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Mar. 10th, 2006 06:10 amHeh. So these past few weeks have been ridiculously busy, what with all of the usual, and yet at the same time ridiculously boring, with nothing of worth to report or record (at least, in retrospect, nothing I can remember). But for the sake of keeping this journal slightly up-to-date, I update.
Is it a bad thing that, at the end of the previous sentence, I had a strong urge to go off on all of the derivations of the word "update"? In a Handmaid's Tale sort of way? Maybe that's understandable since I just finished the book yesterday and I just finished the questions on it a few minutes ago. I thought it was really good...and really weird...and really good. Also, not nearly as dirty as I'd expected it to be. Honestly, I didn't think it was that bad. A bunch of the concepts were, I'll give you that, but the actual writing always made any of the more disgusting ideas into something rote and mechanical. I think that the part of the story that had me the most disturbed was when, right before the narrator and her family were going to run away and leave Gilead, they realized they had to do something about the cat, and Luke "took care of it." For some reason that really disturbed me. I think it was because of how it showed someone who seemed completely normal doing something that felt extreme, not because of choice, but because it was necessary -- it was behavior caused by the governmental regime that the people had to suffer under.
Anyway, now that I have that out of my head, I guess I have a little news. My aunt is here for a few days, because it's my grandpa's 70th birthday this weekend and she and a bunch of other relatives flew in to surprise him (she lives in Florida, she's my mother's sister). She makes the house a lot louder. As soon as she woke up, there was noise, and she even came in and asked me, jokingly, why our house was so quiet! She's just one of those people who is always loud, if not verbally, then in other ways. But it's nice to have her around; she's always smiling.
Really, I can't think of anything else that's going on. I have an IB math project which I haven't really started due on Tuesday, but I'm trying to get all my weekend homework out of the way so that I can spend all day Saturday on it.
Also, I realize that I want to still keep thinking up ideas for my short story for Polaris, so that's something I'll hopefully have time for at some point in the future. Maybe next weekend? I don't know; I just like having a story in my head for a while before I have to give it away. It doesn't necessarily have to have been sitting there, fully finished, for a while -- I just have to have been working on it and with it for a while. For instance, my favorite short story that I wrote is definitely "The Free Way," which I started last April (I wrote maybe the first two pages and set out characters) and then didn't finish until the beginning of July. I also revised it recently, fixed up a few small details and edited for clarity, before submitting it to Stanford as my sample work on the application to do their summer program. It must have been good enough, because I got in! I'm really looking forward to that, as well -- it should be one heck of an experience.
We always say we're "looking forward" -- maybe part of my problem, part of my stress, is that only by extrapolating into the future can I ensure myself a time of calm and peace, promise that there is a light at the end of this foggy grayness. Maybe if I could managed to bring some of that light here and now, it would be easier for me to get through all I have to do. But at the same time, my habits have been set and are hard to break, and I still get everything done, and there still is a light up ahead, so I don't think it's something I need to worry about.
Is it a bad thing that, at the end of the previous sentence, I had a strong urge to go off on all of the derivations of the word "update"? In a Handmaid's Tale sort of way? Maybe that's understandable since I just finished the book yesterday and I just finished the questions on it a few minutes ago. I thought it was really good...and really weird...and really good. Also, not nearly as dirty as I'd expected it to be. Honestly, I didn't think it was that bad. A bunch of the concepts were, I'll give you that, but the actual writing always made any of the more disgusting ideas into something rote and mechanical. I think that the part of the story that had me the most disturbed was when, right before the narrator and her family were going to run away and leave Gilead, they realized they had to do something about the cat, and Luke "took care of it." For some reason that really disturbed me. I think it was because of how it showed someone who seemed completely normal doing something that felt extreme, not because of choice, but because it was necessary -- it was behavior caused by the governmental regime that the people had to suffer under.
Anyway, now that I have that out of my head, I guess I have a little news. My aunt is here for a few days, because it's my grandpa's 70th birthday this weekend and she and a bunch of other relatives flew in to surprise him (she lives in Florida, she's my mother's sister). She makes the house a lot louder. As soon as she woke up, there was noise, and she even came in and asked me, jokingly, why our house was so quiet! She's just one of those people who is always loud, if not verbally, then in other ways. But it's nice to have her around; she's always smiling.
Really, I can't think of anything else that's going on. I have an IB math project which I haven't really started due on Tuesday, but I'm trying to get all my weekend homework out of the way so that I can spend all day Saturday on it.
Also, I realize that I want to still keep thinking up ideas for my short story for Polaris, so that's something I'll hopefully have time for at some point in the future. Maybe next weekend? I don't know; I just like having a story in my head for a while before I have to give it away. It doesn't necessarily have to have been sitting there, fully finished, for a while -- I just have to have been working on it and with it for a while. For instance, my favorite short story that I wrote is definitely "The Free Way," which I started last April (I wrote maybe the first two pages and set out characters) and then didn't finish until the beginning of July. I also revised it recently, fixed up a few small details and edited for clarity, before submitting it to Stanford as my sample work on the application to do their summer program. It must have been good enough, because I got in! I'm really looking forward to that, as well -- it should be one heck of an experience.
We always say we're "looking forward" -- maybe part of my problem, part of my stress, is that only by extrapolating into the future can I ensure myself a time of calm and peace, promise that there is a light at the end of this foggy grayness. Maybe if I could managed to bring some of that light here and now, it would be easier for me to get through all I have to do. But at the same time, my habits have been set and are hard to break, and I still get everything done, and there still is a light up ahead, so I don't think it's something I need to worry about.
