Jane

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2010-03-06T16:05:00.001-06:00

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Busy as bees

2010-03-06T15:43:00.000-06:00

As you can see, dear reader, I have been ridiculously busy the past few days, with no time for posting. I actually only remembered to turn my calendars over from Feb to March today! The week was characterized by meetings and more meetings, but on a brighter note, now that my article edits have been sent off, I am making good progress towards finishing my chapter and seem to be able to get into a work groove much more easily than before. So that is very good indeed!

The major excitement has been that I woke up on Friday with a strange rash-like thing on my arms, both of them. Went to the doctor, who was stumped. It doesn't look like bug bites, nor does it seem like illness or allergic reaction unless the allergy is to something touching both arms. So I came back and have been putting cream on it. Since then, there have been developments! Lighter circles have developed in the center of each pock (for lack of a better word), and they have begun to burn. Not itch, burn. Really not fun. The only thing I can think of is I was resting my bare arm on the counter at a bar I was at on Thurs evening - and I shudder to think what they clean it with, what was also on the bar with my arm - but maybe I am reacting to that. Ugh.

Trying to work this weekend, in addition to going to see The Last Station with C finally. Working is hard, though, when it hurts to lay your wounded and pocked arms down on your laptop to type. Hmm. Looking very forward to these things going away and next week being lovely.

Adorable

2010-03-03T20:33:00.000-06:00

You can tell your online dating service is in trouble when you get a notice in the mail that they are "extending your service indefinitely free of charge" because they "want to attract more members in your age range" accompanied by a list of eligible new members, numbering two, one of whom is 58 and lives in Kansas, the other of whom is 49 and lives in California. Awesome. Note for those keeping track, 20 years older than me is a bit older than I am looking for. Signing up for the thing in the first place was clearly a bad idea. The price, though, (2 years of membership now for the low low price of $12) cannot be beat! Too bad no one on there is anyone I would want to date.

However, day considerably brightened by adorable ladies in my Swedish class. They brought me a book to borrow (Stieg Larsson's latest) as they felt sorry for me waiting until it comes out in paperback later this month. And they brought me reviews in the NY Times and Opera News of "The Nose" that I have tickets to in NYC next week. Lovely!

A chuckle (discovered by Meredith)

2010-03-02T20:53:00.001-06:00

OK GO mousetrap video

2010-03-02T16:22:00.000-06:00

Why am I not surprised?

2010-03-02T01:45:00.000-06:00

With Olympic Flame Out, Russia Fumes Over Its Athletes� Showing <-- Yeahhh. Self-explanatory.

Hilarity ensues

2010-03-02T00:53:00.000-06:00

I read a tumblr called fuckyeahchicago! which mostly has pretty pictures of Chicago on it. But now, eyes blurry from spending the day editing, chapter clearly on the brain, when I opened my RSS reader I thought it said fuckyeahchapter! And I thought to myself "right on." Ha.

And.... the TODO list

2010-03-01T23:53:00.003-06:00

Things to do [today]:
- ~~finish article edits~~ (for really real, I am going to do it)
- either ~~begin putting together fall seminar syllabus~~ or ~~pulling together chapter~~, depending on mood
- ~~write blog about Pride and Prejudice: The Musical~~ (I promise, dear reader, this is coming very soon)
- ~~actually cook something that is more labor intensive than just microwaving or boiling water and involves more than 1 ingredient~~ (madness)

Are we impressed? We ought to be, dear reader! I have had a most productive day. I did finish the edits (vg!!!), and have looked at chapter and realized that it is probably going to take time to pull it together as it is in worse disarray than I had remembered after I cannibalized it for this article. So did a bit to assess damage and get it started, and am now hoping to pull it together before Kristina arrives on Monday. The new plan is to finish chapter 1 by Monday, then have a lovely week with Kristina, fly to NYC, have a great time, come home, do laundry, and get cracking on chapter 2 immediately. Hopefully I can have a good enough version of it pulled together before my spring break trip. This will put me in very good shape indeed, I think :) And I made a really good omelet! Two eggs, jack cheese, some pepper: it was so tasty. And it flipped perfectly. Hurray protein! And, to top it off, wrote up a basic syllabus for my class in the fall. So now just need to tinker with it and can hopefully send it off to Prof M for feedback this week. This would be excellent. Now: shiny novel and bed.

Pride and Prejudice: the Musical

2010-03-01T23:42:00.002-06:00

When I first heard about Pride and Prejudice: the Musical, I was worried, dear reader. The thing about P&P is that it is so subtle, I wasn't sure that a musical format would really work for it. As it turns out, that is accurate. The thing that I saw on Saturday evening hurt a great deal.

The first thing to say is that the production was kind of strange. It's a local opera company (and not one of the more famous ones- what can I say? it's a theater town). I confess, based on the publicity things I got, I was expecting better. THis mostly felt like a high school job. Some of the singers were good, but some were badly miscast. Many seemed confused as to whether they were in a musical or an opera, and there was way too much vibrato going on. The one singing Jane Austen (who has a prominent role in the musical, framing all of the action) turned out to be a very operatic contralto, and both unable to blend with others and rather manly (to the point that when she first started singing, I thought she was a drag queen). She really didn't feel at all as Jane Austen should. There were other issues too: Darcy, although apparently of good singing pedigree, clearly had some kind of headcold and didn't do a very solid job. The costumes ranged wildly in historical period. The bulk of the action was meant to be set in 1796, but many of the people (including anyone from London) looked as though they'd stumbled out of a later Dickens novel. Many of the girls' dresses were clearly 1830s style. It was confusing. And then there was the orchestra, which was live, but far too loud, and not always in tune. I was glad I only paid $15 for tickets.

Then there is the musical itself. I understand that it was written through a grant from JASNA, and that weeks of research at Chawton went into it. I am not 100% sure why this research was necessary, as it clearly did not come out in the costumes, and as most of the history parts I knew, so clearly the creators could have gleaned this from any kind of Jane Austen biography. Furthermore, the music was pretty bad: dull and uninspired. There were 2 songs that I truly enjoyed, and one of them was just Bingley and Jane singing "You're so wonderful" over and over again to each other. Third, there was the issue of length. The musical is three hours long. Three hours of pain. They leave out Collins's proposal scene to Lizzy, sadly, but add in so much other filler, and I am not sure why. And then they mixed up the lines that they did leave in, and left out some characters entirely (the Hursts, Mrs Jenkins, Col Fitzwilliam), as well as several plot points (Jane going to London, the 2nd meeting between Lizzy and Darcy at Pemberley, most of the beginning). I confess, I expected better.

The worst part of it, though, was not the bits left out, or the bad production, but the fact that P&P is one of my favorite books. I love it because it seems to sparkle as you read it. And I missed that sparkle here. Some of the film adaptations have the sparkle, but this thing is completely lacking in it. There were maybe one or two moments of it, but very few, and with three hours of giggling and soldiers and everything else to sit through, it was just dull. Sad but true.

Article round up

2010-03-01T12:36:00.001-06:00

Searching for Saddam <-- An interesting article in Slate about how network theory was necessary to track down Saddam Hussein just like in the CBS show NUMB3RS(!) This is the first part and is not so much about the network theory, as about the way the US military fights and conceptualizes things. It was interesting. I esp. like that the guy in charge holds an advanced degree in Russian. That's right.

Frostbitten: Decoding the Cold War 20 Years Later <-- Review of the new Cambridge History of the Cold War in Foreign Affairs. It's funny how perceptions change when the Cold War goes from being current history, or recent history, and becomes chronicled past history. Worth reading.

And... Lost Exile <-- An article from Vanity Fair about The eXile, Russia's surprisingly long-lived expat periodical. Tells about what it was doing during its existence, and what happened to spark its demise.

Read up! As for me, I am writing....

Things

2010-03-01T00:27:00.000-06:00

Things accomplished today:
- bedroom cleaned, living room tidied
- Anthropologie returns packaged
- dishes done, kitchen cleaned
- bath taken, current novel finished (vg)
- edits on Kristina's diss chapter finished (vg!)
- inboxes cleaned out
- calendar for next week made up
- Amazing Race watched (go cowboys!)

Things to do tomorrow:
- finish article edits (for really real, I am going to do it)
- either begin putting together fall seminar syllabus or pulling together chapter, depending on mood
- write blog about Pride and Prejudice: The Musical (I promise, dear reader, this is coming very soon)
- actually cook something that is more labor intensive than just microwaving or boiling water and involves more than 1 ingredient (madness)

Not too shabby, really. And now for shiny new novel and bed, I think.

This is lovely

2010-02-28T02:55:00.000-06:00

A lovely evening

2010-02-27T11:23:00.000-06:00

My day yesterday started off madly, but then ended so nicely. First there were meetings and meetings. But then I got dressed for the evening, and all was well. My new Anthropologie dress was actually delivered yesterday afternoon, but it didn't fit well, so I decided to return it and wore a black dress that's a bit warmer instead. I met up with Connor, miraculously caught the Purple Express, and we headed down to the Loop. First there was dinner at Russian Teatime - with tea(!), tea infused vodka, good black bread, borsch, homemade dumplings with sour cream and garlic creme fraiche, the good carrot salad, blini, and apricot-plum strudel. After stuffing ourselves and being joined by Heather and Jen, we headed off to the ballet for the Joffrey's "Cinderella".

"Cinderella" was really lovely. It was very sparkly, for one. The costumes were wonderful. There was a lot of humor added to it. Most of the dancing was somewhat off (the Joffrey does really well with interpretive things and not so well with forms where everyone dances all at the same time), but there were a few shining moments: a pretty dance between Cinderella and the Prince, the dances of the four seasons, the Jester's dance. The pas de deux was somewhat disappointing, but I think because of the choreography (Ashton) than because of the dancing. But the overall tableaux was so charming and the ending so magical, the whole was really a very good effect.

Afterwards Heather and I went on to Rhapsody, which I'd heard good things about (it has a famous chef, etc.). There we got amazing cocktails and shared some mussels and frites, which were very yum. And caught all up with each other, and it was nice. Haven't had a good chat with Heather since our walks in the fall, I think. But! She's moving to Chicago next year! So there will be lots of chatting and lots of ballet :) Hurray!

Quite full and happy, we made our way back to the transport - Heather to the bus and me to the El. In the Jackson station there were people playing Baroque duets (I think Telemann) on a sax and a flute, which was nice. The train came after not too much waiting, and I dove into my book ("City of Thieves" by David Benioff) for the long ride home, got back around 12:30 and promptly went to bed. What a lovely evening!

Today: editing and work. Tonight: Pride and Prejudice the Musical with Carmen and Amanda (very excited). The rest of the weekend: MAD WORK.

Ridiculous Friday diversion (someone spent WAY too much time on this)

2010-02-26T10:12:00.000-06:00

Morning, chez moi (I like the light)

2010-02-26T09:37:00.000-06:00

Oh long

2010-02-25T23:47:00.002-06:00

Yesterday characterized by running about from class to offices to post office, then getting home and discovering that my heat was off, skipping my Swedish class (for shame) in favor of laying on the couch and catching up with my Hulu queue and the Men's skating + Ladies' short programs. This was really lovely. I think everyone should have a night off sometimes, and I thoroughly enjoyed mine.

And! Thanks to having it, today was very productive! Here, for example, is what I did today:
- sent 50+ academic-related emails
- wrote my February report
- attended an exec board meeting
- put on coffee for 50 or so undergrads
- met with Prof M to discuss various things
- planned the last stages of my FL trip; bought a plane ticket from TPA to PBI (genius idea of Robbie's)
- organized Saturday's theater outing (to see Pride & Prejudice the musical!)
- plotted/purchased tickets for a theater outing in March (to see Les Liaisons Dangereuses)
- plotted and decided to wait a week on an opera outing for undergrads
- sold a Bulls v Blazers ticket
- edited Nina's abstract; began editing Kristina's chapter
- translated 2 pages from German to English for my RA translation project
- invited 3 scholars to a conference for a committee I serve on

All in all, not too shabby. Of course, there are also the things left undone, which include article edits, emptying/refilling my dishwasher, and other things. SOON, though, dear reader. I am thinking it is nearly time for bed for now. It was a long busy day, but significantly improved by the evening of wonderful ladies' figure skating that I enjoyed when I got home from it. Hurray Olympics! Will be sad to see it end.

In which Susanna sees Chicago!

2010-02-23T00:40:00.004-06:00

So! After a mad Thursday of meetings, I went to Bar Louie and met up with Susanna, who came to visit! She's looking at my dept for grad school, and stayed with me, and it was all around lovely. In addition to getting all caught up with each other and watching several episodes of Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, we had a really lovely weekend in Chicago, doing the Chicago touristy things. Here are the highlights:

Chicago! Well, we didn't get in any long walks, but we did do North Michigan Ave and the Millennium Park and a bit of the Loop. The weather was lovely the first two days, and then kind of drizzly the last two days. We tried to go to the Art Institute twice, and failed both times (both times because I am terrible with timing). But it was okay as we heard from Nina that it was absurdly crowded due to Feb being a free month. On Friday evening after dinner we went with Carmen to Buddy Guy's Legends, a famous Chicago blues club. There we were mesmerized, listening to two amazing bands - both amazing in different ways. The first was really good as a crowd pleaser, and the lead singer had a really marvelous beautiful deep voice that sounded good no matter what it was singing. It made even Under the Boardwalk into a kind of art. The second band was more big band style, with several tenor saxes and a trumpet, and they played some songs with no words - but when the lead singer, a relatively young guy - began to sing, his voice was so good and yet so different from the first singer that it made a really good contrast. I can't even really describe his voice. We had a sort of strange spot to watch, which was often blocked by standing people, but we stayed for hours and hours, even after we didn't want to order any more drinks, because the music was that good. From there we went to the lounge at the top of the Hancock Tower for overpriced cocktails and a good view. It was foggy, but Chicago's lights look pretty in the fog. Such a good Friday! But then on Saturday evening we went to a small local theater to see Chekhov's short plays. As you all know, dear reader, I really love Chekhov, and I was ready to be charmed by his sort plays. The theater company was fairly amateurish, and they interpreted Chekhov in such a way that the poor man is probably spinning in his grave. Very few of the plays bore any resemblance to Chekhov, and I only really enjoyed one or two. Sadly there were 7 altogether, and the evening stretched on for three hours. Longest evening of Chekhov short plays ever. So one good evening and one bad evening in terms of entertainment, but I think it was all in all good.

The eating! We did some very good eating, though. First there was Bar Louie on Thursday. I had never eaten there, except for dessert, but we like to go there because they have wonderful cocktails made with sweet tea liqueur that actually taste just like sweet tea. But, what I learned at Bar Louie on Thursday, is that burgers are good with crab and avocado on them. The food was solid, and I'd be curious to try their brunch (seemed like a good brunchy place). On Friday afternoon we stopped at Garrett's Popcorn, the most famous popcorn in Chicago, so Susanna could get some presents for people. I had heard of Garrett's, of course, and had seen the ridiculous lines of people, but had never had it. We waited in a crazy spiral line in their State St location for maybe 30 minutes before we could order, but then, eating the popcorn as we walked along the street, we realized that the popcorn was not only worth the wait- it was the best popcorn ever. We did the Chicago Mix, cheese and caramel corn combined. And it was amazing. From popcorn we went on to a Thai restaurant I know of in the south Loop. We were supposed to meet Carmen and another prospective student there, but as they were late and then got a bit lost finding it, we ended up sitting there and ordering appetizers for about an hour. We tried three: fresh spring rolls, pot stickers, and some leek dumplings. We were impressed by both the rolls and the dumplings, but the leek dumplings were really lovely, with a subtle leek-y flavor and crisp rice dough, and we were v impressed. Dinner was good too! And then on Saturday we went to a Polish neighborhood so we could go to the Polish grocery. Susanna is doing a project involving Polish gardens and orchards and wanted to see what sorts of things are typical Polish food (jams, honeys, spices, herbs, etc). We went (okay I went) a little mad, though, buying things as they had so many good products. Came home with a lot of groceries (definitely a good thing), and then had a marvelous lunch consisting of Susanna's sandwich from Bar Louie, Polish bean and mixed salads with mayo, and toast with spreadable cheese. Yumm. We stopped for a mid-afternoon snack of steamed bao and homemade green tea gingerale as we went along, and ended up finally at Hopleaf for dinner, for excellent Belgian food: there was the appetizer of tongue, pickled root vegetables and goat cheese and potato pierogies, which was so good (and I don't even really like goat cheese all that much); there was my dinner of housemade sausages, white beans with pancetta, and frites; and there was lovely Belgian beer for all. All in all, a very good eating weekend. The one strange meal we had was at Le Peep where we went for breakfast on Sunday before Susanna had to go. Our food literally came 8 minutes after we were seated (5 mins after we gave our order). Very sketchy. It was okay enough. But it was strangely fast. Anyway.

All in all, a very good visit. It was nice to show off my city a bit, and lovely to do it with Susanna, who I hadn't seen since the summer as our attempt to meet up in December was foiled by my vile cold. It's a bit anticlimactic to be back to normal here, though, now that the few days of intense activity and the excitement of Susanna being here are over. I'm back to trying to write and running about from meeting to meeting. On that note, I should either edit or sleep.

The Chemist's War

2010-02-21T12:59:00.000-06:00

The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition <-- Article about Prohibition gov't policy that resulted in thousands of deaths. From the fine people of Slate, who also bring us this other Prohibition-relevant article: The End of Prohibition: Why gay marriage, getting high, and going to Cuba will soon be legal. Food for thought, dear reader.

On that note, time to get down to work (writing!). Updates about magical weekend of Chicago magic with Susanna to come soon.

Sign welcoming new orthopedic doctor to 8th floor of medical building.... I should be so fancy someday!

2010-02-19T11:17:00.000-06:00

University beach in winter

2010-02-19T10:18:00.000-06:00

Also: Lent

2010-02-17T22:47:00.000-06:00

I am giving up soda. All soda. REALLY. I had a diet coke today, and am done from now until Easter.

Les updates:

2010-02-17T22:33:00.000-06:00

- I have now been listening to the newest Owl City album on random repeat for 24+ hours straight. It's some good stuff. And good for revising/writing! Good to know.
- Today in Russian class my Russian was terrifyingly bad. We were doing mock job interviews. I forgot the word for grammar. I am never getting a job.
- Edits are coming along nicely, albeit more slowly than I would have liked.
- I have learned the dangerous fact that Anthropologie actually has normal sized clothes that fit me well. Sadly it is somewhat out of my budget.
- Susanna is coming tomorrow! Tomorrow! I have plotted out an awesome Chicago weekend of awesome, beginning with dinner/drinks tomorrow and culminating with Chekhov shorts at a vaudeville theater on Saturday. There will be Belgian food. There will be a blues club. There will be fine art. There will be Thai-themed cocktails. It will rock.
- But first, the edits! Edits!

J'accuse!

2010-02-17T02:39:00.000-06:00

Yeah, yeah. Can you tell what I'm doing tonight??
Real update to come soon. When something notable happens. Like I finish these bloody revisions.

Rock

2010-02-16T17:57:00.000-06:00

C'mon NBC

2010-02-15T21:09:00.000-06:00

What's it like to train with China's skating champs? <-- Memoir story on CNN about Shen and Zhao, the gold medal favorites in pairs figure skating this Olympics. This is lovely. Other things to do while waiting on figure skating footage: watch figure skating videos on NBC.com, compulsively check the figure skating live blog.

Until the figure skating.... enjoying NBC playing the men's moguls medal ceremony. Glad the Canadian won :) Glad that NBC is finally giving air time to a backstory blurb about him and to his awards ceremony. Glad that they forewarned the American audience *three times* beforehand that it would be "O Canada" and not the "Star Spangled Banner" (goes to show you what they typically broadcast, not surprisingly). Enjoying that the Canadians are singing along.

Yes! Figure skating now! Russians!