Can this blogger be the first – with the exception of my professor, the Most Adorable Medievalist ever - to suggest an immediate linguistic reversion to Middle or Old English? Think how awesome this would be! For one, we would get to use thorns, eths, ashes (diagraphs roughly analogous to th, th, and ae, in that order), which already makes Old English about ten times cooler than the contemporary variety. But, I hear you say, if I wanted to do that, I'd just move to Scandinavia! Fair enough. I wish I could do that myself.
There are, however, still more possibilities: just think of the verbs! Middle English had this absolutely amazing tendency towards strong verbs - that is, verbs with irregular past participles. Instead of help, helped, had helped, we'd have help, halp, had holpen. Awesome, no?
And just think of the adjectival possibilities! And the nouns! Forget saying: "I knew that I wasn't really crazy," with Middle English, you can freely tell your friends "I wot that I nere passing wood." AND THEN THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER.
Also, nonstandard spelling means I no longer have to be concerned that one of my writing students turned in a comment card last week that said: "your doing good as a teacher." Sigh.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
On Marriage
I am not gay. But some of my best friends are.*
I was lucky enough to be born into what now strikes me as an unbelievably liberal family. My parents are both firm believers in the idea that you create your own family and so even though I am biologically related to an entire town in the flat Midwest, most of my "uncles" and "aunts" were actually my parents' friends from grad school. As a child, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D and Aunt C and Uncle F and Uncle J and Uncle R were all scientists. More importantly, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D lived together, and so did Uncle J and Uncle R. It wasn't until I was older, and slightly more indoctrinated into our contemporary** pop culture that it even struck me that one of these things was not like the other.
Of course, by then, I had my own problems. I was fourteen, and in love for the first time with my best male friend. We got on great, had painfully emotional, pseudointellectual conversations, and tried desperately to convince ourselves that our conversations were terribly grown up. We dated for a while, and discovered that sometimes good friends make terrible significant others. We broke up and I spent a good few months wishing him back. Then, he came out. The conversation took place (as so many of them did) over MSN messenger. "I'm gay," he told me. Those two words, then silence. I said the only thing that came to mind, the only thing that seemed even remotely right. "I know."
In a way, I did. At least, I'd suspected, even while we were dating. My parents certainly did. With those words, though, I was trying to say more than just, "I am cognizant of your homosexuality." I wanted to tell him, "I'm okay with this. You're my family. You will never change for me. I still love you." Lucky for me, he's always been good at understanding what I'm not saying.
It's six years later. We still live only fifteen minutes apart. We go food shopping together. He wants me to move into his house next year, once one of his roommates graduates. We talk online, still. We plan our perfect dates. We plan our perfect weddings. He wants kids. He's become much more serious, these past few months, much more adult. He's still my biggest cheerleader when things go wrong, and when they go right.
When I get married, whenever*** that is, he'll be standing next to me. My best man, my man of honor. Maybe he'll cry. I hope so. I am grateful that we live in a state where hopefully, maybe, I'll one day be able to do the same for him.
Everyone should have that right.
This post was written in response to the "Write to Marry" initiative. If you are registered to vote in California, vote 'no' on Proposition 8!
*Ha ha, see what I did there, rhetorics of privilege & exclusion?
** Read: homophobic and misogynistic
*** ...if...
I was lucky enough to be born into what now strikes me as an unbelievably liberal family. My parents are both firm believers in the idea that you create your own family and so even though I am biologically related to an entire town in the flat Midwest, most of my "uncles" and "aunts" were actually my parents' friends from grad school. As a child, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D and Aunt C and Uncle F and Uncle J and Uncle R were all scientists. More importantly, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D lived together, and so did Uncle J and Uncle R. It wasn't until I was older, and slightly more indoctrinated into our contemporary** pop culture that it even struck me that one of these things was not like the other.
Of course, by then, I had my own problems. I was fourteen, and in love for the first time with my best male friend. We got on great, had painfully emotional, pseudointellectual conversations, and tried desperately to convince ourselves that our conversations were terribly grown up. We dated for a while, and discovered that sometimes good friends make terrible significant others. We broke up and I spent a good few months wishing him back. Then, he came out. The conversation took place (as so many of them did) over MSN messenger. "I'm gay," he told me. Those two words, then silence. I said the only thing that came to mind, the only thing that seemed even remotely right. "I know."
In a way, I did. At least, I'd suspected, even while we were dating. My parents certainly did. With those words, though, I was trying to say more than just, "I am cognizant of your homosexuality." I wanted to tell him, "I'm okay with this. You're my family. You will never change for me. I still love you." Lucky for me, he's always been good at understanding what I'm not saying.
It's six years later. We still live only fifteen minutes apart. We go food shopping together. He wants me to move into his house next year, once one of his roommates graduates. We talk online, still. We plan our perfect dates. We plan our perfect weddings. He wants kids. He's become much more serious, these past few months, much more adult. He's still my biggest cheerleader when things go wrong, and when they go right.
When I get married, whenever*** that is, he'll be standing next to me. My best man, my man of honor. Maybe he'll cry. I hope so. I am grateful that we live in a state where hopefully, maybe, I'll one day be able to do the same for him.
Everyone should have that right.
This post was written in response to the "Write to Marry" initiative. If you are registered to vote in California, vote 'no' on Proposition 8!
*Ha ha, see what I did there, rhetorics of privilege & exclusion?
** Read: homophobic and misogynistic
*** ...if...
Thursday, October 2, 2008
It's ironic...
... that one of the best scientific, engineering, and technical universities can't work it so I get consistently good wireless in my room, which oh-by-the-way is all of thirty-five feet from a router.
... that my first instinct after taking a test I may or may not have failed is to say "that's it! I'm never going to that class again!"
... that for the amount of time I seem to spend in Hayden Library, I've never actually borrowed a book from there.
... that as much as I like writing, I am straight-up balls at maintaining a blog.
... that my first instinct after taking a test I may or may not have failed is to say "that's it! I'm never going to that class again!"
... that for the amount of time I seem to spend in Hayden Library, I've never actually borrowed a book from there.
... that as much as I like writing, I am straight-up balls at maintaining a blog.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
On Poetry
I walked into the room from the cold, wet and bedraggled, looking not entirely unlike roadkill. Penguin was lying on the couch, watching the Fugitive, I think. Outerwear (poorly chosen for the weather, might I add) was shed, bags were dropped, kisses were exchanged and the question was asked:
"How did the test go?"
An sheepish smile. "I drew a cupcake."
In sum, the less said about this test the better. In my defense, though, the cupcake was very cute, and was saying "I'm healthy and delicious! I bet you can't say that about Amperean loops!"
I also composed a number of haikus, which I will now share.
Physics. Can it be a
a love-hate relationship?
I don't feel the love.
Partial credit saves
my grade. Sadly there isn't
much to save. Thanks, TEAL.
Two physics courses.
Two ways to phail. The gods of
GIR are cruel.
Oh Eric. In chairs
your little legs don't reach floors.
Stunted by physics?
and finally...
Were I a hooker,
I would only need physics
for sex and stuff.... yeah....
These haikus brought me to an interesting discussion with Penguin about my favorite verse forms. Actually, the conversation was more along the lines of whether I loved him (a definite), loved haikus more than him (a toss-up), limericks more than him (negative, except for that one about the man from Nantucket). Sestinas and triolets, it was established, were worthy of a higher love than he could elicit. I do like highly structured verse, but largely as an intellectual exercise - rarely does it elicit in me the same depth of feeling that well planned blank or free verse can; the forms are simply too emotionally restrictive. A challenge, perhaps?
Thoughts?
"How did the test go?"
An sheepish smile. "I drew a cupcake."
In sum, the less said about this test the better. In my defense, though, the cupcake was very cute, and was saying "I'm healthy and delicious! I bet you can't say that about Amperean loops!"
I also composed a number of haikus, which I will now share.
Physics. Can it be a
a love-hate relationship?
I don't feel the love.
Partial credit saves
my grade. Sadly there isn't
much to save. Thanks, TEAL.
Two physics courses.
Two ways to phail. The gods of
GIR are cruel.
Oh Eric. In chairs
your little legs don't reach floors.
Stunted by physics?
and finally...
Were I a hooker,
I would only need physics
for sex and stuff.... yeah....
These haikus brought me to an interesting discussion with Penguin about my favorite verse forms. Actually, the conversation was more along the lines of whether I loved him (a definite), loved haikus more than him (a toss-up), limericks more than him (negative, except for that one about the man from Nantucket). Sestinas and triolets, it was established, were worthy of a higher love than he could elicit. I do like highly structured verse, but largely as an intellectual exercise - rarely does it elicit in me the same depth of feeling that well planned blank or free verse can; the forms are simply too emotionally restrictive. A challenge, perhaps?
Thoughts?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
On Frustration
There's plenty, here, to frustrate. Sometimes, as you walk down the halls of the 'Tvte, the air practically thrums with stifled ambition. There are students, of course, freshmen who just failed their first test; seniors who just failed their fiftieth (it hurts just as much every time, believe me.) There are grad students and post-docs, whose research has officially stalled for months at a time. There are, of course, the faculty, who are presumably all heartily sick of people failing classes and screwing up experiments. You've heard, I presume, of palpable tension? Probably thought it was merely a cute descriptive phrase. Well, tension is palpable. I've felt it.
It feels sticky.
The problem is that the 'Tvte functions primarily as a pressure cooker; and this particular pot roast takes four years to cook. I don't use pressure cookers frequently - I hate pot roast and firmly believe that meat should never be cooked until its proteins break down past the point of mastication - but I understand that the point is that you don't just turn the damn thing on or off whenever you feel like it - you gotta keep it under pressure, right, or it just won't be pot roast. To push a metaphor way, way past the breaking point, MIT likes its students well done, and I prefer my meat on the rarer side. Once again, I go head to head with the halls of higher learning. Past conflicts include: sleep (I am a fan, the administration clearly is not); class (I believe that there are better things to be doing after 3pm on Friday or before 12pm, well, ever); grades (I understand that theoretically, As on tests are possible. I just wish they were possible for me).
There are less than twenty days of class left in the semester, so most of the tension I'm currently palpating is academia-related, wherein those around me realize that, sure, you got an A on that test if you turn it upside-down and squint, but the likelihood of the TA repeating that exact process when entering your grade into the system... not so likely. Ergo, panic.
The frustration manifested itself in my friends and me last night as we sat in the depressingly lit fifth floor of the student center, trying to crank out an 8.02* p-set in under four hours (did it work? Not. At. All.) Basically, we all ended up sitting around one of the low coffee tables that someone, somewhere once convinced themselves students would be able to do work on, squawking at each other. Yes, you heard it. One of the fundamental identities in electromagnetic physics is that flux, or phi, is equal to the magnetic field (B), multiplied by area (A) and the cosine of the angle from the horizontal. In other words, BAcos(theta). BAcos! BAcos! Try saying it out loud.
We're all, very slowly, going insane.
It feels sticky.
The problem is that the 'Tvte functions primarily as a pressure cooker; and this particular pot roast takes four years to cook. I don't use pressure cookers frequently - I hate pot roast and firmly believe that meat should never be cooked until its proteins break down past the point of mastication - but I understand that the point is that you don't just turn the damn thing on or off whenever you feel like it - you gotta keep it under pressure, right, or it just won't be pot roast. To push a metaphor way, way past the breaking point, MIT likes its students well done, and I prefer my meat on the rarer side. Once again, I go head to head with the halls of higher learning. Past conflicts include: sleep (I am a fan, the administration clearly is not); class (I believe that there are better things to be doing after 3pm on Friday or before 12pm, well, ever); grades (I understand that theoretically, As on tests are possible. I just wish they were possible for me).
There are less than twenty days of class left in the semester, so most of the tension I'm currently palpating is academia-related, wherein those around me realize that, sure, you got an A on that test if you turn it upside-down and squint, but the likelihood of the TA repeating that exact process when entering your grade into the system... not so likely. Ergo, panic.
The frustration manifested itself in my friends and me last night as we sat in the depressingly lit fifth floor of the student center, trying to crank out an 8.02* p-set in under four hours (did it work? Not. At. All.) Basically, we all ended up sitting around one of the low coffee tables that someone, somewhere once convinced themselves students would be able to do work on, squawking at each other. Yes, you heard it. One of the fundamental identities in electromagnetic physics is that flux, or phi, is equal to the magnetic field (B), multiplied by area (A) and the cosine of the angle from the horizontal. In other words, BAcos(theta). BAcos! BAcos! Try saying it out loud.
We're all, very slowly, going insane.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
On Choices
I'm crossing the grey concrete expanse of the main campus, when I walk into a concrete pole. I'm not really looking where I'm going - I'm too busy reading. My head stings, and not for the first time, I wonder what the hell I'm doing here.
I'm not the only one wondering. Recently, I've taken to dying my hair a somewhat alarming shade of magenta - yelling at me about my hair is the only thing that distracts my mother from questioning my life choices. It seems a fair trade, especially since the dye washes out, and I'm currently rather attached to my life choices, specifically my choice of major, specifically: writing.
This is the part that gets blank stares, the point in every conversation where "so what course are you?" comes careening into view and I say, sometimes nonchalantly, sometimes with an embarrassed sort of half-shrug, "21W." Half the time people don't even know what that is, or need confirmation, as though they're worried they misheard and could offend me by treating my statement as fact. "So, um... is that... [and here their voice drops] writing?" they ask.
Yes, yes it is.
Now, I didn't apply to an enter MIT with the express intention of studying writing. (Who does that?) Up until July of last summer, I was firmly and whole-heartedly a 7* and 5** major, then just a 7 major when I realized Course 5 was the devil's science. And then, in fits and starts, it struck me. I'm good at science. I'm very good at science (it's not bragging if it's true, right?). I have good hands; I make experiments work. What I'm not good at is lecture classes. I actually and officially suck at lecture classes. If they could, I expect that most of my professors would probably send me emails along the following lines:
Dear Telomere,
You fail hardcore.
Sincerely,
MIT Faculty and Staff
So there's that. Lectures and tests and your standard p-set a week format just don't do it for me the way writing does. I will happily write ten to twenty pages a week, but when it comes to learning a sheet of reactions for a 5.12*** test, my brain just shuts down.
As a scientist, I was miserable. As a writer, I'm happy, mostly. Putting it like that, of course, it seems so facile, which most major life decisions never really are. But basically, it boils down to this.
*Biology
** Chemistry
*** Organic Chemistry
I'm not the only one wondering. Recently, I've taken to dying my hair a somewhat alarming shade of magenta - yelling at me about my hair is the only thing that distracts my mother from questioning my life choices. It seems a fair trade, especially since the dye washes out, and I'm currently rather attached to my life choices, specifically my choice of major, specifically: writing.
This is the part that gets blank stares, the point in every conversation where "so what course are you?" comes careening into view and I say, sometimes nonchalantly, sometimes with an embarrassed sort of half-shrug, "21W." Half the time people don't even know what that is, or need confirmation, as though they're worried they misheard and could offend me by treating my statement as fact. "So, um... is that... [and here their voice drops] writing?" they ask.
Yes, yes it is.
Now, I didn't apply to an enter MIT with the express intention of studying writing. (Who does that?) Up until July of last summer, I was firmly and whole-heartedly a 7* and 5** major, then just a 7 major when I realized Course 5 was the devil's science. And then, in fits and starts, it struck me. I'm good at science. I'm very good at science (it's not bragging if it's true, right?). I have good hands; I make experiments work. What I'm not good at is lecture classes. I actually and officially suck at lecture classes. If they could, I expect that most of my professors would probably send me emails along the following lines:
Dear Telomere,
You fail hardcore.
Sincerely,
MIT Faculty and Staff
So there's that. Lectures and tests and your standard p-set a week format just don't do it for me the way writing does. I will happily write ten to twenty pages a week, but when it comes to learning a sheet of reactions for a 5.12*** test, my brain just shuts down.
As a scientist, I was miserable. As a writer, I'm happy, mostly. Putting it like that, of course, it seems so facile, which most major life decisions never really are. But basically, it boils down to this.
*Biology
** Chemistry
*** Organic Chemistry
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