my new addiction

hello, my name is saturdai, and i am addicted to ancestry.com.

i saw that commercial ONE TOO MANY TIMES... and i gave in.

true to their advertising, i type in people's names and birthdates and birth-states (because i often don't know the name of the teeny towns my older relatives were born in) and viola! those lil pesky leaves pop up, signifying that i've got an "ancestral hint", or a close or exact match to whom i'm looking for.

once you get one leaf, you become a leaf hoarder. you want more and more and more leaves and you can't help yourself! by golly, i even got a leaf for myself when i entered my name, birthday and birth place in. who knew birth records from the 1980s would be grainy and pixelated?

so with my addiction to getting leaves and finding out old info about family members who passed on before i was even alive, i began pestering my parents and only living grandparent for info. i pestered mama for all old family reunion programs and the programs to people's funerals. i pestered dad because i didn't know whether they were from texas or louisiana (they were from the state line so they crossed back and forth often). and i pestered my bigmama about all her brothers and sisters (there was 11 of them) and her mothers information (there was 9 of them i think).

my tree is pretty extensive. 228 people.  i started out only working on my dad's side, being that our family reunion is coming up and sister thought it would be a great idea to sign me up as responsible for making the family tree. but i guess she knew best, because i am really into this. hell, if this phd thing doesn't work out, i can be a genealogist! i've found relatives all the way back to 1832! and that's pretty good being that black people weren't considered people until 1863. apparently, i have a crapload of mulattos (sp?) in my family, and they were sneaking and passing their way into the census. also, with the number of mulattos i have in my direct lineage, i think the next step of my addiction is to get the DNA testing to see how much of everything i have in me. that'll have to wait though, it costs 600 bucks.

after i had so much luck on my dad's side, i started on my mom's side too. i've had good luck with my dad's dad's side and my mom's mom's side of the family. i didn't find out much about my dad's mom's side until last night when i pestered mama for her funeral program because i knew it had her information in it. mama found it in 10 mins (she has EVERYTHING) so i anxiously sped home to my apartment from her house and entered all my grandmama's info in, and of course, some leaves popped up. i found her parents and a whole lot of her brothers and sisters (there were 9 of them). the only side i haven't had much luck with is my mom's dad's side. she didn't know him well, so of course she couldn't tell me much. i really want to know about them because they have native americans over there, my mom's dad's mom is native american. but she had 3 friggin husbands so its hard to track her down. i've only found one so far, and he's not even my granddad's dad.

i'm 6 days into my 14 day free trial, and i've think i've made good progress. i want to find all the records for the older people first and save them to my computer. i have 3 census records from 1880, 4 from 1900, 4 from 1910, 3 from 1920, and 4 from 1930. i've even created a lil checklist to see if i can trace people in every census. (yes i'm THAT into it).

another perk about paying for the service is that if a relative of yours is also making a tree, they link you together. of course, a cousin that i never knew existed is also creating a tree about my mom's mom's side of the family, so i copied a good bit of her information onto my tree. of course, i had to verify it because some of her information is wrong. but its easy to get information wrong. on each census, my dang ancestors were putting different information. like one year they were born in 1851, then on the next census they were born in 1854. then they're born in kentucky, then they're born in alabama. sometimes they're black, sometimes they're mulatto. going back and forth sucks, but this is soooooo fulfilling.

i am going to make good use of my remaining 8 days of my free trial. hell, i might even pay for a month so i can get more.

until next time...

TOODLES!

the verdict...

I PASSED MY PRELIMINARY EXAMS!!!!!

I AM A DOCTORAL CANDIDATE!!!!

ALL I GOTTA DO IS WRITE A FRIGGIN DISSERTATION AND I'M OUT THIS BITCH!!!!!

and i will elaborate on my preliminary experience later. i'm sleepy as hell, being that i haven't slept good in DAYS.

TOODLES!!!

cowboys stadium baptist church

YEP! that's where i worshipped at on sundai. i thought about going to the 8am service then heading out there, but sis and nem wanted to be there at 9a so that was out the question. and no we did not listen to gospel music on the way there.

heading over to HT's house so we can consolidate cars was a mess, because my craptacular GPS on my phone decided it wanted to freeze up right when i exited off the freeway. grand prairie, tx, is not my part of town, so once i got off I-20 i didn't know where in the hell i was going. so i just put my hazards on in the middle of the street (like my truck broke down) and waited for the GPS to reboot. it did, and i finally made it to the house, only to leave and go to mcd's cause i did not eat breakfast before going over there.

sister sucks because she got there last (WAAAAAY after our planned departure time of 9am) so we didn't get to the stadium until 1030ish. we parked over a mile away because it was $20 to park. with 5 people in the car, that's a helluva better deal than parking closer and paying $60. yes, jerry jones is charging 60 bucks to park on his lot. jerry jones was not finna take aaalllllllllllllllll my lil money that day!

we get a nice workout walking to the stadium and find a good spot to take pictures, so here are some:

that's my sister on the left. older, yet shorter, sister.

the game was awesome, besides the fact that the cowboys didn't score until the last 3 minutes of the game. hell, that score is all that mattered. a W is a W!  we didn't have actual seats in the game, we had what were called "party passes", which basically gets you into the stadium and you can just get in wherever you fit in. they have lil bar areas in the end zones and on the platforms in the upper levels, so we hung out on level 3. couldn't see the field, but i got a nice view of that LOVELY HD screen the entire game. being that i need to update my prescription on my glasses, that was good enough. those players would have looked like ants if i actually tried to look at the field.

in the last quarter, we went up to the top level to watch the rest of the game in one of their "club" areas. it has a dj, a bar and flat screens all around. and PLENTIFUL drunk people. i thought i was gonna see a fight between the cowboys and redskins fans break out, but they just stuck to yelling at each other. such a lovely environment. sister and friends went around walking the stadium meeting people and getting numbers (she called it "networking") but when she game back the game was over and the dj had started playing music again. we like music, so when they play good music, we dance. apparently the drunk yt lady liked dancing too, so she ran over to us saying "teach me! teach me to dance! pleeeeease!" (yes she was THAT drunk). sis and CG tried to teach some basic stuff, but that wasn't working. the lady's husband comes over and says, "she's white, she's not going to get it". WOW. he said it, but i sure was thinking it. and yes, i have pics of that hilariousness too:

we stayed in the cowboys club for a good 30 mins after the game to let the crowd leave so we wouldn't get caught up in the stampede to the parking lots. for some reason CG wanted to walk out the WRONG end of the stadium (tryna meet up with some dude she know). but we passed the time by taking more pics:

dang sun. i couldn't keep my eyes open for the picture.

we walked through the players lot, and all we saw were hummers, bentley's (tony nomo romo's bently was NIIIIIIICE), benzes, range rovers and any other luxury vehicle you can think of. but one player did have an acura. i should have walked around to see what the name was on the spot. they have their names on their spots so you could tell who's car belonged to who. the people who own press boxes, luxury suites and season passes have parking spots too. i love the cowboys, but i can't give them ALLLLLLL of my money like that. i aint got that much....

we endured the mile-plus long walk (since we walked out the wrong end of the stadium) back to our vehicles and we drove back to our respective homes. i drove to my mama's house cause she made chicken tetrazini for dinner and that is s l o w l y becoming my favorite dish (watch out lasagna!) so i had to grab a plate and partake in the sundai evening foolishness with my family. it ended on a bad note with my bad ass lil cousin pulling a prank on me and my mama by hiding my mama's memory card for her digital camera in my purse. i wanted to drive back over there and cuss her out, but mama said no. she was going to punish her by unplugging the computer. i said that ain't enough, take away the keyboard and hide it. so she did.

and on thanksgiving i'ma laugh in her face, REALLY HARD. dumbass lil girl.

until next time...

TOODLES!

randimosity from the road, 14.1

greetings from denver, colorado!

i'm chillin up in this (LOVELY) hyatt hotel working again. i like hyatt's and renaissances. they have such wonderful bedding and great bath products- many of which i am going to take and hide every time my room is cleaned. maan, when i worked this job in the spring and summer i did not buy soap or lotion, because i would take it from every hotel. well not every hotel, some hotel products are janky and mess my skin up. but renaissance hotels use aveda products (aveda = AWESOME) and hyatt hotels use pontico products. i've never seen it in a store, which is why i grab so much of it!

the kids here are good. chatty, but good. i hope they're learning something. i don't have super quiet ones like i did in columbus, but they are good kids. tons of fun. my co-facilitator worked together once in the spring, and we trained together in january. she's kinda sick of the job so she's not that enthused about this session. its kinda feeding on me, so i'm feeding off the kids sillyness. ironically she's applying to be a program coordinator for the same program (this program we work now). program coordinator is slightly better than faculty advisor, still crazy travel and crazy hours.

i'ma keep on being a guest FA. i like it. i just can't do the demading schedule where i'm on the road 3 and 4 weeks in a row. i did that in the summer and i almost LOST MY MIND. i seriously criss-crossed the country. i had no concept of time zones.

...kinda like i don't have a concept for time zones now. i'm from central, but two weeks ago i was in eastern and now i'm in mountain. i went to bed last night at 10p and woke up at 3a for NO REASON.   i do know one reason, my dumb self had the heat on high fan on 77 or 78. i don't sleep in heat, but i will hibernate really good in the cold. but ironically i don't like being cold. well, i don't like being cold when i'm supposed to be awake.

oh yes, i have a room to myself! first time EVER. they picked a great hotel to give me my own room. i can control the tv, the heat, and the bathroom. awesome combination!   i'm staying over an extra day here in denver, but i don't know if i will be able to do much because its supposed to SNOW on sundai.

SNOW?!   what's that!??!?!?!?!?

ya'll know i don't do snow.

the food here is aight. not as awesome as other cities, but edible enough to get me full. and they had chocolate covered apples as snacks. i'm not a fan of chocolate covered anything, but chocolate covered apple slices = YUMMY! i ate a good 4 of them. and we told the kids they could only have one. haha. we don't follow our own rules.

i texted BP this morning. of course he is working another conference in princeton. i miss my yt boy. he got soul though, and awesome hair. can you tell i like guys with awesome hair? its definitely a qualification for my interest, along with a college degree, interest in knowledge, fun-loving/adventurous and smart-mouthed. i got a smart-snarky mouth so he need to be able to keep up with me.

i do need to keep my attitude and snide comments in check though. not everybody should be the recepient of my attitude, like my professors.  i know better, i'm just so used to talking shit that i keep it up.

okay, somehow the air is on in my room and it is getting ready to hit me with the sleepy stick.

until next time...

TOODLES!

randimosity from the road, 13

greetings from.... dallas, texas!

well i was in columbus, ohio, but i'm just now getting around to typing this. lazy, i know.

anywhoo...

i was in columbus from wednesdai to mondai working a conference. i'm not full time like i was in the spring and summer. i'm what they call a guest, so they only call me when they need extra people. which is cool, cause i get to rack up more frequent flier miles (i'm sad that northwest got bought out by delta so they are all on delta now ) and i make a quick 500 bucks for working with some kids. and i will say, these kids were awesome. two thumbs up for ohio kids. i thought they were gonna be like the indiana kids, and i didn't quite like them. but these were good. i will honestly miss them. i will never forget them, because half of them have added me on facebook already.

but i had a fun time. i worked with a basically new staff. i only knew two of the people. oh, and there was three people with my name. but people were able to tell me apart because i was the only black one. hell i was the only black person on staff. hey, it happens, but it's all good.

the hotel was awesome, the ride there? not so much. i was a lil forgetful and i didn't make a shuttle reservation ahead of time, so i kinda just hopped in and told the guy where i was tryna go. he had to use GPS. columbus didn't seem that big, so if you are a shuttle driver, why are you using GPS? that puzzles me everytime i see it. not only that, they just wanted to start some construction right in the front of the hotel, so he had to drop me off in the ALLEY next to it. are you serious? me no likey that.

of course with coming to a new city, xanga meet-ups are bound to happen. so who's home is in columbus? thebigshowatud. on sundai, after i finished up with the kids, we talked on the phone and we talked about him hypothetically bringing me chipotle because all the restaurants around me were fancy smancy and i didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for food. so he shows up at my hotel (with the hypothetical chipotle in hand) and i eat my (AWESOME) food and we watch football. damn ohio didn't show the cowboys game (HOW BOUT DEM COWBOYS!) so i watched the san fran vs indy game and the minnesota vs green bay game. that brett farve is a BEAST. and he 40? damn. he is going to have some serious arthritis when he get older though...

after the food, we went on a nighttime walking tour of downtown (during which i FROZE). and they have this huge ass statue of christopher columbus. the dude gets LOST and he gets a city AND a statue? can i go get lost real quick?! what ya'll gonna give me????!!!?!?!

i felt like i was at home for two seconds when we were at a light waiting to cross the street and this early 90's monte carlo rolls up with a nice paint job and huge chrome rims. the south has escaped to the midwest!!! and really, i don't think ohio should be considered midwest. its next to pennsylvania, which is next to the ocean. but its not quite northeast either. i don't know what to call it.

so after that, i returned to my hotel and worked on my prelims some more (i failed to mention i'm taking prelims didn't i?) then i went to bed. the next day i woke up (late for a change. FINALLY!), repacked, and got ready to go to the airport. i had to take a cab, which i don't like to do (damn bone collector movie!) and i had fairly good flights to back dallas.

onto other random stuff being that i have been MIA for a month...

my dissertation proposal was accepted. i defend it NEXT MONDAI.  i also defend my prelim exam answers on mondai as well. they call that a 2 for 1. why schedule two meetings when you can knock these out at one time? i'm going to have to study really hard because everything that i didn't write in the paper, i will need to be able to say in the meeting. i don't know what to expect. my prof is supposed to be calling me later to tell me what to do about mondai.

ummm... i'm supposed to be researching but i'm not, and i'm using prelims as my excuse! i will get to it, trust me, i just need to handle my business first before i go working on somebody else's stuff.

hmm... that's about it. i don't do much.

next stop... DENVER! where it will be even MORE cold than columbus!

until next time,

TOODLES!