Almost Famous, The Weepies, & Roommate Rambling

Ahhhh. It's been awhile since I last saw Almost Famous and I totally covet the screenplay writing and directorial artistry. Damn, I miss good movies. Everything is crap nowadays. As a writer, the story is really inspiring and the plot is equally riveting. The acting was phenominal. Phillip Seymour Hoffman can play virtually any role and Patrick Fugit's face..awww.. Zooey Deschanel has also been a fav as well. Awesome casting. I love how the writers' chose not to create a completely happy ending, well at least on the romance side. It was better and more realistic that way and added way more insight. The progression of the characters was well played. For some reason, I always thought that movies about true events were always the best.

Freewrites, Damien Rice, Hunger

1) i was probably three years old and she brought up a christmas bush and i stared and whined and complained because Dad wasn't home he was away one business and she brough home a christmas bush, not a tree and it was terrible because who the hell doesn't have a christmas three for christmas and in my three year old mind i lookd up at my other and was like what the fuck mom seriously what the fuck so my mother being the doting and caring thing she is goes out and buys the next best thing being as how we were already on the cusp of christmas and going out to get a fresh three would be a pain in the ass she gets a plastic one that you have to asslemble and straighten out the brainches and screw on the limbs and trunk but still to a three year old it was a tree a fucking christmas tree and it was good enough but then we had problems assembling it because my mother's french and teh french don't take the time to read the directions because we alredy know what the hell we're doing and i complained and said that we needed Dad because Dad knows how to fix everything and then his mother an embittered divorcee who broke it off with my grandfather a few short years before pipes up that "We don't need a man" and this sentiment was forever engrained into my premature brain and carried through every heartbreak, crush, break up and bang up between the male species and i and most people question why i am the feminist i am and i blame it on my bitter grandmother who has not yet fullly recovered from the divorce because i don't think it was so much that he didn't love her or want to be with her it was more like he didn't see through and my grandmother ALWAYS completes a task and i also think that to her divorce is looked down upon and only happens to stupid, selfish, and lazy people and if my grandmother hates one thing then it is lazy people so finally we got that damn tree up and the christmas bush was caput and ever since we have always used that damn tree at every christmas because it is artificial and it lasts and its symbolic and it's what christmas is really all about because honestly who the fuck uses a christmas bush and who thinks that a 3 yr old tv extraordinare would ever celebrate with presents under a bush? i love my mother but if we would have kept that bush then she would've robbed me of traditional values, but then my grandmother already did when she instilled in me the feministic viewpoint of embittered girl power and success all because we could figure out how to assemble a plastic tree so even as a 3 yr old i knew that because of pop culture Christmas trees were at least a major tradition/symbol of christmas and that bc my mother fucked up that we would not really be celebrating christmas at all and that we were just halfassing my time to get presents and we weren't celebrating shit

2) it's probably 1998 i am 8 yrs old and i am watching mindlessly the blaring television that is betraying apathetic teenagers who are drowning in the grunge scene and who are bitching about their all too suburban environment and i'm watching the main character Daria who like me is a brunette and whose uncaring attitude and seemingly smart antics makes me wish to be like her at least in high school when i was 8 i used to play high school all the time dressing up and carrying books and meeting up with my boyfriend at the mall calling all my friends to drive around in our limo Yes, that was high school to an 8 yr old and watching the angry apathetic brunette made me all the more attuned to grungy girl power and the independence of being a teenager in high school but really i wasn't understanding the story like most children just watching like a vegetable at the pretty moving pictures and occasionally adopting inappropriate commentary that was being subliminally capsuled into my impressionable mind and then as i am absorbed into this fantasy land of cartoon Daria goes "Damn" which is pretty much the only curse word the show used frequently right as my dad walks in and says Hey, this isn't appropriate and for some reason i have always remembered that moment watching daria not so much the plot of the shows but having my father say that what i was watching was inherently bad and that was such a teenage sceneario that i continued to watch the show in secret because i felt like i was in some secret grown up society where i was allowing myslef to do something that my parents forbid and THAT felt really grown up i was always a tv kid in those days lazing around and watching shows or disney movies or whatever kind of story could be told to me as there was nothing to do as an only child daria was someone cool and untouchable and i felt that if i could watch her i could somehow be like her and be someone who had this whole active adult life going on...at eight years old sometimes i run into to people well beyond the age of 8 who still try to pretend that they have such a great adult life when really, they're just imitating Daria or whoeverelse seems too important to care what's actually going on in the world around them and in some sense Daria may be the more recent Raskolnikov from Crime & Punishment who believes that he is the godlike figure that can take lives and not be ashamed by his murders now i'm not saying Daria is a murderer or anything but she is like that wannabe Napolean in that she portrays the godlike human who doesn't have normal human reactions to the society around them Daria was an apathetic teenager who judged the overly stereotypical life around her with a sense of condescendment...that doesn't sound right...the word not the idea anyway it's just a moment of my childhood tv watching experience that has always stuck with me for i think a big subliminal reason

3)Winnie the Pooh was to a 2 year old a freaking genius i was a winnie the pooh kid i had the stuffed animal the movies the apparel just everything and i would watch the movies and shows all the time and caused the death of a few videos because of my avid tv watching
habits what was custom and really legendery to my family now is that i would have my marching ritual at the end of one particualar pooh episode where winnie was stuck in rabbit's hole from eating waaaay too much honey well with the help from the gang pooh was set free and so they had a celebration in each they had a celebratory march well everytime they would march i would toddle upwards and march along with the gang singing in my high pitched voice "hooray for pooh! hooray for pooh!" this would go one for at least a half an hour as i would demand my parents to rewind the part over and over again so i could feel the happiness and the celebration of freeing the beloved fat bear its almost scary to see how people especially young kids become so easily moved at the solution of a problem that is found by strangers or even obese cartoon animals but communicating with them and watching them alone i probably felt as if i was apart of the real thing i think the reason my parents put me in front of the televison so much was that i was such a low energy kid (and pretty much still am depending on the situation) and that i was an only child and that they were working and busy doing other things that the tv was the best baby sitter ever and i don't chastise them for that whatsoever because as a 2 and 3 yr old i established a connection in that i understood how to celebrate happiness at the triumph of someone's problem i'm just happy that i wasn't watching beevis and butthead or south park at the time as i was easily influenced by fictional characters

Memoirs, Soup Secrets, and Trivial Pursuit

The thing that surprises me about memoirs, or really the thing I didn't know about memoirs is that they usually are centered around one singular moment. I used to think that they were overall about the author's life and the experiences he or she has faced.

To me, the concept of one.defining.moment chosen from the mosaic of someone's life and have that one piece speak for the whole, is as amazing as it is disconcerting. Do not tiny, seemingly insignificant moments lead to that one turning point that changes everything?

Excuse me for my overly analytical rambling once again. But on another note, David Sedaris is God. I've loved his work since high school when he wrote about his boyfriend's childhood... or something like that, anyway it was simply amazing. What I love about his work is that he takes normal situations and people, and uses his poignant perspective to bring forth the truth of reality! Right off the bat, the connotations of his title Us and Them already sets up an air of distinction between groups of people, in this case "normal" suburban families vs. unorthodox families. Sedaris uses allusions to further cast distinction between the oddball Tomkeys and the normal TV watching neighbors and classmates. He is as strategic as he is artful using ironic quips such as, "I felt as if my favorite show had been canceled" when he could not spy on the Tomkeys.

As for Susan Jane Gilman's Mick Jagger Wants Me, Susan sets up the differing adjacent environments: the "small, windowless storefront with a small door set in far from the...urine-drenched sidewalk" which exemplifies the theme topics Reality vs. Fantasy. Susan mentions that "most of the time, none of us knew where we were, or who we were with" pertaining to the fantastical, dangerous lifestyle of psychedelic freedom. The whole making-out theory also gives way to the speaker's naive tone while she continues to question the dynamics of Reality. As with the shitty street and the studio, Susie and Michelle are juxtaposed as well, the former being Fantasy and the latter Reality. Susan uses descriptive imagery and a clipped tone when describing the reality of the experience: the desperation of not only the scenery but their obessive actions.

P.S. All of the titles of the memoirs we read for the homework assignment create an atmosphere of cleverness and question, causing the reader to want to find out what the author has to say and therefore creating a relationship of supsense.

I've also noticed that usually the writers of memoirs try to set up situations or use certain wording that instantly connects their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with those that are encountered by the mass majority in order to establish an automatic trust so that the reader feels comfortable in receiving the information bestowed upon them.

Now it is time for class...

Tata!

Cat Slobber on the Keyboard & Findings on Myself

So, I took the personality test and I'm apparently an INFP. So generally, I'm idealistic, loyal to my values and people who are important to me. I want an external life that is congruent with my values. I am also curious, quick to seek possibilites, and am a catalyst for implementing ideas. I try to understand people and help them fulfill their potential. I am adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.

This is all crazily accurate. Though I already knews these traits of myself, it's pretty weird to see it in black and white or via a quiz on Facebook...

I think there's a part of everyone that believes there is genuinely something unique or special about them or their experiences that hasn't existed or will reign in anyone else. Perhaps this quiz as further proved to me that there are more people like me than I imagined or even wanted to. I guess the old addage, "You're unique; just like everyone else" is the biting Truth after all.

So, I tried to save my results for The Political Compass tests to my favorites but yeah, did not work. I tried to complete it last night but was so tired I stopped halfway through and so I completed it this morning. I rather not take it again, so I'll try my best to recall its results: Left wing Libertarian, this meaning I believe in individualistic prowess & some elements of anarchy. Basically, I'm a few steps from Ghandi.

This is accurate as well. I think that everything needs balance and our values as citizens greatly affect what happens to us. I do believe that we need a government to keep society in check, yet as a society it is our responsibility to choose who are our voices and who makes decisions for us as a whole.

Religious Questions Not to be Asked on a First Date or at the Thanksgiving table:

1. Do you have a spiritual belief or practice? Yes, I do. I am a Non-denominational Christian. I believe that we are here for a divine purpose. I am supportive of gay rights and abortion; just because I am a Christian does not mean that sterotypical ignorances, that are unfortunately associated with Christianity, should ever choose the end results of anyone's personal situations/decisions. I believe in people and the power of prayer. Live, Laugh, Love, and Learn is where it's at.

2. Is belief itself a problem? Depends on what one believes and how it could affect the masses as a whole as well as the individual who is practicing it. As long as it is not destructive, negative, disrespectful, or cataclysmic and if it makes someone feel happy and secure then go for it.

3. How important is tolerance of differing beliefs in regard to this topic? Extremely important. Intolerance and ignorance are my two of my biggest pet peeves. I think that one of our purposes to live is to understand, connect, and help those around us by being as non judgmental as unhumanly possible.

4. Do you believe in a divine being or higher power? I believe in God and Jesus Christ. I also believe in the paranormal and the Unknown.

5. How do you relate to this concept to a higher power? I believe that we are all made in the image of God and that as a follower of Jesus Christ there is a power of love and protection that reigns over me.

6. What is the relationship between the spirtual and physical world? I think that the spiritual world dominates the physical world and that everything in the physical world encompasses spirtuatlity.

7. How important is spirtuality to your personal identity? It is very important. My upbringing and spirituality has molded me into who I am today.

8. What is your attitude to people whose views on spiritual matters differ from your own? It works if your work it.

9. Do you believe your spiritual beliefs continue to change over time or generally stay the same? What is the importance of change or its lack? My spiritual belief has changed in a way that it is more accepting of people and their differences. Change is crucial. It can ultimately break us or make us. Life's biggest lessons are garnered from Change.

Writing on the Facebook Wall, Emo Internet Poetry, and Much More!

I really don't think there was one outstanding moment of my early child or angsty teen years that said, "I should be an artist. No, wait... I should be a writer!" It just always was. Writing came as naturally as watching Rugrats, just turn it on and zone out into another world entirely. Or maybe it is the glaring fact that I am an only child, that I should be predisposed to making up friends. Who knows...

At fourteen I poured my "misunderstood" soul into a website that posts poetry. That was 2005 and four years later I have 333 poems. This has been the one consistent thing in my life, the one thing I've always stuck to and never given up on. I'm scared that one day the site will be shut down and my memories and depiction of my wonder years will be lost to the black hole of cyberspace to make room for a Twilight saga fansite or something equally disastorous.

I kept a diary for awhile, writing whenever the urge was biting and to somehow make sense of social situations that at thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen made the 2nd coming of Christ mere child's play. Since then I lost that spiral pink notebook with the magnificent white horse galloping in brown fields on the cover to the malicious mouth of my messy bedroom.

Upon losing my diary, I found greater salvation: Creative Writing class my sophmore year in high school. My teacher was the perfect image of Writer: apathetic with a discreet IV bag under her desk that intravenously fed her coffee, the stench of cigarettes, always waiting for her "big break"... smoking or non. Harty har har. Anyway, after submitting mediocre poetry, I wrote a prose about a girl's memories of her sister who was moving away. On my paper, she wrote in red pen that i had "it." At the end of class, I asked what "it" was. She told me that I had what couldn't be taught in a writer.

Maybe that actually was my moment mentioned earlier in this post, but from then on I wrote fiction (yet still use poetry religiously.) I have accounts on fanfiction.com and fictionpress.com, the first website for stories using characters from books, video games, television shows, etc. and the second from my own creation. I wrote for the Prism Literary Magazine my sophmore, junior, and senior year. I became the Creative Writing Club President senior year, hosting Open Mic Nites and blah blah blah.

Now mostly my writing consists of journaling, posting poetry on that same ol' site, working on a fictional story of a young drug addict, lurking, posting, and victimizing my friends' Facebook walls, texting, e-mailing, and jotting down endless notes in college. Each of these genres has expanded my writing style into many forms, especially since my audience usually comes down to the known and unknown. And because this medium is electronic and my audience is my English class, I hope that my tone is affecting my stance which is:

Writing is simply who I am and how I get through the day. The End.

p.s. Now how's THAT for relating my history with rhetorical situations? ;)