My academic dilemmas

The course that I'm on is called "English Studies" and combines modern literature and medieval literature. This is perfect for me right now, since I love both of them and don't want to be forced to choose between them. However, eventually I'm going to have to come up with a dissertation. How do I combine my love of the medieval with my love of late Victorianism/Edwardianism/early modernism?

Once I have that figured out, it's time to plan "my future" (something I'm working on now, actually). Do I want a PhD? Do I want to wait? Do I want to get teaching qualifications? Part of me wants to get a PhD, partially for the prestige, partially for the family expectation (higher education is important to both my parents; my father has a PhD...). And part of me thinks "But what would I do it on? What would my research proposal be?" Because, like my issue with my MA dissertation, how do I combine my two loves?

I am such a dilettante, really. I'm interested in everything - especially literary things. I was looking today at editions of one of the Robin Hood manuscripts, and the editors were discussing in the footnotes how they chose certain readings by looking at the original manuscript under UV light, and I thought, "That is so cool! I want to do that!" And whenever I'm immersed in the Forster stuff, I think "I could be a Forster expert!" And whenever I talk to, say, Kelly about Victorian lit, I think "How interesting this stuff is!" And talking to Rachel about Old English makes me wish I knew more about things like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and ashes and thorns and runes and stuff. And reading about various Shakespearean textual theories is fascinating. And I think the point is made.

I lack focus. This is what is going to kill me this year. I am so easily distracted - and not necessarily from non-academic stuff - that certain other things (like class preparation) don't get done the way they should. In being interested in everything, I focus on and really learn about nothing. I don't want to limit myself, but that causes a paralysis of choice.

Two emotional/philosophical things have been on my mind lately. I am putting them in one entry because they are sort of connected.

First is the idea of living in the moment. People keep saying that you should “live in the moment” and enjoy things as they happen without thinking too much of what the future holds. The idea is that if you're always looking ahead, you miss out on the things that are happening now.

The problem is that our culture is not set up to live in the moment. Take my current situation. I am a graduate student on a one-year master's program, studying something that I love in a city that I love. And the first thing that my course convener said to me when I arrived? “Have you thought about what you're doing next?” This was before I had even officially chosen what classes I was going to take this year. The number one question that I get is “what are you going to do next?” This beats even “are you enjoying it” and “what are you studying” for frequency of questions that I get asked.

While I understand that it is necessary to look to the future, and that certain paths require a lot of advance planning, it is incredibly frustrating to me. I just got here! I am not ready to think about leaving yet! Can't I just enjoy my year here without worrying about what it's going to lead to? Part of the reason I chose this program was in the hopes that it will give me more clarity about what I want to do with my life – particularly what academic area I want to focus on. However, that can't happen until I actually experience this year. And, actually, the way that part of the course is organized, it won't happen until next semester, when I am taking more literature classes. I want to experience this year without the question of “what's next” hanging over my head. The question is not going to go away – even now it is always in the back of my mind – but I need it to stay in the back of my mind and not be constantly in the forefront.

The other thing, which is connected because it occasionally keeps me from fully experiencing this year, is looking to the past. I went back to Slovakia last week, which gave me a sense of closure about my experience there. However, the second-most common question I got (after “what's next for you”) was “when are you coming back?” The thing is, I'm not. If I can't find a job/place for me here in the UK, I will consider going back to Slovakia and teaching English at one of the universities or something similar. But I do not think that I will go back to the ELCA program and teach at one of the high schools. I don't even think that I will go back independently and teach at one of the high schools. I've done it. It's over.

I also have a friend in Slovakia – I love her dearly – who is constantly trying to improve her English by taking tests. Which she then sends to me to correct for her. And sometimes she sends me her students' work to correct. And it's really starting to bother me, because the only time she talks to me is when she has things she wants me to do. And the things she wants me to do are either things she should be doing herself, or things that I am not in a mental place to do anymore.

It's not that I don't love Slovakia – I do, and I will always treasure my time there and my friends there. But that is not my life right now. I need to focus on my life here and my experience here, and not feel constantly dragged back to what I was doing before.

It should not be this hard to be able to focus on this year and what is happening now. I hate that both the past and the future are pulling me away from what should be a good, meaningful experience.

Poetry day! D.H. Lawrence

A few days ago, in one of my classes, we went to the archives and looked at some of the stuff from the Lawrence collection. The archivist had brought out for us a kind of series of the development of this one poem, from the early notebooks to the final (in his lifetime) published version. There are essentially three versions of this poem: the first is called "Last Words to Muriel" and the final two are "Last Words to Miriam." It is an overwhelmingly sexual poem, so if you're uncomfortable with me talking about sex, stop reading now. You have been warned.

The way I read it, the poem tells the story of the speaker's first time with Muriel/Miriam, who is a virgin. It does not go well, and the speaker feels...bad about it? At least, that's the impression I get from the first two versions. Some of it I genuinely don't understand - some of it may be punctuation errors - but I can't quite parse it. However, some of it I do get, and it's kind of disturbing. There's a distinct change in perspective between the first two versions and the last, and it bothers me.

In the first two versions, the speaker is the seducer. He recognizes his role in the events, acknowledges it, and accepts it. It is a little bit Pygmalion-esque, to be sure [Mine was the love of the sun for a flower / He creates with his shine. / I was diligent to explore you / Blossom you stalk by stalk] but he's the speaker, he's allowed to be a little bit selfish. At least he's consistent with it: he is definitely the initiator in this version.

But then the last version turns all that around. Instead of the speaker being the sun, now she is. [Mine was the love of a growing flower / For the sunshine. / You had the power to explore me, / Blossom me stalk by stalk] Miriam is now the seducer, the one with the power and control. The poor innocent poet is as helpless as a flower responding to the sunshine.

This makes the next bit a little bit odd:

You yielded, we threw the last cast,
And it was no good.

You only endured, and it broke
My craftsman's nerve.

Question 1: If she is the seducer, why is she the one yielding? Why is she only enduring? If she's the seducer, isn't this what she wants? Isn't she the one taking charge? Do I have the definition of seducer wrong?
Question 2: If she is the seducer and he is just a flower responding to the sunshine, where did he develop this craftsman's nerve? And isn't that a little bit overconfident in his abilities? (As we shall see further on in the poem...)

And then, the word that is the bane of my existence. Granted, I am overly sensitive to this word because of past experiences. But be that as it may, this is where he completely loses my sympathy:

No flesh responded to my stroke;
So I failed to give you the last
Fine torture you did deserve.

"So" is a causal conjunction. It signals a cause-effect relationship between the clauses that it is joining. This happened, so that happened. This caused that. There is no other reading when you use "so." If you want to imply mutual fault, use "and." By using "so," the speaker is blatantly blaming the girl's unresponsiveness for his failure. First he blames her for seducing him, then he implies that he has to do all the work, and then he blames her for his failure.

Don't use the word "so". I'm just saying.

The next-to-last stanza is also troubling to me.

Since the fire has failed in me,
What man will stoop in your flesh to plough
The shrieking cross?

Let's ignore the vulgarity of "to plough the shrieking cross" and focus instead on the insufferable smugness of the opening clause. It reads to me like "who's going to want you now?" Like he's the best lover she could ever hope for, so if he failed no one else even has a chance. (That is a correct use of the word "so.") That's right, ladies, what Lawrence is telling you here is that, if your first time doesn't go well, you are doomed to a life of pain and celibacy. You couldn't come with him, so you will never have sex again. And, by the way, it's your fault, you frigid seductress.

I'm so disappointed in Lawrence with this poem. I stick up for him a lot - of the "big three" of the modernists (Joyce and Woolf being the others) I like him the best, and I will defend Lady Chatterley's Lover to anyone, but the third version of this poem seems so misogynistic and wrong - worse even than Sons and Lovers, which also disturbed me. I definitely liked the second version of it better. Someone in class commented on the move to "aesthetic perfection" with this poem, implying that the third version is more beautiful than the first two, but for me, if it doesn't have emotional consistency as well, then it fails. And the third version just doesn't have emotional consistency. Fail, Lawrence.

American football

Football is one of my joys in life. I have a lot of friends, mostly back in the States, who do not understand football and who especially do not understand the joy I get out of football. They see it as a vulgar game, incomprehensible, filled with big guys running into each other. And they're right – football, American football, can be incomprehensible, filled with big guys running into each other and stupid twenty-somethings running off their mouths. But to me, football is so much more than that.

I try to describe football to people as a chess game. Each play is like a mini chess game. The analogy doesn't really hold up that well, but bear with me. Each piece on the board – each player – can move in a certain way, and not in others. The offensive linemen can only go so far, the defensive backs can only go certain places. Each player has their role and if they overstep that role, they are penalized. The movement of the players appears chaotic and random, but looked at closely (and done well) it's very choreographed and well-organized.

Football is also about emotion for me. It's about spending every Friday and Saturday dressed in red, watching the Tanagers, the 'Yotes, or the Huskers (on TV). It's about celebrating when my brother makes a beautiful pass that's beautifully caught in the end zone. (And then about hearing his story about having to go and celebrate in the end zone by himself....) It's about the Domino's pizza arriving before Peter did on a Monday night. It's about the history of the game – recognizing the names of the announcers and the coaches because you watched them play, or because Dad tells stories about watching them play. It's about seeing former players at Homecoming games – or non-Homecoming games – and reminiscing. It's the smell of home-baked cookies on Sunday afternoon and the sight of the boys filling up our kitchen and living room eating them all before taking the remnants home to their roommates.

I miss football.

Being at home

I have been thinking about writing a book based on my experiences in Slovakia, and an exploration of what makes a place “home”. There are a lot of trite things written about it, most notably the phrase “home is where the heart is” but I think there's more to it than that. In my book, I'm going to attempt to trace the three – maybe four – different threads that can make you feel at home.

The first thing is being around people that you enjoy. This doesn't have to be family, per se; in fact, for many people I know, being around their family is a hindrance to happiness. But if you have a good social group, things are a lot easier. I have been in a situation where every other aspect of “home” is right, but I don't have a good social group. It killed the place for me, to the point where I'm still not comfortable going back.

The second thing is being in a place that you enjoy. Some people are at their best in cities with good shopping; others in a place with a lot of history; others in smaller towns where they can get to know their neighbors. However, if you're in a place where you can't even stand leaving your house, you're probably in the wrong place.

The third thing is doing something that you enjoy. If you have a job that you loathe, you're not going to enjoy your life. If you have a job that you love, you will. It maybe shouldn't be quite that simple, but it is.

The fourth thing, and the one that probably isn't as important as the others – after all, I have never had it and yet I have been at home in several places – is the presence of love. It probably plays in to the first thing – being around people you enjoy – but it deserves a separate point anyway. It is sort of like the crowning jewel of home – being in a happy, stable relationship on top of everything else will make a place perfect.

I have been very lucky in my life, to have had homes many different places. I have had four different places where I have lived that I have had the first three points. I have lived with people I liked, in a place that I liked, doing things that I liked. I'm doing it again now, in fact. But I have found that if I'm missing any one of those three parts, I'm not at home.

Now that I'm back in an academic frame of mind, I've got posts percolating about canonicity, manuscript transmission, Pentecost and worship styles, what it means to be "home," and philosophical critiques of reason. I may also do some more poetry days. However, schoolwork comes first, my social life comes second, and this blog is third.

Poetry day!

I don’t read enough poetry. I should read more. Maybe I'll make poetry day a regular thing.

I love the war poets. I am fascinated by almost everything that has to do with World War I - I think it has something to do with the fact that Rilla of Ingleside is one of my favorite books ever. World War I is a perfect example of a political war, and one that would never happen in today’s world of near-instant communication and news. At the start of the war, there was still a huge sense of patriotism, of duty, and of “we don’t need to know why - we just need to be told to go.” English soldiers (I don’t know that much about other countries) were idealistic, especially the young, often bored, independently wealthy officers. And then they actually started fighting and realized that the “glory of war” was not so glorious. The boys started coming back with shell-shock, which no one really knew how to deal with (today it would probably be diagnosed as PTSD of some kind, not that we fully understand that either). A lot of really excellent poetry was written during World War I, much of it about the reality of fighting in the trenches and the reality of coming home afterwards. (Although not all of the poets did come home afterwards.)

The poets that I had to teach, the ones that are sometimes considered “canon” as war poets*, are Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Isaac Rosenberg. This poem is by Siegfried Sassoon, from the book “Counter-Attack and Other Poems,” published in 1918. I like it because of the depressing sarcasm that permeates the whole thing. I can really hear both the voice of the people - I usually picture middle-aged women with hats and high-pitched voices - and the soldier, mocking them and getting angrier and sadder as the poem goes on.

Does It Matter?

Does it matter? -losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? -losing your sight?
There’s such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? -those dreams in the pit?
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won’t say that you’re mad;
For they know that you’ve fought for your country,
And no one will worry a bit.

-by Siegfried Sassoon.

*This is not to imply that they are the only war poets or that they are the only ones that are worth reading.

How long does it take for history to become meaningful? There are several things right now that have made me think about this question. First, my 5-year college reunion is this fall. Second, my 10-year high school reunion is next summer. And third, I just got back from an “alumni choir” event that featured alums from the 1940s through the end of the century.

The alumni choir event was awesome (again. This is the second year it’s happened, and that I’ve attended even though I wasn’t a singer with them, but that’s something for the livejournal rather than this blog) but there was a dearth of singers from the last twenty years. Some of this is probably due to lack of funds or time spent establishing family and careers. But some of it is quite possibly due to the lack of “historical” meaning that my generation has for its college time.

Simply speaking, we’re not old enough yet. When we - or at least, when I - go back to campus, it feels like I’m a student again. I emotionally expect things to be like they were when I was a student there. I want to relive the time when I was a student there, not just remember it. And when I can’t, when things are different, it hurts. It feels almost like a betrayal. Intellectually, I know that nothing is constant, that things always change, and that most of the changes are incredibly good. Emotionally, I have a hard time accepting it. I don’t have the distance yet to remember my college days without wanting to relive them.

I think I do with high school, though, or at least I’m getting there. When I go back to my high school (as I did at the beginning of July for community theatre), I no longer feel as much need to wander the halls and reminisce. When I see friends from high school, I don’t feel as much pressure of memory as I still do with my college friends. I don’t think I’m quite there yet, but I’m a lot closer.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to handle it this fall - I’ll be back in a town that I adore, but I’ll be there without the people who were with me before and for a slightly different reason than before. I’m sure that the first few weeks, I’ll be trying to relive and recreate my experience of six/seven years ago. With familiarity and routine, I’m hoping that will fade.

Taking a break

I am not even going to think about things other than packing and farewells for the next week or so. I am reading Bleak House (and loving it) and I just finished a collection of Roald Dahl's short stories for adults (I didn't know he had a lot of stuff for adults) and I am looking forward to The Good Soldier Svejk - but I won't even attempt to talk about them until after I am back in the US. In a week.

The Flanders Panel

I just finished reading The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte. It was pretty good, right up until the end. It wasn’t exceptional, and if I’d had anything waiting that I was anxious to read, I doubt I would have finished it, but I did enjoy it – right up to the end.

See, here’s the thing. You can’t do something “for” somebody when the somebody DOESN’T WANT YOU TO DO IT. And most of the time, when someone uses the excuse “I did it for you!” they’ve done something either illegal or really, really ill-advised that they knew (or at least suspected) you wouldn’t like. In the book, it’s killing people. In real life, it’s often breaking up with someone else, or moving, or something slightly less extreme but still life-changing.

Rule of thumb: unless the person says the words “do this for me,” you are not doing it “for” them. You may do it in the hopes that the person will like it, but you are not doing it “for” them.

Every time I have had someone tell me that they’ve done something “for” me, it has been something that I don’t want. Earrings, plans, breaking up with their girlfriend….it’s become kind of a peeve of mine, which is why I think I hated the ending of The Flanders Panel so much. Granted, killing people is a little bit more extreme than any of my stuff, but still – if the person doesn’t want you to do it, you are not doing it for them. You are doing it for yourself. Just admit it already.

The excuse wasn’t the only bad thing about the ending of the book, though – it kind of didn’t really make sense at all. But it’s the part that bugged me the most about it.

The Pilgrim's Regress

After talking about how much I like C.S. Lewis, I have to confess that I am giving up on The Pilgrim's Regress. It was the first book he wrote after his conversion, and it's a variation of The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.

I am about halfway through the book now, and it's losing me. There are several different reasons for this:

First, Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress used easily recongnizable and definable concepts as allegorical characters: people like Timorous (fear), Piety, Christian (the main character), and Evangelist. In order to understand the characters of The Pilgrim's Progress, all you really need is a dictionary. Lewis, however, is using philosophical movements. These are almost incomprehensible if you haven't studied them. You can look them up in a dictionary or encyclopedia, of course, but without a philosophical background, you (I) may not understand their references.

Second, Lewis sometimes throws in Greek, Latin, or other linguistic quotations. These are neither translated or attributed. I have studied Greek and Latin; I could figure them out if I worked at it. But it's very distracting. And if it's distracting for me, when I know the languages, what must it be like for people who don't?

Third, the continual references to the dream framework make it too easy to dismiss the points that Lewis is trying to make. If you can say, "Oh, but it was just a dream," it almost invalidates the reality of the situation. Dreams are supposed to be unreal and illogical; the allegory that I think Lewis is trying to convey is not.

Basically, I'm just too stupid ignorant to read this book right now. It's more work to understand the layers than I'm willing to put in, and it's not interesting enough on a story level to make it worth reading without that deeper understanding.


It's really too bad, though, because it's the type of book I think I would really enjoy if I understood it better. Maybe I'll keep my eyes out for an annotated version or see if someday I can take a class on Lewis that explains it better. But right now, I'm giving up and moving on to The Other Boleyn Girl.

Humility and Inferiority

I finally read The Screwtape Letters a few months ago. I really did enjoy it – overall I really like C.S. Lewis. I trust him as a theologian, because he came to Christianity as a skeptic. He doesn’t come from the perspective of “I’m right because I’m right and now here are things that back me up.” He comes from the perspective of “I’m right because I found these things that convinced me that I had been wrong.”

Screwtape is interesting because it’s written from the point of view of a devil, a tempter. Mostly Screwtape points out all the ways that modern society and modern ways of thinking are ungodly. Like with the other Lewis books I’ve read, I understand his point on pretty much all of it, and I agree with let’s say 90% of it.

The one bit of Screwtape that got me thinking, more than any other, was the part about the illusion of equality. He says that when someone says “I’m as good as you,” that person is coming from a sense of inferiority. You never tell someone whom you feel is inferior that you are as good as they are, unless you are being patronizing and condescending.

My problem with this comes not from the statement itself – I do agree that when someone says “I am as good as you are” they are usually speaking from a sense of inferiority – but from the implication that trying to overcome a sense of inferiority is an ungodly thing.

I think that Lewis is probably trying to make a point about the lack of humility in today’s society, which is probably a valid point. But I think that there is a difference between feeling humble and feeling inferior.

Humility is internal. If it is imposed by anyone/anything, it is imposed by God. Humility says “I am not the best at this” but humility also allows you to say “I will try.” Inferiority, on the other hand, is imposed externally – by individuals or by society. Inferiority says “You can’t do this” and inferiority says “Why should you even try?” Humility is not a bad thing. False humility is, but that’s a different discussion. Inferiority, especially inferiority based on unchangeable factors like gender/race or subjective factors like beauty, is a bad thing and should be fought against wherever it is found.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Thursday afternoon I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If you don’t want to know about it, STOP READING NOW.

Seriously. I’m going to talk about the movie in moderate detail. Not great detail because I’ve only seen it once so far, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who wants to be surprised.

So if you’re still reading at this point, I can only assume that you want to know about the movie.

Here goes.

It’s definitely better than Temple of Doom. Of course, I haven’t watched Temple of Doom in several years, because it annoys me so greatly and I have to watch much of it on mute so that I can enjoy ogling Harrison Ford without having to hear Kate Capshaw. But Crystal Skull was better than I remember Temple of Doom being.

However, it was not as good as either Raiders or Last Crusade. Those are two very different movies, I’ll admit, that bear very little resemblance to each other besides having several of the same characters and the same basic premise. Raiders is much more action/shoot-em-up while Last Crusade is more comic and almost slapstick. Raiders is quite serious; Last Crusade is much, much lighter.

The thing that Raiders and Last Crusade do have in common that Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull don’t is a Judeo-Christian quest. I’m not trying to be racist or anything like that, and I sincerely apologize if I come across that way. I don’t think the quests in Raiders and Last Crusade are the only reason that they are better movies than Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull, but I do think they are a part of it, for two reasons. First, the predominant culture in the US/UK has a Judeo-Christian background, so the quests are already at least slightly familiar to at least some of the movie-going audience. Second, setting the quests in the context of the predominant culture limits the stereotyping that unfortunately affects both Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull. For example, Temple of Doom is set in India and the things that people remember (other than the annoyingness of Kate Capshaw and the kid who plays Short Round)? Eating monkey brains and pulling out people’s hearts. And in Crystal Skull, technically it takes place in South America, and has to do with ancient Mesoamerican culture. Apart from pictographs, the only representations of that culture are loincloth-clad people who blend in with the wall, move like monkeys, and shoot poison darts.

Crystal Skull is not a bad movie, though. There are a few inside jokes and references, but not so many that it overwhelms the story. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, since I am a long-time Indy fan. Karen Allen is more than welcome – she’s always been my favourite of the Indy girls. Not that there’s a lot of competition: Kate Capshaw is, as previously stated, annoying, and Alison Doody’s character turned out to be evil. But Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood is more of a partner – she shrieks, sure, but she also attempts to think and fight her way out of situations by herself. And I appreciate the tributes to Denholm Elliott (who played Marcus Brody – he gets referenced and a statue) and Sean Connery (who turned down the film because he’s retired; get over it already online reviewers).

However, it’s not a great movie. Normally I like Cate Blanchett, but she is so ridiculous in this. Her obvious wig and totally fake accent do not help things. And there are oh-so-many “Yeah right” or “You’ve got to be kidding me” moments ranging from Shia LeBeouf sliding his motorcycle along a library floor and getting out from under it without so much as a limp to Ray Winstone’s character’s true allegiances, whatever they might be, to, well, the whole crystal skull reveal. (Aliens? Really? Whose “treasure is knowledge”? Um…..okay.)

They also drop so many things. Like I said, it’s supposed to be based around this Mesoamerican culture, but the poison-dart-blowing representatives of that culture only show up, like three times, never speak, and even though there’s this myth about the crystal skull being guarded by the living dead or something like that, they’re never explained. And, the thing that distracted me the most, during the big chase scene where the evil Soviets are chasing Our Heroes, Marion just…..disappears. She’s driving one of the jungle tanks and I guess she falls behind or something, but she’s off-screen so long that I wondered if they’d forgotten that she was in that scene, or if I’d missed the part where she gets kicked out of the car.

But I liked it, and I would go see it again. I still love Harrison Ford, I enjoy Karen Allen and the relationship between Marion and Indy, and I have a good time watching the fight scenes and archaeology (yeah right) stuff. Everything else, I can ignore.

Fairy Tales

How do you define a fairy tale? The Webster’s Dictionary I have defines a fairy tale as either a story about fairies or an unbelievable/unreal story. The Macmillan Student’s Dictionary adds “a traditional children’s story in which magical things happen.”

So how do you define a fairy tale? My students tend to define it as any work of fiction, especially if it has been made into a movie or, especially, a cartoon. Common answers when I ask about their favourite fairy tales are “Tom and Jerry” and “Harry Potter.” When I ask about Slovak fairy tales, I get romance novelists and whatever they’re studying in literature class.

Some people use Disney movies as the go-to example of fairy tales, and many Disney movies are fairy tales. But I don’t think they all are, and the problem that I run into is that my students – not having the cultural brainwashing of the difference between movie studios – go from “Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are fairy tales” to “Cartoon movies are fairy tales” to “Anything animated is a fairy tale.” Hence Tom and Jerry.

But where is the line? Why is Sleeping Beauty, with its fairy godmothers, a fairy tale but Mulan, with the talking dragon, not? Would you call Aladdin a fairy tale? Or The Lion King? Is Shrek a fairy tale? What about something like The Princess Diaries?

Personally I think of a fairy tale as a story, primarily but not exclusively for children, that has a lesson or moral, a happy ending or at least something that can be spun into a happy ending, and an unreal or magical element. Cinderella is a fairy tale. Harry Potter can be argued to be a fairy tale. Tom and Jerry – I don’t think so.

In my view of fairy tales, there are two reasons that Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale and Mulan is not. First, Mulan is based on a (probably) true story and real events in a way that Sleeping Beauty is not. Second, the events of Mulan are not reliant on the magic element, whereas the story of Sleeping Beauty is completely dependent on unreal elements. Yes, Mulan has a talking dragon, but Mushu does not either start or resolve the plot. It is Mulan’s actions and Mulan’s ingenuity that defeat the Huns. Sleeping Beauty, on the other hand, doesn’t exist without magic. The main conflict and its resolution are both magically based.

Where I run into problems is with Harry Potter. I think I’m going to have to say that Harry Potter is not a fairy tale, at least not in the traditional sense. You can argue that it is, but right now I’m arguing that it’s not. For one thing, it’s complex. It’s an epic fantasy, not as simple as the fairy tales. For another thing, while there is magic, in Harry Potter, the magic is an integral part of the world. It’s not extra or special; it’s a talent like being a musician is a talent or athleticism is a talent. It’s a part of the construct, not a part of the plot. I will accept it when students name Harry Potter as their favourite fairy tale, but personally, I don’t think it is.

(Do we even need to discuss why Tom and Jerry is not a fairy tale? I didn’t think so.)

How I Met Your Mother

I have become addicted to the show "How I Met Your Mother." I blame iTunes. They had the "Sandcastles in the Sand" video for free. I also blame MySpace for having the first Robin Sparkles episode for free. Oh, who am I kidding. I'm a TV junkie.

But just because I live my life through popular entertainment doesn't mean that it's not a good show. It's a great show. In case you haven't heard of it, it's theoretically one character telling his kids how he met their mother - the very long version. It's just finishing the third season on CBS and, thanks to the magic of online viewing, I have now seen every episode.

There are two writing things that really make this show impressive for me. First is the realism. Characters tell jokes, but they're the types of jokes that normal people tell and they acknowledge that they're making jokes, or at least trying to. And there are conversations that aren't particularly jokey or witty, but are very real: either television real where they explicitly lay out their emotions, or real-real like when they get excited about going to Red Lobster or whatever. When I watch the show, I can see my own friends in these characters.

The other thing that impresses me is the continuity. It's an ongoing story in a way that shows like Friends were not. And it's the little moments, the little character things, that make it special. For example, there's a third season episode where everyone's complaining about everyone else's annoying habits. And someone mentions Marshall's habit of singing whatever he's doing. And in the first season, there's a scene where Marshall is doing just that - sing-narrating what he's doing. It's the little things like that which make the show wonderful. [Side-note: should it be which there? I was reading something about the difference between that and which the other day and now I'm all paranoid and doubting.]

The actors are good, too. Neil Patrick Harris has this deliciously twisted morality; Alyson Hannigan is quirky (although she's been getting on my nerves a bit in the third season). But I totally adore Josh Radnor as Ted. He looks like John Cusack, acts a little bit like early Zach Braff, and I just want to be his friend.

There are some actors who are so gorgeous and/or talented that you know if you ever met them you would be so completely starstruck that you wouldn't even be able to breathe. Stars that don't seem real. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, etc., fall into this category. But Josh Radnor's Ted and my other TV crush, John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, seem like guys who would actually talk to you. Guys you could be friends with. Guys you would WANT to be friends with. Guys that you wouldn't be intimidated to fall in love with. Not that you necessarily WOULD fall in love with them (although if either one of them wants to give me a call, I'm on the next plane to LA) but guys that you could hang out with without feeling inferior.

I'm really hoping that "How I Met Your Mother" comes back for another season. It's not even that I want Ted to meet "the mother" (even though that's the purpose of the show) but because it's so much fun to hang out with these characters.

Teaching South Africa

One of the English-speaking countries that we teach our students about is South Africa. I don't dislike teaching South Africa - it's an interesting country - but sometimes I wonder if it's a good idea.

First, South Africa has something like eleven official languages of which English is only one, and not even the most common native language. It is the most common in government and media (according to Wikipedia), but it's not the most common language in the country. Also, much of the history and heritage of whites is Dutch rather than English.

Second, most of the information we have and most of the information that we can use focus on apartheid. Apartheid hasn't been an official part of government since 1994. I worry that, because we end up focusing so much on apartheid, we give students the impression and idea that this is still a concern, or that it's the main thing about South Africa.

Third, by focusing on South Africa, we neglect other English-speaking countries, particularly Ireland. Most of the Realia resources that are now being published have Ireland instead of South Africa, making it less likely that our students will need the South Africa information. Also, this makes it even harder for us to break away from the apartheid emphasis that our current resources keep us almost trapped into.

I agree that South Africa and apartheid should not be ignored, just like the Civil War and slavery should not be ignored. But when does remembering the past and maintaining awareness turn into keeping grudges alive?

Generation gaps

The latest issue of The Lutheran has a cover story about baby boomers. (It also has the really, really awesome Luther College ad on page 31. Go Norse!) Now, I have nothing against baby boomers. My parents are baby boomers. They are one of the best-defined generations in the US. I do, however, have a problem with one of the sentences in the article. It reads "These men and women are in a 20-year stretch of life that is filled with transitions."

I do not dispute the accuracy of that statement. I do, however, dispute the implication that this is a new, strange experience unique to the baby boomer generation. Because, honestly, what stretch of life does not have transitions? My generation is in a stretch of life that is filled with transitions/ We are graduating from college and/or graduate school, starting careers, careers, dating and/or getting married, having children, living on our own for the first time, living with someone outside our family for the first time, moving, buying houses, setting up our lives. People in their 30s and 40s are establishing their careers, raising familis - and I defy anyone to say that life with children is not full of transitions - and dealing with any number of physical, mental, and social changes. Not to mention the not-recession that the US is in right now - do you think it's easy fighting for a job at the age of 30/40-something? Children's lives are in a perpetual state of transition. Nearly every day something changes - they just aren't as aware of it until they look back when they're older. And those that are left in my grandfather's generation are dealing with more rapid physical and/or mental changes, the probability of no longer being able to live without assistance, and transitions in their societal role. There is no type of life where you can just sit back and expect things to remain constant. And as someone who is not of the baby boomer generation and yet is experiencing major life changes, I resent the implication that the baby boomers are unique in their transitional status.

I also am not entirely happy with the thought that these transitions are new to the baby boomer generation. Did my grandparents' generation not have to deal with at least some of these same transitions? I bet they did.

Brokenness

It has been a rough few weeks for me, emotionally. I have been in a long (for me) spell of depression - it's been nearly a month and a half, which isn't long for depression but is long for me, and it's only just starting to fade - spurred on by my natural tendencies, the apparent collapse of any sort of relationship with Martin (even friendship, it feels like), stress, Sara's visit, and Megan's rapid decline and death. I feel emotionally broken. (And quite a bit of it is due to the Martin situation. Katie said once that she admired the way I kept falling in love and kept hoping to fall in love, even after Corey, and CD, and Lloyd, and Peter, and everyone in between. Right now I no longer think that's even true. I think that my hope that I will have that kind of love is dead. See also my post on The Office.) Anyway, I feel emotionally broken in a way that I haven't for a while. And I was thinking about it on my walk to the store a few days ago, and how the typical prayer for "brokenness" is "Lord, I am broken; help make me whole." And I do understand the purpose, both emotionally and theologically, of that. But I can't help thinking that it's a little bit unrealistic and sets people up for further disappointment. Because the world is broken and has been since the fall of Adam and Eve. It will not be made whole again until the second coming of Christ. Why should an individual, or people in general, expect anything different or better? We are broken by sin from birth and will not be made whole until we are reunited with God in heaven. So to my mind right now, a better prayer would be "Lord, I am broken; help me to accept my brokenness." Or "temper my brokenness." Or something like that. And if you must have something about wholeness, "lead me on the path to wholeness." But saying "Lord, make me whole" is kind of like going to a parent and saying "Fix it!" Sometimes things can't be fixed with the time and materials available. It is unreasonable to expect wholeness in a broken world. What we can expect, though, and as for, is acknowledgment and acceptance of our brokenness; soothing of our rough edges so that we don't cause further harm to ourselves or others; and perhaps the opportunity to be a puzzle piece in the body of Christ (and how's that for a mixed metaphor?) - something that requires us to be incomplete in ourselves but which adds to the wholeness of God.

I just feel that asking to be made whole provides (some) people with unrealistic expectations - that when their lives are not instantly better in the way that they want, they will give up hope. I also think that it is unreasonable to expect wholeness (not healing, but wholeness) in a broken world. Nothing is impossible with God - but in our linear time frame, our understanding of it is.

Lord, I am broken. Help me to accept and heal my brokenness.

Carmens I have seen

Georges Bizet's opera Carmen premiered in 1875 to popular disapproval. It was a critical failure, and Bizet died thinking so. The plot is fairly simplistic. A soldier (Jose) falls in love with a gypsy girl (Carmen). He deserts his commission and his fiancee Michaela for her and joins her band of smugglers. Carmen tires of him (or doesn't, depending on how you interpret a couple of things) and Jose becomes violently jealous of her relationship with the toreador Escamillo, ultimately killing her.
It is my favourite opera.

The first time I saw Carmen was at college when a touring company of the London City Opera came through. The performance was fantastic. The staging was beautiful. The singing and acting was incredible. Don Jose and Michaela were perfect, literally perfect. Frasquita and Mercedes were excellent. Carmen....was not.
Personally, I picture Carmen the character in her early 20s. She is old enough to know and enjoy her effect on men but still young enough that she hasn't become disillusioned and/or isn't ready to settle down. The Carmen in the LCO production looked to be in her mid-40s. Vocally she was fine, but not great, but the worst part was that she confused "sex" with "sexiness". Sinuously moving your hips while dancing? Sexy. Humping the bench in the prison scene? Not sexy. Trailing a flower along someone's cheek? Sexy. Trying to mount your boyfriend while doing so? Not sexy. In every way that she could, this Carmen came down on the side of not sexy.
This wouldn't have been as much of a problem if Don Jose and Michaela hadn't been perfect and I do mean perfect. In Act One, you couldn't help believing that Jose and Michaela were childhood sweethearts who were deeply, passionately in love with each other. You believed wholeheartedly that when Michaela was delivering messages from his mother, she was really delivering them from herself. You believed wholeheartedly that Jose was just serving out his mandatory military service and when it was over, he would go back to his village, marry Michaela, and never think of the city again. Jose didn't ever so much as look at Carmen until she smacks him with the flower. There was no reason with the performance that night that Jose would be at all attracted to Carmen, or that he would continue to look at her even after she hit him with the flower. However, Jose's performance was so good that once he was "in love" with Carmen, you believed that he was in love with Carmen. Carmen's performance was just so bad that you didn't believe the reason.

The next time I saw Carmen was in Nottingham. Carmen as a character was much better; Jose wasn't but was still quite good. I really don't remember much about that performance, so it must not have been either really terrible or really great.

The third time I saw Carmen was in Banska Bystrica two years ago, and it totally changed the way that I approach this opera. Carmen herself was physically perfect - exactly the way I picture her. Jose wasn't great. Michaela was pretty good, even though no one has ever come close to the Jose and Michaela of LCO.
The thing that made it incredible was just a little thing, but it totally changed the show. During the second half of the overture, when Carmen's theme is playing, Jose was standing at the front of the stage, facing away from the audience. Through the bars of the city gates, Carmen's funeral procession went by.
This is seriously one of the coolest things ever, and I have not stopped telling people about it since then. By having Carmen's funeral procession at the beginning, and especially by having Jose watch it go by, the whole opera becomes Jose's memory of his relationship with Carmen, rather than pretending to be the actual events. By turning it into Jose's personal flashback, any script believability problems are taken care of. Of course Jose is going to idealize his relationship with Michaela and pretend that it's more about his mother. Of course Carmen is going to be an almost caricatured temptress that cast a spell on him with the flower. It's the way Jose remembers it - must remember it - to justify his actions. It is perfect.

I have seen Carmen twice (time numbers four and five) at the State Theatre in Kosice. Both times were fine. The first time I went with Katie, and it was only the second opera she'd seen. The first had been The Magic Flute, and she was amazed at the level of story-telling in this one compared to the Mozart. The second time I went with one of the Slovak teachers. We were sitting in a box on the left side and had a perfect view of the percussion section. There was this one guy playing the triangle that was pretty cute. He had this look on his face of "I am a classically trained percussionist.....playing the triangle." It wasn't an unhappy face - more sort of resigned and wry.
The other thing about the State Theatre is their main dramatic tenor. I like his voice fine, but when he sings, he only sings out of one side of his mouth. It makes it look like he's had a stroke.

The sixth time I saw Carmen, this past week, it was done by Monumental Opera, a touring company out of Germany. It was performed at the hockey arena, so in terms of acoustics it was like when Kirsten and I saw Simon and Garfunkel at the Excel Center. Luckily we were sitting essentially straight in front of the stage, so we could hear fine (except when Michaela's microphone cut out during her first scene. Normally I object to microphones during operas, but at a hockey arena it is inevitable).
The staging was very simplistic. Most of the set pieces were chairs, with a bench in Lilas Pastias's bar and barrels in the mountains. There was a door in the back screen with steps coming down from it for certain entrances and exits, but most of the visual setting cues came from projections on the back screen. It was pretty interesting and they did some creative things with it. For example, during Michaela's song about how much his mother misses him, they showed baby/childhood pictures of Jose and the countryside where he grew up. During the tarot card scene, they showed the full moon going through an eclipse and growing larger and larger until it took up almost the whole screen. In this computer/digital age, it makes sense to do something like that to have fewer large set pieces to create, load, and unload, especially for a touring company.
I thought that the acting during the show was pretty good (Angelica disagrees with me). During the fight scene in Act One, for instance, it seemed that the girls were actually trying to kill each other (as opposed to at the State Theatre when they were more like "Oh, no, keep me back.....eh") Vocally, people were fine, except for Carmen's vowels which got very flat more often than they should have, in my opinion. Escamillo was superb: very metrosexually flamboyant and confident and perfectly on pitch and in character. The one thing that was distracting was Don Jose. He was.....well, there's no better way to say it. He was rectangular. He was a head stuck on a cube (technically, I suppose, a prism), with no neck. His voice was fine, but when he walked out to relieve the guard, the first thought that came into my mind was "No WAY is that Jose." And then he started singing Jose's part and I had to admit it. It was like if Chris Farley had been an opera singer. And half a foot shorter. There is almost no way that he could have been less physically right (in my mind) for the part. I hate to sound that shallow, and his voice was fine, and I got used to it by intermission, but ... he had no neck. And he was a cube. Or technically a prism.

So I suppose my ideal Carmen, based on the six that I've seen so far (oh, I will definitely be seeing more during my lifetime), would have the Jose and Michaela from LCO, the Escamillo from Monumentalna, any Carmen except the LCO one, the interpretation of Banska Bystrica, and the triangle player from the State Opera. And myself as either Frasquita or Mercedes, of course. Priorities must be kept. :-)

The Office: The Chairmodel/Parking

I have other things to post here, too, but before it gets too late (and another episode airs) I just wanted to talk about last week’s episode of The Office. Now I am not going to talk about Michael being an absolute, complete, and total ass who is still living in a dream world – I mean, come on, I’m only in my late 20s and I’ve accepted that the movie/romance novel scenario is not going to play out in real life. Although the bit where he accidentally calls Jan is hilarious and I do think that it was subconsciously deliberate (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) and that they’ll be on again by the end of the season. I am also not going to talk about Dwight being sweet for Michael in a rather creepy, Dwight-like way. Or how awesomely pathetic Kevin is. Aw. I love Kevin.

No, the reason I watch the show – the reason I kept watching the show, rather, after the shuddering cringing horribleness of the first couple of episodes (I hate Diversity Day, I don’t care what people say) – is Jim and Pam. I adore Jim and Pam. I want to be Pam and have a Jim (although, see above about the movie/romance novel scenario).

I read a bit about The Office. Not living in the US, it’s the only way I can legitimately keep up with the show. This week, I read ew.com’s analysis, and the weecap and forums at televisionwithoutpity. Most of the commentators and posters seemed to think that the fact that Jim had bought an engagement ring for Pam a week after they started dating was creepy and spelled DOOM for them. I could not disagree more. (And luckily for me, one of my favourite internet television commentators agrees with me, calling it “legitimately romantic….more romantic than a proposal.” I definitely agree, and swoon.)

Jim has been in love with Pam for ages - not even in love with an idealized Pam although that was certainly a risk, but in love with Pam, herself, even when she was engaged to Roy, even when he tried not to be by dating Karen, even in episodes like "The Fight" or the end of "The Client" when she wasn't speaking to him for a little while. Once they actually went on a couple dates, and he realized that this was not just a case of wanting what he can't have, of COURSE he's going to start planning how to propose. I have absolutely no fear that they will break up, at all, whatsoever. It's just a matter of waiting for Pam herself to be ready - which is the other thing.

Some people commented that her face when Jim "ties his shoe" is terrified, not anticipatory, but I just don't see it. I think it was more of an "I'm not ready for this yet and the cameras are here" not "I don't want him to propose at all." I mean, she was with Roy for so long - and engaged to him for what, almost five years? Just because she wants to take this a little bit slower doesn't mean that she doesn't think that she and Jim are going to get married eventually. I think, if anything, she's not letting herself think that far in advance, BECAUSE of what happened with Roy. She doesn't want to start taking Jim and her relationship with Jim for granted; she wants to enjoy what it is right now before they move on to the next level (which makes relationships sound like a Nintendo game or something, but you know what I mean). It's not that she doubts that they're going to move on to the next level; she just wants to enjoy this one first. And Jim KNOWS that and accepts that, which is why he has the ring already - being prepared for the next level - but hasn't proposed yet - because she's not ready for that yet. But it is important to him and to them as a couple that they both are consciously aware that yes, this is serious, and yes, they will be getting to that point. And that’s what this episode was about, in their relationship – him letting her know that he is in it the whole way, and that when the timing is right – meaning when they are BOTH ready – it will happen.

Or maybe I’m just reading too much into fictional characters.

Vagueness and Internet Privacy

I'm never sure how vague I want to be online. How many details do I give out, not just about me but about other people? Do I use nicknames, initials, first names only? I'm still working on that. I hear all sorts of horror stories about internet stalkers and whatnot, but honestly I think the only people who are going to read this are people who already know me, and there shouldn't be anything too personally inflammatory in it. If there is, I'm doing it wrong. I think I'll do first names only - people who know me then will know who I'm talking about, but people who don't....won't.

Inanity

I'm not really sure about this. On the one hand, I don't really need yet another blog to forget about, another way to avoid actually staying in touch with people. On the other hand, I've been thinking about doing this for a while - kind of ever since Tim set up through a glass dimly. I've been wanting a place where I can ramble on about the randomly philosophical stuff that I think about or the TV shows that I watch or the books that I read. I could do it on my livejournal or on myspace, but so many of my students are on myspace, and I kind of use livejournal as a mass communication tool rather than an introspective tool. I also kind of want a place that will help me get back into discipline and deadline mode - I always really struggle with self-imposed deadlines, so this will kind of be an experiment for whether and for how long I can maintain it. I also struggle with actually formulating coherent thoughts after experiencing certain things, so this will also be an experiment in that. We'll see how long it lasts. Here's my deal for myself - if after, say, six months, I have not kept up with this blog, I'll copy over the entries and delete the thing. I will set myself an absolute deadline of one post every two weeks, and hopefully it will be more than that. Since I already have at least four things to write about, I think the first little while will be okay. I anticipate boredom setting in about three weeks or a month, though. Here's hoping I can push through it.