We watched Alice in Wonderland last night. Little S was doing a computer project where she had to make a menu with a theme and she chose Alice. So I had K go rent a video and we watched it, GREAT FUN! Cute flowers singing...we had that on a video that my babies watched--Fun With Music.
Gotta love that Queen. "All ways are MY ways!"
I love her powerful expression, her command of the situation, her determination to drive the existance of all she surveys. (not that we should emulate her, mind you). Little S will undoubtly get an A. She excels at creative expression. All her friends get her to make signs for games, a big part of sports around here.
Yesterday was 3 months since Brandon died.
We went to a new church yesterday, Celebration (kind of an odd name for a church), and we all really enjoyed it. It is lighter fare than Grace, but that is more likely to keep little S interested. I want to find somewhere that S and S can enjoy on their own. I'm encouraging good habits. Regular church attendance keeps our hearts reminded of what is important as the mind on its own tends to think only of itself and its own comforts.
After church, we ate sack lunches I had prepared (PBJ, etc) on the way to the Ballet. Romeo and Juliet. Thinking of the romance, I had forgotten the strong death element and was stricken when I realized what that could do to L. The over drama of the death of Ty..whatever his name was (at the hand of Romeo after Tybalt, Tybult? killed his friend) as the Mother grieved, helped them mock the situation instead of connect it to Brandon emotionally. I had trouble enjoying some scenes because of the potential impact on L, but she endured well and S kept her spirits up.
L has a job at Circuit City today starting at noon and she is excited. She'll be making 9.50; she's in the TV department. She knows digital cameras, not TVs, but she'll learn quickly. She is a definite sales person.
I'm reading Lord Jim (by Conrad Joseph, I think) and A Room of Her Own by Virginia Woolf. S has to read some literature for AP English next year, one of them being Sidhartha. I'll read that with her, too, but I went to half-price books and purchased several literature choices for less than 20 dollars. I hope to read them myself. I also got Farewell to Arms, Something about passage to India?, I've forgotten them now....Mrs. Dalloway......
...Reading V. Woolf is interesting. Her sing song way of turning a sentence agrees with my own manner of thinking, yet I'm finding it difficult to read those long sentences continually. So I have to ask myself why I don't enjoy the sudden parenthetical statement that veers ones thoughts towards another direction, since that is what I do to those who read any communication of mine.
Obviously, when one is writing, it should not be for the self. Pascal said as much in some quotes I read of his. You have to write for your audience. And yet I have not quite grown into the discipline. But even today I intend to re-write my empirical paper and hope to have my audience clearly in mind. I will attempt to develop this part of my writing!
And in another direction---I finished A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHURS COURT on Saturday morning before we headed up to the Scarsborough Faire, a renaissance (sp?) festival.
It directed me to conversation with Mr, who is such a capitalist! He would gladly rule and think himself benevolent, even as he blamed the lower classes for their plight, while he might do nothing for them. We went to Ruth Chris Steakhouse where I had one of the freshest most perfectly cooked meals I have enjoyed in some time---all for a pretty penny, of course. But the conversation was delightful and Mr. managed not to take offense at my proddings. Especially when I reminded him that his education was funded by a Pell Grant. So there--he did NOT pull himself up by his bootstraps, somebody FUNDED him because he had promise and he would not be where he is today without that assistance. Assistance that is barely available today.
Mark Twain helped me weave an argument and when Mr has read the book as well, we shall have a fine time savoring the ideas.
The book was such an easy read and quite fun, I was sad when it ended. I was thinking I had no time for fiction, but I read the book so quickly, that I've just forgotten how fun a good fiction can be. They are hard to find these days because I suppose I am too proud to read popular novels, thinking them for airheads and trying to avoid too much likeness between myself and anything airheadish, since we all know I am easily taken for such! :-)
I'm a rather SCHOLARLY airhead, if one at all.
And back to the bookstore---I could not find Les Miserables or the Amy Tan book (forget the name just now, one of my FAVORITES)----THE JOY LUCK CLUB!
I read that years ago, and thoroughly immersed myself in it. Later, I was required to watch the film version for a class. That movie has one of the lines that impacted me greatly! When one of the daughters does not take the fellowship she's been offered (only now do I realize she had to apply!---but at the time I did not know that)--because she is going to do whatever her husband wants. That was before I tried for the PhD, but that movie came RIGHT before that event and effectively imprinted in my mind that what I wanted was WORTH going after and that I should not shrink back.
It just goes to show how our own biases are ready to turn on or off at our whim because how many other women watched that movie and cared not for that scene nor remembered it?? Yet in my desire to pursue higher education, dormant though it was, my mind grasped onto any idea that would give me permission---for a scene in a movie is hardly permission to go about changing your life---but when you want to do something, I suppose any excuse is enough. And so we must be careful about how we prove to ourselves we are right......but I know that this road is a good one for me......that I am truly following my bliss, truly developing my giftedness and that I could not live with myself if I did not follow each opportunity to its end or to success.
and so I will!
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