They Plowed Just So That It Might Snow Again

Snow Day Lab

Hypothesis: Putting a wooden spoon under my pillow will cause it to snow.

Materials:

• Bed
• Pillow
• Wooden Spoon
• Weather
• Human

Procedure:

1. Place a wooden spoon under your pillow before going to sleep on a winter's night. Time: 12:00a.m.
2. Wait.

Variables to Consider:
On the first night, inside-out pjs were also worn.

Control:
All of the other nights this winter where no wooden spoon was placed under said pillow, no snow resulted.

Results:
The snow took longer than I expected to start. Although the spoon was placed under the pillow at midnight, it did not start snowing for a full 13 hours later. With such a delayed start time, it can be hard to determine causation. However, the spoon has stayed in place since Thursday night, and the snow has not stopped.

Conclusion:
All school children should do this again tonight.

Snow Daze

Several of my students told me about a new talisman for snow: place a wooden spoon under your pillow. On Thursday night, sick of kids and a rather mundane winter, I placed a wooden spoon under my pillow. I forewent the Melanie Snow Dance and the Melanie Cap of Foil, although I did stick to wearing my pjs inside out.

Yesterday, I got my wish. A snow day.

But I forgot to remove the wooden spoon from my pillow, and it never stopped snowing!

Saturday, 2:00

Will there be more tomorrow? Was the wooden spoon under the pillow so powerful that it might also effect a snow day on Monday?

Silas Marner

Silas Marner by George Eliot

"I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbors with our words is that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavor of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil." (Silas Marner, p. 73, B&N Classics)

So I was put to the challenge to read something that my husband was reading. He's taught Silas Marner for a few semesters, and I was interested slightly. I had watched the charming (what a horrible modifier, and yet appropriate) version A Simple Twist of Fate, staring Steve Martin, so I knew I would like the story line. And so, last Saturday, I sat down and began.

Honestly, it had been awhile since I had read anything that was not pulp fiction (I don't really know what that consists of, but by it I mean Crichton, King, etc) or Young Adult literature. And it took me a bit of awkward and strenuous mental training to step into the syntax and writing style of a 19th century writer. But I persevered; thankfully, for I was fully rewarded!

Oddly enough, I had of late bemoaned my students' inability to comprehend more complicated sentence structure. In an ego-stroking manner, I looked back on my childhood. I was an avid reader, and I liked to read more difficult prose. (How odd that now as an adult I choose YA fiction.) I can attribute this to several factors. First, there was a lack of good bookstores/libraries with quality YA literature. It was all Nancy Drew and SVH or nothing. Second, I wanted to keep up with Jane, who was reading Little Women at the age of 8. How can I forget, since she so often hit my head with that heavy book. (And a friendship blossomed, who would've thought it?) Last, I went to Catholic school. Well, regardless of why I chose Alcott, Austen, and Hawthorne at an early age, the prose of those times is complex and detailed. Look at any YA book today. Rarely will you see such long sentences. Nineteenth century books are rife with semi-colons. Sentences are long, winding walks. Today, sentences are short, simple, and to the point. I'm not a judge. I don't think we speak (at least today) in the manner that 19th century writers, especially Victorian writers, wrote. I think that we do align more closely to a 15 or 20 word sentence than one upwards of 30. But I do think becoming fluent in more complicated syntax and sentence structure helps the brain become more agile.

I digress.

It took me awhile to warm up to Eliot's prose. Too long, too detailed. But my mind warmed up, and soon I was following along without a second thought.

I digress again.

I loved Silas Marner. True, I did not appreciate the overly detailed accounts of Raveloe at the beginning. What the reader gleans from those first three pages can easily be absorbed as the reader becomes familiar with Raveloe throughout the novel. Silas Marner is a weaver who, due to unfortunate circumstances, finds himself alone, lonely, and miserly in the unfamiliar town of Raveloe. His only comfort becomes the gold coins that he slowly accumulates while weaving for the richer ladies in town. Nightly, he counts his coins - never spending. Quite frankly, as my husband said, it is not mere miserliness but rather an odd fetishism. Silas literally spends hours counting his coins and piling them up. After discovering that he has been robbed, Silas is lost without the anchoring weight of his gold.

On New Year's Eve, Silas opens his door contemplating a chance return of his stolen gold. During that moment he experiences a cataleptic fight (an affliction he suffers from and which was believed to be most likely derived from the devil) and the door remains open. While Silas is unconscious, a small child walks into his house. Her mother has died in the snow storm, and she is left orphaned. Silas takes this as a sign. His gold is replaced by the gold of the girl's hair. Chance, fate, or God took away his gold but gave to him this child.

It is wonderfully fulfilling to watch and experience Silas's changing life from one of a lonely, unloved loner to that of a loving father and friend.

I won't say more. (I've already said so much this post.) But this is definitely one of the best books (adult books) that I've read in years. It's hard for me to remember notable adult books, but I know that in the past few I've enjoyed March, Next, and Ice Queen the most.

Five Stars for a totally delightful and Christmas cheer type of book!

Grade: A+

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The Angel of Death (YA)

The Angel of Death by Alane Ferguson

This book continues the adventures of Cameryn Mahoney, a teenager who is also the assistant to the local coroner. In this episode, Cammie is determined to get to the bottom of her English teacher's enigmatic death. The first book was The Christopher Killer, which was a great name in my opinion. Regardless of title quality, this is a new great Nancy Drew series for the CSI set.

Cameryn Mahoney ... Nancy Drew
Assistant to Coroner ... Detective
Single Dad ... Widowed Father
Dad is the Coroner ... Dad is a lawyer whose clients often have mysteries
Grandmother ... Hannah, the Drew housekeeper
Lyric, best friend ... George and Bess
Deputy Justin Crowley ... Ned Nickerson
Some sexual tension ... Ned was a basketball player & Nancy and Ned were obviously only interested in holding hands.

These are fun and fast reads, although I would love it if they came with a bit more science and forensics than they currently do. At times the language can be a bit heavy-handed with the metaphors.
"She knew folks in Silverton whispered about her all the time, under their breaths, their words falling like snowflakes only to melt beneath her resolve." (3)
"She tried to swallow down the hot broth of anxiety rising from her stomach." (208)

Grade: A-

Update On Nothing For Nobody

Not the most optimistic of post titles.

I have little to say except that I recently discovered that I had erroneously believed that perseverate meant to vacillate or waver. Now, this was a belief I held even though I knew it went against my own common sense. I mean, perseverate. It's definitely related to persevere. Anyway, perseverate means to continue on with a behavior without any rational reason. It's most often used in psychology. Well, I perseverated in my false belief that perseverate meant to go back and forth. Why? I have no idea.

But then the truth came, and I had to accept the error of my ways.

Crichton: I'll miss him.

The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton.

I had been anxiously awaiting a new book from Crichton all year. Next left me with such a high. I loved it: sci-fi, real science, a blending of the possibilities of the present and the future, plus genetics. It was awesome. Crichton rocked. I am truly saddened by his death. Unfortunately, I'm not sad for his loss, but mostly for my own. I really loved his books (and ER, too!).

Crichton Books That I've Read: The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Congo (I think), Sphere, Jurassic Park, The Lost World (I think), Airframe, Timeline, Prey, State of Fear, and Next.

The Terminal Man

The Terminal Man is a solid medical thriller about a man named Benson who suffers from traumatic brain injury. This injury leads to episodes of uncontrollable violence. Doctors at a leading university hospital decide to implant electrical wiring and microchips to monitor and readjust his brain waves to help prevent these attacks. The protagonist is a female neuro-pschiatrist named Dr. Ross who is quite uneasy about the surgical experiment. To make a long-story short: the patient, who is already neurotic and believes that computers are trying to take over the world, gets the surgery and goes nuts. He learns how to control the microchips in his brain. He breaks out and begins attacking people. The hospital personnel gets involved, and the police must track him down. Good plot, good excitement.

One of the most interesting parts of this story is that it was published in 1971. There's a lot of talk about new technology of the day. There's musings about the place of the computer versus the machine in society. What's so compelling is how this mindset compares to our current day views. Heck, I recently saw a clip on 60 Minutes about how chips can be implanted into the heads of the ALS patients so that they can control a mouse with their minds! And you know what I thought? That's damned awesome!

Here's a bit about a doctor who finds himself in a computer development office.

"Morris looked around the room, at the large pieces of computer equipment standing in different areas. It was an odd sensation: the first time he could recall being in a room littered with computers." (159)

My mother's house has 5 computers in it. Five computers for 4 people!

But there is another interesting point made in the book by Benson: Machines require our input, but computers are developing in such a way that they are becoming self-sufficient and independent of us. While my mother's house has 5 computers, they still work as machines - requiring input. They are still basically fulfilling the role of a tool. How often in my life do I currently come into contact with a computer or computer program that runs on its own and adapts? I don't know. Probably lots of times, but I'm completely complacent in living my life unaware.

What would happen if computers exceed us and no longer need any input from us? Will we fade away? There's an interesting Bradbury short story about this. Well, probably several. And a few from Asimov, too.

But that's a whole 'nother blog.

Grade: B (Probably a B+ or A in the 70s or 80s)