National Treasures

Dear friends,

Did you know that the Library of Congress has the best website ever?  Because if you didn't, you really need to check it out.  In the American Memory section, the American Folklife Center has some really, really fabulous recordings mostly collected during the Great Depression.  Some are funny songs like this.  Or sacred songs and work songs like this sung by former slave, Lizzie Hill.  There are even songs in Spanish!

Some recordings are not songs, but are...this.

While I'm a huge fan of the Folklife Center, the LoC homepage is pretty great.  Have you ever checked out the cool collections of old sheet music in the "American Memory" collection or browsed through the FSA Depression photos in "Prints & Photographs"?  There are newspaper collections, films, the collected papers of people like former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, and many, many more cool things.

People, use the resources your tax dollars are paying for and educate yourselves on American history and pop culture!

Writing

I have horrible writer's block.  I cannot write my thesis.  Well, I can, but it is coming out slowly.  Every word is a fight.  Every paper I've written for the last year has been a fight.  I sort of hate writing right now.  This is frustrating.  I conferenced with my advisor.  She gave me some tips.  I'm trying to implement them.  We'll see.  She's pretty much amazing, and I pretty much don't ever want to fail her.  I'm also pretty sure she thinks I'm a neurotic crazy person.  She has yet to confirm that bit.

So here's the deal: I need to write my thesis and get over this frustrating writer's block.  Not only do I want to graduate, but well, I just got a job in which I will do a whole bunch of writing.  A whole bunch as in, most likely, a book.  So I need my writing groove back so I can do that job and not hate life.

In fact, there may be more writing in my future as my advisor suggested that we should write an article together this coming year.  I think it would be fun and a really good career move, obviously.  But I need to get over being unable to write my thoughts down in a method more sophisticated than facebook before embarking on such an endeavor.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?

Calling Home

So I've been pretending to be okay.  Actually, I thought I was okay, but for the past hour or so, I've been fighting back tears.  And as I'm alone, and everyone who reads this loves me, I have decided to write it down so I can hopefully go back to writing the paper I am supposed to be writing.

So my parents' house burned down on Wednesday.  That really, really sucks.  I was pretty worried on Wednesday until I got to talk with them, and even then I felt not so great.  I did think I was all better the next day.  I am not all better.

I don't really care about my parents' house.  I know that sounds terrible, but the truth is, the house matters very little to me.  It hasn't been my house for twelve years, and the place their house sits, not the house itself, is what matters to me.  Not being able to pull into the driveway would be devastating.  (I know I'm weird.)  Sure, some of my stuff was in it, but it all appears to be fine.  That's great.  My parents will probably recover most of the stuff they really cared about after some serious cleaning.  That's also really, really great.  It's not great that they and my brother have to figure life out until they have a new house and some new stuff.  It's not really great that the house my dad grew up in is unlivable. That's the part that makes me upset.  And the thing is, I know they're okay, and I know that they will be okay.  They are really good at fielding life's curve balls, and they always land on their feet.  Lots of people who really love them are helping them out right now.  I'm not really worried about them (so I told you the truth, Dad, when you called on Friday).  But I am upset  for them about all of this mess.  And because I am who I am, I want to fix it.  And I can't.  They don't actually need my help, anyway.  No one can fix this one quickly, least of all me.
And you know what?  Two years ago, I wouldn't have been this upset and distracted.  I have been trying to figure out why I am so distractingly upset for them in the midst of being really glad that they chucked that couch I have always hated.  I think the reason I can't stop crying today is because I just figured out that I really, really, really love my parents, and despite the physical distance, I feel closer to them now than I have at any point in my life.
Two years ago when I moved out here to attend Bah Ram U I started talking to them more than I have ever talked to them as an adult.  My parents and I rarely talked as often as once a week before I moved out here.  We all get along, but we didn't need to talk all the time.  That's just the way our family works.  Only then I started having to commute everyday, and I started calling home to talk 2-3 times a week on my way to school.  (Judge away on the talking while driving bit; it kept me awake some days, so I'm going to argue I was a safer driver.) I discovered I like talking to them.  I am cool with them knowing my business, and I want to know what's going on in their lives.  They're probably irritated with the frequency of my calls and the amount of complaining I do about little things in my life during those calls.  Whatever their thoughts on the subject, I like calling home.
So yeah, I brought this on myself, I guess.  I love you Mom and Dad, and I'm sorry things are not so great right now.

Mostly Spring

 It's mostly spring here!  Except for an unneeded snowstorm a few days ago, it's been lovely, sunny, and warm.  In honor of spring and my birthday, I bought myself some lovely flowers.  They make me happy.  So does opening the windows of my house.  :)

 This super-blurry picture is my proof to Sarah that I did wear my birthday dress for my birthday.  I was not able to obtain a better shot.  Oh well.  Actually, I wore it on the first, but that's when I did the most celebrating.  Wearing dresses feels strange to me right now; it's been a couple of years since I wore anything skirtish.  It was an okay feeling, I think.  Perhaps I'll consider wearing them again.

Not on the Agenda

Today I was supposed to do more research on my term paper (not thesis).  But instead, I spent the day on the phone with loan people (I now have 4 lenders instead of 2!), found out I have to buy health insurance and be constantly registered this summer at Baa Ram U.  Also, my car needs new tires.

Without going into the gory details, let's just say that I need a whole bunch of money right now.  I'm not anticipating a tax refund.  Somehow being poor, taking no allowances, etc., always requires me to pay more taxes when I file.  Whatever.  But while I feel like complaining, mostly, I'd just be happy with some prayers from you all.  I am blessed in so many other ways.  So instead of getting mad at the world, I'm going to list the things in my life that are financial blessings.
1) Husband has a job.
2) A wonderful person sent me some fun money that I can use to pay my insurance instead.  (Having some trouble letting this one go without complaining.)
3) I have three jobs that pay above minimum wage, and I like all three.
4) I don't have any children, so I don't have to worry about how to feed them through this mess.
5) Neither Husband nor I have expensive hobbies.

I am Not a Mother

I do, however, spend all of my time researching mothers.  I have started to feel like motherhood is stalking me.  I'm not talking about a biological clock or a deep desire to have children at the moment.  I just read about it all the time.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  And now, when I read newspapers, check my friends' blogs, listen to the radio, go to class, go to work, talk to almost anyone, motherhood is an overly common topic.


I have started to over analyze everything.  I don't know how you mothers stay sane with all the craziness: conflicting advice, judgments, horror stories, etc.  One mother's method makes her a child abuser in another mother's eyes.  Another mother is a bad mother for going to work (because her family needs the money), while another is judged for staying at home.  Some mothers are overly saccharine about their "calling."  Others are much less enthusiastic.  Oh, and don't let me forget cultural factors that go with religion, nationality, etc.  I know most of you just deal, but I tell you, it is ridiculous.  Unfortunately, it's not new.


Below for your reading pleasure is a mid-eighteenth-century childcare book introduction by an esteemed instructor at the Philadelphia College of Physicians.  It, of course, was one opinion of several on women's abilities to birth and care for children.

“Sir, It is with great pleasure I see at last the preservation of Children become the care of Men of Sense : it is certainly a matter that well deserved their attention, and, I doubt not, the Public will soon find the good and great effects of it.” … “…a means of preventing the murder of many, but of saving more, by introducing a more reasonable and more natural method of nursing.  In my opinion, this business has been too long fatally left to the management of Women, who cannot be supposed to have proper knowledge to fit them for such a talk, nothwithstanding they look upon it to be their own province.  What I mean is, a philosophic knowledge of Nature, to be acquired only by learned observation and experience, and which therefore they unlearned must be incapable of.  They may presume upon the examples and transmitted customs of their Great grandmothers, who were taught by Physicians of their unenlightened days; when Physicians, as appears by late discoveries, were mistaken in many things, being led away by hypothetical reasonings to entertain very wild conceits, in which they were greatly bewildered themselves, and misled other to believe I know not what strange unaccountable powers in certain herbs, roots, and drugs; and also in some superstitious practices and ceremonies; for all which notion, there being no real foundation in Nature, they ought to be looked up as the effects of ignorance, or the artifices of designing Quacks…”

Cadogan, William.  An Essay upon Nursing and the Management of Children,  from Their Birth to Three Years of Age, Tenth edition. Boston: Cox and Berry, 1772.  Originally printed in England in 1748.

There's a lot more where this came from, but let me just say it's 50 pages of unrelenting critique of all previous  methods of child care.  I do agree some of those methods were not okay.  I do not agree with the part where he asserts that women are inherently unreliable and can't learn to properly take care of their babies, so their husbands need to oversee everything in detail to make sure their wives aren't killing their babies.  But then again, I didn't live in eighteenth-century England.  Thank God!

Bad Blogger

If any of you still check this, hello.  I know it's been over a month, which is pathetic.  I admit I've been busy.  I also, for some reason, have lost all desire to write - anything.  This thesis, friends, is only now starting to seem "fun" in any way.

I am posting lots of photos in this welcome back post.  This is some of what I've been doing in the last two months.

My brother makes his IMOSHO debut holding presents for the Janssen family Christmas.

Gooner, my favorite girl, helping make yummy rye bread during a soup cooking date.  

Note continued helping. I'm sure La appreciates Gooner's measuring abilities.

The final product: borsch and rye bread.  It was so delicious!

Touristing on Hollywood Blvd.  I love Julie Andrews!

These are my feet enjoying the cold water of the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

Sarah with her shells at Santa Monica Pier.

Sarah & Clarissa Vacay!  (I think I should always go for back lighting.)

Sarah's and my feet - the closest thing I have to a pic with the two of us from the trip.  

I've done some other pretty great things not documented by photographs.  However, this is enough for now.