taking it personally – Page 19

January 29, 2007

Anxiety and timing(s).

Three months left to finish the dissertation, get comments on it, fix the dissertation as per comments, and defend it. The urge to panic is great.

Support, though, is abundant – and I’m grateful for it. From all sides: family, friends, colleagues, relative strangers.

It’s not that I don’t think I can do it. I can… I think. It’ll help to have comments from my thesis readers (who will hopefully get two chapters and all of the interface from me Wednesday or Thursday), so that at least I’ll know more or less what they’re thinking. Part of me is worried that they’ll be disgruntled, because I’ve veered away from (and so haven’t addressed) some things that were suggested at my prelims. But another part of me knows that this is par for the course: dissertations change direction, and this isn’t even that radical a change. It’s “just” a shift in emphasis. But there’re three months left, so – panic.

Anxiety, more like. I’m told (and also know) that it won’t go away, so it helps to let it flow through me instead of dwelling on it and making it whirlpool somewhere near my solar plexus. Sometimes the flowing works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s nice to have some agency over it.

This topic is overwhelming. It’s so poorly explored; there’s so much to do. Most importantly, it’s so interdisciplinary, and I feel like the ultimate dilettante. That’s a-ok with me, but what about the rest of the world? You know, potential employers and such?

One of RolandHT‘s early premises was that acquiring knowledge can be done in two ways. You can take in (read, listen to, whatever) large chunks of information, one by one, each of them in its entirety, and analyze each as a whole and in context of the others you’ve taken in so far. Like learning literature by reading novel after novel. Or, you can dabble here and there, follow thematic threads that interest you, and slowly build up a more or less cohesive picture of the world, or a world. The Roland project is the latter; it acquaints you with the archetype(s) by letting you jump around centuries and media and locations. I do this because I think that this is how we learn almost everything we know: building up a worldview by observation, by living and paying attention.

That works very well inside my head; finding words to make it coherent is another thing. Words are coming, slowly but surely. It’ll get there.

The best dissertation is a done dissertation. Yes.

January 25, 2007

RolandHT, and ask the internets.

I’ve put up the latest version of RolandHT. It can only be viewed with (freely available) Mozilla/Firefox, or another XSLT-aware browser. I don’t know of any besides Firefox, so if you do, please let me know the browser and the operating system(s) on which you’ve used it.

The site definitely needs a help section, and some more intuitive navigation. For now, a few usage notes:

– The links up top don’t do anything yet.

– Pick an excerpt from the list on the left. Mouseover themes/characters/imagery that show up over the sword, and see what happens. Then click on a theme or character or image, and see what happens now.

– Click on the red “reset” at top right to return to initial state.

– For three other nifty features, find the excerpt named “Missionary Work.” Click on the “i” beside the name of the work; click on the quill in the second stanza; mouseover any underlined word.

– Check out also the excerpt, near the very bottom, titled “Battle Near Saragossa.” Click on the image.

– If something seems aesthetically or functionally wrong, it would be lovely if you emailed me to let me know.

– This is a work in progress. If you see the word “check” where you expect information, I’m working on it.

In other news, a couple of questions for the internet. The first, in two parts, is Roland-related – I’d like to know more about two geographical locations. One is Terra Major:

“Could one achieve that Rollant’s life was lost,

Charle’s right arm were from his body torn;

Though there remained his marvellous great host,

He’ld not again assemble in such force;

Terra Major would languish in repose.”

Is TM a region? Is it in Europe? If not, what is it (another name for Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire?)?

The other place is a bit more mysterious, partly because it’s in Middle English:

Roulond rod furthe—he wold not rest, I wene—

he sawe wher a Sairsin seche hym wold,

kinge was of Criklond, croun[y]d with gold.

What, pray tell, is Criklond?

And finally, a non-Roland-related query: what’s your favorite slow-cooker recipe? Things I’m trying to stay away from: large chunks of boiled onions (I’ve disliked them since forever), and really heavy dishes like mac and cheese. Meat is great, veggies are great, seafood that’s sturdy enough to survive a slow cooker is great, wacky but tasty ingredients totally get bonus points. Non-desserts is what I’m after.

January 12, 2007

Rewards, or maybe CRACK.

My beloved bought Guitar Hero II. Note the time stamp on this post. And I’m not even into video games much.

It is crack. Also, it’s hell on my left arm, all the way from the forearm to the shoulder.

But oh, the sweet sweet reward for having gotten work done. Dissertation, we have a PLAN.

January 9, 2007

Global warming and other calamities.

Back from California, with a cold given to me by brother and nephew, who brought it with them from New York.

The funeral was… a funeral. It was sad. We cried.

I feel like my grandmother left so long ago, it’s difficult to find the words for talking about her death as something recent. Far more real for me was my mother’s pain, and my uncle’s. From this perspective, the family time was a very good thing indeed.

Now we’re back, and I would be diving right into the work if not for the cold that waylaid me in the morning and early afternoon. And I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour (unrelated)! Guess today’s a sick day.

Last week Ethan and I and other family had a long and at times heated conversation about politics, environment and other controversial topics. My mom and I have one of those more or less every time we see each other, and given that we’re on the opposite sides of the political spectrum from each other, you can imagine how they tend to go. One thing, though – we’re learning to not let the disagreements cloud our interactions for days. I guess that’s a good thing.

I’m all for providing information, but hate it when someone force-feeds it to me. So, WHEREAS I desire to share information on contentious topics with my mother, AND I love her, AND I don’t want to force all of it upon her, LET THEREFORE be established a new purpose for this weblog, BEING to more thoroughly document my perception of the world.

Let’s see if this lasts for more than a day, mm? I was always terrible at letter-writing, and diary-writing, and blogging. I’m hurtling headlong into the (hopefully?) final stages of my dissertation. But the world keeps going, and I need an outlet – and a tangible link to the outside of my head.

The evening after our big debate, I found the following interesting bits on the web.

Personal Responsibility

Wired reports that people can cause earthquakes! The 5.6 one that took place in 1989 in Australia was caused, National Geographic says, by 200 years of coal mining. And, HA ha, the extensive damage done by the earthquake cost more than all the coal they got out of that mine, put together. The damage and undoubted deaths aren’t funny, but in a perverse sense, the whole thing is. Remember, gang: what we do with our environment affects everyone.

Global warming isn’t new. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again. With or without us. Except that this time around, it’s us making it happen.

Fear not, though, some of us are acting to make things better. Jyllands-Posten reports that Danes will have access to bioethanol by 2010. Denmark is generally pretty cool, as Brad DeLong documents in “The Scandinavian Model.”

So what can you do? Well, for one thing you can offset the emissions you generate through travel by buying energy credits. Their calculator is flawed, but the money goes to developing renewable-energy projects.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the option of paying a little more to get your energy from renewable sources only. Here’s one place to start (in the US, at least).

You can even join Al Gore’s information troops.

Giving The Man The Finger

Wired:

All passports issued by the US State Department after January 1 will have always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for officials – and hackers – to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid about strangers slurping up your identity? Here’s what you can do about it.

They do warn that tampering with these chips is illegal, and let me emphasize that I’m linking to someone else’s article here. Don’t shoot the messenger, Mr. Man!

Just Cool

Pleo the Robo-Dinosaur!

Off to the doctor’s. Y’all take care now, y’hear?

December 30, 2006

Babushka.

My grandmother died last night. We’re flying to Lost Angels on Monday. I’m numb, don’t really know how I feel.

It was time – she’d had Alzheimer’s, had stopped recognizing my mother. None of that makes it better.

I had a dream about her last night. It involved … well, first we were sitting around a table with a very earnest Young Pioneer in dress uniform saying Very Earnest Things. Then we (babushka and I) were watching that same person on a webcast, or something. She said something inane, and we both went “That’s bullshit!” in unison. And the video stream blinked out. She then turned to me and said, “Maybe her feelings were hurt.”

The funeral will likely be on the 2nd – the day, in 2001, when my father died. Might as well make a dark day darker, I guess.

December 30, 2006

December weather.

So far this winter, in New England (southern, but still New England!, with our share of snow storms!), we’ve had about five minutes of what appeared to be small hail. This is as close as we’ve come to having snow. So far.

Now, either this means OMG GLOBAL WARMING WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE, or Nature has some tricks up her sleeve for my [hope, wish, sacrifice to deities of academe] graduation at the end of May.

Meanwhile, a 41-square-mile ice shelf breaks free near the North Pole. Global warming it is!

December 24, 2006

Solstice and everything after.

We spent Friday-to-Saturday night awake, Ethan and I and Jennafer the Awesome Housemate and friend Dave, celebrating Solstice. There was cribbage and Futurama and coffee with Bailey’s and whiskey and talking and cheese! Omigod the cheese. I’d bought clochette for the first time (not at that site, locally – but isn’t that a nice photo?), and it was all that with bells on. Other cheeses too, St Marcellin and a Portuguese semi-hard goat cheese marinated in olive oil and herbs.

There was so much cheese that, when we had crepes the next morning, I did not want any cheese with my crepes. I’ll wait for the gasps of horrified wonder to subside.

And then we had a really slow and sleepy day, at the end of which some friends from Virginia showed up and we had pumpkin risotto made by yours truly. I love making risotto. If your ingredients are good (and mine included homemade broth, thank you Mr. Chest Freezer), it’s dead easy and deeply satisfying.

Now, I’m taking a headache break while five people finish up dinner – dolmas (oh yes, hand-rolled) and chicken biryani.

To summarize: I LOVE FOODIES.

Happy Light’s return, everybody.

December 21, 2006

Study: Psilocybin relieves OCD symptoms

TUCSON, Ariz. – A preliminary study of the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms has found it is effective in relieving the symptoms of people suffering from severe obsessive compulsive disorder, a University of Arizona psychiatrist reports.

Dr. Francisco A. Moreno led the first FDA-approved clinical study of psilocybin since it was outlawed in 1970. The results of the small-scale study are published in the latest edition of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Psilocybin is, as you will surely know, the psychoactive ingredient in mushrooms of the Psilocybe genus. The article above is a fun little read, and the Erowid link… well, Erowid may not be a “little” read, but is always fun and educational. :)

(If you follow the second link above and find the information interesting and well presented, won’t you donate to Erowid before the year is out? They are the largest online repository of information on psychoactives from caffeine to smart drugs to heroin; they do some great work, and are supported entirely by [non-governmental!] donations. Definitely a worthy cause to support.)

December 17, 2006

Emotional masochism.

I was in a relationship some years ago, which ended very, very badly. About half (no more, no less) of the blame for this lies with me.

Every once in a while I’ll go back and read what everyone involved, and not involved, wrote about the break-up. I have no idea why I do it. It’s painful and demoralizing, from two different sides. On one hand, I am still ashamed at how I’d behaved then. On the other, I reel with disbelief at how others behaved – the others who knew me but only heard the other side of the story, and the ones who didn’t know me at all. It’s one thing to support your friend, but I wonder if it ever occurred to any of them that I might be reading their comments, and if it did, whether they gave a damn about the human being who was their target.

Most of this has been resolved for a long time now, both explicitly and implicitly. Even the people I am angriest at, those who didn’t (still don’t) know me, are past. They were knee-jerking, protective of their friend, and also ganging up like children do in the playground. So why do I go back and read things that were written in anger, often by people who’d never met me? Why does this matter?

Most of the time it doesn’t. But I go back to re-read it every once in a while, knowing that it’s neither particularly productive nor good for me. This bothers me.

December 16, 2006

Ahhh, December!

It is 46 degrees F outside right now. That’s 8C. After sunset, in mid-December. The high to day was 13C (55F). Is this crazy?

Yes, it is, and a good time for a bike ride too. I went out to the East Bay Bike Path, on the other side of the Providence river and then along the bay. It takes a while just to get to the path, maybe forty minutes or so, maybe a bit less. From the ending point on that map, I went roughly 8.5 miiles each way, to Barrington, stopping for coffee and book reading.

20 miles or so, in four hours, including coffee break and strong wind on the way home. Bliss. Hopefully, though, next time I’ll remember to wear the bike shorts.

I’m trying to lose weight, by the way. Not stridently or anything, just by watching for a too-heavy reliance on convenient bread products – balancing them out with proteins, eating more veggies which is just not intuitive for me in the winter, being more conscious of whether I’m hungry or thirsty, as the latter sometimes seems like the former. Oh, and exercising somewhat (not as diligently as I’d like). Lately I’ve noticed a small budge toward the lighter side, but I feel better than I should for losing so little weight. Hopefully this means increased metabolism, and more healthy proportions of nutrients. Just in time to have some hot chocolate with Bailey’s!