![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardOh my god I am so confused. So I need to register for my honors thesis in my major department, but I don't actually have a major department, because my major is an interdisciplinary program: thus no department secretary that can magic everything into place. So I thought, hmm, technically it's a course, so let me go and get a drop/add form and take it to the director of my program. So I did that, but we weren't sure if that was actually what you have to do, so she called the Honors Program and asked, and they told her that I needed to get an independent study form. So I went to Advising and asked for an independent study form, and they gave me a really weird look and told me that the Honors Program would deal with it, so I went across the way to Honors, where fortunately the dean and the associate director were there. (I know the dean; he's also a medieval history professor and I took my medieval religious culture tutorial with him last year. Also that means I don't have to explain MEMS to him.) And they told me that my director's department secretary (she's in Spanish and Portuguese Studies) should just be able to put me into the course, since that's what normally happens. So when I got back to my dorm I e-mailed my director and conveyed her this information, and she got back to me a few hours later and told me that I actually do have to get an independent study form, then have it signed by my thesis director, and then have it signed by her. Which is not what Honors told me. I DON'T KNOW. I'll just do it anyway.
So. As far as I can tell, nobody knows what's going on. Doesn't Latin American Studies ever have this problem? They're interdisciplinary. (Although I think they might be a department, not just a program.) I know there are other interdisciplinary majors! SHOULDN'T SOMEONE KNOW WHAT TO DO? Can't they just have the Honors secretary put me in the class? (Apparently they have been told not to do that, because then the departments lose track of who's writing a thesis, but it's not like MEMS is going to lose track of me: there's just me. And two other majors, but I'm the only one writing a thesis.)
If I didn't know I'd have to go through this in January, I'd just throw my hands up and register for the first semester in Classics, since they have a department secretary who presumably knows what to do. (Since I'm doing a thesis for two majors, I'll register for the first semester in one department and the second semester in the other department -- it'll end up being MDST 4990 and CLAS 5000. If I was just doing it in MEMS, it would be MDST 4990 and MDST 5000. Don't ask me why the program's called MEMS but the actual course abbreviation -- which is never used since nothing's actually taught in the program itself -- is MDST.)
*twitches at the eyeballs* I mean, Dean Luongo reminded me that there's no hurry, since there's no deadline to actually register; the prospectus is due on the 23rd and mine's already done, I just need to fill out the relevant paperwork and turn it in to get it approved.
You know what I think would be an interesting paper topic? Accusations of incest as slander throughout history -- most of what I'm thinking of is high or late medieval in the Mediterranean (several in Italy -- BORGIAS, and some other guy whose name I've forgotten -- and one in Spain that came up during my reading for my seminar), but I know there are classical examples too (like, half the emperors). Gods, I can just imagine trying to sell that to the Honors Program -- I'd want to actually be able to read the languages, though, so I'm not going to try. (Although it would be interesting to carry that forward and look at modern-ish representations, accurate or not -- Octavia and Octavian in Rome, what's his face and his sister in Gladiator, Cesare and Lucrezia in The Borgias, etc. But I digress.)
Today I wore a shirt with a Shakespeare quote on it to my Chaucer class. Unbearably geeky or not?
I have also come to the conclusion that I do not need merely a FUNCTIONAL teapot, I need a TEAPOT THE SIZE OF MY FREAKING HEAD. Also, more hangers. And a tee-tiny creamer, which is weirdly difficult to find in the U.S.; I should have bought the £2.99 one in Cambridge.
Is it weird that I wear longer skirts than some of my professors?
Okay, back to medieval Spain.
So. As far as I can tell, nobody knows what's going on. Doesn't Latin American Studies ever have this problem? They're interdisciplinary. (Although I think they might be a department, not just a program.) I know there are other interdisciplinary majors! SHOULDN'T SOMEONE KNOW WHAT TO DO? Can't they just have the Honors secretary put me in the class? (Apparently they have been told not to do that, because then the departments lose track of who's writing a thesis, but it's not like MEMS is going to lose track of me: there's just me. And two other majors, but I'm the only one writing a thesis.)
If I didn't know I'd have to go through this in January, I'd just throw my hands up and register for the first semester in Classics, since they have a department secretary who presumably knows what to do. (Since I'm doing a thesis for two majors, I'll register for the first semester in one department and the second semester in the other department -- it'll end up being MDST 4990 and CLAS 5000. If I was just doing it in MEMS, it would be MDST 4990 and MDST 5000. Don't ask me why the program's called MEMS but the actual course abbreviation -- which is never used since nothing's actually taught in the program itself -- is MDST.)
*twitches at the eyeballs* I mean, Dean Luongo reminded me that there's no hurry, since there's no deadline to actually register; the prospectus is due on the 23rd and mine's already done, I just need to fill out the relevant paperwork and turn it in to get it approved.
You know what I think would be an interesting paper topic? Accusations of incest as slander throughout history -- most of what I'm thinking of is high or late medieval in the Mediterranean (several in Italy -- BORGIAS, and some other guy whose name I've forgotten -- and one in Spain that came up during my reading for my seminar), but I know there are classical examples too (like, half the emperors). Gods, I can just imagine trying to sell that to the Honors Program -- I'd want to actually be able to read the languages, though, so I'm not going to try. (Although it would be interesting to carry that forward and look at modern-ish representations, accurate or not -- Octavia and Octavian in Rome, what's his face and his sister in Gladiator, Cesare and Lucrezia in The Borgias, etc. But I digress.)
Today I wore a shirt with a Shakespeare quote on it to my Chaucer class. Unbearably geeky or not?
I have also come to the conclusion that I do not need merely a FUNCTIONAL teapot, I need a TEAPOT THE SIZE OF MY FREAKING HEAD. Also, more hangers. And a tee-tiny creamer, which is weirdly difficult to find in the U.S.; I should have bought the £2.99 one in Cambridge.
Is it weird that I wear longer skirts than some of my professors?
Okay, back to medieval Spain.