I'm going to have a wonderful day.

There's nothing like getting a Pap smear and internal exam at 7:30 a.m.. How bad could the rest of the day be?

I've never paid more than $250 for a garment.

Since I've stopped answering the phone, they've started leaving turds in my mailbox.

I'm getting very angry.

If one more politician, pundit, or pissant tries to measure my patriotism or my love of country by my demographic indicators, I'm going to... going to... do something. I don't know what, exactly, but I will probably start by hurling my cast-iron sewing machine into my television monitor.

Will they stop calling me now?

I love voting on election day. I especially loved it back when there was a real lever to pull: Ka-CHUNK-A! really made me feel like I'd exercised my right to vote. But Ellesiouville is short several hundred voting machines and Square State has generous absentee-voter regulations, so I voted absentee this morning. Voting absentee frees up my place in line for someone else and also frees me up to work the polls.

I did not like dropping my ballot into the black maw of the USPS mailbox. It felt very much like I was tossing my ballot down a sewer. Of course, some people might say I flushed my vote away anyway. Just wake me up on November 5 and let me know what happened.

It doesn't work this way.

To: Angry Professor
From: Other Professor
Re: Re: Re: Colloquium

Well, I was looking at your department's online calendar. I see that you have nothing scheduled on November 24th, so I'm shooting for giving a department-wide colloquium on that day. If that doesn't work, I could give a brownbag in either of the [Theoretical Social Science] or [Organic Social Science] areas. Just let me know what works best for you.

Regards,
Other


> To: Other Professor
> From: Angry Professor
> Re: Re: Colloquium
>
> Hi Other. Thanks for letting me know. Tell me when and where your talk will be
> and I'll try to make it.
>
> Best,
> Angry
>
> > To: Angry Professor
> > From: Other Professor
> > Re: Colloquium
> >
> > Dear Angry,
> >
> > My name is Other Professor and I'm a faculty member at Villa State University.
> > I'm writing to you about my coming to give a talk at LSU. My talk deals with the
> > application of nonlinear dynamics to issues of control and regulation in social
> > systems. I hope all is well with you and I look forward to seeing you soon.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Other

This is not an interesting post.

Is Bloglines broken? Many of the blogs I follow (like Cranky's) aren't showing any updates, so I have to hit the blog directly to read new posts. This has been going on for several weeks.

In which I realize I am an idiot.

Some of y'all know that, when I am not teaching, I like to take classes around the university. Usually I take classes in math and statistics. This year I decided to shake things up a bit: I'm taking a graduate seminar in comparative studies on the theory of mythology.

As the lone professor in these classes I take, I am used to knocking the top off the curve. Of course I have more practical experience in math and statistics than the students, and I only have the one class to worry about, so it usually isn't very hard to ace the homeworks and the exams. The mythology course is filled with (painfully young) MA and MFA students, most of whom are also teaching a few sections of English composition to keep biscuits on the table.

They're kicking my ass. These kids are wicked smart, and far better read than I could ever hope to be. They somehow manage to read the several 100 pages of assigned reading for each class, and also find helpful background material in history and philosophy to supplement class discussions. So far we've read (among other primary sources) Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, Snorri's Edda, Plato's Republic (thank Odin I had already read that one), and a selection of writings by Jacob Grimm and Johann Herder. These kids get it, at a level that I can only dimly sense. (I'm still having trouble distinguishing between myth and legend, despite my patient professor's attempts to explain it to me at least three times.)

This winter, when the graduate applications come through, I'm going to look for students who have taken higher-level English, as well as calculus and statistics. Now, please excuse me while I go try and digest some Solar Myth. I may need help later.

Here's your chance to tell me what to do.

I agreed to give a talk to an undergraduate organization. My talk is scheduled for sometime tomorrow, someplace on campus. Unfortunately I can't get anyone to tell me where or when. My schedule has filled up, so at this point I will not be able to give the talk unless it is in the evening (when I suspect it will be).

This talk is a major inconvenience for me, for a number of reasons. In other circumstances, I would cancel it without thinking about it. However, I love this particular organization, and would very much like the chance to get to know these students. What would you do?



Update: So I sent an email very similar to the one Anonymous in the comments suggested and finally got a somewhat defensive reply yesterday morning giving me the place and time. I went, I spoke, I was a big hit, and I think they are going to ask me to be their faculty sponsor next year. Yay!

A malison on the poor of spirit.

With mansuetude (compossible with my muliebrity), I condemn those niddering, olid morons who, in caliginosity of understanding, vilipend our English by attempting to exuviate words for which they cannot see any present custom. It is apodeictic that, while perhaps obscure, words like "skirr" and "periapt" serve uniquely expressive purposes and cannot be subrogated by other, more commonplace words. The attitude that words may be discarded -- indeed, that words have caducity at all -- is not salubriously abstergent, but reflects an agrestic nisus that all cultivated English speakers must eschew. At its heart, this attitude embrangles the concepts of "need" and "want"; those fubsy fuddy-duddies with griseous imaginations believe that words no longer in frequent use will never in the future be needed by English speakers and writers more nitid than themselves. Old words must not be treated like recrement!

You may see my attitude as defensive and oppugnant, but I vaticinate further derogation of our incomparable tongue should such complots be permitted to unfold without denunciation. And I think I'll just stick with the good old OED from now on.