Liz's Bloglet - Monday 24 May 2004

A sort of sad, comic story about a UGA shortstop who really likes the Iliad. _
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12:41:53 PM, Monday 24 May 2004

I am back. And it feels good. Things read/watched:

1)Mean Girls--Smartest teen comedy of this century (no, that's not a huge accomplishment, but still). Cheesy ending, but the rest of the movie beautifully and wittily illustrates how and why all teenage girls in the US are mean. For the first time in my life, I don't hate Tina Fey.

2)Lenny's last episode of Lawn Order--Fine.

2)The Butcher's Theater--Jonathan Kellerman's only book set in Jerusalem, rather than LA. From his middle, extremely bloody years, but well written with a lot of attention to the complexities of ethnic and religious relations in Israel and the differences in American and Israeli crime. Did I mention bloody?

3)Shrek 2--Fine. The animation is truly phenomenal. I liked Puss in Boots for his perfect cattiness and Julie Andrews and John Cleese are amusing. Too long and not nearly as funny as the first one. Also, stick around for the final scene. I ran to the restroom and missed it.

4)Gigantic--A story of two Johns. They Might Be Giants were one of the things that brought Remi and I together lo those many years ago, and they never perform in Athens, so it was fun to watch this together. Also highly recommended to This American Life fans as both Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell have a lot to say.

5)Eagle--A manga about the 2000 US election when an Asian-American Democratic Senator jumps in to challenge the Vice President ("Al Noah") for the nomination. Lots of great political intrigue. A surprisingly accurate portrayal of the complexities of race in America. We had the first two volumes for years, but Remi just managed to acquire 3-5. A good political fix while I wait for the postal service to figure out how they managed to lose my second season of West Wing

So, yes, I am back. I have a life. It is nice. More later. _
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11:09:11 AM, Monday 24 May 2004

Can somebody please tell me if this is real? _
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08:48:20 PM, Wednesday 19 May 2004

In an update to the University Ford Sucks Saga, University Ford now has an unsatisfactory rating with the Better Business Bureau due to never responding to my complaint. All I really wanted was to get my car fixed, and I know that the BBB prefers to settle all complaints and that was not achieved, but at least now a few more people know that University Ford in Bogart and/or Athens, GA is not a reputable business. _
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01:00:58 PM, Tuesday 18 May 2004

It is finished. Well, except for the changes I have to make. Which aren't due until the middle of July. So now I relax. And work on that whole other project that I get paid to work on. _
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09:25:39 AM, Tuesday 18 May 2004

That was weird. They interrupted Car Talk but the Emergency Broadcast System sound, but instead of telling us about a severe thunderstorm warning, they told us about a little boy who was kidnapped from Shady Dale, GA last night. They gave the name of the kidnapper, his description, a description of his car, and his license plate number. My first experience with an "Amber Alert". _
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10:47:40 AM, Saturday 15 May 2004

Before I go to practice my defense, I offer for your amusement The Infinite Cat Project. _
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01:50:04 PM, Friday 14 May 2004

Remi got me My So-Called Life as a surprise present for finishing my thesis. 1994-1995 was my senior year of high school, and My So-Called Life was the first intelligent show ever made about high school. I am pleased to say that it's still just as good as it was, but the clothes, music, and emotions are a pretty bizarre nostalgia trip. _
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08:51:50 PM, Saturday 8 May 2004

Ellen Kushner is doing a live Sound and Spirit show at the synagogue here in Athens. Unfortunately, it is the night before my defense, so I shouldn't go. Yes, I'm a big nerd for thinking it would be very cool to see, or even knowing what it is. _
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10:21:46 AM, Saturday 8 May 2004

So the FDA decided not to make the morning-after pill (which is no RU486 nor is it an abortion) available over the counter. Their reasoning, of course, was that teenagers might not follow the directions. But don't worry, because they'll do fine with raising kids. No need to follow directions for that. The other argument is that women would come to depend on it for birth control. Because, you know, every woman enjoys intense uteral cramping and heavy blood flow and wants to do it as often as possible. _
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11:34:37 AM, Friday 7 May 2004

On my way out it was perfectly clear from Colorado west. It had snowed in the Rockies over the weekend and it was pretty astonishingly white and drifty. Canyonlands was really amazing. But the best view really was Mono Lake and Yosemite. It was just as breathtaking as the others, but more welcoming. I need to visit soon, before southern CA steals all the water from Mono Lake. I tried to enjoy the Pacific Coast from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, but turboprops always make me sleepy, especially when I haven't had much sleep. _
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03:57:21 PM, Thursday 6 May 2004

I am home and the cat is crazy and there is an iPod here. _
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12:10:32 PM, Thursday 6 May 2004

It is D-U-N, done. Now I'm off to Santa Barbara. And then I defend. And then I relax. _
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04:04:48 AM, Saturday 1 May 2004

I saw Andrew leaving for Croquet. It made me a lot sadder than I already was. I hope everybody is having a blast. I am writing. Expect to hear from me in late May. _
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03:49:19 PM, Friday 23 April 2004

The University of California has a beautiful (and well-designed) page to help teachers understand and teach evolution. It is well written, has lots of links to other pages with examples of evolutionary biology studies and discussions on Talk Origins. I especially like the section on how to answer questions kids might have been told by their parents to ask and the section on common pitfalls of teaching evolution (or "footshooting" as the url has it) with examples of games a teacher might innocently use in the classroom which could actually confuse kids about evolution. _
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04:21:04 PM, Saturday 17 April 2004

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

The flow rate per unit of width q can be defined for the rectangular channels as Q/b, where Q = total channel discharge.

Terry W. Sturm Open Channel Hydraulics _
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10:31:11 AM, Saturday 17 April 2004

I don't remember a point in Senior Essay period when my thoughts consisted solely of random associations. My day is spent waiting for the random associations to have something to do with my thesis, then writing them down. _
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05:06:30 PM, Thursday 15 April 2004

Responding to Moira, again, but in such a rambling way that it's just as well I couldn't do it there--
The only biography I've read of Madeleine L'Engle is Suncatcher which is extremely flattering and only makes the most obvious and nicest connections between her life and her books. I think it mentioned that Charles Wallace and Rob Austin were based on her son, but it never mentioned the difficult adulthood bit (and it was written before his death). At least it helps explain why Charles Wallace never appeared as an adult--I don't think we could have born a failed Charles Wallace. It was strange for Polly to hang out with her Uncles Sandy and Dennys, the boring ones. It always made Meg the adult seem so much less real--she wasn't doing math or bouncing ideas off her brilliant brother (well, mostly she just had kids and I know that L'Engle has always defended that saying that it was Meg's choice to be a homemaker and blah blah blah but I still think it sucks). It makes me want to track down the New Yorker story and also not. Because I've already lost some of the magic of the books (some of her plots are just convoluted, and I used to thnk it was cool but now it annoys me) and I'm afraid reading that sort of thing might kill the rest. Oddly, the Austin books have stood up more than the Wrinkle books. Her first book, The Small Rain is really a very remarkable first book although the sequel, A Severed Wasp (written in the '80s), is very strange and, indeed, convoluted.

I had heard before that she wasn't necessarily a very likeable person, and it always bothered me because her books are so completely about how you should be a good person and a good person is a selfless, loving person. Her real heroes are these great, untouchably wonderful souls, like Mrs Whatsit and Joshua Archer, who sacrifice themselves to save the flawed main characters. And even though the reader is more likely to be like Meg or Adam, the books make us want to be Joshua. And so I feel bad for her that she isn't more like the kind of person she obviously wanted to be, obviously wanted us to all grow up to be. (Or maybe it was all just Christ allegory all along, and maybe the whole point is that we can't be Joshua.) I still love her books, I still think there is a lot to be gained from them, and I mostly just feel bad for her. _
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07:54:24 PM, Sunday 11 April 2004

I defend my thesis on May 17th, and this ships on May 18th. I'm just saying... _
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12:21:38 PM, Thursday 8 April 2004

I'm wondering if Remi knows that David Byrne is going to be at the Georgia Theatre on June 11. _
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08:58:42 AM, Wednesday 7 April 2004

Yeah, so, John Kerry kind of sucks. That is all. _
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02:02:56 PM, Tuesday 6 April 2004

Daily Kos has been for some time and will continue to be one of my favorite political blogs. I agree with Markos on pretty much everything and I like reading his well-thought-out and referenced explanations of my formless, unjustified opinions. I saw his comments on Falluja. He's angry, and he's got a point: Why do we pay to train people for 3 or more years in Special Forces only to have them leave the service and become war profiteers, working for the highest bidder? How can we say we can't adequately fund and protect our troops, but each day spend a hundred times as much money per mercenary as per soldier?

I have been busy and out of town and now I discover that some people on the web have decided to make it their business to destroy Daily Kos. They have taken one sentence and, rather than allowing it to stimulate conversation, have used as their new reason for being. These people have long hated the left, but now they have a new target at which to aim all their hate (Hillary Clinton must appreciate the breather).

One of the things I see repeated constantly is that Daily Kos is some anonymous hate blog. Markos is a person who talks about his wife and kids and who's published his picture. As a survivor of the fiasco of El Salvador, an immigrant to this country, and a parent, he has a unique viewpoint. They are his opinions and he takes responsibility for them. As much as I enjoy Atrios, I really admire Markos for standing up and saying "This is who I am and this is what I think." I don't know much about the recent additional contributors, and I don't enjoy their comments nearly as much as the founder and host. Markos called those guys mercenaries, Markos demanded that they not be discussed as innocent civilians, and Markos questioned why their deaths were front page stories as our soldiers' deaths are buried farther and farther in the B section. And Markos is right. _
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12:32:13 PM, Tuesday 6 April 2004

The trauma we're experiencing in forcing Tuxedo to wear a cone around his head while his eye heals makes me wonder how parents deal with their consciences as their children suffer through things like braces and junior high school. _
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04:43:44 PM, Monday 5 April 2004

I hadn't posted here that the project I was expecting to work on at Duke starting in August is not yet funded, the project I'd like to work on here has no extra money right now, and neither Duke nor UGA has any general assistantship money (because everybody in the country is broke), so I will taking a year off before starting a PhD program. There is some possibility that the funding will come soon and I could at least start work on the project at Duke in January as a technician, and then enroll in the fall. Oh, and of course I could get an EPA fellowship, but I'm not really expecting that either. More than likely, I will find a tech job on campus here or with one of the many nearby federal offices and we'll just hang out in Athens for a year. I know it sounds weird to non-science-grad-school people but, basically, I was accepted, they totally wanted me at both Duke and here, but they have no money and they don't enroll people unless they can pay them--which is a good thing, but is very different from, say, law school or even humanities grad school. _
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04:02:51 PM, Tuesday 30 March 2004

I am sad. I wanted to talk about Wallace Stevens with Moira, but I can't because I don't have a Live Journal. So I will post here that Wallace Stevens was one of Mr. Allanbrook's favorite poets and we read all of the poems she mentioned in Senior Language. We spent a whole class on "The Emperor of Ice Cream" and he laughed at our attempts to give it deep meanings. He loved "Peter Quince at the Clavier" and we spent several days on it. He thought the whole story of Susanna and the Elders was at least as anti-religious as he was. I know that Remi read some Wallace Stevens in Senior Language, too, including "The Emperor of Ice Cream," but I think Mr. Allanbrook spent more time on Stevens than most other tutors. _
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11:53:40 AM, Friday 26 March 2004

I have filed formal complaints against University Ford Mazda in Bogart, GA with the Ford Motor Company and the Better Business Bureau. There is one more thing that I can do, and that is what I'm doing right now. DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR TO UNIVERSITY FORD-MAZDA ON ATLANTA HIGHWAY IN BOGART, GA. They do poor work and do not treat their customers with respect. They made some mistakes in repairing my car and they refuse to correct them or even acknowledge that they are to blame. If you are in the Athens area and are looking for a place to get your routine maintenance done on your Ford, I have first hand experience with Express Oil Change and Tune-Up Clinic on Atlanta Highway and I will highly recommend them as doing high quality service and treating their customers well. For more extensive transmission or engine work several people have recommended to me Coker's Transmission service on Highway 441 N just outside of town. Also, Akins Ford in Winder is said to be the best local dealership and, unlike University Ford, they provide loaner cars to all customers who call ahead and request one before dropping off their vehicle. _
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08:56:50 AM, Friday 26 March 2004

One of my friends just joined a rec softball team made up of gay men, the Athens Heat. Their motto, of course, is that they outflame the competition. If the rec softball league is anything like the rec soccer league, I can just imagine how well they go over with the common man. _
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03:29:56 PM, Tuesday 23 March 2004

Tom Daschle grew a backbone. Will wonders never cease? Maybe there is hope for the Democratic Party after all. _
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12:31:59 PM, Tuesday 23 March 2004

The Car Saga continues, but I'm too mad to actually describe the current chapter except to say I no longer have the rental car, the broken car is back at the shop, and more seems to be wrong with it than before. _
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09:43:38 AM, Tuesday 23 March 2004

I was just thinking how nice it is that the ska craze is over, although that was while I was at SJC and I was quite happy then, except for the annoying music. However, the guy in the lab next door is playing some sort of Best of High School mix which just switched from Nine Inch Nails to Smashing Pumpkins to Green Day. And that made me glad it's not 1994, also. _
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03:20:33 PM, Sunday 21 March 2004

We are now Tuxedo's official people. _
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02:03:55 PM, Saturday 20 March 2004

What ever happened to the phrase "domestic security"? I just read a newspaper article that referred to Spain's "homeland security". Everybody say it with me--domestic security. Doesn't it roll off the tongue? Doesn't it sound less like a combination of fascism and kindergarten? _
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10:07:12 AM, Thursday 18 March 2004

Because they are performing the slowest repair job in history, the Ford dealership is providing me with a rental car in the meantime. It's a Focus, and I have to say it's a fun little car--it's tiny, but there's still plenty of room inside, it's got a good engine and sound system, and it corners tighter than anything I've ever driven. It's basically a super-improved Tempo, where they did everything right in the Focus that they did wrong in the Tempo. The Car Guys were just talking about Foci the other day and they were saying it's gone from one of the least reliable cars in America (the wheels used to fall off) to one of the most, and they also think it's really fun to drive. I know that they're planning on putting a hybrid engine in the Focus in a few years, and I do think I would consider buying one (after trying out the hybrid Civic and the Prius). _
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09:30:01 AM, Thursday 18 March 2004

In order to update my sidebar, I will tell you the advice the vet gave me for giving medicine to cats:
"Wrap him up in a towel like a baby or a burrito." _
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09:00:11 AM, Wednesday 17 March 2004

As the presidential primaries unfolded, it struck me that the country, and, by natural extension, the press, often use the South as a convenient box to contain all sorts of problems, situations, and conditions that are actually national in scope � race, white poverty, the cultural rift forming between the religious and the secular, guns, abortion, gay marriage, the gradual extinction of rural life, states� rights, the continuing debates over the size of government, the contours of American morality, and the identity of the major political parties.

A Columbia University Yankee sets out to "understand the South", and along the way actually learns things. _
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11:01:31 AM, Monday 15 March 2004

Monday, May 17, 10:30, Ecology Auditorium

Be there or be...absent from my thesis defense. _
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08:43:12 AM, Saturday 13 March 2004

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