Giggles..

I used to be that student who would laugh at my professor while s/he was lecturing to me and who thought that the professor didn't see me. Now, I'm the professor. It's a funny feeling. Not a bad feeling--there's a large barrier between the teacher and students, and it's easy to not feel much in that situation when you see your students laughing. Still, funny.

Yesterday, I taught both of my classes with my fly down. I saw several students giggling in both classes and couldn't figure out why. Then, I finished the second class, looked down, and noticed why. At least I wasn't wearing any of my strangely colored underware, just some blue ones.

I Like This Quote...

The isolated individual is not a real person. A real person is one who lives in and for others. And the more personal relationships we form with others, the more we truly realize ourselves as persons. It has even been said that there can be no true person unless there are two, entering into communication with one another.

This idea of openness to others could be summed up under the word love. By love, I don’t mean merely an emotional feeling, but a fundamental attitude. In its deepest sense, love is the life, the energy, of God in us. We are not truly personal as long as we are turned in on ourselves, isolated from others. We only become personal if we face other persons, and relate to them.

-Kallistos Ware

Last night, my Dad called me, and knowing that I had been working for thirteen hours straight on my portfolio essay, he asked, "So, are you still surviving?"

And I answered, "I think so. I know that I can still feel pain."

Still Portfolioing

I'm still writing on my portfolio. Yesterday, I got so frustrated with it that I started throwing things--my beloved cap included. It's pretty to make me get that bothered. Still, it'll all be done in a little over a week.

I'm still struggling on the epigraph for the essay. I've decided not to use the quote I posted several days ago from Chesterton. Instead, I'm leaning toward a short, one-page story by Chesterton meant to help characterize my exit from academia. I'm afraid, though, that including it might seem a bit egotistical. I'm not sure if any of my readers will have the time to read this story or comment on it (particularly considering that most of my readers are in the same fix as me or have recently gone to another continent), but if you have a chance, would you please read the short story and tell me if you think it would sound to egotistical? Thanks.

Here it is:

“Long ago as it is, every one remembers the terrible and grotesque scene that occurred in -----, when one of the most acute and forcible of English judges suddenly went mad on the bench. I had my own view of that occurrence; but about the facts themselves there is no question at all. For some months, indeed for some years, people had detected something curious in the judge’s conduct. He seemed to have lost interest in the law, in which he had been, beyond expression, brilliant and terrible as a K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral advice to the people concerned. He talked more like a priest or a doctor, and a very outspoken one at that. The first thrill was probably given when he said to a man who had attempted a crime of passion: “I sentence you to three years’ imprisonment, under the firm, and solemn, and God-given conviction that what you require is three months at the sea-side.” He accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their obvious legal crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a court of justice, monstrous egoism, lack of humor, and morbidity deliberately encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated diamond case in which the prime-minister himself, that brilliant patrician, had to come forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to give evidence against his valet. After the detailed life of the household have been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the premier again to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: “Get a new soul. That thing’s not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.” All this, of course, in the eyes of the sagacious, was premonitory of that melancholy and farcical day when his wits actually deserted him in open court. It was a libel case between two very eminent and powerful financiers, against both of whom charges of considerable defalcation were brought. The case was long and complex; the advocates were long and eloquent; but at last, after weeks of work and rhetoric, the time came for the great judge to give a summing-up; and one of his celebrated masterpieces of lucidity and pulverizing logic was eagerly looked for. He had spoken very little during the prolonged affair, and he looked sad and lowering at the end of it. He was silent for a few moments, and then burst into a stentorian song. His remarks (as reported) were as follows:
‘Oh Rowty-owty tiddly-owty
Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty
Highty-ighty tiddly-ighty
Tiddly-ighty ow.”
He then retired from public life and took the garret in Lambeth.

Reminder #15

I will start doing what I keep telling my students to do--proofread my papers and blog posts.

I Can See Clearly Now...The Scratches on My Lenses are Gone

I got my new glasses today. If you want to have an idea as to what they look like on me, just take a look at the picture over there to the right, and imagine me wearing glasses with slightly more squarish frames. You have probably already realized it from that little picturing exercise, but yes, these new glasses have somehow managed to make me look even sexier.

I'll Get to Graduate!!!!!!!....I think...

Well, I finally filed my intent to graduate form. Today. October 17, 2005. Of course, it was supposed to be in on September 9, 2005. Thankfully, the graduate school secretary Lora Lopez is a very nice lady who is very used to working with absent minded acedemics. Now, I just have to remember to finish up all that other stuff I have to do.

I think I'm going to start my portfolio with this quote. I think it suggests fairly well something about the connections I have seen between literature and Christianity.


“Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.”
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

My printer hasn't been working since just before I got to Lubbock. It would pull the paper down only on one side and jam it every time. So, I tried to take it a few places here in Lubbock early in the semester, but I couldn't find a place that would do printer repairs. I'm sure there is such a place, but I couldn't locate it, and then I got too busy. So, it's been sitting in my trunk all semester.

So, when I'm at home last week, my parents say that they'll take it to get it fixed, and if they get a chance to see me later in the semester, they can return it. After all, I've absolutely no time (seriously) in which I can take anywhere. This way, at least, it'll get fixed, and I'll get it back eventually.

So, they take the printer to the local guy in Menard who is the only person in the town who knows anything at all about computers and computer stuff. Since he's been the closest thing to an expert on these things for so long, he's seen it all. So, he asks what the problems are, and Mom tells him about the paper jamming. She also passes on some information that I had warned her about. Right after the printer had stopped working, I had been standing by my printer struggling to fill a mechanical pencil with some pencil lead. After an arduous struggle, the lead flew out of the pencil lead container, into the air, and straight into the printer. I couldn't get it out. So anyway, I wanted Mom to tell the repair guy that when he found a bunch of pencil lead down in the printer, that wasn't the problem. The problem with the printer had started before that stuff got in there. So, Mom told him that.

He took the printer, got to work, and fixed it in fifteen minutes. The problem--a mechanical pencil had fallen in the printer. This was a different pencil from the one giving me all the trouble when the lead fell in there. I didn't know about this pencil in there at all. He did find all of the pencil lead but also this pencil. This couldn't happen to anyone else but me.

It's 2:12a.m...Again...

And I'm writing another paper. Seriously. My schedule for the rest of the week:

Tonight
Finish Paper - 3:30
Sleep - 3:30-8:30
Wake - 8:30
Rewake - 9:00
Shower - 9:00-9:15
Dress - 9:15-9:17
Go to School - 9:18-9:43
Read a play - 9:45-11:00
Student visits - 11:00-12:00
Read Play - 12:00-2:00
Class - 2:00-3:30
Go Home - 3:30-4:00
Read 400 Page Novel - 4:00-12:30
Sleep - 12:30--

Thurs.
Wake etc - 9:00
School - 10:00
Read novel - 10:00-12:30
Teach class - 12:30-2:00
Dr. Couch appointment - 2:00-2:30
Read poetry stuff - 2:30-3:30
Go to Class - 3:30-5:00
Finish reading novel - 5:00-6:00
Go to Class - 6:00-9:00
Beg a ride home - 9:00-9:30
Wal-Mart - 9:30-10:15
Grade - 10:15-12:00
Sleep...........

Friday
Grade - 10:00-12:30
To school (eat on the way) - 12:30-1:00
Office hours - 1:00-4:00
Rush home - 4:00-4:30
Cook hamburgers - 4:30-6:00
Eat & Bible Study - 6:00-8:30
Write Portfolio - 8:30-12:00
Sleep - 12:00-9:00


That's just the beginning.

Truett

I've been planning a post on what happened this weekend at the Truett Preview. Too much happened, though, that I haven't yet synthesized. I'll have to post on that aspect of the weekend when I have more time.

Presents!!!

Well, when I went home, I got some presents. Do you want to know what I got? First, they fed me a lot. The fried catfish and the blueberry pie were quite yummy. They also got me some new glasses. I've had the same pair of glasses for about six years, and it's pretty amazing that I can see at all with all of the scratches on them. So, they got me new glasses that are coming in the mail. I got some socks, too. I've been getting by on a lot of pairs of unmatched socks, and now I have some that are the same color!!!! Lastly, my parents bought me a new cap. I haven't gotten it to fit quite right yet, but at least I can't smell it.

I was also given some candy and some cards. My roommate forgot my birthday until I reminded him, so he now owes me a pound of flesh. I was also given the new computer version of the game Fable. My sister and her boyfriend's thinking was quite astute on this one. Yes, I probably would have been going insane next semester if I find myself somewhere other than Lubbock without my roommate's x-box to relieve my stress. Fable will probably save my life someday.

23 Trips Around the Sun

Well, my birthday is October 5th, and today is October 5th. It was a good day. I got up early and went to work finishing a paper that was due. Did you know that T.S. Eliot's modernist agenda in "The Wasteland" was in part expressed and carried out by his assumption in the poem of Hebraic linguistic forms--as they are expressed in the translation of Old Testament poetry into English--whose inherent thought-styles parallel the modernist view of the world as fragmented, absurd, and meaningless and in need of being "fit"? That's my argument at least. I hope it makes sense to my professor, and I hope I'm right on that one; it was too early to tell. Anyway, I did that and got on the road.

Then, I drove for three hours. Along the way, I thought stupid stuff as usual. For instance, I passed a truck at a moment when I shouldn't have, and I thought, "How many times has that trucker seen stupid people in their little cars pass him?" I could imagine him keeping count. Then, I thought, "I should keep count of that stat." Then I thought, "No. that's stupid, but I should keep count of something." But then I thought, "No, I would need to wait until a special day so that I could keep count from that day on for the rest of my life for whatever it was I was counting, and I don't want to have to wait for such a day." And then I realized, "Oh (**&^*&^*&^!!!!!! Today's my birthday!!!! That is a day I can count from!!!!" And then I thought, "So, what the heck am I going to count???" And then, I thought, "What am I doing driving on the grass?" And then, I officially stopped thinking.

I did make it to Abilene. My sister cooked for me, and it was good. She and BJ gave me a gift, and I will waste countless hours playing the video game they got me (thank you guys!). And I ate a cake made for me by Emerald. Then, I went to Starbucks with Kayla and Brittney. Then, I came back here and talked to Grandma, Mom, and Dad. Then, I blogged. Tomorrow, I'm on the road again.

Not Bad

It's been a surprisingly good day. It shouldn't be surprising that I had a good day; most of my days are good, even though I complain about them. This one should have been bad, however, and it ended up just fine.

You see, I stayed awake all night writing a paper. I hadn't slept any the night before. Then, this morning, I sort of finished the paper and hurriedly prepared a lesson plan which I thought would be a disaster. I took a quick shower to wake me up and rushed to school.

And then the good things started. My quicky lesson plan was actually quite a success, at least in the second class. We were talking about voice, so I pulled a bunch of poems from my everywhere (especially from the shinnery from acu), and I had them do dramatic readings in class, and we discussed the voice of each poem. I thought they would hate me for making them read in class, and read poetry at that, but they seemed semi-interested. Some of them had fun with it. And is was fairly useful. It did last a lot less time than I had expected, and I let them out early, to the delight of all. It wasn't bad.

Then, I got back to my office and checked my email, and guess what. The professor that I stayed up all night writing a paper for decided to move it back a week. I wish that would have been done a lot earlier, but I do now have time to make it decent. I do have a version finished of it, but believe me, it's nothing I'm proud of. I was happy that I could fix it so that I wouldn't embarrass myself.

Then, I went to class. I could barely stay awake, but it passed. And then, I got back from class, and guess what. Tomorrow's my birthday!!! It hit me around five today; I had been too busy to care otherwise. And I'm actually getting to do some decently cool stuff. I'm missing my classes for the rest of the week (!!!), and I'm getting to visit my sister and friends in Abilene. Also, I'm going down to Baylor to check out their seminary; it's their preview weekend. That scares me but excites me too.

So anyway, it's been a full week and will be fuller as it goes on. It's not bad though.

It's 2:12a.m...

And I'm still writing...This will go on for a while. I thought, though, that these all-night writing sessions weren't supposed to start for another month-and-a-half. So it goes... So it goes...

I "help" my roommate take a survey*

1. What is your favorite word?
Me: "Milieu"
My roommate: "Petunia"

2. What is your least favorite word?
Me: "discursive"
My roommate: "no"

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Me: "cranes"
My roommate: "boobs" ****

4. What turns you off?
Me: "fungus"
My roomate: "Seeing myself naked."

5. What is your favorite curse word?
Me: "Bollocks"
My roommate: "Crap"

6. What sound or noise do you love?
Me: "silence"
My roommate: "the x-box humming"

7. What sound or noise do you hate?
Me: "My roommate farting in the living room."
My roommate: "my mother beating me"

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Me: "any"
My roommate: "kindergarten"

9. What profession would you not like to do?
Me: "grad student"
My roommate: "working with people"

10. What would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Me: "You're late."
My roommate: "The world is a large x-box game. Here's the control."


*My roommate really had little part in answering this survey. But I think these answers for him are rather accurate, and I think he deserves this torture anyway.