My dad, me and World War II

Last week, the History Channel had a five-night, 10-hour series, “WWII in HD.” My dad and I watched it together, as part of a bonding experience between the two of us and as fellow history nerds.

The series, if you haven’t seen it, is a must-see. Gary Sinise does the bulk of the narration, with 12 actors narrating for individuals whose stories have been singled out. The footage is mostly full-color, digitally restored for the presentation. The series also uses maps to illustrate the action, and interviews with some of the 12 featured individuals (those who are still alive). The people are fairly diverse — an Austrian Jew fighting for the U.S., a Tuskegee airman, a nurse, a Japanese-American who became a POW, a fighter pilot and a collection of Marines, Army recruits and naval soldiers.

My dad and I discussed the action and the tactics. A portion of my political science coursework in school was in the areas of military strategy and ethics, which allowed me to critically analyze and understand what was happening.

My dad said something to me during one of the programs that stuck with me.

“I’m proud of you for taking an interest in this. Most girls your age don’t care about this, or most guys, for that matter.”

That really made me think, about how there are people my age who don’t know what the Holocaust was, or Iwo Jima, or D-Day. I’m sure they’d be shocked and appalled to know that the American government herded American citizens of Japanese ancestry into internment camps while fighting to free Jews, Gypsies, POWs and other political prisoners from the Nazis.

It’s also a bitter pill to swallow knowing that war-based video games are so popular (including among many of my friends), while the young people who play them are oblivious to war’s actual cost and the staggering amount of logistical detail necessary to win one. It’s also eye-opening to see outrage at a dozen or so American deaths in Afghanistan each month, when the casualty toll on any given island in the Pacific could be in the thousands. That’s not meant in any way to diminish the losses sustained in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it does make me wonder if we’d have the iron will necessary to win WWII if it were fought again tomorrow. Of course there are differences in perceived legitimacy, goals and politics between those conflicts, but I don’t think Americans today would tolerate thousands of deaths in a two-week span, no matter how strong support for the engagement was.

I got emotionally invested in the series. When the sad fate of a few of the featured individuals was revealed — John Doe was killed in action — it actually hurt. I think this series would do great things when it came to teaching WWII in schools.

Studying war and military strategy as I have, I try my hardest not to glorify war, glamorize it or elevate it to some noble standard. I do believe in St. Augustine’s theory that there is such a thing as a Just War, and that WWII would be one such conflict. But seeing the death, tension, fear and misery in that old yet surprisingly crisp footage makes me think that, yes, war is hell, and it’s a hell people need to be aware of, lest they send men and women to their deaths too easily.

Dear AP Stylebook

Dear 2007 AP Stylebook,

I was really worried that I’d lost you there for a second. You weren’t in my messenger bag or visible on my bookshelf, but luckily I found you. It’s not that I needed you immediately, but I like knowing where to find you. Sure, I had the 2006 AP Stylebook in front of me, but what if I had needed to know about the African Union, Asperger’s syndrome or Islamic holy days? I’d have been screwed. What if I had used “Baghdad, Iraq” in a dateline? I’d have looked quite silly.

I received you at Dow Jones training in May 2008. I was thrilled to have a NEW stylebook of my very own, and immediately wrote my name and phone number inside you in pen. I got to use you immediately during training, looking up all sorts of random stuff. Your sports section was quickly dog-eared, mainly because I always forget whether end zone is one word or two (it’s two).

While I mostly used the in-house stylebooks in Indianapolis and Columbus, you were always in my bag (along with my wallet, keys, phone, a snack and a bottle of soda). It was nice knowing you were there when I needed you. You also helped me out quite a bit when I edited at the Kansan. I remember at least one incident where, without you, Sarah Palin would have hailed from Wasilla, Ala(bama). And that time I pulled a stock-market crash headline out of my rear, your business section came through in the clutch.

My mother knows I use you, but I don’t think she really understands how. When I asked her if she’d seen you, she said no but she was “sure” you’d “turn up.” Luckily your spine is kind of hard to miss.

Sadly, you’re getting out of date, and I’ll eventually have to shelve you with your older brother and go for the sexy younger man — the 2009 AP Stylebook. Don’t worry, though. I think I’ll donate you to the journalism department at my old high school. You can help younger journalists appreciate the delicate mechanics of AP style. Hell, when I was 15 and in my first journalism class, I heard “style” and pictured stories in cocktail dresses and tuxedos.

You’ve been a good friend, and whatever happens next, we had a good run.

Love,

Kels

Foreign languages, je t’aime

When I discussed deferring grad school with my parents, one of my mother’s conditions was that I do something worthwhile in my time off. A couple of days ago, I enrolled in French at the local community college for the spring semester.

My foreign language, for the purpose of formal education in high school and college, is German. My mother’s family is German, so the language has always had cultural significance for me. I haven’t had the chance to use my German in quite a while, but I’m confident that if I spent any significant amount of time in Germany, I could get back up to snuff and maybe eventually become fluent.

But now, especially because I’m focusing so much on the European Union at school next year, I think that I should probably be at least somewhat familiar with all three primary EU languages.

My earlier experience with French is limited to about a week and a half spent in Paris, Nice and Monaco. I got the absolute basics down (hello, good-bye, excuse me, please and thank you) and knew well enough how to order food (except for that one time when I ordered fish when I meant chicken).

I think it’s important for people to learn multiple languages. I definitely plan on bilingual (or even trilingual) early education for my own children when I have them. I also think my European cousins have it a little easier, getting so much access to foreign languages and more emphasis on them in school. It’s gotta a lot easier to practice German or French or Italian when you’re a train ride away from Berlin, Paris and Rome.

So this spring, whilst patiently waiting for September, I’ll start studying my third language. I hope it’ll be fun and come in handy next time I’m in Paris.

The Joy of Sweaters

I love sweaters. One of the reasons that autumn is my favorite season is because it ushers in sweaters.

I have a lot of sweaters (my mother might say I have too many). Each one has a story, and most of them show up in photos. There’s the funky multi-colored coarse sweater I got at Abercrombie; it got to go to Cardiff. I have a plum-colored sweater from H&M that I landed for £10 in Reading, a steal even with the exchange rate. I watched fireworks on Guy Fawkes Night with my friends, wearing a green American Eagle sweater. The sky-blue-green wool AE sweater I got for Christmas in 2007 has been to London and Paris. A brown AE cardigan with big wooden buttons kept me warm through the flu in 2002. There’s the red Aeropostale sweater I wore during the Kansan’s Spring 2009 staff orientation. I wore a lime green AE sweater (another Christmas present) a lot at work in the spring, when the Box (the editors’ office) was freezing. There’s a pink fuzzy sweater from an Abercrombie in Atlanta. And of course, the navy cardigan from Gap that I got for Easter in high school.

Guy Fawkes Night

Me in my olive green sweater, Louise and Alex on Guy Fawkes Night, 2006

Trafalgar
Cheryl and me (and my sweater!) at the National Gallery off Trafalgar Square, London

Those are just the ones I know off the top of my head. I’m sure I have a couple more … somewhere. That’s not even counting the sweaters of old, almost all of which my mother crocheted for me herself. I had sweaters for every holiday, a “neighborhood” sweater with buildings and people on it, a red sweater with Scotties and a balloon sweater. I was born ready for sweater weather (seriously, I’m a January baby, it was cold).

As you can see, my sweaters come from a variety of places. I look everywhere for them, and grab the ones I like. While I’m picky about shirts, pants and dresses, it’s very easy for me to find sweaters that I love.

I’m wearing a sweater at the moment, a lovely dark teal Forenza cowl sweater from The Limited (snagged at 40 percent off to boot). Is there anything in the world that feels as cozy as being enveloped in a soft, cushy sweater? Maybe being enveloped in a soft, cushy sweater with a mug of hot tea (how English of me) or cocoa.

So, thank you sweaters. Thank you for going with jeans, slacks or skirts. Thank you for coming in so many gorgeous colors. Thank you for being machine-washable. Thank you for fitting well and accentuating the right parts (read: breasts). Thank you for being on sale and for keeping me warm and snuggly in many a situation, whether it’s working in front of a computer or strolling through a museum. Thank you for being sold everywhere, and for usually being reasonably priced (with sales, of course).

Sweaters, je t’aime.

My love affair with caffeine

Full disclosure: I’m drinking a Pepsi right now. I have maybe half a case of it out in the garage. Once that’s gone, I’m laying off for a while. I’ll tell my mother not to get it for me, and I’ll make sure she keeps it from me even when I go half-mad with withdrawal. It’ll be like Odysseus’ crew tying him to his ship’s mast, only my Siren is a sugary carbonated beverage.

I’ve always loved soda (or pop, whatever) a little too much. Right before finals during the second semester of junior year at KU (May ’08), I did something radical. I gave up soda. I drank tea, milk, juice and Vitamin Water (which, to be fair, is almost as sugary as cola). And coffee. Oh, coffee.

I had the massive headache you’d expect from quitting caffeine cold turkey, but it eventually passed. My break from cola coincided with a move toward healthier foods during the summer I spent on my own in Indianapolis. I gave up beef and pork, completely, for the summer. I ate mostly chicken, turkey and fish. I had whole-grain waffles and bread, eggs, organic potato products, Kashi cookies and granola bars, low-fat yogurt, fruit, spinach and PBJ sandwiches. Looking back, my usual “lunch” at work was vegetarian: water, fruit, yogurt, cheese and either a spinach salad or a PBJ. I lost a lot of weight. Sure, I gained it back as soon as I got back to KU, but that’s beside the point.

Note that I cut out soda. I did not, not at all, cut out caffeine. My caffeine came courtesy of daily (on work days) venti skim-milk mochas from Starbucks, over ice and with no whipped cream. If you knew how much fat was in that whipped cream, you wouldn’t get it either. You know you’re hooked when you take that first sip of cold coffee on a hot day and feel an actual physiological reaction.

So how long did my break from cola last? It lasted until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. One night, working on the sports desk and stressing out from a larger workload and impending deadline, I cracked and drank a Pepsi. And another. Needless to say, my life in the newsroom that school year necessitated caffeine, and while I limited soda last summer in Columbus, I never tried to cut it out totally.

Lately, I’ve started to think more about what I eat. I don’t think I could ever go vegetarian — I’m allergic to mushrooms and picky about a lot of other vegetables. I also like eating meat too much. But I’m trying to make an effort to cut out junk food and soda, and possibly cut down on red meat. I traded store-bought cookies for rice cakes, and I’ve made my own pastries and breads. I’ve researched more healthy recipes and organic food.

I’ve actually been watching History Channel’s Modern Marvels specials about snack food and sweets production. While it’s interesting to see how things are made, it almost makes me feel ill thinking about how overly processed and chemically altered most “food” is these days.

My shift will be a slow one. I’m starting small by phasing out the Pepsi. Then, we’ll see. Stay tuned.

For Real This Time

Today was a nasty, cold, rainy, icky day. I didn’t even leave the house. Luckily, a ray of sunshine came through and brightened my day.

A nice flat envelope with the Airmail stamp on it arrived. Inside were my papers from the University of Kent — my deferred acceptance letter, a packet of housing information and a letter I need to sign confirming my place. It was an amazing relief, like coming home to find your chair has been kept warm.

As soon as I send a copy of my passport photo page, my transcripts and degree confirmations from the University of Kansas and my signed letter of intent, I can start working on all those other little details. Getting a FAFSA filed early next year, getting loan paperwork done, applying for housing.

My home next year will be Woolf College, a grad students-only complex. I’ll snag a large bedroom with my own bathrom and share a macked-out communal kitchen. After communal (and I mean communal) bathrooms in Reading, it’ll be nice to have my own loo. I’ll be just up the road from the town centre, which my research and Google-map surveillance shows has necessary amenities such as Boots, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and an Odeon cinema. I’ll figure out the bus routes and become friendly with Canterbury West rail station. I have new bed linens picked out and an eye on a student rail pass.

I have my classes more or less picked out. I’ll have six over the year: European Union policy, human rights policy, international security, political economy, research methods and an international relations survey course. I’ve even scouted all of my books on Amazon — I can get EVERY book for EVERY class for the cost of what the books for ONE class would cost at a first-run bookstore. Yeah, I’m good.

So, after a couple of months of feeling a little blue over my decision to defer, I now feel excited, refreshed and optimistic.

I set up a countdown Widget in Dashboard today. 320 days until Sept. 14, 2010, the day my parents, grandmother and I leave for London on a family holiday and to get me settled. I’ll get settled in Canterbury (about an hour and a half southeast of London by train) on Sept. 19, and Freshers Week and orientation starts Sept. 20. Sept. 27 is my first day of classes, and graduation is in July at Canterbury Cathedral.

Let’s roll.

Kelsey the Cook

One of my missions during my year off from school is to become a better cook. That’s not to say that I was ever a BAD cook, just an inexperienced one.

I’ve already done well with baking. I made a loaf of pumpkin bread and a loaf of banana bread, chocolate cookies and raspberry crumble bars, which my parents promptly consumed. I’m making another loaf of banana bread tomorrow, and I’m giving holiday bread to my family for Christmas.

My other cooking adventure this weekend is making an Irish meal Saturday. I’m baking brown soda bread early in the day, and preparing a beef and barley stew for dinner. Not only does this sound really tasty, but it also gives me the chance to kind of embrace my heritage. My dad’s family is English and Scots-Irish, and my mother’s family is mostly German.

I also love curry (a love I picked up overseas in the capital of tikka masala, England), and have made chicken curry dishes before, but always with a pre-made sauce. One of my next challenges is to make a curry from scratch. I’m leaning toward a shrimp dish with coconut milk, ginger root and cardamom.

I called my grandmother yesterday to tell her I’d have food for her Sunday (which is her birthday). She said, “You’ll make someone a good wife someday!”

Oi.

Hiking Up to Dracula’s Castle(s)

I like to plan a lot of trips at once. I’ve got three good ones going now, one of which is an eastern European jaunt to Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest and three castles associated with Dracula. By Dracula, I mean both the historical figure Vlad the Impaler, and Bram Stoker’s literary character. Further research has shown that I might not meet a vampire on my trip, but I will probably end up climbing a hell of a lot of steps.

I’ve always been interested in vampires and vampire folklore (no, I don’t consider “Twilight” to be legitimate vampire anything, sorry), and I love traveling, so it seemed like a good idea to work a castle tour into the eastern European trip.

Bran Castle gets most of the press relating to Dracula. It’s the castle that inspired Bram Stoker, and it’s quite lovely. Thing is, Vlad himself never set foot in it. So while I plan to visit Bran and take in all the vampire tourist traps, it’s a literary destination only.

Poenari Castle is the real McCoy. Vlad moved in when the castle was already old and dilapidated, and fixed it up. It’s supposedly one of the most haunted places in Europe. We’ll see. The place is crumbling and isolated, but apparently it is possible to get up there, if you’re willing to climb 1,500 steps. 1,500. I think the most steps I’ve ever climbed in one go at KU was like 100, shuttling back and forth between the two journalism buildings.

Perhaps the coolest/creepiest thing that Poenari is known for is the dramatic suicide of Vlad’s wife. Learning that the Turks were knocking on the door, she threw herself from the castle into the river below rather than be taken prisoner. It’s called the Princess’s River to this day.

Poenari reminds me a lot of Hohensalzburg fortress, a monstrosity that I climbed in Salzburg. According to the museum at the (very) top, Hohensalzburg (‘hohen’ in German means ‘on high’ or ‘above’) is such a good specimen of medieval castles because it was never successfully sieged. I can imagine an invading army standing below staring up (and up, and up) at it and thinking, “Screw this, let’s find some beer.”

Hohensalzburg Fortress

About 1,124 steps up Hohensalzburg fortress. Poenari is like this, only with more vampires, ghosts, Romanians and crumbles.

I seriously remember hiking up to Hohensalzburg, and being afraid that I would literally fall down the mountain. In the final stretch up to the ticket booth, the path had railings and wooden grooves to keep you from taking a header backwards. Now of course there was a little sky car thingie that took you up without having to climb stairs. But climbing up on our own was such a wonderful experience and … OK, it was mostly because we were really cheap.

So, if I can handle the Austrian monster, I’m sure I can hike up to Poenari.

Our third and final castle, Hunyad, is where Vlad was held prisoner for a few years in between his reigns. Back then, Hunyad was in Hungary; today it’s Romania. While it doesn’t have the literary heft of Bran or the sheer creep factor of Poenari, it’s still pretty sweet.

I’m not entirely sure when this trip will happen. It was a good year or two between when we first planned Europalooza (a monster four-week trip across western Europe) and when we finally got to go, so I’m not holding my breath for this eastern European trip.

Something tells me, though, that the castles will still be there in a few years.

Books or Comics or Both?

While I’ve always been into comic book characters and movies, I’ve never actually been into comics themselves. I’ve seen every X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman movie, but I’ve never read their comics.

I admit that, as someone who considers herself well-read and extremely literate, I’ve never had too high an opinion of comics. Unfortunately and, yes, unfairly, my perception of comic fans has long resembled Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons. You know — extremely knowledgable of the material, but socially awkward and so fanatical about keeping the comics in “mint condition” that he doesn’t even read them anymore.

Despite my reluctance to start collecting, I’ve found a happy medium between reading books and skimming comics. I’ve finally discovered the graphic novel.

My introduction graphic novels, I think, couldn’t have been a stronger choice. Of course I started with Alan Moore’s “Watchmen.” I knew Moore as the writer of “V For Vendetta” and as an Englishman who looks like Jesus mixed with Charles Manson. I read “Watchmen” last fall, about five months before the film came out. It, more than anything, took the edge off my comic snobbery. It’s the only graphic novel to make “Time” magazine’s top 100 modern novels, and features characters and moral dilemmas fit for any “serious” novel.

It was almost a year before I picked up another graphic novel. Today, while at Border’s (a dangerous place because I tend to leave with an armful), I picked up Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s “Batman: The Long Halloween” and Art Spiegelman’s “Maus.”

“The Long Halloween” came in at #5 on IGN’s list of the best Batman graphic novels and is actually a very clever serial-killer mystery, with a serious twist at the end and an ambiguous resolution. It also features nearly every major Batman villain in some capacity, giving serious face time to the Joker and Catwoman and explaining the origin of Two-Face. Elements of it are clearly evident in “The Dark Knight.” Rather than being a mindless comic book, it addresses themes of guilt, trust, friendship, insanity, marriage and what justice really means. I was so engrossed with it that I finished it in one sitting. I’m thinking of picking up “The Killing Joke” (one of Moore’s) and “Year One”  (written by Frank “Sin City” Miller) at some point. “The Killing Joke” is also seen somewhat in “The Dark Knight.”

“Maus,” like “Watchmen,” appears to turn a graphic novel into high art. Spiegelman won the Pulitzer in 1992. More a memoir than a novel, it tells the story of Spiegelman’s parents during the Holocaust. The Jews are mice, and the Nazis are cats. I haven’t cracked it open yet, but I envision another great reading experience.

So if you’re hesitant to pick up a graphic novel for whatever reason, give it a try. I’m slowly building up a nice collection.

What I will never get into, I promise, is manga.

When Kelsey met Charlie (and Charlotte)

First, let it be said that I love cats. I think they’re cute and generally sweet. But they seem not to like me, at least when it comes to allergies.

This weekend I’ve been cat-sitting for my neighbor. Her two cats, Charlie and Charlotte, are pretty easy when it comes to food and water. They’re both litter-trained. Where it gets dicey is when I have to put them outside and let them in. They’re out on the prowl at night, and inside during the day.

Charlie’s a piece of cake. Once I’ve popped a Claritin tab, I’m good to let him sit in my lap and nuzzle me and purr and all that cat stuff. I try not to touch him, though, because I don’t want the dander to make my hands itch (the Claritin helps with eyes but not really skin). He has enough love for both of us, though. He’s ready to go out at night, and always there when I arrive in the morning to let him in.

Charlotte’s a little harder. She’s much more aloof, not really into cuddling or touching. I don’t mind this, really. She just epitomizes the main difference between dogs and cats: Dogs come when you call them. Charlotte stares at me like I’m offending her with my presence.

Leaving her inside all night isn’t really an option, as she can get irritated and cause havoc. So I’m stuck waiting for her to do me the honor of letting me hold the door open for her. I have to lure her off of a bed or upstairs from the cats’ litter and food in the basement. I’m getting the hang of it, though. Tonight, for instance, I managed to sort of corner her in the living room, so there was nowhere to go but out. Using the dog’s collar as a sort of cat toy was a no-go, resulting in a “Are you stupid?” stare rather than Charlotte batting it around, entranced.

I’m hopeful that tomorrow morning when I go to let them in, Charlotte will (eventually) show up, probably long after Charlie. She might even spare me a glance as she rushes past me to get downstairs to her food and litter.

You’re welcome, cat.