As an update first to the previous entry: well, I'm not getting a new apartmentmate after all. But I did expand Anthony's horizons, if I do say so myself. He'd never been to the Ross Park Zoo, so I took him. He'd also never had Greek food (not even a gyro, and maybe not even feta), so, at a nearby Greek festival, we also remedied that situation quite fully via souvlaki and rice pilaf, dolmades, galaktoboureko (I think that's what it was called), and some other dessert that started with a "k" and was sort of like oddly-textured baklava with orange and cinnamon added.
Note to certain Alfredians: we saw Gabe and Hazel F. (formely Hazel A.) there. It's the first time I've seen Gabe in something like three years, so that was cool. (Problem, on the other hand: have you ever blanked out on a really normal, necessary word? I think I blanked out on "friend," which made introductions pretty awkward and probably made everybody think I was going out with Anthony or something: "This is Anthony. Anthony, this is Gabe and Hazel from Alfred. I know Anthony through InterVarsity-Binghamton, so...that's how we know each other." Or maybe I even said "that's how we met," which would have been worse.)
But to backtrack to Tuesday, here's apparently the kind of thing I do when I have a long-term cold, long-term free time, and a long-term lack of apartmentmates: I start plotting semi-complicated culinary projects. In this case, that would be chicken stock.
Chicken stock, for anyone not quite sure, is not the same as canned chicken broth. Canned broth isn't made with chicken bones and carcasses, which means that it doesn't have any collagen. Collagen, when it dissolves in hot water, becomes gelatin, which makes chicken stock feel thick and lovely in your mouth, as though there were a lot of fat or something, except that there isn't (though more on chicken fat later).
And I've never made it. Buying Wegmans chicken stock isn't all that practical for me because I don't use the whole quart-or-so of it at a time, and leftover stock's supposed to be used pretty quickly (well, it might be okay if I froze it, like I do the homemade stuff, but if I'd done that, I wouldn't be writing this post right now). So, not long after I developed a nasty cold, I started considering the making of chicken stock, both as an amusement and as the delicious product thereof.
It took a long time to get my act together on it, but eventually I did on Tuesday afternoon. Except, um, you need bones to make chicken stock. I buy deboned and skinned Wegmans chicken thighs for most of my poultry needs. No collagen. So, and I can't tell in retrospect whether this move was logical or illogical, I bought a whole chicken. (This is actually not an expensive undertaking. Ones with giblets are, at Wegmans, all of $4. Ones without, like mine, are more than that, but for some reason I can't figure out, all the gibletted ones on that fateful Tuesday of purchase looked markedly worse than usual, and a couple seemed to have small holes in the packaging. After mulling that one over for a while, I bought a giblet-free bird. Next time I'll get a regular one and regale you all with tales of giblet removal and trying to do something non-disgusting with the liver.)
Then, with my new knives (I can't borrow Mijeong's anymore, so I invested in my own), kitchen shears (same story), and a fairly helpful tutorial from a site I've long admired, I proceeded to cut it up. Raw. This (the rawness) was not actually part of the original plan. The original plan was to stick the whole bird in, cook it for twenty-five to thirty minutes (it really doesn't, to my surprise, take longer than that, and there's no pinkness at all), take it out, let it cool some, then cut it up and strip all the meat off the bones (and into a large freezer bag). The bones and carcass would then go into the pot, and, since it wasn't a big batch (a half-gallon of water as a base is apparently not considered a big batch), just that amount of chicken parts would have been enough. But, um, I ran into a problem: fearing that stock-making might be a phase, I didn't really feel like spending the money to invest in a stockpot. So I was making it in a Dutch oven. This would have been fine--the chicken theoretically fit--but I'd gone a little overboard on the mirepoix and (fresh, leftover) parsley. Not overboard by a culinary standard, but overboard for subsequently submerging a chicken (I even tried stuffing the parsley into the chicken to save pot space, a move I soon regretted when I had to take it all out before the cutting process.)
Eventually, yes, I gave up and cut up the chicken as-was, stopping several times to scrub my slippery hands with antibacterial soap. It's been a long time since I've wished so fervently that I weren't a nailbiter. (Honestly, though, the change in plans may have been for the best. What would I have done with upwards of two pounds of cooked chicken? The intuitive thing seems to be to shred most of it, the way you do with turkey leftovers. But I don't know if I even like chicken salad, and one can only eat so many chicken quesadillas or whatever.) Keep in mind, if you ever decide to do this:
-You need a big cutting board--like, as big as you can find. (Wood, in spite of the rumors, is fine health-wise and means your knives don't slide around as you cut.) Mine, which my mom gave me from our stack at home, was big and wooden, but happens to be shaped like a football. Something more rectangular would have been a little easier to work with.
-Getting the skin off a chicken is a little tricky at points, but surprisingly helpful to the cutting process.
-Chicken-cutting tutorials talk about finding joints like they're going to be in really intuitive places. But, um, maybe I should bone up (har har) on chicken anatomy a little more thoroughly. I basically tried in vain to find them for certain, then guessed. Sometimes I was right. Once or twice I wasn't.
-I have to say, Jo, that I was glad I'd read Julie & Julia--not because it helped me cut up the bird, but because I was more or less thinking, if Julie Powell can be klutzy and do this, I can be klutzy and do this. Or, like her, I could have gotten an entertaining blog entry out of a failure.
-There's something oddly satisfying about holding a whole chicken in your hands--and oddly safe, such that even though you're scrubbing your hands a lot, you can't quite believe it could really give you salmonella. It seems too...friendly? Okay, that's a little weird and anthropomorphic. So maybe not.
Once I'd more or less separated the meat from the carcass, some parts I threw right into the Dutch oven and did indeed cook them, returning the bones to the pot thereafter. (I should have done this with the wings and drumsticks, but I didn't, since I want to cook them some other time.) The rest went into the freezer.
Honestly, though, besides breaking the bigger bones at one point so's to make sure the water got to the marrow, there's not much to tell. You simmer stock on low for a long time. Four to five hours, for a batch my size. And that's what I did. It was pretty satisfying to stir it periodically, watching it get progressively softer. I should have skimmed the surface scum during the first half-hour, but I forgot (usually, so does Reverend Anne, who's good at stock, so I didn't feel too bad about it). I probably should also have cooked it a little lower; I think it probably boiled once or twice, which I think supposedly means I can't get it quite fat-free, but...I'll live.
And I should, I suppose, have walked to my old apartment to get my cheesecloth so's to strain the whole thing better, but I didn't want to leave it unattended.
So, somewhere between 10:30 and 11 PM, it was done. Grabbing the biggest mixing bowl I had (capacity similar to my Dutch oven) and sticking my colander into it, I strained the stock. I tried to cool it fast by sticking semi-frozen (closed) plastic bottles of water into it, and that did help some, though it also coated the bottles, then my hands, in a layer of chicken grease. Then (re-greasing myself after the latest washoff) I poured the whole batch into four plastic Tupperware-style containers (each pre-marked at eight and sixteen ounces, which was helpful) and eventually stuck them, uncovered (you're not supposed to cover them, apparently), into the coldest part of the fridge, at least by my rough estimate. Then, after some cleaning, I went to bed.
The next day, after secretarial work at church, I came back to the fridged containers; each had developed a top protective layer of solidifed chicken fat, which really is, incidentally, called "schmaltz." It had formed unevenly, mind you, which made things interesting, but I did remove the fat as best I could, stashed it in yet another plastic container, then covered the stock and moved it to the freezer. There it shall sit until being defrosted, briefly boiled, and then used.
How does it taste? All right. I tried a bit ago to make a sort of poor man's lemon-chicken-velvet cup-o-soup out of it--which failed miserably because I don't have any cream and 1% milk is a bad substitute--and then tried for a more modest poor man's chicken noodle cup-o-soup (I don't have any noodles and thin spaghetti is, if not bad, a rather mediocre substitute). It's very different from chicken broth--I'm so used to broth's high salt content and more prominent (and browned) chicken flavor that I almost don't know what to make of stock by contrast. It seems a little watery at first, but then I conclude instead that it's just that the chicken flavor is, I don't know, down lower somehow in the flavor, more subtle, with the vegetables and herbs getting more play. It does have more body than broth, though I think I could use even more collagen if I ever do it again. And I should probably add quite a bit more salt to it as I reheat and use it, despite the lower salt content being one of the potential benefits.
So that's my chicken-mangling and stock-making adventure. As a form of culinary entertainment and potential old-school street cred (I can cut up a chicken! Like a grandmother or farmgirl or something...?), I recommend it. I'm not going to edit this post right now--I am headed to bed--so please disregard all mistakes.
This has been Culinary Endeavors. Tune in next time for--oh, who knows? I think my major experimental projects will probably be on hiatus until I move back into the original apartment, or until the farmers' markets start offering awesome things, whichever comes first. I feel like sticking to breadmaking, cookie-baking, and simpler new recipes for a while.
Good night!
5.30.2008
(There's never an ordinary day with You)
I woke up this morning (::insert blues riff as joke::) at 9:30 after doing my best to sleep in for a while--I'm only church secretary from Tuesdays to Thursdays--and wondered what pleasant thing I'd do with my day.
Half an hour or so ago, there was a sudden knock at my door: thus did I, still in my pajamas, meet a girl who's moving tomorrow into this apartment--through, like me, adverse circumstances (though not a flood). Then I got a message from Anthony, who's on campus for summer session and bored out of his mind and simply raring to go somewhere, so he's coming here as soon as I'm done picking up all the clutter I've left in the common spaces (and maybe scrubbing the debris the others left at the bottom of the fridge before they left).
So my day is more filled with people than I expected, which is very nice. Dude, though, good thing I made the chicken stock the other day, when I had solitude, time, and space! (Oh, wait, I never talked about that on here. Okay, so that'll be my next entry.)
Unrelatedly, but I feel like talking about it: did you know that Ephesians 1:3-14 was, in the original Greek, all one sentence? So sayeth my NIV text note. Seriously, try taking one big breath and reading the thing aloud. It must be fewer syllables in the Greek or something.
Half an hour or so ago, there was a sudden knock at my door: thus did I, still in my pajamas, meet a girl who's moving tomorrow into this apartment--through, like me, adverse circumstances (though not a flood). Then I got a message from Anthony, who's on campus for summer session and bored out of his mind and simply raring to go somewhere, so he's coming here as soon as I'm done picking up all the clutter I've left in the common spaces (and maybe scrubbing the debris the others left at the bottom of the fridge before they left).
So my day is more filled with people than I expected, which is very nice. Dude, though, good thing I made the chicken stock the other day, when I had solitude, time, and space! (Oh, wait, I never talked about that on here. Okay, so that'll be my next entry.)
Unrelatedly, but I feel like talking about it: did you know that Ephesians 1:3-14 was, in the original Greek, all one sentence? So sayeth my NIV text note. Seriously, try taking one big breath and reading the thing aloud. It must be fewer syllables in the Greek or something.
5.29.2008
I really did take SiteMeter down for a while. And I'll take it down again soonish.
Readers from Syracuse and Westdale (or nearby, since the lat-long coordinates--yes, SiteMeter provides general lat-long coordinates--seem to track your internet provider rather than your house location, for which we should all be grateful): it'd be rocking if you could let me know who you were. Comment, e-mail, what have you.
5.26.2008
Weekend, etc.
This article, taken from one of the Phi Beta Kappa journals, explains a lot of how I feel after a year of graduate English (though the section I'm especially thinking of takes a while to get to--the thing that's essentially about evaluating all of history by our own sense of moral and intellectual superiority).
Having gotten that out of the way:
I have these ridiculous daydreams of group singing sessions when I play my iPod in the car. Not of people singing in the car, either, but of people with instruments, like things were with Simon and John or something. One such daydream was fulfilled on Saturday night: Jo's boyfriend Matt played my family's electric piano. He and Jo and I sang Coldplay songs. Harmony and everything. In some of my daydreams, I can actually play something, anything, or at least fake percussion by tapping pencils on a table. Maybe another time.
On my way to Alfred from Syracuse on Saturday afternoon, I pulled off at a rest stop on 390 South. While there, I saw a Muslim man outside (nice day), kneeling on a blanket, facing east, praying. It was something I'd never seen before. I, silent and removed intrusion upon his private moment, watched from my car. The clothes he was wearing looked like our karate gi, but thinner, lighter. He looked like he'd been doing the hand motions for so long he didn't have to think about it (probably true), but still looked sincere as well. I could see his lips moving; I wondered what he was saying.
Except for the kitchen, Erica's apartment seems bigger than it is. She was making deep-dish pizzas and had me smell the fresh basil she'd bought. I could tell she was satisfied by the fact that I understood how wonderful that smell is; I thought of 8 Park. She'd said I could help make the pizzas, but I was germy and it was kind of only a one-player game anyway, so in the end she made the food while I entertained her with stories and musings about Binghamton. When dinner was ready and I was about to go back to Joe and Andrea, I should have offered to wipe down her table: I'd been sitting on it, with my dirty feet on one of her chairs, and she knew it. Instead, she casually put down plates for herself, Josh, and their out-of-town guests--everyone but her and I had gone out for a walk.
Park Street looks similar to the way it did last summer, though Language House's theme from this past year has found expression mainly through odd wall decor with odder Spanish captions. Environmental House has an earth-friendly coating of dirt over just about everything. Honors House, because it doesn't rent out, was locked. It was sunny outside. This is the first time in my life I've been in Alfred towards the end of May; even last summer I was home between graduation and June 1. It was sunny out. White, cottony pollen floated on the air. It looked like it did when I came in early June. Down one side of Saxon Drive, lilacs were blooming.
Stony Brook State Park is still beautiful. Every Southern Tier park is somewhat like it, all glacier-carved valleys and cloven shale cliffs and waterfalls. I'm surprised there's any untreated water, even in a state park, clean enough in New York to swim in. Sure enough, though, people in swimsuits splashed about; at one point I kept trying to follow, with my eyes, drops of water as they plunged down to make up the falls. As we crossed under a bridge, I read something etched into one of its bricks: "Blt by [name] and [name], 1993-94." It was all in capitals and the "by" and names were hard to make out, so at first Andrea and I thought someone was trying to write something about a BLT sandwich.
I guess I'm surprised that more crops aren't ripe by the end of May. Is summer really so short? Kinfolk had peas and leaf lettuce, but its side-wall vegetable bins were yet to truly impress. As promised, I bought my mom some honey. Not Dr. McDowell's, since there wasn't any of his there, but stuff from Andover. Their smallest jar was thirty-two ounces. It was only five dollars. Yet gas in town is $4.15 a gallon, twenty-four cents more expensive than in Binghamton. Alfred alumni reading this are probably nodding at both prices. Uh-huh.
On Route 17/86 going east--not far from Almond, either, I think not even to Hornell--there's a pulloff for a "scenic outlook." I've noted that sign for almost five years now, considered pulling off a few times, but never did until tonight, on my way out of town. I had to laugh, though: it's not very impressive. You can get a better view from Stony Brook, to be sure, but you can also get one from the suites at AU or the higher points of State campus.
I don't know what to call visiting Alfred these days. "Bittersweet" seems to be not only cliched but too weak. On the other hand, "alternating between ecstasy and torture" is too strong a step up. What comes in the middle?
Just a little bit more than I would have, through honors seminars and Text & Image and last summer and lots of other means, I lived in Allegany County, not just on AU campus. I didn't live there in the same way as, say, Otto or Vicky, with quotidian concerns about property taxes or the quality of education at Alfred-Almond Central. But I tried to know what Allegany County was like. And it's to a limited degree that I succeeded, but to that limited degree I succeeded all the same. I don't think it will fully work to try such a thing at Binghamton, though it was in that spirit that I took people to the zoo in the fall and intend sometime to get to the cider mill where they put on the drama productions. It's not that I won't be here long enough, but that Binghamton doesn't seem to consider itself quietly exceptional. Alfred, though no longer a place of, I don't know, big SDB populations or booming farms or nonviolent protest victories, is still something rare and lovely, and seems to know it. I know a lot of the true residents didn't like us students, but the ones who did were trying to make us understand it, too. They wanted us to look around, to see it.
Having gotten that out of the way:
I have these ridiculous daydreams of group singing sessions when I play my iPod in the car. Not of people singing in the car, either, but of people with instruments, like things were with Simon and John or something. One such daydream was fulfilled on Saturday night: Jo's boyfriend Matt played my family's electric piano. He and Jo and I sang Coldplay songs. Harmony and everything. In some of my daydreams, I can actually play something, anything, or at least fake percussion by tapping pencils on a table. Maybe another time.
On my way to Alfred from Syracuse on Saturday afternoon, I pulled off at a rest stop on 390 South. While there, I saw a Muslim man outside (nice day), kneeling on a blanket, facing east, praying. It was something I'd never seen before. I, silent and removed intrusion upon his private moment, watched from my car. The clothes he was wearing looked like our karate gi, but thinner, lighter. He looked like he'd been doing the hand motions for so long he didn't have to think about it (probably true), but still looked sincere as well. I could see his lips moving; I wondered what he was saying.
Except for the kitchen, Erica's apartment seems bigger than it is. She was making deep-dish pizzas and had me smell the fresh basil she'd bought. I could tell she was satisfied by the fact that I understood how wonderful that smell is; I thought of 8 Park. She'd said I could help make the pizzas, but I was germy and it was kind of only a one-player game anyway, so in the end she made the food while I entertained her with stories and musings about Binghamton. When dinner was ready and I was about to go back to Joe and Andrea, I should have offered to wipe down her table: I'd been sitting on it, with my dirty feet on one of her chairs, and she knew it. Instead, she casually put down plates for herself, Josh, and their out-of-town guests--everyone but her and I had gone out for a walk.
Park Street looks similar to the way it did last summer, though Language House's theme from this past year has found expression mainly through odd wall decor with odder Spanish captions. Environmental House has an earth-friendly coating of dirt over just about everything. Honors House, because it doesn't rent out, was locked. It was sunny outside. This is the first time in my life I've been in Alfred towards the end of May; even last summer I was home between graduation and June 1. It was sunny out. White, cottony pollen floated on the air. It looked like it did when I came in early June. Down one side of Saxon Drive, lilacs were blooming.
Stony Brook State Park is still beautiful. Every Southern Tier park is somewhat like it, all glacier-carved valleys and cloven shale cliffs and waterfalls. I'm surprised there's any untreated water, even in a state park, clean enough in New York to swim in. Sure enough, though, people in swimsuits splashed about; at one point I kept trying to follow, with my eyes, drops of water as they plunged down to make up the falls. As we crossed under a bridge, I read something etched into one of its bricks: "Blt by [name] and [name], 1993-94." It was all in capitals and the "by" and names were hard to make out, so at first Andrea and I thought someone was trying to write something about a BLT sandwich.
I guess I'm surprised that more crops aren't ripe by the end of May. Is summer really so short? Kinfolk had peas and leaf lettuce, but its side-wall vegetable bins were yet to truly impress. As promised, I bought my mom some honey. Not Dr. McDowell's, since there wasn't any of his there, but stuff from Andover. Their smallest jar was thirty-two ounces. It was only five dollars. Yet gas in town is $4.15 a gallon, twenty-four cents more expensive than in Binghamton. Alfred alumni reading this are probably nodding at both prices. Uh-huh.
On Route 17/86 going east--not far from Almond, either, I think not even to Hornell--there's a pulloff for a "scenic outlook." I've noted that sign for almost five years now, considered pulling off a few times, but never did until tonight, on my way out of town. I had to laugh, though: it's not very impressive. You can get a better view from Stony Brook, to be sure, but you can also get one from the suites at AU or the higher points of State campus.
I don't know what to call visiting Alfred these days. "Bittersweet" seems to be not only cliched but too weak. On the other hand, "alternating between ecstasy and torture" is too strong a step up. What comes in the middle?
Just a little bit more than I would have, through honors seminars and Text & Image and last summer and lots of other means, I lived in Allegany County, not just on AU campus. I didn't live there in the same way as, say, Otto or Vicky, with quotidian concerns about property taxes or the quality of education at Alfred-Almond Central. But I tried to know what Allegany County was like. And it's to a limited degree that I succeeded, but to that limited degree I succeeded all the same. I don't think it will fully work to try such a thing at Binghamton, though it was in that spirit that I took people to the zoo in the fall and intend sometime to get to the cider mill where they put on the drama productions. It's not that I won't be here long enough, but that Binghamton doesn't seem to consider itself quietly exceptional. Alfred, though no longer a place of, I don't know, big SDB populations or booming farms or nonviolent protest victories, is still something rare and lovely, and seems to know it. I know a lot of the true residents didn't like us students, but the ones who did were trying to make us understand it, too. They wanted us to look around, to see it.
5.22.2008
Slightly-Disjointed Soliloquy
There's not a lot that I miss about adolescence--a statement that's almost too universally-common, too obvious, to point out in the first place. But one thing I do miss is a quality I had then, something I can only consider a sense of adventure. There was something about the way spring felt in the eighth grade (and about even the knowledge that we as adolescents were in the middle of something bizarre), and something about anticipating the coming of high school, that was completely different from the way it feels, say, to know I'll be teaching English this coming semester. I think, though I don't remember well and wish I did, that it felt some days like my whole life was stretched before me, that I was promised something exceptional, something I'd never lived before.
There was something about the way it felt in January of eleventh grade, coming back to school after my first several read-throughs over Christmas break of Mere Christianity, that felt like everything was different--something about the way I plunged into that faith rededication, positioning myself as Pippin-soldier, meeting the first bad days of Aubrey's sickness (what else to call it?), pulling myself up straighter that summer at work, finding with awe that what I read was true. Hard work, sure. A lot of high-school-style pain. Adventure gave way, a lot of moments, to horror. But it felt so important. Everything did. And not in a guilty way, like now. These days, when everything seems important, I have to convince myself it's not, lest I collapse under guilt, wondering what will follow from the fact that I can't do everything right.
AP psychology in twelfth grade duly assured me, warned me, that emotions balance out as life progresses, that bad things don't hurt as much, but good things don't excite as much. And I remember being a guilt-ridden middle-schooler; even that has lessened considerably. That I don't miss. But I miss going at love, going at patience, going at bravery with a will. I don't think I'm just imagining that I ever did--I think I really did. I looked at such things then like they were possible. And they are, and yet they aren't--how to explain that contradiction that finds its balance in my faith? Anyway, somehow--blind naivete, some of it, but not all of it--I understood that everything worth doing was difficult, but somehow didn't find that half so intimidating as I do now. I don't know that I ever quite believed, then, that I could ever truly fail. Now I wonder what success might look like, when I'm less brave, less loving, less patient, less open--when every attempt to be someone outside of my knee-jerk reaction self is some kind of uphill fight. How can this be good, I wonder? How can this be right?
Mary and Joseph, I was reminded this morning, were--though good people--normal for a while. Good kids in Nazareth, some backwater town. Common names. Common employment. Probably engaged because their families said so, busy making ready to keep a house. Did they wonder whether there was more? Were they pleased at all, in spite of everything, when that "more" found them? Or isn't pleasure the right way to think about it? ...What of every other good-kid couple, ones not chosen to raise the Son of God? They weren't loved any the less. But what did real life look like for them? You're born; you look to God and thereby live as righteously as you can. You die. And part of me says, of course. And part of me says, that's it?
This must be at least somewhat connected to what C.S. Lewis talks about, this thing about life that life itself can't fulfill.
This summer I don't have a job. And thank God for that. I'm a servant, soon to be volunteer church secretary, soon to learn (too slowly, I'm sure--all my practical skills come too slowly) ways to help the Red Cross.
Even loving Good Shepherd has turned into more work than play--September and October are long since gone, and my self-absorption has left me trying to concentrate on sermons though I used to hang on every word, left me sizing up my church family and finding more to fault than I did before. I wish I could go at all of this--summer, volunteering, school, everything--with the same kind of high-school will that I once had, instead of wishing that I knew where my life was going, whether teaching is right, whether any hope I have is well-founded. But this is a summer where I can serve. It's what I want to do, and it's what I'm going to do, and I think, though I'm not sure, that much good will come of it.
There was something about the way it felt in January of eleventh grade, coming back to school after my first several read-throughs over Christmas break of Mere Christianity, that felt like everything was different--something about the way I plunged into that faith rededication, positioning myself as Pippin-soldier, meeting the first bad days of Aubrey's sickness (what else to call it?), pulling myself up straighter that summer at work, finding with awe that what I read was true. Hard work, sure. A lot of high-school-style pain. Adventure gave way, a lot of moments, to horror. But it felt so important. Everything did. And not in a guilty way, like now. These days, when everything seems important, I have to convince myself it's not, lest I collapse under guilt, wondering what will follow from the fact that I can't do everything right.
AP psychology in twelfth grade duly assured me, warned me, that emotions balance out as life progresses, that bad things don't hurt as much, but good things don't excite as much. And I remember being a guilt-ridden middle-schooler; even that has lessened considerably. That I don't miss. But I miss going at love, going at patience, going at bravery with a will. I don't think I'm just imagining that I ever did--I think I really did. I looked at such things then like they were possible. And they are, and yet they aren't--how to explain that contradiction that finds its balance in my faith? Anyway, somehow--blind naivete, some of it, but not all of it--I understood that everything worth doing was difficult, but somehow didn't find that half so intimidating as I do now. I don't know that I ever quite believed, then, that I could ever truly fail. Now I wonder what success might look like, when I'm less brave, less loving, less patient, less open--when every attempt to be someone outside of my knee-jerk reaction self is some kind of uphill fight. How can this be good, I wonder? How can this be right?
Mary and Joseph, I was reminded this morning, were--though good people--normal for a while. Good kids in Nazareth, some backwater town. Common names. Common employment. Probably engaged because their families said so, busy making ready to keep a house. Did they wonder whether there was more? Were they pleased at all, in spite of everything, when that "more" found them? Or isn't pleasure the right way to think about it? ...What of every other good-kid couple, ones not chosen to raise the Son of God? They weren't loved any the less. But what did real life look like for them? You're born; you look to God and thereby live as righteously as you can. You die. And part of me says, of course. And part of me says, that's it?
This must be at least somewhat connected to what C.S. Lewis talks about, this thing about life that life itself can't fulfill.
This summer I don't have a job. And thank God for that. I'm a servant, soon to be volunteer church secretary, soon to learn (too slowly, I'm sure--all my practical skills come too slowly) ways to help the Red Cross.
Even loving Good Shepherd has turned into more work than play--September and October are long since gone, and my self-absorption has left me trying to concentrate on sermons though I used to hang on every word, left me sizing up my church family and finding more to fault than I did before. I wish I could go at all of this--summer, volunteering, school, everything--with the same kind of high-school will that I once had, instead of wishing that I knew where my life was going, whether teaching is right, whether any hope I have is well-founded. But this is a summer where I can serve. It's what I want to do, and it's what I'm going to do, and I think, though I'm not sure, that much good will come of it.
5.20.2008
On this second day of (partly natural, partly cold-induced) laziness...
...a positive, if a bit long in coming, message from the English-department secretary:
I checked with Professor Bartine. In looking over your transcript from Alfred University and the type of Spanish courses you took while there, your language requirement is fulfilled.
I checked with Professor Bartine. In looking over your transcript from Alfred University and the type of Spanish courses you took while there, your language requirement is fulfilled.
5.19.2008
My summer has begun beautifully, but this entry won't.
Dear John (and Libby), Albert, and Nathanael,
If I infected any of you with the icky cold that I mistakenly thought (until this morning) was seasonal allergies, I am genuinely sorry. I would send you some Kleenex if I weren't using it.
Anyway, New England was great. The plays were very fun. Seeing people was lovely. What I've been periodically pondering has now become certainty: I want a bike again (now that I'm allowed to ride it outside my immediate neighborhood, or at least now that my parents can't effectively ban me from doing so). I really wish my apartment let in enough light for me to grow a plant.
I finished Julie & Julia last night, which was very fun, even if I'm one of those people the author dislikes so much who thinks she should be less profane when she writes. I don't think I would attempt, without a very good reason, to make most of the recipes she mentions, but I definitely enjoyed living vicariously through her. It does make me want to cook something buttery. But something without any offal or aspic or whatever.
As for the rest of the summer, I picked ten friends and let each of them assign me a book to read. If you weren't among them, my apologies; it's probably because I've already promised to read something on your recommendation and still haven't done it and should do that first (your suggestions are included on this summer's list). I'm still waiting on four assignations, but of the six that have come in, probably the oddest is The Dancing Wu Li Masters, a 300-plus-page layman's introduction to quantum physics, which (almost needless to say) comes by way of Glenn. So it's going to be an entertaining, apparently-educational few months.
Besides that, if I haven't mentioned, I'm doing mostly volunteer work, since my attempt at summer employment went about as successfully as my first attempt at a permanent job, a year from now, will likely go. So I'm going to be church secretary, such that maybe Reverend Anne will have more time to, I don't know, watch her four small children or something.
At this moment, however, I think I might try to sleep off some of my germs. Cheerio!
If I infected any of you with the icky cold that I mistakenly thought (until this morning) was seasonal allergies, I am genuinely sorry. I would send you some Kleenex if I weren't using it.
Anyway, New England was great. The plays were very fun. Seeing people was lovely. What I've been periodically pondering has now become certainty: I want a bike again (now that I'm allowed to ride it outside my immediate neighborhood, or at least now that my parents can't effectively ban me from doing so). I really wish my apartment let in enough light for me to grow a plant.
I finished Julie & Julia last night, which was very fun, even if I'm one of those people the author dislikes so much who thinks she should be less profane when she writes. I don't think I would attempt, without a very good reason, to make most of the recipes she mentions, but I definitely enjoyed living vicariously through her. It does make me want to cook something buttery. But something without any offal or aspic or whatever.
As for the rest of the summer, I picked ten friends and let each of them assign me a book to read. If you weren't among them, my apologies; it's probably because I've already promised to read something on your recommendation and still haven't done it and should do that first (your suggestions are included on this summer's list). I'm still waiting on four assignations, but of the six that have come in, probably the oddest is The Dancing Wu Li Masters, a 300-plus-page layman's introduction to quantum physics, which (almost needless to say) comes by way of Glenn. So it's going to be an entertaining, apparently-educational few months.
Besides that, if I haven't mentioned, I'm doing mostly volunteer work, since my attempt at summer employment went about as successfully as my first attempt at a permanent job, a year from now, will likely go. So I'm going to be church secretary, such that maybe Reverend Anne will have more time to, I don't know, watch her four small children or something.
At this moment, however, I think I might try to sleep off some of my germs. Cheerio!
5.16.2008
Well, it's raining over here. So can I quote Chaucer about pilgrimages even though it's not April(l)?
Tomorrow marks the sixth birthday of this blog, but I shan't be here to post about it (assuming that wouldn't be cheesy anyway): I'm off to New England to see at least three Alfriends, not to mention two community-theater plays. Hurrah!
In the meantime, if you're looking for amusement, here're six archived entries, mostly funny and mostly from freshman year:
Prep for Alfred
First time folk dancing. And no, actually, it wasn't Tom with the Envirothon shirt, but I was right on every other count.
Freshman year was my most memorable in Alfred, and this week contained several particularly-memorable incidents.
Now he tries to run Mac programs on his PC, if I'm not mistaken.
Traying!
One of Kristin's amusing ideas
Enjoy...?
In the meantime, if you're looking for amusement, here're six archived entries, mostly funny and mostly from freshman year:
Prep for Alfred
First time folk dancing. And no, actually, it wasn't Tom with the Envirothon shirt, but I was right on every other count.
Freshman year was my most memorable in Alfred, and this week contained several particularly-memorable incidents.
Now he tries to run Mac programs on his PC, if I'm not mistaken.
Traying!
One of Kristin's amusing ideas
Enjoy...?
5.15.2008
5.12.2008
End-of-Semester Bargain-Bin Quotelist
As you can imagine, I haven't quite started grading yet, except for two papers back on Saturday night. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to bring myself to do actual work prior to noon. Well, except for printing out and handing in the rhet/comp paper's hard copy.
I'm comparing this post to a bargain bin because I've discovered that these quotes are actually funnier (or, when they're not funny to begin with, at least more striking) if I deliver them with little or no context and essentially no attribution. That doesn't say much for their quality, but I'd like to amuse myself anyway. So here you go. Maybe I'll put real names and backstories on some of them later, by request, assuming anybody cares that much:
[on her dog running towards cars] "It's like the opposite of Frogger! It's like, wait--wait--wait--wait--jump!"
"I smoke mad cigarettes and drink mad coffee, and now when I wake up my spit's already brown."
"I usually know other graffiti people. None of you are them."
"This isn't France. If it were--[pause]--it would be France! But it's not."
"These papers don't have to cure cancer."
"My IBM has a hamster and a wheel in it."
"My parents actually talked about naming me Herman Sherman Berman."
"Upon further review, we need lives."
"Did you know Shakespeare loved trail mix?"
"If the illusion recurs enough times, it becomes reality."
"Where's a pearl come from? It comes from a slimy little animal...in slime!"
"Have we deteriorated to this, at the end of the semester, that we're discussing the canine preferences of William Shakespeare?"
Student: "I am open to all approaches and methods..."
Professor: "...except those that suck."
Student A: "You know how people used to be smaller?"
Student B: "Like, in Middle-Earth?"
"'I got kicked out of the [acapella] group.' '[Because of] drinking?' 'No, voice lessons.'"
I'm comparing this post to a bargain bin because I've discovered that these quotes are actually funnier (or, when they're not funny to begin with, at least more striking) if I deliver them with little or no context and essentially no attribution. That doesn't say much for their quality, but I'd like to amuse myself anyway. So here you go. Maybe I'll put real names and backstories on some of them later, by request, assuming anybody cares that much:
[on her dog running towards cars] "It's like the opposite of Frogger! It's like, wait--wait--wait--wait--jump!"
"I smoke mad cigarettes and drink mad coffee, and now when I wake up my spit's already brown."
"I usually know other graffiti people. None of you are them."
"This isn't France. If it were--[pause]--it would be France! But it's not."
"These papers don't have to cure cancer."
"My IBM has a hamster and a wheel in it."
"My parents actually talked about naming me Herman Sherman Berman."
"Upon further review, we need lives."
"Did you know Shakespeare loved trail mix?"
"If the illusion recurs enough times, it becomes reality."
"Where's a pearl come from? It comes from a slimy little animal...in slime!"
"Have we deteriorated to this, at the end of the semester, that we're discussing the canine preferences of William Shakespeare?"
Student: "I am open to all approaches and methods..."
Professor: "...except those that suck."
Student A: "You know how people used to be smaller?"
Student B: "Like, in Middle-Earth?"
"'I got kicked out of the [acapella] group.' '[Because of] drinking?' 'No, voice lessons.'"
5.11.2008
Emerging
Reading, this morning, Matt's library entry from the other night, I thought something along the lines of, I remember being like that. Having to write three-plus weeks of journal entries at once for Becky's class. Having to write all my papers at once, in a series, while I attempted unsuccessfully to live on chips and salsa, Sprite, and/or Pop-Tarts.
Um, so essentially not much has changed, except the food (I did a little better with nutrition, haha), since I still ended up writing all three of my papers nearly back-to-back-to-back. Let me say, I'm pretty sure the ones from undergrad were better. Not even because these ones were rushed (well, the rhet/comp would have been better if I'd had more time) so much as that I have no idea how to write a graduate-style paper properly; the PM&R one, though I still somehow (the math can't be quite right on that one) get an A-minus for the class, earned what may actually be the worst paper grade of my life to date. At least for a major one; maybe there were small writing assignments in junior high that I messed up even worse.
Here is something, however, that I am proud of about this week: in the opening to my Shakespeare paper, I successfully referenced Muppet Babies, VeggieTales, and Sesame Street. That's right, all three of them. My undergraduate self can only slowly applaud in admiration.
'kay, time to finish getting ready for church! Maybe more later. And tomorrow I'll take enough of a break from grading to post the last Monday's worth of professorial quotes, this time with student ones added.
Um, so essentially not much has changed, except the food (I did a little better with nutrition, haha), since I still ended up writing all three of my papers nearly back-to-back-to-back. Let me say, I'm pretty sure the ones from undergrad were better. Not even because these ones were rushed (well, the rhet/comp would have been better if I'd had more time) so much as that I have no idea how to write a graduate-style paper properly; the PM&R one, though I still somehow (the math can't be quite right on that one) get an A-minus for the class, earned what may actually be the worst paper grade of my life to date. At least for a major one; maybe there were small writing assignments in junior high that I messed up even worse.
Here is something, however, that I am proud of about this week: in the opening to my Shakespeare paper, I successfully referenced Muppet Babies, VeggieTales, and Sesame Street. That's right, all three of them. My undergraduate self can only slowly applaud in admiration.
'kay, time to finish getting ready for church! Maybe more later. And tomorrow I'll take enough of a break from grading to post the last Monday's worth of professorial quotes, this time with student ones added.
5.05.2008
I may be a teacher, but I have no plans to be an academic.
My Aunt Joyce and Uncle Michael, because they're awesome, sent me saltwater taffy from California (where they live) for my birthday. I got it today, a lovely comfort in the midst of what promises to be a week of insanity and fatigue.
Here is what I have to do--
By Wednesday, 1 PM:
-Write all fifteen pages of my Shakespeare project, thanks to last night's computer crisis, etc. Not all my research is done because, frankly, I don't know what other research I need right now. At least Dr. Whittier won't want the kind of theoretical background Dr. JSA did. Whittier is ruddy crazy and a huge question mark as far as what grade she's going to give me, but at least she's more into historical than theoretical context.
-Spend two to three hours drafting an outline (for a rhet/comp class assignment, not for the sake of it) for my 115 classes this fall, like how I'm going to use my time.
And by 5:30 PM:
-Figure out what/how I'm going to present my Shakespeare paper to the class. It'll be fairly informal and all, but I need to suck up 15 minutes somehow, and given that my paper may be of questionable quality, I'm hoping to actually read as little of it as possible.
-Write my 200-word abstract for the CCCC next spring, which would be easier if I had any real idea about what I'm going to write about.
And then turn around that night and:
-Revise the 115 outline, so as to leave myself Thursday free so that I'll have done...
By 10 AM on Friday:
-The 115 outline
-My twelve-page rhet/comp paper, the one on which I got the extension so long ago
And then have done, by a time to be determined on Tuesday:
-Somewhere in the neighborhood of 570 to 600 pages of paper-grading
I'm also supposed to have some light PM&R reading/work done both tomorrow morning and Thursday morning. Sure, why not?
So if I blog for anything short of academic or personal emergency or truly-shining epiphany before the 13th (excepting the 11th, which I am taking off), you should all yell at me. And if I try to talk to any of you for longer than twenty minutes at a time, except for on the aforementioned 11th, you should shun me or something.
So I'm a beggar for prayer again. See you all next week!
Here is what I have to do--
By Wednesday, 1 PM:
-Write all fifteen pages of my Shakespeare project, thanks to last night's computer crisis, etc. Not all my research is done because, frankly, I don't know what other research I need right now. At least Dr. Whittier won't want the kind of theoretical background Dr. JSA did. Whittier is ruddy crazy and a huge question mark as far as what grade she's going to give me, but at least she's more into historical than theoretical context.
-Spend two to three hours drafting an outline (for a rhet/comp class assignment, not for the sake of it) for my 115 classes this fall, like how I'm going to use my time.
And by 5:30 PM:
-Figure out what/how I'm going to present my Shakespeare paper to the class. It'll be fairly informal and all, but I need to suck up 15 minutes somehow, and given that my paper may be of questionable quality, I'm hoping to actually read as little of it as possible.
-Write my 200-word abstract for the CCCC next spring, which would be easier if I had any real idea about what I'm going to write about.
And then turn around that night and:
-Revise the 115 outline, so as to leave myself Thursday free so that I'll have done...
By 10 AM on Friday:
-The 115 outline
-My twelve-page rhet/comp paper, the one on which I got the extension so long ago
And then have done, by a time to be determined on Tuesday:
-Somewhere in the neighborhood of 570 to 600 pages of paper-grading
I'm also supposed to have some light PM&R reading/work done both tomorrow morning and Thursday morning. Sure, why not?
So if I blog for anything short of academic or personal emergency or truly-shining epiphany before the 13th (excepting the 11th, which I am taking off), you should all yell at me. And if I try to talk to any of you for longer than twenty minutes at a time, except for on the aforementioned 11th, you should shun me or something.
So I'm a beggar for prayer again. See you all next week!
5.03.2008
A Long and Arduous Shakespearience
I take back what I said about this project being fun to research. Relatedly, academic criticism sucks all the joy out of everything. The drive to and from Norwich was fine, though. Guernsey was a bigger and nicer library than I expected, and Norwich is a pleasant little town.
I didn't get everything done from my list today, though I did lots of work. I'll do what I can tomorrow.
Oh, and since it's been a little more than a month, I have exercised some restraint and taken down my SiteMeter link. You may now visit my page as many times per day as you want, with no fear that I'll think you stalkerish...or as few times per month as you want, with no fear that I'll think you negligent. At least until the next time I decide to run a check. Bwa-ha-haaa.
I didn't get everything done from my list today, though I did lots of work. I'll do what I can tomorrow.
Oh, and since it's been a little more than a month, I have exercised some restraint and taken down my SiteMeter link. You may now visit my page as many times per day as you want, with no fear that I'll think you stalkerish...or as few times per month as you want, with no fear that I'll think you negligent. At least until the next time I decide to run a check. Bwa-ha-haaa.
The price of negligence...
...under current ridiculous New York State prices is apparently $20 worth of gas and two hours' total driving time. Having begun this project too late to get anything through interlibrary loan, I am now soon to get in my car (armed with, among other things, a Wegmans-brand canned strawberry shake) and drive northeast to Norwich, where, at the Guernsey Memorial Public Library, I shall check out two or so of their children's animated Shakespeare videos. (Dr. Whittier was pretty enthusiastic in her recommendation that I look at some. Thank you, Four County Library System, for being much cooler than the BU library.) Then I'll drive back, subsequently attempting to find someone, even if I have to start calling church people, who has a VCR instead of a DVD player.
And I guess I should clarify that my project is not about adaptations of Shakespeare done by children, but for children. Which makes my life considerably easier.
For self--
Things to do today:
-acquire and watch Shakespeare animated videos
-choose at least three plays (comedy, tragedy, history? Or based on themes instead, like combat or romance or or or?) and start comparing them across collections
-try to find collections from late 1800s or early 1900s if at all possible
-start looking for critical angle (if only because that's expected, but there probably doesn't have to be a big one)
-research childhood across periods mentioned
-if there's time, break from Shakespeare to reread and then e-mail Dr. Murphy for rhet/comp
All of this sounds suspiciously like last year's honors thesis template, except for the addition of criticism. Does this mean I'm plagiarizing from myself, or...?
Also--
Dear Sting, Shinehead, Tiken Jah Fakoly, and Omid Djalili,
The PM&R project is over. Please come collect your songs from my head.
And I guess I should clarify that my project is not about adaptations of Shakespeare done by children, but for children. Which makes my life considerably easier.
For self--
Things to do today:
-acquire and watch Shakespeare animated videos
-choose at least three plays (comedy, tragedy, history? Or based on themes instead, like combat or romance or or or?) and start comparing them across collections
-try to find collections from late 1800s or early 1900s if at all possible
-start looking for critical angle (if only because that's expected, but there probably doesn't have to be a big one)
-research childhood across periods mentioned
-if there's time, break from Shakespeare to reread and then e-mail Dr. Murphy for rhet/comp
All of this sounds suspiciously like last year's honors thesis template, except for the addition of criticism. Does this mean I'm plagiarizing from myself, or...?
Also--
Dear Sting, Shinehead, Tiken Jah Fakoly, and Omid Djalili,
The PM&R project is over. Please come collect your songs from my head.
5.02.2008
::heart::
So I really love children's nonfiction sections of public libraries. I always have, since elementary school. This new paper topic, even if the writing will still be a pain, is nice to research. Children's adaptations of Shakespeare (Dr. Whittier asked what kind of literature we liked and helped us build projects around it): yes-s-s-s.
I really will--no, really, I will--post something interesting eventually.
I really will--no, really, I will--post something interesting eventually.
5.01.2008
Content
My day's not quite over--I've still yet to get into pajamas, brush my teeth, and read an e-mail--but today has been, except for the paper-writing, a good day. I came out of the Writing Center feeling like I will, by God's grace, teach 115 well next semester (and it feels good that people said they wish they could take it, even if they just want to watch me out of curiosity!). I decided at 7:30 tonight that the paper was done and e-mailed it to Dr. JSA (it was due at 8). Then, because I was way too brain-fried to turn around and start research for the second paper, I read (what I wanted to!) for a little bit, then went out for pizza and bubble tea with Christina, Thomas, and Matt to celebrate my birthday (a bit early) after all (yay for C/T/M! but missed you, Jon and Karen!). My mom sent me a birthday card, which I got this evening. I brought my warm comforter out of the old apartment into this new one because of the cold-air vent near my bed, so I will be warm and cozy tonight. And I get to sleep, for about a whole eight-and-a-half hours if I want to.
Tomorrow I will research for Shakespeare. Tonight I get to slack serenely.
Tomorrow I will research for Shakespeare. Tonight I get to slack serenely.