coffee circles stain the desk temporarily. just as odd situations stain my day's events.

So, McD's has a new salad (at least I think it's new) called the Southwest Ckn Salad. Delicious. I'm unsure how healthy it is (although I only used half of the dressing - 100 calories for the whole package in comparison to 200+ calories for that evil Ranch), but I had to try it out today. It was a tiny attempt to move my attention away from their fries. Gawd, I love those fries. And now... for various activities/computer errands followed by a presentation (What You Do Online Can Come Back to Haunt You, or something like that) at 3pm.

The advice I was given when I stepped foot on this campus two years ago consisted of two things to not do. Don't: a) look at "The Book" in the library (the book with everyone's salary in it) and b) hang around negative people. So far, so good. But I just discovered a third "don't"... before attending a conference or workshop, don't look up the people who'll be there. Why? Because their CVs will impress me/depress me. Sure, someday I'd like a Ph.D. Someday. Maybe. And like any over-analyzing-female, I jump from "oh, they have a Ph.D." to "man, I am shallow because, usually, I'd rather watch Sex and the City than read more comp/rhetoric research." Yet... maybe that makes me more open to ideas? When I turn off the geek in me, I usually get better reception on the imaginary academic wires popping out of my melon. Trust me.

So, with that said, I've clicked out of search engines and back to Facebook where "my people" are and like me despite my obsessions with heels, Jessica Simpson, and The Gap. I need to focus on my latest handmade poster in my office: Some Things Are Not Worth The Worry. Precisely.

It looks to be a nice small group that'll be at this week-long adventure of workshops... there's variety too. A few Spanish teachers, one or two English geeks (and Mass-Comm-ers), and a handful of other mixed disciplines (nursing, business, and French & German). Essentially, this Midwest Institute deal shouldn't be too shabby of a gig. {Not that I thought it would be, John/Theo. Ooooh, you've been blogged.}

Oh... and getting to the point of what I've been doing all dang day. Well, I revised World Lit's Group Project (the final project, essentially) into a Final Collage Project. It's similar to the Multi-Genre Research I have my online English 120 students doing where they find genres (5 different ones) on a topic and then reflect on why they used those genres to display their topic, etc. And since it's a new project, I needed an example. So, I created my very own on the philosophy of existentialism. BOY, is that a tough philosophy to grasp, but I think the example is interesting, and, weirdly enough, it was fun to put together. Whoa. A fun assignment? Alert the media!

Besides "doing some homework" I've revised Units 10-12 right now. I'd like to get more done before I head home to pass out, but I don't know if the mind can handle it. Wrapping my head around existentialism for most of the morning probably wasn't a great way to start off the day. Ooopsie.

I was just thinking about Facebook (since I am on there & like the aesthetics more than MySpace) and how certain people will put profile pics of just themselves, some will put them with their significant other, and others use movie images or old pics of themselves or abstract pics... Does it mean anything when people only use one kind of profile pic? What does it say about people who change their profile pic weekly versus those who've had the same one since they started using Facebook? Essentially, I am wondering how connected one's personality is to what they do and show on Facebook. Maybe there isn't a connection, but I wonder...

This somewhat comes from another conference I went to (GPACW last fall?) where a presentation was about looking at MySpace pages... it was a sort of analysis on what's going on on those sites, etc.

Oooooh. Happy Friday The 13th!