Guess what I found in the flower bed outside my apartment as I came home from the (soaking) 4th of July BBQ. A dead goldfish!!!
I don't want to throw stones, but it some of my neighbors - I don't know yet who - are not very pleasant. I've found some pretty nasty stuff in the flowerbeds - cigarette butts, candle wax, broken glass, more cigarette butts, and now, the latest charming addition. I have a feeling it's the kids above us, who spend a lot of time by the window overlooking the backyard (and out on the roof) smoking and, apparently, throwing their dead pets out and not knowing how to dispose of burnt-down candles. I'd really like to take this stuff back to its rightful owner and tell him/her to shove it where to sun don't shine, but not knowing for sure who the culprit is makes that rather undoable.
Also, last Monday when I took our recycling bin out to the curb for pickup I noticed that there were four sixpacks of beer and vodka-drink bottles in our recycling bin that neither I nor Shan had put there. We keep the bin on our porch and I suspect that one of our neighbors just put their recycling in our bin. Common guys! I took the sixpacks out and put them on the common porch for the other apartments in the house and there they are still. I might have to remove their dead pets from my flowerbed but I am NOT taking the remains of their parties to the curb for them. ASSHOLES!
So, what do the Danes do then? At the time when Shan first moved in here he was promised that only grad students (read: grown ups) would live here. That held true for the first year or so but by now we feel that we are orders of magnitude older than most of the people living in the house. I don't have anything against young people (being so fabulously young myself... ehem...) but I don't want to live in the same house as they, at least not in Ithaca. We are pretty pissed off that the landlord has defaulted on his promise so severly.
miðvikudagur, júlí 04, 2007
mánudagur, júlí 02, 2007
sunnudagur, júlí 01, 2007
Snapping Turtle Skirt
Wanna see my new skirt? I made it all by myself! The pattern hails from the book Knitting Nature, which has become my bosom buddy and the place to go to for all things knitty. The skirt took me a couple months to knit and while I was at it it looked so bad I honestly thought that I would chuck it straight into the garbage can when it was ready. Alas, that did not happen; the skirt came out much better than I ever dared to hope. It's pure wool so I won't be using it a lot over the summer but you can bet that I'll wear it to threads once the weather gets a little cooler. That's when I'll start knitting some more stuff from the book too.
Currently knitting: Just starting a cardigan for a newborn... actually an unborn nephew/niece* of Shan's.
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* Shan's best friend since pre-kinder is pregnant. Well, his girlfriend/wife is.
The Jesus people...
... knocked on my door just a minute ago, inviting me to a Jehova's Witnesses' event. I politely declined the offer. Maybe I should I have ushered them inside, offered them a cup of tea and a reading from "The God Delusion" or "The End of Faith". I wonder how they would have liked that.
Finished The Road a couple of days ago. Shan't say much about it, just this: Read it.
Finished The Road a couple of days ago. Shan't say much about it, just this: Read it.
laugardagur, júní 30, 2007
Grass widow
Shan took off this morning to a wedding of his friend in California. He'll be gone for almost a whole week, during which I'll have the house all to myself. I can strew my books all over the floor, keep my knitting projects all over the couch (not on the floor, mind you) and fart and burp as much as I please, thus returning to the times before vigilant consideration entered my life. I wonder how that will feel.
After a few weeks in the field in 1999 with my geology co-student Jakob I was so thouroughly rid of any civilized streak I'd burp mid-sentence and hardly notice. Let's hope these days of solitude won't have that effect this time. Then again, I think Jakob may have contributed to the un-civilizing, seeing as he thought nothing funnier than farting big time once he was safe in his sleeping bag, then unzipping the bag and fanning the gases over my face. Trust me, field geologists are bizarre creatures.
They're having a party next door and shouting like some prairie Indians going to battle. Cornell undergrads are bizarre creatures too.
After a few weeks in the field in 1999 with my geology co-student Jakob I was so thouroughly rid of any civilized streak I'd burp mid-sentence and hardly notice. Let's hope these days of solitude won't have that effect this time. Then again, I think Jakob may have contributed to the un-civilizing, seeing as he thought nothing funnier than farting big time once he was safe in his sleeping bag, then unzipping the bag and fanning the gases over my face. Trust me, field geologists are bizarre creatures.
They're having a party next door and shouting like some prairie Indians going to battle. Cornell undergrads are bizarre creatures too.
miðvikudagur, júní 27, 2007
Books
It's been too warm lately for knitting (for some reason I only knit wool) so I've returned to my old habit of devouring books. Here's what I can recall reading recently:
Snow, by Orhan Pamuk. I actually read this in the Philippines in January and enjoyed it immensely. Probably one of the best novels one will ever read. Very complex and dark and beautiful.
Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs, is awful. An astoundingly overrated book.
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Equally hilarious and frightening. I didn't need convincing that mixing religion and politics is a very bad idea and I loved Dawkins' unapologetic writing style. I especially loved the last chapter which aims to show us why a personal God is unnecessary to experience consolation and fulfillment in life.
The End of Faith, by Sam Harris. Finished this one last night. It addresses similar concerns as The God Delusion but from a philosophical perspective. The sarcasm is more heavily reined in here than in The God Delusion but no apologies are made either. Recommended, although the chapter on torture left me a little cold.
Thinking in Pictures. Stína will know all about this one. By Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who has managed to overcome substantial obstacles to participate in the world more than most autistic people. The book is very interesting but frequently goes off topic too much for my liking.
The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan. Wow. This one blew me away. Granted, it was written in the 60's and some parts are hopelessy dated, such as the part suggesting autism is caused by "refrigerator" mothers. But the insight into the nature of the "problem with no name" is crystal clear, and the analysis of the root of the problem lucid and frightening. It just doesn't cease to amaze me what women of the past, such as Friedan, have accomplished in fighting for the rights of women. We owe those ladies a lot.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. This one ended up being the chosen one, which I brought with me on the Colorado-Utah bike adventure to while away the hours spent in the huts resting my tired limbs. Good choice, I have to say (except that I was done with it in 4 days even as I restrained my access to the book! Should have brought a longer novel...). The event which shapes the story is about as unconventional as you can find in a novel and the author tackles it pretty well, portraying all the characters with fairness and creating an intensely readable book from a storyline that at first sight doesn't seem to invite much excitement.
Hinir sterku, Kristján Þórður Hrafnsson. An Icelandic novel. Somehow the style of the author first seemed odd to me, like he was too used to writing poems to not be hopelessly formal in prose. Either I got used to it or it changed, because after a while this didn't bother me anymore. Interesting story and morals, characters maybe a bit too shallow.
Sendiherrann, by Bragi Ólafsson. Another Icelandic novel. I liked the one previous novel from the author that I've read, and I really liked this one as well. However, I'm not sure really where the author is going or what he's trying to tell. I just know that it's a tragic and comic and well written story. It'd be nice to have read this one in Óli Odds' Icelandic class in MR...
Waiting to be read:
My name is Red, Orhan Pamuk
Ines of my Soul/Ines del alma mia, Isabel Allende
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
The Road, Cormac McCarthy Update 07/01/07: finished
Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963, Robert Dallek
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
and about a million others...
Snow, by Orhan Pamuk. I actually read this in the Philippines in January and enjoyed it immensely. Probably one of the best novels one will ever read. Very complex and dark and beautiful.
Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs, is awful. An astoundingly overrated book.
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Equally hilarious and frightening. I didn't need convincing that mixing religion and politics is a very bad idea and I loved Dawkins' unapologetic writing style. I especially loved the last chapter which aims to show us why a personal God is unnecessary to experience consolation and fulfillment in life.
The End of Faith, by Sam Harris. Finished this one last night. It addresses similar concerns as The God Delusion but from a philosophical perspective. The sarcasm is more heavily reined in here than in The God Delusion but no apologies are made either. Recommended, although the chapter on torture left me a little cold.
Thinking in Pictures. Stína will know all about this one. By Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who has managed to overcome substantial obstacles to participate in the world more than most autistic people. The book is very interesting but frequently goes off topic too much for my liking.
The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan. Wow. This one blew me away. Granted, it was written in the 60's and some parts are hopelessy dated, such as the part suggesting autism is caused by "refrigerator" mothers. But the insight into the nature of the "problem with no name" is crystal clear, and the analysis of the root of the problem lucid and frightening. It just doesn't cease to amaze me what women of the past, such as Friedan, have accomplished in fighting for the rights of women. We owe those ladies a lot.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. This one ended up being the chosen one, which I brought with me on the Colorado-Utah bike adventure to while away the hours spent in the huts resting my tired limbs. Good choice, I have to say (except that I was done with it in 4 days even as I restrained my access to the book! Should have brought a longer novel...). The event which shapes the story is about as unconventional as you can find in a novel and the author tackles it pretty well, portraying all the characters with fairness and creating an intensely readable book from a storyline that at first sight doesn't seem to invite much excitement.
Hinir sterku, Kristján Þórður Hrafnsson. An Icelandic novel. Somehow the style of the author first seemed odd to me, like he was too used to writing poems to not be hopelessly formal in prose. Either I got used to it or it changed, because after a while this didn't bother me anymore. Interesting story and morals, characters maybe a bit too shallow.
Sendiherrann, by Bragi Ólafsson. Another Icelandic novel. I liked the one previous novel from the author that I've read, and I really liked this one as well. However, I'm not sure really where the author is going or what he's trying to tell. I just know that it's a tragic and comic and well written story. It'd be nice to have read this one in Óli Odds' Icelandic class in MR...
Waiting to be read:
My name is Red, Orhan Pamuk
Ines of my Soul/Ines del alma mia, Isabel Allende
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963, Robert Dallek
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
and about a million others...
þriðjudagur, júní 26, 2007
Last Dollar Pass and then some more
The end of the first day was hard. Shan lugging his bike up to the hut at 10,950 ft elevation (that's over 3000 m a.s.l. for the metric gang). No wonder Butch Cassidy rode a horse over that pass as he fled town after his first bank robbery, he'd never have made it over on a bike!
föstudagur, júní 15, 2007
fimmtudagur, júní 14, 2007
þriðjudagur, júní 12, 2007
Blogopause
I'm having a blogopause these days. It happens to bloggers that have been at it for veeerrrryyyy long. Thus the random pictures.
In the wake of whining and howling about lost pay and paycuts and whatnot I have decided to go on a spiffy sumer vacation!!! What else is there to do (other than, perhaps, NOT go on a summer vacation)? It begins tomorrow with a flight to Salt Lake City. My luvly cohabitator (Dork#2 below... or was it #1??) and I are going to bike from Telluride, CO to Moab, UT over the course of 7 days. If we don't a) perish from exhaustion or heatstroke, b) get eaten by a mountain lion, c) get lost or d) decide to leave it all behind and become Abbey-ists out west, we should be back in about 10 days.
Before I forget. Last night while having dinner I saw a young woman breastfeeding her baby on the next table. Nothing unusual about that, except she was wearing a giant blanket hooked around her neck, so that the baby was completely covered. In my limited perception of things, a society that labels breastfeeding too morally upsetting to be carried out in the open is seriously screwed up. Not that I hadn't realized that before, but I always find it equally disturbing.
In the wake of whining and howling about lost pay and paycuts and whatnot I have decided to go on a spiffy sumer vacation!!! What else is there to do (other than, perhaps, NOT go on a summer vacation)? It begins tomorrow with a flight to Salt Lake City. My luvly cohabitator (Dork#2 below... or was it #1??) and I are going to bike from Telluride, CO to Moab, UT over the course of 7 days. If we don't a) perish from exhaustion or heatstroke, b) get eaten by a mountain lion, c) get lost or d) decide to leave it all behind and become Abbey-ists out west, we should be back in about 10 days.
Before I forget. Last night while having dinner I saw a young woman breastfeeding her baby on the next table. Nothing unusual about that, except she was wearing a giant blanket hooked around her neck, so that the baby was completely covered. In my limited perception of things, a society that labels breastfeeding too morally upsetting to be carried out in the open is seriously screwed up. Not that I hadn't realized that before, but I always find it equally disturbing.
mánudagur, júní 11, 2007
fimmtudagur, júní 07, 2007
föstudagur, júní 01, 2007
"Showing 2 out of 592 references"
I just finished (as in, 5 minutes ago) cataloging my substantial collection of scholarly articles. Now they are all neatly tucked away in folders, one for each author, in the filing cabinet. Endnote and the office supply cabinet have come in very handy here, providing me with a framework for organizing this mountain of paper both in real space and cyberspace.
The title of this post refers to the number of papers returned when searching my database for "author=Schopka". I've obviously got some ways to go!
The title of this post refers to the number of papers returned when searching my database for "author=Schopka". I've obviously got some ways to go!
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