I don't know what I'm doing. That's a lie. A more accurate statement is I don't know where my life is going and I have no idea how to figure it out and it's making me a bit anxious or ansty or just lame.
Hmmm. Like, I do stuff. Sometimes. I read novels and make pumpkin pies and drink chai tea lattes and protest economic injustice. But a lot of the time, I don't do much. I tumbl[e?]; I sleep in; I... read novels. I almost wish I went to school because then my idle activities would be working towards something, even if it was just matriculation.
Maybe I don't have to know right now. That's nice, comforting, to think I don't have to have a plan or goals or whatever. But also worrying, you know? "What's the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?"*
I need a goal. This is one of the main reasons I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year, albeit in a way not endorsed by NaNoWriMo.
Anyway, I'm just drowning in a bit of self-pity because I am kind of awful at relationships and communication in general and my life doesn't appear to be moving me towards anything, or at least not at a discernible rate. When I think about it, I'm a pretty horrible Hufflepuff. I'm much too self serving and lazy.
I should get on with it. Finish my book (Irma Voth by Miriam Toews--really enjoying it), get some sleep. I'll keep you guys posted on my encounter with Maureen Johnson. And I'm curious: what are you guys being for Halloween?
dftba.
*from An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Sometimes I forget that everyone has access to the same internet...
(That could turn out to be the beginning of a pretty sordid sentence, but it's not what it sounds like.)
Today was the first meeting of "The Harry Potter Club".* A lot of people turned up, including a handful of acquaintances I'd grouped under the loose category of, "I don't know you all that well but you seem like a nice person", who were suddenly expressing interest in the same thing I was. A raucous, if nerdy, time was had by all. AVPM was quoted. The HPA and Pottermore were discussed verbally instead of through keystrokes. Hufflepuff was lamented, jokingly.
As it turns out, there are people who like things I associate with the faceless hive of *the internet* who happen to be flesh-and-blood humans I go to school with. Today, for some reason, this struck me as strange. Call it the first rule of Fight Club/Tumblr/what-have-you, but *the internet* and *real life*, have, so far as I've been a part of them both, been separate circles. Especially considering I've never been to VidCon or anything that blatantly converges the two. Sure, there's Facebook for that, but some strange, pleasant coincidence lies in finding out that the majority of our collective appreciation of a series of books has led to the same things online, and that everyone in attendance has such a level of devotion to said books (and a level of internet-savvy...) to seek these things out. I don't really know, there's just something genuine about internet-fandom that I enjoyed seeing overlap into *real life*.
I've seen this genuineness turn sour a bit--and call me an elitist if you think I deserve it--via a few people who just seem to be trying too hard to integrate internet references into everyday conversation. Eg: "Me gusta."-- pronounced "mee gusta". (*Slight rant* This doesn't even have anything to do with the meme reference, if you had a basic grasp of the Spanish language you'd know the e is short.) And use of "You are such a n00b." as an insult. Maybe there's irony in these types of things that I'm not exactly getting, but it falls flat as a means of communication outside of *the internet*, and it wasn't even that clever on *the internet* to begin with.
* "That's just to not confuse the freshman, we're calling it Dumbledore's Army."
Today was the first meeting of "The Harry Potter Club".* A lot of people turned up, including a handful of acquaintances I'd grouped under the loose category of, "I don't know you all that well but you seem like a nice person", who were suddenly expressing interest in the same thing I was. A raucous, if nerdy, time was had by all. AVPM was quoted. The HPA and Pottermore were discussed verbally instead of through keystrokes. Hufflepuff was lamented, jokingly.
As it turns out, there are people who like things I associate with the faceless hive of *the internet* who happen to be flesh-and-blood humans I go to school with. Today, for some reason, this struck me as strange. Call it the first rule of Fight Club/Tumblr/what-have-you, but *the internet* and *real life*, have, so far as I've been a part of them both, been separate circles. Especially considering I've never been to VidCon or anything that blatantly converges the two. Sure, there's Facebook for that, but some strange, pleasant coincidence lies in finding out that the majority of our collective appreciation of a series of books has led to the same things online, and that everyone in attendance has such a level of devotion to said books (and a level of internet-savvy...) to seek these things out. I don't really know, there's just something genuine about internet-fandom that I enjoyed seeing overlap into *real life*.
I've seen this genuineness turn sour a bit--and call me an elitist if you think I deserve it--via a few people who just seem to be trying too hard to integrate internet references into everyday conversation. Eg: "Me gusta."-- pronounced "mee gusta". (*Slight rant* This doesn't even have anything to do with the meme reference, if you had a basic grasp of the Spanish language you'd know the e is short.) And use of "You are such a n00b." as an insult. Maybe there's irony in these types of things that I'm not exactly getting, but it falls flat as a means of communication outside of *the internet*, and it wasn't even that clever on *the internet* to begin with.
* "That's just to not confuse the freshman, we're calling it Dumbledore's Army."
Sunday, October 23, 2011
books that make you angry
I'm almost certain I'm not alone in sometimes getting frustrated with a book. Either the main character is too whiny or the author keeps hinting at something but never actually gives you the information. If you read a variety of books, I'm going to assume you've felt this way before.
I started reading As Simple As Snow a couple weeks ago. I was enjoying it, too. I saw a few parallels between this book and Looking for Alaska* which was interesting. Then I stopped reading for a couple days, got sick and started a three day volunteering gig that took up a lot of time and energy. Not a lot of reading time. Today, I stayed in bed and decided to finish it. Which I did.
I suppose there's an important part of this story I should add. It's a mystery, of sorts, about a girl who disappears, leaving a dress laid out next to a hole in a frozen river. Here's a review from the beginning of the book:
Immediately, the ending coloured my entire experience of the book. I don't feel like I can look at it objectively anymore. And it's not that I can't tolerate a couple loose ends when I read a book--I can. I was just left totally alone, wondering what happened and feeling stupid for not being able to figure it out. It seems like this book is one of those ones that makes more sense the second time you read it but I doubt I could bring myself to go back and start again. Then again, maybe that was the point. Maybe I was supposed to be angry and there's a subtle honesty to it because we don't always figure things out in reality. Sometimes we just have to keep moving on, not knowing if the teacher murdered her or if she was sleeping with that main footballer turned Goth guy or if she ran away or jumped in the river or what.
I'm still mad that Kaye Gibbons lied to me but I'm sure I'll live and the book suffered no damage since I didn't actually throw it at the wall, no matter how much I wanted to.
In other news, I want to go to Vidcon. More immediately though, Maureen Johnson is coming to town and I will be seeing her this Saturday! Needless to say, I'm excited.
*probably because the reason I bought it was because John Green said it was a piece of his inspiration for LFA.
I started reading As Simple As Snow a couple weeks ago. I was enjoying it, too. I saw a few parallels between this book and Looking for Alaska* which was interesting. Then I stopped reading for a couple days, got sick and started a three day volunteering gig that took up a lot of time and energy. Not a lot of reading time. Today, I stayed in bed and decided to finish it. Which I did.
I suppose there's an important part of this story I should add. It's a mystery, of sorts, about a girl who disappears, leaving a dress laid out next to a hole in a frozen river. Here's a review from the beginning of the book:
"As Simple As Snow is one of the best books I've read in a long, long time. Galloway draws you into another world, and you'll be wholly involved from the opening line, with its blunt force. He awakens all our curiosities and then satisfies them, so that the only question left unanswered is how long it'll be until he gives us something else to read." -Kaye Gibbons, author of Divining WomenMy problem with the end of this book, it would follow, is that it proved that last sentence to be complete and utter bullshit.
Immediately, the ending coloured my entire experience of the book. I don't feel like I can look at it objectively anymore. And it's not that I can't tolerate a couple loose ends when I read a book--I can. I was just left totally alone, wondering what happened and feeling stupid for not being able to figure it out. It seems like this book is one of those ones that makes more sense the second time you read it but I doubt I could bring myself to go back and start again. Then again, maybe that was the point. Maybe I was supposed to be angry and there's a subtle honesty to it because we don't always figure things out in reality. Sometimes we just have to keep moving on, not knowing if the teacher murdered her or if she was sleeping with that main footballer turned Goth guy or if she ran away or jumped in the river or what.
I'm still mad that Kaye Gibbons lied to me but I'm sure I'll live and the book suffered no damage since I didn't actually throw it at the wall, no matter how much I wanted to.
In other news, I want to go to Vidcon. More immediately though, Maureen Johnson is coming to town and I will be seeing her this Saturday! Needless to say, I'm excited.
*probably because the reason I bought it was because John Green said it was a piece of his inspiration for LFA.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Evolutionarily, I'd be dead.
I've been thinking about evolution. I don't really know why, but thinking about it has made me realize, we should all pretty much be dead. (Er, not so much "dead" as "nonexistent", but for the sake of drama let's just keep it worded that way.)
Or we would be, if we were all still breeding for physical fitness exclusively. Eg: I am nearsighted, this gene must have started somewhere--prehistorically--and yet I exist as a nearsighted person. One of my ancestors may not have had the visual prowess to keenly spot all the hungry animals lurking about in those days, but compensated for it, somehow, and ended up not dying long enough to pass on their impairment.
Sheer luck could be a factor here, but that such slight genetic imperfections are relatively common in our species points to the fact that somewhere along the line, we started breeding for intelligence, too; possibly more so than mammoth-outrunning-abilities. Good move, species.
I don't even know if I'm making an interesting point or a modicum of sense. But, speaking on a literally fucking huge scale, it's comforting to know that we've progressed a whole hell of a lot, that we're a complex species capable of doing all this awesome shit. *arms spread out in an all-encompassing gesture*
So, so what if my hypothetical ideal mate hypothetically wouldn't produce offspring with me who would have enough excess fat and muscle tissue on them to survive the next famine? Generally speaking, this is not a thing that I should be concerned with, and I'm relatively secure in my attraction to males who happen to be pallid and visually impaired, not from any particular survival standpoint, but because I am a judge of personality and character. Most people are. Coming from primates, this is a kind of cool thing, to say the least.
I don't know where I'm going with this, honestly, and I don't know how to reach any sort of logical or entertaining conclusion, so I'm just going to end this post here. Auf wiedersehen!
Or we would be, if we were all still breeding for physical fitness exclusively. Eg: I am nearsighted, this gene must have started somewhere--prehistorically--and yet I exist as a nearsighted person. One of my ancestors may not have had the visual prowess to keenly spot all the hungry animals lurking about in those days, but compensated for it, somehow, and ended up not dying long enough to pass on their impairment.
Sheer luck could be a factor here, but that such slight genetic imperfections are relatively common in our species points to the fact that somewhere along the line, we started breeding for intelligence, too; possibly more so than mammoth-outrunning-abilities. Good move, species.
I don't even know if I'm making an interesting point or a modicum of sense. But, speaking on a literally fucking huge scale, it's comforting to know that we've progressed a whole hell of a lot, that we're a complex species capable of doing all this awesome shit. *arms spread out in an all-encompassing gesture*
So, so what if my hypothetical ideal mate hypothetically wouldn't produce offspring with me who would have enough excess fat and muscle tissue on them to survive the next famine? Generally speaking, this is not a thing that I should be concerned with, and I'm relatively secure in my attraction to males who happen to be pallid and visually impaired, not from any particular survival standpoint, but because I am a judge of personality and character. Most people are. Coming from primates, this is a kind of cool thing, to say the least.
I don't know where I'm going with this, honestly, and I don't know how to reach any sort of logical or entertaining conclusion, so I'm just going to end this post here. Auf wiedersehen!
Friday, October 21, 2011
"Lola and the Boy Next Door" Review
DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK SPOILERS SPOILERS OKAY
Despite the unhappy tears I shed inside whenever I look at the title and cover of Stephenie Perkins' two books -- they do such a disservice to the stories inside; I never in a million years would have picked up Anna and the French Kiss had it not been recommended to me by John Green (well, not personally) and a million other people (I suppose thus negating the million years) -- she really does know how to write a good romance story.
Lola and the Boy Next Door was cute, it was funny, and it does nothing to give real-life boys a boost, if you know what I'm saying. It definitely convinced me that I should continue to make an exception for "chick lit" when it comes to Stephanie Perkins.*
However, what kind of reviewer would I be if I didn't skip over the good parts and go straight to the critiques? (Oh, a normal one, you say? Shut up.)
Problems:
- The conflict. The reason why she was initially so wary of Cricket seemed way overblown. I get the feeling that this could conceivably cause a huge rift in the friendship of a teenager, and I'm sure if I were in that situation I would feel the same way, but when you're reading about it, you're just like, really? That's why his house causes you painful palpitations of the heart? Maybe it's just because I'm not one for believing in "ONE TRUE LOVE," but man, it would have been nice if there had been, you know, an actual interesting reason for their estrangement. It wasn't too big a deal as the book progressed, but it was sort of off-putting in the beginning part. Points for not dragging out the "mystery" of their estrangement for too long, though.
- Max. It was a little hard to put up with Lola fawning over him since you knew they were obviously going to break up -- I think their relationship went on for too long. It seemed to serve as one of the main tensions in the story, but I feel that a lot of time was wasted with him when it could have been spent better developing the Lola/Cricket relationship, which seemed a tad bit superficial, to be honest. Also, like, Max is a jerk (though I guess that was pretty clearly emphasized in the book)... The age difference started feeling weirder towards the end. Yuck.
- Repetitive plot. I suppose this is why I normally avoid fluffy romance literature. You could totally see where this book was going... and I guess it's the sort of book that you read more for the content than the ending, since it's predictable and easygoing, but I still would like to have had something with a bit more oomph, something a bit less of the "quirky, unpopularish main girl gets the dreamboat" plot to every teenager romcom ever.
- Andy, Nathan, & Norah. I don't have gay parents, so I can't speak from experience on this one, so don't take this as an absolute truth (as if you would anyway, right?). The gay parents thing was fine, but I felt like having Norah there kind of undermined them. Now, the book is not focused on the gay parents, but I assume that at least part of what Perkins was going for was the assimilation of LGBT characters into normal contexts, which is cool, but I think having Norah there sort of made it seem like you do need a mom after all. It's just that Norah ended up becoming closer to them, and mentioning how she couldn't take credit for Lola, and how Norah sometimes slightly corrected Andy and Nathan's parenting styles. It's not that these aren't legitimate actions for the character, and maybe these are things that happen to some gay parents in real life; it just felt a little weird to include Norah doing them, as if the actual parents couldn't totally handle Lola on their own. I know that wasn't the intention and I don't think it was a huge deal, but I could have done without her.
- The too-perfect boy. Cricket is great, sure, and I liked him, but I felt he wasn't super developed, other than being ~the nice perfect boy.~ Even that was okay; it was mostly just that he never got mad at Lola, really, or anything. Like, fine, that's cool, but maybe it's my rejection of the one true love thing, but it just felt a little too fantasy-world-romance for me.
- Lola's costumes. I just couldn't get over them. I'm sorry. She was a likeable enough character, but I couldn't help but cry a little whenever she donned a wig. Crazy outfits I can deal with, but wigs just don't do it for me. Superficial, I know. And sort of important to the character... still. However, I did appreciate how she didn't stop it with her outfits at the end to show character growth.
Despite these flaws, I sped through the book faster than AATFK, even though I like the first book a lot more. Don't get me wrong, it was still an enjoyable read, and there's certainly nothing wrong with allowing yourself to escape into the semi-plausible fluffy romantic world of a girl your age. I did snort from laughter quite a few times; it's definitely entertaining. However, it lacked the depth that AATFK had -- not that either was a difficult read, but I felt an ability to relate to Anna, to feel that her hemming-and-hawing with St Clair was plausibly understandable and still good. Although in both it was obvious that they were going to get together, I feel that in AATFK, it was altogether more realistic, and thus overall better. I don't mean to compare the books so much, but since they're fairly similar in style, I definitely feel that AATFK was executed a lot more successfully. Still, if you liked AATFK, I certainly recommend Lola and the Boy Next Door as well!
*a) Obligatory "'Chick lit' is a stupid term" reminder. Probably I should just come up with another way to describe such books.
b) I say that as if I have actual rules as to what I read. I don't -- excluding my vow to myself that I will never read Nicholas Sparks for any reason other than so that I can validly criticize his books.
Despite the unhappy tears I shed inside whenever I look at the title and cover of Stephenie Perkins' two books -- they do such a disservice to the stories inside; I never in a million years would have picked up Anna and the French Kiss had it not been recommended to me by John Green (well, not personally) and a million other people (I suppose thus negating the million years) -- she really does know how to write a good romance story.
Lola and the Boy Next Door was cute, it was funny, and it does nothing to give real-life boys a boost, if you know what I'm saying. It definitely convinced me that I should continue to make an exception for "chick lit" when it comes to Stephanie Perkins.*
However, what kind of reviewer would I be if I didn't skip over the good parts and go straight to the critiques? (Oh, a normal one, you say? Shut up.)
Problems:
- The conflict. The reason why she was initially so wary of Cricket seemed way overblown. I get the feeling that this could conceivably cause a huge rift in the friendship of a teenager, and I'm sure if I were in that situation I would feel the same way, but when you're reading about it, you're just like, really? That's why his house causes you painful palpitations of the heart? Maybe it's just because I'm not one for believing in "ONE TRUE LOVE," but man, it would have been nice if there had been, you know, an actual interesting reason for their estrangement. It wasn't too big a deal as the book progressed, but it was sort of off-putting in the beginning part. Points for not dragging out the "mystery" of their estrangement for too long, though.
- Max. It was a little hard to put up with Lola fawning over him since you knew they were obviously going to break up -- I think their relationship went on for too long. It seemed to serve as one of the main tensions in the story, but I feel that a lot of time was wasted with him when it could have been spent better developing the Lola/Cricket relationship, which seemed a tad bit superficial, to be honest. Also, like, Max is a jerk (though I guess that was pretty clearly emphasized in the book)... The age difference started feeling weirder towards the end. Yuck.
- Repetitive plot. I suppose this is why I normally avoid fluffy romance literature. You could totally see where this book was going... and I guess it's the sort of book that you read more for the content than the ending, since it's predictable and easygoing, but I still would like to have had something with a bit more oomph, something a bit less of the "quirky, unpopularish main girl gets the dreamboat" plot to every teenager romcom ever.
- Andy, Nathan, & Norah. I don't have gay parents, so I can't speak from experience on this one, so don't take this as an absolute truth (as if you would anyway, right?). The gay parents thing was fine, but I felt like having Norah there kind of undermined them. Now, the book is not focused on the gay parents, but I assume that at least part of what Perkins was going for was the assimilation of LGBT characters into normal contexts, which is cool, but I think having Norah there sort of made it seem like you do need a mom after all. It's just that Norah ended up becoming closer to them, and mentioning how she couldn't take credit for Lola, and how Norah sometimes slightly corrected Andy and Nathan's parenting styles. It's not that these aren't legitimate actions for the character, and maybe these are things that happen to some gay parents in real life; it just felt a little weird to include Norah doing them, as if the actual parents couldn't totally handle Lola on their own. I know that wasn't the intention and I don't think it was a huge deal, but I could have done without her.
- The too-perfect boy. Cricket is great, sure, and I liked him, but I felt he wasn't super developed, other than being ~the nice perfect boy.~ Even that was okay; it was mostly just that he never got mad at Lola, really, or anything. Like, fine, that's cool, but maybe it's my rejection of the one true love thing, but it just felt a little too fantasy-world-romance for me.
- Lola's costumes. I just couldn't get over them. I'm sorry. She was a likeable enough character, but I couldn't help but cry a little whenever she donned a wig. Crazy outfits I can deal with, but wigs just don't do it for me. Superficial, I know. And sort of important to the character... still. However, I did appreciate how she didn't stop it with her outfits at the end to show character growth.
Despite these flaws, I sped through the book faster than AATFK, even though I like the first book a lot more. Don't get me wrong, it was still an enjoyable read, and there's certainly nothing wrong with allowing yourself to escape into the semi-plausible fluffy romantic world of a girl your age. I did snort from laughter quite a few times; it's definitely entertaining. However, it lacked the depth that AATFK had -- not that either was a difficult read, but I felt an ability to relate to Anna, to feel that her hemming-and-hawing with St Clair was plausibly understandable and still good. Although in both it was obvious that they were going to get together, I feel that in AATFK, it was altogether more realistic, and thus overall better. I don't mean to compare the books so much, but since they're fairly similar in style, I definitely feel that AATFK was executed a lot more successfully. Still, if you liked AATFK, I certainly recommend Lola and the Boy Next Door as well!
*a) Obligatory "'Chick lit' is a stupid term" reminder. Probably I should just come up with another way to describe such books.
b) I say that as if I have actual rules as to what I read. I don't -- excluding my vow to myself that I will never read Nicholas Sparks for any reason other than so that I can validly criticize his books.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
I don't even know
I have to work tomorrow. Oh, Mondays...
Today was good. I watched Doctor Who and washed dishes and made spontaneous pie from my leftover pie crust dough. And I tumbled, of course.
Can this blog just be a tribute to Doctor Who, tumblr and pie? Let's be serious, what else does one need in one's life? Lazy Sundays for the win.
I'm not sure what it is about Doctor Who. I can't nail down a prescribed number of bullet points as to why I enjoy it so. I'm not really into aliens. I can get into time travel as much as the next person but it's not the most thrilling concept I think about. But I like the show. I like David Tennant and Billie Piper and their chemistry. I like the British-ness of it, the quirky humour and excellent accents.
I don't know. It's nice to fall in love with something new.
Today was good. I watched Doctor Who and washed dishes and made spontaneous pie from my leftover pie crust dough. And I tumbled, of course.
Can this blog just be a tribute to Doctor Who, tumblr and pie? Let's be serious, what else does one need in one's life? Lazy Sundays for the win.
I'm not sure what it is about Doctor Who. I can't nail down a prescribed number of bullet points as to why I enjoy it so. I'm not really into aliens. I can get into time travel as much as the next person but it's not the most thrilling concept I think about. But I like the show. I like David Tennant and Billie Piper and their chemistry. I like the British-ness of it, the quirky humour and excellent accents.
I don't know. It's nice to fall in love with something new.
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