Man, I really should have updated earlier. Let's just start with Thanksgiving morning. I woke up a little after 8 AM. My dad was on the phone with Aunt Darline, telling her we weren't coming to dinner, because mom had something flu-ish. In a sudden flash of unexpected kindness, I asked if he was sure he didn't want to go up, just the two of us. He was surprised - he didn't think I'd want to go (I didn't). I was just feeling dutiful I guess. So I showered, got dressed, and we headed to Jackson.
On the drive up we talked about history (mostly Russian) and writing and things of that nature. It was nice. Jesse (my 6/7 year old cousin) grabbed me the moment I walked in the door and made me play chess with him. He was surprisingly alright - he didn't make any very obvious mistakes. Even dinner was alright. There was macaroni and cheese, turkey, baked beans, butter beans, rolls, lemon icebox pie, chess pie, etc. Strangely, now that I think of it, there weren't really any potato products. Huh. After dinner, me and Uncle Buddy and one of his grandkids talked about football. They don't like LSU, (being longtime Ole Miss fans) but they give credit where it's due.
After about 2.5 hours of eating/meeting Dad was ready to go. The Green Bay vs. Whoever game wasn't even over yet. No big.
The drive back was quieter. I took comfort in my maturity - you know, the putting aside of my personal dislikes so my dad could go see his family without feeling like he was abandoning his other family. At home I watched a couple of movies and started putting together one of those super-fun 1000 piece puzzles.
Friday was less eventful. Of utmost importance was the LSU game, which was fully satisfying. That's the kind of offense we need to be showing off. I don't really recall much else. I mostly just read and watched TV all day.
Saturday was completely dominated by football. Unfortunately, nothing turned out right at all. Tennessee beat Kentucky, Florida State beat Florida, and Hawaii beat Alabama. None of that is very good for LSU in the BCS. Admittedly, Georgia beat Georgia Tech, but everybody knew that was going to happen. So now LSU almost certainly faces Georgia in the SEC Conference Title Game, and can't get any schedule strength for it. In fact, they stand to lose quality win points for a win over Georgia. How fucked up is that?
Which is brings us up to date. I went to church with my family where we learned Jesus' quick fixes for stress: apparently, you just ignore it and then it goes away. Praise the Lord!
Slight sarcasm there. After church I filled up the truck, deposited a $100 bonus check from Agriculutural Statistics, and then got down to some super-fun Internet Christmas shopping. I bought my dad some books, Derrick another book, and my dad and I split some dishes for my mom. Then it was back to the dorm, where Nathan and I watched a Stephen Segall movie and I've been watching Angel and reading pretty much eversince he left.
¶ reading: The Ruling Race: A History of Southern Slaveholders - James Oakes
¶ watching: LSU vs. Arkansas, Big, A Christmas Story, Tennessee vs. Kentucky, Florida State vs. Florida, Hawaii vs. Alabama, Saturday Night Live, a Stephen Segall Movie, Angel
¶ listening: "Speak, See, Remeber" - Pavement, "Lyric" - Zwan, "How's My Driving Doug Hastings?" - Less Than Jake, "Corduroy" - Pearl Jam, "Black" - Pearl Jam, "Ain't My Bitch" - Metallica, "Stranger Than Fiction" - Bad Religion, "Disabled" - Addis, "Aero Zeppelin" - Nirvana
¶ comments:
I woke up a little late today. I caught up, but I was very nearly late for linguistics, which was on marriage customs from India to Ireland. I missed breakfast, so I got a little pizza at work. Andrea was impressed with my visible face, or so she said. True or not, it will not last. Marcelle brought her kid, Anna to work. She was better than the kids in my family are, but not better enough to make reproduction with Lil' Ray-Ray very likely.
History included a quiz, which I got a 2/3 on. Unfortunately, I was wrong in stating that North Carolina seceded before February 4, 1861. I went to logic afterwards, unsure as to whether it had been cancelled or not. Sean was there, so we talked a while before one other guy showed up. He liked Nietzsche and Kierkegaard a lot, which, as philosophy goes, is pretty much my style. We finally decided that class was cancelled, and that guy went to go get some pictures he was developing, while Sean and I talked for the next hour in front of Prescott about such things as the paradox of artistic intention.
During that time, Kermit Boy approached us with a scheme. He apparently plans to confiscate the ebrps servers and put them in his new apartment and charge people for space. Sounds like it probably won't work. But if it does, I may switch back over there, seeing as I could script some PHP that would allow me to have a decent commenting system as opposed to the garbage I have to accept now.
I got back to the dorm, called Dad, and told him I was ready for coming home for Thanksgiving. He picked me up, and on the ride home, NPR had a segment on historical linguistics. They're a little behind the times, because they are apparently just now publicizing glottochronology, which most experts have already considered and rejected.
I hung out at home for a while then headed over to Chase's for dinner, which was surprisingly decent. They had some family over, his aunt, uncle, and their two kids. Chase and I caught up on what's going on with the other. He's back with a girl he dated his senior year... I like coffee, more for the idea of coffee than the coffee itself... he's going to Italy in the spring... I'm going to Greece in the summer. We talked about past people: Adam, Canright, Tina, Brandi, Jess, Bradley, Jessica, Jonathan Davis, hell, even David Odom. We listened to Dream Theater. We played guitar and talked about art and life. Slowly but surely, chase is beginning to get it, which makes me more proud of him than I can say.
Then we played Nintendo for a while.
Weird fact: I tried a drink tonight which was called a "Buttery Nipple" (which reminded me of Sean as well, Stirling. It's Irish cream with some kind of butterscotch liquor. It burns, just like good liquor should. Anyway, the point is, I am so psychsomatic. I had one shot, and I drove like a complete idiot on the way home. This could partially be blamed on the slick, shiny roads that blur the yellow lines, and the fact that I couldn't get the fog off of my side windows, but I know the route like the back of my hand. I mean, I halfway lived in Central the first two years of high school, what with the dating/staliking Tina and the bouts of D&D that sporadically occured at Chase's house. I had no excuse, I think, to drive as shittily as I did, except for feeling justified by one shot of liquor.
Anyway, I'm home, I'm in one piece. Don't expect an update tomorrow, because I'm not sure yet whether or not we're spending the night in Jackson.
Today I turned in two major items. The first was my paper on Xenophon's March. The second was my short stories portfolio. Not much happened in my classes other than that. I signed up for a conference with my short stories instructor for Wednesday at 3:30. That's when I'll find out my grade for the class as well as when she'll give me her assessment of my development as a writer this semester. Rock 'n' roll.
Work was OK. Marcelle and I debated about God. She said that people were capable of hurting God's feelings. I argued that making an all-powerful being's self-image contingent on the actions of human beings was ridiculous. She argued againsy me with what I call "the Bible card," which amounts to nothing more than asserting the Bible says something that it doesn't say.
Whatever. She's wrong. When Andrea came in, she told me she wanted to see me with my face completely shaved sometime. I went ahead and volunteered to shave tonight so she could check me out tomorrow.
Back at the dorm, I hung around and read for a while. After Nathan left (I waited because I knew it would take a while), I started shaving. I began with my electric trimmer, which is usually the extent of my shaving. Pretty soon I was sporting a Civil War officer mustache, just for the hell of it. Then I got rid of that as well. I proceeded to soap up (I never use shaving cream) and produced my old Mach 3 (the flying, aerodynamic razor!). I have no idea how old that blade was, but it worked well enough. It's so strange... my cheeks feel like skin instead of like rough fur. I'm not sure I like it.
Since I finished that, I've split my time between reading, catching up on old Angel episodes, and examining the strange face in the mirror. I don't look quite as bad as I remember looking clean-shaven back in the day, but this is just too much upkeep in my opinion. I probably wouldn't stick with this look even if I liked it.
Anyways, Nathan and a buddy are out drinking for now, and I can probably squeeze in one more Angel episode before I need to go to bed. Peace.
By the way... the site I'm linking to today must be a joke... it must be.
¶ reading: Laws of Manu, "Draupadi on the Walls of Troy" - Stephanie Jamison, "The Abduction of Women in Barbaric Law" - Rebecca Coleman
¶ watching: Angel
¶ listening: "Once" - Pearl Jam, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Nirvana, "All I Want" - The Offspring, "Heartsong" - Zwan, ", "Yellow Ledbetter" - Pearl Jam, "Flame" - Addis
¶ comments:
I felt decidedly 1995 when I woke up this morning, which was a kind of nice feeling. A chance to relive being 12... the right way this time. I dressed as pseudo-goth/grunge as I ever did when I was young and couldn't tell the difference. I wore torn jeans over navy blue sweatpants and my new half-thermal longsleeve black shirt. It was a good day for dressing like a middle-period Billy Corgan.
Linguistics was all about ritual and law, the inheritance and gradual change in legal terminology, and also the tendency of legal terminology to solidify. There wasn't much to do at work today. I brought a packet of supplemental payroll to T. Boyd, printed the papers I have due tomorrow, ran some copies, and then hung around til 12:30. Around noon, when Andrea arrived (she was looking particularly hotsexy today), I accompanied her to get some lunch. Afterwards was history, which brought us right up through the election of 1860 and to the brink of the Civil War.
Logic was pretty boring. Patrick and I worked on one particularly nasty proof. It was pretty ugly by the time I finished it, but it worked. There's probably an easier way to do it (mine took nearly 30 lines) but I'm satisfied.
Poetry. What a pathetic motherfucking class. The hippie guy gave his open reading today, and then he read a poem "of his own creation." And then we had to clap for him and everything. It was really, really weak.
Ummm... since I finished class I've been relatively busy. First I watched the first ever epiode of Angel on the DVDs Amy's letting me borrow. Then I checked out the new BCS, where LSU is slowly (perhaps too slowly) closing on second-ranked USC. Then I finally got around to my short story revisions, which is fortuitous since my portfolio is due tomorrow. Since then I've been debating the applicability of margin of victory to football rankings with Sean.
Before I go to bed, I need to get around to critiquing my last two classmates' short stories. Also, before history tomorrow, I need to go buy a manilla folder to put my short stories portfolio in.
¶ reading: "A Change Of Season" - Katie Yust, "Do We Have Change?" - Amanda Danks
¶ watching: Amy's Angel Season 1 DVD
¶ listening: "Come Together" - The Beatles, "The Four Horsemen" - Metallica, "Not For You" - Pearl Jam, "The Day I Tried To Live" - Soundgarden, "Of A Broken Heart" - Zwan, "Voodoo Curse" - The Fuck You Ups
¶ comments:
No update yesterday. My bad. Lauren called to see if I wanted to go watch the games and stay the night at Derrick's with her. So I did. Long story short, Michigan beat Ohio State and LSU beat Ole Miss. The LSU win was not nearly convincing enough for my taste. 17-14 LSU just doesn't do it for me when the only reason its not a 20-17 Ole Miss win is that the best kicker in the country missed two field goals.
Whatever. Donny Darko before bed, pancakes for breakfast, then a ride back to the dorm with Lauren, during which we sang super-crappy songs super-loud and -bad. Fun.
Since then I've mostly worked on my history paper, which is kind of a bitch. I have to write an in-depth review of Xenophon's March by John Prevas. Unfotunately, it's basically just a face-value retelling of Xenophon's Anabasis. This Prevas guy has absolutely no historical insight whatsoever. It's pathetic. And that's not just my opinion - I can support it. But I don't think I can support it for 6-8 pages.
I have laundry in the washer that I should go and get soon. But first confession. That's what blogs are for, after all. I was at checking out Suicide Girls (probably you shouldn't click that) today, like a big perv. Anyway, these hot, naked punk rock chicks have their profiles up, you know, what they like, love, dislike, hate. There was a perfect girl. She liked Tom Robbins, linguistics, math, books, books, books. She had red-orange hair. I almost said to myself, "$4.95 a month? That's not too much for a shot with her." But I didn't say that. Instead I clicked the little "x," got up, and looked at myself in the mirror. And in my head I asked, "Why did you do that?" to which I responded aloud, "Because it wasn't true."
Should be cold tomorrow. Nice
¶ reading: Xenophon's March - John Prevas, "Do We Have Change?" - Amanda Danks, "A Change Of Season" - Katie Yust
¶ watching: nothing
¶ listening: "In Hiding" - Pearl Jam, "...And Carrot Rope" - Pavement
¶ comments:
I awoke today around 7:30-ish, but stayed in bed til more like 10:00. Normally not a bright idea, but linguistics was cancelled for Dr. Oliver's appearance at a conference, and I don't work Fridays when I can help it. Therefore, I was free til almost 12:30 when it was necessary to attend history. It was more on the period right before the Civil War. You know, rise of the Republicans and all. It ended not a moment too soon. Logic was more on set theory - Russell's paradox. In poetry, Ashton read "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath, and we discussed it in slight depth. Then everybody chimed in two lame cents about the relationship between creative genius and insanity. That sucked.
I met Sean outside Allen, and we went to McDonald's. I had a Chicken McSandwich meal. We came back here and talked about football some, then, when Stirling called, we went out and met him. Then we all hung around (we fixed Stirling's commenting script) until Philip called, and then it was time for some movie madness.
We hung out in the parking lot by the Coliseum for a while, and left at about 6:30 for The Matrix revolutions at 7:20. We bought tickets, then wandered around Barnes and Noble for a while. I considered buying the Oresteia and another book which was on the replacement of reason by faith that seems so contagious these days. I didn't end up buying them though. While we were there, Philip was accosted by a psychopathic high school freshaman who ended up following us to the movies and giving him her number. Even though she was both hideous and insane, I feel a little jealous that things like that never seem to happen to me.
However - there was a girl handing out free appetizer coupons for Damon's Grill at the theater, and she gave me two, as compared with everyone else's one. Yup, chicks dig me.
Man, was the third Matrix crappy. The best line in the whole thing was "Shit!" which is pretty pathetic. And the scenes just dragged on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Why wouldn't Trinity just die already? DIE! DIEDIEDIE!!! It was too much to bear. Oh God, and the mechanical contraptions that had controls allowing them to pump their fists in victory. And the human guy that poor Keanu just could not figure out was Agent Smith. And the goddamn kid who runs around at the end and screams, "It's over! The war is over!" It made me want the machines to come back and kill him. And everybody else except maybe the council member who looked so much like George Clinton.
See this movie only if you have a deep-seated desire to mock things for hours and hours on end, and you have friends who are willing to put up with it.
Luckily, I have friends of just that sort. Stirling, Sean, Philip, and I spent the next 2+ hours mocking it. We were at Cane's until almost midnight, then we were back in the Coliseum parking lot til close to 1. Blake showed up for a while before we left Cane's, and we chilled with him, filling him in on all the gory details of Phil underage encounter. Philip also gave Blake her number, but I doubt anything will come of that.
Anyway, now I'm back here, and tired, and I have football to watch tomorrow, and papers to write, and stories to revise, so I should probably get some sleep. To expedite that process, no link tonight.
¶ reading: Xenophon's March - John Prevas
¶ watching: The Matrix Revolutions
¶ listening: "Stillborn" - Black Label Society f/Ozzy Osbourne, "Gainesville Rock City" - Less Than Jake, "say Anything" - The Bouncing Souls, "...And Justice For All" - Metallica, "Shame" - Matchbox Twenty, "Scott Farcas Takes It On The Chin" - Less Than Jake, "Bath Of Least Resistance" - NOFX, "perfect One" - Lit
¶ comments:
It's a real shame how little I remember about history today. It was on Rome. Dr. Ross drew a relatively good map of Italy on the chalkboard.
But enough of that mess people. In short stories, we read entirely too much into one seriously awful story in an effort to make its author feel like she had done something right. The theme we projected onto it was this: "The strip mall is the modern world's version of Hell." That's a fine enough theme I guess, but it was decidedly not present in the story. The other one, the one I earlier referred to as boring but well-written, actually grew on me more and more as we discussed it.
Eh.
Work was mostly normal. I once again took up my quest for the ultimate sandwich. I'm getting close, I can feel it. Today I had turkey with provolone, topped with lettuce, tomato, thousand island, and honey mustard, all on parmesan bread. It's all good except for the bread, which my tongue grows accustomed to very quickly, causing it to rapidly lose its taste. I might switch to wheat, or possibly to honey-oat.
There was also more political theorizing with Marcelle. Well, less political than normal, and more legal. I posed the question, "Do you think 'pain and suffering' is the kind of thing which it is appropriate to repay monetarilly?" Admittedly, I don't really know how to answer that question. It does seem to me, however, that it's impossible to adequately quanitfy pain. I think its fair to receive money for quantifiable damages (medical bills, hospital stays, loss of work time, etc), but to receive payment for 'pain and suffering' really seems to cheapen the whole thing. (It's possible that I'm too much of a mind that suffering builds character). Anyway, showing a surprising degree of forbearance, Marcelle half-agreed with me, but claimed that some kind of restitution had to be made, and it might as well be monetary. Still, I can't help but feel that pain is not a real loss, at least not in the same sense as loss of funds or property might be.
Amanda jumped in as well, claiming that 'pain and suffering' is a euphemism for work-time lost, which I tend to doubt.
Speaking of Amanda, she's going in for back surgery after Thanksgiving, and I thoughtlessly told her I'd visit her in the hospital. So now I guess I have to do that sometime.
I haven't really done much else today.
¶ reading: Xenophon's March - John Prevas, The Ruling Race: A History of Southern Slaveholders - James Oakes, "Do We Have Change?" - Amanda Danks, "A Change of Season" - Katie Yust
¶ watching: Last night's Angel, USM smashing TCU
¶ listening: "Stranger Than Fiction" - Bad Religion, "The Rest Of My Life" - Unwritten Law, "Goodbye To You" - Michelle Branch, "Flagpole Sitta" - Harvey Danger, "Welcome To The Jungle" - Guns 'n' Roses, "Creep" - Radiohead, "Only God Knows Why" - Kid Rock
¶ comments:
I always worry a little bit that when I die I'll be stuck in my body without anyway to get out or let anyone know I'm in there. Going to see Our Town probably won't help with that.
Dr. Oliver was at a conference today, so we watched a bad documentary on the Nostratic theory in linguistics. At work, Marcelle and I got into a political debate in which I propounded my usual rationalism and she "spoke from her heart." In terms of foreign policy, economics, and social services, I consider myself a conservative, but there are a few cases where I'm more liberal. Today she brought up the topic of gay marriage, an institution whose legalization I support. I mainly support it because the only possible objections to it are made on ethical grounds, and I don't think that the U.S. government has the right to tell its citizens right from wrong.
(Invariably, people who hear this theory from me say, "But what about murder?" to which I respond, "Murder has the further effect of undermining a productive social order." Generally the objectors' eyes glaze over, and they begin to repeat themselves. Marcelle was no surprise.)
Marcelle finally left, and I started looking at the BCS some more. Lance and I got to talking, and we figured out a good way to fix the BCS without changing too much about it. There should be a further element added, margin of victory, which would be ranked in the same way as schedule strength (that is, the team with the highest margin of victor has 0.04 added to their score, next 0.08, then 0.12, and so on). I suggest this because that way, a team that has a weak schedule, but manages to beat up on its opponents by a sufficient amount can in that way make up for the schedule weakness.
Speaking of which, I went ahead and projected the results of the TCU-USM game. Bad news. I predict TCU over USM 22.2 - 20.3. However, my formula also predicts that LSU could beat Oklahoma - which may mean that it's not very good. Or...
Anyway, history was a lecture by the graduate assistant, who did a fine enough job I guess. Logic was kinda rough. We learned that Dr. Cogburn has never read The Republic in its entirety, which is pretty weak. (Dr. Oliver, of linguistics fame, has never read the Odyssey). In poetry we read one of my favorite poets, e. e. cummings, which was nice, though we were pretty shallow as a whole in our interpretation. I take as much responsibility for that as anyone else - I can't wrap my mind well around his words, which is one reason I like them so much.
I may or may not submit "Awkward Age" to the LSU undergrad literary journal. Entering it would also give me a chance at winning $100 for the best story ever award.
Back at the dorm, I worked on my fixing-the BCS idea for a while (seeing how it would affect the current rankings, and if it was an improvement - I'm not done with that yet). then went out to wait for Stirling so we could go see Our Town, which was superb. It was so sad, even when it was happy. Blake was good in it, playing Mr. Stimson, who, it turns out, acts a lot like Blake, what with the hanging himself in the closet and all. Seriously, go see this play. It will make you sad in so many deep and wonderful ways.
¶ reading: "The Alley" - Katie Monroe, "Dancing Smoke" - Elizabeth Dixon, The Hellenistic World - F. W. Walbank
¶ watching: Our Town, but I missed Angel
¶ listening: "Ballad For The Lost Romatics" - A New Found Glory, "Never Connected" - Union 13, "Today" - The Smashing Pumpkins, "Price To Play" - Staind, "A World Without Melody" - Bad Religion, "Simple Man" - Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Shindo" - Less Than Jake, "Brick" - Ben Folds Five, "Stand Inside Your Love" - The Smashing Pumpkins, "Sober" - Tool
¶ comments:
Delphi. ("Cross the River Halys, and a great nation will be destroyed"). Olympia. (776 BC: the first Olympic Games). Argos. (The death of Pyrrhus by slow decapitation). Epidaurus. (Where Asclepius will restore a boy's sight in exchange for a couple of dice). Corinth. (Where prostitution was not only legal, but holy to the gods). Athens. (Fucking everything). Delos. (The sacred ship, the postponement of Socrates' execution). Santorini. (Atlantis). Rhodes. (The Colossus, the thalassocracy). Samos. (The exile of St. John). Ephesus. (The Assumption of the Virgin Mary. And HERACLITUS!). Miletus. (The birthplace of philosophy). Halicarnassus. (Herodotus, the Mausoleum). Troy. (Fucking TROY!!!). Istanbul. (Byzantium, Constantinople, the most hilarious episode in the entire Crusades).
I have to go on this trip.
Anyway, what a day. It rained like a motherfucker. I learned that my blue jacket is waterproof, and also sleek and sexy. It's fake suede. I would not have gone to class except that it was my day to be critiqued in short stories. History was a makeup class for the one the professor missed last Thursday. It was on Hellenistic poetry, and its differences from and similarities to Classical poetry. Some might say, "bo-ring," but I say, "Not so bad."
Short stories. Crazy. I was convinced no one would show up because of the rain and it would be just me and the other guy getting critiqued sitting around saying, "Nice story." Pas de tout! Everyone showed. A few even told me they wouldn't have come, but my story was so good they had to tell me. (Imagine, through my art, I inspired a bunch of lackadaisical English majors to get up out of bed and trudge through the wet, wet rain in purple and gold ponchos. Impossible!). Even Ms. Alexius didn't have any real criticism; she just said, "Sometimes as a writer, you just hit the nail on the head." One of my classmates even characterized my prose as "effortless," which, considering just how much effort I put into it, perfectly straddled the line between insult and praise. It was a good day for me being a writer.
(This completely cute chick wrote bubble letters on her review of my story. She is way too cute.)
Afterwards was work, where I ate breadsticks and started reading the two stories I need to critique by Thursday. One is kinda bad, but suspenseful; the other is well-written, but boring. I let Marcelle and Jennifer read them - they were even less charitable than I was. Of course, I'm in the class, so I'm used to seeing fition of poor quality. Jennifer asked about bubble-letters-girl, and I told her she's pretty cute. Jennifer asked why I didn't, "like, try to date her?" I responded, "Because I'm a pansy." Which is mostly true.
Also, I need new shoes for the purposes of keeping my feet dry.
¶ reading: The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders - James Oakes, "The Alley" - Katie Monroe, "Dancing Smoke" - Elizabeth Dixon, Peer Reviews for my story, "Awkward Age"
¶ watching: Last week's Angel but not The Gilmore Girls
¶ listening: "The Unforgiven" - Metallica, "Live Again" - Better Than Ezra, "Stereo" - Pavement, "Mr. Clean" - Millencollin, "Down" - Fuel, "Coming Too Close" - No Use For A Name, "Corduroy" - Pearl Jam, "Whatever Didi Wants" - NOFX, "Gone" - Pulley, "Sad But True" - Metallica
¶ comments:
You know what the funniest thing in the history of music is? Right before the solo in "Dr. Feelgood," Vince Neil says, "gui-tar" (the hyphenation is not optional).
¶ comments:
Last night I dreamed that Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was giving a horse a blowjob... which is gross no matter how you slice it. That's it. No more Sanskrit ritual texts for me, I guess.
¶ comments:
What now? Well, to begin with, I awoke this morning and got all dressed up. I wore my green-brown pants, a dark gray-blue shirt, my tan suede jacket, and my lucky Airwalks. Why dress up you ask? Because today was the day of LSU's Sophomore Honors Distinction and Sternberg Award Ceremony. It was a day for winning recognition as well as a chance at some moolah. ("Here's a little moolah for an extra-special you-lah," Neil DiLorenzo once said wisely).
But first was class. In linguistics we talked about a Vedic ritual in which the Queen of India had to have sex with a dead horse to ensure that the land (and the king) would be super-extra-virile. There are parallels of this ritual in Ireland as well as Asia Minor, which I find a little tacky.
At work, Ting tried to convince me to drive out to Siegen so he'd have a ride back once he turned in his rental car. Luckily, I lack a car, which was a convenient excuse for not doing it. He caught Marcelle off guard though, and she was forced to agree to the arrangement. I rode with her at her request and we followed Ting. She mostly talked about her daughter, and how she has a daughter, and how she has a boyfriend, and how her daughter did this and that, and her boyfriend did some this-and-that as well. It kinda sucked.
Ting is a suped-awful driver. He also doesn't know how to get to Siegen very well. He's also Chinese, and can't talk very good English, which must make commercial exchanges with him both interesting and irritating. He turned in his car and Marcelle made it back to EiEL in half the time it took us to get there following him.
I read a few articles when we got back, then went to history, which wasn't too exciting, except for the bonus quiz on which I scored approximately 2/5. Logic was better, but nothing special. Patrick interrogated me about the Sternberg selection process, which I found a little distasteful, since he so thinly veiled that he found himself more deserving than me. After class, Sean and I must have looked pretty strange next to each other - me all dressed up with nice pants, nice shirt, nice jacket, and no tie, alongside him, with shorts, t-shirt, and tres-gaudy tie.
I turned in my poetic dialog, which you can read down below if you so desire, then made my apologies to Ms. Gladman that I would have to miss the rest of the class. I headed back to the dorm and threw down my books and made an effort to cool off a little and anti-perspire before I had to head over and get honored. Circa 3:15 pm, I headed for the Union, where I was greeted by Laura, Joe, and Brad, of whom I can stand 1 out of the 3. I then wandered about looking for Lauren and Mom, but soon realized they hadn't arrived yet, so I sat down in the back. They got there a few minutes before it started.
The main speaker was really lame. He reminded me of being in high school all over again. "You the parents are to be commended for raising such bright young men and women," the lame old man said. Even my mom scoffed and rolled her eyes towards me when she heard that one. At one point, he compared LSU and the "State of Louisiana" to a "rocketship ready for blastoff," at which point Lauren whispered to me, "Did you hear that? You're gonna be an astronaut!" This story has not been embellished.
I didn't end up winning the Sternberg. It was kinda funny though. There were eight finalists. They started calling us up (I was the fourth called) and we all went and stood in front of everybody. But when they had called six of us, all of a sudden the speaker said, "And now for the winners!" which was a little disappointing.
Afterwards, Lauren, Mom, and I went to Cane's and shared a victory Caniac. They dropped me off back here, and me and Nathan talked for a while about Louisiana politics and urban planning and the BCS, where LSU is holding steady at #4 and Ohio State has surpassed USC for the 2-spot. We also argued the relative merits of the Big 10 and SEC football.
Well, before I finish, I'm announcing that from now on there will be a daily link, which will be to a Blogger blog that I find by randomly surfing around the most recently updated ones. You're all encouraged to go over and comment - I'll only link blogs that I find comment-worthy. I haven't decided yet where I'm placing that link, so just look around. Peace out.
¶ reading: The Hellenistic World from Alesander to the Roman Conquest - M. M. Austin, Xenophon's March - John Prevas, The Hellenistic World - F. W. Walbank, "Beside Quiet Waters" - William Stafford, Amy's HIST-4196 notes
¶ listening: "No Way" - Pearl Jam, "Major Leagues" - Pavement, "Sunburn" - Fuel, "Quicksand" - Addis, "Fell In Love WIth A Girl" - The White Stripes, "Muzzle" - The Smashing Pumpkins, "Wish You Were Here" - Pink Floyd, "Telepath Boy" - Zeke, "Sugar In You Gas Tank" - Less Than Jake, "Circle Of Friends" - Better Than Ezra
¶ comments:
Finally, I'm free to blog. I think my dad is embarassed of me. I've always kind of thought so, but I get more and more sure every time I go home. He always seems to get sick before church whenever I'm there, leading me to believe that he doesn't really want to be seen with me. So that's what happened this morning. I got to sleep in at least.
I've been doing a minimal amount more hacking around on this site, fixing stuff I don't like and getting used to things I can't change. Mostly, I'm pretty happy with Blogger. It seems like an all-around good thing.
When Mom got home from church she made breakfast which was good, and afterwards she decided she had to give me an early Christmas present since she let Lauren open one already (it's not even Thanksgiving!). Anyway, she got me this huge fold-out book of world history timelines. It actually goes back to "Let there be light!" Kinda neat, if unduly mythic.
After that Mom drove me back to the dorm, and on the way, we picked up Lauren in Port Allen. Lauren was in a wreck Wednesday I think and she totalled her car, so she's transportationless for now. Anyway, back at the dorm, I sat around and messed with this site some more. I also worked on my two papers due tomorrow, which, if you scroll down, you can check out for yourself in all their lameness. That's one thing I'm going to try to get going here: a little bit of academia amidst the random babblings.
Other than that, it's been mostly uneventful today. I thought about going to Cane's for maybe ten minutes before I even worked up the willpower to ceck my wallet. Only $4 in there, so I decided it was a night for dorm food. I still haven't eaten, but I think I might microwave some taquitos once I finish with this update.
Again, I'm off chronology. While I was thinking about Cane's, I sort of thought of myself as waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. I read a few other-people-blogs, mostly they were bad or hadn't been updated since 2001. I also read something by some Catholic guy about how Protestants suck. He was actually slightly convincing in ways that don't really matter. Then I started reading ESPN about BCS projections. It's actually being suggested that USC's schedule strength could suffer so much over the next two weeks that LSU could pass them. If that happens, and Ohio State loses at Michigan, LSU could play Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl. Of course, we'd probably lose. I don't really know what I want to happen.
¶ reading: "Sestina" - Elizabeth Bishop, "Beside Quiet Waters" - William Stafford, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders - James Oakes, "Gender, Philology, and Ancient India" - Stephanie Jamison, "The Dead Horse and the Queens" - Stephanie Jamison, "The Luwian Word for 'Ritual': malhassa" - Patrick Taylor, "A New and Outlandish Way of Confirming Kingship and Dominion" - Gerald of Wales
¶ listening: "Longview" - Green Day, "Love" - The Smahing Pumpkins, "Orion" - Metallica, "Bliss" - Tori Amos, "Give You Nothing" - Bad Religion, "Bab's Uvula Who?" - Green Day, "Train in Vain" - The Clash
¶ comments:
Ryan Williams: So... a sestina, huh? What on earth could have possessed you to write on of those?
Elizabeth Bishop: It really is a wonderful form.
RW: If you say so.
EB: I certainly do.
RW: You don’t think it’s just a fancy form invented by a Provence troubadour to bed the mythic “courtly lady?”
EB: Actually, I think that’s most likely exactly why and by whom it was invented. However, I think it has a lot of redeeming characteristics as a poetic form, regardless of its original intent.
RW: Such as?
EB: Well, few other forms give the poet as much opportunity to delve into the relationships between the words and images selected. By the time the poem is finished, the poet has learned something new about the six items he’s selected.
RW: What’s the best way to pick the six items for the sestina?
EB: Different things work at different times. Some say it’s best to wait until you have six items that you can’t shake from your mind, and then use that fixation to fuel the poetic process. A lot of bad sestinas are written by writing a six line verse and using whatever words happen to come up.
RW: How did you pick the images in Sestina?
EB: I imagined the scene. It was a scene of grieving, so “tears” was an obvious choice. It took place between a grandmother and a child, so those too were a given.
RW: What about the others? Am I right in assuming that the almanac and the stove were selected for symbolic functions?
EB: Absolutely. The almanac was a symbol for fate, and the stove a symbol of human intentions. I chose them for their convenience - they were likely to be found in the home of an old woman - and because I knew I wanted to write about a conflict between fate and hope.
RW: And the house?
EB: I find the house the most interesting of all. If you notice, the house doesn’t really seem to function symbolically until the fifth stanza.
RW: When the child draws a picture of a house?
EB: Exactly. Until then, the house is just setting; it’s where they are. The rain falls and dances on the roof, and the house feels cold, but its more or less passive until the child draws a picture of it.
RW: True I guess, but what is it supposed to mean?
EB: It’s supposed to force the reader to look back at what he formerly perceived as passive setting. The fact that the child draws a house - that is, the fact that he sections off its insides from its outsides - brings the solitude of the situation to the fore. The fact that the drawn houses are “inscrutable” again underscores the solitude - by implying that what goes on behind closed doors stays there. Everyone fights his own battle with grief and can expect little help from outside, in other words.
RW: OK, I guess I buy that. But here’s what I’m really wondering: was that the insight you were intending to express when you selected the house as one of your six images?
EB: Now that’s a decent question. Like I said earlier, the goal of writing a sestina (or my goal when I write one anyway) is to learn something new about the relationship between your images. That said, if one goes into the process with everything planned out in advance, either he finds that there is in fact something he hadn’t thought of before, or the exercise is fruitless. So, to answer your question, no, I didn’t plan to express that particular insight with the image of the house. I did take it on faith that an insight would reveal itself to me, and I feel that it did.
RW: I think so too. But does it always work out that way?
EB: Of course not! Writing a sestina is first of all tricky, and second of all exhausting. Sometimes the images one selects simply don’t have a deep enough relationship to explore. Other times, the poet doesn’t have the insight it takes to work with the images he selects. One nice thing about the form, though, is that even a beginning poet can tell if his sestina is going anywhere. For that reason, almost any time someone completes a sestina, it comes out sounding decent.
RW: As long as you can expect the poet to give up when he realizes he’s exhausted his images’ potential.
EB: With a sestina, that can be expected. No one wants to put that much work into something that won’t even sound good when it’s finished.
RW: Alright. Since we’re talking about finishing a sestina now, I want to ask you something about the envoy.
EB: Go right ahead.
RW: All along, you’ve been saying that the poet’s hope in writing a sestina is to learn something. Since the final envoy gives the poet three lines to use each image - in any order this time - I’m assuming that this is where the poet most clearly states what he’s learned.
EB: That’s very perceptive, although you should remember that “most clearly” is a decidedly (and necessarily, I think) relative measure of clarity. Using images is bound to obscure the particulars of the poet’s message. At the same time, that’s a tradeoff that every good poet makes in every poetic form he uses. In fact, I’d say that that is one of the most exciting parts of writing poetry of all: the sacrifice of clarity in the particulars of theme endows a poem with an enigmatic, but universal meaning
¶ comments:
On Thursday, November 16th, Dr. Joshua T. Katz gave a lecture entitled “Some Indo-European Animal Tails.” In his lecture, Dr. Katz spoke on a two ancient words with shaky etymologies, namely the Hittite tasku and the Greek phikis, and argued that each was connected - in one way or another - with the posterior of some animal. Earlier work on the Hittite word tasku had leaned towards defining it as scrotum, based on Szemerenyi’s argument that a Proto-Indo-European *toks-u- (something woven, e.g. sack) underlies both the Hittite word and Latin texo. This line of reasoning, however, leaves something to be desired, since Latin texo probably derives from Proto-Indo-European *tekþ-, which is never attested with a u-stem. Dr. Katz argued that a better candidate for an attested, related word is the Proto-Germanic þahsu, ‘badger.’ He also cited related words in Celtic, Italic, and even a borrowing into Basque. He went on to mention that it is the musk of badgers which is usually their most well-known attribute. From there, the leap to anus from the source of the badger’s musk, the anal and subcaudal glands (which even a naturalist admits “could easily be mistaken for the anus itself at first glance”), is trivial.
Similarly, Dr. Katz argued that the rarely attested Greek word, phikis, is cognate with the Vedic Sanskrit word, sphij-, ‘hip’ or ‘buttock,’ and also with Greek sphinx. He began by pointing out the Sanskrit hapax upaspij-, which had been considered more or less undefinable. He argued that it was made a compound of upas-, ‘lap,’ and sphij, yielding a literal meaning on the order of “lap-buttock,” which is apparently (in context) being used figuratively for “trick question” (that is, a matter that can be looked at from two sides). This yields interesting results in that we now have an ancient word for riddle which looks an awful lot like the name of a certain ancient riddler, the Sphinx. Dr. Katz went on to argue that the compound form upaspij- was inherited from PIE in both Greek and Sanskrit, and that it lost the upa- portion in Greek largely because of its similarities with the Greek preverb upo-. Finally, he pointed out an attested connection between phikis and sphinx in the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 4502, in which the writer claims to have solved the riddle of the Sphinx “most wisely,” claiming that it is a pathic man, whose “phikion is like (or explains the name of) the rock near Thebes (Mt. Phikion, where the Sphinx lived).”
Dr. Katz’s lecture was followed by Dr. Craig Melchert’s “Sex, Lies, and Clay Tablets: What Hittite has to Tell Us.” Dr. Melchert began his lecture by elucidating reasons for studying historical linguistics in general and Hittite in particular. He then demonstrated a case study of the Old English word seorðan, ‘to have sexual intercourse with.’ Possible cognates are Old Irish selc, ‘love,’ and Welsh serth, ‘obscene.’ Most authorities have generally viewed the words as non-Indo-European, probably deriving from the language of the indigenous peoples of northwestern Europe. However, Dr. Melchert pointed out a possible Sanskrit cognate, sardi-grdi-, found in medical texts as well as in the Asvameda Sacrifice, and apparently meaning ‘portio vaginalis.’ He then posited an Indo-European root, *serd(h)-, which would be preserved in Hittite sart(ai)-, ‘to rub or wipe,’ and Icelandic sarða, ‘to polish,’ as well as in those cognates enumerated above. The base meaning, then, appears to be ‘to move one surface obliquely (at varying angles) against another.’ Dr. Melchert further cited the modern English words ‘strike’ and ‘stroke,’ which derive from the same root and vary in the same way that the cognates of the root *serd(h)- do.
¶ comments:
Today was pretty alright. I went to bed early last night because Nathan wanted to get to sleep early for his powerlifting tournament today, and I didn't want to disturb him. He left around 4 AM, and i slept til about 9ish. I had some pretty bizarro dreams. Actually, I've been having bizarro dreams for the past few days. Once I was in an SUV with Michael Tu that got tipped by a bunch of Asian kids... but then a bunch of American kids tipped it back over on them, which was bloody. Another time, me, Sean, and Stirling were in a trailer that got tossed by a tornado. But we were fine.
I'm a little off topic. When I did wake up, I hacked around with this site a little bit, got it looking a little better, and also got the commenting script working. Around noon, my mom called to see if I wanted to go buy some clothes and come home for the weekend. I decided that would be cool. I got a blue jacket and a black shirt and then we came home and ate chicken pot pie.
After the food, it was football day. I watched Ohio State almost get smashed by Purdue, but they managed to squeak by. I also watched LSU smash Alabama, which makes me feel happy in my heart. It wasn't quite a shutout. We have the best scoring defense in the country, and no shutouts if I'm not mistaken.
Don't tell Nathan, but I'm rooting against OSU at Michigan next week.
Instead of all this football today, I really should have been working on my essay for poetry. It's really lame. I have to write a dialog between myself and a poet about that poet's creative process. I also have a writeup due Monday for linguistics, which is on Thursday's guest lectures. That should be pretty easy to finish up Sunday night - I've already written on the first lecture, which was the better one.
Speaking of linguistics, Dr. Oliver mentioned to me that she's teaching Sanskrit to Cam and Laura next semester, and tried to get me to take it with them. I'm really pretty bad with languages though, and my schedule for next semester is more than full already. I think I probably strike Dr. Oliver as really nervous, because I always talk really fast and make excuses when she approaches me about things like that. Maybe I am a really nervous person.
I didn't make this site, many of you will notice. I may edit the layout a little, but I'm feeling pleasantly lazy about it as things stand right now. Don't know how long all this will last. I'd like to get some kind of feedback going on here, but in order to do that I might have to sign up all my buds as "members" of my site. Bleh.
Time to journal-ize. But is that what I really want to do? The short and sweet of it is this: guest lectures by Indo-Europeanists in linguistics on Beowulf and the origins of the Indo-European dragon slayer myth, history was a lecture on slavery in the 1830's and 1840's, logic was on David Bowie and Plato, and poetry was open readings. These two girls read Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. It kinda sucked. It was pretty evident that they had no idea what they were talking about. I'm not a big fan of Maya Angelou regardless, and today sure didn't help.
There was this girl at the dinner I was at on Wednesday night who knew more stuff than most of the people I usually meet. She was also cute. There was also lots of silent, steady, and smiling eye contact - which, if you know me, must sound absurd. Turns out she's uber-Catholic, which is just my luck, I suppose. She's taking the Attic Oratory class in Greek next semester, and I'm sort of halfway considering signing up just for a shot with her, which wouldn't work at all I don't think.
I turned in my short story, "Awkward Age," on Thursday, so it'll be getting workshopped on Tuesday. I sort of wonder what people will say. I really hope somebody gets the idea that my character Jim is gay. I didn't write him gay, but the more I revised the more I thought, "Man, this guy could be totally homosexual." Unfortunately, it's hard for me to interpret it while thinking of him as other-than-hetero, so I mostly want to know how it affects the their interpretation of the themes.
Finally, today was the last day I might have found out about the Sternberg Award before the ceremony Monday. I learned nothing, so I guess its going to be a surprise. Or maybe I just didn't win, so they didn't think I was worth consoling. It's only $200, which is barely considerable I guess, but it is a big honor to receive the only cash award the Honors College offers anybody. Also, I think the Sternberg winner becomes the Honor's College's representative to LSU's Outstanding Junior thing.
¶ reading: Xenophon's March - John Prevas, "How to Be a Dragon in Indo-European" - Joshua Katz, "Sestina" - Elizabeth Bishop, "Beside Quiet Waters" - William Stafford, "Lectures on How You Never Lived Back Home" - M. Evelina Galang
