This morning Brad and I got to hear baby's heartbeat again :) - and the sound of him/her moving around in this belly of mine, which the PA accurately characterized as "that scratching record sound." Baby was really on the move, and the PA said, "You've got an active peanut!" which is so cute I can hardly stand it.
Yesterday I was having major stomach hurting going on - stretching? bloating? stretching + bloating? - and it was hurting my back, too, so I was not a happy camper. Shannon's response is likewise adorable: "Maybe that baby's just gotta dance and your womb needs to be more accommodating." Love it!
Whatever the case, baby's movin' and groovin' in there, but I haven't felt anything just yet. At our appt. today, the PA guessed I'll feel something by about 20 weeks. It's generally later for first-timers than for women in their second or subsequent pregnancy, but she said since I'm slender I probably won't have to wait too much longer. Monday was 17 weeks, so . . . :O
At any rate, our ultrasound for the anatomy check is scheduled for Dec. 22 - I'll be 19.5 weeks at that point - and we've decided to find out the baby's sex! As it gets closer, I'm getting antsy, but with my luck, baby will wiggle into an unhelpful position and we won't be able to see!
As for the baby bump, nothing yet, but I have gained 6.5 lbs, so things are on track. This weekend, Brad and I went to the surprise party Amanda threw for her hubby's 30th birthday and she had the the cutest bump - I was a little jealous. She's 3 weeks behind me but since this is her second baby, she's naturally showing earlier. But it's okay, we'll get there eventually . . . and then I'll probably be complaining about how bad my back hurts, hehe.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Quickest Rejection Ever
Scholarly journals are notorious for holding onto your submissions for way too long, keeping you in a sort of torturous limbo about whether or not you've got the "right stuff." (Sometimes I just need to throw in a little NKOTB to keep my spirits up). My most recent submission, however, was rejected at lightning speed: 8 days after I sent the manuscript off via e-mail, I received an e-mail back saying, "Thanks, but no no no thanks." In so many words.
It could've been worse - they could've taken 2 or 3 or 4 or more months to let me know they'd rather pass. But it also could've been better, and not just b/c getting accepted (obviously!) would have been ideal. The comments that I received from the editor both seemed to miss the point of contributing new scholarship to the field and the topic of my article, which made yesterday not only disappointing but also totally frustrating and mildly infuriating.
Let me illustrate with a produce example:
I wrote my paper, we'll say, on the wilting of romaine lettuce. First, the editor of said journal responded that wilting is a "theme" only "fitfully" under discussion in the criticism about romaine lettuce. To which I would respond (were I able to respond), "Yes, and not even 'fitfully.' No one's talking about it, and it's useful. That's why I brought it up." The point of scholarly commentary, as I understand it, is to further the conversation about and understanding of the topic at hand by developing already existing avenues of discussion and introducing and exploring new ones.
The other majorly dumb comment was that editor had hoped to read an in-depth discussion of why there are so few varieties of greens available in produce section. Um, yes, well, great - but that's not even remotely my topic! And, as Butcher so eloquently put it: "There are a ton of greens in the produce section." Indeed there are. (Iceberg, spring mix, field greens, raddichio, just to name a few.)
He might as well have said he was hoping to read a piece on Sense and Sensibility rather than something about a contemporary American novel.
Everyone's always talking about how helpful reviewer's comments can be in the writing process. But what about when they're not? All this did was tick me off. The only legitimate comments he made were that 1. he doesn't think the topic is impt. enough to sustain article-length treatment - an opinion he's entitled to, but that I and the professor with whom I worked on the paper disagree (in fact, she keeps encouraging me to make the paper longer) and 2. that I offer only a "pat" discussion of people's responses to wilted lettuce.
The first I will have to simply ignore, and the second, well, I don't actually disagree with him. I had about 4 more pages of stuff on the topic, which my prof. said to cut - so I did. Who's right and who's wrong? Only time will tell: I'm going to take the advice a former professor gave me years ago and send the thing out again ASAP (though the places I'm looking at have slooooooow response times, and many of them require snail mail submission - boo, get into the 21st century!).
The very first time I played this game, back in late 2008/early 2009, it took the journal I submitted to 3 months to tell me that they didn't even send my article to reviewers. It was like the hugest slap in the face, and I believe there were tears (and probably many). I was ready to chuck the thing in a drawer and forget about it.
But my professor told me not to do it; he found a journal I could submit to via e-mail, making the process almost painless, and said to just send the thing out without making even one change. So I did it. And five days later, that journal wrote back - and they wanted my piece just as it was. Just goes to show: it's possible to get accepted even faster than you get rejected.
Let me illustrate with a produce example:
I wrote my paper, we'll say, on the wilting of romaine lettuce. First, the editor of said journal responded that wilting is a "theme" only "fitfully" under discussion in the criticism about romaine lettuce. To which I would respond (were I able to respond), "Yes, and not even 'fitfully.' No one's talking about it, and it's useful. That's why I brought it up." The point of scholarly commentary, as I understand it, is to further the conversation about and understanding of the topic at hand by developing already existing avenues of discussion and introducing and exploring new ones.
The other majorly dumb comment was that editor had hoped to read an in-depth discussion of why there are so few varieties of greens available in produce section. Um, yes, well, great - but that's not even remotely my topic! And, as Butcher so eloquently put it: "There are a ton of greens in the produce section." Indeed there are. (Iceberg, spring mix, field greens, raddichio, just to name a few.)
He might as well have said he was hoping to read a piece on Sense and Sensibility rather than something about a contemporary American novel.
Everyone's always talking about how helpful reviewer's comments can be in the writing process. But what about when they're not? All this did was tick me off. The only legitimate comments he made were that 1. he doesn't think the topic is impt. enough to sustain article-length treatment - an opinion he's entitled to, but that I and the professor with whom I worked on the paper disagree (in fact, she keeps encouraging me to make the paper longer) and 2. that I offer only a "pat" discussion of people's responses to wilted lettuce.
The first I will have to simply ignore, and the second, well, I don't actually disagree with him. I had about 4 more pages of stuff on the topic, which my prof. said to cut - so I did. Who's right and who's wrong? Only time will tell: I'm going to take the advice a former professor gave me years ago and send the thing out again ASAP (though the places I'm looking at have slooooooow response times, and many of them require snail mail submission - boo, get into the 21st century!).
The very first time I played this game, back in late 2008/early 2009, it took the journal I submitted to 3 months to tell me that they didn't even send my article to reviewers. It was like the hugest slap in the face, and I believe there were tears (and probably many). I was ready to chuck the thing in a drawer and forget about it.
But my professor told me not to do it; he found a journal I could submit to via e-mail, making the process almost painless, and said to just send the thing out without making even one change. So I did it. And five days later, that journal wrote back - and they wanted my piece just as it was. Just goes to show: it's possible to get accepted even faster than you get rejected.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Not Just for Kids: a Theory of Flavor Selection
Apparently I am five years old b/c my husband dumped my bag of Starbursts (yum yum) into a Rubbermaid container to make it easier for me "to pick my flavors." While it makes me feel not a little bit juvenile, I have to say, it's an ingenious idea. My prior method - of peering into the too-small hole I ripped in the corner of the bag and digging my too-big hand in to grab the ones I want - wasn't the most feasible, and three cheers to Brad for his innovation.
Anyway, this color picking points to a process to which I have decided to adhere with some fervor from here on out, after trying it out recently and feeling quite satisfied.
You see, like many folks, I prefer to red Starbursts to the other flavors, and I really don't care for the yellow. Whenever I eat a delicious red one and stumble upon a yellow or even an orange one next, it takes my taste experience from fab to flub.
So I have resolved to eat all of the red ones first. While this might sound, again, like the plan of a five-year-old, hear me out, b/c there is, as always, method to my madness.
Once all of the reds are gone, I then move onto the pink. Pink is my second favorite flavor (yeah, it's a flavor, okay?) and, as the best option remaining, I'm quite happy to have pink Starbursts in my pantry. Then when all the pinks are gone - yep, you guessed it, I'm onto the oranges, and compared with those yellow ones, the orange is pretty delish.
At the end of this several-day-long process, I'm left with those yucky yellows, which tend to sit there for a few weeks. But, eventually, when packing my lunch/dinner for a long day at school, I look in the cabinet and see those yellow ones and think, "Well, those won't be looking too bad tonight at about 8:00 in class," and I toss them in. And, sure enough, come 8:00 on a Thursday night, I'm happy to have those sweet yellow squares at the bottom of my bag.
And so it is that you can best enjoy your bursts of flavor - without ultimately wasting a one of 'em.
Anyway, this color picking points to a process to which I have decided to adhere with some fervor from here on out, after trying it out recently and feeling quite satisfied.
So I have resolved to eat all of the red ones first. While this might sound, again, like the plan of a five-year-old, hear me out, b/c there is, as always, method to my madness.
Once all of the reds are gone, I then move onto the pink. Pink is my second favorite flavor (yeah, it's a flavor, okay?) and, as the best option remaining, I'm quite happy to have pink Starbursts in my pantry. Then when all the pinks are gone - yep, you guessed it, I'm onto the oranges, and compared with those yellow ones, the orange is pretty delish.
 |
| Those do not look appetizing |
And so it is that you can best enjoy your bursts of flavor - without ultimately wasting a one of 'em.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
It's amazing that we make it through the day without an instruction guide
From the other room I hear, "You know what I'd really like to get?"
"Oh great," I say, excepting something expensive and/or absurd. "What?"
Brad appears in the living room. "I forget what they're called. One of those plastic bins you use to carry laundry up and down the stairs."
I pause a second, b/c this seems nearly impossible. Then I say, "You mean, a laundry basket?"
"Oh, yeah!" he responds.
Me, with narrowed eyes: "We have one of those somewhere."
"Oh great," I say, excepting something expensive and/or absurd. "What?"
Brad appears in the living room. "I forget what they're called. One of those plastic bins you use to carry laundry up and down the stairs."
I pause a second, b/c this seems nearly impossible. Then I say, "You mean, a laundry basket?"
"Oh, yeah!" he responds.
Me, with narrowed eyes: "We have one of those somewhere."
 |
| Oh, wow, a plastic bin that you use to carry laundry up and down the stairs! |
Old Good News
I'm doing just about everything I can to avoid working on my critical history for medieval lit., which includes writing a blog post that I meant to write in August and every month since. As an aside completely unrelated to the topic of this post, however, I would just like to note that
a. critical histories are ridiculous;
b. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing;
c. regardless of a. and b., writing this is still a better option than writing a 20-30 page legitimate paper on medieval literature about which, after an entire semester of sitting through almost 3 hours of class a week, I still know nothing (beyond a few key concepts).
Now that that's been handled, back to the good news.
This summer, about 4/5 of the journal article I published at the end of '09 got reprinted in a book. I had no idea this was happening - no one contacted me in advance, which is surprising despite the fact that the journal publisher owns the rights to my article and can therefore do as it pleases. It just seems like good form to let authors know their work is going to appear elsewhere.
In fact, that only reason I found out is b/c I have a vain habit (I can admit it's a bit ridiculous) of Googling my name and, lo and behold, the new book came up in my results.
I proceeded to contact the book's publisher to request a contributor's copy, and they kindly complied. So I'm in a book. And it's on my shelf.
The two coolest things about this experience are, first, that the general editor of the collection is only like one of the most famous critics in the world of English literature. Love him or hate him, you know who he is. I, for one, happen to love him. (Nevermind the fact that he probably had actually nothing to do with picking my piece.)
And the second is the fact that the excerpt of my article is the second longest in the book, which contains excerpts from a bunch of articles. Like, it's way longer than most of the excerpts. So I feel cool.
That's my old good news. At this point I'm nearly out of excuses for not doing my work. Nearly.
a. critical histories are ridiculous;
b. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing;
c. regardless of a. and b., writing this is still a better option than writing a 20-30 page legitimate paper on medieval literature about which, after an entire semester of sitting through almost 3 hours of class a week, I still know nothing (beyond a few key concepts).
Now that that's been handled, back to the good news.
This summer, about 4/5 of the journal article I published at the end of '09 got reprinted in a book. I had no idea this was happening - no one contacted me in advance, which is surprising despite the fact that the journal publisher owns the rights to my article and can therefore do as it pleases. It just seems like good form to let authors know their work is going to appear elsewhere.
In fact, that only reason I found out is b/c I have a vain habit (I can admit it's a bit ridiculous) of Googling my name and, lo and behold, the new book came up in my results.
 |
| Look - that might be me in there! |
The two coolest things about this experience are, first, that the general editor of the collection is only like one of the most famous critics in the world of English literature. Love him or hate him, you know who he is. I, for one, happen to love him. (Nevermind the fact that he probably had actually nothing to do with picking my piece.)
And the second is the fact that the excerpt of my article is the second longest in the book, which contains excerpts from a bunch of articles. Like, it's way longer than most of the excerpts. So I feel cool.
That's my old good news. At this point I'm nearly out of excuses for not doing my work. Nearly.
He really said this
Brad gets home from grocery shopping a little bit ago and begins putting things away in a rush of lunacy. I sort of just sit there and watch and chat with him. At the tail-end of the effort, it occurs to me that perhaps I should lend a hand. But now there's not really anything left to do. Unprompted, I announce,
Me: "I loaded the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen while you were gone. I do my part."
Him: "I know you do."
Me: "Baby doesn't do his/her part." (Yeah, I just said that - real mature, I know.)
Him: "Oh, he or she will have plenty of chores when they're big. [Pause.] I'm already looking forward to it."
Me: [Laughing.] "Are you serious?"
Him: "Is that weird?"
No no, completely normal. What expectant parent doesn't think, "Ohhhhh, how great: in a bunch of years my kid'll be doing chores which means I'll have to do less!"?
Me: "I loaded the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen while you were gone. I do my part."
Him: "I know you do."
Me: "Baby doesn't do his/her part." (Yeah, I just said that - real mature, I know.)
Him: "Oh, he or she will have plenty of chores when they're big. [Pause.] I'm already looking forward to it."
Me: [Laughing.] "Are you serious?"
Him: "Is that weird?"
No no, completely normal. What expectant parent doesn't think, "Ohhhhh, how great: in a bunch of years my kid'll be doing chores which means I'll have to do less!"?
Friday, December 2, 2011
Go ahead, rent Horrible Bosses
So b/c Brad is a Netflix slacker (i.e., he takes 3 days to send already-watched DVDs back), thus we didn't get two more discs of Law & Order season 8 in the mail today; and b/c I slept like crap and then had to spend the day on campus, thus resulting in super low motivation to do work tonight; we rented and watched Horrible Bosses by the light of the Christmas tree (well, and a lamp).
We both had relatively low expectations, but, I'm pleased to say, it was actually pretty darn funny. Not think-of-it-5-days-later-and-start-randomly-cracking-up funny, but funny enough that one of us laughed at least every 4 minutes. Which isn't too bad at all, considering that most comedies are mildly disappointing at best.
(It should be noted that Brad's claim that I "hate laughter" - simply b/c I always reject watching funny movies/shows in favor of dramas - is patently untrue: I spend a good part of every day laughing at people. So there.)
The best part of the movie was the fact that a bunch of the minor characters were really famous actors - Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx (who was soooooo funny) - and the characters they played were pretty darn humorous. Plus it was fast-paced, and who doesn't love Jason Bateman?!
Now, this movie is certainly no The Hangover or Dodgeball or Wedding Crashers, but it is a good Friday night $1 pick (gotta love Redbox). It has successfully withstood our "No More Wasting Our Lives on Crappy TV/Movies," a policy we instituted (and have basically stuck with since) this summer after one too many horrid time-wasters from Netflix streaming. The basic gist: if you'd like a light-hearted laugher, drop a dollar and you'll even get to see Bunk from The Wire fame.
We both had relatively low expectations, but, I'm pleased to say, it was actually pretty darn funny. Not think-of-it-5-days-later-and-start-randomly-cracking-up funny, but funny enough that one of us laughed at least every 4 minutes. Which isn't too bad at all, considering that most comedies are mildly disappointing at best.
(It should be noted that Brad's claim that I "hate laughter" - simply b/c I always reject watching funny movies/shows in favor of dramas - is patently untrue: I spend a good part of every day laughing at people. So there.)
Now, this movie is certainly no The Hangover or Dodgeball or Wedding Crashers, but it is a good Friday night $1 pick (gotta love Redbox). It has successfully withstood our "No More Wasting Our Lives on Crappy TV/Movies," a policy we instituted (and have basically stuck with since) this summer after one too many horrid time-wasters from Netflix streaming. The basic gist: if you'd like a light-hearted laugher, drop a dollar and you'll even get to see Bunk from The Wire fame.
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