1/24: What I Accomplished Today

1. Strange week; I've been on almost a regular-person "awake in the sunshine sleeping in the nighttime" schedule. I'm not crazy about it.

2. Tuesday and Wednesday were school days, so I prepped and taught classes.

3. I forgot to mention that we caucused last Saturday. Interesting; Nevada apparently hasn't caucused since 1948, so most people didn't know how it would work. It was interesting to get to select our delegates for the county, state, and possibly national conventions, but other aspects of the format are intimidating and infuriating, and it really doesn't lend itself well to a large city.

4. Something happened Puzzle Day that I've been thinking about all week. The Fellas and a friend were talking about a picture they'd seen in the morning's newspaper about a celebrity with her daughter; they said the daughter was a hideous Amazon, too atrocious-looking for words, and all sorts of things that indicated it was a wonder the newspaper hadn't cried for having to hold the picture. And then later that day I read the newspaper and saw the picture--and she's not a classically beautiful girl (neither is her mother), but she looks happy, and healthy, and well-adjusted. She looks like she's living her life and having a good time. And I was a little puzzled and sad: are these people who are very important to us that unfamiliar with what a "happy person" might look like? Or are they so shallow that the fact that she's not classically beautiful means that her other qualities (and she really looked like a fun, fun-loving, intelligent young woman) were utterly meaningless? I don't think I like the answer either way.

I suspect the fact that Kucinich is a running joke in the presidential elections falls into this category as well. His politics are different from what we usually see in the mainstream--and his coverage usually indicates that this is bad. I'm not convinced it is. I think he's a joke not because of his politics but because he's handsome in a president-of-his-high-school-chess-club sort of way.

5. Still working on Armstrong's The Bible: A Biography. She's interesting but dense; sometimes it's "read a paragraph, chew on it for an hour, read the next paragraph." That can be interesting and informative and is a process conducive for retention for many people (sometimes me), but it makes many of her books slow going.

6. Trained the new person who's supposed to help do a lot of the logistical stuff for placement some more. I think she'll be just fine.

7. My Human Paladin is now level 43.

1/20: What I Accomplished Today

Strange week.

1. This was Convocation Week for school, so I went to a software demonstration, a School meeting, a Department meeting, and a tech fair. I also conducted a meeting of those planning to read Placements this term. This was all to determine what my projects and priorities for this term need to be.

2. I finished the book The Secret Magdalene, and Friday was book group at which we discussed it. I referred to this book as Heresy's Greatest Hits; almost every "what if" in Christianity are covered here. What if Mary Magdalene's father were Joseph of Arimathea? (No reason to think he couldn't be, and this makes part of the story make sense.) What if Jesus' brothers were disciples? (This was one of the premises of The Jesus Dynasty, which I read earlier this year. Like the previous book, this book establishes possibility, but not probability and certainly not certainty.) What if Jesus and some learned disciples mapped out what prophesies had to be fulfilled and took steps to make it so? (Certainly not outside the realm of possibility; some may see this as cynical, but I don't.) What if...what if...what if... And the individual hypotheses were all interesting and at least somewhat plausible, but together, it all got to be a bit much. (And I could have done without the kicker: and what if Mary Magdalene could read minds? Straw that broke the camel's back for me.)

I also read You: An Owner's Manual. Interesting and well-voiced, although I occasionally thought the humor was trying too hard.

Halfway through You, I remembered that I had been reading Karen Armstrong's
The Bible before I got The Secret Magdalene, so after I finished You, I picked it up again.

I didn't read any magazines this week.

3. The reason I haven't blogged this week is because I've been exhausted and going to bed early and therefore waking up early in the morning; I usually blog late at night during my "alone time," and I haven't been up this week.

4. Won Puzzle Day this week!

5. I don't remember where I was with the Draenei Shaman when last I wrote; I got her to 45 and have now started the Human Paladin. Co-Vivant's rogue is up to level 6.

I think that catches you up on most of the week's festivities.