...Anne...

I conducted an experiment tonight. I was highly curious to know how the text from a standard paperback book fit on a computer page with standard 1” margins. So, first I typed up a page of text from Seneca, Letters from a Stoic. And then, I typed up a page from Anne of Green Gables. The results amazed me! Each book page filled up 4” on the computer page. The implications of this are astounding! A 300 page paperback book really only requires 150 pages on the computer. Or in another light, a standard 10 page chapter is 5 pages on the computer. This makes a lot of sense when I think about authors submitting their chapters as short stories to magazines like “The New Yorker”. In school we were taught that 5 computer pages is the approximate length of a standard short story. So there you have it folks. For all your non-authors out there, the mystery is solved! (*This paragraph alone gets me half of a page in a paperback book!!!!*)

I began reading Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery a few nights ago and I must say that I think Anne and I are going to be fast friends. Here's a few quotes:

“When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress—because when you are imagining you might as well imagine something worth while—and a big hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and boots. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island with all my might. “

“It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it? But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer what made them red and she said she didn't know and for pity's sake not to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand already. I suppose I had, too, but how are you going to find out about things if you don't ask questions? And what does make the roads red?”
“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew.
“Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?”

“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,” she whispered as he lifted her to the ground. “What nice dreams they must have!”

“When you hear a name pronounced can't your always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you'll only call me Anne spelled with an e I shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.”

Anne is such a talkative, curious, and above all imaginative little girl of eleven years. I think she is a more effective daydreamer/imaginer than me. My parents are always wondering about things like “What makes the road red?” and when we bring up such questions over dinner an after dinner assignment is given to someone to find out the answer on the Internet (or when I was young we found the answer in our set of encyclopedias). I think I learned to personify the trees, like Anne is doing, and other creatures from my mother. My middle name is Anne, spelled for certain with an e. My mother and I agree with Anne of Green Gables that Anne with an e is much prettier than Ann without an e. My first name, Laurie, is also spelled in the prettier fashion. Laurie Anne. That's my name!

I brought the first three books of the “Anne...” series with me to Erlangen. They have been sitting around my childhood home for as long as I can remember. But, just as in most things, I am only now reading them because it took until now for me to want to read them. If you remember my two seat mates on the airplane ride over here, the father asked the professor for any advice on how to help his son improve on his writing skills. The professor replied that he had to confess that he didn't know how to help people improve their writing skills. I found this shameful! I don't know if anyone really paid attention to my advice, but I announced it anyway. I said that his son needs to write about subjects which interest him and then from there he could learn to improve his writing. The reasoning behind my suggestion is similar to my reason for just now after all of these years picking up these “Anne...” books. People do their best at things when they are being directed by an inner urge. It's not enough to say, “I should read an 800 page Russian novel”. Without the urge, then the reading of this novel will always go to the bottom of a to-do list. Sometimes I look back through my elementary school notebooks and I find horribly written paragraphs about what I did over the weekend. I think the teacher was on the right track with this individually directed assignment, but what would also really help someone learn to write is to provide questions which need to be addressed within the writing (I don't know if the teacher did this or not). With a topic of interest and some structure, I think that most people have the potential to construct sensible sentences and strings of thoughts.

I had my first real day of work today. I have a question: Why is it that geology/physical geography labs are located in basements? Is it for our own protection since we love to observe the out-of-doors and are easily distracted by the out-of-doors? I worked in a little closet of a room sieving soil samples. The process involved a lot of weighing, sieving out the >2mm clumps, stones, and grains, grinding up a small portion into fine powder, and repackaging everything in new bags. I enjoyed the work and the workplace. It was nice and quiet, albeit a little cool in temperature. I completed more than half of the samples, so I will continue with this activity on Monday.