This academic article discusses the idea of free indirect discourse - granting the author the power of "omniscient powers of observation". The main character becomes transparent then and the author can enter the minds of other characters, as in "To Build A Fire" where Jack London tells the reader of the thought processes going on inside the mind of the man's doggy companion.
The main differences between this article and the one by Askin about Flannery O'Connor are:
1) The London article is considerably more.. high brow? I read a few pages and realized I had no idea what was going on and had to start over and try reading it again. I still don't really *get* it. The article on O'Connor is more accessible for the... lay-reader.
2) The London article is considerably longer than the O'Connor piece and focuses solely on one specific work: Jack London's "The Call of the Wild." The O'Connor piece touches upon several works by O'Connor and is much more generalized.
3) Although I initially thought that the London piece listed no sources at the end, I realize that the sources are foot-noted. Still, it seems that the O'Connor article has a lot more sources than the London piece.
4) The London article has a lot more psychology mumbojumbo (if you will) than the O'Connor piece. It is much more specific in itself psychological treatment of the text. The O'Connor piece touches more upon the psychology of the author and in a much more accessible manner.
NOTE: I just noticed something weird. On the page describing this assignment the article listed is "Jack London's Enduring Appeal" by Eric Miles Williamson. The article linked on EBSCOhost, however, is the monstrous "Psychoanalyzing the Narrative Logics of Naturalism: The Call of the Wild" by Donald E. Pease. Am I missing something here???
In Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers," the portrayal of women's treatment of each other is different although equally, I feel, accurate. In "A Jury of Her Peers" the women are older. They are married to men who believe their place is in the kitchen and that the ideas of women are but silly insignificant trifles.
Much is communicated between the women by the glances they give each other, ideas that are communicated that the men just don't pick up on. Mrs. Hale keeps remembering Mrs. Wright as young Minnie Foster and feels guilty about not coming to visit her. She knew that Minnie wasn't living a happy life but found it very easy to get caught up in her own life and forgot about Minnie. Until now.
It's funny that the women are able to piece together the truth of the night in question because the clues exist in the kitchen and the sewing room, both areas that are the woman's domain. To the men, the kitchen being messy is just a sign of a bad housewive. To the women, to Mrs. Hale especially, the messy kitchen says a lot. They are able to piece together the events cumulating with the main clue [ and again, i won't ruin the ending if you haven't read it ].
When the county attorney says, "It's all perfectly clear, except the reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing - something to show. Something to make a story about. A thing that would connect up with this clumsy way of doing it," the two women look at each other, unsure of how to proceed, trying to judge each other's reaction.
Finally in a spring of action, the decision is made and the jury has reached its verdict.
Unlike BBHH, the women in this story show more solidarity with each other. The two women make the decision they do because they know how Minnie must have felt - they understand her pain because they deal with the same problems every day. They are not competitive with each other because each has already gotten her man and is set in her way of life - they feel Minnie's pain because Minnie's fate could have just as easily been their own.
Again, I feel this is true to life. Young women are frequently competitive with each other, practically cutthroat. However, I notice that as women grow older, there is less of a tendency to act this way - perhaps because they realize the pointlessness of it or perhaps they turn their anger in other directions. In either case, the older a woman gets, the more likely she is to feel the plight of another woman's pain.
What I found most interesting about Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" & Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is the different way that each portrays women's treatment of each other.
In BBHH, Marjorie is disdainful of Bernice for being awkward around men despite her beauty. Marjorie says, "No girl can permanently bolster up a lame-duck visitor, because these days it's every girl for herself."
I feel that Fitzgerald portrays young women accurately. Women are still trained to be competitive about men and about their beauty. It is not unusual for one young woman to *steal* another woman's boyfriend. When all that a woman has to bolster her self-esteem is her physical beauty and the attention she receives from men, it becomes natural for her to be competitive.
Marjorie gets angry at Bernice for quoting "Little Women" saying that the book is out of style and "What modern girl could live like those inane females?" [I haven't read "Little Women" so I'm curious if this statement is really as ironic as it seems to be to me?] Marjorie continues, "Besides, our mothers were all very well in their way, but they know very little about their daughters' problems."
What teenager doesn't think that about her mother?? The case is probably more so in this story due to the cultural changes taking place, but I think the idea of a teenage girl thinking her mother is the most dreadful bore is a pretty common concept even today. Earlier, when Marjorie had her conversation with her mother, we can see that her mother thinks Marjorie is being ridiculous. To Marjorie, however, the idea of her lame-duck cousin is practically life and death.
What's interesting, I think, is that for Marjorie and many young women of her ilk, social interactions with men becomes a game. A man won't cut in unless he knows other men will cut in. So it becomes necessary for a woman to tolerate dullards just in the hopes that a more appealing man will choose to dance with her. Marjorie pours through her books in order to think of witty things to say each night. She never lets down her guard to have a really good time because she is so busy analyzing and planning her next move.
Towards the end of the story, when Marjorie perceives that Bernice has stolen Warren's affections, even though Marjorie had no real interest in Warren herself, she decides to attack. Poor Bernice never even sees it coming. She doesn't stand a chance against Marjorie because where Bernice is genuine and trying desperately to fit into Marjorie's world, Marjorie is still the queen bee: she who has the power to grant popularity also has the power to take it away.
Hmm.. I'm sensing a trend with Literary Tease of late: it's high on the Literary and low on the Tease. I fear this may be a continuing trend over the next few months considering that I am taking three lit classes, two with Dr. Jerz and we all know what that means (lots of blogging!). I also have an upper level history class and Spanish 2. I don't think I'm going to have much time for anything but schoolwork this semester. Blah!
On the plus side, I'm going to England over the summer, probably in June - August. So I think that all this school work now is going to make me appreciate all my free time over the summer (I'm planning on not working from May - August, if I can swing it.). Then, when I come back from Europe, I'll have tonnes to write about and hopefully an easier semester than this 15 credit (actually 18 but we won't go there) madness.
If you aren't in EL 150 this term, then you may not have heard of the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. We're reading it for class but I'm finding to be a great book that I think would be useful to any English major.
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I enjoyed the small section on rainbows. I've always enjoyed rainbows and have, in fact, a rather bizarre habit of "rainbow-hunting" in the summertime. On a warm spring or summer day, when the sun is shining and it starts raining, I hop in my car and start driving around, hoping to see a rainbow.
What's wild about rainbows is how beautiful they are and also how rare. I mean, conditions have to be just right in order to see one. I know that in my life rainbows represent spirituality and I always take seeing one as a sign that everything is going to be alright. What I never really thought about was that rainbows in literature pretty much mean exactly the same thing! Cool!
I also like the section discussing seasons. Each season has its one specific connotations in literature - like winter being bitterly cold and depressing and spring representing rebirth. I like that Foster suggests seasons are an easy way for a writer to create irony:
"In fact, our responses are so deeply ingrained that seasonal associations are among the easiest for the writer to upend and use ironically."
Seasons are something that we don't really think much about except, perhaps, when we complain about the seeming unending winters of southwestern Pennsylvania. Seasons, however, are common to all of us and can be easily incorporated in our writing. Nice.
It is really easy as a human being to get lost in the belief that we are above nature, what with our climate-controlled living environments and fancy schmancy objects like solar panels and flashlights that never die. We forget, easily I think, the fact that like it or nature, nature could easily kick our asses. We walk outside, shiver and think, brrrr it's cold, when in fact, most of us don't know anything about the cold.
Jack London, however, is not willing to let us be so easily deluded. The man in the story "To Build A Fire" is really cold - his spit freezes on his face (gross!) and taking his mittens off for even a moment results in stiff fingers. From the very beginning of the story, you know dude is in for a bad time for several reasons:
A) it's really freakin' cold
B) he keeps emphasizing that fact that he has to meet the boys at 6
&
C) London tells us that the man doesn't have much of an imagination. Uh oh. This is man vs. nature at its finest.
( I am choosing not to think about what would happen in the story were the protagonist a woman instead of a man... ;c)
Valerie makes an excellent point when she writes,
"He uses such great detail to describe the situation of the man without an imagination. I can almost feel the cold (then again, I might really be cold, considering my dad refuses to let us turn the heater up), or taste the biscuits that the man has for lunch (mmm, bacon). There's also a lot of repetition (how many times are we told that he must get to the boys by six?).
Towards the end of the story, the man finally finds his imagination, wondering "if Mercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth," or picturing himself with the boys, finding his frozen body in the snow. He dies shortly afterwards."
Although the line about Mercury stood out to me, I didn't really think about why. Go, Valerie, for making this excellent point.
Valerie wonders, as do I, about the symbolism of the dog. Here's what I think:
Generally, dogs are represented as "man's best friend." Dogs are happy loyal creatures whose joy in life is chilling with master. Just as we never really think about the danger nature can pose to our person, we don't really think of our animal pals as "animals" as in "wild creatures who will do what is necessary to survive." The dog knew it was too damn cold to be traipsing through the woods. Dog wanted to stay back at the fire where the men would feed it scraps and keep it warm. This, of course, proves that dogs are smarter than us.
The scene where the man actually considering dragging a knife through the dog's stomach and fantasizes about the warmth within shows that not only are animals "wild creatures who will do what is necessary to survive" so are humans. Maybe having the dog in the story is to somehow illuminate the animal-instincts shown by the man at the end of the story? Just an idea...
I decided to get together some links about "close reading" as a benefit to all my fellow English majors out there, especially those new to the field and scared as heck. The concept of close reading is initially kind of confusing, but after a whole semester last semester of close reading, it's become a little easier for me. Some links to pages explaining the concept:
Close reading can be seen as four separate levels of attention which we can bring to the text. Most normal people read without being aware of them, and employ all four simultaneously. The four levels or types of reading become progressively more complex.Linguistic - You pay especially close attention to the surface linguistic elements of the text - that is, to aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. You might also note such things as figures of speech or any other features which contribute to the writer's individual style.
Semantic - You take account at a deeper level of what the words mean - that is, what information they yield up, what meanings they denote and connote.
Structural - You note the possible relationships between words within the text - and this might include items from either the linguistic or semantic types of reading.
Cultural - You note the relationship of any elements of the text to things outside it. These might be other pieces of writing by the same author, or other writings of the same type by different writers. They might be items of social or cultural history, or even other academic disciplines which might seem relevant, such as philosophy or psychology.
- This is a site I consulted last semester and it really came in handy.
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Read with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text."Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases--anything that strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions--as well as making notes in the margins. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence--the first step in moving from reader to writer.
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Diction, with its emphasis on words, provides the crux of the explication. Mark all verbs in the passage, mark or list all nouns, all adjectives, all adverbs etc. At this point it is advisable that you type out the passage on a separate sheet to differentiate each grammatical type. Examine each grouping.Look up as many words as you can in a good dictionary, even if you think that you know the meaning of the word. The dictionary will illuminate new connotations and new denotations of a word. Look at all the meanings of the key words.
Look up the etymology of the words. How have they changed? The words will begin to take on multistable meanings. Be careful to always check back to the text, keeping meaning contextually sound.
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This Close Reading of a Literary Passage includes a walk-thru of a sample close reading if you are still feeling overwhelmed.
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And, finally, Getting An A on an English Paper may boost your confidence. Check out the section on Writing A Thesis Statement.
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And speaking of thesis statements, last semester was the first semester I ever had to write one. And so I had NO IDEA what the heck a thesis statement was supposed to be. A professor gave our class this handy little thesis maker which I now share with you:
"While an initial reading of the text [ insert title here] may lead one to suspect _______________, a closer reader reveals that ________________."
I found it quite useful and still use it. Good luck!
I really enjoyed reading Elmer L. Rice's "The Adding Machine." I admit to feeling skeptical about the idea of reading a play. I thought it would prove to be distracting or annoying. Instead, I quite enjoyed it.
The play is about a man named Zero who spends 25 years of his life working for the same company at the same job. On the day of his 25th anniversary he expects to be given a pay raise and possibly a promotion. Imagine his distress when he gets fired instead, replaced by a new fangled adding machine.
I won't ruin the story for those of you who haven't read it, but I will say that I enjoyed the deeper significance of the story. For my paper, I am somewhat analyzing the cultural values at the time compared with what is going on in the play. I found an interesting connection between this play and the steel industry and I'm hoping to use that in my paper.
The thing I found strangest about Askin's article, article on Flannery O'Connor was probably the repeated mention of humor. Now, I don't know about you but a whole family being shot and killed by an escaped convict is, well, not my idea of comedy. [Vanessa agrees!].
I did find the part where the grandmother let the cat out of the bag to be particularly amusing, mostly because I have cats myself and they aren't very friendly when placed in moving vehicles. Also, the idea of the grandmother inspiring the kids to start screaming to visit the mansion on the dirt road is pretty silly. But, all in all? I'd say Ms. O'Connor works are just not funny!
I suppose, however, if I were able to look at life from her perspective - as a hardcore Catholic woman in the deep south - I might find more humor in such a horrid situation. Askin suggests that the contrast between humor and divinity is what O'Connor was shooting for in her works - meaning that by making "sinful" situations into humorous ones, the contrast between that and Christ-like actions would be more pronounced. In doing so, O'Connor is "unmasking the mock state of virtue."
So the comedy lies mostly in the fact that the grandmother is acting like such a virtuous and wonderful woman and meanwhile uses the children as a weapon at her disposal, brings along her cat despite Bailey's disapproval of the act, and tries to convince herself that she is a noble and upright citizen and that the Misfit couldn't possibly shoot a lady such as herself. And I guess if you look at it that way, it is funny. And so if everything else tragic in the world. Ah well...
I really enjoyed this week's reading of How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster.
I love the concept of intertextuality. It's something that I've thought about before but never had a word to tie it all together. Intertextuality is the way to describe how different pieces of literature all seem to fit together forming an initally unsuspected whole. I like how Foster mentions Shakespeare as being a primary source of intertextuality especially the line "All right, so the Bard is always with us."
Foster makes the point that all of us, when we read a new piece of literature, want the reading to be simultaneously familiar to all those things we have read before and unique offering a new perspective so that we aren't bored. So when a writer using a familiar story (such as those by Shakespeare, about Jesus, or common fairytale) it is almost as if s/he is using a familiar skeleton and creating from the bones a new creature.
The chord of familiarity striken by the skeleton eases up the pressure on the reader to analyze and makes the story comfortable. The new flesh coating (if you will.. ick!) breathes fresh air into the story and we aren't bored by the same old same old and still not completely terrified by a new concept.
This is probably why experimental fiction has such a hard time getting off the ground - people don't like changes. Using an old story to make a new one is okay. Making a complete new story by inventing a new format, apparently, is not.
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor is definitely a weird one. Flannery O'Connor has written a lot of strange stuff. Over the summer I read the book of the same title and most of the stories left me with a distinct "Huh?!" feeling, like the one where the little boy falls in the river and drowns the end. (Can't remember the title "The River").
As I was re-reading the story, this time around, I notice something that I found kind of weird - a lot of details that I would consider insignicant (like Bailey's parrot print shirt, the violets pinned to Grandma's hat, the silver shoes worn by one of the assailants) that somehow add up to create a whole.
This story has a strange sense of poetic justice to it - Grandma spends the trip irritating the heck out of everyone, insists upon taking a dirt road to see a house she remembers from back in the day by using the annoying children as a weapon at her disposal and then she dies at the hands of a loosed criminal. Both of the children are horrid little beasts and one finds oneself almost relieved when they stop complaining. Both Bailey and his wife pointedly ignore grandmother and the children and they get theirs as well.
I'm not saying, of course, that I think all annoying children be executed (lord think of the benefits to overpopulation tho!) or that all old people are breathtakingly annoying (nor, I think, is Flannery O'Connor)... just that in this story, it seems a weird circular string of events. The story starts with Grandmother complaining about the dangers of Misfit and ends with Grandmother dying at the hands of Misfit.
Hey! I've been hearing a lot about knitting lately and I have a fabulous idea: let's start a SHU knitting group! We can give ourselves some kind of fancyschmancy name, meet in the lounges to knit, and I can use my silkscreen kit to design us t-shirts or something. Anyone down??
Crafty Day IV - Your Official Invite
(Attention especially to: Amanda, Karissa, Vanessa, & Neha... plus any other crafty ladies I may have forgotten to mention here!)
....
Calling All Crafty Bitches!
Guess what!?! It's that time of the year again. You know the one - where it gets all cold and shit outside and the loud cries of the football fans are drowning out your thoughts. The holidaze have passed, thank goddess, and now you are left with the holiday weight and the rotting holiday leftovers still taking up their place in your fridge.
By now, you've returned the presents you didn't like and used up the dollars on your gift cards and all you really have to look forward to is another stinkin' Valentine's day when he (or she!) doesn't give you what you want anyway.
Or if you don't have a Valentine, and you're like me and creeping up on thirty slowly but surely and your mom's starting to get desperate for grandkids and starts dropping hints like hand grenades and you're thinking yeah mom shut the hell up, you don't really have anything to look forward to except Easter.
And if you happen to not be a Christian, and in fact are something more like Zen Buddhist Pagan Atheist, then you don't have anything to look forward to until 420, and everyone knows that's a stupid made-up holiday anyway.
So. In an effort to halt the madness, I now announce to you:
CRAFTY DAY IV
that's right, bitches. it's time to get crafty.
when: saturday february 5th @ 7 p.m.
where: moira's crib in downtown greensburg
who: you and your crafty friends
RSVP by Monday January 31st
I will be preparing beautiful invitations as well as a project list. Leave me a comment or send me an email to junkijunky [at] yahoo [dot] com with your mailing address.
Project List:
Valentine's Day Cards
Crafty Bitch t-shirts - bring a blank t-shirt & $5 to get in on the fun
Smut Stash boxes
Magnet Porn Artsy Pictures of Naked People
If you are interested, please let me know asap so I can plan accordingly.
EL 150 - Reading Assignment
"How to Read Literature Like a Professor" by Thomas Foster
I enjoyed the chapter discussing eating in literature as an act of communion. It makes a lot of sense: the idea that when a writer is writing about food in a short story or novel, s/he is actually speaking of something much more than just the acting of shoveling food inside one's face.
I don't know that this is always a conscious act on the part of the writer, but perhaps it is a way for the deeper subconscious to arise to the surface shimmering and splashing around so that the conscious mind starts paying attention to it.
I enjoyed this chapter because it brings to mind that almost everything in life have deeper connotations than initially meets the eye: a cigar is -never- just a cigar, I'm afraid. A smile is never just a smile, a smile with a twinkle in the eyes is a nice smile, a smile comprised of tight lips and beady eyes is not.
Also, Foster mentions a book I just finished reading last week called "Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant" by Anne Tyler. I wasn't really sure what I thought of the book, but the comments about the family dinner helped add a little perspective to the story (though, honestly, I still don't think I liked the book all that much).
I also like the notion that no piece of literature is ever totally original. I agree with this wholeheartedly - there are probably about, um, 7 stories in the world, but they are constantly ripped apart and put back together into new ways.
This is an experiment for the class EL 150. Feel free to ignore it.
Stitch N Bitch Linkage
This is a test
Well, if you have been sitting on the edge of your seat wondering if I was going to freak out in Spanish class today (as I know you all were), the answer is that no, no I did not freak out. In fact... I actually understood, maybe, 75% of what my profesora was saying. Sweet!
I did, however, steal some girl's seat and I could tell she was pissed off by the way that she growled at me, but you know what? This is college, yo, and we don't have assigned seats (except for that one literature class last semester but whatever). Yes, everyone seems to sit in the same seats day in and day out but, um, I didn't like my seat and I was the first person in class today so I took another seat.
I don't have anything particularly interesting to say, just trying to kill some time in between classes. I should have brought some knitting to keep me occupied but I'm afraid it's much to early in the day to bring out the sharp pointy objects.
Has anyone out there every had turkish delight?
It's one of my favorite types of "candy" if you will. It's rose-flavored gummy stuff, usually surrounded by sweet milk chocolate, but last month's adventure in New York City found me in a kosher grocery store that sold turkish delight, no chocolate, by the pound. Oh my goddess. It's heaven.
I'm thinking of it because I brought it in my car today because I'm going to see my mom after work and it's also her favorite candy. I promised to give her some before I ate it all. I figure it's been two months and I only ate half the box so it's time to share.
Anyway... someone should entertain me by giving me a cool website to visit while I am at work this afternoon (no sounds, ghetto computer). Lata.
Um, yeah, so I'm really weird. I just wrote a paper attempting to compare my modern day literature hero - Bridget Jones with an ex-favorite literary character Ms. Esther Greenwood of Slyvia Plath's The Bell Jar. The thing is: if I were really feeling spunkier, I could make this work!
Maybe tomorrow, after I reteach myself Spanish. Hola! Soy Moreno y baja! Quiero vamos a mi casa, por favor! Despiertate tus pantalones ahora.
My paper, in progress, edited for your webpleasure:
P.S. Suggestions welcome! Comments on how much you love Bridget Jones are also welcome! Comments dissing Bridget Jones en espanol are not.* Hah. (* You'd be wasting your time anyhow. No read-o espanoloney.)
"There are elements of the ridiculous about you..." Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones' Diary
“There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: ‘I’ll go take a hot bath.’.” - Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar
Attempting to choose the work of literature that has most significantly impacted my life is like attempting to examine the peculiarities of a single snowflake whilst standing in the midst of a terrible blizzard. The sheer ridiculousness of such an idea is monumental, tantamount perhaps to the end scene of my latest favorite movie where Bridget Jones runs down the street in just her underwear, a cardigan, and a pair of sneakers to catch up with Mark Darcy, the proverbial love of her life. Only, when I think of literature that has impacted my life most significantly, I think not of Bridget Jones of the diary fame, but of Esther Greenwood, protaganist of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
The similiarities between the two characters is one I had not considered before: both are young rather obscure (read: strange) women – one is chronically depressed, the other – chronically single. Both have problems with the gentlemen and both turn to outside influences for help – alcohol, spinster friends, hot baths, Chaka Khan, as the case may be. Each is beautiful but convinced that she isn’t; each has an overbearing mother and a strange ineptitude when it comes to social situations. (Strangely, both have rotten skiing experiences, which probably means absolutely nothing at all beyond the fact that it reinforces my belief that “cold sticky snow” and “going down hills really fast” do not mix.)
Should I mention the times that I have soaked in near boiling water, reddening my flesh, my white skin wrinkling as I read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar taking breaks from time to time to stare up at the ceiling just as Esther does in the hotel bathroom, studying the cracks and smudges and wondering just what it is about this book that makes me pull it off the bookshelf once or twice a year like clockwork to flip through its dog-eared pages.
I could describe the faded ragged look of the cover of a book that has been well-loved and well-read – spend a paragraph describing the way the cover is creased in places, missing a corner, bleached white at the top and the way that the spine is broken and etched with lines that want nothing more than to obscure the title.
I could psychoanalyze myself, pondering why it is if I love the book so well that I rarely seem to actually finish reading the story the whole way through – is it really because I know how it’s going to end or because I just can’t bear the thought of sweet Esther with electrodes taped to her head?
I could discuss how this well-worn copy of The Bell Jar, not even my first copy, has taken on a kind of dichotomy of its own: the first half the book bedraggled and water-marked, splotched with stains of coffee or wine, corners flipped to mark the places where the water got cold and I climbed out of the bathtub; the second half pristine, not a single fold past page 77 and the line, “Buddy put his hand on mine. “Let me fly with you” (Plath 77).
I could even mention how I’ve been reading the book over and over again since sometime in high school and how last time I read it, maybe six months ago, it just didn’t have the same … ompf that it did the last time around – Esther Greenwood just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
Does that mean that The Bell Jar is now crap somehow, irrelevant to the world at large? No. It just means that somehow, I’ve moved on.
Literature is composed of mileposts, markers designating the events of our lives. For me, Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar is a pretty good indicator of the person I once was: insecure, slightly crazy, chronically self-absorbed, and so damn depressed that the only thing that seemed good in the world was a nice hot bath. And, well, not much has changed. …
Only that’s not the case at all. Oh, I’m still all of the above and much more, but now I’m someone more like Bridget Jones – slightly scatterbrained, kinda ditzy, and generally happy. That’s the primary difference between my two favorite characters – one is happy most of the time, the other wouldn’t know happy if it hit her on the head with a splat.
Esther and I, we go way back. There will always be a special place in my heart for Ms. Greenwood, just as I will always love the Moira I once was. When I see my well-worn copy of The Bell Jar sitting on my book shelf, right near my bed, just in case, I will always smile because only Esther and I know just how far in my life I have come.
And I’m certain, that in the darkest months of the year, when the sun seems millions of miles away, summer a distant memory scented with garden herbs and steaming ghosts of hot asphalt rainstorms…
When the dank gray areas of my heart threaten to overtake the rest of my life, dirty soldiers digging their trenches, I will run a hot bath scented with drops of lavender and I will climb into the water, inch by inch, clutching in my hand one of my oldest friends, a symbol, now, of growth and rebirth.
Oh my god. I have never felt so intimidated in a class as I just did in my Spanish 2 class. From the moment the professor showed up, I knew I was in trouble. She was spewing Spanish like a champ greeting everyone out in the hallway and I whispered to one of my classmates, "Are we supposed to understand this?"
I was fine to introduce myself.
Me llamo es Moira.
I remember that much at least, but when Professor Doub went around the classroom asking "Como eres?" well I was stumped... mostly I was just terrified at the fact that not only am I taking a class at 9 a.m. which is terribly early to a girl who rarely crawls into bed before 2 a.m., but also that this class is in a FOREIGN LANGUAGE. Oh my god.
I felt tears building up behind my eyes as I tried frantically to recall my high school Spanish but all I could think about was Sra. V's mulletfromhell & how I used to sit in class reading a novel inside my spanish book. I mean, I got all A's but that was in high school which was approximately one million years ago.... actually 7 but still!
I managed to make it through class without bursting into tears, writing down all the words I didn't understand (there were TONNES) and making notes to myself about which vocabulary words I should review (like all the numbers, days of the weeks, months) and which chapters in the book I should review to get a refresher course (chapters 1 - 5).
I was also proud of myself because I went immediately to the instructor after class told her that high school was just a distant blur (in not so many words) and that I felt very intimated (that exact phrase). She's going to let me review some tests from Spanish 1 on Wednesday and I'm going to do some reviewing on my own between now and then.
And, of course, I came immediately to the computer lab where I could vent on my blog, hoping that at least one random reader would leave me a comment saying something like, "Buck up, superstar! It's okay that you are only fluent in one language! It's good for you to feel dumb sometimes, keeps you in your place." etc.
Plus, I must remind myself, I did learn 10 phrases in Swedish last week.
(Trevlig dag!)
And I have desire to learn on my side since I know that I'll be in Europe in the summer and Spain is definitely on the must-see list.
*shudders* Only two more classes to go today.
So. How are your classes?
Blah. Tonight was Stitch 'N Bitch at DV8. I missed it due to severely icky illness. I was sick last weekend, so sick that I was sitting on the floor in my bathroom crying over the injustice of it all. I wasn't sick enough on Monday to miss work (however unfortunate or not that might be) but I have been sick enough to have it severely limit my fun uptake as I upchuck. (Gross but true, I'm afraid).
I was feeling pretty cranky for a while but then my friend Kevin came over and I taught him how to knit. again. That was cool. Also we listened to a song by Julie Ruin called "You Make Me Want to Crochet." So although I didn't get to go to S-n-B, I did get the vibe. So I guess that's good. I'm so over being sick. Stupid winter. Stupid sniffly nose. Um... Stupid... well, you get the point.
On the plus side, my friend and I are planning our May roadtrip online. Greyhound offers a Discovery Pass which has prices for 7, 14, 21, etc days. So instead of just a trip to, say, Boston, I have 7 days of pure greyhound pleasure to go wherever the heck I want. So far it's looking like Boston for a week-ish in the middle of May right after finals and Atlanta for another weekish, maybe even somewhere in Oregon if I have time before I leave for England.
I've never been anywhere.
I mean, I was born in England so that's gotta get me some cool points, if I feel like working the European angle. But other than a brief one-day drinkfest in Tiajuana, I haven't left the country since my family moved here in 1984.
That's crazy!
I'm born to be a world traveler! When I was barely four years old, my parents picked up and moved to a brand-new country, with obnoxious little me and my 18-month old sister in tow. Surely there's a -little- of that independent traveler spirit left in me?
I should knit myself a special travelin' scarf or something. Anyway... as Bridget Jones would say, "Well, I'm off to bedfordshire!" ( I watch that movie entirely too often)
And thank my new learning Swedish kick for this one:
God natt! Trevlig dag! Lycklig resa. Talar du engelska?
You know, I'm not into sports.
Sweaty men in tight pants running around just doesn't do it for me... though now that I think about it.... *shakes head* well.
my point, if I had one, was that although I am not into sports, haven't voluntarily watched a sporting events since marching band circa 1996, have never been forced at gunpoint to watch a game, and therefore have not watched a game for a very long time.
It is impossible, however, even for a culturely inobservant folk such as myself, to avoid knowing how the Steelers are doing this season.
For a few weeks, it seemed like every Monday or so, some clueless person would ask me about the game to which I'd respond with a blank stare and perhaps some wisecrack remark about organized sports and my lack of interest thereof.
Soon, however, my friends took it upon themselves to keep me informed. Every weekend or so, some kindly folk will call me and keep me filled with highlights about the latest game. "It went into a fifteen minute overtime!" one joyous caller proclaimed. "Twice!" Super. Now I could go to work and not have to feel like I was missing out on something.
And for my birthday who was sitting at the table next to mine but Hines Ward! Apparently he's a Steeler. My friend April was very excited; she could hardly contain herself. I tried to bribe another friend of mine, a man, to go sit on his lap so I could snap a picture but despite the offer of a $10 fee, he steadfastly refused. Ah well.
Anyway.
Today I decided I'd do a little research, because, um, I'm bored at work.
So:
1) In case you thought it might be some kind of record that two teams from the same state could conceivably be competing in the superbowl you would be wrong. In 1995 the San Franscisco 49'ers competed against the San Diego chargers. I don't know who won.
2) The last time the Steelers were in the Super Bowl was in 1995. They lost. Horribly. The last time the Steelers -won- the Super Bowl was in 1980 against the Los Angeles Rams. Woo.
3) The first superbowl was Jan. 15, 1967. Green Bay kicked ass.
4) Pepsi is the official soft drink of the Super Bowl.
5) Diana Ross sang the National Anthem in 1982, Barry Manilow in 1984, & in 1992 the song was done in American Sign Language and it's been all downhill since!
You'd think I'd suggested that our society shed our inhibitions and walk around buck naked from the shocked gasp issued from my co-worker's lips. Surely whatever I had said had been so grotesquely shocking that it was a sheer abomination that I had even spoken the words.
Did I suggest that we start eating babies instead of chicken? Did I propose an assination plot against the president's puppy? (Does Bush have a puppy? I don't even know.) Did I suggest that instead of helping third world countries we go bomb the hell out of them? No.
All I did was idly complain about the fact that our nation seems to think that shoving a dirty wad of cash at a problem will make it go away. And so I suggested that perhaps the army could fly to Asia and help out. Man. I could tell that if we hadn't been co-workers, I may have been in danger of losing a limb, or at the very least, an eardrum.
Thankfully, we were working, sitting at opposite sides of the room so I just turned a deaf ears to her complaints about the "damn liberals" and stared straight ahead at my computer trying not to mumble any rude phrases about armies causing trouble in the world.
Geez.
As I was wandering the streets of this Greensburg, I spied with my little eye a sign that practically made me quiver with antici... pation:
Stitch 'N Bitch!
The sign proclaimed, reminding me of the best knitting book ever of the same title. To my joy, I discovered that a Stitch 'N Bitch gathering is being held right here in downtown Greensburg. Sweet!
The details:
Where: DV8 in downtown Greensburg. It's on Pennsylvania avenue next to the post office. That's 3 blocks from the bottom of the Hill, for those of you residing on campus.
When: Friday, January 21st at 6 p.m.
So who's down? If you don't know how to knit, don't worry cuz I am very good at teaching people how to knit. Also, if you don't have knitting needles, I'll hook you up with a loaner pair. All you'll really need is a smile and some yarn. And if anyone's interested, maybe I'll host a trip to the local craft store before the event.
And since DV8 is really close to campus, we could walk from campus to DV8, and if it's all cold or something, I'll give anyone who goes a ride back up the hill afterwards since I live right by there. Really, it's almost an irresistable offer!
So you wanna Stitch 'N Bitch with me or what?
My friend and I made the long drive to Altoona this afternoon for reasons that are best undisclosed and on our journey, we noticed that flags at several locations were being flown at half-mast. Actually, if the truth be told, it was my friend who noticed as I am generally cheerfully inobservant of such things.
She said, "I wonder why the flags are at half-mast."
I said, "Huh. Is it a holiday?" pouring through my recollections for a January 6th holiday and coming to the conclusion that it was not, unless Hallmark had declared a new one that I had missed somehow in my obliviousness.
After coming to the conclusion that today was not the anniversary of some military coup or something, we started thinking of other reasons that the flags might be at half-mast.
"Perhaps the president has been assassinated," I suggested wryly as she mused.
Finally we got distracted by the blinking lights of the power plant as we drove down the mountain and neither one of us gave it a second thought until we were back in Greensburg, me in the driver's seat of her manual-transmission car. As we jerked past the front of Admin, we saw that here, too, the flag was at half-mast. Surely something major was going on in the world that we had somehow missed!
So I get home, badly shaken from my second stick-shift experience, and signed online for the scoop:
The flags are half-mast in the nation until Friday in sympathy of the Tsunami victims in India.
"Following this morning's announcement, the three presidents visited the Washington embassies of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand." How about visiting the countries themselves to say it in person?
Hmm. Is this how we solve the problems of the world? Fly our flags at half-mast and throw some money at the problem? As the death tolls increase so do the collection totals, plus damn don't people feel good when they donate some cash to a good cause?
I thought of my friend Joline who frequently writes of the horrors people donating money to the animal shelter where she works put her through when she tells them that donating a couple bucks doesn't necessarily entitle them to buttloads of free stuff or whatever.
Is that who we as a nation are? Faceless entities with bucu-buckaroos? Are we really so far removed? I don't know. It just makes me feel sad.
I am sad that scores of people are dying across the world, yes, but I'm also sad that I have been raised in a culture so incredibly far removed from the horrors of live that I can scarcely imagine what it must like to lose everything, to have nothing, and to watch my countrypeople dying by the dozens around me. We are so incredibly blessed in America and yet we scarcely appreciate what we have.
My generation has always had it all. We've never suffered through depressions, through wars, through major tragedies. We have read about these events in our history books and sat back blissfully unaware of true horror. The sadness in me in deep and unending.
I look at my life and I can hardly appreciate all that I have: I have never wanted for food, shelter, or love. I have never lived in a war zone. I have never had to worry about whether I would survive the next year. I have clean clothes and warm shelter, hot coffee and prescription glasses. I have access to superior medical facilities (even if I can't afford to use them) and government support for my quality college education.
And yet I can never truly appreciate all that I have because it has always been there.
How can it be that I live in such opulent luxury and people half a world away are dying from poverty in the form of insufficient medical attention or backyard war zones? Why is there no balance? Isn't one human being's life as valuable as the next? What gives me the right to live a life of luxury while another human being dies in squalor? It just makes me sad.
My friend's been talking about joining the Peace Corps. I'm starting to think that wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Yup. This is my 100th entry. This is pretty crazy considering that my first post was on September 3rd of last year. That's an average of 25 posts a day month. If you take into consideration the 60 posts on my livejournal account in the same time period... well, holy crap! do I ever leave my house??
seriously though, I've been livin' it up. a whole audience of intelligent persons right at my fingertips, just because I happened to take a class called Writing for the Internet? hells yeah I'm going to enjoy it! I am a glutton for attention, I'm afraid, if you haven't been able to tell so far, and I find that the internet makes it easy for me to let it all hang out, so to speak.
In fact, suitably inspired by the sheer joy of last semester's WFTI class, I am currently doing something totally insane: I am pursuing a degree in Creative Writing at Seton Hill concurrently with pursuing a dual certificate in Web Page Design and Graphic Design at Westmoreland Country Community College.
So if you see me this semester looking harried and pissed off, it's probably not because I hate you, honest. It's because I am taking 21 credits at two different colleges, as well as working as a *happy* student services clerk at WCCC. See I have fifteen credits for SHU, and I can't drop any classes because of financial aid issues, and 6 credits at the community college.
SHU has to be my priority for obvious reasons, but the two classes that I am taking at C's are the fun ones in the lineup: Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver MX, both online classes, in case you thought I was totally nuts trying to squeeze 48 hours into every 24. In fact, one of my SHU courses is an online one as well, a history course called The Middle East.
So really, I have a full time schedule, just with lots and lots of work on the side.
It's great.
Anyone else going to have a crazy ass semester this spring? Got a overloaded on schoolwork story that you want to share? Want to chastize me on my insanity?? Go for it!!
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moon phases |
