Coveting the bridal way

Why is registering for items for my wedding so hard? I like finding things I want, but I like to take my time at it. I like to read all the reviews and look at multiple items and then say "YES, this particular teapot is the one I really want." This takes hours and hours to do for more than about 20 things. I can't help it! I'm picky! I don't want really deep soup bowls that will take up all the dishwasher space, but I don't want really shallow ones either. Where are the beautiful stoneware bowls of my youth that are perfectly shaped to fit in the bowl part of the dishwasher?

Oh, we're registered at Bed Bath & Beyond and at Amazon, in case you were wondering (I have my own Amazon wishlist and a separate list of things I want to keep track of, so don't get confused!). I've been trying to register for Amazon items that are under $20. Like, for example, this stress-relieving Edamame bean. Only $4.50! I think the funniest thing is the "other people who bought this also bought" for this item: the postsecret book, Maus II, and Dragon Quest IV. So... people who buy it are internet-savvy comic-reading gamers. I may or may not fit this description ;;. Oh, and have you heard of Mameshiba? The little bean that comes out is a Mameshiba... thing. Bean. Check out the youtube video. My roommate L. said it was "like despair.com only cuter."

I tried to think of items that might not be COMPLETELY boring. For example, a pilates ball! Play video games and strengthen your back! Oh, and I found this cute vintage wall clock that should look good in the kitchen somewhere. And a butter dish! Some day I will have my very own butter dish, and I won't have to either keep it in the fridge or precariously in its wax wrapping on my pantry shelf. I tried looking for some items on etsy, but it's either too hard to find things that I want, or too easy to get sidetracked (check out this locket or this owl clock necklace. Why do I want them so bad?). Anyway, I can't believe I spent the whole afternoon on this.

Authorial insertion in text-based adventures?

Okay cats and kittens, if you can, I would like a little help from you. I'm hoping to write a paper on authorial insertion for my American Autobiography class (i.e., author-as-character thing). To do this, I need some material. In fiction it's fairly common - Nabokov's Bend Sinister and Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions use it. I suspect that many text-based adventure games do this. So far I've only been able to find John's Fire Witch (a review on the xyzzy page comments on it). And I guess that would be enough to work with, but I would like to know if I'm making some glaring omission. "Honorarium" and Jason Rohrer's "Passage" and "Gravitation" feature the author as the main character (or at least an autobiographical character), but they don't have words, which makes it a little more difficult to justify writing about in an English class.

edit: apparently TVtropes has a page for this

Non-wedding-related goals for this summer:

 I am taking one class and planning my wedding, but I want to do other things too. Specifically:

1. Start learning Japanese. I've checked out some books from the library, including one of those "complete course"s with audio CD. It helps that Adam likes teaching me. I might not be literate for a while, but I can at least say "I'm sorry, I don't speak Japanese." (I'm still working on "Where is the nearest bus stop?" and "Where is my suitcase?")


2. Read fiction that is not for a class. I started on this one by reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I'm almost done with Oblivion, and then I have some books my professor lent me (which are for fun I promise). I'm also trying to read more "serious" graphic novels so I can have something to say when I read manga. These include The Sandman series and random new graphic novels that appear in the BYU library. Currently Epileptic is one of these.

3. Start research for thesis. This should include playing text-based adventure games... but honestly, they're not my favorite type of game. Usually they are so hard! I think I just have to make myself get used to them. I've also ordered some books that have to do with ergodic literature (interactive text), hypertext, narrative in computer games, and other related subjects, which hopefully will be interesting even not in conjunction with my thesis. I'm excited for the book Twisty Little Passages.  I've also decided that The Eleventh Hour is definitely ergodic literature and as such I should probably spend some time studying it. That and the annotated Alice in Wonderland.

4. Play more video games. Related to (3), I do think that playing video games will help inspire my thesis ideas. I'm still not sure what exactly I can say about how text-based adventure games are cool. Do they use fantasy in a way different from literature? How are the puzzles related to the meaning of the game, if there is any connection? So, for example, Chrono Trigger has some puzzles that do not seem very meaningful. In the prehistoric era you have to refrain from fighting the beetles right away so they can dig a hole in the ground for you, and choosing which hole to go down is pretty much random until you get an idea of what the dungeon is like. But the cooler puzzles are the ones that require time-travel. The one with the castle ghost and Frog is especially interesting. So, you can visit the castle in the present and try to fight the ghost there, but you can't beat him. Instead, you have to go back in time and give some tools to this carpenter (okay, that part was lame) and kill all the monsters there in the past. Well... now that I'm writing it that doesn't really make sense either. Can you think of examples of cool puzzles in video games that contributed to the meaning of the game?

5. Keep up on Latin and Russian (and Spanish?)? This is a more secondary goal that I'm always thinking about and feel badly about when I realize how much I've forgotten. I was thinking of buying Wheelock's Latin (I have Freundlich, which has a gorgeous cover design, so maybe I don't need Wheelock), but instead I found this Latin reader called Lingua Latina and I am SO EXCITED for it to come in the mail. It is entirely in Latin (except for an word index in the back) and tries to teach Latin in a more fluid, organic way, (with lots of pictures) rather than the rote memorization and decoding that I learned in high school (yes, we worked on The Aenied, but I never ever thought in Latin; all the time I was translating it into English in my head). I have one of those silly Latin phrasebooks somewhere I bought on sale at the bookstore, which was cool, but I hope this will be EVEN COOLER.

As for Russian... I have plenty of materials. One time I was at DI and found like three Russian books! I have some children's books in Russian along with a collection of stories, but they're really hard to read! I also have a collection of Russian animated cartoons (which have no subtitles and are also hard to understand). I have a "First 1,000 words" book and that nice book of Russian roots (I love word roots, which probably explains my excitement about Latin). I have some Pimsleur mp3s, and while I appreciate their pedagogical soundness, they are incredibly boring to listen to. I also have a dictionary for foreigners. It defines the word in Russian and also has one-word definitions in English, French, Spanish, and... probably German. The downside is that it's not very fun to read. One of my very favorite books to read has been the Russian Graded Readers I-V. It is so cool! It defines each word the first time it appears, and then gradually introduces more words and tenses. The first one is a story from A Hero of Our Time dumbed-down into all present tense. They add in past tenses as you go on along with more vocabulary. All of the selections are from easily read famous Russian authors with the vocabulary simplified so you're not always looking words up (which to me is one of the most boring parts of reading things in a different language). The tragic thing about this reader is that it is out of print. (One of my Russian profs sent us the PDF files of the first two parts, which I would say is totally fair use. I have my own copy of the reader which I miraculously found at DI. I had another copy too, and I sold it to a classmate.) On the subject of "things I am passionate about" I think we can add "language acquisition tools that take advantage of cognitive science."

Anyway, if you're still there, I still want to know your opinions on meaningful video game puzzles and any amazing foreign language materials you've encountered.

Limited possibilites

When I was a child I didn't think too hard about how furniture and fabric come about. I assumed that everything was easily instantly customizable. I don't know why I thought this - I had been to a fabric store myself, and I knew there weren't infinite varieties. Maybe the sheer variety of types of furniture and blankets I'd seen convinced me that a high variation was possible.

Now that I'm actually kind of shopping for things like furniture and bedspreads, it occurs to me how limited I am in my choices. While the internet adds a lot of options, it also adds a lot of shipping and a lot of "maybe the photo just looks good." Maybe custom designs are possible, but prohibitively expensive. It feels weird to invest time and energy into buying things that reflect my personality that others will buy. I guess that's the price of mass production, and maybe that's why some people like quilting (so they really can make their own designs).

in which I whine again

"When's the big day?" is a phrase many conversation partners have decided to use to replace the question "What is your wedding date?" Does it feel so weird to say that I'm getting married? Is it a way to make a perfectly good question more conversational? Maybe it's hard to make appropriate jokes about me getting married, so my interlocutors must resort to colloquialisms to keep a serious subject light-hearted. Anyway, I think it's kind of weird that probably 80% of the people I talk to about myself ask when I'm getting married in those exact words.

Something mostly unrelated that has been bothering me: I still don't really have an occupation. I don't want to teach freshman English for the rest of my life. I wonder if I could become a bibliotherapist ("oh, well, if you have insomnia, you should try reading Proust, it puts forty percent of readers to sleep within ten pages"). Sometimes my classes just feel like book clubs glorified with some background reading and justified with a degree. It's fine for a hobby (for me). I still don't really understand how literary criticism makes the world a better place (Scottish independence notwithstanding). Maybe a more entertaining place. Also - this is possibly bad of me, but it's such a relief to have in the future a husband who will support me in my entertaining indecision.

quite redux

I didn't give you the whole story about "quite." Quite can mean boy "completely" and "somewhat" according to the OED (American Heritage agrees on "completely" and adds "actually" and "rather").  So in both British and American English, the word can mean opposing things (it reminds me of the Latin "altus," which means both high and deep). I'll go into this in altus detail for the sake of my "you should all know the bottom of this" feeling.

The Merriam-Webster Usage Dictionary makes this note:

By all accounts the subtractive sense is the prevalent one in 20th-century English, but in many particular instances it is hard to be certain if the subtractive sense rather than the intensive sense was intended [...] You would think that the coexistence of these two uses would lead to problems of ambiguity and confusion, but in practice this seems not often to be the case. For although the lexicographer must try to determine the exact meaning of each occurrence of a word, the reader is under no such constraint. The distinction between the two senses is not always crucial to a general understanding of the sentence; when it is, the reader has the larger context for help. And the writer can always use a negative with quite when he or she wants to emphasize a falling just short.

 My future mother-in-law pointed this variance of meaning to me, and her personal usage note is as follows:

When I use "quite" with words which could not normally be accompanied by "very", eg. remarkable, dead, awful, finished, pathetic, stunning, all right, amazing,  -  quite would tend to take the first meaning, one of emphasis. But the rule doesn't always work - "quite good" virtually always means somewhat good, unless expressed in a surprised tone of voice, in which case it means "better than expected" (and one's standards did not start off particularly high). "Quite nice" is dismissal; "quite delightful" is praise.

Could it be that "quite" accompanied by a strong term of praise or disapprobation usually gives emphasis, but accompanied by a weaker term, (nice, good, pretty, untidy, plain) it modifies the term to be weaker still?

This one is going to take a quite a little thought. Quite a little means "a lot" Quite a lot means  "A great deal." One thing I am sure of. Used on its own, "Quite" indicates agreement, but not necessarily friendly agreement. It's all in the tone of voice.

Indeed, tone of voice is important for all sorts of communication (sarcasm, flirtation, anger, etc.), which still makes a written "quite" difficult to interpret. It's one of those ambiguities we just have to live with unless the author is alive to question.

quite

This is quite somewhat embarrassing, but whenever I'm around people with English (or South African) accents, I suddenly use words that strike me as more British. Words like "terribly," "washroom," "rubbish," "nice," and "quite." I don't know why I do this, probably because I'm not a prestige speaker; instead of using a consistent set of phrases and syntax, I imitate the language patterns the people I'm with, or at least, my perception of their language patterns. I say "What!" more around Hobbes and "Good Heavens!" around my roommate, simply because they seem to use those exclamations more.

There is a problem with this, since sometimes I get it wrong. "Quite," for instance, in American English, is a formal way of saying "very," but in British English it means "somewhat" or "kind of." So "that's quite nice" can mean "that sounds fantastic" or "that's kinda alright, I guess." It makes me want to go back and read Austen or Shakespeare with this new knowledge to see if people were actually being insulting when I thought they were being nicely polite. It also makes me annoyed that in the situations I'm most likely to use "quite," I'm most likely to use it in a semantically ambiguous way (or the "wrong" way from the point of view of the hearer).

Part 3: Dating

After exchanging snarky comments while watching international cinema, Adam and I went on another date. We made sausage chowder and played Scrabble together. One night after playing raquetball, I still wanted to spend time with him and he took me to his step-grandmother's Christmas party and I met his dad and sister. We held hands on the way back and I remarked on how cute his accent is. At the end of the semester, he was patient with me while I stressed out about all my final papers. He tried to teach me how to program and I let him read my Calvin and Hobbes paper. I wrote things in my journal like "he is fun to talk with," "I think he's cute," and "he is optimistic and pragmatic."

I went home for almost two weeks for Christmas. I got to see all my family and some friends. It was wonderful. I called Adam to talk to him and we had conversations that lasted more than thirty minutes, which is pretty good considering how much I dislike talking on the phone. I think I asked him if he wanted to keep dating, and he thought it was a good idea. At our family New Year's party my mom told a friend of hers "I think this one's a keeper." I felt worried. Now if things didn't work both me and my parents would be disappointed. On the way to the airport my dad asked if I thought I'd marry him. "I've thought that about guys in the past, who I didn't marry," I reminded him.

In January we kept going out (we ate out a lot), but I wasn't sure if Adam wanted to keep dating me, which made me feel sad when I thought about it. Maybe it was then he was deciding if he liked me enough to marry me. I realized that I wanted to do all I could to help us continue. It's hard to pinpoint when, but we fell in love, probably due to a combination of flirting and persistence. It's very personal to me and I was reluctant to write about it, but I think you have the general feel here.

Part 4: The Engagement

At the end of January, we found we were "in favor" of marriage. I felt so excited and at the same time a little anxious. Was I sure I was sure about this? But I didn't have any complaints about Acius - it was more like the opposite (I had plenty of compliments for him). He and his family are funny in entirely new ways when compared to me and my family (not to say that I'm dull, just that novelty has certain perks, especially w/r/t humor). Acius is really everything I wanted in a man. After a few more weeks I felt really good about marriage. I told Acius I was sure about it and he just said he'd known for a while that he was sure about it. I wanted to tell everyone! Acius said he was more traditional and wanted to wait until he had a ring for me. This almost made telling my parents about my "secret engagement" more fun. I had the thrill of a little guilt in keeping a secret, relief in finding someone willing to put up with me forever, and excitement about starting a new lifestyle (which will include a real shower and our own kitchen!).

Acius is a fan of Japanese food, language, entertainment, and culture. To be honest I've always thought that Japan is pretty cool (although since it's popular right now it's harder for me to admit that). I had two Japanese pen-pals growing up, I spent a lot of time researching Japanese customs online over long summer internet surfings, I made origami cranes obsessively, I watched what anime I could access, and we hosted a few Japanese students when I was young. Acius and I were watching a Japanese drama with his friends and in the show they celebrated Valentine's Day and later White Day. Basically, in Japan, women give men chocolates (or ties) on Valentine's Day, and then a month later, men return the favor with chocolates or cookies. White day is kind of interesting because it was invented by confectionery companies (like our Valentine's Day). So I feel completely justified in adopting a custom that isn't steeped in religious significance. And I think it's more fun to stretch it out - what else is there in March? St. Patrick's Day?

So, Acius was sick on Valentine's Day, which was on a Sunday. I had made these lovely dark chocolate truffles, and I had a treasure hunt that went with it (my mom always made us treasure hunts for Valentine's day; I'm not sure how that started). Alas, it was not to be quite as I planned. I dropped the treasure hunt and  hitched a ride with Adam's parents who were bringing dinner to the temporarily-invalid. It turns out that even a sick Acius is capable of appreciating good chocolate.

With some various hints, I knew Acius was planning his retaliation on White Day (a month later), but I wasn't sure how. He picked me early to have dinner at his parents' house, still in his shirt and tie, and he gave me a box of chocolates. We went to Kiwanis park and walked around (I left the chocolates in the car). After some stalling, Acius suggested going back to the car. I read a nice letter he gave me and he said he wanted to tell me about the chocolates he bought me. I noticed that it had the outer wrapping of See's candies, but not the side seals. I thought that it might be a custom collection and they wrapped it differently. Anyway, I opened them up and there was a ring in the middle. Acius (it's so weird to use his internet moniker) started to explain the chocolates: "These are chocolate truffles, these are the ginger chocolate ones, these ones on the side are different fruit flavors, and this is the will-you-marry-me one..."
"Of course I will!"
Afterwards we told his family and everyone was smiley and happy for us. It seems like everyone has a little advice for how to plan a wedding, but luckily no one so far has weird demands (well, except Acius's sister, who said we should have veggie sushi, but I think we were kidding). I'm sure Acius could tell a long story about how the ring almost didn't arrive in time, and how he had to wrap the chocolates himself - but I'll leave that to him. ;-)

Part 2: Blogs are part of my network

I have been blogging since high school. This is my third blog; the second is quite easy to find if you know me at all, and the first no longer exists online. When I first started blogging, I didn't know anyone else who blogged. My blog entries were mostly a transcription of the day's events. Here's a sample entry from back then:

:P  - 8/9/2001
Had a flute lesson, walked around while Joshua was having his swimming lesson. Read the first chapter of The Elfstones of Shanarra. Prtetty boring day so far... Also earned $$ in Harvest Moon II...

I read strangers' blogs and commented on them, and then they'd feel some sort of social obligation to comment back on mine. This was the entirety of my commenters - internet friends. With my second blog I found that some of my high school friends also had blogs, and we "subscribed" to each other's blogs. I still read blogs of strangers on the internet I had a common interest with, but I became fascinated by, well, internet drama and the insight a little research could give me to the lives of others - others I knew IRL (in real life). Comments became a kind of commodity of how popular my blog was. Now I feel like the dynamic of comments has shifted, at least in my blog-o-sphere. My friends read my blog to keep up on my life, and they only comment if they have something to say, and discussions in comment sections are rare. Discussions are much easier in person or on gchat or even on Facebook (either that or I don't discuss controversial issues).

Strangers do comment occasionally. One significant comment of this sort happened in September. This Acius fellow was somewhat unknown to me, but with our mutual acquaintance and Google's recommendation, he couldn't be terribly weird. I shelved researching this connection until I recovered from my summer fling (recall). When I felt like dating again, I reviewed my possible leads. Acius had a non-annoying, informative blog. With Hobbes's help, I found out that he was single and introduced myself on Facebook (I didn't see how he could find me non-creepily, but women on the internet can get away with more). For our first date (actually I called it "hanging out" but that was just to make it sound less scary) in November we saw a movie at International Cinema and afterwards Acius said "I guess I can give you a ride home." And thus started our knowledge of each other IRL.

Part 1: An Appropriate Background

Many things that later become important to me kind of lurk around in my life. I think I met Hobbes at a Russian 101 review before we were Board writers. He wore a leather jacket and headed up the Soviet Union, a Russian language study group (I kept meaning to go, but never attended). One summer ('07) at a Board party I saw him again. He gave me and Tangerine a ride to the grocery store so we could get buns for the hamburgers. Slightly crazy yet awesome: it's what I expect from other writers.

Hobbes likes to go places and do things to answer his questions. As the Red Team he'd get some writers together on a Saturday and we'd all answer overhours questions together. We went to the courthouse to try to talk to a policeman about some law. We surveyed the grass by the greenhouse and decided which kind was the best to lie on. One day the Red Team was just me and Hobbes and his brother Acius (also back in the summer of 2007). We investigated a huge pile of gravel on 2300 N and Canyon or University. "Yes, it looks like a pile of gravel" was the result of our investigation.  

Tangerine and Hobbes answered a lot of questions together (as team HaT), and I suspect that's how they started dating. Tangerine is a good friend of mine and she told me about how she adored Hobbes's family. She had Sunday dinner with them even when Hobbes was in Russia. She encouraged me to meet his family, but I couldn't think of a non-awkward way to do this ("Hi, my friend thinks we could be friends?"). So that is how I started to meet them.

in which I write about hating writing

Something I don't understand about myself right now is why I don't want to write anything. I dread writing short papers or stories. I can write well, and I've enjoyed it in the past, so what the heck?

My recent theory is that since I've been reading so much FANTASTIC writing, I realize that mine is vastly inferior and have developed an inferiority complex. I don't think this is quite the case. I'm reading about the same amount or less literature now as I did in the past. However, as a writing teacher and a student of English, I do feel much more self-conscious about my writing. Instead of just writing my ideas down, I'll often worry about how to write it. Instead of letting my natural voice take over, I find myself trying to guess what my professor or what other people will want to read. And I really hate that.

I started working on a personal essay (about last year's job) for the creative writing workshop I so stupidly decided to take. I find that the weightier material is actually more difficult to write about (I know other people have said this, but I didn't believe them). I found myself concentrating on the details of events rather than how I felt. It's hard to talk both about my feelings and explain the situations that led to those feelings. I'm not even sure if it's therapeutic to re-visit those feelings. I don't know what the point of writing about hard things is.

Another thing I don't like about my creative writing workshop is that because of my stupid and sudden dislike of writing I never have anything prepared for everyone to read, and I end up submitting something half-baked and now everyone knows how I can't write. And I'm going to have to hear them tell me all the problems I felt so painfully aware of. Instead of addressing my problem of difficulty of expression, we'll be discussing the problems of the things I wrote and what I unintentionally expressed.

I think part of the difficulty in writing about supervising parents was that I felt frustrated about so many things. I felt frustrated that the majority of the time my notes would not make a difference in court decisions. I felt frustrated that courts ordered stupid things. Like that a teenager had to visit with her dad every Monday night when she rather would have been with her friends. Even I didn't spend that much one-on-one time with my parents as a teenager. I felt frustrated that good parents didn't have much time with their children and that bad parents had oodles of time. I felt frustrated that money had to determine how often some parents could visit their children. I felt frustrated that I couldn't stop parents from continually emotionally abusing their children. I felt frustrated that some parents, despite their best intentions, continued to emotionally abuse their children. I felt frustrated that I had to choose between being polite and liked or being assertive and hated and following the rules. I hated how I became less sensitive to the suffering of children.

But I think focusing on all those things I didn't like isn't the whole picture. I became more appreciative of my own parents, and I learned that I want to marry someone who will be a good father (not just a good husband, if that makes sense). And I think in some ways I'm more sensitive to child cruelty. I've decided that I don't want to be sarcastic about my children until they'll understand it, because I know that that's something I could very easily slip into. I still don't know what I think about parental rights. I find myself varying between too extremes ("screw biology!" and "let parents do whatever they want!"), which probably indicates that some medium value is how I really feel. And now you have all the reflection that I should have included in my personal essay, because I was too worried about how it would come out and how all those MFA students would read it.

"experimental" English 150 course?

Among the many exciting things in my life right now, I am excited about my experimental section of English 150. If they let me, I'll teach a class centered around pop culture - its rhetoric, and by extension, our view of it. Instead of doing a weird op-ed on something annoying on campus, students will get to reflect on their experience with a piece of art in their lives (including a Disney movie, if they so wish). Basically I just changed the course content to be stuff in popular culture, but I think this will encourage students to write (or make them hate their favorite TV show, either one). I only wish I had found a textbook of some sort that would guide us... but I know what we want to do, and the current text isn't bad. I'm still hoping to write a text-based adventure game to use in ANY English 150 course, and we'll see if I can get any outside funding for it (even though I know it's a long shot). By a great stroke of luck, Acius seems to have a lot of experience programming text adventures...

Oh, and if you haven't already, check out Braid. My sister bought me a copy and it is awesome.

Making computer games an educative subject

Please nominate for me browser-based games which would be educational to do a rhetorical analysis on in a classroom/computer setting (and/or ideas on how to teach freshman composition in an awesome way). I'm thinking of proposing an experimental section which would use computer games, and while I guess I could require students to buy a game, I'd rather use free ones if I can.

Current candidates:
Level Up!: The "story," characters and game rules mess with traditional game conventions. It "says" things about time and learning. It aims to please multiple audiences.
The Company of Myself: This puzzler gets kind of hard (I'm stuck on the one where they're like "timing is important"), so I'd be reluctant to expect students to get very far, but I like how it also messes with time and repetition. I wonder how similar it is to "Braid" (another game I want to play, which costs actual dollars). I like that it doesn't shy away from being hard; it's not meant to be a mindless game.
Flash Portal: The first few levels introduce the paradigm-shifting portal system. Later on you just have to be fast at making portals, which I find less cool. Their audience is probably, I don't know, fans of Portal or people who wanted to play Portal.
Radical Play: A somewhat annoying racing game. The cool part is you can win by crashing into the other cars or by winning the race. They don't even pretend to use real physics, which is funny, and doing flips to get points or energy (I don't recall) is kind of fun.
Super Energy Apocalypse: Gameplay isn't terribly original, but it has a complex message - we need to defend ourselves but we also need to take care of our waste to prevent zombies from taking over.

Okay, so what would we do with these games in the classroom? It's possible to do a classic rhetorical analysis (RA) - who is the target audience, why are the elements of the game fun (instead of persuasive?) for that particular audience. Are computer games persuasive, and of what? Could writing about computer games prepare students to write in other contexts? Currently we write on a bunch of op-eds for the RA, which seem to me just as irrelevant to most majors as computer games.

Also, I was thinking of just single-player browser based games that a student could beat in one or two sittings, but could a MMORPG be helpful in a classroom context? We could be part of the same guild in KoL, and it would be fairly easy to track student progress... okay this is getting weird, I'm not sure how/if that would work. Have you played Crimson Room? That might be too hard or too easy to get a walkthrough for. Well, now you know what I've been fantasizing about: playing computer games in my classroom.

"It may be cheaper by the dozen but it's potentially wasteful."

I cleaned the kitchen, mostly, and I feel so accomplished.

Acius took me out to Five Guys last night and it was quite delicious. Maybe mushrooms do belong on a hamburger. But it was even funnier to listen to Acius grumpy: "How long do you think it will take before there's a law about food portions?" "It is impossible to eat this much." "In Japan, you can buy a single egg in a box." Haha. ^_^ He's so cute!

This mushy post justified by an upcoming romantic holiday!

Also: I love this photo I took over Christmas vacation. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.

Road trip insight

I just got back from a road trip to Arizona where I presented a paper. I learned some things about myself:

-I can drive 80+ mph and not freak out. I can drive 4 hours straight, and probably more. I can successfullly navigate freeway junctions. I can be a polite driver and let faster drivers pass me on the left. I don't feel pressured to go faster by fast drivers behind me - if they want to break the law that is their problem, and they can pass me!
-After the guilty pleasure of snack food, I find that it's not as appealing as I thought it would be. The exception to this is any type of cracker and cheese (but it has to be the right combination: Ritz and Cheddar or Gouda and wheat thins. Actually I think any kind of white cheese goes well with wheat thins).
-My education in the American graphic novel is somewhat lacking.
-I don't really see what the big deal about conferences is. Tally another mark on the "don't want to do this the rest of my life" list.
-I still bring up my boyfriend in conversations all the time, apologize for it, and then everyone teases me about it later (when it happens again). At least if they can tease me about it, it's less annoying, right?

the routine parts of my current life

Often in my desire to record events and feelings, I forget the everyday things I do, which I will probably forget at some point. One of the things I do with some frequency is that I make my own dinners. Most of the time I think cooking for one person is terribly depressing, but I also think that sharing all my food all the time would greatly increase the frequency of grocery story visits (an undesirable consequence).

The photo here is a Christmas-colored dinner I had last month. Usually I don't have this much broccoli all at once. I can make myself real food; for my birthday I made myself roast chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy (and it lasted all week and good heavens I was so happy). Last week was scalloped potato week. I'm thinking this week will be spaghetti, or curry. I think I should make soup again soon (I still want to make pea soup from actual dried peas). Cooking interesting things is not a priority for me unless I have someone else to experience it with.

I was hoping that being a graduate student would be different from my previous experience as a student, but it's not. I still procrastinate (yet manage to complete) the work I like the least (gone are the days when I would complete the work I liked the least first). I read things without understanding them. Okay, most of the time I don't have a clue what's going on. Sometimes class is boring, but when it is boring, the stakes are higher. Have I mentioned that the combination of being bored and terrified is probably my least favorite emotion? It describes a few things, of which driving is one.

It rained a little last night and it cleared the air, and I'm so glad (it had been getting unhealthily smoggy). The sun started shining and I opened all the blinds and drank some hot chocolate on our back steps. Then I decided to study my Spanish out in the sun and my slippers. I felt so contented. If only I could feel this way about analyzing Emily Dickinson (whenever I try to say something about a Dickinson poem, I'm paralyzed in "well it could also be..." or "but there's no way to say for sure...").

Cuttlefish

It has come to my attention that not enough people are amazed and fascinated with cuttlefish (NOVA knows how cool they are). Their coloration is like a high-res plasma screen (and can change just as rapidly, it seems). Sometimes they flash, strobe-like, to catch their prey (does that remind you of any sort of genre of advertisement?). I read somewhere that cuttlefish are smart enough to tell the difference between various humans. And NOVA says that they can remember how to do mazes (although even mice can do that, so, booring). I wonder if I went into behavioral science if I would be able to get a grant to work with cuttlefish. Now THAT is cool enough to tempt me to go back into psychology. Oh, and the photo here is mine. Check out those weird W-shaped pupils. I took it at the Steinhart Aquarium.

You know what else would be cool? A cuttlefish coloring book. Then you could color them all sorts of colors and still be somewhat accurate. (The Marine Biology Coloring Book, while awesome, is not quite what I was looking for. Something more like this, only cooler.)

2009

Things I did in 2009 of note:

-Got really into Facebook Scrabble
-Quit that job that I hated
-Had a long-distance relationship and learned to appreciate Idaho
-Started GRAD school (I even got an A in one class, how did that happen?)
-Taught freshman composition - terrifying
-Went to Arches national park
-Developed opinions about teaching and parenting
-Started dating that cute guy I told you about

December Sunshine

Oh, I went to a luncheon party today and ate outside in the sunshine. I love going outside to eat and just chat. Maybe I should try drinking hot chocolate outside in the snow when I get back...but I don't think it would be the same.

I watched Star Wars: A New Hope again, but with new eyes. Every time I watch that movie Luke becomes more a more of a kid to me. See part 10, around 8 minutes - hilarious.
Han: "Do you think a guy like me-"
Luke: "No."
I like how Han just smiles.

We have an actual Christmas tree! With presents! And we're making Christmas cookies next week!

BYU looking for Jazz voices

Dear all 47 of my subscribers:

Jazz voices is having auditions for new members. My friend Andrew is in it, and he is a cool guy. You should also check out his car blog.

In other news: I have a boyfriend (Acius)? I probably already mentioned this to you. It is fun times.

in which I do not develop my thoughts

If I had snow pants, I would be so much better at making snowmen.

Is cannibalism okay if it's post-mortem?

I like traditions. But some traditions are impractical, or sexist. Sexism is just a part of life, I think. Those boys in Sweden will just have to settle for not being St. Lucia tomorrow.

nothing in particular I just feel like talking to the Internet again

Impromptu hang-out of three guys here this afternoon. One revealed he'd never had a girlfriend, worried about it somewhat, but decided to leave it in God's hands. A roommate suggested we get together. Protesting: "I hate being the starter girlfriend!" Maybe it's because I think "starter" girlfriends have an obligation to make dating fun and unserious.

There are only two more weeks of classes! Frig! I don't understand why I have procrastinated my papers this long. If I procrastinate it, does it mean I hate it?

ahh so I gave my blog URL to a high school friend and doing that self-reflexive "what do people think of me from reading my blog?" And I'm so serious and BORING and WHINEY all the time. I was reading back on some of my entries, and at least they were funny! Why am I not funny anymore, that's what I want to know. Probably because I've started to worry about whether I'm funny or not. Maybe I should stop worrying about it! At least I don't write bad poetry anymore!

Thanksgiving at the grandparents'

I was inside all afternoon and evening yesterday, so I didn't see the package that came, my Kershisnik art book. I noticed it when I opened all the blinds to let in the sun. I spent the morning reading it and gazing through it. I brought it to my grandparents'. I thought I could show my family what real Mormon art could be like.

My grandpa looked through half the book. "He can be artistic without being particularly beautiful." His hands are shaking and he has trouble turning the pages. I hope it is not Parkinson's. He accidentally gets some chocolate pie on one page and tries to wipe it off. When I get home I clean the glossy pages with a microfiber cloth that I got from a flute dealer. That's the risk of sharing, I guess.

I also brought along a Foxtrot comic book. My cousin Devin read it and said it reminded him of when my little brother would always bring his Garfield books with him when he visited. Devin's brother just left for a mission yesterday, and Devin looks a little sad, but he laughs when he reads the book. I think that a good book can be therapeutic. Especially good comic books. We watch Meet the Robinsons and I wonder what my future family will be like.

no country for shooting each other

I think the difference between a game and life is that in life the consequences matter, which makes it more exciting, but also more stressful.

One of the problems of sharing links online is that my conversations become redundant (oh, did you hear about how shellac is bug poo? Yes, Whistler, you shared it in Google reader).

I read No Country for Old Men and I didn't like it that much. I thought the philosophy was too overt and the violence a little self-gratifying. But I think my dislike is deeper. I consider a book well-written if it teaches me new words and describes things in ways I hadn't thought of before. I also like it if there are hidden connections and obscure tangents. Okay, I still don't know why I didn't think it was fantastic. I really hope it wasn't just because it was a bunch of guys shooting each other, because I think that has potential.

you know, like Zeno's paradox

In one of my classes I compared the problem of linguistic indeterminism to Zeno's paradox, in that it seems like it shouldn't work and that we shouldn't be able to communicate to each other because so much of semiotics is like subjective and dependent on individual experience, but in the end, we communicate basic things to each other (we buy food, create friendships, etc.). I hope I wasn't just name-dropping old Zeno there. I should just stop creating connections from disparate fields!

rejection can hurt your ability to perform on IQ tests

Remember that time I took the GRE after getting dumped? Well it turns out that rejection can reduce IQ, so maybe I should re-take it sometime. Sometime when I have less AGGRESSION. It's quite remarkable that I didn't do worse, actually.

Different Strokes

Okay, so, The Strokes have been my secret favorite band for the last 3 months. I listen to this playlist (which is basically 3 of their albums) all the time and never get tired of it. I really like "What Ever Happened?" (lyrics; youtube), but I haven't really figured out why. Wanting to be forgotten feels new in this culture that I perceive as valuing fame/infamy in any form. Their lyrics are refreshing in their bitterness?

That reminds me. I played Kid A for my students while they were writing, and about halfway through "The National Anthem" I was like "oh, this might not be the best concentration music for everyone." Embarrassing! But I don't feel too bad, because one of my teachers this morning played Satie's Gnossienne No. 1, which was fraught with memories of when I saw The Painted Veil last and then when I saw it first, and then when I learned the piece on the piano. All memories that aren't inherent in the piece itself but dependent on its context in my life. I think that type of personalization it something people like about music. So, everyone can listen to the same piece of music, and if they've heard it before, they could all have personal memories about it. Okay, this bulletin from captain obvious is over!

Casual swearing?

Okay. I don't mind a little swearing, and I even think it can be funny in the right situation, but I don't understand casually using the f-word (especially among other LDSs). I've been puzzling over why this is. Why is it that "damn straight" and "smart-ass" are funny, but the f-word is profane to me? It might be because the f-word makes sex profane - profane as in vulgar, commonplace, or explicit. And, maybe this sounds weird coming from a virgin, but I think we should talk about sex in better, more respectful ways than the f-word.

But doesn't "damn" do the same thing? It makes the serious situation of eternal judgment into a commonplace. I would feel pretty uncomfortable saying "exalted straight!" Anyway, Ian Duncan was visiting and talking about the relationship between the sacred and the profane, and I've been trying to figure out what it means.

(that said...I think showing the absurdity of jr. high cussing is kind of funny. cf. "A Serious Man.")

Guys, what makes you swoon?

So, I'm answering a Board question about how to be a good girlfriend (which I covered pretty well last year, I think), but more specifically, on what things make a guy "swoon" in a relationship. So if you're a guy, what makes you swoon, and if you're a girl, what have you done in relationships that made your significant other swoon (I'm assuming heterosexuality here, I hope you can deal with that)?

So, um, no one entered the chestnut cartoon contest. Well... so much for reader interaction. Maybe facebook would have been a better venue, or in maybe it's too hard to draw stuff.

Well, here is a joke for you: What do you call a bunch of chess champions acting boastful in a fancy hotel?

A: Chess nerds boasting in an open foyer.

I think I'd like a quiverful of children, myself

Psalms 127:4-5
As arrows are in the hand of a might man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Contest with prize!

Dear readers,

I purchased Sufjan Steven's new DVD The BQE recently, and it came with 3 downloads of the film (iphone-sized). My last download will go to the winner of this contest (I will e-mail him/her the access code).

Here is the contest: Make a one-panel comic including chestnuts. It can be in the dialog, in the background, as a character, a prop - whatever. E-mail submissions to me by midnight on the 30th, and I'll decide the winner on Halloween (and post the submissions, unless I get weird ones). Scanners are available in the HBLL (the copier ones are easier to use than ever - you can even have them e-mail it to you). Most of you know my address; if you don't know me, just use my Board address: whistler@theboard.byu.edu.

Okay, have fun! Even if you're not crazy about Sufjan I would encourage you to participate, because, it will be kind of hilarious.

-Whistler

another epistle

Dear cute guy at RMMLA,

I was too shy to talk to you, and I thought you were a professor, but now that I've used my creepy data mining skills it looks like you are a fellow graduate student in North Carolina. I am loving the plaid sport coat, but Faulkner? Seriously? Don't we have enough Faulkloreists in the world?

your snobby once-proximal,

Whistler

Amazon stat

Have you seen the new Amazon.com feature where you can look at the readability stats of the book? This book by my aesthetics teacher is harder to read than 97% of other books, while Infinite Jest is only harder to read than 35% of other books (though it's longer than 99% of the books on Amazon). McCarthy's Border trilogy is amazingly easy to read in comparison, with a Flesch-Kincaid level of 4.4 (meaning a 4th grader could read it). And, of course, Proust has longer sentences than 99% of other books (36.8). Unfortunately this feature is only available to the books for which the publisher has consented to have the "look inside!" feature available, which isn't all of them... but fun times! I wonder if the stats include children's books.

the postmodern self

In a weird Wikipedia chain (Baudrillard-Zizek-Lacan) I found myself looking into Self-Relations in the Psychotherapy Process, a book my former semi-retired boss wanted to get rid of. It has a chapter on "Understanding and Treating the Postmodern Self." At first I'm skeptical, but oddly enough, I found myself identifying with their case study:

One wants to join the cynic, who seems so smart and invulnerable. Then the earnest and innocent self is left behind, ridiculed and humiliated. The innocent self becomes a kind of "hot potato" to be passed back and forth, no one wishing to be the final receptacle of such vulnerability. [...] One might say that Henry [the case study] lacks just such a capacity for transitional experiencing, a place between the fixedness of self as "really this" or "really that." What Henry has not fully appreciated is that no one is "really" a banker in some transcendent sense, nor is anyone really not a banker; if one looks closely enough, one finds that there is really no such thing as a banker in a Platonic or essentialist sense.

I find myself also feeling that cynicism is a safe place for me - where I can blame other institutions for my failures, or at least something I can't change. I also often complain that I can't really be a graduate student, or that I'm "becoming one of them." But there isn't going to be some day where I wake up and I'm "really" an academic intellectual or I'm "really" someone who knows what she wants to do with her life. Anyway, I wish I could scan the whole chapter and send it to you. Well, I guess I can, if you're interested. Let me know.

Top five most useful presents I have ever received or given myself

Okay, I was thinking about gifts lately, and which ones I have found the most useful and have lasted the longest. Thus a small list:

1. REI Backpack
My freshman year of high school, my parents bought me this backpack for my birthday. I whined because it was pretty much my only present that year, but nine years later I am still using it five days a week. My sister still uses hers, too.

2. IBM Thinkpad Laptop
My dad gave me his old laptop when I graduated from high school. It lasted me three years, and he bought it used. I used it almost every day, and when the motherboard finally fried I was able to live without it for the summer, but I really missed it?

3. Sony Portable Cassette Player
I think my parents bought me this tape player when I was around 9 years old for Christmas. I used it to listen to my tapes all the time up through high school, and I think my mom still uses it to take to church and play music for her lessons sometimes.

4. Grado SR60 headphones
I bought these for myself about two years ago when all the cords of other cheap earbuds kept getting crushed when I put my mp3 player in my pocket. I use them all the time, with my laptop especially, and it's a better listening experience than just using my laptop's speakers. Every once in a while when I'm trying to watch a movie with someone I wish I had another pair and one of those dual-headphone output plugs.

5. Seagate 150 GB External Hard Drive
Another Christmas present from... about four years ago. I use it a few times every week to store huge files and listen to music. It's the old-school style, which looks like that droid tank from Star Wars V, but I think that it's a stable design, which is really what I go for in external drive design.

Honorable Mentions: My Land's End rain jacket (used every winter since around '04), my American Heritage Dictionary, my typewriter (more useful than you might initially suspect!), my 1 GB mp3 player, the portfolio thing I bought from the BYU bookstore to hold all my papers, and the green sport coat I bought at Thriftown for $7.

Looking back on this post, I'm like "wow maybe I am a materialist," but this is stuff that has really made a difference in the quality of my life, I think.

I reflect briefly on 2 things

Two things:

1. Sometimes I catch myself taking it personally if a student doesn't try or do well on an assignment. Like, I think they think they're being a punk or something, when actually some of them just don't care enough to try that hard. The hard part is when a student has really tried but still doesn't quite get it right. Then I think that I'm not a very good teacher.

2. It's kind of fun bonding to talk to friends about my romance life (or lack thereof?), but sometimes I'm afraid that it just intensifies my emotions, or creates artificial expectations. But, it's something to talk about that isn't grad school or the class I'm teaching.

it's just stress

This week I've had some of those moments where I just feel upset about everything. I had one of those days where I would just cry about anything, like if someone glared at me. And at first I attributed it to my breakup, but I realized that sometimes I just feel really inadequate in my grad program. And not just inadequate - like I don't even like it enough for it to be causing me this much stress. So I'm considering that maybe the PhD route isn't for me. I enjoy reading and thinking smart things about literature, but I don't know if I like the whole politics of academia. The stupid thing is that anywhere I work there will be politics I'll have to think about. And you know, maybe I'll like it better once I get more comfortable with the lingo and find a professor who thinks I have a chance to CHANGE THE WORLD through literary analysis. Wooo literary superheroes!

Oh freshmen

In reading through freshmen papers, I am often amused.

On the honor code: "without it the gospel would not be the same."
"the conundrum to this solution..."
"I expected to meet and date hundreds of young men."

More as I find them.

Joke time

Q: What do you call a guy who hurts himself being manly?

A: A Machochist.

In which I feel a little down.

I don't know if I like grad school or not. Everyone else is just as smart as I am so I have to put more effort in to stand out, and I don't even know if I care enough or if it's worth it. I don't feel like literary analysis is going to change the world. I feel like it's just another venue of entertainment for me, but one that takes a little more work to have fun with. I want to have more time to just read what I want to read and then bring my ideas about it to a table. It would be nice to have a class like that, I think. Free readings in conjunction with theory, that could be fantastic. While grad school is potentially more personally satisfying than my last job, it is still stressful.

I feel inadequate as my job as a teacher. I am teaching writing and I haven't even had a writing class for several years. Supposedly my admittance to the program speaks of my writing competence, but I have my doubts. I haven't read the research on what classroom activities are best to assist learning. I don't know what types of comments will help my students learn how to write. I'm afraid that I will discourage freshmen. I want them to learn how much they have yet to learn, even if they took AP classes.

I also broke up with Crow. Well, we had been talking about it a little over the past few weeks. I'm a little sad to let go, but we were to the point where there was nothing else we could do. I mean, not like my romantic life is worthy of note. I always feel awkward blogging about it; it's personal to me... but I also realize that people want updates on my life, and he was a significant player in my life recently. Maybe he still will be. Why do I try to force things to happen? Would my baseline behaviors (without goals/desires) be inadequate to live a righteous life? I don't understand. I mean, in the end, who cares about post-modernism. I just want to start my own family in the next decade or so.

August vacation summary

Oh man I am having so much fun on vacation! This is a boring vacation post, I hope you are ready for that. I left my camera in P-town, but that has allowed me to worry about actually enjoying myself and not about documenting all my fun. On Friday my mom picked me up from the airport and we went to Telegraph in Berkeley. I had some chicken curry from this fantastic¹ Indian place and we bought a few books at Moe's. Saturday my whole family here went to a tidepool beach and hiking by the shore.

Monday we went with to the Monterey Bay Aquarium - great seahorses, river otters, and cuttlefish! I looked into getting my own cuttlefish when I returned, but my little brother informed me that they would require a large tropical saltwater tank, which is more complicated than your regular Beta fish. The Internet also informs me that cuttlefish are difficult to find in petshops (especially in land-locked states) and don't hold up well with shipping. If only I lived in Australia I could just catch my own! They're supposed to be really intelligent, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had personalities and could tell people apart. Speaking of intelligent animals, I was just reading that crows can tell individual humans apart. Maybe I should get a crow as a pet²!

Wednesday I went to this classic car museum with my dad. We rode his motorcycle there and back, which was a bit different and a little fun. There was a really cute Mercedes and some stunning BAT designs. Then today I met up with friends to go to the Museum of Modern Art. The O'Keefe/Ansel Adams exhibit was great and so was Richard Avedon; I wish we had had more time to look at everything. They had a Magritte on display I don't think I had seen before (this one!). So it was good times! I don't want to leave. I enjoy my Provo friends, but it seems like whenever I'm there I have things like work and school to do. :-/

¹Okay, I haven't had that much Indian food to know if it was fantastic or not, but I really, really enjoyed it.
²Or do I already have one??

celebrities, and I whine

Woo finals time! I think there's such a catharsis with taking a final, but also stupid stress.

So, I watched Star Trek again. Chris Pine is quite attractive! Man, I'm starting to become one of those girls who just watches movies for the cute guys. :-/. Which reminds me, I had this dream I was giving Cary Grant a back rub, and William Shatner was trying to get my attention, but I wasn't having any of it. Like, celebrities in my dreams? This is going too far!

I think Crow is working really long hours or something; he's never online anymore. I'm so powerless to do anything. I miss him a bit, but I'm learning to be less emotionally reliant on him, I guess (I just use my other friends, which isn't bad, but...). I want to encourage him to move back to Provo, but I don't know how without sounding whiny. I was hoping he would move down for fall semester. I'm really annoyed about it. In case you couldn't tell.

Foodies, childhood, and books

It occurs to me that there are different kinds of foodies. There are the vegan or vegetarian or slow food people who are very concerned with the ethical and dietary problems associated with processed food, and then there are the chef people who know the difference between cake flour and bleached flour (or at least can taste it) and are ultimately concerned with how a food tastes. I think there is some overlap between the two, but sometimes less than I'd think. While a vegan would use vegetable or olive oil to make refried beans, the lard alternative gives a meat stockiness flavor that the oil will lack. Lard, I know, gross! I guess it depends on who you talk to. I might be getting my taste neuroscience mixed in with this (which says that ketchup only needs one variety because it's not there for flavor). I think there's a similar overlap between environmentalists who want to save the trees so that we can have more oxygen and wood for later, and preservationists who want to keep critters reproducing so they have something to hunt. They both have very different ethics attached to their beliefs.

Another (unrelated) thing I was thinking about is what it would be like to have grown up in a more academic family. One of my professors is a daughter of Hugh Nibley, and it strikes me that while it might have been fun to know things that other kids weren't taught, it was probably incredibly annoying to get attention through proxy (a famous relative). My parents are smart people, just not the "academic" type (don't get me wrong, my dad has an MBA from a prestigious university, but I think that's different). So, I put myself through some thought experiments (that's a fancy way of saying "seemingly objective fantasies"). I'm not sure if I would have had much interest if my parents had tried to teach me a foreign language, or if I would even have accepted their book recommendations. I was kind of an independent kid, but easily influenced. I liked watching cartoons and playing computer games. I liked reading books that didn't overtly teach me anything.

If my parents had been more interested in academic pursuits, would that have changed the things I liked? Would I have been just as excited to discover Shostakovich if he had been sitting on our music shelves forever? Sometimes I wonder if my "love" of classical music and classic literature is just because it's so different from what I was brought up with. We had some classical music (Tchaikovsky #1 and Rachmaninoff #2 on the same tape, and I still get them confused today, embarrassingly), but it wasn't a focus.

Maybe I'm not giving my parents enough credit. They really encouraged me to pursue my own interests, but I feel like in some areas, I had to rely on other sources to introduce me to Dostoevsky or Chopin. But, I think that my forced exploration was a good thing. It helped me achieve early familiarity with the Internet. Many afternoons after graduating from jr. high were spent chatting with other gamefaqs fans of the Gameboy game Magi Nation, which I never beat, actually. I enjoyed exploring the early archives of classicalarchives.net (back when they were all midis!) in my early high school years. I got book recommendations from online booklists for music lovers (which led me to read An Equal Music before I was, er, mature enough for it). Along with the internet though, I listened around. If there was a book I had never heard of that the other English classes were reading, I'd go read it. This is a device I still use today - it's how I read Infinite Jest and Brideshead Revisited. But, it makes me wonder: Do I just want to know what everyone else is talking about, or am I interested in the book itself because of its acclaim? Anyway. Stuff I've been thinking about.

self-examination

I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between self-criticism and plain self-deprecation. I have a habit of making self-deprecating jokes, and I think that's because I worry a lot that other people think I'm a snob (which, let's face it, I kind of am sometimes). It's useful to help other people feel comfortable around me, but if my self-deprecation seeps into my personal life, it can be hurtful - not just to myself, but other people who believe in me. If someone else thinks I'm well-read, but I say that I just have superficial knowledge, what am I saying about their ability to judge character?

I think another way this comes off badly is if someone wants to know more about me. At the beginning of one of my classes, our teacher asked us to write a little about ourselves, and I wrote a few things and then, "and you don't need to know anything else about me." I find talking about myself kind of difficult for some reason. I find bragging loathsome, and I think it's more interesting to gradually get to know someone, not to feel like you know someone just because you know a few random facts about him. I'm not sure if that's the impression I gave though - by wanting to allow others to truly get to know me, I also put up fences, because maybe I have a strange-looking yard and I only want people who really want to see it to take a look. Does that make sense?

I was looking back on my johari/nohari things today. Along with my cynicism, most people said I was smug and distant (but also insecure, embarrassed, and aloof). Maybe I became gradually aware of my smugness and tried self-deprecation as a tool to combat that. But when it comes right down to it, I'm arrogant. I think that most people have misconceptions about the world, and that I know more than them and have better sources. And, maybe I do, for some things, but I want to stop assuming that so that I can care about what they think, instead of just thinking that they're wrong.

In the classroom setting, there is plenty of time to hear other people talk. There's one girl who always talks about how smart she is - how she did well in high school, and how she often takes less time on tests than she's given. It annoyed me a little, along with the newlywed who starts every sentence with "my husband..." I think I felt annoyed because I feel like those are inappropriate conversation topics for acquaintances. I think that might explain my aloofness. I feel very uncomfortable discussing my private life with people I don't know very well. I feel uncomfortable discussing it even with people I do know pretty well. A married freshman year friend of mine visited, and we were talking about Crow, and she asked if we had talked about marriage, and I just gave a short answer and changed the subject. I do ask friends for advice every now and then, but I don't always follow it.

Well, I know this isn't the usual blurb-length blog post for me, but if I'm ever going to feel comfortable talking about myself, I have to start somewhere, even if it is a semi-anonymous website. Please feel free to share your ideas on how introverted intellectuals like me can seem less aloof or distant.

The Dead

In my trendy cynicism, it's rare that a piece of literature really touches me, but Joyce's The Dead does this.

"In one letter he had written to her then he had said: Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?"

"One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and whither dismally with age. "

gunning fog index distribution

Sorry, just wanted to upload this somewhere where I can keep track of it.

another cute actor

So, I've had my little celebrity crushes (Edward Norton and Timothy Omundson). Today I was watching Jeeves and Wooster, and this guy who plays Rockemetteller, a poet who has to go to New York to keep getting money from his aunt, is rather cute. Oh, and let's throw in another picture of Edward Norton while I'm here. That's all for today.

Sodium intake

I was getting a little dehydrated or something this week, and it occurred to me (after not feeling thirsty at all, but not sweating at night) that I might not be getting enough salt in my diet. I'm supposed to get 2400 mg or so. Breakfast is plain cheerios with some honey, that's some 300-400 mg. Lunch is usually PB&J, an apple, and yogurt, which is like 350 mg from the bread and peanut butter, or today was a fried egg on toast and another piece of toast with jam (so... 400 mg?). Then dinner is spaghetti with tomato sauce, another 400 mg. That's... 1200 mg. Luckily for me, the UK recommendation is 1600 mg, so if I have two piece of garlic toast with dinner I am just about right. Who knew that I was so close to having a salt problem! And hooray for not eating processed food. I just wanted to warn you in case you might also have a sodium intake problem.

&eneral Mills

I just realized that the General Mills symbol is supposed to be a cursive G and not some crazy ampersand.

Video Games!

I can even be snobbish about video games! Last year or so I learned that there are "art" games. They are interesting to play and think about. One of these is La La Land 4. It's surreal and weird, and simply made. But it's like how Kafka would make a game - seriously! Just play it it will take like 10 minutes, and then you will feel surreal and nightmarish. Another less-scary art game is Gravitation. I've only played it twice, but it has some interesting things to say about death and leaving people to go do stuff, and what makes us happy in life. I've played this programmer's other games and they're worth a gander (I just looked at the new Primrose, and it's quite entertaining!). Anyhow, VIDEO GAMES.

quiz follow-up

The results are in and the question should post Monday! In case you can't see the results, the average is like 3.5, without our little outlier. Someone got in a vote after I wrote it all up, but it's basically the same. Most people break up 0-9 times in their dating lives at BYU. Interesting.

Edit: Here is the question.

Poll: How many times have you broken up?

I'm doing some research to answer the question of how many times the average BYU student has broken up. So, if you're a current BYU student, go ahead and answer the poll (RSS readers, please come to my site to vote). If you're an alumnus/a, count how many times you broke up before you graduated or got married, whichever came first. And... please be honest. This is for science, after all.

coldplay is this a homage?

Kraftwerk's "Computerliebe" (1:09) and Coldplay's "Talk" have identical melody lines in their refrains. Like, the notes and rhythm are identical. Rampant copying! Looks like someone on youtube noticed this like a month ago.

edit: Perhaps it's an instance of CRYPTOMNESIA??

lego scholi res liberum

You know how when giving compliments, some people are described as being "true to themselves" or letting their "true personality" shine? What the heck does that mean? It sounds like a euphemism for someone who does socially shady things. But not caring what others think and being yourself aren't the same. Just so you know.

Guess what: I checked out this book called Implementing Evidence-Based Academic Interventions in School Settings. I'm excited, because I looked for a good book on Amazon about research on school psychology, and a lot of it was stupid pop-psych stuff... but this looks legit.

Zuihitsu on The Strangeness of Beauty

Hey, I wrote this for a class and felt like it wouldn't be a total bore to read like most everything else I write. So now it's a part of this blog.

Zuihitsu on The Strangeness of Beauty

The Strangeness of Beauty is nothing like the Japanese literature I’ve read. It is terribly conscious that an American is reading it, so all of the Japanese terms are explained in-text, and some Japanese terms are abandoned for American ones. Fuji-sama (I assume) becomes “Most Honorable Mrs. Fuji,” and Minatoya explains simple things like split-toed socks and the Obon festival. Our narrator, Etsuko, goes off for pages on Japanese history lessons on samurai manners or the significance of bridal gifts. Instead of feeling like an insider, as I do when I read (translated) Japanese literature, I’m suddenly an ignorant white American, and I resent that. I wish Etsuko felt like she could be herself, and I don’t understand why she’s explaining all these Japanese things.

Etsuko often tells too much. After explaining how she always paused to smell herbs in her childhood home, she says, “I loved the aromas of the drying herbs” (102). As if it weren’t already evident! Another time after Hanae shouts, Etsuko tells us, “Mari’s sudden shallowness makes Hanae angry” (158). Does she have to spell it out? Another thing about Etsuko: she’s terribly self-conscious and doesn’t do anything to fix the flaws she notices. She writes, “I’m growing bored with my I-story. All reminiscence, no action” (110). She doesn’t make it more exciting though; she just reminisces some more. When speaking of Hanae’s seriousness, Etsuko says that adolescence is the place for “self-conscious moping” (70). She should have added “I-stories” as a place for moping.

Despite my problems with Minatoya’s style, there are some things I’ve really enjoyed about her novel. Chie feels like a real old person to me. So many times I think elderly people are simplified as either bumbling idiots or wise sages. Chie can be cruel, but she has feelings for her descendents. Sometimes I feel the same way about my own grandma. I lived with my grandparents for my first two years of college, and I found out that my grandma isn’t always comforting and smiling. She has strong opinions about what I should do with my life and the kind of man I should marry. But despite (or maybe because of) her constant reminders that I should look for a good job or get a better boyfriend, she loves me and wants me to have a happy life. And I think Chie feels the same way about her daughter when she says “you walk like a turtle! […] An intelligent turtle, whose curiosity outreaches its stride” (269).

I think I finally understand what Etsuko was “doing” with her I-story. Etsuko explains how one day she and her husband saw many amateur painters, all trying to paint irises, but with all of their paintings looking the same. Etsuko saw beauty in their mediocrity, because it represented their sincere effort. She says this is the strangeness of beauty: “that transcendence can be found in what’s common and small” (350). I think people like mothers and teachers can understand this, but coolly cynical almost-graduate students like me have a hard time with it. It’s unhip to like things that are popular and amateurish… but if I’m going to enjoy art instead of constantly criticizing it (as I do on the first page of this essay), I need to learn to see the good in things instead of constantly finding faults. At the same time, finding flaws and problems in literature is part of what teachers encourage from literature students. Sometimes I find it difficult to just enjoy a book, no matter how common or flawed it might appear.

Another thing about enjoying the strangeness of beauty is that our culture does not encourage it. Mediocre is no longer acceptable, as shown by grade inflation, my high school declining to reveal class rankings (for fear of parent bereavement?), and motivational speakers urging students not to be satisfied with mediocrity, to keep pushing to do their best. No wonder so many students have problems with perfectionism! But seriously, what’s wrong with mediocrity? Plenty of kids are average. Why does that seem so sad to me? I irrationally value excellence and intelligence, probably because I was rewarded for it so often growing up. In the end though, excellence and intelligence are not enough to make me value life.

Going back to The Strangeness of Beauty, Minatoya captures to “madness of love” (67) when she describes the underwear Naomi sewed for Hanae, and the waistbands sewed with a thousand stitches in hope that they will protect soldiers from bullets. It’s just this kind of thing that makes me think how stupid love makes people. But why does it seem stupid to me? I evaluate others’ efforts by the usefulness or beauty of the things they produce. Hanae’s underwear isn’t useful, and only Hanae and her family can appreciate its beauty. The waistbands with a thousand stitches are neither bulletproof nor aesthetically pleasing. In these cases, it’s not the utility or the beauty of a thing that matters but the love shown by the effort of doing something crazy. I think the “madness of love” is something I can understand a little easier - I’ve done plenty of stupid things in the name of love – but I haven’t valued those things as an evidence of an effortful love. Maybe I should start enjoying my love madness.

The Strangeness of Beauty helped me to understand how my evaluations of literature are steeped in my assumption that the style of literature should be exemplary or remarkable. Even if I didn’t think that Minatoya’s style was perfect, she helped me to see the beauty in her own novel by explaining the strangeness of beauty in the everyday and mediocre.

Dining Rooms

We were discussing a play called "The Dining Room" today in class, and how dining rooms are kind of a lost upper middle class tradition (for example, most new homes in Utah don't have dining rooms). We have a dining room in my house of growing up. We used it for some Sunday dinners and whenever we had company over. We also used it to play cards, build puzzles on, banish children to from the kitchen, and to hide under during hide-and-seek. My mom used it for her sewing and paying the bills. I don't think our house is particularly large, and it isn't a separate room (the only separate rooms downstairs are the den and the laundry/bathroom). I guess I'm wondering why my house had a dining room and many of the students in my class didn't have one, or didn't even use it. I have a dining room in my apartment right now, come to think of it, but I think that's because the house I live in is really old, and dining rooms were more prevalent then. My parent's house is just a bit older than I am. Maybe people buying homes there wanted dining rooms.

Anyway, I don't think having a dining room is very practical, unless you eat all your meals there and then would have more room in the kitchen for preparing food. But I guess the point of a dining room is that you don't eat all your meals there, just when you want to be a little fancier. I tend to think that fanciness is a state of mind more than a state of dress... but how we dress can influence our behavior too.

Another thing that came up in class was parts of the play that bothered us. I remembered one scene where a woman is hostessing a birthday party for her son and the whole time is talking to one kid's dad about the affair they're having. While I was reading it, I was amused. But when I was talking about it in class, I was not compassionate at all. I was like "WHY would people have KIDS if they're not going to take care of them? That's so SELFISH. It really bothers me." And I realized that it wasn't the book I was upset about, it was the cases from work that I thought back on. Where kids are coached to say mean things about one parent, or have to visit an abusive parent. It upsets me most when parents are mean or negligent to their own children. It upsets me even more when an abusive parent thinks she's actually helping.

Madsen Cargo Bikes

Um, this company in Salt Lake is making these cool cargo bikes. I'm going to shamelessly put a banner here to enter their July drawing. Click here if there isn't some image.

bone to pick

Dear producers of Bones,

In the episode where they're searching for the call girl in LA - she most likely had body dysmorphic disorder, not "an addiction to plastic surgery." You're perpetuating "addiction" as a buzzword and not a specific problem. Thought you should know. I will list other problems as I notice them.

-Whistler

6/29 Dr. Sweets is a psychologist. Stop calling him a psychiatrist. Also, in the episode with the time capsule, if the woman got pregnant at the end of her senior year, her son would be 19 at the youngest at their 20-year reunion (too old to be a high school senior... or perhaps he repeated a grade?).

7/7 the season 3 finale is completely out of character for Zack. I can't believe you betrayed his personality to add suspense and intrigue. Also, what does Brennan have against Catholics? She seems perfectly accepting of other religions (voodooism, Buddhism, etc.)

Unask

Mu. I feel like I'm asking all the wrong questions. Instead of asking "why are people so annoying" I should be asking "How can I learn to love people." But, even if I loved them, they would still be annoying. I don't care about them, but I should, if I'm going to call myself a Christian. I'm not above them, why do I keep thinking that my not caring about celebrity drama, new movie releases, and traditional romance will put me in a position where I can see reality more clearly? It won't. My reality is just as removed from the "real" as theirs is. While I disdain poshlust, I haven't escaped it - how could I? I live in it.

Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to do with all these potatoes.

A slur, a blur

I quit my job. What a relief. Now it's either find another job or live on the cheap the next four months.

In some strange flurry, I saw Crow again last Saturday. Like snapping a rubber band, it hurts but feels so good. Love it and not sure if I should. Self-distraction to increase self-control futile.
I've got the technique but not the style. Fever and chills, high speeds and cheap thrills. Deduction and reduction, suction and corruption. I've got to stop. Whistler, crop.

I'm not sure where all the free time is going. Reading probably. More cooking. Self-doubt about my graduate program, doubt that I can actually write a paper. More online chatting. As I'm more connected online, I feel more isolated in person. So I've been trying to get out more too.

Royal silent portable

Um... I was at DI yesterday and found a typewriter in the collectibles section. I couldn't pass this chance up, even though it'll need some repairs (and was a little pricey). No, seriously, gorgeous! The glass keys and white letters on black paper are kind of hard to come by. It needs a rubber band thing to make the space bar work properly, and some other repairs (you can see in the first photo that the caps lock is having issues). Other than that, yeah. I think I'm in love.