things to accomplish

i am back from a mild holiday hiatus (couldn't think of anything to write) with a very short list of things that i want to accomplish before my removal from this world -- and i don't mean all the super serious goals that i already have in place (i.e. marriage, children, retirement, aforementioned removal from this world). these are not long term goals per se, merely long and arduous enterprises.

1. Learn Tai Chi -- i've already started this one (it's always good to start early) thanks to the internet. there are a few websites out there with instructions on basic warm-ups and simple forms. once i get that i will hopefully have developed better living habits and a solid foundation to build on after i retire and join the senior Tai Chi group at the local park. the ulterior motive is, naturally, to master waterbending.
2. Switch to Ubuntu -- or whatever Linux distribution suits my needs, because i know that Mac OS X will be too expensive and Vista will be too crappy. what is holding me back at the moment is my limited hard drive space (so maybe i'll get a bigger one -- Seagate for sure) and the level of nerdery required to use Linux to its full potential, nevermind the 4-5 hours i will spend tweaking the GUI, on top of the hours spent digging up the necessary codecs, drivers, applications and learning the unix codes. as my astronomy prof (a hard-nosed Linux veteran) would often say, "RTFM."
3. Play Ice Hockey -- after graduation (so soon!) i plan on gathering up the old crew (HC Mimico Supra Redux) and signing up for a casual hockey league. acquiring equipment will be a bit costly, unless i get used equipment (pre-broken-in and already full of someone else's sweat -- huzzah!). but i will be saving money with Linux! it's all coming together.
   

'tis the season

ever wonder where all those september babies come from? 

victorian prose and poetry

as i write this i am awaiting my last exam of this calendar year, for the course Victorian Prose and Poetry. i had a lot of difficulty with this course for the following reasons:

1. teaching style -- nothing against the professor, but the format in which the class was held was not particularly conducive to my learning or understanding. i should have probably done more of the readings before class, rather than now, before the exam. it was just a bad circumstance. the class was held at 3-4:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. as well all know, that is the exact hour my brain turns comatose. it was preceded by two other courses, one of which was very similar to this one on all counts except that it was held at 9 am. coupled with all my essays due in a brief period of time, i skipped this class like a little schoolgirl with a Hello Kitty lunchbox.
   
2. course type -- it was a survey course, thus requiring the reading of many, many, many examples of Victorian writing from many, many, many different Victorian writers and thinkers. fluctuating styles and copious reading per lesson is not something i am suited to. this being the second survey course of the day made it very difficult to concentrate or care.
3. topics -- many of the topics that the writers railed upon (and i do mean rail; Victorians are quite good at it) border on irrelevant in my mind. anxieties about feminism and industrialization i have already come to my own terms with. though they are interesting, it just felt like someone was arguing my own arguments back to me.
4. jealousy -- because there was a girl that i liked who was always making o- i'm kidding. some of the writers were so accomplished and learned that i could not help but feel mildly inferior.

once this class is done, i might actually just read the text (an anthology) for fun.

innocuous

once in awhile my parents will ask me a random question about a girl. i'll be washing dishes when my dad asks something like, "how old is [la-la-la]?" or "what program is [la-la-la] in?" i think they are trying to hint, in a roundabout fashion, at something.

back in high school, i wrote an essay on prearranged marriages (funny how in television/movie/book prearranged marriages, the guy is usually really keen on this and it's the bride-to-be that runs for the hills with the man she truly loves/higher paid actor) and my conclusion was along the lines of "i would be in favour of a prearranged marriage if my parents picked the person that i would have picked." how clever was i back then, eh? i referenced Apu's and Simba and Nala's prearranged marriages and i was advised to stick to the text.

it is in moments like the i'm-pretending-to-not-be-interested questions that i long to become a parent myself. not because i will have opportunity to meddle in someone's life, but because i can then exercise the art of innocuous attention. this is a character trait that i am consciously trying to develop. it is attending and loving someone without him or her really being aware of it. most children do not realize how much their parents do for them, or have done for them, until much later in life when they become parents themselves. where worldly acts of kindness happen because of the possibility of gratitude, i consider a sign of gratitude as a failure for the innocuous attender in subtlety. sure, a word of thanks is nice, but it is so much better knowing that the affected is oblivious.

i went for a walk with a girl once, just around the school, because i wanted to tell her that i liked her but was stalling to formulate thoughts. a truck was heading towards us along the lane to our right while we were on the sidewalk and i saw that we would 'intersect' right at a puddle. as casually as i could, i slipped to her other side in between her and the truck so that i absorbed the ankle-high splash. in hindsight, i probably could have just slowed down and the splash would have fallen ahead of us, but that's not quite as cool.

my parents are very good being innocuously attentive (or i am woefully dense). even though i haven't said anything about it, they seem to be pointing me in a direction that i already intend to go. i don't think they are spying on me. they just know me. of course, they could just be very good at pointing out the glaringly obvious. my mom always tells me to get a drink when i've already pulled out a cup and started pouring.

Editing Power

i made my first 'movie' yesterday. it was annoying because i don't have any movie making software, other than Windows Movie Maker. it is an adequate program, but it doesn't work on my computer. all the dynamic link libraries cannot be detected. so i had to use another computer that was not internet capable; i used my computer to download the pictures and music and usb-drove it over to the video-making one. you'll see it on sunday. it's not even a video, more of a fancy slideshow (7.8 MB).

[EDIT]
video is now uploaded (click slideshow). couldn't get it onto youtube (i only tried once), probably because it is wmv.
[/EDIT]

anyway, it got me thinking about audio/video editing and how the media can so easily twist what you say or do and spin it a certain way, all because of context and framework.

below are two movie trailers. they're not the real trailers.

Shining

i've never seen this movie, but i know the general story, courtesy of the Simpsons.

Mary Poppins

this video shows the opposite effect. i have also never seen this movie, but i know the general story, also courtesy of the Simpsons.