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.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Classy Libraries
The latest rabbit hole I've been lured down: how to organize my academic library.
This is a surprisingly complicated question.
I thought it would be straightforward: pick either Library of Congress or Dewey, then go to WorldCat and find the proper designation for each of my books, then shelve.
Then I discovered that WorldCat doesn't have the official Dewey designation for every book. Then I discovered that it's up to the individual library to assign the Dewey designation. (So, like, one library puts Julian's Revelations under "Christianity, Practical Life" and another under "Christian Mysticism.")
And then I discovered that Library of Congress is actually a pretty clunky and unhelpful system, particularly in the theology and ethics sections where most of my books are.
And then my bibliophile friend told me about the Pettee system, which was developed for theological libraries but which was sadly replaced by the stupid Library of Congress system. (One more thing to blame Congress for.) It even had a category for "theological works of no value whatever," and I have quite a few books in that section! But it is rather elaborate for a library of only a thousand books or so.
And then I thought that maybe my old non-systematic system might not be so bad after all.
Especially since whatever system I come up with will be further complicated by the fact that I only get custody of about half of our academic books. The other half have to go in Stephen's office.
(I'm sure he's comforted by the fact that this rather trivial separation from my books--he's only in the office next door, after all--is distressing enough to me that I've added "Because I might not get all the books" to my list of reason not to divorce him. It's a long list anyway, and the first item is pretty comprehensive: "Because he's Stephen." But no reason not to add stuff.)
So, I'm just going to make up my own system, but, still, I'm having some anxiety about this. If you have any recommendations or thoughts, feel free to comment. Here's what I think I'll do (and remember that this is just for my office books):
Bible
Bibles, then commentaries and studies in canonical order of book(s) treated, then reference and translation materials.
Theology and Ethics
Primary sources arranged chronologically by author's death date (or birth date if living), secondary sources arranged alphabetically by author after the theologian treated.
Ethics Group (not already included in T&E)
Philosophy and philosophical ethics, Religious ethics, Law and Government, and Public Policy, including scientific approaches to ethics topics, arranged by topic, then chronologically.
History and Church History (includes biographies, autobiographies, and secondary sources not already in T&E or Literature.)
Chronological by time period covered.
Church Life
By topic: Liturgy, Preaching, Devotional, Ecclesiology, Church Administration, Popular Works, Christian Art. Alphabetical by author within each topic.
World Religions
General and social science approaches, then by religion, then alphabetical by author. Special section for other religions' approaches to Christianity.
Literature
Primary sources arranged chronologically by author's death date (or birth date if living), secondary sources arranged alphabetically by author after the writer treated.
Social and Hard Sciences (not otherwise categorized)
By topic, then alphabetical by author
Current Project Bookshelf
Books for whatever writing project I'm working on, arranged by topic or relevant chapter.
Well. It's a work in progress.
Next step: inventing call numbers!
This is a surprisingly complicated question.
I thought it would be straightforward: pick either Library of Congress or Dewey, then go to WorldCat and find the proper designation for each of my books, then shelve.
Then I discovered that WorldCat doesn't have the official Dewey designation for every book. Then I discovered that it's up to the individual library to assign the Dewey designation. (So, like, one library puts Julian's Revelations under "Christianity, Practical Life" and another under "Christian Mysticism.")
And then I discovered that Library of Congress is actually a pretty clunky and unhelpful system, particularly in the theology and ethics sections where most of my books are.
And then my bibliophile friend told me about the Pettee system, which was developed for theological libraries but which was sadly replaced by the stupid Library of Congress system. (One more thing to blame Congress for.) It even had a category for "theological works of no value whatever," and I have quite a few books in that section! But it is rather elaborate for a library of only a thousand books or so.
And then I thought that maybe my old non-systematic system might not be so bad after all.
Especially since whatever system I come up with will be further complicated by the fact that I only get custody of about half of our academic books. The other half have to go in Stephen's office.
(I'm sure he's comforted by the fact that this rather trivial separation from my books--he's only in the office next door, after all--is distressing enough to me that I've added "Because I might not get all the books" to my list of reason not to divorce him. It's a long list anyway, and the first item is pretty comprehensive: "Because he's Stephen." But no reason not to add stuff.)
So, I'm just going to make up my own system, but, still, I'm having some anxiety about this. If you have any recommendations or thoughts, feel free to comment. Here's what I think I'll do (and remember that this is just for my office books):
Bible
Bibles, then commentaries and studies in canonical order of book(s) treated, then reference and translation materials.
Theology and Ethics
Primary sources arranged chronologically by author's death date (or birth date if living), secondary sources arranged alphabetically by author after the theologian treated.
Ethics Group (not already included in T&E)
Philosophy and philosophical ethics, Religious ethics, Law and Government, and Public Policy, including scientific approaches to ethics topics, arranged by topic, then chronologically.
History and Church History (includes biographies, autobiographies, and secondary sources not already in T&E or Literature.)
Chronological by time period covered.
Church Life
By topic: Liturgy, Preaching, Devotional, Ecclesiology, Church Administration, Popular Works, Christian Art. Alphabetical by author within each topic.
World Religions
General and social science approaches, then by religion, then alphabetical by author. Special section for other religions' approaches to Christianity.
Literature
Primary sources arranged chronologically by author's death date (or birth date if living), secondary sources arranged alphabetically by author after the writer treated.
Social and Hard Sciences (not otherwise categorized)
By topic, then alphabetical by author
Current Project Bookshelf
Books for whatever writing project I'm working on, arranged by topic or relevant chapter.
Well. It's a work in progress.
Next step: inventing call numbers!
Monday, October 7, 2013
On Reading Hard Things
I've mentioned my friend's blog here before.
I've recommended it because it's a good read, but it's a hard read.
But perhaps that "but" is out of place. It's a hard read. And that's part of why it's a good read.
Not all hard reads are good reads. Heidegger was a hard read, but I never really broke past the "hard" to any sort of "good." Nietzsche was a hard read, but I'm pretty sure Augustine already said it all, and better. Derrida was a hard read, but I'm very sure my time was better spent reading Sarah Coakley. I remember picking up some book at the library--I can't remember the title or author--that was hard because it was the memoir of an adult survivor of childhood abuse. I think it was meant to break on through to "good," because the woman did survive. But she was still so profoundly broken that I was left with nothing to do but weep for her. Her very survival was nihilistic, dead.
But some hard reads are good reads. Thomas is a hard read, until you read him enough that he's all of a sudden wonderful and not hard at all (until you read some Thomists, who manage to make Thomas almost impossible to read). David Bentley Hart is a hard read if you don't have your unabridged OED handy, but if you persevere, you learn something, and it's nice to be able actually to feel your brain cells growing.
I don't think I've done nearly enough hard reading lately.
Except for my friend's blog. My friend's blog is a hard read, because honesty is hard. It's a hard read because suffering--real suffering, the kind you don't normally want to blog about--is hard. It's a hard read because living in a world where babies don't always outlive their mamas is hard.
Many of the things I read that talk about hard things don't talk about them in the way that hard things deserve.
They move too quickly to a moral, to advice, to victim-blaming or -shaming of the sort that is meant to make us readers feel good about ourselves, to feel confident in our ability to avoid that sort of trouble, to write our internal story so that we are all always the hero who lives happily ever after, to assert our intellectual dominance over whatever biological or historical or theological reality may hold sway over us.
They give us the option of continuing on in our daily lives without really having to confront life. The opiate of the masses is dispensed in blog entries and hip "news" outlets, from popular pulpits and the lecterns of elite universities, through moralizing television and patronizing cinema, and it consists in the experience of playing around with the idea of death just long enough to titillate us (whether with our fear of it, like a roller coaster, or with our lust to control it, like porn). And then we are herded off to the moral, to the political platform, or to the smug contemplation of our superiority over those backwards folks who need the comfort of a moral or a political platform--children, all of us, doing our assigned worksheets after the teacher's lesson, busywork to keep us from the dread moment of contemplation.
There is nothing titillating about my friend's blog. There's no playing around there. Honesty like that does not allow for busywork after.
I've recommended it because it's a good read, but it's a hard read.
But perhaps that "but" is out of place. It's a hard read. And that's part of why it's a good read.
Not all hard reads are good reads. Heidegger was a hard read, but I never really broke past the "hard" to any sort of "good." Nietzsche was a hard read, but I'm pretty sure Augustine already said it all, and better. Derrida was a hard read, but I'm very sure my time was better spent reading Sarah Coakley. I remember picking up some book at the library--I can't remember the title or author--that was hard because it was the memoir of an adult survivor of childhood abuse. I think it was meant to break on through to "good," because the woman did survive. But she was still so profoundly broken that I was left with nothing to do but weep for her. Her very survival was nihilistic, dead.
But some hard reads are good reads. Thomas is a hard read, until you read him enough that he's all of a sudden wonderful and not hard at all (until you read some Thomists, who manage to make Thomas almost impossible to read). David Bentley Hart is a hard read if you don't have your unabridged OED handy, but if you persevere, you learn something, and it's nice to be able actually to feel your brain cells growing.
I don't think I've done nearly enough hard reading lately.
Except for my friend's blog. My friend's blog is a hard read, because honesty is hard. It's a hard read because suffering--real suffering, the kind you don't normally want to blog about--is hard. It's a hard read because living in a world where babies don't always outlive their mamas is hard.
Many of the things I read that talk about hard things don't talk about them in the way that hard things deserve.
They move too quickly to a moral, to advice, to victim-blaming or -shaming of the sort that is meant to make us readers feel good about ourselves, to feel confident in our ability to avoid that sort of trouble, to write our internal story so that we are all always the hero who lives happily ever after, to assert our intellectual dominance over whatever biological or historical or theological reality may hold sway over us.
They give us the option of continuing on in our daily lives without really having to confront life. The opiate of the masses is dispensed in blog entries and hip "news" outlets, from popular pulpits and the lecterns of elite universities, through moralizing television and patronizing cinema, and it consists in the experience of playing around with the idea of death just long enough to titillate us (whether with our fear of it, like a roller coaster, or with our lust to control it, like porn). And then we are herded off to the moral, to the political platform, or to the smug contemplation of our superiority over those backwards folks who need the comfort of a moral or a political platform--children, all of us, doing our assigned worksheets after the teacher's lesson, busywork to keep us from the dread moment of contemplation.
There is nothing titillating about my friend's blog. There's no playing around there. Honesty like that does not allow for busywork after.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Wives and Prattlers
I've been reading some Elizabeth Gaskell lately. Mostly Wives and Daughters, although I've glanced at North and South and tried to remember Mary Barton (which I only allegedly read for my undergrad Brit Lit class).
Wives and Daughters is very good, but two things have struck me over and over again as I read it.
First, Molly Gibson is Fanny Price. I've never heard anyone complain about Molly Gibson they way they complain about Fanny Price. And in the BBC adaptation of Wives and Daughters, Molly Gibson is an entirely winning, sympathetic creature, played just as Gaskell wrote her.
But poor Fanny never gets such a cinematic treatment. That's a shame. If someone could be bothered to try, that would be nice.
Second, between Jane Austen and Dorothy Sayers lies a vast wasteland . . . well, maybe not wasteland . . . okay. I'll admit that Gaskell is a strong writer and an insightful reader of people.
But I have the same problem with Gaskell that I have with Louisa May Alcott. She leaves almost nothing unsaid. Every point is belabored, every thought detailed, every nuance shouted from the rooftops. Jane would have written the same book with half the words, and probably still come out ahead in the incisive critique department.
The book is filled with worthy observations, the characters are finely drawn, and it has, really, some lovely one-liners. ("I'm not saying she was very silly, but one of us was very silly and it wasn't me." "I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation–but steady, every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo!")
And so I persevere. And I try not to compare her to Jane so very often.
Wives and Daughters is very good, but two things have struck me over and over again as I read it.
First, Molly Gibson is Fanny Price. I've never heard anyone complain about Molly Gibson they way they complain about Fanny Price. And in the BBC adaptation of Wives and Daughters, Molly Gibson is an entirely winning, sympathetic creature, played just as Gaskell wrote her.
But poor Fanny never gets such a cinematic treatment. That's a shame. If someone could be bothered to try, that would be nice.
Second, between Jane Austen and Dorothy Sayers lies a vast wasteland . . . well, maybe not wasteland . . . okay. I'll admit that Gaskell is a strong writer and an insightful reader of people.
But I have the same problem with Gaskell that I have with Louisa May Alcott. She leaves almost nothing unsaid. Every point is belabored, every thought detailed, every nuance shouted from the rooftops. Jane would have written the same book with half the words, and probably still come out ahead in the incisive critique department.
The book is filled with worthy observations, the characters are finely drawn, and it has, really, some lovely one-liners. ("I'm not saying she was very silly, but one of us was very silly and it wasn't me." "I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation–but steady, every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo!")
And so I persevere. And I try not to compare her to Jane so very often.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Pizzaiola
Anybody up for some pizza?
From the front, we have arugula and sweet potato, pepper and salami, more arugula and sweet potato, and bacon and spinach.
I've been trying to branch out beyond my usuals (pepperoni, barbecue chicken, and mushroom and chevre).
Do you have any more ideas for me?
From the front, we have arugula and sweet potato, pepper and salami, more arugula and sweet potato, and bacon and spinach.
I've been trying to branch out beyond my usuals (pepperoni, barbecue chicken, and mushroom and chevre).
Do you have any more ideas for me?
Friday, September 27, 2013
Poor Baby.
Well, we've had our first broken bone.
It took twenty-three boy-years, six of them Theo's. (Word is, Thomas Aquinas is asking God to go back in time and include that in the Summa as the sixth argument for God's existence.)
And the broken bone wasn't even Theo's. (Seventh argument.)
Amos fell off a jungle gym at Mom's Morning Out yesterday and broke his collarbone.
He was pretty uncomfortable all day . . .
. . . but a latte (I-un wattay, Mommy!) was enough to make everything better. (I feel the same way, sometimes.)
He's a pretty happy boy. When it only takes a little Tylenol and a latte to triumph over a broken bone, well, that's not too bad.
It took twenty-three boy-years, six of them Theo's. (Word is, Thomas Aquinas is asking God to go back in time and include that in the Summa as the sixth argument for God's existence.)
And the broken bone wasn't even Theo's. (Seventh argument.)
Amos fell off a jungle gym at Mom's Morning Out yesterday and broke his collarbone.
He was pretty uncomfortable all day . . .
. . . but a latte (I-un wattay, Mommy!) was enough to make everything better. (I feel the same way, sometimes.)
He's a pretty happy boy. When it only takes a little Tylenol and a latte to triumph over a broken bone, well, that's not too bad.
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