Friday, February 6, 2009

10 things....

Been a long time. I'll update on the Doop and myself in a bit.

Update: the appy in the below post is down to 200 dollars. Not surprising.


One thing I enjoy doing is watching Dumb Girlie Horsie movies. I know they're stupid, often insipid, and usually feature long shots of just horses running around for no reason. I'm not an idiot. I don't make my husband watch. Anyways, I thought I'd share the following:

The Top Ten Things I learned about Horses and the Horse World by watching Dumb Girlie Horsie Movies.

10) Horses make lots of noise. They're always whinnying and snorting. They rear a lot too to look majestic for you. It is not a sign of aggression.

9) Hay is soft and snuggly. It is always fun to snuggle up in a stall with a horse. They won't step on you. There is no poop. It disappears after a "chores" montage demonstrating responsibility.

8) The more people don't like you, the more horses will.

7) English is for snobby girls.

6)Horses are not tamed and broke by hours of training or require you to ever be authoritarian, you just give them treats until they like you and then they let you ride! Bonus if they're completely batshit crazy to everyone else- they just need the love a small angsty girl can give them.

5)Feel free to walk on any farm to work your wiles onto horse owners. Don't call.

4) Lessons are for suckers, you're a natural if you love horses enough.

3)Any horse can do anything if you just believe in them hard enough. Children are the best at spotting talent. The more people think it is rank and untalented, the more awesome that horse is furreals.

2)All the boundaries set by your parents, barn owners, or teachers are just to keep you from reaching the next level, because they don't believe in you. Prove them wrong.

1) There are thousands of washed-up ex-superstar trainers just waiting for a young girl's exuberance to break them out of their funk and launch the pair into super stardom!

7 comments:

amarygma said...

Thought I'd add my sources:

Flicka, Moondance Alexander, The Derby Stallion, The Black Stallion, Seabiscuit, All Hat, National Velvet, probably others too.

horseys4me said...

dont forget dreamer and even racing stripes hehe, oh and my personal favorite horse training movie, the horse whisperer! Your post is RIGHT on so funny!

autumnblaze said...

This is too funny. My husband liked Flicka and I just kept making snide comments on how much the girl wanted to get herself killed. Great list, very funny. :)

OT but from another post of yours - you said "Well, as a graduate student I've always been poor. However, my time as a grad student is ending with the new year, and so I'm about to be poorer. (Hopefully ending with a Masters degree I'm trying to eck out, but possibly not even). My priorities in life have changed: I don't want to do science all the time ever forever. I'm considering getting a real-person normal job, or becoming a high school teacher."

Are you me, blogging in my sleep? I left grad school 2...no, 3 years ago. My masters thesis still unfinished. I'm managing a lab animal facility and want to shoot myself. I only took the job because I needed the money. What were you in school for? Sorry... you just sounded like a kindred spirit - horses, grad school making you realize it wasn't what you wanted to do afterall. :)

amarygma said...

@autumnblaze: Lol, no I'm not you- you're safe. For one, I didn't make my husband watch Flicka. If I don't make him watch dorky horse movies I get a pass on bad-looking medieval dorky movies. It's for the best. :)

I failed my Doctoral prelims. I choked, plain and simple. I couldn't explain things I read the night before, or taught other people unrefreshed. I was panicked even as I had studied, and it's not like I was new to studying! 1 of the 4 on my committee voted for no retake, so I don't get one. The Masters is to recoup my efforts as a student- I had all the credits.

Nowadays even small time professors live between grants and papers. My boss reads Cell while his wife drives them to work, Nature before bed, etc. I want time to eventually have kids that aren't strangers and yes, play with ponies and also work on one of the other billion projects I start around the house and drive hubby batty with.

My boss had money to keep me around another semester. Funny, cuz the girl upstairs is doing the same thing but in pigs (not chickens) for her Doctorate. So I tried to squeeze a Masters(/Doctorate) project into a semester. I tried writing my thesis in November, and pretty much had a mental breakdown.

My boss was very understanding. I told him I did still want to finish, I realized he didn't have the cash to pay me. I told him I needed to go part-time for a semester or so to finish. I looked for a normal, full-time job, and picked up some hours doing chores at the farm and kinda vegged out- going enough to keep my cells in the lab alive.

I feel good now.

I still think I'd make a good HS teacher. The only thing that scares me is the pay. I also can't afford to go back to school to get the coursework for a license. The idea of starting a new education program makes me mildly nauseous.

University didn't pay unemployment insurance (they called me work-study) so I don't get unemployment. However my boss told me Tuesday he got some money from a company if I do some straightforward project for them. The month off made saying yes palatable.

So I have a contract job that should carry me to the end of my Masters. Plus I have a part-time lab tech position in my lab on another project, plus I have Blockbuster and plus I have farm chores. 4 jobs.

And teaching High school is sounding good again. Fun projects and I could design killer labs for them. Summers to ride... a pension... health insurance...

I'm not foolish enough to think that I'd get a horse-job to pay the bills. The ones that pay well are limited, require a significant investment, and connections.

autumnblaze said...

Best part is I didn't force him to watch it - in fact he liked it. HAHAHAHA. I love my girly man. He secretly loves girlie movies. He loves all movies but girlie movies make up a lot more of his top ten than most would guess. Who'd have guessed Mr. 6'4", drafted into MLB (though went to college instead) tough guy would like Flicka. It always cracks me up. :)

I hear you. I had a friend fail her pre-lims at VT - packed up that night and headed back to Arizona. It was painful to see, she'd worked her ass off. Cattle genetics... genetics is tough though, I couldn't do it. I respect you for sticking it out! I admit I'm wussing out not writing my thesis, want to. I just get too frustrated writing. I don't feel like I found what they're telling me I found. Yeah, the stats are there but I don't think it was as exciting as they are making it out to be. Plus my committee never remembered what I was doing, treated me like a PhD student (what Masters student has to create their own protocols from scratch, ALONE? No one had done the Lymphocyte Proliferation ASsays I was doing on cattle blood, horse yes, mouse spleen yes... turns out it's a bit different. Did figure it out though). They were awful, not mean just absent. Plus they were from teh vet school. My major prof was good but knew little about what they had me doing across campus. I would have them look over the protocols to see if they thought they would work, they'd be like, oh yes, that looks great! I'd try it wouldn't work, at all. Then they'd look at and be like, well that reagent doesn't react with that, why'd you use it? Thanks, guys, asked that specifically before wasting my cells! I wanted to go for a PhD but not really. They didn't ruin it for me but didn't help either. Research wasn't for me really and I didn't get in vet school like I'd always planned. Don't want to anymore either, like you, because I'd like to have a family, horsie playtime etc. etc. (a life).

I thought about teaching, wouldn't mind it either. Ran into the same thing with licensing. VA will pay for your classes though. However, I'm from rural VA, I'm living in Hampton Roads/Norfolk... it's a little rough down here. My husband thinks the kids will eat me alive (or shoot me). I want to head into nursing. Always a job in that and it pays well! Not sure how I'll head back to school full time but we'll figure it out somehow. Have taken almost all my prereqs now (who'd have though I'd ahve to take Human A & P when I TAUGHT comparative A & P labs in grad school? Good review though.)

I had a horse job, well sort of. Working at vet, before I took this facility manager job. Wasn't quite paying the bills. Loved it though! This place is just horrid. Dairy/animal science is very different than what I oversee here (with zero respect because my boss is a pushover and the girl before me was too). Ugh.

Anyways, sorry for the long narrative. Glad to see I'm not the only one that was weird and crazy wanting a life and kids who decided to forego a life in science that loves horses. I book marked ya', will be back :)

autumnblaze said...

P.S. Prelims are why I decided PhD was not going to go well for me. I think just my Masters defense is another road block to my finishing. I freeze when in front of people (especially imposing committee professor-type people interigating me) even if I REALLY know the stuff.

lytha said...

*LOL*!!!

yes, a few lumps of sugar, and an untamed stallion will save your life.

thanks for the laugh from a very clever post.

~lytha in germany