Education never ends

For some unfathomable reason, I need to keep learning new things. If I go too long without taking a class or working on something I've never done before, I get unbearably restless. That said, I'm incredibly excited about my next great learning adventure - film classes! Sound Design starts tomorrow evening. To get as much out of it as I can, I plan to blog about the experience over the course of the semester. Stay tuned for all the highs and lows of continuing education!

Laser-like focus, minus the retinal scarring

I have been trying to focus my energies as of late. Part of this effort entails studying how I spend my time and cutting down on activities that don't further my long-term goals or enhance my wellbeing. I decided the best way to do this is to address these activities directly:

Work, you provide me with the income I need to fund my mad schemes and the experience I need to pose as a respectable member of society. I actually like my co-workers, too, which counts for a lot in my book o' happiness. If labor be the food of life, tool on. But go easy on the overtime.

Facebook, you would be on the chopping block if you didn't make me laugh so much with your outlandish third-party applications and stalker-friendly interface! I shall henceforth consider you an occasional indulgence. But Scrabulous, you are on notice!

IM, I neglected you before and shall continue to do so. Your powers of distraction are useless if I refuse to launch the application. I prefer social interaction with less typing, and I don't care how cutesy the away messages can be.

Gym, no matter how often I visit you, I keep gaining weight. Come to think of it, the more I work out, the hungrier I feel. WTF. If I weren't so thoroughly brainwashed to believe that exercise is good for me, I would stop. But seriously, stop making me gain weight. Muscle versus fat density be damned, it's getting ridiculous. I'll give you another month to shape up before I revisit my "exercise is good" theory.

Improv, you're so good to me. Good friends, zingy one-liners, laughter, and brief moments in an actual spotlight do wonders for the soul. And I love knowing where to go to see people from 30 Rock and SNL perform three feet away from me, laughing so hard my stomach hurts, and recognizing the techniques they're using while I'm watching them because I use them too.

NYC, your powers of distraction and impoverishment are nothing short of astounding. Theater, parks, museums, restaurants, clubs, bars, shops, and festivals all compete for my attention and funds. You inspire and motivate me, and that's why I love you. And spend way too much money on you. Please don't bankrupt and/or kill me.

Writing, you deserve more time than I give you. Henceforth, I taketh from my RSS feed time allotment and I giveth to thee.

Reading, you heal my heart and fill my head with random information I can regurgitate to fill awkward silences. If only my commute were longer, I would indulge in you more. You shall share my weekend laundry time slot while Netflix and NPR podcasts share my weekend ironing time slot.

Studying, I've purposely ignored you so far. Come December, you can ride shotgun while NYC takes a back seat. I may get a lot more boring this winter, but hopefully I'll save some money while I'm sharpening my mind.

Okay, that's the pep talk. Now it's time for my favorite activity of all: sleep!

Reflections

I retired my old Xanga blog today, and so I spent some time archiving all my old posts there, which of course led to my re-reading them all and losing myself in a little nostalgia. I didn't realize it, but I started blogging at the same time I first moved to New York City. It seems like so long ago now. I can so clearly see how upbeat and excited I was when I arrived, how the posts got progressively more disgruntled regarding work and east-coast weather, how I struggled to teach myself how to write fiction through a combination of night classes and writer groups, how I searched so hard for meaning and purpose in life with the fundraising, the volunteer work, the mentoring. I re-read the comments, too, and I felt renewed gratitude for the support of my readers throughout the years. Thank you again so very, very much for your insights, your encouragement, and your hilarious observations.

I realize I've been remiss in my blogging for far too long. Even those silly, short posts I used to make now seem precious to me, because they provide sneak peeks into my past that would otherwise be written off as trivial and forgotten. But taken in summation, they truly do give me a more informed perspective on my own evolution over the past four years. It's interesting to see which things I chose to write about, as well, since some of the most significant events of my life in that time period are only alluded to in the vaguest terms, being too personal for the mass Internet audience. Of course, those things I can remember without needing posts to remind me, but the passage of time colors how I look back on them.

I'll write a little about current events now, in the spirit of preserving the minutia of the day, knowing I'll look back on this someday and go, "Oh, yeah! I forgot about that! Good times..."

I went to see the Beastie Boys this past Thursday at the McCarren Park Pool for their first-ever concert in Brooklyn. The woman searching my bag outside the concert venue pulled out my umbrella and said, "The Beastie Boys don't want umbrellas in there. You can go back to your car and leave it there if you want. Or you can add it to the pile." She gestured to a growing mound of umbrellas at her feet that were left by their owners to be retrieved later - aka the Pile of Delusional Hope. Having bought my umbrella at a Roots store in Banff, British Columbia, only a couple of months ago, I wasn't eager to abandon it there. Of course, like most New Yorkers, I didn't have a car in which to stash it, either. I backtracked into McCarren Park, found a suitably branchy pine tree, and stuck my umbrella in the middle of it. It was still there when I got back, and despite a few threatening sprinkles that cleared up by the time the band came out, I hadn't needed it anyway.

The concert itself was enjoyable but not nearly as crazy as I had expected. It was an outdoor concert, so the noise never got unbearably loud, and the crowd was surprisingly sedate. There was no opening band and no encore. DJ Run made a cameo appearance between songs but just waved hello and then watched from the side of the stage. I did like the giant guitar-pick-shaped video screens that hung over the stage and the Warsaw Special I bought from one of the food vendors' tents. A plateful of pierogis, kielbasa, hunter's stew, applesauce, and rye bread for $6.00 make for some of the cheapest eats I've had in the city, and probably some of the most hygienically prepared based on what I saw of the outdoor cook-out-style facilities. I got a souvenier t-shirt to mark the occasion, and everyone exited afterwards in a remarkable orderly fashion. I got home at a reasonable time and would have gotten enough sleep if it hadn't been for the arrival of Eclipse in the mail that day. In short, it was a very good Thursday.

Inspired

I just finished reading Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer, and hoo boy, can that woman write a page-turner! I'm pretty sure I'll be useless for the rest of the day, what with the sleep-deprivation and tired eyes, and a little part inside of me wonders whether I would have been able to stretch out my enjoyment if I'd only paced myself over the course of a week instead of indulging in a marathon page-devouring session. But I think overall, it was worth it. Besides, I would have been unbearable to be around socially in the meantime, always impatient to slip away and read a few more chapters. =)

Of course, after I had taken the requisite time to "be human" after finishing Eclipse by eating, showering, etc., I began to reflect on what makes her writing so enjoyable. Meyer has a perfect grasp of compelling romance - ecstatic, unbelievable happiness entwined inextricably with a longing so powerful it threatens to break apart a person's insides. It is simultaneously satisfying and painful to read, perhaps satisfying because it is a painful, and truthful, depiction of the most desperate, devoted kind of love. Love as a drug seems the most apt analogy, which Meyer's heroine (aka Edward's heroin - ha!) empathizes with only too well.

I wonder how much of the novel's success, or indeed that of any in the Twilight series, has to do with her choice to write in the first person. I certainly felt connected with the main character Bella, and although she is very different from me, I cared about her and was able to understand her motivations. I think part of that was Meyer's set-up of Bella as an ordinary girl living in (initially) ordinary circumstances. It's a common enough formula in modern literature, and it makes the writer's job of creating a character to which readers can relate so much easier than one coming from a vastly different background.

The main character in the story I am working on is almost the complete opposite of Bella, situation-wise. I know my fabulous test readers have struggled to relate to her, and I admit that I've been struggling myself. Now I'm wondering whether switching to the first person would help with that problem. Normally, I'm more comfortable writing in third person, or even second person. First person feels a bit introspective and self-indulgent to me, which is probably why I don't blog as often as I might! A blog in third person would probably strike people as a bit pretentious. =) But for developing a main character, it's hard to beat a first-person perspective. The writer can reveal the character's inner world as well as his or her unique view of reality. When you get to know someone that intimately, it's hard not to relate just a little, no matter how disparate the backgrounds between character and reader.

So, after all that introspective and self-indulgent blathering, I think I will try a little experiment and rewrite a chapter of my story in first person. It's already in extremely close third-person perspective, so it probably won't be much of a stretch, and regardless of the ultimate decision, it should be a beneficial exercise. Besides, as is often said, you never know if it works until you try it.

Thoughts on the iPhone

Apple must have really ramped up its subliminal marketing campaign. From what I gather, the iPhone...

• is too big to be a conveniently pocket-sized phone
• has a large display that looks both scratchable and breakable
• requires you to press your face against the screen to talk on it
• costs a lot
• is tied to a 2-year service plan with only one provider that is neither known for good customer service nor good wireless coverage
  
• makes you a very attractive target to muggers
  

And I still want one. I am reminding myself of all the above points repeatedly, and I find myself trying to come up with reasons why none of these things matter as much as my owning a shiny, new iPhone. I think, at the very least, I will wait until they come out with the next model(s). I might even go for a model with reduced functionality at a lower price point, say the iPhone Shuffle. It wouldn't have a display, just a big button in the middle that, when pressed, calls a random person in the address book. Let me know if you have any impressions of Apple's latest toy.

Summerhill Winery

Summerhill Winery, just south of Kelowna, perches on a series of undulating grassy hills overlooking Lake Okanagan. It features a pyramid-shaped wine cellar which, if you peruse the website, purportedly has a noticeable effect on the taste of the wine aging inside. The winery offered my tour group four types of wine for tasting: red, white, red icewine, and white icewine. Icewine is a dessert wine, and the Summerhill varieties live up to the spirit wholeheartedly - they are amazingly sweet. In fact, the white icewine in particular is strongly reminiscent of lychee syrup. A connoisseur, however, can tell the subtle difference: lychee syrup is $13/bottle while Summerhill icewine is $70-$100/bottle. It translates into a slight sting both on the tongue and on the wallet but, I suppose, makes a more socially acceptable dinner party gift.

Lake Okanagan

At Lake Okanagan, while searching for the elusive water creature called Ogopogo, I found this marvelous contraption - an instant money machine! Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how it works, but I'll give a million dollars to someone who can.

Canadian Rockies Tour - Day 1

Hello, friends. I didn't have access to a computer while I was on vacation, so this will be a belated blog of my recent trip to the Canadian Rockies. I realize that a post-mortem summary is not as exciting as a real-time blog, so just for fun, I will write in small chunks, and you can pretend that I am posting things on the day they happen. You'll have to disregard the timestamps, of course, as they are not reflective of the long days of travel interspersed with hypothetical stolen moments spent writing blog entries. Just imagine. =) And now...

DAY 1: The road to Kelowna

The tour bus pulled over at a rest stop on the trans-Canada highway from Vancouver to Kelowna, which features several of the mysteriously shaped trash receptacles pictured here. I tried to throw away an apple core, only to tug ineffectually at the lid of one of these things. Eventually, a nice Canadian lady explained to me that these are bear-proof trash cans and showed me how to stick my hand in and press the hidden latch that opens the lid. You have to be extra careful in summer, she warned, because wasps sometimes build nests in the space where you stick your hand. Day one of the tour and already I have learned a valuable tidbit: Canadians feel no compassion toward penniless, hungry bears.