My Spanish is horrible.

I leave for Latin America tomorrow. This is the first time I will be spending so much time out of country. Previous times, I have only left for about a month or so, but this time, I am gone for seven months. This terrifies me.

But I am starting to warm up to the idea. Perhaps I will take easier classes so I will have more time to go explore things - whatever they may be. I was going to launch into this whole discussion of things going on in my head, but who cares? Tomorrow I leave...

I have purchased a camera. Woopee! I will post a few pictures on here, but I dislike the idea of putting many pictures in each post. The loading times would be atrocious. So I'll try to keep them few and far between.

I have decided that I like black and white photographs much better than color pictures. It is more personal in a distancing sort of way because you have less information about the subject (distancing) but at the same time you can imagine what is missing (and thus, it is more personal since you have to imagine it for yourself).

Here is a picture of my dog. He doesn't really like me that much - not that I blame him. I think you can see his general attitude towards me in this picture: one of resigned tolerance and practiced patience.

Labels: photos

It's good. Go see it. Bring a girl if you can so you don't feel guilty when you do (Of course for women, this obviously doesn't apply and neither does the need to bring a guy, unless you want a warm fuzzy feeling and so on and so forth).

Knocked Up manages to bridge the gap between a honey-sweet plot line of a love story between two fundamentally different people - essentially, a Beauty and the Beast sort of thing - and all the misunderstandings and failures that result from this initially unfortunate circumstance. Alison Scott is a beautiful, up-and-coming entertainment television host suddenly stunned with the realization that Ben Stone, an unemployed, weed-smoking illegal Canadian ex-patriot trying to establish a Mr. Skin look-a-like website, impregnated her (Mr. Skin I suppose tracks what movies have nudity in them and at what times. It's not porn). The contrast in personalities is highlighted somewhat stereotypically by the physical appearances of the two characters. Alison is statuesque, blonde, and emanating an alluring, understated female sexuality. Ben is a chubby Jewish guy with curly hair and funny facial features. She decides to keep the baby, and Ben decides to support her in whatever she does.

But as the title implies, Knocked Up has a racy edge to it that lightens the satisfying (but sometimes a little too quaint) romance plot line through the hilarious depiction of a collection of lazy, drifting, unattractive males and their crude antics and habits. As much as it explores the needs of women and the hardships they face as they face pregnancy, the movie also playfully engages the American male subculture of records, weed, and movies with nudity in them. It's hilarious, and the script is smart and accurate. But it does more than that as well: Knocked Up reveals the inherent tensions between men and women in relationships and the insecurities/problems that they face as they grow older, raise children, and try to stay true to themselves and each other. It's poignant, and coupled with its hilarity, the discussion rings true and honest - at least to me.

On a personal level, the feeling at the end is mixed. I am a pretty isolated guy, and I don't like the idea of relationships/commitment/etc at all. Movies like this - when well done - somehow act as a subversive riptide that makes me want to get a girlfriend anyway. I blame biology for trying to mess up my pace, but don't worry, it won't get me. I would have felt a lot lighter - like a singing sparrow in spring - if I did have a girl on my arm, I'll admit that much.

My only problem with the movie is that it tries to do a little too much, and thus, the ending cannot possibly tie together all of the various quips and details. Scenes that mention a particular interview sequence that Alison will do are never mentioned, the couple's parents are introduced but not developed, and so on. They are trivial things, but the movie would have been much more cohesive and controlled if they didn't try to include the ideas that they just didn't have the time to resolve. As such, the ending suggested that the movie had sprawled a little too much.

Labels: movies, musings

Unfortunately, I have a lot of different interests in different fields, which means that I just spread out all my time doing various introductory things to all of these hobbies without actually achieving anything in any field.

Example one - Screenwriting. This is just a recent hobby that I have just picked up randomly. My cousin likes movies a lot, and he is interested in directing. I decided to help him out a bit by trying to write a script with scenes that he could shoot and a plot that he could actually pull off. This is mutually exclusive from how well he can pull off the script, since he is limited by budget, equipment, actors, and what not, but I feel like he needs something to motivate him in order for him to actually do something cinematic. It's extremely fun, but a little frustrating. I did not know how ridiculous the screenwriting conventions are. They are quite rigid, an unfortunate result of the movie production process.

On the topic of screenwriting, I think that creative writing in general is something that I am interested in doing as well. But I am not sure exactly how to go about doing it or if my work is worth anything at all. My creative writing teacher last semester gave me an A - if that counts for anything, which I know it doesn't.

Example two - Photography. I like photos. I want to take good photos. I do not know how to take good photos or how to start taking good photos. It is a little bit annoying, but I can only try.

Example three - Music. This is where I want to devote most of my time. I like music a lot. It speaks to the soul for some reason, more so than a piece of literature or a short movie clip. I think the reason is that it travels through the whole of the body, into the ears and through your feet. Why is Dance to the Music by Sly and the Family Stone so goddamn good? Or why do people still listen to Where Did Our Love Go? by Diana Ross and the Supremes (or Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches and so on and so on...). Music provides a sensory experience so unlike a film, a short story, a novel - it operates on a different sensory plane. I think creating music is so difficult, but really amazing once you hit upon something cool.

Hobbies are fun. Everyone should have a hobby horse.

Labels: musings, wishes

Linux is pretty cool. I enjoy the operating system immensely when I am not trying to modify anything because everything works great. However, when you try to install something or modify the system beyond the trivial, all this "sudo" "xorg.conf" stuff comes up which confuses the hell out of me.

I love the idea of open source software, and I like the whole ubuntu philosophy. It is so anti-establishment but in an intellectual sort of way and not in an obnoxious, attention-grabbing manner. For example, many people can just drift through the internet without the open source community infringing on their lives in the least bit. Yet it is so powerful and useful as well, allowing so much productivity/creativity to occur without draining everybody's pocketbooks in order to do so.

I was so enthusiastic about the whole idea that I wanted to start learing how to program. Python is where I wanted to start, but I don't think I'll ultimately have the time to do it. Why start a project that you know you cannot commit yourself to? I guess it will just be an armchair hobby.

Labels: musings