Just Curious

How hard do I get to kick a kid whose first creative writing assignment is handed in today

A) in the wrong language
a) in a class for English credit, and

B) fully plagiarized
b) in one of those totally obvious, pop-rock lyric kinda ways.


I mean, will I have to wait to get a purple belt or something?

Catastrophe Avoided, Stay Tuned for Possible Impending Disaster

All the traveling about searching for employment has taken quite a toll on my finances. In the past 8 weeks I have gone from regular poor to scary poor, and finding summer jobs in Microburg is like trying to win the lottery. At first you imagine all the fun you'll have with your clerk job, and paycheck enough to buy the fancy noodles. But, alas, the clerk job always seems to go to someone else, someone less deserving, less in need. Frankly, you begin to think that dude with the summer job doesn't even really exist. He's a hologram the job people have put up to trick you. There never was a job! They just wanted you to fill out their paperwork! Soylent Green is People!

Anyway, just before I began looking about for places to sell blood, I received a panicked phone call. Someone who agreed to teach this summer backed out, leaving full classes about to start and nobody to teach them. Heo, are you interested, can you help? I thought about it for a bit, examined the peanut butter and jelly in the pantry, and considered the 1/4 tank of gas in the SS Bankruptcy, and agreed.

When the checks roll in, there will be plenty of fuel for me and the SS Bankruptcy both. With the remains I shall buy an island and crown myself queen! Huzzah, Huzzah, Huzzah!

One problem. Summer teaching backer-outer signed up for Three (3) intensive courses. Which begin Monday.

Stay tuned for short, incoherent ramblings disguised as blog posts.*


* Yes, more incoherent than usual. Smartass.

Thinking Blogger Award

Bardiac nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award. Thanks, Bardiac!


And, as usual, this post comes right on schedule, two weeks after it was promised. Argh!

I'm especially honored to have this nod from Bardiac, because in her blog I find the work of one of those people who manages to be both inspirational and a somehow steadying force simultaneously. And then she adds intelligent, informed, insightful and generous to the mix and you can't even hate her for having her stuff together. I hate that. But I totally wanna be Bardiac when I grow up.

So, onto my choices. I have not been able to properly track who has these awards already, so if I have doubled a name, I apologize.

Oh, hell, I only get five?

Mixing Memory - Chris writes a very good cognitive science blog, in which he often explains the complicated processes we go through in our everyday thinking. And he even has footnotes quite often. So, I've started with blogger who writes about his thinking in response to the thinking of others about the act of thinking itself, which, when presented in blogular form, I now say will cause the reader to think on their own in response. How many "metas" is that?

Ancrene Wiseass - AW is a medievalist graduate student who writes beautifully about many topics, medieval and modern alike. I especially enjoy her posts on negotiating the demands of actual life and of graduate study simultaneously. It was in reading AW's blog that I realized that a grad student really could be a graceful contributor to the world of electronic words.

Karl "the Grouchy Medievalist" Steel - Even before he joined Jeffrey Jerome Cohen at In the Middle, Karl was tearing up the intertubes with insightful, provocative, and informative comments on other folks' blogs. So much so that when he joined JJC, I did a little computer-chair jig at the thought of more access to Karl-ian thoughts. He has not disappointed.

Squadratomagico - Somehow manages to live not just an ordinary real personal life outside of the academy, but her blog suggests that she's living an AMAZING personal life outside the academy. I love the stories, and her academic insights, but mostly I'm lurking around over there trying to figure out how she does it.

Lady Bracknell - The Perorations of Lady Bracknell, as you might imagine, are as august and aristocratic as is the lady herself. In her electronic editorials -- for who would dare call them anything as vulgar as 'blog posts'? -- Lady Bracknell does her best to rid the world of the unfortunate beliefs and practices of disablism, misogyny,* and all-around block-headedness.

*Aristocrats get the oxford comma. I read that in the rule books, I'm sure. Tiaras, white gloves, and oxford commas.

The rules for this meme are at the original post, or just below.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

I Can Has Dignity?

If it seems like every other post includes an apology for my absence plus an explanation thereof, well, that's because that's been the pattern around here.

I'm sorry for being such a lackadaisical blogger.

But, man, do I have stories for you.

I have been on many road trips the past few weeks, in search of gainful employment, and oh! the places I've gone!

With brains in my head,
and feet in my shoes,
and gas in my tank,
I went off to peruse.

I began close to home,
not far did I roam,
to another burg that is micro,
as was the salary, alas!
proposed by the ass,
drat! I haven't a rhyme pair for micro.

Then overnight was the trip,
past bridges and tunnels and ships,
that brought me to a safe haven.
But after the second session,
we all learned our lessons,
and I knew it was time to be leavin'.

(Three cheers for sloppy rhyme! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!)

I stopped home for refreshments,
sleep, food, and a change of vestments,
and drove to a town by another great water.
The water was swell,
I gave Canada a yell,
But was not hired for lack of a daughter.

(I'm not kidding. They prefer their women married with children up there. I was told this expressly. They are clearly not Heo-ready. )

Another stop home for a drink and a nap,
then off I went again, white-knuckling the map.
I took the road out of microburg, and then a quick left,
and saw men in straw hats drive horses of considerable heft.
Amish, where they ought not to have been!
And the house of a minor president!
And a nudist colony!
All in the same small town.
Right on the way to my meeting.
I must now confess,
Although Johannes and Georg were dressed,
imaginings of them as nudists weren't fleeting.

Off to a beauteous town I continued,
where I lost my breath often,
but kept control of my sinew.
Welawey! Say I now,
for I was so desperately cowed,
that I could not give a coherent interview.

And finally, this past week,
Off south again I hent,
past the place where the sight of Amish one expects.
But they weren't there,
and the meeting was bare,
just a secretary and a recording device,
and one Heo, vexed.

Northeast a bit, too.
To a ridiculous zoo,
run by my natural enemy.
A short, squat man,
holding his chest unnaturally convex,
and a major dux bellorum complex,
that I watched kick in,
while supressing a grin,
as I rose when he came in the office.

And the cost of this traveling,
on mind, body and purse,
has been quite enormous,
though less so in verse.

Unemployed I remain,
whether I like it or not.
More travel and meetings
in which I try hard not to be trying.
More questions,
both silly and not,
and, I fear,
a few more Saturdays crying.

But on Sundays, I'm rested,
not so easily perplexed-ed,
and I remember medievalist training.
Patience, indeed,
Perseverance, too,
and eventually stuff won't be so draining!