February 8, 2008
Fic Rec: Ghost in the Garden
I finally found the time to read a story I had set aside for quite some time. I'm a bit sorry that I didn't read it sooner, but not for the author's sake; I denied myself the pleasure of reading a truly nice gem. The story is The Ghost in the Garden by , and it was written for yours truly, to fill my request for “an interaction between Celeborn and Galadriel on a spiritual theme.” Dawn took this challenge literally, and gives us a meditation on the nature of Elvish spirits, thoroughly canonical (so far as I know First Age canon, at least).
Celeborn is one of my favorite characters, though I rarely write him, and Dawn has captured much that is admirable about the Sindarin elves. Celeborn is passionate in his way, certainly sensual (and talk about luscious writing….), but he is also practical and matter-of-fact. I especially liked the way that the Sindarin elves were described as having a court society, and that Celeborn was kept in the proper place someone as young as he would be expected to fill. He might be the king's kinsman, but he is not the star of Doriath. It all felt very natural.
Speaking of that sensual writing I mentioned earlier: this story is set during Celeborn's and Galadriel's engagement. And because of that Celeborn and Galadriel have not had what most people would call sex. And this is an important part, because Thingol has required the lovers wait several years to marry, since they are of different peoples. I know that some people have argued that LACE doesn't apply to Sindarin elves, and I have certainly read some enjoyable stories built within that view – but there is something so very hot about the sexual atmosphere Dawn creates in the first few scenes of this story.
There is not a hint of our own puritanical view of that boundary between full sex and everything up until that point; Galadriel abstains because to do otherwise would be to go against the king's wishes, but she and Celeborn seem to enjoy the intimate acts that are available to them. They are elves; there is no rush in this matter, and the engagement period is short enough, and Celeborn and Galadriel seem able to be very intimate without it.
I don't want to misrepresent this story; only a very small part of it deals with sexual matters. At most, I'd give it a PG13 rating. But those parts of the story dealing with physical intimacy set the stage nicely for the emotional intimacy that will become so important later. Without spoiling the ending, there is a lovely parallel between the two parts of the story. Both Celeborn and Galadriel are very well presented, as young elves with their flaws and strengths and struggles. Quite possibly the best C+G-in-Doriath story I've ever read; I recommend it.
February 6, 2008
95052
I finished my chapter. Twelve pages written in twelve hours — not all that bad. :^)
February 5, 2008
94798
So, today has been a day of much productivity.
I skimmed roughly 200 pages of The Development of Logic, making note of the best passages in the most useful program Evernote, sort of an electronic notepad. (About fifty, all told, on ancient logic, medieval logic, and how ancient logic was known in Europe in the early medieval period.) Then yesterday I went through and turned it into an outline, and today I'm writing the outline in actual text. The point of all of this is to show the logic of the time when Anselm wrote his argument. A worthy goal, but not exactly fun or fast-paced….
It's nice knowing where to go next, and I am making progress – but durn it, the internet is distracting! I've turned off email all day, but it's most hard avoiding the call of procrastination. I want to check out LJ! Or icanhascheezburger. Or whatever else. But I'll be good.
So you know, that's why I've been quiet. I am thinking about you all – more than Aristotle, actually, at least at the moment. 
February 4, 2008
94475
(There's some religious content in this post, and some kvetching about said religious content, further down. Be forewarned.)
So, a lady came into the tutoring office today. She was actually in my Latin class last semester, but not this semester, so she wanted to “catch up.” She's very sweet and quite elderly, but she also is not shy about sharing her opinions (and doesn't seem to properly “hear” my answers when I have answered her questions in the past), so I was a bit tentative about the conversation, and just wanted to help her with the logic. BUt see above about not properly hearing. 
Since I am meeting one-on-one with the teacher rather than taking the class this semester, she asked me how I was understanding the course material. I said that I had understood it all okay but have been too busy with my thesis to give it the attention it needs. (Which is true.) She asked me what my thesis was about, and I gave her the five-cent answer: “St. Anselm.” This got me the normal blank stare I get from many people not in my program, so I followed up with the twenty-five cent answer, that it's about an attempt to prove the existence of God and depends on defining God as “so great you can't imagine anything greater.”
Which was a mistake. Theology and philosophy of religion are the kinds of subjects that people have some exposure to just from having participated in church for several decades, but it's a deceptively deep subject, too. And this particular lady managed to work digressions into modern-day Christianity into a class on Latin, which always made me grit my teeth a little.
She asked me if I thought we could prove God's existence, and I admitted that I didn't think we could. She then proceeded to act like I had said I didn't believe in God's existence – which isn't true! I do believe in God, but I don't think God is something we can define and analyze because of His infinite nature. Not being able to prove isn't the same as denying the conclusion! I tried to explain this to her about three times before I gave up. This is a point that is very important to me, and that I'm often misunderstood over with my family – what I do scholastically does not reveal my deepest-held beliefs. So it's something very frustrating when people make that jump who should really know better.
Anyway, she gave me several “proofs” for God's existence.
She started with the experiential: “I sense God within me.” A variation of this was actually a somewhat philosophical proof (in book III of Descartes' _Meditations_), but it's not particularly well-regarded in philosophy either. And I hold with Emerson, anyway: the most I can know about someone else's religious experience is that they said they had the experience.
Interestingly, this is my reason for faith (so far as I have one): it just fits with how I experience the world better than the non-existence of God would, and I don't see proof that God *can't* exist so I choose to believe. But it's not a proof! Faith is the belief in the existence of things unseen – this is more a narrative of why I believe, I guess.”
She then used the “intelligent design” argument: that so many organisms have a similar structure (two eyes, nose in the middle of the face, two ears on opposite sides of the head, etc.), and that this “proves” a creator.
It irks me when people think that similarity implies causation, because it doesn't. We see this in fanfic all the time. Two authors can have very similar scenes without one having copied the other; the similarities are a coincidence. Similarly, in the natural world, there are animals that have similar features but aren't at all related. (Bats, insects, and birds all have wings, for instance.) Just like fanfic writers writing about the same characters and events with similar themes may independently come to use the same devices, so animals may have the same anatomical feature because they are facing the same challenge from the world around them. This doesn't mean there's some *design* behind all of this.
And even allowing that there is a designer, this doesn't mean that that designer would have anything in common with what most people mean when they say God. Tolkien makes this point clear. According to the Silmarillion, Arda is fashioned by created beings (the Ainur) with power many times greater than Elves and Men and everything else in Middle-earth – but the Ainur are not infinitely powered, there are things they cannot do. Just because they created the world, they do not have to be just and merciful and beneficent. At most, the design argument proves there was something powerful enough to create everything you can experience – not that he is all-powerful, and certainly not that he has any other characteristic religions tend to give God.
It frustrates me when people use simplistic arguments like this because it makes Christianity seem like a religion that isn't very intellectually sophisticated. And Christians are smart! We're the religion of Augustine and Abelard and Aquinas and Descartes and Kierkegaard and countless other very astute individuals. And it's better to show a little humility and admit you can't prove something, than to put up a weak argument.
I'm not saying Christians are the only religion that's come up with good thinkers, or that these people were smart because they're Christians. Or that you have to be religious to be intellectually sharp. Far from it! But faith (and Christianity in particular) doesn't stop you from putting up rational arguments where such can be offered, and realizing rational arguments aren't possible where they aren't.
Alright, I'll be quiet now. *shoves soapbox under bed*
February 3, 2008
Fanfic Recommendation: "A Rose in the Depth of Winter" by <lj user=juno_magic>
A Rose in the Depth of Winter is a HP oneshot set years after Deathly Hallows, in which Hermione visits Severus Snape's grave. Juno is a HG/SS writer and I interpreted this story in that light, though it need not thought of that way. It could just be a nice gen character study.
“Rose” is a very nice character piece looking at the way a scholastic like Hermione would have viewed the teacher that gave her a bit of a hard time, now that she's out of school. There's respect and a recognition that the two were in many ways equals and well-suited to each other, but Juno also accommodates the canonical Hermione/Ron pairing as well, creating a more nuanced character than (IMHO) even Rowlings gave us. :^)
There's some other really nice invented details of a wide cast of characters, and it all feels thoroughly canonical; to say more would be telling. But fans of character-driven HP fanfic may want to give this one a read.
because I like you guys WAAAAY better than my second grade classmates…
I've seen several people post about this, specifically and . The idea is you can leave valentines (signed or unsigned). Sort of the electronic version of the shoebox you decorated with pink construction paper and stickers and stuck on the edge of your desk in grade school.
No pressure – this is not a popularity contest in my opinion – but if you'd like to leave me a valentine, I'd definitely enjoy it.
February 2, 2008
when the funny just isn't that funny
(This post emo-filtered; please don't share.)
I like comics. I think I have a pretty good sense of humor and don't get that upset. But for some reason, this really really bugs me. Seriously.
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/crbc/2008/crbc080201.gif
Suicide is a major problem. According to the latest statistics I'm aware of, someone successfully ends their own life about once every twenty minutes. And for every person who dies, there's an average of six immediate family members – parents, siblings, spouses, children – left behind. As someone who has personally lost two very close family members to suicide, I know just how much gut-wrenching pain and anger it can cause. It's something I continue to struggle with, even a few years later. Most people affected don't make a public stink because of the stigma, and because it's such a damn sensitive issue. But they still hurt.
Even by a conservative estimate, if the figures I mentioned above are accurate, more than 400 people know someone who died yesterday because he or she chose to end their life. And maybe that's not very many people compared to the national population, but a comic like B.C. gets a lot of subscribers. Odds are at least some of them have had their worlds blown apart in the last few weeks. B.C. is a fairly “feel good” and family friendly comic – I'd think of it as a safe read. Actually, I *do* think of it as a safe read. That's probably why it upset me so much to see a suicide joke there. This careless sort of careless mention of suicide causes pain to people who are trying their best to hold it together, which is Not Cool in my book.
Bleh. I mean, I know this stuff happens all the time. I try not to be so sensitive, but somehow this got to me. Being reminded of something I'm so sensitive to is tough enough, but having it be the butt of a joke? Well, that's Not Cool either. :-S
January 31, 2008
more comics
Here's another comic, this time for all the folks in graduate school (or who have ever been). It totally describes my days – too much so, actually.
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd013008s.gif
Get Fuzzy FTW!
For all those of you out there owned by cats….
http://community.livejournal.com/getfuzzyfeed/270043.html
January 30, 2008
*iz ded from the tiredness*
I'm tired. Exhausted, actually. I skipped my class tonight and came on home, claiming a world-class headache (which I did have at the time), but failing to mention the fact that I kept waking up every 2-3 hours last night (which is the reason for said headache – sleep deprivation).
I covered a fellow M.A. student's shift in the tutoring office as well as my own because he had a doctor's appointment of some sort (he'll cover mine on Friday), but no one came in. I made a little bit of progress on the thicker-than-molasses-and-drier-than-Harad book on the history of logic (The Development of Logic, by Kneale and Kneale, if you're interested). I read the better part of the medieval section about the period before Anselm lived; I now need to go back and read the much longer section on ancient logic so I know, when they say (for instance) that of Aristotle's works only the Categories was available in the West, what Aristotle actually said in that work.
I love my topic, I love my topic…. I just need to keep repeating this to myself. Because, really, I do. But history of logic is enough to drive anyone up a wall.
Let's see, what else…. went to therapy. Ran by the post office and dropped off a packet of documents that had been sent to me rather than to Leeds because I'd put my address in the “to” field and Leeds' in the “from.” And came home. I should really have been more productive but to do that I need to sleep.
Which I think I'm going to. Maybe if I take a nap I'll be able to make sense of another chapter of the logic book tonight. *waves to flist*
