Wednesday, July 11, 2007

What type of packer are you?


In my previous job I travelled quite a bit and I must say that I got pretty good at packing - for business trips that is. When I go on vacation however I will keep adding things until I fill up all the available space in my bag. Anyone else do this?
I think the way you pack can tell a lot about a person. Actually traveling in general tells you a lot about a person. You really don't know a person until you go on a week long vacation with them, but I digress.

Types of packers:

The week before packer: Do they do this because they are the occasional, nervous nelly traveler? Or if they travel a bit more frequently, perhaps they are one of those super organized freaks. Or worse, they just have too much time on their hands. Regardless of the reason, traveling with them would annoy me.

The night before packer: This one I can deal with. It's reasonable. The trip is tomorrow after all. And this way you have time to remember something that you might have forgotten and it gives you time to recover if something you planned on bringing needs to be washed. This person is probably a stable, dependable, not overly neurotic person.

The very last second packer: This is the person that will get up at 3am to pack, water the plants, send out a few emails and set the out of office message on before leaving the house at 4:30 (meant to leave by 4:15 at the latest) to get on the 6:15am flight to somewhere wonderful. This person is clearly insane. But let's face it. They don't let the details bother them. They're spontaneous. If they forgot something, they'll just live without it or buy one on their travels. They may be insane, slightly irresponsible, and definitely disorganized, but also probably fun.

And finally, the person who doesn't pack for themselves: Assuming that this isn't a child, this one is just inexcusable. If you are able to dress yourself in the morning, then you should be able to pack yourself. Getting someone else to pack for you indicates laziness.

Did I forget any? Are you or do you live with a different type of packer?

So.... if you've been reading my posts for the past few days you already know that I'm a procrastinator so it should be no surprise that I'm a very last minute packer. I'm right now sitting in my cube thinking of the things I forgot for the trip that I'm leaving for directly from work. No worries. I'll just get them when I get there if it turns out I can't live without band-aids. (I packed cute, but bad shoes for the party I'm going to). And chances are my sister, who I'm going on the trip with, will have some. She's a pack the night before type, or at least she was before the kids. And she's an over-packer, which can come in handy for the forgetful types like myself.

Bon Voyage! And you never know, the next post may be live from Dublin....

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

This is starting to get a little stressful...


Just checking in. Less than six hours left and not done yet. Not even done with one of them. Why do I do this? Not really sure. Why am I posting instead of writing my paper? I could lie and say I wanted to give you an update in case you were concerned about me, but the truth was I can't stay focused on what I'm doing and this seemed like a good way to put it off further.

Ok, back to work...
UPDATE: Done with 20 minutes to spare.... I know. I'm pathetic. But I'm done! Only five classes to go!

Monday, July 09, 2007

Who doesn't love a good deadline?



I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I'm also a part time grad student. At the end of tomorrow I will be 1/2 way through my program. This is where the deadline comes in. I took a week long intensive class the week of June 9th. Prior to that week we had some prep work to do and at the conclusion of the week we were given two assignments that needed to be completed by July 10th. The two assignments are just two short papers. One paper that is to include 15 figures of speech and the other, well I can't remember off hand what it is, but I think it was something about rewriting an argument towards a different target audience. As I mentioned, they are due tomorrow. Have I started either of them yet? Not so much.


I like to tell myself that I work better under pressure and because of that it is ok that I leave things to the last minute. The truth of the matter however is that I'm just a procrastinator. My work isn't any better under a time crunch. I just always put things off. I start off with the intention of doing it early, but it just never happens. Hi. My name is Aunt P and I'm a procrastinator. Do you suffer from the same problem? They say admitting you have a problem is the first step...

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Greek Style Pizza


I love pizza. Especially if it has a good sauce and they aren't stingy with it -- what can I say, I'm a saucy type of girl -- but I'm not particularly fond of greek style pizza. I'm starting to wonder though if my definition of greek style pizza is made up. From time to time I seem to make up my own definitions for things and after a while it becomes fact to me and I'm wondering if this is the case in this instance.

So what is my definition of greek pizza? Well it's the pizza that you typically found in your local<insert town name> House of Pizza. It's cooked in a pan that has sides (see picture above), yet it's not pan pizza because the crust is not overly think. The crust itself is a crispy/crunchy and the pizza tends to be a little greasy. So why am I doubting my definition? (you may especially curious if you agree with my definition)

Tuesday night Mr Tall Guy and I decided to get a pizza from someplace we hadn't tried before, but I didn't want greek style pizza so I called to first check. The first place was confused with my question, but told me yes they had greek style. The second place though told me that no, it was regular thin crust pizza. Yes, folks we have a winner! I order a large cheese and off we go. Mr. Tall Guy hops out of the car to get it, gets back in and immediately I can smell that it's greek style. I'm not sure what the smell difference is, but there is one and I can tell the difference. Mr. Tall Guy is amazed by my skill, and yes indeed it's a greek style pizza. So the question is, was I talking to an idiot that didn't know what greek style pizza is? Or am I the idiot for making it up?

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

WANTED: Movie Recommendations


I believe I've confessed here before that I am a television addict. I just love the small screen. Unfortunately though I'm having a hard time this summer finding enough TV to fill my off hours. My Tivo just isn't filling up the way it does from September to May. Sure I get my daily dose of soaps, but once I buzz through that in the evenings I'm left with little to nothing else to watch. It's gotten so bad that I'm almost looking forward to Thursday's episode of the Pirate Master! (for those of you that are not familiar with it, be thankful. It's terrible -- well except that fact that some of them will tell others that they hate them - to their faces! Generally that only happens in the confessionals or to other cast mates).

To help fill the void we've been renting movies, but so far most have bee pretty awful. So I'm asking, does anyone have any movie recommendations?