RBOC: Dissertation Deadline Edition

• I am writing this post on the day that my final draft is due. Why am I taking the time to do this? Well, it's really to prime the pump, to ease into the final edits and writing, and to remind myself of the ways in which writing should be a part of my everyday tasks.
• Soon it will be Fall Break. A time for sleep, grading, grading, and more sleep.
• The phenomenon of "fear of success" is all too real. Why finish if you probably won't get a "good" job? Why finish if that means you then just have to turn the damn thing into a book? Why finish if now you have to start paying real adult rates for all your professional societies? (Alright, that last one isn't a valid worry.)
• I still don't have a defense date. This will be hard to schedule. It also makes the whole "finishing" thing still in the realm of abstraction.
• Editing footnotes is one of my least favorite things to do.

Updated to add: Gnomes for Obama!

Procrastination is

• Reading an email from an online writing group you paid money to join six months ago but then never made any progress on your writing so then never actually participated in the group.
• Filling out a survey on why you didn't participate and realizing that you spent more time on the survey than you ever did with the group you paid money to join. (They did promise to enter me in a drawing for an amazon.com gift certificate. Does that make it ok?)
• Being redirected to the group's blog and watching a 4 min. 16 second animated short on procrastination.
• Posting said short on your blog.
  

• Making a cup of tea.
  

Equally Shared Parenting and its Opposite

I recently read this article in the NYTimes Magazine about the struggle to maintain some form of equality in parenting. Although I can't really think about a child until I have some stability (a tenure track job), I did appreciate this article and thought it was an excellent discussion of how society (and one's friends) can make reaching the goal of equally shared parenting easier or harder. As I find myself relying on Nub to get the car worked on before our move this summer, I know that traditional gender expectations are not easily discarded.

As an illustration of how I am not conforming to 1930s gender roles (or, well, an online quiz-maker's understanding of 1930s middle-class, white, gender roles), I present you with the following evidence.

-11 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

104 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

As seen at One Good Thing.

End of the Year Reflections, Part II

Now that I've had time to actually reflect on my year here at SC in ST, I thought I'd put up a post about the not-so-great things about working here. Most of these things are not unique to SC or to SLACs in general--that's pretty clear from reading others' blogs, The Chronicle, and Inside Higher Ed.

I also must say that as term faculty, a lot of this could roll right off my back. This year, I decided, would be a practice year. I wasn't on any sort of tenure clock so nothing I did "counted" in the sense of being on my "permanent record." I made many mistakes, learned a bunch, and met great people. The learning curve, it is steep.

On the other hand, I could have taught every class drunk, never gone to a meeting, lecture, or workshop, and/or sneered at every student I met on the street and still would have had a job for the year. I would NOT have gotten recommendations from my department to get ANOTHER job, but I would have been paid for 12 months unless I did something seriously illegal. Oddly enough, this realization freed me to experiment with some of my classes--some things worked and some did not. I am really thankful that I had a "practice year" and will get another one next year.

On to the list of the not-so-greats:

• Classes start at 8am. Seriously? Many other SLACs have learned to embrace the 9am or 9:30 start-time. It's not as if we have to pack in a whole lot of people. Classes end at 4:00. Why can't they end at 5?
  

• ST is small, isolated, and pretty white. This is not surprising. The college tries to correct for this by bringing in faculty and students of color, but they often have a lot of trouble feeling at home. One of my colleagues has a story about the night they first drove into ST from California. The summer night was 100% humidity (but no rain) and a mist hung over the town. It was about 95 degrees and when they opened their house, which had been empty for two months, a blast of heat greeted them. The husband, wife, and kids went off to eat at one of the restaurants in town. When they walked in the door, every eye turned and stared at them. My colleague said at that point he wanted to turn around, gather up his family, and drive straight back to CA where there was no humidity and more people that looked like him and his family.

• The students often think they are so very liberal and progressive that none of them need to discuss race, class, sexuality, and gender in any critical way--everybody "gets it" already. Since this is a lot of what I do, I know that a) not everybody gets it and b) as a European historian I talk about other cultures and time periods that are different from the US. So even if a student does, in fact, get it, s/he can still learn about other societies and use these categories to analyze that society. In one of my classes we read a novel about multiculturalism in Europe at the end of the 20th century. Some students complained that this "wasn't history" and that they "knew this stuff already." We had a long discussion about this, but I'm not sure all of them were convinced of the reasons why I assigned the book (one of the themes for the class was citizenship and the idea of the nation--so this novel about multiculturalism and "belonging" in contemporary Europe fed directly into this theme we had discussed all semester).

• "Student-centered" versus "Student-directed" learning. Sure, we should take into account what types of things are popular here and what students really want to learn about. This isn't Big State U where a lot of students don't even want to be in college. Here, students want to take calculus, they want to take history research seminars, and they want to take courses in all sorts of things. Their opinions do and should matter.

But where is the line between taking student opinions into consideration and having the students call all the shots? Course evaluations are a prime example of how students here at SC feel that their opinions are THE most important when it comes to review of professors and of tenure decisions. Course evaluations for new professors here can actually be quite snotty in an "I have been here longer than you and know what SC classes are like" kind of way. This is anecdotally confirmed across a broad spectrum of departments. My response: Really? You've been in undergrad for 2 years and think you know my discipline better than I do? Sure, kid, whatever. But I can do that--my course evaluations aren't going in my tenure file.

Teaching is the key to tenure here. You have to show a pulse in research and you have to do some service, but teaching counts for more than 50% of the equation. The biggest way to evaluate teaching? Course evaluations. Observations by other faculty count as well, but not as much as the course evals. I don't have an answer to this conundrum--who does? But something is not quite right and people going up for tenure here who *are* good teachers are not always a sure thing if their students have said some weird stuff. (I know weird shit gets put on evaluations all the time. I once got a course evaluation back in Boulder that said, under ways to improve this course, "More Donuts!" and then a little drawing of Homer Simpson and a donut. But the weird stuff here is about power dynamics and who best understands the culture and the dreaded "way things are done.")

• My biggest complaint, though? I might not find a job as cool as this one was ever again.
  

A Comment on Sexism and Racism in the Media

No, this won't be about politics. It's about yogurt!



Maybe women of all generations, colors, and regions can unite around our shared hatred for yogurt ads!

Deal Breakers in Recipes

This article in the NYT caught my eye this morning. It's about phrases in recipes, such as "deep fry," "let rest overnight," or "fillet fresh anchovies," that make some cooks stop reading and move onto another recipe.

Since I don't usually read recipes that call for really rare and time-consuming techniques (I'm more of a Cook's Illustrated and Cooking Light type person than a Gourmet reader), my deal breaker was always the pured soup. This usually required an extra bowl, ladling hot soup into a blender, spilling said soup all over the place, and then washing what seemed like 20 extra things.

Until (!) the bright idea hit me that I could register for an immersion blender when we got married--an immersion blender with a metal wand that I could use directly in the soup pot! It's been one of the cooler things we received. I can now make pured soup to my heart's content (plus do a lot of other nifty things). Since I am a creamy soup person, this has made me very happy.

What are your recipe deal breakers?

Grades are In!

I'm done with all my official duties for this year. All grades filed, all papers graded, all forms filled out. My office looks like a paper recycling bin exploded, but I am done.

Now I can let you in on a little secret. A secret that most of us share. I play computer games incessantly. Actually, I take that back. I play one computer game incessantly. The only way I could get through grading is to reward myself with one round of mahjong on my mac after each paper or exam. If I had a windows machine, I'd be playing solitaire. It's not about winning or losing. I don't keep track of my scores and losing a game is almost just as satisfying as winning. It's about the zen of the game.

From here on out it's All Dissertation All The Time. Wish me luck.

End of the Year Reflections, Part I

As this semester, and my year here, draws to a close, I'd like to set out a few of the things that made this place special, fun, and challenging.

Things that I Enjoyed:

• The wonderful support given to term faculty here. We are treated pretty much exactly the same as t-t folks. There is money for research, conferences, and professional development. We get offices (mine kicks ass), computers, and any other hardware/software we need to do our jobs.
• The junior faculty! This group (both officially and unofficially) supported each other consistently throughout the year and made teaching here especially awesome. We had regular meetings, very regular happy hours, and I made a lot of friends outside of my department. In fact, pretty much all the junior faculty from each department were somehow involved in this group. This is something that you just don't get at larger schools.
  
• My department supported me to the utmost. I received great letters (well, they seemed to have done the trick) and job search advice. They also mentored me in teaching and went above and beyond the call of duty in helping me balance the dissertation, teaching, and the job search. Plus they are all very nice!
  
• My cohort of new history peeps. There were a lot of us this year and we are all awesome, if I do say so myself. We bounced ideas off of each other, walked around in packs, and came up with some great ideas for "choose your own adventure-style" history textbooks.
  

Choose Your Own Adventure: Stalin's Purges
"No matter what you choose, you always end up dead!"

• The engaged and interesting students who matriculate here. These adjectives do not describe all the students here, but do describe most of them. They, by and large, do the reading, show up on time, ask questions in class, and engage with the work. It's fun to teach them.
• Living so close to work. I love it! I have never had to drive to work and I walk everywhere on campus. I have a shorter walk from my home to my office than I did walking from the bus stop to the department in CO. Unfortunately, this short commute will probably not exist in future jobs....so I'm enjoying every minute now.

There are other things (large and small) that I enjoyed about working here--this list hits the high points. Join me tomorrow for the things that rankle.

You thought I was going to actually update this thing?

Well, isn't that a quaint notion. But, in all seriousness, I have felt shame, tension, and sadness at the state of this blog. In a way, this is somewhat fitting as many academics operate out of feelings of shame (of not getting enough writing done, of not prepping enough for class, of not providing enough comments on papers, etc). So now add not updating one's blog to the list!

April is the Cruelest Month

for academic schedules, anyway.....

I've determined that if someone asks me to do something in April at least 5 months ahead (say, in September) I will always say yes. It's so far off! Of course I can! I will be a better, more organized, all-round wiz-kid by April. Yeah, right. In reality I'll just be harried, over-stressed, and quite possibly short-tempered.

But I have to play nice this week. I'm off to a conference and then a job interview. Back to back. 2 hours layover in the airport as the dividing line between the two trips! Luckily, I only had to cancel one additional class due to the job interview. Also I am a good packer and can manage on one carry-on plus my laptop bag.

Racism and Sexism

One historian's opinion on the current debate over which the country "needs" more - a woman or a black man as the next president.

Other Roaming Gnomes

I came across this blog today in my search for gnome pictures. I still haven't gotten off my butt to purchase a digital camera. Cedric is forlornly bouncing around in my school bag and dreaming of his return to fame.

Now All I Need is a Hair Shirt

I'm working on the Friday of Spring Break.

It's past 5pm.

I previously had a lunch of a microwave meal (if you know me, you know I would have to be desperate to not walk the five minutes home for an actual lunch).

I've just had a snack of a (delicious, cardboard-y) Wasa crispbread.

Making tea was the highlight of my day (I got to walk all the way downstairs! For milk!).

Perhaps I am already at hermit-dom but everyone is too polite to tell me.

Leap Year Posting

I really just wanted to have a blog post on 29 February. But since I'm here...

Another undergraduate who thinks he is much smarter, cooler, and funnier than he actually is publishes a poorly conceived and executed column in CU-Boulder's campus newspaper. Bitch Ph.D. has a great guest columnist's response for all undergrads tempted to try their hands at "satire." Put briefly I would sum it up as:

Dear Fuckwit,

Please stop writing your racist/sexist/homophobic bullshit.

Sincerely,
Those who are Annoyed Anyone Made You Read Jonathan Swift

Excuses, Excuses

Reasons for not posting recently:

• I've strained my shoulder and neck again. I had to cancel some classes and typing is still painful.
  
• Teaching 3 classes is a lot more work than teaching 2.
  
• 2 of these 3 classes are completely new (yet very interesting). I now feel constantly behind and never fully caught up. I estimate that I'm about 2 pages ahead of my students in the reading.
• More dissertation-related crap.
  
• Worrying over jobs for next year. Luckily some options have popped up recently.
• The flu is going around on campus. Typing through the virus-impenetrable plastic sheeting I've wrapped myself in is hard. (Love those emails that say, "I have the flu, but I'm coming to class anyway....")

Things I've wanted to post about but haven't had time (a short list):

• Some students' desire to drink with the faculty and staff. The campus bar has a new advertising campaign about encouraging faculty and staff to come to the bar. Why on earth would we want to have a beer with our students? That's icky and weird. I would rather do ANYthing else on a Sat. night.
• For some reason, I seem to unknowingly gravitate towards all the disgruntled people at any event or social setting. It's really starting to color my outlook. Where are all the happy people? Perhaps they got lost in all the snow drifts and we'll find their frozen bodies, smiles still firmly intact, in the spring. If spring ever comes-I'm not counting on that at the moment.
• The relationship between "Consumer-driven Education," which everyone complains about while simultaneously agreeing that SC is not consumer-driven, and "Student-centered Learning," which is supposed to be a goal to work towards. I've heard a lot that makes me think that sometimes the two overlap in potentially bad ways here.
  

Why I Teach

There is a meme going 'round the academic blogosphere: Why I Teach X. The various posts, inspired by Dr. Crazy, are fascinating to read. At this point in the semester, as I teach 3 courses (2 new preps) and realize I know jack shit about the 1600s (as a modernist, this century wasn't even on my comps reading list), I don't have time to do this meme yet. I'll get to it in a week or so (once we are firmly in the late 18th century). Here is my favorite answer so far, from GayProf:

"8. Teaching is easier than trying to have a career in stand-up comedy. Both stand-up comedy and teaching require a lone individual to talk for an hour in front of an audience. Students, however, are usually so grateful that I make any attempt at humor in lecture that they will laugh at my corny jokes. In a night club, I would be booed off stage and possibly burned with cigarettes. Moreover, my students don't show up drunk -- most of the time."

He must be, nay, most definitely is, funnier than I am. At least the students got my Monty Python joke.

Barking Gnome

My camera died. In lieu of roamin' gnome pictures, here's a barking gnome (or, given that it's a pug, a snuffling, snorting, wheezing gnome). I did not take this picture and now I can't remember where I got it from. The beginning of the semester does things to you.

It's As Cold As What?

Or, how I learned to live in the Midwest in the winter.

Step 1: Buy long, down coat.
Step 2: Never, ever take off long, down coat.

I woke up and it was -4 degrees outside.

Lego Me

You can make one of yourself here.

Already Running Out of Blog Ideas? Crap.

Here's a meme! (As you know, I don't actually do these "correctly" and tag other people. I feel that if you want to do it, do it.)

1. Will you be looking for a new job?

Yes. Hopefully there will be some openings at other SLACs.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?

A new relationship? No. Relationships with new friends? Sure.

3. New house?

That depends on #1.

4. What will you do different in 08?

I’m going to be waking up a lot earlier, that’s for sure. My first class starts at 8am this semester. Blech!

5. New Year's resolution?

I don’t really do resolutions, but Nub and I have agreed to try to be early or on time for engagements. I will start carrying around a book in case that actually happens….Don’t hold your breath, or anything.

6. What will you not be doing in 08?

Waking up to sunny, blue skies everyday. I miss CO!

7. Any trips planned?

One to my hometown, one to upstate NY, and, hopefully, we can go somewhere warm(ish) over spring break. Just a few days away from this slush? Please?

8. Wedding plans?

I think the main crush of weddings has passed. Now, there are babies coming into play. Two in the past year.

9. Major thing on your calendar?

A conference in April and then the end of June is a time of reckoning-I need to have a new job and a destination in mind or else we’ll be out on the street.

10. What can’t you wait for?

End of Dissertation. Soon!

11. What would you like to see happen differently?

I want to be someone that wakes up early. I’m not sure this is possible.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?

See above.

13. Will you better your relationship with your family?

It’s pretty good already. Maybe I can subtly encourage the sending of newspaper clippings to me about the place I teach and then Nub and I can build a house out of them for our lives after June.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?

I’m nice now, dammit! Why? What have you heard?

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07?

I think I need to wear more skirts. I own them, I just don’t wear them.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?

Neither! I must continue my sacred duty to try all the delicious flavors of alcohol

17. Major lifestyle changes?

Trying to wrench my body into the am without suffering nervous breakdowns.

18. Will you do charity work?

Once I get settled more permanently in a place, I’d love to start again.

19. Will you go to bars?

I’m writing this from a bar. Wait? This is my office? Damn.

20. Will you be nice to people you don’t know?

I’ll be nice in person. But I’m not giving up the option to make snarky comments later.

21. Do you expect 08 to be a good year for you?

Who the hell knows?

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now?

Well, I’m now playing the part of a professor. I like it and want to get me a real, permanent role as one.

23. Do you plan on having a child?

Maybe? Yes? I don’t know! Who are you? My grandmother-in-law?

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?

Well, of course!

25. What happened in 07 that you didn’t think would ever happen?

I enjoyed small-town living.

26. Will you be moving?

Moving sucks. But yes, in all likelihood, yes.

27. What will you make sure doesn’t happen in 08 that happened in 07?

Getting peed on by my cat. Not so much fun.

28. What were your New Year's Eve plans?

Multiple grad school friends, large house to play in, mass quantities of food and drink.

29. Did you have someone to kiss at midnight?

Yes, but I may have been asleep.

30. One wish for 08?

A job.

Roamin' Gnome Says Brrrrrrrr!

p.s. That whirring noise you hear? It's the sound of my hard drive slooooooowly dying.

5 Books in 2007

Here, in no particular order, are the top five books I read in 2007. I'm mixing work and pleasure reading.

-Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin, 2005).
The best 900-page book I read all year. Essential reading for me, recommended reading for everyone. I finally understand post-war Europe better than before. The Balkans, the EU, and the Cold War are clearer now. Judt writes well and sprinkles in wit, personal reflections, and interesting information on those places often shoved into the sidelines (Who really can describe the history of Spain post-Franco? Certainly not me.)

-Conevery Bolton Valencius, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and their Land (New York: Basic Books, 2002). A very interesting study of the intersections between the environment and health. She looks at how early American settlers in Arkansas used similar metaphors for both the landscape they lived in and the landscapes of their bodies.

-Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian: A Novel (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2005).
Vampires, historians, anthropologists, and mystery. Need I say more?

-Jonathan Burt, Rat (London: Reaktion Books, 2006).
This is part of Reaktion Book's lovely series, Animal, that also includes Cockroach, Oyster, and Ant. This is a natural, social, scientific, and literary history of the rat (primarily the black rat, Rattus rattus, but also the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus). There are over 100 illustrations and photographs. I'm looking forward to reading other books in the series.

-Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials Trilogy.
I re-read these this year in preparation for the movie (quick review: sumptuous visuals, insanely bad pacing and plot development). Honestly, I need to read some more pleasure books.

Reflections on the Fall Semester

My time here at SC in ST in MWS is half over. I was excited to have the semester draw to a close until I realized what that meant. Sure, I am glad that the stress is over and now there is a long break to regroup, revive, and relax, but there are only 5 more months of my term left. I have come to really enjoy my time teaching, researching, and learning here. I love the students (for the most part) and the faculty (for the most part). No place is without its downsides, but SC has fewer than most.

I like the potential for collaboration here and the resources that are available to help professors actually achieve that. I like the size of the faculty. Other people have heard of you and remember vaguely what your specialty is and how that might relate to their work. I've already planned a music/dance interactive session for one of my courses next semester with a professor in the music department. (No, it won't be tinikling.)

The library tries hard to compensate for its size and location. Books I order come in within a week or so (I can order as many as you want, no dollar limit) and the Inter-Library Loan office covers the rest of my needs.

The support staff are there to support the teaching and research of the professors, not merely to work on the budget or order office supplies. They actually photocopy, scan, and order books for me. If I had larger, more ambitious projects they would help with those as well.

I have the resources I need to make teaching and my research more enjoyable and possible. Funds for research, funds for teaching and meeting about teaching, and funds to travel to academic conferences (too bad mine are all in relatively boring places, if I were an astronomer (ahem!) I would go here) all exist and aren't holy grails to dream about but never see. My office (my own office!) is comfortable, well-equipped, and has a great view. Term faculty even get computers.



My classes are small, the students do the work (for the most part), and no one has come to grade-grub so far this semester. The large state university system had worn me down so much, that I was not overly ambitious as far as what my students can do. Next semester's classes will need some tweaking (more readings, more challenging readings, and different types of projects).

Obviously, I had a great 1st semester and am looking forward to the next one. I love my job!

Overheard in Line

"My market heifer head-butted me today."

Ah, the joys and sorrows of small-town, Mid-West living.

Drowning

I'm drowning in...something. Is it the 8% abv Belgian beer? Is it the large piles of grading? Only time will tell.

Holy Crap! Bacon Candy!

Well, folks, I didn't know it was possible, but yes, yes it is. The recipe is here. We made it to top some butternut and apple cider soup. You know, to mask the fact that we made bacon candy.

Grading, Grading, and More of the Same

If you are trapped under large piles of grading (or anything else that is time-consuming, absolutely has to be done, and is fairly thankless work) then might the historian recommend this:

Old Fashioned

1 sugar cube
2-3 dashes bitters
splash of water
rye

Place the suger cube in the bottom of a rocks/highball glass. Saturate the cube with the bitters. Add as much (≤ 10 papers left) or as little (> 10 papers left) water as you want. Muddle the sugar until it dissolves. Add rye to the glass along with 2-3 ice cubes.

The historian drinks this and wishes she knew more about gangsters to know if it was, indeed, Capone's favorite spirit.

Calming Mantras

It's the time of year where grading piles up, book orders for next semester are due, and my students are either vibrating in their seats from too much caffeine or slumped-over-glassy-eyed-completely-shut-down as their bodies rebel against the 4th consecutive day of no sleep. It's the time of year when I mourn the loss of my youthful constitution as I would like to be able to get by on less sleep than I seem to need these days. Campus is a time-bomb waiting to go off. By the end of the next two weeks, all will be silent. Then everyone can stagger home, sleep it off, and get ready to do it all over again beginning in January.

If I was the meditating type, I would meditate. At the most, I can muster up some relaxing breathing and some stretching. This quote, from the New Zealand Prayer Book (p. 184), spoke to me today. Perhaps it will speak to some of you:

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done.
What has not been done has not been done.
Let it be.

Thankful

This year's ritual sacrifice (we watched a lot of Buffy this weekend) was excellent. We had a house overflowing with people (7!) and several others stopped by to visit briefly. The water heater and air mattresses performed like champions and the kitty only had one faux pas (Sorry, Dr. Birthday!).

Our weight, cholesterol levels, arteries, and livers might not be quite as thankful, however. After 2 quarts of cream, many sticks of butter, plentiful amounts of turkey fat, and liberal sprinklings of salt, we sat down to a delicious dinner. That was not all the damage we did, though: during the long weekend we consumed a ton of beer, much tequila, several bottles of wine, more than a few Drunken Sugar Plums, a fair bit of Chartreuse, and some whiskey in the apple pie.

I'm so thankful that we have friends willing to drive 12+ hours to spend Thanksgiving with us in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I'm also thankful that these are the types of friends who can sit in companionable silence, alternatively laugh at themselves and everyone else, and constantly offer support throughout the year.

Thanks to MJayBee, Dr. Birthday, Roomie, MasterR., and The Man from Alaska™ for making this an awesome Thanksgiving.

The Historian is too Popular!

Shocking, but true. My intermediate level, interdisciplinary class has almost twice the number of students signed up as there are spaces in the class. It's fairly writing-intensive, so I can't let everyone in or I might perish under the large piles of grading that would result. I already have spoken to/emailed with/or know of about 19 students that I will let into the course. These are people who cared enough to contact me in some form and let me know that they were interested in the class. I'm keeping them. What to do about the other 6 slots?

Here are various options, please let me know what you think about them:

1. Have the registrar randomly pick 6 students.

2. Have the 20+ students who are left email me a few paragraphs about why they want to be in the course and chose on that basis.

3. Pick 6 students myself by looking at their majors and trying to come up with a balance of interests (it is an interdisciplinary course).

4. Am I missing anything?

So That's Why They Seem Distracted...

The new issue of Vanity Fair includes an article recounting the "Transy Book Heist," which turns out not to be some cross between The Crying Game and Ocean's 14: The Library, although if you misread the first word, as I did, you might be forgiven for thinking that. To briefly sum up: In the fall semester of 2004, 3 students from the University of Kentucky and one from Transylvania University (also in Lexington) stole just under a million dollars worth of books from the special collections at Transylvania Univ.

After making an appointment with the special collections librarian under a false name, one of the men tasered her while another helped him carry out a first edition of On the Origin of Species and several works by John James Audubon. They had a contact in Amsterdam who agreed to fence the books on the condition that they get an appraisal. The heist started falling apart after 2 of the men showed up at their appointment at Christie's in NYC dressed alternately as a junior job candidate and as a pimp (..."starting with a 1970s Pierre Cardin canary-yellow blazer...he wore a dress shirt with an ostentatiously large collar and a gold silk scarf...for footwear he went with clean white sneakers."1) while carrying the books (still wrapped in pillowcases and bedsheets) in an old red suitcase. Eventually detectives linked the students to the heist through an email address and surveillance footage. They are serving 7 years each in federal prisons.

What strikes me as the most amusing part of this story is that they planned their heist during finals week and all of them still showed up to their exams during the week. In fact, they altered their original plans partly because one guy's art history final ran late. The heist had to take place in the morning on the alternate day because two of them had to be back on campus by 12:30 in order to take exams in sociology and tennis (tennis?).

Now every time I encounter those students who rush through their exams and finish quite early, I won't think they are bad students, I'll just assume they are criminal masterminds.

1. John Falk, "Majoring in Crime," Vanity Fair, December 2007, p. 244.

Roamin' Gnome

As the historian has been extraordinarily busy since August, there haven't been many opportunities for gnome excursions. Here is an exception:





The historian took these on an afternoon ramble about the countryside. We explored old, burned-out houses, pioneer graveyards, and small hamlets of a dozen or so houses.

It could be so easy!

Obviously, if I had had the University of MN-Twin Cities' Dissertation Calculator, I'd be done by now!

Actually, I think something like this would have helped at the beginning of the process. It was the sheer size of the project that intimidated me from the beginning. I think the more I could have broken down the process into manageable chunks, the better everything would have gone. I got a lot of reading done about how to do a dissertation and how to write, but only after several years had been wasted in a morass of writer's block, research set-backs, and paralyzing feelings of inadequacy.

Suckiness of the Highest Order

My advisor won't give me a letter of recommendation until I turn in ANOTHER full draft to her.
All those job openings with deadlines in November? Didn't apply to a single one.

Scary Happenings around Halloween

Conversation at super-extra-mega-mart today:

Checker: Are you getting ready for Halloween?
The Historian: I guess so.
Checker: Are you a college student?
T. H.: No
Checker: Really? You look like one! (Accompanied by look of genuine shock.)
T.H.: Well, I teach college students.
Checker: Do you get to go to their Halloween parties?
T.H.: I don't know. But I have no desire to see my students drunk.
Checker: I guess that's a good point.

...Pause while the historian takes out a bottle of rum from her cart...

Checker: Can I see your i.d.?

T.H.: (sigh)

Culture Shock

I'm in CO again for a weekend to check in with my advisor and make sure I'm making enough progress towards my degree.

Not only did it snow on Sunday but I have seen too many Uggs and short skirts--my eyes are burning. Luckily students at SC in ST are not "trendy" enough to really embrace this fashion faux-pas.

Also, the people that moved into our old place are very weird. We were SO the better tenants.

Academic Dress

While procrastinating today, I perused Andrew Sullivan's blog which led me to another discussion of academic sartorial sense. (You can find it here.) There are arguments for dressing up the professoriat (a call from a law professor) and arguments that philosophers cannot possibly dress well because there are no simple rules of logic for "one garment 'goes with' any other garment."

How many of you are in academia or science fields and one of the things you appreciate is that you don't have to wear a suit and tie, or a skirt suit and panty hose? (panty hose = blech)

And my advice for philosophers? Dress all in black. English professors and French philosophers do it, why shouldn't everyone else?

I Assigned All This Work?!?

Really? I put all this work on the syllabus? Was I hallucinating when I wrote about the opportunity for a rewrite of the first paper? How about when I suggested that all my intro students come meet with me for a 1/2 hour individually to go over their papers line by line? (And then all of them actually showed up to their appointments without anyone forgetting or being late.) And then 75% of my students did the optional re-write even though it only presented the opportunity to marginally raise their grade--nothing is guaranteed.

Did I realize that I would have to grade all this stuff?!?

Memo to Dorm Dwellers

To: Residents of Dorm X

If you are going to undress in your dorm rooms at night and your room
a) faces a residential street,
b) has huge windows,
c) is directly across from my house, and
d) contains mass quantities of bright lights,

PLEASE close your blinds.

That is all.

Gah!

The president of the college dropped by my office today (s/he was looking for the person in the office next door) and started chatting-we've met before and s/he's a fun person to talk to. The president left my office, wandered to the other side of the (small) hall and opened a loud conversation with my across-the-hall neighbour thusly:

President: "They get younger every year, don't they?"

Neighbour: "The students?"

President: "No, the faculty."

They ARE Normal After All...

I was beginning to fear that the students here were a strange, new species (studentus perfectus) that I had not run across in the wild before. I'm glad to report that they have displayed only a few traits of that elusive creature. Checking my field guide, I have determined that they are a mutant strain of studentus normalis. Even though, taken as a group, they do the reading and talk in class (hallmarks of the perfectus) I still got a flurry of emails at midnight the night before their first paper was due.

"Can I have an extension?"
"I just now realized I have to use footnotes and I don't know how to do that."
"Do we have to use all of the documents we talked about in class?"
"What's the penalty if I turn in the paper late?"

These students are mutant because all these emails were addressed "Dear Professor" and not "Hey You," but many of their concerns revolve around the universal themes of procrastination, failure to actually read all of the assignment, and more procrastination.

SLAC Addict

Hello, my name is Professor ________ and I'm a SLAC-aholic.

(That's Small Liberal Arts College to you non-SLAC addicts.)

So far, in my (short) time here, things have been great. I must admit that I have attended boring meetings (whose only useful informational nuggets could have been typed on a 3x5 card--in 24 pt. font) and and been frustrated by general institutional hassles (large amounts of paperwork). Overall, though, the students and faculty have more than made up for these things.

My students in my seminar have done all the reading so far (including the reading I assigned to have done by the first class meeting) and class discussions have been interesting. My intro level course has been fun....most students talk and there have been some good discussions. I lectured this week which has been a pleasant change from the normal discussion- and document-based classes.

The faculty here are a cool mix of people drawn to the SLAC lifestyle. Mostly nerdy academics at heart, they have individually and collectively been nice to us new folks. I'm sure after this year, the town and faculty will seem somewhat confining but right now I'm pretty happy.

Now if I could just finish that damn dissertation!

Reasons #211-212 why I think I will enjoy teaching here

Classes start this coming week. Last week I had a meeting with a student who was on campus early for athletic team practices. He had emailed me to ask about extra reading to do before the first class because he didn't have all the prerequisites for the class. I gave him a list of some books, saw him heading off to the library, and (lo! and behold!) the books were checked out a few minutes later. No guarantee that he will actually read them, but so far, I'm impressed.

Also, I've heard a rumor that you can email your students in upper-level classes with an assignment to be read for the first day of class and they will come to that first class having read it.

I'll report back if any of this is true or if it is all a dream.

Information Overload

Working on my syllabi has been fun, challenging, and, ultimately, illustrative of my innate desire to be compulsively over-prepared for my first full-time teaching job. I really want to do well and not fall behind this semester. Leading primarily discussion-based courses (as opposed to lecture-based) is something new for me. In my courses before, no one (outside of the 5 good students) would do the reading. At SC students will do up to 150 pages of reading a week for each of their courses.

On-line information, databases, and course software provide an added level of stress to the general syllabus preparation anxieties. How much should I incorporated on-line discussion? Where should I put course reserves? Who is going to have the time to scan in articles and post them on-line? What cool, new resources are out there that I don't know about and would add so much to my courses?

Life was easier when the syllabus was a single mimeographed page with some dates, a list of books, and the times of the exams. Certainly not as useful pedagogically, but easier.

Coupled with the stress over teaching is also the stress of finishing up the dissertation, which is not quite done (the understatement of the year?).

We leave this week. More updates will appear after new internet connections, unpacking, and general brain transplants are complete.

Moving in an Eastwardly Direction

All our stuff left our house in a ginormous PODS container today (that's Portable On-Demand Storage for you moving newbies). It will arrive in ST later next week. I just want to state for the record that we own a lot of crap.

A. Lot. Of. Crap.
A whole crap-load of crap.

Look at all the crap:



I feel that I must point out that the lamp you can see in the far right is broken. Nub broke it while putting it in the POD and then arbitrarily invented this rule: "Nothing can be removed from the POD once it is placed in the POD." Hmmmmm.......

Even though we put most of our stuff in the POD (with room to spare) there is still a bunch of it leftover in our house: our computers, plants, instruments, tv, cat, furniture to give away, and all my stuff I need for my classes. This stuff is all supposed to come with us in the small car and a rented mini-van. Color me skeptical.

Out of the twenty or so indoor plants we had, I'm taking 8 (ok, maybe 9). The others went to friends who have promised to always tell me the plants are fine and growing quite happily, regardless of their actual condition. Here is a shot of Cedric buried amongst philodendron trimmings.

Big Surprise

You Are 100% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

See---quizes like this are just more easily shared versions of the Cosmo/Glamour quiz that everyone filled out at slumber parties in the 8th grade. I made my choices based on their questions, but the questions were ultimately too general to mean much.

The Industrial Revolution

A new book that will help to update my "potato lecture:" A Farewell to Alms by Gregory Clark, an economic historian at UC-Davis. It comes out next month (and I won't have time to read it for a while) so here is the New York Times article on it.

I love talking about potatoes, colonial explorations, earlier onset of menstruation, body fat, and demographics to undergrads. Just wait until I start on indoor plumbing.

Back to Blogging

Hello there!

I'm back in CO now after a vacation to upstate NY (Lake George) to attend a wedding. After the lovely ceremony, Nub, Cedric, and I journeyed to Boston and NYC (Park Slope, actually) to spend time with friends and to reacquaint ourselves with humidity. We enjoyed the friends but could not stand the humidity. (A fine thing to relearn before our move back in an easterly direction.)

In Brooklyn, Cedric found a house where many of his kind live.....all brothers, all green, all identical. The man who lived in the house saw me looking at his gnomes and taking pictures of them with Cedric. He insisted that I take one of his gnomes. In fact, he wanted me to take two (but I declined as I already was imagining the logistics of carrying a single gnome through various airports). As we walked away with the gnome, I saw the man take another one from the inside of his house and put it outside. The man had many gnomes. A gnome infestation. Perhaps he should take a tip from Harry Potter and fling them into the street so they get disoriented and can't make it back to his house. Or, it being Brooklyn, people would just run them over or steal them.

Alas, the pictures of Cedric and the gnome house got deleted off the camera (notice my use of the passive voice so as to not put the blame on anyone in particular *cough*Nub*cough*).

Here is a picture of all the gnomes currently living with us:



(Imagine me carrying the green one through the airport security checkpoint.)

Glake George Gnome

In upstate New York on the lake that Thomas Jefferson called "the most beautiful in the world."

Gbeantown Gnome

A modern British historian on the Freedom Trail without a guidebook is a sad, sad companion.

Nub: "Tell me more about this event--the description on the sign is too short."

Me: (defensively) "I don't know! Go ask an Americanist. The last time I took American history was 10 years ago!"

Gotham Gnome

On the Brooklyn Bridge:



In Central Park:



The view from a friend's office building:



In the Whitney Museum's "Summer of Love" Psychedelic Art exhibition (taken on the sly whilst watching a liquid crystal film).



(I should add that, with the exception of the last one, all these pictures are Nub's.)

Run Away! Run Away!

Oh no! Lesbian gangs!

Luckily I've been stuck in my office for the last week, never venturing outside. I bet that's the only thing that saved me from roving bands of lesbians prowling the streets in their Subarus.

(If this is what the "news" has been like lately, I think I'll stay in my office forever...)

It's Not Real News?

It's very satisfying to quote The Onion in the conclusion of one's dissertation.


(Turning in a draft tomorrow.)

So Sad

I generally don't like ice cream. I realize that admitting that near the 4th of July makes me some sort of communist or, at the very least, French. But I really don't. It's the alacrity at which it melts, the large lump (or pool) it makes in my stomach, and the general icky feeling with which it leaves me.

Today, however, I was in the mood for some ice cream. Perhaps it's because it's 90+ outside and almost the same temperature in my office. Perhaps it's because I'm almost done with another draft and I needed to get out of the house. Whatever. This mood strikes me about once a year and I decided to go with it.

I pedaled off to my local McDonalds (which serves ice milk--thus making the objections about ickiness less of an issue). I got a strawberry sundae and started pedaling home.

Unfortunately, it seems that I lack the advanced skills needed to hold a sundae and steer over cracked pavement. My sundae exploded in a blur of red and white all over the street. I managed to recover most of it, but the container cracked and now there is a trail of white drips following me home and pooling outside of the garage.

It's the Trail of Tears as imagined by the American Dairy Council.

Gnome Chomsky

The largest gnome in the world. Perhaps Cedric can make a pilgrimage there one day.
The article and picture come from the Times Herald-Record. Thanks to Shay for the link.

Writing Through the Body

As someone who writes and thinks a great deal about disease, the body (both individual and collective, physical and social), and protests you would have thought that I would have realized when my OWN body was protesting loudly and specifically. But no...

My neck strain has come back and I've been having trouble sleeping. The other night my legs were so restless and I was putting out so much heat that Nub thought something was seriously wrong. Things are on the mend now (better living through chemistry and all that) but the sheer physicality of this dissertation has taken me by surprise.

Writing is the most stressful activity I think I've ever engaged in. I don't mean this necessarily in a purely negative way-stress can be a motivator in addition to a sign of impending bodily doom. Writing produces so much stress for me because I believe it's very important and meaningful. Writing and thinking should form a circle-writing helps shape my thoughts, refine them, and alter the emphasis and argumentation. Having said that, I also, at the same time, think I'm not so good at it. Now, I realize that this is just the dark little voice inside of me saying this (not that I can't improve, of course I can, I just know also that I'm not the worst writer in the world). So in addition to thinking to write and writing to think I am also continually engaged in self reflection and critique.

It's this interconnection between the mind and the body that is very interesting to me as I experience this personally. I realize this is not a new topic to the world, but I am living this every day at the moment and it's interesting to me to map out some points here in this particular space.

If I am not my writing (ie, my mind and its products are just one part of who I am) then why does writing affect all aspects of my being? Why does writing this blog post on writing, for instance, conjure up stomach pains and a strange tense-ness around my hands, arms, neck, and shoulders? It's not purely my posture (which has improved dramatically since the first episode of paralytic neck strain), it's more a manifestation of my anxieties in a physical way.

This reminds me of an interesting book that talks about the intersection of the land, the body, and lived experience in the past: Conevery Bolton Valencius's The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land. She's also working on some cool new stuff about earthquakes in 1811-12 and how those who experienced the 'quakes employed metaphors of disease and sickness when writing about the effects they had on the land, animals, and people.

As an aside I defy you to listen to Robyn and her song Cobrastyle and not be swept up by the Swedish pop star's "di bom digi bom di deng di deng digigi." It's bubble-gum and I like it!

When A Big Cat Goes Bad

A large (she)male cat first kills his prey with a swift bite to the neck:



The large male then toys with his prey:



And gnaws on it some more:



Tired of play, the male then rests for a while:



The large cat keeps track of the meat while resting:



Soon, it's business as usual:



Time: 7pm
Mood: Meat

I'm melting

Do you ever have one of those days where it's too hot to even breathe? Today was like that. I tried to work, but my office was an oven. It was all I could do to incorporate one additional article into my chapters.

So I gave up and drank a beer while watching Dave Chappelle's Block Party.

I'll move again when it gets dark.

RG

Time: 8pm, a while ago

Mood: Giddy as a chipmunk

Textbook Anxiety Dream

A few days ago I had a dream that included, among its highlights, my attempt to teach the first class in my new job in a swimming pool. I also had to meet all the other faculty while wearing my bathing suit and then found out that I had the wrong schedule and had missed my first class.

The dream sequence also had us moving into the wrong house, having to pack up and move out, and then finding out that there was a mistake and we have no house.

I almost preferred Tuesday night when I had insomnia and managed to quit my student assistant job via email at 4:30 in the morning.

What Time Is It?

Time to update you all on my writing. I'm trying to get another draft out to my advisor today. I have been too busy to contemplate updating the blog but then realized my few readers would disappear entirely if I didn't at least post this.

(Photo taken near Ben's work.)

*******



Time: 5:30pm
Mood: Friendly

Wind in Coloradotowne!

Boy Howdy! The wind yesterday was unreal.....gusts up to 100 mph and it lasted from about 9pm through to the morning. Casualties in our yard included the delphinium plant, a big limb from a tree overhanging our balcony, and the grill (that was dented and made a big mess but otherwise ok).

Sitting on the bed that is next to a west-facing wall as the lights flicker around you is a crazy thing. After we listened to the sounds of the transformers exploding all around us and saw the blue glows of the sparks, the electricity finally went out and stayed out around 11:30pm.

This morning the ground was littered with limbs, leaves, and trash. The tree outside our balcony had a majority of its leaves stripped from the branches.

This afternoon is clean-up and recovery.

A Concatenation of Suck

Last Tuesday I noticed some soreness and stiffness in my arms and chest. I was trying to write, turned away from my computer, and seriously tweaked my neck, back, and shoulder on my right side. It got worse throughout the day so I scheduled a massage for the afternoon. The massage was nice but my pain did not go away.

On Wednesday, I woke up to the same soreness but by mid-morning I could not really move. I went into the student health center on campus and got diagnosed with "neck strain." Well, thanks. But I did get prescriptions for vicodin and a muscle relaxer. While waiting for the medicines, I realized I couldn't really sit or stand or do anything without extreme pain. I had to call Nub and get him to hitch a ride to the student health center because I certainly could not drive home. By the time he got there and the world's slowest pharmacists finished filling the prescription, I was in so much pain that I was nauseous. Nub somehow got me into the car and home.

Once home, all I could do was lay on my back on the bed with pillows under my knees. I slept off and on throughout the next 3 days basically staring at the ceiling when I was awake. I tried a few times to sit up downstairs but it generally did not last too long. It hurt too much and the pain killers made me too nauseous to sit up for long. Nub had to attend to my every need and help me sit up, lay down, and drink water.

I was finally able to really get up and get around for more than an hour or so on Saturday. When I came downstairs, I was greeted by a dead juvenile robin bleeding on our carpet. A get well wish from the evil Kitty of Death! Nub dealt with that and he managed to clean the carpet after using 2 useless and one effective spot cleaner (so that part is now considerably lighter than the surrounding ass-colored carpet, sigh).

Sunday was our 1-year anniversary. Sunday was nice-good food, good wine, good company. Unfortunately, the evil Kitty of Death brought us another dead, juvenile robin. This time we managed to keep the cat outside and got her to drop the poor bird. So now the cat is inside until all the birds around here grow up and learn to fly properly. I feel awful that my pet has contributed to the overwhelming loss of songbirds that has occurred over the past decade or so.

Today, I had jury duty. Luckily, I did not get picked to be on the jury so my service is over.

Unfortunately, I had grand plans to finish another draft over the past week and this week. 6 days have passed since my neck strain and I haven't been able to work on writing at all.

Sometimes I feel that life needs to be kicked in the ass.

Every Single Time

the garden gets to any appreciable height, the cat comes in and settles down right on the softest of the plants. Every single time!



Below is a picture of the kitty getting into the car of her own volition. I was unloading groceries and came back out to the car to find her here. We've been trying to shape her behavior to like the cat carrier-by using copious amounts of fish flakes-so hopefully her getting into the car by herself is also a positive step. We're not looking forward to a 15 hour car ride with the cat.



******



Time: 1pm
Mood: Verdant

Ds get Degrees!

I learned this nifty new phrase this week from the undergrads who work with me. It's a motto, of sorts, for some of their roommates (not the actual people who work with me, they are fairly good students).

I guess "gentleman's Cs" set the bar too high?

This knowledge should remind me that I shouldn't feel bad when I grade papers and some students don't do so well. I need to remember that not everyone feels badly about a C or even a D. Some, I guess, find that perfectly acceptable.

Gnomes and Bunnies!

Well, one gnome and one bunny.



Time: 9:30am
Mood: Peckish (well the bunny was, not Cedric)

I was going for a shot of the gnome and the bunny both in focus but I believe that is beyond the capabilities of either my camera, myself, or both. Here's one of just the bunny.

RG

Time: 11:45 am, 21 May 2007
Mood: Curious

Anyone know why there would be purple plastic ropes sticking out of the ground in clumps on the northwest side of campus? Me neither.

*****




Time: Noon, 24 May 2007
Mood: Impatient

Where is the bus? But at least this gave me time to show off my new cruiser. It will be great for riding around ST and SC next year.

My New Favorite Website

I can't stop laughing.

Rate Your Students

I should probably not read it at work with all the undergrads, though. I think they wouldn't understand....

Lesson Learned

Never check your email on a Sunday morning before 9am. If someone has emailed you between Saturday evening and Sunday morning, then it's probably not something that you really want to hear.

To make a long story short, I now no longer have a full committee. I need 2 more historians and an outside reader. Wheeeeeeee!!!!!!! Why is the hardest part of the whole process getting 6 people in a room together at the same time?

On the plus side, I will now defend in the first two weeks of August. I have more time, but the thought of trying to pack up the house, defend, turn in the final copy, and move to MWS by the 15th of August seems like a bad dream.

Lunch Break Errands

I guess most people eat, exercise, go to the bank, do errands, or relax on their lunch breaks. I ran like a mad woman to 3 different libraries all over campus frantically trying to check out all the books I need for this weekend's Writing Festival. (I'm calling it a Writing Festival so it sounds exciting and I'll want to participate. In reality I'll be chained to my computer desk all weekend trying to complete the last chapter.)

I've put off going to the business library and the law library until the summer when most of the students are gone. Usually, I get the hives walking into those places. It seems everyone has a bluetooth headset, a BlackBerry, and a professional leather bag that probably cost more than my wedding dress. The libraries were impressively student-free, but the staff was still grouchy and less than helpful. Surprise, surprise. Now, the actual library staff (salaried employees who have careers in library science) are very, very helpful and I could not have gotten this far without them. The student workers, however, are a different story. (Don't think I don't remember complaining just yesterday about how people treat me as a student worker. This rant is not as hypocritical as it sounds. I always give student workers courtesy at the outset of my interaction with them equal to what I would give any person. It's just the interaction usually heads downhill from there. Plus, I was complaining about people who ASSUME that I'm an idiot because I'm a student worker without any prior knowledge of me or my skills. If I were an idiot, I hope I would have the good grace not to be offended.)

An illustrative anecdote: The law building here is new. I've never been to the new building or the new library. I walk in, look for signs but only find plaques commemorating the donors. I ask in the admissions office where the library is and the student gives me a blank look. I repeat myself and then he grunts and points. Off I go to the library following the general direction of the pointing. I find the library, walk up to the circulation desk and ask where the DT's are shelved. Here I encounter another type of student employee: one who is so sure that I am stupid that he patronizes me with his answers.

"Did you remember to check the location of your book?"
"Yes, its call number is right here, DT......"
"Well, did you make sure it was in the law library?"
"I certainly wouldn't have walked all the way over here without knowing that."
"Well, did you make sure it's not on reserve?"
"The computer listing said it was in the law library, in the stacks, and available. Now, where are the stacks?"
(I had to ask as there were no maps around and no directory on the wall.)
"Well, if you are sure, they're in the basement."
(Yes, I'm sure. I know how to use a library!)
"Where is the basement?"
(Again, I had to ask as it seemed there were no stairs.)
"Over there."
(He points and grunts at a wall.)

When I finally emerge from the basement with my books, he seems astounded that I actually found them. A tip for workers: If you don't want to interact with the public, then post signs telling the public where they can expect to find things. Like, in the library, where to find the damn books!!!

On the way back to work I found this lake on campus that I had never seen before (it's in between some dorms and I have previously had no reason to go to that part of campus):



There were also goslings--Canada Geese goslings (or is it Canada goslings or Canada Goose goslings). At the risk of descending into Cute Overload-speak, here is a picture of their fluffy 'tocks:

Back to Student Employment

The things I do for money......

So I returned this afternoon to my old job as a student receptionist for a science institute here on campus. It's a good job in that it was easy to get, pays relatively well, and I could do it with my eyes closed.

What's the problem? I'm 30, almost a PhD, and I'm now back to being treated like an idiot 18-year old freshman. Already I have witnessed the desire on the part of some who work here to tell the receptionists the same thing 40 times in a row as if we were mentally challenged. To be fair, some people who worked here were somewhat mentally challenged, but that's not me!



Time: 3pm
Mood: Bored to tears and it's only the first day....

RG

Cedric and I have been out and about this week....mainly running errands, visiting with the parents, and stressing out over finishing.



Time: 2pm
Mood: Savoring a quiet moment

*********



Time: 8pm
Mood: Happy to have our friend Matt in town who buys ridiculous drinks and then by the sheer splendor of his personality gets the restaurant owner to send over complimentary tequila shots. (The historian only partook in the shot...Cedric would have drowned in the 32 oz. marg.)

RG

Time: 3pm, 13 May 2007
Mood: Rocky Mountain High

(Well, I had to get that one in before we left for Midwest State (MWS).)

Dilemma Resolved

So the Punch volumes are winging their way to CO in 3 cartons as I write. Even though I had decided that I really, really wanted them, I wasn't going to get them because this summer is going to be somewhat tight financially (until Sept. when the actual historian's salary kicks in).

Well, then a grant committee arrived for a visit this weekend, examined my proposal, and accepted it. They agreed that 1) it would help with my teaching; 2) it was a good price per volume; and 3) it was pretty cool.

(In case you couldn't guess, the "grant committee" was my parents who heard me talking about Punch, remembered how much I liked it [I wrote my undergrad senior thesis on it, for goodness sakes!], and then offered the collection to me as a graduation, birthday, and all future birthday presents rolled into one.)

After dancing a jig of joy, literally--I was on the patio hopping around, I am so in awe of having parents that understand my desire to spend a whole lot of money on a bunch of antique books. Although families with more than one academic in them are probably not normal, and shouldn't be considered normal, it does come in handy sometimes.

RG

Time: 6pm
Mood: Afternoon Delight

I'm still thinking about the Punch purchase......

Dilemma

An opportunity has arisen to buy some of Punch Magazine's 19th century run. (1842 to about 1875 with some random things thrown in there). There are 37 years represented. It's useful (well, almost vital) for a lot of the teaching I do. Unfortunately, the college where I'll be going next year doesn't have the magazine in their library (gasp!!!!).

Pros:
-The college doesn't have this and I use it almost weekly in the classroom.
-Students in my Race and Empire seminar (and other courses too) could use it as a primary source.
-It probably will never decrease in value.
-It works out to about $25 per volume (a volume is a year of weekly magazines bound together). I've spent $40/volume (WWI years) for the ones I have.

Cons
-It's not a full run.
-I do have zeroxed copies of most of the cartoons I use regularly in class.

So, should I buy this?

Oh----it's $900. But the shipping is only $4.50 for the whole lot.

Conference Fatigue

Today's panels generally justified yesterday's optimism about the conference although there was the usual mix of good, bad, and so-so papers. This conference has a higher number of good papers and a higher number of useful questions afterwards. My pet peeve about the conferences I usually attend in my sub-field is what I call the "I can't believe you didn't cite my work" question. It generally issues from the mouth of someone who is either really old or really cocky-often both-and follows a framework like this:

"I was shocked/curious/perturbed that you did not spend more/any/enough time on Subject X which I address in my article/book/life's work. I argue that...(a lengthy description of Subject X starts here that includes a brief historiography/hagiography/reading list). So, now do you, you ignorant/wrong-headed/woefully unprepared "scholar," defend/apologize for/give up entirely your work now that you know more about Subject X?"

Frequently, the asker of this question follows-up with another statement/question that points out further problems with the speaker's argument/method/sources. You know, to jab in the knife harder in case anyone was asleep the first time.

I myself have not had to field one of these questions before (possibly because the secondary literature on my work is relatively small, hence the desirability of my topic) but I have watched others attempt to survive its onslaught of doom. Not too pretty (for either party).

This conference has had none of these questions so far. It has however, had the no less boring but, fortunately, less destructive "Let me show you all that I know" question. This, as you can tell by its title, is not a question at all. At this conference, this is "asked" by the older gentleman down in front (there is at least one in every panel session) who was, in fact, asleep during the actual talk but then managed to wake up in time to throw his hand up in the air at the precise moment the floor opened up for questions.

I think it's a tag-team operation by the emeritus faculty. They probably play a version of conference bingo and whoever "asks" the most long-winded "questions" wins a lifetime membership in the AHA. Bonus points awarded, in the form of a subscription to the journal Past and Present, to anyone who can convince the speaker there was actually a question s/he should be answering. If the speaker then asks the "questioner," in all sincerity and very apologetically, to reframe the question as the speaker did not understand it, balloons fall from the celling and somewhere an old historian gets his wings.

Keep an eye out at your next conference for older faculty walking around with bingo cards. I'm sure they are out there.

One person, whose talk I had the misfortune to attend, had obviously not done enough background reading on his/her talk. Simple questions eluded him/her. S/he also spent about half the time allotted "summing" up-that is, essentially, saying the same thing twice. This makes me more confident in my own work as there is generally no way I would get up before an audience of experts without having my shit together.

****

On a side note, this Very Cosmopolitan City (VCC) has a notable lack of internet cafes. I wandered around during lunch and only saw 1 person with a laptop working at a cafe. This cafe did not have internet so maybe the person was just playing solitaire. This seemed very odd and was rather disconcerting. There are plenty of coffee shops but none have internet and no one brings computers to them. I found one across from the hotel that you can pay $5 for 60 minutes of access. That's the best I can do so far and I was the only one there with a computer. The woman had to dig through a drawer to find a card with an access code printed on it.

You can't spill a grande 2% vanilla no-whip latte in CO without ruining someones expensive laptop. Does this contrast mean people in VCC are actually, gasp, doing "work" at home or in the office and not in public? There isn't a class of unemployed (by choice) or under-employed people who still have enough money to lounge about all day in coffee shops with their expensive computers? I would be lounging about all day in coffee shops by myself if I lived in VCC?

Hmmm....

Conference Time

This weekend the historian is far away in a very cosmopolitan city experiencing the delights of an academic conference. So far, the conference has been fun, illuminating, and worthwhile...and it's only the first day. All conferences should be so good.

I'm here with a friend which makes dining, traveling, and exploring a new city that much more fun. We ate at a nice french restaurant last night--my friend even got a rose from the waiter. Who says history conferences aren't full of intrigue?

Needless to say, posts and pictures will arrive after the weekend.

RG

Leaning Tower of Gnome?
Time: 7pm
Mood: off-balance

*******



Time: 4pm
Mood: Torn up inside

The housing complex next to us decided to cut down some lakefront trees. We were woken up yesterday to men swinging in trees outside of our 2nd-floor bedroom window. Now the trees are just piles of mulch. Here's what they looked like before the stump removal today:

Southern History: No Longer the Exception

I read an interesting article in today's NY Times about a new wave of histories on the "silent majority" of whites living in the south during the civil rights movement and up to the present day. The historiography of the civil rights movement is (roughly) moving into its 3rd phase and follows a pattern not unlike historiographies of other movements: 1) the stories of the large, public figures of the movement (King, etc); 2) recovering and analyzing the histories and stories of African Americans and their experiences; and, now, 3) looking at the beliefs, perceptions, and actions of white southerners (some liberal, some rock-throwing racists, and most somewhere in between).

One historian, Joseph Crespino, who recently wrote In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution, argues that "many of the African-Americans he met in the deeply segregated precincts of Chicago while he was an undergraduate at Northwestern University had come from his home state and were struggling with the same issues they had had down South. “Rather than treating white Mississipians as these racist pariahs in larger postwar liberal America, I wanted to treat them as part of a broader popular reaction against modern liberalism,” he said. “I wanted to show how central the resistance to civil rights policies were in shaping modern conservative policies.”" (Patricia Cohen, "Interpreting Some Overlooked Stories from the South," NY Times, 1 May 2007, Arts section)

What strikes me as the most productive aspect of this new research is the breakdown of the "southern exceptionalism" paradigm. I often experienced this stereotype first-hand in college and beyond. "The south is strange and different and should be labeled The South," is often a trope of this idea. In college, this manifested itself in conversations about how most southerners must be stupid and racist unlike most northerners. As I looked around the economically-depressed upstate NY town I went to college in, I couldn't help but think that there was more de facto racism and racialized city planning there than in the town in NC where I grew up.

CO is another strange world of liberals who turn in their (black) neighbors for "stealing" the neighbor's own television. True story. This lady's neighbor was moving a television out of his house and she called the cops because she thought he was stealing it. He lived there!!!! The CO twist to this is the lady then wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper apologizing for her racism and about her recognition that even though she was a "child of the 60s" brought up to see everyone as a brother, she needed to look within herself and recognize some of her less-than-savory attitudes towards her fellow man.

In general any history of a region that posits itself as exceptional is bound to come under fire sooner or later. As a historian of Britain, British exceptionalism is a key topic of debate. Does the fact that Britain industrialized first really make it that much different than other European nations? Well, mostly yes, but one has to be careful of finding too much uniqueness where there may only be variations on a theme.

Lazy Days

While sorting through a couple of folders on my computer, I came across this picture:



This captures the moment of the passing of the Boone's Farm (perhaps tropical island flavor) 'round the circle, for those of you not familiar with the rustic delights of drunkin' camping. It reminds me that I need to finish the D-word soon or else the whole summer will go by and I won't get to experience drunkin' camping, patio happy hours, or other summer-in-CO activities.

You're a Kitty! Yes, you are! A Kitty!

Hat tip to paxemilia for this one who got it here. Wait--is she trying to tell me something?

Nub and I were actually thinking about this the other day. Most people here that we know have gotten used to our inane chatter about the cat. What happens when we move? We'll have to seriously tone it down for a while. Don't want to be the strange, new people. No sirree.

A House!

Well, we are one step closer to the move come mid-August. We have a house to rent for the next year. It's a 3-bedroom with an attached garage, 2 bathrooms, yard, small patio, lots of nice built-ins all around including in the living room and dining room.

And the kicker? It's $600 a month. Take that CO rental prices!!!!

What to do...

when I get old? Well, embrace the stereotype and post stupid pictures of my cat. Here's Pooka as a giraffe.



Here's a movie of her trying to get the giraffe costume off.

Getting Old

This isn't too surprising, given that I read and work on the computer most of the day, but my eyes are getting worse. I don't need a strong prescription, my eyes aren't "bad" in an absolute sense, but they keep changing each year. They haven't settled down yet into one steady prescription. Today the wonderful lady at the optical office suggested:

MULTI-FOCAL LENSES!!!!!!

*!%$*@! I'm getting old. I realize that multi-focal lenses with a range of vision opportunities in one pair of glasses would be practical, but I just can't wrap my mind around that. I really like my grey hair, but multi-focal lenses?!? I remember when my parents got bifocals. They were at least 50. (My mom also fell off a curb during the adjustment period and I remember that clearly.)

Why couldn't the lady wait 3 weeks to tell me? Then I'll be 30.

It's not only my eyes. My hips make strange hollow popping sounds, my knees crack and pop, my fingers hurt when it's cold out, and my back is often tweaking out. Thank goodness the new job has health insurance!

Plus I can be crotchety. Let me tell you about the time, a long, long, time ago (ok, last Sunday), in which I was annoyed at the waifish-looking junior high kids smoking the ganja on 4/20. They were right outside of my patio! Not well hidden! My kitty could be corrupted! Plus, they were silly. So I had to make a lot of noise on the patio and pretend like my plants really needed attention. They finally got the hint and went away. I wanted to go and scold them and tell them they should wait until college, but I didn't think that was such a good message either. At least some of them were embarrassed. I thought it was so odd---I didn't even know what pot was in junior high and only had a passing thought about its existence in high school. Kids these days, I tell ya!

The Historian has a JOB!

Yes, that's right folks, the historian has a job. The flurry of job-related activity panned out and so the historian, Cedric, the Kitty, and--oh yeah--the Nub will be making a pilgrimage to the land of Full Employment! For Everyone! With Health Benefits! at the end of the summer.

Feel free to ignore all previous posts about the job market and my prospects. But seriously, academia as a whole is not for the faint of heart. If some previous writing here sounds like it came from the depths of self-doubt, well, that's what academia does sometimes. The jury is out on whether it is all "worth it" in the end, but right now I couldn't be happier with my prospective future.

RG

Time: Noon, 22 April
Mood: Highly Caffeinated



Time: 2pm, 19 April
Mood: Hopeful

Job Activity and RG too!

Time: 3pm, 16 April 2007
Mood: Hopeful?

I will be mostly absent from posting this week as there has been a flurry of job-related activity since last week. A good flurry. Well, a potentially good flurry. Let us say that the historian and Cedric will be off on a trip that may lead to a job. If that's the case, then I can afford to keep Cedric in beer.



Time: Friday, 13 April
Mood: Margarita-madness

300 different Parodies

of the movie 300. And I still don't need to see it.

The South Park episode the other night was priceless. Lesbians, led by Mrs. Garrison, fought against the Persian club owners who bought out the lesbian bar, Les Bos, and wanted to redecorate. There were funny stereotypes galore and I only had to look away from the t.v. once in horror (at a "scissor" scene).

Here is another parody.

The British Press

Having stayed with an actual "retired Army major...who [has] never in [his] life thought of voting for any one who wasn't a bona fide Conservative" for part of my first summer in London, I, too, was shocked to read The Telegraph's recent op-ed about British foreign policy. Bush's reliance on the "special relationship" between the two countries won't hold up for much longer if the attitudes of the conservative press are any guide. And all the while he's reading Andrew Roberts and not The Telegraph.

Read commentary on the op-ed from Andrew Sullivan and Harper's On-line Magazine. The Harper's article has a handy 3 sentence guide to the major British newspapers:

"How do you distinguish the London quality dailies, I asked? “That's simple,” he said, “the Guardian is the paper of the lefty academic types who become apoplectic at the mention of the name ‘Maggie Thatcher' and would be most prone to order some macrobiotic abomination at a restaurant. The Times is the indispensable paper of the courtier who wants to know the court calendar, is most likely to attend the charity event presided over by HRH Princess Michael of Kent for the benefit of St. Elfrieda's Hospital, and who probably spends more time bickering with his wine merchant than reading the foreign news. And the Daily Telegraph is the paper of the retired Army major and the country curate who have never in their life thought of voting for any one who wasn't a bona fide Conservative.” "

And while we're on the British media, I thought this was particularly amusing, re: Imus' racial slurs. From Andrew Sullivan (again, what am I reading?): "I wish I'd taped the phone conversation I had today with the editor of the Sunday Times in London when I had to explain exactly what "nappy-headed hos" were. He had images of garden tools crowned with diapers." From his post, Culture Shock.

This is what happens...

when you accidentally shoot a stream of shaving gel onto your cat's head and into her ears during a bath and then decide to clean her off in the bathtub....



That, and a puncture wound on your upper arm.

The kitty was dozing contentedly on my towels by the side of the bathtub like she always does when I take baths. I started to put some shaving gel into my hand and it shot through my fingers and made an arc halfway across the bathroom with a great deal of it landing on the kitty's head and in her ear. She jumped up and ran around the bathroom getting shaving gel/foam everywhere. I didn't want to let her lick it all off as there was so much of it all over her coat. So I grabbed her and took her into the bath. After multiple escape attempts that culminated in my arm wound, she submitted with piteous mewling sounds. Then there was just a wet cat wandering around the house for the rest of the day looking daggers at me.

Serenity

Your results:
You are Wash (Ship Pilot)
Wash (Ship Pilot)

---

80%
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

---

70%
Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)

---

70%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)

---

65%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)

---

50%
River (Stowaway)

---

35%
Inara Serra (Companion)

---

25%
Alliance

---

20%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)

---

15%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)

---

15%
A Reaver (Cannibal)

---

0%


You are a pilot with a good
if not silly sense of humor.
You take pride in your collection of toys.
You love your significant other.



Click here to take the "Which Serenity character am I?" quiz..

Yes, I admit to being a fan of Joss Wheadon and his shows. Firefly is a great space-western that really develops its characters and has a lot of fun with the genre. It's a series about space travel set in the future where there are no aliens-humanity is enough. Humans populate the nightmares.

I'm glad I checked out as Wash. A great character.
-Silly sense of humor? Check.
-Love toys? Check. (Come over sometime and you can meet Cedric in person.)
-Love significant other? Check.
-Pilot? Of my 1997 Toyota Tercel!!! Check.

RG

Time: Late at Night
Mood: Missing Movable Arms

(For those of you not up on 21st-century male pursuits, this is the Playstation game Guitar Hero. Cedric didn't do so well. But he did enjoy the Belgium beer {8% ABV} that you see in the glass. He got quite giddy. Occasionally gnomes branch out from English beers.)

Thank You?

I sent off a sample syllabus to a search committee the other day. I received an email response thanking me for the information as it was "very helpful." The part of me that is convinced I will never get a job interpreted that as, "Thank you for the syllabus. It was very helpful" TO ELIMINATE YOU ENTIRELY FROM THE SEARCH AS YOUR SYLLABUS WAS SO AWFUL AS TO INDUCE VOMITING.

The other part of me would like to take my class.

RG

Time: 11am
Mood: Déjà Vu (I told you I went to the dentist often.)

Memes?

I have posted a number of blogging memes here without really engaging with the true diffusional spirit of memes. Perhaps the email chain-letters (and even snail-mail chain letters, remember those? That was some commitment to the mythos of chain-letters!) have scared me off. I'm not really keen on "tagging" people to complete these surveys just because I chose to tell strangers that I set my alarm clock an undetermined number of minutes ahead. So don't be alarmed when I share a meme I've come across in my web perusal without passing it along to others--I haven't misunderstood the concept, I just choose to be perverse.

(And I still remember my first friend who used the term meme in everyday conversation--cheers to Matt B.)

RG

Time: 5pm
Mood: Claustrophobic

RG

Time: 7pm
Mood: Chilly and Grape-y

Yawn Meme

1. Do you use an alarm clock to wake up? Yes
2. What time does your alarm go off? 8 something or another
3. What sound does it make? horrible alarm sound
4. Do you hit the snooze button? How many times? Yes. As many times as I possibly can. Sometimes I will snooze forever.
5. If you have a partner, do they have a separate alarm? Yes
6. Does your partner get up at the same time, earlier or later? Earlier. Most of the time I sleep through his alarm.
7. Is your clock set ahead? If so, by how much? Yes it is. If I knew how many minutes it was set ahead then it wouldn't be useful, now would it?
8. What's the first thing you do when you get up? Brush my teeth. Can't do anything without brushing my teeth first.
9. Do you eat breakfast? If so, what? I drink tea with milk and sugar every morning. Occasionally I will eat breakfast, toast or something.
10. How long does it take you to get ready? Well, I work at home. I don't really get ready. Often I'm in my office in pajamas at 2pm. If I had to get up and out, I'd say 15 mins. If I actually needed to look nice, then about 30 mins.
11. On the weekends, what time do you get up? 11ish? Usually. Lately, I've been getting up at 9.
12. Do you lounge or do you jump into action? Lounge. I also cannot wake up and get out of bed immediately. That doesn't work--I feel icky.
13. In an ideal world, what time would you get up? 9ish
14. How many hours of sleep do you typically get? Oh, a lot.
15. How many hours of sleep do you want to get? 9

RG

Time: 7pm
Mood: Pennelicious

Peeps for Passover

Because what else are you going to do with Peeps? You certainly shouldn't eat them!

Peeps for Passover

PB&J Day

Unfortunately, Andrew Sullivan and I have more in common than I thought. He, too, is against PB&J and ice cream. I guess I won't be running for office either.

It's Raining 300 Men

I can't stop giggling.

Bush's Favorite Historian

Here is an article from Slate analyzing Bush's reading material of late: namely, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 by Andrew Roberts.

Key points of the book:
- "The first law of modern imperialism: that no good deed goes unpunished."

- English-speaking peoples include only majority-white nations that respect British culture and have been "civilized:" i.e., Bermuda and Ireland are not included. Neither are South Africa or India (although I'm willing to bet he would have included S.A. if it was still under the apartheid government).

- The US, as the heir of the British Empire, should continue the benevolent civilizing process of bringing democracy and capitalism to backwards nations. And, in fact, has already done so in Iraq.

That's enough. You get the picture.

Remember when leaders wrote history? Winston Churchill (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples), Woodrow Wilson, J.F.K. Leaving aside the relative merits of these works, I find it hard to swallow that Bush seems to just be reading books that praise his leadership and offer no criticisms. Well, actually I am not surprised. Further saddened, but not surprised.

Extra points: Name all the ways that you can tell Andrew Roberts is British (and more specifically English) just by looking at the picture of him in the Slate article.

RG

Time: 2pm
Mood: Fraternal

Why I don't want to see 300

There are some movies I don't want to see and will adamantly refuse to see them (rationally or not) until the end of time. Most of these movies are very violent-Fight Club and the Kill Bills come to mind. From what I've seen of the trailers, 300 is also one of these movies. Then I read some commentaries/criticism/reviews and I'm even more sure I never want to see this movie. Those of you who have been around me when I've ranted about the Lord of the Rings trilogy (or, unfortunately, were with me after I saw the first one in the theaters) can guess what I'm going to discuss here. (Yes, Persians or "armies from the East" wearing skirts and cavorting on elephant-type creatures is a theme.)

The question becomes in a movie like 300-ostensibly based on historical events-to what extent should we care about historical accuracy in an action movie? (This is also going to be a question when/if the movie Dam Busters comes out. It's about a Royal Air Force unit that flies over Nazi dams and drops bombs on them. The unit had as its mascot a dog named N***** that the head of the unit owned and named. But more on this later.)

Ideally, 300 would become a "teachable moment" and in classrooms it still could be. But a popular action movie based on a popular comic book is not going to have discussion groups meeting afterwards. Nor should it. It's entertainment and people can make up their own minds. But what is the message of the movie (regardless of whether people can make up their own minds)? To help us out:

Exhibit A: A review by Victor Davis Hanson who is a classicist who works for the Hoover Institute.

Exhibit B: A rebuttal of the review by Africanist Timothy Burke at Swarthmore on his blog, Easily Distracted. The title is indicative of the post: "Free Slave-Holding Phallocracts Defending Freedom from Squirmy Middle Easternesque Drag Queens, or a Meditation on Historical Accuracy."

Exhibit C: Another rebuttal of Hanson by the War Nerd titled Triumph of the Vile, or: 300 Bottles of Idiocy on the Screen.

I'll post more about the Lord of the Rings when I get up enough steam.

Safeguard Your Gnomes, People!

They might get gnome-napped.

Woman Faces Jail Over Gnome Theft
(from the BBC)

Urgh

That's the sound I make after an afternoon of reading academic blogs. (Blame Paxemilia-she sent me the links!) Here's some of what I was reading: Bitch Ph.D., Cheeky Prof, Acephalous, Professional Mirror, PhD, and Just Tenured.

It's not that these are bad blogs. These are excellent blogs: funny, informative, passionate, and real. A little too real, in fact. I'd go as far as to say REALLY FREAKIN' SCARY!!!! If you know anyone that wants to go to grad school. Show him/her these blogs. S/he will run to the nearest 9-5 job as soon as possible. And the especially sad thing is these people are professors with tenure-track or tenured positions. They have already grasped the golden ring.

For those of us on the job market, this just reinforces the little voices in our heads that say, "Even if you do get a job (which you won't because someone-from-Better-School-A-with-10-
journal-articles-
by-the-time-s/he-finished-his/her-prize-winning-dissertation will get it) you will be stuck in a school/department with Toxic Department Chair, students who have sex in your office, and all the other horror stories of life in academia." Then another (weaker) voice pipes up, "But if you become a professor then you get to do what you have trained to do and you get to spend your professional life creating your own works and making a contribution to Art/Literary Criticism/History/Science." The little voice goes on, "Plus, you really like teaching and the kind of teaching, assignments, and challenges you really like can't easily be done outside of higher education."

At this point, lying on the couch with a much-needed glass of wine, we gratefully remember reading the New York Times article, "Can You Live with the Voices in Your Head?," and think maybe that we aren't going clinically insane after all. Maybe.

(Although we are a little disturbed that the opening anecdote in the article is about a chemistry Ph.D. candidate who just passed his oral exams.)

RG

Time: Noon, 26 March 2007
Mood: In Recovery

Last week the Kitty had terrible time. She went to the vet on Monday. On Tuesday she started throwing up. On Thursday she had thrown up 10 times by the time we were able to get to the vet again. She spent Thursday night at the vet having fluids pumped into her (evidence of IV is on her right front leg). She spent Friday at the vet as well and didn't enjoy the loud noises and multiple dogs. We finally took her home Friday night. The only thing the vet so far has figured out is that the Kitty has mild anemia and isn't regenerating red blood cells at the moment. We don't know why yet. The Kitty also isn't eating much of her dry food, although this is improving. This from a cat that eats anything in sight with great gusto! So think about the poor Kitty and wish her and the vet happy, diagnostic thoughts.

*****



Time: 9:30am, 27 March 2007
Mood: Resigned

Individual versus Collective

So this post starts with basketball. Having grown up in NC, I suppose a basketball-themed post is appropriate (hell, down right required) in March. But, as you'll see, I cannot enjoy the games for themselves, I have to find "meaning" in them for my own life. (Just you guys wait until I deconstruct an episode of Will and Grace.)

While watching a game at my friends' local the other night (well, watching would be stretching the matter--the game was on, it was hard to ignore), I decided that I want to be the white-guy bench warmer on a basketball team. You know the one that I mean. He is always wearing the full warm up suit and watching the game intently while at the end of the bench. It would be great--you are on the team, you practice and workout with the team, yet none of the pressure is on you come game time. Then, when the stars of the team score, you get to jump off the bench and pump your fist!!! See, you share in the team and the development of skills, but then the success or failure of the team is not up to you! It's the best of both worlds. Well, to me at this point anyway.

People (vagrants, grocery store clerks, oh, and psychologists too) tell me that women often have a problem with putting their work out in public and have a fear of being judged. While I tend to agree with this assessment from anecdotal evidence amongst the grad students I know, I haven't actually read any of these studies. I will say I am going through that now with the dissertation. I feel that there has been a feedback loop with my committee and that we have all convinced ourselves that my project is successful. Then, I'll put it out in the larger history community and people will point and laugh. And it will be all my fault.

So why did I choose this profession that is all about the individual? Sure, most historians work within academic departments, but their professional success depends on their individual achievements. There are no teams of historians invading archives, dissecting boxes of materials for the group. Rarely do historians write books (or even articles) collectively (although there are plenty of collections of individual essays). You can't be a bench warmer in history. (Well, I suppose you could but you wouldn't get tenure.)

So here's to working towards being a star of a team of one. (Looking in the bathroom mirror and intoning, "I'm good enough, I'm strong enough, and, dammit, people like me!" is optional.)

RG

Time: 7pm, 25 March 2007
Mood: All wet
(sorry for the off picture, camera/cameraperson not functioning properly)

A Cat Lady (Already?!?)

I have felt a little bit down and near the dumps this week (not quite all the way in the garbage, but close enough to smell it). I have finally figured out why. Two reasons:

1) I attired myself in green velour lounge pants on Monday in honor of St. Patrick's Day (a bit late) and they have been so comfortable that I haven't worn anything else since.

2) I have been to the grocery store on more than one occasion this week and bought SOLELY cat food. In small cans. Fancy Feast, to be exact.

That's right folks, I'm now a cat lady. And I'm not even 30. Even though I bought the green velour pants a year and a half ago for a Halloween costume (I was Bridezilla), I'm wearing them in public now. And even though I am married and don't live by myself with 14 cats (we only have one), I still am buying the cat special food when she won't eat her normal food. And somehow this food buying is urgent, happens at night, and requires coupons.

I might as well stop bathing entirely and start talking to myself in public.

More Britishness Abounding

As is true of so much of my life, my blog is ahead of the curve (see here for the original post). The BBC recently published an article about Americans' perceptions of British accents. Stephen Fry had this to say: "I shouldn't be saying this, high treason really, but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren't fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there."

How true.....

How to Read a Book

There have been a lot of books, essays, memes, and talk lately about how to read books, the best books to read, and why we read books. It seems that no one is actually reading their favorite books, they are reading or writing about how to read and what to read. This point was made very nicely by Tom Lutz in his recent Salon article. I don't have much new to add to these discussions but I certainly won't be reading these "how to read" books anytime soon. I have too many actual novels, poems, and nonfiction to read! Here is an example of one of the book memes floating around that landed on the Isabel Archer blog. I agree these are kind of pointless as these types of lists are so personal (or manufactured by corporations to look personal). At least he had fun with the meme.

Oh, in case you need basic instructions on how to read a book, here is an instructional video for you. (Thanks to paxemilia and her mom the librarian for the link.)

RG

A bit late on the uploading, but Cedric has been out and about as usual.



Time: 9pm, 16 March 2007
Mood: Sauced

*****



Time: 11 am, 18 March 2007
Mood: Nervous

*****



Time: 12:30pm, 19 March 2007
Mood: Satisfied

Plants are my Friends

And I hate to cut the limbs off friends. But that's what I did this weekend. Chop! One whole stalk of my long-standing friend, the tall-green-plant-that-grew-more-than-the-height-of-our-ceiling-
and-whose-name-escapes-me-at-the-moment.
I also had to trim and repot the dieffenbachia. In addition, I had to finally throw out Mrs. Ficus (ficus benjamina L.) because she had completely died and gone to houseplant heaven (where no one overwaters and it's always 70 degrees and [indirectly] sunny). Why Mrs. Ficus? Well, we already had a Mr. Ficus that lives in the bedroom with a nice northwestern exposure and is doing brilliantly. So obviously the next ficus would be a mrs.

I HATE getting rid of plants. I will keep plants until there is nothing more to be done for them than to vacuum up all the bits and pieces lying about the pot ad infinitum and one day realize that there is no more plant left. It's not that I kill plants. I have many plants I've had for 8 years that are doing fine. I just get tempted by the sale plants or the plants at discount stores that aren't the best quality to begin with. But see, then I feel bad for the plants and I have to bring them home. And then I have to mourn them when they don't do very well because they weren't too healthy to begin with.

I also "rescue" plants. Our house is full of plants I've gotten from elsewhere. I used to rescue plants in college that people would throw away at the end of each year. By senior year, I had a good collection of plants both in my room and at home that I had taken out of various dumpsters. Most of these are still alive and in my parents' house. We also have a palm that our upstairs neighbor at our old place gave us when he moved out. The plant hadn't been repotted in years, leaned completely over at a 20 degree angle and had to be propped up against a wall. (It also came with a sketch book, some random porn magazine clippings, and some old computer punch cards. Anyone remember computer punch cards? Yeah, I'm too young too. But my parents have some HI-larious stories about dissertations and theses on cards getting dropped on the floor...) Long story short, I still have that plant 4 years later, repotted it upright, and it's doing swell.

Mrs. Ficus had originally been put in our trash house by a neighbor who had given up on her. I "rescued" her, only to have her listlessly drop leaves near our woodstove for 8 months. Nub never liked her, she was a bit lopsided, and had obviously been chopped up by her previous owner in an attempt to save her. I couldn't resist, though. Now I feel bad that she's back out in the trash house.

If that wasn't all traumatic enough, after some research I figured out that my jade plant has come down with mealy bugs, nasty little red bugs that wraps themselves in a cottony sack in order to lay eggs and (eventually) kill the plant by sucking it dry. I was relieved, somewhat, to know this because then it meant that I am not the world's worst housekeeper and the layer of "dust" and "cobwebs" on the plant were not because I don't dust every day. On the other hand, I was not relieved to discover that they are hard to kill, take weeks to deal with, and the cure (insecticidal soap) might kill the jade.

My inability to let plants pass away peacefully hit home when I got back from the nursery and realized that I bought a bottle of insecticidal soap for $9.25 that will probably kill a plant that I paid $5 for originally. And I could have bought another jade of the same size (small) for $7.50. Hmmmmm.....

The Way of the Scholar

On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Record Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose all consciousness of my surroundings or of the passage of time. When at last I came to myself, it was almost eleven and I was quite exhausted: I knew that I could not prudently continue without refreshment.

--Hilary Tamar, Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
(This quote blatantly stolen from the blog Stellar Habits.)

This *perfectly* captures most of my days at the National Archives (formerly the PRO). It's actually a very well-organized place and the reorganization (between summer of 2003 and fall of 2004) made the process of ordering and obtaining documents just about as fast as it could be. Still....the amount of time it takes to get in, put your things away in the lockers, get to a seat and get organized is way more than it should be. I'm amazed that I got any work done at all between waiting for my files, photographing the files, attempting not to murder the extremely old person next to me who smells bad and breathes loudly through his nose, and downloading the photos to my computer.

The cafeteria was a constant temptation. It was so nice to get up (after about an hour and a half of work) and go downstairs to have a pot of tea. In fact, this quote and my experience both with research and with writing remind me of the film Adaptation. Here's the quote:

Charlie Kaufman: To begin... To begin... How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. So I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana nut. That's a good muffin.

And we're off....writing left far behind we writers at that stage would then just continue on daydreaming of the perfect muffin, the perfect cup of coffee to go with that muffin, and then the perfect lunch that would later complement the aforementioned muffin. Would a Caesar or a garden salad go best an hour after the muffin? Sparkling or still water? What's for dinner? If I had all the money in the world and my own profession kitchen, what's for dinner? What's for dinner if I lived on and island and could only take 5 food things with me (I'd get an endless supply of these items, but never anything but these items)?

Seriously, these types of questions could keep me occupied for hours. (By the way, I think it would be garlic, onions, olive oil or butter, some type of beans [black? canellini?], and some type of vegetable. Do I need a grain? Would the vegetable prevent scurvy, or do I need to switch out something for fruit? Do I need both onions and garlic? Could I have whole milk and make my own butter and cheese? Would that be cheating? Should I include a different type of protein instead of the beans? What if I can't make complete proteins from just the beans? Will I die if I don't get complete proteins or will I just turn into a jaundiced, bruised lump of flesh like my ballet teacher when I was 8 who told us she got a lot of bruises because she didn't eat meat and didn't get enough protein? Why did she have all those bruises? Didn't she know about complete proteins? There...I'm doing it again. I could stay up all night and think about this. Don't get me started on the books I would be allowed to take to the island.)

I told you

that the cat harbored a dark heart of treachery and evil. Here is photographic proof:



Notice the evil, slit-eyed smirk. Coupled with the cat's devilish desire to disrupt my writing is the fact that the weather outside is gorgeous. It's 70 degrees and sunny. There are flowers blooming and birds chirping.

I'm screwed. If you know me, call me up and yell at me to get to work. I'm serious! I'll pay you a shiny nickel.

RG

Time: 8pm
Mood: Fraternal


******




Time: 4pm, 10 March 2007
Mood: Folky State of Mind
(See Jefferson Hamer's website for more on this VERY talented singer/songwriter/badass musician.)

Girl Scout Cookies

are not good. There. I said it. They. Are. Not. Good. They are neither tasty nor do they help actual Girl Scouts (that much). Let me explain.

I was a Girl Scout. For 12 Years. That's right-12. Most of my good friends from high school were Girl Scouts. Girls Scouts taught me a lot of good things and I had fun. Especially once we were in high school and my troop consisted of me and 4 other girls whom I all liked and we could do things like take cool trips to the beach and get our badges in car repair and things like that. I have no problem with the Girls Scouts in general. Just stop making people sell boxes of cookies for $4 that aren't good!!!! Seriously!

The cookies....ugh. By the time I was a Senior Girl Scout with my Gold Award I hadn't actually sold the cookies other than to my parents for years. Why? Because selling them sucks!! It sucks to sell them when you are no longer cute and a Brownie (and in your senior girl scout uniform you kinda resemble an extra from a low-budget porno that caters to flat-chested, school-girl fetishes).

Currently, we have 3 boxes in the house. Thin Mints, Tagalongs (peanut butter patties) and Do-si-dos (peanut butter sandwiches). We may have had Samoas (the caramel, coconut ones), I don't remember. I don't eat them anymore. I had a Tagalong last night and I seriously couldn't finish the damn cookie. Nub came home to a half-cookie on his computer desk and scarfed it right down. Blech, he could have it.

The chocolate is not real chocolate, people! The peanut butter tastes like what you get when you pay 55 cents for a "peanut butter" sandwich cracker in the vending machine. The Thin Mints taste like wax plus some type of faux mint. The Samoas are the only thing I couldn't see making better myself. And that's because I don't have the patience to make a "chocolate-y" sauce, a caramel sauce, toast some coconut, and put it on a shortbread cookie. But if I had that kind of patience, you just wait and see! That would be a good cookie.

Also, the cookie sales don't really help the local troops. Most of the profit goes to the bakers, followed by the national organization, then the state and local offices, AND THEN the troop. Troops get about 10 CENTS a box. I try to always give a local troop at least $10 in cash every year as a donation. That way, I don't have to eat the bad cookies and they get the whole 10 dollars to spend on whatever the troop wants. Nub is the one responsible for buying the cookies and eating them. Just like he's responsible for all ice cream consumption. But that is another post entirely.

P.S. The Girl Scout Council out here is the Mile High Council. Guess how many Halloween costumes have been made out of that patch?

RG

Time: 4:30pm
Mood: Stick in the mud

International Women's Day

Yes, folks, it's International Women's Day. While I was looking forward to a good, old-fashioned consciousness-raising session out here in the Rocky Mountains, I'm afraid I'll have to be satisfied with a movie about population growth put on by those odd folks at Zero Population Growth. I understand the impetus to regulate human impact on the planet, but this leans too close to eugenics and other invasive government policies.

If I wanted to get in touch with my inner Female Human Being, though. I could call these nice people in Berkeley (natch).

Date:	08 March 2007
Time:	9:00am - 21:30pm
Event:	Wildly Creative Women Tele-circles
About:	We will: celebrate women, open our hearts to women world-wide who live with violence, share what we are grateful for, examine female power and explore wild creativity. Learn what women uniquely have to offer our world right now, discover what we are drawn to and ask how we can be of service and have a little bit of fun in the process!
Venue:	On the telephone!, Berkeley, CA and wherever you call from!
Org'n:	Wildly Creative Women: Wildly Creative Women's vision is to reawaken the innate, instinctive powerful Female Human Being in all women and provide the information, tools, and support for women to begin again to live from the integrated wholeness of Spirit, the mind-body with its instinctive female intelligence and sensual awareness, a clear intellect, and natural capacity for play and curiosity - in short, our wild creativity.

For more info, click on the graphic above.

Hypermilers

Unbeknownst to me, my parents have secretly been members of this group (cult?) of hypermilers since I was born. That's really the only thing that explains their driving habits.

From Mother Jones magazine:
This Guy Can Get 59 MPG in a Plain Old Accord. Beat That, Punk.

As Nub said, I don't know whether to shake his hand or strangle him out of frustration.

RG

The Roamin' Gnome is at home.


Time: Lunchtime
Mood: Eager to listen to Le Sacre du Printemps

A Hot Dog with Lettuce?

Today I sent off more job applications and worked on the diss. Needless to say, I desperately needed some form of liquid refreshment. Happy Hour it was!

Before calling and convincing others to join me in my drinking, I ventured to our local, independent bookstore and bought the Sibley field guide for birds. An excellent bird book. Essential since we live on a lake and have never before gotten off our butts to get a bird book. We would rely on a friend to tell us what the birds were. That worked less well when he moved to Wisconsin. We would guess at the birds' species (I know! It's a red-bottomed dipper!) Now we own the definitive (or one of the definitive, depending on your birding politics. I'm a neophyte, I have none...) bird book for North America. We probably won't be able to find a thing in it. We'll just have to go back to making things up. (Tonight I saw a yellow-footed schmaboobie. For real, I even have a picture. It's blurry, though.)

At happy hour, we perused the bird book and neither Nub nor Emily could find the birds they recently saw. An auspicious beginning... We also ordered the hot dog. Not just any old hot dog, but a gourmet hot dog with all the trimmings.



It is a bit excessive. In fact, I have heartily ridiculed this hot dog before. It also tastes good and comes with lettuce, tomato, mornay sauce, mustard, and pickles. (Note, that is not caviar. It's whole grain mustard with many grains and not much filler.) Nothing like a froufrou hot dog with French wine to make you feel like a red-blooded American.

RG

Time: 8pm
Mood: Studiously Crazed

RG

Time: 9:30 pm, 4 March
Mood: Postprandial stupor
*******


Time: 3pm, 5 March
Mood: Publicly Meditative
(Why are there no other people on the bus?
Did the gnome scare them off?)

Back to the Grind

I've got 6 weeks to change things in my dissertation. 6 weeks! But somehow writing that here in black and white (grey and white?) I know that I can do it. And somehow that was something I wasn't too sure of in the last 5 years.

Roamin' Gnome

Place: A sunny spot
Time: 2pm
Mood: Lazily watchful

An attempt at a new thing to make myself into a better photographer. But with gnomes.

Why gnomes? Well, as my gnome book says, "they have a fondness for drinking homemade brews." Who wouldn't want to hang around with someone like that? Now one might think that I just recently jumped on the gnome bandwagon having seen a cute gnome box at the bookstore. You'd be partially right, but my gnome-liking has gone on for a whole year, it was a full-sized gnome, and it was Target. I just happened to want an additional gnome this week. The other gnome spends his time drinking in the garden during the warm months and guarding our garage in the cold months. This one is a pocket-sized Roamin' Gnome. His name is Cedric.

(My gnome guide says gnomes don't like cats. Well, Cedric happens to tolerate them. I just have to give him more beer.)

A Glistening Ivory Tower?

Apparently, all you need is a bow-tie and owlish glasses a la Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

I knew I was sartorially challenged.

***********
The Roamin' Gnome

Place: Buenos Aires Grill
Time: About 6:30pm
Mood: Peckish

Urban Histories

I've been thinking a lot lately about cities and their histories. (Part of it comes from my recent trip to the alternate universe of Florida. See below.) I enjoy reading biographies of cities because, when done well, you get a great narrative full of social/cultural/political/gender/everything history along with anthropology, art, and architecture thrown in. One I particularly enjoy is Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography. London comes alive in the book and you can easily find many of the places he writes about on your next trip across the pond. While dog-sitting, I have also picked up Suketu Mehta's Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. I enjoy history as memoir and so this combo of memoir, sociology, history, and travel writing promises a good time.

Cities excite me in ways that suburban sprawl never can. I would much rather live in an area of a city that contained older houses and some yards than in the new neighborhoods that seem to pave over all the land between the cities. I notice these suburban areas much more in the West than on the East Coast. The trees hide a lot back East. Although I know that the neighborhood I grew up in was, at one time, a suburb to the city proper, it was very much part of the city by the time I lived there. I love that neighborhood. All the houses were unique. The garages or carports were detached and located behind the houses on the side.

The garage issue is surprisingly important to me. I really don't want to live in a house where a garage is the most prominent feature. I realize that I probably won't have the financial luxury to make that a priority in my home-buying future (by that I mean I won't have the budget to pick and choose the exact, best, house no matter the cost). I also realize the great convenience in having attached garages. Let's just say that in an ideal world, I would live in a neighborhood with large lots, alleys, and with garages in the back of the houses. I think my aversion to houses with garages in front comes from that scene in Edward Scissorhands when all the cars pull out of similar driveways at the exact same time to go to work each day. Many neighborhoods around the Front Range remind me of that.

That movie also highlights the desire for similarity and coordinated houses newer communities exhibit. The residents of the community we visited in Florida kept saying how unique and different all the houses were in the community because home buyers could alter the model of the house they chose in many different ways. In their minds the houses were all very different. To outsiders, though, it was very easy to pick out the 6 or so models and the standard deviations. It still all seemed the same. Boulder is like that in many neighborhoods, including the one I live in. There are really only two or three neighborhoods where there is no recognizable, repetitive theme running through the housing designs.

No point to this post other than ruminations on my past and potential future. I've never lived anywhere I couldn't walk to the grocery store in under 15 mins. Somehow, that's comforting.

You Dropped Obama On Me

This is the best thing EV-AR! First, I love this song. Secondly, the video is freakin' awesome.

A summary:

Obama should use "You Dropped the Bomb on Me" as his theme song because, and I quote, "it addresses the two main perceived weaknesses of his campaign:
1) Perceived as "not black enough."

2) Too weak on national defense."

I shall note, too, that Nub sent me this link even though he'd rather go to the dentist, naked, than listen to this song.

Florida

Nub and I finally made the trip down to Florida to see his mom and step-dad's new house. We were there for a long weekend (Thursday through Monday) and enjoyed ourselves a lot. This was my first grown-up, non-ironic trip to Florida and so I had been a bit trepidacious about my ability to handle the full-on, retirement-community, large-car, disney-loving aspects of the vacation. My other trips to Florida and to Disney World (except for the first one at age 10 or 12 when I wasn't quite as snarky as I am now) were with people who shared my belief that Florida is kinda odd and that Disney World is a strange universe filled with thousands of alien babies, heinous toddlers, and over-sugared 10 year olds. My parents and I went to Disney World over the Y2K New Year's and were fully expecting to be ushered into the apocalypse by smiling people wearing the uniforms of Tomorrowland, "This way, ladies and gentlemen. Form a single-file line. No need to run. This way for the apocalypse."

On this trip, we were treated to the full lifestyle of Central Florida-ites. His parents live in a "golf-cart" community where most people have a golf-cart or small car in which to tool around in addition to their large Lincoln, Cadillac, or Buick. Nub's mom has a very small, very yellow Miata. Did I mention it was small? The inside makes my Tercel seem like a minivan. Plus there are 6 gears! That's 2 whole gears more than I have. I got up to 4th gear on the highway on the way to Disney World and didn't know what to do with myself.

We packed in a full week's worth of activities: boating, the Magic Kingdom, a state wildlife park, the beach, botanical gardens, and lots of sitting around the house out in the lanai and/or the hot tub.

I'm exhausted just thinking about all the stuff we did on the trip. Perhaps one day I might want to live in Florida or in a new retirement community. I just hope that day is a long, long time off from now.

(Pictures coming later.)

Been There, Done That...Even Have The T-Shirt

Yesterday I turned in a draft of my dissertation. It's not done yet, by any means, but a draft is out there. To celebrate Nub and I went to Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder.

The meal was amazing...absolutely excellent. The menu was interesting, delightful, and educational. The food was succulent, savory, and unique. Overall, a great experience.

We talked to the chef when he came by our table to introduce himself. I asked him a lot of questions about the polenta dish and learned some things. He seemed like a nice guy and the visit to our table didn't seem forced and perfunctory. He genuinely seemed to enjoy mingling with his diners.

On our way out, the waitress stopped us and said the chef wanted us to have t-shirts. So we now have Frasca t-shirts in a nice brown color (and free advertizing for them).

American Historical Association's Resolution on the Current Administration

The AHA is taking the unusual step of having all its members vote on the following resolution. Although my research is not directly affected by the Bush administration's policies regarding government documents, I do feel that historians have been ill-served by this administration. The following is the text of the resolution (including notes). You can read the page with the resolution at the AHA's website here.

Editor's Note: At its January 7, 2007, meeting, the AHA Council accepted the resolution on U. S. Government Practices Inimical to the Values of the Historical Profession, but because the resolution came into the Association too late to be published in the December 2006 issue of Perspectives prior to the business meeting where it was passed, and because of its intrinsic importance, the Council believes its acceptance should be ratified by a majority of those voting in an e-mail ballot of the membership.

Resolution on United States Government Practices Inimical to the Values of the Historical Profession

Whereas, The American Historical Association’s Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct emphasizes the importance of open inquiry to the pursuit of historical knowledge;

Whereas, the American Historical Association adopted a resolution in January 2004 re-affirming the principles of free speech, open debate of foreign policy, and open access to government records in furthering the work of the historical profession;

Whereas during the war in Iraq and the so-called war on terror, the current Administration has violated the above-mentioned standards and principles through the following practices:

• excluding well-recognized foreign scholars; condemning as "revisionism" the search for truth about pre-war intelligence;
  
  
• re-classifying previously unclassified government documents;
  
  
• suspending in certain cases the centuries-old writ of habeas corpus and substituting indefinite administrative detention without specified criminal charges or access to a court of law;
  
  
• using interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, Bagram, and other locations incompatible with respect for the dignity of all persons required by a civilized society;

Whereas a free society and the unfettered intellectual inquiry essential to the practice of historical research, writing, and teaching are imperiled by the practices described above; and

Whereas, the foregoing practices are inextricably linked to the war in which the United States is presently engaged in Iraq; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the American Historical Association urges its members through publication of this resolution in Perspectives and other appropriate outlets:

1. To take a public stand as citizens on behalf of the values necessary to the practice of our profession; and

2. To do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.

Three Things I Love

In honor of the day called Valentine's.

1. The Nub. Life with him is never boring. Last night I'm trying to go to sleep through a cough-suppressant-induced haze and rambling on and on about this and that. Nub, instead of ignoring my ramblings as would have been perfectly justified, starts to tell a story about Mr. Randall, his awesome gym teacher. Turns out my husband was in a Tinikling Group in elementary school. After snorting my lungs though my nose in a fit of the hysterics after he stated that they "tinikled all over Des Moines," I learned more about this glorious, Filipino tradition. You can see some traditional tinikling here:



Now imagine a bunch of 4th graders (blonde, blue-eyed Iowan kids) doing this to the Moody Blues. Yeah, I can't either.

2. My Friends and Family. My friends are wonderful and I'm very blessed. Here's to turning 30 this year (most of us)! A special toast to K and K who both independently gave me some great news on Monday. A new baby and a new marriage are on the way!

3. The Tercel. You are awesome. You have saved my butt on more than one snowy occasion. This past weekend you turned over 150,000 miles! Congrats!

Yes!

Really, the title says it all:

Napping Regularly Fights Heart Disease.

I feel vindicated.

Britishness Abounds

The other day I got money out of a talking ATM. The talking part wasn't that odd....blind people should use ATMs if they want. The accent was the odd part. The bank was Western State Bank and the ATM lady's voice had an upper-class English accent. Now, why was that? Nothing about the name of the bank indicated any link whatsoever with the land of Marmite and Spotted Dick pudding. My guess is the person in charge of setting up the ATMs got to pick from a list of voices and picked the one that sounded the most "distinguished" and "trustworthy."

We Americans still harbor (harbour?) a bit of inferiority surrounding accents. I grew up next to a professor of English lit (still called English lit at the time) who had something of a vaguely-English accent. I remember being in college and asking my dad whether Mr. Lane was born in England. My dad laughed hysterically for a little bit and then said, no, he was born in Reidsville. (A little town in NC that has as one of its claims to fame a Brunswick Stew Cook-off in October.) So Mr. Lane had cultivated a semi-English accent for most of his adult life. I, before I knew much, certainly felt he was more sophisticated and smart than the average, boring Greensboro-ite.

What's interesting to me about the often quoted remark that having an English accent raises your perceived IQ by 10 points is how in the US the "quality" of the accent rarely matters. Unless a person has the most Eliza Doolittle-ish of Cockney accents, all English/British accents would help raise a person's image in the US. (While it's not surprising that Americans wouldn't have the finely tuned ears that would immediately pick up on the person's background, it does limit our enjoyment/understanding of British films, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and All Creatures Great and Small. {Yes, Hugh Laurie had a fine career before House and no, he's not American.}) When Target was rolling out its new Boots makeup counters in US stores (Boots is a well-known British drugstore chain), CO was a test market. So for about 6 months we had tv and radio adds for the new Boots merchandise. What was really jolting about them for me was that the text of the adds used Cockney rhyming slang while the voice actors had the most upper-crust, public-school, Oxbridge accent I could imagine. For example, the adds started out by saying, "Calling all Mother of Pearls!" (i.e., Calling all Girls) but it sounded as if the Queen Mother was reading the lines. Very dissonant to me. Not at all an issue for most test-audiences, though, or else I guess the ad agency would have run something else.

In addition to class differences, Americans don't usually have the same aural skills at picking out the relative regional gradations in British/Irish accents and many Americans wouldn't really be able to reliably differentiate between an English, Scottish, or Irish accent in any given situation, as my surprisingly large sample of overheard elevator conversations with clueless Americans and people from the UK or Ireland seems to indicate.

Sample overheard conversation:
Clueless American: Y'all are English?
Irish person(s): No, I'm(we're) Irish. (Said in unmistakable Irish accent.)
C.A. now chooses one of two responses:
1) "Ho! Ho! Sorry to offend you! I guess you folks don't like the English much." (If they
managed to read a newspaper anytime during the last 3 decades during "the Troubles.") or,
2) "There's a difference?"

This point about Americans not really understanding the difference between Scotland, Ireland, and England (or, heaven help us, add in Wales) was really brought home to me during my good friend's wedding in 2005. I was her maid of honor and therefore was standing up with her and her Scottish husband. There was Black Watch plaid (the groom's grandfather was in that regiment) everywhere--around the flowers, on the kilts that the men were wearing, etc. The minister (a relative of the bride) then proceeded to ad lib considerably about how the groom's family was "from our mother country, England." Over and over he said "England." There were people standing in front of him wearing KILTS! Everyone was nice about it afterwards, but it was still pretty amusing. There was really only one person at the wedding who considered herself English--the groom's sister-in-law.

So here's the real question: Is Madonna taken more seriously now that she has a faux-English accent? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Sets of Four

Four jobs I have held:
1. Safety Town Instructor. I taught 6 year-olds how to ride Big Wheels around a scaled down town with real stoplights. A skill they will undoubtedly have utilized many times since 1990.


(I must note here that a picture of kids changing lanes in the middle of an intersection is perhaps not the best advertisement for Safety Town.)
2. Service Center Representative for Sears's Service Center. 1-800-4Repair, baby!
3. Movie Theater Attendant. I know how to make the good popcorn.
4. Student Receptionist at a science institute on campus. No, Nobel Prize winners are no better at working the copier than the rest of us (and often worse).

Four Movies I can see over and over:
1. Pride and Prejudice, the A&E miniseries
2. High Fidelity, even though something about that movie slightly annoys me. Is it because he eventually asks her to marry him, or because she doesn't want to get married? I haven't decided.
3. Steel Magnolias. A friend is having red velvet cake for his birthday on Sunday and I can't help but think about the "bleedin' armadilla cake."
4. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. This reminds be of being in 6th grade and sleeping over at friends' houses where this was always the movie of choice.

Four places I have lived:
1. Greensboro, NC
2. Upstate, NY
3. Boulder, CO
4. London (for a total of about 5 months)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Chocolate Cake!
2. Wonton Soup (at Chez Thuy's)
3. Bacon
4. Potatoes (in any form)

Four places I would rather be:
1. Belize
2. London
3. With friends (all of them) in some big, moving city that we could all live in and still have jobs and interests across the country. (I'm having the physicists work on this as I write.)
4. In bed, for a nap

Four things I never thought would happen by my 30th birthday (still a little early for this):
1. Be married
2. Still be in school
3. Still be carded every time I'm out at a restaurant
4. Have a blog

Treacherous Shores of Procrastination

I would like to be able to say that the reason that I haven't posted in 9 days is that I've been furiously writing. That is not the case. I have been exploring my non-writing state and I think I've come to some conclusions about the way I work and what I need to do in order to write and finish.

Ordinarily I would keep all this information to myself. Well, strike that. I've started a blog for heaven's sake! Written below are the things I need to do in order to finish in May and graduate with a dissertation of which I can be proud!

1. Sit at my computer everyday with the email and web browsers turned off. Sit at the computer until I write at least one page. My ultimate goal is 5 pages a day. Sometimes I think handcuffs and leg shackles would help. Perhaps they could be the pretty, furry kind.
2. Upon awaking in the morning, make the requisite cup of tea and then sit at the computer for at least an hour.
3. Schedule time each day in which to review books, make edits, peruse sources. This time DOES NOT COUNT as "writing."
4. Keep a writing journal in a separate document. Note when writing is easy/hard/coma-inducing.
5. Do not be tempted by the cute, furry, lazy kitty. It will try to lure you into crashing on the Treacherous Shores of Procrastination where fearsome creatures like The Comfy Chair, The Good Mystery Novel, and, most horrible of all, The "Just 10 Minutes" Afternoon Nap lie in wait. The orange fur hides a black, black heart that only wants one thing: to distract you from writing! Cries for treats, petting, and belly-rubbling as well as leg-weaving, kneading, and cute postures are the siren call of the kitty---tie yourself to the mast and resist!!! Resist!!!!
   

Choose your own adventure in grading...

Here is a very funny narrative of grading undergraduate essays.

Purity Protector

I married a man that has carried this in his wallet for the past 18 years or so, ostensibly for the 35¢. Thank goodness he hasn't felt the need to call Pastor Lance and have him ask me questions.




My understanding is that before joining the crack-smoking party, the orgy, or the satanic ritual, you would use the money to call Pastor Lance and have the head crack dealer, sex mistress, or dark lord ask if it was ok for you to participate. How wonderfully naive of Pastor Lance. I kind of miss those days when people would hand out change on laminated cards to 6th graders, expecting them to call when presented with life's challenges. Now, however, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the average 6th grader IS the head crack dealer and has already invited the sex mistress and the dark lord to his/her next party.

Gratuitous Cuteness Post

All together now: "Awwwwwwwwwwwww!"

Will it fry?

That was the theme of Sunday's festivities involving friends of ours and their new deep fryer. Two liters of peanut oil later and we were on our way to answering the question of the ages with this machine:
















The really good:
Butternut squash sliced very thin and dipped into tempura batter.
Okra, natch.
Fresh mozzarella dipped in egg and rolled in breadcrumbs.
Homemade fries (par-cooked, then fried twice).
Hushpuppies, thanks to Jason for the recipe.
Asparagus, also in tempura batter.
Falafel. I bet it would be even better if we had done homemade. The box mix was very good, though.
Samosas.

















The good:
Frozen appetizers--fried mushrooms, cheese sticks, jalapeno poppers (well, I didn't try those).

The bad/ugly:
The huge bone-in chicken breasts I attempted to make. I think they would have been good if I had done the same things (buttermilk soak, flour batter) with chicken tenders. The inside was still raw when the outside was almost on the way to VERY brown. I sliced off a bit of one of the breast and re-breaded it....that was pronounced good.

Being frying neophytes, we didn't even make it to the dessert stage. I hear tell that fried Oreos are awesome, though. When we got home, Nub and I felt fried ourselves. Showers and changing the sheets on the bed soon followed the next day.

A Snob?

Nub and I were thinking the other day about what things we might be snobby about. I'm not talking about being haughty about something to the point of alienating other people. We were thinking more along the lines of what we'll go out of our way to do/purchase/consume that may cost more or be more trouble to find. A personal snobbishness, if you will...we don't really feel the need to tell others that our choices are better than their choices. These are just things we do for ourselves. In fact, our choices might not even be the "best" choice according to whatever luxury goods magazines are out there....but they are usually things that aren't found at the local Target, grocery store, etc. Or they might be there, but we only like a certain type and only that type of item. Snobby? Picky? You decide.

I'm snobbish about tea, cookware, and pens. I like really dark English Breakfast-type teas. I always buy the British teas made for British consumption (therefore the Twinings teas that you see on the shelf in your local grocery store don't cut it). When I add milk, I like to see a deep caramel color (colour) that IS NOT grey. Grey is what you get when you add milk to Lipton or any of the other American teas. Lipton is good for iced tea, but not for what I drink first thing in the morning. I buy my tea at tea shops, British import stores, etc. I also bring back tea in my suitcase when travelling abroad. Others have also brought tea back for me.

Cookware is another thing. Since the wedding we've amassed a fair quantity of quality cookware and knives. Cooking is so much easier with all of this stuff. Easier to prep foods for cooking, easier to release the food from the pans, easier to follow the recipes, and easier to clean everything up afterwards. Those without good quality knives would do well to invest $60-80 in one good chef's knife. You will wonder what you ever did without it.

I need to buy new pens. I really only like to use Precise Pens for writing. The fine or extra fine points. I have plenty of blue, red, and green but suddenly there are no more black pens.

What are you, my devoted readers, snobbish about?

Art and Sushi

Two great tastes that go great together. On Saturday I convinced the troops to get out of our provincial lives and go into Denver to see a light installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art and then eat sushi at Sushi Den, supposedly the best sushi place in Denver. The light installation was elliptical instead of flat, as in this picture. It was very red and very surreal. I enjoyed the feeling of being in a womb-like environment with lights that almost breathed and slow moving pulses trailing along behind. It was a great experiment for glasses-wearers, too. (another reason we will someday conquer the world) Taking off your glasses produced a blurred vision that enhanced the experience. You could also do some cool effects by waving your limbs around. I'm glad it was just the 7 of us in the room. We must have looked quite amusing. Emma

seemed to like it as well. And making art that babies enjoy is really the whole point, right? ;-)

The light installation was the only work at the museum (under construction) so we headed on over to the Denver Museum of Art and its new building. The Hamilton building, designed by Daniel Libeskind, has gotten some not-so-good reviews since it opened. I can see why. It's a good looking building from the outside but the inside tends to distract from the art. Plus, it's not well constructed. We saw many leaks, dents, scrapes, and other flaws in a building that has only been open for 3.5 months.



Aside from the building, the art inside was thought provoking. We stuck to the contemporary art galleries and went through them at a fairly fast pace considering we had a wee one in tow. My favorite piece was the Quantum Man

and the small exhibit on Duchamp. I generally enjoy art museums that present the social and cultural context along with the art. I'm not typically an "art for art's sake" person. Big surprise, no?

Then on to sushi. Excellent toro, wonderful blue crab and firecracker rolls. Generally, all around yummy. The busiest restaurant I've ever been in!

Writing is for the Dogs (or Cats)

I'm stuck again. Before the break I had a good few weeks of writing. Now I'm stuck. I've been rereading some of the various books on writing I own. Many of the tips are useful but none of them are seeing me through this rough patch at the moment. Most tips boil down to something on the variation of these:
-Write everyday. At least sit and try something. As Skinner said, "Never a day without a line." My dad was found of quoting that one. (Does writing in my blog count?)
-"Park on a downward slope." This is popular with those who write about writing. Essentially, leave off for the day where you can easily start up again. Stop in the middle of a paragraph with some notes for the rest of the paragraph, etc.
-Set aside a particular time to write. Stick to this. Don't let anything else get in the way of your writing time.

Hmmm...none of these are working. Perhaps it is my workspace?

Pets: Other People's

I often dog- and cat-sit for people I know. Professors, friends, neighbors, this lady I met at Video Station... I enjoy dog-sitting because I don't have a dog and this way I get to hang out with dogs without having to get up to let them out every single day at 6am. My favorite dog is Lucca, aka the Best Dog in the Whole Wide World. A very close second is Katie and her best friend, a cat named Bella. Here they are "playing" together. Even though this picture looks aggressive, Katie and Bella are best friends and they often groom one another and cuddle up. Unfortunately, this grooming and cuddling is somehow invisible to anyone with a camera. I haven't quite figured that out. Here, I'm attempting to start a grooming session when they weren't in the mood.

Found Objects

Those that know me personally, especially those who have lived near me for the past 7 years, know I go to the dentist a lot. I'm not talking about having many cleanings or anything, I still only have two cleanings a year, but about my dentist's ongoing project that is my mouth. Suffice to say I could pay for at least a year of and probably two of tuition to a nice, private, liberal arts college with what my family has forked over to various dental professionals: my dentist, orthodontist, crown-maker, x-ray technician, and various others. Also, my dentist in CO is 45 mins from my house on a good traffic day (although once I made it to an appointment in 25 mins, but I wouldn't recommend that). I go to the dentist so often that I have figured out the various ways to get there and what cool things are nearby that I can stop off at either on the way, the way back, or in between appointments. A great glatt kosher deli is one. A Goodwill store is another. I recently found this at the Goodwill store:



Isn't that awesome? First of all, the quality of drawing of the presidents kicks ass. Secondly, Nixon! Our neighbor who catered our wedding had a Nixon bumper sticker on his Toyota Previa van that he found in his parents' attic, but I have a Nixon commemorative plate! Thirdly, 2 bucks! God, I love Goodwill.

Atlanta, Day 5: Hell on Earth

I made it back from Atlanta somewhat in one piece. Keep in mind that I am very, very glad that what I describe below did not happen before my interviews. In the grand scheme of things, the 8 hours of complete hell actually make for a funny story, at least for those with strong stomachs.

I started the day with brunch at the Flying Biscuit Cafe in midtown Atlanta. It was very busy and very good. I had shrimp and grits which tasted fantastic.



About 5 hours later, I embarked on my journey to the airport. Upon boarding the MARTA train to the airport, I started feeling very queasy. Uh oh.

I didn't have any plastic bags, no one around me had any plastic bags, there were no plastic bags. So, I had to throw up on the floor of the train. I got off at the next stop and threw up on the platform because the only garbage cans around were the kind with the small holes on the sides. Not convenient for puking. After getting on and off the MARTA two more times, I got to the airport stop. I threw up on the platform there then checked in to find that my flight was delayed until 10pm. I started bawling and I'm sure the guy at the counter thought I was insane. I made it into the terminal, found a cell phone store where I procured plastic bags and I got into the security line. Uh oh.

It turns out if you look miserable enough, the nice TSA agents will let you jump the line and go to the special line with all the deploying troops. (Atlanta is a major stopover for troops returning from leave.) Once there, I got all my stuff into the grey trays and was about ready to go through the line when I had to throw up again. But I had my plastic bags, right? No! They took them to put the EMPTY SHOPPING BAGS through the xray machine. So someone tossed me a trashcan and I knelt on the floor in the middle of two security lines with about 100 people watching while I threw up a couple of more times. Everyone was pretty nice about it, though. I got through the security line but then spent about an hour sitting in a chair at the end of the screening area throwing up. The EMTs came but I refused to be transferred anywhere cause I just wanted to go home. They did give me a nifty puke bag, a vomit receptacle if you will, that doesn't leak, has a splash guard, and handily measures the volume of puke. But it's CLEAR! Why clear? That's just not fun.






I finally made it to the gate, puking along the way and then onto the plane. After the longest plane flight of my life, I got to DIA and to Nub who had been forewarned to bring water, ginger ale, and LOTS of plastic bags with him.

Atlanta, Day 4

I have survived the AHA. I went to my other interview this afternoon and it was a conversation, much like the first. In this interview, they did start off with questions about my research. I answered those and then we immediately switched over to talking about teaching. It was a good discussion and the college seems like a great place to be an undergrad. There is plenty of opportunity to do your own research and to work closely with students. No class is really more than 25 students. Environmental studies is an important part of the curriculum and so the committee was pleased by my ideas for a course on the history of disease and public health. Travel for teaching is also an important part of their curriculum and you can take groups of students to visit other places in the world over the January term. It seems like a very engaging place to work. Again, I have to stress, as much to myself as to others, that this college also interviewed at least 12 and probably closer to 16 or 17 candidates at this preliminary interview. Who knows....

The stress of the convention finally caught up to me this evening though. I got sick on the MARTA train and luckily I had a plastic bag with me. It's no fun stressing yourself out at these conventions. Luckily, all of this happened after I was done with my interviews. I was invited to apply for another position that was collecting CVs at the job registration table. There may be some more possibilities out there.

I will return home tomorrow full of fried okra and with my hair frizzed out from all the humidity.

Atlanta, Day 3

Well, this morning was my first interview. It was a 10am--luckily my 8am class had prepared me for being "on" at an hour of the day that I usually like to be reading the NYTimes on the web and drinking tea. Those of you with real jobs will not be sympathetic to my late-rising habits, I know, but imagine if you had to be "on" about 3 hours before you usually speak to another human being. Anyway, I set out from my room dressed in my nice black pant suit with my nice shoes. I got to the job register site (in my hotel, thankfully) about 15 mins before the interview armed with a bottle of water and altoids. Once I checked in, I then got to sit in the "bull-pen"--a place where everyone with the last names N-T waited to be called in for interviews. I believe that they try to make this process as nerve-wracking as possible.....imagine sitting on some hotel banquet chairs with about 30 other people all nervously tapping their feet, drumming their fingers on their notebooks, etc. The room was almost humming with energy. One of the professors from the university came to get me and then took me back to a cubicle divided by curtains with a table and chairs. You could hear everything that was going on around you, although I really didn't notice much once the interview started.

The interesting thing about this interview is that they did not ask about my research really at all. The first question they asked was how I got into the topic, history of disease and the flu epidemic in Nigeria. That was the only thing they asked even remotely related to my research. Everything else was about teaching. I felt that the interview went well. We had a nice conversation and I actually rather enjoyed talking to them. Unfortunately this in no way means that I will have a good chance of making it to the next level (the campus interview).

For those of you who are not historians, I'll break it down this way. This university has one job opening in the history department for a Modern British history person with a concentration in the British Empire. They have interviews scheduled for all day today and half of the day tomorrow. That means at least 15 people and possibly more are interviewing for this one position. Every person they asked to interview at the AHA could do the job. It now depends on subjective factors like personalities, teaching styles, and who the department chair wants to hire in her place when she, a British historian, retires.

So while I think I did well in the interview, I won't be upset if I don't get to the next stage.

Atlanta, Day 2

My second day in Atlanta was a blur of registration, schmoozing, and prep work for my interviews. I ran into the second reader of my undergraduate senior thesis in the elevator of the hotel. He remembered my thesis and will be a good contact in the future for African stuff. I also saw many people from my university who are here as members of search committees.

The best part was running into an old friend who got his masters at my university and is now on the East Coast finishing up. We had a drink and caught up. I was pleasantly surprised that we both have two interviews and we aren't competing with each other at this stage. He does have an interview at a place I wished that I had gotten an interview at, but he also has an interview at a place I wouldn't want to go if hell froze over, so I think it evens out.

He told me a story about one British historian (ie, one from Britain, not one who works on Britain, necessarily) who jay walked in between two hotels here. A police officer whistled at him to stop, but he kept on walking. Then the police officer grabbed him and yanked him off the street. The British guy said something like, "let me see your credentials" (even though the police officer was in uniform), and the police officer promptly threw him down on the sidewalk, handcuffed him, and hauled him off in the back of the police car. Welcome to the USA!

Atlanta, Day 1

Greetings from Hotlanta. I got in yesterday afternoon and checked into my hotel. My roommate flaked out on me, so I get to pay in full for the hotel room for all 4 nights. Wheeee! (Nub, we may need to take out a loan.) Promptly after getting settled in I realized that I was hungry, having only eaten a bag of TGI Friday's potato skins on the plane. So what to do? Find a cafeteria, of course! I'm in the South, after all.

After spending 20 mins with the phone book, I came up with several possibilities. I decided on Picadilly's cafeteria. It seemed that there was one close enough to the hotel to take public transportation. I went down to the concierge desk and asked about taking public transportation to the Ansley Mall. The lady at the desk couldn't stop laughing at me. She couldn't believe that I wanted to trek out to this strip mall in order to get some fried okra. Well, the trip itself was pretty easy although the transfer from the MARTA to the bus (from the North Ave. train stop get on the #27, ask to get off at the Ansley Mall stop) was long due to the bus driver's need to call everyone he knew on his cell phone before beginning his route.

At last, though, fried okra and sweet tea. I knew I had made the right decision as soon as I walked into the doors and was greeted by at least 3 women wearing hair nets. Soon, I was back in "Serve you?" heaven. I got a vegetable plate and ordered fried okra, green beans, and sweet potato casserole. Unfortunately, the sweet potato dish wasn't that great. I went back and got some mac and cheese for dessert. Best part, my bill was only $6.50 before tax. I also realized that living out of the South for any extended period of time leaves you unable to really drink full-strength sweet tea. After taking the first sip and having my teeth hurt, I cut it with unsweet tea. The shame I felt at not being up to the task! But my dentist would be happy.

Oh, I'm at the AHA for job-search related reasons, not for food? Well, I'll get to that when I post about day 2.

Moravian Stuff

Yesterday I put together a Moravian star. These are lighted stars that Moravians, a religious group (protestant) that immigrated from what is now the Czech Republic to Pennsylvania and North Carolina in the early 1700s, originally made out of paper and would light with candles. These stars would hang outside of houses during Advent up through Epiphany. From growing up in North Carolina near the original Moravian settlements, I really like most things Moravian. What I don't like is having a blizzard in CO delay my shipment of Moravian sugar cakes, love feast buns, and star by 5 days. No sugar cake on christmas morning for me! :-(

Anyway, the star was a pain in the ass to put together. I had to build an electric plug...who does that anymore? I also had to snap together about 50 different plastic cones with little connector pieces. The finished product is very pretty, though. My parents have one made out of paper with metal fasteners that they got about 40 years ago. The quality of the light shining through the paper is much nicer than through the plastic. I think they've stopped making the paper ones, though. I'm not sure there are enough people still alive who know how to make them.