I should probably tell you more about this "frustration." Well, it comes from all directions, actually. I am frustrated because I have hit writer's block in this essay on La comunidad (2000). I am frustrated because the schedule I assembled for next semester is falling spectacularly to pieces. I am frustrated because I don't know what I really want.
The first problem has gotten better. I spent hours in the library today, outlining by hand my Spanish cultural studies paper. My approach is much more narrowly and clearly defined, and I will start writing it tomorrow. So I feel better about that.
I had arranged a schedule for the fall semester that complemented my honors thesis. Turns out I cannot or must wait until I get back to find out if I can take certain courses. I have to plan for backups. And the original plan was hard to come by! I cannot justify these new alternatives the same way I can explain why the others fit into my coursework and independent study plans. For once, I wasn't paranoid. I didn't "plan on a change of plans."
Spanish the language is posing another problem. I don't think I want to take it this summer after all. Do you know anyone who is more indecisive than me? I certainly don't. Why don't I want to take it now?
1.) It won't make much of a dent. I doubt my speaking skills will improve dramatically.
2.) I cannot justify spending almost $1000 for just 36 hours of classroom study spread over six weeks and twelve sessions of three hours each. If I were to take the class in the fall, I wouldn't have to shell out this extra cash because I don't pay by the credit hour in the formal semesters.
3.) I don't need to speak it for grad school. I only have to be able to read and write it. I can study to meet those ends for free with my books, on my own. This I consider a compromise. I will work on my reading and writing, I swear, but I'll forget about spending so much money on speaking it. Maybe I can get a speaking partner...
This problem is connected directly to my travel to Spain. It has been repeatedly suggested that I go to Spain while I am over here because flights are much cheaper than if they originate in the U.S. I understand this, but finding the right one that doesn't cost a lot of money, one that goes to Madrid (because I rather go there than Barcelona), or one that doesn't arrive in the wee hours of the morning at an airport miles upon miles outside the city has proven most difficult for me. It has exhausted me to the point where I don't care that my father wants me home as early as possible so I can go to Louis's specialized training graduation. It's not as if my presence at home is requested for nothing.
But I still want to go to Spain. Do I wait for another time when the trip will undoubtedly be more expensive because I will be flying from the U.S. instead of England? I keep telling myself that Spain isn't going anywhere. It is frustrating to think that I am missing something when I really am not. I don't even know what I am missing.
Having to come home earlier than I was expecting means that I can't go to Berlin in the summer either. I have tentative plans to go for a few days just before exams start. I think I should go, even if I have to go alone. I owe it to myself. It's not expensive. I can swing it. But I might honestly have to do everything alone. I'll be so sick of myself after so many days in a foreign city, a foreign country, thinking (and talking) to myself in English but hearing German everywhere else. Maybe I need to go just to see if I can make it, to see if I can stand me. I may have taken this step to live on my own in England, but can I up and leave here by myself? I can't wait to see, but at the same time I am scared.
Showing posts with label confessions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confessions. Show all posts
Friday, March 30, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
my cinematical mind
It should come as no surprise to you that I enjoy films and that I once (twice, thrice, four times maybe) thought I should be a filmmaker and then convinced myself otherwise each and every time. I never needed to exactly explain my position on this issue. People have either always agreed or even gone so far as to recognize that I "really like movies." It just makes sense.
Why do I want to be a filmmaker?
Glad you asked. Other than my intense interest in film production and consumption and criticism and history and etc., I fancy myself a photographer and a keen observer of the human condition. Stories fascinate me. My twenty years of watching films have greatly affected how I see the world. Literally. And my eyeglasses help frame this view. It's as if my looking out through these lenses that help me see better constitute a camera. That I can see the frame only emphasizes my self-awareness of the medium, as a director of my own life. My ears are fine-tuned to what goes on round me. I love spotting seemingly random and quotidian sounds. The absurdity of life, which I encounter everywhere, is always fodder for filmmaking. It only makes sense.
When I was in middle school and high school, I was a very depressed and lonely figure (still am to some extent, but that's another series of blog posts). Whenever something unpleasant happened to me, whether it was the nasty words and stares girls at the lockers would shoot my way or a C on a math test, I tried to forget about it. Especially the bad grades. I would tell myself, "You are not stupid. This is your life. It is a movie. It's in the script. But it's not in the script that you'll fail." Delusional, I know, but we all have our own ways of dealing. Mine was to pretend my life really was a movie and that nothing is real (even when I am the one who was unpleasant to others). I still feel this way sometimes.
Everything affects me. No matter how big or small. Some people call it ultra-sensitivity, arrogance, paranoia, etc. I don't know what to call it. I'm just uber-observant. I am so observant that I notice things before others and pretend not to notice at all. So as to avoid talking or arguing about it.
No one else is going to make a movie out of my ideas. I may have these ideas and joke that I wish someone would make them into films, but they're not going to.
A piece of advice that I collected while talking with a documentarian: "make sure you choose the right medium for your idea. You make think you want to make a movie, but it might be better as a short or hell, even a novel or short story." I admit some of my ideas shouldn't be films, but every time I have an idea, I see it played out in front of me like my pseudo-dreams. (I call them "pseudo" because I am awake while they take place and I consciously manipulate what happens.)
More to the point: it's not enough to analyze and write about films. Through discussion of films--whether verbal or written--there is always a lesson, or at least some indication of what to do or avoid in fixing my idea onto celluloid. In other words, my study of film has taught me how to be a filmmaker. How Tarantinian of me.
I have the French New Wave manifesto of le politique des auteurs to thank for this one. And also how filmmakers since them have interpreted this ideology that the filmmaker is an artist and how he or she uses the camera to tell a story is highly personalized, even if it's a collage of styles. How unexpected to be inspired by Luc Besson's Subway (1985)! A film that, according to the comments I scribbled in my film journal upon watching it for the first time, I didn't like or dislike.
I'm a postmodernist. I'm forever making connections. And I could go on. Probably will.
Why do I want to be a filmmaker?
Glad you asked. Other than my intense interest in film production and consumption and criticism and history and etc., I fancy myself a photographer and a keen observer of the human condition. Stories fascinate me. My twenty years of watching films have greatly affected how I see the world. Literally. And my eyeglasses help frame this view. It's as if my looking out through these lenses that help me see better constitute a camera. That I can see the frame only emphasizes my self-awareness of the medium, as a director of my own life. My ears are fine-tuned to what goes on round me. I love spotting seemingly random and quotidian sounds. The absurdity of life, which I encounter everywhere, is always fodder for filmmaking. It only makes sense.
When I was in middle school and high school, I was a very depressed and lonely figure (still am to some extent, but that's another series of blog posts). Whenever something unpleasant happened to me, whether it was the nasty words and stares girls at the lockers would shoot my way or a C on a math test, I tried to forget about it. Especially the bad grades. I would tell myself, "You are not stupid. This is your life. It is a movie. It's in the script. But it's not in the script that you'll fail." Delusional, I know, but we all have our own ways of dealing. Mine was to pretend my life really was a movie and that nothing is real (even when I am the one who was unpleasant to others). I still feel this way sometimes.
Everything affects me. No matter how big or small. Some people call it ultra-sensitivity, arrogance, paranoia, etc. I don't know what to call it. I'm just uber-observant. I am so observant that I notice things before others and pretend not to notice at all. So as to avoid talking or arguing about it.
No one else is going to make a movie out of my ideas. I may have these ideas and joke that I wish someone would make them into films, but they're not going to.
A piece of advice that I collected while talking with a documentarian: "make sure you choose the right medium for your idea. You make think you want to make a movie, but it might be better as a short or hell, even a novel or short story." I admit some of my ideas shouldn't be films, but every time I have an idea, I see it played out in front of me like my pseudo-dreams. (I call them "pseudo" because I am awake while they take place and I consciously manipulate what happens.)
More to the point: it's not enough to analyze and write about films. Through discussion of films--whether verbal or written--there is always a lesson, or at least some indication of what to do or avoid in fixing my idea onto celluloid. In other words, my study of film has taught me how to be a filmmaker. How Tarantinian of me.
I have the French New Wave manifesto of le politique des auteurs to thank for this one. And also how filmmakers since them have interpreted this ideology that the filmmaker is an artist and how he or she uses the camera to tell a story is highly personalized, even if it's a collage of styles. How unexpected to be inspired by Luc Besson's Subway (1985)! A film that, according to the comments I scribbled in my film journal upon watching it for the first time, I didn't like or dislike.
I'm a postmodernist. I'm forever making connections. And I could go on. Probably will.
Monday, March 5, 2007
¡viva el español!
Being engulfed this academic year in only European Studies courses has had a tremendous effect on me in numerous ways. However, right now, I will only discuss the two major (and long-lasting) effects:
1. I miss American Studies. Of course the concepts and ideas, readings, and cultural history that I had studied at home about America has greatly aided me in my study of Europe. But it is sometimes frustrating when my classmates don't know certain concepts. For example, in a class on the cross-cultural narrative with final-year students, I was the only one familiar with the terms anthropology, ethnography, postcolonialism (as Brits, how could they not know this one?), postmodernism, etc. The seminar group depended on my explanations of what they were because I was the only one who dared to tackle defining the terms.
I also miss American Studies because all I do is study Europe. Of course I chose this concentration in my major coursework for comparison, but sometimes you really just can't bring in America all the time. I'm often itching in my seat to comment comparatively, but if I do, it would be a digression. Race, for instance, is not the same, and you'd think it didn't matter at all in my courses sometimes. But at least I can still talk about gender till everyone's blue in the face.
2. I miss my language studies. Over the two terms, I have taken three country-specific courses: Spanish film, Spanish cultural studies, and French film. The courses on offer here in the European Studies Department are fantastic. I would love to take them all, but I can't because they are conducted in the individual languages. (My three are in English.)
I quit studying languages when I quit linguistics. I was spreading myself too thinly by trying to study three languages at once since high school. In subsequent years, I have lost so much Spanish, I fear. I used to be a really good writer, and I can only understand and read Spanish now. (I could never speak it, which is why I quit.)
I'd been enchanted by French off and on. The last time I formally studied it, it was an intensive elementary review over a year ago. I haven't lost much since then, but since I am in two Spanish courses this year and listening to it is always a delight, I feel that it is tempting me to start up again. I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for abandoning it for French, and I don't know if I am prepared to abandon French for Spanish, either. All I know for certain is: I cannot have both. I won't progress. I need to concentrate. I'm so indecisive.
My friend Denise helped to quell my anxiety over my pervasive indecisiveness. She said if I can't decide between two things, then clearly I don't want either one enough so I don't need to choose. This is not to say that I should necessarily choose a third. I don't need to choose anything.
Oh, but I miss Spanish. In high school, it was my favorite subject. It was the only way I studied (any) culture. I was a good writer and I loved to read it. How could I ever have convinced myself to give it up? Why didn't anyone remind me of what it made me feel? Confident. Even if I couldn't speak it.
You heard it here first: I think I want to continue studying Spanish formally. Besides, it complements my burgeoning interest in Latin American history, cinema, culture, etc. Especially Mexico's.
1. I miss American Studies. Of course the concepts and ideas, readings, and cultural history that I had studied at home about America has greatly aided me in my study of Europe. But it is sometimes frustrating when my classmates don't know certain concepts. For example, in a class on the cross-cultural narrative with final-year students, I was the only one familiar with the terms anthropology, ethnography, postcolonialism (as Brits, how could they not know this one?), postmodernism, etc. The seminar group depended on my explanations of what they were because I was the only one who dared to tackle defining the terms.
I also miss American Studies because all I do is study Europe. Of course I chose this concentration in my major coursework for comparison, but sometimes you really just can't bring in America all the time. I'm often itching in my seat to comment comparatively, but if I do, it would be a digression. Race, for instance, is not the same, and you'd think it didn't matter at all in my courses sometimes. But at least I can still talk about gender till everyone's blue in the face.
2. I miss my language studies. Over the two terms, I have taken three country-specific courses: Spanish film, Spanish cultural studies, and French film. The courses on offer here in the European Studies Department are fantastic. I would love to take them all, but I can't because they are conducted in the individual languages. (My three are in English.)
I quit studying languages when I quit linguistics. I was spreading myself too thinly by trying to study three languages at once since high school. In subsequent years, I have lost so much Spanish, I fear. I used to be a really good writer, and I can only understand and read Spanish now. (I could never speak it, which is why I quit.)
I'd been enchanted by French off and on. The last time I formally studied it, it was an intensive elementary review over a year ago. I haven't lost much since then, but since I am in two Spanish courses this year and listening to it is always a delight, I feel that it is tempting me to start up again. I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for abandoning it for French, and I don't know if I am prepared to abandon French for Spanish, either. All I know for certain is: I cannot have both. I won't progress. I need to concentrate. I'm so indecisive.
My friend Denise helped to quell my anxiety over my pervasive indecisiveness. She said if I can't decide between two things, then clearly I don't want either one enough so I don't need to choose. This is not to say that I should necessarily choose a third. I don't need to choose anything.
Oh, but I miss Spanish. In high school, it was my favorite subject. It was the only way I studied (any) culture. I was a good writer and I loved to read it. How could I ever have convinced myself to give it up? Why didn't anyone remind me of what it made me feel? Confident. Even if I couldn't speak it.
You heard it here first: I think I want to continue studying Spanish formally. Besides, it complements my burgeoning interest in Latin American history, cinema, culture, etc. Especially Mexico's.
Friday, February 9, 2007
i was wrong
I have a confession to make. It's really startling. I am still coming to terms with it. You see, because I've been really depressed, lonely, and bored lately, a lot of people (from home) have asked if I feel homesick. Truth is, I don't. I don't miss my house or living where I did. I can move on from there. Sure, I miss my dad and my dog, but I see them regularly via webcam.
Truth is, I miss L.A. I told you it would be a startling revelation, didn't I? I miss it because it is fun in its own way. I love that you CAN actually walk to places (depending on where you are). You just park and walk to different kinds of places. Or you live near a major intersection. You can get anything in L.A. It's not special because of this. This is the way all cities are turning. (Especially in Britain; it's all the same.) I miss L.A. because I only go there to see my sister.
Whenever I get a craving to see it, I watch Laurel Canyon (2002). I've watched it a few times in the past couple of months. And I can say I like it better than when I first saw it, than when I last saw it, too. I appreciate its cinematography and interiors most. The aerial shots of L.A. in the beginning are breathtaking and don't attempt to capture the hills and the freeways empty. (Who said landscapes had to be uninhabited? Mel Gibson and Braveheart?) People live here. You can't deny that. I just kinda wish I was one of them right now. I might feel differently in the morning...
Truth is, I miss L.A. I told you it would be a startling revelation, didn't I? I miss it because it is fun in its own way. I love that you CAN actually walk to places (depending on where you are). You just park and walk to different kinds of places. Or you live near a major intersection. You can get anything in L.A. It's not special because of this. This is the way all cities are turning. (Especially in Britain; it's all the same.) I miss L.A. because I only go there to see my sister.
Whenever I get a craving to see it, I watch Laurel Canyon (2002). I've watched it a few times in the past couple of months. And I can say I like it better than when I first saw it, than when I last saw it, too. I appreciate its cinematography and interiors most. The aerial shots of L.A. in the beginning are breathtaking and don't attempt to capture the hills and the freeways empty. (Who said landscapes had to be uninhabited? Mel Gibson and Braveheart?) People live here. You can't deny that. I just kinda wish I was one of them right now. I might feel differently in the morning...
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