Interludes - Travel

Short trip back to California for a week 6/2 has preoccupied me; as well as my backpack finally breaking (8 solid years of daily use as a student bag and an EDC).  I've had to do a lot of footwork (physically and online) to find something I liked at a reasonable price.  Then too, a lot of preparatory buying of things for the trip.  Making lists of what to take back, what to bring back (there's always something you forget).

On the teaching side, I've been making targeted translation quizzes for my ESL students - it's a better way of testing both grammar and vocabulary because sheer memorization wont help you, especially when combined with the need to use proper grammar - simple word/meaning substitution often wont do.

Of course, this is somewhat limited by my own Chinese language skills, which do not even approach my students'.  We seem to make do.  I've also been analyzing the "New TOEIC" (now with 30% less calories, 45% more vitamins, and all natural ingredients!) exam.  One of my students, a middle schooler whose parent's thought he was somewhat a lost cause, has been emboldened by exceeding their expectations on the GEPT.  He's decided to take on the TOEIC (which is surprisingly, much like a business-vocab focused GEPT) even though he is, perhaps, too young.  I think he'll do fine though.

I'm starting to run out of read-along books though.  And movies (at least, for younger students; come on pixar, churn out some more stuff).

For my creative writing student - I've been trying to find books and authors that can help in our lessons.  It's one thing to talk about exposition and active scenes and so forth - it's another entirely to see how it goes so right you forget you're even reading, or goes so wrong you might as well forget reading.  As with many types of art, imitation can be instructional.  And then there's also grammar - rules, conventions, common errors, and so forth.  A painter needs to know many things besides how to convey an object; he also needs to know how not to mess up his paints and brushes.  And writing is painting with words.

It's been busy.

In the meantime, my mind has been absorbed with a high middle (well look, it's not low) fantasy story - probably due in part to Skyrim, and part in due to playing Ascension and Lords of Waterdeep.  Go figure.  Something, anyway, has been inspiring me to tell a tale of betrayal and a job gone wrong.  Between ~24 hrs in the air (11 leaving, 13 returning) and lots of nothing to do in Cali (except drive my beloved car and eat), I should be able to get a good amount of writing done.

Lord of the Things

Greetings!

Yes I know; stories do not begin in this way, but letters often do.  As it turns out, this week's posting(s) will be late for a variety of reasons (explanations but not excuses).  I've outlined Presenting: The Naucine, and begun Introducing: The Ra'u - the latter of which feels quite important to me as they are the planned major player in my story - and then immediately shivved with writer's block.  As well, I do a lot of my writing in cafes, and the last had a large group of giggling teens constantly falling over their tables.

I have no idea what they had in mind when they decided to go, as a gaggle (which, like a murder of crows, is the correct group-counter for an unspecified otherwise-herd of teens), to a cafe.

I may also have been playing the shit out of Hearthstone.  But, as it did with Naucine physiology, video game playing often serves for me as a source of inspiration and problem solving.  Though really, this was just lollygagging.

I thought, however, that I would write briefly (which is to say, a lot) on the subject of education and, if I happen to reach it, language.  I've been busy on the teaching side of things.

This past week I assigned to a student William Golding's, Lord of the Flies. (wow, I remember proper citation format.... I think.)  I felt rather guilty about this because I had read this book when I was in middle/high school.

But I should clarify - my student is of middle school age and is unschooled (blog).  Personally, I thought the book would be right up his alley - it is, after all, a dark, violent, even at times crazy, story about a bunch of british boarding school kids who get stranded on an island and immediately proceed to go bonkers.  I had to read it again since it'd been so many years, but I finished the book in 3 or 4 nights - it's not terribly long.  When I think about it, that book should be a great read for any male adolescent.  Was Survivor NOT a national phenomenon in the US?

But as I recall, few enjoyed it in school.  Most any book you care to name that was read in school will generally be associated with vague, negative thoughts.  Mostly forgotten, walled off negative memories that largely center around the words "bullshit" and "pain in the ass", a reading assignment over the course of weeks (!), capped off with a graded writing assignment and/or test.

I think any educational system that engenders in its children a strong dislike, for years and years, of reading and, in particular, classics of literature, needs to be strongly reevaluated.  Reading and writing, indeed language itself, is the very cornerstone of civilization... and thus education itself.

The educational system in general, when it comes to literature, has spawned an entire industry (and that is no small thing mind you) of crib-books/horn books - short(er) books that highlight the key plot points, characters, allegory and metaphors, subtext of a work.  The entire purpose, despite weak disclaimers to the contrary, is to prepare a student for discussion without having read the necessary text.

What's more, isn't it the TEACHER'S job to point those things out? To lead a discussion on those topics, rather than have students regurgitate memorized factoids like a parrot?  Where is the comprehension that marks true education?  We seek only the "right" answer - the means became an end unto itself.

The right answer, the right answer... we are conditioned to always seek the right answer.  This stifles innovation, creativity, learning.  We should learn to value the right answer, how to recognize it, but we should not ignore (or worse, penalize) the journey to reach it.  Insert cliche story about Edison and the light bulb.

There is a hypothesis that the current educational system is a relic of the Industrial Revolution:

-The next generation of workers are being trained at a young age to accept spending hours at a time (literally) in a small room, doing what they are told, with the same people.

-They all do the same work, all on the same thing - such as a work sheet, a work book, a diorama (what is this supposed to teach me?), a paper mache puppet (again, what is the true, educational content of this project?), a tooth pick structure, a Jell-O model of a cell, a dissection (you would think this is an educational activity, I assure you it is not... both as a student and later as an assistant), running around a field (this is... education? No, it is exercise, calling it "physical education" does not impart any educational value to it whatsoever), learning the rules to badminton.

-Future workers are taught to accept localized authority, to respond to the sound of a bell signalling a shift in location and/or task, to listen to announcements made over a PA loudspeaker system.

-Future workers get up early in the morning, eat lunch (of a sort), and go home late in the afternoon.  Why?  Do the hours truly matter so much? Need they occur at approximately the same time as rush hour? Wouldn't it make more sense to stagger the school rush and work commute, for safety if not traffic?

-Future workers get the whole of summer off - a relic of needing hands in the field for harvest (an example of the backseat education takes and concessions it must make to the influence of the economic machine)

-Future workers are penalized for failing to show up, on time, without authorization.  There must be a proper accounting, in alphabetical order, or who is present at the start of each shift.  Seating arrangements are often assigned in this manner (in their perfect rows and columns).  Is taking attendance important?  It's true you have to be physically present to learn in a classroom, but this seems a matter of discipline and responsibility.  In any event, how this relates to the grading one's "performance" makes no sense in an educational context - if you didn't learn because you weren't there, you'll already be penalized appropriately on the test.

-Regular performance evaluations.  Which, frequently, don't test comprehension, but instead ask for regurgitation of memorized information.  The teacher does not evaluate a student's comprehension (in most cases), but simply 'quality assures' by checking answers against a 'key'.  If a student's comprehension or interpretation exceeds a teacher's (as can, and indeed we should hope ought happen frequently) it is wrong.  We teach and seek conformity, not individuality.  This is the primary problem of emphasizing the right answer over learning.  There is also something to be said for conditioning people to be afraid to make mistakes.

-Conformity over individuality is also the key feature of the social aspects of our educational system.

We never bother to question or seek to understand how a student interprets information such that they come to the 'wrong answer.'  We seek only conformity to the right answer above all.  Where is the 'teaching' then?  But of course, this is incompatible with the large scale classroom system.  It is also inconsistent with the complete of oversight into the quality of educators.  We expect educators to match answers, not to teach; we expect them to stop gunmen, not to understand evolution.

Our priorities are completely wrong - they are fully subservient to (in some cases, archaic) economic systems.  The gun industry.  The Political machine.  Capitalism.  Marketing.  Sports and entertainment.  Copyright and intellectual property.  DRM and quick-buck technologists (everyone trying to pawn off shitty tablets onto schools... remember the iMac?).

Imparting comprehension, what we call education, has always been a 1 on 1 or 1 on small number matter.  In any skills-based group learning, the instructor MUST take time to check on everyone (such as in martial arts, to check posture, form, and mechanics, or painting for much the same).  Sauces and baked goods must be tasted.  Technique must be watched, evaluated, the source of mistakes pinpointed and corrected.

Case in point, do grades matter for your occupation? In the overwhelming majority of cases, no they do not.  When have we ever examined the grades of a candidate for political office?  We care more about the birth certificate of the president, the job in the US, than we do about his grades.  We check for grades in going to higher education, and we check for GPA (not grades) for some first-time-employments.  But that's about it.

Do we prepare students for higher education?  No, not really.  That's why there are scores of books on vocabulary ALONE for entrance exams.  And an entire test prep industry.  And even that is not education - what student, who has ever memorized vocabulary for a test, has ever remembered or even used those words thereafter?

A different student of mine expressed a desire to learn "English conversation skills."  I almost laughed, because I'll be frank here: there is no such thing as "English" conversation skills.  There are only "conversation skills."  The term "English conversation skills" is a defense mechanism, a lie like many others we tell oureselves so that we don't feel bad about making mistakes.  Mistakes which our school system teaches us to fear and avoid above all else.  Absolutely anything you can say on the subject of making conversation in one language applies to every single other language past, present, and future.

The grammatical differences between chinese and english, as pertains to conversation, conveyed in layman terms, are:

1.  It is possible to make a grammatically correct and complete sentence in chinese without a subject (true, even requisite, in most asian languages)

2.  It is possible to make a grammatically correct and complete sentence in chinese without a verb of any kind

3.  It is possible to make a grammatically correct and complete sentence in chinese without both a subject and a verb.

And that is it.  Because of these differences, it is common for native chinese speakers to answer questions without designating a subject (I, me, you, they, etc.) or using a verb (frequently using instead either infinitives [to + verb] or gerunds/participles [verb-ing]) - what, in english, we call a sentence fragment.  Conversely, ABCs such as myself tend to be more verbose, emphasizing particles (a, an, the - also missing in chinese) and subjects (specificially I and You) more than is actually needed.

As an aside, if you think about it, when speaking... I is obvious, it's the speaker.  And You [is] obvious as well, that's the listener.  Or, more politely, you would address the person specifically by name or title.  Going about all the time saying I and You is, if you think about it (outside the native language context), a bit bombastic and rude.  In japanese, the acceptable term for 'you' is お前 (o-mae), which even carries the honoriffic o-prefix, which literally means 'in front (of me)'.  A more roundabout way to say it would be 目の前に (me no mae ni), meaning "that which is before my eyes."

'You' indeed... *ahem*

So the whole of what might be termed "english" conversation skills can actually be covered in about 30 seconds.  The remainder is a question of vocabulary and usage - but if you naturally speak in such a way where you attempt to provide more information (where you are going, how you feel, your opinions, in short - conversing) and pre-emptively answer logical questions (Did you eat yet? Yes.  When? an hour ago.  Did you eat a lot? No.  So are you hungry now? No.  What did you eat? A dead pigeon.  Do you need to go to the hospital? Yes.  Is someone taking you? No.  Do you want me to take you? Yes.) then that is usage... there is no teaching that.  That is a matter of personal habit.  You need to practice speaking and giving out relevant information.  There is no teaching of that, because it is a matter of how your brain is wired.  And as you naturally speak and attempt to convey information, you will become frustrated that your vocabulary is lacking - you will seek out more terms, relevant ones, and use them, and thus increase your vocabulary.

Memorized teaches you shit.  There, I said it.  It teaches you to recognize information taken out of context.  You don't learn words; you learn to regurgitate a contextless definition (which does not demonstrate comprehension) upon visually recognizing the word.  That's why everyone "forgets" things they "studied" (aka memorized) for a test - the brain was conditioned to respond in a given manner (spit out the definition) when it sees the trigger (the word).

You haven't learned anything.  You haven't learned how to use it, how to adapt it or make it your own.  You've learned "when A happens, do B.  Repeat."

You've learned how to be a part of an assembly line.

For all this, I don't know what the proper solution is.  Apprenticeships, tutoring, small scale teaching... these things would cripple the economic system that we have.  But I know what we have isn't the right answer.  Even mice learn not to shock themselves - that's not the path to the right answer.  As I said to my student's father in my interview, "I'm not sure homeschooling is the right answer, but I admire you for acknowledging what the wrong answer is and casting about for a solution."

Actually, I might have paraphrased that a bit.  Whatever, I was the one that said it.  I can change it.  Shut up. 

The next book I have assigned is George Orwell's, Animal Farm: A Fairy Tale.  It's another book I read in high school.  It's also rather enjoyable for it's sheer ridiculousness and clear political message.  Although these days, you might question which government is being satirized.

Stories to come later this week!
 

Recent work - languages

Pictures! hopefully they are not absurdly large.  No idea; I'm on the tablets.  Anyway, as I have mentioned, I've been engrossed in transferring my notes from a rather rain-logged notebook to something a little more durable (and yet, not to a digital format, ironically).

As happens whenever I do this kind of thing (such as with essays), this has let me go over my ideas a second time more critically - to consider what is important, what is overbroad and extraneous, to revise and refine and develop.  So making progress!  Story is beginning to come together much better (somewhat less open ended), and possible plot twists are making themselves known!

But what it boils down to is a paper bound "wiki" - all the information and detail and reasons and so forth that I come up with, collected in one area.  I can even jump from page to page!  It's more organized now.

What you see in the last picture has been the most recent focus for the past few days (not pictured: three or four pages of discarded drafts) - a language subsystem.  It was inspired by something I read somewhere else (I wish I could remember where exactly now, to give credit where credit is due) but I've never quite bothered to formalize it.

what boils down to is a universal translation system for a foreseeable problem in interspecies communication; indeed, we have this problem here on Earth already, right here and right now.  Body Language (and other subtle communicators).  No one has a true Sarcasm Detector right?  The age old example would be the smile - it does not mean the same thing in all cultures, much less all contexts.  In some cultures it is a hostile gesture, a declaration of impending violence.  In others, a gesture of friendliness and welcome.  IIRC, the famous picture of Nixon stepping off a plane and signing "peace" with his fingers was, locally, equivalent to an offensive declaration to all viewers.  Kinda like flipping everyone off.

So what happens when you have aliens attempting cross species communications, if we have that problem within a single species on a single planet?  What happens if one alien is beaked, and wholly incapable of smiling?

What if the alien is a hive swarm, and incapable of demonstrating, much less comprehending, such individual expression?

What of species (for example, some octopii) that communicate through photo-chromatrophic signals (color changes and patterns)?

Thus the Emotional-Context Indicator system; imagine using hand signals to indicate whether you were or were not serious in making a statement (akin to Patrick Rothfuss' system in Wise Man's Fears, iirc)? Or to indicate deference to or agreement with another in making a comment?  How much better for eliminating misunderstanding!

Of course, I wouldn't put it past humans to misuse such a system for deception.  So it's not necessarily without it's flaws.  And of course, if you lack appropriate limbs for such signals, that's a problem too.  However, posit a wearable adornment of low level AI, capable of translating subtext via color gradients or shapes (and translating likewise back to the wearer, perhaps through holographic projection).

But not all emotional-context require signals, and in some cases it would be counterproductive (such as signalling that one was lying).  In case, I've imagine a tiered system, 1-10, indicating degree to which the resulting ECI is present in; and come up with quite a few.

I think I have more negatives than positives.... Well, that's Valentines Day for you.

Happy New Years!

Happy (belated) new years everyone!

New years is like, a two week long event here in Taiwan.  During which firecrackers.  Because.

Anyhow, I've (finally) begun transferring my notes to dedicated notebooks; previously, my notes for DE and Weavers were scattered across multiple notepads, a notebook, and a sketchbook.  Which can make things confusing.  In doing so, I've written a synopsis, and that helps tremendously in the organization and focus.  I can also see that, fundamentally, it's too broad and open ended... like a sandbox version of a book.  Which, while enormously interesting to me personally, I can see being both unsatisfying and confusing to others.

I've also been taking note on books that discuss the writing craft, and have thus far engaged in my standard MO - download, feel proud, and then forget about them entirely.  There's a certain irony in writing a book called "The Now Habit" (which I have) for procrastinators (which I am) because we are both precisely the people who need it (so I got it) and who wont read it (which I haven't yet; I think it's been a year. At least.).  There are, however, quite a lot of free and cheap ebooks on writing and I DO intend to read the ones I've grabbed (questionably the same could be said of The Now Habit... possibly I see it as a talisman).

It would be interesting if the acquisition of books meant an instant integration of the 'knowledge' within.  Ah well.

But part of the polarizing need for these books in me (get in mah brain belleh!) is that I am reading a wide range of SF lately for inspiration and learning/analysis... seeing how other authors approach certain topics (themes) as well as present those topics (methods/style).  And I'm seeing more and more of things I don't 'like' - internal inconsistency.  I think I've talked a little bit about this before - it bothers me when something is presented or touted in one fashion, but the behavior or action is altogether different (often due to a limitation in understanding on the author's part).

For example, an author uses a lot (indeed, too many) buzzwords to describe an AI - which subsequently talks and responds like a search engine.  Indeed, all those buzzwords amounted to what was basically Siri or Google Now.  Which is a technology that exists and does not need all the buzzwords or pseudo technology to function.  That is a glaring bit of discord; as Dan Brown wrote, "the best science fiction has its roots in science."  Buzzwords, as we should all know, are empty and devoid of meaning - they are flash without substance, and do little more than to cover up that void (and often poorly at that).

Another example of internal inconsistency - Pacific Rim.  I love this movie (how can you not love giant robots punching giant monsters in their giant faces?), but there are so many internal inconsistencies, it's a testament to how much we love giant robots punching giant monsters (did I mention it has giant robots punching giant monsters?) that we are willing to overlook the discrepancies.  Like, all the world, banding together to research, develop, and build, in 14 months giant, walking (no easy task) robots.  The technology required to do something like that is not simple.  And then to create a neural interface, a computer operating system, remote monitoring systems, and eventually some sort of digital-energy power plant is far and away high science-fiction.

But basically they are only good at awkwardly punching (which never actually harms any of the monsters).  Also, there is the super glaringly obvious weak spot of the everything vital being in the head, which is easily accessible and lightly armored, despite the ample abundance of heavily armored frame.

Somehow, the same technological advances didn't extend to effective weaponry; a plasma weapon which is so slow as to be useful only as a first strike weapon (in which capacity it is amazingly never used) built into a transforming hand is amazingly high tech, but we don't see anything else along that line - just various forms of punching and medieval weaponry (which is awesome, but doesn't make a lot of sense).  Also, despite all the technology and mind control, the robots communicate via manual walkie-talkie only.

It takes a lot of glitz and flash to distract a person from suspension of belief - if your media is visual, that might be easy enough, but when you require the active participation of a reader, that's a whole other story (no pun intended).

To me, it's important to start from a foundation of understanding the world your story takes place in.  Notwithstanding that to me, universe creation is fun, it allows you to explain and analyze your own story for internal consistency.  When I read about patrick rothfuss spending hours and having notes on the currency system in his world, which is something readers only tangentially experience in the story, that says there is a high degree of consideration for internal consistency of his world - which allows a story to make sense.  If the world is not internally consistent, how can the story be?

Surprisingly, that is something which is important to more than just story writing - you see it in things like video games, movies, political campaigning (i guess so far we are still dealing with fiction), religion (still fiction), law, economics (still fiction so far), and science (fiction?!).

Well, I guess in a way, reality is just a story.  If only we were better writers.

The Writing Process

Everyone does it differently.

This is something I knew going in, but hadn't fully grasped upon after starting.  I mean, usually you only deal with the end product; the book reports and essays and such you did in school, those "don't really count."  Because a paper is a paper and a book is a book, right?

I sure hope so, because I am not writing this thing the night before it is due.

It was something that really struck me after looking through some favorite authors' work; in this case, I was looking at the authors of The Tenth Planet, specifically Kathryn Rusch.  I've got the books in paperback, because this was from a time when mp3s were still A Big Deal Gosh Darn It, and while we wrote and read things on the computer screen, the idea of reading (or writing) a book on a computer screen seemed nonsensical.  What are you doing? we'd say.  Print that out.  (If you were my Chinese mother, you'd also make a comment about eyes being more valuable than trees).  The books dealt with... well, I guess I'm still within the statute of limitations for spoilers, so never mind.  But nanotech swarms are a feature of the storyline, so I wanted to brush up on that one again.  I remember liking the first book quite a lot, the second one not as much, and found the third and ending to be rather disappointing.

I know, I pretty much just jinxed myself right there.

Anyway, Rusch also has a number of novellas (which, as everyone knows, are female novels) out.  I was reading her foreword in a sample of a collection of novellas when it really hit me how different the process can be.  She was detailing her experience with a publisher who was hesitant to offer a deal because she had published short story versions previously in sci-fi magazines.  From there, she talked about her process, writing for a living universe, and how stories come together for her; listening to her characters, etc.

Previously, I'd been writing in Dream Weavers and had hit a pretty serious block - I didn't know my main character.  I couldn't decide on a name for him because I didn't know what kind of person he was.  Rather, he was presenting himself in a way that was completely at odds with my idea of him.  Young guys don't really act or talk in a film-noir sort of way.  There's a reason it's Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis in Sin City and not, say, Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher.  Other aspects aside, you can't take them seriously acting in that sort of role because they simply look too young.

I already knew that for my two story concepts... well, that's the thing.  They are concepts.  I don't have some kind of timeline or flow chart or whatever else annotated before hand.  That worried me somewhat, because I had vague ideas of the story I wanted to tell, but no real clue of the players (and thus, their actions and motivations) in those stories.  Normally, I'd get hung up over that, blow it up into an insurmountable problem, and then just sit and sulk and never follow through on it (no really, I have practice).  Among the many things in life I'm trying to come to terms with, trying in spite of perceived obstacles is something I'm trying to become more comfortable with.

So I had stopped (could you tell?) for a while with vague plans to flesh out characters and motivations, and then just sort of smash everything together and see what happened.  Of course, that's not always so simple.  You come into a George RR Martin-esque sort of problem where you aren't necessarily sure how many characters you really need, and it all sort of spirals out of control (it is known).  And you know what? Coming up with names is REALLY GOD DAMN HARD.  I mean, it's hard enough when you have to pick an account name or forum name, or when you have to name your character online AND ALL THE GOOD ONES ARE TAKEN SO SCREW IT or you are playing an RPG and they are like, "hay, naming is hard, so name these four characters and all the other random guys you pick up along the way."

Except for me, it was getting to be like, Name this planet.  And it's solar system.  And it's dominant race.  And make a consistent naming convention for it's people.  And then name the galactic alliance they lead (the Ascendant Milieu and the Nihil (Cooperative), I'm really happy with those two, SO DON'T STEAL OR JUDGE).  Ok, Now do that again for like, the other 8 or 10 alien races you invented.  And then the human characters.  And the PDAI/AIDE (Personal Digital Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous Intelligent Digital Entity) assigned to each one.  And that was just for Digital Entities.

But I think you can see what I mean when I said sometimes problems run away from and grow into giant monsters that I can't seem to deal with.

With Dreamweavers, it's sort of an Alt-Earth scenario, so on the one hand, you have it easy because human names come pre-invented.  They have books of them, I'm told.  Indeed, everyone you know has one; sometimes more than one.  On the other hand, you can't sort of just rub your cat against the keyboard and call the result "Elvish" or whatever.  And picking names can be just as hard - especially last names, because I'm always encountering new ones on facebook, etc.  Like, wow that's a surname? And you don't want to call everyone "Smith."  And you want to pick the right name that sounds right, without being cheesy-obvious.  Like, John Stryker; he's a boxer.  No shit, really?

Anyway, Rusch was talking about how she'd write bits and pieces as they came to her... and they wouldn't necessarily be from/for the same story either.  It was an approach I hadn't fully considered, but which resonated with me.  But I do still need to define/describe my mains, give them names.  Then they can tell me what happens during the parts I don't know.

....I wrote all that, But basically all the important stuff was that one paragraph at the end.  Oh well.

As for the process... I'm always a little weird and particular about writing things.  Even when it came to term papers for law school (and yes, I did actually plan, research, and write a 20 page paper the night before it was due because I'm a moron, and shut up, it was excellent, it got an A-).  For me, I really like the kinesthetics of writing; I like to write by hand, on paper (preferably lined, yellow, legal pads) beforehand.  Usually I will use indentation-note taking style to outline what I want to say, fully writing in the parts I know with certainty.  This has been a habit for a long time; when I was in Japan and did a travelogue blog entry per day, I always wrote it out beforehand on paper, and then copied it onto digital format.  I did that for something like two months, each day, everyday (or equivalent thereof; sometimes It was a day or two before I got the post written and published, but there was an entry for each day is the point).

Right now I've got a little journal with all kinds of notes in it; it's a bit jumbled, because it has two stories worth of notes interspersed amongst each other, and also it's a little waterlogged from rain/Taiwan air.  I may have to transfer into two books, which is as good an excuse as any for my little-book-collecting habit.