A letter

To the young man who sat across from me in the library:

The Stuff of Thought is a good book. But don't read Psychology Today. Even Scientific American: Mind would be better, or Seed (granted, the Provo library doesn't hold those titles). Also, nice shoes. That's all.

Advice column

If you have been looking for a more vulgar version of The Board, I recommend "We Are Scientists"'s advice column. Also, Franz Ferdinand is coming out with a new album this year! In October.

These shoes have a name

They are called winkle-pickers. I've always wanted to know. They're part of the Mod retro style.

Adventures in Music

Recently I stumbled upon gnod. It's a... an artificial intelligence project? It looks at things people like and makes maps out of them. It's helped me find some cool music. I've also been just looking around for music (on Pandora, on blogs, etc.). So here are the best artists I've heard recently (you can look them up on imeem.com if you want to listen to them, even Rautavaara! If you have problems with imeem, just disable adblock on that site... sometimes there's a price to pay for free music):

• Rautavaara: for people who like the modern side of Shostakovich
• Radio Department: for people who like The Postal Service.
• The Foals: a music child of Of Montreal and Philip Glass? Dude, rad.
  
• Ladytron: think a modern Depeche Mode with a female vocalist. Also, more existential lyrics.
• Origa: Kind of along the Ladytron line, only more Russian and Japanese. She did the opening song for Ghost in Shell... so she's cool.
  
• Laura Veirs: way way cool, think The Decemberists but with a female vocalist (and not as gritty)
• A Hawk and a Hacksaw: Classical folk music? I'm excited to somehow get ahold of their albums. That guy from Beirut has sung with them.
• Devics: I have one of their albums. Great dream-pop (I still don't know what that genre means). It sounds kind of singer-songwriter, but cooler.
• Morcheeba: I found their album Antidote in the BYU library (not to be confused with the Foals's Antidotes). It's... it's got some nightclub-style vocals (not sure what the correct term is, wikipedia says they have blues, pop, rock, and trip hop influences. GREAT). I like their song "Everybody Loves a Loser."
• Gregory Page: He's written some nice ballads and came up on my Beirut Pandora station. His record sounds a little unpolished, but it's a charming sort of unpolished. I'm also amazed at how much of the production he did himself. Let me know if you want to borrow his album Love Made Me Drunk. The only thing I didn't like was the use of flute in one of the tracks. I'm a flutist myself, but I find that a lot of times flute just sounds lame in pop or folk music (sorry... it was a good thought?). Morcheeba used piccolo very effectively on one of their tracks though (it was more of a musical effect than a meldoic part).
  

Guys I am on the path of becoming a snobby music elitist, as we all know that making lists of recommendations is the first step on that primrose path. Yay? Also, feel free to comment with music recommendations. I know ThirdMango sent me a recommendation recently, but I can't remember their name... some European group I think it was. I have yet to check out that Iron and Wine group, and their description sounds cool (folk rock).

Memory loss!

So I was cleaning out my wallet and I found a receipt for $92... I was like, "what the crap did I spend that much money on??" I was a little worried that I had gone out a bought something without my own knowing, or perhaps it was a clue left by my impersonator! So I looked up the company. It was for my glasses. Duh...

Scientific American has an article on blogging: "As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a “placebo for getting satisfied,” Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly."

Bahahaha

Purge

Now that I am through with classes, I'm terrified that I'll be bored. I always manage to keep myself busy though - I have lots of books I want to read, movies and shows to watch, instruments to learn, and skills to master (in this case... piano technician skills). I really don't like my job (data entry), but I'm good at it, it pays well, and I currently have no replacement, so I feel a little stuck there.

Lately I've been trying to get rid of clothes that don't fit me... I had all these shirts that were too wide and the sleeves were too short, and I was very glad to purge myself of them. Unfortunately I'm still having difficulty replacing them, probably because I never go shopping for clothes unless I'm at DI. Speaking of which, I recently bought a bunch of cool books at DI for way cheap. Yeats for $1! I am so excited.

I recently finished downloading the docudrama "The Doctor Who Hears Voices." I haven't seen it yet, and I'm afraid it will be really cheesy. I mean, docudrama, come on! It sounds like it's in the same genre as mockumentary or soap opera.

Memories of friend's houses in childhood

I was listening to a radio show on Proust this afternoon, and today I seem to be remembering my childhood. Specifically, friend's houses.

My neighbor friend, Jeff, had a house that smelled like cinnamon, and his mom made great sugar cookies. We played this board game, I think it was called Labyrinth, and it had pictures of little monsters. In the summer sometimes we'd go outside, and once I had a cherry tomato, although I was disappointed that it didn't taste like a cherry. After Christmas one year, Jeff got a lego castle set. It had a drawbridge you could open and close. There were copper dough molds on the walls, and they had a copper-colored dog named Rusty.

Summer afternoons, we would eat macaroni and cheese out on the patio (this is a different friend). They had a picnic bench with an umbrella, for shade, and it was always in the wrong spot. After lunch we would get otter pops from the freezer in the garage. There was a kid's table that had a scratch n' sniff sticker on each corner. I was always trying to sniff the pizza-flavored one. We made miniature golf courses in the sandbox. It was cool when we could make an arch that the ball could go over and under. There was a large bush on the hill, and we would play in it and on it. It was kind of prickly though. Their computer was in his parent's room, and it was right next to a window, so his mom could see from the backyard if we were still playing a game.

At Lisa's we would often play super Nintendo together. We played Super Mario Bros. 3 and Donkey Kong 2. We also played Aladdin. I was never very good at the games, probably due to my lack of practice time. She had lots of Barbie dolls that we would play with, and we would trade Sailor Moon cards from the quarter machine in Toys R Us. Her mom had a collection of elephant figurines that we would look at sometimes. There was one made of pewter, supposedly cursed, that looked like it might steal your soul. Once I started eating a huge bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, but my mom came over before I could finish it. I felt really bad about that. During one of Lisa's sleepovers we did a play of the movie "Chucky," which I had never seen. I was a very good actress and screamed quite convincingly.

Books want to be read, research says

New research from the University of Winnapeg in Teluma, Kentucky shows that books are designed to make the reader want to finish them. "Chapters are shorter and end in cliff-hangers. These are all designs to keep readers feeling like they're covering a lot of ground and to keep them curious about what happens next," says Dan Sharpe, first author of the article entitled "Ways books help themselves: The changing novel in the 21rst century."

"Back in the day, books only had to have an interesting first five pages. Now readers expect an interesting first 100 pages." Sharpe says this increasing demand from books is the result of our fast-paced electronic era. Steven Bloom, a used bookstore owner from Lehardia, agrees: "You can now find book reviews in a few seconds using the Interweb. It makes it much more difficult to sell a book that might be more difficult to read."

However, the advent of the Internet has also allowed book buyers to find more books they want to read, with GoodReads, online book groups, and Amazon's "if you liked that you will like this" feature. Time can only tell what the future of the novel holds.

Easily confused things

-Sons and Lovers and Fathers and Sons (and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," at some point)
-Mel Brooks, Mel Gibson, and Garth Brooks
-"onomastic" and "onanistic"
-Kuragin and Karagin in War and Peace
-Bob Marley and Bob Dylan... until you realize that one is totally reggae and the other is folk rock!
-Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix (they both have... rare letters in their names!)
-All The King's Men and All The President's Men
-Dr. Zhivago and Dr. Strangelove (people? books?)
-"Cat's Cradle" the Cat Stevens song and Cat's Cradle the Vonnegut book
-Virgil, vigil, and virginal
-etymology and entymology
-Guns and Roses and Iron and Wine
-philandering and philanthropy
-Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas
-fornication and formication
-other things that I will think of and add later

research paper... on fiction?

I'm attempting to put together a research paper about Anna Karenina, specifically, the psychology of Anna and Kitty's illnesses, which are caused more by psychosocial stress than anything physical. But stress affects people physically! That is the least of my worries. I feel weird saying that characters in a novel exhibit features of a mental illness. Am I trying to diagnose a made-up person? The world of fiction is separate from ours! I am imposing science's reality on Tolstoy's diagetic reality, and it isn't jiving with me. "Not jiving" is a poor excuse though, so I'm going to have to write the paper anyway, even though I disagree with the whole idea.

Why am I having such a hard time with this paper? My last research paper practically birthed itself, although then I was mostly summing up research rather than analyzing a text with the analysis supported by research. The two epistemologies are so different! Writing this paper is like trying to explain why we like apples by putting a slice under a microscope and describing its structure. It's just so much easier and makes so much more sense to be superficial... the apple tastes good because it's sweet, there. Granted, it doesn't take up 12 pages...

Too late

Why didn't anyone tell me about this last October??

Destination: Uncertain

I didn't make it into any of the graduate programs I applied to. I wasn't surprised, because they're very competitive, but all the people who were said, "you'll get in somewhere!" were like, "what!?" So I don't know what to do with my life now. I'm not sure if I even want to go to graduate school, it was just the next step in the path I was headed. It's really frustrating. I felt like this was like my destiny in life. So I'm considering reapplying, maybe not this year since not much will have changed, but maybe the year after. Maybe I could join the peace corps and my knowledge of Russian would actually come in handy. Maybe I could just work odd jobs... I don't know, learn how to tune pianos (I think instrument repair would be really fun). Or I could become a wandering street musician. Or a bum? A life of no connections is kind of appealing in a way... the Buddhist dream! Maybe I'll just keep my part-time job as long as possible, and in all my free time just read books and play video games. I could do some volunteer work to pad my Vitae for grad school... but yeah, I have no idea. It's kind of exciting! but also, really annoying. Suggestions about things I would excel at?

Princess Maker

Recently I have been playing a game that I used to play when I was younger called Princess Maker 2. Now, before you go about dismissing the game because of its really girly title, just give it a chance. I recently had my daughter grow up to be a fighter hero! I am seriously addicted to this game and usually end up spending more than an hour playing it once I've started. Sometimes I think about it in my spare time! This is a bad sign... but it is soooo cool. I'm starting to wish that my life were like princess maker and that going to school would raise my intelligence points and stuff. Would psychology classes raise my sensitivity? Maybe they would lower my refinement. Would successfully preparing a new recipe increase my cooking stats? Maybe going on dates would increase my charisma! Okay, seriously I need to do something else. I want to get the queen ending though, and I tried the wrong strategy on my character. I raised her sensitivity so she could talk to the monsters instead of fighting them and now she runs away all the time (running away decreases her reputation in everything, plus then she can't work or go to school that month). So much for that!

Being Ill: A Cautionary Tale

Back in September I had some mild atelectasis (partially collapsed lung). Since atelectasis almost always results in infection, I took some antibiotics to guard against getting sicker. At the time I didn't think much of it - mostly I was glad for the codeine to quiet my cough and the breathing treatment. It was nice to have a few days off from school and play some super mario, and I had a pretty optimistic outlook about recovering.

So, I recovered, but I had some other crappy health problems (literally crappy... bowel problems). I didn't really do anything about it for a month or so, because hey, sometimes bowels are just irregular! Then in December my doctor says I have a staph infection and refers me to a specialist, who, just yesterday, told me that my infection is gone! Yay. Unfortunately my symptoms are not gone, and I am the proud sufferer of post-infectious irritable bowel. FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! So, if you ever take antibiotics, remember to eat yogurt or something while you're taking it so you don't get an intestinal infection and then irritable bowels for the rest of your life, like what happened to me.

On the bright side, I will always have an excuse to be irritable!

This pity party is over!

wildlife

In the mornings I enjoy watching birds at the bird feeder. I think it rained last night and I could see mist evaporating into the morning sun. I breathed in some of the outside air, and it was like a sauna, only refreshingly cool instead of sweat-inducingly hot. A small murder of crows walked around in the front yard as a squirrel dug in the grass. How picaresque!

Even though I'm enjoying my break, I'll be glad to come home on Friday. There is someone I've been missing!

Briefcase

Recently I have tried not to covet after expensive things. It gets easier after time, especially if you can just buy something if you really want it. However, I was definitely struggling yesterday when I decided to do some browsing on leather briefcases. Who knew that professional accessories could be so expensive!

Why briefcases? Well, I decided that I'll be going into the real world soon, or at least the graduate school world, and I want something that looks a little more professional than my backpack I've had since high school. I do have a canvas shoulder bag that looks a little more fashionable, but not necessarily more professional. When I interview I want to have my Vitae ready in a container that says "contemporary academic" yet "not too concerned about expensive clothing; can live off of a small stipend." I've set my heart on the turn-of-the-century European-looking briefcases. What else could set a better impression on old professors than a combination of youth and classic style? Nothing! So, I may have to work an extra ten hours some week, or beg my parents for this necessary article, but it will be worth it.

But what is this interest I have in resurrecting old things into our modern era? I'm quite sure it's not unique - I mean, other people are interested in wrought-iron curly fences and calligraphy pens with changeable nibs! Maybe it's nostalgia for a time we never knew, that we feel had to be simpler and therefore better. Is this more past-centrism? Only time will tell. For now, I still fantasize about getting one of these leather briefcases and carrying it out on a hike with me, complete with a metal (not plastic!) thermos, binoculars, a hard cover bird-watching guide with color, hand-drawn plates, an apple and a sandwich in a tin lunch pail, a wooden bird whistle, and no cell phone.

Next Bestseller

I just thought of the next Bestseller! The only problem is, I haven't written it yet. It would be like a handbook and arranged alphabetically, and the title would be "How to Tell if Someone's Faking..." Entries would include "limping," "social status," "love," and "illness (mental or otherwise)." Someone just has to write it now and give me the credit! (This has always been one of my favorite webpages on lying. Not the most credible, but hey!)

100th Post

I feel that since this is my 100th post, it should be somehow special... but let's face it! All my entries are homogeneously Whistler-written.

In case you didn't catch the gossip, yes, my boyfriend and I broke up... for a total of four days! As I told my mother and other unsympathetic ears, they were the longest four days of my life! I even wrote this depressing poem in my Russian journal for the occasion. I didn't want to tell anyone because I think I was in denial, or something. Maybe you're wondering why we even broke up? Well... I'm not exactly sure why... but let's just say I wasn't being a paragon of reason. I was getting really nervous about dedicating the next six or seven years of my life to graduate school. I mean, what if I decide halfway through that I don't like it? I guess I could quit. But I really dislike not finishing things I start.

Well, that and losing 10 pounds to that intestinal infection are the big things in my life. Oh, do you ever start walking, and realize that there are people all around you? I mean, individuals, who have lives and parents and people who love them and everything. Sometimes I try to look at people's eyes and think about that. Maybe we're exchanging biophotonic particles (through our eyes?)! So reading dinosaurcomics has really affected my writing style. I'm using many more exclamation points! But I assure you it is in a semi-sarcastic manner. :-[

I finished reading The Golden Compass again last week. I thought it was good juvenile literature, and that the so-called atheist points were... not that atheistic. Besides, it's another universe/dimension, perhaps they don't have a deity! Okay, the truth is, I had a conversation with some family members about the series and they were all unjustly against it. So out of rebellion and nostalgia, I bought the box set from the BYU bookstore. And it's been so fun to read! I feel all up on popular culture but reaching back to my youth all at once. yay!

It's the weekend!

...and I'm sitting here writing in my blog!

You know how sometimes you think things work a lot more nicely than they actually do? For instance, for some reason, I thought that all webcomics would get as nicely into Google Reader as blogs do. Boy was I wrong (sidenote: dinosaurcomics.com = much fun. It reminds me of the "high-brow, yet low-brow" humor a, erm, friend of mine enjoys. It may even inspire me to change the links on the side)! Also, have you ever filled out a bubble sheet and thought about how a computer will just read it? People have to correct errors on those things. Or when you place an order online and think, great, machines are going to put all my books in a package and send it to me, why does it take so long? It's because people are involved! Bah.

I recently had a conversation with my, ah, friend about how to match clothes. I insist that I have an intuitive sense about what colors match, which includes some heebie jeebie about shirts having the same about of brown or black in them (note: brown and black rarely go together). This site has some theory about color wheels. I think the term analogous is the one I've been searching for. For instance, you probably wouldn't couple autumn orange with lime green, but it might go well with forest green. Also, the army times has some good tips (scroll down), but I'm still going to recklessly wear various shades of green. Personally, my technique is to pull a shirt and pants out of my drawer, imagine what they look like together, and then choose a different shirt.

Also, have you ever had a problem where a shirt is too short? I have a bunch of long-sleeved shirts like this, so I end up wearing t-shirts over them. Then I instantly look like a skater chick (unless of course it is a turtleneck)! Another way to combat this problem is to always wear a sweater over or around the offensive skin. So uncomfortable! My pants are frequently too short as well; I've taken to just ripping out the seam at the bottom... I mean hey, the frayed look is in now, even if it is against the honor code (but the bookstore was selling frayed clothes/shoes! Such hypocrisy! (/irony)). Uh... bye now.

Great day

This morning was interesting. I slept for 10 hours and then grudgingly got up at 8am to go to a work meeting at 9. My roommate had a puzzle on the table, so I ate breakfast on my table. I also put my fresh gallon of milk on this table. Perhaps you can see where this is going... my table has about a 30 degree incline (darn writing desk), and midway through my second bowl of cereal, the milk slid off the table and onto the floor, spilling a good two cups of milk on the floor. First I was worried about losing this milk, but then I realized I had to clean it up. So, since I was running late, I biked to school. No one showed up for the meeting, and I was starting to get upset until I realized it was scheduled for next week. I then spent the next four* hours working on my statistics take-home test.

*or three, or two and a half, I don't really know


So, another thing I tried to do today was to cook a sweet potato. I worked out okay, and I ate the whole thing, but I managed to burn some brown sugar on the bottom of the pan. Go me! Also, I have either styes in my eyes or pinkeye. Hooray!

Um... it's November... and I need to get my applications together...