So, the last time I posted, Danny was a month old, I hadn't yet gone back to work, and it was probably daytime.Now, it's ten of six in the morning and I've been up for going on two hours. Also? Danny had his three-month birthday this week. There were cupcakes.What has life been like since the beginning of January?My parents came, as did my brother and sister-in-law, to meet Danny and celebrate Christmas (well, epiphany anyway). There was vegetarian dining, king cake, and lots... Read Full Story

So, it's been months since I've written anything. Months during which I blew up like a balloon, and yet people were constantly telling me I "wasn't that big," which is really not an encouraging thing to say to a very pregnant woman. Just a general word of advice, the following are all terrible things to say to a pregnant woman: "You're still so small!" "You're enormous!" "You're really not very big!" "You must be due an... Read Full Story

So, it has occurred to me that my social networking rant just looks like me hating on people who can figure out who they are pretty easily. Here's the thing: they're people I really like and respect and that's part of what makes me really sad and also really angry about the whole thing.I've been a grad student for sixish years now and am in my fourth year of college-level teaching. This isn't a lot of experience, but it's enough to make me "hireable" when I... Read Full Story

So, here I am in the blogosphere talking about the stupidity of people in the semi-blogosphere (i.e., the world of the Myspace and Facebook note) not understanding that the world wide web is world wide.Some undergraduate students on the social networking sites are openly glorying in having hounded a faculty member out of their department because they didn't like him. The guy's gone. He's got another job. They're starting a new semester with new faculty. But they can't ... Read Full Story

In a moment, I'm going to have to actually start prepping a lesson for Monday because none of the blogs I follow have posted anything new since yesterday and I'm running out of ways to procrastinate. I am, obviously, still enjoying the bountiful A/C and internet access at LSU, and my house (which, for some reason, I called an apartment in the last post) is still without power. According to Entergy's most recent outage map, our neighborhood should have power within the week instea... Read Full Story

So, Hurricane Gustave hit Baton Rouge Monday (and Tuesday and Wednesday). Entergy says that if all goes well, we SHOULD have our power back by SEPTEMBER 24TH! That's right, twenty-three days after the storm hit. In the meantime, the president was here (did he bring a saw? of course not!) and we've been declared a disaster area. Why? Because THE EYE OF A CATEGORY 2 HURRICANE PASSED DIRECTLY OVER THE STATE CAPITAL OF LOUISIANA LEAVING A MILLION AND A HALF PEOPLE WITHOUT POWER. Is... Read Full Story

So, John and I re-registered to vote in Baton Rouge today so that we wouldn't have to truck to Lafayette early in the morning on Election Day. Color us organized.We also both took the opportunity to do something that I probably ought to have done before the first of December, 2004. We changed our party affiliation from "Democrat" to the party we actually support: the Party for Socialism and Liberation. (Note the shiny button below my archives links.)Most people seem to regard... Read Full Story

So, apparently, McCain and Obama have very different thoughts about the GI Bill and the function of the VA. As I was driving into NOLA on Wednesday morning, listening to NPR, there was this story about a man whose son was an Iraq vet who needed specialized services that weren't offered at his local VA, so he was referred to the nearest big-city VA. The man had no trouble driving his son to Dayton, Ohio, or wherever, but his son would now have to go through a separate waiting period -- a... Read Full Story

Alright, so I suck at blogging regularly these days. It could be the pregnancy, the move, the new job, and the looming dissertation prospectus deadlines. I apologize (to my two readers, one of whom lives in my house and already knows all this) and move on.Today, there is supposed to be an unpacking bonanza. Hopefully, this will take place, as the baby furniture is starting to arrive, and the baby's room is still full of boxes.While John was sleeping in, however, I discovered (by FINALL... Read Full Story

It's not quite seven and I've been up for almost two hours. This is very, very wrong.In other news, all of our furniture and most of our crap is moved into the new house. The baby kicks. I graded my students first essays, just in time to collect their second essays.Life is good. Read Full Story