Fascinated by the Fascinating

You know, I'm really interested in what exactly it is that people find fascinating or captivating. In fact, I'm fascinated by it. I'm probably one of the few people who studies history who finds the history of history (historiography for someone who'd like a few more cents in their word) almost as engaging as history itself. Why do people write about what they do? Why do we record some things, and decide that others are entirely irrelevant, and what is it about our memories that makes certain facts more important depending on the time? Why do certain things fascinate people, while other things seem almost universally unappealing? Why don't we have more histories of things like the footnote, or the effect of medieval earthworms on the surfdoms of Eastern Russia? What makes things like Hitler and WWII so widely studied and written about while other subjects lie virtually untouched? What exactly makes some people interesting, and others boring?

This brings me to an interesting question we've talked about in my history class--is there any way to really record and report on the "truth" since all history is based on someone's memory, and human memory is riddled with imperfections? I don't think that it will ever be possible to write the complete and truthful history of the world in this life--I'm hoping to be on that committee once I reach the other side. I'm not totally skeptical either though. I think it's kind of like Newton's Physics V. The Einstein Model. Sure, Einstein is closer, and more correct--but Newton is simpler, and he's correct enough for things to work out. I think that's the way that history works--sure we can't be totally right about every event that happened in attempting to reconstruct the past, but we can get close enough. I'm just hoping that as I write papers and reports and the like, that I won't run into someone in Heaven and find out that I interpreted their life completely wrong. Sometimes when studying poetry or short stories and the like, I often wonder if the people who wrote it and are now dead just sit there and laugh at the students who are analyzing their every word. I think it goes something like this:

Edgar Allen Poe: "What? They think that silly bird has some kind of meaning? HA! I just used a raven because it sounded better than 'quoth the cockatoo!' Kids these centuries!"

Robert Frost: "Yeah, that little 'miles to go before I sleep' bit was just me, whining about being tired. The misses used to hate it when I complained to her out loud, so I just had to write it down.

Shakespeare: "What about Hamlet? 'To be or not to be' was just the edited version of the script before that, where Hamlet tries to decide his future career. The original bit went 'To be a scruples-free, free-loading, usury collecting, freedom killing beast, or not to be?' The first guy cast as Hamlet couldn't remember his whole line."

Anyway, I think my point was that there is truth, and we shouldn't give up on it--keep getting as close as we can to it, but just realize the limitations. Again, as my history teacher said, "We've all got this Whale to eat, how are we going to do it? By taking one bite at a time--just realize that you're only taking one bite."

Unfortunate Realities

• If you make yourself a delicious tuna fish sandwhich with sharp cheddar cheese and do not remove the bowl in which you mixed the tuna, your room will smell like cat food about 30 minutes later.
• A half gallon of BYU Creamery Orange juice is taller than a regular glass of orange juice. This means that if you are trying to be slightly more civilized about drinking directly from the carton and you use a bendy straw, it can still fall into the drink.
• If the straw is bent, it will float on the top of the orange juice, tauntingly
• Even the best bagels can mold.
• No amount of procrastination will make you want to do your studying more--it just makes you want to find more things to do to procrastinate...like make silly lists about procrastinating.

Fine...Time to memorize Europe and Russia...

Falling Awake

I'm a really, really odd sleeper.

Recently, I've been reflecting on odd things I do when I sleep...or right before I sleep. I've come up with the following list of odd traits.

First, I make a funny sort of sighing noise when I'm right on between sleep and awake. This seems to be a recent development in my sleeping habits, as it now wakes me up on occasion, or it becomes the last thing I hear before sleeping. The unfortunate thing is that it doesn't just apply to falling asleep cozy in my bed at night...I also do it if I happen to be in a class and falling asleep. Thankfully, it's usually enough to wake me up. I was in a religion class a couple of semesters ago in which I started to fall asleep. Fight as I might, it didn't matter, I fell asleep...and did so right when the teacher finished a sentence. The situation went something like this:

Teacher: "The New Testament is a true book"
Me: "huuuh..." (this came out sounding skeptical)
The teacher then looked around to see who was disagreeing with his statement, and I sort of shrunk into my seat feeling blasphemous.

The second thing I do that's funny about sleeping is that I seem to stay in whatever position I fall asleep in throughout the night. Once, I fell asleep on my back with my hands clasped in front of me...sorta like "dead" Snow White, and I stayed basically that way. Yesterday, I flopped down on my bed in a manner that looked much like the typical body outline (see image at left) . Stayed that way all night...

I've also got an amazing imagination. I have really hilariously vivid dreams that I remember, about situations that would make really funny student films. My most recent odd dream that made me laugh a lot when I woke up involved a young man of whom I am very, very fond and his homecoming. He started dating another girl without telling me that we were no longer dating. I asked him about it, and he apologized very kindly. I asked him why it was that he wanted to date her instead of me, and he, apparently thinking I was too thin, replied, "She has more rolls than you." This may only be really hilarious to you if you know me in person, because while I am no whale, I'm certainly not on the verge of anorexia...I'm laughing about this right now as I write about it.

I do a bunch of other things in my sleep too sometimes--I talk, and sometimes with great vigor of hand motion...much like I talk whilst I'm awake. I occasionally grind my teeth...usually when I'm stressed out about something, or in an unfamiliar place. I also seem to be in the habit of trying to convince people how awake I am when I first get up by talking up a storm--I just keep going on and on in an attempt to wake myself up and show how intelligently coherent I am. Unfortunately, these conversations are never brilliant...much as I would like them to be. I generally try to talk to people about how rude it is for RM's to reach across people to get rollerblades, or about something that happened in a movie that I fell asleep in that I vaguely remembered and then incorporated into my dream. The things that come out of my mouth are very rarely rational, and very usually amusing.

Speaking of sleeping, it's now time for me to head back to class. It seems today that I can't really keep my eyes open, and so I've gone and done the logical thing...I've blogged about sleeping instead of taking a nap.

A Major By Any Other Name...

I've realized that looking through a lot of the classes that I've taken at school might make it look like I'm attempting to graduate with a degree in something really useful--like World Domination, instead of History Teaching with a physics Teaching Minor. For example. I have taken (or am currently taking) all of the following classes:

Totalitarianism (Political Science 458)
Russian (Russian 101)
Physics 121
European Fascisms (History 314)
Tsarist Russia (History 330)
Argentina (History 355)
Physics 123

Then you throw in those other silly classes that I've taken--Utah, Scandinavian Choir, American Heritage and the like...All just ways to round out culture right?

If BYU gets a "Build Your Own Major" program like they've got at some of the more liberal colleges...I know exactly what to go and talk to my counselor about....