On Big Things

I recently had a cause to put together my resume, and I've noticed something about things like that: there is work experience and there is life experience.

I didn't have a real job for most of high school.  So far in college, I've only been able to knit a few things for a sale.  It's safe to say that I haven't had Official Work Experience since 2012, when I worked at a summer camp at my dojang.  When I look at the Work Experience part of my resume, I feel kind of lame - one of my biggest fears is that I'm going to get trapped into a vicious cycle where my lack of work experience, especially in the field where I'm applying, prevents me from getting hired.  Generally speaking, companies that need writer-type people don't hire people who are lifeguards, camp counselors, and/ or knitters.  Even if those people are blogging novelists who can translate Homer.  (I think I'm learning that translating Homer might not be the most important life skill I acquire in college).

At the same time, I've also noticed that there is another kind of experience - the kind that doesn't go onto your resume.  What the hiring committee might not see is that I'm a second degree black belt, I know classical Greek, I can knit in two different directions (I'm assuming that the hiring committee might not even know that there are multiple ways to knit... but that's not the point), that I hiked to Machu Picchu and haggled at the Grand Bazaar in the same summer, or that I've been to seven different countries.

I don't think a resume says everything about a person - I don't know if it's supposed to.  At the same time, I think there should be more room to provide more context for someone's abilities - maybe the reason I didn't work the summer of 2011 is because I was traveling to Europe, traveling to help people, and learning how to act.  Work experience is important, yes, but so is life experience.  Hopefully everyone gets the chance to go out of their hometown - and if they do, they should take it.


Do I wish that I had given up one summer of travel for a summer of building my resume or something similar? No.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have stories.  I also wouldn't have the following pictures.

On King Arthur (again!) - Merlin

Yes, another post about King Arthur! HUZZAH!
I know that this is an easy way to do things because I'm writing similar things for class, but I find it kind of interesting - so I'm writing about Merlin today.

Right, so Merlin.  In the three accounts we have read so far - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, and Lord Alfred Tennyson - Merlin has pretty much been Uther's wingman; his sole purpose seems to be to turn him into Gorlois (and, later, to whisk Arthur off to a humbler upbringing).  As far as we've gotten in Arthur's upbringing, that's Merlin's only relationship to Arthur.

Then we get to T. H. White's The Once and Future King.  If any of you have ever seen Disney's The Sword in the Stone, this is the same Merlin that shows up in the book (I'm pretty sure the movie is based on the first third of the book, in fact).  The Once and Future King is obviously more of a kid's book than the others - there's no mention of wingmen or sex of any level of consent - and the early pages focus more on Arthur's early life than the other works thus far. (this is probably because, again, it's a kid's book, and probably wants to relate to the target audience and everything).  Here, Merlin is Arthur's teacher, mentor, and the resident hooligan of the castle.  He's got powerful magic, turning Arthur into a fish and a hawk for various ordeals.  Outside of Uther's relationship with Ygerne, this is the first real mention of Merlin's magical abilities.

Merlin, in White's tale, gets a lot more description than in the earlier works; whatever classic Wizard trope you have in your head - that's what Merlin is in this book (also, look up The Sword in the Stone; they do a good job of animating him).  Interestingly, this is one of the only descriptions of the wizard we have - or any character, for that matter.  It shows a bit of the values for the time - White was writing a narrative story for kids in the 1930s, not a history of kings from a monastery in Wales in the 12th century, as Monmouth was.  White spends more time describing interests and places and things - the typical fare that you need to comprehend a novel.  Monmouth does the same, but focuses more on the battles than the people.  Merlin is more of a presence in T. H. White's novel as well - that could just be because Arthur hasn't properly pulled the sword out of the stone yet; maybe Merlin leaves after that.  I don't really know.

The third major thing that White added to Merlin's character is that he ages backwards.  As Merlin has only had a few lines of text among all three of the previous authors, it's a lot easier to expand on his character and his hobbies.  Here, White uses Merlin's backwards aging as a source for comedy and bringing in time-irrelevant things (Merlin tries to draw his pointed wizard hat from thin air, for example, and goes through several iterations, including a sailor's hat, before he gets it).  At the same time, there's so much potential for something darker - but, of course, remembering one's audience is important.  (Maybe White might go into that... but... we haven't gotten there yet).

On King Arthur

As some of you may know, I'm doing a course on King Arthur this semester.  We've only had three classes - one class last week was cancelled for snow - but it's still very interesting.  We're going over the various aspects of the Arthurian myth, starting from Arthur's origin story.
The thing about Arthur's legend is that, well, he's a legend. Someone important named 'Arthur' can be traced back to the Welsh writing during the Saxon invasion of what is now Wales in 410 AD, after the collapse of the Roman empire - and even then, it was a passing reference, as if everyone knew who Arthur was.  (He's like Jesus like that... is that bad to say?)  Since he's been around for several thousand years, the legend has changed.

Since the part we've focused on in class so far is just Arthur's origin story, that's what I'm focusing on today.

There have been four assigned texts for this portion: Geoffrey of Monmouth's A History of the Kings of Britain, which was finished around 1136 AD and contains accounts of other (also mythical) kings like Cymbeline and Lear; Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, completed in 1467-70 (Malory, by the way, could have a novel written about his shenanigans, including the fact that he was knighted and then arrested and escaped prison via the moat... and again, with several swords and daggers); Lord Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King, written in 1839 to bad reviews and then re-released in 1859; the first 100 pages of The Once and Future King by T. H. White are due on Tuesday.

There only a few things agreed upon in the span of 800 years of myth: Igraine is pretty but married and Uther wants to get it on with her; on the night that her husband, Gorlois, dies in battle (that Uther started... probably), Uther goes in (possibly in the disguise of Gorlois because MAGIC) to bed her.  This is the night that Arthur is conceived; a short while later, they get married and Arthur is born. There are some stories that say that Merlin has him whisked off to grow up in a more humble area with a knight.

There are differences in the accounts, however. Geoffrey is more concerned with Arthur's exploits in the battlefield than his origins, so this whole story is the work of a few paragraphs. Igraine is consenting to sleep with Uther, and Gorlois apparently dies while Uther is in the building. When Igraine finds out the truth about who the father of her baby is, she is completely okay with the whole thing and rejoices in her new marriage. She's more of an object than a person here. Merlin is around - he gives Uther 'medicines' to change his face to that of Gorlois (this is a very Christian work, so 'magic' is probably not the best word to use). In Malory's account, she's similar - not only consenting to the match, but outright rejoicing that the baby is Uther's. This is the first time that Merlin is mentioned as taking the baby away afterwards. Also, Merlin seems more magical here - he casts a spell over Uther and several others to make Uther look like Gorlois and himself and one other man to look like Gorlois's companions.
In Tennyson's account, however, Igraine is the most different from the other two. Not only is Uther not disguised, but he goes in after Gorlois is dead and takes Igraine right there. She is CRYING at the wedding and CLEARLY NOT OKAY WITH IT.  The other interesting bit of Tennyson's account is that Guinevere is a bit different, too. She's beautiful, sure, but Tennyson's account really highlights that the relationship between Guinevere and Arthur: when they first get the chance to see each other, Arthur isn't wearing anything to distinguish himself as a king, so she barely notices him and he thinks she's the most attractive person that he's ever laid eyes on.  This sets up the interesting relationship between the two - it's the first time that you see the one-sidedness of it. Also, Tennyson includes two life lessons that we now know NEVER TO DO if we find ourselves in a work of fiction: first, Arthur sends his wingman LANCELOT to go get Guinevere from her palace on their wedding day; second, Arthur says to Guinevere at their wedding, "Behold, thy doom is mine... I love thee to the death."  words such as these have been said by John Grady Cole in Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy; Romeo probably said it to Juliet.  Basically, the words "I WILL DIE FOR YOU" (or, you know, "I will love thee to death and doom and blah blah blah" or something) will be immediately noted by Fate and used for further reference.

That's all I have for now.  Farewell.

Lazy Post

I know that I swore to do posts on Mondays and Fridays and... I dropped the ball.  As I have to go to bed in half an hour, and a bit on time is better than not at all, here is what happened this weekend:
1. I procrastinated a lot.
2. First fraternity chapter of the semester.  I was sworn in as the chapter historian.  HUZZAH!
3. Went to the early church service with a friend of mine, who was playing in the band.  It's definitely a lot smaller than the 11:00 service, and different music, but it might be the service I wind up going to. (If I manage to wake myself up before 8:00 on Sundays)

That's all that's happened this weekend, unfortunately.  I wrote a bit for homework, and read a lot for homework, and procrastinated a lot on homework.  I also translated Greek.

I'm sorry this is so short; I'll try to post more substance on Friday.  Time for bed.

On Character Building

I know I've talked about Dungeons and Dragons characters before, but the character-building aspect of it has come to my attention again. I'm doing a new campaign (which is a smaller and less regular campaign than the one I've been in for the last year and a half), and I'm trying out a new character class: one that is fighting-based, not magic-based. It's a rather large campaign, and we're all rather low-level characters; this makes it easier for the less-experienced people in the group.

My favorite part of the character building in D&D is that you have to have a weakness: you're not allowed to just re-roll your skill points until you get 18 for all six skills (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma). The way the classes are structured will show which skills are favored and which are you dump stats. For example, bards need a good Charisma and Intelligence score; the way the class is structured makes the bard less inclined towards Strength and Constitution. Certain kinds of armor interfere with their magic as well. As a result, Bards are a good choice if you're on an information-seeking RPG quest, and are complete shit if you're on a combat-based kill-the-bad-guys quest. (I speak from experience).

On the other hand, a class like a Fighter or a Barbarian is the Bard's opposite. These classes, obviously, are combat-based; my Strength and Constitution scores are my highest scores for this character. I haven't fully fleshed her out yet, because it takes a really long time, but it's important to remember at least one way that Hollywood tends to lie to us: if a character is a fighter-type, their Charisma is often their dump stat (attractiveness falls under Charisma), and their armor is generally functional, not showy.  Sure, they may be attractive because they've spent years training to have a solid 18 in Strength and a 17 in Constitution, but that probably means that their Intelligence is more like a 12.

This is something I need to remember when drawing up my non-D&D characters. I can't have someone be smart (at least, not necessarily book-smart) and still have them train 8 hours a day in combat skills.  For most characters in the D&D universe, it's better to have an 18 and a 16 mixed in with a few tens and elevens, as opposed to having a character who has a 13 in every box.
Why?
If you have a good strength score, you can attack better. The higher your constitution, the more you can get hit before dying. If your dexterity is good, you'll be able to go earlier in battle and react more quickly. If you're more intelligent or wise, you'll succeed as a mage. If you're more charismatic, you can work crowds, intimidate people, and talk to people better because they'll think you're attractive.  Often you can be charming and gather information about how to defeat an enemy because you know what sort of questions to ask, and that can be your contribution to the actual battle, because all you can do during the fight is poke people with a rapier and sing songs to support people (protip: rapiers don't work).  Alternatively, it's probably unlikely that someone who has perfected their fighting skills also has good people skills. That's why groups are important.

Spring Semester

Today is our first day of spring semester, and it has been interesting.  I've only had two classes today, which is nice, but I'm not looking forward to having an 8:00 AM class every single day.  Well, I might.  My history professor seems cool enough, so I might be looking forward to his class.  The other class I had today was the Greek Epic - in other words, Homer.  This is going to be a challenge and a half.

I'm definitely not looking forward to his 18-page final paper, though.  The last time I had a long paper, it was 10-15 pages for an honors class last semester, and I had 12 pages counting the bibliography (with a large-ish 12-point font... IT'S IN THE PAGE RANGE, OKAY).  This, on the other hand, is a History 101 course.  I understand that the 101 portion is designed to help the students with their writing, but I'm not sure if I can come up with 18 pages about the sexual revolution and/ or the LGBTQ+ movement in the 1960s.  Those are topics I like, but still - Masau'u and other factors of Puebloan death mythology and their influence on Blood Meridian and its character of the Judge was also an interesting topic for me, but I could still only come up with eleven double-spaced pages on the topic.  To be fair, there is probably more up-to-date literature about the sexual revolution and/ or the LGBTQ+ movement in the 1960s... and I can probably read it all the way through... (I didn't even finish Blood Meridian. Does that make me a bad Honors student?)

Anyhow, the other class I had today was The Greek Epic - we're translating The Odyssey from its original Greek.  Greek is my fun-challenge course (except for the verbs), but apparently Homer is one of the more difficult writers to translate, especially coming from intermediate Greek that focused mainly on the Attic dialect. The reason for this will take a bit of explaining.
So, basically, there are a few major dialects of Greek - Ionic and Aeolic are two of them.  I'm not sure where Ionic was dominantly spoken - I assume that it was more on the mainland of what we now call Greece, because Attic (from Athens) is a sub-dialect of that.  Aeolic is more from the coast of what we call Turkey; it is, strictly speaking, the same language, but there are several differences in the rules for syntax and verbs.  In The Odyssey, the Ionic and Aeolic styles are all jumbled up into lines that fit the meter.  Since we're not actually sure who wrote the work down, it's easy to think that certain books of The Odyssey could be more dominantly Ionic and others could tend towards Aeolic - but it's not like that at all.  Ionic rules and Aeolic rules are mish-mashed together into something that fits the meter.  That's going to be a royal pain in the butt for me, because I've only recently gotten the hang of all the Attic verb indicators - the letters that indicate that a verb is imperfect or perfect or aorist - and now I'm reading Homer, who doesn't actually use any of those.  Well, maybe I shouldn't throw away my Greek notes and textbooks yet - I might need them.

Tomorrow I have two honors classes (one involves yarn and one involves King Arthur, so that should be fun) and Journalism, which should not be fun because its textbook is expensive.

Anyway, I'll write again on Friday.

Romantic Comedies

Last night, I saw a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with my mom. It's one of his comedies, and it's easy to see why - there are romantic plots up the wazoo; it involves twins, cross-dressing, a love triangle that's actually closed, a lusty servant, and mistaken identity (see 'twins' and 'cross-dressing'). Honestly, all it needs is some legitimate same-sex couples and a character that hits on everyone and it will be more romantically confusing than the NaNoWriMo novel I wrote in 2011.

To flesh this out more fully:
Viola and Sebastian are twins. They are on a boat. It crashes on an island. They get separated. Viola, being an opportunist in a sexist society, dresses like a dude and calls herself 'Cesario.' She enters the service of one Lord Orsino, who is trying to court Olivia (whose brother has died and who isn't really interested in romance). Viola falls for Orsino, who sends Viola to do the courting for him. Olivia falls for Cesario, who kind of doesn't want that. Meanwhile, some servants persuade Olivia's servant Malvolio that if he dresses in some yellow garters and gets really bossy, then Olivia is definitely going to fall for him. Add in Lord Aguecheek, and basically everyone wants Olivia except Viola; of course, that means that Olivia wants Viola (as Cesario, of course). Then there's some duel propositions; on the day of the duel, SEBASTIAN ARRIVES. Olivia propositions Sebastian (because he and Cesario look very similar), and then everyone is very confused for a while until they see Cesario and Sebastian in the same room at the same time. Orsino realizes that Cesario isn't attractive but Viola is (Shakespearean logic?), and the only person who winds up not getting someone they desire is Malvolio.


If someone here does not call this a romantic comedy, I would really love to hear their logic. The interesting thing about this, though, is that it's not necessarily the same as romantic comedies today. Though there are themes of staunch heterosexuality, and (usually) at least one person does not wind up with the object of their desire, something like Twelfth Night (or even Midsummer Night's Dream) is a little different than the dominant RomComs of today.

A major reason that Twelfth Night is different from RomComs today is that Viola is not the main object of interest. In Emma, it's the title character, and she has to turn down a few guys before realizing who is right for her. In Pretty in Pink, Andie turns down Duckie and goes with... SPOILERS, but he likes her as well. The point is, there are always several people who are interested in the female main character (henceforth referred to as the FMC), and they're usually dudes, because she's usually straight. In Twelfth Night, though, Olivia has the role of Attractive Female, but Viola is the main character. She's not the object of attraction because everyone thinks she is a guy - which is an interesting perspective, once you think about it.

Additionally, something like Twelfth Night is interesting because, like so much of Shakespeare, it can be translated to a lot of different areas. The production I saw was set in the 1920s; it was essentially a ballet in 20s-style ragtime and jazz.  I don't know how well something like Pretty in Pink would work in that sort of situation.

On textbooks and time passing

I'm back in my hometown for a week on Jterm break - that little time between Jterm and spring semester when we can regain sanity, overcome jet lag, and drop many hundreds of dollars on spring semester books. (and also have time for the books to ship).  I think the important thing to remember about college textbooks (and also being an English major) is that while you may save a fortune online (almost all my books, with shipping, were less than the used price listed for the campus bookstore), you're still going to be spending a lot of money.  My history class and my literature class, for example: none of the books were over $15 with shipping, but there were 17 books between the two classes. In other words, they're cheap, but they're plentiful. It's an interesting juxtaposition: my science-major friends drop $200 each on a few textbooks, but I pay a little more for the 21 books I have to buy.  Perks of being an English major?

Anyway, to address part two of the title: the passing of time.
As I already stated, I'm back home for a week. I went to my high school's production of Les Miserables (and, I might add, I am extremely jealous that they got to do that production, even if it is the 'school version'), and there were a few things that I noticed.
First was how much some of the people have grown up. The guy who played Javert grew up around the corner from me - I was good friends with his sister when we were kids. He's still short, but now he can sing "Stars" with no strain on his voice and sound absolutely fantastic. All these people that I had no memory of being particularly good singers were suddenly really good (except for Fantine; she's always been fantastic).  Voices have changed, too - when I was in choir with Cosette, she sang alto, but she managed Cosette's ridiculous jumps easily.  Enjolras, unfortunately, has had a little recession in voice quality, but he's still good.
The second thing I noticed was that people have had mixed reactions about my coming back.  I saw this a little in church, too - the reactions were mixed between "OMG YOU'RE BACK YAY!" to "lovely to see you, but aren't you supposed to be in school?" (the last bit of that sentence was only implied, but still). I'm getting to that point in my college career where the freshmen and sophomores are now juniors and seniors; I can address fewer and fewer people by name.  Home is changing, but I am, too.  I can finally drive on my own, which is something I've never actually done before.

I guess the lesson is that time goes on, tuition gets paid, lessons are learned, and people grow and change.  Home changes, people change, and all that sort of thing.  In time, I guess, I'll get to the point where all my high school friends are going to graduate and leave, and hopefully I'll be emotionally prepared for it.