Note: This blog takes an unusual turn a little over halfway through. If that becomes confusing, then feel free to reach out to me personally to ask questions, but I don't know that I want to write about it anymore in this space for the time being.
Without even realizing the landmark occasion until just a moment ago, I'm happy to announce that this blog marks the 400th entry in The Songs of Spring (Note from after publication: I realize that I have two unposted blogs, so my entry total is only 398. I guess I'll have to come up with something great for the actual 400th!). It has been over a year since I started writing, over a month since I endeavored to stop and just a few weeks since I picked up again with regular daily entries. I don't think of this as a commitment anymore, but rather a place where I can let my mind run freely without fear of judgment, apathy, insult, stress or anxiety. It relieves all of my tension and it makes me feel good. Writing is a beautiful art - if you haven't done it in a while, you should try it sometime. I only have good things to say about it.
The entry I'm writing today isn't about blogging, though. It isn't about 400 days.
I figured since this is a special blog because of its high and especially divisible number, I should use it to a higher purpose.
Two years ago when my beautiful niece Sydney was born, I didn't have a blog. Though I've managed to write 400 entries, this blog has only actually existed for just over a year - so it has, in fact, not seen me through much of my life. As a reader, even if you went back and decided to read each and every entry, you still wouldn't have had a very thorough insight into everything that's happened to me in my 20 years. Try as a might to be thorough, to talk about a lot of aspects of my life, there's no such thing as a fully comprehensive autobiography.
Because I missed out on getting to write each day of my life, I figure when important occasions take place, it is my bounden duty to write about them. I missed on writing about Sydney's birth, so I will - as best I can - write about my new nephew's birth.
Unfortunately, I'm not in California right now and that is where my sister and brother-in-law's new baby will be coming into the world. I'm stuck in Illinois, waiting for a text or a phone call announcing his arrival, even then I know I won't get to meet him for over two weeks. I don't know that I can handle the anticipation.
I met my niece the day she was born. I had been over at my grandma's house that day and when I found out we had a new addition to my family, I was eager to meet her. In the evening, my brother-in-law met my dad and I in the hospital waiting room and snuck us inside my sister's room to meet the little baby Sydney. Her eyes barely opened, she was all pink and blotchy, her face was super round. She looked like a little blob - as all babies do. But a sweet, unaffected, beautiful little blob.
I instantly fell in love.
Since then I've spent countless hours with the little one. She's brought me joy and strife, a few scratches and a lot of laughs. She's a little ball of energy and a bundle of conflicting emotions.
But she's my little ball of energy. And my little bundle of conflicting emotions. Well, she's my sister's. But on days that I'm babysitting, those characteristics are mine to contend with.
Having the chance to babysit my little niece after her arrival in the world was a constant learning experience. In the beginning I could put her to sleep by setting her in her mechanical rocker for a few minutes. When she had outgrown that, I would try to sing her to sleep. Eventually I had to resort to rocking her in a rocking chair and reading her endless bedtime stories while she physically fought me, then giving up until she fell asleep in a ball on the floor.
Whenever I've had the chance to see her, to take care of her, Sydney has taught me new and valuable things. She's tested my patience. She's also made me a happier person.
Now she'll have a little brother. Without a doubt, he will be a crazy little rugrat. Hopefully the two will share some tendencies.
What I'm most excited about, though, is getting to relive and relearn the things that I discovered when Sydney was just a teeny infant. There was something so glorious about babysitting her while she sat mindless in front of a TV set. She couldn't crawl or even roll over in the early days and what a simpler job it was to take care of her then. The only problem I ever faced was watching SySy struggle when she would try to grab her bottle between her hands and it would inevitably fall on her face if I let go of it. I guess with that knowledge under my belt, I will no longer wondering whether or not my nephew can hold up a bottle on his own and just know that I need to do it for him. Until he's a few months older.
Unfortunately, I just had one of the biggest jolts of my life on the phone just now. And suddenly I feel my blog must take some sort of turn.
Though I eagerly await more information about my sister's labor progress - she's in the hospital now and should be giving birth at some point soon - I was just called by the same hospital where my sister is staying to be told that my grandma has injured her back and is in the hospital as well.
According to the nurse it's a minor issue, but seeing as I'm the only closely related family member to my grandma in the US, I got the first call. It scared me to bits.
So I have two things on my mind now. On one side is the anticipation for a new member of my family, on the other is hope that my grandma's recovery will be swift and that someone will be able to take care of her when I cannot.
This is when being on practically the other side of the country really starts to take its toll. It's been to the point lately that I've started to question how well I will bear my last few quarters at school near Chicago. The distance from people I love has made me lose relationships (i.e. romantic, not familial), feel distant from others and feel incredibly lonely by myself. I want to be able to reach out to some people, but I know they don't care to hear from me. And now I just feel lost.
I'm sorry for turning what was meant to be a joyous blog into something more emotional and depressing, but this actually characterizes my last few weeks pretty accurately. When something good is happening, something sad is there to squash it.
I hope my grandma is okay. And I hope my sister remains okay. If anything else goes wrong, I don't know how I will handle it.
I'm looking forward to a few weeks from now when I can be with the people I love again. Right now it's them that I need most and yet I'm stuck here by myself in my bedroom at a school that feels huge and busy and yet so alienating. It doesn't help that it's nearly midnight on a Thursday and there are some obnoxious drunk guys pacing my hallway and talking about Battle of the Bands.
I don't usually pray for anything, but tonight I'm praying that things just run smoothly for a while. I'm sick of everything going sour. If there is a higher power or karma or something else that can govern luck, please look over my family right now and make sure nothing else goes haywire. I want a baby nephew and I want a healthy grandma. I see no reason I have to trade one for the other.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Generation YouTube
Note (2014): In lieu of recent events, I no longer feel comfortable promoting the work of Alex Day. I was a long-time fan of his, and I won't pretend I wasn't, but I want to be clear that I don't condone his actions in the YouTube community. For more information, please visit this link.
The quarter will be ending soon and I am trying my darnedest not to go absolutely crazy at the prospect of how much work I have to do in just a couple of weeks. This happened to me in London and you'd think after the agonizing torture of staying up until 3 am to do research papers that I would have learned my lesson. I have not learned my lesson.
So what does someone like me - a girl who doesn't party or do anything remotely socially or extracurricularly stimulating - do with all the free time that she should be spending on homework but then refuses to use toward productivity?
Simple. YouTube.
I've had a long-lived obsession with the Tube. The television tube. This obsession has led to hours of my precious time spent sitting in front of a small box staring at pixels changing color, coming together to form some sort of coherent storyline. I might have regrets if those hours weren't some of the best of my life. Call me a rube all you like, but I think of my interest in the tube as an intellectual pursuit. Or a pursuit of personal fulfillment. In some twisted way.
Well it's 2013 now and while I do also have a television in my room, I've started to turn to other tubes. And by that I mean YouTube - the endless mode of entertainment, available even when broadcast television fails me.
The past few weeks I've found myself returning to old YouTube favorites, starting to watch new YouTubers that I now love and continuing with web series that have gotten me through bouts of both emotional turmoil and paralysis.
For those of you lacking adequate methods for wasting time, here are some of the ways I waste mine (coupled with explanations, to better aid in your search for YouTubers to watch):
Note: Keep in mind that I am a nerdfighter and therefore nearly all of the YouTubers listed will be nerdfighters as well. To learn about what a nerdfighter is, read on.
Charlie McDonnell (Charlieissocoollike)
http://www.youtube.com/charlieissocoollike
I believe Charlie McDonnell was the first YouTuber I ever started watching regularly. My first experience with his videos was his "How to be English," which taught viewers how to ("properly") make a cup of tea. I don't know why it was that I was on YouTube at all at this point, but the video must have been featured at the time and the rest is history.
Since then I've watched every Charlie McDonnell video and even when I stopped logging onto YouTube regularly (because my school email account is a Google Account and fudges everything up), I've always kept up with his work. He's sweet, adorable, funny and geeky. And he's English. I think you will notice a trend in the nationalities of the YouTubers I watch in that since starting with charlieissocoollike, I've continued to watch mainly British YouTubers. Please don't hold it against me.
Alex Day (Nerimon)
http://www.youtube.com/nerimon
I went to VidCon a couple of years ago and it was there that I met Alex Day. I admired him so much, even before I met him. I think it was because of his music. While he's mainly known for his vlogging (and for being best friends with Charlie), he also has a blossoming music career. And in my opinion his music is legitimately good - it contests a lot of more popular music nowadays if you ask me. Some of my favorite songs of his include "Hearts" and "Don't Look Back" (there are the most amazing views of London in this music video) from his album Parrot Stories and "She Walks Right Through Me," one of his newer singles.
Maybe it's his irreverence or his strange, patterned clothing, but something about Alex really struck me when I first became acquainted with his videos. While at times I've been driven away and forgotten to check in on his videos, when I do they are consistently good. Random and rant-y at times, but good.
Laura (Laurbubble)
http://www.youtube.com/laurbubble
As with Charlie, I can't remember how exactly I happened upon Laurbubble. Perhaps it was in a featured video. Among my favorite YouTubers, however, she probably has the most traditional style. She makes videos in her room while speaking into a camera. She talks about the world and her life, throwing in character dress-up and putting on voices to fit the circumstances. Occasionally she throws in little bits of graphic overlay - explosions and the like.
A couple of times I've seen Laurbubble resort to doing in-video advertising which disappoints me, yet I still appreciate her work and think she does a good job of putting together simplistic, yet fun video blogs.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LizzieBennet)
http://www.youtube.com/lizziebennet
Now this is something completely different. Again, I couldn't tell you how I discovered The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. What I should say is that it had nothing to do with the Vlogbrothers - of whom one brother (Hank Green) was responsible for putting the series together. I happened upon the series one day and fell in love with it, only later finding out that I had come full circle and perpetuated my nerdfighter-dom (keep reading to find out what a nerdfighter is) without even realizing it.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a modern-day take on the Jane Austen novel Pride & Prejudice. As I've mentioned many times before on this blog, I love P&P. While other girls drown their sorrows in tubs of Ben & Jerry's, I save mine for viewings of Pride & Prejudice (the 2005 version) or The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Even though I didn't fall in love with Darcy in LBD like I hoped I would, I still anxiously look forward to new episodes of the web series twice a week. It's a wonderful way to measure the passing of days.
Johnny Durham (JohnnyDurham19)
http://www.youtube.com/johnnydurham19
Back to the male English YouTubers. Partnering with other YouTubers, Alan Lastufka (fallofautumndistro), Todd Williams (toddly00) and the aforementioned Charlie McDonnell and Alex Day, Johnny Durham became known as one of the fiveawesomeguys. He is a YouTuber with an adorable accent, a handsome face and an endearing personality.
He's obsessed with giraffes, he designs t-shirts and he makes lovely and quirky videos (when he graces the internet with his presence at all). It's been several months since Johnny made a video, but I still appreciate him regardless. He's a vegetarian after all. Enough said.
Dan Howell (danisnotonfire) & Phil Lester (AmazingPhil)
http://www.youtube.com/danisnotonfire & http://www.youtube.com/amazingphil
I have been most newly converted to fandom of the looney YouTube personalities of Dan Howell and Phil Lester. While interacting with a friend over Facebook, these two became known to me and since then I've made it my purpose in life to catch up on several years of not knowing who they were. I must repent for my sin by spending hours in front of my computer watching quite a bit of video footage of the two best friends.
They're weird, they're funny, they have few boundaries when it comes to putting themselves on the internet. And I love them for it. They're a good pick me up whenever I need one and since I haven't yet watched their entire oeuvre, the entertainment is seemingly endless.
John & Hank Green (VlogBrothers)
http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
Last but most certainly not least are the VlogBrothers. If you've read this far then you are probably wondering why I never made good on my promise to explain what a nerdfighter is. Well watch a couple of videos of Hank or John Green - two brothers who live in separate states yet keep in frequent contact by making videos addressed to each other (and now to their fanbase) several times a week - and it will all make sense.
John Green is an author (his most recent book The Fault in Our Stars was recently named the number one fiction book of 2012 by TIME Magazine) and Hank Green is some sort of super-amazing-video-game-playing-innovator-musician-inventor-extraordinaire. Together they make some of the most interesting videos on the internet - not limited to their channel, but including various other shows like Crash Course, SciShow and Hank Plays Games. Their fans have become known as "nerdfighters," their motto being DFTBA (or, "Don't Forget to be Awesome"). It's almost a cult of sorts - with many hardcore fans going to VidCon (a YouTube conference) each year and a lot of people even starting their own channels with aspirations of similar success and fulfillment to that of the VlogBrothers.
I admire these men because along with being two of the most popular players on YouTube, they have other intellectual pursuits and successes. John Green in particular is known for his work as an author, and in watching his videos his way with words is practically palpable (even when talking to his three year old son).
Though Charlie McDonnell introduced me to the idea of serial vlogging, the VlogBrothers were the reason I continued to watch and learn more. Even though I don't make video blogs myself, I feel intimately involved with the community just because I value it so much.
So that's why I watch YouTube. Aside from the mindless entertainment and the hours of time wasted in the hopes of finding peace and solitude during the long days of trudging to class and dreading homework, tube-viewing is a way for me to feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself.
I hope you will take the time to watch a few videos of the YouTubers I've mentioned. They are worth the time and you may actually find yourself enjoying their insights. Some are weirder than others, some are sweeter, but all of them are interesting. So click some links and enjoy.
The quarter will be ending soon and I am trying my darnedest not to go absolutely crazy at the prospect of how much work I have to do in just a couple of weeks. This happened to me in London and you'd think after the agonizing torture of staying up until 3 am to do research papers that I would have learned my lesson. I have not learned my lesson.
So what does someone like me - a girl who doesn't party or do anything remotely socially or extracurricularly stimulating - do with all the free time that she should be spending on homework but then refuses to use toward productivity?
Simple. YouTube.
I've had a long-lived obsession with the Tube. The television tube. This obsession has led to hours of my precious time spent sitting in front of a small box staring at pixels changing color, coming together to form some sort of coherent storyline. I might have regrets if those hours weren't some of the best of my life. Call me a rube all you like, but I think of my interest in the tube as an intellectual pursuit. Or a pursuit of personal fulfillment. In some twisted way.
Well it's 2013 now and while I do also have a television in my room, I've started to turn to other tubes. And by that I mean YouTube - the endless mode of entertainment, available even when broadcast television fails me.
The past few weeks I've found myself returning to old YouTube favorites, starting to watch new YouTubers that I now love and continuing with web series that have gotten me through bouts of both emotional turmoil and paralysis.
For those of you lacking adequate methods for wasting time, here are some of the ways I waste mine (coupled with explanations, to better aid in your search for YouTubers to watch):
Note: Keep in mind that I am a nerdfighter and therefore nearly all of the YouTubers listed will be nerdfighters as well. To learn about what a nerdfighter is, read on.
Charlie McDonnell (Charlieissocoollike)
http://www.youtube.com/charlieissocoollike
Since then I've watched every Charlie McDonnell video and even when I stopped logging onto YouTube regularly (because my school email account is a Google Account and fudges everything up), I've always kept up with his work. He's sweet, adorable, funny and geeky. And he's English. I think you will notice a trend in the nationalities of the YouTubers I watch in that since starting with charlieissocoollike, I've continued to watch mainly British YouTubers. Please don't hold it against me.
Alex Day (Nerimon)
http://www.youtube.com/nerimon
Maybe it's his irreverence or his strange, patterned clothing, but something about Alex really struck me when I first became acquainted with his videos. While at times I've been driven away and forgotten to check in on his videos, when I do they are consistently good. Random and rant-y at times, but good.
Laura (Laurbubble)
http://www.youtube.com/laurbubble
A couple of times I've seen Laurbubble resort to doing in-video advertising which disappoints me, yet I still appreciate her work and think she does a good job of putting together simplistic, yet fun video blogs.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LizzieBennet)
http://www.youtube.com/lizziebennet
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a modern-day take on the Jane Austen novel Pride & Prejudice. As I've mentioned many times before on this blog, I love P&P. While other girls drown their sorrows in tubs of Ben & Jerry's, I save mine for viewings of Pride & Prejudice (the 2005 version) or The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Even though I didn't fall in love with Darcy in LBD like I hoped I would, I still anxiously look forward to new episodes of the web series twice a week. It's a wonderful way to measure the passing of days.
Johnny Durham (JohnnyDurham19)
http://www.youtube.com/johnnydurham19
He's obsessed with giraffes, he designs t-shirts and he makes lovely and quirky videos (when he graces the internet with his presence at all). It's been several months since Johnny made a video, but I still appreciate him regardless. He's a vegetarian after all. Enough said.
Dan Howell (danisnotonfire) & Phil Lester (AmazingPhil)
http://www.youtube.com/danisnotonfire & http://www.youtube.com/amazingphil
They're weird, they're funny, they have few boundaries when it comes to putting themselves on the internet. And I love them for it. They're a good pick me up whenever I need one and since I haven't yet watched their entire oeuvre, the entertainment is seemingly endless.
John & Hank Green (VlogBrothers)
http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
John Green is an author (his most recent book The Fault in Our Stars was recently named the number one fiction book of 2012 by TIME Magazine) and Hank Green is some sort of super-amazing-video-game-playing-innovator-musician-inventor-extraordinaire. Together they make some of the most interesting videos on the internet - not limited to their channel, but including various other shows like Crash Course, SciShow and Hank Plays Games. Their fans have become known as "nerdfighters," their motto being DFTBA (or, "Don't Forget to be Awesome"). It's almost a cult of sorts - with many hardcore fans going to VidCon (a YouTube conference) each year and a lot of people even starting their own channels with aspirations of similar success and fulfillment to that of the VlogBrothers.
I admire these men because along with being two of the most popular players on YouTube, they have other intellectual pursuits and successes. John Green in particular is known for his work as an author, and in watching his videos his way with words is practically palpable (even when talking to his three year old son).
Though Charlie McDonnell introduced me to the idea of serial vlogging, the VlogBrothers were the reason I continued to watch and learn more. Even though I don't make video blogs myself, I feel intimately involved with the community just because I value it so much.
So that's why I watch YouTube. Aside from the mindless entertainment and the hours of time wasted in the hopes of finding peace and solitude during the long days of trudging to class and dreading homework, tube-viewing is a way for me to feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself.
I hope you will take the time to watch a few videos of the YouTubers I've mentioned. They are worth the time and you may actually find yourself enjoying their insights. Some are weirder than others, some are sweeter, but all of them are interesting. So click some links and enjoy.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
On my own again
When you're a girl who lives more in books than in reality, you have trouble not always aligning yourself with the protagonists of your favorite stories. Whether you see them in a play, in a movie, in a TV show or in the pages of a book, somehow the identification becomes unavoidable. You start comparing your own life to theirs, finding meaning in their experience, relating everything that's happened to you to what's happened to them in a much shorter time frame.
I will whole-heartedly admit to doing just this.
Perhaps it's a fault; I should be ashamed for not living my life for its own sake. Instead of taking things as they come, I live by some unreasonable standard set for me by my favorite literature and art.
That's not fair. No one's life is like art. But does that mean I'm not allowed to identify with characters who speak to me?
Here are just a few of the characters who I've identified with at one point or another, specifically in their experiences in love.
Eponine from Les Misérables
This will probably sound morbid, but for a long time I've considered Eponine as an emotional match for me. Even when I was in my young teens, I could see her story playing out in mine. She loves a boy, he acts like he has feelings for her. They flirt, nothing happens. He falls in love with someone else, he uses her to get to that girl and Eponine is left in the shadows. She still loves him, but it's unrequited.
Eventually Eponine dies. And while I wouldn't say that my life will end the same way as hers, the song "On My Own" has always spoke to the pessimist in me. Somehow throughout my experiences in love and not in love, I've found myself returning to Eponine's soliloquy for comfort and guidance. It only serves to make me sadder, but in a commiserating sort of way.
Elphaba from Wicked
Less depressing than the story of Eponine is the tale of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West who is the subject of the musical (and book) Wicked. Elphaba feels unappreciated and misunderstood for the first half of her story. She laments that the boy she likes won't like her back because he'll instead fall for "gold hair with a gentle curl."
She's out of the ordinary. She's green. Sometimes I feel like I'm green. Kind of in the Kermit the Frog sort of way. It's not easy being green, after all. It's a bit alienating (pardon the pun). In the end, Elphaba does find that the boy she likes loves her back, though. They supposedly live happily ever after, but only when he's put in his right place after becoming "brainless." It's a tragic ending, but a beautiful one. I hope I have a beautiful ending too - more like the love between Elphaba and Fiyero rather than death like Eponine. I'd like some semblance of happiness.
Cosette from Les Misérables
For a while I found that my life felt more like Cosette and it seemed weird to me that I identified with her character. I've always despised Cosette - the way that her life became so easy after Jean Valjean saved her from the Thenardiers seemed so inauthentic. At least in the musical Les Misérables, once she's in her teens she manages to lose any depth that she had in the beginning of the play. Somehow the little girl singing "Castle on a Cloud" has more dynamism than the older Cosette singing "A Heart Full of Love."
What she does have, however, is a boy who adores her and wants to be there for her always. I thought I had that. When I did, I identified with Cosette. Then I didn't. And until I can trust men again, I don't know when or if I will.
Elizabeth Bennet from Pride & Prejudice
The men I know I can trust are in the pages of Victorian novels. When reality fails me, I have Mr. Darcy. To have Mr. Darcy, I must live vicariously through Elizabeth Bennet. She misjudged him and he misjudged her; they went through some craziness before ending up together, but their story is so undeniably beautiful that it makes me numb to the toils of actual romance.
When I'm lonely, I always turn to Pride & Prejudice. And in my decision to become involved with Mr. Darcy rather than real men (who always seem to prove unsatisfactory), I find that I'm infinitely happier. I could decide when I've just broken up with someone that I need to move on as quickly as possible to the next suitable alternative. I could use that effort to hurt the person who broke my heart. But I'm better than that. Mr. Darcy is my answer, not some rebound. I guess Mr. Darcy is my rebound. And Lizzie Bennet is my homegirl. She shares her man with me.
Mindy Lahiri from The Mindy Project
Mindy Lahiri, unlike all of the characters already listed, is one who doesn't have luck in relationships or outside of them. She's always looking for new people to become involved with, always being hoisted by her own petard when she starts dating someone new. It's disastrous, it's funny.
I guess her character shows me that I don't need to follow in her footsteps. I'm better than she is even though I love her to pieces. I can dream of romance and not pursue it with a bunch of wrong men. Look where that got her. She's When Harry Met Sally-ing it up with Danny Castellano. So frustrating.
Celeste from Celeste & Jesse Forever
I'd like to top off my experiences with a little bit of Celeste from Celeste & Jesse Forever. She's a terribly sympathetic character. She's loved and tried to make things work. She's attempted to be friends after the fact. She's realized that friendships don't always work between exes, yet she keeps trying. She has a soft soul, which doesn't do her much good when she tries to move on from past experiences.
In a way I feel like I'm her. In a way I just aspire to be like her. A beautiful, intelligent, successful woman who is able to let go of the things that poison her life. Her best friend (and ex-husband), Jesse, did put a lifelong burden on her and she let go. It can be hard to be in that position but I hope that if I ever am I don't get led astray by overwhelming feelings.
C'est Tout
I don't know that there was any definite purpose to listing these characters or describing their worth to me. I guess in a way it just helps me clarify my own feelings to get to flesh them out. Within the medium of compare and contrast, I can make more sense of how mixed up I feel at the moment.
I'm in a good place because for the first time I'm not being a Mindy Lahiri or an Eponine. I'm not even being Elizabeth Bennet or Celeste. I never really was a Cosette. I'm just being me. I'm just working things out and forgetting about the things that don't matter - the people that hurt me who literally mean nothing.
So this is me throwing away bad feelings as best I can and just focusing on my own shtick. Me, not the protagonists I love. Hopefully that gets me somewhere. Somewhere good.
I will whole-heartedly admit to doing just this.
Perhaps it's a fault; I should be ashamed for not living my life for its own sake. Instead of taking things as they come, I live by some unreasonable standard set for me by my favorite literature and art.
That's not fair. No one's life is like art. But does that mean I'm not allowed to identify with characters who speak to me?
Here are just a few of the characters who I've identified with at one point or another, specifically in their experiences in love.
Eponine from Les Misérables
This will probably sound morbid, but for a long time I've considered Eponine as an emotional match for me. Even when I was in my young teens, I could see her story playing out in mine. She loves a boy, he acts like he has feelings for her. They flirt, nothing happens. He falls in love with someone else, he uses her to get to that girl and Eponine is left in the shadows. She still loves him, but it's unrequited.
Eventually Eponine dies. And while I wouldn't say that my life will end the same way as hers, the song "On My Own" has always spoke to the pessimist in me. Somehow throughout my experiences in love and not in love, I've found myself returning to Eponine's soliloquy for comfort and guidance. It only serves to make me sadder, but in a commiserating sort of way.
Elphaba from Wicked
Less depressing than the story of Eponine is the tale of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West who is the subject of the musical (and book) Wicked. Elphaba feels unappreciated and misunderstood for the first half of her story. She laments that the boy she likes won't like her back because he'll instead fall for "gold hair with a gentle curl."
She's out of the ordinary. She's green. Sometimes I feel like I'm green. Kind of in the Kermit the Frog sort of way. It's not easy being green, after all. It's a bit alienating (pardon the pun). In the end, Elphaba does find that the boy she likes loves her back, though. They supposedly live happily ever after, but only when he's put in his right place after becoming "brainless." It's a tragic ending, but a beautiful one. I hope I have a beautiful ending too - more like the love between Elphaba and Fiyero rather than death like Eponine. I'd like some semblance of happiness.
Cosette from Les Misérables
For a while I found that my life felt more like Cosette and it seemed weird to me that I identified with her character. I've always despised Cosette - the way that her life became so easy after Jean Valjean saved her from the Thenardiers seemed so inauthentic. At least in the musical Les Misérables, once she's in her teens she manages to lose any depth that she had in the beginning of the play. Somehow the little girl singing "Castle on a Cloud" has more dynamism than the older Cosette singing "A Heart Full of Love."
What she does have, however, is a boy who adores her and wants to be there for her always. I thought I had that. When I did, I identified with Cosette. Then I didn't. And until I can trust men again, I don't know when or if I will.
Elizabeth Bennet from Pride & Prejudice
The men I know I can trust are in the pages of Victorian novels. When reality fails me, I have Mr. Darcy. To have Mr. Darcy, I must live vicariously through Elizabeth Bennet. She misjudged him and he misjudged her; they went through some craziness before ending up together, but their story is so undeniably beautiful that it makes me numb to the toils of actual romance.
When I'm lonely, I always turn to Pride & Prejudice. And in my decision to become involved with Mr. Darcy rather than real men (who always seem to prove unsatisfactory), I find that I'm infinitely happier. I could decide when I've just broken up with someone that I need to move on as quickly as possible to the next suitable alternative. I could use that effort to hurt the person who broke my heart. But I'm better than that. Mr. Darcy is my answer, not some rebound. I guess Mr. Darcy is my rebound. And Lizzie Bennet is my homegirl. She shares her man with me.
Mindy Lahiri from The Mindy Project
Mindy Lahiri, unlike all of the characters already listed, is one who doesn't have luck in relationships or outside of them. She's always looking for new people to become involved with, always being hoisted by her own petard when she starts dating someone new. It's disastrous, it's funny.
I guess her character shows me that I don't need to follow in her footsteps. I'm better than she is even though I love her to pieces. I can dream of romance and not pursue it with a bunch of wrong men. Look where that got her. She's When Harry Met Sally-ing it up with Danny Castellano. So frustrating.
Celeste from Celeste & Jesse Forever
I'd like to top off my experiences with a little bit of Celeste from Celeste & Jesse Forever. She's a terribly sympathetic character. She's loved and tried to make things work. She's attempted to be friends after the fact. She's realized that friendships don't always work between exes, yet she keeps trying. She has a soft soul, which doesn't do her much good when she tries to move on from past experiences.
In a way I feel like I'm her. In a way I just aspire to be like her. A beautiful, intelligent, successful woman who is able to let go of the things that poison her life. Her best friend (and ex-husband), Jesse, did put a lifelong burden on her and she let go. It can be hard to be in that position but I hope that if I ever am I don't get led astray by overwhelming feelings.
C'est Tout
I don't know that there was any definite purpose to listing these characters or describing their worth to me. I guess in a way it just helps me clarify my own feelings to get to flesh them out. Within the medium of compare and contrast, I can make more sense of how mixed up I feel at the moment.
I'm in a good place because for the first time I'm not being a Mindy Lahiri or an Eponine. I'm not even being Elizabeth Bennet or Celeste. I never really was a Cosette. I'm just being me. I'm just working things out and forgetting about the things that don't matter - the people that hurt me who literally mean nothing.
So this is me throwing away bad feelings as best I can and just focusing on my own shtick. Me, not the protagonists I love. Hopefully that gets me somewhere. Somewhere good.
Curiosity killed the cat
I used to have four cats. All at once. Two of them were brothers (one of those brothers is still alive); they were named Mozart and Sebastian. They were the dastardly duo, a pair of cats with a hidden agenda who would often poke their noses into situations they were not meant to be involved in. This became extra apparent when my one female cat, Marie, came into the picture. Sebastian would always give Marie a hard time, sneaking into the room where she spent most of her days and bothering her until she would hide under cushions or in little crevices, hissing as her only defense mechanism. Marie herself was a bit of a drama queen, but even so there was something about Sebastian that irked her - his inability to keep to himself, his curiosity, his nosiness.
Sebastian was an instigator. He never kept his thoughts to himself. And even though he was a cat, somehow I always knew what he was up to. The furtive peeks, pushing my door slightly ajar, were entirely readable. He wanted to know what was going on even when it was completely none of his business.
We always forgave him for it. Because he was a cat. He may have annoyed me to pieces, but at the end of the day I always gave him a pat on the back or a scratch behind the ears. Because I loved him. He may have been an idiot, but he was my idiot. And you love your idiots no matter what kind of idiotic stuff they are up to.
That's true of an owner toward their pets anyway. Or a tolerant parent toward their children.
Not so much for anyone else, though.
I've found that in my relationships with others, the instigator tendencies that I share with Sebastian don't have much of a place. Start poking my nose into other people's lives and instead of being shooed away and then having my ears scratched a second later, I have the door slammed in my face, never to be opened again. No one wants to deal with a friend, a significant other or an acquaintance who bothers them too much.
Well that's a problem, because like Sebastian, I like to weasel my way into places I don't belong.
If Sebastian had been a human, I have no doubt he and his brother (again, Mozart) would've grown up to become detectives. Or journalists. The main reason I'm an instigator is that I am a researcher and a journalist. I love learning, I love knowing things. But learning is one thing and being too interested, too involved and too invasive is another. That's the line between investigator and papparazzo.
As a journalist, I do have an uncanny way of prying a bit too much in the subjects of my interest. I like to insert myself in a scene - get involved with it as much as I can and talk with as many people who will talk to me about it. And as a reporter, that's a fine trait.
But then I start doing that in my personal life. And while it's okay to be involved with people's issues - to let them confide in you and share their thoughts with you - forcing them to involve you is a completely different ball game.
I don't know what it is about my mind, but for some reason I enjoy knowing a few too many details about the people I care about. It's not because I'm a gossip, I don't take much pleasure in spreading secrets. It's really just because I like to have all the facts squared away. In reality, my intentions are honorable. In practice, they seem questionable. I realize that.
There needs to be an invisible line drawn in my head. A point at which curiosity stops and tact comes in. They say curiosity killed the cat and while that metaphor isn't true when applied to the real life situation of Sebastian (or Mozart), I can see how it makes sense.
How many relationships of mine have gone sour because I found myself too interested in what was going on in the life of the other person? How often have I let my desire to know more drive me to instigate so far that I alienate instead?
This is the first time in quite a few months that I've focused more on questions about myself than on questions about others. For the first time in a while I'm only surrounded by people I can fully trust; I've eradicated my life of the presences that were questionable, removed the interactions with people who were more concerned with their own self-interest than being a good friend to me. And that has made my life infinitely easier.
I don't worry about investigating my own mind. Unlike other people who become angry when I care too much and question too much, expending curiosity on myself will never cause any sort of rift. And that goes for instigators who want to know more about me. I'm not the type of person who gets sick of people for being instigators. To this day I miss my Sebastian, the tactless little Siamese cat who would pop his way into my life when I least expected it. For the moment, he often annoyed me; in the long run, his curiosity made me love and remember him.
If anything, I hope I can find people to add to my life who are as accepting of this quirk of mine as I am of others'. If I want to peer in doorways and ask for attention, please don't slam the door in my face. If I could control this trait in myself, I would, and I will continue to try. But if I can't, then I guess what I need most are people who can understand and who don't become upset because someone cares about them too much.
"Curiosity killed the cat" is an antiquated phrase. If curiosity did in fact kill anyone, then every journalist, every detective, every curious mind in the world would be doomed to a terrible fate. And I refuse to think that my often compassionate concern for others and my wondering about their circumstances is any cause for my immediate demise.
If it is, then surely I'll be struck by lightning tomorrow. It remains to be seen, I guess.
Sebastian was an instigator. He never kept his thoughts to himself. And even though he was a cat, somehow I always knew what he was up to. The furtive peeks, pushing my door slightly ajar, were entirely readable. He wanted to know what was going on even when it was completely none of his business.
We always forgave him for it. Because he was a cat. He may have annoyed me to pieces, but at the end of the day I always gave him a pat on the back or a scratch behind the ears. Because I loved him. He may have been an idiot, but he was my idiot. And you love your idiots no matter what kind of idiotic stuff they are up to.
That's true of an owner toward their pets anyway. Or a tolerant parent toward their children.
Not so much for anyone else, though.
I've found that in my relationships with others, the instigator tendencies that I share with Sebastian don't have much of a place. Start poking my nose into other people's lives and instead of being shooed away and then having my ears scratched a second later, I have the door slammed in my face, never to be opened again. No one wants to deal with a friend, a significant other or an acquaintance who bothers them too much.
Well that's a problem, because like Sebastian, I like to weasel my way into places I don't belong.
If Sebastian had been a human, I have no doubt he and his brother (again, Mozart) would've grown up to become detectives. Or journalists. The main reason I'm an instigator is that I am a researcher and a journalist. I love learning, I love knowing things. But learning is one thing and being too interested, too involved and too invasive is another. That's the line between investigator and papparazzo.
As a journalist, I do have an uncanny way of prying a bit too much in the subjects of my interest. I like to insert myself in a scene - get involved with it as much as I can and talk with as many people who will talk to me about it. And as a reporter, that's a fine trait.
But then I start doing that in my personal life. And while it's okay to be involved with people's issues - to let them confide in you and share their thoughts with you - forcing them to involve you is a completely different ball game.
I don't know what it is about my mind, but for some reason I enjoy knowing a few too many details about the people I care about. It's not because I'm a gossip, I don't take much pleasure in spreading secrets. It's really just because I like to have all the facts squared away. In reality, my intentions are honorable. In practice, they seem questionable. I realize that.
There needs to be an invisible line drawn in my head. A point at which curiosity stops and tact comes in. They say curiosity killed the cat and while that metaphor isn't true when applied to the real life situation of Sebastian (or Mozart), I can see how it makes sense.
How many relationships of mine have gone sour because I found myself too interested in what was going on in the life of the other person? How often have I let my desire to know more drive me to instigate so far that I alienate instead?
This is the first time in quite a few months that I've focused more on questions about myself than on questions about others. For the first time in a while I'm only surrounded by people I can fully trust; I've eradicated my life of the presences that were questionable, removed the interactions with people who were more concerned with their own self-interest than being a good friend to me. And that has made my life infinitely easier.
I don't worry about investigating my own mind. Unlike other people who become angry when I care too much and question too much, expending curiosity on myself will never cause any sort of rift. And that goes for instigators who want to know more about me. I'm not the type of person who gets sick of people for being instigators. To this day I miss my Sebastian, the tactless little Siamese cat who would pop his way into my life when I least expected it. For the moment, he often annoyed me; in the long run, his curiosity made me love and remember him.
If anything, I hope I can find people to add to my life who are as accepting of this quirk of mine as I am of others'. If I want to peer in doorways and ask for attention, please don't slam the door in my face. If I could control this trait in myself, I would, and I will continue to try. But if I can't, then I guess what I need most are people who can understand and who don't become upset because someone cares about them too much.
"Curiosity killed the cat" is an antiquated phrase. If curiosity did in fact kill anyone, then every journalist, every detective, every curious mind in the world would be doomed to a terrible fate. And I refuse to think that my often compassionate concern for others and my wondering about their circumstances is any cause for my immediate demise.
If it is, then surely I'll be struck by lightning tomorrow. It remains to be seen, I guess.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Happy Movie-Lovers Day
This is the one night out of the year when I can geek out amongst friends about movies and know that I don't sound like a freak for being so enthusiastic.
It almost feels like I shouldn't be writing about the Oscars. It's too big a subject - there's really too much to say. What right do I have to make judgments? So I'm not going to...not necessarily.
At least no bashing will commence.
There is something about the Academy Awards televised airing that I find comforting each and every year. Like the Tony Awards in a few months, it's become a tradition in my life to carve out a sizable portion of my Sunday night once a year to make time for the three and a half hour award show. It seems ridiculous even, thinking on how much could have been done it that time, that I was able to sit still and watch famous people reward famous people for being awesome without remorse. But somehow it leaves me more with a feeling of accomplishment than wastefulness.
What is it about award shows anyway? There's nothing incredibly instructive about them, nothing too inherently interesting. They're captivating, I suppose, what with all the waiting for winners to be announced. And of course there's the added spectacle thrown in for good measure - song and dance numbers, sparkly stages, beautiful montages. Tonight's was particularly wonderful with performance numbers from various musicals turned films - a genre of movie that I have a particular affinity for.
It almost seems like a silly way to spend time though.
I can say that from an objective point of view, but subjectively I don't feel my life would be complete without an annual viewing of the Oscars.
I love making predictions on movies I haven't seen and passing judgment on some that I may never even hope to see. It's fun to look at dresses from designers I'll never wear and ogle at attractive actors in dapper suits (Hello, Eddie Redmayne and Aaron Tveit).
It's one of the few times that the whole world is comfortably shallow. While I must often shush myself when I'd like to talk about the most recent episode of The Bachelor, worrying that if I should do so I might risk being judged by society, the same is not true of the Oscars. The overblown pageantry is outweighed by the cultural phenomenon and the love of quality film, so I feel no shame.
When it ends however, I'm incredibly sad. Another year has gone by and while I will continue to watch and critique movies, and I still have the option of guessing what will show up on the nominee roster next year, right now I feel almost incomplete. If I didn't have a nephew to look forward to meeting in a few weeks (I blogged about him last night), then I might have very little to look forward to.
Yet I will be going on with my life, movie-loving tendencies and all, even with the Oscars firmly behind me. That being said, some fond memories will suffice. It was not a particularly enthralling show, but the scene of the Les Misérables cast singing "One Day More" will continue to give me chills upon repeated viewings on YouTube. And maybe that alone will prove the three and a half hours well spent.
I love that I can share this obsession with so many other people now. My friends, my family, even some more distant acquaintances will have - in a rare instance in our heavily fragmented society - all watched the Academy Awards tonight or at least be up on the winners. It's like watching the Super Bowl for nerds and homebodies.
The activity in itself is something to celebrate. You'd be hard-pressed to find another time when a whole dorm can come together to watch a single event (I was lucky enough to watch the Oscars along with the rest of my dormmates last year and the year before), or even when you can drag a friend into your room to watch a show for nearly four hours because you're the only one with a small working television on this floor and you're just both so in love with film.
I had a lot of fun tonight. It took me out of the real world for a moment - kept me from thinking about homework and responsibilities and anything else that's been weighing me down - and let me dive into frivolity for just a few hours.
Now I'm not ready to re-enter the real world again. A new week is starting and I will inevitably have to start remembering what it was I blocked out of my thoughts so I could whole-heartedly enjoy the Academy Awards.
But I think with the added pleasantness of a night spent watching Paperman win an Oscar, listening to Anne Hathaway rattle off too many names, seeing Jennifer Lawrence trip on stage and hearing Ben Affleck speak faster than Cary Grant in a 1930s screwball comedy, I can take on what the week has in store. I'm looking forward to it even. Who knew a little award show could turn things around so much?
It almost feels like I shouldn't be writing about the Oscars. It's too big a subject - there's really too much to say. What right do I have to make judgments? So I'm not going to...not necessarily.
At least no bashing will commence.
There is something about the Academy Awards televised airing that I find comforting each and every year. Like the Tony Awards in a few months, it's become a tradition in my life to carve out a sizable portion of my Sunday night once a year to make time for the three and a half hour award show. It seems ridiculous even, thinking on how much could have been done it that time, that I was able to sit still and watch famous people reward famous people for being awesome without remorse. But somehow it leaves me more with a feeling of accomplishment than wastefulness.
What is it about award shows anyway? There's nothing incredibly instructive about them, nothing too inherently interesting. They're captivating, I suppose, what with all the waiting for winners to be announced. And of course there's the added spectacle thrown in for good measure - song and dance numbers, sparkly stages, beautiful montages. Tonight's was particularly wonderful with performance numbers from various musicals turned films - a genre of movie that I have a particular affinity for.
It almost seems like a silly way to spend time though.
I can say that from an objective point of view, but subjectively I don't feel my life would be complete without an annual viewing of the Oscars.
I love making predictions on movies I haven't seen and passing judgment on some that I may never even hope to see. It's fun to look at dresses from designers I'll never wear and ogle at attractive actors in dapper suits (Hello, Eddie Redmayne and Aaron Tveit).
It's one of the few times that the whole world is comfortably shallow. While I must often shush myself when I'd like to talk about the most recent episode of The Bachelor, worrying that if I should do so I might risk being judged by society, the same is not true of the Oscars. The overblown pageantry is outweighed by the cultural phenomenon and the love of quality film, so I feel no shame.
When it ends however, I'm incredibly sad. Another year has gone by and while I will continue to watch and critique movies, and I still have the option of guessing what will show up on the nominee roster next year, right now I feel almost incomplete. If I didn't have a nephew to look forward to meeting in a few weeks (I blogged about him last night), then I might have very little to look forward to.
Yet I will be going on with my life, movie-loving tendencies and all, even with the Oscars firmly behind me. That being said, some fond memories will suffice. It was not a particularly enthralling show, but the scene of the Les Misérables cast singing "One Day More" will continue to give me chills upon repeated viewings on YouTube. And maybe that alone will prove the three and a half hours well spent.
I love that I can share this obsession with so many other people now. My friends, my family, even some more distant acquaintances will have - in a rare instance in our heavily fragmented society - all watched the Academy Awards tonight or at least be up on the winners. It's like watching the Super Bowl for nerds and homebodies.
The activity in itself is something to celebrate. You'd be hard-pressed to find another time when a whole dorm can come together to watch a single event (I was lucky enough to watch the Oscars along with the rest of my dormmates last year and the year before), or even when you can drag a friend into your room to watch a show for nearly four hours because you're the only one with a small working television on this floor and you're just both so in love with film.
I had a lot of fun tonight. It took me out of the real world for a moment - kept me from thinking about homework and responsibilities and anything else that's been weighing me down - and let me dive into frivolity for just a few hours.
Now I'm not ready to re-enter the real world again. A new week is starting and I will inevitably have to start remembering what it was I blocked out of my thoughts so I could whole-heartedly enjoy the Academy Awards.
But I think with the added pleasantness of a night spent watching Paperman win an Oscar, listening to Anne Hathaway rattle off too many names, seeing Jennifer Lawrence trip on stage and hearing Ben Affleck speak faster than Cary Grant in a 1930s screwball comedy, I can take on what the week has in store. I'm looking forward to it even. Who knew a little award show could turn things around so much?
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