Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Twitter

I made my first ever successful hollandaise sauce today! Every sort of eggs benedict: here I come! (Especially since I can poach eggs, now, too.)

Monday, March 29, 2010

A Game!

Ever since Wystan linked to a Wordle of his dissertation, I've been intrigued. Here's a game, which amuses me, if no one else:

Here are some Wordles I've made of things I like:

1. A poem.

2. Another poem.

3. A rather obscure work of political theory (I'm a nerd).

4. A less obscure work of political theory.

Guesses?

Twitter

































I love all crunchy foods!

On the Proliferation of Rights

I saw this protest at Georgetown Saturday and speculated with one of my colleagues what they might be protesting (no one was yelling over the megaphone when I walked by). Not knowing the point of their protests, I was annoyed by their manner of protesting. It isn't as if people chained themselves symbolically to things as a manner of creating a spectacle in the past (although I'm sure that these Georgetown kids aren't the first ones to do so)--no, people chained themselves to things so that the police couldn't remove them (at least not quickly). I'm thinking here of Margie's grandmother in Margie, who had chained herself to the White House to argue for women's suffrage. But this Georgetown chaining seemed to be pure spectacle and novelty for its own sake--it wasn't like their protest was difficult or painful or that they might get thrown in jail. No, they were amusing themselves by making a scene.

I mean, I don't know, perhaps they feel that having to walk off campus to get a condom is a severe infringement on their rights. But it seems silly to me to put this "right" beside voting for women or the civil rights movement in the 60s, which are weighty and important issues.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

An Early Eulogy for RSVPing


I think that RSVPing is dying, in part due to things like Evite and Facebook events (where you can change the content of your RSVP every day if you like, and where you can RSVP up until the event itself), and, more than that, to our last minutely spontaneous, waiting-for-a-better-opportunity culture. My personality is not well suited to this century. An RSVP is a commitment--I will attend this event, even if an event I like more comes up. It seems like it isn't well suited to the types of events that people commonly attend today--our events are fluid and amorphous, and I was born without the flexibility gene. Alas.

Friday, March 26, 2010

On Texts in Political Theory

I went to a wonderful talk last night on the state and future of political theory by Arlene Saxonhouse. After she gave a history (from the 50s forward) of political theory's moves and its relationship to political science as a whole, she turned to Strauss, Arendt and Shklar as examples of thinkers who primarily focused on something besides disciplinary debates, and who looked to great texts in order to confront the real-world problems that they faced. (She picked up Plato's metaphor in The Republic and said that the texts were the stars at which these thinkers gazed.)

She cautioned against "using" texts--making texts into a perspective on a certain questions. She suggested that, instead, texts should be a resource with which we grapple when thinking about contemporary issues. She emphasized thinking about questions over getting answers, implying that the problem with someone like Rawls is that he offers all of the answers, instead of examining the questions in all of their complexity. She said that her interaction with texts is a leap of faith, that she doesn't know in advance that they will make her think more deeply, but trusts that they will.

Her talk brought up an important point (without really suggesting an answer): on the one hand, she pointed to the way in which the political theory canon develops, and its expansion to include literature and films. On the other hand, she cautioned against seeing everything as a text, or the democratization of the canon, where all resources are viewed as equal.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Rant

I've returned their first big paper back to the class I'm TAing. The professor I'm TAing for is looking for a higher range of grades (mostly A's and B's) than I'm used to assigning (for other professors, it's been A's and B's and C's). Regardless, the inevitable meetings with students afterwards take all my patience and strength.

It's one thing when students ask me how they can improve their writing for the next paper. That's perfectly fine--I enjoy helping students with their writing.

What the majority of students do is not this. They explain to me that they've worked really hard on their papers (giving me unnecessary details--how hard you've worked isn't really relevant here--the quality of your work is), maintaining that they're disappointed with their grade, implying that I'm the disappointment. I imagine, although I'm not sure, that these students treat their TA's much worse than they would their professors. They act as if I owe them an A, and any points that I take off of their paper I need to explain (when in fact, a good paper is something like a B+, while it is only a very good paper that earns an A).

When I explained to one student what his paper was lacking, he told me that next time he'd draw up an even more detailed outline that we would go over so that something like this wouldn't happen again. Goodness gracious! When helping students with their outlines I give them the absolutely best, most helpful advice I can. But I'm not writing their papers. Additionally, every contingency is not going to occur to me--a written paper often contains errors that I didn't anticipate. My job is not to help them get an A. I'm with Plato--not everyone is going to get an A, even if he works really, really hard.

What is most amazing is the condescension. I am simply someone who is standing in the way of an A. I am not a teacher to these students. The point of the class, for them, is not knowledge.

Oh for the day that I will command as much respect as Fr. Schall. I remember the day that some confused freshman expressed some anxiety about his grade in Schall's class. Fr. Schall looked at him with surprise and dismay and said, ever so kindly and firmly, "Oh no, don't worry about that." It was as if he was chiding the student for being vulgar.

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Best Part about North Carolina

... is that the only running trail I've found so far is called the American Tobacco Trail.

Monday, March 15, 2010

"He majored in International Relationships and Spanish." --Stearns (she meant International Relations)



















I wish I dressed like this! That's totally a brooch (or several) on her necklace!

How to Make Me Angry


Uh-Oh. This ranks with the Chesterton essay from "What's Wrong with the World" in producing ire in me (first, the uber-long quotation; then, my ire):

"The woman who marries, intending at all costs to retain her own career, or who absolutely refuses to be dependent on her husband, does not know the meaning either of Christian marriage or even of true human love. If she is in love with anybody, it is with herself. Marriage means abandoning one's self to enter into one new life, shared with her husband. There cannot be two "careers" where there is only one life. Nor can there be independence. For man and wife are dependent upon one another for everything. Where there is love, all joy or pleasure that cannot be shared, loses its value. There is no need here to give the true name of such unions where independence of life is insisted upon, but that should not prevent clear thinking as to their nature. Further it must be remembered that as regards their work and their place in civil society, husband and wife are in different positions. The husband has a direct connection with the civil economy, the wife integrated into it only through her husband. To put it another way: husband and wife form one unit; and the wife's role in that unity is to assist her husband, not to rival him; she must be an accompanist as regards his public life.

St. Paul's exhortation to wives to be subject to their husbands as the Church is to Christ, raises much comment. Let it be noted that the husband whom St. Paul wants a wife to be subject to is one who, he insists, must love her so much, that he is ready to lay down his life for her, and who actually does give his whole life to her. One must understand what this "subjection" really means. A woman does not lose her personal liberty or freedom or dignity in marriage. She is not bound to obey her husband's every request if it is not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to a wife. She is not a minor, not immature, nor incapable of judgment. As Pius XI says, this subjection merely forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place of love.

The wife is not her husband's servant. They are partners. They complement and supplement one another. She has a right to her own opinion and her husband ought to take cognizance of it. It is not because he is the more expert or more intelligent, or has the better judgment or the greater courage, that the ultimate decision is his; for in fact, the contrary is often the case. The real reason is because where there are two minds in partnership, someone must take responsibility for their work; God has made the husband the responsible partner; therefore he must have ultimate authority.

He has the grace of state. This is a notion that has been lost sight of in the world today, but which is of essential importance in the spiritual life. It comes to this in practice. Where God has appointed someone to decide things for others, those others may securely follow his decisions where they are in accordance with reason and inside the limits of allowed authority; and they may be sure that God's providence will adjust itself (or has adjusted itself, if one prefers to look at it that way) so that in the long run, things work out for the best as so decided. This is not inspiration, although it often does mean a special help to decide correctly. But it is one way of finding out the will of God, and putting one's part in life in perfect harmony with the rest of His providential symphony.

[...]

The true woman rules by submitting; she humbles her husband by the generosity of her love. She strengthens him by her dependence, she builds up his character by throwing responsibility upon him; she is queen of his heart by her love. Now the woman who leaves her throne to do by masculine crudeness and guile what she cannot do by feminine love and tact, admits her own incompetence, and in the modern phrase, "let's herself down," very, very badly. Not only herself, in fact, but also her husband. Not only her husband, but also Christ. For in refusing to be subject to her husband or to be loyal to him, she is also refusing to be subject to Christ or to be loyal to Him. And her plans and achievements of this sort always go wrong in the long run; for she is working against God. The harm done by such a policy is incalculable.

[...]

It is here that many souls err. They see the spiritual life as a service of God, and so it is. But they imagine that the principle value of their service is found in the results they achieve; whereas in God's eye the result - the increase from their sowing - are the fruits of His goodness and His grace and of His Son's merits and sufferings. As far as that particular soul is concerned, it is rather the love that should inspire the service, that God is seeking. And to make things worse, it often happens in the service of God, that those who are seemingly zealous for His service are really serving themselves. They are pursuing their own career. Their zeal is not so much for God's glory as for their own. They resemble those modern wives who insist on having their own career. They are living their own life - not the new life in union with Christ."

- Eugene Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, 321-324, 365

No one should retain their own career at all costs. Clearly family comes first! Following his logic, shouldn't the man give up his career, too, in order to experience dependence on his wife? Goodness gracious: "Where there is love, all joy or pleasure that cannot be shared, loses its value." First, the comma in that sentence bothers me. Second, actually, while I most certainly love Wystan, this does not diminish my pleasure in artichokes, cauliflower, chocolate and mint together, shellfish (actually, I don't know how much I've ever liked shellfish), and the many other foods that he doesn't like.

The woman is the heart and the man is the head?! Men are intelligent and rational, but at least women are caring? (This just makes me think of that great silent movie, Metropolis: "The heart is what joins the hands and the head.") The only gendered synechdoche that I'm okay with is synechdoche that refers to actual gendered body parts.

I'm always thankful for Ephesians 5:21 in discussions of submission: "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Arlington and Henry Adams

From Henry Adams' charming Democracy:

"In a thoughtless moment Carrington had been drawn into a promise that he would take Sybil to Arlington. ... [T]hey set out together, choosing the streets least enlivened by horse-cars and provision-carts, until they had crept through the great metropolis of Georgetown and come upon the bridge which crosses the noble river just where its bold banks open out to clasp the city of Washington in their easy embrace. Then reaching the Virginia side they cantered gaily up the laurel-margined road, with glimpses of woody defiles, each carrying its trickling stream and rich in promise of summer flowers, while from point to point they caught glorious glimpses of the distant city and river. They passed the small military station on the heights, still dignified by the name of fort, though Sybil silently wondered how a fort was possible without fortifications, and complained that there was nothing more warlike than a 'nursery of telegraph poles.'"

I think that the small military station may be Fort Myer!

Second Hand Quote

"Don't let someone tell you you're wrong in there. You're the expert. You know more about this particular topic than anyone in the room, including your illustrious advisor." --Claes Ryn (he was the advisor. HT: JBL)

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Tonight I ate quail at Huong Viet, which is located at something I'd never noticed before--a remarkable collection of Asian shops and restaurants called the Eden Center at Seven Corners. I also had Vietnamese coffee for the first time, which was delicious--it was a strongly brewed, bitter coffee with sweetened condensed milk mixed in it (and I usually don't like milk in my coffee). Highly recommended.

The Finishing School (Spoilers)

Muriel Spark's The Finishing School is an intriguing novel about a student at a contemporary finishing school who writes a novel and the older teacher who is obsessively jealous of this student. The novel that the student is writing is about a murder committed by a jealous man. At first, you think that the older teacher (who is also writing a novel, as well as teaching a creative writing class) is going mad. Then you realize that the student novelist is sort of mad. Later, the two end up together in a civil union. In the process, Sparks explores the role of artistic control over one's characters (the young student controls his artistic creation, but also seeks to control the teacher).

All of this is framed by Aristotle's assertion in the Poetics: "A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end." Sparks doesn't start at the beginning--she begins midway through the action, in the middle of the teacher's creative writing class, when the teacher is emphasizing the importance of setting the scene through an example about writing about the weather. It isn't until the middle of the book that you get the beginnings (and peeks into the end [those who don't like spoilers may not like this book]). And the end of the book stops with a broken phrase from the beginning of one of the students, whose become a meteorologist,'s weather report. Throughout the entire novel, Sparks plays. Even the title is a play on endings (which the student also struggles with about his novel).

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Spring Break

Wystan and I have been watching lots of The Office over spring break. Mostly I don't care for it (too awkward), but sometimes I find it funny ("Beer me the water," and Andy floating away in the sumo wrestler suit in the lake, saying, "It isn't complicated, Angela. Just look at what I'm doing and go tell someone it" [she doesn't]). I'm really upset that no one's ever compared me to a nice character in the office.

Myrrh and Frankincense said I was Dwight a while ago ("Question: ..."), and Wystan has lately become sure that I'm exactly like Kelly (this is a lot like being called Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, which has also been done to me).

What I'm Eating


Or Foods I'm Addicted to at the Moment:

1) Egg drop soup. This has always been my favorite part of Chinese food, but I was always too scared to make it myself. Until I stumbled across a recipe for egg drop soup containing sherry, which Whigwham had recently brought over. Serendipitous (or something). Egg drop soup satisfies my desire for warm liquids--so easy and delicious (plus, I like making whirlpools, which is why I've taken up poaching eggs). (The recipe I use calls for noodles, which I've never tried; once I did add couscous, which was good, although I'd just as soon not add them.)

2) Cabbage sauteed in butter. I don't know that I ever had cabbage in butter until Elizabeth Bennett made it on New Years, when she mixed it with halushky. The cabbage that she made was so wonderful that I continue to chop it up and eat it with nothing but butter. (I eat green cabbage; I ate a red one once and didn't think it was as good; plus, it stained everything and stuck to the pan.)

Twitter

My wii fit age is 40. Also, it said I have terrible balance and asked me if I find myself falling when I walk.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Congrats to Lawrence!


Here's to Lawrence, who does us all proud, and to my friends moving to beautiful places that I then get to visit.

Don't be confused: I'll be spending all of my summers with you guys!




Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Mixed Metaphors.1

I am starting a new occasional series to document my use of mixed metaphors, which especially amuses Stearns and Wystan, and is a great shortcoming in my use or abuse of the English language.

Today, I said to Wystan that I was "wide-eyed and bushy tailed"--("bright-eyed, Emily, it's bright-eyed," he responded).

When I was little, Stearns made fun of me constantly for a time because I said (when I was very angry at her), "Wake up and smell the roses!"

Crime and Punishment

I "read" Crime and Punishment on audiobook on my commutes up and down from Durham (in order to avoid a second catastrophically high ticket [incidentally, I didn't end up having to pay the first one, which is just about the luckiest break I've ever had]). Crime and Punishment was a terrible choice for lent--lent is difficult and depressing enough without spending 24 hours inside the head of a murderer teetering on madness. (This reminds me of my mother who used to fast, but never prayed while she was fasting: "God said to fast and pray--He didn't say we had to do both at the same time.")

After I was only four hours into Crime and Punishment, I stopped at a gas station to get swedish fish. I was so messed up from only four hours of listening that I was pretty sure I was the worst human being alive and that I was going to rob the convenience store.

Oh my goodness, though--the Epilogue, or maybe it's just the last 10 minutes--are as profound and filled with grace as anything I've ever experienced. Literally five minutes after I finished the 25 hours, I went to confession (I figured I would want that after feeling as dirty and terrible as I did throughout the book). However, the ending is such a wonderful experience of love and healing that piling confession on top of that was really amazing, but for a different reason than I had anticipated.

Crime and Punishment, even when it was depressing, was one of, if not the most, profound works I've ever "read." Dostoevsky's exploration of the relationship between theory and practice (and his undermining of the theory through an experience of the practice) seems to me to be exactly what art is supposed to do--to call "us to the things of this world," as Wallace Stevens says about love. Perhaps it's only because after 24 and a half hours of depressingness, even a decrease in the amount of depression feels like ecstatic happiness (this is true, right?--the man who is forgiven much, loves much), but the ending feels like pure bliss.

This book is genius.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Dissertation Proposal.5

I'm filling out the dissertation proposal graduate school form. One section is: "Problem or Hypothesis: State clearly the research problem you intend to investigate. You should be able to define your problem or hypothesis in no more than 100 words." Another section: "Procedure or Method: Briefly describe how you plan to investigate the problem you have identified."

Goodness gracious--surely whoever made this form was a scientist.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Funny Comments at Brunch

"There are a lot of Cathlo-anglics at Duke."

"Pennsylvania is the Texas of the mid-atlantic."

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Dinner Party.12



















I realized lately that a large percentage of the enjoyment I get out of dinner parties is due to Fr. Schall--what a completely charming and witty man! The other night, the Stearns-meets-Fr. Schall dinner party was no exception.

For instance: "Do you girls think Peter's too skinny?" (about another Jesuit priest, when he stopped eating)
Fr. Peter: "I'm too skinny?! You're too skinny!"

On girls wearing boots: "The fact is that some girls can just wear anything and some girls just can't wear anything at all."

When I asked him if he's ever tried his hand at fiction: "Not before I met you!"

On someone's canonization: "Peter getting his Ph.D. will be the second miracle."

And the list goes on. The men provided excellent company and wit, and the women provided excellent food. Stearns' focaccia is a Little Gidding dinner party staple (especially since I'm no good at dinner parties; biscuits with me are about a 50/50 chance). Hopkins made blood orange ice cream (it was pink!) with brandy caramel sauce, which was amazing. I made a roast and asparagus and couscous. Oh, and red velvet whoopie pies (at the request of Sr. Margarita Aloysius, which I've vowed never to make again--they're exactly like chocolate whoopie pies, but you add a bottle of red food coloring. This seems like it would neither be particularly health conscious, nor economically efficient. And yet, there is something incredibly delicious looking about the dark red color they become. I really can't describe it.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

On the newly coined word, "prehab"--preventive rehab: "'It’s such a Hollywood word,' he said. 'I mean, that word doesn’t exist in Ohio.'”

I love it. Ohio as the measure of reality.

What Makes Man Different from Animals.13

Very little, according to Machiavelli:

"The classical writers, without saying it explicitly, taught rulers to behave like this. They described how Achilles, and many other rulers in ancient times, were given to Chiron the centaur to be raised, so he could bring them up as he thought best. What they intended to convey, with this story of rulers' being educated by someone who was half beast and half man, was that it is necessary for a ruler to know when to act like an animal and when like a man; and if he relies on just one or the other mode of behavior he cannot hope to survive.

Since a ruler, then, needs to know how to make good use of beastly qualities, he should take as his models among the animals both the fox and the lion, for the lion does not know how to avoid traps, and the fox is easily overpowered by wolves. So you must be a fox when it comes to suspecting a trap, and a lion when it comes to making the wolves turn tail."

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Twitter

I would like a secretary.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Pasta Headaches

Am I really the only person who suffers from pasta headaches? Whenever I eat just pasta for dinner (i.e. lots of it), I get a headache.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Fabulous Things I Heard on the Radio

"Your Florida side is calling."

You don't even know. My Florida side is repressed. My Florida side has just been teased this year.

Top 5 Reasons to Love Say Anything

1. I have a weakness for any films in which a central character can't stop talking (see also: Margie, An Apartment for Peggy, and all of the Woody Allen movies I've ever seen).

2. Lloyd's relationship to his nephew is adorable: Lloyd: "Hey my brother, can I borrow a copy of your 'Hey Soul Classics'?" His nephew (who's about three years old): "No, my brother, you have to go buy your own."

3. I love that there's actually a movie called Cocoon about a bunch of old people who go to outer space. I really want to see it.

4. Lloyd Dobbler's too big coats are amazing; Lloyd Dobbler's name is amazing.

5. Lloyd is some kind of localist agrarian. Lloyd: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."