How wrong is it that you find yourself identifying with Paranoid Parrot?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Ramblings #1 Art Inspiration
Normally, I'd start this post with a preamble on how sorry I've been for not posting and keeping this blog current; however, I am well aware that no one reads this blog but me, so I'll just get to my main post.
Excellent things that catch my eye always inspire me to do better in that area of my life. Bill Bryson's writing encourages me to improve mine, watching videos of people dancing encourages me to practice, and looking at appealing artwork makes me want to improve my own. Kathryn Elyse Rodgers makes such artwork.
An apparel designer based out of Boston (soon, Spain), she posts her work on a blog ( http://paperfashion.net/) that I delight in perusing. Her watercolors are delovely - not super-realistic, just colorful, fun, and done with ink (have I already mentioned that I ADORE pen and ink drawings?).
There are just some things - clever sentences, particularly fun-looking steps, certain juxtapositions of lines and colors - that give you that jolt of motivation to practice your own. Ms. Rodgers' blog gives me jolts by the dozen. Even now, looking at this piece with the multi-layered skirt, ink lines, and fun shadows makes me want to practice my own drawings.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
One Year Down, Ten More to Go!!!
Before I get to more serious stuff, I need to get something off my chest:
OMIGOSH-I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-FRESHMAN-YEAR-IS-OVER!!!! ONE-YEAR-DOWN-AND-TEN-MORE-TO-GO!!!!!
*cough-cough* Okay. I feel better. Now I can proceed.
On August 23 of last year (only a couple of posts ago; I know - I need to write more) I wrote about my anxiety over college. I actually wrote the following words:
"Don't worry. In a fortnight, I'll be blogging about how wonderful college is and how great and sunny my existence is turning out to be."
Well, it's been more than a fortnight, and college isn't exactly a sunny wonderland, but it's not the hellish existence I feared it would be. The light bulbs in the bathroom have been out for over a week, there is almost no school pride, and the library is only open 'till 11:45 pm, but I rather like UTPA. Tuition is cheap, it only takes about ten minutes to get to class from waking in bed to arriving, the cafeteria occasionally has whole-wheat noodles, the professors are accessible, the LAC is helpful (Mr. Mike and Dean are wonderful!), Carlos works here as a TA (FYI, Carlos is the greatest TA to have ever lived), and I get to see my family and Yorkie every weekend.
That post from last year reminded me of something about this new chapter of my life. It reminded me that this chapter, too, will end in three short years and another anxiety-inducing chapter will begin: medical school. It reminded me that I need to enjoy and make the most of where I am and what I am doing because it won't last forever.
All in all, it's been a very good year (whoa - I just thought of that Frank Sinatra song!). Now without further ado, I present the Freshman Year Recap, which is a list of some of the things I've done in the past school year.
Freshman Year Recap:
1) Made friends
2) Got stains on my lab coat
3) Went to the hospital (I really wish I had better veins. I think my nickname is going to become "pincushion")
4) Survived Dr. Wedig's lab
5) Didn't have to take psychology
6) Stayed up 'till 4:00 am finishing a biology report
7) Stayed up 'till 3:00 am studying for A&P
8) Drank an undisclosed amount of coffee
9) Learned that coffee demineralizes your bones. (oh, yippee.)
10) Won 1st place (unopposed) at a state HOSA competition.
11) Ran to class
12) Reached into various buckets and pulled out kidneys, brains, and dead creatures (that smelled of formaldehyde). The kidney bucket was the worse.
13) Spammed Noora and Laraib's Facebook walls.
14) Watched pigeons grow and leave the nest
15) Lived in the Troxel dormitory during its last year
16) Went to Moonbeans with Katie and Joana; drank iced coffee, played card games and learned new threats ("Jesus loves you and so do I, but you're going DOWN." Don't ask and you won't know).
17) Learned that anything you don't study WILL be on the test. It's a universal, unwritten law.
18) Learned that India won the World Cricket Championship
19) Learned lots of Biology, Chemistry, and A&P.
20) Learned how to use an ATM machine. *SIGH* That day will forever live in my memory . . . and NOT for positive reasons.
Top 7 Things I Still Don't Understand:
1) How Dr. Edwards has more than 206 bones in his body
2) Why there are random coins cemented into the walkway.
3) If the change machine is ever going to give back the $3.75 it stole from me
4) Why spell check thinks "glucose" and "fructose" are okay but counts "galactose" as incorrect?
5) How people can study all this biology and still insist that the universe wasn't designed
6) Why the crossing signs at the intersection don't let you get back to the UTPA side of the street.
7) Why people who write graffiti go to the library
This year has been great and next year will be even better. In the words of the tenth Doctor, "Allons-y!!!"
OMIGOSH-I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-FRESHMAN-YEAR-IS-OVER!!!! ONE-YEAR-DOWN-AND-TEN-MORE-TO-GO!!!!!
*cough-cough* Okay. I feel better. Now I can proceed.
On August 23 of last year (only a couple of posts ago; I know - I need to write more) I wrote about my anxiety over college. I actually wrote the following words:
"Don't worry. In a fortnight, I'll be blogging about how wonderful college is and how great and sunny my existence is turning out to be."
Well, it's been more than a fortnight, and college isn't exactly a sunny wonderland, but it's not the hellish existence I feared it would be. The light bulbs in the bathroom have been out for over a week, there is almost no school pride, and the library is only open 'till 11:45 pm, but I rather like UTPA. Tuition is cheap, it only takes about ten minutes to get to class from waking in bed to arriving, the cafeteria occasionally has whole-wheat noodles, the professors are accessible, the LAC is helpful (Mr. Mike and Dean are wonderful!), Carlos works here as a TA (FYI, Carlos is the greatest TA to have ever lived), and I get to see my family and Yorkie every weekend.
That post from last year reminded me of something about this new chapter of my life. It reminded me that this chapter, too, will end in three short years and another anxiety-inducing chapter will begin: medical school. It reminded me that I need to enjoy and make the most of where I am and what I am doing because it won't last forever.
All in all, it's been a very good year (whoa - I just thought of that Frank Sinatra song!). Now without further ado, I present the Freshman Year Recap, which is a list of some of the things I've done in the past school year.
Freshman Year Recap:
1) Made friends
2) Got stains on my lab coat
3) Went to the hospital (I really wish I had better veins. I think my nickname is going to become "pincushion")
4) Survived Dr. Wedig's lab
5) Didn't have to take psychology
6) Stayed up 'till 4:00 am finishing a biology report
7) Stayed up 'till 3:00 am studying for A&P
8) Drank an undisclosed amount of coffee
9) Learned that coffee demineralizes your bones. (oh, yippee.)
10) Won 1st place (unopposed) at a state HOSA competition.
11) Ran to class
12) Reached into various buckets and pulled out kidneys, brains, and dead creatures (that smelled of formaldehyde). The kidney bucket was the worse.
13) Spammed Noora and Laraib's Facebook walls.
14) Watched pigeons grow and leave the nest
15) Lived in the Troxel dormitory during its last year
16) Went to Moonbeans with Katie and Joana; drank iced coffee, played card games and learned new threats ("Jesus loves you and so do I, but you're going DOWN." Don't ask and you won't know).
17) Learned that anything you don't study WILL be on the test. It's a universal, unwritten law.
18) Learned that India won the World Cricket Championship
19) Learned lots of Biology, Chemistry, and A&P.
20) Learned how to use an ATM machine. *SIGH* That day will forever live in my memory . . . and NOT for positive reasons.
Top 7 Things I Still Don't Understand:
1) How Dr. Edwards has more than 206 bones in his body
2) Why there are random coins cemented into the walkway.
3) If the change machine is ever going to give back the $3.75 it stole from me
4) Why spell check thinks "glucose" and "fructose" are okay but counts "galactose" as incorrect?
5) How people can study all this biology and still insist that the universe wasn't designed
6) Why the crossing signs at the intersection don't let you get back to the UTPA side of the street.
7) Why people who write graffiti go to the library
This year has been great and next year will be even better. In the words of the tenth Doctor, "Allons-y!!!"
Friday, February 4, 2011
St. Trinian's - Official Trailer [HD]
Rupert Everett as a lady? Colin Firth as a scheming minister of education? Gemma Arterton as an emo? Russell Brand as . . . something? Everyone’s favorite rising British actress Talulah Riley (who I think looks like Anna Popplewell)?
I am a hopeless cinephile, and, in an effort to find good movies from the past decade that I might have missed, I came across a delightful movie called “St. Trinian’s.” Based on Ronald Searle’s cartoons, “St. Trinian’s” follows the doings of a dysfunctional school filled with less-than-rule-abiding girls.
Annabelle Fritton (Riley) is dumped at the school after her father secures a discounted tuition from the headmistress (Everett). She is quickly acquainted with the schools various cliques (Posh-totties, chavs, first-years, geeks, emos, etc.,). Although she despises the school at first and wants to leave, she eventually starts to fit in with the others as they band together to save their beloved school from being shut down after it is found to be heavily in debt. It sounds a little cliché, I know, but it really isn’t. Here’s why I loved the movie so much:
1) They weren’t a bunch of normal trouble-making schoolgirls. They wield explosives, cheat ingeniously at field hockey, learn useful Spanish phrases like “Honestly officer, I’ve never seen them. these aren’t my suitcases,” have a firing range for anger management, and plot an intricate heist.
2) The Soundtrack. It was just cool (especially the duet with Everett and Firth singing “Love is in the Air” 0_0). Go watch the movie and listen to all the songs to see what I mean.
3) It’s downright hilarious; I’m not going to explain how. Just watch the trailer.
4) It’s English, and I’m an anglophile.
5) Stephen Frye, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Gemma Arterton, Lily Cole, Talulah Riley and that lady who plays Agatha Christie in that Dr. Who episode, “The Unicorn and the Wasp.” Enough said.
6) Colin Firth. I will automatically love ANY movie with Colin Firth (a.k.a. Mr. Darcy) in it.
Anyhoo, if you now feel inclined to watch it, do it now before someone removes it from Youtube. While you’re at it, watch “St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold,” which has David Tennant in it (Yay!). Also, they’re planning on making a third movie, and while you wait for it to come out, you can watch the original St. Trinian’s movies from the 50’s and 60’s.
Wow. I can’t believe I just wrote an entire post on this. I must really like this movie.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Bananas and Memories
Okay, so there are many little weird things from my childhood that I remember - watching the big multicolored "Face" on Nickelodeon, putting on a T-shirt by myself for the first time, playing with my Pound-Puppies play set, watching the "Pound-Puppies" tv show on Sunday morning, making an in-home mail service where all the cards were written by me (I gave up that tiresome venture after a few hours), and watching cotton candy clouds with my brother on Thanksgiving (or was it Christmas?) eve and noticing that one of them looked like Goofy - but I had completely, and mercifully, forgotten one little detail until less than ten minutes ago: bananas in pajamas. I can still hum the theme song from the commercial and it seems that the picture of two bananas (in pajamas!) walking down the stairs together is forever ingrained in my memory (pity me, please). It was weird. Not just the bananas, I mean. It was weird to suddenly remember something so trivial from the past; it makes me wonder what other amusing and completely inconsequential things are lurking in my brain just waiting for the right smell/google image search/song/feeling/sight to pull them to the light of conscious thought.
It also makes me wonder how long they'll be there. Will my mind one day bury them with other information? Will I one day form new associations that permanently replace the old memories from my childhood?
Speaking of new associations, I was Googling random things and ran across this delovely picture of two bananas dancing (the waltz of potassium) and just had to include it in my post.
One more thing - I was thinking about this blog and how I barely update it and how there's nothing much to update it with when I realized something. I realized that update-worthy stuff doesn't just happen most of the time; you have to make it happen, you have to see it in something normal-looking and show how it is interesting or turn it into something interesting.
All that to say, "I'll be updating more often now." Not that it really matters. I'm well aware that I'm the only person who reads this blog, but that's okay. :D
BTW, in case you haven't noticed, I like writing with long sentences. Blame Dickens and my occasional desire to be a grammatical rogue.
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