I can't explain my title because it's one of those things that would require explaining too much, and instead I'd rather challenge my future senior self to remember whatever it was I was thinking about. Are pirate confections a good thing? A bad thing? Hopefully old me knows.
(Hint to toothless me: both the sherbet and the pirates are quite literal, but metaphors are possible.)
I can't really post without mentioning the passing of Robert Jordan. I feel bad - not because a few posts ago I was grumping about the direction the Wheel of Time series had taken, but because I was so busy hoping Jo Rowling would live to finish Harry that I forgot to cross the fingers on the other hand for the creator of Rand al'Thor, whose epic journey would've been resolved at last in the final book of the Wheel of Time series, had Jordan not succumbed to his illness.
Maybe that last and long-awaited book is best left in limbo. No matter what is published, and something of course will be, we'll always wonder how much is real, how much is fanfic, and how much may have been ripped out or added at the last moment, if only Jordan had managed another year at the helm.
The end of the last book promised great things - at last, major characters would stop conveniently avoiding one another! But could I ever trust the man who married off beloved Mat to an imperial, unfunny brat? Who replaced the farmboy with a hand-wringing shell... who reincarnated the Forsaken into sniveling minions? Who set the female characters on stage only to turn in place, offering naught more than haught and huff? Who lined up 6,711 other characters do a lot of sitting on stools and pondering the next step to take?
All I really want is for Moiraine to return, for there to be a good explanation for her whereabouts, for Thom to be happy, for a few Trollocs to reappear after bloody ages, for people to actually be scared of Trollocs again, and for Rand to show a little respect to his adopted father. Oh, and for Mat to get divorced. Ditto Perrin. And Morgase needs to be quickly slain, but not until she slaps her daughter and says, "Get over it!" That's all. Oh, and the Sea Folk should be killed off by the Seanchan, and the Aiel should take the veil again. That's all I want. That, and the Kin should take down the Black Tower as the Black Tower takes down Tar Valon. And then the Seanchan should take down the Kin. I'm definitely counting on the Seanchan to give us some breathing space. As Jordan would have said, "it is a beginning."
But I am sorry that a man of such worldbuilding talent and imagination is gone, and I hope any criticism I've had over the years only shows how well he hooked me in with his ferocious skill. I look forward to many more rereads, and that's the highest compliment I can give any author.
NOTE: Due to the excess unhappiness with my career expressed in this post, portions have been removed until the problem is solved.
In short, I just kept throwing glasses of water on the bonfire and talking up s'mores as best as I could.
Because I left on time, Mike now has his substitute teaching license. Yay! Well, more like a receipt saying his license is approved and the real one will arrive in a few weeks. Now he just has to get hired with the district. And buy some polo shirts.
But speaking of teaching and of books, this Mitchell and Webb sketch (below, via) is hilarious. It relates to teaching because it reminds me of how useless I can get when I'm very excited and trying to advise/encourage a particularly bright student to do something very new, but at the same time I'm trying not to tell them what to do. (I promise I'm never this bad, though!)
This is my first encounter with Mitchell and Webb. A few YouTube searches later, and I think I'm a big fan. Funny television - it's back!
Posted by: | 22 September 2007 at 10:57 AM