Scattered Musings

• Technological.  Muttered under my breath, as I searched three different computers for my lecture on John Stuart Mill: "Must.  Get.  USB.  Drive."
• Froms.  I'm currently in a nonfiction prose phase in the Brit Lit survey, and I remain frustrated by the Norton Anthology's "froms."  The excerpts from Carlyle's Past and Present are entirely from the "present," even though the Jocelin of Brakelond sections are absolutely crucial to understanding both the book's formal structure and its argument.  (It's like teaching A. W. N. Pugin's Contrasts with only one set of images!)  It would also be nice if someone would follow Mill's advice and dissent from custom when it comes to anthologizing the Autobiography: yes, the mental breakdown is crucial, but there are many other things for students to chew on.   I really need to get more creative in my textbook selections for this course--which means, perhaps, jettisoning the big Norton/Longman/Oxford anthologies altogether.
• Proofing.  Ack! I hate it when I catch errors after it's too late to correct them.  In this instance, the error doesn't originate with me, and it has nothing to do with the argument, but I'm still annoyed.
• Good heavens.  A former fellow graduate student has made it to the finals of my college's presidential search.  I'm not sure if I should feel old, young, or under-achieving...
• Minor.  Is there anything more frustrating than discovering that a Very Important Article (for you, anyway) was published decades ago in a Very Small Journal? The kind of journal owned by fewer than fifty libraries in the US? The kind of journal that never gets indexed anywhere? Still, as I explain to my graduate students, this is why one needs to read other scholars' footnotes.

Comments

[Jason Kuznicki]

When you do get a USB drive, you will wonder how you ever lived without it. I have one on my keychain that contains my entire academic career, and I sleep much easier at night knowing that it is on the table right beside me.

[John Cunningham]

I second Jason, USB drives or the like are awesome. you might consider the Hitachi Microdrive, I saw it recently at Microcenter in Cincinnati, 2Gig for $129, 4Gig for $199. That size would cover a lifetime of writings, notes, journals, plus many documents, images, etc.