i really, really love my little brother. he's serving an LDS mission in Madrid, Spain and he sent me an email the other day saying this: "It is hard to see the beauty (or the shortcomings) of a painting with the nose pressed to the canvas. Similarly with our lives, self-analysis can sometimes be a difficult process... Sometimes the things that we need most, that are the best for our development, are the most bitter." how in the world did this kid get so wi...
Monday, 22 December 2008
Thursday, 18 December 2008
The last week of class I started getting a little laissez-faire in my teaching approach. In that I maybe turned the last week into a motivational seminar on how and why we need to be creative and compassionate people. We talked about how much fun they had writing their final paper (a completely creative work with no structural rules at all--they were terrified of it initially but really liked it at the end) and why they had fun. Some answers: "I'm not used to thinking outside of the box so this was really great." "I spend a lot of time thinking...
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
proof that school can be seirously awesome (pictures from the happening, which was maybe the best group project i've ever been a part of--pictures totally pirated from sarah's dapper blog):sarah doing a sommersault in the middle of class (and over the hopskotch court another friend drew on the groun...
Thursday, 11 December 2008
6. had students write one-line biographies about themselves. cried all the way to my car reading them because they are kind, loyal, trustwrothy, and overall decent people.The man who was curious, helpful, and respectful.The man who loved to cook for his family.The man who cared for others.The man who was loyal and loved his friends and family.The man who was thoughtful, compassionate, and loved his family.The man who treated everyone with respect and dignity.The man who loved animals.The woman who loved everything about life.The woman who loved...
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
*of the cold: i am making progress. i know that because i walked outside and thought, "oh this isn't so bad...it's actually kind of nice out." then saw that it was 26 degrees out. 1. 4 hours of sleep. upon waking, edited grad school/law school apps for friends, agreed to edit a few more. wrote letters of recommendation for students. 2. scrapped ALL THREE of my potential workshop essays (which i labored over for many moons, or at least a few weeks) at last minute because none of them were all that great. wrote entire new essay complete with semaphore...
Monday, 8 December 2008
Explanation (shamelessly piratedfromJohnsblog)The Real Meaning of Paper Airplanes:"In an effort to completely unify my life into one amalgamous blob of artistic endeavor I am inviting people from all my classes to participate in one of my other classes at an event known as HACK•A•CLASS. What we are asking, is for people to show up and perform that which they feel like showing up and performing in a classroom setting with as many other people performing...
Saturday, 6 December 2008
kevin kelly has a lot of really interesting things to say in his wired article of the internet's genesis--what was expected and what actually happened. here are two things that stuck out to me:1.The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom. The total number of Web pages, including those that are dynamically created upon request and document files available through links, exceeds 600 billion. That's 100�pages per person alive.How could we create so much, so fast, so well? In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our...
Thursday, 4 December 2008
If the weather is fine on a Saturday afternoon when a gal should really be doing homework, said gal and pal should go get icecream in a town thirty minutes east of the homework assignment. There is absolutely no way to prepare for the awesomeness known as Wilton, IA (pop. 2,829). Wilton's own official website tried to but this is the best it could come up with: "Three miles south of Interstate 80, ideally located at the junction of Highways 927 and...
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
(this is a repost from transpacific)I have been thinking a lot about reading--or my lack of reading, which is not entirely true since I read quite a bit--I suppose maybe my lack of reading things that grip me, that make me want to stand up and shout, "This is what it's all about!" But there is one short story that I read a few months ago that moved me entirely: Nam Le's "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice." The title comes...
Monday, 1 December 2008
two things:1. i forgot to mention that i got slightly snowed-in in laramie, wy. my friend kendra suggested that it might be "romantic" and then proceeded to paint a scene including a rustic cabin, a roaring fire, and a good man. to which i asked her, "wasn't that a scene from white christmas?" which it is, basically, the one with the sandwiches and the fireplace. but it reminded me of this:which is a) amazing and b) reminds me always of my cousins because we watched this maybe 100,000 times on this cruise once. note: being nearly snowed-in in...
i came late in life to my love of the narwhal. here is the reason why:and this:i mean, excuse me? most adorable thing in the world! and for only $750 (once you get to china that is) you too can play with a baby panda. i'm not saying that this might be one of my dreams in life, but it is. anyway, moral of the story. i think all of my dreams just came true with this panda frying p...
Thursday, 27 November 2008
though everything has been pretty ridiculously beautiful on this dear little utah trip, there are a few things that deserve standing ovations. maybe things like the Inadvertent Navy/Navy TWINS!or, the return of the Great Action Shot Adventure (featuring new player ASHMAE! doing her one of the kind Russian folk dance/karate chop move)or, the audition for wikipedia's new fistpump image!or, making puppeteering dreams come true at kneaders:or, miraculously...
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
sometimes i open my email and see treasures such as this:which make me want to cry with delight (SO CUTE!) and pain (why am i not the one sitting next to that precious cargo!??) (PS this panda on a plane was so perfect because i just saw kung fu panda last night and it was awesome.)my dear friend spencer (don't mind the creepy photo), who now has a stellar beard a lovely wife who bakes delicious things in a bakery, started sending me unbearably cute...
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Monday, 17 November 2008
if it wasn't apparent from my post on power pop ballads, it should be painfully apparent now: i am in love with top 40 pop. i do not know how this started, but i do know that every time i am the car i turn on the radio. tonight i actually listened to delilah. her breathy voice soothed my tattered little nerves and i sank into her tonally-imbalanced selection of love songs ("you're the one that i want" AND "everything i do i do it for you") with something that very closely resembled relief.i have a suspicion that my top 40 love started out ironically...
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
a friend pointed out these two treasures that iTunes failed to put on the list (travesty!)Anything for Love - Meat Loaf (I was very surprised this didn't come up but I defintely watched it and the following Dr. Pepper commeercial last night to make up for it!)Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes (the real atrocity is that I don't actually own this song...easily remedie...
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
i love how my computer knows me better than a lot of real people...oh algorithms, i trust you with my life. lia & trish both posted things on secrets and now i will reveal one of mine (not so secret, actually). i like--no, love, thrive--on power pop ballads. and the cheesier/sappier the better. much to my dismay, this once ironic indulgence has now become the real mccoy. you can only listen to "i would do anything for love" and "total eclipse...
Monday, 10 November 2008
Friday, 7 November 2008
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
This is what happens when you get a bunch of writers together after reading an essay that talks about tree climbing:Post-climb, scouting out the next tree, late afternoon falling in the meadow surrounded by treesFrom Thoreau's "Walking":I found my account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen...
Monday, 3 November 2008
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Saturday, 1 November 2008
Friday, 31 October 2008
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
1. first snow (light, feathery, airborne, quick to melt)2. orange maple leaves3. buttermilk/sour cream/banana pancakes while the fog is still rising4. perfecting my backwards writing during a boring lecture5. tropicana pure raspberry acacia juice on sale6. haunted everything (corn mazes, houses, forests)7. double sweater weather8. dances that require costumes and loads of awkwardness9. nostalgia10. old mix cds + long dri...
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Thursday, 2 October 2008
To kick off our Tuesdays With Iowa program (involving bi-monthly field trips around this great state--all on Tuesday, of course) we decided to hit up the number one tourist destination in Iowa: the Field of Dreams. And it was glorious. The gift shop fits right in, what with its folksy barn-red paint job and signed baseballs (none by Kevin Costner, all by the owner of the farm, who apparently is very important. Only $9!)Some prize gift shop gems (all...
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Tonight I stood on Sarah's porch while Amelia braided my hair. She braided my hair and I watched my friends in the kitchen cooking lentil soup. Everywhere was brisk, autumn finally sneaking back into the air. I stood incredibly still as Amelia took her scissors and cut. My hair was so thick that it took a good minute to chop that braid off. And it fell to the ground like an animal stunned, eighteen inches of woven hair--a good pound of hair--gone. And it felt wonderful. Literally a weight off of me. The scissors had sounded horrible crunching...
Monday, 29 September 2008
Usually when you get to a new town you are not greeted by this:Oh, sure, you could dream about it happening (wistfully, with many stars in the eyes) but the chances of seeing this greeting in real life are slim to none. Slim to none, that is, unless you happen to go to Centerville, Iowa on the day of their annual Pancake Parade. Which is exactly what I, and the great Pancake 7, did last Saturday. But even before you soak up the sweet sounds of the...
Friday, 26 September 2008
Thursday, 25 September 2008
It is no secret that my love for Kevin Arnold, aged 11-13, is vast and unending. But it all came into hyper focus last night at about midnight when I saw this:[Fastforward to 5:50]That’s right, Kevin Arnold SQUARE DANCING! With poor, bless-her-heart Margaret Farquhar on top of it all! Square dancing… Remember fourth grade? That’s when Willow Elementary School embarked on its square dance physical education. I have no idea how they corralled the bunch of us in the multi-purpose room and taught us how to do-si-doe. There were a lot of cootie shots...
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
I become a semi-certified writer, meaning something small and written during the x,y,z hours of night, gets published. And you'd think I'd be braver, put more writing on this silly little blog, but it's scary. So I take heart in the courage of Ashmae and Lia and follow in their footsteps to submit this for your consideration--A Revisionist History of How(from, with many thanks, Juice: A Journal of the Ordina...
Let me try to paint an appropriate picture for you of how I spent two hours of my Sunday evening. Say it was raining and say I was baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (because it was and I was). Say some guys called me up to come to a games night. And perhaps when I walked into their house they were playing a wicked game of Halo, complete with a running commentary from all the males in the room. The apartment was of the cinder block assortment,...
Monday, 15 September 2008
This morning we had a small moment of silence for David Foster Wallace in class. It was just a bunch of writers heads bowed over the first page of a rather exquisite fiction piece he wrote in which he delivered Marlon Brando from a somewhat brutish interpretation to that of a poignant, multi-dimensional one and it was breathtaking. We sat in silence and read in silence until our professor finally said something: "Perhaps writing is a dangerous thing." And then: "I do not know why I feel this loss of David so much. I miss him." So all day I just...
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Sunday, 7 September 2008
rollerblading was cool in my neighborhood for a few months in 1995. there was a lot of street hockey going on and that naturally meant blades for all. then, inexplicably, rollerblading became the exact opposite of cool. mostly it's because people with blades started doing things like this: unacceptable. so paris in 2004 took me by complete surprise. never in my life had i seen so many normal, urban, attractive people on six wheels. and...
Friday, 5 September 2008
for this wondrous video, which i watch at least 5 times a day:amit peled, you who at the age of twenty-one, flew from israel to yale to study with a great cellist, a master cellist (who invited you on full scholarship)--you who told this master cellist one year later that it was time to go somewhere new. and what did you do? you phoned bernard greenhouse at his home in the cape and said, simply, with no frills: "mr. greenhouse you are my hero. can i come play for you?" because that is all you've ever wanted to do. and of course he was...
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Monday, 1 September 2008
Sunday, 31 August 2008
dear kevin arnold,remember when you took off your jacket and put it over winnie cooper's shoulders? right after her brother's funeral and you were sitting on that rock? that was the first moment when i knew i loved you. and then there was that time when you rode furiously to winnie's house on your bike with the U-shaped handlebars and you waited and waited outside her house until she came but she didn't want to see you and you did not accept that. so you climbed up onto her roof and that great song played with the dark falling all around and you...
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
1. read on your deck sitting in your brand new auction find: the rosette wrought iron table2. instead of reading on the deck, actually talk on the phone for 2 hours3. instead of reading, walk a mile to the nearest library and look at books of photographs for 2 more hours4. read one chapter of a densely worded technology text book with obscure cover art5. watch this:6. read another chapter of said book7. watch this again:8. gab on the phone some more9. wait until 9 pm to polish off the final 50 pages of dense textbook10. watch this one more time...
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