Grading Dinosaurs

Utahraptor: surprisingly knowledgeable on Greek mythology. Well done.

T-Rex: conclusions might not be so far off base. Avoid informal language, and the phrase "super sexy". And I guess "sexed up" should be avoided too. But "cheezed" can stay.

Dromiceiomimus: that student who never speaks, but rather anxiously keeps their heads down to "be less noticeable". I see you there, Dromiceiomimus, and I'm calling on you as soon as I figure out how to pronounce dromiceiomimus.

In An Open Relationship with Monographs

I like this. Perhaps more importantly, I feel this.














Except I'm pretty sure I'm married to Clio. Either that, or "Divorced" from "Reality".

Cohort Corner

A member of my cohort wishes to share this. Fortunately it works if your break begins this weekend, or ends this weekend.




















It is either seventy, or however many midterms you have to grade -- whichever is higher.

Happy Break!

Mid-term Check In

Which are you currently experiencing?

Another Point for Lincoln

As a historian, I sometimes run up against the demand for this kind of historical interpretation.


















"Whatever happened to the loser, Douglas?" is right up there with "Alexander Hamilton. How big a jerk was he?" and "Tell me about the time (x) got killed in a duel/a nasty early American disease/blown up by a cannon". True or not, these are the most popular parts of history. Someone recently referred to it as the "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" approach to making history appealing. Since rock and roll hadn't been invented yet, we're forced to leave it out (must. avoid. anachronism.). Fortunately we don't have to dig very deep to find great stories about famous Americans going nuts on opium, and we're also working with the ever-scandalous Peggy Eaton Affair. We have the goods in our knowledge arsenal.

Still. I sort of wish this had happened. Proof of the historical origins of "your mom" jokes would be revolutionary!

Meta-Wednesday

Here's a new tradition at Chix Soup, going out to everyone who is buried in theory, hating metatextualism, and wondering what post-post-postmodernism is going to look like: Midweek Meta Madness.

Once weekly, on Wednesdays, I'll dig through my arsenal of madness to bring you the very best in brain-exploding, uselessly amusing theoretical commentary.

Here's a little sample of what you can expect (metaclick on it to expand).



Enjoy!

One More Thing

Add this to the list of things I hope you didn't get on Valentine's Day.

If Only It Were True!

So I've circulated a couple of surveys about grad student stereotypes, among other fascinating things. I'll be giving you all the official results sometime in the future, but I'm jumping the gun to make this post because a) I have a really great visual, and b) there is one stand-alone stereotype that every person surveyed so far had pretty blistering things to say about.

And that is, that we're a bunch of lazy bums.

See exhibit A:



While I can't speak for the 12th year of the PhD, December is better known as the Deadline Dance of Doom and Death. How many pages can you write in a day when you have swine flu? How many books can you carry from the library, through the snow, up the many hills to the overflow lot where the grad students get to park? It's the same premise as "American Gladiators", except in "American Academics" we don't wear the sparkly costumes, and most of the time we're not suspended from monkey bars.

One person surveyed had no time to wrap any gifts, and went the "it's under the paper bag!" route. Another student, spared from the survey but not from inclusion in this post, was, at deadline time, seriously considering buying all Christmas gifts at highway rest stops on the way home.

So to all the people who received post-it notes and highlighters in their stockings -- and were excited about it -- I salute you! Get down with your never-stop-reading selves, and Happy New Year!

The New Western History

I will pay more attention to this blog in a week when school starts; I am still under the delusion that summer is not "school time". However, I couldn't help passing along this little doozy which found its merry way into my inbox this morning.

Hee! Take that, Turner.

Profesaurs

Woo hoo, it is a good week for comics. Check out this little doozy from www.qwantz.com, about when pre-history takes on history and, apparently, 90s television. Click on it to expand the wonderfulness.




This serves as a warning to people like me, who are tempted to describe seventeenth-century idle youth as having "started making trouble in the neighborhood; they got in one little fight and their moms got scared, and said, 'You're going to be an indentured servant in the New World'".

Really, I'm just glad I have to contend with The Fresh Prince. I have high hopes that my age-group of historians will completely miss the "Dawson's Creek Effect".

End Note

This sums up my job, and my feelings, completely. All sarcastic, witty, and slightly misanthropic types must now report to www.xkcd.com immediately.