Sunday summary: Life. No, really.
This semester has been absolutely insane for me. I’ve taken two of the hardest and most time-consuming classes in my major, been plowing through the minor I picked up just last semester and had to take an upper-level Poli Sci class to fulfill a random requirement. I have been stressed to the point of tears and nausea, but it’s finally ending. Tuesday is my last day for classes and next Monday I move back home for the summer!
Over the last three months I’ve learned a few things about myself. Mostly they involve the level of work and stress I am able to tolerate. But I did learn that I am not alone in those thoughts. There are plenty other of my classmates that suffered alongside me in silence and recently voiced their own troubles they’d been slogging through. I no longer feel so much like a complete failure that I can’t handle four little classes… sheesh.
I also have been missing my friend Mike insanely. I think about him nearly every day but haven’t had much time at all to write. I mean, I could be writing now. But I’m not. That’s going to be goal one once I am home for good.
Goal two is to start my internship! I am going to be interning in the marketing department of the North Carolina Museum of Art, which is, of course, my home away from home. I am so beyond excited that I got the job. I predict most of my blogs will be about work. Hooray!
Goal three is going to be reading and writing. I’m only two or so chapters away from the end of The Two Towers, next up is, naturally, The Return of the King. I might tackle The Silmarillion after that. I’ve been stealing my dad’s books and reading them while I’ve been home on break, but that is acceptable because he has chewed through about half of my Discworld books. Ah, the father-daughter geekery. It is too precious. I am also vowing to keep up with the blog better and to, maybe, make some headway on the various story or novel ideas I have had in the last years.
Goal four is to improve my photography skills and take more pictures. Seems simple.
Goal five is to relax a little. And go to the beach.
What do you think? What are your goals for the summer, if you have a summer? I realize this is likely the last summer I will spend relatively carefree, so I plan on milking it. Comments are appreciated!
Friday fine arts: Google’s Art Project is awesome. Period.
Pictured: Ye Olde Tapestry
I have become obsessed with this new tool since it first came out. I’ve been to MoMA, the Palace of Versailles, The Freer Gallery of Art and Alte Nationalgalerie in a matter of days. I’ve practically stared up Marie Antoinette’s nostrils. I’ve zoomed in and out of Starry Night. I just now, writing this post, went to the Met and looked at Ye Olde tapestries.
Many of you know that I am also reasonably obsessed with museums in general and art museums in particular, so this is everything I’ve ever wanted forever, basically. So perdy.
Of course they don’t have the NCMA yet, because I don’t think it’s famous enough (it should be) yet. I’m going to go back and visit the weekend of the 26, because I love it that much. And for a project. But mostly because I love it.
I was fortunate to see the Norman Rockwell, John James Audubon and Eric Carle exhibits that just recently closed. It was quite fun… went with the whole family (and Boyfriend) and moseyed along. My favorite Rockwell peice is definitely “The Winner.” I may or may not relate to it. Hm.
Also speaking of family, I’m getting a tiny baby cousin this weekend. Baby Batman is going to be born in Korea tomorrow or soon after. Yay!
I love to ramble. Yikes.
Thursday thoughts: Well, it has been forever. And Winnie the Pooh.
I have been told aproximately 80 bazillion times in the last few days that I need to update my blog more. Well here we go.
I spend a lot of my free time thinking about nothing in particular. About my friends, my boyfriend, what I’m going to wear tomorrow, the meaning of life, whether I’ll get brain cancer from my phone… you know. The usual.
Since I have a crazy and hectic schedule this semester, I’ve been retreating more and more into the land of daydreaming, sort of skating through my free time in a haze of staring at the ceiling and thinking about what I’m going to name my future cat and if my kid (unborn, unthought of at this point) wants to join the military. What will I do?
Best friends!
To answer those questions, I will probably name my cat Sal – Sally if a girl, Salvador if a boy. If my kid wants to join the Army, I’ll be hesitant but okay, because someone has to do it even if it goes against my personal pacifistic nature.
What does this have to do with Winnie the Pooh? (Did you read the title of this post?) Nothing really. I was just thinking about Winnie a few moments ago. I read the original Winnie the Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner books as a child and loved them.
Have I mentioned that I’m also basically a kid at heart? The only difference is now, instead of watching Sesame Street religiously after school, I follow them on Twitter.
Anyway, Winnie the Pooh has a lot of good life advice. Let things be. Eat honey (or hunny). Even Heffalumps and Woozles can be your friend. Tiggers are bouncy. There’s always someone wiser than you, but you have your own wisdom.
When my grandfather died a few years ago, I rifled through his extensive book collection and found the lovely and succinct The Tao of Pooh. It’s very informative both on the subject of Taoism and Winnie-the-Poohism. Who, is, by the way, a master of the Tao. Who knew?
That was ranty and rambly, but hey. It’s a post. Are you happy now?
Thursday thoughts: You’ve got to stand (stand up, stand up!) for what you believe in.
Religious affiliations aside, the Veggie Tales’ song “Stand” is something I am realizing just now really changed my life.
I mean, I am a Christian, but if you’re not, or not religious then the lyrics are still something to ponder over. How many of us can really say they can stand up for their beliefs?
I entered my first year of college with the plan of really being myself. To really break the mold you’re going to have to stand up for yourself regardless of what it is you believe. I’ve found that you can become really unpopular quite fast this way, but honestly, why does it matter? If you’re a strong enough person to have convictions, you are a strong enough person to withstand friendship meltdowns, questioning busybodies and even your own doubts.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s tough, but it’s worth it.
You find out your true friends and your true beliefs and you can make a better case for yourself. You also end up being more optimistic in a strange sense – nothing can hurt me now, I’ve decided it, so life is so much better. I can enjoy it more.
This is a short post because I’m tired. But, three blogging days in a row is good for me!
Wednesday words: ‘True Love Will Find You in the End’
Don’t kill me, Daniel Johnson fans, I first heard this from the latest Mates of State release, “Crushes.” I am a huge MOS fan and have been for years, so please forgive me if they are the ones I know the song from. Actually, I don’t want your forgiveness. I am proud of my MOS fandom. I also love covers, so here we go.
The song is, as you have read above, “True Love Will Find You in the End.” I find the message particularly uplifting, even if perhaps the original song wasn’t so much. The MOS cover, though, is peppy and hand-clappy and really makes one believe that yes, true love is searching too.
I’m treating this song like a poem, so I can fit it into the Wednesday words slot. Feel free to look up the music video; I won’t be posting it because I just like to read the words:
True love will find you in the end
You’ll find out just who was your friend
Don’t be sad, I know you will,
But don’t give up until
True love finds you in the end.This is a promise with a catch
Only if you’re looking will it find you
‘Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
Unless you step out into the light?
Don’t be sad, I know you will,
But don’t give up until
True love finds you in the end.
I like to put the title slash chorus as a status on Facebook, Gmail, Twitter… etc. because I feel like it will uplift people. I got confirmation of this the other day when I was talking to my friend Ashley, an alumna of my school whom I miss every day of my life. She said, in a nutshell, that it was making her feel better!
This is the absolute best summation of our relationship I could possibly think of.
Well of course! I am a firm believer in true love, to hell with naysayers and cynics (though I can be quite cynical about other things). For example, I have a shocking number of friends that break the old “high school relationships never last” rule, including myself. It’s been nearly three-and-a-half years together with my boyfriend… not to toot my own horn or anything.
But I really do believe that true love is out there, waiting for you. But you have to search, as the song says. If you bemoan your life and do nothing to change it anyway, it annoys me. But doubly so when you (whoever you are, I am talking to you) shy away from people and then complain about not having anyone to snuggle with.
That’s kind of a mean rant. Whatever. Enjoy the words – let them infiltrate your subconcious. And next time you’re feeling down, hey… remember that true love will find you. In the end.
I recently played with the original Barnes & Noble Nook and hated every minute of it. Literally. It was awful. The screen was hideous and transitions made me feel like I was having a seizure. The navigation touch screen wasn’t intuitive and was awkwardly in color while the page was in atrocious low-res black and white. I then saw a commercial for the new Nook Color, which looks much better display wise, but still… eh. The bottom touchscreen navigation thingy just doesn’t do it for me. Correction – I loathe it. Words are not strong enough.
I know there are Sony readers, but I haven’t gotten around to trying them out. So, I’m stuck with the grandaddy of them all, the Amazon Kindle.
I realized the other day that I could never be a hand model because I have so many scars, freckles and crooked / broken fingers. Pity.
(I do realize the iPad can be used as an e-reader, but in that case I can just use my iPhone and get over the small screen problem. But, if I had an iPad… I actually don’t know what I would do with one. I have no need right now.)
The Kindle has been so successful, I believe, because it did everything right from the get-go and continues to improve. That said, I’m not sold on the idea of an e-reader at all.
If I were to get one, it would be a Kindle, but I’m still unsure. This article is much more on the pro side, but the cons are the ones I have. I love my hardcover books, anyway. I love the heft and weight and the smell… oh the smell! And I love raiding people’s bookshelves and maybe sneaking off with a book they won’t miss… will they?
Also, I tend to read obscure books. I’m unsure whether the Kindle will have problems finding them, but it’s worth the hunt to me, to find my odd book of the moment.
Anyway, I want to open up the discussion. What is your opinion? Comment and I’ll weigh the options.
Hello world. I’m back. This blogging thing is hard on top of all of my other responsibilities (including school)… but I swear one day I’ll get the hang of it.
In lieu of completely re-doing my blog, and therefore making it EVEN HARDER to keep up with, I’m going to keep sporadically updating with the theme of the day until I finally get the hang of it (read: have time) and update regularly with the theme of the day.
For those of you who have read the about section, today is Monday music and today’s band is my absolute unhealthy obsession, Lost in the Trees.
They’re from my neighboring town of Durham (slash Chapel Hill), for which I forgive them. No band that I really like comes from my hometown of Raleigh (yes, I am from the actual city of Raleigh, not Garner or something dumb like that) but it seems that Chapel Hill and Durham have some to spare. Come on guys, can we make Raleigh a music scene yet?
Note the lack of being the same place. Garner /= Raleigh. Knightdale /= Raleigh. Millbrook isn't a real place anymore. Only Raleigh == Raleigh. Don't say you're from my town when you're really from the podunk middle of nowhere. </rant>
But anyway, I first found out about LITT about a year ago, when I was DJing the school radio station. I randomly decided to play a song (I think it was “For Leah and Chloe” for a theme of songs about names) and fell in love. Really, it was like getting butterflies upon seeing someone really attractive that you’ll never ever have a chance with but still talking to them anyway and walking away blushing and then you find out they like you too and then they sing you really hauntingly beautiful songs. That has never happened in my real-life relationship, but I don’t expect it to. I digress.
From that paragraph, you may have gathered that I like them a lot. The CD “All Alone in an Empty House” is infinitely listenable all the way through, I rarely skip a track. Sometimes I skip the eponymous track because it slightly creeps me out, but that’s the point. I’ve also found that if I listen to that song whilst driving at night, I tend to speed all the way home.
My favorites are “All Alone in an Empty House,” “Walk Around the Lake,” “Song for the Painter,” “Fireplace” and “Love on my Side.“
I got to see them live (FOR FREEEEEEE!) a couple of weeks ago, and I’m sure I annoyed all of the members by muscling my way up front and singing (as quietly as I could muster, but still singing) along to every song. I must make mention that LITT have two other CDs out that sound little like “AAIAEH” (abbr. FTW) called “Time Taunts Me” and “Lost in the Trees.” My boyfriend has the “LITT” CD, which I haven’t gotten around to listen to yet… I’ve heard it’s punkier and way less folksy, but considering what I have listened to since middle school (that link is to pop-punk band the Bouncing Souls, for those who hate to click links) I think I can tolerate it.
LITT features a tuba player, a french horn, some xylophones / vibraphones / marimbas / a three-piece strings group, a drummer, and guitar… among other things, being whatever people feel like playing (it seems). I do so love parentheticals.
Just gaze upon the wonder.
They have a show (please don’t go- I want to be in the front again. Kidding. Go and support local bands.) at 8:00 p.m. at Motorco in Durham. They have two opening acts, Butterflies and Veelee, whom I have never heard, but LOST IN THE TREES will be there. Maybe they’ll recognize me – I talked to the lead singer Ari after the free show and I think I freaked him out with my drooling fangirlishness. So actually, we might be able to start fresh. I will try to contain myself.
I can’t help it… I’m in love.
UPDATE 9:16 p.m.: I will probably do a post about him sooner or later, but Nathan Oliver is currently blowing up my speakers… and my heart. Enjoy.
Oh geez, where to begin?
Well, obviously I’ve been AWOL for basically the entire summer. Whoops. Now that it’s six months after I started this blog, I figured I’d update it. I’m sticking with the old model, but with a little bit of tweakage. Today is the first Thursday thoughts section. Get excited.
So what I’ve been thinking lately is that I miss reading for pleasure. I didn’t have a lot of time to do it last year, but I at least had the option. This year, to save space in my dorm, I forwent (that is a word, haters don’t hate) bringing my bookshelf in order to save space. Big mistake.
My reading method is this- I pick up a book and read it. Pretty self explanatory. However, if the material isn’t super-engaging, I’ll start a new book to switch on and off from. Being as I only brought five books to school this year, I’m hitting a brick wall with Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. Now that his autobiography is finally out, though, perhaps I can switch off.
The thing about Twain is that I can’t help but imagine his voice in the slow, soft, Southern twang that I have grown to love and enjoy, being from the South myself. Granted, I have no idea how Twain sounded in real life, but I keep imagining him as a kind and wrinkly old grandpappy.
So his drawl puts me right to sleep. I’ll manage a chapter or two about his trips up and down and up and down (it doesn’t help that I’m visualizing a gently oozing Mississippi River either) the river and then pass out.
One day I will finish the darn book, and then I’ll tell you all about it.
Uhh… whoops.
I forgot to update yesterday. That’s what you get for staying up needlessly until 1:30 a.m. I’ll post later and combine my thoughts and fine arts. See you then!
I love reading so very much. I can’t emphasize that enough, though when on the Internet I can italicize things or even bold them for emphasis.
For our inaugural Wednesday words, I’m going to transcribe some excerpts from the novel Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake. Some background knowledge:
The Gormenghast Cycle (as the Titus books are known) has been called both the only real example of modern Gothic romantic literature and the precursor to what has become the steampunk genre.
Like this, but with more character- and mood-driven action, scheming, conniving and black humor.
The character Fuchsia inspired the Cure. There are also like a billion bands that have referenced or been named for some character in Gormenghast.
The back cover of the omnibus copy I have (gifted to me for Christmas by my wonderful boyfriend, who was willing to shell out over 30 bucks for the whole thing) claims that “…Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe,” according to Robertson Davies, and the Washington Post compares Peake to Tolkien… but finer.
This is Peake's sketch of Fuchsia and Steerpike, along with an excerpt that I believe will be a part of my Wednesday words next week. Keep a look out! (It's my favorite passage!)
I’ve never read Tolkien, but when I finish all 1160-plus pages, maybe I can take a crack at Lord of the Rings and following books.
Anyway, here is an excerpt. It’s a poem, which I typically don’t like, but I like this one because of its sheer pointlessness. I love pointless and silly things. This will probably be the first of many Wednesday words featuring Titus Groan or some other Gormenghast novel, because of the sheer length of this volume! Here we go:
The Frivolous Cake
By Mervyn Peake
Published in Titus Groan, 1946
A freckled and frivolous cake there was
That sailed on a pointless sea
Or any lugubrious lake there was
In a manner emphatic and free
How jointlessly, and how jointlessly
The frivolous cake sailed by
On the waves of the ocean that pointlessly
Threw fish to the lilac sky.
Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare,
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.
Up the smooth billows and over the crests
Of the cumbersome combers flew
The frivolous cake with a knife in the wake
Of herself and her curranty crew
Like a swordfish grim it would bounce and skim
(This dinner knife fierce and blue),
And the frivolous cake was filled to the brim
With the fun of her curranty crew.
Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare-
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.
Around the shores of the Elegant Isles
Where the cat-fish bask and purr
And lick their paws with adhesive smiles
And wriggle their fins of fur,
They fly and fly ‘neath the lilac sky-
The frivolous cake, and the knife
Who winketh his glamorous indigo eye
In the wake of his future wife.
The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea
To the beat of a cakey heart
And the sensitive steel of the knife can feel
That love is a race apart.
In the speed of the lingering light are blown
The crumbs to the hake above,
And the tropical air vibrates to the drone
Of a cake in the throes of love.
