asteroid B612

I'm the kind of person who is pained deeply if I think there is a party going on and I'm not part of it. (Flash to very young me in angst as I knew my parents were watching the 1984 Olympics with their friends and actually expected me to go to bed.)

So being the only doctoral student in musicology in the entire state of Louisiana is sort of like that. Hey! I can't have a party on my own here.

Now the theorists are starting a weekly discussion forum (like about an article or something) that I gather is supposed to be student-driven. The point being that there's enough of them to do that. Sure I and the one musicology professor who attends Packed-Lunch Club are probably welcome to participate, but face it, the discussions will be theory-driven. There's a reason why I'm a musicologist and not a theorist, though there's enough overlap, that I'm sure I'll be interested in what's going on.

I thought that we were supposed to have things like that in grad school: just another of those Unfulfilled Expectations that have come to characterize my time here. Chalk it up next to: I thought I was supposed to have colleauges. And: I thought historiography was a familiar thing in a musicology classroom.

I'm at the library and violating the yellow sign that informs me that the computer I'm on is restricted for specific academic use. So what's academic after all? Can't my blog be academic? Whatever.

I haven't been much for writing lately, because my head is so fuzzy. I've tried to write some emails, which really are the easiest thing in the world to zip off, and I'm so easily distracted just doing that. If I can get a good night's sleep, I'm okay. I can get good work done. But if I have a night where I can't get comfy, my bladder plagues, and high-action, crazy dreams exhaust me, I feel fuzzy the next day.

They say Fuzzy Head comes with being pregnant. Okay, that makes sense. The funniest manifestation of Fuzzy Head...the kind where I really must say it has to come from pregnancy, because I've never experienced it before...is that I've lost the sense for the passing of time. I normally have a very good concept of time. I could guess "25 min" and I would be right on. But now 40 mins will have passed, and I'll be shocked! How did that happen!!? I have to be careful or I'll be late. I'm already frustrated at what I didn't get done because time passed unaware. Very strange. I'm starting to set the microwave timer for increment passings to help keep me on track.

Perhaps the funniest incident related to loss of Time happened last Friday. I am a TA for a class that meets in 3 sections (8.30/9.30/10.30). I can't go to teh 10.30 section ever because I have a conflicting class, so I alternate between the first two. Friday I was running late, because I had forgotten to turn on the alarm after I had set it the night before. So I really pushed to make it for the 9.30 section. I breezed into the classroom sighing a huge relief, because I had made it, only to stop dead in my tracks. The professor was already lecturing, and not only that, the class was settled and attentive (usually there are some stragglers still getting situated at the beginning of class). I just stood there. I couldn't believe it! I was so sure I had made it on time. The professor looked up at me with a confused expression on his face, "We'll be done in two minutes." Spluttering the realization to myself that I had come into the remaining minutes of the 8.30 section, I slinked out. And I did make it to the 9.30 section on time.

I had a good, rejuvenating weekend at home. Chris and I have been giddy since we've found out that Elvis is a boy. It's like the excitement of finding out we're pregnant, but with none of the shock. Chris beams around the house talking about "his heir" and the "fruit of his loins". I don't know what he thinks the boy is going to inherit.

We went baby shopping for the first time on Saturday. A friend had alerted me to a consignment shop of really nice things. We picked up a front carrier and back carrier, and I picked out a couple of really cute outfits (after Chris approved them as suitable garb for his heir). It's nice to have something to picture my little boy in. We hadn't gotten hardly a thing yet for Elvis because we've been waiting to find out. And we're keeping Stuff pretty low-key (or at least trying to), since we're moving, and really, in principle, let's just keep Stuff low-key.

Not much else I'm up to writing about at the moment.

Yesterday marked the beginning of week 20 in the pregnancy. That is exactly half-way to the 40 weeks of a full-term pregnancy (don't ask me how they come with this method of measuring). It's exciting to think that we've arrived at the half-way mark unscathed. But now is when I really need to buckle down and get some things done (like sign up for some birthin' classes! yikes!).

The half-way mark is when we get our second ultrasound, complete with gender description. So this morning we found out whether Elvis is a girl or a boy. The ultrasound room was all high-tech with this cool high-resolution screen on the wall for us to see everything that was going on. Let me tell you, Elvis is a Wiggle Worm! After they measured all the normal stuff, they were trying to get a good profile shot of the head. After chasing Elvis around for about 15 min, they finally gave up. Already a bad kid! :) I thought it was really cool how clearly we could see all the parts, from the little foot to the chambers of the heart, and the spine, I thought, was especially cool, so they got me a good body shot.

Vertebra is horizontal going across the top, with the head on the right side looking down.

The real question of the day, though, is Elvis a boy or girl?

Musicologist Bob Judd has started a blog about a Christian response to the war on Iraq (n.b. nothing about musicology). I'm very glad to read his comments. It's no surprise that I'm not a war fan nor a Bush fan, but I generally stay away from said topics because what I read is largely polemical and unthoughtful and annoyingly visceral. (I'll even plead guilty to having my moments.) What I appreciate about Bob's posts so far is that they are thoughtful, informed by a deep appreciation of Scripture and desire towards Christlikeness, and exactly what I would say if I could! :-) I hope his comments can start to bring this much needed aspect into these discussions in Christian circles. The Blogworld is a Smallworld, after all.

Yesterday, I woke up to a world newly covered by a blanket of snow. It was beautiful; it was cold.

After a day of airports, delayed flights, and my nose in a great book, I landed in New Orleans: 8pm, 72 degrees, balmy. LOVELY!!!

I'm sitting at my laptop with the sun streaming through the window, porch door open letting in the shrieks of the parrots and the gentle spring breeze. I'm wearing a Tshirt and flip-flops, and a low fan in the other room is keeping the air moving.

It feels great. I love spring in February!! And it is so good to be home.

Well, after a very long, and somewhat roundabout route, I've made it to Princeton for my conference. I flew to Baltimore, through Atlanta; was picked up by my father-in-law and driven to Philly; ate dinner; and drove to P'ton, where I'm staying with a friend who's a grad student there.

It's been a very long day, and being pregnant doesn't make traveling more pleasant (what, I have to go to the bathroom, again!?). But I did want to show off my belly, show everybody that passed that I am pregnant. Last time I traveled, I had just found out that I was pregnant. It felt a little surreal the whole time.

I had a nice visit with Erin Liv'ton and her two cuties (and impending cutey). I love how with some many Cov folks, even ones you didn't know so well then, you can just pick up and talk like nothing else. Maybe our brains all get wired a certain way there. I was also blessed with some great maternity clothes from her! The generosity that has been shown to me in the Mat Clothes category has really overwhelmed me, and I'm so thankful.

I've decided that this is the only conference I'm going to go to this semester. It's a lot to pick up and travel, stay somewhere primitive (I'm lucky this time to have a friend), sit through sessions, etc. It's just not worth the time and money right now. I'm looking forward to this one; I think it'll be good. I think I can skip a 7 months pregnant Kalamazoo medieval conference (aka "camp" for medievalists) without any qualms or reluctance. I'm a little nervous about my paper tomorrow morning. We'll see....

It's also weird to be back up North. There's a part of me that hates it. Since I grew up in the North, that is what is normal. So my new life now in Crazy Exotic City (NOLA), which now feels so much like home, gets shown for what it really is...not home, but crazy, exotic city in light of Normal North. I don't like that. I want to live in NOLA and be part of it in an integral way. Whatever...what is more likely is that we'll find a new place to live...a new city some day. We won't stay in New Orleans in forever, though it's the kind of place that lulls you in to thinking you can.

Apparently, "in theaters everywhere" a new movie of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will be showing. The trailer looks good (I saw the one on Amazon.com). I can't wait! Sounds like fun!

At the library...trying to activate the lump that is my brain:
Wow! Amazon is SUCH a helpful research tool. I never thought of it before. But you get suggestions for other books when you search for one. You can search through books the book cites and books that cite the book. You can actually read the page that citations are on. Amazon rocks!!

BT26 .O2 1963
The harvest of medieval theology; Gabriel Biel and late medieval nominalism
Oberman, Heiko Augustinus.

ND615 .B32 1974 1974
Painting and experience in fifteenth century Italy. A primer in the social history of pictorial style
Baxandall, Michael.

Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
by Emile Durkheim

CB151 .H813 1949
Homo ludens; a study of the play-element in culture
Huizinga, Johan, 1872-1945.

How Societies Remember

Ritual in Early Modern Europe (New Approaches to European History)
by Edward Muir, William Beik (Series Editor), T. C. W. Blanning (Series Editor)

One of the main things I like about living in New Orleans is that spring comes in early February. Yesterday it was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day. I sat outside of the coffeeshop enjoying the glorious weather while working on my medieval notation project.

It's a little bittersweet, too. I should be getting all geared up and excited for this year's garden, armed with the knowledge and experience of last year's attempt. (Like, buy tomatoes plants that will not grow 9 feet tall by August.) But since at some point, we'll have to move because impending Elvis, the garden plot is neglected, lonely, bare. The few things still alive, green peppers and herbs, I'm just letting go until they are no more. I wonder what will happen to the little plot when I'm gone.

There's so much going on in my mind and our life in addition to the coming Elvis (and perhaps inspired by) that I really can't blog about (it is the world wide web, after all!) that sometimes it's hard to know what aspect of the banality of the rest of my life I can blog about.

I didn't get home until 9.30 pm last night. I'm thankful for my Tuesday/Thursday mornings to recover from my Mondays and Wednesdays. I really feel the strain more than I have before. I knew that Monday would be a late night, so we celebrated Val Day on Saturday evening. We had spent Saturday working really hard, so by the evening, we were both pretty exhausted. So our Val Day this year was pretty low key. We went to our fave Lebanese restaurant; Chris got me a nice bouquet of pink tulips and some other blue flowers. The one thing I really got into (since I love holidays so much) was Val Day pancakes for breakfast on Saturday. I put chopped up cranberries and orange zest in the batter, and they were super yummy!!

I have a conference coming up this weekend. Not sure if I want to leave my comfy South where the Japanese magnolias are blooming and go up to cold North with snow flurries predicted.

I've had a horrible cold this week, starting with a wretched sinus headache. Sinus pressure and a leaky faucet where I once had a nose have been plagueing me with no hope of relief from drug store pills full of drugs potentially harmful to Elvises and that I so often quickly turn to when such ills do plague me. I'm such a wimp when it comes to feeling bad, so going without meds has been a little bit of a trial, but just like I thought, I'm surviving. In fact, I'm even starting to feel better. And I will recommend a little treatment I read in What to Expect... for alleviating sinus pressure: alternating hot and cold compresses on the sinuses every 30 sec for about 10 min. It felt wonderful!!! So magically therapeutic.

Last night I even slept decently for the first time this week. In fact, when I woke up I was even breathing through my nose, though it was only for a short time. I slept so well last night, that I let myself sleep as long as I could this morning, since I still have today off for the the Mardi Gras break, figuring rest would help in the recovery process. Chris had to go in to his school earlier to do a few things.

While he was gone, I heard a thump outside our apt door and what sounded like someone giving the little knocker a quick rap. I was a little nervous, because here I was alone, in bed, sniffling. But I got up, put on my bathrobe, and opened the door, and sprightly waiting for me sat two boxes! The big one was oranges from Florida that my grandma has sent every year of my life (or at least as long as I can remember). And the other was a box of much-needed maternity clothes from wonderful KatieK.

THANK YOU, KATIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened it. It was like Christmas!!! Jeans, pants, shirts, and even a swim suit. (Yea, Katie, I laughed, too. But hey, it's like you said: Elvis is a JULY baby!) I was so excited! For the first time in days I felt motivated to relinquish the comfort of my bathrobe. I called Chris and babbled to him excitedly over the phone with my stuffy-nosed voice. This is SUCH a huge blessing, and I'm so thankful!

(I also had to share the card, because it totally cracked me up.)