Hello all!
We’re back to our pre-zombie-apocalypse writing style and schedule, but I hope
everyone enjoyed the deviation. This has been a good if inevitably stressful
couple of weeks, so I’ll dive right into telling y’all about them. (I just want
to tell you that I get the “y’all” not
from my good friend from Texas (Emma) or even my good friend from South
Carolina (Keo), but instead from my lovely roommate. Who is from Dubai. I don’t
understand this any better than you do.)
Two weeks
ago I ended up having a really lovely and relaxing weekend. On Saturday, for
lunch, I had a delicious cheese
sandwich
and then set
off for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) to view an exhibit entitled Strangers in a Strange Land: Photographers’
First Impressions for my Visual Culture class. The exhibit was intended to
look at the way photographers’ images of the foreign create particular
understandings of that space, but I didn’t really feel that it was particularly
well curated. Often the juxtapositions created by the image placements didn’t
really tell me anything new, and sometimes I found them frustrating. This
juxtaposition seemed very interesting to me because of the way the images
create very different understandings of their spaces and inhabitants, but it
was the only one that really did anything for me:
Left: Red Jackson,
Harlem Gang Leader by Gordon Parks and Right: Menace by Earl L. Mohr
Some of the
images were exciting or lovely, though, even if they felt disconnected from the
exhibit, so here are a few of those:
Window of an Antique
Shop, Beijing by Marc Riboud
The Berlin Wall by
Henri Cartier-Bresson
I also got
to see Dorthea Lang’s famous Great Depression photograph—Migrant Mother—and one of the more famous pictures from the early
British exploration of Egypt (with the Sphinx still half-buried in sand and one
of the pyramids rising ominous behind it). It was neat to see those in person
after years of seeing digital reproductions.
The Great Pyramid and
the Great Sphinx, Egypt by Francis Frith
And I
discovered that the museum is currently hosting an exhibit of the Terracotta
Warriors from that emperor's tomb in China, which I've been dying to see for years. I
didn't get to look at it then, but I'm hoping to go back on one of the free
days.
On the way
back from the museum I (unsurprisingly) stopped to take a few pictures of the
late fall beauty. What?! I can’t help myself!
[I am completely captivated by the after-images left by
fallen leaves. I call them leaf “blast-patterns and think that they are
indescribably lovely.]
That evening
I went to see Cloud Atlas, a rather
strange movie involving multiple storylines all played by the same actors—presumed
to be the same people reincarnated in different times and places. It was interesting
and fun (and visually stunning), but I absolutely had some problems with it. As
remarkable as the make-up was to change each actor into five or six different
characters, it was often distracting (especially when they tried to make white
actors play Asian characters using prosthetic faces) and some of the storylines
were more frustrating or melodramatic than exciting, although a few captivated
me so much I was sobbing by the end.
Afterwards I
went to dinner with Keo and her parents (and also Emma) at some sort of Middle
Eastern restaurant. The food was good and the company excellent, although I did
have one problem: I only understand my parents’ professions well enough to
describe them to the average layperson—and Keo’s dad knows a lot about GIS and ESRI in general! I
also ordered orange tea, which I expected to taste like oranges and tea.
Instead, it was orange and tasted
rather like Emergen-C.
To round off
the evening, we all went out for Izze’s. I had raspberry chip and dark
chocolate. Mmmmm.
When I
finally got back to my room, rather late, I was just about to get ready for bed
when there was a knock at the door! And who was it? A pair of boys in costume,
going around and reverse trick-or-treating. In other words, handing out candy
while being adorable. I’ve never heard of this idea before, but I love it.
On Sunday, I
went to dinner with nearly all of the Doty 4 girls at Everest on Grand, a
Tibetan restaurant (Tibetan food basically tastes like Indian food from what I
can tell). Not only did I have fun hanging out, but OH MY GOODNESS, FIRST
INDIAN FOOD IN LIKE TWO YEARS!!! Also my friends have really good taste in
food, so we ordered several dishes and shared them all. They were all extremely
tasty, particularly the palak paneer, which was the best I’ve ever had.
Afterwards,
Tori came back to our room to meet our tiny triceratops companion (she’s a
dinosaur fan), after which point she and I apparently lost our freaking minds and decided to watch two episodes of Sherlock, despite both having homework to
finish before Monday. I inevitably had to stay up extremely late after that to
finish my homework, but, as I always say, “Who said college was for getting
enough sleep??”
On Monday we
started figure drawing (and we continued it through Wednesday). I was a bit
nervous (Will it be super awkward to have a live, nude model? Can I draw a person??) but she started us out with
these incredibly short “gesture drawings”. We had to draw with wide pieces of
charcoal, never lifting the charcoal off of the paper, and we were required to
capture the whole person in either two minutes, one minute, or thirty seconds
(for the longer poses we had to take the pose before starting). They were crazy
and hectic and remarkably evocative.
The left was thirty seconds and the right one minute.
Best of all,
though, they really dispelled the nervousness in the room and got us all
started without too much stress (much as those silly ink drawings did at the
beginning of the year). The actual figure drawing went pretty well, actually,
although I still have a lot to learn.
Wednesday
was Halloween, of course, but I’ve already covered that in my “Limited Time
Only! Special Release: HALLOWEEN EDITION” post. Suffice it to say that I didn’t
want to dismantle my paper sword (which was made out of a ruler) immediately
after Halloween, so I just put it away with the other office supplies it lives
with. The resulting image was rather amusing.
The rest of
the week’s classes weren’t particularly remarkable, apparently, since I can’t
actually remember what we did in them…With the exception of C18, where we spent
both Tuesday and Thursday in a deep and fascinating discussion about Gulliver’s Travels. Why didn’t anyone
tell me that reading that book would be fun??
I really enjoyed it (even though I had to stay up until three to finish it—my
speed-reading hubris told me that a hundred pages is no big deal, and that
might have even been true…if they hadn’t been a hundred pages in the Norton “Freaking
Tiniest Type Ever” Anthology)! And our discussions were great! On Thursday, we got
into a discussion of hard v. soft readings (for those who don’t know: a hard
reading (in its simplest terms) is that Gulliver has been enlightened by the
end in his discovery that humans really suck and a soft reading is that he’s
gone completely mad by the end and, really, humans aren’t so bad after all),
during which time several classmates and I invented and passionately defended
an in-between reading that we’re either calling “soft-boiled” or “chewy”.
Anyway, the
week was going along swimmingly, and then it was Friday afternoon and I
realized that I need to start on a drawing project and…BAM. PEN FREAKING
DRAWINGS. The assignment was to draw four pictures (about 12”x18”) in ballpoint
pen, by the end of which we needed to have used up ALL OF THE INK IN TWO,
SEPARATE, BRAND-NEW PENS. If you’re thinking that this is a crazy assignment,
YOU WOULD BE RIGHT. To be fair to my teacher, she did assign this a while ago, but I was so intimidated and also busy
with other things that I put it off. As it stood, I spent the ENTIRE WEEKEND
working on this project—about thirty hours in total. I spent so much of that
time at Dunn Brothers that my room
smells like coffee! My hand was also blue (and achy!) until at least the Wednesday
following. It is also possible that I
have gone insane following this project. [Fun fact: if you draw with a
ballpoint pen for enough hours, it begins to smell like cherry-almond lotion.
Either that, or I was getting high off of BALLPOINT PEN FUMES, which should not
even be a thing. Seriously, is my teacher sadistic??]
But I’m done
now (and thank goodness for that!!)
and here they are, for your inspection. The drawings themselves had to be done
in two-point perspective and depict four different types of scenes: (1)
off-campus outside of a building exterior corner (meaning its vertex points towards
you), (2) off-campus public space interior corner (meaning its vertex points
away from you), (3) inside of a building on-campus with both an exterior and an
interior corner, and (4) inside of your dorm room with both an exterior and an
interior corner. Also, a note: please forgive the mistakes and failures of
these drawings—once I’d screwed up something, I couldn’t fix it. Which was both
frustrating and freeing, actually.
On Monday we
went to the Cathedral of Saint Paul for drawing to do studies of different
parts of the architecture and/or decoration. It was nice to be in such lovely
surroundings while drawing instead of being cooped up in the not-very-lovely
drawing room in the (soon to be torn down) art building. That evening, I was
just sitting down to my homework in the hopes that I could actually finish in
time to get at least some sleep (following
the fiasco of a weekend that was my pen-drawing project) when Charmaine turned
to me with plaintive eyes and asked if I’d watch V for Vendetta with her in honor of Guy Fawkes Day. I hesitated for a moment…and then totally
caved. In my defense, her puppy-dog eyes are remarkably effective and hard to
resist. So I watched V for Vendetta
for the first time, which was an extremely mixed experience. On the one hand,
it was rather heavy-handed with the Nazi imagery, very melodramatic, had the
most unconvincing romance ever, and
had a lot of unnecessary (and scientifically inexplicable) bloodshed. On the
other, the parts about the government’s creation of propaganda were often fascinating and terrifyingly on-point. I
found those particularly interesting given my recent discussions of propaganda
in VC. Anyway, I most certainly did not
get enough sleep that night, but I still took the time to decorate my whiteboard
in honor of Tuesday.
And then it
was Tuesday!!! Although I know I address an incredibly divided audience (in
terms of political opinion), I feel like describing my experience of the last
two weeks would be lacking without a mention of the election. Mac is a very
politically active and politically homogenous campus, so there is a lot happening! Nearly every professor
reminded me to vote, I was accosted every five feet by someone asking if I’d
voted yet, and nearly half of the people I saw were wearing “I voted today!”
stickers…by eight thirty in the morning (which
is basically about four AM in college campus time). That evening, I spent some
time with Keo (both of us trying to pretend we weren’t worrying about the election)
and then talked to Clara on the phone for a while. Near the end of the phone
call, I heard ecstatic cheers echoing through my dorm building and promptly
rushed back to my room to check on the polls—and indeed, it was the moment they’d
called the election for Obama. After that I went to camp out in the lounge on
my floor with a bunch of other people to wait for the speeches and information
on some of the other ballot measures that were important to me. Some things
lost that I cared about and some things I wasn’t fond of won, but no matter our
opinions, I think we can all agree that it was an election remarkable for its
long list of firsts: first legalization of recreational marijuana, first female
amputee in Congress, first female Asian American senator, first openly gay
senator, first Hindu in Congress (who will be sworn in over the Bhagavad Gita!!),
and first time a “one man, one woman” state marriage amendment was voted down
(GO MN UNITED!). Also the legalization of gay marriage in three more states, the first second term for a black president, and
WHAT?? Puerto Rico might become a state?!
Point is, this election was crazy
and a lot of stuff happened—but I am heartened by the apparent across-the-board
push for greater diversity in Congress. I don’t know the politics of any of
these firsts in Congress (I may heartily disagree with all of them), but I know
that I am encouraged by the very fact that these firsts have happened and that
Congress is going to be a slightly less racially-homogenous place.
On a
slightly less political note, here is a picture of my bulletin board by the end
of Tuesday.
The DFTVA
poster is something that the Green brothers started. As many of you know, the
motto of their online community (Nerdfighteria) is DFTBA, which stands for “Don’t
Forget to Be Awesome!” Hank Green started the idea of “Don’t Forget to Vote,
America” for this election—people send in pictures of themselves at their
polling places doing the nerdfighter sign as a way to raise election awareness. As I’d already voted by mail, I sent in a
picture of myself with this poster. After I’d posted it on my bulletin board,
someone wrote “Best Wishes” on it (John Green’s sign-off phrase on nearly all
of his videos), which led to this little note progression.
Clearly I
need to meet these girls!
While I’m talking about politics, I’d like to tell you all
that I’m starting a separate blog to talk about political and social issues. A
big part of my experience here at college is thinking about and arguing about
these kinds of issues and, as the years have passed, I’ve become a lot better
at expressing my ideas and opinions. (Some of you will remember my early
attempts at argumentation: shout something semi-logical and then burst into
tears when it’s contradicted.) Anyway, I sometimes think about certain issues
for a long time and craft these complicated, logical arguments in my head. And
then they just sort of rattle around in my brain. The most recent one of these
has been the gay marriage debate, something that I care about a great deal but
have previously been unable to express why in a logical way. I finally crafted
an argument that I’m proud of and then felt the need to write it down. Having
spent several hours on that (hours that I really should have spent on homework or
this blog or my IDIM proposal or…), I didn’t want to just save it and let it
get lost in the depths of my hard drive. So I’ve decided to start a blog where
I can talk about these things, since this really isn’t the place. I want this
to be my letter home, not the place I start political arguments! I’m telling
you all about it because, as some of the people I argue with, I respect you all
a great deal as thinkers and also because the narrative of my college career
would be lacking without this blog. I’m not sure how often I’ll post things—that
entirely depends on what I’m thinking about at the moment and also on how busy
I am—and I will be perfectly happy if people choose to skip them, send me
argumentative e-mail responses, or read them and remain silent. If you think
they will just irritate you—skip them. If you think that arguing about these
issues or reading my opposing views will harm our relationship—please skip
them. I love and respect all my family and friends and do not want the
relationships I have with you guys to lessen or be harmed by our political
differences. Anyway, here’s the URL for my very first post: A Treatise on Gay
Marriage: http://theravenpuff.tumblr.com/post/35434961901/atreatiseongaymarriage.
Moving on!
On Wednesday, I had a guest lecture by the Mac painting professor in VC, which
was neat, especially since she talked about how many of her paintings were
inspired by literary texts (more evidence for my major—huzzah!). For drawing, we
went back to the cathedral, where I was photographed an entirely unnecessary
number of times by the Mac communication department’s person for a publication
or something. It is very hard to draw when someone is snapping a shutter in
your face every couple of seconds! Here is my cathedral visit photo montage,
including pictures of my studies/sketches:
Thursday was
mostly unremarkable except for my extreme exhaustion, the moment I realized
that C18 is really more of a philosophy class than anything else, and watching
a silent film for the first time in Harlem Renaissance.
On Friday, I
was finally awake for the first time all week just in time for a supremely
creepy discussion about observation and surveillance in VC—that class is going
to make me so paranoid.
In the evening I went to one of the Mac poetry slams. I left
partway through, but I got to hear several friends and several friendly acquaintances
perform, and they were all pretty awesome. Usually the poetry slam is a mixed
bag, but this one—though sparsely attended—had a higher overall level of
quality (or at least more poems that I really liked). The guest poet (Jon
Sands) was fantastic too. He has this weird style of delivery that is like
nothing so much as the sound of someone hesitantly typing on a typewriter—lots of
pauses and each word articulated in a burst of noise. From that description it
doesn’t sound as charming as it was, but I really enjoyed his performance.
And now it
is Saturday, and I have many things to write before I sleep! I have a paper for
VC due on Monday about an awesome postcard Grandmarina and Grandparino sent me
from Paris.
We’re
supposed to pick an image and then talk about the way that image and its medium
create tourist imaginaries that effect the location itself. I’m pretty excited
about it! There are of course also the normal homework assignments: various
reading assignments, reading responses, the usual “just find someone to model
for you for a couple of hours and draw them, no big deal” assignment—OH WAIT,
THAT’S NOT USUAL. I’m pretty sure my drawing teacher is trying to kill us, since
she sprang (sprung? sprunged? sproongled?) this assignment on us late last
week. Luckily Charmaine agreed to pose for me, but STILL!!
I’m also going
to try to write my IDIM proposal this weekend so that I can talk to professors
soon. You should all send me obnoxiously nagging e-mails in the hope that I’ll actually
get it done (seriously, please do—guilt tripping and the judgment of my family
and friends works on me EVERY TIME). I’m registering for classes next week (and
meeting with my advisor on Monday), so I feel like I need to have some grasp of
where I’m going in the future. I also have a meeting with my study abroad
advisor on Tuesday, so that’s exciting! And tonight I’m going to the school production
of Romeo and Juliet in which (or so I’ve
been told), every cast member will play Romeo or (and?) Juliet. It should be interesting,
at the very least!
To finish
off: this week’s whiteboard. I found this definition in the OED online when I
was looking up the usual meaning of
this word and thought it was pretty much hilarious.
Anyway, TTFN!
Also, haircut!!
P.S. Two
weeks from now (the date for my next blog post) will be during Thanksgiving break
and therefore things will be a bit strange. Since I’ll be out-of-town from Wednesday
morning to Sunday afternoon, and would rather not spend my Saturday writing
about my experiences instead of hanging out with my family (especially since I’ll
be spending the weekend with at least
half of my usual audience), I’ll be posting sometime on Sunday instead. I’ll
try to write it on the plane trip home, but we’ll see how that goes (I am
shockingly bad at doing anything on
plane rides—I usually spend most of them staring out the window and dozing). Anyway,
till then: Toodles and Happy Thanksgiving!
P.P.S. I reorganized the bulletin board that makes up the back wall of my desk. Now it is even crazier and includes the Amelie pictures Clara took in France.
P.P.P.S. I read The Secret Garden this week, motivated by a profound sense of jealousy that my sister gets to take (or TA for, whatever) a class in children's literature. The cover art was so lovely I wanted to share.
P.P.S. WINDOW SHOTS AND LATE FALL PHOTO MONTAGE! (Mwahaha! And you thought you'd gotten away with a minimum of photos this week. Suckers.)
