Winter holiday math

3 glasses of white wine (2 riesling, 1 sauvignon blanc)
13 final exams left to grade
2 and one half hours before grades are due via online submission
At least 1 more college football--er--game coming on TV tonight

Cats?!: The Musical

This is a prototype song for our musical currently in development, "Cats?!: The Musical," which is about two women who fall in love and write a bilingual Broadway musical about cats.

This song, "Boîte au Chat/Cat Box," is from act one of the musical-within-a-musical, which purports to be a musical about the actual lives and concerns of real cats, rather than a romaticized and metaphorical treatment of cats on stage like some other musicals about cats.



We are in the process of recruiting backers to support the development of the musical. If you are interested, please get in touch.

Lying experiment: results!

So, to sum up the lying experiment, which I think only I find interesting: I did not lie that much during one week. At least, I did not lie that much given how I defined "lying."

(I recall that I had another lie that week that I hadn't reported. It was that I told my Dad that some of the many articles he had my Mom mail me had not yet arrived; in reality, they had arrived, but I had not read them.)

What does it all mean? Hmm, who knows? In practice, it likely means that I will hop on my high horse without qualms next time it prances by, and continue to trot around the paddock judging others. Maybe I should do the world more of a service and keep track of that behavior.

9 November 1989!

Dishonesty update

This probably strikes beloved reader as obnoxious, but I don't have any lies to report from days three through six. I remember that I thought I told one on Sat. night while a little drunk at a Halloween party. But I can't remember what it was.

I did undertake dastardly doings over the weekend, rest assured. I picked my nose, wallowed in self-pity, and harangued CC, among other things.

Lying experiment (2)

I remembered two more.

In class today I lied to a student--er, gave an answer to her question that was no answer, and was really a blind guess on my part, which I acted like was actually an answer. I feel bad about this.*

Also tonight I went to a screening of a documentary. The guy who organized it asked me to come to a dinner with the director, but I lied and said I couldn't because I had to teach. This invitation and lie happened a few weeks ago, but when I went to see the movie tonight I had to repeat the story of not being able to go to the dinner to someone else. However, when I did this I eventually sort of admitted to her that I lied to the organizer of the dinner in order to get out of it, but this was after repeating the lie to her a few times.

I also noticed that keeping track like this makes me extra scrupulous when I am talking to people.

*I looked it up and actually, my guess wasn't so blind, but was basically right! Now I think I wasn't lying, but was speaking from faint but basically accurate memory of the fact that the WWII Allies were a large group of nations, but that aside from the big famous ones (Britain, France, later the U.S.S.R. and U.S.) were smallish and weak, and none was in a position to challenge Germany's conquest of France in 1940.

Lying experiment (1)

I was driving to the old homestead last week and stopped for dinner in a pizza joint by the highway. Having nothing to do but listen to the right-wing chitter chatter of the pizza chefs, I picked up a free parenting newsletter. In it was an article about children lying. The article said in part that although you may be hurt when your precious wee four-year-old lies to you, don't worry. It's a sign of advancing cognitive development! The average adult lies eleven times a week.

The last bit fascinated me--eleven times a week? Isn't that a lot? The article cited no source; after googling, I determined this number, eleven, is an urban myth. However, I found that actually, it's probably more like twenty-five times a day.

Have I been over-reacting to dishonesty over the course of my life? My parents had a very clear no-lying policy, which I broke often, but which did leave me with the impression that lying was a very serious offense (a violation of one's own self worth and of another's trust) and to be avoided if at all possible. Recently, students told me some whoppers, and I've gotten upset and sad.

(Recent stories I have heard or heard of include: no paper due to injured Dachshund that had to be rushed to a special hospital; deceased grandparent; waxing appointment that conflicted with class.)

But maybe this lying isn't such a big deal after all?

I therefore decided last night around 6 pm to keep track for one week of my own lying.

I think we all know that people tell "white lies" often out of social nicety, for diplomatic reasons, etc. As in, "I like your hair!" Stuff like that, I'm not interested in. I want to know how many times in a week I tell unequivocal falsehoods, and why. I am not counting stuff that I don't totally agree with or mean, but say to be nice or polite or diplomatic. I mean clear falsehoods, statements that can't in any way be true, no matter how you spin them.

I started the experiment at about 6 pm last night, and by 6:30 pm I had lied in order to get a student discount ticket to a movie. The ticket seller asked if I was a student, and I said yes. Then, I had to fill out a raffle at the theater, and I checked the "student" box, but also checked "other" hoping to mitigate the falsehood.

However, since then I haven't noticed any more.

Our pumpkins

Cf. spooky 2007!

Sleep

CC and me are writing this post as joint authors. We talked about what we would write about and decided to write about sleep.

We chose this topic because sleep is good, and because we talk a lot about how much each of us likes to sleep and how hard it is to wake up. Really, it's how hard it is to wake up. I (YSA) talk a lot about that.

CC: Today I had to meet a student at 9 am, and I felt like 9 am was too early, especially for a Friday, but when I got there on time the student was already there editing his paper. This is the only student in danger of failing the class. I told him I was impressed with his dedication, and he responded that he feels that he has to use every minute of the day in order to succeed.

YSA: I don't feel like people really appreciate how hard it is to get out of bed. It (sleep) is like a drug. Like a drug! It does not matter what I resolve the night before when I go to bed or what I set the alarm for, or if I set two alarms, or if I pledge to CC that I will get up and not hit snooze for one hour. Nothing matters. When the sleep is happening, nothing else matters. I will hit snooze for two hours, or take the batteries out of the alarm clock, whatever.

CC: YSA is not exaggerating. She is never realistic about her waking-up goals and as a result constantly feels guilty. LIke, every morning, she wakes up and faces the day... already guilty. This is a problem for her, and as a consequence, for me, too.

YSA: That is so true!


CC: The guilt is contagious. I also feel guilty, even though I had no waking up goals to begin with! (I gave these up as soon as I became a grad student - or rather, chose this profession partially because it allows me to sleep in.)

[Side comment: CC: Is being a grad student a profession? YSA: Yes. CC: No.]

YSA, do you have any more comments?

YSA: No. Just that it is very hard to get up.

Jaw-dropping historiography experience

Yesterday this retired old guy historian (old white guy) came to visit us. He just won a big prestigious award for his book. He gave a talk about writing the book.

He said the following.

"I wanted this book to be inclusive. I wanted to include the old, traditional history, because it is still valuable. And I also wanted to include the newer types of history that many historians are working on."

Me silently thinking: Oh, OK. Well, at least you are including the new stuff.

He elaborated:
"I wanted to include traditional history--political, diplomatic, and military history..."

Me thinking: Oh, good. Now I know what those are.

Old guy: "And I wanted to include the new history--"

Me thinking, as you probably are: hmm, how will I feel when he categorizes women's history as "a newfangled kind of history that he wanted to include," will I feel OK about that? Or patronized?

Old guy: "The new kinds of history: cultural, social, and economic history."

Me: panicking.

Note: Social history was "new" in 1970.

Failed jokes (recent)

Uttered by yours truly while lecturing and met by students in Nazi History 102 with total and complete silence.

Last week, while screening Triumph of the Will:

"See these Nazi Party members cheering for Hitler? Well, they really loved Hitler. They loved, loved him. They thought Hitler was just...[trying to think of joke]...the best thing since sliced bread."

Today, toward the end of a stock rant about the origins of the Boy Scouts (whom I have always opposed) in the Boer War and their paramilitary accouterments and historic imperialism, which was prompted by a student question about the relationship between the American Boy Scouts and the Hitler Youth:

Me: "I mean, come on. Who sells cookies in a paramilitary uniform? Who sells cookies in a paramilitary uniform?"
Student: Uhm, the Girl Scouts?

From a paper currently being graded

"The Iranian government does not allow women to wear clothing, which defeats the purpose of them to have vision."

Dude, woah!

Woah people, I actually today went to a dept. meeting that was about peoples's tenure cases. I actually heard tenure cases come up! They kicked us out of the room after a while though because untenured peoples do not get to vote. We are lowly.

First staff meeting

I attended my very first staff meeting of faculty yesterday. There I discovered, when the doors of the august conference room had swung shut, the lights had dimmed, and all students had scurried away (except for the grad student rep) that: Yes, the staff are all lizard people.*

Yes, once again, I was unknowingly hired by lizard people.
Tom: How could that happen again?
Me: ???
Tom: You should really ask them at the interview, "Are you lizard people?"
Me: It's so awkward, you know?
Tom: Now you have to help them take over the world.
Me: They are starting by trying to get elected as the junior senator from Minnesota. I don't know how to begin to explain to them that that's just going to be very, very tricky.
Tom: The worst part for you is that they truly do not understand how the government works.

*This "lizard people" myth is used by, among other people, an anti semitic guy. This blog rejects racism and anti semitism. Refer to comments section.

Michael Burleigh's favorite word

maladroit |ˌmaləˈdroit|
adjective
ineffective or bungling; clumsy.

I am making my class read an 800 page book by Burleigh. I am taking this occasion to improve my vocabulary.

I think my class does not like the book so much, but I love it! And then I force them to say that they love it, too, by asking them in class what they think of it. Then they all name things about it that they appreciate about it in order to make me think that they in fact read it. Even though I know that secretly, many did not.

Oh, actually, I did have something to post about

Me: Wow, I am tired, and I don't know why! I'm just so tired. And I do not think I read that last email from the department administrator, about upcoming deadlines and stuff and forms we are supposed to fill out, but I will soon...
Dept. Chair/aka "my boss": You know, a lot of people just ignore those emails and those deadlines.
Me: Eh?
Dept. Chair: I mean, I am not saying that you should or anything. I am just saying, you know, that a lot of people just ignore them.

Tired again

Now it is the second week of classes and I am tired again.

Word of the week: Plangent (adj)
(of a sound) loud, reverberating, often melancholy.
When my student mentioned that his contribution to class discussion was courtesy of Wikipedia, my heart issued a plangent moan.

Sorry CBAM that I did not write back to your emails. I am so tired. That is so nice that you got me a present!

Why am I so tired?

Why did the first week of classes make me so tired?

And also: I survived the first week of classes!!!

In memorium, Michael Jackson

File this under that category, 'things that have made sense to you since childhood, but that you suddenly one day as an adult realize actually do not make sense.'

When I was six, Michael Jackson did a commercial for Pepsi which featured some pyrotechnics. During filming, his hair caught fire and he was seriously injured.

For years afterward, my mother and I boycotted Pepsi. I remember us telling one another and other people that we did not buy or drink Pepsi because "they set Michael Jackson's hair on fire."

Perhaps related to this boycott, which I remembered a few days ago and which seems to have originated from logic that I no longer feel that I can entirely explain, is a conversation that CC's friend reported having with students in a summer class that she's teaching.

CC's friend mentioned Michael Jackson's death to her class. In the course of ensuing comments, she realized that the students did not know that he was black. They thought he was white. She explained that he had begun life brown, but that his skin had lightened (unclear why) and he'd had plastic surgery.

They did not believe her.

How much is one less day of your labia itching like crazy worth to you, in dollars?

Ok, I know that you, sincerely appreciated reader, are not going to like this post, but my sense of justice compels me to describe the following. And it was either post or tell CC at length, and actually posting is probably better for my relationship.

When I was coming up many years previous, they made this anti yeast infection cream that you had to use for 7 days. It costed like 14. (It was expensive!)

Then they invented 3-day cream. Then, a super crystal-power option: 1-day ultra cream.

And, this being soul-less capitalism, they priced them incrementally. The 3-day cream is like 19$. And the 1-day nuclear treatment: a whopping 22$!

I feel this is unfair and unjust, the worst of capitalism: How much is it worth to you to have 4 fewer days of genital itching? What about 6 fewer days? Is it worth 8 dollars?? If you hunker down with cranberry juice for just 2 more days, you'll save 3$--yes, you'll net the cost of the juice!--or, uh, what the hell am I thinking?

No one should have to answer these questions.

Actually did something (but did not get paid)

Hey, I actually did something for my new job. I was pretty excited about this. They asked me to do something professor-like; like, to evaluate something based on my expertise!

They asked the faculty email list to say which journal subscriptions the cash-strapped library should not cancel.

This required me to dig deep, really deep, into my extensive training, in order to say that no, our library should not cancel its subscription to Central European History.

I developed this process:

Ask self: Have you, or anyone you know, ever read, or felt like you/they ought to read, any article in any of the journals in question?

Example: Slavic Review--hmm, I think so-and-so had an issue of that kicking around his office--we better not cancel that one.

Task dispatched with aplomb!

In related news, recent nightmares include:

I'm in some seminar (as a participant) and a guy on the hiring committee walks in and sits in the back of the room. Then I realize that instead of pants, I'm wearing a bath towel.

I go into my first day of class and the students are so rowdy that I can't even say, "Hi, my name is..." and have to call security to have one particularly uncooperative girl dragged away. Oh, and I on top of it, I haven't finished writing the syllabus.

In the big time now

Hey reader, check it out--I got my picture taken in front of something that there's a picture of in Making of the West.

The MOW is the textbook that taught me everything I know about European history.

MOW is the one constant and reliable support in grad student life and is therefore beloved. When asked in job interviews how I would teach a survey class: "Well, I would assign MOW..." Some grad-student-taught summer courses are actually (semi) dramatic readings of the MOW.

Queen of Pickles

Deep in the marshes east of Berlin lies an ancient land, er, forgotten by time, where people travel by barge from farm to farm, a former hot-spot of East German tourism (the "Venice of Germany") where the mail is delivered by punt and members of an ethnic/cultural minority (the Sorbs) won fame for their pickle recipes: the Spreewald.


I have wanted to go here for a long, long time, but no one else wanted to go--until CC! [Birds chirping, puppies frolicking, flute music.]

(Picture: we rented a canoe and paddled around. Sadly my camera ran out of batteries.)

By canoe, we reached a village beer garden and the Pickle Museum. The Pickle Museum underwhelmed (until, at the end and after trying unsuccessfully to talk us into buying sausages, they gave us those same sausages for free.) But, at the Pickle Museum, I found out about the Queen of Pickles Pageant.

Each year, ladies of the Spreewald dress in traditional costumes, fix up a basket of pickles according to an original recipe, embody Spreewald culture, and arrive by barge to be judged by one old man and two old ladies. The winner is crowned Queen of Pickles.


The Sorbs of the Spreewald endured some harassment by the Nazi regime, which wanted them to stop speaking their dialect, etc. Under the communist East Germany, flocks of tourists included a friend of mine who went for a day. Her family lived in West Germany. When West Germans went into the East, they had to buy 25 Marks worth of East German money. They weren't allowed to take any back with them--they had to spend it all in the DDR. My friend said the canoe rental cost them 1 Mark, and at the end of the day her dad was left with like 20 M, which he had to get rid of. So he tipped the woman selling french fries 20 M. This was apparently very embarrassing for my friend because the french fry seller took offense.

(Picture: mail delivery by punt)

(About the french fry story: me being an American*, I was like, "Why was she offended? Hey, free money!" My friend was like, 'well it's like, you big rich West Germans come and eat our pickles, and lord it over us, you think you're so great, etc.')

*Read: insensitive

Tourism at the Revolution

This is about my May 1 adventures, which happened about a week ago.

The First of May or International Worker's Day is a big left/socialist/communist holiday around here. It was a big day for the good old German Social Democrats (SPD), who, I want to note, are a mainstream political party, one of the nation's largest, who put on a well-attended street fair with free concerts, Turkish food, and a booth where you could write an answer to: "Why are you celebrating the 1 of May?" People wrote: "Because I love vacation!" and "Because I want free childcare!"

Right, so before I get to the riot: the socialists around here come in many varieties.

The First of May is maybe the biggest day of the year for rioting by the anti-fascist left--the German Communist Party (Yes, they're still around!), Antifascist Action, those folks. The anti-neo Nazi punks. Who, as I found out, seem to be mostly under the age of 17.

They kicked things off with a march, which I filmed! (Below.) The anti fascism march, as you can maybe tell from the video, seemed from the outset to be organized in anticipation of violent clashes with the Berlin police, who showed up in their usual large numbers and also in full riot gear (sort of like football pads, with a motorcycle helmet). The anti fascist kids wear all black, black hoods and sunglasses (apparently the police photograph them and try to arrest them later). Some seemed to be wearing multiple sweatshirts, for extra padding.

This was all somewhat out of tune with the democratic socialism street fair taking place in the same neighborhood (Kreuzberg). On the sidewalk with me as I filmed the passing demo were street-fair goers, one of whom was sipping a mojito. An antifascist teenager in all black ran by us, shouted something like "down with capitalism!", and knocked her mojito out of her hand.

She was like, "Hey, my mojito."



I guess I left before things got real lively. The next day the overly conservative newspapers proclaimed it the worst 1 May riots in years, with hundreds of police officers injured (injured anti fascists didn't make the newspaper headlines.) But they were gearing up to proclaim it the worse 1 May riots in years the day before. And having police in riot gear there from the get-go doesn't help things, right?

I did see one dumpster that'd been set on fire. I stopped to take this picture of it:


As I was lining up to take this picture, a little boy rode past me on a bike. I tried to get him in the picture too, but as I was focusing, the fire in the dumpster caught his attention and he wiped out, flipping over his handlebars and landing in the middle of the street. I ended up with a picture of this, too:

The boy got up and ran toward the fire--I guess it was in his apartment building, which may be why he wiped out on his bike when he saw it. He stood and watched the ambulance crew drag the dumpster into the street, where it burned.

This made me feel sad about the whole demo.

Night of the spooky bike tour

Yesterday, April 30, was a creepy evening here in Berlin. It was Walpurgisnacht, the festival of the witches's dance, and also the anniversary of Hitler's suicide.

When the sun set, I went on a bike ride to a) look for witches and b) look for neo-Nazis discretely observing the anniversary.

First stop: Hitler's bunker, the site of his and his wife Eva Hitler (formerly Braun)'s suicide and the erstwhile site of their graves.

As you can see, it's now a parking lot. (The bunker was mostly destroyed by the Soviets and later by the East German government, though the floor and walls are apparently still down there.) For years there was no sign. From what I've read, the city didn't mark the site to keep it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.

But according to the sign pictured above, since the movie Downfall came out, there's been so much interest that they put up said sign.

So, is it a neo-Nazi shrine? Well, there weren't any neo-Nazis lurking around. (I may have missed their real holiday, H.'s birthday.)

There was that guy with a camera and microphone just sitting by the sign (pictured). Hmmm, what was he up to? Waiting for a ride? Surreptitiously recording what was going on?

Sorry--I have no idea because I didn't ask him.

Additional Hitler/Braun trivia: Burned and then buried in the garden above the bunker, their remains did not rest there for long, but were dug up by the Soviets, identified with dental records and x-rays, and shipped to a KGB barracks near Magdeburg, Germany, where they languished until 1970, when the KGB fully cremated them and tossed the ashes in a river. The Soviets kept the story of the remains secret, and until the end of the Cold War a mystery surrounded the final whereabouts of the bodies.

Next stop: The search for witches!

Walpurgisnacht is an ancient pagan spring festival that involves witches jumping over bonfires. In Berlin, it got mixed up with May 1, which is the next day. May 1 or International Worker's Day, which is today (!!), involves left demos and rioting.

There used to be a big Walpurgisnacht party, which I guess often turned into a riot, in a park in the neighborhood in which I'm staying. I biked over there (pictured below).

It was pretty cool! I did see one little kid dressed as a witch. Lots of people where there, all drinking beer--punks, parents, people my age, older folks, little kids (they did not appear to be drinking beer). Also a bunch of bands. And fire juggling. And a bonfire.

Walpurgisnacht I guess is tamer than it once was. No rioting that I saw. But a whole army of police were in attendance, as they have been at every gathering of more than twenty people that I've ever been to in Berlin.

These police are the "Anti Conflict Team." They wore these vests. I was unsure whether the vests were working or not.

Birthday!!

Happy Birthday, CC.



To celebrate, here's some "re-purposed material" (in the words of one of my favorite NPR shows) featuring CC.

Places I lived, April 2008-April 2009, in no particular order

(The yellow building, not the car. It's last summer in Ithaca.)

 

(CC's place, NJ)

 

(Berlin, photo from this morning.)

 

(Toronto)

 

(Princeton last April--This is from the goodbye house party)

Sugar shack

CC took me to do a Quebec cultural thing, which is to celebrate maple syrup by eating a bunch of breakfast-esque food for dinner smothered in maple syrup, in a historic-seeming building staffed by people in 18th century costumes. This is called "sugaring off."*

We went to famous Sucre de la Montagne, founded in the 1970s by Pierre Faucher, who is famous. Sucre de la Montagne is a maple sugar farm and a huge restaurant. (They served 1,500 peopled the day we were there.)

They make the maple syrup right there!


CC's dad explained to me how famous Pierre Faucher is. It seemed to me that part of Pierre Faucher's success was due to how he'd evoked an 18th century Quebec masculinity (all the dudes who work there had on these cute, like, fur trapper guy costumes) that appeals mightly to 21st century Quebecois. Faucher himself is, I guess, the star practitioner of this manly maple syrup farming thing.


His picture is all over the restaurant.

Then we got our picture taken with the real guy!



*This name seems vaguely obscene to me (verb+"off," you know?) so I often mis-call it "sugaring up" which seems more PG, but then CC gets annoyed.

Doing things I promised myself I wouldn't

I just this hour started signing emails to my students with my initials. I swore up and down I'd never do that. It's so pretentious.

You know, that happens a lot to me with this job. Ever since I started in grad school. Like, 'When *I'm* a TA, I won't make undergrads go to a boring discussion section...When *I'm* an instructor, I'll never skip out on class time with undergrads to go to a nice lunchie-lunch...' (Actually, that one happened yesterday.)

But I don't want to sign my first name to emails. And writing out first and last name takes forever. And is weird.

So here I am again.

It's spring!

CC and me went on a bike ride all over Toronto. First we fixed our bikes at Bike Pirates. Then we biked way out on this peninsula/island in Lake Ontario.


View Larger Map

We biked to the lighthouse (point B on map). It was kind of cold and far away from the city. I was tired. CC wants me to write: I was tickled pink.



On the peninsula were all these colored bricks and rusty metal scraps (CC: rusty scrap metal). The sun was setting.


(Photo by CC)

We took the subway home, which I was very glad about. (Subway ride between points C and A on map.) It was sort of spring. Spring: no snow, fix bike, bike ride! Sort of not spring: wearing 2 pairs of pants and mittens, freezing cold, riding on subway with bike.

CC sadly only had one pair of pants and was cold. Then I got home and realized I'd had a spare pair (a third pair, just in case) in my backpack the whole time. Woops.

Like Art

I stumbled on this picture a few months ago while looking for illustrations for various pro-OBAMA posts on this blog.

You can see why it didn't work as a simple pro-OBAMA picture, yes? But I can't bear to just delete it. It fascinates and scares me. What do you think?

Congrats to CBAM!

Congrats to CBAM for getting ahold of a baby.

Dangers of undergrad

My friend who is also teaching a senior seminar for undergrads reports that with 4 weeks to go in the semester, in a class of 7, already 3 grandparents have passed away. 2 grandfathers passed away in the same week.

In my senior seminar of 15, only one grandparent has been lost so far. But we have had also had 1 trip to the emergency room for an infected pierced ear lobe, 2 chronic flus, and 1 person who had to ship to the west coast to take part in military exercises.

Ancient rivalry

CC requested that I post this story.

Background: I am here doing this postdoc at big university in the True North. I went to school at the state U. of you-guys-know-where. Down the road from state U. is a super fancy private U--so fancy that the professors are knights. Right now, I'm finishing my postdoc year. They are interviewing postdoc candidates for this position next year. There are 3 of us postdocs. We have to meet with each of the postdoc candidates. Our boss told us to try to sell them on the idea of taking this postdoc, so that's generally what we try to do in the meetings. We are not in any way involved with the selection process. We tell the candidates this at the start of every meeting.

The other day, a postdoc candidate from big fancy U. (hereafter b.f.U.) came through here. We had our meeting. Like I said, there are 3 of us postdocs. Two are chicks and one is a dude. My impression was that the guy from b.f.U. generally only made eye contact with the dude (my fellow postdoc and comrade), and wouldn't look at the two chick postdocs. He also wouldn't let me finish several sentences and contradicted a few things that I said. We also had this exchange:

Me: You are from (town near state U. where I went), right? I used to live there!
B.f.U. dude: Oh, right--?
Me: I went to state U., but I lived in [town where b.f.U. is]--I really liked it.
Me thinking: now I can reminisce about me and CC's lovely house in that town and our garden. Happy feelings.
B.f.U. dude: Oh, right, you went to state U.
Me: Yeah, but I lived in...
B.f.U. dude: Right, state U., they have a really good German languages program. And a really good philosophy program, I heard.

Note: I did not get my degree in either of those departments.

OK, so I have always hated the idea of b.f.U. and those fancy private schools, and loved my public school, and also secretly feared that they were all much better than us. So I am a little biased at the outset. But I found the guy obnoxious.

A few days later...

Boss of all of us post docs: Hey YSA and [other chick post doc], what did you think of the guy from b.f.U.?
Me and other post doc: Oh, we did not go to his job talk.
Boss: I know that you did not go to his job talk because I was there. I am asking you what you thought of him.
Other postdoc: [silence.]
Me: Uh.
Boss: ?
Me: Uh, he seemed nice.
Boss: That's not very enthusiastic!
Me: [trying to do the right thing] Well, you know, I went to state u. and he goes to b.f.U., we have an ancient rivalry.

And, here is what I am like. I am like: Who the fuck would ever have thought that I, I, a grad of state U., would someday be in a position to utter a disparaging word in the context of a big job search about a b.f.U. student??? Who would have fucking thought, eh???

Take that, you arrogant motherfuckers!!!

(OK, and also, I feel bad, sort of. But sort of glad. You know how that is?)

Wanting to make nice food present

CC is coming to visit tomorrow. I am so happy about this! I want to make her a nice food present that she can eat when she arrives. But I cannot think of anything to make. It would have to be a dessert (she is arriving at night).

Problem: CC dessert favorites and YSA dessert favorites are opposite. CC likes what to me are fancy French-esque desserts. Like with fancy cheese in them. I like giant chocolate cake slices and apple pie.

Other problem: I know I should make CC's favorite dessert. But I don't want to eat CC's favorite dessert.

Is that wrong to want?

(Also, I don't know how to make CC's favorite dessert.)

Blog made prettier and maybe to change name

I made this blog look prettier. I am going to change its name to something less ahistorical.

Yeah!

Women mentoring other women. That's what the Weimar Republic (in Germany) was really all about.

Sheesh!:

a) Although law on prostitution of 1927 figures large in muskrat-like dissertation, just getting around to reading parliamentary debate on said law now.

b) These feminist ladies in parliament who were all about rescuing girls from prostitution and bringing them back to morality and order--yes, mentoring them (well, sort of--by "mentoring" here I mean locking them up in Catholic reformatories)--in parliament, these ladies were all like, "We are so psyched about this new prostitution law. And once we get our Protective Custody Law* we can really save lots of girls from prostitution! Yeah!"

*Protective Custody Law (weirdly not passed until Nazis took power despite support from ladies like those mentioned above, who were not Nazis by the way) basically allowed police and welfare workers to lock up whoever they wanted, sans any kind of judicial proceeding, indefinitely.

Woah ladies, now that's some mentoring! Shit, if I'd known about this I totally could have gotten that grant.

New blog?

Dear reader(s), I am thinking about starting a new blog. What do you think? It could be about the usual stuff and also about the first year of being an assist. prof. I think I work pretty good with the year-in-the-life format.

Thrown Under Bus By Sister Feminists

This feminist bookstore, which I support with my whole little womyn-loving being, sent email pleas for me to order coursebooks there and to urge students to shop there, not online, because feminist bookstore is part of community, does all kinds of events, etc.--unlike big online chain that threatens to eat it up!

So of course I ordered books for my seminar there and forced little dears to walk the extra blocks to shop there.

Yay feminism!

Then I went in today to pick up my "desk copies" (free copies that instructors get when they order the books--just one of our little scams) and...

Feminist Clerk: That will be $35.00
YSA: (having to stand on tip-toe to see over feminist counter) Not free?
Feminist Clerk: You have to say when you place the order whether you want desk copies. You did not say when you ordered that you wanted desk copies.
YSA: But why would I not want desk copies?
Feminist Clerk: You did not state that when you ordered the books.
YSA: ?? Fine. I will get them from the library.

I go to library--books not on shelf!--realize that that is because I placed them on course reserve, consider reading own books on course reserve in cage-like reserve reading room, realize that own students will see this and shreds of dignity will be stripped away, resolve to try to borrow books from grad student friends.

The moral: community, feminism--it's all out the window if you don't explicitly state, in writing, that you want desk copies.

Question for discussion

Should Congress be replaced by a coven of witches?

Our president