Things I Have Learned About Living in Oklahoma

1. All pickup trucks have trailer hitches. All of them. This can be painful to learn.

2. If your meat isn't smoked, you need to get out of the state, you un-American, Commie punk.

3. There are some places where you can go to Sunday morning worship wearing jeans, and it's okay. Even if you're preaching.

4. Sometimes the wind does not go "sweeping down the plain." Sometimes it hits you like a Mack truck.

5. Dry heat is not as sticky or clammy as wet heat, but 100 degrees is still hot.

6. Fiberglass boats and rocks do not mix.

7. Fireworks and dry grass do not mix.

8. There are some towns with populations that would fit in a row at Doak Campbell stadium.

9. It is possible to "kiss your butt goodbye" during a tornado warning.

10. There are some landfills that will take "drit." I haven't see what it is, but the sign said they take it.

11. There is someone in Webber's Fall, OK, who will babysit your kids, but you will need to supply "dippers." She'll change the "dippers," but you need to buy them.

12. Chicken "gizzards" or "chunks" is an acceptable meal.

13. You can be arrested in Arkansas for some acts connected with "debauchery."

14. There are several places to take concealed weapons license classes.

15. Daughters grow up really, really fast.

Only the lonely

Dissertation writing is hard work. I'm sure you knew that or at least guessed. Quite often it is difficult to get things written when you know you need to write but you have nothing to say. That has happened to me quite frequently. There have been several times when I have thought about giving up, but then I thought I am so close to being done that such a decision would be really foolish. The dissertation and comprehensive exams are important parts of academia. They provide a qualifier that someone with a Ph.D. has been judged by their mentors and their peers in the field to be of a certain level of expertise (unless you get your Ph.D. from a diploma mill--and it is sad that such places exist). It is also important that on the days that I get stuck that I remind myself how much I love teaching and how much I want to teach as my vocation. But writing the dissertation (or "paper" as my parents infuriatingly call it when they ask "are you done with your paper yet?") or taking comprehensive exams is such a separating experience. Obviously it separates you from your non-academic family members, both in terms of time and effort but than also the material you are trying to assimilate. Jenn could care less about how we should construct the colonial religous scape and how important Puritans should or should not be to that narrative--to be fair, I couldn't care less about the Medicare guidelines that consume her workday either. She is very supportive in other ways. Particularly when she asks, "Shouldn't you be writing instead of blogging?" But comps and the dissertation also separates you from your academic colleagues as well. So the end part of the academic qualification period can be a very lonely time--despite a system that stresses collegiality and the importance of scholarly engagement. It also becomes difficult in trying to explain what you are doing when people ask. "Oh, you are a graduate student?" "Yes, I'm working on my dissertation." "What are you doing it on?" "The importance of sentimental expressions of piety in evangelicalism and how prevalent such expressions are in evangelical religious practice." "I'm writing about Max Lucado." "Oh, I've read one of his books."

Plus out here in Oklahoma (read previous post), it is even lonelier. But at least I'm almost done. And I should probably get back to writing.

Chloe's First 4th of July

Happy 4th of July everyone. We took Chloe to her first fireworks show. I think the pictures will explain it all.
Before the fireworks started.

Fireworks


Here is Chloes reaction


She liked them better from the car. We think she really liked the colors just not the noise.

Chloe, 9 months, where has the time gone!!!

Chloe had her 9 month check up today. She is healthy as a horse and doing wonderful. No shots today so that was wonderful. She is now 23 lbs and 27 1/2 inches long. She is talking more every day. She has two teeth and one more on the way in. She is so very expressive and loving. She is starting to wave hi and bye. Here are a few pics.
Two little teeth

She loves to stand up in her crib.

This is an outfit that my mom made for me that I wore all the time. I love the fact that my daughter can wear it now.

SNAKE, In the office, thought you oughta know!!!!!!

Well more excitement on the Oklahoma front. My parents have what we have always referred to as the "outside rooms". They are three rooms out the back door. One is the laundry room and the other two were just junk rooms. They had concrete floors, they were finished rooms but just kind of yucky. Spiders in corners, that kind of thing. They weren't used alot so that is to be expected. Well, a few months ago mom decided she wanted to make them really nice and keep one as the laundry room, turn one into her office and one into an exercise room. They were still a work in progress when we got here. For the time being I was working in my mom's office which was also serving as the nursery. Tight quarters for all involved. A few weeks ago the office and exercise rooms were finished but not the laundry room. They decided to put the laundry room on hold and move mom and I out to the office and make the old office a nice nursery for Chloe and soon to be cousin, Isaac. Now remember, I had to get over my mindset of the nasty outside room and think of it as a nice, modern office. Yeah, right. I moved out there and had to endure a few spiders. I really, really hate spiders. Well, just about 4 days ago, I went out to work in the morning, minding my business, doing my work. I came back in for lunch and went back out about an hour later. My mom had told me she saw a lizard the other day in the laundry room. No fear there, I am only afraid of spiders, so I thought. I sat down at my desk, turned on my music and propped my feet up. Yes, I was really working. I see movement out of the corner of my eye, on the edge of my desk in the corner. I automatically think, oh that must be the lizard. I see a tongue stick out, then I see a TAIL, SLITHER OFF MY DESK. Holy toledo batman, THERE IS A SNAKE IN THE OFFICE ON MY DESK. I run screaming out of the office, my mom calls my dad, Todd tries to calm me down and Chloe is blissfully unaware of anything going on. The snake is killed and I move my stuff back into the house and am now sharing the dining room table with Todd. Oh how this wouldn't have happened in Tallahassee. :-) I may have spent most of my life in the country but I am a city girl.

Oklahoma. . . where the wind goes sweeping down the plain

Things I Like About Oklahoma
1) The world is quiet here.

2) There is like no one around. Seriously, we are on 53 acres. Space, space, and more space.

3) We can see the stars at night.

4) Braums! If you have never eaten there, you unfortunately do not what you are missing.

5) I've gotten a lot of work done.

6) I don't need to take the dogs out on a leash.

7) There is no traffic signal. Just a four-way stop. That should tell you what traffic is like.

8) Ricochet concert (They're the hardest working band in country music)

Things I Don't Like About Oklahoma
1) Did I mention there is no one around? We need to go 30 minutes to get anywhere. I mean Wal-mart is 30 minutes away. So is McDonald's. 30 minutes. Other stuff is an hour away.

2) Tornados and tornado warnings.

3) Snakes in the office.

4) Dirt roads. Cars are a mess.

5) No public libraries. Reading is fanudmantle. There are like three resale shops, however.

6) Did I mention tornados and tornado warnings?

7) All our good friends are back in Tallahassee.

If C. S. Lewis wrote Wall-E

Okay, so we're in Oklahoma for me to write me dissertation. Naturally then I have been watching movies and rereading the last four Harry Potter books (almost done with Deathly Hallows). Anyway, I have recently watched both Narnia: Prince Caspian and Wall-E. I had seen Prince Caspian in the theatre, but this was the first time I had seen Wall-E. In some sense (alright, just in my mind), there are similar messages in these movies. There is a strong theme of environmentalism, or at least there is in the book Prince Caspian. It is more muted in the movie, but it is still there to some extent. The message is obvious in Wall-E, however. The whole reason for Wall-E's existence is to clean up the mess that human beings have made so that the near-future humanity can return back to earth. What is more interesting for me, of course, is the religious undertones of both movies. Wall-E first. The film is about finding love but also finding redemption. The solution is very humanist, however. Human beings must take control of their own destinies to reclaim the earth. Humans have stewardship of maintaining the earth's health. They had abandoned it to go into space and allow someone to fulfill their responsibility, but in the end the humans aboard the Axiom (the ship they all fly around in) determine that they have to fulfill their duty. There is a quasi-religious duty humans have to "till the earth and keep it" (so to speak).

The religious themes are much more obvious in Prince Caspian (at least to a certain audience). Lewis offers a critique of both industrialization and urbanization, especially towards the end of the book--especially with the waking of the trees and the destruction of the bridge at Beruna. The Telmarines rely on machinery and technology and they are destroying the land of Narnia and marginalizing the animalistic creatures of Narnia. Aslan's waking of the trees is an encouragement to find religious fulfillment in nature and the power of nature. It is a Christian Romantic (think Emerson not Harlequin) view of the world, particularly in response to changes and violence of Europe in the mid-twentieth century. Tolkien has the same position in Lord of the Rings (think "Saruman has a mind of metal and wheels, he does not care for growing things").

So this gets me thinking about the new conservative Christian interest in the environment. Now there are plenty of conservative Christians who believe that Genesis gives the right to do what ever they want to the earth--"have dominion" (Gen. 1:28) meaning to rule earth however--but there are many who are starting to argue that God expects human beings to be stewards of the earth and not lords. I mean if you can get Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton to agree on something that is something worth noting. And I think, what kind of stance am I taking to the earth? Should I have a more Romantic view toward creation instead of my mind of metal and wheels? Why does Aslan sound like Qui-gon Jinn?

Anyway, this is what I'm thinking about instead of writing my dissertation (which is nearly done BTW--ha!). So everyone recycle your plastic and your paper for the good of the earth and perhaps your souls.

Oh, and Aslan and Wall-E might both be types of Christ-figures. Hmmmmm.