Woozy.

I am still feeling a bit winded by the blood test I had this afternoon. It really did a number on me. Good thing I didn't have any meetings or other commitments afterwards. I had to lie down for nearly an hour afterwards before I was feeling ok enough to walk out of the clinic. On my way home I stopped at Massey for a cookie and orange juice to regain some strength. Even now, I barely have enough energy to type! But I must get over this because I really want to get a conference paper proposal done before I go to bed.

Yesterday during the lecture for the class for which I am a TA, I was struck with inspiration. The professor said something about food and ideological indoctrination---he was talking about the coca-cola wars in post-WWII France---and my mind went "bingo!" I'm not sure I can be as direct as that about the American Red Cross's milk distribution program in Petrograd in the winter of 1917-1918, but I need to think and read more about this.

I also learned some things about machine translation of language last night at a lecture at Massey. Interesting stuff. It's quite incredible how much better automatic translation programs have become in just a few years. What Google spits out is actually not half-bad.

The Five Blank Pages CD release show on Friday at the Horseshoe Tavern has been getting a lot of (at least online) press, and today I noticed lots of posters around town advertising for the show. It should be a good party!