A phone call from the luggage people at US Air woke me up at 7:30. I thought I must've set the alarm clock on my cell phone and that's why it was ringing. Fortunately, they called back after I "turned off" the alarm (a.k.a., hung up on them). I called Enterprise at 8:00 to check on my car. They transferred me to another office and that office told me that cars were coming in and they didn't have anything right away. I told them my plans to go shopping for warm clothes, so they offered to take me where I wanted to go while we waited. First stop Target, then I checked out A. C. Moore Arts and Crafts across the parking lot. Still no car, so they picked me up and issued me a temporary car. I went to Dress Barn (my favorite store but no plus sizes at this store), then DSW shoes (I had a coupon but didn't find anything I needed), then Catherine's (I found 4 things that were on sale and when I checked out, they were 30% off of the sale price: a sweater dress, a sweater and skirt outfit, and 2 pairs of pants for $104 including tax. Not bad!). Next was Macy's but no luck there. Then I had a late lunch at Weathervane, a local seafood restaurant. No lobster but the baked stuffed haddock was quite yummy. I next made a stop at AAA then to the airport to pick up my delayed suitcase. At 2:30, I was back at Enterprise and they had a car. It was his fourth choice of the cars coming in but I just didn't think I could wait until 3:00-ish for a PT Cruiser, a Dodge Vibe or whatever the third choice was. So I took a brand new Nissan Sentra that gets 40+ miles to the gallon and got on the road.
There was no snow in Portland but as I got closer to Farmington there was some old snow on the side of the roads and in the fields. I easily found the house. The dogsitter was in the house as promised. I met Cassie and Benny as well as the dogsitters dog, Laquita. The dogsitter gave me a tour of the house. It's fabulous: hardwood floors, big windows, beautiful wooden archways and door jams, staircase with wooden banister (and a knob like "It's a Wonderful Life" except this one doesn’t come off in your hand), and on and on. My room is the "front room" on the second floor. It's pentagonal!! There are two windows on the side of the house and a big window on the front of the house. My roommate has an antique dresser in there with 4 drawers and tonight we're going to move a single bed in there from another room. I unloaded the car (and hauled all that stuff up the stairs . . . I think I'll get more exercise living in this house) and put a few things in the dresser.
Sure enough, she got home and we moved the bed in there. I'm all settled in! (It's pretty easy to do when you only have 2 suitcases worth of stuff and a few Target bags. Tomorrow, it's off to WalMart! Then there will be more settling in.)
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Monday, January 8, 2007
Grace called Thursday to check on things and see when I was coming. She said it had been unseasonably warm but that a front was coming in Monday . . . perfect timing since I'm coming on Monday as well. ☺ But it turns out this front only has rain and some "coolish" temperatures.
Today, the first leg of my flight is Dallas to DC. Our plane was coming in from DC and then doing a turnaround and going back to DC. The plane was late arriving because of headwinds. But we landed early because of tailwinds. The usual 2:43 minute flight only took 2:12 minutes . . . a savings of 31 minutes! That is serious tailwinds.
At Reagan airport (DC), I pretty much walked off of one plane and on to the next. On the second flight, I sat in the same row as a young man but we didn't talk much as I almost immediately went to sleep. When I woke up, there was an older man in the young man's place. What happened? I felt a little Rip Van Winkle-like.
My flight from NYC to Portland was in a different terminal, but at least at LaGuardia you don't have to go through security when you change terminals. The displays said the plane was leaving at 5:55 and the current time was 5:13. I went straight to the gate. But at the gate, it said the next flight to Portland was at 6:33. There was a lady ahead of me who was asking about my flight. The gate attendant didn't seem to know that the flight was scheduled for 5:55. After we finally confirmed that we were talking about the same flight, the lady and I left, both agreeing that the displays in the terminal didn't know what the display in the gate knew. As we walked past a display in the terminal, we saw it change from "on time" to 6:33. It eventually was 7:05 when we boarded. While I waited, my phone rang and it was Vicki W. It was so great to get caught up on her adventures of her first semester of law school and all her plans for the future!
We finally left for Portland. The captain only explained that the first flight was late and the domino effect had taken over and everything was late. Except for the fact that the only restroom on the plane was out of order, it was a pretty uneventful flight. One of my bags made it to the baggage claim area, but the second bag didn't. After filing a claim with baggage services, I called the shuttle from my hotel and went and sat outside in the not-so-cold cold air and waited. At my hotel I checked email and found ~80 non-spam emails. Eeeek. I went to bed at 1am after answering all those emails.
Today, the first leg of my flight is Dallas to DC. Our plane was coming in from DC and then doing a turnaround and going back to DC. The plane was late arriving because of headwinds. But we landed early because of tailwinds. The usual 2:43 minute flight only took 2:12 minutes . . . a savings of 31 minutes! That is serious tailwinds.
At Reagan airport (DC), I pretty much walked off of one plane and on to the next. On the second flight, I sat in the same row as a young man but we didn't talk much as I almost immediately went to sleep. When I woke up, there was an older man in the young man's place. What happened? I felt a little Rip Van Winkle-like.
My flight from NYC to Portland was in a different terminal, but at least at LaGuardia you don't have to go through security when you change terminals. The displays said the plane was leaving at 5:55 and the current time was 5:13. I went straight to the gate. But at the gate, it said the next flight to Portland was at 6:33. There was a lady ahead of me who was asking about my flight. The gate attendant didn't seem to know that the flight was scheduled for 5:55. After we finally confirmed that we were talking about the same flight, the lady and I left, both agreeing that the displays in the terminal didn't know what the display in the gate knew. As we walked past a display in the terminal, we saw it change from "on time" to 6:33. It eventually was 7:05 when we boarded. While I waited, my phone rang and it was Vicki W. It was so great to get caught up on her adventures of her first semester of law school and all her plans for the future!
We finally left for Portland. The captain only explained that the first flight was late and the domino effect had taken over and everything was late. Except for the fact that the only restroom on the plane was out of order, it was a pretty uneventful flight. One of my bags made it to the baggage claim area, but the second bag didn't. After filing a claim with baggage services, I called the shuttle from my hotel and went and sat outside in the not-so-cold cold air and waited. At my hotel I checked email and found ~80 non-spam emails. Eeeek. I went to bed at 1am after answering all those emails.
How Far?
January 13, 2007
It's 3/10 of a mile from the house to the Education Center on campus where I work. It's 4/10 of a mile from the Education Center to church. (And the Education Center is right on the way.) Maybe I'll even walk to church. ☺ It takes 6 minutes to walk to the Education Center and that's with walking slowly to "take it all in". So maybe 15 minutes to walk to church? This is so surreal for a woman who drove 40 miles one way to work for the last 7.5 years.
Yesterday, I walked to work. In the afternoon, I walked across campus (literally, from one end to the other) in about 3 minutes to go to the administration building to sign some papers. Then I walked a block from there to the post office to check my box, then 2 blocks to The Granery for the faculty get together, then back to the Education Center to pick up my stuff, then home. And it was all a breeze. Everything is so close!
It's 3/10 of a mile from the house to the Education Center on campus where I work. It's 4/10 of a mile from the Education Center to church. (And the Education Center is right on the way.) Maybe I'll even walk to church. ☺ It takes 6 minutes to walk to the Education Center and that's with walking slowly to "take it all in". So maybe 15 minutes to walk to church? This is so surreal for a woman who drove 40 miles one way to work for the last 7.5 years.
Yesterday, I walked to work. In the afternoon, I walked across campus (literally, from one end to the other) in about 3 minutes to go to the administration building to sign some papers. Then I walked a block from there to the post office to check my box, then 2 blocks to The Granery for the faculty get together, then back to the Education Center to pick up my stuff, then home. And it was all a breeze. Everything is so close!
How Do You Spell That?
January 13, 2007
Today at Radio Shack, they were out of indoor outdoor thermometers, so the guy sent me to Obershon Hardware down by the Dunkin' Donuts. I got there only to find out it was Aubuchon Hardware. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but has a different meaning and is often spelled differently (e.g., hair/hair, bat the wooden stick/bat the mammal that hangs upside down in caves). Then there are equivocal words that are spelled the same, have two pronunciations and two meanings (e.g., address the noun and address the verb). But wait, this is two spellings for the same word with the same meaning. I wonder what you call that?
I'm expecting many more entries in this blog category. :-)
I did find an interesting resource on the topic of homophone/homonym, etc. The author doesn't address my situation, but for my lexophile friends, you'll love this:
http://www.scs.fsu.edu/~burkardt/fun/wordplay/equivocal_words.html
Today at Radio Shack, they were out of indoor outdoor thermometers, so the guy sent me to Obershon Hardware down by the Dunkin' Donuts. I got there only to find out it was Aubuchon Hardware. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but has a different meaning and is often spelled differently (e.g., hair/hair, bat the wooden stick/bat the mammal that hangs upside down in caves). Then there are equivocal words that are spelled the same, have two pronunciations and two meanings (e.g., address the noun and address the verb). But wait, this is two spellings for the same word with the same meaning. I wonder what you call that?
I'm expecting many more entries in this blog category. :-)
I did find an interesting resource on the topic of homophone/homonym, etc. The author doesn't address my situation, but for my lexophile friends, you'll love this:
http://www.scs.fsu.edu/~burkardt/fun/wordplay/equivocal_words.html
First Friday Fun, January 12, 2007
The faculty here have "Friday Seminars" most Friday afternoons. You have to watch your email for the location each week, but it's always a location with food and "beverages". I went last night (before dinner at the house) and had a good time. I mostly listened to a conversation between two professors about Jean-Paul Sartre. About the only other name I recognized in the conversation was Simone de Beauvoir. And the only reason I know those two names are associated with each other because of the Movie "The Truth About Cats and Dogs." It was exactly the kind of conversation that should be going on at a Faculty Friday night event! I was loving it (and the guy who is teaching the class on Sartre said I could attend his class and I think I will).
I did get to meet another new professor in early childhood education who got her Ph.D. very recently after working in the field for quite a while. We had a lot in common. She was very nice and I hope to run into her again either in the Education Center or at the next Friday Seminar.
When I got home, my roommate told me my box (of stuff I had shipped to myself) had arrived. She asked what was in it and I told her I didn't remember much except warm clothes and that I had packed my Texas Independence Day stuff in my suitcase 'cuz I had to make sure it arrived safely. So then I had to tell her and her boyfriend about Texas Independence Day and she said, "Let's have a party!" Oh, I really like this woman!!
Hey, it turns out my roommate goes to St. Joseph's Catholic Church! Yesterday, I told her I had to stop by the church to see what time services were and she asked me which church. She flipped out when I told her which one. She thought I had found out her church and was pulling her leg. She thinks that God wanted her to invite me to be her roommate and I couldn't agree with her more! We are having a blast.
She had invited a good friend of hers over for dinner, so with her boyfriend, that made 4. We had Chinese food, then played Trivial Pursuit boys vs. girls. [Note to Dr. Mari: there were no "Australia" answers but then this was the Millennium version and not the Genus version. We also did not play with any brass swans.] The funny thing was, there were two questions that I knew, not because I'm good at trivia ['cuz I'm not] but because they were about Dallas. I think they were the only ones I got right all night, but who's counting. ;-)
I did get to meet another new professor in early childhood education who got her Ph.D. very recently after working in the field for quite a while. We had a lot in common. She was very nice and I hope to run into her again either in the Education Center or at the next Friday Seminar.
When I got home, my roommate told me my box (of stuff I had shipped to myself) had arrived. She asked what was in it and I told her I didn't remember much except warm clothes and that I had packed my Texas Independence Day stuff in my suitcase 'cuz I had to make sure it arrived safely. So then I had to tell her and her boyfriend about Texas Independence Day and she said, "Let's have a party!" Oh, I really like this woman!!
Hey, it turns out my roommate goes to St. Joseph's Catholic Church! Yesterday, I told her I had to stop by the church to see what time services were and she asked me which church. She flipped out when I told her which one. She thought I had found out her church and was pulling her leg. She thinks that God wanted her to invite me to be her roommate and I couldn't agree with her more! We are having a blast.
She had invited a good friend of hers over for dinner, so with her boyfriend, that made 4. We had Chinese food, then played Trivial Pursuit boys vs. girls. [Note to Dr. Mari: there were no "Australia" answers but then this was the Millennium version and not the Genus version. We also did not play with any brass swans.] The funny thing was, there were two questions that I knew, not because I'm good at trivia ['cuz I'm not] but because they were about Dallas. I think they were the only ones I got right all night, but who's counting. ;-)
Introduction to Life with the Mainiacs
January 13, 2007
Although I just set up my blog today, I plan to backtrack and blog about all aspects of this trip to Maine. Is this a short-term move or a long-term visit? I don't know, but it's exciting! I am starting on my first adventure as DOCTOR Theresa, having just finished my dissertation and all the paperwork on December 14, 2006. And now I'm a visiting professor at University of Maine at Farmington for the spring 2007 semester. I'll only be here for 4 months, but I'm counting on their being 4 action-packed, learning-opportunity-filled, fun and fabulous months.
Though these postings are listed in the order they are submitted, I will date them based on when I wrote them or experienced them. So the first bunch will be out of order as I try to play catch-up (not ketchup) with all that I've already experienced in preparation for the big trip and since arriving in Maine.
Although I just set up my blog today, I plan to backtrack and blog about all aspects of this trip to Maine. Is this a short-term move or a long-term visit? I don't know, but it's exciting! I am starting on my first adventure as DOCTOR Theresa, having just finished my dissertation and all the paperwork on December 14, 2006. And now I'm a visiting professor at University of Maine at Farmington for the spring 2007 semester. I'll only be here for 4 months, but I'm counting on their being 4 action-packed, learning-opportunity-filled, fun and fabulous months.
Though these postings are listed in the order they are submitted, I will date them based on when I wrote them or experienced them. So the first bunch will be out of order as I try to play catch-up (not ketchup) with all that I've already experienced in preparation for the big trip and since arriving in Maine.
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