Keeping Busy

I may have overextended myself joining reading groups, RSVP-ing for lectures, and signing up to attend meet ups.  Oh, and agreeing to go on dates >.< this may keep me a bit too busy.  Good grief.

Ladybug

I do not write my own story. I'm not in a place where one of us is able to empower another person; subalternity has until now been our lived condition.  I could never speak for María, rather she speaks through me.  I am merely her fingers, her forefinger and her thumb.

My body will move across these pages, bleeding out her words.

"Don't start at the beginning," she wills, "never tell them about the beginning."

Like all good stories, we begin at the end, and work around in the spiral that is the true process of conscious thought.  Meandering around the one point and making it back, the start will slip in via context.  But how we got here does not matter.

In the end, Ted lies bleeding on our perfect rug, and we know we will be found.

Pens

Why do I keep the pens I hate? Anyway, I, going to write some more creative stuff for a bit. There must be little interesting in my life if all I can think to write about are pens.  I woke up, went to school, read, worked out. Watched tv. Boo.

TV Escapism

Catching up with TV really fills empty time.  It seems like most shows that are well-received are actually worth it.  Catching up on Sherlock and Dexter has been pleasant, and there are always more. Like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, the Wire.

As long as it isn't addictive, the TV is a nice distraction.

Reading

It's a bit sad to see how fast you can read if you must. But it isn't as fun to do.  So fast and it goes.  Anyway, it's good to have he new knowledge but it is not complete in this manner.

But, even so, reading for work goes even faster and more is kept.

How does it work this way?

Neck Ache

I didn't really get much done today-- not even homework.  Just trying to finish Warm Bodies in time for bookclub and some lovely Skype-chatting with L.  In any case, it will be an early night and a late morning.  It is that sort of atmosphere.

I will need to do some more work tomorrow-  I have a few short readings and a book I need to get read this weekend.  But reading goes a lot more quickly now, and I can work out and read at the same time tomorrow.

Big plans to go to yoga Sunday night.  Good times.

New Year's Resolutions

Maybe resolving to post every day was a silly idea.  Mostly because nothing exciting much is going on.  Went to school, worked out, not much else >.<

Hockey and Sleep

Too tired to be deep today, as just got home from a hockey game in Anaheim. Need to work and go to sleep. Zzz

Disney Movies-- Aladdin- Part One

I feel like most Disney movies have something positive and negative to contribute.  Maybe it isn't so much about what you show your kids, but how you talk about them afterward-- which attributes and characters you praise and which ones you discourage.

Looking at some of the more controversial movies, I find they still have some things to tell, and a lot of them were released when people weren't as aware about racial issues and what negative or stereotypical  characters bring into the world.  Anyway, I'm going to try to think about some of these films this week, mostly because I have nothing else to bloody write about!

Aladdin
Okay, it is racist.  There are a lot of problems, especially with the original version of "Arabian Nights" and the line, "where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face."  Jasmine is dressed in ridiculously slutty garb.  Jafar does look a bit more, shall we say, swarthy.  And yes, the original story, was set in China, as the Hallmark channel movie pokes fun at.

But, starting with this final point, the writer's seem to be paying tribute to Scheherazade and the original 1001 Arabian Nights.  Genie's song, "Friend Like Me," references her further ("Scheherazade had a thousand tales"), and, if they are just using those stories as indicative of Arab culture, they definitely had a violent text to draw from to create this tale.  After all, Scheherazade was telling her stories to literally save her head.  Maybe those stories were presented via European colonizers, maybe they were from the 1700s-based English translation, and from an age when most European countries similarly had violent punishments for stealing (like Aladdin's hand being cut off).  But it was trying to pay tribute to a female storyteller, and an interesting figure who used her wit to save her life.

And while Jasmine is scantily dressed, so too is Aladdin pretty bare-skinned.  Not really a great counterargument, but you do get to objectify equally, if you're into skinny animated characters.

Plus, the movie does present some interesting ideas surrounding socioeconomic class-- particularly with regard to Aladdin's need to steal to survive and then offering his food to the even poorer, orphaned children on the street.  Aladdin explains it clearly, "Gotta steal to eat, gotta eat to live," and the reasons for this poverty are clearly out of his hands ("I'd blame parents except he hasn't got 'em").  All he needs is a fancy outfit, a sweet ride, and an entourage, and he is just the same as a prince.  Plus, Jasmine gets to marry whoever she wants at the end (though by the age of sixteen... also indicative more of the time period?), so everybody learns that royal blood ain't everything.

Anyway, I need to continue this tomorrow-- when it's fancified I'll repost!

Back to Work

The quarter begins again tomorrow.  Too much work to think through anything interesting to post.  Travel is expensive and exhausting!  Back in SD with the kitties.

Things to Look Forward To

Because going back to SD and away from the babies is difficult.

TV!
Doesn't matter if it's a small thing, but I get to watch my shows (esp Jeopardy) and Archer on the 13th -- plus all the others coming off break.

Kitties
Because I miss my fluffy babies

Friends back home

Video games?

Picking up my packages at the mail room
A movie, a game, a tshirt... Not sure what else, but a lot are in

Money
Reimbursed for electric bill and cable

Scary movies
No one will to with me so I can go alone ? But I could do that here.


Boo for vacation ending.

Poems Memorized

Shakespeare
Sonnet 18 ("Shall I Compare Thee...")
Sonnet 29 ("When in Disgrace...)
Sonnet 31 ("Thy Bosom is Endeared...")
Sonnet 116 ("Let Me Not...")

Poe
Annabel Lee
The Raven
Evening Star
Alone

Emily Dickinson
314 ("Hope is a Thing With Feathers...")
"My Life Closed Twice..."
260 ("I'm Nobody, Who Are You?")
Likely another...

Beautiful Dreamer-- who wrote the poem?

A few Redwall poems... Corsairs one-- possibly two?  Another about the Redwall savior?"

"We'll no more go a'roving."- Lord Byron?

Browning- How Do I Love Thee poem..

Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines- Neruda-- English and Spanish

Emily Bronte poem about roses?

Robert Louis Stevenson one about children's ships

Auden funeral poem in Four Weddings and a Funeral

Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning"

Frost- "Nothing Gold Can Stay"
was there another?

Michelle Robert's poem-- Magnificat

"My lover's manner in bed..."




... I really will need to think this through further.  I will update with a real list later, and possibly a real post >.<

Memorizing Poems

Is it good for you?

I think memorization in and of itself is supposed to improve memory.  I'm not sure if it's true, but I used to memorize quite a few, and they don't leave your brain so easily.

Recently, I got the Penguin "Poems by Heart" app and started adding a few to my collection- I still have around thirty stuck in my brain, but now have added Browning's Sonnet 43.

The trouble is trying to remember what I've made myself remember.  I need to make a list but can't do it on my iPad.  Later to go.