Sitting Here at the Writing Center

Do you ever have those humdrum days at work? Right now, I don' t have much to do. I'm just chilling here, waiting for the day to pass so that I can go home. I really enjoyed my sister's blog today about how Ellen Degeneres and Portia deRossi had their wedding day. I think it's sweet that they got married, even though I am LDS and we don't believe in homosexuality. I mean, it's not accepted in our church, but I still feel very tender and very happy for gay people. I don't want to kill them just because they choose to live a different life than me. I don't see how others could think that they are scum, when they are beautiful just like anybody else. It doesn't make sense to me, and I think that respect should go both ways when looking at people we don't understand.

I think personally that marriage is something personal. I don't really think that it should be a national law to ban whatever kinds of marriage at all. It just doesn't feel right, when I know that there are more important laws to pass, laws about our economy that need to be taken care of. It's our responsibility that we should not have another recession, and that's what government should step in for. As for personal morals and decisions, it should be left to everybody to choose what they may. Would it necessarily hurt you, destroy what you believe in if you see gay people getting married (may I add they most likely find the way to do it anyway)?

It makes sense that government should be left out of personal decisions, and only when we feel our nation is in distress of falling apart, that the government's job is to unite the country. We call this the United States, and that makes a huge difference in our policy. Should we go farther and say that we should all be united in our morality, our religion or our political standing? Most believe that there shouldn't be diversity in these areas so that makes them right. I believe this is not so.

First week of school

Whew! Things are really getting tough now that school at my lovely Ogden university has come. I have the following classes that are wonderful and really learning intensive:

Principles of Archaeology (that's always a tough one to spell)
U.S. History from 1919-1945
Intro to Poetry
Professional/Technical Writing

And as always, my wonderful job at the Writing Center with my fellow tutors. It's been fun to learn about four different things! Usually I take just lit courses that somehow intertwine, but now it's fun just to see four very different subjects. I guess I could read poetry from WWI, but other than that...

I'm also taking an Institute class and we are reading the New Testament. I particularly like it because it's the most exciting (I think) and relevant scripture to read. I don't usually deal with crazy stuff like the Nephites and the Lamanites (even though they are important) but I think that I prefer to read about Christ more often. To those who don't understand when they read this, I'm a Latter Day Saint (Mormon) and I was referring to the Book of Mormon. I enjoy Institute, but not to the extent that some people I know enjoy it. For instance, they have this entire posse of people that go to activities and sit all day in the lounge, and I just don't do that. Not that I'm not a social butterfly, but I just don't have very many friends that go there.

Speaking of posses, I used to go up to the Honors Center all the time, but now I have no desire to. They changed directors the past few years that I have been going to Weber, and the new director is a rather beastly british woman who some claim has dementia. Whether that is certain, I am not sure but it wouldn't surprise me because she flew with rage at my one friend who was touching his girlfriend's shoulder one time, and she was clearly sending a message that touching of any kind was out of order (in her mind). That always puzzled me. Another friend of mine wanted to get into the Bachelor of Integrated Studies major, and when this certain director was the head, she turned her down (you never turn students down for majors....weird...). So, I don't know what to believe, but I just don't feel welcome there anymore. I prefer to be a Writing Center groupie now, and proud of it!

As for this semester, let me graduate! Please! I hope this is so....I have the requirements.

What'll I do?

Do you remember the song, "What'll I do when you are far away?" The very sad song from the movie The Great Gatsby? The movie was great, but somehow I imagined it differently (and now come the inevitable comment from kisconfuzzled...why do I always seem to talk about that book? it's become dirty from my constant allusions to it.)

What'll I do??? Well that's the main question on my mind. See, I have a vague feeling of what I want to do with my life, since that's the big question that I get from everybody. But what does it mean to know what you're going to do? Am I going to know what the world will be like tomorrow? Or will my goals be set and achieved, when I don't even know what they could be? I have a certain pride with being an English major, but there will be the constant hounding of what being an English major does to establish a career path....here are a few scenarios I imagine:

I see myself as writing a book, yet I would be too anxious to get to the ending (as I always do).
Or maybe being in a book store, but I would be too busy reading to get to any customer service. My editing is great, but there doesn't seem to be a point to reading other people's work, unless they are going to be the next Faulkner or something. Technical writing always leaves a sour trace in my mouth (would I receive bored expressions or screams accompanied with this?) So, I am at a loss. Maybe crossing over to history would do, if I could be a good teacher (I'm scared of crowds.) Or being an archaeologist, which makes perfect sense in the real world. How about theater, when I say to my mom "I'm going to be in the performing arts", hmmm. No, that won't do. So, I'm up in the air without a clue. And it isn't very fun for me, because I'm always a future based kind of girl.

I actually talked to a local college about their veterinary technician program, and it seemed nice, but I don't know how to go to school after I already got my bachelors. I love animals, but hurting them to make them heal isn't that appealing. I keep hearing my mom's voice in my head, when she asks what have I done in college these past few years, was it all for nothing? I don't know how to answer that. Sometimes I feel like I can never please her, like she will never be satisfied with my answer to the life question because I am not producing granddaughters. It's a shame, I know, but sometimes I am not the perfect daughter. I wonder why she wants me to be one so much. Such are the ponderings I have been pondering...

So there. There's my spiel because I know only one or two people will read this and know who I am. And I like to send out my feelings into space knowing that it won't get to the people who are previously mentioned.

Yesteryears

Wow, it's been a while since I've written, it's amazing what one does in the between time! Since my last post, my class is over, I'm no longer reading Dracula, and it's well into August. I like August the most of the summer months. Mind you, it's surely hotter, and you can't stand being outside for more than a few hours, but the whole aspect of it being closer to the end has always made me love it more. I still have a few days to go camping or swimming, and I actually get excited to go back to work and school, since I've done my fair share of sleeping. It also brings nostalgia for summers past, when school wasn't such a big of a problem as it is now.

I was watching home movies with my mom and sister, and there was an old family reunion when my grandparents were on a mission in Chicago, that it must have been when I was twelve or thirteen, and it was very amusing. It was made at my grandparents' house when they were away, and seeing cousins that have gone past their teens now who were in diapers, aunts who have different pants and hairstyles, and my lovable self as a preteen who looked very awkward and skinny. There was a part when my cousins were all jumping into this incredibly small swimming pool and my sister delegating the line of kids who wanted to jump in. I was obviously in the background because I considered the pool too cold, a fact that still rings true today when I go swimming. But my sister and I had a good laugh at this moment, as well as others: when my little cousin Alex played "The Train" and it only consisted of one note, when my aunt Diane wore her "kindergarten smock" that we think she still might be wearing, my dad filming us shuck corn and commenting that the flies love it too, and all of us at the end holding up our family reunion sign to send our love to our grandparents. Aw, tear. I couldn't help but being a little choked at the fact that years do pass so quickly, and I was very young and didn't know what was ahead of me in the future. I wished I could have had one more chance to go back to being twelve, and feeling like I had the world at my feet.

Now, as college is coming to my last semester and I'm still thinking about what I'm going to do, I still appreciate the fact that I had some great summers under my belt. I just had my wisdom teeth out, and with my black eye from the surgery and my cheeks like a chipmunk, I still feel good. I still have some chances to have fun, and I hope I can take advantage of them. I just hope people will understand if I wear an eye patch.

Rainy Days and Mondays and Vampires

Don't they always get you down? I think that they make it much harder to be awake, because my hibernation mode kicks in and I say, "The animals probably aren't walking around, why should I?" But alas, workers have to be awake. There's my tangent.

In my Victorian Lit class, we are reading Dracula. This book I have read a few times before, but never the way in which my professor is having us read. Instead of just a classic gothic novel, we have taken the approach of Britain being invaded by alien races, those that plan to break down the British ideal of civility. In this light, I have been thinking that this is much more interesting. When Dracula is a man who sneaks into London by cover of mist, and slowly drains the blood of people, that is the exact symbol of the threat of 19th century imperialism. Plus, there's really disturbing facts about Dracula that movies and modern interpretations overlook: hair on the palms of his hands?!!! I really don't want to think about that.

It's interesting as well that Dracula is old when the book begins and grows younger with fresh blood. This was portrayed well in the 90s movie version, and I liked that he was able to move around in London society even during the day (I don't know how, but he did.) When Van Helsing kills one of the women in the novel after she becomes one of Dracula's vampires, he cuts off her head. Wow, that's really placing the Victorian gavel on the man's side. The many sides of feminine ideas come from this book, to the disturbing "New Woman" and the gentle souls who help their men any way they can. What was wrong with the New Woman? The fact that they were "loud". Wow, need I say more.

The end is equally interesting because instead of seeing the action from the villain's side, it's always a second-person account of the action, which kept me interested because it's a story told from journal entries and letters. It seems boring, but makes the story that much more exciting because it's all of these different characters adding their own unique characteristics to the plot. Dracula is actually a group narrative, and it works.

Now, we think of vampires as mythic monsters who hide in the dark, when in actuality Dracula was out in broad daylight taking over everything with a copy, with the simulation of modern society, and it made him harder to catch because everybody thought he was normal. I think that this makes him more evil, because it makes the fact that you can't see him for what he is that much more menacing.

I have read this book in more ways than one, and this reading was especially great on a rainy day. Now, who likes Twilight when they got the original?

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits--on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vaast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distand northern sea.

The Sea of Faith was
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

A Snippet from My Poetry Book

I have had many crises lately. Not the crises of money (though I REALLY wish I had some more of that) or of family, it's me. The crisis of me. I was informed today that in my church, since I'm a divorced young adult, that there's basically no category to put me in. From my BISHOP. He said that I don't fit in the Young Single Adult area because the church manual basically states you are considered an adult if you have been married. So much for that ship. It's been very frustrating because I've been struggling with my faith already, and this adds salt to the wound. I'm not sure where I fit in either in my church. It physically hurts that I don't exactly have very many friends living in the neighborhood, but to have a place I thought I could meet new people kind of shun me makes it worse. So, I have turned back to my love of poetry for some sort of hope that I can find my faith again.

Ms. Lonely Hearts

I remember the scene from Rear Window, when the lady who dresses in green across the street from Jimmy Stewart is so lonely in her life, with no human attention, that she tries to overdose on pills. Although I am noway near that sentimentality, I feel her pain. I too feel that way right now. Although it's only been a few days since my boyfriend and I broke up, it feels like an eternity of isolation. I like that my friends are doing great things in their life, and being who they want to me, but I just don't feel like I'm there celebrating with them. I wish I could be graduated, it's so soon! Yet, my friends are in other places right now, and I am here. I could be in a green dress in New York City, with no date waiting for me. It's not a pleasant feeling I'm in right now, worse because I live in a suburb and there's nothing to do in suburbs.

I had a lunch with my ex-husband today, (what was I thinking) and he told me that he knew a guy who was my age and divorced twice. TWICE?!! I couldn't believe somebody could rack up that many marriages, so young. I hope 22 is young. It's a terrible cycle, to have to find some hope of friends that you resort to exes. And then when you sit down and eat a sandwich with them, you realize that they were just as cold and distant as when you were married to them. And you realize, that life can be just as cold and distant as this meeting. I watched Ms. Lonely Hearts with a hopeful future, and almost laughed at her despair because of Jimmy's sardonic wit about her Saturday nights. Until I realized, I am her. Maybe I could learn to appreciate the green dress, and live with it.

Wall-E

Waaaaaall-eeeee....

Roger Ebert said of this movie: "Pixar’s “WALL•E” succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story. After “Kung Fu Panda,” I thought I had just about exhausted my emergency supply of childlike credulity, but here is a film, like “Finding Nemo,” that you can enjoy even if you’ve grown up. That it works largely without spoken dialogue is all the more astonishing; it can easily cross language barriers, which is all the better, considering that it tells a planetary story".

I heartily agree with Mr Ebert. The fact that this movie is so great with a child and an adult is part of the success of Pixar. Did any of you catch the references to Star Wars or 2001? They were there, especially when a talking computer refuses to agree with a captain (that sounds familiar). There were many other instances of cases where Walmart would throw a fit, with a Superstore leaving trash all over the earth and leaving Wall-E to clean it up. Isn't that strange, when I thought Walmart and Disney were partners together or something like that.

Not to mention the great animation that Pixar had to offer. Great space scenes!! I thought it was amazing how they captured the immense space and made it so real, like the underwater scenes in Finding Nemo. It looks like you're really in space, with Wall E putting his hand through the rings of Saturn.

I loved this movie! "I didn't know there were stars! I didn't know we had a pool!"

My Pumpkin Story

A little bird wanted me to write a little story about my cat, Pumpkin. So, I will do the best I can to achieve this....

Once upon a time (too corny maybe?), there was a lazy (albeit) wise cat named Pumpkin. Now, he is deemed wise because of his adventures with past lifetimes. His first life was spent wandering through aimless streets and houses with no identity to his name. He knew that somebody took care of him, because he was declawed and neutered (now kids, go ask your parents if you don't understand what this is). Yet, he knew that there wasn't a real home for him.

One day, he wandered to a house that looked promising, because of the amazing number of tenants living there. He discovered that this house owned five cats! He was about to be inducted into a new group and friends, and was overjoyed to find playmates. He came to find out the owner was named Sue, and was willing to share her food with him as well as her four children. Yet, as things soon came to pass, the cats did not share his enthusiasm. He was continually made fun of, called nasty names to his face, pulled and tugged by the youngest child, and worst of all, beat up because he was the "outsider". He was just trying to fit in and find his own way when the cats wanted to hurt him maliciously. Just when he felt that his days were numbered, and life was not worth living with these fascist kitties, he found himself in a box taken to another world...

He found himself living another life in a home with a woman named Shelley and her incredibly intelligent, popular daughter (place name here, children.) Shelley welcomed Pumpkin in with open arms and a smile on her face. She was pleased to find that he needed two litter boxes, because of his many fights with the other cats he has not been able to use the litter box in one place. She also noted that he needed hairball medicine, as he was becoming sick with this infectious disease. He could not help it that his coat was so thick. And soon, he came to live with this family with care and ease, and realized that constant sleeping, laughing at birds, and extra water around the house was a cat's paradise. The End.

What do you think?

Pirates like "R" movies, don't you?

To start with, I have learned from my sister that there is going to be one of the GREATEST art exhibits in Utah coming to the U! Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Monet, all of the greats are going to be there, and I can't wait to see them. This is going to be so AWESOME. Everybody needs to go and look at this because when will you see a Van Gogh up close in Utah? Rarely.

Enough said about art. Now, I have been thinking about a question in my mind when my Victorian Lit teacher said today, "There isn't an Edward Norton movie that is bad. Name me one!" and I wasn't really able to name him one Edward Norton movie I've seen fully, because usually Edward Norton acts in movies that are given the R rating. Very troublesome in Utah, to say the least. I mean, I could pick up an Edward Norton movie at Hollywood video, but it isn't exactly the greatest thing to do when you're in an LDS family. Especially living at home. But this doesn't mean that I haven't seen rated "R" movies in the past. I just think it's overrated (pun?) when some movies deserve a wider audience, doesn't have some scenes usually given an R rating, yet still contain adult themes. Adult themes. Now, we have all gone to junior high, right? Have we learned about sex there? About violence? Extreme profanity? It isn't like we never see these things when we watch the news. So, I ask myself this question because I know this is a sensitive subject, but what is the big deal if the R rating is given to subjects that parents would know better not to let their children see, but they themselves know exactly what goes on in those movies, and won't be surprised?

An example: Psycho. That movie came out in 1960, yet still retains its R rating. Why? Because of the partial nudity in the shower scene. One that is suggested violence, because we see blood but never actually see the person get skewered, and the fact that this is scary. It is only scary because Hitchcock lets the audience believe what is happening, but never lets them see the action itself. And it is still rated R today, even though its entirety is played on tv, and I know many people who have seen this. Now, would this pass the standards of rated R today? No. But it still is.

A newer example would be Gosford Park. Now that, I would agree has an R rating, because it has the "f" word spoken twice I believe, as well as a reference to a sexual moment in a scene. It definitely fits the R category, yet I feel could be given a PG-13 rating because some of the parts included didn't need to be there. The story would have fit regardless of these few things, and I would add is a brilliant study of British society in the 1930s. So why do we think that R ratings are given to some movies and not others? Because Hollywood believes that the "f" word is rated R and the "s" word is PG-13? It just doesn't make sense to my mind. So, I have struggled with this conundrum for some time because, yes I pay for what I watch in the movie theater, but I still have the knowledge that I know what I'm about to see. So therefore, I would agree most others would be in the same place. You get what you pay for.

What I am willing to suggest is this: why do we set such high standards of a society that witnesses adult themes every day. Yes, I am excluding families from this topic because I know that this would not apply to them. Children shouldn't know about these things. But I am discussing about most of the population who do know. Would we still value Psycho in the future regardless of the R rating? Would we come to think that Gosford Park is a classic if we know that the "f" word is in there? I have suspicions that the world doesn't want another Lady Chatterley's Lover to be available, even though it's right there in our local libraries. So, might I add, is Schindler's List. I would never watch as a child, but still willing to learn about the Holacaust at age 22. Basically, I think like the pirates. The R rating is a punchline to a joke spoken through the ages. We still don't like to look at the news.

Oh those good old Saturday mornings...

Do you remember when with bated breath you waited to wake up on Saturday morning? When it made sense to wake up, because you had marvelous tv shows awaiting you? I remember when that was the case (practically centuries ago) when sleep didn't matter, but Gummi Bears and Rescue Rangers did. I don't even remember half the plots, some of the characters' names, or any of that stuff. It was all about the theme songs. I say this because my friend, kisconfuzzled, mentioned them in her blog. And it brought me back to those days.

A few months ago, my writing center tutors and I all shared a laugh watching theme songs to Ninja Turtles and Thundercats on Youtube. My friend Rachel started it, because she was obsessed with Batman, and everything comic under the sun. I showed her a few of my favorites, and she showed me hers. And then we involved the rest of the people in the room to join in. Pretty soon there was a round of applause after "Heroes in a half shell, turtle power!!!" was screamed so that everybody in the vicinity could hear (the testing center keeps telling us to keep it down, I should mark how many times on the whiteboard). Can anybody know the lyrics to "Down in Fraggle Rock"? Hmm? I can't. But I know the show. That's how powerful those songs can be. It makes me think of Flintstones Push Up Pops, running in the sprinklers, and hot sidewalks. Aw, the bliss. Whatever happened to the theme songs that mattered? Instead, what? You got...Pokemon? Who remembers that? Wait, I know that one. How about Ben 10 or whatever lame cartoons they have now? I don't even know the songs to those. Nope, it's only in my childhood that are the ones I know best. Can anybody join with me in Jem and the Holograms? "Jem is my name, noone else is the same, Jem is my naaaaame!"

Kiss Me Kate

So it seems that I am the only movie musical fan in my family for quite some time. I remember being forced to watch Singing in the Rain in my basement's computer before I could upgrade to a new standard of DVD player. When my happy Gene Kelly overture would start playing, I would burst into fits of giggles for the joys that await me. Only to be accompanied by fits of shouting "What are you watching!!! I hate this part!!! Why do you watch that scene over and over again!" It would bring a touch of salt to my sweet pie of MGM. As I said, I know that I am the only one, but I always feel I could use a companion to reply to my exclamations of wonder. Oh, to know that somebody feels that the shuffle step holds a place in my heart! The rhythms of Fred Aistaire match no other man's. But I digress.

As usual, I am watching a rapturous scene in Kiss Me Kate when there's a marvelous dance break by Bob Fosse (the master of dance himself!) and my mother walks into the front room and explains, "I've seen this one moviebuffy, it's boring." How could she know the disaster those words could bring to a girl? Boring? Bob Fosse? Never. Sure, I liked the idea of Howard Keel not being a Seven Brother, but this was icing on the cake. It was just a surprise to me that Bob Fosse had a career in movies. And isn't it great that there was a song called "I Hate Men" and that such a song exists? Not to wear a husband beater or anything. Ah, this is the stuff dreams are made of. It's just a minor setback when those in my family, I do not name names, feel that dancing just isn't up to their entertainment bar. I would say, let them be that way, but I know that they are one in many, and I am one in few. I feel just like Kermit the Frog when he said "It's not easy being green" and I would add "or a musicalphile". I just wish I had a support group for my guilty pleasure. And that's saying something, when I think of guilty pleasures as the occasional Dr. Pepper or that library notice on the kitchen table.

So to my mother I would say, let it be a mantra I stamp on my head: Long live those INCREDIBLY cheesy, enough to make you gag, stuck in a time warp, giggle when I hear the word "gay", MGM musicals.

Atonement

Atonement is not a book for children, but has a child as the major focus of the story. It is her story we are seeing and paying attention to, with a child's flaws and insecurities. Ian McEwan does well to make this novel a child's perspective, because it is her innocent hold on what is good and evil that changes the people around her forever, and causes her life to never be the same.

Why did Briony choose to read the letter Robbie sent to Cecilia? Was this further incentive to label him as a "maniac" and change their lives forever? These are the questions I've pondered as I read this book. On the one hand, I agree with Briony that he is somewhat perverted in his thinking and just wants to get with her older sister, which I can imagine is traumatizing to any young girl at 11. Yet, there's the love that is supposed to happen between two people but fails miserably to one mistaken identity. It wasn't fair to Briony to label him as the attacker of her cousin, when she was doing it out of blind (it was dark :) judgement. The novel does well to examine both sides of this incident, and see the reasons for both points of view. Atonement isn't just a novel about the redeeming cause of forgiveness, but the point in which we accuse, and live without guilt. It could be the Catholic in me, but I think that our actions determine lives. It may not seem that way to begin with, but the great linear equation of life balances on little pins, little judgement calls.

Although I saw the movie before I read the book, there was new information that added more sympathy toward Briony than if I just viewed the movie. It was very clear that her family was a troubled one, and this would make sense to a girl who just wanted to keep her family together to blame the trouble on an outsider. It paints a picture perfectly of what a young girl thinks she must do, and her hopes shattered when she realizes what she did. Could any of us make major decisions when we were 11? And regret them later? Or is it all in the present that we make our lives worth living? This book gave me a lot to think about, and I could never look at kids becoming teenagers the same way again without knowing they are experiencing the pain of separation, with living with something alien waiting for us. Briony was waiting to blame Robbie, and in turn blame herself for her alienation to the world.

Lessons I Have Learned from Books

From reading a blog of a happy acquaintance, I have noticed that she had her own list of books that gave her some meaningful lessons in life. While my list is short and continually expanding, I have thought about a few that definitely rank as books that made me think, starting with:

Les Miserables: Yes you may think that the French don't matter, but think again. One of the greatest examples of forgiveness, second to Jesus. I still tear up when Jean Valjean steals from the priest, and receives kindness when everybody would have ripped him apart. When it's human nature to hit rather than forgive, this is the book that explains why.

The Little Prince: Ever since I can remember, this book has made me look at the world a little brighter. Whether it's from a point of view of a child or an adult, this book makes sense that we all communicate differently. And sometimes what may appear as a hat to some may be an elephant in a boa constricter to others.

Walk Two Moons: This book was my first glimpse into a twisted ending. Not that it is cryptic, but the end isn't what you think. The story centers around travel: where we plan to go, our hopes for what we find. It makes me think of very long car rides where you are stuck with the conversation of the person next to you, in a humorous or annoying way. I also like the main character's name: Salamanca Tree Hiddle.

1984: For anybody who knows this book, the ending has its just desserts. Why Winston Smith had to walk into that can of worms, I don't know. But it cuts like a knife that man must succumb to the influences of his society. Smith was doomed to accept what was "normal" in his life, even if it was a totalitarian government. It made me think that we can never fully trust or accept the government as a primary institution of leadership.

The Great Gatsby: Yes, yes I know my kisconfuzzled friend doesn't agree with me, but I firmly believe that this is the last of the romantic novel, the last of a glittering age. I loved the Jazz Age, the start of new twentieth century beginnings like the "talking picture". "Notice how my lips-- and the sound issuing from them-- syncronize together--in perfect----unison." Hee hee. It still holds the same truth: Money can't buy you love. Yes Beatles, welcome to Jay Gatsby. The beauty of F Scott Fitzgerald still haunts me when I think about parties in tents under the stars.

In Cold Blood: I have much to learn from Truman Capote. How to make celebrity friends and curse them under the same breath, how to write about murder, and how to be the most paradoxical human being on the planet. When you sympathize with killers, it is a best-seller, but a little bit of you is destroyed in the process.

A Book of Luminous Things: This is a book of poetry compiled by a Nobel prize winning Czech author, of the many poems that people around the world love. It has a little bit of everything: Frost, Dickinson, some haikus, and "beautiful persian poetry". I feel eclectic and sophisticated each time I read it, as well as hungry for more time to spend reading more.

The Gulag Archipelago: Not only is the world quickly forgetting the evils of the German Holacaust, but they have no idea the amount of torture that was in the Gulag Prisons of the Soviet Union. This opened my eyes to the insane amount of death that a person can face, as well as the possibility of hell on earth. I wish I was exaggerating.

2001: A Space Oddyssey. The movie, weird. The book, brilliant. I know that they are both the exact same, but I prefer seeing it in writing and creating a universe inside my mind than the dizzying feeling that the movie portrays. Who enjoys Hal? Who hates him? I know people who claim both.

Mrs. Dalloway: Virginia Woolf is one of the greatest! The best writing I have ever seen. The book had such an impact on me because I was going through the exact same dilemma as the protagonist, a wife wondering if she's caving under the pressure. The Hours is also a great movie about this book, and opens volumes about women throughout time.

I think I have to go back to my bookshelf to find more...