Cheesy Documentaries Make Me Smile

This weekend has been a very good and relaxing one for me. I hardly knew what to do with myself...so, as I usually do in such times, I spent several hours watching the History Channel. You can find some really great stuff on there (good example: a great documentary on Mission Control and NASA called Failure is not an Option), but sometimes you can also come across something really awful. I found myself watching one of these awful shows last night. It was called "Quest for Dragons," and the premise was that they were going to examine how dragons appear in the art and mythology of almost every ancient culture, all over the globe. It's an interesting and perfectly reasonable premise on which to make a documentary, but this one was absolutely ridiculous. The "experts" interviewed were:
a.) some really nerdy English prof
b.) a really sketchy-looking anthropologist (and I think anthropology is pretty sketchy overall anyway...it's a nebulous discipline)
c.) a random body-builder who has tattoos of dragons all over his body
d.) a couple of strange new-agey Druids who "feel" that dragons exist (this reminds me of one of my favorite Dilbert cartoons, in which Dilbert asks this new-agey girl, "Since when did ignorance become a point of view?")

Add to all this the really primitive computer animations of dragons zooming around (the same 3 clips shown over and over during the 2-hour show), the blaring, overly dramatic music, and the overall bad writing and organization...I felt like I was back in my sci-fi class from last year, where reality and logic apparently disappeared. Needless to say, I was not impressed, but I was highly amused. It was funnier than your average infomercial!

(Note to History Channel: Dragons are cool, but next time...Please hire me.)

Currently Listening: "Something Good" by Bic Runga from Beautiful Collision

I love Finals

Yeah, I really do love finals. Finals week is always the most fun week of the semester for me. Although I do have to study, somehow I like studying for/taking tests more than I like working on projects and reading assignments. Probably this is because a test is a clearly defined goal that can be accomplished in a relatively short amount of time.

And most importantly, finals week is bathed in the euphoria of an almost-finished semester. I have lots of fun hanging out with friends during finals week, more than the whole semester sometimes! I remember staying up till indecent hours during finals week a couple of times to see the latest Lord of the Rings release...yeah...

So this is where the fun begins. As my brother rather dramatically likes to say, at last we can begin living like humans again!

"Modern" Issues

One of the advantages to learning ancient history lies in the fact that one really comes to understand just how unchanging people are. This can be encouraging or discouraging, depending on how you look at it, but I always find it fascinating. There are many issues that people generally think of as modern and current that actually have their roots way back in the ancient world. Economic issues such as inflation and the argument over free market / government controlled trade have, of course, been around forever, but it is amazing to see just how closely the ancient economy resembled our own. And here's another good one: abortion. My high school education generally saw the abortion debate as firmly linked in time to Roe v. Wade, but the struggle has actually been going on for thousands of years. This excerpt from my Roman history book is describing the fourth century (300s) AD:

"Both pagan and Christian moralists as well as Roman law condemned abortion and infanticide. Disagreement arose over what constituted abortion. Hippocratic medical writers did not think that conception was complete before the end of the first three months of pregnancy. Therefore, they considered ending a pregnancy in the first trimester contraception, not abortion. Christian writers, however, viewed voluntary termination of a pregnancy at any stage as murder."

Sound familiar? The truth is, people have been people for thousands of years!

Happy Birthday, Rome

According to tradition, this day, April 21st, is the day on which Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome in 753 BC. Felix dies natalis, Roma!


And, just for the occasion, I'll throw in some Roman poetry (by Ovid) translated into charming Elizabethan English (by Christopher Marlowe):

Were Love the cause, it's like I shoulde descry him,
Or lies he close, and shoots where none can spie him?
T'was so, he stroke me with a slender dart,
Tis cruell love turmoyles my captive hart.
Yeelding or striving doe we give him might,
Lets yeeld, a burden easly borne is light.

-Amores 1.2.5-11

Templates and Tempers

Yee-haw, new template! I wish I could figure out how some people's blogs are so cool...because the only templates that seem to be available to me are these boring ones. Oh well, I really don't have time to mess with customizing, I'll just change my template every week to amuse myself.

Not much news lately, except that I threw a temper tantrum today for the first time in a very long while. Seriously. I seem to remember slamming things on my desk and possibly throwing a few objects...Apparently the stress has been getting to me more than I realized.

But I'm all better now. I took out my less-than-productive energy on my room, and gave it a good cleaning. That always makes me feel better, for some mysterious reason. And I wrote a 10-page paper tonight, so the day wasn't a complete waste.

So why am I still sitting here typing? Good night!

Currently Listening: Cancones i dansas No. 1, Quasi moderato, by Frederico Mompou
From The Most Relaxing Piano Album in the World...Ever!

Aggieland!!!

Okay, so I'm finally writing about my great trip a couple of weeks ago. I'm a fan of travel writing, I just apparently can't find time to get it all down! (I promise, I'll try to do better in Rome...)

Dad and I always take a baseball trip every spring to go see the Tech baseball boys play an away series. Our goal is to make it to all of the Big 12 stadiums, eventually. We've hit some other good places, too. So far we've made it to:
1.) TCU (not Big 12, but a nice little stadium)
2.) Houston College Classic held at Minute Maid Park (it was Enron Field at the time)
3.) University of Houston versus Tech at the Rockhounds' park in Midland
4.) Oklahoma State
5.) Texas
6.) Baylor
7.) Texas A & M

That's just our college ball trips, by the way. We've also made trips to see the Rangers, the Royals, and the Fort Worth Cats (a former Tech player is on the team). So anyway, this last trip, we finally made it to some games at Texas A & M.

Before the games ever started, we had a great time touring the A & M campus. Don't think I'm a bad Red Raider for saying this, but I really like A & M. When you walk around and actually see the places where people work, go to school, hang out, and just generally live, it causes the irrational animosity to just kind of ooze out of you. These are people too, and they're a whole lot like us, really. Aggies are a little bit more enthusiastic about stuff, while Red Raiders tend to be a bit more laid back, but other than that, we're right on the same page. I mean, we're all Texans!

Kyle Field (the football stadium) blew me away. This picture simply doesn't do it justice...I don't know if I've ever seen a more imposing structure. It ain't pretty, but it is incredible. I can't imagine being a player from another team, going in there to face the wrath of a crowd of rabid Aggies 80,000 strong. It must be like a gladiator being thrown to the lions in the Colisseum. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Yikes!


I was also impressed, in a more nerdy sort of way, by the A & M Academic Building. Yes, that is its only official name (boring...and vague), but it is the home of Classical Languages and European Cultures. I told dad I wanted to see their equivalent of my haunts, and I must say, it's great. It was built in 1918 or something like that. The rotunda is quite impressive. I couldn't find a picture that shows all the jillions of columns on all 3 levels going up to the top...but it's lovely, take my word for it. My kind of architecture! (Although Spanish Renaissance is right up there with it, of course...)

After we toured the campus, we had some great Mexican food at their local joint, Mi Cocina, and a nice nap before going to the game.

Olsen Field is the name of their baseball stadium, and it is such a fun place. It's a nice stadium, complete with fold-down seats (in some areas) and, very importantly, a shade for the fans. When you're sitting in the stands, your eyes are instantly drawn to the incredible bulk of Kyle Field, just across the street and straight out through center field. (In fact, this pic was probably taken from there.) And running next to the right field wall is a train track. About 4 or 5 trains pass by during the course of a game, and that makes for a fun distraction, for everyone except the visiting pitcher, I suppose. The engineers wave at us, and the crowd waves back!

But best of all, the Aggie baseball fans are what make the place fun. The entire crowd--not just an enthusiastic few, the WHOLE CROWD--participates in all sorts of jokes and hand signals and chants and songs and who knows what else. As a stranger, I had no idea what they were doing half the time, but it was fun. They also have a crazy fight song where, at one point, they put their arms around each other and start swaying back and forth, singing about "sawing the horns off," referring to UT, of course. I couldn't help myself at one point and started swaying along with them, which really tickled a lady behind me. We had a good conversation about various things afterwards. And my dad, of course, chatted it up with everybody in earshot. They were all really nice folks. All in all, I must say that the baseball atmosphere at A & M is the best I've seen so far in my travels. (I almost forgot to mention the Dixie Band--ensemble, really--that plays before the games as you come in. A tuba, a clarinet, a banjo, and a trumpet...they're great. So much fun.) Baylor has a slightly better stadium, also filled with nice folks, but not quite the same crazy fun crowd. If you are ever passing through College Station during the spring, try to make it to a game or two. You'll be glad you did.

Oh, by the way, Tech lost both games that we went to. We didn't mind too much, although it was too bad my classmate, Miles Morgan, didn't pick up another flashy win like he did against Texas (he's our best pitcher, and he's in Roman History with me). Still, Tech played pretty well on Sunday, just had a bit of a pitching meltdown at the end. And anyway, happy Aggies are more fun to be around, I'm sure. :)

Driving around in a Grand Prix (we love Pontiacs in my family), looking at bluebonnets, jamming to Los Lonely Boys (my dad has decided he likes them), and eating great food were also part of the fun. I had to do homework during the trip, so Dad would pull out his Popular Mechanics and read with me. One night we pulled our chairs to the lamp and both put our feet up on the bed, just reading away...we were cute. And it was a much needed break! I feel much better about school and life in general now that I've had the chance to get out of Lubbock for a while.

So that's the story! (How do you like my multimedia approach, Pizza? *wink*) I've stayed up late already, I had better hit the sack!

Keep it real...