Momeaga

2006-08-07T07:06:00.000-05:00

Moving Notice

I've decided to pack up shop here and move my blogging over to my new Myspace page. To you loyal readers, all three of you, the new URL is:

http://blog.myspace.com/momeaga

It's been a slice, Blogger.

2006-08-06T07:55:00.000-05:00

Over-Resolution

I'm doing a lot of crying these days. Not that I'm depressed or morose or anything. Just that I've been subjecting myself to some particularly affecting material, and that coupled with the Georgia summer heat (always a catalyst for melodramatic turns) has really pumped up the waterworks.

A lot of it has to do with reading. Dickens write some majorly tear-jerking scenes that get me every single time I read them. When Joe Gargery takes care of Pip near the end of Great Expectations. When Barkis, the carriage driver, dies after saying to David Copperfield one last time, "Barkis is willin'." And then there's Charlotte Bronte--rereading Jane Eyre is always an emotional experience. But the granddaddy of them all came when last night I finally got around to watching Brokeback Mountain.

What a movie. I think I bawled even louder than I did for Million Dollar Baby (although I'll still argue that the latter was a better film, this one comes pretty close to being as good). The now famous "I wish I knew how to quit you" scene was so hard to watch, as was the masterful slow devastation of Alma, Ennis' wife (played by Michelle Williams). The scene that got me most, however, was when Ennis found, in Jack's childhood bedroom, his forgotten bloodied shirt from that first Brokeback Mountain summer tucked inside Jack's blue parka (and major kudos to Ang Lee for bookending this perfectly and subtly when, at the very end of the movie, Ennis caresses the two shirts with Jack's now inside of his, Ennis finally and too late being able to accept Jack fully). Perhaps the best thing about the movie, at the end of the day, is that it doesn't descend into cliche and try to proselytize; any message that it attempts to communicate is contained wholly in the silent tension that remains at the end, in the fact that this is a love story where the word "love" is never spoken (dare not speak its name, to borrow the beautiful line from that bastard Bosie Douglas).

Speaking of that tension, I now arrive at the subject of my post. What prompted this spiel was a trip to the cinema on Friday. Jen and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada and enjoyed it thoroughly. Meryl Streep was wonderful as ever (I loved the way she captured the Botox tenor of Anna Wintour's voice). However, I thought this movie ended about ten minutes after it should. The plot is pretty straightforward--free-spirited girl joins fashion industry, resists it, becomes co-opted by it, struggles to rediscover her identity. The ideal moment to end the movie would have been in the bit in Paris when Anne Hathaway decides that she can't be Miranda Priestly (the Streep character) and walks away. Instead, the movie's writers/director decide that we must go back to New York, see the Streep character undermined by showing, somewhat schmaltzily, that she is human (all the humanization necessary for the character had been accomplished when Priestly, sans makeup or glitz, deals with her impending divorce) and helps the Anne Hathaway character to get her dream job. It didn't totally spoil the movie, but it did turn a pretty okay bildungsroman into a pretty okay fairytale.

This trend to over-resolve has been a pet peeve of mine for some time. Not that I don't love fairytales, but there's a reason that we read them when we're kids. It's because we're not able yet to handle the complexity of the world, to countenance that there's not always an easy answer and a neat little package. As you get older, the simple answers become insulting and aggravating because there are no simple answers. In a fairytale, the apple becomes dislodged from Snow White's throat, and she lives happily ever after with Prince Charming; in real life, Snow White has to attend years of psychotherapy to deal with her mother issues, try to figure out if these will affect her relationships with her own children, and take prescription medicines to deal with the trace amounts of poison left in her system and the pain associated therewith, possibly eventually becoming dependent on Vicodin.

Over-resolution was the problem with the Oscar-winning Crash for me. The ending of that movie completely ruined (and I say completely because the subject matter's so serious and important) what the rest of it had tried to achieve. The bullshitty epiphanic moment of the Matt Dillon character made me want to retch. How dare they oversimplify to the point of absurdity like that? Tie a pretty little bow on the issue of racism and parcel it out to the public at large. There was one redeeming point about the end of the movie, however, and that was with the Ryan Phillipe character--that, at least, deserves kudos. In general the acting was great, too, but the end of the movie soured me on it as a whole.

It's not that I have become some snobby academic who thinks sentimentality and happy endings can never equal great art (I still need my intellectual comfort food on a regular basis--I read Maeve Binchy's novels, I adore Dickens's A Christmas Carol, and I watch no end of schmaltzy tv). I'm sure they can, but the instances of them doing so are few and far between specifically because they are stagnant things. Think of the peremptoriness of those words, happily ever after. Why do they stand like a wall, forbidding us from peering into the futures of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty? Because they know that constant and eternal happiness (let's keep the argument earth-bound and not stir up theological questions) are impossibilities. Eutopia is Utopia.

Great works of art, for me at least, MUST retain tension because the great work of art, to some degree, is a mirror for the human condition. Michael closing the door on Kay at the end of The Godfather, the lost love and lost hope of Janis Joplin's "Bobby Mcgee" and Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," the contemplative and forlorn face of the French lady in Degas's "L'Absinthe"--these all respect that maxim. To expound on my rough aesthetic theory, then, the great work of art that depicts the happy ending must make some gesture to the finiteness of that happiness, must concede that there is no absolute resolution. For the life of me, I can't think of such a work in any format or medium right now. Any thoughts?

2006-07-27T06:20:00.000-05:00

Meme from Colin: A to Z

When you get to the letter I, you'll understand my inspiration for doing this.

Accent: flattened out Trini accent. I've had to make my speech somewhat vanilla for ease of understanding, but there are certain words I just can't pronounce like an American, if I were to try. Primary among these is "calves."

Booze: Daiquiris, Margaritas, and Pinot Grigiot. As far as wine goes, I'm still a philistine, but Jen and I have been doing Project Runway cooking nights, and she's been teaching me about the differences between the various wines (she's taken sommelier classes).

Chore I hate: Cleaning the litterbox.

Dogs/Cats: given the fact that I have a litterbox, it would be kinda creepy if I didn't have a cat to go along with it.

Essential Electronics: my laptop.

Favorite Cologne/Perfume: Old Spice. Really.

Gold/Silver: I own one piece of each: a gold ring from my grandmother, and a silver bracelet from my mother. I don't want or need anymore (wooden jewelry's more my taste).

Hometown: Chaguanas, Trinidad

Insomnia: Help me...

Job Title(s): Graduate Student, Instructor of English, Writing Consultant

Kids: Not until I've got a tenure-track job and own a home. And preferably, but not necessarily, am in a stable relationship.

Living Arrangements: renting a carriage house three blocks from campus.

Most Admired Trait: my organizational skills

Number of Sexual Partners: I'll stick with Colin's answer: mind your beeswax.

Overnight Hospital Stays: nope.

Phobias: I've unfortunately inherited some of my father's hyperchondriacal tendencies. Oh, and bats freak me out.

Quote: "A little bit of sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it can be absolutely fatal"--Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist."

Religion: Not anymore. Agnostic. Humanist.

Siblings: Sister (22), brother (16)

Time I Usually Wake Up: I wish there were a "usually."

Unusual Talent: Understanding the covert and underground operations of squirrels.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: I really do love vegetables, even the ones I hated as a kid, like spinach and cabbage and eggplant (the first is now one of my favourite foods). I suppose I'll say Brussels Sprouts, but only because I've never had them and am going on their bad reputation.

Worst Habit: overthinking things.

X-rays: Chest, once in college when the doctor wanted to rule out pneumonia, and teeth.

Yummy Foods I make: the latest thing I've added to my repertoire is Thai green curry. Nummy.

Zodiac Sign: Aries. I'm a stubborn sunuvagun. Funny to note, as for as astrology goes, that with my friend Kath and my sister, both of whose birthdays are the day before mine and both of whom are also consequently Aries, we frequently say the same things at the same time. It's terribly freaky.

2006-07-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

19th-Century Cribs

This one ranks with realising that naughty words like "shit" and "crap" and "fart" and a certain c-word referring to female genitalia existed, in one form or another, as far back as Chaucer's time.

In reading Dickens' Great Expectations, I came across the following line:

He... advised me to look out at once for a 'fashionable crib' near Hyde Park.

Who knew? Move over Beyonce, Mariah, and Diddy: tell MTV that Phillip Pirrip's got a crib too!

2006-07-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

You Can't (always) Go Home Again

I just got another sobering reminder of this fact. When Cartoon Network announced a couple months ago that they'd acquired the right to Peewee's Playhouse, I was terribly excited. As a child during the years I lived in St. Lucia (which were coincident with the show's original run), I would watch the Peewee's antics every Saturday morning, rarely missing a show and resenting it when Gulf War coverage caused it to be preempted. Tonight, the first episode aired.

Disappointment.

As has happened numerous times before, things I loved as a kid just don't have any allure for me anymore. It happened before with Muppet Babies, which I can't stand now for the life of me (the notable exception is He-Man and the Masters of the Universe; that's just as good now as it was in the 80s, even though the animation is 90% recycled). I like to think that I wasn't a dumb child. What, then, made me watch this show, week after week? It's so inane. It's not even good stupid. It's like that horrible Beavis and Butthead brand of stupid, but without the more sophisticated story arcs. Argh.

2006-07-08T00:01:00.000-05:00

Fourth and Final

So after the parade ended (Jen and I both had an hour's nap to kill time at our respective houses), Jen came to get me, and we drove back to her place. There, I made chicken salad for lunch and we passed an enjoyable afternoon watching Rent and getting teary-eyed. Later on, Melissa (another friend, from the Comp Lit department), gave us a ring and invited us out to watch fireworks. We all (the three of us, and two other Comp-litters) packed food and wine and drove to the top of one of Emory's parking decks. Then proceeded the biggest thunderstorm of the year thus far, with some magnificent lightning, which far outshone any fireworks launched from Earth. Truly Mother Nature was in all her glo... okay, enough schmaltz. In summary, it was beautiful, and it was great sitting under the covered part of the deck as the rain poured and the thunder thundered, drinking wine and eating strawberries. We didn't even mind that when, finally, the fireworks made their appearance, they were sparse and pitiful. We'd had our show, and we vowed to make the parking deck a July 4th tradition.

After that, we went back to Melissa's house and talked the evening away, enjoying Melissa's new invention: melon balls liberally sprinkled with brandy, on which she bestowed the name "B & B balls." Try them sometime, but remember to send Melissa the royalty cheques.

Ok, so that's the fourth part of my post title. As for the final, that refers to Sunday's World Cup Final match between Italy and France. I decided to make something of an occasion of it, so seven or eight friends are coming over, we're firing up the barbecue, and watching what will hopefully be a good match. I even bought some cake mix, white frosting, and a tube of black icing to do my best at effecting the facsimile of a soccer ball en gateau. Go France!

Much needed frivolity in a week that was primarily given to reading hours and to unpleasant and unfortunate necessity. Oh yes--and to a shocking development in the ongoing squirrel conspiracy.

2006-07-04T09:23:00.000-05:00

When Good Parades Go Bad

It's the morning of the fourth, and Jen and I have plans to spend the holiday together, idling and not getting work done. In an effort to be festive in an understated manner, I'm wearing a blue polo shirt, white undershirt, and red necklace.

I just got a call from Jen, however: turns out that her house is on a parade route, and they're not letting any cars get out. As such, our own fourth plans have to be put on hold for an hour or so, until the parade is over. I do wonder, however, what would happen in a medical emergency when the entrance to an apartment complex is blocked for something like a parade--doesn't seem particularly responsible to me. The Avondale Estates city council peoplemajigs should give this some more thought (or maybe they have and I'm just not up on how they handle these matters).

Early this morning, just because a few of my friends are taking part in it, I watched the Peachtree Road Race (which, I believe, is the largest subscribed 10k race in the world, but I may be mistaken on that) on TV. Of course, I didn't see my friends among the thousands of faces, but the futile attempt at spotting them was fun nonetheless. Running. Now anyone who knows me knows that I don't run. Large people aren't made to run, for some reason--it's not, in my case at least, a matter of getting tired overly fast. I can walk faster than a slow jog and sustain a brisk pace for an hour on the treadmill and be fine, but if I were to try doing that slow jog, somehow the balance would be thrown all out of whack. I feel uneven, unstable running. There's only one time I like to run, and that's in a very particular circumstance, for a very short distance: crossing the main road to get to my street, which is on a sharp decline--running across it and then down the slope's always an exhilirating feeling. However, you can do that only when you've got to hurry across the street. With no traffic, you'd look awful silly running like Pooh toHunny for no reason.

But I would like to participate in a race sometime. Maybe not a 10K with as many uphill bits as the Peachtree, but if I could learn to run, I'd like to maybe do a 5k sometime. Who knows--maybe I will.

2006-07-03T09:24:00.000-05:00

Squirrel Conspiracy: Part 2

Some months ago, I expounded on my theory that squirrels are united in a conspiracy to take over the world. My major premise was that squirrels are immortal, since I'd never before seen a dead squirrel.

Today, I put my conspiracy theory to rest. On the way to the gym this morning, walking on the quad, I saw the corpse of a squirrel in a preliminary state of decay. Without their immortality and the numerous superpowers that accompany it, squirrels obviously have no chance of taking over the world.

But wait...

What if this were a ploy? An elaborate ruse to throw me off their track...

* * *

A warm spring day in Atlanta. A lone squirrel stands under a tree, nibbling on a nut. Suddenly, two other squirrels, both wearing little trenchcoats, appear as if from nowhere.

"Mr. Bushy McSquirrel?"

"Yes?"

"Agent Nippers O' Squirrel and Agent Jumpy Squirrelton, Squirrel Bureau of Investigation."

"Can I help you with anything? I was just here having my breakfast."

"We do indeed need your help, Mr. McSquirrel. This is a matter of the gravest importance to Squirreldom security, and to The Cause." Agent O'Squirrel looked up into the sun and walked away a short distance. Squirrelton took up where his partner left off.

"One of them is on to us. He knows that we don't die of natural causes. It won't be long before he spreads the word, and then The Cause will be in jeopardy."

Bushy McSquirrel's eyes narrowed in fear as he heard the story. But, being a brave squirrel, he soon recovered his equanimity.

"I will do whatever I can, Agent Squirrelton. Nothing is more important than The...."

McSquirrel never finished the sentence. A loud bang (relatively speaking; to human ears, it would have sounded like little more than an acorn falling) proceeded from Agent O'Squirrel's direction, and Bushy McSquirrel fell to the ground.

"More important than The Cause," finished Squirrelton. "He will be remembered as a hero, who gave his life for all squirreldom." Squirrelton and O'Squirrel wrapped the lifeless corpse in dead leaves and prepared to move it to where its presence would thereafter quell any suspicions about the squirrels' diabolical secret.

2006-07-01T05:22:00.000-05:00

Book Meme

It's a bit after 6 a.m., and I've got insomnia. The answer: find a friggin meme. I have no idea what the point of this one is (which is weird, because usually when I can't figure out the point of a meme, it's because I created it, but that's not the case with this one). In any event, here goes my shot at the book meme:

Book Meme:
a) pick up a book which is the closest to you at the moment
b) open page 123
c) find the third sentence
d) post it in your blog(plus the instructions
e) don't choose the book, just pick up the one closest to you

Sentence from my book:
"Perhaps I give him more credit than is warranted."

That wasn't particularly enlightening. It's not even that great of a sentence. I immediately see three or four other sentences on the same page that would have provided much more entertainment and wonder. But alas: rules is rules.

Now I suppose I should finish use my insomnia productively and finish reading this book (I've officially started reading for my PhD exam next year, and this has that annoying distinction of being book number one; that's zero down, 80 to go). If I'm to make my goal of finishing two-thirds of the list (the literature) by the end of the year, leaving theory and cultural-historical background for the Christmas Holidays and first three months of next year, I've got to go at an average of four-five books a week for the rest of the summer, since when classes start I'll obviously have less time. Yipes. I really should stop procrastinating on my blog then, shouldn't I?

p.s. In case you're just dying of curiosity, the book is Prospero's Daughter by Elizabeth Nunez, yet another reworking of The Tempest in a contemporary Caribbean setting.

2006-06-25T18:34:00.000-05:00

Redecoration Photos

As promised, here are the results of my one-week redecoration project. But first, photos of what my living room looked like before:

And now, after a new coat of paint (four coats, actually; it took forever to get the paintjob even on the room), some new furniture, some greenery, a bit of rearranging, and new cushions, this is the end result:

That's portia sitting on the sofa in the second pic, getting her fur all over everything. And that's my new Virginia Woolf doll in the third, poised precariously on the shelf, keeping a watch over my Dickens books, removing commas, periods, and quotation marks whenever I'm not looking, I'm sure. The major downgrade to the room from the first set of pictures is the TV. I decided that since I watch more TV in my room than I do in the living room, it made more sense to have the better set (the one that actually works with the DVD player) in there.

I know the new wall color's a bit out there, but I really like it. It's called "Realm," although I haven't taken to calling my living room my realm. It's more Portia's realm, when I think about it. She's the one who now owns this entire apartment, me included.

2006-06-20T16:01:00.000-05:00

SOCA WARRIORS

That's my approximation of the windshield decals on one out of every four cars back home right now. Trinidad went down today in the World Cup, and there's no more Soca Warriors football to be had. But I still feel tremendously happy because:

-They kept it exciting, with the possibility of advancing all the way through the group games.
-Nothing (and I do mean nothing, none of our native art forms that I love so dearly, no politician, no entertainer, not Carnival, no other sport) has ever, in my opinion, brought the country together, almost without exception, as much as this World Cup appearance has. Being home a couple weeks ago was amazing for that very reason.
-We went into this happy with just the appearance, expecting little more, getting TONS more than we expected, finishing with a point, enjoying every minute of it.
-I have seen my country compete in a World Cup match, which is more than the great majority of Caribbean nationals (or nationals of any small countries, and some very big ones) can say.

Now that we're out of it, I will be officially rooting for whichever is the underdoggiest team to make it through to the round of 16. Updates to come.

Another post, with pictures, should come sometime later detailing my exploits redecorating my living room.

2006-05-12T13:40:00.000-05:00

Tooth Thine Own Self Be True

Haven't posted in millennia, it seems. The end of the semester saw me in a frantic rush to finish my papers and complete a number of other little chores like finalising my syllabus and getting textbook orders in, etc. Now I'm preparing for a two-week research trip back home that I start a week from today. But more on that in a few days. For now, I'll explain the title of this post.

On Wednesday evening, unwinding in front of the TV watching America's Next Top Model and eating popcorn, I suddenly feel my tongue brush against something sharp at the back of my mouth. It felt like the usual hard kernel of popcorn stuck between my teeth, so I proceed for the next half hour trying to get it out with dental floss, toothpicks, and what have you (or what had I, for that matter). After being unsuccessful in the attempt, I head to the mirror only to realise to my horror that the sharp, jagged thing is not a popcorn kernel but actually one of my molars--with a significant bit broken off! My tooth is broken! There's a gaping (well, not gaping, but a good fifth of my tooth) maw in my second molar from the back on the left side!

I guess I should be thankful that there's no pain and that the nerve doesn't seem to be exposed. But the most annoying part of it was that my tongue just had a mind of its own and couldn't stop going straight for the broken, jagged bit--not a good thing, cos it meant that my tongue got a mite sliced up. So I got this thing from CVS called DentTemp, which is kinda like clay that you stick on to your tooth to make a temporary filling; it hardens after an hour or so. It's done an admirable job of making my mouth feel relatively normal again and protecting my tongue, but the friggin thing has tons of clove in it (to help people who're experiencing pain, I suppose), and now my mouth's all clovey. Which is a good deal more bearable than gaping maw-y, but still annoying.

I've decided not to go to the dentist here (because I don't have dental insurance, an oversight I wil rectify as soon as August comes around and I can sign up for the school program) but to wait until I'm home and see my family's dentist. I can probably get by a week or two with temporary fillings and with eating out of the other side of my mouth (sidebar: is this the case with any of you? This thing has made me realize that heretofore I'd chewed using only the left side of my mouth, so I guess it means that my left teeth did twice the work and are effectively 50 years old while my right ones are showroom new). Oh well. Hopefully this thing won't require a root canal and would just need filing down and a cap or something. Although if I were to have a root canal, I could finally test my theory that one of those is preferable to listening to Kellie Pickler try to have a conversation.

Ok, back to work now (it's my summer of reading; my PhD exam's next year). Portia's sitting on me and will promptly fight the book for my attention once I start reading, so I've got to go deal with that. Until later, and here's to hoping that I don't progress to officially jacked-up status in the tooth department.

2006-04-22T00:46:00.000-05:00

Catching Up

So about an age has passed since my last post. That last post, you will notice, coincided with the arrival of my sweet little furball Portia, who does her best to keep me busy. I've been meaning to blog about a million things for ages, so I'm going to do my best to make a dent in that number now.

Pet Ownership
Portia has definitely been an amazing addition to my life. I've never owned a cat before and am decidedly a dog person. I love Portia, but the truth of the matter is that getting a cat happened because I wanted a pet and a dog's not a practical one for someone who keeps my schedule. That said, I wouldn't give up my "Miss Kitty" (which is what I call her when doing that annoying pet-owner babytalk thing--she only gets called Portia when she's being naughty). She definitely has her moods, but she's a lot more affectionate than most cats I've known and is perfectly content to sit on me while I watch TV or submit to being brushed. While I still think dogs are more affectionate than cats and would say in general (Portia not counted) that I like dogs more, cats are undeniably smarter animals. Watching a cat problem-solve is like seeing a toddler learning about the world around: you can actually see the progression of thought. Portia knows how to close and open doors (the latter done either by using her paw to wedge it open or, if it's too far closed, throwing her weight against it so that it'll open more on the rebound) and is really, really good at assuming an innocent, nonchalant pose when she knows that she's done something naughty. The other day I was in the k itchen making a sandwich and had left a drawer open. Two minutes after, I turn around to find her comfortably nesting among my spoons and knives. The big episode, however, was when she disappeared about four nights ago. I searched the house over three times and couldn't find her. When I got around to searching in unlikely places out of panic, I found her under the sink (she'd crawled into the garbage-bag drawer ,which I don't mind so much, since cat germs on garbage bags is no big deal, but had crawled over the edge of the drawer into the adjoining cupboard and was unable to make her way back out). Needless to say, a huge relief when I opened the door to find her staring up with a, "Oh, it's you, is it?" look on her face.
Here's a pic of her in a dorky pose sleeping in her carrier/bed.

Ze Academic Life

As my second year of graduate school enters its last fortnight, I find myself reflecting on the time that has passed. Actually, no. I find myself working on papers and grading and finalizing my syllabus for next semester and such. I'm really looking forward to the class, but its beginning means the beginning of my third year, the end of the summer, and the fact that my ph.d. exam will be a semester away. Argh! A year from now, if all goes as planned, I'll be A.B.D., but there's so much to get done in that one year.

Life otherwise

Continues to be good. I'm heading home on a research trip in about a month for now, which'll be exciting and fun. I also get three weekends with the family, and I'm particularly looking forward to seeing my sister, whom I've not seen in a year and a half. I'm actually really excited about the research part too--more details to come on that later.

Things pissing me the hell off

-This whole Tomkitten nonsense. I actually read an article that compared this whole thing to the excitement surrounding the birth of Lucille Ball's son Desi, Jr. back in 1952. Let's get something straight. The publicity surrounding Lucille Ball's pregnancy was unplanned, and the writing into her tv series of the pregnancy was a necessity. She wasn't the publicity WHORE that these two idiots are, but was making an accommodation to have both family and career and in the process becoming a pioneer for women's rights in the TV industry. So let's not have any further comparison of the couch jumpers to my beloved Lucy, k? (Wow, I went all hyperbitch in that rant).

-Publix doesn't stock Portia's brand of cat food. Stupid Publix.

2006-04-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

New Little Lady in my Life

Yes, it's true. There's someone new in my life, and although I've known her only a few hours, she's already very special to me.

Introducing... Portia!

Isn't she a sweetie?

2006-03-30T23:40:00.000-05:00

Silver Marc

Whoa. It's been ages since I've posted on here. Is my blog gene becoming recessive?

Since my last post, I've now entered another demographic. I'm no longer 18-24; now, at a quarter century old, I get to select 25-34 on drop-down menus. Hooray! Unfortunately, I spent most of my birthday in bed drugged up on Nyquil, cos I'm in the midst of a nasty cold. I was not to be denied my night out with friends, however; after watching a few britcoms and Aqua Teen Hunger Force episodes (that show is friggin awesome) at Scott's house yesterday evening, I managed to make it to Twain's for a drink and a couple games of pool with some friends before pooping out an hour and a half later.

I've been meaning to post about a couple things for ages and haven't gotten around to them. In short: I've now got a draft of my syllabus for the course next semester; and I want to write a kvetch about what I think Crash didn't deserve to win Best Picture (great acting, but sorry-ass simplistic plot; I haven't seen the other movies nominated, but Crash, for me, falls in line with other best-pic duds like Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind). I probably will see Brokeback after it comes out on DVD next week.

Alright, that's it for now. Time to go back to bed and watch some therapeutic Frasier. I've got an hour until my next ~~hit~~ dose of nyquil. Mmmmm, nyquil.

2006-03-17T01:32:00.000-05:00

Marc makes up a meme yet again

So I still can't think what to post about. Spring Break has been singularly unproductive, with me doing little more than sleeping and watching TV. Had a sore throat yesterday, went to trivia today, and those are the highlights of the week. Oh, I built bookshelves yesterday! Bookshelves! Tomorrow, I'm forcing myself to go to the library. Maybe I might go swimming. That's an idea.

So, in lieu of something more substantial, why don't I make up another Meme. And y'all can't do this meme on your blogs. It's just for me. (Reverse Psychology there.)

Okay, here's how it works: You--ahem, I (since this is for me and me alone, don'tcha know)--for each letter of the alphabet, choose a name I'd like if my name weren't Marc. Simple, huh? Let's see what I come up with.

A: Adrian
B: Bernard
C: Carmine
D: Duncan
E: Ernest
F: Fabrizio (but I won't blow up cars--a cookie for anyone who can figure out this reference)
G: Gordy
H: Harris
I: Itzak
J: Johnboy
K: Kip
L: Lamar
M: Maurice
N: Nathaniel
O: Oleander (I'd have to be either a pimp or a florist)
P: Pearson
Q: Qui Gonn
R: Rawle
S: Sedley
T: Teddy
U: Ursulo (hey, there's Ursula, so there's got to be Ursulo)
V: Vulvo (see above)
W: Warren
X: Xeke
Y: Younggoodmanbrown
Z: Zorro

2006-03-12T20:50:00.000-05:00

Post for the sake of posting.

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I can't think what to write just now. But it's been a good month, despite classes being hectic in the leadup to Spring Break. I'm happy. I'll be happier at the end of Spring Break, ironically, but I'm still happy. Directly connected to my happiness: a new appreciation for the comedic talents of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, and large doses of my old favourites Are You Being Served? and Keeping Up Appearances.

2006-03-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Catchy

The Simpsons has been hitting way below average this season, but last Sunday's episode provided us with a new memorable line that'll garner chuckles for years to come:

BOMBARDMENT!

2006-02-26T17:16:00.000-05:00

My First Course

Here's the rough draft of my course description for the class I'll teach next semester. We're going to workshop these in the pedagogy seminar tomorrow, so the final version might be very different, but I'm still very excited about it.

ENG 181: The Human Condition

Issues concerning rights of the individual dominate newspaper headlines in the present day and continue to be the grounds for intense social, political, and ethical battles. These issues have at their root a number of fundamental questions: what does it mean to be human? Should certain individuals or groups be afforded rights that political and moral laws deny others? Are hypocrisy and double-standards allowable if they appease the majority of the population?

In examining "the Human Condition," we will address themes of gender, sexuality, religion, class, and politics in literature ranging in period and genre from Renaissance drama to contemporary fiction, exploring definitions of humanity and human-ness. Students who participate fully and with open minds will improve their critical thinking skills and their ability to engage social, cultural, and political issues constructively.

This course fulfills the Freshman Writing Requirement. Students will produce 60-75 pages of writing, which number includes detailed plans/outlines and drafts of four substantial essays, weekly Learnlink postings, in-class grammar and style exercises, and a major research project in the form of an annotated bibliography. There is no mid-term or final examination, but the instructor reserves the right to use the time allotted for the latter for class activities.

Writing and Grammar texts: Easy Writer: A Pocket Reference, 3rd Edition, Andrea Lunsford; Writing about Literature: A Portable Guide, Janet E. Gardner; supplemental material on electronic reserve.

Texts may also include: Tamburlaine the Great, Part I, Christopher Marlowe; The Tempest, William Shakespeare; The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; excerpts from the narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs; excerpts from Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill; The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," Oscar Wilde; "The Yellow Wallpaer," Charlotte Perkins Gilman; "The Machine Stops," E.M. Forster; excerpts from The Diary of Anne Frank; A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry; excerpts from Funny Boy, Shyam Selvadurai; The Wine of Astonishment, Earl Lovelace; The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler; poetry/lyric selections from Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Frances E.W. Harper, John Lennon, and The Mighty Sparrow.

UPDATE

Here's an updated draft, a bit shorter so that students don't get intimidated by the kitchen-sink list of texts included above.

ENG 181: The Human Condition

What does it mean to be human? Should certain individuals or groups be afforded rights that political and moral laws deny others? Are hypocrisy and double-standards allowable if they appease the majority of the population? Such issues concerning individual and human rights dominate newspaper headlines and continue to be grounds for intense social, political, and ethical battles. This course will examine themes of race and religion, gender and sexuality in literature ranging in period and genre from Renaissance drama to contemporary fiction, exploring definitions of humanity and humanness. Students will improve their critical thinking skills and their ability to engage social, cultural, and political issues constructively while learning the technical, stylistic, and substantial requirements of writing about literature at the college level.

Texts may include: The Tempest, William Shakespeare; The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry; The Wine of Astonishment, Earl Lovelace; The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler*; excerpted readings and poetry/lyric selections, available on electronic reserve; a grammar handbook and a writing manual.

*p.s. RIP Octavia Butler, the only sci-fi writer I could ever get my head around.

2006-02-22T22:04:00.000-05:00

Tetra-meme

Here's a fun meme via Scott:

A. FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Writing Laboratory tutor
2. Newspaper reporter/writer
3. Research Assistant
4. English teacher

B. FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:
1. The Godfather, Part I
2. The Godfather, Part II
3. My Fair Lady
4. Jaws

C. FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Chaguanas, Trinidad
2. Gros Islet, St. Lucia
3. Morne Fortune, St. Lucia
4. Atlanta, GA

D. FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. Daria
2. Roseanne
3. The Golden Girls
4. Project Runway

E. FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION (Do conferences count?):
1. St. Vincent
2. Freeport, Bahamas
3. Dublin, Ireland
4. New York

F. FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. Yahoo.com
2. Trinidadexpress.com
3. IMDB.com
4. CNN.com

G. FOUR OF YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE RESTAURANTS:
1. Satay Ria (Thai restaurant on Peachtree, now closed)
2. James Joyce Pub (more for memories than food)
3. The Zaxby's near the Regal 24 (Colin, Geoff, and I ate there everytime we went to the movies)
4. Voyager Mall Food Court, again for memories with friends

H: FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1. Doubles (Trinidadian delicacy; it's probably tops on the list cos I haven't had one in more than a year)
2. Pelau (another Trini food, made with rice, peas, and meat)
3. Lasagne with cole slaw
4. Corn soup with oxtails

I: FOUR SCHOOLS YOU'VE ATTENDED:
1. St. Mary's College (my high school)
2. Morehouse College (my college)
3. Emory University (my grad school)
4. Life (my bullshit answer)

J: FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. Mount Irvine, Tobago
2. Dublin, Ireland
3. At home, in Trinidad, enjoying Carnival
4. At a hotel in L.A. with a ticket for the Oscars in my pocket

K: FOUR THINGS YOU FIND YOURSELF SAYING:
1. Uh...
2. Cool.
3. Significance? (well, not actually saying it, but it's definitely the most common comment I write on student papers)
4. Oh my God.

2006-02-20T18:41:00.000-05:00

But subtraction's hard!

Does Bush's, ahem, brilliance rub off on the reporters covering his press conferences? Is there some kind of osmosis effect whereby logic and common sense fly out the window?

In this story about forthcoming energy breakthroughs, one paragraph caught my attention:

Less than half the crude oil used by refineries is produced in the United States, while 60 percent comes from foreign nations, Bush said during the first stop on a two-day trip to talk about energy.

Now even if Bush had phrased the facts in this moronic way, was it absolutely necessary for the journalist to report it as such, given that he was not using direct quotes? Let's break this down logically:
Given that this is a story written in the United States, the term "foreign nations" applies to the set of nations that does not include said United States.
Sixty percent of anything, being greater than fifty-percent, is therefore more than half of the entity in consideration.
Since sixty percent of crude oil used by refineries is produced by foreign nations, forty percent is not produced by foreign nations.
The only nation that is not a member of the set "foreign nations" is the United States.
The United States produces forty percent of crude oil used by refineries.
Forty percent of anything, being less than fifty-percent, is therefore less than half the entity in consideration.

Now here's the ringer: that entire logical process, to anyone who has had even an elementary school education, can take place in mere microseconds. Therefore, it is COMPLETELY FRIGGIN UNNECESSARY to include both of those clauses in that sentence-paragraph. One might communicate the very same information (and get rid of those pesky passive-voice constructions) with simply

Foreign nations produce sixty percent of crude oil used by refineries.
or,
The United States produces only forty precent of crude oil used by refineries.

Concision, people! Concision!

Makes me happy: My brand spankin' new cellphone was delivered today. I've set aside an hour to play with it tonight.

Pisses me off: I'm in the middle of writing a short paper that's due tomorrow, and reading someone's inept writing in a news story forced me to take time off and blog.

On the fence: tomorrow I'm teaching Chaucer's "The Parliament of Fowls." Let's hope my Middle English isn't too rusty.

2006-02-13T20:06:00.000-05:00

Love is...

Forget engagement rings. Get an engagement nose.

Apparently, it's all the rage in China for lovers to get plastic surgery to look more like each other. Doesn't that sound like the "it all started when..." portion of some piece of dystopian future fiction wherein each individual is a generic copy of some bland prototype?

So yet another V-day is here with me single. But I've got a date, of sorts. My friend Jen and I are having dinner to say scornful, catty things about happy couples in the throes of l'amour. Colin and Geoff get a reprieve by default from said scorn and cattiness; for any other reprieves, please submit a formal application in writing.

Makes me happy: chocolate.

Pisses me off: roses.

On the fence: postcards.

2006-02-12T12:19:00.000-05:00

Kwansong

I've been a fan of figure skating for the past twelve years, ever since the Nancy-Tonya scandal made headlines and the fairytale story of Oksana Baiul charmed the world. For the past eight years, however, I've bween a Kwan fan. I watched the Nagano games expecting Michelle Kwan, then the best female skater in the world, to win the ladies' competition. She took home the silver, losing to Tara Lipinski. Four years later, at the Salt Lake City games, everyone expected Kwan, still the best female skater in the world, to win again, but a couple falls during the long program and a flawless performance by the unexpected Sarah Hughes saw that she ended up in third, behind Hughes and the powerful Russian Irena Sluttskaya. Kwan was already getting up in years as far as skaters go, and it seemed unlikely she'd make another Olympics.

But she held on, picking up more accolades along the way. Everything seemed set for the best skater, the face of the sport for the past decade, to have a dream ending to a stellar career and win Olympic gold at the unlikely age of 25. The USOC were willing to give her that shot when she petitioned to be let on the team because of a groin injury that prevented her from competing much in the last season.

It was all ready. She'd go out and perform the flawless short program and leave the competition in the dust. She'd go out and perform the glorious long program, this time without any misstep, and finish with the trademark spiral (that's when she stands like a statue, smiling, her arms behind her, and skates the perimeter of the ice without her feet moving) and spins that Kwan fans have come to know and love. Her name would be atop the leaderboard. Everything would be as it should have been eight years ago, four years ago.

But it's not going to happen. Last night, her injuries exacerbated, Michelle Kwan pulled out of the Olympics. It's not going to happen. The gold medal that she deserves is never going to happen. It doesn't make her less of an athlete in anyone's eyes, I'm sure, and certainly not in mine, but it sucks that someone who is the epitome of the Olympic champion will never be the Olympic champion.

I hope the sport pays some tribute over the next two weeks to the woman who has been its posterchild and sweetheart for so many years. And I hope that, if this signals the end of Kwan's career, that we get to see her do at least one more spiral before she skates off into the sunset.

2006-02-12T01:35:00.000-05:00

Profound thought to blow your mind

"Pascal is right in maintaining that if the same dream came to us every night we would be just as occupied with it as we are with the things we see every day. 'If a workman were sure to dream for twelve straight hours every night that he was king,' says Pascal, 'I believe that he would be just as happy as a king who dreamt for twelve hours every night that he was a workman.'"

--Quoted in Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense"

2006-02-11T13:00:00.000-05:00

Whatcha gonna do with all that Soul?

Courtesy of Colin:

You Are a Peacemaker Soul

You strive to please others and compromise anyway you can.
War or conflict bothers you, and you would do anything to keep the peace.
You are a good mediator and a true negotiator.
Sometimes you do too much, trying so hard to make people happy.

While you keep the peace, you tend to be secretly judgmental.
You lose respect for people who don't like to both give and take.
On the flip side, you've got a graet sense of humor and wit.
You're always dimplomatic and able to give good advice.

Souls you are most compatible with: Warrior Soul, Hunter Soul and Visionary Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

2006-02-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

Who rocks the party that rocks the party?

Fun fact: I hate beer, in bottles or cans, and think it tastes like horse sweat. However, beer from a keg is drinkable. Why is that?

Simon and his housemates hosted a party on Friday, called "The Apparition Party." Invitees were directed to come dressed as a ghost, spirit, or holy figure and told that "The Apparition" would make an appearance during the night. I went dressed as a Friar (recycled my graduation gown, bit of rope about my waist, and a rosary hanging from it). Was a great party, and it turns out that "The Apparition" was the name of Simon and his housemates' new band, which made its debut at about midnight replete with smoke machine and wash-tub base. It's amazing what you didn't know people you know could do.

Long story short, we partied the night away and didn't return home until about 4am (because there was no beer pong this time, I managed to return home without being tipsy). However, I ended up sleeping through most of yesterday, then staying up late, then sleeping until 1 p.m. today. It's just as well we have these kinds of parties only at the beginning of the semester, when the workload's light, cos I'm only just getting around to reading the Wordsworth that's on the docket for this week.

What was really interesting about the party, however, was that I met people I knew from other departments in a social context for the first time, and really liked some of them. This may force me to reconsider my selective misanthropy schemata.

Makes me happy: Antimacassars. Delightful new word I just learned reading Alistair Appleton's latest blog entry. The word's almost as much fun to say as Tegucigalpa. Heh. Tegucigalpa.

Pisses me off: Yet again I returned from the dryer with considerably fewer socks than when I started doing laundry.

On the fence: John Ruskin. Read one of his Sesame and Lilies lectures last week, and while his prose is really well written, I'm not sure I get all of it. Was kinda like listening to Pink's music in that way (cf. Geoff's analysis of "God is a deejay" from a couple years ago).

2006-01-30T03:42:00.000-05:00

Anniversary

Woohoo! It's my second bloggaversary. I've made two years of semi-regular posting on the various incarnations of this thing. To celebrate, I thought a few facts and figures might be in order:

Number of blog posts for Froggytown: 250. In the 11 months that my blog existed as Froggytown, I was very prolific. Of course, I had to post for six personas back then.

Number of posts for Momeaga: 108, including this one, in 13 months. That works out to slightly more than eight posts per month on average. The switch to Momeaga saw the implementation of a simpler, less cartoony forum for my thoughts and ideas.

Number of posts for Flossie Fiddlesticks: 4. For those of you who remember, this was my interactive children's story about an eccentric witch and her pet hamster, Leonard. The text is still available if anyone cares to see it. I may restart Flossie someday. I'd need to rebuild the loyal following of 6 people I had at the peak of my writing to do so, though.

Ill-fated gimmicks and schemes: the Froggometer, multiple memes, multiple quizzes, _____ of the Week, Flossie Fiddlesticks, multiple frog personalities, poorly written poesie, sour jokes, celebrity playing card spoofs of the Iraq war deck, Super Pretzel. Perhaps making a future appearance on this list: current gimmick of makes me happy, pisses me off, on the fence.

A visual retrospective: Two years of Marc Blogging:

Makes me happy: I just bought on ebay a DVD of the Mexican telenovela Wild Rose, which was dubbed over in English and shown on Trinidadian tv when I was a kid. It was cheesy and corny, but I loved it, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Of course, the only version available is in Spanish without subtitles, so I'm going to have a challenge following.

Pisses me off: Irene and I coffeeshopped today at Dr. Bombay's Underwater Adventure, a great little place in Candler Park that has tons of used books you can buy for 50 cents apiece (proceeds go to charity). In digging, I found a copy of Jon Stewart's America: The Book, which is hilarious! I can't believe that someone parted with this; that pisses me of... Oh, who am I kidding? I'm ecstatic! I just had two things than make me happy, so I decided to put one of them in here.

On the fence: the temporary replacement for Dr. Bailey on Grey's Anatomy. I can't figure out whether I'm amused by how annoying she is, or just genuinely annoyed. Plus Bailey has become one of my favourite television characters.

2006-01-18T23:54:00.000-05:00

Adieu to Procrastination

Tomorrow the new semester officially starts, so I must bid farewell to the wonderful days of procrastination enjoyed over these holidays (I'm not likely to have as long a break for a while to come, cos I'm meant to be preparing, in addition to everything else this year, for my big PhD exam next Spring that I must pass before beginning work on the dissertation). A bunch of us had to be on campus today for sundry meetings, and we had a bit of free time in between that we spent browsing the web and visiting those wonderful, pointless websites that everyone loves. Some of these are a lot of fun, so I figured I'd share a shortlist:

Cute Overload: See pictures of a dog that adopts a squirrel, a baby bunny, a (flock? gaggle?) of ducklings that decide to follow a collie, and a lizard eating watermelon. And other stuff too.

Kittenwars: kittens face off against each other in a war of cuteness. Visitors' votes decide which is the winner, and the website includes lists of the most fetching felines and pathetic pussycats.

Stuff on m ycat: Photos of cats with tons of crap over them.

Cats in sinks: See a trend developing here? To quote the website: "What is Cats in Sinks? It's obvious. It's about cats. And kittens. Who like sinks. And basins."

Papernapkin: This is definitely the coolest. If some creepy person asks you for your number or contact information: give them [any username] @papernapkin.net (you don't even have to register the username). The website will send a rejection notice to their email explaining that they've been turned down. Nice, clean, and simple. The best part, however, is the list the Papernapkin people have posted of emails that the future-rejectees send to who they think is the cute girl/guy that gave them the address. Priceless!

Makes me happy: "The Word" on The Colbert Report.

Pisses me off: that I need to do the dishes.

On the fence: Ground turkey. I love turkey meatloaf, but turkey burgers suck.

2006-01-18T00:55:00.000-05:00

Calling Colin to Duty

It turns out that The O'Reilly Factor's having a contest, the winners of which will get to debate with Wild Bill himself on his show. I'd like to see someone cut this guy down to size verbally and intellectually, and I nominate Colin, debating champ of St. Mary's College. Come on, Colin: enter the contest and teach Bill a thing or two.

Makes me happy: Tim Russert taking on L. Paul Bremer on Meet the Press this weekend. Democratic Senators: sit up and pay attention. Take notes. This is how you go after the inconsistencies and shady areas in someone's record. It's a little thing called being methodical.

Pisses me off: that every new TV show gets plugged as some incarnation of Sex and the City. I counted three in the past week alone.

On the fence: Whether Rainy Days and Mondays do indeed always get one down. Yesterday was both, and while I wasn't the most chipper I've ever been, I'm not sure if I was actually "down."

2006-01-17T03:11:00.000-05:00

Doogie Howser: The First Blogger

It's after 3 a.m., and I'm still awake. I'm watching Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo just cos it's two days before school's back on, and my circadian rhythms are still out of whack (I'm now a heck of a hold'em poker player, by the way, and although I've never played the game in real life, I do pretty well online in Yahoo! games. Of course it's different without the human element, but it's still a lot of fun. One of my new ambitions in life is to someday enter the World Series of Poker main event. Geez, this is a long parenthesis).

Ok, returning from digression: one of the contestants is Neil Patrick Harris, the actor who immortalized the role of Doogie Howser, M.D., my favourite show when I was a pre-teen. As Matthew Perry, another contestant, recalled, Doogie would end every episode by typing into his journal, which in the early 90s was a blue Word Perfect 5.0 screen--when I got my first computer a year or two later, I was ecstatic to start my own journal, emulating my hero Doogie. I kept that journal for two weeks.

What's really interesting, however, is that when you think about it, Doogie was the first blogger, in a way. Of course his journal came a few years before Al Gore waved a wand and the internet was born, and of course it came decades after Anne Frank's diary was circulated as a historical and literary document, centuries after Samuel Pepys's accounts of Restoration-era London were written. But it was the first journal written on a computer and accessible to a large audience (albeit via tv) in a conscious act of exhibitionism-voyeurism for the purposes of entertainment and diversion. Doogie Howser was a pioneer.

I type this a week before the second anniversary of my own blogging. It's unbelievable I've remained committed to this so long--my two-week Doogie journal held the record before this. Hey--there's an idea. Maybe my next blog redesign will feature a Doogie-like Word Perfect 5.0 blue screen. Who's nostalgic for a 80286 computer with 1 meg of RAM?

Makes me happy: Sandra Oh won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Well deserved. Oh, and a bonus mmh: Jon Stewart's hosting the Oscars!

Pisses me off: Rent's not getting any awards show respect.

On the Fence: Should I get some more work done in the last couple of days remaining, or do some leisure reading? Or just watch more brainless TV?

2006-01-09T02:16:00.000-05:00

Weekend Update

It's been a leisurely weekend in which I broke the pace of a nice run of productive days. Started on Friday when I decided to take the day off from linguistics to get my house clean and things ready cos I had invited some friends over for a nice l0w-key evening of board games.

Nine of us piled into my little living rooom (had to employ my dining-table chairs and convert my nifty Ikea single-seater futon to have enough seating) and chatted and played away four hours (btw, if you're ever looking for a wonderfully bad-for-you hors d'oeuvre that's really simple to make, use my friend Liz's recipe: wrap a water chestnut in half a rasher of bacon and bake for 30 minutes). My team didn't win at Trivial Pursuit, although we were the first to get all our pie pieces; we got them in like about 30 minutes and then spent the next hour and a half trying to get to the center spot, using up our lead. The icky part, however, is that I didn't realize that my 20th-anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit (bought almost immaculately new from a thrift shop for six bucks) covers only the past 20 years, so the literature questions SUCKED ASS, especially so since the majority of the group (barring Liz's Ty, Emily's Tad, and Jen's Edward) were lit students. On the plus side, though, the entertainment questions were a lot of fun.

With such a great start to the weekend, I really didn't feel like doing work, and I feel kinda justified in taking days off since it's the vacation and all. I've not been entirely unproductive, getting some electronic filing that I've been putting off for ages done (I got my paper-filing done at the beginning of the holidays; there's absolutely nothing, by the way, that makes one feel so grown up as owning a file cabinet). Still, I do feel guilty, so it's back to the books tomorrow (and back to the sorely neglected treadmill, ignored now for three days). Right now I'm reading about ethnocentrism in English dictionaries, which is a really interesting topic, but the writing's really REALLY dry in some places. Poo.

For you people who're on Facebook: I recently started using it, after being a member for 2 years and logging in scarcely twice. Having logged in, I've come across a number of people I haven't seen in years, including two high school friends who've since gotten married! To each other! Blew my mind. My old-enough-to-have-married-friends mind. My slowly-approaching-the-quarter-century-mark mind. Look me up if you're on there and I haven't found you.

I'm going to start doing one of those three-category-bold-item thingies that're so popular on blogs now, just so I don't have to think of clever ways to end my posts. Not saying that all my post endings heretofore have been clever. But I always try to make them so. I just fail frequently.

Thing that makes me happy: Colin, good friend and the wittiest person I know, has started posting again after a six-month hiatus.

Thing that pisses me off: change-your-life product commercials. Results not typical? Why the hell are you wasting my time and making me listen to people who don't represent what your product typically does? And, worse still, those hair-restoration commercials. They say the transplanted hair is permanent. All well and good. But hair loss (something I'm thinking about, unfortunately, because I seem to have inherited not my father's great full-head-of-hair genes, but my maternal grandfather's hair-thinning genes, which thankfully don't mean baldness but make shorter and more frequent haircuts necessary) does not happen overnight. It's a gradual process. Logic says those guys would get the hair restoration and then, a couple years later, find themselves in a similar situation, cos the non-transplanted hair would continue to thin and fall. How come they don't mention that on the advertisements.

On the fence: The new sitcom Four Kings on NBC. I caught the first episode on Thursday, and I have to say it was pretty bad. Wretched. But I'm not passing judgment yet because the FRIGGIN SHOW HAS THE PERFECT FORMULA TO BE SUCCESSFUL IF THE WRITERS AND DIRECTORS DON'T SCREW IT UP. The actors, with the exception of Seth Green, aren't anything special. But not being anything special works in the ensemble comedy formula. The characters have clearly defined personas, they're reasonably likeable, and the show's setup is open and versatile. It's the same tabula rasa Friends had eleven years ago. That Golden Girls had. That Cheers had. That Sex and the City had. The people who put the concept together did their job. But the comedic timing's completely off, and the fact that the director let the show go to air so choppy is inexcusable. I'll watch a couple more episodes before deciding whether this is one for the toilet (though if history is any guide, I shouldn't get attached to any show in the Thursday 8.30 p.m. timeslot on NBC; the last two times I did, Jesse and Leap of Faith, it ended in cancellation).

2006-01-04T23:39:00.000-05:00

Squirrel Conspiracy

I'm afraid I must inform the world of a grave threat to its safety: squirrels!

For the past two weeks, everywhere I go, I see them. No, it's not the lone rogue squirrel scurrying up a tree. It's scores of them. Millions may be. Who am I kidding? Billions. They're stalking me, looking at me from the corners of their squirrelly little eyes, running away when I get too close. Foraging and finding nuts and acorns and what have you--for what? To build some weapon with which to wreak havoc, havoc! on the world.

What's that you say? They're just stocking up on food? Ha! Shows what you know. Trying to pull one over on me with your insidious logical thinking. I bet you're in league with the squirrels. Rodent-lover. I, on the other hand, know that the squirrels have been behind some sinister schemes in the past. When I moved to my house five months ago, the verdant loveliness of the trees on my street was a sight to behold. Now? Not a single green leaf. Every. Tree. Bare. And those squirrels are always in and around the trees. Obviously they're responsible.

Here's my plan to get them: we plant wires in some acorns and strew them about so we can listen in and find out what the squirrels are up to. We cut down each and every last tree with any leaves remaining so the squirrels can't get to them. And, most importantly, we come out against same-sex squirrel marriages to divert attention when the first two steps misfire.

The squirrels are out there, and they're biding their time. We must act now.

2006-01-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

A New Year, A New [insert cliche]

2006! It's now officially one year until everyone can start making bad double-o seven jokes!

So I'm here on Sunday afternoon watching the I Love the 90s marathon on VH1 and not doing much else. I'm meant to be doing some reading on Linguistics (I've signed up for a directed study in it because I love it, because I can tailor a part of it to fit my own interests in anglophone Caribbean dialects, and because if I get it done over the holidays, I can have a lighter courseload next semester when I have to T.A. a class and take a pedagogy seminar), but I decided to procrastinate a bit longer and blog.

My Christmas present to myself this year was to have cable reinstalled. My rationale for not having it installed when I moved in here five months ago is that I would have stayed awake until 3 in the morning watching sitcom reruns on Nick at Nite and not get enough sleep for the days I had to get up at 8 in the morning. Unfortunately, that plan backfired because it turns out that I need at least three hours of TV after midnight (after which I don't do research/schoolwork, grading) before going to bed. So I ended up getting addicted to some highly questionable tv, including Becker (which I used to think was the worst comedy ever, but now I think Ted Danson's a genius, a fact about myself that scares me), Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (which was all well and good when i was 17, but now is just sad, SAD that I still watch it), and the pinnacle of bad reality TV, Fear Factor. Even now that I have cable, I still find myself watching these shows. What damage have I done to myself? But I'm still glad that I have cable, however, because the new season of my absolute favorite show, Project Runway, is on. I'm rooting for Nick.

Having cable during the day is also a bad thing. I've had to force myself to leave my house every day for eight hours to go to campus and do some time on the treadmill and get my reading/writing done. Otherwise I boob out in front of the tube all day long (which was the case the first two days I got it).

I mentioned my hell semester. The semester I'll remember hereafter as almost finishing me ("'Twas the semester that done him in!"). It's now over, and I couldn't be more grateful for the break. Got my grades, and they were identical to the ones I received in the previous two semesters. It's a bit of a relief, but also a bit of a surprise, because I felt that I kinda unravelled a bit (being sick and losing a week of writing/researching time over Thanksgiving didn't help, but most of it was me letting pressure get to me) and I thought the grade of one course in particular might reflect that. It didn't, and I do feel kinda undeserving of an A in that one when I probably deserved an A- (my final paper certainly wasn't of A quality). But on the brighter side, my Faulkner paper--for the class, remember, that I took by fluke because my Victorian Novel course got cancelled--turned out to be really interesting, and I got encouragement from the professor to work on it more and possibly turn it into an article (I plan to work on it more next summer; who'da thunk that Marc could work on Faulkner, or any modernist/post-modernist writer, for that matter?).

This semester promises good things. In addition to the teaching requirements mentioned above, I'll be taking a British Romanticism course that focuses on Wordsworth's Prelude and Byron's Don Juan (and I'm really intrigued to find out why it's pronounced Jew-un as opposed to Juan). And, joy of joys, I get to take a class on Oscar Wilde with one of the country's foremost Wilde scholars! More to come.

Oh--I do need to mention the great Christmas I spent at Aunty Pam's this year. I decided not to go home for Christmas because it just wasn't financially responsible to do it at this point, and given that I saw my family over the summer (except my sister; that was the hard part, not getting to see her this year), it was a slightly easier choice to make. The hardest part of it was that I would miss out on a Trini Christmas (which, if you know anything, is de bes', de bes', de bes', Trini Christmas is de bes')--or I thought I would. Staying with Aunty Pam, I got to have a full Trini Christmas right here in Atlanta, replete with parang, ponche de creme, pastelle, the works--and a family that, although not my immediate family, definitely one that I love and appreciate. Was also great to spend Christmas in a household with a small child opening her Christmas presents (my family's not had that for a few years now, except for the cousin here or there), which I think is one of the most wonderful things to see. Who can see that and not feel like a little kid again? Good times, good times.

In parting, I have to recommend a great book I read a couple weeks ago (I meant to write a whole review, cos it really touched me, but instead I'll hope that I create enough suspense to make you run out and get a copy). It's called Funny Boy, by Sri Lankan-cum-Canadian writer Shyam Selvadurai, and presents how a homophobic society (or, more generally, any society with very specific and unbending ideas about gender roles) treats a young boy with "funny" or "sissy" tendencies--while juxtaposing homophobia against a number of other varieties of intolerance: racism and classism (as demonstrated in the Tamil-Sinhalese conflicts in Sri Lanka, intriguingly presented through the eyes of a child/adolescent), sexism, and multiple varieties of self-loathing. The novel really struck home because, like Arjie (the protagonist), I didn't want to play cricket with my cousins and uncles when I was growing up, preferring instead to sit on the couch and read. Of course, I'd be forced to relinquish the book and head out to the yard--not because my family wanted to be cruel, but because they thought I needed to get out, I needed to fit the roles society prescribed to survive in society. Those are the kinds of complex psychological/sociological issues this novel cannily examines. Isn't it amazing how much people can hurt each other under the very genuine premise of caring and love?

A case in point from my own life (I don't remember if I've written about this before, but it's a particularly vivid memory, so forgive if I'm repeating): when I was in high school, that horrible period of which I actively endeavor to repress 80%, I was in a group talking about favourite movies. Most people mentioned the usual Stallone/Van Damme/Schwarzenegger testosterone fare. I had recently seen the Sean Patrick Flannery movie Powder, the sentimentality of which at the time endeared itself to me (at this point, I think it a bit saccharine, but that's beside the point). Not many of the people in that circle had heard of it. A couple had. One person--I don't remember who at this point, it's just a generic face in my memory--scolded that it was not a man's movie (paraphrasing here), and demanded that I choose something else. So I, giving in to expectations for the sake of being accepted, as I was wont to do until a couple years ago (and still do for convenience in some respects now), racked my brain until I came up with Speed. Which placated no-face-testosterized-boy somewhat, and he nodded and affirmed, "Right, that is a man movie."

I've digressed a good deal, but to get back to my point, read the book. In fact, to encourage you, here's a link for a number of secondhand copies under $5 from ABEBooks.com.

Now back to linguistics.

2005-12-14T19:41:00.000-05:00

Duhhhhh.... duhhhhhhhhh..... duhhhh.... DA DA! Boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom, boom....

Papers are in. Thus wrate Marcathustra.

The semester from hell's now over. Well, not quite--I've still got a three-hour exam to proctor and then 28 papers to grade on Friday, and of course, I still have to get grades, but the brain-busting part of the seester, at least, is over.

More to come soon.

p.s. those in my real life to whom I've introduced "Six degrees of IMDB" (see post immediately below) are now addicted to the game.

2005-12-12T23:34:00.000-05:00

MEME and Game

Okay, in the spirit of Memery, I'm going to do one I saw on Hassan's blog. You who've been delinquent bloggers may use this as an excellent excuse to start posting again (I'll get around to some more in-depth posting myself when the last couple pages of my paper's written).

Instructions:
"I want you to create the following list - You, in 10 words. If you could only describe yourself in a list of 10 words, what words would you use? This list should give someone a good idea of who you are - your loves, fears, desires, passions, etc." From the ones I've seen, your words can be either adjectives or nouns.

Marc's:
1. Contented
2. Unsatisfied
3. Conflicted
4. Teacher
5. Reader
6. Competent
7. Affectionate
8. Dreamer
9. Opinionated
10. Intense

Ok, now you do your words.

Other thing I wanted to share with y'all is a game I've invented (it's remarkable what you can do when you're looking for ways to procrastinate while papering).

My game's called "Six degrees of IMDB." It works like six degrees of separation, except it's a bit easier cos you've got a person's filmography on the page before you. You choose two actors and try to get from one to the other by using only the links on each page that comes up. You count one step each time you get to a new actor's IMDB page. I'll give an example:

Starting with Damon Wayans, I'm going to try to get to Salma Hayek.

Damon Wayans....
-->in Look Who's Talking Too with
1. John Travolta
-->in Pulp Fiction with
2. Uma Thurman
-->in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 with
3. Lucy Liu
-->in Charlie's Angels with
4. Matt Le Blanc
-->in Friends with
5. Matthew Perry
-->in Fools Rush In with
6. SALMA HAYEK!

Have fun playing. Or not.

2005-12-03T02:13:00.000-05:00

Marc at a Glance

Here's a quick look at my life:

A. Many, many books I need to read to write my final seminar paper, due in twelve days.

B. This blog entry, which shows not only that I've been procrastinating, but also that insanity has probably begun to set in.

C. Ever-growing pile of laundry waiting to be laundered.

D. Discarded bottles of cold/flu medicine

E. Mindless television programming, providing another means of procrastination.

F. Sanity slowly slipping away.

2005-11-28T22:08:00.000-05:00

First Annual November 28th My-Life Awards

Best Movie I saw on Thanksgiving Day last week with Erin, despite the fact I didn't like the way it interpreted the character Maureen or that they left out "Christmas Bells": Rent.

Wonderful Thanksgiving evening with coffee and pie and conversation: Erin's Pie Party.

Sucky, Annoying Circumstance that had me in bed from Friday-Sunday, unable to sit up without feeling dizzy and unable to make any dent in the crapload of work I have piled up: The Flu.

Most unsatisfying feeling in the world when you've got the flu: thinking you're going to sneeze and then you don't. Roughly every three minutes.

2005-11-23T21:21:00.000-05:00

Tis' Thanksgiving!

So I only wrote about one thing on the list of four I gave a few weeks ago. My bad.

Life's been hectic. Getting papers done. Getting paperwork done--thanks to other people screwing up, I've got a whole load of crap to deal with. I'm not going to go into details cos it'll just get my dander up.

Did have a few cool things happen last week before I had to deal with the crap, however: Irene, Erin, Jenni, Liz, Lauren, and I went to the U2 concert last Friday, which was spectacular. The light alone was enough to bedazzle one. At one point, Bono asked audience members to join The One campaign by texting in their names, after which we received a return text:

This is Bono, thx 4 taking action with the ONE campaign 2 make AIDS and poverty history. Check out www.one.org on the web for more. Peace.

Thought I'd share my form-reply text message from Bono with everyone.

On Saturday night was Katy's birthday party, and being at her place was fun as always. Little of note between then and yesterday, when my good friend Jen had her Oral exams (get your minds out of the gutter, all of you). Of course she, being the genius she is, passed with flying colors, and we all celebrated at her house after with champagne and pizza while she wore a t-shirt that said "Ladies is fishmongers too" ("fishmonger" being Shakespearean slang for "pimp," a reference to the Jay-Z song). A good evening, and symbolically important cos Jen's the first one in the group of us who hang out together to take her Orals and gain A.B.D. status. My turn comes a little over a year from now.

Tomorrow, Erin and I are going to see Rent, and I can't wait. After that, it's back to her place for the annual pie party. She's making apple, Irene's making pecan, Michelle's making Pumpkin, other people are making other things, and I'm taking my mother's famous cheesecake (which I successfully made today despite having to call home and ask about how one incorporates the gelatin into the mix).

I've got one seminar paper left to write, and about three weeks in which to write it. I know what I'm going to be thankful for tomorrow, more than anything else. Yes, I'm grateful for friends (those here and those away), family, okay health, getting through another calendar year of school. But the one thing I'm most thankful for: sanity. It's very underappreciated, and you only realise how important it is at those moments when you feel it starting to slip away.

2005-11-10T01:52:00.000-05:00

Alito Bit of Circumspection

Ok, so here's how I figure the democrats, barring any bigass skeletons in the closet, should not oppose Samuel Alito's nomination and thereby effectively guarantee is confirmation to the Supreme Court. My argument is, more or less, a utilitarian one.

Alito's record is one tremendously scary to liberals. Along with Priscilla Owen, J. Michael Luttig, and Janice Rodgers Brown, he's one of the last people folks on the left would like to see on the bench. That dissent of his on the spousal notification of abortion ruling scares the bejaysus out of me, and it's the centerpiece of opposition to the Alito nomination from groups such as NOW and NARAL.

However, while he is scarier than Joan Rivers in a string bikini, the situation right now is still not as bad as it could be, or, unfortunately, as bad as it might be before Bush's term is up. Dubya may very well get another Supreme Court pick before his three years are out, and that's when the fight on the Senate floor should take place.

Let's review.

Prior to this summer, with Rehnquist and O'Connor still on the bench, this was the face of the court (bear with me; I actually sat down with pen and paper and worked this all out):

Liberals: Ginsberg (72), Breyer (67), Stevens (85).
Average age: 75

Moderates: Souter (66), Kennedy (69), O'Connor (75)
Average age: 70

Conservatives: Thomas (57), Scalia (69), Rehnquist (85)
Average age: 70

In many ways, the court was very evenly balanced before July of this year. But let's examine what happened with Rehnquist's death: while the ideological balance of the court remained the same with Roberts replacing the old CJ, the conservative faction suddenly got a good deal younger: the average age drops from 70, close to the other two divisions, to 59. This mean in itself means nothing, but it accurately conveys the threat of the future: mathematically and biologically, regardless of who's in power, the court has a greater chance of sliding to the right than to the left for many years to come.

Which is what happened with Alito's nomination: the previously well balanced court slid more to the right. But if I may draw an analogy--think of a balance that has a slightly greater mass on the right than on the left, not enough to compromise equilibrium, but enough to just about reach the breaking point. That's where Alito puts the court. Remove O'Connor from the moderates column and put Alito with the conservatives. On the "hot button" issues--abortion primary among them--Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito would in all likelihood oppose, while Ginsberg, Stevens, and Breyer would probably take a pro-choice position. Whereas previously liberal hopefuls could hope that two of three moderates would vote with the former three, the role Souter and Kennedy will play here on out will be even more pivotal. However, things are not as bleak as they could be, since those two justices have records that liberals respect on gay rights and women's rights respectively. All this to say: it's not an absolute crisis yet.

However, should the senate democrats decide that now is the moment to fight and decide to filibuster, Fristy the Catkiller will pull the nuclear option out of his bag of tricks again, and indications are that the "gang of 14" will crumble this time round since some of the senators therein believe that this is not an "extreme situation" that demands a filibuster. Thus filibusters are taken off the table. Mid-term elections happen next year, and Democrats stand to lose more than they can gain in the senate, defending many more seats than the Republicans are (I hold out hope that the current antipathy for this government's policy will continue into next year and that the Dems will make significant gains, but Bush getting re-elected last November despite everything has somewhat soured my optimism). So mathematically, the Democrats probably can't regain control of the Senate before Bush's term is up. Now if they unite and filibuster Alito, the Republicans won't have the requisite 60 votes to break the filibuster. Bush, like Reagan before him, will recognize the stalemate and withdraw Alito's nomination. So the Dems would win that round.

But then all hell breaks loose. Nuclear option on the table again. Two of the Gang of 14 have already said they will not support a filibuster. Even if the other five republicans remain with the Gang, when the senate votes, it'll be deadlocked at 50 to do away with filibusters (all Republicans) and 50 not to (44 Dems, 1 Independent, 5 Republicans). Filibusters are no more, because Dick Cheney, as president of the senate, would get the tie-breaking vote. Thus Bush can now nominate, say, Priscilla Owen to replace O'Connor. Liberals have the same problems with her that they have with Alito, but now, because Filibustering's not an option anymore, even if the Senate democrats oppose her, all the Republicans need is a simple majority to confirm her. So we end up with the same outcome as if Alito had been confirmed.

From there, it just gets scarier. Because the Democrats probably won't regain the Senate next year, they have absolutely no means of blocking a nomination, because filibusters flew out the window. Bush will be able to put whomever he wants (save Harriet Miers, possibly) on the bench. And fill up the circuit courts with more scary people as well. And given that John Paul Stevens, at 85, is the oldest justice, he is the most likely candidate to retire or (perish the thought) expire; Ginsberg follows at 72, and Breyer's not far behind. I know it's morbid to talk about living people in such transactional terms, but to a large extent, that's what public figures symbolically represent.

Okay, I've now spent way too much time on working this all out, and I've got to wake up for class in less than five hours. Let me just say that you all are very, very naughty for not blogging recently. Blog. It's your civic duty.

Quick facts: it's now been slightly more than a year since GWB was reelected. It's slightly less than three years before the next general election.

2005-11-06T13:07:00.000-05:00

Faulkner, Faulkner!

I know I've been horrible about posting lately (this is starting to sound like an old tune), but life's been tremendously busy. Couple weeks ago, on top of everything else, I had to spend about twelve hours grading midterms. This past week, I tried to get ahead on my reading so I could spend this weekend working on a paper on Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, which took me all of yesterday and continues into today--am now on my way to the library and coffeeshop respectively to get work done. Paper's due in less than two weeks, after which I begin another paper. However, there's some fun stuff to look forward to this month: U2 concert on the 18th (we've had the tickets for seven months now), Katy's birthday on the 19th, and Erin's annual Thanksgiving evening pie party (no turkey, no food, just pies, fresh whipped cream, and Erin's famous eggnog lattes). That should punctuate the month nicely and ensure that there are no meltdowns in the midst of so much work.

I will blog eventually about stuff again. In fact, I'll include some teasers, thereby making it necessary for me to talk about these things at some later point. In days to come, I will blog about

-Why I believe that Senate democrats, barring some major something or other surfacing, should probably rule out filibustering Samuel Alito, thereby effectively guaranteeing his confirmation. This even though I strongly, strongly disagree with what I know of his judicial philosophy.

-How excited I am to see the movie Rent later this month.

-A retrospective on the two decades since the debut of a force that has shaped my very life lo these many years: The Golden Girls.

-Surviving without cable for the past five months.

-An annoying and provocative meme.

Stay tuned.

2005-10-24T03:36:00.000-05:00

Commentary on Current Events in Limerick Form

I've got insomnia again. Had to find a way to kill time, so I decided to put a few thoughts about hot news items in verse form. Keep in mind that it's after 4 a.m., so these aren't of especially high quality.

On the qualifications of Harriet Miers...

In choosing a judge for the court,
Dubya sought for just the right sort:
A churchgoing dame,
Of unrecognizable name,
And on experience delightfully short.

On the recent Iraqi vote on the constitution and allegations of ballot-box stuffing...

How wonderfully everything went,
When they voted for that document.
A tremendous resolution,
To approve their constitution,
By an overwhelming 112 percent!

On Karl Rove and Scooter Libby's involvement in "Plamegate"...

The plumber felt suddenly weak,
Unable to move or to speak,
The source of distress:
The catastrophic mess,
Caused by the big White House leak.

And, finally, on the avian flu scare...

Said pigeon to chicken, "Oh my,
You seem ill to my pigeonly eye,"
Said chicken, "Achoo!
I've got the bird flu,"
Said pigeon, "Shit, now so do I."

2005-10-15T23:43:00.000-05:00

Reminder that Life is Good

Just needed to write a feel-good post for a change. Tonight was our annual English grad student pizza party (which Liz and I organized this year, since we're social chairs). It was perfect. We were at Katy's house again (hers is my favourite of friends' houses, definitely). The weather was beautiful. The core group of people was there. We sat on the deck and talked the night away. Got a little tipsy, but just a little (this was no beer pong night; was just a couple beers or ciders per person). Had our usual dose of nonsense when Simon was persuaded to shave his goatee. All in all, it was the perfect night, and with my life as hectic and sometimes overwhelming as it is right now, it was good to be reminded why being in this department in the past year has made me feel more at home than at any other point in my life.

This is not the usual drippy-Marc-optimism-sweetness-and-light spiel. It's the Marc-genuinely-grateful one.

2005-10-06T21:23:00.000-05:00

A Week Later

I'm better.

I'll be more specific: while I still feel very inadequate in that class, I've come to accept that this is because I just know less in this particular body of work than others in the class, and that knowing less is not the same as stupid. I suppose I knew that all along, but when you're feeling bitter and sorry for yourself, it's a convenient thing to forget. You guys' comments helped a lot in getting me out of my funk. Y'all rock.

Turns out that last week, my professor actually noticed that I was withdrawn, and she asked me into her office to talk early this week. I thought I was going to be read the riot act, but on the contrary, she was actually concerned, reassured me that I was definitely not alone in my feelings of inadequacy, admitted that she has many of those herself even in teaching this stuff, and that I shouldn't worry if I'm not getting everything out of the class. All these things together made me decide to work at the theory in earnest this week, go to the class with an open mind and without feeling bitter, and see where I'd get. Turns out not a whole lot further than I got in previous weeks, but there were some small gains. I understood Fanon, but I'm still hazy on Spivak and clueless on Homi Bhabha (who, despite having the coolest name in the history of the world, has actually won awards for the horrible quality of his writing). There's more Spivak and Bhabha on the plate for next week, so we'll see where I get with those. Any progress is progress, I suppose.

In good news, I jumped through a big hoop of my academic career this week when I asked a professor I like and respect immensely, one who has a great reputation and a named professorship, to be my adviser, and she agreed. I can tell it's going to be a great working relationship, especially because she's as excited as I am about the possibility of incorporating calypso into my dissertation. Things are looking good on this front.

Other news. Oh, I'm officially on Fall Break now (which means that there're no classes, work, or T.A.-ing on Monday and Tuesday). Unfortunately, because I have some papers due early, I'm going to be spending my days off feverishly reading and writing. But I'm not complaining, because without Fall Break, I'd be feverishly reading and writing anyway while all that other stuff was still going on. Days off=good.

Thought of the week: Bhabha is most definitely not my Homi.

2005-09-29T22:32:00.000-05:00

Badly In Need of Therapeutic Blogging

A second post from Marc in one day? What the hell?!?

Actually, I just really needed to post. I need to scream, shout, cry, do it all.

I've been lying, I suppose, on this blog for the past three weeks. I've been talking about how wonderful it is to be back at school, how much I'm loving the semester. I suppose that's cos the summer sucked so much that I really wanted to convince myself that everything's all back to wonderful normalcy now, but it's just not the case. Finding myself almost breaking into tears a number of times today has led me to reconsider the whole facade I've been erecting. The whole point of this blog is for me to vent about my life, to occasionally get comments from the couple friends who read it, and thus feel like I'm still in a community with people no longer part of my daily life. What it's become in the past three weeks has been me ignoring the unhappiness I've been feeling and pretending all's okay in a classically Marc effort of hyperoptimism. Now, feeling crappy, I realise that here I have this tool that's supposed to provide me with some relief, and I've not been using it to its full advantage. So now, instead of adding those "but it'll all be okay" clauses whenever I bitch and gripe about stuff, I'm just going to be honest about how I feel.

I feel like shit. I feel like a stupid, insignificant, inadequate shit.

Two of my classes are going really well--that's part been true. I love the Faulkner seminar, and I'm really starting to get into the material. And the nineteenth-century American seminar's beeing okay too. The class I'm taking in postcolonial theory, however, is kicking my ass. I have to read through incredibly abstruse materials every week, often written by theorists who simply have no concept of clear language or properly structured arguments. Can the subaltern speak? I think the more pressing question is, can the theorist fucking write? But that's not the whole problem. Other people in my class (and many of them are not in my department; the course is cross-listed in a bunch of different places) are able to take the material and do theoretical gymnastics with it while I'm still sitting and pondering the monkey bars with trepidation. Most of them have a solid background in literary/history/cultural theory. I hear names quoted every week that mean nothing to me other than that I've heard them in passing. Althusser. Adorno. I know a little about Lacan, but not a whole lot. I know a fair amount of Freud's stuff, but sitting in a room with fifteen others, most of whom spend their lives studying these theorists, I don't have the confidence to say anything. I feel like an absolute idiot when I can make only the most basic contribution to a discussion, so I end up remaining mum.

Also, as I mentioned before, I volunteered first to do a seminar presentation. It's unclear whether I misinterpreted the assignment or whether it wasn't clearly spelled out, but I prepared a presentation in the style to which I've become accustomed in grad school: distilling the most important aspects of the article(s) in question, presenting them, and then using them to move on to something more complex. Apparently this was not what was required, and the format of the session turned the situation into an even bigger trainwreck. I was asked to prepare a 25-minute presentation, which I did, leaving an interactive bit for the very end; however, my presentation was repeatedly commandeered a number of times (all well and good, but a presentation that involves discussion within itself requires a completely different format, most definitely not the one I had prepared) when a very few people with very definite ideas went off on tangents. I got increasingly more frustrated as my 25-minute presentation stretched out to beyond an hour (with many things I was prepared to talk about being talked about by other people, so it seemed that I did less than I was supposed to). When I finally regained control of the presentation, it was 6.15 p.m.--we should have stopped at 5.30 for the halftime break--and everyone was frustrated and tired. The activity with which I wanted to end my presentation, having to do with West Indian reading primers from colonial times, fell flat on its ass both because folks really needed to get out of their chairs and because, by this time, I was so frustrated, so pissed, so near tears that I couldn't compose myself to gather all my thoughts and points of discussion (not written down, cos I've been working with these materials for over a year now, and I know them really well).

So I can't figure out now if my inability to perform in this class thus far is really indicative of some insurmountable inadequacy on my part or whether I'm just so bitter over how that went that I'm counter-productively torturing myself. The thing that worries me is that I want to write about Caribbean literature and make that at least part of my career; can one seriously be a force in the field if I don't know postcolonial theory? There are people who'd say yes, and those who'd say no. I could find solace in the opinion of those who say yes, but there's no solace to be found in the possibility that I may be too stupid to understand an area of my field.

So that's it. Oh, and I can't even find some comfort in the thought of the crush I mentioned anymore because I've decided that there are just some things about this person that piss me off too much. If I were to pursue a relationship, it would mean going in with the desire to change someone as opposed to accepting them for who they are, and everyone knows that doesn't work. So rather than risk a friendship--I should point out here that many of my friendships (some of the strongest ones, in fact) were founded on a basis of antagonism and finding good in people even though things about them pissed me the hell off--that I value a lot, I'm going to rule out the possibility of a relationship here. There, the crush was announced and I first allowed myself to acknowledge it when I wrote it in this blog. Here, with me writing that it's over, it ends.

Life still sucks.

2005-09-29T07:46:00.000-05:00

Update

Ok. I'm turning on the tired and overworked button now.

First year of grad school was challenging, but comfortable. Second year of grad school: can I petition for an extra three hours in the day?

I read all weekend long, every night when I get home, and still, getting it all done is a maybe. There are papers to grade (a batch of 14 two-pages last week took me FIVE FRIGGIN HOURS cos I wanted to be thorough with my comments, given that it was their first paper; they're good writers, though, and that's a huge plus). There are papers to write, weekly things, a 10-page book review that has to get done soon, seminar papers that I have to start thinking about. And in addition to my own coursework, I've got to prepare notes to lead my undergrads in a discussion once a week (though I do admit that the Friday morning class I lead is quickly becoming one of my favourite parts of the week). It all takes up so much time, though. Not that I'm complaining... okay, maybe I am complaining a little bit. It would be nice to be able to have whole Sundays with no work to do like I did last year. But this is what I signed up for, though, and it's for the most part rewarding. And being able to take Friday evenings off and hang out with friends always does help.

Another small comfort that I can't do without every week now--and this, I suppose, is proof that I'm getting old and boring--is that I must see my morning news shows on Sunday. I'm not really a TV news person, preferring to read stories on the web when I get a few minutes here or there, but Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos are essential for me to feel my week's out to a good start.

Something's seriously wrong with my internal clock. Wednesday and Thursday nights are when I need the most sleep because I have two three-hour seminars on Thursdays (with a three-hour interval in between) and my class on Fridays. And usually, because it's the only time I can do it, Thursday night after my last seminar is when I make class notes for the following day (a process that, for the past two weeks, has meant that I didn't leave campus until midnight). However, my body has somehow decided that Wednesday and Thursday nights are when I have regularly scheduled bouts of insomnia. So now it's 9 a.m. on Thursday morning, I've had less than four hours of sleep, and I'm going to be here for another 15 hours, in all likelihood.

Not fun. Coffee. Get. Me. Coffee.

2005-09-18T18:19:00.000-05:00

Full Swing

At this moment, I should start writing a four-page presentation that I have to give tomorrow afternoon. All the ideas are in my head, all my materials are highlighted and annotated, but not a single word's been written. So why procrastination, do you ask?

How long have you known me? Of course I must procrastinate. I figure that it's 7.21, and I'm going to have to stop for a break for The Simpsons in a few minutes anyway (I've decided that, much as I love Ellen, the Emmys are too big a time commitment tonight, so I'll just read about the funny things she says). And it has been over a week since my last post.

[Speaking of which]. Yes, I know, I've become terribly lax in posting. Even the president has stopped reading my blog (I think possibly because the number of pieces of legislation giving tax cuts to the wealthy now probably outnumbers my total number of posts). I was worried for some time that a gaping maw had opened up in the earth and sucked Colin, Jason, and Geoff into its bowels, but Geoff's started posting again semi-regularly, Jason this week clocked his first post in three months, and Colin's assured me that the breath of life has not forsaken him and that he's simply on blog sabbatical. So that's the size of that.

What's new, what's new. Ooh, I had my first session of teaching this week, on Friday. Unfortunately, I'd been looking forward to it so much that anxiety got the better of me. I was on campus until 11.30 Thursday night preparing my lecture notes and discussion questions, and I didn't get home until midnight and to bed until 1 a.m. Who'da thunk that I'd have a nightmare that night: that someone called my 14 students and told each one that the class would be meeting in a different place. I woke up at 4 a.m. with my head about ready to explode from trying to wrap itself around 14 different locations. I couldn't get back to sleep (class was at 11.45 a.m.). So I ended up cleaning my sorely neglected kitchen and then deciding to have a healthy breakfast of toast and eggs and coffee. Not a good idea when you're nervous and lacking sleep. Yep, that's right: worshipping the porcelain god shortly after my repast (the first time I've thrown up in more than five years).

Simultaneously poetic and stinky, that act was extremly cathartic. I collected myself thereafter and was the picture of calm for the rest of the day. By the time my class came around, I was ready for them, and the discussion was wonderful. I've got a good group, and I'm looking forward to the experience. And on Friday evening, I had some much needed diversion when we all went out to Twain's (yet another literature-themed pub in Decatur) for pool and dinner. I was so slap-happy from a good teaching experience and lack of sleep that I think I enjoyed myself more that time than any previous.

In terms of my own education, the semester's been brutal so far. My classes are great, but partly to get work out of the way and partly because the topics in which I'm interested appear early, I signed up first for seminar presentations across the board, meaning that there was an extra load of work to do each of these two first weeks. Next week, I'm hoping, things will return to normal (although because I'm social chair for the department and we have our first student-faculty get-together next week, I'll have some extra work to do then, too).

Have I forgotten to mention anything? Can't think if I have.

Oh, yeah. I think I have a new crush. Which is unfortunate for a number of reasons, but especially because I really have no time for crushes with my life so hectic right now. (That is, unless we're talking about crushed ice. With lime juice. And tequila and triple sec. Or alternatively, with fruit juice and rum. Yum. Good crush.)

2005-09-09T22:43:00.000-05:00

Back to School, Back to Reality

The summer's finally over--hooray!

I've never been a summer person. Everyone knows I hate heat and hot weather, and this summer was absolutely brutal as far as that goes. But that was the only thing--there were just so many tiny (and not so tiny) little pieces of crap that went wrong this summer, especially in the past month, that I've decided, for the time being at least, I HATE summer.

But now school's back, and I have classes again, and I'm happy. I get to see my friends on a more regular basis, I get to have the structure I need in my life to be productive academically, and I get to feel like my life's going somewhere again. This first week of classes, including my thrice-a-week T.A.-ing gig, has been really interesting so far, and the semester promises to be... well, promising. Here's what I'm taking (with course descriptions provided by the professors):

Eng 751R: Studies in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: History, Fantasy and Race in 19th-Century Fiction
This seminar will consider fiction of the American nineteenth-century by focusing on the intersection of two generic rubrics that have been useful to critics: the historical and the fantastic. In a nation often vexed by the brevity of its intellectual genealogy, the novel becomes a means of not only invoking the historical, but also reworking it. The novels we will read in the seminar participate in this process of reworking, and in doing so frequently reference questions related to the multiracial nature of the United States, including Indian Removal, slavery, and Reconstruction. Therefore, in addition to considering critical works on the nature of historical (LukÃ¡cs, Hayden White) and fantastic (Freud, Todorov) prose, we will also read recent criticism in American literary studies that focuses upon the role of race in the national imaginary. Finally, the chronological range of the course encompasses both the antebellum and postbellum periods; therefore, the seminar will provide a broad introduction to studies in nineteenth century U.S. fiction.

Eng 752R: Studies in Twentieth-Century American Literature: William Faulkner and the 20th-Century
An intensive reading and study of a writer sometimes referred to as “the American Shakespeare” (although I usually think of Shakespeare as “the British Faulkner”) and 20th century intellectual contexts to be determined by student interests. In the past, those interests have included modernism, language and narrative, race, gender, state and nation, Americas [as well as American] Studies . Primary texts include The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom!, Light in August, The Hamlet, and Go Down Moses. Students should come away from this seminar with a better understanding of U.S. literary history and the inquiries that are shaping work in the field of American literature at present. The format of the course encourages students to pursue their study of Faulkner by way of individual interests (whether in gender, race, cultural studies, comparatist studies, or in the always-eagerly-anticipated “other”).

Eng 789R: Empire: Fiction and Theory
How does the work of empire begin? What are its tools, its theories, and its fictions? Does empire create nervous conditions among the natives? When the empire writes back, what are its major concerns, its favored genres, its aesthetic forms? This course will survey major works in the literature of empire, investigating the following topics: nation, race, gender, trauma, hybridity, and subalternity. Students can also expect discussions on definitions of postcoloniality, the rise of postcolonial studies in the context of economic and cultural globalization, the operation of neo-colonial maneuvers in both spheres, and the intersection of postcolonial discourse with feminism, marxism, and psychoanalytic studies.

Unfortunately, no Victorian course this semester. But the course I've chosen to replace it, the Faulkner one, is going to turn out really really well, I think. I've read no Faulkner heretofore (I'm about halfway through The Sound and the Fury right now, next week's reading assignment), and I was really freaking out that I might have chosen wrongly in selecting my third seminar. But the professor definitely knows her stuff and there's no assumption of prior knowledge of Faulkner; best of all, the first class session went just beautifully, with wonderful discussion.

Yay for classes!

The fleas, I think, are all gone now (knock on wood). I've noticed, in the week since I've sprayed, exactly two of them in the house, and they both looked like they were on their last legs (and given that fleas have six legs, being on the last one is a dire predicament indeed). To my millions of faithful readers (okay, fine, to the four of you), if you ever need to get rid of fleas, take it from the person who tried every product on the market and almost went out of his mind in the process, Ortho Home Defense Max is the only thing that worked! I'm so grateful right now that I'd sing Ortho from the rooftops if they asked me to.

In my last entry from a week ago, I mentioned my annoyance with the various levels of government in responding to Katrina in New Orleans. I had no idea at that time the extent of the devastation, and, more frighteningly, the extent of the neglect and ineptitude. It's nice to see that where the people in charge are slacking off, however, the public's pitching in (I read that people are donating in record numbers; something like 2/3 of the public has helped in some way). What's really helped that, I think, is the access to donation sites: they're everywhere. The really inspired idea, I think, was the big grocery chains allowing us in Atlanta (don't know if it's being done elsewhere) to donate by adding an amount to our grocery bills.

Bush's people keep on saying that now's not the time to assign blame. But you know what? There was time to be on vacation three days AFTER the hurricane had struck and there was time for the photo ops. And, given that I'm not directly involved in rescue efforts (speaking of which, anyone caught the Dateline special tonight that exposed how horribly the rescue and emergency medical efforts have been mishandled?), I can afford to give some time to the blame game. Simply put: they fucked up. They fucked up bigtime. Kudos, by the way, to Tim Russert for going after that smug, self-important, self-congratulating Michael Chertoff on Meet the Press last week and confronting him with the failure of the post-Katrina work.

Finally, the biggest reality check of my week: earlier today, I was reading through the message boards that Yahoo! has established for people trying to reunite with family members or post about their experiences. I wanted to get a sense of this whole thing from first-hand points-of-view, as opposed to the media presentations. What was horrifying was the large number of posts devoted to hatespeak and propagandeering. The worst one by a mile was some horrible, horrible 37-year-old man from Austin who wrote that the people of New Orleans are "project scum" who deserve to be left to their own demise.

Even after witnessing such a terrible situation, someone could still be so callous, so hateful. Makes me shudder.

2005-09-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

The Good, the Bad, and the Itchy

The Good
-I went to a coffeehouse with Irene on Sunday and, while there, fell in love with a painting hanging on the wall, done by a local artist. Now the price of the piece was $150--well out of the range of my grad student budget. But I decided to call and ask if the artist would sell me a print of it; I figured that having a reproduction would be almost as good, and I'd be able to enjoy the picture just as well. So I called, and the artist, Arthur, was extremely nice and agreed to have a print made. Then, a couple days ago, he called me back and offered the most amazing thing: he'd let me have the original at a fraction of its value. He said that he didn't want to go through the complicated process of printmaking and that he really appreciated the fact that I loved it so much; he wanted me to own it. I was overwhelmed to say the least. Today I bought it, and it now hangs in my living room. Here's a photograph of it:

-My missing Victorianist situation has had a pleasant outcome. My professor from last year, with whom I've been in contact while she's been on leave, wrote an email to her former mentor, who's a huge scholar of Wilde and who has recently come to Emory. He's agreed to lead a directed study of Wilde next semester, so not only do I get a Victorian seminar next semester, but I pretty much get exactly the one I'd want in a perfect world, with one of the best possible people leading it.

The Bad
What an unexpected tragedy this whole Katrina thing has been. What's even worse is the fact that the politicos are seemingly dragging their tails in response to the disaster. But I guess Bush needs time to recover from his vacation. A war he started, the political stalemate in Iraq, rising gas prices... but it took a category 5 hurricane in his backyard to get him to cut his five weeks short.

and the Itchy
My house is flea-infested. I have no idea how they got in here. But they're here. And they bite at my ankles. It can't have been Macha, cos she's been gone for three weeks now, and she always had her flea and tick medicine on. I don't have any pets. And I know that I, personally, have no fleas. It's a huge mystery. In any event, I'm finding that it's extremely difficult to get fleas out of your house. I fogged the whole apartment last weekend, and I sprayed with Raid flea spray almost every day this week. Because I've been so aggressive in my onslaught, the problem is still not terribly out of hand, but just when I think that I've got them all, I'd be at the sink in the kitchen doing dishes and, suddenly, NIP! There's another one. I've already spent like $40 on products to get rid of my unwanted visitors. This weekend I'm going to try something suggested by my friend Liz, an Ortho product, that got rid of the fleas that were in her new place when she moved. As I commented to Irene, I wish I could get rid of them using a divide-and-conquer method. Instigate a civil war and let them take care of each other.

2005-08-24T19:39:00.000-05:00

Voice and Body

I've been very lax about posting recently. My excuse for this week is that last Friday, I accidentally half-severed my laptop cord by placing a chair on it, and I didn't realize until I heard and saw sparks at my feet. The new cord should arrive tomorrow. (I just looked at my posting record; for the year, I've written only 85 posts, and if this pace continues, I'll be nowhere near the 250 posts I clocked in for 2004).

Anyway, on to our story. Today I had my first day in a three-day stretch of pedagogy training (the name of the program withheld to prevent this site from popping up when people search it), and I must say that while I appreciate the opportunity to take pedagogy training with students from around the campus before taking the two semesters of specialized training my own department requires, I'm extremely braindead after the first day of this.

One session that particularly got to me was "Voice and Body." While the instructor provided some helpful advice, the meeting dissolved into nonsense when we were asked to do some theatrical exercises. Picture twelve people, ranging in age from 23 to 30, in an empty space in the middle of the room, walking around haphazardly, reciting a single line over and over. This was the first instruction. Then came a series of cues, after which we had to modify the way in which we recited the line.

"Say it as if you were the colour red."

"... the color blue..."

"an oak tree..."

"a daisy..."

"a drum..."

"raindrops..."

"a thunderstorm!"

Now while an exercise like that would be fun in certain situations, and while I have intense respect for thespians and the methods they use to prepare for the stage, I simply do not think this exercise was particularly effective. In an environment where your goal is pedagogical training, where you're surrounded by people you perceive as professionals and peers, you're simply too self-conscious and overthink the exercise. All that happened was that twelve people walked in a circle and recited the lines the same way every time until prodded by the instructor. I was not amused. Funnily enough, my friend Jenni, who had another instructor for the same session, reported that hers was a lot of fun. Of course, she didn't have to pretend she was a raindrop.

Ok, that's my ranting and bitching for today. My attitude for the rest of this training: try to ignore what annoys me, try not to let that hinder the positives I can get from the experience, and look forward to Friday when I can give a sample of my own teaching style in a microteaching session. Hasta.

2005-08-18T14:48:00.000-05:00

Academic Troubles

An unfortunate series of circumstances has left me in something of a quandary regarding my field of specialization, Victorian Literature.

When I started grad school last year, my department boasted three Victorianists. One of them I knew, as part of her contract when she was hired, would have this year off to do research in Europe (she's finishing up a McArthur grant). I figured that with two Victorianists left in the department for this year, however, I'd still be in pretty good shape and that there'd most likely be a course in my field each semester.

At the end of last semester, however, our senior Victorianist, with whom I took a class and who I think is an absolutely wonderful professor, for personal reasons decided she needed to return to her hometown. So I knew that this year we'd be down to one Victorianist. This week, however, I found out that she's going to be on medical leave, and that the course I was to take with her this semester has been canceled. I think she's a wonderful person, and of course my first concern is that she be all right and get well. But now there's no Victorianist left. And I'm in a pickle. The second year in my program is when you do the bulk of coursework and begin zeroing in on a focus for research and dissertation topics. If I don't have exposure to material in the classroom atmosphere, it makes it much more difficult to do that as a Victorianist. Sigh.

I've got a meeting with the director of grad studies on Monday to talk about my options. What's apparent, however, is that some modification's going to have to be made to my field of specialization. I don't know what the extent of that will be.

This has turned out to be one suckyass summer. Steups.

2005-08-12T13:18:00.000-05:00

Need Your Opinion

My apartment's finally all unpacked. I had tons of fragile glass/plateware stuff to move, and I wrapped it all in layers of paper before packing in boxes. One particulary item, however, I was extra-careful with: a picture of an emaciated Victorian couple drawn and framed by my sister as a Christmas present three years ago, one of my favourite possessions. That I stuffed with styrofoam peanuts, wrapped in newspaper, and finished off with bubblewrap.

Everything else survived. That lone item, however, the one with which I took so much care, somehow got its glass broken. And because the glass was attached to the frame and not removable, the entire frame's ruined. How's that for a playing-out of Murphy's Law?

What this all boils down to is that I have to now reframe the picture. The old frame was such that it didn't need matting, but in reframing it, I'm going to have to order a mat. However, I can't decide what colour matting would best enhance the picture, so I'm asking for help yet again on deciding what looks best (except this time it's not highlights for my hair, but matting for a drawing).

The white would be my first choice in a perfect world where the white on the matting would exactly match the white of the paper. That, however, is unlikely, so I'm wondering if a beige/cream would do instead, to make the subtle contrast between the light colours more apparent while still retaining the blatant contrast between light and dark. Or would a grey work better? Light or dark grey. Please help me decide.

2005-08-02T17:11:00.000-05:00

Exhausted

I started to write a post about the last few days of my life, definitely a candidate for the most hectic period of said life, and began to make myself exhausted all over again, so I stopped. So in short: dad had coronary artery bypass graft surgery last Thursday in NY (where my parents are on vacation and where he took sick), I flew out to NY on Friday, and returned last night. The outlook now is great--the surgery went as well as it could go, dad will be discharged anytime, and he's well on the way to recovery. I slept until 4pm today, waking up a couple times in between to take out the trash and call mom to find out if everything's okay. More details to come later.

2005-07-26T15:51:00.000-05:00

Supreme Courtship

This is gonna be a post on issues concerning Bush's new Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. But first, a quick update on my life.

Have seen two movies in the past couple of weeks: Wedding Crashers, wonderfully ribald, well acted (especially the unknown actors in lesser roles), and chock-full of laughs; and Fantastic Four, which, while fun and full of eye candy, was somewhat disappointing with a swiss-cheese plot (read: underdeveloped villain, some of the worst romantic storylines I've ever seen, and illogical or unlikely motives for just about every decision taken by every character in the movie) and corny dialogue. The end of the movie very obviously set up a sequel to come, and one hopes that the sequel will improve on the original tenfold, following in the footsteps of X2: X-Men United.

Last Friday, my circle of friends decided that we'd have a beer pong tournament, after we had fun playing the game at Sarah's July 4th party a few weeks ago (for those who don't know, Beer Pong, or Beirut, as it's called some places, is a game in which each team of two has ten cups arranged in a triangle at their end of the table, each cup holding about 3/10 of a beer. The object is to lob a ping pong ball into the other team's cups, and if you are successful in doing so, they must drink the beer in the cup. If, however, you land in a cup that has already been emptied, you have to drink one of your own cups. The winner is the first team to make the other drink all their beer, and the losing team must drink all the winners' undrunk beer. We were responsible kids, however, and carpooled with designated drivers and the works). I played five rounds in all, winning three and losing two. But all the games were pretty close, so by the end of the night, I had drunk a total of about eight beers, and for the first time in my life experienced being slightly drunk. Happily, I was placid and only slightly giddy, and I was even a little disappointed to find the morning after that I didn't have a hangover. While I drank all that beer for the game, I still don't see why people drink the stuff voluntarily. Ick. Hard Cider pong would be more to my taste.

Oh, one more thing. Got a haircut today. I now have a fauxhawk (or, at least, I do with a bit of product in my hair).

Ok, now my ramblings on the Supreme Court debate.

Sen. Sam Brownback:
Brownback's statement (and I paraphrase) that when a candidate has not verbalized his positions on critical issues before confirmation to the court the "tendency" is for that candidate to move left is a joke. Republicans are still smarting from Bush the Father's appointment of what turned out to be a moderate justice in David Souter, yes, but Brownback citing Souter's example as indicative of a "tendency" (based on the information I've read, no other example has been cited to support this assertion) is plain ridiculous. As much as I'd like to believe that the minor similarities between the two points to the possibility that Roberts might turn out a moderate (and I'm not saying he definitely won't, just that Brownback's line of reasoning is idiotic), let's at least adhere to logic. Souter is his own person, as is Roberts. What we do know from political analysts (as cited in Newsweek, Meet the Press, and Washington Week--these are the sources I consulted) is that Roberts is pretty much a dream candidate for Dubya. He strikes the balance between catering to the desires of the Right while pretty much being guaranteed confirmation in the senate because there doesn't seem to be enough there to warrant a filibuster, and the Left will want to save its big guns for the possibility of a Rehnquist retirement and the appointment of an extreme right-winger such as Michael Luttig. I know that Brownback's a movement conservative and a cultural conservative, and he may very well fear that Roberts isn't Right enough, but I don't think that's the case. I'm pretty sure the signs point to some political Strategery here: the White House using Brownback to create a stir from the far Right, thus lulling the Left (or at least the Left segment of the populace) into prematurely believing that Roberts is a moderate. Or maybe I'm watching to0 much West Wing.

Sen. Dick Durbin:
Durbin's likely the senator who'll present the biggest hurdles for Roberts during the confirmation hearings. The two have a history, Durbin being one of the few who voted against the nominee back in 2003 for the DC circuit appellate court appointment. On Meet the Press this week, Tim Russert asked Roberts a difficult question, and he handled it admirably. As it turned out, Durbin, back when he first ran for congress in the early 80s, was a staunch pro-lifer. Yet he has vowed, it seems, to go all out in trying to "out" Roberts' real views on Roe v. Wade during the confirmation process. When confronted with what last year would have been stupidly labelled "flip-flopping," Durbin admitted that he had indeed changed his stance and that while he is still personally not a supporter of the act of abortion, he had come to recognize the issue as one of individual rights and privacy rights and women's rights and had thus changed his position. Let's look at the philosophy behind this: a politician who doesn't steadfastly and blindly hold to a position when he realises that he was possibly wrong but actually admits his wrong (Which reminds me: has anyone in the current administration as yet said in so many words that they were wrong about the WMDs, or has that explanation been forgotten in their endeavour to convince the public that the motive for war has all along been to liberate Iraq?). It's a shame Kerry didn't handle his misstatements last year in a similarly direct fashion; it might have made the difference in the outcome of the election (hey, a guy can dream, can't he?). Not that I'm holding up Durbin as a model politician. I've become too cynical to think that any move by any politician, even those whom I support, is much else other than Rovian or Carvillian tactics and strategy. It's just that, at this point in time, Durbin's handling of the situation I think deserves a nod.

Outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor:
O'Connor made the remark that while Roberts is certainly qualified, it is disappointing that the number of women on the Supreme Court has been halved. It really is kinda sucky, I agree, especially given that, for the past two decades, the number of female law school graduates has outnumbered the number of male. Maybe this means that, in thirty years from now, when today's graduates are of the age for Supreme Court consideration, the ratio will more evenly reflect that. But where does that leave us today? Here's where some affirmative action seriously is needed. Sure, Roberts may be qualified. But shit, find an equally qualified woman and nominate her, and yes, give her the advantage simply because she is a woman. I'm hardly suggesting that a fixed male-female ratio is needed at all times, but, without descending into Larry Summers' theories of which gender sucks more at what, male perspectives and female perspectives are equally important on important issues, so why shouldn't the highest court in the land have significant factions representing both? It's even more sucky when considering that the most controversial issues that will likely come before the court, the ones everyone's talking about, are those issues that deal with women's rights and gender issues, namely abortion and gay marriage. Undoubtedly someone's going to make the argument that the justices aren't lawmakers but law interpreters, and of course that's a load of tripe because of course the stage of interpretation as often as not is where law is born.

More on Abortion:
Much of the focus on Roberts' stance on Roe v. Wade has been on two statements. The first, made in a statement back in the early nineties, was that he (as part of a "we" that included clients he was representing) thought Roe was wrongly decided. The other, during his confirmation hearings for the appeals court position two years ago, was the be believed "Roe v. Wade [to be] the settled law of the land... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent." The question on the first statement: how much of the he in that "we" was Roberts talking for his client. The question on the second: as a Supreme Court justice, whose options and powers are significantly different than an appeals court justice, will be be as committed to upholding the precedent or will he use his authority to revisit Roe v.Wade? The smart money seems to be that he'll vote on upholding Roe but supporting state sanctions that limit the right to choose, as Georgia has seen it fit to do this year. In either case, a blow for individual rights.

Dancing Kid:
I was amused to read in Newsweek today that a White House aid disclosed that Dubya was "slightly annoyed" when, during the press conference announcing Roberts' nomination, Roberts' 4-year-old son danced and played, causing some cameras to focus their attention on him. Was nice to find something to chuckle about in the midst of all this.

The Next Nominee:
I'm no Alberto Gonzales fan, but given that he's probably the closest thing to a confirmed moderate Bush would consider nominating, I'm hoping that the Roberts nomination was his appease-the-base nom and Dubya'll be willing to go out on a limb more on the next go round. If, however, Bush decides on a Luttig or Janice Rodgers-Brown for the next appointment, mercy on us all.

Best-case Fantasy Scenario:
Roberts' confirmation fails. The Right wing comes down hard on Dubya, and in protest, and to prove his dominance as he so often needs to do, he nominates a confirmed moderate to the bench. This new justice turns out to be not a moderate at all, but actually on the Left. Roe v. Wade is upheld without further restrictions, and precedents on same-sex rights are set in future rulings.

Best-case Reality Scenario:
Roberts is confirmed and continues in the tradition of Sanda Day O'Connor, as a moderate. Rehnquist holds on for a further three years and the court, despite fears on Roberts' confirmation, does not slide further to the right. Rehnquist retires early in new democratic president's term and a liberal female judge is appointed.

2005-07-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

Tired, Satisfied

I spent my first night in my new place last night. I haven't officially moved in yet (my lease begins at the start of August), but my new landlords, John and Nicole, were nice enough to let me start moving in two weeks early cos their old tenant moved out early.

It costs a helluva lot of money to outfit an apartment.

Last Friday, got furniture stuff at Atlanta's new IKEA, which is dizzying. Meant that yesterday and today were spent assembling all said furniture. I bought an armchair futon that converts to a cot for my study/library/dining room/guestroom (hereafter called the combo room), and that alone took three and a half hours to put together: it went from a pile of boards to a piece of furniture under my hands.

Yesterday, I also went to Target to get various small appliances (blender, toaster, kettle) and other household accessories (rug, lamp, drinking glasses, wine glasses, dishes, trashcan). Picking out pieces for my living room, I chose individual pieces that I liked instead of going for a whole big theme. As it turned out, the resulting theme is a good bit art deco. While I'm not usually crazy about art deco, I kinda like what I ended up with.

The living room's all put together now, as is most of the combo room. I still have to unpack my kitchenware and pack things into the kitchen cabinets, get the desk put into the combo room, put bathroom stuff into bathroom, hang pictures, and pack closet. Pictures to come once everything's done.

2005-07-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

When It Hits Home

Just a couple days ago I was blogging about how creepy the London bombings were. Little did I know that on that very same day, there would be a bombing incident back at home.

As I heard it from my Mom, some idiot dropped a bomb in a metal bin near the foot of Frederick Street (undoubtedly Trinidad's busiest street for pedestrians, right in the centre of Port of Spain), causing the thing to blow up and injure a number of people, shrapnel causing havoc and the projectile segments of metal even amputating one person's leg. On Frederick Street. My sister as often as not passes by that very spot on her way into school, and it just turned out she didn't have any classes on this particular day; indeed, it's the very street I walked up and down for seven years when I went to school in Port of Spain; in short, the street that anyone I know who has a reason to be in Port of Spain could very well be on at a given point in time

I think the reason we react so strongly to acts of terrorism and the like is that they cause a very real emotional overload. You just can't decide how to feel. Of course, you feel sorry for the persons involved in the incident. You feel worry that you'll hear someone you care about was involved. Relief to find out that they weren't. Horror that they could very easily have been. Rage that someone would do something like that.

What makes me even more angry, however, is the people who exploit these situations. When I spoke to Mom last night, she was telling me about arriving at a mall to do some shopping and seeing everyone frantically running out to their cars--there had been more bomb threats. Empty ones, it turned out, but ones that, of course, can't be ignored. Someone probably just decided it would be either a larf or a way to get out of work early to cause widespread panic. Oh, and of course there are the upstanding politicians who jump on this either as an opportunity for PR or to bash the other side. It's all disgusting.

Right now, I'm just happy that my family and friends are okay, as far as I know. But now there's one more thing to worry about for my siblings, both of whom go to school in Port of Spain, and my Mom who works there. Ugh.

2005-07-11T15:42:00.000-05:00

Macha, Moving, Murphy

Quick note to say I'm still alive and kicking, even though I've been extremely lax about posting the past couple of weeks. Not having internet access at Irene's, I have to resort to a nearby coffeehouse/ice cream parlour or make the trek to school, and when I do those, I inevitably spend the time checking and replying to sundry emails.

My temporary parenthood of Macha, Irene's cat, is going well; she's been a bit freaked out by all the stormy weather, but as soon as the storms blow over, she's fine again. Like any cat, she's a great diva, and she demands being petted at two very specific times: 3am and 9am. This is fine, but the problem is that, with only six hours between the two, if I do one, it's extremely hard to do the other. But we manage.

Moving into a new place is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. I knew that I'd be paying electricity and gas bills, but I kinda didn't realise I'd have to call and talk with unhelpful gas and electricity employees to set up these services, and enterprise that took up most of my morning. And not a day goes by when I realise that I have to do a change of address on one of the umpteen things that requires my new address. This Friday, I go shopping for furniture at Atlanta's all new Ikea outlet, which I'm looking forward to. Getting out screwdrivers and hammers and assembling the furniture I buy, however, is not going to be fun times. Oh well.

Oh, I knew there was something big I missed blogging about in my absence. London last week. I woke up on Thursday morning to a phonecall saying that there'd been a bombing and that Dr. Z wanted me to know that she was shaken, but all right (she's spending the summer in London doing research). So while it was a huge shock to awake to, it was a relief at the same time to find out that one of my best friends was okay and that I didn't have to worry about her. Later that same day, Irene wrote an email to say she was okay as well; still haven't heard from Tammi, but I'm sure she's fine and just hasn't had access to email since.

What an icky thing to have happened. Thank goodness none of my friends in London were hurt or among the fatalities, but something about this incident, even though the death toll was relatively small, there's an unsettlingly ubiquitous quality about the fallout. I've already talked to two people who knew people who were hurt, and someone whose best friend's relative was killed. You know, the words "senseless tragedy" are always associated with these incidents so that it gets to a point where they become a label whose component elements are taken for granted. But really, that's what it is, isn't it? Just senseless.

Okeedokee, have to run off now. Reading group this evening, and we're talking about Samuel Beckett's ridiculously absurd book Murphy (I know that Beckett's absurdity is art, but in this case I plead philistinism. I just don't get it).

2005-06-28T11:34:00.000-05:00

Health, Mortality, Etc.

For 23 years of my life, I never had a health problem, never had to go to the hospital, nothing (which, I suppose, is good for someone who's been overweight all his life). My cholesterol is on the high end of the normal range, as is my blood pressure, and both I've been working to get a bit lower recently so that there might be no long-term problems. Last year, one week before graduation, I had a very painful cyst in my lower back making my every movement agony and had to go to the Emergency Room for the first time in my life for minor outpatient surgery (I'm leaving details out cos this post is already toeing the line on TMI).

Now while that was a pretty routine procedure and I was out of pain immediately and completely recovered in two weeks, it did drive home something to me that was never part of my consciousness before: I'm mortal, and my body is a very intricate piece of machinery in which something may go wrong at any time. You see sick people around you everyday, you read the stories, you watch the programs on TV, but you never really think that illness (apart from the occasional cold or flu) is something that could happen to you. Or maybe you do. Maybe I was just deluded. In the year that's passed since that ER visit, I've become something of a paranoid hypochondriac, the littlest difference I notice in my overall health or physiognomy causing me to start worrying and logging on frantically to WebMD to type in my symptoms in a self-diagnosing frenzy.

On Thursday last, noticing that a slight discomfort I've been feeling in my lower ribcage on waking up over the last couple months was a tad more intense than usual, I examine the area with my fingers and find, to my horror, a small lump under the skin. Immediately, I think: oh my goodness, it's a tumor, I have cancer. So I log on to WebMD and find any number of causes for this thing, ranging from various types of cancers to swollen glands and nodes and the like. But I convince myself that it's probably just a bump from maybe knocking myself in the side when moving last Monday (although I remembered no such injury). So I get through the weekend ignoring it, indeed having a good time, thinking that it would disappear before long. On Sunday evening, I started having all the classic symptoms of food poisoning (which was likely the case, cos I hate from a new restaurant on Saturday night and shortly after started feeling oogy). But even though I was pretty sure it was food poisoning, on Monday when the lump hadn't disappeared, I started worrying that maybe it wasn't and maybe the two things were connected and that my body was imploding. Still, feeling as wretched as I was, I made it to our reading group and facilitated the discussion on Middlemarch, which was a lot of fun despite tummy discomfort and hypochondria.

This morning, however, I decided that I could wait no longer to see what was going on with me, so I went to Student School Services to see a doctor. After a brief examination, she told me that it was indeed a tumor (Ah! I thought, I have a tumor!) but then explained that in medical jargon, a tumor is simply a term for any mass under the skin larger than a certain size. She explained that what I have is called a lipoma or fatty tumor (which has nothing to do with being overweight or having extra fat cells or whatever, but is simply a hereditary thing that science can't yet fully explain) that is completely benign and has no relation to cancer. It has no effect on one's health or other disadvantages, other than aesthetic (and given that mine's not detectable, that's fine).

You know, the funniest thing: you could be feeling like you're ready to collapse and unable to move anymore, but a doctor tells you that you'll be fine, and suddenly you feel like you have enough energy to conquer the world (or at least write a longass blog entry). I still feel pretty weak from the food poisoning, but I feel so relieved now. Still, when you're sick, especially if you're a sick paranoid hypochondriac, you get to do some of your best introspecting. Last night, lying awake in bed for hours, I was thinking to myself about eating habits and how hard it is sometimes to eat the right way and how easy it is to indulge in decadent food, especially when I'm depressed and comfort food seems like the only answer. I lay there thinking, there's so much about my health I can't control, and that's a part of life. But why am I so lax with the part of it I do have some control over? Why have those fries now and set myself up for years of problems down the line?

But it's easy to think like that when you're suffering from food poisoning and food's not especially high on your list of wonderful things at that point. Would be nice if I can keep those thoughts in my head when temptation again presents itself, but the problem always is that the temptation is immediate and the future is far off, and it's just easier to give in to the now and ignore the later.

I do think life is a journey and, ideally, you wouldn't figure out the meaning of it until just before it's over (if you're lucky), but it would be nice to figure out some bits of it that could be put to practical use.

2005-06-24T20:00:00.000-05:00

'Splanation

Posting's gonna be sporadic at best over the next month and a half or so. I got moved out of my apartment on Monday (more on that shortly) and have spent the week at Aunty Pam's relaxing and reading the novel I've been meaning to read for ages, George Eliot's 900 page extravaganza Middlemarch. On Monday, I head to Irene's place so that we're both there for a week before she leaves and Macha can get accustomed to me living there, and then I house-sit for a month.

Ok, about moving. As of this week, I consider my life as having two triumphs as far as one-upping jerks or jerky systems go. The first was last year when I got my way over showing my class the Godfather movie in lieu of their regularly scheduled proselytizing session from the Reverend Assistant Program Director. The second happened on Monday, when I was moving out of my apartment.

Now the way the school's grad student housing thingy works is that you don't pay a deposit on move-in, but they assess damages on move-out and present you with a bill. Now a couple months ago, with departure looming, I got a bit suspicious about this process and wrote an email to a friend who lived in one of the apartments a couple years ago. She wrote back warning that they were notorious for hyping up charges and creating imaginary ones. Ok, so I was forearmed with knowledge. So I wrote an email to the housing director (the national association of campus housing directors will likely take out a contract on my head before long) saying that I was wary of their procedure and insisted on using my tenant's right to be present during the appraisal process. She said that it could not be done because of logistical problems and that I would have to use the express check-out procedure like everyone else, which involves filling out a form and turning in your keys and looking at your account days later to see what charges you've incurred. So I was defeated and deflated, but at least I tried.

Then last weekend, before moving out, I went to the housing office to pick up the express check-out forms. While filling it out, I came across a line on the form that pissed me off to no end (I paraphrase): By signing this, you acknowledge that you know your options between traditional and express check-out procedures and choose the express check-out. What the hell?!? Not only do they deny me the option of being present during their appraisal of costs, but they want me to sign a form saying that I agree to give up that option? So, bright and early Monday morning, I marched to the housing director's office, armed with a courtesy-check checklist (which they do every six weeks to keep on top of the condition of the apartment, and which is a big joke cos they just mark 'excellent' on everything and are out of there in one minute). First I tell her that I refuse to sign the form giving up my rights unless the form expressly said I had no other choice so that, in the event of an appeal, I had some proof of poor procedure. I then produced the courtesy check checklist (now, I should explain that on moving in the walls of my apartment were pretty banged up from the previous tenants, which I documented to them on the day I moved in last August). As an example, I showed her that while the move-in documentation showed that my apartment was devoid of a broiler pan for the oven, the check-out people had marked 'excellent' every time on their list. I refused to be checked out by people who paid so little attention to detail and would very possibly ignore the pre-existing damage like they ignored everything else in the original move-in documentation all year long.

So the end result was that the housing director herself checked me out, found my apartment to be pristine (apart from the dings in the wall that had already been there; and, by the way, I resent having lived in an apartment with banged up walls all year when the people who lived there before me, I'm sure, had to pay move-out fees, which should have gone to fixing the place). I paid not a single dollar in charges. Yay.

Until next post.

2005-06-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

[Jedi Mind Trick]You Will Read this Post [/Jedi Mind Trick]

I've spent all weekend packing my belongings, only to realise that roughly 66% of my belongings are books. Tomorrow I move out and leave my first ever apartment (in grad student housing) to housesit for Irene for a month and then move into my very own first real apartment! With no roommate! (I've never had a bad roommate, but it would be nice to have my own place).

In other news, I have kicked my geek status up a couple notches. After seeing Revenge of the Sith a month ago, I became enamored of the Star Wars franchise. I'd seen the original trilogy when I was little, but it never really caught my fancy then; now, however, I'm planning on ways I can use these movies when I teach a course on Humanism I plan to teach next year when I can design my own syllabus. Something along the lines of a final paper in which my students will be able to apply what they've learned by looking at pieces of literature (so far, the ones in my dream-syllabus are Marlowe's Tamburlaine, The Life of Frederick Douglass, and Forster's "The Machine Stops") to a movie franchise, most likely a choice between Star Wars, The Godfather, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, all of which prominently feature the theme of humanism. But this is just me having geeky fantasies; may be that at the beginning of next year, when I actually have to start planning the syllabus, my mind will change completely and I'll want to do something other than humanism. We'll see.

So, I digressed. After seeing Sith, I went and got The Phantom Menace. Then went and got Attack of the Clones. Then, on Friday, feeling down in the dumps about everything and nothing, I decided to get a guilty pleasure present for myself and bought the original trilogy, so I've been having, in the middle of packing, a three-night marathon of Star Wars, watching one each night. Now while I definitely do think Return of the Jedi is definitely nowhere the best of the lot (I'd definitely clock Sith above it; that scene in Jabba's palace with the singing entertainment was too campy even for my tastes), it made me bawl like a baby like none of the other six movies. First when Yoda died, I started howling. Then when Vader said to Luke, "There's no hope for me, son," I teared up like nobody's business. Then at the end, when Luke sees the ghosts of Yoda, Obi Wan, and a restored Anakin during the campfire celebration, the waterworks were on full blast. I haven't been emotional like that for a movie since Million Dollar Baby.

I know that entire websites have been devoted to Star Wars philosophy and pointing out bloopers and what not, but without reading them, I thought I'd post my own observations, just cos. (To cut down on confusion, I'll refer to the original movies as the Luke trilogy, and to the more recent ones as the Anakin trilogy):

-In the Anakin trilogy, R2D2 and Yoda must have been acquaintances (weren't they?). Yet in the Luke trilogy, when Luke and R2D2 encounter Yoda in the forest, R2 doesn't recognise him and is hostile.

-In the Anakin trilogy, the master-paduwan (sp.?) progression goes Yoda-Dooku-Qui Gonn-Obi Wan-Anakin. But in the Luke trilogy, according to Obi Wan, it's Yoda-Obi Wan-Anakin, leaving Qui Gonn and Dooku out of the picture completely.

-In the Luke trilogy, Leia says she has memories of her mother, who died when she was very young. In the Anakin trilogy, Padme dies in childbirth.

-I think the award for most underdeveloped movie character of all time has to go to Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. He's got such an imposing, awesome appearance, yet we learn absolutely nothing about him, he has very little screen time, and dies way too quickly.

-My favourite chracter has to be R2D2. I can watch him doing his beeping hijinx for hours, and the way he manipulates Threepio cracks me up. Also, my blonde moment of the week: feeling a pang when, in Empire, Threepio gets nuked. For the love of Ewoks, Marc, he's a robot! He can be put back together!

-My favourite of the six movies, hard choice to make. I'd probably go with a three-way tie between the original (A New Hope), Empire, and Sith. Then it gets harder. Jedi would probably come next, followed by Phantom Menace, and then Attack of the Clones (I know these last two are contrary to what most people think, but I did think there were a lot of endearing qualities about Phantom Menace, despite its many shortcomings and the preposterous Jar Jar Binks).

-Turns out that Qui Gonn was right in Phantom Menace about insisting that Anakin was the chosen one, I guess. True, Luke is the reason he destroys Palpatine, but Vader is after all the one responsible for the fall of the Empire. That blew my mind (guess it wouldn't be mindblowing for people who remembered what happened in the Luke Trilogy before seeing the Anakin trilogy).

-My only big problem with Sith: what the hell was up with Padme? I know she was pregnant, but come on! This is a franchise that prides itself on women having as active a role as men in the action, but Padme was a classic hair-combing fairytale princess in Sith. Boo.

Hmmm, seems I have an email. Ooh, look, it's my membership to the International Alliance of Geeks, Sci-Fi division. Pray for me that I don't become one of those people I saw at the movies who were carrying overpriced plastic lightsabres.

2005-06-17T11:35:00.000-05:00

They're Obsessed!

Why the hell is Terri Schiavo still in the news? Earlier this week, they released the autopsy results that showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the woman was in a persistent vegetative state. You'd think that would settle everything, that there could be no more argument on the matter. But no.

Florida's favourite cracked-conch governor Jeb Bush is calling for an investigation, claiming that Michael Schiavo waited too long to call 911 after he found his collapsed wife. This has gotten to the point of plain ridiculous now (if it wasn't already there before). Jeb wants to save face after all his interfering in the legal process, so he decides to interfere more and make life hell for Michael Schiavo. Is there any word other than obsession to describe the lengths this man will go to?

I've got to say one more thing: this issue made me realise yet again what a valuable contributor to public information Jon Stewart is. I think The Daily Show is the most wonderful thing, and I do enjoy it for its comedic value, but it serves a great purpose. Yesterday, they showed footage of Bill Frist claiming that he had never said Schiavo wasn't in a persistent vegetative state; Stewart pulled C-span footage of Frist saying exactly that some months ago. No one else calls people on these things in public like Stewart does (unless you're in the middle of a presidential campaign). Who among us watches C-span enough to be able to say, ha! Gotcha there, buddy?

Completely unrelated, I found out this other nauseating thing about Frist (it's old news that he himself admitted in a biography, but it's still eerie): as a medical student, he fraudulently adopted cats so he could use them to practise surgical techniques on them, killing them in the process. Sicko! The caring profession indeed.

2005-06-14T22:35:00.000-05:00

Cartoon Break

Thanks to my friend Matteo who found this and shared it. Absolutely hilarious; I haven't laughed so hard in ages:

Is it just me, or does the guy "educating" those kids have something to hide? I mean, c'mon. Mascara, curled eyelashes, pencil-line mustache, fantasies of flaming guys... Can we say "overcompensation," boys and girls?

Oh, the conservative Christian right.

2005-06-12T16:51:00.000-05:00

The Pisses-Me-Off Log

Ok, let's take a little journey into my head and explore some of the things that have pissed me off recently.

1. Pitbullshit
In this story I read, a mother explains the events leading up to one of her pet pitbulls mauling and killing her 12-year-old son. Turns out that, because the female was in heat, the male was apparently very territorial. The mother needed to go to the supermarket so--get this--decided to lock HER SON in the basement with "a shovel on the door" while she was out shopping. "I told him: `Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky," explained the mother, "he wouldn't listen to me."
Let's analyse this. First of all, if you notice that your pitbulls, notoriously fierce and ruthless dogs, are acting up, would you leave your children alone in the house with them? Secondly, if you are friggin crazy and decide that you're okay with leaving your child in the house with the dogs, why lock THE CHILD in the basement as opposed to locking the dogs in? No 12-year-old deserves the indignity of being locked into a basement with a shovel against the door, and I can see where the kid would have been resentful. Then the mother expresses surprise that the child managed to let himself out of the basement; um, hello, if you've got a choice between locking a dog and a human in a basement so that one can't get at the other, wouldn't it make more sense to lock in the one WITHOUT the opposable thumbs?
What pissed me off most, however, was the mother's nonchalant attitude toward the incident: "When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time." His time, with a little help from good ole mom. The whole thing sickens me.

2. Get Real-ity
Summer means a glut of reality shows on every single channel. It's no longer limited to the broadcast networks: VH1 has them, TVLand has them, Food Network has them, every single channel has some kind of competition with 15-odd contestants scrambling for some prize. All well and good. I like an episode of a reality show now and again as much as the other people. But if I hear ONE MORE PERSON say "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to win," I swear, I'll throw something at the TV.

3. Pope Dope
In a recent speech, Pope Benedict the Scary (aka Joey Ratz, as Jon Stewart calls him and which, I admit, accurately connotes the air of gangsterdom that hangs about him) continued to advocate abstinence as the only church-sanctioned tool in the fight against the Aids Epidemic in Africa, saying "It is of great concern that the fabric of African life, its very source of hope and stability, is threatened by divorce, abortion, prostitution, human trafficking and a contraceptive mentality, all of which contribute to a breakdown in sexual morality." When will the church bend on this and realise that their abstinence hot air, while it would work in an idealistic world where everyone conformed to rigid standards with no deviation from a state-prescribed norm (coughFORMERHITLERYOUTHcough), is absolutely useless in the real world? If, however, Joey Ratz appears on TV in the near future and says "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to be Pope!" I will scream. Literally scream.

4. Get Another Pie Ready
The queen of the non-sequitur, the duchess of illogic, the high priestess of pies in the face is back! Ann Coulter, in her weekly column, goes to town in decrying Mark Felt, the former FBI official who was recently revealed to be Watergate source Deep Throat. The bit of the article that precipitated my ire (more than any other, at least): "Rather more prosaically, Felt leaked details of the Watergate investigation to The Washington Post only because he had lost a job promotion — making him the Richard Clarke of the Watergate era. This will come as small consolation to the Cambodians and Vietnamese tortured and slaughtered as a direct result of Nixon's fall." Yes, of course. Let's blame the whistleblower for the fallout after watergate. Let's not blame the corrupt President who's actually culpable.
I can't help reciting the poem to Anne, give her a dose of the moralizing she enjoys so much:
For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe, the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse, the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider, the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle, the kingdom was lost,
All for the want of a horse-shoe-nail!

5. In the Red
I'm pissed off by how many of the stores at which I shop, according to buyblue.org, are corporate supporters of the Republican party. My bank, the Bank of America, ranks among these. The supermarkets where I do grocerying, Publix and Kroger, are also pretty red. However, there's one bright spot: my coffeeshop of choice, Caribou (and Starbucks as well, as it happens), is 100% blue.
Here's a list of some 100% blue or red companies:
Blue: Barnes and Noble, Caribou and Starbucks, Google, Levi Strauss, Ralph Lauren
Red: Best Buy, Dollar Tree Stores, PETsMART, Ace Hardware

6. Blog Rolling
I can't figure out how I want my blog to look. Not that it matters that much or that the content's affected by the aesthetics, but given that my blog feels like my presence on the web, I feel somewhat pressed to make it look good or at least look a way that makes me happy. I don't know how I want it to look; I only know that I haven't found that look yet. The present one's a bit better. I like the picture of Piedmont Park, but I'm not sure it's right. It's a bit too pastelly for me. Ugh.

7. MJBS (added 06/13/05)
They just preempted Jeopardy! for Michael Jackson verdict coverage.

p.s.

My penis's new name is Albert Tatlock the Intimidating Prehensile Tentacle.
Take Name Your Penis by badasstronaut. today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

2005-06-05T20:37:00.000-05:00

Waste Some Time on This

So here's another survey/meme thing. This one somewhat fun, cos only short answers required. Have fun doing it. Or don't have fun; you have no choice but to do it, really. Mwahahahaha.

FAVORITE
color: green. olive, to be specific
band/musician: Janis Joplin (used to be Celine, but now she's number 2).
video game: Wall Street Kid, on the original NES console.
movie: Godfather
book: Crime and Punishment or Wuthering Heights or One Hundred Years of Solitude.
game on a cell phone: yeah. right.
CD cover: Alanis' Jagged Little Pill.
flower: Hibiscus or Ixora (both tropical flowers; had them in garden growing up).
animal: Dogs. My dog, Pugsley. My dear departed dogs Fifi (1997) and ZsaZsa (1998)
comic book: Don't read comic books. Favourite strips are The Far Side and Non-Sequitur
website: It's not really my favourite, but in my conception of the internet as a space, Yahoo's homepage is the centre of the universe. It's the first website I logged onto, and it's still my homepage.

DO YOU
watch TV more than 60 hours a week?: not anymore.
like to sing?: yes. good at it? no.
like to play sports?: pardon me while I scoff.
have a crush?: not at present.
have more than 5 TVs in your house?: no.
have any special talents/skills?: I can read and understand Middle English. This will one day save my life when I'm transported back to the 1300s via time machine and encounter a grumpy Knight.
exercise daily?: I'm supposed to.

CAN YOU
sing the alphabet backwards?: I can recite it backwards pretty ok, but singing it takes too much concentration.
stand on your tiptoes without wearing shoes?: kinda.
speak any other languages?: no, but I can read and understand French and a bit of Spanish.
go a day without food?: remember the scoffing?
stay up for more than 24 hours?: Unfortunately, yes.
read music, not just tabs?: nope.

HAVE YOU EVER
snuck out of the houses?: no.
cried to get out of trouble?: nope.
gotten lost in your city?: hell yes.
seen a shooting star?: no.
been to any other countries besides the US?: Trinidad/Tobago (home), St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Ireland; connecting flights in Curacao, Venezuela, Barbados, Grenada.
stolen something important to someone else?: nope.
solved a rubiks cube?: yes. i memorised a solution off the internet.
kissed a random stranger?: apply here.
hugged a random stranger?: ditto
been in a fist fight?: no.
been arrested?: no.
done drugs?: no. sad to say, i was sober when i almost bought that spice girls cd.
had alcohol?: yes...terday.
laughed and had milk come out of your nose?: soda.
pushed all the buttons on an elevator?: not all of them, but have pressed a couple wrong ones.
been in love?: don't know. can't tell.
been close to love?: yes.
ran over an animal and killed it?: Bad grammar. it should be "have you ever... RUN over..." And yes. Many ants.
had a waterballoon fight in winter?: No, but sounds fun. Especially if the water balloons are made a few hours in advance and left outside.
drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour?: DRUNK a whole gallon. No.
made homemade muffins?: Yes. Bran with raisins (my favourite), blueberry, banana nut.

FRIENDSHIP
how many friends do you have?: Close friends, less than 10. Good friends, less than 20.
have you ever liked one of your friends?: frequently.
do you have more guy friends or more girl friends?: girl.
have you ever lost a friend?: yes.
have you ever gone to an amusement park with a friend?: yes. both my grandfathers were in the amusement park business (how my parents met), so more accurately, friends have gone to amusement parks with me.
have you ever gotten in a big argument with a friend?: is there anyone who can answer No to this?
what's the nicest thing you've ever done for a friend?: you'd have to ask them that, wouldn't you?
what's the nicest thing a friend has ever done for you?: been there.
do you miss any of your old friends?: yes. Colin and Geoff, dammit. Halcian, Kim, the newspaper crew. Most recently, Jason's absconded. Grrr.
do you regret anything you've done to a friend?: sure.
do any of your friends drive?: I'm the only one who doesn't.
what's the dumbest thing you've done with a friend?: Used to spend lunchtimes singing Sesame Street songs at work when I was at the newspaper.

LOVE AND ALL THAT CRAP
are you single?: Let's do the math. 1+0=... dammit, where's my calculator?
are you in a relationship?: I fail to see how this question differs from the previous.
what is your idea of a best date?: Dinner with meaningful conversation followed by something wacky and fun, like karaoke or sitting on a blanket in the park being silly and singing out loud or reciting obscure poetry or some such thing.
what was your first kiss like?: No comment.
how old were you when you got your first kiss?: ditto.
do you think love is a load of shit?: no. I resent it sometimes, but no.
what's the best experience you've ever had with the opposite sex?: My best memory with the opposite sex is nothing sexual, but of being a child and having my grandmother tell me stories.
have you ever been dumped?: It depends on whether being turned down is included in the definition of 'dumped.'
have you ever dumped someone?: Again, it depends on whether turning someone down counts.
what's the most sexual thing you've done with the opposite sex?: Had a conversation with two female friends recently that ranged from birth control to feminine hygiene products to what hurts and what doesn't. Interesting.

I...
am: here.
want: contentment. and a doubles with tons of pepper (Trinidadian dish).
need: peace of mind.
crave: what I want and need.
love: what I do.
hate: what I could have done or could have become.
did: buy a Barry Manilow song on Itunes this week.
feel: contented and unsatisfied in turns.
miss: some people back home.
am annoyed by: some people back home.
would rather: A.B.B.
will always: be insecure, unfortunately.

p.s. Geoff, this is what the I-have-a-new-home dance looks like.p.p.s. As promised, two dances.

2005-06-02T04:41:00.000-05:00

5.41 A.M. Blog Entry

So it's 5.41 A.M. on Thursday morning, and I haven't been to bed yet. Correction: I went to bed at midnight, extremely tired, thinking that finally, FINALLY, I can go to sleep early (usual time for me is 3 A.M., but of late it's been in the 5 A.M. range) and get my sleep clock back in order. No such luck. I slept for about an hour and a half--my body apparently decided that that was a nap, not sleep itself--and have been awake ever since. So I watched TV until about 3.30, then turned off the lights and went back to bed. After lying there for an hour or so, however, I decided that I could better spend the time being productive. So, at 4.30 A.M., I did all my dishes, cleaned the kitchen until it shone, threw out all food in various stages of decomposition from the fridge and gave it a general cleaning as well, and mopped the floor. Not a bad way to spend insomnia fun time.

So a lot happened yesterday (Wednesday). Great news: I found my future home! (Stupidly, however, I forgot to take my digital cam along, so pictures will come at a later point.) It's a carriage house apartment that has nice hardwood floors, is nestled in the middle of a cluster of trees off the street--I'll be able to hear birds singing in the morning!--and actually has TWO bedrooms at a price I can afford! It's being rented as a one-bedroom with study, but the study is so huge that it can easily double as a guest bedroom should the need arise. The living room is ample, the bedroom's great AND has a walk-in closed, and the kitchen, while not huge, is bigger than my current kitchen and even has a little breakfast counter. The apartment is absolutely perfect and very homey. Just as great, the place is owned by a lovely middle-aged couple who were so sweet. The way I described it to Erica (who accompanied me) when we left, finding the right adjectives not readily available, was that they're the kind of landlords you'd buy Christmas presents for. I really am looking forward to living there--oh! I forgot to mention: it's less than a mile away from campus, so it's an easy walk into school and back without feeling like I'm living at school. So nice!

This weekend's going to be fun as well--I'll be having a guest (this fact undoubtedly precipitated my cleaning spree), one of my department's incoming students, stay from Friday to Sunday while he gets to meet people and check out the campus. We're going to have a little party at Katy's house (now, if you want to talk the perfect home, that's Katy's, but I think I'll be very near to as happy as can be in my future apartment) on Friday night, and I just got word that the department's throwing in pizza funding, so all's looking well. Now if I can get a summer job (by the way, did I mention INS rules that I can only work off-campus over the summer if it somehow pertains to my chosen field? I understand that these laws came about after the whole terrorism thing, but I hardly think that the skills I'd get from waitering or data entry would classify me as a threat to national security. I guess they're just too busy to make more specific laws that don't make life EXTREMELY FRIGGIN DIFFICULT for legitimate international students getting graduate degrees in literature who've been model aliens for five years. At the end of the day, however, I'm still very happy, and I suppose my complaints are relatively not serious).

[Does the 'I've got a new home' dance.]

2005-05-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

Stationary Racing Toward Progressive Thinking

Nascar (or whoever the hell runs the Indy 500; I just lump all fast car sports under the collective heading of Nascar) is making a huge deal about Danica Patrick, the young women who's the lone female qualifier for this year's Indy race (and only the fourth one in history). While I do think it's nifty, it's amusing to watch the Nascar crowd fumbling in their apparent ready acceptance of her as a legitimate competitor.

In a Yahoo Story I read today, reigning Indy Champion Tony Kanaan is quoted as saying of Patrick, "If she wins, it could mean so much to the IRL and the whole open-wheel sport." Isn't that absolutely refreshing that someone who embodies what television so often presents as the hick/redneck culture of racing in the south is so thrilled about the dissolution of gender lines that Patrick represents?

But brake just a little bit there, Jethro. Here's the rest of that quote from Kanaan: "That's a lot of weight for a little girl to carry on her back.''

Ah well. I suppose he tried.

2005-05-24T16:56:00.000-05:00

Updates in point form

-Had to turn down dream apartment because it's just slightly too far away, thus necessitating two buses in the event I have to use public transportation on a rainy day instead of biking.

-No longer feeling depressed, having come to the conclusion that I'm okay, and other people suck.

-Still considering therapy anyway.

-Have not been doing as much reading as I ought; need to read three books of The Faerie Queene (no smart comments) by Friday for a discussion group and haven't even gotten through one canto of one book.

-Am currently unemployed.

-I agree with Daria: is it fall yet?

-Made one hell of a dinner the other night, experimenting with a wine deglazing and reduction like they do on the Food network. Reintroduced sauteed chicken and fresh onions, served on bed of fresh spinach and steamed rice.

-I play chicken with the train play chicken with the train play chicken, unh huh. Those are actual lyrics from an insanely catchy song by Cowboy Troy, who sang it on the Tonight Show last week. He calls his genre of music "hick hop"; the closest thing I can compare it to is some of Kid Rock's faster stuff. In any event, it's a fun song. I have absolutely no idea what it means.

-Grey's Anatomy has to be the best show out on television in ages; it's the first scripted show I've become addicted to and watch on a regular basis since before college, I think (most of my TV watching has focused on reruns of old sitcoms or reality in its various forms--latenight talkshows, TLC improvement shows, or classic reality fare like America's Next Top Model and Project Runway). As it happens, CBS is doing a fashion-based reality show that's probably a ripoff of Runway, but given that it'll probably have a much bigger budget, I'm interested in seeing what they can do. My other recent tv addiction is BBC America's Cash in the Attic, the host of which, Alistair Appleton, is the newest addition to my blogroll.

-I have six seminar papers I want to improve over the summer and two abstracts I want to submit for essay collections coming out (one of which I need to conceive from scratch; some editors are asking for articles on one of my favourite films, Hedwing and the Angry Inch, and I'd love to write something if I could figure out what to write). I've started none of this.

-Is blogging on the decline? I just visited the blogs of all the people in my blogroll and calculated the number of days since thier last posts: Geoff (11); Colin (14); Hassan (25); Matt (0); Jason (32); Lloyd (1); Margaret Cho (56); Alistair Appleton (13). That's an overall average of 19 days since a post for all eight blogs, and an average of 25 for the six prime culprits. Of course, this may just mean that people have lives (as opposed to spending time calculating the number of days since someone's last blog post).

-Will probably give in and watch the American Idol finale tonight although I haven't watched any of it (save a bit of an episode with Colette and Aunty Pam a couple weeks ago) heretofore.

-Seacrest out.

2005-05-21T18:27:00.000-05:00

Didn't Knock Hard Enough

A few posts ago I wrote about being happy and mocked the whole knock-on-wood culture. While I still cherish having been happy at that point and wouldn't care to trade it in for anything, all this week long has been a cruddy, sleepy daze in which I've done nothing but remain cooped up in my apartment sleeping, the cause of my prior jubilation having evaporated. Apparently the knock-on-wood Gods don't take kindly to being mocked. In any event, I did get a few things done this week, so I think I'm gonna write one of my day-by-day update posts.

Saturday 14: Went to our year-end party at Liz's pool. Made homemade shish-kebabs to take along for the grill (I've always heard it, but not until I tried for myself did I realise how nummy grilled portabellos are). Simon and Jen decided to mark the occasion by jumping in the pool with all their clothes on--actually, Edward pushed Simon in, but he was gonna jump in anyway.

Sunday 15: Grkramph.

Monday 16: Lazed. Slept. Ate. Slept. Got first two grades: two As. Rock on. Spent evening with Irene watching The Great Muppet Caper (only Muppet movie I'd not seen at that point, although I missed The Muppets Wizard of Oz this week, grumble grumble).

Tuesday 17: Lazed. Slept. Ate. Went to doctor and nutritionist appointments. Doctor suggested I see therapist to deal with stress/depression/comfort eating. Despite having loads of free time, I find the idea of adding a therapist to my list tremendously inconvenient given I already see my doctor/nutritionist once every three weeks. Before I decide whether I'll start going, I'm going to have to figure out if the fact that I'm peppy and chirpy 97% of the time means that I'm just going through temporary down times that are part of life or whether I'm just REALLY good at repressing shit.

Wednesday 18: Slept. Ate. Lazed.

Thursday 19: Slept. Ate. Lazed. Went to campus briefly to get graded seminar papers out of my department mailbox. Got last two grades: an A and an A-. So, for folks keeping count, that's four As and two A minuses in seminar work and an A in French at the end of year 1 (it's not a tremendously impressive feat, but more or less what's expected: your continuation in the program's in jeopardy if you accumulate Bs on your transcript). The nice thing is that one of my As was in the Chaucer class, which was a tremendous relief. I wasn't sure I could cut it doing Chaucer on the graduate level, and it's great that it worked out.

Friday 20: Ate. Slept. Lazed. Decided that this week my mood is not in favour of the tremendously gawdy, colorful blue mess that I turned the blog into last week, so redesigned it to a much simpler, more generic look. Got a call from Liz who was wondering if I'd like to go see the new Star Wars with her, and Irene called one second after, so we three all went together (although Irene, the true fan among us, had gone to an opening-day show, and this was her second time seeing it). Although I wasn't previously a big fan of the movies--maybe I saw them when I was too young, or before I could use fancy-schmancy words like bildungsroman and think about them as literature--I was INCREDIBLY impressed by this film. It was beautiful, beautifully done, and struck just the right balance of pathos and camp. Irene and I got into an interesting debate about whether the series would work chronologically, i.e. if a person has been in a coma for 28 years and wakes up tomorrow with a yen for sci-fi action/adventure, would she have more fun watching the movies 1-2-3-4-5-6, or 4-5-6-1-2-3? I voted that the power of the last three would be completely diffused by knowing what goes on in the first trilogy, while Irene came down on the side of enjoying Anakin's personal saga more if one didn't know his eventual fate. Thoughts?

Saturday 21: Relatively little eating, sleeping, and lazing. Irene came to get me, and we went to check out a couple apartments I'm thinking about renting after my lease is up and I'm through house-sitting for her. One was something of a let-down: in terms of convenience, it was absolutely perfect, being about a mile and a half away from campus. It's spacious with a beautiful back porch and yard, but there was one problem--as a basement apartment, the roof was extremely low. Now while I'm not extremely claustrophobic in terms of narrow places, I can't stand low places, and I wasn't at all comfortable in the apartment. The second place I looked at, however, is in Candler Park, one of my favourite neighbourhoods because of its bohemian neo-hippie feel sans the smoke and hallucinogens. The apartment was to die for (down to the granite countertops and fireplace in the bedroom), the price is amazing, the living room, although small, is cozy, and the bedroom is friggin HUGE. However, the problem is that it's 3 miles away from campus with a couple uphill sections, meaning that cycling will be something of a doozy, and I'm not sure I can handle it. But such a great place won't remain on the market long, so I have to give this some serious thought and see if I want to make that leap.

Ok, so that's the week. Comment, please. When you guys don't comment, the voices in my head start getting louder, and they are so mean to me... (Ok, just kidding. Don't go ordering straitjackets now.)

2005-05-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

c, k?

Why does everyone insist on misspelling my name? It's M-A-R-C, not M-A-R-K. I write an email to someone, they click reply, my original email is right there in front of them, the correct spelling of my name both in the sender field and the text of the body. Yet they insist on divesting me of my C and supplanting it with a K.

Why did my parents give me a name spelt unconventionally? It's not even that unconventional: according to namestatistics.com, Mark is only ten times more popular than Marc. Compare that to Chris being 20 times pore popular than Kris. Yet I bet those people named Kris don't get C-ed as often as I get K-ed.

Back in high school, after each assessment period, we got these cheap little cardboard certificates, called testimonials or honor cards, for attaining a certain grade or placing high enough in class. Not like I saved them or anything--I think my sentimental mother has a few stowed away somewhere--but on half of them, my name was spelled Mark. Almost all my professors, despite seeing my name spelt correctly on every paper I submit or email I write, insist on writing back to me as Mark (though it could be that professors are perpetually absent-minded like that; I don't have it as bad as Shawn, a friend of mine who was referred to as Scott for a part of the semester by one prof--is this what's in store for me in my chosen career?). For two months on my department's website, my research-interests listing was for my evil twin, Mark. For graduation in college, sure enough, my name was listed on the register from which they were do the degrees as Mark; luckily, they allowed us to doublecheck, and I corrected it in time.

Ok, so I apologise. My name doesn't trip naturally off the keyboard. But come on, if you've known me for more than a year, you have absolutely no excuse to continue spelling it wrong. Seriously. Or if you insist on misspelling, at least spice it up a bit and call me Marq or something. I'm just fed up of the Mark.

2005-05-12T17:03:00.000-05:00

Throwing Pies

Did any of you catch Leno on Tuesday night, when he interviewed the new right-wing high priestess Ann Coulter? That interview's gonna be the bulk of this post, but first I'll talk about everything I've been doing since I turned in my paper on Monday.

I turned in the paper on Monday afternoon and then, to my surprise, found that one I had turned in last week had already been graded and returned to my department mailbox. My professor really liked it (I really liked doing it, given that it was the first time I got to put what I learned from Dr. Z to use and incorporate art and literary criticism), and her comments were extremely helpful regarding how I could develop it further. I'm going to miss her a lot--she's one of the best professors I've ever had, but she's leaving Emory to return to her home in Colorado. :-(

In the evening I had Dr. Z over for a Mother's day dinner (cooked salmon and eggplant curry), and we were going to go to a movie afterward, but she got slightly delayed and we ended up missing the movie time. Instead, we stayed in and watched my DVD of Young Frankenstein and all the extra features, which made for an evening of good comedy and larfs.

Then on Tuesday, I went off to Aunty Pam's to cook dinner for her; was great to get to see her and Colette again after almost two months, and Colette and I watched White Chicks, which, despite some over-the-top toilet humor (literally) that could easily have been left out, was an okay film. Mildly enthusiastic thumbs up.

Yesterday, I left Aunty Pam's and met Irene, and we had a DELICIOUS lunch and Fuddrucker's, followed by a few hours of vintage clothes shopping (we hit four different shops), which was absolutely decadent. I didn't buy much, spending a couple bucks on two cool Tshirts, but Irene came away with a great haul of like twelve items for under sixty bucks. Oh, one really cool thing I did find at one of the stores (which was an all-out thrift store) was a vintage breadbox from the 50s or 60s that's going to give my kitchen a bit of character. All in all, we did good. This followed by going back to her house to watch this week's Top Model, and then coming back home.

Today: slept until an ungodly hour, then made a quick trip to campus to check my mailbox. Just one of those days doing absolutely nothing and loving it.

Ok, now on to Ann Coulter, the author of How to Talk to a Liberal if You Must and recent Jay Leno interviewee.

Let me first explain the title of this post: some time ago, Coulter was talking at a university, and an irate audience threw a pie at her, sending the "conservative flamethrower" scrambling to higher, less creamy ground. Now as she explained to Leno, she sees this incident as evidence that liberal college students are unable to express themselves eloquently or do not possess sufficient debating skills to take her on intellectually. She was so hung up on this pie thing that even Jay called her on it, after she responded to a fourth or fifth question by returning to the incident.

So she thinks liberal students are dumb and immature. I suppose that if I wanted to prove her wrong, I'd have to resist the urge to call her Ann Cold-turd or not mention that her fashion sense falls somewhere between Fran Drescher in The Nanny and Miss Piggy. I suppose I shouldn't mention that the relative density of cream pies as compared to say a pound cake is much less (just kidding; I'd never advocate hitting anyone with food that might damage them--although aiming for the scaffolding above her head causing showers of cake crumbs to rain down upon her...).

I won't resort to the ad hominem attacks, although the temptation to is almost overpowering, given some of the things she said on the Leno show. She started talking about airport security, saying that it's hell to travel anywhere today. Following this, good ole Ann echoed a point she made at that University speech: "I realized the only people that need to be searched were the people doing the searching." She said that blonde women were standing in lines to be searched while the people conducting the searches appeared (yes, she based this on looks) to be the ones who should be subjected to the third degree. Unacceptable to her is that no more than two Arabs on any flight be randomly searched, according to some FAA guidelines (actually, the guidelines state that the limit is two people for any ethnicity--I guess this is why I'm always searched: being multi-ethnic, I probably count as a freebie). When Leno asked if she believes that racial profiling is okay in the situation, she said yes, yes it is. Her question, a reference to the 9/11 incidents: "Nineteen is more than two, isn't it?"

I'm sympathizing more and more with the pie-thrower. How do you respond to someone who is as blatantly bigoted and closedminded as she is other than with flaky pastry? How can any liberal get his mind around her suggestions and make arguments that should seem so obvious, that her world in which the convenience of the blondes is uninterrupted by the need for fairness, thanks to racist, exclusivist policies that hearken back to a time we should all be glad is long past? How, without a good key lime or lemon meringue?

Let's take a quick foray into the magical land of Hypocrisy and visit Ann's shrine. Despite her willingness to racially profile Arabs in airports, she is hardly above using the people of Iraq to her advantage in bashing Democrats: in the latest article posted at her website, www.anncoulter.com, she begins by positioning liberals as those who think of Iraqis as "crazy Arabs" and tsk-tsks Democrats for having no faith about the democratic process in the country. Apparently, those Arabs are a-o-kay for Anne, as long as they keep out of American airports!

Okay, enough time wasted on this woman for now. I can't help but think that the long and short of her story is self-publicity, that she's concerned primarily with putting her mug on tv and dollars in her pocket. Self-aggrandizing, vain, full of fallacies and non-sequiturs... Not very much substance to this one. Doing some googling on her, I came across the internet store www.victorystore.com that sells political novelties and gifts. Things sold in the democratic section are very run of the mill, pins saying vote for this person or that. The only things that make some kind of political statement were Hillary 2008 lawn signs and a bumper sticker that says "A Woman's Place is in the House... and the Senate!" In the Republican section, however, there were quite a few more goodies, including merchandise with inscriptions like:

Don't be a Girly Man, VOTE REPUBLICAN!
Crybaby seal mug: "Official Seal of the United States Democratic Party"

Of course, Democrats write things like that all the time too, bashing the Republicans (remember my Super Pretzel cartoon? teehee). But at least we liberals have the excuse of being ineloquent, immature pie-throwers. What's their excuse?

But I've digressed. My point about mentioning the Victory Store is that one of their items is an Ann Coulter talking doll (it's sold at a bunch of different places too). Now as far as I know, for something like this to be manufactured, the manufacturer would require Coulter's permission, especially since recordings of her own voice are used in the toy's voicebox--it seems unlikely that this is an unauthorized toy, given its wide distribution and the fact that whoever made it would have been sued in the past three years since it was first introduced had it not been legit. So Annie's probably getting kickbacks, which is all well and good; if people like your image enough to want to spend their hard-earned dollars investing in bendable plastic likenesses, more power to you. But I've got a feeling that this is what it's all about for Coulter. Or maybe I'm just giving too much credit to a conservative and am unwilling to believe that someone could really be so devoted to bullshit.

One hour and forty minutes. I think that's a new record for the length of time I've spent on a single post. Can it be that Ann Coulter will replace Dr. Laura and Jerry Falwell in my affections? Only time will tell.

2005-05-09T03:50:00.000-05:00

Semester's Done!

Habemus paper!

At 4.43 a.m. on Monday, May 9, 2005, I put the last touches on my last seminar paper and thus brought down the curtain on my first year of graduate school.

Will write at greater length sometime soon, after I get some sleep. In the meanwhile, enjoy the all new look of the blog.

2005-05-06T21:59:00.000-05:00

Happy

There's a lot of happiness in expectation. I never feel happier than when I can go to bed at night in anticipation of some wonderful thing to come.

I've got ten pages of my last seminar paper done, and I'm looking forward to finishing that this weekend and officially finishing my first year of graduate school. Tomorrow I do this 5K with Irene, and then we're going to a leisurely brunch at the flying biscuit for nummy breakfast food and mimosas. Early next week I'm spending a couple days at Aunty Pam's, both to see her (it's been a couple months) and to get away from campus for a bit. And late next week, I'm going to an exhibit at the museum... I've been looking forward to that all semester long.

Sometimes things don't work out exactly the way you expect them to. But that's okay. They do often enough, and in the meanwhile, the anticipation is enough to make me as happy as I've ever been. Some traditions--the knock-on-wood culture, for instance--argue that talking about good things and being happy are bad luck, and you risk losing your happiness by doing it. But no one can take away happiness you've already had, you know?

In the immortal words of Ren and Stimpy: happy, happy, joy, joy!

2005-05-03T22:42:00.000-05:00

Donate to a Good Cause

Hey folks--need your help.

Irene and I are walking in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's Race for the Cure this Saturday for Mother's Day, and each participant is given a webpage to collect donations for the cause. If you've got a few bucks to spare (I've set my goal at $100, but any little bit helps) and are willing, please contribute to a good cause.

Click here to go to my participant page to donate.

Thanks--you guys rock!!! (And you know I mean it, cos I've even broken my own rule of never using more than one exclamation point.)

2005-05-03T16:40:00.000-05:00

Two Anniversaries

1) Happy Birthday, Geoff! Now you're old enough to... do whatever 23-year-olds do! :-)

2) It's the one-year anniversary of the Pancake Mystic. Woooooooooo!

2005-05-02T14:13:00.000-05:00

Bummer.

So I didn't get the newspaper internship I applied for. I got an email today saying that I was one of two finalists, but they went with the other person for two reasons:

1) They wanted it to be a learning experience. Apparently, my experience working for newspapers worked against me.
2) The other person actually plans a career in journalism, as opposed to me; I was applying because I wanted experience working with human rights issues.

Ah well. The plus side is they did make me an offer to work freelance, which I'd love to do. I admire the publication, and all in all, I don't regret applying.

Rejection does suck, however. Sucks royally.

2005-05-01T20:37:00.000-05:00

The Fine History of Sexism

I'm doing some research on Amazons right now and came upon this gem from Plutarch, entitled Advice to the Bride and Groom. Have fun reading... and thinking about how much conservative Christian doctrine still espouses many of these values.

*The modest wife ought to me most conspicuous in her husband's company and stay in the house and hide when he is away.

*Herodotus was mistaken when he said a woman takes off her modesty along with her clothes. Quite the opposite, she puts on modesty in their place, and the husband and wife show the greatest modesty as a token of their very great love for each other.

*Every activity in the house is carried out with modesty by both in agreement but displays the leadership and preferences of the husband.

*The wife ought not to have any feelings of her own but join with her husband in his moods whether serious, playful, thoughtful, or joking.

*Should a man in private life be without control or guidance in his pleasures and commit some indiscretion with a prostitute or servant girl, the wife should not take it hard or be angry, reasoning that because of his respect for her, he does not include her in his drunken parties, excesses, and wantonness with other women.

*The wife ought not to have friends of her own but share her husband's in common with him.

*Not gold, not gems, not scarlet, make a woman more proper, but whatever invests her appearance with dignity, discipline, and shame.

*I think the modest woman has the greatest need for charming her husband so that… she may live with him pleasantly and not be irritable because she is modest.

*She ought to speak to her husband or through her husband and not be disgruntled if, like the fluteplayer, she utters sounds through the tongue of another.

2005-04-28T19:46:00.000-05:00

I can't think of a post title that's both snappy and descriptive enough of how I'm feeling or what I want to say, so you're just going to have to read the whole post and figure it out

I'm kinda almost at a milestone. Today was my last seminar/class of the semester, so I've technically finished my first year of my Ph.D. (still have to polish two papers and write one from scratch, all of which are due in a little more than a week, but have no more class commitments until September). This means that I've finished slightly less than half--six out of 13 courses, 15 if you count two semesters of pedagogy pedagogy, but those aren't for grades--of my coursework. It's surreal. Life's going by so quickly. Not that I'm complaining at the moment, cos it's a lot of fun right now, but I get the sense that in two bats of an eye I'll wake up one day and wonder where all the time has gone.

I've got to settle down and get my papers done. I've made good progress, having about 60% of the work done and 10 days with no classes or commitments to finish up, but that still sounds intimidating being at this end of the process. It'll get done.

Ok, so I've got a question: if you've got a shot at something that'll make you happy, but you're worried that it's just going to be short-term happiness and that it'll suck like hell when it's gone, do you take the chance and go for it anyway? Or do you just save yourself the trouble?

That was your cryptic Marc moment for the day. Moving on.

Had a fun day with Erica and Irene yesterday. We were reading Chaucer over at Irene's place, and decided to do it out loud. Try reading the Pardoner's Tale sometime out loud on a deck in a backyard. Interesting experience.

The Pardoner gets a bad rap. He's evil and immoral just because he's the gay pilgrim on the way to Canterbury. He sells these pardons and rips off people, some critics say, because the Church has written him off as irredeemable. Damn right those folks who turn up their noses at him should get their comeuppance. Good for the Pardoner.

All right, I'm done now.

2005-04-24T23:41:00.000-05:00

Meme from Geoffroy

First a little precis of my weekend: Friday was Irene's margarita party, followed by all of us going to dinner at Fellini's, followed by Jenni, Liz, Simon, Erica, and I heading to Liz's place to play pool (it was our last hurrah before settling down for the big push to get seminar papers and end-of-semester stuff out of the way); yesterday was a tremendously productive day spent at the coffeehouse and getting stuff written; today was French day, in that I spent the first half reviewing verb conjugations in 14 tenses/moods, followed by going to Jenni's with Liz so we three could study out loud together (after we finished at 10pm, they made me watch the new ABC show Grey's Anatomy with them, which turned out to be a remarkably funny and well-written show); tomorrow's going to be back to the coffeehouse, hopefully to finish my paper.

Ok, now the meme. What you're supposed to do is take the first line from your first post of each month of your last year of blogging (look at all the prepositional phrases there). However, I'm changing up the rules slightly for myself and making it the first sensical line from the first paragraph of the first post of each month of my last year of blogging, since the first lines sometimes are stupid little meaningless things. Here goes:

April 2004: Please read Geoff's wonderful breakdown of the dynamics of small-mindedness in his piece entitled "The Imaginary Armageddon."
How funny that I make a cameo in Geoff's version of this meme, and he makes a cameo in mine. This was a great commentary, by the way; you should go to his blog archives for it.

May 2004: What a long, long friggin day.
The Sasser virus on my computer. My dorm room's a/c on the blink. Having watched the great but disturbing movie Requiem for a Dream (a present from Jason). A long day indeed.

June 2004: After the great hiking trip I described in my previous post, we four returned home on Sunday evening for an evening of movie (Lost in Translation) and ice cream sundaes (with brownies made by Geoff and peanuts crushed by me).
That was a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Good times, good times.

July 2004: Now we're at the halfway point of the summer semester, and I gave my class their third test today.
I loved my class. That was definitely one of the best experiences of my life. I can't wait until next semester when I get to teach again (even though it'll only be once a week as a T.A.--I'll have to wait until my third year to have my very own class following my very own syllabus).

August 2004: After a pretty quiet week of nothing but TV and more TV (see my forthcoming post on things political), a weekend full of intrigue and suspense intervened and broke the phlegm.
A night of my life that seemed like an episode of Cops. You'll have to go re-read that post for the full details.

Sept 2004: It's been ages and ages and ages since my last post (almost two weeks), but you guys will understand that it's because life has been so hectic.
My first post after moving into my apartment here at Emory and getting settled as a grad student: a momentous occasion.

Oct 2004: So the first debate is over. My first reaction: thank goodness Kerry didn't screw it up.
The last month of hoping. The way that that debate turned out, I was sure things would be put right in the following month.

Nov 2004: Tomorrow's it.
Should have read "Tomorrow's shit."

Dec 2004: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of setting up a working democracy in Iraq to give them some autonomy?
Getting into the groove of realising that I'd be disagreeing with most aspects of U.S. foreign policy for four more years.

Jan 2005: I'm back in Atlanta at last after a wonderful four weeks' holiday at home.
The first post from Marc's re-designed blog Momeaga after Froggytown bid its final farewell.

Feb 2005: I've been playing a little game in my head for a couple days now, and just now I figured, since I have nothing of worth to write about this evening, I'll write about my little game, and perhaps you too can play it.
The initials game. You take your initials and find names, programs, books, etc., that fit them. Didn't catch on.

March 2005: Colin's recent post about the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious motives for blogging really has me self-conscious about posting again (that's what's great about his blog: always thought-provoking).
Lookit, Colin makes a cameo too. Yet another good post you should go digging in archives to find.

April 2005: I'm making short-term resolutions at 3.15 a.m. EST on April 1 for the rest of the day and see if I can actually get them done or if this'll turn out to be a colossal April Fool's Day joke on myself.
I achieved half of my goals, failed on the other half. Not bad.

Ok, all the rules apply. You must do this meme or your TV will get stuck on the religious channel and you'll be forced to watch pink-haired women preaching at you for the rest of your life. Do you really want that? I didn't think so.

2005-04-23T23:10:00.000-05:00

Lost in Translation

I spent most of the day at the coffeehouse typing away (got nearly 6 pages written!), and then had dinner at Doc Chey's, a noodle house in the village, with Erica. The most interesting part of the meal, however, was reading the note on my chopsticks wrapper. I figured I simply must share this with you guys:

I could pretty much make out everything else, but I'm still undecided about "glonous." Glorious, do you think?

2005-04-21T21:10:00.000-05:00

XXL, XL, L...

I was at Tar-zhay with Irene earlier today and picked up a couple items of summer clothing. For the heck of it, I tried on a shirt I liked in L instead of XL, and it actually fit! I actually wore clothing that didn't have an X on the label.

However, this doesn't really mean anything. On the one hand, I haven't lost any weight this semester (it's a miracle I haven't gained any). On the other, another shirt I liked was an XL, and that was an even snugger fit than the L. I did consider the possibility that that the one shirt was mislabeled, but I checked, and it wasn't.

I think the answer is that society's collective ass is getting fatter, meaning that by maintaining my current weight that once was XL I will eventually become a M and a S. How's that for an effortless diet?

If, however, I keep my resolution to start going to the gym daily when I have the time in a couple weeks, maybe I can lose weight anyway and by the time I'm down to the correct weight for my height, I'll be society's version of dangerously thin. Supermodeling, here comes Marc!

2005-04-21T00:17:00.000-05:00

Life is Life

Badger is still stuck in my head.

I wanted to get some work done today, make some headway in a seminar paper. It got to be 2.30 p.m., I had nothing done, and I was considering taking a nap. Enough of this crap, said I. I took a shower, got dressed, packed up my computer and notes, and headed over to the coffeehouse. I've never worked on writing a paper anywhere (planning and structuring, sure, but never writing) but in my bedroom before, but I decided to break out of the box and try something different today. It was beautiful weather out, the sky was almost as blue as it is at home, and I sure as hell wasn't getting anything done sitting in here.

Irene and Erica were both there when I arrived, Irene only temporarily while she held her office hours, but Erica and I hung out for the rest of the evening while we both wrote. I'm now one of those people who sit in coffee houses with others, sipping overpriced beverages and getting work done. It's finally happened. I'm a F*R*I*E*N*D.

Badgers badgers badgers Mushroom MUSHROOM! A-badgers badgers badgers

I have no idea how I'm spending the summer yet. I need to work to earn money to pay off student loans. Stupid student loans. I found a perfect apartment last night that would be just the thing if it had a washer/dryer. It doesn't. Oh, that reminds me. Did I mention that I'm housesitting/cat-sitting for Irene this summer? Ack, it's time for Murphy Brown, and I haven't finished this post yet. Must hurry. Badgers badgers badgers badgers

Irene's getting the wonderful opportunity to go to Cambridge as a student assistant with the department's summer program, so she needs someone to watch Macha for six weeks in July/August. It works out great for me too, cos now I can move to Irene's for a month and a half and have time to search for a new place as well as get accustomed to caring for a cat. Hey look at that! On Murphy Brown's office wall there's a copy of Emory Magazine that has her picture on it. I wonder if that's real or just made up for the show. Snaaaaaaaake--Badgers, badgers

Irene's party is rescheduled, and we're now celebrating Shakespeare's birthday on Friday instead of Saturday. Tomorrow's my discussion group meeting, and we'll be discussing Stage Beauty. What else can I talk about. Ah yes. Habemus Papam. Benedict XVI. Badger XVI. Badger badger badger badger.

In the unlikely event that I ever get elected Pope, I'll call myself Pope Sixtus the Sixth. You see, there was a Pope Sixtus the first, Sixtus the second, all the way up to Sixtus the fifth. But no Sixtus the Sixth. That's like getting to one bottle of beer on the wall and then stopping the song. Doesn't it suck that the most conservative guy, the biggest orthodox hardliner, ended up getting the job? The world's getting more and more conservative. Not good.

I started talking about the summer up above and got sidetracked. By badgers and other things. Badgers badgers badgers. On Monday, I had an interview at a weekly newspaper for a summer internship. Interview went well. Also applied last week for a job as a personal statement reviewer, but for some dumb reason my CV didn't get sent, so I had to resend this morning, but now it's probably too late to get an interview. Dammit.

Ok, that's it for now. Can't think of anything else to say. Badgers badgers--Mushrooms MUSHROOMS! That friggin cartoon is so addictive. I can't stop thinking about it. I apologise for posting the link.

Badgers Badgers Badgers.

2005-04-19T19:28:00.000-05:00

Habeus Badger

I've never done the wacky tabacky or acid or mushrooms or whatever else have you myself, but I imagine that this must be what one version of a trip is like.

More profound blogging in days to come. Braindead after 8 hours of classes.

2005-04-15T20:02:00.000-05:00

Ups and Down

It's been a week of ups and down.

Up: I may have found an aspect of a Chaucer Tale that's not been discussed before, and my professor thinks a publishable note or article might come out of it, so I definitely will pursue that this summer and see if I can get my first academic publication. I also figured out what I'm going to write my seminar paper on for that Chaucer class (another topic, not the same one).

Up: I got an interview for a summer internship I want. Cross your fingers for me on Monday at 1.30 p.m.

Up: I helped Irene with preparations for a talk given by Kim Gandy, the president of NOW (the National Organization for Women). While the turnout wasn't as great as expected, probably owing to the talk being held yesterday, the day before taxes are due, it was wonderful. Gandy's a great speaker, and she concisely and coherently talked about this social security reform nonsense and the fact that it's not a 'crisis.' Other topics included pay equity and equal marriage, and I was pleased to find that NOW's stance on many of the issues coincide with mine--I'm a-joining.

Up: Irene announced she's throwing a small party next Saturday for Shakespeare's birthday (which, in fact, is his death day, but folks don't know his birthday, so his death day's called his birthday; it's complicated, I know). We're going to have margaritas and chips and act out scenes from plays. Geekdom rocks!

Up: I've got a relatively light load of reading this weekend, and weekly response papers are now over to give time for seminar papers. This means that, if I'm diligent, I can actually make some headway into my second seminar paper this weekend. Woot! (I've always wanted to say woot).

Down: Got news this morning that I didn't get a fellowship I applied for that would have given me funding to put together a comprehensive calypso lyrics database. It sucks major donkey oohoo, but eh. Some other time.

Well, all in all, that's five ups and one down. I'd say I did pretty good this week. I know I promised a meme, but I lost energy to do one, so that'll be put off until some future time. But come on you guys: write in your blogs! Because y'all aren't writing anymore, I'm actually having to read the... gasp... news now.

2005-04-12T01:55:00.000-05:00

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes...

I can feel it... It's coming... Another, yes, another... Meme!

Stay tuned...

2005-04-09T21:42:00.000-05:00

Oh, Esther!

So I spent the afternoon and evening with Irene and Erica at Borders, getting research done and chatting over overpriced lattes. Afterwards, however, Erica had to do some grocerying at Whole Foods (what an amazing place; I'll blog about it some other time) and Irene had to go get a new tag made for Macha at Petsmart. I went along with Irene, cos I'd never been to that Petsmart, and while we were there, we visited the cat adoption center.

I fell in love with this extremely affectionate tabby named Esther whose family had to give her up for adoption because their kid developed allergies. Esther sad while I petted her through the bars of her cage, enjoying getting scratched behind her ears and looking at me like, "Please take me home! Please! I want to be your pet!" It broke my heart to walk away from her. I am definitely getting a cat later this year (it's one of the primary reasons I'm moving when my lease is up in June--my apartment complex doesn't allow pets). My nurturing instincts are kicking in bigtime, and I find myself extremely jealous of people with kids. I want something to take care of. Ideally, I'd like a dog, but I'm out of the apartment for hours at a time, which cats can deal with and dogs can't, so a cat is the logical answer. I will adopt one from either Petsmart or the Humane Society (the price of adopting at the former is about twice as much as the Humane Society's $60, so it's probably going to be that), but I want Esther, dammit! She was the sweetest cat I've ever met, and she looked so sad to be there in a cage without the family she'd known for five years.

The moral of this story: unless you really want a pet and can have one right away, don't even think about entering the doors of a pet adoption center.

2005-04-05T20:14:00.000-05:00

Questions

1. Why does that one cardinal wear a fuchsia skullcap when all the others wear red ones?

2. How long will it be before I stop thinking, "Technically, right now it's one hour earlier than the clock says it is?"

3. Is Frist serious about this nuclear option nonsense?

4. Is it completely insensitive/politically incorrect of me to speculate on the possibility of a papacy-based reality show, or does the fact that I'm still technically a Catholic give me the right a la that one Seinfeld episode. (I'm thinking Survivor: Vatican; Vatican Idol won't work, though, because of, well, finickiness about the idolatry thing.)

5. Why are all cartoons on Cartoon Network now seizure-inducing color spectacles that feature either samurais or teenager-cum-funky-superheroes? Why can't they show The Flintstones or Bugs Bunny like they used to?

6. Why am I bitching about the absence of TV shows when I barely have enough time to tune into the ones I do watch?

7. Voulez-vous diner avec moi un jour ou l'autre?

8. Did that undergraduate not realise that half her ass was hanging out of the scarf posing as her skirt?

9. Will I be able to resist the irresistible urge to procrastinate now that one of my three seminar papers is done?

10. Why must there be ten questions when I really ran out of things to ask at nine?

2005-04-02T01:04:00.000-05:00

How Did I Do On My Resolutions?

>>1. I will have my apartment clean before noon.
Failed. I slept through my alarm clock and didn't finish cleaning until 1pm.

>>2. I will cook and refrigerate food so that I will not be tempted to order out this weekend.
Succeeded. Now have five portions of grilled chicken, one portion of mac and cheese, two portions of pork/carrot/potato/stringbean stew, and three portions of fish soup in the fridge/freezer.

>>3. I will write at least six pges of my Renaissance Drama seminar paper.
Failed. I got three pages written, well short of my goal. Ah well, hopefully I'll make it up and finish the paper this weekend. No, I'll be positive. I will finish the paper this weekend, dammit.

>>4. I will read at least 100 pages of Daniel Deronda.
Succeeded. George Eliot, who's been described by some as the smartest person of the 19th century, writes one heck of a novel. Talk about intense character development. It's extremely well-written, but the fact that some paragraphs go on for pages does a number on your brain, so it can be pretty slow going (also, it's like size 6 font). I started reading her Middlemarch last summer, which a bunch of people say is the best novel ever written, and only got through one of its eight books before being distracted by something else, so finishing that is definitely on my list of must-reads this summer.

2005-04-01T03:15:00.000-05:00

April Fool's Day Resolutions; Matters Various

Resolutions
People say that New Year's resolutions have short lives. So I'm changing it up a bit. I'm making short-term resolutions at 3.15 a.m. EST on April 1 for the rest of the day and see if I can actually get them done or if this'll turn out to be a colossal April Fool's Day joke on myself. My resolutions are:

1) I will have my apartment clean before noon.

2) I will cook and refrigerate food so that I will not be tempted to order out this weekend.

3) I will write at least six pages of my Renaissance Drama seminar paper.

4) I will read at least 100 pages of Daniel Deronda

There. Four very realistic goals. If I allow myself not to get distracted, I can actually get stuff done this weekend. My original plan was to sequester myself all weekend long and work, but there are potentially two things I want to do now. Dr. Z's taking me out one night as a birthday present, and on Saturday night Carson Kressley from Queer Eye's going to be giving a talk here on campus. I'm thinking of combining the two and taking Dr. Z along to hear Carson.

My Thursday
Had a pleasant evening this evening. After Chaucer, I went along with Irene to the Farmer's Market just for the heck of it because the Farmer's Market is THE coolest place. While there, we get a call from Liz and Erin saying that we should go out to dinner to celebrate today being payday. However, that meant we had an hour to kill, so we went back to Irene's, she showed me pictures of her college friends (whom I knew by name and through stories), drank frozen margaritas (so nummy), and petted her cat Macha. Then it was over to a Mexican restaurant (I'm not a fan of Mexican food, but was in the mood for chips and queso and jalapenos, so it was all good) for a leisurely dinner, followed by a nice half-hour browsing in adjacent bookstore. I bought a copy of On Bullshit, the essay-cum-book that's burning up the NYTimes non-fiction list. Will report on it if I find an hour to read it this weekend (most of my weekend's going to be spent with my nose in Daniel Deronda and criticism for Ren Drama, though).

The Pontiff
So, the Pope. Doesn't look good for him. Now while I, even in my days as a practising Catholic, was never crazy about the idea of the papacy, I'm obviously sorry the guy seems to be dying a painful death. I can't help but saying, however--and please, feel free to think me insensitive--that I hope the council of cardinals chooses a liberal as the new pope. The whole shepherd-sheep thing makes me completely uncomfortable, but if there is to be a shepherd for the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, I'd prefer someone who's an open-minded free thinker. And this is where you guys tell me I'm a delusional dreamer.

Schiavo
Finally, it's over. Or is it? Wouldn't it be great if it could all end now, without the weeks and weeks of media coverage that will inevitably follow? By the way, why are they doing an autopsy? I'm not sure what that's setting out to prove. Weren't the cat scans and whatever elses while she was alive sufficient proof that she had no brain activity? I may need brushing up on my understanding of neurodoohickeyology, or I may just need to read more on what's going to happen in this situation (though I can't say I really care that much anymore; I really do think it should be over now).
I agree with Colin that this was an issue that shouldn't have been. What's unfortunate about this is that all the news reports I saw and stories I read forced me to connect on an emotional level. While I always was in favour of pulling the tube and letting her die naturally instead of keeping a dead person alive, the media and the idiots who run things over-sensationalized the issue and took advantage of people's feelings and emotions the way cheap melodramas and drugstore romance novels do. As much as you tell yourself, "I'm not going to be taken in by all this hype," you (or I, at least) inevitably read every new story and update on the issue because everyone's talking about it. The worst part of it is reading the stories about her parched tongue and increasingly frail physique, knowing that it's just a dead person dying, that there really is no "her" or "she," just a body, and feeling pity and sympathy anyway. That's manipulation, what the media and those politicians did. That's using people.

2005-03-31T01:24:00.000-05:00

Mid-Twenties

So now I'm in my mid-twenties. Funny, I don't feel like I'm in my mid-twenties. Sometimes I feel like I'm 13, and other times like i'm 35. But I don't feel like 24. Weird.

As it happened, karaoke got cancelled last night, so friends and I ended going to team trivia at a new venue, the Thinking Man's Tavern. They were sweet and bought me dinner and cake, and sang me happy birthday (Shawn held his cigarette lighter over the cake for me to blow out). Also cool, Bad English conquered yet another trivia game. We were in the hunt throughout, but won on the last question: who authored The Vagina Monologues. Irene even did a multi-orgasmic dramatic rendition (just the vocals, that is), much to the amusement of everyone in the Tavern.

All in all, yet another great birthday spent with friends. Missed you, Colin and Geoff, but I pretended y'all were there.

2005-03-29T00:12:00.000-05:00

24 Years, And What Do You Get?

Another year older, and deeper in debt...

Karaoke tonight for my birthday! Woohoo!

2005-03-26T00:17:00.000-05:00

The Laramie Project

I always talk about how writing in my blog is therapeutic. Usually when I say this I'm just talking generally, citing the fact that it's good to have a reliable outlet for thoughts and frustrations. Tonight, however, I'm being very literal. I couldn't wait to get home to blog because there are so many things I want to say that, if I tried to express them verbally, would get all muddled up, the words falling over each other.

Irene and I went to see a campus production of The Laramie Project tonight (one of her students is directing). Little tip: don't ever go see this play by yourself. You definitely need someone to cry with/on while watching it. It's a hell of an experience.

Just a bit of background on the play, in case you're not sure what it's about: it's in three acts, based on over 200 interviews done by a New York theatrical group in the town of Laramie, Wyoming, after Matthew Shepard was robbed, beaten, and left out tied to a fence in the middle of nowhere for eighteen hours before he was found, barely alive, and brought to a hospital to spend his last couple days before dying. Matthew Shepard was a gay 21-year-old college student, and it's been established that the attack was a hate crime. It's a well-known story and received much press, but it's still surreal to read or write that synopsis even at this point, seven years later.

There were parts that were almost unbearable to watch. On the day of the funeral, a pastor stood outside the church preaching that Matthew Shepard was a sinner and that the Bible has twice as much evidence of God's hate as God's love. In his hand, the pastor head a sign saying "Matt is in Hell." What must that have done to the parents and friends of the boy being buried?

There was the doctor who treated Matthew and read the statement after his death, unable to maintain his composure. The scene shifts slightly, and he talks about one of the emails sent to him at the hospital after the press conference: "Do you cry like that for all your patients, or just the fags?"

The part that got to me, however, was a relatively minor scene, one that wouldn't have gotten any press coverage during the course of the events. One of the Laramie interviewers spoke with a Baptist preacher to whose congregation the girlfriend of one of the accused belonged. The preacher refused to go into detail, saying that he was too closely involved with the case. He did say something to this effect, however: "I hope that while he was tied up there for those 18 hours, he had the opportunity to reflect on his lifestyle..."

I can't recount the words exactly, because that part of the play almost made me lose it emotionally. I couldn't take it. It's too much for one small brain to apprehend, that that kind of thinking exists in the world. How much harder, then, to think that kind of thinking is what reelected Bush last year, what shot down those marriage bills last year, what continues to deny humans human rights each and every year? That preacher was speaking for such a large part of society. That hate was and is a doctrine to which so many people subscribe. And our society calls ones in the past primitive, underdeveloped, immoral? What are we that this kind of thing still exists among us?

My parents are good people, I believe that. But they believe that homosexuality is wrong, that it's a chosen lifestyle that is perverted and sinful. I listened to that actor reciting the preacher's words, and I wonder if my parents would share those sentiments. I fear that my parents would share those sentiments. I fear that if my parents share those sentiments, I can't reconcile them to even my very liberal understanding of what a good person is. I fear that because I continue living while my parents share those sentiments without doing what I can to show them how culture and personal prejudice have made them live (because they think they're supposed to) ruled by hate instead of by love and respect, I fear that I can't reconcile myself to my very liberal definition of what a good person is. And how can you live with yourself if you don't think you're a good person?

My reaction to the Matthew Shepard incident, I realise, comes a good seven years late. When this happened, I was 17 and deliberately ignored issues dealing with... I deliberately ignored all issues, self-absorbed and self-pitying creature I was. Understanding that the world is bigger than you has its pluses and its minuses. The minuses hurt. Realising for the umpteenth time that there is so much hate out there hurts like hell. But pain's a good thing sometimes. Biological pain, the literal kind, is a good and necessary thing because it warns you of danger and harm; emotional pain, the figurative kind, is similarly useful. It's just trickier in the latter instance to take that decisive action and avoid the harm. But, at some point, it becomes necessary.

One more thing. I say it all the time, but I never tire of saying it: I don't know what I'd do without my friends. I couldn't have gotten through college on the emotional level without Colin and Geoff and Dr. Z's support. And while those three, I believe, prepared me emotionally to deal with whatever life can throw at me (seriously, thanks guys), I'm immensely lucky to have Liz and Irene, with whom I can laugh and cry and share. On the religious level, I'm hardly sure what I believe in anymore. I consider myself a humanist, but I'm not sure I'm a radical humanist who doesn't believe in a higher power. Dialogues go on in my head that make the idea of a higher power convenient, if not practical, even if that higher power is just the idea of the human race as a whole. I wouldn't consider these dialogues prayer, at least not in the traditional sense. But higher power, human race, God, however you want to think of him/her/it, I might just as well say it here in my blog as I do in my head: thank you that I have friends who love and accept me, that I get to spend my life doing what I love, and that I'm alive to write here about it. With so many horrible things and people full of hate in the world, thank you that there are still good people in it too.

2005-03-23T19:31:00.000-05:00

Irony, Dammit

You know, just cos I'm going to spend the rest of my life teaching English doesn't mean I need practical examples of irony slapping me in the face.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I make sure to dress nicely because I meet this person I have a huge intellectual crush on (yes, I am aware of this irony, changing the physical because I'm entranced by the intellectual; don't judge me :-). On Wednesdays, however, I'm always slobby because I spend five hours on the tenth floor of the Library working, and I like being comfortable. Old jeans, long-sleeve tee with horizontal-striped polo over it (again, don't judge me), and hair sans product.

After work this afternoon, instead of coming straight home, I attended a talk given by a guest lecturer, and guess whos there? Yep, you guessed it. And what's more, I get to spend an enjoyable bit of time talking with my intellectual crush at the reception after. All the while looking like hell. It's just not fair :-(

Ah well. Oooh, well there is something interesting happening later this week that'll make up for it. Irene and I are going to a production of The Laramie Project on Friday evening. Will need to order some extra Kleenex.

2005-03-21T23:22:00.000-05:00

Spring Break's Over

Sing this to the tune of "Seasons in the Sun."

Goodbye Spring Break, it's at an end,
I enjoyed waking up at five to ten;
Enjoyed watching much tv,
Not a single class for me,
Oh how delightful being free...

Goodbye Spring Break, it's back to class,
It's time to get up off my ass,
Time to read and write and think,
It's all starting to stink,
Help me, please, I need a drink...

I had joy, I had fun,
(Though there wasn't that much sun)
Six more weeks till it's May
And my three-month holiday.

2005-03-20T18:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a Post, Already!

I know I've been delinquent about blogging, and my public (all five of you) is clamoring for me to post more often. As a man of the people, I must oblige. I'll run down the past few days in point form.

Most annoying thing to happen this week: Joining Itunes, buying two songs at 99 cents apiece, and realising that they're not mp3s but m4ps, meaning that they can't work on my mp3 player unless I first use Itunes to burn a music cd and then rip the tracks as mp3s off that cd. Thumbs down to Itunes unless you've got an Ipod (which I don't). Also, Itunes doesn't have an mp3 of the themesong to the UK version of Queer as Folk, which I'm dying to get. I may have to give in and by the whole album.

Thing I am most ashamed of this week: one of those two songs was Britney Spears' "Toxic." The other, infinitely more respectable, is the tremendously catchy "Woo Hoo" by the 5,6,7,8's (one of the songs they sang in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and which is in heavy rotation on TV commercials now).

Funniest sentence I heard this week: "Goats are so random."--Colette

Overrated experience of the week: eating at the Flying Biscuit, the famous Atlanta restaurant owned by the Indigo Girls. While the biscuits themselves definitely were delish, the food (I had a roast corn casserole with veggies) wasn't all that, for me at least. But the company--Liz, Irene, Erin--was good.

Coolest thing to happen this week: friends and I got tickets to the U2 concert in November. The seats are horrible, but we actually have tickets! They sold out on that first night, I think.

Scariest thing I saw this week: a woman who very possibly weighs as much as I do, sporting almost as much facial hair as I do, wearing a skirt with a slit that went all the way up to her waist, with tight short shorts underneath. I was kinda wondering if her skirt had actually come undone and was falling off unbeknownst to her, but Colette assured me that, unfortunate as it was, that was the style and the look was intended. Now, as a big person myself, I completely understand that big people like to feel a little cute sometimes, but come on! No one needed to see that!

Look-at-where-my-life-has-taken-me moment of the week: sitting companionably at the coffeeshop with Irene on Thursday evening, each with computer out and working on papers, sipping coffee and chatting intermittently. One of those calm, enjoyable, understated times when everything seems right in the world.

Conflict of the week: unable to decide how I feel about the whole Schiavo deal. On the one hand, if she's brain dead and has no chance of recovery, it's ludicrous to continue prolonging life artificially. If this were a case of a braindead someone who needed breathing apparati or heart pumping doohickeys to continue living, it wouldn't bother me if they disconnected the machines because in that case, the person would die before very long. In Schiavo's case, she's completely fine except for the fact that she's brain dead, and she'll continue to live as long as she has the feeding tube. Now that they've removed the feeding tube, she can linger on for a couple weeks before dying. I suppose I'm still on the side that says it's ridiculous to continue prolonging life in a situation like this, but it just freaks me out like crazy that not prolonging life equals a long, lingering death.

And-this-is-why-regular-people-have-self-esteem-problems issue of the week: Cheryl Ankrah, Miss Trinidad and Tobago for the upcoming Miss Universe pageant, was dethroned in December of last year. She sued the pageant company, and the course came up this week. It turns out that part of the reason she was dethroned was that she hadn't been watching her weight and wasn't in shape to place well in the pageant (you'll remember a similar situation a few years ago Alicia Machado, then Miss Universe, was threatened by Trump and Co. that she'd lose her title unless she stopped gaining weight). So there's a precedent. In that Machado case, she had actually gained quite a bit (personally, I thought she looked even better as a larger woman). But let me present to you a picture of Cheryl Ankrah, who's allegedly not in good enough shape to be Miss T&T:

She's a cow, isn't she? Look at those spare tires, that double chin, those flabby arms. Give me a break! If society's definition of beauty is such that this woman's body isn't good enough, what does that leave for the rest of us who actually are dealing with weight issues? This reminds me of an episode of Daria in which Quinn and Daria (Quinn's the beautiful younger sister, Daria the older nerdy sister, in case you didn't watch the show) go in to a plastic surgeon, who tells Quinn that she can be made beautiful for $6000. She then tells Daria it'll take $20,000 to make her look like Quinn. Jane, Daria's friend, sums up the absurdity of the whole situation: "Why would you want to look like that loser? She needs $6000 worth of surgery."

Ok, those are all the things I can think about writing for now. More to come soon.

2005-03-16T21:05:00.000-05:00

Spring Break

Ah, here I sit on a lounge chair on a beach in Acapulco, sipping a strawberry daiquiri and ogling beautiful, skimpily dressed people emerging from the water...

And then I wake up.

Spring break my arse. After my weekend of doing nothing, I started on Monday finsihing research for my Tamburlaine project, and now I've got everything planned, it's time to write. That's tomorrow's enterprise (or, at least, I hope to get it off the ground tomorrow). I've been a good boy, doing work, getting reading done, getting ready to write, but I'm still nowhere close to getting as much as I want done, dammit. The best-case scenario now looks like I'll have one seminar paper done by the end of the break, maybe. I was hoping to have two done. April's gonna be hell.

In the continuing saga that is my coiffure, there've been some interesting developments. The dye has indeed started to fade, but not fade to blue. It's fading to olive green (who'da thunk--that was one of my other choices). Given that it's faded this much in just a couple days, I'm thinking it's not going to be long until I have bleached highlights. Not good. I'm interested to see what the stylist will say on Sunday when I return for this to be fixed.

I'm becoming one of those bloggers who do nothing but bitch, rant, and moan, aren't I?

2005-03-13T15:36:00.000-05:00

Dye Another Day

Irene got me this morning, and we headed to downtown Decatur. At the salon, colourist MaryAnn introduces herself and sets me down on a chair. The bleaching/foiling process begins, takes about 20 minutes, and then another 20 under the dryer. The foils come off, and I have nice big chunks of white hair in between the black. Sweet. First step done.

By this time, Irene's in the chair with her stylist, and about 7 inches comes off to create a nice, punky, funky, short razor cut that's just gorgeous on her. Definite two thumbs up.

Now it's time to put the colour in mine. After talking it over with MaryAnn at the beginning, I decided finally to go with the navy blue, she saying that it'll go great with my complexion (also, while olive green is my favourite colour, and while a bunch of you recommended it, she cautioned that when it fades in a few weeks, the faded colour won't be too spectacular). She mixes up a beautiful blue with purpley undertones and tests it on some similarly white hair, and the result is exactly what I want. So the colour goes on my hair, and another twenty minutes pass.

Then it's time to wash it out and see the result. Out it comes, my hair gets dried off, and it's... it's... it's exactly what I had when I started off this morning. Talk about disappointment. Talk about being crestfallen. Apparently, the blue took to my hair so well that it just went black. The highlights are indistinguishable from my real colour.

MaryAnn was very sweet about it, however, and gave me options. We're gonna wait and see if a week's worth of heavy shampooing will get it to where I want it to be, and if not, I'm to go back in next weekend and she'll do the whole thing over again with a lighter shade of blue. She refused to take any money for the colouring, even though I insisted, and that made me feel tremendously guilty. Guilty and disappointed in one morning's not a lot of fun.

But I did get a nice haircut, so I'm not feeling too bad. And, in the worst case scenario, it'll just be another week before I have the highlights I want. And Irene and I had a nice lunch in Little Five Points, Atlanta's answer to Bohemia, so it still turned out to be a fun day. It just sucks having to defer gratification on something I was so excited about, y'know?

2005-03-11T23:50:00.000-05:00

Help me with a Decision

Spring Break's here! It's been a good week at school: got two seminar presentations out of the way, got good grades on French midterm and my first Renaissance Drama paper, and had good classes all round. Past couple days have been high on the entertainment end, four of us going to trivia yesterday and WINNING! Just four of us--Sarah, Matt, John, and I--and we still won. We rock!

While at trivia, Liz (who had a late Gaelic class) called me to say that Blockbuster got in copies of Stage Beauty, the movie I've been singing the praises of since seeing it last year (look in my archives somewhere for the review, Octoberish I think). Irene, however, who also wants to see the movie, couldn't make it to Liz's, so I'm going to have to watch it with her yet again at some point this week.

This afternoon, after work, I met with Irene in the lounge, then we headed over to the coffeehouse to chat with Erin and Liz for a bit, and then to the farmer's market for a bit of grocerying, then decided that we wanted to see a movie. So we called Liz, she met us there, and we three were definitely the only adults unaccompanied by screaming children to buy tickets to Robots. Greeeeeeaaaat movie, very well made, kinda cliche and not very imaginative (it was pastiche of Monsters, Inc and A Bug's Life), but still funny as heck and endearing. Two thumbs up.

Now on to the subject of this post. I need help (no, not psychiatric... well, yes, psychiatric, but that's not what I'm talking about right now). Irene and I have finally rescheduled our hair appointments, and she's going to get her dramatic cut and I my highlights on Sunday morning. However, the more I think about it, the more I can't decide on a final color. So I'll put it to you guys. Help me decide between three colours (the shades I'll use will probably be darker than the swatches below; I just need an idea of which general colour to choose). I include a bit of my hair and complexion in the graphic to give some context; your choices are deep burgundy/fuchsia, rich olive green/brown, and dark navy blue.

2005-03-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

Movies, Movies, Movies

Here's a fun meme. As I mention below, this is to get you delinquent bloggers blogging again, so I'm applying chain letter rules to this post: If anyone reads this meme and then doesn't do it on her/his own blog, she/he'll have seven years of bad luck, ill fortune in love, pestilence and plague, and all manner of such unpleasant things. Or, even worse, maybe their pizza'll be delivered ten minutes late. This is powerful stuff, folks. Don't mess with it; do the meme.

I saw this done on someone else's blog ages ago, though whose I don't remember. You take the top 100 movies as rated by visitors to IMDB.com and BOLD the names of those you've already seen. This is a good way, it seems to me, to scold people who haven't seen movies you really really like (is there anyone out there who hasn't seen The Godfather? ) or ask opinions on ones you still want to see. Enjoy!

1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
4. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
5. Shichinin no samurai (1954)
6. Casablanca (1942)
7. Schindler's List (1993)
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
9. Citizen Kane (1941)
10. Star Wars (1977)
11. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
12. Pulp Fiction (1994)
13. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
14. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
15. Rear Window (1954)
16. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
17. The Usual Suspects (1995)
18. Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)
19. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
20. Cidade de Deus (2002)
21. 12 Angry Men (1957)
22. Memento (2000)
23. Psycho (1960)
24. North by Northwest (1959)
25. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
26. Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
27. C'era una volta il West (1968)
28. Goodfellas (1990)
29. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
30. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
31. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
32. American Beauty (1999)
33. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
34. The Matrix (1999)
35. Apocalypse Now (1979)
36. Fight Club (1999)
37. Paths of Glory (1957)
38. Vertigo (1958)
39. The Third Man (1949)
40. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
41. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
42. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
43. Double Indemnity (1944)
44. Boot, Das (1981)
45. Taxi Driver (1976)
46. M (1931)
47. The Pianist (2002)
48. Rashômon (1950)
49. Se7en (1995)
50. All About Eve (1950)
51. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
52. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
53. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
54. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
55. Chinatown (1974)
56. Some Like It Hot (1959)
57. L.A. Confidential (1997)
58. Léon (1994)
59. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
60. Alien (1979)
61. American History X (1998)
62. Modern Times (1936)
63. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
64. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
65. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
66. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
67. The Sting (1973)
68. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
69. On the Waterfront (1954)
70. Raging Bull (1980)
71. Ran (1985)
72. Vita è bella, La (1997)
73. Touch of Evil (1958)
74. Amadeus (1984)
75. The Great Escape (1963)
76. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
77. City Lights (1931)
78. The Apartment (1960)
79. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
80. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
81. Metropolis (1927)
82. The Shining (1980)
83. Jaws (1975)
84. High Noon (1952)
85. Aliens (1986)
86. Finding Nemo (2003)
87. Annie Hall (1977)
88. Braveheart (1995)
89. Wo hu cang long (2000)
90. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
91. Fargo (1996)
92. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
93. Yojimbo (1961)
94. Strangers on a Train (1951)
95. Blade Runner (1982)
96. Oldboy (2003)
97. Donnie Darko (2001)
98. The Incredibles (2004)
99. The Sixth Sense (1999)
100. Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)

Damn, that's pathetic. So many terrific movies that I've not seen. Ok, youse guys' turn now.

2005-03-09T21:02:00.000-05:00

Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!

Just when Project Runway, the only tv show I watched current episodes of weekly, finishes on Bravo and I can reclaim Wednesday nights, having no more television commitments, I go and stupidly tune in to an episode of the new America's Next Top Model. Now I'm committed to a Wednesday-night TV show for at least twelve weeks. Dammit!

In other news, yesterday was a good day for classes. Got an A on French midterm (as did Liz and Jenni; English students rock!), and both of my seminar presentations went well. Everyone in Victorian Novel seemed to like my reading of Little Dorrit, and my and Liz's presentation in Renaissance Drama drew everyone into a great discussion. Better yet, our professor wrote an email to us today and said we did a great job and worked well as a team. The best part about the whole thing, however, is that I'm through with seminar presentations for the semester and that, after my Chaucer class tomorrow, Spring Break will be here. Woo! If I can get as much work done over Spring Break as I hope, April will hopefully be a lot less hectic and stressful than this semester has been thus far.

To my blogging friends, I needs scold you. You guys hardly post anymore! I know life's hectic and that blogging's the last thing you think about, but I miss you guys! If I can't see you in real life, I wanna see your words (This goes out to Margaret Cho as well, who's not a friend in real life, just in my fantasies: I miss reading her blog posts too, dammit).

Well, to get the ball rolling again, I'm going to find one of those meme things and do it (how, you may well ask, do I have all this idle time tonight? After the brutal weekend and yesterday's even more brutal serving of courses, I scheduled a mental-health no-work day for today, plus I was feeling slightly flu-y this morning). Now I'm going to apply chain letter philosophy to this meme. Teehee. That should do it. See next post (well, above post, given the way these things work) for more detail.

2005-03-08T02:44:00.000-05:00

Aaaack!

Two seminar presentations tomorrow... today, I should say. Spent all weekend, more or less, reading and writing. Now two seminar presentations. Five hours of sleep first. Sleep good. Me like sleep.

2005-03-04T01:14:00.000-05:00

Pyschologically Disturbing

So after winning second place at Trivia this evening, John, Liz, and I decide that we want an excuse to procrastinate away the rest of the evening so that we wouldn't be tempted to do work. We decided to check out something at Blockbuster.

Our two finalists: Deep Water, and Supersize Me. Having seen Deep Water with Colin and Colette last year, I recommend it highly, saying that I'd love to see it again and that it's psychologically disturbing. But we end up doing a coin toss, and Supersize Me won.

Oh. My. God. Want to talk about psychologically disturbing? I may not ever be able to touch food again. For the love of things deep fried, that movie did a number on my head. Geez!

Ok, time to go to bed. The people in the apartment above me are either tapdancing or giving their bedpost a workout. Wonder how long they'll go.