Note to self:

List of organizations and things I’m doing this semester:

1. 9 credit hours of classes (including Foundations of Criminal Justice, Teaching Sociology, Classical Sociological Theory)
2. Teaching Assistant for Race and Ethnicity
3. Research Assistant for research on Bangalashi women
4. Graduate and Professional Student Council sociology representative
5. Secretary/Treasurer of GA United (GAU, the grad assistant union)
6. Illinois Education Association (IEA, the state-wide union GAU is affliated with) Higher Education Council member
7. Organizing a legislative platform for GAU and local lobbying efforts
8. Finishing my thesis on adult female video game players (seriously, if I haven’t talked to you yet about this and you want to do an interview, leave me a message)

…whoops.

Also, I slipped a disc in my back about two weeks ago. Which was fun. Physical therapy two times a week and prescription drugs. Go me.

What else is going on? Not much. What about you guys?

All aboard.

So, I’m sitting in the Detroit airport right now. The Northwest terminal is *huge.* There’s around 80 gates. Of course, I deplaned at gate A12 and right now (my flight isn’t until 12PM so I expect it’ll change soon enough) is at A67. I opted to walk the terminal rather than take the shuttle. It was good exercise.

The RA was awesome and awe-inspiring. I’m not sure I have the brain power at the moment to really sum it up and talk about it the way I’d like to. The days were long, yesterday especially, and I was up at 3AM so I could make my 6:40AM flight out of D.C. But I will say that it was an honor and a privilege to participate in the world’s largest parliamentary body. I was able to help chart the course for my union, speak at the Illinois caucus, put in to speak on the RA floor (but they called debate before I had a chance to speak, damnit!), see Obama speak, suggest a new resolution for next year, and despite the 10-12 hour working days, the early mornings, the insane prices of food in D.C., the beds that made my back hurt, I’m energized about unionism and ready to get started. There’s a lot to do this year and I’m super-excited to be part of that. (See, you can tell how tired I am when I’m resorting to words like ’super-excited’.)

Best substitution ever.

So, I’m grading papers from Soc 223’s final exams (Men and Women in Society). One woman is writing about the male fantasy presented in music videos and how all women shown are nymphomaniacs. Only she doesn’t use the word “nymphomaniacs.” She used “necrophiliacs.”

My day is made.