Lucky dog!
My weekends are just too freakin’ short this semester, as I’m teaching two lecture classes on a MWF schedule. I honestly don’t mind teaching three days a week–I’m just frustrated that I don’t have a discretionary extra day to prep for Monday lectures, finish the neverending piles of grading, etc., let alone think for 20 minutes about how to get back to writing my book and figuring out what needs to happen archival research-wise before I make my base camp at the feet of the San Gabes. What’s with the MWF; can’t we get a MWR, or a MTR, or a TWF? Let the people who teach twice a week show up on Mondays and Fridays, as they’ll have three weekdays in-between without classes to TCB.
I know this is an academic blog, but you didn’t come here to see me b!tch about my mostly-imaginary and very temporary frustrations now, did you? So here are some random tidbits of THC, TBD (The Big Dog), and OMs on TDIS (Thank Dog It’s Saturday).
- Nepotism alert: Sometime in the next generation, every single American roots music recording artist will be either a member of the Wainwright-McGarrigle clan or of the Carter-Cash family clan. Seriously: are there no other worthy recording artists these days?
- Recreational reefer madness 2014! Earlier this week, some dip$hit in Denver ate some marijuana-infused candy and then shot his wife in the head and killed her in front of their three little kids. Of course, the media conversation in Denver is all about the marijuana edibles instead of the gun in the home. (Because that’s what all upper-middle class people need in their homes with three children in perfectly safe neighborhoods: easily accessible handguns!) You gotta love the politics of Colorado! Or just shake your head in wonder at the criminal stupidity of it all.
- Speaking of polidicks: I’m reading Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann (which, BTW, is pure political crackerjack, so delicious and so non-nutritious!), and I get to this paragraph:
Until Denver [the first Presidential debate of 2012], [Bill] Clinton had watched in wonder as Obama caught break after break. Although the economy wasn’t roaring back to life, neither the European banking crisis nor the unrest in the Mideast had caused it to nosedive. Meanwhile, Romney’s ineptness staggered Clinton. After the release of the 47 percent video, he remarked to a friend that, while Mitt was a decent man, he was in the wrong line of work. (“He really shouldn’t be speaking to people in public.”) As for Obama, Clinton trotted out for his pals the same line again and again: “He’s luckier than a dog with two dicks,” 430.
- There’s always time for yoga: You’ll never come back from a yoga class feeling worse than you felt on your way out the door. And guess what? You’ll feel better than a dog with. . . well, whatever. It’s time for yoga, so I’ve got to saddle up and ride on out. Namaste.
Historiann 
How fucken hilarious would it be if you actually rode your horse over to the yoga studio and tied it up outside?
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We have some of those odd-ball class schedule availabilities, and although they can be helpful to solve certain kinds of sanity problems, I’d gladly waive them for a lower course load. The time right before leave is the second darkest hour before the dawn. The darkest? The approach of summer at the *end* of a year of leave. Everyone else is exhaling and anticipating, and for some reason, those next three looming months seem like a sad thing. And differently-situated colleagues definitely find gentle ways to rub it in.
I’m just glad Romney spent that wasted year being an idiot instead of gutting companies and firing workers, although he clearly was cheering people who continued to do that and looked forward to doing more of the same.
I’m heading over to my other office now to do a more agreeable part of my work. This doesn’t require a yoga mat or (much) improve metabolic outcomes, but it has some positive brainwave elements nevertheless.
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About the weed and the gun: good point. Another take: let’s find out the proportion of people high on weed who commit murder and the proportion with no weed who do the same. Obvious conclusion: make everyone ingest weed to reduce the murder rate.
(I have to keep reminding myself that once upon a time it was ICBMs and poodle skirts and Birchers and avocado-green kitchens. We’ve always been idiots.)
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Some of us hope that history will do justice to Obama’s reign of enriching the filthy rich. Like Solomon, Bill C has a great appetite and great wisdom.
Is the Dog appearing anywhere?
Namaste (my three hands close to my heart)
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Wow two courses sounds like a vacation! I’m teaching 4 over 4 days.
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P.S. I don’t have teaching assistants either
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Into my second day of grading hell. Earlier, I took a break from grading hell to do minimum prep for my Monday classes. Now I’m going back to grading hell and will ignore the fact that I have no freakin’ clue what I’m doing on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I’ve got to find me some yoga classes! Anything at this point to steer me toward sanity! Good luck, Historiann!
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I guess the Big Dog’s doubly-endowed hound, above, makes it not quite off-topic to report that over the years I’ve intermittently continued to use, in relevant classes, the teaching trope brought here way up-blog (like in 2008) from the blog “Baudrilard’s Bastard” of the “pissing dogs” of British imperial caricature usage. I even used them last week in an instrument, I mean an exam, to the bemusement of the mostly freshmen in an American survey class. Not quite what today’s skills-hungry and vocationally-oriented students think college coursework will bring them, but some of the more adventurous among them eyed the phenomenon with a certain cautious curiosity. A few even dug up examples I had not seen. For the more robustly-curious here, the originals were in the H-archives for Spring, 2008, although when you click on the links now you get taken to a pay-wall. Or at least a password checkpoint. Which goes to show how little I know about the blogosphere. I wonder what happened to that project?
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Indyanna: you put your finger on it about the approaching end of sabbatical: I feel like I am spinning around in circles trying to finish as much as possible. Or rather, doing triage on what can be finished and what cannot.
On the other hand, my entire life as a teacher, April has been one ugly blur. It is slightly better now that I no longer teach at Zenith, since in addition to helping students finish honors theses, turning around a day later to grade and comment on yet other students’ theses, April would be the time that everyone woke up and realized what they had not doe all year, and we would all be corralled every day to get it done.
However, today I am at the University of Toronto, getting ready to give a couple papers, today and tomorrow. At the border, the Canadian official asked my purpose for being here, and swid when I told her, “Aren’t classes over?” I responded, “Fuck if I know, I’m just the distinguished visitor.” She said, “So would you consider yourself an expert?” “Oh, absolutely,” I said, and she let me through.
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TR: I love the Toronto story, not least because the last time I was there–and only the second time ever, for an OAH meeting and a panel with Historiann–as I crossed by car at Niagara, the border fellow stuck his head to my window to ask about the contents of the car (“only papers,”) and where I was going (“Toronto”). He said, with his best Jack Nicholson “Shining” face and voice: “Why go there?” I can’t remember what I said, but he waved me through. Great town, great b&b, great conference, great food. I only lament that I passed on a chance to enter the fabled Maple Leaf Gardens for a lacrosse game for some generic academic alternative.
No one ever said to my knowledge, however, a la Austin, “Keep April Weird.”
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My uni went to a “every class meets twice a week for 80 minutes each meeting” schedule with all sorts of oddball match-ups which got even stranger for this coming year. Say hello to Western Civ, Tuesday/Friday! I also have classes which meet at different times of the day for extra complexification. Bah!
TR? I am totally stealing that snarky line for the next time I cross the border with cool intent. And enjoy your time at UofT – if you see an outrageously tall redhead with gigantic glasses, wave – it’s my daughter!
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