In honor of Evil Bill's recent return to Kalamazoo, we played a game of Risk 2210 AD (aka "Space Risk"). Although I was exiled to the moon early on in the game, I made a pretty good run of it—until Dan crushed Bill into oblivion. Oh, yeah, Caleb and Jason Nickol also played. Caleb made my life miserable by launching nuclear attacks against the moon.
Tomorrow is Freezoween. Since Bill and J. Edmund missed Halloween (their favorite holiday), we are making it up to them on New Year's Eve.
The recent winter snowstorm I drove through reminded me of an experience five years ago in the Andes. I was taking a bus from La Paz, Bolivia, into Chile. The bus was loaded w/ Bolivians and a smattering of European backpackers. I’d bought a little bag of charque khan that the peasant ladies sell.
Charque khan is the best part of traveling by bus in Bolivia. It’s shredded jerked llama meat in a little plastic bag along w/ yellow potatoes, choclo (large white corn), and a hardboiled egg. It’s finger licking delicious.
We had just crossed the frontier at Tambo Quemado, a small outpost on the Bolivian side of the border at about 5,000 feet. In broken French, I asked a backpacker from Marseilles to snap a picture of me in the snow. We’d just had our exit stamps in our passports and had not yet reached the Chilean outpost on the other side. So our bus and all its passengers were in international limbo—no longer in Bolivia, not yet in Chile.
As a quick night descended in the Andean winter, our bus ground to a halt. After a few minutes, a carabinero (Chilean national police) boarded the bus to make an announcement: An avalanche had closed the highway a few kilometers ahead. Traffic into Chile was backed up around us.
This was the day I witnessed the clearest example of Andean practical politics. Without complaining about the situation, a rather democratic discussion ensued (led by the peasant women). A small “official” delegation left the bus and went to speak to the carabinero captain.
Within a quarter of an hour, the delegation returned. We had two choices. We could stay and wait until the road was cleared, hoping it’d be cleared in the hour or so left of daylight. Or we could turn around and head back to La Paz and start out again the next day on another bus. After another round of discussion, we decided to stay. We knew that we might have to spend the night in the road, on the bus. We’d probably miss our dinner and arrive quite late in Arica. But we would stay put.
Several other vehicles, mostly smaller cars, turned around and headed back towards the safety of the city. A few buses and large trucks stayed. The truck ahead of us was carrying cargo to Chile. The driver ceremoniously opened up the back of his truck, and began selling his whares. I was surprised that he wasn’t gouging us and that he was willing to accept Bolivian, Chilean, or US currency. Quite the entrepreneurial spirit. I bought a package of saltines, a bottle of Coca Cola, and a pack of Camels to split w/ an American backpacker, two Brits, and a Chilean (just in case we were stranded overnight).
Lucky for us, the road was cleared just minutes before night descended on the mountains. With a cheer and ”¡Ya vamos!” the bus lurched forward into the dark.
I played dominos w/ Ali today. We met at Klein's Bagels and just chatted away about her moving to New York City to attend the Pratt Institute, my various future plans, and her current life in sunny California.
I'm excited for her move to The City. I think she'll like it. After all, it is the center of the civilized world. And it has amazing ballet, which is Ali's primary consideration when assessing the quality of cities. It's for this crucial reason alone that Chicago, my beloved Second City, is unacceptable to her. I can't wait to get back to NYC. Visiting Ali will be the perfect excuse.
After dominos, we walked to my place to see her Vepsa Ciao, tucked away in my shed. She's excited and can't wait to get it back to San Francisco. She visited Annie and Sophie and agreed that Annie has lost considerable weight and looks much slimmer. I then walked her back to her old apartment, where she reminisced about life in Kalamazoo and admitted that she misses our quaint little metropolis.
Oh, I probably should mention that Ali beat me (by a slim margin) at dominos.
I took Liz to the very posh and well-catered party hosted by Miss Allison Spicer and Monsieur Eric Gielow. First of all, they have impecable taste and are the best of hosts. We played Cranium, a board game that combines elements of Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, charades, and so forth. It was quite fun.
I looked rather dashing (if I do say so myself) in my black gabardine suit and precisely tied half-windsor. I love dressing up on rare ocassions.
I finally started watching Band of Brothers on DVD. I watched the first two disks last night. It's everything I thought it would be. Amazing. Based on the book by Stephen Ambrose, it tells the story of an Airborne company during the Second World War. It's better in many respects than Saving Private Ryan, and more in the tradition of A Bridge Too Far (my all time favorite).
On a special note, Stephen Ambrose died about two months ago. Corine called me up to tell me and we reminisced about being history majors in sleepy little Mout Pleasant.
Today began w/ an alarm. I woke to Dan pounding on my neighbor's door at 7:30am. Apartment 16 was, apparently, on fire. Smoke wafted from under the door and Dan's pounding didn't wake anyone up. Tad peeked from outside and announced that the cause was something left on the stove. Several concerned neighbors gathered around waiting for the fire department. After working on the door for about ten minutes, Kalamazoo Public Safety's finest broke the door down w/ a sledgehammer.
Inside, they found a girl passed out on the couch, too drunk to realize her apartment was spewing smoke or that half the smoke detectors in the building had gone off. I've not liked these new neighbors. Most of the building is inhabited by quiet, courteous folk. Apartment 16 has—in the few weeks they've lived in the Parkmont—had several loud, late parties. Perhaps the little fire incident will be the end of the new tenants? Somehow, I think that burning your apartment down in a drunken stupor is grounds for eviction.
The rest of the day had some bad foreboding. Ali Baba's was unexpectedly closed, so no falafel for Miguel on his way to work at The Space. And my cell phone isn't working. Apparently, the Cricket system is (temporarily) down. The first means I went to work hungry. The second means that I might miss Ali's call when she gets into town. I haven't seen her since we said goodbye at the airport in October. She's only in town for one day and we're hoping to hang out briefly. Maybe play a game of dominos?
I just finished Patrick Symmes' Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend. Symmes retraced Che's 1952 motorcycle trip across Latin America, ending up at Che's burial site in Bolivia. The book is an amazing travelogue w/ meditations on politics, history, motorcycle repair, and (of course) Che.
What I like most is Symmes' brutal and vulnerable honesty. This is not mere Che hero-worship. Symmes balances awe for the iconic Che while remaining skeptical and critical of the human Che. If you want to learn about Che Guevara, this is as good a book as any.
I just had my first Joe Strummer experience. Like many others, I didn't know who Joe Strummer was. He was, I'm told, the singer for The Clash, a British punk band. I never got into much punk rock; I was more into New Wave and indie pop. But his death had quite an effect on people.
The scene for my Joe Strummer experience was at a post-Christmas party last night. Tall John was offering condolences over Strummer's death to a kid w/ a mohawk. He'd never heard of Joe Strummer. There was some good natured ribbing at mohawk kid's expense. John suggested mohawk kid was a "poser punk" since he didn't know who Joe Strummer was, then looked to me for support. I offered a "well, you do have a mohawk" directed at mohawk kid. Then I wandered away to another spot in the party.
A few minutes later, mohawk kid cornered me (literaly, I was in a small corner of the room) to engage in a conversation meant to convince me that he was not a poser punk. Ironically, the more he tried to convince me that he wasn't a poser punk—while insisting that he could care less what I thought about him—the sillier his whole conversation became. I just listened, nodded my head and responded at appropriate intervals: "of course you do" or "why should you?" and "you're right, it doesn't matter."
Despite the fact that he was holding his own personal bottle of Jack Daniels, he insisted that his argument was logical, that he wasn't offended by me at all (I assured him that I also wasn't offended), and that he just enjoys arguing. He specifically said that he'd even argue about red and green. Now, I've been called argumentative, but even I have my limits. There are things not worth debating (am I pro- or anti-green?).
The funniest thing was mohawk kid's continual use of pseudo-sophisticate jargon meant to convince me his argument was worth listening to. He kept referring to punk as a "failed subculture" (what is this supposed to mean?) and insisting that he had an "affinity" for the punk rock subculture because it was closest to his own "political ideological beliefs" (though he couldn't quite explain what these were). In the end, I confessed that I was smirking (not sneering) and that he was profoundly entertaining.
I'll readily admit that it was probably Jack speaking; he may very well be a brilliant punk savant when sober. But that was my first "Joe Strummer memory" (since I had no priors). From the little I've heard about Strummer (all since his death and all from Joshes Dahl and Upson), I'd like to think he was at least mildly amused and smirking from rock and roll heaven.
Plowtruck drivers are the real holiday heroes. On the way back from Chicago, a snow storm caught Andy and I along I-94. We'd hoped to reach Kalamazoo before it hit, but no dice. The road was bad in Indiana and Illinois, but much improved in Michigan. Christmas Eve and the plowtrucks were out; I saw several going back and forth on the stretches of I-94 as we crawled by. Give it up for the MDOT.
Our Chicago trip was fun. Andy had his first White Castle experience on the highway. Let me just point out that this is not a place you want to eat. Their idea of a breakfast menu was toast w/ bacon on it. Don't eat there.
In Chicago, we mostly just strolled about—starting on 8th Street up the length of Michigan Avenue and back. Chicago is beautiful in winter. We checked out the Chicago Public Library and visited the Chicago Cultural Center. Both buildings were amazing. We spent about an hour going through the exhibits at the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
We stopped for coffee and chess, where I continued my winning streak against my little brother. Tsk, tsk. Someone's not been practicing, eh?
Then we went ice skating at Millenium Park. I've not ice skated in a long time, and I've never used hockey skates. But it was still fun to slosh around to country versions of Christmas songs outdoors surrounded by a rising skyline of steel and glass skyscrapers.
Finally, we visited Sam, Kelly, and Novalí at the Gomez home. Overall, it was a good Christmas. I hope my parents enjoyed theirs in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, w/ the extended Centellas clan. ¡Feliz navidad!
My parents went to Bolivia for Christmas, so the Centellas boys are left to their own resources. Andy is coming to Kalamazoo this evening. If anyone wants to hang out w/ my little brother and I, give me a ring. We'll probably go get coffee, play some chess, and maybe rent a movie or something. Tomorrow we're driving to Chicago to hang out in the Second City and to visit my niece, Novalí.
It's been about a week since the second LOTR movie came out. I think it's safe to post freely about the movie w/o being too much of a spoiler.
Overall, the movie was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I saw it twice opening day (including the Tuesday midnight show). I loved the further development of characters such as Gandalf and Aragorn, as well as the introduction of Éowyn and the Rohirrim. Gollum and the Ents, of course, were amazing. I also enjoyed the development of the Arwen-Aragorn story line (which I think is important) and the development of Éowyn's character and her unrequitted romance towards Aragorn.
There were, however, a few problems. Most of these were minor and could be excused. The book, after all, is extremely long and certain modifications are needed to move the story along and still present the book's broad themes. The use of Gimli as a comic relief character is warranted; a careful reading of Tolkien's book shows that Gimli could be interpreted that way. Contrary to the book, the Ents decide against war in the movie; we can forgive that, since it shows they're not "hasty" (as Treebeard would say).
The Battle of Helm's Deep is still one of my favorite scenes, despite the changes from the book. Éomer isn't at the battle of Helm's Deep, as he should be. Instead, he leads the charge of the Rohirrim at the end of the battle. In the book, this charge is led by Erkenbrand, who had fought against Saruman's armies days before (this was were Théodred fell). Defeated at the Fords of Isen, the scattered force regroups (w/ the help of Gandalf) and breaks the siege of Helm's Deep. I was also disappointed that it wasn't Théoden's idea to charge out of the Keep at dawn. Nevertheless, the charge by Théoden, Aragorn, and the king's household guard was gallant.
One of the two most glaring problems did take place at Helm's Deep, however. There aren't supposed to be any Elves (except for Legolas) at Helm's Deep. Their inclusion doesn't advance the plot in any way and, instead, damages a major theme of the book. The Elves have resigned themselves to leave Middle-Earth and return to Valinor (the Undying Lands). Their presence at the battle makes it seem as if the Elves will take active participation in the final war against Sauron; they do not (by conscious and careful decision). And if Peter Jackson is trying to be more "inclusive", why didn't an army of Dwarves arrive?
In the book, a small company of Dúnedain (Rangers) arrive along w/ Elrond's two sons (Elladan and Elrohim). They bring Aragorn a battle standard made for him by Arwen. Gimli comments to Legolas that they should've asked for some of their kinsmen to come to their aid. Legolas looks east and north and laments that none would've come, war was already upon them. We later find out (in the Appendix) that at the time of the fighting in the main story (Helm's Deep, Isengard, Minas Tirith), Sauron's armies also marched against Lothlórien, the forest of Mirkwood (Legolas' home), and Erebor (Gimli's home).
The Elves' presence at Helm's Deep also diminishes the valor of the desperate defense made by, as in the book, an army partially composed of old men and young boys. The only reason I can think of for the inclusion of Elves in the battle is to show us how awesome they are. But Legolas and the character development of Arwen and Elrond is enough for this.
Finally, I was mortifyed at the depiction of Faramir. In the book, he displays great nobility by letting Frodo and Sam go free, even though he knows about the One Ring. He never mentions it to his men and lets the hobbits go after giving them provisions and walking staves. In the movie, Frodo and Sam are taken hostage to Osgiliath, which is under attack by Sauron's forces. There's no need for Frodo to be there and it opens a whole in the plot. If orcs hold the eastern bank of the river, if Osgiliath is about to fall, and if Názgul circle the battle, then how the hell does Frodo and the One Ring manage to make it all the way back across South Ithilien to reach the tunel under Cirith Ungol? Not to mention that Faramir now more resembles Boromir in character than he does Aragorn.
In Faramir's scenes Jackson also misses a great opportunity. Tolkien's Faramir demonstrates what the men of Númenor (Aragorn is one of these) were once like (more similar to Elves than to men). In the book, when Frodo is amazed at Faramir's willingness to let them go, Faramir answers: "Maybe you discern from far away the air of Númenor." Tolkien's scenes w/ Faramir let us know what kind of men the Dúnedain are (Faramir commands the Rangers of South Ithilien) and in that way also tell us more about the kind of man Aragorn is.
Some reviewers hint that Jackson is following an action-hero movie formula where a story has only one true heroic character. This would also explain Aragorn suggesting the last charge out of Helm's Deep, rather than Théoden. Too bad; Tolkien's book has many more human characters that are heroic and noble in their own right (Faramir, Imrahil, Théoden, Éomer, Éowyn).
Yesterday I had lunch w/ my dissertation co-chairs at Cosmo's. I'd handed in a (very) rough draft of my first chapter. I'm on the right track (that's good), but I need to make substantial revisions (that was obvious even to me). But we had a great conversation and I think I'm much more settled on how to write this chapter.
I've been trying to combine the introduction and the first chapter; the two are distinct. This solves all my structural problems. I was unsure how to lay out the chapter following my introductory pages. Taking these out and writing separate introduction and literature review chapters makes dissertation life that much easier. I know have a firmer framework to work from.
Last night I saw Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. It was pretty good. I didn't like Leonardo DiCaprio's performance, but Daniel Day-Lewis stole the show anyhow and made the movie worth watching. I also appreciated the historical subplot in the background, though I think that might have actually made a more interesting story. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Irish; the story of the New York City Draft Riots is heartbreaking.
I hope to see LOTR: The Two Towers again tonight w/ Liz. It really is a good movie, despite it's two major problems (I'll post about those later).
I'm reading a travelogue by Patrick Symmes, Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend. It was a Christmas gift from my parents. The author retraced Che Guevara's 1952 motorcycle journey across South America. Symmes' reflections on Chile reminded me of my own.
Unlike Symmes or Guevara, I entered Chile from the north, crossing from Bolivia's Andean frontier into the desert of Arica. I travelled most of the length of Chile towards Puerto Montt. I was visiting two friends I'd met at college. Carlos lived in the small coastal town of Puerto Montt; Andrés lived just north in Valdivia. I rode the southern buses, seeing the changing scenery of Chile as we moved from desert, to urban Santiago, to forests and wooden houses along the southern coast. It was beautiful.
The Chilean people are very kind, generous, and polite. But, like Symmes, I was struck by the clearly apolitical nature of Chilean life. This was very different in 1971, when Salvador Allende, a socialist, won the presidency. At that time, Chile was known for its strong political parties (left, center, and right). Then came the bloody 1973 coup led by General Pinochet and a bloody repression that left as many as 3,000 dead or "disappeared." Now no one talks politics.
Carlos and Andrés were gracious hosts. They kept me well fed and showed me around their respective towns. Carlos was the most "political" of the two. He drove me to see the housing projects built under Pinochet. They resembled housing projects anywhere else: drab block houses built like milk crates, stacked high up. These were good, he said, because at least the poor had housing now. He then added in a whisper, as if someone outside the car might hear us, that the buildings also showed the country's socioeconomic problems.
My most awkward experience was a small dinner party. Carlos lived atop a hill in a modest, wooden house overlooking the bay. We sat in his small dining room along w/ his wife, another couple, and another friend. We drank wine and pisco (a strong alcohol made from grapes) and ate seafood. The conversation turned from various topics, including the economy. I accidentally turned the conversation to political matters. I mentioned Pinochet. A worried expression came over Carlos' face, unsure of what I might say in front of his guests. I did my best to quickly change the subject. One doesn't talk freely about certain matters in Chile.
One of Carlos' guests, a neighborhood friend, sat glaring at me. He wore a dark olive sweater w/ a small pin near his shoulder. I then remembered that he'd been introduced to me as a colonel in the Carabineros (the Chilean national police). The pin was the Carabinero emblem, two rifles crossed above the motto Orden y Patria (Order and Fatherland). I wondered what this colonel had done in the decades following 1973.
I remember moving through the Chilean countryside and seeing, here and there, small white crosses. Few people would speak freely about them, but these didn't mark the site of traffic accidents. Each cross marked the spot where someone had last been seen alive, before they were "disappeared" by the army and police. The 3,000 wasn't just a statistic. Someone, perhaps a mother, a son, a close friend, had searched for a specific someone. All they found was some piece of mud and grass.
I spent three nights and two days in Saginaw. The city is slowly decaying upon itself, even as signs of new wealth increase along its perimeters. Saginaw is a collage of plain cement parking lots, half-abandoned strip malls, and rows of once proud, now run down, wooden houses. The panorama is a vast emptiness filled w/ the clutter of a dead industrial town.
I'm often amazed at the relentless ability of the city's managers to wreak havoc w/ their good intentions. Despite its grinding poverty, the city continues to pour money into poorly planned public projects meant to bring the city back to life. Recovery is always just over the horizon. If only more people would've attended the Civic Center, or the Anderson Water Park, or the International Center. All now abandoned or on the brink; the city can't even afford to pay their utilities. Instead of solving the city's woes, they leave a legacy of public spending that bred greater debt and increased burden on the city's dwindling tax base.
Meanwhile, the core of old Saginaw city languishes alone, a motley collection of small local businesses. While the city pours money into a dead "downtown" across the river (in the predominantly poor and black East Saginaw), the small business districts hugging Court Street go unattended. Ironically, these small shops circle the City Hall that ignores them.
Worse yet, sometimes it destroys them. The city and county bought a plot of land to build independent housing for mentally challenged adults. A noble enterprise, perhaps. But the plot of land wasn't abandoned (though there's plenty of abandoned land for the taking); it was home to a dozen small businesses stradling Bay and Genessee. The neighborhood cofee house was there, along w/ a maternity store, a sandwich shop, and several other small business. They're gone now. The housing project is now caught in legal red tape. In the meantime, the State and Bay business district has lost more than a quarter of its shops, amputated by bureaucrats.
There's no denying that the city is slowly dying. Most of the neighborhoods in Saginaw resemble Kalamazoo's North Side. The worse neighborhoods look like abandoned war zones or images of post-Soviet Rumania. And the city keeps looking for that next miracle fix, overlooking the natural strength of the small businesses that still cling together, little oases surrounded by a concrete wasteland. Meanwhile, the outlying suburbs continue to grow, sprouting stately two-story houses. I don't think the city will last much longer.
Here's a snippet from the book I'm currently reading. It really makes me miss riding mopeds.
There are moments on a motorcycle when all the glory of motion is distilled into one powerful package. Chasing curves over a swelling landscape, a motorcycle enters the pure expression of physics and is bound to the road in a way no car will ever know. The rider and machine are literaly balanced on the infinitely thin line where centripetal force meets gravity. Despite this state of suspended disaster, the sensation of risk is largely a sensation; the motorcycle is in harmony with the road, and risk comes overwhelmingly from other drivers. Any moment of travel on a motorcycle is a light and essential moment, an agile rebuke to a life conducted in one place. The raw force of the engine is not hidden beneath a hood, but alternately purrs and growls a few inches from the knees, demanding the consciousness of power. Sealed behind glass, insulated by climate control systems and music, the driver of a car knows nothing about the directions of the wind, the lay of sunlight, the small changes in temperature between a peak and a valley, the textured noise of differing asphalts, or the sweet and sour aromas of manured fields or passing pine forests. Engaged in all the senses and elements, balanced in present tense, a rider on two wheels can taste moments of oneness with the road.
Patrick Symmes, Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend
I had coffee w/ Matt last night. At first, we went to the Red Eye, the old coffee house in Saginaw's Old Town. We spent so many nights there over the years growing into old friends. But the place was crowded, smokey, and loud. So we went to an old fallback, The Texan. The coffee's not as good, but it's quieter. We smoked Sampoerna's and talked for hours about his painting, my writing, and life in general.
Matt's now married (to April) and has a young son, Emit. I'm amazed at how much little Emit resembles his dad. Thin, highly energetic (you could say spastic) yet relaxed, and those bulldog jowls. Matt's transformation into fatherhood is amazing.
I'm also impressed w/ his new artwork. At his last art show, his work was semi-representational. He painted scenes, but heavily distorted into sections of color. He'd started experimenting w/ giving the viewer free reign to impose his/her own interpretation into the painting.
His current work is based on some Carl Jung he's been reading. It experiments w/ color, order, and chaos. The paintings are purely non-representational. They have no conscious meaning. But as you look at them, detailed scenes and images emerge. I told him they remind me of very complex, colorful Rorschach ink blots.
My grandparents sent us a set of silly Santa hats and insisted that we take a family picture wearing them. So here's our Centellas Family Christmas family portrait, thanks to the self-timer on my digital camera.
A snapshot of the Christmas Monopoly game. This was taken moments before Dad was bankrupted by his youngest son.
Today was Centellas Family Christmas. My parents are flying to Bolivia for the holidays, so the family got together in Kalamazoo for the festivities. We went to mass at St. Thomas More, then lunch at The University Roadhouse, followed by wine and cookies at my apartment. It was a simple, but fun not-Christmas day. Mom gave everyone our cookie rations. Andy gave everyone a personal mug, which reminded us of our first Christmas in America, when we got personal mugs and our own $6 sleds.
I also received two books: Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend and El hombre que calculaba (The Man Who Calculated). The first seems to be in line w/ Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's the travelogue of a freelance journalist who rides his classic BMW R80 G/S motorcycle retracing Che's 1952 motorcycle route. I'm reading it first. The second is my dad's favorite book. It's an old Spanish book about a sort of McGuiver-esque Arab who's a math genius and solves problems and has crazy math-related adventures.
After wine and cookies, most of us sat down for a game of Monopoly. Andy swindled Mom (above everyone else's objections, too late) into having the Light Blue monopoly early in the game. It went downhill from there. Soon, Mom was bankrupt and Dad and I were on the ropes. The game came down to Andy and Dad, with Dad cashing out after two trips in one turn (he rolled doubles) to Andy's Orange hotels. Andy did a little happy dance and Dad cried out his classic "Oh, man!"
Now I'm back in Saginaw until Wednesday. I'm looking forward to a few days of change of scenery and hanging out w/ Matt. We've plans to see LOTR either Tuesday or Wednesday. It should be tons of fun.
I just got in a brief argument w/ someone over the merits of capitalism. This guy was offended that I was pro-capitalism and (gasp!) an objectivist. Like most well-intentioned hippies, he supports free thinking only when one agrees w/ him. The really irritating part is the use of sloppy thinking.
He tried arguing that capitalism produces slavery. That is, that the low wages and bad working conditions in much of the third world ammount to slavery. This is just plain not true on two grounds. First, the word slavery carries a specific definition (which is incompatible w/ capitalist labor relations). Second, I dislike the use of descriptive words as pejoratives when other words will do.
Strictly speaking, the word "slavery" has no normative meaning. It does not specify that something is bad or good. It merely describes the relations of production. That our modern society morally opposes slavery (and rightly so!) does not change the fact that the word has no normative content. Using "slavery" to describe labor relations that one doesn't agree w/ is sloppy. It's a feeble attempt to carry over the moral condemnation of the thing itself (slavery) into another area. In the end, it strips the word of its specific content.
It's use in arguments is also uncessary. Why not say capitalism is exploitive or unfair? Why not argue that wages are low, working conditions are unsafe, or that workers have comparatively less power over their lives than their employers do? There's no need to just throw out the rhetorical phrases "capitalism is slavery" when better arguments could be employed. It's a cheap trick. Ask yourself why so many people who oppose capitalism revert to such petty tricks. After all, it was capitalism (and bourgeoise culture) that abolished slavery.
There’s been a great deal of controversy over the inclusion of Arwen in the first LOTR movie. Critics are right to point out that Arwen doesn’t really appear much in any of the three volumes, save as a very minor character. And it wasn’t Arwen who met Aragorn, Frodo, and company on the way to Rivendell. It was an Elf named Glorfindel. And he didn’t ride w/ Frodo running from the Ringwraiths; Frodo rode alone.
Nevertheless, Arwen Evenstar is an important LOTR character. She’s not just mentioned in the Appendices (as most people know), but she’s “present” in most of the book after Rivendell. To understand this, you have to consider that Tolkien’s book isn’t a novel; it’s a history. By this, I mean that it’s written in the style of historical literature (think Beowulf, The Iliad, Song of Roland, or Morte d’Arthur). Characters don’t have to be in “scenes” to be present. Helen, though rarely mentioned in the text, is a major character in The Iliad. Histories (in this sense) are also interpretational, they’re not meant to be accurate. That alone allows Peter Jackson the freedom to alter scenes—and even dialogue—in his movie’s interpretation of the story.
As those of you who’ve read the book know, Arwen weds Aragorn and gives up her immortality. In the movie, there’s a short scene where the two of them declare their love to each other in Rivendell. That scene comes from the Appendices (which should be treated as part of the story itself) and does happen in Rivendell itself. In that scene, Arwen declares her love to Aragorn and announces to him that she'll give up her immortality as an Elf to stay in Middle-Earth w/ him.
True, Arwen doesn’t give Aragorn her necklace at that time. This is a major departure from the text. But Aragorn is given the necklace by Arwen through Galadriel (her grandmother). In Lothlórien, when Galadriel gives each member of the company gifts (you can see this scene in the extended DVD version), she gives Aragorn Arwen’s necklace.
But who is Arwen Evenstar? The extended DVD gives a bit more info on this. But if you’ve not read the books (or, heaven forbid, the Appendices), it’s important to know something about her. Arwen is the daughter of Elrond Half-Elven. She is of the line of Lúthien Tinúviel (in the extended DVD there’s a brief scene where Aragorn sings a few lines of song from the Lay of Lúthien, which is in the book).
Lúthien Tinúviel was an Elf who gave up her immortality for the love of a man, Beren. Together they fought w/ Morgoth (Sauron’s master) to take back the Silmaril from him and return them to the land of the Valar. They managed to save only one, which Eärendil took. The Valar set him in the sky as a bright star to give hope to all who fought against evil in the world. This is the Light of Eärendil that Galadriel gave to Frodo.
In simplest terms, we have to know about Arwen in order to understand a great deal of Aragorn’s motivation. Arwen is present in his actions and thought. She makes a banner for him, the standard he’ll carry into battle as King of the West. She can’t marry him unless he defeats Sauron. You see, she has to be included in the movie. And her addition in the scene where Frodo flees the Wringwraiths also helped show her power (she does become Queen of the Elves) and the power of Elves in general.
The previews for the second movie hint that there'll be more scenes w/ Arwen. I’m anxiously looking forward to seeing what these are. I trust Peter Jackson; he and almost everyone else involved in the making the movies are huge Tolkien fans. Her inclusion will have to show the role the Elves (especially Elrond and Arwen) play in the story. And though the Elves do little in the text of the book, they are heavily involved in the thousands of years they’ve fought their “long defeat” against Sauron and the forces of Mordor.
I've been thinking lately about my family, especially my parents. I love them both dearly. They've given up so much for their kids. And I've learned so much from them. I didn't appreciate it when I was younger. I do now.
My family moved to the US from Bolivia in 1985. Things back home weren't going so well. My family was a comfortable, middle-class family. But the economy was collapsing around us (inflation reached 25,000 percent the month we left).
The political scene was precarious at best. I wasn't kidnapped by the military to force my dad to leave (that happened to my friend Daniel when he was two years old). My dad wasn't shot and tortured by the army when they attacked the university (that happened to my friend Gabriela). But the political outlook was grim (the last dictator had Klaus Barbie, a Nazi war criminal as his "security advisor"). A civilian government had just taken over and no one knew what would happen next.
So, my parents decided to move to my mother's home town of Saginaw, Michigan. It was a hard move for all of us, but they did what their hearts told them was best. Sam and I lived in my grandparents' basement; a month later my mom and Andy joined us. My dad arrived a few months later, on my birthday (it was the best birthday present ever).
My dad didn't speak any English; my mom was pregnant and there were us three brothers to think of. It was tough. We had enough money to rent a two-bedroom apartment, 1803 Grout Street. We lived in South Saginaw, a few blocks from the General Motors Steering Gear plant. My dad took a job delivering papers (the Detroit News). My mom ran a governmet subsidized daycare center at home.
Once the weather was nice, my dad took a job as a roofer. It payed little and he worked 10 hours (or more) a day. I hardly ever saw him; his work often took him far across the state. My mom found a part-time job at the Saginaw Public Library. In time, my dad learned enough English to do the bookkeeping for the roofing company. When his English improved, he was able to land a job at a new optometrist, Great Lakes Eye.
My parents saved up enough (man, they knew how to cut corners!) to move into a small two-bedroom house, 2418 North Mason Street. My dad built an extra bedroom and bathroom in the basement himself. We kids went to school and our parents made sure we never did without. We wore second-hand clothes and hardly ever had any "brand-name" stuff. I didn't have cable TV until I went to college and lived in the dorms. But we slowly pinched and saved. In time, thanks to hard work, we moved into the American middle-class.
Dad now works as chief accountant for a non-profit organization that helps immigrants learn English and work skills. That's been his job for the last ten years. Mom went back to college a while ago (for her MA) and currently teaches middle school Spanish and creative writing at Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy. She recently had a short bout w/ cancer, but she never let it get her down.
If you ever meet my parents, you'll immediately notice how amazing they are. Sigh, I've gotten so nostalgic in my old age.
I talked on the phone with my old friend Matt yesterday. I haven't seen him in about a year; we made holiday plans. I really miss him. We were virtually inseparable in Saginaw. I have no idea how many games of chess we played, how many cups of coffee we drank, or how many dollar movies we saw. But we both went to college (he went to Detroit's Center for Creative Studies) pretty far from each other (and he doesn't use the internet at all!) and our times together became briefer and further apart.
Still, whenever we see each other, it's like time stands still. We can just look at each other over a couple of beers and know that both of us are alright. And though he looks different, he also looks the same. I can't wait to see him and see how much more improved his paiting has become. His last art show was an amazing departure from his previous work.
Thinking of my old friends (like Matt or Corine), I realize that I miss silence. So I've declared this the week of silence. I'm tired of hanging out w/ people who just want to talk and talk and talk. I've never liked chatterboxes. I miss being able to sit still w/ a person—over a game of chess, a cup of coffee, a book—and just sit. Corine and I used to just sit, for hours, at a small coffee table reading our books and not interrupt each other. I like being able to drive in a car, silently. I like being able to think and not have my thoughts droned out by a relentless stream of irrelevant babble.
Note to my friends: You've not pissed me off; I love you all. So don't worry. I'm just no longer willing to "be nice" and hang out w/ people who irritate me.
LOTR update: I've finished the book! It took me seven days to read a thousand pages. Well, except for the appendices (another hundred pages), which I'll leasurely read tonight.
Remember my post about how tough teaching is? Well, right now I feel like weeping.
I've been reading over the final exams. Very few of them are what I had hoped for. I feel like such a failure. I handed out the final three weeks ago. It's a two-hour exam consisting of three short essay questions. Students started leaving after only about twenty minutes. It was a bad sign. Well, I guess I'll have to grade on a curve. It's not so bad; I probably expected too much.
Here's some pictures to cheer us all up. My lovely niece, Novalí, eating organic granola in my apartment with Nono, her beloved stuffed pink rabbit.
The Vine Neighborhood as seen from East Hall. Ah, you should see it in Spring or Autumn! When birds fly among the multicolored trees.
Joy upon joy! Tetsuo, my trusty iBook, fell today and was badly wounded. But he's such a trooper and came through in the end.
He'll need a new screen soon, it was really hit. The hard drive held on and everything seems to be working, hardware-wise. But at first I couldn't read more than garble on the screen. I could do enough to decipher that the OS was loading (rock on Jaguar!) and that the hard drive and other hardware was fine. But the screen ... it was ugly.
Caleb brought me to the Sangren Computer Lab. I was hoping to force Tetsuo to boot as a firewire drive and back up my files (especially my semester gradebook!) to my server. It didn't come to that, though.
I think Tetsuo just needed some happy Mac vibes. I opened him up ... and violá! The screen had (seemingly) healed itself. There's still a bit of noise that comes and goes in some of the pixels along the right edge. But Tetsuo lives!
On another note: I rode the Motron today. After the laptop debacle, I needed to go out and breathe some air. It was a warm and sunny winter day, so I put on my red racing jacket and rode out to The Space. The brisk air did wonders for me. Thank you Motron.
LOTR update: page 235, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are reunited on the fields of Cormallen.
I'm back at The Space, slinging coffee again. I'm hoping to finish The Lord of the Rings today. I got through most of the end (less than 200 pages to go!).
I finished last night w/ the charge of the Rohirrim across the Pelennor Fields to break the siege of Minas Tirith. You won't see that scene in the upcoming movie, since it happens in Book V. But here's the description of the scene to give you a taste for what the knights of Rohan are like (imagine Viking cavalry):
At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clearly than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:
"Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be spintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!"
With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.
"Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!"
Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image in the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.
Today was actually a pretty productive day. I spent the afternoon writing a feature article. I'm finished, w/ over 2,000 words (yes!). As some of you know, I'm working on a project: Moped Magazine.
This is quite daunting; I'm editor-in-chief of a new forthcoming publication. Dan (the publisher) asked me to take the position due to my expertise (which is pretty minimal, really). But I'm doing my best. Today, Dan and I hammered out most of the content for the first issue (which we hope to have out in Spring 2003). I'm soon to be dealing w/ all the headaches of making sure contributors meet deadlines and such. It'll be tough work, to be sure.
So, if you're reading this and you're supposed to write something for the first issue (you know who you are), give me your copy as soon as possible. Feel free to email or call me and we can go over ideas or whatnot. And if you have any ideas for articles or columns, let me know.
Overall, though, I'm pretty excited. I just hope all the writers give me their articles on time. Our deadline for copy proofs (i.e. article drafts) is 3 January. I need to have everything in to me so that I can proof everything and make sure it has a consistent style (which will be developed in the process). My own deadline is 10 January. That's when I have to have everything pretty much ready for Simon (our design and layout editor) so we can start making mock-ups. After that, we'll have to seek out investment capital (mostly from advertisers) to print the first issue. Whew!
I'm actually looking forward to all the little squables sure to come up between Dan, Simon, and myself. Dan and I are already in a mild controversy over paper cardstock and the number of first printings. Simon and I will probably have font and typeset issues. I'm sure it'll heat up as decision time nears. I'm equally sure it'll all work out in the end.
The beginning of a new week. And so much left to do before the year is out. Here's a list of things I hope to accomplish this week. Feel free to ask me about them and give me a nudge.
Finish reading The Lord of the Rings
Grade final exams and turn in semester grades
Write an article on how to buy a moped (this is for a project I'm working on w/ Dan and Simon)
Continue working on my dissertation's first chapter (this week I want to focus on the section on democratic theory)
Grocery shopping
Thoroughly clean my apartment
Secure LOTR tickets
LOTR update: page 352, Frodo is captive in Mordor, and Sam charges to the rescue.
I caught this interesting tidbit of news from my favorite Bolivian newspaper, La Razón: It seems international franchise chains haven't done well in Bolivia. Hippies and other such folk take note. McDonald's was driven out of Bolivia (they also closed 175 franchises worldwide) because it wasn't profitable. Not because of protests. Not because of legal maneuvering. Not because of hackeysack. Because of Money. Not enough people bought McDonald's product; it was that simple. Domino's Pizza and Subway also recently left Bolivia.
On a separate note, Annie has been throwing up for the past half hour. I hope nothing's desperately wrong w/ her. Maybe I'll call the vet tomorrow. She threw up all her food; now she's throwing up bile. I have no idea what to do ... though she seems a little better now and resting on my bed.
LOTR update: page 292, Sam and Frodo have met Faramir.
Here's a bit of a spoiler. I've you've never read The Lord of the Rings, you may want to ignore the following. But it's one of my favorite scenes from the book. I can't wait to see what it'll look like in the movie.
Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli rode w/ Théoden, the elderly King of the Mark of Rohan, to help defend the fortress of Helm's Deep against a great army of orcs sent from Isengard by Saruman. The knights of Rohan were driven back into the caves, awaiting a long siege. In the midst of certain defeat, the old king decides to meet death on the battlefield:
"The end will not be long" said the king. "But I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap. Snowmane and Hasufeld and the horses of my guard are in the inner court. When dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm's horn, and I will ride forth: Will you ride with us then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such and end as will be worth a song – if any be left to sing of us hereafter."
"I will ride with you," said Aragorn.
[...]
But even as the gate fell, and the Orcs about it yelled, preparing to charge, a murmur arose behind them, like a wind in the distance, and it grew to a clamour of many voices crying strange news in the dawn. The Orcs upon the Rock, hearing the rumour of dismay, wavered and look back. And then, sudden and terrible, from the tower above, the sound of the great horn of Helm rang out.
All that heard that sound trembled. Many of the Orcs cast themselves on their faces and covered their ears with their claws. Back from the Deep the echoes came, blast upon blast, as if on every cliff and hill a mighty herald stood. But on the walls men looked up, listening with wonder; for the echoes did not die. Ever the hornblasts wound among the hills; nearer now and louder they answered one to another, blowing fierce and free.
"Helm! Helm!" the Riders shouted. "Helm is arisen and comes back to war. Helm for Théoden King!"
And with that shout the king came. His horse was white as snow, golden was his shield, and his spear was long. At his right hand was Aragorn, Elendil's heir, behind him rode the lords of the House of Eorl the Young. Light sprang in the sky. Night departed.
"Forth Eorlingas!" With a cry and a great noise they charged. Down from the gates they roared, over the causeways they swept, and they drove through the hosts of Isengard as a wind among grass. Behind them from the Deep came the stern cries of men issuing from the caves, driving forth the enemy. Out poured all the men that were left upon the Rock. And ever the sound of blowing horns echoed in the hills.
On they rode, the king and his companions. Captains and champions fell or fled before them. Neither orc nor man withstood them. Their backs were to the swords and spears of the Riders, and their faces to the valley. They cried and wailed, for fear and great wonder had come upon them with the rising of the day.
So King Théoden rode from Helm's Gate and clove his path to the great Dike."
The charge from Helm's Deep is one of the most stirring, epic scenes in the book. For most of the others, you'll have to wait until 2003 for the third movie (they happen in The Return of the King). The charge of the Riders of Rohan across the Pelennor Fields to break the siege of Minas Tirith will be an awesome sight, to be sure. OK, the entire Battle of the Pelennor Fields is beyond epic. There will be plenty of heroic action and such, but I especially want to see the charge of Prince Imrahil and the silver swan-knights of Dol Amroth. You have to read the Appendices, and know something about The Silmarillion to fully appreciate who Prince Imrahil is. At the gates of Mordor, Prince Imrahil stands on the front line beside the two sons of Elrond.
BTW, I just found The Encyclopedia of Arda, an online encyclopedia of Tolkien's entire corpus related to Middle Earth. If you're not all that familiar w/ Tolkien's vision of Middle Earth, you should definitely check that site out.
LOTR update: page 206, Gandalf and Pippin ride to Minas Tirith.
Worked another shift at The Space. I made just over $15 in tips, which isn't bad. But the place has gotten much smokier of late; I need a long shower just to wash the stink and ash out.
Now I just want to make myself some dinner, feed my cats, do some laundry, and read some more LOTR. I'm making excellent progress and might finish in two more days.
LOTR update: page 90, Merry and Pippin and the Ents are marching to make war on Isengard.
Today was a Lord-of-the-Ring-athon, seemingly. I read a considerable amount from Book II (the second part of The Fellowship of the Ring). I also played LOTR Risk with Dave, Emily, and Franta. Oh, we also watched the extended LOTR DVD while we played. A brief note on the book: be sure to read the various Appendices; they are integral parts of the work entire. Well, I'm off to bed. I'll finish up Book II before sleeping. I'll see how far I get into Book III tomorrow at The Space (I secretly hope to finish both Books III and IV).
LOTR update: page 382, Frodo and Sam have looked into the Mirror of Galadriel; Frodo has seen Nenya, one of the Three Elven Rings, on Galadriel's finger.
I'm picking up a few shifts at The Space. I need a bit of extra money right now. Fortunately, money is the one commodity that is always easy to obtain. It's almost like it grows on trees or something.
LOTR update: page 284, Frodo and Sam have just volunteered to take the Ring to Mordor.
I wish someone would invite me to a Hanukkah feast of latkes and other yummy food.
There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow ... [Frodo] thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.
LOTR update: page 227, Frodo has just fled from the Nine Riders across the river into Rivendell.
First, I want to apologize for the unreliable nature of my blog comments. There seems to be a problem w/ Haloscan (a free commenting service) It's true; you get what you pay for. I'm going to work on that over winter break. Blogger keeps promising to implement comments ... but I'm still waiting.
My solution is this: I'm going to roll my own weblog (Simon, any help would be appreciated). I'm confident I can do it. I'll have to get a new server, though. EarthLink has been great; I'll hate to say goodbye to an old internet friend. But their servers don't provide MySQL support (they do, however, support PHP 4.0).
So I'm looking for a reliable server that will allow pretty large bandwidth and at least100 MB of storage (preferably more). Oh, and I'd have to be able to move my entire domain infrastructure over. I'm considering Pair Networks and Fat Cow for web hosting. Any comments or suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated.
On a personal note, I thought I'd post this picture for Dan and Bill:
The picture was taken on 26 September 2002, the day before Bill left for Japan to teach English. It was a beautiful day, sunny and bright. About a dozen close friends gathered at Burdick's for a long lunch. There was plenty of conversation and good food. Five minutes after this picture was taken, Bill was not seen by any of us in Kalamazoo.
LOTR update: page 120, Frodo and company (Sam, Pippin, Merry) have just decided to leave the Shire.
If anyone is interested, my students are reading two online articles this week: Benjamin Barber's McWorld vs. Jihad (1992) and Francis Fukuyama's The End of History? (1989). Both were highly influential articles and widely debated. I'd be more than happy to join in conversations about these articles. (Bill, I know you read Barber's article a while ago and and I'd like your comments. Especially if you've since read Fukuyama's; he's half American, half Japanese.)
I've decided to re-read (this'll be my fifth time) The Lord of the Rings in time for the second movie's premier. If any of you out there are currently reading the book and want to start a discussion group, let me know. I want to at least get through The Two Towers (Books III and IV) before the movie comes out on 18 December. If I read an hour a day, I'll get through the first 700 pages easily.
Oh, I played Monopoly last night and won. Early on, I traded away Boardwalk (?!) to Dan (who already owned Park Place) in exchange for the Orange properties (click this link and see why). I almost went bankrupt early in the game and sold most of the rest of my property. But, it payed off in the long run. I ended up w/ the Orange and Light Purple monopolies (giving me control of one side of the board). The end of the game came down to Dan and I. This part of the game was boring and I offered Dan a draw. But we kept rolling and going around the board. My Orange-Light Purple against his Dark Blue-Dark Purple. The result was predictable.
As much as I love teaching, it also makes me sad. I constantly see so much potential fritter away. And every year the task is more difficult than the year before. Students want less and less work. The slow erosion of academic standards is noticeable. A 300-level course used to mean something; now it requires as much work as some of the 100-level courses I took as an undergraduate.
When I first started teaching, I used to joke w/ my fellow teaching assistants every Friday before sections. I would start the morning w/ an encouraging: "Let's go out there and fight the good fight." It was this noble quest to defend the values of the intellect; there was always the hope that a few students in each section had done the reading and would come away having learned something. This encouraging thought got us past the blank stares, the student sleeping in the back corner, the low attendance, the obvious questions that clearly showed the student hadn't read the assignment.
As time goes by, I see teaching as "fighting a long defeat." Sure, there are those few remarkable students who make it worthwhile. Still, I think the tide is turning against us in the long term. But I still cling to hope, though it's a hope without guarantees. There is value in teaching; there are values to learning. I refuse to give in and accept the collapse of education into nothing more than another cheap commodity. It is worth so much more!
Yeah, I guess I'm still willing to fight the good fight.
» » » Eric commented on the above entry. It sparked me to add this:
Unfortunately, many students do just view their college diploma as a given. Universities that admit more students than they should don't help, either. There is an unbelievable ammount of pressure on teachers to pass a certain proportion of students (this is especially true for teachers w/o tenure). If we fail too many students, we jeapordize our jobs. So the minimum standard is lowered to make sure enough students can pass the course. This, in turn, encourages students to become lax, which means the standards are lowered again ...
Did you know that, these days, a student can receive a BS in political science and never have read Marx, Plato, Rousseau, Mill, or other major political theorists? Sure, they might be mentioned in class or in the textbook. But fewer and fewer teachers are assigning them as class readings. I read many of these theorists (on my own) in middle school and high school; I may be a modern exception. But how can someone be considered educated in political science at a major university and not be familiar w/ the discipline's canon?
Here is a clear example. I teach PSCI 362 (Political Ideologies). The course is simultaneously taught by another (tenured) professor. He only required one text (300 pages, written at a high school level). The text has excerpts from major theorists, but it's a small textbook for a 300-level course. For example, it covers fascism (a significant ideology) in less than 40 pages (including plenty of pictures).
For my course, I decided to add the reader (which goes w/ the text) as well. The reader is similar in length and is made up of primary sources from theorists such as Lenin, Marx, Mill, Kant, etc. Most of the excerpts are short. I also added two articles that had been included in the 3rd edition of the text, but had since been dropped (and replaced w/ a 5-page chapter). Finally, I also added one 30-page article by Ayn Rand. I made sure that my students never had to read more than about 50 pages a week. That was it.
I took a similar course at Central Michigan University less than ten years ago. For that course, we read three books (one of them was about 500 pages). We also wrote a 15-page paper (my course had a 10-page paper), took a midterm (my course had no midterm), and a lengthy final exam (I gave my students the final exam a week ago). My course is substantially easier; I even gave out enough extra credit to make up for 10 percent of the total grade.
And yet, because I make my students work twice as hard as in the other class, which averages 20 pages per week of reading (for a 300-level course!!), my class is too hard. I know that about half my students, on any given day, did not read the assignment. It's too obvious (in the blank stares, the obvious questions). It makes me sad.
Then, there are those rare occasions when I can look into a student's eyes and know that something in there clicked. Or conversation over coffee, or a beer, or a walk through campus -- and it's an interchange between equals. Those few, far-between moments make the struggle worth it. I'm not yet ready to give up (Christ, I'm only 27!).
Tonight's episode of The Simpsons was fantastic. The show just went out of its way to insult TV producers, script writers, and the people who develop those stupid "reality" shows. Two key points for me, however, were the brutal parody of King of the Hill and (in keeping w/ the theme of character returns) the very brief cameo appearance of Jake the Barber. If you missed this episode, you seriously lost out.
I only need to finish grading six more papers. I'm tired and bored of grading; I think I'll watch some Lord of the Rings instead. Oh, yeah!
Grading continues to be slow and depressing. I've given up on correcting every grammatical flaw or making detailed style suggestions. I've decided to be generous w/ points. You have no idea how depressed grading papers usually makes me. Why don't Americans know how to write?
It's the First Sunday of Advent. I hope to have a chance to make it to Mass this evening. I've not been to Mass in a long, long time.
Oh, while I'm in the holiday mood, I want to wish a very happy Hanukkah to Bay Jo, the Ari-Gur family, and all my Jewish friends. And let's not forget a happy Ramadan for all my Muslim friends, especially Moataz and Gheda and their lovely children, Zena and Adham. Shalom, y'all!
I just got back to Kzoo a short bit ago. Due to the sudden lake-effect snow, Sam, Tamara, and Novali are staying w/ me tonight before continuing home. Novi got a kick out of my cats (as always). My cats are a bit put out because tonight they aren't allowed in my bedroom (where all my guests are trying to sleep). Too bad Tamara is allergic to cats.
It really is nice having them stay here; I feel like I'm entertaining family guests for the holiday. I'm sleeping in a full apartment tonight.
I just finished Patrick Symmes' 
