Things I Googled This Week

And by "this week," I mean "since Sunday." (It very much feels like a late Thursday.)

I thought I would just list some of the things I've googled this week for the entertainment of the thing, but as I made the list, I realized that one could get a pretty good picture of my week just by seeing what I've been googling. And so, la la, my week in google search terms.

define discordant - Not an auspicious beginning to my week.

how make silk for clothes - Apparently, from a caterpillar, not an actual worm. (The vegetarian website I found that detailed the process noted that the caterpillars have to be killed before they emerge from their cocoons for the best silk.) Consider: the new shirt I bought is silk and rabbit hair.

J Reuben Clark student conference - In February. In DC. La, I'm going.

Lady Duff Gordon (aka Lady Duff-Gordon) - Was the defendant in a case we read in contracts. Also, a huge early 20th-century celebrity, fashion designer, businesswoman. And was on the first raft of people saved from the Titanic. (Her husband and her maid was saved, too.)

Elinor Glyn - First try

Elinor Glin - Sister to Lady Duff Gordon. Went from the English lower class to Hollywood elite by writing novels, especially trashy romance novels that scandalized the monarchy. Coined the term the "It-Girl."

GK Chesterton Quotes - Notably, "It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong." AND "Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

apply to be an astronaut - Because a new Stanford friend is actually going to apply when she turns 26 next year. (I can't any longer--I've had LASIK. I'm working through it.)

claustraphobia - claustrophobia

epicurious - See next entry

gourmet stuffing recipe - Because I'm getting excited for Thanksgiving. (I'm on Stuffing Detail.)

moxie pictures - www.moxiepictures.com > Directors > Jared Hess > the picture of the two crouching boys. Brother Nate pointed me here, and I've been directing friends to it (and inexplicably forgetting the actual URL) all week.


chicken soup dickinson - I have this theory that Emily Dickinson has a poem about everything. And I wanted one about or involving chicken soup.

poem "chicken soup" - Because I realized I needed to broaden my search and modify my theory.

poem "chicken soup" -soul - Because I wanted a poem that wasn't meant to warm teeangers' hearts.

set alarm - I didn't believe I would be able to wake up to my cellphone alarm in order to do work before class on Monday, so I looked for an alarm clock I could set online. I think I found one, but it was too smart for me. So I went to bed and took my chances.

comedy warmups - To prep for Monday's on-campus FHE of improv comedy games. The goldmine: The Shootout (a game involving tragic deaths and cowboy firearms).

capitalize LASIK - For some law school-related reason I wanted to know if LASIK needed to be in all-caps or if just a first-letter magiscule was more appropriate. I don't know what's right, but I do know a lot of people are "capitalizing" on things related to LASIK.

utah state teaching license - I was trying to figure out the technical name of my teaching license to put on my resume. I couldn't. I didn't.

words with all vowels - Like "facetious" or "abstemious" (which have all the vowels in order). Assuming we exempt Y (or add an adverbial -ly ending). And W. (Not strictly a vowel. At least, most of my section agrees. But Daniel Elizondo, he will hold out.)

magiscule - I couldn't even post this blog without googling. I'm hooked. See LASIK above.

What's Funny Is Funny

Jane, friend and Stanford undergrad, recently has begun feeding me stories wherein international power meets human quirkiness. The most recent deserves its own blog. Jane saiden:

So the President of Turkmenistan renamed all of the months after family members/national heroes. The month of April was "Mother."

This was done in August 2002.

Picture of Turkmeni President Saparmurat Niyazov:


Robespierre (whom I call 'Robie') also renamed all the months, didn't he? They look alike, actually... (white hair, dark eyebrows, same 'smile,' similar suit, white shirt underneath, etc)

Robie:


Oh, power. "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority..." what, to rename the months of the year? Of all the things to do with power, HONESTLY. Have a pancake fest, or SOMETHING!! Crazy world, blast it all.

I've always like the word "Moabitish."

My Favoritish Books

Victor Monreal, Austinite friend, collects lists of people's favorite books. Recently, he requested mine with attendant summaries. I'm opening myself to all kinds of liability listing these for all the world to see. They're perhaps too sentimental, too Western, and too juvenile for an English major to conscionably list as her favorite. You should know, I also haven't read Moby Dick.

In the order I thought of them to write them down:

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Perhaps the most beautiful book I've ever read. As I read it, I kept thinking, "I can't believe someone wrote this. I can't believe some one wrote this." About four people in Italy in late WWII after the Italian fighting was largely over. Feels, however, very WWI.

The Living by Annie Dillard
About 19th-century pioneers in Bellingham, Washington. Called a novel, but every sentence reeks of human detail Annie could not have invented. It's about the living--felling trees, eating food, digging wells, and about the living--those left alive. Super beautiful.

For the Time Being by Annie Dillard
Technically and effectively my favorite book. It's a collection of short essays about sand, clouds, birth, China, Jews, humanity, etc., that deal with what it means to be one of a billion billion things in the eyes of God.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Short, childlike. Very nearly a perfect book about a little prince who falls from a comet to earth and meets a pilot in the desert. Translated from the French.

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
Perfect. Slim, simple. About Caleb and Anna, two children growing up on the plains, who must welcome a Maine woman into their home when their quiet widower father advertises for a wife.

The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery
Invariably the cover of the book will be terrible, like a trashy teenage Harlequi This is the only adult novel written by the author of Anne of Green Gables, "adult" meaning it has (a) a swear word and (b) no children. About a 29-year-old old maid who, when diagnosed with a fatal heart condition, decides to say and do the things she's always wanted, to the horror of her prideful and prim early 20th-century family. I read it yearly, maybe more.

The Island by Gary Paulsen
About a teenage boy who decides to move to the island of a small nearby lake, to think and read and write and draw.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
The classic sci-fi novel about a brilliant child (Ender) sent to Battle School to learn how to save the world from the Third Invasion. The crux--in order to destroy something, Ender needs to know it as well as it knows itself. And as soon as Ender knows it well, he loves it but must destroy it. I plan on reading it every year until I die.