Scurry... Christmas... Scurry

Christmas came early to our house - almost a week early - since we opened gifts this morning. I got some cool stuff, some stuff I wanted, and some stuff I totally didn't expect - which is a pretty nice combination, don't you think?

We opened presents from mom & dad, even though we're seeing them in a few days. They didn't know we were coming home for Christmas (neither did we) when they were here at Thanksgiving (the Canadian one), so they left gifts at that time.

My mom is very organized.

So is my dad come to think of it.

Hmmm... so what mutant gene did I get? Shouldn't organization be (at least in part) genetic?

So now this afternoon everyone is frantically doing laundry and packing, while I'm heading out to my book club to discuss... how right is this?... A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

God bless us, everyone!

Hard at work, or hardly working?

I suppose from an external view, someone watching me working (writing) might think it doesn't like very hard - no sweating, no blisters, no painful personality clashes with office mates...

But I find it hard. I get anxious. I find it hard to sit still. I rewrite the same sentence again and again. Other sentences I completely gloss over because I don't even want to look at them, I'm convinced they're just that bad, beyond redemption. I wonder if what I'm writing right now fits with the rest of the paper. I wander off in tangents and start talking about things that detract from my central point... I mean, really detract. I wonder how I'm going to explain myself (especially hard when I don't know what I'm talking about!) I think of all the things I could be doing instead.

Writing is the absolute worst part of my job - especially when I'm under a time constraint.

And I just heard the "good" news that another paper was accepted. So that's two definites and a maybe for this year.

Pathetic thing is, it's the maybe that's driving me nuts right now.

Sprechen Sie Englisch? Nein!

Studies show that the Chinese and Japanese both consume a low fat diet and fewer die of heart attacks than Americans or the British.

The French eat a relatively high fat diet but still have fewer die of heart attacks than Americans or the British.

Drinking red wine has been shown to be good for your heart. The Italians drink a good deal of red wine and fewer die of heart attacks than Americans or the British.

Japanese people do not drink much red wine, but they still have fewer die of heart attacks than Americans or the British.

The moral of the story?

It doesn't matter what you eat or drink. It's speaking English that kills you!

How small can you go?

Five years ago when I last bought a cell phone, I picked the smallest one available.

It looks monstrously huge beside my new phone - I'm afraid I'm gonna lose the thing - it's that small - makes me wonder how much smaller they can get - it really is just slightly larger than a man's sports watch.

Goddamn FedEx!

Sitting here perched on the edge of my couch trying to get work done while I wait for the sound of the FedEx truck that's supposed to deliver new cellphones (Christmas present to ourselves).

Why am I perched here, watching the reflections from the street in the blank tv screen out of the corner of my eye while listening for the slightest rumble that would indicate a truck is pulling up? Because yesterday they claimed that no one was home when they tried to deliver when someone was indeed home and the delivery guy was too lazy to ring the doorbell or something. So I'm poised to pounce on him when he arrives so that I don't have to go through this bullshit again tomorrow.

I wouldn't even mind missing the guy and going to pick up the package at the depot, but its way the fuck out in Needham, which is a good half hour away - probably more like an hour if I tried it during rush hour.

I'm extra bitchy 'cause I have too much work - though that's mostly my fault. Monday night, my neighbor reminded me of the village christmas party, so I went (won a cool origami kit - hehe), but that transmuted into checking out 'the best wings in Watertown' - which were pretty damn good I must admit - and continuing with the Merlot. Then last night, I was at the department thing - which migrated to a dive bar near campus - four beer taps : two of which were Budweiser *shudder* - so I didn't get home till late. Maybe now that the afternoon is starting to trickle away, I'll actually get started on this week's work.

Or then again, maybe not...

But what are we without bodies?

Reading an essay by Brian Aldiss on machines in SF when he describes a novel as follows: "In Tom Maddox's novel Halo, several characters are ingested by Aleph, a controlling artificail super-intelligence installed on an orbiting satellit. Jerry Chapman is one such character. He asks Aleph what became of his body. 'It was...recycled. A robot tended your remains...'"

How is Jerry Chapman a character? He exists, presumably, as a series of memories, ones that belonged to him when his body was living. But he owes his existence to a machine. Even when he tries to recall those memories, he needs the machine to do so since he doesn't exist outside the machine. Even if his memories are 'his', they belong to a 'him' that existed with a body. Once they are stored in a machine, can he really be said to be different from the machine? Isn't claiming that Jerry is a character a bit like reducing him to the level of a computer program? He can "run" while he's in the computer - talk, remember, reason - but without the computer, he can't do anything, can he? He's not independent. Can he be considered a character if he doesn't have an independent existence? If he can't do anything, in essence, can't be detected as existing outside the computer, is he not then just one dimension of that computer?

Does any character exist without a body? Or is it just the characters with bodies that make the most interesting characters - otherwise it's just all self-involved stream of consciousness drivel...

Small increments

I just spent five minutes waiting for the scanner to finish so that I could unplug the scanner cord and move the computer over 5 inches - yes, five! - so I could plug into the printer to print what I just scanned. Sheesh!

Just when you thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket...

...there comes a woman like this - amazing!

I know I would've been very, very tempted. My student loans are at least twice that right now, and the thought of not having to work till I'm 80 to pay them off would've tempted me bad... though I also have a fully functioning guilt complex, so I guess I wouldn't have kept it either.

Reading about that lady makes up for the penny-pinching jerks today at Old Navy - I hate Old Navy - why did I even go into the store? But I did. And I found something I actually liked (christmas shopping don't you know) so that forced me to actually locate a cash register at the front in order to pay for it... but, as is usually my luck, I end up behind someone who starts pulling everything BACK out of her bag, checking tags because she thinks the cashier is ripping her off.

So I go to the next line, 'cause I can see it's gonna take a while. Then the lady at the front of that line starts whining about how she can't use both of her discount cards on one purchase and insists on separating her items into two purchases... after they've already been rung in! Grrrrr. Geez lady, its Old Navy, whatcha gonna save $2? Tell you what, I'll buy you a latte and we'll call it even, k?

Bah humbug!

I hate New England

well, at least during weather like this - rain in winter - wtf is that all about anyway?

the worst isn't even the cold, or the fact that my house and car both leak when it rains... what sucks the most is this cheap-ass town doesn't have street lighting and I found myself stomping through puddles that I couldn't even see on the way home...

grrrrrrrrr

Boston and St. John's

Listening to GBS's "Boston and St. John's" and feeling homesick, even if I come from the other end of the country.

Hear it.

Boston and St. John’s
Released June 1999
(written by Doyle)

Girl, don’t tell me that it’s morning
Can we keep the curtains drawn
I haven’t given you fair warning
But our ship, she sails at dawn

Chorus
It’s true I must be going but I swear I won’t be long
There isn’t that much ocean between Boston and St. John’s
I’m a rover and I’m bound to sail away
I’m a rover can you love me anyway?

And if some suitor comes approaching
Will you let him through your door
And what if I return half broken
Will you still want me anymore?

Chorus

Bridge
Close your eyes and dream
Tell me what you see
Tell me what you want
Just tell me that you’ll wait for me

Chorus
From GBS site

Happy Holidays?

ack! I just realized there are only two more weekends till Christmas... and not only have I only bought 1 - one! - gift, but I also have to prepare for international travel right after the second weekend.

Oh, no, not so jolly a thought, this is... not so jolly at all!

Please don't get my hopes up for nothing

Please, please, please, don't get me excited and still not resolve the lockout. Please.
The NHLPA says it's ready to go back to the bargaining table - I'm almost afraid to watch....
If they talk and then it breaks down again anyway, it would be almost as bad as it was to watch the Flames lose the cup last year.

Post turkey blues

I figured I could take advantage of the long weekend we have to make some progress on not only reading, but rationalizing my lists for the comps. After all, aside from spending Thursday cooking, then eating and hanging out with friends who were nice enough to invite us to their Thanskgiving dinner, I had nothing planned for the weekend.

So, this is what I've got:

Things I need to do:
Develop a primary text reading list
Research secondary sources
Gather secondary sources from multiple places
Read primary and secondary texts
Submit a proposal (including reading list)
Get the proposal back with suggested changes
Resubmit proposal
If lucky, get proposal back with only minor changes
If unlucky, repeast proposal submission and changes multiple times
Do this for all three areas
Submit final proposal
Study!
Write the tests (4)

I could put a checkmark next to the first item on the list for one area, but not much more. *sigh* No wonder it's so difficult to do this in a year. Why they officially require us to do all this in a single year is beyond my comprehension.

It depresses me just thinking about it.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Some folks in California got worried a while back about a substance in their community - dihydrogen monoxide - and took efforts at banning use of it in their city. According to news reports, city councillors in Aliso Viejo in Orange County almost passed a bill to ban the substance but stopped short of doing so when someone pointed out that dihydrogen monoxide was also known by another name: H20 a.k.a water.

Apparently someone in the legal department found this website calling for a ban on the material. What is funniest about the site is that aside from not providing the easily recognizable H20 formula, what they say on the site is absolutely true. For example, in a section outlining the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide, the following dangers are described:

Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment. Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
Contributes to soil erosion.
Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere.
Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.

Sounds dangerous, doesn't it? I especially like the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) attached to the site.
Thanks to Rob for the tip.

Once upon a time....

...long, long ago and far, far away, Michele used to go out and have fun.

At least, that's what it feels like - long ago and far away. Tried to change that last night - my supervisor's boyfriend is in a band and she invited us to hear them. They're a good bar band - played a nice mix of covers and original stuff, though my friend is convinced I was getting hit on by another band member since we of course were introduced to all of them.
She might be right.
Now there's something else that last happened long ago and far away!

Progress vs. productivity

So my output for today, even though I pretty much worked most of the day resulted in about a quarter of a page of writing. Not much in volume but I'm hoping it will help me focus and save time and energy in this whole comps exam process.

What did I write, you wonder? I'll tell you. I wrote about twenty lines which consist of two potential chapter outlines for the disseration. The dissertation! you ask, how can you be outlining your disseration already? Well, I don't quite know how, but I came to the realization that I've been reading pretty randomly and getting distracted by reading all kinds of other stuff - a bit of this, need to know some more about that, need to read more of this author, ooh that looks interesting... etc. - and at this rate, it will take me years to prepare for the comps. I need to get more organized.

So I need to focus - which is why I wrote two outlines - one would be 5 chapters and the other 8.

Have I written anything that could go into them? No! Have I read the things I'd need to to write them? Hell, no! But maybe, just maybe, I can keep my head on straight and start to make some progress on compiling a reading list. If not, well, I guess I just wasted most of today.

At least there's turkey to look forward to tomorrow.

More Good Bad

Bought a wireless card for my computer (to go with the wireless router we bought a few weeks ago when the old one went kaput) so it is super cool to be able to access internet anywhere in the house! I wonder if it extends out into the yard too? Sit in the shade, drinkin' a margarita and surfing next summer? That even beats out the grading papers by the pool!

BUT damn thing loses connection every once in a while and has to reestablish - it cut out just as I was publishing the last post. Poof! No more post.

And I'm too miffed to rewrite it, so you will forever be without my musings on its subject... not that that's a big loss or anything...

Good Bad

Bad is that I'm sick. Ugh. Makes it difficult to work or play!

Good... well, there's lots of good, but the one that I'm most impressed with is that my students are finally coming around to the third project that I assigned, the one that asks if blogging is literature, and if so, is it also art? I got their final papers yesterday, and from flipping through them, I'd say they've at least got some interesting things to say about it and it made them have to think - which is the whole point of the course!

I always give the students three options for the final project - two of the options are standard 'revise an earlier paper' kind of options, but the third one I usually try to base on one of the sequences, something that I would've had them all do if we'd had the time. This time, the third option is for them to create their own blog and then critically analyse what's going on in it (including comments) from one of the critical points of view we discussed during this last sequence. About half the class has chosen this option, so it should make for some interesting final projects at least. Interesting is good when it comes to first year papers since they all tend to sound a bit the same.

Well, she did ask for it....

Today during a meeting for all the instructors of introductory writing, the director of the writing program began by commenting that this was one of the few times we had everyone in the same room and were there any general questions, concerns or comments before we began?

One of the T.A.s stuck up his hand and said, "There are cockroaches in Holmes Hall"

It doesn't have anything to do with teaching English, but she did ask for it.

(and yes, there are cockroaches in our building - Holmes Hall - and some good stories to go with, but that's another post)

Playing with Irony

Does this post from a discussion listserv strike anyone else as ironic?

Mikel, your critique of anti-essentialism is way too
simplistic.
Ben