Well, my parents have pretty much decided on where they’re moving. Its a little town in the mountains of Virginia. Its so small that it doesn’t even show up on Mapquest. The name of the town is Weyers Cave, in the northwest part of the state, in the mountains close to Charlottesville.

While I’m really excited that my dad will be doing what he loves and with people who are actually spiritual (instead of superficial), I’m still a bit sad at the thought that I’ll no longer call Savannah home. They’ll most likely be moving into an apartment at the mission complex there (which is both cheaper and actually bigger than our house now), but I’m not sure it will feel like home. I’ll come to visit, of course, but I’m not sure it will be the same.

I’m a big girl, I should be handling this better. Change is just hard, I guess.

Fodder for the commonplace book:

So, after a fun night of watching Bender play at McNally Robinson (yay Brent), I raided the menu of the café for fun quotes. Here’s what I stashed, by stealing the waiter’s pen and writing them down on the back of receipts in my wallet:

- Wine is bottled poetry. (Robert Louis Stevenson)

- I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. (T.S. Eliot)

- Wine is sunlight, held together by water. (Galileo)

- Outside a dog, a book is a man’s best friend; inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. (Groucho Marx)

- I live on a good soup, not on fine words. (Moliére)

- If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. (Carl Sagan)

- Seeing is deceiving, It’s eating that’s believing. (James Thurber)

Finally, one that I’ll use as an epigraph for my next paper:

- Having your book made into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into boullion cubes. (John le Carré)

Leave the gun. Take the canoli.

Doctor Fun

Wow. Where was this when I was in Haiti or on a camping trip?

Life Happens.

Yeah, I’ve slacked in my duties of keeping all two of my readers informed of what’s going on in my life. Things have been busy.

Yesterday I got up at 4:00AM to catch the Leonid meteor shower. We drove outside the city, so that we could see them better. When we left, the sky was clear — by the time we got outta town (10 minutes), it was cloudy. Figures, huh? We spent the next hour and a half driving around, spying the sky for clear spots. Heard of “tornado chasers?” We were meteor chasers. All told, I may have spied 15 meteors, total. Too bad, it would have been awesome to watch that kinda meteor shower on the open skies of the prairie. Then again, I did get to hear my first pack of coyotes. That was pretty neat, though a little scary.

There’s a heat wave going on in Saskatoon! It got up to 6 degrees today (43 Farenheit, 279 kelvin). All the snow is melted or in the state of melt. Fun walking home in the slush, which gets frozen to ice at night, then remelted to slush in the daytime. Granted, next week its supposed to go back down to -19 again, but for now its fun not to walk home in the biting cold.

I may not be in the English graduate school program for much longer. I met with the coordinator of the Rhetoric and Communication program here on campus. Meeting her was like meeting an academic kindred spirit. I started to feel the passion and excitement that Rhetoric inspired in me a couple months ago. I’ve been so disheartened after being shot down by the English Graduate Chair. Earlier in the term I had asked him if I could sign up for a Reading Course to keep up with my studies (already having the instructor agreed), and he basically told me to pursue my studies in Rhetoric “in my own time,” more or less.

My own time? Oh, sure.

After experiencing that lack of support, I don’t know if I’ve been more sensitive, but lately I’ve been feeling out of place in the English department. The class I’m taking is okay, but not earth-shattering. Everytime I try to bring the works we’re studying into a modern context, we either backtrack into the past or into some aesthetic concept. I’m not even sure the topic I’ve chosen for the paper is going to be acceptible. So having all these doubts and insecurities makes me excited at the possibilty of a change in program.

But, I’m not dropping everything and changing ships. At least not yet, anyway. I will be taking a course next term called, Rhetoric Classroom as Rhetorical Situation. I’ll be team teaching with a professor and other grad students the undergraduate course in Rhetoric. Something I know I’ll love! From there I’ll decide which path I want to take. I know that I want to specialize in Rhetoric in my doctoral studies, so I’m really leaning towards doing my MA in that too. But, I’m gonna give myself more time before I change schools in the University.

For now though, I’m going to go loaf on my futon and finish watching the rerun of Trading Spaces. Yay for TLC!

I’m actually going to a school with a decent football team! We’re playing St. Mary’s (who also has a Husky mascot, oddly enough) on Saturday for the Vanier Cup Championship.

Go Huskies.

Lord of the Peeps

Who knew marshmellows could be so hilarious? A fun website to check after spending waaaay too much time watching the new extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring. And yes, I already have a free ticket to use when seeing TTT for the first (of many) times.