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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Alex's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, May 8th, 2009 | | 10:44 pm |
Je comprends le français... un peu.
The man on the Pimsleur Listen and Learn French tapes sounds so... forlorn when the woman he is speaking with runs off to talk to a friend... "Vous parlez français très bien!" There's a pause, and you respond, "Merci." Then another pause. You repeat. "Merci." Another pause. "Au revoir!" she shouts and waves back at you as she turns and runs off to talk to a friend she sees. "Au revoir, mademoiselle," you say, a twinge of sadness in your voice. "Au revoir," you repeat, a little quieter, almost to yourself, as you watch her run off across the wet sidewalk, clutching her thin jacket around her narrow shoulders with one hand, the other pressing her hat to her tête as the wind tries to pull it off. The rain that patters on the sidewalk falls a little harder as you watch her go. THIS IS THE END OF TODAY'S UNIT. WHEN YOU CONTINUE WITH THE NEXT UNIT TOMORROW, PLEASE START ON TRACK 2. Current Mood:  weird | | Thursday, January 8th, 2009 | | 9:36 pm |
| | Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 | | 11:36 am |
Shame on you, Andrew Lloyd Webber!
The musical Cats is the most terrible thing I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. It was boring, incoherent, incomprehensible, and simply unnecessary. Not to the discredit of the performers; the subject matter, the music, the lyrics, all completely forgettable, save for the one redeeming number, Memory. Absolutely awful. I don't know why it's been running for so long. I don't know why it ran at all. It took all of the whimsy of T S Eliot's poetry and transformed it into a 1980's rock opera pastiche, with tacky music and lyrics that are so bad it makes one retch. For example, take these selections. This is this and that is that,
And that is how to address a cat. Or But first your memory I'll jog
A cat is not a dog.Really? REALLY?! ISN'T IT?! The lyrics are full of this sort of thing, terrible cat puns, (cat is out of the bag, curiosity killed, etc etc) which is alright for a book of cat poetry for children, but for a Broadway production, in which every other word is drowned out by some synthesizer wailing up and down the same arpeggio for three hours, drowned out by the sight of those horrible, horrible leg warmers? No plot, no dramatics, no character attachment or resolution, the music was insufferable, the lighting amounted to a rainbow EXPLODING all over the stage at random times, and the dance, oh lord, the dance, it was embarrassing to watch. People, acting like cats, sliding around the stage as if they're children in stocking feet on a tile floor. Not to the discredit of the performers. They performed it with gusto. Alas, there is no saving the soup, no matter how high quality the ingredients, if the cook has spit in it. I consider myself a lover of musicals. I have never in my life, while watching a musical, yearned for it to end. Thank you, Andrew Lloyd Webber, for changing that. | | Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 | | 2:04 pm |
| | Saturday, December 13th, 2008 | | 10:12 pm |
How I talked with Alton Brown
I talked to him. I talked to him! So I went to see Alton Brown at the Artsch center (is that how you spell it?!) and as soon as we got in we were directed over and got our seats vastly improved. Apparently, they hadn't sold out. We got moved so very close to Alton! But that's not the best part. Oh no! A lady asked me if I wanted to ask Alton a question. I thought, "oh shit, what can I ask him, I don't know?" But then... OH FATES! How you smile upon me! This morning, at our DnD session, we were talking, and Rev Mike asked a ponderous question: can you think of a food that would not be improved with the addition of cheese or chocolate? Truely a ponderous question! But, can you imagine? The coincidence! The question sprang to mind. It was perfect. Just silly enough, yet culinary and based in truth. A difficult question! I wrote it down and handed it to a lady, seated at a table. She looked at it and laughed, and immediately added it to the "chosen" pile. HOLY SHIT. Alton Brown is one of the funniest men alive. No doubt. There wasn't a moment when the audience wasn't laughing or cheering or shouting out answers to his questions or more questions of their own, and he made the interviewer blush several times. Brilliant man. Then he went and made crepes suzette, and squeezed some oranges, and threw a refridgerator full of bottled water on the floor. And then they came and got me! I saw them lining people up, so I stood and told them I was here, here I was, they wanted me, surely. And I asked my question, the very last one. They wanted to finish with my question! I walked up, and my heart was pounding, and my mind went blank. "I'm Alex," I said. AUGH, I SOUND LIKE AN IMBECILE. Well, always start with your name, as Geoff says. It's one thing you can't screw up. Then my mind went blank. What was my question? Oh god, what could it be?! SHIT SHIT SHIT. Panic. And then it came back, and I asked it, awkwardly, with way too much hand gesture. I was on two enormous screens. Oh lord. There I was. And he stared right at me. And he was smiling! But then I asked it, and he thought for a while. Thought and thought. He repeated the question. "Truffles." A pause. "Foie gras," he said, and then "lobster." And he thought some more, and laughed, and said something like, "yeah, that's... it's hard." And I sort of mumbled some sort of half commiseration, like, "yeah, they go with everything..." and then he asked me if I knew of anything. And I mentioned that I had had pickles suggested to me. There was a slight grone of acknowledgement from the audience. And then he said, "but, I have made deep fried cheese pickles." And everyone laughed. "They were good!" It was crazy. I nearly died. I can't believe it! I thanked him a million times and walked off, and the show ended after he let a little kid in one of the balconies ask a question, what his favorite episode was. The garlic one. Oh, it was brilliant. He is funny and full of information and very geeky and the internet! Oh how he mentioned the internet. It was a wonderful time. I feel like the belle of the ball, or Dick Clarke on New Year's Eve, or something like that. I can't believe it! Shit. In five years, perhaps we will meet again, and I will bring him a copy of the picture I took with him when I was still overweight and awkward and will remind him of the question I asked, and maybe he will remember. Maybe he will say, "oh yes! That question was great." Who knows? Perhaps we will meet again! Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I am inspired. Current Mood:  ecstatic | | Sunday, November 30th, 2008 | | 5:41 pm |
Nanowrimo: Complete
Let me tell you something: there is nothing more liberating than writing a 50,000 word novel in a month. (It's nearly exactly 100 pages, by the way, and is pretty much "finished," meaning I've written the entire story, I just need to clean it up.) Well, perhaps there is something more liberating, but after writing 30,000 of those words in the last week, I can't think of anything in particular.  | | Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 | | 1:24 pm |
Shit is not a pronoun. SHIT IS NOT A PRONOUN. SHIT IS NOT A PRONOUN, PERSON SITTING NEXT TO ME IN THE LIBRARY. ANGRY FACE. Also I have now written 30,000 words for NaNoWriMo. Holy crap I am awesome. If I can keep writing 4000 words a day, I'll actually finish. GO GO GO. And then I will have written a shitty novel that I am actually kind of fond of. Also Berkeley why do you care about my personal history? I do not know what struggles I have overcome that have informed my decision to go to graduate school. Stop asking me. I just do. Leave me alone. Just let me submit my stupid application and be done with it. I don't even really want to go to your school anyway. Also I am very hungry. All the time. Now especially. Current Mood:  aggravated | | Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | | 6:00 pm |
Like a banana had carnal relations with a pineapple.
Let me tell you, dear friends: anticipation has a most singular taste. For months now, I have been periodically pacing past the rear windows of the University of Miami's library, periodically rummaging through the leaves of the plants that grow on the columns, the Monstera Deliciosa, attracting countless curious stares. But lo, I ignored them all, for I harbored a secret; secret children, hidden among the leaves, swelling each day more. I monitored their progress, waiting for that sacred day when the first of them would burst, throwing off its scales and exposing its sweet, tender flesh for me to consume. The monster fruit! A fruit that takes an entire year to ripen, a year-long masterwork of nature ready for taking by those adventurous enough to try it. Adventurous, yes; it is not for the inexperienced. The oxalic acid contained therein is enough to kill you; like rutabaga, their natural defenses keep of those predators who are not kin to the knowledge of the fruit. But no! That would not be me, that corpse. The scales containing the concentrated caustic would throw themselves aside for me, an intricate puzzle undone by time and patience. I twisted the fruit gently, its scales still falling, and it came off it's suckling branch easily; it knew its time had come. I rushed home, the single large flower pedal, now long dried, cradling the fruit with care. There, beneith the blistering scales, aha! Pale yellow kernels, falling off the fruit's bone. I dug deeper, deeper, the fragrance floating fluid, omnipresent, overpowering, collecting those kernels in a bowl to savor, and as I took my first bite, their sweetness exploded on my tongue, a delicious cross between fruits of all kinds; as though a banana had had carnal relations with a pineapple, while a mango looked on, shyly, from the corner of the room, not quite looking, only peeking once or twice. Glorious, but dangerous, the few bits of scale still left on the kernels biting, infrequently, into my tongue and lips. The taste of inexperience! But I am not to be blamed; after all, the anticipation was too great! I could not resist. If I am not dead by morning, you will all know the secret now; it is yours to cherish. For me, I have a new cluster of fruits to ripen; to watch, waiting, for that day when I shall rush home with that anticipation again, my yogurt and cereal once again enriched by the pleasant taste of the tropics. Four out of five stars. Current Mood:  amused | | Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 | | 9:52 pm |
Cajun Style!
Dropped all my things at home, and literally ran to the library to vote. Was out of breath, made it in line with 10 minutes to spare. Was accosted by pamphlets. Ignored them via iPod aloofness. Totally shot down a guy who was trying to get people to vote "Yes for marriage!", ie vote yes on Amendment 2, perhaps the only thing I felt really totally convinced about on the ballot. He tried to tell someone in front of me, "don't listen to people telling lies. Vote yes for marriage!" So I just kept reading the last part: "that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized" over and over. And then I said, "so no civil unions." And the guy started arguing with me, and I said, "We already have two laws against gay marriage, one being the Florida Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1997. Why do we need a constitutional amendment?" and he said something about preventing corrupt judges from overturning things. So I asked him, "so what the heck is the state legislature for then?" The guy just looked at me, stared at me cold as if I had just shot him, and then turned around and left. The lady behind me told me I should become a lawyer. She said she was a paralegal, and that I would make a fantastic lawyer. Spent three hours in line waiting. Ran home in the dark. Got back at 9:30. Got to see James Carville and Mary Matalin, who were both absolutely fantastic, inspirational speakers. Then made dinner with Nicole, Isha, and Sara. It was delicious! Alas, I do not think I can spend this much time having fun in the future, though. Not only does it make me feel guilty, but it's putting me way behind on all the work I have to do. Once I apply to grad schools, though, all shoes are off! | | Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | | 10:46 pm |
| | Friday, October 17th, 2008 | | 11:06 pm |
Alex's Culinary Secrets: #391, 392
Proper mushroom preparation still eludes me. Yet, there is no tomato sauce so noxious that a liberal spoonful of Ricotta cheese cannot improve it. Also, I highly recommend fresh basil on everything savory. Current Mood:  artistic | | Thursday, October 16th, 2008 | | 5:17 pm |
Well, that was easy.
And suddenly, I know who I'm going to vote for. I guess three debates is the perfect number? It just all clicked together after the third debate. Who would have thought? One thing fewer I have to worry about, I suppose. Current Mood:  grateful | | Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | | 11:27 pm |
Crap. Crap crap crap.
What a fine mess I've gotten myself into this time! COME ON, CODE! COMPILE FASTER. D:< I'm going to fail. Fail fail fail my math test on Tuesday because I left this stupid operating systems project until the last minute and I'm not going to get into any graduate schools because my CV and my Statement of Purpose aren't finished. I'm so disappointed with myself! | | Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 | | 10:28 pm |
It's like my inner child and my inner realist are duking it out, and one is constantly trying to strangle the other. I don't know if I haven't grown up enough, or I've grown up too much. ( Cut for whineyness! )Where did September go? A week of October, already gone. My poor nerves! I can't take it! Sarah gave me good advice. Bird by bird... bird by bird.... Let's see if I can do it. | | Saturday, September 13th, 2008 | | 9:27 pm |
The University of Miami seems to enjoy wasting my time with pointless, mandatory seminars and orientations. Monster fruit, fruit that takes a year to ripen, grows all over the University Library. Who knew it was edible, and is probably the most delicious thing I've ever tasted? You have to wait until the scales start to fall off, otherwise it's filled with oxalic acid and will give you an internal rash. A new cat has started showing up around the apartments, near my door. Really, Universe? Really? Do you really think I'm ready for that right now? I have a mortifying fear that I won't be able to finish all my work, I won't take all the required tests, and I won't apply to any graduate schools, I'll just let things slip and then settle for going to UM for another four years. I don't want to do that though! What's wrong with me? Of course, then I got a wonderful card in the mail, and I feel much better about everything. Thank you, Christa. Made my day. Expect a response soon. And a little accosting via telephone. <3 Edit: also, season premier of SNL tonight, with Michael Phelps! Also Tina Fey as Palin! Gotta watch. Current Mood:  busy | | Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 | | 11:11 pm |
I was walking to my car. It's night time, and I'm crossing campus. A crab scuttles slowly across my path, and into a bunch of bushes by the base of a tree. Yes. A crab. A CRAB. Nowhere near the ocean. Or water. Of any kind. This planet is weird. Current Mood: weirded out | | Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 | | 10:12 am |
Row, row, row your boat...
Yeah, so we're flooded in. The street is completely submerged, and it's nearly to our garage. And it's still raining. I refuse to go back to school without seeing people! Curse this storm and it's excessive amount of water! | | Saturday, August 16th, 2008 | | 8:32 pm |
An enormous apple!
NEW YORK HOLY CRAP. So, this will be brief, I will write it up in full on the looooong drive tomorrow, but the short and long of it is that because there's a Hurricane coming to attack Florida viciously my family has decided the vacation is over and that I have seen enough of New York and it is time to drive home. This is a disgusting lie! I am NOT ready to leave New York, despite the protests of my feet. We spent most of the morning in Chinatown, getting lead into secret back doors and darkened vans into secret stolen designer purse shops. It was terrifying! My Mother is ridiculous. She's scared of GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, but she's totally OK with going into shady backrooms and unmarked vans where someone could totally just grab her and kill her and take all her money. AUGHIUOAHG. My mother did not get killed, and instead managed to buy her weight in what are probably stolen purses, for herself, my sister, and my grandmother. So, after determining that Chinatown is really sketch and smells like pee and has scary fruits and I MUCH prefer Little Italy, my father had the brilliant idea of driving to the MOMA, expecting there to be a parking garage. There wasn't. I TOLD them we shouldn't be driving in New York... so we walked the whole day. Oh yeah, I was going to keep this brief, wasn't I? I went to the New York Public Library, which is beautiful but actually doesn't have that many books availible, got left at the Library while my parents went back to Chinatown for more purses, asked a bunch of people to take my picture in front of stuff because it's really hard to do that when you're alone (traveling alone sucks, but is better than with crazy parents!), explored Rockefeller Plaza (which is totally cool OMG 30 ROCK), spent like three hours at the MOMA (OH MY GOD SO AMAZING so apparently I'm not a total cultural hack, I was familiar with a lot more of the "modern" painters than I thought I would be, got a picture in front of a bunch of famous paintings OH MY GOD I AM SUCH AN ART GEEK), walked to Grand Central Terminal (which my Mother refused to stay in for very long, I don't know why), ate at a TGIFriday's (WHY ARE THE PRICES TWICE AS MUCH?!), walked to Times Square (it wasn't dark yet... so close, though!) and then... we left. That's it! If you had access to my list of things to see, this was not even HALF. I understand this is partially my fault, for spending so much time in MOMA (but SERIOUSLY how could you NOT), but... I must come back! What I wanted to see: The UN Tour (T_T X 1000) The Met (I need some classical art to keep my brain from turning into a giant yellow square with small red squares in it that represents the human condition...) Central Park Some of the restaurants Christa mentioned (AUGH parental frustration) Times Square at night The Museum of Natural History Hopefully, I will have an opportunity to go back, and next time with cool people who I will have a fun time with. I assume it must look really silly trying to take pictures of yourself all the time. D: HINT HINT WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE TAKE ME WITH YOU ON YOUR NEXT VACATION I FIT IN A SUITCASE PROBABLY. Current Mood:  tired | | 12:26 am |
I just realized that the UN only offers guided tours on weekdays. Today is Saturday. We will be leaving on Sunday. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to here in New York. I feel so disappointed... I can't sleep now. | | Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 | | 10:23 pm |
Part 2: The Strange Case, and Epilogue: City on Nowhere Lake
So! As I am typing this, we are in the car, leaving Ithaca. But, as I have not yet commented on Pittsburgh, (having been occluded from doing so by the vehement requests by my parents to “stop typing so loudly”) I will first comment on our trip to Pittsburgh. ( Cut for triplog... a long one this time )It's now late at night, and we're in the hotel room. Now my Mom is refusing to go on the subway: she's frantic. She keeps asking if the subway in Boston goes under the river, and I keep telling her it doesn't, I even showed her the Google Maps image, where you can clearly see the tracks on the bridge. Now she wants to take a trolley. A TROLLEY. This is what ALWAYS happens. I have plans, I get excited, and then at the last minute my parents do something crazy and I end up sitting in a trolley all day, crawling around the city with a bunch of old ladies in big hats listening to someone drone on about the weather. So we can't use the subway here, or in New York. We're going to have to drive everywhere. I can't... I just can't stand this. Current Mood: aggravated |
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