The Meaning of Life

Motherhood

Motherhood

Crafts

One of the benefits of living in the Midwest (and of marrying into a German immigrant family) is the opportunity to participate in a rich crafting tradition.  Since coming to OSU, I have learned to quilt, knit, and crochet.  I have alot of ambition but increasingly little time.  In other words, I have many works-in-progress.

Books

When I was growing up, I loved to read.  The events and people in books often seemed more real to me than what was going on around me.  Although I now have less leisure time, I still enjoy losing myself in a good book.  When I was promoted to an associate professor, OSU provided an opportunity for me to select a favorite book to be placed in the OSU library collection.  Here's what I chose and why.

Salutations!  One of my fondest memories from childhood was “story time.”  My elementary school teacher would gather everyone together after lunch to read a wonderful book.  Charlotte’s Web was one of my favorites!  It tells the story of a loveable pig who was befriended and saved, first by a determined young girl and then by a very smart spider.  It is about individuals with diverse temperaments, obsessions, and physical appearances discovering one another, learning to live together, and sometimes forming the deepest of bonds.  These themes resonated with my experience as an Asian immigrant growing up in America, as an outsider trying to find a sense of home.  Charlotte’s Web is also about the magic and power of words.  It inspired in me a love for reading and perhaps a desire to spin my own tales.  As a historian, I craft stories about the past.  I hope that my efforts and my choices will intrigue, illuminate and perhaps even inspire.

Tennis, Tennis and more Tennis

I started playing tennis consistently to relieve stress from graduate school. After spending the whole day reading 300 page monographs, it felt great to run around and hit a little yellow fuzzy ball as hard as I could. I'm now a 4.0-4.5 player. For those unfamiliar with the USTA rating system, this means that I'm good enough to think that I'm good, when I'm actually not. My dream is to serve like Pete Sampras, volley like Martina Navratilova, John McEnroe, or Stefan Edberg, and hit groundstrokes and drop shots like Martina Hingis. Realistically, I'd settle for not double faulting too much or self-destructing on the court.



My life goal is to give up my academic career and become a tennis groupie. I went to England in 1995 to watch Wimbledon. The event is truly magnificent. Among the highlights of the tournament for me were:

• A five set match between Malavia Washington and Alexander Volkov on one of the outside courts. I believe Volkov won by a score of 12-10 in the fifth. Washington hammed it up for the audience. He did some push-ups after falling on the grass.
• A sighting of my favorite player, Yvgeny Kafenikov. He has grace, precision, and the good looks of Adonis.
• Getting into Center Court on the first day of the tournament. No only did I get to watch Gabriela Sabatini and Matts Wilander play (not against each other), I also heard the chair umpire chastise my companion for taking a flash photograph of Gaby. He couldn't resist, and Gaby did win the point.
• Serving as an unofficial ballgirl for one of the outside courts.
• Feeling the precisely cut Wimbledon grass between my toes (again on the backcourts).

"Hullo Lucy! There's still light enough for another set, if you two'll hurry."

"Mr. Emerson has had to go."

"What a nuisance! That spoils the four. I say, Cecil, do play, do there's a good chap. It's Floyd's last day. Do play tennis with us, just this once."

Cecil's voice came: "My dear Freddy, I am no athlete. As you well remarked this very morning, 'There's some chaps who are no good for anything but books'; I plead guilty to being such a chap, and will not inflict myself on you."

The scales fell from Lucy's eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a moment? He was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke off her engagement.

E. M. Forster, A Room with a View



"Will you serve?" said Miss Hope.

In the right-hand court I use the American service, which means that I never know till the last moment which side of the racket is going to hit the ball. On this occasion it was a dead heat - that is to say, I got it in between with the wood; and the ball sailed away over beds and beds of the most beautiful flowers.

"Oh, is that the American service?" said Miss Hope, much interested.

"South American," I explained. "Down in Peru they never use anything else."

In the left-hand court I employ the ordinary Hampstead Smash into the bottom of the net. After Four Hampstead Smashes and four Peruvian Teasers (love, two) I felt that another explanation was called for....

"Are you musical?" said my partner at the end of it. (Five, love.) She had been very talkative all through.

"Come, come," I said impatiently, "you don't want a song at this very moment. Surely you can wait till the end of the set?"

"Oh, I was only just wondering."

"I quite see your point. You feel that Nature always compensates us in some way, and that as -"

"Oh, no!" said Miss Hope in great confusion. "I didn't mean that at all."

She must have meant it. You don't talk to people about singing in the middle of a game of tennis....No, no. It was an insult, and it nerved me to a great effort. I discarded - for it was my serve - the Hampstead Smash; I discarded the Peruvian Teaser. Instead, I served two Piccadilly Benders from the right-hand court and two Westminster Welts from the left-hand. The Piccadilly Bender is my own invention. It can only be served from the one court, and it must have a wind against it. You deliver it with your back to the net, which makes the striker think that you have either forgotten all about the game, or else are apologizing to the spectators for your previous exhibition. Then with a violent contortion you slue your body round and serve, whereupon your opponent perceives that you are playing, and that it is just one more ordinary fault into the wrong court. So she calls "Fault!" in a contemptuous tone and drops her racket...and then adds hurriedly, "Oh, no, sorry, it wasn't a fault, after all." That being where the wind comes in.

The Westminster Welt is in theory the same as the Hampstead Smash, but goes over the net. One must be in very good form (or have been recently insulted) to bring this off.

Well, we won that game, a breeze having just sprung up...

A. A. Milne, "Pat-Ball," appearing inTennis and the Meaning of Life

More Later...

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