Link

Adam Kotsko at The Weblog just posted this bit on the pro-life movement. Specifically, on how being against abortion does not, in fact, logically lead to being against the death penalty, but rather to an ever-greater (in his words) "instrumentaliz[ation of] the female body."

I don't really have anything to add to this at the moment (I've been trying, but am having trouble completing my sentences). It's an interesting post. I'll just leave it at that.

Hey! I'm working!

Wow! Look at that! Things Accomplished!

Yep, I've done three things today. Here's what they are:

1) Read over a friend's conference paper and gave her some feedback on it.
2) Read the paper for tomorrow's seminar. I even made some Notes and might have a Question for the speaker.
3) Caught up on my emailing.

Here's what I'll do for the rest of the day:

1) My last-ever teaching consultation! Hooray!
2) Finish reading an article from this really excellent collection I'm working through, in sort of a piecemeal fashion.
3) Go to yoga, most likely.
4) Print out the paper for tomorrow's seminar.
5) Look over the job announcements I've been collecting on my desktop, and decide which ones I'll actually apply for. Prioritize and possibly begin working on those applications.
6) Ummm...make some spaghetti, I think.

Ahh, yes. Productivity.

How much money fits...

...in the very ugly pig?

Answer: $96.24.

That's: 1,564 pennies; 373 nickels; 552 dimes; 3 quarters; 1 Sacajawea dollar; 3 one-dollar bills; and 1 two-dollar bill. Also 5 Canadian quarters, 1 Mexican coin, 1 Spanish coin, and 1 Turkish Lirasi.

(Isn't the pig ugly, though? My brother gave it to me years and years ago, because it was so ugly. And strange. It's a pig that's painted like a shoe that's painted like a pig. I can't explian it.)

By the way, do you like the environment that I created for the pig's photo shoot? The pig is very scholarly. Given its looks, it decided that cultivating brains would be a good bet.

Speaking of brains--one of these days it's possible that I'll actually use mine and start behaving in some kind of scholarly fashion again. It's been a really slow month.

Cuca la Praline and other Choses Bizarres

In my effort to cheer up and stop worrying this afternoon, I came across some poems that I wrote in the fourth grade. I went to a French school, so they're in French, which makes them funnier, I think. Below, I give you a bilingual edition of some choice excerpts edition (spelling and grammar are uncorrected):

Les choses bizzares
Sont dans mon placard,
Dans le noir
Mais le probleme vient
Quand ils doivent boire.
Ils boivent mes vetements,
Ils ne sont pas du tout lent,
Mais fortunatement,
Ils ne mangent pas.

(Weird things live in my pantry, in the dark, but the problem comes when they have to drink. They drink my clothes, they aren't at all slow, but fortunately, they don't eat.)

Le cerveau
est tres beau
et pres de Noel
c'est tres belle.

(The brain is very handsome, and, around Christmas, it's very beautiful.)

Perhaps my favorite thing, though, is an enigmatic reference to someone (or something) called "Cuca la Praline."

I am now wishing that that were my blogger identity. Man. How sweet would that be?

Worried.

After having a terrible time getting to sleep for the last four nights, I have to admit that I'm worried. Anxious, even.

I think I have some good reasons.

1. The job market. I can't say that I'm not sad, as well as worried, about my impending unemployment. I know that there's still time, etc etc, and I won't hear about the job that I interviewed for last week until early April, but as the end of the term gets closer and my phone remains stubbornly silent I can't help but feel a general, crushing weight of worry. And some sadness. I need some validation, here.

2. Money. This worry is intimately related to worry no. 1, but I feel that it deserves its own listing. I have exactly 5 more paychecks coming in, and my insurance policy expires in August. In the very very worst case, I know that I can probably teach comp as an adjunct somewhere, and probably scrape by with minimal credit card debt, provided I'm allowed to defer my student loan repayment until I get a real job. But that's not exactly an empowering thought.

3. There's a cat missing in my neighborhood. I know this cat--he's a really sweet and friendly little guy, and I've hung out with him a couple of times on my way home from campus. He's been missing for more than two weeks, which is not at all promising. This is not my cat; I don't even know the cat's owners; but I can't help but feel that everything will be better on the day when they take down all the flyers and I can hope that he's found his way home.

4. I recently bought some much-needed, very delightful new shoes, but the leather around the ankles is so stiff that wearing them is like wearing knives on my feet. I actually lay awake on Monday night in deep despair over these shoes. Which should break in eventually, I expect. But still.

Okay. That about covers it. Note that I'm not worried about my dissertation defense, or the upcoming conference. I suppose that my calm on those fronts is a good sign, since everything that I'm worried about at the moment is to some degree out of my control, while the things that are fully under my control are just fine.

I need something nice to do this afternoon.

Unaccountable Fatigue

There is no reason for me to be so tired. I can't even blame daylight savings: I slept from midnight until about 9:15. But there you go.

What I really want to do is go out and buy some beer, and then drink some of said beer. I'm resisting. So far. Because it's really awfully early.

Although I suppose I'm doing okay on the work front. I didn't put in an impressive number of hours today, but my conference paper is coming along pretty well. I'm trying to "write" it with only the absolute minimum of writing: i.e., I'm taking it from a dissertation chapter, and extracting as much as possible from my existing text. Even though it would probably be easier and faster for me to write new transitions, etc., as needed, I'm combing the chapter for recyclable sentences. At some point I will need to write a new conclusion, since the conference paper has rather a different focus from the chapter (it's amazing how the same prose can be used to make a different point), but that can wait.

I also did some reading today, and I should do some more of that, I guess. Because by "some," here, I mean like 6 pages. And that's pretty lame, I know. I know....

Today I Saw a Bluebird

I'm exhausted. I'm not teaching, so I can't complain; and I'm not actually complaining, but it was a long day. I had lots of teaching consultations (I observe grad students teaching and then give them feedback; yeah, I'm a qualified professional of some kind, apparently), a seminar in which a visiting Esteemed Faculty Member presented a highly theoretical paper full of terms I'd never actually heard before, and a long dinner with a bunch of friends and their young children.

Not a bad day, in the balance. But long. I'm glad to be bedward bound.

But mostly the weather has just been splendid, and I've seen a few crocuses (a little bedraggled, admittedly, but brave and hearty nonetheless). And a bluebird. And during the seminar, I sat with my back to a window, so I got to feel the sun warming me even when I was indoors.

Virtually every blog I read has had some kind of comment on the glory of the new springy weather, which has me thinking about how strongly it must affect everyone, and it's nice to think of people all over the country suddenly opening up to the sunshine and just generally feeling better.