Thanks for reading along here!

In any case, to illustrate. Today It's almost 1PM. And yet, what have I accomplished today? 

I went to the gym. That was productive. I was there for 2 hours. 1 of it was working out on my own. The other time I spent with my trainer, who I think I'll refer to here as SuperTrainer because I think she's neat. 

Then. I came home and went to the dining hall, had my free lunch. Then I laid in the sun and talked on the phone with my friend Cas. Then....I went to one of the coffee shops on campus and found out I can drink lattes for free because I can use my meal plan here. (Awesome). 

Yup. Lots of productivity. Hot mess. Especially since I have a manuscript that needed to be done a few days ago. Maybe soon I'll come to grips with the fact that I don't actually have 3 extra hours in the day. 

Teaching people to ask themselves and write their papers around the so what question is not an easy task. And when you start into asking questions students get flustered and grapple for responses that sometimes make no sense, and often show that they're flapping around because they're nervous. And basically I've decided that they don't do their best thinking when they're nervous, and it just makes me frustrated to drive them around in circles. It basically does no one any good to just doggedly ask questions to the point that they're frustrated and anxious and giving crappy answers that don't show off their best sides, and I'm frustrated that they're not showing their best sides. So. I'm on a new plan this year. My new plan is being tested out as I blog. I have a student back in UUCity who called for a phone conference. I just paused it because we were going to that frustrating place. And instead I just told the student, "Here is your prompt. On page 7 you wrote your most useful sentence of the whole literature review." We then found it together, and I told the student. Now. What I want you to do is spend the next 15 minutes writing in response to this prompt: "Why is this sentence useful to my argument for my research question [insert research question here]." Write for the full 15 minutes. If you start writing I have nothing to say over and over, that's fine. Just write until you can figure this out. Then we hung up. I told the student I'd call back in 15 minutes. At that point I'm going to have the student read what's been written. Then we're going to move through identifying, sentence by sentence what adds to the bigger argument, and what goes beyond the argument to either advocacy or a study that is not within the scope of the research question. 

I'm hopeful that this will help. I really want all these little ones to be good writers--both for themselves and for myself. I'm sick to death of earnestly but poorly written papers. And while part of me is a smidge irritated that I have to go to such basic writing teaching, I guess this is part of meeting students where they are and then providing them with the tools to make it a little farther along each and every time. 

Have I mentioned that patience isn't a virtue of mine? Oy.

I've secretly always wished I could be on The Biggest Loser because I think that I'd get pushed a lot by having a trainer like Jillian and that although I'd hate it while I was working out, I'd be impressed with what it meant I could do afterwards. We'll see how it goes with my trainer. Also, I'm thinking of taking up spinning. Other people think it's fun and/or a good workout. Plus, I get free classes as part of my membership, so I should take advantage of that. And....I went biking from Santa Monica through Marina del Rey and back...and I really liked it. In the past I've never been pro biking, but I liked this, and actually thought to myself, "Well heck, maybe I'd like a pink cruiser bike!" I'm not going to rush out and buy one, but I am going to test run this idea of cycling with more outings on a rented bike and taking up spinning. I figure that it'll help me build up muscles I might use when biking. 

Since I live on campus and can see my apartment from my office and vice versa, I walked. Also, I'd like to note that if I wanted to drive I have to go off campus and come back on, and the actual parking is underground and more or less 1/3 of the way back toward my apartment anyways. And...it takes all of 10-15 minutes to stroll to my office. 

Still people marvel that I walk. On my way over tonight I ran into someone I know who said to me, "You're walking there? I have a car. I can drive you." Um. I have a car too, but it's more of a hassle to drive. Plus, it's nice to walk. When I say that I like to walk, and I prefer not to drive people look at me like I'm some sort of alien. This is not the first time someone has said this to me. And when I had lunch with some students earlier in the week they were all, "You walk?! All the way here?!" 

Again. I can SEE my destination from my starting point. And it's pretty. 

Apparently nobody walks in LA. 

Well. Let me tell you, one major misconception I had about LA was about the hills. I knew there were some hills, after all, the tv show The Hills suggests that there might be some rolling bumps around the LA area. But holy hell, these hills are something. And I think what got me was that I was used to hills in UUCity, but those hills were abrupt hills. Steep and fast. These hills here in LA - some are steep, but they're never fast. They seem to go up forever before they come down. Or. Maybe I'm just a bit out of shape. Whatever the case, these hills are going to knock me back into shape pretty quickly. I suppose I shouldn't complain about that, but phwew, I thought I'd go out for an hour, but after 40 minutes I decided that was enough and quit. 60 minutes is apparently a goal I'll work toward.

This morning I blamed my hair on not going to work. No one needed to see my looking all a hot mess before I could wash my hair. But. I got that cleaned up once I hit the 48 hour mark of waiting for the relaxing to take. And yet I stayed at home. And it's not like I've done anything productive at home. I emailed some people. I watched reruns of SYTYCD. I ate 3 cream puffs. And that's pretty much been my day. At the very least I need to peel myself off the sofa and do something before going out later. Oy. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for productivity.

I know that this city has a bad rap for shit poor public transportation. And I know that there's serious problems with public transportation not reaching the neediest people in LA. I won't go so far as to say that the public transportation rocks because it's a hot mess in many political ways. But. The public transportation between my uni and Santa Monica is super duper. 25 cents, and I took a nice clean bus from a few blocks from my office to two blocks from NewFriendCarrie's apartment. Awe. Some. 

So. After I left the spa I called the nana who said to me, "Did you know that I called you? I don't think I left a message." Yes. Yes. I definitely knew you called. So I talked to her. Mostly telling her the same thing over and over again. Yes. I'm in LA. Yes I like it very much. What time is it? Three hours behind your time. Do I have friends? Yes. I have one friend, NewFriendCarrie. No, not Casey, Carrie. Yes. That's right, I have a friend. Carrie. No. Not Casey, Carrie. Yes. Those names are similar. No, not Casey, Carrie. Yes I know it is hard to keep straight. Have I known her long? No, just for a few months. No, her name is Carrie, not Casey. It went like that. For about 15 minutes. Until I had to go get my nails done. Sad. But hey, at least she can remember how to find my call phone number, and that I live on the West Coast, in LA. That's better than the people who called me before 7:30 this morning because they forgot that I lived in LA and was 3 hours behind now. 

But aside from that, yay for today. Yay for NewFriendCarrie. She's hooked me up with all the beauty & pampering resources I need to keep myself looking cute. And we have similar interests, like eating, tv, and doing work, so that's good too. In fact, we've done all of those tonight. We ate while watching Barack, and now we're sitting in my place doing some work...looking pretty from all our beauty activities today. 

Why? 

Well because I had my hair done yesterday. It was a superb experience. Truly, it was the epitome of what I thought an LA salon experience should be like. There was peppermint water, and other drinking options when I got there. There was a lot of massage that was part of the hair care process. There was talking about and reflecting on options for my hair. There was education about how to take care of my new do. And. There were multiple stylists armed with blow dryers and brushes who blew my hair dry. And at the end, my hair was relaxed and good to go as stick straight Asian hair for the next 3 months, I had bangs for the first time in nearly 20 years, and I liked the way I looked. It's a good thing too, because I paid $304. (including tip, new hair care products, and all the services)

The downside of all this is that I cannot wash my hair until tomorrow afternoon. Since yesterday. I wash my hair everyday, and I like to keep it clean. Right now, it feels all mooky and looks a bit of a hot mess. Tomorrow I'm staying inside until 11:30. I can't take this head of hair out until it's clean again.

Here in LA, however, I'm a dime a dozen. Asian is decidedly not exotic, and on my campus specifically, it seems to be norm, if not the majority. I've never been surrounded by this many Asian people before in my life. And so, I've decided to embrace the newness. I've been invited to join a group for Asian American professionals in this region. It seems like a social and also networking group, and from what I hear, it's active and a lot of fun. So. I said yes, and I'm off to meet up with my Asian peeps. Friday I'm going to big event with a lot of them. I need a dress. And Sunday I'm doing an ocean biking thing with a smaller group. I am not only not a biker, but I am not even any good at riding bikes. Fortunately, I know where they're going and it's a flat, paved path that runs all along the Pacific Ocean, so I think I can handle that. My last bike riding adventure was in San Fran. That was a helluva lot of hills, so I'm glad that this one will be significantly flatter. And who knows, maybe I'll have friends at the end of it. 

In related news, I had to submit a photo to join this group. The photo I submitted is a hot mess one from my XC trip with Casey. The comment I got back from the group leader was, "Wow. I expect a lot of fun out of you." Hot mess. 

We did not go to the fort other than to take pictures outside of the fort. 

Today I'm pleased that I'm not in the middle of that drive, and am instead in my office on campus here. I started my day with a trip to Target and a run on the beach. Both were preferable to being in the car across Iowa. And now I'm trying to get a few hours of writing in before I go run a few more errands before Casey comes over this evening. Then it's Pinkberry, fun, and sleeping for short while before running her off to the airport. 

In other news, I locked myself out of my apartment tonight when I came back from the picnic, and so I had to climb over a wall to tumble into my backyard and come in through the screen door that I'd (fortunately) left unlocked. I don't recommend this as the way to enter the apartment, but in a pinch it'll work I suppose. 

Now...time for bed. I'm completely exhausted, and I have a lot to do tomorrow before Casey shows up!