Cold Spaghetti

One email and ba-boom! The following message arrives:

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Holly,

On behalf of the School, I am happy to inform you that we have admitted you to the School of Social Work today as a non-degree (NCFD) student for the Fall Term 2005. The Registrar’s Office has completed the process for your registration. Your basic computing account and email should be activated tomorrow and I will email you your Kerberos password for access as soon as I receive it from the ITCS Accounts Office. To complete our records, please fill out the attached Non-Degree Special Student Application and return it to our office at the earliest date possible. No application fee is required. We are glad that we able to assist you in this way. Please contact our office if you have any questions.

Office of Student Services
University of Michigan
School of Social Work
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Thank you, Michigan Fairy God Persons!

Everything seems to be off today. Our entire lives seems to be off today.

– I officially started tossing cookies yesterday. Today hasn’t been too much better.
– Paul dropped Will off at Day Care, only to have them call us 2 hours later (with poor Will heaving and sobbing in the background) to say that he’s been inconsoliable basically the whole time. He’s home now and we’re not exactly sure what to do.
– Tulane is top on my list of disappointment. Doctoral students got a blanket academic “non-response” about our concerns. We were told that comps needed to be proctored (which I think is a bit silly) and that they don’t have any funds to support doctoral students in conferences. (Not that those funds had been redirected due to the crisis, or that funds had been frozen, etc… that point blank: they don’t do it. I have a *very* hard time with believing that a department which hosts open bar parties at a bar on Bourbon Street *twice* a term for students isn’t able to put away a few hundred dollars to help their doctoral students present their work. Most Universities brag about where there students present their work. Tulane doesn’t seem to care less.) This information came to me through a group email — not as a response to the individual message I sent days before our group message went out.
– I keep coming back to the idea of violence as my core disseration focus… which makes me wonder why the hell I left Michigan. Granted, I need the support of family nearby — and no one comes to visit or help you when you live in Michigan. But damn, the University supports (and is actually proud of) their doctoral students, and has a fabulous center for violence studies that includes some global health elements. I wanted a global health program and I thought I’d made the right choice… but sacrificed a program that invested in its students to one that basically doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
– What to do???

Today is a rough day.

My parents commissioned a friend of theirs, artist Glynn Moore, to create two murial paintings for the flat sides of the domed ceiling in their kitchen. My Mom envisioned a 1960s 4th of July — day on one side, night on the other — and with some paintings my Mom selected to indicate style, they traded sketches back for a few months. A few years of back and forth work and talk — and these fantastic pieces arrived today. WOW! They are absolutely breathtaking. I’ve posted several pictures below, although they do nothing to give them justice.

(It reminds us of the gift of our own Picasso, Dave, who we hope to one day to commission to capture our love for New Orleans in a similar treasure.)

Detail: Day Celebration side.  

Full View, Day Celebration Side. Original art by Glynn Moore of Suffolk, VA.  

Detail: Day celebration side. (My parents’ attended Quaker Valley High School.) 

Detail: Day Celebration side. (My parents’ grew up across the street from each other in Leetsdale, PA.) 

Night side: full piece. Original work by Glynn Moore. 

Detail: fireworks, night side 

Detail: night side