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:

done and done

I got new tags. I sent the letter. I did the paperwork for the classes. The night I posted that, I went to bed at 11:24. I'll change my clocks on Saturday. I have been keeping my sleep log for 30 days (nights?) now. So I added it up. I got 236 hours and 54 minutes of sleep. That averages out to 7 hours and 54 minutes of sleep per night. Then at some point in the month I got about three hours of naps. Really, 8 hours of sleep is the recommended amount, right? So I'm doing just fine!
And I got some pictures:

autumn creeps in:

ablaze:


close up of the same

for some reason, my favorite:

and my favorite from fall 2006: