Today's activities in the TBH atrium perfectly demonstrate why you shouldn't stand up in front of a group of architecture students and try to fake your way through a lecture on trusswork. It also explains why you see kids running around with packs of uncooked spaghetti on the last weekend before final critiques. The studio is a competition: who can build the strongest, most stable structure out of uncooked pasta and glue? I'm not sure what the design parameters were, other than it needed to have four feet and a central space from which to suspend blocks (a basic version of the experiment is described on Science Buddies). I only got to watch a few, but I think the last one I saw was up to 28 lbs. before it crashed to the ground. Good stuff, that spaghetti.

Beth: It was Francis Drake. Next time we forget, we can just look at this post:

The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580.

Dear obnoxious business students in the Undergraduate Library:

See those doors over there? They lead into rooms specially designed for group work. Next time, start your project early enough to reserve one of those rooms ahead of time because you know what? None of us give a damn about your stupid Barnes and Noble coffee shop project. None of us care that you think you know everything there is to know about centralization v. decentralization models. None of us want to listen to you yell at each other because you're too stupid and too arrogant to stop and listen to what your teammates are trying to say before you express your own half-baked idea. Hey, I get that this is a convenient place to do group work. Look around--there are many groups here working on their final projects, but why do you think yours is the only group getting dirty looks from everybody else in the library? Didn't your parents teach you about "inside voices"? No? Well, here's a hint: it doesn't involve yelling just to make yourself heard over the rest of your babbling idiot classmates. You know why you're yelling? Because you all keep making dumbass mistakes with your PowerPoint presentation, and you keep making more every time you try to fix them. You know why? Because you tried to do all the work an hour before your final presentation. So, because you all didn't get your act together and plan ahead, we have to sit here for 45 minutes and listen to you behave like children. She didn't save the PowerPoint after printing? Well, maybe she was flustered because you'd just spent ten minutes yelling at her. Can't find it even after you saved it? Maybe you should shut the fuck up and let the guy at the keyboard look for it, instead of contradicting everything he's trying to tell you. You know what I really want? The e-mail address for your professor. I'd like to tell him just how bad you all are at group work, and I'd like to tell him that you all deserve to fail for disrupting the entire south side of the UGL for an hour because each one of you has the MOST IMPORTANT VIEWPOINT THAT MUST BE EXPRESSED and god forbid any of us should try not to listen to you. Morons.

No time to write, but can you imagine what Ray Bradbury could do with this story?

I'm about to leave town for just a few hours short of an entire week. That would almost qualify as a vacation if it didn't involve going to the SAH annual meeting. I have to say, I'm not highly excited about the program (sorry to all those who worked very hard putting the panels, etc. together, but...I'm just not). I know there are tons of people out there not studying European or American architectural history, but apparently they are not proposing sessions for SAH. Give me a year, and I'll have something to say myself.

Anyway, we're taking a road trip. Has anyone else noticed that the only time I get to spend time with my wife, we're on our way somewhere else? She's taking time off work at a very horrible time to be doing so because this may be our last "vacation" together until Thanksgiving. We've got tickets to see two houses by Frank Wright (doesn't he sound just *normal* when you don't use his middle name), Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, on Saturday. That may be the most interesting part of the week, we'll see.

Then it's back here for one final push on those four research projects. I'm stalled on project two right now. I need to stop thinking of it as potential dissertation material and think of it as just one last seminar paper to knock out and finish. But it's for one of the smartest people I've ever met, and I don't want her to think it sucks. I psyched myself out this same way last semester, and I've got to just stop obsessing about quality and write the damn thing.

Still and all, it's looking like I might get through the program. I'm worried about exams--less about the historiographical/methodological exam questions and more about my basic lack of knowledge of South Asian architecture. I don't even have a Master's level competency in the built environment of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka. It would have helped if I'd actually had a class on say, oh, Indian Architecture, at some point in my endless years of education. But, no. I had a ten week class on Indian art in 1990, and a ten week class on "humanities of India" in 1986. Can I be expected to remember the content of a class I took 17 and 21 years ago? No.

I am taking a seminar on Rajput architecture this semester, and it's helped immensely. I'm learning tons, but mostly it all predates my time period, so it's not directly related to my exams. I'm trying not to get too anxious about it all because it does seem as if the dissertation is already taking shape. At least, I turned in a rough draft of a seminar paper on the colonial historiography of my site, and the professor thought I was well on my way to having the first chapter. That's putting the cart before the horse, I need to actually defend the proposal before writing the chapter, but at least I now know what to propose for my first chapter--something slightly different than the expected literature review, but still demonstrating that I know my postcolonial theory. I have a date of January 15 for my minor field exam. I'd still like to take the two major field exams in November, but we'll see.

Did I say site? I meant sites. This is the first time I've ever tried to work on multiple sites simultaneously. Try coming up with a filing system for a literature that covers five observatories. Thank god for bibliographic software. As long as I note on the computer which article is stored in which manila folder, I don't have to obsess quite so much. "This article covers both the Varanasi observatory and the Ujjain one. Where do I file it? If I file it by author's last name, how will I know by looking at the file label which observatories it covers?" and so on. Anyway, thank you Endnote, you've made my life much easier even if you hard-coded the Ibid. record wrong for the Turabian output style (idiots).

So, yes, I am guardedly optimistic that I will finish the program. My dissertation committee is in place. I have two architectural historians, one landscape historian, and two "regular" historians. I am spending a lot of time with a third historian, reading interesting books together and just generally working my way toward friendship (keeping in mind that I have an abysmal track record in that area). I'm hoping that between these six people, someone will keep me from dropping out again. If I quit, it will clearly be because of exams--they seem dark, mysterious and terror-inducing. If I can get through those, I think I'll be fine.

Not sure how much typing will get done in this little box between now and May 14. My one goal for the summer is to write more--I did a horrible job posting about India last summer. This summer, I will do better. Wait, what? I forgot to mention I was going to be in India this summer? I guess I did forget. I leave June 7, get back August 18. Catherine is being an amazingly good sport about it. I'm horribly sad about missing YET ANOTHER SUMMER AT HOME, but also looking forward to being in Jaipur again. I am a conflicted individual, no doubt about it.

Okay, people, yes, I am the reason your RSS feed is going crazy. Those aren't new posts. Those are old and boring and whiny posts. But I found a backup that seems to have most of the stuff I lost when I deleted my blog in a panic once long ago, so I'm transferring it over. Because it's more important to do that than write the paper that might form the basis of the second chapter of my dissertation. Really. It is.

Okay, this seems like the quickest way to handle this for now. We finally got tired of having our mail stolen--well, okay, they stole the mailbox, too, this time, so we've finally subscribed to a post office box. To those of you who put pen to paper to write to me, the post office box is 1603. But you need to change the last number of my zipcode to 2. If you don't know my zipcode, well then, you probably haven't ever written me a letter, so you don't care about my mailbox, anyway.

ETA: Yeah. Next time, I should double-check the box number for before writing in the blog. It's correct now, anyway.

I'll tell you what. I can't keep up with my life, that's for sure. It's not the big things that are killing me (although, yeah, now that you mention it, four research projects in one semester is at least one too many), it's the little stuff. It's been an incredibly social day, for one thing. I had coffee with Dana so we could discuss the Diana Paton book (wow, by the way. It doesn't take long to discuss a book you really like; it's much more work to try and figure what doesn't work in a book than what does), and after an hour-and-a-half of non-stop conversation with her, I ran into Chuo just as we were leaving the library. Haven't talked to Chuo since last semester, so that took me into another rapid fire conversation. Then Luke-Jim e-mailed me--another person I haven't seen since last semester. And then I ran into Martin, and we discussed the travails of being a T.A. And then I even had a short exchange with Ellen. And I also talked to Gary in the graduate office.

Who are all these people, and what do they want from me?!?!

I cranked out a draft for the first unit of my course proposal (roughly four weeks worth of lecture outlines for a course on South Asian architecture), turned that in. Wrote and re-wrote a conference proposal, sent that in this evening. Registered for that conference (it's required, I'm not that much of an optimist). Finished the last two corrections of an article I want to send out for review, realized this computer can't produce .pdf files, downloaded a .pdf maker. Made a .pdf, tried to upload it to the journal submission website, but the server refused to recognize it as a .pdf. Sent an e-mail about that. Sent an e-mail about T.A. stuff. Sent an e-mail apologizing for not turning in my annual report today, promised to turn it in tomorrow. Uploaded it to the server so I wouldn't have to remember it tomorrow. Started to answer a personal e-mail, ran out of energy (sorry, Lizzie, you're in draft mode right now). Did a load of laundry, skipped dinner.

Sent some e-mails about my fellowship for the summer/next year. And, yes, it's official, I received a FLAS Fellowship, and for many reasons, this makes me happy. If I understand this all correctly, I only need to be on campus for my language and area studies courses next year, which means my presence in Illinois will only be required from 4:00 on Monday to 5:30 on Wednesday. Also, it covers my work in India this summer, so that's all to the good. Thank you very much, FLAS awarding committee (otherwise known as "Center for Global Studies")--I appreciate it.

Played the guitar for an hour. Because I have tons of free time.

You know, I also had a class today, so it's not like I was just wandering around jabbering and e-mailing. And you know what else? I also had an hour long meeting with Valeri at the Center for Teaching Excellence. All I need to do is write my essays and then I can submit my GTC application. Talking with her is always useful because she helps me pull together the disparate threads of teaching experience into one cohesive skein of knowledge.

How many people did I talk to today? Since I usually talk to....hm...no one, any number above one is remarkable.

Spring break roundup:

Good things about the last week (or two):

Social stuff: Beth got back from Europe. This is good for me not only because she is good company, but because I like to eat tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch on Thursdays. Also this Thursday we had dinner with Dana and Craig (and Evie and Jonah, who charmed our socks off). Evie informed me that she is very brave, and I have to say that I agree. It is nice to occasionally escape the stupidity of academic life with people who don't give a damn about my academic progress. Catherine finally met Ayse on Friday, and although we were all tired and a couple of us were angry (see below), we had a nice talk.

Academic stuff: I was unofficially notified about a fellowship for both the summer and upcoming academic year earlier this week. If the award letter appears in hard copy, I'll say more. A bit of unofficial celebrating (and no, I don't mean that in the UIUC sense of the word "Unofficial") has been happening at our house. One side-effect of this is, even if this unofficial notification never turns into an official notification, one professor on the awards committee who didn't think much of me in the past has suddenly changed his opinion about me. Hopefully, this will work in my favor in the future.

I was officially notified that a paper I proposed for a conference was accepted. This doesn't sound like such a big deal, but it counts as an invited paper, which means more in my field. Also, it comes with round trip airfare and travel expenses attached. Now...I just have to write the paper. I should have paid more attention when I was writing the proposal.

Domestic stuff: The good news is prefaced by bad. The bad news was having our front yard hit by lightning a couple of weeks ago, frying our GFCI outlets along with our television. The good news is that I had just received a payment from an editing job I did for my advisor, so we could buy a new TV. That bad news about that is that I wanted to put it toward a new, more portable telescope. The good news about that is that Catherine got the kind of TV she really wanted but would never buy as long as our old TV worked. The goods news is that we bought and installed the TV with about 30 seconds to spare for second-round NCAA basketball. The bad news is that IU lost the game in large part due to two horrible in-bounds plays in the last few seconds of the game. Probably the other bad news is that we only buy TVs when our basketball vision is threatened. Priorities = scary.

Bad news about the last week (or two):

Social stuff: I can't think of any except that I suffered with my tomato soup for two weeks.

Academic stuff: See earlier posts about having a difficult time transitioning from instructor-of-record to T.A. Things came to a head about three hours before I was due to leave town for spring break. I've lost a lot of sleep over this problem, and I can't decide what to do at this point. Trying to just suffer silently through the semester doesn't seem to have worked.

Domestic stuff: I'd rather not talk about it. Life just seems hard sometimes.

I actually got spam today with the subject heading of "The British Library." How many people outside of academia are going to be at all interested in that subject? "The British Library of Sex," maybe, but "The British Library"? Come on.

• The wind on I-74 was cracking today. Almost lost control of the car at one point, which would have meant joining the other wrecked automobiles in the median. Four cars, buried in snow. Nice.
  
• My afternoon class was cancelled due to a wreck on I-57. Slow down, people!
• Also: the pedestrian has the right of way when hu is in the crosswalk. And then I have the right of way, because the light is green and I'm turning right. You only get to turn left *after* the pedestrian has safely crossed the slippery street, and I've made my right turn. *After*, not before.
  
• I'm not going to comment on the whole retired mascot issue, except to say that if you ever start a sentence with "I'm not a racist, but..." you seriously need to shut up.
• This weekend we watched Jaan-e-Mann. Not sure what to say about it; some person over at imdb claims Preity Zinta "breaths fresh air in her role." Was she being all breathy when she was being played by a cardboard cut out? 'Cause I think that was the strongest part of role as written for her. Seeing Salman Khan in a dress almost made me not hate him...almost.
• Catherine bought me Jon Auer's latest CD, Songs from the Year of Our Demise, as well as David Einmo's new Head Like a Kite CD, Random Portraits of the Home Movie (which I would have called "Random Portraits of the Social Hygiene Filmstrip" but no one asked me). I shouldn't say that I like them, because it can only hurt their images to have middle-aged scholarly fans from the Midwest. Still. I've always wanted to say to one particular person, "Dude. Whatever. I'll call you when your dead." but never had the guts. Jon Auer says it better, anyway.
• No one ever bought me Too Loud for the Snowman, which rips me. I may need to game my Amazon.com list to get what I want.
• I need a new blog layout. The fact that my basic layout has remained the same for the past five years is indicative of how little I care about the web, web design, and web technology these days. I wish someone would redesign my blog template in such an extraordinary way that I would suddenly find myself caring about it all again.
• More important than a new blog, however, is a new website. I like the aesthetic of my old freelancing site, but it's impossible to update, and I need something with my current academic info in place of my professional info. Send me your bids, and maybe I'll hire you to redesign my life.
  

Okay, these are not my photos, I stole them from some people nearby. Still, this is what it life looks like in Rantoul:






































Wow...does the new interface for blogger really suck when it comes to images. I mean...really suck.

Well, seriously, I can do better than that. Things I considered writing about:

1. A funny conversation about long underwear I had in the women's locker room at CRCE with a retired school teacher. Funny because it demonstrated that no matter how old you are, you still worry about looking like a dork in front of undergrads.

2. The fact that the soundtrack from Pardes has been banging into the back of my head all week. It wasn't until I listened to it that I remembered all the scenes in the movie that were filmed in Fatehpur Sikri. We've been looking at FS in my Rajput Palaces seminar.

3. My hate-love-hate relationship with the ice rink. Spent three hours there on Saturday night watching a so-so game of hockey (didn't check out the heavily advertised wireless networking capabilities); spent a couple of hours there on Sunday watching a short-track competition. Why am I wasting my time?

4. The general sense of depression and confusion I go through every Wednesday after my a.m. seminar.

5. The weather.

6. Reactions to various movies I've seen lately. All I can say is that the movie we're watching in Hindi class better turn out to be telling me something other than "men suck," because I didn't need to watch all this stupidity to come to that opinion. I've pretty much got that one covered on my own.

6a. The fan letter I should be writing to Preity Zinta to thank her for her crystal-clear Hindi. SRK, no letter for you.

7. My own arrogance and the way it interferes with my academic career.

7a. The difficult transition from being in charge of your classroom to becoming a T.A.

8. Various opinions on various people with whom I spend my time. Not that I would write about that in my blog even if I was writing a lot, but it's still a potential topic, I suppose.

9. My research. Again, nothing I would ever write about in my blog, but again, that could be a potential topic.

10. The fact that the pipe underneath our back parking lot has broken three times in the last week. This should probably be topic 5-sub-a.

11. Sports. Genetically encoded in my DNA. Ask my wife.

12. And, no, I am not against gay marriage. That point should be probably be 4-sub-a.

13. Lucky number.

You know, I think to myself some two or three times a day, "Oh, I should put that in my blog." And often I actually type an entry, only to delete it before I hit the "publish" button. In case you're wondering, that has already happened three times with this entry. I just can't be bothered to finish what I've started. I sat down here intending to make a list of all the things I considered writing about this week, but then didn't. It would have been an interesting list, I think, but again, I just can't be bothered. If you're really creative, you can probably make a better list of potential topics, anyway, so really, I don't need to go through the effort, right?

You know...I think if you have to lie to other people to cover up a behavior--any behavior, it doesn't really matter, I don't think--that means there's a problem. Anybody knows this. You know it. So, knock it off. Do something about it. I mean, do something other than lying about it, you know?

One of the most awesome architecture films, ever.

Mickey's Trailer

You'd think since I used the phrase "read more" three times in my last post, that would indeed be what I was doing these days. You'd think.

This weekend I watched one basketball game on TV (IU men beat UConn), went to one basketball game (IU women got stomped by Purdue due to an ABYSMAL LACK OF EFFORT AND HUSTLE AND THE ENTIRE TEAM WOULD STILL BE RUNNING LINES IF I WAS THE COACH), watched one and a quarter football games on TV (didn't think the Colts had it in them, wouldn't a Saints/Patriots game be awesome? Which is more god-loving American, a Patriot or a Saint? I think Patriot, because hu wouldn't be tainted by French Catholicism), and one quarter of another basketball game on TV (at least Tennessee women didn't lose to Duke through LACK OF EFFORT AND HUSTLE).

Unfortunately, none of this had to do with the work I was really supposed to be doing, and neither does this post. In my defense, in the past couple of weeks, I've actually been pretty productive. Finished my AIIS application, finished most of the FLAS application, sent out one article for review, worked on a second article that should be ready to go by Monday, read two books for review, sent out an abstract for a conference paper, renewed two professional memberships, located another conference (abstract due April 1), read two books for an informal study group, paid my bills, did my homework, and basically showed up everywhere I was supposed to show up, on time, even.

What I did not do is type up the two-page essay about my classroom observation that I've been meaning to do since October 6. I also did not type up the two-page essay about the IEF that I did before that date, even. I didn't write the review for Material Culture (hey, it's not due for another week), nor did I finish my FLAS essay. I did not sort out the horribly tall stacks of paper on my office floor. Well, I sorted one, but that leaves three to be sorted and put into binders. That reminds me...I did not buy binders. My "to do" list on the whiteboard in my office has eleven items, not including work for classes in which I'm currently enrolled. So, while I started writing this post thinking "Hey, I have time to watch TV," I'm concluding with the thought, "Time to disconnect the cable." That would be number twelve on the "to do" list, then.

Okay, yes, sorry, I am home.

I installed a rather aggressive junkmail program before leaving, and it emptied two weeks' worth of mail out of my inbox and into the junkmail folder. A better person than I would sort through the 500 or so pieces of junkmail to save the holiday greetings from friends and family. A better person than I, I am not, so if you meant for me to read that e-mail, you might consider sending it again.

Things to remember for next time:

Don't take a coat, you'll never use it.
Do take snowboots, you will use them (and try to make your wife take hers, too).
Don't let the car rental place replace your SUV with a sedan. Remember you need to get out of the driveway in the snow.
Rent from somewhere else but Budget next time, even though the nice agent in Sacramento almost made up for the horrendous agent in Seattle.
Visit California first, then Washington. It will make a difference on the return trip.
Don't take too many sweaters, you'll only wear one or two (just like you do at home, moron).
Buy a new travel pillow and chain it to your bag (who would steal a worn-out pillow?).
Make the phone call north, even if you're tired.
Nine-year-old children don't always understand life the way you do: deal with it.
Just because you forget your gay doesn't mean everyone else will: deal with that, too.
Remember that it's always winter in high school.
Corollary: Don't travel in the winter.
Sleep before you leave.
Read more, talk less.
Read more, eat less.
Read more.

One more paper. Just one more. I desperately want this semester to end. I am so over coursework, really, I am. I just don't need this kind of practice anymore. That sounds arrogant, as if I think I'm oh-so-much-better than everyone around me (all of whom need this kind of practice, of course), but seriously, how many years of coursework does any one person need? Let's see...one year at USC. Transfer to UOregon, two years to finish the M.A. Two more years for a second M.A. On to IU, one year of coursework. On to UIUC, 1.5 years of coursework (minus a couple of days). Are you doing the math? Throw a 2 year A.A.S. in there, too, since I did that between IU and UIUC. And don't forget, I already did the four years of undergrad for the first B.A., then added 1.6666666 more years on for a second B.A. Still doing the math? 1+2+2+1+2+1.5+4+1.6666=over the fifteen year mark of higher education. Shouldn't I have a Ph.D. by now, just by default? I mean, seriously. Just....seriously.

Tonight, for the first time in thirty-nine years (or eighteen, if you want to date it from the point I reached the age of majority), I purchased alcohol at the gas station. Is this a bad thing? I suppose other people do it all the time, but I don't usually buy alcohol to begin with, so this gives me pause. Maybe I should do this more? Maybe I should never do this again? Maybe I should actually drink it, instead of just putting it in the refrigerator? Maybe I shouldn't drink it until I have someone to share it with? (And, yes, I know that's not a grammatical sentence, but "with whom to share it" sounds stupid when you're thinking about drinking.)