Tonight, looking up information online to prepare my CV (the academic answer to the resume), I came across this advice on the Pepperdine University web site:
SUGESTIONS
• No set length (recommend – 5 pg max)
• Proofread for spelling and grammar
• Print on resume paper, fax on standard paper and email as a MS Word attachment
• Be honest – never lie, stretch the truth, or misrepresent yourself
The author clearly needed to take item #2 more closely to heart himself.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sometimes You Don't Need to Be Told You Are Wrong
Like most math books, my calculus book gives the answers to the odd-numbered problems in the back and consequently, my instructor only assigns these problems when (1) the question is proofy and there is no answer in the back of the book or (2) the problem is so hard that seeing the answer probably isn't going to help you get there.
Yesterday I was working on an awkward improper integral with an integrand that is undefined at both limits of integration, which I didn't (and still don't) really know how to deal with, and my first stab at the problem yielded the implausible answer: -1/2 ln (i). Hmm. But hey, it's an odd-numbered problem - maybe I'll look up the answer and it will say "divergent." Nope. The answer is pi. I may not be able to understand what the natural log of the square root of negative one could possibly be, but I do believe it is unlikely to bear any relationship to pi. Oh well. My confusion on this question was such that I pulled out my old textbook from college and read the section on improper integrals, which is either much clearer and better written, or I learned more from my current textbook than I thought. Unfortunately, its straightforward explication of the improper integral did not extend so far as to make clear what to do when both limits are screwy.
Once again, it's as though my book expects me to so deeply understand the material that I can extend it under my own brain power. What do they take me for? A math major? Screw them and the logic system they rode in on!
Yesterday I was working on an awkward improper integral with an integrand that is undefined at both limits of integration, which I didn't (and still don't) really know how to deal with, and my first stab at the problem yielded the implausible answer: -1/2 ln (i). Hmm. But hey, it's an odd-numbered problem - maybe I'll look up the answer and it will say "divergent." Nope. The answer is pi. I may not be able to understand what the natural log of the square root of negative one could possibly be, but I do believe it is unlikely to bear any relationship to pi. Oh well. My confusion on this question was such that I pulled out my old textbook from college and read the section on improper integrals, which is either much clearer and better written, or I learned more from my current textbook than I thought. Unfortunately, its straightforward explication of the improper integral did not extend so far as to make clear what to do when both limits are screwy.
Once again, it's as though my book expects me to so deeply understand the material that I can extend it under my own brain power. What do they take me for? A math major? Screw them and the logic system they rode in on!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Needing Shorts
In preparation for school starting in a couple of weeks, and reacting to the fact that now that it isn't raining every day it has gotten rather hot, I have been considering my need for some new shorts. I have not bought any new shorts since losing weight a couple of years ago, so my current stash is dominated by ancient shorts that may or may not have ever fit, are possibly desperately out of style, that I just don't want for whatever reason, or are kind of too large but I wear around the house. I also have possibly 3 pairs of shorts that fit okay and look halfway decent to wear in public.
Yesterday I went through my pants and shorts to get rid of ones I don't want (I just did this a few months ago, but I get pickier over time and recognize that I am not going to wear something again) and to identify ones that could use some alteration to fit better. I dumped about 6 pairs and found several to fix.
Among the fixer-uppers were the clown pants I had made from scratch but that were always a little too loose in the hips; I discovered through a safety pin and try on process that if I am willing to lose my pockets (which I am), I could take them in at the hips and they will look quite satisfactory. Once I have altered them and can confirm I am happy with the new fit, I want to make some long Jams-esque shorts using the same (modified) pattern using the $1 and $2 per yard fabric sales at Wal-Mart. I wore homemade long shorts in fun patterns in the 80's so what the hell - I'll call it retro.
I also have two pairs of hand-me-down pants that my mom gave me a while back but that I decided ultimately were too short to look right as pants for work, so I decided to make them into knee-length shorts. (Knee-length is my absolute favorite length for both shorts and skirts on me and one bonus of sewing/altering one's own clothing is ensuring the length is always to one's preference.) Although I would never have worn "work shorts" to my actual office, I like the idea of mildly funkifying a pair of (in all truth, very nice) dressier pants by making them into shorts. I enjoyed how they turned out. The pattern may not come out very well in the photo, but they are shades of grey with a bit of purple in the stripe. (And do not fear that my legs have gone all stumpy since you saw me last; I am a bit foreshortened in the photo.)
Of course, what the shorts really needs to be worn with is a pair of low-cut pink Converse All Stars. Sigh. But I was amused to note that of the items you see in the photo, my total out of pocket was under $7 - the shirt also came from my mom (and required no alteration) for free and the shoes were super cheap at Wal-Mart. (I already regret that I did not buy every pair in my size they had. For a while I had a fantasy that I would be able to get a pair in a dozen different colors, but they only had black. I like these shoes even better than the Chinese mary janes which are my classic version.) Even the watch was a gift.
Yesterday I went through my pants and shorts to get rid of ones I don't want (I just did this a few months ago, but I get pickier over time and recognize that I am not going to wear something again) and to identify ones that could use some alteration to fit better. I dumped about 6 pairs and found several to fix.
Among the fixer-uppers were the clown pants I had made from scratch but that were always a little too loose in the hips; I discovered through a safety pin and try on process that if I am willing to lose my pockets (which I am), I could take them in at the hips and they will look quite satisfactory. Once I have altered them and can confirm I am happy with the new fit, I want to make some long Jams-esque shorts using the same (modified) pattern using the $1 and $2 per yard fabric sales at Wal-Mart. I wore homemade long shorts in fun patterns in the 80's so what the hell - I'll call it retro.
I also have two pairs of hand-me-down pants that my mom gave me a while back but that I decided ultimately were too short to look right as pants for work, so I decided to make them into knee-length shorts. (Knee-length is my absolute favorite length for both shorts and skirts on me and one bonus of sewing/altering one's own clothing is ensuring the length is always to one's preference.) Although I would never have worn "work shorts" to my actual office, I like the idea of mildly funkifying a pair of (in all truth, very nice) dressier pants by making them into shorts. I enjoyed how they turned out. The pattern may not come out very well in the photo, but they are shades of grey with a bit of purple in the stripe. (And do not fear that my legs have gone all stumpy since you saw me last; I am a bit foreshortened in the photo.)
Of course, what the shorts really needs to be worn with is a pair of low-cut pink Converse All Stars. Sigh. But I was amused to note that of the items you see in the photo, my total out of pocket was under $7 - the shirt also came from my mom (and required no alteration) for free and the shoes were super cheap at Wal-Mart. (I already regret that I did not buy every pair in my size they had. For a while I had a fantasy that I would be able to get a pair in a dozen different colors, but they only had black. I like these shoes even better than the Chinese mary janes which are my classic version.) Even the watch was a gift.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Adorable Scientist Illustrations
RB emailed this article from Wired that contains some of the cutest drawings of scientists working under dangerous conditions ever. This one of the astronaut was my favorite, but the Doctors Without Borders mobile lab tech and the grad student (citing an accident at Texas A&M, of course) were also particularly nice.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
New Tank Shape
Yesterday, I took a break from Math Hell to try out a new tank top design, based on a more fitted shirt that I own and almost never wear because it is a few inches too short for my taste, but that I like the basic shaping of at the sides and arms. Fortunately my sewing abilities were in reasonably good form and the shirt came together very easily. Because of reinforced seams at the top, I had to trim off the old shoulder seams and resew it in order for the fabric to even fit under the needle in my sewing machine for finishing the neckline; this brought the whole shirt up by about an inch, but didn't damage the fit. I am pleased with how it turned out and will reuse this design again. For once, the t-shirt I reconstructed was one I purchased because I found the blue heron irresistable (and pre-Operation Cheap Ass, I always have liked to throw our state parks a bone) but always had to use as a pajama shirt due to its unflattering baggy shape. I'm thinking of taking in my Marvin shirt, which I made into a tank top with a scoop neck but did not reshape at the sides, using this pattern.
I have yet to do anything at all adventurous with my reconstructions, but as long as I still have shirts with nice designs on them, I am not feeling the need to get very creative. Merely reclaiming my already cutely decorated shirts from the drawer of useless things has been very useful.
As always, Leo enjoyed trying to destroy/get through the barricade I put up between the sewing corner and the rest of the room; I made such a good barricade that I almost was unable to get over it myself.
I have yet to do anything at all adventurous with my reconstructions, but as long as I still have shirts with nice designs on them, I am not feeling the need to get very creative. Merely reclaiming my already cutely decorated shirts from the drawer of useless things has been very useful.
As always, Leo enjoyed trying to destroy/get through the barricade I put up between the sewing corner and the rest of the room; I made such a good barricade that I almost was unable to get over it myself.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
There's Geometry Involved...And Sociopathy?
Today I had to deal with the most annoying calculus homework section I have encountered thus far, "geometric applications" of the integral, beginning with a part called "Some Pointers on Drawing" that included some fine examples of "terrible solutions" (aka bad drawings) and some "reasonable solutions" that I found much less of an improvement than the authors did. They looked nicer, no question, but the comprehension of the fundamentals of the three-dimensional figures was not immediately forthcoming.
After beating my head against the wall much of the day until it was a useless, bloody pulp, Robert and I looked at the problems together after dinner. After a lot of discussion and attempts at translation, I realized that the reason I was getting nowhere on the first problem was wholly because I did not understand what they meant by "planes parallel to the plane that passes through the horizontal diameter of the base and the axis of the glass." (I knew I was unsure of its meaning, but did not realize that this was the primary hurdle.) But once I got what the hell that was supposed to mean, I clicked (even quicker than Robert) to the general shape of the cross-sections and felt this great sense of relief that the whole problem was conceivable now, though Robert patiently waited for me to screw up the algebra/geometry of the dimention of the cross-sections a couple times before I figured it out. On a later problem, Robert kept getting the shape of the wedge cut out of a theoretical tree backwards while I kept plugging away at the development of a formula to integrate.
The take away of this is that although I feel like I am pretty much incompetent when it comes to visualizing these shapes, that may not be as true in a relative sense as I've thought before. Maybe I'm just incompetent at it because it is kind of weird and difficult for most people, not because I am an especial moron in this area.
I mentioned to Robert that one IQ test I took had two subsections, a Performance IQ and a Verbal IQ and that oddly enough, I had scored higher on the PIQ than the VIQ (about 175 PIQ and 155 VIQ - I found these results in with some papers recently and the discrepancy surprised me all over again). In googling the test to determine whether each of the subscales was normed at 100, one of the first results was about PIQ>VIQ findings amongst a group of sociopaths, which made Robert laugh. Sociopathic?! Me?! Surely not.
Ahem. A little additional research indicates that the Performance/Verbal IQ discrepancy amongst sociopaths - "the most outstanding single feature of the sociopath" is linked to diminished (low-normal) VIQ, which is not my problem, rather than high PIQ. Robert teased me that my lower VIQ score was due to difficulties with the "16 questions which focus on issues of social awareness." I did note that my immediate internal response to the sample social awareness question "What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed and addressed and has a new stamp?" was to see whether the stamp was one missing from my stamp collection. Fortunately, every piece of mail (gas bill, credit card bill, etc.) that a park visitor accidentally tucked into a survey they mailed to me has had a boring stamp on it, so I have simply put it in the mail for them without having to go down the other branch of the decision tree.
After beating my head against the wall much of the day until it was a useless, bloody pulp, Robert and I looked at the problems together after dinner. After a lot of discussion and attempts at translation, I realized that the reason I was getting nowhere on the first problem was wholly because I did not understand what they meant by "planes parallel to the plane that passes through the horizontal diameter of the base and the axis of the glass." (I knew I was unsure of its meaning, but did not realize that this was the primary hurdle.) But once I got what the hell that was supposed to mean, I clicked (even quicker than Robert) to the general shape of the cross-sections and felt this great sense of relief that the whole problem was conceivable now, though Robert patiently waited for me to screw up the algebra/geometry of the dimention of the cross-sections a couple times before I figured it out. On a later problem, Robert kept getting the shape of the wedge cut out of a theoretical tree backwards while I kept plugging away at the development of a formula to integrate.
The take away of this is that although I feel like I am pretty much incompetent when it comes to visualizing these shapes, that may not be as true in a relative sense as I've thought before. Maybe I'm just incompetent at it because it is kind of weird and difficult for most people, not because I am an especial moron in this area.
I mentioned to Robert that one IQ test I took had two subsections, a Performance IQ and a Verbal IQ and that oddly enough, I had scored higher on the PIQ than the VIQ (about 175 PIQ and 155 VIQ - I found these results in with some papers recently and the discrepancy surprised me all over again). In googling the test to determine whether each of the subscales was normed at 100, one of the first results was about PIQ>VIQ findings amongst a group of sociopaths, which made Robert laugh. Sociopathic?! Me?! Surely not.
Ahem. A little additional research indicates that the Performance/Verbal IQ discrepancy amongst sociopaths - "the most outstanding single feature of the sociopath" is linked to diminished (low-normal) VIQ, which is not my problem, rather than high PIQ. Robert teased me that my lower VIQ score was due to difficulties with the "16 questions which focus on issues of social awareness." I did note that my immediate internal response to the sample social awareness question "What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed and addressed and has a new stamp?" was to see whether the stamp was one missing from my stamp collection. Fortunately, every piece of mail (gas bill, credit card bill, etc.) that a park visitor accidentally tucked into a survey they mailed to me has had a boring stamp on it, so I have simply put it in the mail for them without having to go down the other branch of the decision tree.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Math Grades Posted!
Midterm exam - 100%
Assignment #11 - 100%
Assignment #12 - 100%
Yay!
UPDATE: I was surprised to get a 100% on the exam, but this conforms with my hypothesis that the instructor purposely made the exam quite difficult and did not expect that the student would get every bit of every problem right. And he did email me that it was the "best exam [he] ever graded" so I can see how that would be worthy of full marks in his view. I am more interested than ever now to get the exam comment sheet (which the person in the academic center emailed me to say she is looking for) and see how close I came on the problems I was skeptical about. I may have performed better than I thought - particularly on the proofy questions. I don't yet have a good handle on what is considered adequate to demonstrate that things are true.
I have the last 3 problems of assignment #17 to finish, then two more assignments. I'm happy with my progress through the last half of the course so far, which is more clearly and obviously dependent on my not having to go to work every day with each passing assignment. I would not have the time, let alone the mental energy, to get through the material at this speed if I were trying to tack it on to the end of a stressful work day.
I don't get the sense that the individuals I have dealt with are complete idiots, and my instructor is clearly not stupid, but the whole thing strikes me as very disorganized. This class has been a good demonstration that merely having a knowledgeable professor on staff and having your web site up and running is not sufficient to ensure that the experience for the student is adequate, let alone satisfying. It's not just how slowly everything goes that requires human intervention (which I realize may be exacerbated of late by the fact that it's summer and they may be down-staffed, but that shouldn't be my problem), but the fact that the various people involved don't seem to know what their roles are. And it still boggles my mind that they were unable to inform me, despite having my email address, mailing address, and phone number, that my test was ready at the testing center; whether somebody failed to mail the postcard or the USPS lost it, why couldn't they have followed up with an email at the very least? It is, after all, an online class - it's not like I am not prepared to use a computer - and this is something that could be mostly automated. I also have a great deal of difficulty accepting the idea that their testing center staff are somehow busier than the people at my dentist or doctors' offices who call to remind me of my appointment and thus cannot be expected to call and tell me that my test is ready. (I'm willing to accept that my experience the morning of my test may not be typical, and that they do not always have staff sitting around doing nothing but chatting with each other about what they did last night to staff helping customers in a ratio of 4:1, but these people do not look fully employed. I wonder if most of them are on work-study and have the level of dedication and productivity we have all come to expect from student helpers.)
Assignment #11 - 100%
Assignment #12 - 100%
Yay!
UPDATE: I was surprised to get a 100% on the exam, but this conforms with my hypothesis that the instructor purposely made the exam quite difficult and did not expect that the student would get every bit of every problem right. And he did email me that it was the "best exam [he] ever graded" so I can see how that would be worthy of full marks in his view. I am more interested than ever now to get the exam comment sheet (which the person in the academic center emailed me to say she is looking for) and see how close I came on the problems I was skeptical about. I may have performed better than I thought - particularly on the proofy questions. I don't yet have a good handle on what is considered adequate to demonstrate that things are true.
I have the last 3 problems of assignment #17 to finish, then two more assignments. I'm happy with my progress through the last half of the course so far, which is more clearly and obviously dependent on my not having to go to work every day with each passing assignment. I would not have the time, let alone the mental energy, to get through the material at this speed if I were trying to tack it on to the end of a stressful work day.
I don't get the sense that the individuals I have dealt with are complete idiots, and my instructor is clearly not stupid, but the whole thing strikes me as very disorganized. This class has been a good demonstration that merely having a knowledgeable professor on staff and having your web site up and running is not sufficient to ensure that the experience for the student is adequate, let alone satisfying. It's not just how slowly everything goes that requires human intervention (which I realize may be exacerbated of late by the fact that it's summer and they may be down-staffed, but that shouldn't be my problem), but the fact that the various people involved don't seem to know what their roles are. And it still boggles my mind that they were unable to inform me, despite having my email address, mailing address, and phone number, that my test was ready at the testing center; whether somebody failed to mail the postcard or the USPS lost it, why couldn't they have followed up with an email at the very least? It is, after all, an online class - it's not like I am not prepared to use a computer - and this is something that could be mostly automated. I also have a great deal of difficulty accepting the idea that their testing center staff are somehow busier than the people at my dentist or doctors' offices who call to remind me of my appointment and thus cannot be expected to call and tell me that my test is ready. (I'm willing to accept that my experience the morning of my test may not be typical, and that they do not always have staff sitting around doing nothing but chatting with each other about what they did last night to staff helping customers in a ratio of 4:1, but these people do not look fully employed. I wonder if most of them are on work-study and have the level of dedication and productivity we have all come to expect from student helpers.)
Friday, July 20, 2007
Ridiculous Personality Test
Tam linked to this silly test and reported that she is a Haughty Intellectual; Robert chimed in that he is a Robot. This means they differed only in that Tam is Arrogant and Robert is Humble.
Robert predicted that I would be a Sociopath. Well? Here are my results. If you don't like them, I will kick your ass you stupid little twit. Note that this test has zero in the way of demonstrated psychometric validity.
Your Score: Sociopath
You are 100% Rational, 14% Extroverted, 57% Brutal, and 85% Arrogant.
You are the Sociopath! As a result of your cold, calculating rationality, your introversion (and ability to keep quiet), your brutality, and your arrogance, you would make a very cunning serial killer. You are confident and capable of social interaction, but you prefer the silence of dead bodies to the loud, twittering nitwits you normally encounter in your daily life. You care very little for the feelings of others, possibly because you are not a very emotional person. You are also very calculating and intelligent, making you a perfect criminal mastermind. Also, you are a very arrogant person, tending to see yourself as better than others, providing you with a strong ability to perceive others as weak little animals, so tiny and small. You take great pleasure in the misery of others, and there is nothing sweeter to you than the sweet glory of using someone else's shattered failure to project yourself to success. Except sugar. That just may be sweeter. In short, your personality defect is the fact that you could easily be a sociopath, because you are calculating, unemotional, brutal, and arrogant. Please don't kill me for writing mean things about you! I have a 101 mile-long knife! Don't make me use it!
To put it less negatively:
1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.
2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.
3. You are more BRUTAL than gentle.
4. You are more ARROGANT than humble.
Compatibility:
Your exact opposite is the Hippie.
[Note: Holy Fucking Christ, Hippies are annoying!]
Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Spiteful Loner, the Smartass, and the Capitalist Pig.
If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.
The other personality types:
The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
You scored higher than 99% on Rationality
You scored higher than 99% on Extroversion
You scored higher than 99% on Brutality
You scored higher than 99% on Arrogance
Robert predicted that I would be a Sociopath. Well? Here are my results. If you don't like them, I will kick your ass you stupid little twit. Note that this test has zero in the way of demonstrated psychometric validity.
Your Score: Sociopath
You are 100% Rational, 14% Extroverted, 57% Brutal, and 85% Arrogant.
You are the Sociopath! As a result of your cold, calculating rationality, your introversion (and ability to keep quiet), your brutality, and your arrogance, you would make a very cunning serial killer. You are confident and capable of social interaction, but you prefer the silence of dead bodies to the loud, twittering nitwits you normally encounter in your daily life. You care very little for the feelings of others, possibly because you are not a very emotional person. You are also very calculating and intelligent, making you a perfect criminal mastermind. Also, you are a very arrogant person, tending to see yourself as better than others, providing you with a strong ability to perceive others as weak little animals, so tiny and small. You take great pleasure in the misery of others, and there is nothing sweeter to you than the sweet glory of using someone else's shattered failure to project yourself to success. Except sugar. That just may be sweeter. In short, your personality defect is the fact that you could easily be a sociopath, because you are calculating, unemotional, brutal, and arrogant. Please don't kill me for writing mean things about you! I have a 101 mile-long knife! Don't make me use it!
To put it less negatively:
1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.
2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.
3. You are more BRUTAL than gentle.
4. You are more ARROGANT than humble.
Compatibility:
Your exact opposite is the Hippie.
[Note: Holy Fucking Christ, Hippies are annoying!]
Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Spiteful Loner, the Smartass, and the Capitalist Pig.
If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.
The other personality types:
The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
You scored higher than 99% on Rationality
You scored higher than 99% on Extroversion
You scored higher than 99% on Brutality
You scored higher than 99% on Arrogance
I Love All This Rain
Yes, it's raining outside again right now, as it's been doing with atypical regularity all summer long. Since June 20, our high temperatures have been below average every day, which makes the rain (and attendant headaches) worth it in my view. And unlike my parents, who have also been dealing with a lot of rain, we've been mosquito-free. (All those Mexican free-tailed bats taking their toll on local bug populations?) Of course, the rain arguably limits one's ability to be active outdoors, but since nothing in my experience (up to and including -8 degree weather) is as limiting as the sunny, humid, 100+ degree summer days we usually have, that's no big deal.
Other benefits:
Cooler summer days => less electricity used to A/C the apartment => good impact on Operation Cheap Ass.
I get to bring out my gorgeous umbrella that I bought at the Zilker Park botanical gardens shop.
My herb garden has been happy. Left to right: peppermint, oregano, thyme, basil.
The other morning, I saw a little rodent (presumably a cotton rat or field mouse) scurrying around on the bare ground between the grass down and to the right of the area shown in the picture above, but by the time I grabbed my binocs, he had disappeared into some grass. We saw deer and fawns down there this year, but I have yet to see any evidence that the red-shouldered hawks are nesting in those trees this summer.
Other benefits:
Cooler summer days => less electricity used to A/C the apartment => good impact on Operation Cheap Ass.
I get to bring out my gorgeous umbrella that I bought at the Zilker Park botanical gardens shop.
My herb garden has been happy. Left to right: peppermint, oregano, thyme, basil.
The other morning, I saw a little rodent (presumably a cotton rat or field mouse) scurrying around on the bare ground between the grass down and to the right of the area shown in the picture above, but by the time I grabbed my binocs, he had disappeared into some grass. We saw deer and fawns down there this year, but I have yet to see any evidence that the red-shouldered hawks are nesting in those trees this summer.
Dentistry Aftercare Tip
Yesterday afternoon, I had 5 fillings at the dentist, including one without anaesthetic, to avoid having my entire mouth numbed, which leads to such lovely outcomes as panic of choking due to an inability to feel oneself swallow, excessive drooling, etc. It took about an hour and a half and wasn't very painful, exactly, though they did end up applying a lot of pressure to my jaw, which gave me a headache. As did the sound of the drilling, during which I found myself imagining (for the amusement/distraction value) the high-pitched whine as the sound of two alien-insects having sex; I choreographed a little movie of it in my mind, borrowing the mood from the "gun/moon" sex scene in Murder by Moonlight.
[What? You haven't seen that one? It is unmissable. I can't imagine how you would not enjoy it if you have any appreciation for SF mystery B movies. You should see it with a friend and prepare to laugh. My second favorite scene features this exchange I have never forgotten:
Brigette Nielsen, playing an American bombshell: "Don't get Russian on me."
Julian Sands, playing a Russian military guy: "But I am Russian."]
All this dental work was not exactly a great thing for Operation Cheap Ass, especially as a I plumped for the slightly more expensive tooth-colored resin fillings, but my insurance picked up over half the cost and the final fee felt quite reasonable for what I was getting. (5 fillings = 10 pairs of Rocket Dog shoes.) Somehow it had totally slipped my mind that I needed to be getting cleanings every 6 months and after 5 years of this, despite my own good dental hygiene at home, there was decay to be dealt with. I probably only remembered to go to the dentist this month because I had health insurance on the mind what with my leaving my job in August. I now consider myself reminded of the importance of regular cleanings. If it has been six months since your last cleaning, please make an appointment immediately.
After the anaesthetic wore off, my mouth did feel totally worked over and sore and I wasn't much up for eating dinner, though I was quite hungry. I had an almost impossible time thinking of anything that I wanted that was worth the effort/pain of chewing it. But eventually, I did eat, and can report that I found the following meal quite delicious and satisfactory:
A Boca faux-chicken patty
Amy's Mexican vanilla ice cream with chunks of Reese's peanut butter cups
I basically never eat ice cream (note: I did have Amy's Mexican vanilla ice cream as part of my appetizer/dessert strategy at dinner with RB on Monday, making this week's ice cream consumption the highest of the past several years), and Amy's Mexican vanilla with Reese's is a total favorite, so that was a nice post-dentist treat: absolutely yummy and easy to eat. Fortunately, though I have had some sensitivity to very cold ice water, I had not a twinge from the ice cream.
There has not before last night been a time I have been glad to have an Amy's in the shopping center across thte street, but in the event of really wanting ice cream, it's pretty awesome, I do admit.
[What? You haven't seen that one? It is unmissable. I can't imagine how you would not enjoy it if you have any appreciation for SF mystery B movies. You should see it with a friend and prepare to laugh. My second favorite scene features this exchange I have never forgotten:
Brigette Nielsen, playing an American bombshell: "Don't get Russian on me."
Julian Sands, playing a Russian military guy: "But I am Russian."]
All this dental work was not exactly a great thing for Operation Cheap Ass, especially as a I plumped for the slightly more expensive tooth-colored resin fillings, but my insurance picked up over half the cost and the final fee felt quite reasonable for what I was getting. (5 fillings = 10 pairs of Rocket Dog shoes.) Somehow it had totally slipped my mind that I needed to be getting cleanings every 6 months and after 5 years of this, despite my own good dental hygiene at home, there was decay to be dealt with. I probably only remembered to go to the dentist this month because I had health insurance on the mind what with my leaving my job in August. I now consider myself reminded of the importance of regular cleanings. If it has been six months since your last cleaning, please make an appointment immediately.
After the anaesthetic wore off, my mouth did feel totally worked over and sore and I wasn't much up for eating dinner, though I was quite hungry. I had an almost impossible time thinking of anything that I wanted that was worth the effort/pain of chewing it. But eventually, I did eat, and can report that I found the following meal quite delicious and satisfactory:
A Boca faux-chicken patty
Amy's Mexican vanilla ice cream with chunks of Reese's peanut butter cups
I basically never eat ice cream (note: I did have Amy's Mexican vanilla ice cream as part of my appetizer/dessert strategy at dinner with RB on Monday, making this week's ice cream consumption the highest of the past several years), and Amy's Mexican vanilla with Reese's is a total favorite, so that was a nice post-dentist treat: absolutely yummy and easy to eat. Fortunately, though I have had some sensitivity to very cold ice water, I had not a twinge from the ice cream.
There has not before last night been a time I have been glad to have an Amy's in the shopping center across thte street, but in the event of really wanting ice cream, it's pretty awesome, I do admit.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Cricket Season
Reading Livingdeb's post about her & RB's adventurous walk the other night (which reminded me of the setting of an Infocom game from her description) made me think of a recent cricket close-call Robert and I had. Because, all Warner Brothers cartoon debate to the side, it is cricket season in Austin again.
A couple days ago, we had a cricket in our dining room, sawing away loudly. I'm not a fan of insects in general (heh, to put it mildly) but I've sort of reached a point of desensitization as far as crickets are concerned - after the Wall Bleeding Crickets and Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Sleep, Crickets Attack situation at my old apartment, it takes a lot of cricket to make me truly crazy. And although the sound is annoying in many contexts - like, for instance, in your dining room while you are having breakfast - I am not disturbed by hearing crickets as I fall asleep. Robert can't stand the sound of crickets at all, though. (I wonder if my growing up someplace where you often keep the windows open at night in the summer has given me both the familiarity and pleasant associations that Robert, growing up in All A/C All Summer Long country, lacks.)
The cricket sound was coming from the direction of the bookcase behind where Robert sits at the table, which posed a dilemma - was it worth his time to try to get back behind this bulging bookcase to find the noisy guy or do we let it go? Robert had already checked out other stuff on the floor over there - the trash can, my conference bag-turned-medication-bottle-holder, and so on. We had basically decided to leave it there after experimentation demonstrated that the sound did not carry to other parts of the house - e.g. my bedroom where my desk and math stuff is set up. Then I picked up the conference bag and put it on my lap to look for some pills. Oddly, I then started hearing the cricket from the other side of me, toward the direction of Robert's desk.
"Um, Robert..."
"Shit, it's on your bag."
"AAAAAAAACK!!!!" I throw the bag away from me quickly, tearing the cricket loose of the outside of the bag in the process, but not interrupting its incessant call for a mate. (OK, perhaps I'm still a bit squeamish about crickets when they are almost touching me.)
Robert grabs the cricket and flushes it down the toilet, letting it continue looking for love in all the wrong places.
This experience really brought back to me how bad my old apartment was before Robert stuffed some kind of gunk from Home Depot in all the crevices where the crickets used to enter. I can't believe I was able to keep any shred of sanity when I would come home from work and smash crickets on my living room wall with a broom for literally hours. And in the parking lot, anywhere there was light, roiling, seething masses of crickets awaited. Ugh.
A couple days ago, we had a cricket in our dining room, sawing away loudly. I'm not a fan of insects in general (heh, to put it mildly) but I've sort of reached a point of desensitization as far as crickets are concerned - after the Wall Bleeding Crickets and Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Sleep, Crickets Attack situation at my old apartment, it takes a lot of cricket to make me truly crazy. And although the sound is annoying in many contexts - like, for instance, in your dining room while you are having breakfast - I am not disturbed by hearing crickets as I fall asleep. Robert can't stand the sound of crickets at all, though. (I wonder if my growing up someplace where you often keep the windows open at night in the summer has given me both the familiarity and pleasant associations that Robert, growing up in All A/C All Summer Long country, lacks.)
The cricket sound was coming from the direction of the bookcase behind where Robert sits at the table, which posed a dilemma - was it worth his time to try to get back behind this bulging bookcase to find the noisy guy or do we let it go? Robert had already checked out other stuff on the floor over there - the trash can, my conference bag-turned-medication-bottle-holder, and so on. We had basically decided to leave it there after experimentation demonstrated that the sound did not carry to other parts of the house - e.g. my bedroom where my desk and math stuff is set up. Then I picked up the conference bag and put it on my lap to look for some pills. Oddly, I then started hearing the cricket from the other side of me, toward the direction of Robert's desk.
"Um, Robert..."
"Shit, it's on your bag."
"AAAAAAAACK!!!!" I throw the bag away from me quickly, tearing the cricket loose of the outside of the bag in the process, but not interrupting its incessant call for a mate. (OK, perhaps I'm still a bit squeamish about crickets when they are almost touching me.)
Robert grabs the cricket and flushes it down the toilet, letting it continue looking for love in all the wrong places.
This experience really brought back to me how bad my old apartment was before Robert stuffed some kind of gunk from Home Depot in all the crevices where the crickets used to enter. I can't believe I was able to keep any shred of sanity when I would come home from work and smash crickets on my living room wall with a broom for literally hours. And in the parking lot, anywhere there was light, roiling, seething masses of crickets awaited. Ugh.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Tarot Reading
Last night, I had a yet another headache that precluded screen-time and was feeling a bit at loose ends, so after having gotten my interest in my Dali tarot cards resparked after reading about Tam and her boyfriend's tarot play, I decided I would do a reading on myself - a standard 10 card spread using both the minor and major arcana - and the results required so little creative interpretation that I wanted to post them.
The question in my mind was pretty obviously about my whole new plan to go back to school and get a PhD.
Card 1 - Present Position - Atmosphere in which the questioner is working and living; represents the questioner
7 of Swords (pictured above) (I saw some similarity of this rendition to the Classic Tarot deck's Fool card - the pack on the back, the dog - but depending on what's being hunted, a dog shouldn't be out of place on that outing.)
"New plans. Wishes. Efforts through uncertainty. Attempt. Endeavor. Hope. Confidence. Fantasy. Design.
Um, yeah.
Card 2 - Immediate Influence - Shows the nature of the influence or immediate sphere of obstacles which lie just ahead.
5 of Wands
"Unsatisfied desires. Struggle. Labor. Endeavors. Violent strife. Conflict. Obstacles."
So the nature of the obstacles ahead of me are ... obstacles. OK. That's reassuring.
Card 3 - Goal or Destiny - The questioner's aim or ideal in the matter within her present frame of reference.
7 of Cups
"Fantasy. Unrealistic attitudes. Imagination. Daydreams. Foolish whims. Wishful thinking. Illusionary success."
What? Are they trying to say that I have been indulging in a bit of fantisizing and daydreaming that being a grad student is going to be just wonderful in most every respect? That I am not actually going to be stressed out and overworked and frequently wishing I could just go to a job, and do some work, and go home, and not think about it again until the next day? That would true. But I mean, I've got to have these feelings now, to get me started, because the hellish aspects will make themselves known soon enough. I'm just hoping I can store up enough enthusiasm to carry me through once I reach the point of absolutely hating it.
Card 4 - Distant Past Foundation - Broad and basic events which existed in the past; the basis of fact already passed into actuality and which is embodied within the questioner.
The Fool
"The Fool personifies the spirit and enthusiasm of youth possessed by the boundless range of possibilities one perceives when setting forth upon a new undertaking... The person drawing this card should be careful not to be tempted by that which appears better than it is..."
What a card. It includes both positive aspects regarding initiative, passion, and so forth, as well as carelessness, rashness, lack of discipline, and reluctance to listen to advice. Taking into account specific details like "severing dependency on family and friends," "entering upon a new world," "infatuation," "excess," and "immaturity," it's not a bad summation of my freshman year of colllege, as my GPA can attest.
Card 5 - Recent Past Events - Most recent sphere of influence or events which have just passed.
Knight of Cups
"An opportunity may soon arise. Advancement. Request. Challenge. Proposal."
As Robert pointed out, the most obvious recent opportunity which just occurred was my accelerating my back-to-school timeline by a semester when I found out at the last moment that I could still apply as a grad student at Texas State.
Card 6 - Future Influence - Shows the sphere of influence that is coming into being in a broad sense.
2 of Pentacles
"Difficulty in launching new projects. Difficult situations arising. New troubles. Concern. Worry."
This card was a bit of a bummer, but the events described seem plausible, given my situation, and not very surprising. Obviously, getting finished with my current damn math class before classes start in August is going to be quite difficult and could present all types of "new troubles" as I try to get that wrapped up while starting 4 new classes.
Card 7 - The Questioner - Shows the questioner in her present position; attempts to place the questioner in proper perspective.
10 of Pentacles
"Prosperity. Riches. Security. Safety. Family. Dwelling."
I certainly am well-positioned with my current financial situation (the savings I have to keep me afloat while having no income) and living situation to embark on this costly endeavor. I am such a cheap ass that I have to keep reminding myself that I can afford this, especially with Robert fully employed and sharing household expenses. I can be a grad student starting right away and not have to move into a small apartment with a total stranger to kept costs down but rather stay with my boyfriend and lovely bunny-boy in our nice place - yay!
Card 8 - Environmental Factors - Reveals tendencies which exist with respect to other persons which may have an effect on the questioner.
The Empress
"She is a woman of knowledge and intellect who can effectively put to use all her capabilities towards a meaningful and noteworthy development of her own life... Development. Accomplishment. The motivation behind a successful partner. Level-headed. Practical."
I can make a case for this reflecting the combination of Robert's and my mom's influence on my life. God knows I will need some level-headed and practical people to support me through this long, crazy-making process. Robert could not help pointing out that "Marriage" is one of the meanings of this card.
Card 9 - Inner Emotions - Reveals the hopes, fears, anxieties, and hidden emotions of the questioner.
The High Priestess (Reversed)
"Ignorance. Shortsightedness. Lack of understanding. Selfishness. Improper judgment. Shallowness."
I was absolutely shocked to see that this card was reversed (i.e. upside down). When shuffling the cards, I had explicitly used a side-by-side method, to minimize bending and potential damage to this $100 tarot deck, that should have ensured that no cards could be reversed. (When I use other decks, I always shuffle such that several cards are reversed.) All I can think is that I somehow managed to reverse this card when I assembled the deck before shuffling, but it's surprising to me that I could make what amounts to a mistake with a card, particularly in the major arcana since it has writing on it that makes the orientation very salient. Odd. Well, it certainly was a good fit in this spot, since I have had all kinds of fears that I am making a mistake, not thinking this through correctly, and will possibly put Robert in a bad spot by requiring him to 'follow me' when I leave Austin for a PhD program and put up with the insanity that will ensue as I get deeper into this. (Not that he hasn't already been putting up with the insanity resulting from the increasingly intolerable qualities of my job the last couple years. A low tolerance level for insanity is kind of incompatible with being my boyfriend anyway.)
Card 10 - Final Outcome - Shows the culmination and result which will be brought about.
Ace of Pentacles
OK, before I tell you the meaning of this card, I have to report that I was totally thrilled when I saw it. Even though it's been so long since I've read tarot that I have forgotten the meaning of most of the minor arcana, Aces are always good. I believe I may even have pumped my hand in the air over this one. It's not that I would have been utterly powerless to finesse a less obviously positive card, but it was a relief that I wouldn't have to do so and instead could enjoy an unambiguously awesome outcome.
"This card symbolizes the realization of counterbalanced ideas. Perfection. Attainment. Ecstasy. The combination of material and spiritual prosperity."
Hey, that works for me!
Here is what the entire spread looked like:
Sunday, July 15, 2007
The Ides of July - A Very Important Day
My little sister turned 30 today. A fine age indeed.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEFE!
The birthday gifts started before her birth, as I had taken such modest portions of good looks, charm, and physical grace as to leave an almost embarrassing abundance left over for her. Arguably, I didn't even take my fair share of mathematical ability. (And don't think I haven't occasionally grumbled at my previous generosity.) I suspect there was a lot of stubborness to go around, but she ended up with the lion's share of that too.
I am hoping that this history will buy me some time to get this year's birthday gift together. After all, Robert only got his gift today (1 month, 2 days late) and if it weren't for a convenient jar of herb seasoning that I had on hand and that my dad really liked on his chicken breast when he visited in June, I would have totally bombed out on father's day. RB's gift was a very close call and I only made it due to the social pressure of having a gift to bring to the party. And since my mom, by some miracle, got her gift to Jefe early this year, perhaps my gift being late will simply keep things in balance. Yeah, really, when you think about it, this is just one more small act of magnanimity on my part; I could let this disruption in the universe go unchecked, but instead I will boldly step in to save us all by delaying her gift. Don't mention it.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEFE!
The birthday gifts started before her birth, as I had taken such modest portions of good looks, charm, and physical grace as to leave an almost embarrassing abundance left over for her. Arguably, I didn't even take my fair share of mathematical ability. (And don't think I haven't occasionally grumbled at my previous generosity.) I suspect there was a lot of stubborness to go around, but she ended up with the lion's share of that too.
I am hoping that this history will buy me some time to get this year's birthday gift together. After all, Robert only got his gift today (1 month, 2 days late) and if it weren't for a convenient jar of herb seasoning that I had on hand and that my dad really liked on his chicken breast when he visited in June, I would have totally bombed out on father's day. RB's gift was a very close call and I only made it due to the social pressure of having a gift to bring to the party. And since my mom, by some miracle, got her gift to Jefe early this year, perhaps my gift being late will simply keep things in balance. Yeah, really, when you think about it, this is just one more small act of magnanimity on my part; I could let this disruption in the universe go unchecked, but instead I will boldly step in to save us all by delaying her gift. Don't mention it.
Fear of the Unknown
After seeing one too many references to HP Lovecraft, I decided to check out a book containing the long story At the Mountains of Madness and other shorter tales from the library. I wasn't at all familiar with his work or reputation, other than that he appeared to be a major influence on the dark fantasy genre, his books are supposed to be good, and I associated him with something called Cthulhu. So I was curious to see what all the fuss was about and get a sense of what it means for writing to be "Lovecraftian" in nature by going to the original texts.
This was clearly crazy-thinking on my part, which was made almost immediately clear when I picked up the book last night around 11:00 p.m. and read the words "supernatural horror" on the back cover. I read the introduction (not scary) and the first sentence of the story - "I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why" - and stopped. Did I really want to get into this at all, despite the promisingly quaint writing style?
I am, in pretty much every way it is possible to be, easily frightened. I have actual phobias about heights, enclosed places, near-total darkness, blood, bugs, a particular type of regular spot pattern on living things (esp. the spores on the back of ferns, as I discovered when my mom got a dozen roses with ferns as the greenery - just looking at this photo makes me feel utterly creeped out and it is not nearly as bad as the spores on the fern my mom had, which were not quite so "budded" looking), and certain open-space situations. I have a rabbit-like quality of being scared first and asking questions later. I am extremely easily startled and have just in the past few months been freaked out by such horrifying things as a piece of lint, a shadow, the sound of a piece of paper sliding off the desk, a fold in a blanket (OK, that was like 5 minutes ago when I thought there was a cat's head on the bed and it turned out to be Robert's purple blanket sticking out from under a sheet such that it looked like pointy kitty ears from a small round head), the logo on the Nike sports bra I was wearing, and a dozen other things I can't remember. As has been established by testing at the optometrist's office in my youth, and last week in a side-by-side experiment with Robert involving the ability to identify playing cards held to either side of the head, I have excellent peripheral vision, which only increases my tendency to see and become immediately scared of something out of the corner of my eye.
I am also basically scared of any unfamiliar place. A couple years ago, my boss D and I had to give a presentation at a conference in town and I was feeling pretty nervous about it on the day. But then D suggested that she drive us both over there and we went into the conference room and I stood up at the dais and in about 2 minutes, my sense of anxiety was utterly gone and did not return. A normal person would be nervous about speaking in public whereas I had been almost undone by anxiety over having to (1) drive to an unfamiliar location and (2) go into an unfamiliar room. I think there is a good chance that I would be less nervous about having to give an extemporaneous speech to 100 heads of state in my employer's main conference room (where I have made a lot of presentations over the years) than having to drive across town to meet a good friend at a restaurant I've never been to. It's nuts, but there it is.
I am absolutely, positively not one of the "sensation seekers" that you read about in psyc 101 who have a "propensity for 'thrill and adventure seeking' (the desire to engage in activities with some physical risk), 'experience seeking' (the desire for new experiences through nonconforming lifestyle and travel), 'disinhibition' (the penchant for drinking, partying and a variety of sexual partners) and 'boredom susceptibility' (aversion to routine experience and predictable people)." Whatever those various brain chemicals that people with risk-taking personalities are believed to be low on, I must have gotten their extra portion. I even prefer somewhat bland snacks, like popcorn. If the evolution of the human race had depended on me being willing to travel farther afield to pick berries, we would have been done for. My danger alert is set to yellow 24/7.
So as you would predict, my interest level in being scared for entertainment value is basically zero. I hate horror stories because rather than getting that heart-pumping, brain-chemical-rush feeling of being alive that comes from encountering something scary, I go from my usual state of being on edge to being, you know, completely unpleasantly horrified. It is my feeling that I am both starting from a higher level of excitement/stimulation and am hugely sensitive to any dangerous, scary stimulus. Enduring something scary for the thrill of it is utter nonsense to me. I think the X-Files and Tales from the Crypt TV shows and the Lincoln-Child novels are just about at the edge of my horror story comfort zone. I was not able to successfully watch the movie Something Wicked This Way Comes and it was a Disney movie (although I was about 11 years old or something at the time).
Particularly scary is anything that deals with supernatural horror, hence my recoiling from the Lovecraft book when I saw those words. Despite my absolute disbelief in the existence of any supernatural realm/beings, that shit scares the bejeezus out of me. It is definitely operating at a visceral, sub-rational level.
As Robert and I were talking about this whole laughable "Sally is going to read an HP Lovecraft Story As if" situation in bed last night, I realized that I was feeling a hair nervous even having that damn book in my apartment and only half-jokingly mentioned that I felt the urge to lock it out on the balcony but was able to resist doing that because I knew that a mere door would not be enough to keep the creepy things out. Robert pointed out (helpfully) that this kind of book is harmless until the words are read, and I was like, Oh yes, sort of like how nothing bad happens on Buffy until somebody actually reads the spell from the ancient grimoire. I was comforted by the realization that there were rules in place to keep that book from working its terror on me as lay vulnerable in my sleep.
Robert said that he hasn't read any Lovecraft stories but that he was familiar with a Lovecraft-based role-playing game in which certain events had an associated probability that your character would go immediately and irrevocably insane from them. Yikes.
Clearly the reasonable course of action for a scaredy-cat like me is to simply read about this stuff on wikipedia and having done so, my curiosity is both somewhat appeased and somewhat spiked. I found this description of what constitutes "Lovecraftian horror" interesting:
Several themes found in Lovecraft's writings are considered to be a component of a "Lovecraftian" work:
Anti-anthropocentrism, misanthropy in general. Lovecraft's works tend not to focus on characterization of humans, in line with his view of humanity's insignificant place in the universe, and the general Modernist trend of literature at the time of his writings.
Preoccupation with viscerate texture. The "horror" features of Lovecraft's stories tend to involve semi-gelatinous substances, such as slime, as opposed to standard horror tropes such as blood, bones, or corpses. [Note: I think slime is much less horrifying than blood, obviously. But if any of his terrible beings had fern-spore-like spots, ack.]
Antiquarian writing style. Even when dealing with up-to-date technology, Lovecraft tended to use anachronisms as well as old-fashioned words when dealing with such things. For example, he used the term "men of science" rather than the modern word, "scientist" and often spelled "show" as "shew". [Note: I basically like this kind of old-school style in a story like this. It is quite possibly this aspect of "Lovecraftian" writing that keeps appearing in the description of other stories that I have enjoyed reading.]
Detachment. Lovecraftian heroes (both in original writings and in more modern adaptations) tend to be isolated individuals, usually with an academic or scholarly bent. [Note: Ditto.]
Helplessness and hopelessness. Although Lovecraftian heroes may occasionally deal a "setback" to malignant forces, their victories are temporary, and they usually pay a price for it. Otherwise, subjects often find themselves completely unable to simply run away, instead driven by some other force to their desperate end.
Unanswered questions. Characters in Lovecraft's stories rarely if ever fully understand what is happening to them, and often go insane if they try.
I also liked this first line from "The Call of Chthulu": "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." I think if I could get past the horrifying content of his tales, I would enjoy the writing. Perhaps a particularly well-done humorous parody of an HP Lovecraft story would be more my speed.
This was clearly crazy-thinking on my part, which was made almost immediately clear when I picked up the book last night around 11:00 p.m. and read the words "supernatural horror" on the back cover. I read the introduction (not scary) and the first sentence of the story - "I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why" - and stopped. Did I really want to get into this at all, despite the promisingly quaint writing style?
I am, in pretty much every way it is possible to be, easily frightened. I have actual phobias about heights, enclosed places, near-total darkness, blood, bugs, a particular type of regular spot pattern on living things (esp. the spores on the back of ferns, as I discovered when my mom got a dozen roses with ferns as the greenery - just looking at this photo makes me feel utterly creeped out and it is not nearly as bad as the spores on the fern my mom had, which were not quite so "budded" looking), and certain open-space situations. I have a rabbit-like quality of being scared first and asking questions later. I am extremely easily startled and have just in the past few months been freaked out by such horrifying things as a piece of lint, a shadow, the sound of a piece of paper sliding off the desk, a fold in a blanket (OK, that was like 5 minutes ago when I thought there was a cat's head on the bed and it turned out to be Robert's purple blanket sticking out from under a sheet such that it looked like pointy kitty ears from a small round head), the logo on the Nike sports bra I was wearing, and a dozen other things I can't remember. As has been established by testing at the optometrist's office in my youth, and last week in a side-by-side experiment with Robert involving the ability to identify playing cards held to either side of the head, I have excellent peripheral vision, which only increases my tendency to see and become immediately scared of something out of the corner of my eye.
I am also basically scared of any unfamiliar place. A couple years ago, my boss D and I had to give a presentation at a conference in town and I was feeling pretty nervous about it on the day. But then D suggested that she drive us both over there and we went into the conference room and I stood up at the dais and in about 2 minutes, my sense of anxiety was utterly gone and did not return. A normal person would be nervous about speaking in public whereas I had been almost undone by anxiety over having to (1) drive to an unfamiliar location and (2) go into an unfamiliar room. I think there is a good chance that I would be less nervous about having to give an extemporaneous speech to 100 heads of state in my employer's main conference room (where I have made a lot of presentations over the years) than having to drive across town to meet a good friend at a restaurant I've never been to. It's nuts, but there it is.
I am absolutely, positively not one of the "sensation seekers" that you read about in psyc 101 who have a "propensity for 'thrill and adventure seeking' (the desire to engage in activities with some physical risk), 'experience seeking' (the desire for new experiences through nonconforming lifestyle and travel), 'disinhibition' (the penchant for drinking, partying and a variety of sexual partners) and 'boredom susceptibility' (aversion to routine experience and predictable people)." Whatever those various brain chemicals that people with risk-taking personalities are believed to be low on, I must have gotten their extra portion. I even prefer somewhat bland snacks, like popcorn. If the evolution of the human race had depended on me being willing to travel farther afield to pick berries, we would have been done for. My danger alert is set to yellow 24/7.
So as you would predict, my interest level in being scared for entertainment value is basically zero. I hate horror stories because rather than getting that heart-pumping, brain-chemical-rush feeling of being alive that comes from encountering something scary, I go from my usual state of being on edge to being, you know, completely unpleasantly horrified. It is my feeling that I am both starting from a higher level of excitement/stimulation and am hugely sensitive to any dangerous, scary stimulus. Enduring something scary for the thrill of it is utter nonsense to me. I think the X-Files and Tales from the Crypt TV shows and the Lincoln-Child novels are just about at the edge of my horror story comfort zone. I was not able to successfully watch the movie Something Wicked This Way Comes and it was a Disney movie (although I was about 11 years old or something at the time).
Particularly scary is anything that deals with supernatural horror, hence my recoiling from the Lovecraft book when I saw those words. Despite my absolute disbelief in the existence of any supernatural realm/beings, that shit scares the bejeezus out of me. It is definitely operating at a visceral, sub-rational level.
As Robert and I were talking about this whole laughable "Sally is going to read an HP Lovecraft Story As if" situation in bed last night, I realized that I was feeling a hair nervous even having that damn book in my apartment and only half-jokingly mentioned that I felt the urge to lock it out on the balcony but was able to resist doing that because I knew that a mere door would not be enough to keep the creepy things out. Robert pointed out (helpfully) that this kind of book is harmless until the words are read, and I was like, Oh yes, sort of like how nothing bad happens on Buffy until somebody actually reads the spell from the ancient grimoire. I was comforted by the realization that there were rules in place to keep that book from working its terror on me as lay vulnerable in my sleep.
Robert said that he hasn't read any Lovecraft stories but that he was familiar with a Lovecraft-based role-playing game in which certain events had an associated probability that your character would go immediately and irrevocably insane from them. Yikes.
Clearly the reasonable course of action for a scaredy-cat like me is to simply read about this stuff on wikipedia and having done so, my curiosity is both somewhat appeased and somewhat spiked. I found this description of what constitutes "Lovecraftian horror" interesting:
Several themes found in Lovecraft's writings are considered to be a component of a "Lovecraftian" work:
Anti-anthropocentrism, misanthropy in general. Lovecraft's works tend not to focus on characterization of humans, in line with his view of humanity's insignificant place in the universe, and the general Modernist trend of literature at the time of his writings.
Preoccupation with viscerate texture. The "horror" features of Lovecraft's stories tend to involve semi-gelatinous substances, such as slime, as opposed to standard horror tropes such as blood, bones, or corpses. [Note: I think slime is much less horrifying than blood, obviously. But if any of his terrible beings had fern-spore-like spots, ack.]
Antiquarian writing style. Even when dealing with up-to-date technology, Lovecraft tended to use anachronisms as well as old-fashioned words when dealing with such things. For example, he used the term "men of science" rather than the modern word, "scientist" and often spelled "show" as "shew". [Note: I basically like this kind of old-school style in a story like this. It is quite possibly this aspect of "Lovecraftian" writing that keeps appearing in the description of other stories that I have enjoyed reading.]
Detachment. Lovecraftian heroes (both in original writings and in more modern adaptations) tend to be isolated individuals, usually with an academic or scholarly bent. [Note: Ditto.]
Helplessness and hopelessness. Although Lovecraftian heroes may occasionally deal a "setback" to malignant forces, their victories are temporary, and they usually pay a price for it. Otherwise, subjects often find themselves completely unable to simply run away, instead driven by some other force to their desperate end.
Unanswered questions. Characters in Lovecraft's stories rarely if ever fully understand what is happening to them, and often go insane if they try.
I also liked this first line from "The Call of Chthulu": "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." I think if I could get past the horrifying content of his tales, I would enjoy the writing. Perhaps a particularly well-done humorous parody of an HP Lovecraft story would be more my speed.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Bad Hair Day
In the movie Little Children, Kate Winslet plays a character who is supposed to be not very good-looking. (Hollywood is an amusing place; Kate Winslet is a more attractive woman than most people will ever meet.) They made her look (relatively) plain, it seems, by putting her in dumpy sweaters, giving her bland make-up that washes her out, and really messing up her hair. I was sort of surprised by how bad they managed to make her hair look - quite frizzly and a very blah shade of light brown - until I saw the credit at the end of the film for "Kate Winslet's wig." Duh.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Mysterious Compelling Urge
While I was doing my math homework last night (after a long day at work made short by the fact that I had an amazing amount to do in a single day in the office), I was overcome with this feeling that I wanted to write about this logarithm stuff here, for reasons that I cannot fathom.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Sally in Mathmagic Land
It's been good to be back in math mode this week. Tonight I finished up the last two "hard problems" of my first post-midterm math assignment as well as the second half of assignment two. So I am now 2/9 finished with the second half of the homeworks. I know I will have to do it again on the exam, but I am looking forward to never having to determine the value of a definite integral by developing the Reimann sum. OK, I do feel sort of studly that I could do this, but now that I've proven it to myself (and soon, my instructor) I'll be quite ready to move on to other things.
Need I say that I took my midterm one month ago today and still have not received my grade or comments sheet back? Overall, I'm glad I'm not too dependent on this tour company to get me through my journey into the Land of Great Adventure. Because my instructor has (to my understanding) already told me my grade, I'm not freaking out about this, but (1) I would like to see this grade in official form and (2) I am interested in seeing the comments on my test.
I have to admit that my instructor's emphasis on the proofy bits has started to impact my thinking. This evening when I asked Robert a question on my homework that turned out to be about logarithms, I found myself asking him what was the proof. Fortunately, this proof was supplied by a later section of my textbook. It's amusing that they expect us to know the answer to something in section 5.3 that isn't brought up until section 6.1.
Need I say that I took my midterm one month ago today and still have not received my grade or comments sheet back? Overall, I'm glad I'm not too dependent on this tour company to get me through my journey into the Land of Great Adventure. Because my instructor has (to my understanding) already told me my grade, I'm not freaking out about this, but (1) I would like to see this grade in official form and (2) I am interested in seeing the comments on my test.
I have to admit that my instructor's emphasis on the proofy bits has started to impact my thinking. This evening when I asked Robert a question on my homework that turned out to be about logarithms, I found myself asking him what was the proof. Fortunately, this proof was supplied by a later section of my textbook. It's amusing that they expect us to know the answer to something in section 5.3 that isn't brought up until section 6.1.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Strange Gap in Historical Knowledge
This morning was RB's annual birthday party at Le Madeleine, where I gave him a Special Anti-Defogeyification Edition KSAL Radio Mix CD featuring songs from albums released since 2000 by artists who I anticipate were not yet born when the first record by RB's current "old guy wearing dog tags and who looks kind of like somebody's grandmother" favorite singer-songwriter came out.
At this party, talk turned to RB's brother-in-law T's kilt, which he did not wear to the party; he did however wear a t-shirt that had the Utilikilt logo. (T also talked about buying a helicopter, which another guest thought was crazy, but I pointed out that he still has a long way to go toward aeronautic insanity if he isn't talking about building his own airplane like my brother-in-law is doing. T was of the opinion that getting a kit, putting it together, and ending up with three spare screws was scary. For anyone who is basically not an engineering god, I am sure this is the case.)
When we got home, I questioned Robert (basically to the point of annoyance) about the circumstances under which he would wear a kilt. I told him that this was all build up to my dream of having an all-kilt wedding (note: dressing in costume is a running joke because RB's sister made everyone dress up in medieval garb a la Society for Creative Anachronism for her wedding, which I found laughable) and he responded that yes, this would be a celebration of our shared Scottish ancestry.
Sally: "But as a Campbell, you aren't a real Scotsman. You guys were probably on the wrong side at Culloden." (Robert's mother's mother is a Campbell.)
Robert: "They were on many sides of many things over the years, even their own."
Sally: "But I think they took the side of the English at Culloden and that's not acceptable."
Robert: "..."
Sally: "I have that right, don't I? That was the big battle between the Scots and the English government for the Scottish throne."
Robert responded that he didn't know all of the battles. So I googled "Culloden" and indeed, it was the battle I was thinking of, between the supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie (the Jacobites) and the supporters of the current king. It was amazing how much I knew about this battle, given my general ignorance of British history, but apparently I retained a lot of accurate knowledge from my reading of the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series. It's always dangerous to assume that any work of historical fiction is accurate (e.g., Traveler, in which Robert E Lee's horse is not a good source of facts about the Civil War), and since this series included a time travel-based plot, it was known to take certain licenses with the truth. But in this instance, my having read these books put me one up on Robert, which is a very rare event when it comes to history. So if Robert goes on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," perhaps he will need me as a life line for a wider array of information than we would have guessed.
And yes, the Campbells were on the wrong side at Culloden, where "wrong side" = supporting the victorious British army and the German king of Great Britian.
I decided to give Robert an opportunity to regain some trivia credibility by questioning him on facts about the Clan Campbell. He correctly identified the meaning of the clan name in Gaelic ("wry mouth") and the animal on the clan badge (the boar), but missed the third question, the clan motto, which amusingly enough, is "Ne Obliviscaris." I.e. "Never forget." Heh. I'm sure he won't now. But I gave him make-up points for offering up something I didn't know - the reason that the Campbells are so frequently hated by other Scots. It's not just their opportunism and lack of allegiance to the Scottish cause during the uprising, but the Massacre of Glencoe: the murder of 38 men, and the death of 40 women and children due to exposure after their homes were burned, that Robert Campbell undertook by order of the British king.
This being said, the Black Watch tartan is really classy looking stuff, I must admit. I think it's the lack of red. The Buchanan and Gunn tartans are just so garish.
At this party, talk turned to RB's brother-in-law T's kilt, which he did not wear to the party; he did however wear a t-shirt that had the Utilikilt logo. (T also talked about buying a helicopter, which another guest thought was crazy, but I pointed out that he still has a long way to go toward aeronautic insanity if he isn't talking about building his own airplane like my brother-in-law is doing. T was of the opinion that getting a kit, putting it together, and ending up with three spare screws was scary. For anyone who is basically not an engineering god, I am sure this is the case.)
When we got home, I questioned Robert (basically to the point of annoyance) about the circumstances under which he would wear a kilt. I told him that this was all build up to my dream of having an all-kilt wedding (note: dressing in costume is a running joke because RB's sister made everyone dress up in medieval garb a la Society for Creative Anachronism for her wedding, which I found laughable) and he responded that yes, this would be a celebration of our shared Scottish ancestry.
Sally: "But as a Campbell, you aren't a real Scotsman. You guys were probably on the wrong side at Culloden." (Robert's mother's mother is a Campbell.)
Robert: "They were on many sides of many things over the years, even their own."
Sally: "But I think they took the side of the English at Culloden and that's not acceptable."
Robert: "..."
Sally: "I have that right, don't I? That was the big battle between the Scots and the English government for the Scottish throne."
Robert responded that he didn't know all of the battles. So I googled "Culloden" and indeed, it was the battle I was thinking of, between the supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie (the Jacobites) and the supporters of the current king. It was amazing how much I knew about this battle, given my general ignorance of British history, but apparently I retained a lot of accurate knowledge from my reading of the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series. It's always dangerous to assume that any work of historical fiction is accurate (e.g., Traveler, in which Robert E Lee's horse is not a good source of facts about the Civil War), and since this series included a time travel-based plot, it was known to take certain licenses with the truth. But in this instance, my having read these books put me one up on Robert, which is a very rare event when it comes to history. So if Robert goes on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," perhaps he will need me as a life line for a wider array of information than we would have guessed.
And yes, the Campbells were on the wrong side at Culloden, where "wrong side" = supporting the victorious British army and the German king of Great Britian.
I decided to give Robert an opportunity to regain some trivia credibility by questioning him on facts about the Clan Campbell. He correctly identified the meaning of the clan name in Gaelic ("wry mouth") and the animal on the clan badge (the boar), but missed the third question, the clan motto, which amusingly enough, is "Ne Obliviscaris." I.e. "Never forget." Heh. I'm sure he won't now. But I gave him make-up points for offering up something I didn't know - the reason that the Campbells are so frequently hated by other Scots. It's not just their opportunism and lack of allegiance to the Scottish cause during the uprising, but the Massacre of Glencoe: the murder of 38 men, and the death of 40 women and children due to exposure after their homes were burned, that Robert Campbell undertook by order of the British king.
This being said, the Black Watch tartan is really classy looking stuff, I must admit. I think it's the lack of red. The Buchanan and Gunn tartans are just so garish.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Characteristic Conversational Contributions and 4th of July Facts
On the 4th, Robert and I went to a party at his aunt L and uncle T's house in west Austin which was attended by Robert's cousin A and her cousin K (on the other side of the family so no relation to Robert), both from NYC, as well as three friends of Robert's aunt from the neighborhood. Robert, A, and I were fairly quiet during a period of the general conversation dominated by the two neighbor women and K. But Robert did make two comments that almost made me laugh in their stereotypical, factual contribution nature:
(1) A's cousin K remarked that she used to swim 8000 yards a day for the high school swimming team, which she said was about a mile a day she guessed. Robert observed, "8000 yards? That would be over 3 miles." (Google confirms that it is 4.54 miles.)
(2) After discussion of a biography of John Adams, Cousin A stated that she knew three things about him - that he was President of the US, that his son was also President of the US, and that he attended college at her alma mater. K said that he also died on the same day as Thomas Jefferson, so Robert said, "July 4, 1826" and when queried, reported TJ's last words, "Jefferson survives," which was actually untrue, TJ having died a few hours earlier than Adams without Adams' knowledge. Which when you think about it, is a totally implausible situation - that two ex-presidents of the United States, who had been political enemies, would die within hours of each other on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which TJ wrote and of which Adams was a signer and "fierce advocate."
Apparently, and I did not know this history: "Jefferson ran for president in 1796, lost to John Adams, and, most uncomfortably, this made him vice president under a man whom he could no longer abide. After a single meeting, on the street, the two never communicated directly during the whole administration. Jefferson again ran for the presidency in 1801 and this time he won. He served for two terms and he did ultimately play a deciding role in forming the character of the American Presidency. The 12th amendment to the Constitution changed the manner in which the vice president was selected, so as to prevent arch enemies from occupying the first and second positions of the executive."
So in addition to contemplating the happy state of our independence from Britian, this is a good time to take a moment and be thankful for the 12th amendment, which spared us the horrors of a Bush-Kerry presidency. At least this way we only got stuck with one of the two crappy candidates.
(1) A's cousin K remarked that she used to swim 8000 yards a day for the high school swimming team, which she said was about a mile a day she guessed. Robert observed, "8000 yards? That would be over 3 miles." (Google confirms that it is 4.54 miles.)
(2) After discussion of a biography of John Adams, Cousin A stated that she knew three things about him - that he was President of the US, that his son was also President of the US, and that he attended college at her alma mater. K said that he also died on the same day as Thomas Jefferson, so Robert said, "July 4, 1826" and when queried, reported TJ's last words, "Jefferson survives," which was actually untrue, TJ having died a few hours earlier than Adams without Adams' knowledge. Which when you think about it, is a totally implausible situation - that two ex-presidents of the United States, who had been political enemies, would die within hours of each other on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which TJ wrote and of which Adams was a signer and "fierce advocate."
Apparently, and I did not know this history: "Jefferson ran for president in 1796, lost to John Adams, and, most uncomfortably, this made him vice president under a man whom he could no longer abide. After a single meeting, on the street, the two never communicated directly during the whole administration. Jefferson again ran for the presidency in 1801 and this time he won. He served for two terms and he did ultimately play a deciding role in forming the character of the American Presidency. The 12th amendment to the Constitution changed the manner in which the vice president was selected, so as to prevent arch enemies from occupying the first and second positions of the executive."
So in addition to contemplating the happy state of our independence from Britian, this is a good time to take a moment and be thankful for the 12th amendment, which spared us the horrors of a Bush-Kerry presidency. At least this way we only got stuck with one of the two crappy candidates.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Shoes and the 1980s
Last night because the weather was rainy, RB and I took our usual Monday evening post-prandial stroll at the mall. This was rather painful to me because of the ubiquitous cute shoe problem. Some time in the last couple of years, women's shoes got extremely awesome (excepting the horrible emergence of the Crocs, which I was thinking of as "Frogs" until I asked Robert to clarify the name because that just sounded strange) and I am painfully desirous of some new ones.
My plaid, "reconstructed" look sneaks I blogged about before (that I bought last Christmas, which is a long time to go without buying shoes!) remain among the most awesomely perfect for wearing with shorts, a skirt, or jeans, but look at the plethora of other adorable options available in the "casual" line from Rocket Dog. I could really do with a pair of the red Pranksters. The Juicy Fruit (which I like in beige) reminds me strongly of the flowered Keds I used to wear in the 80s, although mine never actually got that beat up, of course. There is something about the skirts and tank tops I am making for the summer that desperately calls out to be accompanied by cute, ratty sneakers and skimmers. I am starting to wonder if I can purchase some knock-off versions from Target or something (e.g. these and these) and call that Operation Cheap Ass compatible because they are only $13 instead of $35. I would love to find a cheap-ass version of the cute Keds mary jane slip-ons too. Tam has already experienced my shoe lust from a trip to her mall in Colorado in May.
Overall, I'm pretty well pleased by the popularity of the 80s style right now. After spending the last too-many years looking at hideous 70s style stuff, the return of Vans, for instance, is a treat. They have an entire little Vans store at the mall, which was convenient for reminding RB of what Vans look like. RB apparently wore the more clean-cut preppy Sperry Top-siders during that era rather than the skater style Vans version. (Ah, Target has a knock-off of the women's Vans also.) RB was glad that he could buy all-black Converse All Stars these days, which is great, but it's amazing how Chucks held their own throughout this entire time. (I had a pair of standard pink Chucks that I wore all the time in junior high.) Classic Converse shoes are just totally old school and have never looked wrong.
I also mentioned to RB that I'm happy to see Jams-style shorts making a comeback (which I did not own, but instead had many look-alikes that my mom sewed for me). He said that he remembered the brand Ocean Pacific being really popular for wildly colored shorts. I most strongly associate OP with the white t-shirts with a sailboat and the OP logo that was de rigueur when I was a kid. (No, I did not own one.) And I mentioned that I still owned a Hobie t-shirt, which prompted him to remark that Hobie was a real sailing company, so I said, "Yeah, my t-shirt is from Hobie, so it's a little more authentic than your t-shirt, so it gives me a bit more credibility on a sailboat, so..." but since he has not seen the SNL video of the Demonstrative Woman who is always one-upping everyone she encounters, he didn't twig to it. Tam, I relate this event for your own particular amusement.
My plaid, "reconstructed" look sneaks I blogged about before (that I bought last Christmas, which is a long time to go without buying shoes!) remain among the most awesomely perfect for wearing with shorts, a skirt, or jeans, but look at the plethora of other adorable options available in the "casual" line from Rocket Dog. I could really do with a pair of the red Pranksters. The Juicy Fruit (which I like in beige) reminds me strongly of the flowered Keds I used to wear in the 80s, although mine never actually got that beat up, of course. There is something about the skirts and tank tops I am making for the summer that desperately calls out to be accompanied by cute, ratty sneakers and skimmers. I am starting to wonder if I can purchase some knock-off versions from Target or something (e.g. these and these) and call that Operation Cheap Ass compatible because they are only $13 instead of $35. I would love to find a cheap-ass version of the cute Keds mary jane slip-ons too. Tam has already experienced my shoe lust from a trip to her mall in Colorado in May.
Overall, I'm pretty well pleased by the popularity of the 80s style right now. After spending the last too-many years looking at hideous 70s style stuff, the return of Vans, for instance, is a treat. They have an entire little Vans store at the mall, which was convenient for reminding RB of what Vans look like. RB apparently wore the more clean-cut preppy Sperry Top-siders during that era rather than the skater style Vans version. (Ah, Target has a knock-off of the women's Vans also.) RB was glad that he could buy all-black Converse All Stars these days, which is great, but it's amazing how Chucks held their own throughout this entire time. (I had a pair of standard pink Chucks that I wore all the time in junior high.) Classic Converse shoes are just totally old school and have never looked wrong.
I also mentioned to RB that I'm happy to see Jams-style shorts making a comeback (which I did not own, but instead had many look-alikes that my mom sewed for me). He said that he remembered the brand Ocean Pacific being really popular for wildly colored shorts. I most strongly associate OP with the white t-shirts with a sailboat and the OP logo that was de rigueur when I was a kid. (No, I did not own one.) And I mentioned that I still owned a Hobie t-shirt, which prompted him to remark that Hobie was a real sailing company, so I said, "Yeah, my t-shirt is from Hobie, so it's a little more authentic than your t-shirt, so it gives me a bit more credibility on a sailboat, so..." but since he has not seen the SNL video of the Demonstrative Woman who is always one-upping everyone she encounters, he didn't twig to it. Tam, I relate this event for your own particular amusement.
(P.S. I still can't figure out why including a photo makes the font shrink down to this tiny size. I'm sorry for the visual annoyance of this post. Anybody know anything about this stuff who can help a girl out? I've struck out looking for information on the web; apparently this issue is too basic for anyone to have posted something about, so far as I can see. I've tried posting in "large" font size to see if that is better. Maybe I should be buying Blogspot for Dummies instead of a pair of shoes.)
Math Exam Confusion Continues
Remember how I took my exam on June 11? Yeah, well, still no grade.
But in response to my query, my instructor sent me this note, which could make me a bit giddy if I fully believed that it means what I think it means:
"Did you get my comments on your exam? I can't remember what your score was, but it was listed on the comment sheet. I remember you did very well -- best exam I ever graded -- so I went ahead and logged 100% for the exam."
I want to take this to mean that although he doesn't recall precisely what actual score I got on the exam, he is giving me a 100% for it. I am really quite ready for a grade to show up on the web site so I can celebrate this properly. If I actually get a 100% for the midterm (30% of my final score), that puts me in excellent shape for the final.
Oh, and of course I haven't yet received the comments on the exam either. That really should go without saying, but in the interests of complete information, indeed the extension people have delayed that as well.
Here's hoping the people at the extension service get this figured out soon.
But in response to my query, my instructor sent me this note, which could make me a bit giddy if I fully believed that it means what I think it means:
"Did you get my comments on your exam? I can't remember what your score was, but it was listed on the comment sheet. I remember you did very well -- best exam I ever graded -- so I went ahead and logged 100% for the exam."
I want to take this to mean that although he doesn't recall precisely what actual score I got on the exam, he is giving me a 100% for it. I am really quite ready for a grade to show up on the web site so I can celebrate this properly. If I actually get a 100% for the midterm (30% of my final score), that puts me in excellent shape for the final.
Oh, and of course I haven't yet received the comments on the exam either. That really should go without saying, but in the interests of complete information, indeed the extension people have delayed that as well.
Here's hoping the people at the extension service get this figured out soon.
Muppet Musings
Check out the Muppet rendition of "Danny Boy" on Alethiography.
It took me a while to get around to watching this but yes, a classic. I thought Animal was particularly in fine form with his "Danny Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy."
I'm pretty much a sucker for Muppets. I think that's a good part of why I was able to tolerate the early episodes of the show "Farscape" until it came into its own. (Have you noticed how frequently a new TV show kind of sucks early on? Sometimes it takes over a season before it's really watchable at all.) Two of the main characters on "Farscape" are Muppets, and the erstwhile ruler of 6 million souls, Rygel, is really fun to watch with his expressive little ... eyebrows, or ears, or random tufts of fur, or whatever the hell they are.
I'm pretty much a sucker for Muppets. I think that's a good part of why I was able to tolerate the early episodes of the show "Farscape" until it came into its own. (Have you noticed how frequently a new TV show kind of sucks early on? Sometimes it takes over a season before it's really watchable at all.) Two of the main characters on "Farscape" are Muppets, and the erstwhile ruler of 6 million souls, Rygel, is really fun to watch with his expressive little ... eyebrows, or ears, or random tufts of fur, or whatever the hell they are.
On an unrelated Muppet note, about 10 years ago I bought a Little Golden Book of poems about the Muppets that referred to Gonzo's "proboscis," which I thought to be some advanced vocabulary in that context (proboscis = long, flexible nose or snout). I'm a fan of Gonzo, of course, and enjoyed this quote on the wikipedia entry from which I got this photo: "I shall now defuse this highly explosive bomb while simultaneously, and at the same time, reciting from the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley." (As has been well-established, I like the use of repetitive and redundant language, stated over and over multiple times for comic effect.) Rvman will no doubt find the reference to Shelley sleep-inducing, but I am willing to forgive a lot for "Ozymandias."
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