Ha! I'm not the only one

The College Board's National Commission on Writing just released a survey of 700 students - nearly 2/3 of the students said they blended e-communication styles into their written school assignments.

Guess I'm not the only one who noticed that teens really do write poorly. And I can't understand half of what they write.

Scary thought: Richard Sterling (a prof at UC Berkeley) thinks that capitalization could become obsolete because "when his teenage son asked what the presence of the capital letter added to what the period at the end of the sentence signified, he had no answer." HEY!! I use capitalization to help delineate parts of written language. Grrr.

[Side note: I have a headache because the barometric pressure is playing havoc with my sinuses. I'm going to lay on the floor of my office for a bit.]

Current book-in-progress: Last night I read more of The Shakespeare Wars, pretty interesting about the textual infighting amongst Shakespeare scholars
Current knitted item: Pretty red scarf (yesterday someone asked if it was a dishcloth - like hell it is because a) it's made of really nice alpaca/wool yarn and b) it's about 2 feet long)
Current movie obsession: Michael Clayton (I must be jaded from too many cop/legal shows because it's not really catching my interested although Tilda Swinton is quite good)
Current iTunes loop: KSUI

I finished Jackie's socks

Yippee! That second sock really flew (I wonder why the first one took so long) so no Second Sock Syndrome here. Sorry no pics because I gave the socks to Jackie before I remembered to find the camera. Oops.

Now I think I'll make a pair of socks in Mountain Colors Bearfoot for myself. Mmmmm...

Current book-in-progress: The Black City by George Sand for BNBC May, Notes from Underground, and At Swim-Two-Birds (there must be a disorder that's known as reading ADD because I can't concentrate on any one thing)
Current knitted item: Pretty red scarf; I might have an idea for the obnoxious tan neck warmer
Current movie obsession: Criminal Minds Seasons 1 and 2 (Mandy Patinkin is AWESOME and Thomas Gibson isn't too bad, either; Shemar Moore is just HOT); Enchanted just came from Netflix
Current iTunes loop: audiobook of 1984

Feasibility? Really?

So...like anyone who lives in Iowa City and is from the Chicago area/likes to visit the Chicago area/has friends who are from the Chicago area you know that train service bites. The Amtrak goes through Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, which is about 45 minutes south of us. And has a much smaller population (no University of Iowa, either). Much bemoaning this fact everytime one would like to visit something in Chicago but dread having to drive there. I'm partial to the Art Institute, the Adler, Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, and the Museum of Science and Industry. Just to name a few.

Today the Cedar Rapids Gazette announced that Amtrak had done a feasibility study regarding service from Chicago to Iowa City, etc., via the Quad Cities.

They did???? Did the Amtrak representatives actually speak to anyone in the Iowa City area to see if anyone is interested?? I didn't see anyone. Might actually be helpful to speak with the natives to see if we are CHOMPING AT THE BIT to have Amtrak service.

The results of the study will be announced on Friday morning at the Iowa Memorial Union on campus. Joy.

Current book-in-progress: Would anyone believe that I'm still working on Beloved? Vilette and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (I have got to get an acronym for that) are still in the picture as well as The Gunseller (Hugh Laurie, the man can write and act) and whatever else I can procrastinate with
Current knitted item: Pretty blue sock (working on the ribbing) and pretty red scarf; the tan neck warmer refuses to start itself (humpf)
Current movie obsession: Watched Charlotte Gray with the BN crew (Birdsong doesn't exist as a movie as yet); very sad in some places but we were all punchy from having worked all day at the crazy store so we were making fun of some of the situations (Michael Gambon-Dumbledore references kept popping up). Great quote - "Beth, you took French, what's 'Un, deux, trois, cherchez la pas' mean?" "one, two, three...."
Current iTunes loop: John Mayer and the audiobook of 1984

Spellchecker aside...

Is it just me or do teenagers have unbelievably poor spelling and grammar???

It's getting to the point where I can tell someone's age by how he/she/they/it form words and sentences.

I think it's due to an overuse of texting and IM. I'll be the first one to admit that beyond the standard LOL, BRB, and TTYL, I really don't abbreviate my words in IM. I type fast enough to make do with the full words.

So...I have a quandary: if someone posts in my group, and this person has atrocious spelling and grammar to the point that I can't understand the meaning, can I ask them to restate the post in correct English? This quandary does not apply to non-native English speakers/typers because they actually have better written English than some of the Americans.

The Western Canon and Then We Came to the End

I finished Harold Bloom's The Western Canon over the weekend. Took me quite a while because it was pretty dense; not dense in the crazy-philosophical-theory sense, but dense in that Bloom quotes from a number of different works and you have to sort through the quotes and the thoughts to get anything out of it. I probably would have enjoyed the book more if I had actually read all of the pieces Bloom described. I've read only half (maybe, probably less than that) so chapters on Ibsen, Goethe, and Latin American writers kind of went past me. I started Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human and it will go much faster because I've read most of Will the Shake's plays.

I also finished Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (UI alum before he went to Irvine for his MFA). A really great book that observes the characters from the point of the corporate "we" (sort of like the royal "we") but doesn't distance the reader from the characters. You really start to care about all of them, including the crazy ones, so once you get used to the mode of storytelling the novel just flies. Props also to Joshua for winning the Barnes and Noble Discover New Writers 2007 Fiction and also the Hemingway/PEN award.

Current book-in-progress: Beloved, Vilette, and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
Current knitted item: The tan neck warmer is proving a pain because I'm having trouble finding the correct sizing (I'm looking for a men's turtleneck sweater - none exist in my pattern books because I never knit for men, or haven't has yet)
Current movie obsession: Network television is back (CSI: Miami is new for two nights in a row!) so my movies are suffering
Current iTunes loop: My order from BN came (as well as a BN Music store sale) so I've got plenty of new things to listen to - Sunday in the Park with George, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sweeny Todd (movie soundtrack - Johnny Depp, yowza!), and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Deep thought for the day

If you are up shit creek, is it necessary to kill your entire family?

Granted, the autopsy will tell whether or not the father is the charred body in the family's van but if that's not the father and if the evidence doesn't point toward him as the murderer of his wife and four children I will be very, VERY surprised.

I don't particularly care if your life has totally gone to pot, that you've been indicted for embezzling half a million dollars from the bank (of which you are the vice-president), that you're probably going to jail because you admitted to the police that part of that money went toward a serious coke habit. I really don't. If you want to skip out on the charges and kill yourself, be my guest. Just don't take anyone else with you.

Here's a little prayer hoping that the children's deaths were quick and that they didn't realize what was going on.

Current book-in-progress: Beloved (for LbW BNBC April), Then We Came to the End (gotta support the Iowa alum), Birdsong (for our in-store group), Villette (also for BNBC April, just not my group), and whatever else I find
Current knitted item: My first commission - a tan neck warmer for a co-worker's partner
Current movie obsession: I just finished Once - a great little movie, very moving and sweet, I might like the music better (the soundtrack is on order)
Current iTunes loop: It's a tie - Sarah Barreilles's Little Voice and the original cast recording of Rent

Ahhhh! Warmth!

If anyone is looking for a furnace repair company (and you live in CR/IC area) I highly recommend Colony Heating and Air Conditioning. They came down late on a Friday evening, cleaned the buildup out of my return duct, cleaned the strange gunk off of the ingniter sensor (which I can't even find, I can vacuum the return duct), and fixed my heating.

And for a very reasonable amount. Two thumbs up for them.

The Joys of Homeownership

It's really cold in Iowa.

How do I know this?

Because my furnace totally crapped out some time earlier today (maybe last night, who knows). It's about 50 degrees in my house and about 10 degrees outside (that's Fahrenheit to anyone not in the US). My fireplace works but it really just heats the living room.

The first repair company I called doesn't have parts for my furnace. Oh, and my furnace is out of warranty. Laaaaa! Just my luck. So if the second company doesn't have any parts I guess I get to buy a new furnace. Shitty.

Current book-in-progress: This is going to be a free-for-all night, also known as grab some tea and as many books as are at hand because the house is freezing
Current knitted item: My red scarf when I can feel my hands again
Current movie obsession: Northanger Abbey (yes, I realize the Oscars are on Sunday, but it would help if they would release all the movies more than one week prior to the ceremony)
Current iTunes loop: Chill tracks shuffle on iTunes (John Mayer, Amy Winehouse, Jewel, etc)

Where's my crayon sharpener?

I just wrote the worst professional letter in the history of the hospital. So bad that I deleted it before anyone else could see it and started over again. I sounded like a kindergartner with a broken crayon.

Gahhh!!!!!

This is all probably due to the fact that my neurons are still disrupted after some seriously strange dreams. I finished The Club Dumas and Requiem for a Dream and there was some strange stuff floating around in my head. The Club Dumas was OK - the denoument was a bit of a let down because I'd been expecting something spectacular and even the crazy guy summoning demons was fairly sedate. The writing flowed very well, even in tranlsation, so that was nice. Requiem for a Dream was seriously one crazy book about some very messed up people. Selby knows of what he writes and his vernacular writing style really made the characters' speech patterns come alive and differ from one another (Sara, Harry, Marion, Tyrone). The last 50 pages were just excruciating which is probably the way Selby meant the book to end.

That's also why I probably had a dream about a satanic, one-armed heroin addict.

Current book-in-progress: Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason (read some great reveiews and just had to go buy it); I'm still chipping away at the Harold Bloom; started the ARC for the First Look Book Club (on chapter 2 - seems OK)
Current knitted item: trying to decide if I want to add a bit of a pattern to the cuff now that it's past the ankle or not
Current movie obsession: I work too much - no time to watch movie :(
Current iTunes loop: I've been listening to NPR today - I think the programming is starting to repeat from the morning (does it always do this?)

Pictures of Varying Types

As promised - I have pictures for certain events from the weekend.

First up is "Cats on the new coffeetable." Unfortunately, the really cute picture of the animals inhabiting the table before it was finished didn't turn out so well. So here is Chaucer on top of the finished table - he was getting a little frisky with an imaginary toy.

Second, was the Sunday evening yarn stash organization party, ocurring because the book group party was postponed due to weather. THAT all came out of the closet. And it all went back into the closet, neatly organized, and I even wound up the unrulier skeins on the ball winder.

Kind of a jumble, wasn't it? There was also a skein of Noro Kureyon that the Dante kitty made a holy mess of about 2 years ago. Think a sheep undergoing electroshock therapy. It took about 30 minutes, and I had to pitch a bit that had obvious cat damage, but I managed to get the skein wound up (I considered a "before" picture, but it would've made people cry).

Lastly, for the BNBC people, here's some pictures of my crazy book collection. Yes, I have a small obsession with Pooh.

Don't look behind the doors on the right - that's the clutter keeper. There are books in there, too.

(This is the cabinent with the textbooks.)

The little alien under the rocking chair is Chaucer. Dante surprisingly did not want his picture taken and ran off.

The scary closet

In the middle of organizing the yarn stash I realize that the closet is scary un-organized. Most likely because I need to make sure it remains a "bedroom closet" because the condo will de-value if I try to sell it as a one bedroom with a study.

I also realized that I have a very large stash of candles that I never remember to use. Where else can I store them. I should also start dumping notes from old classes. I have binders full of notes dating back about ten years. Will I use those ever again? No.

Snow again

Yet again this winter I am stuck in my house. Not because the roads are terrible - they aren't great, but they aren't blown shut - but because it has taken all day for the snow removal team to show up and plow the lot. I tried to get out around 3:15pm to go to the store (Mother Hubbard's cupboard is a little bare) and that worked not so well. It took two neighbors to help me get the car back in the garage. And lots of shovelling. Three of us were trying to get out, one in particular because he needed to go to the drugstore because his kids were sick. We shovelled and shovelled and the guy with the 4x4 was able to finally get traction so he went to the drugstore for the other neighbor. I do actually have nice neighbors some days.

They are just now plowing the lot (4:30). Sigh. Maybe I can go to the store later.

We were supposed to have book group tonight and decided that we would postpone for a week, given that three people were coming down from Cedar Rapids and they got more snow than we did. So next week we're having a joint book-Oscar party. Yum.

In anticipation for what was tonight's party I bought a coffee table. Yay - I'd been looking for one for a while and finally found one (at Kmart) that didn't break the bank. I still had to put it together, though. Pain in the butt. Looks pretty nice. I have a picture of the cats laying on it before I even got the drawers finished since I obviously purchased the item so they have yet another flat surface to inhabit.

I also indulged in my yarn buying habit. Another skien of Mountain Colors Bearfoot (sock yarn, mmmmm) and four skiens of really gorgeous Cascade Pastaza Paints in a red variegated color. The cats chewed a hole in my red scarf so I have an excuse to make a new one, only slightly better and maybe a hat as well.

Since I'm stuck at home I guess I'll read and organize the yarn stash. It's starting to become unruly. A little coffee, some yarn, music, good book. Decent evening.

Current book-in-progress: The Club Dumas (I totally did not know this book was the basis for the Johnny Depp movie The Ninth Gate); after that dream I'm trying to finish more books than I start and that's really, really hard for some reason
Current knitted item: Well.....I'm still working on the blue socks but I started my new scarf (going to make it similar - half moss stitch, half something else with a reversible pattern)
Current movie obsession: I'm still working on the IPTV Northanger Abbey but I developed a minor obsession with Sense and Sensibility again (Kate Winslet might be the most beautiful woman ever)
Current iTunes loop: I've been on a pretty hard-core John Mayer kick today; his music seems to warm up a dreary day