And all of these moments
Just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone
When the morning light sings
And brings new things
For tomorrow night you see
That they'll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
-Jack Johnson
I've been able to chill a bit in the past few hours. Singing along to Jack Johnson in a shockingly tone-deaf manner, making tea, reading my history text book.
I think part of the attraction history has for me is that there are gaps. I read about the Bayeux tapestry yesterday. It is a tapestry that depicts the Norman conquest of England, with explanations of the pictures in latin. There are about 8 meters missing at the end of it. There are some pretty educated guesses as to what those last sections said, but it still is open to imagination. Maybe there were DINOSAURS! Just kidding. Sorta.
The lives of the average citizen were not well documented. I guess that's why we have historical fiction, which I thoroughly despise. It infringes on my right to imagine things my own way. History is the closest thing to fantasy that I really enjoy.
Not that I don't like fantasy as a genre, just that most of it sacrifices good writing for having these overly complex, completely ludicrous story lines.
So I'm off to class to learn things, and then I'm back to Elmira to move horse back home. I don't think I have the $ for this....
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Reeeelaaaaax....
That is what I've been trying to get my tummy and mind to do. I haven't had a whole lot of reason to be stressed this week. It was generally fun, and I didn't have too many commitments.
In the back of my mind the pressure is rising because of the $ situation, and the Jemma situation, and the lack of steady work situation.
Also my sleep last night was interrupted by some tipsy girls in my haus, and when I left this morning the place smelled really gross. It is ok though, they had a fun night :)
I need to be able to get this tension and enxiety out of my system. I tried taking a music nap yesterday and I ended up getting annoyed with Jack Johnson and had an attack of the shakes.
Today has been fun though! I got to watch a liver lobectomy (cut out a chunk of the liver), a lung lobectomy (guess what that is...) and an exploratory surgery. Fun stuff! I am also not socially failing yet at the college. I just put on my best "for adults" attitude (smiley, direct, knowledgeable, uncertain) and greet everyone by name.
I also got hold of all my course materials for the semester and cracked open my history textbook. It is some fun stuff! It goes much more into the social and lifestyle aspect of history than my book on the Kings and Queens of Britain. I have come to the conclusion that I want to take an in-depth study of the prehistory of the British Isles, dealing with the Picts and the Celts and the so-ons. Queen Boadicea is one of my heroines.
I have another tutoring session today, and I'm looking forward to it. The kid is not dumb, which makes it much easier to figure him out. Othello is also comfortingly straight-forward. I also get to give tips on writing, and hopefully inspire a love of English in someone. It makes me feel (see that? i can has feelings!) like all those years I spent dependant on books for socialization were good.
Books. I love you all, even when you make me cry. You're proof that there is good in the world and bad in the world. You are the crystallization and pinnacle of communication, which in turn is the crystallization and distillation of thought.
Spectacular, is it not?
In the back of my mind the pressure is rising because of the $ situation, and the Jemma situation, and the lack of steady work situation.
Also my sleep last night was interrupted by some tipsy girls in my haus, and when I left this morning the place smelled really gross. It is ok though, they had a fun night :)
I need to be able to get this tension and enxiety out of my system. I tried taking a music nap yesterday and I ended up getting annoyed with Jack Johnson and had an attack of the shakes.
Today has been fun though! I got to watch a liver lobectomy (cut out a chunk of the liver), a lung lobectomy (guess what that is...) and an exploratory surgery. Fun stuff! I am also not socially failing yet at the college. I just put on my best "for adults" attitude (smiley, direct, knowledgeable, uncertain) and greet everyone by name.
I also got hold of all my course materials for the semester and cracked open my history textbook. It is some fun stuff! It goes much more into the social and lifestyle aspect of history than my book on the Kings and Queens of Britain. I have come to the conclusion that I want to take an in-depth study of the prehistory of the British Isles, dealing with the Picts and the Celts and the so-ons. Queen Boadicea is one of my heroines.
I have another tutoring session today, and I'm looking forward to it. The kid is not dumb, which makes it much easier to figure him out. Othello is also comfortingly straight-forward. I also get to give tips on writing, and hopefully inspire a love of English in someone. It makes me feel (see that? i can has feelings!) like all those years I spent dependant on books for socialization were good.
Books. I love you all, even when you make me cry. You're proof that there is good in the world and bad in the world. You are the crystallization and pinnacle of communication, which in turn is the crystallization and distillation of thought.
Spectacular, is it not?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Day well done
Premier: Is being genuine the opposite of being insincere?
Now: To business!
I got up early today (seven AM feels early anyway) and walked down town to catch the bus to the vet college.
I worked hard for no money from 8:30 till 2:30, and worked not hard for lots of money from 4:30 till 6. I stopped in between to eat and take a healthy walk and take buses.
I got home around 7 and showered and ate more healthfulness. People arrived around 8:30 and thoroughly delightful times were had (by me, anyway).
So now
What the frik is wrong with me.
Maybe it's because it's the first really quiet moment I've had to myself in a while that Dr Anjelica is hijacking me. These silent hours that I've always valued now seem like punishment.
I shouldn't lie. I do know why it is. It's something that I know I should want to fix; I am mentally aware that I should care. I just don't. I entirely lack the motivation.
I suppose this is what my therapist said about emotion. No matter how much I know I should pull myself together, if I don't feel like it it's not going to happen.
So now I'm attempting to find a way to make myself care emotionally. I put up some social pressures for myself, but I've been circumventing social systems for so long that it's not even a challenge to me. I've tried mentally bullying myself into caring but because I have no idea what caring actually feels like it's kind of like shooting in the dark.
Enh.
I'll just keep doing my thing, I guess. Go to work. Go to school. Hang with friends. Get some money. Get some facts. Get some lolz.
Look at me, I'm succeeding...
Now: To business!
I got up early today (seven AM feels early anyway) and walked down town to catch the bus to the vet college.
I worked hard for no money from 8:30 till 2:30, and worked not hard for lots of money from 4:30 till 6. I stopped in between to eat and take a healthy walk and take buses.
I got home around 7 and showered and ate more healthfulness. People arrived around 8:30 and thoroughly delightful times were had (by me, anyway).
So now
What the frik is wrong with me.
Maybe it's because it's the first really quiet moment I've had to myself in a while that Dr Anjelica is hijacking me. These silent hours that I've always valued now seem like punishment.
I shouldn't lie. I do know why it is. It's something that I know I should want to fix; I am mentally aware that I should care. I just don't. I entirely lack the motivation.
I suppose this is what my therapist said about emotion. No matter how much I know I should pull myself together, if I don't feel like it it's not going to happen.
So now I'm attempting to find a way to make myself care emotionally. I put up some social pressures for myself, but I've been circumventing social systems for so long that it's not even a challenge to me. I've tried mentally bullying myself into caring but because I have no idea what caring actually feels like it's kind of like shooting in the dark.
Enh.
I'll just keep doing my thing, I guess. Go to work. Go to school. Hang with friends. Get some money. Get some facts. Get some lolz.
Look at me, I'm succeeding...
Friday, May 7, 2010
It's alright
I'm ok!
I have a daddy who is much more clever and aggressive than I am.
I have a mum who made me potatoes and chicken.
I have good friends who can back me up and go out of their way (and comfort zones) to make sure I know they're around for me.
I have a thunderstorm that sounds nice and is good for my insides. The thunder sounds so nice rolling around up there, like a deep smooth voice telling me about ice cream or something else nice and not at all threatening. Kind of like I imagine Aslan would be. A bit weird to say, yah, but that is how it seems to me.
I have good things. Things are ok. I may not have money so much, and I have to make some unpleasant decisions soon, but for now I can focus on Othello's problems instead of mine.
*Edited to add*: And my dear trees. I've been missing them. They are very good.
I have a daddy who is much more clever and aggressive than I am.
I have a mum who made me potatoes and chicken.
I have good friends who can back me up and go out of their way (and comfort zones) to make sure I know they're around for me.
I have a thunderstorm that sounds nice and is good for my insides. The thunder sounds so nice rolling around up there, like a deep smooth voice telling me about ice cream or something else nice and not at all threatening. Kind of like I imagine Aslan would be. A bit weird to say, yah, but that is how it seems to me.
I have good things. Things are ok. I may not have money so much, and I have to make some unpleasant decisions soon, but for now I can focus on Othello's problems instead of mine.
*Edited to add*: And my dear trees. I've been missing them. They are very good.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Othello
If any of you kids have some good insight on this friggen Shakespeare crap I would truly appreciate it...
I started at the vet college today! It was pretty cool. Got to watch a dog getting spayed and then threw its uterus in the garbage after and cleaned up all the bloody instruments! Fun stuff!
I am wearing an orange cushion as a hat. Life is pretty decent.
I started at the vet college today! It was pretty cool. Got to watch a dog getting spayed and then threw its uterus in the garbage after and cleaned up all the bloody instruments! Fun stuff!
I am wearing an orange cushion as a hat. Life is pretty decent.
Monday, May 3, 2010
The Girl With The DragI DON'T GIVE A CRAP
Seriously, this book was truly disappointing.
I think it serves me right though for reading a book from a genre I've never been impressed with. I went in with fairly high expectations because of the recommendations from friends whose opinions I have hitherto respected.
This is my summation of it.
Literary Style:
I don't know whether it was the translator sucking or the author himself, but the writing was, to put it succinctly, unpleasant. It felt juvenile, pretentious, and strangely familiar. This familiarity came, I fear, from its clichéd style. EVERY high school novelist knows that when you want to create tension you can just use shorter sentences and plainer language.
Furthermore, I will only tolerate EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE PAGES in a book if the information being rammed down my throat is ENTIRELY NECESSARY. I do not need to know everything this stupid journalist did, from having sex with the neighbours to buying bread from the local grocery store. I DO NOT FRIGGEN CARE.
If you are going to write a book with the basic goal of telling a good story and not relate any further moral, philosophical, or theological arguments, at least have the decency to tell the story well.
Story:
Besides being uselessly fleshed out, I found the story bland. Maybe my attitude is so blasé because of the ludicrous amounts of mystery novels I devoured during elementary school, but I was expecting something unexpected.
Unrealistic? Possibly.
Unreasonable? Absolutely not.
I think it perfectly logical for a publishing corporation to filter out all the cliché, repetitive crap and only pass on to readers the good, original,sustantial stuff. I feel sympathetic to the drug addict who has been sold coke padded out with sugar, or weed "watered down" with plain herbage.
After the big exposé scene, which was not sufficiently surprising, the novel dragged on with personal blather and corporation technical jargon. I kept reading in hopes that the author was going somewhere with it, but he wasn't.
The book could have been concluded easily in 300 pages, and Frank and Joe Hardy would have been much more endearing stars than the fantastic, unrealistic weenies than Larsson concocted.
Commercial Plugs:
Apart from the incessant harping about sexual assault statistics and women's rights which can be considered an important social service, there is shameless promotion of ideals, practices, and even corporations which I found infuriating.
We all know that product placement in TV/film media is inevitable. When Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana (I don't know how to refer to the beast) drinks a bottle of Coca-Cola®, we know she (or her manager) has been paid by the corporation to have it seen.
Was Larsson paid by Apple to have his characters all tricked out with their latest gadgets? There was literally more than a page describing a character's laptop's hardware specifications, right down to the additional RAM.
WHY IS THIS RELEVANT TO THE READER'S COMPREHENSION??
IT IS FREKKEN NOT!
I wouldn't be surprised if the author and Apple had a nifty agreement to make Macs seem sexy, secure, and awesome while making PCs seem ridiculously unmanoeuvrable and vulnerable to hackers.
No matter how good your story is, it is not good enough to convince me that I should buy a Mac (although I already have one.... YOU DIDN'T CONVINCE ME!!).
There were other annoying blurbs of the same sort but I have now effectively erased them from my memory.
Granted, it only took me about 7.5 hours to read, but that is a day of my life I will never get back.
Screw you, Stieg Larsson. Screw you.
I think it serves me right though for reading a book from a genre I've never been impressed with. I went in with fairly high expectations because of the recommendations from friends whose opinions I have hitherto respected.
This is my summation of it.
Literary Style:
I don't know whether it was the translator sucking or the author himself, but the writing was, to put it succinctly, unpleasant. It felt juvenile, pretentious, and strangely familiar. This familiarity came, I fear, from its clichéd style. EVERY high school novelist knows that when you want to create tension you can just use shorter sentences and plainer language.
Furthermore, I will only tolerate EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE PAGES in a book if the information being rammed down my throat is ENTIRELY NECESSARY. I do not need to know everything this stupid journalist did, from having sex with the neighbours to buying bread from the local grocery store. I DO NOT FRIGGEN CARE.
If you are going to write a book with the basic goal of telling a good story and not relate any further moral, philosophical, or theological arguments, at least have the decency to tell the story well.
Story:
Besides being uselessly fleshed out, I found the story bland. Maybe my attitude is so blasé because of the ludicrous amounts of mystery novels I devoured during elementary school, but I was expecting something unexpected.
Unrealistic? Possibly.
Unreasonable? Absolutely not.
I think it perfectly logical for a publishing corporation to filter out all the cliché, repetitive crap and only pass on to readers the good, original,sustantial stuff. I feel sympathetic to the drug addict who has been sold coke padded out with sugar, or weed "watered down" with plain herbage.
After the big exposé scene, which was not sufficiently surprising, the novel dragged on with personal blather and corporation technical jargon. I kept reading in hopes that the author was going somewhere with it, but he wasn't.
The book could have been concluded easily in 300 pages, and Frank and Joe Hardy would have been much more endearing stars than the fantastic, unrealistic weenies than Larsson concocted.
Commercial Plugs:
Apart from the incessant harping about sexual assault statistics and women's rights which can be considered an important social service, there is shameless promotion of ideals, practices, and even corporations which I found infuriating.
We all know that product placement in TV/film media is inevitable. When Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana (I don't know how to refer to the beast) drinks a bottle of Coca-Cola®, we know she (or her manager) has been paid by the corporation to have it seen.
Was Larsson paid by Apple to have his characters all tricked out with their latest gadgets? There was literally more than a page describing a character's laptop's hardware specifications, right down to the additional RAM.
WHY IS THIS RELEVANT TO THE READER'S COMPREHENSION??
IT IS FREKKEN NOT!
I wouldn't be surprised if the author and Apple had a nifty agreement to make Macs seem sexy, secure, and awesome while making PCs seem ridiculously unmanoeuvrable and vulnerable to hackers.
No matter how good your story is, it is not good enough to convince me that I should buy a Mac (although I already have one.... YOU DIDN'T CONVINCE ME!!).
There were other annoying blurbs of the same sort but I have now effectively erased them from my memory.
Granted, it only took me about 7.5 hours to read, but that is a day of my life I will never get back.
Screw you, Stieg Larsson. Screw you.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
What I've Waited For
I am finally in my new apartment! This is grand! I am in my nice blue living room with the windows open and the fan and air fresheners running, trying to get the musty smell out of it.
I am happy to be here, but a bit disappointed with the overall state of the place. The shower is being held together by insulating foam and duct tape. I had to clean EVERYTHING when I got here. Fridge, floors, radiators, windows, shelves, walls.... I still need to vacuum and knock the door hinges back into place.
I phoned the land lady and left a message about the shower but I haven't heard back from her today. I assume she's got plenty going on because she owns a few different rental units across the city and they are all probably in a state of turmoil. But I cannot take a shower, which is upsetting. I'll be fine though!
The previous people also left an unsightly big white desk thing in our kitchen. I want to dispose of it, and here comes my roomie!!! aah!!!
I am happy to be here, but a bit disappointed with the overall state of the place. The shower is being held together by insulating foam and duct tape. I had to clean EVERYTHING when I got here. Fridge, floors, radiators, windows, shelves, walls.... I still need to vacuum and knock the door hinges back into place.
I phoned the land lady and left a message about the shower but I haven't heard back from her today. I assume she's got plenty going on because she owns a few different rental units across the city and they are all probably in a state of turmoil. But I cannot take a shower, which is upsetting. I'll be fine though!
The previous people also left an unsightly big white desk thing in our kitchen. I want to dispose of it, and here comes my roomie!!! aah!!!
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