Change is in the air

Fall!  I love Fall!  I can actually open my apartment windows without worrying about whether my silverware will melt!

But that's not the only change that's happened recently.  Now that Jenny and the kids have moved to Oklahoma I find that I have a lot more free time than I'm used to.  Of course I mess them terribly, and this is also the first time in my life that I've ever lived somewhere on my own, but I've discovered that it's not the end of the world.  Weird.

Anyway, back to the free time.  Yes, I can and should use some of it to get more work done on my dissertation, but there's only so much dissertating you can do in a single day.  So in addition to doing a little more work, I've also been doing some more hobby things.  In the past couple months I've read 10.5 of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books (I'm currently half-way through El Segador).  I really enjoy them a lot!  I've been reading them all in Spanish, but I'm sure that they are probably even better in the original English.  Not to mention a lot easier to get a hold of.  I've also been playing with the buckets of Legos that I have.  so far I've put together 30 or so of the sets using the instructions online so that the kids and I can have a lot to destroy when they come over for Thanksgiving!  I've also been designing and building some of my own creations.  So far these include a temple, a nativity, a cornucopia, and a minotaur.  You can see pictures of these creations on my website here.  I've also been having a lot of fun with my new silkscreen.  So far I've made 6 t-shirts for myself that you can see here.  I'll make a couple more for myself to make sure that I can consistently do good quality printing jobs, then I'll start preparing some Christmas gifts for Jessica and her family, since this year it is my turn to give them an exchange gift.  Of course, I won't be posting those pictures until after Christmas.

Another change that I've mentioned in a previous post is the fact that I purchased a car about two weeks ago.  I love this car!  And I'm not what you would call a 'car person' at all.  Actually, if I tell you that the car I love is a Prius then you can probably tell for yourself that I'm not a car person.

A final set of changes harks back to the living on my own for the first time deal.  Now first let me preface this by saying that I've always tried to be presentable, but I've never really gone much beyond that point.  But now that is changing.  This morning I shaved with an old-school shave set (August's idea, thanks bro!), you know the kind where you apply shaving cream with a badger-hair brush, I used hair gel, and I even used cologne for the first time in my life.  For those of you who know me you realize that this is definitely a new development.  But you know what?  I actually enjoyed it!  Weird.

But enough about me.  What's new in your life?

Car

Well, now that Jenny, the kids, and the car are living in Oklahoma I decided I should probably get myself a car.  For the longest time I've been wanting to get a Toyota Prius, but its been out of my price range.  Ironically, now that I'm a bachelor again I was approved to purchase a 2010 Prius with just 34,000 miles on it!  :D  It's a very nice white car with a gray interior.  I'm very happy with it!

Insight

Have you ever noticed that if you look hard enough you can always find an excuse to not work?  For example, right now my excuse is that I'm writing this blog post.

Life goes on

     The past few weeks have, of course been a little chaotic.  I helped Jenny pack up the house and the moving truck and she and the kids moved back to Broken Arrow to be near to her friends and family.  So far they're doing well, the kids have been driving everybody crazy and Jenny has gotten a sales job that she is very good at.  The kids have started going to their new school, though I have yet to hear a report on how that is going.  Jenny and I are still working out a regular schedule for me to video chat with the kids via Google Hangouts.  The kids really like doing a video chat!  :)  I miss them all very, very much, but the Spirit has told me (several times) that this is what we needed to do.
    Speaking of the Spirit, I really enjoyed General Conference this past weekend!  I felt so much more peaceful and happy after listening to the four general sessions!  There were a lot of good talks, though if I had to pick one that really stuck out to me it would probably be President Uchtdorf's Saturday morning talk.  It's been harder for me to sit still and concentrate on one thing, so while listening to conference I either played Minecraft or knitted (with the knifty knitter, of course).  An odd combo, yes I know.  But I got a lot of silly things done in Minecraft that I look forward to showing the kids when Jenny brings them down with her for the Austin Film Festival at the end of October.  :)  I also did finish knitting a normal-sized grocery bag which I'm pretty proud of.  It will be interesting to see what the grocery store people do when they see it.  Okay, its not perfect, but it works, dang it!  (I know because I tested it by filling it up with canned goods from my pantry.)
    In other news my schooling is progressing well.  I have completed rough drafts of my first four chapters of my dissertation, out of a total of five chapters.  I'm planning to get started on chapter 5 later this week after I get a little more feedback from a couple of my committee members.  But in any case, even with just four chapter drafts I'm already up to page 90, which is pretty good since dissertations in my field tend to end up between 150 and 250 pages.  I plan to finish up writing the dissertation before the Christmas trips start this December and then defending it in the spring.
    The other big thing going on right now is the job search.  The first application deadlines for Assistant Professorships in Spanish Linguistics are coming up on the 15th of this month, and there are a lot fewer positions being advertised than there normally are.  Fun.  But I have already gotten my curriculum vitae, cover letter, and teaching philosophy written and proofed, and I should be getting more feedback on them later this week.  Then I'll have a mock interview to help me get ready, and then it's show time.  I'm hoping that I can get a good position that is close to Jenny and the kids.  When I pray about it I feel peaceful, so I know things will work out, now I just have to wait and see how.  So the question is, what am I going to knit next?