11 Tishrei/ 29 September 2009

I finished “World War Z” in the morning. Verdict: good and fun book. Some stories more interesting and powerful than others but they all connect very well to paint a picture of a global crisis and dealing with a large disaster. Very realistic scenarios, painting the best and worst of human nature. I enjoyed reading it. It would be great when Bear reads it to, since he was sampling it when he was here on Sunday. I love it when we read the same book and then talk about it.

I then spent the next several hours commenting on rough drafts for Paper 2. I decided just to give very general comments on them. This is the first year we need to comment on Paper 2 rough drafts which I think is a bad idea and not just because it is extra work for me. Students would depend on us more and not learn from each other as much. So just minimal comments this time. It took less time than I thought to do Section 28 rough drafts, so I had time to go to the city in the evening. Conclusion from reading these papers: I need to focus on the connections between quotes with my kids; they don’t know how to relate one quote to another in a specific way.

I also went to the post office to renew my passport. I can’t believe I’ve had my passport for ten years now and need a new one. Last time, I was getting ready for a semester abroad in London and I got my citizenship and passport just in time for the trip. This time, I just need to renew it. I had all the documents and photographs ready, all I needed at the post office was the money order and to mail my envelope. In my post office we have one window that specifically deals with passport pictures and passports but I really didn’t need anything there that other post workers couldn’t do: issue money order and send envelope. However, one post office guy at the other open window was allergic to anything passport related and made me wait until the passport window was available while he helped customer after customer. It was frustrating to wait in front of the line knowing that he really could have done it, he just didn’t want to and there was nothing I could do but wait and let others pass me. Well, at least I can bitch about it.

The new “Speculum” came (a journal of Medieval Academy of America). I read a really fun Patrick Geary article “What Happened to Latin?” This was his presidential address and his main point was really about the need to include and entice amateurs and others interested in medievalism like businessmen and architects to the Academy and not just limit it to the professionals who are heavily specialized. He used Latin and its trajectory as a language in the Middle Ages as an example. He called the essay a “brief and unscientific survey of the fall of Latin” as the main language of communication. (872) I found it a great survey mostly because I never thought about Latin and its use as a language of communication and its interactions with other languages in detail. Latin was always something I needed to learn because it was pervasive in documents of the time. I never thought much about how it was used in regular day to day activities or people’s attitudes towards it or change in attitudes about Latin over time. Geary discussed how the Romans ignored languages other than Latin and Greek and looked with contempt at those knowing other languages. However by the 13th century many non-clerics thought those who spoke and communicated in Latin might deceive them or were too high-brow. French was the international language by then. Geary blames Neo-Latin for obscuring this fact. In the fourth century, many high figures like Augustine started recommending the study of other languages mainly to help with orthodoxy. Latin still continued in spoken form but other languages became important too. I also didn’t think much about, although I was aware of it, that in Anglo-Saxon kingdoms Latin was not really spoken at all, it was more a written language of government and church. Slowly over time in Europe Latin was associated with higher status and education but it was not until 10th and 11th century when that divide became permanent when the church made Latin Scriptures sacred and didn’t really approve of translations anyone. They froze Latin in its written form while non-clerics developed the vernacular more and more. Latin became specialized and left the rest of the world behind to have another language of communication. Geary does not want that to happen to the profession today.

At about five I left for the city for a free Netflix “Wizard of Oz” event at Central Park. It took me an hour and a half to get there by train, ferry and subway and I kept distracting myself with grading papers, eating a hotdog and playing Tetris on a Gameboy Bear gave me. For the most part I’m over the travel anxiety I struggled with last year, but I still have to deliberately try not to over think things when I travel, especially when I travel by myself, and validate myself when I do so successfully. But the weather was clear if a little chilly and windy and it was a nice evening to spend outside at an outdoor concert and movie screening. I was glad Yeva wanted to go and prompted me to go too. The only bad thing was when Marianna came after seven pm they already closed the entrance because they said it was filled to capacity. No insistence that we saved her a seat and there was plenty of room helped, they just wouldn’t let her in. The evening consisted of a concert and a screening of the remastered 70th anniversary edition of “Wizard Of Oz.” The concert lasted about an hour and consisted of songs from the movie, from “Wiz” and “Wicked.” The highlight was Jennifer Hudson. She sang three songs and she sang wonderfully. (I’m sure someone already posted it to YouTube) Some singers can’t really sing live that well but she carried her voice and the crowd. We were fairly close to the stage and we could see her face really well which was great. It was very entertaining. Then we watched the movie. It was fun to watch it with a crowd of people who were reacting to many things in the movie. Most people there were about our age in their 20s and 30s and for many this movie is a classic. I’ve only seen it once, and I didn’t grow up with it, but so many references in this movie exist in the American culture that I felt like I knew it well. I tried really hard not to analyze it for any gender/class/race interactions and not to read it too much in a way filmmakers didn’t intend (although having the Lion sing his ‘King’ song with a bow in his hair and hand gestures and accent didn’t help matters), but overall I got into the childhood spirit of it. However, I did think the Wicked Witch, who was awesome, should have followed the Evil Overlord List a little better and gloated after Dorothy’s death instead of giving time for her friends to show up. And, of course, I had to overthink Glinda’s pronouncement that “only bad witches are ugly” as sending the wrong message to children about the correlation between morality and outward appearance. It was lots of fun though and I’m glad I got out of the house.

Evil Overlord List: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

12 Tishrei/ 30 September 2009

Today I looked at more rough drafts, this time from my other section. I have a feeling they are not yet putting enough effort into the drafts, thinking that because they are not graded, they are not important. They don’t get yet how a rough draft works and what it can do for their writing. Tomorrow I will need to put more emphasis on it and work on paragraph building. They are also having a hard time talking about more than one author at the same time and putting the author’s ideas together. I have to remind myself that the early rough drafts and papers are always terrible and that the students do learn during the semester.

I started Uwen Akpan “Say You’re One of Them” today. It was Oprah book club selection. I usually don’t pay attention too much to that, most books she picks don’t interest me, but this book sounded intriguing. (Well I did finally read “Anna Karenina” five years ago after Oprah picked it but that was because I felt guilty that I haven’t read it while many in America were reading it. I’m glad I got through the book but I found the main character very boring). Uwen Akpan is a Nigerian priest and this is his first collection of short stories told from the children's point of view. All five stories come from perspective of children of different African counties and deal with very harsh reality of their lives. Last thing I read from an African writer (other than St. Augustine and history articles) were fairy tales when I was a kid, and this book got a lot of praise from critics. So got it from the University library and started it last night. I just read the first story “An Ex-mas Feast” told from the perspective of an eight-year old Kenyan boy whose family lives in a shanty in Nairobi. The oldest sister, who is twelve, is pretty much supporting the family by prostitution. She is the most interesting character, very strong willed girl who sees her work as an opportunity to raise up her family though paying for her brother’s education and ultimately by saving some money for her own betterment. It is certainly an unfamiliar environment and makes me grateful for never having to face that kind of deprivation. I never had to result to sniffing glue to hold off hunger or live in a cardboard box. I always had enough to eat even in very lean years after the Soviet Union collapsed and food was more scarce. We couldn’t be picky about food, or have much choice about what we ate but we always had enough food. (we did have a dacha and grew food in the summer too). These stories all deal with difficult subjects but promise to give a glimpse at the mentality.

Weird discovery of the day: New York Philharmonic has a YouTube channel. Sometimes technology is insane and awesome.