first efforts

"Unofficial is stoopid"

So said our waiter last night when he overheard us explaining to our illustrious campus visitor why he was going to be taken off campus for lunch with graduate students today. Seems we have a knack for scheduling visitors and talks for this day of all days; this year we'll have to be sure to have extra bottles of water on hand. Because you never know.

Despite the unfortunate timing, we still shout YAY for visitors! And for leap year!

Chocolatey goodness

This morning my beloved sent me a link to this super-scientific chart, which I have taken the liberty of modifying:

I try to be a humble midwestern professorchick about most things, but the one thing that I will freely admit I do almost better than anybody is make a damn fine batch of chocolate chip cookies.

How I am spending the last Saturday of February

, , then repeat.

Chicago, City of Big Marathons

I saw the movie, "Spirit of the Marathon," last night. Walking into the theater, Sara and I felt a little like Norm from Cheers: everybody knew our name. That's because practically every runner in town was there.

The movie follows several people preparing for the 2005 Chicago marathon, everyone from Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor (who trains at well over 100 miles a week) to first-timers. And it's a veritable love poem to Chicago running. That brought back lots of memories for me. Not only was Chicago my first marathon, but I ran that lakefront path nearly every weekend I was in the city. There is nothing quite like Chicago running.

Not surprisingly, the film uses profiles and interviews with other famous runners to do the usual "marathon as metaphor for life" bit. It got a bit slow for me in the middle, but the concluding segment on the race itself was simply fantastic. It not only recreated the intense experience of excitement and anxiety that every runner feels on marathon day, it also really showed you how big the Chicago experience is. The magnificent aerial shot of 40,000 people crossing the starting line is worth the price of admission alone. Talk about a sea of humanity. Only in this sea, every single human is in ninety-dollar shoes and carrying Gu.

You can view the trailer here to see for yourself what I mean.

Runners, mark your calendars

Looks like I've got a cure for next winter's runners' SAD. According to today's News Gazette, the inaugural Illinois Marathon will be run here in the C-U on April 25, 2009.

At least we know the course will be flat.

Runners' SAD

If there's a seasonal affective disorder for runners, I've got it bad. Lately when it's snowy or icy, I don't want to run. When it's sunny but cold (today), I don't want to run. When it's gray and otherwise temperate, I don't want to run. I don't want to run when it's early, I don't want to run when it's late...as Dr. Seuss might put it, not in a house, not with a mouse. When I get like this, I just do not want to run. Period. Not even gym class helps.

I go through this every year; my running energy goes dormant, but I always snap out of it eventually. I know that I just have to hang on a few more weeks. I'm hoping that seeing this movie Thursday night will help, especially because a small part of it was shot at a marathon camp I attended five years ago. Not only will it be cool to see folks I know, but it will be cool to remind myself that, once upon a time, I was the kind of runnerchick who went to marathon camp.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but still, this is funny

McSweeney's muses on what other things there will be, in addition to blood.

Close to home, complicated...

...and really, really awful.

Dear Hillary: Why do you hate us?

HRC in Ohio yesterday:

Now, over the years, you’ve heard plenty of promises from plenty of people in plenty of speeches. And some of those speeches were probably pretty good. But speeches don’t put food on the table. Speeches don’t fill up your tank, or fill your prescription or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night.

Certainly none of FDR's speeches put food on the table. And speeches never got women much, either. Not, like, the vote or anything.

Speaking of that, Happy Birthday, Susan B. Anthony. We're talking about your speech, "Is It A Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?" in my Gender and Rhetoric class next week.

Happy Second Annual Happy Woman Professor Day!

Today's philosophical dilemma: If you forget that it's Happy Woman Professor Day, and another Happy Woman Professor has to remind you, then are you really a happy woman professor?

Yes! Busy, but happy. Or, perhaps (like our gals Tracy and Hillary) happy because busy. All you need to do to confirm that I'm still a happy woman professor is to check out some recent entries in this blog: visual politics, visual politics, visual politics, visual politics. I am teaching what I love most to undergraduates and this energy and enthusiasm is bleeding over into the blog (whether you like it or not).

Oh, and I am still a huge fan of partner hire policies. Huge, huge fan.