Hm.

I got bit by a pinecone today. Stupid pinecones. Between pinecones and squirrels...

... I'm doomed.

But at least the penguins are currently happy.

Bleh

So I'm sick. And I hate it. I've had a sore throat for four days and now I can't breathe, either. I got up early today to go to Columbus for lunch, to one of my favorite restaraunts, but I couldn't do it. I'm quite upset about that.

Finished my book. Was awesome. For Cristina: Tamora Pierce. My favorites include the Lioness Quartet, Immortals Quartet, Protector of the Small Quartet, Trickster Deulogy. Just finished Beka Cooper: Terrier. So cool.

I still can hardly look at the computer. It's frustrating.

Went to the opthemologist yesterday. Tuesday I'm going to the neuro-opthemologist, and Wednesday I'm going to the rhumotologist. Ignore misspellings. Blah. And now I feel like crap on top of it.

My parents have given me a few suprises over break. Tuesday we went wine tasting at a local vineyard, and I got some more of my mead. Wednesday we went to the casinos on the Ohio south of Indiana. Grand Victoria. I felt really really bad because I didn't have as much fun as I'd hoped for. It was boring as hell. And I didn't want to spend money. I'd rather buy books. As it was I spent quite a bit of dad's money. That didn't make me very happy.

And I'm still in a mood, cuz my parents are upset we got up early then didn't go up north to eat, and I feel like crap. So ta.

Random game shown to me by Leigh. http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/home.htm

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a great day, no matter what country you live in. Norway, Greece, Holland, Canada, California... oh wait that's not a country... should be. I hope you had lots of awesome gifts and the like. I got some really cool suprises, some things I'd asked for, and some things that.... were... interesting. Like a bobble-head PotC:DMC Jack Sparrow. Kinda... different. Made me laugh though... even though it's probably going back. What am I going to do with a bobble-head Jack Sparrow that has eyes painted on his face? ;) Got some books, DVDS... Finished off my MASH series (all 11 seasons!), my Remington Steele series (only five), and the entire series (so must have finished it since it's in the same package as the beginning) of Firefly! Also got the new Josh Groban CD, military books, LITTLE GREEN PLASTIC SOLDIERS!, navy and marine figurines (came with some of the books....). Lots of pirate stuff. Pirate books, pirate movie (POTC: DMC), pirate figurines (fighting Jack Sparrows and Will Turners). Hm... lots of military and piratey stuff. Really cool. iTravel type thing, so I can plug my iPod into the car and listen to it through the radio. I'm happy.

Okay we have to go to Louisville now.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Party

Went to Beth's tonight for a party. Was fun, got to see a lot of old friends I haven't seen in a while. Kinda frustrating but it all worked out. Which is always good. I'm happy I went. And I'm glad I didn't drive home. :) Thank God for wonderful parents like mine, that are willing to come pick me up because I can't drive. And for friends that make me smile. I think I'm going to kidnap Daniel, Loren, and Ben at random times in the next week or two and steal them away to B&N ... or dinner ... or both. :) I don't get to see them quite often enough. Okay, I'm a little out of it, so bed time. Tata!

My Fortune Cookie told me: It is no good singing ballads when you are faced with a super-intelligent tongue. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

My Fortune Cookie told me: If a dwarf offers you a red parcel, do not open it. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

My Fortune Cookie told me: Expect the Spanish Inquisition. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

Grr

I was in a much better mood earlier. Why? Because I took a short nap and told mom to wake me for dinner. Figured it'd be 7 or later, like usual. Or else I would have stayed up. I wanted dinner at 4:30. Needless to say I was told no. Also pissed me off. So 6:00 rolls around and I'm still asleep, dad came home, and mom and dad both started fixing leftovers. Yeah I know it's only leftovers, but it's 6:00! We NEVER eat that early. I know that because that's when *I* eat and we NEVER eat at a reasonable time. So I'm really pissed no one woke me up, and then they yelled at me when I made a comment about apparently having missed the early dinner memo. I'm so mad, I really am.

Saw Charlotte's Web yesterday with my parents, who were both in bad moods. It was okay; I never really liked the book sooo yeah. Then watched Eragon again last night, went out with Ben for the evening. Was a blast, but I got a massive headache from the movie. Well, got it during Charlotte's Web, just multiplied at a crazy rate during Eragon. Then watched Happy Feet today. Not what I'd expected but good.


Just in a generally really bad mood and angry at my parents, who have both been in bad moods for the last three days. I think I'm allowed to be pissed at them when I've been feeling like there's a silent war going on for the last several days.

AHHH!

So I have all my grades accounted for now. Yes, all seven classes!

Aeronautics 118, 3 hours = B
Aerospace Studies 431, 3 hours = A
Aerospace Studies 121, 1 hour = A
History 317, 3 hours = B
Naval Science 211, 2 hours = A
Naval Science 311, 3 hours = A
Psychology 111, 4 hours = B

No plusses! No minuses! 10 hours of straight B's and 9 hours of straight A's! EEEEEEE! So super excited. AER 118 and HST 317 were both in the C range before finals. I got an 86 on AER's final which gave me a solid B, and an 88 on my HST exam, which gave me an 84.25, also a solid B! Psych moved up from a B- to a solid B as well! So no C's! No B-'s! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And my Naval Sciences both stayed solid A's, I was afraid they'd drop to B's. But they didn't! -so super excited-


EEEEE!




Went to the joint doctor today. Did another good blood letting on me. Test results back sometime. I'm sick of doctors.




EEEEEEEEEE! SO EXCITED ABOUT MY CLASSES!!!!!! This turned out to be a better semester than I thought it was going to be!!!!

Spoilers

NOTE: DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS ABOUT THE MOVIE ERAGON. HINT: TRISH - DO NOT READ THIS POST!






-- trish you'd better not be reading --











-- i'm serious. i'm giving my impression about the movie. --











-- spoilers about to start --









Alright. So. OMG! YES! IT'S FINALLY OUT! Eragon, the movie! Alright, so. If you guys haven't read the book... yeah. It's not like the book. You need to read the book. The book rocks. The movie.... I loved the movie. But it's really bad. But I adored it. I liked the actors and the acting, I liked the scenes, just very choppy. And very brisk and short. They definately needed another hour to this film. An hour and a half just doesn't do the movie justice. Yanno? I wish it was longer - it would have made the movie a lot better. I kinda saw it as Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean mixed together and thrown in Middle Earth. But it's cool though. Very excited, and I definately want to see it again. And again. And again. KInda like Dragonheart if anyone's seen it... lol. Not really.

SAPHIRA WAS SO FRICKIN' COOL! OH MY!

EEEEEEEEE!


Such a cool dragon. LOOOVE the dragon graphics. EEE! She was such a cute baby, and a really cool adolescent. I can't wait to see until she's full grown. ^_^


Very impressed. Even though it was bad. I loved it. I don't care. I absolutely loved it.

And I'm home.


:)

Conversations

So I changed to the new blogger. Lets hope I like it.

(I just wanted it for the tags ... so I could find my random conversations :))

Six finals done, one to go tonight at 7:45p. Finally, almost done. Got word on two of my final grades, but none of the others. So far I'm at least pleased.

Tuesday night I was talking to dad, and trying to study for my AS431 class (National security and policy in the US Air Force). One of the questions was "Describe the three rules of war and compare/contrast them to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." So, not knowing WHICH war in Afghanistan and really not knowing what it involved, I asked dad.

"Dad, what's the difference between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"Well... one's in Iraq, and one's in Afghanistan."
"Thanks, that was very helpful."
"I try. I really try."

So that amused me and made my night go a little better.

Then I was talking to Sean, one of my friends from lacrosse, who I work for for reffing over summers and work with while reffing as well. Well, he's getting married in January, and we somehow got on the topic that I didn't have a boyfriend. Still not real sure how we got there, but oh well.

"So does that mean I need to seat you next to the 28-yr-old Marine engineer when we place people at tables?"
"Sean, that's a bit too old for me, don't you think? Try more like 22-24."
"How about 25. There's a single guy who's 25 and an engineer in Dayton."
"What, do we have a bartering system going on here?"

Oh well, I found it amusing. Also made my night go a bit easier.


Then. Leigh. The ever amazing Canadian who can always make me laugh. Love that guy. .... Steph will understand.


Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
ack! I clicked on a planter by accident!
Karigan G'ladheon says:
?
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
whoa...
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
I was trying to find something on home depot's website and a planter attacked me!
Karigan G'ladheon says:
YES!
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
a christmas one...
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
*whimpers*
Karigan G'ladheon says:
awww
Karigan G'ladheon says:
well hey i'm gonna go run some errands
Karigan G'ladheon says:
bbs
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
good luck!
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
don't get plantered.
Karigan G'ladheon says:
oh i'll try not
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
they're fiesty today
Karigan G'ladheon says:
alright, i'll keep that in mind
Lasagna success! [Toast] says:
in the meantime I think I shall cower some...


So much fun. Well, time to study, and go pick up my 211 exam. Perhaps more tonight after I get back from exams.

And so it begins....

The Hollow Men
T.S. Eliot


I


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar


Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;


Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II


Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.


Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --


Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom


III


This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.


Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.


IV


The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms


In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river


Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.


V


Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.


Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow


For Thine is the Kingdom


Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow


Life is very long


Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom


For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Just a short note

Two finals done, five more to go. Will be completely done Thurs, Dec 14 @ 10pm.

Steph is somewhere in Europe, I'm assuming Norway by now. Hopefully I'll hear from her soon so I'll stop worrying.

Parents are coming up in about an hour to take me to lunch and take my books and DVDs home for break.

I slept like dirt last night.

Is it Dec. 15 yet?

ERAGON COMES TO THEATERS DECEMBER 15TH!!!!!

We're fighting over who is going to have our Christmas party. Things are definately more fractured in our relationships than I realized. Yet... I think I realized and just didn't accept it.

ERAGON COMES TO THEATERS NEXT FRIDAY!!!!!

It snowed.

It's cold.

That's all.

Scheiße.

Final exam in NSC 211 tomorrow. Leadership and management. Man that class sucks. Love to prof, love my classmates - hate the subject. Studying after my night class with some of the Marines to get better prepared - at least Wahl will be there. Probably Miller. Probably a few others. They can think of examples to help me understand the course material. And they're funny to listen to. Miller gets super excited when he gets to explain stuff to people. And I get to hear navy stories then as well. Hopefully we'll have a good study session and I'll be ready for tomorrow's exam.

The Captain is speaking in my AF class tomorrow. Sooo I know I won't be getting out of THAT class early. He's cool, but he doesn't know when to shut up and let us out of class.

Final exam in NSC 311 Friday. Had a review session today. Not as apprehensive about it as I am for NSC 211, but still, I'm bordering on A/B. And I want the A, dammit. At least the course is interesting.

Still incredibly incredibly frustrated with people. And sick of dealing with stupid people who need a brain in their heads. Because stupid people annoy the hell out of me. And I don't have the time to deal with it right now. Verfluchte dumme weg tickende Leute ich. Zur Hölle und lasse mich im Frieden, gehe, ich bin müde von ihm! Ich habe nicht die Zeit, Ihren Stupidity zu beschäftigen. Gah!

-sigh-

Really. Really. REALLY. frustrated with a few unnamed people. Very frustrated.




Exams Thurs, Fri, Mon-Thurs.


I hate exams.



And so frickin frustrated with people being stupid. And people in general. And unnamed people.



Bug off.

The long, rather unanticipated update.

So I'm posting both my pirate proposal (first) and then if you're REALLY bored, after that I'm posting my article I wrote for history about stuff. Which is boring but if you're bored, might actually be interesting.

Been kind of a depressing end of week / weekend. Once again thank God for Steph. Who is still moving. Damn.

Anyways, read at your own risk.

PS. Leigh - Trish couldn't read your comments. That's why she didn't respond. :)

-----

2007 USS Proposal

Pirates, Film, and the American Need for Escapism During Times of
Political or Military Unrest and Discontent


1. The purpose of this project is to examine the cultural role of pirate films in modern American history. More specifically, I want to see if there is a correlation between the popular desire for escapism and times of political or military unrest and discontent. In times of war, depression, and turmoil, pirate films are more successful than if they are released in times of peace and stability. Many people flock to films that allow for escapism or a show of rebellion when they are unhappy with their lives and their government. Examples of movies to be examined include: Treasure Island (1920), Captain Kidd (1922), Black Pirate (1926), Captain Blood (1935),The Buccaneer (1938), Sea Hawk (1940), Black Swan (1942), Captain Kidd (1945), Against All Flags (1952), Blackbeard the Pirate (1952), Master of Ballantrae (1953), The Buccaneer (1958), Hook (1991), Cutthroat Island (1995), and Pirates of the Caribbean (2003 and 2006).

I am particularly interested in seeing which character traits and political positions are stressed in American popular culture at different times. Is a film mostly a lighthearted escapist adventure? Or is it darker, with rough pirates who routinely break the law and generally challenge established authority? Does a film about pirates champion escape the confines of social norms or an outright rebellion against the restraints political authorities are putting on the characters? I wish to see how pirate movies, both in their creation and reception, reflect the moods and sentiments of the American public at the time of their release.

2. Expected project outcomes include a 20-25 page research essay as well as a hall display in Upham Hall. The essay will explain how the fascination with pirates increases in certain periods of American history and why it declines in others. The hall display in Upham will pique interest in pirates by displaying different movies and their portrayal of pirates, and linking them to events that were going on in the time of their creation. It is my hope that this display will get people to think about how movies and current events intersect, to see movies as commentaries on American culture and politics as well as consumer entertainment.

3. This project has several educational benefits. It will allow me to hone my critical thinking skills by examining popular culture and American history. This project will improve my historical writing skills and techniques, preparing me for graduate school. It will give me solid practice in reading and examining history with a critical eye while getting help from an experienced mentor.


Plans for USS Mentoring

Pirates, Film, and the American Need for Escapism During Times of
Political or Military Unrest and Discontent


In Spring Semester 2007, we will develop a more formal prospectus as well as a schedule for my work on the project during Summer 2007. The work plan will include a timeline for meeting specific goals throughout the 10 week period. The goals will include project updates, completion of tasks necessary to support the final essay. During the summer, we will meet on a regular basis and stay in touch via email. We will discuss how to get through difficulties as they arise and share feedback on the progress of the project. In the last couple of weeks, we will meet to evaluate the project, to critique drafts of the essay and the hall display, and complete the final versions.



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Water and the Art it Influences [In the Dutch Golden Age]


Artists in the Dutch Golden Age were directly influenced by the waters around them, by regulating the commerce of their artwork, by giving them maritime landscapes to paint, and sea stories to paint and portray to the masses. Water surrounded the Netherlands, water affected the lives of the people both by providing water for farming and providing water for floods, water held the greatest of the sea stories within its depths; water ruled the culture of Holland. Texts, stories, maps, art, goods, trade: all of this dealt with water and the sea. There was no escaping it. In this article, I use several sources, including Simon Schama’s The Embarrassment of Riches, Jonathan Israel’s “The Breakthrough to World Primacy, 1590-1609”, Maarten Prak’s “Guilds and the development of the art market during the Dutch Golden Age”, and Jonathan Israel’s “Adjusting to Hard Times: Dutch art during its period of crisis and restructuring (c. 1621 – c. 1645)” to help support my point.

Several things go on during the Dutch Golden Age that affects the trade and commerce of the Netherlands. Whether it be war, trade restrictions, weather, or the locations of the buyers, it greatly affects how the artwork is sold and whether or not they can survive as artists and how well known they are. The economy will determine what paints can be used, how much colors run, and how available different materials are to the painter. If the economy is bad, paints will be much more expensive because they are not needed for survival. Painters will shift from painting very intricate maritime pictures with ships and the like, to a sea with the horizon, using less paint and fewer colors. As Israel points out in Adjusting to Hard Times, marine paintings became less detailed and became much simpler with fewer colors during the early seventeenth century, cutting down on size and costs of the paintings. J.M. Montaias is quoted as arguing that this shift towards monochromatic, simple seascapes is due to the speeding up of production and the lowering of the product cost for the general public (Israel, Adjusting, 125).

People often wanted seascapes and marine paintings, but few people could afford the high costs of a very intricate, time consuming painting that many artisans made. This demand for marine paintings made artists find cheaper and quicker ways to produce these pieces of art, giving them a public market that would buy their paintings. “The overall picture, then, is one of almost perfect market conditions, with demand and supply reinforcing each other to generate marvelous results” (Prak, 115). Artisans would make pictures quicker and cheaper, and with the large supply of cheap paintings, consumers were likely to keep buying these paintings to put around their homes. They wanted pictures of the sea they lived by, and the artists gave them what they wanted.

Jonathan Israel brings up the point that this important shift in the way maritime paintings are done should also be considered along side the immediate historical context – that of the Baltic trade recession and the Dutch-Spanish conflict, and the results these had on the resources that artists could use in their paintings (Israel, Adjusting, 125). These issues with trade and commerce are major factors in how things are done in the art world, for if there is no way to get goods to the people that will buy them, such as through the Baltic trade, the artwork will not be sold.

The Dutch-Spanish conflict itself had an impact on the art world, as all wars and conflicts do. A conflict or war will all transform society in some regard, hitting the arts hard due to wartime efforts and the need to put most resources towards the conflict and away from less practical uses, such as paints. Maarten Prak, in Guilds and the development of the art market during the Dutch Golden Age, rather agrees with Israel. He points out that “exports of Dutch paintings were probably limited during the larger part of the seventeenth century, [and] the expansion of the sector … was such that it cannot be properly termed a purely local trade” (Prak, 113).

It is increasingly obvious that economy and trade are important factors to what the artisans did. One did not paint solely for the people of the town in which he lived; instead, he was involved in trade and selling his goods great distances from where he lived, oftentimes selling his artwork in a foreign country if he was good.

Another good example of how important trade was is expressed in Jonathan Israel’s article of The Breakthrough in World Primacy, as he discusses how the lifting and placing of embargos on the Dutch shifted the economy. When the embargo was lifted, trade flourished and the economy was strong. When the embargo was on the nation, things were slow and difficult for merchant traders and therefore the economy of the Netherlands.

As the economy fluxed between good and bad, the images portrayed in the artwork changed little. Artisans used stories and the sea as subjects of their artwork. It was not always paintings, but also engravings and drawings. Simon Schama is able to show this happening often, as throughout his book he shows and describes pictures which reflect histories and sea battles that had taken place, and the artists renditions of these calamities. Orlers, a Leiden historian, made engravings of the siege of Leiden (Schama, 27) and the leaving of the Duke of Alva’s Spanish troops from Leiden as the floods chased them away. It was a series of engravings that helped illustrate the siege itself and make it open to the public, as engravings were easy to reproduce for people, unlike paintings.

The Dutch love their sea epics and shipwreck tales, which was a specialty at the time to the Netherlands, and they wasted no time in trying to illustrate these stories so that the people who could not read the stories could see the pictures that tell the stories without words. “…because of their skill at engraving, and the rapid expansion of a cheap octavo line in popular literature, publishers … were able to produce a whole series of dramatically illustrated briny yarns” (Schama, 28). This just enhanced the ability of these sea stories and tales of glory at sea to penetrate the Dutch culture even more, because now even the illiterate could ‘read’ the stories of shipwrecks and adventure through the pictures portrayed on the engravings. Children could grow up looking at images of these sea stories, increasing the number of people who could enjoy both the engravings and the stories they held.

Another use of the marine paintings includes the showing of proverbs and maxims that help convey messages to the viewers. Seascapes could show the proverb “‘casting a barrel before a whale’ that alluded to the deflection of misfortune by jettisoning worldly goods” (Schama 31) among other such visual references as to how one should live. Engravings and paintings often held scriptural and proverbial overtones during this era of Dutch artistry. It was something that the Dutch population would buy and understand, as well as put into their homes because of the meanings the paintings carry. It shows the owner to be one of good faith and morals to the viewers who come into the home and can see the paintings and engravings put on the walls.

In conclusion, water is a part of and rules both the Dutch culture and its art. It affects the economy, the commerce, the trade, the paints available, and the prices of the paints needed. It offers the genre of marine paintings and seascapes and it gives epic tales of shipwrecks and storms that can be illustrated by engravings and paintings alike. The Dutch Golden Age is unique in that it goes through phases of different art styles because of the economy and what is going on at the time. When they have a poor economy after years of good economy, the artisans learned different ways to use their resources to portray the same sort of art. Although they continued to paint seascapes and shipwreck tales, they used fewer colors, sometimes to the extreme of using various shades of one color, and less detail, using less paint. The Dutch adapt along with their environment, and their artwork reflects both the water and their ability to hold their own in the world, making do with what they have available to them.


-----



If you've read this far.... jeez, I pity you!