The View From Kalamazoo
more on Dread
Things that will not result in a Ph.D.
I am working on my Statement of Purpose. I am not enjoying the process. I think this is some sort of hazing ritual and I’d prefer, at this point, to simply streak naked through their stadium in lieu of this twisted essay. That’s saying quite a bit, really, considering. (note photo, above)
Have also updated and reorganized the CV. Am talking to other schools at the advice of several people who think I’m selling myself short…dunno about that, but I’m supposed to apply for some ‘reach’ schools in addition to the ones I think will actually accept me, so…
Will visit U Kentucky in a week and a half. I’ll drive to Notre Dame, too, I think. Perhaps I’ll do a pop-in at U Michigan in January since it’s close enough for government work for a quick jaunt… I should probably make the drive to U Indiana, but not before the holidays at this point. I don’t know that I’ll make it to U Virginia before it’d be time to hear back on my application so if they like me (“you like me, you really, really like me”) then I’ll make the trip. Trips cost $. Applications cost $. Em’s birthday party and presents cost $ (and let’s not even begin the discussion of two children and the Fat Man in a Red Suit).
As I often remind myself…I’m getting a Ph.D. application process instead of a dishwasher for Xmas.
How does one wrap that??
Fright night, politics style
You know…
This story would disturb me far less if I wasn’t living in a city, my daughter attending school in the public schools here, in which I can totally see something like this occuring. Yowzers…
SO cool!
Check this out – design your own history kit! [warning: opening at work may result in spending an inordinate amount of time mucking about with the site!]
uh, yeah…
renew, reuse, recycle?
I suppose this means that we really get our money’s worth out of the cost of taking the SAT, but I think I’d rather they use my GRE scores, thanks.
Various
Weirdness for Halloween – chocolate to all, and to all a good fright!
Kudos to academicgame for this gem. Priceless!
Stercus accidit (with thanks to Dr. Weevil)
Ok, sounds fun, but I’ll still take apple-bobbing and spooky-sounds CDs over this shindig. (found at Mirabilis.ca)
In a world before neon colors and french ticklers…
of note
Chemists find secret of mummies’ preservation
Roman amphitheater unearthed in Germany
And some local color…Oh the irony of it all…
MFA, etc.
Stumbled across this Very Scary Solstice site yesterday. Yes, I’m a Lovecraft geek…this was my favorite carol – *way* too funny!
Good site for Chaucerheads.
I may be going insane. Every area of this university wants nearly identical information, and every area wants to receive it in their own Very Specially Designed spreadsheet. I am in spreadsheet hell, regurgitating the same GA information over and over and over, projecting what is impossible to project, and doing it on the fly to meet coinciding deadlines (and lest I get too industrious – planning ahead and getting it done immediately will only serve to guarantee that a second version of the same spreadsheet will be issued requiring me to do it all over again.)
*blither*
*blather*
*twitch*
*knocks heels together* “There’s no place like a good, fully-funded Ph.D. program, there’s no place like a good, fully-funded Ph.D. program, there’s no place like…”
I made it back to the gym yesterday and lifted weights – had to trim a couple of my sets a bit since it’d been two weeks, but otherwise OK and not sore today like I had feared. Yesterday’s weight 265.5! Woo hoo! I was worried that not working out plus my pub adventures in St. Louis had really done me in, but my being good otherwise was the ticket. Of course, I didn’t make it in for cardio today – had to be in early as the remodeling folks are coming to move some of the steelcase cube parts around and I needed to get stuff out of their way and help a co-worker move a desk. And here the3y are now…gotta go…
on Halloween, a rant
This is the time of year when requests for the origins of Halloween come out of the woodwork…there are so many terribly unreliable and terribly flakey neo-pagan websites, and so many people who play dress-up all of the time who love to give bizarre interviews and prattle on about this and that totally fictional “history” of neo-paganism, Halloween, blah blahdy blah blah. I mean, really…these folks are just as ridiculous as these, IMO.
It’s just so embarrassing. I figure it must be akin to how I would have felt were I a Protestant at the time of the Falwell Tinky-Winky thing…dunno. Anyway, for those who simply haven’t asked yet, this is a good site.
A good friend of mine recently visited Salem, MA and sent me an email about the visit, and asked me what I thought of it all…the following is an excerpt of my reply:
“…Salem. Ah. Pagans who play dress-up professionally. 😉 I haven’t been, and I have heard it’s very touristy (although so many destinations, especially in New England, are..) and a freaking circus at Halloween…Yes, I think it’s a popular destination for a lot of Wiccans, but I’m pretty atypical – I’m rather more (economically, really) conservative, I don’t often play dress up or wear pentacles the size of a hubcap around my neck so that I broad cast my (intensely personal) religious views to the whole freaking world. I’ve been doing my thing for well over 15 years now, and so it’s not my shiny new ideology to parade around until the next trend appears. (that sounds bitchy, I know, but I have meet a lot of folks who, unfortunately, fit that description) I keep my political views and religious views pretty separate, and I’m an historian, which further complicates matters as I haven’t been sucked into a lot of the really and truly shitty “scholarship” out there that makes claims of 9 million women killed during the burning times and stuff like that. Feminist “witches” who are just looking for something ritual-y that fits their politics rather than a deep spiritual need to connect with the divine (whether male or female, or polytheistic combinations) make my head hurt. I’m cranky. I know that. 🙂 As for Salem…honestly, the thing is that there were no witches, whether as defined now or then, killed – only innocents, largely devout xians. Tituba, the slave, seems to really be the only case where it can be argued that she practiced, personally, something other than xianity. It’s an example of a horrible thing in our history, it’s a great illustration of the power of misinformation, mis-education, and hysteria.”
