The Adventures of College Girl and Life

College Problems

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:15:22 -0500

1. I have a 20-page paper due on Friday that I started 20 minutes ago.

2. I’ve been sitting in the dining hall for an hour and a half trying to work on it but actually just eating more and more food.

3. I have discovered stretch marks on my thighs. Being a five-foot-tall Asian girl who has never weighed more than 110 lbs, this worries me. I reserve the right to be self-conscious about my possible muffin top.

4. I’m going home on Saturday for two weeks before coming back to work here for the summer, and I don’t know where I’m going to store all my stuff.

5. I’m subletting an apartment in the summer, and I’ve never met the girl I’m sharing with, the two girls who are subletting it are “too busy” to show me the place, and despite my polite but incessant questioning, I still don’t know anything about the landlord or rent situation other than about how much it will cost.

6. I have $95 of meal money left that I need to spend this week. In light of my recent discover (see #2), I will not spend it all.

7. Fucking allergies.

8. Fucking boys.

3:42AM Crisis

Sat, 04 May 2013 02:51:46 -0500

Dear Tumblr,

I’m in the midst of a moral dilemma, and it has absolutely nothing to do with me.

This guy, call him California, is one of my really good friends. We’re in a lot of activities together, and we meet up for study sessions, and he’s an amazing hilarious wonderful person. His best friend, Indiana, is someone I’m also friends with and whom I used to like before I accepted the fact that he’s a huge womanizer, and little ole me ain’t gonna change that. One of my dear friends, Ohio, is an amazing actress and incredibly attractive. She’s also very religious and strict about her moral lifestyle, although it doesn’t reflect in her personality. She was also “seeing”/”dating”/”hooking up with” California (but not sex because she’s religious, remember).

Tonight was my school’s spring formal. At the after-party, Ohio started making out with Indiana. She had told our friend Pennsylvania that she would do it to get back at California. We tried to stop her, but she ended up leaving the party with him. Who knows what happened.

But now we’re worried and I just hope she doesn’t do something she’ll regret. And I have so many feelings. I love California, and I don’t want to see him hurt. But he was apparently being sort of an asshole to Ohio, which is why she wanted to get back at him. And I love Ohio, but I can’t respect her anymore for doing something so immature. And Indiana is just doing his own thing, as he always does, so he’s whatever. Unless he knew about Ohio and California, in which case, I will secretly be mad at him.

I guess all I can do at this point is go to bed.

Blogging

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:12:43 -0500

So, I’ve decided to start blogging basically because one of my friends blogs all the time and he’s awesome and hilarious, and just so we’re clear, although I admire him, I could never strive to be him because…well, I’d never succeed, so I might as well just do my thing, right?

Anyway, he’s made me realize that blogging is a very valid and useful emotional outlet during times of stress. Or happiness, but usually stress is when you need more outlets.

And also it’s the idea that even if no one reads your blog, there’s the idea that it’s on the internet, so anyone COULD be reading your blog, you just don’t know. And unless I post this on my Facebook or something, no one will know it’s me. I just find that idea very appealing. And this doesn’t make me feel weird about blogging on tumblr even though everyone I know on tumblr just reblogs stuff or looks at gifs and memes and shit. I like to write. What of it.

The guy whose blog I follow makes a lot of lists. I think it helps structure his posts very well, so I’m going to steal the idea. (actually, I just like lists. I’m one of those people who has to list every single thing that’s happening in my schedule in order to remember what is happening when)

THINGS I DON’T ENJOY

One thing I really don’t enjoy is being at work with nothing to do. Don’t get me wrong, I love that I’m getting paid to do my homework. But at the same time, I feel like I’m doing something wrong by doing nothing, even though I asked both of my bosses if there’s anything for me to do and they said, “Eh…not really, no.”
People stealing my food. I live in a house with 25 other girls, and we all share one kitchen and one fridge and it is disgusting as fuck. People leave the stove on all the time, there was an ant infestation over spring break…I just can’t handle it anymore. And then last night, someone stole my yogurt. It made me angry, but I couldn’t do anything because it was 3AM and I was busy programming.

THINGS I ENJOY

http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2010/07/know-your-apples-spectrum-of-apple.html
I was just eating a Fuji apple that I bought at Whole Foods and I realized that I am rather uneducated in the subject of apples, so I looked up “apple taste chart” and this came up. Pretty neat, huh? I’m the kind of person who, if there are different kinds or flavors or colors of something, I want to try all of them. So every week at Whole Foods, I get a different flavor of froyo, a different bottle of Honestea, a different box of cereal, and now a different bag of apples. It’s an adventure.
SUMMER JOBS. I was just notified by email that I have an interview at Macy’s! Which is one of about 15 places I’ve applied so far for a summer job. I go to a liberal arts school, so I figure if I apply for retail/food service jobs, I won’t have much competition in the way of my classmates. (actually, though, I have talked to a good number of my friends who stated that they’d never work at Subway, which is where I worked for a year in high school. I liked it. I like smiling at people)
Smiling at people. There’s this thing at my school where people purposely avoid acknowledging other people that they know when they pass each other on campus. I hate it. Why would you want to avoid smiling and saying hello to someone? It makes absolutely no sense.
Thomas Pynchon. GRAVITY’S RAINBOW FTW. IT’S SO LONG AND TEDIOUS BUT IT’S SO FANTASTIC. This is my research project for the semester. I’m on page 514. The semester is over in three weeks.
THIS PICTURE.
Podcasts. I am currently learning Tagalog (i.e. Filipino) by podcast because I feel like I should know Tagalog since both my parents are Filipino and speak it around the house and I can sort of understand what they’re saying but sometimes not really and it bothers me that I have no connection to my heritage other than food.

I’m sure I’m leaving things out, but all the same, I’m glad that, of all the items I could come up with at this moment, the things I enjoy right now outnumber the things I don’t enjoy. This is a good sign. Good things are good. I use the word thing a lot, don’t I?

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/allow-healthy-gay-and-bisexual-men-donate-blood/5zWQdryS

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:12:29 -0600

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/allow-healthy-gay-and-bisexual-men-donate-blood/5zWQdryS:

astimeunfolds:

Healthy blood saves lives, no matter the sexual orientation of the donor. Please sign the Blood Donor Justice Petition to end the FDA’s current discriminatory policies against healthy gay and bisexual men who are often denied from donating (badly needed) blood. If we get 100,000 signatures by the end of the month, we will receive an official response from the Obama administration, so tell everyone you know!

"Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style."

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 22:53:59 -0600

“Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.”

- Jonathan Swift

New Things and Blah Blah Blah

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:54:19 -0600

So, as you might have noticed, I changed the title of my blog because 1) I am no longer a high school girl, and 2) I no longer have an IRA. I am now a college gal with a shit ton of books to read for all my classes. I swear, I have read more in the past three months than I ever have in the equivalent time span in my entire life.

Gilgamesh, trans. David Ferry
Homer’s Odyssey, trans. Richard Lattimore
Dante’s Inferno, trans. Allen Mandelbaum
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Othello by Shakespeare
Britannicus by Jean Racine
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Portrait of a Madonna by Tennessee Williams
Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka
The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen
Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov
Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansbury
Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
Seagull by Chekhov
The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov
Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams
Numerology, or What Pythagoras Wrought by Underwood Dudley
The Mathematics of Egypt by a bunch of different sourcebook authors
Egyptian Mythology by Veronica Ions

There you have it. And the semester isn’t even over. But if you’re looking for a good read, I’d recommend any of the above texts (maybe not the mathematics one…but the numerology book is actually very interesting!)

My favorite few so far are probably Gulliver’s Travels, Numerology, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Definitely worth your while.

Obviously I'm Not a Tumblr Addict

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 21:37:42 -0500

because I haven’t posted in a super long time. And I don’t really “surf” tumblr either because…well, when I’m bored, I never seem to remember that tumblr is here, which is a shame because there is some really cool shit on here. Anyway, the summer is over, so the novel-a-week challenge is over. My goal was to read 10 books. I succeeded in reading:

1) V. by Thomas Pynchon
2) The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
3) Mozart by Peter Gay
4) The Man Who Had Three Arms, Fragments, and Occupant by Edward Albee
5) 1984 by George Orwell
6) Animal Farm by George Orwell
7) Endgame by Samuel Beckett
8) The Epic of Gilgamesh trans. by David Ferry (although this was technically for school)

So, not bad, I suppose. 8/10. 10/10 if you count each of the plays separately.

But now I’m in college and I certainly have a lot of reading to do.

In the past week, I’ve made it through five plays (no novels as of yet): Antigone and Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Cloud 9 by Caryl Churchill (which I was afterwards cast in), Three Sisters (also cast in) and The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.

Apparently I have a lot more free time now that I’m in college.

I also seem to have a greater inclination to do my homework far ahead of time. Probably because I actually like going to class.

Anyway, off to start Homer’s Odyssey. What fun! Who knows when I’ll be back; maybe when something catches my eye such that I just have to write about it. In the meantime, check out 5iftyshadesofblack.tumblr.com: blackout poetry created from the ever-popular Fifty Shades of Grey series. The poetry is both amazing and hilarious and overall very entertaining. Toodles!

1984

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:37:53 -0500

1984 by George Orwell.

Go read it.

Right now.

I can’t even-

It’s not possible—

Seriously, just read it.

Look, I can’t describe what it’s about; just read it!
Okay, here’s what I can say: it’s about a dystopian society, it’s got enough political criticism to be incredibly compelling but not too much to be entirely off-putting, the social criticism is even more interesting, the psychological aspect is absolutely mind-boggling (I swear, I have never contemplated the state of the human mind before as much as I did while reading this book), the writing style is beautifully descriptive yet not in a frilly or flowery way, and the ending is intense.

I think Orwell is my new favorite author. I’m off to the bookstore to buy Animal Farm. Cheers!

Meh

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 22:39:31 -0500

I’ve given up. Not on the reading challenge, nooo. I’m keeping up, been reading a book a week. I prefer plays, so I substitute a book with a couple plays, and it’s been working well as far as motivation goes. The place where my motivation is lacking, however, is in blogging. I’m just lazy. So I might blog a few more times, just for the heck of it, but for now, no promises. Besides…it’s your summer, too (if you’re in the Western Hemisphere, that is). So why would you want to read about literary symbolism anyway? Go read the book yourself is what I say. I’ll even provide a list of recommendations:

The Man Who Had Three Arms by Edward Albee
It was okay. Not my favorite, but it’s Albee’s favorite work that he’s written, and I understand why. Very deep, but not in a serious philosophical way; it’s written with that witty snide but compelling tone Albee uses with his characters.

Fragments by Edward Albee
I liked this one. At first, it seemed very disjointed, and it was a little difficult to keep track of who’s whom, since there are four women— Woman 1, Woman 2, etc.— and four men— similarly named— but all different ages with different lives. However, in the end, they’re all sort of tied together. The play starts and ends with each listing off anecdotes, interestingly enough. It’s a play that reads very well, so even if you don’t like reading plays, this one would be a good choice.

Occupant by Edward Albee
Of the three Albee plays that I read in these past weeks, this one was my favorite. It’s an interview with Louise Nevelson, a dead Louise Nevelson, the sculptor, and it basically consists of her talking about her life as prompted by the interviewer. I love the character of Nevelson. I found myself picturing the entire show on stage as I read it, reading the lines to myself in my head, thinking of how I’d say them if I were the actress (I couldn’t be, though— Nevelson was a Russian Jew and very tall. Picture the exact opposite, and that’s me.) Critics say it was too much lecture-style, too much of Albee himself in Nevelson’s character with the dry humor, blah blah. I mean, those are both true, but I didn’t mind the lecturing element because despite that, it was still definitively a theatrical play and not a lecture. To address the latter, yes, it did have Albee’s dry humor, but Albee also knew Nevelson herself, so I doubt he’d accidentally substitute some of himself for her.

I read these three Albee plays because Edward Albee was my author for my author’s project two years ago, and these are the only three of his 27 plays that I didn’t read at the time.

Well, whaddaya know. In blogging about how I wouldn’t blog about what I read, I just blogged about what I read. Funny how that happens.

Set of Edward Albee’s play, Occupant, and my latest...

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:52:40 -0500

Set of Edward Albee’s play, Occupant, and my latest literary conquest.

Mozart: More Than Just a Child Prodigy

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 23:12:59 -0500

Over the past two weeks, I have read zero books. So much for my book-a-week thing.

But all hope is not lost! I happened to be out of town for the majority of that time, which is why I didn’t have much motivation to read. Now that I’m back with nothing much else to do, I can catch up by reading four books over the next two weeks. Problem solved. And to make it easier, I decided to sit inside and read all day. Make that three books over the next two weeks.

It didn’t hurt that the book I chose to read today wasn’t all that complex: Mozart, a life by Peter Gay. About 160 pages, a pocket-sized book, nothing very challenging literary-wise, which shouldn’t be surprising considering it’s purely biographical.

Despite this, I rather enjoyed the book. I play the piano, and until recently, I’d had a rather superficial dislike of Mozart’s music; to me, it lacked the emotional thought-provoking and experimental nature of Debussy’s impressionism (not that I’d prefer Mozart to be more like Debussy…I mean, music had to start somewhere, so there had to have been a Mozart before a Debussy; am I right?). But then my piano teacher coerced me into learning a Mozart sonata (K.332 in F Major) and I gradually realized that Mozart’s music can at times be deceptively simple, but even his most lighthearted of melodies and counterpoints has a deeper meaning.

Anyway, back to the book. It’s obvious that the author is in love with Mozart. For instance:

In the last six years of his life, from 1785 on, he poured out masterpiece after masterpiece that scaled greater heights and plumbed greater depths—how puerile these common metaphors are compared to the experience of listening to Mozart!—than any he had reached before. (100)

Who even uses the word “puerile” anymore? (it means childish, in case you didn’t know; I didn’t) Which brings me to another point: Gay has an extraordinary vocabulary. He takes every opportunity to incorporate figurative language or interesting diction to elaborate on Mozart’s greatness.

The book is divided into eight chapters, each detailing a different aspect of Mozart’s life. At first, it’s mostly chronological, but in the later chapters, Mozart’s life is better segmented by characteristics rather than years.
1. The Prodigy
2. The Son
3. The Servant
4. The Freelance
5. The Beggar
6. The Master
7. The Dramatist
8. The Classic

In this way, the book is well-structured and allows the reader to explore Mozart as a person gradually before tying it all together in the end.

I have to say, as a biography, the book is quite handy. It provides greater insight into issues that were barely touched upon in the Wikipedia article, such as Mozart’s taxing relationship with his father or his constant longing for his wife’s support. However, there are better biographies out there. I’m certain that a 160-page paperback that I got for $4 in Borders’ going-out-of-business sale doesn’t cover everything. Nonetheless, this is the perfect book for people like me who have developed a liking for Mozart and want to learn more about what made him tick.

There and Back Again

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:46:17 -0500

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

For this past week, I read The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.

Honestly…it was a great book, and I loved it, but I didn’t make any attempts to read between the lines. I mean, I’m sure that there are a lot of allegories and meaningful symbols that I missed, and maybe I’ll read it again looking for those. But the plot itself is so riveting that I get too involved in reading through the fascinating plot and don’t take the time to think about the symbolism.

The book is about Bilbo Baggins and his adventure across Middle Earth to help a group of 13 dwarves reclaim the Lonely Mountain from a dragon named Smaug. Bilbo is basically coerced by Gandalf the wizard and the dwarves into being the burglar for this adventure, and along the long way, they run into trolls, elves (Elrond in Rivendell!), goblins, Smeagol (the ring of powerrrr), Wargs, giant eagles, a really hairy man-bear named Beorn who’s actually very nice and talks to animals, a river of forgetfulness (Lethe, anyone?), giant spiders, wood elves who take the adventurers as prisoners, Lake-men, ponies, lots of ponies that get lost or eaten, and Smaug. But when Smaug finds out that the dwarves and hobbit are there to reclaim the mountain, he decides to ravage the Lake-town. A man named Bard shoots the dragon, and as soon as the dwarves find out, they claim Lonely Mountain and call their brother dwarves for reinforcements as the wood elves and the lake-men lay siege to the mountain to try to capture it from the dwarves. Gandalf, who had left the dwarves to their journey after Beorn’s, magically reappears to warn both sides of the coming attack of the goblins and Wargs seeking revenge on the dwarves who escaped and the Lake-men. The wood elves, lake men, and dwarves (both groups) band together to fight off the goblins and Wargs. At last minute, when the battle seems to be lost, the giant eagles and Beorn arrive unexpectedly to help win the day. Bilbo eventually returns home with a small portion of the treasure and many adventures to write about in his book, There and Back Again.

What I liked the most about this book was following Bilbo’s change throughout the book. He began as a typical Hobbit: comfortable in his lifestyle and content to spend every day having seven meals and sitting on his porch to smoke. But as the story progresses, he transforms from a bumbling little Hobbit who gets the dwarves into messes with trolls to a crafty burglar who, with the aid of the magic ring, rescues the dwarves from spiders and wood elves.

Gandalf looked at him. “My dear Bilbo!” he said. “Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.”

This dense little book is a wonderful read and I’d recommend reading the book before seeing the movie because the book is definitely worth it.

The Search for V and Life-Fulfillment

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 22:30:00 -0500

So you’re probably expecting me to give a plot summary now that I’ve finished V.

I’m not giving a plot summary.

Giving a plot summary would take me days. Literally.

V. is probably the most complex book I’ve ever read. Not to say that there isn’t a plot, because there is a definitive storyline to follow. Half of it is about Benny Profane, a schlemihl (basically, a bum) who embraces his bum-ness and has adventures in New York being a schlemihl and yoyo. The other half is about Stencil and his search for the mysterious V. Others have pointed out that the structure of the chapters, alternating between Profane and Stencil, converge much like an actual V until, in the last chapter, the two of them come together as they journey to Malta.

What’s interesting is Profane’s story, taken by itself, is rather linear. Put all the Profane chapters together, and they make sense as a story. But Stencil’s story is everything but linear. His story ventures back in time, from 1956 back to 1903 to 1919. Piece by piece, he constructs a story of what or who V could have been. By the end of the book, it is still uncertain what V stands for. It could be Vheissu, a mysterious place involved in a conspiracy. Vheissu could be Vesuvius, Venezuela, or even Venus. V could be Valletta, a city in Malta where Stencil’s father was stationed and where he met several characters whose stories are also detailed in the book. V could be a young woman named Victoria who was in Egypt with her father as a teenager but then fled to England and then Munich. She may have changed her name to Vera Meroving and been involved in a political situation with the Hereros. Maybe afterwards she left for Paris and changed her name to Veronica Manganese and had an affair with a young ballerina who died in her first performance. She then may have gone to Malta and had several of her body parts replaced with artificial ones, and, living with an explorer involved in Vheissu named Godolphin (see, everything ties with everything else), dressed up as a priest and thus acquainted herself with Stencil’s father.

In the end, it matters not who V was but, rather, the search for V. It’s rather crazy, the idea that one can find evidence from all over the world only to define this V character, to give it more shape than simply a shadow, and all this to find perhaps some connection between her and one’s father’s death. But that’s what Stencil did: he devoted all his time looking for clues and evidence of V.

An important theme I found when reading V. is that of animate vs. inanimate. Several characters—Profane, Stencil, Winsome—have a certain hatred for that which is inanimate. In their observations, they categorize everything as animate or inanimate. To me, this is a direct criticism of materialism. V the woman, for instance, is so fascinated by the inanimate that she replaces several of her body parts with inanimate ones: detachable feet, a glass eye designed like a clock, metallic dentures, a star sapphire in her navel. When dressed as a priest, she would give sermons to the children in Valletta:

The boys he told to find strength in—and be like—the rock of their island…preaching that the object of male existence was to be like a crystal: beautiful and soulless…”Seek mineral symmetry, for here is eternal life: the immortality of rock. Plausible. But apostasy.” (378)

And yet, what kind of life would it be, to strive to be like a rock? Strong but never changing, never moving at all. This is the sort of life that Pynchon criticizes, and I have to agree with him. In Profane’s story, his “girl” Rachel points out that “the Crew does not live, it experiences. It does not create, it talks about people who do” (422). In this way, both Profane’s and Stencil’s stories have the same underlying message (although this is by far not the only message Pynchon has): to live and not just experience. To become an animate.

I could go on and on about Pynchon’s messages, his historical references, especially the chapter foreshadowing the Holocaust, his musings on racism and religion, but that would take days too. I will say that Pynchon has a beautiful writing style. I said in my previous post that he seems like a very intellectual guy, and I found out that he is: he studied engineering at Cornell before dropping out to join the Navy, and then returned to study English.

Funny story about how I came across this book: I was sitting in the library, studying for an AP test, when one of the librarians came to my desk and mentioned that there was a cart of books that the library was getting rid of to clear up some shelves. When finished studying, I wandered over there; most of the books were teen fiction: simple stuff, nice for an easy read. But then I saw the name Thomas Pynchon; I had come across the name before, but couldn’t remember where. I pulled it out and figured it might be interesting; in any case, the book was rather clean, so why not? Later, I realized I had heard Pynchon come up in Quiz Bowl, in relation to Gravity’s Rainbow (which is also on my reading list).

Anyway, I’m glad I picked up this book. At times, yes, the words become too complex for me and I have to put the book down for a bit, but all in all, I’m glad I made it through the whole thing. It’s an incredibly thought-provoking piece of text, and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s up for a challenge.

V. is for...

Mon, 28 May 2012 22:39:00 -0500

So I decided to kick off my novel-a-week project with V. by Thomas Pynchon. Now, if you’re one to run around in circles of the literary-informed, you’ll know that Pynchon has a penchant for being…well, rather ridiculous. As in, I mention Pynchon, and my friends respond, “Oh my god, why are you reading him?” A history teacher at my school actually said, “If you can find anyone who manages to read Gravity’s Rainbow from cover to cover AND understand it, bring him here to teach me how to read.”

So it just goes to show that I’m an abnormal person because I’m halfway through V. and I love it. His writing style is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. If you want to compile a list of vocab words to study for the SAT, just read Pynchon. The structure of the book is planned so that each subchapter is tied together within the chapters, but for awhile, the chapters themselves don’t seem to have any connecting threads. For the first 100 pages, I went along with it, sure that the author had some purpose for making me extremely confused. And of course, he did; not all the pieces are in place yet, but I’ve still got another 250 pages to go.

Since I’m not all the way through, I won’t say much about the plot, but it’s appearing to center around the mysterious V. that appeared in a journal entry long ago. The character who searches for the meaning of V., Stencil, has several possibilities but still does not know if V is even a person or now. The other characters have their own stories and subplots, but in various ways, they all know each other. At the beginning of the book, it seemed like Benny Profane was the main protagonist, but now I’m wondering if it’s actually Stencil. We shall see.

Some random comments: I’m astounded at how much depth is hidden in here. I know for a fact that I haven’t inferred half of his references, but from what I have gleaned, I could write a whole paper. Also, I can tell that Pynchon is a rather intelligent man. He enjoys using sensory imagery a bit and is very descriptive of every scene, despite the fact that there are so many of them, and at times, amidst the fancy words and foreign languages, he says something like “the not-so-simple nor quite harmonic motion of her left breast” or names a character Dudley Eigenvalue (DDS).

Alright, that’s all I have for now. At the end of the week shall be my final thoughts on V.

Return of the Critic

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:42:06 -0500

I’m back!

And I’ll be blogging about more books. My best friend decided to embark upon a novel-a-week venture for the summer, and I’ve decided to join him. So hopefully I’ll have one post a week reviewing each book I read. Since I’ll only be writing one or two per book, I will force myself to be much more concise than I was with The Glass Castle. I think I might start tonight with The Hobbit (Tolkien, of course), Silence by Shusaku Endo, or V. by Thomas Pynchon. You’ll find out which one I picked soon enough!

Here’s a cute picture to make this post worthwhile:

A Book You Don't See Every Day

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:34:07 -0500

Blogging about Huffington is officially over as far as my Lang grade is concerned; however, I will continue to follow her blog and perhaps comment on interesting articles every now and then. But without an accompanying precis, thankfully enough.

Right now, however, I’d like to make a reading recommendation to all of you out there who might happen to stumble upon my musings. It’s a book I’m reading for Lang class, but independently and to supplement information for my research paper. The current assignment is to write a proposal and back it up with research with a certain number of sources and information and etc. My proposal is “The U.S. federal government should legalize and regulate prostitution.” Since I know little to nothing about prostitution in the U.S. and only recently found out that Nevada actually has legalized prostitution, I decided to check out a book from the library:

It is a fascinating book. I honestly never thought I’d be so interested in such a controversial topic as prostitution. But it really is intriguing. Whether you support legalization or not, this book is full of information that goes towards both sides of the argument. The author herself admits in the book that she was unsure of where she stood on the issue.

The book details the author’s seven-month stay in one of the most famous brothels in Nevada: Mustang Ranch. What began as a health services research project soon became an excursion into the lives of the women at Mustang Ranch, a discovery of the past (how they came to be there), the present (what exactly they do and how brothel prostitution differs in so many ways from the stereotypical view of sleazy pimped prostitution that happens on the streets of New York City), and the future (why the women continue to work as prostitutes and what their plans are for themselves, and in many cases, their families).

Even if you’re not writing a research paper on prostitution, this book is worth reading. It’s books like this one that challenge society, perhaps for good reason.

And Then the U.S. Will Build a Robot Army

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:39:38 -0500

In “The Real 2012 Race: President Obama vs. Candidate Obama” (2012), Arianna Huffington points out the differences between Barack Obama as a presidential candidate and Barack Obama as the actual president, predominantly through his failure to keep promises. Huffington describes “Campaign Obama” or “Candidate Obama” as an inspiring figure who “challenge[s] a broken status quo”, asks “Why not?”, and believes in “the fierce urgency of now” for change; yet, she goes on to portray “Governing Obama” i.e. the President as slightly hypocritical: someone who “engineered a new [health] system that…relies on the same players”, asks “Why ruffle too many feathers?”, and “seemed to be governing with the fierce urgency of…sometime later.” Huffington brings to light the contradictions of Obama’s term in office thus far in order to provide awareness of the necessary reactions should Obama be re-elected. She calls the American voters to action in her confrontation of which Obama will be elected for 2012.

Huffington, Arianna. “The Real 2012 Race: President Obama vs. Candidate Obama.” The Huffington Post. 14 March 2012. Web. 17 March 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/president-obama-candidate-obama_b_1340036.html>

Normally, I despise reading/writing about politics, but this article intrigued me. Despite my embarrassing lack of knowledge on the current state of the presidential campaign, I totally understood what Huffington was getting at; Obama, like so many of his predecessors, has made promises that he just can’t keep. He’s run his campaign on the idea of change and the pledges to break out of the status quo, yet his current policies suggest otherwise. His actions betray his words; whether it’s due to lack of will/motivation to go against such fierce opposition as the companies who benefit from the status quo, or it’s due to actual inability to change policies as quickly as he had once thought he could, I don’t know. So personally, I can’t criticize the president for doing pretty much nothing, because who knows, maybe he has good intentions but too many obstacles. He’s not a superhero.

Huffington’s reaction to the latest turns of events, though, are quite amusing. She has pretty much dismissed the idea that Obama has any competition other than himself in the upcoming race (and I’ve gotta agree with her). But she also has a plan to “vigorously cover both tracks of the election…between President Obama and the Republican GOP nominee [and]…Obama vs. Obama.” And she’s doing this “by using satire.” At the end of the article is the first in a series of videos addressing Obama’s somewhat hypocritical campaign nature.

As Paul Krassner, founder of The Realist, once said, “Sometimes humor is just a way of calling attention to the contradictions or the hypocrisy that’s going on officially… That’s the function of humor — it can alter your reality.” And our reality definitely needs to be altered.

I love that quote. And the video, “The Long Game,” is hilarious. It shows a clip of Obama on 60 Minutes stating one of the quotes used in the article, about how change is a “long-term project” that will take more than a year or two years, but probably two terms, or two presidents. Following this is an interview of Obama’s “chief strategist” who states that their strategy is to do “not much.” The US will eventually be run by corporations, Texas will secede, North Dakota will become part of Canada, and California will fall into the ocean. The president will be cryogenically frozen only to wake up in 2084 and become CEO of the country. “Everything we know and love about our country will be destroyed. And that’s when we make our move.”

This reminds me of an xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/887/
Note that, according to Randall Munroe according to Google, in 2047, the world will be run by banks and corporations. Well, if two internet-famous people said it, it must be true, right?

Discovered this song in my boyfriend’s car. New favorite.

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:23:00 -0500

Discovered this song in my boyfriend’s car. New favorite.

The Virality of Virality

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:42:00 -0500

In “Virality Uber Alles: What the Fetishization of Social Media Is Costing Us All” (2012), Arianna Huffington brings to light the recent problem of obsession with social media. Huffington points out how “going viral has gone viral” which causes “moving forward for the sake of moving” and thus “trending topics” with little substance; she describes how companies are “hungry to embrace social media and virality, even if they’re not exactly sure what that means” and argues that “social media are a means, not an end” because overall, social media has become “a major distraction” from the more important issues of “poverty” and “downward mobility” or “ingenuity and innovation.” Huffington argues against the fetishization of “social” status in order to illustrate the superficiality of much of today’s social media. She writes to American society to make people think twice about their everyday use of social media and how much of it is worthwhile.

Huffington, Arianna. ”Virality Uber Alles: What the Fetishization of Social Media Is Costing Us All.” The Huffington Post. 8 March 2012. Web. 11 March 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/social-media_b_1333499.html>

Man, I really like Huffington. Her writing is just so relatable. I’ve noticed that she likes to point out the ill-informed focus of the media. First, it was with the focus on the bad and not the good in the Abundance article; then it was the focus on the culture war and not the real issues; now it’s the focus on the progress and not the purpose of the progress: the act and not the destination. I think she’s making an important point here. (uber alles, by the way, means above all) People in general need to realize that just being “viral” doesn’t reflect at all on the thing’s value in society. Huffington quoted another HuffPost writer, Michael Calderone: “Nothing is too inconsequential to be made consequential.”

I see this crap every day on Facebook. Every single day, there are countless new “memes” made by bored teenagers with the hopes of becoming viral. The members of the Facebook community thrive on the number of likes their statuses and wall posts and photos receive…yet, is the value of those words or pictures changed by how popular it is? If no one “liked” your status about your goldfish dying, does that make you unpopular?

The answer should be absolutely not. This “fetishization” of social media is affecting the self-esteems of teenagers across the nation. You can tell who’s the most dependent by how many “selfies” they have in their wall photos: pictures the person took of themselves, usually with a phone, either in the mirror, or from above so that the viewer is given a good look down her shirt (and yeah, usually it’s a girl). I mean, having a few photos of yourself is okay; everyone likes to share pretty pictures of themselves now and then. But posting one every day with a caption of “I am beautiful no matter what they say” or “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is basically screaming “Like my picture because I’m pretty and I like knowing that you think I’m pretty!” After 230 pictures, I think we get it.

So back to the topic of memes. This was my favorite paragraph from the article:

“We are in great haste,” wrote Thoreau in 1854, “to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” And today, we are in great haste to celebrate something going viral, but seem completely unconcerned whether the thing that went viral added one iota of anything good — including even just simple amusement — to our lives. The truth is that sometimes it does, but very often it doesn’t. It’s not even a very complex question; the problem is that we seldom bother to ask the question before we dutifully hop on the algorithmic viral wave. We’re treating virality as a good in and of itself, moving forward for the sake of moving. “Hey,” someone might ask, “where are you going?” “I don’t know — but as long as I’m moving it doesn’t matter!” Not a very effective way to end up in a better place.

SO TRUE. Memes aren’t even funny most of the time. Just today, after I read this article, I saw that someone had created a Facebook page of “*** High School Memes” (*** being the name of my school). Really??? We honestly are so lame that we need to have our own page of memes?? I mean, it’s cute and all; everyone gets to put all the school’s inside jokes into meme form, like how we haven’t had a snow day this year or what happened in the library the other day. But has it added “one iota of anything good” to anything? NO! People are just going viral to go viral. And it has no meaning. We as a society need to realize that social media is a tool, as Huffington states. We have to use it for some greater purpose, whether it’s to advertise a benefit concert or simply to update friends on what’s going on, which was the initial reason behind Facebook. But time spent on pointless unentertaining viral videos and pictures is time wasted.

Anyway, enough with the rant. I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the article, based on the original quote by Saint Bernard:

So, the road to social media hell is paved with well-intended hashtags — as well as disingenuous or inauthentic ones.

Today, Birth Control; Tomorrow, the World as We Know It

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:57:11 -0600

*Note: This week, Arianna Huffington’s blog post was about a new section of the HuffPost online, so instead of writing about her writing about that (kinda boring, in my opinion), I decided to read/analyze one of her older posts.

In “Balloon Boy Politics: The Media’s Embrace of Birth Contracalypse, 2012” (2012), Arianna Huffington argues that the latest “culture war” has been overexaggerated by the media and as a result the country’s more pressing issues for the upcoming presidential election are being overlooked. Huffington expresses her shock at the media’s renewed focus on “cultural and social issues,” (primarily “the rule announced by the Obama administration that employers must provide free coverage in their health insurance plans for contraception”) and claims that birth control “is an issue that for the vast majority of Americans hasn’t been controversial for decades; she points out the ridiculousness of the “war on the Catholic church” (called so by Newt Gingrich) by pointing out that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control but assures that she has “no doubt that the plight of the poor and America’s struggling middle class will be much more on the minds of voters in November than birth control.” Huffington provides several contradictions to the latest arguments on the contraception issue in order to illustrate the superficial nature of the media culture. She speaks to American voters and American society in general to open their eyes to the real issues facing the country.

Huffington, Arianna. “Balloon Boy Politics: The Media’s Embrace of Birth Contracalypse, 2012.” The Huffington Post. 13 Feb. 2012. Web. 4 March 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/balloon-boy-politics-the-_b_1274892.html>

I gotta say, the more I read of Huffington, the more I like her and the more I realize that our writing styles are sort of similar. Well, similar in that they’re not formal and pretentious-sounding (at least, I don’t think my writing sounds pretentious…I hope…) For instance:

But birth control? In 2012? Seriously? This isn’t abortion, it’s birth control — an issue that for the vast majority of Americans hasn’t been controversial for decades.

If I were writing about this, that is definitely how I’d approach it. Exclamation points and rhetorical questions and a lot of “seriously?“‘s (if you don’t believe me, check out my post about The Glass Castle when Walls gets molested by the 11-year-old and I rant about adolescent sexual behavior). Anyway, just a thought.

About the topic at hand: I totally agree with Huffington (that’s another thing: so far, of everything I’ve read by her, I agree with what she says. weird.). We are in the 21st century, people! Who cares about this whole birth control thing? Since when does birth control elicit a culture war? I’ll tell you: the 1960’s. But now? It’s not like companies are being forced to give their employees birth control pills; they just have to cover it in their insurance plans. Nobody’s being forced to do anything against their own religious policies. And besides, 98% of Catholic women have admitted to using birth control. Ninety-eight percent. I find this rather hilarious. And if the Catholics don’t have a problem with it, that’s saying something. I don’t know what Gingrich is talking about with his “war on the Catholic church.” I find it funny, though, that Mitt Romney said that this law doesn’t belong in the US but he was okay with it when he was governor of Massachusetts, where it’s a state law.

The point is, when people get to the ballot boxes, they’re not going to check off Rick Santorum because he hates birth control. Huffington is right when she points out that there are more pressing issues facing the country. The national unemployment rate, for instance. The “plight of the poor and America’s struggling middle class.” All the media is doing is stirring up trouble and trying to make something out of nothing. Today, it’s birth control; tomorrow, there’ll be renewed speculation over whether or not President Obama is a terrorist. Whatever makes a good headline.