Good night, and good luck

Valentine’s Day has been cancelled. (You did get the memo, didn’t you?)

Moving on with life, then, here’s a smattering of miscellanea. I found out tonight that my bishop, the dean of the College of Biology and Agriculture here, was one of the six main people who worked on the new food pyramid.

I bought Winnie Ille Pu yesterday to satisfy my Latin cravings. Almost bought one of the Harry Potter books in either Latin or Welsh (they had both), but decided to wait for another day. Speaking of Harry Potter, Elder Uchtdorf quoted Dumbledore in a stake conference this past Sunday, and apparently he’s read all six books. (Sorry Liz and Joni, I couldn’t wait. :)) I’m always happy whenever the General Authorities endorse or at the very least just mention literature. :)

As for literature — er, film — mentioning General Authorities, I was watching George Clooney’s movie Good Night, and Good Luck last week and was amused to hear a small aside about “Benson” and “agriculture” in Washington. :)

Lately I’ve been daydreaming about how nice it would be to have all day, every day for writing and art. Right now I’d like to spend more time developing my skills, but it’s hard to cram it all in. I’ve never really considered freelancing until now, actually. And while I still plan to become a librarian, perhaps someday down the road I’ll be able to “retire” and spend all my time on creative stuff. But of course I find myself wondering if that’s really what I want. Would I go crazy staying home all day writing? Who knows. Anyway, whatever the case may be, I really, really, really wish I had more time, especially for working on art.

I realized the other day one of the reasons why I wear dress clothes most (read: all) of the time: to feel like a working man. Specifically, a writer. (Yes, I know that many writers don’t dress like that. I think perhaps my subconscious is thinking of journalists or something.) And apparently being a grown-up working man is something my subconscious likes a lot.

Two thoughts on writing. First, I bought a large Moleskine a week or two ago to serve as my new journal. It’s great! I’m loving it. :)

Second, revising is something I don’t do enough of. I do revise as I go along, but it’s rare for me to go back and re-read what I’ve written unless it’s something really important. That’s one of the things I need to change, because revision is — I believe — one of the keys to excellent writing. Besides, it’s depressing to live off your rough drafts — if that’s what you base your estimation of your writing skill on, then you’re bound to be disappointed, because most first drafts are sludge. At least mine are. ;) But once you get to the point where a first draft is just a blob of clay you throw onto the table, where you accept that it’s going to change a lot as you mold it into the final product, then the whole thing becomes a lot more tolerable, with hope beaming in through the clouds. Persuading myself to revise is one of my new New Year’s resolutions.

Finally, I’ve found that memorizing poetry in class is harder than memorizing vocabulary — keeping the continuity is where the challenge lies. It’s not impossible, of course (I memorized two more stanzas of “The Lady of Shalott” during phonology last Friday), but I think I’ll generally keep to vocab. That’s what I did in class yesterday — German prepositions — and it worked quite well. If I keep this up, all of those barren spare moments will start blossoming.

While I imagine it would be hard to memorize poetry in little bits, I have found poetry to be one of the easiest things to memorize because of its flow. It’s easier to remember exact words if you know what they have to rhyme with and it’s easier to remember phrases that have to fit into a rhythm.

“I’m always happy whenever the General Authorities endorse or at the very least just mention literature.” — I take it you love President Monson then. :) Really though, all the apostles are amazingly literate men.

Allyson and I looked at each other iand laughed a bit when we heard the Benson reference, but no one around us seemed to react. Glad you caught it.

Oh, and happy V-Day. Huzzah.

Yep, Benson was quite the McCarthy fan. :P

Laura: Good point. I think what I was getting at was that with memorizing poetry you have to store more in your head at a time (connecting the lines), whereas with vocabulary you just have to memorize one chunk at a time (word meaning). But I neglected the fact that both the continuity and the rhyming make it easier. :)

Katherine: I’m glad I wasn’t the only one. I was practically bursting with a smile, wanting to say something. But nobody around me caught it either. ~sigh~

Ali: :) I didn’t know all that much about McCarthy before this, but it was rather fascinating. I love history. A lot. :)