Category: …and everything else

The UBookstore offers dividends every year; any money not needed to the care and maintenance of store is returned to the customer, provided the customer give them back saved receipts from the past year. The refund is set yearly by the board; last year it was 10%. I got my check today, walked downstairs, and promptly spent it (this is my deal with myself – if I am organized enough to save receipts, I get to invest all that money in books, again). For a whopping $10 (because who can ever spend just the on target amount), I was able to buy:

The Primacy of Perception – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Phenomenology of Perception – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
The Nick of Time – Elizabeth Grosz
Ethics – Spinoza
Time and Narrative – Paul Ricoeur
Genesis – Michel Serres

The Serres book was by far the best buy – it’s a hardback, first edition of the book that was marked down to $10. Turns out it was used; someone had lightly made pencil marks in the margins of the first three pages. One eraser later, and I have a pristine, perfect copy of a very expensive book (the better for me to make my own scribblings in).

I spent too many nights out this week, and not enough in front of my books. But I had fun the first two nights, and an absolutely lovely time last. There’s something really cool about meeting new people and being able to sink your teeth into meaningful conversations that cross boundaries and expose vulnerability. It creates a closeness that makes for a much more satisfying experience. And, in the case of the two people I was with, I think it’ll greatly enhance our “professional” relationship, as well.

But it left me fried for today – two nights of only three hours of sleep does not an alert Kelly make.

I had a very odd experience today; well, several actually, but this one stands out in a sea of oddness. I ran into a former instructor earlier this week, and he asked if I’d write a few words over the class I took with him. I loved the class, I still refer to what I learned in my own work, so I said yes. By the time I was done, I had written my first letter of recommendation. For an instructor…about to receive his PhD from Stanford…a Fellow in The Jackson School.

Keep in mind, I’m a lowly undergrad two point five quarters from her BA. It was strange.

On top of that, there was the writing of an abstract (which I’ll post later, after I make the few edits suggested by his esteemable bossness), pulling off a surprise birthday dinner for one of my closest friends, and receiving a very nice thank you letter from a classmate.

The good and weird continues. But it was a good day.

I’m editing out an abstract for a conference proposal, and just got to the end of my paper… where I’d forgotten all about the mini, third person bio I had written as a challenge to myself. In the grand tradition of Goose, I crack myself up…

Kelly Hills, a senior in the program of Comparative History of Ideas at the University of Washington, recently realized that she needs more experience writing about herself in the third person, so is taking this opportunity to practice. She lives in one of the oddly trendy student neighborhoods of Seattle with her cats, Lunar and Toledo, and the occasional brave spider, all of whom are named Charlotte. She has noticed that the length of time she spends around her department chair directly relates to the length of her sentences, and finds this very amusing.

Department chair == John, the guy I’m PFing for this quarter, and basically spending simply too much time with.

I spent a few hours at work today, head down in Perl code, and then took the afternoon off for a small “thank you” party thrown by my boss. Any time spent with my officemate is always enjoyable, and he took me there and dropped me off, so it was good. The other folk weren’t bad, either (actually saw some former coworkers, which was really nice). Good gumbo, too.

Problem being, I should be caught up on reading for tomorrow, have a concrete grasp of several works for tomorrow’s focus group, and just generally have done much more than I am. Instead, I’m kicking around Darnton and thinking quite a bit about his assertions on the opacity of culture and comparisson of historical folklore for similarities and dis, but I’m having a very difficult time bringing myself into focus.

…and hot damn. I have SVU on in the background, and Bobby Flay is on as guest star. This character is stalking famous men, and he’s one of them. Anyhow, the basic plotline is, she’s dosing men with roofies, electro-stimulating them to ejaculation, taking their sperm and then selling it to sperm banks.

I am really, really impressed he would lend himself (to the point of saying on camera how sick he was) to such a story.

See why I can’t focus on school?