Numbers

No, not the show.

• Six days until K'zoo.
• Two weeks until I MUST have my application in to the university to be considered for scholarships.
• Two letters of recommendation asked for, and received.
• One past professor vanished from the fact of the earth
• One hundred and eighty dollars spent at the salon last night.
• Four transcripts order.
• One closet half way cleaned out.
• One more test in Texas politics.
• One bottle of wine left in the fridge.
• Five new children starting in my class on Monday.
• Zero days between me and the weekend.

Insight from panic

For those of you playing along at home, you might remember that I'm applying at a prestigious private school to finish my undergrad. I've been panicking faster than a speeding bullet over the said application lately. Most of the panic itself as little to do with a the application itself or even the application essay of doom(tm).

No, most of my panic, anxiety, and overall freaking out is over "what do I do if they don't accepted me?"

Do I continue on at the State U (not Texas State BTW) with no Medieval Studies department, and the long commute? Do I apply to a few other universities with medieval Studies programs even though this could mean a even longer commute then State U?

I don't have the 'what ifs' Uncle Shelby writers about so much as the "Do Is?".

Through all of this my dear friend who lives too many states, we'll call her English-Shrew, away as been calming me down and smacking me down with reason. For this I'm very grateful, since I really don't have the time for a mini panic attack right now. I also fell like a bit of a heel.

English-Shrew has been applying to grad schools and dealing with all the stress there-in. Stress and panic which I haven't been the most supportive about. Suddenly I realize that 'it will all work out', and 'well you can try again in the spring' are about the least supportive things ever to leave my mouth.

Why she hasn't sent masked men to kill me in my sleep yet, is beyond me. I'm very thankful she hasn't and has given me the support I should have given her.

Though it is entirely possible that she is lulling me into a false sense of security and will soon have me tried for my abuse for the common coma.

And remember what ever you do, don't panic.

'Me' meme

Found around the blog-sphere.

Accent: Mix between East Coast and Texas
Booze: Australian chardonnay and Asian beer
Chore I Hate: Cleaning the cat box
Dog or Cat: Cats. They hunt me down.
Essential Electronics: Laptop/ipod
Favorite Cologne(s):BPAL's Doormouse
Gold or Silver: Silver.
Hometown: Small town in Texas.
Insomnia: All the damn time.
Job Title: Assistant transition teacher
Kids: None, and would people please stop asking me when I'm going to have some?
Living arrangements: A nice two bed, two bath condo in a nice up and comin area. Formal a run down 1 bed/1 bath apartment in a not so nice part of town.
Number of sexual partners: Right now? None. Less than four more than one.
Overnight hospital stays: Yes, when I was five.
Phobias: Spiders, utterly humiliating myself in public, running into stalker-ex.
Quote: Follow your bliss- Joseph Campbell.
Religion: Deist
Siblings: One brother, three step-brothers, two-step sisters.
Time I wake up: 6:30 am.
Unusual talent or skill: Bending my thumb backwards?
Vegetable I refuse to eat: Lima Beans.
Worst habit: Biting my nails
X-rays: Teeth, right knee, right arm and shoulder
Yummy foods I make: Seafood pasta, ginger-snaps
Zodiac sign: Virgo. Ascendant in Scorpio, Moon is in Aries.

Isabella: She wolf of France

Alison Weir's, Queen Isabella : Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England

I always enjoy Weir's books, and must admit that I own all of those that she's written to date. She has a bit of a thing for English Queens and I can't say that I blame her. This time around she takes a look at Isabella, 'the she wolf of France'. History has not been kind to her.

Yesterday I had a long review written out. Today we're going the bullet route.

Main thoughts on the book

• As always I liked that we are given contemporary events, instead of focusing just on the main subject.
• Use of contemporary sources, how I love seeing them used. I think most of us have read at least one book that refers to the sources written long after the subject (person, place, or thing) and have wondered why the contemporay sources were ignored.
• While Weir is biased towards Isabella in part, she keeps to the facts and contemporary sources for the most part.
• This brings up a point for another time, should historians attempt to suppose what their subject might have felt and thought or keep to what we know for sure?
• The debunking of the popular mode of death for Edward II, ala red hot poker, done in a way that made sense. I agree that Edward more than likely died by suffocation.
• I'm not sure how much validity the premise of Edward escaping and living as a hermit has but she did support her theory well.
• I was pleased to see that she did not come down on one side or the other of the death verse escape. Though she does lean heavily towards the escape theory.
• Yes, the escape theory very much appeals to my romantic literary side.
• I agree that it is rather doubtful Isabella would have agreed to killing Edward II. Killing a King, any king is a dangerous precedent to set and she would have been smart enough to be wary.
• Must find a book on Queen Philippa of Hainault, from what we see of her in this book she'd be a fascinating subject.
• Overall if Isabella is everything later histories say she is, one would thing the contemporary records would show more of this tone towards her.

Thoughts, criticism, debates?

This is a non-post

I had a nice long post about Alison Weir's 'Queen Isabella : Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England'. Which the gods of the internet decided should be sacrficed to them in their mercy.

In other words, the 'net ate it. I'll attempt to re-write the post tommorw.

Overworked and Overstressed

I hate being sick when I have so much on my plate. Though the reason I'm sick most likely is because I have so much on my plate.

Work has been nothing but stress for months now, and working until five now isn't helping. The teacher meeting we had today just reminded me how glad I'll be not to be here come next fall.

Assuming I survive the summer.

I caught a stomach bug at some point and would have really liked to stay in bed most of yesterday and today. My sun-burn from yesterday is a little better but I now have red splotches all around my eyes. I'm operating under four hours of sleep and insomina is the name of the game.

I've tried working on my application essay but keep having the urge to burn the thing. Which is difficult considering it's on a hard drive.

In the next week I have way to much to do. So much so that I'd have a breakdown if I tried to list it all.

So for now I'm going to curl up in my dark cool bedroom with my cat and take another nap.

Baaa

Movie meme found over at Dr. Virago's.

Bold the ones you've seen; star the ones you love.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) Stanley Kubrick
"The 400 Blows" (1959) Francois Truffaut
"8 1/2" (1963) Federico Fellini
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) Werner Herzog
"Alien" (1979) Ridley Scott*
"All About Eve" (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
"Annie Hall" (1977) Woody Allen
"Bambi" (1942) Disney
"Battleship Potemkin" (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) William Wyler
"The Big Red One" (1980) Samuel Fuller
"The Bicycle Thief" (1949) Vittorio De Sica
"The Big Sleep" (1946) Howard Hawks*
"Blade Runner" (1982) Ridley Scott*
"Blowup" (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
"Blue Velvet" (1986) David Lynch
"Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) Arthur Penn
"Breathless" (1959) Jean-Luc Godard
"Bringing Up Baby" (1938) Howard Hawks*
"Carrie" (1975) Brian DePalma
"Casablanca" (1942) Michael Curtiz
"Un Chien Andalou" (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
"Children of Paradise" / "Les Enfants du Paradis" (1945) Marcel Carne
"Chinatown" (1974) Roman Polanski
"Citizen Kane" (1941) Orson Welles*
"A Clockwork Orange" (1971) Stanley Kubrick*
"The Crying Game" (1992) Neil Jordan
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) Robert Wise"Days of Heaven" (1978) Terence Malick
"Dirty Harry" (1971) Don Siegel
"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) Luis Bunuel
"Do the Right Thing" (1989) Spike Lee
"La Dolce Vita" (1960) Federico Fellini
"Double Indemnity" (1944) Billy Wilder
"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964) Stanley Kubrick*
"Duck Soup" (1933) Leo McCarey
"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) Steven Spielberg
"Easy Rider" (1969) Dennis Hopper
"The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Irvin Kershner*
"The Exorcist" (1973) William Friedkin
"Fargo" (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen*
"Fight Club" (1999) David Fincher
"Frankenstein" (1931) James Whale
"The General" (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
"The Godfather," "The Godfather, Part II" (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
"Gone With the Wind" (1939) Victor Fleming
"GoodFellas" (1990) Martin Scorsese
"The Graduate" (1967) Mike Nichols
"Halloween" (1978) John Carpenter
"A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Richard Lester*
"Intolerance" (1916) D.W. Griffith
"It's A Gift" (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) Frank Capra
"Jaws" (1975) Steven Spielberg*
"The Lady Eve" (1941) Preston Sturges
"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) David Lean*
"M" (1931) Fritz Lang
"Mad Max 2" / "The Road Warrior" (1981) George Miller
"The Maltese Falcon" (1941) John Huston
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) John Frankenheimer
"Metropolis" (1926) Fritz Lang*
"Modern Times" (1936) Charles Chaplin
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam*
"Nashville" (1975) Robert Altman
"The Night of the Hunter" (1955) Charles Laughton
"Night of the Living Dead" (1968) George Romero
"North by Northwest" (1959) Alfred Hitchcock*
"Nosferatu" (1922) F.W. Murnau
"On the Waterfront" (1954) Elia Kazan
"Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) Sergio Leone
"Out of the Past" (1947) Jacques Tournier
"Persona" (1966) Ingmar Bergman
"Pink Flamingos" (1972) John Waters
"Psycho" (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
"Pulp Fiction" (1994) Quentin Tarantino
"Rashomon" (1950) Akira Kurosawa
"Rear Window" (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) Nicholas Ray
"Red River" (1948) Howard Hawks
"Repulsion" (1965) Roman Polanski
"Rules of the Game" (1939) Jean Renoir
"Scarface" (1932) Howard Hawks
"The Scarlet Empress" (1934) Josef von Sternberg
"Schindler's List" (1993) Steven Spielberg
"The Searchers" (1956) John Ford
"The Seven Samurai" (1954) Akira Kurosawa
"Singin' in the Rain" (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly*
"Some Like It Hot" (1959) Billy Wilder*
"A Star Is Born" (1954) George Cukor
"A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) Elia Kazan
"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) Billy Wilder
"Taxi Driver" (1976) Martin Scorsese
"The Third Man" (1949) Carol Reed
"Tokyo Story" (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
"Touch of Evil" (1958) Orson Welles
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) John Huston
"Trouble in Paradise" (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
"Vertigo" (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
"West Side Story" (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
"The Wild Bunch" (1969) Sam Peckinpah
"The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Victor Fleming