The Beadbonny Ash

So I was having this dream last night that I was at a Regency-era house party because one of the daughters of the house was getting married. I was feeling slightly left-out because they kept doing activities that I didn't know anything about, but it was rather fun anyway, and we were about to eat--and then the zombies showed up. I was like, "Seriously? Now this is going to turn into a nightmare and a stress dream and I was having SO MUCH FUN!" Plus the house totally wasn't zombie-proof--big windows on the ground floor with no shutters, and the zombies were organized--they were linked up like an army and they had CANNONS. Didn't turn out too badly; we managed to cut the zombies' heads off, and Angel showed up and turned out to kind of be my boyfriend, so that was a bit of a consolation prize, but I was annoyed for the rest of the dream. Danged zombies.

(This is what I get for watching so much Angel and reading a Regency romance about a wedding right before bed.)

When a god and newly fired
Cupid from the furnace came
He thought all humankind desired
To call upon his holy name.

He thought the prayer all men were praying
Was to have their will and way
Till he heard what they were saying:
"Cupid, do please go away!"

(I liked it better at five AM than I do now lol)

So i had my advising meeting today, and we hashed stuff out.
1. i only have ONE CLASS left to take. so i'm going to take one in the spring, which means next semester I HAVE NO CLASSES HALLELUJAH (though i will be studying for comps and teaching).
2. for my comps exam, i have to an "area of specialization" section and a "literary tradition" section. So i'm going to do the literary tradition on the fanfiction tradition (squee!!), and i'm going to do the area of specialization on the long eighteenth century (british) so i can actually get a job. :P
3. i don't need to have four committee members. so i'm keeping the two guys on pop lit and i'm adding the dept head (she's an 18th c scholar, AND she understands what i'm doing with intertextuality in the 18th century) and i can drop the guy who's working on sympathy in 19th c amer lit.

this means that beginning this summer, i'm going to be studying things i'm actually interested under the direction of people i like who are supportive of my project. in the fall i'll be teaching two courses and studying under my own initiative. in the spring i'll be teaching one course, taking one course, and studying under my own initiative. then i've got the summer to finish studying and i take the comps test in september '14. then i have two full years of tuition remission/stipend to work on my dissertation (while teaching)--and i don't think it'll take me two full years to write my diss, since i've got so much of it figured out already, and i'll be taking notes for it all through studying for my comps.

THIS IS AWESOME, YOU GUYS.

HOME FOR BREAK!!! Have petted kittehs to my heart's content. Got cortisone shot in one wrist yesterday; seems to be helping, tho I did have some trouble with driving so far. Avoiding typing much.

Got officially diagnosed with carpal tunnel yesterday. Going to do some occupational therapy, and tomorrow I'm going to have a blood test to make sure it's not caused by diabetes or hypothyroidism. I forgot to ask if it could be caused by shoulder stress, since I have crazy-tight shoulder muscles. Meanwhile, trying to rest my arms as much as possible--I'm off to sit still and watch some youtube. :)

I was at a tea party the other day, hosted by a member of my Bible study. There were women there from the Bible study, as well as from the English as a second language department at the university. We all got to talking about what we were doing for spring break, and I said I was going home to Pennsylvania. One of the girls there, who is, I think, Russian, asked where in Pennsylvania. I said Sburg. She lit up and exclaimed, "Sburg!" I said "Yeah, have you been there?" She goes, "I went to Wilson College!"

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Turns out she was an international student there the year I was a freshman! We managed to find a couple of names we both recognized. She said, "You know, the first time I met you I THOUGHT you looked familiar!"

Haven't updated in more than a month. Feel like I should.

I've got three presentations coming in the next two weeks, so things have been crazy around here for a couple of weeks--I've been snatching as much time as I can to work on them. I've gotten to the point now where I'm not even sure what days I'm presenting on, just what weeks things are due.

One thing that went a little wonky: I had written down that I was doing a presentation on criticism of "The Woman Who Did" (1890s novel) in two weeks. So I did most of the work. Then in class the prof mentioned that we're reading The Woman Who Did NEXT week, and The Woman Who Didn't the FOLLOWING week. So I asked her to check when I was supposed to present, and I was supposed to work on The Woman Who Didn't! And I was like, "Oh, no! I already did all the work for The Woman Who Did!" Luckily, the girl who was supposed to present on The Woman Who Did was like, "Well, we'll just switch then. Because I haven't done any of the work yet" (bless her). And then one of our classmates was like, "You're going to switch because SHE's The Woman Who Did and YOU'RE The Woman Who Didn't!" It was pretty great.

Thankfully, the week immediately following all this insanity is spring break, so I'll get to go home, play with kittehs, and relax a bit. Oh, and buy my bridesmaid dress. Wonder if I can get Mom to come along shopping with me...?

Meanwhile, there's a masquerade blues dance tonight (yaaay!) that is so poorly placed in town that there's almost no parking and I'm going to have to walk. In my dress. (nooooo) Might wear pants or something under it until I get there...

omg i'm rereading the fic I wrote freshman year about middle earth characters coming to wilson college and there are SO MANY little details of college life i'd forgotten!
--one of the water levers on the water cooler thing in the dining hall used to squirt water sideways so you always had to use the other one
--you needed a four digit code to get the elevator to go to the dorm levels in mac/dave
--megan used to get mad if we called her vertically challenged, and would insist instead that she was "energy efficient"
--the dining hall food was plentiful and various freshman year, but pretty nasty
--the girls used to drive down to ship and party on "frat row"
--that guy in the dishroom who had a golden tooth and a crush on me
--liz used to refer to the nastier girls in the equestrian program as "eque-bitches"
--we used to call kim, an upperclassman who lived on our floor, "kimpossible"
--typical exchange between me and megan:
megan: where are my shoes?
ash: i ate them.
--omg away messages on AIM. i had forgotten they existed.
--and oh my gosh my main character uses a floppy disk. this was only eight years ago!

mostly, i had forgotten what freshman year felt like: we used to go down the hall and get our friends and all go to meals together, and all drive to walmart together, and do our homework together... now i do my homework and eat almost all of my meals alone. :/ i kinda miss it.

I've done a lot today.
* Did my homework (most of it--I can do the rest tomorrow afternoon)
* Did my copying
* Taught first class of the semester
* Got a form from the registrar
* Got some of my textbooks
* Went to Walmart and got new sneakers (found a pair I liked on the FIRST TRY YOU GUYS THIS IS A MIRACLE) and a calendar
* Filled out form from registrar
* Paid semester bill to the Uni

and now I feel like I should be doing something instead of sitting on my computer.

...Perhaps write fanfic?

My bio people will love this. A six-page fan-letter to JK Rowling in the form of a paper on wizarding genetics. Reminds me so much of those fake term papers kadaria put on Dr. Fisher's door one year for Senior Night! :D