52; business

Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I should have updated much, much sooner. And I apologize. And I recognize that I am human, and fallible, and take full responsibility for my mistakes and any harm that may have come from my negligence to you, dear reader, or your loved ones.

I've been busy. Really, really, busy.

Not that my business is in anyway excusable for my behavior. Some people out there are doing far more than I, with tighter schedules. Example: My professor Mac, who also has time to work negotiations on Iraq on top of teaching. And I do seem to have found time on top of my work and course-load to have watched two films. (Start of long bracketed digression- The first is Leni Reifenstah's Olympia, both parts, which raises questions about nationalism and humanity and history, which I speak about far too much. But even if you don't like that stuff it's an interesting documentary and has great cinematography in the second half. (Interior brackets- particularly fun is watching Hitler's reactions to the games and 'the fastest man in the world' the black American Jesse Owens. End of confusing interior brackets.) The second is In a Lonely Place, starring Bogart as a writer. Also really good, for story and such, not tremendous in cinematography, but if you want to see something like Crime and Punishment in movie form this would be it. End of bracketed digression.)

My classes this term have a number of overlapping themes, one of which is a steady stream of papers. The other is the modernity. Modernity, like history, humanity, and nationalism, is something I don't wish to talk about here. I have to think and talk about them pretty much five days a week and then think and write about them on the weekends. After a while it becomes tedious and exhausting.

Bennington seems over-loaded with freshmen, and they are all learning how to cope and adapt to their first weekends, workloads, and assignments. The whole college seems to be on their schedule, and right now the campus feels tired and whelmed. Perhaps not fully overwhelmed, but definitely whelmed.

In other news: There is now an archive of these postings online in another venue: http://pokingbadgerswithspoons.blogspot.com/ Thanks to my sister Jess for creating and uploading all of them. Please feel free to not blame me as a consequence for any missed spelling or grammatical errors. I just don't care, and am very pleased that they're out there at all. They go back to my first rants in Leeds, England (3-13), my summer, and now Bennington.

Why are the Beastie Boys whining about science? Wait, now it just got good. Weird album. Probably good, though. Wait a sec, did he just say Galileo dropped an orange?

Background music aside. Other other news: I am officially accepted into the graduate teaching program at Bennington. So I'll be kicking around here for another year. Mixed reactions, of course, but overall positive.

Did you know? The Scottish kilt was invented in 1730's by an Englishmen? A little later another group of Englishmen invented the 'tradition' of the tartans being associated with specific clans. None of this existed before 1720, one of the most iconic 'legacies' of the Scottish Highlands. The tartan patterns were corroborated with a tartan producing company 'Messrs Wilson and Son'. And of course Sir Walter Scott is partially to blame with the perpetuation of the whole mythology of the Scottish past.

See, but here I've gone and started talking about history, nationalism and modernity when I said I wouldn't. I'm not rewriting it, of course, because I think the Scotts need to be exposed. (And I'm not referencing the invented kilt. *Shudder*)

In conclusion: Life is hectic, I no longer trust the Scottish, and sometimes our best laid intentions go astray and become the stuff of columns.