I was just getting ready to go to bed when the house started shaking and creaking. Not really seriously or anything but definitely quite noticeable. Word has it that other houses in town were also shaking. Earthquake? I wouldn’t have thought that I would have to go to England to feel an earthquake.
UPDATE: So, yes, it was indeed an earthquake last night and the biggest one in the UK for over twenty years. See here.
Sydney
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/education/27history.html
*Note: I’m not saying this from on-high. I admit to not knowing who or what the German Kaiser was, and had to look it up. I may, though, need to rethink the way I teach Southern literature if some of my students don’t know when the Civil War happened . . .
Yup, that’s what I’ll be shoveling in tomorrow. I walked to the general store in my snow boots today, enjoying the fact that I had a lot more traction than anything on the road except the snow plows. It’s wonderful to have a nice little grocery about a mile from my house, particularly when driving would be foolish but I really have a craving for fruit. Ithaca has had wet, heavy snow coming down all day today, and it will continue through the first half of tomorrow. Nasty, nasty driving conditions, but lovely for those who are observing from a wall of windows, sipping a cup of tea!
Tomorrow, however, the shoveling must happen, and I’m going to need the rain boots. They’re a lot taller than my snow boots, and, considering the amount and weight of the snow out there, I think they’ll come in handy. I bet I look like an idiot to most drivers who come by when I shovel: light shirt, yoga pants, heavy gloves, and polka-dotted rain boots. And, admittedly, quite a lot of muttering under the breath as I think about tackling the bottom of the driveway (thank you, snow plows, for making a wall of snow and ice to keep me in!). Between the intense morning workout and the sinus infection I’m nursing, I bet I’ll be in fine form to teach tomorrow–and to be observed by my slightly-scary teaching advisor!
Erin
Over the past week or so I’ve developed a tricky throat. It has been really dry and lately got a little sore, and then, by today, it just kind of quit. Every other word was audible. Now I know what teenage boys go through: will a sound come out or not? Of course, my activities this week will put a bit more pressure on the sound coming out: I’m being observed in my teaching. Twice. What happens when a usually prolix and more-than-audible instructor finds herself voiceless? Well, I found I could still sing a little in church this morning. But only notes below middle C. And only when I concentrated very hard. Perhaps I could sing my way through class . . .
Erin
Most cats I’ve known really hated being on moving objects and got off them as fast as possible. Most also really hated water. So how did this guy get a cat on his surfboard?
(With apologies to Reuters, from whom I pilfered the image.)
Wow. This is pretty funny.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxcyqeRc-4]
I have no idea whether this is real or not — I’ve heard that it is, but it stretches the bounds of credulity. But it is in fact the case that the King James Version says ‘any that pisseth against the wall’ and the New International Version says ‘male’. And the Vulgate says ‘mingentem ad parietem’. And I’ll let you guess which version(s) might be the closest to the Hebrew.
Sydney
I had an appointment this morning to read an obscure 16th century theology text — obscure enough at least for the Bodleian not to have it — at Christ Church College’s library. When I got there, the librarian at the front desk pulled this old book that was falling apart from a shelf behind her desk. My first thought was that this was really convenient — they already had my book waiting for me right there. But, no, it turned out that I was supposed to sign in. The first entry in the guest registry, if I remember correctly, is from 1908. It would have been fun to page through it — I bet some interesting people have read at the library in the past century.
Sydney
Two nights ago Christi knocked on my door around 10:30 and told me to go outside and check out the lunar eclipse. So the two of us, bundled up in sweaters and coats, with necks cocked at awkward angles, stood in our driveway and watched the moon lose its brightness and turn sepia. It was lovely to see the moon, it was lovely to be outside to enjoy the cold and clear night, and it was really lovely just to stand still.
Erin
When Mom was here last week I happened to pick up a lovely cake plate at TJ Maxx. You know the kind: white stoneware, elegant pedestal, round platter. When I told Sydney I bought a cake plate, he immediately asked, “A cake plate? What for?” We have never had a cake in this house and, unless Nelson gets a wild hair next time he visits, we likely never will. When I told Sydney I got it for fruit, however, he immediately understood. I am always looking for new ways to display fruit (books and fruit–what better decoration for one’s house?) and keep it from being tucked away . . . and forgotten. The cake plate seems to be doing its job. Every day I think, “Oh, how pretty” and pick up an apple to eat. Now that there is only a single apple remaining, the cake plate reminds me to get more fruit. Thank you, cake plate!
Erin
In less than three weeks, Sydney will be home, after 8 weeks of being in England. I will be very glad to see him. I will also be glad that only three weeks of real class time will have to happen between his arrival and the beginning of Cornell’s week-long spring break. Ahh, I love perfect timing! This year you won’t catch me doing taxes on my spring break–no sir! I’ll be at home, reading for my exams, making good food, and hugging Sydney every chance I get! Hmm, that does mean I have to get the taxes done before then, though . . . guess my to-do list for things-that-must-happen-before-Sydney-returns is getting longer!
But just for the record, I can’t make any claim to having “made it” through our 8-week trial. Making it would mean that Sydney had gotten to do massive amounts of research and I had held up at home and gotten a lot of work done for my impending pre-dissertation exams. Oh yes, and I might even make some claim that “making it” would involve something along the lines of achieving emotional stability and developing appropriate coping mechanisms for missing someone. Perhaps I set too high of a bar, but that’s certainly the “making it” I had in mind when we began this endeavor. Instead, trying to keep me from despair has consumed massive amounts of time and energy: mine, Sydney’s, my parents’, my friends’, and that of anyone else within reach. Not to mention the inability to get work done. Oops.
I’d talked with a fair number of couples who have spent time apart before Sydney left. I’m not sure how they do it, but I just know (and know very painfully) that I didn’t. Unfortunately, the whole England experience will be tainted by the strong smell of failure.
I do, however, have a strong suspicion that the next three weeks will be much better. Both Sydney and I want to get a lot done before we see each other again, and we don’t want this to be a total failure! But I guess, for me, the having had such a rough time at all, no matter how it “ends,” is a kind of failure–one that I shouldn’t write off because of later improvement. I don’t think it’s worth getting into a position to feel that bad. If your spouse develops a terrible illness or has a serious accident, then you deal. But academia doesn’t to me seem a strong enough reason to invite such unhappiness (Warning: I am speaking only for myself, and not making any judgments about others who have chosen to be apart and are dealing. My best wishes and prayers for you as you fight it out). But maybe I’ve just been reading too many modernist novels in which the end is soooooo not the point, and that force you to pay attention to all of that stuff in the middle of the story that we often forget once we get to the end.
Why am I telling you all of this? In case you’re embarrassed (some of you don’t know me very well, I realize), I thought I would put this out there because a) I have finally achieved enough equilibrium to think clearly again, for which I am grateful, and to which I would like to testify by this post and b) I thought it might be useful to have someone say flat-out that being apart didn’t work. Not for this couple, in this particular situation, and at this time, anyway. In academia, being apart from one’s spouse is a commonplace. It’s assumed that you will do it and that it won’t bother you too much–you have a job to do, after all. Will this keep me from ever trying this again? Not necessarily. I realize situations and sentiments change, and the academic life has much that is alluring. But this experience will certainly make me think twice about anything that might conjure up a second round of such a mess.
Erin
Alan Schmierer