Eclipse - Book 3

Yup, the time-stamp on this post is correct. At least I'm done now and can get on with life. In addition to being pure (deeply addicting) fluff, I found the series to be an increasingly interesting, and increasingly disturbing commentary about young women's ideas of romance.

Is it really the dream of teenage girls to be, like Bella, so consumed by love as to want to sacrifice every personal aspect of themselves to their boyfriend? Edward is a vampire in more than one sense--he has consumed Bella's individuality and independent personhood. I say that's just another aspect of her humanity (which, literally, is next on the list of personal traits she plans to give up). As Renee observed, Bella has become Edward's satellite.

So what's the deal here? Do women really fantasize about losing themselves entirely in a dominant, perfect man? What could be more self-destructive in the most basic senses of the term than that? I don't find this romantic--I find it disturbing. Emotionally, I enjoyed these books. Intellectually, I am, you could say, frustrated.

New Moon - Book 2

I need more sleep.

Twilight - Book 1

Bella is annoyingly helpless. Edward is absurdly perfect. And still their story is deeply addicting and ridiculously compelling. Why? What's the deal here?

A Mid-Tuesday Night's Stargazing

Our time in the Bay Area has been especially hard on one of our hobbies: stargazing. In fact, possibly the worst place for looking up at the sky and seeing anything is exactly where we live. Our binoculars and cute little Dobsonian telescope are rendered next to useless by the bright lights of the city and the liberal use of streetlights in our neighborhood. (Though happily we were able to spot the exploding comet a few months back using the binos around the block.)

For months we've been thinking about going camping to escape our light polluted home and the surrounding metropolitan area, and we finally did so this last week. Our buddies Ed and Nicole wanted to try doing a Messier marathon, and March is the month for that, so we put a plan together to go to Lake Sonoma on Friday, March 7th.

Unfortunately (actually, fortunately), the weather forecast for Friday evening was mostly cloudy, so we very spontaneously moved the plan forward to Tuesday, March 4th. It worked out fantastically. I had to skip a class and a couple of seminars, but we had the entire campground to ourselves. The hills were beautiful and green, the sky was gorgeous and had very few clouds, and there was no pesky Moon. It was perfect.

As you can see above, Ellie helped set up the tent. Oddly, we've had it for over a year and this was the first time we'd used it. It's huge. We could have fit Ed and Nicole's smaller tent inside and still have had enough room to fit the three of us around it. (We decided against that option, though.)

The stargazing worked out really well. We spent too much time vainly trying to spot M76 and M74 (not trying for those again in the future!), but we were able to see surprisingly dim things (down to 10th magnitude in one case) with our 4 1/2" scope. The green laser pointer came in very handy. In addition to Messier objects, we saw satellites, meteors, Mars, and Saturn. Tragically, I succumbed to exhaustion around midnight, and Maile followed a couple hours later. Ed and Nicole were stalwarts, though: they stayed up until 5:30am and managed to see about 75 of the 110 Messier objects!

This was an extremely wonderful plan, and I am already very excited about doing it again next year. Next time I'll sleep more than three and a half hours the night before, and / or I'll come prepared with caffeinated beverages of some kind. :-)

Picasso

This video was my contribution to the ward variety show. As you can see, Ellie got a bit more screen time than the others. Editorial privilege, I say (and, I suppose, the fact that I just had more footage of her).

Zion's quirky in the East Bay

My latest parody, "A Berkeley Ward Anthem," (a takeoff on "Battle Hymn of the Republic") had its debut at the ward variety show tonight. The performance was--As Bill and Ted would say--most triumphant (or perhaps: non non non heinous). Everyone seemed to like it, and we had a great time singing it a second time through as one big group.

So now that the song has been performed, the secret is out. I've been wanting to share it with the world for nine days now. Without further ado, here it is. Enjoy!

[For those interested in a hard copy, download the pdf version. The gif version above looks great on computer screens but is really grainy when printed.]

Diem bisextilis anni carpimus

As with all years divisible by 4 in our lifetimes (even 2000), 2008 gave us an extra day. We took that 366th day and totally seized it. Seized it to death.

(5:25am) The day (as most weekdays sadly do) started dark and early. At early morning seminary (6:15am)--after some cajoling and coaxing, mind you--I was able to get a few of the students to memorize a few mastery scriptures.

(8:00am) We hosted our friends' three kids while she went to a dentist appointment and he went to campus.

(8:35am) Walking and busing while carrying my bowling bag (complete with 16-pound bowling ball), I trekked off to nearby Albany Bowl for my weekly ritual. The rolling of balls started off not so stellar, but the last game was a frame away from 200 (I blew it by dropping the seventh frame). I was happy with the results.

(9:30am) While I was off bowling, the kids were handed over to their mom along with Ellie while Maile went to a prenatal appointment.

(10:50am) She arrived back at home just in time for her six-hour shift at the computer center, and after walking back from the alley I picked up Ellie and fed her lunch quickly so that we could pick up Max (11:45am) and take them both by bus (and a four-block walk) to preschool. Then I finally headed to campus myself (12:40pm).

After attending a few meetings I began the very tedious and soporific online human subjects training (www.citiprogram.org ... ugh), then I was finally able to chat with my advisor (5:20pm).

(5:30pm) Maile finally leaves work (where Ellie has been dropped off), gets herself and Ellie some dinner at McDonald's, and heads over to the church (6:00pm) to practice not one but two numbers for the variety show. I arrive at the church from campus mostly by foot (6:10pm).

(7:10pm) The variety show starts, and is very entertaining. Maile's violin numbers were--as always--beautiful, and though plagued by an early technical glitch, her Picasso video was also quite lovely, especially the subtitle: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mess". The long anticipated performance of "A Berkeley Ward Anthem" (with some of the actual singers of the ward helping out) seemed to be a crowd pleaser, and after singing it a capella for four verses we ended up sharp (which is good, I now understand).

(9:15pm) The variety show comes to a close, for which Ellie is very, very ready. We finally arrive at home (9:45pm) and get the tired and cranky cookie off to bed.

It was a good leap day, but I'm willing to wait a while before the next one rolls around.