Ancrene Wiseass

Okey-dokey. This is getting deeply tiresome.

2008-05-21T08:17:00.001-07:00

I don't want to pull down this post. I don't like shutting down productive debate and thoughtful disagreements. What is happening, however, is that some exceptionally annoying and rude people seem bent on posting exceptionally unproductive comments on a post that's now more than two years old.

Seriously, folks, it's all right if you disagree with me: I can handle it. But if you're bent on stopping by to call me and other readers names, well, that's just obnoxious.

Helpful Books for the Dissertation-Weary (and Others)

2008-03-14T02:44:00.000-07:00

Some things I've been reading lately and thought others might want to hear about or be reminded of:

1) As you could probably guess from that last post, Annie Dillard's The Writing Life

2) Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird (again)

3) Julie A. Fast and John D. Preston, Get It Done When You're Depressed (I pre-ordered this as soon as I learned it was being published, and I'm glad I did!)

I'm just starting Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, which I found at a thrift store this week.

Suggestions are welcome if you know of something you think anyone reading this might find useful.

The semi-sabbatical/demi-hiatus/what-have-you rather obviously continues here at Ye Olde Blogge. I'm still experiencing growing pains of the kind described by Mary Kate Hurley here, but I can definitively identify them as growing pains now, and that's a welcome relief.

Variations on a theme by Annie Dillard

2008-02-09T03:12:00.000-08:00

This is something I think I have learned about myself and want to recall later, either for comfort or for revision:

When you are writing, you know what you need to do. Making sure your pencils are sharpened and lying parallel on your desk, wiping down surfaces because the sight of dust grates on your skin, reading things you think have nothing to do with what you're writing, taking a nap at the wrong time, calling a friend to rant about your dissertation's bad habits and poor hygiene: all of it. I don't mean to honor procrastination, but rather to honor ritual, gathering, and acts of desperation. Procrastination is turning your back on your work, telling it to sit in the waiting room until you are ready to deal with it, and hoping it will get bored or angry enough to just go away. Percolation is confronting the empty plot where your work should be, digging away at it until you realize you need an awl or a pick-axe or a backhoe instead of the shovel you've got in your hand, and going off to beg, borrow, or steal the right tool for the job.

The trouble comes when you stop confronting the work and stop listening to yourself. And you learn this every time you start something new, then forget it again, so that beginning is always a terror.

The only hope is to be stubborn enough not to quit before you learn the lesson again--and to believe that you'll remember more quickly next time, even if you never do.

Declaring a blogging sabbatical

2008-01-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

So, uhm, yeah. Hi. It's been a while.

Most everybody's probably pretty much given up on me, but for those few who might still be hoping for a dispatch, here's a little something. I'm not sure it'll be all that gratifying, though, because I'm mostly writing this entry to let y'all know that the blogging's going to continue to be light here for the foreseeable future.

As I've noted more than once before, one of my reasons for starting this blog was to make the life of at least one graduate student somewhat more transparent to the world at large: to give more people a better sense of what she might do with her time, the challenges she might face, what it's like to be an academic grunt, and why she'd make such an odd choice in the first place. To some extent, then, it's a response to the bewildered looks and eyebrow-raisings most grad students are used to.

Another reason, of course, was to connect with people outside my usual social orbit. While I've no idea whether I really succeeded in helping people understand graduate students, there's no doubt that Ye Olde Blogge has helped me meet and talk to some marvelous people--occasionally even in meatspace.

Thing is, in both cases, a certain degree of intellectual and emotional honesty is required. In order to make that possible and still have some hope of making a career for myself in academia, I've constructed an anonymous identity that bears at least some resemblance to my own. But that's required me to remain silent on any number of issues, including the details of my own work as I move into the latter stages of my graduate career.

When I started blogging more than five years ago, it was still an odd little hobby. It's hard to deny, now, that it's become something much more like an industry--and that development makes blogs feel somewhat less casual and unofficial than they once did. So the somewhat more public profile of even dinky little blogs like mine, combined with the increasingly personal nature of my work, has started to make it much harder for me to find things I'm comfortable blogging about. Not discussing the very individual process of facing the demons that dissertations summon, the development of my ideas about my project, and the ways in which I'm working to become the person who can complete it without losing her mind or her credit rating has become a bigger problem as those issues have loomed larger in my life.

For the last few months, I've felt increasingly muzzled here, particularly since I'm having to make a number of very personal decisions all at once, but can't find a way to write about them honestly in this forum. I'm also well aware that wearing my heart on my sleeve--much like mixed metaphors--can really come back to bite me in the ass.

Now, I generally don't mind making myself a bit vulnerable. In fact, if anything, I tend to err on the side of making myself overly vulnerable. That's not necessarily a disaster in the making if I'm tough enough to handle it, but I'm not feeling quite that strong just now. As a result, I'm having to take a lot of the stuff I'd normally write about here underground--at least for the time being. I'm also having to reserve more time and energy for other kinds of work. The upshot of all this is that I'm expecting things to stay pretty quiet over here for some months, at least.

I imagine I'll still be lurking around in the blogosphere, making a nuisance of myself, and most of y'all know how to get hold of me if you're interested. If you do want to contact me and aren't quite sure what would be best, just leave a comment to that effect and we'll figure something out.

Brief thoughts on MLA

2007-12-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

I'm deeply pleased not to be there, myself: my impressions weren't all that favorable the one time I went, and it's nice to be here with the folks, instead. But I wish the best of luck to those of you who're there--especially the interviewees. I hope it all goes well, that everyone is lovely to you, and that the room service is marvelous.

Travel update

2007-12-26T06:06:00.000-08:00

By the way, for those who are wondering: I did make it safely to Old Home Sod, at last. In fact, my buddy Cheryl gave me a first-class seat for the first leg of the trip home. Niiiice.

A friendly note to the nation's retailers

2007-12-26T05:59:00.001-08:00

Please, for the love of God, STOP offering things at massively reduced prices. I know there's a panic over people not having spent as much as usual for the holidays, but consistently seeing things for something like 90% off is killing me! I'm a grad student: this means that I have little money, which means I have a very hard time passing up bargains.

I beg for your mercy. Seriously, raise the prices back to normal levels so I can maintain my awareness that I actually can't afford to buy your stuff.

With thanks,
A. Wiseass

The Most Wonderful Time . . .

2007-12-19T02:15:00.001-08:00

I was supposed to fly to Old Home Sod two nights ago, but it became very clear on the day of that it wasn't going to happen. Not only am I still recovering from the Month of Ick, and not only was I considerably worse off two days ago, but being mid-renovation on my bedroom meant I could not find a damn thing--including my wallet. I gave up and paid an insane amount of money (about $300) to change the ticket to tonight's flight.

Well, it rained in Big City today, so the hive mind shattered into tiny little pieces. Reporters on the local news were pointing at puddles in disbelief. People were running around with garbage bags on their heads. There were accidents everywhere, because folks here seem to think they can keep driving like cabbies on speed when the roads are wet.

Also, holiday traffic + rain in Big City = Bad News. Poor Boy Roomie may never offer to drive me to the airport again: we sat in traffic for more than an hour.

Once I got to the airport, I stood in a long check-in line, only to be told that my ticket required "special handling" and sent to another long line. That wasn't the right one, either, so they sent me to yet another. By the time I got to the end of that one, my flight had closed. Maybe that's what "special handling" means?

Instead of saying she was sorry or trying to help me find a solution, the woman who gave me the bad news actually started scolding me: "You're supposed to check in at least 45 minutes before your flight leaves!" I gave her the stank eye and said: "Look, I left my house more than 2 hours ago; please just don't start in on me." "I'm very sorry for your trouble, m'am," she said, in a way that made it perfectly clear that she actually didn't give a shit, before turning her back on me and walking off.

Thinking that I was being clever and avoiding further wait times, I went to the pay phone and called in to the reservation center. No dice: they wanted to charge me $500 to fly me out at 11pm tomorrow night. By this time, I confess, I was bawling.

Once I could control my tear ducts again, I approached a rather friendlier-looking woman at the entrance to a line I hadn't tried yet. She told me to go wait in a fifth line to talk to somebody on a direct-dial phone. So then, I stood in line with a bunch of extremely pissed-off people for about an hour, with what seemed like about 150 people smashing into me because they were stampeding blindly through our line on the way to the security gates.

Finally, I noticed that one of the coveted black phones was available. I pounced. A woman named Cheryl answered. "Hi, Cheryl," I said. "I bet you've been talking to a lot of unhappy people tonight." "Yeah, it's not fun," Cheryl said. "What are they doing over there? Are they just telling everybody to call us?" "Yeah," I said, "after sending us to the wrong lines repeatedly, that's pretty much what they're doing. It rained here today, and everybody went insane." "Ah," Cheryl said.

Cheryl then worked her magic, called me "hon" a number of times, and got me a flight out late tomorrow morning. I thanked Cheryl and told her to have a happy holiday.

Then, after wandering through three terminals with all my luggage, looking in vain for a working ATM, I got a ride home with a cranky Russian guy who took me past a bank on the way home. He brightened up a little when I gave him a hefty tip, even though he still didn't help me carry my bags to the gate.

Ah, what the hell: it's the holidays.

High-Security Hamlet

2007-11-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

Ain't it always the way? You announce a hiatus after weeks of writing nothing, and the very next day, you realize that there's something you just have to post.

I just listened to a This American Life episode called "Act V" for about the fifth time since it was first aired in 2002. If you have not listened to this yet, please go here now and do that.

Why? Because you won't have heard Hamlet discussed this way before, and you ought to. Even if you absolutely, positively hate the play and/or the character; have seen it staged 3,491 times; and have read and/or taught it more times than you can remember. Seriously.

The actors in this version of Hamlet, prisoners who have committed violent crimes, talk candidly about how the play's treatment of murder, revenge, duplicity, and treachery dovetails with their own experiences. They are absolutely brilliant interpreters and literary critics who become involved with the text in a way that happens all too rarely in our classrooms.

One theater critic quoted in this piece says that this production "makes a 400-year-old text fresh again." It does. Despite my usually jaded attitude toward Hamlet, this piece never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It's that good.

I absolutely plan to use it the next time I teach Shakespeare.

And now, back to those articles . . . .

Happy Trails to You . . .

2007-11-18T21:02:00.000-08:00

Hiya, folks.

I apologize to those of you who might've been expecting a post at some point during the past month: things are getting interesting in Wiseass World. I mean "interesting" in ways that are both exciting and crappy. Unfortunately, I can't really blog about a great deal of what's going on--at least for now--which is part of the reason for my long silence.

Suffice it to say that there are major changes afoot, great feats of organization and reconstruction to complete, foes and demons alike to be defeated.

I've promised myself that I will avoid another overly depressive holiday season by meeting a daunting, but do-able, set of writing goals before I head to Old Home Sod in less than a month. Unfortunately, "behind schedule" really doesn't begin to describe my progress, so I'm going to declare a blogging hiatus until after New Year's.

I hope you'll all have a good end to the term and that the holidays will be as stress-free and fun-filled as they were meant to be. See ya in '08.

Check in

2007-10-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Hiya.

Sorry I haven't been around much for a while: the past few weeks have been, well, interesting. Just spent the weekend at a conference, which was a good thing: I learned things and saw people I hadn't seen for a while and had loads of good, encouraging conversations and things. I'm pretty worn out, though, and I think I'll be processing things for a while yet.

A rhapsody on gadgets and dissertation-dating

2007-09-21T15:36:00.001-07:00

I actually got up at 7:30am, got to campus by 9:00am, and spent two whole hours writing today. And it didn't suck.

This is very, very good.

Given, I was working on an article and not on The Beast. But still, I'm positively buoyant. Having replaced the Computer Formerly Known as Functional and gotten acquainted with my lovely new machine* helped. Having an iPod all loaded up with lovely writing music helped. The big tables, quiet, and buckets of natural light in the law library helped, too. Knowing that I would disappoint someone if I didn't get my ass out of the apartment, show up, and follow through positively worked miracles.

Hurray for having a dissertation-date steady! Even if you're not actually working on your dissertation (she said sheepishly). We're doing another, day-long session tomorrow. I might just polish off both the articles I need to finish. Wouldn't that be glorious? (Feel free to imagine me bursting into song, Rodgers-and-Hammerstein style.)

I'm also kinda infatuated with technology right now. I'm not sure whether I love my new computer, my new iPod, or my first PDA more. Yep, the debt is mounting and no, I'm not looking forward to buying software. But glory and hallelujah, I'm getting something done!

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*She needs a proper name, by the way. In fact, maybe all three devices need names. Any suggestions?

Poetry in Honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day

2007-09-20T00:28:00.000-07:00

THE PIRATE

Oh, the blithery, blathery pirate
(His name, I believe, is Claude),
His manner is sullen and irate,
And his humor is vulgar and broad.

He has often been known to imprison
His friends in the hold dark and dank,
Or lash them up high on the mizzen,
Or force them to stroll down a plank.

He will selfishly ask you to dig up
Some barrels of ill-gotten gold,
And if you so much as just higgup,
He'll leave you to fill up the hole.

He may cast you adrift in a rowboat
(He has no reaction to tears)
Or put you ashore without NO boat
On an island and leave you for years.

He's a rotter, a wretch and a sinner,
He's foul as a fellow can be,
But if you invite him to dinner,
Oh, please sit him next to me!

--Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

Linky McLinksalot

2007-09-19T18:12:00.001-07:00

Just back in town after a bit of family time (and yes, the Glorious Nephew is still glorious). I am tremendously, immensely behind on things blog, but racing to catch up. Here are a few of the things I'm catching up on:

GOOD NEWS:

Prof. Chemerinsky will be law-school dean at UC-Irvine after all

BETTER NEWS:

This statement (full article here) warms the cockles of my heart:

John Eastman, a conservative constitutional scholar and dean of Chapman University Law School in Orange, who frequently debates Chemerinsky, called UCI's move "a serious misstep."

MORE GOOD NEWS:

The New York Times finally came to its senses and retracted that "Times Select," access-by-subscription crap. Read at will!

BAD NEWS:

This isn't quite what H.P. Lovecraft had in mind when he wrote about the Ancient Ones returning to annihilate humanity, but woolly mammoth dung might be helping us destroy the environment.

FASHION NEWS:

Julian Sanchez wonders whether the fashion industry wants to reinstate sumptuary laws.

There's a rather weird fashion slideshow available on "The Literary Type" here. I may be missing something of the context here, but I think it's interesting that only men are featured in this spread. Why no Virginia Woolfs or Lady Montagus or what-have-you? Also, check out slide #2: there's no way Oscar Wilde would ever wear such ill-fitting pants. I think he'd be appalled. (Hat tip to Lisa Carnell.)

Women of color still are nearly invisible in fashion shows. (Hat tip to Angry Black Bitch.)

The Onion "reports" on the freeing of American Apparel models: (Hat tip to Mr. H.)

"There were girls lying everywhere—draped over furniture, sprawled spread-eagled in the corner, and huddled close like animals," FBI Special Agent Curtis Froman, who oversaw the raid, said at a press conference. "Many of them had been given nothing more than a pair of tube socks or men's briefs to wear . . . ."

NOT REALLY NEWS AT ALL:

Bill Maher is a jackass.

Gloria Steinem rocks.

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST:

Just heard about this kids' show today, and it sounds marvelous! (Man, I love good kids' shows! I lucked into an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood the other day and sang along: it was one of the best half-hours I'd spent all month.)

Are we ready for a woman to be President? Samantha Bee investigates.

-----------------------------------

Enjoy! I'm off to catch up on some other things (like cleaning out my inbox, updating my planner, cleaning my apartment, writing articles. . . . you know, fun stuff like that).

Unstuck

2007-09-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

From time to time, one of my former students gets in touch with me. More often than not, the emails or phone calls come from alumni of the Nameless Summer Program I worked for during the five summers before this one. The program's intensity and focus on community-building help to form teacher-student bonds that are a bit stronger than average for Big City U.

Today, a woman I taught three summers ago--a first-generation, community-college transfer student who's also a single mother--called the scholarship center where I work to iron out some financial logistics. She asked me for some advice about her post-graduation plans.

During her time at Big City U, this woman has helped other community-college students make the transition here, has been able to study abroad, and had the world opened up for her. She has a job as an educational counselor lined up, plans to work toward a Master's degree in Education, and wants to teach at a community college to help people who need better access to the educational system--in her words, "just like the summer program; just like you."

Folks, that just feels so damn good.

That's what I'm here for. That's what this whole durn shootin' match is about. The research and the writing make it possible, and they're as necessary, for me, as breathing. But that--helping someone change her world for the better from the inside out, then watching her go on to do the same thing for somebody else--well, that's just the Real Stuff.

And you know what? All the doubt and debt and exploitation are worth it. Grad school should've been easier; it should've been better; it did not need to grind me down the way it has. But today, I feel like I'm made out of Teflon: today, none of it sticks.

State of the Blog Address

2007-09-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's that time again. Time for the obligatory post about how I'm re-thinking and revamping my blog. It must've been a few months since the last update, since that appears to be my pattern.

Anywhoo . . .

1) You'll notice the nifty new widget there in the left-hand margin that displays all recent comments. Kudos to Haloscan for making it available, because I've been noticing that folks are showing up to comment on older posts and I'm not catching it until some time later. So this'll help me do a better job of responding to those of you who respond to me and keeping the conversations going. It should also help y'all to see whether and when I've gotten on the ball enough to reply without so much clicking and scrolling.

2) I fell off the wagon a long time ago about my Friday Cat / Poetry / Shoe Blogging: it got to be an obligation rather than a source of excitement, and I think that started to show in the posts. But I'm noticing from StatCounter that there are a fair number of people stopping by to read the poetry, in particular. Since folks seem to like seeing the poetry, I don't read nearly enough poetry myself, and I admire the ideals of enterprises like The National Poetry Foundation and the British Arts Council's Poems on the Underground project, I think it'd be good to bring the poetry back. To be more concise, I'd like to mix more poems into my own reading diet, learn more about what Brian Phillips calls "the culture of poetry," and help poetry infiltrate the Internet.

And yet, I don't want posting about poetry to become a chore again--that would pretty much miss the point altogether. So I'm thinking that I might just intermittently post some poems or some links to poems every now and then. If any of you have suggestions for poets or poems I should know and post about, please feel free to send them my way.

3) I owe many people who've sent an email to my blog-linked address during the past year or so an apology, because I've been very, very bad about checking in with that account and responding regularly. I'm going to work on fixing that.

4) My blogroll's not as horrifically outdated as it was there for a while, but if you'd like to see your blog appear there and it doesn't, or if I need to make a change to your listing, please let me know.

5) I need to go through the archives to do some pruning and add in keywords, and I suspect that project will take a good while. But eventually, folks visiting my site should be able to find more of what they're interested in more quickly.

If you've got any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know about them! Although I don't really have the time (**cough** dissertation **cough**) or the chops to turn this into a more formal, regularized, thoroughly moderated Big Issues blog, one of the primary goals of this little outpost is to make connections and develop a sense of community, so feel free to speak up!

In which I alter my cyborg configuration

2007-09-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

I now have one of these.

And one of these, too (there's a mail-in rebate of the full purchase price for students who buy a Mac machine by September 16).

Don't hate me because I'm so technologically well endowed.

Yes, I did just increase my debt load by more percentage points than I'd like. And yes, I'm sending my money to the credit card companies, although the card I used sends portions of each purchase to the UAW, so that helps me feel slightly less like a sucker. *

But, y'know, when your computer dies and the computer your lovely friend loans you also dies and you find yourself in otherwise deserted campus computer labs at 9pm or repeatedly invading your long-suffering roommate's space to Google something or check email? And when you have all sorts of deadlines for all sorts of work falling within the next three weeks? Well, it's time to do something about the situation.

This is my first Mac machine: I show every sign of being a very enthusiastic convert. I can't promise not to wax lyrical about Things Mac now and then, but I'll try not to become too much of a bore or True Believer.

---------

*Speaking of which, I just read a sidebar in Mother Jones (yes, I do have a subscription and I am that kind of pinko, thankyouverymuch) which featured Gene Simmons' tagline on the topic of the KISS credit card's rather high interest rates.

Quoth Gene: "Because credit cards are for suckers."

Given the band's over-the-top stagecraft both on and off stage. I wonder whether the credit card isn't as much (or more) a piece of performance art as a money-making gambit. If so, I'd like to nominate the fellas for a MOMA exhibition.

Listening

2007-09-11T10:04:00.001-07:00

Oral histories from the September 11 attacks at The Memory Hole.

Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston. (Jennifer Howard's Chronicle of Higher Education article "Stories from the Storm" will be available here for 4 days.)

Mary Gauthier, "Mercy Now."

Back-to-Grad-School Fashion (Dissertation edition)

2007-08-31T13:19:00.000-07:00

Going to a family reunion and want to avoid That Question?

There's a shirt for that.

Wrote 20 pages yesterday?

There's a shirt for that, too.

Click here if you're interested.

Beowulf Anxiety Syndrome

2007-08-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

Grr. . . Aaargh.*

I have a bad case of BAS (Beowulf [the Movie] Anxiety Syndrome), so I'm curious to hear what y'all are thinking about it. I already know I'm going to go see it: it's pretty much de rigeur if you're a medievalist who plans to teach undergraduates or visit the local watering hole. But I'm feeling particularly apprehensive about the whole thing.

In part, that's because most other mass-media interpretations of Beowulf have been appallingly awful and because even the rather pallid translation in my undergraduate anthology could not keep me from loving Beowulf at first sight. (I was warned that I'd hate it, which just made the experience that much more fun. **) The combination of those two factors means that I desperately want Beowulf to finally get, if not the movie it deserves, then at least a movie that doesn't reduce it to a creaky and appalling wreck.

Anyway, on the one hand, uhm, Angelina Jolie plays Grendel's mother (check out the trailer, which is available here). Hmm. Not sure what I think about that. I mean, I do think there's good reason to read a certain gendered/sexual frisson into Beowulf's encounter with Ms. Bad-Ass. But she's supposed to be a troll, and she didn't seem to be interested in making any babies with Our Hero--she was too busy trying to kill him. So, yeah, I dunno.

On the other hand, don't ask me why, because I don't think I know myself, but Crispin Glover as the basis for Grendel strikes me as being an inspired, interesting, and unexpected choice.

You'll notice that I focus on the monsters first. I always like the monsters best. Frankly, I could very nearly care less who plays Beowulf himself. Wealtheow is another matter, of course, but I'm reasonably satisfied with the idea of Robin Wright Penn in that role.

I'm also not sure how I feel about the whole combination live-action/animation thing. To be honest, it looks a bit clunky from what I've seen in the trailers.

On the other hand, I do want to believe in this movie. I am always so hopeful about medieval films--maybe because most of them seem to be so disappointing. Sure, a successful film version would mean would mean un-teaching students some things as part of teaching the text, but it also would mean that at least a few more of them might approach the poem with some enthusiasm and sense of context.

Anyway, I'm not categorically against re-interpretations, anachronisms, and inaccuracies in medieval(esque) films--so long as they're part of a generally creative and interesting revision, that's fine by me. Stories naturally adapt over time, and there's a legitimate, understandable need for cultural translation from an eleventh-century epic poem in Old English to a twenty-first century film in that language's distant offspring.

I'll admit that I also want to believe in Neil Gaiman, whose work I admire for its general ethical complexity and dark sense of humor. So far as his film projects go, I thought Stardust was sweetly enjoyable, and I absolutely love Mirrormask.

But, then again, as befits a dyed-in-the-wool neurotic, the very fact that I so very much want this movie to be good makes me nervous all over again. Sigh.

So. What do you think? Should I be hopeful or cynical?

(P.S. You also might find this recent interpretation of Beowulf from The London Times interesting . . . )

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* Sorry about the cheesy Joss Whedon reference. Sometimes I just can't help myself.
**Of course, the same people gave me dire warnings about Alexander Pope, and I thought he was marvelous. The Rape of the Lock still makes me laugh until I cry--particularly if I skip that whole Cave of Spleen section.

Will we learn anything from the VTech massacre?

2007-08-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

So, the Virginia Governor's Panel has issued a report on the VTech massacre (the full AP article is here). It includes several criticisms of the university, including this one:

The report . . . concluded that while Cho had demonstrated numerous signs of mental instability, the university did not intervene effectively.

The governor's panel sharply critiqued the university's counseling center, where Cho was referred for treatment in 2005 after a stretch of bizarre behavior and concerns that he was suicidal.

The panel concluded that the counseling center failed to provide needed support and services to Cho, due to a lack of resources, misinterpretation of privacy laws and passivity.

The report also noted that records of Cho's "minimal treatment" at the counseling center are missing.

(Emphasis mine.)

This isn't the first time a college student's inability to get adequate mental health care resulted in tragedy: it's just the most obvious one.

When are campus counseling centers going to realize that potential liabilities are less important than giving clients the care they need?

And when are politicians and government officials going to realize that funding student services like mental health care is not optional?

Some Recent Feminist News

2007-08-29T20:07:00.001-07:00

I'm a sincere animal lover and am outraged about the atrocities Michael Vick committed. Still, I do think this article about the discrepancy between professional athletes' punishment for dogfighting and for domestic violence makes a very good point:

Beat a Woman? Play On; Beat a Dog? You're Gone

Women headed back to campus are facing staggering increases in birth control costs that may well prevent some of them from getting the care they need:

The High Price of Campus Birth Control

Some Recent Medieval News

2007-08-29T19:40:00.001-07:00

A couple of items I've seen recently are reminding me how little I know about (and giving me a tantalizing glimpse of) the non-European Middle Ages:

Medieval Cambodian City Was World's Largest
Muhsin Mahdi: An Unsurpassed Scholar

The Mellon Foundation is helping the University of North Carolina work to address knowledge gaps like mine--to the tune of $2.5 million (!):

Medieval Program Receives Funding

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, among others, has noted that BBC 3's got a fascinating David Wallace audio program on Le Morte D'Arthur available online only through September 3 here.

Grad-school financing 101

2007-08-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

Acre on academia's diminishing-returns financial policy of grossly underpaying graduate students and recent Ph.D.s--and how it feels to be on the recieving end.

Go read it. Especially if you're thinking about going to grad school.

Still kicking, though not at all vigorously

2007-08-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so moribund around here (again). I've been ill, and then suffering from migraines, for the past two weeks. So, yeah, I've been having too much fun to post anything for public consumption. After all, there's nothing like getting unscheduled laser-light shows when you close your eyes and having to wear cyborg shades everywhere you go to cheer a gal up!

In considerably more cheerful news, Beautiful Boss managed to get everyone on her staff a nice little bonus check and a commendation from Big City U's administration. Seriously, people, there just isn't a better boss anywhere. I know you envy me.

Can I get an "amen"?

2007-08-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ornamenting Away posts a brilliant open response to a "friend" who accused her of reacting "like a chihuahua" when he made sexist comments at a party and told her that women should just be able to laugh off comments like his. As a nice little bonus, this passage leads up to a punch line that neatly refutes the idea that women who react negatively to sexism "just need to get a sense of humor".

The thing is: From the minute I leave my house in the morning I am inundated by misogynistic messages, from the things I hear people say to the images I see all around me. For every one time that I make any sort of comment on these messages there are approximately 1,172 times that I’ve recognized something as sexist and not said anything. There are about 5,249 messages that I didn’t even pick up on.

Once I first really understood what the patriarchy was, it became the Framework. The Context. Everything fell into place and finally began to make sense. Once I was at that place, there was no going back to when I didn’t see and hear and feel a seething hatred of femaleness all around me. Feminism became the lens through which I viewed the world. And that’s that.

I am happy, or at the very least willing, to debate whether or not a certain act, behavior, word, or belief is inherently sexist or misogynistic. I am not, however, willing to debate the importance or necessity of feminism. Honestly, if you really truly think feminism is wrong, or that women just have it made these days and that we should suck it up and be grateful for the rights men have already granted us, then you’re a complete fucking tool. Period. No discussion necessary. I won’t ever entertain the notion, no matter how passionately you argue or how solid you think your points are. To try and argue with me about this would be like trying convince Neo that there is no Matrix.

You should go read the whole thing. In fact, she's got a series of posts that powerfully demonstrate the kinds of harassment, nastiness, and condescentions women have to face every single day from strangers, billboards, magazine ads, radios, televisions, movie screens, and pretty much every other form of social communication, including--yes--their "friends".

I've recently been encountering, both online and off, a particularly annoying phenomenon related to this kind of experience and would like to add a public service announcement. Folks, when a member of a group of people to which you do not belong tells you about negative experiences based on his or her membership in that group, please count to 10 before opening your mouth and uttering the following knee-jerk response: "But I've never seen/experienced that kind of behavior."

Let me explain something, 'kay? It's very likely that

1) you actually have seen that kind of behavior, but because you were not its target or did not recognize the social signals surrounding it, you were not able to see it for what it was.

2) if you have not experienced that behavior, perhaps that is because you are not a member of the group in question. For example, if you are a man and a woman tells you that she experiences street harassment on a daily basis, telling her that street harassment of that kind has never happened to you is nothing short of stupid. Why would you have experienced sexual harassment on the street, when street harassment is a form of social control aimed primarily at women and you aren't a woman?

Frankly, your need to defend the status quo, make yourself feel better by denying that you have social privileges others don't, and maintain your coping mechanisms isn't useful. It denies the legitimately difficult experiences of others and repeats the abuse by refusing to acknowledge it as real or trust the person you're speaking with. You become part of the problem and make yourself look like a gigantic ass in the process. So please just don't do it.

News flash!

2007-08-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

The General's in labor: Baby General is on the way!

-------------------

ETA: Baby General arrived late in the afternoon. Hurray!

No comment

2007-08-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

Unfortunate call letters for a radio station

2007-08-09T17:33:00.001-07:00

Bwahahaha!

In which I really, really geek out

2007-08-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

I've been away for a while and terrible about responding to comments. I'm sorry! I had all kinds of ideas about writing a monster post concerning what's going on with me and how I'm having to reconstruct my personality in order to get my dissertation written and how that's probably making me a much better person and all. But personality reconstruction is hard work, y'all, so I'm pouring a lot of time into it. And thus, the post is not getting written, at least not right now.

But I do have news to share: It's payday, and I just bought a longbow!

I am so deliriously excited about this. Seriously. Bring on the SCA jokes, 'cause I really don't care. Besides, as I've recently been (re-)learning, SCA-types know some shit.

For example, wanna know how to make duello gloves? Look here for a set of directions, complete with citations and diagrams.

Got rusted armor? Help is available!

A few other gems I've found lately (just don't ask, okay?):

--Want to find out how to reconstruct clothes found on the bog people of northern Europe? Check this out.

--Did you, like me, want to grow up to be Tom Baker's incarnation of Doctor Who? Well, here's your chance to at least imitate him sartorially.

--Need big hair fast? Just look here!

And, by the way, if any of you are interested in equipping a dungeon, here's your source. (By the way, some of the reconstructed clothing available at that site is seriously drool-worthy.)

A national artifact

2007-07-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

Yippee ki yay.

A few words on Harry Potter 7

2007-07-26T12:49:00.001-07:00

Thank you, Ms. Rowling. Nicely done.

Show 'n' Tell

2007-07-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

I had an unusually successful shopping trip this afternoon, during which I bought cool things very cheaply. A sampling:

1) a marvelously garish Dia de los Muertos votive candle
2) a bottle of holy water
3) that movie that has William Shatner speaking Esperanto in it
4) a movie that has Vincent Price in it
5) an Amy Winehouse CD
6) an Ute Lemper CD
7) four peacock feathers for Mouse to play with
8) three little plants
9) a Hee Haw DVD
10) loads of quiet/trance-y CDs for working or getting into bed at night, none of which cost more than $3.99, and two of which I got free.

Yes, I am gloating.

Stupid Boys and Other Delights

2007-07-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

Could we just maybe set up some kind of service? You know, Dial-A-Dump? That calls Stupid Boys* and tells them which of the utterly predictable Stupid-Boy things they've done? Preferably with sound effects like the one Namco used for Pacman deaths. Clients could call in, enter the phone number of the Stupid Boy in question, and choose from a drop-down menu of the, like, five dumb-ass things they All. Do.
All.
The.
Fucking.
Time.

...................................

"Hello [insert name]. This is Dial-a-Dump (R). [Insert "Requiem for Pacman."] You have been dumped by [insert name] because you are an official Stupid Boy (c). You are a Stupid Boy because you [insert typical Stupid-Boy Violation (c)].

If you would like to take a Stupid-Boy Tutorial (c) that will help you avoid such dumpings in the future, please press the star key now.

If you are an Incorrigible Stupid Boy (c) who just doesn't give a shit, please press the pound sign so we can enter you in our Stupid-Boy Registry (c) and notify every eligible, sentient being within a 100-mile radius of your stupidity.

If you have received two previous calls from Dial-a-Dump (R), please remove yourself from the dating pool until you can grow the hell up.

Have a nice day. Goodbye."

...................................

In other news, the migraine is still around. That's eight days, for those who're counting.

And, oh yeah, I don't think I've mentioned that I lost my keys last Thursday (as in, every single one of my keys, plus my pocket knife and jump drive) and cannot find them anywhere?

My computer is definitely dead, and I have a major deadline on Friday for an article that will pay my rent next month. If I finish it.

Teh awesum.

**Works very hard on seeing the positive possibilities for change or whatever in all this, because I am reading Self-Improvement stuff and becoming more Enlightened and all that rot.**

---------------------

*Please note that I fully recognize not all men are Stupid Boys. Some men are marvelously grown-up, kind, considerate, and aware. I just seem to have a really hard time encountering any men of that sort who are close to my age, interested in me, and single.

David Lynch

2007-07-15T00:55:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I told a mentor that I loved David Lynch films. He gave me an appalled look and replied, "You would"--I guess because it's supposedly so obvious that I'm a dark, profane weirdo. Which, I dunno, maybe I am. At any rate, I do love David Lynch movies. I find them utterly terrifying and fascinating, not to mention unbelievably hilarious at times. I'm just plain besotted with Mulholland Drive, which I think is sublime in every sense of the word.

So, when I noticed that Lynch had written a book that's ended up in the "Self-Improvement" section of Evil Empire bookstores, I was intrigued. Turns out that Lynch has been practicing transcendental meditation for 30 years and organized a foundation designed to promote world peace by teaching children how to meditate (so, he's maybe not so dark, after all?). The book I'd found, Catching the Big Fish, is pretty much his declaration of love for meditation.

Here's some of the stuff he says:

"When I was making Eraserhead, which took five years to complete, I thought I was dead. I thought the world would be so different before it was over. I told myself, 'Here I am, locked in this thing. I can't finish it. The world is leaving me behind.' I had stopped listening to music, and I never watched TV anyway. I didn't want to hear stories about what was going on, because hearing those things felt like dying."

"Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they're like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They're like a vise grip on creativity. If you're in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You have to be able to catch ideas."

"If you do what you believe in and have a failure, that's one thing: you can still live with yourself. But if you don't [do what you believe in and fail], it's like dying twice."

"It's good for the artist to understand conflict and stress. Those things can give you ideas. But I guarantee you , if you have enough stress, you won't be able to create. And if you have enough conflict, it will just get in the way of your creativity. You can understand conflict, but you don't have to live it . . . . Right here people might bring up Vincent Van Gogh as an example of a painter who did great work in spite of--or because of--his suffering. I like to think that Van Gogh would have been even more prolific and even greater if he wasn't so restricted by the things tormenting him. I don't think it was pain that made him so great--I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had."

I find that last passage particularly moving for its compassionate empathy, and I think an awful lot of these ideas are just as applicable to academic writers as they are to filmmakers. At least, although I know there's some controversy concerning the more extravagant claims of TM promoters and this book is unevenly written, a good bit of what Lynch says in it resonates strongly for me.

By the way, for those of you who've seen Mulholland Drive, he also has this to say. It gets a chapter entirely to itself:

"THE BOX AND THE KEY

I don't have a clue what those are."

Audiobookapalooza

2007-07-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

Migraine: Day Four. Yep, I've had the same damn dizzy spells, light sensitivity, and pressure for four days running. This may be a record, though I'm not sure, since I didn't know I was having migraines when all the fun started last summer. My co-workers, clients, and advisers have had to deal with me wearing sunglasses indoors while talking to them all week, 'cause when Mama don't work, Mama don't get paid.

Anyway, in order to make lemonade out of this particular lemon, I've pulled out some favorite audiobooks and listened to them in bed with the lights out. Years ago, when I was working in a job that essentially made me a traveling service representative, I borrowed (and copied) lots of recorded books from my local library. They made my commutes wonderful, and I found them very useful while I was studying for the GRE Literature test. It's been nice to get reacquainted with old friends.

I've been listening to Chaucer Studio recordings, of course, but also 81 Famous Poems and my all-time favorite: Philip Madoc's reading of selections from Malory (which is apparently now available as an audiochip). And, just as I was diving into all of this again, Juniperus discovered that Alan Rickman's done a recording of Hardy's Return of the Native, which is very, very tempting, because I seriously love that man's voice.

At any rate, all this has me thinking that I probably should listen to audiobooks more: it's a far better way to chill out than watching junk TV. And I'm also thinking it might be useful to have a better sense of what's out there for classroom purposes.

So: do any of you know of audiobooks you'd particularly recommend?

That's "Dr. Guitar God" to you!

2007-07-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

Brian May finishes his Ph.D. in physics more than 30 years after he started it.

(Hat tip to Crafty Jew--thanks!)

Work

2007-07-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

I've been very productive lately. My adviser wouldn't know it, but it's true.

I'm steadily working on making my life better, more pleasant, easier--steadily working to reclaim control. I've let myself believe far too often that I don't have control over my life, and I am beginning to see how much I'd given up on myself.

I refuse to be mean to myself about this, though. There are many, many ways in which I've been mistreated, abandoned, rejected, and had my heart broken during the last decade or so. I have had every right to feel angry, cheated, underestimated, and discouraged. I have had every right to grieve. But I need to learn how to be kinder to myself by learning how to actually own my life.

As I see it, my dissertation has given me a gift. It has forced me to fight Old Man Depression, rather than just coping with him while he builds rubbish piles all over my mental landscape. It has forced me to face up to the ways in which I have clung to the hope of controlling what I cannot (in particular, how others perceive me) and abdicated control over what I can.

It has made me realize that I have to work hard to become the kind of person who can write a book--or, at least, this book.

It has made me realize how much I've neglected my need to create, connect, and think beyond my career.

It has made me realize exactly how much I've tried to conform to some nebulous, idealized version of a graduate student. And how utterly and repeatedly I've failed to manage being who I am not. What is the point of trying to suppress a personality that, when push comes to shove, just won't allow me to compromise on what I believe most passionately, no matter who wants me to? What is the point, when I'm consistently labeled a rebel and a troublemaker, anyway?

I cannot try, any longer, to live someone else's life. I cannot try, any longer, to be who I am not. The attempt has only made me miserable.

"Disillusioned" has more than one meaning.

Tuesday Tidbits

2007-07-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

"I made a few unimportant alterations and additions [to Erewhon], and added a Preface, of which I cannot say that I am particularly proud, but an inexperienced writer with a head somewhat turned by unexpected success is not to be trusted with a preface."
--Samuel Butler

"Making promises to yourself that you never keep brings you down and, over time, breaks your heart. But by breaking difficult tasks down into manageable chunks and building the strength of character to follow through and get them out of the way, you take a huge step forward in reducing hassle in your life."
--Elisabeth Wilson

Wisdom for 25 cents

2007-07-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

I've recently developed the habit of shopping for books at thrift stores. It's much less guilt-inducing than visiting your typical Evil Empire store or buying online, for one thing: not only do I leave with a huge stack of books for less than $10 and no shipping costs, but I'm supporting a good cause. This also means that I can be just as impulsive as I like: when books only cost somewhere between 25 cents and a couple of dollars, I can give them away to friends or bookcross them with abandon. I can take more risks on buying things I'm not absolutely sure I'll like or use, too. Not to mention that people give away some utterly fascinating and marvelous books: it's like a treasure hunt!

I've been especially thrilled by the children's books I keep finding. So many people seem to toss out their kids' books--or their own childhood books--once they're "outgrown." This lack of foresight bewilders me. Don't these people realize how delightful and wise a good children's book is? Don't they know they ought to re-read their favorites every couple of years to remind themselves of who they are? Don't they think they'll ever know a child who needs those books?

At any rate, their mistake is my gain. During the last few months, I've found a first edition of Ezra Jack Keats's Snowy Day, a gorgeous copy of The Wind in the Willows, a perfect The Very Hungry Caterpillar board book, a beautiful illustrated copy of The Secret Garden, a spotless Phantom Tollbooth, and loads of spooky kids' books to give away on Halloween. Yesterday, I found a somewhat battered copy of Miss Rumphius, which every single one of you ought to own--or at least borrow from somewhere.

I think this habit is likely to stick.

Good stuff to read elsewhere in Blogland

2007-07-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

Carl Pyrdum on medieval lesbians and drunken London Times reporters here.

Absolutely brilliant LolzEliot to be found here.

Financial tips

2007-07-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to be much better about taking care of my life outside of academia, hoping that will actually make me better able to do the work I need to do. I've come to believe that grad school--and maybe particularly writing a dissertation--are so grueling that we really do have to pay a lot of attention to taking care of ourselves. I haven't been all that good about doing that, and it's made it incredibly difficult for me to do the work I need to do in order to move forward.

One of the things I'm working on is trying to disentangle and generally improve my financial situation. I think I've felt so hopeless about the possibility of increasing my overall income or lowering my expenses that I've sometimes neglected other, smaller things I can do to help myself. Here are a couple of things I've discovered during the past couple of weeks that I thought some of you might want to hear about, too.

1) This is rather nifty: a program that helps people save for college or--and here's where I get particularly interested--pay down student loans by making everyday purchases. The idea is that you register your credit cards and grocery or drug store discount cards, link them to either a savings account or your student loan account, and start accruing money in small percentages per item for qualifying products. Friends and family members can even enroll their own cards and contribute their earnings to your account!

This really seems like a positive thing, all around, to me: the program pays for itself by getting commissions from the companies involved, the companies gain more loyal customers, and the people who enroll get to save or pay off debt a little at a time for products they probably already buy.

2) If you're a student and, like me, have had a computer death in the family, check to see whether your school will allow you to adjust your financial need figures upward, allowing you to take out more loan money in order to get a new machine. Some banks and credit unions also offer computer loans to students at low rates.

Holy Hoppin' Tater Tots!

2007-07-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

I'm an aunt!

How weird is that?

Also pretty cool, of course.

Welcome to the world, little fella.

Just for the record . . .

2007-07-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

Remember the "cross-training" thing I mentioned before? Well, it works. I'm combining this with loads of to-do lists; a huge, 12-month calendar; and obsessive planner notations. Yes, my life really is just that exciting.

In other news, I'm very tired: I'm trying to wean myself off of the night-owl schedule I prefer and onto a more conventional 7am-11pm kinda thing. It hurts.

The computer is still dead. I guess I was hoping I'd wake up in the morning to find that I was just having a bad dream, but apparently not. (Enter more loan debt, stage right.)

I have a new gym membership, which is a good thing. But I still hate exercising.

I fully realize that this blog has become a bit dull of late. My apologies for that, and my thanks to those of you who're patient enough to keep reading, anyway. The late-lamentedness of my computer and my ongoing concentration on giving my life a makeover are forcing me to cut back on my virtual hours for the time being.

Yet another dramatic prairie dog

2007-07-02T15:12:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of Boy Roomie . . .

Service announcement

2007-06-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

My computer seems to have died for real this time. It won't power up at all. Whee. Since I'm concentrating on paying the rent and finally getting my truck insured and re-registered, I doubt I'll be doing any computer buying soon. So posts may be even more intermittent than usual 'round these parts for a while.

Things I learned during my trip

2007-06-25T12:47:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm finally starting to really recover from the combined, malign influences of jet lag and The Flu from Hell. I think. Which means that I can finally get around to summarizing the results of my trip. So, here's what I learned:

1) In manuscripts lies my salvation. While I was looking at MSS., I was not fretting about a thousand other things. I was making progress. I had tangible (and attainable) research goals. I felt inspired and--dare I say it--kinda cool and halfway competent.

2) I have a metric crapload of manuscripts to examine for my dissertation project.

3) I need to travel to see manuscripts as much as I'm able this year.

4) I also need to apply for funding to travel to various libraries to see manuscripts this year.

5) How to Get Around in Big Ben Burg and The City of Bikes 'n' Spikes.

6) That I actually prefer Bikes 'n' Spikes Library to Big National Library because it has late opening hours and the librarians will let you look at all your MSS. at once--which makes for easy comparisons among MSS. Also because B 'n' S doesn't charge $2.00/ten minutes of email access.

7) That I need to take even more immune-system-boosting stuff the next time I travel.

8) That I need to tie things to myself in order to keep from leaving them on the trains.

I also got to know my adviser a bit better and stayed with two lovely B&B owners who run two lovely B&Bs at reasonable prices.

All in all, I think it was a leap forward. I'm actually somewhat encouraged.

Late Night Video Corner, Part Two

2007-06-22T02:25:00.001-07:00

Finally, a truly compelling reason to buy mints!

Late Night Video Corner, Part One

2007-06-22T01:47:00.000-07:00

A prairie dog gets his drama on (hat tip to Morgan):

A prairie dog gets his melodrama on:

Blogging and Timing

2007-06-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

'Kay, so I gave the blogroll an overhaul. If your blog's been removed and you'd like to have it restored, just let me know: I took off blogs that had moved to undisclosed locations, blogs I hadn't read for a while, or blogs whose owners I hadn't heard from in a while. So your removal may well just be a reflection of my laziness. Feel free to email!

Next thing I need to do: revamp the "Showings" section of selected introductory posts. Any suggestions?

Another thing I'm overhauling is my time-management skills. So I bought one of these. I especially like the timer's versatility, since it can be clipped to things, used as a magnet, or placed upright on a table and since it has a vibrating and light-up alarm, as well as the traditional beep. This means I can use it to time myself without annoying everyone around me.

What's this all about? Well, I've reached a point in my career (and life) in which I have loads of things to do, but very few firm deadlines and few people to be responsible to, other than myself. I also tend to want to do tasks from start to finish, and am extremely detail-oriented. Now, that kind of thing can be extremely useful at times, but it's a real problem when you're working on a big project. It is, for example, pretty much impossible to just sit down and write a dissertation chapter from start to finish, despite what some folks might tell you.

Since I get obsessive about finishing projects and pay lots of attention to all their ins and outs, other stuff can fall by the wayside. This means that, when I dig my way out of some big task, I emerge blinking and bleary-eyed to the sight of a pile of bills, a full email inbox, and an unmade bed. Not so good. And when I'm not in Mole Mode, I just tend to multitask to the point of utter uselessness.

So, I need to get better at letting the small stuff go, consistently working on several things for short periods every day, improving my ability to focus on the task at hand, and saving time to look after myself and--yes--maybe even have some fun now and then. I think it would all help me to feel a little more in control of the process, which would be a Very Good Thing.

I bought a very helpful book by Elisabeth Wilson called Relax while I was traveling, which sensibly suggests ways to be more productive and organized as a way of reducing stress, along with the meditation and relaxation techniques you might expect. One of the techniques she recommends is Mark Foster's "rotation method" from Help Yourself Get Everything Done, and I'm going to try it. It's a little like cross-training for life beyond the gym.

Essentially, you make up a list of the most urgent tasks you need to complete and then work your way through the list as many times as you need to as many times as you can with the time you have. On the first rotation, you spend 10 minutes on per task, on the second rotation you spend 20 minutes per task, and on the third rotation you spend 30 minutes per task. This ensures that you spend at least a little bit of time on everything and don't get too bogged down to see the big picture.

I'm going to try it out for the first time on Monday--I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Any of y'all have tricks you'd like to share?

This is one guy who actually should quit his day job

2007-06-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

I do actually have things to blog about. I could, for example, write about the ridiculous--but extremely cute--polka-dotted rockabilly dress I bought for less than $20, because there's always room for frivolity here at Chez Wiseass. But I'll spare you. Oh, wait: I didn't spare you, after all, did I? Heh.

Anywhoo, settling back in and taking care of all the things that need doing after a month away has been pretty time-consuming. Thanks to everyone who's sent good and encouraging wishes my way. And thanks to those who responded to my last post--I'll be getting to that blogroll clean-up soon.

Meanwhile, here's something to brighten your day: car-phone salesman Paul Potts's winning performance on "Britain's Got Talent" (Hat tip to Owlfish). I just keep watching this and getting goosebumps. Honestly, this almost makes up for all the exploitative crap we see on most of these talent shows.

Watch it here.

Post-Spring Blog Cleaning

2007-06-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's long past time to overhaul the blog a bit. I've been meaning to get around to this for some time and, in fact, made a post about tidying up the place months ago, but a flock of crises intervened. So I'm giving it another shot, hoping that I'll actually accomplish it this time.

One thing I have to do for certain is give my blogroll a good scouring. Loads of blogs I listed over there have gone defunct or moved or changed their names. If you want to be added to the roll, stay on the roll, or want me to revise your listing, please make a comment here to let me know. (Flavia, I know I need to change yours: it's got top priority!)

Poem and Picture from the City of Bikes 'n' Spikes

2007-06-12T00:42:00.001-07:00

A Strange Wild Song

He thought he saw an Elephant
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
"At length I realize," he said,
"The bitterness of life!"

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
"Unless you leave this house," he said,
"I'll send for the police!"

he thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
"The one thing I regret," he said,
"Is that it cannot speak!"

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
"If this should stay to dine," he said,
"There won't be much for us!"

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a Coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
"Were I to swallow this," he said,
"I should be very ill!"

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
"Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!"

--Lewis Carroll

Poem and Picture from Big Ben Burg

2007-06-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

The Men in Bowler Hats Are Sweet

The men in bowler hats are sweet!
And dance through April showers,
So innocent! Oh, it's a treat
To watch their tiny little feet
Leap nimbly through the arduous wheat
Among the lambs and flowers.

Many and many is the time
That I have watched them play,
A broker drenched in glimmering rime,
A banker, innocent of crime,
With lots of bears and bulls, in time
To share a holiday.

The grass is lush -- the moss is plush,
The trees are hands at prayer.
The banker and the broker flush
To see a white rose in a bush,
And gasp with joy, and with a blush
They hug each bull and bear.

The men in bowler hats are sweet
Beneath their bowler hats.
It's not their fault if, in the heat
Of their transactions, I repeat
It's not their fault if vampires meet
Amd gurgle in their spats.

--Mervyn Peake

Scene

2007-06-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

I'm back, and this is my (appropriately blurry) POV right now. Nice to be here, and I missed y'all. Hope you're doing well.

I'm not so much jet-lagged as socked-in with the radioactive Godzilla Goo that continues to occupy my sinuses. Turns out I was wise to stay put last week when things were much worse, since descending in to Big City last night had me holding my head between my knees and frantically massaging the area just above the inner terminus of my eyebrows. I don't even want to think about what it would have been like if I'd come back when I was supposed to.

Boy Roomie picked me up at the airport and we had a nice dinner before I had a joyful reunion with Mousie, made a few pathetic attempts to start in on all my post-trip chores, talked to my Mom, and passed out on the couch.

I expect to stay here for a while, catching up a bit on blog-reading, answering the odd email, and napping in between. I can't do this all day, since I have to at least clean up and unpack enough to make the apartment habitable in advance of possibly serving jury duty (joy!) for the remainder of the week.

I'll try to post some thoughts about the past few weeks and other things I've had rattling around in my head soon. Meanwhile, I can already tell, through bleary eyes, that the blogosphere hasn't gotten any nicer since I left, what with one blogger having tirades about him sent to his employer on the basis comment-war aggro and another blogger resigning her job after misogynist online harassment. Oy. Anything else I've missed?

Hiatus extension

2007-06-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

Hiya.

Just want to let you know that my hiatus will probably last for another week or so, since I've managed to come down with a nasty bout of flu and need to stay where I am for a while to recover and keep away from crowds of people who probably don't want to share my infestation.

See ya on the flipside.

Chaucer and Cheezburgers

2007-05-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

Yep, still traveling. Still on hiatus.

But I really, really had to share this: Chaucer's caught the cheezburger bug!

Excerpt:

No thyng hath plesed me moore, or moore esed myn wery brayne than thes joili and gentil peyntures ycleped “Cat Macroes” or “LOL Cattes .” Thes wondirful peintures aren depicciouns of animals, many of them of gret weight and girth, the which proclayme humorous messages in sum queynte dialect of Englysshe (peraventure from the North?). Many of thes cattes (and squirreles) do desiren to haue a “cheezburger,” or sum tyme thei are in yower sum thinge doinge sum thinge to yt.

For many dayes ich haue desyred to maak Lolpilgrimes from the smal peyntures that Mayster Linkferste hath ymaad for my Tales of Canterburye - not oonly wolde it be a thing of muchel solaas to me, but it wolde be a good “pre writing exercise” (the which myn tutor, Archbishop Arundel, did alwey saye were of gret necessitee). And thus to-daye whanne ich had a smal spot of tyme bitwene a meetinge wyth a feng shui consultant and a recopyinge of the inventorie of carpentrie supplyes in Windsore, ich did go unto the wondrous LolCat Scriptorium of Gordon de McNaughton and did just go crazye. Syn ich haue not in many dayes y-poosted, ich shalle share with yow myn laboures.

This post is definitely full of win and awsum. Go see it now!

kthxbai!

Heading out

2007-05-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm headed in the general direction of large, scary libraries tomorrow night. I've done very nearly all my packing, but I have an insanely long list of errands to run and documents to finish before I leave. Not sure how it's going to happen. In fact, some of it just might not happen, and that'll have to be okay.

Boy Roomie has been very nice to me the last few days, buying me dinner to send me off and letting me borrow his car so I could pick up letters of endorsement from Prof. Gravitas's house this afternoon. And he's topping it all off by taking me to the airport tomorrow and looking after Mouse. I will have to find something especially nice to bring back for him.

I'm going to miss Mousie terribly, and I think he can tell I'm packing up to leave, because he's being especially clingy today. For that matter, maybe I'm being especially clingy, too.

I did finally decide not to take my computer with me: I'm already overloaded and I just don't want to worry about having it stolen or damaged while I'm traveling. So, while I'll check in at least a couple of times to respond to important emails, I'm not sure I'll be making any blog posts until I return during the first full week of June. So, in case I don't talk to y'all for a while, thanks for all your encouragement during the past month and take good care of yourselves!

Mmmkay. I have to get in bed now so I can get at least three or four hours of sleep and get in a few more snuggles with the fur child before tackling all this stuff tomorrow. G'night.

Love is . . .

2007-05-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

. . . running for Mommy when your tummy feels bad.

. . . consoling the fur child who just barfed all over your white pillowcase, mere centimeters away from your head, at 5:00 in the morning.

Commuter Cat

2007-05-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is too funny. It even cuts through my pre-trip grump-fest.*

The West Midlands now has its very own feline commuter: a lovely white cat who hops on the Walsall to Wolverhampton line several times a week, disembarking at a block which includes a chippery. Possibly my favorite thing about this article is the look on the photographed kitty's face, which seems to say something along the lines of, "Uh, why are you all in my face with that camera? I'm just trying to take the bus, man!" Classic.

And someone's already sent a brilliant parody in to the I Can Has Cheezburger site.

----------------

*The General has astutely pointed out that I'm prepping for--and stressing over--this trip as much as if I were preparing to take an exam. Which, to be honest, I pretty much am: if I don't bring my academic game face, I may not only seriously hurt my chances of seeing what I need to see, but also make the profs writing letters of support for me look foolish. That would not be okay.

Stuff I like

2007-05-06T01:07:00.000-07:00

I have had a seriously crappy, stupid, pointlessly wasteful day. I am extra-super cranky and touchy and upset. I do not want to talk about it.

But I am at home and too tired to work and trawling the Internets looking for solace, so I am going to post about some things I like.

I like these.

I also like these. (So does Mouse.)

And these.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And these.

And this.

And this.

And these.

And these.

And these.

Now I am going to go to bed.

Anticipation

2007-05-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

Still a bundle of nerves, I'm afraid. I was up until 4am last night cleaning the apartment, which might tell you something about my current state of mind. I find that I'm spendng a tremendous amount of time with my iPod headpones in, buffering myself behind a soundscape of Zen flutes, South African jive, and Steely Dan.

I think I have stage fright.

Disarmingly candid comments from a prof recalling his first trip to August Medieval University led me to confess that I have felt dangerously close to hyperventilating while reading guide books. After all, a brilliant and rather eccentric philologist/fantasist rode his bicycle through the quads there! Its founding-place was designated by a chastity-protecting bolt of lightning! It's been a hotbed of Scholasticism and Wycliffites! It's all full of spires and punting and things! I've managed to get by for this long, but surely, against this backdrop, I'll finally be revealed as being not only an imposter, but also a mere tourist and an uncouth colonial. Might as well show up chewing on a piece of hay straw.

Fortunately, some kind souls have helped to tutor me in the ways of the August Medieval University Library and the Repository of National Gloriousness, so maybe a merciful librarian or two will let me watch the real scholars work and look at a few things nobody thinks very much of.

Meanwhile, I did manage to find both of my overdue and recalled books, though not before incurring hefty fines. And Acre's Grad Student Law of Library Recall (for details, see my last post's comments) gave way to the Grad Student Law of Library Shelving. This, of course, means that all the books I most need to consult for manuscript listings are mysteriously absent from the library shelves, although the catalog lists them as being present and accounted for.

And let's not even talk about what arrangements for this trip are doing to my bank account. Let's just . . . not.

Unsurprisingly, I'm about as fun to be around as a pinata full of yellowjackets these days. On the other hand, I do feel as though I'm doing the most honestly productive work of the past four months. So that's something.

Yesterday's extremely well timed massage appointment, a gift from Beautiful Boss, involved a diminutive woman pounding away at a constellation of knots in my back--one of them, apparently, was about the size of my fist. I felt like something out of "Intimations of Immortality" afterward; trailing clouds of glory and all that shit. After my concerned masseuse ordered me to sign up for yoga classes, post haste, I promptly went to the spa's "quiet room" and slept for about three hours. Lovely.

And then, in the evening, my muscles woke up and rioted on me, prompting me to cast a lustful eye on a bottle of Cyclobenzaprine before settling for a quartet of Motrin tablets. My back still hurts today, though it's better, and I think I might just be an inch or two taller.

One thing's for sure: by the time I get back from two and a half weeks of hunching over books and manuscripts, a yoga class or two will definitely be in order.

I just do not need this right now

2007-05-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

I am kinda freaking out. There are many reasons for this, including the sudden appearance of three deadlines that will have to be met, a score or two of appointments to keep, a flotilla of emails to send out, an event to organize, and a whole passel of errands to run before I leave the country in less than two weeks. I could go on, but I won't.

I will simply ask this question: why can I find every single library book I've checked out other than the two which have been recalled, are overdue, and for which fines are accumulating by the day?

Hot Fuzz

2007-04-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's just possible that people who know me IRL may hear me utter any one of the following catchphrases in the near future:

--"By the power of Grayskull!"

--"I have to water my peace lily."

--"Want anything from the shop?"

--"There is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork."

--"Cornetto!"

I apologize in advance to those people. I can only hope that I will not be as obnoxious as I was post-Wayne's World, back in the day.

Anyway, point is: that is one funny movie.

Ancrene Unplugged?

2007-04-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about leaving my laptop behind when I go on my trip. I'm a little concerned about aggravating the cracked screen, but I also want to avoid adding weight to my luggage and hope to carry as little in the way of valuables with me as possible.

I figure that most of what I'll be doing in the way of notes will be in notebooks, anyway: there are too many things about manuscripts that don't transfer well into a Word document. And I'm thinking that I can go to internet cafes a few times while I'm gone to find out whether anything urgent's shown up in my inbox.

This would be a pretty drastic change for my internet-addicted self, but I think it also might be a good thing. Going cold turkey for a few weeks could at least help me break the habit of checking in with half a dozen sites first thing in the morning and opening my email at least that many times again throughout the day.

What do y'all think?

Five Reasons Why I Do This

2007-04-27T16:19:00.000-07:00

Bardiac tagged me for a "Five Reasons Why I Blog" meme, so here goes:

1) Being in grad school just plain feels lonely a lot of the time, and sympathy and advice aren't always forthcoming. Not many people understand why we're doing what we're doing--or what we're doing, for that matter. I started blogging, in part, because I was seeking a larger sense of intellectual community, support, and guidance. I'm happy to say that I've found it, and that's a large part of what's kept me blogging, despite having considered quitting earlier this year.

2) I hope that posting about some portion of my experiences in grad school might help to humanize us as academics and promote more understanding of who we are and what we do for a broader audience.

3) Because our profession is pretty rigidly hierarchical, it can often be difficult for grad students to have an authentic voice, to speak out. In some ways, this medium allows me to speak more authentically--particularly since I'm anonymous--than I often can otherwise. Given the pretty radical changes that have been taking place at many universities as a result of changing market forces and cultural trends, there are lots of misunderstandings even within the academy about what it's like to be a grad student now as opposed to having been one even ten years ago. So being able to speak more freely not only helps me to feel better, but may actually promote a more accurate picture of grad students' daily lives, even for their own instructors and advisers.

4) I find that the posturing that tends to go along with academic life--and, well, probably life in most professions--shows up less in the blogosphere. Brain-on-a-stick think just seems to happen a bit less out here. So this often is a much more open space that helps to break down some of the hierarchical tendencies I've mentioned and allows for serendipitous connections with scholars in other fields--not to mention people from entirely different walks of life--on an international scale.

5) It's an easy and inexpensive way to stay in touch with friends and family who are far away when phone calls across different time zones are expensive and difficult to coordinate.

Okey dokey. Now I get to pick five people to tag, so I'm gonna tag Acre, Dr. V., Dharma, Anniina, and History Geek. Of course, if you're reading this post and feel inspired to participate, you're invited, too!

Plans, Dreams, and Shopping

2007-04-23T02:34:00.000-07:00

Edited to note that I had to "put down" the previous version of this post, which turned nasty and started eating comments. Just like in Old Yeller. It was very sad, particularly since I lost Zelda's and Tiruncula's comments in the process and had to re-type the whole damn thing. Ah, well. Such are the hazards of blogging . . . .

I have been emailing myself dozens of links and scraps and tidbits to blog about for the past week. I have things to say, but I don't have the energy or mental acuity to say them right now, for reasons which some of the posts I keep sending myself notes about would help to explain.

Right now, I should be in bed, trying to escape the horrible sleeping patterns (or, rather, the sleeping anarchies) into which I've fallen during the past few months. But I feel like there are too many blogging posts knocking around in my skull. There's the link-heavy piece I've dubbed "Feminist Frankenpost," for example; the one called "It's a Dog-Eat-Melamine, Human-Eat-Melamine, Cow-Eat-Cow World, or, Sinclair's Jungle Revisited;" and one about the unexpected ways in which the VTech massacre hit home for me--among others.

If I don't let at least one post out to play, I know I won't be able to sleep well, because my neuroses act out in strange ways while I'm asleep. Which means my sense that there's something I ought to be doing other than sleeping might manifest itself as Miltonic fallen angels wielding cattle prods; post-alien-invasion human internment/harvest camps; or an angry God who's decided to end the world by implanting a secret bomb into an initially unsuspecting person. Or, if I'm unfortunate, maybe all three will show up in the same dream, like a surreal curtain call from "Philip K. Dick Does Broadway" with a score by David Lynch.

If the neuroses are especially energetic, I might even have to battle The Suitcase again: an infernal piece of luggage I am irresistibly compelled to pack, but which cannot be packed because it has the power to so befuddle me that I am forced to put exactly the most inappropriate thing into it, over and over. All this, mind you, while armed terrorists are attacking my apartment building and other people are hazarding their lives in an attempt to make me leave.

Seriously: I shit you not.

Remember that dream nearly everybody has, in which something's after you, but you can't run? The Suitcase Scenario is like that dream retooled for the OCD set. It has occurred to me more than once that this may well be some metaphor for grad school. I'll let you decide whether it's profound or deranged. I haven't really gotten enough sleep to tell.

At any rate, writing about The Luggage of the Damned at least gives me a bumpy segue into what was supposed to be the topic of this post: my upcoming research trip to the UK.

So, yeah: I'm planning a research trip for the end of next month and just bought my plane tickets last week. Fortunately, I managed to get a pretty good deal on them, despite waiting for longer than I should have. this will be my first time looking at manuscripts in any real quantity or depth, and I'm getting increasingly nervous. In fact, I suspect that part of the reason I've been so slow to make my plans is that the whole prospect freaks me out not a little.

I don't have the sense of purpose and direction I'd told myself I'd have by the time I started working in ginormously prestigious archives, so I feel as though I'm going to be improvising even more than usual. I'm telling myself that I'll be fine, that I might actually be better off not knowing exactly what I'm looking for yet, that all I'm doing is writing down and typing up as much information as possible for later analysis and getting used to locating and handling medieval documents. But I'm not thoroughly convincing myself yet.

At any rate, one of the particular forms my freak-outs have taken, now that I can no longer conveniently ignore the ever-closer dates on my wall calendar, is staying up late to buy supplies for the trip online. Having realized how little time I had to prepare, I then realized that I really ought to buy a big backpack in order to keep my luggage manageable as I travel around the country. And then I realized that none of my shoes were both presentable enough to look professional and well-designed enough for comfortable walking. And so on. You get the picture: I have gained favor in the eyes of the retail gods.

Honestly, provisioning this trip is necessary, since I generally avoid buying high-quality, sturdy things in favor of saving money and don't hve much in the way of travel gear. But I also know there's a large helping of procrasti-busy with a dollop of retail therapy on top involved here.

Anyway, now for the fun part. This is where I tell you about stuff I've bought. Ready?

1) To make getting through airport security easier: a luggage tag that converts into a mesh bag to hold keys, watches, and coins.

2) Is my toothbrush smiling at me?! Why yes, it is!

3) Mother Earth thanks me: no more plastic forks!

4) Possibly the most upbeat pair of shoes in my closet.

5) An even more practical pair (in black) for good measure.

6) For only $7.95 apiece!

7) Finally: my perfect eyeglass case!

8) I can be a fickle bag lover, but this time, I think my love is here to stay. This bag is actually even nicer than the catalog description allows.

9) This looks pretty Big-Scary-Library appropriate, don't you think?

10) As if never having to iron this weren't enough to make me happy, the colors are almost ridiculously cheerful.

11) The piece de resistance.

I'm still dithering over the blue version of this coat. Do those of you familiar with UK weather this time of year think I'd have any need for something like that, or is this just wishful thinking on my part?

Did I mention that retail therapy comes into play here?

Some reactions to the VT shooting from Asian-Americans

2007-04-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

I do have some things to say, some posts to write that aren't composed primarily of links, but I'm still working them out in my head, mulling them over.

In the meantime, a few links via New American Media about the Virginia Tech shooting:

1) "Hurt, Sad . . . Koreans React to the Virginia Tech Shootings," Aruna Lee.

2) "He Was Like Me," Autumn Lee. While I do think this article somewhat oversimplifies things, it certainly does make some interesting points about dynamics within and surrounding the Korean community from the perspective of a young, first-generation immigrant.

3) "Let it Be Some Other 'Asian,'" Andrew Lam.

All the articles make this very important point, though I'm going to use Lam's words to highlight it:

“Every time there’s an incident like this, every ethnic group is on pins and needles,” said Khalil Abdullah, an African-American colleague. An Anglo shooter may be an individual, a loner, but God forbid if a person of color goes on a shooting rampage. His whole tribe would be implicated. “I still recall my aunts when President Kennedy was assassinated. They were praying that it wasn’t a Negro.” Many ethnic communities do not feel that they belong to the core of the American fabric, Abdullah added. “The action of an individual can cancel out the good image of an entire group.”

I also find Lam's last paragraph utterly fascinating.

-----------

Edited to add a link to "Asian-Americans dread backlash in wake of Va. Tech carnage," by L. A. Chung, forwarded to me by a friend.

In Memoriam

2007-04-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

Newsday.com is compiling a list and bios of the Virginia Tech shooting victims as they become available.

Like millions of other people, I'm compulsively checking Google for new information on yesterday's massacre, trying to understand what happened. I am thinking of the dead, the wounded, and their families. I'm angry at the senselessness of it all, but also sad for Seung-Hui Cho, a young man apparently so immersed in his illness that he wasn't capable of reaching out for the help he needed. I'm even more sorrowful for his family, in seclusion and dealing with grief for the loss of their own son, grief for his victims, and shame at what he did. Probably more than anybody else, they are wondering whether they couldn't have done something to stop this.

And I am thinking of the Korean and Korean-American communities among us, hoping that the ugliness of this disaster won't spill over to affect them during a time when people are frightened, upset, and looking for someone to blame.

All the stories at the Newsday site are heartbreaking reminders of lives that ended too soon, but the story of Prof. Librescu is especially powerful, so I've extracted it verbatim here.

Liviu Librescu

Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was known for his research, but his son said the Holocaust survivor will be remembered as a hero for protecting students as the gunman tried to enter his classroom.

Librescu taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and had an international reputation for his work in aeronautical engineering.

"His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures," said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

After surviving the Nazi killings, Librescu escaped from Communist Romania and made his way to the United States before he was killed in Monday's massacre, which coincided with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Librescu's son, Joe, said his father's students sent e-mails detailing how the professor saved their lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before Librescu was fatally shot.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Librescu's son, Joe Librescu, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside.

That, surely, is a noble death.

Virginia Tech Shooting

2007-04-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Lots of eloquent bloggers are saying moving things about the horror at Virginia Tech today, but the post over at Half an Acre is, I think, the most moving of all.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

2007-04-06T01:07:00.000-07:00

For no apparent reason, a crack has appeared in my computer screen. The crack is spreading.

Damn. It.

I do not have the money to buy a new computer--or to repair this one, if that's even possible.

I'm wide awake and backing up every file I can think of ever possibly needing again.

I Heart No Nym . . .

2007-04-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

. . . for posting this as a guest on Dr. B's blog.

Just how accurate are Hollywood's historical movies?

2007-04-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

Click here for the answer, courtesy of Perry Bible Fellowship.

File under "irony"

2007-04-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

Seen at a library book sale, in a box, next to each other:

1) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
2) The Joys of Marriage

Kitty Yoga

2007-03-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

The Hazing of Kathy Sierra

2007-03-29T00:40:00.000-07:00

Lisa of Digital Medievalist has asked me to help spread the word about the truly horrific and deeply misogynist online hazing of Creating Passionate Users blogger and e-tech expert Kathy Sierra. I'll first warn you that the threats made against Ms. Sierra are exceptionally graphic and disturbing and then link to Lisa's very comprehensive post about the situation here.

Yep, some of those boys who didn't want the girls playing in "their" sandbox never managed to grow up. And they've only gotten nastier over the years.

As Lisa mentions, those who know which particular cretins lurk behind the usernames involved need to step up and alert the authorities. Credible threats of sexual assaults, beatings, and murder are illegal for a reason, and the people who make them need to be held accountable.

Things I'm Enthusiastic About Right Now

2007-03-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

1) Women for Women International, which matches sponsors with war survivors who are struggling to rebuild their lives.

2) These two t-shirts.

3) This sticker (shout-out to Juniperus for bringing it to my attention). I will be buying one when they're back in stock.

4) "Phantom Queen" perfume oil (another shout-out to Juniperus, who sent me a lovely package full of BPAL imps, is in order here)

5) The cafe which is on a direct bus line from my apartment and has free internet service for customers, as well as a BookCrossing shelf. (Credit goes to Morgan and Bellwether for this one.)

6) Speaking of which, I just learned of a bookcrossing technique that consists of throwing securely Ziploced paperbacks into bodies of water, so that they later wash up elsewhere to be discovered. This, of course, means that I have to try it. I think I might have mentioned that I'm obsessed?

7) This calendar, a rainbow of wet-erase markers, and matching, self-adhesive marker holsters. I think I also might have mentioned my office-supply gluttony? And my need to get my life in order? Well, maybe I can put my vice to good use this time.

Bartenders stop date rapist

2007-03-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

This story has really made my day.

Seen via Feministing.

Jill Filipovic

2007-03-20T01:11:00.000-07:00

Mirroring the post made by tigtog:

This is a crosspost to effect a Googlebomb, correcting an injustice against a fellow feminist blogger.

Jill Filipovic, who blogs at Feministe and Ms. JD, is a NYU law student who has been the subject of cyber-obsession on a discussion board allegedly populated by law students. The discussions regarding Jill Filipovic (and many other female law students) are sexist and sexual in nature, rating the women’s physical attractiveness and fantasising about sexual contact, both consensual and non-consensual. Neither Jill Filipovic or any other of these women contributed, or gave their permission to be discussed, to the discussion board in question.

Jill Filopovic‘s name and class routines etc have been regularly posted to this board, and at least one of the pseudonymous board-members claims to be Jill Filipovic‘s classmate. Photos that Jill Filipovic posted (with full rights reserved) to an internet photo-storing and sharing site have also been posted to the sleazy discussion board without her permission. This is a horrendous invasion of Jill Filipovic‘s privacy, a violation of copyright law, and calls the ethics and character of the alleged law-students participating in these discussions on the discussion board into question.

A major side-effect of an already nasty situation is that the sexist, objectifying cyber-obsession threads come up on the first page of internet search results on Jill Filipovic‘s name. To an inexperienced user of the internet, it may even look as if Jill Filipovic and other female law students chose to compete in these Hot or Not rating competitions, instead of having their pictures posted without permission.

This post is an attempt to balance those internet results to point to the significant writings of Jill Filipovic instead, using the Googlebomb tactic and also linking this post to social networking sites (eg. del.ici.ous, Stumbleupon). Please feel free to copy any or all of what I’ve written here to your own blog in order to help change the top-ranked search engine results for Jill Filipovic. If you don’t have your own blog then please at least link to one of Jill’s posts listed below at your preferred social networking site and give it the tag ”Filipovic” (as well as any others you think appropriate).

I have linked to these sites in this post:
Jill Filipovic‘s bio page at Feministe
Jill Filipovic‘s blog posts at the Ms. JD blog
Jill Filipovic‘s article about these scummy lawschool sleazebags at Feministe
Jill Filipovic‘s article at Ms. JD: When Law Students Attack

If any of the other female law students stalked by the same sleazy site wish to copy this text with names altered, you hereby have my full permission to do so. All other rights reserved. (C) 2007 tigtog

A few announcements

2007-03-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

1) Yes, I'm still alive. It's just that trying to reorganize several major areas of your life that you've neglected for years at a time takes a lot of work.

2) I have re-discovered the deep joy of examination copies as I've been prepping to overhaul some classes for next year. It took a lot of research and a fair amount of letter writing, emailing, and faxing, but I have a fair number of very exciting books on the way to me in the mail. This gig does have some perks.

3) I am thoroughly obsessed with Book Crossing: it is a tremendous amount of fun.

4) I managed to give a reasonably successful conference paper during the last little while. I was shocked.

5) Boy Roomie is a genius. Evidence: during the past two weeks, he bought me a copy of William Shatner's "Has Been" and two boxes of the Best Girl Scout Cookies on Earth (which are, of course, Samoas).

Currently listening to: Niamh Parsons, "Two Sisters"; King Crimson, "Court of the Crimson King"

In which I hang up my belt

2007-03-12T00:58:00.000-07:00

I worked for eight hours at the dojang today during the annual spring cleaning. It really was pretty grueling, not least of all because we did stuff that hadn't been done last year, resulting in what I've decided to call dust behemoths: they certainly were far too large, too dense, and too menacing to be called dust bunnies.

The day started with disassembling and then scraping all the dust out of the joins and velcro in the floor mats with wire brushes while wearing a dust mask. It ended with hauling large pieces of furniture to and fro. In between, I became truly filthy and very, very tired.

If I gave even a third as much cleaning attention to this apartment, it would be a very different place altogether.

This was my last gasp at the dojang, at least for the foreseeable future. I was beginning to feel that the training wasn't having the effect on me that I'd hoped; I wasn't seeing the changes in my body I wanted, and it was causing me stress even more than it was offering me structure. For some months, I had chalked that up to personal failings. But then my work schedule changed in a way that made it impossible to get to classes after work while I was consigned to riding the bus. With Master Fuzzy's help, I started working on getting my truck back on the road, but the process has been taking months. Meanwhile, I had to face the fact that I will be out of the country for about a month on a research trip that was going to make it impossible for me to hold up my end of the scholarship deal I had with Master F, in which I worked for at least three hours per week. And I'll be going back and forth to Urban Bohemia and other such locations more, too.

So, last week, I gave up and told Master F. that I'd have to quit, at least for now.

Today, after the cleaning and before the formal dismissal, he gathered the stragglers together and announced that he was giving me "honorable discharge" for coming and working as hard as I did. He hugged me and said that I was going to work on coming back at some point. That, as have many of my interactions with Master F., left me feeling guilty. I don't know whether I'll be able to come back. The scholarship deal was taking a lot of valuable time smack in the middle of a weekday--and sometimes the entire day, depending on what was needed. I was still paying about $70/month, even on scholarship, and I just can't afford to come back at full monthly rates.

Before I left, I said I'd keep in touch. I think I can probably manage to keep that promise, anyway.

Two recommendations

2007-03-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

1) Yes, it has a goofy name. And yes, it is expensive. But this thing really does work. I have pulled enough fur off of Mouse during the past two days to make a ball the size of my head. What's more, Mouse actually likes being combed with this thing and will let me use it for much longer than he would his old brush. I highly recommend it to you pet owners. Take caution, though: if you buy one of these, make sure to wear old clothes you can throw in the laundry as soon as you're finished. And you might want to take a shower afterward, too. The fur will be all over you.

2) I just released my first Book Crossing book today and plan to release two more tomorrow. It's so much fun! It's also a good way to bribe yourself into getting rid of a few books when your shelves are overflowing.

How can we reward ourselves?

2007-02-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to learn to be more, uh, "positive."

(Brief pause to accommodate the gag reflex I instantly feel as images of glittery pom-poms, powdery candy hearts, and punchy motivational speakers dance through my head.)

Sorry 'bout that. I think I might have to come up with a different word.

While I consult the thesaurus, I'm also consulting you. I'm trying to come up with small ways to reward myself for minor accomplishments. I have a feeling that I might actually be a lot more productive if I weren't always so hard on myself that I simply dismiss whatever I do manage to accomplish as having been unimportant. And maybe there are a few other people like me reading this blog, too.

So, what are your suggestions? How do you reward yourself? How do people you know reward themselves? All comments are welcome, but rewards that don't involve food, don't take up more than an hour, and don't cost more than $10 will be especially helpful.

News for Medievalists and Military History Buffs

2007-02-20T14:37:00.000-08:00

Peter Konieczny has asked that I put in a good word for his News for Medievalists blog: I've just gone over to check it out, and it's a very useful compilation of what's new in medievalism.

Those of you interested in military history also might want to look into De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History and The Medieval Warfare Blog, which also is edited by Mr. Konieczny.

Email addiction

2007-02-20T14:29:00.000-08:00

Mary McKinney has a dead-on post about email addiction here. I personally have got to work on reclaiming a lot of the time I spend obsessively and unproductively futzing around with email.

Syllabus of Terror

2007-02-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

I still haven't gotten around to writing The Post in which I explain my earlier declaration that I might stop blogging altogether, explain why I ultimately decided not to stop, and address some of the concerns I raised with my characterization of blogging's evolution. I really should still comment on that last issue, but, so far as the first two are concerned, I'll just say, none too eloquently, that I am facing down an awful lot of stuff right now.

It has become obvious that I cannot finish my degree by going at it as I have been, that my dissertation (or, as the General aptly calls it, The Beast) demands a whole host of changes from me. Some of those changes are financial, logistic, and methodological. Some of them are more internal. Some of them are relational. Most of them need to stem from an acceptance that this degree-earning process is not just some "phase" I will grow out of in time. I need to gain the practical resources, the support, and the patience and wisdom to accept this as part of a larger career, as well as part of a fuller life that I should not wait to begin until I'm "done" with the Ph.D.

My high-school English teacher told me, when I visited with her over the holidays, that this year--my 33rd--is my Jesus Year, and I think she's right. At least, I hope she's right: if I'm going to move forward, I have to transform.

Some of you know that I've been looking for mantras as a way of helping myself through some of the blockages I'm facing, and that one I adopted was Eleanor Roosevelt's "Do one thing every day that scares you." I particularly like this one because it helps to push me in the right directions, but also because it rations things a bit. After all, it does not say, "Do nothing but stuff that scares you all the time." And this helps, because I think I avoid doing things that scare me in part because, well, just about everything about my life frightens me right now, and if I tackle everything I think I ought to every day, I might just collapse from the emotional exhaustion.

Today, I am trying to push through my fear over the syllabus I'm devising as part of a Big City U. program in which grad students who've advanced to candidacy are eligible to teach a seminar course. It's quite obvious that I will not be on fellowship next year, and teaching will probably be my best option. If I'm teaching, I need to be getting more diverse experience, so this seminar program would be very good for me. Since the course I'm plannng is closely connected to my dissertation and I'll probably be expected to have a dissertation-related General Education course syllabus ready when I go on the market, it's an important exercise even if I don't get the seminar.

So it's important, which is part of why it's scary. This class, as it's evolving, also is pushing the boundaries of what I think I'm qualified to do by crossing lots of disciplinary, geographic, temporal, and linguistic lines. Interdisciplinary work gets a lot of lip service in the academy--and, in fact, the guidelines for the program actively encourage interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches--but my experience has been that this sort of thing isn't all that well received in practice. And I'm worried that those involved in the departmental decision-making process will pooh-pooh my course as a practice in Jungian or folkloristic archetypes, both of which are very much out of fashion. I'm trying very hard to avoid the kind of essentialism which those approaches encourage, but that's exceptionally hard to do when you're trying to build a GE course open to all majors, even if it is a seminar. I guess I'm scared both of being unjustly criticized and of being justly criticized.

Writing a syllabus is an exercise in authority. As Richard Lanham has said, it's also an exercise in devising utopias. Because I distrust authority and utopias--and because I distrust myself--this is a potentially paralyzing task.

Happy Sappy Day! Or, a Single Cat Lady's Guide to Surviving Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T03:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, even my cynicism and indignation at the national guilt-trip for the unhitched that Valentine's Day has become quails in the face of this story.

Awwwww.

(Maybe it's more palatable to me because it involves skeletons? I do admit to being somewhat morbid at times.)

In other news, when I wake up in the morning, I am driving Boy Roomie's car straight to one of these places to buy myself some lovely things, chief among them being bath bombs, so as to offer myself a long, luxurious soak at the end of the day. I will then proceed to purchase a large box of chocolates and, if they can be found, a bouquet of daffodils. I may even surprise myself with another nice thing or two, though my credit card balances may suffer for it.

Work will wait until I have wooed myself as I deserve to be wooed.

I also will re-read the beautiful "Valentine" that Beautiful Boss gave me today--a compilation of nice things my co-workers had to say about me--and listen to the CD she burned for me. Have I mentioned how beautiful she is?

And I will also spread about a few very silly, very fourth-grade Valentine's stickers featuring absolutely horrendous puns. And send messages to all the people I love most in the world to tell them I love them and to all the wonderful single people I can think of to tell them they're wonderful.

Armed with such powerful magics, I hope to make it through the commercialized onslaught of hetero-normative, pre-fabricated, blood-diamond-sponsored, "old-maid"-outing, "Take-Back-the-Date"-promoting, self-righteous-coupledom-celebrating crap we'll inevitably find waiting to ambush us in the likeliest and unlikeliest of places.

Here's hoping yours is a good one!

Abusers

2007-02-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

I decided, some time ago, that I wasn't truly going to abandon this blog for good, and I've been thinking of posting something saying as much ever since. But, for whatever reason, the time hasn't been right. There are several weighty issues I have to tackle as I re-think the role Ancrene Wiseass is going to play in my life and career, and I think the time still isn't quite right for a full explanation.

But recent events in the blogosphere have made me feel, for the first time in a good while, that I have something to say which actually merits posting here. It may also go some way to explaining one of the reasons why I'm currently in re-evaluation mode.

In case you haven't been following the latest blogging crisis, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister have resigned their posts as blogger and tech support, respectively, for the John Edwards presidential campaign. Why? Because their efforts on Edwards's behalf were being consistently undermined by a particularly nasty specimen of humanity, Catholic League president Bill Donohue. Donohue seems to see no irony in pinning these women to the wall for making specific critiques of Church politics on their own blogs (not sweeping condemnations of Catholicism under the Edwards banner, as he'd have you believe) when he himself has said all manner of vile things about Jews, liberals, queer people, and women who don't know how to keep their mouths shut. If you're interested in just some of the details, you can look here.

Maybe he missed Matthew, Chapter 7:3-5 and Luke, Chapter 6:37-42?

Thanks to the acknowledged "liberal bias" of our media, Donohue managed to get himself plenty of airtime and column inches in which he bloviated about how horrible Edwards was for hiring these awful "anti-Catholics." Unfortunately, the witch-hunt approach paid off.

Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice gave an interview to Rebecca Traister of Salon in which she discusses Donohue's latest "victory," noting that

there is something about this man and his attacks on women that is frightening. There was a while when I refused to go on air with him [for television appearances] because -- you know I am a very strong person -- but I felt physically threatened by this man. He never physically threatened me, but I felt like I was in the presence of an abuser. So for a long time I just refused because it was too degrading to be in his presence. I got over it eventually and have done a few things with him since. I understand that he is so offensive that he does himself damage; as long as I can maintain my equilibrium with him attacking me in the most vicious ways possible -- that only does me credit and makes him look like the abuser that he is. But the glee with which . . . he has gone after these women marks him as an abuser.

There's no doubt in my mind that she's right. There's also no doubt in my mind that a fair number of people will read that paragraph and think that Kissling is blowing things out of proportion. "She herself admits he never threatened her physically! Why in the world would she have this outrageous reaction? I mean, maybe he sounds kinda like a jerk, but an abuser? Isn't that taking it a bit far?"

No. It isn't. And I know exactly what she means.

This is precisely the feeling that I and many other people--a large percentage of them women--got from the harasser I had to face down in a university hearing last term. And those few of us willing to speak out about this bully's behavior (which was, in fact, quite physically aggressive at times) had to listen to exactly the same stuff from people in the university administration who just wanted it to go away. "You can't legislate against people being jerks," they told us. "You needed to gain your voice as a woman and just confront him, one-on-one," they said. When we explained that common sense and the prickling hairs on the backs of our necks didn't recommend that approach, they quirked an eyebrow and consigned us to their mental "hysterical woman" file. One of them suggested that we should apologize to our harasser for not having "given him the benefit of the doubt" and "been real with him." Another wanted to discuss with us the trauma that had been inflicted on our harasser by us, his "accusers." And that was after a university investigation had substantiated our claims and he'd physically threatened a number of people.

No, you can't legislate against people being jerks. But you sure as hell can feel it when a dangerous, vindictive bully with no discernible conscience makes you his target. And, dollars to doughnuts, when you face up to somebody like that, you'll find very few people standing behind you--especially if you're a woman confronting a misogynist. They'll claim that you're out of line, thin-skinned and hairy-legged all at once, a troublemaker with a chip on your shoulder. They'll claim that you ought to apologize to the person who attacked you for "provoking" him in the first place.

So, Amanda, Melissa, and Frances, let me say to you what I wish more people had said to us: Good for you. You for fought the good fight and spoke the truth. You also realized when the fight was rigged and backed out so you could fight another day.

Good for you.

Going on leave

2007-01-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from this here blog. I don't know for how long: maybe pretty much permanently.

It's the traditional time of the year for reconsiderations, and I'm doing a bit of that sort of thing in general. In particular, though, I'm thinking about pulling up stakes here. I'm just not sure that the site is doing what it used to for me or for anyone else. The blogosphere has changed--becoming something rather more official, high-profile, and authoritative than it used to be--and while I'm pleased and inappropriately proud to see many blogs coming into their own, I'm not sure that mine either is or can be one of them. Furthermore, while maintaining my anonymity is a professional necessity, smoothing out the telling personal details used to be less of a barrier to saying what I want to say than it's increasingly becoming.

And there's other stuff demanding my attention--like that pesky dissertation.

I'll still be lurking around here and there, and you may well see my name attached to some comments or even see some changes to this site, but I won't be posting at least for a while.

Poetry Saturday: Shel Silverstein

2007-01-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

I missed Poetry Friday on accounta being in transit for most of it and then going out for dinner once I got back to Big City. The apartment is a disaster area of unpacked suitcases and clothing I was too tired to deal with appropriately, so this seemed like the perfect poem for a day which will pretty much be dedicated to trying to clean up after myself.

Messy Room

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

Happy New Year

2007-01-01T02:01:00.000-08:00

I'd considered writing something reflective, but I'm plumb wore out of navel-gazin' and bellyachin', so I'll just say: Happy 2007!

Here's hoping it's a good year for us all.

Poetry Friday: Amy Lowell

2006-12-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

The Green Bowl

This little bowl is like a mossy pool
In a Spring wood, where dogtooth violets grow
Nodding in chequered sunshine of the trees;
A quiet place, still, with the sound of birds,
Where, though unseen, is heard the endless song
And murmur of the never resting sea.
'T was winter, Roger, when you made this cup,
But coming Spring guided your eager hand
And round the edge you fashioned young green leaves,
A proper chalice made to hold the shy
And little flowers of the woods. And here
They will forget their sad uprooting, lost
In pleasure that this circle of bright leaves
Should be their setting; once more they will dream
They hear winds wandering through lofty trees
And see the sun smiling between the leaves.

Holiday Reading

2006-12-25T19:40:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating it!

As usual, my family was generous, and I got lovely and useful things. Several of those things were books, and I'm both thrilled and overwhelmed. Here's the list:

Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, Dianne Dugaw
Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Gerald Graff
Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt: Advice for Humanities Ph.D.s, Kathry Hume
Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment, Barbara E. Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson
The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends, Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson.

Anybody else gotten new books lately?

Poetry Friday: Wolcum Yol

2006-12-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

Wolcum Yol, thu mery man, in worchepe of this holy day.

Wol be thu, hevene kyng,
Wolcum, born in on morwenyng,
Wolcum, for home we xal syng,
Wolcum Yol.

Wolcum be ye, Stefne and Jon,
Wolcum, Innocentes everychon,
Wolcum, Thomas marter on,
Wolcum Yol.

Wolcum be ye, good newe yere,
Wolcum, tweltye day both in fere
Wolcum, seyntes lef and dere,
Wolcum Yol.

Wolcum be ye, Candylmesse,
Wolcum be ye, qwyn of blys,
Wolcum bothe to more and lesse,
Wolcum Yol.

Wolcum be ye that arn here,
Wolcum, alle, and mak good chere,
Wolcum, alle, another yere,
Wolcum Yol.

From the MS. Sloane, no. 2593, fol. 79, ro, late 15th century. Text appears in Thomas Wright's Specimens of Old Christmas Carols, Selected from Manuscripts and Printed Books (London: The Percy Society, 1841) and online at this webpage. I have exchanged the letter y for the letter yogh.

P.S. Two weeks ago, I posted Martin Walls's poem "Reformation." If you enjoyed that poem, you might be interested in the collection that contains it, Commonwealth. Especially since Mr. Walls is a kind supporter of poetry blogging, it might be nice for some of us to support him, too.

As if they'd let me into the aristocracy, peculiar or not

2006-12-21T18:06:00.000-08:00

Still, this is amusing:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Her Royal Highness Ancrene the Loquacious of Gallop Hophill
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Picked up from Another Damned Medievalist.

Dispatch from Old Home Sod

2006-12-19T19:08:00.000-08:00

I'm safely ensconced here and am being ridiculously well fed. In addition to being reunited with Mom and Dad, I've been able to visit with two good friends I hadn't seen for a while and with a whole host of acquaintances, to boot. I have seen more trees than I'm accustomed to, breathed much cleaner air than usual, and encountered people playing bluegrass (very well, too) on street corners. And I think my holiday shopping is nearly done, which is good news for my bank account.

I've also been tearing through books that have nothing to do with my work. I seem to have a need to do this every once in a while, even (or maybe especially) when I have the kind of down-time which means that I should be trying to tackle little bits and pieces of projects between visits and shopping and present-wrapping and things. It's kinda like an intellectual and psychic palate-cleansing, I guess.

While it's true that I could probably do with an entire three weeks' worth of nothing but vegging and socializing, there's a certain amount of stress and anxiety that just won't go away unless I make at least a little bit of headway on the major projects that are casting their shadows over me. Hanging out with loved ones, running quotidian errands, and playing with critters and kids is deeply satisfying, but if I'm lying awake with guilt-and-jet-lag-induced insomnia for half the night afterward, I'm not exactly relaxing.

So I'm planning to set very small and well defined goals to get at least a few hours of work done on most (though not all) days. And I just might buy a small bottle of whiskey to help lull myself to sleep at night (easier said than done, I'm afraid--liquor licensing laws are still pretty strict down here).

Meanwhile, I've read these:
--Arthur Machen, Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (Knopf, 1948). I enjoyed this immensely, particularly when I realized that I could actually understand untranslated lines of Welsh in a few of the stories. See? Studying all those dead languages can come in handy sometimes!
--Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City. I initially thought Larson's intermittently flowery style was going to drive me nuts, particularly during the first half of the book. For instance, could this guy be any more obsessed with blue eyes? I mean, enough already with the "blue gazes" and the "blue calms" and "bright blue hopes" emitting from the serial killer's eyes! I also got irritated by several passages in which Larson made unwarranted assumptions for the sake of a more novelistic approach. But the book improved in the latter half, once the pace picked up and he seemed to become more confident about what he was doing.

I bought used copies of this, this, and this at a new bookstore nearby which, of course, I had to investigate. I'm saving this, which I bought earlier, for the plane ride home.

What are you reading (or planning to read) during the holidays?

Poetry Post-Friday: Monty Python

2006-12-16T01:58:00.000-08:00

I'm off on an early-morning plane to Old Home Sod. Blogging will re-commence within the next couple of days. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with this:

The Philosophers' Drinking Song

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'bout the raisin' of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away,
'alf a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
and Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.

Essay grading, Zork style

2006-12-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

First we had Scott's Disadventure about writing dissertations. Now we have Eye of a Cat's take on grading the final student essays of the quarter.

>search for commas
Where do you want to search for the commas?

>search for commas around subordinate clauses
Surely you jest.

>search for commas prefacing speech
You spy a clutch of young semi-colons here, looking slightly confused.

>get semi-colons
You have the clutch of young semi-colons.

>throw semi-colons in direction of my own writing
I don't think you need any more of those, young lady.

>but I'm a Victorianist!
That's no excuse.

Thanks to Juniperus for the link.

A word on therapy and this blog

2006-12-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

I do thank those who have responded to my last post with advice and sympathy. But concerning the comments that I should seek therapy: while I appreciate the kind intentions behind those recommendations, I also would appreciate not having them repeated.

Please understand that I am not just sticking my head in the sand here: I don't believe I've made a secret of my battles with depression. I don't harbor any illusions on that point.

My last post should not, however, be taken as an indication that I'm "hating on" myself in especially dangerous ways. I am frustrated and peeved with my lack of progress, but I have not lapsed into abject self-loathing. What I indicated is precisely that I'm aware Old Man Depression could drive me down that road unless I take care.

In the past, I have worked with therapists when I was having particular difficulty. I did find some aspects of those visits helpful. Unfortunately, my university-sponsored health-care package does not allow for anything close to consistent treatment for under $40/week, and that's simply not something I can afford unless I'm experiencing a serious crisis. That’s particularly true since most of the advice I’ve gotten from therapists is that I need to get out of grad school as quickly as possible because it tends to do a number on people’s mental health.

In fact, that professional observation may help to explain part of what I'm after in writing this blog. One of the reasons why I write here is that I find it therapeutic to do so. I do, however, want to avoid making this a space for endless self-indulgence, and I have some hope that my comments might have additional uses.

If the conversations I’ve had with friends and acquaintances and much of what I’ve read about other people’s grad-school experiences are any guide, the way I'm thinking and feeling isn’t particularly exceptional. In fact, I'm hoping to use this blog not only to offer myself a "safety valve" of sorts, but also to provide other grad students with the sense that they aren't either alone or crazy, to provide a frank forum for writing and thinking about graduate school, and to offer a snapshot of what it can be like to pursue a higher degree.

That last objective is especially important to me, since I think grad students suffer a great deal from misunderstandings of what we do for a living and how the very real pressures of our lives affect us.

There probably is no such thing as a representation of oneself or one's ideas without some aspect of performance. But I do my best to write this blog in a way that is simultaneously as honest and as ethical as I can manage. While it's not my intention, on the whole, to cause people alarm, being honest will sometimes do that.

Pilgrim's (Nearly Entire Lack of) Progress

2006-12-11T17:49:00.000-08:00

Uh, yeah. I keep thinking that I'm going to follow up on your comments or update my blogroll or produce something worthwhile for y'all to read, but it ain't happening. Much as I'm not producing anything worthwhile for my adviser to read.

This term has been a bit of a wash. I was, actually, doing okay for a while there at the beginning. I was really only piddling around with the dissertation, but it was productive piddling that seemed to be getting me somewhere, albeit slowly, since I have very nearly no idea what I'm doing. And then I got caught up in some unfinished, infuriatingly complicated administrative business from last year involving a cavalcade of clueless people which is still unfinished, but on pause. And then something truly awful started happening to someone I love. And then it was suddenly very near the end of the term, and I had bupkis. So I freaked out and descended into the Slough of Despond, with occasional visits to the balmy Isle of Denial.

I'm heading for Old Home Sod at the end of this week and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there. But I am not looking forward to hauling around the metric ton of work I'm going to have to take with me in order to make up for some lost time, particularly since I also will have to lug around instructional videos and equipment in order to study up for my next belt test at the dojang, where I've also fallen massively behind.

I am frustrated with myself for letting stuff get in between me and my dissertation and pissed off by my general inability to focus on what needs my attention when it needs my attention. I think grad school has caused me to develop adult-onset ADD: it's become nearly impossible for me to deal with one task at a time.

I have managed to get a couple of papers accepted at conferences this term, which is something, because they'll be very useful for filling in certain gaps on my c.v. and forcing me to make some headway in important areas. I also have done a bit of research. I have had important conversations and survived some wacky shit and eaten some fried chicken. But I have neither produced very much in the way of New nor cleared up very much in the way of Old, and that's not okay.

The key now, I think, will be to avoid loathing myself so much that I decide to take up permanent residence in either Despond or Denial, rather than plodding on down the path to the Land of Beulah--or at least the Land of Minimally Gainful Employment at a Large Bookstore Chain.