Thursday i was sent all over Boston on my job. First to Fenway to drop off time sheets at the Boston Youth Fund, then to Hynes to pick something up at GLASS. Can i put “learning my way around Boston” under learned skills?
I also got officially asked to do Powerscopes. Horoscopes first, which means finding horoscopes on the web and combining and revising them. (I moved on to Secret Powers Friday, which was so frustrating because hi my politics.) So for fun i pulled up freewillastrology.com
"If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true." -John Keats
Um, excuse me? Does that mean that all of existence is beautiful? Because otherwise a statement that something is ugly would be false, no? I will argue that honest acknowledgment of ugliness is beautiful, but the actual fact of ugliness? No.
Each Powerscope also contains a famous birthday, which someone had already done for the upcoming month. One of the birthday items:
September 28: Celebrate the birthday of Frances Willard (1839-1898,) the suffragist who helped found the Association for the Advancement of Women. A former teacher, Willard was also passionate supporter of the temperance movement, which hoped to combat poverty, crime, and domestic violence by eliminating the consumption of alcohol. She founded and served as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.*sighs* Can we talk about what a bad idea Prohibition was?
Moving on to politics, one of the sites Ellyn suggested i check out was speakout.com, so i was poking around there and i found the following on the education page:
Phonics: Phonics is a method of teaching children to read by sounding out phonemes (groups of letters that represent sounds). Generally, a favorable reference to ‘phonics’ implies a conservative viewpoint on all the other education issues listed here.Um, excuse me?
Education Buzzwords
Generally, any reference to ‘standards,’ or especially to dealing with ‘failing schools’, implies support of school vouchers. Generally, any reference to ‘smaller classrooms,’ or especially to ‘building public schools’, implies opposition to funding private schools. Further decoding of education buzzwords are detailed under Education.
Friday we listened to Magic 106.7 all day at work. I heard a commercial for the Ernie Boch car dealership on the AutoMile in Norwood. Aww.
Friday afternoon Ellyn treated me to ice cream at Temptations on Devonshire (not as snazzy as the name makes it sound).
She’s gonna tell the CDO i worked my 220 hours, so woot for that. I need to do my own write-up for them. Will post a fuller version here when i’m done.
When the summer began i thought it would be fine to work through the last week i was home, but now i’m really glad to be done so i can focus on grad school research and going through all the crap i have in storage
Oh, my darling Michele. E-mail exchange Friday:
Michele: Would you be interested in 9-1 on Wed 9/1? I have to go to a meeting that morning.
Me: I'd be happy to work then.
Michele: You must think I am crazy but could you work 10-6 instead of 9-1 on 9/1? This schedule is driving me to drink!!!!!
Me: I don't think you're crazy, Michele. I just think you're overworked. Just remember to not start drinking until you're home :) 10-6 would be fine.
Michele: Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you! I bought Mary K some beer for her birthday so I think I will open a bottle right now. If I drink now I MAY be sober for the walk home!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Oh dear. Don't get too drunk or you'll start beating up the patrons. Perhaps someone should drive you home? ;) Hope you have a deservedly peaceful weekend and that people are nice to you today.
I should have gone to bed Friday night but i watched copious amounts of TNG instead.
ats_nolimits is set to premiere September 8. 
thebratqueen is writing the opener, and wolfling and mpoetess are co-writing the second episode.Various video viewings need to happen when we all get back to Smith, but planning for that can occur once we all actually are back at Smith.
A while back Allie was telling me i should try to plan a
valley_slash get-together. I really would like to do that. Any suggestions for places? Haymarket’s too small for large groups. No one is allowed to suggest Smith College Campus Center. Accessible via PVTA would likely be ideal.I saw Mrs. Leary on my way home on Friday. Walpole Footlighters is doing the Laramie Project the first 3 weekends in November. Should i go?
Saturday Ruthie took me to The Mint Café. I got chocolate banana spring roll for dessert. It’s vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and yellow syrup and a little Italian cookie thing whose name i don’t know and two spring rolls containing banana and chocolate.
When i posted about menstruation,
oyceter recommended Connie Willis’ “Even the Queen” (in her collection Impossible Things). I approve. Also: “Ado.”We had a combo birthday celebration at my grandmother’s Saturday night. My mom usually makes spinach salad -- spinach and orange. This time she left off the orange, but she put the dressing on before we went over so as to not have to bring a bottle of dressing in addition to everything else we were bringing. With the orange it’s palatable, but ew dressing. Yes, i like my food naked thank you very much.
At one point my grandmother said, rather apologetically, that for birthdays we do it my mother’s way -- that is, picking items off a wishlist -- but Christmas we do my grandmother’s way -- that is, buying whatever you feel like. Proof that i do have tact, i didn’t say, “Bitch, i hate the piles of pretty crap that i have no use nor desire for that i get from you for Christmas, especially when there are actual books/posters/CDs i would like to have.”
Immediately after my Sunday entry, i went out shopping with the fam. (Yay air-conditioning.) My mother’s contribution to my back-to-school shopping needs was soap, shampoo (Suave costs less than CVS, who knew? and then on top of that it was on sale), socks and an Ivy Day dress. On
hedy’s suggestion we went to Marshall’s (we were all impressed that my brother found Cobb Corner) and i actually found a dress (on the Clearance rack, no less). Have i mentioned how much i hate side zippers? (Though they’re not as bad as back zippers.) I have like no boobs in that dress (turns out it was a Juniors, which explains why a size 10 was so snug -- *growls at the stupid way [women’s] clothes are sized*) but i can breathe so really, it’s fine.Walpole Mall was next. Kohl’s is way overpriced, but they have plus-size mannequins and one in a wheelchair, so props to that. We walked by Dots and a window mannequin had a t-shirt that said “I know how you feel... I just don’t care.” Hullo, Smith. I bought one.
Then we bought food to eat at my grandmother’s (again with the AC). Ended up costing more than Chinese food (which was another option) but i was happy. Mac&cheese, spinach, fruit salad, egg rolls, (and chicken fingers for everyone else). And Grandma had ice cream that we had for dessert.
Blargh. Am feeling unmotivated to tackle the backlog of grad school e-mails. Le sigh. Am leaving for work at 12:30 (Despite my good intentions, some of the stuff i purchased on Tuesday is dry-clean only, so my dad’s gonna drop me off at the dry-cleaners before work.) so i really should get some done before i go to work.
Have we mentioned how much i love Herman Beavers? I responded to his e-mail and mentioned that so much literature about applying to grad school focuses on ingratiating yourself with the powerful professors in the program, so i really appreciated that his e-mails had focused on enthusiasm for me and a freedom to pursue what i wanted and so on. His reply:
Ms. Sweeny:
One piece of advice as you apply to programs. If a program's message
is that you'll be prepared for the academic profession simply because
you've sat "at the feet of the master" (whether the master is male or
female), then you'll need to look a little deeper. It's not to say
that graduate school is not about being, as my mentor used to say, "in
tutelage." But ultimately, your task in grad school is to figure out
how and what you think. Its sad to say, but professors can be a
narcissistic bunch (and I won't exempt myself from this observation),
so my advice is always that you decide what sort of educator/scholar you
want to be and make the program conform to that decision. You're not
in grad school to let the grass grow under your feet. "Tutelage"
means that you engage in a consistent give and take with your teachers;
that was the best part of grad school for me.
If you can go through grad school without becoming so self-absorbed
that you cease to care about what is happening around you (and that
means to the people around you), you'll be on your way to a great
career(and I'll be happy to say I knew you when ;-).
I'm happy you're excited about Penn. But take this e-mail in the
spirit that its offered: not as an endorsement of our grad school
program, but rather as an endorsement of the fact that you're bringing
something valuable and marvelous to the table and there's a grad
program out there that will surely recognize that fact.
