college | dual personalities

As you can imagine, all hell has broken loose at my flyover university and my own institute with on campus classes being canceled through April, etc. etc. etc. due to the COVID-19 hysteria. I endeavor, along with the Queen, to keep calm and carry on.

Screen Shot 2020-03-12 at 5.17.38 AM.png Meanwhile daughter #2 arrived yesterday and we are going on with our baby shower. Don’t worry, attendees will keep a reasonable social distance from each other–no hugging! Maybe I’ll wear gloves–like the Queen!

The boy brought the wee babes over to our house later in the afternoon to see their aunt.

Today I am back at work trying to sort things out, but I’ll head home in the afternoon to hang out with daughter #2 and daughter #1 who is driving home from Mid-MO. Weekend fun ahead–within limits, of course!

Have a good weekend. Keep calm and carry on.

“All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

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April 30, 2019

This is how my mind works

by chuckofish

As you know, I enjoy perusing the obits in the alumni magazines I receive, most notably the old guys who went to Williams College. Case in point:

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Serving in the 104th division must have been important to Jerry since it was included in his fairly short obituary. So I looked up the Timberwolf Division.

“Nothing in Hell can stop the Timberwolves” was their motto in WWII. They fought through the Battle of Hürtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge and attacked the bridgehead at Remagen. As the 104th advanced into Thuringia, the unit overran Nordhausen and the Dora-Mittlebau concentration camp on April 11, 1945.

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During WWII, soldiers of the division were awarded two Medals of Honor, 14 Distinguished Service Crosses, one Distinguished Service Medal, 642 Silver Star Medals, six Legion of Merit Medals, 20 Soldier’s Medals, 2,797 Bronze Star Medals, and 40 Air Medals.

NYC Mayor Ed Koch and NY Governor Hugh Carey served in the 104th during WWII, as did screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and NFL player Bob Shaw.

To me, this is very interesting. I have such respect for these veterans, especially the ones who came home and attempted to lead normal lives and stayed married for 67 years! So a toast to these brave men, the living and the dead.

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June 7, 2018

Be yourself

by chuckofish

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Jill Conway died last week. Here’s her obit in the NYT. She became the first female president of Smith College when I was a sophomore and I have to say I never really appreciated her until I was about to graduate. In her speech at the baccalaureate service at the Helen Hills Hills Chapel she told us to do what we wanted to do and not to worry about what we thought we should do. She said, in so many words, if you want to stay home and raise a family, do it. If you want to have a career, do it. Which is what my own mother had always said. It was quite freeing to hear it from Jill Ker Conway.

Be yourself. Don’t try to measure up to someone else’s vision of what you should be. Good advice. She was called a trailblazer, but really, she just didn’t want anyone telling her what she could or couldn’t do.

By the way, the Helen Hills Hills Chapel is really no longer a chapel. There is no longer a minister on staff.

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It is just a “large space…for formal gatherings.” They have “coordinators;” it is a “center.” Please. When this change occurred quite a long time ago, I gave up on my alma mater and I do not support them, financially or in any way. I certainly never encouraged my daughters to go there! Tant pis, mais c’est la vie.

But as for Jill Conway, Into paradise may the angels lead you. At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.

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August 18, 2017

A little Friday vent

by chuckofish

Is it Friday already?

Tonight the OM and I are loading up a rented truck with more stuff for daughter #1 and then driving it to Columbia tomorrow. Luckily the Mizzou freshmen moved in earlier in the week, so we are hoping we won’t run into too much traffic. When I checked to find out if this was the case (student arrival date) I found this:

Check out that Electronics section. I must say times have changed since I moved into my college dorm back during the Punic Wars.

I flew to Smith College from flyover country, so all I had were two duffel bags filled with clothes. I think I brought a clock

and maybe one of these–

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(I never used it.) I didn’t even have a typewriter* when I was in college. My roommate and I shared a landline phone with other girls on our floor. There was a broken television set in the living room of our house. I didn’t watch tv for four years!

When my mother was a student at Middlebury College in Vermont back in the 1940s, she took the train. She sent her laundry home in a laundry bag on the train (in the mail?) for her mother to do back home in Worcester, Mass. And her mother sent her laundry back. She probably didn’t have a clock.

Ten years ago when my children were in college, times had changed, and I have no doubt my kids got tired of hearing about it. They had personal computers. However, daughter #1 is quick to remind me that she didn’t have a cell phone until she was a sophomore in college. Deprived, she was, deprived.

But really. Why do people go to college? To watch DVDs? Play computer games? In my day, we read books and studied! We spent a lot of time in the library.

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On the weekend we might go to a party, but during the week we studied. That was just the way it was.

Well, I didn’t mean to rant, and I know I sound like an old lady, but a little deprivation might do some college students a lot of good. You know what I mean?

Anyway, I hope I will get to see the wee babes this weekend. I can tell from pictures that they are getting bigger and growing hair since I last saw them a week ago!