ramble through the bronx

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

NSFW

That's right, it's penguin porn!

meg 8:16 PM [+]

Ask the dead!

Ever wanted to use an ouija board? Well, here's your chance to ask questions of those beyond the grave!

meg 10:48 AM [+]

No! Not the W!

My laptop is just about to turn four years old next month; it's a Dell Inspiron 2650. It's been more or less a trusty old companion; I have typed many a word with its aid.

For the last few months, it's been groaning more than usual when it's loading, and has been making grinding unhappy noises. Now, just today, I notice the new problem:

the "W" key is sticky. Each "w" in this post had to be hit and re-hit firmly in order to come through. I have had to go back and insert "w"s into words that missed it the first time around.

How will I type the essential questions: Who? hat? here? When? hy? (see -- it's sticky. but it orks sometimes.)

I am very sad.

jane 9:24 AM [+]

Things that are good.

My ethics class seems lovely so far; I walked into the classroom, and the students (mostly sophomores, some juniors) all stopped talking, looked up at me, and smiled. Smiled! On the first day! What nice students! This never happens with the freshmen. So this is all very nice.

Plus, the Dinosaur Comics comic is very good today. It is always good. But only some days do I actually laugh out loud. Today I did. So I reproduce it below. Make sure you go dig through the archives to see more brilliance.

jane 4:17 PM [+]

It's like having an office job

Without any of that pesky work. Play with the wad of paper!

meg 11:09 AM [+]

Frankly, I blame Preetom

After all, she's the one obsessed with dental hygiene.

On another note... cute sign!

meg 12:40 PM [+]

For Paul

Cat photos.



The first is from July 2005. The rest are since I got my new camera for Christmas.









Paul -- happy now?

jane 12:26 AM [+]

Looking for a Vacation Location

Well, have you thought about Dahota? You won't be disappointed.

meg 8:31 AM [+]

Thanks, Google! You bring me closer to Hegel.

I'm reading Paul Redding's Hegel's Hermeneutics, which if you're interested in Hegel and hermeneutics, is fantastic. It's also good since it's one of the few recent works in English that attempts to really show how Hegel's social and political thought is, in fact, grounded in the Logic.

Now, I know lots of words, but my brain kind of stuck on this:

In reading these sections we must keep in mind what we have learned about recognition throughout the Phenomenology. At key points in the text, consciousness has undergone a form of anagnorisis in a way that has turned it and the action around. I have suggested that, as in the theater, we can follow the experience of consciousness because we can recognitively put ourselves in the various points of view it assumes in its history. Surely then we must also be able to recognize something of ourselves in consciousness's own experiences of recollective anagnorisis? Might it be that there is something of this complex movement going on at the level of absolute knowing and that the review of the whole drama constitutes our anagnorisis?

(p. 134, my emphases).

Yes, this is the type of writing people engage in when writing about Hegel. It's an acquired taste. I'm not totally sure that 'recognitively' is a word. But 'anagnorisis' seems to be, at least judging from how much Redding uses it. After failing to find it in my Oxford Reference Dictionary, I figured that the smart thing to do would be to consult the index. (I'm slow like that). Sure enough, on p. 80, Redding writes, "for consciousness, the problems within which it entangles itself form the occasion for a type of anagnorisis, the self-recognition opened up to the hero by the reversal of their fortune."

That's kind of helpful, but I wanted more -- especially since it sounds Greekish and I'm, alas, not as up on my Greek dramatic theory as I should be (just vague memories from my first year undergrad course in Western Lit and Julian Patrick's excellent lectures at Victoria College. Ah, Northrop Frye Hall. Such a box you were.)

Google to the rescue! Google, please define: anagnorisis for me, will you? There's a dear.

Definitions of anagnorisis on the Web:

* the protagonist’s recognition of his/her peripeteia.
www.english.uiuc.edu/lit_resources/English%20102/Miscellaneous/Terms/greek_drama_vocabulary.htm

* (GK 'recognition') A term used by Aristotle in Poetics to describe the moment of recognition (of truth) when ignorance gives way to knowledge. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagnorisis coincides with peripeteia, or reversal of fortune. The classic example is in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius.
members.fortunecity.es/fabianvillegas/drama/glossary-a.htm

* "Recognition," in Greek. Aristotle claimed that every fine tragedy has a recognition scene, in which the protagonist discovers either some fact unknown to her or him or some moral flaw in her or his character. Scholars disagree as to which of these precise meanings Aristotle had in mind. See also hamartia.
highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0767430077/student_view0/glossary.html

* "recognition": one of the two requirements, as given by Aristotle in the Poetics for a "complex plot."
www.clt.astate.edu/wnarey/Genre%20Class/tragedy_terms.htm

* Anagnorisis originally meant recognition, not only of a person but also of what that person stood for, what he or she represented; it was the hero's suddenly becoming aware of a real situation and therefore the realisation of things as they stood; and finally it was a perception that resulted in an insight the hero had into his relationship with often anatagonistic characters within Aristotelian tragedy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagnorisis

Ah, Aristotle. I should have known you were behind this!

Back to my reading. This has been a glimpse into the strange world of... working on my dissertation! [cue spooky yet dramatic music]

jane 7:21 PM [+]

Sigh... the 27 year olds

I'm finally getting around to watching the US version of The Office... and the guy playing Jim, John Krasinski, is adorable. Totally adorable.

So I'm sighing over the cute boy -- and then I notice his birth year. 1979! I'm old enough that my TV & movie crushes are starting to be my own age. Also on The Office, and possibly even more adorable, is another 1979-er, BJ Novak. 1979 -- a good vintage.

I've been noticing a lot of 1979 folks lately... including, of course, my friend Ryan.

Go 1979 children! Like Mena Suvari! Norah Jones! Heath Ledger! Claire Danes! The late Rachel Corrie! Adam Brody! Go you!

We're just getting old enough that we're figuring out what we want to do -- and actually doing it. And some of us even getting paid to do it.

jane 12:09 AM [+]

Rainy Friday

When will it get cold? When will it snow? The only snow I've seen so far this winter was on the Greyhound between Toronto and New York on the 27th of December; when we stopped at a rest stop near Syracuse. I want me some snow, dammit!

I'm trying to get a healthy chunk of my current chapter done before school starts up in a week and a half, and also need to start putting together a job talk. Of course, this is encouraging fresh procrastination in the form of searching the Chronicle of Higher Education forums for on-campus interview advice.

Here is some other advice I found online:



(Source)

jane 2:55 PM [+]

Yet another webcomic recommendation

In case you have little else to do -- the glory of Patches is waiting for you...





(Patches home)

jane 1:31 PM [+]

Welcome to 2007

Happy New Year everyone. I have to say that so far I'm a fan of 2007. While it was my first New Year's in NYC rather than in Ottawa, and while I missed my Ottawans (thanks so much for the huge "Happy New Year" over the phone last night, and hellos especially to Megan and Dawn), I still felt happy and generally optimistic about the future.

A number of people at the party asked how my job interviews went last week; I haven't blogged much about my job search process out of a desire to keep it somewhat private (though I've put some "friends-only" stuff up on my LiveJournal -- but not anything that you haven't heard directly from me anyway). While those (and the results from those) are occupying a lot of my thoughts, that's not so much of a big deal.

Mostly I feel a quiet assurance that no matter what happens this year, I will be able to make it work. (The clock radio just came on -- Joe Cocker's version of "With a little help from my friends" -- fitting, eh? You guys are the greatest.)

This is also my first New Year's as a Catholic (or at least a soon-to-be Catholic). I went down to the 7.30 pm mass before the party. During the mass I felt a feeling of utter ease, of my future being in God's hands, and that God will give me the strength to take on whatever ups and downs come along.

I was also really moved by the reading from Samuel, about Hannah, who prayed for a son and was given one. She says, "I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request. Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD." This reminded me of Abraham and Sarah praying for a child, being given Isaac, but then A. being commanded by God to sacrifice Isaac. Hannah, on the other hand, freely gives back to God what she has been given. Just 'cause, you know, that's what one does.

This story made me think about my job and career worries in a different way. I'd been trying as much as possible to think of my job prospects as things I shouldn't get my hopes up over. Or thinking that I don't deserve a good job when there are so many better candidates. Or thinking that I don't have a right to hope. (Sure, these may sound silly, but who is ever fully rational in appraising their next career move?) Hannah's story made me think instead that of course it was perfectly fine to pray to God for what I want; and then if it works out, I am then able to dedicate it as service to God. Teaching young people to be reflective and critical (not just in a nihilist and relativist sense, but properly and carefully critical) is a wonderful service.

Anyway, just some pre-coffee early New Year's thoughts.

I'll close with one of my favourite NT passages, 1 Thessalonians 5.14-22 -- the tone of rejoicing and seeking the good is, I think, a good place to begin my New Year's (plus, those of you who want can mentally take out the second half of line 18, and consider the rest of it good advice in general. ;) )

14 We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, cheer the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient with all.
15 See that no one returns evil for evil; rather, always seek what is good (both) for each other and for all.
16 Rejoice always.
17 Pray without ceasing.
18 In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit.
20 Do not despise prophetic utterances.
21 Test everything; retain what is good.
22 Refrain from every kind of evil.

Peace be with you all.

jane 9:25 AM [+]