The thing about Stacey is she's awesome.
I continue to catch glimpses of what my 570 could be like if I wanted to go all out. Do I? I don't know. Meanwhile I've been getting preppy catalogs, like L.L. Bean and Ross-Simons. They too are more fun to read than many more pressing texts.
I had a tremendous "oh shit" moment today when I showed up for Modern China and Elise didn't. Let's review: there are two students and a professor in that class. So if Elise doesn't show, and I do, that makes... one student and a professor. That's a terrifically unhealthy ratio, in case you were wondering, and technically a male professor can't even close his office door if he's meeting with a single female student. Compouding the difficulty, I had submitted write-ups for both of the week's books (there are five weeks left in the quarter, counting this one, and I was six reviews short of the quota), but he hadn't read them; our choices were 1) Rachel sits quietly while GH gets up to speed or 2) Rachel attempts to reproduce her book reviews orally for one-on-one criticism. Somehow we wound up doing (2).
When Elise showed up five minutes later, I very nearly killed and/or kissed her. Poor thing didn't even realize we'd started, and I dare say she was surprised by my enthusiasm. If she ever actually skips class I think I will fake a seizure. There were three points of interest, two from GH and one from RGIH (random girl in the hallway). GH on China's fallout with the USSR over Khruschev's secret speech: "They [China] continue to praise him [Stalin] because he's kind of a ruthless autocrat, and they're kind of into that." Read that last clause to yourself with the intonation of a guy who's trying to sound you out on the subject of kinky sex by telling you a clearly apocryphal story about a "friend" who did such a thing, and isn't that crazy haha ha but of course he'd never think about something like that [...expectant pause]. You might need to raise one or more eyebrows. Come on, don't be shy.
At some point during the class (I'm guessing around 3 PM, i.e. class change) a random girl stood in the hallway outside and sobbed, muffledly, for several minutes. We exchanged neither word nor glance on the subject, but I'm assuming it was not a hallucination.
Finally, Elise somehow got onto the subject of her thesis. [Recall if you will their rather lengthy battle over the usefulness of post-modernism (he pro, she against), which ended with both sides convinced of their right(eous)ness.] She was rather innocently explaining the uses of early nationalist rhetoric in later constructions of "the scientific community," or some such, when GH trapped her into admitting (that is exactly the right image) that she was planning to analyze texts in a way that's distinctly post-modern and I TOLD YOU POST-MODERNISM IS AWESOME BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Seriously, he was so gleefully victorious that I came within a bit tongue of announcing FIVE POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR.
570 met today for the first time in several weeks, and although I remembered to go to class I didn't even think to check whether we had readings, which of course we did. But half the meeting was taken up by a visiting professor's expert testimony on publishing in journals (he's on the staff of the Journal of African History). When it came time to discuss the readings, we did a small-group exercise; between the four of us, we'd read some some some and none of the assignment, and nevertheless came down firmly that if such an article had been submitted to us, we would have straight-up rejected it. In terms of academic pride it ranked a bit below watching Northrop & co. skim articles during 10-minute conference breaks, but that's the last of the assigned readings for that course. Now I just have to write my own.
The point of mentioning the 570 meeting is that the tables were arranged terribly oddly today, in two facing u's with a single unit in between. Somehow there were not enough chairs, either. When James walked in all the logical seats were already taken, so Victor pointed to the center table and said, "You're in the mush pot." Also, while discussing the style sheets of various journals, Prof. Roberts let drop that the quotation-mark-then-period arrangement is British. It's always my first impulse, and I'm glad to know I didn't make it up entirely. Still wrong in America, though. Finally, the radiators in Harris 313 audibly respire with a distinct huh... hahhhhhhh.....huh...hahhhhh.... sound that had me playing hunt-the-asthmatic for several moments, behind half-closed eyes. Then I realized I was hearing an appliance and there was no need for subtlety.
There is the very faintest dusting of snow on the ground, a combination of a tiny amount of snow last night and an equally wee flurry this evening. As you can imagine it's pretty cold as well, even in my apartment. Since my fan has not spontaneously come back to life, I'm rather relieved. I was feeling pretty ridiculous sleeping under a sheet in February.
I had a tremendous "oh shit" moment today when I showed up for Modern China and Elise didn't. Let's review: there are two students and a professor in that class. So if Elise doesn't show, and I do, that makes... one student and a professor. That's a terrifically unhealthy ratio, in case you were wondering, and technically a male professor can't even close his office door if he's meeting with a single female student. Compouding the difficulty, I had submitted write-ups for both of the week's books (there are five weeks left in the quarter, counting this one, and I was six reviews short of the quota), but he hadn't read them; our choices were 1) Rachel sits quietly while GH gets up to speed or 2) Rachel attempts to reproduce her book reviews orally for one-on-one criticism. Somehow we wound up doing (2).
When Elise showed up five minutes later, I very nearly killed and/or kissed her. Poor thing didn't even realize we'd started, and I dare say she was surprised by my enthusiasm. If she ever actually skips class I think I will fake a seizure. There were three points of interest, two from GH and one from RGIH (random girl in the hallway). GH on China's fallout with the USSR over Khruschev's secret speech: "They [China] continue to praise him [Stalin] because he's kind of a ruthless autocrat, and they're kind of into that." Read that last clause to yourself with the intonation of a guy who's trying to sound you out on the subject of kinky sex by telling you a clearly apocryphal story about a "friend" who did such a thing, and isn't that crazy haha ha but of course he'd never think about something like that [...expectant pause]. You might need to raise one or more eyebrows. Come on, don't be shy.
At some point during the class (I'm guessing around 3 PM, i.e. class change) a random girl stood in the hallway outside and sobbed, muffledly, for several minutes. We exchanged neither word nor glance on the subject, but I'm assuming it was not a hallucination.
Finally, Elise somehow got onto the subject of her thesis. [Recall if you will their rather lengthy battle over the usefulness of post-modernism (he pro, she against), which ended with both sides convinced of their right(eous)ness.] She was rather innocently explaining the uses of early nationalist rhetoric in later constructions of "the scientific community," or some such, when GH trapped her into admitting (that is exactly the right image) that she was planning to analyze texts in a way that's distinctly post-modern and I TOLD YOU POST-MODERNISM IS AWESOME BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Seriously, he was so gleefully victorious that I came within a bit tongue of announcing FIVE POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR.
570 met today for the first time in several weeks, and although I remembered to go to class I didn't even think to check whether we had readings, which of course we did. But half the meeting was taken up by a visiting professor's expert testimony on publishing in journals (he's on the staff of the Journal of African History). When it came time to discuss the readings, we did a small-group exercise; between the four of us, we'd read some some some and none of the assignment, and nevertheless came down firmly that if such an article had been submitted to us, we would have straight-up rejected it. In terms of academic pride it ranked a bit below watching Northrop & co. skim articles during 10-minute conference breaks, but that's the last of the assigned readings for that course. Now I just have to write my own.
The point of mentioning the 570 meeting is that the tables were arranged terribly oddly today, in two facing u's with a single unit in between. Somehow there were not enough chairs, either. When James walked in all the logical seats were already taken, so Victor pointed to the center table and said, "You're in the mush pot." Also, while discussing the style sheets of various journals, Prof. Roberts let drop that the quotation-mark-then-period arrangement is British. It's always my first impulse, and I'm glad to know I didn't make it up entirely. Still wrong in America, though. Finally, the radiators in Harris 313 audibly respire with a distinct huh... hahhhhhhh.....huh...hahhhhh.... sound that had me playing hunt-the-asthmatic for several moments, behind half-closed eyes. Then I realized I was hearing an appliance and there was no need for subtlety.
There is the very faintest dusting of snow on the ground, a combination of a tiny amount of snow last night and an equally wee flurry this evening. As you can imagine it's pretty cold as well, even in my apartment. Since my fan has not spontaneously come back to life, I'm rather relieved. I was feeling pretty ridiculous sleeping under a sheet in February.