| The End | ||||
| 06:16pm 23/05/2005 | ||||
It's been a fun run with Blurty, which is a great service, but I don't have too many friends left who use it, and I find myself wanting more. I'll keep the Blurty around as a pointer for anyone who comes across it. See you over there. ---> Go HERE to continue reading Blue Tea <--- |
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| Post | ||||
| A post I want to entitle "Errata" but can't | ||||
| 02:23pm 18/05/2005 | ||||
I've submitted my senior project, had my board. The semester -- the year -- college -- is ending. I've got my Class of 2005 shirt on right now. Lots to be said about that, but I don't feel like going into it at the moment. So instead, I'll empty out some links I've been collecting. First, because of all the language and lit blogs I read, stuff about ... well, language and lit. An April Fool's joke proposing a march to end the abuse of the widely misused phrase, "beg the question." Sounds like a worthy cause to me. It came up in our field studies class, so Bill sent us all a list (several lists, actually...this was the first and seemed sufficient to me) of collective nouns for groups of animals. I knew there were some crazy ones, but there are some crazy ones. A charm of hummingbirds? An ostentation of peacocks? I like "a memory of elephants" and "a storytelling of rooks" ... and "a tower of giraffes" is pretty amazing, as is a "crash" or "bloat" of hippotami. Last of all is the impressive "zeal of zebras"... I may have posted this previously, I may not have. It's a bit old, but the sarcasm point is introduced. Booksellers in Scotland stage a promotional book-burning. The entire literary edifice of the West is built on a lie. According to one suspicious sleuth, "Proust didn't know from madeleines,", and his famous crumbly scallop-shaped cookie never existed. Harvard students win prizes for the quality of their personal libraries. I want one of those. I also want a prize-worthy library. Reasons Why the Female Characters in Certain Male-Written Fiction Are Not Like Actual Women at All. All right, now some other stuff. Let's have a go at religion. High-schoolers don't know enough about the Bible. They're talking about history and literature, so I agree with them there. I really need me a student's lit Bible. From The Onion: "Scientology Losing Ground to New Fictionology". A beautiful comic for the creationists: Science vs. Norse Mythology. Let's see, what category next. How about "stuff I like." A Yahoo! News story explains how fairy tales are linked to violent relationships. Seems Andrea Dworkin was right about all those passive heroines waiting for Princes Charming. I'm increasingly considering copyediting as a profession. Which is probably why this article, an interview with a number of copy editors discuss the details of their largely uncredited and overlooked work, is interesting to me and me alone. They're having a concert in California of orchestral music from video games performed live. It's called Video Games Live, and Jack Wall, the composer of the brilliant music in Myst III: Exile, is one of the people behind it. The Forbes.com article Is Sex Necessary? discusses all the beneficial effects conferred by "having regular and enthusiastic sex." Last category...a kind of alarming article that I post for the public benefit: "The End of Analog TV? Will America's favorite technology really go dark next year?" Analog television broadcasts are supposed to be discontinued next year, to be replaced by entirely digital broadcasts. It was all part of a federal ruling aimed at switching everyone over to digital -- only no one bought digital, and now the deadline for the change is coming up. Even if it doesn't happen next year -- it will likely be postponed -- it will be happening pretty soon, and currently there is no warning in place for those who buy new analog tvs telling them that their sets might be obsolete in a year! So if you buy a new tv -- buy digital! I think that's all for now... I'll post some talky stuff later. |
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| Read 2 - Post | ||||
| Abandoned places | ||||
| 11:04am 05/05/2005 | ||||
The Hospital. With the captivating tagline of "Stay a while, stay forever," this is a mélange of doctored and manipulated photos of a crumbling, abandoned hospital, with surreal twists and surprises. There is a bit of a challenge if you try to find the links to the original photos which are hidden in each room. I haven't done it yet, but I think there's a reward for finding them all. Spooky and awesome. In both French and (good) English. The 99 Rooms. There really are 99 of these single-screen rooms, also manipulated photos of the abandoned factories and warehouses of East Berlin's industrial sector. Painted figures and animations fill the decaying spaces. The goal is simply to find the way to click through each of the 99 rooms to the end. Also very beautiful -- "morbidly-beautiful," as the designers describe it -- with great sound and music. NFH Propaganda. Features a Labyrinth of dark, run-down industrial ruins very similar to The 99 Rooms in term of concept, design, and execution. This one is quite a bit darker and grimmer, a horror version of 99 rooms with ghosts, corpses, torture, murder, body parts, screams...it's creepy and very well-done. That's just a sample of the latest game links I've found that I'm bursting to share. I think I'll keep posting in categories like this. Up next: Room-escapers. |
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| Post | ||||
| Blue Tea | ||||
| 10:48am 05/05/2005 | ||||
One of the major reasons I wanted to try Blogger was so I could have some control over my main page, so I could maintain links, give it a title, change the format and all that. Also I could look a little more professional. Of course, the downside is that it's less user-friendly, and I lose some of the stuff that's nice about Blurty -- friends page, the "mood" and "music" options on each post...I'll have to break up my interests list because theirs only allows so many characters... On the whole, though, it might be a very good thing. We'll see. For now, I'll keep updating both simultaneously. Opinions, anyone? Blogger, blurty, or both forever? |
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| Respite | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:44pm 29/04/2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I've more or less resumed today, though, going to the grueling-as-usual field studies class for the first time in a week, and starting on the translations for Globe that E gave me a month ago, which I promised I could do without interfering with project, but which he generously granted could wait until after project was done. Which is now, and I need to get on them. Also I have many many papers to read for tutoring appointments with the first year seminar class all next week, which I unfortunately forgot to pick up. I'll get them tomorrow, since I'll be on campus -- it's Spring Fling weekend! With the bouncy inflatables in the quad and everything free in the game room! I'll play all day and then get to work at night. K has gone home for the weekend, so I'll have some quiet space to get it done. So, before I give you the many incredible and wonderful games and links I've discovered during my recent browsing, I will first post a slew of quizzes, most of which have in common the fact that they were taken by ladysusan.
Take the Online Dating Profile Quiz at Dating Diversions
reading: Maria Tatar, ed., The Annotated Brothers Grimm and The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales; Catherine Orenstein, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale saw: Pretty Woman, Survive Style 5 +, Arrested Development, The Office project pages: last count of body text only, 83; total pages after formatting, 107 (eminently respectable -- despite what my professors told me beforehand about the expectations, quite long, even!) game of the day: Inner Nemesis III: Les larmes de Neptune [The Tears of Neptune] -- a well-designed photographic adventure game set in Budapest. In simultaneous French and (good) English. If you ploughed through Atlantzone's choppy interface, complex puzzles, and lousy translations, you'll love this. (Don't get me wrong. Atlantzone's fun. But after having gotten stuck and left the game a while back and then lost my saves, faced with the prospect of replaying from the beginning, and I can't even remember how to get out of the first scene, I'm a little down on it right now.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| No more wind in my sails | ||||
| 12:56am 24/04/2005 | ||||
My meetings yesterday with my advisor and another of the professors on my board were devastating. First I saw Marina, whom I'd given my first chapter to check the accuracy of my literary history, where I felt I was on kind of shaky ground. I wanted to make sure I hadn't mischaracterized anything or made some inaccurate generalizations. She said that it was great, that my facts were all right and the writing was very polished and professional and that I obviously knew what I was talking about. But she repeated the concern she'd had at the midway board, that it was too conservative and too strictly delineated. She said that it needed more narrative, that it needed my voice. She said it read like a textbook. "You've become tame in your old age," she told me. "You used to take more risks." At my midway she'd challenged me to make "shocking assertions" in my project and to go out on limbs. This was only the background history, and I told her I was trying to keep it brief and that she'd like the second chapter, which was about the tales. Then was the meeting with Karen. Her first comment was, "You really didn't take any of the suggestions of the [midway] board." She said that the project wasn't really literary criticism, it was literary history, and that I'd gone ahead and done the project I'd wanted to do. They talked me out of doing a translation originally, and she said that apparently I really hadn't wanted to do a critical project. Though the critical part, as she said, is the most interesting part that they most look forward to reading. She kept saying "And that's fine, and it's good, but..." I repeated Marina's observations from a few minutes earlier, and she completely agreed. I just kept nodding and saying "uh-huh" the whole time. Finally, in despair, I asked what I should do to revise it. She said that it was pretty much complete as it was, and that of course it was too late for major revisions. There were a few points she thought should be clarified, and I had a few things I'd planned to add and expand on. But basically the main problem just isn't fixable...I just wrote the wrong kind of project, and there is nothing I can do now. When I left her office I wanted to cry. I skipped all of my questions about formatting, works cited, including illustrations, and just left. I was stunned. All of my motivation to work on my project and finish my revisions is gone -- I feel like my project is a disappointment and I can't be proud of it any more. I do think it's good, and I disagree with the charge that it's not literary criticism. It does have organizational flaws, and some of it isn't properly focused -- fault of following my outline rather than changing the direction of the second chapter early -- but I think a lot of the problem is that it's not clear just how much of its conclusions are original. I need to make my argument clearer and more forceful -- I'm not just rehashing tired facts, compiling and presenting them in polished language. It's new. And as K pointed out, calling it a "textbook" is praise, not criticism, and I think I agree...I think what Marina views as flaws I view as strengths. I'm not being tame, I'm being disciplined, and if my original project sounds like a textbook it's because I'm very familiar with the subject and I back up everything I say. "The best treatises become textbooks," as K said. On the other hand, I do understand what they're saying, and if the second chapter had been changed, it would have been much stronger. I don't know how serious Karen's comments were. Is the project bad now? Do I still have a chance at getting an A? Or is she just pointing out, as she always does, how I could make a good thing better? The charge that it's not literary criticism really hurts, and Karen probably doesn't realize it, but the meeting seriously demoralized me. I will no longer feel triumphant when I hand my project in, I will only feel dread and apprehension, and I'm not looking forward to my board any more. Before, I was sure it was going to be a day of celebration, where I would share a project I was proud of and enjoy praise for it. Now I think it's going to be a battle to defend it, at the very least, and the results could potentially be very disappointing. And they probably will be, if I don't manage to make even the small revisions they will be expecting at this point because I can't bring myself to look at the thing any more. |
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| Read 1 - Post | ||||
| God's House | ||||
| 10:37am 12/04/2005 | ||||
It was a stopover on a flight on my way to visit family in Georgia. I flew to God's house, then I was going to take a train or something a short distance to my grandmother's. Oddly, the trip only lasted two or three days, and by the time I left God's house, there wasn't really any time left to go to my grandmother's house. The trip started at an airfield in the middle of nowhere, all meadows and winding dirt roads. I had driven there, and there was a whole group of people at the airfield getting ready to board the small, fat plane that would take us all to God's house. It was like a field trip. It was night, and flood lights illuminated the parking lot and runway. People milled around, lining up to board the plane. There were many people there I recognized, people from Bard. Raul came up to the car to meet me. "Oh, you're here?" he said. As I boarded the plane I greeted Karen, who was standing in line on the stairs talking with another professor. Melissa was on the plane, and a couple other familiar people. The plane was the size of a bus, with seats lining the walls, facing in. I couldn't find a seat next to anyone I knew, so I sat on the end of a row next to two girls who looked alike and were apparently together. It was a short flight to God's house, where the whole group was warmly received and welcomed in by God, a tall, aged man with a deep, warm voice, long white beard, flowing white robe, and a golden cord for a belt. His house was a cozy, medium-sized suburban family house that shouldn't have been large enough to house the thirty or so guests, but it did. It was crowded enough that there were always several people in evidence in every room, and not many places to sit, but it wasn't at all cramped. And there were always a number of people outdoors, too, enjoying the yard and the grounds. It felt a little like camp. For two or three days, we were all God's houseguests, enjoying the house and the company of our host and each other. Everyone left at the same time, packing their things up in the morning and gathering together around the door as God bade farewell to each one personally. When most everyone was gone, I was left there with another girl, a slender girl a little younger than myself, with dirty-blond hair -- her name may have been April -- who was besides myself the last to leave. We were on our way out, too, but as we stood in God's kitchen, looking around and waiting for the other guests to leave, April noticed on the counter some of God's plants and things. There was a little workspace with trays of seedlings, bags of soil, empty pots, tools, a terrarium, and a small aquarium. April saw some bean sprouts that God had planted, and she thought that they were upside down -- that the little shoot was a root and should be pointing down, not the stalk that should be pointing up. She spoke up to ask God about it, but he was talking to another one of his guests and didn't hear her. April decided to fix it, and I followed her into a bedroom, where she came back out with God's keyring, a medium-sized ring so filled with mostly silver keys of all sizes that they had no room to hang but bristled straight out from the ring in all directions. One of these was the key to open the tank where the sprouts were planted. There was one particularly huge key on the ring, larger than all the others, and April warned me not to touch that one as she gingerly passed me the ring -- I understood that that was The Key, and if I touched that without permission, I would get zapped. We took the keys back to the kitchen, but the last of the guests was gone and God saw us as we approached the tank. He asked what we were doing, and April explained about the beans. He laughed and explained to her that they were indeed the right way round. As they talked, I bent to get a better look at the aquarium, which was amazing. It was very small, but I was amazed by the beauty and diversity of life within. I was also quite impressed with the cleanliness of the tank -- the water was crystal-clear -- and I said so. There was bright coral and waving seaweed, a beautiful pure white, slightly transparent jellyfish, and, my favorite, a gorgeous squishy little bright red octopus with a bulbous head and short, squiggly arms. Checking with God first, I picked it up and played with it for a while in my hands before regretfully setting it back in the aquarium. Standing up, I saw then that all around the walls of the kitchen, tacked to all the cabinet doors and stuck on the refrigerator, were sheets of (grayish, recycled) paper covered in handwritten names. I asked God about them, and he said that they were all the names of the people who had visited him. At first I thought that he had written them, and I was amazed that he knew the names of all these people, but then I realized, looking at them, that they were in all different handwriting, some in pen, some in pencil, and that they were probably the signatures of the people themselves. God invited me to sign, but I was a little confused, squinting at one of the signatures, because it looked like my name but not my handwriting, and I wasn't sure if I was already on the list. I don't think I signed. It was now time to leave, and, after April had headed off, I paused and hesitated for a while, wondering whether it was a good idea or even possible to try to continue on to my grandmother's house, or whether I had to simply head home. God gave me some information about the local train schedules, telling me how I would get there if I did decide to go. I thanked God for his hospitality and went on my way. I got on a train, but whether it was taking me to my grandmother's house or back to the airport I don't remember. |
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| Test results in | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:36pm 05/04/2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Apparently, I'm a little bit of a mess.
personality tests by similarminds.com Stability results were moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious. Orderliness results were high which suggests you are overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense too often of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun. Extraversion results were low which suggests you are very reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive. trait snapshot: clean, secretive, does not make friends easily, observer, hates large parties, risk averse, perfectionist, reclusive, solitude loving, more practical than abstract, does not like to stand out, high self control, intellectual, mind over heart, very cautious, takes precautions, respects authority, irritable, emotionally sensitive |
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| I've found you, you rascals. | ||||
| 11:11pm 05/04/2005 | ||||
I also thought I'd take this moment to delight in my birthday presents, since the last (the last I'm expecting, anyway) arrived in the mail today. It's been very nice -- I got most of the things that were top on my list. I got the boxed set of the first Griffin and Sabine trilogy by Nick Bantock, which I've been dying for, and it's just as beautiful as I'd hoped. With a gift card I got, I picked up from the bargain rack a copy of Schizm: Mysterious Journey, a computer game I've been wanting to play ever since I heard about it. I got a lovely Burt's Bees gift set, and two great mix cds. And it's been a wonderful year for Moby, as I got both the new two-disc album Hotel, which includes an ambient disc, as well as the older album Ambient, which I'm listening to this very moment, and which is great. I'm so pleased. It's such a shame that all these distractions come just when I need to work. This week is especially bad -- I'm having a birthday party tomorrow night, Thursday is trivia night, a long-standing traditon -- our team always wins -- and on Friday night K and I are going out for our one-year anniversary. Saturday I am going to look at the things I have due in the coming three weeks and lie down and cry. |
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| Project work is a birthday present I give myself. | ||||
| 01:26pm 01/04/2005 | ||||
These past few days haven't been quite as productive as I would have liked, but they haven't exactly been disastrous, either. Passed the fifty page mark yesterday. Still, I'm not really going to be able to avoid the painful senior rush right up to the end. I'm just a little too far behind, and what's coming is going to be slower going -- the next chapter I'll be starting soon is the research-based one, and anything using sources will take twice as long. The writing will be easier, though. Had a nice little birthday. Went up to Troy and had dinner in with Dad and Tina, then went out with C to a pub downtown called Holmes and Watson, and had wine and dessert (a decent Cabernet Sauvignon from California and a carrot walnut layer cake) while he dined. Got accosted by at least three crazy people on the way: a wild-eyed street man who came up to the windows of our car while we were stopped at a light, a drunk black man who called out a slurred greeting (something like "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen") as he passed us on the street, then bellowed out "I SAID, good evening!" angrily when we failed to respond, and a slouched-over drunk at the bar as who blurted, "Good night, girls!" at us as we left. For anyone who doesn't know, C is a guy. And this is exactly why he doesn't like Troy. Came back, and though already gorged on cake, had miniscule slivers of my chocolate birthday cake (complete with fat white votive candle in lieu of birthday candles, and singing), played Tetris-Dr. Mario, and stayed up to the wee hours talking. Slept far too long the next day, drove back home, and wavered between work and Uru, managing to accomodate both in a fairly reasonable fashion. And here I am. Stalling. reading: more of the same saw: a couple episodes of the American The Office -- which would actually be a pretty good show if not for the existence of the original --, and some of the usual West Wing project pages: 51 game of the day: Brain Hotel. I haven't had the chance to play yet, but it looks great and is highly acclaimed. |
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| Read 1 - Post | ||||
| Solitude | ||||
| 02:21am 30/03/2005 | ||||
I did get some done today. By my standards, it was very disciplined. But with so little time left this week to write, I know it's not enough. And I couldn't push myself to write more today...it was just coming out very bad. Speaking of loneliness, I discover from my previous journal entry that I have a grand total of one reader. I shall carry on as if speaking to multitudes, of course. And if anyone else should happen to wander by, even if a lot of time has passed, please go ahead and comment on the previous entry. May as well keep it as a web to see what flies we catch. reading: Proust; Maria Tatar, The Annotated Brothers Grimm; Harper's saw: The Professional; Arlington Road project pages: 45 game of the day: Orisinal. Even if you never believe me about games I say you have to see, you MUST see this. It's just about the best thing ever. Way better than The Dark Room -- that old thing? I especially recommend Cats, Roperunner, The Bottom of the Sea, High Delivery, and A Daily Cup of Tea -- which is most of the ones I've played so far, and only a duty to go to bed so I can get up tomorrow and write is keeping me from playing the rest right now. Go! |
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| Raise your hand if you're absent today | ||||
| 11:41pm 24/03/2005 | ||||
Not too much to report. Had a fairly productive day -- wrote several project pages (some with the help of my new Blackberry Sage "Tea for Wisdom", which is lovely), sat through all of The Abyss, and discovered many new areas in Uru. Life is good. (A thought-provoking typo additionally suggests that life may be food, which is quite possible, although perhaps more convincing in the inverse.) I've just learned that thanks to my senior project topic (for those of you who haven't been paying attention, it's about the character of the fairy in 17th century French fairy tales written by women) and the fact that one of my board members is in the program, despite having had no related coursework, I have the opportunity to add to my major in French Studies a concentration in Gender and Sexuality Studies, free of charge, no strings attached. I will have to consider this intriguing proposal. Finally, I've revised my interests list again. When will we get more than 150? On the way out: loreena mckennitt, dead can dance, voyager, card games, ren faires, discworld, virgil. Just joining us: bard, translation, experimental music, bbc radio, uru, rain, game soundtracks, republic of tea (for which there is exactly one other match, a group called something like Tea Traders). It's tough love, but some things just have to come first. reading: Proust; The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003; the latest Observer and Harper's saw: The Abyss project pages: 37 game of the day: Kharon |
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| Read 8 - Post | ||||
| Of late | ||||
| 09:49pm 22/03/2005 | ||||
The lone vehicle in the Clermont parking lot did not belong to any Field Studies member, so the three of us spent an hour strolling through the place and sitting overlooking the train tracks and river -- Clermont really does have a fantastic view, and everyone should go -- and talking. Not as conducive to a grade as attending class -- I really don't feel I could afford that absence today -- but much more enjoyable. Afterwards was another trip to Kingston to fix my glasses, which I'd stepped on. I'd tried to go yesterday, too, forgetting for about the fifth time that the place is closed on Mondays. Less than half the time I try to go there am I successful in not going on a Monday. Today's successfully accomplished errand might bring that up to exactly half. Got home, took advantage of K's absence to some Uru -- I've completed the standalone game and now downloaded the free To D'ni expansion pack. Having finally finished the game, I've allowed myself to listen to the soundtrack -- I am so disdainful of spoilers that I don't even want the music to be spoiled before reaching a certain location. To my dismay, I discovered that the "soundtrack" packaged with the collector's edition of the game contains a measly four tracks. One of the ones I was most eager for isn't there at all. I just did a search and found, after quite a bit of looking, the REAL 19-track cd, which can apparently only be found from Cyan Worlds Official Journey Gear, which is an Amazon Z-shop and is not accessible anywhere from either the official Uru or the Cyan Worlds sites. I will order it just as soon as I get the e-mail telling me my password, which I've somehow forgotten. Well, all this is just stalling on my way to project work. But I might not do any tonight -- it's late, and my heart isn't in it. Much will be done over spring break. K's going home, I asked for the week off from work, and I will have plenty of time to myself to sit down and crunch. Random news: apparently there will be a sequel to Samarost. Eeeeee! reading: Proust and How Proust Can Change Your Life; the latest issues of the Free Press and the Observer; a new issue of Harper's that came in the mail today saw: The usual West Wing, and Leaving Las Vegas project pages: 31 game of the day: The Last Half of Darkness |
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| Post | ||||
| Happy Color Green and Binge Drinking Day | ||||
| 06:36pm 17/03/2005 | ||||
Went to French Table first thing today. (On those few days that I have to sleep in, being somewhere by 12:30 is an imposition -- hence my rather spotty attendance record for French Table this semester.) Went to the library afterward, where I returned Gluttony and spent quite a while browsing for new books. Was delighted to see that Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not A Novel, which I've been in there at least four times to look for, was finally back in, and was slightly less delighted to see that the book's lovely, artful, colorful cover had been replaced with a gray library binding, unlike just about every other book in the browsing collection. I took home a couple other books I will enjoy looking at but not having the time to read: the 1993 Best American Nonrequired Reading, and Greed. I'll let you know about that one. Not having enough books I didn't have time to read, I then went to the bookstore to grab one of the two remaining copies of Persepolis before they get sent back. I am very pleased to own it. Incidentally, Persepolis 2 is in the library's browsing collection. On my way home I stopped for some shopping, and then decided to visit Beadspring, the bead store I pass by a million times but haved never entered. I spent too long looking for something really interesting, but finally came away with the makings of two simple necklaces, including one really cool face-bead that I fell in love with. Then there was no more avoiding project, so I dutifully sat and cranked out a couple pages. And now I am breaking. It's going, but I'm falling woefully short of my ten-page goal for the day. I almost certainly will not make it, as I suspect there will be some Saint Patrick's goings-on later that I will likely attend. reading: Marcel Proust, Du côté du chez Swann; Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not A Novel; Phyllis A. Tickle, Greed saw: ongoing episodes of The West Wing; Go project pages: 27 game of the day: Wooly Thinking's The Dark Room. This is one of the coolest things in a while, and I insist that you see it. |
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| Stragglers | ||||||
| 06:10pm 16/03/2005 | ||||||
The Spacefem quizzes mess all the others up. So they have to be separated. Boo.
 I'm getting there. I don't suck, but I've got a ways to go. (Their line, not mine)  That's all now. Go home and do work. |
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| Self-knowledge through quizzing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 05:27pm 16/03/2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Nightmare Before Christmas! What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!) brought to you by Quizilla
Look how healthy I am!  Ngggh haahhh! Grrr arrr Rum and Monkey.  Are you damned? Brought to you by Rum and Monkey  Which Famous Homosexual are you? Brought to you by Rum and Monkey  Which Evil Criminal are You? A Rum and Monkey crime. Today was really fun. I got out of bed really late because my alarm clock has broken and I cannot afford a new one at the moment. I'm so happy. I just found out that I have been accepted into Harvard. And Yale. I don't know which to choose... oh, why is life so hard sometimes? Last night I had to finish my term paper on the history of pre-communist Russian society. I focussed on the needs of women. I think it's ok, but if I don't pass this I'll lose my scholarship. I want to tell the world that I'm gay. I am updating this journal for the first time in ages, because I've been in prison. Today, I got a digital camera! Yes! I'm so ugly. Don't look at my photos pleeeeeze. I want to say thanks to my dad for giving me my own computer and digital camera. Here's a photo of my room. The weather in Ontario is cold. I have nothing more to say. I went to the doctor yesterday, and he said I have bipolar disorder, which makes me different enough to be interesting, but the same as all the other cool people with bipolar disorder. You should all do this quiz! It's amazingly accurate. You just put in your name and birthday, and it will tell you you're a moron. That's enough for now. But I'll leave you with this thought - sharing your life with strangers on the internet is the cheapest form of therapy available. Leave a comment and tell me I'm beautiful. Created with the Gregor's Semi-Automatic LiveJournal Updater™. Update your journal today! Powered by Rum and Monkey My Rich White Republican Name is Eleanor "Gays love MARCH: Attractive personality.sexy. Affectionate.Shy and reserved. Secretive. Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic. Loves peace and serenity. Sensitive to others. Loves to serve others. Easily angered. Trustworthy. Appreciative and returns kindness. Observant and assesses others. Revengeful. Loves to dream and fantasize. Loves traveling. Loves attention. Hasty decisions in choosing partners. Loves home decors. Musically talented. Loves special things. Moody What does your birth month say about you? brought to you by Quizilla  Which flock do you follow? this quiz was made by alanna
 discover what candy you are @ quiz me
From Go-Quiz.com
So I'm a Neutral Good Jew, then. Okay. And the latest, via ladysusan: Hate DDR. Love Gir. Don't identify with him, though. Still, I was amused. |
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| Angry at Anger | ||||
| 10:33am 16/03/2005 | ||||
I hoped that Envy could be surpassed by some of its successors in the series. Next was Robert A. F. Thurman's Anger, which I just finished reading. It's mightily disappointing. It is written by a Buddhist monk, and basically uses the series as an excuse to put out a self-help book spouting Buddhist maxims (which is all the author has ever written before this book). It doesn't bring in some Eastern wisdom to enhance or spice up a discussion of Western cultural and religious ideas -- it is exclusively and unashamedly a manual for combatting anger through Buddhist philosophy. There are hardly any sources consulted or cited -- the bibliography contains no more than five or six works, many of which are referenced only once. Most of the book consists of little nuggets of scriptural wisdom, followed by a few paragraphs of explication and elaboration -- not analytical or critical explanation, but merely repetition and emphasis. The illustrations in the book -- all the books include a few pages of black-and-white plates in the middle -- are all Buddhist tapestries and paintings of various boddhisatvas and demons with cryptic captions and no explanation or relation to the text that I could see. While a Buddhist meditation on anger might be a fine and useful thing, deserving of the critics' praise quoted on the cover, I don't think it has any place in this series, which is about the religious and cultural attitudes towards sin in the Christian tradition through the present day. Skipping a couple -- Sloth and Greed (I only get what's in the library) -- I've started on Gluttony by Francine Prose, which looks much more promising. Well, I've already read half -- it does fulfill its promise, and is what a modern book on sin should be. With a nicely rounded bibliography that stretches to two pages, it is wide-reaching and informed. Gluttony is really a very nice topic for this series, with an interesting evolution in attitudes towards it, and the whole modern concern with overeating and body image to throw into the mix. This is a book with some meat to it. And if I were a famous literary critic, or even a mediocre one, I suspect, that line would make it to the book's back cover. |
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| Canceled Like Me | ||||
| 02:13pm 06/03/2005 | ||||
Well, that's one more show out of the way, anyway. The program for the rest of the day is some errands and a good chunk of project work. I keep sitting down but not coming up with any more pages. I read, and take notes, and my outline expands, but not much is getting written. I did just discover that I'd neglected to read a few very important stories, "Le parfait amour" and especially "La Tyrannie des fées détruite", which is a fun one about how wicked and corrupt and controlling the fairies have become with all their boundless power and pride. I need to finish that one today (it's long!) and then go back and take notes, and then I'll be ready to fly. I might even finish the section on bad fairies today. Lots of people visiting this weekend -- Liz, Nick, and also Owen -- but I've been studious and reclusive lately and haven't seen much of anyone. Missed Emily's birthday party, which I'd been looking forward to. I did make it out on a diner trip last night, which was fun. Tried an egg cream for the first time. Not impressed. I have a feeling there are better ones out there, though. One more comment -- BBC radio is the best thing ever. I've looked so hard for good radio online -- WXBC's online broadcast has never worked, by the way -- anyone ever gotten it to play? -- and wasted a lot of time that way until stumbling across BBC's excellent variety. You can listen live, but the real treasure is the individual shows, which are listed by category and can be accessed for about a week. Radio 1 has some great rock, alt, and dance, and Radio 3 has cool world, jazz, and classical. Most of my favorite programs are in the "experimental" category: Radio 3's "Late Junction", which is mostly world, is a great one. My absolute favorites are Radio 1's "Mixing It" and "The Blue Room", both of which which play a perfect mix of eclectic, mellow music -- alternative, accoustic, electronica, ambient, whatever -- that's just to my taste. The "One Music" and "One World" programs are good, too. Worth a look. Go see. I've also just discovered New Paltz's college radio, which is also great for eclectic, interesting music. I like just about anything they play that's not metal. It's on 88.7 at night, usually after seven, eight, or nine o'clock, depending on the day of the week. Amazing that they broadcast so far. Poor WXBC...I'd listen to you if I could. Well, back to it. |
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| snow day | ||||
| 11:54pm 01/03/2005 | ||||
It wasn't *entirely* because of the snow. I think I could have made the two-minute drive down the well-plowed road. But I didn't really want to clean off my car and dig for hiking boots. This is a grueling class, and I was afraid he'd still take us out today in the still-falling, knee-deep snow, and I'm tired of my feet going numb from being covered in snow for three hours at a time. It's taxing coming to every single class -- you're penalized for absences -- and this gives me a good excuse to stay in. And the snow did have a lot to do with it. So I finished my proofreading job for Globe, watched an episode of The West Wing with K, played a good bit of Uru, read some Proust -- I don't even want to know how far behind the class I still am --, did some cleaning and puttering, and wrote another couple pages of my project. Page-wise, I'm about a fifth done by now! The writing's really not going too badly. Well, it's going quickly and easily, at least -- it probably is bad. Pretty decent day in, all in all. reading: Proust, Du côté du chez Swann; recent issues of Harper's back burner: Charles de Lint, The Newford Stories recently saw: The West Wing, Dead Like Me; High Fidelity (half-watched -- I was falling asleep) project pages: 20 a link: "Uncleftish Beholding" -- atomic physics explained in plain English. Very, very plain. |
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| Why not blog again? | ||||
| 11:58pm 22/02/2005 | ||||
And I have to have someplace to put links. Even though my readers (all three of you...*sniff*) have all rightly given up on me and gone away... Oh, well. Ashes to ashes, obscurity to obscurity. |
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