Friday, May 16, 2003

Tonight my younger brother went to the Matrix Reloaded. Did I go? Of course not, I have better things to do than watch the film of the summer before anyone else at work does and spoils it for me in passing conversation. No, I went to the Medici exhibit at the DIA. Which I saw at Christmas in Chicago. And the sad thing is, I think I enjoyed the exhibit more than I would have enjoyed seeing the film, with or without my little brother. If Keanu himself had escorted me to the film, then perhaps I would have enjoyed that more, but the laws of reality do not permit such felicities..

More on this when I can keep my eyes open. Did I say I was going to blog on Georgette? I will get to it..

Thursday, May 15, 2003

"German and Italian historians, for lack of a nation, glorified the folk."

--Jacques Barzun, From Dawn To Decadence
Care of Andy's page.

Okay, fellow Nuns, anchoresses etc.. Discuss! Do you think he's right?

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Iris Gets Political Again

On the News Hour Today

According to The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Cholera has been found in Basra, and they still haven't fixed the water problems (This was mentioned on the TV version, I am not sure if its discussed in the Online version). This, in the 'good' city of Iraq. Security is okay, but obviously made problematic by the fact that the troops don't know, and have no training in languages of Iraq. Doesn't Rummy see we need a greater number of civil affairs-trained troops out there to do the job right? People on the street are griping for good reason, but sadly it will be six months to a year before those big US companies hire, train and ship people and supplies out to Iraq for the rebuilding effort. I wish that along with all those secret war activities Bush was doing, he had also been setting up secret rebuilding programs too, instead of just making 'plans,' to be put in place later.

Still, after I watched a mass grave of three thousand being unearthed, all of the dead killed after Gulf War I, I think our action in Iraq was long overdue.

Apparently some 40 Texas Democrats are thwarting the redistricting plan that blatantly favors Republicans by fleeing to Oklahoma, thus forcing the vote on the bill to be cancelled. More power to them.

Video footage of Bush talking about Robust tax cuts makes me wonder if he's selling beer . Great Taste, Less Filling! How can anyone not see his version of tax relief is aimed at people who have dividend taxes to pay-- people who are a lot more wealthy than me.

Welcome back, Sister Scarlett! I am so glad you were able to give a paper on lace in Slovakia and its nationalist overtones. All three of us seem to have a great interest in nationalism, and at least some of us have read chapters from 'Imagined Communities' perhaps too many times. I am now going to make up a calendar for the next few months with will involve placing the GRE down sometime in July.. I really don't think I will get to it before my brother's wedding. When I finish that I will prepare to apply for a masters program at the school of information in both library studies and museum studies. Apparently you can do both. I haven't told my mother this yet, so she continues to carp, making me feel about 18, but if I do tell her, it would be worse.

Good news on the wedding preparations(Not mine, thank god! An Abbess' life for me thankyou;)) : I had my dress refitted and now it looks just lovely, instead of a lump of melted blue moon ice cream on me. Well, more of a light metalic blue meltdown, but you know what I mean. There is actually a website devoted of bad bridesmaid dresses and the like, but I won't bother typing it in, its a one-joke wonder. I also had that little green dress i bought at Chartres fitted so the straps don't fall and it gives me a better figure. I may go back again and get some of my pants fixed so they hold to my waist. See the dangers of doing too many sit-ups?! Its damned expensive. I'm counteracting it by eating large chocolate chip cookies.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

My K-zoo hangover is finally beginning to lift. No, not alchoholic hangover, academic hangover. I may have sounded grouchy about my visit in the previous post, but in fact, I loved every minute of that conference. I loved the feeling of having a conversation over lunch about literature and history, using complete sentences without the word, 'like' appearing in any of them. I loved hearing other people express their love of learning not just by saying, "I really dig Beowolf," but by reading a paper they had spent hundreds of hours preparing.

For some reason the conference reminds me of a mideival jousting tourney(Andrea will probably shoot me down on this). These students and academics sought to prove their valor(and validity) in a public forum of their peers, which can be as cut throat as being thrown from a horse. This is especially true if you make the kind of mistakes that poor fantasy lit scholar did below. Then again you form friendships and alliances at this kind of conference which could help you in your future scholarly activities, or even in getting a job.

Now that I am home, I miss the hubbub. What do I have to look forward to this week? Weeding Ms. X's condo garden, work, and reading Georgette Heyer. More on her later.