People and Poetry

First, omg, Liz-kins met Tenzin Tsundue! In person! And described him as a Tibetan Johnny Depp :3 After reading that article, I’m rather in love with him as well. <3

Second, I maybe started a blog-bandwagon? Lol. Here is my friend Max’s blog for his trip to France. He is awesome. The blog is awesome. There are pictures of French things, French vocab lessons, and writing exercises (silly English majors). I will be reading it. You should be reading it! ^_^

Monday I went to another double feature special with D; once again, Ah-Mazing films. The first was Biutiful. It was….. a bit haunting. I want, no need to see it again at some point, preferably after I stop having nightmares about it. It just felt so… real. I know those people, or people like them. Which is both terrifying and…. Well, beautiful, in a way. Guh. I can’t express this properly. Part of me wants to recommend it, but part of me doesn’t want you to see it because I almost feel like it irrevocably changed something in me, and it would be irresponsible to willy-nilly share something powerful like that. Mommy and Daddy, you are NOT allowed to see it until I get home, because I need to be there right after you watch it to hear what you think.

The second film was Howl, which was rather fun, actually (D liked it more than Biutiful). Trippy computer-animations brought the words in the poem to life, interspersed with “interviews” of Allen Ginsberg, scenes from the trial, and Allen reading Howl aloud to an audience of everyone in the poem. My favorite bits were, of course, Allen “performing” Howl; I love well-spoken poetry. I sorta just love poetry in general. And Howl is an especially excellent poem. So, dear readers, please go read it here. (I would’ve just put it in the blog but it’s nine pages long in a word document, so no >_<;). You won't regret it.

Lastly, hours of staring bewildered at a computer screen have resulted me finding in a perfect analogy for this GIS (Geographic Information Systems) class I'm taking:

So, we were taught how to use the software by being thrown into the middle of the ocean and told to kick. We did manage to learn, and finally started to feel like we could keep our heads above water. 

Then we got handed the final project like a sack full of kittens and told to swim to a particular city on a shore we can barely see.

This is the only way to describe the feeling of astonished drowning my group-mates and I feel. Anna (my Seattle friend) and I have started to giggle a bit hysterically every time we discover there's something else we have to do or another file we have to fix. Our professor seems to literally have no concept of what it's like to not know how to do the things she's asking us to do, and so leaves out all kinds of info. I feel like we could totally get this all done and learn it all and be magnificent at it, but only if we had another month to do it. 

It's due Friday.

Anna and I both desperately miss our home universities. :/