seasonal affective euphoria

2005-03-13 / 10:00 p.m.

Time for a brief, yet merited repose from studying. I�ve alternated between reviewing for tomorrow morning�s history midterm and working on the PoliSci midterm that�s due on Wednesday. I�ve made decent headway on both; though I�m not sure I�m ready for the history test, and I worry that my fledgling answers for my 499 midterm are wholly insufficient. I�m actively pushing these thoughts to the periphery for tonight though� tomorrow morning post-gym I�ll spend another hour or so going over Latin American independence, and hope for the best. After that�s over, my mission is clear. After Wednesday though, I�m hoping things will be pretty calm, and I can focus on mending my broken senior seminar research paper. That�s really the scariest monster prowling around my final 2 months at TheCollege. Other than that, there�s a mildly dread worthy group project in history, and a couple of devilish little philosophy papers before finals. I can do this. Probably. Hopefully.

Today really felt like spring. I walked around with bare shoulders and flip flops, and the feeling of sunshine on my skin made me irrationally happy. My mother and I ended up in suburbotopia (read: starbuck�s) sipping iced coffee in the sun. Other than really wanting to spend some time with the old lady, I�ve felt an urgent need as of late to talk to grownups and figure out how the hell to lease and apartment and pay bills. With only two months left of college, this seems more real, more frightening, and more exciting than ever. Oh, and, any of you non-old people who can give me advice about when to apply, what too look for, etc. are enthusiastically invited to bestow your wisdom upon me. This week, I start the wheels rolling in getting a place to live next year and learning how to obtain a loan. My ideal situation is to take a small loan to get set up in a new apartment, move to future city as soon as possible post graduation, and find a shitty job to sustain myself until school starts. I�m hoping that hilarity will ensue from the moving to a new place experience, and will provide excellent journal fodder: this move could be the renaissance of elcielo.com.

I�ll write a separate entry on how I spent my spring break a little later. Maybe after midterms. Heh. Look forward to tales of me beating Roger at Smash Bros. once, Comer Joja, being second in command of the mighty warship Deus ex Machina, the results of yoo-hoo lite mixed with kahlua, and what I learned about frontal lobe brain damage. If that doesn�t keep you checking for updates this week, I don�t know what will.

The March winds are the morning yawn

2005-03-09 / 5:42 p.m.

It�s clear that no one is going to help with my senior seminar issues, and I�m tired of being greeted with that train wreck every time I load my own page. Therefore, it�s update time. I�ll try to stay positive; though coming home seems to automatically make me pretty gloomy.

Today I took freebike to Silver Comet to play. I would have like to have stayed longer, but it was cold and I forgot my gloves. I could only put up with the frigid air for about 9 miles, so I didn�t get much of a work out, but it was nice all the same.

Blarg. With a very important midterm to write, one on Monday to study for, and a senior seminar project that�s coming apart at the seams, it�s unfortunate that I have the attention span of a goldfish when working at home. On the bright side, this has resulted in all kinds of other accomplishments! Today, during the time I could have been grappling with midterm stuff I cleaned my car, cleaned the fridge for my mother, clipped my fingernails, read the news, and got to level 12 on handheld Tetris. Yay laziness!

Last weekend, Roger McHubris! McAwesome! came to play. We watched Garden State, which was good, but not that good. I agree with Andrea�it was over-hyped. Am I the only other person who thought Natalie Portman�s character was really annoying? Roger insisted that she wasn�t written to make the audience fall in love with her plucky, eccentric nature�but I think she was, and it didn�t work for me. I was also holding out for the end to triumph over the clich� finale I predicted: it did not. I�m sounding too critical�it certainly had some great parts to it, and I really enjoyed the whole theme of being desensitized to real life. Overall it was good, not great.

Other than watching Garden State, Roger enjoyed some of my haute cuisine--spaghetti and marinara sauce one night, sandwiches and french onion soup the other. We went to a park and traversed little trails that ran near a retention pond and somewhat stinky creek. And, per Roger&Emily weekend tradition, late night cartoons and alcohol were enjoyed.

Movies I want to see soon: �Kitchen Stories,� and �Finding Neverland.� Movies I feel like watching again: �Goodbye, Lenin,� �Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,� �Spiderman 2,� �The Big Lebowski.�

If Roger tells you a lame joke about an archaeopteryx, and you like it, don't give him too much credit: he got it from me. To be fair, I got it from All & Sundry--a blog I read frequently.

That is all. Resume your daily activities. Oh... and for the love of all things sacred, do not offer my any input or helpful advice on my senior seminar topic. I love flailing about with an overbroad topic that might not even make sense!

Is no news good news?

2005-03-04 / 1:46 p.m.

I was chatting with Mr. MikeB about my senior seminar topic, and I realized how frighteningly poorly defined it was. : ( I posted what I said to him (+a little elaboration) here for you people to give me feedback on. This is a blatant cry for help. I need to narrow, focus, and confirm that this has the potential to be something other than a train wreck.
Em: The existing literature on "soft news" seems to center around a debate of what�s caused a decline in hard news consumption and an increase in soft news consumption. For their purposes, "hard news" seems to be defined as straightforward, moderately objective, factual reporting of serious events; events of importance such as politics, foreign affairs, major world events, laws, etc. The opposite of this is "soft news" which is something akin to publicized gossip. This realm includes accounts of inconsequential event, stories about celebrities, human interest and life style pieces, and other pop culture events. This news is generally presented in a more subjective and entertaining form. Critics of soft news argue over the rise in its popularity, whether it was caused by economic factors or the decline in interest of real news stuff... But now there's a new blurring of lines. Since the Gulf War, the �soft news� programs of the type discussed above have started carrying the material of hard news, but presenting it with a soft news slant. Furthermore, the line between what is news (and to some cynical extent, "real life") and what is entertainment is blurred. Then things like the daily show grow in popularity and credibility, and I don't really know what to do with that. Is it hurting the public? There are scholars who actually think that this is a really good thing, or at least a natural thing, and show why.
MikeB: that's all very interesting
MikeB: the daily show is like a giant, televised political cartoon in a way
MikeB: i think people like it because its' fun to make fun of politicians
MikeB: but they also leave the show a tiny bit more informed than before
Em: yes, and this one guy, Matthew Baum is saying that people are operating at a very rational level with their little bits of information. Some other scholars make an argument that is that the whole argument is pretentious as fuck though; that the �mass public� is volatile and apathetic and dumb, and the �elite� are the only ones who care about real news, or even know what to do with it.
Em: and then you have things like fox news which may not even be as informative
Em: for instance, there was this thing released by the pew institute that showed how much better informed NPR listeners were than Fox watchers
Em: so we see that not all news is created equal
Em: this doesn't even bring in the other lurking issue of consumerism. Are we getting what there a demand is for?
Em: do we even want real news? Or do networks and producers have to disguise it as entertainment for us to care?
MikeB: NPR goes into a -lot- of detail
MikeB: they also report on events fox/cnn would never touch on
MikeB: and even though NPR is seen as "liberal", they -always- try to get both viewpoints to an issue

melt your ice cream

2005-03-02 / 1:39 p.m.

I�ve started several updates that turned out too dull to bother finishing. I'm in a terrible mood, and the noisy lawn equipment being used outside my dorm is making me irrationally angry. I don�t really have anything to say now, but I�m tired of viewing the �Mi querido BsAs� entry as the current one.

I acquired a shiny (old) red bike totally free. Yay for people giving away their possessions. I�m taking it to Silver Comet next week o�er the break to figure out if I�m as hopeless at riding it as I think I probably am. MikeB has offered to maybe go, but anyone else who wants to play should call me.

God, I�m sleepy.

As mentioned above, next week is spring break. That means living at home with my mother, without high speed internet, the library or access to a treadmill (though the exercising seems to be doing exactly nothing for the horrendous size of my ass). There are some high points�.
--Going to Silver Comet should be fun if the weather doesn�t suck.
--Roger claims that there�s a good playground easily trespassed at all hours, which is also an adventure contingent on the weather. He�s coming to visit on Saturday, which will be totally sweet and awesome. I think I�m going to attempt to cook. Goals include not inflicting severe food poisoning and not setting the house aflame. Any suggestions for what I could make would be awesome�having already done chicken with pasta and stir fry, I�ve exhausted my usual repertoire.
--I�ll probably get my hair cut�I�m in one of those funks where I�ve convinced myself that I won�t feel so gross if I change something insignificant like the length of my hair; these optimisms always turn out to be disappointing though.
--I should go play at the kitty shelter. You can only be so gloomy when you're confusing an army of kittens with a laser pointer.

I have a midterm the Monday morning we get back from Spring break. I have another take home one due that Wednesday. My estimation is that this sucks. Stupid midterms.

Okay. That�s all she�s going to write. Chapter 11 of Mind: a brief introduction calls, and she isn�t good enough at philosophy to blow off the reading.