Day 1

Spending large amounts of time on an airplane is…fun. It also means that your sense of time becomes completely skewed. Today, after arriving, my body is convinced it is in Los Angeles, North Carolina, and New Zealand, all at the same time. Besides that, no confusion whatsoever.

Today’s highlights:

Walking around the park where I once slept under a highway overpass, and noting the new wall now separating said overpass from said park.

Exploring the university campus and getting completely and utterly lost. Then getting un-lost. Taking comfort in the similarity of library catalogs worldwide.

Discovering that the window in my hostel room does not shut, and enjoying the mildly wintery gusts of wind sneaking in through the 4-inch (9-centimeter?) gap, plus the beak of the inquisitive sparrow perched on the ledge.

Mince pie from a small coffee shop called Seattle Espresso, where I met a man whose brother is currently doing research in North Carolina (related to me with no prior mention of my homeplace).

New Zealand accents. And attractive New Zealand men in line at customs.

Good stuff, all. Research proper to commence tomorrow. I forgot that everything closes at 5 p.m….

1 day to Aotearoa

Today is packing day. After submitting my work project at 1:15 this morning, everything is a bit fuzzy on the uptake, but things are going in my bag, and they’re probably things I need.

Probably.

Thoughts of the morning

It feels strange to be digging out my polypro and wool socks and gloves while it’s a steamy 95+ degrees outside.

I am going to New Zealand tomorrow.

Very glad I realized the passport I had copied for my parents was the (expired) temporary one, not the one that’s current. Would have been bad to get to the airport and realize I had the wrong passport. *shudders*

I am going to New Zealand tomorrow.

There are a thousand and one things I “should have” read to prepare for my research. And have not read. And I’m still going to New Zealand tomorrow.

I know I will forget things. And I’m still going to be in New Zealand.

Aahh!!

Yay!!!

Aahh!

And there you have it. Pre-trip mental state 101. Gotta love it.

Words, words, words

I love words. So just for a moment, I want to exercise my geekiness rights and point out something fascinating.

Reading an article for my NZ research today, I stumbled across a new word I didn’t know: pleonasm.

It refers to an excess of words used to express a sentiment, sometimes as a rhetorical device, other times evidence of prolixity (tee hee).

At first I thought I was confusing it with another word I did know: neoplasm.

Neoplasm is another word for a tumor, an excess of cells, sometimes benign, sometimes malignant.

Both words are of Greek origin, but not the same Greek origin, pleonasm stemming from pleon (more/enough, from ple-, a similar prefix to poly-), and neoplasm from neo (new) + plasma (formation).

My observation of these two words is completely irrelevant both to what I was reading and to any other functions in my life; however, it is exceptionally fascinating. N’est-ce-pas?

Only…now it’s really bothering me that I don’t know a term for the relationship between those two words. It’s not homophone…what is it???

You are failing me, Google. You are failing me.

Research – T minus 15 days

I think today for the first time, it hit me that I’ll be traveling to New Zealand on a research grant in just over two weeks.

Yikes.

Can I say that again?

Yikes.

Thanks.

All of a sudden, “plenty of time” means very little. The stack of books I was supposed to have read seems very large. And my relative ability to speak coherently to individuals in an informal interview setting seems extraordinarily low.

Nonetheless, I will be departing in 15 days. Ergo, the map-examining, timetable-plotting, and various document-copying becomes as rampant as slouching teenagers in the mall in July. Ergo, the reading list is undergoing a transformation. No more of this science fiction business.

-Said, On Exile
-Shakespeare’s Drama of Exile
-New Zealand Drama
-A Theatre in the House
-Post-colonial Drama

The list goes on. And archives. Lots and lots of archives. Stay tuned for more information. Aaaaand….Go.

zzzz…

Huh?

You mean these things don’t absorb into my brain while I sleep and produce a fascinating and brilliant commentary that is pre-packaged in a thesis-sized envelope?

Dang it.

I think I’d better think it out again…
I am reeeeviewing…duhdle duhdle duh…the situation…

Broken Glass and Knobby Cloth

“My shop burned down this week. But…”

This from an elderly man who had just shown me a black-and-white photograph in a frame with cracked glass, displaying an old-fashioned weaver’s loom that had belonged to his mother, and on which he had learned to weave as a boy.

I was at a local farmer’s market and had stopped to run a finger over the assortment of brightly colored woven rugs which, he told me, were made from rejected drapery/other material (“seconds”).

Unless I can afford to buy, I tend not to linger for long at any one booth. Mainly because I get the uncomfortable feeling that I’m raising the seller’s expectations of a sale. But this time I was curious.

He showed me the little knobs on some of the rugs from the sewn toes of woolen socks. He pulled out a few rugs to show how a flaw in the colors of the original fabric had turned into a beautiful pattern in his rugs. He told me about the woodworking he did on the side, and showed me the woven-wood seat of the chair he’d been sitting on.

He told me that he’d been weaving for 30 years, since his retirement. That he’d first learned from his mother. That there were so many unhappy people, and this was what he wanted to do. He took a craftsman’s pride in the array of colors and patterns he had designed.

And then he said, “My shop burned down this week. But…”

But he was still there. Still expressing a love for what he did. A joy in what he had created and what he could share with passersby, like me, who took a moment to stop and listen.

His rugs were lovely, and I’m hoping to get one eventually, but even more than that, listening to his story reminded me how many times fear of what people will think or assume causes me to miss out on something precious or fail to honor something beautiful.

It’s the Little Things

Sometimes all it takes is the successful prevention of a ginormous black snake from eating an adorable tiny bunny.

Allow me to illustrate.

1.
(bunny) [BUSH] (snake)


(Jen)

2.
(bunny)[BUSH](snake)

o-pebble
(Jen)

3.
(bunny) <——- [B0USH] ->(snake)
|
|
v
(Jen)

(Also known as the expansion and transformation of an isosceles triangle into a scalene triangle.)

(Better known as) Not on my watch, Mr. Racer. Not on my watch.

Use Your Words, New England

Although the precise moment at which one leaves “the south” and enters “the north” is far from definitive, one thing is certain: it’s a long drive getting there.

Road trips are always an adventure, and spending more than 10 hours in the car in a single day is bound to add humor to otherwise mundane elements of life. For example, road signs in New England are a fascinating study.

As I road-tripped (not to be confused with the act of stumbling over uneven pavement, a verb which I have never personally enacted) to Boston last weekend, we stopped for gas somewhere in western New York. The Food/Gas/Lodging signs did not indicate, until you had merged onto a concrete-bordered, no-turns-for-three miles side road, that the gas station indicated on the sign was, in fact, three miles off the interstate.

In the meantime, we wound through a wooded, quaint community with a church and a hodge podge of businesses. Standard fare. What was not so typical were the back-to-back yellow warning signs proclaiming, “Falling Rocks Zone” and “Deaf Children Area.”

First thought: the community did an incredibly poor job surveying the road-crossing area before building a school for the deaf.

Lest this be seen as an anomaly, Boston took the signage to a whole new level with:

Caution
Seniors

and

Slow
Deaf Children

And we say grammar, punctuation, and enunciation don’t matter…

But Boston was quick to redeem itself for its grammatical ambiguities via another set of signs found at the Haymarket farmers’ market: strawberries, 2 quarts/$1; peaches, 8/$1. Just around the corner at a small festival, the plethora of signs reading Free Samples didn’t hurt either.

Good job, Boston.

If all signage fails, like the long stretches of roads in Pennsylvania that detail excessive speeding penalties without ever telling the speed limit, the clouds can always be counted on to provide distraction, interpretive material, and the laughter which, when combined with coffee, makes road trips so much fun.

Be a Woman

Ever since I watched Nine a few weeks ago (and aided and abetted by the fact that I’ve been periodically listening to the soundtrack since then), several of the songs have taken turns getting stuck in my head: Fergie’s ‘Be Italian’ and Nicole Kidman’s ‘A Very Unusual Way’ are vying for top pick.

And in a very unusual way, thoughts of this movie, with its complex commentary on the roles defined for women, keep intersecting with thoughts of Ultimate Frisbee.

I told you, it’s unusual.

Being a woman who enjoys playing sports and is competitive comes with a few complications. I enjoy being a respected part of a co-rec team and treated as an equal when my performance merits. I also appreciate recognition that I am a woman (*news flash!*).

This is where it gets tricky. To play sports well does not make one masculine, and, no matter how socially accepted the phrase has become, it is not a compliment to say, “You don’t play like a girl,” or “We don’t think of you as a girl.”

Here’s the thing: “You play well” or “you’re more aggressive than most girls who play recreational sports” delivers a similar message, but leaves out the association that feminine = ‘not good at sports’ and masculine = ‘good at sports.’ The same statement could apply to any number of other designations limited in popular imagination to either men or women.

Drat. Now I’m sounding like a feminist, aren’t I? Well, maybe I am. With qualification.

“Feminist” is a word that has taken on epic and negative connotations, some deserved, some not. I like to think that it is possible to be a respecter of persons–seeking equality, not a flip-flop that places women on top, and encouraging mindfulness with the words and phrases that reinforce stereotypes and create unnecessary contradictions like,

  • I am a woman.
  • I am competitive/brainy/independent.
  • Women are not competitive/brainy/independent;
  • therefore, I must choose one part of my identity and discard the other.

To be honest, I think more people would acknowledge this syllogism to be false than take the effort to avoid language that reinforces it. It’s a challenge for women as well as men.

To be fair, it is also a challenge to cultivate both an independent, tough, competitive (fine, aggressive) side and a relational, gentle, refined side, and I have a tendency to neglect one or the other; however, it’s a challenge, not an impossibility, and I hope one day the most natural words of commendation on a sports field, or in other settings now dubbed “masculine” or “feminine”, will reflect this fact.

Go team!

I’m done! Linus celebrates by…

Well, I survived year one of graduate school. Halfway to the masters! Woohoo!!!

Now on to a summer full of research, reading, working, sunbathing, traveling, dancing, and…dead computers. Huh. I don’t remember that on the “I can’t wait until I can–” list.

The laptop I was given by the graduate school (Linus) has always had a strange fondness for power outlets. I get that. Not everyone feels confident trusting a battery for life and automatic updates. It’s okay, Linus, really. There is no judgment here.

But this week, the handy-dandy AC adapter given to me by the graduate school has also gone kafritz. And by that I mean dead. Linus lasted about 6 minutes (his average), and then went into power cord withdrawal and promptly shut down.

*cue ominous music*
*cue epic battle footage*
*cue Darth Vader breathing*
*cue Ian McKellen voice-over*

“…the battle for Helm’s Deep is over. the battle for Middle Earth…”

Okay, so maybe that was more epic than I intended. Point is, the I.T. center can’t give me a new one; I would have to buy it for a substantial amount of money. Point is, the graduate school says they won’t replace it because it counts as an extraneous part. Point is, I’m not buying either the new adapter or that explanation.

You give me a computer to use for two years – it’s already two years old, and the battery is shot. You won’t replace the battery, fine, but without an adapter OR a battery, it’s useless. If I’m paying to go to your graduate school, and one of the perks is a free computer, then the logical assumption is that–sans abuse or mistreatment or extreme circumstances–said computer should be usable for two years. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Grrr…

Fight face on.

This is a matter of principle.

…to be continued…

Today’s Recipe

Recipe for today’s goal:

Ingredients
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Bill Cain’s Equivocation
Pandora’s Broadway musicals
Very quiet campus

Directions
Stir
Bake for 11 hours

Makes (I hope!)
1 topic
1 thesis
8 or more pages of writing

Outcome to be determined. Not a family favorite at this point…