1. Opening six or seven generally-related books and placing them in various areas of your vision
2. Opening Microsoft Word even when you have no idea what you're going to write
3. Changing the font size, line spacing, and margins until they are just right
4. Relocating the laptop to the floor
5. Relocating the laptop to the bed
6. Re-relocating the laptop to the desk
7. Taking a shower
8. Getting completely dry with your fuzzy towel (approx. drying time: 30 min.)
9. IMing all the people you really should talk to, because it's been so long
10. Looking out the window. Maybe you'll see someone get mugged and be a hero by calling the cops!
11. Turning on the space heater
12. Turning off the space heater
13. Checking Myspace
14. Checking Facebook
15. Sending people free gifts on Facebook--they need to know they are appreciated
16. Figuring out the words to that Fleetwood Mac song that's on the veeeeery edge of your head
17. Read CNN or BBC because you have a responsibility to stay informed
18. Blog
19. Skim through one of the open books on the floor, get all huffy about its uselessness
20. Look up your topic on Wikipedia
21. End up reading about something completely unrelated but awesome, i.e. Zelda Fitzgerald
22. Wondering why your jaw hurts so much and wonder if you've been unwittingly stabbed by a rusty object
23. Listen to the wind blooooooooooooooow, watch the sun riiiiiiiiiiiiiiise. Run in the shadooooooooooooooows, damn your love, damn your lies
24. Search through all your classical music to find just the thing to set the mood
25. Switch from Stravinsky to Beethoven to Brahms, end up on the Fantasia soundtrack. again. Start writing.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Yule
Christmastime by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART
In the spirit of the season, here's a collage piece that I did a while back. I really want to start doing this again, especially in Photoshop...less mess.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Cataloging
Hey, I bet you think I mean Looking at Catalogues! Nope. I mean it in the boring sense. I mean, here are the books that I've read over the semester, my rating of them (out of 10, of course), and a short review. Thus I will be able to look back on what I read, because I tend to forget pretty quickly.
20th Century British and Irish Studies: Virginia Woolf, Pacifism, and Feminism
Mrs. Dalloway Probably my personal favorite of Woolf's novels. (9/10)
To The Lighthouse Another great one, though some of the characters seemed too stilted at times. (8/10)
A Room of One's Own The better of Woolf's feminist essays. (8/10)
Three Guineas The worse of Woolf's feminist essays. (4/10)
The Years Beautifully written but incredibly long. (7/10)
20th Century Studies: Postmodernism
A Postmodern Reader I honestly think that if it weren't for the philosophy crap, Postmodernism would generally seem like an okay idea. (5/10)
A Wild Sheep Chase Interesting at first, but the story became so uninteresting and hard to believe that in the end I didn't care about the stupid hypnotic religion cult sheep. (4/10)
Midnight's Children Magical Realism! Eastern Theology! Noses! (8/10)
Mao II Tended to dry out after the first half, but pretty interesting, engaging, and easy to get into. (7/10)
Shakespeare and the Renaissance
Hamlet Um, well, it's Hamlet. Best play ever written. Not really, but pretty flawless. (9/10)
Twelfth Night Very fun and clever, one of my favorite Shakespeares and possibly my favorite comedy. (9/10)
Henry V Okay, yes, it's great. But the speeches are too long-winded and the stereotypes are annoying. (6/10)
Titus Andronicus So me saying that I'm sort of in love with this play will make me come off as an awful person; because it's not so greatly written and it's full of rape, dismemberment, and people pies. But....yes, I'm sort of in love with it. (7/10)
The Merchant of Venice Ugh. No redeeming characters. Awful take on society. I don't even see how it can count as a comedy, while most of the scenes are tense. Not really that great, you guys. (5/10)
The Winter's Tale A sweet, sweet beauty of a play, that desires a good filmed adaptation. (7/10)
Metaphor and Thought
Arcadia Oh Tom Stoppard, you're soooo clever. Still, was a lot of fun to read, though the philosophical doscourse can get carried away at times. (7/10)
My other class was Grammar, and there weren't any deep readings in that. So hey, all in all it seemed like a pretty nice semester! I'll leave you with a short excerpt from my final project for Virginia Woolf class, an experimental journal (here I'm trying to fiddle with stream-of-consciousness):
now it is silent, though not completely. a truck from the construction site had been whining constantly in a low and insipid tone for nearly an hour, and the person living above me (who i do not know were i to encounter them in an elevator) has stopped doing what sounded to be bouncing a basketball continuously while i was trying to nap. even so, it is never silent here--a car skids outside, the elevator climbs smooth and well-oiled, a door slams, someone cooks in the kitchen. i would cover my ears, but then would be berated by the noise of my own blood. i tried to take a shower, just now, but the truck's whirr followed me even there. now clean and sitting on my bed, i can revel in the silence that is really less-noise around me. it seems impossible to me. october commands silence. i don't know how i stand it.
there is one place in the world where i know it is silent. my grandfather's farm in stony ford, california. to get to the nearest town takes an hour's drive through the gentle hills spotted with cows and horses and jackrabbits and families of quail. trees top the hills like many-branched candelabra. in most months it is hot beyond belief, but at least there is silent, walking down to my grandfather's pond, or sitting, as my mother did when she visited him years ago when she was younger than me, on the top of the hill behind the house he built himself, watching the world retire again and the air punctured with cicadas. and that place has a silence you notice-even on the quietest days in the suburbs where i grew up there is still the din of voices and cars and the buzz of electricity. but not at stony ford. no, there it is a waving peace, letting your ears suddenly realize that there is empty and beautiful air around them. it is like so many people say about the country: "a guy can really breathe out here".
here, i'm afraid, there is no (or very little) room to breath. the molecules of carbon expelled from the mouth must immediately fight with falling pieces of steel and pounding slabs of wood, boiling water and mutters and groans and bangs and booms and crashes and creaks. the walls whistle and pop.
I really like "the molecules of carbon expelled from the mouth must immediately fight with falling pieces of steel and pounding slabs of wood, boiling water and mutters and groans and bangs and booms and crashes and creaks." part. I'm proud of that.
20th Century British and Irish Studies: Virginia Woolf, Pacifism, and Feminism
Mrs. Dalloway Probably my personal favorite of Woolf's novels. (9/10)
To The Lighthouse Another great one, though some of the characters seemed too stilted at times. (8/10)
A Room of One's Own The better of Woolf's feminist essays. (8/10)
Three Guineas The worse of Woolf's feminist essays. (4/10)
The Years Beautifully written but incredibly long. (7/10)
20th Century Studies: Postmodernism
A Postmodern Reader I honestly think that if it weren't for the philosophy crap, Postmodernism would generally seem like an okay idea. (5/10)
A Wild Sheep Chase Interesting at first, but the story became so uninteresting and hard to believe that in the end I didn't care about the stupid hypnotic religion cult sheep. (4/10)
Midnight's Children Magical Realism! Eastern Theology! Noses! (8/10)
Mao II Tended to dry out after the first half, but pretty interesting, engaging, and easy to get into. (7/10)
Shakespeare and the Renaissance
Hamlet Um, well, it's Hamlet. Best play ever written. Not really, but pretty flawless. (9/10)
Twelfth Night Very fun and clever, one of my favorite Shakespeares and possibly my favorite comedy. (9/10)
Henry V Okay, yes, it's great. But the speeches are too long-winded and the stereotypes are annoying. (6/10)
Titus Andronicus So me saying that I'm sort of in love with this play will make me come off as an awful person; because it's not so greatly written and it's full of rape, dismemberment, and people pies. But....yes, I'm sort of in love with it. (7/10)
The Merchant of Venice Ugh. No redeeming characters. Awful take on society. I don't even see how it can count as a comedy, while most of the scenes are tense. Not really that great, you guys. (5/10)
The Winter's Tale A sweet, sweet beauty of a play, that desires a good filmed adaptation. (7/10)
Metaphor and Thought
Arcadia Oh Tom Stoppard, you're soooo clever. Still, was a lot of fun to read, though the philosophical doscourse can get carried away at times. (7/10)
My other class was Grammar, and there weren't any deep readings in that. So hey, all in all it seemed like a pretty nice semester! I'll leave you with a short excerpt from my final project for Virginia Woolf class, an experimental journal (here I'm trying to fiddle with stream-of-consciousness):
now it is silent, though not completely. a truck from the construction site had been whining constantly in a low and insipid tone for nearly an hour, and the person living above me (who i do not know were i to encounter them in an elevator) has stopped doing what sounded to be bouncing a basketball continuously while i was trying to nap. even so, it is never silent here--a car skids outside, the elevator climbs smooth and well-oiled, a door slams, someone cooks in the kitchen. i would cover my ears, but then would be berated by the noise of my own blood. i tried to take a shower, just now, but the truck's whirr followed me even there. now clean and sitting on my bed, i can revel in the silence that is really less-noise around me. it seems impossible to me. october commands silence. i don't know how i stand it.
there is one place in the world where i know it is silent. my grandfather's farm in stony ford, california. to get to the nearest town takes an hour's drive through the gentle hills spotted with cows and horses and jackrabbits and families of quail. trees top the hills like many-branched candelabra. in most months it is hot beyond belief, but at least there is silent, walking down to my grandfather's pond, or sitting, as my mother did when she visited him years ago when she was younger than me, on the top of the hill behind the house he built himself, watching the world retire again and the air punctured with cicadas. and that place has a silence you notice-even on the quietest days in the suburbs where i grew up there is still the din of voices and cars and the buzz of electricity. but not at stony ford. no, there it is a waving peace, letting your ears suddenly realize that there is empty and beautiful air around them. it is like so many people say about the country: "a guy can really breathe out here".
here, i'm afraid, there is no (or very little) room to breath. the molecules of carbon expelled from the mouth must immediately fight with falling pieces of steel and pounding slabs of wood, boiling water and mutters and groans and bangs and booms and crashes and creaks. the walls whistle and pop.
I really like "the molecules of carbon expelled from the mouth must immediately fight with falling pieces of steel and pounding slabs of wood, boiling water and mutters and groans and bangs and booms and crashes and creaks." part. I'm proud of that.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Hey look, cross promotion
If you're bored and wanna see something that I think should be looked at, head over to my DeviantArt page and look at all my new fantasy-esque sketches.
River Sprite Detail by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART
Isaiah by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART
Adonis Detail by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART
And that's just a TASTE of what's to come.
Don't you hate describing what you write or draw as "fantasy"? There was a time when the word conjured up thoughts of The Brothers Grimm and J.M. Barrie and Arthur Rackham, or the mythologies of the Old World. Now it makes you think of some chubby-esque guy wearing tights, cardboard armor, and a sword that he has given some pseudo-Norse name ("Behold---Niflgrassryodr!"). No offense to people that this statement might offend, but J.R.R. Tolkein ruined fairytales and mythology. FOREVER. I'm not even going to expand on that statement, because deep down you know it's true.
So that's what I've been up to these past few days, along with working on schoolstuffs, reading (The Winter's Tale is really good!!), and planning for upcoming things, which include:
November 23: Thanksgiving. Sit on couch with blanket and hot cocoa, watch parade.
Nov. 24: Family visits, big Thanksgiving dinner for everybody.
Nov. 30: Birthday. Turn 20. Drink, dance, celebrate fear of turning 30 in 10 years.
Dec. 2: Tori Amos concert. Wear face-paint, get adopted by Tori Amos.
Dec. 7: Golden Compass. The fact that I'm even putting that as a date equal to "Birthday" or "Thanksgiving" says it all.
Dec. 17: Go home, check out of Gage for the last time. Don't return to UBC for nine and a half months.
Dec. 25: Um, Noel.
Jan. 1: New Years. Will probably sit in my parent's basement watching something lame on TV.
Jan. 10: Fly to England
Jan. 11: Move into room at UEA.
So that's pretty much something significant happening every week for the next two months, not to mention all the ridiculous stuff that'll happen once I'm in England. And that's not even counting final exams or term papers.
Also, the exchange rate between the US and Canada is now a slim .98 to 1, which means that we should be getting back up some time in the next few weeks. I hope Canada enjoyed its month and a half of triumph. I found it annoying.
Seriously, go look at the arts! If nine million people look I get a lolipop!
River Sprite Detail by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART
Isaiah by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART
Adonis Detail by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART
And that's just a TASTE of what's to come.
Don't you hate describing what you write or draw as "fantasy"? There was a time when the word conjured up thoughts of The Brothers Grimm and J.M. Barrie and Arthur Rackham, or the mythologies of the Old World. Now it makes you think of some chubby-esque guy wearing tights, cardboard armor, and a sword that he has given some pseudo-Norse name ("Behold---Niflgrassryodr!"). No offense to people that this statement might offend, but J.R.R. Tolkein ruined fairytales and mythology. FOREVER. I'm not even going to expand on that statement, because deep down you know it's true.
So that's what I've been up to these past few days, along with working on schoolstuffs, reading (The Winter's Tale is really good!!), and planning for upcoming things, which include:
November 23: Thanksgiving. Sit on couch with blanket and hot cocoa, watch parade.
Nov. 24: Family visits, big Thanksgiving dinner for everybody.
Nov. 30: Birthday. Turn 20. Drink, dance, celebrate fear of turning 30 in 10 years.
Dec. 2: Tori Amos concert. Wear face-paint, get adopted by Tori Amos.
Dec. 7: Golden Compass. The fact that I'm even putting that as a date equal to "Birthday" or "Thanksgiving" says it all.
Dec. 17: Go home, check out of Gage for the last time. Don't return to UBC for nine and a half months.
Dec. 25: Um, Noel.
Jan. 1: New Years. Will probably sit in my parent's basement watching something lame on TV.
Jan. 10: Fly to England
Jan. 11: Move into room at UEA.
So that's pretty much something significant happening every week for the next two months, not to mention all the ridiculous stuff that'll happen once I'm in England. And that's not even counting final exams or term papers.
Also, the exchange rate between the US and Canada is now a slim .98 to 1, which means that we should be getting back up some time in the next few weeks. I hope Canada enjoyed its month and a half of triumph. I found it annoying.
Seriously, go look at the arts! If nine million people look I get a lolipop!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
holy out of context!
if you're unfamiliar with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, then I doubt you get the joke. Completely.
Also: watched Titus. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyup.
Mindfuck of a movie; still, I loved a lot of it. And that kind of disturbs me.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
hooray political snarkisms
Found this on the Facebook group '"A noun, a verb, and 9/11"-The Rudy Giuliani campaign slogan'. I'm not big into joining groups on Facebook anymore, but this one made me smile. I love (sarcasm) how it actually makes sense to some people to have this guy run for president. Or even BE president. The truth is that when he was the mayor of New York it was hardly squeaky-clean, until 9/11. And it just so happened that Giuliani was there. It was really a matter of-albeit, twisted-convenience. If anyone had been the mayor of NYC at the time, and they had a good team behind them, they would come out a hero. You couldn't argue with it, it would seem cruel to criticize someone so harshly when they are the figurehead of responsibility and leadership in a grieving city. To a good extent, you could say the same about Bush--had he not been president during 9/11, or if it had not happened, I doubt he would be as liked as he is now, or if he would have lasted past the first term.
So, a message to you guys, and anyone who tries to do the same thing: just because you were in the right place at the right time doesn't mean that you're a good leader, a strong leader, or even a smart person. It means you were there. A lot of people were there.
Today marks the first time all year that I came home and passed out. Of course, it was at 9 pm, but despite being well caffeinated, I collapsed for a good hour. Yay naps?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
