Things on the Ile de Misfit have gotten somewhat quiet of late, for which I apologize. Apparently, part of the graduate school endeavor involves large amounts of work, work that will inevitably keep you from doing anything except to read for 40 - 50% of your existence. Factor in the 30% you spend sleeping and the 15 - 20% you spend doing other crap, and that doesn't leave you with a lot of time for pithy reflection on one's day to day existence. But despite the best efforts of my reading lists, things do occasionally happen to me. I will now tell you about some of those things.

Oon:
There has been talk going around the history department here about making t-shirts and selling them to the graduate students. However, the current vision for the shirt design involves some form of writing indicating "History Department" on the front, and the phrase "Which way to the library?" rendered in 10 or so different languages. If you ask me, and it is vital that you keep in mind that no one has actualy done so, this design sucks. Instead, I have proposed the following- a shirt displaying on its frontward side a moose, with "CLIO" written in large letters underneath the moose.

Doo:
Recently, while doing Latin translation outside with another graduate student (someone who, by the way, I have a good deal of respect) a hummingbird flew up to a nearby bush. Upon sighting the small bird, my companion looked up from his translation of the Life of St. Wulfstan, turned to me and said, "You know, the hummingbird is one of my spirit animals." He said this in such a way that it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world for him to have one, or even multiple spirit animals. Although I quizzed him about the spirit animal concept, about all I learned was that the hummingbird was the Aztec god of war. Is there someone out there who can explain this to me? Do I have a spirit animal? Do I need one? Does a spirit animal help you in some way? Or does it just tell other people something about you? Answers to these and other questions have not been forthcoming.

Twaa:
It has been a long week, and so as a way to unwind I decided to blow off reading this afternoon and go to a talk entitled "Iranian Perspectives on the Iraqi Elections". As I sat and listened to the guest lecturer rambling on about current events and passing it off as history, I was reminded of a story told about my advisor. My advisor, it should be noted, is short and French and fairly flamboyant. During the first week of classes last year, a first year graduate student (also a Chicago graduate) met my advisor for the first time. When my advisor found out that the student intended to study twentieth century American history, he paused briefly. Then he turned up his nose and was heard to remark, "Journalism!" Also, I have this friend. He has a car. And when he drives it, it leaks oil.

I'm running out of steam here. Is there anything left in the tank? I could tell you, for example, that The Return of Martin Guerre is, in my opinion, a very bad piece of work. But you probably haven't read Martin Guerre. Nor have you probably seen the eponymous Gerard Depardieu movie. And if you only knew that the book was written after the movie (and by someone who had collaborated on the writing of said movie), you might begin to have an inkling of why I think the book is bad history. But really, where would that get us?