Countdown to End of Semester

ENG 337:

1. Final
   

ENG 345:

1. Final

ENG 347

1. Final

ATH 265

1. Final

BOT 131

1. Final

All to be done in the month of April (except finals). So close yet so far.

Although Junot Diaz is coming to do a reading on April 4!!!!!!!!!! I'm really really really excited about that. So excited that I think I'll order another one of his books just so I can have him sign it. And I'm getting increasingly excited for my London trip/ feeling tons of anxiety over all the nuances I have to do in order to get there - forms, payments, planning..... well you all know.

Salman Rushdie

I GOT TO HEAR SALMAN RUSHDIE GIVE AN AMAZING LECTURE! Okay breathe, and end all caps.

I had to get that out. Sir Salman Rushdie visited the humble campus of Miami and gave an incredible speech on, well, I suppose it is a little difficult to boil down (I didn't take notes unfortunately) but Safety, fear, and the liberty humanity seems to be willing to sacrifice in the face of fear. All of these grander ideas were of course constantly paralleled back to the fear and danger he experienced in his own life after the release of The Satanic Verses around 1989/1990. These are some quotes stolen from Morgan's facebook (Who was awesome enough to write down these incredible quotes) Although I have realized that out of the context in which they were said lose a bit of their incredibleness. But believe me, you had to be there. 

"There is no such thing as Safety. There are only varying degrees of unsafety" 

"Fear permits our rulers to do things we wouldn't normally allow"

About the repercussions of the Satanic Verses -- "Had it not been not funny at all, it would have been quite funny"

"Then the excrement hit the ventilation system..."

"...Then later, when they were cleaning the excrement off of the ventilation system..."

About a comment made of a person condemning his book w/o reading it claiming one does not need to walk in a gutter to know what's in it: "I thought, 'good point... about gutters"

"Who should have power over the stories we tell each other? Who owns the story?"

"We all live in stories" [paraphrase] In an open society we have the right to tell, retell, change, and satirize the story. In a society that is not free, "someone else imposes the narrative"

"This almost makes one believe that there is a God -- but there isn't. Sorry."

"Writers' only loyalty is to their talent"

"I'm talking like I run a country -- I'm a novelist"

"To say you can't criticize an idea without being criticized for your criticism is to create a world where we are all dumb"

"Don't ask about the future. The present is hard enough to understand"

And just for the sake of my own memory, I'd like to point out that I came within feet of Sir Salman. As my dad and I were walking back to the car Rushdie came out of the back entrance of Hall auditorium right behind us. Dad and I had a mumbled debate on whether or not I should turn around and say something, but I chickened out. I couldn't see me walking backwards showering Rushdie with praise as turning out very well. I feel like it would go something like this: I'm awkwardly shuffling backwards to face Sir Salman while saying "Great lecture mister Rushdie, now not to act like a thirteen year old girl at an NSync concert, but could have your autograph please?" while simultaneously tripping over a parking block. 

Adventures in Babysitting.

I thought I'd try a story from my actual life. Luke's Aunt was going to be gone Saturday night and two of her animals need pills, plus for other reasons I later discovered thought it would be nice for them to have some company over night. She offered Luke the job - mainly because she deemed Luke slightly more responsible than Stacey, although I suspect it may be a favorite nephew-aunt sort of a situation. Anyway, Luke, myself, Stacey, and her friend were all supposed to stay over and help with the animals. Stacey and friend never showed up. We got a call nice and late saying that she wasn't coming. It was just Luke myself and the animals.

Did I mention there were five of them and a fairly small house? 

Seriously, three dogs, two cats, one Oakwood Cottage. We were outnumbered. Not to mention neither of us had ever dealt with that many animals at one time in such a confined space. It actually went extremely well. There was a small glass of tasty wine, almost an entire carton of ice cream between two people and some great shows on TV. Plus, we got to go out to Longhorn Steakhouse before we got to his Aunt's house as a treat and it was delicious. The animals were good but oh my god were they clingy. I don't do clingy. That's why I have cats.

There was a tiny dog (smaller than Bailey) named Daisy who ran around in a purple sweater that was actually quite cute. She ALWAYS had to be snuggling with somebody. "You're on the couch? Are you going to the couch? Can I come canicomecaniCOOOMMME?". If you picked her off your lap and set her on the floor she gave you this incredibly indignant look, and proceeded to hop right back on the couch. His Aunt warned us beforehand that Daisy will sleep with you. No matter what you do she will find a way to snuggle in bed. And of course she decided I was the best snuggler and we were officially best friends. So who do I feel hop onto bed at 3 in the morning even though the door was CLOSED? Daisy of course. She had snuck in while I was getting ready and hid underneath the bed until I was asleep along with the cat Josephine who played with the crap on the window ledge because I had mistakenly pulled the curtain down on the ledge she usually sleeps on. She was a bit upset.

Maddie was a Shelty, and she was the dog that had to follow you absolutely everywhere. "You're going to the bathroom? Don't worry I'll protect you". She was also a pacer. We were all sitting comfortably in the living room and it took Maddie 15 minutes to sit down. She wasn't the smartest dog but was still quite sweet. 

Sam (dog - looked like Lassy) and Snowy (the cat) were essentially maintenance free which was nice. Snowy was fun to play with and Sam just didn't want to be bothered. It helped me feel a little less outnumbered. 

Overall it was actually a nice evening, the house was gorgeous, and the pets were at the least entertaining. However, I will NEVER EVER have that many pets. Ever. Nope. Two is my limit thank you.

Lovely

"'You'll get over it ... ' it's the cliches that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don't get over it because 'it' is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?

I've thought a lot about death recently, the finality of it, the argument ending mid-air. One of us hadn't finished, why did the other go? And why without warning? Even death after long illness is without warning. The moment you had prepared for so carefully took you by storm. The troops broke through the window and snatched the body and the body is gone. The day before the Wednesday last, this time a year ago, you were here and now you're not. Why not? Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday why not today? And where are you?

Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light years of silent space. Do the dead find peace beyond the rattle of the world? What peace is there for us whose best love cannot return them even for a day? I raise my head to the door and think I will see you in the frame. I know it is your voice in the corridor but when I run outside the corridor is empty. There is nothing I can do that will make any difference. The last word was yours.

The fluttering in the stomach goes away and the dull waking pain. Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone had said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it."

-Excerpt from Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

It doesn't particularly apply anywhere in my life at the moment but it is generally a beautifully written book and I thought this passage (at least the first paragraph) was particularly accurate and honest. A lot of the book is very romanticized, but I thought this was quite, well, honest. I had initially intended to only insert the first paragraph, but I thought the entire section was beautiful so I included it. Please excuse my indulgences.

Everything Starts Here

I'm in love! I'm in love! And I don't care who knows it! 

With a book of course. Julian Barnes is probably my new favorite author... in spite of the fact I've only read one of his books. Can anyone say post-modernism? Brilliant?

All of the above. Talking It Over by Julian Barnes.

Gone Completely

I deleted my grandmother from my phonebook last night. It's so strange how trivial a thing such as deleting a name from a contacts list can appear so monumental, especially when that person meant so much to you. That damn screen "Delete? Grandma" Yes or No. It makes you choose. Delete them from your life? Yes or No. There are no maybes. She already eliminated me from her life. She made that choice a year and  a half ago. Regardless of whether or not she has control over her state of mind, she certainly knows that she could seek help or treatment. She's choosing to do nothing. Not only has she remained passive in seeking treatment, but has angrily rejected anyone who offers her help. Thus, in my mind she has chosen to "delete" me and the rest of the people who love her. 

The only way I would talk to her is if I called her. I've called her twice since this all started and each call has reduced me to hysterics and then weighed on my mind for weeks. Now I can't call her anymore. I will never speak to her again. That's what made me pause for so long. I literally stared at that damn screen for at least five minutes. I couldn't make myself hit the button because I knew that once I did there would be no possibility of me speaking to her ever again. Of course, I could always get her number from my parents but I won't. I needed this closure, and now I have it. I only have two grandparents now.

How did you people turn out normal?

My friend asked me and two others this question. She is from the Boston area and the three of us grew up in the Western/Southwestern Ohio region. We were discussing the differences between growing up in Boston v. Ohio. For example, she was raised by a nanny (her mom was a single mom) and we were raised by our parents, babysitters, daycares, or friend's parents. It got really interesting when we discussed race relations in the respective areas. The other two talked about how they had 2 black kids or 2 asian kids in the whole school, and me discussing how much difficulty Miamisburg had in transitioning between a change in demographic junior year of high school. She posed that question that pretty much pervades my entire project for anthropology: "How did you guys turn out normal? You're not racist or crazy, yet you grew up in this incredibly homogenized area and quite often been exposed to different forms of racism" (I'm totally paraphrasing the second sentence). Well, one of the ways I believe we negotiate this environment is through jokes. It's almost as if we've had to work to suppress everything we've been taught in how to talk, how to view others different from us and what is right or wrong (I'm not saying from our parents but society as a whole). One of the ways I believe we can diffuse this active suppression is through joking.

One conclusion I've come to (not that I wasn't already aware of this) Is that the American relationship between race, gender, and the history of these two is seriously fucked up. Now, I'm not saying this is only true in the US, I have just come to this conclusion from my Joke project with linguistic anthropology where the people I recorded are US citizens. "A joke is never just a joke". Language and discourse reflects and recreates culture and society, and jokes are often ways of negotiating relationships that are unacceptable to talk about so openly in every day society. And the jokes I recorded are seriously fucked up. There are holocaust jokes, black jokes (involving lynching and cross burning), sexist jokes, mexican jokes, cuban jokes. And there are of course mere verbal art, almost all involving puns or some form of word play. What do ducks eat? Quackers. So they're not all horrible, but the ones that were are so hardcore that I have to address it.

The two jokes that got the best reaction:

What's the useless piece of flesh around a vagina? A woman.

(everyone laughed including the girls in the room which I thought was interesting. Women are only useful for sex... haha?)

How do you get five cubans in a shoebox? Tell them it floats.

Those are the jokes that everyone felt comfortable enough to really laugh at. Everywhere else, such as the black jokes (especially since there was a black male and a half black male present) were treated with a sort of delicacy or recognition that "this is wrong" as deemed by what is acceptable in society. But those two jokes were acceptable EVEN though there were three women in the room. Recreation of gender roles and in/out groups anyone? It's just very strange.

Now I don't say that these people are fucked up. I can't read people's minds, I don't know how they think. I can say that they are recreating the society surrounding them. Hence, society is fucked up, and requires seriously strange ways of negotiating these complicated relationships and roles. I believe that is exactly how I'm going to phrase it in my paper : ) 

Gah. It's depressing, frustrating and fascinating all at the same time.

Head Spinning

So, I'm taking a class on linguistic Anthropology, and I have to do a project for midterm. It's due this Friday. I'm doing a project on jokes. This project involves gathering data (I videotaped a group of people just sitting around telling jokes) transcribing the data - and not just what was said but semiotic codes (gaze, hand gesture, anything non-verbal), emphasis, rise in tone, timing significant pauses and including how long they were, overlap, and reactions to jokes. Even small talk in between about the jokes and all of the above that is involved in that. I recorded 20 minutes of film and currently have 9 pages of data transcription alone. I haven't even started the analysis portion that will be the bulk of my paper. Did I mention the paper in its entirety must be a MAXIMUM of 8 pages? I'm going into brain overload. There is so much that goes into a simple conversation or knock knock joke. Plus, the jokes escalate in offensiveness, which is interesting, but a bit tiresome. Maybe I'll post part of the transcript when I'm done, I dunno. This is going to be a major headache.

But do you want to know the dirty truth? I love it. Every minute of it. This has been an incredibly challenging class, but not impossible. I've loved working hard and I'm so anal with looking at the details. This class is designed to both invigorate me, yet drive me absolutely crazy. You reach a point where the details become overwhelming and I just need to stop and take it up again in an hour or so. This is the first time I've been excited about a paper since last semester when I loved all my English classes. Green Beer day? No thank you, I'd rather spend time with my project than watching you puke bright green liquid up. Here's hoping I don't drive myself crazy this week!

This was kinda fun

The "Band Name" is a town in Poland actually. Funny since I'm part Polish. Although I'm so many different things I guess the probability for coincidence was a little higher than most people. Oh, and there was something screwy with the third picture on the website given, so I thought the next best thing was to choose the first. I know I cheated a little but oh well.

CREATE YOUR BAND NAME & ALBUM COVER:

To Do This

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit "random"
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on "explore the last seven days"
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.