the ravings of the questioning
In a truly delicious turn of events, my party animal neighbors across the hall seem to have decided that paying their utility bill was optional. As a result, their power has been shut off, and there is a notice on their apartment door declaring that the City of Ithaca has deemed the residence therefore to be unsafe for human habitation and that any continued residency is illegal.
Cue the evil laughter.
As it turns out, sitting alone in the lab taking data requires paying just enough attention to the equipment to make sure that any glitches get finished immediately, which is not conducive to doing homework, but works extremely well for writing blog entries. Consider yourselves warned.
And now, for the topic at hand: recent nostalgia inspired me to fool around on Flickr looking for pictures of my old home town, when I started to come across pictures of a spot that holds a special semi-mythic status back in Northwest Arkansas: Monte Ne. First, some background, courtesy of a) what I remember from my mother’s days at the Rogers Historical Museum and b) the Internet (duh):
William Hope Harvey, known better as “Coin” Harvey, was born in Buffalo, West Virginia in 1851. He started out as a lawyer and teacher, settling for awhile in Huntington, WV, before heading to Colorado to join the real estate business there in 1884. His keen interest in finance led him to writing about the subject, and he was perhaps best known for his “free silver” idea, which gained prominence when he was involved in William Jennings Bryan’s presidential campaign against McKinley in 1896. Although Harvey was involved in national politics several times in his life, one cannot really say that he had any success with it.
The story reaches Arkansas at the turn of the century, when, impressed by the area’s beauty and similarity to his native West Virginia, Harvey relocated to Northwest Arkansas and the White River Valley. He founded a resort there, called Monte Ne, and ran it for thirty or so years. He was also heavily involved in the establishment of the Ozark Trails Association and the marking and improving of roads in the region (most especially those leading to Monte Ne). Toward the end of his life, however, Harvey grew increasingly frustrated with the world and was convinced that mankind would destroy itself. He decided to build a pyramid some 130 ft. high that would serve as a time capsule that would contain materials that would help the survivors of the dark days ahead. By this time, the Great Depression had nearly reduced Monte Ne to its end, and much of Harvey’s own money had been spent. He ran into financial difficulties and died in 1936 with the pyramid incomplete.
Today, most of Monte Ne lies under Beaver Lake, which was built in the 1960s after flooding devastated the region. Every once in awhile, though, the lake level drops and parts of Monte Ne resurface. The photo above shows the very top of Monte Ne’s amphitheater; this is what it looks like with the water lower. Last year a drought left Beaver Lake at record lows, and many people flocked to Monte Ne to explore the ruins and to look for the rumored secret entrance to a chamber Harvey filled with treasures of the early 20th century. Even when Monte Ne is out of sight, it’s never out of mind: locals are always looking for the tip of the legendary pyramid and Coin Harvey, if for no reason other than his eccentricity, is never forgotten.
Spring Work has come and gone, and I’m heading back into the world of Too Much Stuff To Do That’s Not Research. I don’t dare look forward to the days when I won’t have classes anymore because that’s still semesters away, but it is nice to think that the summer is coming, and that, in not too long, I will have days where I come in around 9:30, work until 5 or so, and then I go home and spend my evenings and weekends in whatever manner I see fit. All that stands between me and that pleasure? Weeks more of classes, tons more graded work, and my qualifiers. I am, for the moment, determined not to let that get me down. Happy thoughts seem a lot easier to maintain when the weather is pleasantly springlike. Either that, or I really did have that B-6 vitamin deficiency like the doctor suggested.
The weather was so wonderful on Monday that Joe and I took a walk to the Mulholland Wildflower Preserve and sat by Six Mile Creek and watched the swollen waters rush past. Until it warms up enough that I can chance the hike down into the gorge below Wells Falls, the MWP is the next best thing. One of the other things about this summer that I’m really looking forward to is the chance to wade in some of the creeks. The little kid in me can’t help but remember how much fun wading barefoot in the creek that fed Lake Atalanta was when I was younger. I remember my school’s gifted and talented program having competition once were we built little boats out of cardboard and tape and straws and the like and raced them on that creek. Standing by Six Mile Creek on Monday, I really wanted to do that again, but that may have had something more to do with wanting to see how long such a boat could manage not to get swamped by the rushing water.
I’m expecting a very busy but fun week next week. Well, I don’t expect classes and research to be all that fantastic, especially as I’ll be having make-up lectures for lectures not had this week–but next week is my little sister’s Spring Break, and she’s coming up for a visit. Since I’m all about earning Best Big Sister Ever status, I’ve promised her all sorts of fun. I’m hoping that the nice weather is kind enough to stick around most of next week. Knowing this part of the country, though, I’m not about to hold my breath.
In the strict sense, my Spring Work is now over. Most of the week was spent in the “new” lab learning how to use our fancy set-up with the laser and camera sled and such. Aside from the usual glitches with software crashes–I apparently need to learn some heavier duty programming so that I can figure out why the hell our movie files are getting corrupted in transfer–and a couple of OMG-we’re-all-going-to-die moments with the Class IV laser, things went well and we managed to take a decent amount of data–somewhere between 500 and 600 movies. Now we just need, oh, about 3500 more.
I spent all of this afternoon working on my turbulence mid-term. The first problem just killed me. In two-and-a-half hours I hardly made any progress on it. Finally, I gave up and started on the second two problems. Things picked up then, and I’ve probably got the test a little more than half-way finished. Enough that I don’t feel the need to go up to campus and work on it this weekend since it’s not due until next Friday.
I came home tonight to tomatillo chicken–thank God for crockpots–and margaritas. I threw in some Soul Calibur II for good measure, and, all of a sudden, it was like I was on break or something. Imagine that!
Spring Break is not providing the hoped for rest and rejuvenation thanks to nightmares like last night’s, in which I discovered, on the day of, that my Q-Exam had been moved forward by about a month-and-a-half and that, instead of a committee of three professors, I was being examined by only one–the one who does not think highly of me at all. There was no way out of it–I tried. Thankfully, I woke up before the exam actually started. The agony of trying to get out of it and being unable to and unable to prepare was quite enough, thanks.
Klose tagged me in a favorite stories meme, and, since this actually involves generation of some new and potentially interesting content, I took on the challenge. And a challenge it most certainly was. I’ve been writing original fiction for close to ten years now–I started my Faerie stories over seven years ago–so there’s quite a lot of material built up. Considering only stories I have in digital format, there are more than 545,000 words from which to choose. Nearly 300,000 of those words are story material–I didn’t count background materials on language, history or culture–for Faerie. As such, I considered individual bits of my Faerie material as fair game in the “list your five favorite stories” prompt.
So, without further ado, my five “favorite” stories, in no particular order of preference (because, seriously, just choosing five was plenty hard enough):
Where Have You Gone? — Faerie
This was just a piece I wrote for myself in which Nijelyn laments Jeassinae’s death, but it is without a doubt one of my favorite pieces of all time. I love the imagery of it, and somehow it just melts my heart every time I read it. But then, I am a sucker for angst and romance and Nijelyn.
Leaving Home - Taratia
This particular take on the Taritans stems from a story I wrote around the time I was graduating from high school (and which exists in that form somewhere out on the Internets but I’m not saying where though Google knows). Actually, I’m currently re-writing parts of that original short story as they occur to me. The part of the story I love the most, though, is the part that pertains to the time when Ellira was in Osgalath. I love exploring what she went through to hide herself and Ilarwyn among the humans. While most of this story has never been posted publicly, there is a little portion of it up under the title of “Rainy Days”.
The World It Does Regret (LJ, protected) - Faerie
This is actually the tail-end of one of the completed sections of the re-written version of The Fairie’s Daughter. It concerns Jeanne’s childhood–in particular, the depths to which her mother and grandmother sink in order to keep her out of Faerie. It’s a piece of which I’m very proud, in part because the final sections always get me, emotionally.
Witch’s Child - Aelphlond
One of my main reasons for including this story in my list is because it is one that I’ve been writing on and expanding recently. Most of what’s available for public viewing concerns Taealwhyn’s childhood, but I’ve been dealing with her adult years in my recent bouts of writing, and I’ve been extremely pleased with the results. The only posted portion of the story dealing with her adult life is here.
Tales And Toy Soldiers - Faerie
This is one of those happy few pieces that, despite having been written six or seven years ago, is still a scene that I love to come back to and see again. Not only did I capture a dynamic of Jeassinae’s story that I’d been struggling with, but I really set a tone for Jeassinae’s interactions with her family. And I love the game with her nieces and nephew.
Honorable Mentions: Disappointed, wherein I learned to love Richard again, and Nightmares, Tears, and Ghosts, which I love for confronting Jeanne’s feelings after her father dies and for being a homage to the nightmare I had that started everything as far as Faerie is concerned.
–
For anyone unable to access the material on LJ or who really, really wants to see some of the stuff that hasn’t been posted publicly, begging, flattery, bribes, and/or an e-mail address might get you what you want.
So, as promised, blog spamming a report on last Saturday’s concert with Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul. As I mentioned previously, it was a night filled with Celtic and Irish-inspired music. The tunes ranged from traditional in sound to more modern (read: rock-like distortion) and to fusion sound. In particular, they played songs that melded Celtic sound with Danish tunes, traditional Spanish music, and with African roots. The performers were all impressively versatile in their playing (and in their instrument switching); in particular, I was astounded by Isaac Alderson, who covered the traditional Irish woodwinds and pipes.
Eileen Ivers herself is an extremely spirited and active performer. I honestly did not realize that anyone could bounce and fiddle at the same time. I’ve seen plenty of swaying, but not all out hopping. She’s also not content to have a passive audience (and neither, frankly, were the Ithacans in the theater). Throughout the concert we were encouraged to clap and/or sing along and even to dance in the aisles. And, frankly, it was extremely hard to keep from moving. Only very rarely did my foot stop tapping. I refrained from clapping sometimes, either because my hands couldn’t take much more of it, or because I was frustrated with the rest of the audience. Their enthusiasm was great, but, really, keeping a steady beat is not that difficult.
Good fiddling always impresses me. No instrument can lament the way a fiddle does–nor is there one that can immediately turn around and bring you to your feet dancing the way a fiddle can. Throw in flutes or pipes and a harmony and you’re all set. It’s difficult for me to speak musically or to comment on particular pieces because my musical knowledge is so limited, but I think the whole concert can be pretty well summed up by saying that, by the encore–regardless of age, background, or ethnicity–everyone in the State Theater was on their feet dancing and clapping along with the band. One doesn’t have to have been to many concerts to realize how special a moment like that is.
As we all know, I love Futurama. I also love Neil Gaiman’s books and blog. So learning that Neil, too, likes Futurama made me smile:
“And they [adult swim] show Futurama. (People have asked if I’m jealous of Alan Moore for being on The Simpsons, and I’m not. If he were a head in a jar in Futurama, on the other hand…)” #
All of a sudden, the rest of my week looks tractable. Instead of coming out the other end as a huddled, whimpering mass, I may yet exit this week in a form that still bears some resemblance to a human being. This warrants celebration, which would explain why I’m typing this with a tall glass of pineapple juice and coconut rum beside me.
Having worked ridiculously long hours since, um, sometime last week, I now have my project report at a point where the end is in sight. I have all but two of my figures completed, and I have a decent start on the written portion of things. More exciting is the fact that I’ve finished the take-home midterm I was given today, despite having had no opportunity to study for it. I even feel relatively confident in my answers. Some of the mathematics felt a little… incomplete, but the implications of the mathematics matched what I felt the physics should be, which tends to be a good sign.
Ahh… I can feel the rum kicking in…
In further happy news, the weather today was absolutely fantastic. It was sunny and warm enough to walk around without a jacket for most of the day. Cascadilla Gorge is rushing and swollen, and, judging from the sound I heard on my way home, Six Mile Creek is, too. I sat outside to eat dinner tonight (before returning to my office to finish slaying that midterm) and it felt wonderful. The snow that’s covered the Engineering Quad for weeks is almost completely gone, replaced by pale green grass–I even saw spots where some perennials were beginning to peek out of the soil. All in all, excellent, excellent news.
Good news, everyone. I’m still alive. For the moment. This is one of those times where that line about being “buried under the work that never ends” is an exceptionally accurate description of my state of being. I get a take-home midterm tomorrow that’s due on Thursday, and I haven’t yet had a chance to study for it because I’ve been working like mad on a project for my other class. It’s due on Friday, at which time, my professor will hand me another take-home midterm to keep me company over Spring Work. Isn’t that thoughtful of him?
Of course, right now, I’m pulling my hair out because my instructions for this project report clearly state, “Extract the quantities shown in Figs. 5.6-5.10 [...]“. In the seven or so hours I spent in the computer lab yesterday, I went all over FLUENT looking for a place to extract these quantities. Guess what? They’re not there. Even better: I e-mailed our T.A. in an act of desperation and found out from him that the model we’re using doesn’t even calculate those quantities. Well damn. Just how the hell am I supposed to do this section of the report? Did the professor slip and hit ‘-’ instead of ‘ and ‘? Because I can do Figs. 5.6 and 5.10. Heck, I can even take a stab at Fig. 5.8 (it’s ugly, though, guys, with a capital UGLY). But Figs. 5.7 and 5.9 are out of the question. No way, no how. Yes, sir, thank you, sir, for that failing grade. Please, sir, may I have another?
I spent so much time on campus this weekend that it doesn’t feel like Monday. Because Monday implies that there was a weekend, and I seriously doubt that there was. That being said, I did spend some time this weekend doing non-classwork. It was the weekend of the prospective student visit, so I had some fun experiencing that from the other side of the fence. And on Saturday night, I went to a Celtic-style fiddling concert from Eileen Ivers. Maybe I’ll swing a few words on that later as a study break.
Oops. Time to run to class and then back to work.
Latest Comments
RSSWell Behind at Curious Notions
the canadian, Bernadette, Amy, Steph
Nicole, Bernadette, Nicole, Joe, Steph, Bernadette
Greg
Nicole, Bernadette, Nicole, Bernadette, Bernadette
Joe, Nicole, Joe, Nicole, Joe