late night spam
Dec. 9th, 2004 02:17 amWe make our own fun -- if by fun you mean study break :)
Best story of the night: Laura's friend sold E to middle schoolers for $20/pill. And by E we mean Excedrin tablets :)
Yeah, the homework plan didn't so much come to fruition. The break was probably a good thing, though, as i was definitely getting frustrated with the paper while at work and so will hopefully be re-energized after having had some time away from the material. [Speaking of work: Am getting trained to do lots of stuff over January so i can in part run the office when Boss is on vacation for 2 weeks. Craziness.]
For anyone who missed it the first time around: the LJ harem quiz
In Bible class we read Job 2:11-13 and i thought "Shiva"!
At RCFOS, SNewby brought in a Thomas Merton reading, and what i was most struck by was her saying that all too often we don't really want peace, we want to win. And people said good stuff and i was so glad to see multiple people recognizing how alienating various kinds of protest action can be. And i wished the discussion was more focused because there were so many good ideas/topics mentioned that nothing got really discussed in depth, but partly that's the nature of the gathering and partly it's the end of the semester.
This is oh so very cute.
Hello, crossovers of INSANITY.
The "Which Northampton Stereotype are You?" quiz says, "You are a YUPPIE! You live in Northampton for the intellectualism and culture... you are probably a professor."
Am considering getting streaks in my hair next semester. I would have to bleach it first, right? Also: any suggestions for colors?
( my celebrity husband )
Best story of the night: Laura's friend sold E to middle schoolers for $20/pill. And by E we mean Excedrin tablets :)
Yeah, the homework plan didn't so much come to fruition. The break was probably a good thing, though, as i was definitely getting frustrated with the paper while at work and so will hopefully be re-energized after having had some time away from the material. [Speaking of work: Am getting trained to do lots of stuff over January so i can in part run the office when Boss is on vacation for 2 weeks. Craziness.]
For anyone who missed it the first time around: the LJ harem quiz
In Bible class we read Job 2:11-13 and i thought "Shiva"!
Now when Job's three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home --- Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.The tradition predates Job, though.
At RCFOS, SNewby brought in a Thomas Merton reading, and what i was most struck by was her saying that all too often we don't really want peace, we want to win. And people said good stuff and i was so glad to see multiple people recognizing how alienating various kinds of protest action can be. And i wished the discussion was more focused because there were so many good ideas/topics mentioned that nothing got really discussed in depth, but partly that's the nature of the gathering and partly it's the end of the semester.
This is oh so very cute.
Hello, crossovers of INSANITY.
The "Which Northampton Stereotype are You?" quiz says, "You are a YUPPIE! You live in Northampton for the intellectualism and culture... you are probably a professor."
Am considering getting streaks in my hair next semester. I would have to bleach it first, right? Also: any suggestions for colors?
"until you're thin and tired, tired..."
Dec. 4th, 2004 05:37 amSo, we were in Shakespeare class talking about all the homosocial stuff in Coriolanus and Prof. Oram talked about how he prefers to use the term homosocial rather than homosexual for this play since the homosexual desire gets sublimated into other behavior, though he wasn't going to say anything silly (his word) like that Shakespeare wasn't interested in men since most the sonnets are to a man and he recommended Bruce Smith's Homosexual Desire in Renaissanance England :)
We continued discussion of the omgliekwhoa 4.5 and finished the play and there's the tragedy of the end and Prof. Oram was talking about how Aufidius is calculating from the very beginning of the union and it was making me sad. I was reminded of Emma and i talking recently about old skool Charles/Erik (Professor X and Magneto of the X-Men universe) and debating if it is the most tragic relationship evar. Canon narrative is of them on violently opposed sides, but back in the day they were very close friends, so you have this deeply tender relationship that you know even before you begin reading it is going to end tragically. I am in fact highly inclined to not read the pairing because it is so depressing. The only comparable relationship i can think of is if one did what Smallville is doing: have Clark and Lex be friends back in the day. But i don't think it's canon in any 'verse that they were friends back in the day. In X-Men it very much is.
Anyway, so class discussion was good but meanwhile part of my brain was thinking about all the work i hadn't done the past couple days and debating deferring grad school for 2 years to bartend and massage school. And then i got back my "But What If You Don't Like It?: The Role of Jaques in As You Like It" paper with the following comment accompanying the grade: "This is a very good rewrite, careful, independent and genuinely thoughtful. It's also a pleasure to read --- something important when one writes about comedy. I think you're a little hard on Jaques at the end of the play -- what he says to the various lovers is playful and generous -- but this is really good work. I think you might submit it for an English Dept. prize this spring."
And then i saw Danne, which was lovely.
And i had breakfast, which hadn't happened in days.
UMass discussion was good. We talked a lot about drugs, as has become usual. We also talked about religion, including the Lilith midrash and the theocratic nature of Tibet. Also from discussion: the editor of Maxim graduated from UMass with a Comp-Lit major; should Dunkin' Donuts have lox?; Hitler; Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis. And i got an extension on my paper.
I finally made myself start on my DSS paper. Realizing that it was a 6-8 rather than 8-10 page assignment was a pleasant surprise. But yeah, way to go having no bloody idea what i'm doing. *wants so badly to work on the Buffy/Bible/UPenn paper instead of all my real homework*
Grief counselor at tea today, so upon his arrival we all exited, with relative grace, and ended up having a hall party outside my door (since my door is across from the stairwell) and i learned that Corona is in fact not bad beer.
Lez made me go to ("The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe") mocktail. I wore my sparkly dress and my hot boots. My new theory is that entire purpose of a mocktail (besides the food and entertainment) is everyone dressing up pretty so we can all admire the pretty and compliment each other a bajillion times.
The Smith Vibes and Brown's Bear Necessities performed. The Bears weren't bad, but they weren't all that good either. And the Vibes were way hotter. However, "inspired by the Vibes," the Bears did Sarah McLachlan's "Ice Cream" (which the Vibes had done in their set) and the soloist was this cute little guy whom i hadn't noticed before (and when he made announcements later he so had a Doyle-Irish accent) and i was all aflutter during the whole thing. And they did Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia" which then the Vibes did in their second set -- "inspired" by the Bears, of course.
It's bad that i was listening to John Mayer's "No Such Thing" and lyrics like they love to tell you "stay inside the lines," but something's better on the other side made me all gayly asquee. The performative little Asian man did Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" and there was a synchronized dance routine in the background and it's hard to not get a gay vibe from that and i loved it.
pardalis05 says my house is the best on campus second only to her own :) And the hot chocolate was declared "sex in a cup." It was from that (not so new anymore) chocolate place on Green Street that people keep recommending to me, so i have decided that finally purchasing myself a hot chocolate there will be my reward to myself when i finish this semester.
I went upstairs around 10:30 with the theory of getting some work done now that the party was over. I took off my shoes and put on slippers and went to go to the bathroom and then there was a party in my hall and that finally ended *cough* around 4:30. Yeah platonic Cat-cuddling and conversation with a rotating cast of characters. Though now of course the odds of my actually getting substantial work done on evol paper on Saturday go way down since, ya know, sleep and all.
Reminder to self: Go to The Mysteries of Chris Van Allsburg exhibit over Jterm.
I got a River/Jayne ficlet over on
serenity_santa! (Located here.) I haven't read it yet, but ::loves on the fact of its very existence::
Also:
merrylittleelf made icons for everyone in
btvs_santa. I got a Kate/Lilah one. ::hearts:: (I also love the ones for tis_nat and thomasina75.)
Moving back to the gay subtext discussion which opened this entry:
Thanks to
antheia for this Brokeback Mountain piece about Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger.
Not homoerotic, just boggling: Christopher Walken used to not look terrifying
Everyone has of course heard about the Alabama lawmaker who wants to ban all the gay books. Speaking of homoerotic subtext: *hearts on Jesse Walker*
People keep linking to this New Yorker piece about the anti-Kinsey folk. It contains such gems as Reisman also endorses a book called "The Pink Swastika," which challenges the "myths" that gays were victimized in Nazi Germany. What i was struck by, particularly since i had seen it referenced by an LJ-er as "Further proof that the Right has gone utterly bonkers" was the amount of ink spilled on her anti-(child) pornography work. Porn is one of those issues that so amusingly splits the "Right" and the "Left" and by splits of course i also mean unites. There are people on both sides who oppose it (you're exploiting the vulnerable, you're degrading sexuality, etc.) and there are people on both sides who support it (women should be free to flaunt their sexuality, people should be free to do whatever they want provided they aren't hurting other people, etc.) and obviously the positions are often nuanced (with both Right and Left pro-porn folk wanting women to engage in sex work because they want to not because they are forced to due to poverty, for example).
Linking to this Boston Globe piece, Glenn Reynolds quips, "Somebody should make a documentary on this." Yes, this is my political-diversity-in-the-academy hobby horse. Will be interesting if i ever get a professorship and get to be That Professor instead of That Student. Full text of the article (complete with links) located for posterity behind
( the cut )
We continued discussion of the omgliekwhoa 4.5 and finished the play and there's the tragedy of the end and Prof. Oram was talking about how Aufidius is calculating from the very beginning of the union and it was making me sad. I was reminded of Emma and i talking recently about old skool Charles/Erik (Professor X and Magneto of the X-Men universe) and debating if it is the most tragic relationship evar. Canon narrative is of them on violently opposed sides, but back in the day they were very close friends, so you have this deeply tender relationship that you know even before you begin reading it is going to end tragically. I am in fact highly inclined to not read the pairing because it is so depressing. The only comparable relationship i can think of is if one did what Smallville is doing: have Clark and Lex be friends back in the day. But i don't think it's canon in any 'verse that they were friends back in the day. In X-Men it very much is.
Anyway, so class discussion was good but meanwhile part of my brain was thinking about all the work i hadn't done the past couple days and debating deferring grad school for 2 years to bartend and massage school. And then i got back my "But What If You Don't Like It?: The Role of Jaques in As You Like It" paper with the following comment accompanying the grade: "This is a very good rewrite, careful, independent and genuinely thoughtful. It's also a pleasure to read --- something important when one writes about comedy. I think you're a little hard on Jaques at the end of the play -- what he says to the various lovers is playful and generous -- but this is really good work. I think you might submit it for an English Dept. prize this spring."
And then i saw Danne, which was lovely.
And i had breakfast, which hadn't happened in days.
UMass discussion was good. We talked a lot about drugs, as has become usual. We also talked about religion, including the Lilith midrash and the theocratic nature of Tibet. Also from discussion: the editor of Maxim graduated from UMass with a Comp-Lit major; should Dunkin' Donuts have lox?; Hitler; Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis. And i got an extension on my paper.
I finally made myself start on my DSS paper. Realizing that it was a 6-8 rather than 8-10 page assignment was a pleasant surprise. But yeah, way to go having no bloody idea what i'm doing. *wants so badly to work on the Buffy/Bible/UPenn paper instead of all my real homework*
Grief counselor at tea today, so upon his arrival we all exited, with relative grace, and ended up having a hall party outside my door (since my door is across from the stairwell) and i learned that Corona is in fact not bad beer.
Lez made me go to ("The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe") mocktail. I wore my sparkly dress and my hot boots. My new theory is that entire purpose of a mocktail (besides the food and entertainment) is everyone dressing up pretty so we can all admire the pretty and compliment each other a bajillion times.
The Smith Vibes and Brown's Bear Necessities performed. The Bears weren't bad, but they weren't all that good either. And the Vibes were way hotter. However, "inspired by the Vibes," the Bears did Sarah McLachlan's "Ice Cream" (which the Vibes had done in their set) and the soloist was this cute little guy whom i hadn't noticed before (and when he made announcements later he so had a Doyle-Irish accent) and i was all aflutter during the whole thing. And they did Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia" which then the Vibes did in their second set -- "inspired" by the Bears, of course.
It's bad that i was listening to John Mayer's "No Such Thing" and lyrics like they love to tell you "stay inside the lines," but something's better on the other side made me all gayly asquee. The performative little Asian man did Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" and there was a synchronized dance routine in the background and it's hard to not get a gay vibe from that and i loved it.
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I went upstairs around 10:30 with the theory of getting some work done now that the party was over. I took off my shoes and put on slippers and went to go to the bathroom and then there was a party in my hall and that finally ended *cough* around 4:30. Yeah platonic Cat-cuddling and conversation with a rotating cast of characters. Though now of course the odds of my actually getting substantial work done on evol paper on Saturday go way down since, ya know, sleep and all.
Reminder to self: Go to The Mysteries of Chris Van Allsburg exhibit over Jterm.
I got a River/Jayne ficlet over on
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Also:
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Moving back to the gay subtext discussion which opened this entry:
Thanks to
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Not homoerotic, just boggling: Christopher Walken used to not look terrifying
Everyone has of course heard about the Alabama lawmaker who wants to ban all the gay books. Speaking of homoerotic subtext: *hearts on Jesse Walker*
People keep linking to this New Yorker piece about the anti-Kinsey folk. It contains such gems as Reisman also endorses a book called "The Pink Swastika," which challenges the "myths" that gays were victimized in Nazi Germany. What i was struck by, particularly since i had seen it referenced by an LJ-er as "Further proof that the Right has gone utterly bonkers" was the amount of ink spilled on her anti-(child) pornography work. Porn is one of those issues that so amusingly splits the "Right" and the "Left" and by splits of course i also mean unites. There are people on both sides who oppose it (you're exploiting the vulnerable, you're degrading sexuality, etc.) and there are people on both sides who support it (women should be free to flaunt their sexuality, people should be free to do whatever they want provided they aren't hurting other people, etc.) and obviously the positions are often nuanced (with both Right and Left pro-porn folk wanting women to engage in sex work because they want to not because they are forced to due to poverty, for example).
Linking to this Boston Globe piece, Glenn Reynolds quips, "Somebody should make a documentary on this." Yes, this is my political-diversity-in-the-academy hobby horse. Will be interesting if i ever get a professorship and get to be That Professor instead of That Student. Full text of the article (complete with links) located for posterity behind
"Jonas and Ezekiel, hear me now..."
Dec. 2nd, 2004 12:50 amMmm... lunch. Two boca burgers and potato puffs and pink lemonade. And it turned out that after 2 days of cold grainy "hot chocolate" the machine was giving us real hot chocolate again. I was stuffed and already had a beverage but was still happy. I was in fact so stuffed that i passed on dessert -- assorted ice creams plus more alcoholic orange gelato. Dinner was also not bad. Pizza w/o tomato sauce and much hot chocolate.
No homework at SCMA today. Marketing is sending out another batch of membership renewals. A huge batch. The renewal slips are three to a page (perforated) and this stack of paper was taller than a ream of copy paper -- though granted it's heavier paper than copy paper. So i perforated and stacked them (gotta keep them in zip code order for the mailing) and that took about an hour and a quarter and then i stuffed them into window envelopes (retaining the zip code order) and that took approximately the same amount of time and then i did Stacey's copying and then i did the filing and then i did some copying for my actual boss and then it was quarter of Time to Go Home. Yeah. And Ann (aka Real Boss) said she was really glad that i'm gonna be here over j-term and willing to work.
Shakespeare papers still haven't been returned to us, but we did get a partial list of final paper topics. Yeah analysis of the role of Character X. Yeah Aufidius. (Caius Martius/Tullus Aufidius makes me all asquee -- omgtheirloveissowarlike.) Am so not into writing the Dead Sea Scrolls paper, though. Picked a relatively easy/straightforward topic for my UMass paper, which is good, though i'm debating asking for an extension because it's due the day after my DSS paper; i can totally write it in a few days, i'm just not sure i can squeeze it in while still writing a DSS paper that will get me a passing grade.
At RCFOS tonight, one of the things talked about was finding communities of faith that also share your politics, and e.koke talked about it being uncomfortable to be at Mass knowing that the people around you wouldn't like your politics if they knew them, and SNewby said that you won't know if you don't give people a chance and that if you have high expectations for people they often surprise you by living up to them. This got me thinking. So often i keep my mouth shut when people are saying things i find problematic/troubling because i think calling them on it will lead to badness. What if i had faith/hope that we could have respectful dialogue? Would i just be setting myself up to be shattered, or would i be pleasantly surprised? I should try it, huh? (I mean, i do try sometimes, but much less than i used to, and very rarely with people i don't know well, both because of my general weariness and because of jaded skittishness born of past experience. Which is not to say that i haven't had good experiences in the past which have reaffirmed my faith in humanity, because i have. /qualifiers )
Went down to house study break and consumed far too many carbs. Watched many rounds of a playing card version of MASH. Much fun.
I adore that my parents are getting the complete Buffy on DVD for my graduation, but i wish i had some of it now so that Emma could finish S3 (and start on the next season and a half) and so i could inflict S6 on Cat. I know, my life is so tragic, right?
New
ats_nolimits tonight. I am now officially two episodes behind.
Got all my holiday ficathon assignments, and they're quite doable. Yayness.
Lessee, how much time tonight should i waste on LJ? Hmm. Though it's not exactly "wasting" since what i have left to catch up on is entries of substance. Except, of course, when i check out things like
doyle_sb4's call for pretty pictures. *is dead of lust* Oh and then Cat came by and we talked about Buffy and she wants to watch the whole series. And so now i am back at my computer, deciding that i will do no schoolwork tonight. I have a good amount of time Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so in theory i should be able to make myself work on the DSS paper and yeah, life will be breatheable.
In more somber news, my mother writes: "Ken McLean's sister died just after his funeral. Not a good year for them (his brother Bob died this summer)"
From the obit: "Alma has entered Heaven ahead of her loving husband Milton and her four Sons and their families: [...] She has gone to be with her Mother, Father and four of her brothers: Phillip, Gene, Robert, and Kenneth. "
No homework at SCMA today. Marketing is sending out another batch of membership renewals. A huge batch. The renewal slips are three to a page (perforated) and this stack of paper was taller than a ream of copy paper -- though granted it's heavier paper than copy paper. So i perforated and stacked them (gotta keep them in zip code order for the mailing) and that took about an hour and a quarter and then i stuffed them into window envelopes (retaining the zip code order) and that took approximately the same amount of time and then i did Stacey's copying and then i did the filing and then i did some copying for my actual boss and then it was quarter of Time to Go Home. Yeah. And Ann (aka Real Boss) said she was really glad that i'm gonna be here over j-term and willing to work.
Shakespeare papers still haven't been returned to us, but we did get a partial list of final paper topics. Yeah analysis of the role of Character X. Yeah Aufidius. (Caius Martius/Tullus Aufidius makes me all asquee -- omgtheirloveissowarlike.) Am so not into writing the Dead Sea Scrolls paper, though. Picked a relatively easy/straightforward topic for my UMass paper, which is good, though i'm debating asking for an extension because it's due the day after my DSS paper; i can totally write it in a few days, i'm just not sure i can squeeze it in while still writing a DSS paper that will get me a passing grade.
At RCFOS tonight, one of the things talked about was finding communities of faith that also share your politics, and e.koke talked about it being uncomfortable to be at Mass knowing that the people around you wouldn't like your politics if they knew them, and SNewby said that you won't know if you don't give people a chance and that if you have high expectations for people they often surprise you by living up to them. This got me thinking. So often i keep my mouth shut when people are saying things i find problematic/troubling because i think calling them on it will lead to badness. What if i had faith/hope that we could have respectful dialogue? Would i just be setting myself up to be shattered, or would i be pleasantly surprised? I should try it, huh? (I mean, i do try sometimes, but much less than i used to, and very rarely with people i don't know well, both because of my general weariness and because of jaded skittishness born of past experience. Which is not to say that i haven't had good experiences in the past which have reaffirmed my faith in humanity, because i have. /qualifiers )
Went down to house study break and consumed far too many carbs. Watched many rounds of a playing card version of MASH. Much fun.
I adore that my parents are getting the complete Buffy on DVD for my graduation, but i wish i had some of it now so that Emma could finish S3 (and start on the next season and a half) and so i could inflict S6 on Cat. I know, my life is so tragic, right?
New
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Got all my holiday ficathon assignments, and they're quite doable. Yayness.
Lessee, how much time tonight should i waste on LJ? Hmm. Though it's not exactly "wasting" since what i have left to catch up on is entries of substance. Except, of course, when i check out things like
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
In more somber news, my mother writes: "Ken McLean's sister died just after his funeral. Not a good year for them (his brother Bob died this summer)"
From the obit: "Alma has entered Heaven ahead of her loving husband Milton and her four Sons and their families: [...] She has gone to be with her Mother, Father and four of her brothers: Phillip, Gene, Robert, and Kenneth. "
Now to catch up on however many days of my friendspage.
Oh, and no i haven't read the latest
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Also,
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NYTimes Top Story today:
BOSTON WINS SERIES, 4-0
Red Sox Erase 86 Years of Futility in 4 Games
By TYLER KEPNER
The Red Sox, the team that perfected heartbreak, silenced the Cardinals, 3-0, in Game 4 to win their first World Series since 1918.
Forthcoming book argues Lincoln was gay.
"Ancient hobbit-sized human species discovered"
"Since the Redskins became the Redskins in 1933, the result of the team's final home game before the presidential election has correctly predicted the White House winner. If the Redskins win, the incumbent party wins. If they lose, the incumbent party is ousted."
"Interested in becoming president this year? If so, hope for an electoral college tie. With an unlikely, but plausible, perfect tie -- 269 electoral votes for both George W. Bush and John Kerry -- anyone meeting the Constitutional qualifications for president could end up president."
I enjoy the
smith_step chalkings -- “Ballots kill cute helpless trees. Stop the violence. Don’t vote.” Much better than some of the crap the Smith Dems have put out -- “Bush is scary. Vote Kerry.” “Like books? Vote for a President who can read. Kerry 2004.”
Dear Everyone: Stop talking about
anniesj!!!! Her situation is not a sign of the apocalypse. Really. I promise.
The election is in mere days and i haven’t been defriended in ages. (Though the magic of Default View of course allows people to ignore me without my knowing.) Is this an additional sign of the apocalypse?
I am so at that point of wanting Kerry to win just so i don’t have to listen to 4 more years of “Bush and his cronies are teh evol!!11” I’m not happy with either of my options for President and have once again reached the point of not caring about the results of the election.
No one made reference to Red Sox/Kerry today, which made me happy.
I was telling Emma the other day that i dislike most movies/books/TV because i dislike most people, so obviously portrayals of human behavior/interaction is less than appealing to me.
Valerie Martin spoke to my UMass class today. Talking about why she set her dystopia in the past, she said that to say that we have a long way to go until we hit dystopia is a kind of optimism. She also said, “It’s bad now, but it’s been worse, and it’s gonna get worse,” that that’s why writers keep writing dystopian novels. Though i don’t have Emma’s aversion to books with sad endings, books that are thoroughly depressing (like, oh, 1984) are not really my thing. I would much rather read/write stories about people struggling, and triumphing -- even if it’s only in small ways.
Moving on to fannish stuff (that isn’t baseball)...
vid of the S/X outtake kiss from “Normal Again” is circulating. (see
mpoetess and others)
Talking about Edmund (King Lear) in Shakespeare class i totally thought of the First Evil’s speech at the end of “Lessons” (BtVS 7.01) -- “It’s not about right, not about wrong; it’s about power.”
Oh, and the official release date for the S7 DVD is November 16. Angel S5 isn’t out yet, but given that its release schedule has been Feb/Sept i’m guessing it’ll come out this February.
Release of the Wonderfalls DVD (13 episodes) got officially reported. Release date is February 1.
BOSTON WINS SERIES, 4-0
Red Sox Erase 86 Years of Futility in 4 Games
By TYLER KEPNER
The Red Sox, the team that perfected heartbreak, silenced the Cardinals, 3-0, in Game 4 to win their first World Series since 1918.
[...]Dude, i got teary reading the end of that.
Boston won it in the city where Johnny Pesky held the ball in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series, the first of four Series calamities for the Red Sox.
[...]
Epstein, the general manager, grew up in Boston with the lessons of generations before him. He and his twin brother, Paul, stood together on a couch in 1986, when they were 12 years old, ready to jump for joy when the Red Sox beat the Mets.
That victory never came, and this year when the Yankees led the Red Sox in the championship series, three games to none, Epstein knew the facts. No team that had ever been in such a hole had recovered to win the series.
The Red Sox' players knew it, too, but they did not care. They have not lost since. They are the last team standing. They made history.
"They believed," Epstein said. "That's all that matters."
Trials of faith have never been foreign to the New England mind. Whether it was scratching an existence out of the granite-veined earth or the preparing for an afterlife of Calvinist severity, the joys of the moment have always been spare - and attended by no small amount of toil.In other news....
The failures of the Red Sox are a product of struggle, not concession, and to some, they are best seen as the reflection of the region's doctrinal traditions. "There's something about the Puritan legacy," says Isaac Kramnick, the vice president of undergraduate education at Cornell University and a Red Sox fan. "There's something about the inherent nature of New Englanders" that believes that bad can triumph over good.
-from the Christian Science Monitor thanks tojadelennox
Forthcoming book argues Lincoln was gay.
"Ancient hobbit-sized human species discovered"
"Since the Redskins became the Redskins in 1933, the result of the team's final home game before the presidential election has correctly predicted the White House winner. If the Redskins win, the incumbent party wins. If they lose, the incumbent party is ousted."
"Interested in becoming president this year? If so, hope for an electoral college tie. With an unlikely, but plausible, perfect tie -- 269 electoral votes for both George W. Bush and John Kerry -- anyone meeting the Constitutional qualifications for president could end up president."
I enjoy the
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Dear Everyone: Stop talking about
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The election is in mere days and i haven’t been defriended in ages. (Though the magic of Default View of course allows people to ignore me without my knowing.) Is this an additional sign of the apocalypse?
I am so at that point of wanting Kerry to win just so i don’t have to listen to 4 more years of “Bush and his cronies are teh evol!!11” I’m not happy with either of my options for President and have once again reached the point of not caring about the results of the election.
No one made reference to Red Sox/Kerry today, which made me happy.
I was telling Emma the other day that i dislike most movies/books/TV because i dislike most people, so obviously portrayals of human behavior/interaction is less than appealing to me.
Valerie Martin spoke to my UMass class today. Talking about why she set her dystopia in the past, she said that to say that we have a long way to go until we hit dystopia is a kind of optimism. She also said, “It’s bad now, but it’s been worse, and it’s gonna get worse,” that that’s why writers keep writing dystopian novels. Though i don’t have Emma’s aversion to books with sad endings, books that are thoroughly depressing (like, oh, 1984) are not really my thing. I would much rather read/write stories about people struggling, and triumphing -- even if it’s only in small ways.
Moving on to fannish stuff (that isn’t baseball)...
vid of the S/X outtake kiss from “Normal Again” is circulating. (see
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Talking about Edmund (King Lear) in Shakespeare class i totally thought of the First Evil’s speech at the end of “Lessons” (BtVS 7.01) -- “It’s not about right, not about wrong; it’s about power.”
Oh, and the official release date for the S7 DVD is November 16. Angel S5 isn’t out yet, but given that its release schedule has been Feb/Sept i’m guessing it’ll come out this February.
Release of the Wonderfalls DVD (13 episodes) got officially reported. Release date is February 1.
Family Weekend
Oct. 19th, 2004 02:19 amwas lovely, though it was the second weekend in a row of getting little homework done, which is badness.
( Read more... )
slowly catching up on my readings...
Oct. 14th, 2004 11:28 pmThis marks the 3rd time i’m doing 1 Henry IV in class. Not the most compelling play ever and i like it less than i remember, but having done it so often so many of the passages just feel familiar, which is comforting in a way.
I don’t particularly like Falstaff, but the first time i did 1 Henry IV we followed it with 2 Henry IV and Henry V, and Hal’s rejection of Falstaff when he becomes king was just so painful. And the foreshadowings when i reread 1 Henry IV ... oh, the pain.
1 Henry IV:
FALSTAFF: Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.
HAL: No, thou shalt.
(I.ii.62-63)
FALSTAFF [playing Hal]: No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and there more valiant, being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company—banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
HAL [playing Hal’s father]: I do, I will.
(II.iv.474-481)
2 Henry IV:
FALSTAFF: God save they Grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!
PISTOL: The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!
FALSTAFF: God save thee, my sweet boy!
KING (HAL): My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.
CHIEF JUSTICE: Have you your wits? know you what ‘tis you speak?
FALSTAFF: My king, my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
KING (HAL): I know thee not, old man, fall to thy prayers.
How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester!
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane;
But being awak’d, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence and more thy grace,
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest,
Presume not that I am the thing I was,
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn’d way my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
(V.v.41-59)
I don’t particularly like Falstaff, but the first time i did 1 Henry IV we followed it with 2 Henry IV and Henry V, and Hal’s rejection of Falstaff when he becomes king was just so painful. And the foreshadowings when i reread 1 Henry IV ... oh, the pain.
1 Henry IV:
FALSTAFF: Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.
HAL: No, thou shalt.
(I.ii.62-63)
FALSTAFF [playing Hal]: No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and there more valiant, being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company—banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
HAL [playing Hal’s father]: I do, I will.
(II.iv.474-481)
2 Henry IV:
FALSTAFF: God save they Grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!
PISTOL: The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!
FALSTAFF: God save thee, my sweet boy!
KING (HAL): My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.
CHIEF JUSTICE: Have you your wits? know you what ‘tis you speak?
FALSTAFF: My king, my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
KING (HAL): I know thee not, old man, fall to thy prayers.
How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester!
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane;
But being awak’d, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence and more thy grace,
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest,
Presume not that I am the thing I was,
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn’d way my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
(V.v.41-59)
Fall Break
Oct. 12th, 2004 05:42 pmThe short version: Went home to the Boston area, slept a lot, saw lots of people, enjoyed myself, did almost no work though i did very well on the GRE. Returned to Smith and have continued to do almost no work.
The long version:
( Read more... )
The long version:
big ole update, and now to bed finally
Oct. 7th, 2004 10:53 pmMonday night:
Went to the library after Self-Defense class to research for my paper.
Went to the Campus Center for food for the first time all semester. Due to being under-staffed there was no milkshake making, so i got french fries but no chocolate milkshake which is what i really wanted. However, Laura's mom sent homemade chocolate chip cookies and Laura shares, so i had 3 and felt much better.
I heart talking to Emma, even though that was hours i should have been writing my paper.
We talked a lot about As You Like It. Bill Oram is convincing me that perhaps Rosalind really is madly in love with Orlando, but i don't particularly buy his argument that the play is about court vs. country (though it's certainly a pastoral play).
Emma talked about how plays, especially in Shakespeare's time, were meant to be performed, and if you need to do really close reading, if you can't see something in a viewing of a play, then perhaps you are stretching things.
In the versions Emma has seen, Rosalind is played cold (which is how i read her originally) and Orlando is an idiot (which is a legitimate reading, just not one i was particularly inclined to; i don't care much one way or the other about him, but i think he's a perfectly good guy who falls madly in love with this lady).
I totally reinterpret stuff in this play not just to make it gay but to make characters' actions/motivations make more sense to me. (I'm totally gonna end up rewriting this play, aren't it?)
Shakespeare was an imperfect human being, not a deity, not even a minor one.
Wednesday after class i was having breakfast with a woman in my class and a friend of hers who loves Rosalind and wrote a paper on her. She said that Rosalind wants a guy she can mold, control. I can see that. Rosalind still confuses me, though. In class we were talking about the other couples, and when Phebe is cutting Silvius down for his over the top professions of love, Rosalind jumps in and bitches her out because she sympathizes with Silvius' over-thetop feelings. That's how Bill explained it anyway, and that made sense to be as i've been being converted to the plausibility of the "Yes Rosalind really does fall passionately in love with Orlando" reading of the text. (Though that's not how it's going to be when i rewrite the play.) But then she basically plays Phebe to Orlando's Silvius when she's next with him. Is this her projecting and trying to quell that irrationality within herself?
Wednesday during class, Bill talked about how Silvius' love for Phebe is articulated as holy reverence etc. and i thought "Silvius chastely worships her and Phebe goes off to be a dyke. Their marriage will work after all." Their coupling was the one i was least pleased with, so i was happy to have come up with a satisfying fanwank
Thursday:
C. L. Barber's essay on the Saturnalian Pattern in Shakespeare's Festive Comedy is a load of bullshit.
Also, i wanna stab this one girl in my class. Her Blackboard postings are not unintelligent, but i very much get the feeling of "No, there is no gay here, it is just a game about love, not about gender play, stop forcing your modern fancies with gayness and realistic character motivation onto the divine Shakespeare and stick with the text."
I was telling Emma about this later Thursday night and showing her the posts and realized i could actually articulately argue against what she said (and was also struck by what a pretentious bitch she came off as), so after Emma left to go to bed i returned to Blackboard. I was reminded of the weekend spent arguing about the Olga Broumas and Anne Sexton Little Red Riding Hood poems on Blackboard last semester (which was one of my high points of the semester).
I also got to defend my contention that Barber is full of shit, though Collyn did remind me of an interesting point Barber brought up, about the comedies being not so much about topsy-turvy-ness but about, as he says, "movement between poles of restraint and release in everybody's experience," which makes me look at the comedies in a new way.
In chatting with Emma it also occured to me: "I'm a boy and she's my 'sister' " -- hello Abraham and Sarah. See, see, Celia and Rosalind really were lovers ;)
Tuesday:
Up early to return my reserve books. Not as early as i intended, actually, because i hit the Off button on my alarm while still mostly asleep, but given how late i went to bed and the fact that i didn't have class until 10:30, was still earlier than i would have been up otherwise.
I really enjoy that i can listen to the lecture at my UMass class while writing fic at the same time. About 600 words of my "original fic." Difficult to make the banter between the two characters not sound like the banter between me and my friends. Coming up with names for the characters would be good, too.
We got a list of suggested topics for my Brave New Worlds class.
"In all of the novels we have read, the dystopian societies are patriarchal. Is this mere co-incidence, or is male dominance a necessary ingredient of totalitarianism? Choose any two novels and speculate about gender and power."
I read that one to Emma and she started telling me about The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge (which i haven't read) and we got talking about the original Hans Christian Andersen tale and Narnia and yeah, i think i have a paper topic that i'm very excited about. Woot.
Most of this week there hasn't been anything i wanna eat at any of the houses. My dad e-mailed me a few days ago. "It occurs to me that we should have food stocked for you when you get here. My underactive imagination thinks of orange juice, milk, shells and cheese, corn, and crinkle-cut french fries. Anything else?" He later e-mailed: "I also stocked up on raisin bran and hot chocolate." Um, except for Amy's [they have a weight loss success stories section on their website? ew] veggie burgers, that about covers it.
I put off doing laundry because i knew there was gonna be a fire drill and wanted to be fully dressed. (Though i actually wouldn't have been all that much colder in my jammies.) Seems like half the campus had their scheduled fire drill tonight. Scheduled means donuts. I ate 5 chocolate munchkins and then started on the powdered cinnamon ones, of which i didn't keep count. Hey, don't look at me like that; i've been under-nourished. I really like Emily Cox and, as with so many people, would like to hang out with her more.
If i trust that you're going to be responsible, i'll buy you alcohol; i don't think drinking age laws are a terribly great thing. Provided people are educated and responsible, i believe in allowing them to live their lives as they please. (And as long as they're not harming anyone else, people really should be free to live their lives as they please even if they're stupid and irresponsible. Saving people from themselves is a very iffy proposition. I may believe i can improve your life, but i shouldn't be allowed to force those "improvements" on you.)
While i was still having munchkins and chatting with Emily and Laura, Emma came down to get tea and yeah. And we wonder why i'm never on AIM? (Note: I almost always have the GroupWise client up, so if you want me to sign on, just e-mail me.)
Yeah, i suck at being motivated to do work, unless i really care about the material, so hopefully i'll survive grad school. (Assuming, of course, that i ever get in.) I don't wanna jump through other people's hoops, just wanna do my own thing. Maybe i really should just get a desk job and do my own thing in the evenings. ::sighs::
Wednesday afternoon people were already bitching about the cold. Now, lack of heat in the dorms, okay i understand that being a problem, and there is that nasty transition from warm to chill weather, but it hadn't even begun to border on freezing yet, so if you're just talking about walking to class when the temps are in the 40s, then hush. Though as my computer and i worked into the wee hours of the morning as Wednesday turned into Thursday, we both noted without fondness the distinct lack of heat in my room.
I enjoy wearing short-sleeves but will take the worst winter has to offer over the hot and humid misery of New England summers.
rhipowered's Debate in a Nutshell. And
antheia was even more succinct:
I say some smart things in my Dead Sea Scrolls paper, but my mental abilities were definitely deteriorating as night turned into morning.
The material for my Dead Sea Scrolls class is really dense. I'm really glad to have someone mediating between me and the text (particularly when we're talking about the relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the New Testament -- which is far more interesting to me than the archaeological aspects) and as always there's the basic fact that doing something in a class means i'll actually do the readings instead of adding them to my list of "things i should/want to read/see/research at some point."
Did i mention Bill called my Shakespeare paper "a promising draft"? That made me feel better, though i still have to do a rewrite for the Wednesday we get back from break, since what we handed in was only a first draft.
Work was so slow, in part because lots of people were at a Staff Appreciation thingy for much of the afternoon. I got about 20 chapters of Exodus read.
On Monday the battle with the copy machine and its toner needs finally came to a close when Stacey realized that to feed the machine you also have to pull out a tab in the toner cartridge itself to open it up. We went back and forth for a while about how to phrase the memo i was to send out to the staff, mostly about what to call the plastic tab thingy. Stacey finally figured out that the official term was "trap door" and i worded the memo as follows. If the copier needs toner, please make sure when feeding it that you have opened the "trap door" not only in the machine but in the toner container itself. (When feeding the toner you should have two plastic tabs pulled out.) When i came in on Wednesday i saw her reply: very clear. nice job! Aww :)
Having breakfast after my 9am class messes up my hunger schedule -- i'm not very hungry during lunch but then my stomach's eating itself around 3 in the afternoon. And i think my metabolism or whatever really does just work better on a grazing schedule than a 3 square meals a day schedule. There was a pizza party at the President's house, so i had cold pizza, soda, and 3 ice cream treats. I saw Friedman people, which was good. I knelt down on the grass to eat and chat and oh, the grass was damp and i got grass stains on the jeans i just washed the previous night. Sigh.
Procuring code numbers to have my GRE scores sent. Remind me again why Duke is one of my top choices? Not that it doesn't look like a good program, but it seems like i don't have much correspondence with people there, so i'm confused as to how it got to be in my top 3.
There are a couple PhD in Communications programs that look like i could do what i wanna do (UIowa and Illinois-Urbana), but would my chances of being able to teach what i wanna teach be severely hindered by such a PhD? Given the odds of my getting a professorship at all does it even matter?
I was really awake and functional all day even though i only got about 2 hours of sleep. I went to bed around 10 and woke up around midnight, dazed and coughing. Got up for real around 9:30 in the morning since i did in fact have class. Definitely sick. Blech.
Thursday:
Real food for lunch! Fake burgers, rice, broccoli, orange slices, hot chocolate, ice cream treats for dessert. I was very excited.
I bought rum for friends (and thus wandered the entire liquor store and learned where everything is located before finally finding the rum) and was wearing one of my nice lizard t-shirts and chatted with the nice guy at the register for a while about the Southwest (he lived there for a few years and plans to retire there).
At dinner tonight the topic of discussion was growing up with farms, particularly chickens. Emma commented on what nasty creatures chickens are and said that's one reason she doesn't feel bad eating them. "So cannibalism would be okay if we just ate the mean people?" i asked. She agreed. Susan M.: "Note to self: Don't get on Emma's bad side."
Went to After Juliet (written by Sharman Macdonald) -- the playreading Kate was in. Was very good. Apparently the Drama Studio in Springfield is doing a full production of it in March.
Shortly before going to said playreading i got a phone call from my brother. "Did you get my e-mail?" "Um, no." "How important is it that i pick you up instead of you taking the bus home?" "Not very." He has a paper to write tonight and the SAT Saturday morning, so he would like to crash Friday after school. Fair enough. And taking the bus is really no problem.
Chatted with Emma tonight. She kept wondering about stuff and i'd Google it. Googling for the Superman who got shot during filming we found this amusing collection of image captions. (We got the answer -- George Reeves, 1959 -- from a piece linked in the cached version.) I also showed her the Orlando Bloom got engaged news article, which included in a sidebar "Orlando made to wear chest wig". There was also a link to DigitalSpy:Gaydar which i'm bookmarking and from which i learned who the gay Simpsons character was.
Have been skimming the flist but only skimming and no commenting. Will catch up for real, um, eventually.
Went to the library after Self-Defense class to research for my paper.
Went to the Campus Center for food for the first time all semester. Due to being under-staffed there was no milkshake making, so i got french fries but no chocolate milkshake which is what i really wanted. However, Laura's mom sent homemade chocolate chip cookies and Laura shares, so i had 3 and felt much better.
I heart talking to Emma, even though that was hours i should have been writing my paper.
We talked a lot about As You Like It. Bill Oram is convincing me that perhaps Rosalind really is madly in love with Orlando, but i don't particularly buy his argument that the play is about court vs. country (though it's certainly a pastoral play).
Emma talked about how plays, especially in Shakespeare's time, were meant to be performed, and if you need to do really close reading, if you can't see something in a viewing of a play, then perhaps you are stretching things.
In the versions Emma has seen, Rosalind is played cold (which is how i read her originally) and Orlando is an idiot (which is a legitimate reading, just not one i was particularly inclined to; i don't care much one way or the other about him, but i think he's a perfectly good guy who falls madly in love with this lady).
I totally reinterpret stuff in this play not just to make it gay but to make characters' actions/motivations make more sense to me. (I'm totally gonna end up rewriting this play, aren't it?)
Shakespeare was an imperfect human being, not a deity, not even a minor one.
Wednesday after class i was having breakfast with a woman in my class and a friend of hers who loves Rosalind and wrote a paper on her. She said that Rosalind wants a guy she can mold, control. I can see that. Rosalind still confuses me, though. In class we were talking about the other couples, and when Phebe is cutting Silvius down for his over the top professions of love, Rosalind jumps in and bitches her out because she sympathizes with Silvius' over-thetop feelings. That's how Bill explained it anyway, and that made sense to be as i've been being converted to the plausibility of the "Yes Rosalind really does fall passionately in love with Orlando" reading of the text. (Though that's not how it's going to be when i rewrite the play.) But then she basically plays Phebe to Orlando's Silvius when she's next with him. Is this her projecting and trying to quell that irrationality within herself?
Wednesday during class, Bill talked about how Silvius' love for Phebe is articulated as holy reverence etc. and i thought "Silvius chastely worships her and Phebe goes off to be a dyke. Their marriage will work after all." Their coupling was the one i was least pleased with, so i was happy to have come up with a satisfying fanwank
Thursday:
C. L. Barber's essay on the Saturnalian Pattern in Shakespeare's Festive Comedy is a load of bullshit.
Also, i wanna stab this one girl in my class. Her Blackboard postings are not unintelligent, but i very much get the feeling of "No, there is no gay here, it is just a game about love, not about gender play, stop forcing your modern fancies with gayness and realistic character motivation onto the divine Shakespeare and stick with the text."
I was telling Emma about this later Thursday night and showing her the posts and realized i could actually articulately argue against what she said (and was also struck by what a pretentious bitch she came off as), so after Emma left to go to bed i returned to Blackboard. I was reminded of the weekend spent arguing about the Olga Broumas and Anne Sexton Little Red Riding Hood poems on Blackboard last semester (which was one of my high points of the semester).
I also got to defend my contention that Barber is full of shit, though Collyn did remind me of an interesting point Barber brought up, about the comedies being not so much about topsy-turvy-ness but about, as he says, "movement between poles of restraint and release in everybody's experience," which makes me look at the comedies in a new way.
In chatting with Emma it also occured to me: "I'm a boy and she's my 'sister' " -- hello Abraham and Sarah. See, see, Celia and Rosalind really were lovers ;)
Tuesday:
Up early to return my reserve books. Not as early as i intended, actually, because i hit the Off button on my alarm while still mostly asleep, but given how late i went to bed and the fact that i didn't have class until 10:30, was still earlier than i would have been up otherwise.
I really enjoy that i can listen to the lecture at my UMass class while writing fic at the same time. About 600 words of my "original fic." Difficult to make the banter between the two characters not sound like the banter between me and my friends. Coming up with names for the characters would be good, too.
We got a list of suggested topics for my Brave New Worlds class.
With the permission of your section instructor, you may do a creative project such as a short story, long poem, screenplay, or hologram ballet. Creative work is acceptable for either the midterm or final, but not for both. No macramé, conceptual art, collage, body painting, or scarification.The midterm is a 7 page paper and we can use any of the suggested topics or make up one of our own. We can also write about novels we haven't done in class, though obviously they'll be suspicious if we choose to write on novels that were on the syllabus in past years. Some of the suggested ones looked kinda interesting, and i've had thoughts about other issues raised by the books, but nothing felt very compelling.
"In all of the novels we have read, the dystopian societies are patriarchal. Is this mere co-incidence, or is male dominance a necessary ingredient of totalitarianism? Choose any two novels and speculate about gender and power."
I read that one to Emma and she started telling me about The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge (which i haven't read) and we got talking about the original Hans Christian Andersen tale and Narnia and yeah, i think i have a paper topic that i'm very excited about. Woot.
Most of this week there hasn't been anything i wanna eat at any of the houses. My dad e-mailed me a few days ago. "It occurs to me that we should have food stocked for you when you get here. My underactive imagination thinks of orange juice, milk, shells and cheese, corn, and crinkle-cut french fries. Anything else?" He later e-mailed: "I also stocked up on raisin bran and hot chocolate." Um, except for Amy's [they have a weight loss success stories section on their website? ew] veggie burgers, that about covers it.
I put off doing laundry because i knew there was gonna be a fire drill and wanted to be fully dressed. (Though i actually wouldn't have been all that much colder in my jammies.) Seems like half the campus had their scheduled fire drill tonight. Scheduled means donuts. I ate 5 chocolate munchkins and then started on the powdered cinnamon ones, of which i didn't keep count. Hey, don't look at me like that; i've been under-nourished. I really like Emily Cox and, as with so many people, would like to hang out with her more.
If i trust that you're going to be responsible, i'll buy you alcohol; i don't think drinking age laws are a terribly great thing. Provided people are educated and responsible, i believe in allowing them to live their lives as they please. (And as long as they're not harming anyone else, people really should be free to live their lives as they please even if they're stupid and irresponsible. Saving people from themselves is a very iffy proposition. I may believe i can improve your life, but i shouldn't be allowed to force those "improvements" on you.)
While i was still having munchkins and chatting with Emily and Laura, Emma came down to get tea and yeah. And we wonder why i'm never on AIM? (Note: I almost always have the GroupWise client up, so if you want me to sign on, just e-mail me.)
Yeah, i suck at being motivated to do work, unless i really care about the material, so hopefully i'll survive grad school. (Assuming, of course, that i ever get in.) I don't wanna jump through other people's hoops, just wanna do my own thing. Maybe i really should just get a desk job and do my own thing in the evenings. ::sighs::
Wednesday afternoon people were already bitching about the cold. Now, lack of heat in the dorms, okay i understand that being a problem, and there is that nasty transition from warm to chill weather, but it hadn't even begun to border on freezing yet, so if you're just talking about walking to class when the temps are in the 40s, then hush. Though as my computer and i worked into the wee hours of the morning as Wednesday turned into Thursday, we both noted without fondness the distinct lack of heat in my room.
From: Priority NewsI appreciate that in their eagerness to relay this information to us they didn't bother proofreading at all. ::rolls eyes::
Date: Monday - October 4, 2004 12:53 PM
Subject: Campus Heat
GOOD NEWS ! THE HEAT IS ON IT'S WAY !!
The Heating Plant started the boilers Sunday, October 3rd and is now in the process of charging the steam distributin system. This process takes several days because of the extensive size of the network.
If you are experiencing heat related problems after Thursday, October 7th, please contact Physical Plant Customer Service at Extension 2400
Thank You
I enjoy wearing short-sleeves but will take the worst winter has to offer over the hot and humid misery of New England summers.
My dad: There are some sick people in this world.Sounds like i missed nothing having skipped the VP debate. I'm not even gonna bother looking for a transcript.
Around here the tv weatherpeople also do the "foliage report." I heard one of them say yesterday morning, "Unfortunately, it's still green in the Boston area."
Me quoting Sarah W-W: "These are the days when decay begins, when the dying becomes intense. But they're days of glory; fierce optimism in red and gold against the slowly chilling wind."
My dad: I think of all those 19th century novels where people glowed brilliantly as they died of tuberculosis.
If I had a choice, I'd decline both.
8:08. "Bored now. May I play with the puppy?"See also:
8:09. Sorry about that last entry. Once again, Vampire Willow somehow took over the blog.
-VodkaPundit (who's on Mountain Time)
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Cheney: They're just plain inexperienced, and indecisive.Wednesday:
Edwards: Yes, but he's Satan! No really, I can see the tail!
I say some smart things in my Dead Sea Scrolls paper, but my mental abilities were definitely deteriorating as night turned into morning.
The material for my Dead Sea Scrolls class is really dense. I'm really glad to have someone mediating between me and the text (particularly when we're talking about the relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the New Testament -- which is far more interesting to me than the archaeological aspects) and as always there's the basic fact that doing something in a class means i'll actually do the readings instead of adding them to my list of "things i should/want to read/see/research at some point."
Did i mention Bill called my Shakespeare paper "a promising draft"? That made me feel better, though i still have to do a rewrite for the Wednesday we get back from break, since what we handed in was only a first draft.
Work was so slow, in part because lots of people were at a Staff Appreciation thingy for much of the afternoon. I got about 20 chapters of Exodus read.
On Monday the battle with the copy machine and its toner needs finally came to a close when Stacey realized that to feed the machine you also have to pull out a tab in the toner cartridge itself to open it up. We went back and forth for a while about how to phrase the memo i was to send out to the staff, mostly about what to call the plastic tab thingy. Stacey finally figured out that the official term was "trap door" and i worded the memo as follows. If the copier needs toner, please make sure when feeding it that you have opened the "trap door" not only in the machine but in the toner container itself. (When feeding the toner you should have two plastic tabs pulled out.) When i came in on Wednesday i saw her reply: very clear. nice job! Aww :)
Having breakfast after my 9am class messes up my hunger schedule -- i'm not very hungry during lunch but then my stomach's eating itself around 3 in the afternoon. And i think my metabolism or whatever really does just work better on a grazing schedule than a 3 square meals a day schedule. There was a pizza party at the President's house, so i had cold pizza, soda, and 3 ice cream treats. I saw Friedman people, which was good. I knelt down on the grass to eat and chat and oh, the grass was damp and i got grass stains on the jeans i just washed the previous night. Sigh.
Procuring code numbers to have my GRE scores sent. Remind me again why Duke is one of my top choices? Not that it doesn't look like a good program, but it seems like i don't have much correspondence with people there, so i'm confused as to how it got to be in my top 3.
There are a couple PhD in Communications programs that look like i could do what i wanna do (UIowa and Illinois-Urbana), but would my chances of being able to teach what i wanna teach be severely hindered by such a PhD? Given the odds of my getting a professorship at all does it even matter?
I was really awake and functional all day even though i only got about 2 hours of sleep. I went to bed around 10 and woke up around midnight, dazed and coughing. Got up for real around 9:30 in the morning since i did in fact have class. Definitely sick. Blech.
Thursday:
Real food for lunch! Fake burgers, rice, broccoli, orange slices, hot chocolate, ice cream treats for dessert. I was very excited.
I bought rum for friends (and thus wandered the entire liquor store and learned where everything is located before finally finding the rum) and was wearing one of my nice lizard t-shirts and chatted with the nice guy at the register for a while about the Southwest (he lived there for a few years and plans to retire there).
At dinner tonight the topic of discussion was growing up with farms, particularly chickens. Emma commented on what nasty creatures chickens are and said that's one reason she doesn't feel bad eating them. "So cannibalism would be okay if we just ate the mean people?" i asked. She agreed. Susan M.: "Note to self: Don't get on Emma's bad side."
Went to After Juliet (written by Sharman Macdonald) -- the playreading Kate was in. Was very good. Apparently the Drama Studio in Springfield is doing a full production of it in March.
Shortly before going to said playreading i got a phone call from my brother. "Did you get my e-mail?" "Um, no." "How important is it that i pick you up instead of you taking the bus home?" "Not very." He has a paper to write tonight and the SAT Saturday morning, so he would like to crash Friday after school. Fair enough. And taking the bus is really no problem.
Chatted with Emma tonight. She kept wondering about stuff and i'd Google it. Googling for the Superman who got shot during filming we found this amusing collection of image captions. (We got the answer -- George Reeves, 1959 -- from a piece linked in the cached version.) I also showed her the Orlando Bloom got engaged news article, which included in a sidebar "Orlando made to wear chest wig". There was also a link to DigitalSpy:Gaydar which i'm bookmarking and from which i learned who the gay Simpsons character was.
Have been skimming the flist but only skimming and no commenting. Will catch up for real, um, eventually.
As You Like It: the very very gay play
Oct. 4th, 2004 01:04 amA couple people have posted mentioned homoerotic undertones in the play and i definitely just posted a reply to one:
Oh i'll totally argue that the character motivations in the play make much more sense if a lot of them are gay. Celia is in love with Rosalind (though i'm not sure Rosalind loves her back) and marries Orlando's brother so that she can remain near Rosalind as she sees that Rosalind is committed to joining her fortunes with those of Orlando. (I'm not sure Rosalind ever loves anyone in this play; it seems more like she's interested in studying this strange behavior called being in love.) I'm still not sure what to make of the fact that Orlando totally doesn't recognize Rosalind since her voice and face are likely very similar. Yes he only saw her briefly (i'm leaving aside for the moment my whole beef with the "love at first sight" conceit) but still. I'm inclined to say he recognizes her and plays along to win her. There's also definite subtext that Duke Senior and Sir Rowland were more than just friends, so i like the idea that Duke Frederick acted out of jealous rage and is willing to make nice at the end so readily because he has met himself a new boyfriend (who may or may not actually be a monk).And you can't even say i have no shame 'cause i was definitely moderate in tone, using the most textually viable couples, tempering with actual academe; i could definitely rewrite this play as a gay romp.
I was also intrigued by Rosalind's choice of Ganymed as a pseudonym. Yes, Ganymed was cupbearer to the gods (he is immortalized in the constellation Aquarius) but first Zeus swooped down in the form of an eagle and kidnapped him -- because he was in love with him. As far as i know, this is the only story in which Zeus, who certainly got around, takes a liking to a young man. Shakespeare must have been aware of that aspect of the classical tale, and since he was likely bisexual himself (see discussion of the sonnets, Mr. W. H., etc.) one wonders if the innuendos here weren't entirely unintentional.
Am singing the Reading Rainbow theme song. Is
saava's fault.
I'm taking the GRE when i go home for Fall Break. The website has been giving me "Error on page" when i try to go through the registration process, though, so i'll probably have to do it over the phone. Last night i dreamt that i was home and trying to register to take the GRE and it wasn't working and i couldn't do it by mail because you have to wait weeks for it to get processed and for a voucher to get sent to you, so i decided to put off applying to grad school for a year because i couldn't take the GRE.
Hubbard was out of organic peanut butter this morning, so i tried the cashew butter and almond butter. Interesting. I think i still want peanut butter on my bagel, though.
When Suzannah came in today, she thanked me for doing her assignment on Monday. At work today, my tasks included washing and drying cups and saucers. We got a new Swingline heavy-duty stapler. Is very user-friendly. ::stops self from dorking about a stapler 'cause really now:: I work with such sweet people. Margi called to say she wasn't gonna be in today, and she asked me how work was and i mentioned the stapler and she agreed it was exciting and she said something about looking forward to seeing me and just really, very sweet.
Aw, Jonah's working his way through the seasons of Buffy (started this summer after i made him watch the musical episode). It's really interesting watching someone watching it for the first time (even though he knows generally a lot of what's going to happen). And then we dork out and i try to recall the specifics of episodes and why i felt the way i did about them. At some point i wanna rewatch the whole series from the beginning. Would be interesting, rewatching knowing all that happens later.
At Radical Catholics tonight, Cordelia mentioned that she only reads vampire books. She's currently reading Undead and Unwed. Vampire chick lit! And pulling this up on Amazon, there's apparently an entire genre, not just this one author. Wow.
Rachel was hanging out in my room the other night and poking around LJ and saying how it was so interesting to see stuff through my eyes. When you're logged in to your LJ account, your listed interests and friends show up in bold when you're viewing other people's profiles, so it's interesting to be poking around profiles when you're logged in to someone else's account. (P.S. Thank you for the note on my door. I love you, too.)
As You Like It is not a very good play (begins with shades of Romeo and Juliet, except this isn't a tragedy; then probably every romantic comedy ever, including Twelfth Night -- which is Shakespeare getting it right) but OMG SO GAY!
Bill Oram says it's his favorite play -- because he's in love with Rosalind. See me not mentioning the interesting dynamics of a man in love with a girl who dresses up as a boyin a very very gay play. Now, she is interesting, but she doesn't redeem the whole play. I want to care about other characters, and the play doesn't let me. (Celia is clearly in love with Rosalind and only marries Orlando's brother to stay near her. And does Rosalind really love Orlando at all? And Duke Senior and Sir Rowland were so in love; did Duke Frederick banish him in a fit of jealousy? Oh wait, maybe that's why Duke Frederick let's everything go at the end! He found a new gay lover -- who may or may not have actually been a monk. And is Touchstone really so desperate that he'll marry Audrey? So much of this was done so much better in Twelfth Night. Clearly someone needs to do a big ole rewrite of this play.)
Emma keeps talking about Flannery O'Connor and now i wanna reread her stuff because i remember the religion in her stories being dark and troubling -- not full-on propaganda at all. I read her collected short stories in a few sittings, but what i most remember of hers is Wise Blood since we did it in class.
If i'm not allowed to rag on Catholicism, Allie's not allowed to rag on Calvinism. (I do love you, though.)
I just wanna do self-injury education awareness stuff, but that's not really starting until next semester, so i may get sucked into doing general Healthy Heads stuff. I like that they're gonna do a workshop on how to help friends who have problems and how to tell your friends how to help you and probably a sidebar on how Counseling Services works.
Presentation of the English major is gonna be Wednesday, October 20, from 4-5pm, in Seelye 207. My boss says academic stuff takes priority, so even though i'm scheduled to be at work both that afternoon and the afternoon of the curriculum committee meeting, i get to leave early and attend both. This year the only other liaison besides me is a junior, so hopefully we can find one or two other people to recruit so she's not own her own next year. Also, in preparation for the curriculum committee meeting, any actual feedback on English classes whatever ("This sucks" is not helpful.) is welcomed. My e-mail's in my LJ profile.
As i've mentioned before, i'm taking a class at UMass called Brave New Worlds (the Spire blurb says: utopian and dystopian novels and the ability of literature to generate social critique). The actual syllabus is almost wholly different from the book listing on the course website. Being a dork i'll likely read all of them (plus other ones not on either list, like George Orwell's Animal Farm, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Thomas Moore's Utopia). A lot of the authors are gonna be in class if anyone wants to come (Goessmann 20).
From the syllabus:
"Brave New Worlds stands at the point where are engages society. The books we are reading have been selected because they are works of imagination that can trigger reconsideration of basic social elements: sex, reproduction, education, religion, science, communications, technology, economics, recreation, labor, political organization, and of course the role of art itself."
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
1984 - George Orwell
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
The Futurological Congress - Stanislaw Lem
Linden Hills - Gloria Naylor
Teacher - Mark Edmundson [Author in class Thursday October 21]
Property - Valerie Martin [Author in class Thursday October 28]
The Gangster We Are All Looking For - lê thi diem thúy [Author in class Thursday November 4]
The Translator - Joan Crowley [Author in class Thursday November 18]
Island - Aldous Huxley
From the Comp-Lit website:
"This course studies novels that present and represent Modernist totalitarian worlds, and Post-modern worlds of fragmentation, diversity and abandonment. It will address issues of interest in the current cultural crisis, for example: What have governments done, and what should they do? Is individualism tenable in a world of five billion people? Is freedom an absolute condition? And what role does art in particular and culture in general hope to play in the era of global Consumerism?"
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Island - Aldous Huxley
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
Neuromancer - William Gibson
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
My techie brother (intended major: computer science) gave me his most recent list of college choices. If anyone wants to pass along thoughts about any of these, feel free.
Brown
Carnegie Mellon
Case Western
Drexel
Johns Hopkins
LeHigh
Rensselaer
Rice
RIT
Tulane
WPI
Washington University at St. Louis
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
I'm taking the GRE when i go home for Fall Break. The website has been giving me "Error on page" when i try to go through the registration process, though, so i'll probably have to do it over the phone. Last night i dreamt that i was home and trying to register to take the GRE and it wasn't working and i couldn't do it by mail because you have to wait weeks for it to get processed and for a voucher to get sent to you, so i decided to put off applying to grad school for a year because i couldn't take the GRE.
Hubbard was out of organic peanut butter this morning, so i tried the cashew butter and almond butter. Interesting. I think i still want peanut butter on my bagel, though.
When Suzannah came in today, she thanked me for doing her assignment on Monday. At work today, my tasks included washing and drying cups and saucers. We got a new Swingline heavy-duty stapler. Is very user-friendly. ::stops self from dorking about a stapler 'cause really now:: I work with such sweet people. Margi called to say she wasn't gonna be in today, and she asked me how work was and i mentioned the stapler and she agreed it was exciting and she said something about looking forward to seeing me and just really, very sweet.
Aw, Jonah's working his way through the seasons of Buffy (started this summer after i made him watch the musical episode). It's really interesting watching someone watching it for the first time (even though he knows generally a lot of what's going to happen). And then we dork out and i try to recall the specifics of episodes and why i felt the way i did about them. At some point i wanna rewatch the whole series from the beginning. Would be interesting, rewatching knowing all that happens later.
At Radical Catholics tonight, Cordelia mentioned that she only reads vampire books. She's currently reading Undead and Unwed. Vampire chick lit! And pulling this up on Amazon, there's apparently an entire genre, not just this one author. Wow.
Rachel was hanging out in my room the other night and poking around LJ and saying how it was so interesting to see stuff through my eyes. When you're logged in to your LJ account, your listed interests and friends show up in bold when you're viewing other people's profiles, so it's interesting to be poking around profiles when you're logged in to someone else's account. (P.S. Thank you for the note on my door. I love you, too.)
As You Like It is not a very good play (begins with shades of Romeo and Juliet, except this isn't a tragedy; then probably every romantic comedy ever, including Twelfth Night -- which is Shakespeare getting it right) but OMG SO GAY!
Bill Oram says it's his favorite play -- because he's in love with Rosalind. See me not mentioning the interesting dynamics of a man in love with a girl who dresses up as a boy
Emma keeps talking about Flannery O'Connor and now i wanna reread her stuff because i remember the religion in her stories being dark and troubling -- not full-on propaganda at all. I read her collected short stories in a few sittings, but what i most remember of hers is Wise Blood since we did it in class.
If i'm not allowed to rag on Catholicism, Allie's not allowed to rag on Calvinism. (I do love you, though.)
I just wanna do self-injury education awareness stuff, but that's not really starting until next semester, so i may get sucked into doing general Healthy Heads stuff. I like that they're gonna do a workshop on how to help friends who have problems and how to tell your friends how to help you and probably a sidebar on how Counseling Services works.
Presentation of the English major is gonna be Wednesday, October 20, from 4-5pm, in Seelye 207. My boss says academic stuff takes priority, so even though i'm scheduled to be at work both that afternoon and the afternoon of the curriculum committee meeting, i get to leave early and attend both. This year the only other liaison besides me is a junior, so hopefully we can find one or two other people to recruit so she's not own her own next year. Also, in preparation for the curriculum committee meeting, any actual feedback on English classes whatever ("This sucks" is not helpful.) is welcomed. My e-mail's in my LJ profile.
As i've mentioned before, i'm taking a class at UMass called Brave New Worlds (the Spire blurb says: utopian and dystopian novels and the ability of literature to generate social critique). The actual syllabus is almost wholly different from the book listing on the course website. Being a dork i'll likely read all of them (plus other ones not on either list, like George Orwell's Animal Farm, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Thomas Moore's Utopia). A lot of the authors are gonna be in class if anyone wants to come (Goessmann 20).
From the syllabus:
"Brave New Worlds stands at the point where are engages society. The books we are reading have been selected because they are works of imagination that can trigger reconsideration of basic social elements: sex, reproduction, education, religion, science, communications, technology, economics, recreation, labor, political organization, and of course the role of art itself."
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
1984 - George Orwell
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
The Futurological Congress - Stanislaw Lem
Linden Hills - Gloria Naylor
Teacher - Mark Edmundson [Author in class Thursday October 21]
Property - Valerie Martin [Author in class Thursday October 28]
The Gangster We Are All Looking For - lê thi diem thúy [Author in class Thursday November 4]
The Translator - Joan Crowley [Author in class Thursday November 18]
Island - Aldous Huxley
From the Comp-Lit website:
"This course studies novels that present and represent Modernist totalitarian worlds, and Post-modern worlds of fragmentation, diversity and abandonment. It will address issues of interest in the current cultural crisis, for example: What have governments done, and what should they do? Is individualism tenable in a world of five billion people? Is freedom an absolute condition? And what role does art in particular and culture in general hope to play in the era of global Consumerism?"
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Island - Aldous Huxley
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
Neuromancer - William Gibson
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
My techie brother (intended major: computer science) gave me his most recent list of college choices. If anyone wants to pass along thoughts about any of these, feel free.
Brown
Carnegie Mellon
Case Western
Drexel
Johns Hopkins
LeHigh
Rensselaer
Rice
RIT
Tulane
WPI
Washington University at St. Louis