tl;dr I get really off topic really fast.
The Waiting Stars is one of those stories that I really like and I know is a good story, even though I have no idea why. It's kind of like Jared Newman's means essay last year: to this day, I have no idea exactly what that was about, but it was a glorious piece of literature.
I think it's interesting that giving birth to a Mind is such a terrible thing. If you show just a straight up video of childbirth everyone assumes it's disgusting, unnatural, and evil, which I think both says a lot about sex ed and how weird childbirth is. I read somewhere that pregnancy and periods and all that suck so much because a child requires a huge amount of commitment and resources, so the mother's body tries to make it hard to get pregnant. Anyway, it's amusing that, once you think about it, most people would probably think giving birth is some evil, unnatural, disgusting thing if they just saw a video.
I'm a little bit confused as to what the Minds actually are. Are they ships? My initial thoughts were that they were some sort of JARVIS-thing where they controlled/were the ships themselves, but I'm not sure how that fits in. Is the Institution on a planet? What kind of scale is that, where ships from around the galaxy can have their minds taken to a single planet?
The Minds also reminded me of that super-old cliche of difference leading to fear and hate. The Institution and people like Jason mean well, but they still see the Minds as unnatural/evil or something or something to change or avoid. There's this really good kid's book series called Animorphs (which some people probably remember from the 90s or whatever), but long story short it's really good and surprisingly dark and does some stuff with PTSD and fratricide that I Did Not Expect. The bad guys are brain-controlling alien slugs, but the thing is that they're not exactly evil by nature, they just can't see/smell/sense anything without controlling something else, so they can't really enjoy life and see and do things without taking over something else. They're still evil, though. It's complicated. Anyway, the point of this ramble (not that it really had one, all I can think of right now is this penguin that my sister showed me going NOOT NOOT for like 4 minutes) is that a lot of stuff seems bad or evil, but there's two sides to every story. That's not actually anything deep, on second thought. Rip.
I feel like the Asian-American part of this story is in its treatment of belonging and wanting to find a home. This makes the ending particularly interesting for me, as Catherine (which is a western name: west=planet, east=space? Makes sense with the food clues) says she will come back but knows she won't. Is this symbolic of a return to Vietnam? There's also some nature vs nurture things going on in there, although forced amnesia puts the idea of forced cultural assimilation into play.
On math in literature: this is a bit off topic, but one of my favorite things is when sci-fi gives explanations that make sense. Obviously the explanations aren't going to be realistic- the cool stuff isn't realistic- but consistency is key to suspension of disbelief. I'm not really sure where I was going with this point. It's late, and I just watched 3 straight seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The new movie's pretty good too, even thought it's just 2.5 hours of smashy-smashy bang bang.
Monday, December 21, 2015
Friday, December 11, 2015
UNRELATED/NOT FOR CLASS (faves of the week)
DON'T READ THIS UNLESS YOU'RE FOR SOME GODFORSAKEN REASON INTERESTED IN MY LIFE
So there's a huge hate-fest to Holden Caulfield because, let's face it, he's a teenager, but this post made me think about it a different way. He's an irritating kid, but he's not the worst irritating kid. He's got a good heart.
https://shirocosmetics.com/product/eyes/the-flash-ignite-collection/
So this really awesome independent makeup company came out with a LEAGUE OF LEGENDS EYESHADOW COLLECTION, so of course my life is made and I'm resisting the urge to buy all the things.
THEY HAVE A CHO'GATH EYESHADOW CALLED NOMNOMNOM
THE LEE SIN EYESHADOW IS CALLED "MY MIND'S TELLING ME NO"
MY LIFE IS SO MADE
http://www.pcgamer.com/playing-fallout-4-with-charisma-luck-and-nothing-else/
http://www.screencuisine.net/the-elder-strolls/
There's this straight up baller who write hilariously playing video games in unconventional ways. In the first, he plays Fallout 4, a post-apocalyptic fps focused on fighting the radioactive mutant things, without shooting anything. It's brilliant. He finds a woman being robbed, robs the robbers, robs the woman, then buys ammo and supplies from them all. Through the power of CHARISMA.
Gotta love video game logic.
https://www.reddit.com/comments/3oqj4a/
WAKE GREG UP
(Wake Greg up inside)
GREG CAN'T WAKE UP
(Wake Greg up inside)
SAVE GREG
(Wake Greg up inside)
GREG CAN'T WAKE UP
(Wake Greg up inside)
SAVE GREG
They call Greg 'Bell' They call Greg 'Stacey' They call Greg 'her' They call Greg 'Jane' That's not Greg's name That's not Greg's name That's not Greg's name That's not Greg's name
BABY COME BACK
YOU CAN BLAME IT ALL
ON
GREG
ON
GREG
And my personal favorite,
A B C D E F G H GREG J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
IPs are hard. Life is hard. I really want some pie.
Apologies for formatting, I'm not changing it because I'm lazy.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Paper Menagerie
I read this at 1 am (not even the night before it was due, I read it on Tuesday night) because I have given up on my life choices. Also, apparently I get my first college decision tomorrow at midnight. Eeek. Long story short, I opened the story planning to take a shower when I got bored, and ended up bawling at my computer for a solid thirty minutes. (With, of course, a ramen break in the middle. I think 1AM me is dedicated to the pursuit of bad life decisions. Spicy ramen+crying=double the sadness.)
Funny thing is, I can't even isolate exactly why the story was so effective. When I first came into class, I thought "wow, probably shouldn't mention that my eyes are puffy and red because that was one of those things that happen at night that we don't talk about", but now that I think about it that story won some awards, so a lot of other people probably found it tear-jerking, too. Hindsight is 20/20.
Aside from the "Mark, get a life and some self-esteem" (how does one be popular as a kindergartener anyway? I'm just imagining some 90's 5-year-olds with sunglasses trying to enunciate "hey dawg") and my inexplicable 1AM obsession with the spelling of the word "Connecticut", I guess I found the family relationships to be gut-wrenchingly adorable, which made it all the more depressing when they broke. I've felt embarrassed by my parents on multiple occasions, although at this point I've accepted embarrassment as a fact of life and I should be more concerned with being a decent human being that can laugh things off than worrying about my parents, because, hey, they're my parents.
For some reason I'm not emotionally attached to the tiger. I expected to be emotionally attached to the tiger. I'm more attached to how he represents the mother-son bond. Oh god, have I reached the point of literature where I enjoy the subtext more than the surface plot? (On the other hand, Pacific Rim is still terrific in the worst possible way, so perhaps I enjoy both smashy-smashy and the literary stuff)
The mother's stories remind me of the stories my father tells. Her world is so distant from the cushy life that I live, and it's really jarring to be reminded of the experiences someone you know has gone through. My dad's life stories are amazing and probably the one thing (aside from my mother yelling at me, but, hey, I'm pretty sure moms grow the superpower of guilt-tripping along with an umbilical cord) that will consistently make me cry. I'd write some of his stories down, but I couldn't do him justice as a side-note in an english blog. Maybe next post. Or a college essay, if I have to write any more of those (CMU PLZ).
Funny thing is, I can't even isolate exactly why the story was so effective. When I first came into class, I thought "wow, probably shouldn't mention that my eyes are puffy and red because that was one of those things that happen at night that we don't talk about", but now that I think about it that story won some awards, so a lot of other people probably found it tear-jerking, too. Hindsight is 20/20.
Aside from the "Mark, get a life and some self-esteem" (how does one be popular as a kindergartener anyway? I'm just imagining some 90's 5-year-olds with sunglasses trying to enunciate "hey dawg") and my inexplicable 1AM obsession with the spelling of the word "Connecticut", I guess I found the family relationships to be gut-wrenchingly adorable, which made it all the more depressing when they broke. I've felt embarrassed by my parents on multiple occasions, although at this point I've accepted embarrassment as a fact of life and I should be more concerned with being a decent human being that can laugh things off than worrying about my parents, because, hey, they're my parents.
For some reason I'm not emotionally attached to the tiger. I expected to be emotionally attached to the tiger. I'm more attached to how he represents the mother-son bond. Oh god, have I reached the point of literature where I enjoy the subtext more than the surface plot? (On the other hand, Pacific Rim is still terrific in the worst possible way, so perhaps I enjoy both smashy-smashy and the literary stuff)
The mother's stories remind me of the stories my father tells. Her world is so distant from the cushy life that I live, and it's really jarring to be reminded of the experiences someone you know has gone through. My dad's life stories are amazing and probably the one thing (aside from my mother yelling at me, but, hey, I'm pretty sure moms grow the superpower of guilt-tripping along with an umbilical cord) that will consistently make me cry. I'd write some of his stories down, but I couldn't do him justice as a side-note in an english blog. Maybe next post. Or a college essay, if I have to write any more of those (CMU PLZ).
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