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Archive for the ‘ misc. ’ Category

to help in your escape from pattern.

Listening to: Björk — Mouth’s Cradle

AARGH.

And, to top it off, an old photo because my interwebs aren’t working. But before we get to that, the weekend:

School let out for a few days on Thursday, so I went back up to Montréal and killed a significant portion of my brain cells on Sims3 binges. Lots of cold, lots of snow, lots of peanuts (maybe prompted by the book I was reading at the time, Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross). I got my dress for the winter formal (more on that later), a bunch of tights, and a bunch of belts. Also started reading Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol by Tony Scherman and David Dalton, which is a pretty good if not jargon-loaded biography of, you guessed it, Andy Warhol. (Also made me think of The Dandy Warhols, few of whose songs I can play on the radio right now). It kinda makes me want to start silk-screening my own photographs.

Speaking of my photographs, I’m thinking of getting an Etsy or finding somewhere else to sell them online to finance my artistic endeavors, such as film buying. I was discussing this at class today, and my teacher said that his baseline price for student art was $50 dollars, but would any of you actually fork over that much for a photograph? Any price suggestions?

Which brings us back to the original complaint. Today, as the first day back from break, epically sucked. First period I took a math (con)test and, due to my immense skill, answered a grand total of 10 out of the 25 questions. My English class group project, which is putting on a scene from Taming of the Shrew, is going horridly, thank you — the other half of my group decided to sleep through class in a foreshadowing of the rest of the project. And some people are just too… is infuriating the right word? Well, someone’s asshole rating went up today.

Conversely, things seem to go worse when I drink coffee in the morning.

2011: 02/08
CATEGORY: misc.
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this is the hook: it’s catchy, and you like it.

Listening to: The Postal Service — This Place Is A Prison

“Hi, Students: Today is as close as you will get to a “public school” Friday.”

The key word being close. Yes, there was a weekend; but it was far from being particularly restful. No: this weekend was Winter Carnival, more commonly known as Dorm Wars, and indeed we spent the past few days engaged in an epic battle of skill and wits and tacky skits. This year’s theme was music, so each dorm picked up a genre and joined the fight. Our genre was techno, Swedish techno to be exact, and while it may seem a bit obscure it was quite effective. We made t-shirts and figure-skating routines and picked teams for such classy endeavors as the mascot-suit relay race and spent two days at odds with anyone with the misfortune to live in a different residence. Last night, after a going-away party for a member of the dance team who’s leaving for the Peace Corps, we huddled in the common room to call in trivia answers and send unfortunate souls on cross-campus treks to find the number of portraits outside classroom 210. I failed to single-handedly solve the Cosmic Riddle, but so did my arch-rivals, so all was good. Now everyone is dealing with the aftermath of two days of (mostly — barring the usual cattiness of a select few of the girls’ dorms) friendly competition.

It was a photogenic weekend: I took a full 36exposure-roll of film, but they won’t be here for quite a while because the camera store in town is open on neither Sundays nor Mondays. By the time I get these prints back, I will have taken another full roll — this one of Montréal, that lovely city to which I am privileged to return on Thursday. I am not quite sure where January has gone, but I am sleep-deprived and caffeine-withdrawn and almost — almost — sick of the snow which, though up past my knees, continues to fall.

2011: 01/30
CATEGORY: misc.
news.
photography
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interest in colors, I discover myself.

Listening to: Asa — So Beautiful

Early in the morning, especially on Sundays, sunlight streams through my window and makes everything light. I am unable to rearrange my room because I need my head by the light when I sleep; I need to be able to peer out out the window as I work; and I need my window perfectly unobstructed. I hate artificial lighting. As long as there is sunlight it is bright enough to read, to write, to type. But I also hate dusk. I hate when it’s too dark to go on without additional light but still too light out to close the window; I hate when the glass in my window goes from clear to glossy reflective black and the walls of my room go from white to an ugly, florescent-induced yellow.

Tonight I’m sending out the first chapter of my novel. It’s kind of nerve-wracking, especially because I can’t help but think about inevitable rejection. The more I write and edit, the more wrong I find, but I can’t stop editing because what if I miss something then. My social life has, for the most part, withered away over the past week, and every time I try and restart it I feel uncomfortable and go back to my room to lie on my bed, bask in the sunlight, and pretend I live in a different written world.

2011: 01/23
CATEGORY: misc.
news.
writings.
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the new adventures of your favorite mostly-incompetent cat.

Listening to: Santigold — Shove It

This here is an example of anwa + webcam + gimp2 – creativity. Lulz, does anyone remember when filters were cool?

For one, happy MLK Day. Today has been full of awesomely epic winning fail, as paradoxical as that sounds. Every year, for lunch on MLK Day, my school’s dining service attempts “Martin Luther King Jr.’s last/favorite meal and/or what was on the menu of the first African-American owned restaurant in the South,” but what they end up with is… not-so-great cringeworthy/laughable stereotypical black people food. I actually have a photo of it (that my friend took), but it’s on my cell phone. On the bright side, they had coconut M&Ms at the school bookstore — FTW.

Today at English class we were reciting poems. I recited Atwood’s “They are hostile nations” to glowing review, thank you very much, but that was outside of the classroom. Inside the classroom, everyone was all snappity and trying to move as not to be called on to read next. While our teacher was outside, someone set the clock on her computer forward so that we got let out of class almost fifteen minutes early. Ahh, immaturity.

Right after English, I went to my dorm and brought my laundry up to my room. And then I realized that I’d taken the dirty laundry back, and by the time I got back downstairs, the truck had already come to pick up/drop off the laundry. So, much to the amusement of everyone coming back from classes, I sprinted after the laundry truck in the snow, without a jacket, in stocking feet, leggings, and an oversized pajama shirt, clutching my dirty laundry for dear life. I caught the truck, amazingly (well, it’d stopped, but that’s besides the point), but the incident made me very happy that certain people had since moved to the other side of campus.

Yes, my life is very interesting. I should have my own television programme.

2011: 01/17
CATEGORY: misc.
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’cause that’s my fun-day.

Listening to: Vampire Weekend — Horchata

It’s Sunday again! Which means procrastination today and school (read: more procrastination) tomorrow. Last night I forced myself to crawl out of my room and went to the boys varsity basketball game; we won 70-something to 40-something, which was nice and kind of exciting. Then we had s’mores outside, and later while I was reading in my room, I realized that half a graham cracker had lodged itself in the folds of my scarf. What was more strange about that was that I’d eaten every graham cracker I’d taken out of the box. Also last night I spent about half an hour on babynamesworld.com, looking at hundreds upon hundreds of terrible French boy-names. I finally had to relieve one of its last syllable to come up with “Calix”, which I think is a suitably badass name for the character it now describes, even though it starts with Blé’s least favorite letter. (But really? “Kalix”?…Ohwaitnevermind.)

Just under an hour ago, my independent study adviser took me and my neighbor to the bookstore in town, and my neighbor was awesomely kind enough to lend me $17 so that I could buy Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, which I can’t wait to start reading, but The Elegance of the Hedgehog is just too good to put down right now. And I just vacuumed my first time in a month or so (I know, ewww), so now I’m feeling all clean and zen and ready to go and do yoga.

2011: 01/16
CATEGORY: misc.
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of the elegance of snow after dark.

Listening to: Switchfoot — Lonely Nation

There is SO MUCH SNOW OUT HERE.

Literally, the plow-pile outside is taller than me, even when I’m wearing my 4-inch heeled boots. Yesterday we did get those 20 inches, and maybe even a bit more, and still it looks so epic. The entire, very-hilly campus was white and flat, except that white flatness started somewhere around my waist. And I have a bunch of photos of it, but currently my D3000 has been commandeered by the yearbook committee, so maybe you’ll see them next post? Some teachers couldn’t get to campus, so I only had one class the entire day (granted, it was a half day, but still). So instead I enjoyed playing courier and leaping through the powdery fresh snow to deliver people their letters, lurking in all my favorite places, and shivering. Mostly that last one (not, in retrospect, that it was particularly enjoyable). I had an oatmeal party with my across-the-hall neighbor, because I’m kind of avoiding dinner at the dining hall because I don’t really want to see anyone at the moment. I finished reading After Dark and started reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, which is another really good book that you all should read, even if you don’t like/ have time to read. Today at dance, my partner and I finally executed two, maybe three perfect lifts in a row, even though she was sick, and I was so happy. But I’m still avoiding everyone.

2011: 01/13
CATEGORY: misc.
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it’s uncomfortabling out here.

Listening to: Mates Of State — Get Better

This morning it was neither snowing nor sleeting. So we decided that it was “uncomfortabling,” because it was very. Tonight, though, we’re supposed to get 20-ish inches/ 50cm of snow between now and midday tomorrow, so it will be more “impossibling” by then. At photography class today, we spent ten minutes trying to figure out the MSN weather app, and then I was dismissed.

Also today I presented my proposal for an independent study (in novel-editing), which OMG GOT ACCEPTED and was probably the most nerve-wracking ten minutes of my recent life. My new military dress from Delia’s came in the mail yesterday (and I was assigned a new mailbox, since the lady at the post office decided that I was too tall to open my old one), so I’d totally have an outfit photo for you if I were physically capable of taking one right now (trust me, I’m not). But, in its stead, here is something over which I am currently obsessing: After Dark by Haruki Murakami. It is so amazing and unsettling and beautiful that I’ve basically been slinging it at everyone who’s passed me reading it over the past few days, yelling, “THIS IS SUCH A GOOD BOOK I KNOW YOU HATE READING BUT YOU NEED TO READ THIS.” Also the song “FlyPaper” by K-OS, which just kind of fits the mood.

Another nice development is that the Powers That Be have decided that, since our entire campus is sleep-deprived, the class day will start a half-hour later on Wednesdays. Since Wednesdays are already my sleep-in, I will be enjoying my 1.5-hour naptime… awake, probably. Stupid breakfast.

2011: 01/11
CATEGORY: misc.
news.
writings.
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no-one should call you a dreamer.

Listening to: Peter Björn and John — The Chills

ARGH.

No, that was not a pirate noise. That was me expressing my frustration at this dismal cesspool that is life. I am in an angry emo mood right now (and, appropriately wearing my “and that’s when I snapped” shirt). On the other side of the connecting door, my roommate and our mutual friends are giggling over something that probably has to do with Facebook, but I am sitting alone and sulking because 1. they are all nice people 2. I have difficulty connecting with girls in my grade at my school, so even though they are nice and mostly-welcoming I feel uncomfortable around them and thus feel forced to lock myself in my half of our rooms. Last night they all went out to see the hypnotist who came to campus and locked them in the theater, but I stayed behind in my dorm, watching Catch Me If You Can and eating my detention-bound older-and-guy friends’ takeout before going to bed at ten and sleeping for 12 hours. And I have been incredibly unproductive and unable to do write and do anything really other than reading The Dante Club for the past several hours. Yesterday I was so frustrated because I 1) butchered the map of Europe and 2) didn’t exercise at all and 3) was forced into an incredibly stressful lab partnership with the one person whose presence stresses me out the most, and we didn’t have a spectrometer and he was being sarcastically demanding and I was afraid that I was going to set my hair on fire. And my laptop battery is five inches from death and I’m running out of toothpaste and chewing gum and all I want to do is go home and take a billion rolls of 800-speed film and drink Starbucks and drool over notebooks with the people I love most.

And it has stopped snowing where Ash lives, so I will oblige her previous request of some pictures of snow. Voilà.

2011: 01/09
CATEGORY: misc.
photography
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jump high or be lifted (and subsequently dropped).

Listening to: Blue Foundation — Eyes On Fire (Zeds Dead Remix)

Augh. Only the second day back, and I’m already drowned in homework. Might I say that I’m pretty annoyed? First thing first period yesterday. I had a cumulative first-semester quiz. Then at photo class my teacher basically told me that my photos have no focus (in a conceptual sense, not a technical one). I disagree with this. I don’t believe that every image I capture has to have a meaning; maybe it’s all hyper-Surrealist.

But anyway. Today in dance we were working at the barre for the first time, which was… interesting. Suffice to say that we are not a ballet group. At all. Then, while working on our current modern piece, we had to partner up by size/height and were told that we were going to do lifts. Cue thunderclap.

Being the second-tallest person in our class, my partner was a very nice German gymnast girl who was waaaay too patient with me. I took one look at her and said, “I’m lifting you.” But then our instructor gave her customary evil laugh and informed us that we’d both have to lift each other. Cue lightning.

Before we got to the actual lifting, however, we had to do a little trust fall/sit and backwards somersault. I am not a very trusting person. My partner and I had to try about seven times before I would let her sit me down, me feeling worse every time she told me that it was okay. The entire debacle went something like this:

Her: Okay, now, leave your feet there, and I’ll pull you backwards.

Me: Sure! *walks backwards nonetheless*

And repeat. Then, after the backwards somersault, it was time to do some lifting. For anyone who doesn’t dance, it’s important to understand that lifting isn’t about weight or strength or anything; it’s about momentum and timing and both people working together to keep from collapsing into a sad heap. Me lifting my partner wasn’t that bad, except that I kept turning her the wrong way. But then came the moment I’d dreaded: her turn to lift me.

…And then everything exploded into a cataclysmic fireball of doom.

Or something like that. I already mentioned that I have issues with trusting people with handling my weight. That, coupled with my off timing (and momentum that sent us turning, once again, in the wrong direction), well… let’s just say that it was special. We actually, finally, got in a couple of really nice lift/turns, but nevertheless when we finally ran through the piece, it ended with:

1. Us missing the cue for our fall/sit

2. Me rolling into her

3. Me getting the momentum wrong, again, and sending us in the wrong direction even though I wasn’t actually off the ground

4. Her exclaiming a rather tasteful curse and dropping me

5. Us collapsing in general, giggling, while everyone (sort of) danced on around us.

At least, we thought, we didn’t take anyone out with us. There was a particularly amusing incident with another two pairs, where one pair stopped moving completely and, whilst in the middle of a perfect lift, another pair turned and knocked one of the immobile pair over with the liftee’s foot. We felt slightly better after seeing that.

We’re doing lifts again tomorrow.

2011: 01/05
CATEGORY: misc.
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a boulangerie for your literate soul.

Listening to: Modest Mouse — March Into The Sea

I will tell you now that I take notebooks very seriously. I take them so seriously, in fact, that I know brands; my favorites are Iquelrius and Moleskine and occasionally Paperchase (though I find their lines rather wide for my tiny handwriting). I will walk into Barnes & Noble or the local art boutique not with the intention of finding a new book or spiffy art markers, but with the aim of purchasing a new home for my stories. I will admit now to having shelled out up to $17 for that *perfect* notebook. So you can probably imagine my joy when, while out shopping the other day, I stumbled upon (well, I’ll admit having gazed longingly across the street at it for several months prior) the papeterie nota bene* and found myself wondering why I’d never been to a notebook/stationery boutique before. I even bought a new notebook:

And yes, I already know what I’m going to write in it. Except that I’m back at school now, so I won’t be able to lurk at nota bene* for another month at least….

Curse small town America.

2011: 01/03
CATEGORY: misc.
writings.
2 comments

yeah, we went there.