Life and times, iv

sunsets that dazzle in the dusk

 
homegrown


library haul!


(like I have nothing else to do)

Going to watch The Remains of the Day (finished the book!).  Working on my Dracula story (Emiko says it's good so far!).  GMM was hilarious today!  School is frustrating (AHAHAHA laughter is the best medicine).  

Today was week 6, so there are five weeks left.  It turns out I have not officially declared my major (comp-sci) yet, but that is coming up, and it is more or less set-in-stone.  I was a bit down in the dumps yesterday, feeling that maybe I'd have made different choices if I'd had a better understanding of the way things were going to be.  However, at the time, I'd made decisions I really believed were the right ones, and that's all you can do, right?  It's way too soon to be regretful. 

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The real world

Adam, I'm abashed it took me so long...but I get this song now.

I'm tired of people cussing their heads off on the sidewalk.  I'm tired of people caustically bashing my political views as if they aren't legit.  I'm tired of people being oh-so-careful not to offend anybody or anything, except my faith.  I refuse to live in those people's reality. 

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things–trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. . .So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.

Dear reader, don't ever feel stupid just because you're not worldly-'wise'. If that's what's meant by intelligence, it's better to be ignorant.

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Liebster award!

{From KatySue--thanks!!}

rules:

1. You must post eleven facts about yourself.

2. You must also answer the eleven questions the awarder has given you and make up eleven questions for your awardees to answer in turn.

3. Tag eleven fellow bloggers

4. Notify them that you've awarded them

5. No tagging back

6. And the eleven blogs you tag must have less than 200 followers.

// FACT:

1. I just discovered in the last few months that I'm allergic to corn and somewhat lactose intolerant (i.e. I can eat most lactose foods, just not milk).  The corn allergy makes me especially sad.
2. My absolute favorite music at the moment is Owl City, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Yiruma. 
3. I'm really bad at sitting still.
4. Lately I've had a lot of dreams about real life, mostly bad dreams.
5. I use "elven" as a synonym for "eleven," because of reasons. :)
6. I'm the bona fide awkward "heroine" and kitchen klutz.  (And not in a cute "Molly Hooper" way, unfortunately.)
7. I watch Good Mythical Morning every day! 
8. As you can probably tell, I kind of live in my own world.  Every time I consider becoming even slightly more "like everyone else," something happens to make me change my mind.
9. On the other hand...I've found out that being a Trekkie is really cool because a lot of other people are Trekkies!
10. Speaking of fandoms, I think it's totally normal fun to watch Russian opera with Spanish subtitles on YouTube, late at night.
11. I plan to get a pet corgi within the next 6 years! :)

**************************

1. Rain or Shine?

Both are nice, but I always miss rain!

2. What was your favorite cartoon / movie growing up?

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!  Animated Disney movies, too.  Then when I was a bit older, the Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) series.

3. If you could be any character from a book, who would you be?

Dr. Watson, because I've always wanted to live at 221b.  XD 

4. What is your favorite dessert?

Apple cake, probably...so much nostalgia.  ❤   

5. Favorite specialty drink (Starbucks/Biggby/Etc.)

Echoing everyone else: Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte, and the eggnog latte, too (sans nutmeg).  It's like dessert in a coffee!  And it's pretty special to our family--we share a Venti every weekend after my sister's orchestra practice.

6. Favorite screen/literary couple?

Jonathan & Mina in Dracula (the book).  And, of course, Eugene & Tatyana in Eugene Onegin.  And Myshkin & Nastasya in The Idiot, if circumstances had been different (just when I thought I'd got over Victorian romance, all angst and feels, the Russian authors wring my heart).  Also, Razumov/Natalie in Under Western Eyes. 

7. What is your favorite restaurant?
Right now, either a local Indian restaurant or a local fish-n-chips (BEST ever).

8. What is your favorite color and why?

Black (so classy), gray (emotional, like the sea), white (symbolic, color of sunlight), off-white (warm and cosy), and blue.  Another ocean analogy, I guess, but the color blue is so profound, to me.

9. If you had to eat one food forever, what would it be?

Pizza.  :)

10. Mascara or blush?

Mascara.  I like being pale.  No, seriously. 

11. Is your hair color natural?
Yes, dark brown, and always has been.  :)  Funny story about that...I was sitting in church a couple weeks ago, and the light from the stained glass window "colored" my hair bright cherry red.  For a split second, one of the other ladies thought I had dyed my hair, lol!


// ELEVEN QUESTIONS

1. Favorite vegetable?
2. Is there anything you like now that you used to dislike?
3. Monkeys--cute or creepy?
4. What do you do when you're bored?
5. Do you like to garden?
6. What is your favorite color and why?
7. Your favorite screen/literary couple?
8. If you could be any character from a book, who would you be?
9. What is your favorite dessert?
10. Do you have any traditions you made up yourself?
11. Do you usually get snow in December?

I tag ANYBODY who would like to do this, and more specifically:  Emiko, Lydia, Helen, Celtic Traveler, and Abby!

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Art

[But first I'd like to say thank you to KatySue at *~Not All Who Wander Are Lost~* for awarding me the Liebster tag!  I'll be posting it very soon.  :) ]

One of the things I really miss in my life is drawing (pencil and digital).  It kind of went the same way as my violin-playing--just when I was reaching a high point, school became time-consuming and music fizzled out of my life.  There's nothing more pathetic than unintentionally quitting something; the only optimistic side to it is that I don't have to admit I quit (sort of equally pathetic, though).

With digital art, I used to be pretty active in an internet forum several years ago, but as my objectives changed and the forum changed, I stopped progressing and, if anything, lost some technique.  Pencil sketching was something I did on my own.  I've long had the goal of combining the two and making use out of my digital graphics tablet, but it's still just a goal.

Website design is another art-related hobby I'd like to revitalize.

This is all a symptom of a bigger problem, my trouble with balancing school and real life.  It's easier to blame school, but the fact is I can do better personally.  With my hobbies, I'm not good at thinking outside the box or trying every possible solution to make the time and opportunities for them happen.  I'm bad at rationing out my energy, too, so that if I spend it all on school I have very little left over. So obviously this is something I need to work on.
 
I think the first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was an artist, and on a broader scale this is still true.  German has a good word for this: Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total art."  Artists (even amateur ones like me) have a strange challenge, in that they have to create work for themselves.  That's not something you think about when you start creating art (of any kind), but it becomes a very real thing when you have to have a legitimate reason and outlet for your art.  One would think that it'd be easy to find an outlet for "total art," but this involves its own problems, maybe greatest of which is losing focus.  You can get swallowed up in what you feel are the separate nagging demands of each of the art forms, losing the common ground they all have.  It's worse when you juxtapose this with school, where the common ground is simple: get good grades.

I don't have an answer for this right now, but it's at a point where I need to start working on this seriously, and making priorities instead of letting them evolve in negative ways. 

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Life and times - informal edition

I have no photos, and I should be asleep by now since I have to get up at 5:15, but OH WELL. One just has to make time for important things.  That's how I eked out some more poetry today while on the bus, which sounds romantic but it really isn't. The thing is, I have all these posts in draft just sitting there and getting stale, and that's not a good way to keep a blog alive.

My mom is doing really well, thankfully!  Praying that it will be a quick recovery for her. 

It started raining again, which is worth mentioning.  We had had an alarmingly long dry spell, but now that that's broken it feels like fall has started all of a sudden.  Today was so bright-eyed and pretty, though--sunshine is lovely in the fall!  Tomorrow's the same, and then rain the rest of the week.

It's almost midterm (already, by one professor's standards), and I feel like I'm just staying on top of things.  There's a considerable amount of reading material in the history classes, apart from textbooks.  Reading the textbook for Java class is essential.  Basically, reading a week ahead for all classes is not a bad idea.

I think I've run out of things to say, and it's definitely getting late.  Till next time...  XD

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Please pray!

My sister posted this at her blog--please read and keep our mom in your prayers.

Update:  The surgery went well, and she's at home now!  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

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Prayer

Something I have learned about prayer in the last year or so is that it is not about emotion.  It's not about what you feel.  All the times I needed prayer the most, the only thing I felt was spiritual sickness, apathy, emotional emptiness.  Excuses for not praying crossed my mind--I could say I was afraid of being insincere, not wanting to open the can of worms that were my emotions, too closely related, as I thought, with my subpar spiritual life.  But that's not the truth.

The verse that says "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17) does not add any exceptions to that statement.  It doesn't confine prayer to only the purest moments of your life or the nicest sides of your emotions.  I have found that prayer was the most vital when I was at my worst, when my emotions or my thoughts were at their most base, distant, and fearful, when the temptation was there to think my prayers were useless or I wasn't good enough to pray.  When my mind was in a race with my emotions, trying to pray when everything else inside me wanted to embrace negativity and unhappiness.

God answers even these prayers.

It doesn't mean His answer is always my version of "yes," but He always answers.  It doesn't mean my emotions turn suddenly positive, but I know He is there.  Many people try to assert that Christianity is just a religion and God is just whom you believe in.  I can't change their minds, but I can give my own perspective: I "believe" in a lot of things, but I know God is there.

The only analogy that comes to mind is love, especially brotherly love.  You can't explain love, just as you can't explain unselfishness.  You know it when you see it.  Is there any logic, any scientific reason why one person should care more about another person's life than their own?

God is love.
   

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I ♥ Thursday

• The "Flourishing Owls" persona for Firefox.  It's so happy and cheerful!

• Hornblower.  Archie.  BUSH.  My sister and I just had the "Who pushed Captain Sawyer?" debate again, and now we want a Hornblower marathon!
• My new Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer in Rhubarb, nice everyday color.
• No lectures on Fridays!
• Feeling happy and overall stress-free.  :)
• Writing poetry again--makes my day!  (Also started my version of Dracula, but really, I don't expect anything to come of it, lol.) 
• The Hobbit!  Which I'm very slowly re-reading.  I'm starting to see how it can be a long 3 movies.  There are all sorts of little mini adventures, even before they reach the Trolls. 

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Passage to India - rambling thoughts

So I need to write a book review for E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, which I just finished reading today.  It ought to be an easy assignment, but I hadn't been counting on this being a hard book to review.  It's about a whole SLEW of topics, and I feel inclined to take it every direction possible, which cancels out any one, focused direction.

For example.  It makes references to several major social topics, plus a rather uneven portrayal of three religions (Christianity getting the most negativity and least credence, of course), on top of a lot of mystery and weird goings on and paragraphs that are either philosophical wonders or horribly contrived rhetoric.  Set in India.  I guess what I wonder is how Forster, a Brit, can really give an Indian's perspective of the British Empire in India, but then, I don't know if that was his intent.  I get the impression that the character of Fielding is a Gary Stu, but the prose itself doesn't limit itself to his perspective.  Oh, and the whole "caves" incident is either much worse or much sillier than written, and I seriously doubt Mrs. Moore would have been portrayed as she is if the book had been written by a woman.  My personal opinion is that characters of the opposite gender ought to be heavily based on real people...well, maybe Mrs. Moore was based on a real person, but I'd have to look it up to feel sure.

Anywho, I'm determined (as is often the case) to write my review before I read other people's.  A huge loathing of mine is to write a review and feel someone else's opinions breathing down my collar.  So tomorrow (today I just figured out Chicago formatting) I'll write up the skeleton of my review, and then find out if anybody else on the internet understands this book better. 

The most lasting impression it left is the characters' sense of pessimism.  There was a lot of doom and gloom, and it was chiefly of the characters' own doings.  Nobody seemed to end up in a better place in life, all because of decisions they made that, rather than being dramatically terrible, were just plain old mediocre.  I admit I haven't read many books like that.  It's hardly inspirational.

Also, none of the characters lived up to their full potential, for good or evil.  This is pretty realistic, I think, but if we're talking fiction, it doesn't hurt to have a few strong characters.  Good characters have something to live for and to die for, preferably greater than themselves.  The characters in A Passage to India struck me as sort of existentialist, without the rebellious streak that you find in Kafka's characters. 

Tomorrow I will do some more research on Forster; that ought to (hopefully) give me some hints about the point of this book.

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Happy irony is when...

 ...the programming professor quotes opera, and the history professor quotes Spock.  (I must be in the right classes.)

I've really got to finish the Passage to India book.  So getting that plus the book review done is my goal for this week (oh, and creating a thesis statement for the other history class...).  It's been a pretty good read, but it's also really hard, like The Ladies' Paradise, in the sense that I hate reading about the injustice people went through.  I know, I get too emotionally invested, but it makes me sick.  Class systems are just bad news for everyone.  I don't disagree that there may currently be a subtle class system in the U.S., but it's miniscule compared to what used to be in other countries.

Speaking of the nation--the first presidential debate is TOMORROW, guys!  I am so keyed up.  Never mind parties and candidates; this is my first time voting in a presidential election, so there is much to celebrate!  (Also, just mind-boggling that 100 years ago I wouldn't have been allowed to vote in most states...but that is another story.)  I don't care which candidate you favor (correction: I don't want to know); just be sure to watch some of the debates, because you can and it matters, and we're very fortunate that it does matter.

Ok, I keep planning to post some photos (e.g. my new watch!), but I'll have to stop now, finish blogging tomorrow maybe...
  

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