Laresa's Fairly Worthless Blog

Pet Prompt

2012-01-12T06:22:00.001-07:00

Write about a type of pet you wouldn't want.

Pretty much any pet that cannot be trained to poop in the same place every time, with automatic clumping. Also, no creepy weasel pets. Or spiders or bugs. And I hate rodents.

Look, I like cats. Like you didn’t know that.

Purchase & Jewelry Prompts

2012-01-11T12:55:00.001-07:00

Write about a time you purchased the wrong item.

One word: eBay. I am a junkie and I sometimes end up buying weird things. Like a pyramid clock that lights up with awesomeness, but cannot keep time. At all. Or half the clothes I buy. I have two wrap dresses that I’m pretty sure I will always be too fat for. But quit eBay? Never!

Write about a piece of jewelry you gave to someone, or that someone gave to you.

Two words: dinosaur cameos. I got these from my delightful brother when he worked at Jewelry TV. They are awesome and I defy anyone to find an awesomer cameo. You will not be able to do it. Ever. They lie in great state in the big jewelry box, but they just may be awesome enough to make it into the Korean box.

ADH….Look! A Bird!

2012-01-11T11:39:00.001-07:00

So ADHD came up in therapy today, and it might be a possibility. Also because Ritalin DOES NOTHING and Adderall was my miraculous friend.

I sometimes like to refer to myself as a genetic dumping ground. Thanks, ancestors!

Art Prompt

2012-01-09T06:49:00.001-07:00

Write about a piece of art that you feel represents you/your life.

Red on Maroon by Mark Rothko. I see it as a doorway/coffin/Passover/movement/death/potential. I don’t know what’s on the other side, but I feel like I’m always standing in doorways, sometimes making it through them and other times hovering just outside something I can’t have.

Moment Prompt

2012-01-09T06:41:00.001-07:00

Write about a defining moment in your life.

The first thing that came to mind was my thesis. My defense was so awesome that I was completely pumped on grad school (again). It took me awhile, but I got to the other defining moment, the rekindling of that desire to go to grad school, and the idea that I could actually be competitive for a higher tier school.

Book Prompt

2012-01-05T06:51:00.001-07:00

Missed this yesterday for some reason. I must have “j-ed” through it on Reader.

Write about a book you remember reading as a child.

Before I start my 60 seconds, I just want to say how much I’m enjoying this: a lot. For my readers, the schtick is that you get a prompt and that you only take 60 seconds to write. That’s why the entries are so short.

This is easy: everything Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote. I devoured the entire Little House series about 10,000 times. I can tell you how Almanzo’s mother made donuts. I can tell you about the pretty dress Ma wore at the party in Little House in the Big Woods and the conflict between the two Lauras.

Friend Prompt

2012-01-05T06:46:00.001-07:00

Write about a conflict you had with a friend, and how it was (or wasn't) resolved.

The conflict was all on my end, because my friend didn’t realize she’d done anything hurtful. I moved, no one stayed in touch with me. She got engaged, and that was all I ever heard about the relationship. It was like she broke up with me through silence. Never resolved. How can you resolve something when you’re the only one with a problem?

GPS Prompt

2012-01-03T07:50:00.002-07:00

Imagine you have a GPS that gives you life directions. What direction do you think it's giving you right now?
I’m pretty sure my GPS is broken. Like a jerk, it’s giving me a destination, but no real directions for how to get there. So, I’ll keep on applying to grad schools and I’ll keep on nauseating about them and keep on despairing about my current adjunct situation. Are you happy, Mr. GPS?

My Songstress Attempt at Doctoral Anxiety

2011-11-14T09:18:00.001-07:00

The following blurt of crazy should be sung to “Make ‘Em Laugh” from Singing in the Rain:

Freaking out, freaking out, freaking out, freaking out.

My gut said get a doctorate my son, but I'm a negligent one.

Freaking out, I'm a spazz, kill me now, all that jazz.

I think the doctorate is right for me, but it's insanity!

I will die, I will cry, I will crumble inside,

But dammit, if I have any choice, I'll exercise my academic voice!

Freaking out, freaking out, freaking out.

Addendum

2011-07-08T08:30:00.001-06:00

I cancelled class.

Today’s Plan

2011-07-08T08:10:00.001-06:00

So after getting up an hour early to prep, I’m going to drive to UVU. There I will fight the old never-ending fight with my students. Since I don’t have time to crush up the new ideas and mix them with jam and give them to my students on a fancy spoon, I’ll have to squeeze their jaws open instead and force the pill down. They will resist. They will complain. They will ask, “Will this be on the test?” When they do, I’ll shoot them a smile and say that anything we talk about in class is fair game for an exam. I will smile and smile and be a villain. Then we will grind our way through formal criticism, after I’ve established that no one did the homework, because somehow everyone was confused—so confused they couldn’t even find their computer, let alone send me an email, or, compounding that, look at the syllabus.

Then I will have some french fries and a brownie (I almost typed “browning”—I think that reflects my mood).

Then I will come home and wash the grime of teaching off in a nice shower.

Then I will be soooooooo glad I canceled therapy (because I hate it already). And then feel guilty about it, but see if I can schedule with another, more experienced, therapist.

Then I will work until my fingers are bloody because tomorrow night, the horde (which I happen to love) will descend and there will be no peace unless I swaddle my head in cotton batting and barricade the entrance to my basement lair.

I will do all of this with all the spirit of a magical and efficient banshee.

Job, I love you, but I really hate you sometimes. Students, I love you, but my gosh you can be a burden.

Hilarious First Day

2011-06-22T17:12:00.001-06:00

Okay, yesterday was actually a kind of crummy day, but the first class of the term went really well.

Now I’ll tell you a funny story:

So, for my icebreaker I let the students ask me whatever they want and then I proceed to tell them about my titaniumtastic heart. I think that’s a cool thing, so then I want to know cool things about them and most everyone has a medical weirdness, so that’s fun. Well, I started on the “sheep” side of the room (on my right hand) and we go around the class talking about horrible breakages, lost nails (toe and finger), broken necks, rolled cars, freakish low blood pressure, all kinds of fun things. Well, I got to the last student (literally) and you’ll never guess what his malady was: he tends to get faint or actually faint when hearing about other people’s medical problems! I’m standing in front of the class with my hands over my face caught between horror and hysterical laughter! It had to be the best ending to student introductions ever, I still want to laugh/cry/etc. over the absurdity and hilarity of coincidence of it all. I think I’m really going to like this class.

Why I can never fully close a door:

2011-06-04T21:43:00.000-06:00

Because sooner or later I will hear a jingle-jingle-jingle-clunk.

I assume it's like having a child, because the cats, especially Hopalong Cassidy cannot abide a closed door and will mew complaintively and scratch. However, Gidget is the baddest about this because--despite her incredibly dumb facade--she has cleverly figured out that by jumping enough, she can sometimes open our lever-handled doors. Luckily, Gidget is not my cat and she usually plies her annoying ways on Heidi's door.

Cassidy will, however, scratch at the door and meow loudly when it is closed, and while that may not scare you to death like Gidget's little jump-a-rama, it will wake you up and keep you away until you respond. Also, Hopalong enjoys community potty time, following me into the bathroom where we can do our business together, albeit in our respective spots. She also refuses to open even a door that's ajar by herself, looking at me beseechingly until I open it for her.

I will say, though, that the jingle-jingle-jingle-clunk is pretty funny.

I am a metaphorical genius (take that as you will)

2011-06-03T10:04:00.001-06:00

Okay, this is how you get people to remember the problems of music in the late Renaissance and the potentially troubling chanson mass: tell them that it would be like singing "Choose the Right" to a Lady Gaga song.

See!? I am a good teacher. Also, I make everyone feel shocked and guilty about American eugenics. I'm classy that way.

Also, I'm a big enough dork that I wish I could write a chanson mass a la the Renaissance with contemporary music. Another degree never hurt anyone, right?

However!

2011-06-01T17:52:00.001-06:00

From the same class:

All of the readings and the assignments were online, which gave us the opportunity to print the readings and powerpoints off so we could have them in a binder with us at all times. Most of the assignments were due online, but she did have some papers that we had to turn into her personally.

I loved everything about this class. It was fantastic.

I was able to expand my understanding for art and Greek life and culture. These are subjects that fascinate me.

Made sure we understood the material by having lots of open class discussions and helping us see other view points which the humanities is all about

She is very knowlegdeable about the humanities and one can tell she ha a passion for the subject, which brings the information alive.

She responded very quickly to emails and happily answered questions. Her lectures were useful and interesting. She realized when the homework was getting heavy and used it as extra credit instead. She kept us very informed.

She was really helpful when I couldn't come to class. As long as I could prove that I did the assignment on time, she'd let me turn it in later when I couldn't go to class

She was very kind and helpful to the students and not stricked about when things were due. This really helped me with all of my other classes that had a lot of due dates.

she is a perfect teacher for this class. she teaches really well, i dont think she thinks that, but she does. She has reall passion and amazing knowledge!

I think I’ll try to puzzle out which troll wrote this.

2011-06-01T17:46:00.001-06:00

Nothing, this class was a complete waste of my time. I hate that it's required for your General Education credits. The teacher was a joke, her lessons were a joke, her tests were a joke. Every time she taught us a lesson she did so about paintings that had to do with the Christian religion and I found it very very VERY offensive. We are not at BYU, if you want to teach that stuff then leave UVU because no one wants you here. I hated everything about his class and the teacher. She has a horrible way of presenting herself and an even more horrible way of conducting the class. I rate this professor negatively and hope that she not be able to teach at UVU anymore. She hardly ever answered my emails that I would send to her, and wouldn't make her self available to meet with you one-on-one outside of class just because she doesn't have an office. Everything about this teacher from DAY ONE was horrible.

What has Laresa been up to?

2011-05-07T11:26:00.001-06:00

Well, teaching mostly. It’s amazing to me how unprepared I manage to be each semester. You’d think after teaching 1010-level courses some 12-odd times, that I’d have a better handle on things. But no. I have to be dissatisfied at all times with my performance and change my curriculum elebenty times a semester.

Part of the problem I realized just after midterms this last semester at UVU, is that I was always teaching someone else’s course instead of teaching MY course. I’ve started working through that for 1010 as well as the 201/202 classes I do for BYU. It was strange to all of a sudden realize that I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do; instead, I was doing what got me through the semester without really evaluating its effectiveness. So I’m trying to push for a lot more discussion in the future, especially since my 2nd block summer 1010 classes are at least 2 hours long. Hopefully I’ll be able to encourage camaraderie across the classroom between student and student and student and me.

It’s amazingly hard to get some of these students started on the path to thinking. It’s not that they’re dumb, they’re just really untrained in a lot of ways. I guess the typical high school course really does teach to the test instead of encouraging independent thought. Instead of trying to figure out what something means, many students just sit back and wait to be told so they can produce something for the exam. I think it’s hugely frustrating, and it’s a problem I face at both schools. Hopefully my decision to write my exams using short answer and short essay exclusively helps get some people over this.

I do struggle with discussion, but mostly because dead air makes me nervous, so this last semester I started watching the clock and waiting up to 30 seconds to say anything again. It worked pretty well, but I still have the problem of 20% of the class making all the contributions. Is it always that way or are there miracle classes in the lower division that have full student participation? I’d kind of like to see one of those, but then I’d be worried that we’d never get through any material.

I’m actually hoping to surmount the material obstacle in the summer by simply covering less material while somehow still meeting department standards for the course. I don’t use a textbook, so I want to try making up short readings to accompany the different eras (particularly of painting), present the students with a slide show of the style to look at before class, and then select just a few paintings from each era to talk about in depth. I may also try this with music, but with 1010 prep overlapping with 202 responsibilities, it may be a little hard. However! I scored a TA for my 202 class, so a lot of the grading pressure is gone and he TAed for some of the same people I did, so I trust his training. It is super weird to have a TA and I’m doing my best to pretend I’m a responsible adult worker with underlings.

As for non-school news, I had a hellish time in January and February depression-wise, so I got up the nerve to finally see a new psychiatrist. He upped my sertraline (Zoloft) by 50 mg and encouraged me to make better use of my adderall and clonazepam; in fact, I found out I was under-using them in my worry of abusing them. Adderall turns out to be a pretty darn good antidepressant in terms of getting you through the day. I don’t use it everyday and sometimes the crash can be hard if I don’t time things right, but it can make a day that looked like a complete wash into something semi-productive. Clonazepam is my favorite miracle drug. Sometimes I get so suddenly anxious and irritable that I stop being able to function among and around other humans, but if I take lovely clonazepam, in 20 minutes most of the strain is gone and I can think again and respond to others appropriately (in other words, I don’t hate everyone I live with anymore). I also have been working really hard on my sleep schedule/routine. It’s hard, but I can usually get to bed at the same time, even if I don’t always (read: never) get up at the same time. But it has gotten me to the point where I can mostly sleep on my own, without sweet ambien or even benadryl.

The hardest part about the new drug schedule was waiting for them to kick in. In the past, I’ve usually had a turnover of about 2 weeks. This time, it was just over a month, so I was really depressed as I tried to wait for things to kick in, worrying that it wouldn’t work. Then, a few days after I was ready to give up, it was like a key turned and things were okay, at least more okay than they’d been and things were really more bearable.

The thing with my mental illness is that I really need to accept that being at 80% may be as close as I get to other people’s 100% and to measure my energies appropriately. This is hard because there are so many things I feel I need to improve about myself--diet, exercise, weight, sleep, reading (good books, not pulp), pedagogy, scholarship, spirituality, church callings, friendships—and I don’t have the energy to focus on more than a couple things at a time. And my obsessive brain can’t stop thinking about all the things I’m not doing, so that’s another thing, paradoxically, to work on!

That said, I’m pretty happy. I planted flowers yesterday and they just might grow! I’m reading, they just happen to be Agatha Christie novels. I’m working and BYU likes me enough that I’m apparently their pinch-hitter for other faculty (my spring/summer courses are both fill-ins) and I’m scheduled for fall as well. I really like my boss at UVU and she fights for us among all the administrative crap that’s come down this last semester (I think in response to Wisconsin). My coworkers are good at both schools and I’m doing the work I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid playing teacher. I’m broke and in debt, but other than that, I think I have things pretty good.

Whew! That was long. I’d plan for more, shorter, posts in the future, but that might be too much of a burden to my bipolar/OCD brain.

“…one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

2011-02-14T16:19:00.001-07:00

Ah, is there any issue Hamlet doesn’t have a quote for? It’s like The Godfather that way.

I am the smiling villain, at least when it comes to teaching. I will smile and nod and be nice to you, but dammit, I’m going to hold you to that calendar and syllabus from the beginning of the semester. Complain all you want about working 12-hour shifts or two jobs or having a head cold or not being able to find parking, we’re in a committed relationship and I’m high maintenance.

So, I’m taking a grim pleasure in the upcoming midterm. Latey-McLatepants will enjoy his fail as much as Miss Nevercomes and Mr. IPhone. I will enjoy their fails even more. I know I’m supposed to be all nurturing your love for the humanities, but, to add another metaphor to this mess, I can only lead you to the water (or in the case of a 1010 class, point you in the general direction).

Death to all weenies and may the university cease to be a glorified trade school in my lifetime.

“Funny How Nature Just Knows How to Make Things That Are Good for You”

2011-02-01T16:35:00.001-07:00

Thanks for the tip, V8!

etc.

An Addendum

2011-01-25T14:10:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to clarify my last post a little bit. The problem is not with the church, but the big problem is that I’m currently attending the same ward that I attended from the ages of 5-21. Some people think they know all about me just because they knew me when I was younger. They didn’t know me when I was younger at all; very few people did. There are people in my ward who know about my situation and are very helpful and who care. I get frustrated with the assumptions of the rest, who just because they’ve been in my proximity for a long time think they know something about me.

Bipolar and the LGBT World (a tenuous connection)

2011-01-20T19:58:00.001-07:00

I really resonate with LGBT music and the way they depict their struggle in society. I connect it to my mental illness in the LDS community. Both are kept under wraps, and it is often shameful to admit a problem; both open you up to judgment you’d rather not have to face. I hear songs like “Philosophy of Loss” by the Indigo Girls and the words, “the doors open wide to all straight men and women but they are not open to me,” really resonated with my situation. What had I done wrong to be excluded? All I’d done was have a mental illness and I could feel the exclusion all around me. This was especially true in YSA wards, where I often felt as if I was treated as a diseased member of the herd, even though very few knew about my struggle.

I love Utah—it’s my home—but it’s a tough community to be very different in. I don’t think Utah isn’t diverse, but there’s a plateau effect of complacency that comes over people very quickly. There’s a big push to go along to get along and not cause any trouble. But I am troubled and self-troubling. I rankle under the gazes of my successfully married and childered friend’s mothers. Again, I can see in some of their faces the question, “What did Laresa there do wrong?” Or, “Why can’t she be more like Tammie—who gave up her dreams of being a doctor to be a Mommy?” Or being told, “Don’t forget motherhood in all your ambition!” “I know someone your age! You’d be perfect for each other!” Always trying to fix what can’t be fixed or being vulgar and querulous about the situation. I imagine LGBTs feel the same way.

So, as a closet case, I think I get a little bit of that world. I don’t necessarily condone it, but I understand the attraction and I understand bridling under the judgment—cruel and kind—of others, who just don’t get it and never will. Sometimes I hate them; sometimes I hate myself; but it’s usually a combination of both. Only the patience of my mother, the kind words of my bishop, and, especially, the words of Jesus salve the sting and make the mess endurable. For Him, Otherness isn’t a byword. As He said, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” I have hope in that promise.

A Reason to Love BYU

2011-01-11T17:34:00.001-07:00

I am trying to get things in some sort of order for my music unit. That’s difficult enough, since I’ve been reading and studying music since I’ve be reading and studying books, but it completely frustrates my brain to have to teach it at UVU because there are no pianos in the classrooms. I can’t jump over to the piano and play major and minor chords. I can’t play “There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today” in major and then in minor. I can’t demonstrate intervals.

So, wah, I guess. I have time to figure it out (if the teaching gods are on my side).

Freaking the Heck Out, As Per Usual

2010-12-27T20:33:00.001-07:00

So the time has come, once again, to freak out about the upcoming semester. I start teaching next Wednesday, so that give me 8 days to get things in order. As of right now, my brain is convinced that this is impossible. “Didn’t you just teach this class?” you ask. Well, yes, but I felt like a moderate failure in some aspects of the courses I taught and I completely blew it on the “no text” thing. See, I thought that meant that the majority of the material would be covered by a combination of lecture and discussion without a lot of outside reading, except at the beginning. Well, it turns out that it’s hard to have a discussion when you are dealing with cold fish first thing in the morning, and it is even hard to have a discussion when I am introducing new and foreign material to said fish. Also, my boss assumed I was having them do readings when I was not, which scotched my peer review a little bit. So while I have enough material to fill a semester, I don’t have enough appropriate material to facilitate classroom discussion.

My job, then, for the next 8 days, is to cobble together a series of outlines/quotes/short readings/discussion questions/short assignments that I can present to my students before they come to class so that we all have something to talk about. This means scouring my files, the interwebs, and the collaborative 1010 site so that I can create this wonderful thing. I also have to craft assignments to be turned in before class so that I can be a classroom autocrat and demand participation, while at the same time remaining benevolent and likable. Top all this with my seasonal mood death and you have a bad combination. Also I am fat and unattractive (according to my seasonally warped brain).

And to think this is my dream job (teaching). Imagine if I was employed doing something else.

The Europe Diary: 4/28/04

2010-11-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ages ago, right? But I thought I’d share from my journal about my experiences in Europe. So all you all out there who have been, get ready to compare notes! I went with my friend from the MA program (and one of my for-real friends), Kristina, so she’ll show up every now and then .

On the plane to London. We were late coming in to Chicago, but we still, obviously, made our connecting flight. Stress levels low, so good so far. Watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico, mostly for Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas. The plot doesn’t make much sense.

Dad gave me a blessing this morning before I left. I was told to stay in touch with the church and to remember my spiritual obligations. We’ll attend church at least once, maybe more if we get adventurous. We were also blessed with protection and discernment, that we will not only recognize the Spirit, but that we will hear its voice. I was also told that my family has always been blessed with safety and that I should remember that my family will kneel night and day, and many times throughout the day to pray for our well-being and that all of my family cares about me very much.

I’ve been surprisingly calm this whole time. I must stop now for dinner.

Heh. The halcyon pre-diagnosis days. Also, what a youngweird I was. Depp and Banderas? If only younger me knew how they’d be six years later.

I believe dinner was chicken and pasta of some sort. Also, I hated the weenie kid who shared our row. I think I write about that in the next entry.

Pay attention to the blessing; this will come up in a significant way later in the narrative.

A Glimpse Into the Bipolar Mind at Issue With Itself and the World

2010-11-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

From my journal, 6/2/06

“There are no cameras; no one is watching me, and no one gives a damn. So to Hell with everyone else. I’ll do what I want. In short, I’m free, so **** everyone else and all their ideas about me.”

Wasn’t I a jolly lass?

The BBC Book Meme

2010-11-26T15:23:00.001-07:00

Why not? I’m pretty sure I’ve done it before, but maybe I can use it as a guide for future reading, or, more likely, future grumps.

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety; italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or just read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds (I’m too lazy to tag, but join in if you wish). Some of these I’m not even interested in. Is that a bad thing, I wonder? I guess I’d have to read to find out.

My friend Molly added these instructions: “OK for my film nerd friends lets put a star next to the ones we have seen a movie of, if more than one version more than one star *. Theatre Nerds the pound sign #.”

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen ***

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien *

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte***

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling * (Blog followers know my hidebound resistance to these.)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee *

6 The Bible ***** (from different parts. Do we count apocalypse movies? Do Troy McClure films count?)

7 The Divine Comedy—Dante

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens*

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott **

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy*

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare * # (As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Henry V, Richard III, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet. I should get cracking on this one!)

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier**

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot*

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell *

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald *

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens*

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll * (Again, I don’t know which films count.)

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame *

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen***

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen **

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne *

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown * (This pains me. Both book and movie had me yelling and throwing things)

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins*

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery *

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert *

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons*

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen***

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas *

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding*

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville (I’ve read bits)

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens * *

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker ** ## (What Dracula movies do we count??)

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett**

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray*

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens ****#

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro *

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert (only bits)

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White *

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle **

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas*

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare**** # (incredibly terrible production at BYU)

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl **

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Thanks, You.

2010-11-25T21:35:00.001-07:00

I guess this isn’t the traditional Thanksgiving post listing things (nothing against those), but this is something that’s been on my mind lately.

I think I’m a friend alienator.

I think it’s because I’m bipolar.

I think it hurts more than I let myself think.

I had some really close friendships before I moved to Rexburg in 2005. I did my best to keep in touch through email, but I rarely (I don’t know if ever) got responses from this group of friends. In fact, the only memorable correspondence I had with one member of the group was when she informed me she was getting married. In three weeks. After having dated the guy for months. I thought I had found a best friend only to realize I wasn’t even worth normal girl gossip, let alone all the squee things girlfriends do when one of them gets married. I’m being maudlin, I know, but it really cut me, so I cut off contact. I guess that makes it my fault things never really got smoothed over.

But it gets better. Or at least I have better things to remember. To supplant these cutting-worthy memories (that’s another story) I want to look back on someone and something else: my friend Alanna. My experience with her was/is a world apart. I knew when she broke up with her awful ex and when she started dating Craig, and when she got engaged. I helped her pick out a wedding dress, which is one of my very best memories; it was an honor to help someone so good and who had stood with me during the awful period when I was diagnosed as BP (and still likes me). I knew/know about her kids and her life and it’s great that she’s my for-real friend. I have other great for-real friends, but Alanna came to mind as a nice contrast to my girl breakup.

So, thanks, you. It meant/means a lot.

The Midterm

2010-11-19T20:35:00.001-07:00

I know it’s ridiculously late to still be grading midterms, but I’ve been completely swamped teaching approx. 15 credits, which is a terrible amount when you have very little administrative support.

I am completely barfed out by the numbers I’m getting as I grade. I knew UVU would be different from BYU, but a D+ average is ridiculous. Granted, this includes the students who disappeared off the face of the planet, but still, it’s a disheartening number.

The thing that really frustrates me is that I feel guilty when the scores aren’t my fault. I wrote a study guide faithful to the exam and made sure that everything on the exam had been covered thoroughly in class and was included on the accompanying PPTs. Are freshmen really this backwards? Have I lived a life of rare privilege not being exposed to this before? How in the world do I make this better? Seriously, is basic literacy no longer covered in the public schools? Are students so wedded to their stupid text language that they can no longer form anything resembling a sentence? (This, of course, represents the worst cases.) I have one more set to grade and I’m sick about it, even though it will be from my best class. The idea of plowing through more of these miserable exams is intimidating and depressing.

I already feel like I’ve blown this semester in terms of meaningful teaching and I’m dreading the student reviews. I may not read them. Ever. In fact, if they give me a hard copy of them, I may burn it, just so I don’t wallow in shame for weeks after the semester ends.

It’s almost Daylight Savings Eve!

2010-11-05T11:49:00.001-06:00

Twice a year the family gathers ‘round the the Franklin* Stove, singing carols to the sweet accompaniment of the glass armonica, and decorating the household lightening rod. The children put out their swim fins: good children will receive a copy of Poor Richard’s and naught children, a flexible urinary catheter. A good time will be had by all.

*Shut up! I don’t care if Benjamin Franklin didn’t really invent Daylight Savings Time. It’s funnier this way!

Course Prep Is an Unrelenting Nightmare

2010-08-13T13:50:00.001-06:00

So I’m up against a course I’ve never taught before: Humanities 201. I’m very much a 202 person, you know, the 1500 AD and beyond stuff, but I’ve been scheduled to teach 201 in the fall. Now, if you think I’m a little tardy in starting prep, you are right. After the crash and burn of my summer course (well, sort of), I found myself without any time or energy to get geared up for fall, so today you find me scrambling through old TA notes trying to cram a course together without the benefit of a real plan or any seriously constructed curriculum. I haven’t even read the textbook.

I formulated a great plan last night to go through my TA notes and make a kind of master copy of information from my experiences there. Right now, as I’m confronting the reality of my notes (not made with course prep in mind) and the complexity of the course, my plan is not nearly as straightforward as I thought. I not only have notes, I have a pile of ppts, packets, handouts, and syllabi that my brain is trying to pull together into something cohesive. It’s not working and the stress of not thinking clearly is burying me under all the material with no end in sight.

I do love teaching and I really do enjoy the ancient and medieval worlds, but right now all I can see in front of me is failure.

201 is today’s nightmare; I also have to pull together materials for the 1010 courses I’ll be doing over at UVU. I have to admit that I’m a little freaked out about teaching at an open-enrollment university after only teaching at private, BYU schools.

Luther on music and an aside on pop culture.

2010-07-13T14:31:00.000-06:00

“A person…who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”

I used this in Relief Society a while back while we were discussing the development of modern hymnody as part of music appreciation and I absolutely love it. This is Luther at his bulldoggy best, laying things out with no excuses.

I've been listening to Beethoven today and I'm convinced that people who don't like classical music must be so used to hearing hogs and asses that they can't recognize great, visceral, soul-stirring music when they hear it because it has become foreign to them. So for them, the Clockwork Orange treatment! Away! Oh wait, Alex liked classical music. Okay, the reverse Clockwork Orange treatment! Away!

My Favorite Things

2010-06-21T21:48:00.001-06:00

Big Doll (yes, that is her real name), Squeaky, and Fongoo (my security blanket)

Over at the family blog we were supposed to write about our earliest favorite toy. These are my three best-beloved early toys and I am reposting here.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have Squeaky or the blanket and I remember being absolutely thrilled to get Big Doll one Christmas. Being the biggest doll, she was also the most important doll and would remain as the top doll even after I got my most beautiful doll in the satin and lace dress. Big Doll got a lot of play. She was superior to the other dolls we had at the time because she was jointed and was a nice fit for all of our baby doll toys. Bethani had a matching, smaller doll, so naturally, they were often sisters. When I got older, I tried to give Big Doll a proper name, but nothing ever stuck and “Big Doll” she remains to this day.

Squeaky was a toy I got when I was a baby. He is very nice with his orange front and furry back. He is named “Squeaky” because his ears/arms have different toned squeakers in them; his body is also a rattle. I loved Squeaky because he could play peek-a-boo and entertain the other toys (Big Doll most assuredly among them). He squeaked to talk, which made him a very vocal (and probably betimes annoying) member of the play squad. Squeaky and the blanket have a very close relationship.

I am not sure when I named the blanket “Fongoo” or where the name came from. Although not a toy proper, it was a well-used prop during play. It/she could be a tent or an animal-bouncing parachute. Oh boy how I loved (love?) that blanket. I loved stroking and manipulating the yarn flowers; some of my pet ties even had names, though I can’t remember them now. Grandma Baggs had this blanket made for me, as well as another blanket with kittens on it and a pink afghan. Those didn’t have names, but they got played with as well.

Ban Ban Ji (Beaten Chicken)----In a Crock Pot!

2010-06-15T20:34:00.000-06:00

Okay, I didn't feel like poaching chicken and then shredding it into matchstick-sized pieces and then serving it at room temperature, so I opted to put whole chicken breasts in the crock pot and cover them with the sauce for the Ban Ban Ji. Here is the sauce I made:

12 T tahini (from my homemade stash)
6 T oil
3-4 T powdered ginger
5-7 garlic cloves
4 t vinegar
3 T soy sauce
5 t sugar
1 t pepper
5 T sesame oil

Pulverize everything in a food processor and pour over your chicken of choice in a crock pot (I used 6 chicken breasts because that is what we had handy). Set the crock; later, make some rice and vegetables of your choice; and, finally, comest.

Just a note on the crock: set it to low and then turn it down to warm as soon as you are confident your meat will be done in time. I was a little late turning things down and the soy sauce and sugar caramelized in a slightly burny-flavored way. We ate around it, but it would have been better if I had set things correctly in the first place.

A Birthday for Frances

2010-06-12T22:11:00.001-06:00

Ooooh, boy. I just figured out a sneakiness my parents did. When I was a kid, I had a terrible time with other people’s birthdays in my family. I went through a few years where every birthday (aside from my own) was cause for tears. It was terrible and I remember feeling this awful mixture of jealousy and guilt. It was so bad that for a few years, whenever Bethani or I had a birthday, we would each get some kind of matching present. Well, one of the books I received when I was in first or second grade was A Birthday for Frances, in which Frances the badger learns to cope with birthday jealousy. I loved that book and I never related it to my bad birthday behavior until now. I’m pretty sure my parents got it for me to help me get over my jealousy, so kudos to you Mom and Dad! I still love that book and now I can be happy to celebrate any birthday.

My Mouse

2010-06-04T22:54:00.000-06:00

I downloaded this great widget on the prompt of LifeHacker. Here's what my days mousing activity looks like (I have 2 monitors; the left is the primary, right is internet):

The Jezzies Get It Wrong

2010-06-01T18:24:00.000-06:00

Full disclosure: I take birth control.

More full disclosure: I read Jezebel everyday; even though I'm conservative, we agree on a surprising number of issues. However, today, one of their posts--and the subsequent comments--just got things all wrong. They took issue with the Catholic Church disagreeing with free birth control provided everywhere. Here is the specific quote they had an issue with:

"Requiring contraception and sterilization in all private health plans would be an enormous imposition on the consciences of religious organizations and others who now have the right to purchase a health plan in accord with their moral and religious values."

The Jezzies thought that this meant the Catholics were completely against anyone providing free birth control to everyone. The comments were full of indignant "well that infringes on my rights!!!" kind of comments. What they missed was that the Conference of Catholic Bishops didn't really seem to care if people provided free birth control; what they were concerned with is that Catholic health providers would be forced by the government to provide a service that they find morally wrong. No one should be forced to go against their conscience, not even those pernicious rights-stealing Catholics. The very idea of forcing a business to bend to a personal moral code should be reprehensible to everyone who values true freedom, even when it comes to sex and contraception. I thought liberals were all for "Congress shall make no law...."

My Rude Thought...Well, Sort Of

2010-05-23T21:29:00.000-06:00

I was thinking the other night about some of the "advice" I was given back when I attended a singles' ward. We had one woman come in and go on and on about accentuating your femininity by doing things like always wearing mascara, etc. (she forgot about internal qualities; you could tell by the way her daughters turned out). That's fine; whatever. I don't feel like I need to cake it on to attract a man; hopefully I can be appealing in other ways. But it got me thinking. If I'm supposed to be accentuating my femininity, what about men? Shouldn't they be required to accentuate their masculinity? At least in the Renaissance men had the decency to wear codpieces.

Chicken Korma

2010-05-22T15:44:00.000-06:00

I got my inspirations for this recipe from these two sites:

http://www.worldfamousrecipes.org/2007/10/29/chicken-korma-recipe/
http://quantumrelativity.calsci.com/Recipes/Korma.html

Here are the measurements I used and some notes on corrections I plan to make in the future.

2 yellow onions
3 garlic cloves (in the future I plan to use 4-6)
2 t. fresh, grated ginger
2 t. powdered cardamom
10 whole cloves (I think 15 would be better in the future)
3 dried bay leaves
2 t. salt
1.5 t. ground coriander
2 t. red pepper
1 t. turmeric
2 t. cumin
2 c. of plain yogurt
Approx. 4 pounds of chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces (seriously, I just use whatever comes in the pack)
1 can of unsweetened coconut milk--13 or 14 oz. (I found mine in the Asian section because it is often used in Thai food)

Chop the onion and mince the garlic. Fry them in approx. 1/3 c. of oil and 2 T butter. When they start to brown, add the fresh ginger, the cloves, cardamom, bay leaves, and salt (this is important to release the natural oils in the spices; the cardamom doesn't really need to be here unless you're using cardamom pods). After those ingredients are nicely integrated, add the coriander, red pepper, turmeric, and cumin. Slowly add the plain yogurt, blending it into the spice mix by spoonfuls. When the yogurt is cooked down, add and brown the chicken, salting to taste. When you feel comfortable with the chicken, add the mixture to a crockpot set on warm and pour the coconut milk over the chicken. The longer the flavors have to mingle, the better the chicken will taste. Serve over rice.

I also made a simple roasted cauliflower dish for a vegetable. I just took a package of frozen cauliflower florets and spread them on a baking sheet. I drizzled them with olive oil and added salt and pepper, then cooked them at 375 until they browned. I believe it was about 25 minutes. And they should have brown spots so you get delicious caramelization so don't be afraid if they look a little "burned."

Bandana Clarification

2010-05-22T12:54:00.000-06:00

Bret Michaels and I both have TIAs and a PFO. That is the extent of our relationship. I am awesomer than he is because I am like 20 years younger and got my problem fixed. But now I am connected to a celebrity, which makes party games easier :O.

I Need a Bandana

2010-05-21T23:31:00.002-06:00

Bret Michaels and I totally have something in common:

http://outofthecity.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978249174&grpId=3659174697259616

Does this help in that Kevin Bacon game?

Pies Entering Into My Strange Mind

2010-05-21T16:22:00.000-06:00

So it is my sister Bethani's boyfriend's birthday today and he really like strawberry-rhubarb pie. Problem is, Bethani's oven just gave out, so she can't make one. Since I am the helpful type, I was trying to think of ways she could make a pie without the oven. I think this may officially make me a cooking nerd, albeit a half-rate one.

Here are the ideas I came up with:

Frying pan pie. Surely if you had a crust and a hot enough pan you could cook the crust and then add your filling and heat it through. Probably best done with a cast iron frying pan for even heat distrubution.
Grilled pie. I though of three versions of this:

Make two pie crusts into a tart and cook directly on the grill. Mmmmm. Charred goodness.
Use a cast iron pan! (that seems to be a theme)
Make your own oven with a round clay pot with a hole in the bottom with a separate base (you know, the kind that catches drainage). You could get that all hot on a grill and then shove a pie under it to bake. It would be like cooking Moroccan style!
I just thought of another way you could use the grill. Foil pocket pies! Cook them in the coals!

So, it is established that I am a dork. I simply hope all of my in-head nonsense will be useful during the apocalypse when I'll have to use food storage creatively. Hopefully I'll remember to store some charcoal.

Arabic Chicken, Tomato Couscous, Roasted Asparagus

2010-05-07T21:08:00.000-06:00

Lame title, really, but that's okay. I made this a couple weeks ago and I have to say that it was mighty successful. Like a louse, I didn't really measure the amounts I used of everything, but I'll try to indicate the spices I used more heavily.

Chicken

4 pounds or so of raw chicken, cut into pieces
16 ounces of plain yogurt (or two single-serve containers)
1/3 c. or so of tahini (I made my own following the recipe here)
3 T or so of lemon or lime juice
3 T of honey
Spices I used more of:

Cumin (I loooove cumin)
Curry powder
Cayenne pepper
Turmeric
Coriander seeds
Salt
Pepper

Spices I used less of:

Cinnamon
Ground cloves
Ground nutmeg

I marinated the chicken in the yogurt/spice mixture overnight (mostly because I like making things ahead), and then baked it in a 350 degree oven for about an hour.

Tomato Couscous

1/2 box of couscous (I ended up using garlic couscous, so if you do that, ignore the next ingredient)
1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 can of diced tomatoes, thoroughly drained (I used the tomato water to cook the couscous)
Salt and pepper

Cook the couscous according to the directions on the box using the liquid from the canned tomatoes. If you need more liquid, well, just use water. Meanwhile, get a frying pan heated with some olive oil and start sauteeing the tomatoes. When the couscous is done, add it to the frying pan and salt and pepper the entire dish. Cook the couscous and tomatoes together until the flavors are well-blended.

I really like this dish. I haven't had great success with couscous before, but I think putting it in the frying pan changed the texture and flavor in a really good way.

Roasted Asparagus

I pretty much used this recipe here, but here it is on the blog anyway.

2 pounds of asparagus, chopped into inch-or-so pieces
3 T or so of olive oil
Generous amounts of salt and pepper (I ended up preparing this in the morning so I added the salt just before cooking )

I just laid everything out on our jelly roll pan and cooked it in the oven for about a half hour at 350 degrees. Some of the best asparagus I've eaten.

Memories of Grandma Baggs

2010-04-17T14:17:00.002-06:00

I certainly wish I remembered Grandma better; she died just before my twelfth birthday. But everything I do remember, aside from the sickness, is good. I remember thinking that my grandmother was very pretty, always neat and always careful about looking nice, even though I know she didn’t feel well. She, in my mind, loved pretty girl things and I know that several of my best dolls came from her and Grandpa. The prettiest doll I ever had was from them, a smallish baby doll with a blue satin and lace dress. It was given to me at one of the big family Christmas parties we used to have. I was so pleased with that doll, and now, as I look back on it, I’m even more pleased because I know the thought that went into it. That doll was just right for me.

Around the time I got my second bike, when I was six, I remember really wanting a bike basket. You would think I would have been content with my purple-rainbow-unicorn-Pegasus bike with streamers, but it needed something more. Mom can correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember Grandma needed a new basket for the walker she used and she gave me the old one, complete with fantastic plastic flowers, to go on my bike. I don’t think I understood how strongly grandparents feel for their grandchildren until I saw my parents interacting with theirs. This basket is a good example of grandparental affection, in my mind; the kind of small token that costs very little but means a lot.

Grandma and Grandpa Baggs visited us down in the far-off wastes of Utah as often as they could. Grandma’s willingness to travel is another example of grandparental affection. It can’t have been easy to transfer to and from the wheelchair and endure the drive from Ogden to Orem, but she came anyway. I’m sure we were weird little show-off kids, at least if home movies are any evidence, but they tolerated us with good humor. Grandma liked all of our cats, but I know that she loved old Bullwinkle. For all his seasonal scrounginess, she always called him “the pretty cat” and wanted to see him and pet him.

Grandma always had a nice voice. I remember it as being very pretty and sweet. I think she must have been the kind of person who inspired love and kindness. I certainly love her better as I look back on the small things I remember her doing for me; I wish I could have known her better, but perhaps I can see her best (as well as Grandpa) in the way my own mother turned out. Her compassion and kindness, especially toward her family, cause me to want to improve. I’m grateful for the qualities that were passed down from my grandmother and hope to live up to them in my own life.

Vegetarian Fake Lasagna

2010-04-03T19:18:00.001-06:00

I was way too lazy to use real lasagna noodles, so I used penne and layered my ingredients casserole-style.

1 lb. penne noodles, cooked
1 package extra-firm tofu
15 oz. ricotta cheese
26 oz. can of spaghetti sauce
15 oz. can of tomatoes
2 c. mozzarella cheese
1.5 c. parmesan cheese
peeled and sliced zucchini (I used five rather small zucchini)

Cook the noodles. I made this in the crock pot, not the oven, so I really recommend cutting the cooking time in half, as the noodles will absorb a lot of moisture during the slow cook (I didn't do this, and mine were soggy). Mix the ricotta with the tofu. Mix the spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes. Mix the mozzarella and parmesan together. Starting with a thin layer of sauce, then noodles, tofu mix, sauce and cheese, layer the ingredients in the crock/casserole. Cook in the crock pot on low for 4-5 hours, or in the oven at 350 for about an hour.

Chicken Broccoli Alfredo Casserole

2010-03-31T21:39:00.000-06:00

2 jars of 15 oz. alfredo sauce
1 pound of penne
2 or so pounds of chicken (mine was 2+ pounds bone in, so adjust if you're using boneless meat)
parmesan cheese
bread crumbs
16 oz frozen, chopped broccoli

Cook and shred the chicken. Cook the pasta (I erred on the side of done-ness to accommodate the baking time). Starting with the sauce, layer the ingredients in a 9x13 pan. I had some extra noodles, so they were my last layer. Add any remaining sauce to the top. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese (the parmesan I used was so dry that it didn't melt at all, to remedy this, I will either mix it with the sauce or add mozzarella) and lightly pack on a solid layer of bread crumbs. Bake at 350 for about an hour; broil for a few minutes to brown the bread crumbs.

Not to brag, but this was a huge success. Along with the cheese problem, the casserole could have used a little more sauce. I think if I added a little bit of milk, it would stretch the alfredo without making the casserole runny.

Our Indian Feast

2010-03-30T15:00:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to cook a vegetarian meal, thinking it really couldn't hurt us around here to go meatless for dinner every once in a while. I made a tomato daal/dal/dhal and spinach with scallions, both served over rice, as well as a lovely little fried bread called pani.

Tomato Daal

2c dried lentils (use 3 parts water to one part lentils)
1 can of tomatoes with green chilies (or you can be awesome and use all fresh)
Onions and garlic (I used dried because I was too lazy to chop things that day)
Red pepper, cumin, turmeric, salt, coriander

I cooked these in the crock pot (surprise, surprise) and then ground them down in the food processor, and transferred them back to the crock to keep warm.

Spinach with Scallions (I got this recipe here)

1 bunch spinach, trimmed and washed and cut into thin ribbons by rolling the spinach and slicing it thin
2 bunches scallions (d'oh! I only used one), trimmed, white and pale green sections finely cut (I saved out the dark green tops to freeze and use in something else)
8 T vegetable oil (waaaaaay too much, take it down some)
2 t fresh ginger, finely grated (I was, again, too lazy to chop things, so I used dried that I soaked in the oil I measured out before I fried everything)
4 cloves of garlic, minced (I used powdered and soaked it in the oil)
1 1/2 t salt
1/2 t sugar (I accidentally used 1 t, but it was really good)
1/2 t garam masala

Heat oil in a wok (or a saute pan like me) over a medium flame. Put in the scallions and saute for 2-3 minutes. Scallions should not brown but they should wilt slightly. Now add the ginger, garlic (if you did like I did, they're already steeped in the oil). Saute another minute or two. Add spinach, salt, and sugar. Saute on low heat, stirring frequently, for 20 minutes (it actually takes less time). Sprinkle with garam masala and mix.

This cooks waaaaaaay down and barely served four adults. You could easily double this. I actually, lazy as I am, did roll and chop the spinach the first time I made this, but not the second time. It turned out better the first time, but I'm not sure why. Further research is needed.

Panis (from this book and helped by this video)

1 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t salt
1 T vegetable oil
1/3 c water
2 c vegetable oil for frying

Mix together the flour, salt and oil and rub until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (I used a pastry blender). For into a dough by adding water and kneading to make a soft pliable dough. Form the dough into small balls (I mean it). Roll out to about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Heat the 2 c of oil in a pan to medium high (I used an electric frying pan set to 400 degrees). Fry about 3 at a time by tapping them with a spoon until they puff up and turn golden brown.

Not all of mine came out as puffy round breads, but they tasted good, regardless. Manjula, in the video, flicked oil on the top to get them to puff up. I used a combination of flipping and tapping on mine, with mixed results.

The whole dinner was very good, and even my meat-loving dad seemed to enjoy it. These are all recipes I plan on making multiple times because of their deliciousness.

Chickpeas, Chicken, Tomatoes, Spinach

2010-03-30T14:33:00.000-06:00

1/2 package of chickpeas, soaked overnight
Chicken broth
Chicken thighs, baked and deboned (save the bones and bits and make your own broth! It was really awesome and tasty.)
Canned tomatoes
Frozen spinach
Onion
Garlic (For both the onion and garlic I used dried because I was lazy. It tasted good, but fresh is better.)
Cumin, paprika, red pepper flake. oregano, salt, pepper

Get the chickpeas cooking on high (use the soaking water and the chicken broth). After 3-4 hours, turn the crockpot to low and add the rest of the ingredients.

Crummy directions this time, I know, but I made this a month ago and never wrote it down. In my research for this, I saw it with a ton of variations. Different recipes added things like corn, salsa, raisins, bell peppers, cinnamon, squash, etc. I really wanted squash in mine, but the kind I wanted was out of season. It turned out nicely--at least for my first time cooking chickpeas--and the chickpeas have a wonderful texture and taste; I was really surprised by how good they were on their own, even.

Ahhh, Sweet Progress

2010-03-27T20:43:00.000-06:00

So my PFO closure is healing nicely. At my appointment on the 15th I was about 70% closed; by my next appointment in May/June, it should be completely healed over. Lately, I've noticed some little wins. Usually, when I even misplace a piece of food I cough in a kind of tuberculosis-time-for-last-rites-when-will-the-blood-start-specking-the-napkin-omg-is-it-possible-to-cough-like-that-and-live-oh-boy-here-comes-the-projectile-fungus-where-is-the-alien kind of way. It can even happen from a little allergy cough or any kind of irritation in my throat. Well, the other night, at dinner, I thought I was in for one of my spasmy fits and I was shocked when I coughed maybe five times, with no chest-death involvement. After I stopped plavix, I had non-stop headaches for 4-5 days. Last night, I was surprised by pain because I hadn't felt it in so many days, and to top it off, the headache went away without any drug intervention. I have a migraine right now, but it's eased off in a way this kind of headache never would have 2 months ago.

Dietary Dilemma

2010-03-18T14:47:00.000-06:00

I am very cross with my body right now.

Here is a list of my problems (just those involving food):

High LDL
Low HDL
High Triglycerides
Lactose intolerance (even Lactaid doesn't always help)
Fructose malabsorption (no apples, pears, bananas, grapes, corn, carrots, peas, most juices, some whole grains, HFCS)
Inability to properly digest aspartame and sorbitol
Also, I want to lose about 15 more pounds

So what am I supposed to eat? Soy and lemons?

Bethani

2010-03-16T17:25:00.000-06:00

Here is an example of how soft-hearted my sister is: when she was little, she changed the words to "Rock-a-bye Baby" so that they were nicer to the baby. Instead of singing, "Down will come baby, cradle and all," she sang, "Down will come baby, into my arms." I thought of that today and had to write it down. Bethani is really great, and soft-hearted almost to a fault, especially towards animals and children. I know I'm not the only one in my family who loves that about her.

Puff, the Magic Dragon

2010-02-27T17:52:00.002-07:00

To this day, I have to remind myself that the song says "sealing wax" and not "ceiling wax." I'm not sure what "ceiling wax" is, but I was sure that's what they were talking about.

The Problem with Boys and Girls, or What Made Me Mad at Church

2010-02-23T15:23:00.002-07:00

This last Sunday, our lesson was Elder Scott's excellent talk from October 2009 conference. In it, there was a brief message and warning about pornography. Instead of focusing on spiritual guidance, the purported topic of the lesson, the discussion devolved into a one-sided commentary on pornography and blame. Much of this blame fell on women.

Let me be clear: pornography is vicious and those who produce it most often have malicious intentions. I don't want to excuse porn in any way, but to blame the average woman for luring men into pornography is, in my mind, inexcusable. It degrades both men and women. According to class comments, women who dress immodestly are responsible for dragging men down and corrupting their thoughts. Apparently, the average dress of a 12-or-13-year-old (in Utah, nonetheless) is enough poison the mind of a boy of a corresponding age. That's right: because a girl wore a two-piece, a boy got dragged into porn. Do we really think males are so base? Are we, as women, seriously going to say that men are animals incapable of schooling their thoughts and actions? This is deeply insulting to men and it also degrades women.

One of the first things that came to my mind was the virgin/whore dichotomy. Either a woman acts as the stainless angel in the house, or she becomes a whore responsible for man's downfall. Any behavior outside of an often arbitrary, rigid code of behavior sullies women and makes them into corrupters. Any woman who breaks this code, regardless of her personal circumstances and knowledge, is guilty.

The same sister made another comment, expanding on blame. She said that, in pre-marital counseling with her bishop, she was told--and felt that something so private was needed by the rest of us--that anything "arousing" should be completely avoided (I assume she didn't include normal sexual relations in that, or I'm going to feel really weird about their marriage). Well, I'm going to Hell, and I know a lot of people who are coming with me. Sure, we should definitely avoid those things that serve only to titillate and could lead us to abuse our bodies or the bodies of others, but eliminating anything with a sexual connotation creates a taboo around sex that, in my mind, really diminishes the positive aspects of sex and sexuality. Implied in this sister's statement is blame once again. Not only do we avoid anything arousing, we avoid doing anything that might potentially arouse someone else. Right. Tell that to someone who has a stalker. Tell that to the parent whose child has been the victim of a pedophile. Tell that to the rape victim. Go on, tell them they asked for it. Blame the victim.

This disgusts me, especially when women, who are supposed to have some kind of camaraderie or sisterhood, blame other women for the sexual misconduct of men. And, according to this article in the UK's Daily Mail, women are more likely to blame women for sexual assault than men are. Again, rules come into play. If you don't do this, or this, or this, you won't get raped. I liked this from The Sexist blog at the Washington City Paper. Author Amanda Hess talks about victim-blaming:

“When a woman says no, she means no. And that’s true, even if her clothes are saying the opposite,” Murray writes, as if a piece of clothing could provide consent for any sex act with any person. “I believe we all have a right to wear whatever we choose, whether it’s a mini skirt or a burka. Sadly, I’m not sure that the highly sexualised society in which we live offers young people much of a choice. Children are lured into ’sexy gear’ before they’re old enough to be trusted to take a bus on their own. . . . Is it a surprise that in such a society assumptions are made about a woman’s availability?"

Under Murray’s theory, wearing a short skirt signals that a woman is sexually available to anyone who happens to see her wearing the short skirt. The social cue provided by this inanimate object is to be trusted beyond a woman’s actual words (”no”) or actions (desperate attempts at escape). Furthermore, this sartorial secret code (short skirt = down to fuck anyone) is accepted not only by rapists, but by society at large—including rape victims, police officers, and jurors. And what if a woman who does not want to have sex with any and all bystanders decides to put on a short skirt? Her punishment for breaking the code is getting punched in the face and raped.

So, how do we combat this absurd belief that short hemlines carry the power to override a woman’s right to consent to sex? Ridiculously, Murray suggests that the way to cut down on short-skirt-related-rapes is to militantly reinforce the false connection between miniskirts and automatic sexual availability. Murray notes that many, many people who wear short skirts—including little girls heading off to school—are not dressing with any intent to provide preemptive consent to sex. Instead of embracing this as a positive sign, Murray’s solution is to force younger generations who do not associate short skirts with a get-out-of-rape-free card to re-code their clothing choices along the victim-blaming spectrum. “If I had a daughter I would be telling her to . . . be aware of the signals she may be giving out that may be read as a licence to take liberties,” she writes. “It’s not an ideal world, but it is the real world.”

Tellingly, Murray doesn’t bother to address what sort of anti-rape advice she’d be dishing if she had a son. The next generation of potential rapists will have to receive their social cues by eavesdropping on the advice we’re providing to the next generation of potential victims. This is what they’re hearing: If she’s wearing a short skirt, it’s not your fault when you rape her.

Where are the men in this? Again, women are to blame and men are animals. One bears all the responsibility for the other.

If you can stomach more on the topic, I highly recommend an essay by Latoya Peterson about her experiences, called The Not Rape Epidemic. Here's how she opens:

Entering our teenage years in the sex saturated ’90s, my friends and I knew tons about rape. We knew to always be aware while walking, to hold your keys out as a possible weapon against an attack. We knew that we shouldn’t walk alone at night, and if we absolutely had to, we were to avoid shortcuts, dark paths, or alleyways. We even learned ways to combat date rape, even though none of us were old enough to have friends that drove, or to be invited to parties with alcohol. We memorized the mantras, chanting them like a yogic sutra, crafting our words into a protective charm with which to ward off potential rapists: do not walk alone at night. Put a napkin over your drink at parties. Don’t get into cars with strange men. If someone tries to abduct you, scream loudly and try to attack them because a rapist tries to pick women who are easy targets.

Yes, we learned a lot about rape.

What we were not prepared for was everything else.

Official Amplatzer Cribriform Occluder Club Member

2010-02-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

I am awesome.

Dagnabbit!

2010-02-17T14:08:00.002-07:00

First off, let me make it clear that I am a nerd with unnatural pursuits. Lately I have been studying up on thinkers like Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre, which--naturally--leads the mind to Simone de Beauvoir. Not only is Beauvoir important to feminism, she is also an important existential philosopher, and she merges the two in her work The Second Sex. So far, so good. However, I'm apparently screwed unless I learn French well enough to understand complicated philosophical terms because, according to this article and other sources, all English translations suck eggs. Believe it or not, I think knowledge of existential feminism would be beneficial to my future career, and I am denied it by shoddy scholarship. Curse you Alfred Knopf!

Parental Return Recipe: Sweet and Savory Crock Pot Chicken

2010-02-09T21:24:00.003-07:00

My parents came back from Tennessee and I thought I'd be nice and make some dinner instead of languishing around the house until someone took me out like I usually would. I found this recipe online and tweaked it a little.

2 pounds chicken
1/2 c water
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c ketchup
3 T vinegar
3 T lemon juice
3 T Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 T dried onion
1 T powdered mustard
2 t paprika
1 t chili powder
salt
pepper

Mix the sauce and chop the chicken. Add them to the crock pot and stir to coat the chicken. Cook on low, stirring occasionally (mine was done in about 4 hours). I made the same potatoes I posted last Wednesday, but I added bacon salt and cooked them on 400 for about an hour. This would actually be exceptional with rice, which is how I'll make it next time.

Belated Friday Recipe: Apricot Chicken and Lentils

2010-02-06T12:08:00.003-07:00

I actually made this last week and never got around to posting. It was an overall success, although I made way too many lentils and they dried out. I've corrected this in the recipe below. Once again, I'm resorting to the crock pot, but it means I can cook when I know I'll have energy.

approximately 2 pounds of chicken
1/2 lb lentils
onion
garlic (2-3 cloves)
1 can evaporated milk
1 can chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
powdered ginger
splash of lemon juice
pinch of cayenne pepper
thyme
pinch of clove
1 cup apricot preserves
splash of soy sauce

Mix the lentils, milk, chicken broth, onions and garlic in the crock pot. Combine the apricot preserves with the spices, according to taste. Layer the chicken in the crock pot, coating the top of each piece with the apricot mixture. Cook on low.

Super Bowl Dipstravaganza

2010-02-06T11:56:00.003-07:00

So I decided for this Super Bowl I would have some fun and try my hand at dip making. I hit the internet and came up with the following after much study and cogitation:

Bacon Cheese Dip

4 oz. neufchatel cheese
1/4-1/3 c. mayo
parsley (to taste)
hot sauce (to taste)
bacon bits (the pouch kind, not the kind made of sawdust and bacon flavorant)

Garlic Parmesan Spread

8 oz. neufchatel cheese
6 or so cloves of garlic, crushed
parmesan cheese (I just used the can kind, because I was too lazy/cheap to buy actual parmesan)

Bacon Ranch Dip

Ranch dip (we had some delightfully premixed in the fridge)
bacon bits (again, pouch)
shredded cheese

Herb Spread

4 oz. neufchatel cheese
1/4 c. butter
salt
pepper
dried Herbes de Provence (basil, thyme, fennel, rosemary) (you can use fresh herbs, but I am too lazy/cheap to process them and then not use most of them)

I made these yesterday so that the flavors would have plenty of time to mingle. The major caveat for using dried/processed ingredients is that their flavor will strengthen as they hydrate, so you want to be careful not to over-season. Again, I didn't put exact amounts of everything because a lot of it is going to depend on individual taste. Don't make the mistake I did with the first dip and try to hand mix things; a hand mixer or a food processor with a paddle attachment will be your best friend and make for a nice, consistent dip/spread.

Wednesday Recipe

2010-02-03T17:47:00.002-07:00

I know, I'm totally breaking out of the box, but I cooked today and thought I'd share the tastyness. Both of these recipes depend on the amount of the main ingredient you are using, so there aren't any exact measurements.

Potatoes:

Potatoes, chopped to your liking (duh)
Olive oil
Oregano
Fresh garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste
water

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl then add to a greased baking dish. Bake until they are done. I used two potatoes and cooked them for about an hour at 400 degrees.

Chicken:

Chicken (boneless, skinless is best) cut into pieces
Mayonnaise (enough to coat all the chicken)
Any other ingredients you think will be tasty. Today I used mustard, honey, paprika, onion salt, and garlic powder.
Panko bread crumbs

Mix the mayonnaise and other ingredients. Coat the chicken and then place the pieces snugly in a baking dish. Cover the chicken with panko and pat it down, adding more panko wherever things get sticky. Bake, like the potatoes, about an hour at 400 degrees.

This is my favorite chicken recipe because it is so easy and tasty and there are a million different ways to prepare it. I've done the honey-mustard more than once, but I've also done spicy and Italian styles. With the Italian chicken, mix Italian seasoning and parmesan cheese with the panko.

Friday Recipe Addendum: The Merciless Pepper of Quetzalacatenango

2010-01-26T14:25:00.003-07:00

So I made the sausage and barley soup with spicy Italian sausage, per my brother's recommendation. However, he neglected to inform us that said sausage was made with Guatemalan insanity peppers. To fix the problem, I made a second batch with plain old ground pork and substituting 2 cups of milk for 2 of the cups of water. It came out perfect, without the burninating sensation that masked all flavor. I suppose if you are not a spice wimp like everyone seems to be in my household, you would enjoy the sausage of mental breakdowns, but if you don't, may I suggest ground pork with a pinch of cayenne for a nice, non-mouth-melting heat.

Utah Valley Symphony, Music in General

2010-01-22T16:32:00.002-07:00

My mother's wonderful friend has some tickets to the Utah Valley Symphony that she couldn't use so she gave them to us. It was just what my mom and I needed to pick up a rather glum (not to mention January) day.

The symphony did a wonderful job (even with a mid-piece power outage) and I really enjoyed the visceral effect of live music on a large scale.

I love the way good music feels. For me (and I assume for many others), it goes beyond hearing and becomes a full-body experience. I absolutely love the way music vibrates against my body, when I can feel it in my mouth and my chest, to close my eyes and feel the very physical mechanisms of hearing. To be a little cheesy, I could say that the music literally moves me. I love that about good music, classical or otherwise. I remember one time on a road trip with my brother when he played "Ramble On." It may have been in his crazy station wagon with its crazy speakers. It was just such a physically exciting song; it makes me sad that I've never been able to recapture that feeling with that particular song.

I wonder if my reaction to music has anything to do with being bipolar. I know that when I don't take my lovely meds, that music has the tendency to be very meaningful. I'm not sure, because it still impacts me deeply, even with my "lowered affect."

Rambly post, but I love music and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had last night to hear a good ensemble playing quality music and to have had that physical response that I miss sometimes with the headphones jammed in.

Friday Recipe: Sausage and Barley Soup

2010-01-22T14:17:00.003-07:00

1 pound Italian sausage (sweet or spicy)
7 cups of liquid (I used 32 oz. (4 cups) of chicken broth and 3 cups of water with two chicken bouillon cubes)
1/2 c barley
1 can diced tomatoes
1 package chopped spinach
1 small onion
3-4 cloves garlic
Italian seasoning to taste

Brown the meat with the onions and garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the Italian seasoning. Mix the ingredients in the crock pot. Cook on low.

Just looking back at my music collection.

2010-01-15T12:13:00.003-07:00

MediaMonkey Music Library Statistics

Totals
Type	Library	Played
Artists	3092	103
Albums	1627	123
Genres	177	45
Years	51	29
Playlists	71	3
Tracks	19891	215
Length (h:mm:ss)	1377:36:46	8:42:46
File size	108 GB	794 MB

Averages
Type	Library	Played
Tracks per Artist	6.7	60.4
Tracks per Album	12.2	27.2
Tracks per Genre	102.6	327.8
Tracks per Year	64.9	4.7
Bitrate (kbps)	197	211
Year	1985	1992
Tracks played per day	-	9.5
Rating	**	0
Length (h:mm:ss)	0:04:09	0:04:51
File size	5.54 MB	5.85 MB

Top 10 Artists
Tracks	Artist	Length	File size
326	The Beatles	14:18:18	1.14 GB
321	Johnny Cash	15:24:49	1.18 GB
287	Peter, Paul & Mary	16:09:39	1.31 GB
241	U2	18:28:20	1.51 GB
237	The Carpenters	13:36:34	1.01 GB
233	Emmylou Harris	14:12:00	1.08 GB
187	Billy Joel	13:24:33	902 MB
184	Harry Connick, Jr.	14:05:27	945 MB
166	Bon Jovi	12:53:45	863 MB
160	Elvis Presley	7:03:14	571 MB

Top 10 Artists played
Tracks	Artist	Length	File size
9	Van Halen	0:33:29	61.5 MB
4	Johnny Cash	0:12:29	16.0 MB
4	Garbage	0:17:37	21.8 MB
3	Paul Simon	0:11:23	24.0 MB
3	The Beatles	0:08:28	15.0 MB
3	Alison Krauss	0:08:23	9.74 MB
3	Foo Fighters	0:11:49	17.2 MB
3	Toad the Wet Sprocket	0:09:20	14.4 MB
3	Ryan Adams	0:13:35	16.5 MB
3	Taj Mahal	0:10:12	16.4 MB

Top 10 Albums
Rating	Album	Length	File size
*****	Bon Jovi - Lost Highway	0:59:44	67.4 MB
*****	Jamie Cullum - The Pursuit	0:54:08	126 MB
*****	Various Artists - Punk Goes Pop, Vol. 2	0:50:20	75.7 MB
****	Bon Jovi; Olivia d'Abo - This Left Feels Right	0:04:41	5.09 MB
***	The Ramones - Greatest Hits	0:50:05	78.9 MB
***	The Living End - The Living End	0:04:50	4.86 MB
"	Patty Griffin - 1000 Kisses	0:40:03	37.0 MB
"	Bon Jovi - These Days	1:03:33	57.1 MB
"	Bon Jovi - This Left Feels Right	0:48:36	65.7 MB
"	Bon Jovi - Cross Road	1:17:49	71.3 MB

Top 10 Albums played
Tracks	Album	Length	File size
9	Van Halen - 1984	0:33:29	61.5 MB
3	Various Artists - Just Great Jazz Songs	0:11:55	14.6 MB
2	Paul Simon - Songs from the Capeman	0:07:13	16.6 MB
2	Various Artists - Irish Punk Drinking Songs Compilation	0:08:57	7.32 MB
2	Carrie Underwood - Some Hearts	0:04:47	5.34 MB
2	The Simpsons - Go Simpsonic with the Simpsons	0:01:26	1.54 MB
2	Various Artists - Easy Listening Mix	0:06:24	7.33 MB
2	Alison Krauss; John Waite - A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection	0:05:41	4.30 MB
2	Human Drama - Best of Human Drama...In a Perfect World	0:08:53	14.6 MB
1	Aerosmith - Devil's Got A New Disguise: The Very Best Of Aerosmith	0:04:05	9.45 MB

Top 10 Genres
Tracks	Genre	Length	File size
3696	Rock	250:47:30	20.4 GB
1580	Country	85:26:11	6.95 GB
1493	Pop	97:33:20	9.07 GB
1183	Other	76:18:42	5.89 GB
919	Jazz	61:45:16	5.08 GB
671	Oldies	32:14:21	2.43 GB
554	Folk	34:10:11	3.02 GB
541	Alternative	36:57:44	3.35 GB
476	Soundtrack	27:52:46	2.26 GB
432	Blues	29:02:39	3.13 GB

Top 10 Genres played
Tracks	Genre	Length	File size
29	Rock	1:57:58	157 MB
19	Other	1:08:06	107 MB
13	Country	0:47:05	65.3 MB
7	Pop	0:27:24	42.9 MB
5	Folk	0:19:52	26.6 MB
5	Jazz	0:18:18	24.2 MB
3	Soundtrack	0:10:26	14.9 MB
3	Comedy	0:04:51	5.29 MB
3	Alternative	0:16:46	32.8 MB
3	Oldies	0:08:47	10.7 MB

Ratings
Tracks	Rating	Length	File size
46	*****	3:09:33	295 MB
4	****	0:14:30	21.9 MB
19	***	0:49:49	76.4 MB
97	0	7:10:08	397 MB

Ratings played
Tracks	Rating	Length	File size

Generated by MediaMonkey ON Friday, January 15, 2010 at 12:12:36 PM

Friday Recipe Twofer

2010-01-08T15:31:00.003-07:00

First off, let me say that "twofer" is one of the ugliest words ever. I did cook dinner last Friday, but I never got around to posting the recipe. I would say that the outcome was only fair, at least if you take the sum total of what I served.

Marmalade Chicken

1 1/2 pounds of chicken tenders
1 1/2 cups of marmalade
2 T dijon mustard
red pepper flake
powdered ginger
powdered garlic

Mix the marmalade and spices. Hurl the ingredients into a crock pot and cook them. DO NOT eat the remaining liquid. It is gross and bitter and ruined my rice. The chicken turns out nicely, but that liquid remains my shame.

Now for today's recipe, which will, I'm sure, be much tastier

Pork Sandwiches

Pork (I used about two pounds of boneless spare ribs, but any cut will work)
Onion, finely chopped
1-2 stalks celery, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil
Paprika
Cumin
Brown sugar

Mix the onion, celery, and garlic in the crock pot with a little bit of olive oil to coat. Generously salt and pepper both sides of the pork and add it to the crock, then apply a thin coat of cumin and paprika. After the meat is spiced, pack some brown sugar onto the top of the meat.

Sauce

Barbecue sauce
Spicy mustard
Lemon juice

Mix the ingredients according to taste. Set aside. Remove the pork from the crock (I gave mine about 5.5 hours) and shred it. Add the sauce to the juice in the crock pot then fold the pork in. Keep it warm and eat it with delicious kaiser rolls.

The shredding killed my stupid arthritic hands, but it probably would have been easier if I had let the meat cook a little longer.

Not Bad.

2010-01-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

The Adventures of Pete & Pete: The Quiz

Score: 87% (13 out of 15)

I bent my wookie

2009-12-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

Ralph Wiggum: The Quiz

Score: 100% (15 out of 15)

The Amazing Bionic Heart Implant Procedure

2009-12-29T14:20:00.002-07:00

Here is the email I sent my fam, etc. I thought I'd copy it here for those I don't have in my address book.

I have had my shiny-bright titanium-nickle heart implant for two weeks now. I went into the Heart and Lung Center at Intermountain Medical Center (in Murray) at 8:15 am. My parents, my aunt Neta, and my sister Bethani came with me. Check-in went smoothly, including the hated IV. The doctor (Dr. Sorensen) was behind, so I didn't actually go in for the procedure until around 10:30 (I'm a little fuzzy on the time). They got me into the cath lab and did the necessary prep stuff and sedated me. I was actually awake the whole time, but, again, a little fuzzy. The set up was pretty neat, with one screen for the camera they sent into my heart (through a vein in my groin) and another showing a live x-ray of my chest.

They sent the camera into my chest first so they could scope out the area more thoroughly than the exterior ultrasound could. When they did this, they ran against a minor complication. Not only did I have a hole, but the PFO had partially closed which created a pocket which, in turn was creating clots. Instead of disturbing the pocket and sending out clots, Dr. Sorensen opted to create another small hole above the original opening and use the implant to pinch both the pocket and the hole closed. He used this implant; mine is an 18mm implant, about the size of a quarter. I actually saw it pop into place. Once they got the catheter in (using a second incision) everything went really quickly (although I was sedated, so my perception of time is probably off). I included an attachment with a picture of the implant in place.

Because I didn't have to have general anesthesia, I was lucid when I came out of the cath lab and had a delicious lunch. I did have to stay on my back without lifting my head or moving my right leg for three hours, which felt like forever. I got moved upstairs without incident and was well taken care of until the next morning, when I checked out around 11 (I think). Anyway, there isn't much more to say. My incisions healed up without any problems, I still have chest pain and headaches, and I will for the next few months as my heart tissue grows over the implant (it should be fully healed in a year). I'm on plavix for the next 3 months and aspirin for the next six. The best news is that I won't have a stroke, and hopefully other things will fall into place as well.

Go ask Alice

2009-12-10T12:02:00.001-07:00

Curiouser and Curiouser: An Alice in Wonderland Quiz

Score: 75% (9 out of 12)

Friday Recipe: Easy Indian Butter Chicken

2009-12-04T16:34:00.002-07:00

Here is the original recipe. Here is how I made it today:

5 pounds of chicken breasts (bone-in), baked, deboned, and shredded. Reserve chicken stock to cook the rice in.
1 1/2 onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 1/2 c butter
2 t cayenne pepper
4 t salt
1 1/2 t garam masala
3 t curry powder
2 cans evaporated milk
2 cans (15 ounce) tomato sauce
1 box of spinach

Melt 1/4 cup butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Saute the onions and garlic until lightly browned. Add the rest of the butter in pieces. Stir in the spices and then add the chicken, coating it with the butter mixture. Add this to a crock pot (I used a crock pot because my saute pan was too small for the amount I made. In the same pan (in order to get all the spices and butter) stir together the tomato sauce and evaporated milk. Pour this over the chicken. Add your frozen spinach and stir it all together in the crock pot. Serve with rice.

I also made garlic naan with this recipe. It's not grilled, but it still tastes good:

1 cup flour
1 T active dry yeast
2 t salt
1 cup hot water
1 cup plain yogurt
1 egg
2 T vegetable oil
1 T honey
3 1/2 c flour
garlic powder

Combine 1 cup flour, yeast and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir in water, buttermilk, egg, oil and honey. Beat until smooth with an electric mixer. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft, sticky dough. Turn onto a floured surface, continue to work in flour (may need more than 2 ½ cups) until dough is stiff enough to knead (or use a stand mixer and save yourself some trouble). Knead until smooth and elastic, but still soft (3-5 minutes). Place in an oiled bowl; turning once to coat top of dough. Cover; let rise until double in bulk (about 45 minutes). Punch dough down. Shape into 16 equal balls. Let rest 5 minutes. Roll out each ball to a ¼-inch thick round. If desired, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with garnishes. Set on baking sheets. Bake at 450 degrees for 5-8 minutes.

On mania...

2009-11-29T23:16:00.002-07:00

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"

I stumbled across this in my meanderings. It's from Dr. Faustus, which I have never read, and I think it describes the crash after a manic episode.

Victorian Tidbit: Waterhouse

2009-11-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Now I will be the first to admit that I am a snob, and this post will help prove that.

Waterhouse does not count as a Pre-Raphaelite, at least not a true one. He certainly wasn't involved officially with the first or second Pre-Raphaelite group. Quote wikipedia at me all you want, but my reference is the Grove Dictionary of Art as well as some great classes on the Victorians. Waterhouse might use some similar themes as the Pre-Raphaelites (Shakespeare, Arthurian legends, the Bible), but he is more influenced by the Victorian Classicists such as Alma-Tadema and Burne-Jones' later work. His style is too loose to count as Pre-Raphaelite, and could, at best, be called Pre-Raphaelitist (artists like Sandys or Lord Leighton).

Just for the sake of comparison, here is a painting of Ophelia, by Millais, one of the founding Pre-Raphaelites:
Note the intense landscape detail and the beautiful detailing on the dress.

Here is Waterhouse's version:
It's more about atmosphere than landscape. Look at the different versions of The Lady of Shallot (by Hunt and Waterhouse) if you want another comparison.

Well, it's clear that I'm prejudiced, so take from this what you will, but Waterhouse doesn't belong in those Pre-Raphaelite calendars they keep putting out. If you don't believe me, believe Grove and the OUP, at least.

I know you are on tenterhooks for the next installment of snobbery. Coming next week, and continuing the Pre-Raphaelite (or not) theme, The Germ.

Pork and Lentils addendum

2009-11-22T22:31:00.003-07:00

I miscalculated the amount of water. It should really be at least 2.5 cups and it should probably be cooked on low so the lentils don't disintegrate like they did on me when I made this yesterday. I used kielbasa and I think the flavor turned out really well, even if the texture was a little off.

Friday Recipe: Pork and Lentils

2009-11-20T18:00:00.002-07:00

PORK AND LENTILS

¾ c lentils
1-2 c water (depending on desired thickness)
2 spears celery, diced
½-1 onion, diced
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
¼ c brown sugar
½ t cayenne
½ basil
1 bay leaf
Desired cut of pork (1-2 pounds) (can also use kielbasa)
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown the pork with a little vegetable oil, set aside. In the same pan, sauté the onions, celery and garlic. Mix ingredients in crock pot. Add the pork. Cook on low, 8-10 hours, or high, 4-6 hours.

Serves 6-8

This time I used kielbasa (Polish sausage). It will make the dish a little fattier and a little spicier than regular pork (so you could omit the cayenne pepper if you wanted). I've also made this with a pork roast with really good results.

Okay, so I hyperventilated a little when I saw...

2009-11-16T20:43:00.003-07:00

...this.

I'm probably too nostalgic, but these filled me with absolute delight. I would reorganize my precious stuffed animals to make room for them.

Super heart.

Also, this is post 200. Yay for me!

Victorian Tidbit: Aurora Leigh

2009-11-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest: I've had the note card for this particular work on my desk for weeks and I don't really know what to make of it anymore. Here's what the card says:

Aurora's desire for equal recognition
Romney's faulty sight and blindness
Aurora's vision dominating--only successful character
Judgment in narrative
Very socially-minded, overt about writer's/artist's role
Aurora places herself squarely in society--power to help the one rather than the many (Romney's failure)
Liberty from convention--warts and blains; individualists can make a difference

Hopefully you can see from my brief notes why I'm struggling with this post. It would be easy to make any review of this novel about feminism, but I think Elizabeth Barrett Browning was about something beyond that. Romney's masculinity is part of his failure at charity, but it certainly isn't the only factor, and Aurora doesn't succeed just because she is a woman. Indeed, any attempt to use feminist analysis on the text has to take into account the way Aurora continually objectifies and problematizes other women; and feminism, with its close ties to Marxist theory, must dislike the way the novel frowns on the intermingling (particularly through marriage) of the classes.

Perhaps the most straightforward way to look at the book is to talk about social reform instead of gender. Aurora/Browning sees significant problems with the traditional approach to charitable work, which is general and seeks quantifiable results. Instead, she looks for a charity that is personal and sympathetic, centered in the heart rather than in the intellect. For Aurora, the solution is in the arts: the poet becomes a medium through whom we learn to reverence the world, ensuring that the material, corporeal body is not misused. Aurora doesn't completely dismiss material aid, but she believes that there must be a spiritual healing as well.

Here, Browning, reminds me somewhat of Shelley, who talks about the poet as a legislator or a prophet in his text "The Defence of Poetry." Shelley sees imagination as encompassing reason, placing them on the same continuum rather than dividing them. Shelley is also interested in pleasures that go beyond physical satisfaction. However, Shelley says,

A Poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.

Aurora/Browning places herself squarely in society, using the common "drawing-room plot" to deal with societal issues. You'll probably have to wade through the poem/novel to see whether she is right. I, as you can see from this post, have no clue.

Oh Noes!

2009-11-14T21:10:00.001-07:00

What can I say? Mom and I needed sandwiches.

Recipe Addendum

2009-11-13T18:04:00.003-07:00

If you cook this in a crock pot like I said, be prepared for some sludge that can be a little bitter. The onions absorb a lot of soy and as it cooks down it got a little unpleasant. However, the pork came out great and was really flavorful, if only dubiously authentic.

I fried some frozen green beans in a little bit of vegetable oil with salt, pepper, and some sesame seeds. They were also quite good.

Friday Recipe

2009-11-13T18:00:00.001-07:00

"Korean" Pork

1/2 c soy sauce
1/4 c sesame oil
3 T sugar
3 cloves garlic
1/2 yellow onion
1/2 t ground ginger
1/2 t ground mustard
1/2 t cayenne pepper

Mix ingredients thoroughly. Pour over pork cut of your choice and marinate overnight. Cook in crock pot. Serve with rice.

The Blue Shoe Saga

2009-11-12T18:22:00.004-07:00

I really wish I had a before picture. I went with my lovely sister Heidi to the outlets where she kindly bought me the nicest pair of turquoise Danskos (they were 70% off). Well, of course I wore them to church on Sunday; I can never resist wearing something new. I happened to look down during Relief Society only to notice that my shoes were two different colors. One of them must have been the display because it was 2-3 shades lighter than the other. Ack! My lovely shoes. Well, to make a stupid story shorter, I ended up getting them dyed (the color was impossible to match so I had to go darker) and here they are:

How I feel most days

2009-10-26T15:22:00.001-06:00

I should hope so.

2009-10-11T16:42:00.001-06:00

Masterpieces: A Quiz

Score: 100% (15 out of 15)

Why do I feel better about this than I do that other thing?

2009-09-17T16:01:00.001-06:00

Kirk Van Houten: The Quiz

Score: 83% (10 out of 12)

Random Victorian Tidbit: William Morris

2009-08-27T22:35:00.004-06:00

"...what I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain-sick brain workers, nor heart-sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manages their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all."

From, "How I Became a Socialist," 1894.

This quote comes a little late to be considered strictly Victorian, but this is Morris' logical conclusion to Ruskin's earlier works like "The Nature of Gothic" and Unto This Last. Morris' definition of socialism here is a harmonization of his life's work to bridge the gulf between art and craft and create a more holistic society apart from what he will call, later in the essay, the "eyeless vulgarity," "ugly confusion," and "dull squalor" that he sees around him.

Is socialism the answer? I don't think so, especially considering the history of its application; however, I think Morris makes a good point about the compartmentalization we all face, particularly the idea of "brain-sick brain workers." Technology has great potential--I'm certainly not going to reject it or complain (much) about it--but there is a dulling of the wits that accompanies it. Real learning is quickly replaced by Google and Wikipedia (used injudiciously), which reflects the warning given to Theuth about writing (note my semi-ironic use of a hyperlink).

I think what Morris really envisions is a slowed-down world, ruled by the best human impulses--particularly the desire for order, the need for work, and the love of beauty--not, for Morris, soulless, life-sapping technology. The brain workers are brain-sick because they no longer use their hands, the hand workers are heart-sick because the production line denies them meaningful work. The bridge is education and an art that exists beyond the sometimes-sterile confines of the gallery, brought into a working world that includes both brain and heart.

So much for a tidbit. I guess I get carried away by those darn Victorians.

Lucy Snowe Does More Than We Give Her Credit For

2009-08-26T17:55:00.002-06:00

I just started reading The Necessity of Theater by Paul Woodruff today, and already it has me thinking about Villette and Lucy's machinations of/in the text. Woodruff talks about the need we have to both watch and be watched; Lucy is an adept watcher, but viewed through society's eyes, she is an inconsequential character, not worthy of being watched. In writing the narrative, Lucy manufactures an audience in the way she constructs the novel.

The novel begins with a focus on little Polly and Graham Bretton, two charming characters that Lucy carefully observes. As readers, we assume that the novel will follow Graham and Polly, and we are engaged in their juvenile love story. However, Lucy abruptly changes the focus of the narrative from Polly to herself after we've already been hooked by the first few chapters. I think that Lucy knows her immediate uninterestingness and decides to play the reader, creating an audience for herself through misdirection. Part of Lucy's offputting personality may be in reaction to this: if she is prickly, perhaps we won't see through her narrative ploy.

Afterthought: I think Jane Eyre does the same thing in her narrative of the wicked stepfamily and the elements of the supernatural she injects early in the novel.

Not really what I intended to blog about...

2009-08-10T14:30:00.004-06:00

Why the bed never gets made.

Lame Post

2009-08-07T22:08:00.001-06:00

I am truly surprised.

I’m With The (Fictional) Band!

Score: 83% (10 out of 12)

Potter Addendum

2009-07-26T19:44:00.002-06:00

Perhaps you had to be in the class with the fanatic who planned to write both a master's thesis and a doctoral dissertation on the magnificence of Rowling and the Potter series. Nothing like a lame enthusiast to put a damper on things.

Harry Potter

2009-07-25T22:21:00.003-06:00

I liked this review from the New York Post, although I find it a little reactionary. I've dragged myself through the books and found everything past 3 tedious, overworked, and tired. I happily gave my set away to a family that will use them judiciously.

What really prompted this post was a comment on the review, quoted below:

Rowling, who knows and loves the fantastical aspects of myth but misses out on the greater themes, wrote a fun set of books. These books are neither great literature nor bad literature. They simply fun books that touch on some common themes and relate in unique ways by creating a world that hadn't existed before. The main appeal of her mythology is magic, and if you can reinvent magic in a *slightly* unique way, you've got a winner. It is the gift that keeps on giving. On this one, Rowlings seems to have hit the jackpot.

But why so popular? Soap operas and anime cartoons are popular for the same reason: predictable people do predictably unpredictable things. Everyone on Days of our Lives is going to cheat sooner or later. Everyone in Harry Potter is going to misunderstand Harry. Harry will always do the right thing, and when he doesn't, it really isn't his fault; he's been mistreated or he is possessed. Both soaps and Potter aren't reflective of true human nature and therefore are the same categorically.

I liked the books but I liked the world she created more. The first four books were quite nice, especially 3. Then she stopped using an editor. The last three are LOOOONG, galumphing messes. I am staring at all six books on my shelf and just from the size and color of the books I can see where she left her editor. Just like I can see where Lucas could have used a Studio to tell him, "No, Darth Vader screaming 'noooooooo' like Frankenstein in that scene is dumb."

The Potter books are a fun read. The author is much like her hero: A mediocre-good talent but unusually gifted in one or two areas,

I've seen my share of animes (very few that had any impact) and I've even watched my share of soap operas and read my share of popular novels, but it's something I outgrew: not because I can't enjoy myself or that I find all childrens' literature intolerable, but because I'd rather have an actual experience while reading, instead of an exercise in popular cliche--afterall, I have TV for that.

Sacrament Observation

2009-06-21T22:13:00.001-06:00

It has bothered me for as long as I've known what a shot was that some people drink the sacrament water in the same way.

Andrew Jackson

2009-06-21T22:11:00.002-06:00

I know the man is controversial, but I still agree with almost all of what he did politically. Flipping through the channels last night, I found another reason to admire him: Andrew Jackson was the only president in history to pay off the national debt. This is especially admirable given the current financial status of the nation. Someone forgot to tell our current president that printing more money doesn't really make more money, at least not money with value or power.

Breaking News

2009-06-03T12:51:00.002-06:00

I have a new calling....

Get ready for it....

I am....

the Sacrament Meeting Bulletin Coordinator.

"Music for Manic-Depressives"

2009-05-16T19:40:00.002-06:00

I found this Listmania on Amazon when I was trying to do some research on another health problem. I'm not familiar with all of the music, but I wonder about it. I may have to try some of it out and see if it impacts me in the same way as this other listener. We'll have to see if taste and medication change the way I respond.

Literary Snobbery

2009-05-07T16:18:00.004-06:00

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Jane Austen or CS Lewis. I didn't go count things up.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Jane Eyre.
I also have two copies of The Mill on the Floss.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Not really.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Joseph in Little Drummer Girl, Will Ladislaw in Middlemarch.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
Little House on the Prairie series.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Little House on the Prairie series.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
The first half of Wicked. It sucked too much to even attempt the second half.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Villette, Charlotte Bronte. But it's a problematic choice.
More realistically? Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell: the Victorian novel for those who hate Victorian novels.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I certainly haven't read enough contemporary literature to make an informed decision.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Most of the books I enjoy resist interpretation into film.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
See 11.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
An affair with Paul Celan. I stopped him from suiciding.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Angels and Demons, The Nanny Diaries.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Fiction: probably Peter Hoeg's Borderliners.
Non-fiction: at the time (I haven't revisited the text in 8 years), probably Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy's The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism; more recently, probably Kierkegaard's Repetition.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I don't think I've seen an obscure one.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
In terms of novels, I've read slightly more of the Russians; in terms of poetry/drama, more of the French. I don't have enough data for a statistical analysis of preference.

18) Roth or Updike?
To be quite honest, I haven't read either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
See 18.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare. He offers the most variety.

21) Austen or Eliot?
I don't know if you can make a very good comparison between the two. Their motives are completely different and their styles are miles apart. I enjoy both of them, but I have a hard time placing them in the same hierarchy.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
My brother would say fantasy. I know I'm lacking in 20th century literary experiences.

23) What is your favorite novel?
The one that has impacted me more than the others, at least currently, is Villette by Charlotte Bronte.

24) Play?
Medea, Euripides; The Three Sisters, Chekov.

25) Poem?
Very hard to say. Here are four I've admired:
"since feeling is first," e e cummings
"Sonnet 116," Shakespeare
"Dirge Without Music," Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Haelfte des Lebens," Friedrich Hoelderlin

26) Essay?
"A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf.

27) Short story?
"The Horse Dealer's Daughter," DH Lawrence.

28) Work of non-fiction?
The Machine in the Garden, Leo Marx.
Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont.

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Three I always find myself going back to are Jane Austen, Ray Bradbury, and John Le Carre.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Dan Brown (can't get anything like a fact straight), JK Rowling (redundant metaphors, sloppy overall), what's-her-butt that did the Twilight books (I can't even read summaries without wanting to vomit).

31) What is your desert island book?
I have to go with Zach and choose scripture.

32) And... what are you reading right now?
Nothing, but Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is on the top of my pile.

Defense Playlist

2009-04-15T16:12:00.000-06:00

Hopefully this does the trick

AC/DC - Back in Black
Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
Bad Religion - 21st Century Digital Boy
Beck - E-Pro
Bif Naked - I Love Myself Today
Bon Jovi - Livin' on a Prayer
Bon Jovi - Have a Nice Day
Britney Spears - Stronger
Christina Aguilera - Fighter
Def Leppard - Armageddon It
Elton John - Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting
EMF- Unbelievable
Foo Fighters - I'll Stick Around
Garbage - Push It
George Michael - Freedom '90
Gloria Estefan - Get on Your Feet
Green Day - Walking Contradiction
Guns & Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
Heart - Barracuda
Hole - Celebrity Skin
Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
Joan Jett - I Love Rock and Roll
Joan Jett - Bad Reputation
Journey - Don't Stop Believin'
Journey - Any Way You Want It
Junior Senior - Move Your Feet
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
Kiss - God Gave Rock and Roll to You
Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song
Lenny Kravitz - American Woman
Lostprophets - Rooftops
Michael Jackson - Beat It
Pixies - Head On
Queen - Another One Bites the Dust
Queen - We Will Rock You
Quiet Riot - Bang Your Head (Metal Health)
Republica - Ready to Go
Saliva - Ladies and Gentlemen
Scandal featuring Patty Smith - The Warrior
Jill Sobule - Supermodel
Superchick - One Girl Revolution
Joanna Pacitti - Watch me Shine
South Park - What Would Brian Boitano Do
Sprung Monkey - American Made
Tenacious D - Tribute
The Pixies - Cannonball
The Offspring - Come Out and Play (Keep 'Em Seperated)
Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet with Butterfly Wings
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
U2 - When Love Comes To Town
U2 - God Part II
Van Halen - Jump
Van Halen - Hot for Teacher
Knockout - Survivor
Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
The Living End - Prisoner of Society
Veruca Salt - Volcano Girls
Weezer - Teenage Victory Song
Yellowcard - Lights and Sounds

Sometimes I frighten myself

2009-04-14T15:22:00.001-06:00

Actual SkyMall Product or Rejected Invention Patent?

Score: 100% (8 out of 8)

Gentle Cassidy? Never!

2009-04-07T14:20:00.000-06:00

European Reformations

2009-04-02T10:44:00.020-06:00

One of my favorite parts of this class, and the one that most informed my thesis, came from our discussion of the Isenheim Altarpiece, which led to a discussion on the role of art in religion. Andree Hayum, author of The Isenheim Altarpiece: God's Medicine and the Painter's Vision, talks about art as a tangible mediation of spiritual things, examining the presence of disease (ergotism) and the tools of healing in the work. The altarpiece claims an almost-sacramental status in the way is addresses important aspects of God, particularly the ability, through Christ, for bodies and souls to be healed. It also allows the viewer, especially those in the hospital where it was originally displayed, to meditate on the spiritual significance of the physical experience. In looking at the altarpiece, as well as other works of art, you participate with the art to create something spiritual and posits empathy (shown in Christ's experience of the disease) as a key to healing.

Other artists, such as El Greco and Caravaggio emphasize a kind of participatory viewing. As post-Council-of-Trent artists, El Greco and Caravaggio were concerned with directness in art that is invested with a kind of spiritual energy. Trent also wanted art to provide its viewers with models of devotion. Both artists create immediate dramatic effect with their paintings. El Greco, particularly (at least how I look at him) has a deep connection to mysticism, as his paintings tend to cause the viewer to meditate on the physical act of seeing; indeed, his paintings have a striking quality that emphasizes both our ability and our inability to see things.

Meditating on El Greco's art seems to make it more ambiguous, less direct, and, interestingly, more emotional. The painting here, The Crucifixion, emphasizes the erotic effect--meaning the focus on flesh and the body--that is emphasized through the elongation of the bodies. Elongating the body has a direct impact on the way the eye sees the painting, drawing out the experience and physicalizing the spiritual, allowing the body to mediate the message of the painting.

El Greco's paintings also accomplish physical participation with his manipulation of light/dark (tenebrism) and line. El Greco is considered by some as the first modernist because of his disregard for convention and his emphasis on color and emotion and the way he unifies form and space. This allows him to create "devotional intensity of mood."

Caravaggio also paints dramatic situations, but he invests his paintings with more realism than some of his predecessors and creates a very intimate quality to the experience of his work. In this painting, the Trent ideals of education and devotion are fused. One of Caravaggio's techniques is to leave the center of the painting vacant, allowing the viewer to place him-or-herself in the scene. This facilitates a greater understanding of the work and creates a spiritual exercise in contemplating the scene and our role in it.

In this painting, The Betrayal of Christ, for example, the viewer is in a position either to push Judas towards Christ or to pull him away, and emphasizes our complicity in the Savior's suffering and addresses our ability to prevent sin (and its accompanying betrayal) in our own lives. Caravaggio also uses line to cause the viewer to constantly cycle through the painting, which conjointly causes us to repeat our viewing of the event, another phenomenon seen throughout his art.

I was especially struck by these ideas when I made a comparison of to Lucy Snowe, the narrator in Villette. While all of Bronte's narratives mediate different aspects of life, Lucy Snowe's troubled narrative is especially effective at using drama and contrast to emotionally connect with the reader. Lucy specifically says about her narration that she chooses to "writer [her] impressions now as [she] received them at the time" (168-69).

Lucy's emphasis on recording her impressions creates an emotional autobiography, which allows the reader to participate in Lucy's experience. Although Lucy is an unreliable, prickly narrator, the vulnerability she displays brings to mind instances of our own vulnerability, our own times of emotional dis-ease. We may not like Lucy, but we are drawn into her narrative by her emotional history, vicariously (and uncomfortably) living her experience. The dis-ease is like the strangeness in El Greco's paintings, magnifying the cramping loneliness infused throughout Bronte's text.

Through emotional experience, then, Lucy becomes sympathetic; we are, in a way, converted to her narrative, although whether it is a conversion to truth or to heresy is difficult to determine from the text. Lucy may not present a model of devotion, but the reader certainly models her in the anxiety engendered by and experienced in her narrative. Like El Greco's tenebrism, Lucy wavers in the narrative, forcing the reader to move quickly from person to person, often abandoning her own story, and offering changing opinions throughout the text. In presenting an emotional history, Lucy goes for immediate emotional impact, using moments of action as guideposts in her narrative, leading the reader through disorder while constantly recreating it as she tells her story.

A song for shaving

2009-04-01T19:02:00.001-06:00

I only wish I could transmit the tune to you as well:

Blood, dripping down my leg
There is red blood dripping down my leg
And it stings as it flows
From the hole that, O woe,
Was put there by my Bic lady shaver

Good times.

*

2009-03-30T15:39:00.002-06:00

All of this is not to say that sex does not play an important role, especially since I believe it is innate, but that creativity has the ability to reach past gender concerns to issues that affect humanity in general. Although I probably shouldn't use the term hu"man." Maybe "issues of persuns" is better.

An irksome thing

2009-03-30T15:00:00.002-06:00

I'm currently going through my notes in preparation for my defense, and I'm working on my English 655 class. It's titled "Women's Textual Studies," so you'd expect the class to take a feminist slant, right? It does, and that's not the problem. The problem is that the entire class was centered around a 25-year-old text (at the time, it's now 30), which, while a milestone in feminist criticism, has significant problems associated with it. Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic is important reading for anyone interested in the 19th century woman writer, but it is hardly the final word. What makes it particularly useful is its wide scope, not its depth, which is hampered by the text's incredible single-mindedness. Considering the text is problematic, it really irritates me that the book was the course, with no deviation from its theories and no room for more contemporary approaches to feminisit discourse.

For my thesis, I used aspects of Madwoman bolstered by other theories and my own interpretation of Bronte's texts, but if I were to rely on G&G's critique exclusively, my thesis would be full of holes and would have prose more purple than Prince.

G&G look at authorial anxiety in an intensely sexualized way. In their view, literature is informed by patriarchal politics and oedipal anxiety toward the father. For the male author, there is no question of paternity, and, while there is identification with his predecessors, there is also a clear space open to overcome them. For women, there is an inability to indentify with the literary past because of a lack of female figures (think of Shakespeare's Sister). In contrast to the male writer, the female writer has a strong yearning for literary maternity, for a connection with other women writers that will justify their creativity when they don't have the right "tools" (yes, G&G go into this explicitly). I can certainly see experiencing anxiety when you are forging new ground, but G&G seemingly ignore the idea of female writing communities, of the way in which women worked together, through correspondence and other interactions, to create an authorial society. 19th century literature is inundated with women, and women communicating with each other and with men. Certainly literature was still gendered, but as the century progressed, women entered into more and more literary and critical endeavors (Virginia Woolf, for example, is a product of the latter part of the 19th century).

In their world of patriarchal poetics, G&G see the woman writer presented with only two options provided by male authorship: the angel (from Coventry Patmore's "angel in the house") and the monster (G&G specifically reference the troubled response to Mary Wollstonecraft). They argue that the female text is an attempt to create a literature that reflects their own (authentic?) experience or to create fantasy worlds that make their experience bearable (think of Jane Austen). To overcome the presented dichotomy, G&G argue that women authors use "double talk," in which they appropriate male-defined stereotypes of women with the intention of subverting them. This creates the titular "madwoman" character who is capable of expressing the authors' rage while receiving socially appropriate punishment in the text (remember Bertha in Jane Eyre, "dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered"). I find this problematic because it denies women's participation in the world of their era, tending to disconnect them from their historical context. Women participated heavily in Victorian discourse and were deeply involved in the issues of their era, beyond some vaguely defined sense of authorial anxiety. Certainly, "The Woman Question" was important, but it was/is something that goes beyond a search for a predecessor, just as "The Condition of England" question was about more than changes in class mobility.

G&G imposes a common female impulse on all of the authors they address, and this causes them to often disregard the contradictions and differences between these women. While the create an overall understanding of certain 19th century feminist currents, they also create a prison out of sex, posthumously limiting the creative energy of these authors and denying them the independence of thought they sought to cultivate through their work. G&G also have a tendency to villainize men, painting them as the malicious holders of the pen/penis while ignoring, again, more general concerns.

G&G are also problematic in that they view women writers as writing in code, focusing on covert signals of distress at the expense of the more overt messages of the text. Again, the feminist approach is hugely valuable, but not when it comes at the expense of the text. Feminist criticism is directly tied to the psychological approach, and both have a tendency to place limits on the author, male or female, as an artist physically creating the novel, subsuming that creativity to various neuroses, focusing on the inner life at the expense of artistic achievement.

Cassidy helping with geneology

2009-03-23T15:23:00.001-06:00