No words

I took an exam this morning, the last exam in my Life-Span Developmental Psychology course. The content spanned three chapters - middle adulthood, late adulthood, and death. Honestly, I don't think I've ever been so affected by the material I've learned about in any class I've taken. True, a lot of it is fascinating stuff - chemistry, physiology, cognition, memory, literature; you name it, we've taken those classes, hated a lot of them, but loved most of them.

There have been fewer moments of feeling any intense or semi-intense emotional response to the topics. Studying for this exam was one of those times. I'm reading from my textbook and it talks about how much we associate negative stereotypes with aging, even though a good chunk of those notions are not substantiated by evidence. 

But seriously, one thing I've always been nervous about is growing old. It really has nothing to do with looking old. It's more about not having control over your life, your senses, your physical wellbeing, your body. It's about losing memory and forgetting loved ones and becoming a burden on them. It's about the end of life as you always knew it, and the end of a life that has become unrecognizable. Even though reading about late adulthood quashed a number of ageist stereotypes, it did only marginally well at helping me cope with the idea of impending death. Everyone copes with the notion of dying differently. 

And when you have an instance like the one Friday in which it's children who have died. Not older people who have lived long, fulfilling lives, but kids -- what do you do? How can you look through pictures like these and not sob with the family members and classmates of the victims in the Connecticut shooting? They were kids. Kids with futures and lives ahead of them, worlds for them to build and expand, families for them to love and be loved by. How do the children, the witnesses, accept or understand a tragedy of such magnitude? What do you tell them? And they were teachers. Teachers who had families and friends and classrooms. They were teachers like this one, who protected their students and reassured them while they hid inside a locked bathroom or a gym closet. How do you handle such a tragic, senseless loss of human life?

And how, when you hear or read about an instance like this, can you not make amends with others, and bring those closest to you in for a hug - to reassure yourself that they are indeed still there, and that yes, you are so lucky to have them with you. 

I flipped through those images above and could immediately put myself in the place of those parents. Not as a parent, but as an older sister to two siblings of elementary school age. And all I could do was be thankful that, this time, these two kids were safe.

Indian poet Neema Alexander once wrote,

"We have no words 
For what is happening-"

No words for this, only heartache.

I'm starting to become a fan of Louise Glück

Louise Glück.

Have you ever heard of her?

I hadn't either, until about, oh, a week and a half ago.

At first, to be honest, I thought she was deceased. Turns out Ms. Gluck is still very much among the living, something I'm beginning to be thankful for as I read more of what she's written.

You should read First Memory

Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was--
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved. 

And then after that, The Night Migrations 

This is the moment when you see again the red berries of the mountain ash and in the dark sky the birds' night migrations. It grieves me to think the dead won't see them— these things we depend on, they disappear. What will the soul do for solace then? I tell myself maybe it won't need these pleasures anymore; maybe just not being is simply enough, hard as that is to imagine. Why read them in that order? Because that's the order that I read them in. They both seem so melancholy and meditative, and they remind me of Billy Collins' The First Dream. If you haven't read that either, you should. But yeah, Louise Gluck. And these two poems. They are so open and honest and striking in their loneliness. I'm waiting for them to take a more optimistic turn, but that doesn't seem likely or even necessary. ~ Viscountess, 2012-13

LEP Holiday Arts & Crafts

I'm sure by now most everyone knows that the LEP just wants to have fun. I mean, that's like a summary of our mission statement.

So it makes sense that we would have an event just to decorate a Christmas tree and make greeting cards, right? And even if it didn't make sense, we would still have done it. Because have you ever MADE greeting cards before? It's so. much. fun.

 


This was the first time I've ever decorated a Christmas tree before. And I was trusted to buy all the ornaments. I mean, that makes sense. I think I went a liiiittle overboard with what I got, but everything was so cute.

Tiny snowmen bells with colorful earmuffs.

Ceramic penguins wearing green hats.

Soft, plushy snowmen with hats and scarves.

Little gold and red ball ornaments that sparkled.

Crystal-like snowflakes that capture the light.

Delicious-looking gingerbread people.

The dozen red-and-white-striped candy canes we didn't use.

And miniature presents underneath the tree.

I mean, aren't they cute? They're the most adorable little ornaments I've ever seen. And I've seen a million ornaments in my time as a Christmas-tree-decorater-extraordinaire.

We of course had our star for the top of the tree, in beautiful shimmery LEP red and gold. It was great, even if it did kind of overwhelm Erich's miniature tree. Still, we made it work. Although, I'm prettttty sure the star is the last thing to go on the tree (from what I've heard and seen on TV), we broke with tradition and put the star on like, somewhere in the middle of decorating. We are just amazing at this stuff.

The most important ornament of all time.

The most important ornament, though, was this one. It's a dragon. A GOLD dragon. An LEP dragon. Wrapped around a Christmas wreath. Isn't it perfect? It really, really is. Kind of heavy for the cute little tree, but we used the power of SCIENCE to balance everything out. So there was this one ornament on one side of the tree, and all of the other ornaments hanging on the other side. Genius.

This was just so much fun. I don't think anyone else was as enthusiastic about decorating the tree as I was. Case in point: no one got up to help with it no matter how many times I asked. They just wanted to look at the ornaments and say how cute they were, and then went back to making cards. So I decked the tree out and they made cards. And we all ate cookies and listened to Christmas music. Holiday spirit FTW.

The tree will be going up in our cubicle soon, to celebrate the holidays in the SOC. In the meantime, it's hanging out in the Chem Lounge, with all of the other holiday decorations in there.

Oh, and the cards, you ask? What about the cards? Well, I'm not sure what we'll be doing with those. Maybe sending them off to Timbuktu. Or selling them to fund our secret punch addiction. Or maybe we'll just put them in a a bottle and throw them out into the ocean, so send League love across many leagues of the sea.

- Viscountess, 2012-13

Fairy tales & photographs

Finals are looming on the horizon, a predator laying in wait before pouncing on its unsuspecting prey. When it's finally ready to escape the depths of its semester-long hibernation, the herd will quickly run into action and flock to . . . the library?

The library: fortress of the feckless freshman, sanctuary for the sleepy senior, and destination for disheartened students during those dreary days of doom. Been there, done that, what else is new? 

Well, have you been to the library recently?

If you're not planning on visiting the Mardigian until finals are underway, I'll tell you what's new - a Grimm's fairy tales display, that's what! A really cool display celebrating 200 years of scaring kids into using their imaginations.

I really really wish there was an actual gingerbread house in the Hansel and Gretel display. That would've been so cool! 

Aww, and there's cute little Red Riding Hood. Bonus points if you can guess which doll was dressed up to play the part of Red. Hint: She's so very cuddly.

And my little sisters love the princesses, so obligatory pictures of three of the big ones.

My little sister's favorite, though, Rapunzel wasn't to be found. Her movie is there, but it's just not the same as meeting her in the flesh and blood, or in the plastic. Whatever.

I had a friend named Raquel, who had really beautiful, straight, soft brown hair that was so long it grazed her ankles. She would grow it out and then cut it to donate it to Locks for Love. We just thought she grew it out in case she was ever locked in a tower and someone wanted to climb up there and get locked in with her, so we called her Rapunzel.

There are a few more displays out there in the library, so if you're ever in the neighborhood, you know, stop by.