Oh, yeah. One last note on the whole scholarship application thing. I absolutely hate it when students use missionary work and church-inflicted moral standards, etc. as a promotion of themselves on an application. If you have been active in the church community you can use that to show your leadership abilities or extracurricular envolvement. If that's your bag, that's fine. But to just assume that stressing that you are a good Christian who sets a moral example for others will get you a scholarship is Very Sad. This is a public university and I am offended by those people. The same goes for the people who get a church member to right a recommedation letter and all it tells is how they have accepted Jesus and follow their religion blindly. First, we want leaders, not followers. If you indicate you are a Christian we should rank you lower right there. Second, Jesus has nothing whatsoever to do with academics.   ¶ 2/01/2002 03:26:00 PM

  I am so, so tired of talking to Mamas and Daddies on the phone about their child's scholarship application. It's the deadline. I have had numerous calls of panicking parents whose children have not yet applied. Fax numbers and web addresses and a lot of bullshit comes spewing out of my mouth- the calls are all the same. And then the application gets faxed, and the kid has a 17 on their ACT, and I'm like, "I wasted my breath for that?" Not to mention the sweet talkin' southern charm you have to use with these people. You must make it sound as though it has made your day to be speaking with them, when in fact it has done the opposite.

Oh, and by the way, I had awesome hair today, but not a good day. So the Hair-Mood Relativity Theory needs adjusting. I'm not in a bad mood, really, just weary, and I'm not filled with bouncy bubbly good humor.   ¶ 2/01/2002 03:09:00 PM

  We have two coffeepots in my dept. One is in the kitchenette, and it's a regular coffeepot. The other is in the copy room and its an industrial coffee pot. If I get my coffee from the kitchenette, its fine. But the coffee from the copy room tastes like instant alumininum foil flavored beverage. When you mix the dregs of one with the other, it tastes like burnt brass. Weird.  ¶ 2/01/2002 10:36:00 AM

  There is no point in trying to tell to a story when no one is listening.

Maybe, someday, I'll learn this.

  ¶ 1/30/2002 05:46:00 PM

  I just got in from class. This class baffles me. I don't know whether to be relieved or afraid... and I'm leaning towards afraid. Very afraid.

It's a 600 level class, and we didn't even have a reading assignment until today. This is week 3 of classes being in session. There are no tests, just a short paper and a very, very long one. The reading isn't heavy (when we even have it, for Christ's sake), and we only have one book.

The prof is fabulous. He looks like an old lumberjack come stumbling out the woods on a dark and dreary night. He speaks in an odd correlation of deep south mixed with yankee pronunciations that even I can't place, in a deep voice that resonates in your ears. In other words, a Poe scholar perfectly suited to Poe. Another prof, who happens to be a dear friend, was telling me the story (he tells the best stories!) of his first interview on campus, many moons ago. Dr. Fisher was his "host," and Colby spent the night at his house where they stayed up late drinking whiskey and talking about things that English professors tend to talk about. Apparently, after he had finally made it to bed, Dr. Fisher burst into the room with a Chainsaw and scared him out of his wits, because he thought it would be "funny." Colby greatly admires him for this, because Colby adores anyone who is subversive and outrageous.

Tonight he walked in 10 minutes late and announced that he had "the plague," snarked on Jane Austen (fine with me! WHY do they make you read Jane Austen, Why?), and then we read some poems. It was fabulous. Perfect, really. So why am I afraid?

I just don't trust this. It's too easy. At least half of the class is Ph.D. candidates. The rest are at least second year masters students. I have no idea what is expected of me. I don't want to be lulled into slackage and then BAM!- suddenly I'm expected to have this glorious paper with publishing potential. I know I'm overreacting, and the whole ambience of Poe coupled with a prof that's stepped right out of a horror story doesn't help. But at least its entertaining.

On another subject, my dog is making strange noises. When I get up to check on him, dead silence. Aha! Here he comes, and he's doing the slink-walk. He didn't get in my purse (he has a thing for lipstick), and the trash looks undisturbed... its a mystery! Maybe its not an unrelated subject after all.   ¶ 1/29/2002 09:40:00 PM