Eugene lies decimated down here today. The weather continues dismal, although we had the sun peek out a bit. As a native of this state, I have a definite affinity with rain. But even I, who loves the storm, could not wish for sunshine to come sooner. It has a dampening effect on the mood, if you will.
All is truly well, though. I have little homework this evening, so I thought I'd update. There's not much in the way of news, so I thought, as kind of a review of the year, I would publicize some of my favorite works from this prolific year of reading. Here they are, folks!
~Measure for Measure (Shakespeare): admittedly one of the Bard's naughtier plays, I loved it for it's humanity. It was remarkably deep, and dealt with heavy issues while still being trademark zany.
~Locke, Federalist Papers, de Toqueville, Rousseau, Marx, Lenin: How does one do government? Let me count the ways! All these dudes had their own take on government, and it was fascinating to trace the differences and how they affected history (is it 'affect' or 'effect'?).
~A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens): I read this when I was sixteen, and disliked it considerably. A second reading helped me discover it's brilliance. I had also the advantage of maturity, and was able to decipher Dickens' verbosity.
~Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky): hands down, the most intense read I've ever experienced. I was pulled right into the thing! Human nature is indeed wicked, and this book unabashedly displays this. Also: I never knew that an author could have so much talent, to write a book one way and make his reader think a certain thing for six hundred pages, then take the last page and a half to twist the thing in the other direction. Whew!
~Nietzsche: please, nobody have a heart attack. I don't prescribe to him; he is freaky. But he has a certain appeal that is undeniable, and his place in history and his writings are so profound, that reading him is definitely worth it. If you wonder, I only refer to him as 'him', for I don't want to have to type 'Nietzsche' left and right. You should try it.
~other recent favorites that don't really need explanation: Man and Superman (George Bernard Shaw), A Doll House (Ibsen), and All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque).
Ta-ta for now! May your reading endeavors be worthwhile.
~I am etc.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Spring Cleaning
No, the whole blog endeavor is not all washed up, in case you were wondering. It is generally typical for a person to finish what they've started, and be faithful along the way, but such is not my relationship with the internet. Just ask anyone who is on emailing terms with me.
Today's title is 'Spring Cleaning', for various reasons: 1) It is spring, or it is trying to be at least 2) It is supposedly what people do in spring 3) We've got a lot of catching up to do!!!
Thinking about cleaning, we just had our smoke detectors cleaned Thursday. The reason for this being that we have very erractic smoke detectors. They have cried wolf three times in the last two weeks, and as with all 'good' smoke detectors, they aren't something that you want to go off without justification. They're lmost as loud as the singer who's singing from the UO stadium right now. I'm sure the sound could wake the dead. Actually, we discovered this at seven-thirty this morning, when we were nearly electrocuted out of slumber by our faithful detectors. Here we were, a little gaggle of sleepy students in front of the house, in our pajamas, IN THE SNOW (I among others being without shoes), while get this, the fire department was running a test on our smoke detectors! Yes! They thought it would be brilliant at seven-thirty in the morning to test our newly-cleaned smoke detectors in order to figure out which single one was causing the problems. So we're outside for twenty minutes while our house manager is running around the house in her pajamas looking for the rogue little detector. I applaud the Eugene Fire Dept. for their cute idea.
That's the only anecdote for today. I thought it was a nice, light transition back into blogging, instead of some 'o, my life!' commentary. So fair-thee-well, and may your smoke detectors fain to treat you justly.
Today's title is 'Spring Cleaning', for various reasons: 1) It is spring, or it is trying to be at least 2) It is supposedly what people do in spring 3) We've got a lot of catching up to do!!!
Thinking about cleaning, we just had our smoke detectors cleaned Thursday. The reason for this being that we have very erractic smoke detectors. They have cried wolf three times in the last two weeks, and as with all 'good' smoke detectors, they aren't something that you want to go off without justification. They're lmost as loud as the singer who's singing from the UO stadium right now. I'm sure the sound could wake the dead. Actually, we discovered this at seven-thirty this morning, when we were nearly electrocuted out of slumber by our faithful detectors. Here we were, a little gaggle of sleepy students in front of the house, in our pajamas, IN THE SNOW (I among others being without shoes), while get this, the fire department was running a test on our smoke detectors! Yes! They thought it would be brilliant at seven-thirty in the morning to test our newly-cleaned smoke detectors in order to figure out which single one was causing the problems. So we're outside for twenty minutes while our house manager is running around the house in her pajamas looking for the rogue little detector. I applaud the Eugene Fire Dept. for their cute idea.
That's the only anecdote for today. I thought it was a nice, light transition back into blogging, instead of some 'o, my life!' commentary. So fair-thee-well, and may your smoke detectors fain to treat you justly.
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