Writing Errors

Oh my. I love editing other people's things.

I'm editing topic guides right now. The content is mostly sufficient, but there are a few things where... the rules aren't always obvious, but they're there.

1. Semicolon! It's not a comma. And a comma is not a semicolon. When making a list, separating each item with a semicolon normally doesn't work. Separating every other item with a semicolon looks whimsical.
2. They're doesn't equal their doesn't equal there.
3. As important as they are, the world's oceans are not the World's Oceans.
4. Wikipedia is great. Wikipedia is awesome. Don't cite Wikipedia. I guarantee they'll use it for their research. Cite something more specific, please.

That being said, I'm really looking forward to some of the topics. There's one for Midwivery. And with that, I'm going to keep mum.

Twilight Zone

So they're having a marathon, didn't you hear? The sci-fi channel has basically gone down the tubes, but at least they have two days of the year where they aren't awful. (Point that they jumped the shark? Arguably when Farscape went off the air, or else when I was watching TV with Chris and Ian (they introduced me to tabletop roleplaying) freshman year before a session and there was a plane going down a runway with perfectly stacked barrels of oil. The plane ran into it, and destruction ensued. If only they hadn't stacked those next to the runway!)

I've only been watching a few episodes, but the best one was the one where William F'in Shatner is a superstitious man in a newlywed couple compelled to ask a penny fortune teller about everything. It keeps giving vague answers... and he trusts it because it was correct about a job promotion.

I'm not *that* flexible

I Am A: True Neutral Elf Wizard (3rd Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-13

Dexterity-17

Constitution-12

Intelligence-15

Wisdom-12

Charisma-14


Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.


Race:
Elves are known for their poetry, song, and magical arts, but when danger threatens they show great skill with weapons and strategy. Elves can live to be over 700 years old and, by human standards, are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. Elves are slim and stand 4.5 to 5.5 feet tall. They have no facial or body hair, prefer comfortable clothes, and possess unearthly grace. Many others races find them hauntingly beautiful.


Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Detailed Results:
Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (26)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (26)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Chaotic Evil ---- XX (2)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Chaos --- XX (2)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Evil ---- (0)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXX (4)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Halfling - XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Half-Orc - XX (2)

Class:
Barbarian - (-2)
Bard ------ (-2)
Cleric ---- (-2)
Druid ----- (0)
Fighter --- (-4)
Monk ------ (-17)
Paladin --- (-19)
Ranger ---- (-2)
Rogue ----- (-2)
Sorcerer -- (0)
Wizard ---- XXXXXXXX (8)

I had a tasty dream last night. I was at UT... so there's Presidential, which was all swoopified up into academic buildings and good food. Then there was church row, which had several ice cream places all about it, and a new one started up for Skittles! Skittles ice cream! So I walk through a computer building near there (nonexistent in real life) to pick up my stuff. I have trouble keeping my mouth shut with a retainer in there. I'd earlier met Leslie there but she had something to type up (she was still working for the paper).

Then I go to Hess, which is this great big open space, with a quadruple-decker hotel bus that nearly just looks like a hotel, Hess all swoopified up with a cathedral wedged between it and Melrose... and when I enter the library, for all six stories up, it has an open center and escalators. As I go up one a chair is blocking my way (as I'm wearing a heavy back-pack), with a professor resembling an aged Professor from Gilligan's Island and his visitor wearing a bright red shirt. "Oh, are you having any trouble?" "Just trying to get through." "*chuckle* These academic types are amazing. Blah blah blah stentorian blah..." Eventually I work myself down to the bottom, go through a door that leads outside, and come to the docks. I end up going on a camping trip with Leslie, Susie, and two random people who were like Smeagol and Deagol from Lord of the Rings, the two hobbits that fought over the ring. Fun ensues, including being unable to find a place to go to the restroom.

I've been having vivid dreams lately.

The Scariest Fortune Cookie Ever

"You'll meet your big cheese today (in bed)."

Incidentally, this happened to Margery Kempe. Several times. Sweet scents and other allusions of God.

Routines

This winter break is not so much a break because I'm doing nothing, but because I can afford to put in only a half-day. Believe me, that matters a lot. An afternoon and part of an evening is a huge chunk of time. Add up over 5 days, include the weekend afternoons, and... yes. Relief.

Basically I'm spending my mornings either reading Le Morte Darthur (I'm managing about 40 pages per day so far at about 25 pages an hour ... notetaking + nightmares for strict modern spellers), doing applications, or taking care of Model UN stuff.

Le Morte Darthur cracks me up. I'd read parts of it in class before (Leslie has too), and Sir Thomas Malory has a quite vibrant way of telling stories. Today I read Balyn's tale, for example. There's a lady that comes to court with a sword tied to her waist. Arthur's eyebrow quirks up, and he says, "That's unbecoming of you." She then reveals that the sword is there until a good knight can pull it out, and she was over at King Royns' place, and his men all failed at it. Ever looking for a great adventure, Arthur tries quite hard and fails to pull the sword from the scabbard. Others try. Then Balyn wanders in and watches from afar, fresh from prison, bristling with muscle. When the lady is leaving, he struts up and pulls her sword out with little effort. She thanks him and asks for the sword back, but he keeps it, causing her to reveal that the sword is terrible, that it will kill someone most dear to him and make him miserable.

So from there hijinx ensue. Balyn has a penchant with beheading people with his sword, starting with the Lady of the Lake. (To be fair, the Lady did ask for his head.) We learn through Merlin why the lady with the undrawable sword wanted the sword back - it's a brother-killing sword, and she wanted to kill her brother for him killing her paramour. More intrigue, more plotting, lots of descriptive tombstones, but I skip to my favorite part.

There's an invisible knight killing people! Balyn is escorting a knight back to King Arthur, when suddenly he is smote with a spear from an invisible man. His damsel ends up carrying the truncheon thereafter. Then shortly after the invisible knight does it again, this time when Balyn and he were about to have an honorable fight. Much perturbed, the damsel and he run across a gentleman who has had his son wounded by an invisible knight. But they find out that the invisible knight will be at a feast being held by King Pellam, couples only. So Balyn brings the damsel.

They go there, and Balyn's looking around, and he sees this invisible knight, a big, dark looking guy. Balyn forbears killing him, because it would make such a scene. Then the invisible knight comes over. "Knyght, why beholdist thou me so? For shame, ete thy mete and do that thou come fore," he asserts, and slaps Balyn across the cheek. Balyn, short-triggered Balyn, immediately cleaves the invisible knight in two, and stabs him with the truncheon that the damsel offers up.

Needless to say, everyone is aghast. King Pellam tries attacking the offender, and he knocks Balyn's sword away. They proceed in a chase through the castle, with Balyn racing in a search for some sort of weapon. Finally he finds this "mervaylous spere strangely wrought" in a gold room and faces off against the king. The king gets stabbed, and with that stroke, the Dolorous Stroke, the entire castle falls down. Most of the people are crushed. King Pellam lies in a stupor for years, until Sir Galahad revives him on the grail quest. All of this is because he dared use the spear that Longius used to pierce Jesus's side on the cross. Whoops.

And of course the brothers end up slaying one another and the long questing arc gets resolved. But I just... love how outrageous the stories can get. And I have 600 pages more of this!

Finally, I should keep a count of how many ladies kill themselves after their lover has died. And what percentage of those kill themselves on their lover's sword. It happens a fair bit. >_<

"How can we find a roadmap without having a target, without having a goal?" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139676.stm)

That was Germany's Environmental Minister Sigmar Gabriel, talking about the US and Canada and their refusal to enforce numerical standards for gas emission reduction.

I disagree with the US's stance in this case. But that's not what I want to talk about. It's the quote that's interesting. It applies to so many of our policies going on now: Iraq, Afghanistan, climate change, Social Security, Medicare, the national debt, civil liberties limitations... what are our goals in these instances? You can't say victory; what is victory? For the first two, what situations would mean that we could safely withdraw, and what situations would mandate our withdrawal? For climate change, what are we going to do about it, if you refuse set numbers? Will that result in cutbacks, or foot-shuffling? For Social Security and Medicare, how are we going to make them financially solvent? If we're going to have to reform them, what are our options, and what are we going to choose soon before the choices become more dire? For the national debt, what are we doing to reduce it? What are we doing to reduce costs? For our civil liberties, when are we going to get them back? What guarantee, other than a promise, do we have that the information gathered on us will not be mistreated? Are we really considering everyone as people, or are we saying that citizens are better people? In general, what priorities are we setting, and what are their eventual results going to be?

What I want are answers to these questions. I haven't seen any really convincing ones. I don't think a Democrat or a Republican has the right answer to all of them. I haven't found a third party that meets the criteria.

And blanket statements do not work. Blanket withdrawal or blanket staying both lack a plan. The answers may not be easy. But I'd rather there be answers.

Guess What I'm Trying to Convey!

... okay, there is a dearth of pictures otherwise. I'm happy to say I'm engaged. To Leslie. ^_^

It happened on Saturday, and it's a new and wonderful feeling with all of the good that's already there.

And Altruda's has some of the best rolls ever, drizzled and dipped into garlic butter. It's a simple choice, but a rich taste.

Gifts!

I went Christmas shopping today. I thought I'd get out there around 12:30 and everything would be cool. It mostly was... it was like a busy weekend normally, rather than a busy weekend around Christmas. That's good, right?

A few notes:

I encountered quite a few stupid drivers. The three most memorable ones:
1. The one where we were at a 4 way stop, and I stopped just after one car. So that car got to go. Apparently the second car thought that since they'd technically stopped, they could also go. Or maybe I hesitated too long and didn't take advantage of the small gap between the two cars. In any case, it was off too. Good thing I was paying attention.
2. The clumsy. I was getting into the turn lane on a four-lane road. I start coasting into the turn lane, signalling dutifully as usual, when a car starts crawling out from the road I want to get to, intending on a left turn. I've got a couple of seconds, and think they'll turn into the middle lane, look a bit, and then merge. No. They stop. In the middle of the road. With traffic a few seconds away. I have to pass my turn so that they can pull their senses together and get out of the way. Scared the pants off of me... not because I was in any danger, but because they were.
3. The indignant. When you make a turn with two turn lanes, and you're in the right lane, you're supposed to turn so that you're securely in the right lane before you make any presumption for going into the other lane. Sometimes people make a two-lane swing, and that's alright, I suppose, but it's technically not right. So when I make my turn, I get to a decent speed, check the other lane. All clear. So I signal and switch. Then I get a honk from the car that was a car behind me in the turn lane, which had just rounded the turn aiming straight for the left lane and had presumed he'd have a clear shot. Sorry! I'm just where I need to be. And I'm going the speed limit.

And of course I can't say what everyone got. Suffice to say that they aren't pimped out Corn Poppers.

Wuh Woh Wodehouse

This has been an author I've been meaning to get to since high school. I think Diana was reading him at one point, and I'm sure Mom has. Then I saw Leslie with one of the Jeeves books checked out from the library last night.

We've got our one study day today. (We should have two, except the administration has apparently decided that a weekend counts as a study day. Because, y'know, having the first two days of exams before that "study day" sure encourages good study habits... now more than ever I'm doing a study-as-you-go system, which I ordinarily spurn.) When I got reasonably done with my studying, paper editing, and presentation honing, I felt like getting a book to read. It was between Wodehouse and Pratchett. Poor Terry Pratchett, with only one book that I could find in the PR section. There may've been more in the children's lit section (where a lot of fanciful but otherwise adult literature ends up), but I was pretty set on Wodehouse. So I got Cat-Nappers.

I've encountered the Jeeves archetype in other places. Trading Places (the butler, played by Marcus Brody from Indiana Jones) comes foremost to mind, but he's often there, bright and efficient, overlooked at times and then granted pittances that probably mean nothing. The same for Jeeves. The smallest smile, the most minute eyebrow quirk, and Wooster is set off on fantasies about what his servant (and keeper) is about. And the literary allusions, which Jeeves has more spot on than I do (he pulled a Sir Walter Scott reference involving Lochinvale that was aptly applied) Wooster misses entirely. He's also fond of attributing the most random things to Shakespeare, which I get a kick out of. When talking to one woman who wants to reform him, she says,
" 'I don't suppose you have read Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son?' "
Well, of course I hadn't. Bertram Wooster does not read other people's letters. If I were employed in the post office, I wouldn't even read the postcards." (88)
And on and on.

I guess I'm preaching to the choir, so I'll just end by saying... I should've read him earlier. He wins.

Done!

Well, I'll be doing edits tomorrow, but other than that, my last (and by far most demanding) paper is done. It certainly took enough time. Having the paper (and accompanying presentation) in place of an exam did not mean two hours of free time. It meant mercy.

I remember in elementary school being fascinated with postscripts. They always taught us how to write a letter sometime... I want to say near one of the breaks, either Christmas break or summer break (school was more timeless then, and it's pretty far back in time). Anyway, there was always the top with the name and the address. Then space, and then Dear Mr. Johnson, and then the indention which meant you started writing your body under the a in Dear. Then the body. Then some sort of farewell, normally "Sincerely," then the name. Then, after you'd written all of that magical letter which you would send to the teacher for a grade, there was a postscript. If there had been something that you'd forgotten to write in the letter and you didn't want to have to rewrite it, that was the place to do so. Then there was the post-postscript, if you had worked too hastily there too.

Of course they weren't really referred to like that, so much as it was just known that they could occasionally exist. Elusive beasts that some person would put at the end of their letter in haste. We never really had need of one. It was a novelty. We put it there because it was a funny thing. A P.P.S. was funny due to its redundancy. And a P.P.P.S. ... well, one could hypothesize about its existence; certainly the book said nothing, but if you're allowed to go as far as P.P.S. ... surely three can't be that big of a crowd?

If I remember right, writing letters isn't really a taught skill anymore. Certainly I don't adopt all of the forms that come with writing letters. Most of the time, I write e-mails anyway. It's more fluid, and though I try to be proper in an official capacity, I've seen professionals use it without any distinguishing formal characteristics. I wonder if they teach that at any level of school.

I miss writing paper letters sometimes. Even if the other person had to have patience with my handwriting.

P.P.P.S.

"Thing" is not a good word most of the time. There's nearly always another word that can be used, even if it's also general, like "action."

And I'm closing this window now. Before I get utterly distracted from my paper.

Hohehum.

P.P.S.

I really want to say "spiritual bling" instead of "spiritual wealth." It involves a precious jewel called penance.

Must... not...

Dear Self

When you're writing papers, you are making the sentences too circular. It is okay to be definite, for that is what the professor is asking for. If you put in one more indefinite article in the following manner, I will cause spell check to not recognize "a" as a word at all:

"Representing a spiritual understanding..."
"Holding a special significance..."

It's not wrong in itself, but it's little superfluous things like that which are making me cringe rewriting my paper. I know what you mean, that there could be other significances and other spiritual understandings. In that case, say "one." Or go into them in your paper. But I'm really trying not to make a thirty-page argument here. I can't explore everything. And with my most recent escapade, I've gone from a page short to one or two pages over (the recommended but-by-no-means-a-ceiling) limits.

Respectfully yours,
Me

P.S. I like pizza.

Fun with Papers

I just finished a paper. I was using spellcheck to go over some corrections. At the end, it has an absurd rating system (Flesch-Kincaid) with some stats. Curious, I decided to check on a few papers (new to old) to see how they measured up next to such silly numbers.

Paper:
Women and sexual discrimination in the military from World War II to the present.
2119 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 13
Sentences per Paragraph: 6.4
Words per Sentence: 23.1
Characters per Word: 4.9

Paper:
Renaissance women writers and virtue and learning as justification for holding a pen
2431 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.2
Sentences per Paragraph: 4.6
Words per Sentence: 22.8
Characters per Word: 4.7

Paper:
Rape of the Lock and Sarpedon's Speech from the Aeneas
3617 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.1
Sentences per Paragraph: 6
Words per Sentence: 20.8
Characters per Word: 4.7

Paper:
Nina Baym in Feminist Jane Eyre Alluding Gender Theory
1268 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.5
Sentences per Paragraph: 8.7
Words per Sentence: 20.1
Characters per Word: 4.8

Paper:
The Iliad and Greece
1545 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 12
Sentences per Paragraph: 6.1
Words per Sentence: 23.1
Characters per Word: 4.7

Paper:
Paper on Poetry
1679 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.4
Sentences per Paragraph: 7.5
Words per Sentence: 15.3
Characters per Word: 4.5

Poetry Portfolio for Class:
10 Poems
1585 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 3.0
Sentences per Paragraph: 1.1
Words per Sentence: 8.6
Characters per Word: 4.3

Important Document:
US Declaration of Independence (excluding signatures)
1334 words
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 15.1
Sentences per Paragraph: 5
Words per Sentence: 37.8
Characters per Word: 4.9

So what can we conclude?

1. Flesch-Kincaid apparently hates poetry. As the example on the bottom demonstrates, that is not a 3rd grade reading level.
2. If I were to put stock in such number, I've been fairly steadily improving. Of course, any numerical analysis of writing is going to be off, especially when automated by Microsoft Word.
3. If I were to statistically analyze available data, I suspect the only significant change in my numerically assessed writing from freshman year to now happened between freshmen and sophomore year. Otherwise, what's changed isn't so easily quantitative, but rather pertains mostly to simple quality and knowing a piddly bit more now than I did.

And yet... and yet the numbers are fascinating. They have a certain authority, like they can tell me more about myself than I know. An illusory authority.

(Here is a poem from the portfolio, if you're curious... we were supposed to write a nonsense poem)

Cacophony in Spenser

Klinkity klankity konky concocting,
Simply windling, saundering engendering
Flanking forsaking intaking nerve-wracking
Philandering vanity, why’re you defendering?
Dungeons and dragons 3D self-rendering
In a way almost gay in orbital seancing
Whiling away the legal tendering
The static consumes, this self-effasive dancing
Naked and disfigured, it needs a little pants-ing.

BEOWULF!

I have a fondness for CAPS tonight. If I break into them, I apologize.

Leslie and I went to see Beowulf last night. It was a ponderous decision for her (and for me, but I'd resolved late this summer that I could suffer whatever Neil Gaiman and the other writers made the story into), but finally she assented and we went to the movies...

... to discover it was showing in 5 screens. Wow! Four of them, however, were in 3-D. We decided to see it in 2-D. If I end up seeing it a second time, I will opt for the other version, but it was shiny enough without the extra D.

They did some odd digital editing. In large portions of the movie, it looked like it could've been really good CG, rather than digitally-modified actors. I think it worked, but only because Beowulf is a heroic epic, and so it's not so unbelievable to have things looking shinier than life. Many other action movies would've failed with the same look. Romantic comedies would've been too ethereal. It works.

The parts I was suspecting to be contentious... weren't. They did some major story changes to the poem (to have a handy plot summary, go here., though I recommend you read the translated poem at some point if you haven't). I may start spoiling some of the story at this point, though I'll of course leave out the resolution of it. ;)

The major changes basically amount to a greater centrality in the story, something that movies are fond of doing in their adaptions from books that have too broad of a focus. The poem has two localities: Daneland (Denmark) and back with the Geats. The first has Grendel and Grendel's mother. The second has the dragon. The first is when Beowulf is young. The second is when Beowulf is old. Beowulf as unproven warrior. Beowulf as king.

In the movie, they place every encounter in Denmark around the meadhall. Wiglaf is there the whole movie, instead of appearing in the second half of the story when he is integral in fighting the dragon. Grendel's mother is changed substantially, from a monstrous earthen woman-thing to a beautiful and yet fear-inspiring enchantress. Whealtheow, the Danish queen, is changed considerably. So the second half of the story plays out substantially different than before, which is sometime good in comparison with the poem, and sometimes disappointing, in the sense of, "I just wish it'd been this way." The writers did not abuse their creative license here.

Also, they necessarily didn't keep the sidestories in, the ones that described alternate events in other tribes and kingdoms at the time as a parallel of the events there. It wouldn't have worked well in the movie form, I suppose. They were able to convey that storytelling was important though, without saying "Storytelling is important." Thank God.

Oh! One sore point, however, is that there are some other places where they pretty much say that. Distracting are the lines that have to explain the context of encroaching Christianity on formerly pagan people. "Have you heard of Christ Jesus? Maybe he can save us." So on. So on. Brought up just so often that it becomes a tiring little thing. There was very little hint of this in the poem... it was there, yes, but it wasn't nearly so prominent as the movie made it out to be.

Also, there was the tendency to describe progress in anachronistically linear terms, so that when the kingdom improves, suddenly there are stone walls and everything, features not seen in European architecture for hundreds of years afterward. But then I realize that I'm forgetting that this is a heroic epic and so I have to desist. It's allowed that. ^_^;;;

So overall I'd recommend it, provided that you can do as I'm trying... set aside the fact that the movie is based on one of your favorite poems and just watch the movie as one would listen to the story told by another storyteller, allowing for the difference in presentation. It is not as rich for analysis, but I can live with that. And despite all the high-falutin' things I've said, it's got swords! And fighting! And Grendel... why, they got that monster just right.

Oh, and a warning: the first scene moves slowly enough and was horrifying for me, expecting the worst, but it turns out much better than a drunken guy walking around and yelling. Really.

And another warning: the second half of the movie might make you want to see A Lion in Winter.

The Blinker! And Aquarium!

Not in order of importance, but in order of what I think I can write in ten minutes, before I get back to graded writing.

Yesterday, I got on the interstate, heading for home. No unusual occurence there. I just gradually move to the lefthand two lanes (it's about a 10 mile drive) and try to stay in the furthermost right one if someone isn't going slow there. Anyway, there was a white SUV that comes into the left lane, properly signalling and everything.

They proceeded to signal for the next 6.5 miles.

During the first minute, I'm casually watching, expecting that soon the embarrassing realization will come and they will switch the flashing light off, quietly because I can only hear engine noises and The Splendid Table.

Then I start actively counting. I wonder if accidents ever have records, when a single flip of a switch can make it as if it never happened, except in memory by imprecise witnessing. There's some talk in the background noise of a very tasty-sounding cooked pork shoulder. I listen above the rising salivation, and watch above the listening.

I start pondering going on with them, maybe heading as far as East Town mall another six or seven miles ahead, when the light abruptly changes. It doesn't stop. The SUV merges into the righthand lane, again signalling correctly. They end up getting off an exit before me, and I peripherally catch a last glance of it, right signal not clearly visible (what I was looking for, if the same thing would happen in reverse) before I fly off the exit ramp and ram myself into a passing airplane, killing seven and injuring 35 in what can only be termed an unfortunate crash landing gone awry.

There's a lie in there somewhere. ;)

And Saturday Leslie and I went to the Chattanooga aquarium. I guess it's the Tennessee Aquarium... in Chattanooga. But I won't get picky over the name. We had loads of fun... there was a whole other building that we didn't get to see last time because it didn't exist. It had an amazon exhibit, penguins, and a couple of other things I'm blanking out on. There was one room with butterflies in it, all different colors, all fluttering about. People went back and forth with their cameras and rapt gazes, chasing the colorful ones, the ones with the false eye spots, the ones sleeping, the ones awake. At one point, this palm-sized butterfly with light blue wings lighted on Leslie's head. The contrast of the colors, this light blue with the deep reddish hue of Leslie's hair... it was nice. I tried to signal for the camera, but too late. It fluttered away.

And the penguins. We got to see them swimming around and everything. Oh! And they had, in one of the tanks, a giant sea turtle that would go soaring past through the water. And the sea horses and sea dragons... and the tree frogs and.. and...!

Yes. As far as comparing it to the North Carolina Aquarium... it's on par. I would say that the Tennessee Aquarium edges the other out on its extensive freshwater exhibits, while the North Carolina Aquarium rules the ocean ones... but it's tough to say.

Leslie and I also ate at Genghis Grill. Fully customizable you-pick-it-they-cook-it stir fry. Lots of customization. Delectable sauces. The way we differed was quite interesting. I can't remember the precise ones right now, but I think she said she tended more toward thai, while I went Korean.

Loads of fun. I like going places. :D

What. The. Hell.

Today I planned going to the Chattanooga Aquarium with Leslie. It's a day trip, which I've been looking forward to taking for a while.

The fact that today's a day game (starts at 12:30) has been more an afterthought than anything, an excuse to get off campus early. The build-up to a game so early in the game is more incongruous and the malaise of drunken revelry and regurgitation sticks long after for the rest of the day and evening. I can imagine enjoying the build-up to an evening game. It's a more gradual transition.

So I got up an hour early, which meant I would get to the breakfast dining hall early. I got there about on time, right as about 15 to 20 guys walk in. Fraternity guys, by the look of it. Freshmen, by my estimation. Children by their behavior.

First, there had been a polite line going when I got there, a few people on the stairs, and this one female to the side a little. The line of frat guys in front of me plow through, ignoring any previous semblance of line, cutting her and a couple of others in the process.

There is one of them. Wearing his orange shirt. Unable to quick running up against me, or brushing up against me. I think I smell alcohol, but that may just be a feeble attempt to explain his actions. "Breakfast isn't open?!" he cries, and the others groupthink it up. There's some banging on the metal doors. Talk of rioting. Some moshing. More yelling. More banging. Threats. Laughter. Temper tantrums and cussing.

After a couple of minutes of thrashing about and utter impatience, they return to their apathetic state and mostly ooze outside. A few remain at the top of the stairs.

They start banging on the door again. One girl describes the situation as a conspiracy theory. "First they'll say they're opening at 8:30, then it'll be 9, 9:30... and finally they'll just close down due to the game!" Really now.

Oh, and I forgot to give the time at this point. It's now, oh, about 8:04. Yes, they're only about 4 minutes late.

Another guy, too late perhaps, comments, "Yeah, maybe they won't open the door now. Maybe they're spitting in our food." Yes, the only outlet of a disgruntled employee.

More yelling, more knocking, and then the door opens. The manager is swiping people in. I come up. "I apologize for their actions," I mumble, thoroughly disgruntled. "What?" he asks. I repeat it. "Oh, it's fine. Thank you." It was a gesture of sympathy.

The employees didn't seem to care or anything. They went on. And the frat boys did too. They sat down and ate. Still cussed a lot. But they were relatively calm.

I don't know where to start. Their behavior was childlike of course. Perhaps I should've said something, been the parent in the situation. Maybe I didn't because I assumed a competitive stance. I'll out-patience them. But, too... it would've felt good to chew them out. But I would've just given them a more concrete target. I could have reproached their behavior, but not in a way where they'd learn from it. It wouldn't have done much good.

And throughout, there was the sense of... entitlement, of "The customer is always right." "This is a business and they should be fired for opening late." A business posts hours, but ultimately it can open and close whenever it wants! Of course, it mostly doesn't because that would betray its own word, but sometimes, whether you're understaffed or don't have anything ready, sometimes opening a couple of minutes late is better than opening right then and not being able to serve anyone.

There is some validity to being inconvenienced, perhaps. But even then, that's no reason to act like you have a bad case of diaper rash. None at all! That doesn't make the employees work any harder to serve you (if anything, it makes them avoid you). There is a way to act like the customer is always right while being kind, considerate, and polite. The employee is required to be polite, but they are human too. Treat them as such. Otherwise, I'll come knocking on your dorm room door calling for french toast sticks.

No, I won't. Then I wouldn't out-patience them. But it's so hard.

Applications

They are... daunting. Their requirements of information, the constant pages and pages of formed information, and then the unformed formal stuff, the statement of purpose, the writing sample... and then recommendations, reading into intonations of a professor's e-mail to see whether they're miffed about the attachment not opening correctly or simply matter-of-fact. Bracing myself to let them know that, oh, I'll be applying to another school, or saying that two are paper recommendations when I'd told them it would all be online...

It is scary. I know it will be worth it. But here's where my shyness, fear of rejection, and everything else converges. I know I can write. I know I can pick topics to research. I know I can research. I know I can teach. I can and will read, and discuss, and do a hundred different paper formats, change citation from MLA to Chicago. I can do all this and then walk to the blackboard and do mathematical proofs.

But does it matter? Is it enough?

Now, I know from reading journals in one of my classes, that what is written about may seem at first to be it all. It isn't. This is an excerpt in my life, and the trepidation it puts in me is only one thing I feel out of a jumble of other things, good and bad, every day. It's important. But I'm also happy in many ways, so the worry about grad schools is part of a working, not-all-good-or-bad psyche. I guess I'm trying to say don't worry too much.

Now for something completely different...

Legislated Smoking?

I've been thinking about smoking bans, ever since it was passed in Tennessee. Then the laws in California passed, which have even prohibited smoking in private apartments.

What did we do wrong to have laws about smoking? It seems like, if everything worked right, for the most part you would have smokers who would seek places to smoke courteously where others could walk sufficiently around the smokers, and nonsmokers, if offended, would politely enlighten the smokers so that further encroachment isn't made. But there are a few problems with this.

Smoke, like noise and odor, don't obey property lines or personal space. They are pervasive. So it is more difficult to find a place to smoke that doesn't affect nonsmokers.

Smoke, while certainly harmful over long periods of time and exposure, won't kill someone that has an unfortunate occasional encounter. It's difficult to connect health problems from infrequent second-hand smoke inhalation. So how could you tell someone, "Please don't smoke right here, it wafts into where I'm working?" if it doesn't affect you definitely?

There's always the jerk smoker that will insist on their right to smoke in a place, defying anyone that tells them it's harmful or otherwise. There's also the jerk nonsmoker, that makes it their specific mission to try to get them to stop smoking. Thus, everywhere is off limits. Abuse of courtesy on both sides.

So with all of these things going on, we turn to laws. In the case of restaurants and such, it's mainly up to them to enforce their own bounds. In the case of a private apartment or something like that, it's probably their neighboring tenants. This makes the laws about as strict as those on littering, which while it carries a rather hefty fine, many people still seem to get away with it from the collection of colorful bottles and wrappers on the side of the road. More aptly, it's a weak public disturbance law.

One issue I see here, that I'm not resolved about, is to what degree we allow people to do things that harm themselves? Is it only when it harms others? Well, okay, but define that. Is it when someone else can get cancer from your use? Or is it when their tax dollars have to foot your medical bills? Which, in that case, goes back to issues of universal medical care. If that goes into effect, then behaviors that affect health can be legislated against, and should be, to safeguard the costs of the system. I'm not comfortable with that, but I don't know what an answer would be. Could doctors withhold medical care if patients do not follow doctors' orders on diet and lifestyle? Could they do this for unsafe sex practices?

Too many implications. Sadly, the most interesting things I see on the political tickers seem to be, " ." I wish they would collectively commit to touch the third rails.

Subrant - Definition by Nonstatus

This is a minor rhetorical issue sometimes, and other times a serious implication, but think about what was up there? Specifically, categories.

Smoker Nonsmoker

The nonsmoker is defined, not on what they do, but on what they don't do. It's interesting. And necessary, to talk about the issue.

Now, let's think about descriptions in literature that call people (usually women), out of the blue, not married. What, where did this come in? There is this big gap between unmarried and married. It creates an expectation, as if ordinarily, or ideally, they would be married. It's old fashioned, yes. It's also a trap. There is no choice.

Incidentally, which sounds worse as a counter of an abortion position: Anti-choice, or anti-life? I actually think anti-choice sounds pretty apt for pro-life.

Nothing sounds quite so alluring...

as a Master of Taxation.

More later. ^_^

Shadows over Camelot

Wow, I can't get this game out of my head. A board game, even.

The name is "Shadows over Camelot." We played it last night. It's 3-7 players. We played a first half game to learn the rules, and then a second full game.

Now, first, it's a cooperative game. Mostly. Instead of trying to beat one another, you are trying to help each other beat the game.

You start out by giving out characters. King Arthur is mandatory, and then you have knights like Sir Kay, Sir Galahad, Sir Palamedes, and others. They have a certain special thing they can do, but otherwise they're all the same.

The game board is set up with the start place being Camelot and besides that a lot of different locations where one can perform quests. There's fighting the Picts, fighting the Saxons, jousting with the Black Knights, seeking Excalibur, seeking the Holy Grail, seeking Lancelot's armor, and defeating the dragon. With all of these, you have to play certain cards in order to win, sometimes while trying to counter bad cards that come up (I'll explain that shortly). If you win, you get white swords of allegiance put around the round table, gain life and cards, the special item (if you're seeking one) and all is well. If you lose, then black swords and other bad stuff happen.

So all this sounds simple... until you hear what happens on your turn. There are two portions. The first is the dark portion. Either you draw a bad card, you lose one life point, or you put a catapult in front of Camelot. The bad cards often thwart progress on a quest, make people lose good cards, or things like that. Adding one catapult is fine, but they build up, and if twelve catapults are out at once, the game is over; anyone staying in Camelot must try to fight them using cards from their hand and a die roll. Losing a life point hurts, because you start with only four.

Then the second part is where you either move to a quest, play a card to aid a quest, or if in Camelot, draw two cards.

Alright, so the point is to cooperate to complete quests. This is fine, but you must account for an imbalance where one of you might be a traitor. Before the game starts each person gets a loyalty card, which they cannot reveal unless they are accused. An incorrect accusation costs a lot though, so a good traitor can subtly thwart people's plans and sow distrust so that they either accuse the wrong people or are afraid to accuse at all.

Luckily, in the second game we played none of us were the traitor, because it ran close. I was Sir Kay, constantly fighting the Black Knights. Others were only able to thwart bad cards from overtaking the grail quest, Duncan got Lancelot's armor, I got Excalibur by a fluke (played a card to get it so Phil could go back and hit catapults. The situation was actually getting pretty dire, with 10 and 11 catapults consistently, as well as terrible bad cards. Finally, King Arthur (played by Bo) had to sacrifice himself so that we could win the game. So it was bittersweet, but we won by the skin of our teeth.

I'm not sure how much sense that made... but I had fun. It's not something I want to play too often (takes a while to get going in the game, as Leslie observed, and about 60-90 minutes to play), but it's a very friendly game. And it's King Arthur!

Whoops

Packing for me always involves both a degree of plannedness and a degree of franticness. I know what I want to bring, but don't always know where it is. Or I know what I want to bring, but will get it ready later. Maybe I have gotten it ready but it hasn't ended up in the right place.

Maybe it's sitting hopefully on the bathroom counter, waiting to be taken.

Or so I conjecture. Earlier I forgot my Roman sandals, a blow to me, but not a very important one. Just vaguely disappointing.

Now I have left my shaving kit. This is a bigger blow with two things that are relatively irreplacable; my retainers and my facial medicine. The former I can probably try without and the latter I have done without before, and can do so successfully with some care. I figure that at the very least I don't have to bring anything of that sort back the next time I go home. In Thanksgiving.

Whoops. ^^;;;

GRE

So, this morning I was slated to take the GRE Subject Test at 8:30 in the Humanities Building.

I had done an irresponsible thing the night before by volunteering to help run a Bingo table at Vol Night Long, a carnival that happens around midterms to relieve stress. Luckily Dylan was merciful and let me leave whenever, which I did after 12:15. (Until the last half-hour or so, Bingo wasn't really happening... at all. So we played card games.)

But this morning I wake up an hour before, take a shower, eat breakfast, and then show up five minutes before I'm supposed to. (I live on campus, so I can generally end up at a place with a very small margin error in time.) There's no sign of anyone... wait! There's this one guy walking around, and as I enter the door into the "lobby," he asks, "Are you here for the Psych subject test?" "I'm here for a test, but not that one," I say, looking around. "It's empty," he admits, about to go looking down another hallway. I spot a sign at the other door and walk over. There is writing on the other side, the one facing outward to the plaza. It reads, "The testing center has been moved to the UT Conference Center on Henley St. Room 417."

Eyebrows quirk. We start walking. About thirty seconds into it, he says, "They better let us in." "Yeah, definitely. If not I'll be mad." A few more short exchanges pass, and then he remarks, "You know we can't get there in five minutes." "You're right." And then, simultaneously, we start running.

Now, the distance we're running - in pedestrian shoes and pants - is about a mile, but psychologically the distance is larger. We are running to the outskirts of downtown, past the World's Fair Park, across the street that turns into Broadway. I have never been in that building before, and I'm not exactly sure which building they mean at first. So we're lunging down the sidewalk, breakfast churning in our stomachs, ready to fuel us as we splatter our knowledge all over the test.

It would take between fifteen and twenty minutes for me to get there, speed walking. Including our frantic unsureness about where to be (about a minute and a half to two minutes in the Convention Center), and encountering locked doors when trying to get into the conference center, and walking in a circle inside once we enter, we get to the testing room in ten minutes. Panting. The door we encounter is locked, any late tester's worst fear. I knock. After a few glances between others, one of them opened the door. Were we late? Had it started? Why no! They weren't going to start testing until at least 9 o'clock.

I suppose we got to catch our breath and settle down, at least?

... so I did that, settling down and choosing to get some of their graciously offered coffee. Mmmm. I drank it black though, not wanting to consume too much caffeine at once and end up spazzing out over the test. Once it turned cold, that made it even easier to moderate drinking it.

As for the test itself... I can't discuss details or contents. I will just say that there were some things I didn't know, but luckily a lot of things I could guess over and have probability favor me. There were a few things I'd specifically read in certain classes (or out of them), and one in particular that I had read sometime this week! It was difficult and I feel both encouraged and discouraged by the experience, if that's possible... being knowledge and contextual based, it is exceedingly difficult to know them all. (Anything above a 700 is basically in the 99th percentile, and I can almost guarantee you that I was, at best, 650.) But I think that, given what I did know, I exercised it well, and that's the best I could ask.

I just hope that next time someone decides to change the testing place, they say, "And we will start, not at 8:30, but 9, to give you time to get here. DO NOT BE ANY LATER." That would've been... well, less distressing.

Diagnosis

An Article:
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=51983

The Reply:
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=52004

(I wrote one of these.)

Otherwise...

I get frustrated by something. (Many people do.) Outside the scope of the letter I wrote, though it may be a mutual symptom.

There is a tendency, when a perplexing literary or historical figure is encountered, to diagnose them with some psychosis or other malady that rationally explains their problem as being in their mind, whether having initial cause elsewhere or not.

I have a few examples.

1. Margery Kempe. She had a book written. The Book of Margery Kempe. (Original titles in 1400, yes?) Anyway, this is a biography of sorts. She lives out her life for a while, marries, has kids... and starts having a religious transformation. It's gradual, and she turns away from it for a while thinking herself bereft from salvation, but Jesus finally appears to her and becomes her special vision-pal. She ends up crying a lot in public, constantly bringing up religion to others, pleading to not couple with her husband (he legally could anyway; it is 1400), and so on. Some people think this is extremely devout behavior and encourage it. Others are annoyed by it and scorn her.

Now, there are many fascinating points of exploration here, from the social response to the various gifts she receives from Jesus, to the way she and God become a marriage that trumps the earthly one she has. The way she responds to pilgrimage. The way she's nearly burned at the stake for teaching others religion (outside priestly authority, AND as a woman). But no. She's a hysteric. She's bipolar. Depressed. Pick your ailment, she has it.

She would not have been viewed as sick in her own time. People take her claims of visions and divine insight seriously, whether they believe them to be truth or willful lying. If she is diagnosed, there is no worthwhile meaning in it for the rest of the story. If anything, it detracts from the meaning, because who can try to find meaning in "crazy"? Not me.

2. We had to read "Circumstances are Destiny" by ... I think, Brakehill? Anyway, this is a biography of a woman named Celestia Rice Colby, born in the 1830s and living in Ohio. She loses her mother very young, grows up, goes to an upper school for boys and girls (unusual then), coms home, gets married, and has kids. At first she's happy doing the traditional thing, but increasingly she gets tired of it. She is disillusioned from orthodox religion, from the false platitudes of her neighbors, from the frequent absences of her husband and the pressures of keeping up a cheese-making business and her domestic housework. Through all this, she longs for some intellectual companionship, for which her occasional visiting friends and family, occasionally heard lectures, essay writing, and her avidly enjoyed books give no solace. (Jumbled list, I know.) All of this is detailed in a diary, which is why there's such a personal insight to her feelings. Finally she writes less and less, appearing to be in such a lull that only occasional mentions of her children and other circumstances lull her out of it. After the Civil War and increasingly writing on women's issues, she stops diary writing altogether. While it appears she gains a moderate piece of happiness after her husband dies or leaves her (the history is unclear), we still had to read through 200 pages of emotion-laden text that flowed slow as the Mississippi.

The conclusion from a few people today? She's depressed. Again, bipolar. What have you. And, okay, I think depressed is a fairly good way of describing her, but... that's obvious! There's nothing else to say about her? Nothing? Maybe at least the reasons she's depressed, about how she's trying to fit into a gender role that demands her silence but she wants to speak at the same time? About having a husband that shares her opinion on issues of abolition and such but who doesn't help with the housework? And weren't there many joys in her life besides? (It wasn't all bad, though the author seemed to focus on those bad points more.) If anything the biography showed that it was much more complicated than simply adhering to True Womanhood or not adhering to it, that it was a part of her, but at the same time she was dissatisfied with some parts of it... and as her children noted, she always appeared kind and encouraging to them. This was a multilayered woman, this Colby... not just a medical diagnosis.

_______________

Whenever anyone brings up such a thing, unless it can be developed further, it is just a side point. Perhaps intriguing, but not relevant. It's a shortcut, and by it, one doesn't have to think about the person or the text in a serious way. It is like looking at a piece of art and saying, "Medieval depiction of Jesus! Moving on!" It's a label, at the precise moment we're trying to peel off the labels and, perhaps with their help, perhaps not, see what's going on without the sticky bits.

And that is one thing that general education courses try to do. Rather than just having the model of matriarchal lineage, we can hopefully learn to apply it in discussion, and then say, "Well, this means for the society... dadada." It's not the only thing, certainly, or many would be an enourmous failure.

And I'm not saying that our discussions should always be complete explanations of our positions. Gah, no. Or that all of our discussions should be intellectual, even. Witty, maybe. ^_~ But no. People receiving a college education should be capable of that, though. As Mom pointed out (and I agree), I want my doctor, my lawyer, my insurance agent ... if I ever have to work with them on a personal basis, I want to know that such a conversation can be had without alienating them. I want to know that they are more than "doctor" and more than late-night TV. Perhaps they'll have an interesting hobby and such, which is always nice, but they should have an educated background, just in case... what? We actually have a discussion on something? Never know. ^_~

Let us see how much I can coherently type in three minutes.

I had a crazy dream last night. I was going out to walk around campus, so I decided to put on my road warrior uniform, this kind of football gear top all black with a police riot helmet. Anyway, I'm walking around, come to the pedestrian walkway, and there are people dressed up in relative theme with me. They're there for this post-apocalyptic/medieval festival, and so I join them in helping get the food prepared. There's this one person who's chopping vegetables. So I get a cucumber and start skinning it with this peeler. It's not going very well. Suddenly, I look down and the little shredded places where light green peek through, they're turning dark... and fuzzy! Then an emerald green cat leaps from my lap where I was about to cut it again.

Yes. That's pretty much it.

I'm having to read a lot by Thursday. The reason why I'm typing as fast as I can is because I have laundry to get out... actually, right about now, and three minutes was not enough time to start something else.

(I was just reading some stuff by Christine de Pizan. She was an Italian-born immigrant to France, because her father became a counselor to the French King at the time. The Hundred-Year War was going on though, and Christine de Pizan was there just in time to have it turn bad for the French... while her husband and father both died in short time. So she turned to writing for money, an act nearly unthinkable at the time even for men. (If they wrote, they were at a university, were a monk, or were rich enough anyhow... this is pre-printing press.)

Laundry!

First Draft Complete

Wee, exuberance!

First, I've been writing this paper in the computer lab. The Honors one, which isn't so full of distractions... supposedly. I have been wrong.

Maybe I'm just set off by such small things, but I do not like it when someone puts their feet up on the desk while they're on a public computer. It's just... ewwww. I don't want to sit at a place and put my stuff where feet have been. What's especially bad is when they're sitting next to the wall and they put their feet on it. Ewwwwwwwww. I hope that's not where the dirt marks on the walls have come from, but something tells me...

Don't get me wrong, I don't think feet are bad or anything, but they have no reason to be there, and they tend to get dirty enough, after wearing sandals around campus, that it becomes a slight sanitary concern for me.

I also dislike people who answer their cell phone in here. It's quite similar to doing it in the upper levels of the library in the rows of study carrels. No, I don't want to hear about your plans with your partner tonight, or a friend's indiscretions. At least, not while I'm studying. I have a feeling that if I were to ask them about further details, they'd be offended that I listened, but it's such a quiet place typically that I can't help it. It's like Scott, except that I can hear Scott no matter where I am. (And he doesn't annoy me... unless, again, I'm trying to focus on something.)

I worked on this paper on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (and fragmentation!) yesterday until I was just sick of it. It was all I worked on in the afternoon.

Today I have worked on it, and reached some sort of resolution. Yay! At least I have the right number of pages. Now I have to wait a couple of hours, reread it, and wonder whether it sounds remotely coherent or not.

I can't reread it right now because then I will have not yet purged my nonwritten assumptions, and so whenever I have a pronoun, I'll not be as sensitive if, say, it refers to something in my mind!

But yes. Now I get to break by reading some Othello. Wee!

And I think other than that, I'll take the afternoon off. I mean, I'll actually only get, what, an hour to myself? But it will be sooooo nice!

Word of the day: Micawber. From a Dickens work. "Romantic, irresponsible, or feckless optimist," says the Oxford English Dictionary. Operative as a noun or a verb.

I wish that Ashley would stop Micawbering around, as she's scaring all the square-nosed vituperate defenders of the facts of life away and replacing them with decadent half-full bowls of fudge ice cream with suggestively poised spoons.

... I think I know what I'm going to eat at Wyrd. If I remember after rereading my paper.

Quizzes! Or... I'm going to write my paper after classes, not before

These are entertaining because they're relatively few questions and are well done, even if they're not the most accurate. ;) I like their "Choose your own adventure" kind of style, one response determining the next question.

You're Siddhartha!

by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try
anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent
some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.
This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's
time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in
ferries.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

(Second try? Watership Down.)

You're Pelosi-Edwards!


As Nancy Pelosi, you stand as one of the only true and courageous people that anyone can
name. Despite a haphazard reputation and unexpected rise to power, you could be one of the only
legitimate hopes for your friends. You have been able to tell the truth about what is happening,
and reflect a widely held but somewhat quiet set of beliefs. Recently, you have been bestowed
with great resources by your power company. Your latent love for a military retiree is bound to
get you in trouble.

You select John Edwards as your running mate after he charmed you into picking him.


Take the 2008 Presidential Ticket Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You're the United Nations!

Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to
completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long
way to go.  You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each
other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of
beating each other about the head and torso.  Sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result.  But your heart
is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.


Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

You're West Virginia!

You are a true coal miner's daughter, or maybe even son. You probably
smoke, and your lungs are paying for it every day. While you're definitely willing to
separate yourself from the crowd for what you believe in, this policy has put you into
a state of unending obscurity and poverty. As a result, people only come to visit you
on foot, and usually they're just trying to prove that they can do it. Keep a canary on
your shoulder whenever possible.


Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You're an Octopus!

Thoughtful and reflective, you always appear to have tilted your
head slightly to one side. You like stretching out your languorous body wherever
you can, but not everything is always relaxed. You wear your emotions on your
sleeve and have a terrible poker face. And when you feel most threatened, you start
writing things down furiously. If there's a sucker born every minute, there's one
of you born roughly every day.


Take the Animal Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

A few things:

1. The man's eyes at the top of this article... will haunt me. His whole expression... just... aaaagh!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7013068.stm

2. I bowled excellently yesterday. 202, 257, 202. The 257 was two strikes away from perfection (I spared those frames). It felt good to bowl that game, because I'd just come out of my first game striking out and I'd found my rhythm. I could literally release the ball, and always have it go to the same place, and always come back. One of the times I ended up sparing was because I made a slight adjustment, and the other time I didn't quite release right with my hands, but all those other times the motions were automagic.

3. I loathe when a person gets out of the car to hold a parking spot for someone who's circling around. In the case yesterday, it was in the parking garage where spaces are limited, and the way traffic runs, the car must go around. But I see a parking spot and three people blocking my way to it. It was irritating, and while I did luck out and find a better space (one that's not in the sun), they used their bodies to prevent my car from going where I wanted to go, leaving me powerless to have done anything except try to reason with them and block traffic while doing so. Grr. I can't run them over.

I've been trying to think of some sort of overarching rule they broke beyond this, besides that they thwarted me. I guess it's that they mixed pedestrianism and driving to their advantage, when it seems they should either drive... or be pedestrians, but they shouldn't be both at once. I don't know.

Death and Pictures

Nothing says "Thank you" to your Maid of Honor like a constant reminder of her mortality.


http://www.history.rochester.edu/godeys/03-50/ammw.htm


This which I link you to is part of a larger page depicting a ladies' magazine from the 1850s, and you can access it by deleting everything after "godeys/". It's interesting, but I just wanted to say three things.


1. What an ingenius gift. If such a thing were to be given in our time, it would have to be either to a person who treasures unusual things in general or to a person that would appreciate its particular... flare for taking a common artistic trope and turning it into a timekeeper.


2. "This very curious relic must have then intended to occupy a stationary place on a prie-dieu, or small altar, in a private oratory; for its weight is much too great to have admitted of its being carried in any way attached to the person." I'm sure if its weight were inadmissable, most people would forebear carrying it about as a matter of taste, which is lamentable because I would find its appearance intriguing and delightful.


3. What does the Latin mean? I can acquire some of it just through repeated exposure to common phrases, but I don't have nearly enough vocabulary or syntactical knowledge to read a language I've never studied.


Now, to true purpose... pictures of Dragon*con! I took about two rolls, and many of them were "action shots" and thus of varying quality. I will use a couple that Leslie took as well (the Flying Spaghetti Monster ones) because I love them so.

The Wheel of Fortune I bought

The wallscroll I bought.

Random Star Wars people.

Luna, Dumbledore, and Harry.

I have no clue who they were supposed to be. I was just amused by, "thog's armor sometimes chafe thog in thog's man parts."

I've been touched by his (her?) noodly appendage!



Monty Python makes an appearance here.



Cookie Monster had to be one of my favorite costumes. And his location here was suitable...



Leslie in costume! She made that dress herself. It looks even better in person. As does she.



My costume. Note the sash sagging some at this later point in the day.



Leslie is touched! (She was touched first; if you cannot guess, this has no sense of chronology.)



A rebel pilot.



Random elf! He asked for directions and I couldn't help him. I may've sent him the wrong way. Alas.

Dragon*con and Miscellany

So. Instead of being the dutiful son and coming home for Labor Day weekend, I chose to have an uproarious time in Atlanta with Leslie, Derek, and Becky and 90,000 odd others at Dragon*con, the sci-fi/fantasy convention.

We drove down Friday morning. I missed class for it, but got all of the assignments and such squared away earlier. It was a smooth drive, relatively uneventful. Leslie does Madlibs in a custom way, simply constructing vague frames of sentences and having user input fill in nearly every word. The results are only vaguely coherent, but the word combinations are... sometimes gems. The downside is that you can only do a couple at a time, but quality over quantity is good.

We opted to use MARTA, the Atlanta public rail transit system. (MARTA is an acronym meaning something like that all jumbled up to sound like a character from Arrested Development.) Parking at one of their outlying stations was 80% cheaper than parking downtown. We stopped at one of the northern ones, got off, and went up. The rails at this point are over ground, and it's a very light, clean, lofty feeling station.

Then we went to get tickets. It was taking us a minute to look over the computer console, and it must've shown, because a guy walked up to us in a dirty white t-shirt. Homeless vibes. He said he could help us out for $5, which was technically cheaper. We were all having separate misgivings, but no one else was voicing them, so I accepted, and he performed his shady magic, checking all the cards he had (which he must've found or something) before going up to the entrance machines and (I realize this in hindsight) activating the handicapped doors by reaching around. (These doors are places where you'd swipe your ticket or your card; it's all automated and, by all appearances, unobserved.)

So he eventually split off after commenting a bit about all the crossdressers at Dragon*con and how weird that is, and we boarded the train and went on, luggage in hand. It was a nice view and feeling, going along. I would've enjoyed it more unladen and without any particular place to go, but... eh.

Arriving at the station, we try to leave and realize that you need a ticket to do so. So we ask a security officer (who sits behind her door, probably looking at camera feeds) how to get out if we no longer have our ticket. She advised us that there were handicapped exits that worked like automatic doors. Ahhh. So we get directed in the right direction and go up, up, up this long escalator, and emerge in downtown Atlanta, with our hotel half a block away.

Now, the hotel. There were already people about in costume (a situation that goes on all weekend) and with shiny pre-registered badges. We go up to the desk to check in, expecting to be quickly issued keys to a spacious room with two sizeable beds. Ah, no?

Becky was handling the negotiations, as the room was under her name, but the highlights were this: We could go a few blocks away and stay at a hotel with the first two nights' stays free, but we weren't keen on it, having already committed money budget-wise and being in this hotel being a darn convenience, as it's where the con is at! So then next they apparently explaint hat any request for a room is simply a preference, and this was a preference that could not be fulfilled. However, they do have pull-away beds that would help accomodate the required number of people, being big.

Finally we get up to our room, request a pull-away bed, and are dismayed upon seeing it, to the point of initially sending it away. It's only big enough for one person. So we try requesting two. Sorry, we only get one bed? Well, one it is. We'll make do, the final decision is, because we're tired of moving our stuff around at this point.

Now we're in a convention. What is there to do? Well, first there are panels. These are discussion areas, groups, what have you organized in a room going over a certain topic of interest. Their formality varies. Sometimes a movie or movies are being shown, sometimes a famous person or people are there, sometimes it's people discussing a topic with the attendees, sometimes it's a simple lecture, and sometimes it's people just meeting and having fun. They had different tracks of these things happening all weekend, as diverse as Corset-making, Observatories in Space, Full Metal Alchemist (an anime), a Yule ball, Battlestar Galactica cast reunion, the Dawn costume contest, and so on.

Then there are the dealer's rooms, exhibition rooms, and art rooms. The first one is self-explanatory. The second is a lot like the first one, except that a lot more companies are there actually promoting products, so it's less of a flea market feel as you're often talking directly with representatives from a certain company. The third is where individual artists sell their wares, all of varying quality and pricing. Many works were under silent auction.

And finally there's just all the random stuff going on. They had bars going on in between the three hotels this was being held in (all hotels being adjacent to one another). There were parties going on in various rooms at any one time. Tons of people congregated in the lobbies together, randomly taking pictures of compelling costumes. They had tons of game-playing going on, though I never did that part. (Some of it was card games, some role-playing, some strategy.) For food, the Peachtree Center was adjacent, with a food court and seating. It was like a city within a city.

I'm not going to go into everything I did, since I've already spent so much describing just getting there. So instead I'll degenerate into lists of some of the things I did and bought, to give a vague idea of what can be done there, though there's so much going on you couldn't do it all in 20 years.

What I bought: shiny dice (mostly blue ones, including a set of frosty ones and a D6 with the libra sign for 6), a t-shirt about English as the back-alley pilferer of other languages, a Tenchi wallscroll that I have just noticed is no longer on my wall because it fell down (Tenchi is an anime as well), a soundtrack to something that I've since learned is both pirated and not what I thought I was getting, Wanderers from Ys III for the Super Nintendo, Killer Bunnies Green Booster Deck, and a piece of art depicting the Wheel of Fortune, turned by the four seasons (?) as they pull on the wheel whose center has the Jewish kaph (כּ), which in numerology represents the number 20. No, I'm not sure what that means. Help?

I also went to several panels. Some of them include The Great Observatories (where I got a lot of cool space pictures courtesy of NASA), a Star Trek The Next Generation panel with Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, and Jonathan Frakes (or Data, Dr. Crusher, and Riker), Hot Fuzz: The Verdict, Weird and Unusual Scientific Studies (and the Rationales Behind Them), and a Mythology and Folklore panel where Leslie and I both won free stuff (books, that is... mine being a 3 book set Tales of the Frog Princess). Oh, and there was a Cruxshadows concert. And... and... and...

I had an excellent time. ^_^

Being back is mostly good, but there are a few things I see that distress me. We've been having protesters on campus all week. Not many, probably half a dozen, wielding signs in front of the library, stirring up a racket with their preaching. They speak words of condemnation, shouting at women wearing pants or short hair, men who try to contradict them, and anything that makes them angry, people that have nothing objectionable going on at all. Their message is one where people go to hell. Because. They... say so? Of course, one of their signs (and my "favorite") is the one where it has a front with "God Says" and a whole bunch of drivel, catch-phrases and such of a certain ideological stance. (Homosexuality is a sin, abortion is murder...) On the back was "Satan Says" and things like Homosexual sex is good, abortion is okay... and it disturbs me. It disturbs me that there is this double transfer. One is that social issues are becoming political ones, not that that's new. Whether or not two partners of the same gender should be allowed to have the same legal protections as the rest of those under the umbrella of marriage, that is a legal expression of a social objection. Whether a woman should be allowed to decide for herself whether she should have an abortion (and whether her fetus is a person or not, and thus whether she should be wrong to make such a choice, given other pressures which she is undoubtedly accounting for). This is the wish, not of protecting civil order, but of guaranteeing social order. At the same time, it is personal bigotry, translated through religious means, and applied to their view of the social world, and their wishes on a political landscape. It is this great monolith of opinion, the theocratic crag, divorced from the Founding Fathers' wisdom but using their freedoms to countermand the liberties of those they oppose as sinful. I do not articulate what I fear well enough, but it's like... what if Thoreau had practiced civil disobedience because he thought slavery was right and just, because the blacks are inherently inferior to whites and must be guided for our benefit and, somehow, theirs? What if someone were advocating for that now? And what if there were a fear, a vague one, that some of these ideas were gradually being accepted? That though the half-dozen will always be the loudest voices, they will not be the only bodies, and who can resist the press of masses and masses of people?

I hope this fear is as unreasonable as the fear (or welcoming) of most apocalypses.

All Dressed Up With Nowhere to Go

Or at least that's how I feel. I'm all packed for Dragon*con now, save for getting some small miscellaneous items and errands taken care of. I'll be going to class, and I will be doing some work. (I'm not that obsessive... yet.) But otherwise... I'm essentially taken care of work-wise up until next Wednesday. Which wasn't easy... I read during my free time at work, read before I went to sleep at night... I read a lot. And wrote a good portion too. It's both sad and joyous to go through two pages of writing about a short story only to realize, in all the ensuing explication without any clear answer, that the main character is a Virgin Mary figure. Joyous because it's the very breakthrough that makes the reading response worth it. Sad because I have to rewrite the entire thing so that it more specifically heads in that direction, rather than vaguely meandering there.

Aristotle cracks me up. We're reading his Poetics, which is an exploration of tragedy and epic forms. There are some places where he's so plain, so didactic that it really helps, where he states the obvious and the obvious is precisely what you need. But there are other places where he has become somewhat dated.

"A beginning is that which itself does not follow necessarily from anything else, but some second thing naturally exists or occurs after it. Conversely, an end is that which does itself naturally follow from something else, either necessarily or in general, but there is nothing else after it. A middle is that which itself comes after something else, and some other thing comes after it."

"Suffering is an action that involves destruction or pain."

At least he defines his terms, I suppose.

My Birthday

It's never too early to think about it.

After a comment a professor made in class, I looked at all of my syllabi. I have two midterms on the 8th of October. One on the day after. What this culminates in is a busy birthday without even the cathartic suggestion of a full release of stress, as I'll still be studying for Tuesday. Ah well. I'm sure I'll find ways to have fun through it.

Thursday I had my second line-up of classes. I wasn't feeling terribly well that day (I'm feeling 95% better now), so I went through a lot of both classes with a good deal of impatience.

Renaissance Tragedies:

My honors seminar! The one class with people I already know (save the one where I have had the professor previously). Nick (cardboard club) and Richard (all over the place) are the main culprits, and there's also a couple of others (Kate and Allison) whom I know from previous classes but don't often talk to.

The professor is a bundle of energy. She was definitely the happiest person to be there, not that we were unhappy, as a whole.

First was the introduction, and we had to give, among other things, our tentative thesis topic. Uhhh...

One thing that both Leslie and I have noticed this semester is that professors have been going over the syllabi more. Whether that means glossing over it as opposed to just handing it out, or giving a more thorough rendition depends on the professor. In her case, it meant reading over the entirety of the text and explaining what everything meant. From the overview, and on through everything else. I admire her thoroughness, her excruciating detail. She is a very particular person about such things, and that will prove useful. I simply, due partially to my impatience, found the medium she chose to exercise it on lacking.

But the reading list seems engaging, and I actually like this translation of Aristotle (we're starting off with the Poetics), so... I hope the class grows on me. It should.

Women in American History:

I somehow expected my professor to be a modification of all the other professors I've had that have done Women's Studies or feminism, some variation on old and wise. While she has certainly earned her wisdom, she does not yet have the grey hair, which surprisingly cast considerable shock initially. Must... learn... not to cast too many preconceptions.

She seems like she'll be good. She had to restrain herself from cursing a few times (damn is off-limits, but smart-ass isn't, for an example of general limits). She also had the most interesting way of managing our introductions to each other. First, she made us draw a circle and write around it things that we identify with... rather, aspects of our identity. So, having done that (and not having gotten nearly done, as I realized later), she made us use that as a reference point... in talking about ourselves and then having others ask questions about us. One person liked Star Wars, a few people came from the same city and commented on that. Lots of cat loving and hating was going on.

Then it's my turn. "Hi, my name is James _____, I'm a senior in English. I hope to become a professor, but I know the job market isn't *terribly* good for that, so you could say I'm an optimist."
"The two aren't mutually exclusive," the professor observes.
"Yeah... I like my family and bowling and *insert a few other random things*... and I can't really think of other things at the moment."
"So, what field of English do you want to study?" A girl on the other side of the room says.
"Ah... I'm interested in medieval studies." Some murmurs go around the room.
"What's your highest bowling score?" someone else says, leaning forward a little.
"280," I say without thinking about it. There the murmuring really starts! I don't really know how such things happen (are they all simultaneously muttering, "What? 280?" or looking at each other or shuffling in their seats or...?), but there's a definite stirring only matched by a couple of other people.
"Wow, so you do bowl," the professor admits. Then the spotlight goes to someone else and I sit down, drained and relieved.

Class Part I!

So today was that wonderful day where people, many young, some older, walk into a class and sit in desks to shuffle about for a few minutes, making various attempts at conversation or dignified silence until a figure walks in front of the class, hands out sheets of paper, and talks for a while.

Yes, it was the first day of class. I had two classes going for me, both in the early afternoon.

Women Writers in Britain

Or, more accurately termed, Medieval and Renaissance Women Writers.

Like all classes I've taken with the word "Women" in them, this one was rather lopsided gender-wise, which is a shame in this case because what I've read of the different authors is broadly engaging material.

I've had the professor before, and she remembered me (after a spring and a summer!). She is both unflinchingly nice and demanding. (We're definitely going to be reading loads, as her syllabus declares.) It was a brief introduction, which was good. Apparently a lot of the focus (after Marie de France, our first few weeks of reading) will be on mystical revelation and Catholic theology, which will be difficult for me. But I'm willing to give it a shot.

Modern American Literature

This man has facial hair to be reckoned with.

No, no, he seems fairly good. Actually, I did an overachieving moment and printed off the syllabus from online before class, and did the readings. Like with the other professor, the syllabus tells a far harsher story than the professor does. He wants to have "true dialogue," that is, we expressing our ideas without any preconception on his part of what he wants in reply. I hope that works out.

Now, two more classes. One I have already read the syllabus for, and it scares me. Nonetheless, we'll see how it suits.

So this is what they think of Apaches

I ran across this a couple of days ago. Now, this song is one of those that has been done so many times that it's familiar from somewhere, whether it's from a commercial or whether it's the music that plays when the Braves hit a home run.

The original by the Shadows is good. Solid. You can find it on Youtube as well.

The Danish Tommy Seebach-made disco version, on the other hand, has a quality that has been described as kitsch, but that's not quite it. I can't help watching it... it is maddeningly fun to watch, because of its sheer cheesiness. It's dance music, it's beyond silly, overwrought, and yet the spirit of the song is contagious.

I think Scott should play the piano like this man does the keyboard. One foot always jamming it out.

Hammurabi!

Mischief managed!

It's been an action-packed morning, and now it's settled down. Woke up at 6, got to the DMV at 7, waited the obligatory hour, got my driver's license renewed, got a haircut, returned the library books, picked up the prescription for my face, and made it back in time for Cookie to eagerly beat her tail on the couch before she realized I wasn't wearing a bacon suit. (There's an idea for Halloween! Go as a giant strip of bacon... and tape a gnawing plush dog to the side. Or the top.)

Last night, I was doing the very occasional guilty pleasure of looking at the comments on the letters to the editor for the local newspaper. There's always a brief temptation to comment, but I know that most debates on an internet forum are venting, and especially with the tone of those people... I don't feel like being labeled a socialist for believing something that has nothing to do with socialism whatsoever.

But even though they didn't listen, they did say a few interesting things, which got me to thinking about punishment.

What is punishment for? We think a person broke the law. The law is enforced. They go in front of a judge, have their fair trial, and are either released or punished, depending on innocence or guilt. So we punish the guilty.

And of course punishment need not be only by the government. Society does it too. We disapprove of your actions. Your actions are bad. You are guilty of a bad thing. You are punished by our ostracizing you, by our thinking disapproving thoughts about you as we glower and refuse to accept you as one of us, our priveleged group of decent people.

That is the what. Why do that? An eye for an eye? Vengeance and retribution, another way of saying, "I've been wronged, and by doing this act, I'll feel right again?" What about punishment makes you feel right? "They're getting what they deserve." Do we deserve better? "Have we committed murder?" In those cases, point.

Why do they deserve it? "Because they've done wrong, and wrong acts should not be rewarded or let alone (and thus encouraged by silence), but rather deterred." Ah, deterred! And what better way to do that than to punish?

So we seek to deter crime. A punishment should both be a demonstration to the innocent that one should not commit this act and a prescription that would discourage an offender of repeating the offense.

On both fronts, there are problems with this model. For most crimes, no one could afford to do them if enforcement were absolute, even ones like speeding. (I'd hate to have to pay that much EVERY time the needle went over the line.) Just because you dabble on the other side of the law doesn't mean you will be punished for it, and in cases of particularly immoral crimes (like murder and theft), this is regrettable.

Second, we are human beings, whether we've committed a crime or not. Ideally, this means that we are kept in a diverse civil order by more than threat. If a person becomes comfortable with a gun constantly to their head and nothing else holding them back, they can do anything. Punishment is one way to deter and discourage, but it shouldn't be the only one employed. We should teach morals and ethics, and in teaching be careful not to coerce by brainwashing, for a coerced mind is simply the same person with the gun inside their head. For those that are already being punished, they should have some recourse to counseling, if they seem to require it. They didn't start out as criminals. One person last night said that we shouldn't spend so much time trying to understand why criminals act out, but I disagree. If we can learn why, we can better help them potentially reform themselves, and if it's a problem that can be addressed by society, then efforts may be made in that direction as well.

Punishment alone just doesn't cut it. It works for some, perhaps, but not for others. If preventing crimes from occuring again were our only goal, and human life weren't important, we could just kill every offender. But we are blessed with better sense than that, and hopefully we're bursting with so much sense that we can see that talking down isn't enough, that we must also encourage the good.


While I was writing this, I realized another thing that was influencing my thoughts on this. It's at an anti-legalized abortion rally, and they were being asked what the woman's punishment would be, and whether it would be the same as murder (as they claim in rhetoric). They gave intriguing answers, often not having really thought about the part of making abortion illegal where the people who still do it have to have something happen to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo

(Needless to say, I am pro-choice, in that I believe the woman is best able of deciding for herself what pregnancy means for her, when life begins, and whether she should have a baby, and she should have the option of a safe place should she decide it is necessary.)