What you get...

It's never been a good idea to be smug, or to announce that you feel smug. If you do, then the universe knows to knock the wind out of your sails.

I didn't know or follow the Spohrs and I cannot imagine the depth of their grief. I'm in tears just sitting here and knowing and seeing the pain of so many people I read.

Smug

Smug is exactly how I feel. It's ridiculous that I should feel this good about doing something I am actually supposed to do EVERYDAY! Seriously, people I just need to write this damned thing.

Oooh and tonight I get to go see Neko Case. It's the first concert I've been to in 7 years. How sad is that?

Excuse me while I go read some comp theory.

Unsung

Today I realized that I don't give the kittehs enough quality blog time.

The longest day...

There've been longer days. There are days I've spent more time on campus, but man this day feels long. The good part is that when I finally go home...two hours from now I will get to cross a couple of things off my to do list. Woo Hoo.

Today, I actually had time to leave the building for an hour. I'm not sure if that was good or not. Maybe I wouldn't feel so trapped in here if I'd never left.

The love of my life...

I tried to get a good shot of how tall this guy is right now, but he moves to much.





This shot was just too cute. I usually can't get his eyes.

Randomness

There is stuff floating around in my ether, but I don't feel motivated to write whole posts.

• It's impossible to walk two dogs at once.
• Moshe is all legs. It makes him gonky like a teenage boy.
  
• Is there a way to save BYRadio shows to my ipod?
• If I am home all the time, why is the house such a mess? Really.
• Why can't I write what I'm supposed to?
  
• I want money to open a drive-through coffee stand. (I know the perfect spot.)
• I read all day yesterday and still feel like I could put the book down at any moment.
  
• In my head I've cast myself and Noah Wylie. Watching the ER finale made me remember how cute he is.
• I need a themed-day, but I don't know what yet. You know, like Wordless Wednesday or something, but no pictures- at least no pictures of me.
  
• My own professionalism or lack thereof.
• What do I really believe about my little corner of this profession? How would I articulate myself to search committees?

Late to the Conversation....

Dr. Heidi posted a link to Thomas H. Benton's Chronicle article about turning prospective graduate students away from the humanities. While I agree with Dr. Heidi that Benton's dismissal of emotion is problematic I would NEVER encourage anyone to go to graduate school.

The woeful state of the job market is just the most rational reason not to enter this profession. Every other reason has to do with the fact that at one point in my life I loved to learn for the sake of learning. During the MA portion of my program that love was fostered and grew. During the last four years the life has been slowly and surely sucked out of my love of learning.

Sure, I went in to this project a little naive, but everyone does. It's impossible to understand the realities of graduate school until you live them. What Benton doesn't seem to realize is that the "rhetoric of sentimentality" is not about the "love of graduate school" and does not stem from a position of naivite or privilege.

As I believe I've discussed before Ouiser and I are working class girls. Getting to this point in our lives was neither easy nor expected of us. We routinely sit on my deck and talk ourselves out of throwing our hands up and quitting. We are torn because this pursuit forces us to make painful choices regarding our family, choices no one 'privileged' would have to make. We stick with it because we are stubborn old Cajun women (one of us truly Cajun and the other adopted). We stick with it because we enjoy at least part of what we do. We are not naive. We are not privileged. We cling to 'loving' what we do because it is all we have left. We speak about it all 'sentimentally' because it is the only lie we have left to tell ourselves.