Sunday, April 13, 2008

And tomorrow's Monday

It’s the end of a busy weekend. I never get as much done as I think I will be able to. Everything takes a little longer than planned, or I’m a little more tired than I thought I would be and don’t have the energy to finish it all. Welcome the adulthood, right? Still, I had a good weekend and I did get some good work done.

I am busily preparing for my literature presentation on Wednesday on that book I mentioned (Decolonizing the Mind). All the readings in that class up until now have been fiction or literary non-fiction (Green Hills of Africa, for example, and a great book, by the way. I’d recommend it). I rather shortsightedly volunteered to present this book which is collection of fairly complex essays on the subject of language and colonialism, with fairly biting commentary on all things English or Euro-American. On the up-side, I don’t have to work too hard to come up with discussion points. I can just say, for instance, “what do you think of his claim that ‘the quest for relevance and for a correct perspective can only be understood and be meaningfully resolved within the context of the general struggle against imperialism’?” or “do you think he makes a reasonable argument that ‘education, far from giving people the confidence in their ability and capacities to overcome obstacles or to become masters of the laws governing external nature as human beings, tends to make them feel their inadequacies, their weaknesses and their incapacities in the face of reality; and their inability to do anything about the conditions governing their lives’?” And presto! 20 minutes of discussion, just like that.
But I do actually still have quite a bit left to do on my presentation (like, almost everything) so don’t distract me in the next 24 hours or so!

Janet’s baroque concert/dance was very interesting! Lots of very good musicians, and I’m always partial to strings anyway almost no matter what style they’re playing. The dance was interesting and complex. Janet says baroque dance was a precursor to ballet, and I can see the similarities in the steps and arm movements. There was also a dance that reminded me very much of English country dancing (if you don’t know what that looks like, you can watch it on youtube), but the same dance reminded Stephan of the Macarena. We went out to Indian food afterward with Stephan's mom and her friend, had tea at Stephan's and I finally got home at a little after midnight! I was up at 7 today to call Oregon, so I'm a bit sleepy.

At Stephan's house I spotted a book that I had been reading at Diana's house last week. I had only gotten about 5 pages in (I kept getting interrupted to sing happy birthday, eat some cake, be social) but apparently Diana has finished it (it's actually Josh's), and now so has Stephan. It is currently in my possession, and I'll read it fast, in bits and pieces between my mandatory reading. The way people pass around books and house keys here...it's something else.

Guest Wycliff Speaker at church today and a tasty pasta lunch afterward…fun times! gotta go! 'night.

4 comments:

  1. I was hoping you'd skip the "Macarena" bit. It wasn't the most appreciated comment in recent history...

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  2. ha! Well, I thought it was amusing, and you had a good point. I mean, the Macarena didn't develop in a vacuum...It borrowed from somewhere! Very possibly baroque dance! But baroque dance and the people who learn it are 10 times more sophisticated than anything the Macarena offers. As long as we're all straight on that point, I think our dancer friends won't mind.

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  3. I don't know about the history of the Macarena, but luckily there were plenty of comments in recent history that were appreciated, so no worries. ;) Thanks for the kind words, Steph, and it was fun to hang out afterwards.

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  4. I don't know anything about Macarena history, either, and truth be told not even more than the first two hand motions of that faddish dance, so my comparison was rooted in extreme ignorance and lack of information. So I'm glad I can stop worrying now...

    As for the appreciated comments, Janet has herself to "blame." I'd say something here about red apparel, but I just remembered this is a flirt-free zone.

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