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 look at and listen to. When I was in kindergarten over there, I thought watching the evening news was hilarious good fun; that throaty *hhhhhhck* sound is comedy gold when you’re five.

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 about the broadest question ever. I can’t help but feel that I’m missing something — constantly — in that class, since nothing ever seems to be connected to anything else. As for Class D — well, let’s just say that’s a depressingly appropriate name at this point.

Speaking of shoes…

Full story coming soon. Yes, I know my feet are disgusting. It is February. I have a great urge to go them cleaned up and pedi’d but then I realize that there’s still a good bit of winter to go. Not to mention that my budget is (or should be) pretty much shot until my next paycheck.

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 with boots. It could be worse; at least here no one expects you to be more dressed up than pajamas for class.

All of which reminds me that I have need of more tights, at least to stave off laundry day by slightly longer.

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, connotation, and image to pass up.

I mention this because I was sorting out the rat’s nest that is my bookmarks folder just now (shut up) and came across the link Boutique Ooh-La-La, a.k.a. the Boutique of Perfect Skirts that are just a little too expensive and a little too small for me, my butt, and my bank account.

And, O! Like a sunrise bursting across my screen! A glimpse — a glimpse of the glories I had begun to think were only true in my mind! A glimpse — to reward my faith and sustain it! (&c)

I mean to say, can you imagine anything more perfect?! Just look — look, I say — at a wee detail shot:

I mean, really!! How can you expect me to just go trudging off back to reading awfully written textbooks with suspect grammar or at the least a very poor prose style having gazed upon this masterpiece of human production?

But- but- but–!

Oh, all right. Once again I will pacify myself with the cold comfort that, when I have made my fortune in the lucrative field of archives (and, naturally, have dropped my pudge through intensive filing), I will return.

In the meantime, I’ll just make sure the bookmark is safely tucked away in its proper folder.

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 their money from the university, cannot purchase alcohol or alcohol-related items with that money; some sororities and fraternities have similar rules, and promotional goods catalogs have taken to selling “toothpick holders” (I kid you not) as a result. Either this charity fundraiser has decided to ignore those rules or they got their money from a private donor (very possible).

You will please note that I don’t really care about “toothpick holders”. What I do care about is not having my evening cycle of studying, reading, and slacking interrupted by a commercial break. Dagum kids these days.

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 made of jet black paillettes; her hair up, she was basically the picture of prepackaged elegance, though she said she is not an actress who concerns herself with the opinions of fashion critics.

“I think the fashion has probably gotten a lot safer,” Ms. Blanchett said. “But if you are dressing to impress other people, then I think you’re going to get in trouble.”

What else could explain the endless chain of strapless dresses this awards season in Hollywood that have made actresses, once they are all seated, look practically naked?

Thank you. In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I am not able to wear strapless dresses, but seriously — it’s just one kind of dress. There are lots and lots and lots and lots of other kinds of dress; in theory at least. If you’re not sure whether there is anything else to do with your design other than lop it off under the armpits, you could try looking back over the thousands of years of styles worn around the world. There might just be something inspiring there.

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 summery thoughts.

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% of people checked work messages at home or on holiday.

I wonder whether people using their work email address as their main address factors into that at all. If you asked me how often I check my school email, it would be an obscenely high number, since I channel all my email into that one. And Entourage checks it automatically for me every ten minutes.

More than half of the 1,100 respondents said they always responded to an email “immediately” or as soon as possible, with 21% admitting they would interrupt a meeting to do so.

This is sick. I’m terribly slow about answering emails. The fun part is getting them, not answering them.

But fear not! HP has a solution — as indeed they always do, whether your problem is not having the printer-scanner-coffee-maker to fit your project needs or a debilitating obsession with email.

The firm said new technology can help productivity, but users must learn to switch computers and phones off.

Say what? How are you supposed to “switch the computers and phones off” before you start being productive with the “new technology”? Or are the computers and phones not the new technology? In which case, what new technology is helping our productivity? Smart phones? Blackberries? Handheld tablet things? Wouldn’t those be making the problem worse?

Maybe we’re supposed to switch off the computers and phones and then get all our work done using nothing but the printer-scanner-coffee-maker.

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 into it, eliminated that point in the evening when what I want more than anything is to have a break and eat something. What it has done is resurrected the feeling that a tea break might be just the solution in this situation.

But what to do? After about 7pm, my sensitivity to caffeine goes through the roof, or at least gets much more recognizable; an 8pm cup of tea has kept me awake until 2am. The only thing to do is try… decaf.

I was a little unsure about it. I know coffee drinkers get all uptight about decaf, and being scientifically clueless, I don’t even know how decaf comes into being. Would it taste different? Would it be unpleasant somehow? My mom preempted these concerns and sent me a box of my favorite blend, decaf, for Valentine’s Day.

Yeah, I like the good stuff. :) I generally like all black teas, and happily drink any of them (milk, no sugar). But this is my current favorite blend; it has a nice subtle citrus smell, and it’s not too foo-foo. Good for my purposes.

Anyway. I decided to give it a try tonight, and it’s very good. I can’t taste how it’s any different from the regular stuff, and it’s a very good pickup!

So there you go. The verdict is that decaf tea (at least in this blend) is just as good as the “real” stuff. Totally worth a whole post.