NOW it's official

I finally got my letter from the president saying that the Board of Trustees has approved my tenure and promotion to associate professor.

Woo-hoo! Let the feasting begin!*

Now I'm going to go change my e-mail signature line.





*Bullock and I are talking about a celebration party inspired by medieval feasting -- with medieval recipes, but not sit-down. We haven't decided about forks yet.

You might be an academic grown-up if...

...you go to a major conference in your field and no longer care about whether people are looking at the affiliation on your name tag because you and they are too busy actually engaging each other in conversation.

... and you have no anxiety whatsoever in the book exhibit.

... and while there you talk to a big-shot about hir work, and ask if ze's read such-and-such work obviously related to the project, and ze hasn't. And you realize you know something ze doesn't.

...and you ask a smart, useful, 'big stakes' question of another big-shot at hir panel...and then get invited to lunch afterwards, where the conversation continues with the panelists and others.

...a different big shot asks you to read hir work in progress.

...you hear yourself cited and quoted in *two* different papers (OK, granted, both speakers are friends...but still).

...you feel confident in turning down another big-shot's dinner invitation because you have other plans.

...you give a paper and afterwards numerous people from the fully packed audience tell you that you've changed the way they understand the subject.

...you have a moment of raging envy when you find out you lost the big book prize in your field to someone who wins everything, but then you pick up hir book and realize, yeah, it's pretty freakin' impressive.

And that, my friends, was my Kalamazoo.

********
And in a related subject: you might be a blogger if...

...people know they know you but want to call you by your nom de blog.

...and your dog is mentioned in a paper. (Yeah, no kidding. Pippi got cited at her first K'zoo. Took me six of 'em to reach that stage.)

O Fortuna!

This one's for the Pastry Pirate. Hat tip to Another Damned Medievalist.



Btw, here are the actual words to "O Fortuna," in case you want them.

UK travel bleg

Since all you netizens and web-dwellers were so helpful last year when I was planning on spending a month in London for research last summer, I thought I'd ask for help again. Two updates below.

Query/Problem #1

I'm going to the UK for two weeks this summer from July 17 to the 31 (already have my round trip plane ticket from Big Rust Belt to Heathrow). On the 17th I need to get from London to Swansea, Wales. Advance train tickets are only 12.50 GBP, and the train is direct and takes less than 3 hours. That's great! Except for one thing: it seems you can't buy tickets online unless you have a UK address. Grrr. And I believe it's a UK *billing* address the online booking agency (Trainline) wants. It really shouldn't matter since I'm trying to purchase the ticket to pick up at a self-service kiosk, but apparently, it does. Same day tickets are now 61.00 GBP -- a big difference! -- and by the day itself they could be more.

Meanwhile, after Swansea, I'm going to Leeds and then from Leeds back to London. Were I able to purchase of all this right now, online, it would only cost me about 45.00 GBP. Now, I may be able to get those second two legs at Paddington when I arrive there, and thus still get some kind of advanced fair, but it's subject to availability.

So here's what I'm asking: is there any way a US resident can purchase advance train tickets online?? Am I missing something?

Update: Using a UK address and choosing the first class post option on thetrainline.com solved my problems. If I didn't have a friend in the UK to receive the tickets I'd be SOL, though. It's totally stupid that choosing the electronic kiosk method requires a UK billing address. I've written to customer service about it. Oh, and as one commenter points out, if you call the appropriate train company directly, you can order the cheap advance tickets over the phone, to be picked up at the self-service kiosk. So why you can't do it online is beyond me -- especially since National Express, the coach service, has e-tickets you print out from your own printer! (If hadn't been for the fact that the coach tickets are actually *more* expensive *and* slower, I might have gone that route.)

Query / Problem #2

I need a place to stay in London for the nights of July 27, 28, 29, and 30. I know about Goodenough Club and actually stayed in one of their student rooms last summer. But I'd be surprised if they have a student room available this late -- though I've written to ask -- and the club is a little pricey. Yes, I know it's London, but does anyone know of a decent B&B near the Kings Cross/British Library area that's under 100 pounds a night? Given how much I may end up spending on train travel, I want to minimize expenses on accommodations.

Update: I'm still looking for suggestions here. Also, does anyone know anything about the Euro Hotel, the Alhambra Hotel, or the Wardonia Hotel? Along with the Penn Club, suggested by Rebel Lettriste, these look like possibilities, especially the first two.

All leads and advice appreciated! Thanks!

Nuns on the run! (Well, ok, on the walk)

In lieu of a substantive Kzoo post (or any post for that matter) for the moment, I give you Medieval Congress attending nuns:

Bagpipes? Really?

Someone in our neighborhood is playing bagpipes. Poorly. S/he's clearly only just learning, so I shouldn't pick on hir, especially since generally speaking I *love* bagpipes. But weirdly, s/he has decided to learn the US National Anthem first. Is there some kind of Scots-American celebration coming up? I take all that back now. Clearly s/he was just warming up. Now s/he's playing traditional music and s/he's not the best I've ever heard, but not bad. It's kind of nice, actually. Like I said, I dig the bagpipes.

Ah, Rust Belt in the Spring, when windows are open and music is in the air.

My graduate students crack me up

Two of the grad students from my Chaucer class are very close friends, and one of them told me they jokingly refer to each other as "rivals." So get this: for their final papers in that class, one of them wrote on the Friar's Tale and the other wrote on the Summoner's Tale. Ha! Even cooler -- we didn't read these tales in the class, so they discovered the Friar-Summoner rivalry all on their own.

I love it when papers amuse me in surprising and positive ways -- it always makes the grading process easier.

My childhood home

Want to see the house in which I spent 18 continuous years of my life, plus a few assorted summers?

Here:

View Larger Map

Google Street View is kind of creepy.

It's also wrong. If you click on the "larger map" link, it will tell you I grew up in toney Leawood, KS. Although 66206 is largely a Leawood zip-code, I grew up in more modest Overland Park. If you have a Sprint cell phone, you have perhaps heard of it (though it shows up on Bullock's AmEx bill as Roverland Park, which cracks me up -- Dog Park, KS!).

Oh, and btw, my porn name is either Emily (first pet) Windsor, or Marie (middle name) Windsor, neither of which sound at all porny. Indeed, they sound like distant members of the royal family.

Speaking of Englishness, the street behind us was Canterbury. Yeah, I was destined to be an Anglophile and a medievalist.