The Reading Journal of RMS

There are several awesome things floating around that I need to share:

1. My brother got into a maritime archaeology program in Denmark, and will be spending two years in Denmark! Yay! That is so exciting, and the eeee! and I are already planning a trip to Denmark and Norway.
   
   
2. I was pointed to a Pirate Dictionary recently. It has all sorts of real navigation terms, and . . . actually, it's a bit short on things like pirate insults. But the fact that it exists is pretty awesome.
   
   
3. Someone on a recent Left Behind Friday post pointed to an excerpt from Kingdom Come, one of the later Left Behind books. The writing is so, so bad, that it must be seen to be believed:
   

   "When you see My throne, join those on My right, your left."
   
   The words of Jesus were more than impressed on Rayford's heart.
   
   [...]
   
   
   Rayford deduced that the sun was brighter without being hotter, because Tsion Ben-Judah taught that its light was somehow enhanced by the ever-present glory of Jesus. A simple contraption out in the open allowed Rayford to concentrate the light through a magnifier and heat vegetables he and Irene and Raymie had gathered for a special feast. Irene had made butter from milk she had collected from a cow, so when everyone had assembled, they were met with steaming piles of fresh produce, drenched in butter.
   
   [...]
   
   And strange about Cameron and Chloe's relationship was that they still loved each other, but not romantically. Their entire hearts' desires were on the person of Jesus and worshiping Him for eternity. In the Millennium, they would live and labor together with Kenny and raise him, but as there would be no marrying or giving in marriage, their relationship would be wholly platonic.
   
   "It's bizarre," Chloe told Cameron. "I still love and admire and respect you and want to be near you, but it's as if I've been prescribed some medicine that has cured me of any other distracting feelings."
   

   
   I'm not saying that I'm any sort of expert on post-millenial dispensationalism, but none of that makes any sense.
   
   
4. Speaking of making no sense, Mark Trail clearly takes place on another planet. The Comics Curmudgeon has barely mentioned the current plot, so here goes: a little girl wins an essay contest about responsible pet ownership. As a prize, she wins a puppy, because clearly the first rule of pet ownership is "pets make great surprise gifts for people!" The puppy cures her of the depression she's suffered since her deadbeat dad left the family. But then she dumps the puppy outside and he vanishes. So now let me enumerate the stupid things that have happened since then:
   
   
   
   1. Mark Trail offers to replace the puppy, because she is a responsible young woman and pets are interchangeable.
      
   2. Mark Trail also assumes the dog was snatched, rather than it simply ran away and/or was hit by a car.
      
   3. A van was spotted, and apparently this is suspicious.
      
   4. Mark Trail is going to bait the thieves with his own dog.
      
   
   WTF?
   
   
5. There was a one-day conference here for local people on Friday, to see the range of research in the department. Eight-minute talks all around! Mine was originally twelve minutes, and I thought I had pared it down, but apparently not well enough. Hence, when I got the two-minute warning during my talk (and was definitely not 3/4 of the way through my material) I let out an "Oh my gosh!" mid-sentence. This got me the award for "Best Reaction to the Two-Minute Warning." Yay?
   

I hope you all have fantastic weeks! My workload is not insane this week, and my brother will be here this weekend. Hooray!

1. It is really hot here, so hot that I have no appetite. (I ate a small dinner at 11 p.m. last night, for crissake.) But today for lunch I had a veggie wrap with hummus -- filling and healthy, but I don't feel gross from the heat. Yay! (I will not eat frozen yogurt for dinner. I will not eat frozen yogurt for dinner. I will not eat frozen yogurt for dinner.)

2. We've settled into the apartment, and now that's it's clean and organized I think we'll manage to not kill each other. It helps that the bedroom is big enough for a desk, so that one of us can be working or watching TV in the living room, and the other can be working in the bedroom.

3. The wedding I went to this weekend was beautiful! And since the groom was from India, there was lots of Indian pop music at the reception. Yay! Now I'm trying to find some good Indian pop and/or bhangra CDs (seriously, I'm listening to a bhangra podcast right now). Any suggestions?

4. We also went golfing this weekend, and I did pretty well! I was inconsistent with my irons (which is weird for me), but I was otherwise happy with how I did, considering that I'd only been to the driving range once this summer. And I out-drove* my dad on a hole! That was really exciting, because since the course was a converted par-3 (all the holes were par 3 or 4, so longer than a par-3 but shorter than a normal course) there weren't separate tee boxes for men and women. And my dad is a very good golfer. Anyway, if I make to the driving range and/or out this weekend on a round, I should be in good shape for the family outing.

5. Since we're not spending every free second doing house-related things, I actually have free time again! Oh my god. I finished my reread of Half-Blood Prince, and now I'm reading The Great Gatsby. I hated Gatsby in high school, but I recently realized that was probably because I really hated my classmates' reactions to it. So a few friends and I are rereading Gatsby together, although more as an excuse to get together and drink wine than anything else. Anyway, I'm enjoying it so far this go-round.

6. I can't get over how my life is only moderately insane until we leave for Santa Barbara in late August. We only have two weekend trips! We can do things like go to movies and baseball games and hang out with people and all sorts of stuff! Too bad we can't have people over to grill.

* I proceeded to waste my drive by sending two consecutive shots into the woods. I spent most of the day unable to hit my irons straight and in the air, and on that hole they were going into the air. Sigh.

Things here are going quite well, despite all the residual stress:

1. There is a most excellent thunderstorm outside right now! And it's not high winds or anything -- just lots of great thunder and lightning -- so I don't feel too guilty about enjoying it.
   
   
2. I had an excellent weekend in Florida, visiting a good friend and her husband and their three-month-old daughter. My honorary niece is very cute! Also, I saw alligators.
   
   
3. There have been two official viewings of the house! Not even counting the open house!
   
   
4. Work is going fairly well -- I should have more data soon, and I'm also outlining a paper that will be Chapter Three of my thesis.
   
   
5. I'm reading The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy, and I'm really enjoying it. I was warned that it was depressing, but after reading Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb (which is also excellent), I have a pretty high tolerance for depressing books.
   
   
6. My brother loved his birthday present! (I got him the three Pirates! In an Adventure with ________ books, plus the Communist Party t-shirt.
   
   
7. I ordered the haiku t-shirt for myself, because it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.
   

So things are pretty good! And I'm going to Santa Barbara this weekend, and I'm annoyed that the weather won't be any better than it will be in Ann Arbor.