Today I walked by one of these.
Perhaps you think that's bizarre. If so, you need to check this out.
Comments?
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Monday, October 08, 2007
Theotokos
Someday, I'm going to have to write this book. A book on theology and childbirth. A chapter on Christmas and Advent and the important but often ignored fact of birth in the Christian narrative. A point in there somewhere about women's experience and why it's still discounted as theological resource. I'm going to have to look into Mariology and see what that's all about. I'm going to give a shot at figuring out why the hell anyone would write "women will be saved through childbirth."
Any other suggestions? What have I missed in my musing? Or has someone already written this book, and I should just go check it out and read it?
Any other suggestions? What have I missed in my musing? Or has someone already written this book, and I should just go check it out and read it?
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
a modest request
I don't have any money to spare these days, no matter how much I would love to give fistfuls of it away to anyone with the heart and intelligence to use it wisely in solving the world's pressing problems of hunger and oppression and violence.
But I do have a blog (thank goodness blogger is free) and GKB's modest request is to link back to his website to let as many people as possible know about the work he'll be doing through the organization Invisible Children. I haven't checked statcounter.com in forever and for all I know, only 2 people ever even read this blog anymore, but hey, you two, if you can spare some $$ to help get GKB over to Africa and do some good work there...God bless you, and GKB, and the children that no one sees that Greg will be photographing on this trip.
But I do have a blog (thank goodness blogger is free) and GKB's modest request is to link back to his website to let as many people as possible know about the work he'll be doing through the organization Invisible Children. I haven't checked statcounter.com in forever and for all I know, only 2 people ever even read this blog anymore, but hey, you two, if you can spare some $$ to help get GKB over to Africa and do some good work there...God bless you, and GKB, and the children that no one sees that Greg will be photographing on this trip.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
The Brave One
Brent and I went to a movie Saturday night, thanks to Maria's offer to hang out with a not-yet-sleeping Clare. It's been a while since Brent and I went to a movie--the last was a doubledate to Harry Potter with Sarah & Andrew. I'd forgotten how much nicer it is to see a movie in your pj's on your own couch. The snacks are better, the bathroom's cleaner, the seat's comfier, and the comments from the peanut gallery are generally much more intelligent.
Since the point was just to get out while the gettin' was good, there wasn't anything in particular we wanted to see. It ended up a toss-up between The Brave One and The Kingdom. I like a good no-brainer action movie as much as anyone, but I can't say I was real excited about either. Jodie Foster's pretty good, but brutalized-woman-seeks-revenge-then-realizes-she-has-become-her-own-worst-enemy just sounded ho-hum. But, who cares...we're out and we're Clare-free!
So off we went. I must say that going to a movie in NYC was different from going to a movie anywhere else I've ever been. I now understand so much better why Law & Order is so packed with those god-awful cheesy one-liners. New Yorkers eat it up. Nicky Katt's whole function in the movie was to deliver Law & Order style dialogue (which, I have to say, he did with enough comedic flourish that it was on occasion funny). But the movie as a whole was disturbing, and even more so because we saw in a theatre in NYC. Jodie Foster's character, Erica Bain (despite the alternative orthography, certainly a symbolic nomenclature at work there), understandably traumatized, begins carrying a gun--and repeatedly experiencing situations in which she uses it fatally to protect herself and/or others from violent harm. There's an issue of plausibility throughout the movie, but passing over the need to suspend one's disbelief beyond the level ever required by an SF tale, the real issue I have with this movie is the frank and unnuanced sanction of Erica's action. Erica's counterpart, the good cop who befriends her, the steady symbol of respect for the law and restrained ("moral") use of force, at the crucial moment departs inexplicably from his convictions, hands her his gun (with the inevitably unfunny one-liner) and not only makes it possible for Erica to execute one of the men who had assaulted her, but also devises her escape. Erica is ready to be arrested, even after his complicity in the execution, but he tells her to run. The most disturbing thing of all: when she shoots the guy in the face, the audience whooped and hollered and applauded.
The movie ends with Erica climbing the steps in Central Park, the site of her assault, with a voiceover that makes clear that she has been irrevocably changed and damaged by the incident and its aftermath, and that there is no going back to the person she had been and wished she still was. In the last, say, ten seconds of the movie, it seems that the violence has been futile and pointless and has not changed anything--except Erica, who is less than she was. But the possible message of total lack of redemption in the violence she's perpetrated was probably lost on the audience that cheered her on as she blew the dude's head off.
Since the point was just to get out while the gettin' was good, there wasn't anything in particular we wanted to see. It ended up a toss-up between The Brave One and The Kingdom. I like a good no-brainer action movie as much as anyone, but I can't say I was real excited about either. Jodie Foster's pretty good, but brutalized-woman-seeks-revenge-then-realizes-she-has-become-her-own-worst-enemy just sounded ho-hum. But, who cares...we're out and we're Clare-free!
So off we went. I must say that going to a movie in NYC was different from going to a movie anywhere else I've ever been. I now understand so much better why Law & Order is so packed with those god-awful cheesy one-liners. New Yorkers eat it up. Nicky Katt's whole function in the movie was to deliver Law & Order style dialogue (which, I have to say, he did with enough comedic flourish that it was on occasion funny). But the movie as a whole was disturbing, and even more so because we saw in a theatre in NYC. Jodie Foster's character, Erica Bain (despite the alternative orthography, certainly a symbolic nomenclature at work there), understandably traumatized, begins carrying a gun--and repeatedly experiencing situations in which she uses it fatally to protect herself and/or others from violent harm. There's an issue of plausibility throughout the movie, but passing over the need to suspend one's disbelief beyond the level ever required by an SF tale, the real issue I have with this movie is the frank and unnuanced sanction of Erica's action. Erica's counterpart, the good cop who befriends her, the steady symbol of respect for the law and restrained ("moral") use of force, at the crucial moment departs inexplicably from his convictions, hands her his gun (with the inevitably unfunny one-liner) and not only makes it possible for Erica to execute one of the men who had assaulted her, but also devises her escape. Erica is ready to be arrested, even after his complicity in the execution, but he tells her to run. The most disturbing thing of all: when she shoots the guy in the face, the audience whooped and hollered and applauded.
The movie ends with Erica climbing the steps in Central Park, the site of her assault, with a voiceover that makes clear that she has been irrevocably changed and damaged by the incident and its aftermath, and that there is no going back to the person she had been and wished she still was. In the last, say, ten seconds of the movie, it seems that the violence has been futile and pointless and has not changed anything--except Erica, who is less than she was. But the possible message of total lack of redemption in the violence she's perpetrated was probably lost on the audience that cheered her on as she blew the dude's head off.
Friday, September 28, 2007
eschewing our gender, yet again
Now dissertating in earnest, it is time to read N. Katherine Hayles' How We Became Posthuman again.
Hayles begins her story with a prologue on the Turing test. What everyone knows about this test is that it has become the litmus test for identifying the moment when machines become "intelligent" (intelligent=ability to fool human beings, which, all things considered, is a pretty poor benchmark but, zenme ban). What no one remembers is that there were two versions of the test in Turing's proposal, the first being that one would interact via computer terminal with two unseen entities, and depending solely on the electronically transmitted responses to your questions, you would determine--not which was human, and which machine--but which one was a woman, and which a man.
"If your failure to distinguish correctly between human and machine proves that machines can think," Hayles asks, "what does it prove if you fail to distinguish woman from man?"
Andrew Hodges, a biographer of Turing, argues that the intent for inclusion of gender test is to show that gender, unlike intelligence, is in fact dependent upon unalterable physical reality. Hayles disagrees; the cases as presented are parallel, and point to a willingness to define gender in terms of symbolic manipulation similar to intelligence.
All of this reminds me of the hermits' marvelous diversion, the “gender genie” test, a kind of variation of the Turing gender test. What does this say about gender and identity? I fooled it successfully, and rather grandly—now I am a man? No; but it does tell you something interesting about my identity, that is, I am a woman who can successfully represent myself through verbal/semiotic markers as a man. And perhaps that is interesting.
The crucial move, as Hayles points out, is “distinguishing between the enacted body, present in the flesh on one side of the computer screen, and the represented body, produced through verbal and semiotic markers constituting it in an electronic environment.” And this, BTW, is the advent of the cyborg... Why? Because technology is the bridge connecting the physical and represented body/ies. The test requires disjunction, therefore: “What the Turing test 'proves' is that the overlay between the enacted and represented bodies is no longer natural inevitability but a contingent production, mediated by a technology that has become so intertwined with the production of identity that it can no longer meaningfully be separated from the human subject.”
And, of course, Gender Genie's verdict on the above:
Female Score: 428/Male Score: 701
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male! (and in any case, definitely cyborg)
Hayles begins her story with a prologue on the Turing test. What everyone knows about this test is that it has become the litmus test for identifying the moment when machines become "intelligent" (intelligent=ability to fool human beings, which, all things considered, is a pretty poor benchmark but, zenme ban). What no one remembers is that there were two versions of the test in Turing's proposal, the first being that one would interact via computer terminal with two unseen entities, and depending solely on the electronically transmitted responses to your questions, you would determine--not which was human, and which machine--but which one was a woman, and which a man.
"If your failure to distinguish correctly between human and machine proves that machines can think," Hayles asks, "what does it prove if you fail to distinguish woman from man?"
Andrew Hodges, a biographer of Turing, argues that the intent for inclusion of gender test is to show that gender, unlike intelligence, is in fact dependent upon unalterable physical reality. Hayles disagrees; the cases as presented are parallel, and point to a willingness to define gender in terms of symbolic manipulation similar to intelligence.
All of this reminds me of the hermits' marvelous diversion, the “gender genie” test, a kind of variation of the Turing gender test. What does this say about gender and identity? I fooled it successfully, and rather grandly—now I am a man? No; but it does tell you something interesting about my identity, that is, I am a woman who can successfully represent myself through verbal/semiotic markers as a man. And perhaps that is interesting.
The crucial move, as Hayles points out, is “distinguishing between the enacted body, present in the flesh on one side of the computer screen, and the represented body, produced through verbal and semiotic markers constituting it in an electronic environment.” And this, BTW, is the advent of the cyborg... Why? Because technology is the bridge connecting the physical and represented body/ies. The test requires disjunction, therefore: “What the Turing test 'proves' is that the overlay between the enacted and represented bodies is no longer natural inevitability but a contingent production, mediated by a technology that has become so intertwined with the production of identity that it can no longer meaningfully be separated from the human subject.”
And, of course, Gender Genie's verdict on the above:
Female Score: 428/Male Score: 701
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male! (and in any case, definitely cyborg)
Monday, September 24, 2007
a random observation
Exit 299 on I-20 between Abilene and Dallas is "Hays Road." Exit 300 is "Clyde." Joe, what's up with this?
Friday, September 21, 2007
I'd forgotten
Occasionally it's really good to dive back in to the CofC world I grew up in...the world of cushiony pews and crowds of people and large carpeted lobbies and institutionalized quirks. It's been a long time since I'd attended a large, mainstream CofC and I'd forgotten some of the charming idiosyncrasies common to our gatherings. The hearty round of hacking coughs after the miked "Amen." The way people dress for each other. The agonizing greet-your-neighbor session that is the CofC version of passing the peace. The peculiar musical aesthetic of hearing the melody line of every song an octave below what's written. The way the men line solemnly up at the front of the church for the Communion trays and then troop out symmetrically down the aisles and weave in and out in this complicated-looking sort of symbiotic dance (ahem, choreography) with each other, and how Communion trays simultaneously and mysteriously appear from the back of the auditorium to speed the process (can't spend too much time communing with God and each other, it's boring, there's nothing happening up front).* The screens at the front of the auditorium with the fun graphics...
During the service at the church I went to a couple Sundays ago, they apparently regularly take time to recognize specific ministries of the church and thank the people who serve in them. That Sunday it was the coffee and donut ministry (an all-around important service, I say, with great great sincerity. I'm thrilled that CCfB is now initiating a coffee and bagel table and hey, thanks to Cara, Ashlea and Regina for doing this!!!). So anyway, up on the screens in front there was a large graphic to announce the name of the ministry, show some pix of people, etc., and to the right there was a graphic of a white church with a steeple in front. As the thank-you progressed, a large donut hurtled down from the "sky" and ringed the steeple (visualize this, people! Come on!) and stayed there for the remainder of the announcement...and no one laughed.
A thought: perhaps now that we too have a screen, CCfB can borrow this graphic when it's time to publicly thank our bagel and coffee people?
A final note. I enjoyed the sermon, although it was definitely a message for a large suburban CofC. The main theme, that the US is now a "mission area," based on the observation that church involvement in the US is declining while it is growing exponentially in areas such as Central and South America, Africa, and China is probably indisputable. But what I wish I had heard more of is, what kind of a mission area is the US? Is it a mission area of unchurched people totally ignorant of Christianity? Hardly. If the US is a mission area it is one unlike our usual conception of the term; it is a mission area comprised of people who are so Christianized that they've forgotten what that means, and who didn't notice when their religion got coopted and politicized and economized out of existence. So maybe we're in the middle of a mission area, sure. But it's a mission that requires a kind of Christian message we've never preached before--here or China or anywhere else.
*I did however have a nice thought about the lateral passing of Communion trays between laypersons. It has the potential to embody an implicit message of equality and fellowship between brothers and sisters in Christ. If, say, we repeated the words of institution to each other as we handed on the tray, perhaps even broke the bread for someone else rather than ourselves, rather than taking the tray while avoiding eye contact, breaking the tiniest possible crumb and munching it in imagined total solitude.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Brent's great-grandmother, Zada Belle Gravette, died this afternoon. Above is the picture we took during our visit this past Christmas--our five-generation picture. I like this one the best of the bunch because you can Nanny's smile. I always thought she had one of the best smiles ever. She smiled a lot, too, and it was always a kind of gift.
I didn't know her well, and only got to know her towards the end of her very extraordinary life. But I liked her a lot. I think it was impossible not to.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
the vocative
O Readers,
How many of you do a job you know is worthwhile? Is fulfilling? Is just? How many of you would call what you do a "vocation" or say you feel called to it? How did you come to that calling? How many of you would quit a job if you realized it was contributing to injustice in the world? How many of you have chosen to earn less money in order to do a job that was more worthwhile than the bigger paycheck? How many of you would happily quit your job today if you didn't need to earn that money? What would you do instead?
How many of you do a job you know is worthwhile? Is fulfilling? Is just? How many of you would call what you do a "vocation" or say you feel called to it? How did you come to that calling? How many of you would quit a job if you realized it was contributing to injustice in the world? How many of you have chosen to earn less money in order to do a job that was more worthwhile than the bigger paycheck? How many of you would happily quit your job today if you didn't need to earn that money? What would you do instead?
Sunday, September 09, 2007
a cool thing I did
A couple months ago I knitted the coolest thing ever. I got the pattern from Knitty (and I found Knitty through Brian). I have enough yarn left to make another (and perhaps even more) so pretty soon I will make one of these for Clare. But the first one belongs to Baby Sylva...Happy 1st Birthday!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
the first day
So, this was it.
Clare's first day at The Children's Garden. And my first Dissertation Day.
How did we do?
Well, Clare didn't notice when I left, being engrossed in some new fascinating toy she'd never seen before. There was no agonizing tearful scene or anything. She loved playing outside, they said, and ate all her strawberries and most of her crackers right when I said she would get hungry. But she wouldn't go down for her nap. And she's got a runny nose. (I don't think this was childcare cause and effect--I have a runny nose too.)
I did not do quite so well. I did re-read my proposal and was pleasantly surprised at how organized my thoughts seemed, and how intelligent it sounded overall. Oh yeah, I thought, this is what it's about--good thing I read this thing again so I could jog my memory. And then I covered about 40 pages of Andy Clark's Natural-Born Cyborgs, which I'm finding quite congenial so far.
Then I took a shower--something I still find quite difficult to schedule in on a regular basis. It's amazing what a baby does to the logistics of personal hygiene. (Not to mention the motivation--after all they don't care if your legs are hairy or your armpits smell.) Then I went to the grocery store because there was nothing for Clare to eat for lunch, and bought lots of bananas and stuff. Then I picked her up. And that was that.
So, I think I'll give myself a C- for today. But Clare gets an A-. Maybe Thursday she'll nap, and pull it up to an A.
Clare's first day at The Children's Garden. And my first Dissertation Day.
How did we do?
Well, Clare didn't notice when I left, being engrossed in some new fascinating toy she'd never seen before. There was no agonizing tearful scene or anything. She loved playing outside, they said, and ate all her strawberries and most of her crackers right when I said she would get hungry. But she wouldn't go down for her nap. And she's got a runny nose. (I don't think this was childcare cause and effect--I have a runny nose too.)
I did not do quite so well. I did re-read my proposal and was pleasantly surprised at how organized my thoughts seemed, and how intelligent it sounded overall. Oh yeah, I thought, this is what it's about--good thing I read this thing again so I could jog my memory. And then I covered about 40 pages of Andy Clark's Natural-Born Cyborgs, which I'm finding quite congenial so far.
Then I took a shower--something I still find quite difficult to schedule in on a regular basis. It's amazing what a baby does to the logistics of personal hygiene. (Not to mention the motivation--after all they don't care if your legs are hairy or your armpits smell.) Then I went to the grocery store because there was nothing for Clare to eat for lunch, and bought lots of bananas and stuff. Then I picked her up. And that was that.
So, I think I'll give myself a C- for today. But Clare gets an A-. Maybe Thursday she'll nap, and pull it up to an A.
Friday, August 31, 2007
What were you doing Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.?
I was watching the whole world change, right before my eyes. None of the rest of you knew it was happening, but I was there, so I got to see it. Every single one of us lives in a totally different world now than the one we all lived in at 9:29. Because at 9:30, Annalise Justine Miranda-Borrero joined us out here in the big bad world, and the world became bigger and less bad and totally new as a result.
Sure, babies get born every day. And it changes the world every time.
It's a sacrament, even if it happens in a hospital (or birthing center or home or heck, taxi cab for the unlucky ones) and not a church, with a doctor (or midwife or taxi cab driver) and not a priest. It's a sacrament because it's a moment where the distracting details of human existence as we've constructed it get swept away as the divine rushes in, that moment where a brand-new life becomes a part of human existence as it really is, underneath and behind and all through the distracting details. That first cry reminds us what our voices are really for. That first glance reminds us who we really are. That first grasp of the fingers makes the rest of our lives make sense in a way they never did before.
So...announcing the arrival of a whole new world, for all of you who weren't there to see it.
I was watching the whole world change, right before my eyes. None of the rest of you knew it was happening, but I was there, so I got to see it. Every single one of us lives in a totally different world now than the one we all lived in at 9:29. Because at 9:30, Annalise Justine Miranda-Borrero joined us out here in the big bad world, and the world became bigger and less bad and totally new as a result.
Sure, babies get born every day. And it changes the world every time.
It's a sacrament, even if it happens in a hospital (or birthing center or home or heck, taxi cab for the unlucky ones) and not a church, with a doctor (or midwife or taxi cab driver) and not a priest. It's a sacrament because it's a moment where the distracting details of human existence as we've constructed it get swept away as the divine rushes in, that moment where a brand-new life becomes a part of human existence as it really is, underneath and behind and all through the distracting details. That first cry reminds us what our voices are really for. That first glance reminds us who we really are. That first grasp of the fingers makes the rest of our lives make sense in a way they never did before.
So...announcing the arrival of a whole new world, for all of you who weren't there to see it.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
AAAAAAAAH!
Oh, I love being done with something. I love scratching an item off my to-do list. I love, love, love it.
So if there are those curious about my p.o.v. on the veil thing, feel free to inquire (or just wait and read the article in Leaven). I have now read more articles on those verses than any person ever should, and my own more or less idiosyncratic interpretation to throw into the mix. I don't think it's the last word on the subject or anything, and I have no clue whether Paul would recognize it as his intent. But I wasn't trying to mindread the dead guy, so that doesn't bug me too much.
So on to The Next Thing. Just one more thing to go until The Big Thing. Yup, The Dissertation. Wow, the day rapidly approaches when I shall find myself at the computer, coffee at hand, Word and Endnote open, and a blank screen will confront me with the state of my unreadiness to begin.
I'm hoping someday soon that we will have some pics of our new abode, especially Clare's room with the super-cool blue and yellow flags courtesy of Priscilla, to post as well as some views of the neighborhood and the Close (where Clare and I will be hanging out a lot--it is lovely!)
But for now, my first fun city anecdote: yesterday I went to the local grocery, Gristedes, to get the supplies for making Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie ice cream so that we could celebrate Brent's birthday properly. As I was walking back home, there was a guy outside a shop handing out free condoms. "Condoms?" he asked me. No thank you, I said--very nonchalantly given the fact that I was actually quite startled--and smiled at him because, you know, I am despite myself a Southern woman and we smile at everyone. He smiled back and gave me a quick up-and-down glance that left me thinking, now why did I think he was gay...just because this is Chelsea...
So if there are those curious about my p.o.v. on the veil thing, feel free to inquire (or just wait and read the article in Leaven). I have now read more articles on those verses than any person ever should, and my own more or less idiosyncratic interpretation to throw into the mix. I don't think it's the last word on the subject or anything, and I have no clue whether Paul would recognize it as his intent. But I wasn't trying to mindread the dead guy, so that doesn't bug me too much.
So on to The Next Thing. Just one more thing to go until The Big Thing. Yup, The Dissertation. Wow, the day rapidly approaches when I shall find myself at the computer, coffee at hand, Word and Endnote open, and a blank screen will confront me with the state of my unreadiness to begin.
I'm hoping someday soon that we will have some pics of our new abode, especially Clare's room with the super-cool blue and yellow flags courtesy of Priscilla, to post as well as some views of the neighborhood and the Close (where Clare and I will be hanging out a lot--it is lovely!)
But for now, my first fun city anecdote: yesterday I went to the local grocery, Gristedes, to get the supplies for making Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie ice cream so that we could celebrate Brent's birthday properly. As I was walking back home, there was a guy outside a shop handing out free condoms. "Condoms?" he asked me. No thank you, I said--very nonchalantly given the fact that I was actually quite startled--and smiled at him because, you know, I am despite myself a Southern woman and we smile at everyone. He smiled back and gave me a quick up-and-down glance that left me thinking, now why did I think he was gay...just because this is Chelsea...
Sunday, August 19, 2007
not quite done, done, done
Favorite things about the new place so far:
kitchen storage is awesome
can hear the church bells ringing this morning
sleeping in our own bed again at last
it's bigger than I thought
the bathroom isn't pink tile from floor to ceiling
Things that suck about moving:
where the hell is that thing I wanted a minute ago but can't remember what it is now?
Clare doesn't sleep well in her new space (yet)
I'm handicapped in the furniture arranging department
having to search in boxes for clean underwear
no more dishwasher (sigh)
Miraculous things about moving:
where did all these people come from? oh yeah, CCfB rocks!
nothing got broken
nothing got left (that we wanted to bring...)
cat's calming down even though Clare's still not napping
we're in New York City!
Joe, Tom, Gilda, Hilary & Jeremiah, & Lucas--you are all marvelous people with an amazing capacity for carrying way too many heavy boxes of books. I am so humbled and grateful that you would spend your day working so hard just to help us out!
kitchen storage is awesome
can hear the church bells ringing this morning
sleeping in our own bed again at last
it's bigger than I thought
the bathroom isn't pink tile from floor to ceiling
Things that suck about moving:
where the hell is that thing I wanted a minute ago but can't remember what it is now?
Clare doesn't sleep well in her new space (yet)
I'm handicapped in the furniture arranging department
having to search in boxes for clean underwear
no more dishwasher (sigh)
Miraculous things about moving:
where did all these people come from? oh yeah, CCfB rocks!
nothing got broken
nothing got left (that we wanted to bring...)
cat's calming down even though Clare's still not napping
we're in New York City!
Joe, Tom, Gilda, Hilary & Jeremiah, & Lucas--you are all marvelous people with an amazing capacity for carrying way too many heavy boxes of books. I am so humbled and grateful that you would spend your day working so hard just to help us out!
Monday, August 13, 2007
Monday, 8/13:
*7:00 pm Mom and Dad arrive at Newark
Tuesday, 8/14:
*pack, pack, pack and clean, clean, clean
Wednesday, 8/15:
*load the truck, turn in keys
*stay at K & D's apt across the street because, now, we're homeless for 2 days
Thursday, 8/16:
*hang out in Princeton because we're suddenly not allowed to move in yet and do...what???
*maybe get the car cleaned and ready to sell?
*get Mom and Dad to NWK to fly to Nashville
Friday, 8/17:
*Brent drives truck into city, get a parking spot right after the street sweeper comes by (10:30am)
*I come later with Clare and the cat??? Or go with and someone hang out with Clare while we move? Or???
*7:00 pm Mom and Dad arrive at Newark
Tuesday, 8/14:
*pack, pack, pack and clean, clean, clean
Wednesday, 8/15:
*load the truck, turn in keys
*stay at K & D's apt across the street because, now, we're homeless for 2 days
Thursday, 8/16:
*hang out in Princeton because we're suddenly not allowed to move in yet and do...what???
*maybe get the car cleaned and ready to sell?
*get Mom and Dad to NWK to fly to Nashville
Friday, 8/17:
*Brent drives truck into city, get a parking spot right after the street sweeper comes by (10:30am)
*I come later with Clare and the cat??? Or go with and someone hang out with Clare while we move? Or???
Friday, August 10, 2007
moving
Ah, moving. Something I've done at least every 4 years of my entire life, and usually more often than that. And yet, it never gets any easier. In fact, the older I get the harder it is. More stuff. More worries. More work. More anxiety about leaving the old place and wondering about the new.
I'm sad to be leaving Princeton, although I truly do look forward to having a bedroom and sleeping in our own bed again.
Expect more blog inactivity for the next couple of weeks as I'll be doing things like attempting to create order out of chaos...
I'm sad to be leaving Princeton, although I truly do look forward to having a bedroom and sleeping in our own bed again.
Expect more blog inactivity for the next couple of weeks as I'll be doing things like attempting to create order out of chaos...
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
veils, anyone?
So, would anyone like to tell me just how they make sense of 1 Corinthians 11:1-16?
Just wondering.
Just wondering.
Monday, July 30, 2007
it's all fun and games until someone loses a frakkin eye
I have rarely needed the blog outlet more, but unfortunately it would be completely unethical and unprofessional to vent my frustration here. Too damn bad.
I'm just worn out. It's frakkin hard being a mom, and this summer with Brent in CPE--gone from 7:30am to 6:00pm, and on call for 24 hours every 10 days--has meant intensive full-time parenting. Hard enough that I freaked out after the first week and called my mom for help and bought a bunch of toddler activity books and spent a great deal of $$ at Michaels on construction paper, tempera paint and bubbles, and occasionally get brave enough to put on my swim suit (bought 10 years ago) with all my mommy blubber hanging out, and take Clare to the swimming pool, just out of desperation for a fun activity that gets us both out of the single room we live in. Arrgh. Why I thought that teaching an online course on top of that would be negotiable God only knows. I think it was the money panic that made me think I should do it. After all, how else is a full-time mom/academic going to earn any money? But I had forgotten that online teaching means hours and hours of sitting in front of a computer. Saturday I literally spent the entire day staring at the computer screen, grading and grading and grading, setting up the innumerable Blackboard groups, writing email after email after email. But okay, that's just life. You have to work hard. And sometimes life sucks. But I really, really wish that I didn't have to do all this online work with Clare tugging at my arm, wailing because she feels ignored--because she is. This morning I wrote my daily email to the class while Clare nursed on my lap. Desperation. Guilt.
Maybe after the course is over, a review of the things I hate about Blackboard and the impersonality of online coursework as interruptor to effective pedagogical relationship. But more than likely not. One the course is over, we're moving, and once we're moved, it will finally be time to start dissertating, like I've been supposed to be doing this whole past year. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
I'm just worn out. It's frakkin hard being a mom, and this summer with Brent in CPE--gone from 7:30am to 6:00pm, and on call for 24 hours every 10 days--has meant intensive full-time parenting. Hard enough that I freaked out after the first week and called my mom for help and bought a bunch of toddler activity books and spent a great deal of $$ at Michaels on construction paper, tempera paint and bubbles, and occasionally get brave enough to put on my swim suit (bought 10 years ago) with all my mommy blubber hanging out, and take Clare to the swimming pool, just out of desperation for a fun activity that gets us both out of the single room we live in. Arrgh. Why I thought that teaching an online course on top of that would be negotiable God only knows. I think it was the money panic that made me think I should do it. After all, how else is a full-time mom/academic going to earn any money? But I had forgotten that online teaching means hours and hours of sitting in front of a computer. Saturday I literally spent the entire day staring at the computer screen, grading and grading and grading, setting up the innumerable Blackboard groups, writing email after email after email. But okay, that's just life. You have to work hard. And sometimes life sucks. But I really, really wish that I didn't have to do all this online work with Clare tugging at my arm, wailing because she feels ignored--because she is. This morning I wrote my daily email to the class while Clare nursed on my lap. Desperation. Guilt.
Maybe after the course is over, a review of the things I hate about Blackboard and the impersonality of online coursework as interruptor to effective pedagogical relationship. But more than likely not. One the course is over, we're moving, and once we're moved, it will finally be time to start dissertating, like I've been supposed to be doing this whole past year. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
Monday, July 16, 2007
apologies to TKP
I've been a little snowed under lately with online teaching and sermonizing. So the lack of thoughts here is balanced a bit by the new post over at rude sermons.
Now that that's done..on to the next project...1 Corinthians 11, here I come!
Now that that's done..on to the next project...1 Corinthians 11, here I come!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Harry Potter and the posthuman
As we all know, Book 7 is due quite soon. Day after my birthday, in fact, which is really quite nice. So this post is a sort of anticipatory celebration.Really it should be "Harry Potter and the part-human," but Rowling deals with it all: non-, part- and post-humanity. This theme has grown in the series right along with Harry, Hermione and Ron; as they have matured, this dark element of the wizarding world has become more and more prominently the source of the evil Voldemort represents.
It begins with a simple distinction between wizards and witches, and non-magic people: Muggles. It's not, I think, insignificant that we poor non-magical slobs have a label, though not necessarily mean-spirited (one can imagine it being said affectionately). But this divide is absolute. One is Muggle or magical; one lives in the Muggle world, blissfully or otherwise ignorant, or one lives in the entirely separate magical (=real) world as a witch or wizard.
Unless you're a Squib: the in-between people who do not inherit magical ability but who remain a part of the real world. That Rowling introduces this in-between category is indicative of her penchant for complexifying the initial simplicities of the early books. I like this.
What's interesting is that although these distinctions and categories and derogatory labels have real force, Muggles, Squibs and non-pure-blood wizards (as Rowling's term is clearly analogous to the n-word, which I cannot bring myself to say or write, I will avoid it as well) are all considered obviously human.
But not everyone is human. There are part-humans, including Hagrid, the centaurs, Lupin the werewolf, and vampires. And there are non-humans: goblins, giants, house-elves. What we begin to see most prominently in the fourth book, with Hermione's creation of S.P.E.W., is that there is a huge and until now mostly hidden problem in the wizarding world: the unquestioning assumption of the superiority of wizards over other kinds of beings.
And it is this very assumption that, carried to its logical conclusion, leads straight into the pure-blood mania that serves as the rhetorical appeal of Voldemort and his followers. The echoes of Hitler and Nazism are hard to miss.
But Voldemort tells Harry as early as the second book that he is no longer concerned with the goal of pure-blood wizard ethnic cleansing. Voldemort's real goal is the attainment of immortality. This ambition, and fear, is what makes Voldemort the posthuman figure. Human, for Voldemort, is synonomous with mortality, the enemy. And so all humans are to be despised--not simply mixed-blood wizards and Muggles, but everyone. He alone is the enlightened and powerful one.
What I would anticipate most about the seventh book is how the different threads of this theme will come together and prove to be the basic conflict between the Order and Voldemort and the Death Eaters, the thing that distinguishes the good from the bad: who is willing to accept the Other in all its varied forms, and who is determined to annihilate them?
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