skateboarding to class, Matthew's increase in height, Savior Twin Day (a new holiday slated for August 13) and Jared's healing tattoo

       This is the only form of "humor" that will actually get a laugh out of Jared's father. He sat all the way through Napoleon Dynamite which people my age don't actually admit is funny anymore, but only because the parents co-opted it and made it their personal funniest movie ever, so we had to pretend to fail to see the humor in it anymore, but even old people, especially old Mormon people, think Napoleon Dynamite is funny now, except for Jared's father. He also watched The Hangover without the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly.. This I would understand if he'd been watching it in the presence of any of his kids, because he might have thought it improper to admit in the presence of his offspring that he found borderine-offensive material amusing. If he were forced to watch Borat, i'm fairly certqin the man would go into cardiac arrest. Mark Russel, on the other hand, is funny to him to the extent that tears roll down his face as he laughs at one after another of Mark Russell's too clever jokes. Even my parents, and even Jared's grandparents, for that matter, find no humor in Mark Russell. It's possible to be so not funny that you are actually funny, and Mark Russell is proof of this.

I need to be asleep because I have a 9:00 a.m. class, which means if I'm not out the door at 8:20 at the very latest, I won't have time to park and make it to class. I do have my skateboard in my trunk, and skateboards are allowed in the bike lane as long as we yield to bicyclists, but the cyclists are not supposed to run us over. Bicyclists are legally allowed to run over pedestrians in the bike lanes, because it's like a freeway except that pedestrians have the right to cross as expeditiously as possible when it is safe to do so.  I've never witnessed a bicycle/pedestrian collision  and hope I never do. As long as pedestrians aren't stupid, it shouldn't happen, but still, I'd hate to see a cyclist so lacking in concern for another's well-being that he or she would collide with a pedestrian when it was in any way avoidable, including (gasp!) stopping one's bicycle.

I don't wear the protective gear my parents think I should be wearing when I skateboard to class, but it would take so much time to put it all on that I'd lose any advantage I had in skateboarding as opposed to walking to class. Furthermore, through the entire route to my first class, where I do my most intense skateboarding, there's a long grassy strip. I ride right next to it so that if I have to take a fall, I'm on grass. Chances are that I won't land on my head. With the risk of potential head and neck injuries being negligible on grass as long as I don't land on my head on grass with someone else on top of me, the other injury risks are minimal. A sprained ankle could happen, but the same injury or worse could occur walking down the stairs of the parking structure. Danger lurks everyone. Remember what Monk said about how this very Earth you love might just kill you.  The moral of this paragraph is that my parents are paranoid.

My younger brother (younger by less than a minute) is oh so proud of himself because he has reached the majestic height of six feet, two inches. My dad is 6"1'. My mom is 5'3". How did they produce an offspring who is 6'2"? The rest of my mom's family is taller than she is, but the tallest female is 5'6" and the tallest male is 5'11". On my dad's side, my Uncle Steve is 6' 3", but Uncle Michael has to stretch to be six feet. And their parents, in their prime, were 5'10" and 5'3" respectively. (They've shrunk practically to Oompah Loompah size now. Drink your milk, people.) The female offspring on that side are all pretty tall,  too -- ranging from 5'6" to 5'8".  Still, it doesn't add up. There's something strange going on here, and I intend to get to the bottom of it.

Matthew had to share my mother's uterus with me, so he didn't get the nutrition he would have gotten had he been a singleton. Still, he was the hog twin. Often there's one hog twin who takes more than his or her share and deprives his womb-mate of much-needed nutrition. (The root of it is greed. Some people begin displaying the trait of greed in utero, and it's usually a life-long characteristic unless intervention happens.) This can happen whether there are one or two placentas. Matthew and I had two placentas because we are fraternal or dizygotic twins (hint: if twins are of different genders, they're not identical; this may seem obvious, but some people get pretty far through life without knowing it), but our placentas sort of fused together, and he ate until he was full, then let me have what little was left over. (If Matthew had been a member of the Donner Party, he would have been a survivor no matter what he had to do to achieve that status.). He had mom's uterus to himself for roughly eight weeks, depending upon how soon my mother had her second ovulation after conceiving Matthew, so he had plenty of time to eat himself to virtual obesity before I even came along.

I love to remind Matthew that the reason our mother ovulated while she was pregnant was that her hormone levels were insufficient to sustain a pregnancy, and had I not been conceived, he would have been miscarried. I literally saved his life.

One would think he might show his gratitude on a more regular basis. There should be a special day -- almost like Mother's Day and Father's Day -- for siblings who saved their twins' lives in utero by being conceived and born. Hallmark,this is a great opportunity for you to sell more merchandise! I'll even pick a date for the holiday.  August 13 sounds good.  There don't seem to be any actual holidays in August, although, coincidentally, August 13 is the late Alfred Hitchcock's birthday.  Gift giving would be more or less mandatory (gift-giving is never 100% mandatory, but if one has a normal relationship with one's parents, it is considered something of a faux pas not to acknowledge Mother's Day or Father's Day; birthdays fall under the same category in most families) from the Beneficiary Twin to the Savior Twin. For the circle of family and friends,  it would be optional, but it would be well within the bounds of propriety for parents to give the Savior Twin a gift or two, or for the spouse, fiancee,  or serious girlfriend of the Beneficiary Twin to do the same. Get married or get a girlfriend, Matthew, and do it before August 13.  The more I think about this, the more convinced I  am of the greatness of this idea.

Jared's tattoo is apparently healing nicely and looking good as tattoos go. He's doing all the things the guy at the parlour told him to do to take care of it, whatever those things might be. I was never a major fan of tattoos, but I have to have a certain degree of appreciation when it's my name on the guy's bicep. So what's he going to do if we do not end up together when all is said and done?  He plans to go to medical school, too, but he'll be one year behind me even if he finishes college in three years as he plans to do. Chances are that we'll end up at different medical schools and that we'll each meet a whole lot of new people before we finish. I'm not committing to anything this far in advance, and I hope he's smart enough to feel the same way.

So once the threat of a mission has long passed -- and I don't really know precisely at what age that would be -- does he try to dig up the money to have the thing removed? I heard it's not cheap and also that it's painful.  Or, even if he doesn't end up with me, does he look for girls named Alexis to date so they won't be offended by the tattoo? With Jared's luck, the girl would probably end up spelling it "Alexys" or something similarly bizarre, still leaving a conflict. Perhaps it would be easier, though, to change one letter of the tattoo than to have the whole thing removed. Regardless, it's really not my problem. It's merely something about which I may speculate at times when I have nothing more pressing on which my mind must dwell.

Under the heading of gossip that's totally none of my business (a small distinction that's never stood in my way before) Jared's parents' marital relationship has gone from Antarctica-in-July-frigid to something more like Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in mid-March. Part of the problem is that Jared's mother has come to think that Jared getting a tattoo to avoid a serving  a mission is rolling-on-the-floor hilarious, while Jared's father is a phlegmatic sort who doesn't think anything is truly funny except knock-knock jokes and videotapes or CDs of this lame comedian named Mark Russell who used to play the piano while he made up really lame lyrics that only old Republicans thought were remotely amusing. Jared's father has the sense of humor of a man about thirty years older than his chronological age. Sometimes I wonder why Stephanie married him. Then I remember that they have six children, which both answers the question and renders further speculation on my part most improper.

# the non-artist still known as Alexis

I Can Say What I Want Again!

             This is the way I like to imagine that my tucks look. Fat chance!

My dad told me to keep a low profile in terms of Jared and the blog, as Kent (Jared's father)
had made an offhand comment that led him to believe Kent might have read my blog. I had little else to talk about other than Jared, his mission or, more correctly, non-mission, and his new tattoo.
I used the time I might have spend blogging to pursue various athletic activities from my past. I hurdled, I went to the gym and did a little of the gymnastics and tumbling stunts (for lack of a better word; I'm not yet good enough to call what I do a routine, but I'm slowly regaining lost skills.)

Incidentally, I've since learned that neither Kent nor Jared has any knowledge of this blog. Kent kent Kent. Jared Jared Jared. Mormon Mormon Mormon. Mission Mission Mission. Tattoo Tattoo Tattoo.So there! I can say anything about them I want, and they'll never klnow the difference as long as Jared's mother doesn't tell.  I'll be cautious even there, though,  as I know that the mother/son umbilical cord is never fully severed.

My gymnastics instructor was watching me a month or so ago when  I was doing what is now for me a particularly difficult vault but something I would have nailed with ease back in the day.   Something in the height and the manner in which i quickly rotated a quarter turn into a flip indicated to him that I had likely been a diver at some point in my athletic career. He asked about it.  I told him I dove for three years in high school. He told me that an adjunct staff member had been the university's dicing coach before the dicing team was a a casualty of  the major budget cuts that hit the UCs. He said the guy would be interested in watching me dive. Why is a mystery to me, as our school has no diving team.

Regardless, when I went to the gym  to workout, the gymnastics instructor or professor (I don't really know which he is) told me the diving instructor was on the premises. I mentioned not having a swimsuit with me. He looked at my leotard somewhat critically. He was always complaining the a gymnast of my skill level should have higher quality leotards than those I wore. He said that my leotard looked more like a swimsuit than a leotard, and that regardless. it obviously wasn't expensive enough for me to be concerned about the chlorine damaging it. I agreed to meet up with the guy. He called the guy on his cell phone.

I asked the former diving coach to give me about three dives before watching me, as I had not been /on a diving board in about eight months. He chatted with the gymnastics instructor/professor as I took my warm-up dives.  Then I took my first real dive, with the instructor watching.  I went with a backward dive with a twist and two-and-on-half somersaults. I wish I could say it was spectacular, which it most definitely was not, but I did complete the required elements and had a relatively clean landing. he told me to do the same dive again.It was about 75% better. i went with a forward dive to a  pike to a somersault. It was better than my first dive, but not as clean as my second.  Without even looking at the former coach, I headed back to the ladder to repeat the dive, which was much more precise than the first. I did a few miscellaneous not overwhelmingly impressive maneuvers with tucks, pikes, somersaults, then decided to be bold.

I went to the platform, climbed the ladder, approached the end of the platform, and did a handstand facing the water. I then did a combination simultaneous half-somersault and twist.  I actually nailed the thing. I'm still not sure what possessed me to even try it.

As I climbed out of the pool, the gymnastics instructor/professor said, "That's probably enough."

I reached for a towel that the former coach had placed on the handle of the pool ladder.  I dried myself and approached them. "I wish you'd been here ten years ago," the former coach commented.

"Ten years ago I was in third grade," I apologized to him.

"Have you thought about transferring to a school with a diving team?" he asked.

"Not really," I answered.  "My plan is to start medical school the year after next, and I'd lose too many units if I transferred."

He looked down at my leg -- at the site of the now-healed but still lightly-scarred fracture. "How'd that happen?" he asked, pointing at my lower leg.

"Freak hurdling accident three years ago," I said. "Another runner tripped over her hurdle, sent it forward into my lane, and then came down on top of the hurdle as it fell on me."

"Compound fracture?" the former coach asked.

"Yup," I nodded. "Both bones. And my right clavicle, too, though at least that one wasn't compound."

He and the gymnastics guy winced in unison.

"looks like it healed pretty well. Kids' bones tend to heal straighter. And  the scarring is pretty faint. I'm guessing it looked like railroad tracks for the first year," the diving coach commented.

I nodded again, thinking silently, "If it's  so damned faint, how did you notice it so easily?" I'm still quite self-conscious about the scarring.

"If you were just a little younger and a little more muscled, I'd say you had Olympic potential, but it's not very realistic with either your age or build unless you really wanted it. And it doesn't sound like you do."

 "No, I don't. Diving has always been something I did for fun," I told him. "And training for the Olympics doesn't sound like much fun even if i had a chance of making it, which I do not."

"Why don't you sign up for club diving? It's competitive but pretty low-key way. People are out there mostly for fun.  We're already  into the quarter, but I could probably get you on a team," the diving coach  said.

"He runs the league," the gymnastics guy said. "He can put you on any team he wants you on."

"When does this happen?" I asked him.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00," he replied.

I thought for a moment. "I'll be there," I said to him.

"I'm warning you," he added. "I'm putting you on the worst team. They need all the help they can get."

We said our goodbyes and I headed to my car. I had a blanket in the trunk of my car, which it placed on the seat of my car to protect it from wetness and chlorine.

So I now have a new hobby. I'll probably get swimmer's ear, but there are drugs for that.

Last Night's Post Was Confusing in More Than One Way

So I was called in to the office of one of the deans of academic affairs. The meeting appeared to have something to do with my written work, as she had several of my papers spread out on her desk, as well as one of my papers on the monitor of her laptop. As I looked closer, I was able to recognize for reading titles upside down a couple of papers from high school.  I was beginning to grow concerned. concerned.

Once the dean or assistant dean, or whoever she was  began to speak, I realized I had no cause to be alarmed. She said that initially when professors receive papers  [that they actually read] that seem highly polished, they forward copies to the office of academic affairs. For the most part, the papers are filed, and no one even looks at them. They are only reviewed when more than two or three separate compositions end up in the files. At that point, they are investigated for two reasons. Either the student author has beaten the system and has a parent, older sibling, or someone else close to him or her who has written professionally may be doing work for the student, or the student is a legitimately talented writer. An investigation into possible non-elctronic plagiarism is more likely to ensue if the student is not an English major, as it's less rare for an English major to be a skilled writer.  If the student in question is a math, science, or music major, consistently exceptional papers send up more  red flags.

In my case, both of my parents have been published in journals, but my dad's work in particular wouldn't really pertain as it would fall more closely under the umbrella of technical writing than of expository writing.  My mothr's writings were more suspect, but it didn't take the linguist who was cnonsulted long to conclude while scanning the papers with no names attached to sort them into piles of those authored by mom mom and those authored by me.

Electronic cheating had been ruled out, and any easy method of catching me in plagiarism had also been ruled out. When in-class essay tests were compared, the linguist the consulted told them withn 99.4 5 confidence (I'd love to know how he arrived at that precise figure; my guess is that he pressed random buttons guaranteeing a probability equal to or greator than 98. 5%) and went with it.

When it reaches that point, the negative turns into a positive. The personnel in the office of academic affairs looks at what humanities  foundation awards and other monetary grants most closely mesh with the  particular student's qualifications. Any remaining elective or electives that might give a student a particular edge for a particular award are recommended.

 If it were just a framed certificate, I'd say I have more important fish to fry. There is, however, actual cash in substantial amounts attached to these awards. it's worht my whil to at least listen to what the deans and their assistants have to say.  Since I need totake human phonetics eithr before or during medical school, ifone additional linguistics course would give me a decided advantage in wo separate pravately funded foundation awards, and if winning one does not negatively impact one's chances of winning another, it pays to listen to what these people have to say. moreover, the money ganted with these awards comes with no strings whatsoever attached.

I go back to the office of academic affairs to plan my final courses for the next academic year. With tens of thousands of dollars on the line, I'm open to at least listening to their suggestions.

A friend in my a capella group was awarded in excess of eighty-thousand dollars last year. I'm not counting on anything resembling that amount of money, but I'll take anything that is offered carte blanche.

It's funny how soething that started out as a bit as a negative ended up so positive, although i'm not assuming I'll actually receive anything unil the check with my name on it has cleared the bank from which the check was drawn andhas been deposited into my own account.

I'm really, really glad I knew nothing of any of this until the possibility that I had plagiarized had been removed from consideration as far as the office of academic affairs was concerned. Just the thought of it probably would have brought on a severe attack of trichotillomania, which is the very last thing that either I or Jarede needs. Who wants bald spots all over her head, and who wants the name of a girl with scads of bald spots covering her head  tattooed on his bicep?

All of this may come as something of a shock to someone who stumbles across this blog from time to time. I'm usuallyin a rush when I  blog, and I don't edit with mch care. on the other hand, when doing school work, I print out a hard copy, edit it, and then make the edits on the computer  before printing the final copy.  What you're reading is what comes of the top of my head. I sometimes edit, but seldom are things well-thought before being typed. My academic work is carefully organized.

makes nosens. i;ll clear it up tomorrow, but I wanted t say happy 29th bday to Scott

"To Catch a Thief" anti-plagiarism software  cleared me from all but the most random and obscure of works that could ever be fessaysaround by anyone, much less by the software programs. This was quickly concluded to be unlikely to the point of virtual impossibility.  The remaining possibility was that i had a personal source for my plagiarism. A comparison of my in-class tests involvingvolving short or long essays allowed the ethics committee to reach the conclusion that, unless I happened to be highly sophit

  I was contacted today by an academic dean from the English department. I was easked to bring several work samples with me. Once I arrived, I saw that the dean also had several of my papers in front of her and one on her computer screen.  This was at first a cause of immediate concern for me. Once the dean started talking, I relaxed a bit.

She said my papers were of significant quality that they initially flew directly into the foci of  the radar.  The Internet Most papers are submitted to one of several internet services to cross-check for plagiarism.  these services fulfill multiple purposes. First, they check submitted material against anything available on any major search engine, i.e. one cannot blatantly plagiarize a paragraph at a time from Wikipedia, the Mayo Clinic website  or virtually any other easily accessible online source of information. In such cases, a person is usually only copying excepts here or there, but pre modern Internet, catching a student lifting a few odd paragraphs from a given source or two rarely happened and was usually only a conincidence if it were caugth at all.

Secondly, it checks a student's papers against others that are being or have been submitted, thus making it difficult for five students to turn in the same paper to five professors at a given university or even at fifteen different universities across the nation.

This postmakes little or no sense at this oint, and I keep falling sleep with y finger if mn of thr jrdm casuing it tolook like this k]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]].

I'll carify and finish this up tomorrow. In th meantimes, i wanted to wish a belated happy birthday to mysweet Uncle Scottt, one of thr world' truly nicest people. dkfkllb;bll   The babyis not Scott's by the way; he and jillin were abysitting.

same song, second verse (a little louder, but not much worse)

It was almost -- not quite, but almost -- fun to go to today's "Physics of Fractures" lecture and understand exactly  what the professor meant by what he said. he asked if anyone present had ever suffered a compound fracture. I looked around for someone else to raise his or her hand, but no one did, so I raised mine. He asked the nature of my fracture.   I told him it was a tib-fib break incurred in a freak hurdling accident. I was wearing shorts, so he wandered over to look at my leg. A few scars are still visoble. After asking for permission to do so, he probled the site of the fracture briefly. He said it was a little further up the leg that most tibia-fibula fractures are. I told him it was because that was where the hurdle came down on top of my leg with most of the other hurdler's weight directly on  the hurdle.  He asked if I have any of the early xrays of the injury eeasily accessible. I told him I think my dad has copies at home. He asked me to bing them to the next session of class if I can locate them.  It's not exactly something I'm excited about reliving, but in the rand scheme, looking at a coule of xrays is a small price to pay in order to please a professor.

It's not like looking the graphic murder photographs from Jodi Arias' trial, or any such thing.  I was initially being facetious when I suggested that the attorneys and judge were in collusion to gain for themselves inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records for officiating in the world's longest murder trial. By now, though, I'm starting to belive my own joking conspiracy theories,  They make the number of sidebars in the OJ trial appear minimal by comparison.  a/t the rat things are progressing, Jodi arias' sentence will be a moot point. She'll either be reeased as  very old woman by the time the rial concludes if she's found not guilty, or if she's found guilty and even sentenced to death,  she will succumb to old age long before the Grim Reaper appears in the form of lethal injection, the electric chair, or any other draconian means of capital punishment used by the State of Arizona.

On the Jared front, there's not a great deal of new information. Jared's dad is officially sleeping on the couch in his den. I understand that such falls under the category of either  too much information of a violation of privacy, but it's not like Dr. X's patients read this blog and know who he is. All of Dr. X's siblings have called him to tell him he's being ridiculous and that the last thing the lDS church needs is a missionary in the mision field who truly does not want to be there.   Jared's father's answer to that was that Jared's serving a mission was not necessarily going to do one bit of good for the church, but that it would be good for Jared. He didn't explain how sending someone halfway across the world (assuing Jared was sent to a remote mission; for all we know, he could've ended up in Pocatello, Idaho, where almost everyone is Mormon, harassing  the few nonmormons on almost a daily basis) who had no desire to serve a mission.

Various plans have been proposed for financing Jared's education. Typically my parents ar the first to offer, which is why, even though my dad makes so much money,  we live beneath the standard of poverty. My mom thought it was a good idea idea for us to  ourselves as far removed from this particular family feud as possible. There's a limt to how far we can stay out of it, though, since it's my name emblzoned on Jared's bicep. I cetainly didn't ask him toput it there, though. I hope his future wife likes it. Maybe they can name their first daughter Alexis.

I was thinkng of other names, words, or slogans jared could have used for his tatto. "Mom" is still may favorite. "Jesus Saves" might have been nice as well, as it's a phrase the LDS Church typically eschews. This one's wordy -- more suitable for a bumper sticker, which is where I originally saw it -- "Jesus loves you; everyone else thinks you're an asshole." He might have needed to use both arms for that one.

I think my personal favorite is the following: "I'm serving the same kind of mission that Thomas  Monson did." Tommy, with all his known humanitarian aid to widows far and near, did not serve a mission as a young man. I think he may have done a mission president stint after he had already gotten old and fat and rich, but living the luxurious life of a mission president, residing in a virtual palace with a generous stipend from the church, with his wife there beside him and presumably with rights to all the consortium or conjugal activity or whatever term one might use to euphemistically  refer to s-e-x  as one can fit into his busy schedule, is not the same as the missionary service provided by the young men and women in the mission force. Hell, with enough Viagra, a mission president could conceivably do the horizontal paso doble for the duration of his service as mission president, with an occasional retreat from thr dance floor/bed to  berate the young missionaries under his jurisdiction for any and all hand-to-kielbasa contact, deliberate or otherise,  while his assitants actually kept the mission up and running. The logical explanation for why this doesn't happen, most of us suspect, is that, with some notable exceptions, by the time a man has reached sufficient stature in the church to be called as mission president, he'd need more Viagra than even Conrad Murray could have been persuaded to prescribe to Michael Jackson had that been the King of Pop's magic potion of choice, in addition to a paper bag to put over his head. In fairness, the wife would need something to occlude her vision as well.

The omission of Monson's middle initial was a deliberate act on my part.  I now no longer humor the LDS head honchos  -- my own grandfather or any of the rest of them -- by including their first or middle initials while using their names. It's an affectation that reeks of delusion of grandeur. If the Twelve, the First Presidency , or even the Quorums of the Seventy, (it pains me to hit the shift key as I type the words used for the ruling bodies of the church; perhpas my next step in the progression of my grand apostacy will be to refuse to capitalize anything related to the Church other than the name of Jesus himself) wish to dupe themselves into believeing that they're in possession of some sort of trandendency and that the use of a first or middle initial somehow adds to the mystique (just like the curtain behind which the Wizard of Oz hides),   more power to them,  but the last time I consulted  theU. S. Constitution, amendments included, or any of my state or local laws (I didn't bother consulting Utah laws; I wouldn't be all that shocked to see that the state if Utah, with its reputation for extreme adherence to  the principle of separation of church and state, had passed a law that the Grand Poohbahs of the official State Church be addressed or referenced only with inclusion of the requisite initials.

Jared's grandfather called his son, Jared's father. the grandfather told his son that if his son were to cease to cover the expenses related to Jared's education there was nothing he, the grandfather could do to keep him from paying for his son's education. He reminded Jared's father that his own undergraduate schooling and medical school had been taken care of by his parents with no strings attached, and if his conscience allows him to do otherwise where Jared is concerned,  neither he (the grandfather, nor anyone else, with the possible exception of Jared's mother, can force Jared's father to payJared's college and grad school expenses. The one thing he can and will do if necessary, Jared's  grandfather said, willbe to pay for Jared's educational costs, including living expenses himself, and to do so with funds from Jared's father's share of the inheritance that the grandparents plan to leave their children. It's either pay now or receive less later,  Jared's grandfather told his own son, while reminding Jared's father that children's educational expenses are tax-deductible.  unless Jared's immediate family is in a much less stable financial situation than any of us had any reason to believe, Jared's father will see the light and continue to fork over the funds needed for Jared to cntinue his studies. Moreover, if Jared's family financial situationis so dire, exactly how did Jared's father plan to pay for Jared's mission? By the time the kid's suits have been purchased and the monthly stipends paid to the church, a mission costs a family roughly ten thousand dollars.  It's small change compared to the total cost of a UCLA education, but niether is it chump change.

My prediction: Jared's father will pray about it and will decide, whether because God inspired him or whether he added up the dollars and cents involved in the decision, to do the right thing.  He won't forgive Jared immediately, as Jared's father's image will suffer among his church peers. (So will his mother's, but she doesn't care.)  Jared willbe forgven eventually, but the main thing is that Jared's father will, if my predictions are correct, be off thesofa and back into his own bed within a week.

My brother Matthew is going ahead with his own mini-protest.  He's already had thirty fake tattoos with the name "Alexis" made up by some guy who operates a T-Shirt  kiosk in Venice Beach. He has at least twenty-six people already committed to attending. Persuading so many people to do this cannot have been an easy thing, as it's common knowledge that LDS services are boring as Hell. I'm seriously impressed with Matthew's organizational and persuasive skills. Perhaps he shoould consider a career in sales or even in politics rathr than in medicine, as are his current plans.

# the non-artist still known as Alexis

The Fallout

What's going on in Jared's life is a whole lot more interesting than anything happening to me, so I'll share a few of his details.  Those of you who read last night/this morning's blog know that he had my name tattooed on his bicep because missionaries aren't supposed to have tattoes.  All hell broke loose.  His father said he's not paying for Jared's education. I'm not sure how Jared's paternal grandmother heard about what his father said so fast, since she's all the way in Utah while both Jared and his father are in California, but Jared's mom and Jared's paternal grandmother said almost simultaneously that if his father won't pay for his education, they will

Stephanie, Jared's mom, said every bit of money they have is half hers, and if she needs to go to court to prove it, she will. Furthermore, she handles their personal finances and oversees his medical practice finances as well.  I'd hate to see their marriage disintegrate over something as stupid as either a mission or a tattoo, but they've weathered worse than this as a couple. This , too shall pass. Jared's dad can be a jerk at times, and sometimes it takes him awhile to come to his senses.

My brother Matthew has what he thinks is  a great idea, which is to get as many males -- maybe even a few females --  Mormon, half-Mormon, or otherwise, to show up at Jared's student ward this Sunday wearing suits with short-sleeve shirts. Halfway through the service, everyone would take off their suit jackets to reveal realistic-loooking fake tattoos that all said "Alexis."

My mom told Matthew it was a terrible idea because when ladies were going to wear pants to church for one week just awhile ago, it practically caused an apocalypse. Mormons take insurrection very seriously.  If Matthew were talking about doing this in Jared's parents' ward here, I'd agree with my mom. In a student ward, however, almost anything goes. Furthermore, if most of the people with the fake tattoos won't even be LDS; what's the worst thing that could happen to them?  Fast and Testimony meeting meeting would probably be interrupted while  all the tattooed people were tossed out, but at least it would give the rest of those in attendance something to talk about.  Usually one leaves Sacrament Meeting   Fast and Testimony or otherwise, remembering absolutely nothing, because it's so much the same as last week and the week before and the week before that. etc.  Kotex Head incidents are few and far between.

Jared's mom and my mom both think it would be a bad idea for him to come here [to this city] this weekend, so he's staying in LA. My pseudoaunt's younger brother, Tim, who's practically related to him, has volunteered to host him for the weelend. Matthew will join them after his baseball game on Saturday. They'll do bachelor things. Hopefully they won't get anymore tattoos.

For anyone who heard the Gordon Lightfoot song I posted on my last blog entry, isn't it arguably the prettiest song ever written about a tattoo?

Whatever you think of me, I'm still your friend, with or without a tattoo.

Risking the wrath of Uncle Scott, Jared sent me another video, along with a message that he had a tattoo bearing my name applied to his upper arm. He's probably the first person in his family on either side of a long line of Mormons who date all the way back to the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to have gotten a tattoo. The significance of the tattoo is that now Jared cannot go on a mission. LDS missionaries, at least in the US culture, do not sport tattoos. It's conceivable that at some later date the tattoo could be removed, and Jared could repent and still serve his mission. It won't happen anytime soon, though, and probably won't happen at all.

Gossip travels fast in Mormon student congregations even at UCLA. Jared's bishop got wind of the tattoo, called Jared in to see it for himself, and promptly called Jared's father, telling him the mission is a no go. (This is one of my major issues with the LDS church. Jared, at  eighteen, is a legal adult.  Why did an ecclesiastical authority feel the need to inform Jared's father of his son's most egregious sin,  which isn't a violation of any state or local law -- only a Mormon law. For that matter,  it's a damned tenuous "Mormon law" he broke. Some random "prophet" has a "revelation" that tattoos are bad, and BOOM! It's a commandment! Jared didn't break any of the ten commandments except possibly #5, "Honor thy parents," and that one was broken only in the vaguest sense. At some point a young man's body ceases to be the property of his parents, and if he chooses a piercing or a tattoo, it's not dishonoring one's parent; it's self expression. Does a parent have a son (sorry to be crude) by the testicles until the day either the parent or child dies by hanging the threat of the fifth commandment and the consequences of its violation over the son's head for as long as the parent can speak? In a civilized society, I would certainly hope not.  

By now the bird poop has hit the fan.  Jared's father wanted him to come home tonight. Jared refused to go, as he has classes for the rest of the week, and he didn't feel like fighting traffic along US 101 just to be screamed at in person, then to have to fight traffic back down US 101 to get back to campus. It seemed like a waste of both time and gasoline.

I'm sending along the video Jared sent me. It's of a Gordon Lightfoot song about a guy who had too much to drink, then went into a tattoo parlour and had a woman's name tattooed somewhere on his body. The melody to me doesn't fit the subject matter of the song. It sounds more like a tune for a song about the Duchess of Wales' new baby, or maybe about Jesus feeding the mutitudes with five loaves of bread and two fish. The melody is just too dolce to be about a tattoo. Regardless, it's Gordon Lightfoot's song, and I supose he can write it about anything he wants. At least it's not about a shipwreck in which twenty-nine people lost their lives.

So it appears Jared has made his decision, and in a unique way, I might add. I applaud his creativity as I applaud his courage in doing what he feels is best for his own life despite considerable pressure to do otherwise.  My only regret in the entire matter is, first, that he felt that a tattoo was his only way out of serving a mission, and second, that it is my name tattooed on his arm. Only God knows, if even He knows, where Jared  and I will be relationship-wise in ten years.

I hope Jared's father considers one point. What if it hadn't occurred to Jared to get a tattoo to avoid serving a mission? What if Jared had taken a more drastic step?  Jared would not have been the first young LDS man to take his own life to avoid serving a mission, or to do the same because he couldn't cope with the craziness once he found himself in the mission environment.  Jared's father should be thanking the God he worships that he still has a living, breathing son, even if that son does have the name "Alexis" emblazoned across his right bicep.

      

My Favorite Music Videos

This list probably changes everyday, but that's not necessarily a reason not to put it into print.  For the most part, I have to like the song in order to like the video, but there are a few exceptions. Unlike others of my generation, I don't necessarily agree with them that, even though technology has improved, today's videos are superior to those of a few years ago. Anyway, here it goes.

"Pon de Floor" by Major Lazor. It's just too bizarre not to love. I find something new in it each time I read it, similar to when I read the Bible. I'm not suggesting that "Pon de Floor" is scripture or anything like the Bible, so please don't start casting stones at me. I was merely making an analogy.

"Like a Prayer" by Madonna. The Queen of Pop is in top form, but it's the gospel choir that makes this video.

"Just" by Radiohead. It's classic Radiohead, and there's even a bit of a plot.

"You Can Call me Al" by Paul Simon. Chevy Chase lip syncs hilariously while Paul Simon plays along on a large bongo. At one point he appears to prepare to sing, but Chevy hogs the mike. It's hard to explain why this is funny but it is. The contrast in size between Paul Simon and Chevy Chase adds to the hilarity of it.

"Bad Day"  by Daniel Powter. It's a good song with a video featuring a boy who almost meets a girl about a thousand times through each of their consecutive respective bad days until they actually make contact, all going down in Times Square. Daniel Powter pops up at odd times with his piano in Times Square just to add to the ambience.

"100 Years" by Five for Fighting. The song is deep, and the video is deep. I love the way John Ondrasik has grand pianos placed in bizarre locations - on beaches, deserts, etc. It always reminds me of a couple of years ago when some moron carried a grand piano by boat out to a sandbar in Biscayne Bay, then had his friends torch it. Why torch it?  Someone could have held  a hell of a concert out there until the waves got too high. I like almost any video by Five for Fighting.

"Down to the River to Pray" by Alison Krauss. There are scads of videos of this, but my favorite is from the movie  O Brother, Where Art Thou. 

"The Scientist" by Coldplay. The video features Chris matin waking up from an auto accident. It's bizarre but good.

"Bohemian Rhapsody"by Queen. The song gives any videographer so much with which to work, and it seems as though the tendency would be to overdo it, but in this case it is, if anything, understated.

"Good Riddance" by Green Day.  I love the song. I understand the song itself is about a breakup and is really intended to be somewhat mocking and ironic, but is often taken more literally.  The video features the singer and various others with totally blank, mindless expressions on their faces. I'm not sure I get it, but I like it.

"Sister Christian" by Night Ranger. It's old-style and cliche, with a beautiful but pious Catholic girl getting tired of watching the good life pass her by, and eventually gives in and takes off with the fun group.  The video has some great nun scenes. Not that anyone ever accused music videos of overdoing reality, but I don't think Catholic school has been quite like this since the mid 60's. Maybe the song's that old. I really don't know. I do like it, though.

"Hey There Delilah" by Plain White T's. It's a bit cliche, also, but it's sweet in its own way. I probably actually like the song more than the video. It reminds me of a girl my mom has helping her with our cleaning.  The girl actually married the musician after getting pregnant at 17, then had another baby. They're still together, but he's on the road trying to make enough money to support the four of them, and, at the age of 19,  she's cleaning houses with one baby in a backpack and another in a playpen. I don't think he has any idea how heavily the odds are stacked against him actually getting anywhere in the music business, but I have to give him credit for trying, and what do I know , anyway? Maybe he will make it. My mom would like to get the girl in college. My mom's afraid they'll split and she'll have no job skills except scrubbing showers and toilets. It's a tough situation. I wish them all the luck in the world, as they're going to need it. This really has little to do with the song or the video, but I'm just typing as thoughts come out of my mind to my fingers.

"November Rain" by Guns 'n Roses. The song is beautiful and the video is basically perfect. I can't say more.

Post script: Jared still hasn't received his mission call and it's driving him nuts. typically it would havecome about ten days ago. Maybe thy're saving a really special spot for him, like Antarctia. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

ain't much an old college girl like me can't hack

When the work's all done and the sun's settin' low,
I pull out my fiddle and I resin up the bow.
The [nonexsistant] kids are asleep, so I keep it kinda low;
Thank God I'm NOT a country girl.

When I finished the very last of my memorization tonight, I did something I haven't done at any length for quite some time, which was to play my violin. I don't play it nearly as often as I should, especially since the professor of my "Strings" class and my academic counselor think it would be wise for me to tack a violin performance major onto my existing piano performance major.

Doing so will be a bit of a stretch. I haven't had tons of formal instruction. My mom has been my only teacher, and while she's a great musician, she doesn't play the violin with the skill that she plays piano or sings. She's not unskilled; it just was never her major instrument.

I don't have my mom's level of technique at violin, but I achieve a naturally better sound with any song I learn to play than she does. I just don't learn to play songs as easily as she does because I lack the foundation.  She just looks at the music and plays the songs. I have to work out the fingering.

I'll need to improve my skill level to the extent that I will be able to sightread on violin at least a little bit, as I will be required to do so as a violin performance major.  Playing the works I'll need to play for my senior recital next year won't be such a challenge, as I can learn things in advance easily enough. It's just the sightreading that will hold me back a bit.  It's not the most important component of anything on which I will be adjudicated, but I will need to sightread with at least minimal proficiency before a faculty panel.

All things considered, I wish I'd learned cello instead of violin, as the sound a cello produces is such a thing of beauty. I suppose there's plenty of time for that later. If my Godparents ask me what I want as a gift for college graduation next year, I'll ask for a cello. That sounds greedy of me to ask for such a pricy gift, as I would want a good cello if I got a cello at all, but it's in the price range of what they would have spent anyway. Just asking for it hints of a sense of entitlement.

My academic adviser from the university counseling department says  standard pre-med curriculum majors with dual majors in violin performance  tacked on have a better chance, for some reason unbeknonwst to me, of gaining admission to quality medical schools and to prime residency positions, assuming they have high GPAs and MCAT scores as compared to the competition. Had I known that earlier, I might have scrapped the piano performance major, but I've gone far enough with piano that I may as well take the major to its completion. It will still presumably be  advantageous to have piano and violin to add to my math/science pre-med curriculum major.

It was about at this point that my mom's full voice began to come in,  causing her to spend an extra semester in school (she graduated in 3 1/2 years when it otherwise would have been just three) to complete the voice major.  It appears that's something not happening right away if at all for me. I still have a young girl's voice, which is better than no voice at all, but not good enough for a voice performance major.  I may never really be a singer, or one day I may wake up with a full voice.

Paul, if you're still around, at some point soon I'll post a vocal. You won't be all that impressed. I still sound like a kid,

Regarding my memorization, I feel compelled to offer words of advice. If you're planning to break a bone, there are a few bones you would do well to leave out of this plan. The vertebrae surrounding the upper spinal cord (neck and upper back)  are logical inclusions to this category because of the potential damage to the spinal cord, which is something with which you should not monkey around.

You should not wish to break you maxilla (upper jaw-bone, which extends all the way to the eye socket) because it  heals very slowly and often only with the need of much intervention, surgical and otherwise. Just thinking about it is painful.

Another fracture to avoid is the "Jones' Fracture," which is a fracture of the diaphysis of the fifth metatarsal of the foot. It seems trivial enough, as it's essentially the lower porion of a person's pinky toe, but in a disproportionately high percentage of cases, the bone segments fail to reunite, resultng in treatment of surgery and up to twenty weeks in  a cast. Think about it: surgery and twenty weeks in a cast, on crutches to keep your weight off it,  just for breaking your pinky toe, and even then it's sometimes a chronic problem that's never fully healed.

I'm gaining increasing respect for my dad, my uncles Steve and Michael, my aunt Joanne, and my uncle Scott, because all have made it through medical school, yet none of them are hypochondriacs.  I'm finding that just the pre-med stuff is making me paranoid. I feel every symptom about which I either read or hear about in a lecture.

My opening quotation was a slightly paraphrased version of an old John Denver hit actually written by his fiddler and guitarist John Summers. the penultimate quotation is Randy Newman's theme from the TV series Monk. I find it most ftting in light of all the things I'm learning in pre-med. I shudder slightly at the thought of what medical school has in store for me.

It's a jungle out there
Disorder and confusion everywhere
No one seems to care
Well I do
Hey, who's in charge here?
It's a jungle out there
Poison in the very air we breathe
Do you know what's in the water that you drink?
Well I do, and it's amazingPeople think I'm crazy, 'cause I worry all the time
If you paid attention, you'd be worried too
You better pay attention
Or this world we love so much might just kill you
I could be wrong now, but I don't think so!
'Cause there's a jungle out there.
It's a jungle out there

All paranoia aside, my hard work for the quarter has been done.  

Hallelujah! Hallelujah
!Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Halle-lu-jah! 
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Halle-lu-jah!
For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!Hallelujah!

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!Hallelujah!
For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!Hallelujah!
The kingdom of this world is become

The kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ!
And of His Christ!
And He shall reign forever and ever!
And He shall reign forever and ever!
And he shall reign forever and ever!
And he shall reign forever and ever!

King of Kings!

Forever and ever! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

And Lord of Lords!
Forever and Ever! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
King of Kings! 
Forever and ever! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
And Lord of Lords! 
Forever  and ever! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
King of Kings!
Forever and ever! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!And Lord of Lords!
King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
And He shall reign
And He shall reign
And He shall reign!
And He shall reign forever and ever!
King of Kings!
Forever and ever!
And Lord of Lords!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
And He shall reign forever and ever
King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

And He shall  reign forever and ever!

Forever and ever and ever and ever!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Hal-le-lu-jah!

Pardon my irrevernt if not outrightly blasphemous use of Handel's scripture-based "Hallelujah Chorus" from his "Messiah" oratorio, but I'm so freaking elated to be finished with the workload from this quarter than nothing else can adequately express how I'm feeling, unless it was maybe "Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Chung tonight!"

I wish for everyone  a reason to feel as happy as I feel at this moment.

#  The non-artist still known as Alexis

lies, liars, and people who confuse rudeness with honesty

I had to take an additional writing test -- this one for the who apply to graduate programs -- in addition to that MSAT LSAT MCAT, or anything else of that nature.We had three topics from which to choose, and were required to use the testing center's laptops. The tests can be graded more quickly since they can be forwarded to graders immediately. As far as the old hand-written method of composing essays for tests,  graders are weary of attempting to decipher the test-takers' penmanship, and my particular university encourages the disallowance printing on tests reiquiring the writing of text (poetry or prose) because the head honchos here refuse to give up on manuscript.

About the actual topic. . . there were three choices. One  involved the electoral college, as in why it was instituted, why is or isn't it still practical in today's U.S.A., and what changes to it would the writer make if allowed? Another involved population control. Speaking globally, the world is in a precarious overpopulation situation. In the United States, however, while resources are still an issue, we're also in a situation where those who work, who pay taxes, and who function productively in society are reproducing at a far lower rate than those who do not contribute substantially to our work force. This is obviously not referencing the elderly retired population. What's the answer? Do we go for the short-term solution and improve American society by somehow encouraging the educated the wealthy or educated to have more children, or do we think more globally and try to control our popultion for the benefit of the Earth's resources and deal with the U. S.'s social problems in some other way? Option three involved aspects of lying. It asked for the writer's definition of lying, asked the writer to discuss lying in personal and professional settings, directed the writer to  discuss the absolutes as well as the gray areas of lying, and asked the writer to consider when or if lying might be appropriate or even the right thing to do. It asked the writer to consider the practical and ethical aspects of lying.

I chose option three --lying -- primarily because I felt I would write too much on the other topics. Lying is something I don't like to think about very much because it reminds meof the times I have lied and causes me to feel guilty.

I defined lying as simply propagating an untruth by word or action. The absolutes of lying can involve not telling the truth when one is under oath.  Another absolute aspect of lying would be telling an untruth or allowing others to reach the conclusion when doing so would cause blame that should belong to oneself to fall on another.  Any untruth that harms another, whether physically,professionally, financially, or by personal reputation, would presumably fall under the absolute category of ling.

Gray areas of lying of the not-so-noble kind might include passing around a rumor that one doesn't know to be fact. Even though one does not know for certain that the tale is untrue, neither does the person know with any degree of certainty that it is true.  If it's the sort of rumor that would damage a person's reputation, I would classify it as very dark gray at the lightest. If it's the sort of rumor that damages one's reputation and it turns out that it is true, while the telling of it may be neither necessary, nice, nor right, it's still not a lie, and wouldn't fall into a gray area where honesty is concerned. It's still a character issue, as why would an ethical and moral person need to tell a story in most instances, true or not, solely for the purpose of damaging a person's reputation?

Then come the trivial lies -- ones people call white lies --  intended to spare someone's feelings or perhaps spare someone from facing consequences when doing so wouldn't really cause  great deal of harm. Each person has to determine the parameters for himself or herself.  What if the lie is intended to spare someone embarrassment? Is one really obligated to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when reporting his or her weight at the DMV for one's driver's license? On the other hand, if the lie is to spare oneself from consequence, it's really not in the gray area for the most part. It happens all the time, and maybe little will come of it, but it's still not a morally upstanding thing to do.

What does one do when teaching honesty to children? If a parent frequently lies in front of a child, the child will eventually recognize that some of the things the parent says are untrue. The child will then learn either that the parent is a liar or that it is permissable to lie when it suits one to do so.

On the other hand, it is possible for a parent to teach honesty at the expense of tact. There is a difference between honesty and discourtesy. One young child I know is fond of pointing out overweight people she sees in public and loudly announcing her classification of the person as overweight. ("Fat" is the actual world she uses.) The mother gives a smile that appears halfway between apologetic and believing that her child's behavior is  cute. "I teach her to be honest, " she explains to the offended person. No, lady, you teach your kid to be rude. Just because a person, child or adult, believes something to be true does not mke it dishonest not to proclaim it loudly, particularly when it is offensive or will embarrass someone or hurt the person's feelings. I'm almost looking forward to kindergarten, when some other child decks the kid for something rude or hurtful she says.

In summation, it is [basically] always wrong to lie under oath. (There was an instance on a repeat of Judging Amy when either Amy or her mom lied on the witness stand to keep a kid out of trouble who killed a felon who was attempting to harm Amy's family. I thought it was justified.** Those instances are few and far betweeen,however.)  It is wrong to lie when your lie places blame that should belong to you or your friend upon someone else. It is wrong to lie about faithfulness to one's spouse or significant other. It is wrong to lie for business or financial gain, especially at someone else's expense. Similarly, it is wrong as well as illegal to lie in advertising. It is wrong to lie to damage someone's reputation. It is wrong to lie in any situation in which your lie will harm someone else for any reason.

If your friend is thinking of starting a  cupcake business and you happen to know that the cupcakes she makes taste like cow manure, you are not under obligation to volunteer that information, but, if asked, perhaps you would be doing the friend a kindness to suggest that her recipe or technique be altered a bit.  Your friend may not like hearing this, as his or her ego may be severely harmed by your reply. It's up to you to make a decision as to whether or not your relationship can withstand the truth, or whether you would prefer for your friend to be angry with you for awhile as opposed to going bankrupt due to a failed business venture.

What do you do if you know the spouse of a friend is being unfaithful? The answer here may depend upon multiple factors. How close to you is the friend? Are you equally close to the spouse?  Is the friend asking you point-blank, or is this simply information to which you are privy but the spouse is not? Bear in mind that if it is unsolicited information you're giving out, chances are that the bearer of bad news may receive the bulk of the blame. Are you prepared to lose the friendship over this?  Can you possibly persuade the spouse to tell your friend, possibly by telling the spouse that you will tell if the spouse has not informed your friend by the relatively short deadline that you give? Then, if the spouse doesn't tell, you can decide if you meant what you said or if you were bluffing.  On the other hand, if the friend finds out that you knew and didn't tell, you might be blamed for that as well. In some cases you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Where children are concerned, it's best not to lie in their presence, especially before they're past the concrete operational stage. Most likely they'll hear you making a phony excuse as to why you can't go somewhere or do something. If you're really lucky, they won't contradict you on the spot.  Be prepared with a really credible explanation to your child as to the reason for your words or you'll undo years of good teaching in one fell swoop.  It's also wise to teach children that keeping one's mouth shut when one sees someone with funny-looking hair or a glass eye is not akin to lying.  Being truthful does not require one to loudly announce his or her opinion about everything or everyone he or she sees. I know many adults who hav yet to master this concept.

Everyone lies. Some people are really good at it. Others aren't smart enough to be successful liars. Still others are too stupid to know when to throw in the towel on an attempt at a lie. When you're caught in the liquor cabinet and you've already consumed a drink or two, only an incredibly stupid or gullible parent is going to fall for the lie you make up about dusting off all the bottles because you're worried about the dust affecting someone's allergies. Similarly, if your parents attach a GPS that tracks your every move to your car, don't say you were at the library when you were at a party. Instead, park your car in the parking lot closest to the library and walk if it's close, or otherwise take public transportation to the party.

If your child is one of those obnoxious brats who loudly points out every physical difference he or she observes in anyone, be prepared for a lot of dirty looks and rude comments for the present, and stock up on ice packs and band-aids or consider home-schooling once the child reaches school attendance age.

Incidentally, what I wrote here was not what I wrote on my writing exam. I did want to pass, after  all, in the event I  choose to enter a graduate program at my present school.

I have only  about threemore hours of memorization ahead of me. Yippee!


** Judge Amy was fictional, by the way.

Making News Out of Nothing at All

I offer my apologies to the 70's or 80's group Air Supply for the paraphrase of the title of one of their hit songs, and also for associating their song with the Jodi Arias trial.  Other than it being a slow news quarter-of-a-year until the Boston Marathon shooting came along, and we seem to quickly be losing interest in that and going back to the Arias trial, I can think of nothing other than the idea that many of us are inappropriately attracted to morbid crime.  I admit that I've watched more of the gruesome mess than I can excuse, although part of it is my fascination with the weirdness that is Madame LaViolette.

Alyce LaViolette is a piece of work, to say the least.  She's weird-looking to begin with, which I probably shouldn't hold against her, yet her bizarre appearance cannot help adding to my total fascination with her.  Added to that is my opinion that at least half of the words that come out of her mouth are ludicrous.  Furthermore, she gives off the strangest of vibes. If I enrolled up in a class and showed up to find someone who looked, spoke, and conducted himself or herself as does Madame Laviolette, I'd seriously consider dropping the course even if it delayed my graduation or if the word on the street were that it was the easiest A on campus.

Somewhere on the vast World Wide Web, chances are that once can find some sort of Alyce La Violette Fan Club.  Suffice it to say that I'm not a member.

I'm watching HLN right now. A program, "After Dark: Jodi Arias Trial"  is currently airing. It features a mock jury and a couple of hosts that are strongly opposed to the idea that the murder of Travis Alexander was premeditated. I don't know how many rocks HLN had to dig up and look under to find so many mock jurors who seem to believe much of what Jodi Arias has to say. I suppose it's only fair, though, since so muh of HLN's coverage of the trial has been heavily biased (though not without reason in my opinion) against Jodi Arias.

I need to forget about Jodi Arias for a few hours in order to commit to memory what was discussed in class today regarding a difficult chapter of my Physics of Fractures textbook. Once I have completed that task, which should take me a few hours tonight and tomorrow night, I will have cause to celebrate. I hope that in a few short days, the late Travis Alexander's family and friends will have similar cause for celebration, although a "Guilty" verdict, even of the gravest charge on the table, is hardly cause for legitimate celebration. It won't bring Travis back.

I'm not idealizing Travis in death beyond what he was in life. He appeared to be a man, though well-loved by many, who was of questionable character. Still, he did nothing to deserve to die, and certainly not in the heinous manner of death chosen by Ms. Arias.

Still, is this really news on a national scale? 

Theodore Seuss Geisel

I don't think I've ever shared before just how deeply I am in love with the works of Dr. Seuss. I own  fairly large collection of his books. My parents still get me one I don't yet own for every Christmas and birthday. I also purchase them on my own on occasion, but not near Christmases or birthdays because I want to avoid duplication.   I keep them neatly stacked in a bookcase in alphabetical order in my bedroom. My parents have repeatedly offered to make room for the Dr. Seuss volumes in their own library, but I want them in my own room.

 Someday, assuming nothing else goes out of print and becomes ridiculously expensive before I've collected it, I hope to own every book ever written by him, including the ones written under other pseudonyms. Ones that he has written but not illustrated are published under Theo LeSieg, which is, of course, the backward spelling of his actual last name, Geisel.  Suess, his middle name, was his mother's maiden name. Interestingly enough, the correct pronunciation  of is is /soiss/. He original labored to have his number one pseudonym pronounced correctly, but eventually gave up in his effort.

Sr. Seuss first began using Seuss as a synonym because  he was for some reason banned from writing for a publication at Dartmouth, where he earned his undergraduate degree. He continued to contribute to the publication, though under a synonym.

Dr. Seuss went to Oxford University in England to earn his doctorate, but met and fell in love with a woman, so instead returned to the United States and married her. he never officially earned a doctorate, though he must have possessed a truckload of honorary doctorates by the time of his death, which was, I believe, in 1991.

While Dr. Seuss professed liberal political leanings and was a registered democrat (he once rewrote
Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now with the name Richard M. Nixon inserted in each place where "Marvin K Mooney" had been. That alone would make me love the guy as an author even if he had written nothing else of significance.

While his political ideology may have been liberal, I suspect the agenda of Dr. Seuss with most of his books was more about getting people -- children in particular -- to think than to persuade them to believe one way or another. A couple notable exceptions to this, are The Butter Battle Book, which is clearly anti-war and especially a treatise against nuclear power and [my personal favorite] The Lorax, which clearly has an environmental message. For the most part, though, I think he was deliberately open-ended.

Not everyone likes the works of Dr. Seuss. Some people find  the rhyme scheme and the meter usually employed -- anapestic tetrameter --  to be monotonous.  Some elementary school teachers have told me they dislike many of the works because the language is unnatural. They're slightly missing the point in my opinion. The language of poetry is, by nature, unnatural. Anyone who disagrees should compose a lengthy rhyming poem. We'll all dissect it afterward to determine the natural flow of the poem's language.

Furthermore, the natural flow of language should matter only in the Dr. Seuss books for the very earliest readers. (After the earliest stage, the readers should have sufficient vocabulary and reading skills not to require extremely heavy context in order either to decode or to comprehend literature.) Books for early readers should have built-in cues on which young readers can pick up. One such method of creating such cues is making the language very predictable and adding pictures that practically give the words away. Another method of making text predictable is to  employ the technique of rhyme. It's difficult to use both methods simultaneously on a very large scale. Again, anyone who thinks otherwise should give it a try. I'd love to see it done well.

A friend of mine teaches preschool for children with special needs. A mother of one of her students complained about  The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in The Hat Comes Back being read aloud to her child.  The mother felt that Thing 1 and Thing 2 plus Little Cats A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc., in addition to the cat himself,  were destructive to the extent it encouraged her child to be naughty. my friend explained to the mother that it was not the children behaving badly -- in fact, they, along with the fish, were appalled at the antics of the cat ant the little creatures.  It was intruders misbehaving. My friend explained both that she always made the point whenever she read the books that one should never let strangers into the house when their parents were not home -- that Sally and the boy (he had no name in the book, but in the movie was called Conrad) were very lucky something much worse didn't happen. It's a good opportunity to remind children that it's dangerous to answer the door when mommy is in the bathroom or wherever.

Furthermore, my friend explained to the mother, the sorts of things the cat, the things, and the little cats did -- standing on a ball while holding a rake and balancing a fishbowl on top of it, or flying kites inside a house, for example, were things that would be difficult for young children to manage if they were under any responsible supervision whatsoever. If a parent goes into his or her bedroom, closes the door, and sleeps for three hours while her two- and four-year-olds have the run of the house,  it's conceivable they might attempt some of the cat's feats, but any parent who would provide such incompetent supervision could hardly blame a book for what destruction his or her toddlers might create in a parent's virtual absence.  And any child legitimately old enough to be left alone who would try such things belongs either in a psych ward or in juvey.

My friend's experience is a reminder that whatever profession one chooses, one will inevitably deal with either batshit crazy or highly ignorant people. but, as my friend pointed out, it's better to deal with one of them than to be one of them.

I digressed in a major way. my point is that if you haven't picked up a Dr. Seuss book recently, find one and read it to a child. It will be time well-spent.

must be karma biting me in the butt

I wrote a post in which  I spoke ill of, depending upon how one views things, the Lord's anointed, JimBob Duggar. Next thing you know,  old JimBob's a millionaire, but I have a nasty cold with a hacking cough. Then again, perhpas I just caught it from lurking in prison visitors' rooms. Only God knows for certain the cause, and so far, anyway, He's not telling  The worst thing about it is that I'm sick anough that my nose literally needs a tampon in each nostril when I have to use both hands to type or take notes (I was using loose-leaf paper for one class, ans you  need to hold onto it while you write) and I'm sick enough that I make barking seal noises all the way through each class, causing professors and classmates alike to stare at me with  ill intent, but not sick enough to stay home in bed. It's the worst of both worlds.

So either Karma or God is getting even with me, or I've been hanging out with the wrong element by spending too much time lurking in prison waiting rooms.  Personally, I don't care which it is, I just want it either to go away (best case scenario) or get worse so I can stay home and feel sorry for myself for the rotten hand life has dealt me in the past week. I can't be too sick to go to class on Thursday, though, as that is the day my Physics of Fractures professor covers one of the two really complex chapters.

Life will go on, and so will I. I can't do a hell of a lot about the Jared situation, but I hope the bleeping cold at least gets better soon.

Hasta la vista.

#

Why does a grown man allow himself to be called Jim Bob?

When you're a child, you're given a name. Sometimes you're called that name. Sometimes yu're called by a variation of that name or by a middle name. Sometimes you're called by a nickname that has nothing at all to do with your actual legal first or middle name. When you're very young, ther's not a hell of a lot you can do about it.  our parents are going to call you what they want to call you. In most cases, refusing to answer isn't in your best interest.  If you are "fortunate" enough to have many older siblings, they, too may take liberties with your name in ways of which you ae not fond. Unless your parents wish to do something about it, or unless you're big and strong for your age, you're at a loss to do much about thatm either.

That, however, is when you are a kid. Once you grow up, you have all sorts of options. Sometimes a legal name change is in order. i knew of a uy whose parents named him "Junior;" not "William Jones, Junior" or Samuel Peckham, Junior."   Before "Junior" even graduated from college, he had turned twenty-one, saved his money, and legally changed his name to "John." I would have done the very same thing had I been he.  Another guy I knew was born with the rather unfotunate surname of "Fagg." His parents were determined to live with it, as it was their family heritage. The kid was not. He took money that was in an account intended to fund an LDS mission that fell under his own control the day he turned eighteen, and used the money to  file the paperwork  and pay the fees to legally change his surname. I believe he used his mother's maiden name, which was, I think, "Madsen." I don't know whether or not he ever made it onto his mission after raiding his mission fund to change his name, but I would have done exactly as he did, too.

So the Duggar family lives in a part of the nation where many of us from other locations consider some of their names countrified to the point of being undignified.  "Jim Bob" is one such name. I've never seen Jim Bob Duggar's birth certificate, but i'd be surprised if his legal naem were "Jim Bob," though nothing about the Duggars or anyone else on reality television should surprise me anymore. Anyway, to me it seems more likely that his name is probably something liked "James Robert." Again, I could be wrong. But even if his legal name is "Jim Bob," would any of us hold it against him either to legally change it to something both more grown-up and something more civilized, or, for that matter, simply choosing to call himself a more adult version of one of the names.  "Jim" by itself is probably fine. "Bob" by itself is OK as well. JimBob, however, reeks of unsophistication to my California-born and -bred ears. I cannot understand why a grown man would choose to call himself that or allow himself to be addressed in such a manner regardless of whether it's his legal name. He can't help it if, at family reunions, long-lost cousins approach him and call him by that name. He does not, however, have to use the name when running for state legislature.

The Duggars, on the other hand, may sit around making fun of some of the more hippie-ish California names such as Rainbow and Moon Unit, or the creative Imunique or Nevaeh.