Schedule for Spring 2010

Thus far, I am registered for:

ENGL 348-002 (AFAM Poetry)

ENGL 439-001 (English Lit 1832-1890)

ENGL 489-001 (Lit, Culture, and Health).

ENST 201-002  (Environment & Society)

CLEANING MY ROOM. Compiling the soundtrack of my life. Going to an autumn festival tomorrow.  Figured out how to transfer my St A's slideshow to video format.  Working on that & learning Photoshop skills for my term project. 

PS

This week's highlights include:

ROCKAOKE


SOPHIE CALLE

QUIDDITCH

V & A MUSEUM

Also, my roommate had a guest over this weekend and she has SWINE FLU!  That is not a highlight, though.  I just took a Shakespeare exam, and now I am going to go eat dinner at my professor's flat.  Have a great night!

I LOVE ART

I LOVE ART
I LOVE ART
I LOVE ART
I LOVE ART
I LOVE ART

Technology is opening up so many doors.

I went to an incredible gallery exhibit today. Sophie Calle.  Sophie Calle.  Sophie Calle.  Sophie Calle!

Still Processing Berlin (a quick entry for class)

My art professor talked with us about our Berlin experience during class the other day. She seemed troubled that we had not spoken about it with anyone--a tour guide, or survivor, or even a local--and so she tried to pry our reactions out of us.

I responded with (pretty much) these words, relating my answer to the art exhibit we had just viewed:

Visiting Berlin was an intense experience. It's sort of like how, you know, Gustav [the artist] describes most of his pieces as an exploration into the "auto-destruction" or, for some, the "auto-creation." Walking around the gallery, though, I was struck by how inherently intertwined they are. Can you have one without the other? Destruction with out creation? Creation without destruction? Those elements were strikingly present in Berlin. They [the Berliners] destroyed a wall, but they created an open space and the beginnings of a new community... I was disturbed by the visit to the concentration camp, and the imprints left by Nazi Germany on the city. What must it feel like to live in the shadows of that camp? How do you cope with the Holocaust becoming a tourist attraction?...But at the same time, there is this wild night life, and there are so many young people, and there is all of the potential that goes with rebuilding... there was a powerful mixture of these elements...I don't know, I wouldn't ever want to live there, but it was a thought-provoking and, in some ways, inspiring place to visit--even if it was troubling at the same time.

My art professor followed up with an interesting response. She expressed that her parents were German Jews, and as a Jew, she was taught to see birth and death in a different way than many others do.  Her words, more or less, elaborated:

In my religion, we do not celebrate the birth of a child like you do. Birth is a somber time because a new child means new hardship. Birth means new pain. For us, death is valued as an escape from pain. We celebrate death in the way that you celebrate new life... Memory becomes everything. We remember what happened over two thousand years ago. Our meaning comes from what happened before us.  Part of Holocaust remembrance, part of the Berlin experience, part of the concentration camp tours, the art exhibits, the tourist sites...is the need to reflect on what came before--a need to understand who we are and where we came from. We, too, are all rooted in the past, and our interactions with the past shape how we view the present. 

Berlin nightlife

Standing outside the Berlin wall

I like this poem

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
 a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

-- Carol Ann Duffy

one more memory

I can't believe I almost forgot SITTING ON DAN AND AMYS FURNITURE actually just that one huge furry chair/couch WHAT IS IT CALLED?

a few happy memories

totally rocking at manhunt
hammering out songs on the piano
drunk conversations on the roof
cleaning sprees, headphones, & PBR
dancing to Peaches and/or MIA and/or Kelly Clarkson
FF7 with the guys
noodle fights and races at the pool
having the whole Hall to myself for an hour
board games & drinks at the dining room fold-up tables
standing under the porch awning during a storm
trying to identify the footsteps coming up the stairs
sidewalk chalk in the driveway
talking excitedly about the future of St A's
sporting the plaid for MSCL nights
3 am--or 4 am--or 5 am--beer pong
sharing the Harris Teeter monster cakes
the sweaty stroll back home after Frisbee games
and, always, third eye blind in the living room!

(I miss my family.)

This week, I was sorted into a Harry Potter house...

HUFFLEPUFF!


Curses!


At least it wasn't Slytherin...

London health care

ME: HI I NEED MEDICAL THINGS
LADY: WHO R U
ME: AMERICAN
LADY: COOL HOW OLD
ME: TWENTY ONE
LADY: LETS TALK
ME:  I HAVE QUESTIONS
LADY:  I HAVE ANSWERS
ME:  OK THAT WAS GREAT
LADY:  HERE TAKE ALL OF YOUR PRESCRIPTIONS FOR FREE
ME:  K THX!!!!
LADY: O AND TAKE MORE STUFF YOU DIDNT EVEN ASK FOR
ME: WOW GEE THANKS
LADY: COME BACK AGAIN!

I have returned

Went to Berlin this weekend.  It involved:

--waking up at 3 am to catch a bus, then a plane, then a train ride
--Mexican food and drinks until check-in time at 2 pm
--a hostel called The Circus
--schnitzel
--a Couch Surfing party
--an exhibit on Bauhaus
--a stroll by the Berlin Wall
--Checkpoint Charlie
--Berlin reunification festival
--a 3 hour meal at a Spanish TAPAS restaurant
--my professor throwing down with us
--capoeira-style dancing in a Berlin basement bar
--graffiti-covered parking garages transformed into clubs
--dancing on stage to German techno
--lots of making out in public
--a fantastic 5 euro breakfast buffet
--a very disturbing visit to a concentration camp
--a fancy 3 hour dinner with gourmet schnitzel and live music
--RYANAIR

Many stories to tell but no time / patience to tell them.  Mostly, I'm just happy.