c'est la vie

it has been said that all the languages of the world are equally complex. equally complex, but perhaps complex in different areas: verb conjugation, pronounciation, etc. in the three languages that i am familiar with on a prescriptive level, i have noticed one similar complexity.

the irregular verb "to be".

in english, latin, and french this verb has a number of forms and conjugations depending on all sorts of things. and yet this verb can be used to create the simplest sentences. "it is true", "canis est in via", "c'est triste".

its a paradox--deceptively simple, and yet it seems only proper that such a verb should be used to describe existence. why is it that we must have so many forms of this word just to describe what something is, who we are? if language truly is the outward expression of our thoughts, then we must think of existence in a number of complex ways. maybe this is why some of the great philosophers were content just to sit and ponder about life. if i can feel this desk, does that necessarily mean it exists? if i can say that the flower is red, does that mean it is truly red? or is it about color pigment and the reflection of light? what does it really mean 'to be'? who are you? if anyone were willing to really think about a question like "who are you?" they could go on for hours. the complexities of life seem to dwell in this verb in all the languages i have learned--and possibly all the languages of the world. it is abstract in that it does not denote action and it takes many forms depending on subject and time. all other verbs seem to spring from this one: if i am, i am running. if i am alive, i am living. you can't run, jump, walk, live without first being.

and if you haven't been living in a hole all your life, you know the famous soliloquoy that begins "To be, or not to be". hamlet says this to begin his speech on the merits of suicide since his existence now seems so miserable.

all the complexities, the unanswered questions, the merits of life and death.

but that's life.

A Fox Jumped Up One Winter's Night

the horrible thing about memory is that if you don't remember everything of a given memory, it tends to bother you for as long as it take you to remember. if that makes sense.

sometimes i dredge up old choir music and try to remember all the lyrics. a friend of mine remembered a particular stuffed animal she was attached to as a child and ransacked ebay for it. i don't know how she found it there since its probably at least 15 years old, but she bought it.

i remembered a book i had in 1st grade. it was a little golden book, the kind with the gold spine. hardly anyone sells these kinds of books anymore and if they do, its only the vintage classics: The Pokey Puppy, The Good Humor Man, etc. these titles are being republished under Random House as well as a number of Richard Scarry books that are also classics. the one i remembered had art similar to Jan Brett's, but i knew she didn't illustrate it because i looked for it under her name. this particular memory bothered me because i remember the feeling i got whenever someone read it to me or whenever i looked at the pictures. its such a strong memory that i had to keep pursuing the book until i found it and was satisfied.

it's called A Fox Jumped Up One Winter's Night, adapted by Nina Barbaresi. i googled the title once i found it on a collector's website and found that most of the copies being sold are used. the two copies i found on amazon that were new cost $30!! i'd hate to buy a used copy online for $0.28 if i haven't gotten to inspect it first. i get a little crazy about the condition of books. but ha HA!! i found it!!! nothing can possibly compare to the triumph of finally finding it!

the other three books from my childhood that i distinctly remember, i've found in the bookstore: A Chair for my Mother, Goodnight Moon (of course), Happy Birthday Moon, and the one by Barbara Cooney about the woman who plants a lot of lilacs...Miss somethingorother. but there are others i've recalled just by coming across them. i had to call in some pre-orders once and i saw Rainbabies and remembered when Mrs. Simental used to read it to us in computer class. i never knew Jim LaMarche did the illustrations. another time i came across the Rough-faced Girl, one of David Shannon's early works, and again, i remembered the haunted feeling i got when listening to the story and looking at the pictures. i was reorganizing the caldecott section and found Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters. i'm glad that a lot of the books i remember are still in print. but its sad how quickly books can get to be out of print. a series of books called Glory that have only been around for two or three years is now out of print. it doesn't take that long. Ted Taylor who wrote The Cay called us once and i answered not knowing it was him. he asked me if we had one of his books in stock and i put him on hold to check. alex said it was out of print, so i relayed the message. i felt horrible when he told me who he was. he has a lot of books still selling, but it must be painful to know that your book is no longer being printed.

other than finally putting an end to my nagging curiousity, i had a horrible day. almost everyone i encountered today--in person and via phone--irritated me because they felt it was a good day to pick on me. my professor, my sister, my sister's husband. this and the frustrations of people being extremely rude in ES, having another ardurous choir class, and the people on the road...today was not a good day. after dinner, i said to my mom, "is today tuesday?" and she gave me a pained half-laugh and said, "yes, only tuesday" and we dwelled a little in commiseration. maybe its just the weather. they say that when these infernal winds are here, the suicide rate goes up. such a handy statistic to remember.

week 2

it is now week 2 and i am convinced that nothing this quarter will be able to stir my interest. i'll surely eat my words later on, but for now it seems like winter quarter is shaping up to be another, long, dark, and tiresome 10 weeks. i have an early draft of a paper due tomorrow.

my least favorite teacher so far is my oceanography lecturer, not because she's mean-spirited--she is in fact a sweet woman with a youthful sense of humor--i just don't absorb as much information when she lectures. the information itself is interesting, but it wouldn't hurt if she presented the information with equal interest. although she did tell us this nutty story about this one cruise she took into the pacific where she and some other female scientists used a box core to pick up sediment from the ocean floor. when they inspected the sediment, they weren't familiar with it, so instead of investigating it, they used it to make mud-masks for their faces! who does that?!! they don't know what's in this sediment, it could contain some kind of toxin from oil-tankers or other garbage barges that has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and they put it on their faces!! i ask you!! i laughed only because it was completely surreal.

in the past, my choir class has been my only solace from the tedious duties of other classes, but this quarter it is not. the class has been separated into two groups, one for those going to London and a smaller one for those not going to London. all the people i looked forward to seeing every week, i see no more. its not that i don't like the people in my group of about 15 people, its just that i'm not particularly close to any of them--a lot of them being music majors. this disappointment plus the added blow of not being able to go to London has actually made this class a source of...unhappiness for me. i used to be able to say "just get through monday, and then tuesday you'll have choir". i don't say that anymore.

on other news, my boss gave me a raise. when this information actually sank in (i just got home from work and was in the kitchen) i burst out laughing. a raise! i didn't know whether to be happy or chagrined. its a very paltry raise, but at least i know my boss sees how hard i work--to please her and to please our customers.

when i got home from work on monday, the bed i had been sleeping on for 15 years was gone. over the weekend we had talked about finally emptying my sister's room and setting it up with bookshelves for all my books and for the TV. i was to get my sister's bed and be rid of mine since she got hers more recently. but i didn't expect to see an empty space where my bed used to be when i got home! what's more, we changed the configuration of all my furniture to accomodate this bed since it is not a daybed like my old one. i now sleep with my head to the wall, facing the window and this makes me uneasy because when we first moved into this house, i slept like this and had a number of sleepless nights. my dad says its because my head was facing a corner. i have had three sleepless nights since i got my newer bed, not because of bad dreams, but because of my neck and shoulders! i don't know what it is--it might be the absense of the bed rails that propped up my pillow, it might be that this mattress is actually straight--but i've had an aching neck and shoulders these past few days. so, when driving, i have to turn from the waist up to change lanes because i can't swivel my neck its so painful. this is also the third time i've moved furniture in my room in the 5 years we have lived in this house. every time i have to get used to the new layout and it makes me sad that change can happen so quickly.

i've been reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen these past few days. i tried to read it senior year of highschool but couldn't get past the first few chapters--it wasn't as gripping as Pride and Prejudice, which i first read in 7th grade. but i've learned that if you wait a little, you might be able to pick up that book later and actually enjoy it. it's happened with To Kill a Mockingbird and The House on Mango Street, so i picked this book up last week and have been reading it since. my reasons for wanting to read it was because the movie was so good, but now i'm reading all the nuances and little character details that you can't observe in a film and i can't help but admire Elinor's self-command. i can't help but despise Lucy Steele for her petty attempts at drawing envy from Miss Dashwood. i can't help but be annoyed with Marianne for her selfishness, although she truly loves Elinor which is a redeeming enough quality. so far, i think the book was adapted well for the screen, although i wish i could have read the book first since all the moments that should have been surprising were--painfully--not.

this is getting be a little long.

the only interesting brain-wrinkle i acquired had to do with my bio anthropology lecture with the esteemed Egan. he made the point several times that science has nothing to do with the pursuit of truth. science is based on assumptions, just like religion, just like everything else holding this world together. and he stressed multiple times that utility governs science and not truth, and not necessarily fact either. we were given the examples of the pitfalls of Newtonian physics. even though some of these theories have been disproved, we still utilize Newtonian physics because it is useful. it has worked for us in numerous endeavors--the impressive bridges of the late 19th, early 20th centuries and whatnot. but to think that plenty of the things we have been able to accomplish were all based on faulty theories and assumptions. is that why man is considered great? because despite all our faults we manage to accomplish so much? i say we are truly blessed and Someone is definitely looking out for us.

recommended book of the week: Kenneth Oppel's Airborn.