"Schumann Erasmus known bourgeoisie dessert." I now have an all-time favorite spam title! Woohoo! (But don't worry: I wasn't stupid enough to open up the message just because the title amused me. First I copied down the title on a piece of scrap paper, and then I emptied the "Bulk" folder, giggling softly.)

Can I just say right now and for posterity how much I hate, hate, hate marking essays? I spend half the time feeling guilty for being a nasty grader, and the other half feeling guilty for being too much of a wimp to just go ahead and fail people when they don't answer the question and all the information they do give is wrong. Aaargh!!!!!

In cheerier news, I did a word count on my novel today, and according to MS Word, I've written 19, 950 words. Woohoo! Almost a fifth of the way done! I know word counts are anal...and the story may well demand to be longer or shorter than I've planned...but what the heck. I'm happy anyway. After all, the last four novels I've written have been written for the 9-12 age group, and therefore 20-25,000 words total. I feel super-cool.