Paper is now done.
It was quite an adventure yesterday. First I had class (Restoration Literature), and we were discussing Fielding's Shamela, a satire on the moralizing Samuel Richardson work Pamela. Fielding thinks Pamela is a sham.
Anyway, that's really an irrelevant setup. About twenty minutes before the end, someone walked out of class, and then in sight of the door collapsed. The gasp came from behind me first, then the professor jolted over to see. Only her legs were visible from my vantage point, shaking. It turns out she's epileptic.
Two or three people, accompanied by the professor, go out there to help. Most of the rest of class, including me, sits there patiently. There wasn't much I could do. I know a little first aid, but ROTC guy already knows that and was out there. They needed someone to call, but someone got their cell phone out first. It doesn't seem decent to become an audience. So we sat and waited. Finally I started doing some math, which Richard scoffed at, "Though it's only because I'm jealous." Finally paramedics came and we finished the clas off by describing the final exam. Even if we'd had time to discuss literature, there was too much tension and concern to do so.
Then lunch, then writing paper, then Women's Studies, then the paper. I'm midthought in the fourth of fifth essays I wanted to describe and discuss, and had just gotten past a difficult point, and was really flowing. Then BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP MROOOOOOOOOOOOWR!
The fire alarm, the one they put IN MY ROOM, the one that is at ear-cringing levels, the one that is close to ear-bleeding volume, goes off. So I frantically upload the paper to the web, a whirr of clicks as I cover my ears with a t-shirt. Then I gather my papers, run to the door, twist the knob, and pull. The door rewards me with the knob coming off. Baffled, I try tugging on the bottom of the door to get out. No avail. Now the fire alarm is really getting on my nerves. Good thing it's probably not a fire, but... I really don't want to stay in here. So I start trying to get the doorknob back in. After some twisting around, it falls into place. But I can't pull it anymore. So I pull at the bottom of the door while I twist the knob to open the door, prop it open while I get my papers, and then relocate to the computer lab. Finally I finish, just in time for Wyrd.
So I get there, and we play a couple of games (Munchkin and Once Upon a Time). Then in the break I run my hand along the grain on the table we're playing. Ow! I pull my hand back and look at it. There's a skin flap on my palm, near the index finger. Leslie immediately keys in on this. "Is it bleeding?" "No, not yet... oh, yes. Yes, now it is." She goes to get her bandaids, and while I'm washing it off, someone (I'm guessing Fiona) hammers down the cause: a solid stable with the top broken off, so that there are two metal points coming out. It's alright now, except that it's tough to keep a bandaid on there. There's tape around my hand to hold it on, which of course makes it look worse than it is.
And today is the last full day of classes. I can finally take it easy. It's far easier to study for exams, even if they involve the same preparation as writing a paper (essays), because the information's all there. There aren't any classes, any conflicting and/or invisible assignments that will spring up on the horizon. This is it. 3 hours a day of preparation isn't bad at all. That's a morning, or an afternoon, and not both of those plus part of the evening.
I wonder what it's like to work a job where there's no homework, where at 3, 4, or 5 PM I'd leave to work more the next day without worry during the intervening hours.
Apr 27, 2007
Apr 25, 2007
Halfway done with a paper analyzing feminist criticism of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur. It's actually entertaining (for me, anyway). Arthurian legend is fascinating, and the readings that some of these critics give are particularly ingenius, considering that they're finding feminine subtexts in a work that is overarchingly masculine and also based on a legend that is the same in its primordial forms.
It's not that they want to supplant the work, or I wouldn't be able to support their efforts. It's a different way of looking at it. I already am able to appreciate Arthur's rise, reign, and fall as king, Lancelot's struggle to maintain chivalric virtue and monamorous love even as that love is gained from Guenevere, the wife of the King he swore his oaths to, Gawain's struggle to reign in his rebellious family and govern the split, even as he's driven mad by the loss of his two sons. There's Galahad, Percival, Kay, Pellinore, Mordred, and a host of others, and these studies shine more light (and grant more importance narratively) to Nyneve (the Lady of the Lake), Morgan le Fay (the enchantress that tries to thwart Arthur), Percival's sister (who acts as a guide and then sacrifices herself so the Grail quest can go on), Elaine (who mothers, by Lancelot, Galahad), Guenevere, Igrayne (Arthur's mother), and others.
It is a lot like looking at a picture for a long time, and you see a certain part and wonder, "Well, I see it, but I don't understand it." Or maybe you just don't understand it. And then maybe someone tells you, or if you're moving a certain way, you catch a glimpse of something new.
It's not that they want to supplant the work, or I wouldn't be able to support their efforts. It's a different way of looking at it. I already am able to appreciate Arthur's rise, reign, and fall as king, Lancelot's struggle to maintain chivalric virtue and monamorous love even as that love is gained from Guenevere, the wife of the King he swore his oaths to, Gawain's struggle to reign in his rebellious family and govern the split, even as he's driven mad by the loss of his two sons. There's Galahad, Percival, Kay, Pellinore, Mordred, and a host of others, and these studies shine more light (and grant more importance narratively) to Nyneve (the Lady of the Lake), Morgan le Fay (the enchantress that tries to thwart Arthur), Percival's sister (who acts as a guide and then sacrifices herself so the Grail quest can go on), Elaine (who mothers, by Lancelot, Galahad), Guenevere, Igrayne (Arthur's mother), and others.
It is a lot like looking at a picture for a long time, and you see a certain part and wonder, "Well, I see it, but I don't understand it." Or maybe you just don't understand it. And then maybe someone tells you, or if you're moving a certain way, you catch a glimpse of something new.
Apr 24, 2007
Thanks to Chi Alpha's ads in the school paper supporting Intelligent Design, I have found a new way to write articles. It liberates the argument, so to speak. So, you read skim indeterminantly browse a critical article, one based in fact, and cite it. Then you pair a brief array of observations with some unfair extrapolation and then affix that God created us. Why, I've been doing this paper-writing thing wrong the whole time!
Here's an attempt of mine.
Women: Magical Tricksters
A new reading of Le Morte Darthur reveals that Arthurian women were enchantresses who would urge world events along. Through their magical ways, the virtue of the chivalric order was properly displayed. Research suggests that they enchanted in two different ways; either directly using magic, or indirectly through love. In this sense, Guenevere, Morgan, and Nyneve accomplish the same purposes by different means. Of course he could not show the full extent of their power within the constraints of the chronicle. He knew more than he wrote. Thus this is a small demonstration of how Malory realized women are bewitchers and probably shoot laser beams out of their eyes while atop a unicorn that definitely evolved from a zebra and rhinoceros mating.
Heng, Geraldine. “Enchanted Ground: The Feminine Subtext in Malory.” Le Morte Darthur. Ed. Stephen H.A. Shepherd. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. 835-849.
Here's an attempt of mine.
Women: Magical Tricksters
A new reading of Le Morte Darthur reveals that Arthurian women were enchantresses who would urge world events along. Through their magical ways, the virtue of the chivalric order was properly displayed. Research suggests that they enchanted in two different ways; either directly using magic, or indirectly through love. In this sense, Guenevere, Morgan, and Nyneve accomplish the same purposes by different means. Of course he could not show the full extent of their power within the constraints of the chronicle. He knew more than he wrote. Thus this is a small demonstration of how Malory realized women are bewitchers and probably shoot laser beams out of their eyes while atop a unicorn that definitely evolved from a zebra and rhinoceros mating.
Heng, Geraldine. “Enchanted Ground: The Feminine Subtext in Malory.” Le Morte Darthur. Ed. Stephen H.A. Shepherd. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. 835-849.
Apr 23, 2007
Bowling Balls and Cyborgs
The bowling alley took a chunk out of my ball!
Chunk is defined as a volume of the ball, roughly pyramidic, about 1 x 2 x .75 inches.
It was during practice. I was trying to keep my hand the way I had it last week, that enabled me to do so well. About a third of the time, it would stray toward the gutter. Nothing wrong with that, normally it works itself out as I get a good rhythm going, and by the time we started, I would've been fine.
So I let go. Immediately I know it's off. It hits the gutter, reaches near to the end, and then flips out, bangs against the pinsetter, and falls. My heart sank, and I brooded over the ball return. It arrived, and I picked it up, looking it over minutely. Then I realized what one of my hands was feeling. A chunk... I turned it around. Beneath the surface, the material appeared glassy, consistent in color to the rest... it would've been beautiful, if it were a rock or anything but a bowling ball. My ball. The one Dad got me not three months ago.
I can still bowl with it, but it's sort of like having a car without a trunk lid. It's technically possible, but do you have the heart to drive it, unless you absolutely need to? It doesn't look right, and because you know what it's missing, it doesn't feel right either.
I bowled three games, did good in one, terrible in one, and mediocre in one, in reverse order. The UC is good for spare practice, where the ball doesn't matter that much, but... this is yet another reason why next fall I will probably be bowling elsewhere.
Curt did alright. We won 1.5 games. The other two teammates didn't show up. They typically come late, which irritates my punctuality or better rule, where we have to make excuses for them, asking to wait just 5 minutes. They're obliging of course, but we shouldn't always have to do that. They aren't coming from class or dinner...
Otherwise, my day was quite good.
Among other things, we read an excerpt from a feminist who tries to compare the experience of marginalized groups with that of a cyborg. A cyborg, she says, is a figure without an origin, an initial unity. Made up of constituent parts after the fact, of tools that are already around, they nevertheless gain a wholeness without an appeal to an initial origin. In the same way, marginalized workers come from outside a structure, without any origin within it, and learn to exist.
I follow it, I think, but I wonder what she sees as a cyborg. I must be missing the necessary literature on them. I think that using a cyborg here is very hard. They are humans enhanced by machinery in some way. I don't see, beyond that experience of put-togetherness, how they relate. Then again, that's why it's a metaphor.
There's Ed from Full Metal Alchemist (anime), who has a robotic arm and leg, "automail" that he had to receive after losing the limbs from a failed attempt at alchemically reviving his mom (he used them to save his younger brother and instill him in a suit of armor). Ziggurat 8 (Ziggy) from Xenosaga (game) sold his body upon his death to be brought back to life as a cyborg, and he forms connections with an organically engineered girl to become a father-figure to her. In the Dune series (book), the repeatedly recreated ghola Duncan Idaho gains a realization of his place and finally finds love and escapes the machinations of those Tleilaxu that keep creating him. There's Darth Vader, who despite being entrapped in robotic parts and consumed by his anger, eventually comes to reconciliation and redemption by his son. There's Robocop, the Six Million Dollar Man, not to mention the many men and women who need replacement limbs and mechanical aids to help them perform rudimentary functions in daily life. Asimov wrote a short story about people choosing to get metallic limbs for the idea of it, even after organic prosthetic limbs were possible.
She could have explored how a cyborg does not have to be different, on the level of practice, from any other person, save in capability. They too can form families, bonds, and though they are enhanced or enabled by their equipment, that need not imply a difference in social response, a difference in mental capability. It can, but it need not. So, in creating a cyborg, are we adorning the person from before, or creating a new person? She would have the latter occur. That's where the metaphor breaks down, because she doesn't account for why cyborgs become cyborgs. Is there no continuity between parts and whole? Why is the idea of unity or origin denied to a cyborg, when in many cases they can yet find it for themselves, and many people who aren't cyborgs spend all their lives trying to find it?
I think she uses them as a metaphor too flippantly, and though what they illustrate is important, it's gotten through ill means.
Chunk is defined as a volume of the ball, roughly pyramidic, about 1 x 2 x .75 inches.
It was during practice. I was trying to keep my hand the way I had it last week, that enabled me to do so well. About a third of the time, it would stray toward the gutter. Nothing wrong with that, normally it works itself out as I get a good rhythm going, and by the time we started, I would've been fine.
So I let go. Immediately I know it's off. It hits the gutter, reaches near to the end, and then flips out, bangs against the pinsetter, and falls. My heart sank, and I brooded over the ball return. It arrived, and I picked it up, looking it over minutely. Then I realized what one of my hands was feeling. A chunk... I turned it around. Beneath the surface, the material appeared glassy, consistent in color to the rest... it would've been beautiful, if it were a rock or anything but a bowling ball. My ball. The one Dad got me not three months ago.
I can still bowl with it, but it's sort of like having a car without a trunk lid. It's technically possible, but do you have the heart to drive it, unless you absolutely need to? It doesn't look right, and because you know what it's missing, it doesn't feel right either.
I bowled three games, did good in one, terrible in one, and mediocre in one, in reverse order. The UC is good for spare practice, where the ball doesn't matter that much, but... this is yet another reason why next fall I will probably be bowling elsewhere.
Curt did alright. We won 1.5 games. The other two teammates didn't show up. They typically come late, which irritates my punctuality or better rule, where we have to make excuses for them, asking to wait just 5 minutes. They're obliging of course, but we shouldn't always have to do that. They aren't coming from class or dinner...
Otherwise, my day was quite good.
Among other things, we read an excerpt from a feminist who tries to compare the experience of marginalized groups with that of a cyborg. A cyborg, she says, is a figure without an origin, an initial unity. Made up of constituent parts after the fact, of tools that are already around, they nevertheless gain a wholeness without an appeal to an initial origin. In the same way, marginalized workers come from outside a structure, without any origin within it, and learn to exist.
I follow it, I think, but I wonder what she sees as a cyborg. I must be missing the necessary literature on them. I think that using a cyborg here is very hard. They are humans enhanced by machinery in some way. I don't see, beyond that experience of put-togetherness, how they relate. Then again, that's why it's a metaphor.
There's Ed from Full Metal Alchemist (anime), who has a robotic arm and leg, "automail" that he had to receive after losing the limbs from a failed attempt at alchemically reviving his mom (he used them to save his younger brother and instill him in a suit of armor). Ziggurat 8 (Ziggy) from Xenosaga (game) sold his body upon his death to be brought back to life as a cyborg, and he forms connections with an organically engineered girl to become a father-figure to her. In the Dune series (book), the repeatedly recreated ghola Duncan Idaho gains a realization of his place and finally finds love and escapes the machinations of those Tleilaxu that keep creating him. There's Darth Vader, who despite being entrapped in robotic parts and consumed by his anger, eventually comes to reconciliation and redemption by his son. There's Robocop, the Six Million Dollar Man, not to mention the many men and women who need replacement limbs and mechanical aids to help them perform rudimentary functions in daily life. Asimov wrote a short story about people choosing to get metallic limbs for the idea of it, even after organic prosthetic limbs were possible.
She could have explored how a cyborg does not have to be different, on the level of practice, from any other person, save in capability. They too can form families, bonds, and though they are enhanced or enabled by their equipment, that need not imply a difference in social response, a difference in mental capability. It can, but it need not. So, in creating a cyborg, are we adorning the person from before, or creating a new person? She would have the latter occur. That's where the metaphor breaks down, because she doesn't account for why cyborgs become cyborgs. Is there no continuity between parts and whole? Why is the idea of unity or origin denied to a cyborg, when in many cases they can yet find it for themselves, and many people who aren't cyborgs spend all their lives trying to find it?
I think she uses them as a metaphor too flippantly, and though what they illustrate is important, it's gotten through ill means.
Apr 22, 2007
An Explanation
What am I doing here?
Mom informed me this evening that both of my sisters (Katie and Diana) have blogs now, and that they are both very good writers. I read them, and was inspired. I've had a blog before, but lately it hasn't seen much action; most of the writings I once put into it get written to my girlfriend (Leslie) instead, or remain unwritten, dissociated picture frames hanging in my cluttered mind.
I don't know exactly what I'll post about yet. That's probably not a good sign. Partly it will be constructive, descriptive venting on what I'm reading, what I encounter and find fascinating, along with the occasional comment, "Gee! How snooty is it in here!" Self-consciousness is definitely a part of it.
The title of the blog... when I was little, I used to have an alter-ego. Dr. Professor. He had a deeper voice than I did, and was ready to expostulate on intelligent inquiries in general. If he had to be a professor of anything, he would have a PhD in History, English, African Safaris, and Science (I hadn't found space yet). Whether this was indicative of anything or not, I'm currently accomplishing undergraduate work in English, and hope (beyond hope) to become an English professor, and spend my career reading dusty old tomes, writing about the interesting change of subject/verb relation accompanied by a metrical variation in line 127 (a prime), and teaching students the joys of literature. All this from a person that likes so many other things, and could nearly as happily be a mathematics professor, among other fields. But I'm determined not to be in college for 13 (prime) years, as there are other things to do, people to see, lives to live, and yes, money to earn.
Maybe one day I'll be simply Dr. Professor.
Mom informed me this evening that both of my sisters (Katie and Diana) have blogs now, and that they are both very good writers. I read them, and was inspired. I've had a blog before, but lately it hasn't seen much action; most of the writings I once put into it get written to my girlfriend (Leslie) instead, or remain unwritten, dissociated picture frames hanging in my cluttered mind.
I don't know exactly what I'll post about yet. That's probably not a good sign. Partly it will be constructive, descriptive venting on what I'm reading, what I encounter and find fascinating, along with the occasional comment, "Gee! How snooty is it in here!" Self-consciousness is definitely a part of it.
The title of the blog... when I was little, I used to have an alter-ego. Dr. Professor. He had a deeper voice than I did, and was ready to expostulate on intelligent inquiries in general. If he had to be a professor of anything, he would have a PhD in History, English, African Safaris, and Science (I hadn't found space yet). Whether this was indicative of anything or not, I'm currently accomplishing undergraduate work in English, and hope (beyond hope) to become an English professor, and spend my career reading dusty old tomes, writing about the interesting change of subject/verb relation accompanied by a metrical variation in line 127 (a prime), and teaching students the joys of literature. All this from a person that likes so many other things, and could nearly as happily be a mathematics professor, among other fields. But I'm determined not to be in college for 13 (prime) years, as there are other things to do, people to see, lives to live, and yes, money to earn.
Maybe one day I'll be simply Dr. Professor.
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