I'm back from Italy.  A weeklong trip with my dad and stepmom, staying with her family in Lucca, a little down about 15 miles from Pisa.  It was amazing, beautiful, fun, fulfilling, (and just plain filling... good lord the food is good!), and an all around good time.  I went to Florence and saw the David, and it was stunning.  I'd never seen it before, and it was just breathtaking.  I also saw the Duomo and the Leaning Tower in Pisa, and did some shopping.  Mostly it was just peaceful, though, which is easy in a place as beautiful as that one.  I also got to listen to a lot of Italian, try my hand at Spanish and realized how much I want to learn another language in a way that lets me be fluent.  All in all, a good time.

Also very inspirational.  Being somewhere that old was just interesting.  The art and architecture made me want to be creative, which after a long semester, is a really brilliant thing.  I'm home, exhausted from the travel, but feeling very very ready to jump into more writing, both fiction and my article, and that's a great feeling!  

 

My first short story ever is up today!  See it at Flash Fiction Online.  That's www.flashfictiononline.com.  It's the story called "Gustav's Mars"

The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
3) Strike through any books you would rather poke yourself in the eye with than read ...
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible - various authors
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows– Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47.Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Feel free to copy and repost... I'm ashamed of some of the stuff I haven't read...

...so feel free to skip as you like. :)

I'm swamped. It's starting to irritate me. I need to get up earlier, go to bed later, and cut more of my "do nothing" time. Argh.

I get approximately 65 papers today (well, yesterday and today) that I need to grade. Not long papers, but that's still a lot, and they'll all start to run together.

I've got a proofreading project I need to do.

I've got to send out emails for committees I'm on.

I've got to respond to a couple things in a writing group that I really, really want to respond to.

I have to do lesson plans for the rest of the week.

I have a doctor's appointment.

I have a reading group to put together.

Oh, yeah, and I'd love to have time to actually WRITE, too. Both on my own fiction and on my scholarly work. ARGH. :P

I really love my job, but it is eating my life. I can't wait until summer!

I find myself thinking about finding a time to think about writing. Then I get irritated that I'm not writing as much. I resolve to write some every day and it just doesn't happen. ARGH. Though at least I can count some of my reading as reading for writing. I mean, Chaucer certainly counts as a great writer, and reading him I always am struck by interesting phrases, ideas, or whatever (and always something new, even when I'm enjoying the things I've read before!)

But I'm getting stuff done and getting ready to send more stuff out. I think it is just like taking a deep breath. I need to get back to writing more so that I'm in the habit of writing so that I can actually write.

The more I write, the more I have ideas to write about.

I'm struck today by how unexcited I am about the inauguration. I want to be more excited, and I think this is going to be a very important event in the course of history. But I find my mind drawn to other things and not particularly interested. To be honest, I've lost much of my political interest and desire to be in and among the political fray, period. I was not particularly enthusiastic about this election, and since even before 9-11, uninterested in any form of television news media. Perhaps it is that I know that the world is a scary, sad place a lot of the time and don't need the media blowing it up even more for me to inspect. I still keep up, reading newspapers and online articles, but just no TV news. Too much depression and melodrama.

I think the media is making a circus out of the inauguration, too. Or maybe Obama himself is making a circus of it. It is huge deal for this nation for so many reasons, but it now it feels a bit like a series of publicity stunts. U2? Bruce Springsteen? Stevie Wonder and Usher? Really? And in saying that, I'm suddenly struck by what bothers me. I hate the commodification and celebritization (yeah, that's a word) of politicians. They are not supposed to be celebrities. Famous? Undoubtably (especially people like the president, of course) but they aren't supposed to be red carpet walking, cover of US and People magazine, (next to the story on Brittany's last public snafu or whatever) camera loving celebs.

I can't reconcile the importance of the event--which needs to be celebrated, obviously--with what has come to seem to me as the over-produced, hysterical celebrity worship culture. Sure, respect the man. He's done so much, and made so many promises, and I hope he keeps them. Sure, put his inauguration on television--it's way important.

I guess I just desperately want him to be the real deal. To be able to keep his promises, and to really change this nation in fundamentally good ways. And celebrities, almost by definition, are not real. What we see of them is performance (even when they are doing off screen things) and often highly staged. Even when they are doing "everyday" things, or political things, or charity, or whatever, they can't escape being a celebrity.

The president doesn't need to be a celebrity, and in fact shouldn't be. He (or she) is the President of the United States. That is enough.

I Am A: True Neutral Human Wizard/Cleric (2nd/2nd Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-11

Constitution-10

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-16

Charisma-15


Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Primary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Secondary Class:
Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)




Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (25)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXX (11)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXX (6)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Chaos --- XXXXXXX (7)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXX (6)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Evil ---- XXXX (4)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXX (8)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Halfling - XXXXXX (6)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Half-Orc - XXXX (4)

Class:
Barbarian - (-4)
Bard ------ XX (2)
Cleric ---- XXXX (4)
Druid ----- (-4)
Fighter --- (0)
Monk ------ (-21)
Paladin --- (-17)
Ranger ---- (-6)
Rogue ----- (-2)
Sorcerer -- XX (2)
Wizard ---- XXXX (4)

We're trudging through another revision. I sometimes HATE The book. Other times, it still makes me laugh and I think we've produced a pretty good project. *sighs* I just feel like the small changes we're making are good. Most of the substantive changes will be toward the end, but we just couldn't change the end without the beginning, too. Right? Or at least reading through it.

Plus, we're getting towards the end of the semester, and this has been a really rough semester. Two students had freak outs on me that required Dean-level intervention. One hinted at violence-- it's all fixed up now, but still, I'm just ready for this semester, and I think this year, to be over! :)

It's just one foot in front of the other.

So, I'm finishing up Malory's "Le Mort Darthur" for my class this afternoon. Just the last 40 or so pages. And it, as usual, makes me cry. Now this is a book that most scholars say is more like a chronicle than a novel. We get very little internal sense of the characters. It is a third-person pov, with an omniscient narrator that rarely gets inside characters' heads. In short, it is very much what a "fantasy" novel is NOT supposed to be today.

And yet...

Gahareth and Gaharis' deaths make me cry. Gawain's death makes me cry. Arthur's death makes me cry. Guinevere (who I don't even like, for the most part!)--her death makes me cry. Even Lancelot's death.

Somehow Malory makes accessible and meaningful the remarkable tragedy of this story. Sure, it is about lost (and possibly never held) ideals, and about the loss of a dream, but he makes it so human and real.

I'm happy to cry for great literature, and I can't quite stress enough that if you are interested in fantasy (or just in great stuff, period, or in the middle ages, knights, etc) then this book MUST be on a list of stuff to read. Read the beginning, the story of Lancelot, skip Tristan and Isolde if you like, skip the grail stuff, and then read "Lancelot and Guinevere" and "The Death of Arthur." Just amazing stuff.

*sniffles*

Now I've just got to get myself together so I can go teach it and not cry when I teach it ('cause then I'd look like a big ol' dork!)

Wow. The creeping crud moved in and has decided to stay. I'm calling the doctor tomorrow. I've all but lost my voice and I'm exhausted. My head hurts and no decongestants work. I've even tried allergy pills (in case I suddenly developed an allergy to my cats or something). No luck. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free!

why, you may ask, am I posting at 4:30 in the morning on a Thursday? Have a started a new regimen of getting up early to write? Or exercise? Or plot to take over the world? No! I have the creeping crud that, despite taking anti-snot-filled-head drugs, will not let me sleep. Decongestants didn't work, and I finally decided about 10 minutes ago that I simply cannot go to class this morning. I sent my students email (and I feel bad about the short notice, but even last night I was hoping to go to class today) and my dept. secretary and a couple colleagues to get signs on my office and classroom doors. I don't know where I got this, but given that other faculty members are sick (I know of at least 4 who've missed classes) and some of my students look like the walking dead (more than usual) I'm guessing it is from the students. I swear, they are like medieval rats carrying the plague. Usually I don't get sick, but now, ugh. Headache, face-ache, stuffed up head, ick.

That, coupled with the howling winds from this off-shore, making landfall storm on the Carolina coast, is making me nuts and not letting me sleep. I think, for a change, I'm keeping my cats awake. HA! Take that you early morning thundering herd of furrballs!

*snuffles* Ugh. More drugs and back to bed to try to sleep again.

So, I edited a short story of mine today. I spent about 5 hours on it, and they were good, productive hours. I cut about 650 words (out of 4900), so a fair chunk. The story is much better for it. I find that I am much better when I am more brief. Alas, not 1000 page tomes for me. They would be relentlessly self indulgent and probably awful.

New Motto: oh look! another adverb! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH A STICK!!!

Anyway, I took a story (Mary Demon for those who have read it) and cut an entire flashback scene, it went on too long, it took too much away from the action, etc... and I got the stuff into the action sequences. This was nice because it meant that I only had two locations, rather than three. I do better when I stick to limited time and space. The back story that I got into the main body took the piece into a darker place than it was before. I kind of like it better for it.

Tomorrow I'm going to work on another much shorter story that I wrote. It will probably get longer, but maybe not. I realize that my writing is about stuff. Like my own issues with the world. I don't want to be preachy, and I try not to be, but dear lord, clearly I have something to say. You'd think being a teacher I'd have enough of a platform and captive audience. :P

Once I've had a couple people read the stories, I'm sending them off into the world. Can't be published if you don't submit stuff.

The novel is on hiatus until Tuesday when Sarah returns, though I think about it a lot, too.

So, I'm not normally big into the whole "post who you are from a quiz" thing, but hey, since so many of my pals are Buffy fans, I'll go ahead and do it... :)

You scored as Buffy Summers. You are a very strong individual. You do, however, have some trouble admitting how you truely feel. You've experienced a lot during your life, but you more than manage. Always willing to help, you're a great friend. </td> Buffy Summers 58% Anya 50% Xander Harris 46% Spike 33% Dawn Summers 29% Rupert Giles 29% Tara Maclay 29% Willow Rosenberg 17% Which Buffy The Vampire Slayer Character Are You Most Like!? created with QuizFarm.com

It says I'm 58% buffy and 50% anya. Yeah, that sounds about right. I don't fear bunnies, but I did have a kick-ass dream a few years ago where I dreamed that I was in hs, and vampires attacked. The high school was somewhat under construction. I picked up a big metal pipe and knocked a vampire's head clean off. Very satisfying. Both in the dream and when I awoke. *nods* Yep, that's how I deal with stress.

Oh, let me just share, really quick, what ranks as "my most horrific anxiety dream EVER." (no nudity, surprisingly enough.)

I dreamed that my dissertation advisor was annoyed with me. (Okay, so not necessarily outside the realm of the possible, true...) But she wasn't annoyed (just) for dissertation stuff. She made me get on a scale and weigh myself *shudders* And even worse! I'd GAINED weight. (the horror!) I woke up feeling exteremly aweful. And yes. Shortly thereafter, I went to the gym.

But, looking back, it was pretty funny.

I've been thinking and reading a lot about my dissertation (chapter 2) lately, and I think I've come up with a very interesting slant / entrance into this text that is the focal point of chapter two. It seems that one of the ways of expressing how different and wrong the "Saracens" are in romance is to focus on Saracen pleasure. Sex (lots of sex. Evil, evil sex...) food (lots of food. Evil, evil food) and violence (lots of violence. Evil, evil violence, except when the Christians are doing it *to* the Saracens, of course.) In this romance I'm working on (the Siege of Milan) I haven't noticed any of this pleasure stuff. I'm going to go back and reread it and see if I'm right in that, or if it is at least minimized. If so, that might be an interesting point to make, especially in support of my thoughts right now that this is not so much a typical romance, but a romance styled (sort of) allegory about heresy and correct Christian belief. Maybe the Sarances don't have "fun" (Evil, evil fun.) because the heretical christians don't have fun either... or at least, sex, food, and violence (or is that sex, drugs and rock n' roll... is there a difference?) like Saracnes typically do. *hrm* Must think more about it.


In a final bit of news... I went shopping today. It was fun. Got a valentine's gift for Adam. Hope he likes it. Hope he doesn't freak out thinking I spent too much money...

Now, maybe insomnia will flee and I can get some sleep.

Here's hopin'!

The last time I wrote, it was in December. Not that my life has been terribly, terribly eventful... but some stuff has happened... :)

Let's see. Christmas went off as usual. Grandma was a bit of a pain. She managed in one sentence to insult me (and my choice in who I date), my boyfriend (because he went into the military for a while rather than straight through college, and has an AA and is going to go back for a BA...) and my Dad and Janice because they've decided NOT to get married (tax reasons). She said, and I (mostly) quote... "I hope when you get a job and move somewhere you meet a nice professor your age, fall in love and get married and nothing like taxes or anything matters to you because you're so in love! It would be so nice for you to marry someone of your same education level!" I really should take lessons from her... "how to insult as many people as possible in as little time and space as possible!" No wonder she drove my mom crazy.

So, other than that, home was fairly uneventful. I had my annual fit at my father for not dealing with my grandmother. Since he hates he ("I don't hate her, I just don't want anything to do with her...") and refuses to TELL her why, I have to spend my Christmas saying "dad is fine" and then listening to her say "I just don't understand why your dad just stopped speaking to us..." It just seems to me that responding with, "Well, my dad thinks that you are at fault for about 80% of my mom's issues and blames you for so many of my mom's problems, and thinks your mean, nasty, and psycho and wants nothing to do with you!" would damped the Christmas festivities!!

But, Chritmas was fine. My dad is doing well after last year's near death, plus multiple hernia surgeries. They (Dad and Jan) are off to Italy (damn them!) in late February.

As for me... well, my Christmas got better (or less boring) after I got back to Columbus and celebrated that and my birthday with Adam. He got me a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas. The man rocks. It is glorious and white (just the color I wanted) and has all these nifty spiffy tools I could get to go with it! I've made cheesy snacks, cakes, cookies, and will make bread sometime in the near future. Then he got me diamond earrings for my birthday. Wow. I was more than floored. :) It was really cool.

Then, not too long ago, he told me he loved me, so I got all sorts of warn fuzzies from that, too. And told me that he'd be willing to follow me wherever my career led... Wow.

In other areas... progress is being made on the novel (slow but steady, I guess) and we hope to be done with the novel (first draft) by the end of February. Progress is also being made, I think, on the dissertation. OH THE HORROR!!

Oh well, another year older (29) and some hope that the light at the end of the tunnel, albeit very far off, is NOT in fact, an oncoming train, but the glory that is a potentially tenure track position in a not-entirely-unbearable place.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Sideways, see it. it is fabulous.

Netflix is cool. I've been watching episodes of the Muppet Show. Very cool.

And i saw Greg the Bunny for the first time. Pity it didn't get more than a season of running time. It is quite funny.

Wow. It is 315 in the morning. Ugh. I didn't mean to stay up this late. I just got a burr in my knickers to be creative, and well, working on my dissertation just didn't seem like fun, so I decided to go do some fiction writing. I wrote somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,500 words... I was thinking of that because of Bostweed's recent post about how many words per day and that sort of thing. I also edited the piece I wrote into the whole body of text (around 100 pages!) of a novel on which I and a dear friend of mine are working. We are, I believe, 3/4 of the way to a rough draft being done. That is, 3/4 of the way to having writing the inital draft of each scene we believe in necessary. Then, starts the editing. *shudders* Pass the Reisling! Quick!


In other news... Sideways is a wonderful film. If you haven't seen it, do. I love the actors, the plot, all of it. It doesn't make a bad date movie, but it certainly doens't have to be a date movie either.

I'm goin' back to Cali (as Colin Quinn might say) on Sunday. For the first time in, oh, ever... I really wish I wasn't going home. I very much want to see my family and I have a lot of stuff to do at home (including syllabi and the like) but I just wish I didn't have to travel. I am becoming a home body. I want to have Christmas with my cats and my boyfriend and not feel pulled apart by my family.

In a lovely vision of guilt-trip I got the "I do wish you could come with us on Christmas morning up to the Basin..." from my grandmother. And what? Leave my dad alone on Christmas? He'd be all gracious about it, but no. I want to see him. Plus, those people aren't my family, really... they are my aunt's (married to my mom's brother). Oh, don't get me wrong, they would be very nice to me, and all that... but I wan't to be with *my* family.

Oh well, no sense in bitching about it. :)

I got some stuff acomplished today. I'll get grading done tomorrow (ugh!!!) and hopefully finish it. Along with laundry (ack! noooooo!) *grins* which I desperately need to finish before I go home, since a great deal of it is coming with me... :)

So, enough with the sweetness and light. I'm just irritated with OSU.

So, I'm out of funding. Bad me. Should have finished sooner. All that crap.

But, since the English dept (in its inifinite wisdom) ended up with 1/4 over again Masters Students in its first year masters class this year, I can't get two lecture classes. I can get one. Now, here's the problem. On class will pay me somewhere in the neighborhood of $700.00 a month. Can I live on that? NO! One class will NOT qualify me for Health Insurance. Given that I'm single, and 28, there is no one who can generously claim me so that should I ail, I will not be directed to go out and die in the street like a good poor person should.

So, so much for them giving a shit about their students.

Gee, can you tell I'm a little upset.

**** portions have been edited out due to violent content ****

Okay, feel better now.

So, I'm off to find a REAL job. With, with any luck, some form of benefits.

The rub is this: I can't take a "real job" with the money and stuff I need to live and still have any chance of teaching. I simply cannot say "well, sorry I've only worked for three months, but a teaching position has come up, and I'll be back in another three months when they drop kick my ass because they don't really care, they just need mostly, well, okay, semi-warm bodies in the classroom, but hold this job for me, will ya??"

Nope, not going to fly.

Ugh.

Bleah.

Frustrated. Humph.

Oh well.

Well, I'm off now to teach... *sighs* Only two more classes and then the semester is OVER.

So, we played our "championship" game last night. We (that is, a group of graduate students from the English and Classics departments) played a group of undergrads who had been playing together (some of 'em) since highschool.

We lost. 35-6.

That's okay though. No one actually ever scored on them, and their two play-off games they beat their opponents by a total of 91 points (91-0 to be specific). So, we held our own with the yutes and game 'em what for a little bit. We came to discover that we really are a second half team. go us. :) We were named the Sharks by an overzealous Floridian coach. (Okay, so I guess it was better than the Hangin' Chads or something like that... but still...)

So, it was fun, went by fast (10 minute quarter and they don't stop the clock, ever...) Only one penalty, pass interference, on the other team. So,all in all, could have been worse...

The exciting news of the day (and news that no football game score could damper) was that I got my first chapter back from my committee. I read one member's comments and met with two others. My advisor has already seen it. They like it a lot. They think it needs work, but what they suggest is comparatively minimal. I will lay out a play of attack tomorrow. whew. Thank GOD. (or, ahem, your deity(ies) of choice, of course...)

I think I may actually finish this dissertation thing.

Well, I made it to England and back again. Ugh. Boarded a plane on Monday afternoon, got off a plane back home in columbus on Saturday. London was cool. Okay, so I'm going to take a minute to be a geek. I went to the British Library and I got to look at a manuscript that was 550 years old! How cool is that? That was for the dissertation. Then I wandered around London too, a lot. The only thing that wasn't the best it could be was that I was alone. Alas. I really wish I could travel more with friends and *ahem* very good friends... :)

But I had a good time. I saw Buckingham Palace, but alas, no Prince William (there go my dreams of marrying up!) and the British Museum, Big Ben, Parliment, I accidentally wandered into Scotland Yard (they really should lable things a little better! All the fences, iron bars and barbed wire didn't tip me off!) The London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Tower, and St. Paul's. You can climb to the top of the dome in st. Paul's. It is about 550 steps or so. I got up to the first level (some 280 steps) and that was fine. Nice wide stairs. The "whispering gallery" that was 99 feet from the foor and looked down on the center below the dome. Made it up the stone steps, another 118 steps or so. That was fine. Takes you to the stone area, which is on the outside of the dome. Then there is the last set of stairs, some 152. This is a tall, widining, circular, metal lattice staircase. The steps have no back and are lattice, you can see through them all the way down. Plus, it is a narrow circular stairway. Thank god it wasn't croweded (this was on Thanksgiving Day in the late afternoon). I got up 1 level (about 20 steps) to the first platform and realized i was freaking out and couldn't make it up the rest (I tremble and heights and, for some reason, am terrified by stairs like that). So, I went back down. No top of the dome for me. I think I could have done it with someone there to hold my hand, but that's about it. :)

But it was a cool experience. As was evensong there. Next time I'll take someone with me to keep me from freaking out. I didn't used tobe so bothered by heights.

Anyway, my Thanksgiving was spent doing research and sightseeing. I do love London.

My next task is to make a Thanksgiving dinner, because just because I didn't get it while I was here doesn't mean that i can't have one. So I've got a turkey thawing the in fridge. HA. :) Let's hope THAT all goes well!

I'm just happy to be home and resting!

Well, I'm annoyed about the election. That's no surprise. Oh well. At least there wasn't a Florida, and given that I live in Columbus Ohio, which was the closest thing to a 2004 version of Florida I think that is a good thing. The thought of lawyers and press descending on Columbus just made me ill. I barely survived the 5-6 (yes, that many) calls EVERY DAY for the LAST THREE WEEKS to check that I am registered, voting Democrat, and know where my polling place is. Okay, so the last one didn't bother me. Very nice of people to make sure I know where I'm going, since I rarely do. :)


But, enough about that. This is about something way more important than any world changing election. This is about my dissertation.

Like I said, just diss heck, not diss hell.

Mostly because I am lacking motivation. I don't hate what I'm doing, nor do I think I won't suceede. I'm just not progressing like I want to, mostly for lack of effort and an over zealous willingness to procrastinate. Planning on working for (most of) the rest of the day and (a huge chunk, excusing the football game) tomorrow. And then most of Sunday too. I'm just not getting what I need to get done and I'm not doing anything else interesting either.

For example: I watched the final episode of Dawson's Creek this morning. I've never watched a single episode before. Shoot me. Please.

Maybe I can get to the movies tonight or tomorrow. "The Incredibles" looks great and is getting really good/great reviews. Besides, who doesn't like cartoon characters in spiffy plastic?

Oh, the one moment of excitement. Last week I played in my co-ed football league. I actually caught a pass for a first down. That is something I was sure I would NEVER be able to say about myself. So, that was nice enough.

Bogart, the new kitten, is doing very well. He's very frisky. Funny how he was so quite and lethargic in the beginning. Amazing what a little poor nutrition and some flea-induced anemia can do. So, now he is, as my father would say, all over like horse-shit. Since I've never really been around horses, or farms, I can only ascertain that horseshit must run frantically around small apartments, climbing the furniture, chasing and harassing Ms. Jones (my 14 year old cat) and climbing people.

Wow. Never thought this would happen. I was SO careful, but nope, that's what PMS will get you. A little over-emotional... a little willing to do things I wouldn't do otherwise. And now, at 1lb, 8 oz, sitting next to me, is a kitten. *sighs* Yeah, I know. "What? But how could you? You used to be SO responsible!!!" Yeah, yeah... This little boy was found outside in Springfield, OH, near the Wittenberg campus, by the head of the English dept. After a week of no one taking him, I just couldn't stand it anymore. So he came home with me. He's a "dactyl" kitty... which means he's got normal paws, except the front ones have huge thumbs, so he looks like he is wearing mittens. He's a black and white "tuxedo kitty." He's a sweety. He follows me around. He sits on my shoulder. He meows pitifully. He walks on my keyboard.

He doesn't have a name. I figure if I'm thinking about giving him away still (okay BARELY) then I can't name him.

Don't get me wrong. I have a name picked out. I'm going to call him Bogart. I was teaching The Big Sleep (the book) by Raymond Chandler when I decided to take him. Next class we watch the film (one of my favorites) with Lauren Bacall and Humphry Bogart. Hence the name. Besides, he looks a bit like a Bogie. (And no, not in the British, slang, Harry Potter sense).

And Ms. Jones hasn't killed, or even tried to kill him yet. There has been much growling and hissing and if he comes to close she ... ahem... encourages him to back off, but no swatting or anything. He spends a great deal of time locked in the bathroom. I understand that cats should be on opposite sides of doors when being "introduced" for the first time. So, he sleeps in there (so Ms. Jones can have the bed with me, so she does't get too upset.) And when I'm not at home, he's going to be in there. For at least a week. Maybe two.

He's an expensive little thing. His first vet visit was $90.00. He had to be de-flead, de-wormed (just in case) and de-ear-mited. He hasn't begun his first round of shots yet. No feline AIDS, and I think they checked for feline Lukemia too. Doc says he is a little anemic, due to fleas, but since he's been home, he's gotten some energy up. :) She thinks he is only 7 weeks old, which means he was found at six. He's got green eyes, ad HUGE ears. You KNOW what they say about huge ears! Okay, so I don't know what they say about huge ears.

So, that's the new addition story.

In other news... not much... fellowship application done. Waiting commences. Much dissertation work this weekend. Much. Plus, a ton and a half of grading!

Oh, and the Renaissance festival... which should be fun!

And the fall leaves here are simply gorgeous. Just lovely.