Admittedly, how often are you making Bundt cakes?

It's time to sit down, be honest, and ask yourself: How often am I making Bundt cakes in my everyday life?

Probably not enough, which explains some of the general disappointment people feel around you. Now you can improve everyone's mood by borrowing baking pans of all sorts from the library of all places. Specifically, the Carnegie-Stout Public Library in Dubuque, Iowa.

Sure, Dubuque is a bit of a haul for most Americans to visit to borrow a pan, but it's worth it in the end once you realize Bundt cakes en masse are about to come out of your kitchen.

Carnegie-Stout Library Director Susan Henricks tells local TV station KCRG it's all about reaching out to locals. "We're trying to meet people where they're at. Getting them to come in and see what we are like," Hendricks said.

What they're like is deliciousness. Library Bundt cake deliciousness.



If you're wondering why I keep capitalizing the word "Bundt," it's because the word was trademarked by Nordic Ware in the 1950s. "Bundt" is just an Americanization of "bund," which etymologists aren't even sure is authentically German with regard to food, since "bund" largely refers to a federation or alliance. An alliance of deliciousness on our taste buds, perhaps.

Know Your State College English Departments Simply by Their Website, Part Three: Worcester State College

State schools are plucky. Massachusetts state colleges are pluckier than most. When you're the (sort of) next door neighbor to the Harvards and M.I.T.s of the world, you need to put your best foot forward to get recognized. It's all in the presentation. So, in an attempt to learn more about our Massachusetts state college brethren, it's time to examine the English department websites of all state colleges and see what they put out there to the general public for all to learn about them.

Next Up: Worcester State College

The English language has never lived up to the hype. Other than a few 15 minutes of fame, what has it ever given human civilization? Shakespeare? He didn't even know how to spell his own name. It's that sort of indecisiveness that possibly led Worcester State College to not have a specific English Department. The closest you get to an English department is the Languages and Literature Department--which we're told is a "happy family of professors and students" where "French and Spanish are spoken along with English." What? No Esperanto?

According to the homepage, the "department stresses the importance of traditional values...while also exploring the latest frontiers in criticism, theory, and technology." And they're clearly exploring the frontiers of time travel, too, because right below that statement they have a link to the Fall 2001 course descriptions. Ahh, 2001. When online technology generally consisted of your dial-up connection taking 20 minutes to download a photo of grandma holding her newest bundt cake. Those were traditional values no one wants to say goodbye to.

WSC offers a few links--one to Languages at WSC, one to Literature at WSC--with each leading to a page that simply states "Text here." You might think those are just cryptic messages or lazy web designers. I like to think it's a subtle suggestion that students have a world of opportunity to create their own web text, like an imaginary friend when you're four years old.

Like all good departments, WSC offers a writing center. And, like all good departments, the imagination runs wild with the name of the writing center--called "The Writing Center." On the website, the Writing Center offers Writenet--an online virtual writing center that's virtually dead, as the link to Writenet ceases to exist.

The only (really not so) juicy tidbit comes in the form of a link "For Department Faculty Members," (which is like telling a stranger you have a secret) which leads to an Academic Year 2000 Word document stating the goals of the department for 2010. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but my ability to read a calendar is pretty sharp--so I notice it's 2010 now. And what did WSC envision for 2010 back in 2000?

1.) By the year 2010 we foresee a department in which the languages and literature disciplines are even stronger and more unified than they are today and in which, through cooperation, our strengths complement each other in such areas as comparative literature, literature in translation and linguistics.

(Sounds like the Supremes before Diana Ross ditched the group.)

2.) We foresee more interaction between the disciplines in the use of technology in teaching...
 
(Except with the whole website technology thingy being ignored for almost a decade.)

 3.) We see ourselves housed in state-of-the-art facilities with comfortable, professional and climate controlled offices...

(That person reading a novel and sweating up a storm in a WSC departmental building? It's not because of the hot literary action in the book.)

But that's it. WSC doesn't let us know if they gave their faculty some buildings with heating and cooling options. It's like a great "To be continued..." that flashes at the end of a very special episode of House or Law and Order, except this continuation has gone on for 10 years. Will people keep sweating? I don't know. The excitement! Don't spoil the ending for me! I want to be surprised!