gogmagog | (no subject)

From pretty much everyone on my flist:

You know how sometimes people on your friend’s list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think “Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???” And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy the question below, erase my answers, put yours in their place, then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration and feel free to ask for elaboration from me as well!

1. First Name: Joseph. Yes, people manage to misspell it a lot (the one I usually get is "Joesph," which WTF ENGLISH DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT, PEOPLE). I was named after my paternal grandfather, who died before I was born.

2. Age: 24

3. Location: Iowa City, IA, a good portion of which is currently underwater (fortunately my apartment is not).

4. Occupation: Graduate student in English (working towards my Ph.D.). I also just finished two years of teaching Rhetoric (basically freshman composition + public speaking, though for the past year it's been almost exclusively public speaking), and am getting ready to start teaching in the General Education Literature program this fall (which is much more up my alley). And finally, during the school year I work in the Speaking Center, helping students with Rhetoric speeches and helping ESL students with conversation practice and general English improvement.

5. Partner: No partner, I'm flying solo at the moment. XD

6. Kids: None for a VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY long time, if ever. I enjoy seeing my baby brother or friends' kids, and that's enough for me. XD

7. Brothers/Sisters: Uhhh, four siblings? I have an older sister, Crystal (who's, god, 38 now I think; she's technically my half-sister, as my dad wasn't her biological father, but he's the only father she's ever known and for all intents and purposes he was her dad), an older brother Niles (who's 36), then there's me, all from my mom and dad's marriage. After they divorced, both of them remarried other people, and when my dad married my stepmom I got a stepbrother, Nicholas (now 21, and apparently about to become a dad this fall, wtf) and right before my dad died, a baby half-brother, Lance (who will be 6 in August; SURPRISE BABY). Nevertheless, because of the big age differences between me and my older siblings and the fact that I only saw my stepbrother on weekends, I pretty much grew up like an only child.

8. Pets: None here in Iowa, though at my parents' we have two cats (Minnie, short for Mrs. Miniver and Marlowe, after the playwright) and a dog (Mina). The M-naming scheme was totally unintentional, as the dog and one of the cats came with names already. XD

9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:

1. Studying for the COMPS OF DOOM. Basically, my comps committee chair is going out of town in February and won't be back till April, and so I want to take my comps in January. This gives me about 6 months to hash my comps article into shape, read and annotate my special interest area list readings, and read my historical list readings.

2. Working on my comps article in my summer doctoral workshop class, and similarly giving feedback on others' articles. (Sadly I'm the only medievalist in that class, weo.)

3. Trying to get my apartment cleaned up and my stuff boxed up because I'm moving to a new apartment (2-BEDROOM WOOOOO) in about a month and a half. It's in

iowayehudit's complex, and there's SO MUCH SPACE. AND AN ACTUAL KITCHEN. *_*

4. Obviously the whole flooding thing that Iowa City's been dealing with.

5. Trying to catch up on some of the gigantic backlog of movies/videogames/Doctor Who episodes that's built up during the semester, now that summer's here and I have a bit of schedule flexibility. The past weekend has thrown a wrench into my "gaming every other day" schedule, but I'm gonna start that up again tomorrow (today I have to do actual work, giving feedback on someone else's paper for my summer class).

10. Where and for what did you go to school for?: Well, for undergrad I went to the University of Missouri-Kansas City, getting a double degree in history and English lit. (I also took a lot of comp sci courses when I briefly thought I wanted to major in that, until I realized that the math had stopped being fun.) I also spent a year studying abroad at Kingston University in the outskirts of London. For grad school, I'm currently in the third year of a Ph.D. (so, the halfway point, pretty much) of an English lit Ph.D. at the University of Iowa. I just finished classwork (woohoo!), and I'm now preparing for my comprehensive examination (comps), where I basically have to read a shit-ton of medieval literature and criticism to give me breadth, and write a crapload on said lit and crit, before I get to have an oral examination over said reading and writing.

11. Parents: My mom and dad divorced when I was 3, after having been married for almost 20 years; however, I can't really even remember them being together, and can't imagine them being together very happily as they were such different people. My mom remarried my stepdad, and my dad remarried my stepmom, and both seem to have picked people with whom they had a lot more in common and were much happier.

My dad died 5 years and a handful of days ago, of a sudden heart attack - two days after his 56th birthday, and at the end of my year in England (so I hadn't seen him for nine months or so before he died). I got the news on Father's Day (since he died at like ten to midnight the day before, and England is ahead several hours). Needless to say, June is always a kind of hard month, since it has his birthday, Father's Day, and the anniversary of his death all smack-dab up against each other. I try to keep busy during this period so as to not get depressed, and this year Mother Nature decided to help; with all the flooding shit going on, I pretty much just had a chance to look at the date and realize what day it was, without having time to get all sad and emo over it.

12. Who are some of your closest friends?: Well, I tend to divide my friends into groups by location; among my Kansas City friends, it would be

rathershady and

courters28, and among my Iowa friends, it would be

lordtravis,

teachingmusic and my friend Stephanie.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's nice to learn to know my my acquaintances and friends better even though it's from a distance. LJ makes it easier for me especially since I'm not very good at being social. Your whole family situation was a little fun to read about, of course not the divorces but you've so many siblings and step siblings to keep track of my head started spinning. XD
And I'm sorry about June and the things that have been happening lately but then you're strong so all I can really say is hang in there. ;D;

Yeah, I guess it is a little confusing looking from outside; it all seemed normal at the time, though (well, except for SURPRISE BABY a few years ago, that was a shocker even for me). XD

I. I TOTALLY THOUGHT YOU WERE ~~A LOT~~ ~~MUCH~~ OLDER. Er, like I thought you were a couple years younger than ka etc. XD;;;

(... oh god, what if I have forgotten ka etc's ages again, ohnoes.... >.>)

Well, I AM almost 25! (Next month, as it happens.) And I am only a few years younger than

angrybabble, as far as I remember? Basically I'm one and a half years younger than

jokersama, who's a couple of years younger than Ka, I think.

But yeah, I totally know the feeling: "So and so is only XX? Oh my God, I would totally have pegged them for older!" Maybe it has to do with writing style? (I write like an old person a lot of the time, sadly; I reckon it's my Missouri upbringing, which leads me to say things like "I reckon.")

Bwuh? Ok, neither of them are the ages I thought they were either! orz I thought puu was older than ka, for one thing, and also that she was pushing 30 (because I assumed she was approaching the end of her training which is like 8-10 years out of undergrad, innit?)

So... steve is still really old, isn't he? >.> <.< >.>

Puu is practically a baby, because she started college two years early (like me) and stayed ahead of the game all the way through (unlike me), so she's way further than you'd expect for her age. XD

I do think Steve is still a decent amount older though! XD

Oh, well that's ok then! I estimated both puu and your age from where I thought you were in terms of schooling, so things are mostly lining up now... ^^;; And I guess that means ka is pretty much exactly the age I thought she was. XD;;

I'M THE VENERABLE AGE OF 27, YOU FREAKS

RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAY

Ka will turn 28 in July.

Edited 2008-06-19 02:09 (UTC)

You can't pull rank on me, Miss Puu! I'm 27 too! =P I must confess though, I always figured you were older than me.

Oh, really? I guess you're two and a half years older than me, not one. STILL, YOU'RE LIKE AN INFANT COMPARED TO AVERAGE DOCTOR AGE, YOU'RE LIKE DOOGIE HOWSERETTE

FIRST ONE TO PHOTOSHOP PUU RIDING A UNICORN WITH A RAINBOW EMANATING FROM HER BEING WINS A PRIZE. >33333333333

Ka is older than you??!?!?!

No way. My whole world is turned upside down!

*is the youngie D:*

You young'un, you're practically a baby! (I say this with my whole six months of age seniority over you, BUT STILL.)

It's hard to believe Lance is almost 6... It seems like yesterday I was posting his picture up on Kuzunoha's front page to mark the expansion of our Megaten family. >D

Yeah, when he was born seems like yesterday, but I think he's in kindergarten now. HOW DOES THIS SHIT HAPPEN, I DISAPPROVE

Totally unrelated, but I want to make sure you see this because YOU NEED TO:

>33333333333333333

BEST FANVID EVER, Y/Y? >33333333333