something to look forward to

I haven't posted in a very long time because I have been tremendously busy with school. Still am, in fact, and I won't be finished with all my schoolwork until I literally graduate in about a month. I cannot believe it's just around the corner. I still feel like a junior since I'd spent my third year with second-year British kids in England.

In general I am overwhelmed, also, with finding a job since the graduate school thing didn't work out. Oh, thanks, but it's OK. I've gotten over it. I'd wanted to actually post about the rush of feelings I had once I learned the news about three weeks ago, but I never got around to it. I've resolved to apply to different kinds of programs--programs--to start in fall 2009. In the meantime, I hope to do something worthwhile, something I am interested in, something that will make my application so much more appealing. I just don't know what that something is.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to graduation because it will mean that I have finished my thesis (it fascinates me but it is oh-so-tedious), completed all the other work I need to do for my two other classes, and it will mean I can relax. I've thought about this some, and I wanted to give a list of fun, leisurely things I want to do, starting as soon as I graduate. Because you know I hate to be idle.

Now, what I need to do:

1.) Go to NYC for a few days with Stephanie. Have fun. Take pictures.

2.) Read books you've wanted to read for a long time. This includes finishing The Story of French. Start with that and then move on to reading more of those transgender studies books. Also, read some art books so you can participate in lively discussions with Dad. Start with The Private Lives of the Impressionists, the book that instigated his quest to learn more about art.

3.) Use your intermediate-to-advanced French workbook to refresh. One of your lifetime goals is to be as fluent as possible in a language. Start here.

4.) Go to the movies! Determine whether or not you want to keep your Netflix account. You don't go through your queue very quickly, and you probably won't even once you finish school because hopefully you will find a job to occupy your time. You could just rent from the library for cheap.

5.) Blog! And create a separate blog that is only about movies. This way, you can show this to people for writing samples of your work about film.

6.) Edit your thesis and turn it into a book with self-publishing software.

7.) Try to meet people. You need friends, man.

I hope I haven't put too much pressure on myself.

in a couple of hours

I will be on my way to California. It's nine o'clock and I have to be up by three to catch a plane at six in the morning. I hope I wake up in time. I know what you're thinking, but I'll just keep thinking: "I'll be in LA soon."

thank you dadd

I'm in love with my new chair. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should tell you how Chair and I met.

Well, ever since I got back, I've been complaining about my green folding chair from IKEA. I've had it for years. And remember, I think it's the reason why my legs hurt. So, since I returned from England I've been wanting another chair. I didn't even look for one when I went to IKEA to get a duvet and hangers. Stephanie said Staples was the place to go to bag a new chair, especially since they'll assemble it for five extra dollars. Yeah, I'd been fixating on this prospect for a long time. I mean, I really like Stephanie's chair because it is orange.

My father donated a cushioned (and ripped) folding chair to my cause, but the ripped seat also ripped my legs. And it didn't swivel, which hurts my neck whenever I turn round to face my TV. So I still needed something else.

Recently, we had been to Office Depot. Their selection sucked. But in the back of my mind I still thought Staples would be just the same because, let's face, they're the same in every other way.

Well, to cut a long story short, I finally made it to Staples today. Didn't intend to buy a chair. I just needed photo paper because I looked everywhere in my room for it yesterday morning and couldn't find it anywhere (which, I now realize, is because I sent it home in a box before leaving England). I figured, since my father agreed to take me to Staples so I could buy the photo paper, I would kill two birds with one stone. I could just look at chairs. But I found my new chair. I took it home, and we're in love.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

all the news that's fit to print

I now know how to copy.

it's about saturday

In the hallway just now, an American neighbor asked when I am going home because we were discussing our last exams. "Saturday," I said. Then she asked if I had been home at all since I left. "Nope," I shrugged. She called me "brave." I hadn't thought about being brave since before I left for eight months. I mean, how brave can I be if she's in a similar situation? So what if she hasn't been here as long. I don't think anyone in her position can call me brave.

But this exchange also represents something else. It was the first conversation that I've had where my answer to the question "When are you going home?" was a day of the week. It's not about June 9 anymore.

I'm so close, but it seems a bit far because I've so much to do before I go.

randomity

Did you know?

1.) I want to work in a modern or contemporary art museum someday. And not in the gift shop. But somewhere behind the scenes or as a docent.

2.) Cate Blanchett is Nicholas Angel's (Simon Pegg) girlfriend in Hot Fuzz (2007). And the guy she is leaving him for is Peter Jackson. I learned this from Edgar Wright himself, who said that they felt pressured by studio bosses or producers to put bigger names in their second film. Oh, they're in there, but you can't see their faces. Brilliant!

3.) One of my simplest pleasures: stomping on paper and plastic cartons--whether they'd previously contained orange juice or lemonade--in order to flatten them for recycling. Can you tell I just watched Amelie (2001)?

4.) I just won a SoundPass to all the channels of RadioIO. I think it's something like a $50 value. Each station has been giving away one a day for a month. This means for a whole year I can listen without commercials and with less talk. Yippee!

5.) I wish I could be paid to watch movies. There's not much else I know how to do.

6.) I like to make up words. Hence the title of this blog, which roughly means "the collection of random things" or "the condition of being a collection of random things." Other notable words: to wiki (to look something up on Wikipedia, as in to google) and collectionist (displaying tendencies to obsessively collect and catalogue things).

7.) I had my first bloody nose in England this morning.

instant primer

The most unexpected thing just happened to me. I, on a whim, decided to watch Prime (2005). That was unexpected enough, but I never imagined I would really enjoy it, too.

deutschland here i come!

It's official. I just booked my flight and I am going to Germany! For a couple of days. Right before exams start. I will go and stay with my friend Denise, who lives in the Cologne-Dusseldorf vicinity. But actually closer to Dusseldorf. We have plans to go to both cities in addition to Aachen and Maastricht, which is in the Netherlands.

Looking at the map yesterday, I saw just how close all of these cities are, and how Maastricht is right on the border with Belgium. What a small world. You hear about these European cities, but you have no idea how close they are until you plan to go visit them. (In the reverse, you think England--and hell, the UK as a whole--is just a small island, but when you spend hours on end on a train to get from the southern end to the northern, you realize just how big it might be. More possibilities.)

And "America" is just huge in comparison. The distances between (major) cities? No wonder we're in awe of it being just one country.

Anyway, I am really excited!

sunshiny daydream

It is so damn nice outside. I just got back from a stroll round campus. I walked to the other end just to recycle a glass jar of peanut butter. Remember, I just discovered I can't recycle glass with the rest of my plastic bottles and jugs.

The sun is shining, people are out. It's just so pleasant, but I don't know what to do in such weather. It's not like I'm athletic or anything. And walking round campus? I can't tell you how many times I've done it. I might walk into town tomorrow (never done it) to go grocery shopping, pick up the new issue of Sight & Sound and maybe NME because this is England, and shave my head.

In the meantime, I think I will watch a marathon of movies.

First up: Wet Hot American Summer (2001). It's not summer. I'm not in America. It's not hot. It's not wet, but it seems appropriate for the mood that the sunshine has brought in to me. I want to laugh.

Next: Little Miss Sunshine (2006). I do like this one after all. I just don't like the juggernaut it became. It's feel-good, funny, and leaves you all warm and fuzzy.

And after that: Who knows? Bride & Prejudice (2004) maybe?

I just want to see people in sunshine. It's a simulation of what I've actually observed today and cannot see myself taking part in. But I will pull the curtains open and let real sunshine come through. Oh, it can improve moods.

a title that makes sense for us all

In honor of Mr. McGregor's birthday, I just watched Trainspotting (1996). No, I don't need a silly excuse like that to pop in one of my all-time favorite films. But it occurred to me that I hadn't watched it at all since I've been here. I know the film so well that I often can have it playing while I do other things and still repeat the lines along with Rents, Spud, Sick Boy, Begbie, etc.

But there are things that I noticed and now fully understand since I've lived in the UK (and have even been to Edinburgh).

1.) I now know what Lucozade is. (Renton lists it as one of the things you need to get yourself off heroin, along with cans and cans of tomato and mushroom soup, milk of magnesium, and tons of pornography.)

2.) I now know that the "worst toilet in Scotland" is at the back of a sports betting store. It had never been clear to me what kind of place this was. Until now. Now that I have seen many a betting store.

3.) You only see part of Edinburgh Castle, reflected in a mirror above the entrance to a John Menzies store on Princes Street downtown. Remember, one of my impressions of Edinburgh is that you can see the Castle from almost everywhere.

Yeah, well, I don't know what else to say. I don't feel like recounting my relationship with this film. Not here, not right now. It's just always been very important and special to me. And watching it just now makes me miss my *rare* poster hanging in my room at home. Of Spud, Renton, Begbie, and Sick Boy in suits (from the end of the film). Begbie is not only grabbing his crotch, he's got his whole hand inside his fly.

Memories, memories.

having a nice day

I've had a great day today and here's why (you know how I love lists):

1.) I've seen so many people while walking around, everyone from Lisa to neighbors, Claudia the nice Sicilian girl whose friend likes my accent, a girl in my modernist literature class I'd chitchat with from time to time (hope her foot gets better fast!), and even a girl from my history in film class last term. I do know people after all!

2.) That Fanta was good.

3.) I paid my rent for the Easter holiday break and the summer term. No, I'm not happy to part with over £800 all in one go, but I am relieved I don't owe the university any more money! Yesss!

4.) Even though many people didn't show up to my 1960s class seminar today, I think we had a very good wrapping up session. Yes, we talked about the academic essay due after the holiday and the exam, but we also discussed the topics of our creative essays. (I turned mine on Joe Colombo in today.) And in my response to someone else's topic, I even shared something she "might add" to the paper. That's what we're all here for: to learn from each other. It was a very good meeting.

5.) After feeling bad for refusing a flyer-giver even after we (meaning the flyer-giver and I) chuckled at how the girl ahead of me refused him, I took a flyer from a friendly-looking girl. I glanced down and read: "Is Jesus the son of God?" I immediately crumpled it up. Then, later on my journey home, I read the entire flyer. The organization sponsoring the event was not completely religious. "The Source: thinking seriously about life's big issues." But the event IS hosted by the Christian Union and is for "open-minded people." Shit. I'm not one of them, I guess. There goes me, ignoring my Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.

Unfortunately, I am tired and want to nap. My mouth is certainly tired after shoving all those cheese curls in. I keep procrastinating from reading/looking at this book on Jean-Jacques Beineix, director of Diva (1981). It's been recalled and it's due tomorrow, but I'm sure a nap right now will not keep me from EVER looking at it before tomorrow night at 10 pm.

¡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.

happy birthday, kelly macdonald

Don't feel too bad about deciding not to see Travis in Glasgow in March. (Would have to miss the last sessions of two of my courses.) The band's announced a full-fledged tour for May and June, stopping in Manchester in late May. That's much easier!

every little thing he does is magic

Saw The Prestige (2006) last night. Can't say much because, dearest reader, you've not seen it yet. See it! It's pretty damn amazing.

she's got the whole world in her hands

I just entered to win a World Traveler (as in STA Travel) contest to four countries. I can share the experience with just one other person. I hope the countries I chose on the entry form are not set in stone if I win; I doubt she'd like to go to Denmark, New Zealand, Peru, and Kenya. There are other countries I want to go to ahead of Peru and Kenya, but since I am already in Europe, the chances of me going to Spain and Germany are greater now than after I win the contest. That is, if I win it at all.

caught by the fuzz

Forgot to say that on Wednesday, riding to Sainsbury's on the bus, I saw advertisements on the sides of all other buses for Hot Fuzz. Every time I saw one, I smiled. And when I wrote in my film journal today about Shaun of the Dead (2004), I said that "this comedy team" (namely Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, Nick Frost), sure know how to cheer me up, how to make me laugh.

I cannot wait until February 16. If I were in the U.S., I'd have to wait till April, I think. Damn good thing I am here then.