Tuesday, 08 March 2011

Today marked my first exam in college in quite a while. The last class I took (right before Isla was born) had absolutely no exams of any kind.

I was not as nervous for this exam as I was for previous exams I have taken at Hamline. I think the main difference is that this exam was short – other exams have consisted of writing non-stop for nearly an hour. This exam lasted ‘only’ 50 minutes, and the first ten minutes were taken up with simply identifying who authored which passages.

I gotta hand it to the professor, he knew how to be tricky. For example, he included a passage from an account by Thomas Morton. In that passage, Morton explains what the Puritans thought of the maypole he erected and danced around with the natives (of course they were offended). But here’s the tricky part: we also read a narrative from Puritan William Bradford, who wrote about how offended he was about that maypole. So, see the tricky part? Was the passage from Morton or Bradford? It was tough to figure out at first, but then, near the end of the passage, Morton uses the self-identifying pronoun “mine-host.” That’s at once a unique and silly phrase. I mean, how many people refer to themselves as “mine-host”?

I should start doing that.

The bulk of the test consisted of selecting four of the ten passages, and then writing about them. The problem, as with other exams, is to succinctly and intelligently make my point. I could have easily written a paper on any of the passages regardless of the number or words or pages the professor specified. But it is a bit difficult to plan out and execute a written argument while the clock is ticking.

Regardless, I’m sure I got an A. Or, should I say: Mine-host is sure mine-host got an A.

Wednesday, 09 March 2011

I attended a Toastmasters meeting this afternoon. I had no speeches to deliver, and no speeches to evaluate. I was not the grammarian or the timer or the toastmaster. This then could mean only one thing: I would be called upon to give a table topics speech.

Table topics (not sure why it’s called that) is a part of the meeting where an assigned person gets up and announced the topic and then calls on people to come up and give a speech with (almost) no preparation time. Today, the table topics master had decided on the topic “Tough Questions From Kids.” He called on me first and, as I was walking up to the front, he said, “Okay, James, your question is this: ‘Dad, is God real?'”

Ha!

I began by saying this: “Well, since simply saying ‘no’ won’t fill my two minutes, I’ll try to elaborate here.” That got me some stares. Indeed, I should remember that for future speeches: if no one seems to be paying attention, just announce that God is fake. Then they’ll look up and pay attention.

Anyway, I quasi-coherently explained that people try to explain the meaning of their lives and the possibility of afterlife and this usually requires the need for a deity. Technically, no one knows if these deities exist, but we can look at the evidence (i.e., The Bible) and see if it is compelling. “Extraordinary claims,” I said, paraphrasing Sagan, “require extraordinary evidence, so before you go jumping to any conclusions about gods, make absolutely sure that the god someone is selling is a reality, especially because of the life-consuming religion that is bound to go with it.”

Also, did you know the rapture is coming on May 21st? Yeah, there is a billboard advertising this in St. Paul (which I would take a picture of if I still had use of my trusty Verizon instead of my shitty AT&T). When will these silly Christians learn? If you want to talk about the end of the world, you don’t speak in specifics – you speak in vague generalities that place the end of the world tantalizingly close yet ambiguously distant so as to allow for reinterpretation. Like the Watchtower does.

Thursday, 10 March 2011

Well, I didn’t find out how I did on my exam yet…so stay tuned.

But on the topic of college: today in class we looked deeper into a text we read about the Salem Witch Trials. Here are a few things I want to mention about it:

1) Did you know Benjamin Franklin wrote a parody of the trials? Yeah, he did. Here it is, and it’s a fun (and short!) read. He basically lampoons the community’s crazy idea that you can test if someone is a witch by if they float or sink: Sink=witch / Float=not a witch. The funny part is that two women keep floating, even though the community insists they are witches. Certain people suggest they are floating because of the clothes they are wearing and, well, I don’t want to wreck it for you.

2) The professor divulged that he likes to visit Wikipedia as a springboard for obtaining information on a subject. A few of my classmates laughed, assuming the professor was joking, but then the professor said he was serious. And I agree…it’s a great place to start.

3) The professor, in an attempt to argue the continuing popularity of the incident at Salem, noted how many hits a Google search reveals. I am unmoved by this, as many of the hits are repeat pages, and (I am guessing) a similar argument could be made for thousands of such historical events.

Also, the results widely differ depending upon the given word choice; my use of “Salem Witch Trials” (above) yielded approximately 50,000 more hits than the professor obtained in class (sorry, can’t recall exactly what he typed in).

4) In a more compelling argument, the professor noted that we had read texts regarding the slaughter of 400 Native Americans at the hands of Europeans, of a European woman’s three month captivity amongst the natives, and of a crew’s nine year odyssey lost in Florida/Texas/Mexico until they finally met up with their Spanish brothers. Why aren’t those stories anywhere near as popular as the Salem Witch Trials? Indeed, I was unaware of those other three events until I began this class, yet I have known about the Salem saga since I was in elementary school. Why the difference? Good question.

The professor added that the trials have so seeped into our cultural consciousness (I thought of the word “meme,” though he never used it) that we can scarcely go a day without observing it being referenced somewhere. I was skeptical about this, but after class, I left to go to work. Just as I was parking at my job, an MPR correspondent reported that Representative Keith Ellison has termed fellow Representative Peter King’s investigation into Muslim extremism a witch hunt.

Well play professor, well played.

5) Visit this site (we did in class)…if you dare.

Friday, 04 March 2011

This evening, we dined at Ray’s Mediterranean Restaurant again. The family who owns and runs the place is from Egypt, so it was no big surprise that they’ve capitalized on King Tut’s visit to the Science Museum with posters saying things like “Come in and eat like a Pharoah!”  (I wonder if that’s such a good thing to say when the Pharoah on display died at age 19…)

I ordered the vegetarian platter which featured several different items. Apart from the potatoes and the salad, I couldn’t recognize any of it, but that’s okay. It all tasted great. Last time we ate at Ray’s, Owen ordered the ravioli, but this time he decided to go with a salad. That’s it. Just one big salad. And he ate it all, too. Jennifer decided to go with the pasta (like she always does), and Isla tried to eat the tablecloth (like she always does).

Saturday, 05 March 2011

Today, my sister and her husband came over, complete with Papa Murphy’s pizzas in tow. My sister even called me as they were driving an told me to get the oven heated up.

My sister and her husband seem to get a real kick out of watching what it’s like to be a parent. They keep laughing, saying things like, “We could never be a mom and dad because we would just laugh at everything they do all day.” They thought it was quite funny that we just strip Isla down to a diaper before sitting her at the table to eat. They found it even funnier that we let Isla take the spoon from us whenever she wants and that this causes her to get food all over her face, hair, arms, and chest, and this, in turn, causes me to take the spoon back, wipe the food off her chest, then feed it to her.

Later, we stood Isla up on the table (showing off her dimpled thighs, which my sister termed as “hail damage”) and then gave her a bath in the kitchen sink. This is, evidently, also very funny stuff.

Sunday, 06 March 2011

My wife likes to take pictures of our places of dwelling before we move out of them, so today she took pictures of the office, living room, and dining room. Of course, we are not getting ready to move at the moment, but we need to baby-proof the rooms, and so Jennifer wanted to photograph our opulent luxury in all its beauty before she began baby-proofing.

Most importantly, Isla keeps crawling over to the entertainment center and pulling off the DVDs. It’s not that the DVD cases could cause her any harm, but we don’t really want her drooling all over them or opening them up and breaking the DVDs.

On a related note: I’m not sure why we don’t want Isla to ruin the DVDs. IF there’s one thing I’ve noticed about our movie collection, it’s that there is no surer way to ensure we will never watch a movie again than to purchase it. It appears that, once we own a movie, we feel that we could watch it any time…and so we don’t.

By night-fall, the DVDs, the scanner, some framed photographs, and a few other easily-accessible possessions had been squirreled away to another part of the home. In their place: board books, blocks, rattles, a boppy, and some other things that 7-month olds think are awesome.

Monday, 07 March 2011

After being in the lab for a little while this morning, I came out to my cube and noticed that it was 8:01 AM. I wrote on my calendar a few weeks ago that 8:00 AM on Monday, March 7th is the time that the Science Museum opens up their registration for summer classes. Since I wanted to make sure that Owen got into the Egypt class before it was too late, I tried to make sure I registered as soon as possible.

Well, by 8:04, guess what? Yeah, that’s right, the class was already filled up! Wow. That was quick. But fear not! Turns out, only the June 20-24th dates were full, so I was able to get Owen in to the August 15-19th class. Whew…safe.

Also today, I tried squeezing in every moment I could to study for an exam that will be taking place in class tomorrow. I studied during lunch, while in the work-out room, and right before bed.

The exam will consist of two parts: first, there will be 10 passages from 10 texts, and we have to identify the author of the passage. Second, we have to select four of the passages and write about what they are describing or demonstrating (e.g., “This text show the Puritan world-view was glum and creepy…”).

So as you can see, part one is vitally important. Because, for example, if I erroneously attribute a text from John Smith (his real name!) to William Bradford, then I won’t really get the second part right either. Even more confusing, I don’t want to wrongly assert that a poem from the Inuits was from the Aztecs.

So, I spent the day trying to fit in some studying. I’ll report back later.

Wednesday, 02 March 2011

This evening, I attended a “Publishing Seminar” organized and put on by my college. My one word for describing this event is: depressing.

Do you want to know how to take your English degree and get a job in the world of editing and publishing? Be an intern! Yes, that’s right, two of the three people on the panel discussion were editors working for local book publishers (the third was a published poet) and they one of them stressed how she spent their summer during college working as an inern at places where she eventuall got hired. The guy, meanwhile, told his tale of woe how he almost got hired at this great publishing house, but that they decided to go with their intern instead. So then he moved back hom and lived with his parents for a few months while working as an intern at another company. That company eventually hired him.

Did I mention they didn’t get paid for these internships?

The other thing they mentioned was the importance of networking. For example, that same guy noted how he’s in charge of reading the incoming unsolicited manuscripts that they receive every January and May. He says some are good, some are not so good, but regardless, they end up going with people they know – like maybe one of the manuscripts comes from a former classmate of one of the editors. I figured I would go up to him and get to know him after the seminar and tell him a little bit about my book…but then I learned that he received his degree from Bringham Young University.

Thursday, 03 March 2011

Today, over dinner, while discussing the third in what is (apparently) an endless procession of lay-offs at my job, Owen started crying. Turns out, he was very sad that I might lose my job. When we tried to console him, he told us that he still wanted to be able to go to the ball pit.

Yeah, that’s right – did you know my company has a ball pit? Okay, so actually they don’t. Instead, at the local community center, about a mile from my company, there’s a play area for kids. And Owen didn’t want to lose that.

See, when we lived in Big Lake, Jennifer would drop Owen off with me for a couple of hours every Monday while she went to a therapist. At first, I didn’t know what to do with Owen. Sometimes I brought him into my job and took him to the cafeteria to have lunch with my co-workers.  Other times, I took him to Cub, and we’d just walk around and then eat in their dining area. Once the weather became warmer, we went to the local regional park and played on the playground or walked on the beach.

At some point, I eventually realized their was a community center in town, and I began taking him there. For $3, he could play in this kid’s area, with slides, mazes, and, yes, a ball pit. There was even a special area cordoned off for kids under three years old (which he was back then).  This was the perfect place, because he could be loud and crazy, or just sit quietly and play with a toy. When he was done playing for a little bit, we’d go eat lunch off on the side, then head back in for some more play.

The area where we ate overlooked a swimming pool, and Owen said he wanted to go swimming in the pool one day. After several months, I finally made good on that and we began heading into the swimming pool every Monday.

Anyway, today we explained to him that we haven’t been to that ball pit in a long time, and that there are other play areas we’ve been to in the meantime. He said, “but they don’t have pools.” Well, es, we conceded that that was correct, but then we pointed out how we’d been to other pools, too.

Here’s the funny thing: do you the last time we went to that community center? Three years ago today. Owen has more than doubled in age since his last visit there, but he still recalls that place fondly. Pretty cool, I think.

Tuesday, 01 March 2011

Here’s where my day peaked today—

I was running a little late this morning. I quickly brushed my teeth and put on my shoes. I started to put on my coat when Owen, tired and bleary-eyed, came hobbling out of his bedroom. I said good morning. He said good morning. Then I said I was sorry that I couldn’t spend any time with him at the moment because I had to hurry off to school. “But we’ll see each other this evening, okay?” I said to him. He nodded.

This whole time, I was fiddling with my coat. I couldn’t seem to locate my left sleeve. “Ugh!” I said, exasperated. I finally realized that the inner lining of my coat was turned inside out and so I hurriedly tried to fix it. “This stupid coat,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Owen asked.

“I can’t find my sleeve,” I said.

And just then I found my sleeve. As I zipped up my coat, Owen said, “That happens to me, too, sometimes.”

I smiled. We hugged and I thanked him for his concern. I was awake for another 14 hours – but that was the highlight of my day.

Saturday, 26 February 2011

Today Jennifer and Isla took off for a ladies’ afternoon with all of their female relatives. Owen and I stayed home. I was contemplating doing about five or six different activities (e.g., making good on an offer a chess master made to give Owen a free lesson, heading over to my friend Ryan’s house for computer assistance), but when the moment came, I didn’t feel like doing any of them.

Instead, we just stayed home. Owen played out on the deck, then we matched wits at checkers and chess. We organized some of his animal trading cards and did some dishes. Later, we drove over to Ray’s Mediterranean Restaurant and dined on some yummy comestibles.

While there, Owen asked me if John McCain was still president. I explained that McCain has never been president. “When will he be president?” Owen asked. I said, “Never. Well, probably not. I doubt he would try running for president again.” I then reminded him that Obama was currently the president and that a man named George Bush was president when you were born. He asked who was president when I was born. “Gerald Ford,” I said. Owen admitted to never having even heard of that man. “Yeah,” I said, resignedly, “he’s probably the most forgettable president of the last hundred years.”

Sunday, 27 February 2011

This evening, for the first time in three years, we watched almost all of the Academy Awards ceremony. I just felt like having it on, I guess, for old time’s sake. See, once upon a time, I loved watching the Oscars to get ideas of what films I wanted to see. Later, I made it a goal to see all the movies that won the Oscar for Best Picture, a goal that my wife shared with me. Later still, Jennifer and I would try to see as many of the Best Picture nominees as we could – from 1998 to 2003 that’s pretty much what we did.

It was a lot of fun to see all those movies. It made the Oscar ceremony that much more enjoyable, as well. Then, sometime around 2004, I kind of stopped caring about them as much. I still was curious to see who won what, particularly if someone I really admired was nominated, but I no longer made the concerted effort to see all the nominees.

This year, Jennifer and I saw three of the Best Picture nominees (The Social Network, Toy Story 3, and Inception). I was also rooting for Randy Newman – that perennial loser who, over the past 30 years, had won exactly one of the 19 Oscars he had been nominated for.

Jennifer, Owen, and Isla all went to bed just before the Best Song category. I stayed up for a few more minutes to see who would win. I was so thrilled that Newman won that I went in and disturbed Jennifer, then posted it to my Facebook status. Not only did Randy win, but he gave the best speech of the evening. Congratulations, Randy.

On the downside, I am once again unable to say I’ve seen every Best Picture winner. The King’s Speech…here I come.

Monday, 28 February 2011

Whew! Made it!

Yeah…February is a brutal month for us, and not just because it’s I Love to Read Month. Over the past several years, we’ve all seemed to get sick in February. We all got sick this month, but just mildly. Owen missed one day of school; I never called in sick to work.

February was a tough month last year – Owen was sick for weeks, and Jennifer and I were back in school for the second semester in a row. This year appeared a little easier, I’m happy to say. I’m still busy with my college class, and I’m pretty much done with the winter (a feeling I get every year around Groundhog’s Day).

Of course, I get sick at least once every March or April. It’s been that way for about 20 years. So, as I say good-bye to February, I say hello to a looming illness.