Now my empty cup is as sweet as the punch

Those of you who read Chris's blog know that we have a cell phone data plan for the month, thanks to Chris's ring tone that would have cost us $175 if we hadn't immediately signed up for a data plan on the same day.  So, Chris has been encouraging me to go through my music library and pick a song or two that could serve as ring tones, so that we take full advantage of the data plan this month.  (And so that he won't have to say he spent $20 to get one ring tone.)

So. I've been trying to decide what to use.  I've been subjecting everything to the "what if my phone rings while I'm on the bus, or around people from the department" test: I'm trying to decide on something not too stereotyped, something loud enough that I'll actually hear it when it's in my purse, and something that wouldn't embarrass me if my phone rang while I was on the bus (so, no Glee soundtrack). 

I'm thinking about using "Along Comes Mary" by the Association.  What do you think?

(Alternate ideas: "C'mon Marianne" by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons, "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," by Paul Simon.)

(Okay, so the one that I'd really love is "The Girls of Rock 'n Roll" from The Chipmunks Adventure, but I'm pretty sure that any Chipmunks song wouldn't hold up to the "doesn't embarrass me in front of people from my department" test.)

I need your help! Suggestions?

Calling all (current and former) dissertators

Today I officially start writing my first chapter. Okay, it will actually end up being Chapter Six in the dissertation itself, but I apparently feel the need to write this thing in reverse order. (Except for the fact that the introduction is all but written, in pieces here and there.) But it's the first chapter that I'm attempting to write.

And I've been trying to figure out my plan of attack. When I wrote my MA thesis, I treated each chapter as if I was writing a 25-30 page essay, although since the whole thing was fewer than 100 pages long (with a considerably smaller body of source material), I could keep track of it all as if it was also one work. This time, it's overwhelming me a little. I have so much research material, and it's not all carefully separated according to chapter, and I've been collecting this stuff for more than a year now. I guess it's also a little overwhelming because most of the research is on my computer, which is new for me. I'm used to having a little stack of books beside me, with little bookmarks in them, and having few enough sources that in my head I can keep track of who said what. That's not possible now (and wasn't really possible when I was writing my MA thesis, meaning that I spent hours upon hours searching books trying to track down and vaguely-remembered-and-noted quotation; this is why I now have my OneNote system.)

So, I'm feeling a little intimidated by it all. What do/did you do? What worked/s for you? How do I break this down into manageable pieces without losing sight of the work as a whole?

(I mostly know how to handle the other anxieties and guilt feelings, especially the infamous "You're in the second semester of your fifth year, and you're JUST starting to write a chapter now, and your friends are getting through this faster, and no one is ever going to want to hire you" self-sabotaging thoughts.)

Looking for feedback on cameras

One of the thoughts that's occupying my mind lately is the question of what kind of camera I should get before I go to Germany in October. This is something that I do when I know I'll be buying a new piece of technology sometime in the next year: I start researching early, pick out what I want, and then watch sales and start saving over the next six months to a year. I'd picked out this computer that I have a year before I bought it, and then knew when the cheapest time to buy was (for Dell laptops, it's the sale right BEFORE the back-to-school sales).

I'm going to be using a camera as much as possible when I do my archival research next winter. Whenever archives let me take photos of documents, rather than make me pay for photocopies, I'll take pictures and then use text recognition so that I can search for specific documents on my computer and keep track of them. My current (three-year-old 4.1 megapixel Sony point-and-shoot) can't handle that task: not only is it on the brink of dying, but also it can't handle the possible low-light situations (there's a good chance I'll have to do a bunch of this without a flash), nor can it do any sort of close-ups.

Originally, I thought I wanted a some sort of fancy Digital SLR. However, I'm re-thinking that for a couple of reasons:
1. Considering that it'll be a tight squeeze already to get enough funding/possible student loan to pay for this trip, for rent in two places, and for (hopefully) Chris to come and visit me at Christmas, I can't see how I will be able to come up with at least $500 for a DSLR.
2. More importantly than that, nearly all DSLRs are too big for me to be lugging around every day to archives, along with my laptop and my German dictionary. I need to think about keeping things light and portable with this trip.
3. Quite honestly, I'm useless with manual settings on cameras. I need a camera that has good automatic settings where I just have to choose where the camera focuses and make minor (pre-set) adjustments for lighting. That's pretty much my limit, and I'm not going to have time to learn more than that in the same time as I'm madly writing my dissertation and trying to learn a second language.

My main wish list looks like this: not too big, uses rechargeable AA batteries, uses a memory card that I can use in my computer's card reader (so, preferably SD or MMC), and a combination of being good with low-light settings and hopefully some kind of image stabilization.

I did a bunch of research on Imaging Resource, and I think this might be my answer: the Canon Powershot SX110 IS. The Imaging Resource review was ridiculously positive (it's one of the "Dave's Picks" cameras, and the reviewer talks about how he usually is a bit hesitant to recommend a point-and-shoot, but that this one is actually fantastic) and it seems to do absolutely everything I need it to do.

So, to anyone out there who knows anything about cameras: is this the right choice for me? What are your thoughts?

Food question for you all

I first heard about this from my brother: he was traveling through the US and ordered a hamburger. They asked him how he'd like it done, and his confused response was, "Uh, cooked all the way through, considering the fact that it's made of ground beef?"

Since then, I've encountered cooking shows and other American shows that reference hamburgers being done "medium" or "rare," and this makes me wonder: is this common? Are your hamburgers made of something where there isn't a risk of E.Coli? I've always learned that you can only do that with non-ground forms of beef, but that ground beef has to be cooked completely through because it has all had contact with the air and the outside and all that.

I just looked it up on Wikipedia, and it looks like the US has the same food safety laws as we do, which state that ground beef has to be cooked to 160F, or else you risk bacterial contamination (and I guess that's just medium-well done rather than well done).

...Actually, I just Wikipediaed "Hamburger," and they say that for safety's sake hamburgers should be cooked the 170F, or "well done," but also acknowledge that you can cook hamburgers to any amount of doneness.

So, what's the deal, Americans? Are you eating hamburgers made from non-ground steak or something? Are you just risking e.coli? (And this isn't just a "using raw eggs in frosting"-level of risk here.) Is this actually legal? Do Canadians actually offer this and I just don't know about this? (I have strong doubts about that, considering that I know it would pretty much be illegal to offer not-well-done hamburgers in restaurants here in BC.) I'm seriously curious about this.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Thinking ahead

Now that I'm at the stage of figuring out all those "one last things" that have to happen before I write my exams, I've finally let myself think concretely about how I'm going to spend my time after my exams are done.

Yes, I know that I'm pretty much going to have to launch immediately into German review and grant applications, thanks to all the extra time I've taken with my reading. But that's beside the point. I will need to take some sort of a break, and I will need to plan on doing something before I start into the dissertation stage. Something that I can look forward to, as I trudge through my long list of "one last things" and nervously await those exams.

I've had one idea: after I clear out all those library books from my shelves, I'm going to do an overhaul of my library. I bought some books at a used book sale last weekend, and as I tried to put them away, I realised that my old organisation system seems to have flown out the window in the past year. My books are everywhere! Willy-nilly! Also, I seem to own more books than I have room in my bookcases, but I don't have room for more bookcases. Which means that I need to start evaluating what gets priority bookcase space, and what gets either given away or stored in boxes.

I'm going to revolutionise my office. The thought thrills me. (It will probably also thrill Chris, who is daily driven crazy by the state of our office.)

I'm also trying to pick the first "fun book" that I let myself read, post-comps. Any suggestions?

So...

Guess why I'm in Vancouver right now.

Update on Tuesday morning: Ding ding ding ding! Dixie for the win! Right down to knowing that the baby hasn't been born yet! (Okay, I know that she probably also knew some of those details thanks to the magic of Facebook...)

Technical Help Needed

I made a video, using the webcam in my laptop, of a robot that Chris built over the weekend. Now, those of you who know Chris are saying at this moment, "Of course Chris built a robot over the weekend." You will especially be saying that when you learn that this robot was built with the purpose of distributing papers at staff meetings. And that he made it look like a Decepticon.

We made a video of the robot in action, but our camera's in Vancouver right now and so we had to use the webcam. The webcam made an .avi file, which we can watch on my computer in RealPlayer and Windows Media Player. (Quicktime doesn't like it.) But I can't get it to upload to either Blogger or YouTube. Well, it uploads, but then has an error in "processing." YouTube actually pretends to upload and process it, but then when I try to play it, it just plays a quick succession of the first and final stills.

...help? What am I doing wrong? Does anyone know anything about video files?

My somewhat-secret plan for Saturday

On Saturday night I'm going to my department's Beginning of the Year Party. Every other year I've missed it because I've been in Saskatchewan. It's going to be my chance to meet several of the new grad students, the post-docs and the new hires.

And I will play an inward game, as I meet and greet: "Who here is most likely to be a pseudonymous blogger?"

(It will be a variation on a game that my friends and I used to play, entitled "Judge a Book By Its Cover," in which we'd make up stories about the people passing by.)

Of course, I won't ask them. And there's a good chance that I'll be wrong. But what characteristics should I be looking for?

Seeking: unscented shampoo and conditioner

I've finally given in. My Dove shampoo and conditioner are too heavily scented for me to handle, and they're why I've been having trouble breathing. Dove was also the least scented of the I-can-buy-it-for-cheap-at-Superstore shampoo and conditioner.

This drives me crazy. I can buy laundry detergent, lotion, facial cleanser, antiperspirant, and hairspray that doesn't have perfume. I am thankful for that. But, for some reason, the only unscented shampoo I can find easily and could buy in the city costs $30 for 500ml. That is so not cool. (Also: I hate being so limited on unscented detergent. Thank you, Tide, for giving me the options of powder or liquid. Now, how about Cold Water? Why do you have to market Cold Water with its heavy scent? Gah, I hate perfume.*)

Do you have any recommendations? I'm looking for shampoo and conditioner that works, that doesn't cost a fortune, and that is completely unscented. And I don't mean "only natural scents": lavender also makes me stop breathing. (Okay, I don't mind if it smells like oatmeal, like my shave gel does. I'll allow "smells faintly like oatmeal because it contains oatmeal." But that's about it.)

Am I going to have to bite the bullet and spend $60/mo on hair care?** (I'm going to go to Planet Organic this afternoon, after the computer arrives, and see if they have a cheaper option.)

*Dear World: This is no longer the 18th century. We bathe frequently now. We no longer have to cover up the disgusting scent of our own skin. Some of us are struggling here.
** Before you ask, washing my hair less frequently is not an option. I've tried. My hair is an oily mess, and looks like an oil slick even if I skip a day, and then it gets into my eyes and my eyes get all puffy. Not an option.

Guessing Game

At the beginning of "Paint the Table Long Weekend," I have a guessing game for you:

How many colours did our side table used to be? What were those colours?

The winner will get a virtual high-five! (And those who've already heard this story don't get to play.)

Help a clueless procrastination queen

It all began when we got the ugly futon back and had to return the soft and lovely black leather couch. This time, however, we discovered that the hideous cover was over another cover that is just beige. I can handle beige, after the Festival of Ugliness that was the other cover. (Seriously: click on that link and take a really long look at that pattern.)

But then I wanted everything in the living room to look like it belonged together, and we took to redecorating. At this point, our living room looks like this:

Now. I have a few questions for you. Does it look a little sparse to you? What's lacking there? What can we do to make it feel a little homier in there?

Also: we're planning on re-painting this table (and possibly the end table underneath the TV):

What colour should we paint it? I'd originally been planning on painting it black, but then we moved that dark wood stereo on top of it, and now I'm worried that black would look strange there. But what colour should we paint it?

Survival Techniques

I posed this question to my last seminar group, since they were all in the middle of the "I have so many more finals to write in the next week, and you should be glad that I've shown up for this seminar today" blues. Now I pose the question to you:

What are your methods for surviving the stressful crazy times? What keeps you sane?

My answers:
a.) I'm not sure that I really do stay sane through stressful times;
b.) I'm trying to walk a lot;
c.) I play the piano;
d.) I get really really silly, and play with the Lite Brite cube or dress up in crazy clothes.

How about you? How are you surviving until the end of the semester?

Story Time from Saskatchewan

I'm at my aunt and uncle's house in Saskatoon right now, but I had to share a story from yesterday.

Background detail 1: There's some cliqueyness going on among the grad students in my department lately. You might say that some of the first years have formed themselves a "cool group." And, if you know me at all, you'll know that there's nothing that bugs me more than a cool group. (It may have something to do with flashbacks to high school. And may have provoked those recent flashbacks.)

On Saturday, our departmental grad students' society tried to have a beginning of semester potluck. Only five grad students were there, plus Chris. Of fifty in our department. It turned out that one of the first years had e-mailed a bunch of the others, saying he was tired of potlucks and didn't want to talk with people he didn't know, and invited them to a pub instead. But only invited those that are liked by the cool group.

Okay. So, I'd heard about the whole counter-event thing from several different people. (My friend Justin refers to those of us who work in the office all the time as the "Sewing Circle," because news travels so quickly through the office.) So had the president of our society, although we kept it from the girl who organised the potluck, because her feelings would be hurt. I decided to have a bit of a chat with the one who invited people away, because I know him and work with him. Our talk was really positive and helpful. We made plans for stuff that the whole group would enjoy doing. We talked about how everyone will be at the conference next weekend, and how it'll be good to have a chance for people to get to know each other. I casually mentioned, in context of "only five people came to the potluck" that I knew about all of them going to the pub. But not in an "I know what you did" way, but more in a casual-mention-like-it-was-general-knowledge way. We both said that it was a good talk.

Background detail 2: I spend all my time working in the PhD office. Our department has a common room, and then there's each an MA office and a PhD office off to the side of the common room. The doors are very thin, and we spend all of our time wandering back and forth through the three rooms. It's understood that, if you're wanting to work there, that you're going to be working with a bunch of others. Oh, and the common room is actually quite a small room, as are our offices.

Flash-forward to yesterday afternoon. I'd been working back and forth between the common room and the PhD office all day. Some MA student friends of mine had shown up and started working in the MA office, and so I moved to my office, but with the door open. A girl (I didn't recognise her voice) came in to the common room and was talking on her cell phone, and so I closed my door. But I could still hear her quite clearly, because the doors are like paper.

Suddenly I heard my name.

"Well, I don't know who told Maryanne, but she was talking with Erik yesterday, and he said that she knows that we went to the pub on Saturday! Who would have told her? Did you tell Maryanne? I didn't tell Maryanne. How would Maryanne have even heard about it?"

Now. What would you do in that situation?

I was kind of frozen. I didn't want to know why it was such a big deal that I knew. (Seriously, more than half the department got that e-mail. And I wasn't one of the organisers of the potluck.) I didn't want to hear any more of this. And I was going to have to leave the office soon, since I had to teach a class. It sounded like this phone conversation wasn't going to end anytime soon.

I don't know what I should have done, but I'll tell you what I did. My inner Kevin McDonald from "The Tax Man" episode of Corner Gas. Kicked in. In fact, what I said was a direct quote. (Which is why I'm pretty sure I only did this for my own amusement.)

I opened the door, and called out (she was seriously five feet away from me), "I'm right here! I can hear you!"

And that's when she took off running.* (It was some girl that I'd only met once before. I was surprised she even knew my name!)

What would you have done, in that situation? Would you have stayed hidden? Casually walked through the room and said "Hi?" Am I entirely twisted that, for the rest of the day, I kept remembering that exchange and bursting out laughing? Especially when remembering how everybody knows that the common room is the worst place to have a private conversation, and the offices are always full of people silently working?




* (She later came back, and did a bunch of back-tracking, and we actually got to know each other a bit. We second years have decided that our response to all of this will be just to be friendly with them, get to know them individually and not treat them like a whole group, and ignore their drama. Set the example by being grown-ups. But I'm adding my own twist by not allowing any kind of talking-behind-backs.)

Saskatchewan Bound. Again.

Don't expect to hear from me until at least after the weekend, and possibly until after next Tuesday. We're all packed now, and right after I finish at school and Chris finishes at work we fly to Saskatoon, and the next afternoon we drive to North Battleford. And then this weekend, the crazy Irish part of the family will be doing our best to Put the "Fun" in "Funeral." (It's our official family motto. We've even talked about making up t-shirts.)

So, talk amongst yourselves until then. Can someone keep an eye on things while I'm gone? Make sure that procrastination still happens in the Queendom while I'm gone? (I'm plan on procrastinating from reading a book that Dr. Supervisor's lending me. And from preparing for next week's seminar, which will happen the morning after I fly back.)

Topic of discussion: how much of a wimp has your Queen become, in her sojourn to the Far Western Isle of Weather Wimpiness? Keep in mind that she just over-packed, with blankets, long johns, wool socks to wear over other socks, several scarves, and even a hot water bottle, because she heard that it'll be going below -30C this weekend. And, even though that used to be a normal winter temperature and at least it's not -40, and hopefully it's not windy, she's a-scared of the cold weather.

What were you like in high school?

I've been thinking a lot about high school lately. I guess it started at my department's recent potluck, when I was entertaining the other grad students with stories about how excessively weird I was in high school. I think it started with the statement, "Well, of course, when I was in high school, I had pictures of the Beatles and the Monkees up in my locker." And Chris chimed in something about I also had hair down to my waist and wore polyester '70s clothes at a point when it wasn't really cool to do so.

And that's gotten me trying to describe what I was even like back then. (Not that I've changed so drastically. Just ask Ky.) I have never been able to find an adequate equivalent to me in movies and TV shows about high school students. (Okay, maybe if you took the anger and the goth hair from Janis Ian on Mean Girls, and combined that with some of Damien from that same movie, then you'd be pretty close...)

Some facts about what I was like:

• Of course, you've already had the physical description: super-long hair and thrift shop clothes. My grad dress was an early-'70s bridesmaid dress that I found at Value Village. The one day when I wore jeans (borrowed from my sister) to school, it caused such a stir that my English class had a discussion about their feelings about it.
• I was heavily, heavily involved in non-sports or drama extra-curricular activities. One concert choir that had several hundred members and where we did choreography. A chamber choir, and several vocal jazz groups. And I played flute in the band. And I was assistant editor of the yearbook. And I was in advanced classes.
• By the end of grade 12, I had my own school keys.
• University was a relief, because I wasn't so busy.
• Somehow, I became known as a "writer," to the point that I won a Creative Writing award, which is odd because my writing was frightening at the time. So very flowery. Of course, I also spent several years only reading books by L.M. Montgomery, and I thought that writing ought to be constantly describing sunsets and trees. (Okay, I'd recovered from the floweriness largely by grade 12, when I won the award, but I was really melodramatic in my writing still.)
• I co-wrote a play that my English class performed at our Advanced Class Medieval Feast.
• I was known to sing songs from musicals, and perhaps dance to them as well, in the band hallway. While I essentially wore leisure suits to school. Popular girls of the sort that dated the school quarterback hated me.
• I wasn't actually unpopular. I clearly wasn't a social misfit at my school, neither did I sit in back corners with people who took too many computer classes and roleplay in maniacal voices. I had a really diverse group of friends, some of whom were popular (but more in the "nice people that everyone likes" sense, and not in the "I'm going to enforce my reign of terror on this school through the powers of my plaid short skirts and hairspray" sense). Even though it was a really big school, I knew nearly everyone's names by grade 12. (Thanks to yearbook.)
• I was known for my abilities to get along with a lot of people, which is why I was assistant editor of the yearbook (I could be the liason to the other members of the club, and smooth over hurt feelings when the editor got too intense). I also ended up as the liason to our photographers, who were known to be high maintenance.
• Traditionally popular people disliked me, because I ignored their whole class system. But they avoided me, because they were afraid (in a respectful sense) of the ringleader of my group of friends, who told them all to leave me alone. I didn't know this until I was well into University. But it makes sense now why Barbie (head Mean Girl) and her quarterback boyfriend always seemed to be making out on my locker.
• Okay, so I would only refer to the Head Mean Girl as "Barbie," and openly discouraged my friends from running for SRC, "Because it's all a rigged popularity contest, and you don't want to even try to become like Them."
• In addition to all that, I saw myself as "outdoorsy." I was a Girl Guide until I turned 18, and asked for stuff like camp stoves for Christmas.
• Also, I got really high grades in maths and sciences. But also in English and Social Studies, of course.
• And, when I was grade 11, there were a few Grade 12 boys in my Geo-Trig class. The teacher put one of them, Giant Rugby Player, beside me because he kept talking to people in class. The teacher assumed that I was so shy and serious that I would be the person to sit next to Chatty Giant Rugby Player. Which is how I ended up being friends with him. We'd work together on assignments, and turn the diagrams for the assignments into crazy pictures involving spies.
• And my locker featured pictures of the Beatles, the Monkees, and the cast of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. And a clothing tag that read "Je suis lavable."
• When we played a World War I simulation in grade 11 Social Studies (we were all assigned the roles of different countries involved in the Great War, and had to negotiate to try to avoid war), my Social Studies teacher was really, really excited to cast me as Kaiser Wilhelm II. (I lead the world in a war against Russia.) Also, when we did a mock inquiry into the fate of a National Park, they cast me as the head of a logging company. Somehow, my Social Studies teachers loved best to put me in the "evil" roles. "Because we like to watch you fight your way out of a corner," one of them said.

Who were you in high school? Would we have recognised you, back then?

When do you feel creative?

I've been pondering a lot about what makes me feel inspired and what gets me working. Recently, Trillwing asked the inverse question to her readers: "What are some things that damper your creativity and energy?" I was amazed by the lists that her commenters compiled. I was especially amazed when I came up with my own list:

- Too little exercise
- Eating too much crap
- Too many distractions
- Too little time having actual conversations
- Too little time to reflect
- Too much distance from play [referring to a comment that someone else made, meaning "I don't get to play nearly enough. Age has nothing to do with it."]
- Stress
- Repetitive routine and too much of the same scenery all the time
- Many menial tasks without any sense of a goal

Upon reflecting on this list, I realised that you could take the inverse of this list and that would be a pretty accurate portrait of when I'm at my most creative: when I'm exercising (wow, even running up the library stairs cleared my head a lot), eating properly, and not filling my life with distractions.

But now I'm starting more of a list of those things that get the creative juices flowing, beyond just "take the inverse of what saps my energy":

• The right kind of stress or pressure. Some of my best work has resulted from me fighting my way out of a tight spot. I have an easier time decorating difficult small spaces than I have when I have lots of large, blank walls. If I have a looming deadline near (but not so near that I get frozen by anxiety), I pick up the pace and start making real progress. I think it's because it forces a certain external structure on me, which compensates for a lot of my lack of internal structure. It could also be that I work best when I'm responding to specific challenges. That's why some of my best writing is the result of editing: I have an easier time coming up with a better way of saying something already written than I can fill an empty page.
• Spending time with enthusiastic, positive people. If you're excited about it, I'll feel excited as well. That's why I felt so much better after working with my students on Thursday.
• Working within my own research interests. This one only works right now, while I'm being spread so thin first by coursework and then by comps. Touching base with my own research is enough, right now. (It'll be a different story when I'm working on my dissertation and it's just me and my research. I'm sure that then I'm going to need contacts with the outside world to make my brain work properly.)
• Changing scenery. Sometimes it's as easy as moving from my desk to the kitchen table or the office at the university. Often, when I'm really needing a creative boost, I need to change perspective entirely. Hang upside down on the couch and pretend like the furniture's hanging from the ceiling. Sit on the other side of the bathtub and study the shape of the taps. Work on top of the deep freeze. Set up a lawn chair in the back yard and face a direction that I normally can't see from my windows. Take a walk, but take a route I've never taken before. Get myself lost on purpose, and then use my wits to find my way home. This is my favourite. (I first read about this method in a Reader's Digest when I was a small child, and it was suggested as a good way to problem-solve.)
• Baking or cooking something from scratch.
• Dressing up while I'm working. (I've mentioned this one before.)

How about you?

Happy Second Blogaversary to Me!

Okay, it's really 10:20pm on the 14th right now, but the 15th is going to be a busy day for me and I wanted to have this post up for the full day of the 15th.

Minions of West Procrastination! Your Queen has now been blogging for two solid years!

It's so strange. When I started this blog, I was an unmarried MA student, attempting to begin writing a thesis and living in a giant apartment in Saskatchewan with a wee little roommate named Meg. I could name all of my readers: Meg, Ariann, Derek, Mikey, Janny, and Aardvark Al (the only stranger in the bunch). I had no idea that there were other academics who had blogs.* I had only heard the word "blog" for the first time that summer, when Ariann and Derek showed me the ones they had set up. Since then, not only have I finished that degree, gotten married, moved across the country, and completed a year and a half of another degree, but I've written 805 blog posts (plus a few unpublished drafts, including one about my adventures as a Girl Guide) and fallen into a merry band of academic bloggers, who have done a lot to shape how I understand myself as a scholar. If you would have told me, three years ago, that I would communicate on a daily basis with people that I only knew on the internet, I don't know what I would have thought. (On the other hand, how different is this from the number of pen pals I had, when I was a child?)

And so, to honour this glorious day, please stop by and say hello, and (since the "what's your favourite method of procrastination?" question was taken last year) name your favourite childhood toy. I'll go first: first place goes to the stuffed polar bear named Lizzie, because I seriously slept with that teddy bear until I got married and brought her back out when Chris went to Anaheim. However, honorary mention goes to the doll house that my great-uncle built, complete with little spool dolls of every member of my family. I was always super-jealous of the cool toys that my friends Ky and Kara had, and then when we got older it turned out that they'd always coveted my spool people, to the point of attempting to make their own.

* Did I ever mention that the first academic blog I ever came across was Blogenspiel? She commented on Go Fug Yourself and I was all "A medievalist? For serious?" And I clicked on her link. And then I started exploring the blogs on ADM's and Sharon Howard's blogrolls.

(American) Thanksgiving De-Lurkey

(That pun even earned a "boo" from Chris. And yet it's all I could think of, all day.)

Profgrrrl and some of the RevGalBlogPals have been celebrating the US Thanksgiving holiday by encouraging their lurkers to de-lurk and introduce themselves. And, even though we all know that I've had plenty of Thanksgiving already, I thought I might as well celebrate along with them. (Okay, I'm also doing this because the blog-reading's normally pretty boring during Amercian holidays. It's like they don't consider that we Canadian bloggers won't have anything to read all weekend. Choosing family over entertaining me.)

C'mon, everybody who normally reads but doesn't comment, de-lurk! Introduce yourselves!

And a happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. Forgive me for teasing you about eating turkey and spending time with your family in lieu of updating your blogs.