Yuletide Thoughts

As I am serving as the baking slave for my mother for our big Christmas day familial get together (and with the size of my family, believe me when I say she needs all the help she can get), several thoughts have popped into my mind.

- I'd forgotten how much of a bitch marzipan mushrooms are to make
- I prefer old fashioned Christmas carols over this modern stuff (except for Trans Siberian Orchestra)
- Stay at home mums deserve more credit
- Dishwashers are love, especially after being without one for five months
- California would freak out if we got a white Christmas; still, it would be really cool
- Baking + computers = not the best combination (sorry baby!)
- Big cooking extravaganzas haven't really started until I've gotten at least one burn (got it! And my mother completely agrees with me on this)

Wishing for rest more than anything at the moment,
-J

Favourite Poem Project

Robert Pinsky's Favourite Poem Project is really a quite remarkable one. We've listened to a few examples in class, and I've enjoyed every single one of them. The most recent one that I have heard is about Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, from the point of view of a retired anthropologist from Boston.

I chose the Shakespearean sonnet for several reasons. I love sonnets, and have a poster in my room back home of all of Shakespeare's sonnets. While I was not personally familiar with #29, I knew what Shakespeare's sonnets were like, and therefore felt that I could at least understand the poem (if not know it ahead of time), and instead focus on what the man was saying about how the poem made him feel.

It was really impressive, I thought. He managed to memorize the entire poem, and from the stories that he told from his youth, had memorized quite a few other poems, like it was nothing. Now, I've heard of people memorizing poetry for an elementary-school assignment, but rarely do people remember that poem into their 80s, like this man. Is it a lost art? Why don't people memorize poems anymore? Do they still do, and I just am uninformed?

Now I want to go memorize a poem.
-J
-J

Hello? Who's That?

Write about nicknames you have been called throughout your life. Who called you what? How did the names make you feel, and why? If you never had a nickname, did you ever want one? Do you have nicknames for yourself in your interior speech? What is in a name? [Note: This is a surprisingly apt writing prompt, for I spent the majority of my Thanksgiving break trying to create a nickname for myself that my little sister could call me.]

Nicknames are strange and peculiar things. I'm quite fond of my full name, though it itself takes several different forms. I have my full legal name, which most people know me by, but I also have my Russian name, under which I was baptized and what my father will call me when he introduces me to people in Russian. From both of these names, a wide variety of nicknames have sprung.

At the beginning of fourth grade, a friend of mine decided that calling me 'Jennifer' was far too long, and that he was going to call me 'Jenny.' From there, the name stuck (thanks in part to his determination in convincing my teachers to call me that), and I was 'Jenny' throughout middle school and high school. My older friends would often be slightly confused when talking to my high school friends, the references to 'Jennifer' and 'Jenny' befuddling both parties. I, for one, did not really care (once I got past my initial objections), and would, depending on who was around, refer to myself or introduce myself as both 'Jennifer' and 'Jenny.' My friends would of course alter what they call me, giving me nicknames such as 'Jenny-bean' and other bizarre variations of my name. The interesting thing is, once I got to university, the name 'Jenn' was given to me. A few of my friends would call me 'Jenn' in short, but it never really stuck with anyone besides my older brother. Yet, I arrive at university and everyone begins to call me 'Jenn.' I really don't remember how this began, or who started it, but I find this highly amusing.

One of my favourite nicknames is the one that my brother's fiancee gave me. She calls me 'Sisterfer,' a combination of 'Jennifer' and 'sister.' Then again, she's also the Nicknaming Queen.

My mother has a wide variety of nicknames for me, the majority of them given to me when I was a little girl and often to annoy her own mother. She is the only person that will call me these names, and they are the only ones that are not some derivative of 'Jennifer' or 'Yevgenia.'

I am one of those people who will create online names for myself that are similar to my actual name - indeed, this own title is a conglomeration of my full name, Jenn S., A.

The amusing thing is, I respond to both of my sisters' names, and along with the names of several of my close friends. I also get 'Jessica' quite a bit as well, for some reason.

I'm really bad at assigning nicknames to myself or other people. I have a tendence to call people by generic nicknames such as "babe," but whenever people ask what to call me, I'm never quite sure what to answer.

-J