BlogFerret

Or should that be “Anxiety, M.A.”? (clever, aren’t I? tee hee. tee. hee.)

The other day I had prepared this clever post on the nature of test anxiety and whether anxiety is actually “necessary” for success. I discussed how I always get very anxious about my exams but usually get A’s on them anyway, resulting in ridicule by dear hubby. I wondered if I would do as well on the exams if I weren’t always anxious about them.  I have to admit that sometimes I’m anxious in spite of being well-prepared for the exam, but more often I am anxious because I have not prepared very thoroughly at all.  So is the anxiety really necessary?  Read the rest of this entry »

… And maybe I’ll get it in the next couple of months or so. Now back to your regularly scheduled ferreting.

Boardgames are fun. In fact, boardgames are probably the only reason I wish I had more friends — usually I am so misanthropic that I don’t care that I don’t have many friends. I must admit, though, that the larger number and variety of friends you have will ensure that you can find SOMEone who will play a certain game with you.

I have to mention here that just because you have friends who like boardgames and will play them with you doesn’t mean you always have friends who will play a certain game with you. For example, to make Settlers of Catan fun, you must have 3 or more players. If you manage to find enough people, ALL of your problems aren’t solved, though! Someone who enjoys playing Carcassonne won’t necessarily like Settlers. This means that even if you can find someone besides your husband to play one game with you, that’s not a guarantee that that same person will like another game.
Now seems like a good time to talk about boardgaming in general. First and perhaps most importantly: “gamers” vs. “non-gamers.” Read the rest of this entry »

Wow - two posts in one day! I feel so opinionated. Yesterday I spoke in class for two minutes flat on what I thought was wrong with the novel Wide Sargasso Sea and also why I thought it was such a great success anyway. I think I’m turning into someone else…

Okay, so tonight is “junk food” night at the Newkirk household. I am making Natchitoches meat pies and french fries. Ah… Lasyone’s… Although mostly when I was at LSMSA got our meat pies from a place called “Leon’s,” which started out as a sort of lunch shack across the street from the LSMSA high school building. At any rate, I usually just did meat pies “my way,” but just for kicks I thought that I would look up meat pies on the internets and see how other people made them. What I found compelled me to make this post.

The reason they are called “Natchitoches” meat pies and not “Cajun” meat pies is because they are not, in fact Cajun. I swear. Natchitoches, being the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase (or so my LA history professor told me), was settled before the Acadians came and settled Acadiana (a portion of the state of Louisiana whose parishes, by the way, do not include Natchitoches Parish.) As many people should know by now, just because one is from Louisiana, or even has French heritage and is from Louisiana, does not mean that one is Cajun!

Similarly, just because one is from New Orleans and may happen to have French heritage does not mean one is Cajun. My friend Eric (who is most certainly Cajun) frequently professes to like me anyway, even if my family hails from “too far east”. My snooty New Orleans grandmother frequently asserted that our family was most certainly not Cajun. At our house we frequently had Creole dishes such as gumbo and Creole “barbeque” shrimp, but we hardly ever had etoufee or jambalaya. If you want to make a Cajun angry, imply that New Orleans is Cajun or that Creole is also Cajun. Also, let me know before you do this so I can be safely out of earshot so I don’t have to listen to the lectures and/or beatings.

So just remember: crawfish pies = Cajun, Natchitoches meat pies = not. Thank you.

Oh, and a personal note to all four of you who read this blog: I know that you already knew this. I just have to rant.

Hooray, it’s a brand new year!

2006 was mostly spent recovering from Hurricane Katrina.  I still harbor a great deal of anger about the actual event and the response to it by various members of society; however, I also am still very conscious of how utterly lucky I am to have everything I have now.

This time last year my husband was working as a “rope puller” on a tugboat simply to ensure that we wouldn’t be homeless (again) after Katrina.  I look around at my “not-as-big-as-the-one-in-New-Orleans” apartment with my lovely bed in it and the kitchen in which the cabinets are in grave danger of falling off the wall and am very grateful to be living here.  This time last year it was up in the air whether I would be able to graduate from UNO, but now I’m a graduate student!

Well, I would write more, but James came home and wants to talk.  Happy New Year, everyone!