my addiction

I suffer from an acute addiction to novels. I don’t read during the year because I know that if I picked up a book and started reading, I wouldn’t be able to stop until 5am…and the next day…and the next week…and the next month. Over the summer, I choose to read instead of watching movies, which is apparently not what the general population does.

Being a book reviewer would probably make me the happiest person in the world (or a photographer for National Geographic), but I can’t even write coherently, let alone elegantly and persuasively. I have immense respect for novelists, because it seems impossible to be able to create people and ideas from nothing, then fixing them on paper. In my eyes, writing nonfiction is less difficult because the idea is already present, and crafting the style requires less subtlety and skill than for fiction.

The best books I’ve read are those which have excellent characters, superb language, and a good to excellent plot. It does seem slightly abnormal to rate plot as the least important of the three (though still very important), but this is also how I approach most things in life.

When I was very young, I started off exclusively reading horror, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham. It was all very straightforward and I got my kicks from the shock, the intrigue, and the violence. I believe this was followed with a brief sci-fi/fantasy period, where spaceships and dragons were what I thought about all day (and being a CIA agent). Fantasy is great for ten-year olds because well…everything is great when you’re ten years old and everything seems so new and exciting. Even though I no longer read espionage novels, the best I have read is Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, which gets a 9 out of 10 for plot and average marks for everything else. Even though I adore British dryness, sarcasm, and literature, Le Carre is just a wee bit too dry and aloof for my taste.

Following the fantasy period was the historical period, Jean M. Auel and Margaret George. I still think that Auel is one of the most, if not the most creative author in fiction. In research, what you really want to do is to take a leap onto something solid or bridge a gap. There’s a mess of disconnected pieces lying around, and Auel comes along and she’s the only person to not only see that they belong to the same puzzle but also which way the pieces fit. Her main characters are amazing and impossible not to empathize with, and her style is solid. On the other hand, Margaret George’s books seem painstakingly researched (I rather think she would make a better historian than author if she’s not already), and her writing falls slightly on the flat side. One aspect of history/fantasy that I never liked was the King Arthur stories. I did not respond positively or negatively to The Once and Future King, The Mists of Avalon, etc. and I don’t know why.

After this, I only read for school, and these were without doubt the best books I’ve read in my life. I had to dissect each one, turn them inside out, break them apart, and put something back together again. When you spend that much time and effort on books, you find yourself on an entirely different plane. I don’t think I’ve done much critical and creative thinking since high school honors english. The two books that I enjoyed the most from that period were 1984 and Candide. I can’t even describe how I felt after reading those two books, which is perfectly fine since thousands of critics have already done it for me.

After high school, I couldn’t go back to reading books just for plot. Character became more important, and I viewed plot as something that was a part of the character. The plot basically revolves around the decisions that people make and their response to events (usually calamities) that happen to them. Essentially, the characters in a novel carry the plot along. If the two are separated or not correctly joined, then it’s a pretty crappy book. That was when I started getting into my humanistic and magic realism period.

During this period, I adored John Irving and Pat Conroy, both because they created such amazing characters, original storylines, gorgeous imagery (Conroy), and virtuoso style (Irving). At the time, I thought that Irving’s novels were so close to perfection, especially The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp. His characters made you think that Irving knew just about everything there was to know about being human and life itself. The only problem with his books was that every climax was anticlimactical. There were usually several climaxes per book, and the ending just felt lifeless by the time I got to it. Conroy’s characters were alive more so than Irving’s, and his writing style was superior, but Irving just had that something that made me think that he was so close to the ideal.

Of course, magic realism followed, which was a combination of humanism, witchcraft, rituals, and miracles. The two authors that I enjoy in this category are Isabelle Allende and Gabriel Gael Marquez. Of the two, Marquez’s novels are more put together, and Allende’s were slightly inconsistent. The ideas were wonderful, and the writing flowed, but there was always something in their books that made me think that there was a piece missing or a chunk that didn’t fit correctly. Moreover, the magic part reminded me of my slight distaste of fantasy. Sci-Fi and fantasy has been bashed over the years and accused of being lower quality then most other novels. In some sense, I think that it’s true. Since fantasy is appreciated mostly for its ingenuity and ideas (as well as generally being written for younger readers), character development and style are sometimes sacrificed.

Since then, I’ve been reading Nick Hornby and Dave Eggers, which I would describe as realism. Their books are a combination of the sad and the poignant and the funny. Essentially, both authors point out the problem with modern life and modern people, but do it in such an uplifting and graceful way. Since I’m an overly enthusiastic fan of sarcasm of any kind, I love Hornby’s matter-of-factness and dryness. I admire how much Hornby can get across in so few words. It’s quite a feat.

I’m now in my Jane Austen/George Eliot phase, which is a mix of extremely clever writing, less emotion, and some history. It’s almost the antithesis of Conroy’s tense emotion and Irving’s melodrama, but nice and balanced, which I enjoy. I’m also attempting to reconnect with my sci-fi/fantasy self of more than ten years ago. However, it’s not going terribly well, seeing as my computer’s almost an extension of myself and there’s nothing intriguing about the matrix and data streams present in sci-fi novels. And I think I’ve just grown out of fantasy.

The two books that I will always go back to are The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Those books are the closest physical approximation to the excellence of the human spirit. The sheer magnitude and drive of the ideas and characters wrapped in those two books transcend anything else I’ve ever read. It is the one case in which the ideas in the book are so important that the characters and the style don’t matter. The words just live and breathe on their own. Although I know I will never reach that level of excellence, it’s worthwhile to get a glimpse once in awhile, however fleetingly.

teaching...or something like it

Now that my prelims are over, I can no longer shirk my TAing responsibilities and hide in the topmost corner whenever I skulk into class. Since there's a midterm coming up, I've been wound up at the thought of giving office hours. Considering that the students had a month's head start on me (not to mention an intro class) for learning the material, I freaked myself out. Originally, I was supposed to hold a review session last Friday and freaked myself out in the process (It's what happens when there's nothing at all going on). In class, the professor announced that he'd be holding it...okay...I did a double take and was given a temporary reprieve.

This week, I held 5 total hours of office hours, which is pretty crazy. The first student that walked in had a PhD in EECS and wanted me to prove that certain formulas were equivalent to others and certain approaches could be the same as other approaches and could I please prove all of this. Um. No, I can't. Sorry? I walked into that room, and he whipped out his list of questions. After he asked his first question, I just felt my stomach drop. It's one of those moments when you know that you're falling and that you're just going to keep falling and nothing's going to stop you. Thankfully, he only stayed for half an hour after he became aware of my incompetence.

The other students were nice, and I was able to answer some of their questions (I hope). Today I sat sown with this student that came down from Boston and went through both practice midterms with him, step by step. For someone who can't even concentrate for an hour of lecture, it was intensely tiring. Two hours and some change later, I felt like my brain was going to melt into a puddle in my skull.

Actually being a professor and orating for three hours must be draining beyond belief. Honestly, I can see how people can't get research done when they're teaching. Obviously, teaching a class requires knowing the material and much more. I realized that I knew exactly how much work I've been putting in for the last three weeks (shocker) and not much more. In fact, I probably know as much as the average student in my class. That's not too encouraging, but how much I put in is how much I get out (I'm descending into the valley of triteness).

These executive MBA students are pretty dedicated. Imagine being a VP at some job, being married with kids, and coming to class every other weekend to top it off. Then again, they didn't get to where they are in life without working hard and sacrificing something (sleep, no doubt). The eMBAs are much nicer and less openly aggressive than regular MBAs, who lug around egos the size of a small island and exude an overpowering combination of youth and insecurity. I'm not intimidated by eMBAs when I'm sitting down next to them, but I don't feel like an instructor either. I have a healthy respect for people who got to where they are in life, successful by all counts, by the time that they're thirty. I can only hope to be so lucky.

Velvet Revolver in May

Evanescence Concert in May

exams and the like

After spending approximately five weeks studying for the last exam that actually matters in my life (not to mention the three weeks studying for finals), it's been predictably flat since then. The only thing getting me through was deciding exactly what I was going to do Thursday afternoon at 4:30. What ended up happening was an extremely depressing round of drinks, a less depressing dinner, and an even more depressing round of drinks. I did not a) go crazy b) wake up unconscious c) have the time of my life.

Before an exam, the stress is piled on so heavily that you can't help thinking about the whoosh of relief that comes when you walk out of the overlit and gloomy room that you spend days in and even more nights dreaming about. The problem is that the anticipation has the exact opposite effect. I walk out of a six-hour exam thinking: that's it? That's what I've spent a year sitting in classes and a month freaking out over? There's a profound sense of emptiness and a faint feeling of being cheated.

After the exam, all of us made a pact not to speak about the exam, which made the rest of the day even more depressing because we all realized that we had precious little else in common. Once we take away the major link, it just felt like a few acquaintances being forced to go out to dinner together. It might also have been that everyone was so tired that making polite conversation didn't seem humanly possible at that point.

The exam...right. It wasn't the best thing in the world.

the days fly by

I got nothing accomplished today. Absolutely nothing. First of all, the only other girl in my program came in after a week of hiding in her room, and I was so excited that we spent hours giggling and not getting anything done. One of my coworkers told me that his noise-cancellation earphones weren't advanced enough to mute our giggles. We gossip a lot, make exploding sounds, draw stick figures on the white board, talk ghetto, sing bad songs, and torment our colleagues. Basically, we're like five-year olds.

Of course, I also worked on my tennis ball catching skills today (I can catch with one hand!) and realized that I can't beat guys in arm wrestling (or anything sports related). It's not fair that I'm so deficient because I'm a girl. On a different note, I realized that I can get things if I pout and/or whine enough. This disturbes me slightly b/c I feel like I get my way just because I'm a girl and it seems like I'm cheating. I'd rather fight for it (but I'd lose).

The highlight of my day was picking out a birthday card for one of my colleagues. I think my sense of humor got the better of me because he's going to know right away that I was the guilty party responsible. We insult each other within an inch of our lives. Poor boy. I'd like to think of it as honing my sense of humor.

I'm mostly just glad that my cough is almost entirely gone. I barely slept last week and almost went crazy because I was putting in 16 hour days of studying. The guy who lives in the room directly above mine told me that he could hear me coughing at night. That's pretty bad. I would sit in classes and really hope that I wouldn't die coughing. I think I definitely started pissing people off with my coughing. The worst was not being able to sleep. I became scared of trying to go to sleep because I knew that I'd just start hacking my lungs out. Of course, that made it even more difficult to sleep. I became even bitchier than usual.

But classes are over, and I can't bring myself to be too stressed yet (maybe tomorrow). Maybe I'll go to the office and actually get something done if I can stay away from the temptations of playing catch and teasing my coworkers.

doom and destruction

My marathon weekend of bad movies continues with Doom and Chronicles of Riddick, both of which I watched for one actor. Watching bad movies is sometimes fun because I can laugh and mercilessly tear everything apart. You need to go in there ready to laugh and to have absolutely no expectations at all.

It strikes me how few actors actually make it to the top in Hollywood. There are only a few dozen faces which get recycled over and over again. I don't have strong feelings for the Rock, but I rather enjoy Rosamund Pike's cultured, quiet way of acting. She reminds me of a less intense version of Cate Blanchett. I liked her in Pride and Prejudice and thought that she did an admirable job in The Libertine. Anyone who's able to hold their own opposite Johnny Depp should receive several awards.

Doom was utterly horrible, though perhaps not as bad as Chronicles of Riddick. Although Chronicles of Riddick had some sort of half-baked story (Doom's storyline was even worse), the cinematography was off-putting. The necromancers didn't seem so much aliens as having bad hair and even worse clothing. Whoever said Vin Diesel was hot must have been on drugs. His voice sounds reminds me of the Sahara desert. Not to be shallow or anything, but I can't appreciate men who sound like they've swallowed an entire colony of frogs. There's nothing hot about him. Everything about him screams gangster and blue-collar.

The major problem I had with Chronicles of Riddick was Vin Diesel's glowing white orbs. Honestly, the entire movie seemed pointless. There are evil people who are taking over the world (they don't seem too evil) and less evil people (but still evil) who must prevent them from doing so. Add in a few metal headpieces, double sided pikes, people who disappear, and the indifference just explodes.

Doom isn't better, but at least it doesn't pretend to be important. The strange thing about this movie is that there isn't much action. Considering that Doom is the forefather of first-person shooter video games, the fact that the movie goes on for half an hour without a shot being fired is disconcerting. There's an unconvincing sappy family story and some genetic mutation crap that tries painfully to be semi-intelligent. Spare us. There's a lot of mystery and dark things lurking around even darker corners, but not much in the way of substance or action.

clueless

It's been so long since I've indulged myself in chick flicks and otherwise pointless movies. When Clueless first hit the theaters, I wasn't even in double digits. When I started watching, the first thing I thought was: People really wore that in the '90s??? Was there a plaid revolution? And where are the bagpipes that go with the kilts?

Despite the cluelessness of it all, there's something to be said about the movie. Some of the dialogue is way sharp and Alicia Silverstone has a sweet, pouty air about her that doesn't exactly inspire nausea. I admit that I love Paul Rudd, despite his insipidness. He's just the nice, all around big brother but not big brother with a really nice smile. Even though Cher's so fake, they're still totally adorable together.

I enjoyed watching Clueless so much more than Cruel Intentions. Cruel Intentions just felt like young adults trying to be teenagers trying to be grown-ups. Ryan Phillipe comes off not so much as angsty as trying to be angsty and self-important. I find that I enjoy watching older actors and actresses much more than those around my age because they're more sure of themselves. They know who they are and have the experience and depth to convey more emotion.

Generally, ultrasweet and sappy girls onscreen annoy the hell out of me (i.e. Kirsten Dunst). It's even worse when it's forced and feels like it's forced. I dislike watching actresses who don't have the capacity to be anything but the sweet damsel in distress. It's not that I'm an incredibly deep and angsty and complex person, but I'd like to see it onscreen once in awhile.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was all right in Cruel Intentions, though nowhere as evil as she was supposed to be. Selma Blair was just an idiot (I guess she nailed her part dead-on) and Reese Witherspoon was all right. Frankly, I expected the movie to have a little more bite, but I guess I'll live.

ad infinitum

Yup. I'm at a new motivational low...yet again. The predictability of my life is becoming slightly grating. When you're prepared for the peaks and the troughs and they're exactly where you thought they'd be...it's hard to drum up any feeling for anything.

In theory, there's some crap like I have control over my life. Everything always works perfectly in theory, but reality is just a mass of gray splotches. I feel like I'm going blind. It's wonderful to have dreams, but then I wake up and life's about paying the rent, paying my taxes, wondering when I'm going to fit getting married and having kids into my life, if I'm going to finish all of my problem sets on time, if I'm going to become a professor, and if I do, if I'll get tenure, how much fatter I'll get if I don't exercise...so it's easier not to have dreams at all. It's easier just to not care because it hurts too much to look outside and not see anything.

It's frightening because I think that I had dreams at one point. Now I just don't care. Reality's gotten the best of me. It's easier to take the path of least resistance. I'm tired of fighting and tired of trying to change. Honestly, people don't change that much after a certain point unless they're traumatized, and I could do without. I think the worst thing would be if I still felt like this in ten years. It's not so much the world rushing by me as the feeling of everything standing still. What's the point?

10 signs that your friendship might be doomed

1. Your potential friend (male) asks you (male) if you wear long-sleeve shirts to cover up your arm hair.

2. When you try to sit across the table from your potential friend, he shifts so that he's sitting next to you and explains that he needs his space and can't make direct eye contact with you.

3. Your potential friend thinks that you're his weekly ESL teacher.

4. You accidently get at least 50 calls and incoherent messages a day from your new friend who can't figure out how to work his cell phone and your name just conveniently happened to be Aardvark.

5. Your potential friend has a habit of spitting all over people's faces when he's drunk.

6. Your potential friend asks you why you don't shower. When you retort that you shower twice a day, he promptly tells you that his kids won't have clean water because of you.

7. When you joke about wanting to see what your potential friend's classes are like, he emails you his entire schedule complete with suggestions.

8. While at lunch with your potential friend, he tells you that his father once told him that there are only two things in life that men should handle with their hands, chickens and women.

9. Your potential friend calls you to invite you over to his apartment to watch the super bowl. Ten minutes later, he calls you back and tells you that there's no more space at his place.

10. You can't decide whether or not to start a conversation with a guy, mainly because he's been standing over the serving tray of sausages for the last twenty minutes, has two sausages sticking out of his mouth, and is glancing around to see whether anyone notices him.