The View From Kalamazoo

Here are questions asked me by Another Damned Medievalist, and my answers. If you want to ask me questions, post ’em here or email me…and if you want me to ask you questions, do the same.

1. Are you more drawn to your academic medieval interests or your less academic ones? Why?
That’s a funny question to answer, especially in the light of the assumption of departments (hiring or admissions committees) that applicants have no outside interests or draws on their time – even though the ridiculous Tribble piece was the recent spotlight, it’s not the first time someone has suggested it. Honestly, it depends on the day/hour/minute. Throwing a pot and squinting at a microfilm reader really draw on different parts of me, and despite the years I had tried to ignore that part that had been drawn to majoring in art over 15 years ago it was still there. Lesson learned: working with my hands does feed me in a way that researching does not, and vice versa. I was somewhat of a mess (somewhat?) after my application process trainwreck and looking back I think working with clay gave me the mental space to get a grip. I suppose that really puts the nail in my coffin, but there it is. And I’ve had people making tile orders – artwork helping to pay off my academic student loans? HA! That’s funny…

2. You are a professional cat-herder for a major medieval conference … what is the most amazing/appalling/funny story you can tell us about it?
The most appalling story may be plied from me (after alcohol) next May – it’s not quite…fit for public consumption. Hee. One I can share (that doesn’t involve a long lead-in) illustrates the phenomenon that I am God: I control the weather, the state of the public restrooms along the interstate…and time zones.

So an international guest is arguing with the folks selling meal tickets because he had wandered in for dinner 15 minutes after the cafeteria closed. I am always immediately grabbed in the case of difficult questions (or difficult people) and so he began ranting and raving at me about how ridiculous it all was, how uncivilized that we were expecting people to eat at such an appalling hour, etc., etc., with volume inching up. After he paused long enough to breathe that I could attempt a word in edgewise (and he didn’t interrupt with another volley) I asked that he clarify something that I wasn’t sure I caught correctly in the middle of his rant. And then I explained that Michigan is on eastern, not central, time. He did erupt with another volley, of course – I couldn’t be serious, this was (again), ridiculous, etc., etc.

Time zones? My fault. Oh yes.

3. Favorite sf/fantasy book and why?
I read Tolkein’s ring series when I was 14, and go back to it again and again (does this mean I should have been an Anglo-Saxonist?) I used to read a lot of Orson Scott Card, when I actually allowed myself the luxury.

4. Which other bloggers (medieval esp, also lj) have you met? Which ones do you want to meet?
I had someone come up and introduce himself to me this past Congress who writes for HNN, but I can’t recall the name – not only am I bad at names, I particularly bad at names in the middle of Congress when my brain is on over-load. Doh. Michael Drout came up and chit-chatted at the dance this past May. As for lj, a lot of the Toronto-grad blogging crew has been introduced to me, and a handful of other lj-ing grad students. I’d been conversing for some time with lj users Owlfish and Double0hilly before they said hello to me at the reg. desk a couple of years ago. Actually, I look forward to meeting a lot of folks, if they come in 2006, both those who have already agreed to take part in the blogging medievalist round table as well as those anonymous folks who cannot participate in the same way but who I may be able to talk into dishing over a beer. 😉

I’m friendly. Harried on-site, but friendly.

5. How do you manage to do it all? Mom? Wife? Academic? Kazoo herder?
Chronic multi-tasker, I guess. I’m never been one to make it easy on myself and just do one thing at a time well, oh no, I have to keep many balls in the air and complicate things. 😉 I suppose that means I don’t do one thing very well, but many things as well as I can. This position, more than the staff position I worked through most of my MA, sucks it out of me, however. It’s much, much harder to be productive now…but I’m trying to limp along, nonetheless. (Having a special needs kid is also not optimal for peak academic production, but watchagonnado?)