Oh FEMA . . .; and a few days of Yancy

okay, thanks to google I've gotten a copy of this chart from the FEMA website, featured on the daily show earlier this week (for video, please follow the link over on the right & look for 'new video').
so here's the chart, from a page titled 'What We Do':

notice where the process ends . . . so, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, everything seems to be going according to plan
oh, and as proof that the image is really FEMA's, here's a link to the page I took it from: click here
though I suppose they may not keep it up forever . . .
damn funny either way

on an unrelated note:

having provided a glimpse into Emily's world, I thought perhaps I'd offer some words about mine (no pictures, though--Emily has the camera with her in Indiana, as she attends an archivists conference: hopefully we'll have pictures of that soon!)

most weekdays begin--after some coffee over the Lawrence Journal World, an okay paper if ever there was one--with me teaching my Ancient Philosophy class: Friday, we started looking at Plato, which basically meant that I talked for nearly an hour about Plato's biography, about the difficulty in seeing a 'historical Socrates' in Plato's works, and about the fact that Plato claimed never to have written about the things he took most seriously (for that, please see his 7th Letter, at 341b-c). (that link, by the by, is to the Perseus website, a fabulous source for classical texts, with the originals & translations . . .) I can only hope my students enjoyed it half as much as I did.

then, it's on to the honors intro. to phil. class, which is really quite fun (except for the 9-minute walk it takes to get there, leaving me 1 minute to stop in my office & get the textbook), since the class is nice and small (20 students) & they are almost always ready for a good discussion

& then, on Mondays & Wednesdays, I lecture to between 100 & 250 students (this Wednesday, after giving an exam Monday, it was much closer to the first #, unfortunately), whcih is actually pretty fun--although I have to say there's nothing quite like trying to make a joke in front of 200 people & having no one laugh . . . oh well, as long as they learn something I suppose the job's been done; right now, we're about to begin studying just why David Hume was quite sure that no one can have knowledge of unobserved events (for example, I cannot right now know that the kitchen of our apartment has not become a casino while I've been upstairs writing this)--good stuff

I've alse been sitting in on a class on Plato's Theaetetus, which has a philosophy day & a Greek translation day--& as much as I like the philosophy, I must confess it's the Greek that seems most challenging to me lately . . .
In addition, I've been trying to get myself to work on a couple of papers--one on Aristotle's Metaphysics (yes, the same one I mentioned over the summer . . .), and one on Democritus, the ancient atomist (who thought reality was made up of very small, indivisible atoms) and his ethical theory . . .
the goal, such as it is, is to get at least some of this research done before the job hunt kicks into gear, which should happen early this month; most schools want applications for next year by the end of Nov., and it looks like I may be spending some of late December in New York City, where many schools will hold preliminary interviews . . . which is cool if it'll land me a good job, but sort of too bad, since that would be 2 or 3 less days I might see Merrica, who'll be back from Japan for the 1st time in like a year and a half

anyway, one last near-weekly activity: I went back to the brainville trivia thing with the lovely Deron Lee and the lovely Haley Harrison this Thursday, and though we didn't win we did have some fun mocking the hosts, the 'two Scotts' (no really, they're both named Scott . . .); they, by the by, have a brainville trivia blog now, so if you're interesting in final questions or location issues, please click here or on the name of the show, brainville trivia . . .

and, lastly, Emily returns tonight from her conference, so look forward to some pictures of Indiana (?) and a fitter, happier Yancy

oh, ps, I heard Stanley Lombardo, professor of classics, do a fabulous reading (w/a drum & everything!) of his new Aeneid translation yesterday, which makes me think it'd be fun to a) recommend that book to anyone who likes good books, and b) put a link here to him reading, in Ancient Greek, book one of the Iliad, which just sounds so beautiful that it's well worth a listen, so click here for Stanley Lombardo reading Iliad I [I see that the links to the reading may not be working right now . . . but trust me, it's pretty cool . . .]


cheers