I am so demoralized and am tired of waking up at 3 a.m. and breaking into a cold sweat of tenure-related fear, but I tried to enjoy normal life this weekend. I started to realize that putting everything in my life off until tenure is going to be a really bad strategy if I don't get tenure. So maybe I should stop thinking that way and should just enjoy what I have now, come what may.
The department was a grim place on Friday, but the neighborhood was a cheerful place this weekend. It got warmer and warmer through the weekend and culminated in a gorgeous 70 degree afternoon today. I got most of my plants planted, the kids went to the zoo and rode on the carousel, and we spent a lot of time outdoors.
I have ordered my cap & gown for escorting my grad students across the stage next month. It is very exciting. Jake is also graduating and his parents are coming to that, and he is thinking about having a party. Today Jake called up his brother to see if he would come out here for the graduation and the party. Predictably (in my mind), his brother said no, because he's not the kind of guy who likes to do things for other people or adhere to other people's agendas. Instead, he's the kind of guy who decides when he wants to do something or go somewhere, and then he tells Jake to do it, and Jake always goes along. Wanting to please everybody. Jake was sad and disappointed that his brother doesn't want to come to town (he lives about a 4-hour drive away). I feel so bad for him. Jake always does what his family wants, and his family pretty much never does what he wants, and I see how hurtful that is to him.
Jake is always so concerned about pleasing other people that I think it kind of surprises him when other people aren't like that.
I am remembering my own Ph.D. graduation (I didn't bother walking in my master's graduation), and a ton of my family and friends came. Like, actually flew on airplanes to attend, which was so great. I felt very lucky and supported and loved. Graduation coincided with my dissertation defense so it was a giant weekend. Meanwhile, this year I have two Ph.D. students graduating, but they're not defending until June, so there will be quite a separation between the two for them. But they're basically done (all but crossing the t's and dotting the i's), so it's all good.
Today Nora tried an actual real carrot. Didn't like it, but she did eat it. Milo didn't try it, which is a bit of a switch. Milo has developed a bizarrely annoying habit of yelling at the cats, and then cracking up at his own cruelty. By yelling, I mean he'll just excitedly run around going "Aaaaaaaaaaaa!! Ah hah ha ha ha ha ha!"
Nora's latest activity is reading on the potty. Tonight she read an alphabet book for about 15 minutes, identifying all of the letters and the pictures. No luck on the potty front, though.
Here are pictures of Nora, taken when Milo was still napping. Milo naps at least a solid hour longer than Nora every single day. In the video below, my guess is that Nora uses gibberish to explain what the book says because she can't make any sense of it, unlike her own books that have pictures and familiar stories. So this grown-up book is like something in a foreign language to her. Interestingly, Nora really enjoys paging through grown-up books, pretending to read like we do.
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