to tempura bananas (and even tempura oreos). It was a good birthday dinner with good company. I may make a sushi person out of Glen yet!While I was out, my dad posted this picture of he and my brothers on our way to New York City for the week in August of 2009. If I remember correctly, they picked me up as I was getting out of work in downtown Chicago and we left from there. I'm not sure why else I'd be all dressed up. That's my brother James in the back left, and Timothy who's in the front row looking like he's ready to throw down. I miss them, and I hope we get to another trip like that sometime, hopefully with my mother. I certainly do look different these days!
I had a really nice time going out for dinner with restoman last night! Despite the fact that he lives about a block from me, I think that was the first time I've spent more time with him than dropping in for a brief visit or catching a ride to the grocery store. It's a reminder that there is life outside of all this reading, and that I need to get back to living it. Maybe next semester will be a bit less of a system shock.
I don't actually have any classes the rest of this week. Naomi Klein is speaking on campus during class time tomorrow evening, and the professor cancelled class in favor of her lecture. I'm wavering about going. I'd like to, but I could use the time to work, too.
My usual Wednesday class is also cancelled, replaced with 15 minute individual meetings about our term papers. That class has been a slog for me. When my focus was on engaging current issues of urban social justice, it made a lot of sense for me take a politics of public policy class. But the literature is rather more quantitative than I'm used to, is generally unfamiliar, and honestly is rather discouraging as I learn more about how things work behind the curtain. I've read a few things that were really eye-opening, like E. E. Schatschneider's The Semisovereign People, but generally it's been hard to get through. My term paper is going to apply social construction theory to transportation policy. Social construction theory posits that a significant factor in the creation of policy is how that policy's target groups are perceived in terms of deservingness or undeservingness, and power vs. lack of power. There hasn't been much work on that in transportation, and I hypothesize that motorists are seen as more deserving than transit users and cyclists, who are seen as in a dependent, inferior position in comparison, and that that shapes policy decisions in terms of transportation spending, among other things. But navigating the literature around this is intimidating, and I only have a month or so left. I have a feeling that most of my Thanksgiving break will be spent working on papers.
At least Danae will be here with me! (Probably working on her own schoolwork.) She's flying out from Evanston to spend a week and a half with me over the break; I'm more than a little excited about seeing her again!
What else is going on? My legs are still a little sore from the VO2max test! But I still decided to bike over to Price Chopper for more spinach after school. Man, does this city have hills! I also bought some La Choy chow mein noodles because they appeared at first glance to be the same as La Choy rice noodles. They actually aren't, but they're close and they will do for salad.
In looking around for local poly resources, I found and signed up on a forum called The Bird Cage. It's cutely and consistently themed, and feels a bit old school in that it's a stand-alone forum unto itself, rather than a part of some larger thing like Meetup or Yahoo Groups or Fetlife. It seems to be fairly quiet these days, but myself, a moderator, and another new person had a conversation about poly-related books that may have led to a book club breaking out. I just ordered a used copy of More Than Two from Amazon, and I look forward both to the book discussion and the socializing that such things (hopefully) catalyze. And I made a new LJ-friend out of it too, which is always nice! This place, more than almost any other on the 'net, continues to feel like home.
I'm tired this evening. I think I'm going to get to bed early. Time to check off all my tasks on Habitica (Do any of my readers use that?) and get to bed. G'night.
restoman last night! Despite the fact that he lives about a block from me, I think that was the first time I've spent more time with him than dropping in for a brief visit or catching a ride to the grocery store. It's a reminder that there is life outside of all this reading, and that I need to get back to living it. Maybe next semester will be a bit less of a system shock.I don't actually have any classes the rest of this week. Naomi Klein is speaking on campus during class time tomorrow evening, and the professor cancelled class in favor of her lecture. I'm wavering about going. I'd like to, but I could use the time to work, too.
My usual Wednesday class is also cancelled, replaced with 15 minute individual meetings about our term papers. That class has been a slog for me. When my focus was on engaging current issues of urban social justice, it made a lot of sense for me take a politics of public policy class. But the literature is rather more quantitative than I'm used to, is generally unfamiliar, and honestly is rather discouraging as I learn more about how things work behind the curtain. I've read a few things that were really eye-opening, like E. E. Schatschneider's The Semisovereign People, but generally it's been hard to get through. My term paper is going to apply social construction theory to transportation policy. Social construction theory posits that a significant factor in the creation of policy is how that policy's target groups are perceived in terms of deservingness or undeservingness, and power vs. lack of power. There hasn't been much work on that in transportation, and I hypothesize that motorists are seen as more deserving than transit users and cyclists, who are seen as in a dependent, inferior position in comparison, and that that shapes policy decisions in terms of transportation spending, among other things. But navigating the literature around this is intimidating, and I only have a month or so left. I have a feeling that most of my Thanksgiving break will be spent working on papers.
At least Danae will be here with me! (Probably working on her own schoolwork.) She's flying out from Evanston to spend a week and a half with me over the break; I'm more than a little excited about seeing her again!
What else is going on? My legs are still a little sore from the VO2max test! But I still decided to bike over to Price Chopper for more spinach after school. Man, does this city have hills! I also bought some La Choy chow mein noodles because they appeared at first glance to be the same as La Choy rice noodles. They actually aren't, but they're close and they will do for salad.
In looking around for local poly resources, I found and signed up on a forum called The Bird Cage. It's cutely and consistently themed, and feels a bit old school in that it's a stand-alone forum unto itself, rather than a part of some larger thing like Meetup or Yahoo Groups or Fetlife. It seems to be fairly quiet these days, but myself, a moderator, and another new person had a conversation about poly-related books that may have led to a book club breaking out. I just ordered a used copy of More Than Two from Amazon, and I look forward both to the book discussion and the socializing that such things (hopefully) catalyze. And I made a new LJ-friend out of it too, which is always nice! This place, more than almost any other on the 'net, continues to feel like home.
I'm tired this evening. I think I'm going to get to bed early. Time to check off all my tasks on Habitica (Do any of my readers use that?) and get to bed. G'night.
