So I’m reading War and Peace and MAN
I got NOTHING out of this when I read it the first time.
I suppose story time is in order, here.
Back in 7th grade I made a list of about 150 “classics” that I wanted to read. My current “250 Books” list is an extension of that original list. I don’t know why I made this list – I probably just wanted to look smart – but I started working through it immediately, selecting books that our junior high library had.
One of these books was War and Peace.
Now, I don’t remember if I decided to read it first and then the kid I liked (Lead) decided to read it as well or if he decided to read it and I chose to read it because of that, but somehow we both ended up reading it at the same time. I don’t know where he got his copy, but I had the junior high library’s copy, which was this massive tome of a thing where the text was in two columns on each page (like a dictionary). I took this thing everywhere and read it at every opportunity with the sole goal of just getting through it and showing Lead how smart I was (he actually never did finish it and I did, so that’s kinda cool I guess).
But I remembered NOTHING from it apart from the fact that one of the main characters was named Pierre.
Now in my defense, there ARE a lot of characters in War and Peace and they all have very Russian names. And if you’ve ever read any Russian lit, you’ll know that one dude can be referred to by like seven different names. So that was rough.
Also, I don’t know what translation I had, but I have a feeling it was one of the worse ones. I can’t blame my lack of comprehension entirely on the translation, but it’s worth noting that I was reading other books around this time that were objectively “as hard” or “harder” vocab- and grade-level-wise compared to War and Peace (e.g., Of Human Bondage, As I Lay Dying, The Bridge of San Luis Rey) and had no problems understanding those. So.
Anyway, let this be a gentle prompting to revisit books you read in your youth (especially any of those “classics” that you HAD to read for a certain class) and give them another chance. Perhaps you’ll find something you really enjoy.
OH GOD THE MATHEMATICIANS FOUND SOME GOOD CHALK
I HATE the feeling of chalk on my hands. I fortunately haven’t had to use it very much due to how I lecture (I put partially completed notes up on the doc cam and fill them in with pen…sweet, sweet, glorious pen), but when I was a TA most of the lab rooms just had regular chalkboards and I had to deal with that.
It gets EVERYWHERE. Maybe this Japanese chalk is different, but I would get out of lab just COVERED in chalk dust. Hell, the notebooks I used when I TA’d are still coated in chalk film.
Blegh.
Longest Run Update: 23 Miles!
WOOO!
Can I add another 3.2 miles to this to get to the marathon? It’s finally feeling doable, y’all.
OH GOD EVERYTHING HURTS
JESUS these booster shots mess me up. I’m not feverish this time, but every joint in my body hurts so badly that any sort of movement is very uncomfortable. My muscles are sore too (it hurts to breathe, haha), but my joints are definitely getting it the worst from this most recent shot.
The good: it only lasts for about a day or so, at least from past experience
The bad: it better only last a day, because tomorrow I have to run 23 miles. Right now I feel like I just fell down three flights of stairs.
Bugh.
VAXXED TO THE MAX
Nate and I finally got our COVID bivalent boosters today. Which is great, because it means better protection against COVID, but sucks because I’m SURE I’ll get some nasty side-effects for at least the next few days. I’m ready for it.
Edit: annnnnnd a migraine. Great. But it’s the first migraine I’ve had this year, which is actually pretty good. I was getting them weekly for a while there.
La fin
So today was the last day of French class. The class was super fun and very informative. We went over a lot of the little grammar nuances in French that I didn’t get from Duolingo. At the same time, the vocab bank I’d gotten from using Duo really helped me during the course, especially at the beginning.
I don’t know if I’ll take the next course in the spring, since I’ll also be teaching AND my mom will be coming up for a month or so, but if I don’t, I’ll definitely take it in the fall. I’d love to get the certificate.
WOO!
WBC
I think my favorite thing to come out of the World Baseball Classic this year is the absolute bromance that’s developed between the Japanese team and the Czech team. Ohtani wore a Czech hat and now EVERYONE is wearing Czech hats, haha.
Also, the final showdown between the US and Japan was pretty great. I know some people are very critical of the WBC (for things like the Diaz injury), but it’s enjoyable to watch and probably a lot of fun for the players.
Hey How I Tile
So in the division between mathematicians and statisticians, I still firmly place myself in the “statistician” camp, as I feel that I could discuss several statistical topics at a graduate+ level (especially things like regression, SEM, multivariate analysis in general, etc.), but I cannot say the same thing about math.
With that in mind, I enjoy the idea of tessellation to the fullest extent of my understanding of it – which is not that deep.
So when I heard this, I got really excited!
An “einstein” is an aperiodic monotile, which means that it is a single shape tiles the plane but does so without a repeating pattern. Apparently a true one has never been found before this. Check out the link above for a better description than I can give, or watch this interview with one of the co-discoverers, Craig Kaplan.
Cool!
Thoughtz
If the star sign of Aquarius was a band, it would be Animal Collective.
Fight me.
You can’t tell me that the bright chaos of FloriDada isn’t mad Aquarius energy.
Y’know…
All this stuff coming out about long covid, increased risk of heart issues after infection, how your chances of long covid (and DEATH) increase with each infection…
…And people are still just wandering around in indoor crowded spaces without masks, pretending that everything is pre-2020 and that there’s not this airborne virus circulating around everywhere.
We are a dumb species.
An Experiment:
So I want y’all to listen to this song (especially if you don’t spend a lot – or any – time on TikTok:
Done?
What emotion or general feeling did that evoke for you?
Was it XTREME NOSTALGIA?
I’m just curious, because currently there are a lot of videos going around on TikTok where this song is being used as the background sound and the video is just a slideshow of pictures of late 80s, 90s, early 2000s stuff.
I’m curious if the nostalgia trigger is the music itself or if it just triggers nostalgia because I associate it with those slideshows.
On the Right Track
I just got an email today saying that my tenure track renewal got accepted!
Obviously that’s not as exciting as GETTING ACTUAL TENURE, but it’s good to know that a) my application was good enough to grant an extension should I need it, and b) now there’s, y’know, an extension in case of unusual circumstances that prevent me from actually applying for tenure next year.
This notification is also a lot earlier than the timeline said it would be (it says mid-May), but maybe they do the renewals at a faster rate than the actual tenures.
ALSO, I did a LOT of work to create my application packet; it will be the same things that I’ll need to submit for tenure (with some more info added, of course, based on what I’ve done this past year), so a big chunk of that work has already been done and I don’t have to worry about starting from zero in the summer.
YAY
New Compy!
ALLO, NERDS!
So I finally got a new computer a few weeks ago (my old one was from 2015 and the Online Learning Era pretty much murdered it) and just got around to setting it up. I also got a giganto new monitor.
LOOK AT THIS BOX!
LOOK AT THIS MONITOR! Cup for scale.
Edit: Yo, I changed my cursor size to the “Andre the Giant” setting and it’s HUGE. I love it so much; I think I’m going to keep it like this.
Book Review: Treasure Island (Stevenson)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: It was impossible to read this without hearing each character in the voice of the Muppet (or human) who voiced them in Muppet Treasure Island. Captain Smollett? Kermit. Mr. Arrow? Sam Eagle. Long John Silver? Tim Curry. Squire Trelawny? Fozzie. I was actually surprised at how closely Muppet Treasure Island followed the actual book. I realize this is more of a review of Muppet voices than anything, haha, but I did enjoy the book! Needs this scene, though.
Favorite Part: Ben Gunn. He was an enjoyable character.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Mill on the Floss (Eliot)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: Of the George Eliot works I’ve read, this is probably my least favorite. I didn’t hate it, but the characters weren’t as engaging as those in Silas Marner or Adam Bede. In some parts Maggie is insufferable (but isn’t that the case for all of us?), but her secret relationship with Philip was genuine and sweet. I also like how she almost seems to “lose her way” given her circumstances, but comes back to her senses despite the consequences she must face. I felt a lot of sympathy for Tom, too.
Favorite Part: I loved Maggie’s and Philip’s walks in the woods. Like I said, that felt like the most genuine and interesting part of the story to me.
Rating: 6/10
Notorious O.M.G.
AYOOOOOOOOOO so there’s a tweet going around (or at least there was) that was prompting people to state their favorite song from each of Coldplay’s albums.
SO LET’S DO IT
- Parachutes: Shiver
- AROBTTH: Clocks (I think this was the first Coldplay song I ever owned)
- X&Y: Fix You
- Viva La Vida: Viva La Vida
- Mylo Xyloto: Paradise (but a VERY CLOSE SECOND is Us Against The World. That is such a painfully beautiful song)
- Ghost Stories: O
- AHFOD: Everglow
- Everyday Life: When I Need A Friend
- MOTS: Human Heart
GREAT(?) BRITAIN
So Great Britain is playing in the World Baseball Classic today and bruh.
These jerseys.
(source)
It’s like someone’s aunt was in charge of making these and she just bought those iron-on letters from Michaels or something and stuck ‘em on there.
Edit: HAHAHAHA THE “T” FELL OFF
Best response: “Not the first time Britain has been impacted by the loss of “T””
Edit again: This thread is the best.
Tell me something:
Have you heard of the movie “The Full Monty?”
I’m asking because, at least in my experience, this seems like a fairly obscure movie that most people haven’t heard of. I’ve never heard anyone reference it or even refer to it in passing. I always thought it was just some one-off British comedy that was made and then just fell out of sight.
Apparently, though, it was in the running to win Best Picture (and several other Academy Awards) in 1997. It was beaten out by Titanic.
And, according to Wiki, it was the highest-grossing film in the UK until…Titanic.
That’s…that’s wild. Do any of you remember this movie at the 1997 Academy Awards? Because I certainly don’t.
Wild.
Look at this destructive baby
She loves to murder rolls of paper towels.
(Don’t worry, we don’t let the towels go to waste; we save them and use them to clean up her pukes and other gross things.)
Time Before Land
HEYOOOOOOOOOOO so did you watch (and love) The Land Before Time as a kid?
I did.
But I never watched any of the 10+ sequels.
Lucky for us, though, Alteori did, and she’s got hilarious reviews of all of them in a big YouTube playlist.
Her review of the first one is pretty chill, but they get more hysterical as the movies get worse. Her laugh is infectious.
Batty
Jeff McNeil is so underrated.
That is all.
Book Review: Lorna Doone (Blackmore)
Have I read this before: Okay, I SWEAR TO GOD I’ve read this before. I distinctly remember propping the U of I Library’s copy up on the elliptical machine at the rec center back in, like, 2007. I swear. But I did NOT remember this book at all, apparently. So.
Review: This is a long-ass book for a relatively simple plot, in my opinion. It meanders all over the damn place at the start with little John Ridd, but I guess it kind of has to in order to set up his back story and socio-economic status. And there’s surprisingly little Lorna Doone for the first portion of the book given that the story is named after her. I guess we get a bunch of her later in the book, though. Am I bad for picturing the Doones like Cletus and his family from The Simpsons?
Favorite Part: This freaking duck part. It sticks out so much from the rest of the book, hahahaha:
“Thereupon Annie and I ran out to see what might be the sense of it. There were thirteen ducks, and ten lily-white (as the fashion then of ducks was), not I mean twenty-three in all, but ten white and three brown-striped ones; and without being nice about their color, they all quacked very movingly.
…
Annie began to cry ‘Dilly, dilly, einy, einy, ducksey,’ according to the burden of a tune they seem to have accepted as the national duck’s anthem; but instead of being soothed by it, they only quacked three times as hard, and ran around till we were giddy.
…
Therefore I knew at once, by the way they were carrying on, that there must be something or other gone wholly amiss in the duck-world.”
(It’s just so freaking random)
Rating: 5/10
Am I avoiding work by doing a survey? Yes. Yes I am.
1. What’s the coolest item you’ve found at a garage sale, flea market, etc.?
Man, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve gone to a garage sale. I think we found a funky hot pink chair at a garage sale when I was a kid.
2. Describe how your day went yesterday.
Meh. It was a day. I was busy as usual.
3. Do you have issues with people entering your personal space? What do you do when your personal space is violated?
I do NOT like people in my personal space, probably because I have a bad history of people going in my spaces when they shouldn’t be. I just want some area that I can call mine and that no one goes into when I’m not there and/or when I don’t give them permission; I don’t know why that’s so hard. My grandma (the evil one) used to snoop around in my bedroom when I was a teen. Peter also used to go down into the basement at my dad’s house (which is where I lived when I was getting my math degree/teaching at the U of I) and snoop around down there. Stay the hell out; that’s my space.
I don’t currently have my own private space (apart from my office I guess) and that drives me nuts. I have an area of the house that’s sort of become mine, but it’s the dining room, basically, so it’s exposed and does not involve any real privacy.
I reiterate: I do NOT like people in my personal space.
4. What is the one meal recipe you think you’ve mastered?
My broccoli/penne/feta thing. I’ve been making it consistently since 2009 when I lived in Vancouver.
5. If you could take back something you did to someone, what would it be?
I would have taken back how nice and submissive I was to Jessica when she was trying to destroy my relationship with Rob. I would have absolutely gone off on her; I really don’t know how I didn’t.
Yeah, I’m petty like that.
6. Would you describe yourself as spiritual, religious, or something else?
I’m atheist. None of that “spiritual but not religious” nonsense, either.
7. Did you ever receive detention in school? What sort of kid were you in school – bookworm, smart kid, troublemaker, quiet … etc.
I had detention once in 8th grade when I was making fun of perfect squares. Other than that, though, I was relatively quiet and (until high school at least) a very hard worker.
8. When’s the last time you ran a mile? How often do you exercise?
Exactly a mile? It’s been a while. At least a mile? Yesterday! I exercise every day because it’s the only thing that keeps me sane.
9. What would you say to your 16-year-old self, and why?
“You are garbage and will always be garbage.” Why lie, after all?
10. What are you avoiding?
I’m procrastinating like hell on a few things I need to do to get ready for teaching. I also still have some French homework to do.
11. Describe a “Hah! I told you so” moment you had recently.
I actually can’t think of one off the top of my head right now.
12. What’s more important, where you live or what you do for a living? Why?
For me? It’s what I do for a living. I love teaching math/stats and could probably do it anywhere.
13. Swear words: Are you pro or con? Why?
I swear a LOT, haha.
14. Paper or plastic? Do you prefer to pack your own groceries?
I get plastic at places that still have plastic bags available because the bags work great for Pepper’s litter trash can (and the trashcan in the bathroom) and prevents us from, you know, outright buying plastic trash bags. But a lot of places up here don’t offer plastic anymore, so I prefer to use my reusable Safeway bag. And yes, I prefer to pack my own groceries.
15. Do you have a shoe fetish? How often do you buy new shoes? Do you ever get rid of a pair of shoes?
I’ve never understood the shoe fetish thing. But I do buy a lot of Kinvaras because I burn through a pair (500 miles) about every 4-5 weeks.
Eigenblogger 