writing week

Kate Turabian is the devil. Seriously. There has never been a more complicated, less intuitive and insidiously wide spread format for documenting papers EVER. And besides that Turabianites (Turabian knights as they are also called, mainly by me) can't even agree with how to update the bleeding thing for websites and online journals. AND can any one tell me WHY the first footnote format is different from the Bibliography format? And the most contentious point, to me at least, is the placement of the commas. They put freaking commas everywhere, they SNEEZE commas onto the page at seemingly random intervals, and woe to you if you should put a period instead of a comma, the scroll is burned. I feel the pain of the Masoretes. I also am suffering from way too many Turabian nights spent tediously formatting. SEE! See what she has reduced me to! PUNS for crying out loud! What a world, what a world.

musings on graduation time of year

So I turned in my "graduation plan" at Emmanuel this week. Found out that I needed to do it this semester and had about 10 min to fill it out. Advisors change to the thesis advisor when you submit the plan and upon casual conversation with new advisor in the hall he said, "oh yeah, you probably need to do that today". I had everything on my trusty laptop, the precious, so it was OK. It was still kind of strange to map out my last three semesters at Emu. That and a lot of people we started with are graduating this year. They are all doing their final sermons about "going out into the real world" (side note, I don't know what rock they've been under, but I've been in the real world for a while now. mortgage and health insurance and "casual fridays", oh my). Kinda makes me fell like I'm in remedial seminary or something, like I was held back in kindergarten. I know that we chose to work and not get loans which made us take less classes, but I kind of feel like I've been demoted a year at Hogwarts and all the people I spent the last three years in classes with can apparate and I still use floo powder. OK had to throw in a Harry Potter reference before I got entirely bogged down in whining. Maybe I'm in a campus ministry mode and this is "worst time of the year" feelings.

On a lighter side of higher education, the following conversation took place on May 4 at my work place. The names remain unchanged to properly shame those involved:
Miles: Hey guys, when's Cinco de Maio?
The rest of us: (stare in disbelief. Replay what he just said in our heads to make sure we heard him right.)
Miles: no really, is it like soon? Or is it in June?
Keia: (breaks the silence). It's today, you idiot.
The rest of us: (again the familiar sound of gears slipping in our heads. Is she serious? collective glance at calendars. about 9 are in plain view during this conversation. the one the company gave us helpfully has "Cinco de Maio" printed on the 5th of May)
Amanda: (As if the two of them don't exist, turns to me) Did you just hear that? Did they really say...
Me: You're both idiots. Today is the 4th and Cinco de Maio is the 5TH OF MAY. The de might have thrown you off, it means "OF".
(Pod erupts into riotous laughter earning dirty looks from two supervisors. Keia and Miles proceed to turn purple laughing and take turns almost falling out of our crappy death-trap desk chairs, adding to the laughter)
Miles, between gasps: I took three years of Spanish in college! I never put it together! I swear I have a college degree, really!

His degree, by the way, is in finance. He just got a better job at a major bank in their financing department. Be afraid, loan seekers, be very afraid.