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
Monday, June 30, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, June 27, 2008
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+
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+
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
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.
(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.
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.
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