A Spencer Addendum

So today we were in Boston recording for UTO some more. Over the course of the afternoon, we got on the subject of annoying encounters with Brandeis 2-- and so of course, I got to tell my Spencer The Prat story.

Only when I told the girls his real name, Julia burst out with "oh my god, that kid is EVIL! I hate him SO MUCH!" and told me about how he's a cheating douchebag (color me unsurprised) and, get this-- he claims to have slept with Lady Gaga.

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead and try and process that. I'll wait.

Still laughing? It's okay. Took me a minute, too.

At any rate, it makes me happy to know that I'm not the only person to have been on the receiving end of his particular brand of terrible.

Fun fact: Today I learned, via Pandora, that I really don't like Simple Plan. This doesn't surprise me in the least, but it's nice that I can have a proper account of these things.

In other news, my laptop monitor has stopped functioning. As such, so have I.

So we'll see how that goes.

Meet Spencer

I am not generally the kind of person who tells funny anecdotes at parties. My stories rarely end with an apologetic "I guess you had to be there," and when they do, it's probably because the punch line is a nerdy reference and my fellow conversationalist is not a geek like me.

Today, I have a crazy story. TODAY, I-- for the first time-- have encountered a person so absurdly fictional that I actually need to *come up with a codename for him for use on this blog.*

He is in my assigned Short Stories group; he grew up on Fifth Avenue, went to an exclusive all-male Academy for high school, and is (as I learned today) a male model. For the purposes of this blog, we will call him Spencer the Prat, as he is both EERILY REMINISCENT of his forebear, and is, inarguably, a complete prat.

As is true of all "been there" moments, this kind of loses something in the retelling, so I'll do the short version:

The story my group is doing comes from something called Godey's Lady's Book, which was a monthly journal in the 1830s which published short stories, articles and advertisements relevant to women of the day. Our particular story is about (among other things) lovers who die of plague. The project, in brief, is to "re-publish" this story. Our idea was to reformat our meta stuff around the story as if it were a modern women's magazine, like Elle.

One of my suggestions was that-- seeing as we're allowed to put in illustrations-- we could add thematically relevant ads... one of which could be an anti-plague skin cream, as satire.

Cut to Spencer the Prat. Spencer, who has not yet read the story we're doing this project on, completely failed to understand what I was getting at. So I tried explaining it several different times, in several different ways. "But why is it skin cream," he demanded.

Spencer, being a student who clearly goes to Brandeis 2-- oh. Wait.

SHORT INTERLUDE: Chef has a theory where there are two versions of 'deis: there's Brandeis, which is populated by smart awkward jewish kids who are generally sweet and well-meaning and want to change the world... and then there's Brandeis 2. Brandeis 2 has frats, and jocks, and people who spend their weekends throwing up and then tell stories about how epic it was after. The reason so few people realize there are, in fact, two Brandeises (Brandeisi?) is because the two so rarely overlap.

Sometimes, however, they're arbitrarily placed in the same group project, and the whole system falls apart.

So ANYWAY. From the way he was talking, I was starting to get the feeling that Spencer fancied himself a bit of a manly man-- that he'd never picked up an issue of Elle in his life, and would be offended at the mere suggestion that he had. Which would explain why he wasn't getting where I was coming from at all.

Me: "I-- look. Have you ever, y'know, looked at an issue of Seventeen, or Elle, or-- because they have these, these ads for--"
Spencer: [coldly] "What do you mean 'have I ever.'" [disconcertingly sarcastic now] "Noooo, I've NEVER picked up a magazine before."
Me: "No, sorry, I didn't mean-- I just thought that--"
Spencer: "Look, I've been in magazines, so you can just drop the attitude, okay."

The more polite and rational I tried to be, the more offended and defensive he got. He then informed me that he's not sure why I think I can get away with my "snotty attitude," but that I need to "wake up" because it's "not gonna help [me] at all in the real world."

Oh, right. That would be the real world where you grow up in a luxury penthouse on the Upper East Side, take family vacations to Morocco, and plan to be a model when you graduate. No, I suppose my attitude won't help me at all in the real world.

Because I don't go to this school because Daddy can pay for it and it has a good reputation. I go to this school entirely on scholarships because I'm fucking smart, bitch.

Now run along to your photo shoot. I have an essay on schizophrenia and family dynamics in Hamlet to write.

GYAHH.

Okay. So. Hi.

I have a 5-6 page Hamlet paper due on Friday. I have not started it, on Thursday night I'm busy from 7-god knows when with UTO (rehearsal, gig, party) and then I'll be... well, drunk, and not useful. So I have to write it before then. Which would be fine, except my life is exploding.

Wednesday night I'm supposed to have dinner with my hypothetical new roommates before our housing appointment. But it's possible that Steph will have to skip it, which means I won't actually know anyone there. Which would be fine, except that I won't, y'know. Know them on sight. Which could lead to some problems.

On Monday I have a 5-6 page paper due in German Cinema. NEXT Friday, my big Short Stories group projecty thingy is due.

Also, I need to declare my major before I leave for spring break.

Also also, I need to get bus tickets so that I CAN leave for spring break.

Next Friday is also (also also) my meeting with Kosta about my big science paper. So I should probably, y'know, find a topic for that.

OH. AND. On Sunday we're doing more album recording with UTO. (gotta do the CD graphics.)

I got 2 hours of sleep last night. Well. Morning. From 9:20 to 11:20. Which means I missed Science. I was kept up all night by the leaky roof.

I just. What. I don't even.

(If I can make it to spring break, I am golden. Until then.... YELL AT ME, DON'T LET ME PROCRASTINATE. NO FUN IN LEAHTOWN, GOT IT? OKAY.)

BORG highlights

I do quite like these kids. From Session 2 of Apples to Apples card-making:

"Gaming tonight! You should come."
"Can't. Gotta clean the suite."
"And that means you can't come?"
"Not if I'm cleaning my suite, no."
"CLEANSE IT WITH FIRE!"

"Okay, your adjective is: Yummy."
"Oh, damn. I've already made too many Doctor Who cards."
"Also, we made a Banana card last time."
"Who said anything about bananas? I was going to put down 'David Tennant.'"

"Tegan's not here? I guess I get to sit in the President's chair, then, as I'm her... concubine?"
"I think you mean 'consort.'"
"Yet somehow I think we're staying with 'concubine.'"

"Every action does have a consequence sometimes."

"Your word is: Scary."
[later]
"Ewoks?! Whoever said that, they're adorable!"
"Wait. Are you saying they're adorable, or...?"
"Ahhhh, the magic of comma vagueness."

"Can I get a ride?"
"Yeah, sure, of course."
"Well I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a... a giant inflatable rhino in your backseat."
"Well the nice thing about giant inflatable rhinos is that they can be deflated."

"Your word is... your word is... argh. I'm stuck in a direction and I can't think of any adjectives in that direction."
"East!"
"Eastern?"
"Easterly?"
"YOU'RE NOT HELPING."

"... and finally, The Neverending Story."
"Y'know, I never finished that book."

Interlude: Loving Puppies

[3:19:32 PM] Leah: *clings to Angel*
[3:19:35 PM] Leah: I STILL LOVE YOU.
[3:19:48 PM] Leah: THIS DOCTOR WHO THING. IT'LL PASS. IT'S JUST A PHASE. YOU'RE MY PUPPY.
[3:19:58 PM] Leah: (lies.)
[3:20:10 PM] Marlena: why can't they *both* be your puppies?
[3:20:19 PM] Leah: oh! they can!
[3:20:21 PM] Leah: I meant the phase thing.
[3:20:31 PM] Marlena: man. you better not have more than one kid.

In other news, I may end up rooming with Steph from UTO next year, in a Ziv suite. I'll have more info tomorrow.

A Short Stories short story.

Something interesting happened when I was walking out of Short Stories today. We're on the brink of starting this project where we (split into groups too large to be productive, imho, but that's a blog for another day) take a short story published before 1860-- and only ever in one addition-- and "re-publish" it (possibly reworked, or with footnotes, or a foreword, or whatever). Because of the nature of the assignment (the source text can only have been published once before, and in the 19th century) we're using stuff from the Archives and Special Collections sections of the library.

Items in Archives and Special Collections include a Shakespeare First Folio and an Oscar (which I've held! with gloves.)

Anyway. So after class today, Professor Plotz pulled me aside and asked me an interesting question. Apparently, at one of the sessions in A&SC, a girl found a bunch of dried flower petals in the book she was looking at, and after the meeting, she went back to the library and asked if she could keep them. She had "medium-length brown hair," and so Plotz asked me if it was me.

It wasn't. But I'm kind of really touched that he thought it was something I'd do. We agreed it was really sweet and cute.

In other Brandeis news, my play is going really well! Housing, however, is a nightmare. The problem is that while I have a lot of friends here at school, none of them are in my year. And while juniors and seniors can room together-- which is why I wasn't worried about this before, because I thought I'd be rooming with Talia-- Talia and Becca and their friend Marissa want to live in the Foster Mods, and juniors can't live in the Mods. And I don't know if my lottery number is good enough to get me into one of the (I think) 12 singles in Ziv, which means there's a fair chance I could be living in Grad-- which is off campus, across the commuter rail tracks and past a business park. Those of you who have visited me at school know how fucking far of a walk that is.

I really don't want to live in Grad. But the alternative is crossing my fingers and hoping Talia and Becca don't get the room they want, so I can benefit from their misfortune and we can get a suite in Ziv together, but that's a terrible thing to think. So. I just... I don't know.

Over on livejournal, I've posted a picspam about Journey's End.

Also, I've decided to change my sidebar quote. The old one:

"Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"

Does it say "sick?"

When I was little and I didn't feel well, I would--as one does--have my mother take my temperature. Only I wasn't entirely clear on how a thermometer worked, because when she pulled it away to examine the readout I would ask her, quite seriously, "Does it say Sick?"

The point of that little anecdote was a little segue into the fact that I HAVE A COLD and IT IS NOT PLEASANT.

I had to walk up the hill from rehearsal nursing a cup of tea ("sick tea," which is Apple & Cinnamon tea with honey) and I couldn't DRINK the tea because it was too hot and my throat's killing me from singing (bass on so many songs, holy crap how do I even manage?) and it was cold outside and it was just... miserable. Can't breathe through my nose, so when I got into my room I just kind of stood there woozily and panted.

Rehearsal was a mess. We have our first performance on Tuesday, and we're not exaaactly prepared, and everyone was just... hmm. Amanda has a name for it, from her Shakespeare group. They call them the jauns-- like, everyone has Major Issues and Shit Went Down. It was a jaunful evening. That's honestly the only way I can describe it. Several girls burst into tears. We all perked up again a bit at the end singing Lights, but that's because Lights is our soul and it fixes everything.

I was meant to do laundry on Saturday but I forgot. I am very seriously running the risk of Actually Running Out Of Clothes, Like For Real. Something will have to be done, and fast.

In other news, we blocked the entire play at H2G2 rehearsal today. Everyone seems super psyched about it, and kept bringing up promotion ideas... so at least one thing is going right.

I'm sorry for all the bitching. Life is good, really. I'm just better at handling all of this, I think, when I'm within the momentum of the week. Jumping back in after a lazy Saturday is just a bit of a shock.

My room probably smells lovely thanks to the birthday roses I got from Hayley. If I could inhale through my nose, I'd tell you for sure. My new Spock bobblehead says "Fascinating."

Imma stop rambling and randomly capitalizing That Which I Deem Important now. Ttyl, blog.

Success Is Not a River In Egypt (or anywhere else)

God, I don't know where the names I give these things come from. Just ignore it.

ANYWAY.

So today I got up EARLY to a) finish my powerpoint for German Cinema and b) finish my Short Stories essay. Both of these endeavors were SUCCESSFUL.

Then I went to German Cinema and we got back our first essays. And the professor was all, "these are just first drafts, second drafts due on the third. Some of you did so well that you don't need to revise. ... don't look so hopeful, it was less than a handful." And then she talked for like 15 minutes about how to interpret her responses and markings, and what she wanted out of the revisions.

And then I got my essay back and the only things she'd written on it were "Excellent," "nice!" and "you can revise if you want, but this is clearly an A paper."

SUCCESS.

(And then I did my powerpoint and I got a little tongue tied for a second but it mostly went well.)

AND THEN AND THEN. Sorry. Very repetitive today.

Anyhow. Just now, we had the first play rehearsal. And I don't want to jinx it, but I think Everything Is Going To Turn Out Okay.

And now, for something completely different.

You may remember a while back that I was going to write an essay about Dollhouse for that SmartPop Books contest. Well, I missed the deadline, and so, like I promised, I'm posting what I got down. Here we go:


Over and over again, the purposes of the Dollhouse are made clear to its clients. “It’s not about what you want,” says Adelle, “it’s about what you need.”

Truer words could not have been spoken not just about the Dollhouse, but Dollhouse itself—a bold move on the part of Joss, an unexpected gamble into utterly new territory.

We who worship at the alter of Whedon are used to certain things: well-developed characters, powerful yet subtle messages, and a good ensemble. We like liking people, and we like getting to know our ensemble as people: when Jayne Cobb walks into a room, you know exactly what you’re going to get.

But Dollhouse is profoundly different from Buffy, Angel, Firefly and even Doctor Horrible in one key sense: for the first time, we are not being given a character-driven show. We are being given an idea-driven show.

This was a profound thing to get used to, and was a steep learning curve on both sides of the camera: just watch Season 1 and you know exactly what I mean. We are used to Joss shows that wear their hearts on their sleeves: Buffy is a story of female empowerment—discovering that you have power and learning how to use it responsibly. Angel is a story of redemption—that actions have consequences, and that both the greatest good can come of the most disgusting act, and that unspeakable horror can result from the best of intentions. Firefly is a story of the frontier—of people on the edge, of the little guy’s survival in a world of cold bureaucracy. These are stories of powerful emotion.

But Dollhouse is different. Rather than being “genre first, meaning second,” the meaning is the genre. Whereas all of the other Whedon shows have worn their hearts on their sleeves, Dollhouse wears its brain—which is exactly as messy (and interesting) as it sounds. Because for the first time, Joss is making us think just as hard as he’s making us feel. Dollhouse is something greater, something cerebral. It is A Brave New World, it is Fahrenheit 451…

It is Star Trek.

(Bear with me.)

This revelation didn’t come to me all at once. It started as just an inkling, a powerful sensation I started getting in the middle of season 2: “I kind of wish this were the Enterprise—Adelle DeWitt would make one awesome starship captain.” Over time, this evolved into “DeWitt isn’t just a good hypothetical captain, she’s Jean-Luc Picard” which has now fully developed into a kind of solid surety: in many unexpected ways, Dollhouse is the modern mirror of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Put down the rotting fruit (or pitchforks, depending on your level of offense) and hear me out.

Star Trek: TNG is set in a utopian future, whereas Dollhouse is set in a borderline dystopian present. And yet… and yet they both tackle story from the standpoint of philosophy, rather than emotion. This is not to say that the characters on either show are stand-ins or cardboard cutouts or pawns; they are just as fully-realized as any other character on any other show.

But it explains a lot. How we can trust DeWitt despite her dubious utilitarian thinking, because she gives off an aura of moral certainty so strong that you cannot help but take comfort in it. Why we were able to bond with Victor and Sierra so early—as they both gave off the aching sentimentality of the manmade made real as Data did—but were sometimes faintly annoyed by Echo, who was marked early as special and different, and always came through with just the right thing at just the right moment, like a high-heeled Wesley Crusher.

We did not want a show like Dollhouse—but it is very much the show we needed, and luckily Joss had the presence of mind to understand that.

We live in a confusing age, which is why Star Trek, as a franchise, has always had such broad appeal. It shows a future in which there is equality across all gender and ethno-religious boundaries, where a Prime Directive keeps people like those behind Rossum from fiddling where they don’t belong, and where money is a thing of the past. (“But what do you invest in?” asks Ralph Offenhouse of Picard in The Neutral Zone (TNG 1.26). Picard’s answer was simple: “We invest in ourselves.”)

People invest in other people all the time on Dollhouse, but far purposes far more insidious. Audiences have gotten more cynical, and stories grittier and more jaded, to reflect a changing world. The Dollhouse is a place where Data would have been sent to the Attic immediately—a place not where things can learn to become people, but where people are stripped down to the status of things. There is no room for a Deanna Troi or a Guinan at the Dollhouse—because it’s not a question of what the dolls feel, but what Topher programs them to feel.

Star Trek: TNG went, Dollhouse boldly goes one step farther. Captain Picard occasionally used the holodeck to role play as Detective Dixon Hill; a mostly harmless exercise to relax and relieve the burden of command. DeWitt, on the other hand, must dig deeper and risk more: becoming the often-mocked Miss Lonely Hearts, taking comfort in the arms of Roger, a man who does not exist, in order to experience a few cherished moments of vulnerability. Highly-advanced medical science begat the visor which granted Geordi the power to see; Topher’s fiddling with Echo’s brainwaves just as easily made her blind. The Borg is not a powerful, distant foe: it is a product of our own creation. On Dollhouse, we truly are the Borg, and our greatest enemy is our own ambition.

And to have a show on television that discusses these things: what it means to be a human, what happens to your soul if you’re not in control of your body, whether or not we have free will… we need to be asked these questions; we need to search ourselves, be challenged, far more than we need to be entertained.

As dark as Dollhouse becomes, it will still stumble upon certain universal truths. So when DeWitt stands up to Mr. Ambrose and his “anatomy upgrades” in Epitaph One, and says, “You cannot have that body, Mr. Ambrose. It belongs to another soul, and I will not sell these people off at any price,” we cheer, because it is just as much a triumph of the human spirit as when Picard quotes Hamlet (with conviction, rather than irony) at Q.

It is a contemporary method masking a sentiment as old as our species: Star Trek shows us the bright light of the future; a world as it should be, so we aspire to be all that we can be. Dollhouse takes us through the darkness, wallows in it and drenches even our greatest heroes in the shadows of doubts and murky waters of ethical dilemmas.

Something to think about, in any case.

And while you ponder that a while, I’ll amuse myself with the notion that the tea Adelle served every client is Earl Grey (hot), and listen hard in case she said “make it so” and I missed it.

*head explodey*

HI GUYS. LONG TIME NO SEE.

I just got back to school after a week-long break, which I also used as a break from this blog and higher-level brain functioning and, um, going outside. My stress levels have been at epically high... levels... and so I really needed the time to sit around and do nothing but draw and sleep and write Doctor Who fanfic. It was nice. Relaxing.

Anyway, I'm back now.

My life is already a bit easier because UTO as a whole decided that recording every weekend in March is a) expensive and b) insane. We're limiting it to three days over the course of the spring, which means the CD release is pushed back until fall. Also, my solo-- at least my Straight Lines solo-- won't be on the CD, because we don't have the time or money to record it. Which sucks. On the other hand, there are two more songs whose solos haven't been auditioned yet that we're doing later this week, so there's still a chance I'll have *a* solo on the album.

Also: we're going to be selling UTO "up YOUR octave" boxers as a fundraiser. I expect you all to buy a pair. They're gonna be supermegafoxyawesomehot.

(No, seriously. We need the money. Buy boxers.)

As it stands, I have an essay due tomorrow at 4, and an oral presentation in a class that starts at 3:40. Also, I need to show the prof my oral presentation during her office hours, which are from, like, nine to noon or some shit. So tonight and tomorrow will be busy with the work. And then tomorrow night is my first H2G2 rehearsal, and probably also more homework-doing about which I've forgotten.

Related: could someone, at some point, remind me to go actually declare my film major? If I don't do something about it soon, a minor it will stay. Which I do not want.

ANYWAY. The ultimate good news here is that I'm not losing every single weekend to madness. Which is a really big relief.

I *can* get through this semester. I am strong and capable and clever. It will ALL WORK OUT.

(Also also: someone make me do my laundry and clean my room. Because I can't put it off forever.)

OH RIGHT ALSO I TURN 20 ON WEDNESDAY. SO THERE'S THAT.

I Love (Gratuitously Stealing Hayley's Ideas)

Hello, blog reader people. Real life has been a COMPLETE bitch, lately, in the best of ways, which is why we haven't spoken in a while.

I wasn't gonna blog tonight (today? I don't know what a 2:30 am post counts as) but then I read Hayley's wonderful blog entry and was, as many were, just a little bit inspired.

So, then. In no particular order, certainly missing a great many things, and not quite as pretty as Hayley's--a list of things I love:

-- I love how Amanda and I can manage not to talk to each other for a month, totally by accident, and then converse as if no time has passed, finding each other--as always--uniquely hilarious.

-- I love taking a whiff of the packet my Earl Grey tea bag came in before I throw it away, because it smells like Saturday mornings and Awakeness and Home.

-- I love coming home from a long day and changing out of my jeans and into pajama bottoms.

-- I love that I can talk to Marlena for hours every day about everything spanning from literary theory to zombies vs unicorns to "What if Angel and Tara opened a bed and breakfast together" to our most personal and private hopes and dreams without once tiring of each other or disagreeing. (Well. Aside from the zombies and unicorns thing. ZOMBIES RULE.)

-- I love singing in my car at the top of my lungs, because that's what cars are for and that's what songs are for and it all just perfectly fits.

-- I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to steal this one, word for word: "I love how a line in a poem can strike a part of your brain that you hadn't noticed was asleep before, and you can't rephrase the line or explain why it makes sense, because it's perfect and beautiful in that it says something that's never before been put so well." Because that's what this blog is all about, and Hayley said it better than I could.

-- I love how all the writers/artists/creators I love-- Jane Espenson, Joss Whedon, Jacob the Recapper, John Green-- end up connected to and inspired by each other in ways I never dreamed, which in turn inspires me. Also, all of them have J-names, and what's up with that?

-- I love wearing my Missing Piece around my neck and my dad's high school ring on my finger every day, because I'm telling you who I am and where I come from without even saying a word, and no one really seems to notice, until they do. Which is how getting to know someone always works.

-- I love making my sister laugh, because I have to earn it.

-- I love that when I have Big News (like I did yesterday, but is a bit too personal to share with you, blog readers) and I have to call my best friends, my mom is on that list.

-- I love intricately structured narratives.

-- I love watching heavy snowfall through a window, when I'm warm and comfy indoors, preferably with hot chocolate.

-- I love the way autumn smells, how the leaves get brittle and beautful and change the air; how I can use words like "brisk" and "crisp" to describe the mornings and even though the world is dying it feels so much more like starting over than spring does. (Spring, to be clear, smells like allergies and feels like death, but this is not a list of things I hate, so.)

-- I love the thin rim of blue around my mostly green eyes.

-- I love loving things to death-- wearing holes in the canvas of my Converse, dog-earing my favorite pages of books, knowing lines of movies so well I can quote along with them as I watch.

-- I love how I've finally found my passion and a bliss to follow; how taking classes in my majors just sets my brain on fire.

-- I love connecting with strangers over a mutual love, and how at the end of the conversation you're not strangers anymore.

You may notice, I've changed the sidebar quote to a (admittedly slightly arrogant) Fitzgerald line. Blog Reader Morgan requested that I share more quotations with you, so I think I'm gonna try and change it every month or so, from now on.

I honestly can't remember what the old-old one used to be, so in the interest of keeping a record of Things I Like, I'll post the previous one in my blog entries when I switch them. Here's what it used to be, which is also One More Thing I Love:

"It's not about my joy, the relief of burden. I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone."

- Jonathan Safran Foer, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

AAAAAAH.

Hello, blog people!

So I do this thing where I stress and procrastinate and put off and have a merry old time, and never sleep-- seriously, I've watched the sun rise two nights in a row now-- and I don't blog because, well, it would just all come out like this: "a;oroihgaekbrjxlpiygqvkehgeytcramt!!!"

As it were.

I've just found out that I probably won't get Schwartz auditorium for the play performances, which really fucking sucks, because the play as written-- or rather, as is still being transcribed-- was kind of custom-made to go there, because that's the space we always use. I'm still typing the damn thing, and auditions are (hopefully) a week from today, and it didn't even occur to me until now to freak out about whether or not we'll get enough people. This show demands like 10 highly committed actors-- there are HUGE monologues, like all the time, and it's Douglas Adams so they have many myriad big words but rarely any kind of point. Oh, god. If I manage to pull this thing off it will be a miracle.

Oh, also? My classes have started assigning papers. Hahaha. Ha ha. Ha.

On the bright side: we have two new girls in UTO, who seem to be coping relatively well. I have rehearsal three nights a week, and BORG on one of the off nights, leaving me kind of just Mondays and Saturdays open, unless I want to start piling things on top of each other. Which I'll probably have to. We're recording every weekend in March.

Also, we're having our first UTO party/initiation on Friday. Which should be fun and I'm really looking forward to it. (I never thought I'd say this, and don't expect me to repeat this sentiment any time soon, but... I could use a drink, anyway.)

Which leaves us with one very stressed out Leah, who is still just slightly sick enough to be annoyed by it. A GIRL CAN ONLY DRINK SO MUCH TEA, UNIVERSE.

In other news, I finally caved and bought myself the Next To Normal album on iTunes, and we're starting in on Midsummer Night's Dream in Shakespeare tomorrow. So that's all nice.

Gyahhh. I don't know. I'm going to stop writing now. I'll feel better when the play is sorted.

I was gonna make a soul/sole pun, but palms are not called hand-soles.

Today has been an interesting day.

So I got up relatively early (considering it's a Lazy Thursday and I have no classes) and went to the campus Copy Center in order to sort out my Hitchhiker's script. While there, I learned two important things: one, that the Copy Center only uses WhoCash (a kind of Brandeis-only debit currency), which I don't have, and two, that they don't do scanning. Well. This left me with two equally annoying and time-consuming options: either go to the library, try and find/figure out their scanner, input the entire thing by hand and then farm out the picture files for printing, or type up the damn thing myself-- which will make for a cleaner, better-edited script, which the cast can print on their own time, but is a huge bitch for me. So I have to do THAT at some point, and won't that be fun?

Then I had to e-mail Lena and respectfully withdraw my application for Final Battle. I'm only now feeling well enough to record all my audition stuff, and so I hadn't looked, since I've been here, to see if I'd packed my camera charger. Which, fun fact, I didn't. So I'm stuck with two days until deadline, a still-sore throat, and a paperweight instead of a camera. Adding to that how incredibly busy I'm going to be this semester, I just... something had to give. However, there's still a possibility I can perform with them in the chorus or something, because Lena is AWESOME and is giving me a chance. But any thoughts I had about being, for example, Ginny Weasley... well, it ain't gonna happen. Which is fine; just a bit sad.

Then I found out J.D. Salinger died. I... I'm very zen about it; it hasn't made me want to cry or anything. He was a hermit, and very old, and all in all it was a good life. But the world is just a little more phony, perhaps, now that he's not in it.

So there are all these tiny things that add up to misery put together, even though I'm actually in an excellent mood and having a WONDERFUL time at school so far. When I'm in the thick of it-- hearing Professor Flesch lecture about Shakespeare; or meeting the COOLEST MIDYEAR IN THE WORLD named Rachel tonight at BCBC and talking with her for an hour about how fanfiction leads to better writers and readers when done right; or singing with my girls in UTO (we added two to our family last night!) I feel like I'm on top of the world. I'm engaged and learning and so, so happy to be here. But when I come home to catch my breath, and I start thinking about it all-- the stuff still looming in the distance, the homework I haven't yet done, how many directions I'm throwing myself in this semester-- it feels like I'm drowning.

So I called Hayley. And we bitched and moaned at each other for a while, sounding thoroughly wretched and cleaning out all the tiny nicks and cuts that add up to so much more. It's funny, because, like, we're both in a really great place... but sometimes, you just need to whine and complain.

Anyway.

My palms are on FIRE right now because the weather did this weird snow-rain-wind-blizzard-snow thing in the course of, like, an hour and a half, leaving a very fine coat of ice on the ground, which I then proceeded to slip on like a Stooge. Not my proudest moment.

So where do I stand? I have homework to do tonight--reading more stories from Arabian Nights, and studying up on Richard II for my first quiz tomorrow. Reading for Kosta's class, for the first time, which I'm sure will go over my head. I still haven't unpacked my suitcase. I have 70 some odd pages of script to transcribe asap, and a UTO meeting on Sunday that will dictate my schedule for the rest of the year. Have I mentioned we're recording a CD? We're going to pick our normal three nights a week to rehearse, then set aside who knows how many Saturdays to go to the studio and record. We're also selecting a date for our Spring Concert. Which would be fine, except I'M DIRECTING A PLAY THIS SEMESTER. I don't have a script yet, which means I haven't planned auditions. With no auditions there's no cast, and with no cast there's no schedule. Once I have that, I need to find the times where we can rehearse THAT, that won't interfere with the rest of my life, and cross my fingers and HOPE that Ryan didn't schedule a play performance for whatever night UTO chooses for the concert.

I'm sorry. I don't even know if any of that was coherent. The moral of the story is that I'm very stressed, and for good reason. So many tiny things. And the only thing that will solve it all is time.

Eep!

I know I know I know. I said this was going to be a daily blog, and now I'm starting to get lazy about the skipping of the days. I know. And I'm sorry.

I have been busy, my friends. Due to the courses I'm taking, I have a huge amount of reading to do for homework. UTO has been holding auditions, and tonight's the first night of BORG with the newbies, and, like, there's still the massive looming monster that is the play I'm supposed to be directing. Which is terrifying. All of this would be a handful on its own, but I'm also watching Doctor Who with Marlena, and as most of you know... once you start daydreaming about the TARDIS, it's incredibly hard to stop.

Anyway. I have a little two-hour window here to blog and get shit done before I run off to club administration stuff for the rest of the evening. So I guess I'll tell you an anecdote.

The other day, Kosta told us the story of how he met Rudolf Peierls, also known as one of the Manhattan Project physicists, and the guy who discovered that plutonium is even more susceptible to splitting than uranium. "It was in the 1970s, when I was just a Little Tsipis" Kosta said (which I love, because it reminded me of how Maureen Johnson refers to her past self as "a little mj") "and there was a conference about nuclear energy in the Balkans. Everyone who was anyone was there. Everybody important, and also Little Tsipis. I was freshly married, and so of course I brought my wife. Oh, she was a sexy thing! One of the nights of the conference, there was a dinner party. And my wife, well, she always wants to be noticed. So she came outside wearing this little skirt, probably as big as a, uh, like a napkin. And we hear a grouchy old man voice shout 'Go put something else on-- you're going to catch your death!' ... and that's the one time I met award-winning scientist Rudy Peierls."

I love Kosta.

And, oh. Because this is Sounds Passing Through Sudden Rightnesses, after all, I'll leave you with this excerpt from my Film textbook:

"The experience that art offers us can be intensely involving. We say that movies drew us in or immerse us. We get absorbed in a book or lost in a song. When we can't finish a novel, we say, "I couldn't get into it," and we say that music we don't like "doesn't speak to me," as if it were a sluggish conversational partner.

All these ways of talking suggest that artworks involve us by engaging our senses, feelings, and mind in a process. That process sharpens our interest, tightens our involvement, urges us forward. How does this happen? Because the artist has created a pattern. Artworks arouse and gratify our human craving for form. Artists design their works-- they give them form-- so that we can have a structured experience.

For this reason, form is of central importance in any artwork, regardless of its medium. The idea of artistic form has occupied the thinking of philosophers, artists and critics for centuries. We can't do justice to it here."

Take that, indie snobs who slather ideas to film like that makes it a movie. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Jim Jarmusch. Stop hiding behind that tree, Richard Linklater. I see you. THREE-ACT STRUCTURE RULES.

... I'm sorry. That went to a place. It won't happen again.

Bye kids!

Oh, hello.

Weird moment... it's currently 20 to midnight, and I was staring at my computer, trying to figure out why I was feeling so restless... I'd kind of forgotten, today, that I had a blog. Like, at all. So I didn't plan anything to say.

Ummm. I'm still sick, which sucks. Getting really tired of it hurting to swallow and not being able to breathe through both nostrils at once and not being able to decide if I'm chilled or overheated. Sick blows. Not to mention, I still need to record all of my callback materials for the Final Battle, which are due by the end of the month, but I can't so long as I have no voice.

I had class today, which feels like a million years ago. Let's check in my notebook for interesting facts, shall we?

Oh man, Global Warming and Nuclear Winter (which, for the purposes of brevity I'm just gonna refer to as "Science" from now on) was such a brain-killer. Kosta is still adorable, but the thing is, his cute Greek accent isn't exactly a help when he's trying to explain Pauli's Exclusion Principle (which I still don't entirely understand). Not to mention, he fell off a ladder and broke his leg and shoulder over the summer, so his handwriting is uncharacteristically poor. I get why he wants us to have a rudimentary understanding of physics before we plunge into our actual discussions-- I mean, if we didn't, then this would be a politics course. But at one point he stopped and asked "How confused are you?" and one girl blurted "Remember when you said you wanted to make us NOT afraid of science? It's not working." I walked out of that classroom with a MUCH deeper appreciation of Leonard and Sheldon... because fictional physicists on CBS sitcoms should really be my benchmark for scientific knowledge.

But it'll be okay.

Shakespeare was awesome because Professor Flesch is super amazing awesome fantastico. He said he was considering posting recordings of the lectures as a podcast-- if he does, I'll be sure to link you. I dunno how many of you would want to listen to an hour and a half Shakespeare lecture when you didn't HAVE to, but believe me it is so totally worth it. We discussed Sonnet 73 and the first two acts of Richard II, which I kind of don't like so far, but whatever. At least the in-class analysis is interesting, even if the play itself isn't my favorite.

Short Stories with Plotz is also still fun... and I'm also still a total nightmare to have in an English class. I mean. I'm sure my professors appreciate it, but I'm also sure my peers can't stand it-- I just can't. make myself. shut. up. Granted, I'm at Brandeis, so I'm hardly the only overeager know-it-all in the room itching to contribute to class discussion, but... god, I even annoy myself sometimes. Some highlights from Professor Plotz:

"I dunno how fresh Moby Dick is in your mind, but-- well. I hope it's at least slightly fresh; there's nothing worse than rotting whale meat. Anyway--"

"The key to a lot of these fables is looking for two separate lines of interpretation. For example, is Oedipus the story of a-- oh dear lord, I almost said 'motherfucker.'"

"Right, see, it's like that dance movie, with the British boy... what's it called... Dance, Billy, Dance?"
"I think you mean Billy Elliott."
"I like my title better."

Stay in school, kids. College is fun.

Witty Blog Title Goes Here

Hokay! To start off with, I’m going to talk about Bridget Milhokovich so Hayley will stop calling me a bitch. (As with yesterday, beware spoilers.)

First of all, a thing you should know about me: I tend to like the same sorts of characters, as everyone does. For reasons that are completely beyond me, though, my favorites tend to be either spunky little sisters (Phoebe Caulfield, Ginny Weasley) or vulnerable popular girls (Cordelia Chase, Quinn Fabrey). Hayley and I share a mutual, rare but deep love of Parvati Patil, for example. So it surprised exactly no one when I said that Bridget was my favorite character in the Jessica Darling series.

But it also has nothing to do with my personal preferences and everything to do with the masterful way Megan McCafferty wrote the books. I’ve read each exactly once—I’m hardly as good an authority as Hayley or Marlena, so bear with me if you don’t agree or if I get something wrong. But you know? I don’t think I am. Wrong, I mean.

Jessica, as a person, is… well, very interested in people. She very rarely likes them, but she’s highly observant, if highly opinionated. As narrators go, she’s not always the most reliable… but somehow, McCafferty’s hand bleeds through in really surprising and wonderful ways. Jessica will often fail to imagine others complexly… but even though Jessica refuses to see it, we as readers get the sense LONG before she does that Bridget is a worthwhile individual. We start paying attention to her, Jessica’s brief mentions and off-handed remarks, and we see things Jessica doesn’t. And it works for everyone else in the story, too. Do you think it’s an accident that Hope’s name is hope? Come on, now. Hope is the epitome of idealized friendship, far more of an idea than a person. And by showing us these things by using Jessica’s voice, McCafferty establishes her books as some of the most nuanced and rewarding reads I’ve ever had.

Anyway. Today is 01/20/2010, and a hearty congratulations to Bridget and Percy.

On to other stuff! How was my German Cinema class, you ask? Well. We spent a good half hour playing a Get To Know Ya game, which was all kinds of fascinating, I can’t even tell you. … well, no. To be fair, there was one pretty awesome moment. One of the things we had to say was our favorite movie, and a girl in the far corner finished her little speech not with her favorite but by declaring “And my LEAST favorite movie is Avatar. Bring it on.”

I love this girl, and want to be her friend.

We spent the second half of class watching, Black Rider, a 1993 short film about, well, a black dude ridin’ a bus. In Berlin. Next to a racist old lady. We talked about the Nazi-era undertones (a silent crowd, no one speaking up against xenophobic comments, the prejudices of the old versus the tolerance of the young, blah blah blah). It was pretty interesting, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the class.

Because Adam was curious, here’s the list of films we’re going to see:

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• Pandora's Box
• The Blue Angel
• Maedchen in uniform (Girls in Uniform)
• The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
• Aimee und Jaguar
• The Marriage of Maria Braun
• The Murderers Are Among Us
  

Of those, I’ve only ever seen Caligari; yay for learning new things!

*returns to computer hours later*

Hello! I just went to my first BORG meeting of the year. We played Werewolf, which is my least favorite game, and people asked me when auditions for the play will be, to which I had to reply that I don’t know, because the play isn’t cut and I don’t have audition materials or a casting list or a room. Oops! Here’s what you missed:

“Man, now every time someone says ‘doctor’ I look up. It’s a problem.”
“Oh, have you been inDoctorinated?”
- Me and Matt

“So either Shannon is the werewolf, or she’s being very sneaky and has a devious plan.”
“It’s okay. We’ll be lynching her next round anyway; possibly for fun.”
- Katie and Mac

“By the way, guys, we’re gonna have the Dune discussion on February 10th.”
“Can we call it the Dunescussion?”
- Me and Matt

“See, I like Doctor Who because it’s the only world where Mal would make a better Companion than Inara.”
- Me

(Provided we remain entertaining, I may post BORG best-ofs every week. We’ll see!)

School is awesome!

QUICK NOTE: there are spoilers for Perfect fifths in the first two paragraphs of this blog post. Read at your own risk. (HAPPY, Marlena?)

Okay, so when I twittered earlier about TARDIS-related daydreams, Hayley texted to yell at me for not marking today's occasion: as it is January 19th, today is the day Jessica Darling and Marcus Flutie cross paths for the final time in Megan McCafferty's novel Perfect Fifths. I promised her that I would blog about it so she wouldn't be mad anymore.

Well, I lied. But I have good reasons! First of all, the thing I want to actually discuss-- that is, Bridget and Percy's marriage-- doesn't take place until the 20th. So I can talk about it tomorrow and have it still be relevant. And for another, today was my first day of classes, and I would really like to talk about that while it's still fresh in my mind. So, sorry Hayley. But I'll get to it.

In any case!

Today I had three of the four classes I'll be taking this semester, so let's just tackle them in order, shall we?

My first class was Global Warming and Nuclear Winter, which I'm only taking because I need a science class. Luckily, the professor is very well aware of this. "I know why you're taking this course," he said. "It's because you want science credit. But I'm here because it's fun! So, you'll just have to suffer with me while I have fun." Hee! On the board, he'd written his fully notated name: Doctor Professor Kostantinos Tsipis. And yes, he is just as adorably old and Greek as his name suggests. One by one, he started crossing off parts of his name until we were left with just "Kosta," which is what he wants us to call him. Cuuute!

Anyway. 70% of the class is the final research paper, and he emphasized over and over again that he doesn't care about our grades: he just wants to make sure we learn something. This is so refreshing I cannot even tell you-- not to mention reassuring, given that this is a science class and that's scary. But he knows that! "I want you to become unafraid of science. Humanities majors are PETRIFIED of science-- they're allergic to it. I want to cure that!" The emphasis of the course will be on understanding the importance of numbers and why we quantify things; we're meant to ask questions. This is a class about humanity: the problems we face as a species, and our tendency to learn by experience.

(And in a perfect My Big Fat Greek Wedding moment, he handed out a scientific notation cheat sheet that had the etymological origins of the number prefixes. Like, for example:

Million = 10⁶ = mega- (from "μέγας" ["big"])

HOW. CUTE. IS. THAT? Also, he makes his lowercase "a"s like lowercase greek alpha: α, which is very confusing to read but also extremely endearing.)

My next class was Shakespeare, which is in a huge lecture hall. That's nice, though, because I really got a feeling of Brandeis community in there. Margaret, one of the girls in UTO, sat behind me; Tal, this one guy who ALWAYS ends up in one of my classes, because we're on the same academic track; Ian, the president of the Comic Book Club, and at least three members of Hold Thy Peace, the on-campus Shakespeare performance group... they were all there. As was the hot TA from my Indie class last semester, we'll see if I get him this time. The professor, Flesch, was highly recommended to me by Talia, and I can see why: he's dynamic and interesting and so, so passionate about his subject matter.

He's also a huge nerd. He talked about Star Wars when describing how Shakespeare's intentions towards his histories are evident in that he didn't write them in chronological order, and what his thematic treatment of Henry V's life said about him as a creator. And then, when we were discussing our Shakespeare's Complete Works copies, he talked about how radical an idea it was-- and still is-- to make a Complete Works for plays. In the Elizabethan era, "works" were treatises by Aristotle or Plato. They were not just ordinary plays. The first person to compile such a thing was Ben Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare's. "You have to admire the audacity of it," said Professor Flesch. "A lowly playwright publishing his own material in an anthology of 'works.' This is almost as if Joss Whedon would go and collect Buffy scripts and publish them... oh wait." HEE!

Oh, and later, when he was talking about the importance of iambic pentameter, he used not the example I was expecting ("My chest of drawers divide amongst my friends," thank you John Green) but one from Total Recall: ("You know how much I hate this fucking planet!" which is an example of a feminine ending) and one from regular life at a diner: ("I'll have the special and a glass of Coke," which is masculine. "Or 'diet Coke,' if you're worried" he amended.) In any case, we'll be reading Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony & Cleopatra, and A Winter's Tale, which is pretty much a play per week and a half. I have to say, I'm excited to read A Winter's Tale, and I'm not sure if it's because it's the origin of the name Hermione, or because it includes the stage direction "Exit pursued by bear."

Tal followed me to my last class, Birth of the Short Story: Gods, Ghosts, Lunatics. It was immensely gratifying, because that class was filled with what I'll call my English Posse-- the kids I took the 100 intro course with, who will stay with me as we all fulfill our majors. Talia, Chef, Rebecca, Tal... it's really awesome that we have our own little corner of the room. We read three pre-genre short stories, and argued over what defines a short story and what makes them effective, and I've missed English classes. I love film studies and I'm glad I took two film classes last semester, but balancing them out with two English courses this semester feels right. I really love analysis and critical thinking and class discussions and defending interpretations. It's too bad one can't make a career out of it.

But hey, that's what this blog is for, innit?

Anyway, I think I've kept you long enough, Gentle Readers. Tomorrow I have my German Cinema: Vamps and Angels course (which I did NOT select purely for the name, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a contributing factor) and then I'll be mostly settled in for the spring. As for now, I'm off to check up on my favorite web comics and then probably rewatch the World War II episodes from series one of Doctor Who. Later, kids!