Enumerating the grand highlights in an overly exhasting week.
My week and weekend have had definite ups and downs. I'll get the downs out of the way first, so I can move on quickly to the positive: general exhaustion, late-night grading marathons, the new stack of papers to grade that replaced the midterms, the ridiculous arabic test our prof that the entire class utterly failed (omg that pissed me off so much!), the apartment consistently being a mess, the dog getting around our barriers and mischievously wrecking stuff every time we leave (spent last night getting black ink out of my rug after he ate a pen), the dishes that just pile up, students thinking I'm evil for giving a pop quiz, the homework that I can never quite get entirely done, the research I should be further on...
I think in general I'm exhausted, burnt out, and really sick of feeling like I'm constantly behind and playing catch-up on homework, research, TA work, apartment work.... ugh. I wish I could just pause life, catch up, and then stay caught up from there on out on all the crap that needs to get done. If I just didn't need sleep or relaxation time...
Bitching aside, the Manuscripta Conference held in the beautiful Pere-Marquette gallery was great these last two days. Yes, some boring presentations, (that's to be expected at a conference), and the majority were quite interesting. Today's favs included the guy who talked about the European adoption of Arabic numerals and a 'place-holding' system of mathematics in the 13th - 15th centuries, and Tomas's presentation on the frontispiece to Luke's Gospel in the Book of Kells. I think he may be just be a genius. The overall highlight of the conference was this brilliant lecture by Lawrence Nees that basically deconstructed the ethnic categories art historians use to discuss and classify medieval illuminations.
Nees is a wonderful speaker, very engaging and humorous. He argued that we should question assigning artistic styles/decoration to specific "races" - like, calling things "Germanic" or "Irish" art. He claimed that this theory and practice of classifying medieval art developed during the 1920s, when eugenics studies were classifying the 'races' of Europe, making connections between race ideas, and how these ideas are manifested in historical theory. He then argued that the iconography/style of a particular illumination doesn't necessarily have any relation to the ethnicity of the artist. He also showed that things we've typically called "barbarian germanic" or "barbarian irish" actually originate from Roman motifs. So we can't say they're indigenous designs of the germanic peoples. He advocates looking more into movement of specific artists/monks/people, and patterns of trade for understanding spread of artistic motifs, moving away from assigning styles to certain ethnicities /peoples. It was fascinating stuff, and incredibly persuasive, almost to the "duh" point, but because it was deconstructing the categories art historians cling to, they all freaked, especially the older ones.
What was most fun about Manuscripta was not seeing the excellent papers/lectures, but really getting to spend more time with Phil and Leah. I'm sad Leah had to go. I was kind of hoping she'd just stay... But after the conference last night it was wonderful to mingle and chat with everyone at the Cupples House reception, and then I was roped into a very fun dinner at Buffalo Grill with Leah, Phil, Dr. Acker, Megan, and Amy P. Interesting mix. I laughed a lot, but ended up feeling quite sick come bedtime from the fish and chips I ate... ugh did NOT sleep well. Didn't keep me from enjoying some more papers today though - I even sat in the back at the Manuscripta table with Phil. It's nice just to spend some time with Phil without all the other guys too for once. He's a cool guy. I took Leah to the airport today too, just to get some more chat time before she had to leave. I wish I'd talked about interesting research or something with her instead of just bitching about Madden and the CMRS and department drama.
So, I got out the bowl of grapes to eat... but I really just want another kit kat. I've developed a really strong attachment to kit kats this month.
My favorite night of the week was Wednesday. I have classes straight til 7pm on Wednesdays, and it's like, running back and forth across campus all day, trying to grab a snack here or a coffee there to get through the day. It's exhausting and frustrating, and basically just come home, and crumple onto the couch defeated. This Wednesday when Casey came home from rehearsal he had a schnucks bag full of candy in one hand (kitkats and twix!) in one hand, and a long-stemmed rose in the other. It's creamy white with red-tipped petals - so pretty! And there was no special occasion - just because. I was so touched. I've really really been missing him recently what with him being in rehearsal and me in class, and doing a really romantic little thing like that just made me feel like, even though we haven't had much time together recently, I'm still really special to him and on his mind. It was sweet.
One last grand bit of the week - finally seeing this play festival Casey's been in! Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be good at all, because Casey's been talking down the quality all week. So when I went, I was really pleasantly surprised! There were 8 plays and I really enjoyed 5 of them. The dentist one was hilarious, and 10-minute Antigone was very very cleverly written and super entertaining. I was so impressed with Casey in the three plays he was in. I thought his performance as the over-eager actor in Antigone was wonderfully hilarious (his commedia training shines in that, his acting isn't lost just because he's wearing a mask!) and his physical comedy cracked me up in The Elopement, where he had to feign climbing a ladder and tumbling into his fiance's window. Overall I was very impressed with my talented husband. It was an entertaining show. And I got a good portion of my Latin homework done waiting for the show to start!
I think in general I'm exhausted, burnt out, and really sick of feeling like I'm constantly behind and playing catch-up on homework, research, TA work, apartment work.... ugh. I wish I could just pause life, catch up, and then stay caught up from there on out on all the crap that needs to get done. If I just didn't need sleep or relaxation time...
Bitching aside, the Manuscripta Conference held in the beautiful Pere-Marquette gallery was great these last two days. Yes, some boring presentations, (that's to be expected at a conference), and the majority were quite interesting. Today's favs included the guy who talked about the European adoption of Arabic numerals and a 'place-holding' system of mathematics in the 13th - 15th centuries, and Tomas's presentation on the frontispiece to Luke's Gospel in the Book of Kells. I think he may be just be a genius. The overall highlight of the conference was this brilliant lecture by Lawrence Nees that basically deconstructed the ethnic categories art historians use to discuss and classify medieval illuminations.
Nees is a wonderful speaker, very engaging and humorous. He argued that we should question assigning artistic styles/decoration to specific "races" - like, calling things "Germanic" or "Irish" art. He claimed that this theory and practice of classifying medieval art developed during the 1920s, when eugenics studies were classifying the 'races' of Europe, making connections between race ideas, and how these ideas are manifested in historical theory. He then argued that the iconography/style of a particular illumination doesn't necessarily have any relation to the ethnicity of the artist. He also showed that things we've typically called "barbarian germanic" or "barbarian irish" actually originate from Roman motifs. So we can't say they're indigenous designs of the germanic peoples. He advocates looking more into movement of specific artists/monks/people, and patterns of trade for understanding spread of artistic motifs, moving away from assigning styles to certain ethnicities /peoples. It was fascinating stuff, and incredibly persuasive, almost to the "duh" point, but because it was deconstructing the categories art historians cling to, they all freaked, especially the older ones.
What was most fun about Manuscripta was not seeing the excellent papers/lectures, but really getting to spend more time with Phil and Leah. I'm sad Leah had to go. I was kind of hoping she'd just stay... But after the conference last night it was wonderful to mingle and chat with everyone at the Cupples House reception, and then I was roped into a very fun dinner at Buffalo Grill with Leah, Phil, Dr. Acker, Megan, and Amy P. Interesting mix. I laughed a lot, but ended up feeling quite sick come bedtime from the fish and chips I ate... ugh did NOT sleep well. Didn't keep me from enjoying some more papers today though - I even sat in the back at the Manuscripta table with Phil. It's nice just to spend some time with Phil without all the other guys too for once. He's a cool guy. I took Leah to the airport today too, just to get some more chat time before she had to leave. I wish I'd talked about interesting research or something with her instead of just bitching about Madden and the CMRS and department drama.
So, I got out the bowl of grapes to eat... but I really just want another kit kat. I've developed a really strong attachment to kit kats this month.
My favorite night of the week was Wednesday. I have classes straight til 7pm on Wednesdays, and it's like, running back and forth across campus all day, trying to grab a snack here or a coffee there to get through the day. It's exhausting and frustrating, and basically just come home, and crumple onto the couch defeated. This Wednesday when Casey came home from rehearsal he had a schnucks bag full of candy in one hand (kitkats and twix!) in one hand, and a long-stemmed rose in the other. It's creamy white with red-tipped petals - so pretty! And there was no special occasion - just because. I was so touched. I've really really been missing him recently what with him being in rehearsal and me in class, and doing a really romantic little thing like that just made me feel like, even though we haven't had much time together recently, I'm still really special to him and on his mind. It was sweet.
One last grand bit of the week - finally seeing this play festival Casey's been in! Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be good at all, because Casey's been talking down the quality all week. So when I went, I was really pleasantly surprised! There were 8 plays and I really enjoyed 5 of them. The dentist one was hilarious, and 10-minute Antigone was very very cleverly written and super entertaining. I was so impressed with Casey in the three plays he was in. I thought his performance as the over-eager actor in Antigone was wonderfully hilarious (his commedia training shines in that, his acting isn't lost just because he's wearing a mask!) and his physical comedy cracked me up in The Elopement, where he had to feign climbing a ladder and tumbling into his fiance's window. Overall I was very impressed with my talented husband. It was an entertaining show. And I got a good portion of my Latin homework done waiting for the show to start!