We're sorry...

But it seems Anna has lately been consumed in a flurry of art history papers, Italian exams, Human Event reading, and general busy-ness (business?).

Before she departed so spectacularly, she did leave this picture of a police officer in Florida holding a Burmese python, the kind that eat alligators and explode. She ("she" being Anna, not the snake) said she wasn't sure why she finds these kind of pictures so fascinating.

She doesn't even like snakes.



Have no fear, surely someday she'll return.

Little loopy...ok, lot loopy

So, for this past week I've known that Sunday would be my Art History paper rough draft day. I started working on the paper at 11am. I took a couple of breaks to eat, drink, talk to parents and best friend, etc. I finished the paper at 7:15pm.

I'm very pleased with it, but I've got a slight problem...

The paper is currently sitting at about 11 pages. It's supposed to be 5 to 7. I haven't even formatted it properly yet (header, title, footnotes, bibliography, figures, etc.) I don't know how I'm going to cut it down. I need to talk to my professor...see how much he's actually willing to read!

Tried to order a stack of pumpkin pancakes at IHOP...came out as "smack cumkin sanpakes." The waitress just smiled and brought me my food. *sigh* Long, long day.

More National Geographicy Goodness

I now present, dear readers, a story that has it all: intrigue, relevance, suspense, even a bit of romance...from National Geographic News...."The Rat Who Couldn't Be Caught!"

Ok, so the title is actually of my own devising, but I think it's pretty snazzy anyways.

As always, I recommend you go check out the story in full at:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

Basically, researchers in New Zealand wanted to study how solitary animals evaded traps. After getting all sorts of permission, the researchers released one Norway rat on a previously rat-free island off the coast of New Zealand. They took precautions, like taking the rat's DNA and fitting him with a radio collar and then just let him loose.

The researchers figured that the rat would be hard to trap...being on an island with no competition and more food than the rat could ever dream of, the likelihood of the rat (named "Razza") eating the poisoned bait in traditional traps was pretty darn low. What the researchers didn't expect was how long it would actually take to capture Razza.....18 weeks.

The researchers tried everything...traditional traps, complicated traps, even two different trained dogs, but they could not find this rat. All of a sudden, Razza's radio collar stopped transmitting. The researchers were completely stumped. After a while, reports of rat droppings on a neighboring island (also previously rat-free) came in....turns out Razza had gone for a bit of a swim. Razza traveled 1300 feet across open water to the island of Otata.

When asked why Razza went so far from his fertile island home, one of the researchers made what is probably the most adorable and endearing responses EVER!

Clout says it's possible that Razza was looking for companionship.

Really, you should go read the story in full, and if you need more incentive...here's a picture of a rat similar to Razza (not actually Razza, unfortunately). Oh, and in case you were curious, the article says Razza "met his end" in a trap baited with fresh penguin meat....go figure.

Divine revelation...

I have realized something.

The word "theses" rhymes with the word "feces." The connection is startlingly full of truth and veracity and stuff...

Yeah, my paper's still not going very well.

Bah humbug.

No, seriously...

I REALLY hate Plato.

And papers about him.

Self-Indulgent Pout

I hate Plato. And I probably would have voted to kill Socrates, too. And I would have slept soundly that night.

And I definitely don't want to write a paper about any of them.

Food for thought...

I read this line in my Art History book and felt I had to share...we're currently covering the Middle Ages, a period which happens to be one of my favorites AND my professor's specialty, so I am quite pleased. Here's a lovely, insightful quote from a 12th Century priest (Gerald of Wales) and the Chi Rho Iota page of the Book of Kells...let it inform you and inspire you, if you like! :-D

Fine craftsmanship is all about you, but you might not notice it. Look more keenly at it, and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art. You will make out intricacies, so delicate and subtle, so exact and compact, so full of knots and links, with colors so fresh and vivid, that you might say that all this was the work of an angel, and not of a man.

Think of it as an early "Trick or Treat"

Ok, seeing as we are in the month of October and mere weeks away from Halloween, a story about spiders seems timely.

Plus, this thing just gave me the heebie-jeebies and I wanted to pass the feeling on.

From the wonderful National Geographic News...

Scientists have discovered a spider in East Africa with a craving for human blood.

Apparently, this spider hunts down mosquitoes that have recently fed on humans...and when I say "hunt down," I mean hunt down. It's a jumping spider and stalks its prey, none of this silly web stuff for him!

That just gives me the creeps! AND it gets worse when you see the little guy's picture...*shudder*

Ick. Just gross. Ick. Here's the link for the whole article:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

news/2005/10/1011_051011_spider_vampire.html

Tick...tock...

I could draw a connection to the moments of our lives slipping away with every movement of the second hand, sands through the hourglass, and so on, but really...all I want to say is:

I got a new watch!

Hooray! I'd worn the same watch since ninth grade and it really just had to go (you can barely read the face anymore, it's so scratched). So, here in all it's shimmering glory, is my new watch:




Isn't she gorgeous? I love her.

Requiem...

Okay, so I had the most awesome post ever about a snake eating a crocodile and, subsequently, exploding. Seriously. It was awesome. Blogger ate it, though, and I'm more than a touch depressed.

At any rate, this seems the perfect opportunity to let anyone who cares (and anyone who doesn't care) know that on my first art history test ever I earned 106%. Very psyched. The class average, even after the curve, was a 76%.

Feel free to congratulate me now, if you'd like. ;-) There was even a couple of questions about the ancient Sumerian votive statues...I nailed those ones.

Also, if you're still interested about the exploding snake story, go read it at:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10

/1006_051006_pythoneatsgator.html

It will only take you a couple of minutes and really, when you think about it, who wouldn't be a better person for learning about the delicate ecosystem interactions of the Florida Everglades?

Huh...wow...

Learn something new every day, right?

I was reading my Art History homework and ran across a martyrdom story I'd never heard before.

Saint Lawrence was burnt alive. Granted, there's nothing spectacular or unique about that as far as martyrdoms go (think Joan of Arc, etc.), but here's the kicker: because of his type of martyrdom, Saint Lawrence has become the patron saint of bakers.

I find that a bit gruesome.

Here's a detail of the lunette mosaic from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, Italy featuring The Martrydom of Saint Lawrence. My textbook's author, Marilyn Stokstad, has this to say:

The saint holds a cross and gestures toward the fire and metal grill, on which he was literally roasted (so becoming the patron saint of bakers).

Makes you think about bakers a bit differently, doesn't it?

I fell into a burning ring o'...

Research! Yes, my friends, this is the one and only "Ring o' Research"...I needed to spread out all my sources for my art history paper research and I certainly didn't have enough room on my desk, so I cleaned up the floor and then proceeded to bury it in books, photocopies, and index cards.

Honestly, that's exactly how I left the scene when I stood up to get on the Internet ("stood" because I can't pull my desk chair out very far with all this stuff on the floor)...this is an undoctored, untouched photo hot off the presses! I'm hoping my roommate spends the night at her boyfriend's house so I won't have to clear too much of this up...although, now that I think about it, I can't get into my closet....hmmm....that's a bit of a problem....

Papers and such-like!

I've spent a good chunk of today (and will probably spend another good chunk of the rest of today) working on my honors art history paper. I have the subject matter finally narrowed down, but I'm still not sure what my thesis will be. I'm not even sure if art history papers technically have a traditional "thesis." I mean, it's not like I can make any astounding, ground-breaking cases like "William de Brailes was really a WOMAN!!!!"...I'm under the impression that this paper is going to end up being a bit more....expository.

As of right now, the paper is likely to be a discussion of an illustrated page from William de Brailes entitled "Fall of the Rebel Angels" (in the Fitzwilliam collection) and a comparison to another William de Brailes piece called "The Last Judgement." I must admit, I much prefer "Fall of the Rebel Angels," (if you look towards the bottom half, you can see the angels turning into devils as they fall!!!) even though it's been the most frustratingly obscure manuscript to get my hands on!

Here's "The Last Judgement":

And here's "The Fall of the Rebel Angels":

In both images, you can see the Hellmouth at the very bottom swallowing up the sinners and so on. One neat thing about "The Last Judgement" is that over on the right side towards the bottom (the lower of the two semi-circles) William de Brailles drew himself being saved by an angel.

Part of the requirements for this paper is that I avoid using Internet sites for information (which is fine by me, considering they are completely WORTHLESS when it comes to this stuff! Grr!) unless they're extremely credible, like museum websites and so on. This has resulted in some interesting MLA formatting challenges. I've e-mailed some former teachers already for any advice on the proper formatting of this source...it's an article by one author from an anthology edited by two editors. Oh yeah...it was printed in The Netherlands. Here's how I currently have it formatted (except with indented lines after the first)...if any of you have advice as to whether this is right, wrong, otherwise PLEASE let me know!

Randall, Lilian M.C. "En Route to Salvation with William de Brailes." Medieval Codicology, Iconography, Literature, and Translation: Studies for Keith Val Sinclair. Ed. Peter Rolfe Monks and D.D.R. Owen. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1994. 83-93.

A couple of pictures...

Ok, really quick break from homework. I just got these pictures from Chen, an exchange student here at ASU. We had drum tuning on Friday, but no actual tuning took place (The TA Sonja had taken the sand and left it at her house), but we each did our own little jobs. I, for example, measured out about 75 sticks from Senegal to the right length to be gallan (the sticks used for playing Sabar)...Bill, the grad student in the background, was putting new heads on both ends of a drum body (why yes, that is goat skin. Why yes, he did think it was hilarious to spritz Sarah and I with goat water. Why yes, I did do laundry that night.) Sarah is scraping down redwood blocks to make sticks for much smaller drums (it took her all afternoon to make one!).

The first picture is of my instructor Dr. Mark Sunkett. He's great. I wish I had a picture of him standing...he's astoundingly tall!

The second picture is, from left to right, Bill, Sarah, and me.

The third picture is me, measuring gallan. I know that these last couple pictures are fuzzy, but it's very dark down there (basement of the Music building) so Chen's camera was having some shutter timing issues. You get the idea, though.

Enjoy! Hopefully I'll get a chance to write again this weekend!