Holiday Traditions

As we mark the last Christmas with just two of us, Rakicy and I have spent more time this season talking about holiday traditions and what traditions we want to keep or start. Rakicy's family doesn't have nearly as many traditions as my family, so for the most part I feel like many of the traditions we have are transplants from my side of the family.*

Since we got married we've bought a new ornament for our Christmas tree each year. I label the year and location on the back of each. Some are obviously tied to something specific. Last year's was a snow covered house to mark our new house in Illinois. The first ornament was tiny pewter angel that was on clearance to mark our first Christmas as recent grads with no money.**

Other traditions a little more liberal. I put up Christmas decorations early (generally the weekend after Thanksgiving) and leave them up through Epiphany. It always makes me sad when I see Christmas trees on the curb Christmas day or the day after. We have an advent calendar that has little boxes that you open each day until Christmas. We usually eat Christmas dinner late afternoon on Christmas day. All of these things are subject to change depending on where we are in a given year and what we have going on.

Other traditions are little more nonnegotiable. The one tradition that Rakicy has whole-heartedly adopted is stockings. In my family stockings are big deal, not just a decoration. Stockings were always (and still are when we are home) filled with candy, small toiletries, and other small items. I never realized that this was an exception, but Rakicy had never experienced the stocking full of goodies until he met me. This year we even put up (and filled) stockings for my in-laws, who are coming for Christmas, as a way of introducing them to a tradition that we want to keep. It's a little harder to fill stockings for adults, but hopefully it will introduce the idea that we want to keep, regardless of where we spend Christmas once the baby is here.


I'm curious what traditions other people have. What are the things that you do every holiday. Are they things that were continued from a specific source or things you or your family developed on your own?

Notes:
*This may not be entirely true. Rakicy may just not be able to recall any specific traditions. In either case, we have more from my side of the family than his.
**This statement is misleading in many ways. I had recently finished my bachelors, but was in grad school making very little money. This is only slightly different than our current situation. Grad students in Illinois still make very little money, but cannot even begin to compete with grad students in Missouri in terms of poverty levels.

Fudge pt 2

The title of this post should really be Fudge Disaster 08. I always make and give away fudge during the holidays. This year was a little different. My fudge making was doomed.

The first batch of fudge suffered from a condensed v. evaporated milk mix-up. For those who are familiar with these two types of canned milk. They come in the same size can and are generally placed next to each other on the grocery store shelf. While my fudge recipe (see below) calls for evaporated milk, I somehow came home with condensed milk. Condensed milk is basically sugar with a little milk, while evaporated milk is unsweetened milk with less water.

Batch 1 was a total disaster. As I poured the evaporated milk in the pan, I remember thinking it was a little odd. When combined with granulated sugar and marshmallow fluff, the mixture was quickly on its way to hard candy consistency. I threw that batch away.

Batch 2 was a quickly modified batch that I tried to pull together from a couple of online recipes for condensed milk fudge. Instead of my mint fudge, I opted for peanut butter fudge. It was edible, but very grainy and way too sweet.

Enter Batch 3. I was sick all week and needed a diversion from the couch, so I decided to try one more time. I'd seen a very cute fudge presentation on television where the fudge was poured in small muffin tins to set, making little fudge cups. Since my usual fudge dishes were dirty, this seemed like a great option. This method, however, relies on very precise lining of the muffin tin with foil. My best attempt at precision, however, was not sufficient. Instead of lovely little fudge cups, I got semi-cupish shapes with deep groves and ridges, many of which had bits of foil stuck inside. This batch of fudge is now in our fridge because I cannot in good conscious give away fudge "cups" with little bits of foil hidden inside.

After batch 3, I was placed on bed rest due to some breathing issues and the type of umbilical cord the baby has, so there were no more tries.

So technically, I did make fudge this year, I just didn't make giftable, edible fudge.

Either way, here is the recipe, in case you want to try your own luck.

Thin Mint Fudge
2/3 cup EVAPORATED milk
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
7 oz (1 jar) marshmallow fluff
1/4 cup butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup Thin Mint cookies (or Grasshopper cookies) chopped
1 tsp vanilla

In a large, heavy pot, combine milk, sugar, marshmallow fluff, butter, and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips, chopped cookies, and vanilla until melted and smooth. Pour mixture into 9x9 pan lined with foil. Chill two hours or until set.

Campus Health Irony

After being in school forever, I have resigned myself to the fact that a visit to a campus clinic for any reason (pneumonia, broken ankle, etc) is likely to involve a lengthy conversation about whether or not I was pregnant. (Since pregnancy is clearly the leading cause of broken bones.)

Who knew that if you are actually pregnant, student health services doesn't actually have any interest in treating you?

Trip one to get a flu shot went something like this:

Them: Oh, you're pregnant.
Me: Yep.
Them: You can't have a flu shot.
Me: The CDC says all pregnant women should get a flu shot.
Them: We can't give it to you without a doctor okaying it.
Me: Okay

(insert lengthy conversation about how they don't have an OB on staff, but can refer me to one. My attempt to explain that I had my own doctor who just wasn't affiliated with SHS (Thank God) was met with a lecture about the dangers of not seeking prenatal care and an offer to test me for other STDs all in the waiting room that happens to contain one of my students.)

I leave with the understanding that I can bring a note from my OB and they will give me the flu shot.

Flu Shot Trip #2
Them: Oh, you're pregnant.
Me: Yes, I have the letter from my OB that you asked for last time.
Them: I don't think that we're supposed to give you the flu shot if you're pregnant.
Me: Last week, you said as long as I brought this letter, you could give it to me.
Them: Yes, but the form contains a box that we have to check that says you're not pregnant.
Me: Can't you write a note next to it an attach this letter.
Them: Oh, I guess we could do that, but I have to call medical records first.

The nurses leave

Them: Medical records suggest that we reschedule your appointment while we figure out what to do.
Me: You've had ten days to figure out what to do. I'd really like my flu shot today.
Them: We just don't generally treat pregnant women for anything.
Me: Every time I'm in here, you're trying to get me to take a pregnancy test, but you won't actually treat me if I'm pregnant.
Them: If you're pregnant we refer you to someone else. We just offer the tests.
Me: Well, you sent out an email saying anyone who fit these criteria should get a flu shot and pregnant women are on there. So, maybe you should take that off, since even with a letter from my OB, you won't give me a flu shot.
Them: We listed as okay in the email?
Me: Yep, it's even on that form.
Them: In that case, I guess it will be okay.

Among my other complaints with campus health, I am very disturbed by the fact that while they won't follow a letter from a doctor, they will treat you, if you can't point out an email as justification.

Prop 8: The Musical

I'm sure you've probably already seen Prop 8: The Musical, but I feel compelled to post it anyway. Enjoy!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Fudge and Furniture Pt 1

Technically, this probably belongs on my recipe blog, and I will probably cross-post it there, but since it really has more to do with procrastination than cooking, it seems more appropriate here. The end of every fall semester generally involves me making several pounds of fudge.* This isn't because I like fudge, in fact, I generally detest chocolate, but I love cooking and know lots of other people who love chocolate. Therefore, fudge gives me a way to be productive, stay healthy, and procrastinate all in one activity.

This is the first semester that I haven't been taking classes, so I would have predicted that the fudge would have been made already. Wrong. I'm not sure if it is the fact that I didn't have a zillion papers to write this week.** I bought all the stuff for fudge and even made a batch when we were down in Arkansas, but haven't yet made any here.

You might be tempted to think that the absence of fudge means that I am entirely caught up. Um, no. Instead I have rearranged my entire downstairs. It's not entirely painted yet and we still need to pick out the new floor, but we wanted to introduce the new layout before holiday guests arrived. The ultimate goal of the new layout is make the downstairs more baby friendly, but essentially the living room is now the dining room, the eat-in kitchen area is now entry way space for shoes and coats, and the weird space with the fireplace that we never used is now the living room.

I'll post pictures and the fudge recipe soon, but for now, I have to finish figuring grades that I promised students :)

Happy last day of classes!

Notes:
*I know I've been making fudge as long as I've been in grad school, but I don't think I started making it until I was a senior undergrad. Apparently, grad school lends itself to finding new hobbies that are solely driven by the need to procrastinate.

**This is not to say that I haven't been busy. Between teaching the internship, knowing that I'm behind on synthesis statements,*** and being pregnant, I feel just as exhausted, if not more, than if I had been taking classes.

***I was shocked to discover that awareness of one's own procrastination, while it doesn't not seem to prevent the act, does seem to have a draining effect. I would like to be able to procrastinate and not stay up at night feeling guilty about it or feel so guilty that I simply get my work done, but I'm not a fan of the guilt trip exhaustion.

Themes and Snarkiness

I discovered two Google "related" products that I am now in love with.

Yesterday, my Gmail account magically asked me what "theme" I would like. I love my gmail account for many reasons, and technically, I don't need a pretty background, but I'm not going to say no. I wasn't totally enthralled with the options. Most are just color scheme, much like you can have the same Windows set up in different colors. I was very interested in the "Tree" theme that supposedly changes based on the location you input, when I couldn't actually get the tree to change*, I quickly lost interest in this theme. I wasn't exactly wowed by any of them (says the woman who has yet to find a blog template that she is completely happy with either), but I really like the personalization aspect. I spend more time looking at my Gmail account than any other website, so at least I can pick the color.

What made me even happier, however, was Let Me Google That For You.** This site is designed for all of those who are too lazy to look something up themselves. It's snarky and passive agressive, but it's also genius. It basically provides a link that you can share with the offending lazy party that not only provides the actual Google results, but also provides an annimation that demonstrates the very complex process of conducting a Google search. This makes me wonder if I should devote my break to developing a "Here let Me Check the Syllabus For You" service that demonstates a similar skill.

Yay, for Google products that don't actually serve any function purpose, but make me happy.

Notes:
* Update: I finally figured this out. The tree does not change, the weather at the top changes, but it only changes if Google recognizes your city. Even though it appears to accept lots of places, if you put in the nearest "large" city, it seems to work better.
**This is not actually a Google product.

Dreams

Apparently pregnant women dream more than normal people. While normally my dreams are not interesting enough tell you all, I had to make an exception since this one involved a large number of my readers and was exceptionally bizarre.

M, cfa, jcampbell, B, and I are all sitting in Chilli's in Washington, DC (where we all apparently now live) discussing what cfa is going to do next year. Somewhere in the midst of this conversation M tries to convince cfa that before she leaves MHS, she needs to pass out M's leftover Obama stickers as prizes. After a lenghty discussion about whether or not stickers are appropriate for highschoolers*, cfa casually says, "I really think it might be weird since the Obama girls are coming to MHS next year and they might think that stickers are weird."

B asks cfa why she is leaving the same year that the Obama girls are coming. Cfa says "it's too much paperwork."

While M and I try and convince cfa that she must stay at MHS, jcampbell stops texting, causually looks up and says "have you thought about applying for the secret service job. They are required to have a least one agent that is certified in education."

Cfa then gives up her day job as an English teacher to become the secret service education liason.

*To clarify this conversation had nothing to do with the political content of the stickers, but was strickly about the age appropriateness of stickers in general.

Lists

Things I need to accomplish this week:

• grade papers
• grade a month's worth of "in-class" writing
  
• fix Blackboard gradebook, so I can post grades
• get new tires for Corolla
• buy multiple bags of Snyder's Pretzels for my mom*
• buy regional beer to take to Arkansas**
• clean out teaching bag
• return Netflix movies
  
• do laundry
• work on synthesis statement
• go to library
• call insurance company

Things I have done today:

• grade two papers
• spend an hour on internet looking for a way to email insurance company
• browse Netflix on demand
• check to see if Bones is new this week
  
• read emails on department listserv about stray cat
• refresh Fedex website to check for package updates
• play with privacy options on baby blog

Clearly my productivity attention span is equal to approximately two papers. I've determined that electronic grading is probably not for me (although it cut down on copying expenses for the internship). Electronic grading means secure dropboxes which requires internet access, which requires me play on the internet instead of working, which means I don't grade. This is a problem.

Documentaries

Lately, I seem to be getting sucked into documentaries at a disturbing rate. The problem isn't that they are documentaries, but that I can justify it as "not really television" because it's "educational." Here's what I've learned...

• Adolescent girls are being kidnapped into prostitution rings in suburbia. I've known, this because Oprah did a show on this a couple of years ago.* This was more of an NBC investigation, but still very disturbing. If I am remembering correctly, Oprah's show was about pimps luring girls into prostitution. The more disturbing thing about this show was that all of the girls were lured by fellow adolescents.
• Drinking the Koolaid is creepier than I'd realized. NBC also did a 2 hour documentary about Jonestown and infamous leader Jim Jones. The clips from the website are really just as informative as the documentary, but I learned a lot about the background of this situation that I hadn't known. My major complaint, however, is that I kept watching for the entire two hours because I wanted to know how the "survivors" escaped the koolaide fate and the documentary never explained. I ended up googling this later.
  
• The Mafia has very strict politeness rules. Okay, this is something that I kinda figured, but this was actually kinda fascinating. Discovery Channel has a two part series on the 10 Commandments of the Mafia. In addition to the explaination about how much lying was expected and how much was too much, I also learned that the linguistically the Mafia is very tightly bound by it's own set of politeness rules (such as introductions) and violations of those rules might get you killed.
  

I am currently trying to convince myself that I need to grade tonight rather than see a modern CSI team recreate the Kennedy assasination, but we'll see what happens.


*Yes, I know this is only one step up from citing Wikipedia.

Crossing the Line

Just when I thought that I was done with election stories that would greatly upset me, I read this article about a SC priest wrote his parishioners a letter telling them they were ineligible for communion if they vote for Barack Obama. I've been very lucky that our particular parish is both one of the most liberal Catholic churches I've ever been to, and has stayed away from mixing politics and religion.

I realize that this is by no means the only instance of organized religion using it's power to affect policy. We saw numerous instances of this in both CA and AR last week, among other places, but it makes me even more sad when a church official uses his position to essentially excommunicate* people who chose to vote in a particular way.

I won't go into all of the reasons why abortion isn't the only human rights issue that should be considered when voting. Encouraging church members to vote one way is bad enough, but to punish them when they prioritize different ideologies (many of which involve other human rights issues) crosses a line that makes me very sad. I am very glad that other church officials are denouncing the move, but I don't know that is enough to undo the damage that individuals like this priest have done.

*for those unfamiliar with Catholic doctrine, excommunication literally means that you are no longer in "communion" with the church. While sometimes, this is irreversible, the act is essentially the same here.

Templates

I need someone to invent an application that asks "What do you need to be doing right now?" when I google Blogger Templates. I wonder if my students will feel better knowing that even though they won't get papers back tomorrow, I have new templates on my blogs.

Casual Friday?

Three packets of yellow dye later and he's one his way to work as Paulie Bleeker!

I'm trapped in B's Dissertation

My intent is not for this to turn into a pregnancy blog, and I will shortly move those posts to a new blog,* but I've developed a new appreciation for B's dissertation. I've decided that pregnant women and the people who sell things to pregnant women are like Mean Girls x1000. Some examples...

Bad Mothering Lesson #1: This morning while Googling to see what "moderate consumption" of Splenda means, I discovered some interesting responses. Most start something like this.

If you love your baby and yourself, absolutely not! My [mom, doc, friend, sister] who is a [doctor, midwife, scientist, general know-it-all] says it causes the baby to develop...

• cancer
• ADHD
• drug and alcohol addiction (I'm not really sure how babies are born alcoholics, she didn't elaborate on this)
• birth defects
  
• seizures
• anger management issues
  

Apparently, Splenda also premantenly inhibits one's ability to use capital letters and punctuation as well...

after about a week i started stuttering i couldnt finish a sentence without stuttering

Since most of these contain no research to back up their claims, I asked at my doctor's appointment. The first thing she said "DON'T Google that. There are a lot of nut cases out there." Point taken.

Bad Mothering Lesson #2: Sitting in the doctors office.

Me: eating a string cheese because I scheduled this appointment for 8:15 in the morning and was running late.
Other Pregnant Woman: Where did you find organic string cheese?
Me: It's not organic.
OPW: Do you know what's in that stuff?
Me: (annoyed that this woman is talking to me) umm...non-organic milk.
OPW: I can't believe any woman would eat that stuff and risk her baby's life.
Me: Thanks. I'll look into that.
OPW: I just don't know why anyone would intentionally ingest all of those poisonous chemicals.
Me: Maybe because they are busy or have jobs and don't live in a utopia and have to make choices that aren't black and white.
OPW: where's utopia?

OPW woman gets called back.

Bad Mothering Lesson #3: Shopping for maternity pants

Me: do you sell these in short lengths?
Saleswoman: we have 2-3 styles in short, but babies really prefer these?
Me: excuse me?
Saleswoman: these pants are the most comfortable for the baby, but they don't come in short. You'd have to have them hemmed or wear heels.
Me: I'm really just interested in pants that are comfortable for me, so I'll try the short ones.
Saleswoman: (sighs and points me to the pants) we clearly need to find you some maternity tops as well.
Me: no, that's okay. I'm only looking for pants today. I still have several tops that fit.
Saleswoman: (semi-under her breath). you girls today just don't understand how dangerous it is to put your own comfort over the comfort of your baby.

I seriously think this woman might be unstable. I don't even know how my oversized t-shirts are dangerous, but I knew better than to ask. So, I left everything in the store and went to Target.

Creepy Dolls

Last night Greg and I got totally enthralled in a very weird show. BBC America's My Fake Baby is a documentary about women who buy dolls made to look like real babies. At first, I was thinking that life like dolls were a little creepy in general, but as the documentary revealed this to be a creepier trend then what I could have imagined. The women who buy these dolls often treat them as "real" babies. They buy them clothes, push them through stores and parks in "prams," and transport them in carseats. The dolls can be ordered to custom size and weight and many feature breathing, heartbeat, and "wiggle" mechanisms.

The women who make the dolls consider themselves artists, and I can support that. The majority of the dolls featured look incredibly life like. In many ways these artists are no different than artists who create sculptures or wax figures. That said, their "art" seems to be fueled by consumers (only women in the documentary) who probably would be better off spending the thousands of dollars on addressing the bigger issues in their lives. One woman had an doll made to look like her grandson who had moved to New Zealand with his mother. Throughout the documentary, the grandmother cites her motivation for getting the doll as "no one can take this baby away from me." For most of the documentary, the grandmother talks as though her grandson had died, rather than being alive and well in another country.

More disturbing to me than the woman with attachment issues is the other woman who is featured. This woman cited her love of the dolls as a replacement for her own children because she would be unable to handle the "noise" of a real baby. This woman flew from London to Washington DC for the "delivery" of her 4th baby. Besides the very weird notion that bringing home the doll is equivalent to giving birth, this woman spends two days in the hotel room "bonding" with her baby before she discovers a defect in the doll and then declares that the doll has to be returned because she can't have a "baby who isn't perfect." Okay, so maybe it's not a bad thing that this this woman doesn't have a real baby. I'm still not comfortable with her attachment to the doll, but the more I saw of this woman, the more I was glad that she wasn't rejecting an actual baby.

While all of the women featured in the documentary were British, according to this Today's Show report, the trend is now becoming popular in the US. I'm seriously thinking of teaching a "living doll" book in 170 next semester, just so I can talk about this show.

Excuses

I haven't blogged in forever for several reasons, but mostly because of this....

Baby Baumann is scheduled to arrive in May 2009.

Bingo!

I saw references to Palin Bingo in several people's status messages today and decided that researching that was a better use of my time than grading. Currently this site has 4 different bingo cards to choose from and a blank card if you want to make your own. If you are interested in a more bi-partisian bingo game, you can find a set of cards for both Biden and Palin here.

Burping Slugs

This makes me happy...

Me: talking about ideologies and Harry Potter and showing students the graphs showing reasons for challenges.
Student: All of those reasons sound like personal preference. I thought banned books did something illegal.
Me: Most of the challenges are personal objections, but banning doesn't take into account everyone else's personal preference. Why do you think people might object to Harry Potter?

[list of reason goes here]

Different student: People actually think that spells in Harry Potter are real? If they were real, I'd make those people burp slugs.

Stupid Question

I forward my campus email to my Gmail account because the campus email system hates me, but I also do it so that I can decide which emails I want to see (i.e. personal emails go to the inbox and student emails/listserv junk skips the inbox). Tonight I'm pretending like I haven't checked student emails today because I can't think of anything nice to say about these? (punctuation, spelling, and general intelligence has been preserved)

• My project is on [insert classic children's text here], and I found an article about the movie, is that okay?
• I know you said that we couldn't use book reviews but I found a really long one can I use it? (This really long review is 2 1/2 pages)
• is there an assignment sheet for this project?
• My copy of Oliver Twist is only 32 pages is it a bridge? (I had to read this one more than once before I figured it out)

I know that this is only 4 out of 30 who ask really dumb questions, but still. I'm annoyed.

YA For Obama

I haven't had a lot of time to explore YA for Obama, but from what I've seen it looks pretty interesting. When I first saw it, I was a little confused because it seems like a rather haphazard group (young adult writer, readers and friends, according the website), but in reality this is not different than nurses, teachers, or steel workers for Obama, plus it offers an interesting glimpse into the political lives of people who are usually only defined by their books. Regardless of whether or not you support him, if you teach ya lit, it's a sight you might want to check out.

I did quickly google YA for McCain to see if such a group existed, but nothing turned up. I guess in terms of ideology it would be more likely to see Children's Authors for McCain. If I thought it wouldn't offend students, it would be interesting to examine the ideologies of children's literature in terms of the election.

Procrastination (or Why I'm going to quit planning ahead)

I was supposed to be observed tomorrow, so I wrote out my lesson plans two weeks ago.

Then, this weekend...

• Blackboard decided to "eat" my discussion boards and none of my students bothered to tell me until this weekend.
• I didn't know my students were telling me this until today because my university password expired, so I couldn't log in Blackboard.
• Now I have to start class tomorrow with "here's the new plan" instead of the fabulous lesson plan.
• I feel like crap, so I'm not excited about any of the above or the lesson plan that has been done for two weeks.

But in the weirdness of the universe, it doesn't matter if tomorrow's lesson plan goes out the window because my advisor broke her nose this weekend and rescheduled the observation for next week.

I consider all of the above cosmic justification for my procrastination.

Offensive Politics

Recently I've heard conversations about the inappropriate nature of a recent (and unapproved, I might add) slogan that says: "Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a Governor." What I find most unnerving about the conversations labeling such a slogan as blasphemous and offensive, is that they imply that religion is off limits for humor and satire.

I find this unnerving because this afternoon I returned from lunch where we had a lovely, intelligent, and productive conversation about religion, ideology, politics, feminism, and other issues worthy of discussion to read a story about "Obama Waffles." The waffles invoke two major stereotypes: the racist imagery of Aunt Jemima combined with the head coverings worn by Muslim men.* The mixes were sold at a forum co-sponsored by American Values and Focus on the Family Action. To be fair, the forum later discontinued sales of the waffle mix (after 3 days): saying they had not realized the boxes displayed "offensive material." The creators had this to say about the problematic images:

"We had some people mention that to us, but you think of Newman's Own or Emeril's — there are tons and tons of personality-branded food products on the market. So we've taken that model and, using political satire, have highlighted his policies, his position changes.

So here's my question, are we going to label this as blamphemous or is it okay to make race and religion the subject of satires as long the religion isn't Chritianity. For all of those who cried fowl at the unauthorized Jesus Christ was a community organizer slogan, I challenge you to demand aplogies for this as well. If religion is off limits, then shouldn't everyone's religion be off limits, especially when that satire is used to falsely perpertrate the image of Obama as Muslim, when he is not, and never has been. And if he were Muslim, would you protect his religion from satire in the same way you object to Christianity being used in satire?

Politics are dirty, but the rules should be the same for both parties.

*I struggled with the question of whether or not to place the images on my blog, and I have decided that the racism in the images is too great for me to reproduce here. If you wish to see the images, please click on the Obama Waffles link.

Frat Party in Suburbia

This is what I saw when I got home from work this afternoon...

From Blogger Pictures

And in case you couldn't tell exactly what you are looking at, yes, that is 5 full bottles of Miller Genuine Draft in the middle of the road. If I had gotten home a few minutes earlier it would have been 5 bottles of beer, a school bus, and about 12 kids all in one picture. I'm not really sure who is partying in the street on Wednesday afternoons, but clearly one of our neighbors isn't nearly as Leave it to Beaver-esque as we thought.

From Blogger Pictures

Fringe

I'm not a huge tv watcher, but with Greg out of town and my irrational fear that silent houses equal someone trying to break in, I landed on Fringe tonight. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it, but here are my initial thoughts.

Initially it won my attention for basically two reasons: it's produced by J. J. Abrams (of LOST fame among other things) and it had to be better than Big Brother Season 942 or a really bad impersonation of a Japanese game show. It terms of it's competition, it's a winner, but then again, I'm not really sure what wouldn't be a winner in that time slot.

I hadn't heard much hype for the show, but then again I've spent most of the last several weeks watching Bones on DVD, so I am not really surprised by this fact. As soon as the show started, I could tell that it was going to be some weird combination of LOST, X-Files, A Beautiful Mind and Bourne Supremacy. It starts with an electrical storm mid-air that creates a mystery flight full of skeletons by the time it comes back "on the radar." Okay, I get it, if you have a mystery illness a plane makes a great contained area to start the plot, but two series in a row with freak electrical storms mid-air, at this point I wasn't holding out much hope. The trailer even looks like the grabbed the first 20 seconds of LOST.



The similarities with LOST mostly end there, except for the obnoxiously obvious evil company that is secretly manipulating the world and even has a fake commercial embedded in with the real commercials. Abrams does do some cool effects with added text. Instead of the typical Law and Order style subtitle that labels a location switch, Fringe features text that is as much a "part" of the scene as the new location. The camera flies through the text, thus melding the "edited" narrative and the "camera lens" narrative to a certain extent. I found this intriguing the first couple of times I saw it, but I'm guessing that by the end of the season it may become a little cumbersome.

In terms of actual storyline, Abrams had to know that the secret government agency and conspiracy theory thread was getting rather worn out, but I like his invocation of the older trope of the "mad scientist" as a fresh take on the plot. For me, it was Dr. Walter Bishop that kept the narrative going. Quite frankly it was a little slow until they got Dr. Bishop out of his prison/mental hospital and back to the basement of Harvard. Exploring the mind that is capable of incredible discoveries with the potential for incredible harm is a much more interesting story than exploring secret government agencies that are constantly trying to deny and cover up their real "work."

At this point, I'm still on the fence about whether or not I will continue watching. I think it has the potential to be a really great show. If Abrams can capture the CSI/crime drama and the sci-fi X-files crowd at the same time, the show will be brilliant. I worry that at least in the pilot, the show was trying to do too many genres and as a result was a little choppy and disconnected in addition to being slow. I'm willing to give it another go, however, because pilots generally do get better.

In less scholarly analysis, I really like the cow. I was worried that we were going to see some experiments on the poor cow, but at least in this episode the cow requested in the following clip does nothing more than take a trip through a crowded Harvard hallway and watch cartoons with the mad scientist and his estranged son.

Dirty Duck Stamps

The Fish and Wildlife Administration has apparently learned the value of proofreading. Instead of advertising their new duck hunting with the correct phone number (1-800-STAMP24), they included a phone number to a sex line (1-800-TRAMP24). If you are planning on hunting migratory waterfowl in the next year you can expect to be

welcomed by “Intimate Connections” and enticed by a husky female voice to “talk only to the girls that turn you on,” for $1.99 a minute.

According the news story, they are not reprinting the stamps because of the cost.

Pantagraph.com | WTF | Duck Stamp error sends callers to sex line

Conventions

While I still think that JibJab should be the only people allowed to produce campaign ads, I'm also a fan of limiting other political news to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. I really want to know the name of the guy in the RNC video who says that the convention was canceled because liberals were upset about "some people getting rained on."



And to be fair, a clip of the DNC as well...

Willy Wonka and/in the Lincoln Bedroom

Oompa loompas are a little creepy and do seem like the spies of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but apparently their spying ways in the film are not all that different than Roald Dahl's own past. The news that Dahl was a war-time spy was not nearly as entertaining as last month's revelation that Julia Child was a spy, but his methods were a little more scandalous. According to recent reports, the celebrated children's author was employed by the government to charm and then sleep with well-connected Americans in order to win confidences from them. Does 007 really come from 00-mpa loompa? According to one source in The Telegraph:

"I think he slept with everybody on the east and west coasts that [was worth] more than $50,000 a year."

While this this may sound like a great gig, accordng to Newsweek:

Dahl was assigned to gather pillow talk from Mrs. Luce, who was regarded as anti-British. It was hard duty. "I am all f–––ed out," Dahl complained to the ambassador, Lord Halifax, after a three-night stand. "You know it's a great assignment but I just can't go on."

Supposedly FDR knew he was a spy and allowed Dahl to report his pillow confessions to the UK, as the US would enter WWII shortly. More interesting to me, however, is what the children's lit backlash will be.

In my 170 class this morning we talked briefly about this and related issues and my students seemed unsure how to process sex spy turned children's author. Luckily they seem to have fallen in love with his books first and are unwilling to degrade their value simply because of scandal. Let's just hope Sarah Palin doesn't get wind of this story. According to Time, while mayor of Wasilla, AK she, among other things,

continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them.

Clearly Harry Potter is to blame for teen pregnancies!*

*I've found conflicting reports about the titles of the books she sought to ban. John Green first alerted me to this connection. I'll be interested to see what's on that list though.

Naturally Yours

Naturally Yours finally opened in B-N after months of being an empty building with a coming soon sign in the window. We were really excited to go because we've been trying to eat more organic and less processed food. Here are my initial thoughts:

• It's smaller than I expected. Initially, I thought they were going to have the entire buidling that was an old grocery store, but right before they opened it became clear that the space had been subdivided and was going to be much smaller. On top of that, within the small space, there's not a ton there. There are wide aisles and lots of open space at the back, but it's definitiely not a full size grocery store.
• Who ever organized the store needs to be fired. I understand that they just opened and they may not have had a chance to put up aisle numbers or section markers, but it's nearly impossible to find anything. There is an aisle that places dog food next to salad dressing. It appears that it is partially organized by type of item (produce, grains, etc) and partially organized by dietary needs (vegan, gluten free, etc). Since there are no signs and some items appear in multiple places, you literally have to comb the entire store to determine your options.
• Once you have located what you need, however, I think that the store will be really useful for people looking for non-mainstream ingredients. They have tons of bulk bins with granola, beans, dried fruits, grains, herbs, and other items. We bought quinoa for about $3.00 a pound instead of the $7-10/lb commercially packaged version that we have to drive across town to get (if we'd ever bought it that is). We also bought some pumpkin spice granola out of the bin that was wonderful (and cheap).
• It terms of allergy friendly stores, they are amazing. Organic products in general tend to be better about clearly labeling major allergens, but if you are allergic to gluten, dairy, eggs, etc and want to find non-allergy containing versions of popular foods (such as pizza crust, salad dressing, etc) this is a great store. Of course, carrots don't qualify as a major allergen, so other than clear ingredient lists, this doesn't help me out too much.
• The prices are high. With the exception of the bulk bins I mentioned above, I was very disappointed in the prices. Schnucks has a lot of organic prodcuts as well and while Naturally Yours may be a little more local many mainstream organic brands (Seventh Generation, etc) were considerablly higher. Organic chicken at Schnucks runs about $7.99/lb, the same product here was $10 or $12. Organic apples at Schnucks $2.99/lb, at Naturally Yours $4.99. If they were differences of a few cents, then I might be able to justify it, but for commonly available items, this is not the place to shop. I will say that they had organic versions of produce that Schnucks doesn't carry, so if I ever want organic nectarines, I know where to shop.

Overall, I hate to say that I'm really not impressed. I was really looking forward to Naturally Yours opening and had envisioned it to be something like Whole Foods. It's not. I will probably use it for bulk bin items, but that's about it. I'm looking forward to making a lovely trail mix, but in terms of actual shopping, I don't think it's going to be part of my regular routine.

The American President

The American President is one of my all time favorite movies. My VHS copy of it is actually broken because it's been watched too many times. Last night after Barack Obama's speech, M called and said "he's channeling Andrew Shepard." Within minutes Chris Matthews started talking about the speech as an Aaron Sorkin moment. In case you haven't seen the movie, here's the speech that Andrew Shepherd makes.



Ironically, both men are talking about old, white guys.

Road Trip: The Musical(s)

R told me about NPR's segment "9 Minute Road Trip" this morning. While Stephen Thompson gives you nine minutes worth of music that makes up for the fact that gas prices don't allow for longer road trips at the moment, I would also encourage you to listen to the five minute description of the nine minute road trip. I can't figure out how to embedded everything in this post, but you can listen to the story and the five songs here. It turns out that NPR has been taking musical road trips all summer.

RE: Email

I've been thinking about email a lot lately. As much as I am a fan of it's convenience, sometimes it also drives me nuts. I am the type of person who needs the emotion and inflection to determine what "that's supposed to mean."

Several week ago PhD Comics published a strip that illustrated email communication between grad students and professors.

This describes most of the emails that I write to professors, but was especially true last night as I was trying to word two emails about setting up appointments to talk about comps and diss committees. In grad school, this is second only to asking someone to be your advisor in terms of places you might accidentally screw up and ruin your academic life (a subject for another post).

Of course while I spent nearly 1 1/2 drafting the two short "can I meet with you" emails, I received this*...

dear ms. b,
i saw a spot open in your english xyz class and i was just wondering if i could join your class. I talked to the english department and the lady told me to email you. When you get word i think she said that you need to email someone named john doe and he can approve it? i'm not too sure. but just let me know. thanks Jane Doe

While my response should have the brief "prof" No (send) response illustrated above, I explained that it was too late to join the class and then added the following (courtesy of M)...

For future reference, you may want to double check your emails for proper punctuation, etc. when emailing an instructor. I am sure you would want to come across as professional as possible.

Yes, I am that prof who sends snarky emails.

*Names and course descriptions have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. Punctuation and capitalization have not been changed at all. Please note the capitalization of the student's name.

My Life on a Post-it Note

As much as I have enjoyed my delusion that now that I am done with coursework, I have nothing to do except teach, I knew that it would crumble shortly. In fact, I made an appointment last week with my advisor in order to talk about what exactly I was supposed to be doing this semester. Even though I had a pretty good idea what I needed to do, sadly I can no longer claim ignorance of goals. I left with my academic life (for the next six months or so) planned out an a post-it.

Here is my post-it...

In some ways, I feel much better about having a plan, but when I told R that I needed goals and deadlines I was hoping for a few less goals and deadlines.

Library Fines

I'm glad that I don't live in Grafton, OH. Two overdue notices apparently equals a court date. Just another reason for me to stick to Paperback Swap and avoid the library if at all possible.

Today...

Today...

• I got rained on while biking to work and had to teach looking like a drowned rat.
• I tried to be a good teacher, but couldn't because I am working in broken chaos, so I closed my door and cried in frustration.
  
• I got stuck in my own office because my door cannot be opened from the inside.
• I was rescued by a maintenance man while a colleague sat in her office and did nothing.
  
• I got a copy of work order about the above situation; it said Priority: Low
• I read emails on the department listserv that professed to be unaware that grad students were being blown off in the move.
• I offered to help someone who's been a total b!%@# to me and when she said something rude, I apologized to her instead of telling her off.
  
• I listened to a faculty member tell the tech people they were too loud and she was "actually trying to work."
• I watched the tech people leave without installing our phones because installing them meant making noise.
• I started to send an email to someone about how frustrated I was, but didn't because I was afraid I would get in trouble.
  

BFG?

A recreation of a recent conversation in our house:

Me: Blockbuster was having a sale on previously viewed so I bought some for my children's lit classes.

Greg: What did you get?

Me: X, Y, Z, and BFG

Greg: BFG? in children's literature.

Me: Dahl's Big Friendly Giant, it's the animated version.

Greg: that's not what I think of...

So here's my question... How many of you played Doom? and if so, at what age? And if you're willing to go so far as to give me info regarding the non-giant meanings' popularity, I'd be even more grateful. Was it used in other games? Is it still used?

And yes, I'm a nerd who just learned that BFG could stand for something other than Big Friendly Giant.

Smart Classrooms

While I have taught in computer labs for several years, this year was the first time that I would ever consider the classroom to be smart. While the instructor station and LCD projector are lovely, this is my new favorite piece of technology. No more walking around while reading picture books or scanning documents that I only need to talk about briefly.

In other renovation news...while the university spent millions of dollars removing asbestos, upgrading technology, and redoing the paint and carpet, they apparently ran out of money before they were able to replace the broken latches in the women's restroom--the door still do not close.

"Kevin's" First Day

Last semester might have been my most memorable first day of classes ever. I had a student, I'll call him Kevin, who spent the first day passed out in the fetal position under the desk at the front of the room. Really, to be fair he came in class about 20 minutes late looking like he hadn't showered or slept in days and announced "I'm Kevin." He then semi-passed out in his chair and shortly after that fell out of his chair, rolled in a ball and stayed under the table. This was a very awkward first day for me, mostly because the other students seemed not to mind that Kevin was unconscious and looked like he'd been strung out on multiple things for several days. Kevin amazingly passed that class, although he spent a great deal of the semester mentally strung out, not showering, and looking for B.

I really curious what kind of first day this will be, but I'm really curious what kind of first Kevin will have this semester.

Children's Movies

I realize that days before school starts is not the time to be posting this question, but I've decided to do a film unit this semester, but I can't for the life of me pick a movie. My problem is now I want to teach too many movies. I don't want a Disney movie because I already show clips during a unit of fairytales, but anything else is fair game. So, if you could teach a movie in a children's literature class what would it be?

Note: you do not have be a children's lit person to answer this question. I welcome all suggestions.

Cute Matters

The fireworks scandal didn't really bother me. In fact, I was a little perplexed by the outrage people, most of whom were watching the opening ceremonies on television, voiced over the digital "fakes."

This, however, really bothers me. I think that part that bothers me most is the official who explained

The audience will understand that it's in the national interest

Umm, if he's talking about the global audience, then clearly I didn't understand or agree with the move. Voiceovers for seven-year-olds should be in anybody's "national interest" of perfection.

We drove 250+ miles to replace a ...

Lightbulb? Yes, I feel like a moron.

We bought new bedside lamps from IKEA several months ago, and recently mine stopped working. Initially it would flicker on and off or take several tries to get it to get it to turn on. Since it had a brand new compact fluorescent light bulb in it, we both assumed it was the lamp. As we were driving to Chicago this weekend to get a new lamp, we discussed that we should have probably checked the light bulb, but those lightbulbs are supposed to last forever, right?

Now we have 3 bedside lamps, all of which work.

We did, however, do some other shopping, so it wasn't a wasted trip and it was a great last get-away before school starts back next week.

Overheard in Normal

M introduced me to Overheard in New York. Here's the Normal edition:

One half of a cell phone conversation outside the post office:
College Student: This semester I've got to remember to go classes next week

Um...I hope that the person on the other end told him that classes start the week after next.

(Non)Recommeded Reading?

So a few weeks ago, Rakicy and I taught his mom how to use Google Docs. In our demo, we were trying to show her how two people could edit the same document simultaneously. I didn't really feel like typing a large block of text to use as a demo, so I cut and pasted my booklist for my internship proposal.

Fast forward to today...Rakicy's mom calls and says that she read a book on my list and it was really good, so she thinks she might read some more of them. Uh oh! Because they were alphabetical, she started with Joan Bauer's Rules of the Road. This is probably the most conservative book on the list, and lets just say that they go downhill (in terms of lining up with her world view) from there.

Rakicy called her back and said that they may not all be her style. She said, "that's okay, I'll look them up on the internet first." Hmm...do we think that she will find the blog entry about the next book on the list or the very offensive movie poster first. I could go into the Google Doc and delete all of the titles that might offend her, but wait that would be most of the rest of them.

I'm Done with Summer

I just biked up to the post office to mail two books, and it's really hot. The actual temperature isn't really the problem, but it's super humid and oddly there's no wind today. Okay, I know it's not as hot as if I were still living in Arkansas or even Springfield, MO for that matter, but we don't really get super hot summers here, so I've forgotten what they are like. I may go buy a parking pass because I definitely can't teach my current state. If only I could wish summer away, and we could get to fall already.

As a side note, last week when S was here we were chatting about greasy men who ride bikes and don't shower. I think I found B-N's version at the post office this morning.

I have a problem...

I love books. I've written about this before, but really I have issues with books. I know the library exists and is a great way to avoid buying books, but in the event that I "love" a book I want to be able to 1) write in it (sorry B!) and 2) not give it back. I use the library to check out things I need as demos for teaching, but I rarely read books from there. This means I buys lots of books. I don't really want to calculate the amount of money I spend on books, but let's just say that I keep bookstores in business. This is mostly because I'm a sucker for a deal. If Borders sends me a coupon, I interpret it as a sign that I need new books (hence the filter "skips the inbox" for Borders coupons during the summertime). B-N was home to a Scholastic warehouse that opened to the public twice a year, until it sadly closed for good this summer. This was a major event in my life. The great thing about the sale was that it had lots of books for $1. Who can refuse a book for $1?

Fast forward through 2 1/2 degrees in English, and I have too many books. That's very hard for me to admit, but it's true. I have to get rid of the junk. I have books I've never read, mass market "junk" that I read in airports, books I had to buy for classes that I didn't want to take, etc. But ever since I took a Shakespeare class as an undergrad and bought the Riverside Complete Works of Shakespeare, I've had this issue with selling books.*

A couple of weeks ago I heard a friend talk about paperbackswap.com and my gut reaction was "I don't have any extra books." This afternoon I played around on the site. I'm by no means purging my library, but I did manage to find 20 books (a tiny fraction of my collection) that I could live without. I posted them, redeemed my two introductory credits and thought to myself "nobody wants the crap I just posted." Not true...I was shocked. Granted I have only swapped one book, but I'm thinking that this may be the solution to my book addiction. It allows me to get an even swap (I realize that this doesn't fix the volume of books issue), and it forces me to think about what I really need. Do I need 3 French-English dictionaries? probably not. The book that I sold (an old French book) was a great deal for the person who snagged it, but I was able to replace it with something I might actually read. Thanks Joe!

*I packed up my books to take the the campus "sell back" and looked at Shakespeare. Even though the book had cost me nearly $100, I felt could not in good conscious sell back the complete works of William Shakespeare. This moral dilemma quickly spread to other areas of my life, and I haven't sold a book since.

Netiquette

It seems like I keep running into conversations about Netiquette in very odd places. In a conversation with Joe last week we were discussing the blog "lurker." I've been guilty of this, although mostly on author blogs and mostly because I don't want to be that fan who attaches -wa after my name on Scott Westerfeld's blog). At the same time, I recognize that everything I type is available to anyone who stumbles across it, and I should always assume a certain level of unidentified readers.

A discussion on a message board I read recently resulted in a list of member blogs to which someone asked if he/she should get permission before linking someone on their blogroll. My gut reaction was "YES," but mostly because I always wonder when Google Analytics tells me 18 people from Santa Fe logged in yesterday and I'm not sure that I even know one person in Santa Fe. Likewise, another discussion board revealed that for those of us with recipe blogs, certain magazines will come after bloggers who modify a recipe and include a line like "inspired by ..." This really shocked me. In my mind it goes against the concept of blogging. I would never copy another person's idea or words, but blogging is about connecting those ideas (and seriously how many can you say bring water to a boil and add...?).

I'm curious how others view netiquette. I use initials, but anyone with half a brain could find out who I was in a matter of minutes. Mostly I do this so that if my students google me, my blog is not the first this that pops up. Do you lurk? Do you "hide" your real identity? What are the new netiquette rules in your mind?

Key Words

I was looking at the report that lists search terms that people use to find my blog. I find some really strange and some rather funny given the post that the person would have landed on. Here are some highlights and the links to the respective searches...

• laptops on road trips
• the museum of science and industry started hatching
• reading about spiders
• infj triathlon
• mark chamberlain house painting
• pantagraph letters to the editor
• how do i get kate gosselin's haircut
• in depthly
• if you mean travelling bunnies then yes

And the one that makes me a little nervous...

• i don't want to be sadomasochistic

"I Cannot Live Without Books"

Recently I received an email that asked something along the lines of "could you please tell me what books we are going to actually talk about in X class." When I read this, I instantly had a reaction that I won't repeat here, but I was shocked that someone would a) imply that I would require books that weren't going to be read/talk about and b) that even if someone thought this, he/she would be ballsy enough to ask. This morning when I was replying to the email, I started thinking about how I use books. I decided that today's post would be about how I interact with those books.

I have books in nearly every room in my house (the bathroom and the laundry room are the only exceptions that I can think of at the moment). I have not read all these books but they are all a part of my everyday life. This is probably largely the result of the fact that I didn't speak until I was quite old (a story for another post) and my parents read to me constantly. I have quotation from Thomas Jefferson on my Facebook page that says "I cannot live without books" and for me it's very true. The email bothered me because it came from someone who I assume doesn't have that perspective.*

For me books fall in several different categories...

Cookbooks: I love cookbooks, but I don't really use recipes. In fact I read cook books for ingredient combos, learn them and then don't generally get them out again. I don't know that I've ever actually made a recipe from a cookbook exactly as stated. For me, I think cookbooks are cathartic because they are both literary and not. I can read to learn, but not feel like it's work.

Classics: my relationship with the canon is complex. I rarely teach canonical works in my classes, but I also feel really bad about selling back a copy that I have. When I was working on my undergrad, I took a class on Shakespeare, and we were required to buy the Riverside Shakespeare. This was the first semester where I ever questioned the practice of selling back books. Have I used the Riverside Shakespeare since that class? No. Have I moved it moved it more than four times in two states? You bet. William Shakespeare doesn't lose money if I sell it, but I feel intensely guilty about selling classics.

Books about Driving: I only decided to add this category because of the number of people who end up on my blog after googling "road trip" and/or "reading" "novel" "adolescent." Books about roads make up a separate part of my books shelf. Sometimes these books are legitimate roadtrips like John Green's An Abundance of Katherines or Joan Bauer's Rules of the Road, and others include a car as a plot device Notes from a Midnight Driver, but all of these books feature the car as a character. These books go in their own section (or pile) because I use them frequently.

Books that I Can't Live Without: I really like my bookshelf to be alphabetized by author and separated by subject (essentially, I like to live in a library), but until we moved in this house, I would pull certain texts aside. They were my "if my house is on fire, I can't leave without these" books. This is not logical. They could be easily replaced. Some have notes, but most of those even could be replaced. This category is not really genre bound. There are childhood books (Make Way for Ducklings, The Secret Garden) and there are theory books (Roberta Trites' Waking Sleeping Beauty). These books are not necessarily books that I use everyday, but are rather books that represent major moments in my literary life. A picture book that I was obsessed with as a child, a critical text that made me realize people studied children's literature, etc.

Books I Teach: I RARELY teach something that I really loved as a child. Most of my syllabus is better described as books that I read as an adult, so these books don't ever overlap with the previous category. I can tell if a book is a "teaching" copy by the way it looks. Teaching copies are full of post-it notes and have lots of things written inside the front and back covers. I used to write out notes for classes and have discovered that putting my quiz or my bullet points for teaching inside the book is more effective for me.

Books I Buys Because They Are Cheap: This category I'm slightly ashamed of. I have lots of books that are not great, but Scholastic was selling them for $1 at one of their warehouse sales and there are very few things that I won't spend a dollar on. Most of these books I haven't read, but they stay on my bookshelf in hopes that someday, someone will ask be for a book about X subject, and I will proudly pull a title off the shelf.

Pleasure Reading: I don't know that this is a good title for the category because it doesn't really reflect the value I place on these books. I try and always have a "pleasure" book in addition to required reading and reading for the classes I teach. Many of these books become essential to my dissertation and to my teaching, but they start as pleasure reading. Someone told me to read Scott Westerfeld's books, so I bought them for this category. These are the books that I read to formulate my ideas for myself not because I "have to" read them.

This is really why I can't answer that student's question because ALL of my books have a purpose and a value for me--even those that I don't read and/or talk about. I still think that the writer of the email that made me think about this was more direct and assertive** than I would have been, but I applaud her for making me spend an afternoon with my books. And, in case you are wondering, we are going to talk about all of the books on my booklists this fall. :)



*before you tell me it's likely an economic thing, I want to clarify that I have been the poor college student majoring in English and I get the cost of books, but I would make other sacrifices to buy the books. Eating out=optional; Books=required. (at least for me)

**Maybe I should recommend course in politeness theory

Crazy Camera Lady Gets Her Picture

The mystery truck came back, and this time my camera was waiting. Greg says that it was more likely an old paddywagon than a bank truck. Does that make it less weird?

LOST Road Trip

‘Lost’ creators know how series will end

Stephanie will be here any minute, but I was quickly scanning my reader and the following caught my eye.

They compared the process to a road trip, which can often include alternate routes and unexpected stops.

More to come on this later, but I love that Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof are theorizing the show in terms of road trips. I hadn't thought about the anti-road trip plot, but I'll see where that take me. :)

Freewriting Prompt #37 or Crazy Camera Lady

There is a very old and beat up white armored truck that has been parked outside my house all morning. Why do you think it might be there? Go...

UPDATE: The people in the truck (and probably some of my neighbors) officially think that I'm nuts. M wanted a pic of the truck, but then I got distracted talking on the phone and it disappeared. I went to have lunch with Greg and realized that I was behind it on my way home. It stopped to pick up a guy that was still at the house across the street. I jumped out of my car and yelled "can you hang on, I just have to get my camera and my friend said I need a picture of your truck on my blog." The guy that they were picking up got in really fast and they drove away before I got back with my camera, but I tried. I think I scared them. Now you'll have to use your imagination. The camera, however, is waiting by the front door should they choose to come back.

A Milestone

This afternoon, I officially finished my coursework for my PhD. I am officially exhausted, but very, very excited. A good friend told me before I started my PhD that grad school is more about endurance than intelligence. She's right. 14 classes after I started this endeavor, I'm very tired (emotionally, physically, and intellectually). I know that finishing coursework does not by any means equal done with a PhD, but it's a huge relief.

Tonight I am celebrating with a few friends, but I was so excited to finish that shortly after submitting my final project, I sent a mass email announcing the submission of my final project. For those who think that may have been cheesy, the end of coursework means that I now get to work exclusively on my research for the first time in...well ever!

Now the countdown to ABD begins...

For M...

M really likes thunderstorms, and I recently joked that we would celebrate the end of coursework by sitting on the front porch sipping margaritas during a thunderstorm. It looks like we will.

The 11th Hour...

In exactly 11 hours I will be officially finished with course work FOREVER!!!

The wiki is nearly done. I should keep working, but instead I am going to bed. There will be no all-nighters on the last night of coursework. I refuse.

Things I've learned on the trail...

So far the biking to work thing is going really well. I've cheated a couple of days (Monday for example, we had a terrible storm and they were warning of hail, so I drove), but mostly I've biked everyday. In the process, I've discovered a few things...

• I drink much less coffee in the morning. Biking two miles wakes me up without the caffeine, but really the thought of drinking hot coffee and biking in the middle of summer just makes me steer clear.
• I really hate driving now. I'm not sure what exactly I dislike, but if it's too hot to bike somewhere, I'm much more likely to stay home. This is an unexpected eco-friendly benefit.
• I shower a lot more. This means more water, more shampoo bottles, etc, but in July there really isn't another option. Hopefully this fall, I won't get as stinky.
  
• I'm "friends" with people on the trail that I don't know their names. They just happen to be on the trail the same time as me everyday. While waiting to cross a busy street this morning, I ran into the older gentlemen who says hi to me every day. Today he said hi plus "have you lost weight?"
  
• People do notice courteous bikers. I always make a point to say hi if someone says hi to me, and I ALWAYS warn people when passing. I frequently see a little boy (about 4-5) on a bike with training wheels. When he sees another bike, he stops and gets off the trail. Last week, he said to his mom "it's okay she's the bike that says hi" and kept riding. This made my day.
• The shade on the trail is nice, but it also creates a bug breeding ground. Talking while riding can result in the unfortunate ingestion of bugs.
  
• Related the above item, Suave has a new body spray that is scented with Grapefruit and Lemongrass, both substances that naturally repel bugs. Plus it doesn't leave with eau de boyscout camp. I don't think this is its intended use, but it works.
  

Self-Censorship

I've been thinking a lot lately about the ways in which I silence myself. I don't like confrontation, and so I although I do have strong opinions, I frequently keep them to myself (stop laughing Rakicy) when I perceive the situation/person to be unwilling to even listen to differing opinions. I take it personally when you shut me down, so as a defense mechanism I refuse to allow you the opportunity. Unfortunately, in doing so I shut myself down.

There are people and situations in my life that seem so self absorbed in their own ideologies that they simply say "no" or "you're wrong; I'm right" when confronted with people who don't think like they do. I, on the other hand, really value dialogue. I grew up in an environment where nearly everything was part of a dialogue. Discussion did not equal fight, and conversation was important.

I joked this weekend that my filter was broken, but really I discovered this morning that maintaining that filter (the you're not willing to listen, so I'll have this conversation with myself filter) is exhausting. Sitting in a room where I have self-imposed silence on myself is more exhausting that nearly anything else in my life. One of the things I really like about my group of friends is their openness to actually listening to other ideas. I'm not exhausted when they leave. We don't all think the same, but we don't shut down people for thinking differently.

In the last couple of weeks, I've run into multiple situations (professional and personal) where "different" is used as an insult in disguise. This really bothers me. Of course most of the time, I don't tell the person using it in this way that it bothers me because they aren't interested in a dialogue about the situation. So unfortnately, I realize that as I type this I am telling the people who already value dialogue, but communicating my frustrations makes me feel better--that's why I blog.

Don't drink and drive, then post on Facebook

I knew police were using Facebook and other social networking sites as evidence because when my sister was hit by a car earlier this year, they reconstructed the scene using information posted on Facebook. You would think after all of the stories about employers and school officials using posted information to punish user, people would quit posting information that could be used against them. If you have been recently arrested for drunk driving, it probably is not a good idea to take pictures of yourself drunk in a "jail bird" costume while awaiting trial. But then again the person that CBS interviewed regarding her current job search might explain why we need to tell people "Don't drink and drive, then post on Facebook"
Her profound comment:

I hope that employers aren't looking at it too in-depthly...I really don't think employers should be basing their opinion on me on Facebook.

Employers may or may not look at her "in-depthly" (is that even a word?) but judges and juries may.

Time For Some Campaignin'

Think how much better tv would be if we got rid of all campaign ads that weren't produced by JibJab :)

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"Big Brother" Counts Calories?

I participate in a couple of message boards that have been discussing New York's recent push to require calorie content on menus of chain restaurants and have been shocked to see how many people are passionately objecting to the law. At least one of the boards is comprised of people who are there because they have an interest in healthy cooking, there is resistance to the law. To be fair, there's not a ton of resistance, but there is still resistance. On more general message boards, however, people are quite outraged.

Since weight loss and nutrition are both very personal issues for me, I've been thinking about this a lot. More than one study has shown that the United States has an obesity problem and more than one study has shown that knowledge is a key component to weight loss. Food Diaries have also recently been shown to be a key to weight loss as well. I have to admit that this is an area I struggle with because my mental diary often turns out to be faulty, but part of my resistance to an actual diary is that the nutritional info and the food are not simultaneously together. While that is no excuse for my own slip-ups, I find the objections to this law very interesting:

• The Big Brother objection: a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a similar use of Orwell's term in a letter to the editor about car insurance. Personally, I think that people are throwing around this term a little too much and not really thinking about what they are saying. In the case of nutritional info, the objection here seems to be that requiring restaurants to publish the info infringes on the consumers right to choose for him/herself. I don't see the issue here. Would the fact that a Cheese Danish at Starbucks has 430 calories and 23 grams of fat make me feel guilty about eating it? Yes, in fact, it would probably cause me to choose something else, but would secret govt agents swoop in a physically prevent me from consuming the item? No. True Big Brother is not generally a fan of providing individuals with information.
• The Cost objection: These people claim that New York's law is going to cost restaurants so much money in reprinting menus that the restaurants will be forced to pass the cost on to consumers everywhere. This nice thing about this objection is that with the current economy and inflation, these people automatically can claim they were right. Prices will go up, but given the fact that our local Chili's has already changed it's menu twice this year, I don't think that the cost will be tied to nutrition info. While Chili's may keep many of the same items on their menu, their physical menu does not stick around for years. I do hate to think of the trees that will be killed in the name of telling people that very little at Olive Garden can be considered "healthy," but I'm pretty sure that Olive Garden was going to kill those trees anyway. So if we are revamping menus on a regular basis and were given a head's up about the law (which they were) this really shouldn't be an issue.
• The People Don't Need to Be Saved from Themselves Objection: This camp's position is pretty self explanatory. I guess these people have a point; we would hope that every American is blessed with common sense and the ability to make the best choices, but does anybody actually trust that that is reality. I would love to say that people who eat unhealthy foods are choosing to do so and are aware of the consequences, but I know that in my own experience it's just not true. I have more than one family member who will order a fried chicken salad with creamy dressing and cheese when he/she wants something "light" or "healthy." Even as a person who considers myself label conscious, I'm much more likely to eat something "bad" if I don't have the info on it (the whole fat grams I don't know about don't count issue). Let's also not forget that at one point a non-smoking section in a restaurant was scandalous and smoking during pregnancy was not considered dangerous. My biggest objection to this argument is that it implies that giving people information is a bad thing. Giving people bad information is a bad thing, but I'm not sure how that applies here.
  
• The "public humiliation" objection: I can see that the information may be problematic for some people with eating disorders. I can also see myself making a choice to not eat something because everyone in the room will know how "healthy" the item is, but mostly I can see myself not ordering something because I don't want to "spend" that many calories on that particular object. I can't see a public stoning of the person who sees the calories and then decides they still want the item, but at least they will making an informed choice. Judgemental people are going to be judgement with or without evidence.
  
• The "we're killing small business owners" objection: This is the objection of someone who likes to object without reading first. Every major news article that I can find clearly states

  The rule applies only to restaurants that have standardized recipes and that have made nutrition information publicly available on the Internet, printed brochures or other methods as of March 2007.

  Incidentally the way the current law reads, the NYT claims that it will only apply to about 10% of NY restaurants. While in theory, they could pass a law that makes this apply to all restaurants, let's save the "evils of captialism" argument for things actually do penalize small bussiness owners.
  

In general, I don't see how this law is worth of all the objections. I don't live in NY and I am pretty informed about nutrition, so the law doesn't really have a huge impact on my life, but if it caused me to think twice before ordering a menu item which subsequently led me to lose weight, I would not be upset. I find it odd that we require companies who sell food in grocery stores to provide this information without objection, but the thought of requiring the same of restaurants, sends people screaming "Big Brother."

If you want to read the full NYT article click here: New York Gets Ready to Count Calories - New York Times

Lost and Found: The Moth and Confidence Man

I'm way behind on posting these, so here's my attempt at getting back on track...

The Moth:

• This is Charlie's withdrawal episode. I mentioned in earlier posts that there seems to be a real disconnect between what we say about honesty and how much information the characters choose to share with one another. Both Locke and Jack openly lie to others about Charlie's situation. This makes me think about the other crimes that characters choose to disclose to their fellow castaways. Michael admits to not having been very involved in his son's life, and it quickly becomes common knowledge that Sayid has a background in torture, yet Jack's alcoholism, Jin's "enforcer" job, Charlie's drug abuse, and Kate's laundry list largely remain hidden. At this point on this island it would make sense for everyone to cautious of revealing past "sins," but it seems odd to me the lengths that some are willing to go to protect the "sins" of others.
• Kate annoys me. I'd forgotten how long the sexual tension with the Kate, Jack, Sawyer triangle has to go on. It's not so much that I mind the triangle plot line, but the whole part where Kate abandons the transponder in order to run back to Jack's side is what I find rather problematic. I think that I'm bothered by Kate's behavior because at this point, she's the only one who is fawning all over the other. She is constantly abandoning her plans or activities to be with Jack, and this invokes some really problematic stereotypes for me, especially since we are only 8 days into the crash at this point.
• I love Charlie. I really like that Charlie gets to both screw up and be helpful in this episode, but I really like that the producers chose to let him find his own way out of the cave instead of simply being the labor for someone else's plan.
  

Confidence Man

• I hate this episode. The torture really bothers me. Up until this point in the series the violence has been primarily contained to the aftermath of the plane crash (which was well constructed violence as M pointed out) or the mystery of island (the "monster" has claimed one victim), but this episode introduces the intentional and calculated human to human violence. Yes, Sawyer can be a jack@$$, but the whole torture in the jungle was really difficult to watch.
• I hate that they choose Sayid to instigate the violence here. Invoking his famous homophone namesake, Edward Said's ideas about western conceptions of the "East" seem to be the driving force here. While I recognize that Sayid's character later deconstructs some of these problematic images, we don't get that in this episode. We get a Sayid who is "othered" in more ways than I can count and given that the episode originally aired a little over a year after we invaded Iraq, I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with the "bad Iraqi" who we will later reveal to be not so bad plot.
• Sawyer has feelings! In addition to the fact that we genuinely feel sorry for Sawyer after the who torture debacle, we see Sawyer's emotional baggage here as well. I appreciate that Sawyer doesn't pretend to be as innocent as many of his companions, but I also appreciate that we get to see an emotion other than sarcasm (is that an emotion?) or resentment.
• Breathing is not cool; Boone is right! Inhalers make you a loser. Shannon still annoys me. I feel like she the cheap adolescent chick lit, who has invaded my science fiction novel.