It's a strange feeling- I'm both scared and excited. I've been out of school for over a year, and it feels like much longer. I feel disconnected to the routines of it all, the requirements. I'm afraid I'm too old to be able to be competitive with the younger people. I mean....I'm 23. That's pretty old to still be working on your undergrad. And this is pretty much my last chance. If I screw up this time, that's it. I can't go back, I can't get another chance. It's do or die now. It's scary.
And at the same time, I'm so impatient. I've been so bored and antsy the last few months I've hardly known what to do with myself, and now I'm going to be a student again. I'm going to do it right this time. I'm going to pay attention to my schoolwork, practice for my lessons, be friendly with the other people in school. I'm not going to be such a failure this time.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Coils within coils
Fernando and I are moving in a week. Well, hopefully we are. Amber Manor gave us a Tuesday to move in and sign our lease and such, and sadly, Fernando works during the week at ridiculous hours. He applied for the day off, but I don't have high hopes- the company he works for are dickheads. Either way, I have to start packing and cleaning this week, and I can't really motivate myself to do it yet. Oh, I will later today, it's just we have so much stuff, so much crap, it's daunting to think about moving that myself, which I'll probably have to do if Fernando can't get the time off.
This weekend, we saw Inception. It's the latest in Christopher Nolan's pantheon of amazing thrillers, and I have to say, I found Inception to be the cornerstone of his works. The plot itself was perfectly paced even though the running time is well over 2 hours; I wasn't bored once. It pulls you right in to its world, so even when at first you're not entirely sure what's going on, you're never confused enough to pull away from the experience. Then the viewer proxy enters in the form of a highly talented and skilled dream architect named Ariadne, and through her, we learn about this world where dreams are plundered for information and sold, where there is a basic tenant that while extraction is possible, inception (the planting of an idea) is not. But Dom Cobb believes otherwise, and as we discover more about him, we learn that the reason he believes so is because he's done it himself. This serves the purposes of businessman Saito perfectly, for he wants Inception performed on a rival businessman. The whys are not really explored, and I found them almost to be irrelevant- it's not the purpose of the narrative to understand why.
As the team Cobb assembles enters the dream within a dream within a dream, I found the tension and suspense to be at almost unbearable levels, since it's not in just one plane, but FOUR. I was talking to Fernando about this after we left the movie, and he noted that the reason we cared was well done. For when you're in a dream, if you're killed, you wake, but in this multilayered dream that is necessary for inception, if you are killed, you enter limbo- you are lost. This fed well into the climax that built on itself for it felt like almost an hour. Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes the cake in the most thrilling sequences when he wrestles and disarms gunmen in a state of freefall weightlessness. ( I read that he performed his own stunts).
It would be easy to write this movie off as spectacle and an excuse for amazing stunts if it were not so tied in to melancholy, grief, and the strange barren landscape of dreams. Nolan captures this perfectly- the ultimate climax has such weight that when the movie had ended and the credits were rolling, Fernando and I sat in the dark not speaking for quite awhile, trying to digest what we had seen. It was like when you wake up after a particularly vivid dream, and you lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to catch it.
In other words, SEE THIS MOVIE.
This weekend, we saw Inception. It's the latest in Christopher Nolan's pantheon of amazing thrillers, and I have to say, I found Inception to be the cornerstone of his works. The plot itself was perfectly paced even though the running time is well over 2 hours; I wasn't bored once. It pulls you right in to its world, so even when at first you're not entirely sure what's going on, you're never confused enough to pull away from the experience. Then the viewer proxy enters in the form of a highly talented and skilled dream architect named Ariadne, and through her, we learn about this world where dreams are plundered for information and sold, where there is a basic tenant that while extraction is possible, inception (the planting of an idea) is not. But Dom Cobb believes otherwise, and as we discover more about him, we learn that the reason he believes so is because he's done it himself. This serves the purposes of businessman Saito perfectly, for he wants Inception performed on a rival businessman. The whys are not really explored, and I found them almost to be irrelevant- it's not the purpose of the narrative to understand why.
As the team Cobb assembles enters the dream within a dream within a dream, I found the tension and suspense to be at almost unbearable levels, since it's not in just one plane, but FOUR. I was talking to Fernando about this after we left the movie, and he noted that the reason we cared was well done. For when you're in a dream, if you're killed, you wake, but in this multilayered dream that is necessary for inception, if you are killed, you enter limbo- you are lost. This fed well into the climax that built on itself for it felt like almost an hour. Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes the cake in the most thrilling sequences when he wrestles and disarms gunmen in a state of freefall weightlessness. ( I read that he performed his own stunts).
It would be easy to write this movie off as spectacle and an excuse for amazing stunts if it were not so tied in to melancholy, grief, and the strange barren landscape of dreams. Nolan captures this perfectly- the ultimate climax has such weight that when the movie had ended and the credits were rolling, Fernando and I sat in the dark not speaking for quite awhile, trying to digest what we had seen. It was like when you wake up after a particularly vivid dream, and you lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to catch it.
In other words, SEE THIS MOVIE.
Friday, August 6, 2010
A New (MMO) Hope
BUSINESS FIRST-I'm so excited and hopeful at this point, it's becoming unbearable. I'm starting school in about 2 weeks. Holy shit, it's only 2 weeks?! I'm moving to a new apartment in 11 days. I'm going to be meeting new people and teachers and musicians so soon, I'm getting beyond antsy.
Fernando and I decided that we should move closer to DeKalb because the apartments there are much cheaper than the area we're living now. It was kind of an adventure finding the right place, because a lot of places in Dekalb are a bit run down...but Amber Manor is not. Very nice complex, very clean apartments, very helpful staff, an INDOOR pool (for swimming even in winter!) and its location basically made it the perfect place for us to relocate. We were just approved yesterday, and we're signing the lease on the 17th. After I spoke to the leasing agent, I'm even more excited to live there; she informed me that they're giving me August's rent FREE. So even though we're moving mid month, we don't have to pay rent until Sept 1st. I was elated.
ON TO THE NERDY PART OF BLOG!
Fernando and I decided to quit WoW again, and this time it seems like it's for good. We've pretty much done all that mmo has to offer that interests us, and the next expansion is either A. changing things that we don't think should be changed or B. not addressed what should. It's just time to move on. Also, Star Wars the Old Republic is going to come out in April of 2011, and since we're burnt out on WoW, it would seem like a waste of money to buy the WoW expac and then play it for 3-4 months. Besides, there are like 6 games coming out on the Ps3 in that span of time that look hands down awesome, like The Force Unleashed II, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Dragon Age 2, Fallout New Vegas, etc. And ALSO- I'm sick of not being able to buy books when I want because we've spent all our money on an mmo that we don't play half the time. MEH!
So yes, SWTOR is our new obsession. I've been tracking the forums and updates for that mmo like a starved person. It's a promising game, helmed by Bioware and the Knights of the Old Republic team. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a rabid Star Wars fangirl. I have graphic novels. I have the EU books (not enough of them, at that). Posters, other memorabilia, the first movie I can consciously remember watching in my life was Return of the Jedi. SO when a Star Wars mmorpg hits the rumor mill, I'm all over it. As stated above, it comes at a good time; I've burnt out of WoW and I'm looking for something that doesn't suck, that won't get boring, that combines my love for all things star wars, amazing story telling, and compelling mmorpg gameplay. This game looks like it'll deliver. I'm hoping, in a kind of vindictive way, that it finally gives WoW a run for its money. But that is mostly because I want SWTOR to be around for a long long time. I want to be one of the hard bitten mmo gamers that were there starting day one, through the beta, the patches, the bugs, and the inevitable influx of less hardcore gamers.
WORD
Fernando and I decided that we should move closer to DeKalb because the apartments there are much cheaper than the area we're living now. It was kind of an adventure finding the right place, because a lot of places in Dekalb are a bit run down...but Amber Manor is not. Very nice complex, very clean apartments, very helpful staff, an INDOOR pool (for swimming even in winter!) and its location basically made it the perfect place for us to relocate. We were just approved yesterday, and we're signing the lease on the 17th. After I spoke to the leasing agent, I'm even more excited to live there; she informed me that they're giving me August's rent FREE. So even though we're moving mid month, we don't have to pay rent until Sept 1st. I was elated.
ON TO THE NERDY PART OF BLOG!
Fernando and I decided to quit WoW again, and this time it seems like it's for good. We've pretty much done all that mmo has to offer that interests us, and the next expansion is either A. changing things that we don't think should be changed or B. not addressed what should. It's just time to move on. Also, Star Wars the Old Republic is going to come out in April of 2011, and since we're burnt out on WoW, it would seem like a waste of money to buy the WoW expac and then play it for 3-4 months. Besides, there are like 6 games coming out on the Ps3 in that span of time that look hands down awesome, like The Force Unleashed II, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Dragon Age 2, Fallout New Vegas, etc. And ALSO- I'm sick of not being able to buy books when I want because we've spent all our money on an mmo that we don't play half the time. MEH!
So yes, SWTOR is our new obsession. I've been tracking the forums and updates for that mmo like a starved person. It's a promising game, helmed by Bioware and the Knights of the Old Republic team. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a rabid Star Wars fangirl. I have graphic novels. I have the EU books (not enough of them, at that). Posters, other memorabilia, the first movie I can consciously remember watching in my life was Return of the Jedi. SO when a Star Wars mmorpg hits the rumor mill, I'm all over it. As stated above, it comes at a good time; I've burnt out of WoW and I'm looking for something that doesn't suck, that won't get boring, that combines my love for all things star wars, amazing story telling, and compelling mmorpg gameplay. This game looks like it'll deliver. I'm hoping, in a kind of vindictive way, that it finally gives WoW a run for its money. But that is mostly because I want SWTOR to be around for a long long time. I want to be one of the hard bitten mmo gamers that were there starting day one, through the beta, the patches, the bugs, and the inevitable influx of less hardcore gamers.
WORD
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