Girl Not Beast

Cave Song

2011-10-09T00:17:00.002-05:00

Waiting on a package.

2011-09-05T20:34:00.000-05:00

I'm waiting for a shipment of prints. Maybe it will be here tomorrow.
I'm preoccupied with deadlines for MFA programs in creative writing.
I'm waiting on a writing prompt for tonight's bout of story troubles.
There was an article that said people who lacked confidence used "I" more often than those who had high self-esteem. Most of my time on the train is spent rephrasing sentences to remove the first person pronoun.

Revival

2011-06-09T10:24:00.004-05:00

My friends,

I've been gone too long. But graduation and other silly school commitments got in the way. Now, I'm out, and of course, like many college graduates, looking for a job. It's not very satisfying to send out dozens of applications, resumes, cover letters only to hear nothing back in some cases. But it's still early. There's no need to panic, and luckily, I've got a number of chores and obligations to keep me busy for some time.

Tonight, I promised I would write a story about a spider stuck to the outside windshield of a car as it speeds up on a highway. It's called "It's worse for the spider, now." Maybe I'll post it. Open the floor up for some critique.

Hello to new followers and to those who are sticking around even though I've been the worst at updating.

a cloudy day at the beach

2011-04-18T15:10:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, the best days in the tropics (or subtropics) are not those filled with glaring sunlight that washes out color. Cloudy days, still warm and relaxing, allow us to open our eyes a tiny bit wider to actually see those plants that unfurl around us.
Here's a little bit of an homage to that and a hope that the Florida summer (where two of our artists now live) will be a little more forgiving this year:

photography tips from a photography beginner

2011-04-17T12:42:00.004-05:00

My dad and my brother (the other shop owners of FourElephants) are great with cameras. Unfortunately, we don't live together while I'm away at college, and as a result, a lot of my own item photography has to be done by me in a poorly-lit dorm room with windows that only face north.

Here's a list of tips I've picked up from around the web, or invented myself to help me take treasury-worthy pictures. It's not at all exhaustive, but I hope it helps.

1. Never ever ever ever use flash. It always leaves a shadow and it's impossible to get rid of it without washing out the other brilliant colors of your items. Flash results in pictures that make your item look cheap or your background look too dark like this picture I took over a year ago:

2. Pay attention to what's in your background. Nothing is more distracting to a buyer than a strange object or dirt in the background of an item photo. Because of my unfortunate window situation, I spent a lot of time photographing items on my windowsill which is white and black (not necessarily the best color combination for my felt items). One day, I decided that what I had wouldn't do, and I set out to find a surface near a window that wouldn't compete with the item itself. For me, it was as easy as the top of a bookshelf I could clear off. For you, it might be easier to set up a permanent photo station.

3. Provide a variety of views. It's not just about filling in the five photo slots. It's about offering a slightly different feel for your item each time. I suck at doing this, and I know it's easier said than done. Some of the best jewelry photography can capture both how you can dress up or dress down an outfit with that particular pair of earrings. For photography, some sellers choose to show how a photo looks in a living room, to give our imaginations a kick. It's part of the way we compensate for not being able to have our customers feel our items.

4. It doesn't hurt to check brightness on another computer. For a few months, I thought my shots were sufficiently bright, until a seller in the critiques section said they looked a tad too dark. I checked it out on a friend's laptop, and unsurprisingly, I saw myself staring at a slightly grayer and blander version of the photos I uploaded. It never hurts to check to make sure that your settings aren't affecting the way you display your items.

Giveaway Treasury: Comment to Enter

2011-04-09T13:05:00.002-05:00

The Treasury Friends Team on Etsy has started a giveaway treasury in conjunction with receiving a 300 dollar Etsy Team Grant to donate to the Red Cross for Japan's earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. All you have to do to win every item in the treasury is comment on it.

We do also strongly encourage you to donate if you haven't yet. The news outlets have stopped covering the tragedy in many ways, but efforts are still underway to aid those without homes and to rebuild the devastated areas.

Road Trip?

2011-04-05T16:22:00.002-05:00

New Earrings!

2011-04-02T13:25:00.004-05:00

These are my favorite right now.
Listed this afternoon on FourElephants.

Update

2011-03-31T17:56:00.003-05:00

I keep referring to myself as Forever Bald in my Honors Project. It's true that I was bald for a long time. It made my head look bigger than it already was. I'd scan a picture in, but it would only be embarrassing.

In good news, Four Elephants has officially been accepted to Poletsy, a team of Polish sellers living around the globe. It's very exciting to me among those sellers, and to hopefully use that network to convince my aunt who makes beautiful clothes to try her hand on Etsy.

In other, related news, I've got a new treasury up, which I'm really excited about. My second TFTeam treasury of the month, full of items I really wish I could buy. Take a look:

In other other TFTeam news, we are the recipients of an Etsy grant to donate 300 dollars to the Red Cross for Tsunami Relief in Japan. In order to promote and get more people involved, we'll be donating items to a giveaway treasury that will be up soon. Keep an eye out for that.

We went to the beach yesterday

2011-03-18T17:33:00.004-05:00

one whole week of freedom

2011-03-13T13:42:00.004-05:00

This winter term is done officially. I finished my history final just in time, and now I will make myself some celebratory tea and get rid of my notebook which is falling apart.

In Etsy news, Marcin will spend this week taking new photos for FourElephants. We're excited to get some more tropical, lush scenes posted, hopefully expanding to include colors we haven't yet captured.

I've been keeping a review for Take Me Home Tonight in my back pocket to eventually post on here, and I'm shopping around for some really great earwires for my next wave of felt earrings. If you know of any shops, please leave me a comment or shoot me on convo on etsy.

Inception Cake.

2011-03-06T19:48:00.003-06:00

For Micah's birthday, our friend Gena made an Inception cake. It depicts the scene in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt fights with a projection in the floaty hallway. I can't wait to have some of it later tonight, but right now, it's Celebrity Apprentice time.

Note the loaded dice along the sides. :)

JGL is the skinny one flying.

I caved.

2011-02-08T00:24:00.002-06:00

I ordered an iPhone mostly because I needed something that would actually work in Chicago after I graduate but also mostly because I was sick of everyone else being able to check their e-mails everywhere.

Now, I feel a little guilty, especially after reading all of those articles about how our brains never get a second to process all of the information we feed them. We do not give them a break to contemplate.

My rules for smartphone usage:
no walking and reading the news.
no walking and sending e-mails.
no walking and playing traffic rush.
it is okay to stare outside the window on the orange line and not at a screen.
it is okay to leave an e-mail hanging for some hours.

I hope I don't overwork my brain.

It has been quite some time.

2011-01-21T21:35:00.003-06:00

It turns out that college and tutoring have taken up a huge chunk of my time, and now that I've had a few weeks to settle back in, I' trying to figure out a viable Etsy schedule. Most of that is difficult because my tutoring hours are variable, and I should be working on my honors project (which is about my hazy memories of immigration).
I listed some new photos today that had been sitting around on my computer. Marcin is extremely excited for his first photo sale. It has fired him up to take more.
And here's a treasury I just made for your viewing pleasure.

It felt nice to get back into the swing of treasury-making.
But now I'm off to be an official band photographer.

New Year

2011-01-02T00:08:00.003-06:00

I'm having some trouble packing up for school. We're leaving at 10am tomorrow, and I'm not entirely sure that I'm ready. Because it's senior year, I keep checking off things on that list that could be titled "Last Whatevers." This is my last winter term, my last time really packing to go back, my last term tutoring freshman studies. I don't mind feeling nostalgic for these kinds of things, but I do mind feeling inexplicably guilty (?).

-Clothes are packed (except for the already dirty or half-dirty)
-Craft things are almost packed.
-Food is packed, but I'm missing some Polish tea and multivitamin juice. I don't know how I'll get them.
-I don't have anything to put into my backpack?

My January 2011 Car Mix is almost finished, and because the new year seems to be a time of confession and new beginnings, I would like to post the tracklist in an attempt to make myself think about my place as a music consumer and distributor of something like musical recommendations. There's an essay kind of about this in Chuck Klosterman's book Eating the Dinosaur, but I'll save that train of thought for my book review.

Beirut- Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)
Liam Finn- Second Chances
Manchester Orchestra- Wolves at Night (Acoustic and Live)
Yeasayer- Final Path
Iron & Wine- Woman King
Kurt Vile- Breathin Out
Modest Mouse- Bukowski
Duran Duran- The Chauffeur
Arcade Fire- Ready to Start
Freelance Whales- Broken Horse
Foals- What Remains
The National- England
Liars- Proud Evolution
Wolf Parade- What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had To Go This Way)
Bad Books- Baby Shoes

It's short because most of these songs are a little longer. Also, my other two or three possibilities don't match these songs in tone. And now I have officially committed to this song order. Time to finish up.

Treasury Philosophy

2010-12-28T10:27:00.002-06:00

I make treasuries based on my moods much like probably most people who make treasuries on Etsy. A couple days ago, though, I was in an awful mood. I felt sluggish, it was cloudy, and I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone. And of course, I wanted to make a treasury to reflect that, but I started wondering whether or not sellers would want their items associated with this type of melancholy. As a curator, I suppose that I can sort of use items any way I wish, but I was imagining a pair of my earrings or one of Marcin's photos in a treasury titled "Everyone is an idiot...and I can tell because they buy this stuff." I think I'd be pretty upset. Are treasury curators responsible for the way an item is presented? What do you think?

I ended up toning down the anger in my gray/grey treasury, and I even ended up atoning for my bad mood the next day with a sunnier treasury as if being able to put together sixteen cheerful items could in fact convey that I was in a better mood to the 43 people that had clicked on it so far.

In short, I guess I think a treasury can convey a visual aesthetic goal, but it's difficult to do that without pinpointing the emotion of it, too.

Favorite Albums of 2010

2010-12-26T12:35:00.003-06:00

5. Beach House- Teen Dream

I wasn't too crazy about this album at first because I couldn't really keep the songs straight in my head. They still kind of all blend together, but now, I just kind of let it happen. There's something to be said for an ultimately calming 49 minutes that does let you sit and listen to music. I don't mean to mark it as "just for entertainment" or whathever it is people say about art. I mean more that it forces me to turn my brain off, to stop counting and analyzing.

Standout Tracks: "Used to Be", "Norway"

4. Liars- Sisterworld

I have no idea what is happening in any of these songs, but they are loud and angry and unapologetic. The opening track, "Scissor," has something to do with a dead body that turns out to be alive. It's been a while since I heard an album that manages to be haunting throughout.

Standout Tracks: "Proud Evolution", "Scissor"

3. The National- High Violet

I'm surprising myself because before this album came out I had been an adamant non-fan of The National. I remember it had something to do with the fact that I wanted to distance myself from what they were singing about. I didn't want Yuppie Malaise. I also kind of thought the music was flat. There was nothing I could listen into. But I've come around for reasons that I can't quite explain, but I need to credit the album for the conversion coupled with an always wonderful live show (including the stage banter).

Standout Tracks: "Bloodbuzz Ohio", "Afraid of Everyone"

2. Foals- Total Life Forever

If you haven't yet, watch the video for "Spanish Sahara." It is amazing. Still shots of still landscapes. Small movements. As a follow-up to 2008's Antidotes, Total Life Forever is less controlled but more demure. It sounds infinitely sadder and proves that dance rock or math rock (or whatever I'm supposed to call it) cares about what is says and why it says it.

Standout Tracks: "Blue Blood", "Spanish Sahara"

1. Yeasayer- Odd Blood

This album leaked on my birthday in 2009 but wasn't officially released until 2010. Hearing it for the first time, I was disappointed not really knowing how to deal with pop thing (for lack of a better term). But then, I thought a little bit. I love the 80s. I love things that are fun and yet sometimes disturbing. I heard or read an interview with the band (wish I could cite it) that had one of the members saying that they wanted to record songs that they liked, that people could enjoy. They certainly succeeded and without sacrificing that weirdness that I had grown to love on the first album. Saw them in Prague (a show at which they were able to juggle the most disparate elements of their songs). Will be seeing them again on New Years Eve.

Standout Tracks: "Ambling Alp", "Mondegreen"

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T20:50:00.000-06:00

Treasury Time

2010-12-23T16:23:00.003-06:00

I made a treasury for NonTeam Challenge #11.
Sometimes, I have trouble with titles, and this was one of those times, but I love all of the items on this list. Hope you find something you're a fan of.

Sickling

2010-12-23T14:19:00.005-06:00

I've come across a ton of blogposts recently about illness, and I'd like to continue the trend. I am sick. It's just a cold, but I have this awful cough that makes me feel like I've been smoking for years. But today is an inside day, and I have a list of inside chores, most of which have something to do with Etsy.

I've spruced up the photo of my dad's giclee print, but I still haven't been able to find/buy a good frame to photograph it in.

I'm working on helping my step-dad open his own photography shop, which means coming up with exciting titles and shop names and figuring out an appealing format for descriptions. Here is a tiny version of one of the photos we will be posting soon:

Prototype

2010-12-20T11:51:00.006-06:00

Two things:

-There is a bananagrams facebook app. It works better than playing with real bananagrams tiles because you can highlight and drag whole sections, which makes rearranging amazing. I'm afraid I will get hooked, though. Played for an hour this morning.

-Working on a new earring prototype. Only one is finished, but let me know what you think. There's a fabric window on both sides. And I think the stitches would have to be more regular. I came up with the design when I was on the Orange Line, looking out at the desolate strip between the Western and 35th and Archer stops. In part, the earrings are a way to use vintage fabric scraps that I love to buy at thrift stores. But also, we often think of felt and cotton as soft, but I like felt for its sometimes rigidity.

Summerisle

2010-12-19T12:04:00.001-06:00

This morning, I was featured in this beautiful treasury:

I love the colors and the arrangement.

Black Swan

2010-12-13T17:45:00.003-06:00

Darren Aronofsky's new film Black Swan was difficult to watch because I knew how it was going to end, but I didn't know why bad things were happening and whether or not they were real.

This confusion stems from the fact that the film is from Nina's (Natalie Portman's) perspective. We see what she experiences without any indication of whether or not what she's experiencing is real. Then, we start to realize that much of what we had believed to be true is not true (never even happened, really). But as soon as we start to understand this, the film reaches such a level of intensity through great use of music and frantic cutting that we forget we've been tricked by what Nina has seen before. We start believing what we see again. This part (the suspense, the fear) is very well-crafted. And it is oddly triumphant- much like The Wrestler.

What doesn't work so well is the premise itself. In the end, the question becomes "Can an artist immortalize herself through one role (or one work of art)? And can the process destroy the person inside of the artist?" We don't get the critical distance to think about the answers to this question until we start to catch on to what is going on. Throughout, we are too concerned with Nina's physical well-being as her body falls apart to care about why this is happening.

Performances from the actors are all great. Mila Kunis's rough around the edges ballerina was surprisingly believable, and Vincent Cassel was creepy as the director and (at least in part) the only character who was aware of the questions about artists, their bodies, and their legacies.

I'm always impressed but turned off by Aronofsky's films. The most disgusting things are confronted unflinchingly. He is, of course, not the only director who employs this tactic. But he is the only one who clearly (at least by the end) does it in order to make us think about why we're alive and what alive actually is.

Featured, House-sitting, Storm

2010-12-12T11:59:00.004-06:00

On Saturday (the morning after my birthday), I found out that I was featured on a blog here: http://craftedbyhands.blogspot.com/
It's a wonderful collection of holiday items that I'm happy to be a part of. Please check it out. There might be something you really like.

I'm house-sitting and watching Arrested Development. IFC has been playing the episodes that I've seen most often, but I don't mind. It's the "musty old claptrap" episode. :)

And, of course, it is snowing all over Chicago, which means that it's difficult for me to motivate myself to go get some supplies and take the dog for a walk. I also haven't found anyone to visit me until tomorrow.

One of the cats (Myla) doesn't like her new treats, but she's managed to lose the bag of old treats that was on the couch. So now, she doesn't have anything to snack, but she thinks it's my fault.

I've got so many posts planned. I promise to write them soon. (2 product reviews and a film review)

Down to [a] wire

2010-12-07T20:32:00.004-06:00

Here's a new treasury I made. I don't really know what made me think of scissors, but now I can hardly concentrate on trying to figure it out because I set a goal of two and a half new pages by 11pm, and I, of course, haven't started in part because of this treasury and in part because it is difficult for me to write new immigration stories/anecdotes. I feel like I have exhausted my options.
Actually, this treasury might be related to a song my mom used to sing in Polish. The first lines are "I'll take the scissors and cut up the curtains." And that's all I know, and I think it's about an angry housewife...

'Sharp Edges' by fourelephants

The Collection Num... gildinglilies $20.00	M SNIP tshirt on Co... phippsart $21.50	Sewing Tag - Sewer ... SweetandSassyC... $5.00
Antique Vintage Ind... BehindTheScree... $140.00	SALE . . . amazing ... jetsetvintage $15.00	little scissors chainchainchai... $20.00
Free Shipping World... thekildarepook... $9.55	Silver Serving Piec... onecozynest $18.99	Hunting Arrowhead D... BrillianceFoun... $19.00
Knives - Adult Smal... mrosi582 $18.00	Knife and Fork - Ca... bridbird $5.00	Small Dish with Blu... zinniadesignst... $12.00
12oz cup scissors (... CircaCeramics $30.00	The Key with the Hi... GwenDelicious $46.00	DIY 23mm Wood Natur... pearldelta $1.50

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.

Friday

2010-12-03T14:57:00.002-06:00

Bullet point entry:

- First real snow in Chicago will happen tonight.
- I made a new treasury in anticipation of having my own apartment (eventually):

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4cf96287ec858eef9d2c0b47/first-apartment

- I've got new earrings planned out which I will be working on in the car tonight on the way to see The Room in Milwaukee. If you haven't seen The Room, all you need to know about it is that it's the new Rocky Horror Picture Show in terms of how it is watched. Spoons are thrown at the screen, silly things are chanted. But it's a midnight screening, and I won't get home until what is more accurately termed Saturday morning.

- Listen to Duran Duran's "The Chauffeur" from their 1982 album "Rio" and on the Greenberg soundtrack.

Earring and Writing Day

2010-11-30T14:50:00.003-06:00

I'm on my second pair of earrings today. The first is already listed and can be found here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/63321989/felt-earrings-peach-slices

Peach maybe isn't the best way to describe the color of them, but I liked the idea of having slices of a fruit that doesn't really lend itself to slicing. We'll see.
The second pair will be in the same color, with purple buttons, and of the rectangular variety.

It's a light chore day for my mom. She just asked me to clear out the tupperware cabinet, which takes some time, and I have to find a place to stack all of the containers nicely for her to look over. But this will only take a few minutes.

We might start picking out photos for Maciek's etsy shop. He's intrigued.
And I might look into the feasibility of starting my own shop for jewelry, but I don't think I'll do it.

But my goal is also 750 words. A good chunk of a short I might see making its way into my honors project. I started it on the train yesterday but felt bogged down by all of the details I wanted to include to truly capture my grandma's house. I also started writing this section in present tense, which seemed wrong to me, but it's my default tense for writing now, and I figure I can always go back and switch, which will give me more opportunity to revisit what I had written.

Just to keep my new readers abreast of what is going on: I'm writing a collection of short stories as my honors thesis. Generally, these stories will deal with my immigration and problems associated with it. But in this I want to include some sort of slight formal exploration, dealing with plot, story length, and genre-blurring. Right now, I am asking myself if non-fiction has to be in first person.

127 Hours

2010-11-28T13:46:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, I saw 127 Hours at Century.

*Spoiler Alert*

I knew James Franco's character was going to cut his arm off, but I wasn't seriously worried until I was walking up the ramp to theater #7 where I noticed a small white sign taped to the wall. It reminded viewers of the one graphic scene that had caused viewers to feel sick and almost faint. And then I realized what I had actually signed up to see, how every single shot in the film would hint at his entrapment and his eventual escape. I was sweaty and scared during shots at the beginning in which James Franco simply ran his hands across smooth rocks. That is effective filmmaking.
But from now on, I don't think I'll mention the arm thing, which was harrowing, but I think Danny Boyle didn't want to make it the focus of the entire film.

Here's why. There's a framing device used, shots of people on a crowded train platform, fans in a packed stadium, cars on a highway, all emphasizing the multitude of people everywhere else, except for where Aron Ralston was trapped. We get the sense that he wanted to be alone, and while I haven't read the book he wrote, I'm going to assume that this is something he had written about extensively. This is about as much as we get in terms of character development...and really about as much as we can expect, and as a result, a lot of the flashbacks revolve around his experiences with an ex-girlfriend, which allow us to escape the ridiculously claustrophobic conditions in the canyon, and also shows us what would prompt a person to go somewhere so lonely without letting anyone know where he was going.

This makes the people helping Aron in the end seem like they're functioning symoblically as well. He needs people to survive. He has learned his lesson. It's no longer just a factual account, and I respect the desire to incorporate a small arc, or a small emotional change into such a big, terrifying, and life-altering experience.

But did it work? Kind of. It was visceral. It made me at first want to get away from the crowds and the noise, and then it made me want to go right back, to never be alone.

And all of it, really, was pretty. A combination of the colors from Slumdog Millionaire and the movement and effects from 28 Days Later.

Dare we say that Danny Boyle is an auteur? And can we watch anything he makes without thinking of his big smiling face at the Oscars?

How Things Came to Be

2010-11-27T14:03:00.005-06:00

I realized today, with the help of a critiquer in the forums, that my bio on Etsy is a little...slim. The fact of the matter is that it's very difficult for me to explain the circumstances of how this shop (FourElephants) came to be.

I'm in my early 20s, and since 4th grade I've wanted to either be a musician, writer, or maker of things. And my parents have been generally supportive, being makers in their own right. My mom for the longest time made her own wreaths (for every holiday imaginable), and my dad drew. My brother, too, has recently been bitten by the creative bug. He started a band and discovered that he wields a pencil very well.
But because we immigrated to the US from Poland when I was five, and because this carries with it a certain amount of "prove to those Americans that you can be worthwhile to their society," nobody in my family had ever considered any sort of artistic profession. The pinnacle of success would have to be something like lawyer or doctor. High-powered, high-earning, useful.
To me, it became pretty clear that this was not the way that I was going to go. And simply enough, I'm not doing it. But for my dad, it hasn't been that simple. He needs to work, and because he works, he doesn't have time to paint. I want him to paint. I want him to be able to do it for a living. It's a dream he has put off for many many years.
And this summer, I said, "Look, Dad. I can manage an Etsy shop to see where things go. For now, I'll put in some of my stuff, and some of Marcin's photos [to get him fired up about making things, too], and we'll wait for your paintings." Slowly, he's getting stuff finished, and slowly, I am becoming familiar with Etsy and its sellers.

This is the long-winded version of our story. This is our version of a collective.

Hold On Tight

2010-11-24T21:16:00.005-06:00

In August, I bought a new laptop. My first MacBook. After six years, my old Compaq was slow and sad with about 300mb of RAM, unable to complete even the most basic task of turning itself on in less than fifteen minutes.

What I was most excited for in getting my new laptop was not the speed, or the sleekness, or even the satisfying click of each new key. I really wanted to get a new laptop sleeve. I had held off for a long time, knowing that my fifteen inch laptop was on its way out and that if I bought something ahead of time, I would only lament the fact that I did not own a laptop that would fit into my amazing new laptop protector.

On etsy, where I spend many of my waking hours, I came across Sandra's shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/sandrastju). In it, she had hundreds of sleeves made of heavy-duty felt and upholstery-weight fabric all of which could have cushioned my newest purchase.

But this is why I went with the felt sleeve (pictured above). The traction. I am absolutely clumsy, and whenever I have to walk somewhere holding my computer, the only thing I can think is: "Your hand is slipping. It is sweaty. That laptop will fall to the cement and crack into hundreds of pieces." But the felt that Sandra uses provides me with just the right amount of grip with none of the itchiness I normally associate with wool.

I also bought another case for my boyfriend:

The detailing on both cases is beautiful, and the wooden buttons provide an extra bit of smoothness.

You can find more sleeves just like these two at http://www.etsy.com/shop/sandrastju .

I was asleep again.

2010-11-23T10:37:00.003-06:00

I'm on here today for two reasons. One, my term is officially over. No more papers, no more tutoring, no more cafeteria food. Until January 2nd. And Two, I made it to the front page again! I checked out the screenshot on craftcult.com, and I made a widget, and here it is:

Ballin' #2

2010-11-15T11:28:00.002-06:00

Another treasury on the front page! I'm really happy with this one, too.

Some hidden writing I never finished.

2010-07-25T22:17:00.003-05:00

Dug this up. I don't know what I was getting at. And I don't know when I wrote it. But if it had a resolution already, I would consider editing.

Original post:

This is not a diary, but it is an experiment:

It is four in the afternoon, and it has rained. The roads are not slick; they are steaming, but it is not like a fog. We're walking through this to get to that grocery store across the street from the church where every Sunday two decrepit Pontiacs show up in the parking lot. It is Wednesday, and we need flour for the pie or cake or tort that is made of yeast. You say it is healthy as we walk through the steam, feeling our pores open for the sweat to slide down to the tips of our noses and hang for just one second until the jolt from our bare feet hitting the pavement sends them silently plopping onto the ground only to evaporate.
They will not let us in to the Egg Store without shoes even though we are regulars...

Working on the Etsy thing

2010-07-13T12:55:00.003-05:00

I haven't been writing for a number of reasons, but I'm mostly working on trying to familiarize myself with the selling part of Etsy. The buying part is, of course, a lot easier.
But I think that I'm uncomfortable with promoting my own wares. A certain amount of confidence with the work being done has to exist. Not to mention that fact that every hour I spend on Etsy is an hour I haven't spent working on my honors project.
I wish that the summer were longer, so that I woudn't feel so guilty about listing more of these Charles Dickens cards right now.

Ballin'

2010-07-11T10:46:00.001-05:00

There is a WLFM forum?

2009-10-20T12:36:00.005-05:00

And only Wilmer, me, and Micah have registered.

http://wlfm.forumbuild.com/index.php

But here are a few pictures that I've neglected to put up:

my computer is broken

2009-09-29T23:21:00.003-05:00

I can't log on to the internet from my computer, and I haven't gotten around to flashdriving pictures of the campus center on to Micah's computer in order to post them on here. Although, maybe Joy and Ana saw it already in person (should I address you directly in the post?). And also, in blog news, I can't edit the size of my blog picture because of the computer problems. At this point, it is kind of embarrassing to take it in to ITS, but I will do it after the weekend.
My radio show begins tomorrow night, and it's no longer called Maggot Music because it was starting to creep me out. Now, I am Maggle Music.

Nothing is going to fit.

2009-09-12T15:39:00.002-05:00

I bought a chair: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S89825201
Right now, it is in Micah's trunk, but it probably won't stay there, and it probably won't even make it into the car at the rate that I'm stuffing non-essential things into bulging bags. The problem is that we have a lot of trinkets between us but not enough to warrant parent accompaniment. We'll be back in the city on October 2nd, yet I still don't want to make any sacrifices. So, I think that I will unpack and repack until everything is smaller. Yes, that sounds boring.
What is even more boring and worth a mention because of it (I guess) is our new toilet. It has a water saving flush function, and when I reminded my mom of it, she called me an ecologist which I don't think is exactly the right word she wanted.

I've run out of words.

2009-09-03T23:40:00.003-05:00

And this is mainly because I am tired of working at a computer all day and staring at the same 30 page application, memorizing the fax number to the Registrar at Argosy University, and waiting for the NPDB reports to come back.

There are about 5 things that I've learned all summer:
-Faxes usually have cover sheets, and it is unnecessary to file them but my predecesor did it anyways.
-Psychiatrists are worse at filling out mandatory fields in applications than therapists, counselors, and social workers.
-I hate redundant data entry more than anything in the world.
-People love to tell me that I shouldn't complain because "at least [I'm] getting paid."
-Greasy pizza really can lead to rapid weight gain.

I can't wait to get back to my real jobs.
And I am taking the day off tomorrow.

2009-08-03T09:16:00.001-05:00

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1913256,00.html

The Best Thing I Read in ANY College Guide

2009-07-10T20:29:00.003-05:00

On Vassar,
"If forced to pin down a stereotype, one might try one or all of: 'hippie, style conscious, smart, left wing, idealist, East-Village-y.' Less generous characterizations call students 'white, rich kids with holes in their clothes.'"

Incidentally, this is exactly what I was writing about exactly three years ago on xanga.

"Year One" and "Whatever Works" and "Food, Inc" and "Away We Go"

2009-06-28T15:02:00.004-05:00

I don't want to keep writing about the films I've been going to see, but it's probably the only thing Micah and I have been doing that is at all worth writing about. Unless, of course, there is some interest in a play-by-play of yesterday's most disorganized water fight, or the delicious pizza we had after that.

But I want to record my impressions of these films. I skipped Away We Go when it came to blog posts because I liked it and felt that there was nothing more to say. But I still don't like Dave Eggers, and it's important to know why. But I don't know why. So, I'll leave it at that.

Year One- Did anybody else see the clear Apocalypto spoof throughout? The hunt at the beginning? The capture of the entire village? Slavery in a big city? Religious sacrifice? In any case, it was one of the few things worth paying attention to even thought it wasn't particularly well-done.

Food, Inc- Predictably, it made me want to change my eating habits, but I am a coward. I also don't have the means to do as much as I would like to. And also, it's hard to give up things like Cheez-its because they seem harmless, but they're not. And, the biggest message that the film conveyed was that you can hardly get away from the McDonalds of the world if you don't grow all of your own food because big fast food chains are also big buyers of produce which means that they control the market. I'm not making myself very easy to follow, but the point is that evn lettuce that we buy is McDonald's-controlled lettuce in a way.

Whatever Works- Larry David doesn't act. He plays Larry David with Woody Allen's preoccupations. All other parts are enjoyable.

I ate healthier food in Downer

2009-06-21T14:00:00.002-05:00

Today, I had a bagel slathered in butter, half a mug of juice, and a bowl of ramen. For dinner, I might eat a hot pocket.
Yesterday wasn't any better.

"The Hangover"

2009-06-16T13:18:00.001-05:00

# 126 on IMDB's Top 200. Reviewers on the website describe it as "truly, hilariously, funny" and "The tale of how three friends tries to find the lost groom before his wedding after their crazy night in Las Vegas. The movie gets funny from the Las Vegas part right till the end. There is hilarious stuff in every other scene. Not to be missed, one of the best comedy of 2009."

But ALL OF THIS IS A LIE. There are barely words that can describe my distaste for the people in that theater who laughed uproariously at the most disgusting and stupid things for over an hour and a half. In the film, Phil (played by a greasy Bradley Cooper) sets out to give his friend Doug the best bachelor party on the face of the planet by taking him to Las Vegas. We know from the first scene that the night has gone horribly wrong because Phil is calling Doug's fiance to fess up to something. The rest of the film takes place as one long flashback that skips the actual bachelor party bit in order to mimic the effects of a certain drug (a Forget-Me-Now if you will) which forces the characters to piece together the events that led up to Doug's disappearance. That's it. And in the end, the men are rewarded for their behaviors in a number of ways- I think I'll just go ahead and spoil it. Stu (Ed Helms) gets the courage to stand up to his controlling girlfriend, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) gains partial acceptance from Phil who after a night of debauchery funded by money stolen from his elementary school students gets to come home to a loving wife and son while Doug is forgiven at the altar for being sunburned and late to his wedding with absolutely no explanation. Everything about the wrap-up scene at the end smells of the horrors of Broland. It is okay to break up with your girlfriend if she doesn't want you to marry a stripper. It is okay to steal from kids to pay for gambling and strippers as long as you cover your own child's ears when a friend swears. The bachelor party is a man's due payment for putting up with marriage for the rest of his life. That logic is not once challenged throughout this film because every problem is solved through the ingenuity of the alpha male who has all the answers. They even win a total of over 160,000 dollars in the course of less than 48 hours! Perfect night, bros.

This, of course, just barely scratches the surface of what is wrong with the entire set up of this comedy. After Doug, Phil, Alan, and Stu take their first shot of Jager where one of the characters says, "this reminds me of college." I find it hard to believe that these guys ever left.

I'll just leave you with the memorable quotes page from IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/quotes

First

2009-06-13T10:25:00.000-05:00

Good morning friends scattered in the Midwest. And kind of the East if you don't count Michigan as part of the Midwest which maybe I don't.

I got a new watchband, and the man who helped me at the swatch store was okay if not a little pushy, and I tricked Micah into walking all the way to his house from the Penguin Store, but it ended up being worse for me because I had terrible walking shoes on.

On a completely unrelated note, Star Trek was great. It renewed my interest in science fiction films which is probably something that wasn't diminished in the first place. There was a line in it though that was either unnecessary or poorly acted. The woman who knows a bunch of languages and works on the Enterprise was part of a discussion of what was happening with Nero (the bad guy), and either Kirk or Spock were explaining why he thought Romulus (his home planet) was destroyed, and at the end she gasped and said, "An alternate reality."

I promise I will be more interesting in the next posts.