Heh. I read more British children's novels than American/Canadian ones when I was a kid. (And yeah, I do think that has affected my syntax and writing).
Some friends and I were just having a discussion this morning about how messed-up the whole Mr. Toad thing was. (I actually googled "Psycopathy of Mr. Toad" and got two very relevant hits).
Apparently though, British kid-lit written by fathers for sons - the son's lives never seem to turn out all that happy. (Kenneth Grahame's son, in particular)
I suppose my review of it has to be leavened with the observation that I generally dislike fantasy that is explicitly aimed at adults, because
a. often evil wins, or good really isn't that good
b. there's a lot of explicit gore and explicit sex, neither of which I enjoy reading.
I am a Simple Bear of Very Little Brain so I prefer simpler fantasies. (I am currently working my way through Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence). Part of it is I want some reassurance that Good really WILL win in the end, and you don't always get that with "adult" fantasy.
I dunno. The idea of "chosen one stories" as an adult repulses me in the same way the "every professor should be a SUPERSTAR" narrative repulses me. I'm not a superstar and I know I'm not; under the narrative I mentioned I should probably not be employed. I'm good at what I do but I am not a SUPERSTAR.
The "superstar" narrative, I think, makes people with ordinary talents and the capacity for hard work feel kind of....lacking, sort of. It used to be "80% of life is showing up," now it's "Be yourself, unless you can be Batman, then be Batman, but you really SHOULD be Batman."
I read the book that "The Magicians" was based on (same name, at least for the first book, by Lev Grossman) and found it fairly depressing. It's kind of like Harry Potter viewed through a more-dystopian lens.
I WANTED to like it but wound up not really liking it. I haven't read the other books in the series.
And the idea of Chosen Ones is kind of seductive and in some ways kind of awful: I was a good student. Some teachers claimed I was "gifted." I was told I'd grow up to do Great Things. Instead, I wound up as a biology professor at a small, obscure, perpetually cash-strapped school. I feel like I've either failed the potential I had, or that I never had it to begin with and either people lied to me or I fooled them somehow.
My favorite book I've read as an adult was "Middlemarch" because it contained a lot of people who failed to live up to expectations or who made poor choices in life, but who managed to live with those choices and make the best of them, and I think that - playing the hand you're dealt and realizing that none of us is actually special - is probably a better lesson than the Chosen Ones books.
(I grew up before Harry Potter; I read the Narnia books a lot, though. And Jean Craighead George's "My Side of the Mountain," and the Little House books, and Margery Sharp's "Miss Bianca" books, and lots of "talking animal" books in general....)
Nothing much related tot he links' content, but I will say: were I Benevolent Dictatrix of the World? I'd BAN autoplay embedded video. Argh. I couldn't even get through the Trump-as-Marion-Berry one because it kept hanging up and switching up video.
I hope this is my last working weekend for a while. I was busy from about 9 am until after 5:30 pm. And a lot of it was sort of thankless volunteer grindwork.
I will say the women at my workplace were way overrepresented and the men were underrepresented at one of the volunteer efforts. I think that needs to change next year.
Also, I totally forgot how absolutely nuts seventh graders are and I am now somewhat traumatized from having to deal with a bunch of them for an hour.
Today? after church, I'm not going to speak to another human being for the rest of the day. Yesterday was Introvert Hell and I need to recover before I go back to work tomorrow.
Unlikely but perhaps possible fourth reason for better outcomes when cardiologists are away: less white-coat syndrome? Or less "oh crap, I must really be sick, here comes the doctor again"? Where the patient figures that if they're being left largely alone, they're probably not fatally ill?
I think the "fewer aggressive procedures and fewer outpatient things that could be put off" is more likely, though. But there are people whose blood pressure reads high when a doctor or nurse is in the room, and normal when there is no medical professional present....
The flip side of "there's no Lowe's here to boycott" is my little town, where we pretty much ONLY have Lowe's and Wal-Mart (another store I have been told by well-meaning people on the internet to boycott). My other choice for groceries is to not buy everything I need at the much smaller local place (which I do use when I can) or drive an hour's round trip for a Kroger's (which apparently I'm supposed to boycott at some point in support of a strike their Michigan employees are planning).
I'm not sure what some of my Internet Friends consider the bigger sin, shopping at Wal-Mart or burning the gas it takes to get to the Kroger's. I figure I'm gonna be stuck in Purgatory for a very long time.
Reading Louise Penny's "The Brutal Telling," one of her Inspector Gamache novels. I enjoy these because the lead detective in them (Armand Gamache, of Montreal's Surete) is fundamentally a good person: someone who abhors violence and murders but who also finds himself sometimes challenged and bemused by some of the moral dilemmas he faces in exposing the murders. And he also loves his wife and his grown children, and enjoys a good meal....Penny's novels, unlike some modern crime novels, are a lot "milder" - the violence is all "off screen," so to speak, and I've not run across any graphic sex in them (graphic violence and sex are two things that quickly put me off an author).
I also enjoy them because of the setting - Quebec, and most commonly a small town near Montreal called Three Pines (which does not exist in the real world) - there's a lot of discussion of the history of and tensions between Anglophone and Francophone Quebecois, and that little cultural bit is interesting (I have been to Montreal a few times, and have ancestors from that part of the world).
It's an enjoyable series, and I like series like this, because if you like the characters, you get to revisit them in later books.
full work day today (finishing manuscript, prepping for next weekend's madness)
full work day next Saturday - it's Honors College recruitment day on my campus and also the regional Science Olympiad and I was fool enough, or rather, scared enough* to say yes to both things.
(*We've had some discussion of "coming up with priorities of who would be let go if the budget got that bad" so those of us who have an anxious bent are doing our best to seem obvious and indispensible).
The last weekend of the month is my birthday weekend and I darn well hope no one wants me to do anything THAT Saturday....
Perhaps 80-90% of them are fine, but the 10% that is not - holy Hell. One summer I had people next to me who partied all night, every night, with stereos out on the lawn, who had screaming fights after 11 pm in the front yard, who tried to blow up my mailbox with firecrackers after I filed noise complaints, who threw trash around, who left food on the front lawn (who DOES that) leading to a rat problem in the neighborhood....you get the idea.
The stereotype is that if you own something, you're gonna take care of it, but if you don't, you don't care. Like some stereotypes sometimes it hits home.
I still have renters next door to me on the other side. This batch is better even if they sometimes block my driveway with their cars or play loud music late into the evenings (at least they don't play it all night, and at least they are on the opposite side of the house from where my bedroom is - unlike the previous renters).
I live in a small old house in an older neighborhood; our houses are 10 feet from our neighbors' at the closest point. I wish people were more aware of this, noise CARRIES.
Then again, I suppose 10-20% of neighbors are just generally terrible and renter or not it doesn't matter.....but I think the "transient" nature of renters, the fact that they don't own the place, and the fact that often in some parts of the country, landlords are absent and don't really care what their tenants are doing....tends to put other people off them.
Then again, it sounds like the people in your neighborhood would not be RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the rental properties.
Last spring I had a bout of something that mimicked IBS (probably something got screwed up with a stomach virus I had, and then I was under super-duper-mega-stress: ailing parent coupled with ailing friend coupled with budget cuts and firings at workplace).
After several months of "Ugh, what food is going to betray me next?" and wondering if my future was a diet of ground lamb and rice*, I started taking a probiotic.
I will never believe the people who claim probiotics are "bunk." Not only did my digestion get better to the point where I can even eat oranges and tomato sauce again, but I could tell my mood improved.
I've seen studies suggesting gut flora can affect things like depression because they alter neurotransmitter levels.
And as gross as I find the idea of fecal transplants, if they had an admixture that would lead to reduced anxiety, I'd go for it. (It's not bad enough to want to take meds for it, but I can tell I'm not as carefree as I could be)
On Autism - I would not be at all surprised to learn that it's a series of different conditions, some caused by genetics, some caused by things like a messed up microbiome, and it will eventually be separated into different diagnoses. Still, good news if some people are helped by microbiome transplants.
But yeah, I wish the "vaccines cause autism" thing would finally die for good. there have been little flare-ups of mumps locally and it seems largely traceable to vaccine-refusing parents. Normally, I wouldn't care except herd immunity is a thing, and I know people with genuine autoimmune conditions (or kids on chemo) who CANNOT be vaccinated....and so they are at greater risk when a parent decides to take their medical advice from the likes of Jenny McCarthy.
Wow. That kind of thing would drive me mad, because surely the very day I am out of, say, paper towels, and I dropped a whole carton of eggs on the kitchen floor, would be the day when paper towels could not be sold.
As someone with neither husband nor wife, I feel disrespected and offended by that blue laws issue (kidding, kidding, but yeah: it's a terrible justification). I'm fine with individual businesses/chains deciding it's their policy to not open on Sundays (or, I suppose, Saturdays or Fridays, depending on religious belief), but I don't think government should have a say in it.
Also, considering that we've made our bed of a 24/7 world, telling people, "No, maybe we won't let you run errands on what might be your one day off" seems like a terrible thing.
I go back and forth on the whole human interaction thing.
I've also said more and more since the election that maybe what Americans need is that acre of land (allegedly enough to feed a person) and the means to work it, and to be isolated from everyone else. People are really difficult to deal with and they seem to be getting worse.
I dunno: I get weird and sad and lonely when I'm alone too much, but I get frustrated and unhappy when I'm around certain people too much. I dunno. Maybe the problem is me and I really do need to be a hermit like I've threatened.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Chosen Ones and Extraordinary Things”
haven't even heard of 'em, but generally I don't read much fantasy.
"
Heh. I read more British children's novels than American/Canadian ones when I was a kid. (And yeah, I do think that has affected my syntax and writing).
Some friends and I were just having a discussion this morning about how messed-up the whole Mr. Toad thing was. (I actually googled "Psycopathy of Mr. Toad" and got two very relevant hits).
Apparently though, British kid-lit written by fathers for sons - the son's lives never seem to turn out all that happy. (Kenneth Grahame's son, in particular)
"
I suppose my review of it has to be leavened with the observation that I generally dislike fantasy that is explicitly aimed at adults, because
a. often evil wins, or good really isn't that good
b. there's a lot of explicit gore and explicit sex, neither of which I enjoy reading.
I am a Simple Bear of Very Little Brain so I prefer simpler fantasies. (I am currently working my way through Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence). Part of it is I want some reassurance that Good really WILL win in the end, and you don't always get that with "adult" fantasy.
"
I dunno. The idea of "chosen one stories" as an adult repulses me in the same way the "every professor should be a SUPERSTAR" narrative repulses me. I'm not a superstar and I know I'm not; under the narrative I mentioned I should probably not be employed. I'm good at what I do but I am not a SUPERSTAR.
The "superstar" narrative, I think, makes people with ordinary talents and the capacity for hard work feel kind of....lacking, sort of. It used to be "80% of life is showing up," now it's "Be yourself, unless you can be Batman, then be Batman, but you really SHOULD be Batman."
"
I read the book that "The Magicians" was based on (same name, at least for the first book, by Lev Grossman) and found it fairly depressing. It's kind of like Harry Potter viewed through a more-dystopian lens.
I WANTED to like it but wound up not really liking it. I haven't read the other books in the series.
And the idea of Chosen Ones is kind of seductive and in some ways kind of awful: I was a good student. Some teachers claimed I was "gifted." I was told I'd grow up to do Great Things. Instead, I wound up as a biology professor at a small, obscure, perpetually cash-strapped school. I feel like I've either failed the potential I had, or that I never had it to begin with and either people lied to me or I fooled them somehow.
My favorite book I've read as an adult was "Middlemarch" because it contained a lot of people who failed to live up to expectations or who made poor choices in life, but who managed to live with those choices and make the best of them, and I think that - playing the hand you're dealt and realizing that none of us is actually special - is probably a better lesson than the Chosen Ones books.
(I grew up before Harry Potter; I read the Narnia books a lot, though. And Jean Craighead George's "My Side of the Mountain," and the Little House books, and Margery Sharp's "Miss Bianca" books, and lots of "talking animal" books in general....)
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2017.02.20.M}”
Nothing much related tot he links' content, but I will say: were I Benevolent Dictatrix of the World? I'd BAN autoplay embedded video. Argh. I couldn't even get through the Trump-as-Marion-Berry one because it kept hanging up and switching up video.
On “Weekend!”
I hope this is my last working weekend for a while. I was busy from about 9 am until after 5:30 pm. And a lot of it was sort of thankless volunteer grindwork.
I will say the women at my workplace were way overrepresented and the men were underrepresented at one of the volunteer efforts. I think that needs to change next year.
Also, I totally forgot how absolutely nuts seventh graders are and I am now somewhat traumatized from having to deal with a bunch of them for an hour.
Today? after church, I'm not going to speak to another human being for the rest of the day. Yesterday was Introvert Hell and I need to recover before I go back to work tomorrow.
On “Linky Friday: Learnin’ & Earnin’”
I think you are not wrong about this. Never heard it phrased that way but it makes sense.
"
My usual response to humanity in the light of news stories like this:
"Damn it, this is NOT a contest to see which group is worst!"
On “Morning Ed: Healthcare {2017.02.16.Th}”
Unlikely but perhaps possible fourth reason for better outcomes when cardiologists are away: less white-coat syndrome? Or less "oh crap, I must really be sick, here comes the doctor again"? Where the patient figures that if they're being left largely alone, they're probably not fatally ill?
I think the "fewer aggressive procedures and fewer outpatient things that could be put off" is more likely, though. But there are people whose blood pressure reads high when a doctor or nurse is in the room, and normal when there is no medical professional present....
On “Morning Ed: Cities {2017.02.15.W}”
And those weeks where decades happen age all of us by decades. I feel a whole, whole lot older than I did at the start of 2016.
On “Dear Boycotting People”
Am now trying to think of some kind of social-media platform that has Cthulhu in the name....I could make a mint.
"
well, I can say, if I've ingested sorbitol in more than minute quantities.....you probably won't want to be in the same room with me later on.
I....won't give any more detail than that because I"m a lady and I like to pretend ladies don't do what I'm referring to.
On “Morning Ed: War {2017.02.14.T}”
I'm just slightly surprised to learn Gorbachev is still alive....hadn't heard anything about him in years so I assumed he was gone.
On “Dear Boycotting People”
There's a Lowe's boycott?
The flip side of "there's no Lowe's here to boycott" is my little town, where we pretty much ONLY have Lowe's and Wal-Mart (another store I have been told by well-meaning people on the internet to boycott). My other choice for groceries is to not buy everything I need at the much smaller local place (which I do use when I can) or drive an hour's round trip for a Kroger's (which apparently I'm supposed to boycott at some point in support of a strike their Michigan employees are planning).
I'm not sure what some of my Internet Friends consider the bigger sin, shopping at Wal-Mart or burning the gas it takes to get to the Kroger's. I figure I'm gonna be stuck in Purgatory for a very long time.
"
"I’m not so sure if the studios can make more money with a better product."
Calling H.L. Mencken to the courtesy phone, please.
On “Sunday!”
Reading Louise Penny's "The Brutal Telling," one of her Inspector Gamache novels. I enjoy these because the lead detective in them (Armand Gamache, of Montreal's Surete) is fundamentally a good person: someone who abhors violence and murders but who also finds himself sometimes challenged and bemused by some of the moral dilemmas he faces in exposing the murders. And he also loves his wife and his grown children, and enjoys a good meal....Penny's novels, unlike some modern crime novels, are a lot "milder" - the violence is all "off screen," so to speak, and I've not run across any graphic sex in them (graphic violence and sex are two things that quickly put me off an author).
I also enjoy them because of the setting - Quebec, and most commonly a small town near Montreal called Three Pines (which does not exist in the real world) - there's a lot of discussion of the history of and tensions between Anglophone and Francophone Quebecois, and that little cultural bit is interesting (I have been to Montreal a few times, and have ancestors from that part of the world).
It's an enjoyable series, and I like series like this, because if you like the characters, you get to revisit them in later books.
On “Weekend!”
full work day today (finishing manuscript, prepping for next weekend's madness)
full work day next Saturday - it's Honors College recruitment day on my campus and also the regional Science Olympiad and I was fool enough, or rather, scared enough* to say yes to both things.
(*We've had some discussion of "coming up with priorities of who would be let go if the budget got that bad" so those of us who have an anxious bent are doing our best to seem obvious and indispensible).
The last weekend of the month is my birthday weekend and I darn well hope no one wants me to do anything THAT Saturday....
On “Linky Friday: Natural Power”
I'm a homeowner who's lived next door to renters.
Perhaps 80-90% of them are fine, but the 10% that is not - holy Hell. One summer I had people next to me who partied all night, every night, with stereos out on the lawn, who had screaming fights after 11 pm in the front yard, who tried to blow up my mailbox with firecrackers after I filed noise complaints, who threw trash around, who left food on the front lawn (who DOES that) leading to a rat problem in the neighborhood....you get the idea.
The stereotype is that if you own something, you're gonna take care of it, but if you don't, you don't care. Like some stereotypes sometimes it hits home.
I still have renters next door to me on the other side. This batch is better even if they sometimes block my driveway with their cars or play loud music late into the evenings (at least they don't play it all night, and at least they are on the opposite side of the house from where my bedroom is - unlike the previous renters).
I live in a small old house in an older neighborhood; our houses are 10 feet from our neighbors' at the closest point. I wish people were more aware of this, noise CARRIES.
Then again, I suppose 10-20% of neighbors are just generally terrible and renter or not it doesn't matter.....but I think the "transient" nature of renters, the fact that they don't own the place, and the fact that often in some parts of the country, landlords are absent and don't really care what their tenants are doing....tends to put other people off them.
Then again, it sounds like the people in your neighborhood would not be RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the rental properties.
On “Tech Thursday”
Or: "Spider-goat, spider-goat, does whatever a spidergoat can do."
I actually teach about the bioengineered goats in my intro bio class as an example of transgenic stuff.
I confess, I think it's kind of cool, but then I keep hoping eventually for spider-silk knitting yarn.
"
Last spring I had a bout of something that mimicked IBS (probably something got screwed up with a stomach virus I had, and then I was under super-duper-mega-stress: ailing parent coupled with ailing friend coupled with budget cuts and firings at workplace).
After several months of "Ugh, what food is going to betray me next?" and wondering if my future was a diet of ground lamb and rice*, I started taking a probiotic.
I will never believe the people who claim probiotics are "bunk." Not only did my digestion get better to the point where I can even eat oranges and tomato sauce again, but I could tell my mood improved.
I've seen studies suggesting gut flora can affect things like depression because they alter neurotransmitter levels.
And as gross as I find the idea of fecal transplants, if they had an admixture that would lead to reduced anxiety, I'd go for it. (It's not bad enough to want to take meds for it, but I can tell I'm not as carefree as I could be)
(*Allegedly the two least allergenic foods)
"
On Autism - I would not be at all surprised to learn that it's a series of different conditions, some caused by genetics, some caused by things like a messed up microbiome, and it will eventually be separated into different diagnoses. Still, good news if some people are helped by microbiome transplants.
But yeah, I wish the "vaccines cause autism" thing would finally die for good. there have been little flare-ups of mumps locally and it seems largely traceable to vaccine-refusing parents. Normally, I wouldn't care except herd immunity is a thing, and I know people with genuine autoimmune conditions (or kids on chemo) who CANNOT be vaccinated....and so they are at greater risk when a parent decides to take their medical advice from the likes of Jenny McCarthy.
On “Morning Ed: US Politics {2016.02.08.W}”
Wow. That kind of thing would drive me mad, because surely the very day I am out of, say, paper towels, and I dropped a whole carton of eggs on the kitchen floor, would be the day when paper towels could not be sold.
"
As someone with neither husband nor wife, I feel disrespected and offended by that blue laws issue (kidding, kidding, but yeah: it's a terrible justification). I'm fine with individual businesses/chains deciding it's their policy to not open on Sundays (or, I suppose, Saturdays or Fridays, depending on religious belief), but I don't think government should have a say in it.
Also, considering that we've made our bed of a 24/7 world, telling people, "No, maybe we won't let you run errands on what might be your one day off" seems like a terrible thing.
On “Morning Ed: Society {2016.02.07.T}”
I go back and forth on the whole human interaction thing.
I've also said more and more since the election that maybe what Americans need is that acre of land (allegedly enough to feed a person) and the means to work it, and to be isolated from everyone else. People are really difficult to deal with and they seem to be getting worse.
I dunno: I get weird and sad and lonely when I'm alone too much, but I get frustrated and unhappy when I'm around certain people too much. I dunno. Maybe the problem is me and I really do need to be a hermit like I've threatened.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.