A Spirit like the Wind

Moving Out

2011-12-29T21:52:00.002+02:00

Is Maths Hard?

2011-08-23T21:02:00.000+02:00

Well, that depends on how you define hard. This article at 3 Quarks Daily talks about the fact that struggling with maths doesn't mean you're bad at it -- it means you're learning. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment and I wish more of my friends and classmates did too. For that matter, I wish more of my lecturers did!

The article goes on to say that anyone can appreciate the beauty of mathematics once they're past the initial hurdles. I agree more reservedly there. Perhaps everyone can appreciate maths, but that doesn't mean they will. I'm pretty sure I was the only kid in my class grinning like a fool when we proved the fundamental theorem of Calculus. Or when we started axiomatic vector analysis. Or when we did half a dozen other things that are pretty awesome, but under-appreciated.

Now I'll buy that some people can appreciate mathematics without grinning like fools; it's just not one of my particular talents. On the other hand, the fact that most of my friends gently but firmly point out that I must be crazy when I walk out of a maths lecture saying "That was awesome!"* is harder to overcome. There are a large number of people who pass courses called things like 'Advanced Calculus' quite well, but don't think that Calculus is awesome. And I don't just mean on the days when we have to integrate by parts three times, make an obscure substitution and remember the derivative of arctan(x) from eighteen months ago. Nobody I know or have heard of really likes Calculus on those days -- but hardly anybody seems to like it even on the days when we do epic proofs.

I could claim that I'm some kind of super genius wonder child, but did you notice how many times I used 'fool' up there? (There are more objective things that suggest otherwise too, but they'd be boring to go into.) I think it's far more likely to have to do with believing that maths is impossibly difficult -- or with something I haven't thought of^†. And so we come back to what you mean by 'hard'.

If hard means that you have to put something in to get something out, then yes, maths is hard (but so is nearly everything worthwhile, with a few notable exceptions).

If hard means that there will be struggling and use of intellectual stamina, then yes, maths is hard (but so is reading a good book).

If hard means that most people haven't managed to understand it, then yes, maths is hard (but so is, say, giving directions to my house, which most people couldn't do, although I don't find it desperately taxing).

If hard means that you'll only succeed by luck and that actually enjoying that success comes at the expense of being at all 'normal', then saying that maths is hard is nonsense.

You cannot use the first statement to prove that maths is hard, and then proceed to use the last statement to say that therefore you simply can't do it. Well, apparently you can, because people do it all the time, but it oughtn't to be possible. Maths is hard, but so are myriad other things that we learn to do and subsequently enjoy very much. Maths is fun.

Yeah, maths is fun. That seems like a good place to end. I'm not sure if this is coherent; there are so many mathematical ideas fighting for precedence in my mind that I'm not sure any of them have escaped, but at least I've tried!

Maths is fun.
_______
*Yes, yes, I really do walk out of maths lectures saying things like that. Maths is not as horrible as people seem to think. It's kind of like art, but with less emphasis on being able to draw.
†See above re:foolishness and extrapolate to propensity for not thinking of important things as appropriate.

Triffid!

2011-08-22T20:47:00.000+02:00


My Triffid and I

Er, I mean, Barberton Daisy! That doesn't have quite the same ring to it, somehow. Still, I'm very glad I have a Barberton Daisy and pretending it's a Triffid means I can be glad I have a Barberton Daisy at the same time I'm glad I have a pretend Triffid. (That kind of imaginative play is characteristic of early childhood? Really? I must be an early child then.) So it's two-for-one kind of deal.

Now I just need to apply that to the rest of life. It's quite exciting that we're writing code to model the Saturn V rockets used in the Apollo missions. Except that statement is only slightly more true than claiming I have a Triffid. Really, we're writing code that models certain aspects of the Saturn V rocket while simplifying others so that the end result is nothing like realistic. It still is an interesting project -- we really are doing rocket science -- but my Barberton daisy starts to look small and dull in comparison to a Triffid.

On the other hand, I don't really want to be handling code that's as temperamental as a Triffid, so maybe I'll stick to my little Barberton daisy project. In keeping with my early child tendencies, maybe I just need to pretend that my project report is going to my NASA supervisor. That lab report is actually a submission to Nature.

I just need to figure out why it is that I keep having to write undergrad class tests.

Sabbath

2011-08-21T16:32:00.000+02:00

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."

So says the fourth of the ten commandments, which I rather think might be the hardest of the lot to understand. People may argue about exactly what constitutes murder, for instance, but there's widespread agreement that it would be a really bad idea for me to cut my little brother's throat, even if he is annoying. On the other hand, is it wrong to play sports matches on Sundays? To do homework? To go to work? To read anything other than the 'Sunday books' of Anne of Green Gables and the like? To skip church?

Some people will give me strong opinions on some -- or even most -- of those points, but it's difficult to find a consensus. Part of that, I think, is to do with the new covenant. Part of it is that we don't have a properly concrete understanding of what 'holy' means -- we get the general idea, but finding an actual definition that encapsulates said idea is hard. Part of it is that keeping the Sabbath holy might be even harder than figuring out what holy actually means.

My current opinion is that 'keeping holy' will look different for different people. There's probably a kind of Gaussian distribution of what's acceptable. I don't think it's great when people are so busy at work that they can't make it to church -- but maybe there are situations where the best way of giving the day to God is to go to work. I would never criticise somebody for going home after church to finish an essay due the next morning -- but I make a point of not doing that myself.

I think there's a great deal of good in my studies and the work I do for them. I also think that there's more to my life than those studies. Sundays remind me of that. When I make the rule that I don't do academic work on Sundays, I remember that. There is time to play with the kids at church, or bake for the family, or just to slow down enough to appreciate everything I have. It's not necessarily time that I think I have, but it's time that I can make. And maybe, hopefully, the more I make the time at all, the more I can make it specifically God's time.

Because it's enough of a challenge to make the time at all. Sometimes it seems like Sunday afternoon would be far better spent in getting a couple hours of work in on that tricky assignment. This semester it is oh-so-hard not to crack open my computational physics notes when I know that the lecturer of my seven forty-five Monday morning class loves spot tests. I don't think opening the file would be wrong in itself, but trying to reclaim the time that God has told me to put aside would be wrong. It's a kind of sacrifice. The first fruits of my week are going to God, not to my comp. phys. lecturer.

That's what it means for me. Maybe it would be different for everyone else. Maybe it's just where I am right now. It does make me realise, though, that something I'm tempted to dismiss as impractical is actually just hard. (It's hard for me, at least.) It makes me wonder what else we dismiss as impractical because we don't want to do it, rather than because it can't be done.

It makes me wonder how much we're missing.

Freewriting: Real Life

2011-08-08T18:42:00.000+02:00

Because I can.

Because I'm not going to blog at all if I make too many rules.

Because real life doesn't come in chapters and stanzas, however much we may mould it into them.

It's people wanting me to explain the homework from courses I've never heard of. It's about planning to spend a morning doing computer science, but leaving your flash drive at home and arguing about CSS and open source software in the labs instead. It's about being thrilled that the Pottermore beta has opened, but too busy writing Mathematica code to keep up with all the excitement.

It's about wanting to study at Cambridge, but being afraid of moving halfway across the city. It's about being soon-to-move-out, but not changing your own light bulbs. It's about joyful abundance and mountains of homework being almost the same thing. It's about adoring mathematical physics in the same breath you call it an oxymoron, because no physicist can be mathematical.

And then it's about wondering if you really mean what you just said. About thinking that some physicists might be able to do maths and that enough homework to keep you busy might not quitebe mountains. About thinking you hold the world in the palm of your hand and that you'll never achieve anything; about confronting the impossible, the paradoxical, the unthinkable.

It's about something more real than our fragile, finite brains can dream up.

Writing Project

2011-06-11T11:12:00.000+02:00

I have a new writing project. Part of me thinks I'm trying to start too much at once, but a bigger part of me knows that the holidays stretch out with no apparent ends or constraints, so I'd better find myself something to do. Hence the writing project.

I used to dream about writing novel; more accurately, of having written one. I still think it would be awesome and exciting to get a novel published, but I don't really dream about it any more. I'm not sure I actually want to do all that writing, which puts something of a stopper in the works. That still leaves lots of space for writing and even for writing a book: in fact it opens things up in some ways. Novels seem to be peculiarly* bound to book format (although there's some move to ebooks and pdfs, they're still pretty much books!)

So the new project is not a book. Right now it's a blog, because that's the easiest thing to set up, although I might transmogrify it later. It's not fiction either. I'm attempting to write about applied maths. This amuses me, because I'm not even studying applied maths - I'm doing pure maths and physics, and hoping to write about both and the interface between them.

(Image links to blog.)

It is yet to become clear whether or not I have any idea of what I'm doing, but one post in, it's fun. And that is largely what counts. If other people like it, great. If not, it's practice. Can I count it toward my 10 000 hours for both science and writing?

*Peculiar as in 'peculiar to novels' not as in 'I can't fathom it: how peculiar'.

Words

2011-06-10T14:09:00.002+02:00

I've probably written a post titled 'Words' before; I'll probably write one again. It seems to be a recurring theme in my life. (Maybe that's why it sits so largely in the tag cloud down on the sidebar.) I have too many words: not absolutely too many, but too many to keep inside my head. They get tangled up and piled up and jumbled up. Suddenly, instead of streams of something like power, there's a threatening explosion. Perhaps it's a warning.

Not a warning that words are bad. Rather, these are meant to be shared. They're not really mine and holding onto them, even passively, is not helpful. I end up back here, not sure where I'm going and a little shamed that I've neglected the space for so long. Aware that I only have all the time in the world until university starts up again, but conscious that there's more to life than a number on a transcript. (Probably, I think!)

All that has far too many long sentences. Possibly too many flighty thoughts: words don't really explode. Frivolous figures of speech don't make the "I'm trying to blog again, but this might still be my newest entry in three months' time" post less awkward. They're not untrue either, though. They hint at something like the wonder behind the world - what C. S. Lewis calls the 'romantic' in Pilgrim's Regress. That, perhaps, is what I'm seeking.

So here's to getting back up, at risk of falling down again.

100 Books Meme

2010-10-24T17:30:00.000+02:00

AKA more about Charli's reading tastes than you ever wanted to know.

I'm not sure which hundred books these are (they can't surely be the hundred everybody should read, or even the hundred most read), but I've seen the meme in a few places and thought it might be fun to fill in.

Bold for what I've read, italics for what I'd like to, and both for those I'm in the process of reading.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (A few times.)
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (Many, many times.)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (Just once, I think. A reread wouldn't hurt.)
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Some books more than others.)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (By the end of November, I'll have just some of the minor prophets and some of the poetic books left.)
7. Wuthering Heights -Emily Bronte (I know reading this will be developing, but I started it once, and am not convinced I'll enjoy it.)
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman (I wouldn't recommend it, though.)
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (I haven't got the hang of reading Dickens yet.)
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (So many times.)
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (More 'think I ought to' than want to, so I doubt I'll get there any time soon.)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (I've vaguely heard of this. When I'm more educated I'll probably want to read it.)
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (My penchant for rereading does not serve me well in getting through complete works that I need to take in smallish bites.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I've heard of it. Maybe one day.)
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (One of my favouritest books. I read it for the first time when I was five, and still adore it.)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (Haven't even heard of this one.)
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (I enjoyed it, but didn't think it was astounding.)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot (One day when I have lots of time.)
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (Not sure I've fully appreciated it, though.)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (The trouble is that the book's too heavy to put in my backpack.)
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (A couple of times.)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (Although it's pretty low on my to-read list at the moment.)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll ('Alice' is my least favourite Lewis Carroll, though I do like it.)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (I got about three-quarters of the way through when I was elevenish-ish, and then the hero got enough older than me that I was bored and never finished it.)
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (You can tell 'most everything you need to know about my relationship to this series from the fact that I once worked out how to read all seven books in two school days.)
34. Emma - Jane Austen (Started it a couple of times, and skimmed the whole thing at least once, but Emma makes me cringe.)
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen (My favourite Austen novel.)
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Haven't heard of this one.)
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (I think this is probably a good book, but doesn't rate quite high enough to get italiced.)
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (The originals seemed odd after the Disney version, but I definitely prefer them now.)
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell (I read half of this and discovered that I don't like dystopia-type novels. I need to have a more determined go at this and then at 1984.)
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (I've read enough of his other work to have a good idea of what happens, though.)
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Haven't heard of it.)
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (Haven't heard of it.)
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (Haven't heard of it.)
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (Many times. I also love the 'Emily' books.)
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (As for Tess of the d'Urbervilles.)
47. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (I expect this to be mildly enjoyable, but fairly educating in terms of pop culture - or something like that.)
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (I ought to italicise this but it just seems so depressing.)
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan (I enjoyed 'Saturday'.)
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (It was clever and well written, but I didn't really like it. Might improve with a reread.)
51. Dune - Frank Herbert (Exactly once.)
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (Never heard of it.)
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth (Nhoi)
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Nhoi)
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (Twice. It's well done, although hardly mindblowing, and quite an easy read.)
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (I think this might be worth owning. Read it once from the library in Jo'burg.)
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Who is Marquez? This is the second time he's appeared.)
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Reluctantly italicised, because it'd be good for me.)
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt (nhoi)
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (Seems more depressing than actually improving, at east for me.)
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (I've heard people rave about this.)
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (Okay I might as well admit that I am scared of Thomas Hardy. Why can't I just read the nice, pretty books?)
67. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
68. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker (I don't do horror. At nineteen years old, I still occasionally refuse to turn out the light before bed. Reading 'Dracula' would be stupid.)
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (Love this!)
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (But I will read 'A Short History of Nearly everything' first.)
74. Ulysses - James Joyce (But I want to read 'Finnegan's Wake' first, to find out about quarks.)
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (I think this is something I ought to read?)
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (Our copy of this book is falling apart. We 'gallumph' down hills and remind each other of favourite scenes when we visit large bodies of water. (We do this with other books too. From this list, Lewis and Tolkien.))
77. Germinal - Emile Zola (nhoi)
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt (nhoi)
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Wait, I have read some Dickens! And shocked some people by giving it to my ten year old brother, who simply couldn't be old enough to read Dickens. Pfft. (He enjoyed it. Now he is twelve, and puts me to shame when it comes to reading things like history, although I think I'm still better read than he in terms of literature. (This year he decided to read 'The Silmarillion', and enjoyed it. At twelve.)))
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (nhoi)
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker (It sounds vaguely familiar.)
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (nhoi)
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (nhoi)
86. Charlotte's Web - EB White ('Hi, I'm Charlotte. As in Charlotte's Web.' At least people (might) remember your name after that. I am torn between enjoying the story and thinking that it has a rather confused message.)
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Sounds familiarish.)
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I've read what we own, but never got around to finding the rest.)
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton (Awesome stories. Read several times.)
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (I've heard the author's name and suspect I'm ignorant for not knowing more.)
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (In both English and Afrikaans - the latter for a school reading project. I think I enjoy it more in hindsight, whatever that means.)
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks (nhoi)
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams (Lovely book, read twice, I think, but not an absolute favourite.)
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (nhoi, but it sounds interesting.)
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (I would read this if someone recommended it and I had a copy handy, I think.)
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (I've read the horribly abridged and unmemorable version for kids, I think.)
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (Nearly as good as Matilda! I don't like all of Roald Dahl, but Charlie and Matilda are lovely.)
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (My cordial dislike of translations and knowledge that Hugo had lovely prose will likely slow this down.)
99. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (I think I need to reread it though.)
100.The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton (I've read a few of her novels, and thought she was quite good, but she doesn't seem to have left much impression on me. 'The Outsiders' was not my favourite.)

Conclusion: So many books, so little time.

I caved

2010-10-14T21:20:00.000+02:00

I was supposed to be checking something for Sunday School, but the nice people from the Office of Letters and Light had also emailed me and this somehow happened:

Seven Quick Takes

2010-10-01T20:26:00.000+02:00

Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary

1.
There's a saying that goes "be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it" (or something along those lines, anyway. I've heard it altered to be careful what you pray for"--in the same vein as "when you pray for patience, God give you opportunities to practise." Somehow, these sayings have actually made me a little nervous about praying to hard in some directions. Recently, though, I've realised that those observations are occluded by 1 Corinthians 10:13. H will not test you beyond what you can bear. So it's not actually foolish to pray for, say, patience. God will give you opportunities to practise, but he'll hold your hand while you do.

2.
I think things like that are kind of like splinters. Sticking the needle in is very much not fun, but getting the splinter out is more than worth it. At least, most of the time.

3.
Twitter gave me the option to enable their #newtwitter, which I did. It's quite cool and streamlined, but seems to be still in beta. I'm torn between liking the new features and layout and the old buglessness.

4.
I came home and crashed this afternoon. In the process, I matched a couple of hundred synonyms on Free Rice. It's relatively educational (although I doubt I'll ever have much cause to use words like 'opprobrium'. I mean, I already have to make an effort not to confuse people by using big words). It's very addictive. It's weird the kind of words that end up on the same level.

5.
I think I confused the librarian today by making a point of paying my R4.00 ($0.50) fine. The whole concept of breaking the due-back rule and needing to be fined=punished is not cool in my book . . . but a R4 fine didn't seem to be something she expects people to care about. I think that's a little sad.

6.
While I was at the library, I saw they have a new book in about fanfiction, and the psychology and culture around it. That looked fascinating, but I couldn't justify taking out a book I don't have time to read when I was there to pay an overdue fine! I think it'll still be on display next week and maybe I'll have more time.

7.
It's really weird that all the British/American/other people with weird calendars are starting the school year now, just as we're starting to think ours is drawing to a close. I've begun to get used to people discussing autumn (um, fall?) fashions at the beginning of spring, but the school year thing still throws me. Clearly, our calendar is much better organised, because our summer holiday falls over year's end which makes everything align neatly. Those Northerners just have things backwards.

Polar Rose

2010-09-30T18:26:00.000+02:00

r=sin10θ

Back-to-School Daybook

2010-09-27T19:42:00.000+02:00

From the simple woman.

Outside my window: The leaves pressing on the pane are silhouetted against the inky night-time sky, like a half-finished art project.
I am thinking about the changes to my study programme I'm considering. I'm more and more convinced of what I should do, but change is still scary!
I am thankful for friends and family who appreciate 'nerd' jokes. Here's one I heard at varsity today:

f(x) walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender tells him, "I'm sorry, we don't cater for functions."

From the learning rooms: Today I learned why soap bubbles shimmer! It's to do with interference patterns as different colours of light are reflected from the outer and inner surface of the soapy film. I think that is Just. So. Cool.
From the kitchen: I made cupcakes yesterday. They came out a bit heavier than I expected, though. Hmm.
I am wearing a bright/earthy coloured print dress. (Can a print be bright and earthy at the same time? I'm much better at describing colour in terms of wavelengths and stuff!)
I am creating a steam car. The big race is next Monday and our car still doesn't actually go. That might be a bit of a problem, but I think we'll get there.
I am going towards a place where the path forks in the woods.
I am reading Confessions of St Augustine again. That is, I paused in the middle and I've picked it up again now. It's good, but heavy and slow going, especially just reading between lectures.
I am hoping that I understand the Maths I'm being tested on tomorrow! I have studied for the test, but one can always study more, and that's making me a little nervous.
I am hearing my younger brother playing guitar riffs.
One of my favorite things is the sense of wonder that comes when you understand how something works--like the soap bubble thing.
A few plans for the rest of the week:

Tests and studying!
Talking to some people at varsity about my study plan.
Finishing that silly steamcar.

Here is picture thought I am sharing:
An awful quality webcam shot of our steam car. (Oh, you can usually see the burner at the bottom, but that was detached when I took the picture. The problem with the car is that the boiler tubes aren't sealing properly.)

Revisiting Anne-with-an-e

2010-09-26T12:56:00.000+02:00

Isaac Asimov once wrote something along the lines of a book being better when you read it the second time because, having got over the suspense, you can really appreciate the writing. I confess that I enjoy the thrill of suspense a little too much to agree as easily as he seems to make the proposition, but he certainly has a point. I have the capacity to appreciate much more on my second (or third or fourth or umpteenth) time through a piece of writing. I pick up different highlights each time.

I think it's also fascinating to see how books change as we grow older (you might say that we are doing the changing, but that assumes an inertial reference frame). I'd guess I was somewhere between eight and twelve when I first read Anne of Green Gables. I thought Marilla Cuthburt was old. When I reread the book for the first time in years, I realised that a few grey streaks were not quite as aging as I'd imagined. What's more, when Marilla is described as 'without curves, but with angles', I understand that it's not entirely her personality that's being described. (Although I still think that's a nice way of reading it, which is why reading difficult books is a good thing, even if you have to come back to them later. Especially if you have to come back to them.)

I still don't know nearly as much poetry as Anne-with-an-e, but I can recognise a little of it. This is the first time I've appreciated the silliness (yet lifelikeness) of her heroine with 'velvety purple eyes'—and how practical Diana is in remarking that she's never know anyone with purple eyes. I'm rather glad that nobody told her in disgust that she was writing a 'Mary Sue' story, though. Matthew's uncritical praise and Miss Muriel Stacy's gentle admonition to only write about things that might happen in the village of Avonlea seem at least as effective and much—well 'nice' seems to weak a word to use—but it is much nicer. Kinder, perhaps. It doesn't seem to have hurt Anne's crowd to admire one another's overly romantic stories for a year or two. Then again, they were often, if kindly, informed that their stories were more amusing than pathetic, much to their consternation. I'm not entirely sure what I think about the difference between then and now, but it's food for thought.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Anne from a different perspective. Some things were the same—I still cringed at the jumping-into-an-unexpectedly-Miss-Josephine-Barry-filled-bed scene, and couldn't quite bring myself to read the whole liniment cake scene quite properly. I still think the end is terribly sad, though far from hopeless, but I understand Anne's bend in the road much better than I used to. I've always loved the line

And then–thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it–slate not head–clear across.

Now I began to see that Montgomery has something of a habit of twisting mildly ambiguous statements into slightly silly irony. It's a habit I enjoy.

My only complaint is that it's left me with a dilemma: should I reread all my old favourites or find time to read beautiful new-to-me books which will also allow me to appreciate the references the old favourites make better? Although, with school starting up again tomorrow, I may not be forced to make the decision any time soon.

More Quick Takes

2010-09-24T18:39:00.000+02:00

Seven Quick Takes is hosted at Conversion Diary.

1.

This week was vac week. I am very grateful for weeks off: I've been stressing myself silly, but now I'm back to believing that I can get through the semester, maintain my Calculus mark, and maybe even do okay in my design course, despite the group work. It's a wonderful feeling.

2.

It's not that I have anything against group work per se, but trying to simultaneously handle two different projects that we are supposed to get time in class for, but don't seem to because of the time lost in the strike gets complicated. And that's just one subject. I'm sure it's very good for me when I'm not freaking out.

3.

Since it was holidays, I read the whole of Sir Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals and really enjoyed it. Partly, I haven't read anything that's not at least one of academic and written centuries ago for ages. Partly, all my reading recently has been the between-lectures or waiting-in-the-carpark sort. Partly, it's just a really good book. One of the most fun parts of Discworld is that the more you read, the more references you pick up. The books seem to be getting deeper all the time, even though you (I) know than you're (I'm) actually just finally in a place to appreciate them a little more thoroughly. I know I completely miss plenty too, but the story's good enough that it didn't matter. So reading Unseen Academicals was very happy-fying and holiday-ish.

4.

I know that writing advice books often warn wannabe writers about overusing italics, em dashes, ellipses and exclamation marks. On rereading the above paragraph, I think I might need to add hyphens onto my list. (Ignore the wailing about how much fun hyphens are. That certainly wouldn't be me.)

5.

I've been thinking about making some fairly major changes to what I'm studying. I'm pretty sure I know I'd enjoy the change, and it'd simplify a bunch of life decisions in the next few years. But something (like maybe my pride) keeps telling me that it's a foolish decision and a step backward and that I need to toughen up . . . I guess it'll straighten out as I keep on praying and finding more people to talk to back at varsity.

6.

The ellipsis in #5 is totally justified, #4 notwithstanding. That's because, um, I will write badly on my blog if I want to and if it bothers you you can take it as a sign of my deep seated anxiety about changing my study plan.

7.

I am loving my twitter account lately. It gives me the chance to be a bit more than a consumer of new media, without taking up the (relatively) huge amounts of time writing blog posts does. One day I'll master writing quick-but-meaningful posts. Until then, I'll keep practising on twitter.

Spring!

2010-08-29T15:34:00.002+02:00

I'm wearing a cap-sleeve blouse and a cotton skirt without leggings or even shoes. Sunlight interspersed with birdsong is floating through the air outside. The scent of jasmine and freshly watered earth is floating through the kitchen door. Through the green-and-brown network of evergreens, winter boughs and brave new buds, the sky has emerged to show its pale blue face. The heavy clouds that herald the coming of summer rainstorms have been swept away; the wind is coordinating the leaves' dance. Birds are chasing across the garden. The seasons are changing.

I think Spring is my favourite time of year!

Seven Quick Takes

2010-08-27T18:13:00.000+02:00

Hosted at Conversion Diary

1.

I wrote two Maths tests this week, the first tests of the semester for their respective courses. I'm fortunate enough to have been a comfortable distance from failing either of them, but they made last semester look easy. And I wouldn't really have said last semester was easy. I think keeping up with the work requires a continual mindshift, because nothing ever stays the same. It's a little scary, but exciting too.

2.

I'm in the process of starting to begin to upgrade the (Ubuntu Linux) operating system on my netbook. Mostly, I think this is great, because I haven't (as far as I recall) made a huge number of settings changes, and there are some features that feel out-of-date in the version I'm running now (like not actually running 100% properly on a netbook!) The trouble is that the more I go on, the more I realise that there are actually things I'm going to have to redo as part of the reinstall. I still think it'll be worth it though.

3.

On Monday I mentioned that I was reading Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?. I'm not entirely enamoured with it, but it was very interesting, and introduced me to a bunch of new ideas. one of the concepts that Smith kept coming back to was the Augustinian church. I've been thinking about reading St Augustine's Confessions for a while, so I set off to find it in my university library.

Finding a copy was more difficult than I'd expected, partly because of all the literature 'surrounding' it that the online catalogue brought up, and partly because the library doesn't seem sure of how to categorise it. Autobiography? Theology? Missiology? Eventually I found a title that looked like what I wanted and set off to trek through the shelves. There was one battered copy sitting on the shelf at 242, which I grabbed and ran, having already taken longer than I'd intended.

It wasn't until the next day that I actually started reading, and discovered that I'd unwittingly picked up one of the very first translations of the work--in early seventeenth century English, complete with thees, thous and dosts. I'm quite enjoying it actually, now that I've got over the initial shock, but it was a little disconcerting!

4.

Whenever Twitter fail whales on me, I feel an urge to tweet about how frustrating this is. I'm not sure why, exactly, since I don't usually want to tweet my frustrations. (That could make for a seriously depressing timeline!) Of course, I never can, which makes me even more frustrated at the fail whale, which I then want to tweet about, which . . .

Eventually I realise that I didn't actually need to be on Twitter and move on, but I suspect I often spend more time watching the fail whale screen than i would reading a couple of updates.

5.

We are supposed to be building a model steam car-- just like the one in this article--for our Engineering Design course. I think it's a really fun and exciting project, but it keeps getting forgotten in the wake of all the other tests and projects we're being handed. I really do want to make some progress on it, and hoping to get there this weekend. I think having built a car will be more satisfying than handing in a couple of pages worth of questions.

6.

There are only four days 'til Spring! That makes me happy. Hopefully it also means that we can all stop getting sick. There always seems to somebody with a sore throat or a headache or the sniffles or something. I guess it may be one of the (worth it!) perils of a large family.

7.

Reading my old fashioned edition of Augustine seems to have effected a kind of shift in my perception. This afternoon I found myself noticing the story--the romance, almost--of everyday life in a way I haven't done for a while. I like that. It's too easy to see the world as grey and monotone, because you're wearing the wring kind of glasses. I don't want to do that.

Daybook Again

2010-08-23T17:58:00.000+02:00

(The daybook is hosted here.)

Outside my window...

the sun is setting--although there's too much cloud cover to really see it.

I am thinking...

about a miscellany of misrelated bits and pieces: how to write MATLAB code; something a friend told me in class today; the maths tests (yes, plural!) I'm writing this week; the fact that Charles Dodgson / Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland &c was a mathematician; postmodernism; the weather. What the upshoot of all that jumble will be, I'm not sure, but I don't think those thoughts can all continue entirely independently.

I am thankful for...

the blessing of friendship. Little confidences or funny coincidences shared in the affection of friendship are really something special.

From the learning rooms...

I'm very excited about learning to code in MATLAB; the smidgeon we're doing now is at a much lower level than the stuff I did in high school (although most people didn't do any coding then), but there's lots of room to expand and experiment. Yay!

From the kitchen...

come some lovely smells, courtesy of my elder brother. I'll go help set the table presently.

I am wearing...

Jeans, purple canvas shoes and a purple Minnie Mouse t-shirt I got for my birthday. I have purple earrings and a purple ribbon in my hair too, but the overall effect is surprisingly un-purple.

I am creating...

Code! Also familiarity with the concepts in tomorrow's Calculus test. (At least, I hope so!)

I am going...

crazy, running around after group members for the group projects we're doing. Things are looking up, though, so I'm not much crazier than before, after all.

I am reading...

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? (J. K. A. Smith). I took it out from the library because it claimed to be a non-academic introduction to postmodernism in the context of Christianity. Ahahaha. I have a passing knowledge of philosophy, but I'm struggling to follow (and not always succeeding). It's fascinating stuff, though--I might write more about it when I'm finished.

I am hoping...

That tomorrow will not be terribly draining--I have five back-to-back, heavy-concentration-required lectures, a short break, and then a test. But I want to have the energy to go to Bible Study in the evening. I know it's possible, but the whole thing is slightly daunting!

I am hearing...

my mum's car door slamming as she gets home. A good sound.

Around the house...

Ahahahahaha. You thought I actually got further than mostly making my bed? Or maybe you didn't. In the latter case you'd be correct.

One of my favourite things...

trust. It's precious.

A few plans for the rest of the week...

Bible study, maths, coercion of group members into actually working, finishing the postmodernism book.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Roughly what I'm trying to do in MATLAB:

On Reaching Old Age

2010-08-21T12:01:00.000+02:00

My perception of nineteen years is perhaps a little out of place. I see a young lady old enough to be invited into the intricate scramble of real life, but without the experience to see what's going on, never mind to participate meaningfully. It seems to me that it is an age of being watched and evaluated. If nineteen years is sweet, idealistic and thoughtful, she'll be accepted into the core of the 'social web'. If she's childish, foolish and thoughtless, she'll be condemned to run around the outside until she can make up for it. (I think his is part of the way I tend to see life as a mosaic of stories.)

Of course, I can see that it's largely nonsense. Nobody's evaluating me any harder than they were a week ago. I think there's a grain of truth in the realisation that we're not children any more--each birthday in the last few years has been a realisation of that, really. And because that scares us, we exaggerate to the point of silliness and call it 'old age'. It's easier than admitting that 'Mommy, I want to go home' isn't an option any more. Easier than saying 'going to live away from home for university will be hard, but maybe exciting too'. Easier than trying to be serious about it.

Maybe that's a good thing. I don't think birthdays are meant to be about solemn reflection and introspection. They're about fun. About discovering awesome friends who pass birthday cards around the class collecting messages. About classmates who put

∫e^x²dx Hope your day is integrated by parts!

on said birthday cards. (Um, weak nerd jokes for the win?) About wearing a knee length dress even though the weather seems to have forgotten that deal we had--the one about Spring.

A few days later is the time to think that the last nineteen years have been pretty good, on the whole. That I'm blessed with a bunch of friends who can make my birthday something special. And perhaps that somewhere along the line I have actually made the transition from seeing myself as a gangling girl to being a very young lady. It appears that I am, after all, growing up. (Although apparently this doesn't prevent me from writing entirely self-centred blog posts and foisting them upon the world. ;P)

Seven Quick Takes: Not Quite All Academia Edition

2010-08-13T19:45:00.000+02:00

(Here, this week.)

-1-

I can do Applied Mathematics again! This has been the cause of much rejoicing. Quiet, studious rejoicing, but still rejoicing. First year, Engineering Ap. Maths, but still Ap. Maths. There is now a warm fuzzy glow of geekly contentment within me. (Who would've guessed that they were using a different approximation for acceleration due to gravity? Not me!)

-2-

I'm getting old. I'll be nineteen in less than a week. (Um, I can't be that old, can I? Apparently I am though.) It's a little sad, I think, that a friend and I were reminiscing about how much we knew back when we were younger. We had so much knowledge at our fingertips! And whole afternoons to go and read things up at the library! Now we just sit in classes looking confused (or intelligent, depending on your perspective, I suppose.)

I suspect that it's partly because when we were fourteen it seemed highly erudite to know the difference between genes and jeans, but now we feel inadequate because we can't distinguish between a gene and an allele. At least, not without thinking about it. We just know more of what we don't know, rather than knowing less. At least, that's what I'm telling myself, rather than believing that I've turned daft.

-3-

Today our Material Science tutorial was cancelled, and I got to sit in the parking lot waiting for my mum to pick me up while the pure science students trickled in to go to their Physics prac. I may have felt a tiny bit of schadenfreude at this role reversal*, but if I did, it was fairly quenched when I realised that their first class of the day was after 14h00. A bit later, it occured to me that I should be more charitable, and I don't really begrudge them their free time . . . it did feel good to be going home well before dark.

*Technically not a role reversal, since I never do my trickling in at 14h00. 07h10 is more like it.

-4-

On a less academic note, Ramadan (the Islamic holy month) began yesterday. I've made a couple of Muslim friends this year, which has been very educational! It's also caused me to think a lot about my commitment to my faith. Not in the sense that I'm any less sure of it, but in the sense that what I might think is extreme can be almost commonplace to these girls (fasting, for example) and I'm not sure why. Partly, I think Islam has stricter dictates than Christianity, and obedience is born as much out of the cultural norm as out of commitment. Partly, I think we (I?) sometimes take those things too lightly. I'm inspired to attempt to read Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. I've been praying about it too and something that's come out very strongly for me is that while these disciplines are fundamentally good things, if I start to think I should do them 'like in Islam', I'm getting all mixed up. Obviously, in one sense, but not so obviously when 'Muslim' is the girl telling me what class we have next. It's all food for thought--and prayer. There can never be too much prayer!

-5-

I mentioned in no. 2 that my birthday's coming up, and then disappeared off on a tangent. What I was going to say, is that last year I thought a lot about my birthday, and how significant being eighteen is and so on. This year it's more a case of 'Who me? Birthday? Isn't that the date of our Physics test?' Any ideas I may have once had about university students having big exciting parties have, at least in my case, not materialised. The big exciting parties are just a slightly older version of the ones I didn't like in high school (I guess it's not really that surprising). In principle I'd like to celebrate it somehow, but I suspect that I won't get very far along that path. I mean, planning a presentation on invisibility cloaking and building a miniature steam car are both way more exciting than making a birthday party and people are giving me marks for doing it.

-6-

I love bullet points. They mean that I can ignore connecting sentences. I hate going through essays and putting 'Additionally'; 'However'; 'Consequentially' &c at the beginning of new paragraphs, but I don't always find the energy and inspiration to structure the essay really well so that I don't need them. Bullet points, on the other hand, are a guilt-free pleasure. Bullet points don't need connecting sentences.

-7-

I discovered a new educational, but not particularly taxing diversion today. I had done about as much Maths as my brain could take, and my friends had variously deserted me. (This may have something to do with my getting so absorbed in my Maths that I didn't even notice them leaving. 'Deserted' is probably not a very accurate description.) I ended up wandering around the library, but determined not to take out any more reading material. So this is what I did:

Wander into 800 (Literature) section.
Hope that your library has mostly English texts. Otherwise you'd better find the 813s or something.
Pick a book semi-randomly. If it's a collection, read one short story, essay, poem or what have you. If it's an academic text, improve your general knowledge by reading the abstract. (Most of them aren't all that technical.)
Replace the book, resisting the temptation to stop and read it, because you already have three books on your library card, not to mention homework and lectures.
Repeat as desired. Avoiding the 500s (Natural Sciences) is recommended if you're likely to justify reading those books because they're 'in your field'.

Daybook

2010-08-09T21:02:00.000+02:00

(The daybook is hosted here.)

Outside my window...
is the scent of Jasmine. Spring is definitely on its way, despite today's cold front, and I'm very happy about that.

I am thinking...
about negative refractive indices, metamaterials, and how to make invisibility cloaks. Awesome Material Science project! (No, we can't make invisibility cloaks--yet--but we're surprisingly close.)

I am thankful for...
my God who never leaves me. Several times in the last couple of weeks I've only survived (perhaps I exaggerate a little) by taking five minutes off to pray. And oh! how it helps.

From the learning rooms...
Piles and piles of work and assignments. I'm not entirely sure how one is meant to keep up. (Yet here I am blogging--my brain just fries at a certain point and I have to stop.)

From the kitchen...
I am making sandwiches to go to university. It's my turn to cook supper tomorrow, but I have no idea what I'll be doing then. Oh well.

I am wearing...
A dress over slacks. It looks a little odd, but today was a holiday and I didn't anticipate the cold front being quite so cold and so I am wearing a dress over slacks.

I am creating...
a presentation on metamaterials and invisibility cloaking. Is it a little odd to have a storyboard for a group presentation? I couldn't think of a better way of communicating.

I am going...
to bed with a supplementary Applied Maths textbook, as soon as I've finished this post!

I am reading...
Several textbooks which are not particularly interesting for their own sakes. My latest book to read in indeterminate waiting periods was 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'. I really enjoyed it, although I am too focused on other things to analyse it much. The new book will be Dante's 'Paradisio'. I have a theory that even if I don't think much about these books, just reading them will keep my education a little broader than it would have been without them.

I am hoping...
to suddenly grasp Dynamics. It seems so simple in class, but when I sit down with the exercises I'm flummoxed. (See above re: supplementary texts.)

I am hearing...
The syncopated clocks in our lounge. I've grown used to the two ticks one after the other and I rather like it now.

Around the house...
Im feeling rather virtuous, because I got out the airer to hang up my wet washing, rather than sticking it in the tumble dryer and causing myself ironing nightmares. I don't really have any call to feel virtuous about it, but at any rate it's satisfying.

One of my favourite things...
is a Maths problem that works out just right. That is what makes struggling through the difficult patches so worth it!

A few plans for the rest of the week...
Tomorrow night I'll go to Bible study. Otherwise, I see a lot of Applied Mathematics in my future.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...
It's a metamaterial with a negative refractive index! Aka, very nearly the stuff of invisibility cloaks.

(There's a really stunning, but copyrighted, image accompanying this article.)

Things I Learned from Volunteering at the Seminary Library

2010-07-21T21:04:00.000+02:00

Disclaimer: I'm not sure 'volunteering' is a good choice of words, since it implies that I was actually organised, as opposed to just sort of pitching up to see what I could do or if I should sit and read until my mum's classes finished.

Those primary school exercises about arranging decimal fractions in ascending order do, in fact, have a practical application. Even the ones that go to an advanced number of decimal places, because there are a lot of decimal places in the Dewey numbers of some books. (Biblical exegesis from the African feminist perspective is only beginning to get there.)
The Dewey system isn't entirely infallible after all. Are the confessions of St. Augustine theology or autobiography?
The most useful thing I've learned from compulsively ordering increasingly substantial fragments of the family book collection is not how the Dewey Decimal System works. I learned that better from using the library anyway. It's how to transfer half a shelf of books in one motion, without disrupting their order. I should put that on my CV.
Having access to Twitter, IM, email and the web in my pocket did not distract me. Finding Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the 17^th Century and Humanae Vitae did. Lets not talk about the 268 shelf.
However many shelves you think you will need for Church History, double that. If that seems a lot, bear in mind that New Testament history and Biblical Archaeology fall under 'Bible' not 'Church History'—it could be worse.
Sorting all those books without being able to read them was tough. Librarians must be well practised in self-discipline!

The Excellent Villainy of 'Kung Fu Panda'

2010-07-19T13:16:00.000+02:00

I recently re-watched (parts of) the animated film Kung Fu Panda . To be honest, it doesn't really appeal to my sense of humour, although my brothers found it hilarious. What I did appreciate was the characterisation, especially of the villain, Tai Lung. (As well as stuff like the animation, which is really cool, but not what I want to talk about.) There are mild spoilers ahead, so if you haven't watched the film, but are planning to, maybe don't read on.

Creating a working villain is, in my experience, quite difficult. On the one side is the camp that says villains should be believable. If you're writing for an intelligent audience "he's evil" is simply not good enough. I buy this. Exploring characters is fun, even if it's not done explicitly.

The other camp is telling me that I need to make sure that my readers hate my villain. If the villain is soft and cuddly, she doesn't pose a realistic threat to the protagonist. Even worse, my readers may end up siding with the villain instead of the hero!

In his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card sides very firmly with the former camp. It would be hard to pinpoint a real villain in the Ender Saga, but that certainly doesn't stop him from building up fantastic set of novels. Isaac Asimov similarly said that he wanted people to question who was really on the right side in many of his stories. I'm sure there are examples outside the SF genre; that's just what I know best. However, while I very much admire what can be done, I don't think I'm ready to go there just yet. I struggle with much more fundamental things!

Kung Fu Panda, on the other hand, ha almost textbook characterisation. In fact, the explicit characterisation is part of what I enjoyed about it. In a flashback we see Tai Lung as an abandoned baby. He's cute and adorable, and is brought up and pampered by Kung Fu Master Shifu. Shifu doesn't see what a spoiled brat Tai Lung is becoming until Master Oogway refuses to let Tai Lung become the legendary Dragon Warrior.

At that point, Tai Lung cracks. In his mind, he is the dragon warrior He will do whatever it takes to get what he deserves. That lands him heavily sedated in a deep dark prison at the beginning of the film. Soon after the film begins, he escapes. He is completely ruthless, but there is a small sense of sympathy. Maybe he just feels betrayed. Poor guy--but he's still horrible.

Later, Shifu apologises to Tai Lung and gives him a chance to turn back. By now, we know Shifu well enough to see that he's far from perfect, but still very wise. Tai Lung rejects the apology and threatens to kill Shifu. That's where, in my book, he becomes a really well-crafted villain. He's not just innately evil, but he is, fundamentally, evil. We can see how he got there, but also that he chose to stay there. He's not misunderstood: he's evil.

Until (hah!) I reach an Asimv-esque fluidity of hero and villain, I'll be very satisfied if I can create villains like Tai Lung. He hits a very sweet point on the balance of a traditional villain.

Addendum: I would feel that I'd left something out if I didn't mention that Shakespeare has written villains that seem to fall a long way into the second camp. Iago of Othello is a good example. Clearly it can be made to work.

Discipline

2010-07-16T22:08:00.000+02:00

I like blogging, because it helps me to sort out my ideas, it makes me happy to share some of my thoughts with other people who might potentially care about them, being part of the blog community is fun and it's just one of those cool things I'd like to be the sort of person who does.

I don't like blogging because it takes a whole ten minutes out of my day.

Some days, when I've done twelve hours of schoolwork, asking for another ten minutes of brain time is pushing it. So maybe I can't blog every day, even if I'd like to. Some days, I have free time, which gets sucked up into doodling or web-hopping or staring a the ceiling.

It looks like maybe—just maybe—I should try to blog more often. And so that this post actually has a point to it, instead of being me repeating myself, I will append some unrelated bullet points to my argument.

Flash Fiction Month is July, which lands very neatly over the end of my world-cup-extended winter vac. I've enjoyed it far more than I've ever enjoyed National Novel Writing Month. They're both great, but they're different flavours, and FFM has made me more confident about my writing and encouraged me to experiment. I can't wait for next year, when it launches outside of deviantART.
I spent some time (and will spend more) working at the seminary library. I was amazed at the sheer volume of books on topics I would have thought rather esoteric. I think I found as many books on exposition from the perspective of the African woman as I did commentaries on Revelation. (Admittedly my sample may have been skewed.)
Mostly, I'm glad that I'm relatively independent. I'd feel awkward if my mother was still making my lunch. However, I will admit to mild envy of people whose laundry magically gets done when I have a basket of ironing that could compete with the leaning tower of Pisa and no wearable jeans.
Next semester I get to learn MATLAB. I am beyond excited about getting to write code again. (Last time I seriously wrote code was for my major Matric project in 2008.) Maybe I'll even stop trying to decipher the notes the Computer Science lecturer leaves on the board in our Calculus lecture theatre. Maybe.
The End

Metafiction

2010-06-14T16:19:00.000+02:00

In the past few months I've read a couple of works of metafiction. I've probably read books like this before, but I'm more aware of them now than I've ever been before. I think they're fascinating. Last year I read Michael Ende's The Neverending Story, in which the book itself plays a key role - and the narrator of part of the book turn out to be one of the characters. Those two facts are very intertwined, and are part of what makes the book more interesting than a regular children's fantasy adventure (not that there's anything wrong with those!)

I also read Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. Fforde's novel has characters slipping in and out of their real world and the world of Jane Eyre. I'm not sure if it's actually metafiction, since the focus is more on different realities than on layers of fiction, but it's certainly something very similar.

Just recently, I finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This is the book that sent me on my quest to find out more--I got to the end of the novel and was confused, but intrigued. A little bit of research brought up the topic of metafiction. I don't think it specifically helps me to understand the novel better, but it gives me a context to place it in. It's also opened up a whole new world to explore.

I think Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad, which I've loved for years, might be metafiction too--it certainly deals with the concept of metanarrative, which is somehow connected. The cherry on the top is that my current Bible reading notes are subtitled 'Adventures in the Biblical Metanarrative'! I'm going to be looking out for the concept from now on and trying to figure out more of what it actually is.

2010-06-08T14:02:00.000+02:00

There's a particular book I want to read right now. It's not just the text that I want to reread, but a particular copy that I want to hold. I want the oldish edition of Dear Daddy-long-legs with the blue and white cover and the line illustrations of the farmhouse where the heroine goes on holiday. I want the copy that's sitting on a shelf labelled 'Children's Classics', next to dozens of other books I've enjoyed. The shelf that's just between the picture books and the junior fiction in my hometown library, and across the room from the issue desk. The issue desk with the friendly librarians I've known since I was three, who will ask me how the exams are going and if I enjoyed my books. I want the same copy of Dear Daddy-long-legs that I've always read.

Unfortunately, it's several hundred kilometres from here, along with the house I grew up in and the library I almost know backwards. The library here works well enough, but right now I'm feeling nostalgic and maybe a little homesick. I guess it's part of growing up and moving on; not sad so much as different.

For Grandpa

2010-05-22T11:52:00.000+02:00

children, grandchildren
gather in the church
to say farewell:
eight posies
atop the casket

---

Words can never really be enough.

(Tanka)

Reading

2010-01-26T11:42:00.000+02:00

I've been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember -- I'll read just about any well written book, and a large number of not so well written books too. For a somewhat shorter time, I've been a critical reader. Partly it's that every aspiring writer is told to go out and read critically, but more than that at a certain point comparisons become inevitable.

Which is better, Harry Potter or Narnia? How do I predict which library shelves hold the most enjoyable books? What should I recommend to other people? Some kind of standard becomes necessary. Besides, it's fun to talk about books - nearly as much fun as it is to read them.

At some point, I discovered the fun of writing book reviews. At first I tried to list main characters and important themes; to make a literary analysis of the book. The trouble with that approach is twofold. For one thing, I'm rather unqualified to make literary analyses and quite aware of it. For another, I could write a review as long as the book itself, which rather defeats the purpose of a review.

Then, while I was exploring different kinds of nonfiction writing, I stumbled across a better way of writing reviews. A book review is a true story about an adventure I went on - the adventure of reading a good book, an awful book, or even a mediocre book. Sharing my adventure is not about what I know and don't know and it doesn't have to be exhaustive. It's even more fun to write than the formal things I learned to write at school.

My 26^th of January resolution is to write more book reviews. As a kind of motivation, I'll post them too, on deviantART and at the Reading as Discipline blog. Words are fun. Words about words are even more fun!

Lo, She Emerges

2010-01-22T17:22:00.000+02:00

At least, she hopes so. Moving house is a complicated business, and the worst part is that it means no internet! Things are more-or-less settled now, and my university orientation begins in a week, which is quite exciting.

In the meantime, the rest of my family have settled into various schools (and a seminary), and we've found a church to fit in at. In just a few weeks I've been part of a good number of different activities, and I've begun teaching Sunday School, which is awesome.

I 'click' with Sunday School. Preparing and praying and running the programme are all so much fun, so meaningful and just right. I'm very happy to be involved in that already.

Basically, we are here and even have internet! I will write a post that uses a larger section of my brain later! Have a nice day!

On Safari

2009-12-06T22:50:00.000+02:00

That seems to be what they call it outside of Africa, anyway. We're visiting the Kruger National Park, so I'll be gone for a week or so. Happy advent!

Fractal Bible

2009-12-05T14:46:00.000+02:00

My fifteen word bible got me thinking about the nature of the bible. It's something I contemplate from time to time, like many Christians, I suppose. Recently, I've been thinking that the bible is like a fractal, and trying to boil it down to fifteen words only emphasised that. The analogy is flawed, of course, like any human attempt at understanding God must be, but I think it's still worth exploring.

Fractals are very beautiful in and of themselves, although they can represent very complex ideas. I don't nearly understand the maths (chaos theory) behind fractals. Even when very learned men and women express the concepts mathematically, they lose something of their intuitive and natural beauty. The bible can be like that. I certainly acknowledge that commentaries and theological dissertations are meaningful and important, but the bible itself is the really beautiful, intrinsic, important thing.

The other important thing about fractals is that they're endlessly repetitive. There's a pattern behind the fractal that is extended indefinitely, becoming smaller and smaller. You can see the basic pattern, but it forms a different overall pattern too. I think that the basic pattern of the bible is God's nature, but perhaps the overall pattern is Christianity.

For me, that understanding gives me some idea of what seems like the repetitive nature of the bible, and particularly the Old Testament. Looking at the broad sweep of the pattern, we see repeated rejections of God and returns to him. As we look deeper, we see particular causes for these moves. Zooming in again, we can pick out individual responses. Every layer is important in making up the whole, but I struggle to conceive of them all simultaneously. My fractal model helps me to hold the pieces together.

I dare say that rigorous theological analysis would turn it out as dubious at best, but it helps me to understand. It's another rung in my ladder. I think that's what counts.

Fifteen Word Bible

2009-12-01T15:08:00.000+02:00

I was tagged by Jenny (aka my mom). The idea is to write five lines, each with one word more than the previous, to express the bible. The first line has one word.

I think writing form poetry might give me a slightly different perspective on this one, but I don't think it's changed the final product much. I certainly don't claim this as poetry, but there is an interesting similarity.

God
made people
who disowned Him;
His plan lets us
live with and for Him.

I really wanted sixteen words; I almost cheated and used an ampersand, but I couldn't do it. ('Lets' would be better as 'allows', which requires 'to'.) I'm not sure 'disowned' is quite right either.

That is why it is important to separate blogging and writing poetry.

This has inspired me to think about why the Bible is like a fractal. But that's another post.

And I tag (drumroll) Kate P and songbirdd.

The Pilgrim's Progress II

2009-11-27T14:16:00.000+02:00

Most people, I think, have heard of John Bunyan's classic The Pilgrim's Progress. I don't think the sequel is as popular. In fact, I only discovered it when I got halfway through my new copy of the book and discovered that it was secretly a two-in-one edition.

Given all of this, I doubt that Pilgrim's Progress II will be particularly mindblowing. That seems rather similar to the complaints I sometimes hear about modern movies, and I began to think about the similarities and differences of the book to more modern writing.

The most obvious difference is that it's the only book I've read that uses words like 'snibbeth'. The second most obvious is the way that dialogue is attributed twice - there'll be a play-like reference at the beginning of the line as well as a 'said Christian'. That, I think, might point to the fact that the work was 'self-published'. Bunyan asked his friends what they thought, and decided to get it printed. Perhaps self-publishing is not so bad as people often say, then.

On the other hand, if Bunyan had had an editor to take out the double references, it might have reduced the length of the book considerably. So I guess you can go either way (which is what I would have said at first.)

The thing that bugs me most about it is the devices Bunyan comes up with - particularly towards the end - to present his ideas. If I were his editor, I would tell him to go revise the second half of his book to make it more interesting. (That might mean I would make a terrible editor, of course!)

At the beginning of the book, we visit Mount Sinai (the law), the Slough of Despond, the wicker gate that is opened to those who knock and the house of the Interpreter. Those are all good an fascinating. We meet all sorts of curious people too: people who actually do things.

Later on, we encounter a most marvellous idea. Christian and Hopeful come to an Enchanted Land. To keep themselves from falling asleep, they fall into a great theological discussion. They speak in bullet points. If I'm honest, I skimmed over some of that.

I don't know if Bunyan lost inspiration as he went on, intended the book to be that way, or had some other issue. I'm pretty sure that the book could be made more exciting farther in. The interesting bits go on for long enough - and mostly, are frequent enough - that I was largely caught up in the story, though.

Bunyan has some interesting insights and some ideas that I disagree. He's worth reading, because on the whole he makes me think.

Also, he introduced me to the word 'snibbeth' and who can argue with that?

Being Thankful

2009-11-26T18:48:00.000+02:00

Apparently, there's a country up to the North and the West of us that has a national holiday called Thanksgiving. I know a few people who live there, you see, which is how I know about it. Most people don't have that holiday, but I thought it would be fun to play along, since one can never be too thankful.

I'm thankful for my family. Even when they frustrate me or annoy me or just don't get it, they're family and they're there for me. Most of the time, they understand me better than anyone else too.

I'm thankful for online communities. It's so much easier to find people with specific interests when you don't have to take location into account.

I'm thankful that God has provided house, schools, jobs for next year. At the beginning of this year, none of that was entirely certain. I don't think everything's going to be easy, but God has provided and I can trust that he will continue to do so.

I'm thankful for challenges like NaNoWriMo and maybe even exams, that make me think and make me push myself to do better than 'okay'. (I need to write fifteen thousand words before the end of November to finish. I'm not giving up.)

I'm thankful for all the things I have that so many don't: clothes, food, shelter and so many relative luxuries.

Ctrl +F5: Force Refresh

2009-11-24T14:08:00.000+02:00

It's weird having my mother back home; definitely good, but weird. Routines that got dropped by the wayside over the year she was away are suddenly back in place. Things we've begun to take for granted are not quite so normal any more. The strangest part is thinking that this is how life will be now.

At the beginning of the year, we all psyched ourselves for what was coming up. We didn't like it, but we knew we'd make it through and we planned accordingly. Now, at the end of the year, we've been stressing about exams and moving other things that people stress about. Having our mother back was certainly a highlight, but since it was a good thing, I don't think it's had much 'stress time'. In some ways, that makes the transition harder. At any rate, it's more surprising.

On an absolute scale, getting Mother back can't even be compared to saying goodbye, though. It is good. It's like somebody's hit 'Ctrl+F5' on the web page of my life and forced me to re-establish my reality with a few new elements. I don't think the page has quite finished loading yet.

Pre-Structured Posting

2009-11-23T08:46:00.000+02:00

I should write proper blog posts. I will, when NaNoWriMo is finished, and we've done our packing, and I'm not stressing about schoolwork, and I don't have other commitments and --
There's never going to be a perfect time to blog. Fill-in-the-blanks is baby steps back to actually writing proper posts. So here goes.

(This one is from here.)

Outside my window, the sun is shining for what seems like the first time in days. I think my parents must be chasing it up here from Grahamstown.
I am thinking too much, at least about myself. It's far better to be Christ-conscious than self-conscious. The challenge is in really applying that.
I am thankful for my family, who will all be back together this evening. 2010 may well be the last year that we all live in the same town, and I want to appreciate the months we have now.
From the kitchen two things are certain: food and dishes. If I cook, it will probably mean ham carbonara of sorts. The returning parents may have different ideas, though.
I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt. This should not surprise you.
I am creating a novel. It looks increasingly like my planning for NaNo will strectch to the full 100 000 words of an actual novel, which excites me. If I finish and edit it, I might even try submitting it to an agent.
I am going to win NaNoWriMo (aka, actually finish it). I doubt I'll get through more than half my novel in November, though.
I am reading The Pilgrim's Progress. I think I enjoyed it more when I was about ten and didn't worry about metaphors or language. It seems to me that Bunyan was a better storyteller than a wordsmith.
I am hoping to finish my Christmas shopping before the Mad Panic arrives. It's especially complicated this year, because Christmas and goodbyes are all mixed up.
I am hearing birds: not just the birdsong, but the flutter and swish as they pass my window. I like birds. They have a sense of peaceful industry about them.
Around the house things are looking a little tidier than usual. This is absolutely not because Mother will be home today.
One of my favourite things is the literature community on deviantART; there are not enough people who appreciate the value of semicolons.

A few plans for the rest of the week:
I want to hit 50k on my novel, which I know I can do if I'm disciplined about it. We're also going to start packing in earnest, I think.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing:

Gidleigh Goat by ~3-hares on deviant ART

Why?

2009-11-20T08:41:00.000+02:00

Some people say that they don't write because they don't know what to write. Quite often, they call it writer's block, which makes it sound official and excusable. I don't think I've ever experienced that. I think I have the opposite problem: I have too many ideas and spend so long trying to choose one to write about that I don't get to the actual writing. Unfortunately, I can't call this writer's block. (If I sound kind of sceptical about writer's block, I am, although not entirely. But that's another post, which is precisely where I'm not supposed to be going.)

Now, it's possible that the way Terry Pratchett describes ideas in Discworld works out on Roundworld too. An idea seems to be a kind of subatomic particle - and certain people attract ideas far more than others. That seems to fit the observational evidence, but it lacks a certain scientific rigour.

I think that lots of ideas are a result of learning that 'why?' is a good question to ask. I think there may be a fair amount of luck involved in being taught this, or figuring it out for oneself, but it's something anyone can do. Very often, life is about being practical, to the detriment of being wonderful (in the most literal sense). We learn facts for exams, rather than understanding concepts, because we only need to pass. We do things because people expect us to, without stopping to think about why. We follow routines that get us through the day, even when we forget the meaning behind them.

Those things aren't altogether bad. In their own places, they're useful. The problem comes when they take over the child who says, 'Daddy, why?' If the child doesn't stop asking, then Daddy is awesome.

Why is the sky blue?
Why is the earth round?
Why do I have to tidy my room?
Why does it rain?
Why is the moon not made from green cheese?
Why is Shakespeare famous?
Why is it bad to put magnets in the computer?
Why do people smoke?
Why are flowers pretty?

There's so much that we only begin to answer in high school, or towards the end of prep. school. Some things we don't even answer then. The sad thing is that there's nothing on the list that a five-year-old can't at least begin to understand. We so often squash the 'why's.

But if we don't, or if we unsquash them, there are hundreds and thousands and googolplexes of ideas just waiting to be found.

Because did you know, the moon used to be green cheese, but it was petrified due to the pressure of empty space? So actually, the moon is a green cheese fossil. Clearly, it was a Swiss green cheese. How else did the craters get there?

Finished!

2009-11-11T18:27:00.000+02:00

I wrote Calculus yesterday, which means that my Summer holidays have technically begun. It's really great (I read an entire novel yesterday afternoon, after a whole month without one), but also a little strange.

Part of me keeps thinking I need to study. If I didn't have a certain amount of inbuilt laziness, I might even be revising the subjects I've just finished with - I'm quite glad I'm not that studious. Still, I have to keep reminding myself that I'm allowed to do other things now. I have 'most all the time in the day to read and blog and work on my NaNovel.

There are chunks when I'm working or doing useful things around the house, but there's a lot of new, unallocated time too. It's surprisingly difficult not to stress because I haven't studied. Consciously I know it's not an issue, but subconsciously, I guess it's going to take a while longer.

Now I'm going to go and do things just for fun, because I can. Like catching up the wordcount on that novel.

Shakespeare Saturday: School

2009-11-07T13:10:00.000+02:00

Until my exams finish, I'm going to be a little focused on school. It always impresses me that Shakespeare's schoolday was almost certainly several hours longer than a typical schoolday today. He didn't study Calculus or English Lit either. Still I'm not sure much has changed when it comes to

the whining schoolboy with shining morning face.

I think if Shakespeare had known that his work would be studied in schools, he would have been most surprised that a subject like English Lit existed. Most kids aren't taught Greek or Latin, but they do read novels and plays at school. What the Elizabethans watched purely for entertainment, we watch for education, although the entertainment aspect hasn't been lost entirely.

It makes me wonder what will change in the school system in the next few hundred years. Maybe students will be expected to analyse the Beatles' songs or whine about the ancient blog posts they're expected to read. Maybe Literature will be studied as art instead of language. Maybe there'll only be a few schools that offer the ancient language English.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if there turn out to be whining schoolchildren with shining morning faces. Some things don't seem to change.

Friday Five

2009-11-06T15:23:00.000+02:00

I would love to post a beautiful three-hundred word essay to my blog every day. Unfortunately, there are other things I would love more, like passing Calculus, writing things that aren't blog posts, and correcting my brother's spelling tests. Well, technically I don't love doing that last one, but it does take precedence.

Since I can't have that on my terms, I'm settling for trying to post something reasonably meaningful to my blog most days. I am hoping that more-or-less avoiding structure on some days will make the process possible. Hence, I present to you my Friday Five.

1. My last exam is on Tuesday. That means the summer holidays are nearly here, which is awesome. Having just three days left to study is not so awesome. I'm fairly confident that I'll be okay with this one, though.

2. I made a rosary! I won't pray the traditional Marian rosary, since I'm not Catholic, but I think something like this ecumenical rosary might work well. The repetition and tactile notions of praying with prayer beads really appeal to me, so I would really like to make a go of using them as a prayer aid.

3. Summer has definitely arrived. It's hot and sunny and if my Calculus book didn't look so accusing, I might go swim. I'm definitely looking forward to holidays, especially once our whole family is home together.

4. My brother has devised a method of studying that involves thumping his book. I'm quite glad there's not that much studying for Grade SIx exams, actually.

5. I may be utterly mad for attempting NaNoWriMo during exams, but so far, writing brainlessly during study breaks is working okay. I just have to remember that editing comes later.

The Hardest Part is Going Back

2009-11-04T20:54:00.000+02:00

Although perhaps the hardest part seems to be wherever you are right now. That could also be true.

There's a path that we're all supposed to follow through life, although we step off it at an alarmingly high rate. Once we've found the path, though, it's not always difficult to realise when we're stepping off. We can take one small step back and end up where we should be.

Other times, the false paths are more deceptive. And when you've pushed and struggled along the path for days and weeks or even years, it's difficult to accept that you were going the wrong way. All that work must have counted for something! The only thing it seems to add to, though, is how far you have to walk back.

It's just as well there's somebody to help us on the way back, because I don't think we'd manage to turn around every time if there wasn't. It's difficult enough as it is.

So tonight, I'm pulling out my map and compass. I'm looking for the path. I'm pretty sure this blog is on my path, in fact. It's funny the things He uses to show us when we're lost.

Exams

2009-10-26T13:48:00.000+02:00

I'd forgotten that exams can actually be enjoyable.

The last few weeks have been the run up to my final exams. I've been stressing myself a little silly. Today I wrote the first -- and probably easiest -- of them: General Astronomy. I was ridiculously nervous, right up until I was sitting at my desk, waiting for the exam to begin. Suddenly things clicked and my apprehension became anticipation.

Black print crept along the pages of my answer book. I reached back and pulled things out of my memory to answer questions. I was a little disappointed that the Density Wave theory wasn't examined, and I made some semi-educated guesses about the four key observations made by Galileo.

After two hours, I had completed the paper and checked it. It was satisfying. I'm looking forward to the next one!

Callings

2009-10-15T20:33:00.000+02:00

A couple of days ago, I was struck by a thought that seems fairly obvious, but somehow isn't. I have been debating the worth of actually sharing it. I decided that if it makes a difference to me, it must be worth blogging.

A minister is not a better Christian than an engineer. A missionary is not a more useful Christian than an accountant. The presiding bishop is not a better Christian than the courtesy clerk at Pick'n'Pay.

Intellectually, I've known this for a very long time. Practical belief has been longer in coming. It is coming together in my head and my heart now, though. I am beginning to see that any aspect of Christian life (and by extension, all life) is only right if God calls you to it. When it is right, it is as absolutely right as right can be.

I think God gives us each a different set of tools and that no tool is better than another. A front-end-loader moves a lot of earth, but a trowel is considerably more useful for planting seedlings. People might even notice the hole in the ground more than the seedling, but it isn't intrinsically better or more righteous.

The best we can be is to be what God asks us to be. As John Milton put it, 'They also serve who only stand and wait'.

'Like this, but not really'

2009-10-13T20:57:00.000+02:00

The calculus I'm supposed to be studying right now reminds me of how small the human mind really is. There seems to be a repeated theme through my textbook of 'It's like this, but not exactly.' I shouldn't be able to subtract infinity from infinity because it just doesn't make sense. I still end up doing it indirectly. This confuses me.

Because I am confused, I end up wondering how I can be studying infinity anyway. I struggle to grasp twenty years or ten thousand Rand properly. Numbers like a billion or a trillion are really sort of beyond me, but here I am trying to grasp infinity. That's probably why I keep on facing half-answers. There are analogies that explain it if you don't stretch them too far and explanations that make sense if you aren't too rigourous. At the end of the day, though, I think there are some things that are beyond human understanding.

Those things are not only studied in Philosophy and Theology degrees. Anything that is part of God's creation - our entire universe - fits into something bigger than we can understand. So the Maths books say 'Like this, but not really' and 'Infinity isn't a number, but if we treat it like one here it works out'. I guess I just have to accept that God has given some people the insight to find those things and to counter my confusion with a wonder at what He's created.

Emotional Low

2009-10-10T20:24:00.000+02:00

I don't like being unhappy, so I try to avoid it. This strategy is a lot more successful than I once thought. Some problems don't need solutions, they just need a good night's sleep. Some things aren't worth stressing over.

The potential downside to this system is that not stressing over things that don't matter that much can turn into denial of things that do matter. Sometimes things need to be put on hold and then picked up again. To some degree, I've done that with my studies and it's worked well enough for me. I have about four days more than I need to revise everything at a reasonable pace, which is plenty (I hope). Other things, like getting a hold on where my life is going, don't take well to that approach. I can only face so much of the stress at a time, but it needs to be faced.

When I try to bury it, it comes back out in the form of grumpiness, unfounded guilt, and arbitrary accusations. By God's grace, I've yet to be so irrational that I can't patch things up, but I'm sure that if I ignore the warnings I'll eventually take myself out of that grace, which is not a place I want to go. I need to do some self inspection and figure out where to put some of the pieces.

Part of that means that Shakespeare can have this Saturday off. Regular programming might resume next week. I think.

Threads of Thought

2009-10-07T20:22:00.000+02:00

One of the ideas in Orson Scott Card's novel Children of the Mind is that people can think multiple things at the same time. To a certain degree, that's certainly true of all of us. I think the subconscious gets up to a lot of things without our attention. I don't think I can simultaneously and consciously follow two trains of thought, like Peter Wiggin, though.

Occasionally I catch myself trying, anyway. Generally, I don't think this is a good thing. Maybe if I practise I'll get better a it, but right now, I end up following two halves of thoughts.

For instance, the Maths I was studying this morning was a fairly straightforward section. I was almost tempted to skip it, but there are always a couple of things I need to read up on, so I didn't. The problem was that I began plotting my Nano novel at the same time. I didn't get very far with my novel, because part of my mind was on my Maths. I didn't get very far with the maths, because the part of my brain that is supposed to make sure I copy down the question properly was debating the pros and cons of writing about the Holy Grail.

In part, I know the issue will be solved when I start working on Maths that really holds my attention. Mostly, that's good, because it means I won't have too do the same sum three times before realising that if I wrote 1 instead of -1 I'd get the right answer. Partly, I'm a little wistful, because it would be interesting to see how well my brain can do at multithreading.

I guess that's life: there's always something more to explore, but I can't go in every direction at the same time.

The Left Brain - Right Brain Study Game

2009-10-05T21:45:00.000+02:00

I think I was in Grade Ten when I first took one of those tests that told me to incorporate more right-brain techniques into my study scheme. I was half convinced that I would fail if I didn't use mindmaps to study, although I have subsequently discovered that I can pass quite fine without them.

I'm not sorry, though, that I was inspired to read one of Tony Buzan's books. I don't follow his techniques exactly as he lays them out, but reading about them opened my eyes to the multitude of possible study methods. Some things I still learn by making lists. I quite often use my rather unique variation on a mindmap. Occasionally, I use kinetic study techniques.

The AIDS virus becomes many times more interesting when you cast your siblings as unsuspecting white blood cells. Flemings Left Hand Law makes a wonderful base for a magic spell. The Permian extinction may have been caused by a volcano with bright red artificial curls instead of lava. All it takes is a little imagination.

Most people seem to think the way I study is a little crazy, but I'm quite pleased that I study at all. Mixing things up breaks through the boredom. It's probably neurologically useful too; at any rate, it gives me a quasi-scientific justification for making pretty pictures:
See my study plan? There's a b aig-picture mindmap for the right brain and detail-oriented calendar for the left brain. I wouldn't use either on its own (I have tried and failed), but, so far, they're working pretty well in combination!

The Kid Who Grew up in the Back of a Church

2009-10-04T20:22:00.000+02:00

I went to church by myself this morning, because my dad was preaching somewhere else. That's not particularly unusual in itself, but it's the first time that I haven't chickened out in this situation. It's easy to say 'Well, I'll go in the evening anyway, so what does it matter if I skip the morning service?' and avoid having to sit by myself. I feel better today, knowing that I went to both services than I did last time I skipped a service, though.

The funny thing is that lots of people I know will skip church altogether for reasons that seem smaller (at least to me). I don't want to judge what's right or wrong for them - I certainly wouldn't expect everyone to go to two services a Sunday - but it does highlight that my situation is a little unusual. Most kids didn't grow up in the back of a church.

Apparently, my mother played the organ at church in 18 August 1991 on 25 August 1991, she also played the organ, with the addition of a baby in a carry-cot (me!). I still remember being part of the row of four duvets at the back of the church. Going to church is what we do. I never particularly minded, and I was going to church because I wanted to long before my confirmation.

Sometimes I need to remember that it's not like that for everyone. Sometimes I need to remember that even though it's not like that for everyone, it is like that for me. I've tried going to church infrequently (once a week is infrequently, okay?) and also more frequently. I connect better with God when I'm in His big house often, so that's where I'll put myself. Even if people think it's strange that I dislike going to church less than three times a week.

Shakespeare Saturday: LibriVox

2009-10-03T19:57:00.000+02:00

During the car trip down to Pietermaritzburg, we listened to part of King Lear. It was fun to understand the play from a different angle, and the best part was that the recording was free! It had its flaws, but it was good enough to make me want to check out more of LibriVox.org.

LibriVox has thousands of recordings of public domain writings, from Aesop to Zola. Everything is put together by volunteers and released into the public domain. It sounds too idealistic to be true, but it seems to work just fine.

It isn't perfect, but is a great resource, especially in deep dark Africa where libraries don't stock audiobooks!

Three in the Morning

2009-10-03T02:58:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I stayed up working this late - now I'm not sleepy, but I've finally finished all my assignment. Now the studying for exams commences. I'm hovering somewhere between joy at the former and terror at the latter.

In the meantime, we went down to Pietermaritzburg and learned more about the city than I thought one could in thirty-six hours. We saw the three-bedroom flat we'll be moving into at the end of the year, visited various schools, went to dinner with some of my dad's potential colleagues (totally out of the blue: only a couple of hours after we'd met J. she sent a message inviting us for dinner!) and discovered that the best place to find a map of the city was not, as one might expect, the stationers, the newsagents or the tourist information centre. No, we stopped to ask for directions at an advertising agency and were given a map they had lying around. All I can say is that God must know what he's doing, because the weirdest things have worked out.

When we got home, I found a letter in the post from Kate P. I won a very pretty bookmark and a card (if it wasn't three in the morning, I might be inspired to take photos. It is three in the morning, though, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it's very pretty.) Yay! Thanks, Kate.

Oh, and just in case I didn't have enough on my plate, I'm signing up for NaNoWriMo. I don't know if it's wise and I'm not entirely commited, but it sounds like fun. Academics do have to come first, but I'm hoping I'll find enough time around and after them.

You can tell I wrote this at three in the morning, can't you? I promise not to do it too often!

Shakespeare Sat - er - Sunday: Chick Lit

2009-09-27T15:09:00.000+02:00

I started typing this post yesterday, but I got distracted and didn't finish. That probably is an indication that forgetting about using a timer is a Bad Thing. However, I'll write that today, and see if I can get what I should write about today to autopost while we're away!

The more I read Shakespeare, the more I think that it's really very accessible. The language is a barrier, but the content is not intrinsically advanced - rich, certainly, but not difficult to grasp. For instance, the King of France's declaration of love for Cordelia , in the first scene of King Lear, is about as soppy as a romance can get. I didn't expect that.

I forget that King Lear wasn't written to be taught in English Classrooms. I don't suppose Pythagoras developed his theorem of right-angled triangles to torture Grade Eights, either. Or that Cramer's Rule was developed because it makes a good multiple choice question.

I think that we sometimes get so caught up in the rush of education - maybe even of learning itself - that we forget the original purpose of things. Reading Shakespeare in order to study great literature is putting the cart before the horse - I read Shakespeare because he tells good stories. Remembering the proper order of things can be applied all over my life. It's a little indirect, but maybe Shakespeare will even help me to finish that nightmarish Calculus assignment!

Dreams

2009-09-25T21:35:00.000+02:00

Last night I dreamed that I had to help lead a confirmation class at a church I didn't know, with kids I didn't know, but who were very, very wild. It was not really a good dream. I think it reflects some of what I'm currently feeling quite well, though.

In a little over three months, I'll be living in a city I haven't visited (although we're travelling down there next week), working and playing with people I don't know. I think it will be a good experience, but it isn't a calming idea to play with. I'm scared that things will turn out like that dream: that I'll be out of my depth or that I won't make friends.

Consciously, I can rationalise. I can figure out how I'll handle things. I can see the huge amounts of good in the situation as well as the challenges. It still takes an effort not to panic.

Next week, we'll visit Pietermaritzburg. I'll see the university campus and my siblings' schools. We'll look at houses. I'll walk the streets of our new city, eat food from its shops and breathe its air. I'm sure these things will help. Maybe sometime before next year I'll stabilise. Maybe I'm just going to whirlwind for who-knows-how-long.

Right now, I just have to trust God. He's opened up a path for us just as far as we need it. When we need to go farther, he'll open up more. I hope.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Like a Child

2009-09-22T21:58:00.000+02:00

A large part of being a teenager is growing up.

And he [Jesus] said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:3

I think that, perhaps, as a Christian, I get to skip the worst parts. I don't mean that growing up is easy for anyone, but the secular world has expectations that I don't feel any need to conform to. I read a blog post about explaining death to children today. The mother in the post ended up lying to her daughter, because death without heaven doesn't fit into the innocence of a child's worldview.

The secular world says that there will be time enough to learn about death when you're older. Christianity tells me that death has been conquered. Accepting death (in the sense of the end of life, rather than as a passing on) is not something I have to do. I am immensely grateful for that.

There will always be growing pains, but pain comes in two varieties: there's the hurt when you cut your hand and a different hurt it begins to heal. One is good, even if it's not pleasant. One is bad. I think that growing up as a Christian, I get to experience the first sort of pain: soul stretching, if you will. Without Christ, the same experience would be soul snapping.

I can understand that life isn't fair, but I also see that 'fair' is not the ultimate goal. I don't know exactly where I'm going, but I know that God does. I'm far from perfect, but Jesus loves me anyway. And Jesus is never grumpy after a bad day at work. (Parents are wonderful, but they're not quite perfect, I don't think.)

I'm immensely grateful for that.

Sabbath

2009-09-21T18:21:00.000+02:00

Lately, I've been thinking about the significance of the Sabbath and how it ought to be kept. I think that there's a certain amount of freedom that's appropriate - playing outside, reading storybooks, even going shopping all seem fine. on the other hand, it's so easy to get caught up in those things that we forget that there might be something more to Sundays.

The Sabbath is emphasised hugely in the Old Testament. Not only is it one of the ten commandments, but many of the prophets seem to tell the Israelites to 'Be faithful to God and keep the Sabbath'. Given the frequency and context of the command, I can understand the knot the Sabbath had worked itself into by the time of Jesus' ministry.

Jesus, I think, shows us the other side of the Sabbath. I think that his teaching on the Sabbath is part of fulfilling the law (Matthew 5:17).On the one hand, we see from the Old Testament that the Sabbath should not be forgotten, but to balance that, we have Jesus' teachings that the work of God is more important than any rule about what certain days mean.

I've seen many interpretations of what is central to the Sabbath, but right now, for me, it means making Sunday God's day. Everyday is God's day, but most days I'm living in this world for God. On Sunday's I think I need to reach out to God, and almost ignore this world. From Monday to Saturday, I organise my life to put God in front. On Sundays, God gives me enough space to keep my life going.

I may go shopping or read novels, but the trick is not to let those impinge on my time with God.

Shakespeare Saturday: King Lear

2009-09-19T18:17:00.000+02:00

I'm going to read King Lear. There's not a great deal of logic to the choice, but if I'm going to write about Shakespeare, reading some of his work might help. I read King Lear years ago, but I don't remember much more than the basic plot. Also, we own a copy of King Lear in decent-sized print and it's my sister's set work for next year. If I read it now, we might even get to talk about it next year.

My theory is that by next week, I'll have read at least the first scene of King Lear, so I'll have something to post. When I've read it (the play, not the scene!) once, maybe I'll read it again so that I actually catch all the clever bits, which will potentially give me something meaningful to say.

And having written this much, I remember another reason for my genera inclination toward rereading King Lear: I read this is all: the pillow book of Cordelia Kenn a while ago, and it inspired me to read about the titular character's namesake. It's only taken me about two years to get there!

2009-09-17T17:26:00.000+02:00

[Strategy #12: Change your blog layout so that you can blog about that, rather than trying to think. If Blogger refuses to make the changes you want, curl up and die or find another strategy.]

[Strategy #17.5: If you can't or won't write a proper blog post, copy your LiveJournal entry from two days ago.]

I've just finished reading I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. I wasn't planning on reading it, but a friend of a friend mine said it was unbelievably boring, despite being an Oprah Book Club book that, according to The Times has 'terrific readability'. That struck me as a little paradoxical and I (very self-sacrificially, you may be sure) offered to relieve her of the burden.

I didn't find issues like schizophrenia, broken hearts, abuse and the search for God boring. I nearly stopped reading after a hundred pages because the main characters were more radical than I was comfortable with, but I'm glad I didn't. Lamb resolves the story masterfully, sifting the truth in Dominick Birdsey's life from the lies. The story is unconventional, but far from unbelievable.

The first part of the book shows us how other people have changed Dominick's life: particularly, it shows us the impact of his responsibility for his schizophrenic twin brother. Reading about what Dominick goes through is eye-opening, especially when an acquaintance of his casually uses the term 'schizo'. I've dome that before, but after reading I Know This Much is True, I don't intend to do so again.

Later in the book, Dominick visits his brother's psychologist for his own counselling sessions. A lot of anger and guilt come out. When Dominick admitted that his stepfather had abused him as a child, I expected the result to be retribution. I was surprised when his psychologist rather guided him to releasing his anger. There are definitely times when abuse does need to be reported - like when it's happening now, rather than in the past - but I think Lamb does well to challenge one of society's most ingrained stereotypes. Ray Birdsey messed up, but he's not evil, and by the end of the novel he and Dominick are reconciled.

I Know This Much is True challenged many of my preconceptions. It made me think. Sometimes I decided that I didn't agree with Lamb's take on life; sometimes I did. By the time I'd raced through nine hundred suspenseful pages, I knew myself a little better. That makes for a good book. It comes highly recommended, although with fair warning that it makes at least 'M' (maybe 'MA') using the Fiction Ratings guide.

Scary

2009-09-15T20:23:00.000+02:00

Sometimes, writing for other people's eyes is just plain scary. It's not particularly difficult - it can't be technically more difficult than writing for myself. I rarely struggle to find something I want to say. At this point in my life, time is not an issue. Sometimes I don't write because I'm lazy, but mostly I don't write because I'm scared.

A small part of what I'm scared of is the vulnerability: I'm exposing a part of myself to the world to accept or reject. It's not that hard, though, to convince myself that nothing too terrible will happen to me. If somebody really hates me, the worst they can do is to flame me and have their comments deleted. It's not that likely to happen anyway.

What really scares me is testing my own mettle. I'm writing something that's meant to be of a reasonable quality. If it looks awful afterwards, I can't say it's because it was only for practice: if I let other people see something, it's coming out of the best of what I can do - it's not always the best I've done, but it's rarely if ever the worst.

By putting my writing where others can read it, I'm forced to acknowledge that I'm not about to write a bestseller, because I know my writing won't be that popular. I hope and believe that it's good enough that a few people will be interested enough to read it, but I have to admit that there will be only a few. It's good to squash those ideas before they get out of hand, but going out there and proving them wrong is a little scary.

Every time I write something for others, I take the risk that it'll be ignored, or that I'll offend somebody, or that I'll prove once and for all that I can't write. They're not very big risks, but sometimes my mind inflates them. More accurately, often my mind inflates them. I have to continually make the effort to take the risk. It's not a very big risk, but there's an adventure in every day that write something other people will see.

Frames of Reference

2009-09-14T20:00:00.000+02:00

I don't envision myself as a girly girl. I'm not completely unaware of things like clothes and hairstyles, but I own less make-up that some of my friends who own "hardly any" make-up. Sometimes, though, that perception of myself is challenged, especially, I think, given my family.

Today I bought a dress. There are two problems with that. The first is bought. The second is dress. In relation to the entire world, there's nothing remarkable about either of those. In relation to my family, there is. I'm the only person in my family that will voluntarily go clothes shopping ('I don't own anything that fits' is not voluntary), and the only one who voluntarily wears skirts. Buying a dress -- when I didn't really need one, but it was pretty and cheap -- is almost off-the-charts girliness.

Before I began redefining how I thought about myself, I changed my frame of reference. Outside of my immediate family, I don't think there's anything remarkable about going dress shopping. In that frame of reference, I fall somewhere around the middle of the chart, which I'm entirely happy with. The trick is to figure out which frame of reference is appropriate.

Some things - like shopping - I can measure by the world's standards. Other things - like the language I use - I'd rather not. Whether I look at my family's standards, my church's standards, or just my own standards, the rules I'm following for certain things are different to what most of the world is following.

ON one hand, I don't think I should be comparing my actions. Right and wrong are not comparative; for everything else, it doesn't matter. On the other hand, I know I'm going to keep looking for a reference point. While ideally I shouldn't be looking for that in the people I know, practically, I think it's better just to be aware of my frame of reference.

If I can persuade myself not to use inappropriate frames of reference, maybe I'll be able to get to the stage where I don't use them. For now, I'll just accept that I'm not the girliest of the girly girls.

Blessed

2009-09-13T12:00:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I am amazed at how many good things there are in my life. Things that I didn't have to choose, let alone earn. Things that I sometimes take for granted, but which are really incredibly precious. Right now, I am very thankful for my family.

For weekends when Daddy would play Lego with us and show us how to build things that seemed nigh-on impossible. For schooldays around the table, racing to finish an exercise so that I could dispell the Harry Potter enchantment I was under. For the books Mommy gave e and helped me with, until I wondered how other children survived without reading at least one book a week. For the plays and concerts and circuses we practised in the garden. For bedtime stories and Bible reading every night. For an unconditional love so tangible that even at the deepest points of teenage rebellion, I can't deny it.

I am incredibly blessed in having what so many people all over the world don't have. And I can only be incredibly grateful to my parents, my siblings, my God, for what they've given me. When I hear or read or dream about happy families, true love, and blissful childhoods, I don't have to imagine. I only have to remember.

I struggle with the fact that there's no way I can deserve all this. I have to accept it though. So I'm trying to accept that I've been blessed and pass that blessing on as much as I can.

Astronomy and Harry Potter

2009-09-09T21:13:00.000+02:00

Most, if not all, self-respecting Potterphiles are aware that many of Rowling's characters have names that mean a little more than appears on the surface. Remus Lupin, the werewolf is one of the best examples: in Roman mythology, Remus was raised by wolves and Lupin means wolf. Intelligent professor McGonagol is named Minerva, like the Roman goddess of wisdom. Dumbledore is the front man of the 'good side' and his first name, Albus, translates as 'White'.

Then there's Sirius Black, who transforms into a dog as an animagus: Sirius is known as the dog star. Interestingly, his brother was named Regulus, which is also a star. Regulus (the star) is brightest in spring. Regulus Black died young after performing a very brave act. You might think their parents were just enthusiastic astronomers, but the pattern continues throughout the Black family. Bellatrix is a star (sometimes known as the Warrior Woman); Andromeda isn't a star, but it's a galaxy. Regulus, Cygnus and Arcturus are stars. Ursula and Cassiopeia and Orion are constellations. I don't suppose there are stories behind them all, but there's enough to make me interested. I want to find out more. Especially when I realise that Merope is a star - Merope Gaunt was Voldemort's mother. She wasn't one of the Blacks as such, so where did she pick up the name?

I suspect that the naming scheme was in part just a quick name generator, especially since the first Black on the scene (Narcissa) is not, as far as I can tell, astronomically named. Still, there's enough pattern to make the concept worth exploring. Except, you know, not more worthwhile than actually passing General Astronomy. Or Calculus, for that matter. One day I'll find time, though, or at least find out that somebody else has already done it!

Confirmation

2009-09-06T21:44:00.000+02:00

My (not so) little sister was confirmed tonight. I'm pleased for her, but I think I've piggybacked off her special event too. Although I wasn't actually standing at the rail, I feel like I've confirmed my faith in Christ again. I believe that I have, even if it wasn't a public confession.

Through the confirmation liturgy, the sharing of communion, the church service and my sister's faith and devotion, God has touched me. I've been feeling down for a while, but now I'm ready put God in charge and run as fast as I can to keep up. Or to move along slowly, if that's what he wants.

I think I've been trying to say, 'God, of course you can go in front, as long as you go where I tell you.' Nothing good can come of that. I think and hope and pray that I'm letting go now. Even when God's road seems tougher, He's there to help me and I can be sure that it leads to a better place.

I Want

2009-09-02T15:35:00.000+02:00

I want to be famous
I want to touch the sky
I want you to love me
And I never want to cry

I want to be perfect
I want less mystery
I want to earn your love
And I just want to be me

I want to hold the world
I want to touch the stars
I want to buy your love
And do better than a pass

Do you know why I want this
When I have what really counts,
When I know you really love me
And I'm yours on all accounts?

What kind of hubris is this,
That I think of owning you
When you are more than perfect
And I don't know what I do?

I can but say I'm sorry,
May I have another try?
Might I be your little girl,
Even though I'll go awry?

-----

It's not very good, but it's better than just ignoring my blog, right? I hope so, anyway.

From my deviantART Journal,

2009-09-01T12:58:00.000+02:00

because I don't have the energy to explain what's going on in my head.

Bat Wing Boomerangs

In the Dr Brain's Mindventure game, which I used to play years ago, you have to use dead bats to make 'bat wing boomerangs' which allow you to attack enemies and flick switches. At the moment, I feel a bit like a bat wing boomerang: a bit dead, but probably more useful that way, the best help some people can get, but not always an appealing prospect. Mostly, it's because I'm stressing out about various changes in my life, but partly it's because [critiquing people is interesting.]

Of M.I.C.E. and Me

2009-08-28T14:37:00.000+02:00

In Orson Scott Card's book How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction, he explains something he calls the M.I.C.E. quotient. M.I.C.E. is a way of finding the focus of a story. It stands for Milieu / Idea / Character / Event.

Card says that every story will fall into one of these categories. A story can be rewritten so that it falls into a different category, although it retains its plot and characters, but it will rarely be worth reading afterwards. A whodunnit is an exemplary idea story: the entire story focuses on answering a question; on finding the big idea. If a whodunnit was rewritten so that we knew all along who did it, but focused on character development, it would be pretty boring.

In my case, I think it would be more appropriate to use a m.i.C.e. quotient. Whenever I read (or write), my focus is on the characters. If I read a murder mystery, I am usually at least as interested in the murderer's psychological motivation and the why the detective cares about solving the case as I am in the solution to the mystery.

If the hero needs to save the world, I tend to see the big event as a means of character development, rather than the point of the story. I'm a little better about milieu, but I still tend to think of it as secondary to character, even in a book like Gulliver's Travels. When I'm reading, this probably means that I don't get everything I could out of most books, but it's not really a big deal.

When I attempt to write fiction, it's more of an issue. I conceptualise a really great story, except that it doesn't have a plot. I will not notice that until I actually try to write it down. Then I realise I have nothing to write. I may have a fascinating set of characters who will interact believably, but if they don't have anything to do, nobody will care. If they don't have a background, the story will be rather dull. (I'm not quite sure about Idea, though.)

It's taken me a while to figure out the roots of what I struggle with when writing fiction, but the M.I.C.E. quotient was a very useful tool. I'm surprised that I haven't seen similar concepts more often.

Habits

2009-08-26T19:41:00.000+02:00

I can't remember how many days they say it takes to break a habit, but I'm pretty sure it's not four, which is a good thing, because I haven't blogged for four whole days. The first three were legitimate, I think: on Saturday I was sleeping in a tent in the cold, losing my voice. On Sunday and Monday, I was buried in bed trying to find my voice again. Yesterday I still hadn't found my voice, but I was out of bed, so I don't know why I didn't blog. Today I've been procrastinating badly, but lo, she blogs.

I was beginning to think all that meant I was out of the (rather dubious in the first place) habit of blogging. I don't think I really am though; or perhaps it's simply that I'll never genuinely be in the habit of blogging. I've certainly read that I can get into the habit of things like blogging or bible reading, but I'm skeptical that I really can.

I have a bad habit of biting my bottom lip. I consider it a habit, because i don't decide to bite my lip: I just notice when it starts to hurt. That habit has developed over the last year or so. On the other hand, I've been reading my bible before I go to sleep for several years, but I still have to make a conscious effort to do so. I don't find it particularly more difficult to remember when I've missed a week for some reason. I don't think it's a habit.

There's certainly been time to develop a habit, though. In some ways it feels weird that I don't have the habits the books talk about, but there's a greater sense of something like relief. When the book says 'you can get into this great habit in just ten days', I can accept that it doesn't work for me.

I may have to take a longer route, but a long route is much better than a brick wall.

Off to Camp

2009-08-21T22:47:00.001+02:00

I'm going on camp tomorrow. It's not a very long camp - I'll be back home on Sunday. We're not going far - in fact, we're pitching our tents in the centre of a local shopping centre. Part of the point of the exercise is publicity: outdoor diners, shoppers, people who are dragged along with the shoppers, can all watch us scouts building.

So, the camp is not very big, but it's going to be fun. I haven't been camping for nearly half a year, so any camp seems significant. Also, this camp has a lot of space for experimental pioneering. Trying-and-seeing is fun. Twenty-eight-ish hours of awesomeness are waiting!

XD (Because the way I'm feeling is expressed so much better in an emoticon than in words. It's not a rational feeling. It's just anticipation of friends and fun and stuff I'm not very good at putting into words. Maybe I'll be able to do it better afterwards.)

Two Sides of Criticism

2009-08-20T19:52:00.000+02:00

I am relatively active on sites like deviantART and fanfiction.net, which, for me, means that I spend a reasonable amount of time reviewing/critiquing other people's writing (and sometimes, hoping that people will review/critique mine). While, I wouldn't consider myself an expert in the craft by any means, I am beginning to notice that my critiques fall into two distinct categories.

There are critiques of work I could do myself, or that are similar to work I could do myself, and there are critiques of work that is significantly better than what I can write. The first set are easier, but I think the second are better for me.

In the first set, I see what I could do better in the piece and explain how to do it. Then I look at the aspects that I don't think are good as they stand and comment on those, although not necessarily in that order. There may be parts that are new to me, but on the whole, I'm just explaining something I've already learned and understood.

When I critique a piece that is better than I can produce, I really have to wrap my brain around it. There is a challenge in understanding what exactly makes the piece special. It's sort of like the inverse of the Anna Karenina principle: every excellent piece of writing can be excellent in it's own way. Then I have to look beyond what I like about the piece to what could be improved. I suppose that the more I go on, the easier it will become, but trying to improve on the (presently, by me) unattainable can feel a bit pointless. I usually get there, though, since none of us are perfect.

Going through this whole process can take a while, but at the end I've definitely learned something from it. I think I've given something more valuable to the author, too: if I use a critique to explain punctuation of dialogue or to suggest observing people in real life as a basis for characerisation, I'm not really giving the author something that's uniquely mine or uniquely theirs. If I can find something that touches me in a piece, or I notice an uncommon flaw, then I can tell the author something that might not be relevant to most people and that might not be noticed by everyone.

I'll certainly carry on reviewing all sorts of work, but I'm going to try to remember that the harder critiques to write are also the more rewarding. Falling back on doing what's easy doesn't grow me. Actually, that's probably true of everything I do.

Things I got for my Birthday

2009-08-19T21:23:00.000+02:00

(or, Tomorrow I will be More Serious, but I have Today Off)
(subtitled, an exercise in strange capitalisation and parentheticals)

a Parker Pen (I've written a couple of pages with it already. It's different to a ballpoint pen, but very cool.)
a grown-up handbag (Thanks, Grandma!)
a poetry anthology with at least one poet for every letter of the alphabet. I think it's a really fun idea.
The Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable I've wanted a phrase and fable dictionary for a while, so I'm very happy with this. (Yes, also very nerdy. Seriously, this is even more cool than an ordinary dictionary, especially for browsing. (Oh, do most people not browse the dictionary? I do.))
a gold cross and chain. Well, technically I haven't got this yet, but we're going shopping on Saturday (I think) so I can pick one I like.
locked in my room with strings of balloons. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but I did wake up with balloons strung across the doorway. And a cup of tea that said 'Happy 18th, Charlotte'. And crumpets just about to be made. I love you, brothers.
chocolate cake. Yummy!

How old do you think you are?

2009-08-17T09:17:00.000+02:00

I don't always have the same age in my head as the one I fill in on forms. When I turned sixteen, I still thought of myself as being fifteen. In fact, when I turned seventeen, I was only just beginning to think of myself as sixteen. On the other hand, I saw myself as fourteen for most of the time I was thirteen. I presently think of myself as almost nineteen.

I do know exactly how old I am, but when I fit myself into the age scale, I put myself at eighteen-and-three-quarters. If somebody is seventeen I think they're younger than me - which admittedly, they probably are. If somebody's nineteen, though, I think they're only a touch older than me, when they must be older by more than a year.

I think this is linked to the real insignificance of birthdays: that being seven years, three hundred and sixty four days old is not that different from being eight years old exactly. Still, seven-year-old and eight-year-old are useful descriptions, so we use them anyway. Sometimes we fit into different categories mentally, emotionally and physically.

Considering myself to be an age I'm not is a sort of automatic coping mechanism. All seventeen-year-olds do that? Well, that's because they're younger than me. Eighteen-year-olds act like that? Well, I'm only seventeen. As long as I keep on growing, I don't think it matters what age I'm at, but it's interesting to look at the numbers. I just have to remember to get the right age on the forms, or thing could get very complicated!

He Knows Me by Name

2009-08-16T22:59:00.000+02:00

I've blogged about Communion before and it feels repetitive to do it again, but I think the nature of sacrament is that even when it's repeated, it isn't repetitive. There is more to be discovered through communion than I could even begin to fit into a single blog post, so I think I'm justified in writing two, which will still be far from comprehensive.

Our church is relatively small. I know most - probably all - of the church leaders at some level. That means that when I receive the elements, I am often addressed by name. For some reason, this always strikes me as special. I don't particularly take note if the same people greet me by name before the service, or address me by name at any other time, but during communion the use of my name has more significance.

It reminds me that Christ died for me, personally. It reminds me that He knows me by name; that two thousand years ago He knew me by name; even before that, He knew me. I may be just one girl in a very big world, but I'm special enough to God that he knows my name and everything about me. I'm even special enough that he's put me in a place where I can be reminded of that through Communion.

I know I don't deserve to be that special, but I'm glad that I am. I am gladder of that than of anything else I can think of.

Shakespeare Saturday: Sonnet XVIII

2009-08-15T15:55:00.000+02:00

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

I wonder what 'this' is, exactly. My first thought is that it is the poem, but I'm not entirely convinced that Shakespeare could have predicted the longevity of his work. The poem will only give life to its subject for as long as it is read. It also seems a little strange to write a love poem showing how the author has made the subject lovable. It's possible, of course, that the poem is simply an arrogant piece of work, but I'd rather think of it differently.

I like to think that 'this' might be humanity. It is showcased in Shakespeare's ability to write, but also in the subject's soul, that won't die, even when the physical signs of age are overcoming her. It's not a very well supported conclusion, but I like it.

By drawing that conclusion, I can say that the sonnet suggests that each person exists as a person because other people exist. We immortalise one another, in a sense. I don't think that gives us the whole picture, but it is remarkable in its similarity to the Ubuntu philosophy. It's interesting that such similar concepts can arise independently. I think there are certain ideals to which almost everyone subscribes at some level and that a more general version of Ubuntu is one of them.

Coincidence and Bible Verses

2009-08-14T08:22:00.000+02:00

For he last couple of Christmasses, I've bought little Christian bookstore type gifts or my church friends. Particularly, I've bought things with bible verses inscribed on them. I try to match the bible verse to the person I'm buying for and I almost always find a verse that seems ideal (Coincidence #1). Last year, though, there was one person that nothing was clicking for. In the end I settled, pretty much randomly, on Philippians 3:14. As it turned out, that person moved to another city before Christmas and never got his gift anyway (Coincidence #1b).

Yesterday, I was cleaning out a table - at any rate, I was shifting the junk around - when I found that left-over gift, still in the wrapping paper. I figured there was zero chance of its going to the intended owner now, so I put it in my room, since I can always use another pen. Later in the day, I was feeling quite frustrated and inadequate. I think the exact words I wrote in my journal were 'I don't know if I can do this'. Shortly afterwards, I read the inscription on the pencil I'd just opened. 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.' (Coincidence #2) I didn't want to be convinced, but God is pretty convincing. In case I was in any doubt, I read Isaiah 48:3 last night (Coincidence #3).

I foretold the former things long ago,
my mouth announced them and I made them known;
then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.

(NIV)

This led me to think of other coincidences, like #4: I thought there was a pen in the package, but it was actually a mechanical pencil. I've been meaning to buy one of those for ages. (Although I'm not convinced that one's divine intervention.) More seriously, #5: I know one of my friends used one of those Christmas pens to share Christ with a colleague. I hadn't really known why I thought Jeremiah 29:11 would be a particularly good choice for him, but I guess God did.

Sometimes, God is weird (I mean that in a respectful way). Also, do you think he did this because I used to tnk those pens were as gimmicky as things got?

Coming of Age

2009-08-12T08:22:00.000+02:00

In one week and a few hours, I will be eighteen. On the whole, this is quite exciting: birthday! Presents! Cake! A small part of me is less excited though. I think it's because this birthday is going to be a letting go of my childhood in varying degrees of literalness.

When I was little - I guess about ten or twelve - I used to invent the parties I would have for my three coming of age birthdays. The first coming of age birthday is at sixteen. At that age, I thought, one is not exactly grown up, but not a child either (which is not so far off from the truth, actually). My sixteenth birthday party was going to be like an old fashioned 'coming out' party. That never happened, but I did have a sixteenth birthday party, which seems to be good going for me.

My seventeenth birthday was my wizard's coming of age: I've never heard of seventeen being a significant birthday outside of Harry Potter. My seventeenth birthday party was going to be Harry Potter themed, with everyone dressed up as one of the characters. When I got to seventeen, I had friends who believed the Harry Potter books were wrong and I was in the middle of Matric exams, trying to pretend there was no such thing as a social life. It was a good birthday, but there certainly wasn't a party.

My eighteenth was going to be one of those affairs in high heels and cocktail dresses (although I didn't know what the dresses were called at the time). That is not going to happen. I have a small enough number of birthday party-invitable friends to begin with. Adding the fact that most of them are too far away to come anyway, I'd do well to get five or six people together. Besides that, my family is in an almost constant state of varying degrees of turmoil this year. It's sometimes a challenge to get supper cooked before bedtime. I don't think a party is really going to happen.

In a sense, that's the end of my childhood dreams about adulthood. For some reason - probably because of the amounts of fantasy I consume - I never considered my twenty-first to be all that significant. I'm sorry that it won't happen the way I planned it out all those years back, but I think I've grown up enough to accept it. There are other good things. There is next year. I don't even own a cocktail dress and finding one would have been stressful in the best of circumstances. For me, that attitude epitomises growing up. It's been easier and harder than I thought. The parts about understanding money and looking out for other people came easily. The parts about deciding what to do with the money and who to look out for, I'm still struggling with.

It's a big ol' mixed up world. I don't think changing a digit in my age will change much, but it's giving me an opportunity to look back. I have grown up (though I'm not finished). I miss irresponsible childhood, but the richer taste of responsiblity is more satisfying. One season is drawing to a close, but I'm sure the next will be just as beautiful.

Only in the Comments

2009-08-11T18:29:00.000+02:00

In general, I an a person who likes to debate, discuss, persuade, convince and, in the nicest possible, literal, sense exchange words. However, I find that forum debates on the internet tend to frustrate me. If I join the debate on a site's forum, I almost always end up spending less time on that site in the long run (there are exceptions, but as a general rule that's the case).

I think there are two reasons for this. One is the often cited fact that we don't tend to see people as people when we interact over the internet. It's not difficult to begin a discussion with somebody and then leave it hanging when 'real life' gets in the way (I've been guilty of this one) or just because you're bored. That's not really conducive to a meaningful discussion.

The other thing that I think frustrates me is that internet conversations are written down and recorded. That makes it incredibly obvious if your argument is inconsistent. In a spoken conversation, I can believe that you've just forgotten what you said about x five minutes ago. If it's written five centimetres up the page, you should reread it even if you don't remember it and I think it ought to be easier to remember it. People still contradict themselves though.

Because of that, I don't tend to do the forum thing. Comments are another matter though. Having a focus, a blog post, a picture or what-have-you, seems to keep a discussion more careful. Even an off-topic comment thread often has more rigour than a forum thread. I suppose the quality of the original item commented on might dictate the quality of the discussion too.

I do enjoy discussion, but I think I'll keep it to the comments, to avoid frustrating myself. Because while I enjoy discusions and debates, arguments and fights are a different story.

A Rhyme

2009-08-10T12:03:00.000+02:00

This is my sister,
recovering from flu.
I tried to help her:
now I have flu too!

Shakespeare Saturday: Reading Shakespeare

2009-08-08T16:38:00.000+02:00

In my last year of high school, we studied Othello in English Lit. A few us really enjoyed it - mostly those of us who were part of the school's production of the play. Most of the class were not particularly keen on it. There was one lesson, though, where the entire class listened intently to the Shakespeare reading.

One of the boys, who was, I think, as uninspired as he was smart, volunteered himself and his friends to read every single part. Why he would do that may not be clear until you imagine a tough, eighteen year old boy reading Desdemona's part in falsetto. The entire class was almost in hysterics.

What was remarkable about the performance was that as the boys tried to rip the characters off, they had to dig a little deeper into the play. They were melodramatic and ridiculous, but they pulled a bit of meaning out of the play. The words weren't always quite right, but there was sense in what they were saying. The class may have been watching the first hockey team passionately addressing one another, but at the same time, they were seeing a pieces of Shakespeare's character's that I doubt they had seen anywhere else. It was a glorious lesson.

Those boys showed me that Shakespeare shouldn't be taken too seriously. There are certainly serious parts, but there are funny parts too. The plays should be entertaining as much as they should be intellectually stimulating. Shakespeare should be fun.

Till We Have Faces

2009-08-07T08:50:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I last read something by C. S. Lewis for the very first time. I had forgotten quite how much I appreciate his writing. Over the last few days I've read Till We Have Faces: A myth retold and have been reminded of quite how awesome Lewis is. One of the things that I particularly like is that he captures the imperfection of humanity without condemnation.

One of the places I found this was in Orual, the narrator and protagonist of Till We Have Faces. Orual is ugly. She's sufficiently ugly that she's repeatedly insulted about her looks and finally chooses to spend her whole life behind a veil. This in itself is unusual, since most storybook heroines fall somewhere between passably pretty and ravishingly beautiful. The majority of the remainder are plain, but very rarely is a heroine so shockingly ugly that she resents her own reflection. That is the first part of Orual's ugliness.

The second part is that while Orual's lack of beauty is recognised and continually influences her, it is not central to the plot. I expected that her ugliness would fade away and be forgotten or else that it would become a sort of fixation. I was impressed and delighted that it was neither. Lewis shapes Orual's character by the responses she gets to her appearance, but he also shows us her intelligence, her compassion and her righteous-seeming bitterness. There are things she doesn't know or understand that one imagines might be the result of her ugliness (or people's reactions to it), but at the forefront is the lack of understanding, not the ugliness. Being ugly is an explanation, but not a justification. Despite this, Orual's life is much , much more than her ugliness.

I don't think it's streching things too far to see her ugliness as symbolising human imperfection. It can't be ignored or forgotten, but it's not the centre of our stories either.

Just look away while I post this, please

2009-08-05T20:10:00.000+02:00

Today I caught myself wondering if tying my hair up in public would offend anyone. This was a clear sign that I was being oversensitive. Anyone who is offended by that should not be out in public.

I only worried about putting in my hair band for an instant, but it's a ridiculous symptom of something I should probably watch. The obvious reason for this is that I'll become paranoid if I start worrying what people think of every move I make. There's a subtler reason too, though.

When I worry too much about what people think, I start putting excessive effort into everything. It's draining, and I end up doing things that might legitimately offend people. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there. After the third complete rewrite, I might send a commented without rereading it. That's not the end of the world, but I almost always reread comments. It means I'm getting careless and if I'm too careless, I'll do something I regret.

My new mission is to relax, because endorphins do just about everything better than stale adrenaline. In the meantime, if I do something stupid you know why.

Words, Numbers, Pictures

2009-08-03T21:06:00.000+02:00

My new maths book - at least, the one I started working from today - has a strong focus on what the authors call a new style of teaching. One of the key points of this style seems to be the idea that a single mathematical concept can be expressed in different ways: a function, a graph and a verbal description of a relationship can all represent the same thing, for example.

I think that concept can be applied to the rest of life too. Writing is very verbal, but I decided that I wanted a picture to help me focus. (You can see it here now that it's finished.) I'm also somewhat addicted to hitting the word count shortcut to see just how much I've written. Blogs have pictures to draw attention, even though they're all about the words. Computers represent the colour of a picture in hexadecimal digits. They're all mixed up.

I suspect that there are more elements in the equation, but I'm beginning to learn to balance these ones. Each one complements the others; all three in moderation is better than four times as much of any one of them. It forms a predator prey model, where because maths has taken up my writing time, I write better when I get the chance. Since I write instead of looking at art, I steal my maths time to do that, but I try to apply it to maths as well. When I do maths, I analyse the prose in my textbook.

Mixing things up makes their applications clearer, as well as getting more done. I allocate time to each activity, but putting the focus on spot doesn't cause the others to disappear. It's obvious, perhaps,but nonetheless a revelation.

God's Laboratory

2009-08-02T21:21:00.000+02:00

And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions

Joel 2:28 (NKJV)

I was walking along a path through dark green grass, in an empty field or maybe a vacant plot of land. As I walked, I was searching for something, but I was not sure what it was I was looking for. After I had walked a way through the field, it came to me that I was looking for God. I didn't know what he looked like or what he might be doing, but I thought I would know when I found him.

A few minutes later I saw a large wooden structure in my path. It looked like a barn, but it was better tended and more beautiful than any barn could be. When I got closer to the building, I realised that God was in the building. He was the cause of its beauty. The doors were open, so I stepped inside.

The room was filled with long wooden counters. On the counters were various contraptions, beakers and vials. They were fascinating and I stared at them, but I could not understand how they worked. Some of the mechanisms scared me horribly, but I continued to watch the others closely. I thought these inventions were more marvellous than anything I had seen before.

After I had been watching the contraptions for some time, I realised that God was moving from counter to counter. Sometimes he paused to make an adjustment to some part; at other places, he decanted liquids from the machines. Most of the time he only gave a pleased nod and moved on. I wanted to be with him and to talk to him. I stepped forward to enter his laboratory, but I couldn't.

When I approached the counters, it was as if I had encountered an invisible wall. No matter what I tried, I could not move forward. I gave up and looked at God. “Why won't you let me in? I thought you loved me.”

God turned and spoke to me. “I do love you, my child. I love you more than you can imagine, but I cannot let you in here until you are safe. If you come into this room as you are now, you will be destroyed.”

I didn't understand what he was saying. I wondered if he was lying to me, but something deep within me insisted that he would not do that. I kept pushing toward him, trying to make my way through the invisible barrier, but all my efforts were futile. Eventually, with tears pouring down my face, I turned to leave the building. I didn't know why God didn't want me, but I knew I wasn't strong enough to get to him. Before I walked out the door, I saw a young man who I hadn't noticed before.

“If you're quite sure, then of course you may,” he said.

“Quite sure about what?” I asked. He had the air of continuing a conversation, but I was certain that I hadn't spoken a word to him.

“Quite sure that you want to leave,” he said. “I've been trying to get your attention so I can give you one of these lab coats, but you didn't seem to notice me.”

I stood frozen as what he had said sank in. The only reason God hadn't let me into his laboratory was because it wasn't safe without a lab coat. I had been incredibly stupid to try to push my way through his safety barrier.

“I'm sorry I was so foolish. Do you think I could possibly have a second chance?”

“Of course!” His face lit up as he helped me into a lab coat. “There's nothing I love better than showing people the way in.” Moments later he was sending me on to the lab. I ran in, right up to where God was standing. Something prompted me to kneel down in front of him. I suppose I wanted to show him how grateful I was that he had let me in, and how sorry I was for being stupid and pigheaded.

I stayed there for a little while. Then he reached down, pulled me up and hugged me. “I am so glad that you have come, my child,” he said. “Now, you will need some of these.” He gathered up bottles of different shapes, sizes and colours. From each he poured a few drops onto my forehead. I felt that I was being anointed.

“That is exactly what is happening,” he told me. I am giving you my blessing and also my mission. I read some of the labels as he replaced the bottles: love and peace and forgiveness. Some of the labels I couldn't read and others I didn't see. but I began to feel that I was ready for God's mission.

“What do you want me to do?”

He smiled at me and chose two small vials from the counter. “Held within these are love and peace. I am going to give them to you and I want you to share them with everyone you meet.”

At first I had been a little surprised at how small the vials were, but when he handed them to me I nearly dropped them. Love and peace were heavier burdens than I had expected. “Father,” I said a little tentatively. He smiled at me, so I carried on. “Shouldn't you be the one giving these things out? I don't think I know how to use them.”

He pulled two lab stools out from under the counter and told me to sit down. He sat on the other began to explain. If he were to go directly to people who weren't wearing protective gear, like my lab coat, it would be more than they could stand. He loved them very much, but it was only safe to send them that love and the other good things he had made for them through people like me.

“But can I still ask you to help my friends?”

“Of course you can. Some of your friends come and visit me here, too. I can also give you the things that they need, or send those things by another person.”

As I spoke to him, I began to realise all sorts of things that I had never thought possible. I saw that I had been creating love all my life. It seemed watered down compared to his strong, pure love, but he said that didn't mean it wasn't valuable. At another point I realised that even while he was sitting talking to me, he was moving from counter to counter, keeping his contraptions in order. It doesn't make sense, but when I was sitting there, it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

At some point he told me that the vials he had given me might run out very soon. “But when you come back here, I'll give you more, so that you can give it to the world.” I stuck my hand in my pocket, looking for my handkerchief. I wanted to tie a knot in it to remind me to come back. I couldn't find the handkerchief, but I heard God laughing softly. It wasn't an unkind laugh and soon I had joined in with him. How could I ever forget to come back to him? Even if I did, there were thousands of people he could send to remind me. The handkerchief was ridiculously unnecessary. I laughed until once again there were tears streaming down my face. God hugged me and lifted me off the stool.

“Now you are ready to go out and begin your work, my daughter.” He kissed me and sent me back out into the field.

This time, the field didn't seem empty. There were hundreds, or thousands, or millions of people walking to and from the laboratory. Many of them were human, but some seemed different. I occurred to me that these were angels and shortly afterwards that they were working as lab techs.

I said to one of them, “You have the most wonderful job I can imagine, helping God to make these amazing things.”

But he said to me, “Nothing could be wonderful than your job, for you give out his gifts and see their work.” He moved on quickly, not out of a lack of politeness, but because we were not in a place to tarry. I moved on too and kept walking until I came to our world.

When I opened my eyes and saw my bible on the floor before me, I was, at first, terrified, but I knew that God wanted me to write down what I had experienced. The writing is perhaps clearer than the experience, and certainly less perturbed by my doubts and fears; understanding of some things only came to me as I wrote. This is written as best I may recollect and formulate it.

Shakespeare Saturday: All the world's a stage

2009-08-01T20:13:00.000+02:00

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

(from As You Like It)

I've learned to interpret this passage as the epitome of art vs. reality and the interplay between the two. While I think that's a valid and meaningful interpretation, I've recently begun to think that it puts a lot of the emphasis on the stage and very little on the players.

The view of people as players is very interesting. It suggests that we don't show our true selves to the world. Usually, this is seen as a bad thing, but Jaques (and so, I would guess, Shakespeare) seems more concerned with the fact that it is inevitable. I would agree with him. None is us is willing to expose our whole self to another person.

Exhortations to "come out from behind your mask" or to "be your true self" become meaningless in this view. While Jaques' opinion seems to be that we have no choice of our role in the play, I would say that we do have a choice, but that we choose to remain players in some senses through morality.

We play the part of an interested friend; most of the time it is a expression of how we really feel, but sometimes, when we are tired or unhappy, we are only playing a part. It's right, I think, to play that part in order to preserve the friendship.

Sometimes I feel like shouting and screaming, but I play the part of a rational person. Other times, I show my true feelings. I regret the latter far more than I've ever regretted the former.

I am happy to be a player, so long as I am not a puppet. I'll give my life my interpretation and live it the way I believe is best, but there are some things the audience doesn't need to know.

More of My Enchanted Fifteen

2009-07-31T22:00:00.000+02:00

Over the last week I was supposed to find an object to help focus my writing. I go halfway there. I know what I want, but, unfortunately, it doesn't exist. I think I will be able to photomanip it, though, so I'm trying that. Meanwhile, the week has rolled around and I'm supposed to be on the next step already. Maybe I'll succeed in doing both at the same time.

Actually, the task for this week is not as difficult as it might be, because I can tie it in with something I've wanted to do anyway. A bit of extra motivation might get me going. The concept for this week is writing from a source; spending time being inspired by something before writing.

For a while, I've been thinking that I should try to understand Shakespeare a bit better. I love reading Shakespeare, but I don't always put the effort into understanding it and analysing it that I could. I think the idea will tie in beautifully to writing from a source, though.

Every Saturday I'm going to try to post something Shakespeare-inspired. Saturday is a good day, because I should have time to read and think before writing. Also, Shakespeare and Saturday almost alliterate, which is aurally pleasing. This way, I kill three birds with one stone, which is rather convenient.

Tomorrow I will begin; today I get away without actually saying anything.

Learning through Doing

2009-07-30T19:37:00.000+02:00

The quadpod in the picture was built using a cloverleaf lashing. There are two reasons why I built it. The first is a trick I picked up from some of the younger girls in our scout troop: if you keep a bit of string in your pencil case, you can practise your lashings when school gets boring. Admittedly, that probably works better when you aren't studying via correspondance. Secondly, Lynx (one of the scouters) emailed me instructions for the cloverleaf lashing and I just had to try it before our meeting tomorrow.

The whole exercise reminded me of an aspect I really like about scouting. Scouting is about learning much more than it's about testing. At school, kids are generally taught how to pass the exam. There's no point in learning something if it won't be tested. Scouting turns that paradigm on its head.

Sure, there are badges and some people really enjoy signing off as many as they can. There are other girls, though, who just aren't that interested in badges and don't do much work for them. Every single one of them has learned heaps from scouting. You can't be a scout without learning, even if you don't realise it.

Every girl who's built the full size version of the quadpod in my photo understands the concept and the importance of bracings. It's not because they've been drilled on the engineering principles behind them. It's because they've seen what happens to a four-metre-high structure when you don't brace it, or at least how unstable it is while you're bracing it. I'm sure they would understand the engineering principles quite easily now - much more easily than if they'd tried to learn them cold.

The same principle can be applied to most aspects of scouting. Scouts get the chance to put their hands on things and fully understand how they work. Even if they don't try, scouts learn a lot through observation and osmosis. I wish the school system could work that way, but I realise there are practical constraints. I'm grateful that there is a system like scouting where kids can experience practical learning that is anything but boring.

I heart teh internetz

2009-07-28T23:11:00.000+02:00

I made a deal with myself that I would not add any linky gadgets to my blog until the end of July. At that point I will have been blogging long enough to magically tell the chaff from the seed. Well, maybe not quite, but a deal's a deal, even with yourself, so I can't post link lists yet. However, there is nothing stopping me from doing it in the guise of a blog post.

There really is something special in the concept of Web 2.0, though. Not only does it create entire sub-languages like lolcat, but it allows those of us who wish to picky about proper English to do so. I mean, where in my real life would I find someone who tells me off for using 'as' five times in the same paragraph? Most people don't even seem to notice. Where else do people hand out free lessons in self-discipline and other cool things? Where else will I see two people who've just met agree to disagree on the believability of Luthien Tinuviel (or be told that English keyboards are deficient for not containing accents and diaereses)? Where else would I find an automated bible search? Where else can I make friends with people I don't know?

Also: where else would barely passing for bilingual seem rather plain? Or seventeen seem rather old to have not read the classics? Where else would I learn so quickly that doing everything is not possible?

I am affirmed and built and challenged through my connections on the web. I'm sure I'd survive without it - I might even read some of those classics - but I'm glad I have it. It's fun.

Ents and Dryads

2009-07-27T21:13:00.000+02:00

the trees of the field will clap their hands

Isaiah 55:12b

The way animated trees catch the human imagination is rather strange. We invented dryads. Middle Earth has its Ents. Shakespeare gave us Birnham Wood in Macbeth. Even the bible mentions these trees.

I'm inclined to think that the mention of hand-clapping trees in scripture is figurative, but it's still very interesting. In a way, it validates our fascination with trees. It tells us that there's nothing wrong with imagining things about trees; there may even be something right about it.

Thinking, talking or animated trees seem to be a recurring theme in fantasy fiction. As well as the tree-beings I mentioned above, the Eragon books contain a thinking tree. Harry Potter has the Whomping Willow. Enid Blyton created the Magic Faraway tree. Thalia is turned into a tree in the Percy Jackson series. In short, we're very, very interested in trees.

Trees are essentially simple. The basic biology and engineering of a plant is much more straightforward than that of an animal. People can understand them. Strangely, though, trees still outlive us. The oldest trees in the world are older than I can really comprehend. I think that trees give us a downsized, human-viewable vision of eternity. Trees are just small enough that they don't blow our minds. We can understand them, but they still surpass us in some ways. They're older and, on the whole, stronger. They're a glimpse of greater things.

It's all the more amazing, then, that we have such control over trees. Not only do we farm them, but Isaiah 55:12 tells us that they're subordinate to us. Adam received the same message in Genesis. These amazing structures, windows into a greater a world, are less than us. I think we struggle with that, and so we make trees more important in fiction to try to rationalise it. In reality, though, we are in some sense greater: we are made in the image of God.

Somehow, that helps me to simultaneously be humble and to believe that I am made in His image. I think that it is a position I have been born into, rather than an award that I have earned.

My Brother, the Businessman

2009-07-26T22:52:00.000+02:00

This term, my brother does his Grade Eight entrepreneurial project. I never expected him to do a bad job, but his beginning has totally blown me away. I am very proud of my little brother.

Entirely on his own, he mustered the self-discipline to write his business plan in the holidays. It's well written too. Admittedly, he did abuse the semicolon very slightly, but I do not consider that a major flaw. Professionals do much, much worse things to apostrophes.

He's better at making adverts than I am, too. He intuitively fulfilled every requirement that the project gave for his posters. His photos were pretty cool too. I think he might be a natural.

He is only in Grade Eight and his project isn't perfect. It still impresses me. He certainly has a facet of businessman in his character. And did I mention, I'm proud of my little brother?

I think I might be a Mary Sue

2009-07-25T22:22:00.000+02:00

ConCrit, anyone?

I like the world of fanfiction. It makes a great base for a beginning writer and it's a fun way to explore a novel (or other fictional setting). Sometimes, though, it gets on my nerves. A case in point is Ms. Mary Sue.

Mary Sue is an original character made up and put into somebody else's world. (Except that these days you can also find her in original fiction.) She's pretty, she can sing, she absent-mindedly saves the world whilst simultaneously wooing Mr Darcy and Harry Potter - we're not sure what they were doing aboard the Enterprise. Wouldn't you love to be her? (Actually, I wouldn't, but play along, okay?) The problem is that the author would too.

I understand why fanficcers discourage other fanficcers from writing about characters like that. My problem is that the term's become far too general. People don't seem to care about whether or not their character's interesting an believable, so long as it's not a Mary Sue. The identifying characteristics of Mary Sue become broader by the millisecond. Somebody has probably decided that Elizabeth Bennett is a Mary Sue, because she got to marry Mr Darcy. In fact, I think I have many of the characteristics of a Mary Sue.

I have long hair. If you look closely at my eyes, they're not exactly brown, but they're not hazel either. That's technically an unusual eye colour, right? And everybody says that 'technically yes' counts as 'yes'. I have a name that I like; my parents like it; I've occasionally been told that it's a pretty name. I'm even distantly related to a minorly famous person and was not always aware of it.

I think the Mary Sue tests would be advising that I rethink my character by now. Some of them would immediately add demerit points because I've read Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings several times. I might make it to the stage where it is strongly recommended that I rebuild the character. I think that might hurt, though.

Mary Sue was a good term once, but it isn't any more. It's become increasingly generalised and wishy-washy. People all over are terrified of writing about her - even published authors - but they're not sure exactly what she is. So, rather than rebuilding my character (maybe I could get those coloured contacts so my eyes are properly brown), I'm giving up on Mary Sue. Characters may be believable or unbelievable. Description may be excessive or not so. These are possible and I'll say them, but I no longer believe in Mary Sue.

Thank you.

Charli's Mopey Two-Part Brain Theorem

2009-07-24T22:18:00.000+02:00

Part of me doesn't want to write this blog post. I just want to curl up in bed. Another part of me knows that I will regret not posting and that doing nothing will only make me feel mopey.

I was not as busy today as I thought I would be, because my Linear Algebra textbook has a non-linear scale of difficulty. It gets easier the further you go. So I worked really hard for two days and did a fraction of the work, then finished up the rest in about an hour this morning. If I was really dedicated, I would have started the next assignment, but even I am not that keen on Maths.

That left me with time. I'm really bad at long stretches of time. I don't think of all the things I need to do; I just sit around and mope. I actually did quite a few things today, but not enough to keep myself busy. Now that it's late and I should really get to bed, I can think of a pile of things that it would have been really good to get done.

So I have come up with a theory. It's a very, very cracked theory, but I don't think it's entirely untrue. My theory is that the part of my brain that handles organisation only works when I'm busy with something else. While the front part of my brain is proving that the commutative law of multiplication is invalid in matrices, the back of my mind is busily working out a list of things I need to do and the best times to do them. Failing that, it will analyse the literary strengths and weaknesses of the book I read last week or come up with some commentary about the jazz playing next door. The back of my mind does all sorts of things that I really like being able to do. The problem is, it only does it for as long as the front of my mind is busy wih something else. The front of my mind is pretty useless for doing the things the back of my mind does.

On a day like today, the front of my mind isn't occupied by default. Any concept of actually thinking goes out the window, until I have to arrange things like how I'm going to get to my scout meeting and write a blog post and get to bed early (solution: change the definiion of early). As soon as the front of my mind is busy with that, the back switches on and I think of all the things I should have done today. It could make me even mopier. I won't let it, though! I may have to become a workaholic, but that's better than being a mope-aholic, right? At least a little bit better.

Enchanting Objects

2009-07-23T21:09:00.000+02:00

I've been doing the writing for fifteen minutes thing for three weeks now. Some days I follow the principle more strictly than others, but for now I'm okay with that. If writing my blog becomes a chore I'll end up not finding time for it at all. Finally, I am looking at the second part of Blog Nerd's enchanted 15 series.

The idea this week is to find objects to define my writing space. For me, this links to the spiritual profiles in Gary Thomas's book Spiritual Pathways. Spiritual Pathways is about different ways that people grow closer to God. At first I thought that there was something irreverent about relating how I write to how I worship God, but it has dawned on me that I want my writing to be an act of worship, in the spirit of Colossians 3:17. Relating my worship profile to my writing profile is exactly what I'm trying to do.

The two profiles that I most identified with in Spiritual Pathways were those of the sensate and the ascetic. As I've thought about a writing space, I've seen that my thoughts about what I want there fit those profiles too. It seems contradictory or somewhat bipolar at first, but I find the sensate-ascetic profile very logical (perhaps because that's who I am!)

As an ascetic, I like to avoid having things around me when I'm praying and when I'm writing - although I recognise that I can do either at almost any time. If I have the choice, though, I'll turn off the music or even listen to white noise. I'll face a plain wall and make sure that other windows on my laptop are closed. I sit in a position that makes me as unaware of where I am as possible.

When I pray, though, I don't totally isolate myself from the physical world. I like to have some physical artifact to focus my attention on: often it's a cross of some sort, but I've used other things to help me pray too. That focus on the physical - an awareness of God by filling my senses - is a sensate trait. I find, though, that I can only appreciate one thing, if I am to make it a real focus point, so I am ascetic in every other regard. When I take the time to make a space like that for prayer, I pray better - more sincerely - than I do at other times. I feel that it is more real.

Following the same principle in writing seems good to me. If I must have an object to help me write - an object that will bring me into the enchanted world of writing - I want just one object which I can focus fully onnn and almost write 'through'. More than that would become clutter.

However, if I am going to endow an object with that much meaning and power, it can't be just anything. In fact, I know that I want to write through Christ; I sometimes forget that, but ultimately it is what I want. If I am going to write through an object, it must be an object that will take me to Christ so that I may write through Him. Other things may work for other people, but for me, anything else would feel like a farce.

This week I will be looking for items that will help me to write through Christ. In some ways I think writing with such an object will make writing more difficult. Everything I write will be right under God's nose. I know that's always been true, but I haven't always been aware of it. This enchanting - or perhaps sanctifying - object will make me aware of it, if it does anything. The way I think about certain things will have to change. That is a good thing, but it's also more than a little nervewracking!

The Pursuit of Knowledge

2009-07-21T21:56:00.000+02:00

The author of my Astronomy textbook sometimes appears to confuse his opinion and scientific fact. Suffice it to say that I'm very glad that humility is not an examinable topic, despite the book's content. In today's reading he said something implying that curiosity is one of the noblest human sentiments. (If my book had a search function I could go into more detail. Unfortunately it's not that advanced.)

Later in the day I had a discussion about how we appreciate good more because we know evil. I find that worship can stem from awe at what God isn't almost as much as from what he is. My dad pointed out to me that the forbidden tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Although eating the fruit was a sin and introduced humankind to the knowledge of evil, it also introduced us to the knowledge of good.

The idea of a world devoid of wonder at the pure and holy, in which righteousness is unremarkable, bemuses me. My first reaction is that it would be bland. It doesn't seem complete. On reflection, though, I think that response is part of my imperfection.

In Malacandra, C. S. Lewis paints a convincing picture of a society which is good and yet fulfilled. That is a tangible way of knowing I am wrong. More certainly, but less tangibly, I know that God chose not to give that knowledge to Adam and Eve. I know that evil can never be good, even it unwittingly causes good.

Knowledge, in fact, is not always good - although even the forbidden fruit was desirable. Curiosity is not always a noble sentiment: it can be a vice. This is so counterintuitive that it takes me a while to understand, although I realise that I already have some experience with the concept.

Usually when something interests me, I fond out more about it. I don't believe that's a bad thing: God gave me the faculty of reason and the ability to learn so that I could use them. There are some interests, though, that I don't indulge. Occult rituals, for example, hold a weird fascination. They also happen to be entirely opposite to God. For that reason, I choose to starve my interest, rather than to feed it. I don't research that topic and I'm wary of anything that approaches it. I've already recognised that some knowledge is not good; some curiosity, in fact is not noble.

That recognition couldn't kill an innate love of learning and knowledge, though. In fact, I find that I can't believe that curiosity isn't good. Instead, I find myself going back to Lewis. In Malacandra, the characater Weston is driven by his desire to ensure the survival of humankind. This is his justification for the many atrocities he commits. Oyarsa says that the good which is love of kin has become evil, because it was blown out of proportion.

The same thing can happen with knowledge. In themselves, curiosity and reason are surely God-given gifts. It is when our search for knowledge becomes too important that it is wrong: when we value it more than God Himself; when it is a justification for things we know are wrong.

I think curiosity can be noble. I will keep on learning as much as I can, but I will do it in Christ. What I can't learn in Christ, I most emphatically do not want to learn.

Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak, thank you

2009-07-20T19:26:00.000+02:00

Ever since I wrote an unhappy blog post about Harry Potter, I've been thinking I should write a happy one, to balance things out. I've always - or at least for a long a time - been fascinated by Dumbledore's welcome speech in the first book. Dumbledore himself could be the topic of an entire book, so I'm sure the speech is enough of a base for one measly blog post.

Nitwit: Ron said Dumbledore was "off his rocker", but still brilliant. From his very first day at Hogwarts - and probably even before that - Albus Dumbledore was different. I doubt that he appreciated it as an eleven year old, but by the time Harry meets him, Dumbledore is different with style. It's a bit like the way being a geek or a nerd can be a good thing, these days, if you do it with confidence. Perhaps we could class Dumbledore as a protogeek.

Blubber: I suppose the odds are that Rowling was thinking of whale fat when she chose this word, but that's not the association I have with it. 'Blubber' makes me think of the beginning of Lewis's The Magician's Nephew when Polly thinks Diggory should wash his face, especially when he's been blubbing. So to me, 'blubber' means 'cry', like Harry does in the hospital wing after saving the Philospher's Stone. Dumbledore, we are told, became very interested in a bird outside the window at that point.

I think it is very like Dumbledore not to notice that Harry is crying, but to do it actively, rather than passively. He's not embarrassing Harry and he's precluded any need for an explanation. He's definitely conscious of what's going on, though, and Harry knows it. Personally, I'm also inclined to think that Dumbledore was genuinely interested in that bird, but I don't have any evidence to back up that conclusion!

Oddment: in particular, one silver Put-Outer. In the first book, the Put-Outer is a fun gadget and our first real introduction to the world of magic. It's soon eclipsed by more exciting developments. When the Put-Outer appeared much later in the series, in the hands of The Order of the Phoenix, it struck me as ominously significant. It symbolised the moving of the series from something almost childish and whimsical to something darker and more serious. It's also a milestone along the path of Dumbledore's development from a relatively simple spin on the mad scientist stereotype to a complex, confusing and significant entity.

In the first book, the Put-Outer has a Nesbitt-ish feel too it. More than most of the story it is whimsical and light-hearted. Real and serious things are happening, but gloom does not threaten. When it next emerges, it is a tool in the battle against evil. The story has moved from bright, suburban Privet Drive to the unpleasant Grimauld Place. I wouldn't say that either type of story is better, but there's a very distinct difference between the two.

Tweak: Dumbledore uses a variation on some well known spells to knock out the ministry wizards before his escape in Order of the Phoenix. It's one of the moments when his sheer genius shines through. Despite the urgency of the plot, it was enough to make me stop and reevaluate Dumbledore's intelligence. I knew he was bright, of course. He has his own chocolate frog card. He discovered all those uses for dragon's blood, which I'm sure future Potions students will curse him for, like some Muggle Maths sudents curse Pythagoras.

Despite all that, it was the way Dumbledore tweaked the spells that impressed me. He did it on the fly. He defeated a fair number of powerful wizards. He did it thouroughly, and he didn't even break a sweat, or the magical equialent. He calmly issued instructions and moved on. That's not just smart. That was not the product of hours of hard work over a cauldron. That was mindblowing genius. It's probably harder to do than Numerical Analysis, which I hear is pretty bad.

Thank you: People often seem to leave this word out when they quote the speech. Admittedly, it doesn't have the ring that the body does, but it's still part of the speech. Because it's there, we know that Dumbledore's a gentleman. He's not always nice - I wouldn't like to stand in the shoes of some of the Ministry officials - but at the least I think he could be called suave. It comes full circle, back to the element of style.

Remember Always

2009-07-19T21:21:00.000+02:00

We celebrated communion at church tonight. Communion is always something special; something sacred, but tonight I saw it in a new light. Communion was by intinction which meant the communion stewards weren't moving from person to person. I happened to be sitting quite near to them, which meant that even after I had received communion and was back in my seat I heard the words the stewards said over and over.

"Remember always, Christ died for you."

The consistent, quiet repetition struck me as something special. Although there are many phrases used during communion, the one above is what sticks with me. I'm not sure if I heard it tonight - at least, I'm not sure if I heard it physically. I definitely heard God telling me to "remember always".

It gives me renewed energy to live with God at every moment, in every part of my life. It's easy to slip into compartmentalising things, but He knows what I need. I think that tonight God was reminding me to remember Him always: not only forever, as I sometimes interpret that "always", but constantly. When I sat in the church I physically heard the steward repeating the blessing. Now, as I go out into the world, I need to mentally and spiritually have God's presence resounding within me.

When the Numbers Dance

2009-07-18T11:30:00.000+02:00

We visited our postbox soon after we arrived back home and found a package from UNISA. My study notes had arrived. For me, it marks the end of holiday time and the beginning of hard work. I have about twenty assignments due in the next nine or ten weeks!

I'm going to be busy, but I know I'll enjoy it; I'm already enjoying it. I've been studying Spherical Trigonometry, because I don't need a textbook and because the first assignment is due in less than a fortnight. Also, because Spherical Trig is really just so cool.

I know that there are many people who don't like maths. I see that it's real, but I have to admit that it's not something I really understand. For me, the numbers dance. Sometimes I don't follow the steps, but that doesn't mean it isn't grand to watch.

The concepts of spherical geometry are beautiful. The distinction between a distance and an angle blurs. One number dances right into the position of another. A nautical mile is a distance, but it is defined by an angle. A spherical triangle's side can be 43° long. It sounds absurd, but it's entirely logical. The numbers are dancing.

It's good to remember the beauty of numbers and mathematics. I'm glad to have so much work to do, although I still want to find time to keep on doing lots of other things. It's good to be busy and it's good to immerse myself in things that stimulate me and appeal to me. Today, I can blog and I can solve triangles. Life is good.

Too Much of a Good Thing

2009-07-17T22:10:00.000+02:00

Today I discovered that if I sit down for six hours and do maths without a significant break, my brain pretty much stops working.

That might be why the first four questions of my Astronomy assignment worked out beautifully, but the fifth one simply wouldn't come together. I might be why I wrote a blog post and then wondered what I was trying to say when I reread it. It is definitely a good reason for me to go to bed and stop trying to be intelligent until I've had some sleep.

I'm very excited that my coursework has arrived, but I'll have to be coherent about it another day!

Somethingly Ever After

2009-07-16T19:21:00.000+02:00

The new Harry Potter movie has made enough of a splash in the media that one can hardly help being aware of it. Given that Harry Potter articles are one of the reasons I originally started reading newspapers (I used to skim through the headlines only paying attention to anything mentioning Harry Potter) I probably had even less chance of being unaware of the new movie.

The funny thing is that while reading about Harry Potter used to excite me, it evokes a sort of sadness more than anything now. It could be that I don't trust them to make the movie right and it's a 'desecration' of my beloved books. I don't think it's that, though, because I'm not really all that attached to the series any more. Besides, the Lord of the Rings movies don't upset me that way.

It could be a disappointment that the series is finally finished. I will never again spend hours arguing with my sister about what will happen in the next book. We know who R.A.B. is. Harry has found all the horcruxes. The one thing we agreed was impossible has happened: Ron and Hermione got married.

That's certainly part of what I feel. I don't think it's all though. I was unhappy when I finished reading The Lord of the Rings, but I got over it and discovered that rereading it the second time was nearly as good. On the other hand, I simply don't feel like rereading Harry Potter after the articles I've been reading. The whole concept seems rather depressing.

What I don't like about Harry Potter is the happy ending.

It took me a long time to accept that an unhappy ending is a valid conclusion to a story and I'm still a long way from particularly enjoying unhappy endings, although I can see that they work very well in some cases. When I read Deathly Hallows I was glad that things had worked out so pleasantly.

I still don't subscribe to the school of thought that said Harry should have died - especially not the one that said he should have died almost regardless of what actually happened in Deathly Hallows. It's a series of children's books, after all.

I do think the ending would have been better if it had been a little more bittersweet. It had all the potential for that, right up to the prologue. There was war and people died. They were really dead, even if Harry did meet Dumbledore in that freaky King's Cross scene. Good triumphed over evil, but at great cost.

And then everybody got over it and life went on as always. Which is a bit anticlimactic. They lived happily ever after. Harry named his kids after the people who had died, and that totally made up for it. In my mind, something bigger should have happened. There should have been some sort of immutable change to show us that what had happened had meaning.

Deathly Hallows lacks that bittersweet change. I think it's because the world of Harry Potter has no higher authority. It's like the law of conservation of energy. The world can move things around within itself, but it can't pull itself up by its own shoelaces. Some books recognise this and are poignantly sad. Some books recognise that there is a higher authority; that what is bitter in this world may be sweet in the next. Harry Potter tries to sit in the middle, and so it fails to satisfy me.

(For the record, I still think the Harry Potter books make great reading material. They just don't make my top-of-the-top list.)

Rock

2009-07-13T18:50:00.000+02:00

Today has been bittersweet. Some things were awesome, like walking on the beach with my family. Visiting my mom, being on holiday, are good. On the other hand, several nights without sleep and a horrid cold have been catching up with me. Also, we go back home tomorrow. Having my very own bed back will be good, but leaving my mom behind is not good. In the balance, my mom wins (by quite a long way!), but there are other reasons we have to go back.

So today has had its high and its low points. What has been made very clear to me, though, is that I have Rock to hold on to no matter what happens. Nothing can happen that will take me away from God: 'neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come'. (Romans 8:38, NKJV) I've sometimes considered that a little obvious, but today it really resonated with me. No matter what happens, Jesus is the rock that I can hold on to. I don't know how I'd do life without Him, because even in my relatively easy life, I spend a lot of time asking Him for help. I think it's good to spend a lot of time with Him, and I'm really, really grateful that he wants to spend that time with me. The sea of life is quite scary enough as it is.

Stilted

2009-07-11T19:26:00.000+02:00

We went to see Stilted tonight. It was very, very good. I don't think I got all of it, but that didn't detract from the play: it gave it depth. If it had been a book, I would have turned it over and started reading again from the beginning. Maybe with a few other books to refer to when I thought I was missing something.

It seems rather a pity that I can't do that with a play, but I suppose that's the nature of the art form. Even if I could watch the play again - which I'd be quite happy to do - it wouldn't be the same as rereading a book. The closest I'd get to that, I think, is if I could sit through all the rehearsals. Since I can't do that, though, I'll just reflect on what I did get to see, which I enjoyed very much.

Like when actor Richard Antrobus stepped to the front of the stage, began a sort of 'mime behind a glass wall' routine and remarked, "Oh, it's the fourth wall." Or the time(s) he tried to leave the play, but was ordered back on stage by a determined techie.

And then there were the stilts. Have you ever seen a guy in stilts (that must have been about a metre high) jumping on a trampoline? Or doing somersaults over a bed on stilts (both the bed and the actor)? It wasn't the sort of physical theatre I learned about at school, but it was definitely physical and definitely theatre. It made me think and pushed at my preconceptions. It was fun!

I think the whole arts festival has done that. We've done a lot of stuff that wasn't festival-related, but we've done enough festival to stretch and stimulate. I don't think I could actually take in ten days of AMAZ!NG. A couple of days were plenty. Today's the last day of the festival. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sorry it's over. I've absorbed what I can and it's time to move on.

Of Elephant Birds and the Eremozoic Era

2009-07-10T18:27:00.000+02:00

During the festival, every possible venue in Grahamstown is taken over. Today we visited the Albany Science Museum, which hosted a number of art exhibitions. Much of the museum's original content was still there, though, and I'm not sure there weren't at least as many people examining the Foucault pendulum and the ecology displays as there were admiring the art.

The photography exhibition that had inspired our visit made a curious meeting point between the artistic and the scientific. It was called Plant Portraits: on the cusp of the eremozoic era. In the centre of the room were a number of printed pages. At first I thought they were museum exhibits that hadn't been moved, but it finally dawned on me that they were actually part of the photographic exhibition, explaining the eremozoic era: the age of loneliness, a term coined by E. O. Wilson to describe the time after the predicted fast-approaching, or perhaps already-occurring, sixth mass extinction. The exhibition carried the message that we need to change our ways or be caught in this unappealing era.

Later, I came across a life-size statue of the elephant bird. The statue was almost necessarily a fossil reconstruction, because the elephant bird is extinct and has been for hundreds of years. It must have been a magnificent creature, standing at about twice my height; it is not difficult to see the tragedy in its extinction (especially when its statue is harmlessly inanimate) and by extension, the tragedy in many other extinctions. It served as an unintentional reinforcement of the exhibition's message, but it also served to frustrate me.

The elephant bird's extinction may have been caused by humans, but it's not certain that it was. It's likely that humans caused the extinction. It's also likely that humans caused the extinction of the woolly mammoth, though. That was before we'd even developed complex technology like farming, though. That was during the idyllic stage in which man was at harmony with nature.

Except that, uh, we were exterminating other species already. It doesn't seem very idyllic or harmonious. It frustrates me, because people seem to feel that we can solve the earth's problems by living with less technology, or living more like people did thousands of years back.

Back then, we were wiping out species. Now, we're wiping out species. Nothing seems to change. There's nothing to go back to, unless we go all the way back to Eden. We can't do that; if there is a humane way to be human, it's in the future not the past. Even so it seems rather futile - must we value animals above the homeless? Should we take it a step further and value the AIDS virus above its victims?

I can't seriously suggest that anyone should or would do that, but it is where my frustration leads me. I see a problem, but I don't see the solution; what is popularly suggested to be the solution turns out to be unhelpful. I am left empty-handed.

From Concrete to Abstract

2009-07-09T20:23:00.000+02:00

A while ago I blogged about poetry and how understanding the concrete concepts expressed in a poem is one of the first steps in appreciating the abstract aspects of that poem, at least for me. I think that principle can actually be applied to most art forms.

Today I went to the Burning Bridges violin recital. I think music is necessarily fairly abstract - particularly instrumental music. Most of the music I couldn't immediately appreciate abstractly, although that's likely because I'm rather inexpert.

What I could do, though, was to concrete-ise the music. Since I was very small, I've listened to music by imagining the visuals that might accompany it and, increasingly as I've grown older, the story that it tells. I doubt that the story I imagine is always or even often what the composer had in mind, but it gives me a starting point from which to enjoy the music.

Even when I've lost track of my story, I'm caught up in the music. I think this is even easier in a live performance, because the performers themselves are telling a story; providing a concrete connection to the music.

I don't think I'm demeaning the music by bringing it to a level that I can began to understand, if I'm not changing the music itself. I think, in fact, that I elevate what the music is for me, since by looking at it differently I can appreciate it in some way and begin to appreciate it truly abstractly. I also think that even if I'm listening to it the wrong way now, but I keep listening, I'll eventually learn to listen to it the right way. So it's better to listen wrong than not to listen at all.

My Personal English - Science Dichotomy

2009-07-08T18:25:00.000+02:00

When I was in Matric, I had this plan. I was going to study well, but despite that, my Science mark would be higher than my English one, so I'd know I should study Science. It was a really nice plan, right up until the point when my English mark turned out to be significantly higher than my Science mark. Oops.

I was back to square one: do I like English or Science more? The question's just about impossible to answer, though. They are both super-awesome fields. I mean, music and drama and cinematography and pure maths and teaching would all be really fun to study, but I can see that English and Science are much closer to what I should study. It would make me happy to learn how to edit movies, but it would make me unhappy not to learn about spherical trigonometry. (I know. I'm a nerd.) The problem is, it would also make me unhappy to not learn about why it matters whether or not Shakespeare was Catholic. Unfortunately, most universities don't offer double majors in English and Engineering. Seriously, who doesn't want to double major in those?

Once I had finished being thrilled about my English mark, I was very glad that I'd decided to take a whole year to decide what to do next. It turns out that the year was exactly what I needed, although not for the reasons I expected.

At the beginning of the year, I was supposed to sign up with UNISA for a couple of courses. For complicated reasons, I was never actually signed up. For probably the first time in my life I went for several months without being told to do maths or science. (Okay, maybe the second time. I guess I didn't do much Physics as a newborn.) I didn't like it. I didn't make myself do maths either, though.

Writing, on the other hand, I do make myself do. Very often, 'make' is not a good term, because I actively want to write. The obvious conclusion is that my active desire to write should win out and I should study English. The thing is, even though I won't make myself learn spherical trig unless there's an external deadline, I'm still unhappy when I don't do it. So I need to subject myself to the pressure of studying Science. I know that I'll read good books and keep writing and read about writing pretty much no matter what happens.

So when I start doubting myself I remember all that. Then I remind myself that most of those lovely, lovely science books were written by people who studied Science. I think, briefly, that maybe I could even study English and Science, somehow. Then I remember that if I do Science I'll get to do spherical trig, analysis and other exciting things and meanwhile I'm already learning about Shakespeare and writing technique. Mostly, I try to focus on the spherical trig.

Just Keep Writing

2009-07-07T17:21:00.000+02:00

Writing fifteen minutes a day on my blog turns out to be harder than I expected. I'm not entirely sorry that I can't move on to the next stage of this enchanted fifteen thing. If I didn't think I needed to be at home to make it work, I'd move on despite whatever I felt. As it is, I don't object to a bit more time to master this concept.

Writing for fifteen minutes a day is pretty easy. I almost do that without trying. If you were to count the things I compose in my head, but don't take any further, I'd do even better. Writing for fifteen minutes every day for my blog is much more difficult. Sometimes I feel like writing something different. Or I think that there are better ways to write blog entries (which there probably are, but I seriously doubt that there are any I could keep up consistently). That's when it becomes a real challenge.

The even greater challenge is the bit about not editing. I pretty much fail at that. I edit a lot less than I used to - a lot less than I used to. I just change the structure of my sentences occasionally, or maybe erase a couple of words. For a girl who was taking eight minutes to write nothing, that's pretty good going, I think. Even though I deleted the whole sentence that was going to go here.

I have a long way to go with this fifteen minutes thing, but I think it's good for me. I'm pretty sure I can already write a better blog post in fifteen minutes than I could in half an hour before I started. Part of that, I'm sure, is because I'm getting used to writing posts with a bit of substance to them. (At least, I think they've got a bit of substance to them.) A good deal of it, though, is that on the whole my writing doesn't need to be edited all that badly. So writing solidly means I actually get my thoughts onto (digital) paper in a vaguely presentable form, rather than losing track of what I'm actually saying because I go back to make miniscule changes.

Writing without editing (much) is good, although there's still much more thought, structure and fiddling in my blog posts than there is in my journal entries!