ow operating dissertation-avoidance through some kid-centric products on my Etsy site. If you have a little one, whether a little boy or a little girl, I promise you I will have WAY TOO MUCH FUN procrastinating on my dissertation and customizing a journal or paper pack for your little peanut. A lot of the pics on my site focus on princesses because I just got a custom order for a friend’s daughter, but I have a large variety of themed papers and stickers (cars, sports, animals, Sesame Street, Harry Potter, etc.) just waiting to find a new home in a journal or paper pack.

I even have a new Go Green! journal for kids, which offers fun, creative ways to teach and encourage environmentalism and an appreciation of nature in your little one.

Some pics of my “For Kids” section, featuring a balanced mix of vintage and modern papers and lots of fun stickers and other prizes that I like to hide in the envelopes I include:

ach year around the first week of October, the local grocery stores start stocking up on their pumpkin inventory. I’m sure I’m not relaying any top-secret information here. I’m sure it happens near you, too. There are some choice, stellarly globular pumpkins to choose from with perfectly positioned “handle” stems, and I’m generally pretty impressed by the selection. Until I cock my head about 45 degrees and notice the Good Pumpkins’ bastard step-children (no offense) on the neighboring crate. And they scare the living SH*T out of me. And not in the appropriately ghoulish Halloweeny way, either.

I’m not sure who paints these pumpkins, but I’m pretty d@mn sure they should be served a restraining order from the entire child population. Hugely bulbous eyes, buck teeth ready to chomp, often some oddly colored tennis-ball-sized noses and freakishly shapened eyebrows… Pumpkins are meant to be carved, not to be painted. I mean… trick-or-treating occurs at night. It’s generally dark at night. Ergo, no one will see your freakshow pumpkin anyway (thank dog). But during the day… why should you induce nightmares in such a way?? It’s highly inconsiderate and cruel.

That being said, there are some acceptable ways to paint pumpkins. Most of them require a significant amount of artistic talent, un/fortunately, which just goes back to the fact that: pumpkins are meant to be carved, not to be painted.

Here’s why…

Cool painted pumpkins:

Source: http://bit.ly/ATNSY

Nightmare-inducing painted pumpkins:

Source: http://bit.ly/3cbc91

Cool Nightmare Before Christmas-inspired painted pumpkin:

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rivernaiad/2993504572/

Creepily smiling pumpkin that has no business being near our neighborhood children:

Source: http://bit.ly/zmvbx

Awesomely crafted and painted (to an insanely perfect degree) Yo Gabba Gabba pumpkins:

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pairadocs/2985953954/

Terrifying pumpkins that I can only assume are alcoholics due to their bulbous noses:

Source: http://bit.ly/LjCcZ

Courtesy of the endlessly entertaining someecards.com:

am highly skilled when it comes to adapting to lengthy guilt trips. So skilled, in fact, that sometimes I actually forget how to get back home to Guilt-Free Land. Since I entered grad school (roughly X years ago), I haven’t really allowed myself much of a creative outlet. My thinking, especially as procrastination on my doctoral work grew stronger, was something along the lines of, “If I have the time to illuminate this initial, then I should be devoting that time to my dissertation.” Instead, I devoted that time to effectuating a stealth downward-spiral into self-doubt and severe depression. Go figure.

This blog, coupled with my second, more design-oriented blog, has been INVALUABLE with respect to me gradually allowing myself more and more creative liberties. Over the past year, I’ve produced more crafty and artistic projects than I had completed in the previous five years combined. No exaggeration. And it’s been such a boost, not only for my mood, but for my motivation, my pride in myself for being productive and producing work I’m happy with… and that confidence and productivity seep into the academic side of my life as well. So, now the key is to find the balance between the creative and the intellectual. Which seems slightly ridiculous, because the two are hardly mutually exclusive. Yet, for some reason, in my mind, I had categorized them as such. I went into my undergraduate career planning on majoring in Fine Arts. I dropped it before my freshman year came to a close, and I moved onto French and English literature. Once I made that switch, it was almost as though I tucked away all my art supplies, donned a beret and became “French girl.” Funny, huh? Considering France’s relationship to artistic revolutions.

Anyway.

So I’m now reacquainting myself with my artistic side. I’ve been doing a lot of paper repurposing, but I’ve also been drawing a lot in my sketchbook and re-honing my lettering and calligraphy skills. Fortunately, it’s been a lot like riding a bike. (Big sigh of relief there.) My fire lit instantly, and it glows brightly. And I plan to keep stoking it as much as I can. Note: as much as I “can” does not equal as much as I “want.” Have to remember the dissertation… May graduation… I think I can.

In the meantime, I’ve finally decided to get my butt on Etsy and attempt to make some money off of my fun little creations. Shameless plug, yes. Sorry sorry. But, please remember, I’m a poor grad student with overdue medical bills. Self-preservation, baby.

I’ve already featured some pics of my new Etsy shop over at Words & Eggs, but I know that I have some followers here that don’t follow W&E. So, here are a few images of my favorite items in my shop: paper packs, mixed paper Paper Clips Journals, custom lettering, and customized handmade family trees. Please take a look, and feel free to contact me or convo me with any questions! Thanks to all of you for your continued support, and for creating a lovely little inspirational community here for me…

The thing with creativity and inspiration is that you never know when it’s going to flood the gates… or when it’s going to completely dry up. For now, I’m taking full advantage and bathing in the flood waters. I’d love the financial opportunity to continue to do so. Please let me know if you’d like to work with me and/or brainstorm any projects. There are LOTS of options for family trees: Christmas advent calendar trees, anniversary trees, newborn baby trees featuring baby stats, friendship trees… the list goes on. They make great, unique birthday and holiday gifts!

OK, I’ll stop plugging myself now.

Thanks again,

LY

or my dissertation, I’m undertaking an English translation of a nineteenth-century drame romantique by Alfred de Vigny, which has resulted in lots of sifting through translation theory and methods.

Walter Benjamin, the great German critic, philosopher, and translator, has written extensively on the motivations and moves of a translation and the (often mind-numbingly humbling) “Task of the Translator,” which serves as the title for Benjamin’s 1923 introduction to his translation of Charles Baudelaire. It becomes a bit difficult to reconcile my feelings of paralyzing inadequacy when I realize that, essentially, I am attempting to give (an English) voice to a man who existed at another time, in another land… and who did, indeed, speak English. In fact, he translated works from English into French — works of Shakespeare, no less! So… who the h*ll am I??? (I just had the urge to shout, “Who am I? I’m Jean ValJean!” but I refrained). Unfortunately, Benjamin doesn’t exactly provide an answer. But he does provide some illuminations on the purpose and power of translation, which nicely enlighten on one hand:

. . . a translation comes later than the original, and since the important works of world literature never find their chosen translators at the time of their origin, their translation marks their stage of continued life.

and further terrify me on the other:

A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully.

Ugh. Pure language. “Pure” language? I fear I do not have the holy grail to language purity. (Does anyone?) Way to kick me while I’m down, Benji.

(Benjamin image from HERE; Initial “F” from dailydropcap.com)

“Il pleure dans mon coeur . . . “

II pleut doucement sur la ville.
Arthur Rimbaud

Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville;
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénètre mon coeur?

Verlaine & Rimbaud (Henri Fantin-Latour, 1872)

Ô bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits!
Pour un coeur qui s’ennuie
Ô le chant de la pluie!

Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce coeur qui s’écoeure.
Quoi! nulle trahison? . . .
Ce deuil est sans raison.

C’est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi
Sans amour et sans haine
Mon coeur a tant de peine!

-Paul Verlaine, from Romances sans paroles (1874)

eautiful initials by typographer, designer, and illustrator Jessica Hische, who has a newly minted Daily Drop Caps project, whereby “each day (or at least each WORK day), a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap will be posted for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere.” Jessica provides the HTML code to copy/paste directly into your blog posts to take advantage of her letterific creations!

Daily Drop Caps thus far, magnified:

I am in love with these, by the way. Which you could probably guess considering all of the illuminated initials I’ve used throughout my blog posts since my blog’s inception last year. I guess you could say that Jessica Hische is kind of my hero. Visit her blog HERE.

love NPR. I listen to it whenever I’m driving, while I’m working on projects, while I’m grading papers… wait, should I admit that? Anyway, NPR is fabulous. It rules. And today it especially ruled, because there was a segment on the much-awaited publication of Carl Jung’s Red Book, also known as his “Liber Novus.” Psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and pretty much all psych-related beings have been witnessing a Pavlovian-type response at the news that these once-hidden journals will finally see the light of day: W.W. Norton is publishing the Red Book next month.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) Image: http://www.crystalinks.com/jung.html

The Red Book represents 16 years (1914-1930) of Jung’s profound self-examination, his “confrontation with the unconscious” that resulted in some of his most prominent theories: the theories of the collective unconscious, archetypes, and individuation, to name a few. Jung worried that, were this collection of detailed visions and provocative insights published during his lifetime, he might lose credibility and support from the public, particularly his own followers. The few family members to whom he showed some of his pages later worried that the public might view Jung as psychotic himself. These fears led to the Red Book’s hundreds of pages being locked away in a Swiss vault.

Until now.

After listening to the NPR segment in my car and discovering that some of Jung’s book contained medieval-esque manuscripts and illuminated initials and diagrams, that clinched it. I absolutely COULD. NOT. WAIT. to get to a computer to check out the images that awaited me online.

And now, it is my pleasure to share them with you. I think you’ll agree that they are both unbelievably beautiful and completely curiosity-piquing…

{The first three images above from Booktopia; all others from NPR}

I was also really excited to find the following evocative photograph taken of Carl Jung on Lake Zurich in his later years, featured in Life Magazine:

And this, in the library of his home (also from Life Magazine):

And then this fabulous photo, of a somewhat younger Carl Jung (bottom right) with the psychoanalytic pioneer Sigmund Freud (bottom left), pictured at Clark University (Worcester, MA) in 1908:

Links to further info:

1. More color photos of Red Book pages from The New York Times

2. Sara Corbett’s New York Times article, “The Holy Grail of the Unconscious”

3. Jung Society of Utah’s presentation of the Red Book

ear Paper 1 Draft 1:

I had such high hopes for you, I really did. But grading so many of you really deflates me. And makes me want to eat Kit Kats.

I can only take so many dangling modifiers and general lapses in common sense before I enter a veritable catatonic state, you know.

Sincerely,

That graduate student/professor person in the fetal position on the sofa.

P.S.) But you really do have great ideas. If you could only present them well, you know?

nd for today’s installment of “Things That Make Me Want to Vomit and Punch My Computer,” we have THIS lovely little piece of hard-hitting journalism.

Yep, that’s right: Just when you thought the U.S. health care system couldn’t get any more disgustingly warped than it already is, now it’s come to light that, in some states, insurers classify domestic violence a “pre-existing condition” by which to deny a person (umm, a woman, let’s face it) health coverage.

Lovely.

Domestic violence is a “pre-existing condition”?

BY MARIA TCHIJOV

From http://www.seiu.org/

Insurance companies have used the excuse of “pre-existing conditions” to deny coverage to countless Americans. From cancer patients to the elderly suffering from arthritis, these organizations have padded their profit margins by limiting coverage to patients deemed “high risk” because of their medical condition.

But, in DC and eight other states, including Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming, insurance companies have gone too far, claiming that “domestic violence victim” is also a pre-existing condition.

Words cannot describe the sheer inhumanity of this claim. It serves as yet further proof that our insurance system is broken, destroyed by the profit-mongering of the very companies whose sole purpose should be to provide Americans with access to care when they need it most. In 1994, an informal survey conducted by the Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that 8 of the 16 largest insurers in the country used domestic violence as a factor when deciding whether to extend coverage and how much to charge if coverage was extended.

It is clear that insurance companies refuse to police themselves. It’s up to us to call on Congress to take action now to pass health care reform and end discrimination against patients with pre-existing conditions.

Isn’t that just fabulous? U.S. Health Care System, you’ve truly mastered the art of kicking a person while s/he’s down. Nice work.

(*cue vomit + computer punch)