Wild Rice and Barley Salad

Based on a recipe from Cooking Light.

1 3/4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup uncooked brown and wild rice
1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup sliced green onions
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons extravirgin olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Bring chicken broth to boil, add rice and barley and simmer for 30 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. In small bowl combine vinegar, oil, mustard, salt and pepper and whisk until mixed. Poor over rice and barley mixture. Add raisins and onions and toss. Top with basil and chill.

Pondering Wikipedia

If one is writing a "scholarly" piece about teaching with wikis, does Wikipedia then become a scholarly source?

Magic Dish

We have a piece of stoneware that we call the "magic chicken dish." We call it this because it makes very tender chicken, but tonight I think it may really be magic. I was multitasking and put teriyaki chicken in the oven around 6:30. I was making lunches for the rest of the week, so timing wasn't really a big deal. I made the rice and stir fried the veggies, called a friend, talked to Greg, cleaned up the kitchen, and then about 8:15 thought "what's that sound." It was the oven, and the chicken was still in it. Not only was the chicken still edible, but it was still tender even after 400 degrees for nearly 2 hours. It really is the magic chicken dish.

Smokey Sloppy Joes

Sloppy Joes are somewhat of a comfort food for me and somewhat of a back-up plan. When I have planned to make hamburgers and it rains, I make sloppy joes, but I ALWAYS lose the recipe and start from scratch. Tonight I wrote down one version.

1Tbsp olive oil
1 lb lean ground beef or ground turkey
1 bell pepper (red if in season) chopped (optional)
1 small onion chopped
1 can tomato paste
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tbsp whole wheat flour
1 1/2-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (optional)
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp salt

Heat oil in large skillet. Add onion, bell pepper, and meat and saute until browned. Add other ingredients and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until desired thickness.

Reggie Ride

I've been contemplating biking to campus this fall and have started trying it out this summer, so this article caught my attention. I hadn't realized that ISU sends as many as 130 bikes to the city auction every year. I wish they'd have a student/staff sale instead, but this use is equally encouraging. Starting this fall, ISU will loan free bikes to students and staff for 48 hours at a time. To start with they will have 25 bikes available. Granted they will be painted in Reggie the Redbird Red*, so it's kind of like driving a university vehicle with ISU plastered in 40 places, but I still think it's a cool idea.

*For those not familiar with ISU, a redbird is really just a cardinal, but we are too close to St. Louis to admit that.

Spicy Cilantro Hummus

I love hummus, and have just recently starting making my own. I had a sandwich at Panera earlier this week that had spicy cilantro hummus on it. Luckily, they publish their nutrition info (which includes ingredients), so I attempted to recreate it and changed a few things in the process.

1 roasted red bell pepper or pieces
Juice of one small lemon
1 tablespoon tahini (sesame seed paste)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (or to taste)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
2 garlic cloves, quartered
1 medium chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. (more or less depending on desired heat)
Handful fresh cilantro

Blend until smooth in food processor or blender.

Analyzing a Pantagraph Letter

I'm not quite sure why I continue to read the comments section of the Pantagraph, but I keep finding myself periodically clicking "most commented" just to see what the latest scandal is. Right now, there is letter to the editor title "Insurance Companies Encroaching on Freedoms." Since State Farm bashing seems to be a favorite topic of the commentors, I clicked on the article to see what the issue was and because I generally can't resist a letter to the editor that has freedom or right in the title.

The letter starts like this:

I have to take time out of my schedule next Wednesday to attend mandatory traffic court. What is my horrendous crime you may ask? I did not have the most recent piece of paper in my car verifying that I was covered by auto insurance.

How did we get to this point in our society? I was originally stopped by the police because my passenger was not wearing her seatbelt. Oh no!! Thank goodness another criminal has been convicted and properly punished.

I like how she buried that she was actually pulled over for a seatbelt violation in the second paragraph, but at this point I was trying to figure out how this was an insurance company's fault. Maybe they misprinted her cards, maybe they failed to send them in time. But no, she follows with logical acrobatics that are impressive even for a small local newspaper.

Who is responsible for these laws anyway? The insurance companies. Their lobbyists have convinced our lawmakers to punish people whom they have judged make their profits go down.

Uninsured drivers must be gold mine that can't be tapped without the creation of some laws. So in order to force these people to get insurance, we developed seat belt laws? Clearly, no one but insurance companies thinks that seat belts are a good idea and everyone knows that the easiest violation to spot while driving your own vehicle is the use of a seat belt. I knew that there was a seat belt conspiracy.

I am still trying to figure out what this has to do with freedom, since last time I check the constitution didn't protect the right to drive, nor did it call traffic court a cruel or unusual punishment. I'm pretty sure driving would be classified as a privilege, but then a helpful commenter explained everything:

FollowTheConsitution wrote on Jun 26, 2008 1:07 PM:

" Catching Wild Pigs

You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in The last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity. ....continued... "

At first I thought maybe the poster was trying to use the derogatory pigs/cops reference, but that wouldn't make sense. Unless he/she is drawing an analogy that cops are being domesticated by insurance companies, but didn't police forces develop first. I understand that he is describing the gradual reduction in freedoms, but of all of the issues to pick--seatbelts, really?

Clearly all of the talk about the war, the economy, the enviornment, etc, has been misguided. I leave you with the "wisdom" of the end of the letter:

Land of the free? Hardly! We have lost our ability to make choices for ourselves and our families because businesses like State Farm and Country Companies aren’t making enough money to suit them.

The Great Seat Belt Conspiracy of 08 must be exposed!

I may never graduate...

If you are a procrastinator stop reading now!!!










I warned you...
Greg and I discovered a new game. L.O.B.E is a never-ending series of logic puzzles and brain teasers. That means when I am not writing or reading, I'm still learning, right?

It's not quite as ethically fulfilling as Free Rice, but is more stimulating than Penguin Diner.

Vatican tells vacationers to mind Mother Earth | Environment | Reuters

I was reading this article yesterday about the Catholic church's environmental advice for the summer and thinking about M's connection between religion and the environment. I have not been able to find the original list of tips released by the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People,* but I'm guessing that the list which is reportedly said to contain suggestions such as bringing less luggage on airplane to reduce fuel consumption and planting trees to reduce one's carbon footprint is largely tied to the Vatican's larger interest in becoming the first entirely carbon neutral sovereign state.

Even though "going green" isn't exactly as radical as it used to be, I'm encouraged that the Church is being as proactive as they are, and I'm really interested in this movement from a view of environmentalist as tree-hugging, commune-dwelling people living as far away from institutional life as possible, to a lifestyle that is being promoted by major institutions. The cynic in me wonders sometimes if "going green" has become a marketing ploy or the latest fad, but the optimist hopes that maybe there really is a larger shift happening here. Does this mean that the divide between academe and spirituality will also begin to become blurred?

The Catholic Church has been notoriously slow at adapting to modern life (i.e. the infamous Galileo apology 400 years late), but I've been intrigued with the adaptation that the church seems to be including lately. Nearly a year ago and way before I had this blog, the Church issued the Ten Commandments of Driving. This list intrigued me because I work with cars a lot in my dissertation (someday I will explain the significance of the title of my blog), so the fact that the Church went so far as to create a rather lengthy document about driving really fascinated me. Number 5:

Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

is really interesting to me because when applied to adolescent literature, it becomes my dissertation (in a non-religious way). While I don't usually mix my religious beliefs and my scholarship, I was shocked to find this interesting intersection.

Earlier this spring, the Catholic Church made another foray into the 21st century by contextualizing some other modern behaviors as sins. Pollution was on the list. This list in general makes me a little nervous for reasons I'll go into another time, but I am really interested in watching these tensions shift and evolve. I hope that the ecological connection is a sign that society's views are shifting and not that we are going to now try and guilt people into following a rule as one British newspaper headline suggested (Recycle or Go to Hell). In the meantime, I applaud the method of offering suggestions and tips that I have seen them use so far.

*Note: if you Google this, Google asks: Did you mean: Pastoral Care of Migrants and Ignorant People Not PC, but it made me laugh (and, yes, I am Catholic)

Lost and Found: White Rabbit and House of the Rising Sun

It's been a while since I had a chance to continue my rewatching of LOST, but I managed to get in two episodes lately.

White Rabbit:

• This is the episode that is probably most well known for Jack's "live together, die alone" speech; a speech that is quickly followed by the suggestion to move camp to the caves and the first of 2 camps on the island. What I was most struck by this episode was Jack's interaction with Boone. We've known for quite some time that Jack doesn't want to be the hero, but Boone really wants people to see him as a leader. If only he'd found that pen on the pilot a little faster...
  
• The real leader, in this episode, despite the fact that everyone dismisses him is Locke. The more I watch these early episodes, the more I see how intricately crafted Locke's character was from the beginning. It's not his "I've seen inside the eye of the island" that interests me as much as it is his awareness of his surroundings and ability to know what everyone needs in these early days. Charlie and detox, Walt and companionship, Sayid and the need to appear in control, etc.
  
• White Rabbits and Allusions: I remember that when I first watched this episode I had a brief moment of satisfaction when I saw the White Rabbit reference and thought "obviously, Jack is seeing his father because the island is some sort of (drug induced?) dream." When I watched it this morning, I was thinking about the broader series and the larger plot of Carroll's novel. Alice goes down the hole, her adventures take place there, and then she she awakes. Sawyer, however, is reading Watership Down in which nearly the entire novel focuses on life within rabbit holes/burrows and the mythology and folklore that grows around such developing civilizations. I like the way that both of these allusions set up the burrowing that will happen in coming episodes via the Dharma stations and the ways that fans have developed a culture for the people on the island.
  
• Lots of dolls at the bottom of ponds (Ophelia reference on steroids) are creepier than empty coffins or decaying bodies.
  

House of the Rising Sun:

• Honesty v. Deception: I'd never really thought about Sun and Charlie as being opposites before. Sun desperately wants to speak her mind and interact with everyone else, but chooses deception again and again. Even her plan to leave Jin in the airport is based on the deception of redecorating the house. At the same time we see Charlie trying to hide his drug issue that is even more obvious because of his honesty in every other aspect of his behavior. He tells Jack and Kate to stop "verbally copulating" which may be one of my new favorite lines.
• I'd forgotten that Jin and Michael had a rocky start. That makes me have a new appreciation for their later bomb defusing adventures.
  

A Very Bad Lunch

Recently I found a lunch. It was a well intentioned lunch, but it did not get eaten because a very "difficult" woman demanded my car 10 days ago, and the small ice chest it was in got thrown in the trunk. I was not a fan of this person before I found the lunch, but now I'm really not a fan.

Grr!

Revamped Mac and Cheese

I cook A LOT. It's relaxing for me, not to mention that at the end of the semester it is generally a productive means of procrastination as well. Lately I've spent a lot of time trying to recreate healthy versions of dishes I love and homemade versions of things I can't eat because of allergies. My problem is that I write recipes down on napkins and grocery receipts and other pieces of paper that end up getting lost. So, I'm going to start posting recipes here--mostly so I can find them again.

Healthy Mac and Cheese that Doesn't Taste Like Plastic:

The Basics:
1 Tbs Country Crock Light
1 Tbs flour
6 oz shredded Colby-Jack Cheese*
1 1/2 cups skim milk
2 Tbs Parmesan topping
7 oz whole wheat elbow macaroni

The Flavor:
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp dried mustard or 1 Tbs Dijon mustard**
1/2 tsp paprika
dash cayenne pepper or hot sauce (optional)
pepper to taste

Melt margarine in large sauce pan. Whisk in flour and cook one minute. Add milk and bring to boil stirring constantly. Let cook one minute, still stirring. Add cheeses and spices and stir until all of the cheese is melted. Add to cooked macaroni. (I added steamed broccoli and a little grilled chicken as well).

For those of you interested in points, a comparison:
This recipe: 8 points/serving (makes 4 servings)
Boxed mac and cheese (prepared as directed): 10 points
Small Mac and Cheese from Noodles: 10 points

It's not as low as some of the Weight Watchers recipes, but it actually tastes like Mac and Cheese. I have not been impressed by the taste that comes from losing two more points.

*This is really important: DON'T use reduced fat cheese. It takes twice as much to get something that tastes like cheese, which doesn't really save on points. In addition, it doesn't melt the same and generally makes the sauce separate.
**I know that this is really tempting to leave out because it sounds gross, but it's the key to the flavor. Don't ask me how it works, but after skipping it several times, I gave it a try and I'm sold.

We all scream for ice cream....

We live in suburbia; I know this. If you look up suburbia, I pretty sure that you would find a picture of our house. Greg and I are behind the suburbia curve because we don't have 2.1 kids and a dog, but we make up for it by gifting our backyard to the neighborhood freeze tag game.

This evening there were more kids than usual, and the game was wilder than usual (it had spread to the alley). While I was in the office, I could hear barely hear the game of tag, until all of a sudden I heard screaming. To be accurate, I heard about 20 kids simultaneously screaming "mom." I looked out the window and saw the heard of children streaming through our yard all yelling for adults. I grabbed my cell phone, sure that one of them had been run over in the alley. When I got to the back yard, there were only a handful left. I looked around and didn't see anything, but asked what happened. The response: "the ice cream truck is early and they didn't have their money."

This is drama in suburbia.

The Juno Efffect: Or Why I'm Annoyed with the Media

A Disclaimer: I don't usually post on political issues and this is by no means objective. It's a rant. If you don't like it, don't read it :)

On the news this morning there were several segments about a group of high school sophomores in Massachusetts who created a pregnancy pact. I'll admit, I watched the coverage and thought "seriously?" Fads a great; I layered socks and wore stonewashed jeans at one point, but babies are not fads. At the same time I was watching, I was thinking that I really felt sorry for these girls, not just because they have forever changed their lives but because Time magazine had made them headline news, so they will also be villainized publicly for making what was probably a really bad decision. Even more so, they will be used as scapegoats for people to theorize what went wrong, and those people with likely be quick incite opinions that are neither rational nor productive.

For example, the first comment on the Pantagraph's website reads as follows:

Everyone of these babies should be taken away from these girls and given to a good home. What a bunch of sick kids

What follows is 27 other comments (and growing by the hour) of people blaming the girls, their parents, society as a whole, the school, the boys who got them pregnant. The only person I have not seen blamed yet is a politician (on either side), but knowing the Pantagraph commenters, that should be included shortly.

So, this morning I was both annoyed at the actions of the girls (because we have teens who don't plan to get pregnant and are stigmatized when it happens unexpectedly and this isn't going to help that) and really annoyed at the media coverage (yes, I realize that I am contributing to the attention by blogging about it, but the rant is still to come).

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I should have known the coverage was only going to make me more upset, but as I was flipping through channels this afternoon, I came across a report on Foxnews that sent me through the roof. The internet story starts like this:

With films such as "Juno" scoring well among critics and moviegoers last year and the media's great attention to the birth Thursday of 17-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears' daughter, many say teen pregnancy is being glamorized in the media.

Okay, I get it...the Spears are not the best poster children for responsible decision making. Do we think that teenagers think that they are? Even the infamous "media" has described Brittney more times than I can count as: a bad mother, mentally unstable, impulsive, a trainwreck, and numerous other pejorative adjectives.

This gets my to why this story really, really bothers me. FoxNews, and to be fair most other news outlets, has now decided that we must explain this behavior in some way, and the target of choice: Juno. Google News currently lists 89 news stories that link the "Pregnancy Pact" with the film. Better than half of these throw in the media coverage of Jamie Lynn Spears giving birth yesterday, and quite a few add the film Knocked Up to the list of those to blame. This assumption is one that I spend entire semesters trying to move my children's literature students away from. Books don't teach, and by extension movies don't teach. It's true that movies and books may spark and interest or start a discussion (in fact we hope that they do this), but simply by watching a movie the reader doesn't not instantly decide that pregnancy is "cool." If this theory were correct than every time adolescents watched or read Harry Potter they would be jumping in fireplaces to travel via Floo Network. Last time I checked, this has not been the case.

In fact if we look at the two movies being cited in this case, Juno does not keep the baby and her pregnancy is not presented as the height of fashion or convenience. Knocked Up is an even more bizarre film to blame because neither of the characters in the film are teenagers and the mother has a career and means of supporting the baby. Blaming the media (of any type) doesn't make sense, in addition to the fact that it's not productive. If media images of adolescent sexuality were really to blame then teenagers would likely not be getting pregnant. In adolescent literature, for example, an adolescent female who has sex will nearly always end up portrayed in a negative light--she will lose her job, her car, the father of her child, sometimes be stricken with and STD or other negative health issue. The overwhelming message is frequently if you have sex, bad things will always happen.

The term Juno effect being blamed here, isn't even being used correctly. John Seery first coined the term when discussing a report that abortion rates in the United States have dropped. He says:

The movie Juno--perhaps a sign-of-the-times flick--depicts a sixteen-year old girl who gets pregnant. She goes to an abortion clinic, first encounters outside a classmate who is a clinic protester, enters the clinic anyway, declines the receptionist's offer of a flavored condom, surveys the rest of the setting, and then turns away.

His use of the movie here is meant to explain the phenomena that has resulted in abortion rates dropping despite the fact that they are more accessible. He then goes on to note the following about why the movie is a significant reflection of "the times" adding an explanation that I've yet to see brought up when the term has been used to explain the teen pregnancies in Massuchussets:

We are left, I dare say, with a sense of Juno's own resolve and agency, a maturity and perspective seemingly beyond her girlish years. Her decision could conceivably have gone, however, the other way. And the film doesn't continue onward nor end as a happy-ever-after, feel-good triumph, though we do leave impressed with something more than Juno's pluckishness.

The upside of this rant is that it gives me something to talk about in my children's lit classes next semester.

UPDATE: apparently it's a feminist blogging kind of day. M just posted this which nicely addresses the complexities of feminism.

‘You lose everything,’ teen mom warns - Parenting & Family - TODAYshow.com

Random Thoughts Today

Today contained a lot of random thoughts paired with random actions. Some were my own, but some were odd things I saw today.

First the things I heard/saw/overheard:

• Our neighbors have gorgeous patio furniture and they use it to eat value meals from McDonalds and Wendys
• As I was biking into campus, there was a teenage boy barking like a dog at passing cars. Maybe it's contagious.
• When I was checking out at the grocery store, I was behind a man with a six-pack of Bud Light and a single red rose. He turned around and said, "I'm proposing tonight." I said "congratulations." He said "do you think I should do something other than beer." I said "wine or champagne might be more romantic, if she drinks it." He said, "can you help me find something." I suggested several things. He bought the really syrupy daiquiri mix instead (which cost more) because "TGI Fridays is a classy brand"
• The rose bush that I spend a fortune trying to save last summer, before I finally started my quest to kill it and start over, it not only still alive, but thriving.
• Our neighbors across the alley had a garage sale on a Thursday afternoon. Everyone who came parked facing the wrong direction in a one way alley.
  

Random thoughts I had today:

• Biking to school: I wonder if I still remember the combination to my bike lock.
• Sitting in Class: I want to be on the writing retreat with C
• Biking home form class: my butt hurts
• Doing homework: I don't think you're allowed to just change due dates and not tell anyone.
• Reading email: yes, I know I overreact, you don't have to point it out again.
• Reading email again: my friends have the coolest blogs
• Driving home from the grocery store: there's a hot air balloon over my house and I haven't figured out how to use the camera on the new phone yet.

Evernote v. OneNote

I realize that this is a really obscure question, but first a little background. I've been playing around with notebook programs now that I've become slightly obsessed with tagging and internet organization apps and I have to keep a research log for my very last class ever. I'm not the type of person who keeps pages of notes separate from the original text. I write on the text, highlight, draw arrows, and even sometimes reminders about things not related to the text (Sorry B). So for me the idea of researching and then submitting separate paragraphs about the text sounds like the least kind of helpful research log I could ever use. Nearly all of the readings are in PDF form, so the logical idea was to use some sort of web program that would capture the text, clip it, and then allow me to type in the margin.

Zog told me about Evernote, but while I was waiting on approval from Evernote for an account, I discovered OneNote. Now, Evernote will allow me to import the notebook from One Note, but it lost some of it's editability in the process. I would prefer to actuatly use Google Notebook, but at this point it does not offer the interface with PDFs that I currently need. Thoughts on which application is better...more user friendly...more universal.

Wizard of Oz v. LOTR

The American Film Institute just released it's top movies by genre, and Wizard of Oz took number 1 in fantasy, followed by LOTR: Fellowship of the Rings. Not that I argue with their standings, but I find it interesting that in a category that houses some big budget new movies, Oz is still number one. I am a little partial to it because I spent 4 years studying under an Baum scholar who even taught an entire class that was only about Oz, but when I ask my students how many have seen the 1939 movie (I'm not surprised that many haven't read the book), the numbers seem to be dwindling.

Other interesting winners (to me) included:

• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (animation): The order of this category was odd to me. Beauty and the Beast came in above both Shrek and Cinderella, for example, and nearly everything is Disney.
• To Kill a Mockingbird (courtroom drama): one of my favorite movies and books of all time, but I had never thought of it as courtroom drama, which in my mind is more Law and Order.
  
• The Godfather (gangster): Fitting since it made the genre popular.
  

Eva: The Musical

I Googled Eva and apparently clicked search video instead of the web. Suprisingly, someone has posted a musical interpretation of Dickinson's novel on YouTube. I find it funny that the book they are reading is Lois Lowry's The Giver. Enjoy!

Normal woman arrested for barking at police dog

Pantagraph.com | News | Normal woman arrested for barking at police dog

Even after living here for over two years, it never ceases to amuse me at the ways in which "Normal" makes even mundane newspaper headlines funnier. The headline would still have caught my attention if it had said Bloomington Woman arrested for backing at police dog. It never occurred to me that there would be laws against "teasing police dogs," but then again it never occurred to me to bark at one either.

Road Trip with Peter Dickinson Pt 2

This time last week, I was quite nervous about the approaching ChLA, but more importantly I was very nervous about taking Peter Dickinson back to the airport at the end of the conference. It wasn't so much that I really had anything else to do that day, but 3 hours one-on-one with a well known author whose paper I presented on was a little unnerving. I know I said yesterday that I would blog about the experience today (and I sat down to do this morning), but in the mean time, I found Robin McKinley's blog. I'm intrigued for several reasons, but I spent all afternoon reading not because I'd just spent the better part of three days with her husband Peter Dickinson, but rather because she has footnotes in her blog. Those of you who know me well know that I am both unable to function without the footnote and have an irrational fear of footnote punctuation (there's a story here for those that are interested). I don't know that I will be able to pull off the footnoting of my own blog, but I'm in love with this metacommentary.

Anyway, back to the conference. I spent the first half of the conference regretting that I had submitted the paper. The introvert part of me combined with a very strong perfection impulse led me to toy with scenarios that would allow me to not present. I met Peter very early on Thursday morning when Roberta introduced us. I think that I was only able to end the conference without an ulcer because I was able to interact with him on much less pressure intensive situations earlier in the conferences--I helped him send an email to his wife, we printed his boarding pass, I drove him to lunch, etc.

By the time we got to Saturday and the presentation, I felt like I was going to be sick again. I opted for the short version of my paper.* (please note the punctuation of the pseudo-footnote) The paper seemed well received; quite frankly I don't remember much of that time.

The trip back to O'hare was wonderful. We chatted about politics, semis (and truckstops), how I miss the hills of the Ozarks, and numerous other topics. I was worried about the weather because storm clouds were looming, but they managed to hold out until our return trip. We did spend some time wandering through a Joliet grocery store in order not have to drive in the storms, but the flight seemed to depart as close to on-time as O'hare can accomplish.

My final thoughts on the experience have little to do with the confernce, and more to do with Peter Dickinson as an author who is also a human being. Part of my anxiety in this conference came from an experience I had as a master's student. I was writing my thesis on the runner up for the Phoenix Award and I emailed her to ask a question. She responded with a very dismissive and very accusatory email.** That experience made me very nervous about interacting with another author, but Peter was so gracious. Shortly after I helped him check-in on his flight, he gave me a book of his poetry that his children put together in honor of his 80th birthday. He inscribed it to Greg and me as a thank you for taking him back to the airport. I've paid people to sign my books, I've stood in line to have books signed, but I've never had someone offer me one as a gift.***

*it's very bad form to go over the time allotment at a conference, and since I was in the very last session, I felt like everyone's attention span would be shot anyway.
**basically she told me that I (and all other academics) was what was wrong with literature and that I had totally missed the point. I've withheld her name here because many of you know, but simple research can reveal this person if you are really interested.
***this was the honored portion of the previous post

Money Spiders

The last time I blogged I was finding ways to avoid dealing with the fact that a) I was presenting a paper at a conference about the honored book in which the author would be present for my paper and b) I was then responsible for taking that author on the 2 1/2 hour drive back to O'Hare. Quite frankly, I'm exhausted now and really don't want to blog, but feel like I should. So, the last 4 days can be summed up in the following adjectives: excited, tired, nauseous, really nauseous, honored.

Tomorrow when I have finally slept, I will blog in detail about the last couple of days, but for now I'll leave it at this: I'm back home, and Peter Dickinson is somewhere over the Atlantic, and I might be indebted to Anita Tarr for the rest of my life. That sounds really cheesy, but for once I'm glad that I'm unable to say "no" to people.

Things that oinked, lived in water, are on bones, or are generally orange

These are all things I don't eat. The last category is slightly misleading because it really just refers to my carrot allergy, but I really don't eat seafood or pork or anything still on a bone. I know that my reasoning is purely psychological (I had traumatic experiences with pork and seafood), but those feelings are so strong and I have not eaten either in so long that I almost can't eat them anymore.

When I was very young we went to Florida on vacation and a friend of the family introduced me to seafood by giving my a raw oyster. The result was not pretty. I've tried to add seafood back in the last several years, but it really upsets my stomach.

My aversion to pork is more psychologically traumatizing than texture/taste related. When I was in second grade, I was at a pork roast (a tradition in the south) and sitting quietly reading a book. An introvert and avid reader, the book happened to be Charlotte's Web. Enough said. Long story short, someone offered to show me Wilbur, and I've not eaten pork since.


Tonight Greg made pork steak, and I tasted it. It's not my first choice, but I didn't totally freak out. This is an improvement. I'm not ready to add it to my regular menu, but I am proud of myself for trying. I'm quite happy with my diet of veggies and boneless, skinnless chicken breast, but twenty years later, I think I may finally be ready to move on from a very bad joke. Although, I do much better, if you simply refrain from telling me it's pork.

Lost and Found: Tabula Rasa and Walkabout

I was wide awake at 5:00 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, I had a little extra time to watch a second episode. As a warning 5:00 am LOST thoughts are not profound in the least bit (see item one under Walkabout for proof) :)

Tabula Rasa

1. This in one of my least favorite episodes. Really, it is less about blank slates and starting over and more about 39 minutes of watching a guy slowly die and 4 minutes of everyone deciding to get along and be friends. I like that we get Kate's backstory (or at least a very small piece of it), but for me it gets lost in the constant screaming of the marshal. Maybe that's the point, Kate can start over because at this point, no one really has the time or energy to care what she did in her past. Kate can only really start over if the marshal dies, so I understand that killing him is a plot device, but for me this episode becomes more about him and less about Kate.

2. I'd forgotten how dependent Jack was on other people from the very beginning. While he may be pegged as the leader, he never really makes a decision on his own. I like that he listens to women, something Jin still needs to get better at, but Jack's interest in Kate is so sexualized.

3. Sawyer's nicknames: I really like Sawyer's nicknames, but had forgotten how mean they were at first, and how the rest of the characters' responded. The early one's were generally descriptions of weight (Hurley) or ethnicity (Sayid) and come across more a sign that Sawyer doesn't care enough to learn names, rather than the signs of affection that they later become. At the end of this episode, Sawyer does call Kate "Freckles" for the first time.

Walkabout:
1. What happened to all the boars after season 1. Did they kill and eat them all? Do boars only live in one small part of the island? I'm nearly positive that the survivors have been back to that stretch of beach, but the boars seem to have gone into hibernation since season 1. I know this is a really small detail, but all I could think about this entire episode was "what happened to all the boars?" Are they controlled by Ben like everything else? Maybe there are just a handful of boars that live on the island. We know that there are at least 2 adult boars and a handful of "piglets." I can't remember which one Sawyer gets in a feud with later this season for "staring" at him, but I guess the real question is did the boars in hiding move with the island at the end of this season

2. We know that the island has healing properties--Locke can now walk, soon we will learn that Rose has been cured of cancer--, but this is also the first episode where we see Christian Sheparad (Jack's father who died in Australia and was being flown back to the US). This is the first of the "I see dead people" moments on the island. If Christian Shepard can come back to life, that gives hope for Charlie and Clair, right?

3. I have no more thoughts on this episode because I seriously spent 40 minutes pondering the state of the boars on the island.

Lost and Found: The Pilot Pt 2

I didn't enjoy part two as much as part one, but I still found it very interesting.

1. Lots of unresolved issues: Sawyer and Sayid get into a fist fight about the infamous "what is the criminal" question. Ironically, Kate breaks it up with a distraction, but the most fascinating part of this episode for me was that Sawyer very angrily tells Jack "you're the hero." In those early days, and even the first couple of seasons, it was strongly suggested that Jack was the key to survival. Now that I see that this was pointed out in the pilot (pts 1 &2 were originally shown together), I am more comfortable with my reading that since that point the show has tried to make Jack anything but the hero.

2. Jin is a complete chauvinist asshole in this episode. I really can't think of any other way to describe him. He completely dominates Sun, even though we later learn she was trying to leave him. He's jealous. He's rude. His only redeeming quality is that he give Claire a piece of seafood and Aaron kicks again. He's come a long way to convince me 4 seasons later to hope he wasn't killed in the explosion.

3. Hurley is still one of my favorites. He "assists" Jack in holding down the Marshall while Jack removes the shrapnel. I'm convinced that I like Hurley, especially in these early episodes, because he doesn't have the anger and resentment issues that the others do. He does have self-esteem issues, which is something I identify with more than anger, but from day one on the island he thinks about others.

4. Shannon needs to go....NOW...really, she translated the message, now get rid of her already.

Lost and Found: The Pilot Pt 1

There are no more LOST episodes for a long time, and it's summer, and we got a new computer than is capable of watching the online episodes without exploding, so I'm going to rewatch the old episodes and blog about it here. To be fair, I totally ripped this off from M, but I think it's a great idea, so I'm going to try it to. If you don't watch LOST, and you read my blog (something that doesn't apply to many of you), then feel free to skip any post that starts Lost and Found.



1. I can't believe that until now, I never caught the double meaning of the title. In my mind, pilot was "first episode" and at the time, I never thought about the significance of the pilot when I watched this the first time. In additon, I had not yet learned that everything has a double (or at least misleading) meaning on LOST and that nothing is simple. The pilot as a character appears for only a matter of minutes in this episode, but he introduces the Black Smoke--a character that will plague the island for the next several seasons. Ironically, in season four, it's also the pilot that leads the helicopter pilot Frank (aka Kenny Rogers) to discover that Oceanic is being less than honest about the fate of the airplane.

2. Hurley got the crap jobs rights from the beginning, but he is also still one of my favorite characters. He's the one who suggested that they bury the dead, he's the one who got meals together that first night. He may not be the social leader like Jack, but he definitely is key to pulling the island together.

3. I've never seen so much bamboo in any episode since. When Jack wakes up in the forest and runs for several minute through nothing but bamboo.

4. The Oceanic Six get so much screen time in their intros that I'm convinced that they were pegged (or at least strongly considered) from the beginning of the show. Sawyer is quite and on the sidelines, but we don't learn as much about him in this episode. Hurley is taking care of Claire. Sayid builds the fire. We get a quite extensive intro to Sun and Jin, which looking back now is rather odd.

Hair Cut Day

I go through cycles of long hair and short hair (one would think that I would just stay at a medium length, but no). Last week I decided to cut it, but never got around to making the appointment, so this afternoon at least 8 inches of it is going away. I like the flexibility of long hair, but it always ends up in a ponytail.

Since summer is here and that means committing to riding my bike to campus for my very last class ever and volleyball on Tuesdays, I want something easy and short. I figure if Kate Gosselin can manage this with 8 kids at home, I can do it before a 9 am class.

New Phones

After more than an hour on the phone with "customer service" with AT&T, we finally got our phones upgraded AND added text messaging. I came very close to telling them to close the account because they have the most incompetent employees I've talked to in a very long time.

I shouldn't have even needed to call, but their website is so poorly set up that I told one rep that they really needed to hire some tech writers before they got reported to the Better Business Bureau. For example, when they say "Family Talk $50.99" and then explain by saying "Get the first two lines for one low price. Each additional line is just $9.99 per month" They really mean that the "one low price" is $59.99. The rep said that it's not "supposed" to mean that the package includes two lines to start with. A different person told me that "credit check" at checkout isn't really a credit check (something I objected to since we are already existing customers). It's not that I was concerned that it wouldn't go through, but I'm not a fan of randomly running my credit for no particular reason.

My biggest complaint isn't really that the website says things that it doesn't mean, but that when you call they act like they've never even seen the website. There was a lot of "it asks for your social security number, that's weird." My favorite line was "I'm pretty sure that the commercial I saw last night says..."

Somehow, 5 transfers later, I seemed to find someone who was a) aware AT&T had a website, b) knew how to use the website, and c) knew how to override the system and order the phones with charing me or rerunning my credit.

The even better news is that now we can text. I know that I'm ages behind in technology, but as long as you don't send me pictures, music, or video, I can pretend that I'm caught up again.

3 days, no keys

I recently lost my keys for the longest stretch yet. I have things in place to prevent this--friends have extra keys, there is a "landing area" by the back door. The problem was I went to Chicago with a friend last Wednesday, and she drove. That meant I entered and exited from the front door (for explanation see Alley Etiquette). Hense, the keys disappeared for the first time in a long time.

They reappeared today. Apparently our sofa bed eats things. This has happened before, and I thought it was a fluke, but the sofa bed really hides things. They don't just fall down behind the cushions, they work their way all they way inside the folded mattress.

Thanks to Zog, for the visual depiction of a sofa bed with an agenda.

Cell Phone Plans

We finished our 2 year cell phone contract a few months ago and planned on upgrading our phones and plan this morning. I have never been one to upgrade my phone when I have an upgrade available, mostly because I don't think about it. My cell spends most of its life on silent mode at the bottom of my purse (on a side note, I recently deleted 200+ pictures of the bottom of my purse that the camera had automatically taken).

When we signed up, I used the group discount from SMS and today and I signed up to use the ISU equivalent of the same. We had decided that we were going to add a text messaging package (C and M that feature is for you). Only when I went to add it, ISU only gives a discount for individual plans. Greg and I have a family plan. I understand that the cell phone company assumes that mostly individual students will take advantage of the discount, but seriously, I can't be the only ISU person (faculty, staff, and students are all included) who wants a family plan to share minutes and text messages.

Now we wait until Monday and hope State Farm is more family friendly.

Who knew a label was so useful?

When I started blogging, I was well aware of the fact that I was years behind in technology. I surfed the internet, emailed, even had my own course website for a while, and collaborated on Google Docs, but I had never really taken the time to investigate any of the programs I had heard friends talk about. In my mind a label was a piece of sticky material that was sold in sheets.

Part of my aversion to looking into social networking and other technological innovations was the computer situation. My laptop was good, but it was a little dated and I tried to avoid as many ad-ons and processor drains as possible. When that computer died in an unfortunate run in with Diet Dr. Pepper, we bought a new desktop that happened to come while I was on my brief summer break and I discovered the label.

At first there was a lot of set up time that seemed to be yet another way of wasting time, but the product has been well worth it. I went through my web history and bookmarked everything in Google Bookmarks. I generally use the same 2-3 computers and don't access every site on every computer, so I had just used windows bookmarks in the past. As I transferred them, I labeled everything. This accomplished two things, one is made the drop down list much more manageable and two it made me really stop and think about how and why I use various websites. Initially, I had things labeled in fairly specific categories, but what I discovered that I love about labels (as opposed to the older folder systems) is that the same bookmark can appear in two different places. For example, my school email is listed under "teaching" and "email."

By chance, I had explored Google Bookmarks before other applications, but as I moved on to programs such as Reader and Notebook, I discovered that the system I put in place for bookmarks really was helpful in my everyday life. The materials and websites I have gathered for my dissertation can be quickly located under "diss" in all of my applications. While they don't quite all interface as much as I would like--I can't search reader for a label and pull up things in Notebook yet, I've been amazed at how much more organized it has made me. I was worried that like real and electronic folders I would end up with duplicate versions of similar categories (Ex. Children's lit, Children's Literature, children's lit, etc), but since Google references my other labels and suggests an option, this hasn't happened yet.

I'm definitely a fan, and I'm amazed I made it this far without the electronic label.

Road Trip with Peter Dickinson

On my to do list for this week was to finish revising my paper for the ChLA conference next week. I'm notoriously bad about revising (generally cutting a 20 page paper into 8) at the last minute (plane ride to the conference, in the hotel the night before or morning of, etc). This year is different for a couple of reasons. 1) the conference is in Normal, so I can exactly edit while driving the 5 minutes to the conference. Not to mention the fact that since we are hosting, the time I would generally spend editing will likely be spent at the registration table. 2) The more important reason that I can't procrastinate this year is that I am presenting on Peter Dickinson's Eva, which is the winner of the Phoenix Award this year. Dickinson is coming to the conference, so this makes the pressure *slightly* higher.

In the midst of working on the paper, I also found out that there was an opportunity to travel with a professor who was returning Dickinson to O'Hare. I volunteered and made a mental note to then add "reading more Peter Dickinson" to my to do list. Last night I received an email that asked if I would be willing to drive Dickinson myself because of a timing conflict. Now I really must read more Dickinson before next week (or find someone to accompany me who has read more). Those of you have read more of his stuff, suggestions on where to start?

On a related note, I was really nervous about presenting on the work of an author who was going to be present for the conference. I had a very bad experience when I wrote to an author whose work was the subject of my thesis and she responded with a very nasty "you've missed the point entirely" and then proceeded to tell me that academics were ruining the art. Since the Phoenix Award is given to books that were not as well received when they were first published, but have since been highly regarded, I was a little leary of what I would find in the reviews of Eva and how Dickinson feels about critical discussions of his texts. Thankfully, I found the following letter on his website and now feel much better.

Back to reading and revising.

"If you mean time travelling bunnies, then yes"

"If you mean time travelling bunnies, then yes" these are my random thoughts on LOST...

I should have been working on school stuff today, but instead I rewatched the LOST season finale. I'd watched last Thursday when it aired, but due to other circumstances, I felt like I needed to rewatch when I was more focused.

When I lived in Springfield, there was a large LOST following that seems to have dwindled over the years. This year, I have gotten to watch periodically with two friends and chat about it via email with one or two more, but I don't feel like I've had the ongoing critical discussions that I had when I first started watching.

When I watched the finale, I felt like the beginning of the finale had moved away from that critical aspect to be more Rambo-like. Lost has always been violent--it started with a fiery plan crash, but I still have a hard time staying interested in the explosive laden mercenary who runs around as if he showed up on the wrong film set.

I don't think that I have any profound feelings or predictions about the series. I'm semi-shocked that when Jacob told Locke to "move the island," the prophesy turned out to be a literal instruction. I'm excited that the show appears to be turning back toward the science and mystery of the island and farther away from "exactly how bad are the people on the boat." In essence, I felt like we spent a little too much time on that question this season. At the same time, I realize that the boat (and the people on it) are an means to getting the Oceanic Six off the island and explaining this season's introduction of the flashforward.

A friend sent me an article in Slate that I found very interesting it's discussion of Lost's narrative arcs. Although the series is often known for raising more questions than it answer's, the author notes that it is the unreliable narrator of the flashback/forward that complicates what she sees as a otherwise simple storyline in order to prove that the writer's do have a masterplan. She describes the season's minus the flashes as:

Here's a breakdown of the first three years: 1) Are there other people on this island? 2) There are other people on this island. 3) Oh, my God, the other people on this island are way mean!

I'm not sure that I agree with the need to even have the debate as to whether the writers have a master plan or not. If they've committed to a seven season run, then they have to have a basic shell (at least something to sell to ABC), so all of the debate about changing things as they go along seems to be more the result of frustrated fans who can't get a clear picture of the rules of this world.

Other random thoughts about this season:

• I love the one liners. The writers have created some very quotable lines. My favorite is probably during Hurley surprise party when he walks in with a statue of Jesus ready to attack a burglar and his mom says "Jesus Christ is not a weapon"
• I'm getting tired of Jack. Everyone else seems to be working through their issues, but Jack's seem to be compounding.
• The whole Aaron is 5 weeks old is the most unbelievable thing I've heard yet on the show. I'll go with the giant wheel in the basement of the greenhouse before I'd believe that one.
• The pop-ups have gotten much better. When they were first introduced them, they had very basic info, but now they actually seem to offer some insights.
  

Computer Update

Greg took the laptop apart and let it dry out completely. Thursday night while M and I watched the LOST season finale, he put it back together. In true Dharma fashion, the green power light came on but nothing else.

The verdict is still out on the hard drive. Thanks to Matt's suggestion, I went out to buy a hard drive enclosure, but Best Buy only had one and it was 4x the price of the ones I found recommended online. I don't need a padded case to carry the drive in, I just need something that will recover my data.

Since then, I added the shortcut address to Google Docs to my address book and am developing a system for backing up all (important) documents. I can live without copies of old conference programs, but I can't afford to lose my dissertation materials or grade books.

Even though we weren't planning on buying a new computer for a while, we ended up buying a new one yesterday. Just last week, I was reading an article about how much energy is wasted in the production of new computers. My laptop was definitely in need of an upgrade, but it wasn't totally useless (at least until it met the cup of Diet Dr. Pepper). Greg has my sister's old laptop, which is a very portable Dell Inspiron 300m that worked better for mobility than my paper weight of a laptop. In order to allow me to grade and write and research and stay married to someone with a computer degree we need two computers. We opted for a Dell desktop this time. Greg doesn't really have a need to take a computer with him anywhere except when we travel, so we opted to maximize the power and speed for our $ with a desktop.

The new computer will be here next week sometime, the hard drive enclosure hopefully sooner.