Saturday morning pick-me-up

I'm settling in for a weekend full of productivity (thesis introduction! course development! research proposal! teaching prep!), and it's best to start with a smile, no?

Poor T-rex! We finally figured it out that you don't drag your tail on the ground, but use it to counterbalance your leaning forward. But we STILL don't understand those tiny little arms!

Just hanging around...

This hasn't exactly been the best week. In fact, it's been full of tears. There have been the dissertation-tears, job-application-tears, advisor-tears, I'm-a-mediocre-scholar-tears, I-have-no-money-tears (don't worry, Mom: I'm getting paid on Friday), wah wah wah. But, Sarah B. came to the rescue, bearing watermelon (and you all know how much I love watermelon) and delicious casserole. She also sent me this encouragement yesterday:

"hope you are HANGING IN THERE very strongly - or at least surefootedly (my vision here is sloth.  preferably 3 toed)."

!!! Hanging in there like a three-toed sloth!

Aww, what a great little sloth! Looking so secure and content. Was Sarah already aware of my long-time affection for the sloth? This picture was taken at the San Diego Zoo in September 2010, in the "prehistoric animals" section:

And just because it's so darn cute, here's a baby one:

Who has the best friends? I do!

It's been a busy week. But just when I started to feel frantic and overwhelmed, I got the following encouragement from Julie! Isn't she the best?? I couldn't keep it to myself. Enjoy!




So you're trying to think of how to rework your dissertation...

And you have an idea!

And you're like...

But after 50 pages you're like....

And you chug through a few more chapters and you're like...

But you keep going! Go, Katie, GO!!!!!

And then... at last..... you are DONE! You are done with the dissertation!

You feel more confident about your skills and your job prospects, and you're like...

...before you start freaking out again and you're like...

But you try to put on a brave face...

And wait to hear back...

And it's a rejection. But it's just your first one so you just go...

Then you get a few more and it's more like...

But then! An awesome opportunity! THEY GOT IN TOUCH WITH YOU! And you're like...

And at the interview you try to look professional and not *too* excited...

And afterwards you're like...

And...

But GUESS WHAT!

It's an offer! You have an offer! And you feel like...

And...

And...

And...

And then you wonder, are you really ready to be a professor? Well, you may not do everything right at first...

And it's back to...

But you're done! You're really really done! Now you can be like this guy...

And you're like... can I just please please please get back to my wedding planning now?

You've made it! You help people understand literature and language!

And yeah, that feels good.

And now, time to think of more ways to use Disney in your papers...

Groupon Death Watch?

Have Groupon, Living Social, et al. jumped the shark? I buy a Groupon or Living Social voucher about once a month. I'm always glad to see a business I'm already planning to patronize promote an offer, and Dave and I have gotten to try a few new restaurants this way. But plenty of analysts have predicted the death of these over-hyped startups...something to do with a predatory business model that drains small businesses without bringing a new, consistent customer base in return. Besides, how many massages, mani/pedis, or photo-printed canvases could one person want?

My own prediction of Groupon's decline is based on the following offers I've received in the past two weeks:

1) concealed-pistol classes

2) laser toenail fungus removal

3) colon hydrotherapy












See how colon hydrotherapy makes my lower digestive tract feel like a heart? Thanks, Groupon!

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't be so certain that this is a sign of impending doom: 320 people signed up for the weapons class, 84 for the laser toenail treatment, and 230 want their colon cleansed. Go America?

the job market approaches...

I've been dreading this moment for six years. Applications for post-docs begin to be due on October 1st; for tenure-track jobs, the applications must be in by Nov. 1st or Nov. 15th. Non-tenure-track jobs will be advertised after January. Yikes! But the C.V. is up-to-date, I've drafted my teaching statement, and I'm laboring over my dissertation statement this week. On the outside, it looks like I'll be prepared for producing my individual applications. But on the inside, I look like this:

ALL DAY. EVERY DAY.

Sneakers = such a good movie

I'm trying to resist turning this into a blog about things on the internet that got me excited, but I couldn't pass this one up. It is the 20th anniversary of my (probably) favorite movie, Sneakers, and Slate has a series of articles about it! No one ever talks about this fantastic movie, so I was extremely happy to see a genuine discussion of its greatness. You can read about the score, the making of the film, and why it is a prescient masterpiece. You may never have heard of it, but it turns out that at least the National Reconnaissance Office in the '90s was a fan!

Who starred in this movie?, you may be asking. Oh, just a few no-names like Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Akroyd, David Straithairn, River Phoenix, James Earl Jones, and Ben Kingsley. And what is this masterwork of film about? It's a high-tech caper about code-breaking. And hidden identity and broken friendships. And lost love, teamwork, and trust. And hackers, the U.S. government, the Russians. And THE INFORMATION. I've seen this movie at least a dozen times, and it's so suspenseful that I can hardly stand it every time. Also, it is hilarious. I just realized I really enjoyed the RSA cryptography part of my Number Theory course in college BECAUSE OF THIS MOVIE, which came out before the advent of the internet.

I love this movie so much that my family gave me the DVD for Christmas several years ago. And when I pulled it out to watch with Dave last year, and the DVD box was EMPTY, I wasn't even that mad. Somewhere out there, someone else can enjoy the beauty that is Sneakers. I bought another copy instead. So, go forth and watch. You can even borrow my copy if you'd like. And let me know, so that we can make dorky jokes about "Setec Astronomy" together!

Palaeography is the BEST*

Today began just like every other day: depressed about the state of the Humanities and its imminent collapse. Until! I saw this THRILLING article in the Washington Post Magazine!

Here's the intro:

***  

In the Sinai, a global team is revolutionizing the preservation of ancient manuscripts

View Photo Gallery — A treasure hunt in the Sinai: What secrets lie in the world’s oldest library?

By Mark Schrope, Published: September 6

MOUNT HOREB, Egypt — Michael Toth points at a computer screen filled with what seems to be a jumble of Arabic and Greek letters.
To get to this jumble, he has traveled from Washington to an isolated, fortress-like monastery in the middle of the Sinai Desert, home to the oldest continuously operating library on the planet.
He has helped assemble a global team of scientists that arrived with cutting-edge technology at this spot, three hours by taxi from the nearest commercial airport.
The image he has paused to appreciate is one of a steady stream coming from the room next door, where a high-definition camera is focused on one of the monastery’s rare and priceless ancient manuscripts. The manuscript rests in a cradle that looks like a chair tilted back at an angle, but with hydraulic lines and strange lights attached.
One more room over, in the makeshift command center, specialists are scrutinizing the day’s results, and the monastery’s head librarian, a wispy gray beard to his stomach, waits in a red velvet chair for the next request to turn a fragile manuscript page.
“This is the first time since the 9th century that anyone has seen this,” Toth says of hints of text below the more visible words.
The first time since the era of Viking invasions and Charlemagne.
The more prominent legible words are 1,200 years old and are interesting enough, but they are not what the scientists are here for. The team is really after the overwritten text from centuries earlier, last seen by the person who scraped it away to recycle the precious animal-skin parchment.
Such erased texts are known as palimpsests, and until their pages enter the imaging room, no one alive now or, in many cases for more than a millennium, can say for sure what has been hidden. The work is tedious, like carefully brushing away sand at a traditional archaeology dig, but the promise of what can be found is a powerful motivator.
This is Toth and his colleagues’ most ambitious project to date, and it is just one component of a major transformation under way in the desert. The team is working within the stone walls of the Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai — St. Catherine’s for short.
For 17 centuries, the Greek Orthodox Christian monks here have protected an unparalleled trove of manuscripts. Now the monastery is in a multimillion-dollar push to physically and digitally protect its treasures and make them easily accessible, in most cases for the first time, to scholars around the world.
In the process, the monks will establish a model for the preservation of irreplaceable ancient manuscripts in a world where more and more of them are threatened by the chaos of war and revolution.
“Working with this stuff is an amazing privilege,” Toth says.

***

Technology! Mystery! Palimpsests! Libraries! Monks! NEW TEXTS! Lack of electricity! WHO NEEDS FICTION WHEN THIS IS REAL????

Read the rest here. Kudos to WaPo for publishing something so nerdly and awesome. Now back to my regularly scheduled rage.

*Palaeontology is pretty cool, too.

oh, the honesty

On the first day of each class I teach, I like to circulate a little survey for the students. I ask for some basic personal information, so that I can get to know them a little better as individuals. This term's survey included such questions as, "What do you hope to get out of this class?" and "Is there anything I should know about you?" Fun fact: not a single one of my students has a proposed major in the Humanities, yet almost all seemed to think that understanding the Classics is important. Plus one for high school propaganda about "western culture"!

Some choice answers came out yesterday. In response to "What do you hope to get out of this class?", I got:
"a good grade"
"I want to be a true part of this Western tradition."
"I do not find old literature interesting, so I hope to change that."

And for "anything I should know?" someone wrote down, "not much other than I am excited for college." Awww!

Wedding Dress Shopping, vol. II

Yesterday I hied it to David's Bridal with Sarah and Brianne. This was our second outing, after an enjoyable but unsuccessful perusal of the dresses at the Gown Shop a few weeks ago. No secrets will be spilled here, but just to give you a taste of the atmosphere:

I shall be the fiercest bride in all the land! The ideal wedding dress will bow to me!

Thanks to my lovely friends, who made the outing fun and stress-free!