Tenting for Termites, Interruption, Exams, Kenneth Burke Again, I have dragged my feet with entries into my blog. For the curious or bored, the tenting finally happened and so, by default, the house is bug free. The problem with tenting is that the gas, thank god, dissipates after 6 hours leaving no continued protection. Dead bugs attract live bugs and so, like bees, we scurry to clean up the dead bugs. (For give me, as if I am on a phone conversation, I had to pause to place some fiber in my coffee.) As I was saying, dead bugs attract live bugs and so quick, quick cleaning is in order. I hope now, at least until we open the door again, the bugs are gone. It is 16 days to my Comprehensive Exams for the Ph.D. program I am in and I am still struggling with Kenneth Burke, the master of modern rhetoric.

No doubt, the man was a genius, but his writing . . . well . . . creative and insightful but incomprehensible in places--Odd references from days long gone placed neatly into other odd references leading to a mass of confusion. I, however, do love his definition of humankind: BEING BODIES THAT LEARN LANGUAGE THEREBY BECOMING WORDLINGS HUMANS ARE THE SYMBOL-MAKING, SYMBOL-USING, SYMBOL-MISUSING ANIMAL INVENTOR OF THE NEGATIVE SEPARATED FROM OUR NATURAL CONDITION BY INSTRUMENTS OF OUR OWN MAKING GOADED BY THE SPIRIT OF HIERARCHY ACQUIRING FOREKNOWLEDGE OF DEATH AND ROTTEN WITH PERFECTION