Calculus just leached out of my brain over vacation. I started number 10 during lunch and finally figured out 15 minutes ago that I was rotating the wrong region. Other problems have not been going much better, and slabs of oil make no sense in my brain though they do make my stomach queasy.
Errgh, I've been feeling really stressed out all week. WashU scholarship notifications. I feel mixed about this because I want money but I don't want incentives to tear me away for UofC either. An optimist would call this a win-win situation. I call it a lose-lose.
So Oscars, right. They happened a couple nights ago. Unlike last year, the Oscar ceremony was really classy--from Errol Morris' opening montage to the foreign film tribute to the TV graphics to the costume showcases to the shadow dancing to the sound chorus... Ellen's hemming and awing style bugs me, but she generally fit the classy theme of the entire show. Al Gore, neither a director nor movie star, seemed to be the toast of the night. I was so excited to see the screen combust when Eva Green and Gael Garcia Bernal walked out to present, but they kinda sucked. Her chilly persona and bribe of mummy dress clashed horribly with his small stature and easygoing charisma. Gah.
But.
But.
The most exciting part of the Oscars?
There was a commercial.
For American Express.
Directed by Wes Anderson!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
What a Vacation
I like my vacations to be empty and relaxing. I'm depressed and bored during the vacation, only to feel it was a waste of time afterwards. But at least then I'd be happy to go to school.
This vacation, however, has not been a vacation. If asked what I did over February break, I'd have to answer, "Freezing in Albert's house." Not an entirely unpleasant prospect but not exactly what I want to spend 30+ hours doing either. "Study" today veered closer to the VCR and shades of innuendo, both at least tangentially related to the Acadec curriculum. Gender factionalism in Acadec is becoming rather pronounced in contrast to frank admissions of sexual frustration. That last sentence is terribly confusing but probably best left opaque.
I did take some time to chill (and not literally...grr) at Karm's birthday sleepover. What I lacked in sleep, I made in food, eating out half their house. Thank You For Smoking was a slick, charming satire. I don't see the big fuss made over Katie Holmes' boobs since they looked rather (to quote Yi), "32 double A." Steff also came over with Monsoon Wedding, which apparently utilizes a technique called "leitmotif," whatever that means. It was a cute but not fluffy movie. I've also spent a fair amount of time being licked and shedded on by Sue's doggy. Today, we watched 30 min of The Good Earth (really couldn't bear any more than that) and Mulan. XD. Mulan was accompanied by a running commentary of random Acadec facts + hormonal teenage interjections. Good stuff.
This vacation, however, has not been a vacation. If asked what I did over February break, I'd have to answer, "Freezing in Albert's house." Not an entirely unpleasant prospect but not exactly what I want to spend 30+ hours doing either. "Study" today veered closer to the VCR and shades of innuendo, both at least tangentially related to the Acadec curriculum. Gender factionalism in Acadec is becoming rather pronounced in contrast to frank admissions of sexual frustration. That last sentence is terribly confusing but probably best left opaque.
I did take some time to chill (and not literally...grr) at Karm's birthday sleepover. What I lacked in sleep, I made in food, eating out half their house. Thank You For Smoking was a slick, charming satire. I don't see the big fuss made over Katie Holmes' boobs since they looked rather (to quote Yi), "32 double A." Steff also came over with Monsoon Wedding, which apparently utilizes a technique called "leitmotif," whatever that means. It was a cute but not fluffy movie. I've also spent a fair amount of time being licked and shedded on by Sue's doggy. Today, we watched 30 min of The Good Earth (really couldn't bear any more than that) and Mulan. XD. Mulan was accompanied by a running commentary of random Acadec facts + hormonal teenage interjections. Good stuff.
Monday, February 19, 2007
"Man Has Become a Tool of His Tools"
This cryptic quote was found on an Acelon impromptu card. Someone thought it was so bad -- and believe me, there are enough bad prompts -- that he took the effort to cover it with a big black X. An ebony letter to mark the spot of this terrible prompt.
I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey yesterday, and strangely enough, this quote perfectly describes it. I'm not sure if I have much to say about the actual movie. It was a puzzling aural experience; it had its moments of spine-chilling eeriness. HAL 9000 is one of the creepiest characters ever put in screen, and its red eye(s) make the Eye of Sauron seem possibly tame. But what? I did not get it. The fourth segment lost me in its dizzy shifts in time and place. Gorgeous, visually and aurally, but esoteric. Something I need a lot more time to digest.
I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey yesterday, and strangely enough, this quote perfectly describes it. I'm not sure if I have much to say about the actual movie. It was a puzzling aural experience; it had its moments of spine-chilling eeriness. HAL 9000 is one of the creepiest characters ever put in screen, and its red eye(s) make the Eye of Sauron seem possibly tame. But what? I did not get it. The fourth segment lost me in its dizzy shifts in time and place. Gorgeous, visually and aurally, but esoteric. Something I need a lot more time to digest.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Piggy Backing
Sacrificing a rare evening alone, I made a trek in the frozen cold to MIT to watch my brother dance. As a dancer, my brother -- and his whole troop -- are hilariously incompetent, but still young enough that their incompetence is rather cute. The audience chuckled its way through their performance and cheered with amusement at the end.
The other dancing was actually surprisingly competent, especially when considering half the dancers were middle-aged parents of teenagers. There were also three different troops of girls, separated by age. The youngest, decked out in baby pink tops emblazoned with "Angel" and denim miniskirts, made me squirm with undue hip thrusting and such Lolita-ish behaviors. Yikes.
But all in all, the dancing fell on the entertaining side, even though the stage was barely larger than my living room. I came out incredibly pissed off, however, at all the elitist, cultish, and clannish attitudes. First, they wouldn't even let me into the auditorium unless I registered. For cripes sake people, I'm not joining your cult; I just came to watch my brother dance. But I held my tongue and registered, only to be accosted when I tried to eat a grape. Apparently, the guy thought I was a random person who walked in to steal food. When I finally sat down to watch the performances, an acquaintance of my parents came by to chat. I made a mild attempt at politeness, "Shushu Hao" (Uncle), only for him to reply, "Here, there are no uncles. We are all students." Okay comrade, I'll keep that in mind next time.
The other dancing was actually surprisingly competent, especially when considering half the dancers were middle-aged parents of teenagers. There were also three different troops of girls, separated by age. The youngest, decked out in baby pink tops emblazoned with "Angel" and denim miniskirts, made me squirm with undue hip thrusting and such Lolita-ish behaviors. Yikes.
But all in all, the dancing fell on the entertaining side, even though the stage was barely larger than my living room. I came out incredibly pissed off, however, at all the elitist, cultish, and clannish attitudes. First, they wouldn't even let me into the auditorium unless I registered. For cripes sake people, I'm not joining your cult; I just came to watch my brother dance. But I held my tongue and registered, only to be accosted when I tried to eat a grape. Apparently, the guy thought I was a random person who walked in to steal food. When I finally sat down to watch the performances, an acquaintance of my parents came by to chat. I made a mild attempt at politeness, "Shushu Hao" (Uncle), only for him to reply, "Here, there are no uncles. We are all students." Okay comrade, I'll keep that in mind next time.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Hegelian Synthesis
There is a guy who sits everyday in Euro class. He's not a student, or at least not a high school one. His scruffy clothing, reliance on coffee, and stately square glasses give him the air of a slightly unruly grad student, probably getting a PhD in one of those cutesy-dutesy liberal arts majors. His wardrobe consists of wrinkled dress shirts and Crick-like iterations of monochrome sweaters. The hair is cropped and straight , the kind of looks like it's graying even though it really isn't. Face up, he looks like a younger Mr. Beck, though he is much taller--maybe a bit too tall for comfort since he has a hunch, much like the model Zulema so berated on Project Runway (Okay, weird comparison, but it's true.) Everyday, he sits in our class and observes. I think he is a student teacher being mentored by Green.
So Green promised to explode our minds today, but the closest my brain has ever gotten to exploding was imploding out of boredom. Today's discussion on Hegel and German nationalism followed this pattern, dulling my alertness until I was ready to check into Sleepsville like every second period. Strangely enough, however, the class actually got somewhat into Hegel and his philosophy. For me, second period isn't the height of my critical powers, and I usually accept all presented philosophies without a second thought, scrawling it into my notes to decipher another day. This evidently isn't the case for some, since I could really detect a hint of ire in Laurel's voice when she questioned Hegel's elitist views on Germany.
I should make clear that I really don't like the philosphy-lite approach that Green takes to teaching Euro. His lectures on Descartes, Bayle, Voltaire, etc. have struck me as oversimplified and twisted to fit the arguments of his grand scheme of history. He tries to philosophize and teach history at the same time but really just does a poor job of both. Actually, what really bugs me is that he tries too hard to incorporate the often off-base responses of my classmates, which only ends up warping the original philosophies of the thinkers. Not that I'm the final authority on any subjects philosophical, but I do mean it when I say Euro is philosophy-lite. Yes lite, not light.
So back to the whole brouhaha of German eliticism. The fact that Green linked the ideas of Hegel directly to Nazism (a bit too explicit, no?) probably set off a few alarms. But still, that our class was so averse to Hegel really surprised me, still in my semiconscious stupor.
In steps Mr. Guy Who Sits in Our Class. I'd never really paid much attention to him before, though he did strike me as endearingly geeky. But don't you love it when people pleasantly surprise you? He made a compelling defense of Hegel, bringing up a interesting comparison of the state to a house. I was totally blown back by this...really, this made more sense than anything Green had droned on about for 35 minutes. At the end of the class, he made a remark about how Hegel's German nationalism corresponds exactly with the predominant American conscious. Yes, I completely agree again! Thank you for schooling those people who so hypocritically criticize the nationalism of other countries. From a sociological perspective, it is perfectly normal, and desirable, to believe your "group" is superior to others.
From now on, I will pay complete attention to everything this guy says because his two lines have shown more insight than Green has shown all year. (At least on a percentage basis. Small sampling size be damned.) I should probably try to find out his name first. Okay, stalking time.
So Green promised to explode our minds today, but the closest my brain has ever gotten to exploding was imploding out of boredom. Today's discussion on Hegel and German nationalism followed this pattern, dulling my alertness until I was ready to check into Sleepsville like every second period. Strangely enough, however, the class actually got somewhat into Hegel and his philosophy. For me, second period isn't the height of my critical powers, and I usually accept all presented philosophies without a second thought, scrawling it into my notes to decipher another day. This evidently isn't the case for some, since I could really detect a hint of ire in Laurel's voice when she questioned Hegel's elitist views on Germany.
I should make clear that I really don't like the philosphy-lite approach that Green takes to teaching Euro. His lectures on Descartes, Bayle, Voltaire, etc. have struck me as oversimplified and twisted to fit the arguments of his grand scheme of history. He tries to philosophize and teach history at the same time but really just does a poor job of both. Actually, what really bugs me is that he tries too hard to incorporate the often off-base responses of my classmates, which only ends up warping the original philosophies of the thinkers. Not that I'm the final authority on any subjects philosophical, but I do mean it when I say Euro is philosophy-lite. Yes lite, not light.
So back to the whole brouhaha of German eliticism. The fact that Green linked the ideas of Hegel directly to Nazism (a bit too explicit, no?) probably set off a few alarms. But still, that our class was so averse to Hegel really surprised me, still in my semiconscious stupor.
In steps Mr. Guy Who Sits in Our Class. I'd never really paid much attention to him before, though he did strike me as endearingly geeky. But don't you love it when people pleasantly surprise you? He made a compelling defense of Hegel, bringing up a interesting comparison of the state to a house. I was totally blown back by this...really, this made more sense than anything Green had droned on about for 35 minutes. At the end of the class, he made a remark about how Hegel's German nationalism corresponds exactly with the predominant American conscious. Yes, I completely agree again! Thank you for schooling those people who so hypocritically criticize the nationalism of other countries. From a sociological perspective, it is perfectly normal, and desirable, to believe your "group" is superior to others.
From now on, I will pay complete attention to everything this guy says because his two lines have shown more insight than Green has shown all year. (At least on a percentage basis. Small sampling size be damned.) I should probably try to find out his name first. Okay, stalking time.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Font and the Frontal Lobe: An Analysis of Typography and It's Influence on Literary Style
I promise to write this essay sometime. Right now, I have a paper to write on the much more mundane topic of family.
P.S. I don't think the title makes any sense.
P.P.S. There was an apostrophe error in the original title! 79! OMGWTF. There was no apostrophe error until I changed it to one. Oh well, no more editing.
P.P.P.S. This is random: It was Hume, not Hegel who said something about morality. (Though it was in Time magazine; I got one part right.) I feel silly and UofC would surely disapprove.
P.P.P.P.S. Signs telling me to learn German: Berlinale is going on right now, German nationalism is blooming in Euro class, and errr...Crick talked about Hegel the same day Green did. And yea, Nietzsche advertising: White, male, over 40, thinks God is dead.
P.S. I don't think the title makes any sense.
P.P.S. There was an apostrophe error in the original title! 79! OMGWTF. There was no apostrophe error until I changed it to one. Oh well, no more editing.
P.P.P.S. This is random: It was Hume, not Hegel who said something about morality. (Though it was in Time magazine; I got one part right.) I feel silly and UofC would surely disapprove.
P.P.P.P.S. Signs telling me to learn German: Berlinale is going on right now, German nationalism is blooming in Euro class, and errr...Crick talked about Hegel the same day Green did. And yea, Nietzsche advertising: White, male, over 40, thinks God is dead.
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