Outtakes

"Amos, look at the camera.  Isaac, keep your eyes open, and try to do something with your brother's head.  Theo could you smile a little less . . . like that?"

"Does this seem like an improvement to anybody?"

"Isaac, what are you--"
"Mom, I don't know why you let him hold the--"
"WAAHHH!"

"Whew.  Good catch, bruh."

"Theo, what kind of photo shoot do you think this is?  And can somebody get Amos's tag?"

"Oh, foley shucking hit."

"Don't you even start, kid.  Don't you even."

The Way-back Cuisine

Quick!  List ten foods you used to make/eat that you don't make/eat any more.

How many of them are used-tos because you 1) know better now, 2) can't afford them anymore or can afford better now, and 3) don't frickin' have that kind of time any more?

Most of my list falls under category 4: We don't live in France any more, and consists of my five favorite cheeses, two favorite wines, and snails.  (Seriously.  I used to make snails.)

But the other two things on my list are from The Grad School Years (Take One)--during the Master's degree, when money and time were short and when I didn't actually cook everything from scratch.

Hot Pockets, and ramen noodles.

Oh, how many Hot Pockets and Cup O'Noodles we took to school.  How many weekend lunches were ramen noodles.

I will never, ever, EVER eat Hot Pockets again.  If they were paying shoppers to take them out of the grocery store, I would pass.

But I did get an unaccountable yearning to have ramen noodles again.

They're actually pretty tasty, if you dispense with the "flavor" packet and use actual soup ingredients.

Voila.

Real chicken broth, veggies (including some from our own garden), and a lovely soft-boiled egg.

Isaac had three bowls, and then asked why we didn't have ramen noodles all the time.

I, of course, answered, "Grad school."  (Dave Ramsey often says he doesn't eat tuna fish, EVER, because when he went bankrupt, he ate tuna salad sandwich for lunch every day for years.)

Isaac was uncomprehending, even after I explained about the "flavor" packet.

In fact, he asked if he could add the flavor packet to his (fourth) bowl, at which point the other two chimed in and begged for the same.

Rotten little ingrates.

You Should Start a List

. . . of all these awesome books I keep recommending for you.

Also, you should thank me for pointing out which ones have upcoming movies, like The 5th Wave. Normally, I wouldn't write about YA fiction on this high-class intellectual website. But since Rick Yancey wrote a book that isn't insulting to my intelligence, I will give credit where it is due.

T5W is about an alien apocalypse. It tracks Cassie Sullivan and some surrounding characters in their attempts to survive. The aliens in this book are surprisingly less cliche and aggravating than one would expect. Their planet is apparently out of commission, so they found Earth and decided to take it. Before doing so, they need to eliminate all the humans. 

But because they need to preserve the natural world, their approach is not as simple as "blow everyone up." (No, Michael Bay, you may not direct the film adaptation.)

As you should have inferred from the title, the alien takeover takes place in five waves. The first wave is the giant electromagnetic pulse which eliminates nearly all human technology, and also kills a whole bunch of people who happened to be flying in an airplane or speeding on the interstate at an unfortunate time. The second wave dropped really large metal rods on fault lines, leading to actual killer waves affecting all coastal cities. The third wave killed 97% of the remaining population. It was a modified form of Ebola which kept the same deadly symptoms but was genetically engineered to spread far faster. And in the fourth wave, the aliens enter human bodies and replace our consciousnesses with their own; these invaders are then used to snipe wandering survivors.

If I tell you the 5th wave, it would ruin, like, half the plot, and besides, you'll have a hard time sleeping tonight anyway. 

Cheers,
Isaac

Adventures in the World of Books

I should write a book.

I certainly read enough of them. I would know what to do.

Most recently, yours truly read Incarceron by Catherine Fisher. You've seen it. It's that book. With the cover. You know, that one.

No? Well, it's a steampunk fantasy (genres are getting increasingly strange) set in... prison. Sort of. The story is told from many narrators' perspectives, some of whom are inside the prison and some of whom are not. Those outside the prison are living in what appears to be your average nameless medieval kingdom.

But anyway, back to the prison, because it's wayyy cooler than the lame palace that all the other people are doing. It's an enormously large, very sentient, ever-changing landscape. Some prisoners are placed in cells, without their previous memories, others are simply born in the world that is the prison. It's a prison not only because you can't leave (ever) and therefore have to live out your life trying to survive in this strange landscape, but also because life in this large world is hell.

Each Wing of the prison has a different identifying characteristic: the Ice Wing and the Tunnels of Madness are two particularly sucky examples. It's obvious what life is like, right? In the Ice Wing, temperatures are permanently stuck below freezing, there's snow everywhere -- it's basically Canada, only without the Canadian bacon and nice people, because no one stuck in this prison is nice. All the compassionate, caring, kind-hearted souls are murdered by the rampaging gangs who plunder, steal, and enslave pretty much anyone they can. Because, well, life sucks in prison, but if you have a slave, it sucks a little less.

Did I mention how the prison is always trying to kill you? Yeah, it's a sentient prison. It has really good, really malicious, and really megalomaniacal (is that a word?) artificial intelligence. It has billions of small, metallic beetles that carry a single red camera which observes the inhabitants. It really likes being in control of these puny little people. And because this is steampunk, and technology is basically a plot device which needs very little explanation, the prison can control and change every aspect about itself in order to torment its inhabitants. Getting too big for your britches? Surprise earthquake right in the middle of your plunder party. Saying really nasty things about the prison? When you wake up in the morning, your wing of the prison may have completely changed places overnight. Or a gust of wind could blow you into a canyon. Or you could be eaten by carnivorous kudzu. The prison is so malicious and evil and overlordly that it gave itself a name: Incarceron.

So now that I've thoroughly disturbed you (and incurred a visit from Child Protection Services), what's the plot like? It follows our hero, Finn, and a supporting band of other characters, some in prison, some Outside, as they journey through jail to try to Escape. See, escape from the prison is impossible. It's so large, the dome of the roof is beyond the visible sky, the ends of the map are all covered in mountains, caverns, or fiery lakes, and the floor goes on forever: no flying, breaking, or digging your way out.

Yet one man, a magician named Sapphique, is purported to have escaped. There is a multitude of legend and myth and story surrounding this magician, who is said to have looked long and suffered greatly in his many forays to escape Incarceron. He is said to have played riddles with Incarceron itself, fallen from the highest heights and risen from the bottomless valleys, and to have gone through the Tunnels of Madness and exited with his sanity (and highly improved pickup lines at the local pubs). So, obviously, everyone dreams of escape. Including the fearless hero of the story who through many acts of bravery, blah blah, etc.

Go read the book. And the sequel. Before they make it a movie. Don't worry, they keep delaying it. You can probably let your kids read it too.

Cheers,
Isaac

Adventures in Literary Land, Vol. Religion

I've been Christian my whole life. Having spent two-thirds of that life surviving my parents' theology degrees, that's not surprising. However, I've always had a slightly difficult time relating to people who are either "born-again" or staunchly agnostic or atheist. I have a hard time with the first group because to my haughty, intellectual ears, their conversion experiences often sound cheesy or excessively emotional. Of course, born-agains are invaluable to the faith because of their ability to evangelize. The second group is perplexing because I can't understand their stubbornness to disbelieve or insist that belief is worthless.

Anyway, my mother got a book out from the library recently, and according to tradition, I picked it up and finished it before she could even get started. I found her lack of reading ... disturbing. And then I realized: It was a trap! She got me to learn about the Bible through subliminal methods involving (a) leaving a cool-looking book lying around the house and (b) waiting for me to read it.

So this book. It was titled The Year of Living Biblically and was made 12 times better because of the cover image.




As you can see from the subtitle, a guy decided to try and follow all the rules and advice and commandments of the bible. His previous book was about reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z. Clearly a sadist.

He writes in the introduction that he was of Jewish heritage but labeled himself as agnostic before his noble quest. In the epilogue, he states that he cannot quite bring himself to believe in the god of Judaism but is no longer agnostic. This is a man who writes for Esquire and reads encyclopedias for a living. So what did he do?

Well, everything. He stopped shaving. Stopped eating shellfish. Wore tassels on his clothes. Prayed regularly. Stoned adulterers. Those are just a few of the purity laws which he attempted to follow. He also tried to obey the moral laws like the 10 Commandments, the advice to pray regularly, or Leviticus 19:18. Look it up.

So it's an interesting read. It's an almost day-by-day account of what his new life is like. He notices the changes that his self-imposed restrictions and mandates are wreaking on his habits and thoughts. He has some moments where he actually feels connected to God and his heritage, and other moments when he is frightened by some sects which are affected by the same biblical literalism that his project requires. It's a very interesting experience.

Go read it.

Cheers,
Isaac

Isaac's Adventures in Literary Land, Vol. Whatever

Science Fiction has always been a personal favorite genre of mine. Part of the allure is the fancy new technology that the main characters always get to use/enjoy/abuse. Another interesting result of reading Asmiov or other greats is realizing how right they often were about their future (our present).

Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel Oryx and Crake is a particularly chilling and relevant example of an author seeing a possible future. I won't bother too much with plot, it's about as complex as Ken Ham's opening statements in his debate vs. Bill Nye the Science Guy. 

But the actual premise of the book is pretty simple: genetic engineering and biochemical manipulation have become so advanced and useful that they pervade everyday life. Buildings have plant matter incorporated to become more efficient, physical appearance can be changed as quickly as in Scott Westerfield's Uglies, and man's dream of the 24-wing chicken has finally become a reality.

With all this awesome technology lying around, the world was only waiting for some genius to come along and start the apocalypse. Which is precisely what happens.

Now beware, further explanation of plot follows the jump, accompanied with spoilers. Those who cherish the idea of reading a book as an adventure into unknown territories should stop reading this and go read a book, preferably the one I'm writing about, so that you can come back and finish reading it.

Adventure in Literary Land II

Isaac is back with another review of obscure books your teenage child probably loves.

John Green is my favorite modern author behind Scott Westerfield and Rowling. Not only does he write excellent books for teens, but he also has multiple YouTube channels dedicated to random facts and education. His brother Hank is more of the same. Check them out.

I first heard of JG about a year ago when a friend of mine was fangirling about his book The Fault in Our Stars. Apparently it's the best book ever and I need to get around to reading it. Anyhoo, a girl in my bio class was reading a JG book and offered to let me borrow it, knowing that I would finish within the school day.

An Abundance of Katherines is the story of a child prodigy who never reached full potential. This distinction is discussed several times throughout the novel and is better explained there than here. The protagonist, Colin, is said genius and his amigo Hassan plays the part of slightly less intelligent but far more funny Muslim best friend. Hassan spends the better part of the novel trying to get Colin out of his self-obsessed funk. Colin has a mental block when it comes to dating, which manifests itself in that he can only date girls named "Katherine." It must be spelled that way or no deal. The general pattern of these relationships is that Colin get dumped and feels bad about himself, and then finds another Katherine and the cycle repeats. Well, the 19th time is the worst for poor Colin because Katherine XIX is also Katherine the Great: the original Katherine who started the trend. Hassan observes the emotional fallout and takes Colin on a road trip. The two find a job in a small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and encounter Lindsey, who is the love interest of the story. That's about all the plot that one needs to know except this last bit.

Colin becomes fixated on the idea of creating a mathematical equation that plots the outcome and happiness of a given relationship. For the sake of brevity, I will link to it here. 

The novel's main strength is that it connects deeply with its reader. It seems written by one of us, and by one of us I mean teens. Hassan is the best friend we all wish we had. Lindsey is the cool not-girly girl that we all wish we were dating. Colin is the tormented teenager we all think we are. John Green's writing style is the epitome of young adult literature. Each chapter has at least three footnotes that impart a random fact or related anagram or strange historical parallel that both lighten the mood and complete our of Colin's brain: random, funny, and tangential. Never will you ever find more anagrams in one piece of literature. 

So Abundance of Katherines is really one of those "voyage of self-discovery" books that you read in freshman English class, only AOK is actually enjoyable to read. Holden Caufield, we're looking at you.

Hopefully your humble literature critic will get his hands on more John Green and will be able to more accurately discuss his authoring merits. But you all / y'all / youse should not panic in fear if your child comes home with a JG novel in his/her backpack. It's okay. It gives you an excuse to read it too.

Cheers,
Isaac

Adventures in Literature Land

NOTE: Isaac has been on sabbatical from the blog. He's been busy with various duties, including: getting older, doing copious amounts of homework, and trying to be cool. No fear, he has returned. 

So, I read a book the other day. Shocking, I know. But I read a book, and it turned out it was the first in a trilogy. Then it turned out that this trilogy had a sequel, so really it was four books, proving for once and for all that authors clearly have no idea what they're doing. 

But the book was Uglies (Scott Westerfield) and I categorize it as YA dystopian tech-fantasy. The main plot theme is in this brave new world, surgery and science have combined to find the archetype  of the most attractive faces possible. These features include large eyes, symmetrical faces, and other tiny markers that make humans subconsciously attracted to one another. So in this semi-postapocalyptical society, the governments of the various cities have decided that to eliminate the conflicts and unfairness of the previous mold of humans, they will make the pretty-making operation compulsory starting from age 16. Certain other imperfections of society are removed, including the money system (governments pay for all of their citizens' needs), weapons (except for the giant cache the government has), and anything at all that damages the natural world of the earth. 

The whole history behind the book's current events is that the old humanity, the "Rusties," seriously screwed up the world and that the above changes are the way to recover and fix it. Problem is, some people don't like being forced into surgery, forced into a certain physique, etc. The main character, Tally Youngblood, loses her best friend to the elite clique of pretty people when he turns 16 three months before she. She quickly finds a new friend, Shay, who goes against the norm and runs away rather than become pretty. She feels comfortable with her natural look. This aggravates the government. "Special Circumstances" (the new FBI or whatever) forces Tally either to follow her friend and give away the location of a hidden village of like-minded rebels, or to forgo the pretty-making surgery -- to be ugly forever. The rest of the book catalogs Tally's struggle with betraying Shay and her new friends and the inner turmoil of realizing that life as an ugly isn't that bad.

Despite being young adult literature, Uglies and its sequels are worth reading. Scott Westerfield keeps the story interesting and relevant from start to finish. You keep reading for the resolution of the plot twists, and then keep thinking because of the many ethical issues that Westerfield brings up, all the while satirically hinting that today's modern society is the generation responsible for the semi-apocalypse. 

Anyway I can't give away the plot of the novel, nor the rest of the trilogy (quadrilogy?), but more and more through the books the government is shown to be evil. Mind-control and other unethical acts are disguised as the only possible way to keep society from destroying itself. So I asked myself the following question: regardless of how it turned out, was the government's original idea right?

Is the main problem of humanity our propensity to judge people based on one look at them? No, really -- is it?? Westerfield doesn't intend to tell us that we all have to be 100% pretty (or 100% ugly) to solve our problems. The "rusties" were also wasteful, constantly at war, and selfish. 

It still begs the question: how much does appearance affect our lives? 

Think about it. 

Cheers,
Isaac

Penalizing the Wrong Thing

It seems that the only people still struggling with institutional expressions of moral courage are the Catholics.

This tends to cause kerfuffles, because moral courage always involves sacrifice and risk. Pissing people off is not a certain sign of being right, but it is a not-uncommon result of the exercise of moral discipline (self-discipline or imposed discipline).

One recent kerfuffle was caused by a Montana Catholic school's decision to fire an unmarried teacher who became pregnant.  The evidence of her having violated their moral turpitude clause was plain for all to see, and so they acted on it.

The temptation, of course, is to say that the school was in the wrong because they were being mean, judgy McJudgersons.  This is a response that implicitly condemns any exercise of institutional moral discernment, that makes all moral decisions not immediately and forensically related to work performance private, individual ones.  This is the default practice of virtually every institution in the country, even those that are explicitly religiously affiliated.  (The UMC has a hard time firing pastors for moral turpitude, much less secretaries or daycare workers, and churches whose well-liked pastors have been terminated for having multiple affairs with many different congregants bear resentment against the mean, judgy denomination for decades.  Firing pastors for incompetence is a near impossibility, but that's another story.)

I honestly don't think that argument is a helpful one, even if I am sympathetic with the underlying concern--that firing this woman is the wrong response.

Cathleen Kaveny has written this lovely and careful piece responding to the issue and has offered a better line of thought.

In it, she highlights a crucial problem with the exercise of moral turpitude clauses: only women can be found guilty.

This isn't really true, and Kaveny doesn't make the mistake of putting it that way.

It is functionally true, however.   The Catholic church--themselves almost the last remaining institution with a moral backbone--have retreated from virtually every issue but that which makes them the most unpopular: sexuality.  And in that realm, since the beginning of time, there has only been one gender whose very body bears the incontrovertible evidence of sexual sin.

Only women can get pregnant.

And pregnancy is the only "proof" that cannot be hidden or ignored.  Men can be forced to take paternity tests, of course, though few institutions have gotten around to remembering that and fewer still manage to overcome their general reluctance to give a man a reason to file a lawsuit.  (Do women file fewer lawsuits?  Probably.  There is certainly less institutional fear of those who might.)

But a big, fat belly thrusts itself into our communal consciousness just as surely as it thrusts itself into a room before its duck-waddling bearer can catch up with it.  Institutions can no more forgo institutional responses to the inconvenient facts of women's reproduction than seventy-year-old men and women can forgo rubbing pregnant women's distended bellies.

So sweet Miss Susie walks into school one September with a big, big belly, and the school cannot ignore that problem, the way they can ignore the Lamborghini Mr. Michael very sensibly keeps at home or the bruises Mr. John's wife is careful to hide or the income Miss Janie doesn't report and tithe or whatever else violates their moral convictions.

And, of course, Miss Susie's paramour suffers nothing, unless they were caught, as Dr. Kaveny puts it, canoodling in the broom closet at school.

So the burden of these punishments are shared unfairly, and the community learns the wrong thing: it is pregnancy that is punished, not extra-marital sexuality as such.  Getting caught--and only women can get caught--is the problem.  Pregnancy is the problem.

This ought not be.  Pregnancy is not a problem.  It's not evidence of sin.  It's evidence of life.  It's evidence that God continues to give the gift of children to us, even in the midst of--even by means of!--our sinful condition.

This is exactly the mistake that Isaac's school's Health program makes, and it suffers from the same pedagogical idiocy: it teaches that pregnancy is the problem to be avoided.

One exercise in particular jerked my chain.

Isaac was required to calculate the financial burden a child imposes its first two years of life.

I thought we were having a great moment of communication, until I realized what was going on.

"Hey, Mom, how much do Amos's diapers cost?"
"Well, we use some cloth, so it's hard to say exactly, but it's about $35 a month for the disposables."
"When did he switch to regular milk?  And is formula more expensive than milk?"
"Oh, yes, formula is, like, twenty-five dollars a week, if you're formula-feeding full time, and that's if you're lucky enough not to need the special needs stuff.  You switch to milk at one year, but the amount they still need isn't exactly trivial."
"What are other things babies need?"
"Um . . . wait a minute . . . why are you asking?  Is there an urgent need here that I should be aware of?"
"Health class."
"Oh.  Oh.  Mmm."

The assignment was designed to discourage teen childbearing, but it did so by presenting a baby as a costly, burdensome thing.  It was one of the few assignments that spoke a language teens can understand, and it was all oriented toward making a baby seem like a bad thing.

Isaac didn't understand why I started throwing a temper tantrum at the end of his assignment.

"Okay, son, what's the total cost you've come up with?"
"$13, 850.  But the website says that I didn't include living quarters or travel expenses, which I would need because I'd be on my own."
"What?"
"I'd need to get my own place."
"ARE YOU FARGLING KIDDING ME?!?!"
"I mean, you know, some parents would . . ."
:hostile stare:
"So, uh, that's, uh, why I didn't even think to include the cost of the apartment, because, uh, I knew you and Dad would . . . uh . . . be . . . so, $13K.  Pretty pricey."
"Okay.  So.  You're in your car.  You're on a date.  Your girlfriend is with you.  It's dark out, and the windows in the back seat are tinted."
"Um, Mom, I don't like where this is going. . ."
"Do you really think to yourself, 'Gosh, I'd like to, but this could cost me $13K'?  Is that really going to stop you?"
"Well . . . it . . . maybe . . ."
"No.  It won't.  The only time you're going to think about $13K is when the little test strip comes back with two pink lines on it, and you think, 'Gosh, I could spend $300 now, or $13K later.'"
"I would never!"
"Well, you might now.  Now that they've frakking given you a reason to!!!!!"

It focused on disincentivizing child-bearing (or, really, child-rearing), not teen sexuality.  Having a baby is costly.  Having sex isn't.

And, as if to drive the point home, there was no corresponding financial activity related to STDs.  No calculating how much getting HPV or HIV or gonorrhea or chlamydia costs you.  Oh, they mention STDs.  The medical aspects.  But not the financial costs.

The part that is simply and entirely costly and painful and burdensome is noted, but the burden is not demonstrated in the terms teens understand.  (They understand money, because they all want iPhones and candy bars and cars with full gas tanks.  That's why the price-out-a-baby exercise works.  They do not understand sickness and death.  They think only old people get sick and die.  "You can get this disease, and it's really bad, so use a condom.")

But the child that might result is reduced to a single, uncomplicated, and entirely negative quality--its costliness.

And so they teach my son that getting pregnant is a bad thing and worth avoiding and preventing and "fixing" if you get unlucky.  They don't teach him that teen sexuality is a dubious pleasure at best and worth forgoing.

They also didn't bother to teach him that his parents are actually good people to consult when he is confronted with such issues, but I suppose that cannot be remedied.

Let this serve as your notice, though: Parents whose children must take school-based health classes, do not neglect to correct all the misapprehensions your children will pick up in those classes, but especially, most especially, the one that you are not going to be on their side if they "get caught."

Let them know that getting pregnant is not the bad thing, the thing to be avoided, the thing worth punishing.

Let them know that there's a difference between a serious thing--which having a child most assuredly is--and a bad thing--which having a child most assuredly is not.

Let them know you love them.  And that they will screw up.  And that you will still love them.

Sugar it up!

When the kids--ours and a few other people's--started to get a little energetic last night, Stephen said, "We better get them dessert."

Normally, I would question the notion that adding sugar to an already over-energized crowd of under-tens will somehow help.

But, last night, it actually did.

We decorated cupcakes for dessert.

It was fun.

There is, I suppose, a point past which a cupcake becomes un-yummy in its overdecoration.

But we didn't seem to get there last night.

Everyone enjoyed their creations.

And then they all played quietly (no, really!) for another hour.

Brudders

Testing

Today is PSAT testing day for lots and lots of highschoolers (including Isaac).

I have only vague memories of PSAT and SAT testing.

But I remember GRE testing very clearly.

The second time I took the GREs, it was in France, and they only had the computer option (not the paper option).  And it was weird.

I can remember having to go to a section of Paris we hadn't visited before, and I can remember thinking that the building looked like a US public school that was built in the 70s, and I can remember the insufficiently lit room and the bank of computers for the All New That Year computer test.

I remember feeling like I was doing really well, especially in the verbal section.  I kept getting progressively harder words, which was good, because it was an adaptive test--getting an answer right prompted the program to give you harder words.

And I was getting harder and harder words, right up until, like, the third-to-last question, when the word it gave me was "nice."

I sat back in my chair in the testing room and laughed out loud.  Then I looked around to see if I was being pranked or something.

And then I realized that I was going to get myself a talking-to if I didn't play it cool, so I went back to the test.

I realized that it was asking for the secondary (Jane-Austen-era) definition, and I tried to remember how Jane might have used it.  I can't remember what the answer options were, and I can't remember what I decided to pick. I hope I got it right.

The first time I took the GREs--well, that's a story.

Stephen and I were supposed to be at a church retreat in the mountains in Virginia on GRE weekend.  The retreat center was about an hour and a half away from a testing site at James Madison U, so we decided to go to the retreat anyway, and to skip the morning sessions on Saturday to go take the test.

I can't remember why--whether we were changing time zones or changing from Daylight Savings to Standard Time or something--but for some reason, we set our alarm wrong.  And we woke up a full hour after we had planned to leave.

So instead of getting there half an hour early, we were looking at getting there half an hour late.

I'm only admitting this because I'm pretty sure most traffic violations have a pretty short statute of limitations, and because we'd absolutely never do such a thing now, but . . . um . . . well, we weren't half an hour late.  We ended up being only about five minutes late.

But we were still five minutes late, and the testing had begun.

We were in the intake room, looking our most desperate and harried and flustered (as if we had just, say, driven fast enough to cut twenty-five minutes off an hour and a half journey) and furious with ourselves for possibly making it so that we would lose the $150 we had paid for the test.

The intake coordinator looked very sympathetic, but she had "My hands are tied" written all over her face.

We hadn't even finished our "Please, isn't there anything you could do?!?!" speech when, all of a sudden--I swear, I am not making this up--one of the proctors came bursting into the room, harried and flustered and out of breath and looking like she had been driving rather fast herself.

She said, "I am SO SORRY to be late.  I feel just awful, since I was supposed to be a proctor.  What should I do?!?!"

The intake coordinator looked at her, looked at us, and said, "Well, it looks like we have a proctor.  Go take your GREs."

For some people, the stress of the drive, the not knowing, the worry--all of that would have knocked them just a little off their game.

But I swear, I was smiling all morning. I think I even splurted out in giggles a couple of times.  I don't think I've ever done better on an exam.  Because, I mean, how utterly awesome, right?

I hope Isaac had a less stressful build-up to his PSATs today than we had that morning.  (I dropped him off myself, and I don't remember, you know, a police chase or anything.)  But I hope he also found something to smile about, something to help him relax and take some of the stress out of the process.

Transformation

So, when you write a blog entry entitled, "Before," some people might expect there to be an "After" post.

The "After" is still in progress, even three months later.

But it's been three busy months.

A man with a chainsaw . . .

. . . and a helpful assistant can get a lot of work done in a few weeks.

They turned this . . .

. . . into this:

(Okay, that one's not a lot different.)

This . . .

. . . into this:

This . . .

. . . into this:

This:

. . . into this:

And this:

. . . into this:

It was a pretty big difference.  It opened things up a little, and took out the worst of the junk.

Also, it produced a whole lot of yard waste that we put on the curb to be collected.

Unfortunately, in the process of improving things, things started to look worse.  Depressing and worse.

We took out about seven trees, and things looked lighter and brighter, but the light only highlighted all the flaws.

So we got some professional help.

Man With a Chainsaw

A man with a chainsaw . . .

and some rope . . .

and a little help . . .

and an appreciative audience . . .

can get a tree down in his back yard.

Adventures in the World of Books and Movies, Part I

It's a well-known fact that my mother has great love in her heart for Jane Austen and her many literary works.  It is also a well-known fact that my mother has memorized all of the aforementioned literary works and their various film adaptions.

It is a slightly less well-known fact that I actually enjoy reading only one of said literary works, thus eternally shaming and tormenting my English-major mother. But hey, Pride and Prejudice is the only one I've read in the past 8 years, so it's possible that my opinions have changed since I was still homeschooled.

Either way, that's why when I learned that a major portion of the assigned reading was in fact P&P, I didn't run away screaming: "Pages and pages of itty-bitty print! British girls complaining about men not falling in love with them! AIEEEEEEEEE!"

Having watched the BBC film adaptation at least 5 times through, and having read the book about the same number of times, it's safe to say I've reached my memory threshold for Bennet & Co. That is to say, I remember all the good lines, who (whom?) everybody is (does, loves, owes, has, is related to, etc.), and the plot (and setting, and theological arguments, and moral arguments, and feminist arguments, and all the other things my mother gushes about in her virtually nonexistent spare time).

Anyway, while at the grandparents a week ago, the Keira Knightley version of P&P was on. Keira Knightly is an actress. From somewhere that makes unfaithful adaptations of great literary novels. She is known for having a unique smile and the other female endowments necessary to be an actress. Anyhoo, she was Elizabeth Bennet in the non-BBC version of P&P. Mom said I should watch it.

-- "Why?"
-- "Because it's bad, and will allow you to fully appreciate all the wonderful plot pieces that it omits."
-- "Seems legit."

It was horrendous. I'm usually an expert at analyzing failure, wierdness, other people, or really anything else, but I couldn't get it. There were so many things wrong my brain hurt. I'm sure all the actors and actresses are wonderful people when they're not playing from a bad script, but I could get past the 17 times I said "Wait! That's not in the book!" in the 5 minutes that I watched the movie. I was told that the K.K. adaptation is the most unfaithful Austen film except for Mansfield Park, and I never really like Mansfield Park in the first place.

Comparatively, I liked the non-BBC Collins better than the BBC one, but I think that's kind of the point. You're not supposed to like him. As for everybody else... meh. BBC is just so perfect. You can't top that. So don't try beating Brits at their own game. That's today's lesson.

Cheers,
Isaac

The Wonders of Germany (Sort Of), Part Whatever

So... this is what I looked like on the Germany trip:

Slightly rebellious, but presentable.

Needless to say, I haven't cut my hair since, so here's how I look now.

They call me Simba in the hood, you know.

Actually I should say "looked." I got a hair cut, because it's 90 degrees outside in [Our Fair City] when it's not raining, and having the equivalent of a giant fluffy cat on my head, while spectacular and good looking, is not fun.

Because unlike my father, my hair still grows.

But wait... (there's more!) what kind of hair cut?

The Mohawk.

I always shoot for memorable first impressions.

Hi! My name's Isaac, and no I am not a punk rocker and no I do not skip school.

Today is the championship meet, and to express my excitement and support for my team, I got a Mohawk. The team color is blue, so...

Walla.

That's me. Someone call the grandparents, make sure their hearts haven't stopped...

Cheers,

Isaac

The Wonders of Germany, Part IV

Our first city in Germany was Berlin. At some point in time, we went to the Berlin Wall, which is famous for its deeply philosophical, creative, moving, and beautiful artwork:

(Edited)

Awwwwh thanks Berlin! We appreciate it. 

Much Better

The shout-out to Dark Knight more than makes up for it.

 Okay, I still have no idea who/what/why this is. It's a monarch or rich person of some kind. It's not doing anything except standing there. I promise the crop doesn't cut out anything. But he's wearing glasses, which don't seem to fit the robes and such... anyhow it's great artwork.

I told you there were philosophers

 At least with this one we know the why, but still no info on the who or what.

I saw this great quote on the wall, but something stuck out, apart from all the love notes...

It's not beer...

 Cheers,
 Isaac