An Exhausted Accounting

Remember that time back in December when I said I was going to start running again? Well, I technically did go running one night in the bitter cold of January. I didn't go too far, but it was far enough. I didn't pace myself at all so it was a horrible, freezing experience. I told myself that night that I'd start again when it got warmer because it is so much easier to go running when it's warm outside (of course, I couldn't go find a treadmill and run in the warm inside).

Well, it's been in the 60s for a few weeks now and my exercise nag started to act up again. Today while working on homework I started to feel myself slow down. I realized that it was the perfect solution to clear my head. I'd be able to get out and run around, come home, take a shower, and be ready to attack the homework again with renewed zeal. Almost impulsively, I put down my laptop, got on my running garb and headed out the door.

It's a beautiful day out there, truly. I realized while I was running that I didn't feel the weather around me. It wasn't cold, it wasn't hot and it was great to feel my body working hard and pushing itself again. I have a testimony of running, but I'm not converted to it enough to do it regularly. I can't argue with how good I feel right now, though. While I was running, I thought of how I could cut down on my sugar intake, because otherwise, I eat pretty healthy. I've been inspired by those around me who have taken measures to get in better shape and have seen great results from their hard work and I'd like to see some results myself.

So here's to a renewing of the goal I made in December. I'd really like to get into better shape than I was my senior year, the last time I consistently ran, in addition to other workout goals. I feel like I got run over by a horse right now, but hopefully by continually making an accounting to myself of how I'm doing on my goal, it'll eventually take a lot more to get me to feel that way.

Why I Will Never Like Poetry - or - Should I Be Studying English?

*Beware - Rant ahead*

As I've said before, science and I have never seen eye to eye. Similarly, poetry and I have never been the best of friends. However, contrary to science, it wasn't until just recently that I finally admitted to myself that I severely disliked poetry in almost all forms, be it rhythmic or free verse, sonnet or elegy. Although I must say that free verse frustrates me just a little bit more. The lack of structure stresses me out when I read it and can't fall into a rhythm, especially when a line ends but the sentence continues on the next which makes me start the whole phrase over.
Additionally, in my various forays into different kinds of literature and literature forms, I have found that poetry is the form which makes me ask most often "What is this supposed to mean?!" No matter how much time I spent poring over "Tintern Abbey," I just couldn't get the sense of what Wordsworth was trying to tell me in some passages, and that was using the language of "real men" that was so prominent in his time period. If you ask me, he felt nostalgic when he revisited this hill above Tintern Abbey and tried to express his nostalgia in words and lines. But my English professor wasn't satisfied with that. There had to be something more, something more meaningful, more deep, something more.....what? Why can't we be satisfied that Wordsworth was just being nostalgic? This is my core issue with studying literature so far.
Along a similar vein, in another class about writing our own criticism, we get scolded if our paper topics are too close to the "standard interpretation" of the text (thankfully short stories, not poems). But we still have to come up with something that lines up with the author's views and opinions, so in this case, anything really happy is out of the question. One of my paper topics was shot down because it was too "Pollyannaish" and too positive for the given author. This is a different argument, but how am I supposed to know what every scholar has been saying about these stories since 1923 or whenever it was published??? Anyway, back to finding deeper meaning behind short poems.
I get frustrated when we read a very short poem for British Literature and then have to write a journal entry about it explaining the key ideas that tie it into Victorian Literature, provide a critical response (whatever that means), and then pick several key quotes. I find this problematic because I firmly believe that some of the poems we have read were written because the author felt like it. They just had these words in mind that went well together and decided to write them down. In other words, not every piece of poetry written by a poet (even the most famous) can be applied to Victorian ideals, or Romantic ideals, or whatever. What's wrong with saying that they wrote the poem simply to entertain? Christina Rossetti said that her poem "Goblin Market" was written as a children's story. However, after having read a biographical sketch of her and other interpretations of the poem, one would be led to believe that many critics are discounting what she herself has said about her own works and then are putting words in her mouth about what the poem really means. I mean, I love literature, but this is too much.
But! I ate my own words (a lot of them) this past week while reading, ironically, Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market." In the biography preceding her poetry in my monstrous Norton collection of British Literature, it said that the poem is clearly not a symbolic retelling of the Fall of Adam and Eve. After reading through the poem (which was about 5 pages long, so this isn't really the same argument), I thought to myself, whoever wrote that biography is crazy! This is a blatant retelling of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the idea of redemption! I did exactly what I just shot down, I put words in Christina's mouth and told Norton off for misrepresenting her poetry.
So what do you do? It's also important to remember that my rant is unreliable because I've only been doing this for 2 semesters now. As far as finding new topics and the ethics of interpreting an author's intention...I'll probably either get over it or find out how it's justifiable. But finding a deeper meaning behind poems shorter than a page long? Forget it. I'm not sure I'll ever buy into it. No matter what anybody tells me, I'll always hold fast to the idea that a lot of poets wrote poetry simply because they wanted to. Or at least I'll take the poem at face value.

Now, academia, go crazy and deconstruct this post and find out what I REALLY meant to say!

Writing and Progression

And speaking of academic
written criticism.....

Last week in my English class about writing criticism, we were discussing the editorial and revising process. Among other things, our teacher noted that, as a work, our papers will never be "finished." To quote her exactly, a paper is not a product, it is a process. She used an example from her own life when she sent a so-called finished and ready article to a journal only to reread it, horrified at what she had submitted. The paper was no longer done and more changes were in order to improve the quality and style.

I think our own lives are much the same way, especially in our spiritual progression. We can never say we are "done." After working on something in a specific area of our life (or paper), when we step back and look at the big picture again, we'll surely find something that could use a little tweaking, some rewriting, or maybe the removal of a major paragraph or habit. The finished product we're working toward won't really be finished and thoroughly refined until after this life. But we can get as much of a head start as possible right now through another process called repentance. This is really comforting for me when I get weighed down by all the things I'm doing wrong, or worse, doing wrong over and over again.

The encouraging thing is that our "papers" don't have to be perfect to be acceptable. God isn't going to send us back a piece of paper with all things that are wrong in our current "draft" and tell us to come back when we've fixed them all. God knows we aren't perfect and all we have to do is try our best to keep improving. A friend pointed out to me that in the oft-quoted scripture in Moroni which says to "Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him," perfection is mentioned after coming to Christ. It doesn't say to become perfect and then we can come unto Christ, because we will never become perfect without Him. That means that I can reword and revise my draft as much as I need to for as long as it takes me until I can get it perfect. When will that be? I have no idea. But I am so happy and grateful that it's possible.

In Control...For Now

It's occurred to me that I don't have to have interesting things to say in order to make a blog post, nor do I have to go on and on as I tend to do when I have a subject I really feel strongly about. I can also write about the mundane or the everyday things in life, because I think those are good too and are more interesting in their own way. They can also be short.

Everyday Thing #1
For the past few days I've had the great feeling that I've really been in control and on top of my classes and homework and it's a GREAT feeling!! My typed-up "To Do" list shrinks at the appropriate times, papers are being written, readings are being read, tests are being studied for, I've found my rhythm for the semester. This is weird for me because usually it always feels like I'm drowning (which it did for the past couple of weeks, it is true) and like I'll never surface but, for the moment, I have! I have and I'm trying to enjoy it for as long as it lasts before all my midterms start (or triterms would be more accurate in some cases, as there are three intermittent tests in lots of classes nowadays) or whatever may happen that causes me to start to fall behind again. Here's to hoping that moment never comes!

On Feeling Pensive and Opening Up

Tonight I went to a volleyball game with an old friend from my freshman year. We were supposed to meet up there with a few of her friends, watch the game, and then head to her apartment and watch a movie. We've done this before and she is one of my favorite friends to spend time with and especially to watch movies with because she reacts in the right spots and always makes just the right amount of comments. Last time we watched a sappy Nicholas Sparks novel-turned-movie and we made snarky comments every few minutes. It's rather enjoyable.

Tonight our plans shifted a little bit. A new friend from one of her classes came to the game with us, but I wasn't too worried. The original plan still held, as far as I knew. After the game, he said we were both invited to his apartment to hang out with some other people and we'd decide from there what would happen. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but I've known for a while that I need to try to break my bubble, put myself out there and meet some new people. Here was a perfect opportunity. Still a bit unwilling, I agreed to go. He offered to drive us both there so we wouldn't get a boot in his parking lot. This was very nice, but it made me uncomfortable since I wouldn't necessarily be able to leave early if I wanted to. But in the name of friendliness (or a lack of it on my part) I just went along.

Now, the funny thing is.....nothing really went wrong. Nothing happened that made me want to run screaming from the room. There ended up being about 9 people there, which is not exactly what people would call a large party. It wasn't even a party. Nobody was rude to me at all, nobody said anything offensive, I was making nice conversation with a few people, they were asking me questions, everything was relatively normal. But the whole time, I just felt really uncomfortable. I wished and wished that my friend and I had been able to watch a movie at her apartment like we had originally planned. We started playing a board game that really required getting out of one's comfort zone. My discomfort skyrocketed. I knew one out of nine other people and the tasks of the game were really embarrassing. The thought finally formed in my head in words what I had been feeling for about 20 minutes. "I want to get out of here. I want to be at home. Alone."

My freshman year of college, I would have loved this sort of thing. I was all about meeting new people and making as many friends as I could. I liked to run around and do stupid things like spray mustard on random people's windows with a large loud group (I was only 18). Friends of friends became my friends. My Facebook friend count escalated. I liked to play crazy games that would let me show off a bit.

So tonight, I'm feeling pensive. To make sure this is what I was really feeling, I looked up the adjective in the dictionary. This was the second entry:

expressing or revealing thoughtfulness, usually marked by some sadness.

I'm feeling pensive. I feel very philosophical which is laced around the edges with a slight bit of sadness. Two and a half years later, I feel no need to meet anybody new. There are even people in my life that I knew before that I have no desire to see again. When I first came home from my mission, I thought this was a normal thing and that it would pass. Now, however, I know that although it is normal, it is not going to pass. I've discovered that I'm an introvert and while many people who know me wouldn't label me as 'shy,' I don't need a lot of people around me to be content.  I 'gear up' for life by being alone. Being alone is what 'recharges' me. And if I'm not alone, being with some or all of my small group of 10 or less close friends is all I need. In addition, when I'm with those friends, I'm perfectly content just sitting around and talking or playing a board game (one of the suggestions for tonight was a scavenger hunt with a pre-written list of things to do. Get 3 strangers to serenade you? I almost died).

Meeting new people and being the first one to be friendly and say hi, for me, feels very vulnerable. I usually end up replaying the scene in my head, hashing out all the dumb things I said and then wonder what that person thinks of me. It's hard for me to really 'be myself' around people and let them see what I really think and act like. And, in my brain, I don't see any reason to open myself up to vulnerable situations when I already have enough people who I know care about me and like to spend time with me. The rest of the time I enjoy being alone.

So in my uncomfortable situation tonight, when I really started to yearn for my dingy apartment, I announced before rolling the die that this would be my last one. It was. I got up and awkwardly left after my turn. Nobody else left. My friend stayed there. I declined a ride from the kid who had brought us there and said I would walk. It really wasn't far. While walking to my car, all the thoughts I just wrote out went through my head again. Those people were very nice but I have no desire to see any of them again (except for my friend I originally went to the game with). I don't need to. For some reason, this makes me feel a sweet kind of loneliness. Upon arriving home and being in my room - alone - I felt comfortable and happy again. Will I eventually reach out and make a few new and, hopefully, close friends? I hope so. But for now, I'll probably just eat a sandwich, watch an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore show, read a little bit and then head to bed. Let the real charging up begin. Alone.

A Terrible Experience Relived...Or Nearly So

If you know me at all or if you have spent any amount of time around me in the past three months, you know two things:

                     1. Science and I have never been friends.

                      2. Last semester I had a Biology class that nearly caused me to lose my mind with frustration until I hit a point where I stopped caring completely and totally.

Without going into too many details, suffice it to say that material covered on tests did not accurately reflect in any way what was covered in class, to the point that I wanted to hurl things at the professor and the TAs. It's an established fact: it was one of the worst, one of the most drawn-out, one of the most painful experiences of my life. Period.

In contrast, this semester I do not have any classes that will not be useful to me in someway in the future - not one - be it in my career choice or more advanced classes in my chosen field of university study. One of the courses this semester is a once-a-week British Literature class that lasts two and a half hours. With my regular work schedule and because of other prerequisites, this was about my only option for this class even though it was definitely not my first choice, but we do what we have to.

Last Wednesday was the first class period. On Tuesday at about 4:00 PM I received an email from the professor of this class welcoming us all to the world of Romantic and Victorian Literature. The syllabus was also attached along with a large reading assignment and a short (1-2 page) response paper due the next evening. This was odd, but what I found odd wasn't necessarily the fact that we had an assignment due the first day, rather it was the volume of the assignment and the fact that we had about 24 hours to do it in in addition to all of my other homework. But, I said to myself, that's college life! I read through the syllabus and spent a few hours on the assignment, although I still only did three-quarters of the reading, opting to read the huge summary of the Romantic Period and writing an overview of it and neglecting to read two pieces of literature written by authors of that period.

This evening I got to class and the professor instructed us to pull out a sheet of paper first thing. "We're going to have a little quiz," my professor said. Hmm. I immediately regretted not having read the two assigned readings and was about to pay for it on the first day of class. But it turned out that the quiz wasn't on our readings...

"Question number one. What are my office hours?"

What? Are you kidding me? I'm supposed to have retained your office hours, of all things on that syllabus?! That's why I have this thing, so I don't have to memorize your office hours!

"Question number two. What is my attendance policy?"

This is a joke.....why would I be worried about the attendance policy before the class even starts?? I mean, I had read over the entire syllabus, including the attendance policy, but I was a little more concerned with what kind of assignments we would be getting and what the weekly workload would look like, wasn't I??

The quiz continued. "How many children do I have? What is my late work policy? What are your reading journals supposed to look like?" And on and on for ten questions. This is outrageous, I thought to myself. If this is any portent of things to come in this class, I'm dropping it this very evening. Where had I experienced this before....? Ridiculous questions, no way of knowing on what we'd be tested...it was Bio 100 all over again!!! But...but this is supposed to be British Literature!

I felt that familiar sensation right around the bottom of my ribcage, as if a literal substance called anger or temper were rising up through my body and, unchecked, would come out of my mouth in the form of unrestrained, insulting fury. There is no way I'm staying in this class, absolutely no way! I started to think of other free times in my week when I could look for a British Lit class at home this evening when the time came to correct our quizzes. This is unbelievable, I thought. Who tests their class on the syllabus before anything on it has been explained?! Of all the stupid and pointless things to have to commit to memory!

Then, in a split second, my professor went from being cursed over and over in my mind to an elevated position rarely attained by any teacher I've had (well maybe not that high...)

"Of course I'm not quizzing you on the syllabus! Quizzes on reading material are stupid and only show a lack of trust between the professor and the student. If you say you've done your readings, you've done them! And if not, well....we'll see that in the papers and on the tests."

A wave of relief spread over my mind and heart and I'm sure my facial expression lightened considerably. Bless this man, this antithesis of my biology professor and all her ideals! I wouldn't have to drop the class at all!! In the hour that followed (we got out early since it was the first day and all), I not only was glad that I wouldn't have to drop the class, I was really looking forward to keeping the class and looked forward to some of the assignments and readings. With only two papers due and no silly quizzes on the readings? I don't think British Lit is going to be bad at all.

Every academic writer needs to read this....

If you've ever been frustrated with the language of so-called academia, then you ought to read this essay by George Orwell. It's long but good. I even laughed out loud a few times. Every textbook writer, every essayist, every academic journalist, every professor should read this.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Now look at this part of an essay that we had to read in another English class:

You will observe that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to betransmitted to our posterity — as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown, an inheritable peerage, and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises,and liberties from a long line of ancestors.
This policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection, or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above it. A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Besides, the people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free, but it secures what it acquires. Whatever advantages are obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims are locked fast as in a sort of family settlement, grasped as in a kind of mortmain forever.

 What?

 I am pretty sure this one thing that George Orwell is talking about. Needless to say, with six large pages of this to read in tiny print....I didn't get all the way through it.