Drat. So Binghamton wasn't kidding when they said they were shutting e-mail/BUSI off today for maintenance. Oh, well, they'll be back tomorrow.
Proving that they still write some of the catchiest songs known to man, and that they still have a sense of humor, Newsboys has come out (well, probably several months ago) with a rather exuberantly dorky song about writing catchy songs, the addictive "I Fought the La...". Sean got me an iTunes giftcard for Christmas, which is how I acquired it. I probably shouldn't like this song nearly as much as I do, but oh, I do.
Went to Rochester this past weekend, incidentally, which was very nice. Six of us made gingerbread houses, something I haven't done since about kindergarten (well, I think there was one other time, but I remember nothing of it), and then played Apples to Apples. About Aneya and me getting each other the same Christmas present: whoa! And I saw Erik for a bit the next day, since he hadn't been there.
I did indeed get two Dave Barry books for Christmas, but to be fair, I also asked for them when my mom informed me that she needed more gift ideas than just DangerMouse on DVD (with which I was also blessed--hurrah!). So that doesn't really count as predicting them, huh?
My DDR pad is dead after two-and-a-half honorable years of periodic service, which is a pretty long life for a dance pad. I should probably look into getting another one. Anyone want to go halves on an eBay set of two? You'd get one, I'd get one, and they're cheapest that way. Hit up my comment box at the end of this post, I guess (new readers: that's the weird Latin thing that usually says "silentium"), if e-mail's still down, haha.
12.24.2007
Maranatha
Waiting in silence, waiting in hope
We are your people; we long for you, Lord
God ever with us, Emmanuel
Come, Lord Jesus - Maranatha!
Nowhere on Google can I find the lyrics in their entirety to that hymn, which I'd never heard until we sang it for church choir a few weeks ago. It's really lovely.
There was also, in our hymnal, music to Richard Wilbur's "A Christmas Hymn," which I quoted in full last year (though you'll have to scroll down). I didn't get to hear how it went, but I was impressed. He was credited as author, there on the page, of course.
*
Heedless of traditional warnings against entering a mall on Christmas Eve, my family went over to Carousel Center to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Surprisingly, the mall was simply not that crowded. Maybe people were, you know, seeing their families or something.
The movie was entertaining and I liked it, but I'm still trying to figure out whether they left a humongous plot point unresolved. (Possible spoiler alert coming, but then, probably not. Make your own decision on whether you want to chance the rest of this paragraph.) I've been reading the reviews, but they don't make this any clearer: I understand that the point of trying to find the treasure was to clear Ben's ancestor's name--they certainly say that more than once. My question is, though, how does finding the treasure do that? Does it mean that the diary page isn't a list of conspirators? Because if it doesn't, why would finding the map on the back of the page undercut the conspirator list on the front of the page? They must've addressed this point exactly once, if they addressed it at all, and I must have missed it. If anyone else is seeing the movie, could you keep an ear out for me and let me know?
*
Unless this year's newcomers to the blog have done some considerable poking around my archives (or, I suppose, followed the link to last year's entry), they will not be familiar with my Christmas Eve tradition of saluting, in brief, all the new friends I've made in the past year (whether or not they know it).
So, merry Christmas to Kaleb and TJ, Laura from psych and folk dancing, Lori, Billy D., Erica's Josh, Dustin, Josh G., 12-Park-Jaime, summer-Cory, summer-Jonathan, Krista, Katrina, Tasha, Peter and Janet, Yoshiko and Shuyi, Abby T. (the one I referenced in '03 was pirate-alphabet-Abby), Carrie, Matt and Anne and Anne's mom Joyce, Lee, Ife, Micah, Jose, Ryan, Sarah K., CN-Matt, CN-Josh, Andrei, Natasha, Laura K., Polly, Mijeong, Hyewon, Chiun, Meir, Marion, Pam, Michelle, Stephanie, Clarissa, Annissa, Katy, Mike, and of course Ninth Hour (Christina-Matt-Jon-Thomas-Karen-Grace-Anthony-Richard-Sunroot-Sam). I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. I'm truly rich in warm and friendly people this year. I mean, most years I am, but I have made a lot of new friends this semester. Knowing to join IV-B right away made things so much easier.
Merry Christmas to Samweli...we've had to say goodbye to Sunil, as I mentioned some months ago, and don't know how he is. Someday we will. Merry Christmas to the soldiers; peace and safety.
And a merry Christmas to, as always, you, my longtime friends and cariños. So much love.
We are your people; we long for you, Lord
God ever with us, Emmanuel
Come, Lord Jesus - Maranatha!
Nowhere on Google can I find the lyrics in their entirety to that hymn, which I'd never heard until we sang it for church choir a few weeks ago. It's really lovely.
There was also, in our hymnal, music to Richard Wilbur's "A Christmas Hymn," which I quoted in full last year (though you'll have to scroll down). I didn't get to hear how it went, but I was impressed. He was credited as author, there on the page, of course.
*
Heedless of traditional warnings against entering a mall on Christmas Eve, my family went over to Carousel Center to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Surprisingly, the mall was simply not that crowded. Maybe people were, you know, seeing their families or something.
The movie was entertaining and I liked it, but I'm still trying to figure out whether they left a humongous plot point unresolved. (Possible spoiler alert coming, but then, probably not. Make your own decision on whether you want to chance the rest of this paragraph.) I've been reading the reviews, but they don't make this any clearer: I understand that the point of trying to find the treasure was to clear Ben's ancestor's name--they certainly say that more than once. My question is, though, how does finding the treasure do that? Does it mean that the diary page isn't a list of conspirators? Because if it doesn't, why would finding the map on the back of the page undercut the conspirator list on the front of the page? They must've addressed this point exactly once, if they addressed it at all, and I must have missed it. If anyone else is seeing the movie, could you keep an ear out for me and let me know?
*
Unless this year's newcomers to the blog have done some considerable poking around my archives (or, I suppose, followed the link to last year's entry), they will not be familiar with my Christmas Eve tradition of saluting, in brief, all the new friends I've made in the past year (whether or not they know it).
So, merry Christmas to Kaleb and TJ, Laura from psych and folk dancing, Lori, Billy D., Erica's Josh, Dustin, Josh G., 12-Park-Jaime, summer-Cory, summer-Jonathan, Krista, Katrina, Tasha, Peter and Janet, Yoshiko and Shuyi, Abby T. (the one I referenced in '03 was pirate-alphabet-Abby), Carrie, Matt and Anne and Anne's mom Joyce, Lee, Ife, Micah, Jose, Ryan, Sarah K., CN-Matt, CN-Josh, Andrei, Natasha, Laura K., Polly, Mijeong, Hyewon, Chiun, Meir, Marion, Pam, Michelle, Stephanie, Clarissa, Annissa, Katy, Mike, and of course Ninth Hour (Christina-Matt-Jon-Thomas-Karen-Grace-Anthony-Richard-Sunroot-Sam). I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. I'm truly rich in warm and friendly people this year. I mean, most years I am, but I have made a lot of new friends this semester. Knowing to join IV-B right away made things so much easier.
Merry Christmas to Samweli...we've had to say goodbye to Sunil, as I mentioned some months ago, and don't know how he is. Someday we will. Merry Christmas to the soldiers; peace and safety.
And a merry Christmas to, as always, you, my longtime friends and cariños. So much love.
12.22.2007
For my senior-year and BA-holding friends,
who are all much braver than I am
From a site showing some of Bill Watterson's early work (he's the guy who did my favorite comic ever, Calvin and Hobbes):
If even engineers are having a little trouble these days, you know things're bad. So here you go, and just think: in another three semesters, this will probably be me, in spite of everything!
12.19.2007
::stares::
The college semester where I've felt most like an idiot and taken the least pride and pleasure in my work...
...and I got the first 4.0 of my entire college career.
Not that I'm not grateful, but what?!
Also, if I could rant for just a minute: I can grudgingly tolerate the concept of "98% Fat Free Holiday Nog," even if it (as John used to say) makes my heart sad. But lite "orange juice beverage" is going too darn far. Yes, Tropicana took regular orange juice (what fruit juice is more healthy than that?!), watered it down, then added sucralose (ewwwww) to try to compensate flavor-wise. And it's in my family's refrigerator. This is ridiculous: my feeling is, if you are not actively diabetic or fructose-intolerant, you have absolutely no business not drinking real orange juice. It's just calorie/sugar paranoia run amok. If you cannot afford the extra sixty calories between regular and lite orange juice, or if 22 grams of naturally-occurring (not corn syrup, which is more of a problem) sugar just can't be borne, then elsewhere in your diet you're consistently making bad nutritional choices. Change those, then; don't drink orange-colored Splenda water. I know this is not life or death, but it's just the principle of the thing.
...and I got the first 4.0 of my entire college career.
Not that I'm not grateful, but what?!
Also, if I could rant for just a minute: I can grudgingly tolerate the concept of "98% Fat Free Holiday Nog," even if it (as John used to say) makes my heart sad. But lite "orange juice beverage" is going too darn far. Yes, Tropicana took regular orange juice (what fruit juice is more healthy than that?!), watered it down, then added sucralose (ewwwww) to try to compensate flavor-wise. And it's in my family's refrigerator. This is ridiculous: my feeling is, if you are not actively diabetic or fructose-intolerant, you have absolutely no business not drinking real orange juice. It's just calorie/sugar paranoia run amok. If you cannot afford the extra sixty calories between regular and lite orange juice, or if 22 grams of naturally-occurring (not corn syrup, which is more of a problem) sugar just can't be borne, then elsewhere in your diet you're consistently making bad nutritional choices. Change those, then; don't drink orange-colored Splenda water. I know this is not life or death, but it's just the principle of the thing.
12.15.2007
Gratitude
In honor of the nearly forty-one minutes' worth of sermon (swiped off an acquaintence's blog; long but much-needed) I just heard on the humongous importance of thankfulness, here are forty-one things I'm thankful for, starting importantly general and getting delightfully specific:
1. New life in Christ. (Many of these are in no particular order, but it would be truly lame to put that any farther down the list.)
2. Having two parents (still married) and a brother.
3. Having true friends, two whole hands' worth and then some.
4. Spending my entire K-12 career with best friends, some of whom I didn't realize until later were such.
5. Never lacking for food, water, clothing, shelter, or love.
6. Absence of severe physical/mental/emotional afflictions.
7. Living in a free society.
8. Living in a time and culture that allows me to wear pants, own property, feel reasonably assured of my personal safety, participate in government and education, and do whatever I want with my hair.
9. The printed word and my ability to read it, from which so very, very much has followed.
10. Scholarshipped private-school college education.
11. The experience of graduate education, even when pleasure is in no way involved.
12. In particular, graduate education at a school repeatedly considered the best public-education value in the entire northeastern United States.
13. Pearce Memorial Church, to which I owe so much.
14. InterVarsity-USA, to which I owe little less.
15. The delicious small simplicity, closeness, and sincerity of InterVarsity-Alfred.
16. The mere astonishing actuality of the close-feelingness of a chapter as big as InterVarsity-Binghamton, probably a result of their own sincerity.
17. Good Shepherd Anglican Church.
18. Practically everything ever written by C.S. Lewis.
19. Basileia, for the blessings I saw right away, and for the big one I didn't register until later (having met Carrie before Binghamton).
20. Getting the church-finding-in-Binghamton thing right the first time (thank you, Carrie Moorhead).
21. The frustration and lingering discontent of not having gotten it right in Syracuse for at least a year, if only for having a much better understanding that, outside of Methodism and IV, it really does help to know some liturgy.
22. Having picked up some of that liturgy already via having Catholic friends.
23. Having a license and a car.
24. The incredible freedom to take care of others that I have by way of being a spoiled child of a family with more than enough of nearly everything. Ninth Hour thinks it's because I'm service-oriented that I can bring food and give rides. I may or may not be so, but one thing I do know: nearly everything God puts into my hands is sent through my parents' hands first, even now.
25. The internet in general.
26. Wegmans.
27. Farmers' markets.
28. The communicational addictions that are e-mail and AOL Instant Messenger.
29. Cross-lookup online of one Bible verse/passage/chapter/book across dozens of different translations.
30. Multiple translations in tangible form on my bookshelf.
31. Children's literature as an entire gorgeous genre.
32. Folk dancing.
33. Dance Dance Revolution.
34. Medical, security, and rescue technicians everywhere. (Like I said, much of this was not supposed to be in order.)
35. Libraries.
36. Cafés/teashops.
37. Plumbing, particularly the indoor kind.
38. Hugs.
39. Naps, one of which I interrupted the writing of this entry to take.
40. Days devoid of responsibility.
41. Life being like a sonnet.
...I got to forty-one way before I covered everything I planned to cover, but I'm still going to stop there.
Gracias a Dios.
1. New life in Christ. (Many of these are in no particular order, but it would be truly lame to put that any farther down the list.)
2. Having two parents (still married) and a brother.
3. Having true friends, two whole hands' worth and then some.
4. Spending my entire K-12 career with best friends, some of whom I didn't realize until later were such.
5. Never lacking for food, water, clothing, shelter, or love.
6. Absence of severe physical/mental/emotional afflictions.
7. Living in a free society.
8. Living in a time and culture that allows me to wear pants, own property, feel reasonably assured of my personal safety, participate in government and education, and do whatever I want with my hair.
9. The printed word and my ability to read it, from which so very, very much has followed.
10. Scholarshipped private-school college education.
11. The experience of graduate education, even when pleasure is in no way involved.
12. In particular, graduate education at a school repeatedly considered the best public-education value in the entire northeastern United States.
13. Pearce Memorial Church, to which I owe so much.
14. InterVarsity-USA, to which I owe little less.
15. The delicious small simplicity, closeness, and sincerity of InterVarsity-Alfred.
16. The mere astonishing actuality of the close-feelingness of a chapter as big as InterVarsity-Binghamton, probably a result of their own sincerity.
17. Good Shepherd Anglican Church.
18. Practically everything ever written by C.S. Lewis.
19. Basileia, for the blessings I saw right away, and for the big one I didn't register until later (having met Carrie before Binghamton).
20. Getting the church-finding-in-Binghamton thing right the first time (thank you, Carrie Moorhead).
21. The frustration and lingering discontent of not having gotten it right in Syracuse for at least a year, if only for having a much better understanding that, outside of Methodism and IV, it really does help to know some liturgy.
22. Having picked up some of that liturgy already via having Catholic friends.
23. Having a license and a car.
24. The incredible freedom to take care of others that I have by way of being a spoiled child of a family with more than enough of nearly everything. Ninth Hour thinks it's because I'm service-oriented that I can bring food and give rides. I may or may not be so, but one thing I do know: nearly everything God puts into my hands is sent through my parents' hands first, even now.
25. The internet in general.
26. Wegmans.
27. Farmers' markets.
28. The communicational addictions that are e-mail and AOL Instant Messenger.
29. Cross-lookup online of one Bible verse/passage/chapter/book across dozens of different translations.
30. Multiple translations in tangible form on my bookshelf.
31. Children's literature as an entire gorgeous genre.
32. Folk dancing.
33. Dance Dance Revolution.
34. Medical, security, and rescue technicians everywhere. (Like I said, much of this was not supposed to be in order.)
35. Libraries.
36. Cafés/teashops.
37. Plumbing, particularly the indoor kind.
38. Hugs.
39. Naps, one of which I interrupted the writing of this entry to take.
40. Days devoid of responsibility.
41. Life being like a sonnet.
...I got to forty-one way before I covered everything I planned to cover, but I'm still going to stop there.
Gracias a Dios.
12.13.2007
-also-
Maybe I should decide (after all this time) whether I mean this journal primarily as a record of my life, for my own benefit, or as a way to tell others what's going on with me.
It turns out there's a significant percentage of the blog-reading world that would probably find mine boring as all get-out, except for the parts where I'm being soul-searchy. Which I tend not to like, in retrospect, because I have a low tolerance for stale angst (mine, that is; I'm not telling anyone else what to write). When I look back at the stuff from, say, freshman year, I'm kind of glad for the boring parts. It doesn't do to always be grappling with or proclaiming or celebrating something. Sometimes I just want to remember what things were like. So, while I've imposed the five-sentence mundanity limit, I don't know.
And maybe I should finally stop signing every post. There's something about the routine that's always seemed right before, but now it kind of strikes me as hokey, not to mention intensely repetitive.
It turns out there's a significant percentage of the blog-reading world that would probably find mine boring as all get-out, except for the parts where I'm being soul-searchy. Which I tend not to like, in retrospect, because I have a low tolerance for stale angst (mine, that is; I'm not telling anyone else what to write). When I look back at the stuff from, say, freshman year, I'm kind of glad for the boring parts. It doesn't do to always be grappling with or proclaiming or celebrating something. Sometimes I just want to remember what things were like. So, while I've imposed the five-sentence mundanity limit, I don't know.
And maybe I should finally stop signing every post. There's something about the routine that's always seemed right before, but now it kind of strikes me as hokey, not to mention intensely repetitive.
::blinkety::
I feel compelled to add, for greater blog truthfulness, that the sleep thing hasn't been working as well as I expected.
Still, things've been pretty good. It was fun having people over last night.
I'm still waiting on the moment to make Anne's soup (my normal state, since Tuesday night, has been hours of mindless laziness followed by fits of cooking). And to use up my last two eggs before they rot.
-Laurel
Still, things've been pretty good. It was fun having people over last night.
I'm still waiting on the moment to make Anne's soup (my normal state, since Tuesday night, has been hours of mindless laziness followed by fits of cooking). And to use up my last two eggs before they rot.
-Laurel
12.11.2007
Semester's End: What I've Done So Far to Celebrate the Next Forty-Eightish(!) Days of Freedom
Well, I slept, for one thing. From about five-something tonight to almost nine. Don't worry, I'll still get to sleep tonight. Believe me.
And then I wanted to experiment with recreating the butternut-squash soup that Reverend Anne posted about on her blog (yes, she has a blog. It's good, too), but it seemed too late at night to be roasting squash and then putting it through the blender, so I guess I'll do it tomorrow. Speaking of foodstuffs that aren't in cans or boxes, I should also do something about my pears, potatoes, lemons, and horrifying amount of leftover cheese bread. Not that I couldn't bring the potatoes and lemons home, since they'll keep that long.
But anyway, while I was still considering making the soup, I'd gone on her blog to look up the recipe, and one thing led to another, and I ended up following her link to Micah's blog and just sitting in my chair, half braindead, reading months' worth of entries, which mostly take the form of poems, since he's an MFA candidate in poetry. Micah, as I've mentioned, is not only my choir director, but also the youth pastor. He's also a first-semester graduate student, like me...and, I've discovered to my shock, is only a year older than me. Less than a year, technically.
Though he didn't write it (his friend Jan apparently did), this one made me laugh, and I post it here for Matt and Christina's benefit:
Micah,
I miss your beard.
The locks that made you look
like a Hassidic man in golden tones,
without the baloney curls.
Micah,
I miss your beard,
the golden fleece of Jason's quest.
The nest that called noses to rest
against your cheek.
Micah,
I miss your beard,
the warm spot from winter winds.
The fur coat your laughter wore.
Micah,
I miss your beard.
And the childish way we used to say,
What's under Micah's beard?
It's another beard.
More mental salmagundi:
Turns out I like buttered Brussels sprouts. I bought them last month out of Wegmans's frozen-food case in what I thought, surveying them tonight, might have been an act of unreasonable optimism: I have no recollection of the last time I attempted Brussels sprouts, nor whether I liked them when I did. But I needed to eat something for dinner more nutritious than what I began with, which was a piece of Annissa's birthday cake that she'd given me when I stopped by for a minute. They were, as I say, pretty good.
Mijeong came home from the library (she's got two tests tomorrow!) as I was putting the sprouts in the microwave, and we talked for about ten minutes as they cooked and cooled, time she used to make herself a scrambled egg. It's funny, because she was so quiet and shy when we first moved in, but now, no question, she's the apartmentmate I talk to most, and with the most ease. It probably turned out that way because she had friends over for dinner one Sunday night back around October, and when I came downstairs for a minute--to get a glass of milk, maybe?--she invited me to try some of the food she'd made, and before I knew it, the four of us had been talking for something like three-and-a-half hours. It was crazy. We did it again, this time at one of her friends' houses (I don't know how to spell her name; something like Chiun), the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Not that we were all equally loud--Chiun and I were the loudest and most talkative ones both times, I think--but it was very nice.
I think the new apartmentmate (Polly, if I haven't mentioned, decided to move into the city, where it's cheaper and she's nearer her friends) moves in tomorrow, actually. All I know about the new girl is that her name is Jessica and she's American. Should be interesting.
I should probably go back to bed; it's later than my timestamp says it is, as almost-always. Lots of cooking tomorrow! Yay! And I should clean things up then, too, before various Ninth Hour (of course!) people come for dinner.
-Laurel
And then I wanted to experiment with recreating the butternut-squash soup that Reverend Anne posted about on her blog (yes, she has a blog. It's good, too), but it seemed too late at night to be roasting squash and then putting it through the blender, so I guess I'll do it tomorrow. Speaking of foodstuffs that aren't in cans or boxes, I should also do something about my pears, potatoes, lemons, and horrifying amount of leftover cheese bread. Not that I couldn't bring the potatoes and lemons home, since they'll keep that long.
But anyway, while I was still considering making the soup, I'd gone on her blog to look up the recipe, and one thing led to another, and I ended up following her link to Micah's blog and just sitting in my chair, half braindead, reading months' worth of entries, which mostly take the form of poems, since he's an MFA candidate in poetry. Micah, as I've mentioned, is not only my choir director, but also the youth pastor. He's also a first-semester graduate student, like me...and, I've discovered to my shock, is only a year older than me. Less than a year, technically.
Though he didn't write it (his friend Jan apparently did), this one made me laugh, and I post it here for Matt and Christina's benefit:
Micah,
I miss your beard.
The locks that made you look
like a Hassidic man in golden tones,
without the baloney curls.
Micah,
I miss your beard,
the golden fleece of Jason's quest.
The nest that called noses to rest
against your cheek.
Micah,
I miss your beard,
the warm spot from winter winds.
The fur coat your laughter wore.
Micah,
I miss your beard.
And the childish way we used to say,
What's under Micah's beard?
It's another beard.
More mental salmagundi:
Turns out I like buttered Brussels sprouts. I bought them last month out of Wegmans's frozen-food case in what I thought, surveying them tonight, might have been an act of unreasonable optimism: I have no recollection of the last time I attempted Brussels sprouts, nor whether I liked them when I did. But I needed to eat something for dinner more nutritious than what I began with, which was a piece of Annissa's birthday cake that she'd given me when I stopped by for a minute. They were, as I say, pretty good.
Mijeong came home from the library (she's got two tests tomorrow!) as I was putting the sprouts in the microwave, and we talked for about ten minutes as they cooked and cooled, time she used to make herself a scrambled egg. It's funny, because she was so quiet and shy when we first moved in, but now, no question, she's the apartmentmate I talk to most, and with the most ease. It probably turned out that way because she had friends over for dinner one Sunday night back around October, and when I came downstairs for a minute--to get a glass of milk, maybe?--she invited me to try some of the food she'd made, and before I knew it, the four of us had been talking for something like three-and-a-half hours. It was crazy. We did it again, this time at one of her friends' houses (I don't know how to spell her name; something like Chiun), the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Not that we were all equally loud--Chiun and I were the loudest and most talkative ones both times, I think--but it was very nice.
I think the new apartmentmate (Polly, if I haven't mentioned, decided to move into the city, where it's cheaper and she's nearer her friends) moves in tomorrow, actually. All I know about the new girl is that her name is Jessica and she's American. Should be interesting.
I should probably go back to bed; it's later than my timestamp says it is, as almost-always. Lots of cooking tomorrow! Yay! And I should clean things up then, too, before various Ninth Hour (of course!) people come for dinner.
-Laurel
12.10.2007
(still awake)
On the other hand, the people in my life are amazing.
I suppose I did just write a whole creative-nonfiction project on how people don't find happiness through achievement.
From my social-psychology textbook from sophomore year: "The things that make for genuinely good life--close, supportive relationships, a hope-filled faith community, positive traits, engaging activity--are enduringly sustainable."
The first two I have already; the second two will come back soon.
-Laurel
I suppose I did just write a whole creative-nonfiction project on how people don't find happiness through achievement.
From my social-psychology textbook from sophomore year: "The things that make for genuinely good life--close, supportive relationships, a hope-filled faith community, positive traits, engaging activity--are enduringly sustainable."
The first two I have already; the second two will come back soon.
-Laurel
::very concerned look::
Creative nonfiction: the party was fine, but the piece...who knows. It's not that good, but she's grading on improvement; hopefully I've shown some. Everything took longer than I expected, I was really late because I had to go get an envelope for my piece, and my cheese bread (we all had to make food for the party) didn't turn out very well. It's been a long day.
Theory: I have to write at least ten pages by three o'clock tomorrow, and clearly, because that's how I've arranged this thing, I don't have any of them written yet. And now Jose says that Dr. Keith seems to be forgetting that it's only ten instead of fifteen and I have to remind him of what his syllabus says and hope he doesn't still believe he changed it to fifteen. Which he didn't. And I'm not going to get fifteen pages out of my mediocre topic, particularly not when I have only nineteen hours to do even the ten pages. But for the mercy of God, the paper's going to be awful. I suck as a graduate, seriously; it's like I'm a college freshman or something. At least it will all be over by three tomorrow.
Right now, I'm taking a nap. No, I didn't waste a lot of time on this entry; it's literally only been five minutes.
-Laurel
Theory: I have to write at least ten pages by three o'clock tomorrow, and clearly, because that's how I've arranged this thing, I don't have any of them written yet. And now Jose says that Dr. Keith seems to be forgetting that it's only ten instead of fifteen and I have to remind him of what his syllabus says and hope he doesn't still believe he changed it to fifteen. Which he didn't. And I'm not going to get fifteen pages out of my mediocre topic, particularly not when I have only nineteen hours to do even the ten pages. But for the mercy of God, the paper's going to be awful. I suck as a graduate, seriously; it's like I'm a college freshman or something. At least it will all be over by three tomorrow.
Right now, I'm taking a nap. No, I didn't waste a lot of time on this entry; it's literally only been five minutes.
-Laurel
12.08.2007
Five-Sentence Update
-I still adore Adam Gopnik's essay "Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli," which I reread over dinner. The ending, however, still drives me crazy.
-The CN project is only partly about SFE anymore; I hope Dr. Heywood doesn't mind that it's not very environmentally-oriented even though she was really hoping it'd go in that direction.
-I can't wait for Tuesday afternoon to come and all of this to be over.
-I am really good at procrasinating.
-Laurel
-The CN project is only partly about SFE anymore; I hope Dr. Heywood doesn't mind that it's not very environmentally-oriented even though she was really hoping it'd go in that direction.
-I can't wait for Tuesday afternoon to come and all of this to be over.
-I am really good at procrasinating.
-Laurel
Christina says I update this a lot. She's pretty much right.
Tonight was great.
After opening large group with Christmas carols (with Boaz on violin and Anthony on flute, no less!), we had a testimonial night, so basically we were asked to share how God had worked in our lives this semester. Lots of people got really personal. I mostly didn't, but I did make a silly fool of myself, trying to explain, but doing it very roundabout-ly, how and why I was so thankful for everybody. (Lesson learned, given how all of us fumbled through it: we white kids have no idea how to talk about our admiration for Asian Christian culture without sounding vaguely like we're making ethnic jokes. Well, Matt did better than most of us, but still. I really hope no one was offended.) "Was my testimony ridiculous?" I asked Jon later. "How," he protested, "can you be ridiculous when you're talking about the works of God and God is so awesome?" This is a thought-provokingly fair point, and makes me ashamed to admit that I still care whether or not I sounded ridiculous.
We had the secret-Santa exchange. To my relief, Colin was excited about the Mets calendar I gave him (I hardly know him at all and had resorted to scanning his Facebook profile for inspiration), and I got a cute, very soft plushy snowman from Karen.
Then, after the guys'-small-group sandwich sale (proceeds to children's education in Belize; I hadn't yet had any dinner, so it was my pleasure to support the effort!), a bunch of us went out for bubble tea and talked and laughed and generally had a good time.
I'm somewhat behind on my creative-nonfiction project, of course, in the sense that I was hoping to be 50% done by tonight's end so's to lessen my workload per day, but I'm only at 30% and will have to pick up the slack tomorrow. I do think I mostly know what I'm doing, though. Mostly.
Anyway, in summary: I love InterVarsity. Any InterVarsity. I owe both chapters more than I can repay.
It's time for me to try to get some sleep. Lots to do tomorrow.
-Laurel
After opening large group with Christmas carols (with Boaz on violin and Anthony on flute, no less!), we had a testimonial night, so basically we were asked to share how God had worked in our lives this semester. Lots of people got really personal. I mostly didn't, but I did make a silly fool of myself, trying to explain, but doing it very roundabout-ly, how and why I was so thankful for everybody. (Lesson learned, given how all of us fumbled through it: we white kids have no idea how to talk about our admiration for Asian Christian culture without sounding vaguely like we're making ethnic jokes. Well, Matt did better than most of us, but still. I really hope no one was offended.) "Was my testimony ridiculous?" I asked Jon later. "How," he protested, "can you be ridiculous when you're talking about the works of God and God is so awesome?" This is a thought-provokingly fair point, and makes me ashamed to admit that I still care whether or not I sounded ridiculous.
We had the secret-Santa exchange. To my relief, Colin was excited about the Mets calendar I gave him (I hardly know him at all and had resorted to scanning his Facebook profile for inspiration), and I got a cute, very soft plushy snowman from Karen.
Then, after the guys'-small-group sandwich sale (proceeds to children's education in Belize; I hadn't yet had any dinner, so it was my pleasure to support the effort!), a bunch of us went out for bubble tea and talked and laughed and generally had a good time.
I'm somewhat behind on my creative-nonfiction project, of course, in the sense that I was hoping to be 50% done by tonight's end so's to lessen my workload per day, but I'm only at 30% and will have to pick up the slack tomorrow. I do think I mostly know what I'm doing, though. Mostly.
Anyway, in summary: I love InterVarsity. Any InterVarsity. I owe both chapters more than I can repay.
It's time for me to try to get some sleep. Lots to do tomorrow.
-Laurel
12.07.2007
Status Report
Things to do by 5ish PM tonight:
-Go out and get the secret-Santa present for IV. And wrap it. And, while I'm at it, get the other things I'll need for the rest of this weekend, like the envelope and folder for the creative-nonfiction project.
Things to do by 3:30 PM on Monday:
-Revamp said creative-nonfiction project. Somehow. It's not like I haven't been working on this (though I haven't been working as diligently as I should have been), but so far the research has not gone as well as I'd hoped. My trips to both libraries yesterday, school and public, were fruitless: the city's public library didn't have any good books and didn't even accept my library card (it's sort of a long story); the campus library supposedly has a good book, but it's not on the shelf where it's supposed to be. So even if I put out a search on it, it might take two days to find it, and then I'd have to read it. At least some of it.
-Compile final list (though the research for this is done, thank heavens) of literary journals to which I would submit my project if I didn't dislike it so much.
-Choose two-page scene from my project to read out to the class at Dr. Heywood's party on Monday afternoon. She decided that it was not enough for us to have 20-40 pages and a submission list due; we also have to make food and bring it to her house so we can have a party and a short-performance session. I'm sure that, on Monday at 3:30, I'll be happy about this, but for this moment, I'm mostly finding it a hassle.
-Make cheese bread for said party; it's not the most convenient thing ever, but at least I can do other things while the dough rises, and anyway, I was out of other easily-transportable ideas. And I suppose I'm a sucker for people admiring my bread.
To do by 3:00 PM on Tuesday:
-Write the 10-page theory-class paper. Talk about your frustrating research. Basically, I have to decide a) how to set up a convincing argument that my panopticist reading of The Giver hasn't already been thoroughly done (though I think I've figured out how to do this), and b) whether I can make the argument that Gathering Blue is also semi-panoptic despite the lack of constant outer surveillance, and if not, whether I can fit it into my paper at all.
In short, I have a lot to do, and probably shouldn't be doing a bunch of IV stuff all tonight, but probably will anyway, and then simply work like sixty for the rest of the weekend and be nervous and sleep-deprived. On the other hand, as hinted, it will all be done by Tuesday afternoon. Victory shall indeed be mine!
-Laurel
-Go out and get the secret-Santa present for IV. And wrap it. And, while I'm at it, get the other things I'll need for the rest of this weekend, like the envelope and folder for the creative-nonfiction project.
Things to do by 3:30 PM on Monday:
-Revamp said creative-nonfiction project. Somehow. It's not like I haven't been working on this (though I haven't been working as diligently as I should have been), but so far the research has not gone as well as I'd hoped. My trips to both libraries yesterday, school and public, were fruitless: the city's public library didn't have any good books and didn't even accept my library card (it's sort of a long story); the campus library supposedly has a good book, but it's not on the shelf where it's supposed to be. So even if I put out a search on it, it might take two days to find it, and then I'd have to read it. At least some of it.
-Compile final list (though the research for this is done, thank heavens) of literary journals to which I would submit my project if I didn't dislike it so much.
-Choose two-page scene from my project to read out to the class at Dr. Heywood's party on Monday afternoon. She decided that it was not enough for us to have 20-40 pages and a submission list due; we also have to make food and bring it to her house so we can have a party and a short-performance session. I'm sure that, on Monday at 3:30, I'll be happy about this, but for this moment, I'm mostly finding it a hassle.
-Make cheese bread for said party; it's not the most convenient thing ever, but at least I can do other things while the dough rises, and anyway, I was out of other easily-transportable ideas. And I suppose I'm a sucker for people admiring my bread.
To do by 3:00 PM on Tuesday:
-Write the 10-page theory-class paper. Talk about your frustrating research. Basically, I have to decide a) how to set up a convincing argument that my panopticist reading of The Giver hasn't already been thoroughly done (though I think I've figured out how to do this), and b) whether I can make the argument that Gathering Blue is also semi-panoptic despite the lack of constant outer surveillance, and if not, whether I can fit it into my paper at all.
In short, I have a lot to do, and probably shouldn't be doing a bunch of IV stuff all tonight, but probably will anyway, and then simply work like sixty for the rest of the weekend and be nervous and sleep-deprived. On the other hand, as hinted, it will all be done by Tuesday afternoon. Victory shall indeed be mine!
-Laurel
12.02.2007
Momentary victory is mine!
Have gotten all my homework done except for putting down final comments on Matt B.'s creative-nonfiction draft, though I read and marked it, not to mention enjoyed it. This I can do during my free hour between classes on Monday. And, well, I guess I only skimmed the last third of Rey Chow, but I know what she said, anyway, and I can read it through more fully later if I really feel obligated to.
The three for this week were easily the most enjoyable creative-nonfiction drafts I've read all semester. Which is no knock on how well-written the Sarahs' and Jose's were, in particular, but "enjoy" is the wrong word for theirs (though I did enjoy Jose's sterling talent for description) because their topics were so serious. Matt B., on the other hand, wrote about photographing train graffiti, in which I didn't expect to find myself interested, but he actually made it quite engaging; Kevin wrote about his love for his family's land; and Laura (not the side-columned Laura, but another, with whom I'm also friends, just a little bit less closely so) wrote about food symbolizing love. As for this last, oh my gosh. I defy anyone old enough to appreciate her piece (which is to say, if you're young enough to still think Chef Boyardee the pinnacle of Italian cuisine, then give it a few more years) to read her draft, read her meal descriptions, and not sigh at least once in mingled longing and delight.
So Monday morning is going to have to involve research for my own creative-non revamp and my theory paper, but tomorrow is mine for resting and church and cooking--my last day of freedom until the 10th, or maybe the 12th, depending on when Dr. Keith makes his paper really-truly due (I'm not naive or scrupulous enough, unfortunately, to think that this Sunday-rest thing isn't going to be cheated on come the 9th). My phone will be on from 2ish pm until bedtime; call me if you'd like to talk.
-Laurel
The three for this week were easily the most enjoyable creative-nonfiction drafts I've read all semester. Which is no knock on how well-written the Sarahs' and Jose's were, in particular, but "enjoy" is the wrong word for theirs (though I did enjoy Jose's sterling talent for description) because their topics were so serious. Matt B., on the other hand, wrote about photographing train graffiti, in which I didn't expect to find myself interested, but he actually made it quite engaging; Kevin wrote about his love for his family's land; and Laura (not the side-columned Laura, but another, with whom I'm also friends, just a little bit less closely so) wrote about food symbolizing love. As for this last, oh my gosh. I defy anyone old enough to appreciate her piece (which is to say, if you're young enough to still think Chef Boyardee the pinnacle of Italian cuisine, then give it a few more years) to read her draft, read her meal descriptions, and not sigh at least once in mingled longing and delight.
So Monday morning is going to have to involve research for my own creative-non revamp and my theory paper, but tomorrow is mine for resting and church and cooking--my last day of freedom until the 10th, or maybe the 12th, depending on when Dr. Keith makes his paper really-truly due (I'm not naive or scrupulous enough, unfortunately, to think that this Sunday-rest thing isn't going to be cheated on come the 9th). My phone will be on from 2ish pm until bedtime; call me if you'd like to talk.
-Laurel
12.01.2007
Eight Thoughts Just Before Bed
1) Seriously, the next time Greg Jao(!!!) comes to speak at InterVarsity, I'm bringing paper and pen so I can write things down when the lightbulb comes on over my head.
2) Currently slogging for Diaspora through Rey Chow, who's warning us all about the potential dangers of "naming" others, and even though it's not quite the same, all I can think of is, well, dude. Don't tell Meg Murry.
3) Speaking of, there are a lot of books I want to read over the break. One of them is The Phantom Tollbooth, since--okay, confession time: I first read A Wrinkle in Time because it had shown up in a Baby-Sitters Club book. And look where that implicit recommendation got me, so I'm heeding another and reading Tollbooth. Sometime.
4) Part of me is almost certain, somewhere inside, that my mother's going to get me Dave Barry's History of the Millenium (So Far) for Christmas. Which is cool, seriously, but if I do, then let me just say, called it.
5) What on earth--this is sort of a perpetual question--am I going to get my brother for Christmas? To be honest, part of me wants to just buy him a big summer sausage, since he always claimed the mini ones out of the gift baskets that Aunt Lisa and Uncle Paul sent us a few years running. Heck, I could do a lot worse. But I feel like I should maybe do something else.
6) The only thing I actually want for Christmas, as of this writing, is DangerMouse on DVD, now that more of the series than just a few episodes here and there have finally been released to visual media. In fact, the entire series is now on DVD, which is pretty exciting. Not that I wouldn't also enjoy a Dave Barry book, as aforementioned.
7) I really want to just take this whole weekend, but especially Sunday, and cook things. One considerable advantage of this would be that I could refrigerate/freeze things and then heat them up when I get back lateish from class on Monday and Tuesday. (Dang, but I sound middle-aged and working-parently, talking about quick dinners on weeknights.) The problem is, I have too much else to do this weekend.
8) It is really hard not to get cliquey and over-affectionate about Ninth Hour. They're just so warm and wonderful. But we are in for change: Christina's going to be in Kenya next semester, and it's looking (whoa, boy) like Thomas and I are going to end up running it together in her absence (since Sunroot got stolen away by IV-B's e-board to run small groups). This should be, if nothing else (though I think it'll be more than this), an excellent way to discover what-all goes into being a servant leader, instead of the annoyed and annoying figure I was while running APO's service program. But no, I really think it'll be fine, as long as I can get out of my own way when necessary.
-Laurel
2) Currently slogging for Diaspora through Rey Chow, who's warning us all about the potential dangers of "naming" others, and even though it's not quite the same, all I can think of is, well, dude. Don't tell Meg Murry.
3) Speaking of, there are a lot of books I want to read over the break. One of them is The Phantom Tollbooth, since--okay, confession time: I first read A Wrinkle in Time because it had shown up in a Baby-Sitters Club book. And look where that implicit recommendation got me, so I'm heeding another and reading Tollbooth. Sometime.
4) Part of me is almost certain, somewhere inside, that my mother's going to get me Dave Barry's History of the Millenium (So Far) for Christmas. Which is cool, seriously, but if I do, then let me just say, called it.
5) What on earth--this is sort of a perpetual question--am I going to get my brother for Christmas? To be honest, part of me wants to just buy him a big summer sausage, since he always claimed the mini ones out of the gift baskets that Aunt Lisa and Uncle Paul sent us a few years running. Heck, I could do a lot worse. But I feel like I should maybe do something else.
6) The only thing I actually want for Christmas, as of this writing, is DangerMouse on DVD, now that more of the series than just a few episodes here and there have finally been released to visual media. In fact, the entire series is now on DVD, which is pretty exciting. Not that I wouldn't also enjoy a Dave Barry book, as aforementioned.
7) I really want to just take this whole weekend, but especially Sunday, and cook things. One considerable advantage of this would be that I could refrigerate/freeze things and then heat them up when I get back lateish from class on Monday and Tuesday. (Dang, but I sound middle-aged and working-parently, talking about quick dinners on weeknights.) The problem is, I have too much else to do this weekend.
8) It is really hard not to get cliquey and over-affectionate about Ninth Hour. They're just so warm and wonderful. But we are in for change: Christina's going to be in Kenya next semester, and it's looking (whoa, boy) like Thomas and I are going to end up running it together in her absence (since Sunroot got stolen away by IV-B's e-board to run small groups). This should be, if nothing else (though I think it'll be more than this), an excellent way to discover what-all goes into being a servant leader, instead of the annoyed and annoying figure I was while running APO's service program. But no, I really think it'll be fine, as long as I can get out of my own way when necessary.
-Laurel
11.29.2007
Another day of post-assignment mediocre time management
So I didn't go to folk dancing tonight; I decided to stay and do homework. I felt kind of tired, still, after the paper-writing odyssey, anyway.
Except that, instead of doing homework, I made a fruit-fly trap (we've got a bunch of the buggers around and are not quite sure how they got here) and found/cropped/printed more friend pictures, then added them to the wall, which entailed rearranging all the existing pictures as well.
I am going to do some homework before I go to bed, seriously. Right now, in fact.
-Laurel
Except that, instead of doing homework, I made a fruit-fly trap (we've got a bunch of the buggers around and are not quite sure how they got here) and found/cropped/printed more friend pictures, then added them to the wall, which entailed rearranging all the existing pictures as well.
I am going to do some homework before I go to bed, seriously. Right now, in fact.
-Laurel
Quick Mundanity
The away message from the previous entry actually ended up being mistaken: my printer pitched a big time-consuming fit before it would print my paper, such that I not only didn't get any other homework done, but actually missed the timely bus to campus and had to come into Diaspora on the next one, putting me there about ten minutes late and making me miss the beginning of a class presentation. I felt rude, but I did hand in the paper, which means that I am down to only regular responsibility until next week, though that still means I have to start research on Friday for my two other papers. Oh, and how 'bout I actually, finally, after a month, read the comments that everyone made on my mediocre creative-nonfiction draft? I've been trying to get up the nerve and fortitude, but I have a feeling that it's not going to happen until late Friday afternoon because that means I can console myself with dinner with Christina and Matt if things go particularly badly.
This is my fifth sentence, so I'll end with this: it's been a good day.
-Laurel
This is my fifth sentence, so I'll end with this: it's been a good day.
-Laurel
11.28.2007
Finish Line
I can't believe it's Wednesday. Threeish days of writing, three hours of class and three of Ninth Hour, at least three bowls of Raisin Nut Bran, several cookies, a handful of popcorn, a lot of water and bathroom breaks, and an average of maybe-five hours of sleep per night later, here is my current away message:
A fairly-solid argument executed. Five-and-a-half pages written in just over four hours, for a final count of just over twelve (not counting works-cited). And probably time enough to get my other homework done and get a shower and lunch. Only one class today, and I hardly even have to think in it, and I can take a long and glorious nap when it's done.
I am truly an object of God's limitless grace.
Two more papers over the next two weeks, and then my first graduate semester is over and done.
-Laurel
A fairly-solid argument executed. Five-and-a-half pages written in just over four hours, for a final count of just over twelve (not counting works-cited). And probably time enough to get my other homework done and get a shower and lunch. Only one class today, and I hardly even have to think in it, and I can take a long and glorious nap when it's done.
I am truly an object of God's limitless grace.
Two more papers over the next two weeks, and then my first graduate semester is over and done.
-Laurel
11.26.2007
Abbreviated Ramble (I cut out a lot of it)
It may be a good night to stay up late writing a paper. The Diaspora one isn't due until Wednesday afternoon, but it's supposed to be around twelve pages, and I've had so much trouble with the research and theory (this's my first theory-based paper, and despite what Dr. Keith tried to tell me for his own class, it is like learning a new style of writing) that right now I'm only on the second page, though I do have a partial formal outline, and am filling in the gaps passably well in my mind. So I've got my work cut out for me, to be sure, and I'm going to write as much as I can before I finally zonk out tonight.
I say it's a good night for it because it looks like some other Binghamtonians will be up for most of the night--two of the freshmen IVers have cited papers due tomorrow that they've yet to start. It's not the misery-loves-company aspect that attracts me, though, but the idea that other people will be up late with me. There's something about being the only one awake, late at night, that for years has mildly creeped me out.
Anyway, this paper, for good or ill, will be turned in on Wednesday afternoon; Diaspora will be my only class of the day, and it'll be a low-brainpower one, since I'll be watching a presentation. And Thursday night finally will allow me enough time to get to folk dancing; it'll be my first time since late September, and though the awkwardness of getting to re-know the Binghamton people makes me hesitate, I've decided not to miss it.
I know that a lot of things I've written lately, here and elsewhere, have been pretty heavy. Sorry. It's been a semester like that. But the break is coming, and it'll be a glorious six weeks long. When I'm done spending a couple of weeks with my family, I want to go on tour, as it were, and see everyone who wants to be seen. My parents seem pretty cool with the idea. You should all get a hold of me around late December; we'll hammer it out and I'll come sometime in January.
My energy's flagging already, which is a bad sign. I should get back to work.
-Laurel
I say it's a good night for it because it looks like some other Binghamtonians will be up for most of the night--two of the freshmen IVers have cited papers due tomorrow that they've yet to start. It's not the misery-loves-company aspect that attracts me, though, but the idea that other people will be up late with me. There's something about being the only one awake, late at night, that for years has mildly creeped me out.
Anyway, this paper, for good or ill, will be turned in on Wednesday afternoon; Diaspora will be my only class of the day, and it'll be a low-brainpower one, since I'll be watching a presentation. And Thursday night finally will allow me enough time to get to folk dancing; it'll be my first time since late September, and though the awkwardness of getting to re-know the Binghamton people makes me hesitate, I've decided not to miss it.
I know that a lot of things I've written lately, here and elsewhere, have been pretty heavy. Sorry. It's been a semester like that. But the break is coming, and it'll be a glorious six weeks long. When I'm done spending a couple of weeks with my family, I want to go on tour, as it were, and see everyone who wants to be seen. My parents seem pretty cool with the idea. You should all get a hold of me around late December; we'll hammer it out and I'll come sometime in January.
My energy's flagging already, which is a bad sign. I should get back to work.
-Laurel
11.24.2007
Oh, for the love of decency.
Dear Literary Theorists/Critics Everywhere,
I can understand putting slashes between opposing words ("and/or," etc.) when both uses work in the context of your sentence. But please stop putting them everywhere you just don't feel like typing out the proper conjunction. Nobody is amused by sentences like this one, which doesn't even end like an actual sentence:
"The fact that first interrogations into the 'content of the form' were undertaken under the auspices of border studies (Calderon and Saldivar 1991) gives credence to an attempt to see the form as occupying that slippery, interstitial position between reality/representation, public/private, traumatic/narrativized, form/content, literature/politics, written/oral" (Šesnic 2007: 241).
Also, please stop dancing around vocabulary problems by adding "-ize" and "-ism" to every existing verb and noun and calling them new terms; the admittedly-illustrious Arjun Appadurai, this means YOU.
Clearly, I've gotten so far on the actual writing part of my diaspora-class paper. I do have an outline, at least.
-Laurel
I can understand putting slashes between opposing words ("and/or," etc.) when both uses work in the context of your sentence. But please stop putting them everywhere you just don't feel like typing out the proper conjunction. Nobody is amused by sentences like this one, which doesn't even end like an actual sentence:
"The fact that first interrogations into the 'content of the form' were undertaken under the auspices of border studies (Calderon and Saldivar 1991) gives credence to an attempt to see the form as occupying that slippery, interstitial position between reality/representation, public/private, traumatic/narrativized, form/content, literature/politics, written/oral" (Šesnic 2007: 241).
Also, please stop dancing around vocabulary problems by adding "-ize" and "-ism" to every existing verb and noun and calling them new terms; the admittedly-illustrious Arjun Appadurai, this means YOU.
Clearly, I've gotten so far on the actual writing part of my diaspora-class paper. I do have an outline, at least.
-Laurel
11.21.2007
(serious)
I've been meaning to write this for the better part of a week, but work/procrastination/life have gotten severely in the way. This is largely a bad thing: I don't have the kind of coherency of memory and thought that I had on Friday. So this needs to be written, not only because it's been weighing on me, but because if I put it off any longer, it's going to subside into nothingness.
Last Friday we had a guy speak at IV who works for a counseling ministry in the Binghamton area, and he talked about his lifelong experience with being gay, and then not, and then gay again, and then not, and his present-day life married to a woman who also went through the same thing in her life. He talked about what that was like and his confusion about trying not to be same-sex-attracted and nothing changing for most of his life and lots of stuff thereconnected.
Clearly, that's quite a story. But what he wanted to focus on, really, was John 4:1-39 and 8:1-11 and Luke 7:36-50, and the way Jesus treated (treats) people (all female, here, but extending to everyone) who are emotionally and sexually broken (his term), and the kind of love and gentleness, if not behavioral acceptance, he invariably offered (offers). The guy went on to mention the Church's shortcomings on that sort of approach. With all this I would have agreed anyway.
But just agreeing is not enough. When Carrie wrapped things up, she charged those of us who didn't personally struggle with things like same-sex attraction or pornography addiction, or anything else that's so prevalent even within the Church itself, to be the kind of friend who's approachable in the eyes of those who are.
And please believe me when I say that I never set out not to be. But the fact remains that I have heard, a lot of times over the course of my college career, things that have made it obvious that non-Christian people and non-practicing Christians do not consider me approachable in such a way. I've had friends come out as bisexual and tell me that they hope I still want to associate with them. One of them, quite honestly, didn't even bother telling me, and my initial complicated reaction when I did find out would have made it, to any outsider, obvious as to why not. I've had a friend become pregnant and wait for months to tell me, telling my other friends that she was afraid I'd condemn her to hell (I don't even have the authority, let alone the desire, to do that) for sleeping with someone before she got married. In the way certain friends edit, when they talk to me, their accounts of what's going on in their lives, and I find out from other friends what they didn't want to tell me.
If I could belatedly clarify, for a moment, why there are many things that I do not do: it is not because following God is the same thing as obeying a set of rules. Just ask the Pharisees, who thought it was and turned into self-righteous lawkeepers who didn't even recognize their God when he finally arrived. They were looking, deep down, for someone to affirm their own ability to be good and righteous, to overcome through their own power the sin that so easily entangled those they saw as weak.
To follow God is instead, not to be cliched, a relationship. It's getting to know someone and finding that you're willing to do things out of admiration, the same way that there's so much I'm willing to do for a friend, for a boyfriend, for anyone who impresses me. It's like painting a picture (I know, I didn't make that up); you adjust it as you get a better idea of Him whom you're painting. So you end up doing something that looks like you're following a bunch of rules, but really, at heart, if you're doing what you're supposed to, what you're actually doing is trying to know God and follow Him the best way you can. While it does mean doing and not doing some very specific things, it's not really about a reward-punishment thing. It's about honoring and imitating someone.
But that doesn't mean that good Christians look like me. No, no. This semester, if nothing else, I have gotten a clear and painful sense of how incredibly frustrating a person I am. If you want to figure out what you're really like, put yourself in a place you don't want to be. Like a literary theory class. Like a Bible study full of people with less Biblical knowledge than you. Like an academic system that doesn't believe in disinterested love or objective good, that considers ingenuine the kindest people in your life, that considers unreal the realest things you've ever known. Have people inconvenience you. ...And in that situation, may you do better than I've done. Look at some of the things I've listed, how little deserving of pity they are, and how none of them make up for how I've acted. I've often treated Christians better than non-Christians, shying away from those who're hostile to my faith. I've treated many of those Christians little better, giving them impatience where I've gotten only gentleness. I've been angry and frightened--most of all frightened--and generally flawed. While my imperfection does not negate the truth of my faith, believe me, good Christians do not look like me.
I cannot promise to approve of your behavior if I do not think it's right. I can't even promise, though I can hope, not to feel frustrated about your having done it, since sometimes I can't get my emotions in line with my mental acknowledgement that I also do incorrect things. But I'm not in any position to make a statement about what kind of person you are.
Please believe me when I say that I'm not going to leave off being friends with you just for your doing something I can't get behind. I mean, say you slept with a guy and you're not necessarily sorry but now you're going to have a kid. Okay, so I'm going to think that sleeping with the guy was not a good idea, though I hope that that's not the first thing on my mind when you say so, and I hope that I'm not going to lecture you about it or something. But it would be my privilege to hold you and tell you you're going to get through it. It would be my privilege to help you in some practical way if I can. It isn't always present, but forgive any confusion of mine, any awkwardness; outside of writing, I've never had much in the way of grace. Give me a little time, and I hope I'll prove myself worthy of your trust.
People who're telling me about their lives are not coming to me as someone to fall at my feet and hope for absolution. You're there to love and be loved. That is something I understand, even if I've done a bad job heretofore at making it obvious.
That's really all I wanted to say. I'm sorry I'm not approachable; I'd like to be.
-Laurel
Last Friday we had a guy speak at IV who works for a counseling ministry in the Binghamton area, and he talked about his lifelong experience with being gay, and then not, and then gay again, and then not, and his present-day life married to a woman who also went through the same thing in her life. He talked about what that was like and his confusion about trying not to be same-sex-attracted and nothing changing for most of his life and lots of stuff thereconnected.
Clearly, that's quite a story. But what he wanted to focus on, really, was John 4:1-39 and 8:1-11 and Luke 7:36-50, and the way Jesus treated (treats) people (all female, here, but extending to everyone) who are emotionally and sexually broken (his term), and the kind of love and gentleness, if not behavioral acceptance, he invariably offered (offers). The guy went on to mention the Church's shortcomings on that sort of approach. With all this I would have agreed anyway.
But just agreeing is not enough. When Carrie wrapped things up, she charged those of us who didn't personally struggle with things like same-sex attraction or pornography addiction, or anything else that's so prevalent even within the Church itself, to be the kind of friend who's approachable in the eyes of those who are.
And please believe me when I say that I never set out not to be. But the fact remains that I have heard, a lot of times over the course of my college career, things that have made it obvious that non-Christian people and non-practicing Christians do not consider me approachable in such a way. I've had friends come out as bisexual and tell me that they hope I still want to associate with them. One of them, quite honestly, didn't even bother telling me, and my initial complicated reaction when I did find out would have made it, to any outsider, obvious as to why not. I've had a friend become pregnant and wait for months to tell me, telling my other friends that she was afraid I'd condemn her to hell (I don't even have the authority, let alone the desire, to do that) for sleeping with someone before she got married. In the way certain friends edit, when they talk to me, their accounts of what's going on in their lives, and I find out from other friends what they didn't want to tell me.
If I could belatedly clarify, for a moment, why there are many things that I do not do: it is not because following God is the same thing as obeying a set of rules. Just ask the Pharisees, who thought it was and turned into self-righteous lawkeepers who didn't even recognize their God when he finally arrived. They were looking, deep down, for someone to affirm their own ability to be good and righteous, to overcome through their own power the sin that so easily entangled those they saw as weak.
To follow God is instead, not to be cliched, a relationship. It's getting to know someone and finding that you're willing to do things out of admiration, the same way that there's so much I'm willing to do for a friend, for a boyfriend, for anyone who impresses me. It's like painting a picture (I know, I didn't make that up); you adjust it as you get a better idea of Him whom you're painting. So you end up doing something that looks like you're following a bunch of rules, but really, at heart, if you're doing what you're supposed to, what you're actually doing is trying to know God and follow Him the best way you can. While it does mean doing and not doing some very specific things, it's not really about a reward-punishment thing. It's about honoring and imitating someone.
But that doesn't mean that good Christians look like me. No, no. This semester, if nothing else, I have gotten a clear and painful sense of how incredibly frustrating a person I am. If you want to figure out what you're really like, put yourself in a place you don't want to be. Like a literary theory class. Like a Bible study full of people with less Biblical knowledge than you. Like an academic system that doesn't believe in disinterested love or objective good, that considers ingenuine the kindest people in your life, that considers unreal the realest things you've ever known. Have people inconvenience you. ...And in that situation, may you do better than I've done. Look at some of the things I've listed, how little deserving of pity they are, and how none of them make up for how I've acted. I've often treated Christians better than non-Christians, shying away from those who're hostile to my faith. I've treated many of those Christians little better, giving them impatience where I've gotten only gentleness. I've been angry and frightened--most of all frightened--and generally flawed. While my imperfection does not negate the truth of my faith, believe me, good Christians do not look like me.
I cannot promise to approve of your behavior if I do not think it's right. I can't even promise, though I can hope, not to feel frustrated about your having done it, since sometimes I can't get my emotions in line with my mental acknowledgement that I also do incorrect things. But I'm not in any position to make a statement about what kind of person you are.
Please believe me when I say that I'm not going to leave off being friends with you just for your doing something I can't get behind. I mean, say you slept with a guy and you're not necessarily sorry but now you're going to have a kid. Okay, so I'm going to think that sleeping with the guy was not a good idea, though I hope that that's not the first thing on my mind when you say so, and I hope that I'm not going to lecture you about it or something. But it would be my privilege to hold you and tell you you're going to get through it. It would be my privilege to help you in some practical way if I can. It isn't always present, but forgive any confusion of mine, any awkwardness; outside of writing, I've never had much in the way of grace. Give me a little time, and I hope I'll prove myself worthy of your trust.
People who're telling me about their lives are not coming to me as someone to fall at my feet and hope for absolution. You're there to love and be loved. That is something I understand, even if I've done a bad job heretofore at making it obvious.
That's really all I wanted to say. I'm sorry I'm not approachable; I'd like to be.
-Laurel
11.20.2007
Surname Fun
This isn't a more-important thing, either, but Matt (side-columned below) had this linked today, and I was surprised to discover, not that my last name made the list (no surprise), but that exactly one slot above it is my biological grandmother's surname. Whether, had my dad not been adopted, I would have ended up with that name or not, I'm not sure; I might have been a Coyle (which, for anything it's worth, is on the list, but farther down), though that's less likely, since my dad was given his mother's last name at birth, not his father's. It's all complicated, so I won't bother trying to describe it properly.
The other thing I thought was funny was that "Lewis" and "Clark" are also right next to each other.
-Laurel
The other thing I thought was funny was that "Lewis" and "Clark" are also right next to each other.
-Laurel
11.19.2007
Brevity
This isn't the "more serious" that I meant, but here are two things that seem somehow evocative of this semester:
1) Musing, as I ride the bus home at night, on the way the blue-tinted fluorescent lighting discolors certain shades of clothing and fabric. My gray hoodie simply has a blue cast over it--its original hue is obvious--but my bookbag, normally a sort of strawberry red, deepens to, not a red-plus-blue sort of purple, but more of a raspberry shade.
2) The way it feels to get off the bus back at the apartments, walk under the clock-tower thing, and smell Indian food. Of all the many small restaurants in this plaza, the Indian food always smells the strongest--not in a stale or unpleasant way, either, but like cooking meat and things fried in oil.
Those keep feeling significant somehow, not really a here is home, but more of a here I am and this is now.
-Laurel
1) Musing, as I ride the bus home at night, on the way the blue-tinted fluorescent lighting discolors certain shades of clothing and fabric. My gray hoodie simply has a blue cast over it--its original hue is obvious--but my bookbag, normally a sort of strawberry red, deepens to, not a red-plus-blue sort of purple, but more of a raspberry shade.
2) The way it feels to get off the bus back at the apartments, walk under the clock-tower thing, and smell Indian food. Of all the many small restaurants in this plaza, the Indian food always smells the strongest--not in a stale or unpleasant way, either, but like cooking meat and things fried in oil.
Those keep feeling significant somehow, not really a here is home, but more of a here I am and this is now.
-Laurel
11.16.2007
What I'm doing instead of my theory-class paper prospectus, which was supposed to be due today, except that I had a severely-unproductive day
In honor of my probably giving Christina this blog link soon, making her the first-ever Binghamtonian on here (well, except Joe, who technically lives here, though mostly he lives in Alfred), I have updated my side-column to actually include selected Binghamtonian people. I've been meaning to do that.
More soon, and more serious. But fear not: things go well.
-Laurel
More soon, and more serious. But fear not: things go well.
-Laurel
And, now that Blogger's doing photo uploads correctly, the pictures from Ross Park Zoo
Indian runner ducks; they don't waddle, they, well, run:
Bald eagle:
Leopard:
I should know what kind of bird this is, but I don't:
And some very cute penguins (I want to say they're African penguins):
You can click on any of them if you want to see them a little bigger.
The zoo here is a little rundown-looking, though I'm sure going in early November didn't help, and doesn't make a very efficient use of its space. Rosamond Gifford (the Syracuse zoo) it's not, and probably isn't Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, either, given how warmly Aneya describes it post-remodeling. But the late-afternoon sun coming through the trees, gold-coating the leaves as they fell to join the carpet at our feet, was very nice. And I had a whole carload of people to share it with: Christina and Jon both responded to the invite e-mail I sent to everyone from Ninth Hour (I also invited everyone from small-group, but no one could make it), and then Christina invited Joe and Wes, also of IV. Things were funny (including trying to find the zoo and then its entrance, since, while we never got lost, the directions were incomplete) and pretty peaceful, and I was glad to be there and have them there with me.
-Laurel
Bald eagle:
Leopard:
I should know what kind of bird this is, but I don't:
And some very cute penguins (I want to say they're African penguins):
You can click on any of them if you want to see them a little bigger.
The zoo here is a little rundown-looking, though I'm sure going in early November didn't help, and doesn't make a very efficient use of its space. Rosamond Gifford (the Syracuse zoo) it's not, and probably isn't Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, either, given how warmly Aneya describes it post-remodeling. But the late-afternoon sun coming through the trees, gold-coating the leaves as they fell to join the carpet at our feet, was very nice. And I had a whole carload of people to share it with: Christina and Jon both responded to the invite e-mail I sent to everyone from Ninth Hour (I also invited everyone from small-group, but no one could make it), and then Christina invited Joe and Wes, also of IV. Things were funny (including trying to find the zoo and then its entrance, since, while we never got lost, the directions were incomplete) and pretty peaceful, and I was glad to be there and have them there with me.
-Laurel
11.15.2007
Land of Plenty
Saw the documentary Lost Boys of Sudan tonight; it was really good. It struck a really generous balance between humor and seriousness. You all should watch it anyway, but be it known that I believe you'll be entertained as well as educated.
We read something for theory this week--why do things always get better right after I pitch fits about them?--about cosmopolitanism, by this guy with the last name Appiah. While not the end-all-be-all of theories, I mostly liked it--he actually began by laying out an argument for their being some universal, albeit complex, truths, then eventually talked about where nations' responsibilities in helping other countries should lie. I don't know how well his other-countries part works in real life, seeing how the world's eighty million causes essentially have to resort to capitalist principles to get our attention and, by extension, money. But I guess he wasn't quite saying they wouldn't.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've learned a little more about those around me, students and faculty alike. The Ph.D students here tend not to simply be people who've gotten done with the Master's program and are just now trying to publish or do things; they've done stuff. Jane (of the Diaspora-class incident) actually got her MFA at Cornell--they must not have a Ph.D in creative writing, or it sure beats me why she'd come here for it--and taught for a while at Ithaca College, but hasn't had much luck finding a tenure-track position at a four-year school, so she's getting the Ph.D, despite her MFA technically being a terminal degree in her field. She also apparently did something in South Africa connected to research she did about the country. (And, for what it's worth, it turns out her partner's patisserie, the one from which we had all the delicious food, is named after her; I wouldn't want something named after me, even a center of delectability, but cool that she's cool with it.) ...Andrei, who just led my group's presentation on Edwidge Danticat (the four of us gave it yesterday; it went well, but I'm glad I didn't know until tonight that Dr. Strehle's actually published an article about one of Danticat's stories; I think that would've made me a little nervous), currently teaches at Ithaca College himself and has a book of poetry out; he used to have a column in the Binghamton local newspaper. ...Noelle, another student, actually founded a voice studio when she wasn't busy racking up degrees. As for faculty, Dr. Keith was advised, while he was at Columbia getting his doctorate not many years ago, by Edward Said, who was one of the founding figures of postcolonial theory.
The Master's kids seem more normal, as it were, but I still appear to be the youngest, or, again, I just haven't found anyone my age. Sarah K., doctoral student (and I don't think she's new to the program), has gone out of her way this semester to be really nice to me, perhaps recognzing a lot sooner than I did how young and young-sounding I am, perhaps remembering her own MA days. Jose (doctoral but new; I mentioned him in one of the September entries) did a little of the same, though he was also more interested in being friends, not just acquaintences, with both Ryan (newbie MFAer) and me; whether he still is, I don't actually know.
How these doctoral students study and have jobs and families, I'm not entirely sure. I'm only a first-semester MA and feel like I perpetually manage my time badly, am forever under a deadline. I guess they do it the way my dad did it, but a little faster (he took seven years; these guys have only four). (Is it snotty of me to pity their families a little? It's not easy to have one member in a doctoral program--there're timing issues, considerable stress and patience issues.)
I'm the youngest MA I know, but the oldest IVer. It's interesting.
I can't see myself being a professor even for a two-year, but then, I can't see myself being anything, anywhere.
I've got to break this off here (just as well) and get to bed; it's later than the entry timestamp indicates.
-Laurel
We read something for theory this week--why do things always get better right after I pitch fits about them?--about cosmopolitanism, by this guy with the last name Appiah. While not the end-all-be-all of theories, I mostly liked it--he actually began by laying out an argument for their being some universal, albeit complex, truths, then eventually talked about where nations' responsibilities in helping other countries should lie. I don't know how well his other-countries part works in real life, seeing how the world's eighty million causes essentially have to resort to capitalist principles to get our attention and, by extension, money. But I guess he wasn't quite saying they wouldn't.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've learned a little more about those around me, students and faculty alike. The Ph.D students here tend not to simply be people who've gotten done with the Master's program and are just now trying to publish or do things; they've done stuff. Jane (of the Diaspora-class incident) actually got her MFA at Cornell--they must not have a Ph.D in creative writing, or it sure beats me why she'd come here for it--and taught for a while at Ithaca College, but hasn't had much luck finding a tenure-track position at a four-year school, so she's getting the Ph.D, despite her MFA technically being a terminal degree in her field. She also apparently did something in South Africa connected to research she did about the country. (And, for what it's worth, it turns out her partner's patisserie, the one from which we had all the delicious food, is named after her; I wouldn't want something named after me, even a center of delectability, but cool that she's cool with it.) ...Andrei, who just led my group's presentation on Edwidge Danticat (the four of us gave it yesterday; it went well, but I'm glad I didn't know until tonight that Dr. Strehle's actually published an article about one of Danticat's stories; I think that would've made me a little nervous), currently teaches at Ithaca College himself and has a book of poetry out; he used to have a column in the Binghamton local newspaper. ...Noelle, another student, actually founded a voice studio when she wasn't busy racking up degrees. As for faculty, Dr. Keith was advised, while he was at Columbia getting his doctorate not many years ago, by Edward Said, who was one of the founding figures of postcolonial theory.
The Master's kids seem more normal, as it were, but I still appear to be the youngest, or, again, I just haven't found anyone my age. Sarah K., doctoral student (and I don't think she's new to the program), has gone out of her way this semester to be really nice to me, perhaps recognzing a lot sooner than I did how young and young-sounding I am, perhaps remembering her own MA days. Jose (doctoral but new; I mentioned him in one of the September entries) did a little of the same, though he was also more interested in being friends, not just acquaintences, with both Ryan (newbie MFAer) and me; whether he still is, I don't actually know.
How these doctoral students study and have jobs and families, I'm not entirely sure. I'm only a first-semester MA and feel like I perpetually manage my time badly, am forever under a deadline. I guess they do it the way my dad did it, but a little faster (he took seven years; these guys have only four). (Is it snotty of me to pity their families a little? It's not easy to have one member in a doctoral program--there're timing issues, considerable stress and patience issues.)
I'm the youngest MA I know, but the oldest IVer. It's interesting.
I can't see myself being a professor even for a two-year, but then, I can't see myself being anything, anywhere.
I've got to break this off here (just as well) and get to bed; it's later than the entry timestamp indicates.
-Laurel
11.12.2007
Another potentially-ridiculous (for vanity's sake, I hope so) self-imposed rule, then a theory rant
Until further notice, any blog entries addressing the mundane, and not an actual topic, shall be limited to five sentences.
Literary theory continues to imply that my entire way of looking at the world is a sham, since it involves such wide-eyed naive things as objective (if complex) truth, not to mention logic. Ah, those tragically-ignorant Greeks, Romans, metaphysicians, and mathematicians; if only Derrida and Spivak had swooped down to save them from themselves.
How am I going to get eight pages out of a theory-based paper? Or, indeed, ten-to-fifteen out of a theory-based paper for Diaspora, due in only sixteen days?
-Laurel
Literary theory continues to imply that my entire way of looking at the world is a sham, since it involves such wide-eyed naive things as objective (if complex) truth, not to mention logic. Ah, those tragically-ignorant Greeks, Romans, metaphysicians, and mathematicians; if only Derrida and Spivak had swooped down to save them from themselves.
How am I going to get eight pages out of a theory-based paper? Or, indeed, ten-to-fifteen out of a theory-based paper for Diaspora, due in only sixteen days?
-Laurel
11.06.2007
Another Failed Attempt at Posting in Only Five Minutes (though I've actually kept the drafting stage to ten this time)
Thrown off in part by the change back to Eastern Standard Time, I went to bed at something like nine-thirty last night. I got up around six-twenty this morning, realizing that I actually felt rested. Have been up for four hours, spending much of it attempting, with varying degrees of success, to do homework items and a little bit of laundry. It feels good.
I lost track of the due date on my lone library loan, and owe sixty cents on a book I can't renew again and haven't even read.
But on the bright side, this has been, and will apparently continue to be, a big week for delicious food. Yesterday Jane brought in, as background for her group's presentation during Diaspora class (that is, because there's so much food in the book, they figured they could bring some food in for us), leftovers from her partner's patisserie--chocolate mousse and fruit tarts and small lovely oranges and who even knows what delectability. Tonight I'm making taco dip for prayer-ministry team as the most convenient way to use up some leftover ingredients I have (it still wasn't a convenient way per se, since I had to buy several other ingredients for it, but I've been wanting some for a while now anyway). And Wednesday, instead of having a regular Bible study, small group's going to celebrate Clarissa's birthday by going out for dessert.
And beginning on Friday, though maybe not for the whole weekend (still trying to decide how much work I can/should get done), I will be in Alfred. That's not food-oriented, but it will be filling anyway.
-Laurel
I lost track of the due date on my lone library loan, and owe sixty cents on a book I can't renew again and haven't even read.
But on the bright side, this has been, and will apparently continue to be, a big week for delicious food. Yesterday Jane brought in, as background for her group's presentation during Diaspora class (that is, because there's so much food in the book, they figured they could bring some food in for us), leftovers from her partner's patisserie--chocolate mousse and fruit tarts and small lovely oranges and who even knows what delectability. Tonight I'm making taco dip for prayer-ministry team as the most convenient way to use up some leftover ingredients I have (it still wasn't a convenient way per se, since I had to buy several other ingredients for it, but I've been wanting some for a while now anyway). And Wednesday, instead of having a regular Bible study, small group's going to celebrate Clarissa's birthday by going out for dessert.
And beginning on Friday, though maybe not for the whole weekend (still trying to decide how much work I can/should get done), I will be in Alfred. That's not food-oriented, but it will be filling anyway.
-Laurel
11.03.2007
Most of the time I don't like cynicism, but I find myself laughing at this anyway...
Speaking of, I do plan to put up pictures from the trip I made yesterday, with four other IV people, to the Ross Park Zoo here in Binghamton. But that entails finding my camera cord, and that entails cleaning this ruddy room. Funny thing, and predictable: I want most badly to clean things when I have other, less desirable work hanging over my head. So for most of October, while I did grad stuff all the time, I kept having to quell my desire to scrub things. Now that the immediate work has calmed down a little, I want less to tidy up, but need more urgently to do it.
So to responsibility.
-Laurel
11.01.2007
For those of you interested in what I'm taking next semester...
Course registration for next semester was this morning, at least for grad students and undergrads with a lot of credits. I don't think I've ever been blocked out of an overloaded online-reg page before, but then, a system serving several thousand students at once might get full around the 8 AM startup time, might'n't it? Anyway, I wasn't too concerned, which was just as well: when I got into the system at 8:05, none of the classes I wanted had even hit five registrants yet.
The other complication I'd had to overcome had been in course selection itself. Regardless of whether I end up switching into education or not (looking sort of unlikely--though, to be honest, it's not like I've had time to do any research into it yet), I've decided that Ph.Dness is not in my future, so I had fun trying to find interesting classes and avoid such hassles as seminar-style paper requirements (why learn them if I won't, thank heavens, be trying to present my work at academic conferences?), heavy emphasis on literary theory (I can't get around at least a light emphasis, but let's keep me as content as possible, right?), or 25-page research assignments with abstracts (ewwww).
However, I did actually find a course listed, and discover that I was eligible to take it, that's about how to teach English to college students. Like, whoa! And I got in. That's Rhetoric & Composition Theory and Practice, which looks difficult but hopefully useful.
Another of next semester's courses will be Studies in Shakespeare, which sounds shockingly semi-normal (a super-famous literary figure, taught without without bringing anything weird or provocative into it? I'm not sure I believed Binghamton would do that...I wonder whether I actually had a basis for wondering, or if I've just been being cynical), taught by the Dr. Whittier whom Josh-from-Creative-Nonfiction told me was the only professor in the department who didn't do theory. He was wrong:
Studies in Shakespeare: Course focus on shifting Early Modern strategizings of heroism and the warrior in the HENRIAD (especially HENRY V), JULIUS CAESAR, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, and THE TEMPEST. Eclectic perspectives include feminist and evolutionary theory.
Well-ll, one could do worse than feminist and evolutionary theory. I guess this means I read the Henriad (was not aware that this was even a term, but hey) over Christmas break; I've never read any Shakespearean history plays, actually. (I should also get through Antony and Cleopatra if I can, as that's the other on that list which I've never read. ...Incidentally, I'm curious to see how quickly d'Artagnan's desire to comment on something to do with Shakespeare overpowers him, unless this parenthetical makes him decide to be intentionally perverse.)
Also, everyone's adjective of choice for describing Dr. Whittier seems to be "eccentric." I'm hoping that that's a good thing, à la Otto and Mayberry, and not à la Dr. Maiden.
The other class will be Visions of Reality in 19th-Century American Lit: Emphasizing philosophy and psychology, the course will investigate some 19th-century American writers' contrasting visions of reality, specifically their differing ontological assumptions and resolutions regarding identity and freedom.
Here is fervently hoping that real philosophy is better than literary theory's brand thereof. The texts look cool, though--some Hawthorne, for one--and I always have liked Am-Lit from around that time period. ...I really don't want it to be a course where we have to formulate and defend our own theory of reality, but you know something like that's probably coming, so-o there's nothing to do but get ready for it.
There, I hope that wasn't too dry.
-Laurel
The other complication I'd had to overcome had been in course selection itself. Regardless of whether I end up switching into education or not (looking sort of unlikely--though, to be honest, it's not like I've had time to do any research into it yet), I've decided that Ph.Dness is not in my future, so I had fun trying to find interesting classes and avoid such hassles as seminar-style paper requirements (why learn them if I won't, thank heavens, be trying to present my work at academic conferences?), heavy emphasis on literary theory (I can't get around at least a light emphasis, but let's keep me as content as possible, right?), or 25-page research assignments with abstracts (ewwww).
However, I did actually find a course listed, and discover that I was eligible to take it, that's about how to teach English to college students. Like, whoa! And I got in. That's Rhetoric & Composition Theory and Practice, which looks difficult but hopefully useful.
Another of next semester's courses will be Studies in Shakespeare, which sounds shockingly semi-normal (a super-famous literary figure, taught without without bringing anything weird or provocative into it? I'm not sure I believed Binghamton would do that...I wonder whether I actually had a basis for wondering, or if I've just been being cynical), taught by the Dr. Whittier whom Josh-from-Creative-Nonfiction told me was the only professor in the department who didn't do theory. He was wrong:
Studies in Shakespeare: Course focus on shifting Early Modern strategizings of heroism and the warrior in the HENRIAD (especially HENRY V), JULIUS CAESAR, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, and THE TEMPEST. Eclectic perspectives include feminist and evolutionary theory.
Well-ll, one could do worse than feminist and evolutionary theory. I guess this means I read the Henriad (was not aware that this was even a term, but hey) over Christmas break; I've never read any Shakespearean history plays, actually. (I should also get through Antony and Cleopatra if I can, as that's the other on that list which I've never read. ...Incidentally, I'm curious to see how quickly d'Artagnan's desire to comment on something to do with Shakespeare overpowers him, unless this parenthetical makes him decide to be intentionally perverse.)
Also, everyone's adjective of choice for describing Dr. Whittier seems to be "eccentric." I'm hoping that that's a good thing, à la Otto and Mayberry, and not à la Dr. Maiden.
The other class will be Visions of Reality in 19th-Century American Lit: Emphasizing philosophy and psychology, the course will investigate some 19th-century American writers' contrasting visions of reality, specifically their differing ontological assumptions and resolutions regarding identity and freedom.
Here is fervently hoping that real philosophy is better than literary theory's brand thereof. The texts look cool, though--some Hawthorne, for one--and I always have liked Am-Lit from around that time period. ...I really don't want it to be a course where we have to formulate and defend our own theory of reality, but you know something like that's probably coming, so-o there's nothing to do but get ready for it.
There, I hope that wasn't too dry.
-Laurel
10.31.2007
A little more serious, not to say melodramatic, than I had intended
I'm out from under the big pile of work, though I still have responsibility enough to keep me more or less on my toes for the rest of the ruddy semester. We get six weeks' vacation over Christmas, a SUNY gift still half-incomprehensible to a private-college girl like me. Apparently we're expected to earn it.
Choosing classes for next semester (signups are Thursday) has been mostly depressing: sure now that I'll never be a Ph.D, I'm trying to find ways to avoid courses that demand seminar-style research papers (what use now in going through that rot?), or indeed any papers more than about ten pages long (one class wants 20-25, with an abstract at the fore, and wasn't even a writing workshop). This cuts out a couple of options, and even at a biggish school like this, I don't have so many class options to begin with.
I did take some pleasure in learning, though, that there's now actually (amazing, here!) a class in our own department that's more or less about how to teach composition to students. The professor, when I e-mailed to ask about it, told me that, while it's going to be a requirement for all actual TAs, any interested student is welcome, and she hopes I'll register. I replied with my thanks, told her I would.
I do have to look into the difference between English lit and English education, decide whether it's a better idea for me, if I'm going to end up teaching in a community college or high school instead of a four-year, to simply learn education as better prep. Not that it should matter, but my parents would clearly rather have me teach in a community college. They have a point, though they don't know it: I'm not always very good, if camps this summer were any indication, with high schoolers.
Yet I helped out with the tiny Good Shepherd senior-high youth group this past Sunday and found myself wishing I were better at all of this. Two lonelyish boys (one of them technically a junior-higher, but never mind that for now), playing card games and studying Acts with Micah, who's youth pastor as well as choir director, not much older than me.
So different from Pearce's senior high group, so big, with so many more resources, rich in Roberts Wesleyan youth-ministers-to-be and dedicated parents (though the children of those parents, I couldn't help pitying, shuddering at the awkward imaginging of my mother or father being there instead).
Good Shepherd is at the edge of the city, just close enough to strip-malled Vestal for that not to be quite obvious. One of the two boys from Sunday, I know more about than he knows about me--what Pearce didn't have a lot of, at least not to my scant knowledge, were kids with drug-addicted siblings, mothers who violate court orders; fathers slowly doing construction work despite mostly-disabled backs to get money to fix abcessed, uninsured teeth. It sounds more like story than reality, to my sheltered life.
There's a lot I could say about politics of assistance, about poor families not poor enough to want charity, about upper-middle-class guilt, but I've tried for more than an hour and haven't really said any of it well. I'm going to bed, where I should've gone in the first place.
-Laurel
Choosing classes for next semester (signups are Thursday) has been mostly depressing: sure now that I'll never be a Ph.D, I'm trying to find ways to avoid courses that demand seminar-style research papers (what use now in going through that rot?), or indeed any papers more than about ten pages long (one class wants 20-25, with an abstract at the fore, and wasn't even a writing workshop). This cuts out a couple of options, and even at a biggish school like this, I don't have so many class options to begin with.
I did take some pleasure in learning, though, that there's now actually (amazing, here!) a class in our own department that's more or less about how to teach composition to students. The professor, when I e-mailed to ask about it, told me that, while it's going to be a requirement for all actual TAs, any interested student is welcome, and she hopes I'll register. I replied with my thanks, told her I would.
I do have to look into the difference between English lit and English education, decide whether it's a better idea for me, if I'm going to end up teaching in a community college or high school instead of a four-year, to simply learn education as better prep. Not that it should matter, but my parents would clearly rather have me teach in a community college. They have a point, though they don't know it: I'm not always very good, if camps this summer were any indication, with high schoolers.
Yet I helped out with the tiny Good Shepherd senior-high youth group this past Sunday and found myself wishing I were better at all of this. Two lonelyish boys (one of them technically a junior-higher, but never mind that for now), playing card games and studying Acts with Micah, who's youth pastor as well as choir director, not much older than me.
So different from Pearce's senior high group, so big, with so many more resources, rich in Roberts Wesleyan youth-ministers-to-be and dedicated parents (though the children of those parents, I couldn't help pitying, shuddering at the awkward imaginging of my mother or father being there instead).
Good Shepherd is at the edge of the city, just close enough to strip-malled Vestal for that not to be quite obvious. One of the two boys from Sunday, I know more about than he knows about me--what Pearce didn't have a lot of, at least not to my scant knowledge, were kids with drug-addicted siblings, mothers who violate court orders; fathers slowly doing construction work despite mostly-disabled backs to get money to fix abcessed, uninsured teeth. It sounds more like story than reality, to my sheltered life.
There's a lot I could say about politics of assistance, about poor families not poor enough to want charity, about upper-middle-class guilt, but I've tried for more than an hour and haven't really said any of it well. I'm going to bed, where I should've gone in the first place.
-Laurel
10.21.2007
Back in contact with the online world
Glory to God for church; and for apple pie; and for friendly, patient customer service guys at Time Warner; and for the restoration of my internet connection.
And now I'm going to work like ruddy sixty until this thrice-wretched creative-nonfiction draft is finished. Hopefully before midnight, but even that's going to necessitate some considerable productivity and diligence. Clearly, there is not yet literal rest for the weary.
Not to mention that Dr. Keith doesn't know how to put our readings up on Blackboard, and his grad-student assistant is at a conference, so I'm going to have just over twenty-four hours with my theory reading this week before I actually have to lead a discussion (with handouts) thereon.
That all sounds cranky, but really, I'm at the point where there's almost nothing to do except be perpetually amused. This is easier to do now that I have internet.
-Laurel
And now I'm going to work like ruddy sixty until this thrice-wretched creative-nonfiction draft is finished. Hopefully before midnight, but even that's going to necessitate some considerable productivity and diligence. Clearly, there is not yet literal rest for the weary.
Not to mention that Dr. Keith doesn't know how to put our readings up on Blackboard, and his grad-student assistant is at a conference, so I'm going to have just over twenty-four hours with my theory reading this week before I actually have to lead a discussion (with handouts) thereon.
That all sounds cranky, but really, I'm at the point where there's almost nothing to do except be perpetually amused. This is easier to do now that I have internet.
-Laurel
10.20.2007
Nota Bene
Joe has alerted me to the fact that this year's IV-Alfred square dance is Friday, November 9th. Since this past May, I've been telling people I'd be back for that, since I've never yet made it to one before, so it's time for me to deliver.
Therefore, I'm apparently going to Alfred on the 9th, which opens out Veteran's Day weekend (though Veteran's Day itself--should that be Veterans' Day? You would think, wouldn't you?--is on a Sunday, thereby ruining any slim chance that I might have off on Monday...ah, well, no matter). Interested parties should note my car's ample free space, if you happen to want a ride to your alma mater (regardless of whether you're actually planning to dance); I can think of about four people who should at least consider it.
Some guys in the hall are singing the phrase "slide show" in arpeggioed harmony (is there a better term for that than the one I'm using?). It's kind of impressive, but I have no idea what they're up to.
-Laurel
Therefore, I'm apparently going to Alfred on the 9th, which opens out Veteran's Day weekend (though Veteran's Day itself--should that be Veterans' Day? You would think, wouldn't you?--is on a Sunday, thereby ruining any slim chance that I might have off on Monday...ah, well, no matter). Interested parties should note my car's ample free space, if you happen to want a ride to your alma mater (regardless of whether you're actually planning to dance); I can think of about four people who should at least consider it.
Some guys in the hall are singing the phrase "slide show" in arpeggioed harmony (is there a better term for that than the one I'm using?). It's kind of impressive, but I have no idea what they're up to.
-Laurel
10.19.2007
Random thoughts from an illogically-tired self (I've gotten enough sleep all week and am still cotton-headed; what is the deal?)
Still working on the creative nonfiction draft. I don't like what I've written all that much, but right now all I can do is pound things out, hand it in Monday, and try to forget about it until it's workshopped on the 29th (ewwww). Tell me why, again, I thought it was a good idea to take a class designed for MFAs as an elective? I understand that it said "lit students welcome," but all the same.
Also, the internet in my room is dead until further notice (I'm in the apartment's computer lab). This is a good way to minimize my distractions while I finish the draft, but it's also a hassle because I'm not sure whether or not I'll actually have to call Time Warner to get things fixed, which's what the apartment staff suggested. There's another thing I can probably do, though, instead. Way to be vague, right? Well, we'll see.
IV had a service auction tonight, which was great fun...we all offered things we're reasonably good at, people bid on them, and the money all goes to the chapter. I didn't expect to bid on anything, but Carrie asked me if I'd go halves with her on the dinner for two that Sunroot and Luther were cooking, since apparently Sunroot makes really good Chinese food. So I did, and we won. There is eventually some homemade Chinese in my future, then, which does sound delicious.
I auctioned off my breadmaking skills, so when things calm down a bit homework-wise, I'm making some pear spice coffee cake and some mango bread, which's what my winner picked (the options were pretty much one recipe's worth of yeast bread, since the batches tend to be bigger, or two smaller items, which's what she went for). Not that I've made either thing before, but I'll figure it out.
I miss Alfred. Also, I feel like this entry is really boring.
-Laurel
Also, the internet in my room is dead until further notice (I'm in the apartment's computer lab). This is a good way to minimize my distractions while I finish the draft, but it's also a hassle because I'm not sure whether or not I'll actually have to call Time Warner to get things fixed, which's what the apartment staff suggested. There's another thing I can probably do, though, instead. Way to be vague, right? Well, we'll see.
IV had a service auction tonight, which was great fun...we all offered things we're reasonably good at, people bid on them, and the money all goes to the chapter. I didn't expect to bid on anything, but Carrie asked me if I'd go halves with her on the dinner for two that Sunroot and Luther were cooking, since apparently Sunroot makes really good Chinese food. So I did, and we won. There is eventually some homemade Chinese in my future, then, which does sound delicious.
I auctioned off my breadmaking skills, so when things calm down a bit homework-wise, I'm making some pear spice coffee cake and some mango bread, which's what my winner picked (the options were pretty much one recipe's worth of yeast bread, since the batches tend to be bigger, or two smaller items, which's what she went for). Not that I've made either thing before, but I'll figure it out.
I miss Alfred. Also, I feel like this entry is really boring.
-Laurel
10.15.2007
My brain actually sort of feels tired...
Stolen from 'Nanda and everybody should go show off their vocabulary:
Free Rice
The only problem is that it doesn't appear to cut you off at any point (or at least I got through about 153 words without being cut off), so you (read: I) basically just want to keep going and going and going, seeing how high I can get my vocabulary level. I think I topped out, across those 153 words, at Level 46, and mostly I rose and fell along the low 40s. I really want that to mean that nobody's going to do better, but I'm sure certain people will.
Okay, gonna do a wee bit o'reading for class, and then I'm ruddy going to bed.
-Laurel
Free Rice
The only problem is that it doesn't appear to cut you off at any point (or at least I got through about 153 words without being cut off), so you (read: I) basically just want to keep going and going and going, seeing how high I can get my vocabulary level. I think I topped out, across those 153 words, at Level 46, and mostly I rose and fell along the low 40s. I really want that to mean that nobody's going to do better, but I'm sure certain people will.
Okay, gonna do a wee bit o'reading for class, and then I'm ruddy going to bed.
-Laurel
This is upstate New York; am I really surprised?
Whoa! How'd the forecast for this week get, like, fifteen degrees warmer every day? Thursday night, when I checked, everything was supposed to be October-cold for the next ten days. Now it's going to be, like, seventy-four on Friday, with fifties and sixties all week besides.
So glad I cut into my worktime to get myself a couple of warmer shirts...? Oh, well, they came in handy this weekend.
-Laurel
So glad I cut into my worktime to get myself a couple of warmer shirts...? Oh, well, they came in handy this weekend.
-Laurel
10.13.2007
Supplemental
Question for myself: am I actually hoping that, if I did work with IV/GS next semester, I'd discover that I'm cut out to teach them English? Or am I really hoping I'm cut out for IV staff?
-Laurel
-Laurel
10.12.2007
Midterm Mirror-Stare
Greetings from Friday afternoon; I'm farther behind on my work than I'd like to be, but I've mostly outlined my five-pager for Diaspora and now have only to put it in coherent typed form. Dr. Strehle changed her mind, thank goodness, on making us talk about theory within our analysis. Now we don't have to do that until the final, so, not being otherwise inspired, I'm going to write what I know: I've picked a theme that intrigues me (surrogate parent-child relationships between diasporic and native-born characters) and investigated it across three or four of the short stories within Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, easily my favorite of the four books we've read so far.
My keycard has also been replaced--for free. They offered to punch a keyring hole in it, but, fearing an encore of the first key's fate, I declined, hopefully with decorum. After all, I actually own and use a wallet now, and have even, in what I amusedly regard as a concession to femininity, acquired a purse (denim, mind you, not one of those leathery things...I haven't entirely changed). It's the cell phone and keycard that did it: I couldn't just shove those in my pockets the way I used to do with my Alfred keys and ID. The keycard (as demonstrated!) would've cracked, the cell phone would've fallen out. I had to join the adult world and find secure places to keep them, and it's ridiculous that I feel like I have to explain this, as though anyone would care.
...The thing about teaching that does attract me is the fact that it's not all doing, but not all analyzing. What I didn't like about working at RIT, back in high school, was not just that the work was all very simple and often repetitive. It was also that I had to sit in the same place all the time, interacting awkwardly with all the same people. Not that they weren't very nice people, but I loved running errands and even liked answering phones, as long as I knew what all the answers should be to the questions. Just customer service, I don't think I'd be much good at. But something where I could balance private work time with public time is an attractive thought. Something like editing, though I know I could do it well, might be a bit one-sided.
Yet I don't know what I think of teaching itself, don't know anything about how to do it, or about how to deal with people who aren't themselves enthusiastic. FYE and Writing Center helped, but were much simpler than teaching itself would be. Would I be able to do it to my own standards, which are high? Would I wish, like I do as a graduate student, that I could just stop thinking and defending for a while, just be told what to do and do it?
Like with college itself, where noplace presented itself as the one shining school to which I was inexorably drawn, I've never in my life been able to picture myself in a career, even during all those childhood years when I wrote proto-fanfiction and called myself a future author. I'm going to have to choose whatever seems best and pray that I'll grow into it, as I grew into Alfred; have to rely on the fact that, at heart, I want to be, and usually am, content. Out of anyplace I am, I want a good church, warm and close relationships, a job that doesn't bore me to death, and a place I can call home and get to know well. I don't care to be rich, nor to live in some big city, or be anyone famous...and APO taught me that I don't even want a position of much power, just as Dr. Mayberry tried heading the English department and hated it. Alfred is still the closest thing I have to a home, but I've been amazed at how quickly I've come to feel at home in Binghamton, despite its strip-mall quality, its lack of quirky people and down-to-earth coziness, its lack of my best friends. I credit IV-Binghamton for easing much of the way, and church for the rest. Rather than go to a different school and fervently hope that all that works out again, I'd much sooner stay here.
What I'd like to do, I've begun to believe, is take next semester off of classes, but stay here in Binghamton. A part-time job would be enough to keep me in whatever I need, at least for now. And in the time I'm not doing who-knows-what, I could be on volunteer staff for IV (oh happy thought!), and could help lighten Micah's load at Good Shepherd with the just-starting high school youth ministry. It would give me all the high school and college students I've ever wanted, give me a chance to figure out what I think of them, see whether I'd ever be good at teaching them. And if I was, I could go back to school, finish up my Master's, see about teaching at a community college, or maybe take education classes and teach high school.
I don't want a Ph.D in English lit, that much I know right now. I'm not into research; I'm repelled by the dreaded, alliterative "publish or perish"; not interested in which author's coming out with what, or who's saying something provocative about what book, or what history lies behind my favorite things. Even in children's lit, so far my favorite of everything, such things don't interest me: a Newbery Honor winner came to campus on Tuesday night and I skipped her over and went to IV instead. I hadn't read her book (only an Honor); I had no questions; I didn't really want to go. I have no interest in conferences, in my own work.
I want to read books. I want to talk with people about what those books are saying and how they're saying it. I want to ask what that says about how we should be living, and then I want to go and live it. And maybe I'd like to be able, gorgeously and compellingly, to describe moments from my life that I find important. Those things are all, really, I've ever wanted from literature.
Teaching at a lower level, maybe I could do that. But rather than apply to other programs, go somewhere else, write papers, pray for a TA position I might never, as a Master's student, get, I'd rather stay here and serve, use those I'm helping as guinea pigs I can get close to. I'm still so young for a grad student; of all the people in my program, I might be the only one who's only a semester out of undergrad. (I think Ryan's in the same boat, but he's MFA.) I could easily take next semester, or a year, without falling behind. Or, the way the program's set up, I could go part-time for the semester instead of working, so that if I wanted to complete the Master's, I wouldn't have to reapply. I'd still graduate on time, believe it or not, if I only took one class next semester.
This weekend I'll ask Carrie and Micah about what it'd take to be on their teams. If it all sounds right, maybe I'll gather my thoughts together and present it to my parents. Maybe I've figured out what to do.
But for this minute, I suppose, I should start my Diaspora paper.
-Laurel
My keycard has also been replaced--for free. They offered to punch a keyring hole in it, but, fearing an encore of the first key's fate, I declined, hopefully with decorum. After all, I actually own and use a wallet now, and have even, in what I amusedly regard as a concession to femininity, acquired a purse (denim, mind you, not one of those leathery things...I haven't entirely changed). It's the cell phone and keycard that did it: I couldn't just shove those in my pockets the way I used to do with my Alfred keys and ID. The keycard (as demonstrated!) would've cracked, the cell phone would've fallen out. I had to join the adult world and find secure places to keep them, and it's ridiculous that I feel like I have to explain this, as though anyone would care.
...The thing about teaching that does attract me is the fact that it's not all doing, but not all analyzing. What I didn't like about working at RIT, back in high school, was not just that the work was all very simple and often repetitive. It was also that I had to sit in the same place all the time, interacting awkwardly with all the same people. Not that they weren't very nice people, but I loved running errands and even liked answering phones, as long as I knew what all the answers should be to the questions. Just customer service, I don't think I'd be much good at. But something where I could balance private work time with public time is an attractive thought. Something like editing, though I know I could do it well, might be a bit one-sided.
Yet I don't know what I think of teaching itself, don't know anything about how to do it, or about how to deal with people who aren't themselves enthusiastic. FYE and Writing Center helped, but were much simpler than teaching itself would be. Would I be able to do it to my own standards, which are high? Would I wish, like I do as a graduate student, that I could just stop thinking and defending for a while, just be told what to do and do it?
Like with college itself, where noplace presented itself as the one shining school to which I was inexorably drawn, I've never in my life been able to picture myself in a career, even during all those childhood years when I wrote proto-fanfiction and called myself a future author. I'm going to have to choose whatever seems best and pray that I'll grow into it, as I grew into Alfred; have to rely on the fact that, at heart, I want to be, and usually am, content. Out of anyplace I am, I want a good church, warm and close relationships, a job that doesn't bore me to death, and a place I can call home and get to know well. I don't care to be rich, nor to live in some big city, or be anyone famous...and APO taught me that I don't even want a position of much power, just as Dr. Mayberry tried heading the English department and hated it. Alfred is still the closest thing I have to a home, but I've been amazed at how quickly I've come to feel at home in Binghamton, despite its strip-mall quality, its lack of quirky people and down-to-earth coziness, its lack of my best friends. I credit IV-Binghamton for easing much of the way, and church for the rest. Rather than go to a different school and fervently hope that all that works out again, I'd much sooner stay here.
What I'd like to do, I've begun to believe, is take next semester off of classes, but stay here in Binghamton. A part-time job would be enough to keep me in whatever I need, at least for now. And in the time I'm not doing who-knows-what, I could be on volunteer staff for IV (oh happy thought!), and could help lighten Micah's load at Good Shepherd with the just-starting high school youth ministry. It would give me all the high school and college students I've ever wanted, give me a chance to figure out what I think of them, see whether I'd ever be good at teaching them. And if I was, I could go back to school, finish up my Master's, see about teaching at a community college, or maybe take education classes and teach high school.
I don't want a Ph.D in English lit, that much I know right now. I'm not into research; I'm repelled by the dreaded, alliterative "publish or perish"; not interested in which author's coming out with what, or who's saying something provocative about what book, or what history lies behind my favorite things. Even in children's lit, so far my favorite of everything, such things don't interest me: a Newbery Honor winner came to campus on Tuesday night and I skipped her over and went to IV instead. I hadn't read her book (only an Honor); I had no questions; I didn't really want to go. I have no interest in conferences, in my own work.
I want to read books. I want to talk with people about what those books are saying and how they're saying it. I want to ask what that says about how we should be living, and then I want to go and live it. And maybe I'd like to be able, gorgeously and compellingly, to describe moments from my life that I find important. Those things are all, really, I've ever wanted from literature.
Teaching at a lower level, maybe I could do that. But rather than apply to other programs, go somewhere else, write papers, pray for a TA position I might never, as a Master's student, get, I'd rather stay here and serve, use those I'm helping as guinea pigs I can get close to. I'm still so young for a grad student; of all the people in my program, I might be the only one who's only a semester out of undergrad. (I think Ryan's in the same boat, but he's MFA.) I could easily take next semester, or a year, without falling behind. Or, the way the program's set up, I could go part-time for the semester instead of working, so that if I wanted to complete the Master's, I wouldn't have to reapply. I'd still graduate on time, believe it or not, if I only took one class next semester.
This weekend I'll ask Carrie and Micah about what it'd take to be on their teams. If it all sounds right, maybe I'll gather my thoughts together and present it to my parents. Maybe I've figured out what to do.
But for this minute, I suppose, I should start my Diaspora paper.
-Laurel
10.11.2007
The keycard crack'd from side to side
Okay, so it only cracked further along the original line, but a whole piece of it broke off. The thing still works, but you know I'm not going to be able to just hand it in this spring (this winter?) and get away with it. So I guess tomorrow I take it to the office, explain the whole thing, and see whether they'll replace it for free or treat it like a lost key (in such a case, I'd incur a $35 charge and would not, as the Alfred '04 girls used to say, be of the amused).
Just thought I'd update. I'm quite upbeat. Workload goes fairly. I should be farther along in my reading than I am, but I had to go run some errands. I'll finish off my box of cereal and keep reading.
-Laurel
Just thought I'd update. I'm quite upbeat. Workload goes fairly. I should be farther along in my reading than I am, but I had to go run some errands. I'll finish off my box of cereal and keep reading.
-Laurel
10.10.2007
::giggles::
After spending last week, in the thick of work, going please, God, can't theory class get cancelled?--and only half meaning it, figuring all the time that it probably shouldn't be and therefore never would--I came back tonight to an e-mail from Dr. Keith. Cancelling theory class for tomorrow.
It's still a good time for that, too--things go much more calmly this week (my sanity has returned; everyone's safe to socialize with me), but there's still plenty to be done. Feels rather like a snow day!
-Laurel
It's still a good time for that, too--things go much more calmly this week (my sanity has returned; everyone's safe to socialize with me), but there's still plenty to be done. Feels rather like a snow day!
-Laurel
10.09.2007
Minutia (just one), plus update
We use keycards to get into the apartment complex. I was allowed to punch a hole in mine so's to thread it through my keyring, which made me look like I lived at a Holiday Inn.
Except last week I managed to crack said keycard in a short line down from the punched hole. It still works (and is still in one piece), which's good, since I think I'd be charged for a replacement. So now it looks like I live in a cheap motel, haha.
*
Classes have gone better yesterday and today than they were logically supposed to. I'm still very busy, but things are arranging themselves such that I might end up with a little less work, or at least a little less time crunch, than there looks to be on paper. Well, gloria.
Though I'm not suddenly okay with three more semesters of this, mind you. I'm really starting to wonder whether I want to get into a profession wherein my work doesn't end when my workday does, since teaching certainly doesn't. I guess I'd have to decide whether the rewards were worth the investment.
Of course, Maggie's Tim reminds me that there's perhaps no such thing as a "normal" job, that even in a factory position he's pushed to work extra hours, only some of them paid for. Well, great.
-Laurel
Except last week I managed to crack said keycard in a short line down from the punched hole. It still works (and is still in one piece), which's good, since I think I'd be charged for a replacement. So now it looks like I live in a cheap motel, haha.
*
Classes have gone better yesterday and today than they were logically supposed to. I'm still very busy, but things are arranging themselves such that I might end up with a little less work, or at least a little less time crunch, than there looks to be on paper. Well, gloria.
Though I'm not suddenly okay with three more semesters of this, mind you. I'm really starting to wonder whether I want to get into a profession wherein my work doesn't end when my workday does, since teaching certainly doesn't. I guess I'd have to decide whether the rewards were worth the investment.
Of course, Maggie's Tim reminds me that there's perhaps no such thing as a "normal" job, that even in a factory position he's pushed to work extra hours, only some of them paid for. Well, great.
-Laurel
10.08.2007
Postscript
The work is going a little faster than I expected. I've decided that the not-quite-an-hour between Diaspora and Creative-Non will be enough to finish up the last little bit of CN work, or at least that I don't really care if my "working bibliography" (said remaining work) isn't quite as good as I'd like it to be. Since I feel a little funny but mostly passable, I guess I'll go to both classes after all. I don't know whether this means that things aren't as bad as I feel like they are, or what. It's not worth pondering, anyway.
Also, note to self: cinnamon and chili powder both come in red containers. Please season your squash with the first, not the second.
-Laurel
Also, note to self: cinnamon and chili powder both come in red containers. Please season your squash with the first, not the second.
-Laurel
Giving myself ten minutes to post...sort of
Having finally decided, for one thing, that more than a year is too long a time to spend not seeing people who're important to me, I worked like sixty all last week and then took the weekend to visit Albert. I've now seen the loveliness that is Rhode Island, the Scituate Arts Festival, and Atwater and Donnelly (who are every bit as talented and kind as Albert said). His dog is perhaps my favorite dog ever, which is not hard, as a) I only like small, fairly-gentle dogs; and b) I don't have to live with said dog full-time, haha. His family is a good one, especially his mom, who played board games with us on Saturday night; I actually won Scrabble, which you'd think would happen more often to an English major, but usually doesn't happen to me. I met his best friend Rachel; we later Facebooked each other, of course (note to Albert: on her favorite-books list, though it's technically not a book, is "The Open Boat." I can only assume that this is the one that I got teased about, so apparently she has questionable taste as well).
Grad school does not go well; there's no way around it. People who've known me for a while will know that I don't take prolonged heavy stress well on any level. I won't be free of seemingly-perpetual tension, thanks to my first three graded assignments of the semester (one paper, one rough draft of a massive project, one discussion-leading) coming due within eight days of each other, until about the night of October 23rd (Zinni's birthday, heh). So things are kind of deteriorating physically (woke up rather sick this morning, actually...I've never skipped a grad class before, but think I will beg off of Diaspora today, since we're not doing anything important) and mentally; my apologies if I snap at anybody or freak out on people, even though I'm told that I don't show as much of it as I think I do.
I don't want to whine too much, though. Please let me know if there're things going on in your lives that're bothering you.
Okay, that's eleven minutes, not counting revision time, so I've got to go. I won't have much excuse for having lots of work if I write blog posts instead of actually getting things done.
-Laurel
Grad school does not go well; there's no way around it. People who've known me for a while will know that I don't take prolonged heavy stress well on any level. I won't be free of seemingly-perpetual tension, thanks to my first three graded assignments of the semester (one paper, one rough draft of a massive project, one discussion-leading) coming due within eight days of each other, until about the night of October 23rd (Zinni's birthday, heh). So things are kind of deteriorating physically (woke up rather sick this morning, actually...I've never skipped a grad class before, but think I will beg off of Diaspora today, since we're not doing anything important) and mentally; my apologies if I snap at anybody or freak out on people, even though I'm told that I don't show as much of it as I think I do.
I don't want to whine too much, though. Please let me know if there're things going on in your lives that're bothering you.
Okay, that's eleven minutes, not counting revision time, so I've got to go. I won't have much excuse for having lots of work if I write blog posts instead of actually getting things done.
-Laurel
10.04.2007
Lightbulb moment and comment on the tenor (alto?) of my recent posts
Not to cite Rev. Matt twice in a week, but I'm impressed enough with this little insight on a Gospel incident that I'm posting it here in case anyone else has ever wondered about it (where did he--Matt--learn that about the common saying? I've never heard that and would be interested to know):
Once when Jesus was preaching a message, a guy came up to him and said, "Jesus, I’ll follow you anywhere, but let me bury my father first." Does anyone remember what Jesus said? "Let the dead bury their own dead." Now, that sounds incredibly cruel at first. But it really wasn’t. When the man said, 'let me go bury my father first', he wasn’t saying that his father was dead and laying around unburied, he was repeating a common phrase back then that meant, "I can’t leave my family while my father is still alive because he needs my help." The guy’s dad not only wasn’t dead yet, but he could have been decades away from the grave.
The man wanted to follow Jesus, but he also felt an obligation to his father, his family, and so he essentially said, "Hey, Jesus, blood is thicker than water."
And Jesus said, "I’m not water. I’ve got to be your priority; you need to follow me first and foremost."
I know I've done a lot of outside religious citation over the past couple of weeks--and indeed, have brought my faith into my posting a lot more over this past year than I may ever have before. I don't mean to do it to be exclusive. I do mean to ponder and hopefully clarify complex issues wherever I can for the benefit of anyone at all who's interested. If you're not (...whether because you're not interested in pondering Christianity or because you've already heard all of my insights in other places!), I applaud your persistence if you're still reading this blog. This isn't a devotional site per se, and I don't intend to turn it into one, but I can't help writing about what I'm thinking about, and often that's going to bring in that which's the basis of my entire world. So thanks again for reading.
It's the Thursday of a chaotic week: my creative nonfiction project's taking a turn in a different direction, I think, though I may end up bringing folk dancing in where it touches the topic (so far it's about how sometimes the things we do for enjoyment turn into things we do for the sake of excellence, as it were, and what I see as the advantages and disadvantages thereof...old-school SFErs, especially 'Nanda and Daf, I might try to pick your brains about this soon). Things, both connected to creative nonfiction and to other general life aspects, are not easier quite yet: I still have a lot of work ahead of me. But they are going better.
-Laurel
Once when Jesus was preaching a message, a guy came up to him and said, "Jesus, I’ll follow you anywhere, but let me bury my father first." Does anyone remember what Jesus said? "Let the dead bury their own dead." Now, that sounds incredibly cruel at first. But it really wasn’t. When the man said, 'let me go bury my father first', he wasn’t saying that his father was dead and laying around unburied, he was repeating a common phrase back then that meant, "I can’t leave my family while my father is still alive because he needs my help." The guy’s dad not only wasn’t dead yet, but he could have been decades away from the grave.
The man wanted to follow Jesus, but he also felt an obligation to his father, his family, and so he essentially said, "Hey, Jesus, blood is thicker than water."
And Jesus said, "I’m not water. I’ve got to be your priority; you need to follow me first and foremost."
I know I've done a lot of outside religious citation over the past couple of weeks--and indeed, have brought my faith into my posting a lot more over this past year than I may ever have before. I don't mean to do it to be exclusive. I do mean to ponder and hopefully clarify complex issues wherever I can for the benefit of anyone at all who's interested. If you're not (...whether because you're not interested in pondering Christianity or because you've already heard all of my insights in other places!), I applaud your persistence if you're still reading this blog. This isn't a devotional site per se, and I don't intend to turn it into one, but I can't help writing about what I'm thinking about, and often that's going to bring in that which's the basis of my entire world. So thanks again for reading.
It's the Thursday of a chaotic week: my creative nonfiction project's taking a turn in a different direction, I think, though I may end up bringing folk dancing in where it touches the topic (so far it's about how sometimes the things we do for enjoyment turn into things we do for the sake of excellence, as it were, and what I see as the advantages and disadvantages thereof...old-school SFErs, especially 'Nanda and Daf, I might try to pick your brains about this soon). Things, both connected to creative nonfiction and to other general life aspects, are not easier quite yet: I still have a lot of work ahead of me. But they are going better.
-Laurel
10.01.2007
"October,/And kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall,/But You go on/And on."
Partly to supplement my own Bible reading, which's been kind of up and down lately (among other potential contributing factors, I think I have to find a better place to do it than stretched across my bed, because that exacerbates any tired feeling I already have, and already my mind's a bit prone these days to wandering off as I read...this creates a lot of trouble during theory homework), and partly out of curiosity and appreciation, I've been working my way through the Good Shepherd sermon archive. It's quite good. I especially appreciated this one when I read it just a bit ago. There's just something about that balance between free grace and responsibility where it's always helpful to me to see it sketched out, even though it's not the first time I've heard that question addressed.
Secular responsibility is also important, which means that it's time for me to finish up my reading for creative nonfiction class this afternoon.
-Laurel
Secular responsibility is also important, which means that it's time for me to finish up my reading for creative nonfiction class this afternoon.
-Laurel
9.29.2007
One last note before I do morning things and then tackle some homework
I've been doing something a little unfair for several years now: while referring to myself and selected people under pen names, I've simply referred to many people by their real names, though I've tried to use first names only.
If you've got a problem with being called by your real name, please get a hold of me somehow (you might not want to just comment, unless you're tagging yourself by your pen name within that comment) and let me know what I should call you instead. It's easy (for me, 'cause I'm admin...not just your average QPQ reader) to search within my archives for every instance of your name popping up, so I can do that and then just change it wherever I find it. It may not help you stay anonymous among my current readers, but it'll give you a better shot for the new ones, if you care about that (I'm thinking of inviting a couple more Alfredians onto this, sort of retroactively), not to mention among anyone who just happens to stumble upon this blog against the dominant odds.
To clarify, this blog address is private, so people can't find it through regular Blogger listings/searches, but a) Google does cache certain pages of it, so if someone were to get particularly lucky in an obscure search, they could technically find it that way; and b) Ananda's blog, I believe, is public, and I happen to be among her links, so even though it's not the biggest chance, there's one that some random person could find her blog, and from there wander over here.
Therefore, yeah, if you'd like to be called something other than what you are, please let me know.
-Laurel
If you've got a problem with being called by your real name, please get a hold of me somehow (you might not want to just comment, unless you're tagging yourself by your pen name within that comment) and let me know what I should call you instead. It's easy (for me, 'cause I'm admin...not just your average QPQ reader) to search within my archives for every instance of your name popping up, so I can do that and then just change it wherever I find it. It may not help you stay anonymous among my current readers, but it'll give you a better shot for the new ones, if you care about that (I'm thinking of inviting a couple more Alfredians onto this, sort of retroactively), not to mention among anyone who just happens to stumble upon this blog against the dominant odds.
To clarify, this blog address is private, so people can't find it through regular Blogger listings/searches, but a) Google does cache certain pages of it, so if someone were to get particularly lucky in an obscure search, they could technically find it that way; and b) Ananda's blog, I believe, is public, and I happen to be among her links, so even though it's not the biggest chance, there's one that some random person could find her blog, and from there wander over here.
Therefore, yeah, if you'd like to be called something other than what you are, please let me know.
-Laurel
Whoa! Academic optimism! What is the deal?!
I've been worried about my creative-nonfiction project on folk dancing because I didn't think I'd necessarily know how to create "something at stake for the reader" without having to make controversy where I found none, or make it into a big question of cultural anatomy, or something like that.
But having read the responses I've gotten so far to the self-written folk dance survey I sent many of the Alfredian folk dancers (this's exactly I wanted to start with them-::much love::--instead of the Syracuse/Binghamton people, very nice though those guys are), you know what? I think it's going to work. I think that the project is going to end up complex, but genuine, and hopefully full of love and upbeatness and hope, just like folk dancing itself tends to be.
Heh. Pray God I'm right, or the disappointment's going to be even more intense than it was back when I thought this was going to be a disaster.
-Laurel
But having read the responses I've gotten so far to the self-written folk dance survey I sent many of the Alfredian folk dancers (this's exactly I wanted to start with them-::much love::--instead of the Syracuse/Binghamton people, very nice though those guys are), you know what? I think it's going to work. I think that the project is going to end up complex, but genuine, and hopefully full of love and upbeatness and hope, just like folk dancing itself tends to be.
Heh. Pray God I'm right, or the disappointment's going to be even more intense than it was back when I thought this was going to be a disaster.
-Laurel
Mental Wanderings
For my first-ever month of not having a meal plan or a nearby parent and therefore being entirely in charge of my own food consumption, I haven't done so badly. Scheduling has been a problem a few times, so I have in fact had some days that involved buying overpriced campus sandwiches, supplementing undersized lunches with vending-machine M&Ms because I'm not going to get dinner until almost 8, etc. And I discovered today, to my surprise, that all I'd eaten between my 9ish AM wakeup and 6 PM dinner was Goldfish crackers. On the whole, however, I think I've done a decent job of keeping a varied diet and not eating significantly too much or little. I do feel, though, like I should place more emphasis on produce, kind of decrease that considerable percentage of my diet which is salted carbohydrates.
As I type that, however, I'm finishing a large bowl of cereal...having finished off the last of the Goldfish crackers shortly therebefore. Ah, well, tomorrow's another day.
* *
Annie Dillard once wrote, brilliantly, "Never, ever, get yourself into a situation where you have nothing to do but write and read. You'll go into a depression."
And I believe wholeheartedly that she's right. It's only the things outside of class that've been keeping me together, and I'm not even mostly writing and reading, I feel like. Mostly, this week, I did stuff with church or IV. But Monday through Wednesday, in particular, were bad: I was under a lot of stress and very angsty, particularly about the English grad program. I don't know, it's just been a frustrating process; often I can't even explain well why I dislike my classes so much. I just do. They're so different from what I expected and wanted English to be. And what I want to do with my life is still very much up in the air.
So Wednesday, culminating in the incident described two entries below this one, was the last bad day, but not the last eventful one...I've had a couple of adventures since, unrelated to Wednesday's. They're not all my stories to tell yet, but the last few days have done a good job of taking me out of myself a little more and giving me ways to serve other people a bit. And that's helped me to recognize that Joe, who did his best over AIM to talk sense into me on Wednesday when I wanted least to hear it, is right. I'm apparently here in Binghamton for good reasons, and rather than withdraw and subsist, I'm supposed to be expending a bunch of effort and loving everybody in every best way that I can, and I'm supposed to expect victory in some form, even if it's not any form I can guess at from right here.
So I think class is still going to be miserable a lot--and here comes October, so actually having papers to write and presentations to give will make it even more so at times--how well I deal with that, we'll see--but I'll be here anyway, trying to, through God and by His grace, make something out of it. Prayer/support/hellos always appreciated; I'll try to return the favor.
In closing, I'm so glad to be loved here. IV and church are both wonderful and have gone out of their ways to make sure I feel like I've got support. I've come to dislike that word, support; it's overused. But that's what it is, a support system. How cliched. And how gorgeous.
-Laurel
As I type that, however, I'm finishing a large bowl of cereal...having finished off the last of the Goldfish crackers shortly therebefore. Ah, well, tomorrow's another day.
* *
Annie Dillard once wrote, brilliantly, "Never, ever, get yourself into a situation where you have nothing to do but write and read. You'll go into a depression."
And I believe wholeheartedly that she's right. It's only the things outside of class that've been keeping me together, and I'm not even mostly writing and reading, I feel like. Mostly, this week, I did stuff with church or IV. But Monday through Wednesday, in particular, were bad: I was under a lot of stress and very angsty, particularly about the English grad program. I don't know, it's just been a frustrating process; often I can't even explain well why I dislike my classes so much. I just do. They're so different from what I expected and wanted English to be. And what I want to do with my life is still very much up in the air.
So Wednesday, culminating in the incident described two entries below this one, was the last bad day, but not the last eventful one...I've had a couple of adventures since, unrelated to Wednesday's. They're not all my stories to tell yet, but the last few days have done a good job of taking me out of myself a little more and giving me ways to serve other people a bit. And that's helped me to recognize that Joe, who did his best over AIM to talk sense into me on Wednesday when I wanted least to hear it, is right. I'm apparently here in Binghamton for good reasons, and rather than withdraw and subsist, I'm supposed to be expending a bunch of effort and loving everybody in every best way that I can, and I'm supposed to expect victory in some form, even if it's not any form I can guess at from right here.
So I think class is still going to be miserable a lot--and here comes October, so actually having papers to write and presentations to give will make it even more so at times--how well I deal with that, we'll see--but I'll be here anyway, trying to, through God and by His grace, make something out of it. Prayer/support/hellos always appreciated; I'll try to return the favor.
In closing, I'm so glad to be loved here. IV and church are both wonderful and have gone out of their ways to make sure I feel like I've got support. I've come to dislike that word, support; it's overused. But that's what it is, a support system. How cliched. And how gorgeous.
-Laurel
9.27.2007
Supplement to the Previous
This morning I realized that part of something I said last night was incomplete. Rev. Matt's explanation starts with the assumption that the Gospels in themselves are reliable historical documents. If you're not sure you're on board with that, the best assistance I can offer is here, since obviously I can't ask everyone to go out and read The Case for Christ or another such book that tackles the question more fully.
-Laurel
-Laurel
Focus Group
Okay.
Who knows, what's coming may well be the most unpopular link I ever put up, at the end of the most unpopular post I ever write.
But let me explain.
The church I've joined here in Binghamton is Anglican--the denomination that in America is called the Episcopal Church, sometimes abbreviated ECUSA. I don't know why Americans go under a different name; being fairly new to Anglicanism (it's mostly just church traditions, not points of doctrine, that're different from other denominations), I'm not really sure what the deal is there, or whether there's any historical difference between the two at all.
But anyway, according to Reverends Matt and Anne, the intelligent, witty, truth-and-grace-balancing husband-and-wife team that runs Church of the Good Shepherd (they are, this semester, my two biggest human heroes), our church isn't an Episcopal church per se so much as an Anglican church, because right now there's a lot of false teaching within the ECUSA.
It brings in human sexuality, yes, but human sexuality is not the point. The crux of the disagreement is whether the Bible should be followed as it was originally written or not--which is explained, in much better words than mine, at the beginning of the link I'm providing at the bottom of this entry. In brief, that's largely why the Anglican "Worldwide Communion"--Anglican and Episcopal bishops and archbishops from all over the world--met this past week...they're trying to get a consensus on how to understand the sexuality teachings and speak on them with one voice. Right now, that one voice is not really coming together, which is why there's talk of the Anglican church breaking up (though I think reports are probably sensationalizing the matter at least a little).
Dr. Strehle brought this up in Fictions of Diaspora today because we're reading a novel called Funny Boy, a fictionalized account of a young gay Sri Lankan boy watching, decades ago, the Sinhalese/Tamil conflicts create havoc within his country. She had us discuss as a class what it was that the adults in the story found so threatening about potential homosexuality in children (the boy is caught dressing up as a bride in a pretend wedding that he and his cousins are putting on, and while the children are only treating this as a game, the adults overreact--that's my term, by the way; it's really dumb how seriously they take it--and see it as a harbinger of the boy turning out "funny" if something isn't done). The general class consensus seemed to be that this was solely a question of culture and usefulness--people reacting against something for which they couldn't find a practical use, fearing what they didn't understand.
And from there Dr. Strehle brought up the Anglican split and went on a sort of tirade about people "sitting behind white picket fences" and trying to legislate other people's sex lives. I don't remember her exact phrasing, but please believe me when I say that I wasn't reading into it: she didn't seem to understand that some people object to this on half-decent moral, not just cultural, grounds. (And incidentally, I realize that whether Christians should attempt to legislate morality for the rest of the country is a fair question. I think that most of the time, possibly including here, we shouldn't, but I'd rather tackle only one big issue per entry, so I'm not going to touch it here.) I've been a part of Good Shepherd for a month now, and I cannot stress enough how dedicated everyone is to following things because they're actually Biblically right, and this through going back to the Greek when necessary, double-checking everything to make sure it's really what we think it is. And when subjected to good scholarship, Biblical text stands as written, sometimes translated a bit more figuratively than the unbending literalists would have it (I think this accounts for our being cool with female priests, since their basis for this is also Biblical, but again, that's a topic for some other day), but never with the freedom to do whatever simply seems progressive.
I didn't say all that in class; after all, it's an English class, not a seminary. All I did was try to explain that I myself was coming out of an Episcopal church (that's what we still are officially; I figured it'd take too long to explain the official/unofficial thing...I'm sorry if that comes off as misleading), and that the conflict stemmed not out of knee-jerk tradtion, but out of two opposing ways to read the Biblical injunctions against homosexual behavior. I didn't say which one I followed; I only said that this was an actual moral question for them--I was trying to imply that I thought her connection between the story and current events was inapplicable, not to say a bit out of line in its blanket scorn.
I expected her to acknowledge that it was a more complex issue than we'd been making it sound and then go back on-topic, but Dr. Strehle proceeded to tell me that the Biblical writers didn't have a modern understanding of sexuality, and that, in fact, the Bible didn't prohibit homosexual acts, actually.
Leave off for a second the argument that the Old Testament laws have been scrapped since Jesus's crucifixion; that's a different point. What she gives is an argument that none of the laws ever forbade the behavior. Which, if you follow the aforementioned link (or, if you don't plan to do that, just stay with me long enough to consult Romans 1 on BibleGateway.com or in a Bible of your own), you'll see spelled out as simply incorrect. So all I said, rather startled, was, "Well, it does, but let's leave that for another time." Because again, this was an English class, and I didn't want to be the kid trying to turn it into a religious debate, yet I couldn't just let that comment slide because I knew it was incorrect.
Here another girl, whom I'll call Jane, broke in. Jane is not a big fan of Christianity--and quite understandably, for reasons I'm not going to share. Jane said, "No, it doesn't. I have a lot of Biblical background--never thought I'd need it--and while it says 'a man shall not lie with a man,' it never says anything about females."
All I really knew how to do, at that point, was stare at her confusedly, because that was in direct opposition to what I'd been taught from the Greek. Not only did I not really know how to explain that (haha, is anyone here really surprised that I'm not up on my Greek sexual terms?), but my silence was apparently construed as concession, because the discussion finally went elsewhere.
I am human and therefore more hurt (mainly for vain reasons) and frustrated (for ending up against my will in a sort of debate, and for being inhibited--both by my own ignorance and the circumstances--from explaining things properly) about this incident than I should be, but I am trying to understand and to respond in a way that's right (if any of the way I've told that story is bitter or otherwise out of line, please tell me so that I can correct it or at least apologize for it). I'm used to people assuming that my faith is wrong, but at least honestly-held. I thought that bothered me, but it bothers me more to be told that my opinions aren't even honest ones, that I haven't even bothered to know what I believe.
So, please, hear me out on this: the following is an explanation--done by Reverend Matt, no less--of the traditionally-Biblical side of this story...why we believe the Bible is still true after all these centuries, why we aren't just people who don't understand alternate choices, what the common arguments on our "own ground" are (why people think we're misunderstanding our own holy text, and why we're actually not). If you want to give a studied Christian opinion a fair shot, read it. If not, then don't. If you have further arguments, I can try to get you explanations if you truly want them.
I apologize if any of this comes off as insulting; that's not my intention. I don't forget that many homosexuals, bisexuals, and members of other sexual definitions often do a far better job of carrying out Christian commands than do actual Christians. (Someday before God each of us will have to give an account, and may He have mercy on us.) I know it kind of feels like that should justify leaving the LGBT community to their own views, but in actuality that's not the case, so we can't in good conscience stay completely silent on this.
All I can do is offer you the best explanation I know and hope that you at least agree that some Christians' opinions are honestly held. Thank you for reading this far.
On Human Sexuality and the Bible
-Laurel
Who knows, what's coming may well be the most unpopular link I ever put up, at the end of the most unpopular post I ever write.
But let me explain.
The church I've joined here in Binghamton is Anglican--the denomination that in America is called the Episcopal Church, sometimes abbreviated ECUSA. I don't know why Americans go under a different name; being fairly new to Anglicanism (it's mostly just church traditions, not points of doctrine, that're different from other denominations), I'm not really sure what the deal is there, or whether there's any historical difference between the two at all.
But anyway, according to Reverends Matt and Anne, the intelligent, witty, truth-and-grace-balancing husband-and-wife team that runs Church of the Good Shepherd (they are, this semester, my two biggest human heroes), our church isn't an Episcopal church per se so much as an Anglican church, because right now there's a lot of false teaching within the ECUSA.
It brings in human sexuality, yes, but human sexuality is not the point. The crux of the disagreement is whether the Bible should be followed as it was originally written or not--which is explained, in much better words than mine, at the beginning of the link I'm providing at the bottom of this entry. In brief, that's largely why the Anglican "Worldwide Communion"--Anglican and Episcopal bishops and archbishops from all over the world--met this past week...they're trying to get a consensus on how to understand the sexuality teachings and speak on them with one voice. Right now, that one voice is not really coming together, which is why there's talk of the Anglican church breaking up (though I think reports are probably sensationalizing the matter at least a little).
Dr. Strehle brought this up in Fictions of Diaspora today because we're reading a novel called Funny Boy, a fictionalized account of a young gay Sri Lankan boy watching, decades ago, the Sinhalese/Tamil conflicts create havoc within his country. She had us discuss as a class what it was that the adults in the story found so threatening about potential homosexuality in children (the boy is caught dressing up as a bride in a pretend wedding that he and his cousins are putting on, and while the children are only treating this as a game, the adults overreact--that's my term, by the way; it's really dumb how seriously they take it--and see it as a harbinger of the boy turning out "funny" if something isn't done). The general class consensus seemed to be that this was solely a question of culture and usefulness--people reacting against something for which they couldn't find a practical use, fearing what they didn't understand.
And from there Dr. Strehle brought up the Anglican split and went on a sort of tirade about people "sitting behind white picket fences" and trying to legislate other people's sex lives. I don't remember her exact phrasing, but please believe me when I say that I wasn't reading into it: she didn't seem to understand that some people object to this on half-decent moral, not just cultural, grounds. (And incidentally, I realize that whether Christians should attempt to legislate morality for the rest of the country is a fair question. I think that most of the time, possibly including here, we shouldn't, but I'd rather tackle only one big issue per entry, so I'm not going to touch it here.) I've been a part of Good Shepherd for a month now, and I cannot stress enough how dedicated everyone is to following things because they're actually Biblically right, and this through going back to the Greek when necessary, double-checking everything to make sure it's really what we think it is. And when subjected to good scholarship, Biblical text stands as written, sometimes translated a bit more figuratively than the unbending literalists would have it (I think this accounts for our being cool with female priests, since their basis for this is also Biblical, but again, that's a topic for some other day), but never with the freedom to do whatever simply seems progressive.
I didn't say all that in class; after all, it's an English class, not a seminary. All I did was try to explain that I myself was coming out of an Episcopal church (that's what we still are officially; I figured it'd take too long to explain the official/unofficial thing...I'm sorry if that comes off as misleading), and that the conflict stemmed not out of knee-jerk tradtion, but out of two opposing ways to read the Biblical injunctions against homosexual behavior. I didn't say which one I followed; I only said that this was an actual moral question for them--I was trying to imply that I thought her connection between the story and current events was inapplicable, not to say a bit out of line in its blanket scorn.
I expected her to acknowledge that it was a more complex issue than we'd been making it sound and then go back on-topic, but Dr. Strehle proceeded to tell me that the Biblical writers didn't have a modern understanding of sexuality, and that, in fact, the Bible didn't prohibit homosexual acts, actually.
Leave off for a second the argument that the Old Testament laws have been scrapped since Jesus's crucifixion; that's a different point. What she gives is an argument that none of the laws ever forbade the behavior. Which, if you follow the aforementioned link (or, if you don't plan to do that, just stay with me long enough to consult Romans 1 on BibleGateway.com or in a Bible of your own), you'll see spelled out as simply incorrect. So all I said, rather startled, was, "Well, it does, but let's leave that for another time." Because again, this was an English class, and I didn't want to be the kid trying to turn it into a religious debate, yet I couldn't just let that comment slide because I knew it was incorrect.
Here another girl, whom I'll call Jane, broke in. Jane is not a big fan of Christianity--and quite understandably, for reasons I'm not going to share. Jane said, "No, it doesn't. I have a lot of Biblical background--never thought I'd need it--and while it says 'a man shall not lie with a man,' it never says anything about females."
All I really knew how to do, at that point, was stare at her confusedly, because that was in direct opposition to what I'd been taught from the Greek. Not only did I not really know how to explain that (haha, is anyone here really surprised that I'm not up on my Greek sexual terms?), but my silence was apparently construed as concession, because the discussion finally went elsewhere.
I am human and therefore more hurt (mainly for vain reasons) and frustrated (for ending up against my will in a sort of debate, and for being inhibited--both by my own ignorance and the circumstances--from explaining things properly) about this incident than I should be, but I am trying to understand and to respond in a way that's right (if any of the way I've told that story is bitter or otherwise out of line, please tell me so that I can correct it or at least apologize for it). I'm used to people assuming that my faith is wrong, but at least honestly-held. I thought that bothered me, but it bothers me more to be told that my opinions aren't even honest ones, that I haven't even bothered to know what I believe.
So, please, hear me out on this: the following is an explanation--done by Reverend Matt, no less--of the traditionally-Biblical side of this story...why we believe the Bible is still true after all these centuries, why we aren't just people who don't understand alternate choices, what the common arguments on our "own ground" are (why people think we're misunderstanding our own holy text, and why we're actually not). If you want to give a studied Christian opinion a fair shot, read it. If not, then don't. If you have further arguments, I can try to get you explanations if you truly want them.
I apologize if any of this comes off as insulting; that's not my intention. I don't forget that many homosexuals, bisexuals, and members of other sexual definitions often do a far better job of carrying out Christian commands than do actual Christians. (Someday before God each of us will have to give an account, and may He have mercy on us.) I know it kind of feels like that should justify leaving the LGBT community to their own views, but in actuality that's not the case, so we can't in good conscience stay completely silent on this.
All I can do is offer you the best explanation I know and hope that you at least agree that some Christians' opinions are honestly held. Thank you for reading this far.
On Human Sexuality and the Bible
-Laurel