Another List

Ok, so here are some things I have been wanting to blog about. I don't have time to discuss them today, because I have to go buy cookies and decent coffee beans for Kaffeestunde. (I don't know why I volunteered to organize the last "coffee and chit-chat in German for undergrads" session of the year - this one is 2 hours long instead of just one hour, and I am excruciatingly bad at making small talk... I always feel so awkward and stupid!)

(ok, to be honest, I was one item in to making this list, and then the power went out, so now it is several days later and I don't remember what it was that I was thinking about before).

Anyway, my list:

Stellit Licht - The Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen. Three hours of Mennonite marital angst interspersed with scenes of Pure Mennonite Porn. Plus an excitingly confusing plot twist at the end where the one lady we all thought was dead comes back to life, and the movie changes from a weird-and-boring drama to an utter farce. I want those three hours of my life back.

The Runner-up Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen: How Pancho Villa Invaded The US With A Mariachi Band. I swear this movie exists. I do not know what the actual title of it is, but we watched it in one of my high school history classes. The stereotypes and type-casting of the Latino/a characters is embarrassing and ridiculous. However, I think the movie was made in the 60s or 70s, so it is not completely surprising. The mariachi band is surprising and also ridiculous.

What is everyone else planning to bring for meals for camping? What should I plan to bring?

Why are possums so scary and gross? Who even knows? but I bet we could have an essay writing contest with everyone making up their best-guess answer. I get to be the judge, and the winner gets a dead possum, or maybe just some whiskey or hot cocoa.

Feeling bloggy, but not much to say.

I finally have a tan. I bought it at the Farmers' Market, along with ramps, spinach, arugula, asparagus, fresh pasta and breakfast.

List

Things I hope to procure before the Camping Extravaganzaaaa

-sleeping bag for j
-new stuff sack for my sleeping bag
-tent stakes, as mine all seem to have gone missing
-cooler
-cups for coffee (our cute picnic dishes will do fine for plates and utensils, but the set only came with plastic wine glasses, and those are not so great for coffee...)
-jeans
-a daypack


Things I need to find/remember to take along

-bandana
-pocket knife
-first aid kit, including bug repellent, sunscreen, safety pins, band-aids, anti-bacterial goo, anti-itch stuff, athletic tape, rolaids, advil, good chapstick and gauze.
-bird book
-binoculars
-camera
-batteries for camera
-camping chair
-picnic/camping blanket
-sunglasses
-flashlight w/ batteries
-water bottles

Spring and Fevers and Other Cliches

It's difficult to tell if my self-diagnosis is correct- I've been feeling blah and discontent with my self and my life for the past couple of months. Yet as the weather grows warmer and it becomes ever more evident that despite my best intentions, I will have to buy new and larger shorts yet again this year, my delight at the soft green buds on the maple trees and the soft yellow feathers of blooming forsythia that grace Other People's Gardens is not as absolute and transporting as it has been in years past. It does not displace my malcontent entirely. That still sits bleakly in my heart like a bald-headed vulture or a flaccid leftover parsnip discovered at the bottom of the vegetable drawer. Ugh. There is, however, a new and restless quality to my grumbly and petty unhappiness. Instead of wanting to roll up into a little hedgehog ball of prickly misery, I want to grow wings and escape, to get the hell out of this situation called adulthood where responsibility and decision-making lie heavy on my shoulders, and I am paralyzed by the knowledge that I must soon take a step and by the anxiety that any false step could seriously jeopardize my future well-being.

Do you think that if I followed the second star to the right and went straight on 'til morning I'd really find Never-Never Land?

Well, if I can't, the next best thing is surely a weekend spent camping in the woods with friends! I wasn't able to participate in the last two adventures, due to medical issues and school, but I am so excited about this one. I really, really need a change of scene and a chance to reconnect with friends and get inspired by their energy and bouyant hopes. (I promise to try not to be too much of a Debbie Downer.) I wish we were going this weekend... well, actually no, I don't because then I would miss the Super Awesome Sale at my favorite yarn store and the opening weekend of the new X-Men movie, but still!

I love planning for adventures almost as much as I love the adventures themselves. Not that I don't like spontaneous adventures, but there is something thrilling about making a list of the gear you will need to pack, assembling said gear into (many) tidy little bundles and then leaving everything else at home and heading off into the blue. Yes, I am that sick, sick person who loves to organize the first aid kit, brings a lot of gear, and gets mad at her husband when he doesn't want to get ready for the trip 3 days in advance, but just wants to thow some stuff into a paper bag and head off camping without a water bottle, sunscrean, bug repellent, or a rain coat. What can I say, once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout. Don't worry. I won't lecutre you about knife safety rules and if you forget your flashlight and are scared to go to the outhouse in the dark, you can borrow mine, and I won't even say 'I told you so'.

A little bit bitter, a little bit bored...

So, I was clicking through my blogs that I read, appreciating the thoughts of my friends, but wishing that there were more interesting things to read on the internet, and that certain people (*ahem! Blythe! ahem!*) would update more often, and then I realized that I haven't updated in two weeks, and the last post I did was not even very meaty, but really more of a tease- telling you all that I'd read some books and seen some movies, but not telling you what they were or if I liked them.

oops.

I really enjoyed the posts Ben and Christine did on the books they recently read, and I always enjoy Katie's book reviews... so then I thought, why don't you do a book review, too?

but alas, even though I have been quite the busy little book worm lately, I've been mostly re-reading the books that defined my childhood, in an attempt to identify "who i thought i was and what influenced me to be that way" and to reconcile that person with the person I find myself to be today... psychobabble psychobabble psychobabble. Needless to say, the Gutenberg Project is awesome, because I can read many of the vintage children's classics that provided fodder for my youthful imagination online! For free! Without having to put on pants or leave the house! Magic!

I am sure no one is really interested in a dissection of the ideology I must have digested along with these stories, and an essay as to how this may or may not have affected my neuroses, and I'm proctoring an exam today and thus have a headache, so I will summarize.

Books by Louisa May Alcott: The Little Women books are good, in others, plot and character are overshadowed by firm messages about Rich Little Girls Being Charitable and The Value Of Having Old-Fashioned Values. Everyone sews all the time. The representation of Irish and African-American characters is racist and disturbing. You will never be as perfect as the people in these books.

The Five Little Peppers Series: These are terrible books. Never let your children read them. Everything is an extreme in these books. The children are either elated or despondant. They are either being extremely good or feeling extremely guilty for some small sin of omission, like not brushing their hair properly. Again, the representation of Irish and African American characters is racist and disturbing. Also disturbing is the fact that it is considered wrong to cry- on almost every page, someone is distressed and struggles to hold back tears, and usually only suceeds in doing so when they are reminded that if they cry, someone they love will either also cry or get sick.

Anne of Green Gables and other books by LM Montgomery: these are beautiful, beautiful books. No one is too perfect (except for maybe Anne after she grows up and gets married) and all the people who think that they are perfect are generally justly ridiculed. The nature descriptions are breath-taking and fanciful. Perhaps too fanciful... trees and plants are always a little too pristine.. there are never any bugs or critters in the woods that the heroines walk in... only imaginary faries and other sprites. These are humorous, sensitive, thoughtful, idealistic books, perhaps a little over-sentimental but soothing and enjoyable nonetheless.

Recuperating

So, over the weekend I saw 7 feature-length films at the festival, worked an exam, finished a dull novel that I'd been tying to read for years, read a fascinating novel, and graded some student papers.

It felt good to be inundated with narrative, to think intensely about art, passion, love and humanity, but I think I over did it. I'm exhausted. My brain keeps on going, like a hamster on a wheel (except for not that furry and cute!)... I'm questioning everything- the value of education, the different branches of critical thinking, my role as a teacher and a scholar, if it's even possible to teach foreign language in a classroom. Meanwhile, my wrists are shaky and I just want to turn off my brain and take a nap for a month.

Yesterday we went for a bird walk and identified 2 new-to-us species: Cedar Waxwings and the (female) Golden-Crowned Kinglets. It was the first time we'd remembered to take both our (new!) binoculars and our bird book with us. Birdwatching with binoculars is much more rewarding than without, and I am excited to add more species to our list as the weather gets warmer and we spend more time outdoors.

In his training runs, J has seen loons several times. This area is generally too far south for loons, so he must have just seen some stopping over on their way further north. I am jealous that he saw any at all. I miss the Bemidji loons.

Film Festival, Part 1

It's the Wisconsin Film Festival this weekend, and I am ebullient. Or I would be if I hadn't had a long, emotionally harrowing day of self-criticizing thoughts, and I didn't have to be at my other job by 8 am tomorrow morning. Yet, I did and I do, and even though it's closer to tomorrow than it is to today, I'm aglow enough to be up, typing away, because I saw an amazing movie today.

I went by myself. Now, I generally do not feel wierd about going to a movie by myself. I've often done so - sometimes I've wanted to see something that no one else wanted to see, so I just went. Sometimes I've wanted to see something that everyone else had already seen, but I don't want to wait to see it on dvd, so I went. The first situation is certainly better than the second, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, usually when I go to a movie by myself, it's nothing worth writing home about - just blah blah I was bored, blah blah free air conditioning blah blah.

Today I saw a movie that not only I loved, but as I was watching it, I knew that people that I love would also love it, but I was alone and could not really share it with them, and so the experience was multiply poignent. I don't know if 'Football Under Cover' will ever be in a theater near you, or if it will ever be released on dvd, but keep your eyes peeled for it, because it is one of the best movies I've seen all year, and I don't even normally get excited about documentaries.

What? I, Ms. Fiction-lover, Ms. Narrative-whore actually fell for a documentary?? Why yes, and I brushed my hair today, and hell froze over and several other rather unexpected things.

Basically, this movie is about a historic event in women's sports. There is an Iranian Women's National Soccer Team, but they've never played against another team. A team from Germany decides they are going to travel to Tehran and play the Iranian women. And so they do, and it is not easy. But it is oh so breathtaking when they get there.

I'm going to see 5 more films in the next two days, so I'm sure that this film won't remain 'the best mvie I've seen all year' for very long. But man, it was good.

It is too late to write a conclusion.