I've been reading Hyperbole and a Half, and I've decided that my boring life stories need to be illustrated so as to be more captivating to you, my beloved and mostly-imaginary audience. I'm not sure yet what style I want to draw in - should I go with very crude stick figures, like H&1/2's Allie, or do something more like what you see here (which is actually easier for me, believe it or not)?
This picture is meant to be one of a series, but it was all I could get done tonight, A) Because I'm tired and not sure exactly what I even want it to look like, B) Because my only means of getting drawings on my computer is via crappy webcam or crappy camera phone, and C) Because I apparently broke Photoshop for life by making an enormous poster with 50 layers on my last day at Skipping Stone.
Now it's time to go to bed and wait for Santa Claus!
UPDATE: Apparently I also broke Blogger with my picture last night. But never fear, for I now have a card reader and can upload pictures of pictures that don't suck! Thank you Santa =)
Thank you, Gandalf, for those words of wisdom. However, before you all get back to studying, give your brain a break and have a laugh with me. The pictures below have, throughout the semester, given me cause to giggle, marvel, or simply shake my head in disbelief.
Check it out: I got a window sheet. Unfortunately this was truly all I had for privacy my first week or so back at school for the fall...
Somehow I don't think this is what your bros are thinking of when they talk about a stripper in a cake.
Just in case you need to make guacamole for an army:
Glad this wasn't my car some Tuesday/Thursday morning at 8AM as I was trying to leave for Skipping Stone...
Sugar cereal cemented with sugar glue: Just what the doctor ordered for Taz!!!
Of all the problems I could have, this one seems like a good one.
It's finals week. I am too busy and exhausted to post anything of substance, and you are too busy and exhausted to read it. So my next few posts will consist of very few words.
Today I have two items of mind-blowing proportions. First, give this a listen. When you get to the bottom I'll tell you what it is.
When I was 11, I got my first laptop. Yeah, I know: Spoiled. But I WAS in the middle of writing a novel; I suppose my parents justified it as their contribution to my child prodigism.
Not long after that, I got my first flash drive. This was back when flash drives were first invented and held, like, 256 megabytes of info (read: not a lot). It was always a hassle plugging it into the USB ports in school computers because the ports were set back farther than my drive would plug in.
But you know what? I'm still carrying that thing around, something like eight years later. I've had other flash drives along the way, but they always seem to disappear. Maybe I've kept track of this one because it's so big and ugly and useless.
Suffice to say, it is time to buy a new flash drive. One that holds more data. One that looks... cool.
In my endless quest for epic, it seems pretty clear to me that I should go for the one that can simultaneously house my fantasy novel AND light things on fire.
Not to mention, I won't be able to afford a SWAROVSKI flash drive until AFTER said novel makes me sickeningly rich and famous. (Dreaming big is good, right?)
I try to ignore advertisements on most websites, but every so often I stumble across a Facebook ad that is pure gold.
I'm not sure what I posted that made them think I needed help being a parent, but I can assure you that baby Rex will not be coming along for a while yet.
I understand WHY I got this ad. I just don't understand who thought they could attract writers with that kind of grammar and unprofessional formatting.
2. Translation. Ever since I got back from Italy, my Facebook has been in Italian. For a while it was because I wanted to learn the language. Now it's just because I'm too lazy to switch it back. Plus, I enjoy seeing other people's confusion when I check my Facebook on their computers and leave the log-in page in another language.
Translation fail.
3. Glitches.
Virtual anarchy: If the system messes with us, we'll mess with the system!
4. Every so often, someone amazing posts something life-changing, like this picture Ravin took of a real-life Caterpie:
Compare to:
POKÉMON DO EXIST!!!
Peace, love, and sleeping until lunchtime, Miss Rex
Most of these are from the Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth, Texas. I wish my biology class would spend more time learning about giant trees and flowers and less time studying the intricacies of phospholipid bi-layers.
Today I finished work on a video project I'm entering into a contest at cheaptickets.com. The contest was to create a 30-second advertisement for the site. I'm quite pleased with the result, but I'm not posting it until the judges have had a chance to look at it. For now I'll tell you this: It involved a million little hole-punched circles, a box of rice, me wearing a bathing suit and snorkel on camera, and such lovely pictures as this:
Bet you're salivating at the mere thought of 30 whole seconds of this AWESOMENESS.
Until I can share the video, I have many a photo to share from my trip to Texas for my cousin's wedding. Here's the first batch.
I finally bought a card reader to replace my lost cable, which means PHOTOFINISH FRIDAY HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD! That's right, this is a zombie post. Please keep your hands, feet and brains inside of the ride at all times or there's no telling how much of you will be left at the end.
The restaurant where we had our last supper in Assisi. My mouth waters at the thought.
I found this on the elder affairs bus. I think it's supposed to be threatening...? Listen here, old people! If you step outta line, we'll see how technology agrees with you, ya hear?
More (and better) pictures next week, when I have time to plan ahead!
Rome may not be the center of the world anymore, but try telling that to the eight million tourists milling around the Vatican. For the number of people here and for the diversity of language and race, it’s easy to forget that all roads no longer lead to Rome. But the bustle of the city also begs the question: Has Rome been too commercialized? Or does it still retain some of the ancient magic that made it a cultural hub years ago? I think the answer is, “both.”
I believe it’s important for people to come here and see the artifacts and sites. It provokes a connection and sense of reverence regarding history that can only be gained in a hands-on way. It’s mind-boggling to picture a group of people more or less like me erecting hundred-foot-tall stone columns at their public forums or the thousand arches of the Coliseum, not out of aesthetic ambition but for practical use. Just as I walk to the dining hall and then to the chapel and then to the library each day without a thought, the ancient Romans worked, ate, worshiped, played and studied in these majestic structures every day.
Imagining a population for whom these sights were ordinary offers a moving peek into history that we are fortunate to have.
Beyond even that, structures such as the crumbling Coliseum remind us that no earthly empire is everlasting, no matter how vast or powerful. I am reminded of the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which tells of a traveler who found the ruins of a huge statue. An inscription reads, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Ozymandias thought his kingdom would last forever. In the same way, people thought Rome would never fall. Neither is with us anymore. It’s not hard to imagine tourists visiting the United States in a few millennia to see what’s left of the Pentagon or Mount Rushmore. It’s a sobering thought, but I think people need to grasp the transience of all we take for granted – not only so we can appreciate the good things we have, but also so we can learn to hold those things loosely, assigning greater value to the intangible qualities of culture.
Yet on the other hand, the commercialized aspect of the tourist scene makes me cringe, and it’s more than the pressing crowds that make me feel that way. It seems somehow wrong to “go see the Vatican,” a place that was built to be holy and honoring to God. It’s not a museum. It’s holy ground (or should be). I’m glad the Pope still used it for his weekly message and that pilgrims still worship there. In this way, it is still being used for its intended purpose. On the other hand, I think the builders’ original vision for some of the other monuments has been lost.
But then, we have progressed. Maybe it is too much to ask that a new culture in a new millennium cling to the values of a culture so old we can hardly understand it. To the ancient Romans, watching lions eat Christians was quality entertainment. It would turn our stomachs today. For us, it would be sick to reinstate gladiatorial fights in the Coliseum, yet I believe it is a good thing to use that space as the public arena it was meant to be. I heard there was recently a concert there. Surely the designers did not intend for power chords to resonate through the stone arches. At the same time, this use of the Coliseum holds true to a purpose the architects may not have intended, but which is nonetheless as old as the structure itself: spectacle.
The real disrespect is the way vendors and con artists have turned the historical and religious sites into marketplaces and stages for robbery. Walking out of the Vatican, souvenir shop windows display tacky gold souvenirs plastered with the face of the Pope as if he were some flamboyant celebrity. It makes me think of the Bible story about Jesus overturning the tables in the sanctuary. It’s an even greater shame that portions of the city, including some of the most ancient sites, bear the artwork and tags of vandals.
All else aside, the fact that the new Rome reflects aspects of the greater global culture can hardly be pegged as a bad thing. Global culture values green space. One can see this in the city of Rome. As a matter of fact, the Italians have valued green space for centuries. In the center of the city you’ll find the gardens of the Borghese palace, a sprawling grassy space with paths for horseback riders and knolls for picnickers. Trees are scattered about and green and yellow birds fight scrawny brown squirrels for branch space. The gardens have been there for six hundred years, way before the rest of the world had even begun to create the pollution we are now desperate to eliminate with our city parks and nature reservations. Rome does not just open a window on ancient cultures; it spotlights today’s in a manner that even the culturally semi-literate can comprehend as a good thing, in spite of what may have been lost in the sweep of time and tourism.
------------------------------ And now for the much-slaved-over video, for which my video partner Tyler went to great lengths to procure a firewire cable (which connects the camcorder to the Mac) and for which he was pick-pocketed in the process:
This morning, looking out the kitchen window at the sprawling green patchwork valley of Umbria, I realized that tomorrow will be the last morning that I will wake up to that view. Maybe I'll come back to Italy, maybe even to Assisi, but I probably won't live in this monastery.
It has been such a great trip and I have so many great stories to tell once I get home and get some sleep. A part of me is devastated to be leaving this beautiful country with its beautiful stone cities and beautiful gracious people, but it will be nice to be surrounded by people who speak English. Less stressful. And I miss my peeps. I think a whole semester abroad might have been stretching it, but someday I'd like to travel the world spending 2-week stints in different cities getting to know the local culture. To me that is far more valuable than any pictures I might take of monuments or any historical sights I might look at. In the end it's the people that matter, here, now, not the ones who died two thousand years ago after building the Coliseum.
With that being said, enjoy my last batch of Assisi photographs!
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