Wasting time...ain't it great?

I just wasted a full five minutes doing googlefights between the potential presidential candidates. It was fun.

Most satisfying-ly, Mitt Romney lost them all. :-) Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton did rather well. :-(

I HATE Freud

That's basically the post.

I have to do a presentation on an article tomorrow that I think is total bunk. Why is it that despite Freud's having been discredited in the circle he worked in, literary critics feel the need to pay him homage by applying his analysis to literature?

Sometimes a dark room is just a scary dark room to make you think of witches. Entering it doesn't HAVE to represent sexual penetration of the female body!

Ok. Rant done.

Grateful

So it almost doesn't feel like Thanksgiving because we spent the whole day driving. (I don't know that my right leg will be not asleep anytime soon)

But, I would be remiss in not recognizing at least some of my blessings.

First, I'm glad that I have a healthy, vivacious, verbal, incredible little baby girl to make me happy and call me Mamma. She makes life so much better...

Second, I'm glad to have friends that listen to me and give me good advice. Like advisers that help me through more than just a thesis and costume sewing, friends who help me through more than just Theory classes and new schools, a husband who helps me with more than housework.

Third, I'm amazed at having grown up in an environment that is safe but not spineless with women who made me stand up for myself because I saw them do it. It makes me happy. My home out in the middle of the woods let me run wild when I needed to, and build things, and get my hands dirty. Seeing people who are deprived of the safe but steady environment (who end up with problems with honesty or communication) or of the nature (who end up sick and restrained to the indoors) makes me really grateful that I had the opportunities that I did, really through no merit of my own.

Fourth, I'm really glad for women who came before me that made it possible for me to be a university student. My aunt sent me a quote from Susan B. Anthony...something about wishing she could be around for the next hundred years to see what women were doing. I don't know if all of what has happened would please her, but I like to think that a lot of it would. Sort of along those lines, I'm glad for funding that makes it free (and then some) for me to keep going. WAHOO for teaching! And for me being able to be in school still.

Fifth, my life has been really blessed through the Church...going on a mission, teaching little kids, meeting great women that I can form friendships with, meeting great men who do their best to raise their families.

Sixth, the ability to help other people. I like being able to do small thing that help people know that they're loved.

Thanks to all the people who gave me this life that I have. And Ben and BeeBoo for being with me in it. I really love this life.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

We were in Ohio on Tuesday and Wednesday....went shopping with my little sis (which was really hilarious and awesome). I found an AWESOME dress. I'll try to post a picture of it later. And it was cheap enough to fit in my budget (which means it was really cheap). I'm excited because I get to wear it to a wedding tomorrow.

AL and I have had good talks. I REALLY like getting to spend time with her. And I'm glad she loves me enough to forgive me for a spider in her salad. We've spent LOTS of time making cookies and eating them...lots and lots of cookies.

And NOW we're in Nauvoo! Which I love. Ben and I got married here, and it's nice to be back. Lots of memories. Good ones. Which I need in light of the events of the past of few months.

And on Saturday, we get to go to the Lovely house. HOORAY! And see everyone. And they get to see BeeBoo. Which is even more lovely. :-)

Censorship/uninformed literary criticism

It seems that I keep needing to rant about these books. The thing is, I've never even read them.

Weird, huh?

My in-laws keep tossing about emails about whether or not the movie based on the book released in the United States under the title "The Golden Compass" is a pernicious movie or not. (I just said pernicious...heehee) This would not be problematic to me, as I see no problem with evaluating the media that you choose to bring into your home to make sure that it's in line with what you want to teach your children.

However, at least two of these family members have offered the opinion that the series in all likelihood (This is a quote from the email I just read) "persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God," and because it does those things, it's of the devil. My problem with this lies in the fact that neither of the two, including this person who sent the scriptural quote, has read the books. If she had, I wouldn't be nearly as up in arms about the fact that she held strong views against them. I just have trouble with people who condemn literature (or film, which I think the argument can be made is a literary genre) without having read it. Like the folks who are convinced that Harry Potter will teach your children to worship Satan and sell him their souls. (That must be why I like them so much....we all know I'm one of Satan's little rebellious minions)

So. I guess this rant is really about not returning to upholding the mentality that led to the Inquisition's list of banned books (Did you know Lazarillo was on that list for a while? I only recently learned this....) or anything like it. Freedom of information is very much worth READING the books before you try to convince people that they're "of the devil."

Okay. I'm done. Until the next chapter of this rant. Once I read the books, I'll offer an opinion.

The story of my life

It's sad when you find descriptions of yourself in internet comics. I think it's particularly funny that the comics that describe me are so different from each other.

Here's one about grad school. My students. To the letter. And this is how I want to respond...

As to the other half of my ridiculous personality, this description is a little old but still sometimes applicable. And I don't think that this one will ever cease to apply to how I feel on days when I have two classes and teach (ie, Mondays...bleach)

Journeys

So, Journeys is a shoe store. I like the shoes they sell. I ordered some from online.

DON'T EVER DO IT.

It's been the biggest waste of my life. After going through a mess of repeated calls because they sent me the wrong shoes, I'm going to have to go do what I asked them three weeks ago if I should do (but they told me "Oh no, we'll fix it")....go to the store and special order them in person.

Their customer service department doesn't have access to the same system the stores do to order. So the store can get them, but customer service can't. And, the shoes that they re-credited my account for because they're "unavailable" are STILL LISTED ON THE STUPID SITE!

Why can't people do their jobs? I mean, if I show up for class unprepared and my supervisor catches me at it, I get fired. SO WHY DON'T THEY REPLACE THESE INEPT PEOPLE WITH COMPETENT ONES?!?!?

K. Rant done.

Medieval lit rocks my socks

So, have you ever tried to compare an aspect of three different works in an essay that couldn't be longer than 3 pages? Give me a 20 page research project ANY day. I mean, this was a great exercise and I'm pretty proud of the product I've created, but it's WAY easier to be verbose than precisely concise.

I really love my medieval lit class. Change of specialty, anyone? Nah. Love Golden Age WAY too much, and I don't know anything about medieval theater. Well, not much anyway. I want to be like my professor when I grow up. She can tell you off the top of her head pretty much any information you could need relating to her areas of study...I mean publication dates of articles and stuff. It's pretty insane.

Still in the weird funk mentioned below, but coming out of it as a result of dedicating actual time to producing something worthwhile and interesting for my class.

Amusing BeeBoo

You find funny things when you try to amuse an 18 month old.

This is awesome.

And I've never seen anything like this guy.

Some recent thoughts

So, the more I think about things in the last little while, the more I don't want to keep up this crazy existence of mine. I'm considering getting rid of the school part of it, since that's the most disposable. (Hard to get rid of Ben, harder still to think about life with no BeeBoo...who now says three word sentences, by the way...or at least one three word sentence)

The thing is that I don't know why. I'm really liking my program, and have learned a lot. The work load is good...not too much, not boring. I like teaching (though the caliber of students here is an entirely different animal from BYU...I don't know why I ever got nervous about teaching there) and have grown a lot in this environment.

In short, it's great!

I just want to quit, move to a house in the country, and have vegetable and flower gardens and chickens and rabbits. And maybe let Ben hunt deer. Probably not. But he'd feel cool.

Anyway. I'll probably not ever be gutsy enough to just pick up and do it...I'll just have to finish the PhD and then have fun...

More Chaplin

Watched "The Kid" last night when I was supposed to be reviewing a play. :-)

I liked it. I noticed that the Chaplin films that he directed are much better than the ones that feature him but were directed by other people.

I was disturbed by several parts of the movie (like when they put the kid in the wagon and haul him away) but liked others (Chaplin's tramp figuring out fatherhood).

Good movies.

Don't interfere *Caution, rant follows

I had done so well...weeks I think, with no ranting! Oh well, it was bound to happen.

Long story short, I've managed to make people mad at me again. As the result of a forward sent by one of my in-laws, a family pseudo-debate on Ben's side was happening through emails about a movie that's coming out. It's based on a series of books by a British author. I've never read the books and until the email forwarded to me about it, had never heard of the movie. So I don't have a specific opinion on either.

One family member belittled another for sending the forward when they had no personal experience with the books. He said something to the effect of "don't pass forwards on unless they're worthwile," which I think is a valid point, but he sent it to ALL the recipients of the original message. So I emailed him back (just him, not all the recipients of the forward) and defended the sender of the forward, saying that there's nothing wrong with making people aware of potential controversies.

I later sent on (to all the recipients) some comments from the author's website (do "find: religion) to try and smooth things over. The family member who I DEFENDED emailed me back and said "who cares? It's fiction!"

I just don't get it. My whole purpose was to try and say "look, it's literature and therefore powerful. Thanks for making us aware of the potential threat so that we can check it out before we expose our kids to it. Of course, there is the possibility that the threat is a fabrication by religious zealots (ie Harry Potter), and so we should keep the other side in mind."

Lesson learned: don't try to discuss ANYTHING. Just ignore the pink elephant in the living room. Even trying to fix things will just make things worse.