I’ve realized that I haven’t been very fastidious in keeping up my site…. one of my resolutions is to update the site weekly. Among others….

Resolutions:
1. Exercise three times a week.
2. Update my website weekly.
3. Keep the laundry done.
4. Eat out no more than twice a week (not counting lunch!).
5. Send birthday cards to all my family and friends ON TIME!
6. Contribute monthly to my savings account and pay off my credit card.

So as you can see, I have my work cut out for me! To this end, I’m adding several entries updating what’s going on in my life, this week.

I have discovered a new and vile form of internet spam: the spam comment.

After having not posted to my journal for a couple months, I returned to the site today to find over 100 spam comments from various online casino sites. I had to delete them all, one at a time (sigh) and set up filter plug-ins to prevent it from happening in the future. That sucks. I want my friends to be able to comment and reply to my postings, but if the spam keeps up I’ll have to turn off the comment feature. Of course, I’ve only had one friend comment on one post, so it may be a moot point….

It seems once school starts it takes me forever to update this site. Anyway… I’ve finished the thesis, and got approval to graduate, so as of December 17 I’ll be an MA! …and there was great rejoicing…

The grad college at BGSU asked if I was going to return to BG to walk for graduation. Hmmm… let’s see…. do I want to be in NW Ohio in the middle of December just to get a piece of paper they can mail to me? I don’t think so! I’ll walk for my PhD, but not the MA.

UGA is great! I’m taking classes in Theatre History (again, but with a more interesting professor), Film History,and “Interactive Media as Drama” – learning Macromedia Director – don’t think I could have done that at BG…. I’ll be working on directing a semi-professional production in conjunction with a class here and a playwright from Chicago in the spring… and possibly taking courses in AI as cognates for my degree… as well as doing independent research with some /really/ cool folks…. Life is good!

Athens is great, too. The town is filled with cool restaurants, bars, and shops… a true “college town” a little bigger than Johnson City but with a busy, hopping downtown. Just don’t venture there on football game days….

We got a dog… solid white German Shepherd, very unusual and really pretty… he’s about 10 weeks old now (born July 31) and going to be HUGE! If we don’t train him now, he’s going to run the household when he grows up!

I got an invite from Lisa for my niece and nephew’s birthday party… It’s hard to believe that Katelyn and Jackson are almost a year old. Boy time goes by so quickly… and I’m SO proud of my sister and Jon for all they’ve been through and all their hard work this past year. Wish I could go to the party, but I’ll have to send my regrets along with some cool “aunt” presents!

Well, that’s enough for today. Homework calls…

Yeah, about 5 weeks ago (mid-July) I was at the pool with Sheridan and, like an idiot, jumped in the shallow end with her without bending my knees, landed on my heel HARD and chipped my heel bone. Couldn’t walk at all for a couple days…

So when we went to Orlando I ended up going to one of those outpatient clinic places, they did X-rays, and sure enough, I’d broken my foot. The doc said basically, “Yep, It’s broken; nope, we can’t do anything. Here’s some pain pills, it’s gonna hurt for a while.” (Sigh) So I have to walk on a broken foot. Gee, fun for my first week of school. And of course right now I don’t have insurance, I have to apply as soon as my loan check arrives. Then I can go back to the student health center and have them look at my foot again, see if maybe I need to go to a podiatrist. And all for a day at the pool.

Well, today is the first day of classes for the fall term at UGA! I’m taking Theatre History (yes, AGAIN!!! -blink blink- ), Interactive Media as Theatre, and History of Cinema I (up to 1945). I’m also taking a seminar on “Intro to Grad Studies” that all first year grad students are required to take.

As far as my assistantship goes, I’m doing publicity 1/2 time (8 hours) in a publicity office that has three grad assistants, student workers, and a budget! We do more than press releases and programs. It’s going to be pretty cool. For my other 8 hours, I’m splitting it between the Virtual Vaudeville project (http://vvaudeville.drama.uga.edu/) and the fall production of A Christmas Carol, adapted by MFA student Joelle Arp-Dunham and using the IPL and media, as Media Director. Way Cool!

Also, once I take the History of Cinema class I’m probably going to be teaching Intro to Film! Fun! I’m really psyched by all the opportunities I have here at UGA! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed BGSU, and there are some AWESOME profs there, but they just didn’t have the resources to do what I needed. I mean, look at the trouble I had with Hamletmachine -sigh- .

Anyway, that’s what gives for now.

I’ve officially finished my thesis! I sent it to my committee chair on Wednesday 7/28 and I’m waiting to hear about my defense!!!! Yay! Now to get it defended and turned in to the Grad College in time to start classes at UGA in time…..

For my Zaxby’s-addicted friends back in Johnson City (you know who you are!) I’d like to gloat about the fact that there are SEVEN Zaxby’s here in Athens… Athens being the Op Center and starting point for Zaxby’s, and the location of their Concept Store! So There!

I couldn’t suppress my laughter when Kevin and I went to Cracker Barrel today for breakfast… the guy who seated us was so much a caricature of the South that had we been anywhere else I wouldn’t have taken him seriously. So, to celebrate the differences between the Deep South and the Northern Midwest, I offer for your amusement…

Top Ten Differences Between Georgia and Ohio:

10. Trucks. The ratio of good ol’ pickup trucks to SUV’s is MUCH higher in Georgia than up in Ohio. Oh, and the folks down here actually USE these vehicles for hauling things! It is a Sport UTILITY Vehicle, after all…

9. Signs. In Ohio, highway signs read “Caution: Bridge Freezes Before Roadway.” In Georgia, the signs read “Caution: Bridge May Freeze in Winter.” MAY freeze… hmm…

8. Kudzu. ‘Nuff said.

7. Mosquitoes and other biting insects. In Ohio, I wasn’t bitten once in two years. At the moment I’m desperately trying NOT to scratch the dozen or so bites I’ve accumulated over the past few days. I read somewhere that to keep mosquitoes away you should run a fan, since they don’t like the breeze… I guess the 25 MPH average winds of Northwestern Ohio worked pretty well…

6. Barbecue! I finally have some REAL barbeque places to choose from! There’s nothing like some honest to goodness pulled-pork barbecue that’s been smoking all day, falling off the bone tender, with your choice of sauces…

5. Grits. Not only can I get decent grits at Cracker Barrel, without having to ask for them extra, but I found at my local Kroger’s not one but FOUR different brands of grits, regular, quick, instant, and in different flavors! It was a whole section of grits! Cool!

4. Weather. Forecast for the next, oh, six weeks or so: Highs in the mid-90’s, late afternoon thunderstorms possible. And I’m looking forward to winter for the first time in two years!

3. Landscape. I have hills and trees! And roads that actually curve around, and go up and down… My bike thanks me.

2. Tea. In Ohio, ordering an Iced Tea meant you got tea, plain, no sugar. You had to add your own sweetener. In The South, Iced Tea is so sweet you could cut it with a knife… that is, unless you specifically ask for unsweetened, and even then you’re liable to get some strange looks.

1. Accent. NOT ONCE have I been asked, “Where are you from?” because of the way I speak.

I guess I didn’t realize how long it had been since I added an entry to my journal. Once school started last fall I got pretty busy. But I’m going to try to make up for it. I’ve got a lot of stuff to tell and a lot of new pictures to add, so here we go!….

Well, first thing is that I bought a house in Athens, Georgia! I was so impressed by my visit there last summer that I decided UGA was the place I wanted for my doctorate work. So in one week we pack up the truck and head south for good!

Sheridan is going to be attending Athens Academy in the fall, for which I am very glad and excited. Now if I can just get my thesis finished….

I lost my hard drive back in February, so any pictures I hadn’t put on the site by then were lost forever in the mist of electronic data. Since then, though, I have pictures of Sheridan and her new cousins Jackson Christopher and Katelyn Rose (born November 11, 2003 to my wonderful sister Lisa and brother-in-law Jon), Sheridan’s Brownie graduation, her spring pictures, photos of the new house, hopefully pictures of her as flower girl at her uncle Pat and Sarah’s wedding (once I get them from her grandparents) and some other odd and end photos.

No tours for us this summer… With the move I’ll be lucky to afford groceries for a while. Visiting family is about all I can do.

More later… I promise to keep up better in the coming months.

I was not ready for the winter…. (Thank you Stevie Nicks.) I had to turn the heat on in my house today. 54 degrees for the high, it’s predicted to frost this week. Oh, do I miss Key West!

It’s not quite October, and already it’s gotten too cold for this Southern Gal. I don’t mind the sixties, but the fifties are getting a bit too nippy, especially when it’s damp and overcast. It seems like last winter, when it was SOOO cold, I just couldn’t get warm. I can remember my hands being too cold to work the keyboard properly. Am I getting old, my blood growing thin? I can hear the faint chords of Jimmy Buffett’s “Boat Drinks” starting to play in my head…. It seems to be my theme song from October to April. So I’ve traded in my white linens for black and burgundy comforter, and looking around for an electric blanket to get me through the cold.