The View From Kalamazoo

I suppose I should do some catching up: Made it to the gym today. Yay me. Didn’t go Saturday, although I had rather intended to, since childcare is only til noon, and we (and by we, I mean Emma) were just not moving very quickly that morning. Ah well. So I missed last week entirely and only went once the week before – but that’s largely because of the nasty cold/sinus Monstrous Thing I was suffering under. Back to the grindstone. I upped a couple of reps today, and upped my outer thigh weight to 100lbs. from 90lbs. Otherwise same-old-same-old. I’m taking a belly dance class starting Thursday for the next 5 weeks – fun, a great ab workout, and an hour away with adults.

This weekend I spent some time to organize and catalog my scholarly books. I need to be thwacked – I have so many brand-new doubles both because I mislaid books I had just bought and then bought second copies and bought myself books and forgot to take them off my Amazon.com wish list so I got them, again, as gifts. I am such a dumbass sometimes.

Between that, and having to get started on that paper I agreed to give in June, the Latin practice is suffering. I found the Tractatus de superstitionibus long-winded, not-to-the-point, and generally annoying. [Blah blah so we were sitting his this pleasant garden after brunch blah blah crapola. Piss on that.] I guess I’ll putter through something from the Vulgate and just get back in the swing of things. I have some microfilm to work with when I get time to play with paleography, and did just manage to find my books and notes in a box in the basement so my reference materials are handy again, but time, damnit, time!

Last week I attended a local MACED meeting. The speaker was someone from our public school system, and she discussed verbal de-escalation. It was mostly targeted at adolescents and teens, but I still got some good info I can try to apply to Miz Thang and her perpetual Attitude (with a side of Temper). This month the local CHADD folks are having a one-day conference, “Living and Learning with AD/HD.” I need to come up with $50, but I think I’ll go – it looks like a useful thing. I swear, between meetings with/calls to/keeping up with her school, and all of these information gathering exercises, plus the books I need to read/buy….it’s like having an extra part-time job.

And I have received my first thin envelope: The University of Notre Dame has declined my offer to join their History Ph.D. Program. Ah well – they weren’t my first choice, anyway, and they were my “reach” school (and at the suggestion of PESz), so I’m far from crushed. One down, six to go!

The Programs have made it from the printer to our local mailing house, so they’ll be processed, packaged, and mailed starting early next week – I need to get going on Priority Mail as soon as I can get them bring a few cases over. Yee haw, I say, yee-freaking-haw.

Time draws nigh…

Mars Hill College has accepted the resignation of a longtime
professor after he challenged students to disrobe in exchange for an A in his
sociology class and one of them took him up on the offer.

Ok, I’ve had my moments as an instructor when I’d have done just about anything to capture the little darlings’ attention, but…

Apparently Mars Hill must be in better financial straits than WMU, because with our lowered setpoints for heating that proposition would have been a very cold one, indeed!

Crazy neighbors?: 600-year-old ‘suburb’ is found on building site

On Dread: I haven’t heard anything from any schools. I realize that it’s somewhat early, but 2 of the schools had Dec. 1 deadlines, so you’d think something would have happened in the last 2.5 months! I’m not panicking, but I’m jumpy every time I get the mail.

On MFA: so far the last few weeks I’m standing pat on weight and only making it to the gym twice a week. Bleah. I’m doing all the usual machines – have gotten bored with some so am switching around, using Keiser equipment where I wasn’t and switching from Keiser where I was. I’m debating going back to the one-legged squats that targeted my glutes (I have a fantasy of eventually actually having an ass!) since they were hard on my long-cranky and weather-predicting knees (thanks to vainly subjecting myself to high-impact aerobics 4 days a week in my early 20s). Bleah. I should be doing crunches at home, but after I actually get the living room floor cleared of toys and other kid debris who has the energy?!

On stuff: Bubonic Plague fans note: Black Death vaccine developed

Interesting software: Scholar’s Aid. Appears to be rather like EndNote, from their site:

• Manages all your bibliographical data and all your notes associated with the sources.
• Generates footnotes, endnotes, parenthetical references, bibliographies, and reference lists automatically.
• Cites in the style of your choice directly into your word-processor.
• Manages all your notes associated with their sources.
• Automatically cites the text with page numbers for you when you transfer all or part of a note to your document
• Lots of convenient features such as AutoText, InputAid
• Customize your copy with the included Style Editor, Toolbar Editor, Caption Editor, and other handful of editors.
• Make your data available to your friends using the export function. You can format the output with the included Template Editor.

You can download a free (“lite”) version, which is largely why I’m posting about it, since free is a lovely thing for students and junior faculty (and people like me – in no-man’s-land), alike.

And France is endearing itself to scholars and educators: Greek and Latin appears likely to disappear from secondary schools.

(Hope these will be more convenient to read for those who don’t read French) From l’Humanite’ and Le Monde.

Recently Approved and Disapproved TV Programs for U.S. Department of Education Captioning Support includes merely 5 BET Classic Movies AND 9 AMC Documentaries (a mong a host of other documentaries); Nascar, Major League Baseball, College Football, PGA Golf and the US Open Tennis; Bed Bug Bible Gang (!?!?!);VH1’s Behind the Music; Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie; CNN en ESPANOL Deportes (again, !?!?!?!!?); Courage the Cowardly Dog, Fairly Odd Parents, The Simpsons, Teen Titans, Rocket Power, Jimmy Neutron, Ed, Edd ‘n Eddy, Justice League and Dexter’s Laboratory (what do deaf kids get to watch?!?!!!); Disney Monthly Original Children’s Movie (!?!??!?!!!); Emergency Vets and K9 to 5; Law and Order series just to name a few!

What do they have against Scooby-Doo, duffers, and the Powerpuff Girls, anyway?

PROOFS ARE HERE!!!

PROOFS!!!

WOO HOO! *touchdown dance*

The Middle Ages of reason – It was the medieval world that dragged us into the future, not the reactionary Renaissance by Terry Jones

Calif. Students Get Second Chance at Fulbright

Ok, so it’s not enough that Brian works late many nights, or than when he is home in the evenings he’s busy with his blogs and crap. On the weekends he’s often out and about with the Goddamned Digital Camera (that is, when it’s not in my face, snarl snarl) taking pictures of the Kalamazoo Non-Violent Opponents to War (local yokels) out with their protest signs – even when we’re out of town he’s finding something to snap.

Why didn’t I marry someone who just does crossword puzzles or something?

He should include some pictures of himself in the 1000s he takes – so his kids have some way to recognize him! *bitchcarpwhine*