I had a fabulous birthday yesterday. Lots of phone calls, a good study carrel in the library (all day! 9-5:15!), cookies and wine with friends - reminded me that I do have friends here and not here that do want me to be happy. That's always nice. I have final papers that are encouraging me not to be happy:
Paper One: Gender historiography in the Civil War: NY Review of Books style essay, 4000 words/12-15 pages. Going OK. Have focused paper a bit. Here's the structure: Talk about what purpose of studying gender in the CW is. Overview of CW Social History movement. Move into description of "gender" studies in CW - mostly in edited collections, few monographs - point out areas of future research. Then explain the majority of gender studies are women's studies - compare a few examples of typical tropes in CW women's studies. Then, compare two works - Faust and Silber - that break out of conventional narrative. Finally, conclude with points about why even these works don't go far enough. Great thesis, huh? "...and there is still more to do. The end." Am 3500 words in and am taking a break from it today after working on it for 8 hours yesterday. Perhaps will do some work - an hour? - tonight.
Paper Two: Narrative of Celia: I'd say I'm one-quarter done with this one, with about one-third of it written. I've gotten her to the courtroom from the jail, and have been stuck on whether or not the lawyers probably had opening arguments or not in 1855. No record exists, but...hmm. I should email someone at the law library. I feel pretty good about this one and plan to finish a draft today.
Paper Three: Historiography of American Legal History. Unclear about what my argument/framework will be, as field does not seem to fit the mold of the example papers. Should start writing now so I can wrap my head around it, but am procrastinating.
Sigh. So much to do. And I have a presentation on Wednesday, not to mention the two books due on Tuesday. I should get reading those. Perhaps I'll take a reading break today after working on the narrative a bit.
But my birthday was good. I discovered this slideshow of photos of people listing their Body Mass Index (BMI - an indicator of "obesity") today - via a series of links that began at Feministing - and found it fascinating. I've always wondered about BMI, because for much of my life as an athlete (soccer, cross country, and nordic skiing) I have been almost overweight according to my BMI. When I went to college, for some reason I lost about 15 pounds and am now "normal". I mean, I think I'm pretty normal, that's for sure, but what is surprising is that I would have to lose another 15 pounds to be underweight. Seriously, I think if I lost any weight I'd be underweight. This BMI thing is pretty screwed up, especially for anyone who has any muscle. When you watch the slide show on Flickr, make sure you click "options" at the bottom and include the caption and title. It will give you the person's stats and BMI status.
Anyhow, time to write.
ETA: I got the BMI link from this site as well: 20 Posts All Women Should Read
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2 comments:
BMI is SO weird! To think that everyone of the same height should automatically be the same weight is ridiculous!! It doesn't distinguish at all between muscle and fat! I could see a person who is 115 lbs 5'4" like me, but if all of that is fat they would be totally unhealthy.
By the height/weight method I am also "normal" weight. If I lost 7 pounds I would be underweight. One time I had the electronic shock method of BMI done at a health fair here at Earlham which said I needed to gain 5 to 10 pounds of fat.
So even different types of measuring BMI don't agree!
I don't think I really have seven pounds of fat to lose. But I also don't think I should gain any fat. I think I am at a pretty ok weight right now.
my bmi is 26.7, is it okay? , I checked it using BMI Calculator at weightlossnext.comdo all sites use common methods to calculate it.
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