Election 'O8

Obama. Won.

I am crying so much and will probably not stop for a very long time.

Also, I am wearing my Obama t-shirt for ever.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Evidently I mainly use this blog as a place to post crappy movie reviews. Excellent.

I mean crappy movie REVIEWS, not crappy MOVIE reviews. Savvy?

I think that could have been a really good movie. I mean, based on a David Levithan novel. (I cannot get over that. He's amazing. Levithan, I mean. Seriously, I worship this man. Him and Diana Wynne Jones are my favorite authors.) And I mean it wasn't bad. It just wasn't anything amazing. Where Levithan novels don't have much of a plot but don't show it by being about life, the movie wandered, instead of exploring.

I would say more but I am very sleep and need to write a midterm.

Gotta do a full-length entry some time soon.

...

That's what she said.

BAH

oh by the way I DID NOT SEE TONIGHT'S OFFICE. and thanks to SOME PEOPLE'S status messages I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.

haaaaaate.

WHOO

Oh by the way HOLY CRAP the first debate is tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I CAN'T WAIT

Game On

In response to my post about the media being a bitch:

I love Aaron Sorkin.

Yes I already posted this to my Facebook but it's AWESOME and should be read by the WORLD.

Milk:

I hate it.

yup

Once more with the "should be working on homework, actually on the internet" routine. But that's okay, I needed some time off.

Hm. That's really all I have to say.

Cheers!

blah 2: the sequel

Oh and I cleaned up my blog (read: removed expletives, edited) for the student blogger thing I applied for, but they didn't take me, so

FUCK THAT.

Back to normal! Ahhhhh. Maybe I should to back through and re-edit. It feels all formal right now when I read over my old blog posts.

I just thought of the word "blogosphere" and remembered that I used it in a headline one time. Somewhere, Jeph's head is exploding.

PS: Holy crap, the new iTunes is just different enough to totally weird me out. If they'd totally revamped, I'd be fine, but instead they did little things. Sofa king weird.

PSS: Diablo Cody has GOT to update her blog.

Currently Listening:
Canticle. Ave verum. (Mode IV). Sequentia. aka Gregorian chants. ... they're nice to study with...

blah

Soooo... I should be writing my Western Civ paper... (due tomorrow at 9 am)... or studying for Bio... (quiz at 10 am)... or sleeping... but of course I am not.

So, hows about that hurricane? Pretty boring three hours inland, but Galveston is very much destroyed.

Natural disasters are the worst, if only because they make us feel so helpless.

Also I am nearly out of Hi-C. Oh, the humanity!

Back away, media. Back away.

I am really starting to hate the media. We watched CNN for about an hour on Labor Day, when the Bristol Palin story broke, and it basically made me mad. Intrusion into a seventeen year-old's life is despicable to the highest degree. Who gives a fuck if she's pregnant? I know a couple of Bristol Palins and instead of mocking their mothers, I just feel bad for them. I don't think her pregnancy means that Sarah Palin is a bad mom. I'm not going to judge her for getting married to Levi Johnston. Stupid horrible prejudiced Democrats would assume that a) Sarah Palin is a total hypocrite for being anti-abortion and pro-abstinence education and b) that marriages at 17/18 haven't worked out in the past. I wouldn't get married at eighteen. As a rule I don't think people should. But if they think they should, who's to object? Who actually knows if the Palins forced them to get married? Only the Palins (and probably the Johnstons). Since we are lacking this information, let us not run to hasty conclusions.

Gah!

I am also oddly pissed at NPR right now. Somebody was interviewing an Obama dude and was really nice to him and then they switched to a McCain dude and were really mean. Holy shit, does fair and reasonable reporting mean nothing? How useless is it if you can't be unbiased? There's something to be said for asking hard questions, of course, but can't you ask hard questions of both parties?

Of course, none of this means I'm going to vote for McCain. Are you kidding? He wants to drill in ANWR and ban gay marriage. He should be shot in the head. And Palin too, for being even more conservative than him. Actually, she's worse, because she's the Alaskan governor and supports drilling in ANWR (which is basically betrayal), and because McCain is sort of a badass, even if he's a raging Republican. And nobody can speak like Obama. He should be elected on rhetoric alone.

I feel kinda sorry for Biden. He gets no coverage. Ever. Also he has the hugest, happiest smile I have ever seen.

Nov. 4th! Vote Obama! But QUIT HATING ON PALIN'S FAMILY, YOU LIBERAL ASSHOLES.

An Introduction to Western Civilization: Ancient Philosophy and Literature

My Western Civ class (see long complicated title above) has nine people in it: eight students and the professor, a Mr. Ben Lorch previously of Boston who stated that he was "more comfortable speaking ancient Greek than using computers," which is literally one of the most endearing statements I have ever heard in my life. This is the college class that I have always wanted to take. Obscure classical learning, very few classmates who are so far very intelligent, and a teacher that loves what he teaches. Yesssssssss.

We are reading four books: Xenophon's Education of Cyrus and Anabasis of Cyrus, and two compilations on Socrates, Socrates and Alcibiades: Four Texts and Four Texts on Socrates. Socrates is evidently frequently connected with the number four. Fascinating.

We started reading the first Xenophon book today. We read a sentence, analyze it, read another sentence, analyze it, etc. So far we're on the third paragraph. (One sentence generally equals one paragraph.) The course is entirely about the philosophy of governing and leading. And it's just so interesting. Xenophon points out, for instance, that humans are nearly impossible to rule, while animals are quite easy to rule. The logic follows that humans need something better than them to rule them; something that knows them inside and out and is able and willing to give them what they want. He concludes that Cyrus, who was evidently the only perfect ruler the world has thus far seen, had knowledge. And leaves it there. What knowledge did Cyrus have that made him so perfect? Or is Xenophon simply saying that we, as those who are ruled, cannot have that knowledge, because then we would ourselves want to rule? But then, the knowledge must be perfect, so anyone given that knowledge will be a perfect ruler, but what happens if everyone gets that knowledge? We all know everything, so what else can we know? I think the ruler bit is what tends to get to people. Animals do not like being ruled, being told exactly what to do. They simply like being led to the things they want, which is what shepherds and keepers do. They take the animals to and from water and shelter and food. Humans are rarely led to the things we want because, as one of my classmates pointed out, "Half of us want entirely different things and the other half doesn't even know what they want." So is the key, then, to know people? To simply be a sociologist or psychologist? Then, you could hire an economic genius or a military general and, using your knowledge of people, get them to provide the country with what they need? Then again, what if the economist and the general know that you're ignorant of their subject matter and decide to wrest control from you? Do you also need to be an economist and a general? Do you need to hold all the power, or is it plausible to delegate? If you hold all the power, will you be smart enough and able enough to control what you have to control? And if you delegate, how can you possibly guarantee the loyalty of your advisors? Is knowledge all you need, or do you also need resources? The smartest human the world has seen can be born, live, and die in the Gobi Desert without any opportunities to prove his greatness.

And that's my Western Civ class. Or at least the first three paragraphs of the first book of it. My mind is going to explode by the end of the year.

Home, Interrupted

There was a TICK on my ARM. A TICK. On my ARM. MY. ARM. At home! At my Fortress of Ticklessness! (That looks like I'm saying tickleness. Ticklessness. Huge difference.)

I have only ever had a tick on me once before and it was in Colorado. And it was horrible. And this was also horrible. Horrible horrible horrible. But at least this one didn't have its head in yet. It was just sitting there on my arm. I could see its legs. But I still had to get mom to pull it off. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh

I hate ticks more than scorpions, which is good, because scorpions are more likely to end up in my bed. Not kidding. Overall ratio of scorpion bites in bed to tick attacks in bed: 3:0. Overall ratio of scorpion bites to tick attachments: 4:2. Overall ratio of scorpion encounters v. tick encounters: about even; prolly 100:100. Scorpions lived in my closet for a while, and now they tend to haunt the shower (meaning I have to look down every point eight three seconds, approximately, while I'm shampooing). Also they crawl on the ceiling. And the walls. And the floors. And the drains. And the laundry room. Ticks just live on the dogs. I'm really good at finding them because they freak me out so much that I want to get rid of them. I HATE ticks. Hate hate hate.

Moving on.

I'm back in College Station right now. I did ridiculously well on my bio final (98!), got an A on my last rhetoric paper, and discovered that I have made a 100 on every mythology quiz I've taken this year. I am so full of myself right now, you have no idea. Mythology final still to come. Saturday: shopping. Sunday: back to Austin/study for myth. Monday: final/pack room. Tuesday: move out of Kinsolving 321 by 9 AM, move in to Kinsolving 287 at 4 PM. I really don't mind the seven hours of driving around Austin with my stuff. There are currently boys living in my new room. I know, gross, right? Cooties! And it's a connecting bath, so I hope it gets really thoroughly cleaned.

Here's the place all UT students living on campus should know about: Kerbey Lane. If you don't know what I'm talking about, listen up. This place is the God of Food on the Drag. It's open 24/7, has the best queso in the history of the universe, and also makes fawesome desserts. I've only ever eaten there at 2 AM or later. I generally have scrambled toast and French eggs. Wait. Scrambled eggs and French toast. Ooh, now I want to invent scrambled toast.

Currently Reading:
The Host by Stephenie Meyer

"Wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life..."

Caught up a little on sleep. Did the nap thing. As such, it is nearly midnight and I'm not quite tired yet. Gack. Flaw in plan.

Really the only story right now is that it took me and Michela about half an hour to find the above quote (SS page 235 softcover; not GoF or PoA as I expected). It was Ron, though, so I was right about that.

Currently Reading:
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, by Isabel Allende

Ahhhh

I am finally satisfied with my rhetoric paper.

Life is good.

EDIT:
I GOT AN A. A 90!!! Yesssss. I'm so not doing revisions.

Ah, midnight, we meet again

Better phrasing: Ah, 2:30 AM, we meet again. Rhetoric is bad for me.

I am once more experiencing sleep madness. Tomorrow, I plan on doing little other than drooling into my pillow. While underneath a blanket. Implying of course that I would be asleep at that juncture. Assuming a single juncture can last an entire day. Without skipping classes, of course.

It's strange: I don't really feel tired. Just slightly crazy. Like I said: sleep madness.

I really hope I get the chance to write a proper blog entry soon. I definitely dislike this end of the semester business, what with its rather threatening stress levels. And sleep madness levels. (I think I stole that phrase from Jeph.)

Pressing Issues:
• Rhetoric essay status (showcasing tomorrow)
• Parking permit transfer (it seems rather unlikely that the parking people will just let me transfer a Trinity pass for a 27th Street pass. However, I must attempt)
• Biology final (dear God)
• A proper meal (haven't had one since possibly Friday)

Ack

Holy crap, I am going to be busy as hell for the next week and a half. I have SO MUCH to do. (That's why I'm writing this blog post, of course; because I don't want to do it.)

Why does the UT system have to be so complicated? I bet if I were going to George Mason it wouldn't be this hard to get parking.

Refraining from cursing/having a nervous breakdown. Okay. I have to go to make a to do list. Now.

Current Biology Problems:
• Cannot for the life of me find date/time/location of final
• Have somehow ended up with 20 points below 100, meaning that I can only miss 30 points on the final and make an A. WHEN did this happen???
• Do not understand carbon/phosphorus/cyanide/whatever cycles
• Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Well, that fell through

Just finished Deathly Hallows.

Direct quote from Beth: "you are an incurable bibliophile." Yes. Quite.

Essay now.

Briefly

I really shouldn't have started Deathly Hallows, considering the sheer amount of rhetoric essay I have to write. Such is life.

Three things:

1) Ming's, a Chinese place on the Drag across from Whitis, serves the best fried rice in the entire world.

2) Okay, Hedwig? Seriously? That's just sad. I mean really.

3) The level of Ron/Hermione banter in this book is truly excellent. For instance:

"Wasn't he the one who saw a Grim and died twenty-four hours later?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah, well, he went a bit odd toward the end," conceded George.

"But before he went loopy he was the life and soul of the party," said Fred. "He used to down an entire bottle of firewhiskey, then run onto the dance floor, hoist up his robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his—"

"Yes, he sounds like a real charmer," said Hermione, while Harry roared with laughter.

"Never married for some reason," said Ron.

"You amaze me," said Hermione.

Brilliant.

Essay Status:
Thesis and topic statements.
Due Date:
11:30 AM tomorrow. Sigh.

Finished with the Phoenix

I'm pretty sure that this memory was from right before Phoenix was released. We were in the car, me and mom and dad, going to eat somewhere, and dad saw that I had Watership Down with me, and so he asked me why I was reading it, and I said something along the lines of, "Well, it's the only book better than Harry Potter." It still is, I think. More about Watership Down later, though. I just finished Order of the Phoenix for probably the hundredth time. That book has a lot of detractors, you know—complaints that Harry is emo, etc. But come on. It's... it's Order of the Phoenix. It's nearly holy. At least to me.

I am fiercely protective of these books. It makes complete sense that they were gigantic hits. They're about as perfect as a series of books can be. They're about everything. Time and age. Friendship. Evil. Grief. Hatred and grudges. Dedication and loyalty. Rights. Prejudice. Love. They are archetypal in this way, all-encompassing, solid and filled with communicable life. I read them and see everything through their pages. They are works of art. Their design is beautiful, intricate, tragic, lifelike. She weaves a tapestry of a world that is our own, but slightly higher, or maybe just a little off to the side. The corruption in the Ministry is brilliant. The prejudice against half-breeds and half-bloods, too. And the pillar of the books, the strongest thread: emotion, or the ability to feel, to breathe with meaning rather than mechanism.

I could speak on the characters for the rest of my life, but as I am quite sleepy, I would like to talk about just one: Dumbledore. He is at first glance the wise old man. To be honest, he is this same archetype (excellent word; one of my favorites) throughout the books. Yet the seventh book, along with the famous revelation made by the author after the release of Deathly Hallows, does quite a lot to undermine this ideal. There is suspicion that she was all too aware of the wise old man she had created and wished to simply circumvent the stereotype. But dimensions are not applied lightly by authors of her quality, and any argument to the contrary is based in ignorance and narrow-minded bias. Dumbledore is a man of profound depth. This is the first time that I have read the series since last summer; that is to say, I have not gone back to them with the events of Deathly Hallows in mind. This part stuck out.

"You do care," said Dumbledore. "You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it."

That line actually hurts. We know, now, what Dumbledore has been through, how responsible he feels for everything that he has ever done wrong. He knows exactly how Harry feels about the loss of Sirius. He could tell precisely the feeling, because he still has it, so long after the event.

She can write. I feel as if there is no need for anyone to ever write anything else. There, the series is over, and so is literature. We're done. She's said it all.



I know, I know, I'm obsessing over these books a year after they've finished. They're children's fantasy, and worse, they're a phenomenon. So they must have little merit, right? Everyone agrees that they're decent, but they have a hard time admitting anything more.

I hold that they are a brilliant series, the best ever written. I cannot find the words to say what it means to me, to see them all ranged up there, above my head.

Currently Reading:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Breaking News

Well not really. I just haven't updated in while, and... now I am! I blame it entirely on Harry Potter (among other things), which seems to have steadily munched on my time until I have none left. Currently midway through Order of the Phoenix.

Current worry: the Olympics. I sort of like the Olympics. But I'm at college and I do not have a TV. What do I do? Do I brave the lounges? Do I look online? I really really really like the opening ceremony, so I'm going to have to find time to watch that at some point.

Random gerund: laureling. It exists! People have been laureled. My name is a lot of other names, too: Glory, Gloria, Daphne, Apollo (mainly through association). I like being something heroic.

Lots to live up to, though.

More later. Must read.

Living Marble

My mythology professor likes to be called Dr. Jones, even though he hasn't quite gotten his PhD yet (he's working on it), so whenever we say it, it's in a very Irina Spalko voice. (Or at least an Eastern European accent.) Anyway, he's been showing us Berninis in his slides. They're all excellent. His Apollo and Daphne, which is the origin myth for why laurels are sacred to Apollo, is particularly excellent. Look closely—you can see her toes turning into roots. He's most famous for the Ecstasy of St. Teresa, mainly because of its undertones—I mean, look at the expression on Teresa's face. His best sculpture, though, is The Rape of Persephone, which depicts Hades kidnapping Persephone from Enna.

Now, to appreciate the sculpture, take a look at this closeup.

How amazing is that? Rock made flesh. Things were better back in the old days.

Top Ten Percent

I was not in the top ten percent of my high school graduating class. With a 3.7 GPA, I was in the top seventeen. I always thought my qualifications were pretty good. Senior editor of my newspaper, numerous journalism awards, eight years of orchestra (and a couple of first chair positions), eight AP classes, fours and fives on my AP tests, Latin Club officer, got the Duke TIP state award, went to two Duke TIP writing programs. Got into the summer session.

I'm just glad to be here, I guess. Of course you can argue that top ten means most qualified, and that it brings racial diversity, and that it's just sort of easy for admissions. But for the rest of my life, I'll wonder if I would have gotten into the fall session if the top ten rule hadn't been there. It's really odd when the law affects you so explicitly—and, maybe, negatively.

IMAX, etc.

My parents just called. Evidently they're on their way to Austin right now! I'd mentioned that I was going to go see Dark Knight on IMAX with Charlyn and a couple of other people, and they're interested. I don't mind. I actually like my parents.

They're going to get here around 3:30, though the movie doesn't start 'till 9:15. We're going to go to Book People, which is literally the best bookstore in the entire world. I've only been there twice—once on a freshman year Latin trip, and last year for ILPC. I mean, this place is better than Barnes & Noble. It has merchandise. I got these adorable flash cards and my THINK: It's not illegal yet t-shirt. Among other things. But I really can't wait to see the store again. It's sad, but I haven't had much of a chance to explore Austin yet. I've been here a ton of times, of course, but I still have a hard time navigating. There only a couple of places that I can get to for sure.

I'm really, really looking forward to spending four years in this beautiful city. Getting to know it. Learning my way around. I already know that this is the best university within a thousand miles. I cannot wait to experience it fully. I guess I should just learn to get off my butt and go explore... rather than do homework.

Tough choice... Sadly, I generally have to choose the homework. Sometimes I hate being a pretty good student.

Longhorn Confidential

I just got an email about this program called Longhorn Confidential, where you can sign up to be a sort of official UT blogger—it looks awesome! I read about the bloggers in the handbook we got at orientation and then had to go and look them up and it was really interesting and I'm going to email them sometime soon and hope I get selected... As someone from College Station, I would be really proud to actually represent UT. Eight of us would be linked from the main UT site (!!!) and would be required to post one blog a week. I can totally do that. With this blog I post something about once every two days... except for recently, but that's just because I've been rereading Harry Potter. Anyway, I'm deeply excited. But it doesn't seem too likely that I'll get chosen, maybe because it's just such a great opportunity that there's really no way it would ever happen to me. You know that feeling? You want something really, really badly, but you know you're not going to get it, but you're going to try anyway.

Ooh, just reread the email, and they want us to also submit a link to a blog (if we have one). Cool! Hi there!

Currently Reading:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I read half of Chamber and all of Azkaban yesterday. I love weekends.

The Lake

I drove out to Lake Whitney this weekend to spend time with my dad and mom—and my dad's friends and their wives and children. Lake Whitney has been the source of a large number of childhood memories. I remember either holidays at Lake Whitney or holidays with my best friends, Amy and Joy. (Or school, but that doesn't count.) There was the mudslide. The boat rides. The Cheetos. The bedroom with the bunkbeds and the fan. The tubing. The accidental wine-drinking. (We always had red Dixie cups, and mine used to get lost in the profusion of other red Dixie cups, and a couple of times I'd drink somebody's wine or beer or whiskey. This time, funnily enough, I took a huge gulp of mom's wine and had to spit it out. God, that stuff is disgusting.)

My dad's friends are lake-lovin' good ol' boys, which is weird, because my dad definitely isn't a good ol' boy, though he likes lakes well enough. (You would not believe the amount of fun these guys can have on boats.) He smokes and that's basically it. There's Jimmy, who's big and black-haired with about half a million kids and a divorce and who actually asked one of children, one time, when my dad asked how old the kid was, "Boy? How old're you?" (Think gigantic Texas accent.) He's an aerospace engineer and one of the richest men in Texas. (No. The irony is not lost on me.) There's Donny, a lawyer who's moving to somewhere in Eastern Europe (he works for the government), who has been married either twice or three times (the second time to a babysitter) and has escaped with only two or three kids and a fortune slightly smaller than Jimmy's. There's Robert, who's a track coach extraordinare and who teaches Environmental Science AP and who keeps on getting teacher of the year awards and recognition in state and national competitions for his coaching and how well his runners do. (And he's friends with Mr. Wellmann, meaning that this world is tiny.) And then there's Ross, who's really just Ross. He's a rather Pan-esque character.

It's weird being there, really. I feel like I'm being given access to this society that I am somehow inherently a part of and yet am completely unfamiliar with. They talk about sex and smoking and drinking and hunting. And occasionally they burst out with rants about Nietzche or consumerism or imminent domain. Two of them--Donny and Jimmy--lived in Jester for a couple of semesters. All of them went to A&M at one time or another. And they're all just so happy. And can have so much fun on boats.

Then again, boats are really really really fun to drive. I sort of want one, now. So I guess I know what they mean--and not just about boats.

Currently Reading:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(That's right, Sorcerer's not Philosopher's, because I'm reading the books I read first. The American versions. Which means that excepting the first one I have to read the rest in hardback. Sigh.)

Invisible Acting

Someone in my mythology class (Mark) made a comment about the acting in Dark Knight today—something about it being bad. I thought for a moment. I hadn't noticed any bad acting. Then I remembered that I didn't really understand acting, so I couldn't possibly be a judge of it.

I mean it when I say that I don't understand acting. I'm such a writer. Show me an actor acting a part and I'll say, Oh, okay, so... here's the plot, and here's the character, and etc. You tell me they're a bad actor, and I have no idea how you know that. Because I cannot tell a person apart from their character. Ever. (If they're an actor.) I mean, unless there was original source material or something (Harry Potter for instance; sometimes I can tell bad acting during one of those movies. Sometimes). I just can't see it. Doesn't that actor portray a character in a way that makes the character? How can you judge someone by how well they are someone else if that someone else isn't real? I mean, sure, you can have powerful performances, but isn't that just because the plot of the movie requires that someone go through something... powerful? If you have a man who's just lost his wife then he's going to grieve. If it's the right movie and the right actor then they get an Academy Award. If not, why not? I just can't see how you can reward somebody for having a quality that is basically unjudgeable.

Most of the world disagrees with me on this. That's okay. It's just that I watch people, not the people behind fake people. If you want to show me a tear, I will see a tear, not the forty years of work that went into manufacturing that tear. Want to cry? Go for it. I'm going to sit here and assume your character's situation requires it.

I guess I could never be an actor. But then, I wouldn't want to be. You'd have to be someone other than yourself, someone who you can't be. And no matter how Method you are, you are never that other person. I mean, you make a lot of money and get famous, but there just doesn't seem to be any psychological reason for it.

Eh. Movies are great, though. Just don't ask me about the performances.

Ack Dark Knight Ack

Huge freaking big ass holy crap gigantic spoilers. Seriously, don't read this if you EVER want to see it. EVER.

Remember before how I said that what sells me is when things happen unexpectedly? Well, that made me sold on The Dark Knight pretty much constantly while I was watching it—that movie is basically slightly organized chaos, as it should be. I mean, it was excellent as it was, stand-alone, without the Rachel thing.

So let me tell you about the Rachel thing.

Rachel is the love interest; that's basically all you need to know. At the end of the last one, Batman Begins, they made out. Unsurprisingly. Which pissed me off to no end because there was no like actual spark but whatever. Not the point. The point is, you know what happens in this one?

She. Dies.

This is really all I have to say right now. I could not be any happier. Really. Like, even if she hadn't've died, I'd've loved it. But no, she dies. I am officially petitioning for it to win Best Picture.

Oh and Heath was awesome but you knew that.

Pros:
• SHE DIES

Cons:
• I'll probably think of some later

Nitwit...

If you can add three specific words to the title of this post, you are officially awesome.

So dad and I were watching Sorcerer's Stone last night and we realized that we couldn't come up with the third Hallow. We kept repeating, the cloak, the wand, the... the what?? Finally I had to look it up on the Lexicon. The ring. Freakin' obviously. But I'd forgot. There was a piece of Harry Potter trivia that I didn't know.

I am officially rereading the series. Right. Now.

Best Chapter:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter Nineteen: The Stag

Best Paragraph:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter Thirty-Six: The Parting of the Ways—Dumbledore's speech to Fudge

Best Book In The Series:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Part During Which I Nearly Died During Reading:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, page 625

Happiest Part:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when they win the Quidditch Cup

Such Great Heights

Such Great Heights by The Postal Service, and Such Great Heights by Iron and Wine, the cover.

The Postal Service version is like drinking an oil-cup full of popping, metallic notes that taste like ecstasy tablets feel and have nearly the same soaring effect. The Iron and Wine version is like slow music-sex filled with ripe wooden air you can listen to, all wrapped up in cotton flannel, next to a cedar fire, possibly in a cabin.

Sample Lyrics:
I am thinking
It's a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images
And when we kiss
They're perfectly aligned.

Half an Eye

Dude, evolution is the coolest thing ever. We basically evolved from protobions, these tiny little lipid spheres that carried out really really basic metabolism and slowly started to attain other characteristics, and eventually developed into cyanobacteria, and then started releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, and then the protobions had horizontal gene transfer and then suddenly there was archaea and eukarya and bacteria, all three, and eukarya went on to become, well, us. Us! Humans! From little lipid spheres! That is fascinating and excellent.

Did you know that animalia and fungi are more closely related than either is to plantae? We're more kin to mushrooms than flowers. What's amazing is that we're kin to either. We're kin to everything. We're kin to chlamydia, since it's alive. And algae. And pygmy marmosets. And slime molds. Have you heard about slime molds? Those things are awesome. They have both animal and plant forms. They switch between having cell walls and chloroplasts and having plain lipid bilayer membranes and no chloroplasts. Did you know that mitochondria, a really crucial part of your cells, have their own DNA? They were once some sort of bacteria. Now they carry out cellular respiration, which is crazy important. If anything is God, it's either ATP or DNA.

Speaking of DNA—that stuff practically exists to replicate itself. It's basically luck that we evolved around it. DNA has caused everything. It's this little structure made up of cytosine, thymine, guanine, and adenine. RNA runs up and replicates it during mitosis, and there it goes, making itself by giving out instructions, and proteins are built, proteins that tell us to do things like digest and release hormones and endorphins. They are units of heredity. And whenever they mess up, whenever they make the wrong protein, sometimes that mistake becomes... us. We are a mistake. Isn't it beautiful? We are beautiful mistakes. We were not meant to be, and yet we are.

There's this really common anti-evolution argument that goes something along the lines of "Well, how did we develop stuff like wings and eyes? I mean, what can you do with half an eye?" My bio teacher, Dr. Panero (awesome guy), made a cool point. He said that half an eye is much more useful than 49% of an eye, or 1% of an eye, and 51% of an eye is more useful than 50% of an eye. Somewhere back down the line animalia developed little pigmented cells that could basically sense light. They developed—evolution!—and became more and more complex. There's this great diagram in my book about how they came about. It's all so simple, only not. It's all so complex. It's all dictated by purest chance.

Science makes so much sense. Maybe God started it all. Probably not, though. If science can explain the beginning of life, I'm sure it'll eventually be able to explain the beginning of the universe. I don't believe in a God of the Gaps, and I think it's sad that people do.

Comics of the Web

This comic sold me on Dresden Codak, a steampunk SCIENCE! re-imagining of... everything. It's intelligent in a way that walks behind your back and then tunnels through time to get to your wedding day, which it destroys in such a beautifully creative way that you have to love it. Didn't know what I just said? Was intrigued anyway? Go read Dresden Codak.

Questionable Content, however, is my favorite webcomic out there. I've linked it before. I have little to say except that it is amazing and a half.

xkcd is also pure genius of a type difficult to explain. I mainly like it because it captures things perfectly and adores science. (The math component isn't as sexy, but hey, you can't have it all.)

There are more, definitely, but that's later. Right now my neck hurts. From headbanging. At a club.

^__^

Currently reading: ... nothing... school is life...

What a Joke

Jester? Fo real? Jester?

Sigh.

But more sadly

My grandfather died a year and a half ago from colon cancer. I miss him. I have a picture of him that I've been needing to get a frame for for the longest time. But I think I like having the picture out, so I can just pick it up and look at him. It's a wonderful picture. I remember him either well or not well, I'm not really sure. I don't like not being able to remember, or articulate, his personality. I fell like I woke up, memory and personality-wise, around junior year, so before that is a very odd and selective haze. I guess I can't remember him very well because he was dying for eight months, and so he was so literally a ghost of his formal self. He changed completely.

I can't talk about it any more.

We love the elderly, but we are afraid of them because they represent what we will become. But we are also afraid because we do not want to loose them. We do not want our experiences to become memories and then fade.

Like mine have.

Dance, Dance

I just went clubbing!

Man I am so young and immature. But I DANCED! I love dancing. No, really. Like I love dancing like a lot like like like yeah. (I'll never use like in my posts again, I promise. If I do, call me out on it.)

Name of club: Rain.
Location: 4th street.
Status of initial driver post-club: slightly tipsy.
Person driving back to campus: moi.
Meal had at Kerbey Lane: queso, English breakfast tea, French toast, eggs, and bacon.
Mood: partially insane.
Body status: owwwwwwww

Oh Dear

So I've been reading Questionable Content for two hours STRAIGHT and am going to speak like Jeph writes in this blog. Okays? Yup.

So (ooh, a pattern!) I impaled myself on a box of graham crackers (yeah, I know) yesterday and my bruise is (I measured it) three inches in diameter. Holy mother of Pope John Paul. It exudes pain.

So I accidentally skipped class today by forgetting what time it was. Oops. This is definitely the only time that will happen. However, it gave me a chance to do all of my homework for the entire week. Kind of nice.

So I should go sleep now since I am experiencing what one would call "sleep madness." I am considering eating a lightbulb and then stalking Alanis Morisette (subliminal message: WATCH DOGMA).

I am so not okay.

The Return

YAY! I has my computer! And they CLEANED it! It's all white again.

You know how much time it took those guys to do total diagnostics, repair, and cleaning on my little MacBook? About six hours, according to the info sheet I got.

o_O

I'm impressed.

Defying the King

I respect Stephen King. Really I do. His On Writing is a miracle of modern composition. He is witty and has excellent taste in pop culture. I look forward to his columns in Entertainment Weekly as much as Diablo Cody's.

And yet. King is a horror writer. His latest column was about horror movies. I have never liked horror movies. I've only seen three—Gothika when I was about twelve, which wasn't too bad; The Ring when I was thirteen, which was absolutely positively the worst experience of my life; and last Friday, The Birds, which scared me more than I thought possible.

Of Hitchcock's films I'd seen only four: North by Northwest, Rope (the best), Rear Window, and Strangers on a Train, all of which were excellent. I knew The Birds had scary potential. But I thought it'd be a more overt metaphor. Clearly Hitchcock is so subtle as to be nearly subliminal. Sure, I'm now paranoid of birds, but I'm not paranoid of... whatever it was he wanted me to be paranoid of. Other than birds. I hate birds. A lot. I used to like them. Now going outside freaks me out. You think I'm exaggerating? I probably would have been fine if it weren't for the dead bodies. I can even deal with shots of pecked, bloody legs (like Anne's). But when they panned out, that first time, and showed that body propped up against the wall with empty, bleeding sockets—well, I was gone. I was no longer at all pleased with the film I had been watching.

It had started out quite well. Witty banter. Pretty characters. A rather overt tone of looming disaster. The paranoia was going well until Lydia found the damn farmer. Now, I understand that the corpse was Hitchcock's way of saying, "Playtime's over: this is real." But that's it exactly. That is what I don't like about horror movies. There's always (as far as I know, which admittedly isn't far) a moment when they show you the consequences. Generally it's just once. The other bodies are obscured, or the affects are too gruesome to be shown without getting an R or NC-17. But my point is this: why even make a movie in which this shot is necessary? What need is there to detail a story in which a man in a masks kills people with knives? What purpose does it serve? To warn the viewers against—what?—men in masks? I know. I know. I should acknowledge the metaphor of it all. But I don't like violence. Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, even Schindler's List--those films I find acceptable. War is one thing. But serial killers are another. Do you know a veteran? Probably. Do you know a serial killer? Probably not. Yes, serial killers often lurk creepily in suburbia and may not be overtly identifiable. But if you see a mutilated corpse on the ground outside of your house, you're probably going to think "SERIAL KILLER" even if the movies haven't trained you to do so. I don't watch horror movies because I know the dangers I face living in modern society. So do all of the people who watch horror movies. They watch those films to be afraid. Which leads me to a rather obvious question: why the hell are you volunteering yourself for these movies? I don't like having the shit scared out of me. I don't like not being able to sleep without lights on. I don't like second-glancing every dark-haired, hooded man who stalks by me on campus. Yet those fears are the fears that modern media instills within us.

M. Night Shyamalan said, during a recent NPR interview, that An Inconvenient Truth was the scariest movie ever made. He has a point. But did he have to reinforce it with The Happening? According to him. Alright. I suppose horror films can sometimes get across messages to an audience that wouldn't get them otherwise. But you know what King said in his latest column? I'm paraphrasing: A masked figure stalks a young woman. The woman pleads, "Why are you doing this to us?" The figure replies, "Because you were home."

King's commentary: That's all the explanation a good horror movie needs.

No reason. No plot. No humanity. Just a rising tide of gore and terror. Just a knife caressing your soul for no reason you can see. Just fear, pain, and death, made into an art form.

I do not approve.

Goodbye to CollegeBoard

AP scores are in. This is the end of an era.

No more SAT prep, no more AP study sessions or tests. The tension is over. UT has my scores and I'm prepared to negotiate with them for credit. But I'm done with CollegeBoard forever.

The experience was at least an interesting one. I'm slightly partial to the SAT because, like most "gifted" (I hate that word) students, I took it in sixth or seventh grade as part of the Duke TIP program. I did well enough to get some kind of state medal and be invited to participate in TIP's programs, which I did. I took Writer's Workshop I at Kansas University in the summer between 8th and 9th grade. It was a three-week course that I can't remember much of (except for iambic pentameter, bank holidays, ancient Greek, and the Campbellian—or is this from Frazer's Golden Bough?—archetypes). Just this last summer I went to Ghost Ranch (Georgia O'Keefe's sweltering realm of inspiration), New Mexico for what amounted to Writer's Workshop II (though they called it "A Writer's Art"). All in all, that first go-through of the SAT was deeply beneficial. The second time I took it I only did better by 100 points on the math, but by about three hundred on the reading. My scores were amusingly typical. Verbal: 800. Writing: 800. Math (sigh): 560. A third retest rendered my writing score 90 points lower and my math score 10 points higher. Such is life. The same thing happened on the PSAT. I got 99% on both English-styled sections, and barely scraped a 55% on the math. Who needs a National Merit scholarship anyway?

AP, however, I am even more emotionally attached to. Pre-AP started in 9th grade; actual AP classes (at least for me--I didn't take Human Geography until my senior year) began in 11th grade. I slaved away over English Lit, English Lang, Human Geog, Latin Vergil (which I would recommend only to the masochistic), US History, Psych, Government, and Microeconomics. I came out of the experience with impressive amounts of college credit: two threes (Eco and Latin), three fours (English Lang, for reasons incomprehensible to me; Psych; and Gov, see English Lang comment—I am still steaming from this particular insult), and three fives (US History, English Lit, and Geography). Still, the classes mattered more than the scores. All of them were interesting, even if they were at times torturous (see Latin), and they adequately prepared me for college—enough so that the classes I'm taking right now are positively easy.

The best thing about AP, though? Once I claim credit, I'll be something along the lines of a second-semester sophomore. Nothing like exempting basic classes. (And getting right in to the weed-out ones. Sigh.)

Rhetoric Essay Status:
Dear God I don't want to write this kill me now

The Public Sphere

As we speak (so to speak?) I am in a public computer lab. It's very odd. I have never been one for public accommodations—parks, libraries, and stadiums have never been my favorite places. Lacking my laptop (he's been sent for diagnostics and repair at Apple, Inc.), I find my self logging on to a CPU using my UT EID, not my regular old username. It's distinctly unsettling. Not to mention there are about seven people in the room with me. Strange beyond all reason.

Parks are simple to dismiss: they're just too sunny, outdoorsy, and Republican (in the apple-pie flag-waving uber-Christian large-family sense of the word), so I've avoided them with the help of my parents. (Unsurprisingly, I am an only child.) Also, we live on roughly thirty acres of land, so we don't need to head to the park to walk the dogs—back and forth to the forest does just fine. Stadiums are even easier to wave away: sports are simply uninteresting. My dislike of libraries, though, is harder to define. Everything about me screams that I should adore libraries. They are, after all, quiet places (screams, I realize now, was bad diction—sorry) filled with books—and how is that bad? I guess I don't like the concept of it, the basic reason they exist: libraries are for the public. This means that you have to be careful with every book you handle. You have to put them back exactly where you found them. You have to be quiet. You have to return them or get fined. I hang mainly at Barnes and Noble for my intellectual thrills. There, you can purchase forever what you've just perused, and sip coffee to boot, something librarians undoubtedly frown upon. Honestly, I wouldn't know. I've never been in a library long enough to find out.

I didn't think I'd like the still, metro early 2000's coolness of Starbucks, either. They make fine hot chocolate (I don't like coffee), and I've obviously been there a couple of times (try existing and not going to a Starbucks at least once in your whole life), but I've never exactly hung out at one. Tonight, however, I had to wait somewhere for an hour, and there was a Starbucks was close by. Skeptically I settled down in an armchair with a drink. I sipped and read some Strunk and White. Thirty minutes in I realized I liked the atmosphere. The music wasn't Muzak (maybe it was muzik, since it wasn't completely legitimate), the chair was deeply comfortable, the people were nice (and wonderfully quiet), and the temperature was pretty perfect. Plus, the smell of coffee was everywhere. (I can like the smell but not the taste, can't I? Maybe it doesn't make sense, but that's how I am.) I was relaxed, most shockingly, something I rarely am in public.

I guess there is something to be said for social interaction, even if it's mainly observation. Who knew! I'll be spending a lot more time at Starbucks from now on. The computer lab, though, not so much. I can't wait until I get my poor MacBook back.

Currently Reading:
A Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer
"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by MLK

Break from the Books

I'm watching Dark Angel right now. It's really not that great, but the concept is cool, the minor characters are amusing, and both Michael Weatherly and Jessica Alba are really hot, so it works. I ought to be doing biology, but really, I know most of it already. Just genetics. And this is a pretty easy biology class. Though maybe I spoke too soon—this is what we're doing next week.

My friend and I made a letter-game-type blog (in the spirit of Stevermer and Wrede). Right now it's crappy. Working on it. Possibly we'll produce a full-length novel? We're both slaving away on something along those lines. I'm heading for a writer/editor career and she's going to be a songwriter (even if she doesn't think she'll be). Also, she's crazy, so we work well together.

I have to go study. Oh, school.... At least it's interesting.

WOW Moments

Occasionally I'm just sold on something—you know, you're watching a TV show or reading a book and something happens that is simply amazing. In A College of Magics, for instance, what seemed like a pretty straight-and-narrow magic school book, (I'm about to spoil it completely), the main character gets expelled a third of the way through the novel. Expelled! In a book called A College of Magics! That never happens! I fell utterly in love with Caroline Stevermer at that point.

In Firefly, the concept was pretty original and sound. I was in to it just because it was a) created by Joss Whedon and b) had a really really cool setting. But then Mal walks up and headshots the fed. I might have fainted. I mean, who does that? In most TV shows/movies/whatever there's always a long standoff and then death. But no! Mal freaking shoots the guy with no provocation. It was beautiful.

A recent, sudden conversion: a friend gives me Jagged Little Pill—you know, Alanis Morisette's breakthrough album. I sort of took for granted that she was awesome, because I'd never actually listened to her before. So I stick the CD in, and she's singing, and I'm thinking, "Okay, weird voice, good lyrics..." Then I get to that part in "All I Really Want," the very first track, when she goes, "Why are you so petrified of silence?/Here, can you handle this," and plays about two seconds of silence.

Holy crap. That's just so amazing. Ima go make an "ALANIS 4EVA" shirt now. (Not. But STILL!)

Okay I really have to go to class now.

Above Me, On the Shelf

On my bookshelf:

Books:
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
Exit Here., by Jason Myers
Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan
m or f?, by Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts
Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier
City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, and Forest of the Pygmies, by Isabel Allende
The Iliad and the Odyssey, by Homer
The Aeneid, by Vergil
The Metamorphoses, by Ovid
The Leap and The Last Siege, by Jonathan Stroud
The Insiders, Take It Off, and Pass It On, by J. Minter
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins

DVDs:
Dark Angel, Season One
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season One
Aeon Flux, the Complete Series
Friends, Season Five

Currently Reading:
• The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
• Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier

Currently Watching:
• Dark Angel, Season One

Tech

I feel bad about my computer. The poor thing is overheating a lot—yesterday, while I was writing my essay, I had to prop it up on index card boxes. It's taking ages to start up, failing to read CDs, and (as I mentioned) is shutting down randomly.

My most precious possessions are my gadgets. My first gadget was a computer, an iMac I got for my birthday when I was eight or nine. I adored the thing. Spent hours on it playing Oregon Trail, Amazon Trail, SimSafari, Nanosaur, KidPix... I'm sure there are a thousand more, but those were the ones I adored particularly. Eventually I got an older iMac, complete with OSX. I played the Sims and Warcraft. I went from ClarisWorks to AppleWorks to Microsoft Word (brilliant picture, by the way), from Netscape Navigator to Internet Explorer to Safari, from KidPix to Drawing to InDesign and Photoshop. Now, I have a MacBook, which is dying on me. Appropriate? Only in about eighty years.

Birthdays are big for me. I got my first camera on a birthday, a Nikon Coolpix, which was pretty basic, but still functional. Just a month ago, for graduation, I got a Sony Cyber-shot, which is top-of-the-line as far as amateur cameras go. My first important series of pictures I took at Kansas University while enrolled in the Duke TIP Writer's Workshop course (I loathed the walk from the dorm to the classroom so much that if you put me down in Lawrence, I could probably navigate to either place just through sheer force of hate.) Some guy figured out how to open up the elevator doors to reveal the shaft, and I took pictures. Now, I center my lens at leaves and pets and people, rather than events.

Most importantly for my social life, I got my first phone on my birthday. It was a Nokia 3200 and I adored it. I could change the face- and back-plate of the phone; generally I kept it on a firey, reflective background and matched it with a picture of the sun as a menu background. It had Snake and Solitaire, most memorably, and I bought a "Dark of the Matinee" ringtone, which have today on my current phone. Within two years I'd traded it out for a Motorola RAZR, the cell phone of my generation. It was a wonderful little thing. On the RAZR I discovered texting and web browsing. I had to rebuy my Solitaire game. Sadly, RAZRs didn't come with Snake. It served faithfully for another two years, lasting me until my dad got an iPhone a mere week after they were released. I drooled over the thing so copiously that to my utter shock, I got one for Christmas (really, for early Thanksgiving, since I was going to Utah over that holiday). It's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I adore my iPhone. The few times I've dropped it, I've nearly cried.

The other cool gadgets that I've owned (and own) include the Flip, a truly breakthrough little camcorder that kicks ass in the trenches of the video age. I had a Shuffle for ages, until I moved on to a regular old iPod, which I still cherish even though it's beginning to look (and feel) a little archaic. For another birthday I received a beautiful pair of Skullcandy headphones, exquisite in their ultra-cool simplicity. I own JBL speakers, a WD MyBook external hard drive, an Apple 23-inch cinema display, various jump drives (I've gone through three), a PiXMA printer, an HP digital photo frame, and some very pretty white speakers that I can't remember the name of.

The lesson to take from all of this? Despite all of the technology in my life, if I were to leap from a burning building and could only take one object with me, that object would be my very first copy of Watership Down.

Belief

I believe that nobody needs me, and that I need nobody; that we all sit together at lunch tables just because we're not secure in ourselves. I know it's Objectivist of me, but somehow I think that we are all simply weak, that none of us are superhumans, nor could be. That the potential is there, but nobody can achieve it, at least not right now.

I believe in the wisdom of others. I have no true opinion when it comes to other people, unless I see something truly flawed with their thinking. The last issue I had with a person was when my mom wanted to start teaching. I didn't think she could be a teacher. I told her so. It was the only fight we ever got in. I was wrong. She is a good teacher. But I didn't have confidence in her.

I believe that if anyone relies on the opinion of a different person, then that anyone is weak. I don't dislike those people, those anyones. I am one of those anyones. I need acceptance, I think (though I am not sure). But I do not need it as much as some. I can choose whom I care about. I respect intelligence greater than my own, and that is about it.

I believe that we are all responsible for ourselves, in the end. If we are unhappy then we should do something about it; if we are lacking then we should improve ourselves; if we need help then we should ask for it. Silence answers no questions, even though it tells no lies. Passivity is useless and despicable. If there is a hole taller than ourselves, then we should ask for a hand up. If help does not come, then the fault has passed on. But if we do not ask for help, the fault remains our own, and eats at our precious souls.

I believe that all humans are essentially good, but also essentially afraid. We are the only animals that think, the only animals that "raise our faces to the stars," the only animals capable of wondering why. I think that this trips us up at times, makes us pause in our continuos toil. Some of us cannot accept the view into the abyss, so we invent white-bearded gods and fluffy clouds to fill the nothing-darkness. Some of us fear the abyss, but accept it. It is inevitable. I believe that we should not fear what we cannot change or prevent.

I believe that the thing that matters the least in the world is what others think of you, and that the thing that matters most in the world is what you think of yourself. You should not do well for the sake of your parents, or your teacher, or the cute boy in the third seat over. You should do well for you. If you do not care to do well, then that is your choice. You must be aware of the consequences of your failure. Really, you should care enough about yourself not to fail. But if you choose to fail, then that is your right, and it is not right for others to judge you for it. Yet we all judge each other, and rarely ourselves. One should care enough about oneself to see what matters and what does not. Yet so many of us are blind to the important things. To the right words. To the people we love.

I believe that at the end of all things, there will be good. I believe that this place has no reason for existing, and that we are not meant to be here. Nothing is meant to be anywhere. Nothing is meant to be. But we are here anyway, and we should rejoice in that. We should look up into the trees and count each leaf and marvel at the truth of photosynthesis, at the ancient ability of the first algae in the primordial seas to create oxygen from carbon dioxide and make breath possible. None of this was meant to be, and yet it is, and it is the improbable miracle of life that I find so beautiful. Our eyes that we can see colors. Our ears that we can hear music. Our tongue that we can taste food. Our fingers that we can feel the earth. Our noses that we can smell the sweet scent of rain. Our great minds, all of the parts of them: our ability to fear, to conceive of love, to doubt, to create drama, to imagine, to hate, to grieve, to dream, to feel pain, to delight in comfort. All of this has no purpose, and that is what is remarkable. The sheer uselessness of life. The precious nothing of it. How finely we walk the thread over the abyss. How beautiful everything is because nothing is so close. We should, beyond all other things, respect what we have, because in one hundred years, none of us will have it.

How beautiful is the space between our atoms. How beautiful is the deadly, lively radiation of the sun. How beautiful is carbon, with its capacity for life. How beautiful is water, with its perfect bonds. How beautiful is the tender mind, knocked away by a heavy blow or a single cell malfunction. How beautiful are the chemicals and electrical impulses that control us. How beautiful is the DNA, nestled in the nucleolus of our cells, that exists to replicate itself, and just so happens to have created humans, probably as an accident.

I believe in science and beauty and myself: these three things above all others. And oh, do I believe.

Wall•E

There's this one part in Wall•E where Mary and John—the two human characters whose names you know, other than the Captain—touch each other's hands. The pure amazed delight on their faces, the shock and skepticism, are nearly obscene. It's the type of awed, unexpected excitement a virgin feels when he or she is suddenly attracted to someone for the first time. Of course, that was exactly the type of excitement they felt.

What struck me the most about the film was how heartless its scenery was. Pixar worlds, I've just now noticed, are cold and hostile, no matter their color or location or era. The world of Wall•E was particularly unwelcoming. A dusty, trashed Earth; a disgustingly opulent spaceship, the Axiom (n., self-evident truth that requires no proof). Only the glittering, generally yawing darkness of outer space was oddly friendly to Wall•E and Eve. Wall•E ran his little mechanical fingers through the stars, observed the rust-brown Earth from far away, and danced with Eve in the midst of fire extinguisher foam around the outskirts of the space ship. The Earth, though dearly loved, was sewer-brown and a horror of failed, dystopic consumerism. The remnants of the Corporation, Buy'n'Large (or BnL), were sadly, brightly everywhere. I nearly called up my advisor and changed my major to Environmental Conservation.

It was a beautiful film. It was funny, touching, heartbreaking, suspenseful, all of the appropriate superlatives, with their original unadulterated connotations restored. Pixar has not lost its touch; indeed, this is the best Pixar film so far, which is saying something, because I love Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles with a passionate intensity. Eve's clean lines, blue eyes, and glowing green leaf-light. Wall•E's delighted discoveries amongst the ruins of our civilization. The cockroach's total inability to be killed. M•O's tiny step off of his pathway light. Mary and John's bewildered expressions. The Captain's curiosity. The Autopilot's HAL-esque red eye. (I really need to see 2001.) The little green plant, growing in ruins of a refrigerator, sprouting from red, clay-like soil, that changes the whole world.

Highs:
• Wall•E's Apple start up noise
• The Directive metaphor
• The extreme environmental analogy
• The crazed robot escape—the HALT robots were wonderfully stoic
• The space dance
• The "La Vie en Rose" montage
• M•O
• The huge Wall•Es
• The cockroach in the Twinkies—those would last forever

Highs:
• Not long enough.

Wall•E: A+

Hollander and I

None of those Fates
(a reply to Mr. Hollander)

The choice between legacy and reason is so strangely hard
As to be a subject of contemplation,
Despite glancing to the end, where the minister
Lies miserable, taken to God, but the murderer
Ascends down, delighted—punishment alone perturbs us.
“Do what you will not what they will,”
We all ignore that and encourage others to do the same.
Who cares what they think, well, I do.
(We have to admit it.)
All of the education in the world and
Wisdom comes from children:
I shall ignore what they think, if they think
That this toy should not make me so happy.
Is this a good revelation for a college student?
And
Are things created, invented, to better own,
Though they begin independent and untouched
Is their reason not as corrupt as their makers?
The bomb is full of death, when lit,
When silent it is the object of beautiful photographs.

Some of us flit across the vast face of the well-oiled
Saming machine. It eats some, processes most,
And no matter what we all finish as identical dust.

I suppose I see no logic in this but humanity
So no logic at all. Next year I am off to be educated.
I know what I want to know
But they don’t care. I am there to be processed
Refined
Finished

Oh I don’t know. Well I do.
But who doesn’t throw up their hands
And disclaim responsibility for the machine?
Anarchy is beautiful. It is the sweetest of freedoms.
But the oily taste never quite goes away.



Science and Human Behavior, by John Hollander (for B. F. Skinner)

Feeling that it is vaguely undignified
To win someone else's bet for him by choosing
The quiet girl in the corner, not refusing
But simply not preferring the other one;
Abashed by having it known that we decide
To save the icing on the chocolate bun
Until the last, that we prefer to ride
Next to the window always; more than afraid
Of knowing that They know what sends us screaming
Out of the movie; even shocked by the dreaming
Our friends do about us, we vainly hope
That certain predictions never can be made,
That the mind can never spin the Golden Rope
By which we feel bound, determined, and betrayed;

But rather, if such a thing exists at all,
Three nasty Thingummies should hold it, twisting
Strand onto endless strand, always resisting
Our own old impulse to pull the string and see
Just what would happen, or to feel the small
But tingling tug upon the line, to free
The captives so that we might watch them crawl
Back into deeper water again. It is well
To leave such matters in their power, trusting
To the blase discretion of disgusting
Things like the Two who spin and measure, and
The Third and surely The Most Horrible,
Whom we'd best forget, within whose bony hand
Lies crumpled the Secret she will never tell.

Which Secret concerns the nature of the string
That all Three tend, and whether it be the wire
Designed to receive the message or to fire
The tiny initial relay. In the end,
The question is whether merely Determining
Or really Knowing is what we most pretend
To honor because it seems most frightening
Or worship because we hold it most to blame.
I once saw Dr. Johnson in a vision:
His hat was on his hand, and a decision
Of import on his lips. "Our will," he said,
"Is free, and there's an end on't." All the same,
Atropos and her sisters, overhead,
Grinned at this invocation of their name.

Non-Joyce-esque Stream of Consciousness

Reference to the Very First Post: I, uh, didn't write my senior editorial about caterpillars. But I DID write it about something totally random: pets! And at the end I very forcefully made it into a Life Metaphor (which is appropriate only when done tongue-in-cheek, let me validate). Evidently I made quite a number of people cry over it. I'm rather proud.

Ohmigosh! I'm in college!

Okay. I HAVE to talk about my rhetoric teacher. He is adorable and hilarious. Today I spent most of class staring at his clothes because he was wearing this shirt that fit perfectly with the jeans he was wearing. Is it weird that I notice that? I'm so not attracted to him (given disclaimer). But still. I always notice what people are wearing, and more importantly, how they are wearing it. Every day he wears a button-up shirt rolled up at the arm to right below the elbows and tucked into his pants, which are held up with the same black belt. Today was the first day he hasn't a) tucked in his shirts or b) worn slacks. So casual! I was shocked. He very obviously does not say "like" in his speech (as is appropriate for a Rhetoric and Writing/Philosophy major who is definitely metro), but he replaces it with "sort of." Which he says constantly. He's very interesting, though. He speaks very well and makes interesting points. And he showed us this as an example of needing context. Followed (after a discussion of the previous link) by this. (Duchamp rocks my world. Art is very odd.) Fascinating class.

In other news: my mythology professor thinks that Moby Dick is the greatest American book ever written. I'm so disappointed.

My Biology teacher is Hispanic, I have finally figured out. Not Italian or Spanish. Also, he is very fascinated by plants.

I've been obsessing over my DeviantArt for unknown reasons (read: NEW CAMERA). Posted eight hundred (or maybe fifteen...) new pictures and thus got spammed by cuddlysalmon (this is definitely the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me) (other than... the rest of my life). No idea who I was talking to. DeviantArt is fascinating. My pictures aren't great, but whatever. That's why I'm signed up for a photojournalism class in the fall. I can't wait!

I'm rambling a lot. I have nothing in particular to talk about. Books! How about books? I love books!

Books I've read recently. The Goose Girl is excellent. I read it about a year (???) ago, from 11 pm to 2 am in the morning one night (morning one night? ... whatever) because it was awesome and I literally couldn't put it down. Shannon Hale is an intuitive writer. Enna Burning wasn't as good, though. I might not have finished it, actually; I became sort of disinterested. I mean, it was much better than, you know, most other books in the world, but it was just sort of... I don't even know. It went on and on and was dramatic and she overdid characters in that book and it bugged me. I don't like when characters understand each other too well, which leads me to My Life As A Rhombus, a pretty excellent book about abortion/the suckageness of being a teenager/dealing with parents-who-don't-understand, but the characters just worked too well with each other. They were too nice, too mean, or too perfectly in love or in hate. It got irritating. Next, Catherine Fisher, The Oracle Betrayed, and its sequel, The Sphere of Secrets. Terrible titles; insert old adage about "not judging a book by its cover." Quite good. Once more with the sequel not being as good (hate it when it that happens). Also, there was that old problem with a series of books that never ends. It never says, in the fronts of the Oracle books, that it is going to be a trilogy or a duet or a quartet, or... whatever Harry Potter was (septet?)... It just goes on... and on... and on... maybe... None of the villains have died yet, which makes all of the successes watered down. But Alexos is a cool character. The god in general is quite well done, actually. And Mirany is just antisocial enough. Read an Avi book, Nothing But the Truth, which was depressing, Is He Or Isn't He?, which should have been good but was instead just a stereotypical gay book (I HATE the fruity hand-flip paisely-wearing fashion-obsessed gay man SO MUCH), and Are We There Yet?, which is a Levithan novel and thus superlative in every way shape and form. That man can write. He gets the Moment idea, the concept that we're all living for the split amazing second. He describes people as they move, not as they sit, and imagines the scope of things through his character's eyes. What an individual sees, how each individual sees it. All different. Each different.

Then I read Feed. I don't want to talk about it. Man, just thinking about that book makes me depressed. I nearly deleted my Facebook because of it.

Nerd time. Goals for college/life:
• Make only two B's per semester in any non-liberal arts classes. Only A's are acceptable in liberal arts classes.
• Get an internship with a publishing company.
• Do undergraduate research.
• Graduate with an English major, Digital Arts and Media certificate, journalism major/minor, possible rhetoric and writing major/minor, possible evolutionary biology minor.
• Go to an excellent graduate school.
• Write a book already.

I've talked too long. Homework now. Laurel out.

No Hope, No Love, No Glory

Mika's "Happy Ending."

This man is strange, but deeply wonderful.

Finis

Today is the last day of school.

I just looked for a picture that I took today that would articulate it all, but I didn't find one. Flipping through the pictures didn't even give me a full overview of the day. I don't think that anything could provide anyone—including me—of a full overview of the sheer impact of this day.

Haven't cried yet. Teared up. Made other people cry. I guess I'll cry later.

I feel a little numb right now. Not in a bad way; just detatched. It hasn't sunk in.

I am done with high school.

... wow.

Prince Caspian

Spoilers, FYI.

Okay that movie was awesome.

From the beginning now.

I have always always always wondered what it was like for Lucy after the first book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I mean, she's all grown up, and then she's a little girl again, just like that! What must her mind be like? Freud would have a freakin' field day. It's so cruel of C.S. Lewis to do that, amongst other things—don't get me started on how messed up the seventh book, The Last Battle, was. I cannot BELIEVE he leaves out Susan. That is SO CRUEL and frustratingly fundamentalist. Ugh. Lipstick is not corrupting, I promise!

I'm sensing that Susan kissing Caspian was a nod to her eventual downfall (-type-thing). I assume they're just going to phase her and Peter out. By the way, and this is just my inner fourth grade boy talking, Peter and Caspian completely had an about-to-kiss moment. I sort of wanted to yell at the screen. Have I mentioned that both Ben Barnes (Caspian) and William Moseley (Peter) are deeply attractive? Google Image Search them right now. So is Anna Popplewell, in an Artemis sort of way. Her archer skills are beautiful. I mean seriously. That one scene of her during the battle, where it pulls back to show most of the field, and she's firing arrows like a machine gun... wow. I am deeply impressed.

Rant: I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT MOVIE WAS PG. I have to complain about the movie ratings system again. (It was the subject of my very first column last year). Stupid Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) with their insane rules about violence and sex. I bet if there would have been actual making out, instead of just a kiss, it would have been PG-13. Also, just because there's not blood doesn't mean that it should be rated lower. There are still people getting their heads cut off, arrows shoved into spleens, horses having their knees shot out from under them, heavily implied drowning, throat slitting.... The lack of realism is more disturbing, because that makes it more acceptable. I don't dislike the violence—it's necessary to the movie—I just hate how the MPAA thinks it's acceptable for children under 13. I would have been totally freaked watching that at a PG-level age. The part where they had to retreat from the castle was the worst. The minotaur who held up the gate, dying... all of the Narnians trapped inside, clawing at the bars, getting shot from behind by the merciless soldiers... That is horrible horrible horrible and the trauma of that sequence alone should have gotten it a higher rating.

But no. Disney would complain about it being appropriate for their target audience—they are large, rich, and powerful, after all. It makes me want to scream. Rant over.

I'm torn by the Christian allegory. The Aslan is God element (Liam Neeson would play God, by the way) is basically basic. And the Pevensies being Christ-like figures—well, sort of—is also excusable, since they all have their faithless moments. Peter's angst thing is either a) homoerotic undertones (I don't actually think that, I'm just deeply amused by the idea) or b) the old tortured hero character device. He's not an antihero—for one thing, he's blond—but he does lose his faith during the second movie. And possibly during the first; haven't seen it in a while. Going to soon, though. Anyway, he's all emo, in a pouty, you-look-freakishly-hot-in-armor sort of way. (No, seriously. That man is smokin' in plate metal.) And eventually gets his faith back, as do they all. Susan has the whole, "Suddenly guys like me—what am I supposed to do about it?" thing going, which she eventually gets exiled for (see above). The discovery of sex is evidently worse than all other crimes—including murder, which is committed at least a hundred times each, per character. That I think I hate the most. Edward was really good in this movie. I like the repentant sinner character, at least when they're not too sanctimonious. Him destroying the White Witch (EXCELLENT CAMEO, Tilda Swinton!!)—and believing Lucy was very well-done. And him delivering the challenge to Miraz. Good stuff. Lucy's was interesting, too. That she didn't go to find Aslan earlier, and that he implies that she could have saved a lot of lives if only she would have been more willing to be faithful without worrying what the others thought, was pretty risky for a kid's movie. I liked.

It's just that as an Atheist I can't help but be disappointed in the faith aspect of the movie. I mean, it's just so obvious and not-subtle. Be faithful, get a reward. Believe in Aslan and Aslan will believe in you. That element of it didn't make me like the movie less—it just served to underscore how faulty this whole religion thing is. Life is not a movie, you know. I wanted to yell that at the screen too. Just because Lucy's brave dedication to a plot device saved the day doesn't mean your faith in a Huge Invisible Thing will do the same. For all you know, all you are here to do is die. That doesn't depress me, though. Even if all I am here to do is die, I should at least make the life I have the best one I can. Anyway, back to Narnia.

Reepicheep!!! I am very excited in advance about Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the best in the Chronicles of Narnia (in my opinion). The bit in The Magician's Nephew with Tarn and Jadis was pretty good too, though. However, all of Voyage of the Dawn Treader is completely awesome. I couldn't even choose a favorite part. I'm not sure when it's coming out. I hope it is, though, and I hope it comes out in the winter this time. Remember how when the first movie came out and completely ate King Kong's grosses? New Line must have been utterly flummoxed by that.

Complaints; what was with the random river god? That part with Angry Water Dude was really weird, and such a plot device. (If you can't tell, I have problems with plot devices.) And why was Miraz killed so suddenly? There was no dramatic death face. And I definitely saw Caspian sparing Miraz. I mean, everyone did, but that one was more obvious that usual. I was, for instance, actively worried that Miraz was gonna kill Peter during the duel, although every single law of plot tells me that this would never occur. Good movies make you forget what you know is going to happen. This one did, with the exception of that one part. The trees were pretty weird also.

Highs:
• The sheer amazingness of the production values
• The witty banter
• The archery
• The duel
• The kiss
• Peter being all, "They tried to make me apologize so I hit him," which is SO realistic
• The Spanish actors
• The White Witch thing
• DLF
• Fawsome centaurs
• The tomb
• Reepicheep!!!!
• Actor hotness levels (through the roof)

Lows:
• The faith thing
• The random Water God
• The trees
• The rating
• The lack of repentance on Caspian's part for the White Witch thing
• The SONG at the end—why???
• The massively drawn out length of the goodbye scene

And with that, valete.

PS: GO SEE IT. If I were writing for EW, I'd give it an B.

Currently Reading:
Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand

So Yesterday

So the title of this blog is from a Scott Westerfield book called So Yesterday, which is actually kind of crappy, but the ideas are sound. In fact, the ideas are basically awesome. He just can't write all that well. Moveable Hype was the name of this fake magazine in the book. Isn't it brilliant? I mean, moveable type, moveable hype... agh. So innovative.

Clearly I am easily pleased.

Fifty days until graduation. On that note, I have decided what I want to write my senior editorial about: caterpillars. All the sentimental stuff tends to bore me a little (even though I'll probably be crying a Niagra at graduation). I mean, I actually like high school. But that doesn't mean I appreciate it. I am a teenager, after all.

Currently Reading:
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia C. Wrede