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Showing posts from 2008

Gather 'Round Children

Yes, Virgina, there is a Santa Claus. However, you're not good enough to get presents. No one is. That's why your parents give you gifts under Santa's name--they're trying to make you feel "nice." And maybe while doing so, Santa will see how good they're being and give them gifts someday. Now, go get Aunty some more eggnog.

Oh, Thackerey!

As my Croatian murder mystery from Netflix was evidently crushed by a high heel en route, I've been streaming Vanity Fair over the past few days (yes, my internet is that slow). I can't imagine people living like that, so concerned with society, not really. But in between viewings, I went off to the pool and watched the freshmen boys. They were so simple and happy, jumping off the high dive in unison, hurling water polo balls across the pool. I'm not quite like that. Maybe it's just when I'm alone I'm not like that, but what's the point of spinning off the high dive if no one's watching from the pool below?

The closing music at the library...

...is "Waterfalls." A'ight.

baby steps

11:11 pm The last few hours are always the hardest. The library is certainly slowing down; I'm the only one left here in the sampler section. I just finished a delightfully frustrating Poirot novel, and I've gotten quite a bit of work done for the next semester--setting up my experiment and assignments for my class. Still, I have four hours left until closing and the media center is likely closed. Do I doze or read dumb things or try to get something more done? (Although really, I'm quite satisfied with myself.) And looking to the future, where do I go from here? I certainly won't get a parking spot at my apartment this time of night, not one that won't demand I get up by 8:00 am, which is less and less likely. But if I drive home to my parents' house--that's a long icy drive late at night. Eh. One hour at a time, one hour at a time.

7:07

A nice brisk 20 minute powerwalk through the library has yielded this: Most of the library's clocks are wrong. The 2nd floor is the most empty. I've never been in the "F" section of the library. The 6th floor offices are already closed. The girl who was sitting outside my study room at 2:00 is still there--has she been there all this time? This means that even if there aren't many people who have been in the library longer than me, there are still plenty who are working much harder . But then, if it was about hard work, I would have grabbed my textbooks for next semester from the bookstore hours ago.

Trashy Non-Fiction

6:28 pm I have cheerfully moved into that phase of Librarathon known as Trashy Non-Fiction from the Sampler Section. Teachers of troubled students, psychologists of messed up kids, anorexic alcoholics, all those people whose lives sound like daytime television. It's a lovely phase to be in. I should do something intellectual, like studying Russian (I did bring my textbook all this way, didn't I?) or working on my papers, or at least physical, like walking up and down some stairs--I feel like my legs are beginning to atrophy. Still, reading these books is educational, right? Read, that's what the poster at the public library says. Besides, how is spending two or three hours reading less-than-high-literature any worse than watching TV for two or three hours (which, come to think of it, I rather did earlier today, didn't I?) I always have these high expectations of Librarathon: papers I'll write, topics I'll study, insights I'll have. But really, just because I

Back to Work-ish

Okay, so after my watching a movie (which turned out, after two hours, to be a mini-series, which turned out, after two hours, that I didn't actually watch the whole thing), I went to go meet with a student of mine who, quite rationally, assumed that we were meeting in my office, even after I emailed him to meet me here. No worries. For the past hour and a half I've been cheerfully plugging away at the poetics/rhetoric paper that has easily had more than 14 pages of meandering and drafting and figuring out what, exactly, I'm going to say. But then I got all...sticky with it. Ugh. What, exactly, do I want to say? It's something about war poetry and rhetoric and Burke and the lack of rhetorical involvement in literature while literary theory was in vogue and...I don't know. I'm thinking I'll send this next (as always, inchoate) draft to my mom. She's super-nice and I think that I've bothered Dr. Jackson enough today. And while she's looking over i

Hoppin'

This joint is. Hoppin' that is. I got to hang out with Chris, who came to visit and almost inspired me to do more work. However, then I went to a viewing room, rented a movie (Snow Queen) and have hunkered in, by myself, to enjoy my orange and powerbar in dimness, peace and isolation. I wonder if the crowds will diminish over the next few hours. My but Robert Widsen is a good looking man.

What I Have Brought

It's 8:30 am and I just finished some work, so time to de-work. Here's what I've got with me on this fine library day: 1. My English 150 folder with all the papers, brochures and revisions that I needed to grade (Check one). I wish I hadn't also brought the papers that are in there for next semester. Dead weight. Well prepared, but dead weight. 2. My laptop (obviously). This is probably the most useful thing I've got with me and my easiest way to "interact with the outside world" so to speak. I'm looking forward to writing things, checking email, entering grades, etc, etc. 3. Six Powerbars. This is probably excessive, but one does want provisionary rations, in case someone comes to visit or something. I haven't had one yet--I had a couple of apricots for breakfast and Powerbars, actually, are kind of gross. Discrete, but gross. 4. A plastic bag of books . This seems a little silly in retrospect--I mean what's at the library if not books? Lucki

Librar-thon starts....

NOW! Actually, according to my watch, it's 6:58 am. The security guards must have had mercy on us standing out there in the cold. I showed up about ten minutes to opening, when there were five people besides me already waiting. One guy was wrapped in a fleece blanket. Some of them made small talk about the papers they have due, the finals schedule they have today. A girl on her cell phone was having a conversation about putting in (or taking out--hard to tell) a window of thick glass. I wondered who wanted to hear about her remodeling at seven in the morning. By the time the portly man with the key came by (Santa Claus? Better be careful with my pre-Christmas delusions), we numbered ten on my side of the library. There were a couple of people on the other side, but our door was opened slightly earlier. I was the fifth person into the library. I didn't have a preference on my first base camp, but I wound over to the Honors reading lounge, where, strangely, I'm not alone. Ano

Fanmail

So I mail off my first fan letter today. Well, at least my first real fan letter; I've sent notes of appreciation to the authors of my International Finance textbook (best textbook ever!) and the particularly fine translator of the Phaedrus and some other unfamous-but-excellent folk, but this time I wrote Mr. Spielberg, who actually has a separate address just for fan mail. I feel so dumb. I'm not an important person to be sending off this note and it's not like I'm some AIDS orphan whose life was changed when she watched every Spielberg film ever and became a major cultural force. I just really enjoyed the last few movies of his that I've been watching. He's a really fine, incredibly respectful filmmaker--never makes the character in his films look stupid and he doesn't patronize them either. He's make huge hits and big flops and he keeps making movies. I'm very impressed with him. So I figure, even if it's (what 42 cents? I don't know--I ha

Become a Society Lady/Man!

In this world of cooperation and synergy, we often forget how good it makes us feel to put other people down. In light of that special feeling, I am officially starting up the Society for the Preservation of Childish Insults, inspired by overhearing a charming boy scout call his brother "dink wad" on the BYU campus. If you would like to receive the SPCI newsletter (or join our board of directors), please email me at mary.hedengren@gmail.com. This is a wonderful time to be involved with Childish Insults, especially during this holiday season when children will be home from school, gathered together under the Christmas tree, calling each other "Fatty McFats-a-lot" and "Stink-butt." Please support the SPCI with either financial contributions (stock or in-kind payments are available) or by contributing to Childish Insult development and reporting. Be a part of it, driphead.

Re: Third-party identification

As discussed earlier in here it occurs to me that Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song(s--there are three of them now) also fit into the List that minorities make to prove themselves. Deep, man, deep.

Why do I Like Ales Debeljak Soooooo Much.

Maybe it's his 5th Ave-quality intellect, maybe it's his constant relevance, maybe it's his Enlightenment poetics, maybe it's his anti- postmodernism, but I love Ales Debeljak. I want to be him when I grow up. And yes, I wrote his Wikipage.

Things I Ought to Be Doing, Reminders of Which I Can See From Where I Sit

Strangely enough, I always thinks of these things on a day of rest. Thankfully. 1. Send half a dozen knitted quilt squares to Warm Up America. 2. Write a publishable and thrilling seminar paper about service-learning and written instruction and pragmatic approach to both. 3. Write a publishable and thrilling seminar paper about Ales Debeljak's use of Burkian identification to write for both an American and Slovenian audience and merge the priorities of both through his book The City and the Child. 4. Study Latin. 5. Buy some sort of Latin-studying aid--maybe Rossetta. 6. Read more of the epistles if I want to finish them by Christmas. 7. Study BSC--heck, maybe, again, Rossetta. 8. Buy the last of my sister's Christmas presents--which is an entirely genius with a capital G package, but I can't mention what it is specifically because, while it's unlikely, she might read my blog. 9. Write a publishable and thrilling personal essay for the David O. McKay contest that manage

Surprisingly Good Holiday Movie of the Week

The Holiday. A real scriptwriter's script, witty and risky (don't worry--it does work out in the end as all good romantic comedies do) and very demanding on the two leading ladies, who spend a lot of time on screen alone. Far better than its previews led me to believe.

Twilight at Midnight

Okay, so I am not ashamed of the fact that I went to the opening night showing of Twilight. Mostly because I went to Divine Comedy, we took up a row and giggled during the entire movie. (It is not a comedy.) Classic moments from the movie: A constant flow of references to Google (product placement, ho!) Most awkward term of endearment: "Hold tight, spider monkey." It's one thing to read about Edward watching her sleep; it's a whole nother level of creepy to watch him do it. Bella sputters in coherently for 20 seconds straight, easy: "Wha--? I...Edward...no...Forks...I...no...it...but...you...Google...I won't--...but... you...no..." etc, etc. "Here's your veggie plate, Stephanie." Yes, Stephanie Myers is in the restaurant in the movie! Is she seeking to emulate the runaway success of M. Night Shyamalan? The random "apple catching" pose that reproduces the cover of the book. What are they going to do with the other books? "Loo

Woody Allen on Creativity

"The problem is, I feel there's so little you can teach, really, and I didn't want to be discouraging to [the students]. Because the truth of the matter is, ou either have it or you don't. If you don't have it, you can study all your life and it won't mean anything. You won't become a better filmmaker for it. And if you do have it, then you will quickly learn to use the few tools you need. Most of what you need, as a director, is psychological help, anyhow. Balance, discipline, things like that. [...] Many talents artists are destroyed by their neuroses, their doubts, and their angst, or they let too many exterior things distract them. That's where the danger lies, and these are the elements that a writer or filmmaker should try to master first. "[The students asked him how he came up with the ideas in Annie Hall] and all I could asnwer to them was "Well, it was my instinct to do it this way." And that, I think, is the most important less

Turns Out David O. McKay Was Right

... at least irritation in the apartment is a big frustration in life. (I don't know how that compares, exactly, to failure in the home.) This has not been the best week of my life in a lot of aspects (by which I mean I haven't riden any rollercoasters lately, eaten fresh margarita pizza, or wandered around a large European city's downtown.) but nothing really got to me until my roommates started being irritated. Everyone's been irritated lately, actually. Me, I blame a combination of midterms, regular roommateness, the lousy weather and the whole false community/real community thing that my freshman RA explained to me. Let me expound on the last one (because the others are easy to find): she said that it's easy to be nice to people for a little bit, for the honeymoon period, if you will--you can just be civil to each other for a short amount of time. Eventually, though, it wears off and you get more and more frustrated with the little things that bug us. Then it co

In Praise of Low Voter-Turnout

Okay, so this was an exciting election. In some counties in Florida and California, voter turnout was as high as 80-85% of registered voters. When you consider how many people may be double-registered, this is a dizzying amount. Overall voter turn-out for this election may or may not be higher than any since the sixties, but even then, highest voter turn-out in fifty years is nothing to sneeze at. Right? When the voter-turnout was higher, the 1960 and 1964 elections, the U.S. was experiencing extreme turmoil--a generational gap was redefining conservative and liberal politics, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were entering a new phase of the Cold War, the Vietnam War was starting, the Civil Rights and Women's Rights movements were forming. Voting mattered. In fact, if you look at the instances of high voter turnout, it's not always a positive sign. Countries like Kosovo and Argentina have high voter turnout; countries were everything could go wrong. In fact, there's an economic eq

actual burning questions

What's going to be on the front cover of the magazines now? What will become of SNL post-Palin? Can we, actually?

Blog for blog's sake

Don't even bother reading this post. I have nothing particularly interesting to write. Maybe this: School is coming dizzying to a close. Since I'm in the grad program, this means that my semester papers, on which everything in my classes is based are shortly to be due and I not writen a lick of either of them. I have an idea of what I want to do with one, but the other is a murky beast. This is especially a problem because I have this goal to write TWO fantastic papers for each class. Ugh. I'm far more overwhelmed by what I should be doing than what I have to do. The key, I think, to feeling better about this is just to plug in and get stuff done. I've had a very antsy Sabbath, which is usually a sign that I haven't been working hard enough on the "six days thou shalt labor"--I had three nights of staying up past 2:00am, so that could be part of it and the sugar-orgy that is Halloween. So if I give up Monday-afternoon movie (hard to do, hard to do) and ins

Lamer than a cool construction paper invite

Halloween Party My parents' place 7:00 pm- ? Saturday Costumes welcome. Sorry that it's lame, but I haven't really been able to make the cool invites that I'd like because the date didn't get scheduled for far too long. Hope you can come. If you can't, call and be there in spirit!

Mary Needs to Get Out and About More

So in direct contradiction of beginning-of-school daily goal number 1, I find that I am least effective as an academic producer between the hours of two and four or five (the infamous after-school) hours). So I've been fudging a little (c'mon, I have two night classes--two!) and watching Monday afternoon movies. A'right, yeah. I've been blown away by every movie Netflix has sent me of late. I'm trying to catch up on the movies I missed on my mission. First I saw The Prestige and let me illustrate: This is my mind: _ _ _ _ _ _ This is my mind after watching The Prestige: *!&^*#!! Not that I'm full of expletives, but that sucka blew my mind! I spent the next couple of days just thinking (A) I will never find myself in a distructive competitive trap that will destroy both my competition and myself and (B) how did they do that? Very high "whoa" factor. Then I thought watching The Queen would be nice and sedate. Nope. Whoa again, my friends, whoa again

Everything You Ever Hoped and More

I'm sure Sarah Palin is qualified in ways that I am not aware of, but as a rhetor, she makes George Bush seem eloquent. Old school.

The Festive Conference Season

Ah... another Conference weekend come and gone. This is our only truly unique religious holiday ( hmm , the 24 th of July may come close) and it actually requires some sort of effort instead of a day off. Even Sunday we net an hour of "church" (but if you discount meetings for callings, one probably comes off better than expected). Mostly this holiday comes in terms of reunion. My old visiting teachee from last year, who had her life plans change suddenly, stopped in during Girls' Night (and what a weird construct that is; we live in all-girls housing, so how are the two hours of Priesthood session any different than any other night? What, in other words, makes this night different from all other nights?); us roommates went to our respective homes, except the one from California, who spent the weekend with her old roommates; I invited my current visiting teachee to my parents' house because "she didn't have anywhere to go for Conference." It's a g

Third-party identification

D'y'know what I was only just thinking about? Charity and identification. Is it possible that through identification we have that Machiavellian justification for "loving [one's] neighbor as [one's] self?" This especially is the case in terms of that "outside perspective" that we talking about in Brian's class the other day; by identifying with some group, their success becomes your success in the eyes of the outside perspective. For example, if I'm thinking of myself primarily as Mormon (or, say, Catholic) I can justify voting for Mitt Romney (or JFK) exclusively because he's Mormon (Catholic). As the outsiders see Mitt as a successful and/or powerful and/or intelligent individual, the introductions to me as the Mormon become less derogatory. This is probably why all Mormons have "The List" of successful Mormons (Did you know that the Used are Mormon? Did you know Aaron Eckhart went to BYU ?) to whip out to convince themselve

Professionalizing

Semenza, of course, freaks me out. If you have no idea who this man is, let me explain: Semenza has written a book about graduate studies that demands that you: -take no more days off than either Christmas /or/ Yom Kippor. That's it. -read 100 articles a week for each seminar -publish 30-page articles every semester -never see your family if possible. If this is impossible, make them visit you in the library. Between page-turning. -create several folios and vitaes if you don't want to end up homeless, addicted and, eventually, murdered in cold blood. Hurrah for academia!

Things God Doesn't Care About

With all that talk about with how intimately involved God is in our lives, it is increasingly striking to me all of the things that God doesn't care about. They are myriad. We even had a family home evening about it and ran out of space for everything on our cardstock. As Cecil O. said "some things such as meekness, humility duty, solid scholarship [this is a talk to BYU], and responsiveness to duly constituted priesthood authority are vitally important not only to self but to the kingdom. Other things like golf, bicycles, how specifically one earns a living, what one's major is, or what color blouse or tie to wear are of significant personal interest but of no permanent or transcendent value in the greater scheme of life" ("The Importance of Meekness in the Disciple-Scholar"). Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Some of my favorite inspirational moments have been when God says, "M. it doesn't matter. At all. Sheesh." (Some people have

Freakin' Meekness

So. I'm reading these church talks about discipleship and it turns out that I need to be meek. Paul Woodruff has generally the same idea, but he expands it a bit and calls it reverence. (And he is totally not an apostle, even if he is a Thursday forum speaker.) But here's what Neal A. says: Meekness does not mean tentativeness. But thoughfulness. Meekness makes room for others: (Philip. 2:3). [...] Among the meek there is usually more listening and less talking. [...] The meek think of more clever things to say than are said. "Meekness--A Dimension of True Discipleship" 1983 So that's why I deleated a perfectly lovely and snarky post about Sarah Palin's children's names. Must...restrain...snarkiness. It's sometimes harder to let go of those lovely cruelties than it is to pay a hearty fast offering. Why am I generous with money and even compliments, but so willing to say all the clever things that I think? Learning to be self-censorous is a never-ended

Called to Service

So I just got called to the service committee. Sweet. This is one of my coveted callings, along with FHE mom (opening prayer, lesson, activity, closing prayer, firebreathing). I know I'm just on the committee and not a chair, but this gives me all kinds of ideas of service goodness. (1) Canned good scavenger hunt, which extra points for peanutbutter and tuna and random things. (2) Halloween Party Blood Drive (3) Working with Music Committee for a concert at the old folks' home (4) Giving people a list of every-day service they can do. (I think we even have one of these around) (5) Your idea here.

I am a Mean Teacher

Darn.

Impressions

These are the money days. I've just moved into a new apartment--need to make a good first impression on my roommates (she writes after spending an hour and a half writing email in her room alone). I enter the graduate program--that's a whole list of people to impress. I teach my class in two days--that mostly involves striking appropriate fear. I'm thinking about just failing someone straight out ("You! E! Get out of my class!") just to prove to them that I can. Yeah. That'll show 'em. Though this is a bit nervy, pins and needles, I appreciate it. How many times in your life to you get to more-or-less remake yourself every year? This is probably why I liked moving apartment complexes all the time. It's very redemptive to make a first impression over and over again. Still, I can see how this could get old and why people "settle" into people who already know them.

Althusserian Hailing and the Freshman Mind

They could teach us how to set up Blackboard. How to put together a tightly worded syllabus. The relative virtues of guest lecturers. But what the freshmen should call us, no one knows. Dr. Hedengren : Of course not. I don't have a PhD. This title is a lie. Professor Hedengren : This is not a lie, but it's an untruth. There's no real hard qualification to being called "Professor." Most "Professors" are actually assistant professors or associate professors, but no one calls themselves "Assistant Professor Smith." That's silly. Instructor Hedengren : So per above, I'm technically an "instructor." However, this is a mouthful, and somehow has a futuristic-battle-academy favor to it. Maybe that's not altogether a bad thing, but still awkward. Master Hedengren : MA students joke about this, but it's just as much of a lie as "Dr." because I haven't earned that MA yet. PhD candidates can maybe use this distinc

The Lists

So one of the magazines I was reading behind the sound machine today taught us about making life lists. So in case anyone's interested, here's my lists. We all need lists. 4 Things I'd Like to Do Before I Die: 1. Raise children of some sort (what sort? vampires?) 2. Temple-married 3. World's Leading Expert on X (where X is something, not that I'm a leading expert on the letter X, although it would put in the forefront of the Arts and Letters world) 4. Do me a little more travel: Thailand, get back to Russia, the Caribbean 4 Things I'd Like to Do Within the Next 6 Years: 1. Be PhD-ing 2. Significant Other-ed 3. Published 4. Go to Croatia 4 Things I'd Like to Do Within the Next 3-5 Months: 1. Make a short film/music video with my friends 2. Play intramural sports 3. Throw a dinner party 4. Rock the apple harvest. Old school. 4 Things I'd like to Do Every Week: 1. Have an adventure (go/do something new) 2. Watch a movie 3. Studerday! (Study a bit on Saturda

7 Surprises in the Ladies' Home Journal and Good Housekeeping

1. You can prevent varicose veins through a baby aspirin (with your doctor's approval). 2. It turns out, yes, this marriage can be saved. 3. Dogs can make your fashionable clothes more stylish. 4. Princess Di truly was the people's princess. 5. "Super" and "Fabulous" used to be youthful slang misunderstood by Boomers' parents. 6. You can actually make money by stacking coupon savings on sales promotions on refunds on in-store credit cards. 7. It's really hard to be a mom; not just "take out the garbage, help with homework, go to soccer game" hard but "son commits suicide out of nowhere, sexual harassment of daughters at after school job, pool toys make drown children" hard.

A Far, Far Better Thing

You may notice that my "What I'm Currently Reading" list has altered: yes, I've finished A Tale of Two Cities and really, that last book of that...book (huh), reminds me why I started reading the book in the first place. Sydney Carton. Some girls have Mr. Darcy for a literary crush, me, maybe there's something hopeslessly fatalistic about my Romantic (or Victorian) fantasies, but I dig the Carton-man. Is it because I like the concept of the tragic sacrifice? Or is it that I romanticize the idea of wasted potential? Or is it just because Dickens writes a dickens of a snarky character? This is not a good romantic ideal. My more persistent literary crush, Melville's Ishmael, is a much better match for me, seeing as he is not an unambitious and cynical drunk. But it's not like Ishmael is without significant emotional baggage himself. But neither of this is as dismal a beau as Heathcliff, but, really, girls who like Heathcliff kind of weird me out. No offence t

Off the Deep End

I didn't want to look chicken in front of the twelve-year-old boys coming up the platform in front of me, so I jumped. That's the short of it. The long of it starts with my decision to focus on courage for a weekly goal last year which did two things for me (a) inspired me to take risks, live fully and move forward bravely and (b) convinced me that I am right-out yellow. So fast forward several months and I'm swimming laps at the BYU pool thinking, "before this summer is over, I'm going off that huge platform, yeah, the big one." For those who don't know, this diving platform is roughly 400-miles from the water and only open twice a day, maybe to avoid conflicts with the other diving boards, but probably to decrease liability for wrongful death suits. But then I think, "hey, summer's almost over, why not now?" Climbing up the platform, I didn't look down, but I kept thinking, "this is taking a long time to get up. This is taking way

The People of Gotham Deserve a Better Breed of Post

Because I've been one-lining it, here I go with everything in my slackerful and charming life. (And yes, you wouldn't be amiss in assuming that there's a lot of Law and Order in this life.) Exhibit A: One quarter-finished novel. This is the future manuscript of my first and likely very dumb novel Boy Crazy Gets Her Man, which both gives you a feel of the futuristic hello-kitty styled murder mystery and explains my gmail tagline , which isn't about my finally pursuing men flirt- astically and settling down. Shucks. But if I can actually have a 200-odd page manuscript with a beginning, middle and an end (singing the Sesame Street song in my head), then I will be, as they say, a happy camper. Exhibit B: A pile of tent on my laundry room floor. A pile because I put it out in the sun to de -mildew it, but then got too lazy to fold it up and put it one of the bags that is still in the back of my car (maybe I'll clean my car out tomorrow) from my camping sleepover with

Moxy

Madonna lied. Amoxacillin is a girl's best friend.

Land of Many Lakes

I'm in my mother's land. The mother land. They have bunnies. and squirrels.

It's a Lovely Day in the Neighborhood

A few words about friends: (1) I am extremely loyal. Absurdly so, even when friends don't return my calls, alienate my other friends, treat me like a therapist, kick me in the ribs, etc. (2) As I get older, it occurs to me that I should be spending less of my effort in Oaksian "hanging out" and more time focusing on one "special friend" than desiring a circle of people around me. (Do I find this the ideal because I have a large family of siblings that I enjoy?) (3) I need to learn how to make friends, not just acquaintances. I give precedent to those "old friends" without ever keeping up with the people I met in last year's ward, for example. (4) Breaking-up with friends is hard. You can't just break up--one side just peters away from the other side. Would a "state of the relationship" or DTR-type speech make it easier to just peel away a friend who is damaging and/or time-draining? How do you break up with someone that you don't

Why We Write.

My forward...one would suspect... taken in part from my inscape interview, but probably forward for my book. There have always been poets. There is something about the human language that lends itself to bursts of short, tight, aesthetically-evocative works of literature. Sometimes these expressions take the form of songs, sometimes prayers, but in whatever form they take, since there has been language there have been poets. A wonderful thing happened and poetry became popular. Then a terrible thing happened and poetry became unpopular. And yet, I think that there are no fewer poets than before. It’s a funny thing, using that word poet. Most of the people I know who write poetry, even those who have been long-published and professional, shy away from calling themselves a poet. There’s something of a sigma to it, like suddenly you’re this self-absorbed pseudo-intellectual lurching about like Meyerburg from Cold Comfort Farm. It’s easier to admit that you go to Star Trek conventions t

Maddening Beauty

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Rilke remarked about Rome, there is beauty here because there is beauty everywhere. I wish I were still in Europe. How can that be? Why do I wish I was there? Provo is beautiful, the remarkable green on the mountains from the wet spring, sunny every day, windful and full of sweet scents on the air for those of us blessed with no allergies and a fondness for sandbar willow and globe fallow. Do I think that if I were in Europe, my grandma wouldn't have died? She was 96 years old, and after nearly a century, death is not unexpected. In fact, since my birthday 3 years ago, when she fell and broke her hip, we knew this was coming. She had told us who was and who certainly was not to play the organ at her funeral, divided up all the major peices of furature and the silver, commented on how she was just waiting to die. And still, when she died it was not beautiful. She was alternatively unconscious--they make these little doses of morphine now--or hysterical, throwing tandrums, raving tha

The Grandfatherland

I´m in Stockholm. It´s corny, but yeah, this feels like home, kind of. The trees, the water, the buildings... We went to Hedengrens book shop and when I told the lady working there that my name was Hedengren, she made sure I had plenty of free bookmarks and bags. Nice people. But why have this attachment to Sweden when: ä) my kinsfolk are actually Swedes from Vaasa Finland, not Stockholm at all and b) I´m not entirely Swedish, but I have no deep drive to go to Denmark or Wales. Huh. And yet this is very much like how, I suspect, Jews feel coming to Jerusalem. Everyone here looks like me. The historical recreationist apocraphary in the old town had my same blue-grey eyes, hair like my sister. Everyone goes around so nice and easy. It´s beautiful.

Italia

So I'm doing the backpacking thing and it's totally true what they say about total strangers abroad being close. I'm hanging out with a Canadian and my friend Chris and I'm equally comfortable with each of them. We're talking about our grandmothers' mortality and past relationships and it's so open. It's so intimate and scary to be alone, so we cling to each other, in this strange place. That's all we can do.

Ah, the Muse

So. I'm working on writing my novel, or rather I'm sitting here blogging instead of writing my novel because it's really easy to get distracted. I think I have to become one of those "first-thing-in-the morning" writers because the 3-4 pm time is really my most useless time of day (and yes, you may point out that it's only a quarter to 2 and I'm still rather useless, aren't I?). I was so good last week and wrote a lot, even 12-15 pages at one sitting, but I know I need to just sit down and pound it out. It's feeling a lot like my thesis. The word /thesis/ sits pretty heavily down on me as a new topic that caused (a) a lot of procrastination in starting it (b) a lot of procrastination in doing it (c) the feeling that when I did it, I ought to be more monumental that what I actually had to say and (d) a certain degree of stiffness in the writing because, after all, it was my THESIS. I think the same thing goes with writing a novel. Somehow I'm mo

Study for the GRE and Save the World

In one easy website. (Perhaps it's everyone besides me who knew this already.)

Because It's Summer and I Want To

Although I wrote 15 pages on my novel today, need to mow the lawn, learn Latin, buy stuff for Europe and go running, here I am... Four Movies I could Watch over and over: 1. The Italian Job 2. The Incredibles 3. P&P, the mormon one 4. Children of Heaven these sucked and ergo I add my own: Four Books I could read over and over again: 1. Moby Dick 2. The Moon is Down (although I might need a little break after the thesis) 3. Flannery O'Connor's collected works 4. A series of unfortunate events (they can't all be deep) Four Jobs I've Had: 1. BYU Bookstore Giftwrap Girl 2. American Economic History TA 3. Student Literary Magazine Editor 4. Substitute Cafeteria worker Four Places I've Lived: 1. Provo 2. St. Petersburg 3. Provo again 4. St. Petersburg again Four of My Favorite dishes/foods: 1. Thai food--Padd Thai is always good, and coconut curry 2. Carrot cake w/ cream cheese frosting carrots 3. Microwave salmon. 4. Margarita pizza from Costco Four T.V. Shows I Love

If you're havin' school problems, I feel bad for you son; I got 99 problems, but a BA ain't one.

Now I'm all graduated. It really doesn't feel like that big of a step because, of course, this fall I'll be headed back with the same teachers, studying the same thing at the same school. Still. The Humanities Department convocation was an exerise in sitting politely and trying not to not off (although I did count six people on the stand who did so) while a long-winded philosophy professor talked about a BYU history exhibit (that has been in development 7 years and isn't even open yet) for nearly an hour. What ever happened to "go forth and change the world, the future belongs to you, this is only a beginning, etc?" University commencement was better (and shorter) with David A. telling us all that we only come to college to learn skills of how to love learning. Also, he acknowledged that no one at graduation is there for the speaker. Pshw. I did get my Costco carrot cake with apricot filling and a very pretty BYU-blue and white dress. And, having moved into my

Summer Dreamin'

The bad news is that school's not over yet--I have 3 finals next week. But the good news is that at this nearing-180-credit point in my life, I doubt even a string of Bs can do much harm to my GPA. The good news, also, is that I'm going to have a kickin' summer. In yearbook terms. I'm going to spend 3 weeks living the American dream, which is to say the Americans by James Joyce dream. I'm pretty much coming of age. So here's what I want: What should I bring on my backpacking in Europe? What should I see? Go, team, go

Hosting

I got to co-host the BYU Unforum. I will probably never again speak in front of so many people in my life. Then again, that's what I said after I spoke at my H.S. graduation. But I got to wear my old prom dress (I'm always looking for an excuse to wear it) and wear hoochy-mama lipstick (I don't know all the reasons why a man would become a transvestite, but I'm pretty sure the hoochy-mama lipstick has something to do with it) and I got to walk down a red carpet and wave and shine to the audience and hang out back stage with Cosmo and Cecil. And that's a pretty good Tuesday.

Literate

I like to read. All those who are paying strict attention to the "Books I'm Reading" corner of this blog may realize that Tale of Two Cities has been there, stubbornly, for now months. Yes, I'm still bookmarked near the beginning of the pulsing, wild violence and mushy heroics haven't even been foreshadowed. Sometimes I watch movies instead of reading books, but I really like to read. Maybe you misunderstand me. I can't not read. I'm in the shower and I read the backs of all my shampoo bottles, which is becoming sort of a matins. I read the backs of cereal boxes, the titles of books people I walk by are reading, the headlines of Soap Opera Weekly at the check stand. I pity those who are functionally illiterate as much as those who can't read in the car. Or those who can't read while walking. I can't brush my teeth or take a bath until I've selected something to skim. I read through a cookbook today, reading all of the comments from the wom

The Great Justification of My Attendance at BYU

Okay, I've not turned in my acceptance of a benefit and can start registering, so let's talk about defending the choice that I've made. As my gmail tagline has stated the past few days, "I'm BYU bound and BYU-bound." Here are my reasons: 1) I don't want to get into debt for an MA in a program that I'm not particularly interested in for a non-terminal degree at a school that is okay, but not great when... 2) after getting my MA here at BYU I can apply to really good schools that weren't options this round because a) I haven't taken te subject GRE and b) I don't have a strong grasp on Latin, my preferred 3rd/ancient language 3) and after all, BYU is not that bad of a school--I'll get to work with some great faculty whereas MAs at schools that have PhDs tend to stiff their MA students and I'll get to teach here from semester 1 (probably) and as a single woman, I have to consider the search costs of dating outsid

Book Throwing

I'm going to throw away my copy of Crime and Punishment. It's not rage or indignation--some of the the pages from the first half are coming out. I'll probably buy a new copy. But I had to read through this one. Why? I got this book from the box of books outside the door of a professor I'll call, for anonymity's sake, Great Britain. The need to preserve his anonymity stems from the fact that, according to the inside of the cover, Great Britain received this book for Christmas 1981. Also, it's never been read through. That's not to say G.B. hasn't ever read Crime and Punishment or to blame him for that (heaven knows, I've been in that culturally illiterate camp until this last month), but just that this particular book has gone its whole existence with only the pages of the first half being bended and separated. It's like the time I checked out from the library a book that had been published in 1882 and still never had its pages cut. More than a

Products of A Slightly Fevered Mind After A Long Girls' Night Out.

1. 28 Dresses Later a high-adrenaline zombie-bridesmaid thriller. When one dress too many turns the minds of the perpetual bridesmaid, they roam post-apocalyptic London, tearing to shreds everyone with well-manicured nails and biting them with their recently-whitened teeth. 2. I wake up, groggy, bed-headed, pajamaed. Lying next to me, fully dressed on top of the bed is Gregory Mankiw, the economist. "You're Greg Mankiw," I intelligently remark. He springs out of bed and stands up. "Would you like to discuss consumer surplus and tariffs?" "Why are you here?" I ask. "Don't you remember the Make-a-Wish Foundation?" 3. I was going to throw my tiara, but it turns out to be made of popcorn. "What a cheap groom I have," I think. He's already changed into jeans by the time his extensive family starts playing a traditional game of "here kitty, kitty," around the equally extensive reception grounds. I have no idea why we

It Could Turn a Blue Man Purple

The official story of our Vegas trip: We did not stay in a smoky casino, featuring a topless vampire review and "American Storm" male strippers. We did not perform clean comedy in the back of a fetish shop. We didn't get excited at seeing a duck on the Strip. It was a great trip.

New On My Bookmarks

You may remember him from your Econ 110 textbook.

If I can't have you...I don't want nobody, baby!

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HYPER! I've been sliding around my kitchen singing along with "Saturday Night Fever" while putting away dishes as a study break while working on aformentioned stress number 1, which got an extension. And I was just talking with Xister about how I should blog more happy so random blog searchers won't contact my health care professional. Wow. Where does this sort of thing come from? Not to answer that question, but in correlation, I got accepted for University of Chicago's masters program. I'll probably still go to BYU, but I'll look into it. Still. It's nice to know that some people you will probably never meet really liked you as represented by a slim packet of letters and writing samples. And a manfriend of mine chose to come up and talk with me and sit right next to me (as opposed to a seat's distance away, as is customary in larger classes) and talk and walk with me after class, which makes me think maybe pigtails are a hot n

Happy Presentation Day!

So I presented in aforementioned intimidating class about Edward Taylor (my paper topic, as well) and suddenly--boom! I feel like I'm an expert or something. I'm answering people's questions and talking authoritatively, although its a bit of a pantamine because, of course, I'm not an expert. My teacher, the one sitting eight feet away, is the expert. Duh. The good news is that this takes stresses 4 and 3 off, leaving only 1 and 2 and 1 gets printed in triplicate on cotton paper tomorrow, leaving only gluttony and glowsticks for stress 2 goodness this weekend! P.S. Apologies to everyone I've been blowing off this past week, including my 519 class (for two weeks!)

The Devotional Lyric

This class intimidates me: senior capstone class, smart classmates, academic superstar professor. And it freezes me into inaction on any assignment. I vacillate between several different topics, unable to choose and when I get to writing it I wonder if it's any good at all, put it off too late and generally panic. M'Kayla has suggested that part of it is this toxic culture of academic competition. We all want to be top of the class. So why does this class scare me while the honors class where I am as like to hear "What's the difference between a novel and an essay?" as "Didn't some of the Greek comedians like Philemon have a similar telological approach?" drives me to check my email and blog during class? Probably because I have to care about my Senior Capstone Of MY MAJOR BEFORE GRADUATE SCHOOL WHERE I WILL BE TESTED TO THE LIMIT TO SEE IF I HAVE THE ACADEMIC METTLE TO MAKE IT IN THE WORLD OF THE UNIVERSITY AND THE MLA CONFERENCE and not just a civ

The World Wide Inter-web

My mom had to teach me how to turn on our new TV. My mom. She's also asking me why I never update my Facebook page. She updates her Facebook page. Six months back from my mission and I feel like I've fallen behind helplessly in figuring out the new technology. That's for the younger hipper kids. Twitter? Texting? What is this madness? I feel like I'm already my grandma. I tried to play the cool new first-person shooter game, but got so nauseated from the graphics that I had to take a break after 15 minutes. Will it ever come back to me? Will I ever be able to reclaim my youthful tech-suavy? Is the TV line-in one, two or three?

11 hours

Last night I went to bed at 8:30. I was really trying for 9:00, but I couldn't make it. But really, I wanted to go to bed at 8:00, so my discipline is staggering. Whew. It's been a week. Tomorrow is Spring Haven weekend, which is maybe my favorite place and favorite time of the world. There will be murder in the dark. And there will be dodgeball. Scary stories. Gluttony. Pants-wetting. Good times all around. And I will go to bed at 8:30. a.m.

Boo, Berkeley, boo.

So it looks like I won't be going to Berkeley at least. I knew it was a long-shot, but as Nada Surf once sang in relation to dating "there's always a feeling of hurt and rejection" when a university "says [it] prefers the company of others to your exclusive company." There were something like 900 applicants for 6 positions, so really, what do I expect? Oh well. It's probably for the best. One less choice to make.

Lying in Bed

So I haven't been going off to sleep like I'd like to the past couple of weeks, so last night I'm under the sheets and I'm thinking about all the stuff I want to do and then I remember the answer to all of my problems: Macy's is open 24 hours. I go out there and I do all of the stuff I want to do (including buy tons of Valentine's care package candy and everything for dinner group and $20 of cute office supplies and a wicked binder for my thesis) and I get back and I put everything away and then I think: I really want to grade those economics tests. So I go through and I grade everyone's questions one and two, but question three I'm not so sure about what the answer key says, so I email the professor and move to question four, which one person had a LOT of data for a closed-book test, but maybe he has a good memory, and if he does, I can't call him a cheat, but wow! really! So by now it's early morning hours and I do get myself off to bed I know

What Everyone Knows (But rarely does)

Health Edition! (Feel free to add on the most useful things to get neglected far too often) 1. Exercise Everyday Benefits health, immune system, as useful for depression as Prozac, relieves stress, improves stamina and energy. 2. Sleep Well at Night Improves mood, energy, resistance to infection, weight loss. 3. Wash...Daily! Less likely to get sick, improves skin tone, mood, sociality. 4. Drink Water Improves physical and mental performance, cleans kidneys, digestive tract, clears skin tone 5. Brush and Floss Dental health, good breath 6. Eat Fruits and Vegetables Digestion, vitamins, fiber, prevents certain types of cancer/heart disease There it is. Start with the basics, fools. So hop to it, you crazy fad-dieters!