Day in the Life: March 2008 Archives

Well, Monday has arrived, and with it a lovely opthalmic migraine.  The good news?  I don't have to attend the impromptu political event on-campus, because the others in the office fear that my compromised eyesight and raging headache might make the Secret Service think I'm a twitchy nutcase, and no-one is terribly interested in having a "Don't tase me, bro!" moment here on campus.

The bad news?  Migraine!  Also, The Boy bursting into tears after Davidson lost last night's basketball game.  Plus, it's cold and rainy - although that could be good news, because it's washing all that hateful pollen out of the air, and we here in Drought Central need all the help we can get.

Ugh.  Gonna pop some pills and hope for the day to be over soon.

For Avatar, the Last Airbender, the animated series from Nicktoons.  Hublet, The Boy and I have been watching the past 2 seasons' DVDs and are almost caught up--we watch an episode a night.  It's just as much fun for us to watch as it is for The Boy.

Now I just have to find out when/if the final episodes of Season 3 will air, and all will be right with the world...well, that and it would be kind of nice to locate some decent action figures...for The Boy.

What?

First things first - WOOOOOOO!  Wildcats!  WOOOOOOOOOO!

Okay, moving on.  I'm sure most of you are waiting with bated breath for the official post recounting Prom Night, 2008:  Escape from the Black Pearl.  So here it is.  Unfortunately, LB is destined to be disappointed, for even though Hublet and I dutifully took a camera, we snapped nary a photograph of ourselves.  However, here's a nice image of the shoes I purchased for the occasion.  I'm almost six feet tall when I put these puppies on. Glamazon, ho!

Speaking of ho, let's chat a bit about what passes for prom fashion nowadays, shall we?

Color of the season?  Turquoise, followed by variations on hot pink/fuschia.  Style of the season?  form-fitting, full-length, stretchy, with back cleavage, front cleavage, side slits, and the occasional cut out over the hip.  Look.  When the models for prom fashions look like they're 30, maybe we ought to rethink some of these ensembles, is all I'm saying.  Of course, not all the girls took prom night to this extreme.  There was the strange (due, I was told, to her bipolar disorder) girl in a hoopskirted pink and blue confection that made me dub her "Princess Sparkletoes," and then there was the chick with the green mohawk.  So the gamut was run.

The most disturbing trend was on the male side of the aisle, where the Uber-brain had apparently issued a directive whereby the boys all had to wear white tuxes with a brightly colored vest/tie combo, matching Chuck Taylors, and white baseball caps.  Yep.  Baseball caps.  Unfortunately, the collective effect was less "effortless cool, gangsta style," and more "I am a ginormo-dork with no style."  It's 2008's sartorial version of the powder-blue ruffle shirt of the 70's. I would love to be a fly on the wall when these guys look back at their prom pictures in 10 years or so.

Apparently Hublet's high school is the only one that this particular hotel allows to hold its prom on the premises, which is cool.  Also, Hublet's prom committee has some fairly serious cash.  The floral arrangements alone cost a pretty penny, and the buffet featured bacon-wrapped scallops, a carving station, and a chocolate fountain, among other things.  The only thing missing was the open bar.

And boy, did I ever miss the open bar.  Especially when confronted with faculty who had taken the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme to heart and had showed up dressed as pirates.  Yep.  Actual pirates.

The hotel was also hosting the media for the NCAA conference.  It was fun to watch lost credentialed dudes in jeans wandering befuddled into the midst of formally clad, sweaty teenagers.  It was also fun to sit at the check-in table, safe from the lametastic music, and just people-watch. And Hublet got to sneak away to the sports bar to check the Duke score a couple of times, so all in all, it could have been worse.

And that's only because it features Davidson.

I vote we adopt Inside Higher Ed's bracket system, and hail the NCAA "hey, we actually pay attention to the 'student' part of student athelete" champions for 2008:  Davidson College!

Yes, I am being a big ol' geek.  You'll recover.

About the slow death of the study of english literature, in The Nation.  I know!  Best quote:

In other words, the profession's intellectual agenda is being set by teenagers. This is also unprecedented. However bitter the ideological battles Graff described, they were driven by the profession's internal dynamics, not by what our students wanted, or what they thought they wanted, or what we thought they thought they wanted. If grade schools behaved like this, every subject would be recess, and lunch would consist of chocolate cake.

This quote could go a long way toward explaining why so many english departments resemble particularly vicious playgrounds...

Anyway, sorry about the dearth of original content.  But never fear - Hublet's Prom Experience 2008 will take place this Thursday, and I am fairly assured that hilarity will ensue.  Well, if by "hilarity" you mean "the pain and suffering of grown-ups who have to spend 5 HOURS listening to a blend of hip-hop and pop-country music."  I fear I will be tempted to fling one of my newly-acquired super cool pumps (bless you, Zappos!) at the DJ's head.

Howdy!  Not much time for original content today; here are some articles I found interesting.

1.  Book review - Death of the Critic.  Thanks, english professors, for not resting until you thoroughly screwed everything up!

2.  Charles Krauthammer helps me figure out why watching the democratic primary is an exercise in "yep, I saw this one coming" for anyone who's ever studied a subject tainted with identity politics.  Depressing as hell, but succinct.

3.  David Mamet isn't being insufferable?  What the hell?

4.  Via Fark:  "We haven't had a Tom Cruise/$cientology train-wreck video in a while...oh wait!  Here's one!"

Have a good weekend!

And Wednesday.

Sorry for the consecutive mini-hiatuses (hiatii?), but a combination of factors, including unscheduled travel and the fact that my life is fairly dull just now, will probably keep me offline until late this week.

But before I go - if you ever get the chance to see Lemony Snickett's "The Composer is Dead," DO IT.  Our symphony performed it on Saturday for the final children's concert of the season, and Mr. Snickett himself did the reading, which tickled me quite a bit.  It's very dry and clever, but still has enough laughs for the younger set. And you'll never look at french horns the same way again...

Final Postcard Update:  The Boy got to bring home all the postcards addressed to him.  It was a lot of fun looking at all of them and reading what you wrote!  Thanks again, folks!  The Boy got the second highest number of postcards in the class, but only because one girl's grandmother was apparently on some cross-country road trip thingy.  If I ever get around to doing that scrapbook that I bought when The Boy was born, I'll be certain to include your cards!  In the meantime, rest assured that they will be preserved forever in the Giant Drawer Full of Stuff That Will One Day Go in The Boy's Scrapbook.  I've got a tentative completion date set for 2015 or so.