...to our department's answer to Vanna White today!
At least I mostly knew that that last one was going to happen. I'm the TA hired to help organise our department's grad student conference, and part of that job is helping to run the fundraiser auction. Yesterday, the prof in charge asked me if I'd be the one to help the auctioneer. Which led to an entire day of joking about how I was the evening's Vanna. Which led to me wearing my little black dress to the event. Which led to me cheesily modeling the different items up for auction, complete with plastic smile, big gestures and golf clap.
Uh, I think this evening's events have now established a reputation for myself in the department. People know who I am now. But possibly think I'm insane.
(For myself, I only placed bids in the silent auction. I came home with a hot pink silk robe that our secretary's sister brought home from Vietnam. I'm wearing it over my Vanna clothes right now.)
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query vanna. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query vanna. Sort by date Show all posts
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Distractions of the day
Two different cool (but unrelated) things from my day:
1. This evening I went to a practice for a band formed for the fundraiser auction we have each year. (This year I'm not Vanna.) Historians on guitars, mandolin, bongos, harp and flute playing Fleetwood Mac with lyrics altered to be about grad school. And it was ridiculously good, and kind of folky. (They have to raise a certain amount for us to play!)
2. My copy of The Blythes are Quoted arrived today! Here's my initial reaction to the book: I've only scanned over it quickly, but it looks like most of the short stories are the same as in 1974's The Road to Yesterday (with one exception, which had appeared in a slightly different form in Among the Shadows), but with the addition of poems attributed to either Anne or to her son Walter, and some framing dialogue between the Blythes. A lot of the "adultery, illegitimacy, despair, misogyny, murder, revenge, bitterness, hatred, aging, and death," which the editor thinks will shock L. M. Montgomery's regular fans, occurs in short stories that were already pretty widely in circulation. Like, I read these stories when I was a teenager and they weren't really that far off from her novels from the later 1920s and the 1930s. Instead of all that sensationalism (which is mostly targeted at selling the book to people who normally think of LMM as too cheerful or something), I'm more interested in the poetry attributed to Walter and the aftermath of World War I: you really see her backtracking from the idealism about the First World War that you see in Rilla of Ingleside. Between that and her clear ambivalence about the beginning of the Second World War: this is really interesting. (In fact, this ambivalence is clearest in a poem and discussion about the war that LMM herself had cut out but kept for posterity, which the editor decided to include anyway.)
So: it's worth it, and looks really good (and is much better in this original form than in The Road To Yesterday), but Benjamin Lefebvre really underestimates her fans by playing up the "shocking" elements.
1. This evening I went to a practice for a band formed for the fundraiser auction we have each year. (This year I'm not Vanna.) Historians on guitars, mandolin, bongos, harp and flute playing Fleetwood Mac with lyrics altered to be about grad school. And it was ridiculously good, and kind of folky. (They have to raise a certain amount for us to play!)
2. My copy of The Blythes are Quoted arrived today! Here's my initial reaction to the book: I've only scanned over it quickly, but it looks like most of the short stories are the same as in 1974's The Road to Yesterday (with one exception, which had appeared in a slightly different form in Among the Shadows), but with the addition of poems attributed to either Anne or to her son Walter, and some framing dialogue between the Blythes. A lot of the "adultery, illegitimacy, despair, misogyny, murder, revenge, bitterness, hatred, aging, and death," which the editor thinks will shock L. M. Montgomery's regular fans, occurs in short stories that were already pretty widely in circulation. Like, I read these stories when I was a teenager and they weren't really that far off from her novels from the later 1920s and the 1930s. Instead of all that sensationalism (which is mostly targeted at selling the book to people who normally think of LMM as too cheerful or something), I'm more interested in the poetry attributed to Walter and the aftermath of World War I: you really see her backtracking from the idealism about the First World War that you see in Rilla of Ingleside. Between that and her clear ambivalence about the beginning of the Second World War: this is really interesting. (In fact, this ambivalence is clearest in a poem and discussion about the war that LMM herself had cut out but kept for posterity, which the editor decided to include anyway.)
So: it's worth it, and looks really good (and is much better in this original form than in The Road To Yesterday), but Benjamin Lefebvre really underestimates her fans by playing up the "shocking" elements.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Toot toot
I too frequently blog the negatives and the setbacks. And so today I tell you about something good that happened.
(Or maybe I'm a huge Pollyanna and spend my life telling you about the positives, and it's just that I feel bad any time I complain.)
For the past several weeks, part of my brain has been eaten up by this fundraiser auction we held last night. The auction's one of the big events in our department, where we raise money to help all the students from our department to attend the conference that we host every year. For weeks this auction was the big stress in my life, and we had about eighty kabillion setbacks and frustrations. Seriously, my first day working towards getting this organised culminated in me getting yelled at by a crazy chef. It felt like even when one part of the plans would get figured out, everything else would get crazy and disorganised and miscommunicated. And a lot of the complicated part was on my shoulders.
But then this weekend everything started coming together. All the parts started fitting into place: not only did the undergrads want to host a social at the beginning, but they were footing the bill for food for it. People volunteered to help with the setup. I was drafted to be Vanna. We managed to convince a whole bunch of grad students to attend this year. And, as we set up the event, it all came together as if we'd always been the height of organisation.
And today I found out that, not only was the event well-attended and well-enjoyed, but we raised a record amount of money! I'm still processing that fact. And I know that so many factors went into the event's success -- the free food that lured out more students than usual, the tremendous number of items donated to the silent auction -- but right now it just feels good to know that something that I did was successful, and that as a result of that success it will be easier for more students to attend the conference.
(Or maybe I'm a huge Pollyanna and spend my life telling you about the positives, and it's just that I feel bad any time I complain.)
For the past several weeks, part of my brain has been eaten up by this fundraiser auction we held last night. The auction's one of the big events in our department, where we raise money to help all the students from our department to attend the conference that we host every year. For weeks this auction was the big stress in my life, and we had about eighty kabillion setbacks and frustrations. Seriously, my first day working towards getting this organised culminated in me getting yelled at by a crazy chef. It felt like even when one part of the plans would get figured out, everything else would get crazy and disorganised and miscommunicated. And a lot of the complicated part was on my shoulders.
But then this weekend everything started coming together. All the parts started fitting into place: not only did the undergrads want to host a social at the beginning, but they were footing the bill for food for it. People volunteered to help with the setup. I was drafted to be Vanna. We managed to convince a whole bunch of grad students to attend this year. And, as we set up the event, it all came together as if we'd always been the height of organisation.
And today I found out that, not only was the event well-attended and well-enjoyed, but we raised a record amount of money! I'm still processing that fact. And I know that so many factors went into the event's success -- the free food that lured out more students than usual, the tremendous number of items donated to the silent auction -- but right now it just feels good to know that something that I did was successful, and that as a result of that success it will be easier for more students to attend the conference.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Bits of Thoughts and News
- I ran a fundraiser auction this week (the same one as last year, and yes I did dress as Vanna again) and it went really well! We broke last year's record-breaking fundraising, which means that it'll be even cheaper for the students from my department to attend our conference. It makes me happy to feel like I've done something well.
- Canadian politics are suuuuper-interesting right now. I'm even letting Chris listen to all of the CBC program The House right now. (By the way, it's driving me nuts to hear the Conservatives saying that the forming of a coalition would be going against democracy, and would going against Canada's wishes based on how they voted. If you're a minority government, it means that the majority of the country voted against you, which theoretically means that the majority of the members of Parliament could form a majority against you.) Maybe it's the German historian in me that just loves the political potential of coalitions so much.
- The one thing that stumps Chris and me is who ought to be Prime Minister, if a coalition is successfully formed. This conversation has led to a lot of discussion of the hilarity of The Moustache as Prime Minister.
- I'm still figuring out what I thought of Baz Lurhmann's Australia. I definitely liked it as I watched it, three-hours-long notwithstanding. It was emotionally satisfying. But on reflection afterward...I'm not sure. I'm going to have to see it again. (I read Ebert's review and found myself agreeing a lot, even if Ebert did get some of the details of the movie wrong.)
- What should I do for my birthday? I'd like something special, but I don't want anything where I'm having to do a lot of work and planning, because those are the birthdays where I get stressed out and then cry.
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