The home of Rob L Glazebrook
My mother and sister have left for the hospital, according to the latest news I’ve gotten ahold of. Presumably, this is so my sister can introduce the baby she’s been keeping to herself the last nine months to the rest of the world. :) I’ll let you know the moment I know something more.
So I started reading my first assigned reading of the new semester, a book considered (by my professor, at least) fundamental to my discipline, entitled Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan. I was asked to read from page ix (introduction) to page 73, or roughly 85 pages of text, for tomorrow. As I’ve been required to do (much to my humiliation) since starting grad school, I kept a scrap of paper nearby to write down any words I didn’t have a mental image of that I felt I probably should. I recorded these (with the notes as in the original):
garret (need exact definition), haruspex, monomaniac, quixotic (again… sigh), aphorism, decedent, remanded, diktats (greek?), leitmotifs, pointillist, homily, cairn (exact def), beneficence, debutante, aplomb (I know it), sententious
I wrote down sixteen words in all. Several of them I knew once I saw the definition, but I couldn’t call up a mental image at the time of reading. What made matters horrific is that these all came from the introduction to the text (written by Lewis H. Lapham). I gave up on my recording exercise when I got to the text proper, fearing I’d spend more time writing than reading. Quinn tried to reassure me this morning by suggesting my problem with the introductory prose had more to do with Lapham’s inflated style than my lack of understanding, but still. I was feeling pretty low. I mean, I’m an English major in Rhetoric, reading a forty-year-old classic book on media, and I’m struggling. Here’s a sample of the stuff I was plowing through:
Just as when information levels rise in physics and chemistry, it is possible to use anything for fuel or fabric or building materials, so with electric technology all solid goods can be summoned to appear as solid commodities by means of information circuits set up in the organic patterns that we call “automation” and information retrieval. Under electric technology the entire business of man becomes learning and knowing. In terms of what we still consider and “economy” (the Greek word for a household), this means that all forms of employment become “paid learning,” and all forms of wealth result from the movement of information. The problem of discovering occupations or employment may prove as difficult as wealth is easy.
So, after spending manyplus hours reading that stuff, I finally made my way through and moved on to my next reading: a piece called “Politics and the English Language” written by George Orwell in 1946. Oh, halleluijah. I have never felt more immediately vindicated by a piece of academic writing in my entire life. The entire piece is a bitch-slap to prose that, to me, looks an awful lot like McLuhan’s. This is probably my favorite line:
The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details.
Clear, interesting, and to the point. God bless you, George Orwell. You made me feel a little bit better about myself today.
PS — Don’t get me wrong: I think McLuhan’s got a lot of really good ideas in this book, even just considering the first section I’ve read. I just wish he hadn’t struggled so mightily to hide his point.
Well, my unusual sleep schedule over break has finally caught up with me. It’s 5am, and I’ve not yet fallen asleep. I didn’t even get tired until after 4am, and by that point, I figured it was best if I just got up. An hour and a half of sleep would likely do more harm than good. All in all, this should make for an interesting teaching experience in four hours and a memorable start to the Spring 2005 semester. :)
Yesterday was surprisingly busy. I awoke at the crack of 1pm and started working on my syllabus. I showered around 3pm, shoveled snow from behind my car from 4-5pm, then had a salad for dinner and watched The Bourne Supremacy with my roommates. Then I worked on my syllabus a bit more, printed off the “final” copies, and headed to Stomping Grounds (coffee house) to meet with Julia at 7pm. We hung out there for an hour or so going over our syllabi and then headed to Target for a bit of shopping. I went for conditioner and paper, and left with over $100 worth of merchandise. I have a new coat for the not-freezing days and two nice new shirts, though. I dropped Julia off at her place around 9pm and headed to Welch Ave to help Doug celebrate his birthday. I hung around there, playing pool with Debs, until around 10:30pm, then I headed to campus to make copies of my syllabi. I got home shortly after 11pm, stapled my syllabi, went to bed, and promptly realized I’d made a typo on my 9am syllabus. I then laid awake thinking of various things until 4:38am, when I gave up, got out of bed, and made a pot of coffee. It’s going to be a long day.
Wish me luck, all. I get weird when I haven’t slept, so I’m worried I’m going to scare my kids. :) Maybe you should wish them luck instead.
We have 17″ inches of snow here in Ames at the moment. Fun, beautiful stuff. I got thrown into a three-foot snowdrift around 2am Friday, shortly after getting my upper lip split open by Kami’s fist. It was all in good fun. :) Some random drunk girl at the bar told me I had a beautiful smile (nicest compliment in a while) about a half an hour prior… I’m guessing the blood and swelling marred that. There goes my modeling career.
I spent several hours on campus Friday. I went with the intention of meeting with Quinn and working a bit on my syllabus, which I did, but I also ran into:
Sometimes I think I’ve been here too long. :) Admittedly, a good half of that list is people in my department, but still. Nine of those encounters were entirely random. Furthermore, later that night I ran into Doug, Ryan, Chris, and Laura (again) while hanging out at the bar with roomy Justin. I’ve had all sorts of social goodness going on.
As a matter of fact, that social goodness is my current most pressing concern (though I’m sure finishing my syllabus will become a pressing concern shortly after finishing this entry). See, ex-roomy JJ’s birthday is tomorrow, and he’s planning on celebrating that fact in the bars tonight. However, I just found out that today is also buddy Nick Recker’s birthday, and I’ve been invited to his celebration as well, but his celebration is taking place at an apartment on the other side of town. To make matters worse, tomorrow is also Doug’s birthday, and I’ve promised to go out to Welch Ave for at least an hour Sunday evening. I think these people purposely had birthdays on the weekend before school starts just to make my life more difficult. My alarm will be going off at 6am Monday so I can be in the computer lab and ready to teach at 8am. I ~should~ be getting my sleep schedule adjusted for early mornings. That’ll have to happen next weekend, I guess.
Because this weekend is so busy, I sorta assume my niece will be born within the next 48 hours. If you can hold her in until at least Tuesday, Sannie-sannie, I would be extremely grateful. *beams*
Welcome to the new face of Journal Arcana, or as it is more lovingly known, v5.0. Although this is really more like the 7th iteration in our textual journey together, it’s the 5th iteration since I bothered to start counting.
Things work differently now. Some of the major differences are as follows:
Things are not yet perfect. I’ll be making changes to things here and there over the next week. If you find something that doesn’t work or want something that isn’t there, leave a comment on this entry and I’ll see what I can do.
Yours,
-Rob
