Sometimes, when you need it...

Wow. It's been quite an interesting few weeks since I last updated. Let's see...

I went to a symposium on Southern/Texas Women's History the one weekend. That really kind of messed with my world. I mean...everywhere I turned, there was some amazingly brilliant woman whose book I have read. And I was so intimidated that I could hardly form words. And, of course, a couple of them were kinda good-looking on top of that.

At the end of the second day of this thing, after listening to all these incredible women speaking about the historiographical gaps that need to be filled in, we were asked to split up into various groups and make a list of some of the most important research that needed to be done in the different topics that they provided for us. There is a lot of room out there to make a mark. That's a good sign, but...overall, the whole experience left me-- Well, let me put it this way: at one point, a woman sitting at my table said, "I love coming to these things because I leave and I'm so motivated that I want to go home and just write and write and write." For me, it was the opposite: I wanted to go home and curl up in a little ball and give away all my books and just quit. Because in my mind there is no way that I'll ever be able to measure up to those women. My God! Some of them (the two hot ones) are only a couple of years older than I am. I might as well give up.

So, there you have my mindset for the last couple of weeks. And a large reason why I made a regular service appointment with Bob. It didn't do much good. I still felt useless. Then, came this week:

Tuesday, I closed the Help Center. The idiot who opened it in the morning unlocked the door wrong so that it wasn't locked when we closed it. So, I had to stay an extra 20 minutes waiting for Dr. Morris to finish her class and lock the door for me. Fine, whatever. But, then she asks to talk to me for a minute...and proceeds to go on and on about how well I write and how she was just amazed at it. Surely I must know that. Naturally, I told her that I didn't really see it that way, but I appreciated her opinion. She was incredulous--but, my god, they give you all A's, that must mean something. I just stood there, 15 different shades of red, looking at my feet.

Thursday, I was running the whole day. Just crazy and frenzied. At one point, I was running through the office and Dr. Turner sees me and tells me that I absolutely made her day, Wednesday. Well, I didn't see her at all on Wednesday, so I was curious. It seems that in grading the "seminar paper design" assignment, I was the only one in our class to have done it correctly. She had been very frustrated looking at the others and when she saw mine (99 out of 100, by the way), it had made her day. Seems as though she loved my short historiography.

Finally, at midnight...so Friday: Dr. Chet. Every week, we have to do a book review for his class. Initially, he said he'd like them emailed to everyone in the class by noon Thursday but midnight at the absolute latest. A lot of us (there are 8 of us, total) choose to aim closer for that midnight. Last week, a couple of us--and I was one because I didn't get it sent in before I went out to have some fun--missed the midnight deadline too. So, last Friday, he said....NOON, or I'll deduct two points from your final grade. I sent mine in at 9:30 this morning with a smartassed comment. At midnight, he sent me a response: One extra point for great timing, and another for a great review.

That's three profs in 4 days telling me that I can write. When will I believe it? See RHKR for the rest of the story.