"Readin' up"

So, someone (was it you, Ozzie?) referred to redin' up one's room in the comments section of my last entry. "To red up" or "read up" is something I grew up saying in my family (thanks to my mom). It means "to pick up" or "clean up" but unfortunately, 99.999% of the American population has no idea what it means, and so I have had to train myself not to say it anymore. It takes effort. Apparently, it is a colloquialism (sp?) originating somewhere in central Pennsylvania (thank you Wendi for any comments you care to share about PA) and most likely this origin is Pennsylvania Dutch, although I'm not sure. If you do a google search, and I have, there is one other entry for "red up." http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/43/messages/709.html

And they are dead on when it comes to the use I'm familiar with: "Okay kids, it's time to read up your room." My mom is always readin' up something. She'll say, "Your room needs read up!" Note the conspicuous lack of "to be" in the above sentence, not that I really need to point that out. Yes, people, I'm a hick. Surprise, I'm from Hagerstown.

So, if you have ever in your life heard this expression (besides your contact with me), please let me know! I would love to know more about where it comes from.

Ready to go

As you may have guessed from my sudden reappearence in bloggy world, it's the last week of the semester, and rather than working on the seeming endlessness of take-home finals and papers papers, I've decided to write a long overdue entry.

So far, I've met a lot of great people, but also some of the strangest. And not really strange in a good way, but just weird, in that "how did you get this way?" way. Every week, I have the painful experience of having to sit through between two and four professors present their research to the new graduate students or generally discuss what their interests are in what's called a proseminar. Some of them seem like normal humans, I suppose, but many seem as though they are shell-shocked or something. A general lack of sunlight and communication with the outside world. Today, we heard from a guy who does psychobiographies on famous people, some alive, some dead. He talked about the perils of doing research on the "live ones" and how people are so reluctant to do interviews and give him the materials he needs, and often requires that he outlive them. And even the "dead ones" are difficult because for a while, apparently the deceased's loved ones aren't so keen on letting him rummage through the attic for old journals and newspaper clippings. This prompted one of the grad students to ask, later in the session, "whether it's easier to get information out of the live ones or the dead ones" to which my friend and I, seemingly the only ones amused by the entire discussion, busted out laughing, along with few others who momentarily realized why the question was funny. The whole thing was surreal, especially since the prof given the talk looked a bit like Ed Brimley (the quaker oats guy) and had some interesting affective quirks that added to the overall amusement factor. Every session, we have to "introduce" ourselves to the different professors and tell them what our research interests are. Sometimes, right before it's my turn, I fantasize about making up something really bizarre and totally different each week, like "My research interests involve feline communication techniques in zero-sum gravitational vacuums" or "psychology" (arms folded, head turned to the side). Instead, I usually give some three-word answer like, "prejudice and stereotypes" which I'm not sure is my main interest but sounds psychological enough.

So! Thanksgiving was fun. I went to a friends house and had dinner with about 15 grad student vagabonds who didn't go anywhere for the holiday. We had really yummy food, including a vegetarian shephard's pie which was totally amazing. I won't gross you out with talk of fake meat and tofu cheese.

I'm really excited to go home for the holiday. Can't wait to see all of my favorite people in the world. My plan is to fly back to DC on the 19th, spend most of that week with my family and hopefully spend a good bit of time in DC between Christmas and New Years. Then it's back to CA on January 2nd. The quarter system is brutal. I hope to see a lot of you then! This blog has suddenly become a mass email. Sorry about that.

Peace!!