Week 2.11 - An actual update

The baby wants pineapple again.

This is problematic only because I have to pace myself.  I love pineapple, but if I eat too much of it, I'll give myself mouth sores.  But I'll let you guess what I just had as an afternoon snack.

(Also, sausage balls may be the perfect food.  Protein, dairy, and carbs, all wrapped up into one.  And so delicious.)

Anyway, in what has actually happened this week, versus a post that is me complaining about my neighbor.  I finished conferences with my 1301 students last week, so conferencing is finally done this semester (yay!)  I have no idea what I'm going to do about conferences for next semester, except perhaps have them when I get back to catch up with my students. 

My Brit Lit students have done Milton the last few class sessions, which has been great fun and in which I've been able to show off a bit.  We're getting into the realm of literature that is my expertise.  This class runs through the long 18th century, which is one of my areas, so from here on out, I should be able to do a lot with the material.  Certainly, I won't have to prep so much.  (Though we're doing Dryden tomorrow, and that I will have to bone up on a little.)

Mogo did her jumping about thing in church again Sunday, though more so, and I suspect it had something to do with the brass quintet we had for Easter.  I think the organ, and the brass (and her daddy's voice) resonate at a frequency that she can hear, and she gets very excited.  Of course, that meant I was once again trying not to laugh through the homily.  But Easter service was very nice--the church was packed, and I hope our priests took a well-deserved post-Holy Week day off yesterday.

Of other interest has been a continuing argument that's been going on on the Victoria listserv, centering around a manifesto put forth by something known as the V21 Collective.  If any members of the V21 Collective are on the listserv, they've been curiously quiet as their manifesto has been--well, not torn to shreds...Victorians seem to absorb some of the manners of the era...but certainly debated strenuously.  With the exception of a email at the beginning of the argument (which I really didn't say much in), I've stayed out of it and just watched as scholars far more important than myself have been debating this for the last two weeks.  It's been quite an eye-opener, and it is very interesting that not many are jumping to defend this manifesto. 

I've also sent a paper abstract out to a journal with an eye for their special issue.  Wish me luck.

I've mentioned that I'm on the program review committee for the department, and that has continued to be an enlightening experience.  My section is fairly easy, as it deals with curriculum mobility and integration--basically, how do our classes fit in to other programs at the college and across the state and can people transfer to a 4-year university easily and with minimal loss of credit (the answer is yes, as Texas has a state-mandated core curriculum, and all but one of our classes have been approved as core courses.)  My other colleagues have been dealing with trickier issues, like cost-effectiveness and personnel management.  It's been interesting to hear their reports about how our program is running--which it's running just fine--but it really gives you an inside look at how the nuts and bolts of this stuff really work.  Most faculty, I don't think, ever give much consideration to the actual dispersal of funds and where they go (other than to perhaps complain about funds going places we think they ought not go).  So learning how the finances of not just the department but the college itself has been very enlightening.  I'm not sure I ever want to be an administrator, but it's good to know these things.  The more knowledge the better, and certainly, the more the faculty knows about these sort of things, the better we can support our faculty administrators (like department chairs).

(I just realized how very academic-sounding that last sentence was.)

I have an appointment with maternal fetal medicine on Monday to do the anatomy scan for the baby, so say a prayer that everything continues as it has gone--just fine.  I have been feeling dizzy and weak here and there--standing for too long can really make the room swim--so it's something I want to discuss, but my reading says that it's not uncommon for that to happen in the second trimester, particularly for women who have low blood pressure (which I always have), because your blood pressure actually lowers in pregnancy (because you have to make more and sometimes it doesn't keep up, etc.).  Anyway, I'm now trying to keep a snack and some water with me at all times, so if it's a blood sugar thing, I can spike it back up, and if it's a dehydration thing, I'm combating that constantly--and that's all I can do.  But I should have new pictures of Mogo on Monday.

There was also no joy in Mudville this week--or I should say, couches were set on fire in Lexington when my Wildcats lost, and we were quite upset here.  (Duke winning the championship only added insult to injury, though Dear Husband said that if we had to lose, better to Wisconsin than Duke, and I think he's right.)  In any case, it's now baseball season, and my Reds won their first game yesterday, and I get MLB at Bat free through T-Mobile, so I can listen to all the games--and listen to them from WLW, so I'm getting Marty and Jeff (and listening to the same commentary that my daddy is).  And baseball is so calming after the excitement of basketball season.  (Some would say boring, but they don't know what they're talking about.)

So now you see why yesterday's post was cut in two.  It hasn't seemed eventful, but looking back, a lot seems to have happened.  But since it's Tuesday when I'm writing this, maybe next week's will be shorter?  (I doubt it.)

St. Augustine, Part 2

So, where was it that I left off? Saturday morning, I believe. I don't really have much in the way of nerves presenting anymore, but the stress that it had been had certainly laid off a bit. Snarky Writer, however, was presenting Saturday morning and was continuing to stress out over her first presentation (and chairing her session). I helped her do her makeup, and Poe Girl did eventually roll out of bed after an incident with a malfunctioning alarm clock (damn time changes).

SW did present her paper without hyperventilating or having to club other panelists over the head for going too long (it might have been close on the last part), and she did an excellent job, just as PG and I told her she would. We discussed going to the fort and to the beach, but the plans to return to the beach were nixed with a look at the radar. So we ran out to Winn-Dixie and got ourselves some lunch time food (and ice cream) and returned to our room and ate before heading back out towards the shops and downtown St. Augustine, kind of wandering in and out of stores.

Then one of the thunderstorms hit with a vengeance, scaring the living daylights out of people and pouring the rain. We hung out in one of the indoor shop corridors until it mostly ended, then went for our last hurrah at Scarlett O'Hara's, celebrating what had been a very successful trip with alcohol and sweet stuff.

After that, we were ready for naps. Mine was interrupted halfway through by a call from my dad with an update from home that was not particularly uplifting. In any case, that evening, they screened Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog and "Out of Gas" from Firefly, and there's nothing quite like sitting in an entire roomful of people singing the "Ballad of Serenity."

We sat around and talked and learned what a small world academia really is--people who know people who know people! Then we returned for one last night's semi-sleep on uncomfortable beds, happy, exhausted and ready to go home to our animals and our own beds. (Hold on to that thought for a minute.)

After a small snafu trying to get checked out of the dorms Sunday morning, we finally packed up and headed out. Fortunately, SW had checked Google Maps again, and we discovered to our chagrin, that we could take I-75 almost all the way from Jacksonville to Chattanooga, avoiding what we had not so politely termed Podunk, Georgia. I should note, SW did not hear banjos until we stopped in East Tennessee for gas.

PG was kind enough to drive most of our way through Georgia, as by the time we stopped to fill up, I was having trouble staying awake, and she had napped some in the car. There was also plenty of swearing at traffic and weather on the trip northward, as well as the obligatory road trip parts: getting stuck in traffic, having a skeevy guy perv on you (or he was getting ready to go through a serious road rage issue, neither of which was comforting), and a stop at Cracker Barrel.

We did arrive home, and I was terribly happy to come back to my apartment. That would be until I got in the door and discovered a broken lamp, a farked up monitor and a full-blown flea infestation. Since then, I have washed all of my bed linens, banned my cats from the bedroom, treated them with new vet prescribed flea medication, combed them out, and bought a flea fogger which I will use in the morning before I go to class. Still, as SW was unfortunate enough to be in her truck this morning when her brakes failed, I will (mostly) cease my complaining and instead give thanks that SW made it to school safely.

And on that note, I am going to go let the freshly treated Cat out of the bathroom in here to play with Bergie, and go to bed.

St. Augustine, Part 1

Thursday morning, my favorite Snarky Writer, myself and Poe Girl loaded up my car with the necessities and began the journey towards St. Augustine and the 4th Biennial Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses. The trip took us about eleven hours, all told, and we only got lost once, which right there was enough to officially declare it a road trip. (By the way, Google Maps sucks terribly.) Lots of laughing, lots of music, lots of swearing at idiotic drivers. SW navigated (and no, it was not her fault we got lost) and PG sat in the back seat and dispensed snacks and drinks and "That's what she said" jokes.

We did arrive, got checked in with little difficulty and made our way up to the reception, where we met up with Dr. Buffy (yes, I am being facetious with his name). As PG put it, there's not much better than drinking free alcohol--in Florida--for work. SW took part in the Not Ready for Prime Time Whedon Conversationalists--Dr. Buffy does a rather interesting and comical impression of Joss Whedon, complete with evil laughter.

We are staying in the dorm here at Flagler College, which is a beautiful campus in the historic district of St. Augustine. Palm trees, Spanish moss, and the combination of Spanish/Moorish architecture all combine, especially at night in the lamplight to create what looks like set pieces from Pirates of the Caribbean. It's also a private college, about 2500 students, and--well, the nicest dorm room I ever spent time in at Eastern was less than half the size of these and much more dilapidated.

After supper Thursday night, we went out to find dinner, which was very tasty, tasty pizza. Then we hit up a bar called Scarlett O'Hara's, which attracted quite a number of Slayage conferencers that evening, and walked back to the dorm in the dark and the almost quiet.

Friday morning, we got up and got breakfast before heading to the keynote speech, which was absolutely fantastic. I wish that I had more background in music, because I might then be able to explain what she talked about better, but it was about musical themes in Buffy and how they build upon one another to create emotion. Very interesting.

After the keynote speech, we had time to spare, and being in St. Augustine and close to a beach...we went to the beach at Anastasia State Park. Swimsuits and towels in hand, we made our way through soft, white sand to the ocean. We frolicked in the waves--which was fantastic--before settling down on the sand. PG swam a bit longer before joining SW and I on the beach--SW read, and I, in a fit of regression, built a sand castle, which I completed just as it began to rain.

Packing back up, we came back to the dorm, by which time it had, of course, finished raining, so after a brief dip in the shower, we went in search of lunch and through some of the shops that had been closed when we were wandering last night. It was much busier, being Friday, and I expect that it will be even busier tonight as the tourists get in for the weekend. We returned to the dorm for a nap--because we were exhausted--and then I gave my presentation, which was considerably less academic than the other two papers on the panel, but went well nonetheless.

A trip to Target (which required a scenic route - read: we got lost again) was then in order, as PG needed a pillow, SW needed some makeup, and I needed some soap that wasn't Bath and Body Works Enchanted Orchid, which while smelling really good, is making me itch like crazy. We also picked up (cheap) dinner, and came back to the room, ate, talked, laughed and finally went to bed--fairly early--because again, we were exhausted.

Which leads us to today! We missed the keynote speech this morning, unfortunately, but exhaustion, the inability to get out of the bed and on PG's part, a malfunctioning alarm clock caused us to hang around here a bit longer. I gave SW a makeover (though she really didn't need makeup for her presentation, she's beautiful the way she is) and now we are waiting to go to her presentation. After that, I'm not sure what our plans are, though I do believe another trip to the shops is in order, and we may go visit the fort. The beach may even be calling us once again, but it depends entirely on the cooperation of the weather. Tomorrow, we will not be leaving as early as we might have liked, but we will head back to Murfreesboro, exhausted and happy--and then we start school Monday.

Personally, I vote that all conferences be in Florida.