goodbye assertively unhip

Hello The Cold, Cold North. To go with my new Canadian life, I have decided to kill this old blog and start a new one. We all know that I am inescapably hip anyway. It's best to just accept it. So I hope you'll join me up here in the Cold, Cold North.

the annointed one

I am somewhere in Nebraska, wending my way to the cold. cold north. Thought you all might enjoy this. It cracked me up:



Light of the World

Not as bad as a terrorist

So at the CWC, I've somehow gained the reputation of being mean and scary. T. has had to to assure several staff members that I don't hate them. I've heard this sort of thing before about the way I come across to people, so I'm not totally surprised, but I've never heard these comments with such frequency. It might be the scowl, it might be my distaste for small talk, I'm not really sure. I do have a few theories, but they would take far too long to explain. Regardless of the cause, pretty much every staff member at the CWC has at some point thought that I was scary. My supposed scariness is now a topic of open discussion, so much so that new employees are assured in advance that I am not mean.

Last night was my farewell party with the c-dubbers, where of course my meany-meanness was the subject of conversation and laughter. I asked our newest employee (a Marine who did two tours in Iraq) whether he also thought I was scary. "Not really," he said. "But I fought terrorists."

Well, there you go.

Thai, Tattoos, Tequila

This just in: Scarlett Johansson has an album. Just in case you want to buy it.

Now that we have that tasty news out of the way, the real news is that to mark my marriage, to mark my departure from Utah (or just for the hell of it) I now have a tattoo. That's right kids. It's my first tattoo (except for those ones I got from the radiation tech back in the cancer days).

Tif and I organized an alliterative evening (she's a supreme tattoo facilitator, encouraging and accompanying anyone who mentions the slightest whiff of interest in getting a tattoo) with Thai food for dinner, the tattoos and then tequila. Since we went to Port-o-Call, Tif also said it should be my goal for the evening to kiss one of the guys in the bar. Then we could have added Tongue to the list. It was Port-o-Call and there were a lot of leering guys in the bar and it was my bachelorette party after all, but I decided against it.

Port-o-Call and the tequila shots were exciting, but the real excitement of the night was my tattoo. I would post a picture, but it is currently covered in plastic and kind of puffy; but if you see me, I might show it to you. I've been contemplating getting a tattoo for years, so now seemed a fine time. I was nervous about the thing, not about the needle which doesn't bother me at all, but about the idea that I might not like the thing, that I might instantly regret it. But I love it. love it. While I was getting inked, I was thinking about another design I could get to turn my little medical tattoos (which bug me in the way they remind me of bad days) into something of my own. Tif says tattoos are addictive.

Anyway, I feel all emboldened now. Maybe I'll make an album.

ottawa fashion

Last week, Ottawa held its first ever fashion week. There were a lot of scarves in the show:






I feel like this is not a very good sign.

But from looking at the pictures, it is clear that just like Liz Lemon in Cleveland, in Ottawa I can be a model.

To see more, go here and scroll down for Ottawa Fashion Week Day 1 & 2.

i've been reading the wrong things!

This morning I read this review in the NY Times about a new compilation of the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die." The article links to the list, which of course led me to assessing myself.

I've read eighty-five of the books on the list, which isn't very good I'm afraid which means, I guess, that I have been reading all the wrong things. I did surprisingly well in the 1800s which I guess can be explained by my college obsession with all things Thomas Hardy and Edith Wharton. If you add the books that I have started, but never finished I am up to 97. That's almost ten percent

I gave myself credit for Last of the Mohicans, even though I've only read the Pioneers, but I think if you've read one of Fenimore Cooper's books, you should get credit for all of them. I also think that because I have started a half a dozen of Dickens' books but haven't finished any of them, I should get credit for at least one of them.

One of the books on the list is Joseph Andrews, which for me is the symbol of all of my failings as an undergraduate. I keep a copy of it on my shelf which I promise myself I will one day read just to make up for all of the assigned books that I failed to read. (I think my guilt is mainly caused by the fact that even though I didn't read many things, I still got very good grades). I didn't count Joseph Andrews, but I think maybe I should because of my good intentions.

If you count all of the film adaptations I have seen (of books I have not read), then I can move my number up to 128.

If I add the books that I have heard so much about that I feel like I have read them, I am at 157.

If I add the books that are on my shelves, but I have not yet read I am at 171.

That's still not very good.

But if I consider that I am only 34 which means I have only been reading this sort of book for 18 years then that's an average of four books a year that I've actually read. That's respectable.

And why are none of the Faulkner books that I've read on this list? Whatever.

weekend wrap-up

ok, I know the weekend isn't over yet, but really all I'm going to do today is clean the house and run lame wedding-type errands. And enjoy the sun--finally!--in my tank top and flip flops.

The main outcome of the weekend is that I NEED to get a concertina. We went to living traditions last night and listened to this Irish band for a bit. We didn't like them too much, but one of them was playing a concertina which I have now decided I must have. I've found several on e-bay and a beginning instruction book. sigh. I will just have to wait until after the wedding and after the move, when I have cash to buy random things that I am certain will make my life better.

But, I did buy one random thing that is in fact making my life better. It was only like $15, so it's ok. We stopped by Starbucks in American Fork (it is hard to find Starbucks in the Happy Valley) and there was this cd, which I bought without thinking. It's a new wave compilation. Most of the songs I have on various cds, so I could probably have made the mix myself, but I didn't have Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" or Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love." I could have spent $2 on Itunes instead of the $15, but whatever. I'm listening to it now and it rocks and it will make house cleaning easier, if i ever get off of my computer and on to the cleaning.

The weekend was mostly about wedding stuff, which I am no longer stressing about. It's all but done, and it's going to be lovely. My sisters gave me a shower on Friday which all but one of my aunts and many cousins and even a couple of uncles came to. It was very sweet of them all to come and a bit overwhelming. I spent a lot of time explaining where we were getting married and why and who was marrying us. I'm one of a few of the kids who has not gotten married in the temple, or at least at a Mormon church by a Mormon bishop. They don't know what to make of me some times, which makes it all the lovelier that they all came to the shower. One of my uncles is perpetually begging me to come to the wedding (oh, the curse of the small wedding).

As part of our wedding chores, we stopped at Chocolatier Blue in Alpine, which if you haven't been to you must. They sell the chocolates at Caputos, but they're at least twice as much there and if you go to the Alpine shop and chat with Mr. Blue about how much you like his confections and chocolates in general he will give you free samples of delicious things. Like yesterday, he was telling us how Amedei is working with him to be the exclusive confectioner for their chocolate, which rocks my world. He had big hunks of couverture which they sent to him to experiment with. (he joked that someone was going to break into his shop for those; he shouldn't have said that because really, I was considering. . . ) He broke us off a couple of chunks and told us that when we pick up our wedding chocolates maybe he'll include a few of his Amedei experiments for us. yes, please. Anyway, if you like chocolate, his chocolates will make you cry. Just a little. Not in an embarrassing way, don't worry.


Finally, in other news, I got accepted to the PhD program. Tomorrow is the decision deadline. Any last words of advice, caution?

bad things and good things

Will says I need blog. It's not like I don't talk to him every day. And in this madness of planning a wedding and a move to Canada, when I'm a mess of nerves who yells and cries, you'd think he might want to hear a little bit less from me. But I guess there's some blog magic that he just can't get from the in-person me.

I wish had something wise, pithy, funny--or even interesting--to say, but sadly my brain is fried on grading and wedding planning. So, a quick summary of the good and bad things in my life at the moment.

Bad Things: A persistent cough that came out of nowhere with no additional symptoms. It's worse at night, which means I'm not getting any sleep. A very messy house (but now that I am done grading, I can rememdy that shortly). My best friend and my sister declared today that I am in fact having a "wedding," despite my efforts otherwise; I still think it's a low-key affair, but apparently I am wrong. My George Bush stimulus cash has not yet arrived; I need it to pay for my fancy new glasses.

Good Things: Luckily my good things list is much longer: Grades are finished and the only student emails thus far have been thank-yous (maybe I was too nice?). The dance movie marathon is only five days away. Even though I have to plan a wedding, I get to have said wedding at my favorite restaurant in my favorite desert with my favorite boy. And I have a pretty dress and blue shoes. It has finally stopped snowing. And a surprise good thing today--an essay that I sent off in, oh, 2005 finally got accepted today. I should refuse the publication in protest of the delay, but it's an essay that would have a hard time finding a home other than the journal I sent it to.

So that's that. Hopefully more blogging in the days to come.

spring break--the numbers

4 books read: Proust Was a Neuroscientist (Jonah Lehrer), The View from Castle Rock (Alice Munro), Theft (Peter Carey), The Bird Artist (Howard Norman)

6 nights sleeping in a tent: And quite well, actually--it may have been the rushing stream nearby.

4 days of climbing, 2 runs, and several hikes.

1 email responded to.

1 disastrous fall: slipping on pea gravel on a downhill slope which lead to to a bleeding toe and a very large bruise on my hip.

a 3rd viewing of Step Up 2.

I would say all of that makes for a perfect spring break. I returned totally relaxed and calm. Too bad that's not going to last.

plagiarism--the blog version

Well, it took a long arduous weekend and a resulting flu, but the PhD application if on its way. Wish me luck (at this point, I'm not sure whether that means getting in or being rejected). Since I worked such long hours on the writing sample, I have to make sure I get an audience outside of the selection committee, so here is--for your thrills and enjoyment--my plagiarism paper, the blog version.



“We sampled it from them, but it’s not the same baseline. Theirs goes, ‘Ding ding ding dingy ding-ding.’ Ours goes, ‘Ding ding ding ding dingy ding-ding.’ That little bitty change. It’s not the same.” --Vanilla Ice


"I changed the beginning and the end. It's a completely different story."--Anonymous Student


"We live in an intertextual world, not as a postmodern literary conceit but as a matter of practical reality."--Perry Share



What's the line between intertextuality and plagiarism? Consider Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland:



And its visual homage, Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen:



I use this example all of the time in my children's lit class. What makes Sendak's use of McCay's design and thematic elements a legitimate example of intertextuality & not plagiarism?

Plagiarism is Tricky.


1. Easy example of plagiarism: the purchased paper.

WRONG

What about ghost writing? Smart, busy, important people pay someone else to write for them all the time. The paper mills use these arguments: "How can I attend ballet rehearsal? I'm two days short of my paper deadline." The "completely non-plagiarized" papers are the perfect solution for the over-scheduled, overworked student.

2. Not-so-easy example: Appropriation, no citation.

If we can't even rely on the eternal and essential evils of the purchased paper, what happens when we encounter the lesser evils of plagiarism? If sources are referenced or quoted, they should always be carefully and thoroughly cited. What about this?



From Sophie Matisse's series Be Back in Five Minutes. Poor DaVinci doesn't even get his name mentioned.



3. Not-so-easy example 2: Patchwriting

Cutting and pasting, weaving in one's own words--that's getting closer. The writer is trying to make sense of the text, incorporate the sources. But the patchwritten text still isn't where it needs to be. Or is it?

What about Jonathan Lethem's 2007 Harper's pastiche?

Any text is woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony. The citations that go to make up a text are anonymous, untraceable, and yet already read; they are quotations without inverted commas. The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere expect the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperment, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

I like what he has to say here, but none of it's his. He weaves together Barthes, Twain, Emerson. And he doesn't even admit it until the end, where he writes:

This key to the preceding essay names the source of every line I stole, warped, and cobbled together as I ‘wrote’ (except, alas, those sources I forgot along the way). Nearly every sentence I culled I also revised, at least slightly—for necessities of space, in order to produce a more consistent tone, or simply because I felt like it.

Because he felt like it? Well, it works for me.


Outside of our teaching lives, we all recognize and accept that texts are used and reused and that plagiarism is big and flexible and indefinable. But in the classroom, we take the rigid view, believing that plagiarism "hurts the inquirer, who has avoided thinking independently and has lost the opportunity to participate in broader social conversations” (wpa statement on plagiarism). We even take a bit of pleasure when we catch the little buggers.


But our students also know that plagiarism is big and flexible and indefinable. They see it every day. All the sampling, mash-ups, parodies--it can seem like a textual free-for-all.

But there are rules. Take DJ Spooky aka that subliminal kid, who warns against "too much citation, not enough synthesis." Sounds like advice I might give my students.


Conclusion: Think rhetorical, not ethical. Use the textual practices outside of academia to explore the uses of text inside of academia.


And now, all of your plagiarism practices have been solved.

something to think about

For all of you Obama supporters, here's a little food for thought.

Oprah is a mega-Obama supporter, yes? Consider for a minute Oprah's megalomania. O Magazine. The O Network. The resident Oprah show doctor is Dr. Oz. Is Oprah supporting Obama to create an O-ocracy?

Imagine it: the O-office instead of the Oval Office. Little o's instead of stars on the flag. Pretty soon it will be Omerica.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

do I really want a phd?

Having just read dr. write's remarks about having a 24/7 anxiety attack, I feel a little bit better about my own 24/7 state of anxiety.

I am in the middle of applying for a phd program--well, a week away from the application deadline. In some ways, I planned ahead. The letters of recommendation have been sent, the general grad school application has been submitted, the transcripts have been sent, the gre has been taken (again!--clearly I've become a total dufus in the past ten years so my old scores just won't do). All of that is good. But what hasn't been done?

uh, a letter of intent and a writing sample. The letter has a good draft, so I can finish that up tomorrow. It's fine and does what it needs to do. But the writing sample. my god. If I were an organized person, I would just submit some writing from my master's, like say my thesis. But no, I have no idea where the thing is. I had the option to do a "project" which was exactly like a thesis, but I didn't have to meet any of the graduate school's expectations or deadlines, which basically means the thesis didn't get bound. Which means is became a stack of papers. Which means it is lost somewhere in my endless stacks of papers. And since I wrote the thesis eight years ago, the digital version is either a) on a floppy disk or b) on a zip drive.

Also, since my job is all about teaching, I have not done any substantial academic writing in the last eight years. So, I am trying to expand a conference presentation I did on plagiarism. It's an interesting topic and the draft is sort of working, but I seriously don't know how to do this kind of writing any more. What happened to my complex sentences, my ability to build an argument, my ease with integrating sources. Even the mystery novel I'm currently reading (The Somnambulist) uses more complex language than I seem to be capable of.

I am usually a procrastinator, but this I have not been procrastinating. I'm just way too busy and way to out of practice. Hopefully by the end of tonight (when will that be exactly?) I will have a not-too-crappy draft. Then I will try to edit furiously in order to get it sent off by the end of the week. Oh yes, and I will also grade like 4000 student papers.

Wish me luck. The good thing is that my paper references Vanilla Ice, Maurice Sendak, Jonathan Lethem, and DJ Spooky. It can't be bad, right?

I just want to dance

Last weekend, I saw Step Up 2: the Streets twice, TWICE. I've been waiting for this thing since since December when I saw the preview before Sweeney Todd. I was beside myself with joy. My sister-in-law thought I was kidding. No. There's no joking about dance movies.

I'm pretty sure I've gushed about my love for the dance movie before, but this one is like the best ever. It feels like when I was a pre-teen watching Breakin' over and over all night long at a sleepover. Maybe the love is all about the "street" element of both movies. Yes, the street is always part of the dance movie, but usually the street gets citified with polished ballet moves. Whatever. In both Breakin and Step Up, the streets win baby. I was so into Breakin' that I took some breakdancing classes. Sadly, I've got no sick moves.

It's decidedly silly this love I have for dance movies, but I just can't help it. Step Up had both ridiculous ("we call it a battle but what are we fighting for") and hilarious ("hey, this ain't high school musical"). The romance was silly. The dancing was amazing. I so wish I could move like that, but I'm lucky if I can walk through a parking lot without running into a car mirror.

"For the break of your life! Push it to pop it! Rock it to lock it! Break it to make it!"

why I voted for Clinton

At the beginning of this week, I wasn't entirely sure whether I would vote for Clinton or Obama. The way I look at things, anyone's better than Dubya, so let's just get on with the switch-up. Hell, at this point I would even take McCain. He may still support the war, but I'm guessing he'll handle the mess with more efficiency and intelligence. Clinton and Obama have very similar policy positions, so the choice seems less urgent than it might with two other candidates. And they're both for change right?

I didn't decide who I would vote for until I showed up at the polls. Ultimately, my decision came down to this: I wanted to vote for a woman. Clearly I wouldn't have voted for a woman if she had the political views of Huckabee or the smarminess of Mitt, but in this choice gender was a deciding factor for me.

As the week has progressed, though, I am more and more satisfied with my choice for reasons beyond gender. Here's what it's really all about:

1.Too much kumbaya. During Tuesday night's Super Tuesday coverage on ABC, Charlie Gibson referred to Obama's supporters as his "followers." And as Obama talked to the crowd, many of them seemed to be in some sort of orgasmic trance. Followers indeed. Add to this that Oprah is a mega-follower of Obama. This is a woman who believes in and promotes The Law of Attraction, which suggests that the universe is just waiting to deliver to you whatever you ask it for (including shiny stoves and houses on the beach as illustrated in one of her shows about The Secret). Further, increasingly his speeches mimic the rhetorical styles of MLK and JFK. Granted, these two were expert rhetoricians, but I worry that his derivative style may indicate that he is also lacking in original, pragmatic plans for action. Invoking MLK's style and "echoes from the hills" may be inspiring, but I need something a little more concrete. To consider this point further, read David Brooks' excellent and hilarious NY Times column.

2. What's with all the sexism? Based on the chatter surrounding the Clinton/ Obama contest thus far, I am beginning to suspect that our country may be far more sexist than racist. Yes, we are racist, but much of our racism is connected to poverty. With all things being equal in terms of education, class, and political views, I think being female is a bigger stumbling block than being black. (Another NY Times column on this point.) And strangely, much of the sexist response to Clinton has been from highly-educated, liberal women. Recently, there was a whole collection of essays published (can't remember the title) about Hillary by various high-profile feminists. Were they writing about Hillary's politics? Uh, no. They were writing about her as a woman, how she reflects on their identities as women, how her life speaks to their own insecurities. Where's the book about Obama's role as a man? Clinton tends to get far more support from older and working-class women than she does from upper-middle class women. Maybe working class women know that being a woman means both mothering and working--it's not a matter of trying to "have it all"--and they just want someone to help them out a little bit in managing that life. I'm not saying anyone should vote for Clinton because she is a woman, but they certainly shouldn't not vote for her for the same reason. She's a candidate, not the foil for your feminist insecurities.

That's all I have to say--for now. Kumbaya.

help! need romantic reading suggestions

So, I'm trying to plan a wedding here and we need some readings. You know, some way to flesh out the ceremony, to make everyone weepy, to get our friends/ family involved. The problem is all the love texts I like are either a) too sexy or b) too depressing. I can't have too sexy because I don't want to remind my Mormon father that I've been "living in sin" for the past two years; I just want him to be ecstatic that it's finally legit. And obviously we can't be depressing everyone, but that's what I like!

So, I'm calling on your collective romantic and literary expertise to give me a few ideas. Not too sexy, not depressing, not too cheesy. If you can suggest something that mildly references spirituality or god but not in a heavy-handed way, that would be swell too. ok, thanks

stuff I love

i'm finally answering lisa b's call to declare three things I love. So, for today:

sky: I love watching the sky, any kind of sky (oh, except that gunky yellow mid-winter, SL inversion sky, which luckily we are short on this year). I prefer the daytime sky to the nighttime sky. I want clouds and sun and movement. Yes, sky.

this new cd of underground post-punk music from China: it's called Look Directly Into the Sun. I heard about it on Fresh Air. it rocks and I will be listening to it incessantly for the next few days.


my voice: i am voiceless today, so i am thinking about how much I love to talk and teach and call people on the phone. voices are amazing--the way we can recognize a person by voice, the way we can tell how someone is feeling or maybe even what they are thinking just by slight tonal differences. a couple of years ago, when we canoed the Green River we ran into a group that planned to paddle for seven days in silence. I think that's stupid. Silence is good of course, in some circustances, but seven days without the sound of a voice misses all that's beautiful in the sound of a human voice.

sobering

I spent my morning at the state historical archives trying to find out some information about my great-grandmother. Until recently, I've never thought much about my great-grandmother. Her husband, my great-grandfather, was a guide in southern utah, a teller of tall tales, a folkloric, heroic sort of figure. He's attractive and compelling; I can mention his name to people who know about the southwest and they know him and they're charmed that I belong to him. I have a certain sort of longing for him, wishing I could have known him, wishing I could have accompanied him on a few adventures. I have spent hours researching, reading, writing about him.

I know very little about Annetta, my great-grandmother. As with most women of the past, her story is hidden behind the lives of men. Family stories about her mention her apple pie, her penuche fudge, her honey candy. And her mental illness. Her illness is mentioned, but in a hushed way, not out of shame but out of misunderstanding, ignorance. No one really knows what happened to her. Her daughter, my grandmother, had her own battle with mental illness, so I don't think she wanted to talk about the sorrows of her mother's life.

I never gave her much thought because it was Zeke who interested me. The family lore about Zeke and Annetta was that Zeke loved her dearly; she was the mother of his five children. As I researched Zeke's desert adventures, I also learned that Annetta was not Zeke's first wife. I learned that after Annetta, Zeke married three more women (he outlived all but the last). I learned that Zeke divorced Annetta. While she was a patient at the Utah State Hospital. Where she died.

Annetta could have been released from the hospital but no one came for her.

She was a patient at the hospital for seven years, six months, and twenty-five days.

Her diagnosis: manic depression, paranoia, psychosis.

Today, I read reports of conditions at the Utah State Hospital from the Board of Insanity. They categorized patients' likelihood of recovery into three categories: favorable, doubtful, and hopeless. Most patients were either in the "doubtful" and "hopeless" categories. This was not a place to get better. Each patient had approximately 35 square feet of living space, 398 cubic feet of air space, and 52 square feet of bed space. At the time, one of the most popular treatments was hydrotherapy which described a range of procedures: prolonged baths of sometimes days, showers with pressurized water, and wrapping in wet sheets that would dry and shrink around the patient.

There is more to learn.

I feel awkward writing this post--it feels so personal. I am trying to write an essay about Annetta, so I guess this is my beginning. And, beyond that, I guess I want someone to hear her story, to know the life that she lived. Thanks for hearing her story.

Co-opting Optimism

Last week, at our semesterly professional depression day, I maade the mistake of going to a workshop that was all about positive thinking or something. There were paper crowns and noisemakers and it was supposed to make us all excited to start the new semester. I went to the workshop to support a friend (whom I adore); I should perhaps have considered that friendship demands limits.

Part of the workshop was a pep-talk video from a National Geographic photographer whose key message was to "celebrate what's right with the world." He made a few insightful points and showed a variety of beautiful photographs. But as gorgeous pictures of nature continued to flash on the screen I couldn't help thinking, "what about deforestation, what about the giant heaps of garbage in the ocean, what about the melting glaciers?" I wanted to bring up these issues, but I knew that I would immediately be labeled as a cynic or as a student called me last semester, "a hater."

The truth is, I'm not a cynic. I think you should celebrate what's right with the world, but you shouldn't ignore what's wrong with the world. I am enthusiastic about teaching, but I'm also concerned about the pressure to work more for raises that we already deserve. I want to talk about what's right and wrong with the world.

I was stewing after that workshop, but in the end I'm glad I went because it made me realize a few things. Primarily, optimism has been entirely co-opted and redefined as a naive, feel-good approach to life. Optimism has been reduced to the wacko realm of The Secret where you only have to believe to achieve. All of this optimist rhetoric makes me feel like a cynic because I sure as hell don't believe that the universe is just waiting for me to tell it what I want I need.

But I'm not a cynic. I'm truly not. I'm not a feel-good optimist either and sometimes it feels like there isn't an option between the two.

The same night, I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth. Towards the end, Gore mentioned how the trouble with responding to global warming is that people often go from denial to despair without pausing to consider the space between--the space where one might actually do something. There is a lot right with the world, but there is a lot wrong--you don't have to select one view over the other. You can look at what's right as motivation to change what is wrong.

Perhaps this all seems simple, but it was quite a revelation to me. I used to be a fairly naive optimist. My mom once told me that I was only an optimist because I was young and nothing bad had ever happened to me. Yikes. I certainly chafed at that prouncement, which to me just confirmed my mom's role as a cynic. Eventually, I realized that she could have been right and if pressed in the past few years to decide whether I were an optimist or a pessimist I would have chosen the latter. I accepted that fact with a distinct longing for my former optimisim. Now, I am starting to realize that this is a false choice, that it's perfectly possible to be both.

nine reasons I have not been blogging

It's almost been a month--a month people!--since I have blogged. I know that each of you has taken a few moments in your holiday bliss to cry a little about this and for that I am sorry. But I have good reasons.

1. I had to sleep--a lot.
2. I had a lot of things to read. To facilitate this reading, I also had to make several trips to the bookstore and finally pay off my $100 bill for library fines.
3. I had to bake: pumpkin pie, cherry pie, the best chocolate chip cookies ever, linzer cookies, graham crackers, marshmallows, a trifle (which included days of concocting a recipe--it included blood oranges and it tasted like a creamscicle!).
3. I had to travel to Virginia for a job interview in a city where we eventually decided not to move.
4. I had to contemplate my future life in the cold, cold north of Canadia.
5. I had to go shopping for new pants, because all of my pants started falling apart or mysteriously started shrinking.
6. I had to think about how to pull off a wedding without doing any actual planning.
7. I had to write syllabi (which I still haven't finished--why am I blogging?)
8. I had to watch movies, both in the theater and at home: Golden Compass, Walk Hard, Sweeney Todd, Midnight Cowboy, Once, Purple Rain, Hot Fuzz (again!), Super Bad.
9. I had to go to Montana where I had to eat a lot and sleep and play clue and go skiing.