Bearshorty's musings

This morning I finished the second story from Uwem Akpan’s collection “Say You’re One of Them” called “Fattening for Gabon.” It was more of a novella with over a hundred twenty pages with the uplifting story of an uncle who was trying to sell his niece and nephew into slavery in Benin. The story is told from the perspective of a ten year old boy. His uncle eventually changed his mind but it was too late by that point and he got killed. At the end of the story, the boy runs away, having to leave his sister behind. I didn’t love the story, but it was interesting. It certainly felt like a perspective of a ten year old child where the reader arrives at many conclusions a lot faster than the main character. And one gets a better perspective of a regular daily life and expectation of a live in a seaside town. In this story, as in two others I’ve read (I also read the third story today since it was very short), there is a big emphasis on the food. Each country has its own special dishes that are carefully described and eating plays a prominent role in each story. I think I was interested in that aspect of life the most. Also reliance on religion is a big theme in all stories so far. The characters read the Bible and know it thoroughly; they attribute many fortunes to God but don’t blame God for misfortune. Another thing I like is the author’s use of language. The way people spoke in the Kenyan story, with a specific mix of English and native language is not the way people spoke in the Benin story with a mix of English, French and a local language. The speech patterns were also distinct. I’m glad I can read French and can follow the conversation better, even as the French is pretty basic, and I can certainly relate to mixing of languages because in some conversations I mix English and Russian all the time. The use of language makes each story feel more real. The third story “What Language is That?” is told from a perspective of a six year old Ethiopian girl from a Christian family who can’t understand why she can no longer play with her Muslim best friend, after some religious riots. She doesn’t understand adult differences in faith and why she can’t visit the family who are not “bad people” but just don’t hold the same beliefs, especially as not long before her father encouraged the friendship. The story is less than ten pages, but it is my favorite so far. The moment when both girls sneak on their opposing balconies and give each other air hugs is sweet and poignant. The author does a great job picturing children’s point of view and pointing at flaws at the adult society.

Today my students had a class discussion about a new reading. Next week I give a midterm for two days and this reading is for the midterm, so I could not help them understand it. It was really hard not to interfere and ask them leading questions. For much of the discussion there was not a lot of depth to their understanding of the reading or comprehension of the metaphors. I don’t think they got the main point or at least could not distinguish between the author of the article and the subject she is profiling. Well, at least we get another class later to discuss it more, this time hopefully I can make them dig deeper. They read Lauren Slater’s “Dr. Daedalus” article about a plastic surgeon who want to build people wings. The story is really about the question of what makes us human, whether our rootlessness is the cause of need for change and going to extremes, about separation and/or integration of body and soul. Reading it this year, with “Dollhouse” on TV, I even understand the article a little differently, or at least think about the question of identity more. But, of course, just as their tepid interpretation of Daedalus myth (which I made them look up), they focused on the building wings part and not on the cautionary tale of flying too close to the sun and hubris of Icarus. My students seem to come up with very liberal and western ideas of valuing individual choice and happiness to the point where everyone should do what one likes even in extreme plastic surgery. However, most do want to at least include a clause of not harming others. I now need to write a midterm question that they can actually answer.

Free pizza! Today after I was done with classes and was heading home, I passed the free pizza giveaway by Residential Life. Last week they fed people pretzels. It seems there is extra money on campus. But hey, free pizza!

( Bones S5E4 )

Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote a sequel to “Phantom of the Opera” and called it “Love Never Dies.” Aside from the creepiness of the original story which is not really that romantic, this just seems wrong. And, of all things, it will be set at Coney Island. That’s right, our Coney Island in Brooklyn. The Phantom will relocate to the amusement park, apparently, ten years after the original ended. Lloyd Weber found the original ending too boring so he decided to write a sequel. That or he just wants to do crazy things. Coming to London next march and to New York next November.

Exodus WTF moment of the day: chapters 31 to 35 finish Moses’ stay on the mountain and go into the story of the Golden Calf. Which is a really frelled up story. Moses burning the calf, breaking it into a powder and then making people drink it. Did he want to give people gold poisoning? Curious aside: the gold came from the earrings of wives, daughters and sons. Aaron’s justification to Moses for building the calf was just repeating the basic story “Hey, they asked and we thought you might be dead” while not taking the blame saying that he just threw the gold into the fire and “out came this calf,” magically constructed, obviously. Then Moses orders the murder of three thousand people, making sure people kill their “brother, friend, neighbor”. And then he praises the men who killed for heroism since they did slaughter their unarmed family and friends. And on top of that God sent the plague to punish the people, although Moses did convince him that it would be a bad PR move to kill everyone and start over (Egyptians wouldn’t be in awe of Israelite God anymore if he leads the people out of Egypt just to kill them all later). Then, after sending a plague, God needed a time out from dwelling among the people so he wouldn’t be tempted to just kill everyone. Oh, and I never realized that when Moses goes to talk with God, he doesn’t exactly go alone. He has an aide/servant. Very bureaucratic of him.

I spent too much staring at the computer without a break and then watching way too much TV (to be fair we were on the last disk of “Battlestar Galactica” Season 2 and just had to see how that ended. The end result, however, was lightheadedness when I stood up and possibly a blood pressure spike. I went to sleep early swearing that from now on I won’t skip on my walk outside and would take breaks from the computer every couple of hours.

Great time wasting website, especially if you love storytelling: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tropes

Exodus WTF moment of the day: chapters 21 to 25 are all about law the God imparts on the people through Moses. Most of the law makes sense: how to deal with personal conflicts and what to do if someone hurts your work animals, intentionally or not. And some law can only be understood in context of the time and would obviously not apply in the present day, for example, selling your daughter into slavery. (All the fundamentalists conveniently forget that law when they use other biblical laws to justify their social agenda.) I also love how the New International Version (English) of the Bible is about selling your daughter “as a servant,” while the Russian version clearly says “slavery.” I wonder what the original says. It is also interesting the conditions of sale of the daughter. The guy who buys her can’t just resell her to a foreigner if he is displeased, but if he marries another woman he can’t deny to the girl “food, clothing and marital rights” which is a really polite way to explain what happens to the daughter when her father sell her.

Pretty mellow day today, getting my strength ready for grading coming tomorrow. My favorite part of the day is a toss up between going for a walk in the afternoon in a nice sunny almost summer weather, listening to my iPod with my hair all shiny and playing dominos with my parents. I haven’t played dominos in so long. We still have a set Sasha and I played with as little kids. I even managed to make “fish” in one game.

Can’t wait for an episode of “Brothers and Sisters” tonight. Kevin and Scotty just make me smile. Scotty is too adorable.

Exodus WTF moment of the day: there wasn’t anything that really jumped out at me in Exodus 11-15. It was a straightforward account of establishing of Passover and the tenth plague, leaving Egypt, parting of the sea and the miracle of sweetened water. Although, God made people collect silver and gold, weirdly. It actually says “so they plundered the Egyptians” (12:36) in a in the next chapter. So they not just collecting all the gold right before they leave, it feels like extortion. Israelites also left “armed for battle” (13:18), which does not necessary means armed with weapons but still, not exactly a poor showing.

Today one of my neighbor’s kids, a seven year old girl, stopped by. Mama sometimes babysits her and takes her to swimming practice. The girl wanted to say hi to me and asked me to help her with her homework a little. It was fun to help and it got me out of my house and out of my funk a bit. Somehow hanging out with kids makes me feel like a kid and hers is a fun age. Reminds me of the kids I watched in the summer camps too. I actually felt quite suited for that job, I’m glad that was my first real job. I always wanted to be a teacher, even when I was a kid. I guess I have more patience than I think I have. Just random musings of the day.

( Dollhouse S2E2 )

Exodus WTF moment of the day: I started Exodus last night. This is probably the book of the Bible that I’m most familiar with because of how popular the story is with all movies like “Ten Commandments” and “Prince of Egypt” and recounting the story at Passover Seder every year. But it is interesting to actually read the details. It is astonishing how in one chapter, chapter 2, we go from Moses’ birth to his exile. It is a really short chapter that is cramped with information. The fact that Moses just killed the Egyptian guy who was beating up a Hebrew man is usually glossed over. It is not like Moses lost his temper or was doing it in self defense. The chapter specifically mentions that he looked both ways to make sure no one was around before he killed the guy. He, of course, also runs away after Pharaoh finds out about this and wants to rightfully punish him. Moses also came off as really whinny when God was asking him to return to Egypt and lead the people out for three days to the desert to pray to God. (It wasn’t even specifically about leaving Egypt completely). Moses didn’t like to speak in public and wanted God to least pick a different person to be a spokesman. So God just said, “Fine, your brother Aaron can do it.” So it was actually his brother who was doing all the talking in Egypt, Moses just gets most of the publicity because he has the signs and can turn a staff into a snake. And the fact that Moses even has a brother is a bit shady; obviously the pharaoh just stopped killing male children or something shortly after Moses was born. Maybe the Pharaoh stopped worrying about Israel’s population growing. Tonight’s reading – the plagues.