To be a graduate student in the Department of History at UF, you have to have a major (mine is American History), an "inside minor" (mine is Women's History/Gender History), and an "outside minor" (mine is Women's Studies). The point of the outside minor is... well, I'm not really sure what the official point is. But I suspect that the point is to get us involved in other departments and to expand our horizons. I have a hunch it has something to do with character-building as well, but I can't confirm that. At any rate, the upshot is that in order to satisfy the outside minor requirement, you have to take two classes in that department. Last fall, I took Advanced Feminist Theory, and many of you had the good fortune (or bad luck) to hear me gripe about that. This fall I'm taking a class called "Sex, Love, and Globalization." We're looking at the multivalent ways in which intimacy and power mix on the global stage. It's taught by a woman hired by UF from the University of Iowa, so she's a fellow Midwesterner and I appreciate that. Plus, the course is actually really cool and we've been reading some good stuff. Most recently, we read a book called "The Heart is Unknown Country: Love in the Changing Economy of Northeast Brazil." It's a lovely book, well researched and beautifully written. It's an anthropological ethnography, but it's well-grounded in history. The author, Linda-Anne Rebhun, spends a lot of time detailing the background of Brazil, and demonstrating how the past plays an important role in the present. It's something not a lot of people outside the discipline of History do, so I was especially pleased to see it. And I planned on bringing it up in class.

When I got to class, though, the general cry among the other graduate students was that there was too much history, that it was boring, that it took away from the (I'm not making this up) "fun stories." I'm a stranger in a strange land, I guess.

Every year, inquiring minds yearn to know what it is that I want for my birthday and Christmas. And every year, I tell them that I'll think about it. But here's the truth (and this is my wish list dilemma): the things that I want are very expensive. For example: I'd love to have this super cool iron bed from Crate & Barrel. It's a beautiful bed, but it comes with a hefty price tag. We'd also love to fence our yard. Or redo our deck. Or put in a tile floor in the kitchen. Sadly, though, these things all cost loads of money. So what do I tell people that I'd like? It's a question for the ages.