computer-generated blog haiku

on a plane some of
my friends and i went to see
snakes on a plane some

idaho on the
internet there is something
wonderful about

there but alas i
had no computer as much
as i love reading

to be the milk he
drank some and now he glows too
darth vader being

linguistic rules must
be flexible in order
to be useful why

everyone now
if someone could develop
a star trek style

shoot with a rifle
is it so important to
tell student x that

lovely slow paced
lunch with hannah and time to
move on go forth and

Generate your own haiku over here.

Eileen, this post awaits your comments

I've been thinking about language and community and the fact that today I mocked Samuel Johnson's attempt to write a dictionary to protect the English language from French "corruption" (the mocking may or may not have involved a Stephen Colbert impression) but then spent the evening correcting spelling and reigning in imprecise diction in my students' papers. If I think language must be flexible in order to be useful, why is it so important to tell Student X that "to rifle" means to cut grooves, to throw, or to ransack, and not to shoot with a rifle? Is it just so he won't sound ignorant or uneducated? I knew right away that by "rifle" he meant "shoot"; the other, "real" definitions I had to look up. How do we decide in what contexts linguistic rules must be followed, and when it's okay to choose a "wrong," but perhaps equally efficient, word? How much weight should graders place on words that are inaccurate but understandable?

The New Tek Jansen Adventures

"According to my digimap, the filing sector is ten heximeters ahead...pa rum pum!"

On Notice!

the fun in the centre

Re-posted from The Skillz Factory (my apologies if you've seen this already; I admit I'm being lazy here):

My interests in 18th-century science and education have recently led me to print out a text by "Tom Telescope" written for kids in 1761. It's a scan of the original, so many of the "s"s look like "f"s. I'm getting better at reading it, but if you read it the wrong way, you can get amusements like this:

Of the Solar System

"Our Solar System contains the fun in the centre, and the planets and comets moving about it.---Pray look at the figure on the other fide, where I have drawn the fun, and the planets in their feveral orbits or circles, with their refpective diftances from the fun, and from each other; together with the orbit of a comet.

"The planets, as I have already obferved, are bodies that appear like ftars, but are not luminous; that is, they have no light in themfelves, tho' they give us light; for they fhine by reflecting the light of the fun."


Update:
Of course, Pluto is no longer a planet orbiting the fun.

"Serpentes on a Shippe!"; or, what to read to kick the Tuesday blues

from Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog (you really should go read the whole thing):

"And thus the mariners made hem redye to sayle across the grete see. In first classe Sir Neville and Sir Sean talkede of matirs of prowesse and knighthode, and doun in coache, manye a stereotype did sitte and make conversacioun. Ther was a PRIORESSE, who lovede hir smalle dog, and also a SQUIRE, who mad manye songes of rappe and had TWO FAT KNIGHTES wyth him, and also a WOMAN WYTH A BABYE AND AN ACCENTE, who coud muche of plesaunte folke remedyes and TWO FOUNDLINGES who travelid all al oon, and an ANTISOCIALE ENGLISHMAN and also a gret manye EXPENDABLES.

And Kyng Edichim bethoghte hymself how Sir Neville was a man of muche power and coud nat be bestede by knightes; and so Edichim turnede hym to trecherie and sorcerie. Withinne the hulle of the shipe he had privilye yputte manye a caske fulle of serpentes and wormes and foul addres, and therto he put aboute the boate a philtre ycleped Far-Amoun by the Arabes, the which maketh serpentes to freke the helle oute and starte juste bitinge eny oon thei see. And wyth alchemy he sette the lockes of the caskes for to bursten whan the boate was yn the middel of the see. And yn this wise nat oon of the securitee gardes did knowe of the ambusshe of the serpentes that was to be, even thogh thei did make al the passengers remove her toothpickes and lettre-openeres and especiallye ther jarres of oyntmentz and sportes-drinkes. And thus the vessel departed wyth the serpentes hidden vpon it."

Snapes on a Plane

Some of my friends and I went to see Snakes on a Plane this weekend and had a whole lot of fun cheering for Samuel L. Jackson and laughing at the aircraft-sized plot holes.

My friend Chris photoshopped this a while ago. I think it says, "sequel":
















SOUNDTRACK: Snape, Snape, oh, it's a Snape! I can see the venom in his eyes!

wedding weekend recap

Thursday
Because of the Jeremy Travel Curse, we flew to Washington (and then drove to Idaho) on the day that security was suddenly tightened and no liquids were allowed on board. Fortunately, we breezed through the lines at our first airport and only experienced a few minor delays at our second. The second terminal was completely equipped with wireless Internet, I noticed, so I could have blogged from there, but, alas, I had no computer.

Friday
By the next day, I began to enjoy having no computer. As much as I love reading and writing on the Internet, there is something wonderful about a temporary de-wiring and unwinding. We had a lovely, slow-paced lunch (with Hannah! :) ) and time to swim at the hotel pool before the rehearsal. Soon, several college friends arrived whom I hadn't seen in a very long time, and I was surprised how easily we all fell back in to our old patterns of conversation and inside jokes. It was like someone had pressed the pause button for a couple of years and suddenly released it; it was so easy to talk and laugh and pretend for a time that we were still in the dorms, not worrying about a time when we would separate and go different ways.

Saturday
Andrea and Adam's wedding was beautiful, and beautifully them. The setting, the ceremony, the souvenir bookmarks--everything reminded me of the two of them. The day sped by with love and dancing.

Sunday & Monday
Our last few days were quieter and even more low-key. It was kind of strange to be in Andrea and Hannah's hometown without either of them being nearby, but we made it through just fine with a combination of coupons, luck and complacent laziness. ;) Justin, Jeremy and I flew back on Monday morning on one plane that made four stops (Jeremy exited after the third). I was happy to be home, but also a bit sad that I wasn't still in the same location as everyone.

Now if someone could develop a Star Trek style transporter, I would save up the $$ to buy it. (C'mon, we pretty much already have tricorders; it's time to move on!)

Go forth and be amused!

hilarious reviews for whole milk at Amazon
(I recommend clicking on "see all reviews" at the bottom of the page and sorting them from oldest to newest so you can watch the zaniness unfold.)

"Did this milk make anyone else GLOW IN THE DARK? After i had some with my midnight snack, i went to crawl into bed next to my husband and i realized my skin was GLOWING. I was glowing so bright that i woke him up. I told him it had to be the milk, he drank some and now HE glows too!"

"Darth Vader being a smartass"

personalized Samuel L. Jackson phone call for your friends

learning to snorgle (via cuteoverload)

and then there was one

Yesterday one of my friends let me know that she's officially leaving our program in the next few weeks. I'm happy for her since it seems to be the right decision, but sad that she won't be around to hang out and "work" in coffeeshops or commiserate about teaching and writing. It's especially hard to know that my core group of friends (she and the friend who left spring quarter) has left the program at a time when pretty much all of my work is independent. It's not exactly easy at this to make new friends when I have no more seminars to take and barely ever see other grad students. I know I'm very lucky to have an amazing support network of family and friends outside of grad. school, but I guess I had imagined having a greater sense of class camaraderie in the last stretch of grad. school than I think I will.

What was an eighteenth-century girl to read?

Today I read parts of two novels I imagine were probably read by young women in the eighteenth century: Love in Excess by Eliza Haywood and Sarah Fielding's The Governess. Love in Excess was wildly popular (Paula Backscheider calls it a "blockbuster novel") and, for me at least, an incredibly fast read. Haywood piles intrigue upon intrigue in episodic plots that are elaborate but that nonetheless resolve fairly quickly and, generally, satisfyingly. The characters are passionate and, in the words of Zoolander, "really, really good-looking"; as a bonus, they have just the right combination of quick intelligence and rashness to be interesting. Despite the relentless manliness of the men*, the plotlines are generally devised and resolved by women, making the story even more compelling. The lesson the book teaches, if any, is that passion--when noble--rightly trumps reason, and that only those who have loved passionately can understand those who love passionately. So there!

If Love in Excess is the eighteenth-century equivalent of say, a WB soap opera, The Governess is children's programming that does not translate to grown-up enjoyment. It's doubtful that it would be enjoyable to children--or, more specifically, the target audience of young women--in the first place, actually. It's a story about unruly girls with names like Lucy Sly, Dolly Friendly and Betty Ford (I don't make this up!) who need to be taught How to Accept a Delicious Fruit Snack Without Tearing the Hair of the Girl Who Received a Slightly Larger Apple. I admit I'm only a few chapters in, but the story is already pretty boring. It's supposedly the earliest, or at least one of the earliest, children's novels, but I don't think the genre has really figured itself out yet. I wonder when children's literature (not fairy tales or legends, but actual novels) began to be less transparently didactic? When did the concept of novels written specifically for children's or young people's amusement really take shape in England and/or the U.S.?

In related news, when I flipped through the channels this morning I found this on PBS:















Who knew Natalie Portman was a guest on Sesame Street?


* From the Broadview edition: "Tho' it was impossible for any soul to be capable of a greater, or more constant passion than he felt for Melliora, tho' no man that ever lived, was less addicted to loose desires, - in fine, tho' he really was, as Frankville had told him, the most excellent of his kind, yet, he was still a man! . . . " (225)