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Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
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12:05 pm - ada lovelace
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I have a note here in a file which suggests that a nun named Sister Kenneth Keller BVM was the first woman PhD in computer science and teh founder of the computer science dept at Clarke College. Anyone ever heard of her?
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| Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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12:39 pm
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I know that 83 degrees is not actually all that hot, but it's so hot compared to the last couple of weeks that I feel absolutely prostrated by heat. Sucks. Fortunately, it's Sunday, and I met all my obligations for the week (volunteering, dinner with friends, grocery shopping, visit to coffeeshop) yesterday, so I can just lie here on my bed reading Great Expectations and drinking water. And church isn't til 9 pm, which is *awesome*. Should be much cooler by then.
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| Friday, June 19th, 2009
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9:26 am
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yes, yes, fandom love: I come across an envelope int he archive marked "Our Lady of the Snows, Coleville Lake, Northwest Territories" and a big grin instantly breaks out. I'm helpless to stop it.
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| Thursday, June 11th, 2009
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6:41 pm - reasons not to get a new macbook pro even though they look *delicious*
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1) I really do not have the cash.
2) Even if I did have the cash, I've heard so many horrible stories in the last few weeks about people losing their jobs, charities hurting for donations, children starving, etc, that I could not possibly justify buying a new computer when this one is only 1.5 years old.
3) Even if I did have the cash and intended to spend it on something frivolous, I need it to fund a trip to Europe next summer.
4) Even if I did have the cash and intended to spend it on useful technology, I need it to finally acquire internet access at home, and/or to buy a TV, and/or to buy a better stereo system.
In other technology news, I've been scouting database programs--I downloaded and tried openoffice, but it's either incapable of doing what I want, or it's not intuitive enough for me to learn without getting frustrated. I want to make a database of artists, with a lot of big fields where I can put notes about things like their extant works, and their exhibitions, and their religious practices, and where their papers are currently located, and whether and when they lived in New York and where else they lived, blah blah. And I want the input to be very intuitive, close to WYSIWYG: I want to make all these fields and, when I go to make a new entry, have it look like a form, with some small spaces for names and dates and some large spaces for things like notes. The openoffice thing looked more like a spreadsheet, with lots of small spaces (though I could put as much data into them as I wanted and have it *output* a report that looked ok, that's not what I really care about. I expect to spend a lot of time editing and updating these entries over the next three to five years, and looking at them on various screens while editing them; the output is less important to me than the experience of inputting/editing easily and also calling up entries just to look at them onscreen.)
I may wind up making a fill-in-able pdf form and just duplicating it a lot, and not worrying about the database part; I don't think I'll have more than, say, 200 records at most, and I don't think that's too many to sort by hand when necessary.
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5:58 pm
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incidentally, for those playing the home game, that's 3 paper ideas in two weeks--and not just vague paper ideas, like, hey, someone should write that!, or I'd love to write that but I have no research actually done for it!, but paper ideas that are actually feasible for me personally to produce within the next year or two, without overcommiting myself. One of them I think I won't do (the nuns one; too much work for too little payoff at this point, though in a few years I may have picked up enough data along the way to make it easier to just toss off) but the Vermont one is very feasible and the Chapel on the Moon one had me literally chortling with glee two days ago as I entered quotes into my research file, and in addition it is Not Boring. I really need to make an actual debut in the Catholic historical world--I know a lot of people at this point but haven't presented any actual research and I'm beginning to feel more than a little self conscious about it--and I want it, for obvious reasons, to be a not boring debut, since I would like to do something to actually fulfill some of those promises my advisor keeps making about me.
I finally did give two papers this spring, and both seemed to go well, and I'll give another in the fall, and that's good, but they're all in systematics, which is not my primary area. In 3.5 years of coursework, I never had the time to truly, properly, and deeply research a historical paper, to the point where I felt comfortable sending it out into the world. A lot of this is my failing; I've been too scattered in my interests, and I've done too many random things with my summers (Compostela, of course, but also the two summers I spent mostly working in theater; of course that was desperately needed income, but still, it wasn't academic work) and not been efficient enough/dedicated enough to spend the time over and above the time I was spending on coursework. But that's water under the bridge. [And yes, I've worked hard, but plenty of other grad students seem to find the time to write and present papers at conferences, even while still in coursework. Of course, quite a few of them aren't very good, and at least I've avoided that trap, I think; I've held off until I think I actually have something genuinely meaningful to say, and if I get a reputation as someone who doesn't produce a *lot* of work, I hope I also get a reputation as someone whose work when it does appear is worth listening to. Best of all would be to do both, but I don't think that's within my capabilities.]
So I'm disappointed that I haven't done this until now, but the main point is that I'm relieved to find that when I actually start devoting the correct amount of time to a topic, I do seem to generate ideas for feasible papers at a good clip. I was beginning to worry I was not quite up to snuff in that department.
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5:08 pm - south bend update #3 (I think)
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Wow, when it rains here it really really rains. I woke up to thunder and torrential downpour, and an hour later it was still coming down, though the thunder had passed off. Many of the lawns near the lake (at the bottom of what passes for a hill here) had impromptu ponds on them, complete with ducks paddling around on them.
Y'all, I'm happy. The research is going well, though a little slowly; I must, must find a way to speed up. I thought about trying to do without my afternoon coffee break, but I just cannot; my mind goes all muzzy. Better would be to actually get to the archives at 8 am every morning, but...hmm. Well, anyway, I'll do what I can, and come back if I need to. Some parts of the work have been more productive than others, of course; today I went through three boxes of letters and I'm not sure most of them are going to be any help with my argument. But I can't know that til after I've looked at them, right?
I have an idea for a super awesome conference paper called "The Chapel on the Moon" (about the Church and the space age, with the main story being about LitArt's publication of plans for a theoretical chapel on the moon in 1967) and got tons of material for it earlier this week. Weirdly, someone has just written (June 2009 issue) an article for The Believer -- luckily he seems to have concentrated mostly on the musical angle, though I won't be able to actually read the article til I'm back in NY, as ND doesn't subscribe to the mag and the whole thing isn't available online, only the first page. So hopefully I won't be too badly scooped. [I had the idea for the article, googled "chapel on the moon" just on a whim to see if anything was out there, and came up with this article; such a weird coincidence of timing.] Seriously, I cannot wait to write this paper.
But back to happiness. It is so *relaxing* to be here. I'm kind of ashamed of how much I'm enjoying the gigantic hyper-clean supermarket with its low low prices (box of Cheerios=$1.50 this week. OK, it was on sale, but still.) I've been cooking; green lentil vegetable salad followed by the tomato-chickpea thing followed by, last night, Asparagus, goat cheese, lemon and tarragon pasta: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/05/asparagus-goat-cheese-and-lemon-pasta/
[PS someone just told me about this blog and it is amazing. I may just quit all my cooking magazine subscriptions and start making the things she writes about.]
A note on this pasta: I had it at a dinner party on Sunday night and it was mindblowingly good. I think the version I made last night was less good and I'm trying to figure out why. I used whole wheat fusilli, which I had in the cupboard, rather than durum spaghetti, which my hostess used, and I think in this case the ww pasta may have been a bad choice; the sauce is pretty light and delicate and the ww seemed overwhelming in a way it doesn't in sturdier sauces. Also, you seriously need to use the larger amount of goat cheese she suggests; I only had 4 oz and it wasn't enough. Anyway, what I made was edible, but not great. But it's hard to go *too* wrong with lemon and tarragon.
I'm going to go home after I write some letters and use some leftovers to put together a fried-brown-rice-asparagus-egg thing.
OK, so, it's just so nice to be in this green leafy place with a vast library, to be forced to work only 9-5 and then have plenty of time to cook and/or see friends in the evening (I could, of course, be doing more professional reading in the evenings, but I've only read one book and an article so far in two weeks; I'm also working on David Copperfield), to be riding a bike around to the Catholic Worker, the farmers' market, the supermarket, and the nice coffeeshop just off campus.... It's so quiet, which is what I keep coming back to. I've been aware, of course, of how much the noise and un-privacy of New York has been getting to me in the last few years, but my spirits have been so high the last few days that I'm forced to start thinking seriously (again) about moving away after next year, at least for a year while I'm--hopefully--on research fellowship. Annoyingly, of course, a lot of that research could be most conveniently done *in New York* but I think I could work something out. Alternately, I could -- gasp! -- move to the suburbs, like Jersey or Westchester, where I could live in a quieter place but within easy commute of the city.
I think, though, that what I really want is not a suburb but simply a smaller city, one with a more relaxed pace. And bigger standard kitchens, and washing machines, and porches, and yards for gardening/grilling. The kitchen in the place I'm living sucks--it has an electric stovetop and is really lacking in the pot-and-utensil department--but it's *big* with a big table to work on and two big windows. I like feeling like I have all that space. One thing that is very different about the midwest is how much *space* there is everywhere; the CW daytime drop in center, for example, is in an abandoned factory of some kind, and it's got soaring ceilings, a big kitchen, a huge living-eating area with books and a piano and couches, another big back room with washers and dryers and showers and toilets.... Well, actually, the CW in NY isn't exactly hurting for space, but they've had those buildings for a kazillion years; they could never, obviously, afford them now. And on campus there's plenty of room for even grad students to have offices, and the professors' offices are very large.
Anyway, this adventure is so far making me remarkably sanguine about the near-certainty that I will get a job somewhere that is not New York. I really like the rust-belt college-town vibe overall so far. Perhaps I would be lonely if I moved too far from the Boston-DC belt (I could also do very well in the LA or SF area in terms of ready-made friends) but then again, perhaps not. I'd get to know people through church and volunteering and through whatever college I was working at, presumably. And the thing about NY is, I know a ton of people and most of them are too busy to see much of me, or it takes two hours to get to them even though we live in the same city and so we rarely see each other, or I'm too busy to see *them*. I've been here two weeks and I've been to the CW once (and could have gone several other times if the weather hadn't been bad), hung out at a coffeeshop three times, had dinner with friends once, and lunch twice.
What there's a lot less of is options for eating out (though there is a pupuseria in town!) and for cultural events in general. Now I could come up with about fifty cultural projects that I could pursue in the privacy of my own home, things I never have time for in NY--reading 19th century novels, listening to Beethoven's symphonies, commenting on about three years' worth of SDME, starting that Broken Star quilt, watching The Wire--but there would be very little live theater, music, dance, etc, and for museums I'd have to go elsewhere. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that in the long run. Would I be ok with going to the nearest big city a few times a year, and maybe NY once a year, for most of my in-person culture? I *think* so but I'd have to reserve judgment until I'd actually tried it for a few years.
There's a lot of musing, but the main point is, I've been really happy for the last couple of weeks. Some of it is to do with feeling like I'm actually making progress academically, but some of it is that I'm kind of into this lifestyle.
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| Monday, June 8th, 2009
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1:10 pm - diet advice circa 1932
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from an old brochure put out by Antoine's restaurant in New Orleans:
"There was in that year a vogue of lamb chops as a reducing diet. And so Jules simmered a thick slice of pineapple in its own juice until it had become a golden brown. Upon this was placed a tenderly broiled lamb chop. And over the whole was poured a special variant of Sauce Bearnaise, crowned with one ink-black broiled fresh mushroom. Behold! Cotelette Hawaii had sprung full-panoplied from the Jovian range at Antoine's...."
current mood: disgusted
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| Friday, June 5th, 2009
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7:53 pm - letter from south bend
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one week down, four to go; I have to spend some time planning this weekend using the online catalogue. It sucks that the archives aren't open in the evenings (though of course they never are) -- it's just that I have looong evenings and I could easily be spending them working over there instead of hanging out and doing secondary reading. Ah well. So far it's been fairly productive; I'm working on a relatively minor thread of my diss but you have to start somewhere and with luck I can get this part cleared up and out of the way. I'm much more productive with a laptop and an internet connection and google -- five years ago I wouldn't have been able to run across a name in a diary and then quickly satisfy my curiosity about whether person x was worth following up on later. And I would've had to be much more selective about the number of quotes I copied out.
I like South Bend; I know hardly anyone here and nothing happens, culturally, to speak of, so it's just all very peaceful! Actually my social life is fine so far--I've had a coffee and a lunch date, I'm spending tomorrow morning volunteering at the Catholic Worker, then meeting friends at the farmer's market, and then I'm supposed to have dinner with the same friends Sunday night. So it's really not dull at all. But I love the long evening hours just to myself, without the tremendous pressure to produce, produce, produce.
I have ideas for two articles--one on mid-century Catholic art and architecture in Vermont, and one on nuns and art--both of which will be boring in the theoretical sense, but interesting in the 'pretty!' sense. I'm trying to decide how much work they'll be relative to the professional benefit I would get out of writing them. I could take the nuns one to a conference next year, and get the Vermont one published in the (non-refereed) Vermont History Journal, or, if it turns out more interesting than I think it will, maybe in the ACHA journal, which is also not terribly prestigious, but is certainly less off the beaten track.
World's easiest vaguely pan-subcontinental meal:
1) make some brown rice
2) while that's cooking, heat up 1/3 c olive oil in a skillet or wok or whatever. Add 1 tbsp each ground cumin and coriander, 1 or 2 tsp ground ginger, some red pepper flakes, and either a cinnamon stick or some ground cinnamon. Saute 2 min. Add a 28-oz can of tomatoes and 2 cans of chickpeas (drained and rinsed). Break up the tomatoes with a spoon. Let it all cook for 20 minutes or so, then stir in 1/2 c chopped parsley and 1/4 c chopped mint.
3) while it's simmering, chop up some cucumber and mix it with plain yogurt. (You can add a minced garlic clove to this too.)
4) Rice + tomatoey chickpeas + raita = delicious
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| Saturday, May 30th, 2009
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6:58 pm - bulletin from south bend
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As those of you following facebook have surmised, I made it to Indiana OK. This is a state which voted for Barack Obama, so I'm feeling ok about the whole thing. I'm adjusting to being out of NY -- everything seems so BIG. The grocery stores are overwhelming. The houses (which are not really that big) have so much room around them; all that grass! So weird!
I can't start working, really, until Monday; the library's open but the circ desk and the archives are closed, and that's what I need. I have a last conference session to go to tomorrow morning, but basically I'm just settling in. Yesterday, with help from some conference going, car-having friends, I bought a bike and basic groceries; today I actually rode the bike, on a real road, to and from the grocery store (forgot mustard!), which was a six-mile round trip. I haven't been on a bike for at least five years, and haven't taken an actual ride in rather longer than that; I think maybe my freshman year of college? So I was pleased that I didn't die. I know six miles isn't very long, especially when it's as flat as it is here, but I was glad to be able to stop when I did. In a week or two I should be much more acclimated to riding. It makes me feel blessedly independent; with no subway I wasn't looking forward to be trapped within a one or two mile radius of campus.
The campus is very, very, very, very quiet. There are some people wandering around, but they're dwarfed by the vast expanse of space here. I'm sitting outside the basilica at the center of the campus watching the occasional tourist/jogger go by. I forgot to bring a bible with me from NY. Some Catholic I am! I don't want to buy another one as I currently own six. Maybe someone at the center can give me a loaner. :)
Next: figure out where nearby Catholic Worker house is located; head back to dorm and sort through mountains of paper accumulated in last two days; finish unpacking.
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| Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
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3:53 pm - digital-age angst
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part of me -- a large part of me, the part that is constantly needing to figure out how to fit new file cabinets/bookshelves into my apartment and also that needs to move all the time -- desperately wants a Kindle, especially this new big one with the paper-sized screen (I could read articles on it instead of having huge stacks of them everywhere!)
but I keep thinking, but if I don't have tons of books everywhere, how will people who come to my house know who I am? How will my hypothetical future children stumble on something interesting that it never would have occurred to them to look for?
the kindle seems to bring up the question of whether books are about utility or identity with particular sharpness.
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| Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
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12:27 pm
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I made a dreamwidth account (myalexandria). I like Denise a lot--she's an old friend by LJ terms--I think this is basically a good idea, and the site looks pretty. I'm even gonna suck it up and give them money. The only thing keeping me from just moving over there (and continuing to cross-post everything to LJ for the benefit of those not migrating) is that, in my fantasy world, my dreamwidth reading page would pull posts from my LJ friends so that everything was aggregated on one page. I just cannot keep up with both an LJ friends page and a Dreamwidth reading one, esp since most people I know aren't moving, at least not yet. I'm partly posting to ask if this *is* possible--anyone who's done more poking around at DW than me know?
Feeling mild emotional hangover from comps still, but trying to get better both through leisure activities (reading books! watching movies!) and work stuff. For example, I need a syllabus for my freshman class sooner rather than later, so I can order books through the bookstore and also so I don't have to spend August doing that. Also, I needed to do some dissertation fellowship research so that I don't get blindsided by deadlines. I just finished that. Unfortunately I'm going to have timing problems with almost everything. In my ideal world the next three years would go:
2009-10: teach, research, get proposal approved
2010-11: research fellowship; write majority of diss
2011-12: teach; defend in October or so; be on job market
But there are very few external fellowships that want to fund a *middle* year. There are a half-dozen that fund a finishing year. I mean, I guess I could try for a Fordham fellowship for the middle year and an external one for the third year, but I really need to get more than one year of teaching experience. And I don't really want more than one year of unstructured research/writing time; I'd go a little nuts.
I could get lucky and discover that I don't need to do too much research outside of NY. That would let me research and write while on a senior teaching fellowship in my middle year, and apply for finishing fellowships for my third year.
I'm just surprised that there aren't more research fellowships for relatively early on, because it seems like that's when most people would need them. You can write a couple of pages every day while teaching or whatever, but you need concentrated blocks of time (and often time away from your home institution) while researching.
Anyway, I found two externals that are open to middle year: a Mellon fellowship for research in original sources, and one from the Smithsonian. (And, frustratingly, a great one for people doing a topic in any field related to American art, that requires your dissertation advisor to be an art historian--I'd be great for it otherwise.) The downside to that one is that I'd have to be in residence in DC for six months, and I'm not sure I'm really into that. But beggars can't be choosers.
[All this is of course pending my not bailing out on the whole thing.]
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| Monday, April 27th, 2009
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4:46 pm
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for those watching this space: I did pass the comps this afternoon, yes, so, another useless master's degree!
Now to figure out if I really do actually want to stick with academia. At least this is giving me some breathing space; I'll certainly research this summer, teach in the fall, and reassess then. By December or January I should have a much better idea of how I feel about this as a profession (rather than how I feel about being a graduate student taking classes and comps) and I think that will help sort my feelings out some, from a more rational position rather than an inchoate "but this is hard!" kind of feeling.
God, this past week has been terrible, though. I've been sick to my stomach every day.
Predictably (based on past experience) the writtens were awful and the orals were fun. I had plenty to say. I could have done it for hours.
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| Saturday, April 11th, 2009
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12:59 pm
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(1) happy passover/triduum to those celebrating!
(2) I did the 42nd St Stations of the Cross again yesterday, which is always an *extremely* interesting exercise in public theology. I wrote, like, two pages about why I think faith belongs in the public sphere/(or in this case, literally, square--Times Square), and then I deleted it because I didn't have the time to make it good. So instead you just get the (possibly unoriginal, but kind of a new thought for me) observation that a surprisingly large number of the Stations are not nearly as much about Jesus as they are about other people: Mary, Veronica, the women of Jerusalem, Simon of Cyrene, Joseph of Arimathea. One of the unfortunate side effects of the anti-feminist insistence on concentrating on the Apostles is a loss of the richness of the cast of characters around Jesus in the Gospels, men as well as women. The gospels can be read as a pastiche of stories about various ways in which people respond, fail to respond, partially respond, grow in response (etc) to encounters with Jesus. One of the fundamental questions, in sports metaphor: what does it mean to step up to the plate? I found the reflection presented on Veronica (who, ok, is a totally fictional character--who cares?) especially thought-provoking, given what we were doing at the moment: how are we called to step out of the crowd?
(3) I am *terrified* about the state of my right wrist. I'm 1.5 weeks from comps and I can *feel* it. It doesn't hurt, but I'm aware of it in a way that I feel will lead to pain sooner rather than later. I'm on my way to buy a wrist splint and I'm going to try to avoid overusing it, but I'm not sure how much I can do that -- I have lots of notes still to take and write and type up, and then of course there's the exams themselves--twelve hours of typing over two days. And I use my right wrist *all the time*--to chop vegetables, to stir pots, to sort papers. Scary, scary, scary.
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| Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
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1:07 pm - my friends are predictable
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like the first twenty entries on my facebook feed right now are all about Vermont :) It's been a good week for gay marriage, and is making me feel justified in my sense (in November) that Prop 8 was actually not that big a deal. In the short term, yes, it obviously would have made me much happier to see it defeated; in the long run, and not really the very long run -- maybe next ten years? fifteen max? -- we will see gay marriage everywhere.
Hey, I'm in a confident mood lately: I'm going to pass my comps, we're going to have gay marriage...I should probably spend some time thinking about assorted environmental catastrophes we're doing basically nothing to ward off.
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| Saturday, April 4th, 2009
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5:16 pm
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I just typed "effect" using, of course, entirely my left hand. It made me wonder what the longest English word that you can type one-handed on a QWERTY keyboard is. Suggestions?
current mood: geeky
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| Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
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2:37 pm
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a few days ago I just ran into my limit on reading. It's like I developed an allergy to text; I don't even want to read a trashy novel (even though an author I like has just released a new book!). I just want to lie around and watch TV, and possibly have people bring me peeled grapes.
Yesterday was dreadful; I was fidgety and cranky and distracted and only managed to get through, like, 1/3 of a single book, instead of the 3 books I was hoping for. I finally gave up and started working on typing in my notes--that actually worked, it was a productive thing that I could do and that I actually find interesting. And I may be getting my payoff; this morning I woke up, made coffee, sat down and read an encyclical and the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter on the economy from the 1980s, which still makes pretty inspiring reading. It's also, for an official church document, unusually clearly written, which I guess can be partly attributed to its being originally in English instead of translated from Italian or German or French (depending on the drafter) to Latin and then back to English, which I think is the general path papal documents take. It's a major reason why they always sound so pompous. Anyway, the Bishops' letter isn't like that. Also it was drafted by David Hollenbach, who's an excellent academic writer. So I'm sure that helps.
The point is, having given up on my expectation that I'll finish my entire reading list this week, I actually got some work done both yesterday and today, and I'm feeling ok, though also like a total fraud where my French history exam is concerned, by which I mean, I may squeak by, but not because I have an actual secure grasp of French history. By contrast, I feel very good about American history, reasonably good about Catholic Social Thought (I'm all over it thematically, but my understanding of the exact course of development of certain teachings is not great), and very good about the method exam.
I have one book to go on the American list, three on the CST list, and six or seven on the French list. I also still have to read a few things for method, and find a couple of books that are late-breaking additions. But really I'm closing in. Also I had a paper accepted to the big religion conference in November, and got my teaching schedule for the fall, both of which make me feel like this is *really happening* and I really have to pass the damn things and get on with my life.
even though I mostly want to drop out and dive into the Due South boxed set.....
Holy Week is approaching alarmingly fast -- it's been a good Lent, all in all. I really like Lent and Easter, much better on balance than Advent and Christmas. The latter come with all sorts of expectations, especially from my family; Lent and Easter are so much more peaceful. It's easier to take them as an opportunity to reconnect. I've been digging the bible study I'm involved in on the gospel of John, too. John is hard -- you have to give a lecture about anti-Semitism about every ten minutes, which makes me feel like a broken record, but the history is just too appalling to take any chances -- but also beautiful and thought-provoking. Next week, our last, we're doing the resurrection appearances, which are some of my favorite parts of the bible. I'm thinking about the fall, too. I'd like to introduce them more to how the theme of the Kingdom of God connects the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament--as part of my anti-anti-Semitism campaign I keep talking about how close the theology of the OT and NT really are, but without a better understanding of the OT, I don't think it's going to get across. The parts of the OT most Catholics know best are Genesis, a little bit of Exodus, and Isaiah. I'd like to introduce them to Deuteronomy, to various passages about the Jubilee, and to more of the prophets--I really feel the need to kill the pop-culture idea that the OT God is all about wrath and the NT is all about love.
And then maybe if we spend the fall on some of that Hebrew Bible stuff, in the spring we can look at Luke.
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| Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
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11:04 pm
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this is *delightful*: women in their 90s are getting bat mitzvahed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/22batmitzvah.html?em
Win: I now understand what the Annales school was up to, although I cannot pronounce them yet (wikipedia thinks the accent is on the first "a" but that seems weird to me for French.)
Lose: I totally failed at finishing "The Meaning of History". Well, tomorrow's another day.
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| Sunday, March 15th, 2009
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7:34 pm
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I'm feeling good! This is so rare lately that I need to document it. So here I am, documenting.
Reasons to feel good:
1) I'm not in NY, but rather in New Haven hanging out with one of my closest friends. Granted, I brought ten books and twenty articles with me, but still: change of scenery! Friendship and love! New Haven, which feels delightfully low-key and green!
2) I went out to Brooklyn and met the most awesome science experiment ever -- Helen and the Bandit's brand-new baby. First he wiggled around for a while, then he went to sleep on my lap for well over an hour. He has no personality yet, but he's adorable and cuddly and warm and has intense, intense newborn blue eyes, and it feels pretty nice to have him all sacked out and limp against you.
3) I'm feeling much better about my upcoming comprehensive exams. My knowledge is far from comprehensive, but I feel like I"m in a pretty strong position on two out of four, in a very strong position on one, and the fourth, well, I haven't read any of those things yet, but I think it'll be ok anyway. I am very pleased with how the American question (which is about "the Catholic 'encounter with race,' 1945-1975 with excursus back to the 1920s) is shaping up. I feel like I'm integrating the stuff I've been reading for that with my general and pretty extensive knowledge of civil rights history, and learning a lot of new things about surbanization on top of it.
4) The possible move to Mt. Vernon didn't develop, for a lot of reasons, but I'm giving some fairly serious thought to moving to Brooklyn if prices stay stable over the summer/early fall. I've been spending a lot of time down there lately--several close friends have moved to the area in the last two years--and more might be headed there. We'll see. It's always fun to think about real estate, anyway.
5) Obama is still president!
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| Thursday, February 26th, 2009
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9:30 am - the president continues to make me pretty happy
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On the radio this morning, the announcer said: "Obama has promised to cut 2.2 trillion dollars in current spending from this budget; he says the money will come from..." and in the following split second I mentally completed it with "...education, arts funding, and welfare." Because that's where cuts *always* come from. But instead he said "...the military budget, the repeal of tax cuts for the wealthy, and the budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
I was like, ...whoa.
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9:26 am - to-do list for today
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1. Finish planning 30-min lecture on early Christian and Byzantine art for tomorrow morning--have powerpoint with pictures set up; finish lecture notes
2. Buy a Fordham mug (don't ask)
3. Copy three articles at library; print reviews of Schloesser; collect and check out three books
4. Read Becker, War and Faith; finish book on Action Francaise; read one other book TBD
5. Buy groceries: soy milk, goat cheese, cheddar cheese, ricotta, pears, sweet potatoes, carrots, green and red peppers, onions, flowers
6. Mass
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