I start classes tomorrow, and am almost eerily unconcerned. I normally get really nervous about the beginning of a new school year--will I fit in ok? What will I wear? What if I'm not smart enough? What if I'm too smart and no one likes me? What if I can't find the classroom and am, saints preserve us, late??
Either I am 1. totally apathetic and don't care anymore, or 2. have gained some [misplaced?] confidence along the way--but in either case, I'm feeling quite ready. I have some theories about what has contributed to this. I had a comprehensive, excellent undergrad education, and I think I am very prepared for my classes. The seminar I took my senior year was the hardest, most rewarding academic experience I've ever had, and I honestly think that if I can do that, I can do this. Having met most of my sister students (there is one fellow student my year, but I don't think I have any classes with him) I know that they are nice and not likely to shun me. The faculty seems, by and large, humane--not likely to call you out in class for not knowing something. And, I generally keep up with the reading, so any gaps will fill in that way.
So, here's what I'm taking: Foundations in Islamic Art, a seminar called Caravaggio and Velazquez: Art Writing in the Baroque, Beginning Italian, and Research Sources, which is apparently v. boring but necessary. I'm excited about all of 'em (minus Research Sources). I've never had a class on Islamic Art, and the professor is supposed to be phenomenal. I'm a little-bit-of-a-freak about Caravaggio, so that should be my cup of tea. And Italian?! Now I can understand what is happening in operas!
For my last day of "freedom," I cooked some Jacques Pepin recipes (Fricassee of Brussels Sprouts and Bacon, and Caramelized Peaches, ooh la la), went grocery shopping, bought notebooks, went swimming (yes, my apartment complex has a POOL, I feel like I'm living in a resort), made and addressed some cards, watched an episode of White Collar, and started reading, erm, Dead After Dark. Yes, it's about vampires. It's also only marginally interesting.
Now all that's left for tomorrow is to double and triple check my schedule (still worried about being late!) and write some more cards. There are a lot of birthdays coming up!
Good vibes welcome. But I think this will be fun.
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Friday, 27 August 2010
Three Friday Food Stories
I love to eat. I am, however, lazy, and although I can kind of cook, I don't often do it. Plus, it's a bummer cooking for one, as I usually get sick of leftovers after a few days. (I do love to bake though.) So I love it when there are affordable and different restaurant options around, not for a daily basis (that's what cereal is for!) but for every couple of weeks. Some excellent finds from today:
I went out to lunch with my "mentor," who is a third year PhD student, focusing on Southern Renaissance, who also happened to be super nice. The department has us meet up with a mentor so that we can ask advice, freak out to them (if need be), go to them if we're having problems, etc. It's a sweet idea. Anyway, we went to a Turkish restaurant called Turkuazcafe, and oh my gosh, it was delicious. I'd never had Turkish food before and also never sat on the floor, covered with lovely carpets and pillows, to eat, but we did both. I got the eggplant pide, which was sort of a pizza-like bread boat thing, topped with mashed eggplant, tomato (but not too much, which is good for me, a fairweather tomato friend) and lots of garlic and paprika. It came with a bowl of red lentil soup, 3 little salads (coleslaw-like, cucumbers and tomato, and couscous). And it was $6.50. I will absolutely be back.
This evening, two of the other girls (or should that be sister students?) in my program and I went to the Campus Candy store. For someone who does have an occasional (ok, ok, frequent) craving for tempting tooth decay, this place is dangerous. Any type of gummy candy you could think of--brain shapes, egg shapes (yolk and all), licorice pinwheels, worms, spiders, bears, snakes, and a lot more. Not to mention any combination of chocolate, pretzel, nut, and toffee that you could have wanted, PLUS retro-candy, like my favorites, Bit O Honey and Mary Jane's. Not cheap for the bags, but getting just a little bit is still a good sampler.
(no, this isn't a picture from Campus Candy--it's one I took a few years ago in Paris, because they were smurf gummys, called "Petit Schtroumpf," which I just loved. Embarrassingly, they were in the basement of the Louvre--I might have taken more pictures of the candy down there than art. Whoops.)
Lastly, we had the departmental picnic tonight. I cop-ed out and brought grapes, not having too much to bake with yet, and then I proceeded to bring the grapes home with me, because there was so. much. food. I just ate sides because there were so many good ones. If anyone has a good homemade hummus recipe, I'd like it--I keep wanting to try it, and there were some great varieties there tonight.
On that note, I'm going to eat a licorice pinwheel and hit the hay. Good night, my Petit Schtroumpfs.
I went out to lunch with my "mentor," who is a third year PhD student, focusing on Southern Renaissance, who also happened to be super nice. The department has us meet up with a mentor so that we can ask advice, freak out to them (if need be), go to them if we're having problems, etc. It's a sweet idea. Anyway, we went to a Turkish restaurant called Turkuazcafe, and oh my gosh, it was delicious. I'd never had Turkish food before and also never sat on the floor, covered with lovely carpets and pillows, to eat, but we did both. I got the eggplant pide, which was sort of a pizza-like bread boat thing, topped with mashed eggplant, tomato (but not too much, which is good for me, a fairweather tomato friend) and lots of garlic and paprika. It came with a bowl of red lentil soup, 3 little salads (coleslaw-like, cucumbers and tomato, and couscous). And it was $6.50. I will absolutely be back.
This evening, two of the other girls (or should that be sister students?) in my program and I went to the Campus Candy store. For someone who does have an occasional (ok, ok, frequent) craving for tempting tooth decay, this place is dangerous. Any type of gummy candy you could think of--brain shapes, egg shapes (yolk and all), licorice pinwheels, worms, spiders, bears, snakes, and a lot more. Not to mention any combination of chocolate, pretzel, nut, and toffee that you could have wanted, PLUS retro-candy, like my favorites, Bit O Honey and Mary Jane's. Not cheap for the bags, but getting just a little bit is still a good sampler.
(no, this isn't a picture from Campus Candy--it's one I took a few years ago in Paris, because they were smurf gummys, called "Petit Schtroumpf," which I just loved. Embarrassingly, they were in the basement of the Louvre--I might have taken more pictures of the candy down there than art. Whoops.)
Lastly, we had the departmental picnic tonight. I cop-ed out and brought grapes, not having too much to bake with yet, and then I proceeded to bring the grapes home with me, because there was so. much. food. I just ate sides because there were so many good ones. If anyone has a good homemade hummus recipe, I'd like it--I keep wanting to try it, and there were some great varieties there tonight.
On that note, I'm going to eat a licorice pinwheel and hit the hay. Good night, my Petit Schtroumpfs.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Name that Blog--A CONTEST
I've never done a contest on these before, nor have I any ideas about what to give as a prize, but nevertheless! This blog needs a title, and although I am quite good at academic titles (you know, the sort with alliteration and colons and such) I'm having problems with this one. So I would like you to pick it. I have some options, but I know y'all are better wordsmiths than I. The prize, apart from my unwavering gratitute, will probably be in the lines of IU gear (if that is your thing) or homemade cookies (if that is your thing) or a combination of the two.
Title options so far--if you like any of these, let me know and we can put it to a vote.
--Brooklyn, Bloomington, and Beyond--the alliteration is good, but it's not overly exciting
--40,000 + 1--playing off my previous blog title of "2.5 million + 1" which is the population of Brooklyn. "40,000 + 1" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, alas.
--Hoosier Daddy??--ok, I'm very fond of this one, as in, "who's your daddy??" My sister vetoed it though.
--From Brick to Limestone--my beautiful undergrad college had brick buildings. IU has limestone ones. I think there is too much regional explanation involved with this title.
--Tales from the Ivory Tower--apt, but it's not so much a tower, nor do I like the phrase "the ivory tower," unless it is referring to Rapunzel.
--What the %@*& is a Hoosier, anyway?--pretty self-explanatory.
--some sort of pun with blooming, Bloomington, etc.
--Indi-Anna--this would keep it matching the URL, but it seems a little vain to have my name in the title.
--Until 3 Weeks ago I didn't know who Bobby Knight Was--true, but not catchy, nor something I should probably admit.
--If it Ain't Baroque, or variations thereof: If it Ain't Baroque, Don't Fix It; If it Ain't Baroque, Who Cares; If it Ain't Baroque, Why Bother?, etc.--just a little art historical humor for ya.
--Until 3 Weeks ago I didn't know who Bobby Knight Was--true, but not catchy, nor something I should probably admit.
--If it Ain't Baroque, or variations thereof: If it Ain't Baroque, Don't Fix It; If it Ain't Baroque, Who Cares; If it Ain't Baroque, Why Bother?, etc.--just a little art historical humor for ya.
--Some sort of John Mellancamp lyric, or something from a Meg Cabot book, as they're both from here.
Orientating
So, I moved to the Midwest. Bloomington, Indiana, in particular (which I suppose could be considered more the South than the Midwest, but it is Midwest to me). I'm going to be attending Indiana University in T-3 days for an MA in Art History, and have a very cute big-girl apartment, stocked with Wegmans peanut butter. Impressions so far? IU and Bloomington in general are way, way cool.
Not specific, I realize, but I'm a little overwhelmed, sensory and information-wise. I had a 10 hour training today (seriously, 8am-6pm, although we were provided breakfast AND lunch). We discussed teaching tips, for when I will eventually teach. Setting up gradebooks online sounds like my idea of hell. Also: as a graduate assistant it is important to control your sarcasm-impulse with your students. Which I might have problems with, as my eyebrows have a mind of their own.
I am not sure how much I'll be writing, but I hope I can continue to update you on what I'm up to. There are a LOT of cultural activities here--I've already gotten season Opera and Ballet tickets, plus there are world music festivals, indie bands, a huge range of restaurants (falafels: excellent; Thai: doubly excellent), DAVID SEDARIS (yeah, I'm jazzed about that one), and so much more! I'm sure there will be guest blogs, art reviews, and random musings about food, artsy fartsiness, and bus-related shenanigans.
Speaking of which:
--yesterday the first year undergrads moved in, all 8,000 of them, and traffic was gnarly. One of my sister students and I were on the bus, which kept getting stalled because of all the traffic. We were stopped at one point by the swarms of red-shirted first years lugging mass amounts of luggage down the street, and an old man on the bus yelled out the door, "WELCOME TO BLOOMINGTON, Y'ALL! THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD."
Oh, and this template will be changing, but I have to sucker one of my lovely techie friends into making a new one first. Thanks for reading! Let's have a good year.
Not specific, I realize, but I'm a little overwhelmed, sensory and information-wise. I had a 10 hour training today (seriously, 8am-6pm, although we were provided breakfast AND lunch). We discussed teaching tips, for when I will eventually teach. Setting up gradebooks online sounds like my idea of hell. Also: as a graduate assistant it is important to control your sarcasm-impulse with your students. Which I might have problems with, as my eyebrows have a mind of their own.
I am not sure how much I'll be writing, but I hope I can continue to update you on what I'm up to. There are a LOT of cultural activities here--I've already gotten season Opera and Ballet tickets, plus there are world music festivals, indie bands, a huge range of restaurants (falafels: excellent; Thai: doubly excellent), DAVID SEDARIS (yeah, I'm jazzed about that one), and so much more! I'm sure there will be guest blogs, art reviews, and random musings about food, artsy fartsiness, and bus-related shenanigans.
Speaking of which:
--yesterday the first year undergrads moved in, all 8,000 of them, and traffic was gnarly. One of my sister students and I were on the bus, which kept getting stalled because of all the traffic. We were stopped at one point by the swarms of red-shirted first years lugging mass amounts of luggage down the street, and an old man on the bus yelled out the door, "WELCOME TO BLOOMINGTON, Y'ALL! THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD."
Oh, and this template will be changing, but I have to sucker one of my lovely techie friends into making a new one first. Thanks for reading! Let's have a good year.
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