Below are 20 journal entries, after skipping by the 20 most recent ones recorded in Apple Bonkers' LiveJournal:

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Monday, May 12th, 2008
10:08 pm	I dare you to watch this movie and not smile Weekend Assignment #215: Review a film. Any film. Got something interesting to say about Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903)? I'd love to read it. Metropolis (1927)? Why not? A Night in Casablanca (1946)? Fine. The Seventh Seal (1957)? Er, okay! Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)? You'll get away with it. Speed Racer (2008)? Go for it. From Hollywood to Ballywood to Hong Kong, from Kubrick to Kurasawa, it's all on the W.A. marquee. But there's one catch: the film should not be on your personal list of favorites; nor should it be a film you despise. Extra Credit: Is there a film due out this summer that you plan to go see? If so, what is it? Yesterday was Mother's Day, and I got together with my mom, dad, and grandma for brunch and a movie. The movie my mom chose was Young@Heart. She thought it was something all four of us would enjoy, and she was right. I'm a bit hesitant to write much about it because I don't want to inadvertently give away anything that should be a surprise, but my desire to get more people to see it overrules my hesitation on that count. The movie is a documentary about a Massachusetts-based chorus called Young@Heart. The average age in this chorus is 80. Their 58-year old choir director Bob has them learn, rehearse, and perform songs by James Brown, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Talking Heads, Coldplay, The Clash, The Ramones, Sinead O' Connor, Sonic Youth, and more. The film's director, Stephen Walker, caught them while they were on a tour of Europe and liked them so much he decided to travel to America so he could follow them around with a camera. Some comments: * My grandma said this was the best movie she's seen in "years and years." * There was more than one moment watching this movie when I found myself beaming and crying at exactly the same time. * What a wonderful, wonderful thing it is that people can sing. * Some of the best moments in this movie are shots of audience reactions at Young@Heart's live performances. * Something I find greatly unfortunate in this world is that there are so many people who think they have to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets to see a production starring celebrities earning millions of dollars in theaters with thousands of seats to see a great performance. Here's Exhibit A in the case against that terrible myth. Someday soon maybe I'll share Exhibits B-Z here too. . . a list I could compile in my sleep. But I digress. Well, no, I don't really digress - what I mean to say is: if Young@Heart ever comes to your city, go. Go to community and college theater. Go to open mic nights. You'll gather some of the most enduring memories of your life. * I have nothing bad to say about this movie. I think I've reached the point where I'm going to stop talking about this movie. I know this is a pretty vague movie review, but that's honestly because I don't want to spoil it. Extra credit: I already have tickets for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I feel a bit odd about being an adult at the same time an Indiana Jones movie is opening. That's just never happened before. I already saw Iron Man and thought it was OK. If not for Robert Downey Jr., I would have found it really, really boring. I'm sure I'll see more movies this summer, too. I like movies. Current Mood: impressed (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 11th, 2008
11:36 pm	Catching Up Weekend Assignment #214: Sooner or later, pretty much everyone makes one or more major changes in their lives, sometimes several at once. We leave home, go off to college, get married, get divorced, change jobs, change careers, have kids, move to another house or another state, etc., etc. These things can be very stressful, but we do them in the hope of being better off in some way. Tell us of one change you voluntarily made in your life at some point, that worked out really well. Extra Credit: Tell us of a little tiny change that also went well! This is actually last weekend's weekend assignment, but I gave myself a bit of an extension, without asking Karen's permission first. Since the most recent life change I initiated was becoming a graduate student, I've been a little bit busy. My first semester is wrapping up in the coming week, and the reason I didn't get to this assignment before last Thursday is because I was hard at work on a 17-page research paper for my "Information and Society" class that was due on midnight on Wednesday. I slept much less than usual last week! I held my breath when I turned in my paper on the American Library Association's response to the USA Patriot Act, because who ever knows how the professor is going to react to your paper? I was thrilled to find out on Friday that my paper earned all points possible for the assignment. I'm winding down the semester with a 97% in one class and a 99% in the other. It's working out well so far. I find the work and the reading interesting, I enjoy the virtual interaction with classmates dispersed across the country, I feel like my brain is engaged with something I care about . . . in a nutshell, I couldn't be happier that I made this decision. Now I still have a long way to go before I can declare the whole thing "worked out really well." I still have to complete 36 more units, which is probably going to take me the next two years. And the ultimate goal is a career that brings personal fulfillment to me . . . that seems kind of far out there in the future too. But for now, I'm enjoying myself (although if I went back in time and said that to my Tuesday night self, who was producing much mental sweat in the process of trying to get her paper organized, she might shoot me). As for a little tiny change that worked out well (and I'm defining "change" as "new discovery" and "worked out well" as "is making me happy"), I recently discovered http://www.singsnap.com, with which I can indulge my penchant for karaoke during study breaks. I certainly don't have the most robust voice in the world, but no one could ever accuse me of not having fun with it. Wanna listen to me sing along with myself? Tomorrow, I plan to respond to this weekend's assignment by reviewing a movie all about singing! Current Mood: happy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 28th, 2008
1:22 pm	Knowing That I Loved My Books - Prospero, Act I, scene ii, The Tempest, William Shakespeare Weekend Assignment #213: While it may be difficult to choose your favorite book of all time, there's probably a certain genre or category of books you prefer over other kinds. Do you love a mystery, or would you rather read about dragons? Are you thirsty for a good vampire tale, or is science fiction more your style? Do you mostly stick with the classics, or look for the latest spy novel? Are you a biography buff? Do a lot of your books have the word "Dummies" in the title? Do you like to read about real-world politics, science, history or sports, or would you rather escape the real world with a good romance? Tell us! And while you're at it, tell us your second favorite category of books. Extra Credit: Do you ever loan out books to friends or family? Oh boy, what a delicious question for an English major and budding librarian! I would actually find it much more difficult to choose a favorite genre or category than a favorite book of all time, a question I can easily answer, and will get to later in this entry. My tastes in fiction to do not tend to lean toward one genre or another. I like a good story, period. For me, that mostly means the story contains characters that I can remember and care about (The Da Vinci Code failed for me on this front, while the Harry Potter series is a smashing success . . . sometimes I still lie awake worrying about my Hagrid! (Yes, I'm exaggerating because I like the effect)). Anything that can make me laugh is also always welcome here. A quick survey of my fiction shelves may give a good idea of my literary tastes. Here's a list of authors who appear three or more times in my personal library, and of course this leaves out a lot of "ones and twosies": Douglas Adams, Jane Austen (I'm only missing Mansfield Park to complete my collection; I ought to fix that), Peter Carey, Henry James, Steve Martin, L.M. Montgomery, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, and (of course) William Shakespeare. My father built a shelf for me one Christmas containing a 1901 book set of all of his works: the plays, the sonnets, the longer poems, everything . . . and the quote that is the title of the entry is carved in the wood. These books aren't very practical to use, as trying to separate the pages from one another pretty much doesn't do anything but tear them, but it's a fun thing to have. If I actually want to read Shakespeare, I have the Riverside Shakespeare from my college days and various paperbacks I have accumulated over the years. Now, as far as my non-fiction preferences, I like reading about anything that interests me, which includes almost (but not entirely) everything. My non-fiction shelves are pretty much arranged by category (I was born to be a librarian!), and those categories include, but are not limited to: * Vegetarian cookbooks, which I really need to use more often. * Books about writers * Books about writing * Books about the theater * Scripts * Books about cats * Books about religion * Books about philosophy * Short stories (yes, these are really fiction but for space's sake they ended up here) * Biographies (examples: I own biographies of Dr. Seuss and Sarah Bernhardt) * Travel books (I have a slew of Lonely Planet and Rough Guides . . . which I really enjoy reading even if I don't get to every place in them. I also have that book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. At age 33, I've seen about 80 of them, I think, which means maybe I'll get to about 24% of them if I live to be 100. * Books about music (mostly rock music) * Poetry * Some left-wing political stuff that I probably would have gotten in trouble for owning if I'd been around for the McCarthy era * Literary anthologies I've saved from college (yes, mostly fiction) * Computer books on things like HTML, Java, MS Word, Perl, UNIX, desktop publishing, etc., sit in a shelf at the bottom of my computer desk * French, Spanish, and Chinese Dictionaries * Various reference works (dictionaries, special encyclopedias, etc.) Now, as for the "favorite book of all time" question: it is Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. I remember reading somewhere, perhaps it was a book called History of Literature that it "contains almost everything a novel can hold," and indeed it is even more immense than its +1200 page length would suggest. Everything a novel can hold can include flaws, yes, and this book's had its share of attacks for its plot contrivances, sentimentality, and overly drawn characters. But this is a book with power, one that has inspired people from all classes to become things, following in Jean Valjean's footsteps on his path to being a good person. Is there anything greater than that a novel can do? This is a piece of art that presents, before its readers, the magnitude of compassion toward all men, women, and children, especially in a world that is hard. I also enjoy Les Miserables as a treasure box, where I'll find scores of personalities, mundane places made amazing (like the sewers of Paris), French history, glimpses into religious life, and so much more. Abridged adaptations often leave out the long passages on things like the battle at Waterloo, argot, etc, but even in these digressions I tend to find new ideas every time I look at them. This book is a gift. Yes, I love the "world's most popular musical," but it can't match the experience (or should I say multitude of experiences) of reading the book. In case you haven't noticed, I recommend it. PS I got so wrapped up in thinking about Les Miserables that I almost forgot about the extra credit! I never actually offer to lend out my books, but when I asked, I never say no. This frequently results in my never seeing the book again, but if it's a good book, I suppose it's a donation toward a worthy cause. :) Current Mood: happy about books (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 20th, 2008
2:47 pm	It's Poetry in Motion! Weekend Assignment #212: It's National Poetry Month in the United States, but poetry itself is a worldwide phenomenon, existing in many styles. Let's celebrate the form. How? By writing a poem, of course! It can be silly or serious, haiku, limerick, rhymed verse, blank verse, free verse, two lines long or fifty, or anything in between. All I ask is that it be a new, original poem, not something you wrote in high school and trot out occasionally. Extra Credit: Do you have a favorite poet? First of all, a huge thanks to Karen for prompting me to do a bit of creative writing today, an interest and (I hope) talent I all too often neglect, and work, school, and theater are all well and good, but are no excuses not to be writing. I had no idea what was going to come out when I sat down to write a new poem today. There were no ideas in my head clamoring to get out. So, after staring at a blank page for several minutes, here's what ended up happening: I'm getting paid to throw mirrors away I'm doing this work very well. I quietly walk through this city all day With nothing to pitch, buy, or sell. So many people rush by on the street, Their eyes all on goals I can't see. As they focus their minds on invisible things, I'm thankful they don't notice me. Soon their reflections will all disappear And they won't know who they have to blame. All I need for reward is the dough I take home. Why would I dare also want fame? My boss says it's all for the good of the whole We're making a friendlier town. Neighbors will look at each other again - or might they all mostly look down? I only make one mistake on this job But I make it over and over again: When I'm handling mirrors that must be destroyed, I'm tempted to see who I am. Now, as for my favorite poet? Well, as someone who majored in English and meant it, there may just be too many possible answers to this question. John Keats was a wonderful poet, almost impossibly wonderful, how could such things as his poems come out of a regular old human being? Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Samuel Coleridge, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas . . . well, suffice it to say, I like a lot of poets. The true honest answer, to the question, though (and I hope it's not cheating that I have two favorite poets - well, if you can count a rock band as one poet) is: my very favorite poets are Shakespeare and The Beatles. You could probably ask me a million "Do you have a favorite _____?" questions and my answer would be Shakespeare and The Beatles. I never fail to feel a sensation down my spine when I read or hear these words, no matter how often it's been: What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And as for The Beatles, the lyrics of songs like Strawberry Fields Forever, The Fool on the Hill, It's All Too Much, and many, many others, are always popping into my head, refining my perspectives and echoing the ideas and impressions I gain with the chords they strike. Since I slipped popular music into this assignment, somehow I feel obliged to also give a nod to Paul Simon, whom I have an immense appreciation for as a songwriter and highly poetical lyricist. In honor of National Poetry Week, here's a link to Paul and Art singing Richard Cory, a direct marriage of a classic American poem and contemporary music. On a final note, I started to sing the poem I wrote today to myself, to see what kind of tune would come out, and I found it sounded a lot like Billy Joel's "Innocent Man." Odd, because I probably haven't heard that song in four years or more, and I'm not particularly big on Billy Joel in general. Current Mood: creative (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
3:08 pm	How Does Your Garden Grow (that is, if it grows at all)? Weekend Assignment #211: How are your gardening skills? Do you plant flowers and trees and even shrubberies, or do you settle for weeds and concrete? Do houseplants die in your care, or grow and prosper? Extra Credit: Is there someone you know who is better at this gardening stuff than you are? Living in an apartment complex where none of the outdoor space is actually available for my private personal use, this is a bit hard to know. I'd probably do okay with houseplants if the cat didn't eat them. I do have a plant at work that seems to still be going strong for the five or so years I've had it, thriving even after transport from one office space to another. I just water it a few times a week, that's all. Doesn't appear to be a particularly demanding plant. As for the extra credit, ha ha ha, that's got to be the easiest extra credit for me to earn in the history of ever. As the offspring of the people who founded this community gardening organization , and a horticulture teacher, I sure as heck do know people who are better at this gardening stuff than I am. How many times has my dad answered the phone saying that mom's out working in the garden, or vice versa? With this pedigree, I'm a little embarrassed that I know as little about gardening as I do. But, hey, there's still the future. I did help out at the Community Gardens as Appleseeds table at the Whole Foods Earth Day event yesterday, giving away sunflower seeds to children and telling them how to plant them, so there's something I did for the cause. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 7th, 2008
5:24 pm	Extending the weekend just a bit is never a bad thing. . . Weekend Assignment #210: It's been 40 years since the Mountaintop speech, and even longer since the great speeches of John F Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and others. Are the days of great oratory behind us, or have you drawn inspiration from some recent public speaker? If so, what was the speech? Do you remember any actual quotes from it? Extra Credit: Have you ever given a speech, other than in a classroom? All right, well, I didn't get to the weekend assignment until Monday night, but I'll hope I'll be forgiven. Over the weekend, I gave a presentation (it was for school, so I don't think I can use it for extra credit, even though it wasn't in a classroom), finished and turned in a paper and a 24-slide PowerPoint file, attended a party thrown by Californians for Humane Farms to celebrate their initiative qualifying for the November ballot, rehearsed for the New Play Reading event taking place tomorrow night, and was, out of the blue, served a "termination of tenancy" notice by my property manager because for some unknown reason she thought I did something that I wasn't at all aware I did until she told me I'd done it, and that's because I hadn't. She rescinded the notice pretty much immediately, but this is the latest in an unpleasant series of incidents that are beginning to make me rather unhappy. So, for all these reasons, I didn't find the time or, mostly, the energy to complete the weekend assignment until now. Anyway . . . Reading the other blog entries in response to this assignment, it seems that I am not alone am finding this a challenging one. I'm not sure if that really means that oratory is dead, or it just means that speeches are hard to remember, or what. I also watch very little television, so whatever public figures say, I'm far more likely to read in print than catch on the TV. I'm glad we have YouTube these days, so I can go back and listen to speeches I missed, like Barack Obama's March 18 speech on race relations, which I tried to listen to on the radio that morning, but didn't because he started late, and I had to start work. I've been meaning to YouTube it ever since, but haven't found a good time to spend 40 minutes doing so. So I'm actually listening to it right now. Thanks, Karen, for prompting that. Am I impressed by it? Well, he seems to be saying things that are true . . . obviously true. He's saying things that he needs to say. I find it worthwhile. Do find it electrifying or inspirational? I can't say I do. I also must say I was exceedingly unimpressed by the last time I heard our current President make a speech on the radio . . . in fact, I was so unimpressed I was moved to comment on how unimpressed I was on this blog, just a few entries back. I'm not sure I actually followed the specifications of this assignment, but heck, at least it got me to write on my blog, right? As far as the extra credit goes, I've given many, many "please turn off your cell phones; there will be one 15-intermission" kinds of speeches, but I think that's not the sort of thing we have in mind here. I make 30-second announcements to a roomful of Realtors quite regularly. And Madame Pernelle from Tartuffe and Elizabeth from Six Degrees of Separation gave speeches that couldn't have happened without my help, because at the time, I was playing them. As far as the last weekend assignment, well, the only thing that was true about that was that I attempting to unclutter my apartment recently. Oh, and that I have friends that have laughed at me millions of times. Current Mood: mellow (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
11:06 pm	Weekend Asssignment for April Fool's "Weekend Assignment #209: Tell us a story about yourself, something that is plausible but definitely, outrageously false, while containing a kernel of truth. Since we don't want to create any work for Snopes.com, begin your tale with the words, "This is not true," and don't say anything defamatory about any companies, products, celebrities or politicians." This is not true: I was attempting to "unclutter" the apartment not too long ago, and came across an old video tape I don't remember ever actually owning, but I doubt someone actually broke into my place and left it there. It is labelled "Alice and the Squirrels" in green felt pen. It looks like a child's handwriting, but not mine. I would've played it for myself to figure out what on earth it was, but I no longer have a working VCR, just a cheap DVD player. If I get around to it, I will get a friend who still has VHS-playing capabilities to play it, and I'll pray that nothing terribly shocking or embarassing is on it. It could be some bad skit I made when I was 12, or worse. So, I have to pick a friend carefully. Not that the people I can think of to ask to do this haven't already laughed at me 20 million times. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
6:11 pm	Spring In case you didn't notice, after Wednesday my intention to do a daily post, um, stopped. After evaluating how my week went, I've decided to go a little easier on myself. I think I'll post at least once a week, and more if it's not going to kill me. I had a team presentation due for school on Saturday morning, and we spent many hours meeting to prepare in the days preceding, and I'm happy to report we got a perfect score, which I think is definitely worth skipping a few blogging opportunities. So, since Karen is keeping up with the weekend assignments, posting at least once a week should be easy: "Weekend Assignment #208: Meteorologists define spring in the Northern Hemisphere as beginning March 1st; others define it according to the vernal equinox, the return of warm weather, or the appearance of a groundhog's shadow. What does spring mean to you, and what, if anything, do you intend to do about it?" I have unusual preferences, in regards to weather and seasons. I love rain, I love overcast skies, and I think bare trees are really beautiful. I'm sad to see winter go. Admittedly I might feel differently about this if I lived somewhere that actually saw real winters. Shoveling snow never sounded very much fun to me. On the other side of the coin, though, I've not been above feeling rather envious when hearing tales from others of "needing" to stay home from school or work because of snow. That's an experience I've never had. But the winter I experience, I love. I love wearing my overcoat and my scarves and for some reason most things romantic that ever happen to me happen to me in winter. But okay, this weekend assignment isn't about winter, it's about spring. And while it's no winter, I do find a lot to like about spring. Baby animals, blossoming trees (the crabapple tree I used to spend a lot of time in in my parents' backyard blooms beautifully in spring . . . my grandma was telling me how pretty it looked from her window during our "Happy Easter" call today, the smell of freshly mowed lawns, people spending more time in parks and having picnics . . . and yeah, I can appreciate blue skies without clouds too. I think spring ending is even more sad to me than winter ending, though, because than that ushers in summer, and I really really don't do well in severe heat. The sun is not gentle with skin like mine, and it's hard to sleep in the heat, and it's energy-sucking. I don't like feeling like I have no energy to get anything done . . . because I really like to feel like I'm accomplishing things. So I think what I've learned about myself by writing this, is that spring is no winter, but it's good, and I'm very hopeful that I'll accomplish things this spring, and I hope we don't get any horrible heat waves this summer. Current Mood: accomplished (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
10:56 pm	So according to George Bush . . . our country is safer now than it was before he took office and the Iraqi people are all happy and we have to stay in Iraq until we find Osama Bin Laden. Back in 2000, someone told me they voted for this guy "for my own good." If this is for mine, or anyone's good, I'd hate to see what my bad was. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
10:23 pm	Short Cheat Entry Because I'm Swamped With School Stuff I'm playing a character called Acedia in "The Sloth Pit," so now I know what acedia is. It's still a pretty name. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 17th, 2008
10:28 pm	Hooray! It appears I have figured out a way to act while I'm in school, by participating in a staged reading in a festival of new 20-minute plays (the one I'm going to perform is called "The Sloth Pit") - this is great, because it's only two or three rehearsals, and one performance, instead of six weeks of rehearsals and then sixteen performances. More details shall appear when I know them! (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
8:58 pm	Short Story in The New Yorker So, again I am at a loss for words tonight, and although LJ's "Writer's Block" feature urges users to describe a perfect world, I don't much feel like doing that. I think my feelings about that can be summed up in four words: peace, love, tolerance, and equality. Instead, I'll say that I read an interesting piece of short fiction in The New Yorker today called "Raj, Bohemian." This New Yorker is a few weeks old. Last year I was pretty good to keeping up with my New Yorkers (it's my favorite backstage reading), but this year, not so much. Being a new graduate student has something to do with that. So, the stacks are piling up, and I grabbed one for something to read on the bus to a very nice dim sum gathering at Vegi Garden in Sunnyvale, which doesn't seem to have a Web site I can link to. Anyway, that's a tangent. The story is written by Hari Kunzu, who according to the contributor page has written three novels, and his style really grabbed me. Even when I do read my New Yorkers regularly, I rarely get past two or three paragraphs of the fiction. It's an awfully cynical story, in which the young narrator starts to notice something odd about his friends sharing with him a particular brand of vodka, or having him listen to a new band, or recommending a certain massage parlor for his noticeable stress. One character in the story actually utters the phrase "monetize her social networks." We keep our friends in our lives for many, many reasons - I like to think that monetary gain doesn't make the list. Current Mood: busy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 15th, 2008
4:30 pm	Walkability Workshop So, I walked past the Mountain View Community Center this morning on my way to pick up kitty litter at Walgreen's, and there were signs declaring the "Walkability Workshop (Walk this Way)." Naturally I wondered what in the world a walkability workshop was. Were they teaching people how to walk? Generally that comes before learning how to read so you can understand signs . . . On the way back from Walgreen's and past the Community Center again, there was a large group of walkers on the sidewalk with me. I heard one of them say to someone in a car who was pulling into a driveway "We're trying to get people out of their cars!" They were probably participating in the workshop. I wondered why they didn't say anything to me - I was already out there walking! Anyway, I just Googled the thing and this explains it: Community Events Walkability Workshop Mountain View community members are invited to an interactive workshop that will examine how development, planning, traffic, and safety impact pedestrian and bike access to stores, parks and public transit. Sat., March 15, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. For more information, call Mountain View Walkability E-mail mvwalkability@gmail.com. Mountain View Community Center, 201 S. Rengstoff Ave. - Room 3, Mountain View Current Mood: curious (Comment on this)
Friday, March 14th, 2008
10:29 pm	Karen should be happy to know that I intend to keep up with her weekend assignments! This is #207 but for me it's #1. Well, #2. Somewhere in the archives another weekend assignment post dwells, although that one wasn't Karen's. Weekend Assignment #207: Are you a news junkie, or not so much? Do you seek out news on tv, radio, in newspapers or online, or are you sick of the endless rehashing of the same issues? I realize it's all a continuum, from "I never watch the news" to "I keep it on all day, and read several newspapers" (or whatever). Maybe you vacillate, depending on what's going on in the world or your own life. What's your current level of interest? I think it's very important to be an informed citizen. I don't always want to listen to the news. Sometimes it upsets me. Sometimes it bores mes. But I do want to keep a pulse on what's going on in the area, the state, the nation, the world. My main source of news is the radio, usually KGO, which is my alarm clock in the morning and often on in the car. I'd say my second source of news is the Web. I used to get the newspaper delivered, but that began to overwhelm my apartment, where I don't have an efficient way to recycle (and damned if I'm not going to find some way to recycle them). My TV is rarely used, and only for Jeopardy, Ebert & Roeper, and Frasier reruns. And yes, I do vacillate, pretty much depending on how packed my schedule is. I'm pretty much always interested though. Because my goal in life is to know absolutely everything. :) Currently my information retrieval class is having some discussion on how customizable your information is every day, your RSS feed can bring you only what you want it too, you can make your AOL homepage display entertainment news only, etc. On the way to the sports section in the paper (I use the sports section in my example because a lot of people get the paper mostly for that - although I sure didn't) you may stumble across something in the business section you find enlightening, that wouldn't come to you if you subsribed to an "all sports" publication. It is truly becoming an option to "just see what you want to see" (nowhere man, can you see me at all?) This can be a rather disturbing thought. Still, I think we can and should use the tools of the Internet age to broaden our minds and experiences, not narrow them. Extra Credit: Is there a particular news story you have been following recently? This actually hasn't been in the news much, and I hope it will increase in visibility, but I'm very interested in following the campaign from Californians for Humane Farms. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
8:58 pm	This'll Just Be Off the Top of My Head. . . . . . because so far, at least, I'm committed to keeping this daily blog thing rolling, but I have no idea what to say tonight. LJ has a suggestion I write about Eliot Spitzer and his decision to resign, but I don't really have any opinion at all about that. Maybe I don't care because he's the governor of a state I don't live in. Maybe that's a poor reason not to care. All this is to me is just one more example of how deeply flawed the human race is. I don't really need one more example of that. I was convinced a long time ago. Sigh, the paragon of animals and the quintessence of dust. What complicated creatures we are. How hard it is to evaluate the human race. Current Mood: tired (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
8:46 pm	Final Jeopardy Confused Me! So, if you are flying due south from Miami, what two South American countries will you fly across? For the Final Jeopardy "question," you had to provide one or two of them. Like two of the three contestants, I guessed Venezuela, which is way off. Mr. Trebek noted that people have a tendency not to think of South America as being quite east of North America, which of course is clear if you look at a world map. But yeah, if I were drawing a map, say, in Pictionary, I would draw the continents one on top of the other. Of course, the 60-second timer does not encourage geographic accuracy. Anyway, turns out the two countries you would fly across are Ecuador and Peru. And that confused me because I looked at a bunch of world maps and to me it totally, totally, looked like you would fly across Colombia, but may or not hit Ecuador. I guess it's (almost) the opposite, though. I went on the Jeopardy.com discussion board, and was quite pleased to discover I wasn't the only one who was thinking "No way! Alex is wrong!" (of course deep down I knew that Jeopardy could never be wrong and I had to be the one who was wrong). According to a poster, "Miami is at 80 degrees 13 minutes W. Columbia's westernmost point is at roughly 79 degrees 8 minutes W. It's certainly close though." Certainly close, indeed. Current Mood: random (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
9:43 pm	And Suddenly She Feels Like Blogging Why? I don't know. This week I've been assigned a lot of reading on libraries and Web 2.0 and I'm kind of getting the message that a good library science student should be actively blogging and spending a lot of time on Facebook. I'm not sure that's a very good message to get, but I'm going to run with it. Right now my plan is to post here every night . . . now that I've set that down in writing, it seems more real, and like a promise I have to keep. We'll see how it goes. What's on my mind lately? School, mostly. I'm really finding it interesting stuff all around, and so far I feel like my tuition is money well spent. I like taking my classes online. Some people tell me that they don't think they'd have the discipline, that they "need a classroom," it's much harder to get to know your classmates this way, etc. I do have the discipline, at least so far, as I'm a very deadline-driven person and I don't like saving all tasks until the last minute. Since my job is rather deadline-driven and I have to prioritize and juggle a lot there, I can see that it's making me a better student. Working only four days a week is helping a lot, too, and fringe benefits of that include my ability to actually take a bike ride at 10 am on a Monday! This whole plan is also good for my health. The hardest thing about this is answering when people ask me if I am going to be in a play soon, or especially when directors ask me if I am going to audition for their next projects. I can't drop theater activities entirely from my life, and once I've complete my Master's program I plan to dive in to acting again with both feet, but right now . . . it's hard to let these chances pass by. I'm thinking that I could probably handle two classes, four work days a week, and full theatrical participation and still do all right, but I don't want to do all right. I want to excel. Maybe I can take one-day acting classes here and there, and look out for things like extra work in films that would only take a day or so, and that way satisfy the acting bug without making months-long commitments to projects. I don't want to have to choose among the things I love. Current Mood: awake (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
10:18 pm	Does Anyone Want to Explain to Me What In The World This Means? "Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes, Which are come up from the washing; Whereof every one hath twins, And none is bereaved among them." (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
6:49 pm	Yes, It Has Been A While Wow, the interface has totally changed since the last time I posted here. I don't seem to have much to say, but I just felt like checking in and posting. Which is a feeling I haven't had in some time. I am waiting for my laundry to dry so that I can then head off to an election night party. I've never been to an election night party. Well, except maybe in high school when my history teacher ran for town council and lost. I say "except maybe" because I'm not 100% that counted as a party. I guess my biggest news is: for those who don't already know, I am now officially a graduate student in SJSU's Library and Information Science program. Starting on week 3 and am still having fun with it. Whee! Current Mood: busy (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
4:18 pm	Brief Update Meelo is doing OK. Since I switched him over a urinary tract health diet, he hasn't had any of those alarming incidents. The vet checked his urine and said it was crystal-free but the pH was still too high. So I'm just going to keep an eye on him, I guess. Otherwise, I'm taking a break from theatrical activities (well, except for Santa Clara Players Board activities, and then, I've volunteered for a South Bay Scene Night tomorrow, a cool program allowing playwrights to hear actors read from their new scripts . . .but that's just one night). I feel like it's a good idea to pay attention to some other areas of my life right now. My break is planned to go until the end of this calendar year but I just saw an audition notice that looks tempting. Um, I guess I'll find out a little more about the play and the decide if I want to audition. It doesn't go up until 2008, but rehearsals would start in November. Which, if I got cast, so much for the rest of my break . . . But it's only an audition after all. I guess I'll sleep on it. Current Mood: indecisive (1 Comment |Comment on this)