Aaaaand I just sent in my proposal to give a paper at the 2015 Medieval Academy of America meeting - Woohoo! Here's hoping it's accepted. Even if it's not, it was such a good exercise to revisit the arguments I'd made in a previous paper that I hope to develop into an article for publication. A conference presentation of the ideas would be a ( Read more... )

First Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies at SLU went really well! My favorite conference bits included hearing Peter Brown's plenary lecture in which he compared Christianity to both Starbucks and recreational drug use, the souvenir wine glasses carried most creatively by Phil, the well-organized but nevertheless competitive ( Read more... )

I spent so much time writing this up (and turned it in today!) that I figured I should post it here - WHY I want to work out of the SLU Madrid campus in the Spring! This was for a grant in the history department. This trip is not going to be cheap - keep your fingers crossed that they find it worth funding!

Trip Reasons and Justifications

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SLU hosted the Medieval Academy of America conference this week - while not as large as Kalamazoo as far as medieval conferences go, it is FAR more important and pretentious. Hah! I helped set up and work the welcome table, passing out badges and folders and such. But mostly we just did whatever Teresa needed us grad students to do in order to pull ( Read more... )

http://www.medievalists.net/ aka, My New Favorite Website - very well done and interesting without being overspecialized or poorly organized (as so many medievalist sites are). I wish I had several million dollars lying around so I could buy one of these awesome castles for sale... Someday!

In other news, my parker presentation went really well, ( Read more... )

I got my paper down to 10.5 pages, and as per his request, have sent it to my advisor to peruse. I'm hoping he says "looks good, don't change a thing" because I have no energy to do more at this point.
Time to go lay on the couch and watch tv and or take a quick nap. Tonight I must tackle 1492!

It is very hard to turn a 25 page paper into a 7-10 page presentation. With all this cutting and pasting and reorganizing, I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to rewrite the dang thing. I've been at it for a few hours now and I've gotten it down to 16 pages, which I suppose is progress, but still! gah!

I think the question I need to keep asking ( Read more... )

So today I had very little to do on campus today. Just hear a lecture with my students, and chat briefly with some professors. It didn't seem necessary to look super professional, so I wore my favorite jeans. It's cold and blustery today, which was such a disappointment after enjoying yesterday's warm sun while walking in the Park on Casey's ( Read more... )

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence ( Read more... )

Hm. I'm thinking brownie batter might be the perfect accompaniment to my research on this cold, blustery, snowy St. Louis day. My trip to the library's out. Might as well hole up with books and comfort food! Gotta love break ( Read more... )