As I write this, I'm sitting in my newly-Christmas'ed-out house, sipping a mug of hot chocolate and curling up under every blanket we own because it's San Diego, it's not supposed to get this cold, darnit. I'm also typing up a blog post. Uh, well I guess that last part was probably pretty obvious.
Yesterday, I got to play keeper to some lowland nyala, which are these creatures.Then I got to help one of our keepers clear another exhibit which held some scary gigantic birds (which I totally love, by the way). Then I got to play with our rats, and played trainer with one of our trainers.
Today, I go to my new volunteer place, where I'll get to play with anything from hedgehogs to porcupines to wallabies to macaws to marmosets to foxes to rabbits to--
Sorry. I got carried away. I think you get the idea.Then I'll get to hang out with some cheetahs (though I won't be playing any games with them... haha... cheetah... get it?)
I get to work with a lot of animals.
This is quite literally a dream come true.
Sometimes it feels like I'm chasing a forever dream-- you know, the kind you can't wake up from. The kind that never ends. The kind that just keeps going and going.
Lately, I've been feeling kind of frustrated because things aren't happening fast enough for me. I had always thought that by this stage in my life, I'd be well established in a solid career. It didn't seem like such a big deal when I was 25. But now, for some reason, it feels like I'm approaching doomsday. (Yes, I'm an overachiever. And dramatic).
But today, I realized--really, really realized, not just thought it-- that I have it pretty darn good where I am. And while I'm not giving up on my lofty goals, I should be more okay being where I am until things happen. Especially because, while I hate to think it, there's always the chance that they won't happen. And even more especially because, where I am is pretty awesome!
We'll see how long my new-found pragmatism lasts. Here's hoping it's a while.
Tell me: a crazy dream you have, or a pragmatic one!
Showing posts with label Random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Random. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
What Is A Novel?
I know what you're thinking: "What kind of a question is that? Everyone knows what a novel is."
That's not entirely true though, especially considering that the form of the novel has changed over the past 1,000 years from the publication of its earliest antecedents: the Sanskrit "novel" Dashakumaracharita by Dandin (6th/7th Century), the 7th Century tale Kādambari by Bāṇabhaṭṭa, and the 11th Century story The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu.
We know that a "novel" in its current form is defined as a lengthy fictional narrative written in prose. How long that narrative is comes under debate depending on publishing house, who you listen to, the phases of the moon, etc. Everyone does agree that the novel must be fictional, and it must be written in the prose style -- if it's written in poetic form then it becomes an extraordinarily long poem.
Of course, then you get into novels that include sections written in verse (Byron's Don Juan is a good example) and things start getting sticky. Despite this though, the novel became almost solely written in prose because of the simple nature of translating prose from one language to another. And the fact that it's easier to read a prose story in silence rather than one in verse ... well you can see why prose became the preference.
There were also a few works, such as Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, that we'd consider a short story collection today rather than a novel. However, since the "novel" was still a new concept in England when Chaucer was writing, then we can excuse the Tales for not following convention.
A rather lengthy article at Wikipedia on this selfsame topic goes into exhaustive detail about the history and development of the novel, more than I'm going to go into here simply because I'm sure y'all are getting bored by now. To be honest, this topic sort of got away from me. So I'm turning it around to you: is there any novel you've read recently that you felt didn't classify as a novel?
That's not entirely true though, especially considering that the form of the novel has changed over the past 1,000 years from the publication of its earliest antecedents: the Sanskrit "novel" Dashakumaracharita by Dandin (6th/7th Century), the 7th Century tale Kādambari by Bāṇabhaṭṭa, and the 11th Century story The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu.
We know that a "novel" in its current form is defined as a lengthy fictional narrative written in prose. How long that narrative is comes under debate depending on publishing house, who you listen to, the phases of the moon, etc. Everyone does agree that the novel must be fictional, and it must be written in the prose style -- if it's written in poetic form then it becomes an extraordinarily long poem.
Of course, then you get into novels that include sections written in verse (Byron's Don Juan is a good example) and things start getting sticky. Despite this though, the novel became almost solely written in prose because of the simple nature of translating prose from one language to another. And the fact that it's easier to read a prose story in silence rather than one in verse ... well you can see why prose became the preference.
There were also a few works, such as Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, that we'd consider a short story collection today rather than a novel. However, since the "novel" was still a new concept in England when Chaucer was writing, then we can excuse the Tales for not following convention.
A rather lengthy article at Wikipedia on this selfsame topic goes into exhaustive detail about the history and development of the novel, more than I'm going to go into here simply because I'm sure y'all are getting bored by now. To be honest, this topic sort of got away from me. So I'm turning it around to you: is there any novel you've read recently that you felt didn't classify as a novel?
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