--sat in on Art 102, Renaissance to Modern, which is the class I am associate instructor for. I like this professor a lot--he's an oddball, but he has a good sense of humor and is seriously smart (rumor has it he trolls on Jstor and reads articles to find grammatical errors, for fun), and he has been remarkably helpful to me as I start to teach for the first time. Today we were talking about Northern Altarpieces, which is one of his research interests, and it was great. I'm learning a lot from this class, actually, as I never took 102 as an undergrad (weird) and have never been that exposed to Northern Renaissance art. And as some of you have told me over the years, Northern art is amazing. It is. And the professor even cracked some David Sedaris jokes today, so what's not to love?
--did errands, ate lunch with a friend, and sat in on the professor's section of the class in the puzzle library. I am taking my three classes there on Friday. So I've gushed on here before about the rare books library and how it is mind-blowingly great, but it turns out we are also the only academic institution in the United States to have a puzzle collection, which is also housed in the rare books library. A man donated all his puzzles to us (he'd been collecting since 1939), because he wanted them to be housed in a place where people could actually use them. It was cool to watch the students, especially when they figured out something. A few goals in this class are to get them to 1. visually tackle problems, and 2. realize that sometimes the things that look really simple have hidden complexities, and that prolonged study and looking are not bad things. Either way, unlike in a museum you actually get to touch things. Intrigued? I finally figured out how to solve this one today:
Also try this on for size: a regular coke bottle with a wooden arrow stuck through two rectangular holes in the size. The arrow is one solid piece of wood. How did it get there? I thought I had a good theory but the professor shot it down.
--was in my office (I have a shared office! How cool--nerdy--is that?) and suddenly there was crashing from the secretaries office down the hall. My office-mate went to check it out, and it was the secretary, the Byzantine art professor, and my advisor playing ring toss. My advisor is pretty proper, so this is especially awesome, especially since it turns out that he is pretty good at it.
--went and got my hair cut which was a relaxing time. I got the purple streak in my hair dyed blue and so had to sit around and read People magazine while it set (I mean, I could have read my theory homework, but I have my priorities straight). My hairdresser is super cool (she is also a hen farmer, and has some great tattoos) AND I hedonistically love having other people wash my hair, so that was good.
--am now baking a peach cobbler, writing cards, and getting ready to start some reading.
My mom and my sister visited last week, which was great (so much eating out in awesome ethnic restaurants! so much shopping at cute stores! so much wandering around the town square and poking around in used bookshops!) and I have some really amazing weekends coming up, so it's not like my life is totally uneventful. Happily, so far, this year is reinforcing some things for me--that I want to (attempt) to get a PhD and that I want to teach. I've only had 2 days of solo teaching so far--3 classes each, back to back, with about 56 students total--but it turns out that I both like it and am not terrible at it, so that is nice. For now, though, I'm happy to have intellectually stimulating and busy days, as long as there is enough silliness thrown in too. So far, so good.
ALSO: blog housekeeping! Have added two blogs to my sidebar and y'all should check them out. One is by my sister as she navigates post-college life (with her usual wittiness): http://hueandcaste.tumblr.com/ And the other is by my sister's college roomate and Bloomington native, who is starting grad school in Cardiff, Wales next week for art conservation: http://talesofwales.tumblr.com/
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