Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Fun fact: "niggardly" has an entirely different etymology from a certain inappropriate word (i.e. Old Norse as opposed to Spanish). A few years ago, some politician in the States was fired after he referred to a budget as "niggardly." Here's what my Methods prof had to say on the subject in class: "Why should I apologize because you completely misunderstood something I said, and the only reason you misunderstood me is that you're fucking illiterate?? If I were in that situation (and I would definitely get fired for this) I would have said 'You're right. It was terrible. I'm sorry you're illiterate.'"

The cafeteria makes me irate. I've been trying to avoid it.

I think I'd like to do a Masters in English after all, not this year but possibly next year. But only if they'll let me study Tolkien. That would be so awesome.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

My ex-roomate is looking into master's programs in English. though she's looking for schools in Europe cause the master's programs there are only one year. Anyways, she found one school that has a program for a Master's in Children's Lit, and another for a Master's program in Science Fiction and Fantasy. So that school would let you study Tolkien. ^_^

Lapsura said...

I think (at least at UofR) you can pretty much define your own masters program, as long as it's approved of course. That's what one of my Latin buddies did, anyway. I've got pretty specific things I'm interested in with regards to Tolkien, but not so much Science Fiction or Fantasy as general European folklore (and specifically Anglo Saxon).

Blake said...

Have you read Siegfried? Apparently that's where Tolkien got most of his story from. It's on Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s
This site is great for finding eBooks of rare books and so on.

Blake said...

Actually, I'm reading it now. It's pretty good. And Kudos on the Master's choice possibly. Someone else to validate my own choices in life.

Lapsura said...

Wow...thanks for that link! Think of all the Latin and Old English I can read now!

I did read somewhere (something Tolkien had written) that he was trying to manufacture a myth/legend for Britain, and was building it out of all sorts of existing European legends and myths (Siegfried was one of the biggies; Beowulf is also significant). Actually, that's precisely what I'm interested in. I haven't read Siegfried (yet), and just know a little about it from studying Wagner's Ring Cycle.

And as for the Master's choice...that's still exceedingly tentative. But I think it's hard to validate a Master's in English (it just seems so unimportant and pointless), so you're better off than me there.

Blake said...

There are lots of things that are pointless but are worth doing. Why else do people write poetry? hah. Anyway, the way I justify doing what I'm doing is def not for the money. I could be an engineer and do 1/4 the work for 4 times the money, but some times some things are worth doing for themselves and no other reason. An innate sense of worth. Money would be nice too. That's why there's profs I guess.

Lapsura said...

Are you saying my poems suck?? I consider "Electric Flux" to be my masterpiece.

But what I meant was that English itself (as a discipline) is pointless...not to offend all the English profs who read this blog. Let's all read books; now let's talk about books. What does the book mean? I just think there are much more things that are way more fascinating than English. Like Physics!

Blake said...

I suppose you could do a physics degree! Always need more women in physics! ;) But really, what good is physics nowadays either. Does it really matter that you can excite the flux tube between quarks? It's not like it's going to cure cancer. But there is some sense of satistafaction at understanding the universe a little better. But I like reading too. I could probably be happy reading books as my job. Do you think they'd pay by the page?

Amy said...

I have an engineering degree, and I do 4 times the work for .25 times the money. Where does that fall into this useless pointless theory? Oh, and I also consider my degree, or rather any degree, to be useless and pointless.

Lapsura said...

No no! I'm not talking about the degree itself, I'm talking about what you actually learn in the classes...or not, as it were. Last year I took a class where the only remotely interesting/useful thing I learned was the phrase "primordial nuclear synthesis." The only use I got out of that...see here.

Anonymous said...

Which class was that?

About the practicality and usefulness of Physics:
Whenever I'm talking about Physics and someone asks me "What's the practical value of that, how is it useful?", I get kind of nonplussed. In Physics, you try to understand as much as possible about the universe just because it's there. It's the same reason mountain climbers climb mountains. But eventually someone will find something useful to do with that knowledge. It just takes a long time. Quantum physics started around 1925, but we're just starting to see applications now like quantum encryption, and eventually quantum computers. So to make something practical and useful out of flux tube excitation might take a couple decades or even a century.

-rt