On the Love Language of Food

            Plenty of books and articles have been written on love languages, but I feel there’s a unique language that shares traits with acts of service, quality time, and giving gifts: that is, the love language of food.  As James Beard wrote, “Food is our common ground, a universal experience,” and naturally, it is a universally recognized expression of the cook’s love toward the recipients.  For this reason, most cultures consider the giving of food a necessary part of good hospitality and parenting, and we often give food as presents to everyone from customers and coworkers to family and friends.  Furthermore, we may prepare food so others don’t have to as a considerate act of service, and we typically use meals—whether homemade, catered, or potluck—as an icebreaker and time for fellowship.  (And food often functions as one of the topics of conversation!)  

As with any other love language, food given grudgingly or carelessly, or shared in an atmosphere of discord won’t communicate love—only duty.  However, assuming the cook has loving intentions, one can easily see the truth behind the adage, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”  Cooking for other people is really like giving them a valentine.  When the food is well liked and timely given, the gift blesses both the giver and the receiver, and even if the fare is objectionable, often the thought still counts to some degree.  Even so, the effort put into the food does serve to demonstrate the depth of the giver’s love; while parents who buy food for their kids clearly care for them, the father who occasionally goes the extra mile to make pancakes himself and even shape them into Mickey Mouse, snowmen, and other fun forms, or the mother who takes care to prepare nutritious lunches rather than slapping together quick, processed calories clearly demonstrate a deep love that surpasses duty.

While time constraints, personal abilities, and proclivities may make cooking an impractical way for some people to demonstrate their feelings toward a person with the love language of food, even making an effort to remember the person’s food preferences or to buy special treats that the person enjoys can demonstrate affection.  Picky and careless eaters would also do well to understand this love language so that they can see the love behind even unwelcome gifts of food and learn to show proper appreciation—and to respond to the giver in the language they will understand.

On Winter Procrastination

            Winter seems to freeze more than the air, especially during holidays from work; the cold slows our actions and thoughts, making us sluggish—like bears without the sense to hibernate.  We allow ourselves to become prisoners of the cold, locked in our homes, seized by depression, and procrastinating all but the most essential tasks.  We seek escape and pleasure in books or games or whatever else suits our fancy, just killing time with the never-ending thoughts, “I’ll be happier when . . .” and “I’ll get to it when . . .” and when “When” comes, we sheepishly push the deadline to some point further in the future.

Which comes first: depression or procrastination?  It’s a chicken-and-the-egg question since the negative consequences of procrastination can depress a person, and depression can cause a person to procrastinate.  In this cycle, the best motivation out of both procrastination and depression is a mixture of hope and aversion: hope in eternity, certainly, but in the short term, hope that one’s troubles will improve by taking action—hope that by taking those single bites of the metaphorical elephant before us, we will gradually consume it, preferably before it spoils and gives us a tummy ache.  Next, aversion is not necessarily an emotion like fear or hate, but a common-sense avoidance to such things as food poisoning and to the pervasive smell of spoilt meat, and this aversion may further fuel our hope of eating the elephant in time to avoid these consequences and may motivate us out of our procrastination.  In turn, cultivating and allowing oneself to feel hope—and the simple satisfaction of acting can also help relieve depression.

Here I sit as a prime example, faced with a mess of colored papers, stickers, glue sticks, scissors, and calligraphy supplies over my living room floor and kitchen table.  I have only the aversion of the mess and of waste—and the hope of a clean house and useful, pretty cards—to keep me from chucking the lot in the bin and, instead, to motivate me to finish the partially-made cards so I may eventually tuck the materials back in their places out of sight.  The living room mess is already decidedly smaller, and I nibble at the rest whenever I can drag myself from the refuge of the books I received at Christmas.  In the same way, the hope of spending my vacation time usefully and the aversion of letting a month go by without at least two blog posts has prompted this contemplation.  The satisfaction of defeating these small battles with procrastination go a long way toward mending my winter blues.  
However, happiness in “I’ll be happy when” is too unreliable; when spring comes or the project ends, we need a new hope to fuel us lest we fall into a funk.  Ideally, our emotional state would be separate from our actions (or lack thereof) and we could be content in all circumstances (which would remove one cause of procrastination), but few people find this easy to accomplish—on their own.  As Immanuel Kant wrote, happiness requires “something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.”  Naturally, the first and best place to find all three is Christ.  His Spirit will help us win the daily—minutely—struggles against our human nature and keep our hope and zeal.  Success will come easier with practice in relying on Him, but as one might tell from the paragraphs above, I’m not there yet.  Well, I suppose I’d better praise God for giving me these (unwanted!) opportunities to practice diligence and contentment this winter.  :)  

On Essays and Expectations

        As a Writing Paraprofessional at a community college, I maintain our tutors' supply of handouts on all manner of grammatical and stylistic topics, often improving old handouts or writing new ones as needed.  Some time ago, I wrote the following handout, which answers the question I hear most from students: "What does my teacher expect from my essay?"  I'm rather proud of how well it explains universal college-level expectations for essays while also making a case for the existence and assignment of such essays.

What Professors Expect from Student Essays

Or How to Write A-level Essays

Professors expect you to follow the assignment directions.

                Anywhere you go or work, you will find certain expectations, and whether fair or not, you must learn and meet them to succeed.  Following an assignment shows, first, that you’re able to read and follow directions—a basic skill you need in any job.  Second, it respects the teacher and implies you care about your academic success—you’re not arrogantly blowing off the directions because you think they’re unimportant.  Also, some directions (such as using MLA or APA format to cite your sources) will keep you from plagiarizing, which can earn you a failing grade or expulsion.  Therefore, take special note of instructors’ directions about writing a given length, covering certain topics, following a specific format, avoiding certain words, etc..

Professors expect you to write in a logical, organized manner.

                Follow Western essay organization.  Start with an imaginative introduction, which may give background facts but won’t yet develop the supporting points.  End the intro with a clear, specific thesis (position statement) that you’ll support throughout the essay.  Start body paragraphs with a topic sentence, and order supporting points and examples sensibly.  Use parallel structure and transitions to help readers follow your train of thought.  Explain or support debatable statements, and avoid logical fallacies (bad reasoning).  Conclude by summarizing the supporting points and thesis—in new wording—and closing with a thought-provoking final statement or question.  (If you don’t know a term, look it up and practice writing it.)

Professors expect you to demonstrate deep thinking.

Professors assign essays in college because they’re the best way to evaluate how deeply you’re thinking about what you’ve learned; instructors will see immediately if you’ve only learned ideas on a low level like mere memorization and regurgitation.  Instead, they expect you to evaluate ideas, synthesize them with old ideas, apply them to your life or theoretical situations, and moreover, communicate your understanding of the ideas clearly and uniquely.

Professors expect you to use relevant details.

All statements, details, explanations, and examples must support the thesis well and be complete and clear.  Delete “bunny trails”—details or statements unrelated to the thesis.   If you feel a bunny trail relates, but the relation isn’t clear, clarify how it supports the thesis.  Don’t leave readers with any questions about your meaning, and remember that grammar and word choice may affect the clarity of your ideas.  If you don’t know how to make an awkward sentence clearer, try completely rewriting it or splitting it into separate sentences.   

Professors expect you to use appropriate word choices.

                Instructors assume you have a sizeable vocabulary by the time you reach college, and they expect you’ll use words that are correct, specific, vivid, concise, and varied.   Only use informal words like “well, you see,” “uh,” “yeah, so,” etc. when quoting someone directly.  Beware awkward wording, incorrect word choices, too many weak verbs (is, are, was, were, am, be, being), vague words (such as “thing” and “stuff”), unclear pronoun references, unnecessary repetition, and wordy phrasing that you could reduce with more precise wording.  Avoid condescending to your reader’s intelligence with simplistic words and transitions that go without saying.  Also beware of misspelling words with their homophone or another similar word, such as writing “defiantly” for “definitely” or “they’re” for “their.”  Finally, many instructors also prefer you avoid potentially offensive language, whether derogatory terms, obscenities, or profanities; you can narrate “He swore” or “She called him names that would have shocked her mother” instead of offending readers with the words themselves.

Professors expect you to use correct grammar.

Writing correctly makes you look more knowledgeable, dependable, and professional, and it helps your audience read and understand your work more easily.  Also, whether it’s correct or not, people equate poor grammar with poor intelligence, so readers will likely treat an ungrammatical essay (or resume or article) with disrespect rather than thoughtful consideration, even if the content makes good points.  Therefore, learn as much about the rules of grammar as you can, and practice them so you can write with more confidence.   If you have a learning disability that makes using good grammar difficult, ask for help from your teachers, counselors, friends, or family after doing as much as you can on your own.

Professors expect you to revise and proofread multiple times.

                Unless you’re a stupendous writer or your instructor is remarkably lenient, a paper written the night before it’s due and that has not undergone any revision or proofreading will likely earn a poor grade.  Most writers have to proofread more than once to catch the majority of their errors.  Refusing to revise is 1) arrogant, for even well-loved, published writers revise and need an editor’s help, 2) disrespectful, for it implies the teacher and class are not worth the effort, and 3) unwise, for it makes you look less capable than you really are and can earn you a lower grade than you’re capable of earning.  Revise and proofread till you’re pleased with the result.

On Leland Denton

I've already posted some of the material below on other sites, but I would feel remiss if I didn't post a tribute to my beloved grandpa here.
 
        How does one put a person into words?  I can see Grandpa in my memories presiding over family feasts, leading our church’s worship, eating with us at Godfathers' Pizza or at his house after the worship service, playing Chinese rummy in his kitchen, teasing my cousins who attended KU, and swapping military stories with other old veterans.  I remember him letting us play in the neighborhood pool and humoring us grandchildren during Thanksgiving when we wanted to ink his fingers as we played “detective.” (I believe he turned us down since he needed clean hands to cook.)  I remember him congratulating us after ballets and sports events, and telling us about his many trips abroad and visiting distant relatives.  I remember him patiently explaining how his electric jigsaw machine worked, pointing out new paintings he was working on, and gifting me adorable teddy bears nearly every Christmas and birthday until I decided I was too old and practical for them and gathered the courage to tell him I wanted to stop collecting.  He had wonderful cooking skills and loved to retell the story of a time from my early childhood when he'd shown me dozens of lunch options, and I, a picky eater, had looked up at him and said, "Can't you just cook me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" My tastes widened as I grew older, and I really enjoyed his food.
        Grandpa was always generous; he helped finance the family's two trips to Hawaii, he sponsored me and two of my cousins in The Order of the Eastern Star, and he would often slip me gas money when I came to visit the family in Topeka and would not accept refusal.  It was the same whenever he and Margie came to Hutchinson, where they would treat my husband and me—and other family and friends in the area—to supper (or lunch or breakfast, whichever suited all concerned) so we could spend some time together.  I can still picture the way he ate and the way he spoke and the way he looked so proud when speaking of our family.  He also had such an unconscious air of dignity and could tease with such a straight face that I sometimes didn’t know he was joking until he cracked a smile or another listener laughed.  His dignity seemed like sternness to me as a young child, but I knew he loved me, and as far back as I can remember, I never wanted to disappoint him.  My deep respect for him only grew as I aged, to the point where it's difficult to put in words.  As a result, I never felt that I knew the best way to tell him how much I loved him.  He seemed to have all he needed and wanted, so gifts were difficult, and my respect for him sometimes made me shy to converse with him as much as I now wish I had.
         If I've learned anything from Grandpa's passing, it's to always keep in close contact with the people we love--to spend time with them and talk with them to show that they're important to us.  We never know how much time we'll have with them here on earth.  Thank goodness that by the grace of God, if we've accepted Christ, we will meet again!

On Perceptions of Human Interaction

        I've heard many out-of-staters comment on how friendly Kansans are--greeting passersby, opening doors for people, smiling at strangers, or giving a two-fingered wave to passing cars on country roads.  However, others, such as a Chinese student who'd previously lived in New York, consider us quite unfriendly and standoffish because we are more task-oriented than people-oriented and rarely strike up conversations with strangers and inquire about their lives.  One could say these people with divergent experiences have simply met different Kansans, which is surely true, but I think it's more than that; each person evaluates a new society based on their own society and social expectations.  
        To Kansans like myself, small talk in the grocery checkout line, with someone asking to borrow a pencil, or with fellow students and coworkers seems suitable.  However, we often consider small talk--and certainly consider deep talk--with strangers in other circumstances as an intrusion, most notably when one party is engaged with a solitary activity like reading or is working on a particular task that needs to be finished.  A person who insists on conversation in such circumstances, despite covert signals of dismissal, strikes us as either shockingly rude, or mentally or socially deficient; we might call such behavior nosy, prying, or forward.
         Particularly if the person is of the opposite gender, we may consider insistent, unwelcome attempts at conversation as the inept flirting technique of the socially unschooled, to be avoided at all costs by respectable persons--and not without reason.  I had such an encounter with a student at HCC a few semesters ago who kept finding strange excuses to come up to the front desk to chat about inane topics despite gentle hints that I had work to complete.  He finally admitted he was trying to glimpse of the ring on my hand to find out if it was a wedding band.  (I strongly assured him it was.)  Incidentally, the same person later came up with a friend "to conduct a behavioral science experiment" by discussing uncomfortable subjects in front of me.  I immediately took my mug and left to make tea, and thankfully, they'd gone when I returned.  As expected, future contacts felt awkward for me, but they fortunately never again roved into unpleasant territory.
        While some people, such as this young man, don't catch social cues that they're intruding because they are untutored, others don't notice the signs because their culture either employs different cues or has different social expectations.  This can make interactions a little awkward, as in the case of a certain Muslim man, originally from Pakistan, whom I often met in Topeka's Barnes and Nobles one summer during college.  I spent quite a bit of time there, reading books the library didn't have in stock, and when that man was there and an open seat was nearby, inevitably, he'd sit down near me and start chatting.  Not wanting to be rude, I'd chat back, and certainly our conversations were a little interesting, but I really wanted to be left alone to read; I felt amazed that he didn't understand that.  We were in a bookstore.  I had a stack of books with me.  I'd chosen a spot alone.  I kept my finger in my book to mark the spot where he'd interrupted my reading . . . an hour before.  To my way of thinking, what more clues did a person need?  Yet, oddly, it seemed too impolite to say so; future avoidance seemed more diplomatic.
        Given my social background, I'm also glad I don't live in one of the African countries where people commonly sit down for a half hour with everyone they meet on the road to go through a lengthy list of polite questions and answers (How did you sleep?  How did your mother sleep? and so forth through the family and probably on to the well-being of the livestock and fields).  As one might expect, this culture doesn't have a concept of "lateness," and people often arrive hours after the arranged time to meet for school or a wedding or church or whatever other event was scheduled.  Naturally, Westerners find this frustrating; why not pass friends with a simple "hello" and talk with them later, or get where you're going together and discuss life there?  Still, one can't think ill of a culture whose customs place such high value on community.
        Even within a society, people may have circumstances that make themselves or others uncomfortable during interactions.  For instance, a loner may feel terrified and unable to relate to anyone in a crowd, and someone unaccustomed to people of a different age group or gender may feel uncomfortable or interact awkwardly with people from such groups.  Furthermore, a person used to dealing with the hard of hearing--or who is hard of hearing himself (or herself)--may speak far too loudly around others; a parent or teacher accustomed to dealing with rambunctious kids may repeat themselves too often or speak in an unintentionally condescending or campy manner that alienates older conversation partners; a person accustomed to the company of adults may not know how to interact with children and may ignore them or fail to use vocabulary they understand and conversation topics they enjoy.  Other challenges like social phobias, ADD, autism, and dementia can also make interactions difficult for all parties.  Success in these cases, as many experts will advise, only comes through patience and experience--and often a conscious effort to shift gears and modify one's interactions to the specific party at hand.
         Interacting with people is so difficult that it takes up a huge chunk of the self-help and etiquette sections in bookstores and is the primary topic in periodical advice columns--and to confuse matters, one will find that advice, theories, and conclusions on human relations vary.  Among other worthy sources such as the works of Dale Carnegie and Emily Post, I recommend the website The Art of Manliness (which is also the title of a book by, I believe, the same authors), which has several excellent articles, among them, some explaining the art of conversation: dos and don'ts, how to make small talk, and how to avoid conversational narcissism.  (Thanks, Tessa, for the links on Facebook!)
         How I wish polite human interaction were taught in upper elementary schools and middle schools!  How much more pleasant society would be if people learned and embraced the common-sense "rules" of conversation at a young age!  However, learning to understand, appreciate, and follow our own or another society's expectations for conversation and the like goes against our natural proclivities as fallen people to be self-centered.  We prize our own perceptions of what human interaction should be like over the perceptions of others; we prefer to gain attention rather than to give it and to focus on ourselves and our interests over the needs and interests of others.  Alternately, in an alternate selfishness, we may disdain necessary and polite human interaction in our desire to be alone with our tasks, being passively rather than actively rude.
        To sum up my view of the matter, education, experience, and an intentional, selfless effort to "read" situations and tailor each encounter to the other party is the the best way for all concerned to enjoy the most satisfying and productive interaction possible.

On History

As schoolchildren, we form loose, disconnected impressions of history—mental pictures built largely on paintings, photos, and movies of the American Civil War, the Middle Ages, the Wild West, the Victorian Age, the Oregon Trail, prehistory, the Space Age, and so forth.  We have no idea how or in what order these events or eras connect—or perhaps even that they connect at all.  However, as our minds mature, if we properly pursue our studies in history, we start to make connections and see, for example, that the treaties made in the years before 1914 led to the “Powder Keg of Europe” and the Great War, and that decisions at the end of the first world war led to the second, and so on.  And then, at some point along the way, some students of history receive an epiphany; their brains  become able to envision history—not as a list of names and dates, but as a fully interwoven tapestry of human stories.  At that point, music history, political history, technological history, geographical history, and all the rest becomes one: a huge, streamlined, moving force of persons and cultures, causes and effects flowing on from Creation till now, shaping our present in numerous ineffable ways.   It’s a glorious—and somewhat frightening—vision.

 Whether we reach this interconnected vision of history or not, our worldview affects our conception of history, and our conception of history forms a large part of our comprehensive worldview.  That is to say, depending on the perspectives or philosophies we bring to our vision of history, we may conceive of ourselves and humanity in any number of ways, between seeing our place in history as insignificant and the value of a few lives as miniscule compared with either the Good of Mankind or an eternal existence—or on the other hand, seeing each life as a heavenly gift of equal, high value, capable of affecting history, and the future, as (in the much-quoted metaphor) the smallest stone can still send ripples through a pond.  From this worldview (which changes over time on the basis of new information and ideas), we think and act accordingly in all facets of our lives.  For example, those who believe in an evolutionary view of history, feel that some peoples are more evolved than others, and see natural selection as a desirable event may, as Hitler and Margaret Sanger did, actively participate in genocide, abortion, and other forms of unnatural selection, which someone with a religious or humanistic view of history would see as morally and ethically abhorrent.  Our worldview, then, can be affected—and preferably improved—by our understanding of history.  The same is true vice versa.

Reluctant students of history would be best off matching their historical studies to their non-historical interests.  For example, someone interested in technology could study great inventors and inventions of the past.  Someone interested in sports could read sport histories and biographies of famous players.  Someone interested in stories could read books like Rifles for Waite and Pride and Prejudice.  Someone interested in movies could watch films like Luther and Memoirs of a Geisha.  Matching what we learn to our interests in the beginning will counteract initial aversions to “history,” and a little exposure to the past may lead to curiosity about related matters.  For instance, a movie lover watching Downton Abbey might become curious about the business with the household’s new telephone, which may lead to them Googling information about telephone history, which may lead to a study of Alexander Graham Bell, which may lead to aeronautics and then perhaps the legend of Icarus, and so on.  For younger generations, the format of sites like Wikipedia lends itself well to their casual, episodic study habits, for they can easily click links to related terms and thus expand their knowledge based on their own curiosity rather than the dictates of the pre-selected material in a textbook.  Once students have laid a basic historical foundation in their minds and kindled an interest for certain areas of history, students may be open to more reliable, sequential, academic sources of information and willingly choose to increase their knowledge thereby.

In brief, the study of the world’s history is relevant and valuable for all people.  Historical knowledge makes it much easier to place historical references in context, to interpret current events in light of their historical context, and to compare current events to similar historical events so we can learn from past mistakes, extrapolate probable outcomes, and thus plan better for the future.  Our goal, I feel, should be a mature, integrated vision of history, which provides a framework for inserting new information.  As time goes on and we learn more—intentionally or incidentally—our historical vision will gain color and fullness, making us more self- and culturally-aware and better prepared for the future.  Best of all for those turned off by such a dry, useful-sounding description, learning history is FUN!  It's like reading a novel with an infinite number of volumes and abridgments to choose from; you'll never be bored with the right story in hand, and you're not likely to run out of reading material anytime soon.