Good eats and seats

Had brunch at Fenway Park today in the .406 club. The food was very good (it included smoked salmon and some fabuous rolled french toast) and the view of the field was awesome (even if it is being torn up to put in a new drainage system). The guest speaker has led a very interesting life, even if sometimes he described it in a bit too much detail, but I felt a special affinity with a dentist who became VP of PR for the Red Sox, since my career has certainly taken a few right-angle turns like that as well.

Pretty nice way to spend a Sunday morning.

Book club in the evening was really nice too - I made deviled eggs (for the first time) since the women in the book brought deviled egss to their book club. (though ours of course is way cooler!)

We're going to read Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol for next month, and maybe even catch a touring players group that's also putting it on - sounds like fun! Since it's Victorian, I can read it guilt free by also putting it on my comps reading list - so I don't have to feel like I'm taking time away from the things I have to read.

I have great friends

Just got the most fabulous email from a friend a couple of hours ago, and it picked me up after trudging home in the sleet and cold after a semi-frustrating day teaching. It was so perceptive and articulate and entertaining (and the compliment at the end was nice!) that it made my day.

Thanks! (you know who you are)

Wouldn't it be great?

Went running today for the first time in the last, oh, probably three weeks. No doubt I'll feel like an old woman tomorrow; which made the lyrics of the Great Big Sea song I was listening to even more relevant.

Consequence Free
(written by Alan Doyle / Séan McCann)

Na na na, na na neh ah na na
Oh, Na na na, na na neh ah na na

Wouldn't it be great, if no one ever got offended
Wouldn't it be great to say what's really on your mind
And I have always said, "All the rules are made for bending"
And if I let my hair down, would that be such a crime?

CHORUS:
I wanna be consequence free
I wanna be where nothing needs to matter
I wanna be consequence free
Just sing - Na na na, na na neh ah na na
Oh, Na na na, na na neh ah na na

I could really use to lose my Catholic conscience
'Cause I'm getting sick of feeling guilty all the time
I won't abuse it, yeah I've got the best intentions
For a little bit of anarchy but not the hurting kind

CHORUS

I couldn't sleep at all last night 'cause I had so much on my mind
I'd like to leave it all behind, but you know it's not that easy
Oh, for just one night

Wouldn't it be great, if the band just never ended
We could stay out late and we would never hear last call.
We wouldn't need to worry about approval or permission,
We could slip off the edge and never worry about the fall

CHORUS

What a fabulous fantasy for adults, is it not? I mean, I'm pretty sure the last time I felt consequence free was when I was about five... maybe six.

Wouldn't it be great...?

I am far too Canadian

Was told today I'm far too polite on my blog - not enough dirt or something like that.

'Fraid to say that's cause I have very little curiosity and imagination, which means I'm not usually part of any rumor mill... or if someone tells me something, I usually don't think of passing it on, which kind of defeats the purpose of scandalous rumor, doesn't it? My lack of imagination also makes my creative writing endeavours something more akin to pathetic drivel than engaging storytelling.

Those who can't... critique.

Would bitchier help? I can do bitchy. I just need to turn the self-censor off.

For example, I'm going to Calgary for Christmas but that mostly just pisses me off instead of making me glow with joy and delight because of the way I fucked up getting us there.

I'm pissed with airlines, banks, credit card companies, online booking software, and my apparent inability to pay attention when I need to. Fuckin' Air Canada, fuckin' broke ass bank account, fuckin' useless computer, fuckin' dumb ass scheduling.

How's that? Less Canadian?

It's that time again

No, not THAT time. [I have a one cramp-related post a year limit]

That is, it's that time of the semester again - the time when we have made it past the halfway mark, but there seems to be so much to do that it feels like it's impossible and you are tempted to respond to the overwhelming workload by crawing into a hole with a big bottle of vodka and not coming out till spring... or wait, maybe that's just me who would drag a bottle of vodka along... but I think the crawling into a hole part is an accurate way of describing how all students feel at this point.

I know my students are feeling it. Hell, I'm even feeling it and I'm not registered in any courses, just dealing with my own self-imposed deadlines.

The exhaustion that comes at the ten week mark isn't physical - well, at least not only physical - and it can't be solved by more coffee. Or more beer/wine/hard liquor/other mood-altering substances. Even the healthier option of exercise and plenty of water doesn't seem to do the trick. A swift kick in the ass might work. But I suspect even that would only be a temporary remedy.

Why? Why, oh why, oh why does student life have to feel like this? What perverse mind decided that fifteen weeks was an optimal time frame for educating adults? Hmmmm? It just don't work. At least not for me.

Thing is, it's really hard for me to motivate my students when I feel like my own motivation level is dragging in the dirt. How can I convince them that they need to keep at it even when they don't feel like it, when all I want to do is crawl into a hole (sans bottle even if necessary)?

ARGH!

I am SO stupid!

Okay, so, title like that, you're thinking I'm gonna tell you how I missed a deadline because I wrote down the wrong date, or walked into a door and broke a toe or something, right?

Wrong - it's much more invidious than that. Stupid might not be quite the right word, but dense or slow might do just as well.

Over a year ago, I read this book Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye. In it (or at least part of it), he argues that you can understand literature only by creating a theory of literature that arises from itself, not borrowed from other disciplines like psychoanalysis, history etc. (Well, part of his argument anyway) What he finds when he turns to literature to develop a theory is that literature falls into various "modes": tragic, comic, ironic, mythic and romantic. These are ways that the story gets told. For example, a tragedy written in romantic mode will have the god/supernatural hero die (e.g. Beowulf, Roland - yes, the one I'm writing about). Seemed pretty straightforward to me. Even used the book in, not one, but TWO papers last year. Always read other people's work that talked about Frye's "modes" as different from other writer's use of "genres".

Just now, as I was reading an excerpt from The Rise of the Novel, it finally dawned on me HOW modes are different from genres. A year after reading Frye. Only after reading someone else (who doesn't even mention Frye). After using his work in two papers. NOW I finally get it. DUH! How stupid is that? Modes are more about what happens, and genres about how it happens (not necessarily just structurally, but the details through which the author presents the story) - roughly speaking.

apology If that didn't make sense to you, it's okay. Hell, it took me a year to get it, and I was reading someone who knows how to write. It was just such an epiphanic moment, I had to write it down.

More election response - I am amused

Got this in an email yesterday - I think it's just all around better this way, don't you (well, except for the part about declaring war on Quebec - a bit too close to home for me)?

Notice to Americans of Revocation of Independence from the Government of
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II



To the citizens of the United States of America: In the light of your
failure to elect a sane President of the USA and thus to govern
yourselves with consideration for the rest of world, we hereby give
notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties
over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which
she does not fancy.

Your new prime minister (The Rt Hon, Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of
you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your
borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for
further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be
circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following
rules are introduced with immediate effect

You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then
look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed
at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should
raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using
the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as
"like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of
communication. Look up interspersed".

There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on
your behalf.
Arrest Mel Gibson for treason.
You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen",
but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get
confused and give up half way through.

You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of
football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good
game.

The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your
borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You
will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper
football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It
is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be
allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does
not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full
Kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at
least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.
Stop referring to the "World Series" of Baseball and instead call it the
"USA, Cuba and Japan Championship."
Learn to enjoy warm flat beer and steak and kidney pudding. Train
waitresses to be more aggressive with customers and not to tell you
their names before you eat.

You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if
they give you any merde.

The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your
borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the
bad guys. "Merde" is French for "sh*t". July 4th is no longer a public
holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in
England. It will be called "Indecisive Day." Driving on the left is now
compulsory - recall all cars to effect the change immediately.

Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to

ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your cooperation and...Have a nice day!


And while we're at it, we should redraw the map of North America:

Who wants to marry an American?

Okay, so I'll admit it. Even though my students might be thoroughly disgusted with their weblog paper, their reports have provided me with some very amusing links.

Apparently, some concerned and generous Canadians are willing to save liberal Americans by marrying them and bringing them north of the border - check out the pledge!

Woes

Woes list:
1. Blogger hates me... at least it has for the last few days. This is the first time I've been able to access my blog recently. Hence, no posts lately.
2. My freshmen class began a writing project on blogs. They seem to be alternately hating it/confused by it. I don't know why.
3. The crazy man is back for another 4 years.
4. This might be a bad thing for international students.
5. There's a cold wind blowing today that reminds me that the windows in my house suck ass. And it's gonna be a cold winter.
6. Daylight savings kicked in which means it's now dark at 4 pm. Depressing for those of us who prefer evenings to mornings.
7. After getting so close to catching up that I could taste victory, I am again two weeks behind in my reading list.
8. I still haven't made any progress on the paper that I started revising in April.
9. I also still have 2 of the 3 things on my New Year's resolution list to accomplish - and it's now November.
10. Did I mention that the crazy man is back for another four years? That's not only depressing, but a little scary.

My feelings exactly!

Today's Piled Higher and Deeper comic is pretty much right on in expressing my own feelings as an alien in the U.S. during election week.

I was talking to a friend about the undecided voters and we were wondering why people were having a difficult time making up their minds since the candidates are so diametrically opposed on almost every point. Even I know who I would be voting for - and I can't even vote!

crazy busy crazy busy crazy busy

So much going on.

We're hosting a Halloween party this Saturday... well, actually two parties. I sent out invites to an evening party and realized that the people who weren't saying whether they were coming or not all had kids.
So my kids decided they would like to throw a party for the kids before the adult party.
Interesting how I've ended up with most of the preparation!
But it's fun to plan parties, so I'm not complaining... just busy.

We need costumes if we're hosting a party, so the sewing machine got pulled out and dusted off and now I'm struggling with yards of muslin - the angel and garden (yes, she's dressing as a garden) are done, the dead bride needs just some minor touches, the wench is almost complete, but the pirate still needs most of his costume... crazy.

My reading list is looming large. Bleak House took WAY longer to read than I estimated (well, it is 1000 pages long) and now I need to catch up... more busy.

To top it, the Red Sox are in a position to win their first World Series (don't get me started about the misnomer!) in 80 some years. Pretty much a 'must see'... crazy!

Reversal

Was it all a dream? Did this last year really happen?
I thought I saw the Red Sox win the ALS. Was I dreaming?

Michael Bérubé reports that the Yankees actually won the ALS.

And apparently the Astros won the NLS as well.

Amusing!

Guess who's going to San Diego?

Okay, so it's not for a while yet, but that's good, because that way I'll have time to write the paper that I've proposed to present at the 2005 PCA/ACA Conference. But I'm psyched anyway! It's always cool when you get a paper accepted, even when you know the competition wasn't that stiff.

This was the abstract I submitted:

Roland the Gungslinger’s Generic Transformation

In the Afterword of The Gunslinger, Stephen King describes how Robert Browning’s poem “Child Roland to the Dark Tower Came” was his inspiration for Roland the Gunslinger. In the Dark Tower series, King transposes Roland from this eighteenth-century Romantic poem to a twentieth-century dark fantasy. Across genres, the details of the story change as do Roland’s responses to those elements, and thus the character himself changes as he moves from one genre to the next. While the family resemblance may be indefinite at times, Roland is old; the knight Roland in the eleventh century French epic The Song of Roland is a stalwart knight, whose actions speak louder than his words. In Orlando Furioso in the fourteenth-century, he follows conventions of the Romance to become a chivalrous but love-stricken madman.

Through each change, Roland’s character is transformed. These changes as Roland is transposed from genre to genre reflect the demands and conventions of those genres, the expectations of their audiences across the centuries, and the changing values that the hero embodies in each culture. Heroes of stories are heroes because they embody particular characteristics and it is these characteristics that the culture relating the story values most. The hero of the story is a model and performs a pedagogical function in holding up a mirror of what that culture values. In Stephen King’s incarnation of Roland, the character reflects the values of contemporary Western culture, just as each Roland before has embodied his culture.

[This does however mean that I should read the last two novels in the series, The Talisman (which explains about the levels of the tower) and maybe even Black House before writing the paper. !!! ]

Not only am I presenting a paper, but because I'm presenting a paper, I can get funding to offset the cost of the trip. If I can get a hostel and crash as many 'hospitality' suites as possible, my only out of pocket expenses might be souveniers. Bonus!

The best part about doing this is that the paper will give me a venue to make a kind of trial run with some of the theories I've been reading this year in Narrative Theory (a study that I haven't really had much experience with before) - I'm hoping the paper will let me get my sea legs so to speak in this area. Particularly since I'm trying to revise a paper I wrote for a class last year, with narrative theory in mind, for publication - which is a far bigger challenge than presenting at a conference.

Either way, it's probably a good bet that the weather in California for that weekend in March will be nicer than in New England!

Word of the Day

maunder \MON-duhr\, intransitive verb:
1. To talk incoherently; to speak in a rambling manner.
2. To wander aimlessly or confusedly.

As in, it isn't the mumbling as much as the maundering that makes my teenage daughter's speech near impossible to understand.

Is that allowed?

Are you allowed to call someone a dick on national tv?

I was so disappointed last week when I tuned into the Daily Show (sometimes the most reliable source for news) and found that the episode was a rerun, from way, way back. I wondered where Jon Stewart was? Was he sick? Abducted by aliens? Recovering from being mugged?

No, he was on Crossfire and challenging the integrity of that 'news' show. The transcript of the program as well as audio and/or video clips are available here. Jon attempts to ask some serious questions, even as he gets the laughs, and they just evade, evade, evade. It's an amazing display of journalistic maneouvering.

I especially like the part where he calls his host a dick. Classic!

Ball drop

Watertown, MA (AP UNR*)

Tragically this week, the balls were dropped in Michele's Fabulous High Flying Juggling Act.

While attempting to juggle work, school, and family life, a trick the Marvelous Michele has performed effortlessly over the past few years, Michele seemed to lose control of the situation when the fourth ball was thrown into the mix. It was as if she somehow had not expected to have to juggle four balls and was totally unprepared for it.

Consequently, Michele not only dropped the fourth ball, but the previous three as well, leaving her running across the stage floor trying to recapture the balls.

This reporter would like to remind everyone that this incident underscores the importance of only allowing highly trained jugglers to handle more than three balls at a time. Safety while juggling is of paramount importance.

*unimportant news release

We spent a really, really nice weekend with my parents, who had come down from their month long tour of the Maritimes to visit us.

We had turkey for a Canadian thanksgiving and we did all kinds of touristy things, including taking in the history of the Freedom Trail, a ferry boat ride (a first for the girls) and a Duck Tour (which is far less tacky and a lot more fun than it sounds).

But now I have even more work to catch up on!

The latest micro trend

Seems to be that blogging about the monthlies is a hot topic of late. I can empathize having just been down that road myself.

My friend Allie describes her own Over-Reaction-Day every month. And this rant is absolutely superb!

I have to say, I really have mixed feelings about the whole business. Part of me understands the frustration of having your emotions messed up every month by something that is so powerful, its damn near impossible to control. But that just pisses me off more, 'cause I know that the next time I'm truly and righteously angry, there's a good chance that some guy's gonna dismiss it as 'she's on the rag' which of course just verifies that he was a douchebag to cause my righteous anger in the first place!

It's hard to keep on top of PMS and not let it absolutely ruin your day (and that of everyone around you). I used to know that the time to bleed was right around the corner when I would inexplicably feel like throwing the salt shaker across the dinner table at my husband while he was talking.

Then I started running and that feeling came less and less often. So I suppose it is true that exercise helps - just don't ask me to give up my caffeine - far nastier things than PMS would happen if Michele doesn't have caffeine.

Though come to think of it, I also left my husband, so maybe it wasn't all PMS doing the talkin' when I had those homicidal urges...

Electronic mail from beyond

Now you can send email when you're dead.

This strikes me as just a little bit eerie. Can you imagine how it would feel to receive an email from someone who has just died?

Or even sending email to people when you die is just plain odd. Why send a death email? Why not tell people what you think right now? What purpose could delaying saying something serve? What would you need to say at your death that you wouldn't say before? Confess a crime, a passion, a sin that you couldn't bear to tell while alive?

Obviously, I can't see any need to sign up for this service, but I'm very curious about how people might use it. I'd love to know what people who set up the service are thinking when they sign up for it (and what they write about to whom) and how it feels to people who receive those emails. I'd love to be an electronic fly on the wall of that email server!

Never thought the muppets would make me think

... but I guess I'm more of an egg head than I thought....


You are Dr. Bunson Honeydew.You love to analyse things and further the cause of
science, even if you do tend to blow things up
more often than not.
HOBBIES:Scientific inquiry, Looking through microscopes,
Recombining DNA to create decorative art.QUOTE:"Now, Beakie, we'll just flip this switch and
60,000 refreshing volts of electricity will
surge through your body. Ready?"
FAVORITE MUSICAL ARTIST:John Cougar Melonhead
LAST BOOK READ:"Quantum Physics: 101 Easy Microwave
Recipes"
NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:An atom smasher and plenty of extra atoms.

What Muppet are you?



Or maybe this quizilla stuff is just arbitrary (but highly amusing) fluff as I've frequently suspected.