Drifting on by

So now that finals are over, I literally have no idea what to do with myself. All I’ve been doing for the past week is sleeping, listening to David Bowie music, and watching Mock the Week. My summer class starts May 22, but I only have one class, and it’s going to be really, really fun! I will be babysitting a bit too, but until Fall semester starts I will really not have that much to do (except go to England for 9 days, but that is so cool it goes beyond “having something to do”). I’ll probably keep watching Mock the Week and maybe get some paintings done. Not too productive, but nice and soothing. Even though I will no longer have any need to use this blog for schoolwork, I will keep posting, as blogging is fun and it’s pretty relaxing. I have had so much fun doing my honors english comp class, and I would love to thank my professor, and all my fellow comp students for a wonderful experience, and lots of great memories! Thank you all very much!

What makes good writing good?

What makes the writing of a short story good? Is it just that the grammar and form is good? Correct punctuation and spelling, proper syntax, accurate use of commas and periods. Or is it that the writing is engaging and pulls you into the story? Are the characters well written, does the plot move in a sensible way, can a reader easily follow the plot, can the story move the reader? Now I love reading and I also love writing stories. So as an avid reader as well as an amateur writer, I sometimes find it difficult to apply what I view as good writing to my own writing. While it seems easy for readers to decide what is and is not good writing, it is much harder for writers to decide. Well except their own, and in case you don’t know writers think their writing is shit until the editor tells them they’re brilliant. Or so I’ve heard. My mom and Nana edit my writing so I’m pretty sure there’s some bias there. Anyway, it is difficult. What I think of as good writing is basically something that captures my attention, gets me invested in the story, and doesn’t make me want to tear out my hair because of grammatical mistakes and plot holes. Now that’s a little generic, but basically that’s what I think good writing should be. I can name a few other things, such as intelligent writing, good use of information, awareness of one’s audience, and the ability to not beat the reader over the head with the theme or point of the story. All of those are very, very important.

Insane English

We have done some absolutely crazy stuff in our Honors English comp. We’re crazy. Really, really crazy. We’ve been able to connect history, civil rights. sci fi, technology, some pop culture, and of course, english! We’ve discovered a common thread and with it we wove together these very different things to learn how to write properly. That sounds weird right? Even for this class. I mean, all we do is blog, talk, and laugh. So how could we possibly be using all this to connect everything and learn how to write properly? Well first, you have to realize that the main connecting thread seems to be storytelling. It’s everywhere. You cannot have any of the things we’ve discussed in my English Comp classes without storytelling. Every aspect of what we watch, read, and discuss in class could not exist without storytelling. Someone had to put it together and present it. Storytelling. It’s everywhere, just like patterns! In fact some patterns tell stories. Like the patterns in the growth rings of trees. They tell a story of how harsh a winter was, how gentle a spring was, and how many years they have grown and stretched their limbs and branches up towards the sky. Patterns in the scales of a fish or lizard, scars and camouflage that detail the life of one particular creature. The evolution of it’s current form traced back to the earliest living organisms by DNA. Stories inhabit every part of us. My DNA for example would tell the story of my mother and father, and their families. My personality, my tendency to be anxious, and my love of books and writing from my mom. My looks from my dad. Long toes and fingers from my mother’s father, soft fine hair from my mother’s mom, little frown lines from both parents, my tendency to talk endlessly from my dad’s family, and my weird smile from my dad. There is the stories of their lives and the lives of their parents and their parents before them and so on. It’s a long, ancient, living story.
We can literally tie the whole world together with stories. We can tie cultures together with the stories they tell. For example, every culture has a creation myth. Every culture also has a tragic doomed love story. Also found in every culture is the classic adventure story where a young man or woman goes on a journey to become an adult, faces many dangers, monsters, and grows stronger and knowledgeable in their quest. Most religions have splinter groups focusing on a particular story within the cannon or holy book. Most cultures also have stories of an ultimate evil and an ultimate good. They also have stories about life after death, or what happens to a human after they die. While these stories are not all the same, they have a common thread running through them. They teach similar lessons, and they are passed down in similar fashions. Even now, we borrow from those stories for modern movies, plays, books, and even artwork. Recycle, reuse, redistribute.

Stories are extremely versatile and can be used either by themselves or combined with several different media or art forms. They aren’t static and unmoving like a statue. They are organic and fluid, moving like water. (I like big weird similes and metaphors ok?) Our whole world is made up of different stories weaving together slowly and blending seamlessly into our lives. It’s all a story. How we got here. Why I’m taking this class. What I want from life. How my Professor came to teach at this university. All stories. All interconnected, all part of one greater story.

(I’m supposed to put in an image that inspires me… well here it is! I guess I should explain why I put this picture in for my “Image That Inspires Me” Well, first of all I am a MASSIVE David Bowie fan. Notice the emphasis on massive! Anyway, I love David Bowie, as an actor, as a singer, as a icon, I just love him. Labyrinth happens to be my favorite movie I’ve seen starring him, and it also features my favorite soundtrack by Bowie. As Jareth, Bowie inspired me to start drawing again, and the story of Labyrinth inspires me to keep write. So, David Bowie is my inspiration… You know I’m glad my brother doesn’t read this >< he'd try to stage an intervention.)

Six Word Memoirs

Three Categories: Free, College, Hobbies

Free:
Does Cthulhu dream of electric parrotfish?

I’m laughing on the inside ha

I tested gravity, it still works

The voices don’t like you, run!

College:
Finals, panic, four hours of sleep

I can’t write poetry at all

Photographs Peeps! Exorcist staircase Aztecs Napoleon

My history class are medieval peasants

Hobbies: Three guesses what my hobbies are….
Rory’s died for real this time

Run! Al-lonsy! Geronimo! Fantastic! Doctor Who?

Fantastic! Meretricious AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

EXTERMINATE DAFFODILS! DALEK POETRY IS DIFFICULT!

Feeling real empathy for fictional people

The Reichenbach Fall

So I finally just sat down and watched the third episode of season two of Sherlock.
I am done. Just done. I’m just going to curl up in a ball and wait till 2013. I can just wait till then. I’ll just take all the feelings and push them back till then. Then again the writers will probably tell the actors, “You know how you made everyone cry with the last 5-10 minutes of Reichenbach? Yeah, I want you to make them cry even harder this time!” And that is exactly what is going to happen. Everyone who cried during Reichenbach is going to be bawling by the end of the first episode of season three.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that in the last say, 10 minutes of the episode I saw some of the best combinations of music, acting, and camera shots I have seen in a very long time. The music was so soft and sad, with a very serious tone that went along perfectly with the way the leading actors delivered their lines and plastered emotion all over themselves. There were a lot of close up scenes with soft music and intense dialogue, but also a few scenes with intense music and far shots. No speaking, just body language. It was perfect. I was all teary-eyed by the last phone call and was crying by the scene at the gravestone. The last time I cried like that during a movie it was watching the new Star Trek movies, that first part where Kirk’s father sacrifices himself for the crew and his wife and baby. Tears. Everywhere. It even comes close to the first time I watched the Lion King. You know that scene where Mufasa saves Simba and dies? Then that scene where Simba is begging his dad to get up? Yeah. I still cry like a two year old when I see that. I haven’t even attempted to watch TITANIC yet. I bet there will be tears EVERYWHERE when I finally get to that movie. It’s absolutely amazing how many emotions a film can bring up. Some of the saddest things I have ever seen have been in movies.

Now to just push all the feelings back and wait until 2013 to have them torn all over the place again. Alas, the “trials” of a BBC obsession.

Sherlock Season 3 on the BBC

So the almighty Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss realsed the keywords for the next season of Sherlock. *cue all the desperate fans screaming excitedly* The key words are Rat, Wedding, Bow. Doesn’t give us much huh? Unless you’re a avid follower of the Collected Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I don’t claim to be an expert when it comes to the Sherlock Holmes novels, or even the meaning behind the keywords Moffat and Gatiss chose, but I have a lurking suspicion about the three keywords. Rat for instance could be referring to the story of the Giant Sumatran Rat-mentioned in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”- that, according to Sherlock Holmes, the world is not yet ready for. Now, I’m not entirely sure where the producers will go with the “Rat” but I’m very excited. Perhaps they’ll show us where Sherlock was hiding after he faked his death. One thing I’m sure of though, they will cover the “The Empty House”, the reunion in one of the episodes, most likely the first one. As for Wedding, that could cover a number of stories. It could be from “The Sign of the Four”, Dr. Waston’s marriage or even Mr. Holmes’s fake marriage in “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,” that’s not including the many stories featuring a case based around someone else’s wedding. Either way someone’s getting married or crashing a wedding. The third keyword bow is by far the most interesting of the three keywords. It could include any of the seven stories in the volume titled “His Last Bow,” including the story sharing the title of the volume, although that story in particular is the chronological end of the series, and the producers and actors have been quoted as saying they want to do as many of the stories as they possibly can. They many even combine some of the stories that have similar cases or happened one after the other. Whatever they plan to do, I am very excited! I absolutely cannot wait for the third series to come out!

BBC: Mock the Week

Recently I discovered this amazing show on the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) called Mock the Week. I would not recommend this show to anyone under 14, maybe even 16 (>.<). It has adult humor and innuendoes, and lots and lots of swearing. However, it mocks and parodies British culture and politics, covers real news on an international scale, while mocking it gratuitously, and provides endless entertainment. I haven't been able to stop laughing since I started watching. They have 6 comedians, most of whom appear on multiple seasons, and the host who banter back and forth, parody speeches made by political leaders, and come up with quick stand up routines on air. I've always loved British humor, starting with Monty Python at an early age, and then progressing to more recent comedians, I have come to appreciate the sarcasm and frank humor these comedians exemplify. They are not afraid to use controversial issues in their programmes. I admire them for that. Not that many American comedians cover controversial issues. They'll pick one or two and focus on those few ones. Mock the Week covers almost all of them, with typical sarcastic British humor, with plenty of dirty jokes and really bad puns thrown in for good effect. If you feel comfortable hearing British comedians mock politics, homophobia, stds, religion, and life in general, this is the show for you! A word of caution. if you've never watched or do not enjoy R-rated movies, this may not be your cup of tea. (Mutiple F-bombs dropped, innuendoes, crude humor)