random bits
I voted this morning, so I've done my civic duty, albeit probably at the lowest possible level. I am now waiting to see how the Dems manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory this time. Will the polls have been wrong? Or will we/they actually win and then sit and do nothing, allowing the Reps to continue doing whatever crap they've been doing for the last six years? Or will scumbag Dems get elected and then get caught with their pants down and/or their fingers in the till? Not that I'm cynical or anything.
I'm finally reading an author who has been recommended to me for years, but who I feared wrote "LIT-ra-chure" instead of something enjoyable like, oh, say fantasy or mystery. The author is Lee Smith, and I was convinced to read her because of a NoveList recommendation. The book I'm reading is not the specific one that was recommended-- I think that one may have had some elements of magical realism in it. Anyway, this one looked good when I was at the library so I picked it up. I started reading it last night and the first few pages had me wondering, but I told myself to give it a few more pages, and suddenly it was one in the morning. Damn. I'm reading The Devil's Dream which is set in the Tennessee mountains, and I swear, she can do the accent perfectly. I haven't heard some of these expressions for years-- people "rare back" and do something, and "plumb" is a synonym for "completely," and people "don't hold with" dancing or other evils of the flesh. What I find even more impressive is that I've read eight chapters, and each is narrated by a different member of the family, and written in a clearly different voice. I guess we can count this as another of my "discoveries" of something that I should have known long ago.
I also had a bright idea for another way to search for articles for my paper about parchment, so I've found a few more hints and clues. I think I"ll have to shift the focus of the paper just a touch but it'll work fine.
I got an email last night with the subject line "is it too late to drop 5180?" and at first almost didn't open it. I'm glad I did though; it was from one of the better students in the Public Libraries class who had just read the final exam questions. Heh. He'd addressed it to a half dozen of us, and I wrote back with the reassuring math about the relative (un)-importance of each question-- only 4 percent each of our final grade. That calmed us all. It was an entertaining thread.
Now I"m off to the neurologist's office for my semi-annual check up.
I'm finally reading an author who has been recommended to me for years, but who I feared wrote "LIT-ra-chure" instead of something enjoyable like, oh, say fantasy or mystery. The author is Lee Smith, and I was convinced to read her because of a NoveList recommendation. The book I'm reading is not the specific one that was recommended-- I think that one may have had some elements of magical realism in it. Anyway, this one looked good when I was at the library so I picked it up. I started reading it last night and the first few pages had me wondering, but I told myself to give it a few more pages, and suddenly it was one in the morning. Damn. I'm reading The Devil's Dream which is set in the Tennessee mountains, and I swear, she can do the accent perfectly. I haven't heard some of these expressions for years-- people "rare back" and do something, and "plumb" is a synonym for "completely," and people "don't hold with" dancing or other evils of the flesh. What I find even more impressive is that I've read eight chapters, and each is narrated by a different member of the family, and written in a clearly different voice. I guess we can count this as another of my "discoveries" of something that I should have known long ago.
I also had a bright idea for another way to search for articles for my paper about parchment, so I've found a few more hints and clues. I think I"ll have to shift the focus of the paper just a touch but it'll work fine.
I got an email last night with the subject line "is it too late to drop 5180?" and at first almost didn't open it. I'm glad I did though; it was from one of the better students in the Public Libraries class who had just read the final exam questions. Heh. He'd addressed it to a half dozen of us, and I wrote back with the reassuring math about the relative (un)-importance of each question-- only 4 percent each of our final grade. That calmed us all. It was an entertaining thread.
Now I"m off to the neurologist's office for my semi-annual check up.