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We hiked in the Wichita Mountains on Christmas Eve:


It snowed today. A day late, but still very nice.

Yesterday was Christmas. It was not the same as having it with my family, but I will say that the Stafford family are excellent surrogates. Many thanks to them for having six children yesterday.

cloudy, 27'F

First off, many thanks to my brother JDS for re-designing the blog. I like it a lot. The pic at the top is from Chimbulak, Kazakhstan in 2002ish.

We picked kind of a bad day to go to Oklahoma City. It got cold and snowy pretty soon after we set out. First we went to the OKC Bombing Memorial. It consists of a reflecting pool and a chair for each victim. Dina didn't understand what I could mean by "chairs" on the phone so I told her I'd post a picture:


This was on the wall of a building that got damaged by the bombing. It wasn't destroyed, but they left it how it was, partially damaged:


We got cold:


I saw this inside the museum and of course had to take a picture:


Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory. Mmmm. Here's what we got:


I gave sister my whipped cream. There was way too much. They both got super-rich chocolatey cheesecakes. A bite of each of theirs was enough for me. Too rich.


Carnage:


Satisfied customer:

holiday cheer

RUF has a Tacky Christmas Sweater competition every year on the last meeting. This year I won second place. My entry was obtained at the Goodwill here in Norman, OK. Some people might say that the jacket (but it's still a sweater cause it's itchy, so I qualify) "found me" rather than vice versa. I'm not quite sure about that, but I wore it, and the rest is history.

Then brother and sister arrived this week to spend break with me, and found out about this item of clothing lying dormant in my closet. We had a photo shoot, of course.

this is the only shot they could get that wasn't blurry. I might be the only one that can get my camera to work properly:

The brother was a most reluctant participant, but after several tries, we got a good one:
The sister fell in love with it and wore it to the airport to pick up the brother. He didn't even notice. I'm afraid she's going to try to take it back to NJ with her:

Emily is 11

As I sit here looking at the blank paper before me I wonder what I should write about. Should it be about the narrow streets lined with garbage or maybe how few people have had the chance to hear the good news of Jesus our savior? I could possibly write about the poor beggars sitting outside the crowded bazaars or the bazaars themselves with so many things to see and smell and the cry of merchants trying to get you to buy their merchandise. Maybe I should write about the different foods like plof and lagman. I could write about how different the schools are, how the children don't respect the teachers and how the teachers yell at the kids and how much more difficult school is here. Or I could write about all of them. What do you think I should write about?

an assortment

1. In 24 hours is my last final exam. The most memorable things I have learned from Francophone Literature, I think, are:
a) The word "defenestration," which is "An act of throwing someone or something out of a window." Didn't know we needed a special word for that...
b) The words "monster" and "demonstrate" have the same root. Which of course makes sense, but I of course never thought about that. Like, monsters have deMONSTRably abnormal characteristics! cool!
c) My professor would easily get distracted, and to bring his lecture around to the appropriate topic, he would say, "but that is neither here nor there." And pronounce it NYE-ther. He usually said that 2-3 times per class period.

2. I just got off the phone with my family. I hadn't talked to them in a while. I tried to tell my sisters that I've been sick for a week, but I somehow managed to extract exactly Zero sympathy from either of them. hm. I told Dina that, as my dad would say, maybe "if I wouldn't be so sickening, I wouldn't be so sick." Maybe that's where my problem is...I'll work on that...

3. Instead of talking to me, Carrie kept "looking for noises," as she said. This included knocking on her head with a pen, scratching with a comb, using a pencil sharpener near the headset, and even putting tape on the microphone then peeling it off. This was all excruciatingly loud for me, and I tried to tell her that maybe all the noise I wanted was that of her conversation. ie, "just talk!!" She didn't really get the message.

4. Dina told me about Isaac taking a paper doll from Carrie, and thinking that the underclothes that they come dressed in were actually a swimsuit, he kindly took the doll to the bathtub for a swim. Thankfully the tub was empty, but the doll still suffered a torn arm and head. This happened on two separate occasions. Isaac means well, but has not quite mastered the technique of gentleness. haha...

5. Dina said while she and my mom were out shopping they counted 8 dogs, 7 of which were strays. *shudder* I'm glad I'm not there right now.

6. My dad was talking about Carrie's first grade math. It was 4+___=6 and they fill in the box. He was noticing that this is significantly easier than the first grade math I did in Russian school, which culminated in long division and multiplication by the end of the year. He says maybe they are dumbing it down "to catch up with the Americans." Oh goodness.

baffling

We were talking about languages today and I learned about a language that is made up entirely of whistling. I don't know what it's called and I don't remember where it's spoken. It's related (?) to Spanish. Not sure how this works. Anyway. So I heard a clip of it. And then I started wondering. I can't really whistle. Not like those people. In this culture, a kid that doesn't know how to whistle would not be able to communicate. He would be considered retarded. Hmm. What does that say about the kids that our culture considers retarded for not communicating the way that we communicate? Are they capable of communicating in some other, equally intelligent, but different way? So they could actually be just as (if not more) intelligent than you or me, they just don't know how to speak the way we do?

whoa. This stuff blows my mind. This is beyond a cultural mindset. The concept of such a different mode of communication is hard for me to grasp.

My brother dug this video up a while ago. It's about the way that autistics think and communicate and function. It was fascinating to see that what goes on in this woman's head - who by our standards would be called severely disabled - is actually quite sensible and highly intelligent.

warm again

Our power came back on late yesterday afternoon. It feels so good to be warm, and be able to see and cook. Aaaahh...

So. I'm sloooowly getting better. My voice is still basically gone, but I feel better than I did. And then just one final this afternoon, one on Saturday afternoon (!) - rescheduled from Monday - and I'm done!

Most people still don't have power though. The other five people in my Russian class have none, and have been crashing at friends' houses. Apparently, over 600,000 customers in Oklahoma (customers, not people) are out of power and it could take up to 7-10 days to get it back. If you are (somehow) reading this and have no power and need a warm place to stay, get ahold of me. We have a comfortable couch.

yay for electricity. I'm thinking FEMA got me back in power. I don't know who it really was.

icy

Our power has been out for nearly 24 hours now. We live in a 21st-century state of complete dependence on electricity, as I realized yesterday. The heating for our house is gas-powered, but is regulated by electricity. Our stove/oven is electric. Everything is electric. The OU campus is a little oasis of self-generated electricity. I came here this morning to get warm and get internet, and will stay until my exam in a few hours.

Yesterday we went out walking and took some pictures of the destroyed trees. They were still cracking and falling while we were outside. It sounds like firecrackers and looks like a warzone.

Thankfully, though, rain or shine, our beloved SeedSower faithfully sows the seeds of knowledge. These days he holds tostitos chips in anticipation of the football game in a couple weeks.

sad looking trees on campus

basically every tree has some if not all major limbs broken

ice

poor frozen shepherdess. I might post more of her on facebook

not very easy to get through in some places

ice

ice

we live on fleetwood dr.

not so easy to drive down

it feels weird to be telling you where i live. hopefully i don't have any creepy readers who will break in on me...

of all things.

What a weekend. I started getting sick on Friday night and have been going downhill from there. Then on Saturday it started snowing/sleeting/raining and has been doing that on and off ever since. Yesterday we got hit by another Oklahoma ice storm. Trees and power lines are coated in ice. The roads are staying pretty wet and driveable cause it keeps raining. With thunder and lightning. So yesterday we skipped church on account of our whole house being sick and the weather being bad. And then they canceled/postponed today's finals. I pretty much haven't been out of the house the whole weekend. Last night I went to bed at about 12:45. It was taking me a while to get to sleep. At 1:30 a branch broke off a tree and crashed into the roof right above my head. It was really loud. Carolyn and I immediately emerged from our rooms in slight shock. Well, whatever. We went back to bed. This continued every five minutes for the next four hours. Branches would fall and hit our house and then slide down to the ground. Huge claps of thunder set off car alarms.

At about 4 our power went out. Finally, at 5:30 Carolyn and I got up and went in the living room since neither of us had slept at all. There we tried to stay warm as we complained and watched more limbs crash into our yard. The power came back on around 10, then went out and is now back on again. Who knows. These are crazy times here. At least my paper is done and I don't have a final until 4:30 tomorrow. I sound whiny. Sorry. It's not that bad. Actually kind of thrilling. I just wish my parents weren't thousands of miles away...

Some pictures:
ice:

more ice:

"what is happening!"

[the goofy hat is not mine. i put it on cause it's warm. but it's hard to hear with it on]

icy leaves:

this would be the side of our house. Notice my bedroom window there. As I listened to the branches crashing around right above my head, I enjoyed the thought that if the wall had not been there, the trees would have fallen straight on my face. an interesting thought...

iced over branches on the ground:

i took this one out our kitchen window, thus the haziness:

recurrence

While researching for my paper, I came across some form of the word "phantasmagoric" three times. That seems like an obscure word to keep coming up. But I like it. I think it can also be spelled with an F...?

i should be studying

but we made cookies:


i blame it on my friend Julie who came over "to study" with us.

that's not a very good picture.

almost there

The poetry is memorized! I recite tomorrow at noon and I think I'm pretty much ready. Then, I have a 9-page paper to write, two finals to take, and two scenes of a Gogol play in Russian to perform, between me and a month-long break. I can do it. I think. This weekend will not be my favorite, I don't think.

I've wrapped a Christmas gift. It's sitting in my room, ready to be opened in 20 days.

"I should probably update my blog" is a thought that runs through my head occasionally which completely baffles me. Why do I feel this compulsion? The point of the blog (sort of) is that it is completely mine and I can update only when and if I feel like it. I could go a year without updating and that doesn't matter cause it's mine. I don't owe it an update. hmm.

Two nights in a row, I've been asleep by 12:30. Success!

skype and sleep

When my 5yo sister Carrie is tired, she pretty much has a complete meltdown. I called home yesterday morning, which was Friday night for them. They put Carrie on the phone with me during her end-of-the-week meltdown, and then took pictures of her. I call that not very nice. Then my dad sent me the pictures entitled "YIPPEE! I'm Skype-ing with SALLY!" haha...




Last night marking the end of one month means I tallied up my sleeping hours for the month of November. They were remarkably similar to October's numbers. In October I slept a total of 236.9 hours. In November I slept 236.5 hours, or 7:53 per night. Not bad. But this month I realized that the sleep log can never be totally accurate. What do I do when I wake up in the middle of the night and am awake for an hour, as I did once? Do I count that hour? or subtract it? (I subtracted it) What if I wake up but then doze on and off for two hours before getting up? Do I count those? (I counted that for one hour) The sleep log, most unfortunately, is not infallible. It may be discontinued.

Also I decided it's making me too obsessive-compulsive. My first thought upon waking up should not be that I need to write down what time it is. I'm already fulfilling my OCD quota with my dishwashing compulsion which is becoming really bizarre. I wash dishes all the time. I can't stand having a sink full of dirty dishes. I've even washed things before Amanda was finished using them. This strikes me as a rather unhealthy obsession. I'm not sure what to do about it. Aren't clean dishes a good thing?

things I've been thinking about lately

off the top of my head, the last post of november:
- accents
- bookstores
- advent
- social interaction
- awkwardness
- Russia/Russian politics
- security
- blogs
- memorization
- staying in touch
- autism (PDD-NOS)
- tacky clothing/thrift stores
- actions divorced from consequences
- the various homes I've lived in
- maps
- PUMPKIN PIE (more than just thinking about this topic)
- washing dishes
- obsessive-compulsive behaviours and their origin
- why I just used British spelling
- Christmas break, and what to do with my siblings in Norman for three weeks
- jazz
- names
- gift-giving
- forgiveness

there's some stream-of-consciousness for you this holiday season.

so there's this joke.

A fifty-page long story, to be exact, culminating in the one-sentence punchline at the end. I read it yesterday and it took me 27 minutes. My brother sent it to me. I'd read it before, a while ago, but I still very much enjoyed it this time too. It's kind of like a novella, we decided. It fits my brother's sense of humor quite well, and I guess sort of mine as well. I hope that you, my readers, might read it also. My expectation is that many of you will click on the link below. Then I think that most of you will either never start reading it or quit part-way through cause it's too long. But I'm hoping a few will stick it through to the end. And I can just about guarantee that you will get to the end, read the punchline, and wonder exactly why you just wasted the last twenty-seven minutes of your life. You may hate me for a second. I'm okay with that. I felt like that when I first read it as well. But that's part of the joke. That's part of why it's funny. So please. Do me a favor. Read it? I dare you.

If you read it, I would like to get your reaction in the form of comments. But please DO NOT post the punchline in your comment. If you do, I PROMISE that I will delete your post. I don't want lazy readers getting the benefit of the end without reading the whole story.

Here is the link.

we beat OSU

It was pretty cold.

This is inside the stadium gates. It reminded me of European train stations. My camera doesn't focus well while I'm moving.


Pre-game. Notice the orange hat directly in front of me. We had a group of OSU students there to provide fodder for trash-talking. Also, thankfully, there were a few OU guys around to provide intricate microanalysis of every single play, including what went wrong, why, and exactly what Allen Patrick should have done to gain more yards, such explaining to Patrick that there in fact was a hole to the left that he should have run towards. Thank goodness for those guys, or I would have had no idea what was going on. Cause, you know, I can't see.

The Pride of Oklahoma

Sooner sunset

4th Thursday

Yesterday didn't feel a whole lot like Thanksgiving. In the early afternoon I took off for Tulsa to see my grandfather. I drove to the varied tunes of Indelible Grace, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. I pulled up at the toll booth on I-44 and handed the guy the money. He gave me my receipt and I offered a cheerful "Happy Thanksgiving" to a poor man in the middle of nowhere, freezing in a toll booth at lunchtime on Thanksgiving Day. I got a scowl in return. Hmm. Somebody is not very thankful this year. Goodness.

So my grandfather and I went over to some family friends' for dinner. And it was fine. Very low-key and grown up, for me who is used to having at least a dozen people in the house, and at least half of them being crazy children who are related to me.

But I did get to talk to those crazy children on the phone in the morning. And I heard from more than one person about the sad fact that they were not eating sweet potatoes this year (unavailable in Russia. They were unavailable in Central Asia also but we would bring some back with us whenever we went across into China), and that they ate chickens instead of the turkey which was a quite unaffordable $53 per bird. So my mom wistfully told me to eat some sweet potatoes for her, which I promised to do. EXCEPT then my dinner didn't have them either. But don't worry, Mom, I'm buying some this week and cooking them myself. Don't worry.

cuter than average

Those across the Atlantic have yet to get high-speed internet, so sending these two small pictures was quite troublesome. But it is awfully nice to get them finally! They look great, I think. Though the smiles are sort of canned. But what can you do...

i miss this kid a lot

not so everyday

I lived for six years in a city surrounded on three sides by mountains. Every non-cloudy day I could wake up and see the mountains on the horizon. They look different and beautiful every day, depending on the weather and the clouds and such. Looking at the mountains never gets old. They're always beautiful and breath-taking and awesome.

Then I moved to Oklahoma, the land of flat prairies with way too much horizon. And I'm okay with it; it's just that there's nothing to look at. So it finally just hit me today that that's why I like fall so much. The changing colors of the trees provide me with something to see and marvel at each day. I can pass the same tree that is ablaze in orange and red several times and still stop and stare every time. The changing colors of fall never get old. It's always amazing and beautiful, as well. So fall is cool. It helps me appreciate life. I'm thankful for small things like red leaves, to keep perspective.

two

these caught my eye earlier:

peaceful

reciting russian

Yesterday my Russian Poetry professor told us that for our final exam, we could either take a test or memorize poetry. We chose the latter. The conditions: four different poems of at least 16 lines each, from four different poets. So at least 64 lines of poetry, in Russian, to be recited all at once in front of the class (of, granted, only four people), in early December. Hmm. That sounds difficult. So for once I decided not to procrastinate. Today I picked out the four poems, wrote them out, and stuck them on my bathroom mirror to be read and reread for the next month. And hopefully memorized. The poems I chose add up to 74 lines altogether. Yikes. But one of them is one of my favorite pieces of Russian poetry ever. By Aleksandr Pushkin. This man was such a genius. Every time I read anything of his I am amazed and impressed anew. Seriously. Good stuff here.

So, this is the Pushkin poem I'm memorizing:

Я помню чудное мгновенье:
Передо мной явилась ты,
Как мимолетное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты.

В томленьях грусти безнадежной
В тревогах шумной суеты,
Звучал мне долго голос нежный
И снились милые черты.

Шли годы. Бурь порыв мятежный
Рассеял прежние мечты,
И я забыл твой голос нежный,
Твой небесные черты.

В глуши, во мраке заточенья
Тянулись тихо дни мои
Без божества, без вдохновенья,
Без слез, без жизни, без любви.

Душе настало пробужденье:
И вот опять явилась ты,
Как мимолетное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты.

И сердце бьется в упоенье,
И для него воскресли вновь
И божество, и вдохновенье,
И жизнь, и слезы, и любовь.

And my anthology textbook has a prose translation, which I'm typing out for the 90% of my readers who don't speak Russian:

I remember the wonderful moment: you appeared before me like a fleeting vision, like a spirit of pure beauty.
As I languished in hopeless melancholy, amid the anxieties of the noisy and restless world, your tender voice long echoed in my mind, and I dreamt of your beloved features.
Years passed. The storm's turbulent gusts scattered the dreams of yore, and I forgot your tender voice and your heavenly features.
In a remote corner of the earth, in the darkness of exile, my days dragged slowly on, without divinity, without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love.
Awakening came to my soul: and lo, you appeared again, like a fleeting vision, like a spirit of pure beauty.
And my heart beats in ecstasy, and once more within it divinity, inspiration, tears and love are born.

Well...uh...it sounds better in Russian. Much better. You'll have to trust me on that.

being a Sooner

Yesterday I went to the OU/Texas A&M football game.

There is no more distinctly American experience than a football game, I concluded. Whatever culture America may have can be found at a football game. It's quite interesting.

It was a good game. We won 42-14. I lost interest somewhere in the middle of the third quarter, and managed to completely miss the last A&M touchdown. At the end of the game I looked at the scoreboard and was surprised to see 14 instead of 7. Oops. Bad fan.

The first two-thirds of the game I spent in the student section. The people shouted things like "get his ***!" and "****, he missed" and "come on." (My parents read this so I have to watch it.) In other words, very vague. Most people were drunk.

Two-thirds of the way through we moved to a section of regular seats where a friend and her family were sitting. The people here are the die-hards. Gray hair. Little kids. Those bleacher clip-on seats. These people have been following OU football forever, and are probably at every home game. They said things like, "come on, Venables, what were you thinking?" and "look at Bob, he is so angry about that." They refer to the players and coaches by their specific names, and call them "our boys" or something like that.

I don't know which crowd is weirder.

At half-time the band was playing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and then all of a sudden put down their instruments and started dancing. It was pretty unexpected and amusing.

pre-game:

Thriller:

there's a lot of the two of us on this blog: