Cat Frisbee

My cat has made a recent discovery: cat frisbee.

It's unlike other forms of frisbee because cats, as you well know, lack opposable thumbs, making regular frisbee impossible.

Their small size and puny jaws make fetch frisbee of the dog variety all but impossible.

Ahh but cats have an amazing aptitude for turning any flat object on a smooth above ground surface into a frisbee.

Stack of papers or mail on your coffee table? That could be a frisbee.

Notepad on desk? Frisbee.

Book on nightstand? Frisbee.

You get the point. It turns out though, that the ultimate frisbee is a stiff woven placemat. Boy can those things launch off of a kitchen table.

The irony is that the cat generally has no interest in playing frisbee. It's only a side effect of rapid departure...usually because the cat is caught somewhere the cat is not supposed to be, like on the kitchen table playing with the string tied around the neck of the decorative vase.

I Am a Weird Cat Lady

So my cat threw up yesterday. She never throws up. I am always proud of her because she is one of those rare non-vomiting cats.

So I'm wondering to myself, what caused my cat to throw up? It could be stress from moving. Or did I leave a cup or plate on the coffee table where she could dabble in human food? If it's either of those things, hopefully she is done with the vomiting now that we're all settled.

Of course, I think the water here is atrocious. Refrigerating it doesn't seem to help. It tastes heavily of metal. So I've gotten it into my head that it might be the water. My response? I emptied her automatic waterer of the tap water that was in it and refilled it from my filter pitcher. Yes, I am now treating my cat to filtered water.

On a positive note, she threw up on the ottoman, which is vinyl and easily wiped off. :)

I'd Like to be Thankful for a Job

...except, I don't have a job just yet.

In fact, this company hasn't actually contacted me to set up the final interview. That makes me a bit nervous.

I do know that they have contacted some of my references, so that's good.

Hopefully on Monday they will be calling. I better just head to hang with friends in Manhattan, so that I can make the interview scheduling easier.

I think I will leave my parents' on Sunday to do so. I will miss cat again, but hopefully soon I will have a job and we can be reuinted as cat and cat lady.

I am still waiting to hear back on a handful of jobs, and I have plans to put more applications out.

And back to my cat...she is currently pacing across the desk, right in front of the computer screen. Cats are awesome.

Cat-ness...Keeping Me Chipper

I am tired, not because I'm doing anything particularly tiring, but because I have so many things I need to get done.

I have like 30 projects I either need to wrap up or write instructions for so that my replacement at CPW will not be at a loss for what's going on. I really want to leave my boss and the future web temp in a best case scenario situation.

I also need to pack. Keep applying for jobs. Donate some stuff. Do the dishes--they just keep looming there in the sink, and I'm barely making a dent in them when I try.

I put in my notice for tutoring today. I feel bad leaving those lovely ladies behind. I hope someone awesome comes forth to fill my shoes, or better yet, some bigger ones.

With all this load, there is nothing like a soft furry cat to curl up next to at night. I love my cat!

Things Are Nice

I feel pretty good about life.

1. I turned in a full draft of my project on Friday.
2. I got a hair cut to get rid of the nasty dead hair from my misadventures with hair dye over spring break.
3. I cleaned the house today. Everything smells like orange. Mmmmm.
4. Lindsey and I are frying fish for dinner.
5. It looks like I'm going to beat Chris at Scrabble.
6. I think I found the perfect place to live in Grand Junction.

The only things working against me are allergies, my cat is shedding right now, and I'm a bit behind on my tech writing project. I can't really complain. Two of those are seasonal, and the other I can get done.

Nothing can take me down now that I have a full draft of my writing project. I best be grading now though. I promised my students I would get caught up this weekend.

A Classic Cheryl Friday (and a Pseudo Classic Saturday)

Last night was a classic Cheryl Friday for sure. I went home and decided that I needed to just chill out on the first night of spring break before I start working on stuff.

So what did I do?

I pulled up Netflix to watch something that I would truly enjoy. No compromising with the tastes of others. I opted to watch Merlin. I loved it! (Yes, all good things do come from the BBC.)

I also pulled out some pencils and paper and did some sketching. I am super out of practice, and I wasn't that good in the first place, but it was a great Friday, though cat kept trying to claw my blanket and sit on my notepad, but what are cat's for if not to be a nuisance?

Before becoming a graduate student, I used to wake up on Saturday morning, start baking something and set to cleaning. I don't do that anymore. Grad school has helped me to ignore dirt, but this morning I tackled the clogged kitchen drain and the pile of dishes that resulted. I am the master! I want to deep clean, but I don't feel motivated to just go nuts, so I'm breaking things up by day. Tomorrow, I'll dust and tackle the floors on the main floor. I'll break up the rest of the cleaning later.

It's not worth baking since no one is here, so that can't be a part of classic Saturday.

I best get off to take care of Naomi's cat CB--I'm far too late on that today. I'll spend most of the afternoon and evening with CB, grading I think. I am soooooooooooooooooooooo far behind on grading. I might do a little creative writing too though.

When I return this evening, I will crochet and watch more Merlin with my cat who is currently napping.

Subject: Typeface...the best reading I've done in a while.

So one of the assigned readings for Technical Communications for tomorrow is a couple chapters of Robin Williams's (no, not the actor) The Non-Designer's Design Book. I actually loved Chapter 8: Categories of Type. It's probably one of the clearest texts I've ever read on typeface, and who wouldn't enjoy learning about it from a woman who argues the you can generally label a font decorative "if the thought of reading an entire book in that font makes you wanna throw up" (90).

I also appreciate that she lumps her principles of design into 4 basic categories that form the acronym CRAP: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. She doesn't actually say they form the acronym CRAP, but she alludes to it, and there is no way I will forget her principles of design. I wish I would have read this a little over a week ago. I just taught my students 6 principles of design out of another text. Those 6 principles don't form an easy to remember acronym. Sad.

I'm almost done with Technical Communication homework for the week. I've read through Wednesday for Indian Children's Lit. I think the rest of the day I will crank out another 5-10 pages of master's project perfection. I could be grading, but I really think I need to get a draft in and put everything else on hold in the meantime. I want to have a copy to my entire committee before spring break. It's a good thing the 11 pages I have are ridiculously polished so that I don't have to worry about them anymore.

Major goals for the remainder of the week:

1. Complete Master's Project Draft to Naomi by tomorrow (Wednesday).
2. Read Rabindranath Tagore's "Stories" by Friday. 
3. Read 1 Source and Write 1 Annotation for Indian Children's Lit by Friday. 
4. Grade Students' Correspondence Portfolios by Friday or Monday.
5. Finish The Smile of Vanuvati Friday evening; write a book review on it Saturday.
6. Read The River for Indian Children's Lit on Saturday.
7. Commit to finishing Grading on Sunday if I haven't wheedled away at it completely by Friday.
8. Read articles for Tech Comm on Monday.

That will take me through the requirements preceding spring break. Hopefully by Monday I will get some feedback from Naomi about my draft and can have a revision to my whole comittee by Friday the 18th.

For spring break, I will wallow in freedom...in my dreams. Instead I will read like a mad person and write annotations for my Annotated Bibliography for Indian Children's Lit. I will also try to write my Position Paper for Tech Comm so that I don't have to worry about it later.

Dear Lord, I am collecting more student portfolios on Monday; they will need graded, and I lose most of Thursday to subbing for Anna. Will this ever end? Is it May 13th yet? Did I mention that I have a final after graduation on May 13th?

Cat says its time to stop making terrifying lists and whining. She thinks I need to pet her. She keeps trying to lay on my keyboard. Can I  read 20 more pages of Tech Comm while petting the cat? I will try.

Being a Blog Failure/General Updates

So, I'm somewhat of a blog failure. I always write too much, but I know as a reader I would appreciate concise and efficient posts from a blogger. I need to channel my inner tech writer when I blog.

So here's what I've been up to:

I'm working out again. I've been running Tuesdays and Thursdays with Adriane. We've decided to run a 2 mile race in a couple weeks. After several weeks with the crud, I'm not sure my lungs are up for it, but I'll try. Lindsey and I have done a few living room workouts with the help of Netflix, too. Take that grad school! You cannot keep me soft and squishy.

My master's project is still behind. I need to get over my fear of my major professor. She's awesome, and it makes me strive for an impossible perfection before I give her drafts. She's supposed to help me polish my drafts. I don't need to do it on my own, but I keep trying.

My cat, Tonks, is getting fat because in the chaos of my final semester, I've put her on an automatic feeder in case I stay in the office too late to give her dinner. Poor cat.

I'm working with a non-profit for my Technical Communication class. I'm doing two feasability studies for them, evaluating new publishing software and a website upgrade. I'm excited. This is going to be fun. My client is wonderful.

Indian Children's literature is an interesting class, but I still feel like I don't know enough to even begin research for a paper.

I'm still wordy. Whoops. If you've read this far, you deserve a cookie. Hopefully you have some in a jar on your counter.