Baz Luhrman's Gatsby

I would like to discuss Baz Luhrman's adaptation of The Great Gatsby while it's still fresh.

My disclaimer for this whole thing is that I'm not quite sure I get The Great Gatsby.  I need to read it again though, so I'm not going to say anything about the writing itself.

I'm going to start with my favorite thing, and that was the music.  The music was incredible in that it represented quite well the time period the movie was made in as well as the time period the movie was made about.  I was stunned by how chaos was portrayed so accurately through mixing the traditional music of the time and some of the rougher things about our music now.

I feel like I have no platform from which to judge Leonardo Dicaprio's performance because Gatsby himself, at least as far as I believe, is a different person inside of each head he is imagined in, so it was hard to see Dicaprio as even playing a character at all.  It's confusing and hard to explain, but I believe that Gatsby himself, until he starts displaying his madness and losing his temper in the latter part of the movie, is so perfect and untouchable that he's boring.  What makes Gatsby's character exciting is what other  characters believe about him, so I was rather unimpressed for the first half of the movie.  However, Dicaprio did display his incredible ability to act when he loses his temper with Tom Buchanan.  So there's that.

The one thing that really bothered me about the movie though was the premise that Nick Caraway was writing The Great Gatsby as he told us the story.  I can't remember whether or not that's a plot point in the end of the book, and it would have been fine in the movie, except that there was so much narration that I was disappointed that the audience was so often being told F. Scott Fitzgerald's beautiful language instead of being shown it.  I see no point in having movies if a good portion of that is just a book on tape.  Some scenes were absolutely stunning, but there were some things that were narrated that I would have preferred to have seen, not heard.

Overall I don't think I was as impressed as everyone I was with, but that really might just be my lack of understanding the story's importance as a whole.  I see the irony in Daisy being a murderer and Tom being a violent alcoholic racist and them being the two who walk away from the story unscathed.  I see the tragedy in Gatsby being in love with his memory of Daisy, and Daisy being in love with Gatsby's extravagance.  I see the chaos in people living these shallow lives and not contributing positively to much, or anything at all.  I know that there is beauty in F. Scott Fitzgerald's diction and metaphors and description, but I find it so hard to see the beauty of the tragedy of the story.

College is hard

I suspect John Legend is too upbeat for my mood right now.  I'm not outright sad, but definitely a little bit on the deep thoughts side of things, and it's hard to be happy knowing about things.

I think that I'm just getting sick of fucking around so much.  Like, I used to do things that were good for my body and soul and brain and frivolous things, but now I feel like mostly what I do is watch Netflix and hope that I wake up tomorrow with the motivation to actually fulfill myself.  I've turned into this really really low energy person and it's actually kind of embarrassing.

Part of my new demeanor is OSU, honestly.  I was thinking about this the other day, and I could very well be wrong and just trying to place the blame for how I'm acting on something other than myself, but it's possible that the atmosphere at OSU is too busy to be conducive to learning for me.  I think I'm doing a good job socially, but academically OSU kind of really is Westlake South.  Again, I'm blaming outside things instead of myself, but my classes aren't so hard that I'm motivated to give my everything to them.  I'm willing to study for them two nights before the test and be relieved when it all works out anyways.  I feel like I should be doing more than that, but I also feel like I'm in an environment where that's kind of how most people operate.  For being a university, it doesn't seem like it places enough emphasis on academics, which is a big deal.  I wish that had been something I had thought about before enrolling here.

I don't know where I would transfer to, and I wouldn't want to make that decision until I was sure about what I wanted to study.

I guess I should suck it up and start studying instead of writing this though.  Or go for a run and get my life together.

Pictures from the Virgin Islands

Maho Bay.  After such a rainy week in Columbus, I can't help but wish I was back there.

Maho Bay with my mom and sister.  Silly dad, he took the photo with the sun  behind us.

The new iPhone update with panorama is so cool.  I believe that right there is Trunk Bay,  but I really don't remember.

This was the marvelous view from the house we rented in Coral Bay.  I never stopped being amazed by how lovely our view was, and it made the very terrifying drive up the hill worth it.

thanksgiving 2012

This post may be a little awkward to write without making it seem like I am somehow disconnected with my extended family, but that is absolutely not the attitude I want to put out; I would like to, however, focus on the neighborly love we are so lucky to have.

I have only very briefly talked about my grandmother passing last Spring, and I still don't have all of the words I need to do so, but it is still devastating.  She is the first person who I have actually known who has died, and it's been tough to deal with because it has made me rethink a lot of spiritual convictions I have held for a long time.  Somehow I don't think I knew exactly how love feels until now that she's gone, but I'm happy she was, in death, able to teach me another lesson.  I realized that I believe in heaven, because I just have to.  She can't be gone.

But anyways, this thanksgiving was the first we have spent without her at least since we moved to Cleveland, and I don't really remember a thanksgiving before then.  We ended up not even getting together with any of our extended family from that side, and there's no explanation as to why not, but it just didn't happen.

All of these things culminated into an awkward excitement about going home and seeing my family and eating food and of totally dreading a thanksgiving dinner without my grandma.

That, and I've been kind of tearful lately at very random things (for example, a Sarah Mclachlan dog commercial could probably take me down right now) so I was also dreading that I would almost definitely cry at dinner.  Spoilers: I didn't, but I almost did.

So we ate dinner together and it was delicious and of course lovely to have the family back together for the first time since labor day, but it was after dinner that the magic happened.  We (I) invited our dear old friends and neighbors over for dessert.  After having spent the day in a weird familial isolation, the Strohs and Pirnats and Jaime walking in was nothing short of a family reunion.

They walked in the door and we knew we weren't alone.  The kids hung out like cousins and the parents told stories like they were siblings.  I don't really even know what to say other than that having family is nice, and I'm so thankful to have the family that I have, blood related and not.  Miracle of human consciousness and everything.

Also, I have been writing this blog for two years now!  If you're still reading this, I thank you.

On addiction

I've had a long-standing addiction to music and that goes without saying.  Still I said it.  Redundancy.  But other addictions, unhealthy addictions, are new to me.  For example, I started smoking kind of as a regular part of my drunken routine recently.  It would be better if I could unpair drinking from smoking so that I could ONLY smoke but that's not as easy as it seems it could be.  I'm not sure which is a less expensive habit.  Or addictive.  I could probably just drink for free on the weekends at parties and not smoke but I think that's something only for the socially able.  Like, I'm awkward, so I drink before parties so that I hate them less and I smoke at parties because you automatically make friends at parties when you're part of the smoking crowd.  And you make friends with the cool people.  That, and the white trash.

I think that addiction is something I might want to conquer in my novel for NaNoWriMo.  Just a characters personal struggle with it... obviously because I'm having a personal struggle with it.  I could write really honestly about the mental hardships of moving away for college, and of course also about the awesome things about it.  In some ways it's similar to high school because the bad parts are bad and stressful and hard but the good parts are so good.  And in a lot of ways it's better than high school but I think it's the same.  I feel better, as a whole, because I'm out there trying.  I'm at least doing something.  But it feels the same because that's my disposition.  That's how I feel, as a person, always.

So I just keep telling myself "It's not a problem until you're thirty."

And it's kind of true, mostly not though.  I mean... it's a problem no matter what.  It's always detrimental to my health.  But if it's what is making me feel free and alive then that's what I am supposed to be doing. I honestly and truly believe that experiencing human consciousness as fully as possible is the way life is supposed to be lived, so that's the goal.  And I'm going to be smoking and drinking and traveling and studying and loving and living until I find that I need to experience human consciousness in a different way.

I like the idea that life is lived in phases.  I like the idea that my grandma got the chance to read a lot of books before she died.  It's sad that she lived alone, although she wanted to, but I'm glad that she got time to know herself before she left herself.  Maybe that's sad.  I don't think I want that, but I don't think I'll ever want a new phase of my life.  I think it will happen, and only then will I realize it's wonderful.  My whole life is wonderful.

I can't tell if this in insightful or just drunk because I'm on my 3rd large cup of wine.  In some ways I can't wait until I'm thirty to have glasses of wine, instead of large cups of wine, but then I will also have the problems I'm making now.  I mean, I don't think I'm ever going to be an alcoholic (but then again I don't think anyone ever sees themselves growing up and becoming an alcoholic).  Still, it would never be me.  I'm too introverted and existentialist for that shit.  But I could see myself becoming a writer holed up in an apartment in a big city in Europe smoking a lot.  And lung cancer would be terrible, obviously, and it's ironic that I smoke at all because I hate when I get so sick that I can barely breathe and I KNOW how that feels.  And my dad smokes, which I always hated.  I still do, because he's way past thirty, but I understand it now.  Or rather, I've always understood it but now I understand it even better.

So addiction is complicated, but that's how everything is.  Complicated.  Life is complicated.  Life is a game of chance; so is smoking.

Other thought: smoking is both the most personal and most social thing I know.  Everyone who smokes bonds over it but it means something else to each individual who is smoking.  Each person has their own thoughts about the dirty cigarette, and the beautiful smoke itself.  I don't think there's anyone out there who is able to smoke and just believe that it's safe, or anyone I know anyways.  Everyone can think of someone who hates them for their nasty habit.  And everyone who can think of someone who knows that their nasty habit doesn't matter at all; but somehow this person's opinion matters less.  I'll never know why I view the negative opinion with so much more strength than I view the neutral or positive or agreeable one.

God I can't wait to snowboard this Winter.  I haven't felt like that in forever.

reasons

Reason #1 I love this University

Going to a huge school is annoying mostly only in trivial things.  Like, at any given time in a day you can end up waiting 10 minutes in line for food.  And walking around pre-coffee on your way to a morning class and theres so many people everywhere, you can't help but feel like an ant in a colony.  Nevertheless, the advantages of being somewhere where so many people contribute is that diversity is unavoidable in the best possible way.  I was thinking that I haven't started learning a new language in awhile so maybe I should schedule an 1101 class next semester in something random with a different alphabet and BAM Ohio State offers 32 languages.   THIRTY TWO.  Like, fun right?  So fun!  Most languages don't offer 1101 classes second semester though, so instead I'll probably have to wait until first semester next year, but I'm thinking about taking Russian or Hindi.  Maybe Chinese?  I really don't care what it is so long as it is useful and has a cool alphabet.

Reason #1 I love Ohio

Weather.

Reason #1 I hate Ohio

Weather.

Fall in Ohio is so beautiful on the good days.  I'm sitting outside right now and the trees and grass and brick buildings and sun and everything is a painting.  I could cry*.  And the wind is so perfect and it's warm.  Nothing like a sunny day to put me in a perfect mood.  Then again I the sentence I say the most in the winter is, no doubt about it, I fucking hate Ohio.  But like.. snow man.  Snow is tough to deal with sometimes.

Also: announcements!
I am planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year.  I'm not really sure what to write about but I have a feeling it will end up being at least a little bit autobiographical.  I've also always had this weird idea that authors should include a soundtrack to go with their books so I will definitely be sure to include that.


And I got that OSU blogging gig I applied for so I'm so excited to start writing for that!  In case you were wondering.  Not that I have readers of this.

*I've been feeling like crying at things that aren't sad in college a lot.  I don't know why, maybe this is adulthood.  I feel like crying that I'm an adult now too.

shoes and laundry.

I have so many different things to talk about today.

1.  College
2.  Shoe choice at college
3.  Laundry

It's really not that many things.

College has lots of facets to it.  I will start by saying that I don't think I would have ended up here were it not for the fact that OSU has an Arabic major.  I think I would've liked a smaller community of people in a larger city.  I do like Columbus a lot and although I have explored a little, I need to do more.    There are definitely things I miss about Cleveland, for example, the privacy of our nature.  This is a weird thing to say, but I miss being secluded in beauty.  There's a pretty garden I should go visit here, but it's not the same as like, the waterfalls in almost-Berea land and the Bradley Woods nature park past center ridge, and the edge of this country that is all of the Lake Erie beaches.  Privacy, in all ways, is probably what I miss most about home aside from my family, my cats, home-cooked meals, my shower, my bed (all of which I miss a lot, in that order).

But of course there are the good things, which are my Arabic class and my Social Psychology class.  It feels great to be taking Arabic again, I really do love it and never find my class to be a chore.  Social psychology I like because of the format mostly.  This is another weird thing to say but I kind of do love just sitting there and being lectured to and taking notes.  That's what I liked about history freshman and sophomore years of high school.  I never studied hard enough to get A's in those classes but I love lectures when they're interesting.  And in some ways I love note-taking?  I realize it's probably a sign of low intelligence to enjoy such mundane tasks.  Don't care.

I also sort of like the social life here.  I keep telling myself to just be brave and try to make friends and be social and admit to being a freshman who is sort of lost and fears loneliness.  Knowing what you're socially up against and admitting your handicaps is the first step to making new friends.  Big house parties aren't that fun because I don't know anyone, so I try to meet people at those parties and make friends.  It works about half the time.

Also something college has taught me:  be straightforward.  Simplify the language you use.  Say what you want, when you ask questions, ask exactly what you want to know.  Life just becomes easier when you stop avoiding what you want to say for fear of embarrassment.  Stop being embarrassed.  Say what you want.

The thing I don't like about college, which Marissa pointed out today, is the blatant hatred and ignorance present on campus.  This comes with any diverse group of people, having varying beliefs about different subjects.  And while the racism here is something I'm a bit more accustomed to (though still not happy about or comfortable with), prejudice against gay people is something I don't think I have dealt with as much, and I have noticed it here sometimes from individuals.

I wrongly (and sometimes rightly) judge people based on shoe choice.  This is something I have always done, but there wasn't as much opportunity for it in Westlake because at Westlake High School, the fashion is fairly homogenous as are the people, which is not meant to be a slam on my community.  It's just kind of true.  There is always bound to be more variation in the fashion choices when the community is people from all sorts of different geographical and socioeconomic backgrounds than a place where everyone is from the same geographical background, and most people are from the same socioeconomic background.  Right?

So anyways.  Shoes.  Obviously most people don't consider their shoe choice to be a personal choice reflecting who they are on the inside, and lots of people don't think about fashion at all, but I still think something is reflected in shoe choice.  For boys, there are usually three schools of fashion:  well-dressed (this could be trendy, classic, or more casual original style.  Either way they look good.), athletic (it is such a cop-out for boys to just wear athletic shorts and sweatshirts every day.  Although, if you have the calves for it...), and awkward (examples:  white tennis shoes, ever, nice shirt with athletic shoes, different styles of clothing all in the same outfit, etc.)  The well-dressed man will have shoes that match the rest of his outfit.  From the same type of style, degree of casualness, and/or color as the rest of his outfit.  The jock will probably have some tennis shoes or sandals with some mid-calf socks.  I get it- fashion is hard sometimes.  That's kind of what I see when I see a boy in this outfit.  Unless he's sweaty, in which case congrats!  Your outfit is activity-appropriate.  And the awkward boy often does not match the degree of casualness of his shirt and pants with his shoes.  That's usually where the awkwardness comes from.  White tennis shoes are pretty much never okay.  I'm trying to think of a situation when they're okay, and no, they're pretty much not okay.

Girl shoes are usually a little easier.  Of course there are the awkward shoes that don't match the outfit, but then after that everything other type of shoe can really help classify the woman's mood at the moment.  Heels?  Don't fuck with her; she's important today AND she's angry because her feet hurt.  Flats?  She's probably looking cute even though it's not required at the moment.  Congrats! You found someone who is probably happy.  Rainboots?  Ask yourself: is it/was it recently raining?  If it is, she is trying to stay warm.  Wet shoes are the worst.  If it isn't?  Maybe she's dumb!  Maybe there's something she likes about her rainboots.

Disclaimer:  Those last two paragraphs are fully speculative.  That's what I see.  You probably don't see the same thing, but I'm not the only person who looks at you and makes inferences about who you are. So look fly, because you'll feel good about it.

Laundry:  I love the laundry room in Drackett.  I wish I could reserve it as a study room.  It's warm in there, and the chairs are nice, and I like the soft rumble of the washers and dryers.  This is why:  it is impossible to study in full silence.  There is always a noise-- the soft scratch of your pencil on the paper, the sound of your laptops fan, the click of your fingers on the keyboard, the flipping of pages.  And those are caused by solo-studying, so multiply that by 5-40 if you're in ANY study room on campus.  So, while the laundry rooms are kind of noisy, it's a constant noise that is loud enough to drown out anything else, and constant enough to study with.  Right? RIGHT? Yes. Right.

I have more things to write about so I'll probably be back within a week!