It's been forever and a day since I last posted something on livejournal, and I decided today to change that.

It's been a super busy term, filled with big questions and figuring out where I'm going and what I want to do. The greatest thing was that I submitted my major field proposal today. Hurrah! Everyone seemed to like it fine, although DT really is pushing me to do more social history stuff, which likely won't happen, as the last time I took a history course (outside of linguistic history) was 11th grade American history way back when I was 16. Sadly, my list is enormous, so I will likely spend most of the next eight months holed up in libraries and carrels.

Other highlights included the election. I started to write several posts about it, but every time I ended up stopping, because it was all just a bit too much. I'm really glad things turned out the way they did, and I'm hopeful that some good things will happen in January. At the very least, I feel like incoming people won't be incompetent, as so many people in the last administration seemed to be (Chertoff, Brown, Bush, these are all names that spring to mind). That said, being competent and being effective are two entirely different things. I hope the Democrats don't run crazy with power. If they restrain themselves, I think they could be in a great position to seal up even greater majorities in two years. However, Democrats excel at shooting themselves in the foot.

What else is going on? I'm trying to write my papers, but as one is due by Christmas and the other is due by January 5th, I'm finding that I possess very little in the way of motivation. My goal is to have at least one and a half of them written by the time I leave on the 23rd. Then I have Latin to do over the break, as Andy has agreed to do a directed reading next term, which is both amazing and frightening.

I suppose that's all for now. I'll try to post a little more regularly in the future.

I'm a little bit confused about the VP debate. Thus far, every poll I have heard of or seen myself suggests that Joe Biden won the debate by an indisputable margin. However, in addition to checking the polls, I have been reading opinion pieces constantly, and most of them seem to be saying it was a draw, or Palin did what she needed to do. Admittedly, the bar was lowered quite a bit by the Katie Couric interview, but the polls seem to indicate that the American people are smart enough to recognize when someone dodges difficult questions every time and uses cutesiness as a cover. So why doesn't the press?

On a side note, seriously, what kind of person can't tell you what news papers they read? I regularly read parts of the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as occasionally Newsweek, Time, The Economist, the New Republic, and Maclean's. I suspect that Palin's reticence to answer stems from the fact that her only regular reading is the Bible, and there's nothing wrong with that if you want to be the most powerful person in Sunday school, but second in command to the leader of the US? Really?

It's been a good long while since I posted something here. Several times I have started to post something, and then thought better of it, generally because it involved politics. However, given that the new year has begun, I thought I would just write a general post on where my life has been, where it is now, and where it is heading.

The summer was overall good. I did some work at the DOE and I managed to learn enough French and German to pass both exams in September. However, I have this sneaking suspicion that I really should have accomplished more than just that. I've finished two years in grad school here, and in that time I've done a lot of things. I've studied some absurd number of languages, most of which I had never really even thought about studying before I decided to go to grad school in medieval studies. I have this habit of deciding to leap into things, even if I don't really know much about them. Thus I decided to come to Toronto, even though at the time of my acceptance, i had no Latin ability. Now, two years later, I'm trying to figure out the best way to integrate Latin into my dissertation.

So that's where I was. Where I am now is busy. I know that last sentence made no sense, but at least it is here instead of on my OGS grant application. Even though I only need two more courses this year, I am doing three this term alone, including two of the most work intensive courses of my life, Anglo-Latin Hagiography and Middle English Manuscript stuff. That said, they are also probably going to be up there with some of the best courses I've taken (which would be Beowulf and Old English Philology). It's going to be a busy term, but I think that by the end of it I might actually feel like I have a handle on my place in the field and on grad school in general, which I guess is good because I would at least have something to show after two and a half years of grad school.

So where am I going? It's kind of hard for me to say. I think that I would be happiest if I could some day end up back in Kansas. I like researching, but I really have no interest in maintaining the research output of professors at Toronto or its American equivalents like Harvard or Yale. Most of all,  I would like to teach, which is probably the one really bad thing about Toronto as a whole, in that graduate students get very few teaching opportunities, unless they become lifetime graduate students, at which point their teaching seems to eclipse their dissertation.

I think the hardest thing about grad school is how you can become really good friends with people, who then depart after finishing an MA. In my first year in the program, it was Hailey and Molly, who departed for Notre Dame and Berkeley, and then this year I lost Megan to Cambridge. Good friends all. The new people seem alright, but because I'm mostly doing coursework which has few MAs, I don't know if I will get to be good friends with very many of them, although I'm hopeful.

So I finally got around to watching the last three episodes of Dr. Who (I don't really know why it took me so long), and I thought that they were really great. However, I'm having a major, major problem with the treatment of the second Doctor and Doctor Donna. Why wouldn't the second Doctor have the same meta-crisis that Donna has? If it is impossible for Time Lord consciousness to exist in a human body, then the second Doctor should have had to have his memories erased as well. If anyone knows how to resolve this, I'm all ears. Being in a parallel dimension wouldn't seem to solve the anatomical problems.

Apparently the meaning of the sounds "haha" and "hehe" are pretty much unchanged from Anglo-Saxon time. I learned this while I was re-alphabetizing the filing cabinets for the letter h (yes, my job really is that exciting sometimes).

This just in: Mary was part dragon!

Virgin dragon gives birth

Sometimes I really hate Canada. These thoughts spring to mind every time I have to do any paperwork related to my stay here. I'm sure that the US can be equally bitchy about its paperwork for international students, but the fact of the matter is, I don't have to deal with it. But Canada, I'm giving you the stink eye right now.
So I recently had to renew my study permit, which expired very early due to a different Canada debacle, and after renewing that, which took nearly two months, I have to renew my social insurance number. Sadly for me, Canada decided in the last eight months to require loads of extra information which the department did not know they had to include in my job offer. The new important information Canada needs to know about me includes: my sex (really, this should be obvious. It's not like I'm a celebrity baby named Apple or Suri or CrimeFighter, or whatever the hell they call their spawn nowadays), information from my study permit (it's right there with the rest of my application documents, why on earth does it have to be on department letterhead? If I had the skills to effectively forge government documents, I would be in a completely different line of work), and my address (I guess because it would be bad if I were living in a box on the street?). Everything else was already on the letter I already had.

To make matters worse, the woman "helping" me was a complete dick. When she told me that my letter didn't have the right information, she refused to tell me what I needed to have. She said there was a form on the website, and I said I had read the website and did not see it. I then asked if she could show me where it was, and she said she didn't have time to show me where the form was. So I asked if the woman at the front desk would be able to help me, and she told me not to bother her because she was really busy, which was bull shit because there were zero people waiting in line for help. Then she told me about all the other offices I could go for my application, despite the fact that I told her I only lived three blocks away from that office.

So there's a JC Penney ad floating around on the internet, and it is completely fucking brilliant, except for the fact that it was made by somebody with no connection to JC Penney at all as a side project. JC Penney is disavowing all responsibility for the ad, because they don't want to promote teenage sex, but it doesn't change the fact that the ad is brilliant.

edit (youtube took the video down, so follow this link)
http://gawker.com/tag/jc-penney/?i=5019073&t=teen-sex-ad-not-actually-from-jc-penney

So I was reading the Washington Post just now, and I ran across an article that looked rather interesting from the brief blurb on the website. The gist of it is that some kids broke into the old summer home of Robert Frost and threw a wild party that did thousands of dollars worth of damage. The prosecutor and judge for the case decided a fitting punishment would be to have them take classes on poetry.

So that's the premise, and I thought it sounded rather interesting. In my mind it was kind of like the idea for a corny feel-good movie, involving redemption, love, and the ability to overcome all obstacles. At the very least, I hoped that it would actually involve some quality time spent with poetry. Instead, the article (written by the guy who taught the classes), says that the extent of their poetry education was the reading of two of Robert Frost's poems. I mean, they're decent enough poems, but there is no high schooler in the US who has not had to read the Road Not Taken at some point. The entire experience of reading the poems takes about two minutes, maybe more if you're illiterate, and while they contain some pretty weighty themes, they aren't really buried. It's not like you have to tease out the main ideas when the last lines of the poems hit you in the face.

It makes me a bit sad for the state of American poetry when an hour of discussing Robert Frost constitutes a substantial foray into the field for an American teenager.

Oh, and here's the link. (You may have to be a subscriber to the Post online to read it, but it's free to sign-up)

So my sister got home last night. More important, though, is the fact that she brought her kitten, named Whennie, short for When in Rome.

Today I visited two feedlots, a bison slaughterhouse, and saw the world's tallest structure. All in all I would say that it was a pretty good day. Also, North Dakota apparently has demolition derbies with combines. That sounds both really boring and really intriguing. Is it like watching sumo wrestlers fight, but in giant tractor form?

footnote: I have just been informed by wikipedia that as of three months ago, the tv tower I saw was no longer the highest structure in the world. Stupid Burj Dubai skyscraper. First it has to beat Canada for the world's tallest free standing structure, and then it has to beat North Dakota for the tallest structure period. I hope that when they're done building it, it falls over (with no people in or around it of course). For my part, I am going to say that since the skyscraper isn't finished yet, they can suck on it. They can't take away my accomplishment of driving around in the middle of nowhere just for the sake of seeing a really tall TV thingy.

I think that it would be fun if everyone wore name-tags one day, but instead of using names, they would give an adjective to describe  you. Today mine would definitely read, "Hello, I'm absent-minded." I obtained a free ticket from a friend to see Kids in the Hall in exchange for helping him move, so tonight I headed down to Massey Hall at 6:30 to see the show, only to arrive there and realize that my ticket is for next Thursday. Fortunately, I had not yet gone inside, as I think the embarrassment of discovering this by having a ticket checker tell me would have been mortifying.

On a tangent, one of my students during the semester once went to Massey Hall instead of Massey College where I was holding my office hours. Sometimes the things that students do amaze me.

Edit: I think that if I were to pick other adjectives to describe myself at any given time, they would be: absent-minded, awkward, and drunk/dancing. The last one is a slash because the two states almost always go together with me. Out of curiosity, what would you say are your three most common states?

I think that there should be a dance named for Beowulf, and the song for it should be Do the Hustle.

On a related note, I'm so happy that I got an A+ in Beowulf, which is why I need a Beowulf dance. It feels really, really good, especially because I had no idea what Toni was going to think of my final paper. This is because I ended up writing the entire thing in one long, sleep-deprived 24 hour period, in which I tended to think up lots of random references to make, like:

The ambiguity of this relative pronoun is not resolved until the poet continues. Thus, the listener is much like Schrödinger peering intently at his box, waiting for his wave function to collapse: until the box is opened, both possibilities are true.

However, I have emerged victorious from the fray. I think I should call my parents, even though I'm not entirely sure that they will understand how happy I am.

One of my friends got married this weekend, and it was quite the beautiful ceremony. She especially looked gorgeous in her wedding dress, much to the relief of her now-husband, who had been told for months that she was going to get married in an orange pant suit. Random thoughts on the wedding:

-I had never before heard a priest use the word "bitchy" in a church before, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I think it's a little funny, but on the other, I can be a little conservative about such things.
-The hotel we stayed at, the Motel Belair, was one of the oddest experiences ever. It was like a little crack den in rural Quebec. Every room had something odd. My room had a door that could not be locked and a closet containing a suitcase full of Chinese books. Other rooms had odd smells, bathrooms the size of closets, no closets, and windows that didn't shut.

Otherwise, I've been spending my summer doing a little work at the DOE, proofreading things, and settling into the new apartment with H. We pretty much have everything unpacked, expect for a few boxes of books, and are starting to settle into a routine. I have to say, I rather like having an apt. Confession: it's my first apartment ever, and H is also the first room mate I've ever had whom I didn't sleep in the same room with. Throughout undergrad I slept in bunk beds in a room with four people. Thankfully, that is an experience I will never have to repeat. I have discovered that I have a predilection for making breakfast food at all hours, except for breakfast, at which I usually just eat cereal. I don't think it's possible for me to go more than two days without making an omelet, and I bought some pancake mix recently which I am planning to bust out sometime.

Finally, I learned that some medieval news blog linked to my Kalamazoo post. I find this inexplicably strange, as I definitely didn't say anything interesting to a very wide audience, but I guess that is the definition of medieval studies.

The current Questionable Content story arc is really making me smile, but I don't think I care for the word limpid. It combines two images in my head, neither of which are very appealing. The first is limpet, and even though Don Knotts redeemed the limpet to some extent by appearing in a movie as an anti-fascist fish, limpets just don't sound good. They lack majesty. It might be the absence of consummate Vs. In any case, the second word is limp. A limp limpet.

Time for bed.

Random recollections from the conference:

My favorite moment was when we were in Best Buy and Steve loudly said, "I don't want to be aroused." That was classic. In Steve's defense, I did provoke him, as is my wont.

Every time I went through the border, it seemed to bother the border guards that my car contained a mixed group of nationalities. They would say, "How do you know each other?" Of course, I read between the lines and heard, "Wait, why would you associate with ______ (blank to be filled according to whatever border we were crossing)" Also, it was rather amusing when the American border guard asked Phil what he was presenting on and he told her medieval poultry.

My extravagant purchase of the conference was Beowulf read aloud on CD in Old English. It is ever so exciting.

I made new friends: two from New Mexico and one from Wisconsin. We all danced quite a bit on Saturday. Coincidentally, one of the New Mexicans is the room mate of a girl I know from high school. Ah facebook, the things you teach us.

In Anglo-Saxon times, people were too lazy to voice assent. Instead, they just grunted in a manly fashion. This historical tidbit comes to you from the film Alfred the Great. I can't imagine why we don't use movies as primary sources. You learn so much from them. Like did you know that when people are attacking you, they will frequently retreat to give you time to recover from their attacks? Also, Ian McKellen was quite the hottie as a young bandit named Roger.

So I passed the PhD exam, which means I can post this story that I really wanted to post last week, but I was feeling too self-conscious about it not knowing whether or not I had passed.

It was a bit warm in the classrooms, as everyone who took the Latin exams can attest, and unfortunately I was wearing pants instead of my traditional summery grey shorts. As I sat down to write the exam, I spent a moment trying to adjust in my chair, and as I was doing so, my pants got a little bit stretched, and the seam in the crotch popped open. I had to prevent myself from laughing right there, because I'm pretty sure nobody would have appreciated my uncontrollable laughter right then. So I spent the rest of the exam carefully making sure that my legs remained close enough that nobody across from me would have to deal with such an unfortunate sight in the middle of the exam.

Anyway, I'm glad I passed, because I was feeling a little sick of the PhD Latin class. Not that I dislike George, but it was all getting to be a little bit much, and I'm really looking forward to being able to take whatever courses I want next year without having this weight hanging over my head. I'm not done with Latin by a long shot though.

I guess that's all I have for now. Farewell all!

The week before the latin exam is a bad, bad time to suddenly become addicted to Dr. Who.

But, in other news, Kansas won the national championship. For those that weren't watching, the game was incredible. I, and just about every other Kansas fan in the world, had nearly given up hope with just over two minutes left. They were down by nine, and things looked bleak. But then their experience in the clutch situations paid off, as they forced a Memphis team unused to pressure to the free throw line time and again where they missed. Then, with two seconds left in the game, Mario Chalmers made a three to tie it up. The Jayhawks dominated overtime, and the rest is history.

In other, other news, the palaeography exam was today. It was alright. I made at least one stupid mistake, and everyone found stupid Thomas Aquinas difficult. I've decided that Aquinas can go and suck it. I'm so glad that I'm not a medieval philosophy scholar, because while transcribing him is bad enough, having to constantly read long discussions about the definition of the word image is awful.

RRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK       CHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK JAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWKKKKKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a bizarre twist, I have discovered that the OED contains the word etiology, "One who studies etiology or the science of causes" and yet the word etiology does not have its own entry.