Sunday, October 3, 2010

lists, lists, lists

Dear sister,

You're busy. I'm busy. Instead of a post in the style of a column (Op-Ed, gossip, advice), this will be a post in the form of a column. As in, a vertical list of words in short rows.

I like lists. You like lists. Here are some lists I've made lately.

The grad-school list of "Words I Really Should Know By Heart"
1. epistemological (relating to the theory of knowledge)
2. ontological (based on existence)
3. tautological (needless repetition of a word or idea)
4. hermeneutical (relating to the study of interpretation or methodology)

The ever-popular grad school list of "Words Made Up By the Field of Religious Studies" (We made a bingo card for lectures.)
1. problematize
2. liminality
3. performative
4. preunderstandings
5. situatedness
6. literacies
7. ultimacy
8. solutionatize (Ok, we made this one up after we got tired of having to "problematize" everything.)


There's the list of books I have to read for fun:

(I had a $200 gift certificate to a used bookstore, which is a long story, and also an awesome gift.)

The list of books I have to read that are less-fun-because-I-have-to-show-teenagers-why-these-should-be-more-fun:
Selected short stories from the textbook
Of Mice and Men
Antigone
Ordinary People
Romeo and Juliet
(Confession: I don't think I've ever read this play all the way through. We studied it in 9th grade, but all I remember is watching the movie. And this was before the Claire Danes/Leonardo diCaprio one was made, mind you.)
(Major Confession: Okay. I can't actually think of any play I've read all the way through, unless I was working it or teaching it. Don't tell the theater police, ok?)

And finally, the reason for this post, the list of "Five Songs I Will Learn on the Guitar Before I See the Once-and-Future Boyfriend Again"
1. Froggie Went A Courtin'
2. Oh, Susannah
3. that Irish folk song the Once-and-Future tried to teach me before
4. "The Rainbow Connection" (as done by Kermit the Frog)
5.

Well, look at that. The Once-and-Future is arriving in about 10 days, but since I had no idea when we'd see each other again, I thought I'd have more time to learn 5 songs. I'm cheating a bit by including a song I sort-of knew before. But, help! What should my 5th song be? It needs to fit in with others. Read: not too fast, not too complicated, not too "unknown by me."

Got any song suggestions? Or, a list of words that YOUR field of study has made (and no, bio major, Latin names of body parts does not count)? And perhaps your to-do list for the Fall? That will entice me to make mine. I'll give you a hint: it involves a lot of variations on "don't throw the high school children out the window."

Love,
your swore-she'd-never-return-to-her-old-high-school-and-guess-where-she's-now-teaching sister

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