Practicing Domesticity: اہم اعزاز ... onori maggiori

Saturday, March 19, 2011

اہم اعزاز ... onori maggiori

I have two words for today: Major Honors.

For those of you not living in our house and/or are not Brad or Kat, these words probably mean nothing to you. However, for some of us, they can be the scariest words in the English language (ok, minor overstatement...Michelle says no, it's not).

Basically, Michelle, Brad, and I (and five other people) really like school and apparently want to do research for fun.

Last April, we applied to do what's called a major honors project, which means that we wanted to do extensive research on some topic, write a large paper, and defend it in a public presentation(s). And we were all accepted. Here's the basics of our topics:

Brad: (philosophy & math major) looking at subjective and objective knowledge and whether it's possible to have objective knowledge...or something close to that

Michelle: (religious studies & chemistry major) looking at ministry to Muslim women in purdah with an emphasis on Pakistan

Danielle: (history & english major) looking at the connection between rescuers of Jews in Italy and the myth of the "good Italian"

At this point, Kat would like me to point out that her project is being an RA and dialoguing with Mormons.

So, needless to say, this has been a long process. We are now under the one-month mark, which is a rather frightening thought. This week we were informed that we are also presenting at a research symposium the week after we thought we'd be done...unfortunate.

Side-note: this means I will have presented versions of this paper 6 times.

All this combined means that we got to spend all day today working on our project.

However, good thought to leave on:

"Michelle, we need to have a life."
"No, this means that we have a life; therefore, we have to spend our Saturday working, because we spent our week having a life."

3 comments:

BradMarch 19, 2011 at 10:58 PM
Unfortunately, because I had a massive headache today, I have to spend most of tomorrow working now... :(
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BradMarch 19, 2011 at 11:02 PM
Also I just realized that your title includes the dead hamster which was dead before this blog was started. I'm a little confused.
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DanielleMarch 19, 2011 at 11:06 PM
First, I'm sorry :( how's it going without the backpack?

Second, technically the blog was created before we moved in...I just didn't write anything for a month. So, the hamster wasn't dead at that point.
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What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Source: Sleeping Preacher (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Alone

by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

The Silence

by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

اہم اعزاز ... onori maggiori

3 comments:

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