Well, grades are due on Monday by noon. I have one remaining paper to grade and then two remaining finals to grade. And I am calling it quits for today. I have already graded several from each category and do not want the last student to have a grade affected by my blah mood. On the upside, I figure I will be finished well before the deadline.
I looked at the registration numbers last week. The Learning Community class has 11 students signed up, so it will definitely make. All of the other morning 101 classes are closed, so there's still the chance that more students will enroll because of limited options. My internet 102 class has been closed for some time, and now students are calling me for closed class cards. I gave two; that's my limit. I even have one closed 005 class. The other two classes of mine have a couple of students in them. Everything's looking pretty good for Fall.
Pretty soon, I'll have to dig into preparing my WebCT course, something I generally avoid until the last moment.
This is a thoroughly boring blog entry. I find myself obsessed with counting things down when I get to the end of a semester. I once calculated approximately how many pages I would have to read in order to grade all of my ENGl 101 portfolios. I will never make that mistake again. Too depressing!
I guess the moral of this blog entry is I have finally learned enough from past mistakes to portion my time out okay enough to be finished grading at least a day or two before the deadline. I will not be staying up until 2 a.m. and then dragging my tired butt up to campus Monday morning....well, I will be dragging myself up to campus on Monday morning to turn them in still, but if I'm dead tired it's because of reading Harry Potter.
This entry really should be the countdown to getting to read book 7!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Harry Potter post-- do not read unless you have read all 6 books
Ok. Be forewarned: these are my thoughts (not all of them) about Harry Potter and what may happen in the seventh book. Do not read any further unless you have read all 6 books. Oh, and there will be Lord of the Rings spoilers too, so if you intend to read or watch that series and heven't yet, you should stop reading too.
I've heard all kinds of decent theories about book seven. The most curious one I've heard about the ending of book 6 is that Dumbledore wasn't really Dumbledore through the whole book. He may have been Peter Pettigrew or Moody. The theory behind this (and this theory came from my friend Kamra; I cannot take responsibility for it) is that Dumbledore hand was damaged in so weird of a way that he may have been someone else who had no hand trying to be him and the potion didn't allow him to be a full Dumbledore because of the hand. I don't know about this. I don't think either person would have behaved to Harry in the way that Dumbledore did all through book 6, but I do agree that something was up with Dumbledore. Something that bugs me is that in book 5, everytime Harry sees Dumbledore, he has this Voldemort-like hate rise up in him. This just spontaneously goes away in book 6 despite the fact that Harry appears to be no better at occlumency....though I did notice this also appears to go away in the end of book 5 too...I'm not to the end of my book 5 re-read, so I don't have any clever theories about this. It just strikes me as either sloppy writing or important fact.
Returning to the Peter Pettigrew theory, I do think he's going to be important to book 7. There seemed to be a "you'll be happy he didn't die" vibe in book 3 and hints that Pettigrew will do Harry a favor. I don't think merely suggesting there's no reason to kill Harry (as done in book 4) is enough of a favor to fulfill this vibe.
Here's my one big contribution to the whole Harry Potter theory building: Rowling seems to be a huge Tolkien fan, probably a big English mythology fan in general, but definitely a Tolkien follower. It just so happens that I see very few movies each year and for a while there, the only movies I was seeing were Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter movies, and I noticed too many similarities. It started out small, like cave trolls appearing in both of the movies and then there was Aragog and (oh crud I forgot the name of the big spider outside Mordor that Gollom tries to have kill Frodo). Anyway, two huge cave trolls and two huge spiders and then there came the dementors, which, let's face it, are just ringwraiths after happiness instead of the ring.
So this is why I think Pettigrew will be of greater importance. Pettigrew is Gollum. For that matter, Ron is Sam...which would make him the hero if we follow this any further...but anyhow, that distracted me from my main idea...which is that Dumbledore is clearly Gandalf. Gandalf experienced that moment where he appeared to have sacrificed himself for the hobbits et al on their quest, and of course, it appears more than once that Dumbledore seems to be sacrificing himself for Harry's benefit. He's returned once already (he wasn't dead in book 5, so no big deal there), but I firmly believe he will return in book 7. Once quote that has always stood out to be as significant (but I didn;t realize how significant) is in book 1 when Dumbledore says, "I would trust Hagrid with my life." Come to think of it, Hagrid may end up being Sam here. ANyway, it is just too much of a coincidence to me that Dumbledore says that very pointedly and it is Hagrid who retrives his body from the base of the castle. Now Gandalf came back from the apparent dead having been to the end of the world and back and was then Gandalf the White. He was beyond time and seemed to be so much wiser that he had forgotten himself. I don't doubt that when Dumbledore returns he will be more than himself somehow. Because the other important thing is that Harry confront Voldemort ON HIS OWN. And that is why a small part of me would also be okay with Dumbledore being dead, because how else would Harry do things on his own if Dumbledore is not there? He needs that catalyst to make him into a fully fledged hero of his own, as he has been growing into that through all 6 books.
We all know that love will be part of the answer. That's apparent from the end of every single book. The thing that gets me about the Lord of the Rings ending (the real book ending, not the movie one) is that Frodo was irreparably damaged by his time with the ring. He would never be able to be fully hobbit-like for the rest of his life and did not feel like he belonged there. There cannot be a fully happy ending for Harry because he'll either have to have done the Voldemort killing or he'll not survive. Some people have theorized that Harry is a horcrux himself, but I think that is absolute balogney. Horcruxes have to be created intentionally (otherwise many horcruxes would have been made when Voldemort's death-eaters were killing people) and Voldemort did not know that Harry would survive.
Snape is the character I cannot figure out. He's the big mystery to me. I think he's actually a mystery to himself too and that's why he's so grumpy. I think he's continually torn. For Dumbledore to trust him, there must be some "love thing" involved somehow. The easiest guess is that Snape loved Lily and that is why he protects Harry and dislikes Harry at the same time, because Harry reminds him of the two people he loves and hates most. Snape is smart or he couldn't be misunderstood as much as he is. Which makes me think that he must trust Dumbledore over Voldemort...because that's the smart thing to do. Which implies that the two of them devised a way to kill Dumbledore without killing Dumbledore and Snape is playing a very dangerous game. He's also very self-serving and not un-prone to childish tantrums (as in book 5)...so anyway, that is why I struggle the most when coming up with theories about Snape.
People keep wondering about whether Harry will live or die. To me, a bigger question is will Snape end up good or bad and what has he been playing at this whole time? He could be just egotistical enough that he could be doing what the Lord of the Rings book had Sarumon doing. In the books, Sauron was the big evil one and Sarumon was a good guy who went bad when he thought he too could have the most power. In the end he went down when the ancient tree-herders ruined his world. I don't know how that applies.
I also really hope (but doubt) that Fred and George have a cool role to play in the seventh book. I suspect they'll be like Merry and Pippen and just be used for comic relief again when the bad stuff is all over.
Anyway...I gotta wrap this up. But I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there before book 7 comes out and people read it. This way, on the off chance any of my theorizing relates, I can say "I told you!" and people will believe I had the thought before reading book 7 instead of having them respond "yeah, right."
Oh....and I just have to say this right here. If any student reveals any details of book 7 to me before I have a chance to read it, I will seriously throw a conniption fit and hope they drop my class. Someone revealed the ending of book 5 to me before I read it and it messed up my reading experience.
I've heard all kinds of decent theories about book seven. The most curious one I've heard about the ending of book 6 is that Dumbledore wasn't really Dumbledore through the whole book. He may have been Peter Pettigrew or Moody. The theory behind this (and this theory came from my friend Kamra; I cannot take responsibility for it) is that Dumbledore hand was damaged in so weird of a way that he may have been someone else who had no hand trying to be him and the potion didn't allow him to be a full Dumbledore because of the hand. I don't know about this. I don't think either person would have behaved to Harry in the way that Dumbledore did all through book 6, but I do agree that something was up with Dumbledore. Something that bugs me is that in book 5, everytime Harry sees Dumbledore, he has this Voldemort-like hate rise up in him. This just spontaneously goes away in book 6 despite the fact that Harry appears to be no better at occlumency....though I did notice this also appears to go away in the end of book 5 too...I'm not to the end of my book 5 re-read, so I don't have any clever theories about this. It just strikes me as either sloppy writing or important fact.
Returning to the Peter Pettigrew theory, I do think he's going to be important to book 7. There seemed to be a "you'll be happy he didn't die" vibe in book 3 and hints that Pettigrew will do Harry a favor. I don't think merely suggesting there's no reason to kill Harry (as done in book 4) is enough of a favor to fulfill this vibe.
Here's my one big contribution to the whole Harry Potter theory building: Rowling seems to be a huge Tolkien fan, probably a big English mythology fan in general, but definitely a Tolkien follower. It just so happens that I see very few movies each year and for a while there, the only movies I was seeing were Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter movies, and I noticed too many similarities. It started out small, like cave trolls appearing in both of the movies and then there was Aragog and (oh crud I forgot the name of the big spider outside Mordor that Gollom tries to have kill Frodo). Anyway, two huge cave trolls and two huge spiders and then there came the dementors, which, let's face it, are just ringwraiths after happiness instead of the ring.
So this is why I think Pettigrew will be of greater importance. Pettigrew is Gollum. For that matter, Ron is Sam...which would make him the hero if we follow this any further...but anyhow, that distracted me from my main idea...which is that Dumbledore is clearly Gandalf. Gandalf experienced that moment where he appeared to have sacrificed himself for the hobbits et al on their quest, and of course, it appears more than once that Dumbledore seems to be sacrificing himself for Harry's benefit. He's returned once already (he wasn't dead in book 5, so no big deal there), but I firmly believe he will return in book 7. Once quote that has always stood out to be as significant (but I didn;t realize how significant) is in book 1 when Dumbledore says, "I would trust Hagrid with my life." Come to think of it, Hagrid may end up being Sam here. ANyway, it is just too much of a coincidence to me that Dumbledore says that very pointedly and it is Hagrid who retrives his body from the base of the castle. Now Gandalf came back from the apparent dead having been to the end of the world and back and was then Gandalf the White. He was beyond time and seemed to be so much wiser that he had forgotten himself. I don't doubt that when Dumbledore returns he will be more than himself somehow. Because the other important thing is that Harry confront Voldemort ON HIS OWN. And that is why a small part of me would also be okay with Dumbledore being dead, because how else would Harry do things on his own if Dumbledore is not there? He needs that catalyst to make him into a fully fledged hero of his own, as he has been growing into that through all 6 books.
We all know that love will be part of the answer. That's apparent from the end of every single book. The thing that gets me about the Lord of the Rings ending (the real book ending, not the movie one) is that Frodo was irreparably damaged by his time with the ring. He would never be able to be fully hobbit-like for the rest of his life and did not feel like he belonged there. There cannot be a fully happy ending for Harry because he'll either have to have done the Voldemort killing or he'll not survive. Some people have theorized that Harry is a horcrux himself, but I think that is absolute balogney. Horcruxes have to be created intentionally (otherwise many horcruxes would have been made when Voldemort's death-eaters were killing people) and Voldemort did not know that Harry would survive.
Snape is the character I cannot figure out. He's the big mystery to me. I think he's actually a mystery to himself too and that's why he's so grumpy. I think he's continually torn. For Dumbledore to trust him, there must be some "love thing" involved somehow. The easiest guess is that Snape loved Lily and that is why he protects Harry and dislikes Harry at the same time, because Harry reminds him of the two people he loves and hates most. Snape is smart or he couldn't be misunderstood as much as he is. Which makes me think that he must trust Dumbledore over Voldemort...because that's the smart thing to do. Which implies that the two of them devised a way to kill Dumbledore without killing Dumbledore and Snape is playing a very dangerous game. He's also very self-serving and not un-prone to childish tantrums (as in book 5)...so anyway, that is why I struggle the most when coming up with theories about Snape.
People keep wondering about whether Harry will live or die. To me, a bigger question is will Snape end up good or bad and what has he been playing at this whole time? He could be just egotistical enough that he could be doing what the Lord of the Rings book had Sarumon doing. In the books, Sauron was the big evil one and Sarumon was a good guy who went bad when he thought he too could have the most power. In the end he went down when the ancient tree-herders ruined his world. I don't know how that applies.
I also really hope (but doubt) that Fred and George have a cool role to play in the seventh book. I suspect they'll be like Merry and Pippen and just be used for comic relief again when the bad stuff is all over.
Anyway...I gotta wrap this up. But I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there before book 7 comes out and people read it. This way, on the off chance any of my theorizing relates, I can say "I told you!" and people will believe I had the thought before reading book 7 instead of having them respond "yeah, right."
Oh....and I just have to say this right here. If any student reveals any details of book 7 to me before I have a chance to read it, I will seriously throw a conniption fit and hope they drop my class. Someone revealed the ending of book 5 to me before I read it and it messed up my reading experience.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
She's Not There
When suffering from a horrible flu bug, I had the house to myself and didn't feel up to doing anything besides reading for enjoyment. I picked up She's Not There, one of the option for the Book Club reading. It's about a transgendered person who was a man who became a woman. I really didn't expect to like this book, but I actually enjoyed it. I don't read much in the way of non-fiction, so I'm always happily surprised when I end up enjoying it. I was able to read through it, start to finish, in probably 4 hours.
(Confession here. My original plan was to take the portable DVD player up to bed and watch X-Files on DVD, but I couldn't get it to play anything other than the first episode without the remote control, which my son had misplaced when he was pretending it was a spaceship or some Power Rangers thing, so I decided if I couldn't have X-Files, I would not settle for lesser entertainment, but would instead be productive and read something from the Learning Community class. Oh, and I should note that because I agreed I would not read ahead, I did not finish re-reading the fifth Harry Potter book without my husband. This took considerable moral fortitude here)
Back to She's Not There. The author is also a fiction writer, so he/she (? I thought of him as him for the first half to 2/3rds of the book and then as she for the later portion, what to call him or her now???) uses literary techniques in the writing. I guess since she was a she when she wrote the book, I'll refer to the author as "she" from here on out.
Parts of the book were funny and others heart-breaking.
One thing that I really found interesting about it is when she's in transition and taking hormones to become more female, she noticies herself doing all kinds of things she never thought she would, including qualities she has never liked in women she's known. The part that stands out the most to me is when she goes to The Gap to try on jeans as a woman. She says that for a man, shopping for jeans is no big deal. You go in the store, the measurements are what they are and there are maybe two choices of what kind of jeans to try on (relaxed or whatever). For women, the sizes do not match up to any known measurement in the universe and there are at least 6 different cuts of jeans to try on, each emphasizing certain areas of the body more or less. She found herself obsessing about which size she wanted to be. And she later did things like order the salad even though it wasn't really a salad she wanted to eat.
It made me feel better to know that some parts of being female can perhaps be blamed on the hormones or society's impact and not on my lack of common sense. Because I know the number that represents the size on my clothing does not represent me, and yet I find myself thinking I'll wait to go shopping for clothes until I can fit in a more desirable size. I have found myself purchasing a pair of pants in part because they fit and the tag still said the size I wanted it to say. I have passed up perfectly fine pairs of pants simply because the tag said something I didn't want it to say. This is particularly true of immediately post-pregnancy shopping.
This reminds me: I hate David's Bridal. A friend of mine asked me to be in her wedding (btw, this does have something to do with the previous chain of thought) and the bridesmaid dresses she chose were at David's. My son was around 7 months old at the time. This means that the immediate post-pregnancy weight was gone enough that I was proud of that and yet not so much that I was entirely happy with my whole body. My chest was also still huge. The lady helping me measured me and then brought me a 16 and an 18. I was wearing a size 12 at the time. Not good for the self-confidence. Then....then!...when I said something about it, she made a remark about how I should feel proud about the child I brought into the world. Let me tell you, when someone is making you spend over $150 on a dress you don't like in a size you definitely don't like in a color that makes you look abyssmal, do not insult them by implying pride in her child and body perception have anything to do with one another. A woman can be perfectly proud of her kids and still regret having stretchmarks.
On to another point of the author's. She talks about how (heterosexual) men are infatuated with breasts, enamoured of them, wouldn't-get-anything-accomplished-if-they-had-them kind of thing. (And I agree with this part of her point, as I have had similar talks with my male friends in college) Then she said when her male friends asked her about them once she had them, she said they were no big deal-- that they were just there-- and women do not give them any thought. I think this is not entirely true. We do not think of them in the way that men do and do not care about them in the way that men do, but I think women do think about them. I had a small 101 class last semester that was breast-obsessed, and it was an overwhelmingly female class. The girls kept bringing the topic up (btw, the guys thought it was funny and didn't mind one bit-- that was a very open class). I think women feel they get stereotyped based on breast-size and therefore think about them more than they need to. In fact, the females talking about breasts and breast-size in that class were either rather small or really large chested. I think when on either end of the spectrum, women think about it even more.
Since I don't want to end this post while still writing about breasts, I will say that I think this book would be an excellent choice for any group for Book Club. It will be interesting to both genders, it's informative without being overly so (had to say I was a little worried about possibly getting too much information about the sex change, but needlessly so. When she's still a he, he talks about the night he lost his virginity, but not in a gross way. Luckily, she writes more about when the sex occured than the details of the sex acts themselves). What's truly fascinating is it gets you thinking about your identity and what part gender has to play in that. I think by the end, I was just really grateful that I feel content with my identity.
At one point, Boylan has a talk with one of her sons about how how she felt on the inside and how she looked on the outside didn't match up. I think that can be true of anyone at any time, but non-transgendered people just have more choice in the matter of how they will try to change their looks because it is just a matter of looks for them, a surface appearance kind of thing (the non-transgendered people, that is) and for transgendered people, it is an issue of the whole body itself.
(Confession here. My original plan was to take the portable DVD player up to bed and watch X-Files on DVD, but I couldn't get it to play anything other than the first episode without the remote control, which my son had misplaced when he was pretending it was a spaceship or some Power Rangers thing, so I decided if I couldn't have X-Files, I would not settle for lesser entertainment, but would instead be productive and read something from the Learning Community class. Oh, and I should note that because I agreed I would not read ahead, I did not finish re-reading the fifth Harry Potter book without my husband. This took considerable moral fortitude here)
Back to She's Not There. The author is also a fiction writer, so he/she (? I thought of him as him for the first half to 2/3rds of the book and then as she for the later portion, what to call him or her now???) uses literary techniques in the writing. I guess since she was a she when she wrote the book, I'll refer to the author as "she" from here on out.
Parts of the book were funny and others heart-breaking.
One thing that I really found interesting about it is when she's in transition and taking hormones to become more female, she noticies herself doing all kinds of things she never thought she would, including qualities she has never liked in women she's known. The part that stands out the most to me is when she goes to The Gap to try on jeans as a woman. She says that for a man, shopping for jeans is no big deal. You go in the store, the measurements are what they are and there are maybe two choices of what kind of jeans to try on (relaxed or whatever). For women, the sizes do not match up to any known measurement in the universe and there are at least 6 different cuts of jeans to try on, each emphasizing certain areas of the body more or less. She found herself obsessing about which size she wanted to be. And she later did things like order the salad even though it wasn't really a salad she wanted to eat.
It made me feel better to know that some parts of being female can perhaps be blamed on the hormones or society's impact and not on my lack of common sense. Because I know the number that represents the size on my clothing does not represent me, and yet I find myself thinking I'll wait to go shopping for clothes until I can fit in a more desirable size. I have found myself purchasing a pair of pants in part because they fit and the tag still said the size I wanted it to say. I have passed up perfectly fine pairs of pants simply because the tag said something I didn't want it to say. This is particularly true of immediately post-pregnancy shopping.
This reminds me: I hate David's Bridal. A friend of mine asked me to be in her wedding (btw, this does have something to do with the previous chain of thought) and the bridesmaid dresses she chose were at David's. My son was around 7 months old at the time. This means that the immediate post-pregnancy weight was gone enough that I was proud of that and yet not so much that I was entirely happy with my whole body. My chest was also still huge. The lady helping me measured me and then brought me a 16 and an 18. I was wearing a size 12 at the time. Not good for the self-confidence. Then....then!...when I said something about it, she made a remark about how I should feel proud about the child I brought into the world. Let me tell you, when someone is making you spend over $150 on a dress you don't like in a size you definitely don't like in a color that makes you look abyssmal, do not insult them by implying pride in her child and body perception have anything to do with one another. A woman can be perfectly proud of her kids and still regret having stretchmarks.
On to another point of the author's. She talks about how (heterosexual) men are infatuated with breasts, enamoured of them, wouldn't-get-anything-accomplished-if-they-had-them kind of thing. (And I agree with this part of her point, as I have had similar talks with my male friends in college) Then she said when her male friends asked her about them once she had them, she said they were no big deal-- that they were just there-- and women do not give them any thought. I think this is not entirely true. We do not think of them in the way that men do and do not care about them in the way that men do, but I think women do think about them. I had a small 101 class last semester that was breast-obsessed, and it was an overwhelmingly female class. The girls kept bringing the topic up (btw, the guys thought it was funny and didn't mind one bit-- that was a very open class). I think women feel they get stereotyped based on breast-size and therefore think about them more than they need to. In fact, the females talking about breasts and breast-size in that class were either rather small or really large chested. I think when on either end of the spectrum, women think about it even more.
Since I don't want to end this post while still writing about breasts, I will say that I think this book would be an excellent choice for any group for Book Club. It will be interesting to both genders, it's informative without being overly so (had to say I was a little worried about possibly getting too much information about the sex change, but needlessly so. When she's still a he, he talks about the night he lost his virginity, but not in a gross way. Luckily, she writes more about when the sex occured than the details of the sex acts themselves). What's truly fascinating is it gets you thinking about your identity and what part gender has to play in that. I think by the end, I was just really grateful that I feel content with my identity.
At one point, Boylan has a talk with one of her sons about how how she felt on the inside and how she looked on the outside didn't match up. I think that can be true of anyone at any time, but non-transgendered people just have more choice in the matter of how they will try to change their looks because it is just a matter of looks for them, a surface appearance kind of thing (the non-transgendered people, that is) and for transgendered people, it is an issue of the whole body itself.
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