Waking up is hard to do

It was so difficult to get out of bed this morning. For, like, a nickel, I'd totally have gone back to bed and slept through my theory class. XD

Ha ha, some interesting news for all you Missourians out there: apparently Roy Blunt has been implicated in DeLay's money laundering scheme, and some of it made its way to Matt Blunt's campaign. (For those of you who aren't familiar with them, Roy Blunt is a Missouri representative and DeLay's impromptu successor as House Majority Leader, and his son Matt Blunt is the governor of Missouri - they're both pretty craptastic.) I can't wait until the media jumps on this (and they'd BETTER) - they should have a field day with it. >D

Edit: Holy crap, CUTEST LUNCH EVAR. XD

Bearding academics in their dens

Well, today I met with Teresa Mangum, who's the bigwig in the department for Victorian serials (which is my projected subject area). I had originally hoped to meet her when I came up for my visit in April, but she wasn't able to meet with me because she had a conference that weekend. So I finally got to meet with her, and she was very nice and helpful.

(I was kind of worried, because when I'd met one of the other Victorianists [Garrett Stewart] in April, he was nice but very intimidating, so I was quivering in my shoes a little as I went in to meet her. I hope I made a good impression, since if I do end up doing Victorian serials I'll probably want her as my advisor and on my comps and/or dissertation committees.)

...it's kind of funny - I'd gotten pretty blase about dealing with my professors in my undergrad by the end, and had no real problem with talking to them or anything, but now that I'm in grad school I seem to have regressed to a primal freshman "OMG DONT EAT ME PLZ" stage. XD

In unrelated news, I love my basement apartment. It's bitter cold outside, but I'm toasty-warm in here because the bottom half of my walls are underground and so it holds in heat very well. :D

Edit: You thought the Tom/Katie news was over. NO SUCH LUCK. Apparently they're bringing a wee little clamlet into the world soon. I wonder whether they'll name it L. Ron. XD