Saturday, October 02, 2010

Screaming Monkey Heads!

With regards to Vampires, when you are changed into a different being, you are also subject to a whole new set of instincts and natural reactions to the world around you. Just as Dogs are able to hear and smell on a different level than humans, so are the undead able to understand and view the world on a different level. This would mean that a vampire would be able to understand a human's invitation to enter the home on an elemental level. Now, a vampire also relies on a certain level of social prowess to achieve entrance into a home. So, the effectiveness of receiving such an invitation would be directly correlated to the vampire's capacity to suavely, though we cannot rule out the possibility of a vampire being invited inside on the premise of being a vagrant, beggar, or unfortunate tourist. This kind of invitation could be given regardless of intent, whereas the former would be understood on the elemental and instinctive level based on the intent of the owner of the home.

As for the rest of life, it is going swimmingly! Just playing lots of music, writing lots of stories, and reading lots of literature!!! Life is good.

Friday, October 01, 2010

...cat...

So, I was planning on writing this really great and clever blog to help everyone get a closer peek at my mind, and then my cat came. For some reason, if I am planning on reading, writing, eating, or working on the computer, she has to find a way to be able to sit on my stomach and it's my job to figure out how to work around her....stupid cat....

Truly, there are so many things on my mind that I just tune out by reading my book. It's so much nicer after having to do schoolish type things all day! Unfortuantely, my mind is now often caught in this other fantasy world, trying to decide what is going to happen next. And, on top of that, I'm usually concurrantly writing my own story as I read the other....My brain needs a break from its breaks.

Dr. Rogers, I believe that a vampire may enter a home if the intention to enter has been implied by the owner of the house. If you think about the fact that language is a fragile construct that has been developed, broken, and redeveloped over millenia, then the spoken language does not have to be understood. However, the unspoken language -- body and intent -- must be clear on the side of the "speaker." See if that helps solve your vampire dilema!

My mind

While contemplating what I was going to write about, it occurred to me that perhaps life is just a culmination of those we appreciate throughout our life. For me, the idea of brilliance brings to mind my little brother. However, I have not come to the conclusion of how to thank him for his contribution to my life.

Should I buy him something? If so, what should I buy him? Or does buying him something send the wrong message, that I am trying to buy him off? But really if I bought him something, would it encompass the gratitude that I have for what he has done to help me or would it overshadow the idea of respect. However, this is the solution that I have come to.

This prompt is my contribution to him and thus my gratitude will be embedded within these words, captured within this blog. Thank you Glenn.

Thoughts during the beginning of October....

This prompt reminds me that I don't have time to think about anything. I recently realized that I am attending 23 credit hours worth of class and I will not be doing that again! I am taking a few precious moments right now to reflect on the time of year and what it means to me.

-Next week is half-way....HALLELUJAH!!!!! I might actually make it through this semester!

-Holidays are going to suffer at my house because I don't have time to get into the spirit right now. I guess I'm not much of a Halloween person anyway so..... eh. I am going to leave the Thanksgiving gaggle to other members of my family this year. I am pretty sure my head would actually explode if i had to plan another Thanksgiving get-together this year! I am way stoked for Christmas and can't wait for it to get here...pretty much because it means Christmas break!

-I am with Katie on the season. I LOVE the fall. I love the weather of fall and I love even more that the fall means snow is on the way. Although snowboarding is not allowed to be on my agenda this year, I will enjoy the season anyway. There's always cross-country skiing which is also fantastic in Utah!

-Unfortunately my travel plans for fall break are starting to look like a pipe dream but maybe that means I will get to see the family during Christmas break. I hope so anyway!

As the fall rolls in and with it, the cooler weather, I find myself more tempted to venture away from my homework and studies. I will do my best to resist but..... :D

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Books and Games

I wish I had the time to contemplate the vampire paradox. I can barely squeeze in a few minutes here and there reading for pleasure. Anyone reading the Hunger Games? It's my new passion! I'm only about halfway through the second book, Catching Fire, so please no spoilers! I beg you! If you haven't read them, you're missing out! (Boys: no, it's not a new Twilight series!) It's really quite thought provoking. Though I haven't been able to pick it up in a couple of weeks to finish it because (among all the others things on my to do list) I've started proofreading the first draft of a book my husband wrote. Deciding which book to read in my few minutes of spare time has been a difficult decision. I have to laugh at myself, though, because it's not like it's a life altering decision, yet choosing is still rough. It's hard to choose between two good things that you want to do! During my struggle to choose, eventually my husband's book wins out. All I have to do it think about his "puppy-dog" face he makes when he asks me if I've finished reading it... then I feel guilty. :) He only does it for laughs, but I'm a sucker for it. So hence the reason I haven't picked up Hunger Games in a while!

Another distraction is gaming. My husband is a big gamer, but a lot of the games he plays are one-player only. I watch a lot of the time, but I would like to play with him every once in a while. This is why I'm so excited about the new PlayStation MOVE. It's similar to the Wii in that it's a motion controller, and there are several multiplayer games that we can enjoy together. We've already begun playing and it's SO much fun! My favorites are the Gladiator game and the Archery game, both of which are part of the Sports Champions Game. In Gladiator we get to wear armor and fight with a sword and a shield. It’s fun to power slash your opponent! Once you’ve knocked your opponent to the ground, you can power jump hit them to really damage their health. The Archery game is far superior to the Wii version in that the graphics are infinitely better and the targets are more challenging than the traditional bulls-eye target. You pull and load your own arrows instead of the game doing it for you. So speed and accuracy are important. Another way the MOVE is superior to the Wii is its sensitivity to the motion control. Before every game, the game will calibrate your body dimensions with three different reference points. This allows the game to recognize more complex movement then the Wii would be capable of. Also since the PlayStation has HD graphics and the Wii does not, it has a much more mature feel. Don’t get me wrong! I love the Wii! It is so fun and has been the source of many memories. However, it’s only a stepping stone in the direction of motion capture technology. Imagine what the next generation of gaming technology will allow for!

I do wonder about the vampire paradox though...
Do vampires starve to death even if they're undead?

Fall is on My Mind

What's on my mind?

I just had a grilled cheese sandwich—heaven on earth.

What really is on my mind would be a bit too personal for a class blog post :) I can tell you that over the past seven weeks I have been sorting out a lot of feelings so that I can look with confidence in the future. I am starting to regain that hope for my future. Actually, maybe that is more in my heart than on my mind.

I have been thinking (in my mind) about my goal of becoming a teacher. When I go into the eighth grade English classes to observe, I am amazed at how well the teacher disciplines her students. Disciplining scares me! How do you do it? Yikes! I have been impressed with the things the discussions some of these eighth grade English classes are having. They revolve around theme, foreshadowing, irony, and other literary devices. There is hope for the future generation—so much of this depends on the quality of the teacher.

Fall is on my mind. Here it is--the dying of another year. I love the season because of the weather, crisp air, and exploding colors on the mountains. It also makes me wonder what I have really done this year. I am yearning for the fall of 2011 not to sneak up on me as quickly as this fall has. I want to embrace the fall because I know once the whiteness of winter sweeps our world, I will be longing for the oranges and red.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Slacker Prompt #1!!

When I drop the ball and don't put a prompt up in a timely manner, you all get a slacker prompt.

So. What's going on?

I've lately been wondering whether a vampire's ability to enter a house depends upon the language of the invitation or the spirit of the invitation. In other words, can a vampire who doesn't speak English be invited into a house by an English speaker? Or say you're in Russia on holiday and you get turned into a vampire but don't speak Russian. Are you doomed to never being able to enter a house?

What about you all? Anything on your mind?

Sunday, September 26, 2010

BARTOLOMAEUS!!! Amen!

I hear you Brotha Laikwan!!! I give you a witnessss!!! Looking back on my experience thus far, I think that I had two completely different starts to my University experience. I was fresh out of high school, and came for a semester before I left to serve a full-time LDS mission in Italy. That first semester, I had no idea what I was really doing with my life. I honestly had no idea where I wanted to go, or study, or what, and so I just did what the advisor's told me to do. Loaded down on generals, and then started running in the direction they pointed me in. I got along pretty well with my teachers, but honestly didn't realize that I could really talk to them and get their help. I suppose that is one of the lesser recognized blessings of the Weber State education. The classes are small enough that if you put forth a little effort, you can really get to know your teachers quite well, and get the help that you need if you ask for it. I matured a lot on my mission, and learned to get out of my comfort zone and get the help that I needed. Since I have been back, developing a relationship with my instructors has really helped me understand how to work in my classes, know what the expectations are, and work well with my peers. To tell you the truth, I feel really blessed to not be caught in the 600 member lecture classes that some universities have, and be lost in the fracas that comes with it. It is nice to be on the level with the instructor, and get an almost "individualized" education. I have found that sometimes my writing does imitate my instructor, just as Stravinsky's early music imitated Tsaichovsky, or Mozart imitated Haydn. I see genius in it, and seek to incorporate it into my own. Over time, it morphs into something different, and uniquely mine. On the whole, I am glad that I get to work with such great people. :)

Writing History

Oh my gosh. I love this question. It made me feel all warm inside. I am just going to write about what immediately came to my mind and impressed me as true, even if it is not the whole story and some people who deserve credit get left out of the picture.

The answer is: my parents. The other part of the answer is: ...and more was caught than taught. I have simply grown up around good writing all my life. Now, hold the phone!!! This does not mean that I am saying that I am a good writer. It only means that I have always read and been exposed to competent writing. Like classical music and Protestant theology, it has been in my milieu since the cradle. Also, by my parents I do not mean their writing (although that is very much a part of the story), but the writing of the writers that they surrounded themselves with. I grew up with Tolkien and C.S. Lewis; with Lloyd Alexander and Kenneth Grahame; Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss; Shakespeare and T.S. Elliott. My mother read to me and my brother before we could read, and after we could read. We were taken to plays, watched PBS, and were taught to love literature and the fine arts. Again, though...not so much taught as taken along for the ride, because our parents loved it all so much and could not stay away from the things they thought were beautiful.

Then there is also my parents' writing. This, actually, is the very first thing that I thought of when I read this question. As far as my memory stretches back, I can see my father hunched over a paper, slogging over his own words and thoughts in addition to others'. Preparing papers for his Philosophy Club meetings (don't be a hater, now, Doc Rogers...ha!), writing up biblical commentaries and summaries (for no one to read...just storing them away for some time when someone might need it or take interest), and proofing, correcting, and discussing my mother's (constant) writing was what I always saw him doing, and it was a frequent topic of conversation between the two of them. My brother and I always heard these conversations, and sometimes we would participate in them. My mother cannot be imagined in the mind's eye without seeing her surrounded by books. I cannot separate her from her deep investment and associations with writing and language, in general. Books in Swahili, Kikuyu, French, and English (all of her languages); writers from the Caribbean, from countries in Africa, France, and her deep love and affection for those great Brits were just things that I never DIDN'T see. My father is a physics professor, yet he always found time to write about (and re-write about, proof, and beautify) his own ideas or to crack open Plato or William Blake to consult them. My mother, however, being a French and literature professor, was constantly spending deep time in writers and her own writing. It was literature, literature, literature, and language, language, language for her always.

When it came time for me to start writing formally in school, my father would go over my papers. From a very early age and all through high school (and, when we both had time, in the post high school years), he would mark up my papers in red and then we would talk about them. Even with all this, however, writing always came fairly easily to me. Again, I am not saying that I was good, or am good. I still could struggle mightily, and often could not even start. Oftentimes, my father had a lot to say about what I had written...LOTS to say. Through him, I had to learn, early on, how to fall out of love with my own errors and bad habits--as beautiful as they were to my young mind--and submit to making sense, being clear, and thinking writing THROUGH. No one has taught me more about writing, via conversation, than him. Via exposure and practice, nobody has taught me more about writing or instilled more love in me for writing than both of my parents together, who talked, dreamt, read, and wrote it all my life, right before my eyes. Much was caught daily, and from time to time--with a kind of deeply serious sense of pleasure on their part--a little was taught, in a big way.

Bartolomeo! Can I get a witnessss!!!

My entire college career reflects precisely what Bartholomae is asserting in "Inventing the University." I was not mature enough for college when I graduated high school. I had many false starts trying to be a university student. I still feel that this was largely my own fault and responsibility, but my view has also widened a bit and I can agree with Bartholomae that the university functions on a discourse that is problematic and limited in itself, and also not natural. It is a construct and an invention (and it has to be). It is one that is very tough to learn, however. There has not been a year that has gone by in my long journey through college in which I did not beat myself up, being bitterly disappointed in myself and my continual inability to cut the mustard just right (or not at all). I think, however, that it is no longer all on me. Lots of people want to be piano majors. Does that mean that the way WSU goes about it is the best way? Lots of people like to explore in college, even though they have declared and committed to a major. Does that mean that the various departments in which they dabble will understand, agree with, or work with that? There are two wills on the university--the university's and the student's. There are AT LEAST two wills. Really there are as many wills as there are departments, deans, professors, and students. I have seen some of the best and brightest wither and die because the university and the student were not a good fit. The program and the student are not a good fit. Fortunately, that was not what happened to me, but I feel that I am better equipped now to understand why it has happened to so many. I now realize that it is not only a matter of the student. It is also about the way in which the institution communicates, thinks, and goes about things.

Even when I finally got on track and started knocking down semester after semester in a steady fashion, my college experience was fraught with horrifying communication problems between professors and me. There was sometimes great confusion in what was required of me, even after just having a face to face conversation. I also had to face both the changing opinions and approaches of professors (their changing their minds or their simply forgetting things) and my own issues with those very same things. I had to deal with requirements that were fine, in themselves, but nearly impossible to reconcile all at once (talking about time and energy!) Then there's always the life factor. Life still happens outside of college! The school and everybody on its payroll would always just keep plugging along, however. It has been very hard to keep up with both myself and the college machine. They are two different animals, and the bottom line is that they do not always UNDERSTAND each other, much less keep up with each other. I have had soaring victories and very terrible lows. I have come to love "my college years" immensely and the people who were a part of it tremendously, including--and sometimes especially--professors. I have also come to realize, however (especially after having Bartholomae's piece shed interpretive light on this university experience), that not being the best-of-the-best as a college student does not make me a bad person. In fact, it may not even really mean anything at all. Bartholomae has given me permission to not allow the Institution to define my humanity and self worth (sorry to sound so trite). The Institution, and its standards, is just one perspective on reality. It is only one take on "how to do it." Every single lesson I have learned from college has been invaluable, both inside and outside the classroom. I realize, though, that me and the university were like two friends going for a walk on a certain path, having a dialogue. We have come to the end of the path and now he/she and I have to shake hands, say goodbye, and go meet and walk with other friends. Maybe those friends will be even better friends and the conversations even sweeter.