Interlibrary Loan is the coolest thing ever

Somehow my article on the Panathenaic Festival is made a thousand times cooler by the fact that it was obtained for me (for me!) from the Dutch National Library.
And big props to the ILL office, who forwarded to me the original email (in Dutch) from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Dutch is a supremely cool language to [...]

On the horizon

All of a sudden, here it is the end of the quarter. That helps to explain the sudden shoe-lust; anything to prevent thinking about final papers.  Class A I’m hoping to have functionally drafted this weekend as I have to present it on Monday; Class B hasn’t been assigned, while Class C has given us [...]

O Tempora

A big d’oh moment this morning. I forgot to do laundry last night, and so I had no tights again today. With it as wet and sloppy as it is outside there was no thought of jeans; one of my great pet peeves is soaking trouser cuffs. So another day of the ever-classy knee highs [...]

Some kind of perfect

I have a severe case of Courtly Fashion Love for seersucker. I can’t remember ever owning anything made of it, and most times I see it in person it’s incorporated into something depressingly ugly. And yet I can’t let it go: an airy, feminine seersucker skirt would be just too perfect an intersection of material, [...]

The knock at the door

Well, this is new and different. (Note to self: must stop using the phrase “new and different”. It’s getting old and worn out.)
I’ve just had two perky students come knocking on my door to sell merchandise for a major annual charity fundraiser on campus. “We have shot glasses!” they proclaimed giddily. Most student groups, receiving [...]

The National Committee for the Return of Shoulders, Sleeves, and an Actual Neckline

From the New York Times, a short article on Oscar fashion.
Cate Blanchett, duly ornamented, was among the nominees who attended Mr. Armani’s fashion show on Saturday, when she indicated she would wear a dress by him to the awards, as she did. She wore a silver one-shoulder mesh gown, overlaid with a veil of flowers [...]

Eyes on the prize

The snow has arrived in big heavy flakes that literally glitter on the ground. However, in an ironic twist of fate, it’s still reasonably warm outside, meaning that in most areas of foot traffic there’s an inch or more of pure slippery slush.

I’m doing my best to keep up morale under the circumstances.

My happy place looks a lot like a shoe store

It’s snowing little pellets of snow outside, and for the first time in a week it’s cold enough in my room to turn the heater up. I’ve got a book to read and a response paper to write, and a stack of library books quickly coming due without my having reviewed them.

Think summery thoughts. Think [...]

Uh-oh

‘Infomania’ worse than marijuana, says the Beeb. Just reading that headline made me so nervous, my Restless Leg Syndrome started acting up. Apparently HP (as in Hewlett Packard) commissioned a study that reveals that people are getting addicted to email and text messaging, and that this addiction leads to a drop in IQ:
Researchers found 62% [...]

Good news!

My beverage of choice is tea; not even a semester in Italy could convince me that coffee is worth drinking. A nice cuppa constitutes my mid-afternoon caffeine boost (actually, my only caffeine infusion generally, since I’ve more or less given up soda this quarter).
Giving up evening snacking for Lent has not, as of three days [...]