A life of film

Today Roger Ebert died, and I was trying to figure out why it bummed me out so. I mean, I'm usually sad when anyone dies, but this felt a little different. Then I noticed that he's always reminded me of my Grandma Maki, even though they don't look alike or anything.

Aaaah. Movies. I always watched movies with my Grandma. She was very cool. She figured out how to set her VCR to tape things, and had me borrow tapes with movies she loved and knew I should watch. That's how I saw Educating Rita. My Grandma even appreciated Die Hard and Terminator 2-- that's how cool she was. She took my sister and I to see E.T. when it came out, and we each had little, leather E.T. dolls with us. She took me to see The Muppet Movie. On one awkward evening, we rented Children of a Lesser God from the library, thinking that it couldn't possibly contain anything worth being Rated R. I don't recommend watching sex scenes with your grandma.

One of the last times we went out together was to see A Beautiful Mind followed by Applebee's. I was tired and crabby and criticized the movie, even though she loved it. I hate remembering that day. On a funnier note, when I bought Monsoon Wedding, I had her borrow it because I thought she'd like it. She must have been having quite a confused day because she later reported that she threw it out because she couldn't understand anything and why had I brought her a porno?!

She always subscribed to People Magazine, so that's how I first read Entertainment Weekly, which is truly a big part of my life. She also introduced me to Ebert & Siskel and the whole world of movie reviews. Oh, she loved it. It was one of the shows she watched and I loved watching it with her. (Did you know that I wrote a couple film reviews in college? Matt and I dabbled with a rating system from -5 to +5, with 0 being "It was a movie.")

So I guess that by Ebert dying, I feel like another little part of my Grandma is gone. One less thing that I didn't even realize reminded me of her.

photo credit: Articulate MediaWorks via photopin cc

YA Lit & Judgment

The Hunger Games came out yesterday (the movie). I saw it and liked it a lot. Love it. I'll buy it when it comes out on DVD. I've read the three Hunger Games books and enjoyed them very much.

You know what I also love and have read and enjoy and bought? Twilight. You know what? I'm allowed to like both, and so is everyone else.

Sure, Twilight  is cheesy with its teenage drama, love triangles, and sparkling vampires. And The Hunger Games doesn't have crap like teenage drama, love triangles, or genetically modified dog-creatures wearing the faces of dead contestants. Oh, wait. It does.


In the movie, Katniss is strong and smart, and I can understand someone calling her their hero. In the book? Not so much. All the way through, she is just as stupid, self-involved, and annoying as Bella is. One of the best part of the movie is NOT having to deal with her internal monologue.

Also, the HG books aren't a paragon of great literature while the Twilight books are the scribblings of a deranged 12 year-old. I place The Hunger Games in the same category as The DaVinci Code, though they are a bit above that: a good, page-turner of a story with crappy writing. Or at least lazy writing.
What Collins does have over Meyers is her world-building and a more long-form plot she's following. That is more interesting for a lot of people. (I don't comment on the writing style of Meyers here because, truly, it has been a couple years since I read them, and I don't remember being revolted by the writing, but I was in a weird place & was quite wrapped up in the stories.)

What I think many people are ripping on when they compare the two is the fact that the Twilight books are unashamedly girly. They're romances, written for teenage girls, but many adults and also plenty of guys have read them and enjoyed them. The Hunger Games books are full of violence and politics, so they appeal to even more guys and adults, and that's fine.

Am I saying that Bella is someone to be admired and that the Twilight books are to be held up as full of quality and role models? Not at all. Just double-check your vitriol and be sure that it isn't based mostly on the fact that something is girly. Everything fills a different niche and desire in people, and something you loved 4 months ago doesn't have to be trashed now because you love something else that happens to be loosely in the same genre. The world is big. Read lots and see lots of movies. Like them all, if you want.

My own words- they both delight and annoy me

Clearly, I'm fond of my own voice, be it verbal or written, being that I blog, post a lot online, talk a lot, and speak in public.  But I tell you, I was so sick of reading my paper.  I always do this: I work and work and cram and stay up, and the day the paper is due, I am so disgusted by the whole thing and tired that I don't want to read it one more time, even though I know that I should.  In a better-ordered world, I would get done ahead of time and give myself a few days of distance before going back to read.

Today was okay, though.  I stayed up all night, which went surprisingly smoothly, though the big dog was confused and annoyed.  Every time I got up to go to the bathroom or anything, he stood, walked towards the bedroom, and looked at me.  When I returned to the living room, he'd just give me the stink eye & plop back down on the floor with a sigh.  (Yes, my dog sighs.  He's like his mother.  Actually, both of my dogs sigh.  I wonder if I influence them too much.   Or maybe we need some more oxygen in this joint.)

Anywhoodle, I finished finished with my paper around 11am, but I was still up until noon:thirty.  I was only able to doze for a couple hours, but I eventually read the paper out loud, which was new, and it helped.  I changed a few things here and there and, overall, I think it's a good paper.  My introductory paragraph blows, but I wasn't in the mood to work on it anymore.  See?  My process isn't that great. 

What is good about my process is that it integrates a high-pressure situation and laziness in one (or two) caffeine-fueled all-nighters.  The reason it takes me so long is partially because I torture myself and it takes me too long to just freaking start typing the actual document.  Once I get going, though, it isn't a difficult process, it's just like pulling teeth to get me to focus & do it.  Especially as I get closer to the end and feel like I've accomplished something, I start going online to check FB or twitter after half a page- after a paragraph- after a good sentence- Oh!  I wrote "In the words of!" time for a break!  I annoy myself sometimes.

I have seen some improvement in my school habits over the past year, and I hope to do a better job in the fall.  Part of the problem was the quickness with which my professor wanted these papers, not giving us the expected month & a half after the end of class. 

So I am freeeeeee!!!  Kind of.  For a while.  I have my sexuality project due on Friday, but I'm excited about that & like it.  I don't think it will be very difficult.  (Famous last words?  I hope not.)

Song lyrics!

I'm really tired, so this shall be a bullet-pointed post to sum up today.

• Training for youth group volunteers this morning, which was at the home of a family from church which was LOVELY.  They have a great yard, vines of their own & their yard backs up to a bigger vineyard, with a mountain behind.  Awesome.
• I'm going to have two other adult leaders for my small group this year, and our two student leaders are going to be a lot of fun.  All of the student leaders are really excited about leading and I think they're going to be really strong this year.
• My ears are really, really itchy.
• We had tacos for lunch at the training, and they were fabulous, I tell you. 
• I've started writing my final C.S. Lewis paper, and I'm going to finish it tomorrow, I say!  I'm going to go to bed early tonight, skip church tomorrow, and work on it all day. 
• Our college event was really good.  We had 7 college students show up for dinner, which was good, so about 14 of us total had pizza and talked, then we went to the church to play Rock Band.  Some more people joined us there, and it was lots of fun, of course.  The beauty was that it was an early night-- we started with dinner at 4 and the last of us taking down the xbox & putting the church back in order left church around 10pm.  We're all feeling old & tired tonight.
• I love playing Rock Band with the church friends, because everyone gets into it, especially a lot of the guys.  They're jumping up and down, screaming and singing, and acting like lunatics.  It makes me smile a lot.  
• I have the paper due Monday and my sexuality project due Friday.  Then I am freeeeeeeeeee!  Until the 30th of September, at least,  I'm going to see some family, read a ton, and clean a ton.  I'll have to restrain myself from blatantly throwing away half of our possessions, since I'm so sick of the mess.  I do hope to at least put a good amount of stuff in storage.  It will be grand.

Goodnight!  Oh, and my ears are still really itchy. 

over and over and over

It has been a "duh!" and "dangit!" kind of day, at least partially.  Multiple trips back and forth between houses because of keys left behind, going back out to the car because wallet is inside, realizing you're hungry when you're in the car about 2 minutes after leaving the house.  You know how it is. 

The final frustration was my paper.  Word is messing with my mind, I tell you, because I am just 2 lines or so over my page limit and NO MATTER WHAT I DO it's not getting any shorter.  I took out 3 full lines of a block quote.  I have taken out extraneous adjectives and adverbs (I'm bad about those).  I've put on my Hat of Succinctness.  Nothing.  When I look at the print preview, NOTHING HAS CHANGED. 

So I give up for now.  I will look at it again on Monday, when it is due.  I will let it rest.  If I can't figure it out then?  Oh, well. 

How many times does "moon" appear?

Today has been a busy day, but it's lovely.  After staying up most of the night and working a little today, I can be done with my first paper if I want to be.  I'll go over it a bit over the next few days, tweaking & maybe adding enough to make it a solid 10 pages. 

Three hours of sleep is all I got, and I drowsily donated blood and read some C.S. Lewis essays on fiction (now unnecessary) before heading down to SFO to get one of my goddaughters.  My head about exploded due to only one security line being open, but I finally obtained the girl and made it out of the city. 

In an effort to get my page length, I flipped through the Chronicles looking for another example of the things I already pointed out, but eventually realized I had a shiny, new point to make!  That was fun.  So I pulled up the trusty Amazon search and looked for "moon" in all of the books (well, the one, big copy of them all).  No, I haven't resorted to listing objects and the frequency of their appearance, but I had an idea that the Moon was sometimes more than just a moon, so I wanted to see all the uses.  Turns out I'm kind of right.  That's always  nice. 

Oh, yay

Today I am tired, crampy, tired, kinda headachey, sad, and tired. 
I had my first class tonight, and it was fair.  The professor says that tonight and tomorrow will be a lot of loading on of information as background and context for C.S. Lewis' thought and writing, so Thursday on will be better. 
The good news is that a) we only have to read 1200 pages of material, and once we hit that point, we can stop.  b) The books don't necessarily have to be read in the order he has put on the syllabus, so I don't have to try to get through Mere Christianity before Thursday.  I could read it later and just fly through a couple short things first, if I wanted to.  c) All the reading doesn't have to be done within these two weeks. 
In sum, that is fabulous.  Now I just have to think of 2 different topics for research papers related to C.S. Lewis.  I have a few vague ideas floating around in my head, and I hope that they'll solidify (or clarify) themselves within a few days, because the papers are due sooner than I thought.  (Not by next week, but we don't have until the end of the semester, either.)

I'm also pleased because I finally finished the reading for this week's lesson in Human Sexuality.  I'm not quite sure why it was taking me so long, but I'm done now, so I can watch the lectures tomorrow, write my essays for the week, and maybe do my midterm on Wednesday when I don't have class. 

Now?  I'm off to lie in bed & finish Conservatize Me guilt-free, since a lot of schoolwork was done today. 

Oh, I'm stuffed

I completely forgot to write yesterday, but that's really okay, because I'm not sure I read one, single thing. 

Today was a terrific day, and I've read a variety of things. I woke up at 8am, which was not as many hours of sleep as I may have wanted, but I was pretty happy to be awake early.  After breakfast and a bit of World Cup watching, Seth and I went for a run, which was awesome. 

Most of the remainder of the afternoon was spent reading.  Among other things, I started working on C.S. Lewis Remembered, and it is quite lovely so far.  This book focuses on the recollections of people who knew him in a professional setting, especially his students.  Even though I know he was a caring man and took time to write to people, I guess that I still had the stereotypical image of the cranky, English genius, but it seems that was far from the truth.  He was generous both with his money and with his time, helping students and colleagues alike with encouragement and his great knowledge. 

He would always take your little ideas seriously and help make the into something, with the result that young people often felt they had been in amazing form after sitting next to him of an evening.

This sentence struck me, and I realized that I want to be known for being like this.  Especially as I come alongside (sorry, hate that phrase, but it fits) young people and encourage them in their faith and now that I'm moving into teaching more, I want to help people to blossom and make them feel smart instead of just trying to show how smart I am.  This will take some heart adjustments, but I trust God with the tinkering. 

Today's Blog!

It contains nothing!  I didn't really read anything! 
I mostly surfed the net while at work today, because it was too busy to get homework done.  So I guess I read twitter & facebook. 

I had a meeting at church, so I read brainstormed ideas from a white board & chose not to pooh pooh as many as I could have, being that I really have little idea what it takes to get a new service/worship night off the ground.  But I am quite opinionated, you know. 

Here's what I read today:  a transcription I was writing of a 12 minute video for I Am Second.  It wasn't really harder than I expected, but it did take longer, mostly because timestamps had to be noted every minute or so.

I also read...hmmmm...one page of HP & TDH, which I will work on more tomorrow, maybe.  After I have a meeting at church (different topic), work out, finish watching my lectures for this week, and write my essays for this week.  It is a cross-training day tomorrow, though, so I could read on the elliptical or bike.  I'll do that.

I hope you've found something fun to dive into this summer.  Let me know if you find something amazing that I'll like and I'll throw it on the TBR pile.  (meaning: kids or fantasy or, best of all, kids' fantasy)   

It's only okay

I didn't write earlier, while it was still Sunday, because I had a headache and was busy feeling sorry for myself.  So there.  Harrumph.

I was feeling down because my teaching was only okay and I gave myself a stress headache beforehand and I was beating myself up about not being a perfect speaker.

I've only taught 5 times.  I know that no one else expects me to be perfect, but I feel like they're all quite ready for me to not teach anymore.  I don't know if they realize that I'm new to this and I have to grow and learn. 

My problem is that I have too many ideas that I think go together and flow, but they only really do so in my head, at least not without a lot more connection.  This isn't a new problem, but one I've run into writing papers- I get entirely too many sources- and here on the blog, where I quite often get long-winded when I don't mean to or want to do so. 

So I must learn to prune my works a bit and find the main ideas I want to express, keeping all the other stuff for a different work of its own, or as support for something else.  I don't have to express everything I'm thinking just this minute.

Reading:  I read my notes & parts of Hosea again, and I finished Out of the Silent Planet, which was pretty good, but Lewis went a little overboard with the descriptions.   I was often waiting for something to happen besides description of the flora. 

Learning

This blogging everyday about reading is an exercise.  Often, I'm sure it will mostly be an exercise in frustration, but hopefully it will often be good for growth.  I want to grow as a writer and a communicator. 

I know that I am already okay at speaking and writing, but I'm not very good at organization of my thoughts and having a well thought-out plan, which is necessary for getting your points across.  It's easier to sort of make it up as you go along when speaking, as far as being able to find your train of thought and get things headed in the right direction.  At least, I think I can do it. 

So, I read and write a lot.  I don't know that I often stop and take notice when I'm reading something really well-written, because I think that I just get caught up in it, but I do notice sometimes.  I read an old essay by Garrison Keillor, who I normally cannot stand, and it was very very good.  It was funny and human and, for the first time ever, made me want to read one of his books.  Maybe I should, just to observe and try to figure out what I like about what he's doing.

I definitely notice bad writing, and I read a lot of bad writing being that I read romance novels and kids books for the most part when I'm not in school.  The book I'm about to finish, Seducing a Scottish Bride, is passable enough, but the writer has a few writerly tics that are quite noticeable and annoying.  The worst one is that the characters are constantly going, "No-o-o" or "O-o-oh!" in surprise or shock.  Seriously.  Always with the three syllables. 

I want to be aware of the crutches and tics that I rely on in my papers, in my teaching at church, and even in the fiction writing that I dabble in.  I want to clear them up, use different words, and write with clarity.  Then, for some of the those purposes, I still want to be funny.  And here, in my blog, I'll probably go back and forth between attempts at propriety and quality and just blurting out whatever I want because it's my blog, so there.