Visiting Leslie

And now that I've ranted...

I went to see Leslie last weekend. I left Thursday morning. I'm not going to document every minute, but a few things we did include:

Tennis: The first day there, we went to get her a tennis racket. We wanted to play together. So after going to the Asian Farmer's Market for some Thai noodle ingredients, Guava juice, and moshi, we went to Toys R Us. No luck. The biggest rackets were the Dora and Diego models, much too small for use. So we meandered over to Target and found one for less than $20, a chipper blue one.

(She opted not to get the bright frilly pink one, to her credit. ^_~)

So Saturday we were ready to play. It went pretty well; we didn't actually serve or anything, just batted the ball around for a while. She was pretty good, and I wasn't too rusty, so we had a few good volleys. It was her first time since playing at a friend's house long ago.

(And we played again on Monday.)

Swimming: Her complex has a swimming pool; why not? After playing tennis on Saturday, we switched into our swimsuits and went out there. As we arrived, the sidewalk started to sing with rain. Cue people fleeing from their chairs from what turned out to be a five minute shower. We waited it out and had the pool to ourselves for a while, which we used to good effect, splashing, dunking, lifting, and twirling about. It was nice.

Picnic: On Friday we went to Ijams. It's a nature center just east of Knoxville. It was a morning activity. We'd gotten a lemon rosemary chicken, roasted garlic bread, boursin cheese, strawberries, and a few other items. (We'd hoped for Dr. Brown's cherry soda, but to no avail; I had Black Cherry IBC, and I believe she had Key Lime.) After spending the rest of the morning walking around the nature paths they have, we found a quiet shady place, spread a sheet on a picnic table, and feasted. It was scrumptious, glorious, delicious... and the bugs wanted some, but we managed well enough. After this we sat in the grass (again with the sheet) and read poetry. Some of it was excellent, some of it was laughable like "O Luxury," and some of it we couldn't say right, like Chaucer's.

Finally, around mid-afternoon, we left, but not without some gifts. Namely, the 15 or so awkward chigger bites up and down her legs and torso. Ow. >_< (I only had a couple.)

D&D: So Friday evening Derek wanted to run a session of roleplaying. Robbie and Patrick came by, Becky came out, and I got wrangled into NPCing an elven Sorceror for the fighter-type do-good Ogre Robbie played. Leslie, knowing she'd have to work most Fridays, opted out of doing more than relaxing or watching.

We had the quest set up and ended up getting off at a dead-end stop in a zombie village, which we're now travelling through nervously, having already had a fateful engagement with some of them. (The others waded around and did a variety of melee, while I stood back and alternately cast such classics as "Magic Missile" and snuck up closer to be relatively useless with the bow.) It ended about then. Pretty fun. ^_^

(Non-sequitor) During the character creation we finished up a game of Scrabble we'd started earlier. It was an epic game. She had created the point-garnering word "Festive" and thwarted my being able to play all seven letters. In return I got some huge letter bonuses and finally got into the lead. However, as the game wore on my advantage again declined, and she ended up the victor... by no more than a few points. (I believe we were both around 300?)

Also, Saturday we played Neverwinter Nights multiplayer, in a campaign that involved escorting a caravan through a dangerous desert. I played my wizard, Periwinkle Pendragon, along with the Bard (Becky), Barbarian (I think) (Derek), and Rogue (Leslie).

Lightning: After playing tennis on Monday, we were going to play Frisbee. Dark clouds were coming, but the radar looked hopeful (the only likely blotch was too far south and moving east at the moment we checked), so we walked about 5 minutes to the nearest park.

A few tosses and comments about the wind later, there is a sudden crash above. There is a sort of simultaneous discoloration, bright crackling white and blue and yellow, and the heavens reverberate so much that I reel. Leslie and I look at each other. We should head back.

It starts sprinkling on the way, and by the time we're inside, a good shower starts.

And we also had a lot of lightning and storming on the way back from Leslie's family's house on Sunday. Was inconvenient. Wait! That's something else.

Visiting Leslie's Family: This happened all day Sunday. It was fun. Her mom's a nice woman and an excellent cook. (I've met her before.) Her dad is friendly enough, and though his cooking went untested, I trust his is at least as good, since he's been a chef in the past. And her brother is cool. Has a potty mouth at the moment, but he was good to play with. I beat him some in Battlefront, he beat me always in Soul Caliber II, it was a pretty good time. Seeing photos, plants, remnants of an insect collection, going on a drive around town and then a brief walk in a wood, all these things were really refreshing.

Food: Leslie cooked twice. I helped, chopping up things and lending moral support. (In some places there wasn't too much I could do, not having a formal recipe on hand.) The first was Thai noodles. The second was a kind of casserole with shell macaroni, spaghetti sauce, and sausage covered with cheese. Both were excellent.

Movies: We watched a 1960's version of Romeo and Juliet, the ballet. It was wonderful, without as much of the gratuitous ballet dancing that sometimes happens. It was as complex as it needed to be, sometimes rambunctious, sometimes sorrowful, and ... my, my. Look up Margot Fonteyn. And Rudolph Nureyev. They were the best dancers I've ever seen, which isn't saying much, but which Leslie might say isn't too far off the mark.

Then one night we watched "Dead End Drive-In". It was one of those futuristic apocalypse in Australia kind of stories, involving massive numbers of unemployed and spikes in crimes. The protagonist, an unemployed, goes to the cinema with his girlfriend in his brother's vintage Chevy. It ends up getting two of its wheels taken and they find out they're in a concentration camp where they're given free movies and drugs, but not allowed to leave. The girlfriend enjoys it there, and this causes a rift, but the hero, undaunted by repeated setbacks, continues his struggle against apathy. It was a decent movie, and though it had some flaws, they did represent fights realistically, and it was really a good concept they worked around.

Finally, we saw a classic Peter Sellers movie, "The Mouse that Roared," centered around a small European Duchy of Fenthick, which declares war on America intending to lose. They send their 30-man army across the Atlantic with an inept commander, and end up... well, it's pretty funny, and more than pretty fun.

Quack: We did more, and a lot can't be said, because a visit cannot be fully qualified in words, even if it lasted for a few minutes. It was good to see her, to be able to relax around her. That should say loads. ^_^

Media Bias

Look it up on Wikipedia. It's worth a skim, though admittedly it's tough to slog through.

Anyway, after I got done reading/skimming/skipping bits and pieces of it, I remembered something. Wait! Wikipedia could be biased too. So I learned on NPR, as they were studying a reactionary group, Conservapedia.

No, I don't really think Wikipedia is biased maliciously, and any bias is one that we all share. Conservapedia, however, is hilariously biased (read the name). At least, it's amusing until I realize this is real, and someone actually thought this.

Read its descriptions of Republicans and Democrats.

1. The Republicans have an ideology section and the Democrats don't. "The outstanding difference between the mind set and political ideals of the Republicans and that of the Democrats is that the Republican Party tends to emphasize more the ideal that societal health is rooted in personal responsibility and actions." Complete the thought. Democrats apparently don't stand for personal responsibility at all. Or actions.
2. The other sections are also more lengthy for the Republicans.
3. It jabs at the number of Democratic presidents. Alright. But then look at the Republican Party article. The section, "Presidential Dominance," more specifically. "In terms of winning presidential elections, the Republican Party has been the most successful political party in U.S. history. Since the American Civil War, Grover Cleveland is the only non-incumbent Democrat who has won the office of President of the United States under "ordinary" circumstances (meaning no third party, no Great Depression, no disputed count in Illinois, no assassination of the previous president, no Watergate)." Gee, I guess Vietnam, the economic conditions in 1980, and other circumstances are ordinary. Republicans get elected by merit, and Democrats... by circumstance, when really, they are all affected by ample amounts of both.

... there's more. But let's move on to Harry Potter. Admittedly, except for a fixation on whether the book passes the Christian test, there doesn't seem to be too much wrong here.

And, if you're wanting more, just type in things that you know will be controversial. It's interesting to read, because it actually promotes itself as a skewed source, one that reports from a certain perspective, but it seems to allow this because it views itself as the dominant or true perspective, pro-American and pro-Christian and therefore right. There is no attempt for balanced information, for weighing all sides of the issue. They've picked a side and they're sticking to it. Description and criticism are not separate but integrated. They don't have the benefit of numbers for varied perspectives, but they don't need it for that so much as they need a quantity of articles they do not yet have.

Wikipedia spins its wheels trying to be unbiased, balanced, and neutral, and their efforts are dismissed as failing. Conservapedia responds by denying the possibility of neutrality. There is no other valid view for them. There is only the homogenous, and the incongruous. They don't have to worry over their being right. Such arrogance...

Apparently the search engine that I'm using to generate possible grad schools doesn't exclusively scour my field of study.

"University of California, San Diego
Scripps Institute of Oceanography"

That is, unless they have a program for sea literature. I could become an expert in Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Moby Dick, and The Hunt for Red October! Interesting, because feature characters in each work have been played by (respectively) Orson Welles, Patrick Stewart, and Sean Connery. Oh my.

A few surprises otherwise (in searching better-targeted sites):
Most programs offer full tuition, an appropriate price for steep admission rates.
Many also offer a sizeable stipend, though the size varies. (From what I've seen, $10,000 is a good median.)
I'll need to know at least one other language besides French (which I'd only need a refresher on). Luckily I think I can learn that during my studies, but that will be difficult anyhow.
Many programs also offer health insurance for dependents and spouses as well. (They often require copayments.)
The English subject test is required in a lot of places, but it is surprisingly not required in some good programs. Rigor in other areas?
The number of years, the number of classes, everything varies widely. On the low end, Cornell has a combined Master's/PhD program that takes 5 years. Others go a year or two longer. One might require 13 classes, another might require twice that number. (Admittedly, those two were at extremes.)

And this is a list of works commonly appearing on the English subject test GRE. I'm not sure how y'all end up, but as for me... it seems like I've read about a third, have a good context grasp on a third, and am poorly or not at all familiar with a third. Which I guess is a decent place to be.

Now to find my yellow submarine...

Communication When Occupied

This is an art I've had to master with my former orthodontist, Dr. W. He would always talk when he was adjusting braces and observing the teeth, and he would often say things that seemed to require a yes or no question. Was he asking something? Is it rhetorical? Does he want me to elaborate?

While my mouth is straining to stay open (I have a much tougher time than Scott in this respect), there have to be other ways to communicate. So today at the dentist, I thought about the possible lexicon.

Vocalizing -

Uh-huh : Positive yes
Mmn : A more pensive yes
Uh-uh : Nah
Uh!: No!
Uuuuhhhhhhh!! : Nononono!
Eh-oh: Thank you
Uh-oh: Uh-oh
Ouw: Ow
Eh: Indifference

Other gesturing is normally done with the eyebrows and eyes. Normally raising the eyebrows briefly can connote yes, while knitting the brow has the opposite effect. Otherwise, experiment with facial expressions that only involve parts above the cheekbone. Despite not having the mouth, they can normally infer from the partial portrait.

Not recommended for giving dissertations. The limited range of words will leave professors literally speechless. Amuse them with plaque candy.

Cavities: 0
Lifetime Cavities: 0
(Now, next time I go, I will be jinxed)

I wrote an opinion

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070608/OPINION03/706080348/1014/OPINION

And it appears that the person I was responding to was representative of the last name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reagan

I wish I had the article on hand to offer. It's fine for him to disagree with me. I only got so frustrated because it was full of clunky rhetoric and never did make a substantive jab. So I vented.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

It's fun to read a book and expect from its descriptions a fairly faithful portrayal of historical reality in nineteenth (?) century Mexico. And then, when the gypsies come and they're riding a flying carpet, I'm expecting some kind of explanation, some kind of trick. All of this is done, and only later, when many more magnificent things happen (and cease to happen) that I realize that what's possible didn't matter back there, but simply what happened.

The question mark above is also a consequence of that realization. For a while I was also concerned with the historical time (the title, after all, describes a century), but I've stopped worrying about it beyond the fact that time is passing and things are changing, and they fuzzily resemble what I know at this point in the book, and I could try to tie them to a date, but I would be missing points. Not the point. Lots of them. All over. And many times they're not points at all, but rounded curves, that lead you in a different direction, even if only for a moment. No locus of concentrated revelation. Sometimes perhaps not even revelation, but that moment of seeing something sparkling, not new, but good.

What I have to look forward to in the next month (that I know of):
Wii party/zoo with Diana, Katie, and Scott - next week?
Visit Leslie again - June 22
Cox family reunion - June 30
Independence Day (or singed fingertips in the joys of rocketry and shiny colors day) - July 4
Vacation - The week after that