your burning questions: ANSWERED TODAY

If you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled with an e. ... It makes such a difference.  (Montgomery 35)

I caused Sara of "This paper is only ok" fame minor stress during the introduction portion of her housewarming.  For this I apologize!

It is true.  There is a discrepancy between what I introduce myself as and what I'll answer to.  I will address this now:

I introduce myself as "Anne" because that makes the most sense.  Right? Right. I have at least four different names and two most common names and one abhorred name and I see where this might be confusing.
So "Anne" it is!

Wherein lies the rub.  I do have several names and happily answer to them because I LIKE them.  Not to mention "Anne" has two syllables and peeps be struggling with that all the time.  (Ed. note: Two.  Count 'em.)  Therefore I answer the "what do you want to be called?" question kind of a lot and it is time to settle the debate:

I don't really mind any of my various names!  

Actually I kind of like having different names with different people!**

If you like "Anne with an e" I only ask you pronounce it correctly (it has an E you guys) and THAT is the full list of my demands.  I hereby cheerfully request you select a name that floats your personal boat and row with it!
The most common* as of 5:04pm today are: "Anne," "Annie," and "AnnieAllen."  Pick one.  Mix and match.  Enjoy!
(*"T. Anne" if you are reading in Nashville)
[** It is like ESPIONAGE requiring many ALIBIS]

OR:

You can shun convention and totally make something up! Because that is how my ladycrush professor solved this problem months ago. 

On the first day of class I like to establish myself as kind of a big deal with a snappy "Anne, please, with an e" right off the bat.  My ladycrush professor heard "Anne with an e" on day one and has called me "Annie" ever since.
I think in her head (and in her comments on my papers) it is definitely SPELLED "Anne with an e" but out loud is PRONOUNCED "Annie."

Which is both awesome and accurate. And I support this.

So in conclusion my one request is that you respect the e.  Cause precipitation in your general vicinity with the e.   And if that means you spell "Annie" "A-n-n-e" I am down with that because I adore you guys.

Familiar-name question: DONE.

Though, um, I do realize this leaves the "Anne is actually my MIDDLE name" question unanswered.  That will remain unanswered but I leave you with this

Name-Related Anecdote

in its stead!:

In the PRAXIS session last weekend the roll was called, as 40 people in the same room were taking 8 different paper tests and these things should be official.  The guy gets all the way to my test section and through a billion and three names before stumbling on:

" ... Ta ... Ta-MY-yah? Ta-ME-yah? my-YAY? ... Allen. T. Allen."

uuuughhhhhhhhhh "... Sure. Here."

SOME people think my poetry is boring. THOSE people can suck it.

She stood, considering.
And everything living drew away.
And the grass itself shrank from her feet.
And the sky might have darkened but she wouldn't have known
As she stood.

A world apart stretched before and ominous and promising and
unprecedented.  Rooted to the ground she knew she stood.  There was much to consider.
Regardless of what she chose she was choosing.  And either choice was hers to make and either choice she was choosing and whether she chose
or not
she had a choice.
Did it matter what she chose or did it matter that she chose?
Maybe she was chosen.
The sky rumbled overhead and whether it was predestined or not
she looked --
Just ahead, the choice.  Just behind: choice.
Is it still a choice if one has to choose?

In a lightning flash she chose to reach and she reached through the dark and the unknown and she reached for Knowledge in a world apart in a world her own in a world for Knowledge and she chose it.

And He followed her anyway.

women's herstory month you guys

but
je ne suis qu'une machine if new women
will perform an integral function in that mission to
never cease the inventing and the soliloquizing
really challenge where possible and unattainable hash their lines
truly and staggeringly beyond the pleasure principle just to
be revolutionary in their own time and manner and
free

i realized today that yesterday was the ides of march and i was like "oh. oh, that makes so much sense NOW."

Meltdown 2010: This Time It's Personal

I will say the following negative things about meltdowns.
- They suck.
- They suck most in public. (Like the bathroom of Anderson's 10th floor.)
- It takes a pretty freaking awful day to get THIS heart-of-solid-ice-cold-steel English major to A) cry and B) cry in public.  
So I lost it.  I completely melted down at 10am on the Ides of March and it was in public. 

I will say the following positive things about meltdowns.
- It was a little bit awesome to give up for a second.  I was not aware of how tense and high-strung and totally wiped out I am until it was THAT overwhelming.  And it was just the tiniest bit great to stop trying to solve everything and just deal with life's overwhelmingnesses.
- People will bear-hug you the moment they see your face post-meltdown. You don't even have to ask. It just happens. And then you feel better.
- People will also offer help, immediately.  In the last two days I have had offers for help with my assignments, readings, and physical assaults of the responsible-for-my-meltdown parties.  And let me be the first to state: having others to help with your general ass-kicking is priceless.

It is too long a story to detail why I was not at all emotionally capable of handling Monday's events.   I pride myself on my ability to generally kick ass and take names, but my WORD has this semester been spirit-crushing.  It's just been pretty, um, awful.  For many, various reasons and in several different ways.  Anyway.
The past few weeks have been rough and I was already in an emotionally not-great place and did not need a major thesis-related crisis to contend with at 10am Monday.  But the post-meltdown fallout has been kind of nice.

My new (as of 3pm yesterday) soulmate professor said the following beautiful things: 

This is exactly what you're going to do. Everything is going to be okay.

And proceeded to tell me exactly how to solve all my life's problems.  

I was like "SNAPS.  A whole big world of 'People Who Will Help You!' exists on the 11th floor of Anderson. Right above that special circle of hell reserved for general graduate student torture by hobbits and minions."  

Resolved: my first-born child will bear Soulmate professor's name, with pride.

Additionally, I decided to strip any and all self-pressures for this week.  It is a novel concept: I will consider this week a success if I am still alive at the end of it, and then I will celebrate being me. And still alive. 
Surprising finding: you can't help but have a great day when "success" equals "JUST REMAIN ALIVE."

Also yesterday afternoon I put my hair up in the library and someone noticed my tattoo: "That's so cute! Nice to have a reminder, too LOLZ" 
I eventually realized by that she meant "...that the sun still exists in the middle of this torrential downpouring rain we've had for four days, freaking hurricane out there, what's the deal" but I first took it to mean "...that there will be optimistic sunshine-y days again soon SO CHEER UP YAYZ" 
So of course I was all "Thanks LOLZ!" and whistled a little "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow" because I will make adorable "Annie singing 'Annie'" jokes like that.  Dork. 
But you know what?  It did.  The sun did come out today so you guys can take that little gem to the bank.

And as a final bonus: the universe gave me a wonderful present all wrapped up in a little bow just because it "heard [I] was having a bad day." Oh, universe. We're so good together.
Behold Carlton Cuse's latest tweet:

(VERY MINOR SPOILER.) Tomorrow's episode of LOST? "Recon."

It's a Sawyer episode and he has sex. Need I say more?

NO, SIR.  That will SUFFICE.

 Honestly, I do not deserve such nice things. Well, except the day after I totally lose it and need special attention like whoa so
THANKS UNIVERSE

my ladycrush professor likes found poetry. i just want her to LOVE ME

"when" it "no longer 'defines who you are' it's time"
 "under 'occupation' i wrote BEING ME"

i had known
i had known i had known

it did not exist

i can breathe, i can laugh, i can be, alone

i am free i am free
i am free

"anything might happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation"
a candle heating up in a dark room
"the history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself"

it's kind of a long story since i haven't been talking about it

black takes the pawn

why keep doing it, if it hurts

we let it hurt til we're exhausted, right

i keep staging these conversations in my head

i do not have an original story

this is not news

"i mean this is hazy territory especially now"

i'm just out there today and really appreciate someone grounded

act iii. do tragedies come in five acts?

still awkward - i kept asking stupid questions
on the one hand i'm totally nostalgic

one day it won't matter at all

still working on it though

"if we have the habit of freedom and the courage
to write exactly what we think"

"the dead poet who was shakespeare's sister will put on the body
which she has so often laid down"

i think i can do anything
everything is possible

"maybe now is my time."

i have to send in a headshot with my resume. considering skydiving photos, which are definitely representative of my awesomeness

My upcoming new life in Baton Rouge is trumping my real "I-should-probably-consider-getting-some-coursework-done" life in Philadelphia.
- Energetic (/hyper) SoLaTFApage here

- June 7th is Day One of Induction.  Recall WM's Orientation Weekend 2005 -- TFAInduction 2010  is rumored to be four times that intense and twice as humid.  Plus all the monumental things I have to do between today and then that are generally associated with astronomic life changes [like getting hired, moving halfway across the country, checking out what this "teaching" stuff is, acquiring Louisiana license plates for Christine, learning to be friends with under-12s...

[LIFE'S GREATEST LESSONS].

- Today I spent two hours digging through TFAresources, completing checklists, and writing a brand-new sexy "YOU WANT MY AWESOME TEACHING YOUR KIDS" resume.  Also: I have a resume.  It contains two universities and a real job and is printed on classy paper and I am framing it tonight.

- Mostly I look forward to the excellent things to come.  I am 85% sure that in the next 27 months I can knock off #s 8, 9, 13, 20, and (IF ALL GOES ACCORDING TO MASTER PLAN) 22 on my life's to-do list.  Meaning:

• 2012 is looking pretty good for an irrelevant, unopposed "run" [#6] for the East Baton Rouge Parish Recreation and Parks division vacancy. YES.  Or the Libary Control Board? But that's a four year term and I am so not ready for that level of committment.
• But I could absolutely commit to Bobby Jindal's teleprompter. 
• Do you think the Landrieu family needs a dogwalker?  
• VOTING. PROGRESSIVELY.

The TFALouisiana combination is ripe for political opportunity.  I. am. excited.

- Also: SoLaTFA offers tuition waivers for graduate classes at LSU.  I wonder if I can complete a PhD in two years (Spoiler alert: EASILY)

- This morning during my four-hour attempt to PRAXIS study I enjoyed a solid hour reading up on volcanoes.  Volcanoes are awesome.  Learning about volcanoes is awesome.  Suddenly I realized: teaching elementary school means teaching elementary school SCIENCE.  SCIENCE IS AWESOME.
And history, and social studies, and civics, and even basic mathematics before it gets all theoretical with imaginary numbers and "proof" and the value of "k" in an elastic potential energy problem.  All awesome.
And especially I love elementary school-style bakingsoda&vinegar volcanoes.

You guys.  Kindly plan to come read Beverly Cleary to my class, learn double-dutch at recess, and participate in messy if enthusiastic science fairs.  I promise in return I will introduce you to crawfish étouffée, riverboats, and live jazz and it will be awesome.

WINTER. This is not a drill, you guys.

[human experience = people^relationships + relevance(real life)] < the internet.

This is what a graduate English student looks like:

FIN.