the wrong side of the bed

my post yesterday lead to a worried phone call from sean and an offer of ice cream from a grad student in my department. i'm not that bad off, really. at least, not any more traumatized by life than normal. it is just that i have to start thinking about the prelim and figuring out a schedule for studying and that causes me piles of anxiety. yes, anxiety can come in piles. also buckets. and murders, just like crows.

i had an interview for a TA position in another department. it went well enough, but there is a lot of competition for two positions. i am not at all confident that i will get the job. sadly, other than teaching, there is not much that i am qualified to do. i ended up sobbing in the chair's office after the interview. i went up to talk to her about something else, but ended up losing it. she and i had a pretty frank discussion about grad school. she specializes in being frank. somehow, whenever she tells me that i can leave grad school, i end up wanting to do the opposite. i wish a faculty member other than jeremy would tell me that i am cut out for this. i don't really trust his judgement.

sometimes opening a toy store seems so fucking appealing. i like it when people encourage me to do that. it makes me laugh on the inside. why would owning my own business be easier than grad school? everything would be my responsibility. don't people know that i am the last person who should be in charge of anything?

someone, take over my life for me. you can have anything from me that i could possibly offer.

when i started this post, i was going to try to be upbeat so people wouldn't worry. guess i screwed that up.

Can I work in your toy store? I promise not to steal stuff.

you wouldn't need to steal. i plan to pay my employees in toys. i guess you could grab a twenty from the till every now and again and i would pretend not to notice.

What is your stance on candy?

i would have a strict "employees may daily eat their weight in candy" policy.

What is your stance on employees who want to wear chaps and snort coke off of Hello Kitty(TM) mirrors?

that's fine except i don't plan to stock any sanrio. san-x, yes. sanrio, no.

also, there would be a rule that no one could wear pants under their chaps.

What's your policy on little kids trying to buy things without using actual currency? Would it matter if they were especially cute and pathetic about it?

if they recognize it as currency, then i recognize it as currency!

Excellent. If I ever have children, I know where I'm sending them for their Christmas presents. "Here you go, Alice, some pieces of lint. Go give it to the nice lady in exchange for the giant plush dinosaur. Tell her it's money."

You are quite possibly a worse businessperson than Dave from Big Deal Bookstore. Wow.

dave and i are both geminis. perhaps, as such, our heads are not meant for business.