I have a big kid job! At the IT department at school. That’s right, I graduated and yet I’m going to stay there forever. We’re still looking for a house, but my stress level is doing WAY better than it was a week ago, or even two days ago.
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, ‘Dear Jim: I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
Via Flavorwire.
This is a public service announcement
With guitar.
Know your rights, all three of them.
Number 1:
You have the right not to be killed.
Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat.
Know your rights.
And Number 2:
You have the right to food money,
Providing of course you
Don’t mind a little
Investigation, humiliation,
And if you cross your fingers,
Rehabilitation.
Know your rights.
These are your rights.
Know these rights.
Number 3:
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you’re not
Dumb enough to actually try it.
Know your rights.
These are your rights,
All three of ‘em.
It has been suggested
In some quarters that this is not enough!
Well…………………………
Get off the streets.
Get off the streets.
Run.
You don’t have a home to go to.
Finally then I will read you your rights.
You have the right to remain silent.
You are warned that anything you say
Can and will be taken down
And used as evidence against you.
Listen to this.
Run.
“I, who boast of embracing the pleasures of life so assiduously and so particularly, find in them, when I look at them thus minutely, virtually nothing but wind. But what of it? We are all wind. And even the wind, more wisely than we, loves to make a noise and move about, and is content with its own functions, without wishing for stability and solidity, qualities that do not belong to it.”
“We are great fools. ‘He has spent his life in idleness,’ we say; ‘I have done nothing today.’ What, have you not lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. ‘If I had been placed in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown what I could do.’ Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all. To show and exploit her resources Nature has no need of fortune; she shows herself equally on all levels and behind a curtain as well as without one. To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.”
“It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully. We seek other conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is like inside. Yet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk on our own legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting only on our own rump.
The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.”
All three quotes are from his “On experience,” and all the quotes I give from him are from Donald M. Frame’s super readable translation.
Well, almost. Still four more finals, but who’s counting? Had my last class today, and also handed in my final three essays (ugh), and had the senior bio party, where there was a lot of patting ourselves on the back. And funny stories about the profs who missed it. Mine: during one of our animal behavior labs last year, we were out watching/counting ducks on an absolutely miserable day. It was pouring rain and about 35 or 40°, and the wind was driving the rain against our backs, so our backs and legs were totally soaked by the end of the lab time. We were all soaked and super whiny, and my professor had had to put towels down on his car seats before we were allowed back into the car. We were whining about how cold we all were, and he shrugs and says, “You could’ve been SoAn (sociology-anthropology, all one thing because my school is so small) majors.” We all look at each other, and go, “Hell no!”
Anyway, I made this for another professor. It’s called “Landscape of Fear,” and the only way anyone is going to think it’s funny is if you know something about Yellowstone’s trophic web and/or what behaviorally-mediated trophic cascades are. A quick rundown: Everyone and their mothers should know that wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995, which has dramatically decreased elk densities. Basically, the BMTC theory says that there’s been way more improvement in aspen growth in the park just from a decrease in elk densities, so something else is going on. That something else is a change in the elk’s behavior (hence behaviorally-mediated), and they avoid the aspens because aspens grow in dangerous (high wolf predation risk) areas. Someone came up with the snazzy “landscape of fear” slogan for this. This is probably too much explanation for a joke (isn’t it always with me?), but here you go:
You should totally go check out some of the papers written on Yellowstone if you have a chance. Super interesting.
How do I get there with these old feet?
Wandering endless or so it seems.
People’s they’s talking, they’s talking bout these
Paper bag shoes tied round these old feet.
How do I see without these eyes?
Death relents and save my life
For my feet no more would go,
Burn my hands on open road.
Bicycle frame with no wheels or seat,
Christmas tree carcass all trimmed and spree.
Skeleton that just can’t get no sleep
Relics they landmines for these old feet.
How do I clap with these two hands?
Beat sorrow down I will withstand. Well,
For my feet no more would go,
Take these my hands to open road.
I’m a blessed man. (6x)
(Side note, if anyone can figure out what the heck she’s singing over the top at the end I’d love to know.)
Douglas Douglass apple tree
Have a wife, now let her be.
Give me give me what you got
I’m gonna make you what you’re not.
Douglas Douglass prickly pear
Have a wife but I don’t care.
Give me give me all your soul
I’m going to dip you in my bowl.
It’s a long way down (3x)
And he knows
Douglas Douglass sticky pine
Have a wife and that’s just fine.
Give me give me what I need
You know I’ve got to plant your seed.
Douglas Douglass evergreen
Have a wife but she’s so mean.
Give me give me slotted spoon
You know I want to make you swoon.
Douglas Douglass sycamore
Have a wife but she’s a bore.
Give me give me what I crave
You know I want to be your…
It’s a long way down (3x)
And he knows
Douglas Douglass royal oak
Have a wife but she done choke
Give me give me what you can
I just want to be your man.
I am thoroughly excited for Avengers. But from the trailers, it looks like it’s definitely lacking in the moral ambiguity some comic book movies manage to pull off. In the spirit of evening things out, since I have a soft spot for trickster gods who tend to straddle the morality fence, here’s some descriptions of Loki from the original Nordic stories:
“Loki, the doer of good and the doer of evil.” (“Far Away and Long Ago”)
“He was Loki, a being who only half belonged to the gods; his father was the Wind Giant.” (“The Building of the Wall”)
Last Friday of my undergrad career, officially over. (Celebrated by skipping my first two classes and later by going bowling with my English seminar class. Yup.) I’m not really sorry, since this semester has felt like I’ve been on a yo-yo: hurray for graduating I’m so over lectures and the lack of free time, followed by holy crud I now have to find a job and a place to live and go out in the real world and why is this so scary. It’ll all get settled at some point; I just don’t like being up in the air. Never did well with suspense.
The bowling was a lot of fun. I’m kind of a lousy bowler, but for the most part I feel like it’s a sport where people aren’t terribly competitive, though that may just be the people I go with. It was my seminar class (who had studied the anonymous Middle English Gawain-poet) vs. the Henry James people, since nobody had remembered to tell the Wordsworth seminar. I guess it was guilt by association, since everyone hates Wordsworth. Our bowling was improved by the fact that we got free beer from some corporate bowling team that left before us. Take note: free beer (or food, though that doesn’t work quite as well for most) is the easiest and quickest way to a poor college student’s heart.
I have four papers due next week (one for each class! yay!) and am still job-hunting, but realistically everything will be pretty much over (for better or worse) in two weeks. Hopefully this will be correlated to better mental health and less frazzly feelings.
