Eldrad must live

Christ, the weather here's been crazy lately. It snowed all day yesterday, with quite a bit of accumulation, and then this morning it had warmed up quite a bit and was raining hard. This of course meant slogging through ankle-deep slush all the way in to campus only to find that my morning seminar was cancelled (a sick prof).

Didn't bother me too much, though...I rarely complain when class is cancelled, heh. So instead of sitting around and discussing Lydgate, I went to Wal-Mart with lordtravis and bought printer paper and individual-serving store-brand Kool-Aid, and then he dropped me at home. I had a peaceful lunch, then came back into campus for my Rhetoric class. I think it went well, and discussion went well, which is nice - this class in general is pretty good at discussion; it's not as close to pulling teeth as discussion with some of my past classes have been.

I feel weird, though...this semester I've been trying to dress up a little more on most of the days when I teach, and this resulted today in wearing a white dress shirt under a new blue pullover with jeans. It feels very strange to be dressed like a Young Republican (well, as Travis pointed out, a true Young Republican would have worn khakis), but I did somehow feel like I had a bit more authority. We'll see how the nice-dressing policy continues to work, or if it does; I somehow have a feeling by finals week I'll be considering myself lucky if I show up showered, shaven, and in clean clothes, all issues of formality and informality in dress thrown to the wind (with my sanity).

Now my post-class office hours are over and I'm sitting in my office, working on the homework for my German class at 6 ("Nein, sie ist keine Japanerin. Sie ist Amerikanerin"); I just looked out my window, and the fog looks like something out of Silent Hill. The shrill 5:00 "end of work" siren-whistle that sounded as I was writing this entry did nothing to dispel that illusion. D:

...you know, I am ashamed that it took me this long to come up with the perfect title for my seminar paper, which as I've mentioned before is about the results of medieval English identification with the biblical bogeymen Gog and Magog. Everything I was coming up with was Middle English quotations from the texts I was using that honestly aren't that interesting. The title I'd finally come up with and resigned myself to using, reluctantly, was “'None swiche neuer in no kyngriche': Gog, Magog, and English Anti-Semitism at the Margins of the Medieval World." The subtitle is fine, but the quote is just kind of boring. D:

If you're wondering what the quote means in modern English, it's basically "Never such in any other kingdom," as in "You shall never find such in any other kingdom."

And then five minutes ago I had a brainstorm. I ALREADY KNOW A PERFECT TITLE, DUH, WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG

The new title? “Sympathy for the Devil: Gog, Magog, and English Anti-Semitism at the Margins of the Medieval World." :D

Okay I know it's kind of pathetic I'm getting all excited about the perfect title for a paper, SHUT UP I KNOW I'M A DORK

Anyway, in other paper news, I'm at the restructuring stage...I'm expanding my opening a bit and moving things around so it makes a bit more sense. But really all the actual main writing and argument is done, except for the conclusion! (Which is always last for me, anyway.) I'm hoping to turn it in about 2 or 3, and then somehow before the end of the day I need to finish grading and also head out to the mall to get presents for my stepmother, older brother, younger stepbrother, and baby half-brother, since I won't get in to Kansas City until like midnight on Saturday night and my stepmom is doing her Christmas thing with us on Sunday evening. IF I DON'T BUY STUFF NOW THEN IT WON'T GET BOUGHT. (Well, actually, I probably will do SOME shopping on Sunday with Bubs - he's famous for his last-minute shopping for pretty much EVERYONE, and I usually save some of mine to do with him. It just happens that since classes went so late this year, I've got a little more than usual to do last-minute. XD I'll probably buy stuff for Lance at least when I'm with him, just because most good kids' toys tend to be bulky and if I bought them before I left, would take up lots of space in my luggage on the bus ride home.)

But since there's so little time between when I get home and Christmas, it's looking like I won't be able to get together with any of my WC peeps before Christmas; will any of y'all be in town and available in the time between Christmas and New Year's, or is everybody spending that time out of town/with family and stuff?

Finally, I will end with a few links. First Fred Phelps and co. rewrites "We are the World" as "God Hates the World." It's not news, really, but the end kind of horrified me. I think Neil Gaiman summed it up best on his blog:

Well, actually, I'm also fascinated by the idea of a God who is so consumed with disgust with humanity for, amongst other things, not universally making homosexuality a capital crime, that he would, literally, hate the world (except for about 60 people, and a really cute, scary baby girl). And the idea of a group for whom every disaster, natural or manmade, happening to anybody, is a visible, magical, literal demonstration of their rightness and God's hatred for the world.

So, that probably left a bad taste in your mouth, right? Clearly, what you need is Jake Gyllenhaal on SNL singing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"...IN DRAG. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK, GUYS, WHY DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS BEFORE YESTERDAY? ALSO GODDAMN BUT THAT IS KIND OF A NOTE-PERFECT VERSION, WHY ARE YOU SO HILARIOUSLY AWESOME JAKEY G

Well, Paper Beast Mark II makes its appearance...fortunately this one's not due till Wednesday, but it's still argh-inducing, as I ONLY JUST RECOVERED FROM THE OTHER ONE GODDAMMIT

...On the other hand, after this draft is finished and turned in, all I'll have to do is revise it and add less than 10 pages, and I'll be done for the semester (aside from my calligraphy stuff, which isn't any heavier than usual for the rest of the semester), and I'll have like two-and-a-half weeks to do it in, which will be practically a breeze after this couple of weeks.

So what have I done since I finished the last paper...well, I finished Who S2 (I CRIED ;_;) and started S3. I liked Donna more than I thought I would, given that Catherine Tate as Lauren whatsername can be REALLY IRRITATING sometimes; but I totally don't mind that she's returning for S4! Also, Martha is TOTALLY awesome, and while I still miss Rose I imagine I'll like Martha just as much by the time she leaves. And of course I'm REALLY looking forward to ( Massive spoiler for S4 )

Anyway, my reward for THIS paper is...well, again, to see Superbad - I forgot to watch it after finishing the last paper, and was going to start it today but couldn't finish such a paean to immaturity with a paper hanging fire over my head, argh (I guess there is at least one responsible bone in my body, after all). I also think that once I finish this I will go to the mall and see Enchanted, since I hear really good things about it from folks both in RL and on the flist. Also to finish S3 of New Who, to watch the Old Who episodes I'm getting off of Netflix (Four and Sarah Jane, for the record), and play some Bladestorm and finish Persona 3. :D

Finally, they wanted non-kidsafe Sesame Street, they got non-kidsafe Sesame Street! It also speaks to the cultural power of the bleep in 20th-century America. XD

Maybe I should turn Wiccan, then I could take Halloween off for religious reasons.

...In related news, today really kind of sucked. The Speaking Center felt like 3 hours of water torture, Milton made me want to shoot myself in the head, and I skipped my evening class because I hadn't fnished the reading (since, y'know, working on that Milton project until like 10 a.m. this morning). So I'm home now, but I'm tired, hungry, and what started out as a nagging ache near the end of Milton is rapidly in the process of turning into a full-fledged headache.

Also I think I'm going to have to go to the mall to get a USB keyboard/mouse, which means I can't start installing Linux on my PS3 until then. D:

On the plus side, I have Gummi Lifesavers (uhhhhh, FOR ALL THE KIDS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD *clears throat*) and deliciously unhealthy pasta for dinner. :9

Edit: IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT WOULD HAPPEN

Edit 2: ALSO THIS IS AWESOME

HAI EBURIBADII



I'm not sure there's anyone on my flist who has the same bizarre confluences of dorkinesses that I do and hence will get why I find this icon so funny - maybe one or two - but hopefully this and this will enlighten. XD

Apropos of nothing, can I just say that I am SO TIRED of people calling me "ma'am"? I've given up on it on the phone, but in person even? Seriously, yesterday I went to get dinner at Sbarro with lordtravis before our German seminar, and the woman working there - despite me having been there before, and despite me NOT HAVING SHAVED IN THREE DAYS (and when I don't shave, it SHOWS) - called me "ma'am" when she gave me my food.

...now maybe it's just me, but I do not think I look like a girl AT ALL. In fact, if I were a girl, I would be a DAMN UGLY ONE. And yet people still persist in thinking I'm a woman. orz

Let's Positive Linking!
- The Postmodern Article Generator. I think my fellow academics on the flist will appreciate this...
- ...as well as documentation on that absurd, parody cultural physics article that actually got published in a serious journal. I'd heard about it before, but this is my first time reading it, and WOW it really is nonsensical (especially reading the author's lucid explanation of its absurdities in the following article). XD
- SONIC IN SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL I'M SO EXCITED I CAN'T STOP TYPING IN CAPS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (sorry, but I remember fantasizing about this with my schoolfriends back in the 16-bit days and thinking about HOW AWESOME IT WOULD BE)
- A great fake anti-piracy commercial. I especially like the part about crapping in the policeman's helmet. (God, why am I so scatological lately? Between my last post about the opera-singing feces boss from Conker and this, I'm getting pretty bad...and that's not counting sitting all the way through the German priest/nun scheisse video jokersama showed me last night. For some reason I'm finding poo way funnier than I have since I was, like, 8.)

Also TONIGHT I BUY THE FFT PSP REMAKE WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Hmmm, the doctor called, and apparently all that's wrong with me is that I'm majorly anemic...an iron supplement twice a day and I should be right as rain. It's nice to know that I'm not going to go into liver failure, and I guess it also explains why I feel so tired all the time.

In not really related news, Elizabeth Berkley's career high (from jantalaimon). Funnily, this is the one scene everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) who is anywhere around my age has seen.

Actually I have kind of been there, during finals week of my first semester in grad school, and needless to say it was not fun.

Also, LJ has made a public apology for the mass deletion. What amuses me most about this is the whole "mistakes were made, journals were suspended, things were not communicated" passive voice used for nearly every description of the problem aside from one or two instances of "we made a mistake." Classic responsibility-denying bureaucreatese - the great thing about passive voice is that it means you don't have to assign responsibility/blame for anything! Things can just happen all by themselves, fancy that! (Note that I'm not actually complaining about this, just observing it, since I'm much more conscious about style than usual thanks to my current class on critical style.)

...Speaking of said summer class, only two more days of it (today is the last day with assigned reading) and then I am free! And I will be leaving for Rome in almost exactly two weeks. :D

Well, a little before midnight I packed it in on my paper; unfortunately, there's one major rough spot that I can't rhetorically sand away, so I'm e-mailing my prof to talk about it. D:

( The problem, if anyone's interested )

On the plus side, my summer class may not be as unpleasant as I was thinking it would be. I just finished one of the readings for the first day, entitled "Dancing With Professors" (you can read it here) which basically argues that academic prose is impenetrable because, and I quote, "professors are the ones nobody wanted to dance with in high school." That is, they're the ones who sat on the bleachers all "I'm thinking serious things in a very dignified way, I wouldn't want to dance even if you ASKED me, go away cretin," and that attitude carried over to academic writing. XD

(In semi-related news, have the Awful Guide to Graduate School. It's funny because it's actually not that far from true.)

Edit: My other reading for class today is pretty good too...how can you not like an article with the sentence "A real book manuscript doesn't look over its shoulder, worrying that Foucault is running after it in a hockey mask"? XDDDDD

Well, my brother has booked our European vacation sensation. ( Our itinerary )

Honestly, even though we will be crossing some of the same territory we saw last time we went Eurotripping (during Christmas break of my year in England), I don't mind at all - all the Italian cities are new, and I certainly have no problem seeing Lucerne and Paris again, since I loved both of them last time and there's plenty I didn't see in both cities (and it will be nice to be in Lucerne not on Christmas Day, so things will actually be OPEN). And of course I want to live in England eventually, so even though I've seen lots of London before I know I won't get tired of it (and then I'll hopefully be visiting Colin, so I'll get to see a new part of England too!). I'm not entirely certain where I'll be staying in England, but I've been checking out inexpensive places to stay; fortunately in London you can pretty much get anywhere from anywhere, so it really doesn't matter that much, though for sentimental value I kind of want to stay in Kingston. :D

And BY GOD I AM GOING TO HAMPTON COURT THIS TIME...I lived like 5 minutes away from it for 9 months and was too lazy to go see it until the very end, despite being a huge Tudor freak and it being a major Tudor site. Then at the end ended up not being able to go as I'd planned because I had to leave a week and a half early to go home for my dad's funeral. (Another reason I'm glad I'm going is that it'll be nice to have my most recent memories of England not be sad and tragedy-stricken.)

...In unrelated news, I've finished my Beowulf paper and final (verdict: paper not bad but not fabulously intelligent either, final didn't go great but could have been a lot worse), and now all I have to do is finish my grading for my Rhetoric class and implement the suggestions my prof gave for finishing my seminar paper. The problem, of course, is that my seminar paper is now moving at approximately 1/10000 the speed of molasses. I'm hoping to finish it tonight though, or tomorrow at the latest. (I'm also going to start my grading tonight; it'll be so nice to not have to focus on writing amazingly fabulous comments except for the few who specifically gave me a SASE or asked for comments. ZOMG SO MUCH FASTER.)

Man, I'm so ready for this semester to be over. Unfortunately my summer class starts Monday, and I've already been assigned reading for the first day of class. This is not an auspicious beginning. D:

Let's Positive Linking!
- MadTV does The Wizard of Oz. (From jokersama.) Actually quite good; the best part is that the chick playing Dorothy totally has the Judy Garland intonation down, even when she's throttling Glinda or calling the Tin Man a homo. XD
- The opening movie for Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War. ZOMG DO WANT
- Squeenix announces Star Ocean/Star Ocean 2 remakes for PSP, Star Ocean 4 in development. As a confirmed tri-Ace whore, my immediate response was to start salivating like Pavlov's shota dog.
- The most offensive piece of statuary I've seen in a while. Honestly, is this what they think all comic readers want? (Of course we must all be male, because we all know girls CAN'T read comics, and if they do it doesn't count.) Seriously, it's like June Cleaver meets Daisy Duke. Now, MJ is a sexpot, but still! The exposed cleavage, the fact that she's barefoot (though not pregnant, that might prevent her from having a26GGG figure), the VISIBLE THONG, the PEARL NECKLACE...WHAT THE FUCK. (And we're not even going to get into the fact that I'm sure, given the crap Spidey puts that costume through, that I'm sure it's machine washable, and that MJ is practical enough to do so.)
- Bobby Brown claims Osama Bin Laden wants to kill him and marry Whitney Houston. Yes, you read that right. On the plus side, Osama x Whitney would be an AWESOME COUPLE. XD

Well, it looks like I'm pulling an all-nighter to finish up this seminar draft - I didn't get nearly as much done today as I would have liked, and while it is just a draft, given that tomorrow today is the "official" (though not hard and fast) deadline, I'd kind of like whatever I turn in tomorrow today to be at least half-decent. (Not to mention that the closer to complete it is, the more useful the feedback will be.)

My goal is to e-mail my prof the draft by about noon or so, then collapse for twelve hours or so. Then I'll spend all of tomorrow finishing up my Beowulf paper and studying for my final exam in that class on Wednesday morning; hopefully I'll get my draft back by Wednesday afternoon, and then I can spend the final two days of the week finishing up this bastard of a paper based on my prof's suggestions. Honestly, after spending like four of the days in the last week working on papers (the weekend doing this, and then a couple of days during the week working on Beowulf, and that's not even counting all the time I've spent on research for the seminar paper), I'm so sick of paper-writing it's not even funny, but I have pretty much another entire week of it ahead of me.

Honestly, all that's going to keep me going through this week is the assurance that I'm going to be in Europe in less than two months*. Well, that and my rather large hoard of energetic music. XD

* = or alternatively less than two weeks, though I'm guessing my brother didn't get the official offer in the last couple of weeks because he hasn't let me know one way or the other; I sent him an e-mail a couple of days ago and haven't received a reply yet, and I'm gonna give him a phone call tomorrow, but meanwhile I'm going to assume things are going to go as originally planned and we'll do our European trip in early June, which makes me happy.

Edit: Screw this, I'm going to bed so that I can get at least 4 hours or so of sleep...I'm managing to not nod off but my brain is feeling kinda muddled, and I figure it's probably not best to try to churn out scholarly writing when muddled.

OH MY GOD I JUST FINISHED MY LAST BEOWULF TRANSLATION EVAR, WOOHOO

...In semi-related news I just discovered that there is apparently a Kansas City band named Baiowulf, which amused me far more than it probably should have (I'll attribute it to lack of sleep and a surplus of caffeine).

Also, I should probably not be listening to Fall Out Boy as much as I have lately...I'm mildly ashamed. It's just that it's so catchy! And also, the more I read about Pete Wentz (articles, interviews, etc.) on ohnotheydidnt, the more I find myself (unwillingly) liking him. This has led a horrified jokersama to despair of my taste in guys. ...LOOK, PETE-CHAN IS MAI LOLI, HE JUST NEEDS A HUG and possibly someone to smack him until he stops wearing skinny jeans D:

Edit: Also, air conditioning is the greatest invention known to humankind, y/y?