[Sca-cooks] a Happy Announcement!

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 09:22 PM 8/23/2004, you wrote:
>>Well, I was a Medieval Studies major
>
>And you can't get a job?!?!
>IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT!!!
>
>Lol!

Hey! Goofball ;-)

IMNSHO, it _is_ Bush's fault that the economy has tanked, which seriously 
reduces the available anything jobs. Especially for someone with dodgy health.

Truth told, if I hadn't had the breakdown when I did (in grad school), I 
would be finished and be teaching by now. But now my academic career is in 
the same dump, and while I went into grad school with a 3.46, I came out 
with a 1.7. I won't be getting near any teaching programs anytime soon. 
Kind of a moot point now. Getting through the day without major pain or a 
serious nap attack (with the fibro, that's kind of standard) is something 
unusual...

>Seriously, happy to hear about getting your stuff actually where you
>can get to it. Last night I was going crazy looking up period fried chicken
>recipes and having to find my books that are packed away all over the place.
>Very annoying.

Quite frankly, I'm feeling really energized by having them here- I'd really 
been feeling like I was losing my touch, and forgetting a lot of what I 
actually knew... but I guess it's a little like that old bicycle- I picked 
up a copy of a conference paper and felt a real rush, remembering how I 
felt when I wrote it, and pleased with myself that I'd managed to find an 
obscure article about codes for chess moves in _Gawain and the Green 
Knight_ (It was very obscure, but worked for what I was doing!). My room is 
still a mess, having had to move stuff around to fit the shelves, but... it 
_so_ feels like _ME_ in here now!

>>and our advisor pointed out that Johanna and I both took more than twice 
>>the minimum of required classes in the dept. In fact, she had to shove us 
>>down the street to take our science requirements... (not quite but I'm 
>>sure it felt that way!)
>
>And I'm sure that Hermoine Granger is your hero.

Mmm... some. I think my true hero is Minerva McGonaghal! A bit stern, tough 
but fair, with a gooey caramel center that occasionally leaks out. :-)

Actually, it was a matter of there were minimums for the department, but 
there was also a certain number of credits over the requirements that I had 
to fill somehow- and PE wasn't my bag. Why not take classes in what I 
loved? So yeah, I had four classes in Middle English lit, including 
Chaucer, Langland, Gower, the Pearl-Poet, Laymon, 'Anon Y Mous'... I took a 
class on Ceremony and Ritual in the Middle Ages. A class on Canon and 
Marriage Law, from a Dominican who actually is a Canon Lawyer (and another 
one of those crusty-but-gooey sorts). Two terms of Med. Italian lit. Two or 
three on women in MEng lit. Three terms of Anglo-Saxon, from grammar to 
reading that bastard Beowulf in the original. Mystics. Heresies (a four 
credit seminar! God I worked hard!). Travelogues and pilgrimages. 14th-15th 
c English economy (Dr Mate was an expert on the wool trade). A term on 
Norse lit (Egil etc.). A term on Bestiaries. A four-credit seminar on the 
Troubadours...

It soooo makes me want to go back to school! If only...

>In other good news department. I actually have a job interview this week.
>That may not sound like much but I haven't had even that much for a
>couple of months.
>
>And I'm talking to the job training/referral people tomorrow.

Hey- that's something!

I think the Tall Fuzzy Sweetie has something pending too.

Tomorrow I have to scrape some energy together and do something about the 
plums- the poor little tree is... well, you know what trees look like when 
they have a heavy load of snow? Well, this is plums. Some of them are still 
pretty green, but they are coming along now. The rest of this week, I 
think. I'm planning to put up jam (Christmas presents maybe) and maybe dig 
up that sauce recipe, the one for the 'bollas' plums. It was really good- 
we had some on ham last year. Think I'll see how well it freezes. Also 
might try making up plum sauce like you do applesauce.

Well, lovely roomie is out of town on business, so it is time for me to 
make the rounds of kitty bowls and fluffy tummy rubs.

later,
'Lainie


___________________________________________________________________________
The penalty good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be 
governed by men worse than themselves. -- Plato